Good Earl Gone Bad (26 page)

When he was back out on Bow Street, Jasper handed the urchin holding Hector's reins a coin and threw himself up into the saddle.

There was something about those horses. Something that was worth killing one man for and nearly killing another. And now that they were in his own stables, he would take every precaution to ensure that he and his family remained safe. To that end, he'd arranged with Mr. Rosewood to post runners at his London residence, and before he left that morning, he'd instructed Greaves not to let any of the ladies leave the house today.

They would not be best pleased, but when the choice was for them to remain indoors but safe or venture outdoors at the risk of their lives, he would choose indoors every time.

He made his way to Tattersall's in record time, and since there were no auctions taking place today, he was able to speak to the head auctioneer, Mr. Sam Vernon, without fear of taking the other man away from his business.

“I'd like to know whatever you can tell me about the sales history of a pair of matched grays that were purchased from here a few months ago,” he said, showing the man the bill of sale for Hermione's grays, by name Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. It listed Tatt's as the seller, and Jasper had a sneaking suspicion that they had not originated at the auction house.

Putting on his spectacles, the dapper little man examined the paper and nodded. “That was the pair bought by Mr. Wingate, for Lady Hermione Upperton, correct?” At Jasper's nod of assent, he stepped over to a large filing cabinet and began to search through documents.

Finally, he found the page he was looking for. “I recall that sale quite clearly,” Mr. Vernon said with a brisk nod. “I believe Lady Hermione is a driver and was in need of a coaching pair.”

“Those are the ones,” Jasper said, trying to curb his impatience with the man's laconic manner. “What can you tell me about the horses? How did Tattersall's come to broker the sale?”

Shuffling through the documents before him, Vernon nodded. “I recall now. We purchased this particular pair from a gentleman here in London, who said he had bought them from a breeder in Yorkshire. Poor lad could no longer afford to keep them. And young gentlemen being young gentlemen, he had no kind of pedigree papers for them. But they were such fine horses, and so easy to drive that we took them without. Which is unusual for us, but a bird in the hand and all that.”

“In fact,” Vernon continued, scratching his chin, “there was another man who'd heard about them from a friend, and he came the day after the sale went through in hopes they'd still be for sale. When I told him they'd already been sold, he was that angry.”

“Can you recall the man's name?” Jasper asked, his senses on alert.

“I'm sorry, my lord,” Mr. Vernon said mournfully, “but I cannot. I know he was a titled gentleman, but I speak to so many in the course of my work.”

Jasper almost groaned in frustration. “Then can you tell me the name of the young man who sold them to you?”

“Of course,” Vernon said. “His name is right here in the record. Robert Fleetwood. I thought perhaps he'd have tried to come buy them back again, but he never did. I suppose he was on to other things and had his eye on some other pretty bits of horseflesh by then.”

Or he'd wanted those horses in particular back so he killed Saintcrow in order to get them. It was the fellow's reason for selling them and wanting them back again that made no sense. What was it about those horses in particular that made them special enough to commit murder for? And who was the man who had come the day after the sale to inquire about them?

Why did it feel as if this case were becoming more complex and not less?

*   *   *

“My dear, you must not stay here in the sickroom all day,” the dowager Countess Mainwaring said to Hermione late that afternoon. “You will be of no use to him if you wear yourself down while he is unable to even know you are here.”

Hermione had been surprised but touched when her mother- and sisters-in-law had come to inquire if there was anything they might do to help her while her father was ill.

The dowager had even suggested that Hermione go for a walk in the garden for a short while just to get her out of the sickroom. “I don't know how much my son told you about his father's death,” she said in a low voice, once her daughters had gone. “He did not die immediately following the accident, but lingered on for several days before he passed. It was an awful thing to see the vibrant man I'd married waste away like that.”

“No,” Hermione said, aghast. How hard it must have been for Lady Mainwaring to stay by her husband's side during those days. “I am so sorry.”

“I have made my peace with it,” Lady Mainwaring said with a sad smile. “It was a trying time for all of us. And I'm afraid I took a great deal of comfort in the running of the estate once my husband was gone.”

Hermione thought back to her conversation with Mainwaring about his conflict with his mother.

“I began to see it as the only thing keeping me from falling back into the pit of despair that had nearly consumed me when Philip died,” the dowager said sadly. “And when Jasper reached his majority and—as was reasonable—tried to take control of the estate, I fought him. It was not well done of me. And I fear that I may have said some things that I've come to regret.”

“But why have you not told Jasper this?” Hermione asked, knowing that he would be grateful to mend fences with his mother.

“Because I haven't wished to remind him of it,” the dowager said with a shrug. “I have tried to stay out of his way, and let him do whatever it is he feels is best. Though I fear I did not help matters by ripping up at him when he informed us of his forthcoming marriage to you.”

Not something that came as a great surprise to Hermione, considering the uncomfortable visit the dowager had paid in Half-Moon Street.

“I was wrong then, too, Hermione,” her mother-in-law said with tears in her eyes. “My only excuse is that ever since I lost my husband, my nerves have seemed to be strangely out of joint. And I have felt things more deeply than other people seem to. It's as if my skin has suddenly disappeared and I am moving through life with all that raw viscera exposed to the air.”

Hermione had never heard emotions described in such a way, but there had been times in her life when she had felt just as the dowager said. She couldn't imagine just how painful it would be to spend days, weeks, months feeling that way, rather than just hours like Hermione had done.

“I know it is probably too little, too late,” the dowager Countess of Mainwaring continued. “But I do hope that one day soon you will be able to find it in your heart to forgive me. I think this attack on your father has served to jolt me from my self-indulgent bubble. And I mean to show both you and my son that I need not be a burden on you. I hope you'll let me start by allowing me to relieve you for a short time in your sickroom duties.”

Unable to hold herself back, Hermione threw her arms around the older lady and hugged her. “You cannot know how relieved I am to hear that you don't despise me, as I thought you must on that day you called in Half-Moon Street. I have no wish to come between you and Jasper. Or Jasper and his sisters.”

“Of course not, my dear,” said the dowager. “And I feel sure my daughters, now that the marriage is a fait accompli, will come around.”

“I hope so,” Hermione said with a shy smile. “I've never had sisters, you know. And I lost my mother when I was but a girl. I would be grateful to know I'd gained both with my marriage to Jasper.”

With one more grateful hug for her mother-in-law, Hermione hurried out of her father's sickroom, and fetched her pelisse and hat to prepare for a turn in the garden.

Since there had been no time last night, Jasper hadn't given her a tour of the back garden of the Mainwaring town house. Like the house in Half-Moon Street, this one also backed up to a mews. But this house was far larger, and the carriage house and stables were twice as big as Hermione's had been.

The garden itself was also larger, with landscaping in the romantic style, which meant that it looked on the surface as if it had been allowed to grow wild, but in actuality had been carefully cultivated to look that way.

But though she appreciated the loveliness of the greenery, she gravitated, as she always did, to the stables for her comfort.

She found, to her surprise, that for a man who did not enjoy the sport of carriage driving, Jasper owned multiple vehicles and many more horses—both coaching and riding.

“My lady,” said one of the grooms, who was busy repairing a bridle just inside the entrance. “How can I help you?”

“I've just come to say hello to Queen Mab and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern,” she said to the young man with a smile. “I know where they are, you needn't let me interrupt your work.”

And with a nod, he let her wander along the row of stalls, crooning and scratching the noses of curious horses until she came to where Rosencrantz and Guildenstern were housed side by side.

“Hello, my beauties,” Hermione said with a grin as the two grays nickered in greeting to her. Standing before the wall that divided the two stalls, where she could pat and scratch each horse at the same time, she laughed when they shook their heads and snuffled against her hand in search of treats.

“I'm afraid I wasn't able to bring apples this time,” she told them mournfully. “But I assure you that I shall bring them next time. I promise.”

As was his habit, when she tried to scratch Rosencrantz on the top of his snout just below his eyes, he shook his head in annoyance. “All right, all right,” she told him with a frown. “I won't do that. I'm sorry.”

For a few minutes, she talked to them in nonsense words and crooned and had a lovely time of it. What was it about animals that could so help one regain a sense of balance, a sense that there was hope in the world? Perhaps it was because animals were so helpless when it came to taking care of themselves.

Oh, she had little doubt that if Rosencrantz and Guildenstern were set loose on Dartmoor they'd soon enough learn to get along well enough. But even out there, where they were free to feed themselves, there were still those tasks that were beyond them. Like removing a stone from an injured hoof, or brushing out their coats with a curry comb.

How much darker her life would have been if she'd never discovered just how much she could rely on these marvelous creatures.

Even Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in particular, who had been the cause of one man's murder and another's near murder.

What on earth about these horses inspired such violence?

“All right, pretty boy,” she told Guildenstern with one last pat on the nose. “I must be off before Lord Mainwaring comes home and finds I've left the house.”

But before she could turn around, she felt a hard object connect with the back of her head, and she desperately struggled to remain upright while the reality was that her body was sliding slowly to the ground.

And her last thought was that she wished she could have seen his face.

 

Nineteen

“What do you mean you don't know where she is?” Jasper demanded once he'd returned home.

Knowing now just how determined someone was to kill or injure anyone with anything to do with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, he had walked into the house wanting nothing more than to set eyes on Hermione. Just to reassure himself that she was alive and well.

But when he went to his father-in-law's room, she was not there. Nor was she in her bedchamber. Or any of the other places where she might seek a few moments of solitude. And a quick check with his mother and sisters revealed that they'd not seen her for at least a couple of hours.

“When last we spoke,” his mother told him with a frown, “I urged her to take a turn in the garden. She'd spent nearly all day in that stuffy room with her father. And so to ease her mind, I sat with him for a little while, then left when the nurse you hired came to take over. I thought she'd been back for a long while now.”

“And you didn't think to check to see if she'd come back?” Jasper asked, clutching his hair in frustration.

“She was only going into the garden, Mainwaring,” his mother said tartly, “not to Paris. I thought she'd take a turn through the flowers, then come inside and maybe rest for a little while.”

“Think,” Jasper told himself. “Think.”

The garden. She'd enjoyed the garden at Half-Moon Street. But when he'd gone in search of her there she was often to be found instead …

“The stables,” he said aloud. And calling for the Bow Street runner who had been watching the front of the house, he hurried through the French doors to the terrace leading into the back garden, and toward the lane that ran behind the house separating the garden from the mews.

“My lord,” said Jenkins, his head groom, when Jasper stepped inside the stables calling out for Hermione. “I was just about to come for you. Someone's stolen her ladyship's coaching pair.”

“Show me,” Jasper demanded, following the big man into the heart of the stables to the stalls where Rosencrantz and Guildenstern had been housed.

Holding up a lantern, the groom showed him the empty stalls, but there was no sign of Hermione.

“Ask your men if Lady Mainwaring has been here this afternoon.”

When Jenkins made as if to respond, Jasper cut him off. “Just go ask them.”

He scanned the area himself, and began to open the stalls of the horses who still remained. When he got to Hermione's mount, Queen Mab, he opened the gate of the stall to see a dark form on the ground at the edge of the stall.

Moving closer, he saw that it was Hermione.

“Jenkins!” He called for the groom, who came hurrying and quickly led Queen Mab from the stall while Jasper stepped inside and lifted Hermione into his arms.