The Marquess Who Loved Me (16 page)

“Should I have been?” Ellie asked.

Marcus colored slightly. “Of course not. But Mrs. Grafton deserves better.”

Nick sighed. Ellie looked like she wanted to draw blood, but he needed his brother and his — whatever Ellie was to him — to stay away from each other’s throats. “Let us take Ellie’s suggestion,” he interjected. “The explanation should wait until we are all assembled.”

He didn’t understand why Ellie had insisted on her maid’s presence. It was nearly as unusual as Marcus’s concern for the woman. But then, Lucia
had
shot a man, and it was likely Nick’s fault she had been forced to do it.

The silence turned uncomfortable immediately. Ellie folded her hands in her lap and stared straight ahead. Marcus leaned against the mantel, not looking at anyone, and wound his watch with the slow, methodical grace of an assassin awaiting an opportunity. Nick eyed the whisky decanter. But even in that room, with two people who might wish him just as dead as his unknown enemy did, Nick still thought it was too early for a drink.

And so he was relieved when Lucia and the tea cart arrived at the same time. “I am sorry for keeping you waiting, my lady,” Lucia said. “I had to finish the task you gave me.”

She didn’t apologize to the men — didn’t even acknowledge them as she walked directly to Ellie and handed her two sheets of paper. Ellie nodded as she took the papers. “Of course, Mrs. Grafton. You haven’t inconvenienced us at all. Please, do be seated.”

Nick’s eyebrows rose. Lucia was graceful, direct, and perfectly serene — more gentlewoman than servant, and nothing like what he had expected. She had been calm the previous day, in the few minutes he had seen her before Marcus had taken her away, but he had assumed that was due to the shock she’d had. She should have been more affected, like any raw recruit who had killed in battle for the first time. But she was still calm — and when she met his eyes, the direct look in hers said she would welcome the opportunity to take a shot at him as well.

Make that three people in the study who wanted him dead.

As soon as the footman had left, Marcus clicked his watch shut. “You’ve evaded us long enough, Nick. What the devil are you mixed up in?”

“I’m not evading. We couldn’t discuss this last night, not if we didn’t want everyone in the house to know.”

“Shouldn’t they know?” Ellie asked, setting aside the papers Lucia had given her. “I know you said you have a plan, but I don’t want my guests to be harmed.”

“You are welcome to ask them to leave, if you are so eager to be alone with me.”

They hadn’t acknowledged the previous night at all. But if Ellie had enjoyed it — and he knew she had — she was currently more likely to stab him than seduce him. Her eyes narrowed as she said, “We shall address our agreement momentarily. But let us start with why a highwayman wanted to kill you.”

“If I knew why, I wouldn’t be here,” Nick said. He walked over to Lucia and took the cup of tea she had poured for him, then leaned against the wall opposite from where Marcus stood by the fire. “Your guess as to motive is as good as mine.”

Ellie looked at Marcus, who didn’t meet her gaze — he was too busy staring at Lucia. Ellie turned back to Nick. “Between us, we could likely guess a dozen reasons. Where shall we begin?”

“Villains always come to bad ends,” Lucia said, rising and taking Ellie’s cup to her. “If his lordship is no longer in a position to harm you, does the ‘how’ of it matter, my lady?”

“It does if their ends might harm the rest of us,” Ellie mused. She didn’t seem concerned that Lucia saw Nick as the villain in this story — in fact, if Nick hadn’t heard a different note in Ellie’s voice the previous night, he might suspect she agreed with her maid.

He cleared his throat. “Let me share the details. Then you may decide whether I am the villain.”

He started with the three attempts on his life in Madras. The warehouse fire that would have trapped him in his office had he not left half an hour earlier than he always did. The shot during a hunt that had grazed his shoulder — any closer and he might have lost the limb, if not his life, to infection. And the assailant who had come after him with a knife in a Madras bazaar. Trower had stopped that attempt, after tailing Nick without asking permission to guard him.

“Did none of them say who they represented?” Marcus asked.

“There were no witnesses to the warehouse fire or the shot. I didn’t look hard, though. I was still half sure they were accidents. As for the knife-wielder, Trower killed him before he could talk. He appeared to be a Maratha mercenary, though. He would have worked for anyone who paid enough.”

“And those were the only events? Over how much time?” Ellie asked.

She was pale, but her tone was purely business. “Three events over a fortnight,” Nick answered. “Trower and I took the next ship out of Madras a week after the would-be stabbing. Trower didn’t let me out of his sight that whole time, and he hired a dozen men to guard us.”

“Did anything happen aboard your ship, my lord?” Lucia asked. “Or were you guarded there as well?”

“No suspicious events at sea, nor during the week we spent taking on supplies at St. Helena. We had no additional guards, but I own the ship. The captain was most diligent about keeping me alive.”

“As he should be,” Marcus said. “Your connections in India have captured more of the private trade in that country than we had any right to expect a decade ago. If he lost you, his career would be finished. Do you trust the other men in our employ there?”

Nick had considered every single man in the India operation on the long voyage back to England. He nodded once. “There were always a handful whom I had to let go for one reason or another. But the ones currently there — for the most part, I trust them. And I can’t see what any of them would stand to gain by murdering me.”

Ellie pulled out a fresh sheet of paper from the desk, as well as a pen and ink. “Should we discuss who stands to gain something?” she suggested. “Or is that a delicate subject, when those who would gain the most are in the room with you?”

Nick waved an expansive hand. “Please, start. I’m curious to hear who you think my enemies are.”

He watched her write her own name at the top of the sheet in graceful, looping cursive. He laughed. “Is that a confession?”

“Of course not. This is a list of people who might want you dead — not a list of people who likely ordered it.” Then she smiled. “But to save myself forty thousand pounds and the irritation of your return, murder does look cheap.”

“True. But it’s not you. Who is the next suspect?”

She pointed her pen at Marcus, who nearly choked on his tea.

“You cannot seriously think I want to kill Nick,” Marcus spluttered, once he had recovered from his coughing fit.

She wrote his name on the list. “Again, not likely. But you stand the most to gain — the Folkestone title, for one, not to mention whatever share of Corwyn, Claiborne and Sons is left to you in Nick’s will. Nick’s return changes everything for you, does it not?”

He didn’t look at her. He looked at Lucia instead. “Perhaps it does. But I would rather have more time, not more responsibility. Nick is welcome to take over his estate any day he pleases.”

Nick believed him. Perhaps he shouldn’t. Ellie was correct, after all. Marcus would gain more than anyone if Nick died without another heir. But even as a youth, Marcus hadn’t cared for power. Stuck in the middle between Nick and Rupert, he had played the peacemaker rather than the rabble-rouser.

That brought another thought uncomfortably close to the surface. He hesitated, and Ellie sensed it. “Who would you add?” she asked.

He kept his eyes on Marcus. “I have another brother who would stand to gain.”

“Rupert?” Marcus asked, turning toward him. “That is even more unreasonable than suspecting me. Next I suppose you’ll accuse the Prince Regent?”

“Of course not. But Rupert always wanted to build something of his own. And I don’t think we see eye to eye on our business dealings, although sending a letter from India to the Caribbean and back takes so long that I hear from him far less than I do from you. Perhaps he was tired of trying to change my mind about business issues.”

“I assure you that Rupert is not a murderer,” Marcus said. “I’ve seen him several times in the last decade — whatever his sins, fratricide is not among them.”

Ellie intervened. “We are merely listing suspects, not sending anyone to the gallows. And I agree with Nick — Rupert has a hot head, and a motive. He stays on the list, even if he’s not likely.”

Lucia coughed delicately. “Is there anyone else, my lady? Or do all his lordship’s enemies share his last name?”

Nick felt a stab of remorse at that. He didn’t think any of the three were likely to kill him, but he should be bothered by the fact that they topped the list. “We’ve listed all the Claibornes — let us move on to more likely candidates.”

Ellie frowned at that. “We did miss a Claiborne, actually. The dowager marchioness still lives on the estate, although we are no longer on speaking terms. But it drove her absolutely mad that a man with your background inherited her precious son’s title. Perhaps she hired someone?”

“That seems unlikely,” Marcus scoffed. “Even if her anger hasn’t subsided, how would she arrange it? She never leaves Surrey, as best as I can tell.”

Nick agreed. “There are more likely options, and they are all related to my business interests. The East India Company tops the list.”

“Shall I write ‘the Company’?” Ellie asked sarcastically. “Or do you have names?”

“Marcus knows the directors better than I do. They are all based in London.”

Marcus handed his cup back to Lucia to be filled again. As she poured, he pushed his hand through his hair. “I find it unlikely that the Company is behind this, Nick. True, you are driving our business in India — but if you died there and I pulled us out of the India trade as a result, they would face a dire shortage of ships. You know they can’t haul all their goods on their own. With the discussions in Parliament about their monopoly, they can ill afford a loss in profits.”

Marcus had told Nick all about the debates in the carriage the day before. The East India Company already wasn’t quite a monopoly; private traders accounted for almost ten percent of the goods imported to Britain from India. The Claibornes had made a tidy profit off even that sliver of trade, not counting the contracts they had to transport Company goods on their ships. But if the Company lost their monopoly entirely…

“Perhaps another trader, then?” Nick asked. “With me gone from India, other ventures are better suited to take advantage of whatever happens to the Company’s share of the India trade.”

Ellie tapped her nose with her pen. “But that doesn’t explain how someone knew to find you here, or why they still wish to harm you in England. If it were purely a matter of driving you away from the subcontinent, they wouldn’t need to send a highwayman after you here. As much as it displeases me to say it, we could likely narrow our search by looking at my houseguests.”

Lucia frowned. “The man I shot wasn’t one of your guests or servants — I didn’t recognize him at all. And I am nearly certain the same can be said for the other highwayman.”

“I didn’t recognize them either,” Ellie said. “But that doesn’t mean they weren’t hired by someone we know.”

“Then tell me, Ellie — among your guests, who is a likely culprit?” Nick asked.

“Beyond the people in this room?” she responded. She turned to Marcus. “They are my friends — I may not be able to stay unbiased. What is your assessment?”

“So you want my opinion now?” he asked.

She scowled. “Only if it helps find who wants to kill Nick. Once that is settled, I can get on with murdering him myself.”

Marcus and Nick both laughed, but Marcus sobered first. “I don’t see any of them as likely. As best as I know, none of them are involved in the East India Company. Perhaps among your servants…but even they are rather too artistic to be bloodthirsty.”

“Even the most artistic people can be bloodthirsty when provoked, Mr. Claiborne,” Lucia said.

He nearly stammered as he apologized. “Forgive me, Mrs. Grafton. I did not mean to remind you of yesterday.”

She looked just as startled as he sounded. “That wasn’t what I meant at all. Just that artists shouldn’t be overlooked.”

Nick couldn’t agree more. Ellie had the soul of an artist — but she had the brain of a general, and the steely look in her eyes was more suited to a war room than a studio. She cut off Lucia and Marcus without a moment of hesitation. “Enough. None of my servants, as far as I know, have ever gone to sea. I doubt that they’d even know how to arrange the murder of someone half a world away. We can still consider them, but I don’t see the use of it.” She turned back to Nick. “Is there really no one else?”

Nick paused, then shook his head. “Just the occasional junior secretary or hanger-on who was unhappy to be sent packing back to England. But would any of them try to murder me on two continents?”

“Nick is correct,” Marcus said. “In all the time I’ve been in London, only one man came in to complain that Nick had sent him back to England. He wasn’t pleased when I refused to help him find another job. But he was too pleasant about it to be a murderer.”

“Was it Edgewood?” Nick asked. “He was always pleasant, even when he was embezzling everything in sight.”

Marcus shrugged. “I believe so, although I could be mistaken. He didn’t make a scene, and I never saw him again. Seems unlikely he would want to kill you when there’s nothing to gain out of it.”

Nick considered their other options. “Perhaps none of the guests are directly tied to the Company. But what of their investments?”

Ellie’s hand hovered over the paper. “I know Norbury is heavily invested in the Company.”

Marcus’s nose wrinkled. “His estate is leveraged — he would be made uncomfortable if the Company’s fortunes change.”

“Still, I don’t see him as a murderer,” Ellie said, with a note of finality in her voice. She didn’t add him to the list.

Nick didn’t push it. “So our only official suspects are Ellie, Marcus, Rupert, the dowager marchioness, and the East India Company. If one of you would confess, it would make this all much easier.”