Amanda Scott (50 page)

“You can prove none of it, however.”

“Oh, I think we can persuade your Belgian ‘count’ to testify against you.”

“You’ll find that he has left England, I believe,” Yarborne said less confidently.

“On the contrary, he is still in London. Lord Thomas Minley promised to look after him for me, you see, which brings to mind another charge we can lay against your son,” he added, looking at Robert, who had begun to get to his feet.

Encountering that look, Robert sank to the ground again.

“Very wise,” Nick said. “You don’t want to tempt me to teach you the lesson you really deserve.” Turning back to Yarborne, he said, “I’ll acquit you of having any part of this, except insofar as you passed on a lack of integrity to your offspring, but I hope it serves to persuade you that there’s no good to come of resisting our wishes. Robert not only duped an innocent clergyman with a hare-brained thimble-rig, but robbed him at gunpoint when he refused to hand over the money. Oh, yes, I know all about it,” he added when Robert started and looked astonished. “What will amaze you even more is that I can assure you, he would testify against you in court.”

“Well, you know,” Yarborne said, “I take leave to doubt that.”

“Will you continue to doubt if I tell you the clergyman is Lord Dorian Minley? Keep in mind that the penalty for the crime is hanging.”

Yarborne shrugged, and Robert said, “A nob ain’t more likely than an ordinary pigeon to speak up about such stuff. I didn’t know who he was, but it don’t much matter. I never even dreamed the rig would work so well. Tried it on the first chap who came along, figuring once he got money, he’d come back to get more. Just dumb luck that I saw him win a monkey on the heat just before he returned. I had the devil’s own time getting there ahead of him, but I knew it would be worth it. Even with a win of five hundred pounds, he was looking to get more, so he got what he deserved. It’s greed that creates pigeons, my friend.” He glanced at Oliver, who looked away.

“Very true,” Nick said, “but it is the recognition of that greed in himself that will persuade Lord Dorian to give evidence if he is asked to do so. Generally, you and your ilk depend upon your pigeons to keep silent rather than admit what greedy fools they’ve been. I promise you, however, that if we take the pair of you before a magistrate’s court, the vicar will look upon his testimony as a well-deserved penance. Do you want to put that to the test along with all the rest? If you are thinking it would be no more than his word against yours, let me point out that with the mass of other evidence to point out your various maneuverings …”

“You make your point,” Yarborne said. “There may well be more scope for our talents in Paris than in London. We’ll leave as soon as I can make the arrangements.”

“Make them quickly,” Ulcombe said. “I am not a patient man, and I can assure you that Nick is even less so.”

Yarborne said quietly, “I am sorry we could not deal better, my lord. I have great admiration for you.”

Ulcombe was silent.

Nick reached for Melissa then and drew her into the shelter of his arm. When she sighed and leaned against him, he murmured, “Did they harm you, sweetheart?”

The endearment warmed her considerably. Tempted though she was to tell him that Robert had bound her so tightly her circulation nearly stopped, that he had gagged her so tightly her lips still felt bruised, and that he had left her overnight in a rat-infested shed, she said only, “I am fine now, sir, truly.”

Oliver was looking at her speculatively, and he said, “Your face is bruised. Did that damned scoundrel hit you?”

Feeling Nick stiffen, Melissa said hastily, “It’s nothing, really, but I would be grateful if we could hire a room here at the inn long enough for me to wash my face and tidy my hair. Also, I’d like a proper breakfast.”

Ulcombe smiled, and Nick said, “That shall be done, sweetheart. There is just one more point I must make.” He turned back to Yarborne. “Don’t think you can draw out your arrangements to leave London until the need to make them eases. If it becomes necessary, I am fully prepared to lay information not only about everything we have discussed to this point but also about your part in Seacourt’s death.”

Yarborne’s eyes widened, but Robert cried, “That’s utter rot! He had nothing to do with that, and neither did I!”

At the same time, Melissa turned to Nick and exclaimed, “Papa’s death? But what could Lord Yarborne have had to do with that?”

Yarborne was watching Nick, who looked steadily back at him, clearly waiting to hear what he would say. Yarborne said, “I did not kill him, you know.”

“I never thought you did.”

“Do you know then?”

“I believe I do. If I am correct, I also believe his death was an accident that arose from a slight miscalculation on your part.”

“You are kind to consider it slight. I thought it would be amusing to put two people together to see what mischief they could make. I knew he was a fool. I’m ashamed to say that despite his saying I could control his daughter by force, I never saw that he was also a brute. As to his death being an accident, it was one only if you believe self-defense is accidental and that a man does not write his own destiny.”

“You did play a role in the event, did you not? A certain house in Clarges Street is doubtless already closed, and its occupant well on her way to Paris.”

“I see that you know more than I’d expected.” Yarborne looked at Melissa, then back at Nick, and said, “I applaud your restraint and assure you that I have as much cause as you do to keep the matter quiet. The authorities have accepted the notion of footpads, I believe, so we’ll leave it at that.”

“Not quite,” Nick said. “There are others involved who might meet with difficulty if anyone thinks to accuse them. I won’t allow that to happen, and since you can prevent it, I’ll want a written statement from you before we leave today.”

“Well, I won’t say I’m happy to oblige you, but I’ll do it, since I trust I’ll be safely out of the country before ever you’d have cause to use my words against me.”

Yarborne helped Robert up then, and Melissa, seeing an ominous look shoot from father to son, felt a sudden chill. She leaned closer to Nick.

“Cold, sweetheart?”

“I think I’d like to wash my hands and face now, and tidy my hair.”

“Yes, of course,” he said. “You do that while I see to Yarborne’s statement. Oliver, go and find the landlord, and tell him I want to hire a room for a couple of hours and a maid to assist my lady. Then bespeak breakfast for us all.”

Ulcombe said, “I’ll attend to breakfast while Oliver’s speaking to the landlord. Take your time, Melissa. We’ll have a good meal ready for you when you return.”

She went with Oliver, and then upstairs with the chambermaid the landlord provided. Twenty minutes later, as tidy as she could make herself under the circumstances, she descended to the coffee room where she found the Barrington men seated at the long table before the fire. Servants were setting platters on the table, and when the smell of bacon wafted to her nose, she realized she was ravenous.

“There you are,” Oliver said, getting to his feet when he saw her. “Not only am I starving but now perhaps Nick will tell us what Yarborne wrote in that statement of his. He said we had to wait for you because he didn’t want to say it all twice.”

As she took her seat, Ulcombe said, “Now, Nick, I hope Yarborne had nothing significant to do with Seacourt’s death, because if he did, I couldn’t reconcile it with my conscience to let him leave England.”

“He didn’t kill Seacourt,” Nick said. “Unless I missed my guess and he judged to an incredible nicety just how much I missed it, Clara did that.”

Melissa said, “Clara? You mean Lady Hawthorne? But why?”

Smiling at her in a way that warmed her through and through, and made her wonder how she could have thought, even for a minute, that he did not care for her, Nick replied gently, “I saw Clara shortly after she had endured a visit from your father. She had got herself entangled with him, you see.”

“I knew that,” Melissa said. “I saw them together the day of the Vauxhall opening, right before Sir Geoffrey suggested that you were—But go on, sir.”

Nick held her gaze for a moment, then said, “Yarborne introduced them. The man couldn’t resist trying to ensnare people, to turn them to his own purpose. He put them together because they each had cause to dislike me, never realizing that Seacourt had his own plan. Clara helped him arrange Penthorpe’s unexpected journey, and when that went awry, he blamed her for the failure. According to Yarborne’s account—which is what Clara told him when she applied to him afterward for help—Seacourt went for Clara, and she fought him off long enough to snatch up a poker and strike him down. He hit his head on something, and when she realized she had killed him, she sent for Yarborne, who had some of his men take the body away. They laid it out in Hyde Park and arranged the scene to look as if footpads had attacked him. It occurs to me that she must have killed Seacourt shortly before I got there. The carpet was wet, and she said she had overturned a vase of flowers. I wonder if his body was still in the house. Ah, but it couldn’t have been,” he added, looking at Melissa. “Yarborne did not explain how his henchmen managed to get the body from Clarges Street to Hyde Park in broad daylight, but that must be because he didn’t know. He was with us by then in Jermyn Street. And Seacourt’s body must have been discovered quickly, or Charley would not have known in time to tell us when she did.”

Melissa nodded, but Oliver said, “When did you visit Clara, Nick, and when did you and Melissa meet Yarborne in Jermyn Street?”

When Nick glanced at Melissa a second time, she returned his gaze steadily, leaving the decision about how much to reveal up to him. She was not jealous of Lady Hawthorne. She felt sorry for her.

Nick said, “Penthorpe told me he had seen Seacourt go into Clara’s house. She was with Penthorpe at Vauxhall when he was abducted, you see. I told you about that during our journey here, but I didn’t mention Clara’s part. Penthorpe had worried about her safety, albeit not for the right reason, so when he returned to London he drove by her house. He didn’t see her, but he did see Seacourt go into the house. After he told me Clara had been involved, I went to find out what part she had played. Because she gave me news that sent me away in a hurry, I did not ask too many questions, but later I realized that she had very recently seen Yarborne.”

He shot a speaking look at Melissa, and this time his expression made her shift uneasily, but she understood his reluctance to explain, so she said quietly, “She knew I had an appointment with Yarborne, although I had only just received his message. You put those bits together to deduce his connection to Papa’s death, did you not?”

“Yes,” he said, “that’s it exactly. According to Yarborne’s statement, she owed him money and had been doing a number of favors for him.” He added blandly, “He did not specify those favors, but recalling that she was the one who first suggested that I’d enjoy the Billingsgate, and knowing now that he owns the club, I’d guess he used her to get other wealthy men to play there. No doubt he ensnared her the same way that he ensnared other dupes,” he added, looking from Oliver to Melissa.

She sighed. “Robert Yarborne was right about one thing, at least, that greed is a powerful thing. That was my downfall at the ladies’ supper and again yesterday on the road. Both times I wanted the prize so much that I neglected to heed the potential cost. I can’t think now how I allowed either of them to entrap me as they did.”

“You had barely learned the rules of hazard at that supper,” Nick said. “And despite that experience, and at least one other, you hadn’t begun to understand the Yarbornes. None of us had.” He glanced at Oliver and Ulcombe, but when Melissa grimaced, wondering how much they knew about her dealings with Yarborne, Nick added tenderly, as if he had read her mind, “They know Yarborne played his tricks on you, sweetheart, but I did not tell them the whole story.”

“Then I think I will do that myself, if you do not object,” she said, feeling relieved by the thought. “I find I do not much care for secrets anymore.”

“You can do that on the way home,” he said. “At my father’s insistence, we came to Newmarket in his traveling coach, so we’ll all go home together, too. Before then, however, I want a few moments alone with you upstairs.”

“Yes, sir,” she said, “I’m sure you do.” Turning her attention to her plate, she found her appetite undiminished by anticipation of the forthcoming interview. That he might be a little angry with her was understandable, for she had behaved foolishly and he never tolerated fools gladly, but the warmth she had seen in his eyes told her all she really wanted to know. When she finished, she looked up to find him watching her.

She said, “We can go upstairs now if you like.”

He stood up. Ulcombe said, “We’ll await you in the yard, Nick. I’ll tell them half an hour for the horses, but they can be walked if you need more time.”

A few minutes later, upstairs in the little room where she had tidied herself, Melissa faced her husband and said, “I know you must be displeased with me.”

“Do you?”

“Yes, for you said I was not to leave the house, but I did, and you said I was not to go out alone, but—”

“But you did. You did not behave very sensibly, that’s true, but you certainly proved that you can take care of yourself. I confess, sweetheart, I did just what you accused me of doing. When I couldn’t judge what rig was being run, my first instinct was to hide you away, to protect you. What did you mean when you said that yesterday on the road you wanted the prize so much you didn’t heed the cost?”

She nibbled her lower lip, but he did not seem to be impatient. She thought she even detected amusement in his eyes, but she saw compassion as well. That she could read so much in his expression made it impossible to say now, to his face, that she had not understood him or known what he felt for her. To insist that she had wanted to hear him express his feelings aloud seemed suddenly small-minded.

At last she said, “I know I insisted once that life is no game, but there are certain similarities in that one never knows what card will turn up until a hand is done. It seemed that every time I took your advice, or tried to do what you seemed to want me to do, I did the wrong thing, just like Robert Yarborne did when he tried to make a gift of me to his father. Yesterday, I let Oliver talk me into what I later thought was one of his pranks. Now, when I try to recall my reasons for leaving, it is difficult, because perceptions are sometimes more powerful than reality. Because you knew more than anyone else about the things Papa had done to me, and because so many people seem to fear your temper, Robert scored a more telling point than he knew when he suggested—just by suggesting it to Oliver, mind you—that people might believe you had killed my father. Oliver scorned the notion, but not until I recalled that no one else knew you might have had cause, did I realize how absurd it was.”