An Unexpected Earl

by Anna Harrington

  “Did he hire them?” Varnham gave her another pitying look, this one so grave that his lips tightened into a thin line. “How do you know?”

  Stop looking at me like that! She certainly deserved to be pitied, but not for what he was claiming. Because it wasn’t true. None of it! It simply couldn’t be.

  Because if it was, then the last seven years had been nothing but a horrible, humiliating lie.

  “That’s what I used to blackmail your brother. Not any of those charges that Charles had him arrested for, but what he did to you. You alone have the power to destroy him, his spinster younger sister.” A chuckle rose on his lips. “Your brother’s more frightened of you than he is of any accusations of political corruption.” He smiled tightly as he slumped against the compartment wall in a casual posture that belied the monster beneath. “Now, don’t you feel like a fool for trying to save your brother, when you’re the last thing in the world he cares about?”

  She pulled in a deep breath of fierce resolve to keep from spilling tears. She refused to give him the satisfaction of seeing them.

  “You shouldn’t feel ashamed for believing his lies. After all, you’re certainly not the first woman who’s had her fortune swindled away by a male relative. It’s just that your brother did it with so much more flair.”

  The smile of admiration that curled on his lips twisted her insides, and she swallowed, hard, to keep from casting up her accounts. He was a monster.

  Apparently so was Frederick.

  “Your brother has spine, I have to say,” he muttered to himself. “If his scheming wasn’t solely directed at his own gain, he might have been a valuable asset to acquire within our ranks.”

  “You mean Scepter?” she challenged, fighting to keep the quavering from her voice. As if a veil of fog had been lifted, she saw how all the pieces fit together now…her marriage, the trust, Scepter.

  His expression darkened to a chilling hardness. He returned her gaze for a long moment, then he began to drum his fingers against his thigh where he rested his hand. She could feel the tension radiating from him with every rotation of the carriage wheels beneath them.

  “My brother has caused problems for me by having yours arrested,” he told her quietly. “That wasn’t at all part of my plan. I honestly did want to arrive in time to stop it.”

  He tugged at his neckcloth, untying the disheveled knot that he’d put there himself before he arrived home. Or by the woman he’d been with…the woman whose presence had convinced her to step inside the carriage with him. Fresh fear licked at the base of her spine. Not his cousin. A lure.

  She glanced out the window. The carriage was headed in the wrong direction for Westminster, traveling east instead.

  “Howard’s useless to me now,” he muttered, almost to himself, letting the neckcloth dangle undone around his neck. “But there’s someone else of value whom I can use to put those last three men into place.”

  She held her terrified breath. “Who?”

  “Lord Sandhurst. I’m certain he can be convinced to push through the trust in the next few days before Parliament’s session ends.”

  “He won’t.” Of that, she was certain. She doubted Frederick and everything he’d told her, doubted her father and all of Papa’s concern for her—but she would never doubt Pearce again.

  “Oh, I think he will.” Varnham rubbed the tight muscles at his nape. When he pulled his hand away, he slipped off the unwanted neckcloth. “After all, I have a way to make certain of it.”

  “What is that?”

  “You.” He lunged for her.

  Twenty-four

  Pearce strode into the Armory, not caring that the iron door rattled so loudly in his wake that it jarred bones all the way to Cheapside.

  Merritt glanced up from the billiards table, remaining bent over the table as he lined up his shot. For once, he and Clayton Elliott were battling it out over billiards instead of with swords. Which could only mean one thing—

  Marcus Braddock was here. Thank God.

  “General!” Pearce’s shout echoed off the stone walls of the old building and caught Merritt and Clayton’s attention. Enough that the two men interrupted their game, waiting for an explanation.

  “What is it?” Marcus stepped out of the training room, unwinding a long piece of cloth from his left hand. He wore only a pair of breeches and the cloth that protected his knuckles from cuts and bruises when he pounded them into the bags he used to keep his fighting edge. The sheen of sweat that glistened across his bare chest, shoulders, and arms gave testimony to how hard he’d been training. And how much of a threat he believed Scepter to be.

  Pearce grimaced. “I have news to report.”

  Clayton and Merritt exchanged troubled glances. They’d parted from him that morning just as dawn was breaking over the city and just after he’d gladly left the Hellfire club, when he’d shared with them what he’d learned, including a detailed description of the other three trustees. True to his word, Howard had introduced him to them, right after dinner and right before a dozen new nuns had descended into the underworld. After that, the meeting deteriorated into little more than an orgy. Feast of Venus, indeed.

  Pearce had barely gotten two hours’ sleep when he was roused from bed by McTavish, with a note from Amelia delivered by her maid.

  “Frederick Howard’s been arrested,” he informed all three men, instantly claiming their complete attention.

  While they all stared at him silently, absorbing that information, he helped himself to a glass of cognac from the sideboard. One he desperately needed.

  “I spent all morning trying to get him released. Nothing worked. He’s still in the New Prison.” Pearce splashed out the golden liquid, then put the stopper back into the crystal bottle with a small clink. “Sir Charles Varnham is determined not only to strip Howard of his seat in Parliament but also to see him either put into prison permanently or transported. I argued with him for two hours.”

  He’d lingered so long with the man only because Amelia’s note said she was going to Westminster to confront him, and he wanted to be there when she arrived. But she never came. When he’d gone to the town house after her, Drummond informed him that she hadn’t yet returned. Most likely because she’d gone to the Inns of Court, desperate to hire a lawyer to defend a brother who didn’t deserve it.

  Pearce tossed back a large swallow and welcomed the burn down his throat. “Varnham refuses to rescind the charges.”

  Marcus said nothing as he shrugged into the shirt he’d left lying over the back of one of the leather sofas. If Howard had been anyone else, Pearce knew, the general might have offered to speak to Varnham himself and leverage his newfound ducal influence, if only for Amelia’s sake. But not when Howard’s connection to Scepter was still unknown.

  “But those charges have nothing to do with how Howard was blackmailed,” Pearce added. “I’m certain of it.”

  “Coincidence?” Clayton laid down his cue and came forward.

  Pearce shrugged. “When you do as many illegal things as Howard, it’s only a matter of time until you get caught.” He dropped heavily onto a nearby settee. “I believe Varnham when he said that he’s pressing charges because he wants to rout out corruption in Parliament, that he discovered Howard’s illegal activities on his own. I don’t think he has anything to do with blackmail or even knew that it was happening.”

  But his brother was a different matter.

  Pearce frowned into his glass. How many men in those chambers last night belonged to Scepter? And where did Arthur Varnham fit into this?

  “We can’t allow Frederick Howard to be put on trial,” Marcus said quietly as he fetched the decanter of cognac and a glass for himself. “If Howard testifies, he’ll try to use the blackmail as justification for his actions.”

  “It’s the only viable defense he’ll have in the courtroom,” Merr
itt agreed. “But he’s damned if he does, damned if he doesn’t, because that defense will also bring to light all the illegal things he’s done.”

  “Potentially exposing his connection to Scepter in the process.” Marcus grimly filled his glass and set the decanter on the low table between the men. “So he either won’t say anything, in which case we’re right back where we started with no leads or new information—”

  “Or he tells everything he knows, including about Scepter,” Pearce interjected, “and we’ll lose our advantage on them.”

  “I can’t officially be part of this conversation,” Clayton reminded them, taking a seat across from Pearce. “If Howard’s committed crimes against the government, I’ll have to notify the Home Office.”

  “And unofficially?” Merritt countered as he flopped onto the sofa next to Clayton.

  “I’ll do everything I can to keep Howard from testifying,” he muttered, “including breaking him out of gaol myself, if necessary.”

  “I don’t think we’ll need to worry about that.” Merritt passed up the cognac for one of the green apples piled in a bowl on the table. “As soon as Scepter learns that he plans on testifying, they’ll make certain he can’t implicate them.” He shined the apple on his jacket sleeve. “He’ll be found dead in his cell by morning.”

  Pearce couldn’t let that happen. Amelia would be devastated. For all that her brother was a criminal, she was still dedicated to him. “We have to find a way to get him to safety before Scepter gets to him first.”

  “Agreed. And make him tell us what he knows.” Marcus swirled the cognac in his glass. “But how?”

  “Too bad the prison can’t burn down,” Clayton mused. “He could conveniently escape in the confusion.”

  Pearce added with a touch of sarcasm, “Where’s a good riot when you need one?”

  A beat of silence, then—

  “I can get us a riot,” Merritt said casually, kicking his feet onto the table and biting into the apple. “How big do you need it to be?”

  All three men turned their heads to stare at him. And blinked.

  He paused midchew to mumble around the bite of apple, “What?”

  Clayton looked at him as if he’d just sprouted a second head. “What exactly is it that you do at night when you’re not here?”

  Merritt grinned and sank his teeth into the apple for a second bite.

  The iron hinges of the outer courtyard door screeched, followed seconds later by the bang of the inner door as it opened. All four men jumped to their feet, with Merritt reaching for the knife in his sleeve and Clayton for the pistol beneath his jacket.

  “Brigadier!” The shout echoed from the short entry hall.

  Merritt and Clayton both dropped their hands away from their weapons, the sudden tension in their bodies vanishing.

  McTavish hurried into the main room and halted, then stared in surprise at the transformed old building.

  “Bloody hell,” he spat out and turned completely around in a circle to take in the octagonal room around him. “What is this place?” Then his gaze fell on the men, and he snapped to attention. “Sirs!”

  “At ease, McTavish,” Pearce ordered. Unease settled like a weight onto his chest. “Why are you here?”

  “This arrived at the house.” He held out a sealed note. “The delivery boy said it was urgent. So I came looking for you.” He slid a cautious look at the other men before lowering his voice and adding, “Thought it might have something to do with last night’s visitor.”

  Amelia. Pearce hadn’t seen her yet, but he was certain she’d been at the prison attempting to free her brother or at the Inns of Court hiring lawyers. He’d wanted to talk to Charles Varnham before he talked to her so that he would have good news for her when he did. But that didn’t happen.

  “What boy?” Pearce broke the wax seal and opened the note.

  McTavish shrugged. “Just a messenger. Said a man paid him a coin to bring it to the house, then promised a second coin when he brought back proof that he’d delivered it.”

  Dread spilled through him. Street urchins were often used as anonymous messengers in the city. Their ubiquitous presence meant they largely went unnoticed, even in Mayfair. But Amelia would never have used them, instead sending her maid as she’d done that morning.

  He scanned over the masculine handwriting. And his heart stopped.

  Miss Howard is in my care. She’ll be released unharmed when Parliament passes the trust. I advise you to hurry as it’s rather difficult to feed her in her current position.

  “He’s got Amelia,” he rasped out.

  “Who?” Marcus took the note and read it.

  The message was unsigned, but Pearce knew… “Arthur Varnham.”

  Clayton read the note over Marcus’s shoulder. “Sir Charles’s brother? Why would he kidnap her?”

  “Because he still has three men from Scepter to place into government positions, and Howard can’t do it.” A murderous anger rose inside him that he had never felt before, not even in the heat of battle. “So he’s using Amelia to force me into pushing the trust through.”

  “Parliament’s session ends in less than a fortnight. The chance of passing that act now with Howard in gaol is slim at best. If it doesn’t pass—”

  “Then he’ll let her starve to death.” He took back the note and read it again, looking for any clues that would lead him to Amelia. “So we rescue her. Tonight.”

  Merritt shook his head. “Where do we start? Varnham could be holding her anywhere.”

  “I know exactly where she is.” He crumpled the note in his fist. “And when she’s safe, I’m going to kill the bastard.”

  Twenty-five

  As he waited in the dark street, Pearce hunched his shoulders against the cold drizzle that fell over London. Around him, the City slept, the ward unusually dark and quiet beneath a layer of fog that had crept up from the Thames only a few streets to the south. So dark and quiet that he could hear the steady drip of rainwater falling every few seconds off the building behind him.

  A figure dressed all in black emerged from the shadows and moved silently toward him, reminding Pearce of a panther on the prowl… Merritt.

  “All set then?” Pearce tugged at his white gloves.

  Merritt gave a curt nod, but his attention lay on the dark City, listening intently to the night around them. “Everyone’s in place.”

  “Are you certain this will work?”

  “Let’s find out.” Merritt pulled a pistol from beneath his greatcoat, pointed it into the air, and fired.

  The shot split the silence of the night like cannon fire and echoed off the old brick buildings and walls lining the narrow street. A stunned silence followed. And then the streets around them came alive.

  Out of the shadows of the narrow streets and back alleys emerged two dozen men and women carrying sticks, clubs, pikes, and torches. As they moved in the direction of Clerkenwell, only a mile or so away, they shouted into the night and swung their clubs at doors, at barrels and crates left in the streets—at anything that would make noise and rouse the city around them. More men came out of the buildings and joined in.

  “Well, would you look at that?” Merritt grinned and tossed Pearce the spent pistol, not wanting it on him if the authorities caught him. “Looks like we’ve got ourselves a riot.”

  He slapped Pearce on the back. Then he jogged off in pursuit of the mob.

  Pearce headed in the opposite direction. His boots scuffed over the uneven pavement as he headed northeast toward the edge of the City. The noise of the riot grew dimmer the further he moved away, until he was once more wrapped in the eerie quiet of the midnight fog.

  The derelict church of All Souls-on-the-Wall emerged like a ghost from the drizzle and darkness. A blanket of fog lay over its medieval churchyard, cocooning the graves and giving no sense
of life anywhere nearby.

  “The entrance to hell, all right,” he muttered to himself as he started across the forgotten graveyard toward the door.

  He paused outside the front portal to make certain no one had followed him. Then he rapped his knuckles on the wooden panel.

  The door swung open slowly to reveal the waiting monk in his brown robe.

  “Let me in,” Pearce said quietly, not certain that true demons weren’t lurking among the graves and might overhear.

  The man stepped back without a word and let him pass. The door closed after him, shutting out the night.

  Pearce made his way through the dusty church. Everything was in place just as before, right down to the same handful of lit candles flickering from the altar.

  He descended the stone steps into the crypt where a handful of white robes had been tossed over a nearby tomb. He snatched one up and approached the second monk who guarded the door to the chambers below.

  The monk made the sign of the cross.

  “Wrong way,” Pearce muttered.

  “Apologies.” Alexander Sinclair, Earl of St James, made the sign again, this time with the correct inversion.

  “As long as no one else notices.” Pearce slipped on the robe. “How many so far?”

  “Three dozen or so.”

  “Has the abbot arrived yet?”

  “Everyone’s arrived.” He added happily, “Including the nuns.”

  Pearce tied the robe and eyed him askance. “Monks are celibate, don’t forget.”

  “I thought I was supposed to do everything inverted.” He grinned, adding lasciviously, “Everything.”

  “Just wait until you see what’s for dinner. It’s a religious experience, all right.” Pearce pulled the hood down low over his face, until only his chin and jaw were visible. All teasing humor vanished. “Give me ten minutes, then blow the horn.”