As these thoughts crossed his mind, the banker slit open the seal on the small package and dumped out the contents. It looked to be an ancient letter, yellowed and darkened so that the address was barely—
With a sharp glance at his wife, he opened the letter. He recognized it at once even though he had not seen it in nearly fifteen years. It was the letter he’d written that woman—the letter she’d sold to Carr and that he had used all these years to extort money from the banker.
He frowned, peered into the package that had contained it. Nothing. No note. Nothing.
He sat back, the overwhelming sense of freedom dizzying. Then slowly, piece by piece, his fingers shaking, he rent the letter into tiny, tiny strips.
In a neat, fashionable house in Berkeley Square, Sir Gerald Swan stared down at a document bearing his signature, the package that had contained it at his feet. He’d never dared hope to see that document again, let alone hold it in his hand.
He’d been a young member of Parliament avid to see his policies adopted when he’d been approached by one of his party’s power brokers. The man had offered Gerald his support if Gerald would sign his name to a document that would ensure a very profitable contract was won by a very disreputable company. He’d done so. There’d been a scandal soon after but since the document bearing his name had never come to light, he’d remained free from the stigma that had attached itself to many of his fellow members.
Carr had somehow come into possession of the document. And ever since, Gerald had been paying to keep it from the public with little favors. Now, for whatever reason, it was back in his hand. He would no longer need to compromise himself.
When, a short while later, Gerald’s butler arrived to investigate the scent of burning paper, he found his master smiling blissfully at a pile of ashes at his feet in the front hall.
“Lord Carr is due back from France this afternoon,” Gerald said. “I was to send my carriage to the pier to meet him.”
“Yes, sir?”
“Cancel that order.”
“Should I send a message explaining you will not be able to accommodate the earl?”
Swan considered a moment before saying, quite lightly, “No. No explanation is necessary, and should the earl inquire after me, I am not at home to him. Now or ever.”
In Mayfair a young woman brought a letter dated seven years ago to her husband’s hand. Her eyes were wide in her face, her expression bemused.
“What is this, Anne?”
“Bart”—she held out the paper—“I believe it is the affidavit the midwife signed testifying that our Reginald was born before our marriage.”
Her husband took the proffered paper and stared at it long moments before folding it carefully. When his gaze returned to his wife’s, it was filled with amazed relief.
“I don’t know why he would return it now,” she said, her voice troubled, her eyes dazed. For so long they’d hidden their firstborn’s illegitimacy. Bart had been a young soldier and they’d made a baby and then he’d had to go away and she’d gone away, too.
As soon as he’d returned they’d wed, but it was too late to make their son legitimate and therefore next in line for her father’s title. The midwife had since died, but somehow Lord Carr had gotten his hands on her written testimony. Lately Carr had been impressing upon them his willingness to disclose the truth if he was not allowed a certain portion of their son’s anticipated inheritance.
“Carr must know my father is ill and it’s only a matter of time before Reginald inherits his title,” she whispered.
Her husband rose and embraced her softly. “I don’t think Carr sent it, my darling.”
“Then who?” she asked.
“I don’t know, but thank God for him.”
In the front hall of a small, mean lodging house in Cheapside, Lord Tunbridge accepted the package after paying the bearer an additional shilling to keep him from revealing Tunbridge’s whereabouts. He looked from side to side down the rain-soaked streets before closing the door and returning to his room.
There he opened the unmarked package, upended it, and shook. A thin letter, one edge blackened as though it had been held too close to a fire, drifted to the floor, followed by a small card.
He picked up the card first.
Lord Tunbridge,
I have not read the enclosed missive but from the envelope assume it to be yours. I never meant to hurt you.
Lady Fia MacFarlane
His eyes narrowed to suspicious slits. What new torment was this? He studied the envelope. It was utterly unfamiliar. He tore it open and read, and as he read the sneer left his face, shock replacing it, and then near cretinous bafflement.
A dockyard surgeon had written it some twenty years earlier. In it the surgeon apologized for bothering Lord Carr but had heard from various sources that Carr was most interested in what had happened to a young woman named Nell Baxter who had come afoul of a knife in an altercation with a hotheaded young aristocrat named Tunbridge. The good earl might then be pleased to know that the wench had not succumbed as a result of her wounds. Indeed, the surgeon had doctored the girl himself and seen to her recovery, only to witness her tragic death the following week when she was hit on the head with a steel signpost in a tavern brawl. The surgeon thought that, in light of the earl’s earlier interest, he might be inclined to reward the surgeon for his original heroic efforts on the girl’s behalf.
Tunbridge read the letter five times. When he looked up from the last time, he was sitting in the middle of the floor. He’d spent a lifetime covering up a crime he’d never committed and committing sins thrice over as cardinal to do so. He shook his head and began laughing, and he could not stop.
Lord Carr walked into his sumptuous mansion, swinging his cane in mild irritation. The trip to the continent had not been as profitable as he’d desired, Janet had begun a campaign of appearing at his window laughing, and Swan had not sent his carriage as he’d been instructed.
Swan would pay for that little oversight.
His good humor restored, Carr shed his cloak into the waiting hands of a footman and motioned for another to bring him his mail.
“Milord.” The footman bowed and presented him with a silver tray on which a meager little pile of envelopes lay.
“The rest is in my study, I presume,” Carr said coldly. The little bastard had best learn that when Lord Carr wanted his mail, he didn’t give a damn how much trouble he put his lackeys through to fetch it.
“No, milord. This is the sum of it.”
There had to be some sort of mistake. Perhaps the mail service had been disrupted in his absence or his correspondence was being forwarded to his country estate.
He snatched up the little pile and began sorting through it. Five invitations to events long past, and the rest bills.
There had to be some explanation. And he intended to find out what it was.
It was not until the same mechanical impulse that prompted Fia to brush her hair and wash her teeth led her, still in nightrail and dressing gown, downstairs to look numbly through the mail that she received the official-looking letter from an unfamiliar agency in … Edinburgh?
A twinge of curiosity pierced her numbness and she opened the letter. It was from a lawyer who was trying to ascertain the whereabouts of her brother Ashton Douglas Merrick regarding a new addition to his holdings in Scotland.
Fia frowned in consternation. Ashton owned nothing in Scotland. He’d used all the money he’d accumulated to buy his estate in Cornwall.… Her brow smoothed with insight.
That Thomas had purchased Maiden’s Blush through an intermediary, she’d known, but now she realized that he’d named Ashton its legal owner. Of course. He’d protected the land from being forfeited to the Crown, as were all criminals’ possessions, by never really owning it. This way should Carr or anyone else ever expose him, it could stay safely out of English hands. But why Ash?
The answer came immediately. Because Thomas had hoped, had believed
, that as Janet McClairen’s oldest child, Ash would take care of the land—and the people he’d brought there. And because he was atoning for the wrong he’d done Ash.
“Oh, Thomas,” she murmured.
“Milady.” Porter stood uneasily before her.
“Yes?”
“I have been trying unsuccessfully to determine whether or not to inform you of a matter that—”
She smiled slightly. “Porter, you have guided as well as butlered for me for six years now and your instincts have never yet been wrong. What is it?”
“Captain Donne.”
Her gaze fell. “If this is about last night, you needn’t be concerned with the unseemliness of so late a visit. He won’t be coming back,” she said tonelessly.
“That is what I fear, madam.” His tone brought Fia’s gaze back to Porter’s face. “Last night as Captain Donne was preparing to leave, I asked him where he could be found should you desire to contact him. He laughed and said he would be taking all his future correspondence at Hyde Park.
“Milady, Hyde Park is where the gentlemen fight their duels.”
The blood rushed in her head, buzzing in her temples, the implication of Thomas’s words clear.
“There’s more.”
“How so?” she demanded breathlessly.
He told her gravely of the two visitors that had arrived mere hours apart that very morning, and when he was done, her face was ghostly white and her eyes dark with horrifying premonitions.
“Send for the carriage at once,” she said. “As you value my sanity, my life, do so at once!”
Chapter 26
Late that same afternoon, atop a knoll in one of Hyde Park’s less frequented corners, a tall, elegant young man in somewhat foreign dress sat lounging at the base of a statue of King George II. He stretched his great long legs before him and leaned back against the sovereign’s bronze foot, lacing his fingers over his own satin-vested belly.
He’d pulled the gilt-embroidered collar of his coat up, warding off the mist that waited for night to come before completing its metamorphosis into one of London’s legendary fogs. He’d tipped his tricorn hat low on his brow and directed his attention to two gentlemen currently pacing off from each other a short ways below his vantage point.
As he waited, another figure approached on horseback, a slender, lithe figure in a shabby coat and hat, black gauntlets, and black, well-worn riding boots. The foreign-appearing gentleman glanced up, noting the fine piece of horseflesh the man rode, and then returned his regard to the duelists currently shedding their coats.
“Which one is Donne?” the newcomer asked, peering into the mist at the phantomlike figures below.
“The taller fellow on the right,” the large young man replied.
“My thanks.” The slender, shabby gentleman dismounted and tethered his horse to George’s outstretched hand, and took a seat on the opposite corner of the marble base, leaning forward, his arms resting on his knees.
“You have business with Donne?” the elegant young man asked after a moment, when it became clear that some sort of delay involving one of the duelists’ pistols was going to go on rather long.
“Hm,” the other man rejoined. “I hear this Frenchman, Pierpont, is an excellent shot. It would make things decidedly simpler if he wins, but if not, I intend to challenge Donne.”
“Thank God,” the other man breathed, bringing the newcomer’s head swinging around in surprise. “Because—” He stopped because in turning to thank his benefactor, he found himself gazing into a most familiar and roughly handsome face.
For a long moment the two men regarded each other in silence. Finally a crooked grin curved the long, mobile mouth of the slender, shabby gentleman.
“Well, Raine?” he said.
An answering smile was born on the rough, chiseled features of the other. “Well, Ash?”
Ashton Merrick rose to his feet, strode to where his brother sat, and pulled him up and into a warm embrace. Raine returned it with one equally as warm. They then proceeded to pound each other affectionately on the back.
“Damn me, it’s good to see you!” Raine said.
“Aye,” Ash said, grinning as he held his brother from him at arm’s length, his gaze traveling over his tall, elegant figure. “ ’Tis grand to see you, too, Raine. ’Tis been too many years. Far too many. Since France.
“Letters are all very well and fine, but they can’t …” For a moment emotion stopped Ash’s voice, but he mastered himself and grinned. “They can’t begin to describe the horrors you’ve allowed your tailor.”
Raine laughed, a rich infectious sound, and cast a telling glance over the disreputable coat covering Ash’s lean, elegant frame. “At least I have a tailor.”
Ash answered with his own laugh. “Well, I’m but a humble horse-breeder, not some lofty consul to Italian princes. Besides, I came in a hurry.”
“Aye.” Raine sobered, his smile fading. “Why are you here?”
“A month back I received a letter from a man named James Barton—a friend of Fia’s. Or so he claimed and so he must have been, because he warned me that Fia had become embroiled in some sort of situation with Carr and Thomas Donne. I know—I knew Thomas Donne. I came forthwith and arrived yesterday, only to discover Fia’s name being bandied about in the coarsest manner. Because of Donne.” His mouth flattened. “I followed his trail here.”
Raine nodded. “You arrived yesterday? I, also. And I followed a similar route, coming at the urgings of this man Barton. I could do no less. I have always felt that I abandoned Fia when I left England. I could not do so twice.”
“I understand,” Ash responded grimly. “I have always felt that I betrayed you in not ransoming you from that French hellhole. After Rhiannon and I learned you had escaped, I tried for a long time to discover your whereabouts, but by then the war had closed what channels were open between England and France.
“I swear to you, I never did know you’d been recaptured. Not until your letter arrived telling me your story.” Ash braced his hand on his brother’s shoulder, his gaze level and somber. “Forgive me.”
Raine smiled awkwardly. “There’s nothing to forgive. If you had rescued me, my Favor wouldn’t have had the pleasure and I would never have …” He shook his head ruefully. “As hard as it is to admit, I’d have stayed another decade in that place to ensure that things had turned out the way they have.”
“Good—”
The sound of a pistol blast shattered their reunion.
Both men swung around. A thin wisp of smoke issued from Pierpont’s pistol. Thomas Donne stood with his pistol still hanging at his side.
“Mon dieu!” shouted Pierpont as they watched. “If you mean to fire, by all that’s holy, do so!”
Calmly, Thomas raised his arm and aimed. Nothing moved. No sound stirred the still, damp air.
“Damn, he’s a cool one,” Raine muttered.
“Aye,” Ash returned, “he always was.”
“Will you issue a public apology to Lady Fia?” Donne suddenly asked in a clear voice as cold as an arctic blast.
For a long moment Pierpont said nothing, and then in a voice choked with emotion, “Oui! Je suis d’accord!”
Thomas lowered his gun. Even at this distance, they could hear Pierpont’s sigh of relief. The Frenchman hastened up the knoll toward the brothers, his second hurrying after him. When he reached them, he cast a quick look behind him, his face grim.
“Rethink your vanity, my friends,” he advised tersely. “I tell you honestly, I am accounted a brave man, and I’ve faced many on the field of honor, but I’ve never faced a man like that.”
“Really?” Ash said. “How so?”
“You look into his eyes and there is nothing. And a man who has nothing to protect, monsieur, is a very dangerous man indeed.” He struggled to recoup his pride. “Besides, I was drunk when I made those unfortunate remarks about the Lady Fia. I am a gentleman. It is not for my own safety that I cede the contest, y
ou understand, but for the lady’s honor.”
“It is certainly healthy to realize one’s mistakes in time,” Raine said, a warning edging his smile.
Pierpont eyed him cautiously. “Ah, yes. Well, er … Good luck to you.”
As soon as he’d gone, Raine turned to his brother and bowed, his face grim. “After you.”
Ash’s mouth twined with distaste. “You were here first.”
“Aye. But my wife has spoken fondly of Donne and I am loath to hurt her.”
“But at one time he was my friend, and even if he was playacting, his imitation was better than any reality I’d known, or have since. At least until the end.”
“How many children do you have, Ash?” Raine asked.
“Ah, yes. There’s that, too.” Ash nodded in understanding. “He’s a formidable opponent, isn’t he? And in answer, I’ve but one to your three.” With a sigh he turned and walked down the little knoll.
If Thomas was surprised to see the friend he’d once betrayed, he gave scant indication. Other than a slow curl of his lip and an elegant bow such as he once used in London’s drawing rooms, he displayed no emotion.
“I can’t kill you, Ash,” Thomas said after hearing Ash’s cool challenge. “Besides being Fia’s brother, you are entirely in the right in calling me out.”
“And I’d rather not kill you,” Ash said. “But you’ve rather done a job of destroying my sister’s honor—however close she’d already come to achieving that herself, which, from what I hear, was very close indeed.”
“Watch your tongue,” Thomas cautioned harshly. He looked down at the pair of dueling pistols Johnston silently offered him and waved them away. “Your forte, as I recall, is blades. Bring us swords, please.”
As Johnston hurried to get the épées, Ash shrugged out of his coat. “Damned if I like this, Thomas. Has it occurred to you to marry the girl?”
“It had occurred to me,” Thomas replied stiffly.
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