0764213512 (R) (27 page)

“Now you’re stroking my vanity.” But Lady Pratt smiled and relaxed a little. “I admit you have me curious. How exactly do you think we can help each other?”

Looking back years from now, would this be the obvious point of no return? When it all went from thought to action? Maybe. But it would not—
could
not—carry any regret. Even if, as Stella met Lady Pratt’s eyes, a single knot of unease pulled tight deep inside.

But it must be done. It
must
. “I don’t know what it is you want from the duke. The search suggests an object, but I would have otherwise thought it merely revenge.”

The lady toyed with the necklace dangling from her throat. Gold and gems that would provide meals for most of England’s families for months, yet she played with it as though it were nothing more than glass beads and pyrite. “There is, of course, the hypothetical possibility that someone searching his room would have
both
motives—an object
and
revenge.”

“But that isn’t how you meant to achieve either, is it? I heard the two dukes talking at Whitby Park. Your original plan, before he came back from Scotland married, was to make yourself a duchess.”

An overstep, perhaps. Lady Pratt went cold again, hard as she said, “Now your theories begin to clash—first you say I want revenge on him, then that I wanted to
marry
him?”

Stella’s new smile felt more like a smirk. “I think there’s no better position from which to exact revenge than from a man’s side—and from his bed.”

Lady Pratt sat up straight again, her mouth agape but amusement in her eyes. “Here I thought you pious, Miss Abbott.”

“A common misconception.” Everyone had always thought her like her brother. Or like Ella, seeing only the good. As if one had a hope of advancing, of acquiring one’s dreams, if one did nothing but pray or giggle all day long.

The lady pushed to her feet. “I like you, Miss Abbott. I didn’t expect to. Usually Nottingham only surrounds himself with spineless idiots who think the world is all sunshine. Like his insipid sister.”

Stella snapped her spine straight—it was one thing for
her
to grow tired of the disposition of her oldest friend from time to time, but it was quite another for this woman to insult her.

Lord Rushworth objected before she could, though. “Leave Lady Ella out of this, Kitty.”

Interesting.

Lady Pratt sent her gaze heavenward and shook her head. “Predictable.”

“Just focus on our guest.” Sounding irritable, Rushworth waved a hand.

“Fine.” Leaning now against her desk, the lady folded her arms. “You think you know my motives, but do, pray tell, expound on your own.”

A beat of silence. Two. Then Stella whispered the words that had been burning inside for a fortnight. “I want that marriage over. They don’t belong together.”

Another rush of nothingness, then Lady Pratt’s lips curled upward. “Oh, how quaint. You think you have a chance with him, that the Duke of Nottingham would really sully his hands with the likes of
you
.”

Though she dug her nails into the palms of her hands, Stella took care to make sure the lady didn’t see it. “One might make the same observation about
your
intentions. Did you really think you had any hope of manipulating him into marriage? Knowing how he despises you?”

The lady’s nostrils flared. “My amusement is fading quickly. Do get to the point, my dear, before I ring for a servant to escort you out.”

Another miscalculation? No. The lady needed to know she wasn’t dealing with a spineless idiot who thought the world nothing but sunshine. “Given his conversation with the Duke of Stafford, I must assume this is all related to the business that led your husband to kidnap the duchess. If the papers had even a kernel of truth in their reporting, it’s tied to diamonds, right?”

The lady examined her fingernails. The lord turned a page in his book.

Neither denied it. Stella nodded. “I’ve no idea if he has them. But if he has, he isn’t stupid enough to travel with them—and certainly not to bring them here with him. They’d be at Midwynd.”

“Obviously.” Lady Pratt’s tone dripped venom. “And if I
were
interested in finding something in the duke’s possession that he had, perhaps, stolen from me . . . and if I
did
want to scare him into revealing their location . . . well then, one might assume I would be prepared to attack on multiple fronts, wouldn’t one?”

What did that mean? That she had something else planned already, certainly, but . . . “You need someone who will be there to watch him when he reveals the truth of their location.”

How mean her smile looked, small and victorious. “I already have someone. Someone far closer to him than
you
.”

Don’t step back. Don’t back down
. “The new duchess?” A guess, based on her disappearance last night, which coincided with their hostess’s. But a right one, given the sparkle in the lady’s eyes. Stella breathed a laugh. “Don’t be a fool. Perhaps right now she feels too much the outcast from his world to trust him implicitly, but how long do you think that will last? A few more weeks of his incessant charm, and she’ll turn to mush in his arms and believe anything he tells her.”

They couldn’t let that happen. Couldn’t. Nottingham was too compassionate a man to let his wife fall in love alone—he would convince himself he loved her too, even though it was impossible, even though his heart was Stella’s. He would cling to the words until they became true in action if not in fact. Then the mission would be lost.

But right now there was a chasm between Nottingham and his new wife. One that search through his room last night had pushed wider, since it apparently led to an argument. Now was the time to act.
Now
.

“Hmm.” Lady Pratt raised a finger, waggled it. “I still fail to see where this will help
you
. Unless you intend to make me promise you money to make you more alluring to your beloved duke.”

The thought made nausea churn. “I can’t be
bought
, my lady. I have no care for money. What I want is your word. If I help you get whatever it is you’re looking for, you help me end their marriage. Once and for all.”

Lady Pratt stalked forward so quickly it required every ounce of willpower not to back up into the door. “You’re daft. Either to think you can trick me into something so incriminating or to think I’d actually do it. There’s only one way to permanently end their marriage, and I’ll not mortgage my future with murder charges. I’m not the fool my husband was.”

All right, so the lady wasn’t quite as blinded by greed as Stella had hoped. No matter. “It needn’t come to that anyway. There are grounds for annulment. They could easily argue that they were forced to marriage under false pretenses.”

The lady’s brows jumped upward. “I assumed some sort of trap was involved, but Nottingham would never admit before a court that he was forced to anything.”

“There
was
a trap, but that wasn’t what forced their hand. It was a threat to their persons.”

Oh yes, that was most assuredly interest in the lady’s eyes. “A threat by whom? Her father?”

“No.” But this conniving woman didn’t need to know the name
Malcolm Kinnaird
yet. He was a powder keg, one that ought not to be employed unless all other options were exhausted. “All you need to know right now is that it’s one you can utilize if necessary.”

“What would you—hypothetically—recommend? Since you say whatever transpired last night was insufficient.”

Such care the lady took with her words. But that, too, was no matter. They all knew. That was enough. “There is one thing they both hate. One thing that will make the duchess close herself off to him from pure fear, and which will bring back to him the nightmares your husband and his shotgun inspired. One thing, my lady, that will work to both our benefits.”

“Violence?” Lord Rushworth shut his book and sat up straight. Somehow, his smile looked completely benign, his eyes without a shadow as he said, “I daresay that can be arranged.”

For the first time, the teeth of fear bit Stella—hard.

Brice glanced at his watch, unable to ignore the scratching of impatience. As far as he knew, no one at Delmore realized he was gone—and he would just as soon keep it that way and get back before the ladies finished their tea. Before Rowena could look at him with those big silver eyes and silently ask,
Why did you leave me?

“Average height, average weight, dressed in dark colors. Your man didn’t get a look at his face either?” The constable sat at one of the tables in Whitby Park’s library, jotting down Brice’s account onto a pad of paper. Stafford, Brook, and her father were there as well—his whole point in coming here rather than finding the constable in Eden Dale. The fewer times he had to recount it all, the better.

He shook his head. “He said he came up behind him while he was in the hallway outside my room—he had no recollection of entering it again at all.”

The constable tapped a finger on the table. “They must have knocked him out and then administered a hefty dose of laudanum to keep him asleep so long.”

Brook gave an exaggerated shudder and held little William closer. “I maintain that whoever invented that stuff ought to be hanged.”

The constable spared a smile for her but no more attention. “And you’re absolutely certain nothing was taken?”

“Not so much as a pin. We actually left most of our belongings here and only took what we needed for the house party to Delmore.”

Stafford grinned. “He’s not
entirely
witless.”

Whitby’s lips twitched up too. “Witless enough to invite you to this conversation though, Stafford. It would have been over by now had he not.”

Stafford splayed a hand over his heart. “I am merely lightening the mood—a favor Nottingham was always so kind as to do for me when it was I engaged in an interview with our esteemed constable.”

The esteemed constable cleared his throat and tapped his paper. “But this telegram you just received from your home in Sussex—will your local constable be favorable to communicating with me, do you think? To determine if there is anything in common about the two crimes?”

At that, Brice paced to the window, as if it would show him Midwynd instead of the maze. “I’m certain he will. But I believe my steward when he says that nothing was stolen or destroyed. I don’t know what other commonality there could be, and with the footman missing, there’s no one to question.”

Just another mess in Brice’s bedroom there. Which oughtn’t to have surprised him when he read the telegram from the elder Mr. Abbott an hour ago. And honestly, it wasn’t the assault to his belongings that disturbed him—it was the idea that one of his employees had likely been bought. When he thought he’d always made it perfectly clear that if they or their families were in want, they need only to come to him.

Perhaps he had been too long away from home. He turned back to his companions.

Pursing his lips, the constable shook his head. “You obviously think Lady Pratt and her brother responsible for both. And I’m not disinclined to believe you, Your Grace. But there’s no proof. As many people as you say are at Delmore right now—”

“But who else would have a reason to ransack his room?” Brook stood, too, and bounced the baby in that way women always did.

The constable spread his hands. “I realize that. But one person
having
a motive does not necessarily indicate guilt, Your Grace, as you well know. Perhaps if we could put out to the staff that anyone who saw anything would be compensated for sharing it . . .”

Perhaps. But just as likely, someone had already been paid by Catherine to feed them lies.

A knock sounded on the door they’d closed behind the constable. Whitby stood, brows drawn. “Excuse me. It must be important, or Mr. Graham would never disturb us.”

Mr. Graham didn’t get out more than a “Pardon me, my lord, but—” before a figure pushed past him. Brice only vaguely recognized Stafford’s cousin, Cayton. Last he’d seen him had been at the Staffords’ wedding, and this gaunt, sunken-eyed figure bore little resemblance to the man he’d stood beside while his friends took their vows.

Cayton headed for Brook, paused, and then redirected his course toward his cousin. “Take her for a minute, will you?”

Apparently the bundle in his arms was his daughter. She made not so much as a peep as Cayton transferred her gently to Stafford’s arms and then proceeded to collapse on the couch.

Stafford settled the babe comfortably against his shoulder but scowled at his cousin. “If you need a nap—and arms to relieve you of Addie—you do realize you’ve hired a nurse to provide that, right? You needn’t drive an hour here just to achieve it.”

“I thought I’d come for tea, give Tabby a respite, take your advice to get out. But I scarcely slept last night, and by the time we got here . . .” Cayton flung an arm over his eyes. “Wake me in the morning.”

Whitby eased forward. “If you’d like a room—”

“No, my lord, I don’t want a room—and I beg your pardon for bursting in on you.” This the man delivered from under his sleeve. “What I want is a day when I don’t feel as if the world is caving in on me.”