by Regina Darcy
THREE
As he made his way home, George Devon wondered if he had been rash to invade the Oakland carriage where the sister of his target was sat. She could now warn the Marquess of Cumbershire that he was being watched.
She was his sister, and perhaps she was an affectionate sibling, even one who was devoted to her brother.
Perhaps she did not realise that he was a cad, a man whose morals were so hidden as to be invisible, one who masked his foul deeds behind an opaque tapestry of disengagement so that even the curious and prying public had no idea that he was a villain.
George knew that he had taken a great risk when he spied the Oakland carriage. But knowing that Lady Beecham was inside because her fiancé did not alter his habits a jot, he had taken advantage of the opportunity to use the carriage as a meeting place.
He had spent much of his time over the past several weeks watching Cumbershire and all connections to him. So habitual was Lord Oakland that it was quite easy to determine when Lady Beecham would be in his company. During his weeks of surveillance, George had learned that the Marquess shared company with the unsavoury characters who served as his minions, doing his bidding where the law would not discover them.
But George Devon had not reached his position as a spy for the Crown by showing reticence. Spontaneity was the mark of a man who could turn disadvantage to opportunity and so, he had pounced once that waddling oaf Oakland had taken himself off to the necessary.
George’s irreverent mind wondered whether the driver went along on these carriage stops in order to protect Lord Oakland’s dignity or to assist him in responding to the exigencies of nature.
What kind of coward left a lovely young woman alone in a carriage with no protection?
And lovely she was, George reflected as he continued walking. A countenance which was equal parts beauty and character, a remarkable poise which had not run to vapours when she found herself in the unexpected company of a complete stranger who had invaded her carriage, and the capacity, rare in the fairer sex, to keep her thoughts to herself and reveal nothing in her words. She was far too good for the likes of Lord Oakland.
It was unlikely that she loved him. More likely that she was being offered to Lord Oakland through the machinations of her brother, for whatever reason. It wasn’t as if a female could object if her guardian determined the man she was to wed. Women were mere prey in the keeping of the men who controlled them. Even a loving brother might prove a tyrant by using his sister as if she were an asset and Cumbershire, George was certain, was no loving brother.
But the fate of the lovely Lady Beecham was of no matter to him; he was in search of a killer and time was drawing short. If he failed to unmask the man who had engineered the diabolical plan to foist blame upon him. Gilberton would be without its Earl and George would be devoid of a pulse.
Evening had drifted into night time and the sky was dark overhead, but George, a pistol in the pocket of his greatcoat, a knife strapped inside his boot, and his own fists ready, was not fearful although travelling alone in London was not recommended. He would see to his own protection if it came to that, and in the meantime, he appreciated the time by himself, where he could think, adding up the clues that he had unearthed in this life-or-death puzzle.
He had already made his way through the other names on the list from the Prince Regent. Adhering to his own meticulous practices, he had investigated each one in detail, determining their vulnerabilities, their debts, their loyalties, until he could decipher their intentions and their likely discrepancies.
His study had revealed that, while the names on the list belonged to men who could easily be urged into misdeeds, they had not been party to the murder of Dalton or the peculiar actions which had laid blame for the crime at the Earl of Gilberton’s feet.
For the Marquess of Cumbershire had his own reasons for hating George. The man’s own vanity and envy had polluted his reason. He was intellectually brilliant, having earned multiple degrees during his time at Oxford in less time than it took most students to earn one.
He and George had pursued the same established path for sons of the peerage, going away to Eton and then to Oxford, but George had left his studies at the age of eighteen to pursue a naval career. As the then third son, his prospects depended upon his own determination and he had thought that the military might suit him. He had always been devoted to the sea and serving in the Royal Navy seemed to be the likely future for him. He had risen quickly in rank.
Quicker than Rowland Beecham who had inexplicably followed George’s example to become an officer in the fleet. But whereas Cumbershire had surpassed George in academic pursuits, George’s brilliant actions upon the sea had earned him the regard of his superiors. It was then, after he had managed to avoid capture during an escapade in India, that he had attracted the attention of the Crown.
Cumbershire had been called home to England in order to take up his duties as Marquess following the deaths of his parents and to fulfil his duties as the guardian of his sister. He had shepherded her through four seasons in London but she had not found a husband, although there had been, George recalled, ample suitors for her hand. Strange that a woman would be so deliberate in her actions, refusing the swains who sought her hand.
She must have had her own reasons, George surmised, but surely it could not be because of a preference for the stout, wooden-headed Lord Oakland. Those fascinating eyes had shown far too much intelligence for her to be enamoured of a man known in the highest circles for his abject inability to entertain an original thought.
It seemed that all men were vulnerable to the allure of the Crown, George reflected philosophically.
When he had been called back to England in order to serve at the pleasure of the Prince Regent, who had found his name, his reputation, and even his right to the throne called into question as a result of his indulgences. George had responded to the urgency of the royal dilemma and had resolved that crisis before it reached the ears of the Prince Regent’s enemies in Parliament.
The Prince Regent, however, was a poor student of his own folly and when he had once again been at risk of exposure for his indiscretions, he had hesitated: should he call upon the man who had already rescued him from peril but who, because of what he knew about the Prince Regent, was in a position to benefit from the knowledge? Or should he call upon the Marquess of Cumbershire, who was an impressive, if unbending, member of the peerage?
Cumbershire wanted the assignment, George knew. He wanted it for the potential power it would have given him over the Prince Regent and he wanted it because he wanted the renown that service to the Crown gave.
Those discreet and self-effacing members of the inner circle who protected the royal family knew all and they knew who were the ones that could be called upon to serve without betraying the confidence of the Crown.
Ultimately, the Prince Regent had called upon the Earl of Gilberton to rescue him, and he had not failed him. So here he was, George thought bitterly, striving to save his life from a malicious campaign to destroy his reputation and see him hanged.
His investigations had exonerated all suspects but the last man on the list, the Marquess of Cumbershire. As George has suspected that they would, for it was Rowland Beecham who consorted with the thugs and dregs of England’s criminal class.
Most men sought to limit contact with those ruffians who could draw a blade across an undefended throat with as little emotion as they would have displayed at skinning a deer they had hunted for food. Not Cumbershire. In fact, despite his title and family heritage, Cumbershire seemed to be entirely in his element when in the company of such foul comrades.
George knew this because his work, which sought to draw back the veil of concealment of the grotesque acts which typified London’s underworld, exposed the secrets of those who depended upon the shadows of the dark. He knew which members of the peerage were indebted to the usurers who occupied the gaming halls. He knew which lords and ladies had their reputation
s held hostage for lust and were at the mercy of blackmailers. He knew which masters of the dark world pulled the puppet strings from below the horizon of respectable England.
But Cumbershire knew as much as well. And Cumbershire was at home among the denizens of the pits of crime and sin, no matter how sternly he maintained his image as an upright man of unyielding character. He wanted power, hungered for it in fact, and such appetites made him dangerous.
It was well after dark by the time George reached his home. The house was dark; Hawkins had been told not to wait up for the Earl’s return and Great Aunt Elspeth, accustomed to her great-nephew’s habits if not pleased with them, had retired for the night. George, using the shadows of the hour as cover, circled his residence to make sure that all the doors were locked and there was no means of entry except by key. He trusted the servants to fulfil his orders, but he trusted his own evidence better.
Using his key, George let himself in and went straight to his room. He had instructed his valet not to wait up for him, but the doggedly faithful manservant, who knew of his master’s labour for the Crown and endured many an anxious night as a result of what he knew, was seated by the door to George’s bedchamber.
“You ought to be abed by now, Hillard,” George said, his reprimand indulgent rather than critical.
“Aye, sir, but you wasn’t back yet.”
What Sebastian Hillard lacked in polish, he made up for in attentiveness and resourcefulness.
“As you see, I am back now.”
“And? Any luck?” For Hillard knew of his master’s predicament and was engaged on his own and in the utmost stealth, with finding out all that he knew of the Marquess of Cumbershire’s pursuits. As an ex-sailor who had sailed with a pirate crew before he had joined the Royal Navy, Hillard did not lack for options to obtain information. There was not a dock in London which had a ship which sported a crew which didn’t include a navy-man that had known Sebastian Hillard in less exalted days before he became a gentleman’s gentleman.
Inside his bedchamber, George sat down and allowed Hillard to remove his boots.
“None except my own certainty that he is my enemy. And that is not, you will agree, news to either me or you.”
“Is there nought that you can find to pin the blame where it belongs?”
George sighed. The day had been a long one, his efforts demanding, and he was tired. It was good to be home and preparing to retire for the night in his own bed. But those nights were numbered, for if he failed to identify the man who plotted against him, he would be spending the remaining nights of his life behind the bars of Newgate.
“Not yet,” he said. “But the night was not without its merit.”
Hillard, squatting on the floor with one of George’s boots in hand, tilted his head.
“Pretty, was she?” he asked knowingly.
“Very pretty. And we shall see if she is as curious as she is pretty,” he said with a wistful smile. “My dear Hillard, should a lovely young lady arrive here and present my card, you are to bring her to me at once, making all effort to avoid the attention of my great aunt. If I am not at home, you are to bring her to my study, where Great Aunt Elspeth never goes. Offer her refreshment and all due respect, for she may be, if I am fortunate, the solution to our predicament.”
“This young lady of whom you speak, my lord . . . has she a name that you might share? In case there are other pretty young ladies who seek you?”
George, despite being tired, mustered a smile at his valet’s unique tact. “There are no other young ladies such as she, Hillard,” he assured him. “She is the sister of the Marquess of Cumbershire.”
Hillard whistled in awe. “His sister? What makes milord think she will come to his rescue?”
“She has the most exquisite eyes I have ever seen.”
Hillard snorted. “Seems a right odd reason to place your trust in her and your head in the mouth of the lion, begging your lordship’s leave for saying so.”
“Actually, my head for a brief time rested in her lap. Very brief,” he said quickly as Hillard’s eyes widened. “Only in transit and not, alas, by invitation.” Though he’d lay odds that Lady Beecham, although undoubtedly a young maiden of virtue and rectitude, was no thin-blooded spinster who would shrink from the embrace of a man, once she’d given her heart to him.
But that was not an item for his current agenda. He needed an ally that he could trust, one with knowledge and courage. And passion, if he dare say so.
As he made his preparations for bed, Hillard having gone off with George’s mud-spattered boots to clean, he wondered what inspired this sense of alliance with a young woman who was entirely unknown to him except for this chance encounter?
Was it the quickening of his own flesh as he took advantage of her position to spy upon her brother’s activities, without the young lady even knowing what he was doing? George trusted his instincts and something intuitive told him that Lady Beecham was no ninny.
But would she take him up on his invitation to call upon him? It was not something which young ladies did. He hoped that he had whetted her curiosity with his reference, less than complimentary, to her brother. The risk lay in whether or not she would go to her brother and reveal the episode. His instinct told him that she would not.
He knew more of Lady Beecham than she guessed, but that knowledge came about because of his familiarity with her secrets. Secrets which were intended to remain cloaked in ignorance.
He had heard, through the very fertile grapevine from which he devoured the hints and clues that nourished his craft, that the splendidly voluptuous Lady Beecham—not all his knowledge, it was true, came from intuition; this nugget came from the proximity of her body to his in the carriage.
She was remarkably beautiful. Her feminine attributes revealed themselves in a glorious coiffure of dark brown ringlets, and long-lashed riveting eyes of such a dark shade of blue that he could not recall ever having seen their like.
Another, decidedly unfeminine attribute to which she laid claim, was Monsieur Francois de Bois, a supposed gentleman who espoused political viewpoints in newspapers which were regarded in some quarters as quite radical.
What was it, George wondered, that made a well-bred young lady seek a form of expression so unexpected?
Was it that knowledge that had incited his eagerness to barge into her carriage? He had found himself responding to her proximity in a most ungentlemanly way as he rested against the lush curves of her anatomy. She was not a woman whose attributes were masked or enhanced by the hidden arbiters of the female form. That much he had easily ascertained, even though she was wearing a pelisse over her gown.
Why would such a woman consent to bind herself to a teeming tub of lard such as Lord John Oakland?
George pulled on his dressing gown and sat in front of the fire. The house was entirely still, as if nothing were out of sorts and it had nothing to fear from the unknown. He was not yet desperate, but neither was he confident. He was suspended between the hope that a young woman would become an ally, and the dread that she would, after all, prove to be no more than the sister of the Marquess of Cumbershire and entirely at her brother’s bidding.
His intuition told him otherwise. His intuition told him that she was not marrying Oakland by choice, but by fraternal edict. He trusted his intuition; indeed, there had been times when he had entirely depended upon it. Perhaps this was one of those times.
How soon would she follow up on his rather rakish invitation and come to him? Hillard, he knew, could be trusted to ensure that if she did come—when she came, George corrected himself, not if, but when she came—she would be safely ensconced in his study where no one, not even the supernaturally inquisitive Great Aunt Elspeth could be aware of her presence. For if she was to be an ally in his quest to expose the perfidy of her own brother, she must at all costs be kept safe. There was no telling to what ends Cumbershire might go in order to exact his revenge on anyone who kept him from seeing the Earl of Gilberto
n accused and hanged for a murder he had not committed.
Standing, George put out the embers in the dying fire before returning to his bed. His concern in the lovely Lady Beecham was entirely a matter of self-interest, he assured himself as he pulled the bed-curtains close, leaving them open only a fraction so that he could see out of them, should someone manage to enter the residence for any ill-divined purpose and seek to do him harm in his own bedchamber. There were entirely too many people, he realised, who would rest more easily if he were dead. He intended to prevent them from sleeping peacefully while he was still alive and breathing. Hopefully the delectable Lady Beecham would help him do just that.
FOUR
Frederica was loyally served by her maid, Carla Sweets, who would do whatever was asked of her, even when the request was to find a way for her to make an unannounced visit to a gentlemen in the middle of the night.
Carla, who was careful to conceal her distrust of the Marquess lest he dismiss her from Lady Frederica’s service, had no difficulty enlisting the footman’s assistance in the plan. Sam Duncan was an enterprising young man who was in love with Carla.
“You just see, ma’am, Sam will take care of it for us. He’ll get us there, you’ll see.”
“But no one in the household must know that we are leaving,” Frederica fretted. She was surely mad to be engaged on such a preposterous mission, all because a stranger had accused her brother of what could not possibly be true. Could it?
“The Marquess will never know, ma’am,” Carla assured her, having learned from Sam, who had learned from Hawkins, that Rowland Beecham had plans for the evening which would take him from his household overnight.
It was not her place, Carla knew, to inform her mistress of the Marquess’ hidden dealings, but she had Sam’s knowledge to fortify her and she wanted to protect Lady Frederica, the kindest and most honourable of ladies, from her brother. Therefore, when her mistress explained her plan and the reasons for it, as well as the rather unsettling circumstances which had brought her to this moment, Carla set to work.