To Seduce an Angel (31 page)

Open-and-shut case. Proceed to administer justice with all dispatch,
the note read. Philoughby disliked being told to hasten his proceedings by a person with no connection to his court. He had no intention of donning his black cap and condemning a prisoner for any lord's convenience.

He already knew that the woman in front of him had no counsel to speak for her. Furthermore, witnesses were not to be present for cross-questioning. Aubrey wished their earlier sworn statements to be read as evidence of the facts.

Philoughby cleared his throat. “Do you have any family nearby to assist you, Miss Portland?”

“None, Your Worship.”

Philoughby looked around the comfortless cell. “Did you have a proper supper to sustain you in the night?”

The girl shrugged as if indifferent to the matter of supper. Philoughby recalled his own abandoned supper spread with care on white linen in the private parlor reserved for him at the Queen's Head. The prisoner's disinterest in supper struck him as a further sign that she inhabited some other realm in which he could offer no assistance.

“I do have a request, Your Worship.”

“What is it, Miss Portland?”

“That my gowns might be sold.”

“Your gowns?” It was almost black in the cell. Philoughby was sure he'd misunderstood.

“Yes, Your Worship, for the burial cost. When I am hanged, I wish to be cut down quickly and buried.” She spoke as if she made the most ordinary of requests.

Philoughby leaned toward to the girl, uncertain he had heard correctly.

“Is it not possible?” she asked. Her voice had dropped to a faint whisper.

Philoughby straightened. “Of course you may expect common decency.”

“Thank you.” The girl smiled at him, a sweet, grateful smile he could see even in the dim light. “I do not wish . . . the crows to come.”

Philoughby could not move. The interview was at an end. His promise, slight as it was, went beyond the requirements of justice and common compassion. A pastor might tend to the girl, but as a judge Philoughby's duty was to administer the law. Nevertheless, he felt he had left the business unfinished.

Foley cleared his throat, and the keys at his waist jingled.

Philoughby bowed and left the cell.

Everything against the girl must be a lie. Philoughby would comb the evidence. He would read it again and again if it took all night. Surely, he would find where the details contradicted one another, the places where the case failed to make sense.

DAV regarded the pair of Roman busts at the foot of the duke's grand staircase, white as snow and as the soaring marble columns that drew the eye to a lofty alabaster ceiling. The entry was like a cave of ice. The frowning Romans and the sharp-edged stone certainly must discourage boyish sliding on banisters. He could not imagine his father being a boy here. He could not imagine his lads or any boy enjoying the cold stone staircase. Nothing he saw moved him with a desire for possession. The duke could keep Wenlocke.

A footman came down the stairs and held a quiet exchange with Vickers.

“Sir, if you consent to leave all weapons behind, I will show you to His Grace.”

Dav nodded and submitted to a search of his person by a pair of fumbling footmen. His injuries made themselves known as the nervous pair poked and prodded him for concealed daggers and guns.

Adam frowned and crossed his broad arms over his chest with his pistols pointed outward.

When the footmen stepped away, the dogs made to follow Dav, but he sent them back to lie at Adam's feet.

His footfalls echoed on the marble. He had been fighting his grandfather for a third of his life. The old man had won their first match when Archibald March had arranged for Dav to be kidnapped by Timothy Harris. Dav had been young and weak and taken by surprise into captivity in London's meanest streets until Harris died unexpectedly. He had lived on his own for nearly two years until his brothers' courage and sacrifice had persuaded him to come home. Together they had taken on the old duke in the courts.

Dav had won that second match played out over three years in the courts with the help and support of all his family and at the cost of most of his mother's small fortune and some of his brothers' wealth as well. In November he had been declared the Marquess of Daventry, his father's son, his grandfather's heir.

But his grandfather had continued to plot his destruction. Today Dav understood the full extent of his grandfather's treachery, a treachery that had made Emma a tool of Aubrey and Wallop. For that alone, for the pain he'd caused Emma, the duke deserved no mercy.

So, weaponless, Dav would meet the old man face-to-face for a third and decisive match. Outside the heavy oak door, the butler paused, and Dav nerved himself to meet the man who had been trying to kill him for seven years.

The Duke of Wenlocke easily dominated the long oakpaneled room, a tall figure in black. Even a stone fireplace grand enough to roast an ox seemed less powerful. Gold gleamed on the spines of hundreds of books. One of the duke's hands clutched the gold head of a black cane. The other pointed a lethal-looking pistol at Dav.

It came to him that his grandfather had given orders from this place, from rooms so vast they could hold whole tenements, that led to Dav's being chained to a bed in a room on Bread Street.

He looked about him for how he might win the fight, and saw that the duke's pistol hand wavered with a slight palsy. In the next second he spotted a weapon among the assortment of priceless objects on a mahogany gate leg table. He palmed a small bronze of a hunting dog, the size and heft of a decent cobble, and laughed to himself as the feral instinct of the street came alive in him.

He had not expected his grandfather to be a dragon with scales and horns or fiery breath and great fangs, but he had not guessed that he bore any resemblance to the old man. He now saw his own nose and his straight brows rimed with white on a face of cold severity. It was like looking into the frostiest of mirrors. He and Wenlocke were nearly a match in height. He might even give his grandfather the edge, for the duke leaned some of his weight on that gold-headed black cane.

The old man said nothing. He gaze raked Dav frankly. Dav hoped the old man saw his scrapes and the purpling colors of his cheekbones and knew them for the signs of a fighter.

“So, you've escaped Aubrey and his man.” The voice burned with cool hauteur, the way an icicle could burn and stick to the tongue.

“I wanted to have a look at the man who has been trying to arrange my death for seven years. At least the pistol is direct.” Except that in the duke's unsteady hand a bullet was likely to go anywhere.

“Don't push me, boy.” The duke put down the wavering pistol and took up Dav's paper in his fist, shaking it. “What is the meaning of this?”

“A chance for you to take back Wenlocke. It's what you want, isn't it?” With the pistol on the desk, Dav dropped the bronze piece into his coat pocket.

“You can't be serious. No one throws away a dukedom for a mere chit, a murderous one at that.” He tossed Dav's note onto the vast desk.

“What I want and what you want have never agreed.”

“Don't try to dictate terms to me, you baseborn blight on the house of Wenlocke.” The old man's voice shook with rage.

Dav said nothing. He understood now the terrible hold that stones and acres and centuries of a name had on the old man.

“You've wasted a fortune fighting me for what is mine. Now you want to throw it in my face?”

“I want to make a trade, the safety and security of my family, for your vast acres and gilded pile.”

The old man gave a snort. “You have no idea of the value of Wenlocke.”

“I know the value of what I want.”

“A girl? You would throw away Wenlocke over a girl? If I'd known your price earlier, we could have avoided all the expense and delay.”

Dav gave the magnificent library a slow perusal, the miles of leather-bound books, the rich carpet, the velvet drapery, the high vaulted ceiling, the priceless relics of ancient empires. His gaze came back to the duke. “Keep it all. I want Emma.”

“What touching sentimentality over your doxie. You're just like your father, a fool for a tart.”

Just like your father
. The bitter words hung in the air. The duke himself seemed shaken by his own backhanded acknowledgment of Dav's origins.

“I was content to be Kit Jones. I might never have known my father's name if I had not gone to that boxing match. But after that night I had years to ask myself who hated Kit Jones enough to give him over to Harris. I could not think what Kit Jones had done to offend anyone that much.”

“Your existence was an offense to me.”

“A thousand bastards in London no more trouble their fathers or grandfathers than flies on dung. Why did I trouble you?”

“You took his name.”

“Not while he lived.”

“You had no right.”

“I had the right of blood. The same right as any son. He'd captured my mother's heart, and for him she consented to be a wife.”

“For Wenlocke you mean. For a title and riches that avaricious whore stole my son, destroyed him.”

The icy voice grew brittle, cracking like a frozen pond. The old man sank into a leather chair. “Why did he go to India? Why did he die?”

Dav saw that it was pointless to reason with him. The past had him in its grip. The old man had never stopped blaming Sophie and Dav for the death of his own son. Dav waited until the old man's eyes again saw him.

“Take the name back,” he advised his grandfather. “Give Wenlocke to your nephew if you will. Kit Jones will do for me, but leave Emma and my mother alone if you want your dukedom back.”

Behind him the door clicked open, drawing the old man's gaze. And it occurred to Dav that the old man had been stalling. He pivoted to his right and found a new man, solidly built, about Dav's height but at least twice his age with a pistol leveled at Dav's belly.

“Troubled by an intruder, Uncle? Shall I shoot him?” The man was dressed for travel with the dust and mud of a hasty journey on his long drab coat. A raised vein bulged on his broad forehead.

“No need, Aubrey. The fool's prepared to give up everything.”

“I wouldn't believe it, if I were you.” Aubrey advanced into the room.

Dav kept his gaze on him. “Where's Emma?”

Aubrey's lips thinned in a cruel smile. “You are a most inconvenient fellow, you know. You were supposed to return to the hall, yet here you are, where you're least wanted.”

“Where's Emma?” Dav took a step toward the door. Aubrey held him back with the pistol.

Dav glanced at the duke. “Without Emma, I make no deal.”

“Aubrey, you've spooked the boy. You need to see his terms.”

At a jumble of steps and raised voices outside the door Aubrey stepped to one side, his pistol still aimed at Dav.

A tall, spare woman, elegantly attired in pewter silk, with gray hair coiled about her head, burst in, and the dogs bounded past her. She called them to heel and turned to Aubrey.

“Aubrey, a weapon? What's the meaning of this? What have you done? There's a wounded man lying in the hall, claiming you're out to kill my grandson.”

“Aunt, calm yourself. We have an intruder.” He tipped his head toward Dav.

She turned and caught sight of Dav and gripped a chair back. Her hand went to her mouth, stifling a cry. Her eyes filled with tears. She dashed them away at once. “Wenlocke, tell Aubrey to put away his pistol. You will not permit Aubrey to shoot our grandson.”

“Aunt, I beg your pardon. This man is not your grandson. He's a base imposter the Jones bastards have been using to trick uncle out of his fortune.”

The duchess shook her head and appealed to the duke. “Look at his hands. Look at the shape of his head. He
is
Granville's son, our boy's son.”

“I see nothing.”

“Stubborn, pig-headed old man. See nothing then, but I know him. I know Granville's heir when I see him.” She addressed Dav, her voice strong. “My dear, dear boy, why have you come here among your enemies?”

“For Emma, Your Grace.”

“Emma Portland? My Emma?”

“Your—?

“My dear friend's granddaughter. How do you know her?”

“The old man can explain. I believe he has a pardon Emma needs.”

The duchess glanced at the duke and back at Dav. She shook her head. “Emma's not here. Aubrey took her away over a fortnight ago.”

“We did you a favor, Aunt. We couldn't have the Duchess of Wenlocke harboring a murderess, could we?”