Wicked Company (102 page)

“And you, a rebellious, seditious, libelous, contumacious Scottish polecat!” Darnly replied, practically shouting. He pushed her against the crenellated stone wall, its sharp edges painfully pressing her spine. “In the beginning, I admired both your pluck and your plays, but you never seemed to appreciate what I had done for you.”

“Done
for me?” Sophie echoed, astounded. “What have you
ever
done for me lately, other than attempt to control my life?”

“Once I’d begun to lend Lacy money for his coal mining schemes, secured by his Drury Lane shares, I enjoyed complete access to the theater’s inner sanctums,” Darnly noted more calmly. The hand pressing against her shoulder eased a bit, giving Sophie some hope of making a dash for the door that led back into the nave. “If I liked one of your plays, my dear, I used my influence with Capell to have it licensed.”

“You persuaded Capell to license my work?”

“Both as Sophie McGann and under your pseudonym, once I was fairly certain who Sydney Ganwick was,” he chuckled. “’Twas great sport and I even showed a profit with my selections! Sometimes I actually bribed Edward… not with money, mind you… but with an invitation to dine here, a rare book there. And when your work became canting and tiresome, I employed the same tactics to have it squelched.”

“A Maid Most Modestly Made…
” Sophie murmured, recalling Capell’s refusal to license her first adaptation of Aphra Behn’s play. As she was reflecting on Darnly’s latest revelation, she noticed that Trevor was maintaining his silence in the shadows. If she succeeded in escaping Darnly’s clutches, could she also dart beyond Bedloe’s grasp? She made a sudden move to free herself, only to feel Darnly’s fingers dig deeper into her flesh.

“Oh, you proved just how clever you can be, didn’t you?” Roderick growled. “You slipped
Strife for a Wife
past the censor after I’d gotten Capell to reject that earlier version. And, of course, when you said you had given up the quill, I believed you for a time… until you wrote
The Rattecatchers.”
He stared at her somberly. “Your depiction of Peter and my little peccadilloes at our club were too true for the author to be anyone but you. So I mounted a claque and had it shouted down.”

“And were you involved in the theft of
Parsimonious Parson?”
Sophie asked quietly, painfully remembering how she had accused Hunter and Mavis of such perfidy.

“Indirectly,” Darnly confirmed. “I had Peter copy it and then submitted it to Covent Garden through an intermediary.”

“Peter copied it?” Sophie repeated faintly.

“Right out of your desk drawer at Cleveland Row. His labors satisfied yet another of his gambling debts to me,” Darnly replied with a malevolent smile, “and at the same time, granted me the entrée into Covent Garden I desired. ’Twas capital fun to invest in competing plays and wager which might be the winner…”

“But Garrick understood full well your plot to pass yourself off as a nobleman-dramatist—
and
to garner shares through illegal mortgages,” Sophie mused. “For years he did what he could to frustrate your efforts, didn’t he?”

“Yes,” replied Darnly. “But now he’s dead.”

“Aye…” Sophie said. “But aren’t you concerned that there are those who know for certain how you’ve circumvented the law in a number of ways?”

For an instant, Darnly’s gaze wavered. Then, he seemed to regain his confidence.

“Ah… but we can deal with that, can’t we, Trevor?” he said over his shoulder. “You see, despite your cleverness and your marriage to that rogue, Robertson, you will soon accompany me to Wales. Once that cur becomes the victim of some tawdry skirmish with another knife-wielding prison inmate, I shall make you my countess and there you will spend the rest of your days. ’Twill all be so convenient, don’t you see? You’ll bear my child… write my plays… and keep my secrets.”

“I can’t imagine why you find me worthy of such an honor,” she responded sarcastically. Before she could even regret her outburst, Darnly yanked on her arm even harder this time, pulling her roughly against his chest.

“Are you certain you can stomach the conjugal duties of a husband, Roderick?” she asked, staring up at him only inches away.

“You thankless jade!” he spat, color staining his cheeks. “Your value now, despite what you or Trevor believe, is that—as my bride—you solve a number of problems.”

Sophie wrestled with a feeling of rising panic.

“Problems?” she echoed, trying not to show the fear that had taken possession of her and set her knees to trembling.

“It sat most ill with me, my dear, that you spurned all my attempts to accomplish in a civilized manner what needed to be done. But no… you would not reside in the rooms I had designed for you in my London house. And then, you were determined to persuade that wastrel Peter Lindsay to turn evidence against me in the matter of his suit of Criminal Conversation.” Darnly’s eyes glittered with malice. “You were correct in your presumption that Lord Mansfield would find such overt manipulation, even by a peer of the realm,
distasteful.
I couldn’t allow that to happen.”

“So you murdered Peter to guarantee he’d not recant to the court!”

“I?
Never!” Darnly exclaimed, looking at her disdainfully.

“You ordered it done, then,” she said, her mouth going dry. She was acutely aware of the proximity of Trevor Bedloe—slender Trevor Bedloe. The assailant who had hit Peter in the head as the victim had attempted to describe to her as he lay dying?

“As I said to you in Wales,” Darnly responded in a low voice while declining to confirm or deny her accusations, “I believe we might have made a go of it in some fashion, you and I. You severely tried my patience when you married that Scottish rascal.”

“Your
spy,
Mary Ann, knew nothing of the ceremony at Newgate…” Sophie recalled softly. “And you’d remained in your homeland for Christmas.”

“Yes,” Darnly replied. “I was quite provoked at her for a time. Then she brought me proof
after
Christmas day that you were, indeed, Sydney Ganwick, and she was given silks and satins as her reward.” He continued to stare down at her with a measuring glance while tightening his grip on her arm once again. “You, too, could be rewarded, you know. Even now.”

“What do you mean?” she demanded.

“If you give me an heir. If you never reveal to anyone what you saw in the hay byre the morning the mine caved in.”

“The
hay byre
?” she choked, almost laughing with relief. “You knew I saw the three of you—”

“You see? She
knows,
Roddy!” Trevor burst out, suddenly emerging from the shadows. “The dogs woke me! I heard her open the barn door, I tell you! She was standing there, taking it all in.” He looked beseechingly at Sophie’s captor. “Jesu, don’t wed the chit, man! At any moment she could ruin you! She could—”

“I promise you, Roderick, on my father’s grave,” Sophie interrupted fervently, ignoring Trevor, “I couldn’t care
less
what you and Trevor and that housemaid were doing in the hay byre!” She stared up at him, making a desperate attempt to petition the Roderick Darnly who had shown he was capable of kindness when little Danielle died, “I realize what a wretched family yours must have been… and how difficult it can be to be the second son. I, too, have some inkling how envy can rankle one’s soul. Believe me, Roderick… your private life is
your
affair,” she pleaded earnestly. “As Trevor says, surely there must be some other woman you could press into service to be your countess? In the name of the association we
have
shared all these years, I swear I would never gossip about you!”

“She
knows,
Roddy! She’s too clever by half!” Trevor exclaimed shrilly. He plucked at his employer’s sleeve and looked as if he were about to weep. “Don’t be tricked by the tart! She mustn’t escape! If you’re too faint of heart to silence the strumpet, then I’ll do it for you, as I did that sod Lindsay!”

“Stand back, Trevor!” Darnly growled.

“For God’s sake, Roddy… what’s she to you?” Trevor cried.
“Nothing!
She’ll ruin us, I tell you! I’ve said from the first, get rid of her!”

Sophie stared at her captors, and with awful certainty, realized that these two men had previously weighed the risks and advantages of dispatching her in the same manner they had Peter Lindsay.

“Why do you hesitate?” Trevor demanded. “’Tis merely a matter of time till she uses what she knows against you. Why, we’d scarce brushed the coal dust from our skin that night when she found us—”

For a moment, the only sounds heard in
the cloisters were the high, sweet voices of the all-boy choir singing the “Te Deum” inside the cathedral.

“Oh, no…” Sophie whispered, locking glances with Trevor.

Then her eyes slowly returned to Lord Darnly’s face, which had frozen into an expressionless mask. His viselike grip on her arm hurt excruciatingly.

“Oh, dear God! The mine accident!” she gasped. “After the performance of my play…when the old earl banished you both from Evansmor. You two went to the mine that night, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” Darnly answered in a monotone. “We’d been in the library for hours after everyone left… drowning our sorrows with drink, of course. ’Twas Trevor’s notion to loosen the timbers supporting the shaft. Eventually I agreed to the scheme. It seemed the only thing left to do.… Even Glynnis lent a hand…”

“And when your brother’s mechanical pump began to pour out water the next morning, the weakened walls caved in… ?” Sophie added faintly, shuddering at the memory of Roderick, tears bathing his cheeks, carrying the crushed body of his dead twin out of the mine. “Poor Vaughn! Oh, God, Roderick! He was your
brother!”
she wailed, shaking her head. “I
didn’t
know! It never occurred to me—”

“Blast you, Trevor!” the earl swore, roused at last from his trancelike state. With his free hand, he gave his accomplice a violent shove. “You damned idiot—”

Suddenly, Sophie saw the misshapen figure of the hunchbacked one-eyed beggar who had pestered her at the entrance of the Abbey. The ragged creature was stealthily advancing toward Roderick and Trevor, whose backs were turned. Without warning, he lunged, and in one fluid gesture, hit the earl soundly on the back of the head with his stout wooden alms bowl. Roderick crumpled to the stone floor, his white, uncalloused fingers splayed against the paving stone at the spot where the worn, seventeenth-century engraving marked the unheralded resting place of the playwright Aphra Behn. Then, the filthy wretch whirled around and dispatched Trevor Bedloe in similar fashion with a right fist to the jaw.

“Alms, m’lady?” the beggar inquired, thrusting the bowl under Sophie’s nose. “A penny, at least, for a bloomin’ rescue!”

Ignoring the ruffian’s demands, Sophie bolted beyond his grasp and ran blindly down the passageway toward a patch of daylight that beckoned her at the end of the cloisters. Pounding footsteps reverberated behind her. Once more, a powerful hand gripped her arm, and she was spun around to face the hideous one-eyed beggar, his empty socket peering down at her.

Sophie screamed. The detestable brute clamped a grimy hand over her mouth and dragged her toward the end of the passageway that led into a courtyard where a coach was waiting. Its four horses snorted steam out of their flared nostrils in the chill February air. The beggar thrust open the door and shoved Sophie inside, leaping in beside her. The vehicle lurched forward, nearly tossing her into the lap of her repugnant abductor.

Sophie pulled herself into a sitting position. Her eyes followed the curve denoting the man’s hunched back which protruded in an unsightly mound beneath his ragged coat. Repulsed, she reached for the coach door handle, but her gesture was instantly arrested by her fellow passenger.

“I beg of you! Let me out of this coach!’’ she panted, “I’ve plenty of troubles of my own, and now you’ve gone and crowned an
earl!”

“Ye’ve troubles, to be sure,” the beggar retorted, also attempting to catch his breath. “But did you
have
to insult Lord Darnly to such an extent?” he demanded. “No one enjoys being labeled a covetous scoundrel
and
a fraud!”

Sophie’s jaw went slack and she stared with astonishment at the figure clothed in wretched rags who appeared to be the poorest beggar in Christendom.

“Hunter?”
she gasped, dumbfounded by the sight of his disguise.

“Aye… so
now
you finally recognize me!” he exclaimed irritably. “I all but flung my arms around your shapely thighs to slow you down going into the Abbey… but
no…
you marched right past with the rest of those counterfeit pages!” He pulled at a sticky mass of paste that covered his right eye. “You never were much of an actress, you know,” he chuckled. “I immediately recognized your voice, not to mention that strand of auburn hair peeping out from under your white wig…”