A Scandalous Past (Regency Romance, Book 4) (39 page)

Lady Astwick frowned at the old man. “I’ve
never heard you stammer so much, Higgins. Now don’t dawdle, bring
Clayworth to us at once. We have had a long journey and we are
tired.”

But Higgins shook his head. “I—well, I’m not
certain where he is, my lady. He went… out.”

“Out?” the dowager barked. “Certainly he
told you where he was going. Send a man to retrieve him. Are you
deaf?”

But Cordie could tell from Higgins’ panicked
expression that he didn’t have the faintest idea where Brendan was.
She sighed. After the weeks they’d spent apart, a few more hours
wouldn’t kill them. Besides, he’d be back soon, most likely. “We’ll
await his lordship in the green parlor, Higgins. When my lord
does
return, please send him to us.”

“Let me out this instant!” came a woman’s
cry from somewhere behind them in the street.

Surprised, Cordie spun on her heel and her
mouth dropped open when she recognized the Marquess of Haversham’s
coach, now parked right in front of Lady Astwick’s traveling
conveyance. “What in heaven’s name?”

The entire coach shook as someone pounded on
the door from inside. “Let me out, I say!”

“Is that
Caroline Staveley
?” The
dowager peered around Cordie to get a good look through the open
doorway. “In
Haversham’s
coach?”

Was that Lady Staveley’s voice? As soon as
Lady Astwick said so, Cordie knew she was correct. What was she
doing with Marc? Was she in some sort of trouble? Cordie dashed
down the steps and raced to the carriage, and ran right into a
hulking driver who stood sentry in front of the door. “Out of my
way or I’ll call the watch!” she commanded.

“I have my orders, my lady,” the man
replied, but he shuffled his feet uncomfortably as he did so.

Cordie folded her arms across her chest and
glared at the man. “Indeed? A kidnapper, are you? Either move out
of my way, or I’ll see you sent to Newgate.”

“But Lord Haversham—”

“Can deal with me,” Cordie finished for him.
Then she shoved at his hulking frame to make her point. He moved
just enough that she was able to see that a metal pin kept the
coach door locked, but he held his position, refusing to move
another inch.

“Good heavens!” the dowager grumbled behind
her. “What a bunch of nonsense.” Then the old woman poked the
driver in the groin with her cane, sending the man cursing as he
dropped to the ground like a sack of flour.

Cordie took the opportunity to pull the pin
from the lock and open the carriage door.

Caroline Staveley stumbled out, putting a
hand to her disasterous coiffure. The viscoutness glared at the
driver, still rolling on the ground just a few feet away. “How dare
you?”

“Lady Staveley!” Cordie’s hand flew to her
chest. “Whatever has happened to you?” Truly she had never seen the
woman look so disheveled. The viscountess had always been the
picture of calm perfection.

At that moment, Lady Staveley glanced around
at the scene before her—the moaning coachman, the dowager
marchioness still threatening the man with her cane, and Cordie—as
though suddenly realizing she wasn’t alone. The viscountess stood
her tallest, pushed back a fallen lock of her hair, and flashed her
most charming smile at the two ladies. “Thank heavens you’re home.
We must get to Vauxhall right away.”

“Vauxhall?” Cordie echoed. Had Lady Staveley
gone mad during Cordie’s sojourn to Hampshire.

“As fast as we can.” The viscountess nodded
her head vigorously. “Brendan’s in trouble.”

Brendan dropped his valise and clutched
Haversham’s jacket with both hands. “Are you following me?” he
hissed.

Haversham surprised him by nodding. “Aye.
I’ve been watching your home for weeks now. Waiting for you to
finally get contacted by this son a bitch.”

Brendan’s mouth fell open and he released
his grasp on the blackguard’s jacket. “I beg your pardon?”

Haversham sighed, stood tall and smoothed
his hands over the front of his jacket to remove the fresh
wrinkles. “Caroline and I discovered your notes that day we ended
up in your study.”

Good God! Haversham had seen his blackmail
notes?

“You got another one, didn’t you?” the
marquess pressed. “You are headed to meet whoever is threatening
Cordie?”

Threatening
Cordie
? Hearing his
wife’s name on Haversham’s lips made Brendan’s jaw tighten. But he
had to respond to the bastard. Why did he think the blackmailer was
threatening Cordie? Because the notes simply said
Lady
Clayworth
. Haversham hadn’t put anything else together, thank
God. Brendan breathed a slight sigh of relief.  “I can handle
this on my own.”

“I’m sure you can. But you’re not going to.”
Haversham nodded toward the ferryman. “Besides, no one will ever
think we’re working together. Our distaste for each other is well
established.”

“I don’t want your help.”

“Well, you have it nevertheless. So stop
wasting time and tell me what you know or what you suspect.”
Haversham stepped onto the ferry and said to the boatman, “You are
to take us to Vauxhall, are you not?”

The ferryman blinked. “The man said there’d
only be one o’ ya.”

Haversham tossed the man a satchel of coins.
“Well, there are
two
of us, but no one else needs to know
that, do they?”

The ferryman grinned a toothless smile. “No,
sir. Yer secret’s safe wi’ me.”

Haversham took a seat on the ferry and
patted the spot beside him. “Come along, Clayworth. We don’t have
long.”

Brendan snorted as he stepped onto the
ferry. He wasn’t quite certain how Haversham had appropriated this
affair with the blackmailer, and he wasn’t quite certain he even
wanted the man’s assistance. He certainly didn’t want the
blackguard to learn about his mother’s letters, which meant he was
going to have to be extra vigilant as they met with the villain,
but Haversham was correct in that no one would ever believe the two
of them would ever work together. “Why are you so dead-set on
helping me?”

The marquess shrugged as the ferry started
down the Thames. “Because I would never see Cordie hurt if I could
help it, even if that means working with you.”

“Well, I suppose that makes two of us then.”
Brendan finally took the spot beside Haversham. “How did you know
we were headed for Vauxhall?”

“It made sense. A number of places to hide,
the ability to blend into a large crowd. The bastard could wear a
mask and no one would think anything of it.”

Perhaps having Haversham along was a
blessing in disguise. Brendan’s mind just didn’t work the same
fiendish way. “He could be watching the ferry, you know? If he sees
you here as well, he could get suspicious.”

“He won’t see me,” the marquess promised.
“I’ve a talent for getting into and out of places without anyone
being the wiser.”

“Just so long as it isn’t my home,” Brendan
grumbled.

“Not for lack of
trying. But your wife is devoted to you, Clayworth. No idea what
she’s done to bring this trouble on your heads—and I’d rather not
know—but you can rest easy on that matter. Cordie is devoted to
you, and you alone.”

Brendan didn’t doubt that in the least, but
he supposed it was nice of Haversham to say. “So,” he turned his
eyes to the southern edge of the Thames, “when we arrive, I’ll
depart alone.”

“I’ll watch from the river and see if anyone
follows you. Then I’ll follow myself, at a safe distance, of
course.”

“Of course,” Brendan muttered. Assuming the
blackmailer followed him and Haversham brought up the rear, how
would he keep the marquess from discovering the reason he was being
blackmailed? Haversham was willing to help, believing Cordie was in
trouble, but Brendan couldn’t let him learn about his mother’s
treacherous activities. The marquess might be a lot of things, but
Brendan had never thought him a traitor. “Keep a watchful eye on
yourself, too. There could be more than one of them.”

Haversham chuckled. “That would explain the
variation in the letters. The amounts made no sense
whatsoever.”

Brendan sighed. “Don’t remind me. I’m not
all that thrilled you and Lady Staveley took it upon yourselves to
rummage through my desk.”

“Just be glad you’re not going it
alone.”

But it would be so much safer for Brendan if
he was going it alone, if another set of ears weren’t listening in
this evening—a set of ears belonging to a man who would waste no
time in trying to steal Cordie away from him if given half a
chance.

The ferry slowly floated up to the pier
leading to Vauxhall Gardens, and the sound of lively music drifted
to the shoreline. Brendan rose from his seat, tipped his head in
the direction of the ferryman, and disembarked. He didn’t look back
to see if Haversham followed, as that could give away their ruse.
He started down the main path toward the revelry as though he
didn’t have a care in the world.

People passed him going both directions and
Brendan scanned the crowd, searching for a familiar face, wondering
who was waiting for him. Then he felt something hard at his back
and a voice hissed, “Make a sound and I’ll pull the trigger.”

***

Cordie closed her eyes, shivering a bit from
the chilly air on the Thames, and willed the ferry to move as fast
as possible. Though Caroline Staveley had explained in great detail
how she and Lord Haversham had discovered notes blackmailing
Brendan and then kept an eye on Clayworth House until the villain
made his move, nothing really made sense to Cordie. If the
blackmailer didn’t have Jacqueline Clayworth’s letters, what was he
after? But most importantly, she needed to see her husband again,
to tell him he was safe from the gallows and that they would face
this fiend, whoever he was, together.

A hand grasped her elbow, and Cordie opened
her eyes to find Lady Astwick’s light gaze focused on her. “We will
get to the bottom of this, Cordelia.”

Cordie nodded, thankful for the woman’s
strength as she had so little of her own any more.

“We can cover more ground if we split up
once we reach the gardens,” Lady Staveley suggested.

But the dowager marchioness waved the
suggestion away with her hand. “That sounds like a perfectly good
way to get us each killed, Caroline. No, we’ll stick together.”

“But the gardens are so vast.”

“I have no intention of ending up with a
knife in back this evening. So we’ll stay together.”

Lady Staveley sighed but agreed with a nod
of her head. Then she smiled at Cordie. “Are you all right,
darling?”

As all right as one could be under the
current circumstances. So Cordie nodded in response. “I just want
to find Brendan.”

As soon as they disembarked, the trio
bounded up the steps and started along the main path to the
gardens. Loud music filled the air, as did the laughter of the
assembled crowd. Cordie remembered attending events here in the
past, how she loved the fireworks and the dancing and the general
reverie. She would never be able to attend Vauxhall again without a
feeling of doom settling in the pit of her stomach.

“Caroline!” came a cheerful voice from the
dinner boxes.

The three of them looked up to find Lady
Juliet Beckford waving wildly in their direction. “Oh, bother,”
Caroline grumbled. “I can’t put off my sister-in-law. She’ll be
suspicious.”

“Go on then,” Lady Astwick ordered. “Find us
if you are able.”

Caroline Staveley waved back to her
brother’s wife and started toward the dinner boxes, leaving Cordie
and Lady Astwick by themselves.

“Where do we start?” Cordie asked, only
because the dowager seemed to have command of the entire
affair.

“If I was going to meet someone here for a
nefarious purpose,” Lady Astwick began, “I would be along the
darkened hedgerows.”

Which made complete sense. “My thoughts
exactly,” Cordie agreed. At that moment, a shot rang out in the
night and then the sky lit up, full of color. Cordie placed a hand
to her furiously beating heart. For a moment she’d thought it was a
weapon, not the fireworks. “That just took off a year of my
life.”

“This way,” Lady Astwick pushed toward a
garden entrance with Cordie quick on her heels.

Again the night sky lit up and illuminated
the gardens below. Cordie’s heart stopped once again when she
spotted a figured slumped on the ground against a hedgerow. “Dear
God!” she breathed out. They were too late! She raced across the
walkway as fast as her slippered feet could carry her. “Brendan!”
she yelled.

She dropped to her knees beside the fallen
man, and somehow managed to turn him part way, enough that she
could tell the man was not her husband. “Marc!” she gasped.

“Over there!” Lady Astwick yelled. “A fellow
just darted into the shrubbery.”

“Damn ferryman,” the marquess mumbled, his
eyes still closed.

***

Brendan was almost certain he heard his
name. He started to turn toward the sound, but his blackmailer
pressed the barrel of his gun harder into Brendan’s back.

“I said go
forward
,” the villain
hissed.

Where the devil was Haversham? Shouldn’t he
be bringing up the rear? Brendan shook the valise in his hand.
“There is no one here, why don’t we make the trade right now?”

“Trade?” the man said, abandoning his
whisper, and Brendan almost recognized his captor’s voice. He must
have taken the man by surprise for him to finally speak aloud.

“Yes, trade. You give me my letters and I’ll
give you your money. Then we can both be on our way.”

A maniacal laughed escaped the villain, then
the man circled Brendan from behind, finally stopping directly in
front of him. Brendan barely managed to keep his mouth from falling
open. “Brookfield?” he whispered. His eyes were dark rimmed and he
looked slightly mad.
Opium eater
. Captain Avery’s words
echoed in Brendan’s ear. Brookfield clearly wasn’t in his right
mind. How long had he been like this and Brendan had missed it?