Lord John and the Brotherhood of the Blade (48 page)

It couldn’t be—but it couldn’t
not
be. No one but his mother would use that title. And to use it to Adams was a direct challenge. It must be her. But how had she got back to London, and what in God’s
name
did she think she was doing?

Gripped by fear, he ran down the drive toward the street where he had left his carriage waiting. Morning Glory. He knew the house; it was a small, elegant house belonging to the Walpole family. What…?

“Edgeware Road!” he shouted to the coachman, ducking inside. “And hurry!”

M
orning Glory looked deserted. The shutters were closed, the fountain in the front court dry, the court itself unswept, carpeted with dead leaves. It had the look of a house whose family had gone away to the country, leaving the furniture under sheets, the servants paid off.

Neither was there any sign of a coach, a horse, or any living person. Grey mounted the stoop softly, and stood for a moment, listening. The place was still, save the cawing of rooks in the bare-limbed trees in the garden.

He took hold of the doorknob; it turned in his hand. Slowly letting out the breath he had been holding, he opened the door and stepped warily inside.

The furniture
was
under sheets, he saw. He paused, listening. No voices. No sound, save his own breathing. He knew the house, had been here now and then, at musicales—the present Earl of Orford’s wife sang, or thought she could.

The doors off the foyer stood open—all but one. That one led, he thought, to the library. He put a hand on his sword hilt, but decided against drawing it. Adams was a slight man, and twenty years Grey’s senior; he wouldn’t need it.

He set his hand on the doorknob; it was white china, painted with roses, and a pang went through him at the cool slick touch of it on his hand, but there was no time now to think of such things. He eased the door gently open—and came face to face with the barrel of a pistol, pointed directly at him.

He flung himself to the side, seizing a chair, which he narrowly stopped himself from throwing at the person holding the gun.

“Jesus!” he said. He stood frozen for an instant, then, quivering in every limb, set the chair slowly down and collapsed onto it.

“What the devil are you doing here?” his mother demanded, lowering the pistol.

“I might ask you the same thing, madam.” His heart was pounding in his chest, sending small jolts of pain down his left arm with every beat, and he had broken out in a cold sweat.

“It is a private affair,” she said fiercely. “Will you bloody leave?”

He paid no attention to her unaccustomed language.

“I will not. What were you intending? To shoot Mr. Adams on sight? Is that thing loaded?”

“Of course it is loaded,” she said in exasperation, “and if I’d meant to shoot him on sight, you’d be dead at the moment. Will you go away!”

“No,” he said briefly, and rising, reached for the gun. “Give me that.”

She took two steps back, holding the gun—which was not only loaded and primed, but cocked, he saw—protectively against her breast.

“John, I wish you to leave,” she said, as calmly as she could, though he saw the pulse beat fast in the hollow of her throat, and the slight shaking of her hands. “You
must
go, and now. I will tell you everything, I swear it. But not
now.
”

“He isn’t coming.” That much had dawned on him. It was nearly half past four—he had heard the bells strike, just before his arrival. If Adams had meant to come, he would be here. The fact that he was not…

She stared at him, uncomprehending.

“Adams,” he repeated. “It
is
Bernard Adams who killed Father?”

Her face drained of all color, and she sat down, quite suddenly, on a sofa. Her eyes closed, as though she could not keep them open.

“What have you done, John?” she whispered. “What do you know?”

He came and sat down beside her, removing the pistol from her hand, gone limp and unresisting.

“I know that Father was murdered,” he said gently. “I’ve known since the morning you found him. I was there, hiding in the conservatory.”

Her eyes sprang open in shock, the same light blue as his own. He laid his free hand over hers, squeezing gently.

“When did you come back?” he asked. “Does Sir George know?”

She shook her head blindly. “I—three days ago. I told him I wanted to be in London for the marriage of a friend. He will come back himself in a month; he made no objection.”

“He will probably have objections, should he come back to find you dead or arrested.”

He breathed, feeling his heart begin to slow.

“You should have told us,” he said. “Hal and me.”

“No.” She shook her head, closing her eyes again. “No! He would never have let it rest. You know what Hal is like.”

“Yes, I do,” Grey said, smiling despite himself. “He’s just like you, Mother. And me.”

Trembling, she bent her head, and buried her face in her hands. A constant fine tremor was running through her, like the shifting of sand beneath one’s feet as the tide goes out,
terra firma
melting away.

“I have lost a husband,” she said softly, to her feet. “I would not lose my sons.” Lifting her head, she gave him a quick, desperate glance.

“Do you think I know nothing about men? About you and your brother in particular? Or about the general?”

“What do you mean?”

She made a small sound that might have been a laugh or a sob.

“Do you mean to tell me that I might have told you this—any of you—and expected you
not
to go straight out in pursuit of the matter, regardless of the threat?”

“Well, of course not.” He stared at her in incomprehension. “What else could we do?”

She drew a trembling hand down her face, and turned to the wall, where an ornamental looking glass hung.

“Would it be better if I’d had daughters?” she asked the mirror, in apparent earnestness.

“No,” she answered herself. “They’d only marry men, and there you are.”

She closed her eyes for a moment, plainly collecting herself, then opened them and turned to him, composed.

“If I’d known who it was,” she said firmly, “I would have told Hal. At least,” she amended, “I would have told him once I’d decided how best to deal with the matter. But I didn’t know. And for him—or later, you—to go charging into danger, with no clear notion where the danger lay, nor how widespread the threat might be? No. No, I wasn’t having that.”

“You may have a point,” he admitted reluctantly, and she gave a small snort.

“But you did find out.” It occurred to him, with a sense of awe, that she had never been reconciled to the duke’s death—that she had been waiting, patiently watching, all this time, for an opportunity to discover and destroy the man who had killed him. “How did you discover Mr. Adams’s name?”

“I blackmailed Gilbert Rigby.”

Grey felt his mouth fall open, and swiftly closed it.

“What? How?”

The ghost of a smile crossed her lips.

“Captain Rigby—I suppose I must call him ‘Dr. Rigby’ now—gambles. He always did, and I kept an eye upon him. I knew he had run through most of his family’s fortune, when he sold the town house his father left him, last year. He’s using some of the funds donated for the Foundling Hospital now. And so I asked Harry Quarry to make inquiries, very quietly—and to buy up his debts.” She reached toward a leather case that lay on the table beside the sofa, and flipped open the cover, to show a sheaf of papers. “I showed him them, and told him I would expose him if he did not tell me who had killed Gerard.”

What had he told Dr. Longstreet?
Had she known which man it was, she would have killed him, I assure you.

Grey felt shock, but no particular surprise.

“And he did.”

“I think it was a relief to him,” she said, sounding faintly surprised. “Gilbert is not a bad man, you know—only weak. He could not bring himself to tell the truth at the time; that would have cost him everything. But he was sincerely appalled at what had happened—he said that he did not know for certain that Bernard Adams had killed Gerry, and had managed to keep his conscience dormant all this time by telling himself that Gerry must have committed self-murder. But faced with the truth—and with those—” she cast a sardonic eye toward the leather case, “he admitted it. He still has something to be lost, after all.”

“And you don’t?” Grey asked, piqued at the thought of her planning to face Adams by herself.

She eyed him, one brow raised.

“A great deal to lose,” she said evenly. “But I am a gambler, too—and I have a great deal of patience.”

He picked the pistol up, and carefully uncocked it.

“Did you calculate the odds of being caught?” he asked. “Even if you could prove that Adams killed Father—and Gilbert Rigby’s admission is far from proof—you’d very likely be hanged for murder. And what would Sir George think of that?”

She looked surprised.

“What? What do you think I am?”

“You don’t want me to answer that, Mother. What do you mean?”

“I mean I didn’t intend to kill him,” she said indignantly. “What good would that do? Beyond the minor gratification of revenge, what would I want with his miserable little life?” she added bitterly.

“No. I meant to make him confess the crime”—she nodded toward the table, and Grey saw that besides the leather case containing Rigby’s debts, there was a portable writing desk, as well—“and then let him go. He could leave the country if he liked; he would be exposed, he would lose everything that mattered to him—and I could give Gerry back his honor.”

Her voice trembled on the last word, and Grey brought her hand on impulse to his lips.

“I’ll see it done,” he whispered. “I swear it.”

Tears were running down her face, but she took a deep breath and held her voice steady.

“Where is he? Adams?”

“Running, I think.” He told her what Adams’s butler had said. “As he hasn’t come, he probably supposes that you
do
have proof. And there’s this—” He fumbled in his pocket, turning out the usual assortment of trifles, among which was Captain Bates’s postmortem denunciation.

She read it in silence, then turned back to the first page and read it again.

“So he’s gone,” she said flatly, laying the papers on her knee. “Taken the money and fled to France. I frightened him, and he’s gone.”

“He hasn’t left the country yet,” Grey said, trying to sound encouraging. “And even if he should escape—plainly he
has
lost his position, his reputation. And you did say you don’t want his life.”

“I don’t,” she said, between clenched teeth. “But this”—she smacked the papers with the back of her hand, sending them to the floor—“is useless to me. I don’t care that the world knows Bernard Adams for a criminal and traitor—I want him to be known as my husband’s murderer; I want your father’s honor back!”

Grey bent to pick up the papers from the floor, and rising, tucked them back into his pocket.

“All right,” he said, and took a deep breath. “I’ll find him.”

He hesitated for a moment, looking at his mother. She sat upright, straight as a musket barrel—but she looked very small, and suddenly her age showed in her face.

“Will I see you…home?” he asked, not sure where her home might be. The house in Jermyn Street had been closed; should he take her to Minnie’s house? His heart sank at thought of the hubbub
that
would cause.

“No,” she said, obviously having thought the same thing. “I have a carriage; I’ll go to the general’s house. You go.”

“Yes.” But he didn’t go, not at once. Thoughts, fears, suppositions, half-baked plans were whirling through his head. “If you should need…help…if I am not nearby—”

“I’ll call on Harry Quarry,” his mother said firmly. “Go, John.”

“Yes. Yes, that—” A sudden thought struck him. “Does Quarry know? Everything?”

“Certainly not. He would have told Hal at once.”

“Then how did you induce him to…” He nodded at the leather case. To his surprise, his mother smiled.

“More blackmail,” she admitted. “Harry writes erotic verses—very elegant, really. I told him that if he didn’t do what I asked, I’d tell everyone in the regiment. It was all quite easy,” she said, with a certain degree of complacence. “It is
possible
to deal with men. You just have to know how.”