His Unexpected Bride (28 page)

Blast that creature! He should have banished the hedgehog from his house as soon as he had learned it was there. If he had half the wit he claimed to possess, he would have sent Tess back to the country with it. How dare she challenge him to unleash his anger simply because she believed it would make him feel better? Blast that woman!

Forcing his exasperation into submission, he turned his attention to the man seated at the small table. Todd epitomized the word nondescript. His face was unremarkable and his hair a common brown. Of a middling height, he wore clothes that would have made him appear at home in a fine house or in a more impoverished one.

Taking the chair facing the representative from Bow Street, Cameron said, “I understand from your message you have uncovered something I should know about immediately.”

“Yes.” The man's accent gave no hint of his origins or his station. He pushed another piece of paper across the table. “You may want to read this, Your Grace. Mr. Knox is a friend of yours, I believe.”

“Yes.” He was abruptly irritated. If all the Bow Street Runners had managed to uncover was that he and Eustace Knox were friends, as they had been since their youth when they were a trio with Russell, terrorizing the countryside with their antics, then this was a waste of his time and his money. “What does that have to do with my brother's death?”

“Read this please, Your Grace.” The man's expression did not alter from its practiced smile.

Cameron took the page and scanned it. He read it a second time, wanting to be certain he was not mistaken. Lowering it to the table, he asked, “Why do you believe Eustace is being blackmailed?”

“We have spoken with his solicitor. There has been a regular disbursement of two hundred fifty pounds each month.”

That was the same amount unaccounted for in Russell's books. As he did not believe in coincidences, there must be some connection, but that was not the issue now. “Why have you gone to speak to my friend's solicitor? I asked you to find out who was involved in my brother's death. Surely you do not believe it is Eustace Knox.”

“No, we do not.” Todd folded the page and put it back under his coat.

“Then why are you delving into his private matters?”

“Because it appears he is being blackmailed for the same reason your brother was.”

“Russell?” He leaned forward and lowered his voice. “Tell me what you have discovered.”

Todd stood. Withdrawing a sheaf of papers sealed with wax, he said, “You should find everything you need to know in here. I urge you to read them with all due speed, Your Grace. Contact us once you decide what you wish to do.”

Cameron broke the seal and began to read. He was only partway down the first page when he jumped to his feet. Racing through the door, he shouted an apology over his shoulder to the man he had struck in the doorway. Looking both ways along the street, he knew he had no time to lose … or he could lose everything.

Donald fingered the tail of his kite and whined, “But, Aunt Tess, today is the day we are supposed to play with Ned Wainger at his house.”

“I know.”

“He is leaving by the week's end for his father's estate somewhere in the country.” Donald folded his short arms over his chest. His frown made him resemble his uncle more than ever. “You promised I could show him my kite before he left.”

“That was before you were knocked off your feet by that horse.” She looked out the door of the nursery again, although she had not heard any footfalls. How long would it take Cameron to complete this errand? With each passing minute, the wounds between them festered. She wanted to apologize for Heddy's misdeeds, and she longed to hear him say he was sorry, too. She dared to believe he would give her a chance to speak of the love she could no longer push out of her mind or her heart.

Donald slid from the bed to the floor, struggling to hide his grimace as he brushed his injured leg against the covers. “Please, Aunt Tess. I will not be wild-acting.”

“Wild-acting?”

“That is what Mrs. Detloff says,” interjected Philip, “when we are ramb—ramb—”

“Rambunctious?” she asked, smiling. These little boys somehow had found their way into her heart, as well, and they soothed its anguish. She held out her hands to them. “Very well. We shall make a brief call on your friend.” When Donald opened his mouth to cheer, she raised her hands to her lips. “No wild-acting, remember?”

As the boys pulled on their shoes, Tess asked for the carriage to be brought around. She went to tell Mrs. Detloff she was taking the boys out. The governess offered to come along, but Tess urged her to remain in bed for the rest of the afternoon. A lump on the side of Mrs. Detloff's head showed where she had struck it on a step when she had suffered her
crise de nerfs
and fainted.

Tess listened to the boys chattering like two blackbirds while she tied her bonnet under her chin. They did not pause even as they gathered up their brightly colored kites and went down the stairs.

“Harbour,” she said when the butler held the door for them, “let His Grace know, if he returns before we do, that we are visiting the Waingers' household. We shall not be long.”

The butler was scowling. “Your Grace, I heard His Grace say—”

“We shall not be long,” Tess repeated, not wanting to be scolded by the butler for not remaining here as Cameron had asked.

With the tiger's help, she assisted the little boys into the closed carriage. She handed the two kites to the boys. When Philip let out a cry when the tail of his caught on the edge of the step and tore, Tess told him to wait while she went in and got some material to fix it.

“By the time we get to Ned's house,” she said, “it will be as good as new.”

She hurried into the house. Waving aside Harbour's offer to get the small basket of supplies Mrs. Detloff always carried with her whenever she took the boys out, Tess retrieved it from the nursery. She was rushing too quickly down the steps, and several wooden spools fell out. With the tiger's help, she gathered them up and put them back into the basket.

When she was sitting beside the boys in the carriage, Tess helped Philip mend his kite. Her fingers trembled, and she knew it had not been only the need to hurry that had made her so clumsy on the steps and now here in the carriage. Unlike Cameron, penting up her emotions made her shake as if with a fever. This trip to Mr. Wainger's house must be brief, because she wanted to return to her rooms and let the heat of her tears scorch away this pain in the very center of her heart.

“Are you all right?” Donald asked.

“Yes. Why do you ask?”

He reached up and touched her cheek. “You are crying, Aunt Tess.”

“Something must have gotten in my eye.” She wiped away the tears. She must conceal any sign of them. Weeping could cause Cameron to withdraw even further from her. “I will be fine.”

Donald started to ask another question, but the carriage suddenly rocked to the side. Both boys grabbed her arms. She pulled them close as she looked out the window. She could not see anything at first. Then a gray horse raced too close to the carriage, cutting it off.

The coachee shouted as he tried to turn the carriage before it struck the horse and rider. It lurched again, out of control.

Pulling Donald into the crook of one arm, Tess reached for Philip with the other. He slid out away from her outstretched fingers as the carriage tipped wildly, then bounced like a child's ball. The wheels struck something. Wood splintered, and the carriage tilted again. This time, it did not right itself.

“Philip!” she screamed as she slanted over Donald, trying to protect him as a wheel snapped and the back left corner of the carriage slammed into the ground. Everything in the basket flew. Mrs. Detloff's scissors! Would they strike one of the boys? She ducked her head as she shouted Philip's name again.

The door was torn open before Tess realized the carriage had come to a stop. The coachman peered in. “Your Grace, are you unharmed?”

“Donald and I are. Philip?” she called.

A shadow moved at the far side of the almost upended carriage. Philip let out a screech when she reached for him, and she saw his arm was hanging at an odd angle.

“Help me get him out,” Tess said.

The tiger assisted the coachee, who lifted Donald out of the wobbly carriage. Tess stood to one side, comforting Donald. As soon as Philip was out of the carriage, she sent the tiger running back toward the house to have a doctor waiting.

Coughing as dust swirled up from where the carriage had hit the walkway, Tess picked up Philip. He wept softly against her shoulder as he cradled his right arm in his left hand.

“Can I call for a chair for you?” the coachman said, anxiously glancing over his shoulder. She knew he wanted to tend to his horses, checking for injuries and calming them before a crowd could gather.

“Yes, thank you.”

As the coachman went to tend to his horses, a form came from the other direction through the dust. She was about to open her mouth to cry out in fear when she heard a familiar voice ask, “Tess, whatever were you doing in
this
carriage?”

Tess was relieved to see that the man stepping from the clouds of dust was her father. What was he doing here? It did not matter. He was here when she needed help. “Papa! Did you see the rider who …?”

Sickness sifted through her stomach when she saw the horse her father was leading. It was the gray that had been ridden with neck-or-nothing speed toward the carriage.

“Tess, I did not mean to put
you
in danger,” her father said, his face the same shade as his horse.

“Then whom did you intend to put in danger?” She answered her own question before he could. “You were trying to drive the carriage off the road because you believed Cam was in it?”

“Of course not. Do not be silly.” He flicked dust from his coat. “I worked hard to make sure you wed Hawksmoor and became a duchess, Tess. I would have been a fool to let all my hard work go for naught because of—”

When he reached for Donald, Tess stepped between him and the boy. “Do not touch him!”

The coachee came around the carriage and choked, “It was you! You cut us off and drove us into that tree.”

“Your head is addled, my good man. I am the duchess's father. I would not risk my dear daughter's life.”

Tess ignored her father's smooth answer. Mayhap her head was the one that had been struck hardest on the side of the carriage, but it seemed to have given her a clarity of vision she had not had since she woke with Cameron in her bed.

“Not
my
life,” she said. “You were trying to kill Donald and Philip.”

“Tess, you are becoming hysterical.”

She backed away from him as she saw him reach under his coat. When he withdrew a dueling pistol, the coachman drew in his breath with a hiss.

“Papa, what are you doing?” she cried.

“Finishing what I started when I learned your husband's father was dead.” He spat on the ground. “Finally he was on his way to burn in hell.”

“But the duke was your friend!”

“Once.” Her father's mouth grew straight. “Until the night he belittled me at our club by suggesting I was a leech preying on my betters. Doors that had been open to me before were instantly closed, and I was utterly humiliated. I vowed he would pay and pay me well. When he died before the debt could be evened, his heir inherited the debt. I found a way for him to repay it when I chanced upon a carriage accident much like this one.”

“When Russell died?”

He laughed. “No, he escaped the other one. He and Knox both escaped, but the ladies they were with—ladies of quality who were married to very powerful men—were not so lucky. It became imperative that it not be known either the new duke or Knox was involved in the accident. They paid me well to keep my mouth shut.”

“Paid?” She drew Donald away from her father one step, then another. “You lied to me. You said Eustace Knox was blackmailing you.”

“It was actually quite the reverse.” Cameron came around the side of the coach. Tess barely recognized him. His face was taut with rage, and his hands were fisted at his sides. “You were extorting money from both my brother and Eustace, Masterson, bleeding every penny from them until they were forced to do your abominable bidding. Otherwise you would have spilled the truth. First, you took my brother's dream along with his gray stallion. Then you forced Eustace to bring me to your house along with some drugged wine so you could have me married to your daughter.”

Tess gasped. It all fit so well, but she did not want to believe it. Papa had done all this? Just to even an insult?

When Cameron moved closer to her father, she wanted to cry out a warning. Didn't he see the gun her father was holding? She did not dare to speak, fearing anything she said might be the impetus for Papa to fire that gun.

Cameron did not look at her as he said, “Eustace became tired of your greed and your determination to have your grandson obtain my father's title. After he came to my house—upon your orders—with doctored wine after Lord Peake's party, he was sickened by his own part in your scheme. That was when he devised the rumor that my brother married Donald's mother. He decided to force your hand.”

“There will be no need to prove or disprove any rumors when there are no competitors for your title.” He raised the gun, pointing it at Donald.

“No!” Tess cried, stepping in front of the little boy.

Her voice was lost beneath a shout—not hers, nor the boys'. Cameron's!

He launched himself at her father. He knocked the gun from her father's hand, then slammed her father up against the carriage, striking him once, then again. Only the coachman running up to him halted him from hitting Papa a third time.

Cameron shoved the coachee away and whirled back to her father, who had slumped to the ground. Grasping Papa by the lapels, he lifted him and shoved him against the carriage.