The Gamble (25 page)

“It would afford me great pleasure to stick a knife into the person who has been trying to kill you, Georgie,” she had said ruthlessly. “Never fear that I will fail you.”

Catherine had come a long way from the little mouse that I had met upon my first arrival at Mansfield House. It is amazing the transformations that love can work.

Our original plan was for Catherine to keep me within her range of vision while concealing herself from the view of anyone else. This way, if one of our four suspects tried to cut me out of the crowd, she would be able to see what was happening and insinuate herself into a position to hear what was going on.

Our idea was that if an actual attack was made upon me, Catherine would scream for help. Even if I was knocked unconscious (which I devoutly hoped would not happen, considering the pain my poor head had suffered during my last two mishaps), Catherine would still be free to summon aid. There might be hidden areas in the gardens of Thames House, but people would still be close by.

I thought that this was an extremely sensible plan and one that had every chance of success. The fact that it went awry was most certainly not due to any lack of preparation on my part.

* * *

The first part of the afternoon went by quite smoothly. Catherine and I managed to slough off Aunt Agatha by commandeering Lord Henry Sloan to be our escort, and with him we toured every area of the extensive gardens, in particular reconnoitering the garden buildings. Lord Henry kept wanting to stop and talk to people, but we ruthlessly dragged him along in our wake. I wanted to make very certain that I was seen to be present.

“Don’t you ladies realize that the purpose of a party such as this is to socialize?” Lord Henry complained at last.

“It is just that we are so interested in examining the beauties of nature,” Catherine said innocently. “The setting here is so magnificent, isn’t it, Georgie? Look at that view of the river!”

“It is perfectly splendid,” I said with perhaps too much enthusiasm.

“Well, I should think by now you have seen every blade of grass the place has to offer,” Lord Henry grumbled good-naturedly.

A silky soft voice said from behind my back, “Lady Winterdale. What a surprise to see you here without your husband. What is wrong with Philip that he has allowed you go out so unprotected?”

I knew that voice, and it sent shivers up and down my spine. I turned my chin slightly so that I could look at Lord Marsh. “My husband will be here shortly,” I lied. “What a surprise to see
you
here, my lord. I should think a garden party such as this would be a tame entertainment for someone of your . . . exotic . . . tastes.”

His strange, pale gray-green eyes glittered at my words.

“I rather doubt that Philip will make it to Thames House this afternoon, my dear,” he said much too gently. “The last I saw of him he was drunk as an emperor in some gaming hell in St. James’s Square.”

He was an utterly hateful man, and I wanted very badly to stab him with my knife.

I said nastily, “Aren’t my cousin and I rather ancient to be the subject of your interest like this, my lord?”

The look in his eyes now said quite clearly that he would like to stab me fully as much as I would like to stab him.

He said in an icy voice, “If I were you, I shouldn’t frequent such unprotected places without the escort of your husband.”

At this point, Lord Henry said huffily, “I say, Marsh, perhaps you may not have noticed, but
I
am here to give my protection to Lady Winterdale.”

Lord Marsh looked at him. Then he looked away. Nothing could have been more insulting.

“Lady Winterdale.” Marsh bowed to me. “Lady Catherine.” A bow to Catherine. And he walked away.

Lord Henry was both shaken and infuriated. Catherine and I spent a good ten minutes calming him down. I thought that Lord Marsh was probably right about Lord Henry’s qualifications as a bodyguard, but I certainly wasn’t going to say that to my ruffled former beau. He was a very amiable, very amusing young man, but there was no weight to him. His world had been too pleasant, too easy. In all his life, he had scarcely ever had to make a decision. I rather thought that that was why he had never offered for me. A marriage proposal would have required him to make up his mind about something, would have required him to think about his future. Lord Henry did not want to be bothered to do that, not when his present circumstances were so easy and enjoyable.

The appearance of Lord Marsh had assured me of one thing, however. My scheme was successful in one way: every one of my suspects was present at Thames House this afternoon.

Now it was my job to see that one of them came forward to try to kill me.

CHAPTER
twenty-four

I
N ORDER TO SET MY PLAN INTO MOTION
,
THE FIRST
thing Catherine and I had to do was to detach ourselves from Lord Henry. This we did by returning to the grass terrace at the back of the house, where a long, linen-covered table laden with a magnificent banquet had been set up. There, Catherine and I were easily able to shed Lord Henry as we wandered from group to group, our gauzy white frocks floating around us in the delightful breeze from the river.

People were straying all over the gardens, some were playing lawn tennis, and some were drifting on boats on the river. Catherine and I spent at least half an hour on the terrace, and during that time I saw Mr. Howard, the young man who was in debt to the moneylenders; Sir Henry Farringdon, the young man who was afraid I’d snitch to his rich wife about his mistress; and chubby Mr. George Asherton, who had poured the most money of all into Papa’s bottomless coffers. The last of Papa’s victims to arrive on the terrace was the Earl of Marsh, who stood by himself next to the champagne table, drinking glass after glass of the sparkling wine.

Splendid
, I thought, resolutely ignoring the sickly, nervous flutter that had started in my stomach.

Catherine and I went into the house to the ladies’ withdrawing room and I told her about the last-minute change in my plan.

“I think it would be best if I wandered alone out to one of the little garden buildings,” I said, as we sat huddled on two chairs in the corner of the large room that had been put aside for the ladies’ use. “If you will go before me, and conceal yourself somewhere in the surrounding shrubbery, then you will be ready to leap to my rescue when I need you.”

Catherine was evidently having second thoughts about the whole scheme, because she said, “Do you know, Georgie, I wonder if this is a good idea after all. There are so many things that could go wrong.”

I had been thinking the same thing myself, but now that someone else had questioned my judgment, I felt called upon to defend myself.

“What could possibly go wrong?” I demanded. “No one is going to kill me in the garden building, for heaven’s sake! There is too great a possibility that someone might have seen him follow me in.”

Catherine chewed on her lip in a way I had not seem her do in weeks. “But suppose he is willing to take that chance? Suppose he shoots you or something before I am able to rescue you? I think we ought to wait, Georgie. Philip will uncover the identity of this evil man. Philip is very competent.”

I didn’t doubt Philip’s competence. It was other things that worried me about Philip.

I said stubbornly, “No one is going to shoot me. I want to go ahead with the scheme, Catherine. If you don’t want to help me, then I shall just have to do it on my own.”

There was a deeply troubled look in the blue eyes that were so close to mine, but at last she said reluctantly, “All right, Georgie. I said that I would help you, and I will.”

I gave her a relieved smile. “Thank you, Catherine. I knew I could count on you.”

She continued to chew her lip worriedly, and merely nodded.

I pulled my chair a fraction closer to hers. “This is what we will do,” I said in a low voice. “The little temple with the green copper roof is the most isolated of all the garden buildings, so that is the one we will use. I will give you a fifteen-minute start to get out there and get into position, and then I will follow you. Keep a sharp eye out, and as soon as you see one of our targets enter the building after me, come to the door after him, and listen. I will try to make him confess that he is the one who has been trying to kill me, and once he has done that you can show yourself.”

“Georgie,” Catherine said doubtfully, “suppose he has a gun?”

“No one can walk around a garden party for hours with a gun concealed on his person,” I said positively.

She rubbed her forehead as if she had a headache. “I suppose you are right.”

I said jokingly, trying to instill some bravado into the both of us, “You do realize that the most difficult part of this whole enterprise will be for the two of us to disappear by ourselves for more than ten minutes without your mother instituting a major search?”

She managed to smile back, but I could see that her heart wasn’t in it.

In the end, however, she went.

I hadn’t been completely joking about Lady Winterdale, and sure enough, five minutes after Catherine had disappeared she came up to me wanting to know her daughter’s whereabouts.

“She went back into the house, Aunt Agatha,” I said guilelessly. “I think something she ate disagreed with her.”

Aunt Agatha glared direfully. “Really, Georgiana, I should think you would have had the courtesy to accompany her.”

“She didn’t want me, Aunt Agatha. She said she might lie down for a while.”

“If Catherine is not feeling well, then we should leave,” Lady Agatha pronounced.

“Perhaps you ought to go and talk to her yourself,” I suggested.

“I will do that,” she said, peering down her pointy nose at me. “I am seriously displeased by your lack of attention, Georgiana.”

“I am sorry, Aunt Agatha,” I said.

Catherine’s mother sailed off to check on her daughter. As soon as her back was turned, I made my exit from the terrace. I had no idea which of my suspects was present, but I had to assume that the guilty party would be keeping me under watch if he did indeed intend to make an attempt on my life that day.

I set off through the beech woods in the direction of the temple. As I walked briskly along, I told myself that everything would go according to plan, that the would-be murderer would be caught, and that I would get Philip back again. The woods were almost in full leaf this time of year without having that fullness of foliage that blocks one’s view, and from the path I caught tantalizing glimpses of the river with the sun sparkling off its deep green water. On the floor of the woods on either side of me, I saw violets, wood anemones, wood sorrel, and the brilliant blue speedwell that always reminded me of Philip’s eyes.

A particularly striking purple violet caught my attention, and I stopped to look at it more closely when an arm circled me from behind and pulled me up and back against a hard thin masculine body.

I hadn’t heard a single footstep coming behind me.

“Don’t make a sound, Lady Winterdale,” a familiar voice said in my ear. “I have a pistol in my other hand.”

The voice belonged to Charles Howard, the young man who was in the clutches of the moneylenders.

My heart began to race wildly.

“That is impossible,” I managed to say. “You cannot have been walking around this garden party all afternoon with a pistol concealed on your person!”

His laugh was very ugly and I felt the pressure of something small and round thrust against my ribs with bruising pressure. “It is a very small pistol, but at this range, I can assure you that it will be quite effective.”

I looked desperately ahead through the woods. We were too far from the temple for Catherine to see us.

“You are the one who has been trying to kill me,” I said bravely.

Waves of rage flowed from him so that I could literally feel the heat of them. “That is right. You deserve to die, Lady Winterdale. People like you are scum. You have ruined me. I have had to mortgage my estate, and I am in debt to those bloodsucking moneylenders. And it’s all because of you!”

“But
I
have done nothing to you!” I said despairingly. “In fact, I tried to help you. I destroyed all my father’s evidence against you.”

The gun pressed even harder against my ribs. “I don’t believe you, Lady Winterdale. You blackmailed Winterdale into marrying you. What is to say that you won’t start on me next?”

“I did not blackmail Winterdale into marrying me!”

“No?” he said. His voice was shaking with fury. “That is not the story going round the
ton
.”

I tried to think how I might get through to him.

“If you shoot me, you will be putting yourself into danger as a suspect,” I said. “A great number of people saw me leave the terrace, and I must believe that you were seen leaving as well.”

The whole time we were speaking he had kept his arm around me, trapping me against him and keeping me from seeing his face. He said now, “I’ve thought of that. All right, bitch, let’s go.” And he began to push me forward.

“Where are we going?” I asked, hoping desperately that we would be going to the garden temple.

“We’re going out on the river, where we are going to have a little accident,” he replied.

My blood ran cold. It had never occurred to me that my attacker might make use of the river.

I couldn’t swim.

“No!” I said, but even before I could think of struggling, the gun slammed hard into my ribs.

“I wouldn’t, Lady Winterdale,” Charles Howard said viciously. “If you force me to shoot you, I will. I am a ruined man anyway, thanks to you.”

Somewhere in his twisted mind he had confused me with my father, and I couldn’t seem to make him see the difference.

He began to shove me down the path toward the river.

“There must be some way I can make you see that I have no intention of bleeding you for any money,” I said despairingly as I stumbled along in front of him.

“There isn’t,” he said grimly, and I realized that he had reached the state where he was beyond the reach of common sense. The fear and the state of anxiety in which he had been living for so long had had an effect upon his brain and he was incapable of being reasoned with. All he knew was that I was his enemy and as such he must eliminate me.

Not a very hopeful situation for me.

We reached the river’s edge, where a boat was tied up to a tree, and I realized that Howard must have planned this execution very carefully.

He shoved me forward and when I turned to look at him, the sun flashed off the small silver-mounted pistol he was holding in his hand. “Get into the boat,” he said.

It was get into the boat or get shot.

I didn’t have any chance at all with the gun.

I got into the boat.

He followed me in carefully, all the time keeping the pistol trained upon me. Then he pushed off with one oar and we were out on the opaque waters of the Thames.

We were the only boat out on the river now, as all the boatmen employed by the Amberlys had gone into the house to have their tea.

I looked toward the shore, and there was no one there whom I could wave to for help.

Charles Howard put away his pistol. He didn’t need it now. I wasn’t likely to do anything that would upset the balance of the boat.

“What are you going to do?” I asked fearfully.

“We are going to have a boating accident,” he said. “It will horrify all the people at Thames House, I am certain, but you are going to lose something in the water, and as you lean over to try to grab it, the boat will overbalance, sending the two of us into the water. I am able to swim, and I will try my best to rescue you, Lady Winterdale, but alas, I will be unsuccessful. The current underneath is very strong here, and it will pull your body down and thence along the river bottom all the way to the sea.”

I was terrified, but I would not let this insane man see that I was afraid of him.

Howard picked up the two oars and began to pull the boat farther out toward the middle of the river. I sat there helpless. My only hope, I thought, was to grab onto the boat when it was turned over and try to keep afloat until I was rescued.

I didn’t have much faith in this plan, but it was the only one I could think of.

At least Anna is taken care of
, I thought.
At least I won’t be leaving her alone and unprotected in the world
.

Then:
I should have listened to Philip. I should never have tried to solve this problem on my own
.

I shut my eyes for a moment and called his beloved face up before my mind’s eye.

The worst thing about dying, I thought, was that I would never see him again.

When I opened my eyes, I saw that another boat had rounded the turn in the river and was coming toward us.

It was as if my dreams had conjured him up, for there in the prow, directly facing us, was Philip. I opened my mouth to call out to him, but Philip’s voice cut me off coming clearly across the stretch of water that separated us. “Hi there, Howard. Have you really managed to get her out here alone? Good going, man!”

I sat frozen. Then, after the beat of a second, I managed to choke, “Oh God, here is Winterdale. Now what am I to do?”

I saw Howard smile grimly. In his disordered mind, he clearly thought that Philip was going to help him kill me.

Philip’s boat, rowed by a professional boatman, came on, and Howard didn’t do anything. I waited, scarcely breathing, and when finally Philip’s boat was within a few feet of us, Howard called out to him. “I am glad to see you, my lord. I have put us into a position to be rid of our nemesis.”

Philip did not look at me. The wind from the water was blowing his black hair over his forehead and his eyes were bluer than the intensely blue sky as they looked unwaveringly into the slightly mad eyes of Charles Howard.

“Look at the bank, Howard,” he said mildly. “There are a number of people watching us. Do you really think it is wise to attempt anything here?”

Both Charles Howard and I looked involuntarily toward the shore. During the time that it had taken for Philip to reach us, a group of people had indeed gathered there. I could see the sun reflecting off of Catherine’s spectacles. When I had not arrived at the temple, she must have run to summon help.

While we were staring at the newly gathered spectators, Philip’s boat had pulled even closer to ours. He still had not looked at me. All of his formidable attention was focused on Howard.

“Do you think it possible to make it look like an accident?” he asked Howard.

Howard smiled. “That was precisely my thought.”

“What about my boatman?”

“You can buy him off, my lord. You have the money. And you will owe me, too, I think, for helping you to get rid of an unwanted wife.”