A Baron for Becky (32 page)

She looked
familiar. But no, George couldn’t place her. He shook his head.

She was silent
for a moment. When she spoke, her voice was stiff with outrage.
“Perhaps I can help your memory. You killed my brother. You sank my
reputation into the gutter. You left me with sisters to care for
and a baby to raise. Remember me now, guardian?” She sounded like a
heroine from a Gothic novel. Come to think of it, it was a Gothic
novel, and he was the villain.

“You’re
Stockie’s sister.” His voice was resigned. Really, he might have
guessed that Stockie would find a corporeal way to haunt him. “But
wait; you don’t understand. I didn’t mean to kill your brother. I
was drunk. I misfired. You can’t blame me for that.”

She said
nothing.

“He challenged
me. I had to meet him. It was a matter of honour. I didn’t mean to
kill him.”

She looked at
him coldly. “I am not here to discuss the past. I want somewhere to
live; somewhere in the country where you do not go. On the table at
your elbow is a letter to your land steward in Gloucestershire. It
tells him to give life tenancy of a suitable cottage to me and my
sisters, with sufficient land to feed us. Read it. Sign it. Then
toss it over here to me.”

George frowned,
drawing his brows together. “But Selby said he’d take care of
everything.”

“My cousin told
you what he had planned?”

“That he would
find you a place to live until the baby was born, and make sure
there was no scandal.”

“That he would
lock us two older girls away, sell the baby, and marry our little
sister to his loathsome son.”

George had met
the son. He wouldn’t put a dog he didn’t like in that boy’s care.
He had given her dying brother his promise that he’d leave the
girls alone, but surely Stockie would expect him to come to their
rescue?

“Then let me
see to it. I am your guardian. And your trustee.”

“We do not want
you. And we do not want our cousin and his plans. Just leave us
alone.”

He examined his
feet, ashamed to meet her scornful eyes. “I didn’t mean to hurt
anybody. I was drunk. I wasn’t thinking.”

“Sign the
papers.”

“I thought... I
told the governess to meet me. In the dark, I just assumed... “

“Sign the
papers,” she repeated.

“I am sorry,
you know.”

“‘Sorry’ does
nothing. If you are sorry, then sign the papers.”

He reached for
the papers; began to read.

“And do not
think to renege on the bargain,” she went on. “A cottage and some
money for us to live on to make it possible for me to look after my
family, and I will go away and be quiet about what you did. But if
you try to take back the cottage, or to harm any one of us, I will
make sure the whole of society knows.

“Do not think I
am afraid to speak,” she added, as he opened his mouth to tell her
she had nothing to fear. “You have made certain our place in
society is lost. Take away what little we have left, and I will
take you down with me. I know society blames the innocent maid
rather than the rake that ruins her, but they will care that she
was your ward; they will care that you killed another ward, her own
brother.”

“Look, I’ve
signed.” George rolled the papers and tossed them at her feet. “You
said you want money. I… I’ll give you a letter for my bank. How
much?”

She gestured
with her head towards the purse he’d dropped as he came in the
door. “What is in that?”

“My winnings
from tonight.”

“It looked
heavy.”

“I had a run of
luck. Three thousand guineas, more or less.”

“I will take
it.”

George frowned.
“Three thousand? Will that be enough?”

“With the
cottage, it will be enough. I don’t want anything else from you
except your absence from our lives.”

“I’m still your
guardian.”

“For the sake
of us all, I suggest you forget that. I will look after my sisters
now.”

He couldn’t
meet her eyes. He studied his hands, instead. What if he broke his
promise to Stockie?

“I could marry
you. That would fix things.”

Stockie’s
sister—damn him if he could remember her name—shook her head,
looking at him as if she found him loathsome, then said, “Take off
all your clothes.”

George gave a
surprised laugh, one that turned automatically to a leer.
“Sweetheart…”

She drew the
bowstring that she’d allowed to relax, re-aiming the arrow at his
heart. “All your clothes. Now. Take them off… Gather them together…
Good. Now throw them out of the window.”

Even through
the drink, even at the point of an arrow, the thought of being
naked in front of this woman caused a little stirring in the
portion of his anatomy that had caused the problem. Her face was
fiery red. Showing and then undoing his corset was embarrassing.
More and more, in his casual liaisons, George was disrobing in the
dark. His mistresses, of course, were paid to make no comment about
his growing paunch.

He obeyed her
instructions, opening the window and leaning out to drop his
clothes. The bundle unfurled and spilled down the front steps into
the street. Behind him, he heard the door shut, and the key turn in
the lock.

Without much
hope, George tried the door, and then the door to the bedroom. Both
were locked. She hadn’t missed a trick. He couldn’t get out on his
own. The servants were too far away to hear him. And, without his
clothes, he could not try to attract attention from the street.

He wished her
every success. Perhaps another letter to his land agent,
instructing that she be given every care? No. That would only draw
attention to her. Better let her handle it.

It was chilly
in the room. It could be hours before the valet tried the door. But
he had most of a decanter of brandy to keep the cold and the ghost
at bay.

Perhaps, if he
stayed away from Longford and kept the girls’ secrets, his betrayed
friend would stop haunting him?

London, 1807

Stephen Edward
John Redepenning, 8th Earl of Chirbury, took up yet another paper
from a stack that never seemed to get any smaller and brandished it
at the portrait of his predecessor.

“You
self-centred prick, George. Couldn’t you have dealt with some of
this before topping yourself?”

The portrait
was an odd decorative choice.

It was fine
enough, showing the golden hair and blue eyes all the Redepenning
cousins had in common, and the elegant bones that helped George to
cut a swathe in the bedrooms of the ton. But it was marred by a cut
between the eyes, as if something sharp had been punched into the
canvas with some force.

Mind you,
George probably never saw it. The mess in which he left the estate
suggested he’d not so much as entered the Earl’s study in
years.

Rede sighed at
the brimming desk. In the four months since he’d stepped off the
boat from Canada to find he’d inherited the earldom, one problem
after another had surfaced. Some days, every waking moment was
devoted to cleaning up the mess his cousin had left, coming to
grips with his duties in the House of Lords, and making sure his
own business interests and his all-important hunt were not
neglected.

Despite his
efforts, he’d barely made inroads into the papers his predecessor
had left behind him. He’d stacked them in piles on a bookshelf,
with the overflow on a sideboard. They must be all well out of date
now, but they needed to be filed or thrown away, and someone needed
to work out which was which while he focused on the current
work.

He needed a
secretary. Perhaps David or Alex might know of someone trustworthy
and capable.

He began
leafing through the report in his hands, skimming for the salient
points. Something made him glance up. Nothing so definite as a
sound, perhaps just a change in airflows. David Wakefield was
standing across the room from him, leaning against the wall beside
the door.

“David. Good to
see you.” He rounded the desk to shake his visitor’s hand.

“My Lord,”
David responded, his quick grin mocking the formal salutation even
as he gave it.

“Rede to you,
always, as you well know,” Rede protested. “Take a seat, David, and
I’ll ring for refreshments.”

“This is a nice
room,” David commented. The furnishings were not new, but solid and
well proportioned, the wallpaper between the ranks of shelves a
green on green that complemented the darker green damask hangings
pulled back from the window to let in the spring sunshine.

“George
neglected it in his redecorating of the rest of the house. Thank
God. From what I can gather, his man of business used it, but
George never came in here.”

The butler
entered, and was sent away with an order for refreshments.

“Not much for
business, your cousin.”

“As you say. He
had most of the house done in the Egyptian style. Both parlours are
plagued with jackals and crocodiles, and even the hall bristles
with sphinx heads and lions’ feet. You take your life in your hands
just walking to the bedchambers.”

“I saw the
front hall and the drawing room when I met you here in January.
It’s very fashionable in France, they say.”

“It’s
gruesome—or at least his version of it is gruesome. Though the
master bedchamber is worse: I think the style might be called
French bordello. I had John set me up with one of the other rooms.
I’d rather sleep with mummies than mirrors. The whole place needs
to be redone when I can find the time.”

The butler
returned, leading a short procession of maids carrying trays. The
two men were silent while he rearranged a group of small tables
between them, and supervised the unloading of sliced bread, cold
meats, cheese, slices of a meat pie, pickles, a bowl of fresh
fruit. The maids came and went, one adding a large pot of coffee,
with a sugar bowl and a jug of cream, and another bringing cups,
plates and cutlery.

Their task
completed, the maids dimpled at Rede’s nod of thanks, and left the
room. The butler took up a position beside the fireplace.

“Thank you,
Parrish. We’ll serve ourselves,” Rede told him, firmly. “Please
shut the door on your way out.”

He poured David
a cup of coffee. The two men had been friends for a long time—since
the taller, older Rede had come to David’s rescue at Eton when Rede
was fifteen and David an undersized fourteen. David had learned a
few tricks since then.

He was still
slender, and of less than average height, but Rede had seen him in
action during their days as youths on the town. He knew how to use
his wiry strength to take down men with twice his body weight. Rede
was no slouch in a fight, but he’d rather have David on his side
than against him.

They hadn’t
kept in touch during the years Rede was in Canada. Rede was
surprised to see David’s name on the list of thief takers his
solicitor had found him four months earlier. But he was not
surprised to find that David had a reputation for both success and
honesty—many thief takers were barely more trustworthy than the
thieves they hunted.

David preferred
the term ‘enquiry agent’, and described his job as ‘finding things
and people’. ‘Finding’ apparently required the ability to move at
any level of society, and to come and go unobserved when he wished
to.

Rede handed his
friend the cup. As usual, David’s face gave nothing away; his
mobile mouth slightly quirked in amusement as he observed Rede
watching him, his brown eyes steady under his heavy brows.

“I think,” Rede
said, “that you’re going to tell me that you didn’t find what you
were looking for in Liverpool.”

“Say, rather,
that I found for sure that what I was looking for wasn’t in
Liverpool. I’ve written you a detailed report, but the summary is
that I was able to clear all five of the men I went there to
investigate.” David took a bite of the bread he’d loaded with cold
meat and pickle.

“So it’s the
three in Bristol, then.”

“Probably. It
seems likely.”

Rede made what
would have been a rude gesture if his hand had not been holding a
large slice of pie. “Come on, man. You’ve already cleared seven
names in London, and now the five in Liverpool. You’ve eliminated
every other suspect. It has to be them.”

“One or more of
them. Or someone we haven’t thought of. I’ll find the evidence if
it’s there, Rede.”

“I’ve waited so
long, David. I suppose I can wait a bit longer.”

“I’ve only been
investigating for four months.”

“I’ve been
hunting for more than three years. I landed here in London three
years to the day since I found them dead. Killed so that some
English tradesman could turn an extra pound.” And still, every
night, he relived the moment he came home to the smoking ruin of
his home, the broken bodies of his loved ones. Every morning, he
woke to the raw need to find those responsible.