The Belligerent Miss Boynton AND The Lurid Lady Lockport (Two Companion Full-Length Regency Novels) (57 page)

"No touch of spunk, our Kevin," Bo remarked, licking honey from his fingertips.

"Oh, come now, Kevin," Jared said bracingly. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't you the man who has had more damsels tossing hankies in his direction than any other ten men in England? Surely you've some small insight as to the depth of your power to lure the gentler sex. Gilly's not indifferent to you, I'm certain of that. All that remains is to make her aware of her feelings. And the best way to do that is to make her believe your interests may lie elsewhere."

"You want me to make her
jealous?"

"Splendid! A ruse! An intrigue! Jolly good sport, heh?" piped Bo, earning him killing glances from the other men.

Kevin rose and walked to the window. Looking out over the East Park, he said quietly, "You mean Glynis O'Keefe, of course."

"Egad! Never say he's to suck up to that straw damsel." Bo grimaced painfully. "Don't like her. Don't like her above half. O'Keefe too. Cod. Man's a complete cod." When Bo's indignation finally caused him to choke on a bit of the peach he had been eating, Jared slapped him on the back and told Kevin to pay the man no nevermind.

But Kevin's brow was puckered in concentration. "You don't like them, Bo? I can't say they are of the first water, but are they really that repugnant to you?"

Bo, his face still beet red from his exertion, could only nod vehemently while Jared laughed and asked him if he was afraid of mice and butterflies as well.

Still Kevin refused to join in the joke and only reminded Jared, "Remember that it was Bo who warned us against your conniving cousin Freddie, and even Blanche. We laughed then. As it turned out we were the fools in that one. Maybe our friend Bo here has some powers we're ignorant of but would do well to heed. No," he ended quite seriously, "I'll not dismiss Bo's intuition quite so nonchalantly this time."

"But you'll flirt with the woman?" pressed Jared. "Lord knows Gilly won't swallow the bait if you start making calf's eyes at Miss Roseberry, who is the only other eligible female within miles. I've given this some thought, Kevin, and it's just what Amanda would advise Gilly to do if she were in your situation. I'm sure of fit."

Although it went against the grain, Kevin agreed to the plan. Heaven only knew it would be easy enough to get the O'Keefe chit to play along. Wasn't Glynis already so obviously casting out lures in his direction? And with the pair of them constantly underfoot anyway, or so it appeared to Kevin, there would be no end to his opportunities to make Gilly jealous enough to invite him back into her bed. Once he was there, he told himself, a positively devilish smile twisting his handsome face, the rest would be as simple as snatching sweets from an infant.

Noting their host's withdrawal into himself, Bo decided to bring him back to reality. "Noise last night, Kevin. Frightened poor Anne no end."

"What? Oh. Oh, yes, the noise," Kevin said, coming out of his beatific dream. "For the past few weeks we've been disturbed more than once by such noises. Miss Roseberry suggested we search the family tree for a likely ghost. You know, things that go bump in the night. I've occasionally set Lyle and Fitch to patrolling the corridors at night, but so far they've succeeded only in ferreting out Olive Zook filching fruit tarts in the pantry and frightening the poor simple soul half out of her head. I think the noise is just this old pile settling itself down for the night. But I do apologize if our ghost has disturbed your slumbers."

Now Jared's eyebrows went up. "Could you have thieves about?"

Kevin exploded with laughter. "Whatever for, my dear man?"

"Rich now, Kevin. Like Golden Ball."

"Bo, I hesitate to tell you that you are mistaken, as I've just gotten done defending your intelligence to Jared here, but unless manure has replaced gold as currency since I left the City, may I remind you that until the so called fortune is found I am land rich but cash poor.
Very
cash poor.
Extremely
cash poor. Poor as a church mouse, as a matter of fact. Maybe poorer."

That was true enough, but the word fortune set off an idea in Jared's head. Someone else could be interested in locating Kevin's so-called fortune. Someone greedy enough to risk conducting a private search for it at night. He mentioned his idea to Kevin.

"But who?" Kevin asked, beginning to pace up and down the worn carpet. "Only a few of us are even aware the fortune exists. If it really does. I don't put it past old Sylvester to have made the whole thing up, just to bedevil me."

"O'Keefe's!" Bo ventured boldly. Then more softly, almost apologetically, he said, "Gilly?"

"Gilly?"
Both men turned on Bo, one with interest and the other in fury. But at Bo's solemn nod, both men were forced to agree with this deduction. Gilly could have reasons to want to find the fortune. Especially if, as Amanda suggested, it held proof of her mother's marriage.

All thoughts of a morning ride were abandoned as Bo's words made Kevin's suggestion they all adjourn to the Long Library and the decanter of wine they knew they would find there most appealing.

Whether it was in order to change the subject or because he felt it was time and enough he let his friends in on what was going on at The Hall, Kevin was soon telling them about the smuggling going on in the area.

"How comes it you've been able to glean so much information in the short time you've been here?" Jared asked shrewdly.

Kevin smiled and said, "Have you ever noticed my valet, Willstone?"

"Willstone? Can't say as I have," Jared replied. "What about you, Bo?"

"No. Haven't noticed. Should I?"

"Exactly, my friends." Kevin grinned. "Willstone is a real treasure, one of those rare individuals who is so completely nondescript that he makes absolutely no impression. It's impossible, even after meeting him several times, to remember anything about him. This has made him very useful, as he can visit the village tavern and glean information without raising any suspicion. Then, of course," he ended softly, "there's Gilly."

"Your wife? What has she to do with it?" Jared asked, clearly confused.

"Smuggling's not for the ladies," Bo pointed out. "Good works, that's the ticket."

"Not for my Gilly," Kevin corrected, not without a bit of pride. "She rides the boats, no less. Or at least she did, until I found her out and put a stop to it."

Jared chuckled, then sobered. "Heaven help us, Kevin, don't let Amanda get wind of this. She'll be dead set on coming along for the next adventure. Now what are you doing?"

Kevin, having already searched Sylvester's collection of maps of the area, was in the act of spreading out a detailed map of the coastline near The Hall. The three men leaned over the table as Kevin pointed out the most likely spots for boats to land along the shore. "Here...here...and here, gentlemen. I've already been to these areas and seen evidence of boats putting in on the small spits of beach. The surrounding hills, all on my property, are cut through with trails leading inland."

"That isn't good," Bo said, shaking his head. "Makes you look a part of it. Don't it, Jared?"

"Oh, but there's more, Bo. Sylvester's charts and journals quite clearly, and in great detail, mark entire honeycombs of caves along the cliffs in these same three areas. They were used long ago for food storage, places of refuge, and even for religious ceremonies. Since some were used by our ancestors, to prepare for death by closing themselves for a time in the dark chambers and contemplating, says Sylvester, 'the state of future being,' I'm surprised local superstition doesn't keep the villagers away. But obviously their need for money outweighs their fears."

"This is all very edifying, m'dear," Jared interrupted, "but unless you mean to turn your own people over to the revenue officers, I fail to see your interest in the subject. Or are you planning to join The Gentlemen in order to gain a bit of the ready for yourself?"

Kevin re-rolled the map and then checked the door to the main corridor to be certain it was locked. Returning to his friends, he told them quietly, "Neither. I hesitated to bring you into this my friends. But, as long as you're here anyway, how does a bit of spy-catching appeal to you?"

"Oh, jolly good!" Bo exclaimed, always eager for a bit of action, and earning himself a tolerant smile from the other men.

Jared poured himself another glass of wine and sat back in his chair, facing Kevin. "Is this on your own initiative—a hunch from something Willstone overheard along the way? Or have you orders from London?"

"The latter of course. Just before I set out on my journey here, I was called to the Admiralty. You remember Peters? He served with me at Trafalgar. He's based in London now, and it was he who told me the ministry is sure information is being leaked to someone who crosses to France from these very beaches. While they seek to plug the leak from their end, Peters, thinking I might be bored in the country, suggested I fill my time doing a bit of digging on my own. It's all strictly unofficial, you understand."

While Bo entertained himself with dreams of derring-do, Jared considered Peters' reasoning. The plan was brilliant. Kevin was the ideal man for such an assignment. After all, who would suspect a fashionable London dandy like Kevin Rawlings of harboring any thoughts in his brainbox more weighty than the most flattering way of arranging his golden locks? But Peters, who had served with Kevin, knew differently. Jared knew differently.

Just as the friends were done agreeing to assist in the search for the spy who could quite possibly be making use of the local smugglers as a means of transport between Sussex and Calais, there came a loud rattling of the door latch followed by a fierce knocking at the door.

"Let me in, let me in at once!" The shrill screeching of a near-hysterical female voice attacked them through the closed door. "I must find her, you hear, I must!"

Kevin slapped a hand to his forehead. "Aunt Sylvia. Drat the woman—what is she nattering on about this time?"

Getting up from his chair and crossing to the locked door, Jared said with a ghost of a laugh that it sounded like Kevin's aunt had misplaced her doll Elsie once again.

"Among other things, like her the majority of her wits," Kevin groaned, wondering yet again what terrible sin he had committed in his misspent youth to have been punished with so many varied and seemingly endless burdens.

"Oh, come now, sir," Jared scolded good-naturedly. "I seem to recall Lady Varsey's sister, and the daughter of a duke no less, went everywhere with her pet monkey on her neck."

"Least Elsie don't smell bad," Bo added helpfully, then exclaimed, "I have it! Earl hid the fortune in Elsie! Sure of it. Deuced clever of the man, what?"

Jared stopped dead in his tracks at this and turned to look at Kevin. "Is it possible? It could be possible, couldn't it?"

Kevin's eyes narrowed and he scanned the jumbled contents of the room, gritting out, "Where is she?"

As the pounding on the door grew in intensity, the three men ransacked the room until Elsie was discovered behind the doors of a Sheraton wine cabinet.

Holding the grinning, wide-eyed doll at arm's length, Kevin eyed it warily while Bo and Jared walked around and round, poking under Elsie's dimity skirts and tapping at her china limbs to test their solidity.

"Rip her open. Crack her head. Only way you know," ordered the bloodthirsty Mr. Chevington.

"Are you run mad?" Kevin exploded, eying the doll with gentlemanly distaste. "A whacking great rumpus that would cause, you idiot. I can hear it now—Aunt Sylvia running the halls screaming 'Murder! Murder!' whilst we work frantically with glue and a needle, hoping to stave off arrest by restoring the deceased to some semblance of order."

Lord Storm's lips twitched appreciatively as he conjured up a mental image of the scene Kevin described. "Give her, er, give it to me," he suggested, holding out his hands to receive the doll.

"My aunt, my house, my doll!" Kevin protested, feeling certain he'd hate himself for what he was about to do. He certainly knew he already hated himself for what he'd just said. And felt damned foolish into the bargain!

In the end, Elsie was laid face up on a nearby table as Kevin made a thorough search of the doll's body, stopping just short of dismemberment. "Gentlemen," he pronounced solemnly at last, "I can find no evidence of secret compartments, pockets, or the like. The china head is quite hollow, and in case you were concerned," he ended with a smile, "the maiden's virtue remains intact." So saying, he unlocked the door and delivered Elsie into Lady Sylvia's outstretched arms.

"It was only an idea. A hunch. So sorry," Bo apologized as Kevin shut the door on the weeping woman and glared at him balefully down the length of the room. "Could have been," he added defensively.

Kevin continued to stare at his chubby friend for a long moment, and then, letting out his pent-up breath in an exasperating sigh, he said, "I need a drink. All this fortune-hunting nonsense is making us act like Bedlamites."

Jared and Bo agreed, holding out their glasses to their host for refills.

"Could have been," Bo muttered under his breath once more before, wisely, holding his own counsel. Kevin just wasn't any fun anymore. This fortune business was taking all the humor out of him. Even the adventure of a possible spy operating in the area wasn't enough to put the spring back in his friend's step.

While Bo lamented his friend's loss of humor, Jared eyed Kevin closely, noticing yet again a rather haunted look about the man's eyes. Good God, Lord Storm thought suddenly, if that's how I looked when Amanda and I were first married, it's no wonder Kevin took me to task. Ah, love; it has its pitfalls as well as its benefits.

"Well, enough of this, gentlemen. Let's drink to the successful capture of the Lockport spy," Jared suggested at last, adroitly shifting his friends' minds back to their earlier discussion, and the three stayed closeted in the library until luncheon was announced, devising a scheme to apprehend the man.

The Hall was all in darkness, with only a few candles in the corridors and the light from the dying embers in the fireplaces casting weird flickering shadows against the walls.