A Masquerade in the Moonlight (45 page)

Paddy nodded, already writing. It was after one in the morning, and they all knew Marguerite expected Marco at the kitchen door before ten. Harewood was a wordy man, his confession running to ten close-written pages. They didn’t have much time. “What will you be doing, Tommie?” he asked, looking up at him.

“First,” Thomas answered, shrugging into his jacket, then fitting a knife, his favorite knife, up one sleeve, “I’m going to climb a Portman Square drainpipe and love that brave, courageous, wonderful
aingeal
to within an inch of exhaustion—because she deserves it and because I’d like to think she’ll sleep late tomorrow after I leave her.”

“And then?” Dooley was looking at him strangely, as if there was something visible in his eyes the Irishman had seen once or twice before. “There’s more. And not just because I saw you slip that fancy sticker up your sleeve. I know it in my bones. What will you be doing while your Marguerite is sleeping, a smile still on her pretty face?”

Thomas headed for the door, stopping only when he had his hand on the handle. “Marco, you deliver the packet, but not until eleven. Stay with her while she reads the confession, then sit on her if you have to, but don’t let her out of your sight until I come for her. Paddy, you go with him, to make sure he gets in to see her, then come back here and pack, for we’ll be leaving for Chertsey tomorrow afternoon—and most probably Philadelphia soon after that.”

“Always the valet,” Dooley muttered, sighing. “I’d much rather go around town banging heads with you. You can’t count on that fool Harewood to do any of the work for you, even if he does hint in that sorry confession of his that he plans to murder Laleham. Precious lot of courage the man’s gotten, now that he has Marco’s Shield of Invincibility. Immortal, is it? Bloody fool! Even the leprechauns can’t promise that. So that’s what you’ll be doing early tomorrow morning, isn’t it, Tommie? Having some of your own back on Harewood and the earl before we’re on our way? Marguerite would want that.”

“No, Paddy,” Marco said, his head cocked to one side as he regarded Thomas solemnly. “He’ll not be beating on them. He’ll be killing them. Killing them dead. Won’t you, my friend?”

Thomas smiled, although his heart wasn’t in it. “I didn’t hear that, Marco, because you didn’t say it. You’re welcome to come to Philadelphia with us—you and Giorgio both. If anything goes wrong, Marguerite and I won’t be the only ones to have worn out our welcomes in England.”

“Many thanks, but we’re late joining the others for our summer trek. I’ve a taste for pilfered chicken that must be satisfied. We’ll be leaving London tomorrow, once we know Marguerite is safely with you.”

Thomas nodded, silently agreeing to the plan. “My thanks to you, Marco. Marguerite couldn’t have been half so brilliant without you, although I like my head too much to ever say such a thing to her face.”

“The plans were hers, my friend. Giorgio and I were only her instruments. Good luck to you.”

“Tommie—have a care.”

Thomas looked to Dooley. “Do you worry I can’t handle them?” he asked, already thinking ahead to his confrontations with Harewood and the earl.

“Not those bastards, boyo,” Dooley shot back. “Marguerite. She might not take kindly to you climbing into her window in the middle of the night.”

“Perhaps, Paddy,” Thomas said, opening the door. “But I think you can trust your Tommie to change her mind.”

Laleham didn’t care for late-night assignations, but Ralph had been insistent they meet two hours after midnight. Ralph had been acting strangely these last days, nearly daring to contradict him on more than one occasion, so that the earl was thoroughly out of patience with him. Which partially explained his foul humor as his man drove him away from the ball he had been attending and through the still busy streets to Harewood’s lodgings.

The remainder of Laleham’s black mood was due to the steady aching in his jaw that, no matter how much better his physicians swore the cracked bone to be, still pained him like the devil. The pain kept his hatred for Thomas Donovan alive—so much so that he had begun to believe he could find a way to dispose of the man and deal only with his minion, Patrick Dooley.

But that had to wait. Everything had to wait until this business with Arthur and Perry and Stinky was straightened out. How could one of them, yet alone all three, be so monstrously inept, so perilously stupid?

And why now? One or two of them falling from grace could be looked upon as coincidence. But three? And so quickly, one directly after the other, within a space of days? That smacked of some sort of intrigue meant to bring them down. But only the five of them knew they were connected in any way other than simple friendship.

Yet all wasn’t lost. The groundwork for the deal with the Americans had been well laid, and Perry’s and Arthur’s liberally bribed—and decidedly more competent—assistants were still in place, so that neither of the two blockheads were needed anymore. Not really. Perry’s replacement at the War Ministry and Arthur’s at the Treasury would only continue on the way things had been set up for them by their predecessors, for originality—and brainpower—never had been requirements for government service. Assistants and secretaries had always run the offices, and always would. No one had any reason to believe this first shipment and those to follow, neatly delivered to Phillips and Delphia, would be anything but customary.

As for Stinky? Merely a minor adjustment was needed there. William knew he could always find another of Prinny’s fawning sycophants who needed his debts paid in exchange for whispering a word or two into His Royal Highness’s ear if one was needed. But not for long. Soon Prinny would only be a faint, forgettable blot on the pages of history—even without Stinky personally assisting the man into oblivion.

The only real problem lay with Donovan, who had yet to turn over the letter from Madison—that vital communication that would keep the earl safe from any sort of double dealing. If the replacements at the War Ministry and the Treasury were to be too efficient, and forward Perry’s and Arthur’s orders too expeditiously, Donovan would have everything his president wanted without having to turn over the paper.

And that, William Renfrew knew, just wouldn’t be sporting.

Laleham clenched his teeth before remembering the action inevitably set a sharp pain running from his jawbone straight into his ear.

He thought once more of Ralph. Perhaps Ralph had also considered the benefits to be derived by this strange elimination of the three bunglers, although he would then have most naturally supposed he, as the sole remaining contact inside the government, had doubled—nay, trebled —in worth.

Yes, that would be the way Ralph saw it—and it certainly would explain his new air of command. Hadn’t it also occurred to him that if Grouse could be bought without Perry’s knowledge, and Arthur’s man, Peeler, could be bought, then it merely followed that Ralph’s assistant had also been neatly purchased and sat in his pocket?

Did Ralph, did any of them, really believe that he, William Renfrew, would leave the chances for success of such important dealings resting solely with such unreliable men as themselves?

A simple, superstitious, easily led fool—that was his dear friend Ralph. It also would never occur to him that if three members of their little group could be done without, so could four. After all, why settle for half a loaf when it was possible to have it all? More for himself, more for his consort, more because more was better. Always better.

But he was worrying too much, like an old woman. The three had been destroyed by their own weaknesses, and not beforetimes either! It had been coincidence—nothing more. Yet these coincidences had given birth to an idea. He might as well dispose of Ralph now as well, and make a clean break with these anchors from his past who could only drag him down.

His coachman pulled up in front of Harewood’s residence and Laleham, smiling thinly as he considered his latest brilliance, descended to the flagway. He motioned for his man to take the coach to the end of the street and wait there.

Yes, eliminating dear Ralph now rather than later just might be the next logical step. He had halfway assigned that job to Perry, but Perry was gone—and probably would have bungled the thing anyway. Oh, well—it wasn’t as if he were a stranger to killing. After the first one, how difficult could it be to kill again? Not very. For if truth be told, he had rather enjoyed it the first time. Not like Ralph, who had cried like a puling infant the whole time, and for days afterward.

Laleham rapped a single time on the knocker, unsurprised to see Sir Ralph open the door himself a moment later. “You’re late,” Harewood said, his tone harsh, as if he, rather than William, were in charge of the earl’s comings and goings.

“And you’re impertinent, Ralph, which shouldn’t be surprising, seeing as how you have at times put me in mind of a creature raised by wolves. This had best be good,” Laleham said coldly as he stepped inside and walked straight past Harewood and into the small drawing room that was unaccustomedly brilliant with candles. He removed his hat and cloak and laid them over a chair. “Where are your servants?”

“I sent them away until tomorrow afternoon,” Sir Ralph answered shortly as he, too, entered the drawing room. “I felt we should be alone, and undisturbed.”

Laleham helped himself to a glass of wine, although Ralph was not drinking and hadn’t offered anything to his guest. “Really? And why would such privacy be important to you, Ralph?” He turned to look at the man, really look at him, and saw that Harewood was smiling. He tried not to wince. Sir Ralph Harewood and smiles did not match. It was rather like seeing a toothy grin on a three-days-dead corpse.

“I see. Something has happened,” Harewood said, walking over to his desk, keeping his back to William.

“Yes, indeed it has. Perry has taken ship rather than face the titters each time he shows his face in public. Stinky is even now ensconced in the Fleet, weeping into his stylishly tied cravat and cursing Prinny for having deserted him. And Arthur? Ah, Arthur. I believe he has retired to his bed, the covers pulled up tight around his several weak chins, trying to convince himself anyone could have been taken in by a gangly, downy-cheeked youth dressed as a rich debutante. I had wondered how any young woman, even an importuning Cit with deep pockets and an eye to a title, could have found Arthur so intriguing. Now I understand. Someone was out to play a whopping great joke on our dearest buffoon—and it worked beautifully, as playing to the man’s weakness for any wealthy, willing woman was bound to do. At his age, I imagine it would be enough that she merely be
willing
.”

He addressed Harewood’s back. “Is that it, Ralph, or are you going to tell me you’ve also disgraced yourself? Have you taken to running into the Serpentine in the buff, or perhaps you’ve decided to attempt a career on the stage? Please, Ralph, don’t tease me—I am waiting, heart in mouth, for you to tell me if you, too, have inexplicably descended to the level of village idiot.”

Ralph whirled around to face Laleham, his usually expressionless eyes glittering with what looked to be religious zeal. “I want that diary you found, William.”

“Diary? What diary would that be?” Laleham stepped back a pace, lowering his wineglass onto the drinks table with a steady hand as he kept his eyes trained on Harewood. Something was wrong here. Something was most seriously wrong.

“Don’t be obtuse, Willie! Geoffrey Balfour’s diary, the one detailing how we’d tricked him into getting his friends to invest in our bubble,” Harewood said, taking a single step in the earl’s direction. “The one he was forever scribbling in, the one you held over all our heads in order that we join this damn scheme of yours with the Americans. I want it. The rest are gone, and Geoffrey’s scribbles are the least of their problems, but my name is in it, too. You took great pains to show it to me, remember? If we’re to be partners, you and I—true partners—I need the thing destroyed.”

William smiled, happy to unbalance the man. “This is what all the fuss is about, all this heat, this dead of the night summons? Why, Ralph, you disappoint me. Surely you realized I was showing you all a forgery? The man was a dreamer and failed poet, a worthless waste of anyone’s concern. What on earth could any of us fear from his notations on the local flora and fauna and such nonsense?
I
wrote the diary you saw. It may have been unsporting of me, but I needed your help.”

The truth worked nicely, as unexpected truth invariably did, and William began to relax, for Ralph was behaving so totally out of character he had begun to worry.

“You—it was—where is it now?”

Now a lie might be best, especially since Ralph hadn’t seemed to notice that the forged diary had mentioned only four names, not all five; Laleham hadn’t been about to incriminate himself, after all, and one never knew when the diary might be useful in future. “I burned it, of course. It had served its purpose, and I couldn’t leave it lying about, now could I, to be discovered by just anybody? Ralph,” he added, sighing, “isn’t it silly of us to argue now, when we’re so close to our goal.”