Alyssa Everett (10 page)

My father nodded. “And not just that we set a place for him, but that he be served all the same food we were eating.”

“I remember the footmen were very much on their dignity at first, but your father reminded them it would be poor hospitality to let poor Golliard go hungry.” My mother laughed. “You used to sneak the food off Golliard’s plate when you thought we weren’t looking, and point to its disappearance as proof of his existence.”

“Perhaps I do remember,” I said, faint memories stirring. That had been before I went away to school, the halcyon time before I learned the truth about my father. “You always pretended not to see.”

“But I wasn’t pretending,” my mother protested. “I’ll have you know I took great pains to look away just at the critical moment.”

“How tactful of you.” I had to bite my tongue to keep from adding,
You’ve always been good at looking the other way.

My mother’s smile faded and her expression turned wistful. She looked at my father, her blue eyes shimmering with the beginnings of tears. “Where has the time gone, Richard? It seems only yesterday our Ben was a little boy.”

At the mournful note in her voice, I grimaced in dismay. Now she was going to go into one of her full-blown bouts of nostalgia, reliving every detail of my childhood—how she could hardly credit I’d once been tiny enough to fit into my christening gown, the lock of hair she’d preserved from my first haircut, the first words I’d spoken, and so on and so on. It always ended the same way, in a crying jag. Sometimes she’d be in tears most of the evening, while I could only stand by, pained and embarrassed to be the cause of so much sentimentality.

But before my mother could shed a single tear, my father took her hand and tucked it under his arm. “Ben is too much the fine young man to have you weeping over his boyhood, Margaret, and you’re far too young and lovely yet to be lamenting where the time has gone. Let’s save that kind of talk for the grandchildren, shall we?”

“Grandchildren!” My mother brightened as if by magic. They started for the dining room, and with a startling feeling of gratitude I followed, aware my father had averted the crisis. For at least this one evening, I could breathe easy.

I went in to dinner thinking the same word as my mother.
Grandchildren
. Someday I was going to have to marry and produce an heir, if only to secure the ducal line. I wondered what kind of father I would make—the sort who led a shameful double life, or the sort who pretended to believe in his young son’s imaginary friends?

The curious thing was, somehow my father had contrived to be both.

Barbara

I stuffed Sam’s notebook under my sash and dashed for Mama’s escritoire. If I was right about John Mainsforth being Helen’s blackmailer, then he’d likely also shot Ben. That meant Ben’s life was in even greater danger in his family haunts than it had been here at Leonard House. Taking a seat at the desk, I seized a pen, snatched a sheet of paper from the top drawer and hastily scratched out a message.

Ben,

I believe your cousin John Mainsforth is behind the blackmail scheme, and must have killed Sam. Since this touches your family, I await your advice. Should I go to Lord Daventry first or take the information directly to Bow Street?

Until Mr. Mainsforth is in custody, take every precaution to ensure your own safety. Your life is in danger!

I hesitated over the closing. I nearly wrote,
Yours most sincerely.
It was how I normally signed my letters. But then I remembered that awful caricature in the
Times
, and how it had made me look as if I’d thrown myself at Cliburne.

It would be more prudent to keep things correct and impersonal. Dipping my pen in the inkwell, I finished:

With all due regard,

B

There. I wasn’t entirely happy with it, but what could be more correct than paying a person precisely the regard he was due? I folded the page, sealed it and hurried off to find Helen before she left for the theater.

She was in her bedroom, putting the finishing touches on her toilette. I rapped hesitantly on her open door. “Helen? I need to ask a favor of you.”

She turned to me with the same look of surprise she’d worn the night before. Honestly, was it really so hard to believe I might want to talk with my own sister?

I held out the letter I’d written. “I was hoping you might give this to Cliburne tonight—privately—and ask him to deliver it to his cousin.”

She rose from her dressing table. “You mean Beningbrough?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, I
knew
you liked him!” Squealing, she bounced up and down in her excitement.

“Shh. It’s nothing like that.” Hastily, I pushed the letter into her hand. “And don’t you go telling Cliburne I do.”

It would be one thing if Ben admired me. Then at least everyone could see I wasn’t on the shelf, doomed to spinsterhood simply because Cliburne had passed me over. But if Helen told Cliburne I liked Ben, I might as well bid my dignity goodbye. I’d look like a brass-faced hussy, so desperate to catch a husband I’d begun working my way methodically through the titled families of England. Though I was coming to see Cliburne’s defection as a blessing in disguise—he was a sweet boy, but a bit too trusting for his own good—I had no intention of throwing away my self-respect.

No. If I’d been thinking about Ben all day, it was only because he’d been shot before my very eyes. Papa was right. If Ben should ever decide to settle down, he could have his pick of all the loveliest, most biddable girls in England.

Seeing my determined expression, Helen turned petulant. “Why can’t you simply admit you like him?” Her eyes grew wide as an idea struck her fancy. “Oh, Barbara—perhaps we’ll have a double wedding!”

I wanted to shake her. Didn’t anyone but me care that a man had been murdered under our very roof barely twenty-four hours before? Didn’t anything else matter in life except my catching a beau? “No, we won’t. That’s not a billet-doux I just gave you, it’s simply a piece of news I thought he should know. Why on earth would you want to match me up with him?”

Helen took me by the hands. “Because you don’t have nearly enough excitement in your life, and I think he would be exciting for you.” She squeezed my hands, her blue eyes bright, her blond curls a shining halo about her head. “And because you’re my sister and I want you to be happy.”

Looking at her, so delicate, so pretty and so confident of her appeal, I almost said,
Yes
,
but what would he want with me?
Why would the handsome son of a duke ever give me a second glance?

If Helen hadn’t been so lovely and so sought after, I might have shared my doubts with her. But she was lovely, and I wasn’t about to admit I might be developing feelings for a man who felt nothing for me. All I really had was my pride, and how could I let go of that?

“Just ask Cliburne to deliver the note, would you?” Turning, I bolted for my room before I confessed something I knew I would regret.

Chapter Nine

Barbara

I was already in bed, wondering how long it would take before Ben managed to smuggle a reply to me, when a solid
thunk
broke the stillness, the sound of something hitting my window. Though I wasn’t normally of a skittish disposition, the unexpectedness of the sound made me jump. After all, a man had been struck dead in the house only the night before. I froze, waiting.

A minute later a second
thunk
met the glass pane. This time I was prepared for it, and instead of cowering in my bed, I leaped up and drew on my wrapper.

I knew who it was even before I slid open the sash and leaned out. Sure enough, Ben was waiting in the moonlight beneath the window. How typical. He couldn’t throw the usual unobtrusive handful of gravel but had to nearly break my windowpane with a rock. “Ben?” I called down in a stage whisper.

Without a single preliminary, he whispered back, “What’s all this gammon about John being the blackmailer?”

“It isn’t gammon! And what are you doing here? Didn’t my note say your life could be in danger?”

He made an impatient gesture. “If you really do know who killed Sam, then your life is in danger too.”

“I do know. The killer has to be John Mainsforth. I’ve discovered an important clue.”

“What clue?” Just then a carriage came rattling by, forcing Ben to shrink into the shadows. Once it was safely out of sight, he stepped back out with a look of annoyance. “Botheration. Let me in, would you? I can’t stand out here whispering up to you. Someone’s going to see me.”

I was already in my nightclothes. Still, I supposed he had every right to demand admittance, if only for fear the killer might take a shot at him again. “Very well, but you’ll have to come around to the back door.”

“Oh, yes, because that was
such
a good idea the last time.” There was more humor than animosity in his tone, however, and I couldn’t help smiling.

When I opened the back door for him a minute later, I could only stand and gawk at his appearance. He’d been scarcely visible in the darkness under my window, but now I saw he wasn’t his usual rumpled, ill-dressed self at all. Instead he was rigged out in evening clothes of the first stare—a close-fitting black coat and trousers, brocaded white waistcoat, even a diamond pin in his neckcloth. Of course, now that he’d turned up in such sartorial splendor, as dashing as sin, what should I be wearing but a plain linen nightgown and a faded wrapper?

He noticed I was gaping at him and pulled a face. “I know, I look a proper coxcomb in these clothes. But I had to do something to distract my mother’s attention from where the ball struck my head.”

“No, you don’t look a coxcomb at all.” I just managed to stop myself before gushing,
You look so good it makes me want to weep.
I turned to lead him upstairs.

He grabbed me by the elbow. “Wait. Where are we going?”

I knew he wasn’t going to like the answer. I didn’t like it much myself, but I had little choice. “To my bedroom.”

His forehead creased in a frown. “Again? Isn’t there somewhere else we can talk? The pantry? Your father’s study?”

“I’m all but certain my father is in his study, and it’s nearly midnight, so the footman will be making his rounds soon. We’ll just have to be careful no one sees you.”

“But—”

“But what?” I asked, holding the candle higher so I could get a better look at his face.

He flushed. “Nothing.”

He was plainly uneasy—at least, as uneasy as forceful, decisive Ben could ever be. Once we reached my room, he strode to the window and pulled the draperies closed before wheeling to face me. He wore a strangely determined look, as if he were confronting a firing squad instead of a lone girl in her nightclothes. “I hope you realize how wildly indiscreet that message you sent me was. If it had fallen into the wrong hands...”

I reddened, mostly because he was right. “In retrospect I could have been more cautious, but this is murder we’re talking about. I had to get word to you, and if my note had been vague or unclear, it wouldn’t have been much of a warning, would it? At least I didn’t sign my name to it.”

Ben looked slightly mollified. “So what makes you so sure my cousin John is responsible?”

I went to my dresser and took the little leather notebook from the top drawer. “One of the maids found this under a chest in the hall. It belonged to Sam Garvey, who recorded his accounts and appointments in it. The last entry reads
Meet with M
,
8:15
.” I flipped to the relevant page and held it out for Ben to see.

I expected a shocked exclamation, but he merely stared at the notebook with a skeptical frown. “So?”

“
So?
So M must have killed Sam! The timing fits. Not only that, but there were three separate entries recording payments of twenty-four pounds and fifteen shillings from this mysterious M. That’s approximately half the fifty pounds Helen was giving her blackmailers.”

Ben’s frown changed to a thoughtful look. “It’s
exactly
half, if you take into account the half sovereign Helen supposedly paid Sam for his help. If Sam and this M were working together to blackmail your sister, they might have split that too, which means they’d each end up with twenty-five pounds five—”

“And since Sam already had the half-sovereign, Mr. Mainsforth gave him only the additional twenty-four fifteen.”

“Now, wait. Just because the math suggests Sam was one of two blackmailers doesn’t mean the other man was John.”

“Can you think of anyone else involved in this business whose name begins with an M? Your cousin knows more about the blackmail scheme than anyone except Helen, and he volunteered last night to deliver her pearls as payment. How do we know he took them anywhere at all? Perhaps he simply tucked the necklace in his pocket, with no one the wiser.”

“What about Sam’s penmanship? That notebook isn’t in the same hand as the blackmail demands.”

“No, but—”

“Well, those notes weren’t in John’s hand, either. I’d recognize his copperplate anywhere. So who wrote them?” As Ben spoke, his eyes dropped to somewhere south of my face, and his color heightened slightly.

I realized my wrapper was falling open and wrenched it tighter about me, my cheeks going hot. “You said yourself that the blackmail notes were simple block printing, and anyone might have managed them.”

Ben had caught my self-conscious tug-of-war with my wrapper, and he looked politely away, only his quickened breathing betraying his embarrassment. “Even if I grant you that point, why would John tell Teddy he’d seen your sister with Sam at Hookham’s if the two of them were working together? That would be killing the goose that laid the golden egg, wouldn’t it?”

He had me there. “I haven’t worked that part out yet. But his motives fit.”

“His motives? And just what would those be?”

Something about the way we were slinging theories at each other had my pulse zinging. Or perhaps, facing Ben in my nightclothes, I was simply more aware than usual of every word and every glance that passed between us. “John shot you because when you questioned him this morning, he realized just how close you were to unearthing the truth. As for the rest, I assume he’s trying to ruin Cliburne’s chance at marriage, perhaps even see him hang.”

Ben gave an impatient shake of his head. “Why would John want that? If he really hoped to ruin Teddy’s marriage plans, it would make more sense to reveal your sister’s guilty secret than to blackmail her. And even if Teddy should die without an heir, John wouldn’t profit one whit. He can’t inherit. He’s illegitimate.”

Unfortunately, Ben was right. I hadn’t stopped to consider that far. “There’s always the mercenary motive of the fifty pounds,” I argued with rather less certainty. “And just because John can’t inherit doesn’t mean he wishes Cliburne well. Think about it—the illegitimate firstborn, forced to stand by and watch as his feckless younger brother claims the title and fortune he considers rightfully his...”

Ben stared doubtfully at me.

It was a story as old as Cain and Abel, but Ben was an only child. He’d never been shown up by a sibling or made to feel second-rate, and I was too proud to admit my own jealousy of Helen simply to convince him. “You may scoff all you like,” I said airily, “but I’m going to Bow Street with this notebook and my suspicions.”

“I realize you want to clear your sister, but I can’t let you do it by pointing the finger of suspicion at John.” Ben stretched out a hand. “Give me the notebook.”

My mouth fell open. “Give it to you? Why should I do that? Finders, keepers!”

“You’re not taking it to Bow Street, Barbara.”

I stuck the notebook behind my back. “Well, I’m certainly not giving it to you. Find your own clues. This one’s mine.”

Instead of growing angry, Ben stared back at me, his lips quirking slightly. A twinkle in his clear gray eyes announced he took the vehemence of my refusal as a challenge. “I could always take it by force, you know.”

A little thrill went through me at the note in his voice—half threat, half cajolery—but I merely scoffed, “Ha!” Surely he wouldn’t dare.

His smile widening, Ben stepped closer, and only conscious effort kept me from moving backward in retreat. “You don’t think I could?”

Having felt the iron muscles under his coat in the cupboard the night before, I had every certainty he could take the notebook from me without turning a hair. But I raised my chin and said with false bravado, “No, I don’t. If you so much as try, I’ll scream.”

His eyes danced. “And bring the whole house running to discover us alone in your bedroom? I don’t think so.” In a move as quick and fluid as a panther’s, he reached around me and seized the wrist I’d thrust behind my back.

“Oh!” I was so surprised he’d actually dared—and that he’d moved in so close, my breasts were crushed against his chest—sheer instinct made me whack him solidly with my free hand.

He immediately dodged away, lifting a hand to his temple. “Ow.”

I sprang toward him in horror, realizing my blow must have landed in the same spot where he’d been shot that afternoon. “Oh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean—”

Ben made a grab for the notebook, wresting it from my hand. “Got it!”

So that bid for sympathy had been nothing but a trick? And I’d believed him. What a devious, underhanded thing to do. With a strangled cry, I threw myself on him, furious.

Ben lifted the notebook aloft, too high for me to reach. Straining to snatch it back, I ended up pressed against him from knees almost to shoulders. My thighs were against his hard thighs, my bosom all but flattened against the unyielding wall of his chest. With not even the thickness of petticoats between us, every lean, muscular inch of him seemed to scorch through my nightclothes. I’d never before been face-to-face with a man this close—even in the cupboard, it had been too dark and too cramped to know with certainty exactly what was where—and the startling intimacy of it struck me so forcibly that for one flustered second, I left off fighting in surprise. He seemed so big and strong and unmistakably
male.

Fortunately, I snapped out of it before he could realize how badly he’d rattled me. Ashamed of my momentary weakness, I began pummeling his chest and shoulders with my fists. “Give it back!”

He plucked me off him as if I weighed no more than a feather, holding the notebook out of my reach with one hand while setting me at arm’s length with the other. “Uh-uh-uh,” he chided. “I got it, fair and square.”

“You call that
fair?
” I lunged against his restraining hand, struggling breathlessly to get at the notebook. “Just because you’re stronger than I am doesn’t give you the right to have your way in everything.”

He grinned as his sleepy gray eyes raked up and down the length of me. “Now, now. You wouldn’t want me to think you a sore loser, would you?”

Too late I realized that, without my stays, my struggles were giving my bosom a decidedly unladylike jiggle. His smug amusement only added to my anger. How dare he overpower me? How dare he make me feel more laughable than I already was? And how ridiculous I must look, dressed in a tatty old nightgown and an even tattier wrapper, struggling futilely against this handsome, arrogant and prodigiously stronger son of a duke.

Suddenly something my brother Jack had taught me flashed into my head, a surefire method of self-defense in case a man should ever try to force unwelcome attentions on me.
Use it only as a last resort
, Jack had warned me solemnly. Well, if Ben could stoop to dirty tricks, so could I.

“Fine.” I tossed up my hands. “You win.”

Ben looked faintly surprised and perhaps even a little disappointed that I’d given up so easily, but he immediately let me go. “Good, because I wouldn’t want—”

I brought my leg up sharply, kneeing him in the groin.

It worked like magic. Ben doubled over instantly. The next thing I knew, he was hunched over with one hand on the bedpost, literally gasping in pain.

Despite what Jack had told me, I hadn’t expected the tactic to work
that
well. At first I wondered if it was another of Ben’s tricks. But the notebook had slipped forgotten from his hands, and the choked sounds he was making certainly sounded like real pain.

“
Unhhh
,” he groaned.

I stooped to retrieve the notebook, eyeing him askance. Suffering contorted his face. “Are you all right?”

“Oh, God...uhhhh...” He gasped for a few more seconds before he managed to straighten, grimacing. “I can’t believe you...” He groaned again and eased himself down to a seat on the bed. “Are you
mad?
Do you have any notion how much that hurts?”

I regarded him with my hands on my hips. “If you’re going to resort to superior strength, you have to expect me to seize whatever tactical advantage I can.”

“At least I was taking care
not
to hurt you.” Wincing, he shook his head in bewilderment. “What’s wrong with you? It was only a game. A silly, childish game.”

Something about the way he said it—
What’s wrong with you?
—made me want to snap back,
You started it!
But he looked sincerely confounded, and only moments before he’d been gasping in pain. Under his thick, dark hair, I could even make out the place where he’d been shot that afternoon. In a flash all the fight went out of me, replaced by a stab of remorse.