Chapter Sixteen
‘You simply must pay attention and stop acting as if these meetings are a mere inconvenience!’ Browning whispered in an angry hiss at Riordan’s elbow. Vale’s solicitor was glaring across the polished surface of the table, briefs spread before him in testimony of the validity of his claims.
‘Well?’ the man repeated while the viscount sat beside him, smugly satisfied.
‘You’ve made no progress acquiring a wife, but you have made quite a show continuing to live a most inappropriate lifestyle for children.’ He waved a newspaper for emphasis.
Riordan didn’t need to read it to know it contained the account of his dinner party and a subsequent description of his outing to the zoo. Apparently Miss Sussington had conveniently cried on Lady Helena’s brother’s shoulder and the brother had told Lady Helena who in turn had told the society pages. All because he, Riordan, hadn’t paid attention to her. Now the Vales were seeking to pillory him with it in an attempt to secure the children and their money.
‘Lord Chatham, these episodes are entirely unacceptable. You are carrying on with a woman in your employment, under your own roof, in front of the children.’ Vale’s solicitor waved his hand in an expansive gesture. ‘We’re all men here, we understand as a bachelor one wouldn’t think twice about the behaviour, but you’re not a bachelor, you’re a guardian, and the rules change.’ He tut-tutted here. ‘It looks bad enough on the surface, you and a single woman alone in your home without any chaperonage. But to have those suppositions confirmed so glaringly and so often...’ He didn’t complete his thought, he just left it dangling there with its implicit conclusion: such evidence was damning indeed. They should settle this issue and move on.
‘Look, Chatham,’ Vale put in, his greying, bushy eyebrows rising as he spoke. ‘I don’t want this to be messier than it has to be. We’re family, after all, and Lady Vale has a desire to have the children.’
Riordan raised his own, thinner, more refined brows. He fought to keep his temper under control. ‘Family? Since when have I ever been “family” with the likes of you? You were nowhere when those children needed taking in.’ He wanted to be home, wanted to be with Maura and the children. She was taking them to the Egyptian Hall today to see a special exhibit. He would have liked to have gone, but he simply couldn’t miss another appointment.
Vale sighed dramatically. ‘I didn’t want to drag your brother into all this, but you leave me no choice.’ He pushed a paper forwards. ‘I have scheduled a hearing to have your brother’s will reviewed and my request has been approved. It seems there’s a good chance he wasn’t in his right mind.’
Riordan clenched his fists. ‘How dare you talk of family and then betray that family in the next breath. You had no right.’
‘I had every right.’ Vale’s smug expression turned lethal. ‘I will have those children, Chatham, if I have to ruin you and Elliott to do it.’ He gave a cruel smile. ‘Of course, you’ve already ruined yourself, so my job is much easier.’ He rose. ‘Five days, Chatham. The hearing is in five days. I think we’re finished here.’
Riordan waited until he and Browning were alone to let the frustration show.
Riordan pushed a hand through his hair and slumped in his chair. ‘What do we have to fear from that will? Has any more turned up as to why Elliott...?’ He couldn’t quite speak the words. Browning would know what he meant.
‘Nothing more has come to light, but there’s been an interesting development in the financial records.’ Browning busied himself looking for papers. ‘Here they are.’ Browning opened a ledger. ‘Your brother has regular quarterly payments going out to an unnamed source over the last four years. In and of itself, it’s not notable. But, look here.’ Browning spread out papers containing Vale’s financial record. ‘Vale is receiving the exact same amount, also unspecified. The payments begin at the same point in time.’
‘When was the last payment?’ Riordan ran his eyes over the papers, noting the pattern.
‘February first. All the payments were made on the first of each month.’
Riordan scanned the list. There was nothing for the first of March that matched the amount on either end. ‘The payment didn’t come in March.’ Then Vale had visited and Elliott had died. Riordan tapped a thoughtful finger on the ledger.
‘Elliott could have paid. There was plenty of money.’
‘Certainly. The earldom was in no financial straits.’ Browning gathered up the papers and stuffed them back in his briefcase. ‘I don’t know what it means or if it means anything,’ Browning hedged.
Riordan nodded. He thought so, too. When singular instances aligned, they became more than coincidences. He had two events; the terse, furtive visit meant to be secret, and now this—a missed payment when there was no reason for it.
‘The question now is why, Browning? Why would my brother be paying Vale?
Why would these payments start within months of him taking custody of Ishmael’s children?’ The obvious answer was blackmail of some sort. But what secret would Vale have over Elliott? Riordan wasn’t even aware Elliott and Vale knew each other beyond a passing acquaintance on the family tree. Vale was only connected to them by marriage through Ishamel.
‘Keep at it, Browning,’ Riordan said. ‘We’re close.’ They had to be. He was running out of time. Did he dare risk letting Vale expose Elliott’s will to scrutiny and hope it held, that there were no damaging secrets and the Vales would look like the grasping petty relatives they were? Or did he simply marry, prove himself a worthy guardian and render a probe into the will as unnecessary? Marriage was the only option that provided any stability. Without a wife, even if Elliott’s will held, the Vales could still argue a bachelor of his repute was an inappropriate guardian. No, it would have to be marriage. He would not escape this particular noose.
*
Five days to find a bride. He wanted more time. More time with Maura, more time with things just the way they were. He was not blind to the outcome heading his way. If he secured a bride, Maura would leave. The scandal had ensured there was no room for her in the home of a newlywed Earl of Chatham and his wife. Even if scandal had not ensured it, Maura’s sense of rightness would demand it. It would be far too difficult to live in the same home with her, plus a wife by his side.
The alternative was no less bleak. If he failed to secure a bride, he’d lose the children, it was a surety. Without the children, he’d lose Maura, too. It wasn’t fair, either way, he’d lose her. There was no choice. He had to give her up in order to save the children. His past had come back to haunt him.
Surely there was one woman in London who would marry him. But what would happen to Maura? He would go on with the children and an indifferent wife—he could live with that for William and Cecilia’s sake. But Maura? When this was over, where would she go? In all his liaisons there’d been a sense of fairness. His women had known the rules.
Maura wasn’t those women. He’d slept with her, taken her virtue, he’d ruined her chances with Hesperly, and what did she get in return?
A thought struck. He’d get her another, a replacement for Hesperly, someone who wasn’t picky about virtue, who had a more realistic sense of the world, someone who would see only her goodness and beauty. Why shouldn’t she have a happy ending, too? Well, ‘happy ending’ was a bit exaggerated. Riordan tried to run through a list of possibilities much like he was picking out a pet. It was the only way he could get through it. Otherwise it hurt too much.
But Ashe, Merrick and even Jamie were all married now. He came up blank.
Perhaps he could get Hesperly back. He could tell the baron he’d been mistaken about her circumstances. The baron would believe the rumours, though. He’d have to offset those somehow, give the baron a carrot he couldn’t refuse.
It was useless. Trying to match Maura with a husband was impossible. He’d not expected to be quite so affected by her. He’d needed her. What they’d shared had been far more than a rake’s pleasure, the
pleasure he was used to. Now that he’d tasted such fulfilment, he was loath to give it up or turn it over to another. But time was running out and he had no choices left. He would not, could not, disappoint Elliott in the last thing he had ever asked him to do.
*
‘Six, do you like Uncle Ree?’ Cecilia asked quite unexpectedly while they stood looking at a case of Egyptian jewellery on display at the aptly named Egyptian Hall, a fashionable exhibition venue on Piccadilly.
‘Your uncle is a nice man,’ Maura offered neutrally. She’d brought the children to see Belzoni’s Valley of the Kings display as a way of coaxing William’s ambition to be an explorer and to teach them a little history. She’d also thought to get out of the house in the hopes some distance would clear her thoughts. She’d succeeded only on the first account. The Africa room with its life-size models of elephants and cheetahs had inspired all nature of excitement in William. But on the second account, her thoughts needed very little encouragement from Cecilia.
‘He is nice,’ Cecilia agreed. ‘And you’re nice.’ Her face lit in a bright smile as if she were trying to appear spontaneous. ‘I know, Six, you should marry him.
Would you?’
Maura blushed. ‘Ladies don’t go around proposing to gentlemen.’ She tried to laugh it off, but Cecilia was persistent.
‘What if he asked, though?’ Cecilia peered up at her with eyes nearly as blue as Riordan’s. Someday, she’d break plenty of English hearts with those eyes and that smile. Regret tugged at Maura’s own heart. She would not be around for those days.
‘Your uncle will find a nice wife,’ Maura reassured her, doing her best to hide the sadness that accompanied those thoughts. Since the dinner party, it had become clear layer by layer that her time at Chatham House would end, sooner rather than later. All she could do was hold on to her position and her heart as long as she could, although she feared it was too late for the latter. Perhaps it was the knowing, the sensing all this had become temporary, that had fuelled her wild plunge into reckless passion. If it could not last, why not take a piece of him with her? It wasn’t as if there would be other suitors in the life she had chosen.
‘Did you see the toys over here, Cecilia?’ Maura steered the little girl towards a case full of ancient dolls and away from more awkward questions. It would be hard enough to leave when the time came without raising Cecilia’s hopes.
William stood by a sarcophagus, studying the inlaid gems. The exhibit wasn’t crowded in the early afternoon and she’d let him wander about the room with the admonition that he stay close, no more than a display or two away. But now a thick-set man had come up to look at the sarcophagus, too, and he was talking with William. It was time to retrieve the boy.
‘William,’ Maura called out as she approached, Cecilia in hand. ‘We need to move on. We want to see the South Seas room before we go.’
The big man with William turned towards her, his gaze unnervingly sharp.
‘He’s a nice boy, ma’am.’ He was roughly dressed, resembling a dock worker more than a museum patron. ‘He’s not yours, though, is he?’ The stranger asked as an afterthought. ‘You’re far too young to have such a grown-up young man for a son.’
It was an inappropriate question, the frankness of it taking Maura back for a moment. But William puffed up under the compliment. ‘She’s our governess.’
That piqued the man’s interest. ‘Is that so?’ He smiled at William, but Maura grabbed William by the hand, eager to be away before the boy could spill any more pieces of information—not that this stranger was the sort to know her uncle. She didn’t want to be paranoid and think everyone posed a danger, but this man’s eyes made her uneasy. There was no sense in courting danger after she’d worked so hard to be cautious. ‘Come along, Will. Good day, sir.’ She gave the man a stern look to discourage any further interaction in case he was inclined to follow them.
*
The rest of their trip was uneventful. Cecilia kept her questions about Uncle Ree to herself and William talked to no more strangers. It might have been her imagination, but Maura could have sworn she glimpsed the stranger one more time as they climbed into the carriage and headed for home, and the children were uncharacteristically quiet.
*
‘We have to do something, Cee-Cee,’ William complained in a hushed whisper.
They were in the nursery playing while Six worked on lessons for tomorrow at the round table. ‘They kissed a few days ago. Everything should be fine now, but it’s not. Nothing’s happened.’ He was getting worried. If Uncle Ree hadn’t asked Six, it meant he was still considering others. It was time for more direct measures.
Cecilia furrowed her brow. ‘Six likes him, she told me so today. I don’t understand it.’ She thought for a moment. ‘Maybe they just haven’t had enough time to be together. He can’t ask her if they aren’t together.’
William thought about it. ‘Maybe. Uncle Ree has been busy. He’s been going to meetings since the party.’ What his fun-loving Uncle Ree did at those meetings was a mystery to him.
Cecilia played with her doll’s hair, plaiting it into two braids. ‘We need a chance for them to be together.’
‘Another dinner?’ William suggested.
Cecilia smiled. ‘With invitations for tomorrow evening.’ Then she frowned. ‘A dinner is a good idea, but how are we going to plan it? We’re just children.’
‘Do you still have those invitations Six saved for us from Uncle Ree’s party?’
William smiled a mischievous grin that would have raised Six’s suspicions if she’d seen it.
‘They’re under my bed.’ It was the usual place for most of Cecilia’s treasures.
‘What are you going to do with them?’
William winked and tapped his head with his forefinger. ‘Don’t worry, Cee-Cee. I’ve got a plan. We’re not just children, we’re smart children.’
*
‘It’s her, sir,’ Digby confirmed. ‘I followed them to the exhibition hall and back.
She looked just like that picture you showed me.’ He leaned back in one of Grillon’s leather lobby chairs.
Wildeham grinned triumphantly. Like a spider, he’d waited patiently, slowly gathering his information,
methodically spinning his web, eliminating options until everything had narrowed down to this final manoeuvre. He knew most of it now; she’d assumed the name Maura Caulfield, her mother’s maiden name, and cleverly a different one than the one that crafty vixen had signed in the coaching ledger. Even if someone had remembered her arrival, it would have done little good. ‘Ellen Treywick’ had simply vanished. Now he just had to pounce.
The question to settle before that long-anticipated moment happened was what role did Riordan Barrett play in all this? As a dissolute rake with problems aplenty of his own, would he let Maura go, happy to wash his hands of the little traitor?
Acton didn’t think Barrett would like knowing a fraud was working under his roof. On the other hand, if the scandal sheets were to be believed, Maura might mean something more to him. Would he try to protect her?
If he did, Acton had leverage. He’d learned all about Barrett’s situation, how he was desperately trying to hang on to his brother’s wards. Surely if he knew about Maura’s deceit, he would understand how damaging it would be if that information found its way to Vale. Acton rubbed his hands together. It was just like a chess game. There was no way out for Maura now.
‘What next, sir?’ Digby asked.
Acton grinned. ‘Checkmate, Digby.’
Chapter Seventeen
Riordan set down the note from Baron Hesperly and pushed back from his desk.
He’d much rather be upstairs in his studio, working on his painting of Maura.
Much of it was being done from sketches and memory since she refused to sit for him, and had in fact done a good job of avoiding him since...since the night they’d made love. He’d seen her, of course, but always with the children. There’d been no time to b
e alone.
There. He’d said it. Not ‘had sex’ but ‘made love’. Maura had become precious to him and now he was about to give her to another. Was that what people did with precious things? Give them away? Was he giving Maura away or was he keeping her safe? He had no reason to believe she’d fail to charm Hesperly, and Hesperly would be good to her.
Hesperly was willing to call on her, willing to be charmed. The baron had written to say he was thankful for Riordan’s ‘clarification’ of Maura’s situation.
He’d been enchanted by her at dinner and a million other poetic adjectives. His note had run over with them. Riordan would have laughed at the man’s excessive sentiment if he hadn’t agreed with it wholeheartedly.
Riordan reached for another letter. His hand stalled on a carefully penned square of heavy paper. He did recognise it: a left-over invitation from the dinner party. He’d know Maura’s writing anywhere, firm but loopy and definitely feminine. It was an odd item to find in his mail given the party had passed. Then he noticed the scratched-out date and time replaced with an awkwardly scrawled single word: tonight.
It didn’t look like Maura’s precise penmanship, but the word was tiny and that might account for its less-than-perfect nature. A knock at the study door interrupted his scrutiny. Riordan answered, ‘Come’, and slid the note beneath his blotter.
‘Uncle Ree?’ William poked his head in.
Riordan smiled. ‘Come in. What are you doing out of the nursery?’
‘I stole away for just a moment.’ William looked over his shoulder guiltily.
Riordan laughed. ‘I wanted to talk to you.’
‘Well then, you had better come over here and tell me what’s on your mind.’
‘Your marriage, sir.’
Of all the things Riordan thought William would want to discuss, this had not been one of them. Perhaps it should have been considering Cecilia’s outburst at the zoo. He needed to give the children more credit. ‘I’m not married, not even engaged, Will.’ Riordan frowned. It wasn’t for lack of trying.
How to Sin Successfully (Rakes Beyond Redemption) Page 15