True Nobility

by Lori Bates Wright

  “Where are you going?” Ian’s attention turned to his oldest brother.

  “To search for my wife.” Nicholas’s impatience was evident. “You two should get back out as well.”

  “Where do you suppose we look?” Ian crossed his arms.

  “Anywhere you haven’t already been!” Nicholas frowned.

  Ian returned the glare. “How long do you plan to continue this haphazard search?”

  Nicholas rubbed a hand across the stubble on his jaw, summoning every ounce of self-control he could muster.

  Minister or not, Ian was about to get himself taken down a peg. His insolent tongue had gotten him pounded more than once as a kid.

  “Look, just tell us where you want us to go.” Zach stepped in with both arms out to stave off any more argument. “We want Tori home. All of us.”

  “My point is, you need a plan. You can’t just go kicking down doors, hoping she’s behind one.” Ian settled one of the maps on top of the others. “If Tori and her abductor made it this far north, it was most likely by way of the river. The Thorne was the only passenger packet to come upriver since she disappeared, and I spoke with the captain last night. There were no ladies aboard.”

  Ignoring his brother’s frown, Ian continued. “I’ve questioned nearly every resident along the main road from here to Argyle Isle and the answer was the same. No one’s seen them. Zach covered the port. You’ve been down every road going out of town. And McAllister is searching the isles.” Ian traced every place he mentioned with a finger.

  The furrow deepened in Nicholas’s brow. Reluctantly, he admitted the wisdom of his brother’s reasoning. “That’s not much to go on. Unless she’s being held somewhere in the city. We need to search the surrounding farms and plantations.”

  “I doubt she’s still in the city. Think about it.” Ian narrowed an eye. “If you didn’t want her to be recognized, you’d tuck her away somewhere remote. Somewhere most people wouldn’t go.”

  Nicholas stared down at the map. The only unpopulated areas were a couple of abandoned industrial areas on the canals west of the river, an old cotton mill up near Anderson, a stretch of land going toward Montgomery, and the swamps. “Surely she wouldn’t be taken to the swamplands. It’s virtually impassable.”

  Zach pointed to a spot on the map. “Don’t forget Somersville built all new quarters last year. The outbuildings are still in disrepair. No one ever goes out there any more.”

  “Mister Nicholas, you got company waitin’ in the library.” Jonas announced from the hall.

  A surge of irritation pressed Nicholas as he tore his attention away from the map. “Who is it, Jonas?”

  “Inspector Howard, sir.”

  Nicholas navigated the short hall to find the investigator already seated, facing the Chippendale desk. “Howard? Have you new information?”

  If the inspector was surprised by his unkempt attire he didn’t let on.

  “I do indeed. “The inspector paused and Nicholas introduced him to his brothers.

  “I hear your wife has been reported missing.” His patronizing tone sounded more like an accusation.

  Nicholas sat in a leather banker’s chair on the other side of his desk. “She was taken from her aunt’s home last night while I was down at the wharf fighting the blaze.”

  “Have you any proof she didn’t leave of her own accord?”

  “One of Zach’s men is a witness.” Ian came to sit on the edge of the desk facing the inspector, taking up the conversation.

  Nicholas was of a mind to toss the detective out on his ear.

  Ian frowned as the investigator handed him a detailed report from the bank clerk.

  “A woman who called herself Victoria Haverwood was last seen at the bank at half past noon. She tried to withdraw money from the earl’s account and also from yours, Mr. Saberton. The clerk refused her request.”

  Ian stood and passed the report to Nicholas.

  A muscle in Nicholas’s jaw worked as he read what the clerk had written. “Did anyone check the signature?” No one could mimic Victoria’s flagrant V.

  The inspector produced a withdrawal form signed in chicken scratch.

  “This is not my wife’s handwriting.” Nicholas tossed the slip of paper back across the desk. A numbing tiredness threatened to overtake him.

  “So it wasn’t her.” Ian also tossed the report onto the desk. “Nothing you’ve presented is solid as far as I’m concerned.”

  The investigator was wearing on Nicholas’s nerves. It was nearly four and he was anxious to be out searching rather than listening to the man make accusations that didn’t hold water.

  “Ask your brother here. He saw her as well.” The investigator nodded to where Zach listened quietly from the other side of the library.

  Nicholas raised a questioning brow at his younger brother.

  “It was from a distance. I was all the way over on Bull Street. She burst out of the bank and started to run.”

  “So?” Ian prodded. “Was it, Tori?”

  “I don’t think so.” Zach shook his head. “It didn’t really look like her, but she was wearing that dress she wore on the ship. The blue one.”

  Ian blew out a heavy breath.

  Nicholas laid his head back on his chair, staring at the ceiling. That was the dress she’d worn to the theater last night.

  “As you know, I met Mrs. Saberton the day you brought her to my office. I also saw the young woman at the bank up close. They were indeed one and the same.”

  Nicholas thought the investigator seemed a little too pleased with himself. He had nothing but his own testimony that the woman trying to withdraw money from the bank was Victoria.

  The bank was used to dishonest people trying to withdraw funds that didn’t belong to them. It probably happened on a weekly basis. The clerk had been trained for that sort of thing and he had flatly refused her the money. He would never have risked embarrassing her unless he had no doubts she was a fraud.

  The real question was, who was she? And if she had Victoria’s dress on, where was Victoria? The possibilities caused his blood to run cold.

  “Well, I believe you’re mistaken.” Ian lifted an apple from the side table. “You’d do better to figure out who the woman really is and whether or not she has anything to do with Tori’s disappearance. Then you might have a real lead.”

  “Did it occur to you to follow her?” Nicholas directed a pointed look at the inspector. “Whether she was my wife or someone impersonating her, she should have been captured and interrogated.”

  Ian took another hard bite of his apple.

  Zach leapt to his feet, crossing the room to stand beside the desk. “I did follow her. I even called out to her and tried to cut her off at the corner of Broad Street. One second she was there. Then the big ice wagon passed, and she was gone. I asked around and no one had seen her.”

  Nicholas knew they were all bone tired and out of sorts. “We’ll find her, Zach. Whoever she is. And when we do she can straighten out Mr. Howard, here, about who he saw at the bank today.”

  “She looked terrible, Nicholas.” Zach softened his voice. “The person I saw was dirty and gaunt. Her hair was all cut off. And even though I was some distance away, she looked right past me as if she’d never seen me before. It couldn’t have been Tori.”

  “Then how would you explain these …?” Inspector Howard asked in a smug tone.

  Zach cringed as Nicholas lifted Tori’s cross from the man’s hand, followed by the diamond and sapphire brooch that he’d given her before their wedding.

  “When I followed her into the bank, I overheard her asking the clerk if he knew anyone who might be interested in buying the pieces. I asked to see them and took them from her. She became nervous and fled the building before she could be apprehended.”

  Nicholas’s mind raced. If he’d had an inkling of doubt before, he had none now. Victoria would never willingly part with her cross, nor his grandmother’s brooch. They were her most ch
erished possessions.

  “Tori isn’t capable of all you accuse her of.” Now Ian was riled. It took plenty to get his middle brother’s dander up. “Mr. Howard, for past four years I’ve attended the most prestigious seminary in the country. I believe I can discern good from evil.”

  “With all due respect, Reverend, you can’t argue with the proof—”

  Nicholas’s fist came down on the desk causing the investigator to jump. “The only proof here is that whoever had these, has Victoria.” He stood and braced his hands on the desk, leaning over the stricken investigator. “Failing to apprehend this person may have cost my wife her life. Your incompetence is inexcusable, Howard. I’d suggest you use every resource you have in your arsenal to locate that woman and get her back here before she harms one hair on my wife’s head.”

  Nicholas stormed out of the room, more intent than ever to find Victoria and bring her home.

  Tori’s eyes shot open.

  It took a minute to realize she’d dozed off. Curls around her face were wet with perspiration in the stifling heat. When she tried to sit up, pain seared her wrists against twine wrapped tightly around them.

  Still groggy, she couldn’t remember being tied up. She must have slept harder than usual.

  “Shoulda known better.” Josie was back with her dagger in hand.

  “What happened?” Tori kicked when she tried to grab her legs. Her pantalets didn’t provide much protection. “Did you see Nicholas?”

  “Why would I wanna see him?” Josie tried again to catch Tori’s kicking ankles but was too weak to put forth much effort.

  “W-was it the money?” Tori decided, the bank must have denied access to her accounts. “I can get it. Let me go, and—”

  Josie wasn’t listening. Half slumped across a bale of cotton, her cheeks were red and she was coughing too hard to speak.

  Ignoring the sting at her wrists, Tori pushed upright to lean on an elbow. There had been no reason to truss her up like a Christmas goose. If she’d wanted to escape she would have gone while the girl was in town. Surely Josie could see she was being as cooperative as she knew how. Unless they left now for wherever her father was being held, Tori feared Josie wouldn’t make it. The excursion to the bank had taken a marked toll on her failing health.

  “Josie, your cough sounds worse.” Tori tried to keep the distress from her voice. “Loosen me so I can care for you.”

  Josie wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. Tori noticed it was shaking. “I don’t need nothin’ from you. Just what’s owed me.”

  “Then I can help find whoever owes you.” Her hands were losing feeling as she tried once more to free them from the course twine.

  “I gave it a chance.” A diabolical edge to Josie’s voice caused Tori to stay quiet.

  I shoulda known you’d be just like him. Shoulda kilt you when I had a chance whether it got me my money or not.”

  “Take me to my father.” The sun was lowering. They’d need to leave soon to avoid spending another torturous night in this hovel. “He and my husband will see you are generously rewarded for helping free him. Between the two, you’d be well taken care of.”

  “Ain’t takin’ another minute of your lying English tongue.”

  Opening her mouth to speak, Tori was suddenly gagged by a filthy scarf. It chafed her face as Josie tied it around the back of her head.

  Josie convulsed in another round of coughing.

  A sinking feeling washed over Tori as it became more and more apparent that Josie had no intention of taking her to her father. Cursing the tears that blurred her vision, she watched as her captor fell silent to the squalid floor.

  O what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive.

  ~ Sir Walter Scott

  Twenty-Eight

  “Mr. Westphall’s come to see you, sir.” Jonas caught Nicholas as he was leaving out the back way.

  Pausing under the arched breezeway, Nicholas rubbed at the pounding in his head. Another delay he couldn’t afford. Unless, the lawyer had located Victoria there was nothing else he cared to discuss.

  “Nicholas.” Westphall nodded in greeting when Nicolas reentered the library. “I see it’s been a long day, so I’ll be brief.”

  Zach motioned for him to take a chair the investigator had just vacated.

  “Got the report we’ve been waiting for, Nicholas. On the Haverwood document.” Abner reached inside his black leather case for the papers he brought.

  “Just tell me this…” Nicholas settled into his chair on the other side of the desk from the family’s bespectacled attorney. “Will it lead us to Victoria? If not, it will have to wait. We’re working against every second and I have no time to waste.”

  “Possibly. The marriage certificate your wife found proved to be quite interesting. Quite legitimate as well.”

  Nicholas frowned. “How’s that possible?”

  Ian and Zach both pulled chairs closer to the desk. Straddling the seats, they also waited for the explanation.

  Zach “Go on, Abner.”

  “Well, now, the earl did indeed marry this Lucinda Martin at the courthouse in Augusta. The registers record the date as … “He adjusted his spectacles to read from his papers. “March the fifth, eighteen, and thirty-four.”

  Glancing up over the rim of his glasses, he cleared his throat before going on. “He then returned to England, and married Lady Rachelle Beauchet, your wife’s mother, two years later.”

  Zach took on a look of confusion. “How can that be? Are you saying that Lord Haverwood was a bigamist? That he had two wives?”

  The lawyer shook his head. “No. The aristocracy make an unusual provision in these rare cases, though it’s really not done much in anymore.”

  “What kind of provision?” Nicholas was too tired for guessing games.

  “The first marriage was a morganatic marriage of sorts. Meaning, a male member of a noble house could marry beneath his station provided the wife never assume his title, nor the arms or holdings that go with it. The marriage to Lucinda Martin was performed in a civil ceremony, vows made with left hands rather than right—a union the Church did not recognize as “holy matrimony.” Haverwood was free then to make a more suitable—church-recognized—marriage at sometime in the future. Marriage was quite legitimate—to both ladies.”

  “Victoria was right.” Nicholas stood and paced several times between the desk and the door. Flinging aside a tufted pillow off the sofa, he sat in its place. “I should have taken her concerns about the certificate more seriously.”

  “So we find this Lucinda Martin.” Ian held out a hand. “I’d venture if you find her, you’ll find Tori.”

  “From what I see, she’s the only one with a motive to kidnap both the earl and Tori.” Zach agreed. “An act of revenge for his leaving her. Do you think she did it, Abner?”

  “Highly unlikely.” The lawyer pulled another paper from his case, and skimmed over its contents. “Her death was recorded ten months ago.”

  The tiny spark of hope that brought Nicholas to the edge of his seat, was extinguished in an instant. Unable to sit anymore, he paced in restless circles.

  “There is another interesting addendum to this case, if you’d care to hear it.” The lawyer replaced the papers he had just finished with, taking out a contract for Nicholas’s inspection.

  Nicholas paused to look over the paper. “There was a child?”

  “Children,” the lawyer corrected. “Two of them. Therein lies your possible motive for kidnapping.”

  “I don’t understand.” Ian said taking the contract from Nicholas.

  “That contract states that Lucinda’s children, fraternal twins. One male, one female. Were excluded from their father’s inherent titles, lands, etcetera, gaining only the surname of Haverwood. Anything associated with the Wrenbrooke holdings were forbidden them. He did provide a small sum of money to be held in their mother’s name to see to their needs, but that would have easily run out by their fifth
birthday. At which time, he’d become a father again by Lady Rachelle almost to the day, and evidently chose to ignore the very existence of the other two.”

  “I can see where his return to the States might not be welcome by some.” Ian leaned forward to rest his arms on the back of the chair.

  “Precisely.” The lawyer took the contract from Ian. “And there’s more.”

  Trepidation twisted Nicholas’s stomach thinking of what Victoria might be going through at this moment.

  “There’s a clause to this addendum.” Reading once more from the contract, Mr. Westphall lifted his head to peer through his spectacles. “If upon the twin’s twenty-fifth birthday, the earl has no other living heirs—be it son, daughter, grandson or granddaughter—his bequest reverts back to the children of his first marriage.” The lawyer pulled the spectacles from behind his ears and leveled his gaze at Nicholas. “That twenty-fifth birthday occurs in two months. Just days before your wife turns twenty.”

  Cold dread spread through Nicholas’s veins. “The earl would have to be dead for there to be any inheritance.”

  And Victoria as well. What was left unspoken hung over the room like a dark fog.

  “Let’s pray that is not the case.” Westphall spoke quietly.

  “Thank you, Abner, for coming.” Ian stood, extending his hand to the lawyer. “You’ve done a supreme job as usual.”

  Nicholas appreciated his brother’s intervention. At the moment, he was too numb to think past his desperate need to find his wife.

  Ian walked the attorney to the door while Nicholas and Zach remained in quiet thought. Just as he reached for the handle of the sliding door, it was flung open.

  “Unhand me this instant! How dare you mollycoddle me. Where is the captain?”

  Lord Edward Haverwood, himself, entered the room in a perpetual dither. “Saberton! What in the name of all that is sovereign have you done with my daughter?” He stamped his cane with every word.

  Nicholas shot to his feet, as did Zach.