The Marquess (46 page)

“I should imagine she’s on one of the Earl of
Mellon’s estates right now, surrounded by armed guards and my indomitable
cousin and her husband. She’s safe. You’re not. You’re the
one they really want, Dillian.”

She nodded reluctant agreement. Her fingers traced
Gavin’s scars, loving them with her touch. “I trust you,” she
finally admitted. “I just don’t trust your brand of heroics. I want
you back alive and in one piece, not on a stretcher or in a casket.”

He smiled grimly. “I assure you, madam, that a
weak-kneed politician and a duke or two are no match for someone who took on
the British navy with little more than a leaky rowboat. If I know you’re
safe, I can concentrate on bringing the culprits to justice.”

She released the reins and stepped away. “All right.
I’ll trust you,” she agreed. “But you had best keep
messengers on the road night and day so I know you’re alive. If I
don’t hear from you by tomorrow evening, I’m coming after you.”

Tilting her chin, Gavin kissed her quickly, and swung back
in the saddle before she tempted him to more. “With any luck at all, Miss
Whitnell, I shall return here personally by then. Keep the sheets warm.”

* * * *

“If she hadn’t had that blamed pistol with her,
there’s no telling what could have happened,” Gavin raged as he
stalked up and down the library in the Earl of Mellon’s town house.

“We made sure she knew how to defend herself,”
Reardon claimed in his own defense.

Gavin swung around and glared at him. “She
shouldn’t
have
to defend herself,” he shouted. “She
should have friends and family looking after her. If His Majesty’s bloody
damned soldiers can’t do it, then I will!”

“I’m not her bloody damned father!”
Reardon yelled back. “I thought she was provided for. I didn’t know
the journals meant anything. Devil take it, I was in a hospital for a year!
What did you want me to do?”

Michael flipped through a book tracing the genealogy of
English nobility, adding more scratchings to the mounds of paper collecting on
the desk. “The British are so predictable,” he murmured.

Reardon ignored him, but Gavin swung around to point an
accusing finger at his brother. “Don’t you dare leave here until
I’m done with you. Every time I want to talk to you, you disappear. If
you’ve broken the code, what did you find in those journals?”

Michael tipped his chair back, and tickling his nose with
the quill of his pen, stared at the elaborate moldings on the ceiling. “I
learned Colonel Whitnell thought very highly of himself and not nearly so much
of his superiors, except Wellington, of course. He and Lady Blanche’s
father, whom he calls Perceval regardless of which title he held at the time,
enjoyed wine, women and song, not necessarily in that order.”

Reardon scowled, but held his tongue. Gavin reached over the
desk and appropriated the stack of papers, shuffling through them, stopping
occasionally to examine one more closely. “Go on,” he said as he
read. ‘Don’t make me read the whole blamed thing.”

“Whitnell was thorough. You have to give him credit
for that,” Michael continued, idly separating the quill’s feathers.
“He was in charge of munitions for a while. He kept records of what he
ordered, what he received, and their disbursements. I don’t particularly
know what set him off, but he started writing friends back in England,
inquiring into the manufactories of certain armaments. He had Perceval write
friends in government concerning the actual expenditures to different
companies. He apparently had lists and inventories comparing costs, invoices,
and such. He hid those. They’re not in the books.”

Gavin had stopped reading, and Reardon stopped scowling.
Both men watched Michael expectantly.

Michael shrugged. “He concluded the arms from certain
manufactories were substandard for the actual items invoiced, that someone
billed the government for two and three times the value of what actually was
shipped, and that major amounts of government funds were siphoned into
someone’s pocket at the expense of Wellington’s army. He speculated
more than greed lay behind the plot, but he didn’t succeed in proving it
before he died.”

Gavin’s fist crumpled around the sheets he held. “Who?
Damn you, Michael, who?”

Michael tilted his chair upright again and began scribbling
on his notes some more. “Perceval didn’t care much for his younger
brother, but he refused to believe him capable of treason. He did grant that
his brother might be involved in lining his pockets since their father had
essentially cut him off from Anglesey.

“Dismouth and Perceval’s brother worked together
in the war ministry. Before you leap to any conclusions...” Michael held
up his hand to keep Gavin from jumping to his feet. “There is no hint of
Neville’s involvement in his father’s affairs. He was too young.”

“But he would do anything to protect his
father’s name,” Gavin growled, leaping to his feet anyway.

“His father left him nothing, not even family papers.
Neville didn’t even know who Dillian was until recently. Accuse him of
attempting to murder Blanche, if you like, but not Dillian.”

Gavin growled and returned to stalking up and down the
library. “Dismouth, for certain. But why did he wait this long? The
journals have been around for years. Why did he wait until now to go after them
and Dillian?”

Reardon stirred uneasily. “I returned to England about
six months ago and started looking for Dillian. I’d ordered
Whitnell’s personal effects sent home after his death, and I thought to
ensure she had received them. I asked at the last place I knew she stayed, and
they couldn’t tell me, so I started asking some of the others who knew
her. Dismouth might have got wind of it and started putting two and two
together.”

Even Michael frowned at the implausibility of this. “He
wouldn’t know the journals contained anything of interest. If he had, he
would have traced them years ago.”

“Winfrey!” Gavin shouted from the far end of the
room. “Where did Winfrey go after he left me?”

“He’s taken offices near King’s Court. He
went there,” Reardon answered with a puzzled frown. “What does a
useless old man have to do with anything?”

Gavin stalked back down the length of the library and
slammed his fist against the table. “He had the journals and probably the
files, too. Blanche said she’d given him the books and left the
papers
in the vault. What do you want to wager those papers are the incriminating
invoices?

“Neville gave him everything in the vault. That gave
Winfrey access to all the material he needed to blackmail anyone listed in
those books.”

Michael whistled. “I didn’t find the invoices.
He must hide them elsewhere. There’s no telling how long he’s been
blackmailing Dismouth, maybe Neville, too. Only they didn’t know who was
behind the extortion. Reardon must have revealed something about
Dillian’s inheritance when he returned, and they decided Dillian was the
culprit. And one or both of them decided to get rid of her
and
the
evidence.”

“Without those lists and invoices, we have no proof of
anything,” Reardon cautioned.

Gavin ignored the warning. “Michael, put those
journals into the hands of the prime minister. Make copies of your
translations. Send one to the war ministry, one to the
Gazette
, and put
the other in a damned bank vault if you must.

“Reardon, either keep Winfrey under observation or
lock him up somewhere. Michael, work your magic with the duke. Don’t let
him out of your sight. Both of you find men to back you up. Have them follow
anyone suspicious attempting to meet with either of them. I’m going after
Dismouth.”

“Winfrey is an old man! Let me go after the earl,”
Reardon protested.

“Dismouth is mine.” Grabbing his cloak from a
nearby chair, Gavin swung out of the room without a backward glance.

Cursing, Reardon stood up and glared at Michael. “I
can have Winfrey locked in his rooms inside the hour. Who else should I go
after?”

Eyes sparkling with mischief, Michael picked up the papers
he’d been ordered to copy. “Gavin has no imagination. I think we
can make much better use of Winfrey. Let’s have him visit the duke.”

* * * *

Gavin had no difficulty learning Dismouth’s direction.
He expected resistance when he arrived there and had his speech prepared, but
the butler let him in without a word once he produced his card.

“His lordship is not at home, my lord,” the man
announced ponderously. “He gives his apologies and asks that you accept
this, sir.” He handed Gavin a sealed letter on a silver platter.

An icy chill swept through him. Dismouth shouldn’t
have expected him unless he thought Gavin had uncovered his involvement in
Dillian’s abduction. The letter lying there in its pristine splendor
screamed of guilt— and desperation.

But Dismouth couldn’t have Dillian. Dillian was safe
at Arinmede. The earl could threaten and bluff all he liked, but Gavin had
Dillian. Knowing that, he tore the seal and swiftly read the letter beneath the
butler’s stoic gaze.

He read it again, cursed, and shoved it into his pocket. He
glared at the servant for a moment, trying to gather his shattered thoughts.
Heart pounding, he could only focus on the danger to Dillian. Surely, the earl
couldn’t have located her yet. The letter was all a bluff. But he couldn’t
take chances.

Aware that his sinister appearance frightened many, Gavin
slammed his hat back on his head and scowled at the butler. “Did the earl
take his carriage?” he demanded.

“Not that I’m aware, my lord,” the man
said with a degree of uneasiness as Gavin continued glaring at him.

“I need to know his direction. Who is most likely to
know it?” Aware that he insulted the servant by assuming he didn’t
know, Gavin watched the man draw himself up haughtily.

“I’m sure if I don’t know, no other will,”
the butler replied with disdain. “He had a spare horse sent to the
Doulton Inn. That is all anyone can tell you.”

The Doulton Inn, on the Hertfordshire road. Gavin’s
insides froze. Leaving the butler with a generous gratuity, he stalked down the
wide stone steps to his waiting horse, his mind churning with possibilities.

At Gavin’s appearance in Parliament with the satchel
of journals, the earl must have assumed himself undone. Dismouth couldn’t
know Dillian was at Arinmede, but he could discover Arinmede belonged to Gavin.
Dismouth would know by now that his hired kidnappers had failed and where
they’d lost Dillian. The earl had taken a wild chance, but a successful
one.

And Gavin had left Dillian alone, unprotected, unsuspecting.
His first instincts were to ride hell-bent for Arinmede. This time, however, he
decided to err on the side of caution.

He stopped at Mellon’s town house, and finding Michael
and Reardon already gone, he left messages in the hands of the servants with
instructions to deliver them. Then he borrowed another of his
cousin-in-law’s expensive steeds and took off flying into the evening
gloom.

Concealed by the grove of pines and the shadow of dusk,
Arinmede hid its secrets well. Gavin’s need to see Dillian safe demanded
a mad dash straight up the lawn and through the front door, but he’d
learned caution. If he rode in there without care, anyone in the house would
see him. Dismouth was clever enough to take advantage of that fact.

Gavin dismounted, tied his horse behind a tree, and vaulted
the crumbling stone wall to the manor lawns. He knew every inch of the limited
land he’d inherited. Overgrown hedges, weeds, and trees sprouted from
seed covered almost the entire area that had once been elegantly landscaped
lawn. He had no trouble slipping through the shrubbery unseen.

When he saw the first soldier mounted on guard duty at the
drive, Gavin fought the urge to roar bloody murder and attack. Instinct
demanded he defend his home and the woman inside with his hands and his life.
The sight of the second soldier off to the right stilled that insane flight of
fantasy.

Dismouth had brought a troop of soldiers.

How could this happen? On what grounds could the earl enlist
a troop of soldiers and post them on private property? How could Dismouth even
know for certain that Dillian was here?

He couldn’t. Dismouth had made assumptions. He knew
Arinmede belonged to Gavin. He knew Gavin possessed the journals. The earl
would want to trade the journals for Dillian, but he would much prefer keeping
his secrets.

That would mean destroying Gavin, the journals, and quite
possibly, Dillian. In his position of power, the earl could forge lies and
manufacture evidence that Dillian and her father acted treasonously, that Gavin
protected a traitor. Few would question a man they knew and respected over a
woman and stranger they knew nothing about. Michael was quite right. The
English were too predictable.

Gavin returned to the road. He hated leaving Dillian, but he
had to trust she could take care of herself—as she had trusted him to do
the same.

He needed help and couldn’t wait for Michael and
Reardon. He knew of only one place to find it.

A few weeks ago wild horses couldn’t have dragged him
into the village for any reason. With Dillian’s life at stake, wild horses
couldn’t keep him away.

Shedding his concealing hat and cloak, Gavin rode into town
and straight to the inn. He entered the bright glow of lantern light, and stood
before the crowd inside without cringing at their startled stares.

Smoke from pipes and a badly ventilated chimney choked the
air. The scent of fear reeked even stronger as the crowd recognized him and
inched away.

Gavin used the silence to his advantage. “A man who
sold inferior guns to Wellington’s army has my lady trapped in the manor,”
he announced, his voice carrying through the low-ceilinged chamber.