A curtain had fallen half across the open doorway and he tugged it to one side in irritation. The fierce action ripped the velvet sheet from the rail anchoring it overhead and it dribbled to the ground in a heap. He went to pick it up, ashamed of that spurt of temper, but as he bent, he saw with surprise a safe built low into the wall. Partridge did not want his strongbox to be common knowledge and had hidden it carefully. Was the safe what Lucinda had come for? But the marks on the floor and furniture suggested that she had gone nowhere near it. It might be interesting to look inside. He tried the handle and unsurprisingly found it locked. He should leave the room; he had no right to pry into another man’s possessions even though that man was as crooked as Dick’s hatband.
He walked to the doorway and then looked back at the strongbox. Angered by his own indecision, he strode across the room on impulse and plucked from the desk a heavy iron paperweight which he smashed down on the safe’s handle. The noise was extraordinary. He had better make haste and vacate the room before the whole inn came running. But the safe door had swung open and its interior was awash with shining points of light. Tray after tray of rings, necklaces and bracelets were caught in a stray shaft of hazy sunlight which filtered between storm clouds and pierced the window high above. He pulled out one of the trays—these were real diamonds, he could swear. Another tray, this time of rubies and yet another of emeralds. Even a studded tiara! Stolen goods, he was sure, and he wanted nothing to do with them. He moved to put them back, tray by tray, but as he did so he brushed against a piece of canvas, tucked towards the back of the safe.
He withdrew the bundle and began to unfold the cloth. This was something very different and not obviously valuable. A ring again, but a plain, onyx signet with an intricate pattern worked around its edge. He had seen that motif before—a gun, he recollected, Rupert Lacey’s
duelling pistol. The ring belonged to Lacey. This is what she had been searching for. Her troublesome brother was the reason she had again risked her liberty. He should have listened to his instincts, not his head; he should have trusted her. But why had she tried to retrieve it in this surreptitious fashion? Surely if Partridge had stolen the ring, the Devereux family could have informed the magistrate and been granted a warrant to search the premises.
There was something else in the canvas. Slowly he drew it forth. A dagger bearing the very same motif—a crown of acanthus leaves—undoubtedly this too was Rupert Lacey’s. He inspected the dagger closely. It seemed to be an ornamental knife, but for a toy, it was looking a trifle begrimed. He whetted his fingers and felt its tip; some ornament, this could do serious damage. And now that he looked more closely at the grime... My God, that was blood!
Out of nowhere he felt a punishing blow to the back of his neck and his knees crumpled. Before he went down, he turned slightly and saw a scarlet-faced Partridge and in his hand the self-same paperweight he had used to smash the safe open. His adversary lifted the weight again and would have brought it down on his head this time, if Jack had not lunged out with his foot and kicked him hard on the shin. The landlord hopped back in pain and dropped the paperweight. Jack scrambled to his feet, but only just in time for Partridge had snatched the fire iron from the hearth and was making ready to knock him senseless. It was clear that he had seen too much and the landlord did not mean him to leave the room alive. Jack parried the oncoming blow, catching the poker between his hands. For a while they struggled for control of the iron bar until, with a sudden wrench, Jack tore it from the landlord’s hands and flung it to one side. He grabbed the man by the neck and swung a punch at him. Partridge dived low to avoid the blow, swinging his own punch in return. He was no novice, Jack thought. He must have spent time in the ring, as a prize fighter no doubt. He thanked heaven that he was no mean pugilist himself, but he would need cunning to defeat this very large and very angry man.
He danced around his opponent, trying to keep his distance until an opportunity to attack presented itself. He was unused to bare-knuckle fights, but all the frustration and anger that had been boiling since last night gave him almost supernatural strength and when Partridge forgot for an instant to raise his left hand in defence, he found his jaw with a heavy blow. The man reeled and staggered back. Before he had time to recover, Jack followed with another punch, and another and yet another. He was filled with fury that this man had hurt Lucinda, filled with fury that he had hurt her himself. He wanted to lash out, to batter the landlord into oblivion and it was only Didimus Black’s voice that stopped him.
‘Lord Frensham! What are you about?’
The Runner puffed his way into the room. Jack allowed the supine form of Partridge to drop to the floor. He took time to straighten his neckcloth and pull his jacket into place.
‘Whatever are you about, sir?’ the Runner repeated.
‘’E’s the thief,’ Partridge whimpered from the floor. ‘It’s ’im you want to arrest. ’E’s the one that broke in last night and gave you a blow on the pate.’ He staggered to his feet and began to sketch a zigzag path to the safe. He had every intention of shutting it before the Runner could investigate.
Didimus Black threw out his chest. He was about to apprehend a member of the ton and it wasn’t every day that happened. But before he could begin to recite the words of arrest, Jack intervened.
‘One minute, my friend. I have stolen nothing—far from it. On the contrary, I appear to have uncovered stolen goods. Mr Black, would you care to look in the safe and give us your professional opinion.’
‘’E don’t need to look at nothing,’ the landlord blustered. ‘It’s as clear as the nose on yer face—you’re the thief and yer trying to flim flam yer way out of it.’
In answer Jack strode across the room to the safe and flung the door wide. ‘Do you think a humble landlord could come honestly by such expensive geegaws? For myself, I do not.’
Black peered into the safe and gave a long drawn-out whistle. ‘My, my, what ’ave we ’ere?’
The landlord had been edging gradually towards the door, and at the Runner’s words, he geared himself to flee. But Didimus Black was faster. With the same agility that had worried Lucinda, he reached the door before Partridge got his foot on the threshold.
‘Not so fast, Captain Sharp. We’ve conversations to be ’ad. Plenty of ’em by the look of it—but they’ll be in Lewes gaol. Right now I’ve got a carridge waitin’ fer us, all neat and tidy.’ He slipped handcuffs expertly around the landlord’s wrists, and without another word, marched him from the inn.
Left alone in the room, Jack pocketed the roll of canvas and shut the safe carefully behind him. He was taking only what belonged at the Towers and the sooner he returned those items, the better. It was clear that Rupert Lacey had been embroiled in something very dark, but he had no wish to know what. He knew all he needed: Lucinda had acted only to protect her brother. He hated himself for having doubted her. Would he ever persuade her to forgive his stupidity? First thing in the morning, he would put it to the test.
* * *
For a second night Lucinda hardly slept. She was wretched with misery, but filled with anger, too. Why had Jack not trusted her? He loved her, didn’t he, so why could he not accept that she had good reason for the trespass in Partridge’s room? The sad truth was that he did not love enough. Even as she’d heard him speak endearments and offer himself in marriage, something had whispered that the words were not quite real. She’d felt a twinge of unease and held back from committing herself completely. Yet if she looked deep into her heart, she could not blame Jack for the fragility of his feelings. Memories were still too vivid for him and she knew that when he’d saved her from the Runner’s clutches, he had thought history was repeating itself in savage mockery. Years ago he had had his trust shattered irrevocably and now the tentacles of that wretched event had reached out and made victims of them both.
When she thought how much it had cost her to lear
n to trust, why would it be easy for Jack? Until she met him she had not realised how great a burden she carried from the past, how much she had been affected by her mother’s disastrous marriage and the loveless household in which she had been raised. Agnes Devereux’s fate had been inevitable, she thought, but all marriage was a gamble. She had never wanted to fall in love and put herself in a man’s power. She had thought her affection for her twin was all she needed, all she could depend on. But Jack Beaufort had shown her differently; he had taught her the true meaning of love and, in doing so, had turned her world upside down.
At the outset she had judged him just another of his kind, one of those arrogant members of the ton that she met occasionally at neighbours’ country houses. She had taken him in dislike without knowing him and yet, against her will, she had been attracted, mightily attracted. Gradually she had learned her mistake. Jack’s life as a wealthy, pleasure-seeking man was one she’d always despised, but he was so much greater than the caricature she’d created for him. She had fallen headlong in love and with a man she had thought not to exist.
She knew now that her feelings for Rupert were not something on which she could build the rest of her life. All these years she had taken responsibility for her brother and she could do so no longer. He’d come to her eager to hear the good news and she’d had to tell him that she’d returned from the inn with nothing—indeed, had been fortunate to escape capture. She had dared not mention the Runner’s pursuit and Jack’s rescue, dared not intimate that her brother’s benefactor was so close. Instead she’d told him that she had searched until she heard people coming towards the office, but it was clear that he only half believed her. He thought she had lost her nerve and, at the first noise, had run. So now there were two men who did not believe her, she thought sadly, the two men closest to her heart.
Her relations with her brother were subtly changed. Rupert had grown harder, less considerate, since his incarceration. He was no longer the loving twin he had been; at times she thought him almost a stranger. Her sense of loss was sharp, but it was as nothing when set against the desolation of losing Jack. At the end of the longest day of her life, she’d crawled into bed and lain sleepless between the sheets. For hours she had looked out at the night sky, at the handful of stars tossed like a scattering of crystals and the moon riding higher, its crescent infinitesimally fuller. She had tried to lose herself in the vastness for she was adrift, without an anchor, floating towards an unknown future.
What would happen now? She grieved that Rupert would disappear from her life before Partridge had an opportunity to tell his tale and she was certain that once Francis Devereux learned of the vagrant’s death, her brother would be banned from ever returning to Verney Towers. The honour of the Devereuxs must remain unimpeachable. Her mind wandered to her uncle and it struck her that recently he had been unusually amenable. Did he have some inkling of what had been happening beyond his library? He could have no idea yet of the new disaster that had befallen Rupert, but he might guess that it was Jack who had been her brother’s saviour. Perhaps it had encouraged him to hope that the shocking conduct he had witnessed at the ball was about to lead to something far less shocking. He was destined for disappointment; but if he’d learned of Jack’s visit yesterday, he would already have guessed the unhappy outcome.
* * *
Come the morning, Molly found her standing by the window and looking aimlessly out on the world. In reality she saw nothing, not the sky as clear as polished glass nor the gleaming leaves of evergreens freshened by a night of intermittent rain. Sapped of all energy, she allowed the maid to choose her gown and submitted docilely to having her hair brushed and fixed in a simple topknot. A footman brought tea and toast, but she could only pick at it. She grew increasingly irritated with herself. It was ridiculous to be so afflicted; she was behaving as though she were the doomed heroine from a novel out of the circulating library. Was she, too, about to go into a terminal decline from the devastating loss of her love? Her life was in tatters, it was true, her future a dark, empty space, but she ought at least to pretend that she was made of sterner stuff. When Molly took the breakfast tray downstairs, she settled into the window seat with the intention of reading her way through the latest edition of La Belle Assemblée, but it was not long before she gave up and began idly flicking through its pages with even less interest than usual.
Out of nowhere a loud noise from below caused her to drop the journal in a startled splutter. There seemed to be some kind of altercation coming from the hall and she very much feared that it might be Rupert in a bad quarrel with his uncle. They had hardly spoken since her brother came home. Sir Francis had been outraged by his nephew’s release and had not believed Rupert when he denied any knowledge of his benefactor. It was only the boy’s gaunt figure and ashen face that had convinced their uncle his punishment had been sufficient. But relations between them remained strained and if her brother had dared to broach the dreadful history that Partridge had threatened to disclose, it would easily account for the angry noises ricocheting up the grand staircase. Her uncle’s raised voice slowly dwindled into loud mutters and instead she heard footsteps running up the stairs, footsteps pounding towards her door—an intruder that Sir Francis had been powerless to stop! Her heart thudded furiously and the blood hammered in her ears. What new alarm was this?
A knock. She rose from her chair and walked unwillingly towards the door. Another loud knock. Drawing herself erect, she opened the door a fraction and was met by a pair of warm brown eyes. They were shining; she could swear they were shining with love, but that had to be a fantasy.
‘Let me in, Lucy.’
It was the first time he had called her by her pet name. Her heart jumped again, but this time for the best of reasons. She could not understand why Jack had returned or why he was looking at her with such concern—and, yes, with love. It was love! Her cheeks were stained from the trickle of tears she had been unable to stop and she knew that she must look utterly woebegone. She tried to smile, but it proved a sad effort.
‘My darling girl, I am so sorry.’ He was in the room and leading her towards a chair. ‘You must sit down before you fall. You look quite ill.’
She sank into the chair, feeling bewildered, but then bristling at his words. Of course, she looked ill—when he had said the things he’d said, walked from her door without a backward glance and left her for ever to return to his life in London, what else did he expect?
‘I am well enough,’ she said stoutly, ‘but why are you here, Jack? After your words yesterday, I thought never to see you again.’
‘Yesterday I was a fool. Can you ever forgive me?’ He was kneeling by the side of her chair, his expression remorseful. ‘I refused to trust you. How could I have done that? I refused to trust the woman I love, the woman I had just asked to be my wife!’
Her small rush of resentment was slipping away and instinctively she reached out to grasp his hand. He gripped her tightly, saying nothing, but holding on to her as though his life depended on it. She must let him know that he was forgiven.
‘I understand why you found it so difficult to trust me. What happened to you in the past...’ He put his finger to her lips and her voice trailed away.
‘I’ve used the past as an excuse for walking away from my true feelings and that is cowardly. Over the years I convinced myself that I’d lost my one and only sweetheart, but that was a nonsense. My first love was a mere nothing. It was the humiliation that came to matter most to me. And I hung on to my grievances as a way of escaping commitment. Until I met you, that is.’
‘And fell in love?’
‘And fell in love,’ he repeated softly. ‘How could I not love the woman who ambushed me!’
‘And from the start I loved you back, even though I didn’t want to!’
His expression grew serious and he held her hands even more tightly. ‘I should have believed you�
��I should have known that you had a reason for your actions. I have only the haziest notion what that might be, but you did not break into Partridge’s office for the fun of it. How crazy of me to think so!’
Her smile was stronger. ‘It certainly wasn’t for fun. It was difficult and frightening and falling through that window hurt! I want to tell you why I did it, Jack, I wanted to tell you yesterday. But I could not and I still don’t think I can.’ She faltered on these last words.
‘There is no need to tell me anything.’
‘But you should know.’ She sat up, her fingers pleating her skirts in some agitation. In rescuing her from the Runner, he had thrown himself into danger and, if he were to stay in Verney, he would face suspicion, accusations, perhaps even potential arrest. He would need to defend himself and for that he would need knowledge. But he must not stay...
He bent down and wrapped his arms closely around her. ‘I hate to see you distressed. There is no need for me to know a thing—let us say that the matter is finally closed.’
‘But it will not be closed for others. Bad things could happen and I don’t want you involved. You were right to distance yourself. I think you should go away before the worst occurs.’
‘Nothing bad will happen.’ He was smiling at her in a way that made her stomach somersault in the most inappropriate fashion. Really, she should not feel like this. Instead of melting into a puddle, she should be pushing him through the door.
‘You cannot know that. You must go away and
go now.’
‘Then before I do,’ he said gently, ‘allow me to give you a small gift.’
‘This is not the time for presents,’ she scolded, ‘and in any case by coming here this morning you have given me the best present I could ever have.’
‘There are far better ones to come, darling Lucy. This is a mere drop in the ocean of my giving! But I think when you see the gift, you will be happy.’
Unmasking Miss Lacey Page 21