Before The Scandal (19 page)

He would have given a great deal to be able to explain himself to her. “Because I am, Magpie.”

“You wrote me entire letters in French to help me with my studies. Now you say you only know the curse words—I don’t understand, Phin.”

“Color me however prettily you like, Beth, but I’m still a soldier. A killer for pay. They see me for what I am. I don’t know why you don’t.”

She let him go. “You are a liar, Phin Bromley,” she said in a low, shaking voice. “You are proud to wear that uniform. How dare you say otherwise.”

“Beth,” he began, but she walked away.
Bloody wonderful
.

“Entire letters, eh?” A smooth, low voice said from behind him.

Charles Smythe. The evening was getting better and better. Phineas glanced over his shoulder. “As long as no one compares the handwriting too closely,” he muttered with a short smile.

“Who wrote them for you, then?”

“A gentleman doesn’t kiss and tell. As I’m hardly half a gentleman, I’ll give you her first name only. Marie.”

With a chuckle, Smythe patted him on the back. Hard. It took every bit of hard-earned discipline Phineas possessed not to flinch in pain, but he managed not to. Clearly Lord Charles suspected him of being The Frenchman. The strategist in him considered whether that might actually not be a bad thing. It would certainly turn Smythe’s attention from Quence to him. And unlike the rest of his family, Phineas was ready for trouble. He would welcome it, in fact.

Lady Claudia sat at the pianoforte to play. As everyone took seats to listen, he found Alyse—just in time to see Lord Anthony holding a chair for her and then sitting beside her.

Jealousy stabbed through him. Clenching his jaw, he took a seat on the other side of William, reminding himself that satisfying as pummeling Ellerby might be, he had other things to consider tonight. And while Lord Anthony and his friends would be leaving at the end of the evening, he would be staying the night.

A footman offered him a glass of port, and he accepted it, downing it at one go and taking a second glass. That one would go into the potted plant beside him, but no one else need know that. Beth might not approve, but he didn’t know yet whether Smythe was the only culprit. Being boorish and loud—being noticed—might keep his foe plotting to remove him from the equation, which he hoped would spare Quence and its inhabitants from further disaster.

“Phin, I’ve allowed you to live your life as you choose,” his brother said, very quietly, “but I must ask that you comport yourself with more decorum this evening.”

“You’ve ‘allowed’ me?” Phineas shot back, beginning to wonder whether simply shooting Smythe and turning himself in for a subsequent hanging might be less painful than allowing the slim remainder of his family’s respect and hope for him to wither away and die.

“And you told me that you’ve changed. I’m beginning to think you can afford the words, but not the actions to prove that.”

“And you should have assumed that chair years before I put you into it. Martyrdom suits you.”

William slapped him.

It didn’t hurt. Not physically. And it would still mark him for life, Phineas thought. Pasting a grin on his face that he hoped didn’t look as ghastly as it felt, and ignoring Beth’s horrified gasp, he eased to his feet. “Perhaps I’d best sit over there,” he said, moving to the far side of the room and sinking down on the couch beside Mrs. Donnelly.

Lady Claudia’s playing had faltered, but at a look from Richard she resumed the piece. That should take care of it. No one in his right mind would assume that he was confiding anything in William now. In the morning he would wear his uniform again, to emphasize the idea that he was an outsider. He would have to send Gordon to fetch it.

“Alyse, sit beside me,” Mrs. Donnelly commanded. No doubt she wanted some distance between herself and him. Considering that it brought Alyse next to him, Phineas wasn’t about to complain.

She made her apologies to Lord Anthony and walked over to sit between him and her aunt. Phineas made room for her, grateful tonight for a friendly face who knew what he was up to and why.

“Alyse,” he murmured.

“Don’t talk to me,” she returned in the same tone, not looking at him. “You’re awful. I made a mistake, thinking you’d changed.”

Phineas closed his eyes for a moment. He could do without respect, or pride, as long as he knew it was for his family’s own benefit. Without Alyse, though, he suddenly felt denied hope. And that hope, he wasn’t certain he could live without.

Sitting on the edge of the bed, he shed his jacket and then his boots, moving his knife to his waistband. The Donnellys’ private rooms were in this same part of the manor—with the notable exception of Alyse’s one floor above—and he stood by his door, listening, until the house quieted into sleep.

Heavy footsteps creaked up to his door, then stopped. Silently Phineas slipped the knife from his waistband and tested the grip in his fingers. Those weren’t a woman’s steps, and William obviously wasn’t walking. That left Donnelly. And—

The someone rapped softly on the door. With a scowl, Phin hid the knife behind his back and pulled the handle. And blinked. “Gordon? What—”

“I brought yer uniform,” the Scot whispered, slipping past him into the room, a bundle in his arms.

“Thank you. And why are you still here?”

“Because I’m yer bloody valet. So ye keep tellin’ me, anyway. I’m supposed to see ye to bed, am I not?”

“Yes, you are. But not after I’ve supposedly gone to sleep.”

“I knew ye wouldn’t be asleep. The servants here’re talking a might nastily about ye, by the way. I nearly had to blacken that butler’s eye.”

“They’ve been talking nastily because I’ve been behaving nastily.”

Gordon eyed him in the dim flicker of firelight. “An’ why is that?”

“Beth mentioned that I speak French fluently. Smythe suspects me of being The Frenchman now, and I didn’t want him thinking that my family is party to my masquerade. I want him—and whoever he’s allied with—looking at me alone.”

“And t’do that ye need yer family to hate ye?”

Phineas narrowed his eyes. “I needed to make our estrangement obvious to anyone looking.”

“Why don’t ye just kill this bloody Smythe an’ be done with it, then?”

“Don’t tempt me.” Phin tucked the knife back into his trousers. “With the dogs gone, I have no proof of his involvement. And I don’t know who’s working with him. At the moment, he’s more useful to me alive.” To himself he could admit that if left with any choice at all, he wanted to find proof, because he wanted at least that much of a chance at redemption.

The sergeant gestured at his attire. “Ye ain’t precisely dressed for bed,” he noted. “If yer goin’ huntin’ for clues, then I reckon I got up here at just th’ right time.”

“No. You go downstairs and find a bed. Keep your ears and eyes open. In this house you have one duty, Sergeant—to make certain my family stays safe.”

Gordon gave a crisp salute. “Aye, Colonel. With me last breath.”

“Thank you. Now get going. And don’t bloody anyone’s nose.”

Phineas waited another twenty minutes after Gordon left, anticipating the turmoil his valet was likely to cause with the belowstairs staff and giving them time to settle into slumber again. Then he opened the bedchamber door and slipped into the darkness of the hallway.

With every bit of bone and blood in him he wanted to go upstairs to the attic, to find Alyse and explain to her that if he was a boor, it was an intentional one, and to tell her that he needed her, at least, to have some hope that he wasn’t a complete failure as a friend, a brother, and a man.

That, though, would have to wait. He didn’t know how much time he might have, and he needed to do a bit of hunting, as Gordon called it.

He had a target in mind tonight, as well: Richard, Lord Donnelly. Beth might consider him attractive, and William a brother to replace the useless one with whom he’d been burdened, but Phineas didn’t believe it. Donnelly’s life of charitable works had only begun once he’d arrived in East Sussex. And there had to be a reason behind it.

As of this moment he had little more than suspicions and a few oddly placed facts. Donnelly had arranged for the new irrigation dam to be put where it would annoy the rest of Quence’s neighbors. He’d known about the dog attack and had claimed ignorance for no discernible reason. And largest of all, he was good friends with both Lord Charles Smythe and Lord Anthony Ellerby.

No, it wasn’t much; not yet. But there was also a soldier’s instincts. If they’d been on the battlefield, Phineas wouldn’t have turned his back on the viscount. That was for damned certain. But he wanted proof. And he intended to remedy that shortfall tonight.

Moving silently, he slipped down the stairs to the ground floor. Donnelly’s office and study lay down a side hallway at the front of the house, and he padded barefoot down the dark corridor until he reached the door.

It was closed…and locked. The sign of a guilty mind? He didn’t know that, but he did know that a lock wouldn’t stop him. Pulling his knife free, he slid it between the door and the frame and pushed down. With a small click, the door swung open.

Simple enough. He made his way inside, closing the door behind him again. Donnelly had kept the huge inlaid mahogany desk he remembered from his youth, when Alyse’s father had sat behind it. The windows took up most of the left hand wall, while directly behind the desk were two orderly bookcases, a third on the opposite wall.

Clutter would have been easier to sift through without the disruption being noticed, but he’d manage regardless. He began with the desk, pulling open each drawer in turn and examining anything interesting by the light of the nearly full moon. Estate account ledgers, correspondence from solicitors and friends, invoices—nothing out of the ordinary.

His frustration growing, he kept looking. Half the books on one shelf behind him seemed to be about the various Roman baths scattered about the south of England. Apparently Donnelly had an obsession. Of more interest was the map folded up between two pages of one of the books. He drew it out, unfolding it. The scale was one inch to a quarter mile—the same as the rice parchment he’d stolen from Smythe. A geological survey of Quence Park, noting elevation, vegetation, and water flow, along with markings he couldn’t quite make sense of in the dark.

Anger coursed through him. However helpful Richard Donnelly might have been to Quence, he had no right to be making surveys of another man’s property. Phineas pocketed the map. When he returned home he would make a little survey of his own, combining this map with the one he’d liberated from Smythe.

He flipped through the book, a history of the rediscovery and restoration of the town of Bath itself. Everywhere he turned tonight, Roman ruins, Roman baths—the last thing he wanted to think about. That was where he’d destroyed his brother, and himself. What the devil was the attraction?

Attraction
. Something tickled at the back of his mind. Something they’d all been talking about during dinner. He reached for the map again.

The office door rattled and opened.

In the same heartbeat Phineas ducked behind the desk. Light glowed yellow—whoever it was had a candle.

“Phin?” Alyse’s soft voice whispered.

Thank God
. He started to his feet.

“Yes, Colonel Bromley,” Lord Donnelly’s voice returned.

Bloody
—Phineas sank down again.

“Why in the world would you say such a thing?” Alyse asked. “Aside from the fact that Phin has spent the past ten years
fighting
the French, he came home to help William. Not to become a highwayman.”

“He speaks French.”

“So do I. And so does his sister. Does that make us The Frenchman’s companions?”

“He’s The Frenchman.”

Trying to hide her discomfort with spinning lies, Alyse looked at her cousin as they entered his office. He seemed fairly confident that he was correct. And yet he hadn’t chosen to confront Phin with his suspicions. That was all he had, then—suspicions. And he wanted her to confirm them. So Phin was probably enjoying a good night’s sleep and she was supposed to betray a friendship that had become much more than that. No matter how…awfully he’d behaved tonight.

“Well?” Richard leaned one haunch against his desk and eyed her.

“What do you want me to say? It’s ridiculous.”

“I am in a position,” her cousin said slowly, clearly choosing his words with great care, “that may soon see me with a great deal of money. Phin Bromley and his bumbling about could very well put that…endeavor at risk. I need to stop him. I will stop him.”

Alyse took a breath. “And yet he’s still fast asleep upstairs.”

“I need proof. I need proof that he’s riding about the countryside robbing coaches.”

“Richard, why are you telling me this? I hardly have your confidence.”

“Because the two of you used to be friends. If he talks to you, then you talk to me.”

Alyse shook her head. “I couldn’t do that. Friendship means more than that.” And Phin meant much more than that.

Her cousin straightened again. “As I said, I have a great deal of money ready to flow into the family coffers. I would be willing to share some of it with you.”

“Beg pardon?”

“You heard me. In fact, if you should happen to be in a position to aid me by providing me with that particular information, I would hand you ten thousand pounds, Alyse. For you.”

She couldn’t breathe. Ten thousand pounds? That was more than she would be able to liberate from her relations in a hundred lifetimes. She could purchase her own home, hire her own servants, never have to be anyone’s companion again. The young men of her circle would abruptly find her acceptable again. A wealthy, independent heiress. Her.

“Consider it, my dear. And it’s not as though you would be doing anything but good. Phineas Bromley is unwanted and unhelpful, especially to his own family. And if he doesn’t stop, things could become worse. For everyone involved. Think on it.”

With that he moved past her, blowing out the candle, and left the room. Alyse sat down hard in one of the guest chairs. Ten thousand pounds. And she already knew enough to earn it.

All she had to do was betray Phin. Phin had already asked her to betray Richard—or his friends, anyway. And he hadn’t offered her anything in return. Nothing she could use to set herself free. Oh, she needed to think. And not in the middle of Richard’s office.

She returned upstairs. When Phin had arrived this evening, she’d looked forward to nothing so much as having him steal up to her bedchamber sometime in the middle of the night. Then when he’d said those terrible things to William, she’d wanted him to come visiting so she could give him a piece of her mind. Now, though, she didn’t know what she wanted.

Or rather, she did know what she wanted. All that remained uncertain was whether giving up one was worth the price of the other.