Sweet Revenge (32 page)

“What clue?” he asked quickly.

“Go to hell,” snapped Arianna as she thrust them back into her coat pocket.

He folded his arms across his chest. “We apologized.”

“No,
we
did not. Mr. Henning did.”

“You wish one from me?”

Arianna looked away.

“If I truly thought you were involved in this, Lady Arianna, you would not still be waltzing through the ballrooms of Mayfair. At my expense, I might add.”

She made a mock curtsey. “How reassuring to know I have your full and unqualified support, sir.”

“Please sit down, Lady Arianna.” Henning hastily pulled out one of the rickety chairs arranged around the small table. “We, too, have some interesting things to share.”

“Just as long as you’re not planning on using your scalpels or saws on me to extract information.”

“Baz is a gentleman,” remarked Saybrook. “I make no such claim.”

“Then it’s a good thing I don’t consider myself a lady.” Arianna took a seat and unfolded her notes. “You have to admit, at least I am not boring, like most of the demure young demoiselles of the
ton
.”

“You are not boring,” agreed Saybrook. His tone, however, gave no hint of whether he considered that a good or bad thing. His gaze flicked to her notes. “Now that we’ve settled personal concerns, might we get down to business?”

But of course—this was naught but a cerebral challenge for him.

She hitched her chair a little closer. “I think I have figured out what’s worth all the recent murder and mayhem.” Paper crackled beneath her fingertips. “I believe that Lady Spencer is somehow involved in a conspiracy to establish a trading company based on the model of the South Sea Company.”

The surgeon let out a low whistle but the earl appeared less impressed. “Why?” he demanded.

“Because along with taking the medallion and Kellton’s letter from her desk, I also took this.” She pulled the pasteboard folder from inside her jacket. “It’s a set of mathematical equations—two sets, in fact, one old and one new.”

Saybrook swore. Several times over. “I thought we went through the dangers of withholding information,” he said through gritted teeth.

“We did. And I chose to ignore you.” Arianna narrowed her eyes. “So, now you can either cut off my fingers with that disgusting-looking scalpel or you can hear me out.”

“Listen to reason, laddie,” murmured Henning.

“Bloody hell.” The earl leaned back. “Go on.”

“Your great-aunt’s revelation that Lady Spencer’s grandfather was involved in the South Sea Bubble got me to thinking.” Arianna spread out the papers. “As I said, one set of documents looks quite old, so I started with them. First I gathered a number of books and read up on the history of the South Sea Company. Then I began to work through the mathematics. . . .”

Saybrook made a sound—more precisely a growl—but she ignored it.

“As you know, the Bubble revolved around the government partnering with a private company to divest itself of a ballooning national debt.”

“Aye,” muttered Henning.

“And on paper, the formulas work very well,” she went on.

“Assuming, of course, that the company has real value, and is not just some empty shell made of polished lies and pretty promises,” murmured the earl.

“Right.” She traced over the first string of equations on the age-yellowed paper. “Once I worked through the numbers here, I started to see similar patterns to the things I had been reading about regarding the South Sea Bubble. I guessed that they were the confidential financial papers of Lady Spencer’s grandfather, who, as you recall, was a director of the Sword Blade Bank.”

“Which was the financial arm of the South Sea Company,” added Saybrook, for Henning was beginning to look a bit bewildered.

“Correct, sir. So I decided to compare them to the set of newer documents that Lady Spencer had in the same folder. I ran a few projections, based on today’s debt, factoring in inflation and a percentage of—”

“What?” interrupted Henning.

“Never mind. What we’re really concerned with is the ratio of debt-equity swaps.”

“What?”
repeated the surgeon.

Arianna drummed her fingers against the table, trying to quell her impatience. To her, the concepts were simple, but she understood that many people did not find mathematics quite so easy to follow.

“Debt-equity swaps are designed to benefit both parties. In this case, the government paid a lower rate of interest on its debt, and the South Sea Company profited as its stock price rose—you see, a high profit-to-expense ratio makes the company worth more on paper.” She looked up. “It can therefore issue more stock, which in turn generates more blunt for its partners.”

The earl nodded for her to go on.

She paged through the modern papers and quickly explained what the complex mathematics meant. “So you see, the numbers mirror the same formulas used in the last century. And that can only mean one thing.”

“What?”
The surgeon appeared hopelessly confused.

Arianna glanced at Saybrook, wondering whether he grasped the significance of her calculations.

“What you mean is,” said the earl slowly, “the scale and volume indicates that the deal can only be a very large one.”

“That’s right, sir. A very large one, and a very profitable one.” She paused to pull out the sheet of numbers that the earl had found in Lady Spencer’s desk on the night of their encounter with Lord Ashmun. “Bear with me while I go over one last thing. Based on what I discovered in the old and new documents—and something that Mr. Henning had said about dockyard mud—I had an idea of what these sequences might mean. So I visited your great-aunt this morning and asked her if, through her many connections in Society, she could get me copies of certain shipping records.”

“And?” asked Saybrook.

“And sure enough, the sequences on this paper correspond to the dates when certain merchant ships arrived in London from the old Spanish Empire trading ports. Perhaps it’s coincidence. But I doubt it. I think what we’ve uncovered is a new business venture—a New World trading company modeled on the financial scandal of the last century.”

Arianna learned forward and propped her elbows on the table.

“Only bigger.”

H
enning opened his mouth to say something, but Saybrook signaled him to silence. He spoke instead. “How very clever of you to have figured this all out on your own.”

Arianna drew in a sharp breath and narrowed her eyes. “Just what are you accusing me of, sir?”

“Of having a genius for mathematics which must rival that of your late father,” he replied.

“I . . .” She quickly composed herself, unwilling to show that the barb had hurt. “Yes, I’ve always had a knack for numbers. But I haven’t ever used it for cheating. . . .” Recalling several harbor towns in the Windward Islands, she shrugged. “Well, hardly ever.”

The earl’s brows rose ever so slightly.

“I’m
sharing
it with you, aren’t I?” she retorted, nettled by the unspoken skepticism.

“A cunning criminal would,” he answered. “I’ve not enough expertise to discern whether you’ve fiddled with the numbers. Or whether you’re lying outright.”

Their gazes locked.

“No,” she responded. “You would have to take my word on it.”

The floorboards groaned as Henning shifted in his chair.

“You have to admit,” continued Saybrook, “it’s rather hard to feel completely comfortable in trusting a person who keeps changing like a chameleon.”

Arianna picked at a thread on her raveled sleeve.

“A master chef, a mathematical genius, a brilliant actress—have you any other hidden talents to reveal?”

“I can sail a schooner single-handedly and I’m rather good at picking locks.” Lowering her lashes, she couldn’t resist adding, “And, of course, I’m a dab hand at leading men around by the nose. But then, you know that.”

The earl stretched out his legs and crossed one booted ankle over the other. “I would imagine that your father found your mathematical genius very . . . useful.”

Arianna looked away for an instant and fought to draw a ragged breath. “Yes. He would have been delighted to form a partnership.”

“But?” The word was said softly.

“But it wasn’t a life I wanted,” she replied, then quickly added a laugh. “As you see, the one I have chosen is ever so much more respectable.”

“I’m simply trying to gather information, Lady Arianna, not make any moral judgments,” said Saybrook. “It would be helpful to know if you aided your father in constructing any business scams. That sort of information could be relevant.”

“No,” answered Arianna tightly. “I did not. When I was a little girl, my father hinted that we might . . . profit from my talents. But when I expressed my feelings on cheating, he never raised the subject again.” She swallowed hard. “Though it must have cost him dear to hold his tongue. At the end, we were dancing on the razor’s edge of poverty.”

“Thank you.” The earl carefully rearranged the folds of his coat. “Now, getting back to the numbers on the table—”

“You believe me?” blurted out Arianna.

“I didn’t say that.” The earl allowed a faint smile. “But we are straying from the subject.” A pause. “So it is your opinion that these equations indicate that the new company will seek a partnership with the government?”

The tension eased inside her. “Given the size of the sums involved, it’s hard to imagine any other explanation.”

“I possess no financial acumen, so what I’ve never understood is how did the South Sea Bubble expand to such mammoth proportions before it burst?” mused Henning.

“Having just read a great deal about it, I shall try to explain,” responded Arianna. “The real turning point came in 1717, when the King admitted to Parliament that the country’s finances were troubled and that the national debt needed to be reduced. In reply, the South Sea Company presented a proposal to raise its capital to twelve million pounds by selling a new offering of stock.” She glanced down at the faded numbers. “Due to canny promotion by Sir John Blunt, the name of the South Sea Company was continually in the public eye. So, despite the fact that the company was earning virtually nothing from its South American trade, shares in the company were in great demand and the directors were eager to keep increasing the value of the company.”

“And the public allowed the wool to be pulled over its eyes?” grunted Henning.

“Part of the frenzy was fanned by what was going on in France, Baz,” pointed out the earl. “Your fellow Scotsman John Law had been invited to come in and revamp the entire banking system there, and as a result, the economy was booming. Emboldened by the success of his financial theories, Law established the Mississippi Company, a similar New World trading venture. Its stock was soaring, and the French—everyone from humble shopkeepers to princely lords—were growing rich on paper.”

“The English watched and were jealous. Visions of unbounded wealth were now dancing like sugar plums in the heads of every man and woman. And the South Sea Company saw a way to profit from the frenzy,” said Arianna. “So in 1720, the directors presented a plan to the government that would virtually eliminate the national debt.”