Provocative in Pearls (20 page)

“And if it should become lost entirely?”

“Then they would have no advantage at all.”

The dependence of this fortune on fortune itself had not escaped Hawkeswell. He had been weighing it ever since Verity spoke about that business in Essex.

“Lady Hawkeswell is well? Her adventures have not taken a toll?” the solicitor asked casually.

Of course, Thornapple was as curious as everyone else. Unlike everyone else, he had known Verity’s father and, as her trustee, would be truly concerned for her.

“She is none the worse for those adventures, perhaps because they were not very adventurous. She was not far from London all that time, and living with a widow whom she counts as a close friend.”

Thornapple relaxed back in his chair. “I will say that I am grateful that you told me that. Just as I was relieved to see her walk into that library. My reaction may have appeared harsh, but in truth . . .” He thought better of his intended words, and returned to all that folding.

“In truth?”

“In truth I assumed she was dead. Didn’t we all?”

“Her cousin did not.”

“It was not in Bertram Thompson’s interest for her to be dead. He is not a blood cousin, and would not inherit her share. I can see from your surprise that you did not know that.”

“No, I did not.”

“He was the son of her uncle’s wife by her first husband. Bertram thought he should have inherited more of the business, but an argument could have been made that he should have received nothing at all.”

Interest in that testament had receded, due to those progressing events, but now the solicitor’s reference piqued it again. “Her father still left her the much higher share, however.”

“Seventy-five percent. Bertram Thompson received twenty-five percent. His stepfather, Jeremiah, helped build that company, but that half share went to Joshua when Jeremiah died. Bertram probably assumed he would receive that half back, at least, when Joshua in turn passed away. He was not pleased to learn the truth of it.”

Thornapple stacked the documents neatly in two piles. “According to Joshua’s testament, the property must remain in her name and be bequeathed to her bloodline. I think there may be distant relatives in Yorkshire. No, Bertram would not have liked those strangers coming in and putting him aside. I daresay that even after seven years, he would have argued that, lacking a body, she should be presumed alive.”

Hawkeswell took his leave and carried his stack of documents to his horse. He pondered Thornapple’s revelations while he rode from the City.

They explained why Bertram had been so content with the limbo of the last two years, at least. His hold on that business remained secure only while Verity lived. And, perhaps, he had also prayed that Verity was alive because he knew that she was one of only two people in the world who knew her father’s secret inventions.

 

 

 

 

“
I
think it needs to go right here,” Daphne said, planting her feet on a path in the back half of the garden.

“If you want a proper greenhouse for propagating, it must be here, so there is sufficient light.”

“I think that she is correct,” Celia said. “You will need to direct its manufacture too. It should not be an ordinary structure if it is to grace the town garden of an earl.”

Verity eyed the placement that Daphne recommended. No matter where it sat or how lovely its form, it would be a modest greenhouse by the standards of The Rarest Blooms. She would not be growing for commercial purposes, however.

“Are you sure that Hawkeswell approves of this?” Audrianna asked.

“You would not want to strain his temper,” Daphne added dryly.

“I told you that it was his idea,” Verity said. “He has handed both gardens over to me, to do as I like.”

“It sounds as if you intend to be here long enough to see it through,” Daphne said. “Have you reconciled yourself to this marriage?”

“You are prying, Daphne,” Celia scolded with a little laugh. “But don’t let me stop you,
please
.”

Verity’s own smile turned into a small grimace. “I expect to be here a good long while. I have reconciled myself to the truth that there will be no annulment unless Hawkeswell fully supports such a petition and I produce incontrovertible proof of coercion. Neither will happen, so here I am.”

Celia was standing closest, and gave her an embrace. “It is not where you wanted to be, I know. However, it is not a bad place compared to most others.”

Marriage to an earl and access to a huge fortune is not a bad second best,
is what practical, worldly Celia meant.

“That is true, and I am not so stubborn as to be miserable with my circumstances, now that they have become inevitable. I am finding contentment.”

They returned to the terrace and debated the rest of the garden plan from that prospect. Celia drew what they described as it would be seen from the house.

“I should like to make a winding path, that passes by a series of little garden rooms,” Verity explained. “In this way, the greenhouse would simply be one more chamber.”

Celia drew more. “I will leave you to use colors on it, Verity,” she said. “I will make some copies, so that you can plan for different times of the year.”

“Only make one copy,” Daphne said. “Bring it back, and Katherine will make the rest. She is a gifted artist, Verity. I must buy some pigments for her before we leave town today.”

“Will she be staying with you?”

“Oh, yes,” Celia said. “I think she will be with us a good long while.”

Verity’s and Audrianna’s eyes met. They traded curiosity. They had acknowledged during one of their recent private talks that it was much harder to obey the Rule now that they no longer lived under it.

“I trust that she is like us. Not dangerous,” Audrianna ventured. “Sebastian has always had concerns about that.”

Daphne leaned over to see Celia’s sketch. “I expect she is no more dangerous than you were, Audrianna. She has shown no interest in my pistol, for example.”

Audrianna blushed at this reference to a misadventure with that pistol that led to her alliance with Lord Sebastian.

“Will he be returning soon?” Daphne asked. She meant Hawkeswell. Daphne had only agreed to visit today because Verity had mentioned in her invitation that the earl would not be here.

“Sebastian is meeting him at their club,” Audrianna said. “I expect it will be some hours before either one rides back.”

“Then Verity has time to show me her new wardrobe,” Celia said while she held up her two drawings to compare them.

“I would much rather show you something else. I have need of your good minds.”

A half hour later, all of them were arrayed in Verity’s bedchamber. Daphne, Celia, and Verity sat on the bed, poring over scraps of paper. Audrianna had pulled a chair close so she could see as well.

“I always found your taste for newspapers excessive,” Celia said. “I can see you put it to good use, and had a bigger purpose than I guessed.” She gestured to the stacks.

“Some of these are two years old, from right when you came to The Rarest Blooms. Worker uprisings. Demonstrations.” She picked up a little stack. “Arrests and executions.”

“Here are some about Brandreth and his followers,” Daphne said. “There is trouble enough down here in the South. We even had to enter town other than the normal way today, because of a gathering on the main road. However, we have been spared revolutionaries like Brandreth.”

“I think he was entrapped, the way Mr. Shelley’s poem implies. Many agree with that view,” Audrianna said, perusing the articles that Verity had saved. “I will say, however, that your home county and those near it look to be fairly dangerous, Verity. Perhaps it is wise that you will be living here instead.”

“I did not save these writings to keep a record of the danger. I have been looking for names of people. Look here. These are stories from the counties near my home, of people gone missing. Men, almost all of them. Then, these are reports of people found, after being lost or hurt. And these are names of those tried for crimes. If you match them up, there are six men who went missing and for whom there is no other information.”

“Why have you saved these?” Daphne asked, fingering one of the stacks.

“I was keeping track of which court sessions I had read about, and which I had missed, at first. I was looking for one name in particular, which is absent totally. Only recently have I noticed this oddity.”

“So you were seeking information on a particular missing person?”

“Yes. He is the young man I told you about, whom my cousin threatened to harm.”

Celia slid a sidelong glance to Daphne.

“He was an old childhood friend,” Verity explained, but she felt her face warming. “I must find out what happened to him, if Bertram indeed betrayed my trust.”

“Of course you must,” Daphne said. “The unexplained absences of these other men do not signify, however. They may have just run away from their families and lives. Some will do that.”

“Normally I would agree. However, look at this.” She set out several articles. “Both of these men were from Staffordshire, near Birmingham. Both of them had been questioned by the justice of the peace there about complaints from landowners. This JP did not arrest them, but then they went missing. And this one here, he disappeared after a confrontation on the road with Lord Cleobury. This other one was arrested in Shropshire after my cousin laid down information that he was causing trouble at the ironworks, but was freed. Then he disappeared too.”

“They all probably ran away once attention turned to them,” Audrianna said.

Probably, Verity thought. Yet the more that she had rearranged stacks of articles the last few weeks, the more she sensed that something was amiss with all these missing men.

I can cause trouble for that son of hers. None will stay my hand. I can have him transported or worse, and who will feed her then?
That was what Bertram had said when he made those threats. He had been smug in his power. Confident and hard.

Daphne picked up the articles recently laid out. “It is odd that they all had run afoul of important people, but if they were instigating trouble, these are the people who would notice and try to stop them. You have told us plenty about your cousin, and Lord Cleobury is known for his hard views. This magistrate’s name is familiar to me as well, only I do not know why.”

“It is not familiar to me,” Verity said. “I do not remember my father or even my cousin ever speaking of Mr. Jonathan Albrighton.”

The name elicited a response from one of their party. Celia snatched the article from Daphne and peered at it.

“Do you know of him, Celia?” Daphne asked.

Celia frowned over the notice. “He was known in London a few years ago. I believe he went abroad. It appears he has returned, if it is the same man.”

“Perhaps I will meet him when I go home,” Verity said. “I should like to, in order to assess his character and whether he finds any of this peculiar.” She swept her hand over the newspaper cuttings.

“Are you planning a journey north soon?” Audrianna asked.

“As soon as I can arrange it.”

Her friends were too good to lecture her, but it was written on each of their faces, according to their characters. The possibility existed that she would not be arranging it soon at all, if her husband had a say in the matter.

 

 

D
amnation.” Hawkeswell muttered the curse while he watched a tall man darken the threshold to the card room at Brooks’s. “What in hell is he doing here?”

Summerhays looked over his shoulder at the man in question. “He is a member, of course. He rarely comes, but—”

“He is coming this way. He probably dragged himself from some whore’s bed just to seek me out to be clever at my expense. Prepare for a good row, Summerhays, because I’ll be damned if I will sit peaceably while he slices with that wit of—”

“Castleford,” Summerhays greeted, as the man now loomed over their table. “Odd to see you here prior to nightfall, and at least half-sober at that. It is not even a Tuesday.”

Tuesdays were the Duke of Castleford’s days of duty, when he devoted himself to the business of being a peer and a man of disgustingly huge fortune. The rest of the week he went to hell.

Hawkeswell and Summerhays had once joined in the debauches. Maturity and responsibility had tempered their behavior the last few years. Castleford, however, had managed to escape any curtailment of the fun, but still managed to exert more influence in government and society than was fair for someone with such a dissolute life.

The young duke looked down at them, amiable of face and bright of eye, his fashionably dressed brown hair falling with appropriate recklessness about his face. He was the picture of an old friend greeting the fellow sinners of his youth. Yet in those eyes the devil’s spark gleamed.

Hawkeswell’s temper began coiling and not a word had been spoken yet.

“What? It isn’t Tuesday?” Castleford drawled with mock shock. “I clear lost track. It is good to know, however.” He swung a chair over to their table, collapsed in a lazy sprawl on it, signaled for one of the servants, and ordered a very fine and expensive bottle of wine.

“Your favorite, as I remember,” he said to Hawkeswell. “I hope I got it right, because I bought it to share with you.”

“That is generous.”

“It is incumbent upon friends to celebrate each other’s good fortunes. I hear that your bride has been found. You must be very happy, and relieved.”

“Of course he is,” Summerhays said.

The wine came. Castleford insisted three glasses be poured. He raised his toward Hawkeswell in silent salute.

“So,” he said after the toast. “Where in hell was she all this time?”

“Damnation, Tristan,” Summerhays said. “If you joined us only to be rude—”