To Seduce an Angel (27 page)

With Lark and Rook and Emma gone, Adam had to shout encouragement. “That's it, lads, left, right, left.”

Dav's mind drifted from the pain of his arm to the puzzle of her escape. He had to call it that. In the night it had made no sense to pursue her attacker, but he should see to it now. The man had been lean and agile, a fellow capable of killing a dog, scaling Dav's roof, and tampering with the masonry.

Someone cleared his throat at Dav's elbow. “The town constable is here, sir.”

Dav turned. He did not know how long Creevey had been standing there.

“Says he has a communication for you. Shall I show him in?”

Dav nodded. In a minute Creevey returned with George Lockwood, the constable, a stout, worthy fellow of four and forty, not to be trifled with. He carried a notebook.

“Yer brothers were making inquiries in the town, Your Lordship, so I thought it my duty to warn you of a suspicious female hereabouts.”

“What's the report, Mr. Lockwood?”

“Well, Your Lordship, we've had two reports, one from the landlord at the Bell, and one from a Mr. Wallop, a brewer who came to Somerton to look at our maltings.”

“And what do these reports say?”

“A young female, very young, sir, not one and twenty, they say, passing herself off as a decent woman in order to defraud gentlemen of their generosity.”

Dav raised a brow. It was an oddly vague report to cause alarm in an official breast. “What does this suspicious young female look like?”

“She has a gently bred air they say. Hair either gold or dark brown or a mix of both, you know.”

Any of the young misses Dav had danced with during his family's visit would fit that description. “What color are this woman's eyes?”

Lockwood checked his notebook. “I find no mention made of the eyes, Your Lordship.”

Not Emma Portland, then, for who could miss those eyes?

“Our informants do say she wore an unusual crowned brooch, like a talisman. It says here, a ‘filigree of gold.'”

Dav stiffened. However vague the description of the woman's person, the significance of the brooch struck him. He had not seen the thing she lost, but it could have been a brooch.

“The thing is, Your Lordship, the description of the suspicious Somerton female fits that of another female who's been the subject of a search since January. That female is described in the same way, including the brooch. Might your notice advertising for a tutor have reached Reading?”

“Reading? Reading seems a far way from Somerton.”

“A hundred miles, but the same newspapers reach Reading. And you hired a female person as tutor to these young boys here. I thought you might have been imposed upon.”

Dav contained himself. Imposed upon, what a tame expression.
Seduced. Betrayed.

“In Reading she passed herself off as a nursemaid to a babe. But a sergeant of the ninetieth ended up dead in the taproom at the Kings Arms there after this female was seen drinking with 'im.”

Dav looked at his visitor. “You're saying this woman is under suspicion of murder?”

“I am, my lord. The sergeant was stabbed in the back, an upward thrust by someone who knew her business.”

“Or his. Any witnesses?”

“None except the tapman who saw them drinking together. The mistress of the house found the sergeant at the table slumped over as if he'd had too much, but when she couldn't rouse him, she discovered the truth.”

“What happened to the babe?”

“The babe?”

“Where did the gentlewoman go who was supposed to have hired this suspicious female as a nursemaid to her babe?”

The constable checked his notebook. “I've no word of them, but I would like a word with your tutor, my lord.”

So would I.
“She's not employed here any longer, Lockwood. She left the hall yesterday at the end of her trial period.”

“Why did she leave?” Lockwood's suspicion was obvious.

“She no longer needed or wanted the position.”

“And where did she go?”

“That's her affair, not mine.”

“You don't know.”

“I don't.” Dav found it convenient to assume the authority of marquess, letting Lockwood see that the interview had ended.

When the constable left, Dav found Finch at his side. “Is Miss Portland in trouble?”

“I believe she is, Finch.”

“Do you think she didn't like us?”

He looked down into Finch's troubled face and summoned the truth. “No. I think she liked us very well.”

“But she lied to us, didn't she?”

“About some things, she did.”

“Not all?”

“Not all.”

“Well, which ones?”

“I wish I knew.”

Will arrived with his man Harding shortly after Lockwood left. Harding had tracked down the source of Emma Portland's references in the town of Grimsby. According to Harding a fine gentleman hired a widow who made her living writing to answer inquiries according to his written instructions. She was to burn the instructions after she complied. The scribbling widow did not know the gentleman's name. A go-between had passed her information and funds. She'd been grateful to get them. There had never been such a school, but the woman had put her heart into the project, enjoying the fiction that such a place existed. When Harding checked all the inns in town where a gentleman was likely to stay, he found no obvious ties to Wenlocke. Whoever the widow's gentleman had been, he had covered his tracks well.

Will had fared better in town. He had discovered that the Duchess of Wenlocke was looking for Emma Portland. She had sought Bow Street and engaged Jack Castle, Will's old friend on the force, to find the girl.

Furthermore, Will had taken a gown from Emma's trunk and tracked down the modiste who produced it. She claimed it was one she had made. The woman recognized her work as something she had made over a year earlier for a young actress, who was then in the keeping of the Earl of Aubrey.

“It's plain as day, Dav, your tutor is connected directly to Wenlocke. The duchess is looking for her, and Aubrey supplied her with a singularly seductive wardrobe and likely with her false papers as well. Aubrey's probably the fine gentleman in Grimsby. Her presence here is a threat to you. Dismiss her today, and Harding and I will see that she's returned to Wenlocke.”

“I can't dismiss her.”

“You bleeding won't, you mean.” Will's temper flared.

Dav drew his brother aside. The boys were still close by. “She left. She escaped in the night.”

Will looked stunned. “Good. Let her go. Don't go after her.”

“I won't.” Dav turned away. “I've got a match to prepare for.”

 

 

BEFORE supper the boys summoned Dav to the chapel. He entered annoyed with himself for the instant recollection of his first meeting with Emma Portland.

“We have to tell you something,” Jay announced. Leadership had fallen to him now.

Dav steeled himself.

“We stole a pin from Miss Portland.”

Robin added, “We didn't mean to make her leave.”

“You didn't make her leave,” Dav told them.

“Lark told us to give this to you to prove she lied, but she didn't lie to us, did she?” Finch spoke from behind his hand again as if all the progress he'd made had vanished.

“She didn't lie to you.” Her papers had been false. But her way with the boys had been genuine. Her earnest delight in their progress had been real. She had been honest with Dav about her failure with Lark. Her nightmares were real whatever they were. Whatever made her lean against a pair of shaggy ponies and touch the empty pocket of her skirt was true.

Finch held out his hand with a folded paper wrapped around an object. Dav took it. The note was brief enough.

 

 

Dav regarded the pin in the note. It was smaller than most of the coins in a man's pocket. A filigreed gold crown slightly bent topped a fat crescent moon with a Latin motto etched on the edge. A loop of frayed and faded red ribbon enclosed the pin's clasp.

He had no doubt the pin was Emma Portland's missing keepsake. Her brother's, she had said. If her brother was a parson's son who'd gone off to war and perished, the pin had not belonged to him. If the pin had belonged to him, neither she nor her brother had been the child of a country parson. Dav had seen such pins lining the breasts of royal dukes at the king's coronation, where his brothers had each been on duty, Xander as a knight, and Will as a policeman.

Light as it was, it felt heavy in his palm, a piece of her true self Emma Portland had left behind. The mix of truth and lies in her swirled in him like a whirlpool that could suck him down.

Five worried faces staring up at him brought him back to the present. He closed the pin in his good fist and lifted it for them to join him in a pledge. Five fists joined his. “We'll keep the pin safe for Miss Portland until she returns.”

DON'T be stubborn about this,” Will advised at the end of yet another practice round.

“You're telling me not to be stubborn.” Dav laughed at his reckless middle brother.

Will grinned. “Just let the old man die first, then take your chances in the ring.”

“I'd rather meet Wenlocke face-to-face.”

Will helped Dav out of his practice gloves. “He'd never fight fair. He never bleeding has.”

“Still, I'd like to take him on directly.”

“That's what this mill is about, isn't it?”

Dav raised a glass of cold herb tea that Mrs. Wardlow insisted would heal his arm. “It's what you'd do.”

“Well, at least you're going to Thorndon prepared. And you're not going alone.”

With a week of Will and Xan's workouts Dav had gained good movement back in his arm. His body was tired, but he relished the weariness and the aching muscles.

He lived like a man swimming below the surface of a cold lake. He could see the sun and sky and those who inhabited the airy regions, but their words and actions didn't touch him. The only thing he seemed to feel were the blows his brothers landed in their practice bouts.

His injured arm still tired sooner than Xander liked in their practice bouts, but Dav knew he was ready for the match. He had but one more thing to do before he began to fight for those who were his own in the world. He climbed to his own roof. The fields and woods wore the lightest green now.

He carried the sword up with him. It felt familiar in his hand, and his good arm could swing it easily. He knew himself ready for the match, not because his feet and eye were quick and his arm was strong but because he knew the kind of world he truly lived in. He would not let Wenlocke shape his life any longer. He had to strike the next blow. He raised the sword over his head and brought it down against the edge of the balustrade with a shattering blow. The long blade snapped, and a jagged piece plummeted to the ground. He took the broken hilt and hurled it in a tumbling arc out over the lawn. From now on the fight would be face-to-face and his weapons would be real ones—his fists and his mind.

FOUR days into her journey Emma dared to walk through a town by day. It was south and east of the hall by many miles. She had trusted no one and accepted no rides even from carters who offered, and so she did not know how far she'd come, but it was beginning to look as if she had escaped. A few more days, a few more miles, and she could begin to think of starting a new life.

She would only have to stop thinking of Daventry every minute and wishing he did not hate her. It was a true thing that one paid dearly for seducing an angel. She wondered when he had found her note, and she passed far too much time composing imaginary letters to him full of all the reasons he should be glad she had left. He had his boys and his family, and he could make them all happy by choosing some good English girl to marry.