The Accidental Abduction (34 page)

“Thank you, sir. I shall endeavor to be worthy of your good opinion, and Leannah's.”

Mr. Morehouse nodded. “I know that you will,” he said firmly. “Therefore, we must look to the future. I have no doubt, that my daughter, and others, will have informed you that our family recently suffered a great reversal of fortune.”

Harry glanced at Leannah. She had finally sat down, but her eyes were lowered toward the coffee cup she held in both hands.

“The fault was mine,” Mr. Morehouse went on. “There's no good in denying it. But we were not left entirely with nothing. There is a piece of land that . . .”

There was a crash. Harry jerked his head around. Leannah was on her feet. Coffee ran down the front of her skirt and the cup lay in pieces at her feet. She had not just dropped it, she had dashed it to the floor.

“Leannah!” cried her father. “Good heavens, what's the matter with you? Let me ring for the girl . . .”

“Why was he here, Father?” she demanded.

“Who, Leannah?”‘

“Mr. Valloy, Father. Why was he here?”

L
eannah watched, entirely unmoved, as her father's face turned chalk white. “Who told you Mr. Valloy had been here?”

It was Genny. Genny had signaled from the top of the stairs that she needed to speak with Leannah, and her eyes had been so wide and her face so pale, Leannah knew that something important had happened. Nothing less could have induced her to send Harry in to meet her father on his own.

Genny had drawn her into their old bedroom, and gripped both her hands.

Lea, I think we're in trouble.

“Never mind who told me,” Leannah said sharply. “Is it true?”

“Yes, of course it is.” The air of confused innocence on his face was almost too much to stand. “Leannah, let me ring for the girl. Your skirt . . .”

She slashed her hand through the air to cut him off. “What did Mr. Valloy say to you?”

Father didn't answer her. Instead, he turned to Harry. “Perhaps you should excuse us, Harry?”

“Leannah?” breathed Harry.

Yes, let Harry leave the room. It would be better. She did not want for him to see her like this, or for him to hear her say what she must. She could not stand to watch his love and respect falling away, not just yet.

She nodded her agreement without looking at him. Harry got to his feet and crossed the room. He paused beside her. Just a day ago, he would have kissed her cheek. Now he only took her hand. His fingers felt cold against hers. She lifted her chin and stared straight ahead. She could not look at him. She would not. She had known what would happen if she brought him here, and now it had. She had opened the door and let in their ending.

Harry closed the study door behind him, and behind her.

“Now, no more evasions,” Leannah said to Father. “Why did Mr. Valloy come here? What did he want with you?”

“Leannah, please, don't look at me so. I accepted nothing. I swear upon your mother's grave I did not.”

“He offered you something? What was it? Money? A position? You must tell me!”

His whole frame trembled as he collapsed slowly onto the sofa. It was as if the weight of his years bore him down.

“Close the drapes,” he murmured. “Please close them.”

Impatient, furious, and afraid, Leannah wrenched the drapes back across the windows. The ancient velveteen tore in her grip, leaving the ends flapping loose and ragged from the rings. She ignored this fresh bit of ruin as she whirled around.

“Now, tell me!”

Father coughed. He coughed again, and when he spoke he spoke to the fire in the hearth.

“Mr. Valloy came, I think, three days ago. I was . . . surprised to see him.” Father tried to lift his coffee cup again, but his hand shook too badly, and he set it down again. Leannah did not move. She must not let herself take pity on him, not now, not ever again.
I should have known this before I ever brought Harry here. This is all my fault. This is what comes of trying to hide from who I really am.

“I had expected him to be angry,” Father said. “I wasn't sure what to say to him, since I knew so little of what had happened between you and him, and you and Mr. Rayburn.”

Again, my fault. I wanted to keep you separate from my new life. I didn't want to risk you becoming agitated, or tempted by what was happening.
Leannah hung her head. “Go on.”

“But he wasn't angry in the least. In fact, he was very gentlemanlike. He spoke of his continuing admiration for you, and said he blamed himself for your elopement. He'd been too slow about the business, was how he put it. I began to think that he'd simply come to break with me and show there were no hard feelings.”

“Then what happened?”

“He said he was sure there was still a way the business could be brought to a positive conclusion.” Father's eyes grew bright. “He reached into his wallet, and he laid a note on the table. A banker's draft. It was . . . large. He said it was a first installment. He said he still wanted you, and he said . . . he said . . . it would be on the terms I'd had with . . . oh, heaven help me, Leannah, on the terms of your marriage to Elias.”

Leannah closed her eyes, but only briefly. She couldn't hide from this, or refuse to see.

“He wants the Wakefield estate,” she murmured.

“He said it was about to prove very profitable and that I would have my share of those profits, but any such arrangement was contingent upon his marriage to you.”

“But, why should my marrying him make any difference? You're still Jeremy's guardian. You still have a say in what happens to the property. Who I am married to makes no difference.”
He wants more than the land, he must. There's some larger plan.

“He was unclear . . . no.” He must have seen the look on her face. “I didn't ask for details. I just kept staring at the draft. Leannah, I could do so much with that money. I know just what should be done with it. And the land! If he's right about the road, just think about the profits . . .”

“The road? What road?”

“The Great Devon Road. It's set to pass right by the estate. Think of it! It means traffic and business of all sorts. There'd be new shops, and mills and steam looms, and more money to invest. We wouldn't have to fear a few losses, because there would be plenty. I saw the numbers, moving back and forth, adding up so beautifully. I knew what to do. I knew
exactly
what to do.”

Horror gripped her and Leannah felt it tear her heart as easily as ancient velveteen.

“All the while he talked, the draft just lay there on the desk. I thought of you, and my other children. How you should have the best, only the best. As I thought this, it seemed like that note began to grow. It was going to drape over the whole room, like a wedding veil, or a shroud . . .”

“Stop it!” Leannah cried. “Stop it at once! Just tell me what you promised him!”

Father trembled. His voice, when he spoke again, was nothing but a whisper.

“I promised him nothing, Leannah. I picked up the draft and threw it on the fire.”

*   *   *

Is it true?
Harry stared at the closed door, his brain spinning.
What Nathaniel said? Can it be true after all?

Harry could hear them arguing in the study, but couldn't make out the words. He wanted nothing more than to press his ear to the door like a spying parlor maid. He turned away before that ludicrous idea could take a firm hold.

No. I won't believe it. There's some reasonable, innocent explanation for why Valloy was here.
But the thought had no strength.

Harry walked to the end of the narrow corridor. He should have been angry, but he wasn't. He felt drained, numb. He'd reached the end of the short, dim hallway, and turned to stare again at the closed door. He walked back toward it a half-dozen steps, and stopped, swaying on his feet.

He should go, he knew that much. But he couldn't think where he would go, or how he would get there. He couldn't think of anything except that Leannah had lied.

A shadow fell across him. Harry glanced up the stairs. The boy, Jeremy, was back, leaning over the railing and scowling. They stared at each other for a while. Distantly, Harry expected Miss Morehouse to appear once more to take charge of her brother. Judging from the way Jeremy glanced over his shoulder, he expected the same thing. But his sister did not return. Instead, the boy started down the stairs, stepping over one in particular as he descended. Harry suspected that one creaked in the fashion of an alarm.

Jeremy came to stand in front of him and drew himself up, head back, arms folded.

“You're him?”

“Yes,” admitted Harry. “I'm Harry Rayburn.”

“Jeremy Morehouse.” Jeremy frowned up at him. He was taking Harry's measure. It was popular to assume children were empty vessels waiting to be filled with the thoughts of adults. The people who went around preaching this view had never met the sort of boys Harry had grown up around.

“Come on.” Jeremy jerked his chin toward the back of the house. “I want to talk to you and we'll never get a chance if my sisters catch up with us.”

The boy opened one of the right-hand doors and Harry followed, because he couldn't think what else to do. At least, if he was talking to her brother, he was not standing about stupidly waiting for Leannah, and whatever lie she'd tell him next.

Jeremy led Harry down the back stairs and through the kitchen; much to the consternation of the cook and her girl, and the carter who was sitting at the table enjoying a mug of tea. A small and sooty garden waited on the other side of the kitchen door, complete with the obligatory cucumber frames and small brick shed. Jeremy retreated behind the shed. Clearly, this was a place where the boy discovered he could not be seen from the house.

Once they were both crowded into the shed's weak shadow, Jeremy straightened himself up to look Harry as directly in the eye as he could manage. He was going to be tall when he finished growing. Unlike his sisters, the boy was a genuine “ginger,” with bright red hair and a spray of freckles across his sharp face. It was his wary obstinacy that touched Harry, though. That hadn't come just from facing a stranger suddenly thrust onto his family. It came from never quite knowing who or what to trust.

“I know what Lea's mad about,” Jeremy said. “All right. I admit it. I took it.”

What was this now? Harry felt his brows knit together. Was the boy somehow involved in his family's schemes?

“I'm not sorry,” Jeremy informed him stubbornly. “It's my duty to look out for my sisters.”

“Naturally,” murmured Harry, bemused in spite of himself. “I've only got one question. What did you take?”

That caught Jeremy flat. “You mean they didn't tell you about the ring?”

The world froze. Not one thing possessed the power of movement. Harry's heart did not beat, his lungs did not draw breath.

“No, Jeremy,” he said, and he was stunned by how calm his voice sounded. “No one told me about the ring.”

Jeremy clapped his hand over his mouth. Harry strongly suspected he was uttering a whole string of words with which a young gentleman was supposed to be entirely unacquainted.

“Next time, don't assume the other fellow knows the same as you.” Harry went on. “Let him do the talking and find out what he's really keeping under his hat.”

Jeremy grimaced. “I'm still not sorry,” he muttered.

Harry glanced around the corner of the shed. He couldn't see any sign of movement in the house. Were Leannah and her father still talking in there? Was she looking for him? If she wasn't now, she would be soon. He dropped his gaze to the boy again. It was wrong to be standing here quizzing Leannah's little brother, but he didn't seem to be letting that stop him.

“Will you tell me why you took your sister's wedding ring?”

Jeremy shrugged. “I wanted to find out if it was genuine. The fellow at the pawn shop said it was.”

“You took a ring worth hundreds of pounds to a pawn shop?”

Jeremy shrugged with the affected casualness that was particular to young boys who wanted to look tougher than they felt. “We had to be sure. If the thing was a fake, you might be just stringing Lea along. You might be planning to leave her flat after a week or a month of high living at a hotel we couldn't never afford.”

The ground shifted under Harry's boots. Of course. His family wouldn't be the only ones with doubts. The Morehouses knew all about dishonest dealings, large and small. This boy who had seen so much disaster come from money—and the lack of it—would want to be sure his beloved sister hadn't just thrown herself headlong into a fresh scheme. It all made complete and heartbreaking sense.

But it doesn't answer why Dickenson expected Genny to give the ring to him.

Jeremy was looking at him in confusion. Clearly, he was waiting to be yelled at. Harry shook himself.

“It was still not a smart move for all that,” he said. “The broker might have thought you'd stolen the ring.”
Which you did.
“He could have summoned the police, or might just have knocked you on the head and kept the ring as payment for his trouble.”
Your sister might have been beaten by a callous brute for failing to deliver on a promise.

“Oh.” Jeremy shoved his hands in his pockets. “Hadn't thought of that.”

“Next time you're making off with other people's property, do.”

“Are you going to tell them?” He jerked his chin toward the house.

“I expect at least one of them already knows. But no, I won't say anything, as long as you tell me where the ring is now.”

The fact was, he already knew. He saw Jeremy's hand shifting inside his trouser pocket, like he was fingering something.

It seemed the boy realized he'd been caught, fair and square. He pulled the ring out of his pocket, and handed it over. “Was going to put it behind Genny's dressing table, like it had dropped there, but never got the chance.”