The Wolfe Wager (26 page)

Furiously, Vanessa said, “By all that’s blue, that man vexes me! He vows to be truthful, then the next word out of his mouth is a lie.”

“This was to be delivered to you, my lady. Lord Brickendon wanted you to have it straightaway.”

Vanessa opened the slip of paper the tiger handed her and read:

My dearest Vanessa
,

You have no reason to take heed of these words when you must believe that I have played you false yet again. If you recall, I told you only that the Mail leaves from the Appletree Inn, not that we would travel on it. I go to France alone. Do not follow, for I shall be gone from England before you reach Dover. Put your trust in me. I look forward to the hour when I watch you welcome your brother home. Until that hour, I remain

Your (I pray) trusted servant
,

“Ross,” she whispered and folded the page closed. Her gloved fingers lingered on it as she looked south toward the Dover Road. What had her determination to win Corey’s freedom wrought? She should have guessed Ross would not be so easily persuaded by her highhanded demand that she accompany him across the Channel. Now he was facing the danger alone.

Bitter bile tainted her throat as she realized he was trying, by rescuing Corey, to recompense her for the pain he had caused with the wager. Yet, if Eveline was correct, Ross had nothing with which to bribe the French officials to release Corey.

Albert fidgeted, rubbing one foot against the back of his other leg. “My lady, we must return to the Square immediately. Lady Mansfield told me to tell you not to delay a moment.”

Vanessa hesitated. There was no reason not to go to Dover as she had planned except that Ross had asked her to trust him. Did she? She turned her horse toward Grosvenor Square, knowing she must trust Ross completely … for the first and maybe, as he went into the midst of the war, for the last time.

Quigley threw open the door as Vanessa slid from the saddle. He rushed out without his coat. That the normally fastidious butler was so untidy surprised her more than anything else on this astonishing day.

“Is Aunt Carolyn ill?” she asked while they climbed the steps. She could think of nothing else that would send his mouth to jerking as if from a palsy.

“No.” He kept his eyes averted. “Let me take your coat, my lady.” He grabbed her bag from Albert and set it on the floor.

“Quigley!”

The butler’s hands were trembling as he looked at her. She gasped when she saw happiness brightening his usually dour features. “He is here, my lady,” he said in a near whisper.

“He?” Ross must have realized that he was a Tomnoddy to go to France alone. She would tell him in minute detail how furious she was with him for abandoning her in that disgusting inn’s yard. She would chastise him for daring to bronze her with her own trick. She would urge him to tell her—without the harsh words they had spoken yesterday—the truth about the claims against him. She would—

“Nessa!”

Her eyes widened at the name she once had hated, then had despaired of ever hearing again. Only one person living called her that. Not Aunt Carolyn. Not Ross. Only—

“Corey!” she cried as she ran forward to fling her arms around her beloved brother. Sobbing against his neck, she clung to him, sure that if she released him, he would disappear as he had after so many dreams on so many nights.

“Gently, Nessa.” He laughed. “Don’t knock me to the floor and complete what Boney’s lads failed to do.”

She stepped back to see the scars of war etched into him. His healthy color had bleached to a sickly, wan shade, and a patch concealed his right eye. She moaned when she saw that he leaned on a cane.

“Oh, Corey …”

“Have no pity for me,” Corey cautioned her with the same determination she had heard when he argued with her and Papa that every able man had an obligation to fight for England. “Going was my choice, both to France and into battle that day.”

“You could have died!”

“But I did not.” He put his arm around her shoulders, and she gazed up at his beloved face. His smile was unchanged, and she knew that eventually she would learn to ignore the patch. Just to have him back …

“It must have been horrible.”

“It was.” He never had minced words to ease her feelings. “So often, the thought of my contrary sister waiting for me at home was the only thing that kept me alive. I knew you would never forget me. My thoughts went out to you every day. Did you think I would cock up my toes and free you from my funning?”

Vanessa did not wipe away the tears running along her face as they slowly climbed the stairs. She was astonished how well Corey could manage with his cane, but that thought was muted by what she had yearned to say since minutes after he had stormed out of Wolfe Abbey. “Corey, I am so sorry for what I said that last night before you left.”

“You said?” He tweaked her nose as they reached the first floor where Aunt Carolyn was standing beside Captain Hudson. Their grins were so wide Vanessa wondered if they would leap from their faces. “What did you say, Nessa, that clearly has been plaguing you all these long months?”

“You don’t remember?”

He shook his head, sending his too long black hair falling into his face. Pushing it aside, he said, “I remember only how much I’ve wanted to apologize to you for saying that you were siding with Papa because you were worried about having to manage the Abbey if he died before I returned.”

“You said that?”

Limping into the sitting room, he dropped with a grateful sigh into a chair. “We both said hateful things that night. At least we can apologize to each other. I cannot ever retract the words I made to Papa.”

She took off her bonnet and knelt next to him. “Papa prayed for you to come home alive. Some of his last words were for you.”

“Only
some
of his words?” His smile returned.

“You know his very last words were demands for the reforms for the poor that he had harangued the Lords for since before we were born.”

He ruffled her hair. “Dear Papa. I am glad he never changed. Nor have you, Nessa. Scaring old Aunt Carolyn that way by piking off like a conveyancer trying to elude the Watch.”

Aunt Carolyn came into the room and sat across from him. “‘Old’, am I, lad? I think you shall find me far younger than you remember.” She rose to kiss him lightly on the forehead before sitting next to Captain Hudson, who still smiled broadly. “Vanessa, if you had not been so cork-brained as to take off as you did, you would have been here when Corey came home. Why you did something so jobbernowl just now when—”

“Corey is home,” Vanessa finished, halting her aunt from continuing the scold.

With a smile, he put his hand over his sister’s. “Not yet truly home. Do you long, as I do, for the draughty hallways of Wolf Abbey?”

“We shall take a walk along the strand below the Abbey before the month is out.”

Again his smile dimmed. “And I shall go to the churchyard and tell Papa that he was right. I was a paper-skull to run off to fight when I had no idea of what awaited me. I thought I would be a grand hero like those whose pictures hang in the gallery, but I was just a blithering block.”

Aunt Carolyn squeezed his hand. “The important thing is that you are home, Corey. Today you must rest, but on the morrow, we must—”

“The first thing we must do,” he said with an echo of the authority that had filled his father’s voice, “is call upon Lord Brickendon. From what I understand, this homecoming would have been impossible without him badgering the Prime Minister.”

“Ross?” Vanessa whispered. “Oh, my dear God, no!” Her joy had blinded her to the catastrophe yet waiting to happen. Sitting back on her heels, she pressed her hand to her lips and stared at the Square beyond the windows. Ross should be here to share their joy.

Corey must not have heard her because he continued, “Aunt Carolyn tells me that I shall come to know my savior well, for he is to become my brother-in-law. Don’t you think that such a familial relationship would excuse us from calling upon him at such an unusual hour?”

“Ross is not at home.” Vanessa saw her brother’s brow knit at her faint answer. She rose, groping for the sofa, and carefully lowered her stiff body to it.

“What is wrong?” Corey asked. “Nessa, you have no more color in your face than in your best gown!”

“Ross is on his way to France to free you. He could be killed because I believed that he …” Her voice splintered into sobs.

“What’s wrong?” Eveline rushed in with a flurry of white silk. “Corey!” She hugged him enthusiastically, motioned for her fiancé to come into the room, then turned to the others. When she realized that Vanessa was still crying, she said soothingly, “Happy tears will wash away the pain of those months of not knowing what was happening to your brother.”

Vanessa raised her head and whispered, “Ross is on his way to France.”

“To France?” Eveline’s brow furrowed in bafflement. “To escape dun territory and his creditors?”

“Eveline!” gasped Vanessa and Lord Greybrooke at the same time.

The earl added in shock, “Didn’t I ask you to say nothing of that?”

The redhead faced him defiantly. “I told only Vanessa. She needed to know that her fiancé is about to become a fallen angel.”

“Bankrupt?” Aunt Carolyn shook her head. “I have heard no such talk about Lord Brickendon.”

“Nor should you now,” the earl answered with an remorseful smile. “I have no more than suspicions caused by my friend’s peculiar behavior of late. When I mentioned them to Eveline and said I intended to discover what was amiss with Ross, she must have misunderstood.”

“Then he isn’t purse-pinched?” Eveline whirled to Vanessa. “I did not mean—”

“I do not care a rush if Ross is well-inlaid or a shagbag,” Vanessa said, trying to restrain the endless flow of tears. Behaving out of hand had led to Ross risking his life needlessly. She could not let her tears now add to the disaster. She turned to her brother. “We must stop him.”

“You are right. We cannot allow him to go to France. I shall not allow any man, especially the one who saved my life, endure what I had to.” Corey stood awkwardly, but waved aside his sister’s help. “If I leave immediately, I have a chance to halt him.”

“I will ride with you,” said the earl. “With all hands to the pump, the two of us can search the docks faster than you alone.”

Captain Hudson rose. “I shall go with you as well, too.” His lips tilted in a surprisingly abashed grin. “After all, it would not do for me to sit here like a cow-hearted chucklehead while my future nephew-in-law heads into such jeopardy.”

Vanessa gave her aunt a quick smile, but the time to rejoice about Aunt Carolyn’s good news must be after Ross was safe. “I must go with you.” She shivered as she recalled saying those same words to Ross.

“Nessa—”

“I shall not brangle with you about this, Corey.” She gripped his hands. “Don’t make me suffer again as I did while I waited and waited never knowing if you would come home. I must go with you.”

Pride filled his eyes. “That you must.” He put his hand on her shoulder. “We shall find him somehow, Nessa.”

Chapter Seventeen

Rain streamed along the pier and congregated between every cobble. Shadows huddled next to bundles, which had been unloaded from one of the ships clinging to the long pier, but only a skinny dog moved through the storm. The stench of the city was muted as the smoke was washed away into the churning waters of the Channel.

Vanessa peered through the carriage window. She had wanted for sense when she allowed Corey to persuade her to remain in the carriage. Wringing her gloved fingers together, she wondered how long it would take them to find someone who might have seen Ross.

She looked back toward the city. The clanging of church bells marked the late hour and were a bleak reminder that they must meet Lord Greybrooke and Captain Hudson at the inn near the base of Castle Hill before the next hour was chimed. Through the rain, she could see little of the huge castle, save for a few lights kept for the guard, who patrolled Dover, which was closer to France than any other British city.

An uneven footfall came toward the carriage. Vanessa threw open the door.

“Sorry,” Corey said when rain dripped from his greatcoat onto her cloak.

She gripped his arm, not caring about the wet. “Have you found Ross?”

“News of him.” He hoisted himself into the carriage and reached forward to strike his hand against the roof. He called an order to take them to the inn. Sagging against the seat, he grimaced when more water poured from his cocked hat to his shoulders.

“What did you learn?”

He put his hand over hers, and she wondered how his fingers, which were soaked, could be warmer than hers. “Dear sister, if that lurcher I spoke with is to be believed, and I paid him enough to buy every truth he knows, Ross sailed an hour ago.”

“Oh, no!” She turned away and put her hand to her mouth to muffle the sobs that had been battering at her lips during the long, rough ride from Town.

“This storm made the captain shove along.” He sighed. “I was told by every sea-crab I met that no one can catch the smuggler Ross sailed with. He has eluded the authorities for years, both here and in France.”

“We must sail after him.”

“Impossible. Not a single captain would consider putting to sea in this blow.”

Vanessa saw her despair mirrored in his eyes. “But, Corey, if we delay until the morrow, we may never be able to halt him.”

“We must delay.” He drew her head down to his shoulder. “There is nothing else we can do now, save praying that he will survive the French.”

Corey insisted that Vanessa change into dry clothes before she joined the others in the dining room of the small inn. Too heart-weary for a dagger-drawing, she climbed the narrow, twisting stairs. When she bumped her head on the low ceiling, a sob burst from her. Her breath snagged on her aching heart as Ross’s face burst into her mind. Had anyone ever been as much of a goosecap as Vanessa Wolfe? If she had trusted him—just this one more time—he would not be sailing to his death.

As she inched along the dark hallway, searching for the second door on the left and the room Corey had hired for her, she was consumed in remorse. She had seen how difficult it was for Ross to dismantle the brick wall around him to invite her to share his life, but she had acted as if his efforts meant nothing.