The Lady’s Secret (26 page)

When Georgy stopped crying, her eyes were sore, her head was pounding and the intense outpouring of emotion had left her feeling flat.

She despised herself for her tears and even more for blurting out to Nathan that she loved him. How could she have done such a stupid, humiliating thing? God, his face when she’d said it. He’d actually paled with shock.

She began to move slowly, getting up and crossing the room to wash her tear-stained face in the basin. She tidied her hair in front of the looking-glass then wandered to the window to look down at that street below. Two ladies strolled past, their gentlemen escorts walking side by side behind them. A carriage rumbled over the cobbles. Further down, a child of about ten jogged along the street. He looked at each door in turn, checking the numbers.

He came to a halt outside Nathan’s front door.

She watched as he reached inside his coat and brought out a piece of paper, scrutinising it then looking at the number above the door again. It was when he lifted his face upwards that she recognised him. It was Danny Fowler, a boy who lived with his mother and sisters near the Camelot. Max often sent him on errands.

Having reached the conclusion he had the right door, Danny stepped forward and knocked.

The door was answered in a matter of moments. Goudge she thought, though she could only see the top of his head. The voices were inaudible but she saw Danny proffer the letter before running off again.

The letter was for her. It had to be. Georgy ran from her room and galloped downstairs so fast that Goudge was still in the hall when she landed at the bottom of the stairs, almost tripping over her own feet in her haste. He held the letter in his hand. When he saw her, he dropped the hand to his side, as though to hide it.

“Good afternoon, Miss,” he said.

“I believe you have a letter for me,” she replied and held her hand out. “Give it to me, please.”

Goudge looked uncomfortable. His neck went red.

“You are mistaken, Miss.”

“I think not. I saw the boy who came to the door—I know him. He handed a letter over.”

Goudge flushed. “His lordship left very clear instructions, Miss.”

“Did he?” She felt her cheeks heat with chagrin and temper. “Instructions that I am not to receive my own personal correspondence? I was unaware I was a prisoner here!”

Goudge looked horrified. “No, not at all! He said merely that you are to be kept safe, and that any callers were to be reported first to him.”

“That is a letter, not a caller,” Georgy said sharply.

Goudge stared down at the missive in his hand and looked doubtful. “I think his lordship would be—”

“Mr. Goudge!” she interrupted. “I must see that letter. I have been extremely worried about my brother and this could be the news I have been waiting for! Lord Harland could be away for hours and I would not know if my brother was alive or dead.” She held out her hand. “Now, please give me my letter!”

With some reluctance, Goudge put the letter in her hand.

“Thank you,” she said, then turned away and walked quickly to the drawing room. Once there, she closed the door behind her before breaking the seal and fumbling it open.

She scanned the page, which was written in Lily’s generous looping hand. Harry was home. He and Max had arrived when Lily had been here earlier. Lily would come to fetch her in a hack at four o’ clock, if she wanted to see him.

Harry is well, considering,
the letter read. Georgy frowned. What did that mean? The assurance that followed, that he was anxious to see her, did little to set her mind at rest. They spent so much time bickering, she and Harry, that it was easy to overlook how much she loved him. He was the reason she’d donned her disguise. For all her fighting words about her own birthright, she didn’t much care about being recognised as an earl’s sister—she had wanted to do this for him.

She glanced at the clock. Twenty five minutes to four. Lily would be here shortly.

She realised, suddenly, that the time had come to leave. Nathan had shown her today how very transitory her appeal was for him, and now Harry was back. He needed her. And petty though it was, it would be satisfying to leave before Nathan’s return. The empty house would speak to him more eloquently than she ever could.

She folded the letter away again and went back to her bedchamber to change her clothes and pack her small valise.

By the time she was ready, it only wanted ten minutes till four.

There was a writing desk in the chamber, stocked with ink and paper. She sat down and wrote a few lines, then dusted the wet ink with sand. From her modest store of money, she took several guineas and folded the note around them before sealing it and setting it on the mantelpiece.

By the time she had propped it there the clock was chiming the hour. Georgy crossed to the window to wait. Soon enough, a hack clattered up the quiet street, slowing outside the house. She threw the casement up quickly and leaned out as far as she dared. The carriage door opened and Lily began to descend. Georgy called her name and Lily looked up, frowning when she saw Georgy.

“Wait there,” Georgy instructed. “I’ll be out in a minute.”

Lily nodded and retreated into the interior of the hack.

Mr. Goudge was loitering in the hall as she descended the stairs. He stared at her valise in horror.

“You are leaving, Miss Fellowes?”

“Indeed I am, Mr. Goudge. Now, please let me past. My friend’s carriage is waiting.”

Mr. Goudge frowned anxiously, “I beg you will reconsider,” he said. “His lordship will be very displeased to find you gone. He will be home soon, I am sure, and will be able to escort you to your friend’s house personally.”

She smiled at him. “Pray, open the door.”

He looked troubled. He stared at her until she stepped forward and gently pushed him aside. For a moment, she thought he would not move, but then he stepped back. Taking hold of the door handle, she turned it and opened the door.

“Thank you, Mr. Goudge,” she said. And then she walked out into the cold January day.

Harry was staying at Max’s flat above the Camelot.

Georgy flew through the front door and past a smiling Max to find her brother lying on a battered chaise. His eyes were closed but they opened when she called his name. He began to struggle up, his face rather grey.

“Oh Harry!” she cried, going to his side and pressing him back down.

“It’s good to see you, George.” He found her hand and squeezed it. She squeezed back, searching his face.

“He looks worse than he is,” Max said behind them. “It’s the journey. The poor lad’s been jogged over every pothole between here and South Yorkshire. It’s aggravated his wound. He needs to rest up for a week or two and let himself heal.”

“I’ll be fine tomorrow,” Harry protested.

Georgy and Max exchanged a glance before she returned her gaze to her brother. He was thinner than normal, the flesh spare on his lean frame.

“You should have seen him when I first got him, George,” Max said. “At least his face is pretty again now.”

Harry laughed weakly. “You promised me tea and crumpets when Georgy came,” he complained, turning the subject quite deliberately.

“I hear and obey,” Max said dryly.

“So,” Georgy said, when Max had gone. “Tell me everything.”

“Get me a cushion, then,” Harry replied, “and help me sit up. I can’t talk to you from down here.”

Georgy fetched several cushions and fussed behind him, pretending not to notice his grimace as he shifted his body up into a sitting position.

“Where exactly is your wound?” she asked. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Here.” He gestured at the right side of his lower abdomen. “The physician said I was lucky the knife didn’t pierce anything important.”

“It pains you greatly.”

He shrugged. “It’s better than it was. And I’ll soon be back to my old self, I promise.”

He told her about the weeks of travelling from village to village, until he’d finally found someone who’d known of their mother and set him on the right track to locate her home village, Hutton-in-the-Vale.

“It’s quite a nice little place, actually. Not many souls in it. I went to the inn first and started talking to some of the villagers. After a while someone came in who remembered Mama from years before. I was walking on air—I’d been in scores of little inns just like that one, and at last, someone knew who I was asking about.” He grimaced. “My good mood didn’t last long. I headed over to the church after that and spoke to the curate. He got the register out for me and I started looking for marriages from the 1780s. I got as far as 1785, and then there was nothing till 1788. Two pages had been cut out. Neatly, with a blade, close to the binding. The curate couldn’t believe his eyes.”

It wasn’t precisely unexpected. Even so, Georgy felt the disappointment like a physical blow. The knowledge that their own flesh and blood had done this somehow made it even worse.

“What did the curate say?”

“Something about speaking to the bishop.” Harry laughed again, a cynical bark that she knew covered up an ocean of disappointment and pain. “What else could he say? The pages were gone and they certainly weren’t going to be anywhere in Hutton-in-the-Vale.”

“What did you do then?”

“I went back to the inn. I had this idea that maybe I’d find someone who remembered the marriage ceremony, maybe even a witness. So I bought a lot of men a lot of ale and asked them all about Mama and the fancy gent she’d married. But none of them seemed to remember anything useful. It was twenty-five years ago, after all, and it was probably a small wedding. Mama had no family to speak of.” He paused for a moment. “I realise now that one of those men I was speaking to in the inn must have been waiting for a man coming in who would ask questions about Mama. But at the time, it didn’t occur to me.”

“Oh, Harry.”

“After a while, when it became clear I wasn’t going to get anywhere, I went to the posting inn nearby. By then I was so despondent, I wanted to come home to London and just forget everything. But it was late. I didn’t want to take a room—I’d spent almost all the money I had by then—so I just paid to sleep in the stables. I spent as much of that night as I could in the taproom, deciding it was best to be well-oiled, since I’d not be sleeping in much comfort. And I wanted to drown my sorrows too of course.

“After a while another stranger came in. We spoke and he bought me more ale. We didn’t talk about anything much, but he got out of me who I was. I thought nothing of it, George. I was such a fool! By the time I toddled off to the stables, I was three sheets to the wind and fell straight to sleep. When I woke up, god knows how much later, the same man was standing over me with a knife.”

Harry fell silent for a moment and Georgy didn’t prod him to go on, just waited silently, her fingers resting in his tight grasp.

“We fought,” he said at last. “And—I can’t begin to tell you what it was like. It was desperate and ugly. I realised how much I wanted to live. You go through life and you don’t even think of it being snuffed out so easily. When I thought I was going to die, something came over me. I fought him like a maniac. I didn’t even feel the stab wound at first—I was too busy trying to hurt him. And then Joshua—that was the innkeeper—arrived. He’d heard us and had come out to see what the row was about. He hit my attacker with a rake and the bastard ran off into the night.

“I don’t remember too much after that. I passed out. Apparently the physician came, but I don’t recall. I took quite a bad fever—they thought I was going to die. Joshua, bless him, gave me his best room, and his wife and daughter looked after me. I owe them a great deal.”

“We’ll pay them back,” Georgy said soothingly.

“Max paid for the room. Though I owe them ten times that.” He paused. “When I finally came round, I wrote to Max and he came for me. The journey home took forever. We could barely go ten miles without a stop. Poor Max must have been tearing his hair out.”

“Don’t be absurd.” It was Max himself speaking. He’d come in bearing a tray with tea and a mound of buttered, toasted crumpets. He piled several on a plate and handed them to Harry, who began to devour them as though he’d not seen food in days.

“Now your news, George,” Harry said through a mouthful of crumpet. “Lily says you didn’t manage to find any evidence either.”

“Just a few letters. Let me show you.”

She rose to her feet and went to her valise, pulling out the packet of letters she’d taken from Dunsmore’s house. She drew out the most damning one and passed it to Harry who wiped his hands before he took it from her. When he’d finished reading it, he looked up, his face bleak and angry.

“You noticed the date?” Georgy asked, and he nodded.

Max looked quizzical.

“It was written the day Mama died,” Harry explained. He passed the paper to Max.

“Unfortunately, it proves nothing,” Georgy said. “It’s too vague. It doesn’t name Mama or say what our uncle was sending this Monk to do. Although I can tell you one thing at least.” She sent Harry a grim, satisfied look. “Monk is dead.”

She told him it all then. Well, not quite all. She left out the parts about sharing Nathan’s bed, though she admitted he’d discovered her identity and confessed how he’d helped her. When Harry questioned her about Nathan’s motives, she shrugged.

“Perhaps he was being chivalrous.”

“But this Harland is a friend of Dunsmore, George,” Harry said after a while. “He was spending Christmas at his house. Why would he help you? Are you sure he has nothing to do with the attacks himself?”

“I’m sure. If he was going to turn me over to Dunsmore he’d have done it by now.”

“Unless he was waiting for you to lead him to me.”

“Harry,” she said, flushing. “I’m sure he was helping me.”

He glanced at her serious expression and looked speculative for a moment. Georgy turned away.

“You seem very certain,” he said at last. “I hope you’re right.”

Nathan entered the Bloomsbury house still wearing a foolish grin—until he saw Goudge hovering in the hall. The ever-calm Goudge bore an expression somewhere between apology and dread. And straightaway Nathan knew.

“My lord—” Goudge began.

“Where is Miss Fellowes?”

“Gone, my lord. Two hours ago. I am sorry—she was not to be dissuaded.”

Nathan swore.

“I did, however, dispatch Davy after her immediately, and he’s already sent word by another message boy that he has her location. She went into a flat above the Camelot Theatre in Covent Garden. He’s watching the place now and will follow her if she leaves.”

“Good work.”

The Camelot. Of course. Max Eddington’s theatre. Where Lily Hawkins topped the bill.

“I’ve also been advised that Lord Dunsmore returned to town today,” Goudge added.

Nathan thought quickly. He was keen to call on Dunsmore as soon as possible. Dunsmore needed to understand that if Georgy was so much as touched again, Nathan would take that very personally. His warning would make an open enemy of Dunsmore, but so be it. A known enemy was probably safer than a secret one.

Although he didn’t want to delay his reunion with Georgy, he reluctantly decided it was more important to deal with Dunsmore first. In the meantime, he would send someone to watch the exterior of the Camelot with Davy until he could get there.

He gave Goudge his orders, then rushed upstairs to change out of his filthy riding clothes while a fresh horse was saddled. When he spoke with Dunsmore, he needed to be the unflappable Earl of Harland. By the time he’d finished dressing, while he wasn’t quite as exquisitely turned-out as usual, his linen was snowy-white, his blue coat free of the merest speck of lint and his boots shone like Whitby jet.

Before he went back downstairs, he entered Georgy’s chamber. It looked as though she was still in occupation. A few pots and jars littered the top of the dressing table. The bed covers were a little rumpled and the wardrobe doors stood open, revealing that the gowns he’d bought her had all been left behind. Her battered valise was gone.

At first he thought she’d left no note, but at last he spotted it lying facedown on the mantel shelf as though it had slipped. He picked it up and tore it open it, heart pounding, fingers shaking. Coins fell out onto the floor.

He felt like he’d been gutted. Earlier today she had said she loved him. In his mind, that had meant she would be waiting to fall into his arms when he returned. How stupid of him. He should have realised how anxious she’d be to leave, after what had happened.

He hoped it was true about her brother.

If she fell into danger again, it would be his fault entirely.

Dunsmore received him straightaway. Moments after he’d deposited his card on the butler’s tray, the man was back, murmuring that his lordship was in the library with Viscount Osborne and would his lordship like to come this way?

Nathan hid his surprise at the mention of Osborne’s name and followed the butler down the hall. So Dunsmore and Osborne were speaking, despite Dunsmore’s apparent edict that they should see each other no more.

Dunsmore was standing in front of the fire facing the door when Nathan entered the library. Osborne stood at the window, staring down at the street below. Nathan had the distinct impression he’d interrupted something. Obsorne was looking angry, Dunsmore tense.

“Harland.” Dunsmore spoke coldly, abruptly. “What brings you here?”

Brevity to the point of rudeness.

Nathan smiled, taking a seat without invitation while the other two men remained standing. “I have come to see you about a matter of some delicacy.”

Dunsmore’s mouth tightened. “Is that so?”

“You are not pleased to see me?” Nathan said, adjusting his cuffs.

“Frankly, no.”

“You should be pleased. At least I have come alone. I might have brought a magistrate with me.”

Dunsmore laughed harshly and looked at Osborne. “You see,” he said in an accusing tone. “I told you.”

Osborne stepped towards Nathan and said furiously, “I spoke to you in confidence!”

For a brief moment, Nathan was puzzled, but then he shook his head. “You misunderstand,” he said. “I couldn’t care less what you two get up to together. I am here to talk about a real crime.” He turned his attention back to Dunsmore. “One you have committed against your own flesh and blood.”

Dunsmore’s expression shifted. The open hostility ebbed, wary confusion taking its place.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Harland. My own flesh and blood? My mother, you mean? She is my only family.”

“And the last time he did anything to defy that lady, he was still in petticoats,” Osborne added acidly.

Dunsmore coloured. “Shut up, Adam.”

“I am speaking of your cousins,” Nathan interrupted, impatient with their bickering. “The children of your father’s older brother, Harry and Georgiana. Please do not waste my time by pretending you do not know about them. I have other matters to attend to this evening and I am not minded to waste overmuch time with you, Dunsmore.”

Dunsmore frowned more deeply. “My cousins? I have never even met them. They are illegitimate.”

Nathan bit back his anger at the denial. Instead, he raised an eyebrow in patent disbelief. “Never met them? One of them has just spent a week at Dunsmore Manor—but then you know that already, don’t you?”

The stupefied expression on Dunsmore’s face rocked Nathan back on his heels slightly. He’d never have imagined Dunsmore would be so good an actor.

“I beg your pardon?” Dunsmore said faintly. “I am not following you, Harland.”

“This is becoming a bore. I am speaking of my valet, as you well know.”

Dunsmore blinked. Osborne attempted to nudge him in the right direction.

“I think what Harland is saying is that this cousin Harry of yours was acting as his valet over Christmas.”

“Not quite,” Nathan said. “My valet was his sister, Georgiana.”

Dunsmore looked utterly bewildered but after a moment of stunned silence, Osborne let out a shout of laughter.

“Of course!” he said, eyes flashing angrily. “I should have realised. I thought your sudden interest in chaps seemed rather odd.”

“You are saying that my cousin, my
female
cousin, was masquerading as your personal servant in my home, with your knowledge?” Dunsmore said slowly and carefully.

“I did not know her identity, or even that she was a female, when she entered my employ,” Nathan replied. “But it is scarcely the point. She merely entered your house on false pretences.
You
tried to kill her.”

Dunsmore’s mouth fell open. He stared as though Nathan had grown an extra head.

“Now look here, Harland!” Osborne interrupted. “You are making serious allegations without any foundation from what I can make out!”

Nathan ignored him, fixing his gaze upon the appalled Dunsmore. “You tried to kill her because she is
not
illegitimate, didn’t you? Her parents were married, and that makes her brother the true Earl of Dunsmore.”

Dunsmore gaped. It was Osborne who found his voice first.

“What are you talking about? Peter has held the title for a decade!”

“Eight years,” Dunsmore corrected, without seeming to realise he was talking. He walked to the armchair behind the desk and sat down. After a pause he spoke again. “There was a cousin who came to see mother, making all sorts of outrageous claims—lies, mother said. That’s all I know.”

“Is that what she told you?” Nathan asked. “I have seen a letter that makes it plain she knew all about your cousin’s claim to the title before your father died—so she couldn’t have been
too
shocked to hear about it a year or two ago.”

Dunsmore looked at him sharply. “You have seen a private letter between my parents?”

Nathan inclined his head and said unapologetically, “From your father to your mother.”

Dunsmore’s complexion darkened. “Did you or your
valet
steal this private correspondence from my house?”

Nathan returned his glance coolly. “In the scheme of criminal acts, I believe it ranks rather lower than attempted murder.”

“
I
have not attempted to murder anyone, least of all some trollop who dresses up as men and enters others’ homes under false pretences!” Dunsmore shouted.

Nathan rose from his chair and strode over to the desk behind which Dunsmore sat. The other man stood as Nathan approached, his stance warily defensive.

“Do not
ever
refer to her in those terms,” Nathan said in a quiet, lethal voice. “Or use any other pejorative word about her. I will not have her spoken of thus by anyone, least of all you.”

“Very well,” Dunsmore said stiffly. “But mark this, Harland—I have not tried to harm her or her brother. And I will not have you saying otherwise.”

“I will say nothing to anyone,” Nathan said, “provided all attempts to harm either Georgiana or her brother cease.”

“There is nothing to cease!” Dunsmore returned hotly.

Nathan’s nostrils flared. “You are trying my patience severely.”

Osborne cleared his throat. “Let us consider matters rationally. Have you actually seen this letter you referred to, Harland? The one between Peter’s parents?”

Nathan nodded.

“And what did it say?”

“It was written by Dunsmore’s sire at an interesting time—two days after the death of his cousin Benjamin and on the actual day that Georgiana’s mother died. She was attacked outside the theatre she worked in, stabbed and left for dead.” Nathan turned his attention from Osborne’s grim countenance to a shaken looking Dunsmore. “The letter refers to an unnamed woman who was causing your father trouble, threatening his hopes for the future. He told your mother he had sent someone called Monk after the woman, to take care of matters. He assured your mother that all would be well. And of course, it was. Georgiana Knight’s mother was killed that day and her secret with her—for a time, anyway.”

Dunsmore visibly paled during this speech. He sank slowly back into his chair, his features frozen in blank horror. “Monk?”

Osborne went to him, frowning. “What is it?”

“Monk is the man father sent after Archie.”

Something flickered in Osborne’s eyes.

“Did this Monk have long, grey hair?” Nathan asked, pressing his advantage. “And a scar—” he bisected his right eye with one gloved finger, “—here?”

Dunsmore swallowed. “You have seen him?”

“Yes. He attacked Georgiana outside my own house. He is now dead.”

The expression that flitted over Dunsmore’s face then was unmistakable.
Relief.

“He is dead,” he repeated, as though to test the sound of the words.

“Tell me who he was,” Nathan demanded.

“A servant of the family. He was groom to my father for many years. My father entrusted him with certain personal errands.”

“What sort of errands?”

Dunsmore made a strangled noise. “Dealing with problems,” he said at last.

“Problems like Aurora Knight?”

He didn’t answer for a moment, then at last he said softly, “I’ve not been trying to kill anyone, Harland.”

“Monk has,” Nathan said implacably. “More than once. And someone must have sent him.”

“Well, it wasn’t me!”

“So who does that leave?” Nathan demanded. “Your father’s dead. Are you telling me your mother did this?”

Dunsmore’s anger seemed to fall away as suddenly as it had arisen. He stared at Nathan helplessly and a horrible silence grew. Nathan thought of Dunsmore’s mother pouring tea for her guests at Dunsmore House and plying her embroidery needle. She seemed an unlikely would-be-murderess. Eventually, into the silence came Osborne’s voice.

“It’s the only explanation.”

He dropped to his knees to meet Dunsmore’s stunned gaze with his own steady one. “You cannot allow this to continue, Peter. You have let her ruin your life, but you cannot let her do this. They are your flesh and blood, legitimate or not.”

“There must be another explanation,” Dunsmore said weakly. “She is autocratic but she is not wicked.”

Osborne looked sceptical.

“Call for her now. Let’s speak with her. Let’s see what she has to say to this.”

Dunsmore looked panicked at the thought. But Osborne was already crossing the room. He pulled the bell rope. When the butler opened the door moments later, it was he who spoke.

“His lordship requires Lady Dunsmore to attend him straightaway,” Osborne said.

“Regrettably, Lady Dunsmore is no longer at home,” the butler replied, looking surprised at the unusual summons. “She left in her carriage half an hour ago.” He glanced then at Nathan. “And an errand boy has called for Lord Harland. He says he has an urgent message.”

Davy? It had to be. No one but Goudge knew he was here.

“Call for my horse and show the child in here,” Nathan said. The butler glanced uncertainly at Dunsmore.

“The child is quite
unkempt
, your lordship. I do not think that her ladyship would wish him to set foot on the carp—”

“For
god’s sake
, Herbert!” Dunsmore bellowed. “Who is master here? Me or my mother? Fetch the damned boy here at once!”

The butler’s eyes widened with shock but he hurried away and was back a moment later with Davy in tow. The child skirted round the butler as soon as he saw Nathan. He was a wiry boy of ten or so, though he looked younger. One of Goudge’s finds. An ex-pickpocket of many talents. Officially he was the boot boy, unofficially Goudge had his eye on him for better things.

“What news?” Nathan asked.

“Two men come,” Davy began with characteristic succinctness. “I know one of ’em. ’E’s as bad as they come. I sent Jem back to Mr. Goudge. Dick’s keepin’ an eye but he won’t be able to do much against them two. I ’eard the bad ’un say,
she’s comin’ and we’ve ter wait til she gets ’ere
. I don’ know ’ow long they’ll wait though. You better come quick, I fink.”