The Deception (33 page)

“I see.”

“You
have
been very busy,” I said in my own defense.

He was staring straight ahead, not looking at me. The bones and planes of his face were as perfect, and as still, as the classical statues in Lady Barbury’s garden.

“Harry said ...” I began again.

“Yes, you told me what Harry said.” He turned his head so that he could look at me. His eyes were very dark. “You and Harry are thick as thieves, aren’t you?” he asked.

I was so surprised by the comment, and by the sudden bitterness in his voice, that my mouth dropped open. Finally I pulled myself together enough to say, “Harry is like my brother.”

He stood up. “We had better get back to the house, Kate. I told Bellerton that I would take a gun out with him, and I’m late.”

Another one of those appointments, I stood up as well. I knew I had mucked this up badly, but I didn’t know how to retrieve the situation. I felt awful. He had been so wonderful to me yesterday, and now he was hurt.

Damn.

We walked back toward the lions, our steps in harmony but our spirits wildly out of tune. When we reached the great stone statues, I said in a small voice, “Will you come to the meeting of the Jockey Club with us, Adrian?”

“Oh, I don’t think that will be necessary, Kate,” he said. “You have managed well enough without me up till now.”

“I’d
like
to have you come,” I said.

“You have Harry,” he replied. And that is the note on which we parted.

Chapter Twenty-four

We met at eleven o’clock the following morning in the New Rooms in the town of Newmarket, where the headquarters of the Jockey Club were located. The room into which Sir Charles escorted us smelled strongly of leather and dog and horse, and I thought that I was probably the first female ever to cross its hallowed threshold. As we walked in I shot a quick glance at the sober faces of the eight men who were before us. The eyes that looked back at me did not seem particularly friendly.

“My dear Lady Greystone,” someone said, and I turned to see Mr. Cruick approaching. He smiled kindly as he greeted me and shook Harry’s hand. Seeing the face of a friend in this all-male bastion made me feel a little better.

Sir Charles asked us all to take seats around a large, mahogany table, and I sat with Harry on one side of me and Paddy on the other. The rest of the men in the room took chairs around the table as well. The light hum of polite conversation kept the silence from becoming awkward as everyone waited for the arrival of the accused.

Five minutes later, Stade walked in. I was glad to see his confident swagger falter when his eyes fell upon me. He looked at Paddy sitting next to me, and knew his game was up.

He gave it his best effort, however. He heaped scorn on the “Irish trash,” who were obviously hoping to steal his prize stallion. He professed pity for the “poor girl, clearly deranged by grief”; that was I. Harry he termed my “innocent dupe.”

It was Mr. Cruick who called for the evidence that I knew would weigh most heavily with the stewards—the Stud Book. All the men in the room were serious horsemen, and they knew the paramount importance of heredity in horse breeding.
Breed the best to the best.
Finn MacCool would speak for himself through the records in the Irish Stud Book.

The volume was produced and Sir Charles put on his spectacles and located the entry for Finn MacCool. The room was utterly silent as he began to read.

“ ‘Sire: Skylark.’ ”

A rustle of surprise ran around the entire room. Skylark was an English horse who had belonged to the Earl of Egremont. He had been extremely successful both on the track and as a sire.

I was watching Stade, and I saw his jaw clench as the men of the Jockey Club reacted to Skylark’s name.

“ ‘Dam: Royal Maeve,’ ”  read Sir Charles. The name of the Irish mare was not familiar to the assembled Englishmen, but when Sir Charles looked up Royal Maeve’s track record, it was found to be impressive.

The last track record to be considered belonged to Finn MacCool himself. Sir Charles read the statistics aloud in a dry, uninflected voice. Victory after victory was cited. In his entire career, the horse had lost only one race, and that was the race where he had incurred the injury that caused his retirement.

There was absolute silence in the room when Sir Charles had finished. The stewards did not need to look up Alcazar in the Stud Book. His mediocre breeding and career were already known to everyone present.

Sir Charles closed the Stud Book quietly and removed his spectacles. Paddy spoke into the continuing silence, “All we are asking of the stewards is that someone travel to Inishfree Farm to look at the horses that are Finn MacCool’s get. It is the request that Mr. Fitzgerald would have made, if he had not been murdered first.”

The faces of the men around the table were looking exceedingly grim. Stade’s unwinking brown gaze was fixed with hatred upon Paddy. “You Irish scum all stick together,” he said.

Paddy’s pale blue eyes did not drop before the Marquis’s aggressive stare. “And you, sir, are a lyin’, thievin’, murtherer,” he returned in the soft, gentle voice that horses loved.

Stade cursed, and began to rise from his chair, his head lowered bull-like on his thick neck.

“Sit down, Stade.”

My eyes snapped around toward the door expecting to see Adrian standing there. The door was still securely shut, however. It was another moment before I realized that the clipped, authoritative voice had not issued from Adrian’s lips at all, but from Harry’s.

Stade sat down. Everyone in the room stared at Harry, whose angelic face looked quite amazingly formidable. He said in the same incisive voice, “This is not a matter to be settled by name-calling, Sir Charles. This is a matter to be settled by evidence.” Harry’s cold eyes circled the faces around the table. “Will you allow me to recapitulate what you have learned this morning, gentlemen?”

Sir Charles nodded gravely, giving him permission to continue.

Harry steepled his fingers together and said, “You have listened to the testimony of Sean MacBride, Finn MacCool’s old groom, who has told you that the horse that is being passed off as Alcazar is in fact Finn MacCool himself. You are all horsemen, and thus you know that no one knows a horse as intimately as the man who grooms him.

“Fact number two, you have perused the evidence that is in the Stud Book. You are all breeders, and thus you know how loudly the bloodlines of these two stallions speak.”

Across the table from me, Lord Sussex nodded in agreement.

Harry’s voice continued dispassionately, “You have learned from Sean MacBride that the Marquis of Stade tried to buy Finn MacCool and that after his offer was refused, there was a suspicious fire in Finn MacCool’s barn.”

The man who was sitting next to Stade shot him a look that I can only describe as disgusted. Harry went relentlessly on, “You have been told of the puzzling disappearance of Finn MacCool and the subsequent astonishing improvement in Stade’s breeding program.” Once again his eyes slowly circled the table. “And then there is the fact that immediately after the fire at Inishfree Farm, all of Alcazar’s grooms were dismissed.”

The room was completely silent. All of the Jockey Club stewards, who were much older than he, were regarding Harry with attention and respect. He placed his hands flat on the table in front of him, gave me a compassionate look, and said softly, “Then there is the death of Daniel Fitzgerald.”

The men who had been leaning forward all sat back. No one wanted to contemplate Papa’s death, but Harry was not going to let them off. “Mr. Fitzgerald was shot not far from the estate of the Marquis of Stade,” he said. “The man who fired the gun was never found and the local magistrate ruled that the shooting was accidental, but you gentlemen of the Jockey Club must know that there has not been such an accidental shooting in the Newmarket area in a hundred years.”

I saw a muscle twitch in the corner of Stade’s left eye.

At last Harry looked at him. “You either had him killed or you shot him yourself, Lord Stade,” he said.

The marquis’s menacing brown gaze fixed upon Harry. “You can’t prove that,” he said.

“Probably not,” Harry returned regretfully. “But we can prove that you switched the stallions.”

Stade knew that we could. You could see it in his face. The rest of the men in the room could see it too.

The noontime sun was slanting in through the slats of the open Venetian blinds. Lord March coughed and someone else cleared his throat. Next to me, Paddy made a restless move and then was quiet. We all stared at the neat, regular features of Sir Charles and waited.

Sir Charles picked up his spectacles and began to polish them with a cambric handkerchief. My own hands were clenched together in my lap.
He has to believe us,
I thought fiercely.
He has to.

Sir Charles replaced his spectacles on the table in front of him and put away his handkerchief. He looked at Harry and said, “We will have one of our members travel to Galway as you suggest, Mr. Woodrow. We will also institute a search for Alcazar’s old grooms.”

A faint sigh went around the room, as if everyone present had been holding their breaths and then had released them at the same time.

At last Sir Charles turned his eyes to the angry, defiant face of the Marquis of Stade. “I am in little doubt, however, as to what we shall find,” he said. “And if these investigations do indeed show the truth of what has been alleged here today, I tell you now, Lord Stade, that should you ever again enter a horse in any race in England, no gentleman will run against you.”

Paddy put his rough, work-worn hand over mine. We had won.

* * * *

Once Stade had stormed out, it took a little while for the rest of the room to clear. Mr. Cruick grabbed my ear and I had to listen one more time to his recital of how Stade had once cheated him in a race. Paddy and Sean were talking to Sir Charles, and I knew that they must be discussing the return of Finn MacCool to his legitimate owner. A number of the other men had surrounded Harry.

I commiserated with Mr. Cruick, then accepted the condolences of several gentlemen who came up to express their horror about Papa’s murder.

“Wish we could prosecute the bounder,” Mr. Cruick said.

“Well, well, there’s no sense in dragging our dirty linen out into the public view,” Lord Henry Groton said. “Stade will be ostracized not only from the racetrack but from good society as well. Punishment enough, I should say.” He patted my shoulder. “Your father’s death may have been an accident after all, Lady Greystone.”

All the men around me nodded.

“It wasn’t,” I said.

Lord Henry looked a little put out. I was not playing the game properly. Aristocrats did not, as Sir Charles had said, “drag their dirty linen out into the public view.” Even if more evidence had been available, the gentlemen of the Jockey Club would not like to see a marquis put on trial for such a sordid act as the murder of an Irish horse dealer.

“I am afraid we will never know,” Lord Henry said pompously.

“That is so,” agreed Mr. John Plimpton, who had known Papa well. “You must be content that you have successfully finished your father’s investigation, Lady Greystone. Finn MacCool will be returned to Ireland, and Stade will be banned from English racing. I know that is what Daniel would have wanted.”

“Yes,” I said listlessly.

At that moment Harry turned around, and I caught his eye. He started toward me immediately. “Ready to leave, Kate?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said.

The gentlemen of the Jockey Club gallantly bowed me out, doubtless wondering why I had insisted on coming in the first place.

As Harry tooled the phaeton back toward Harley Hall, I wondered myself. I felt none of the triumph that I had expected I would feel at the defeat of Stade. Instead I just felt... empty.

“You’re awfully quiet,” Harry said.

I sighed. “There isn’t much to say, Harry.” I turned to ‘ look at him. “Except to tell you how magnificent you were. I was so impressed! And so were the stewards. You were a veritable Cicero, Harry!”

He looked pleased.

“You should go into Parliament,” I said. “You would be wonderful speaking in the House of Commons.”

He shook his head. “Adrian is the one in the family to go into government, Kate.”

A flock of sheep had ambled onto the road ahead of us and Harry had to stop the horses. “Stupid creatures,” he said disgustedly.

“Adrian sits in the Lords,” I said. “That doesn’t mean that you couldn’t have a splendid career in the Commons.”

The milling sheep had evidently decided they would take a little stroll up the road instead of returning to their pasture. Harry shouted at them to move, but they ignored him. His
loud voice startled our own horses, however, and then he had to quiet them. When they were once more standing still, he was able to return his attention to me. “Do you think so?” he said.

I nodded emphatically. “Yes. I do. Just look at how important Charles James Fox was in the Commons. And Edmund Burke. And ...”

I could hear the excitement he was trying to disguise as he held up his hand and said, “All right, Kate. I take your point.”

He clucked to the horses, then began to walk them forward in the hope of encouraging the sheep to vacate the road.

“You bowled them over at the Jockey Club,” I said. “You were so cool and logical, Harry. Didn’t you see how all those powerful men were hanging on your every word?”

“Ba ... a... a... a ... ba ....” The sheep finally noticed the horses and began to scurry around, trying to find a way off the road. They really were the most colossally stupid animals.

“I still have to finish Oxford,” he said.

“Yes, but after you finish I am sure that there is a family seat you could have.”

“There is, of course.”

The House of Commons was nominally elected by the commons of England, but what usually happened was that the common people in a particular district voted as their local lord decreed.

“I’ll talk to Adrian about it,” Harry said. The suppressed excitement was now bubbling in his voice. “I think I might quite like to go to the Commons.”