Waking Up With a Rake (34 page)

“Thank you, sir. Please make yourself comfortable.” Olivia claimed the central section of the settee and waved a hand toward one of the wing chairs opposite her. Mr. Tweadle hovered near the doorway, clearly intent on remaining unless she sent him away.

Babette appeared at the doorway, having set a speed record for assembling a tea tray. She bobbed a curtsey and then arranged the tray on the low table before Olivia. “Shall I pour out, my lady?”

Before she could respond, Mr. Alcock said, “I rather think you’ll prefer to hear what I have to say alone.”

Babette flashed a warning glance at her and waited.

“I trust my maid’s discretion implicitly,” Olivia said. Besides, she knew Rhys wouldn’t want her alone with a strange man, even if he was an MP. “Whatever message you have for me to deliver to my husband will be safe in her hearing. Mr. Tweadle, you may go.”

The butler pressed his lips in a tight line but did as she bade him. Mr. Alcock glared at Babette from under his wiry brows. Olivia was determined not to let him bully her into sending away Babette as well.

“As you wish,” Mr. Alcock finally said. “Time is of the essence or I would have waited for Lord Rhys.” He reached into his waistcoat pocket and drew out a fat parcel. “Enclosed, he will find copies of original dispatches that should have gone to him prior to the battle at Maubeuge. There is also a sworn statement from a Sergeant Leatherby that the dispatches were switched at the last checkpoint prior to being delivered to Lord Rhys.”

Olivia’s chest constricted. Mr. Alcock was offering proof of Rhys’s innocence in that horrible debacle. “Did this Sergeant Leatherby reveal who switched the orders?”

“He wasn’t willing to do so until he gets to open court, but I fear that day may never come. You see, I have it on good authority that the sergeant is at this moment preparing to take ship for Portsmouth at Wapping Dock. If your husband wishes to compel his testimony, I advise him to head for the docks before the next tide.”

Mr. Alcock stood. “I regret I must decline this lovely tea, but business requires me to be elsewhere.”

Olivia stood as well, clutching the packet of documents to her chest. “Thank you for this, sir. My husband and I are in your debt.”

“No, it is I who would not be in his. A man must pay his debts of honor,” Mr. Alcock said. “Even though your husband fulfilled his part of the bargain in a wholly unexpected way, I am still duty-bound to deliver on my pledge.”

“His part of the bargain? What do you mean?” That smacked of a wager, and though her bets with Rhys had resulted in unexpected happiness, she was still suspicious of the practice.

“He didn’t tell you? Hmph. I suppose I ought not either then. Ignorance is bliss, you know.”

“Sir, I find ignorance an intolerable state. To what do you refer?”

“Very well, since you insist.” His oily smile made her realize he intended to tell her all along. He merely wanted her to beg. “I know you think Lord Rhys was sent to Barrowdell ostensibly as the Duke of Clarence’s factor. His true commission, which I orchestrated, was to upset the match between you and the royal and keep it from coming to pass. Now, you mustn’t take it personally. My reasons were purely political and had nothing to do with you.”

Nothing to do with her? The man had just admitted to interfering with a possible marriage. Could it be more personal? Surely Rhys wouldn’t have been a party to such skullduggery.

But now that she thought about it, Rhys hadn’t been terribly complimentary to the duke. “And how did you expect him to stop the match with Clarence?”

“By doing what he does best, of course.” Mr. Alcock popped his hat on his head. “Lord Rhys was supposed to seduce and ruin you, which I rather guess he did since your father forced him to marry you. Rather hard luck on him to be leg-shackled for life in exchange for information that could clear his name. Still, he could have done ever so much worse. You might have been a wart-ridden heiress with the squints.”

Olivia’s stomach cramped as if someone had punched her in the gut.

“I can see I’ve given you plenty to consider, Lady Olivia. I’ll see myself out. Good day.” Mr. Alcock strode out but stopped at the arched doorway and turned back to her. His practiced smile, the one Olivia suspected he used to disarm political opponents he intended to destroy, didn’t reach his eyes. “You see, my lady, ignorance really is bliss.”

***

“Think, man.” Rhys smacked his fist down on Horatio Symon’s desk with a resounding thud. If Olivia had known he was paying her father a visit today, she’d have pitched a fit to come along. But since he was feeling rather less cordial toward his father-in-law than she’d have appreciated, Rhys was grateful he’d been able to put her off again. “Which of your wife’s houseguests has reason to wish you ill?”

“A successful man of business makes enemies without even trying. Surely you can appreciate that.” Horatio strolled over to his bookshelf, pulled out a thick volume, and took a flask of green liquid from between the worn covers. “Care for a drink, son?”

“No. May lightning strike me dead if ever I touch your vile brew again.” Rhys sank into a chair and rubbed his temples. “You’re not taking this threat to Olivia seriously.”

“Of course I am.” Horatio poured a jigger of the liquor for himself and knocked it back in one gulp. “I made sure she married you, didn’t I?”

“If the threat isn’t because of your business dealings, then the attack is personal. Why not target you directly?” Rhys wondered aloud.

“I expect the point is to cause me pain,” Horatio said. “The dead feel none.”

“If the aim of the assassin is to cause you pain, why not target Mrs. Symon then?”

Horatio cocked a brow at him. “You’ve met Mrs. Symon, I collect. Don’t misunderstand. I love the woman, but she can be a bit much. Most people would think they were doing me a favor by ridding me of her. Olivia, on the other hand…” He slumped into his chair again. “She’s my own heart and I haven’t been very circumspect about showing it. Everyone knows she’s my favorite.”

“So whoever is behind this knows that. Now, I ask again, which of your guests at Barrowdell has reason to cause you pain?”

“None of them. I was careful to help each of them during the time we all passed together in India. A stock tip here. A word of an impending unrest there. A man needs his friends all the more when he is far from Home, and he does well to keep them informed when something touches them.” A shadow passed behind Horatio’s eyes and he covered his mouth with his hand for a moment. Then he lowered it slowly. “I only exchanged harsh words with one of them and then only once.”

“Who?”

“Dr. Pinkerton.”

“What was the argument about?”

“It wasn’t even my fault.” Horatio went for another jigger of the green devil drink. “It’s not as if I caused it, after all. I just pointed out the way of the world.”

“What way of the world?” Rhys could almost see his father-in-law’s jagged thoughts darting behind his eyes.

“So much time has gone by,” Horatio said, his voice drifting to nothing, as if Rhys were no longer in the room. “No, it couldn’t be that.”

Rhys reached across the table and snatched Horatio’s lapels. He yanked his father-in-law forward until they were practically nose to nose. “Confound it, start at the beginning and we’ll decide together whether your suspicions are well-founded. Now what are you talking about?”

“I suppose…he might still harbor resentment against me for speaking an uncomfortable truth. Oh, God, if it all comes out, this’ll touch Amanda too.” Horatio buried his face in his hands. “What I’m about to tell you must never leave this room. Never. Promise me.”

“I can’t. Not if it touches Olivia’s safety. But if it doesn’t, I’m not the sort to carry tales. Now talk.”

Horatio sighed and nodded. “Very well. It concerns Amanda’s mother.”

“Who died in India shortly after Amanda was born,” Rhys prompted.

“Yes, but Gita wasn’t a Greek lady as Pinkerton gives out. She was an Indian woman. A damned beautiful one too from up in the Khyber Hills. Nearly as fair-skinned as her daughter.”

That explained Amanda’s lush dark hair and large speaking eyes, Rhys thought.

“When Pinkerton and Gita married, I wished them well. Amanda was born just before I left India to return home. Beautiful child. The doctor told me he intended to bring his family to England as soon as Amanda was old enough to have a Season. ‘That won’t work,’ I told him. It was all well and good to have a native wife in Bombay, but it would never fly in Brighton. And if folks in Britain ever discovered Amanda carried a touch of the tar brush, no well-bred Englishman would marry her.”

“That was cruel of you to say.”

“But it was the truth. Would he rather hear it from a friend, or have Gita and Amanda shunned by English society?”

Prejudice was an ugly truth, but Rhys still thought it was wrong of Horatio to point it out to Dr. Pinkerton. “And you think he means to hurt you because of what you said all those years ago?”

“I don’t know. He was pretty angry, but we didn’t come to blows or anything. After he settled down, we passed the rest of the evening pleasantly enough. I thought we were alone. We were smoking under the banyan tree behind his house, but what if Gita overheard me and was distraught…? Just before I took the boat home, I heard she’d died, but I never heard how.” Horatio’s eyes took on a slight glaze, and Rhys was sure he was seeing other times and places. “I didn’t think much about it at the time because people were always dying of cholera or snakebite or some such terrible thing—strange place, India, beautiful and horrifying at once…You don’t suppose she did away with herself, do you? You know, to spare her family from being ostracized when her husband returned to England?”

“If she did, Dr. Pinkerton would be justified in hating you. I’d hate you myself.” Rhys disliked Horatio more than a little at the moment, but he could at least trust his father-in-law to try to help him protect Olivia. He rose and paced the small room. “As a doctor, Pinkerton would know which poisons are fast acting enough to use on those thorns. He’d have access to them as well.”

“The man is a crack rider too,” Horatio said miserably. “Pinkerton knows enough about horses and tack to have sabotaged Molly’s saddle.” He shook his head with vehemence. “No, I don’t want to believe it.”

“I think we must until we can prove differently.” Rhys headed for the door. “In the meantime, I want you to stay away from Olivia.”

“But I’m her father. And this is not my fault. It’s not as if I caused stupid people to be prejudiced. I simply pointed it out to Pinkerton. We must live in the world, I told him.” Horatio spread his hands before himself. “The world is thus.”

“The world is what we make it, Horatio.” Rhys opened the study door.

“Wait a moment. All we have is conjecture. You can’t go off and accuse my old friend when we really have no evidence. What do you intend, Warrington?”

“I intend to make the world safe for Olivia. By any means necessary.”

Chapter 32

The packet of papers slipped from Olivia’s hands, fluttering to the hardwood like a flock of downed pigeons. Her knees gave way, and if she hadn’t been so close to the settee, she’d have sunk just as surely to the floor.

Rhys had set out to ruin her.

“I don’t know him at all,” she murmured.

Babette retrieved the papers and stacked them neatly on the tea tray. “My lady, sometimes things they are not what they seem. The person you do not know is this Monsieur Alcock.”

A rake was capable of several layers of deception. Had any of their unorthodox courtship been real? Or had Rhys merely been trapped in the spiderweb of his own making? When he made those heartrending vows over the anvil, was he only pretending?

She had to remind herself to breathe, and even then, there didn’t seem to be any air in the room. Betrayal sucked up all the oxygen and left her none. “I have to go.”

“Where, my lady?”

Home.
If she were a bird, she’d fly away to Barrowdell and never leave its rolling hills. She’d ride her mare and grow her orchids, and the rest of the world could go chase itself.

But then she’d never see Rhys again.

Her chest ached. Love wasn’t something she could turn off like a lamp. The glow of caring still flared inside her, burning hot and painful. How could he have done this to her?

“To us?” she whispered. Something inside her was dying. She and Rhys had formed a circle of two, a glorious “we.” Now her soul hunkered by itself.

“My lady, you have not heard Lord Rhys’s side to this tale,” Babette said. “This is no time for the hasty decision. I urge you not to be doing something you will regret.”

“Hasty,” she repeated, the word calling up something Mr. Alcock had said.
Time
is
of
the
essence.
The man who could clear Rhys’s name for good and all might be slipping away even now.

Rhys might have set out to ruin her, but she wouldn’t see him permanently disgraced if she could help it. She’d remain loyal to him. Even if he didn’t really love her, she loved him.

She’d be true to her own heart.