Lady X's Cowboy (33 page)

“Having a clean and wholesome water supply with a good mineral content is one of the most important components to a successful brewery.”  She made an elegant, practiced gesture.  “Greywell’s is justifiably famous for having its own well—it’s even in the brewery’s name.” 

“Fascinating.”  Pryce took a long drink of his bitter.

She tilted her head artlessly.  “I have had several offers from other breweries to purchase Greywell’s water, and ordinarily I refuse such offers.  But,” she continued, “when one of my competitors came to me the other day and asked to use Greywell’s water for a special batch of bitters, in honor of me, I simply could not refuse.”

Pryce’s glass stopped halfway to his lips.  “What’s that?”

She nodded.  “I was hoping you could tell the difference in that bitter you are drinking, Mr. Pryce.  It was freshly made yesterday.”  She gave him a wide smile.  “With Greywell’s water.”

All the guests turned when George Pryce’s glass fell and shattered onto the floor.  He began to cough and spit loudly, doubling over.  The musicians stopped playing.

“You bitch,” he hacked.  “You’re trying to poison me.”

“What do you mean?” Olivia asked.

“You know exactly what I mean.”  He hiccupped.  “Greywell’s water is contaminated.”

“Of course it isn’t!” Olivia said.  The men and women in the ballroom began to whisper to each other, glancing uneasily at their glasses.  Only Charlotte, Frederick and Graham did not look surprised.

“Oh, God,” Pryce groaned.  He staggered to a potted fern and stuck his finger down his throat.  The guests backed up in horror as he gagged.

“Please, Mr. Pryce,” Olivia cried.  “What are you doing?  The water is fine!”

“No it isn’t,” he snarled.  He wiped his sleeve across his mouth, leaving a shining trail of spittle on the immaculate black wool. 

“You have no proof,” Olivia insisted, sounding outraged.  “Unless you know something that I do not.”

Pryce laughed bitterly.  “I know many things you do not, Lady Xavier.”  He spat again onto the floor.  “Including the fact that the well water on which you dubiously pride yourself is contaminated.”

A dull roar of shock went through the guests. 

“I pay an exceptional amount of money to keep the supply pure,” she declared.

“Just like a Bayswater parvenu to believe money to be the answer to all questions,” Pryce sneered.  “Your purchased title is as polluted as your well.”

“And I suppose that your inherited title makes you somehow superior,” she said, making herself frosty and clipped.

“Of course it does,” Pryce snapped.  “My family’s title can claim hundreds of years of history.  The very foundation of England has been built by my title.  But you,” he scoffed, “you and your kind, throwing filthy money at everything you see, believing that a few pounds sterling can make you somehow equal, or superior, to hundreds of years of history.  Our country deserves better.”

“One business cannot change the course of nations.”

“You and your arriviste kind must learn that the nobility of England will not be humiliated; we will not be denied!  Not by the likes of commoners.”  He spat his words as if they were base insults.

Some of the guests, particularly those with purchased titles and those with no titles at all, grew restive and murmuring, while those who did lay claim to inherited titles shifted uncomfortably and refused to look at George Pryce.  Olivia wondered if others shared Pryce’s sentiment, but she hadn’t time or interest to discover if this was true. 

“And this has to do with Greywell’s water?” she asked.

“As I said, it is just as contaminated as you are,” Pryce shot back.

“My water is kept under very tight security.  It would take someone quite extraordinary to be able to breach it.”

It didn’t seem to matter to Pryce that moments ago he was forcing himself to be sick; he was still gratified and eager to have his vanity stroked.  “Yet I was able to do just that,” he gloated.

“
You
, Mister Pryce?  I cannot believe it,” Olivia cried.  “
You
could never harm the well undetected.”

“But I did,” Pryce taunted. 

As one, the guests gasped out in shock.  No one could speak except a wordless articulation of horror.  Seeing the looks of dismay and revulsion on the crowd’s faces, Pryce’s triumphant jeering quickly faded, to be replaced by a growing agitation.

Olivia found it strange but somehow unsurprising that Pryce would take the credit for his thug’s deviousness.  “So the water I sold to make the bitter was tainted, too,” Olivia pressed.

“Bitter which I drank,” Pryce said acrimoniously.  Louder, to the crowd, he said, “You should all rush home to your physicians before you become too ill.  As I intend to do.”

The guests began to move to the double doors, horrified.

“It is quite fortunate, then,” Olivia said, raising her voice so she could be heard by the panicked crowd, “that this beer has been made with water I purchased from another brewery.”

The crowd reacted again, stopping by the doors to hear this newest development.

The reporter from the
Times
stepped forward.  “Didn’t you say earlier that the bitters was brewed with Greywell’s water?” he asked, and it almost made Olivia smile to see that his notepad was at the ready, eager for a story.

“That was a fabrication,” she conceded.  “The bitters came from a completely different water source.” 

“So you were aware of the problem with the well, Lady Xavier?” the reporter pressed, scribbling furiously.

“My associate, Will Coffin, discovered that the well had been tampered with by Mr. Pryce’s mercenary.  And so I purchased several hundred gallons of water from another brewery, and invited you all here tonight to witness Mr. Pryce reveal his treachery.”  She looked at him, his face ashen, the front of his evening clothes now stained with sick.  “And so he has.”

Maddox bounded up the stairs, knocking footmen aside.  Will was fast after him.  The mercenary cleared the basement stairs and charged down the first-floor hallway, heading towards the next flight and up to the ballroom on the second story.

He’d just gotten midway up the flight of stairs leading to the second floor when Will dove and grabbed his feet.  Maddox fell hard, knocking against the steps with a grunt.  Will scrambled up and turned Maddox over, then unleashed a barrage of punches to Maddox’s face. Maddox’s knife came up, catching Will lightly across the shoulder.  The blade nicked him, a hot thread, and he bent back just enough for Maddox to wriggle out and continue up the stairs.

Will caught up with him just outside the ballroom.  Olivia and Pryce were shouting at each other, the guests standing around, their eyes wide as moons. 

“She’s talking nonsense!” Pryce yelled.  “I’m not responsible!”

“You just admitted it not a minute ago,” Olivia countered, more calm. 

“And everyone here witnessed your confession,” Lawford added.

“Outrageous!” one man said hotly.

“Poisoning Lady Xavier’s well, Lord Hessay’s son—a scandal!” someone else added.

“Looks like you’re too late,” Will said as he and Maddox faced each other, knives ready.

“I finish my work, no matter what,” Maddox snarled.  “Poison the well: done.  Kill you.”  He grinned wolfishly.  “Nearly done.”  Then he charged.

Will sidestepped, and both men whirled around to face each other again.  Maddox swung his blade, trying to cut Will where he could.  Will made himself calm, focused.  When Maddox made a wild cut, exposing his left side, Will moved in fast.  He sunk his bowie into Maddox’s shoulder.  The hired gun howled and dropped to the carpeted floor, clutching his injury.  Will grabbed the handle and pulled the knife out.

The guests near the ballroom door looked back and forth between Will and Maddox in the hallway, and Olivia and Pryce inside with them.  They looked stunned.  “Someone’s been stabbed,” a few murmured.  A woman fainted.

Olivia came running to the door.  “Will,” she cried.  “Are you all right?”

Before Will could answer, Pryce came charging past.  “Get out of my way!” he shrieked.  He managed to bolt around Olivia and head for the stairs, but he suddenly jerked to a stop and flopped to the ground, sitting upright like a marionette.  Pryce stared dumfounded at the tail of his cutaway coat, which was pinned to the wall behind him with a coffin-handled knife.

Will straightened himself from his knife-throwing stance as the guests crowded around Olivia in the doorway.  Exclamations of shock and amazement tumbled into the hall.  But Will turned just in time to see Maddox disappear through a second-story window. 

Will ran to the window, but Maddox was already on the ground.  He ran, limping, down the street.  Will was about to charge after him when he felt Olivia’s hand on his sleeve. 

“Let him go,” she said.  “We’ve accomplished what we wanted.”

The police, summoned by Mordon, were already coming up the stairs for Pryce, who struggled feebly with his pinned coat.  He stopped when Graham stood over him, glowering.

Will looked at Olivia, pride bursting in his chest.  She’d done it—she’d managed to snare Pryce through her cleverness, bravely facing him down.  Will wanted so badly to scoop her up in his arms and kiss her senseless, but he caught sight of the curious faces of the high society guests staring at them.  Tomorrow, the papers and gossip would be filled with nothing but what happened here tonight. 

“Just about,” Will said.  “We got just about everything we wanted.”

Olivia had spent an exhausting hour talking with the police, giving her statement, preparing to testify against George Pryce.  Most of the guests had been detained as well, excitedly telling everything they’d heard to the detectives. 

“It’s like something out of a novel,” she heard a member of Parliament say to his wife.

“A very shocking novel, my dear,” his wife replied.  “Imagine, the Earl of Hessay’s son involved in such despicable schemes!  It chills the blood.”

Olivia sat on a chair in the ballroom, dazed, as people milled around her.  But Will was nowhere to be found. 

“It went marvelously,” Charlotte said.  “I will call on you tomorrow.”  Frederick draped her cloak over her shoulders and led her from the room.

“Tomorrow,” Olivia murmured, dazed.  But Charlotte and her husband had already gone.

A cluster of attendees stood nearby, talking.

“Did you see the American?” an industrialist asked.

“Quite astonishing,” the
Times
editor said.

“What a brute, as I hear all Americans are,” a woman added.  “Clearly a laborer.  Despite his evening clothes.  Did you see his hands?”

“And the bruises on his face,” the industrialist put in.

“Leave my house,” Olivia said, standing to face them.  When everyone blinked in astonishment, she repeated, forcefully, “Get out.”

“But, Lady Xavier—”

“I refuse to sit here and listen to you denigrate the finest man I know,” she said hotly.  “It doesn’t matter what country he is from, and it matters even less whether he has a fortune or works hard for a living.  I’m glad he knows what it means to work—because he never takes anything for granted.  Because he knows what is valuable and what is not.  Because,” she added, “he isn’t afraid to stand up for what he believes in, unlike everyone else I know.  Including myself.”

Abashed, the guests quickly shuffled out the door.  The police had already gone, promising to contact her tomorrow, and the servants had finished cleaning up.  Having won her greatest victory, Olivia stood in the ballroom completely alone. 

Chapter Nineteen

“What shall I tell the man from the
Illustrated London News
, Lady Xavier?”

Olivia looked up from the piles of papers in front of her, eyes watering from strain and lack of sleep, into the agitated face of Mr. Huntworth. 

“Tell him that I have nothing to say, and I
won’t
have anything to say, so he may as well go back to his paper before he wastes anymore of my time,” she answered wearily.

“He is most persistent,” Mr. Huntworth added.

She rolled her shoulders to stretch them.  After the furor of last night, she had been unable to sleep.  She had sat up all night, her mind whirling, staring out her window into the garden as though the orderly flower beds and neatly trimmed hedges could help calm her.  She knew she ought to be feeling triumphant—George Pryce was well and truly ruined, no longer a threat, her brewery would recover from the setbacks it had faced—but without Will to share the victory with, all she could muster was a vague sense of relief oddly combined with disappointment.  Her old fatigue had returned, the sense that she had a tremendous burden to shoulder on her own, and she felt it as surely as if it were a physical weight pressing on her back.

Will had gone as soon as he could, having fulfilled his obligation.  Just before he disappeared last night, he had said to her, “I’m leavin’ for Colorado tomorrow, Liv.”

“But what about your grandfather?” she had asked, startled.

Will had shrugged.  “He’s a decent man, but he’s just like the rest of this country.  Tellin’ me who I should and shouldn’t care for.  And stayin’ here, with you so close by, it’d be like havin’ a brandin’ iron against my heart.”

Her own heart had felt shriveled and dried.  “Don’t let me keep you from your family.”

“It ain’t that,” he said.  “I thought findin’ Ben would make me settle, give me somethin’ to hold to, but it turns out the person who can give that to me is the one I can’t have.”  He tipped his hat to her.  “‘Night, Liv.”  And then he was gone.

So it was over between them.  For good.  He would not seek her out, and she would not contact him.  He was leaving England for his home.  The island would be a small and cold place without him.  And so would her soul.

These thoughts tormented her all through the night.  At first light, she had dressed and gone to Greywell’s.  There was still much to be done, and she buried herself beneath stacks of correspondence and paperwork to take her thoughts elsewhere.  But reporters seeking a juicy story had been hounding her all morning, distracting her from the comfortable numbness of work.