Читать книгу Scandalous Regency Secrets Collection - Кэрол Мортимер, Louise Allen - Страница 28
ОглавлениеTHEY WERE SITTING at the table in the drawing room of Coop’s Pulteney hotel suite, listening to the small fire as it crackled in the hearth. The only other sound came from the ticking of the mantel clock and the creaking of Rigby’s chair as he occasionally rocked it back and forth, then stopped each time Darby threw him a cutting look.
They’d been sitting there for over an hour now, the clock having struck the hour of seven not long since.
“Do you ever remember Coop being so quiet, Darby? I don’t remember him ever being so quiet. Not that he’s the sort that talks your ear off, never was, but he’s just sitting there, Darby, just sitting there, staring at the drink he isn’t drinking. Making me nervous, that’s what he’s doing. What do you think, Darby?”
“I’m thinking how you’d look with your neck cloth stuffed down your gullet,” the viscount said in his affable tone. “Let him alone. He was shot at, remember?”
“That’s not it,” Coop said, dragging himself out of his thoughts. “I’ve been shot at more than once. By people with better aim. Dany was with me. Do you understand what that means?”
“I don’t think so, no,” Darby said, looking at Rigby, who only shrugged his shoulders. “Why don’t you explain it for us.”
“She could have been hit, you idiots. She could have been killed, just because she was with me. Because I was stupid enough, selfish enough, to want to be with her today, and damn the consequences. Because I underestimated Ferdie’s ability to improvise once he’d heard about Geoff’s broken arm.”
“We’ve all underestimated Ferdie. You weren’t the only one.”
Coop shook his head. “That’s still not it, not all of it.” He looked to his friends, and then lifted his drink, let the wine run down his gullet before flinging the glass into the fireplace.
“Sad waste, that,” Rigby said. “They’ll put it on your bill, you know.”
“The ever practical Jeremiah Rigby,” Darby said, chuckling.
They subsided once more into silence.
Rigby laid his head in his arms on the tabletop, and actually began to snore not two minutes later.
Darby had pulled a slim book of poems from his waistcoat pocket, and was slowly turning the pages.
The clock struck eight.
“I’ll tell you what it is,” Coop said into the silence.
Darby closed the slim book and replaced it in his waistcoat pocket.
Then he nudged Rigby with the tip of his Hessian under the table, waking him. “It’s time.”
“What? What? What did I miss?”
“Nothing. The oracle is about to speak.”
“I don’t know how either of you put up with me,” Coop said.
“We like you, that’s why. Gabe says you keep us anchored, isn’t that right, Darby? Lord only knows where we’d all be if it weren’t for you being so commonsensible. Not that we’re half so wild now. Gabe’s all mellow with his Thea, me soon to be with Clary. Settles a man, having a woman in his life.”
“And me, Rigby?” Darby asked.
“Don’t even attempt to answer that,” Coop warned, still trying to shake off his doldrums.
“I agree. I might be put to the blush. All right, Coop, you said you’re going to tell us something. We’re more than ready to listen.”
“I learned something about myself today. I’d already figured out some of it, or else I’d have to condemn myself as a bastard, but it truly wasn’t until I heard the crack of that shot that it hit me squarely between the eyes, nearly jolting me from my seat.”
“But the ball missed. Didn’t come anywhere near your eyes.”
“Rigby, let the man speak.”
“Sorry. Go on.”
“No, that’s all right. I’m the one being melodramatic here. It...it’s just all so new to me.” He looked at his friends once more. “I realized, in just that split second, that if I died today, my only regret would be leaving Dany. And...and if she had died today, I’d have no reason to go on.”
Rigby put a hand on Coop’s forearm. “I understand.”
“Unfortunately,” Darby said, “so do I. And it’s my fault. It was my plan to have you two engage in that sham betrothal. How will you ever convince your Miss Foster that you truly love her? That’s what this is all about tonight. You’re intent on stopping Ferdie, yes. We all are. But for you, there’s a separate problem. Because, although it’s most certainly obvious to us that you love the woman—yes, even to me—it may not be quite so visible to her. I’m sorry.”
“Now I don’t understand,” Rigby said. “The truth should serve well enough. Just tell her, Coop. Tell her. Do you want me to...?”
“No!” The answer came from both Coop and Darby.
“There’s more,” Coop said, lacing his fingers together, squeezing until his knuckles turned white. “All I wanted to do was deliver Dany and Harry to her sister and then drive straight off to run Ferdie to ground, and wring his neck. I was seeing the world through a red haze of anger, and it took everything within me to return here, wait for the two of you to talk me out of throwing away every happiness I might hope for, just for the satisfaction of seeing that bastard dead.”
“See? He’s still the sensible one,” Rigby said, sounding satisfied. “You did just right, Coop. You always do. Now, what do we do?”
Coop reached across the table and picked up the wine bottle. As he raised it to his lips, he smiled. “Now, you see, Rigby, I was hoping you might have the answer to that question. You’ve been bloody brilliant so far.”
His friend blushed to the roots of his hair. “Yes, I have been, haven’t I? Although it was Clary who first complained that things certainly would be easier all ’round if we could pen the third volume. I pointed out that we’d need a printer for that, and she, dearest, dearest Clary, gave me a slap on the arm and said, ‘Well, then, Jerry, let’s go find ourselves one.’”
“You’re marrying above yourself, friend,” Darby commented drily. “Did she happen to mention how we’re to rid Coop of his nemesis?”
“No.” Rigby’s chin sank into his neck cloth. “I asked, mind you, but she said she’d been brilliant enough for one day and her shoes pinched so I should take her back to the duchess. Perhaps tomorrow I could apply to her again?”
“I don’t think there’s anything more we can do tonight, in any case,” Coop told them quickly, before Darby could comment on their friend’s last statement. “Unless you two are of a mind to climb Ferdie’s gutter pipe and take a turn at housebreaking. There’s still the matter of the countess’s letters to retrieve, remember? I doubt Ferdie will hand them over willingly.”
Darby gestured down at his well-cut evening clothes. “I fear I’m not dressed for the occasion. I hesitated to mention it earlier, but it appears you’ve both forgotten Lady Huddleston’s ball this evening. As his lordship is known to keep a high-stakes card room to amuse the gentlemen, most everyone will be there, either to gamble or to watch.”
“Including Ferdie,” Coop said, his mind already whirling. He was beginning to feel better, even if not fully in charge of himself quite yet. It was good to have his anger behind him, his fear for Dany behind him. And Darby and Rigby had patiently waited for him to come back to his senses. He couldn’t have better friends. “And if he’s there, then housebreaking doesn’t sound all that impossible. Rigby, are you up for a small adventure?”
“Not yet nine. I’d told our friends here we’d give you until ten to come up with a plan. Congratulations. Rigby, I believe I owe you ten quid.” Darby was already getting to his feet. “Now, since I’m the only one dressed for it, I’ll adjourn to Lady Huddleston’s, and keep an eye on Ferdie. What do you say? Two hours for you to locate and recover the countess’s correspondence? But not a minute more. If he surprises me and leaves the ball before that, you’ll have forced me to trip him on the stairs or some such thing. Not that I’d be crushed to have to appear so clumsy.”
“Agreed.” Coop put out his hand above the table and the other two clapped their hands atop it.
And then, suddenly, there was a fourth hand capping the others.
“‘Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more,’” Gabe Sinclair said, as was the friends’ custom before battles during the late war.
“Gabe! How the devil did you...?”
“Get in here? Quite easily, old friend. Or did you forget you stationed Sergeant Major Ames outside your door while you all sat in here like brood hens, hatching plans. You have hatched a plan, I take it?”
“Yes, but first tell us how you knew we’d be here.”
“Uncle Basil summoned me, saying I was missing all the fun. Thea’s with the ladies, and Minerva directed me here as a hopefully good starting point. I met your Miss Foster, Coop, and was given strict instructions to guard your back, and that the letters—whatever they are—must be recovered by tomorrow morning. She said you’d understand.”
Oliver must be closer than we’d hoped. As for her finding her way to the duchess? He had to resign himself—Dany did what she did for reasons privy only to her.
“Yes, I understand. Thank you. At least I know where she is.”
“Don’t thank me. She wouldn’t let me leave until I’d promised to tell you. Not precisely shy and retiring, is she? Very unlike anyone I would have supposed you’d choose, when you finally got around to it. I like her. Oh, and Rigby, Clarice informed me that you’re to hightail it back to the ladies, with the mission of delivering an opus to Paternoster Row. I didn’t ask questions, not once Minerva told me our friend here was shot at today. Now that I’ve fulfilled my role as messenger, what are we going to do about that pernicious gray worm?”
Coop glanced at the mantel clock. “I’ll explain on the way. Gentlemen?”
It was good to be moving again; he’d sat and stewed and wrestled with the unfamiliar feeling of helplessness long enough.
Within moments, Rigby was on his way to the ladies, Darby was off to the ball and he and Gabe were in the back of a hackney cab and en route to Ferdie’s residence.
They left the hackney a block from the Lanisford mansion and proceeded on foot, turning down an alleyway so that they could approach from the mews.
But then Coop stopped, putting out an arm to halt Gabe’s progress, as well. “No. We go to the front door. I’ll be damned if the man will turn me into a housebreaker, let alone the future Duke of Cranbrook.”
“Hopefully, unless the Cranbrook curse my uncle is so worried about is true, I have a long time before I’m duke of anything,” Gabe pointed out. “Are you certain? I was beginning to feel some excitement about the whole business of the clandestine approach.”
“Yes, but that’s why you’ve all always let me be in charge of strategy. Just follow my lead, all right?”
“This should prove interesting,” Gabe said, lifting his hat to slide his fingers through his blond hair. “Am I presentable enough to pass muster for a marquis’s majordomo? I’ve been on the road all day.”
Coop smiled, as he was sure he was supposed to do. “Just stay clear of the light, and we probably won’t be sent around to the tradesman’s entrance. All right, here we go.”
Coop climbed the marble steps to the impressive front door and lifted the heavy brass knocker. Banged it three times in quick succession, with enough force to have those inside believe they were about to usher the Prince Regent into their humble abode.
And so far, so good. A liveried footman pulled open the door, to reveal an imposing figure who had to be Gabe’s imagined majordomo.
“Step aside, king’s business,” Coop commanded, already advancing into the black-and-white tiled foyer.
The majordomo moved to physically block him, but Gabe could always be counted upon to step into any breech. “Here, here, man, what do you think you’re about? Don’t you know who this is? My lord Cooper Townsend, the hero of Quatre Bras. Oh, and I’m Gabriel Sinclair, heir to the Duke of Cranbrook, not that I believe that’s of any real import at the moment. I am here only at the request of Lord Townsend. Now—step aside.”
“Your pardon, my lord, sir,” the man implored, clearly impressed.
Coop took a moment to feel comforted that he was finally getting some sort of benefit out of being the hero of Quatre Bras.
“Very well, but step lively, my man. As I said, I am here on the king’s business. Show me to your employer’s private study. Come on, man, don’t dawdle.”
“But...but to his lordship’s private study? If I may be so bold as to ask why, my lord?”
“You most certainly can do that. Gabe, summon the guards from outside if you please, and have them escort this inquisitive fellow to— Well, no names need be mentioned.”
“Certainly,” Gabe said, already turning for the door.
“No! Wait! I’ve read the chapbooks,” the majordomo rushed on, nearly breathless. “I know you serve the Crown, my lord. I... I... Forgive me. If George here can be allowed to relieve you gentlemen of your hats and gloves?”
“Certainly.”
Lying becomes easier the more one engages in the practice, Coop realized as he stripped off his gloves and handed them to the young footman. I imagine Dany could have told me that. I’ll have to warn her that I’m fast becoming more proficient in the practice.
The majordomo preceded them down the wide hallway to the rear of the mansion, the typical location of private studies.
Although Ferdie’s study’s decorations were not as ordinary. The leather couches were there, the bookcases, the large, intricately carved desk, a well-stocked drinks table. But rather than globes and busts of ancient Greeks, the marquis had chosen to display an array of brass and stone carved nudes, a few of them faintly artistic in nature, but for the most part rather grotesquely enlarged in certain areas, very nearly cartoonish.
“Suits the man,” Gabe said quietly. “All that’s missing is an assortment of riding crops hanging in pride of place on the wall.”
The majordomo had remained in the open doorway. “If I might be of any further assistance...?”
“You can’t,” Coop told him, closing the door on the man’s face, and then leaning up against it, to grin like a schoolboy who’d just made off with his father’s pipe and tobacco.
Gabe had already begun searching the bookshelves, to be sure none of the decorative boxes held the letters. “Did you imagine it would be this easy?”
“No. But I had hope. Minerva sails through life like a man-of-war, and for the most part everyone she encounters is quick to hasten out of her way. I merely tore a page from her lesson book. I’ll take the desk.”
He pulled out the chair and sat down, opening one drawer after the other until he realized one of them bore a keyhole. Locked, of course. “Gabe, do you have a knife?”
“You mistake me for Darby. Here, try this letter opener.”
“There’s no need for that, gentlemen.”
Coop froze where he was, as did Gabe, and they watched as a not too tall, not homely nor handsome—indeed, a totally unmemorable—young man entered the study via the French doors that led out to a balcony.
“You,” Coop said, careful to keep his hands still until he saw that the man’s hands were empty. “You’re the one from the jewelry shop.”
The man bowed. “One and the same, yes, for my sins. Allow me to introduce myself. I am William Bruxton, brother to Miss Sally Bruxton, who is soon to be wed to the marquis. If I don’t kill him first. Now, who are you?”
“We’re here on the king’s business,” Gabe said, surreptitiously sliding his fingers around a slim bronze statuette and slipping it behind his back.
Bruxton smiled. “No, you’re not. You’re here to find Ferdie’s latest incriminating manuscript. You’re too late. He had me deliver it to the printer this morning.”
“Just as he had you take the garnets to the jewelry shop.”
“As you say, yes. I recognized you that day, which is why I hid my face as I rushed past. Not that anyone ever remembers my face. It’s both my curse and my blessing.”
Coop stood up. He felt more comfortable, standing. “So you’re in league with your soon-to-be brother-in-law.”
“Hardly. Like my sister, and courtesy of our gambling-mad father, I am firmly held beneath the thumb of my soon-to-be brother-in-law. There is a discernible difference, if one cares to look.”
“I do. The jewelry you attempted to sell. That wasn’t your first visit to the shop to do such business.”
“No. The other visits were to deliver minor pieces of the Lanisford family’s enormous collection, to have the larger of the genuine stones popped out and replaced with glass.”
“Why would he do that?” Gabe asked, relaxing enough to put down the statuette and take up his position, seating himself on one edge of the desk. “Ferdie’s rich as Croesus, last I heard.”
“The late marquis’s will left several of the minor, unentailed pieces to his late wife’s sisters and nieces. Ferdie figured out that his father’s will did not demand they be given in their original condition.”
Coop actually saw the humor in that. “Sounds just like the man. What is that Irish saying? Oh, yes—‘If he had only an egg, he’d give you the shell.’ Now tell me why you continue to cooperate with him—and if you were the man who shot at me today from the trees.”
“You might still be able to stop publication if I tell you the address of the printer,” Bruxton said, which fairly well answered Coop’s question.
“That information won’t save you. The chapbook is already in our possession. You shot my tiger. You could have killed my fiancée.”
“I could have hit you squarely in the back of your head,” the man said, actually boasted. “Instead, at the last minute, I came to my senses, and shot low, knowing I had to hit something, or else you might not even realize your life was in danger. My apologies to your tiger. It was only a graze.”
“That graze cost me a pony, the four-legged kind. So now you’ve come to your senses. Why?”
Bruxton pointed to the drinks table. “May I?” He walked over and poured himself a glass of gin, downed it and then poured another. “Do you know what it’s like to be poor, my lord? Poor, after years of not being poor? I think that’s even worse, because you’ve known better, and don’t precisely know how to be poor. At any rate, when Lanisford decided he fancied Sally, asking no dowry, and paying Papa’s gambling debts, his mortgages into the bargain, it became easy, at least for a while, to turn my head away from what was really going on with my sister.”
“You once pursued Sally, didn’t you, Coop? Pretty girl, as I recall, and always with a smile. What happened there?”
“She had to leave town in the middle of the season. Her mother fell ill, I believe it was.”
“Our mother was fine. It was our finances that suffered a near-fatal affliction. And if you haven’t seen Sally since her engagement, she doesn’t smile much anymore. I think I miss her smiles most of all. I told her tonight. The marriage, the title, the prospect of never being poor again? They’re simply not worth another day of Ferdie and his curious predilections. That’s why I’m here tonight while he’s on the town, to collect my severance upon departing his employ. You’re standing on it, my lord, by the way—my severance. Sally and I take ship on the morning tide, for Boston, and the home of our mother’s sister. There, that’s honest for you, gentlemen. Since you say you already have the chapbook, why are you here?”
Coop looked down at his feet, then pushed the chair away and lifted the small rug. There was a thick iron ring cut into the floor, and the wood was carefully cut on four sides. “A trapdoor? Where does it lead?”
“Nowhere. It’s more of a secret compartment. Open it. Oh, and if you’d be so kind as to turn the black metal box over to me, I’ll be on my way. Time and tide wait for no man, you know.”
“Chaucer,” Gabe said. “You are an educated man. You and your sister should land on your feet.”
Coop had checked the contents of the box, and then handed it to Bruxton. “I believe they’ll be reasonably well cushioned until our new friend here finds employment. My quick guess is ten thousand pounds.”
“More than twelve actually. I counted it last time I was fortunate enough to be left alone in here. My aunt has already secured a position for me in a school named Harvard. You may have heard of it? I’ll be instructing students in classical literature. And now I’m off. I hope you find what you’re looking for.”
“I think we just have, yes, thank you. And thank your sister, for it’s only because of her that you aren’t leaving this room with two blackened eyes. Gabe?” Coop held up a nearly inch-thick stack of letters tied with a black bow. “A lesser man might even cry out, Eureka!”
“Archimedes,” Bruxton called over his shoulder, and then he was gone.
Gabe joined Coop behind the desk. “Is there anything else in there?”
“There is more, yes. But we’ve got what we came for, as did Bruxton. I don’t know that I feel justified delving any deeper.”
“Really? Well, let me tell you, friend-straight-and-narrow, that’s why you need the rest of us. Move aside, and let me do the delving.”
“All right, but be quick about it. I don’t trust that dragon at the door to not have sent off a note to his employer, alerting him to our presence.”
“True. Ah, here we go. I believe I’ll just take these interesting bits, and we can look at them more carefully later. Are you ready?”
Coop rolled his eyes as Gabe stuck several sheaves of paper into his waistcoat. “Not quite, no. I thought we’d have someone come stoke the fire and share some of Ferdie’s brandy while we have a pleasant coze—of course I’m ready. And for the love of all that’s holy, wipe that grin from your face. We’re here in service of the king, remember?”
“The king who’s locked up in the castle, convinced he can fly? Yes, yes. We needs must show all gravitas.”
“Rigby said you’d settled yourself, perhaps even become domesticated.”
“So much for Rigby’s powers of observation. Thea would never let me settle.”
Taking one last look about the room, Coop picked up one of the less revolting statuettes and opened the door to the hallway.
The majordomo rushed to meet them, wringing his hands.
“Sirs! That’s one of his lordship’s most favored pieces.”
“I’m certain it is, my good man,” Coop told him as he brushed past. “Unfortunately for your employer, it is also the property of the Crown, having quite recently resided in its own secure case in the Tower. Please inform his lordship that he is to make himself available tomorrow at ten of the clock, when another colleague of mine will arrive to discuss the matter further. Good evening to you. George—our hats and gloves, if you please.”
The young footman hastened to assist the gentlemen, and in another minute they were on the flagway, clear of the mansion, and increasing their pace until they exited the square and were safely ensconced in the back of yet another hackney.
“What the devil am I supposed to do with this monstrosity?” Coop asked his friend, who was sitting at his ease on the cracked leather seat, chuckling in amusement.
Gabe took the figure and leaned forward, to wave it in the driver’s face. “Hey—you up there. How would you like this for your mantel?”
“Don’t got me no mantel, but it’d fetch me a right snootful in m’tavern, Oi wager.”
Gabe handed it over and sat back once more. “There, another problem solved. Whatever would you do without us? Although I must say, your actions tonight bordered on genius. Where to now?”
“Back to the Pulteney, to retrieve your coach, and then I’ll follow you to the duchess, where I’ll gather up Dany and take her back to her sister.”
“Do you think that’s wise?”
“I don’t see why not.”
Coop believed he could actually feel Gabe’s smile in the dark inside the hackney. “No, of course you wouldn’t. But you’ve forgotten something, Romeo. We’re meeting Rigby and Darby back at the hotel.”
“Damn.” Coop felt ten times the fool. How could he have forgotten that? But he had news for Dany, and she’d be overjoyed to see her sister’s letters. Really overjoyed. Even grateful. “Gabe, I’m turning into a very bad man.”
“Yes, that happens when a man tumbles into love,” his friend said matter-of-factly. “We also at times act like fools, and make rare cakes of ourselves. I’m saying this, you understand, as a man who rode to London in the back of a wagon filled with birdcages, just so I could be near Thea.”
“Why was your fiancée riding with what I will assume were your uncle’s parrots?”
“I didn’t say we men are the only ones who make cakes of ourselves when we tumble into love, did I? But that’s another reason why it might be best if you allowed Miss Foster to remain where she is, surrounded by women who will be more than happy to— You know, Coop, you may be right. Perhaps you should escort her back to the countess.”
“My mother was still there when you left?”
“She was. Also prepared to stay the night. And my aunt Vivien, of course.”
“And Rigby’s Clarice?”
“And my Thea,” Gabe added, chuckling. “They were all in the drawing room, having a lovely chat, when I left. Although perhaps escaped might be a better choice of word.”
Coop thought about the situation, thought about his mother, the duchess, Clarice. “I have to get her out of there.”
“A true den of female iniquity, I agree. Complete with whispers and feminine giggles and, for the matrons, a decanter of gin employed to stiffen their cups of Bohea. But first, the Pulteney. If what I saw when I quickly looked at the papers I pilfered from Ferdie’s hidey-hole contain what I believe they do, I think the last of your problems may just have been solved and you can return to your new estate, to grow turnips.”
Coop’s head turned so quickly he should have been in danger of snapping his neck. “Did you say turnips?”
“Yes. Turnips. I was given a quick summary of the grand climax to The Chronicles of a Hero. You rescue the fair damsel—I think that would make five now, yes?—and the Crown declares you a hero once more and releases you from further obligations so that you can return to your first love as a botanist, eager to serve the Crown in another way, by inventing new varieties of winter-hardy turnips meant to ease hunger in the masses.”
“Gad! Minerva. I suppose I won’t have to worry about being mobbed on the streets anymore, there is that. But...turnips?”
“Turnips,” Gabe repeated, and then went off into howls of laughter until, against all reason and even sanity, Coop joined in.
