A Worthy Wife (28 page)

Aurora smiled at the others. “Poor dear, I fear his nerves are overset. But we promise to be good, don’t we?”

Andrew nodded. “No more trouble. Cross my heart.”

“Good,” Kenyon approved, looking at Royce through his looking glass, needing to know he’d given up the life of crime.

Wesley saluted and said, “On my honor.”

“Hah!” But Kenyon was satisfied. Everything was right in his world and getting better by the day. Then night fell. They reached home.

“Bloody hell.”

Aurora clapped her hands over Andrew’s ears. “My lord!”

Servants were running in every direction, dogs were barking, Aunt Ellenette was in a swoon on the sofa, and Nialla was, naturally, soaking Christopher’s shirtfront with her tears. The monkey was hanging from the chandelier, and any number of creeping, crawling things—things Kenyon used to think of as bait, not pets—were scurrying across his Aubusson carpet, with the McPhees on hands and knees in close pursuit. And his sister, daughter of an earl, darling of the
ton
at her come-out, was using one of his fencing sabers to hold at bay that most infamous of intruders, most threatening of trespassers, a middle-aged Cit. Nialla’s father had come to call.

Welcome home, my lord.

Christopher, it seemed, had written to Noah Benton expressing his intentions toward the man’s daughter. Having intentions toward such a goosish little female was bad enough, but announcing them to her ambitious father was foolish beyond permission. Kit’s honor, however, demanded that he ask the coal merchant for that very permission, proving to Kenyon that bravery had little to do with wisdom. But the chit was underage, and in effect unwed, so she was technically under her father’s control, although Kenyon distinctly recalled being informed that Benton had tossed the chit out when she faced disgrace. That was, of course, before she became involved with the brother of the Earl of Windham. Suddenly, the little redhead was a valuable commodity again.

Benton had hied himself to Windrush, but Nialla and Kit and Brianne were driving around the neighborhood, trying to find what strangers had been spotted before Andrew’s disappearance. Benton spent the afternoon ingratiating himself with Aunt Ellenette by fawning over Frederick. Since the merchant also had a pushed-in nose from early days in the coal fields, protuberant eyes, heavy jowls, and a physique that resembled an ale keg, it was no wonder Benton admired the pug. And Aunt Ellenette admired the paving stone-size diamond he wore in his cravat. They were as close as inkle-weavers when the young people returned.

“My precious darling,” he had gushed to Nialla, holding his arms wide. She clung to Christopher. “You didn’t find the boy, did you?” Benton asked with inordinate eagerness. “Captain Warriner would be next in line to the earldom then, wouldn’t he?”

That was when Brianne locked the nabob in the conservatory. She couldn’t push him down the stairs to the wine cellars, or roll him out to the ice house, but she could lure him to the glassed rooms with the promise of meeting a true Incomparable, one of the nobility’s noblest—Sweety. She locked the door behind him. The aristocracy could have their little jokes, Benton chortled, until darkness fell and he grew hungry. When he had to fight the monkey for an orange, Benton decided he’d had enough and broke out, using Uncle Ptolemy’s brass telescope to shatter the glass door. Brianne grabbed Kenyon’s sword. Heaven only knew what she intended to do with it, or the mine owner.

Wesley did not wait to see. He reached over his beloved’s shoulder and removed the sword. “I’ll take that, love.”

“Oh, hello, darling. Will you skewer this midden rat for me, please?”

“Of course, sweetings. As soon as I’ve had a kiss.”

“Bloody hell!” Kenyon shouted again. Aurora giggled as she waved a vinaigrette under Aunt Ellenette’s nose.

“This is a fine way to treat a guest!” Benton blustered. “I’ve a mind to leave and take my little girl with me.”

Christopher took the sword out of Wesley’s hand.

“Cease!” When the Earl of Windham yelled, the walls shook. Even the toads stopped in their tracks. “You, sir, come with me.” He jerked his head toward Benton. “And no one else.”

“But it’s my intended he’s threatening to carry away.”

“And it’s my intention to make sure he does not. You’re a soldier, Kit. Leave the talking to me. I brought Andrew back, didn’t I?”

“With just a hint of help from Lady Windham,” Wesley reminded Kenyon.

“You, sir, can unhand my sister and see about getting the blasted monkey down from the chandelier. I shall deal with this monkey’s uncle of a mine owner.”

The negotiations took two hours and two bottles of wine. In the end, Kenyon agreed to keep Brianne from murdering the merchant. Nialla’s dowry was restored, and she was reinstated as Benton’s heiress. Benton would also finance a project Kenyon and Kit had spoken of on the long journey home from France—a small manufactory employing out-of-work soldiers. A natural leader of men, Captain Warriner would manage the new venture, so he had a livelihood without being dependent on either his wife’s money or Windham’s. The earl, for his part, agreed to deed Kit and Nialla one of the lesser estates that had come through his mother’s family, as he’d always intended. He also agreed to let Benton visit at Windrush once a year—and pay court to Aunt Ellenette.

Kenyon opened another bottle of wine to toast Kit and his bride-to-be, who spouted tears of joy, of course. Benton raised his glass to the title he hoped to buy for his first grandson, and Windham drank to seeing the last of Frederick. Then he excused himself to tell the happy news to Aurora, who had taken Andrew upstairs long before. Peace with France was hardly as sweet as this deal, and Kenyon could not wait to share the details
with his bride. After that, he’d share some of his dearest wishes and his deepest feelings.

Unfortunately, Aurora was already asleep, and sharing her bedroom with his son.

“Bloody hell.”

*

Everyone wanted to hire Ned Needles—Bow Street, the earl’s solicitor, the Earl of Ratchford’s solicitor, and Lady Anstruther-Jones. Ned, however, was content to remain in Lady Windham’s employ for better pay and better working conditions, at least until he finished his education and could become the best and brightest Runner Bow Street had ever seen. Wasn’t he already living like a prince at the earl’s London town house after he found the starchy old butler’s missing choppers? Besides, the little nipper needed him. Tiny chap with specs like Andrew needed looking after. Who better than Ned to show the earl’s heir around London, how to defend himself against bullies, and how to cadge extra sweets out of the earl’s London chef?

It was Ned who had found Lord Phelan, just as he’d promised. Not Bow Street, not the investigators hired by Mr. Juckett, the earl’s man of affairs, not Lady Anstruther-Jones’s spies. No, it was the street urchin who’d sent word around Town that he had a check to deliver for the low-tide lord. The address of Lord Phelan’s sister was forthcoming. Bow Street was keeping an eye on the shabby place on London’s outskirts until Lord Windham arrived.

Ned had also located Inky Devine, master forger with minimum scruples. Inky had written a new will for Wesley Royce’s half brother, for a price. For a higher price, he was willing to deal with Lord Windham. He would not testify against Baron Alford, naturally, since doing so would put him out of work, and out of the country, likely aboard a prison ship bound for Botany Bay. But Inky was willing to write a new note, in the previous Lord Alford’s handwriting and dated the day after the forged will, stating that the baron had had a change of heart on his deathbed and was leaving one-third of his fortune to his beloved second son, Wesley.

Windham was taking the posthumous posting to White’s that evening, sure to find Alford at the gaming tables. They had arrived in London that afternoon, in response to Ned’s message. Deciding she had to put the whole issue of her parentage and inheritance behind them once and for all, Aurora insisted on joining him in Town. So Andrew had to go along, of course, and the monkey. Aunt Thisbe and Uncle Ptolemy were staying behind to see about planting cranberries from the Colonies in the swampy section of Windham’s property, and Christopher was taking his fiancée and her father to inspect his new estate. Aunt Ellenette was going along as chaperone for the young couple, and Frederick was dogsberry for the older. Wesley had been threatening to kill his perfidious half brother in a duel, so Windham sent him and Brianne off to Scotland to wed, threatening to kill the highwayman himself if he did not stop compromising the earl’s sister in the billiards room, their bedchambers, and everywhere in between.

They’d taken the boys to Astley’s Amphitheatre that evening, and, much as he hated to leave his wife alone, Kenyon was now on his way to confront his new brother-in-law’s betrayer. The mission did not take long. Kenyon took the man aside at the august club and showed him the note from his deceased father, just found. If it was not just found, he stated matter-of-factly, Alford would be ruined. The forger had confessed, the original will had been preserved, and Windham would not permit his sister to marry a pauper. If Alford should happen to die suddenly, Wesley Royce would inherit everything, did he understand? Since the earl’s hands were at his throat, it would be hard for Alford to misinterpret. “Strange,” he hoarsely croaked, “your finding m’father’s note that way. The solicitors will straighten the whole thing out in the morning.”

So Windham left White’s with a jaunty step. The evening was still young, and his warm and willing wife was waiting up for him. One more hurdle in the way of his domestic tranquility was crossed. He crossed the street, and his head exploded. That’s what it felt like, at any rate, before he fell flat on his nose. Before losing consciousness, Kenyon did manage to lift his head an inch off the cobblestones in time to see his attacker running down an alleyway, her skirts flying. A woman, b’gad. It figured.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

The scene was tender. So was the back of his head. Aurora was kneeling on the floor beside the sofa where the footmen had carried him. “Don’t die, my darling. Oh, Kenyon, I don’t think I could live without you. I know I have not been a good wife to you, but I swear I will do better in the future, if you have one. Please, my beloved, don’t leave me, not when I have yet to become your wife in deed.”

He sat up, clutching his head. “Now? You want me to consummate the blasted marriage now?”

The butler coughed. Oh, lud, Kenyon groaned. Now all of London would know the Earl of Windham hadn’t bedded his bride! At the moment, he did not care. He did not even care that Aurora was leaning over him, her entrancing décolletage just inches from his eyes. That’s how badly his head hurt. “I am going to murder the bastard who did this.”

“Wesley’s brother?” Aurora guessed.

“No, there was no time for him to act. And not DuBois or his servant, either. The man I paid to watch in Kings Lynn sent word that all three of the Frenchmen sailed right after we left.”

“Weren’t no cutpurse,” Ned put in, “’cause you still had your wallet and ring and sparkler in your neckcloth.”

“Then who? Who would do such a terrible thing?” Aurora was wringing her hands, instead of the damp cloth for his head.

“I think it was Phelan Ramsey’s sister.”

“But Lord Phelan does not have a sister.”

“Exactly.”

*

“I knew you’d come.”

Lord Phelan was not a handsome man, being small and spindly, with a large nose and blackened teeth. He was a really homely woman. The gun he was holding was not terribly attractive, either. In fact, Lord Windham was getting deuced sick of having every malfeasant malcontent point a weapon in his direction. His skull ached, he was the laughingstock of London, and, instead of waiting in the carriage as he’d ordered, his bride was right beside him in this filthy boardinghouse parlor, facing a foxed felon with a full budget of grievances.

“Of course I came, Ramsey. What was I supposed to do, wait for you to bash me over the head again?”

Phelan drank straight from the bottle of Blue Ruin on the littered table in front of him. “The tap on the brain-box was to encourage you to call off your hunt for me. I figured you’d ought to leave me in peace now that m’nevvy knows about the bloody will. He’ll honor it, the nodcock, so you’ve got the baggage and the bounty. I’ve got bill collectors after my blood. Didn’t need you leading them to my doorstep.”

“Too late. They’re here, along with Bow Street, the magistrate’s office, and assorted others in the legal professions. So what do you want? You know you’ll never get your hands on Aurora’s inheritance no matter what you do, so why attack me?”

“I wanted to see you dead, you demmed meddler, so I could find someone else to wed the chit. May Podell rot in hell for lying to me about being a bachelor. I should have taken the wench to the Fleet and married her m’self. Now that won’t work.”

“I’m afraid not, Ramsey. There’s no way out of here that does not involve pistol balls or prison. The choice is yours, of course.” The house was surrounded by Runners, constables, and a whole regiment, it seemed, of Aurora’s rescued veterans. “You’ll never get out of here alive if you so much as sneeze.”

Lord Phelan took another swig. “I’m a dead man anyway, might as well take one of you with me. She”—the gun barrel swayed in Aurora’s direction—“is just like
her mother. Wouldn’t have me, you know. Begged her to, I did, even knowing she was carrying m’brother’s child. She chose that muckworm Halle instead, then had the gall to name me godfather to my brother’s bastard, and ask me to get the brat back to England. I did it, didn’t I? And never got a groat for my trouble. M’life was never the same after. Yeah, the wench ought to pay for that.”