All I Ever Needed (43 page)

Sophie gave him a brief, ironic smile. "I have always understood that my cousin's public opinions and private actions were seldom congruent. What you told me at the Park was merely confirmation of yet another example. Some weeks earlier I overheard Tremont speaking to Piggins about a ship called
Aragon,
and I knew Tremont had a substantial investment in
Aragon
's cargo. The size of the investment was such that there was little left to manage the Park. It was clear to me that if the ship failed to make port, there could be no recovery without engaging one more creditor. It seemed unlikely that anyone could be found to lend Tremont money. The estate's debt is already crushing."

"So you went to him?"

She nodded. "I told him what I knew. He meant to withhold his support of the Singapore settlement until he had the concessions he wanted. I cannot be certain what demands he intended to make on the prime minister, but I know that he wanted to coerce you into making a second proposal of marriage. I threatened him with telling you everything."

"Is that why you ended up in the chapel?"

"In part. And because I kissed you at the lake. Tremont meant to punish me for that as well."

East's fingers made furrows in his thick hair as he ran his hand through it. "You cannot seriously mean to confront the man a second time, Sophie. I have seen for myself that he is capable of any manner of retribution. He is already nursing wounds from having lost you. It was a considerable blow to his pride when I told him I had helped you leave the Park and that he could not expect that you would return. He did not like having you absent of his control."

"Yet he has not found me."

"He has not sent anyone for you," East said. "It does not mean that he doesn't know where you are. I found you, Sophie. Given time, so can he. Perhaps he already has."

"No. He would force me to return to the Park or Bowden Street."

"There is another explanation separate from him not wanting to give rise to a scandal: Tremont does not need you just at the moment."

She frowned slightly. "I don't understand. Do you mean to say that he has abandoned the idea of marrying me off? How could you know that?"

"I doubt that he has abandoned the idea. It is probably truer that he means to use it as the need arises." East saw that he had merely deepened Sophie's confusion. "It is the
Aragon,
Sophie. The ship has delivered its cargo and returned. It is safe to assume that both of your cousins profited from their investment."

"How long have you known this?"

"All of it? Only since you fit the pieces of this puzzle together. I am familiar with
Aragon
because I have been involved with this government's concern regarding Singapore since June. I am aware of all of our trade with China and a great deal that the Americans and French are doing as well. The East India Company's business is important to the Crown, and the competition for favored status with the Chinese is of particular interest to them. They make certain I know about rogue traders like the
Aragon
's captain who operate without sanction from either government."

Sophie leaned over the edge of the bed and plucked her chemise from the floor. She held it bunched in front of her while she considered what East told her. "Then there was more risk in Tremont's investment than I suspected. He might well have bankrupted the estate."

"Perhaps." He watched her abandon the sheet in favor of her chemise and knew a measure of regret. "But he is still a Bishop, and he can always apply to the Society for help."

"How fortunate for them that he profited this time."

East thought that if he kissed Sophie just then, he would know the taste of sarcasm.
"Aragon
arrived in Liverpool shortly before I left London to come here. I know this because I was at Lloyd's when news of her arrival was delivered."

Sophie knew that Lloyd's insured merchant ships and their cargo. "Go on. I am familiar with Lloyd's."

"It meant little to me at the time. I had no understanding then that Tremont and Dunsmore were involved in the trade. What I did know, however, was that in recent weeks Dunsmore's spending was in excess of his customary extravagant manner. He might rarely have had money for the household, but it seems to me that he must have very patient creditors, for he spends money as though he has it. It occurred to me that he had already received funds from some source or that he was in expectation of receiving them soon. I knew it was not at the gaming tables where he had achieved success because I witnessed some of his losses there. I left London before discovering the origin of his new wealth. It would have taken some time to trace it all the way back to
Aragon.
I did not imagine I would learn the truth in Clovelly."

Sophie had drawn her hair forward over one shoulder and was absently untangling the ends as she listened. Now her fingers paused, and she regarded Eastlyn with a pensive mien. "How is it that Harold's spending came to your attention? With so many things to occupy you, it seems to me that Harold's habits should have been of little note."

"You are wrong. They are important on two counts: he is Tremont's son and your cousin. The first makes him of political concern; the latter a personal one. I had a vague notion that he might know something more than he was revealing."

"In regard to what?"

"In regard to his father's political ambitions for one. Your whereabouts for another. You had not yet left Cara's, and I had no inkling that you intended to do so. Making certain that I knew Dunsmore's business was but one way of keeping you safe."

Sophie remembered how angry East had been when he left her at the inn. She had been certain that he would not want to see her again, and when he did not arrive at his sister's home to make any explanations, she thought she had been in the right of it. To learn now that he had been acting to protect her from as far away as London set her off balance. As East had said of himself, she found she liked the perspective from this new angle.

"Sophie?"

"Hmm?"

"You are wool-gathering."

She gave him a brief, distracted smile.

"You have some deep thoughts, I collect."

Sophie meant to hug those thoughts to her. Perhaps it had not only been his own sense of honor that prompted him to act as he had in London. Perhaps he had felt something for her even then. It was not possible that he had loved her from the first, as she had him, but it was possible that he had entertained a certain affection for her long before he declared himself, perhaps before he knew it in his own mind. "I'm sorry," she said. "You were telling me about Harold."

East wondered at the route her thoughts had taken but knew he was unlikely to learn of it. "I was done telling you about him."

"No. You have said nothing about his spending except that it was outside the common mode for him. I want to know more of the particulars."

"It cannot be important."

Sophie would not be dissuaded. "You mentioned losses at the gaming tables, but that is in every way a common occurrence. He has no luck with cards or dice. Tell me something I would not suspect."

"Do you remember the night I came to your bedroom at Bowden Street?"

"I am far less likely to forget it than you. I am not the one seized by megrims and odd lapses of memory."

Eastlyn could not fault her for pointing out the truth, but he gave her a quelling look for her saucy retort. She was as unaffected by it as he thought she might be. He went on, "Then you will also recall that Tremont and Dunsmore were gone from the house. I noticed that you were surprised by their absence when I informed you of it."

Sophie nodded. "Tremont had spoken to me earlier that day, and he never mentioned an engagement for that evening. He frequently told me when he was going out. I think he meant to remind me of my own confinement." She smiled crookedly. "As if such were needed. I must have presented myself with more composure than I felt for him to think I was unaffected by my situation."

"You were holding fast to your decision not to marry," East said. "Tremont likely thought another turn of the screw was in order."

"Where was he that night?" asked Sophie. "Was he with Harold?"

"Let us say that he was with his son for some part of the evening. I imagine they did not spend the whole of it together. They went to an establishment called the Flower House, not far from Covent Garden. It is frequented by gentlemen who have certain peculiar tastes in entertainment."

Sophie's fingers began to pleat the fabric of her chemise again. The small, vertical crease appeared between her eyebrows as she considered what East was
not
saying. "This establishment? It is for whores?"

East sighed. He should have known she would come at the thing directly. "Yes, Sophie. It is a brothel."

"And my cousins were there?"

"Yes."

She
eyed Eastlyn sharply. "It begs the question how you came by such intelligence. Did you perhaps pass them in a hallway?"

Amused by her querulous tone, East grinned. "I watched them go inside. That is all." He held up his hands, palms out, as if toward her off. "I was coming from a gaming house not far away when I saw them. It occurred to me that if I knew where they were going and how long they might be occupied, I might take advantage of an opportunity to see you. When I followed them to the Flower House I knew they would not return to Bowden Street much before morning."

Sophie was not entirely satisfied with this explanation. "I think you know rather too much about this place."

"You have accused me of murder, gambling, and an indulgence in drink," East said. "Do you wish to add another vice?"

She said nothing for a moment, examining the crease in her chemise while she considered her apology. "I regret having said those things," she said quietly. "It was all in want of stopping your proposal, but that is a poor enough excuse. I did not know so very much about you then, and I should not have judged your character on the gossip of others, especially when I despised the same being done to me." She glanced at him and could not make out the tenor of his thoughts. "Will you forgive me? It was wrong of me to charge you with such behavior, no matter the provocation."

"Even if it's true?"

"Even then." She hesitated, and her fingers resumed their pleating once more. "Is it true?"

Eastlyn leaned forward and reached for her busy hand. He laid his over hers, quieting it. "There is truth in almost everything one hears," he said. "You must decide for yourself the degree of it." He released her hand and drew his legs up tailor fashion, resting his elbows on his knees. "I have been making wagers with my friends for more than a score of years. At Hambrick we had little money to spare so our wagers were confined to coppers and shillings. Our pockets are deeper now, but the wagers between us have not changed. Even in the betting book at White's it is rare for any one of us to offer up more than a few hundred pounds."

Sophie's mien remained thoughtful. "It is not the usual practice of a gamer."

"No," he said. "It is not. But it is
my
practice." East made a steeple of his fingers and lightly tapped the tips together. "As for drinking, it is certainly true that I have been foxed on occasion, but I can tell you that except for a sore head I have never suffered overmuch. Neither have I forgotten anything. It is not drink that prompts a loss of memory, but the severity of a megrim."

"So you are a temperate drinker."

"With infrequent lapses into excess."

"You are practically a paragon."

East looked pointedly at Sophie's belly. "Hardly that."

She ignored him. "And a murderer? There is something more to the story than the gossip."

"Someone told you about Hagan, I take it." East shook his head, his mouth set grimly for a moment. "It was a very long time ago, Sophie. I was just beginning my diplomatic work, and I was to have a meeting with the Russian consul. Hagan was the one who gave me the assignment. I was supposed to offer some guidelines for an agreement by which we might form an alliance with the Russians against Napoleon. We already knew that Prussia meant to give the French license to cross their land, and it appeared Boney was only in want of an opportunity to do so. He was still in Spain at that time, and a Russian invasion would have to wait, but with his steady annexation of most of the Continent, it seemed clear he would eventually turn to Moscow."

East threaded his fingers together so that his hands made a single fist. "There was another aspect to my assignment, however, of which Hagan was unaware. It was known to the foreign secretary that someone in the corps had compromised an earlier attempt to do much the same thing. I was to discover that man's identity."

Sophie's eyes widened a fraction, and her voice held equal parts astonishment and awe. "Why, you are a spy."

East shook his head. "No. I am the tinker. The one who makes repairs." It was a fine distinction, perhaps, but in the Compass Club, it was West who was the spy. "You might have already concluded that Hagan turned out to be the one I was looking for. I discovered him in a tryst with the wife of a member of the Russian delegation. He would not believe me that she was using him to procure information for her husband. I was frank in my description of the lady's behavior and the lady herself, and Hagan took exception to it. He called me out."