Why Earls Fall in Love (29 page)

“No, we are not, Mrs.…?” Con allowed his voice to trail off, waiting for her to supply the name.

Finally, she must have decided they were worthy of speaking to, for she gave a slight nod before saying, “Barrowby. Mrs. Harold Barrowby. Now, what is it you’re after, then?”

“Good afternoon, Mrs. Barrowby,” Georgie said, smiling sadly. “I am Mrs. Georgina Mowbray and this is my friend Lord Coniston. I was wondering if we might have a look around the rooms of my dear brother-in-law, Mr. Malcolm Lowther. I believe he was a boarder here?”

Mrs. Barrowby’s eyes narrowed with suspicion. “He didn’t say nothing about no family,” she said. “Though he didn’t say much of anything, come to think of it.”

“Yes,” Georgina agreed, her face somber. “Dear Malcolm wasn’t much for conversation. I was hoping to gather his things together and bring them back to my mama-in-law. He was the youngest of her children, you see, and she’ll be despondent when she receives the news of his death.”

The landlady grunted. She eyed Georgina and Con with narrowed eyes, her gaze lingering on the jeweled pin at Con’s throat and the lace edging on Georgina’s gown. Con gave the woman three seconds before she asked for a little something in exchange for allowing them to see the room.

Three. Two. One.

“Well, I hates as much as the next to see a mother grieve for one of her own,” she said slyly, “but my own children needs to keep a roof above their heads as well, don’t they?”

Con wished for once that people weren’t so dashed predictable. Aloud he said, “Of course, Mrs. Barrowby, we wouldn’t dream of asking you to let us into your home without offering a generous token of our appreciation. Will three guineas help things along?”

If she was surprised by the generosity of the offer, Mrs. Barrowby didn’t let on. “Five guineas and you can take the lot,” she said firmly. “And that’s generous because I know he’s got some fine bits and pieces in there.”

He put the coins into the woman’s outstretched hand while Georgina looked on with impatience. She was ready to get past the woman and into Lowther’s rooms.

Finally, Mrs. Barrowby stepped back from the doorway and ushered them into a dank and dusty front entrance hall, shut the door, and then stepped around them to ascend the stairs. She made no indication that she wished for them to follow her, but Con interpreted her acceptance of the money as consent, and taking Georgina by the arm, began following the landlady.

When they reached the second landing, she stepped into a dark hallway and paused before the second door on the right. Pulling out an enormous ring of keys, she fitted one into the door, turned the handle, and extended her arms to indicate they could go in. “Take what you want, but know that if you don’t get it out of here today it’s all going to the pawnshop tomorrow morning. Like I said, ’e had some nice bits and pieces and I ain’t one to let things go to waste.”

They told her that she could go, and with a brisk nod, she left, shutting the door behind her.

Stepping farther into the dark room, Con waited for his eyes to adjust before finding a lamp and lighting it. Immediately, a golden glow flared up and then settled out, the light casting their shadows onto the walls around them so that it looked as if visitors from the circus had come to call.

He scanned the room, noting that it had been disordered, either by the dead man himself, or someone who wished to find something within the contents.

“I’ll take the bureau,” Georgina said, her tone brisk, as she made her way across the room. “You might look around and see if there is a case or portfolio that might have stored letters or perhaps some sort of notes he might have received.”

Con nodded, letting his eyes rove from one end of the chamber to the other, looking for anything that might be out of place, or might have been used to store important papers or valuables. On a shelf near the window, he saw a likely grouping and that one of the items there was a portable writing desk which had been turned on its side and stored like a book. Sliding it out from the shelf, he searched the sides, and finding the locking mechanism, he touched his thumbs to the clasps on either side and the lid popped open.

When the lamplight hit the items inside he gave a low whistle.

“What is it?” Georgie asked, not looking up from her task. “Did you find something?”

“Come and see for yourself,” Con said, removing the papers in the box and shuffling them to get a look at all of them. “It’s the letters from whoever was attempting to persecute you.” He moved to the small table by the window and spread the letters out flat on the surface.

“It’s just as he told us,” Georgie said, sliding one note aside so that she could see the next one. “Each of them emphasize that I am in danger and the need for him to keep watch over me.”

“But without being seen,” Con said, examining the writing box more closely. Often, portable writing desks like this had secret compartments in them where the writer might store ink and sealing wax. He felt along the outer edges of the box with no luck, then ran his fingers along the border about the velvet-lined interior. At the back, where there seemed to be an extra large bit of cherrywood, he found it. He touched a piece just a fraction of an inch from the corner and a long, narrow drawer slid out. “Look,” he told Georgie.

She peered around him at the drawer, where a coil of paper was neatly tucked into the compartment. Con nodded for her to take it, and Georgie reached down to remove it. The paper was a frequently used type of foolscap that could be had from most stationers. He saw her fingers tremble a little as she unrolled it.

They both read the first page as Georgie smoothed it out on top of the other papers on the table.

“My dear Malcolm,” Georgina read. “You cannot know how much I need to tell you. About me, about the letters, about all of it. There is so much to explain and so little time in which to do it. Let me assure you that I had very good reasons for doing what I did. And they had nothing to do with wishing to harm you. There was a matter from my past which needed to be set aright. And I’m afraid I found it necessary to use your good nature to make that happen. My apologies, my love. I never meant this to seem like the betrayal you feel it is. Please find it in your heart to forgive me. Please. Ever your love.”

“What the devil is this?” Con demanded. “Is this from whoever it was who sent the letters telling him to watch you?”

“That’s what it appears to be,” Georgina said, frowning. “And they are in the same hand, for what it’s worth. Which is proof enough, I think.”

“But we still don’t know whose hand it is.” Con stacked the pages laid out on the table and placed them back inside the case. Finished with her perusal of the apology note, Georgie tucked it back into the secret drawer and slid it closed.

“No. We don’t,” Georgie said, closing the lid of the writing case and watching as Con picked it up. “I need to get back to Laura Place and see all of the writing samples side by side.”

“Let’s go back then,” he said, gesturing for her to precede him from the room. “I don’t think there’s anything else in here for us to find.”

They left the house and walked along Westgate Street east toward Great Pulteney Street. They’d only gone a little ways when they were met by Alfred, one of the footmen from Lady Russell’s house, who was accompanied by the woman Con had seen with Georgie at the gallery.

“Thank heavens we found you,” she said, her voice sharp with alarm. “Georgie, I just came from Lady Russell’s house where I was hoping to find you when her ladyship suffered some sort of attack. She’s in quite a bad way and the housekeeper asked me to accompany Alfred to find you, my lord. We first went to Laura Place, but were directed to find you here.”

“Lettice,” she said, pressing a hand to her chest. “How awful. We must go at once.” She turned to Con. “We’ll take the curricle and Alfred can follow us with Lettice.”

“I’m afraid, Georgina,” Lettice said, her face twisted with embarrassment, “I was told expressly that you were not to attend her.”

That brought both Con and Georgie up short. “What does that mean?” Con demanded. “Surely my cousins are not still holding on to their foolish ideas about Georgina.”

“I’m afraid it was your aunt who insisted upon it,” Lettice said apologetically. “Perhaps she isn’t in her right mind?”

“That is absurd,” Con said. “You will just come with me, Georgina. She will not know you’re in the house at any rate. Even if she has forgotten what happened earlier.”

In response, Georgie shook her head. “Why don’t you go on ahead to see what must be done. I’ll follow along later with Lettice.”

“I don’t like leaving you alone in this area of town,” Con said. “Especially given what’s been going on this week.”

“Now is not the time for pigheadedness, my lord,” Georgie told him with a gentle shove. “Now go and I’ll be along before you know it.”

“You are a goddess among women,” Con said, kissing her hand.

Turning to Alfred, he said, “Let’s be off then.” He climbed up into the curricle, and Alfred took the tiger’s seat. “I’ll send word if there is any news.”

*   *   *

“You can have no notion of how grateful I am that you found us, Lettice,” Georgina said to her friend as they walked up a ways so that they might catch a hackney that would take them to Henrietta Street. “Whatever made you search me out today of all days?”

“I was wondering if you’d seen Mary lately,” the other woman said, her expression worried. “I haven’t seen her since that day at the Pump Room and I wondered if you had perhaps received a note from her.”

“No,” Georgie said with a frown. “I haven’t seen her. Though I don’t think we’ll be seeing much of her. I’m not sure if you knew this but she’d been seeing someone and I’m afraid he’s been killed.”

“Killed?” Lettice gasped, grasping Georgie by the arm. “How dreadful.”

Georgie rubbed her arm where Lettice had grabbed it. It felt as if her friend had a sewing pin in her hand. Aloud she said, “Yes, I’m afraid it’s true. He was poisoned, and I’m sorry to say it but I think Mary might be a suspect in the whole affair.”

“Goodness me,” Lettice said, clasping a hand to her bosom. “I don’t know what this world is coming to. But surely you don’t think Mary is guilty, do you?”

They had reached the juncture of Great Pulteney Street, and as Georgie watched the traffic she began to feel a bit woozy. “I’m … not. Lettice, I’m not feelin’ well.”

“There, there, dear,” Lettice said, slipping a hand under Georgie’s arm. “Lettice has you. There now, you’re all right, aren’t you?”

“N … n…” Georgie tried to make the words leave her mouth but no matter how she concentrated the words refused to leave her lips. To her horror, her head became too heavy for her to hold up and she felt her legs buckle beneath her.

Stronger than Georgie had thought her, Lettice managed to drag her into a nearby alley where Georgie felt herself being lifted into a cart of some sort.
Noooo!
she screamed, but it never left the inside of her head.

“There now,” she heard Lettice say as she climbed onto the seat of the cart and began to drive her along the backstreets of Bath. “You just let Lettice carry you along to the Abbey, Georgie. Them that sins needs to repent and you’ve got any number of sins to repent for, don’t you now? Things will be all over before you know it. When you hit the ground you won’t feel a thing.”

Twenty-one

Lettice’s words sent a shiver through Georgie. Having been to Bath Abbey on several occasions, Georgie was well acquainted with it. Especially with the parapets hear the bell tower. She had little doubt that Lettice meant to make her jump from one of them. Perhaps under the guise of penitence for whatever sins Lettice had laid at her feet.

Frustrated tears ran down Georgie’s cheeks. If she could but move her limbs she would leap down from the cart. But she couldn’t do that. Not only would she risk falling into the street, and beneath the wheels of the other vehicles, she’d also not be able to tell Con the truth about how she felt about him.

At the thought of him, her heart squeezed with fear. She had been too afraid to admit as much to him earlier that morning, but now when her life was in danger, and she risked never seeing his face again, she wished more than anything that she had found the courage within herself to admit her newly discovered love for him. She’d suspected it earlier, but unable to risk her heart again so soon after Robert, she had hidden the suspicion deep within her, where it had little chance of emerging when she saw him. Now she wished she’d told him when she’d had the chance.

“You wouldn’t have expected it of your dear old Lettice, would you, Georgie?” her friend asked conversationally from the driver’s seat. “But it was me who befriended young Mr. Lowther first. Not that hussy Mary. She always did think she was better than me, that one. Well, it was me, Lettice, who approached him first. And it was me who told him stories about his brother Robert’s life in the army. And about his pretty little wife. And when our dear friend—you know who I mean, don’t you, gel?—when our friend approached with the suggestion that I ask both Malcolm and Mary to watch after you, well, I made sure they got their offers right and tight.”

So it had been Lettice who passed the letters on to Malcolm and Mary? Georgie was sick to realize what a fool she’d been about Lettice. Robert had mentioned playing her false with her own friends but it had never occurred to her that he might mean Lettice. She was a dear, if a little bit on the morose side. Never in a million years would Georgie have suspected Lettice of being the one who set all of this death and destruction into motion.

“How was I to know,” Lettice continued, “that they would demand just when they could expect their money? First it was young Malcolm who asked, and I ask you, what was I supposed to do? I couldn’t have him going to you about all of this, Georgie. You know I couldn’t. You’re like peas in a pod with an earl! How would that have looked? No, I made sure that Malcolm would keep his mouth shut. It was easy enough to put a bit of poison in his tea. And I did the same with Mary. Though she, bless her, she’s not been found yet.”