“Of course. We will find the best,” the barrister says.
Oliver pokes at his food, brow wrinkled in concentration. “But getting Groat and Corbin in the same place at the same time will take a fair bit of cunning. Miss Lee and I already contrived a meeting between Corbin and Magistrate Hunter. I don’t think either of them will be too keen to accept another suspicious invitation.”
“I know Hunter. He is a good man with a guileless mind, one who wouldn’t suspect anything untoward about another solicitation.”
Despite the barrister’s optimism, I frown. The fiasco of earlier in the day barrels back with a wave of fresh danger. Thank God that waiter stopped me from making a groundless accusation. But Oliver is right. There is no way the cunning Ambrose Corbin will accept another curious invitation. I bite a forkful of flaky fish and, while chewing, mull on several possibilities—and then it hits me.
I set down my fork. “What if Mr. Corbin wasn’t the one to be invited but did the inviting?”
Mrs. Corbin stops fiddling with the gold ring and looks up. “What do you mean?”
The barrister frowns. “I couldn’t get Ambrose to grant me a five-minute conversation. How will you manage to persuade him to meet with Magistrate Hunter and Mr. Groat at the same time?”
“Just as you managed to get Mrs. Corbin here. A dinner party.” I shift my gaze back to Mrs. Corbin. “Do you think you could arrange that? Host an event for which you draw up the guest list, invite a crowd, amongst whom will be Mr. Groat and Magistrate Hunter?”
“I suppose that could work.” Her pale eyes seek out the barrister’s and her shoulders rise a bit. She is still the same frail woman in sky-blue silk, but a fresh measure of strength lifts her chin as she angles it at me. “But I think I can do you one better, Miss Lee. It seems fitting to me that we re-create the night the jewels were stolen in the first place.”
Re-create? Fling the door wide to memories I’d locked deep inside? I shake my head. “No, I don’t—that’s not at all what I meant.”
But Mrs. Corbin grips on to the idea and the loose ring on her finger as if both are her salvation—as if I am her salvation. “I know it will be taxing, but don’t you see? A dinner party with a surprise performance by you, Miss Lee, will be just the thing. The perfect distraction.”
The fish in my stomach flips. No. Absolutely not. I cannot willingly relive that night of horror. “I really couldn’t.”
Oliver shoves away his plate. “You cannot seriously expect Miss Lee to walk into such danger. No offense, Mrs. Corbin, but your husband’s threats drove Miss Lee away in the first place. I will not see her pressured all over again.”
“Nor will she be, not by Ambrose.” The barrister nods at us each in turn as he speaks. “With all of us in attendance, she’ll never have a moment alone with the man.” Then he looks directly at me, steely confidence in the set of his jaw. “I assure you, Miss Lee, your safety is of the utmost importance.”
“We’ll make sure of it, my dear,” Mrs. Corbin adds.
I bite my lip, appetite completely gone. I’ve battled preperformance jitters before, but the churning in my belly is like nothing I’ve experienced. Can I really do this? Should I?
I peek at Oliver, whose eyes consume mine, and angst for myself fades in the next rising worry that nearly drowns me. What of him? What of his innocence? Even if I do pull off a stellar performance, what if Constable Barrow catches up with him before the evening is through?
I snap my gaze to Oliver’s father. “Oliver is a hunted man. It’s not safe for him to be seen in public.”
The barrister opens his mouth to speak, but it is Oliver’s voice that fills the room. “It’s a risk worth taking if justice is served—and I will see it served, danger or not.”
I don’t know if Oliver sees it, but pride shines in his father’s eyes. Could it be he is not the monster Oliver makes him out to be?
“I’m sure among the four of us we can think of some way to disguise you, Son. So then, it is settled.” The barrister’s gaze drifts to Mrs. Corbin. “Can you manage the affair in a week, or shall you need two?”
“Ambrose is currently home on leave to tend to some pressing business matter before Parliament reconvenes, and then he’ll be gone again. It will have to be next Friday evening, but yes, I think I can manage.”
That’s only six days, and I’m supposed to meet with Mr. Groat in two. How on earth will I put him off? Still, this whole thing might work in my favor. I face Mrs. Corbin. “Do you think you could have the invitations drawn up and one given to me in two days?”
She hesitates, lips pursing for a moment. “Yes,” she finally agrees. “But why? As the star performer, you won’t need one to get in, you know.”
“It’s not for me. Have it addressed to Mr. Groat. I will deliver it to him myself.”
“Are you out of your mind?” Oliver’s voice strangles.
I smile. “Perhaps we all are, a little bit, to pull off this grand scheme.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Grasping the crisp invitation addressed to my manager, I stride out the front door of the barrister’s home and approach a waiting carriage. Oliver tags my heels, grumbling. He’s been protesting the past two days. His doubts are born of concern for my safety, and that both warms my heart and saddens me. Would that my father had cared as much. Though I’ve forgiven him for sending me off at a tender age with a conniving man who promised him riches, I still wish he hadn’t. I wish he had cared enough to keep me close.
“I don’t like this,” Oliver growls behind me.
I don’t either, but there’s nothing to be done. The loathsome task must be performed. Hesitating at the side of the coach, I pluck at my reticule strings. Should I simply climb in and shut the door to Oliver’s objections? Or tarry and have yet one more conversation that will hopefully ease his mind?
“Maggie, please. Reconsider. Let one of my father’s men do it.”
The haunting coo of a wood pigeon echoes from a copse of ash trees not far off. Another answers. A mournful exchange, earnest in its doleful sound, one that oddly gives incentive to try to communicate peace to Oliver.
Slowly, I turn and face him. “We’ve been over this. If I do not show up at the appointed time and place, Mr. Groat will hunt me down as doggedly as Constable Barrow pursues you, and that is no way to live, is it?”
He says nothing, but a vein pulses at his temple, giving away that my words have hit their mark.
A late-April breeze stirs, flopping a piece of Oliver’s dark hair into his eyes. He tosses his head like a horse, flipping it away. “If anything happens to you, I…” He grimaces and shakes his head. “I won’t be contained, and then I really will be guilty of a crime and sent back to Dartmoor.”
His protectiveness wraps around me like a warm embrace. “I appreciate your concern, truly I do, but your father already has men in place to safeguard me should Mr. Groat try anything.”
“They won’t be close enough if he strikes you again.” Something like sorrow tugs down the corners of his mouth, and he reaches to caress the curve of my cheek.
Unbidden, I lean into his touch. The heat of his bare palm against my skin surges through me, down to my toes. It’s a startling feeling. Altogether dangerous and wildly addictive. My own traitorous hand rises to press against his, and I tell myself it is merely to reassure this man who’s been through so much in the past nine months. But that’s a lie. I want to feel his strong fingers, to give in to this foreign desire urging me to know more of him in ways I’ve never experienced.
And that scares me more than any meeting with Mr. Groat.
I pull away. “The Circus lawn is a very public place. My manager knows better than to make a scene that will draw attention. Besides”—I lift my chin—“I’m not that fragile. One blow will not break me.”
Stillness spreads out from him. His throat bobs, and his words come out husky. “You are an amazing woman, Maggie Lee.”
“You’re not so bad yoursel
f.” I grin. “I’ll see you when I get back.”
He helps me into the carriage, and before he shuts the door, he pokes his head in with a last, grim-faced admonition. “Be careful.”
“I usually am.”
“Oh? Taking in a strange, bleeding man was careful?”
“Hmm, well…” He’s got a point, but even so, I shoot him a direct stare. “I think that’s turned out all right so far, don’t you?”
A smirk quirks his mouth, and he shuts the door without further retort. The carriage lurches into movement. For the rest of the ride into Bath, I smooth my skirts with increasingly moist palms. Though I’ve done my best to calm Oliver’s nerves, mine rattle as jarringly as the grind of the wheels.
The coach turns off Brock Street and onto the Circus. Three curved rows of large town houses form a circle. When I was a girl, the name always confused me, for there are no jugglers or monkeys, rope walkers or fortune tellers. It wasn’t until my father pulled his nose out of a book long enough to explain to me that in Latin circus simply means ring or circle that I finally understood.
After the driver helps me out, I raise a quick prayer for courage, then skirt the carriage and cross the road to the vast lawn at center. Several nurses follow their young charges about. One young lad kicks a ball. Two little girls skip hand in hand. On the far side, a blanket is spread out in a square, a picnic basket being unloaded by a maid in a dark skirt. To my right, a man seated on a bench lowers his newspaper and dips a discreet nod at me. On my left, another man fiddles with some leather straps on a horse at the edge of the pavement. He also makes it a point to covertly tuck his chin my way. While I am grateful the barrister hired strong men to keep watch over the transaction, my stomach sinks. Oliver is right. They are not nearly close enough to rush to my defense should Mr. Groat turn violent.
Shoving aside the unsettling thought, I scan the area for my manager. Not far in front of me, Mr. Groat perches on a bench like a magpie peering about for something shiny to peck. The oily sheen of his black dress coat pulls in light and bounces it back.
As I approach, he rises, hand outstretched. “Let’s have it.”
I set a creamy white envelope on his palm.
“What’s this?” Scowling, he rips it open, then jerks his face up to mine. “Where is the necklace?”
My heart hammers, and I swallow down a rising fear. “Safe.”
“You’re not.” His dark brows sink, slashing an angry line below his hat. He advances.
I shoot up my hand, warding him off and stopping my guardians. There’s no sense in creating a spectacle if I can talk my way out of this. “You will have the necklace the night of that party.” I nod towards the invitation. “And in exchange, you will introduce me before I sing, announcing that I am now a free agent, under no further contractual obligations to you or anyone else. Then—and only then—will I slip the rubies into your pocket.”
He bares his teeth in a sickly smile and starts clapping, the white paper flapping with the movement. The noise turns the head of the boy with the ball.
“Well, well. That was quite a performance, Miss Lee. Perhaps I trained you too well.” His hands drop. So does his grin. “Got yourself a backbone while you were gone, hmm?”
Mouth suddenly dry, I lick my lips, fighting the urge to summon one of the hired men. “It’s a fair exchange. A business deal, that’s all. I get my freedom. You get your valuables. We both walk away with what we want.”
“I want it now.” With a quick twitchy move, he shoves the invitation into his pocket and pulls out the ice pick. Low and close to his side as it is, no one glancing our way will know the weapon is pointed at my belly, not even my guardians. My pulse thrums wildly in my ears. I shoot a panicked look at the closest hired man, but just then a breeze lifts the paper he’s used as cover and blocks his vision.
Panic tastes sour at the back of my mouth, but I ignore it and stiffen my shoulders. Fear is an aphrodisiac that will attract Mr. Groat instead of repelling him. “If you kill me now, you’ll never see those jewels again.”
His dark gaze bores into one of my eyes, then the other, probing in a way that crawls under my skin like tiny worms. I stifle a shiver.
“All right.” He smiles and retreats a step.
My heart stutters to restart. Tension drains away.
Then Mr. Groat lunges, slicing the ice pick across my arm as he stalks past me. The sharpened tip tears open fabric and flesh. I grab the wound, a cry strangling in my throat, and both hired men rise and dash my way.
But it is too late. Mr. Groat casts a gloating look over his shoulder as he strides towards a waiting carriage. “Just a little reminder for you, Daisy. Public or not, I will have my way. See you Friday night. Oh and you might want to wear a long-sleeved gown to the event.”
Sebastian took a last drag on his cigarillo then dropped it to the ground and crushed it with his heel before swinging up onto his horse. He’d watched the meeting between Groat and Daisy Lee from a distance, like God. Keeping an eye on matters. Passing righteous judgment on the pair. The woman clearly needed discipline for her usurpation over man, as evidenced by the jaunty step with which she’d approached Groat and the stiff-necked way she held her shoulders. Groat, on the other hand, had crossed a line and needed to be put back in his own place. Intimidation of a woman to remind her of her subordination was one thing. Drawing blood another.
Clicking his tongue, Sebastian nudged his horse into motion and followed the woman’s carriage at a distance, old rage surging up, and for one moment he was standing again over a dead man with a gun in his hand. It’d been a terrible bloodshed, but what man could stand by and watch his younger sister ravished?
His horse shook his head uneasily, jarring Sebastian back to the present. He blew out a breath and glanced up at the guileless blue sky. How much more justice would he be required to mete out before his own sin was atoned for? If he nabbed Ward, would he finally earn back God’s favor? He scrubbed a hand over his face, and then froze as another thought struck him. In meting out God’s judgment, attempting to compensate for his own evil, had he crossed a line like Groat? And if so, then how would he ever mend his relationship with his Creator? The thoughts nagged him all the way as the carriage left behind the city proper and ventured farther into the country.
A mile later, the coach turned off the main road onto a smaller lane, and finally swung into an estate where the gates stood wide open. Stupid owner. What was the purpose of a fortified entry if one did not close and lock it? Any manner of cutthroat or cully could enter.
He secured his horse to the side of one of the great pillars, then edged past the gates, hoofing it from tree to tree, shrub to shrub, following the gravel drive up to the manor house. Yet another security mistake. Providing this much cover for the sake of a genteel landscape was not only asking for prowlers but encouraging such trespassers.
But it gave him a great hiding spot and a view of the front entry.
Daisy Lee had already alighted from the carriage and was walking towards the door when out rushed Ward. His face contorted when he detected her injured arm. Sebastian frowned. Since when did a criminal care what happened to a woman? No, it was probably a ruse so that he could use her. Guilty men were notorious for their wiles.
Some sort of conversation ensued, but from this distance, the words were indistinguishable. Pursing his lips, Sebastian’s gaze drifted from a line of sculptured boxwoods to a wide-trunked yew, both close enough to be able to hear. But were they too close? If he were discovered too soon, Ward would flee. Better to catch the scoundrel off guard rather than the other way around.
The carriage rattled off and the dialogue intensified. Perfect timing. He crouch-ran towards the tree, just in time to hear Oliver’s heated words.
“No! I will not allow that man to torment you like this. Something has to be done. Now!”
“Oliver, please,” Miss Lee entreated. “What’s done is done. I’m hardly bleeding anymore. It is a superficial wound, noth
ing more.”
“Go in the house, Maggie.”
“Where are you going?”
“To stop Groat’s madness.”
Sebastian edged his face past the trunk. The woman’s back was to him. Ward stalked away from her, towards the stables, and called over his shoulder, “Go inside and have Foster see to your arm. I’ll be back shortly.”
A disgusted groan issued from her, yet to her credit, she obeyed. The woman dashed into the house.
Sebastian pulled out his gun. With the two separated, now was the time to strike. Still, it paid to be cautious. Snatching a convict always went better if civilians weren’t involved. Curious servants and meddling gentry somehow managed to end up getting shot. He crept from tree to tree, calculating the merits of tackling Ward now or after he emerged from the stable. Probably better to wait. Yank the blackguard off his mount and, as soon as he hit the ground, crack him in the skull with the butt of his pistol.
The stable swallowed Ward. Sebastian made his move. Five yards from the door, he ducked behind a farm wagon. Once Ward passed, he’d spring. Listening hard, he waited for the thud of horse hooves. Several minutes later, the blessed sound pounded out the door.
He cocked his gun. Crept to the edge of the wagon. Trembled with anticipation. The hooves trotted closer.
But so did heels kicking up gravel, followed by a man’s shout. “Stop right there!”
What the devil? Slowly, Sebastian peered around the corner of the wagon.
Ward glowered down at a grey-haired man who’d grabbed ahold of the headstall. “Get out of my way.”
“You never learn, do you? Acting without thinking. Impetuous and proud. You are not God to mete out justice on a whim.”
“Miss Lee’s safety is not a whim!”
“You do her a better service to remain here and follow our plan as we all agreed. Be a man of your word despite how you feel. All of this will be settled in a matter of days. Stay the course.”
The House at the End of the Moor Page 21