A Wicked Gentleman (3 page)

“Why did the earl refuse…on what grounds?” Aurelia asked, and instantly wished she hadn't, as her sister-in-law's expression became yet more ferocious.

“Ah, yes, the grounds,” Cornelia said, bending to warm her hands at the fire. “Well, it would seem that we are country mice, lacking in sophistication, quite incapable of managing to conduct ourselves in town without male advice and support, and our one and only purpose in this life is to nurture our late husbands' children so that they can be educated to take their places in their fathers' world.”

“But we have guardianship, Nell,” Aurelia pointed out. “You did tell them that…” She saw Cornelia's expression. “Oh, yes, of course you did.”

“I did,” Cornelia agreed. She straightened and rubbed her upper lip before saying a mite defensively, “However, I told them that we were going with or without the funds.” She shrugged. “We can't, of course, but it felt good saying it.”

“Pompous bores,” Aurelia said, then cast a quick guilty look at her daughter. The pompous bores in question held the purse strings for herself and her child just as they did for Cornelia and her offspring. It wouldn't do for the ever-babbling and always indiscreet Franny to repeat her mother's judgment in the middle of a family get-together.

“Let's go to my parlor.” She linked arms with Cornelia and urged her out of the nursery.

The housekeeper bearing a tray had just reached the top of the nursery stairs as the two women appeared. “Oh, the sack posset,” Cornelia declared. We're going to Lady Ellie's parlor. I'll take the tray, Bessie.”

The housekeeper, panting slightly, relinquished her burden with obvious relief. Cornelia sniffed hungrily. “Spice cakes…you are a wonder.”

Bessie merely nodded, accepting it as her due. “You drink some of that, Lady Nell. You're chilled to the bone.”

“I intend to,” Cornelia said with a warm smile as she headed down the stairs, followed by Aurelia. They went into a pleasant, slightly shabby room that overlooked the garden at the rear of the house. It had been Cornelia's mother's parlor, and Cornelia still felt as at home there as in her own parlor in Dagenham Manor. More so, if she was willing to admit it.

She set down the tray and poured the fragrant possett into two cups. She passed one to Aurelia, then deposited herself gracefully in a faded chintz armchair by the fire. She took a bite of spice cake and sipped from the dainty Sèvres cup, her frowning blue eyes fixed upon the fire. Her thick honey-colored plaits fell forward over her shoulders, making her look much younger than her twenty-eight years.

Aurelia regarded her over the lip of her own cup, her soft brown eyes probing gently. “Are you sure they can't be persuaded to change their minds?”

“Uncle Carlton perhaps, as I said,” Cornelia mused. “But his voice doesn't count, and the earl won't budge.”

Aurelia started to respond just as rapid steps sounded along the corridor outside and the door flew open to admit a whirlwind, bearing the fresh February cold in her pink cheeks and tousled blue-black hair. Even her thick black eyebrows seemed wind tangled.

“Do either of you have relatives you don't know you have?” Lady Livia Lacey demanded, flourishing a sheet of vellum, heavily inscribed.

Cornelia raised her eyes from the fire and turned in her chair. She exchanged a brief grin with Aurelia. Livia was not always overly logical. “If we did, Liv, we wouldn't know it by definition.”

“Ah, no, I suppose not,” Livia agreed. “Oh, is that sack posset? I'll borrow your cup, Ellie.” She helped herself liberally and took a sip with an exaggerated groan of pleasure. “Pure heaven…it's like an ice house out there.” She glanced at her friends, taking in their expressions. “Oh, the trustees wouldn't be persuaded?”

“No, in a word,” Cornelia said shortly.

“So what's this about relatives you don't know you have, Liv?” Aurelia prompted, tucking a fine strand of her pale hair into its pins as she firmly changed the subject.

“Well, it seems I have…no had…an Aunt Sophia, some distant cousin of Father's,” Livia said, flinging herself into a corner of the sofa. “Father's very hazy about the relationship…Lady Sophia was related to some half brother of his uncle's…something like that.”

She waved the vellum at them. “Anyway, this is a letter from her solicitors. Apparently she died a few days ago and left me this house on Cavendish Square.” She opened her hands. “Isn't that amazing? Why me?”

“Amazing,” Cornelia agreed, sitting up straight in her chair. “A house on Cavendish Square is going to be worth quite a bit, Liv.”

“Exactly,” the other woman said with satisfaction. “And since at the moment I don't have two farthings to rub together…” She cocked her head like an inquisitive sparrow. “The solicitor says he's already been approached with an offer for the house, a good one, he says.”

She bent her eyes to the vellum. “A Lord Bonham is interested in buying it apparently. This Mr. Masters, the solicitor, doesn't say how much he's offering, but if I sell the house, then I can invest the proceeds and that will give me an income…maybe even a dowry,” she added.

“The spinster daughter of an impoverished country clergyman, however well-connected, doesn't have much in the way of marriage prospects. Breeding is no substitute for a portion,” she continued with a melancholy sigh that was not in the least convincing.

“There's not much in the way of suitors in these parts,” Cornelia pointed out with a touch of acerbity.

“No, you two got the only two possibilities,” Livia agreed. “And now they're both dead…” She didn't complete her thought. “Sorry,” she said. “Did that sound insensitive?”

“From anyone else it might have done,” Aurelia said. “But we know what you mean.”

“Anyway, Ellie and I have been resigned to our loss for nearly two years now.” Cornelia turned her gaze back to the fire for a moment. Marriage to Stephen, Viscount Dagenham, had not been exactly a firework-filled union of passion, but they had liked each other well enough, had known each other from childhood, and she supposed they would have grown old together in solid companionship. Not an exciting prospect, certainly, but infinitely preferable to the dead end of widowhood.

She raised her head and met Aurelia's steady gaze and knew that her sister-in-law shared her thoughts. Ellie had been married to Cornelia's brother. Another safely solid marriage of convenience between family acquaintances, brought like her own to a violent end at the Battle of Trafalgar.

Of course, they both had their children. Her own two, Stephen at five and three-year-old Susannah, were her joy and delight, just as Franny was for Aurelia. But the joy and delight of children were no substitute for adult companionship and the pleasures of the bedchamber. She and Stephen may not have reached the heights, but there'd been some substantial satisfaction in the regular gratification of physical need. Her life, like Aurelia's, was now a dreary wasteland, the years stretching ahead in the stultifying comfort and financial dependence of trustee-controlled bereavement.

The prospect of a short visit to London had enlivened that future: the bustle of town, a social scene whose highlights were more than just hunting, whist parties, country dances, and the interminable gossip of an incestuously close-knit community insulated from the outside world.

A prospect that those damned trustees had dashed without a moment's hesitation.

Except…Her blue eyes swung towards Livia, a gleam in their depths that her friends recognized.

“What?” Aurelia demanded, leaning forward in her chair.

“I was just thinking,” Cornelia murmured. “If we didn't have to pay for accommodation, perhaps we could scrape by in London for a month or so. My allowance is not lavish, but with care…” She raised her eyebrows, a slight smile now hovering on her well-shaped mouth.

“Mine too,” Aurelia said, needing no further explanation. “If we pooled our resources…we'd only need one nurse for the children. Presumably there's a staff in this house, Liv? This Lady Sophia would have had a housekeeper, a cook, at least.”

“I don't know, but I'd guess as much,” Livia said, catching on just as readily. “And I really ought to go and inspect my inheritance, don't you think? I should have some idea of what it's worth, particularly since there's already a prospective buyer. It must be rather desirable if someone's interested in it so quickly.”

“Absolutely, you should inspect it,” Cornelia said firmly. “And you can't possibly go unchaperoned. What more respectable chaperones could you have than your widowed cousin and her widowed sister-in-law? And what more respectable residence for us all than the late Lady Sophia Lacey's house on Cavendish Square.”

“True.” Livia nodded, grinning broadly. “I might even decide not to sell the house. Maybe it would make better sense financially to keep it and hire it out. I have to consider all my options, don't I? The rental would give me a regular income, and it's in a good part of town. Plenty of people like to rent houses for the season.”

“Of course that would depend on the condition of the house,” Aurelia said. “No one of substance is going to hire a house that's falling to pieces.”

“And I know nothing of this mysterious relative's circumstances,” Livia mused. “She could have been destitute, living on crumbs in a collapsing attic.”

“You're letting your romantic imagination get the better of you again, Liv,” Cornelia stated. “I doubt she was destitute. She was a Lacey, when all's said and done.”

“And Laceys are notorious penny-pinchers,” Aurelia said. “With the notable exception of Liv.” She chuckled. “For all we know, this distant relative could have been living on crusts while the house fell apart around her ears.”

“Except that this Lord Bonham is so keen to buy it,” Cornelia reminded them. “Unless he's simpleminded, he wouldn't be rushing to buy a pig in a poke.” She reached over and took the letter from Livia's loosened grip. “Viscount Bonham,” she murmured. “Never heard of the family.”

She folded the sheet carefully. “Yes, I think it definitely behooves us all to go and inspect the property and…” Her eyes gleamed, chasing away all residue of her previous anger…“
And
the prospective buyer. I confess to being somewhat intrigued by this unknown gentleman. Who knows, Liv, he might be a prospect for you.”

“A house
and
a husband,” Livia declared, flinging up her hands in mock astonishment. “I doubt I could be
that
lucky.”

“Well, you never know,” Cornelia said cheerfully. “But first things first. You should write to the solicitors, Liv.” She held up the letter to read the masthead. “Masters & Sons on Threadneedle Street…and tell them you're not interested in selling until you've considered all the options.”

The gleam in her eye intensified. “Who's to say what those options might be.”

T
URNED DOWN
?” Harry Bonham frowned at the stiff-backed gentleman sitting behind the massive desk in the lawyer's office on Threadneedle Street. “Why, man? Was it not a fair offer?”

“Oh, yes, my lord. I considered it to be more than fair…considering…” The lawyer meticulously adjusted the papers on his desk so that every edge was neatly aligned. “Considering the condition of the property,” he concluded, raising his eyes to meet his visitor's steady green gaze. “I explained that to your own solicitors, my lord.”

He coughed into his hand. “I have to say that I expected to be dealing with them rather than yourself, my lord. It is customary to conduct such affairs through the solicitors of the parties concerned.”

“I prefer to conduct my own business,” his lordship declared with an impatient toss of his hand. “It's a damn sight quicker for one. All that middleman nonsense. As to the condition of the house, I don't give a fig.” The viscount frowned at Masters. “I told you that already. Is it more money they're after?” His eyes narrowed, and he leaned back in his chair, crossing one buckskin-clad leg over the other, regarding the lawyer closely.

Mr. Masters fussed a little more with the papers. “There's no mention of that, sir. No counteroffer has been made at this point.”

“Mmm.” Harry, still frowning, tapped his booted foot with his riding whip. “So who owns the house now that the old lady's gone?”

The lawyer hesitated, wondering about the ethics here, but Viscount Bonham did not strike him as a man it would be wise to obstruct, and there were no confidences in the lady's letter. He selected one of the papers in front of him and pushed it across the desk. “A Lady Livia Lacey, my lord.”

Harry picked up the paper and read it. The hand was elegant, the vellum plain and unscented, the message unequivocal. It seemed that Lady Livia Lacey wished to inspect her inheritance for herself before making any decision as to its disposition.

“And who exactly is the lady?” he inquired, returning the letter to the desk with an air of finality.

“I believe her ladyship is distantly related to the late Lady Sophia Lacey, although I'm unsure of the exact connection.” Masters took the letter and returned it to its place in the sheaf of papers with yet more care over the alignment of the edges.

“Lady Sophia was not specific, but she was most insistent that the property be left to a female relative who bore her name. Lady Livia was the only one who fitted the specifications.”

“Some old spinster biddy, I presume,” Harry said without any particular malice in the description.

“Well, as to that, my lord, I'm not sure,” the lawyer said. “The handwriting is not that of an elderly lady.”

“No, but she probably has a young companion, a charity-case relative, to walk her pugs and see to her correspondence.” Harry held out his hand. “Show me the letter again, Masters.”

With a barely concealed sigh, the lawyer disturbed his neat pile to extricate the sheet of vellum and passed it over.

“Ringwood, Hampshire,” Harry murmured. “A nice sleepy little village in the New Forest. Now just why would some maiden lady living in peaceful country retirement want to trouble herself with a trip to London to inspect a deteriorating property for which she's already received a more than handsome offer?” He shook his head. “Beats me.”

Masters cleared his throat. “It's always possible, sir, that the lady's circumstances are not what we think.”

Harry uncrossed his legs with an energetic movement that made the lawyer flinch reflexively. “Maybe so. Do what you can to discover the circumstances, Masters. And offer another three thousand.” He uncoiled himself from his chair, rising to his feet with the same energy as before.

The lawyer gazed at him in consternation, then blurted, “Indeed, my lord, in all honesty I must tell you that if I were your solicitor I would most earnestly counsel against such a move. The property is not worth your original offer. Another three thousand would be a reckless expenditure…in all conscience, sir…” His voice trailed away.

The viscount regarded him with a degree of sympathy. The poor man was clearly caught on the horns of a dilemma. On the one hand, he was obliged to advance the interests of his clients, in this case the Lacey ladies both late and present, but his conscience obliged him to tread an honest path.

“I appreciate your advice, Masters, don't think otherwise,” he said equably, drawing on his driving gloves. “And I fully understand your difficulties in offering it, but I will take the liberty of declining to act upon it. Please relay my new offer to this Lady Livia Lacey, and do what you can to discover her circumstances.” He gave the man a nod as he went to the door, flicking his riding cloak off the coatrack as he passed. “I bid you good day, Masters.”

The lawyer hastened to accompany his august visitor down the narrow stairs to the front door. A sleety rain was falling. Harry drew the cloak tightly over his shoulders as he looked up and down the street. Beside him, his companion shivered in his black coat and britches.

“Go inside, man,” Harry instructed. “My groom's walking the horses, he'll be back any minute, there's no need for you to catch your death.”

Gratefully Masters shook his visitor's hand and retreated within.

Harry stamped his feet, clapped his hands across his body, and cursed his groom, but without much conviction. He'd instructed the man to walk the horses to keep their blood moving, and he'd need to go farther than the end of the street and back to do that. Soon enough the two horses appeared around the corner of Cornhill. The groom, astride a sturdy cob, saw his master immediately and urged his own horse and the raking chestnut he was leading to lengthen their strides.

“Devil take it, Eric, I thought you'd headed for the nearest tavern,” Harry said, taking the reins from the groom and swinging himself into the saddle. “It's cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey.”

“Aye, m'lord. Sorry to have kept you waiting,” the man returned stolidly. “Is it home now?”

“Yes, but have a care, the road's slippery.”

“Aye, m'lord,” the groom muttered. “I had noticed it meself.”

Harry shot him a quick glance and grinned. “Off your high horse, Eric. I know you had.” He clicked his tongue, nudging the horse's flanks with his heels, and the chestnut moved forward, his neck arched, nostrils flaring against the cold.

Harry left the horse to set his own pace on the slippery cobbles and concentrated on the considerably more than irritating news he'd just been given. If he couldn't enter the house on Cavendish Square legitimately, he would have to resort to more devious means. There was no time to waste in this race to retrieve the package.

Whoever was responsible for the original theft, either the French or Russians, or indeed both if they were cooperating with each other in this instance, knew that the key to the code was hidden somewhere in that neglected house on Cavendish Square. It had been a week since the theft and the debacle that had led to Lester's injury and he knew they were as frantically trying to retrieve it as he himself. And they had the advantage of knowing exactly where to look, although they wouldn't evade the surveillance of the Ministry's watchers who had been in place in Cavendish Square since the dawn fracas.

Neither it seemed would they get legitimately past the eccentric guardians of the gates. Despite his anxiety he couldn't help but smile grimly at the recollection of his own reception at the hands of Sophia Lacey's three retainers. After the lady's death, he had knocked on the door with what he thought was a perfect pretext to enter and search. He was to value the contents for probate.

His reception had been dusty to say the least. An elderly man in stained leather britches and jerkin, bent almost double but with fierce if rheumy eyes, and two severely black-gowned women, both with a greenish pallor that made them look as if the earth of the cemetery had just opened to disgorge them, stared at him in forbidding silence as he'd explained his business.

The gentleman, whom he took to be a butler of sorts, turned to his companions and stated, “One of them, again, Ada. Not a furriner this time, though.” And he had closed the door in the visitor's face, locking and bolting it with a vigor that belied his age.

Somehow he had to get into the house, and his first thought had been that the easiest way of doing that was to own it. But thanks to Lady Livia Lacey, the house didn't look to be his in the foreseeable future.

However…however…

A slow smile spread across his face. Maybe he didn't need to own the house to gain access; maybe cultivating its new owner would do the trick. He had the perfect excuse for introducing himself…he was still a prospective and most eager buyer for her property, hoping to persuade her to sell.

He gave a nod of satisfaction and urged his horse to increase his pace. The Ministry would keep the house under observation until Lady Livia Lacey came to town, then he'd pay a social call and see what he could see.

But despite this logical plan he found it impossible to sit on the sidelines during the next few days and took his own part in the surveillance of the house on Cavendish Square even though he knew the Ministry's observers were more than capable.

It was several days later on a moonless night when the long hours of cramped and frozen watching were rewarded. A figure approached the basement steps…a darker shadow in the shadows of the night, with his black cloak drawn tight about him, a black hat pulled low over his brow.

The prospect of action warmed his blood. Harry crept out of his observation point behind the hedge in the square garden and moved soundlessly to crouch behind the railings on the pavement while he waited for the intruder to reemerge safely in possession of the package, if the gods were on the side of the angels. If he himself couldn't catch him, there were four other men strategically positioned along the street and around the square who could pick up the pursuit if necessary.

But Harry was grimly determined to retrieve himself what had been stolen from him…the fruits of hours of complex mathematical calculations and intricate mental gymnastics…personal issues quite apart from the theft's vital significance to the bloody struggle that engulfed the Continent.

The massive explosion sent him leaping to his feet, the months of painstaking training vanquished by the sheer magnitude and unexpectedness of the sound on this genteel, quiet piece of Mayfair. Windows flew open, shrieks rent the air, and up the basement steps came the shadowy figure of a man, his cloak in tatters, hatless, his hair standing up around his head like a halo.

Harry hurled himself at the man's ankles as he leaped onto the pavement from the top step and brought him down to the hard ground in a tangle of limbs that winded him as much as his quarry.

“It's all right, sir, we've got him.” Hands reached down and pulled him to his feet, while others hauled his breathless quarry upright.

Harry brushed off his hands demanding, “What the hell was that?”

“Haven't a clue, sir.” The man who'd helped him to his feet looked around as if a clue might materialize from the gloom. “Never heard its like.”

Harry shrugged. “Well, it scared the wits out of our friend, and I doubt that did us any favors.” He regarded the sagging figure with a frown. “He might not have had enough time to retrieve what he was after.”

“Like as not, sir, but we'll take him anyway. No knowing what we might get out of him.” The speaker put two fingers to his lips and sent a piercing whistle into the square. An unmarked carriage appeared almost immediately, and Harry's thief was bundled inside, his captors following, before anyone really understood what had happened.

“That'll larn the bugger.” A rasping Yorkshire accent that Harry immediately recognized as belonging to Sophia Lacey's rusty butler came from the area steps behind him. He spun around to face the mouth of a blunderbuss wielded by the gentleman in question, clad on this occasion in a purple-striped dressing gown and a somewhat lopsided nightcap.

Harry regarded the ancient weapon in dawning comprehension. A blunderbuss fired in a confined space. The violent explosion now made perfect sense. “How the devil did you manage not to hit him?” he asked with a degree of awe.

The butler peered at him myopically in the semidarkness. “I weren't aimin' to, sir. If I 'ad been, 'ed have felt it.”

“Yes,” Harry agreed with a grin. “I'm sure he would. Good night to you.”

“Good night to 'ee,” came the response and the butler and the blunderbuss returned whence they'd come via the basement steps.

It was safe to assume that no other attempt would be made on the house tonight, Harry decided. If the thief had anything to give, he would give it up before the night was over.