Mary Blayney - [Pennistan 03] (37 page)

“Then tell me the truth about who you were talking to in Penn Square yesterday.”

Wilson’s smile disappeared. He looked like a trapped animal. Meryon waited, prepared for the worst.

“I don’t want to lose my job, or leave Magda. Lord
Rexton’s been showing me the globes and giving me books to read. Please, sir, Your Grace.”

“Explain what you did to endanger your position here.” Meryon knew he sounded like an unsympathetic magistrate, but Wilson’s first words were not encouraging.

“I said no, sir, Your Grace. I said no both times.”

“Explain. I offer no promises until I hear the truth.”

The boy seemed to shrink by inches. Wilson stared at something on the desk for almost a minute, took a deep breath, and began. “The day after I came to work, a man stopped me when I was walking back from my mother’s. He asked me if I wanted to earn five pounds, maybe more. I was that suspicious, sir, Your Grace. There weren’t be nothing honest that anybody would pay you five pounds for. But I said as how maybe and what did he want me to do.”

The boy took a deep breath. “He said that all I had to do was loosen the wheel on the carriage.”

“Loosen the wheel.” The duke repeated. So it had not been an accident.

“Yes, sir, Your Grace, but I said no. As how someone might be hurt. He said that was the idea and that if someone in the carriage was to be hurt bad he would pay me ten guineas and if someone died, man or woman, he would give me one hundred.”

“Man or woman. He said man or woman.”
My God, Elena was in danger too
. The boy might not be dishonest but he was viciously money-hungry. Meryon’s fury must have shown.

“I said no! I said no!” Wilson words came out loud
and panicked. “Don’t look like that. Please. You can beat me if it will make you feel better, but I told the man no and ran away as fast as I could. Ran and ran and ran back here.”

“I will not hit you. I would never hit you.” There are worse things he could do, but he kept that to himself. Meryon relaxed his fist. “Go on.”

“I didn’t tell anyone ‘cause I was afraid I would be let go and then my mum would kill me.”

Meryon’s anger faded to a dull glow. He did not think Wilson was lying about his mother.

“Then when the carriage wheel did come off I knew the man had found someone else to do the job.”

That was easy enough to figure out. “The groom who had to stay behind when you all went for cake.”

“Yes, at least I think so. He’s gone now. Walked off without notice not three days after that happened.”

“But you still said nothing.” The question was implicit in the statement.

“No. ‘Cause of Magda.”

“Go on,” Meryon urged, not quite understanding the connection.

“She needed me. To walk her and take care of her, especially after she was hurt. I didn’t want to leave her,” the boy said, the first sign of tears showing.

“Then yesterday the man came back.”

“Yes, sir, Your Grace. He told me that I would do what he said or he would kill Magda for sure this time.”

“So the man had a different plan. Tell me what it was.” He would kill the bastard for endangering Elena, making the boy’s life a misery, and threatening Rowena’s dog.

“I don’t know, sir, Your Grace. I ran before he could tell me. Honest. I didn’t want to hear.”

“I am very disappointed that it never occurred to you to tell someone.”

“I thought about asking his lordship’s tutor, but I was afraid he wouldn’t let me sit in on the lessons if he knew. I couldn’t’ve held out much longer, sir, Your Grace. My gut is in a knot and I can’t sleep without nightmares about Magda.” Wilson rubbed his stomach as if it was still aching. “For sure, I couldn’t ‘a kept quiet much longer,” he said again.

“I assume you have never seen the man before or since.”

“Oh, but I did, Your Grace. At one of the parties, the big one at the palace. He was coming out with an old man, a real important, real old man who had a carriage even fancier than ours.”

Rogers. Bendas had put Rogers up to this.

“There’s something else you have to tell me.” When the boy looked at him with something like amazed fear, Meryon just smiled.

“Yes, sir, Your Grace. I was thinking, after the men attacked us in the mews, that maybe the firecracker weren’t an accident either.”

The idea had never occurred to him. Meryon prayed it was a virtue that the boy could think like a criminal. “Good thinking, Wilson. You might be right.”

Wilson stood straight again, as if expecting to hear he would be transported to Australia the next day.

“You made an excellent report, Wilson. If a little late
to be particularly useful. If this happens again”—the boy looked stunned at the idea that this might be a regular occurrence—”tell someone immediately. Now, back to the stables and catch up on your work.”

The boy stood in place, still waiting.

“That’s all,” Meryon said impatiently.

“Can I still take care of Magda?”

“Yes. Nothing changes, Wilson, except for the tonguelashing you will have from the head groom if you are any later seeing to your duties.”

“Yes, sir, Your Grace,” the boy called as he raced from the room. Meryon could have sworn he heard a “Whoo-hoo!” cheer as the door closed.

The duke sat down, stunned at the boy’s revelations. Elena had been a target as well. Or at the least, which was still appalling, Bendas would not have cared if she died too.

He walked over to the window and stared out into the back garden. A servant or two hurried across the open space, probably using it as a shortcut from one part of the house to another. The early flowers were in bloom and one of the gardeners was pruning and trimming. Meryon tried to let the everyday activities calm him.

Meryon knew Bendas was mad but he’d always thought Rogers was there to keep his insane ideas in check, not to abet them. He had to take action. To protect Elena and his own household.

Acting the gentleman was the last thing he wanted to do, but he would wait for an hour and if Lord William did not come he would take matters into his own hands,
beginning with a visit to Elena, talking with Tinotti if she would not receive him, and then the Bendas trustees.

Meryon sat down, distracting himself with the realization that Elena could be reading his note at this very minute.

I
N THE
V
ERANO HOUSEHOLD
, breakfast was always served late the morning after an evening performance. Usually they were all voraciously hungry and in the best of spirits, congratulating each other on the high points. After they had eaten they would talk about the weaknesses and plan further practice, rehearsals, or teaching as needed.

Elena ate what was put in front of her and listened as Mia rattled on about how successful the evening had been. But for Elena the day did not really begin until the butler handed her a letter that had arrived a few hours before.

The moment the butler gave it to her, she excused herself from the breakfast table and went up to her room, her head so filled with speculation that she walked by the door to her boudoir.

The maid had already tidied the room and Elena could hear her in the bedchamber. Closing the door, Elena then went to her desk, broke the seal, and spread the paper out before her.

She read it through four times. The salutation brought tears to her eyes, so she could not make out every word and had to read it again.

The third time she read the note for turn of phrase, the meaning behind each sentence. The salutation told her Lynford Pennistan was at once a gentleman and a lover. Both and neither.

The kiss in the park was the first time Meryon had felt that yearning? He had not known it was the reason for their quiet conversation in the dark? He had not wanted it ever since their second meeting? Or had he been so caught up in his fear of exposure that he had not even noticed?

No man existed who knew what a treasure he had until she was gone. He had said as much about his Rowena. Did he think it was a lesson he had learned with her death? She supposed it was possible.

The last line she had already memorized.

The time we shared together as strangers and at the most intimate is in my heart, a treasure that I can relive when I want to torture myself with what might have been
.

May it torture you always
. She thought it and wished she meant it.

Elena did not know whether to laugh or cry. So she settled for a tear-filled smile. He had signed it as Lynford Pennistan. Not the duke. But they were one and the same.

This letter was Meryon at his most honest, both charming and incredibly frustrating. And he could still not say the word
love
. It would cost him.

She could never give herself to a man who could not
accept that, for her, love was at once the greatest gift and the greatest responsibility.

That was one of the things her godmother had not had to teach her in her urgings to know herself.

Elena had known that from the moment she had decided not to sing the song her father chose and to sing one that she liked better. She knew it was a test of his love, which he had failed.

The consequences had astounded her, but she could have made no other choice. Even at fourteen she had become a woman who would not compromise on the important things, and at fourteen what she would sing was as important to her as her father’s votes in Parliament were to him. Now it was love that could not be compromised.

“Is it an invitation, signora? Will I need to prepare another ensemble for you?”

Elena did not turn around for fear that Tina would see tears on her cheeks.

“No. It’s a personal letter, Tina, one that needs no response.” She tucked it into the drawer.

When Elena turned to her maid she wore a smile with no tears behind it. “Now please, tell me that Mia understands that I must go by myself to this lesson. Signor Ponto will see her when he can fit it into his schedule.”

“Lord William is coming later and I think Mia will be quite content to practice her English with him.”

It was not the first time Elena wondered what “practicing English” was a code for, but she was sure it was too late to try to find out.

———

W
HEN
L
ORD
W
ILLIAM
came into the duke’s study, he still wore his hat and greatcoat. His eyes were blazing. “You have done it. You have done it and I should call you out this minute.” He slapped the desk with his gloves and Meryon could see that the viscount was seriously considering an insult.

“Good morning, Lord William.” One of them would have to stay calm or this would end up even more of a disaster.

“It is not a good morning.” He all but spat the words out.

Meryon waited, hoping that if Lord William was able to rage on he would eventually gain some control. If not, there was always the gun in his desk drawer.

“I helped you. I counted you a friend, God help me!”

“Stop being theatrical, my lord.”

William stalked over to the door, threw his coat and gloves on a chair, and came back. Still seething but quiet.

“If I’m not mistaken,” Meryon began in as civil a voice as he could manage, “I’m the one who sent for you.”

“You sent me a summons?” William’s confusion lasted a second. “Oh, I arrived home just after dark last night and have not looked at my correspondence. Mia was expecting me this morning and I thought it would keep.” Having explained that to his own satisfaction if not Meryon’s, Lord William went on. “Tell me, Your Grace, does your message have anything to do with why you are no longer seeing Elena Verano?”

“No, nothing at all,” Meryon said, taken aback. “It was her decision, Lord William, and it is private.” He leaned forward a little and waited until he had Lord
William’s complete attention. “Private means it is between the two of us.”