The Marquess (43 page)

“Balderdash. You are feathering your nest at the
expense of a lady,” Dillian answered scornfully. “Neville wishes to
force Blanche into marriage. He may have also given someone the idea he wished
the lady dead. He is the only one who benefits from her death or that tragic
fire.”

“Devil take it!” Reardon roared. “You
cannot accuse the man—”

“That’s enough, children,” Gavin intruded.
“You will attract an audience again.”

He removed the parasol from Dillian’s grip before she
could strip the handle from it. The childish argument had relieved his
concerns. Dillian treated the handsome lieutenant as a nuisance of an older brother,
not as a long-lost lover. “You are perfectly aware that you and the
journals, not the Lady Blanche, could have been the target of that fire.
Reardon will help us discover the truth.”

Dillian appeared only moderately pacified. “My father
has been dead for years, and no one has made an attempt on my life before. But
in the last six months, someone has shot at Blanche as she rode through the
woods, damaged the axle of her carriage so it overturned on a particularly
perilous road, and set fire to her home. I cannot see these
‘accidents’ as coincidences.”

Reardon looked alarmed, but Gavin merely asked, “I
assume you were with her at those times?”

Dillian’s eyes grew wide as she took his meaning. “Surely,
someone wouldn’t risk harming Blanche to get at me?”

Gavin waited for her to reach the inevitable conclusion on
her own. Reardon appeared properly horrified, but a shake of the head kept the
lieutenant from speaking. Dillian’s fingers clasped and unclasped in her
lap as she allowed this to sink in.

Finally, she gave Gavin a pleading look. “I will have
to leave her, won’t I? Just for the sake of safety.”

Reardon couldn’t contain himself any longer. “I
thought you said they wanted the journals, not Dillian! By the devil, if
anyone—”

Gavin waved off his protest. “That could very well be,
in which case, they think themselves safe now that the solicitor’s office
has very conveniently burned to the ground. Not a particularly creative
thinker,” he commented. “That does not mean they believe Dillian
knows nothing of the journal’s contents.”

Dillian gestured in exasperation. “Shall I make a
public announcement of my incompetency as an heiress? Perhaps I can convince
the world I cannot read. I daresay Reardon knows more of those journals than I
do. They were written almost entirely in code. I can’t imagine what my
father thought I would do with them. If he’d left stock or notes or
anything of financial value in them I would have noticed.”

Reardon smacked his forehead. “Code! Of course. He
wrote the blamed journals in code. I should have remembered. Gad, hack a
man’s leg to pieces and his mind goes with it. Lord, I’m sorry,
Dillian. And now it’s all gone. Gad, I’ve made a muck of it.”

“You made a muck of it when you hired on with Neville,”
Dillian answered coldly. “Now I suppose duty requires that you go back to
him and announce that I’m definitely Whitnell’s daughter and I have
Blanche hidden away for my own nefarious purposes.”

“Rein that tongue of yours until I’m done,”
Gavin warned her. “Reardon will do no such thing. Anglesey still thinks
Blanche in the south of France. He’s given the lieutenant orders to
follow her there.”

Dillian looked only moderately appeased. “Have a
lovely journey, James. I understand France is quite nice at this time of year.
Please take your time and enjoy it.”

Gavin covered her mouth with his gloved hand and gave the
objection in Reardon’s face a look of warning. The younger man remained
silent.

“Reardon intends to return to the duke with
confirmation of your identity, yes. It’s pointless continuing the
charade. You cannot spend the rest of your life avoiding the men who knew you
and your father well.” He released her mouth so she might speak again.

Dillian sighed. “As the infamous Colonel
Whitnell’s daughter, I cannot continue as Blanche’s companion.
I’m a danger to her life.” A look of sorrow crossed her face. “I
would not see her reputation harmed, Gavin. Is there not anything we can do to
prevent that?”

Her pensive expression tugged on his heartstrings. He had
just handed her orders that meant she would no longer have a home and family or
means of supporting herself, and she worried about her cousin instead of her
own fate.

He wanted to tell her she would never have anything to worry
about, that he would take care of everything, but he knew the selfishness of
that thought. She needed choices, not ultimatums.

Reardon came to the rescue. “Colonel Whitnell’s
daughter ought to possess the highest reputation known to society, as high as
Wellington’s. No shame should connect to Lady Blanche for keeping your
company. Don’t worry, Dillian, your father has friends. We’ll see
to it that your father’s reputation is restored so you may hold your head
up wherever you go.”

Dillian patted his hand and gave him a stilted smile. “You
are very good, James, but we both know my father was a notorious gambler, a
troublemaker par none, and a devil-may-care rakehell. Even should you somehow
clear these ridiculous rumors about his loyalty, you cannot deny what he was.”

‘When we are through with him, your father will appear
a saint next to the real culprit,” Reardon assured her.

Dillian looked at him with puzzlement, then turned to Gavin
for explanation. He liked the notion that she believed him responsible for this
turn of events.

“Your father didn’t keep his theories quiet. His
friends knew his opinions on every subject. They are putting together a list of
everything they remember. Your father often complained of high-level
incompetence, but in latter days, he believed the guns and cannon shipped to Wellington’s
troops were of a quality inferior to those ordered, that delays in shipping
were not entirely accidental, and that similar events came from someone well
paid to harm the cause.”

“Treason,” Dillian whispered. “That’s
not possible. Why wouldn’t he have immediately reported it to his
superiors?”

“Because his superiors could very well have been
involved,” Reardon said.

Gavin added, “And because there is some likelihood
someone he knew well was part of it. Why else would he be suspicious when no
one else was?”

“Surely, not Blanche’s father?” she
whispered.

Gavin shook his head, but Reardon answered. “Whitnell
and Perceval were the best of friends. They wouldn’t have remained so in
that case. Since your father had no immediate family other than your mother’s,
and your mother’s family was related to Perceval’s, then the person
he suspected could be familiar to both of them.”

Dillian shook her head blankly. “My mother’s
family disowned her. They never moved in government circles in any case. Her
parents died quite some time ago. Her only living family was Blanche’s
mother—” She looked up and turned from one to the other. “That
leads us back to Blanche’s father.”

“And to his family,” Gavin reminded her gently.

“Neville?”

Again, Reardon answered. “Neville’s father.
Neville was still at Oxford at the time.”

“Oh, my word.” Disbelief turned to horror. “Both
my father and Blanche’s died at Waterloo. Do you think...” She
shook her head in shock. “Neville’s father inherited the
marquessate with the death of Blanche’s father. He would have inherited
the dukedom if he hadn’t caught the smallpox.”

Gavin didn’t hide the grimness of his tone. “If
that’s the case, then justice was certainly served by fate. But I
wouldn’t blame the man for Waterloo or fratricide, just greed.
Neville’s father was in a position to deal with military contracts.”

“Along with the Earl of Dismouth, Anglesey’s
best friend,” Reardon supplied, in case Dillian had forgotten.

“Neville’s godfather,” Dillian corrected. “Neville
relied on his father’s old friend for advice when his father and
grandfather both died and he inherited a dukedom. I never liked the man, but
then, I never liked Neville.”

“You never liked the power he had over Lady Blanche,”
Gavin corrected. “You’re a hard woman, Dillian Whitnell, but
we’ll forgive you. In the meantime, you’re about to run off to
France to meet your cousin.”

“I’m what?” Dillian asked with
incredulity.

“About to run off to France,” Gavin repeated in
a voice of firm determination. “You may take Blanche with you in whatever
disguise you prefer. You are leaving the country immediately.”

Before Dillian could say “Balderdash,” Reardon
joined Gavin’s commands. “I’m announcing that I have the last
of your father’s journals. You know nothing of them.”

Dillian looked from Reardon to Gavin. “Has it ever
occurred to you to wonder,” she asked, “why no one has looked for
those journals or endangered Blanche’s life until six months
ago—when James returned from the Continent?”

Without any further warning than that, she stood up and
walked away, losing herself rapidly in the crowded boulevard ahead.

Sitting cross-legged on the meager cot he had taken in the
servants’ attic, Michael narrowed his eyes over the pages spread before
him and dipped his pen in ink. Sheets of expensive vellum from the desks on the
lower floors lay in a blizzard of white across the covers and on the floors,
all covered with the same nearly indecipherable penmanship.

Ignoring the chaos he’d created, Michael continued
scratching frantically across the sheet he worked on.

He glanced up only at a hesitant knock on his door. Looking
around at the maelstrom of papers, he leaped up and opened the door just a
fraction.

His eyes widened at the sight of the delicate lady of the
house in these attic rooms. Hastily, he stepped through the doorway and guided
her toward the stairs.

“You have no business up here, my lady,” he said
bluntly. “If you wish to speak with me, you could have sent someone to
fetch me.”

“That’s not any more proper,” Blanche
objected. “Dillian isn’t here. I can’t go sending for young
male guests while unchaperoned.”

Gavin would appreciate the idiocy of that speech, Michael
reflected, but he didn’t voice his opinion aloud. Bowing, he took the
closed stairs first, as was proper in case the lady’s foot slipped. When
he reached the carpeted corridor below, he held out his arm to help Blanche on
the last few enclosed steps. “Now we are on common ground. What may I do
for you?”

“Dillian hasn’t returned from her walk with Lord
Effingham. Do you know if he meant to keep her away this long?”

Michael rather calculated if Gavin could persuade the lady
to a room with a bed, they might not see the pair for a week, but he supposed
he ought not mention that aloud.

“If she’s with Gavin, she’s quite safe.
You, on the other hand, are an open invitation for evildoers. Take yourself
down to the library, set husky footmen at every door, and I shall be down
shortly with a task to keep your mind occupied until she returns.”

Her blazing smile of delight eased his discomfort at sharing
his usually clandestine activities. He had little practice at sharing and much
at keeping secrets. Perhaps it was time he learned to share.

* * * *

“You’ve talked to the little witch? What did she
say? Will she tell you where she’s hidden Lady Blanche?” Neville
stood behind his desk, for all intents and purposes a calm man in perfect
control of his destiny. Only a man who knew him well might detect the note of
anxiety behind his question.

“She seems quite determined to have her father’s
papers, Your Grace,” Reardon replied respectfully, ignoring the older man
in the corner chair. “She seems to believe they contain her inheritance,
and she blames you if they’re lost. She may have some grounds for
complaint, sir. I carried the last journal in my kit and idled my convalescence
by translating it. With the aid of the other journals, I might determine the
names of the personages of whom he writes. From what I can tell, those people
would pay well to keep their secrets.”

“Blackmail? The fellow engaged in blackmail? Devil
take it, you are saying my cousin kept company with the daughter of such a
rotter all these years? I will not have it! Hand over what you have, Reardon,
and I’ll have the authorities after her at once.” The duke appeared
moved to near apoplexy.

“Pardon, Your Grace, but the lady is entitled to her
inheritance, no matter what it contains. She may be completely innocent. So
might her father. I never saw that either of them lived particularly well.
Whitnell and Lady Blanche’s father were close associates. The connection
might be quite innocent. I have promised to hold the journal for the lady until
she decides what to do with it.”

“Under the circumstances, Reardon, that may not be
entirely wise,” a soft voice spoke from the corner. “You have heard
what happened to the last two places where the journals resided? Perhaps you
should commend them to safer hands.”

Reardon turned to the speaker. “I do not wish to
disagree with you, Lord Dismouth, but the lady thought she had placed the other
journals in safe hands. Perhaps I will do a little better job of it.”

Dismouth nodded in acknowledgment, and a few minutes later,
Reardon was dismissed, unaware that his departure was watched from a window
several floors below.

* * * *

When Gavin knocked at the door of the Perceval town house
later that day and Michael answered looking visibly distracted and covered with
ink, Gavin grabbed his coat lapels, shoved him inside, and slammed the door
after him.

“You have those blasted journals, don’t you? I swear,
I’ll find a rope and hang you this time, Michael. If I can’t find a
damned tree limb high enough, I’ll dangle you from the chimneys.”

A vision in gauzy white drifted from the library, her golden
hair straggling from her coiffure like moonbeams on her shoulders..Gavin
noticed her hands were as ink-splattered as Michael’s, but her words
caught him more forcibly than her looks.