The Perfect Princess (42 page)

That’s when Harper came tearing into the yard with his pistol drawn. He looked toward Rosamund first, and that was his undoing. Stapleton fired his pistol, and Harper went down.

Rosamund and Stapleton had the same idea, but she was closer, and got to Harper’s gun first. She would have shot Stapleton dead without a qualm, but he bolted before she could level the pistol.

Harper struggled up, one hand clutched to his shoulder. “Bloody hell!” he said. “How could I have been so stupid?”

Rosamund sniffed back tears. “I thought he had killed you.”

“Not bloody likely. What’s that?” He grimaced as he got to his feet. “Sounds like horses.”

A shot ran out and they heard men shouting. Rosamund started to run and Harper hobbled after her. “Get back here!” he yelled. “Get back here! That villain could have reloaded his pistol! Have you thought of that? And you haven’t told me what in Hades is going on!”

She didn’t go far, just to the end of the stable block. Three men on horseback had entered the grounds and were galloping across the turf in pursuit of Stapleton, who had almost gained the shelter of the woods.

“That’s the chief and your brother,” said Harper.

“And Charles Tracey.”

It was over in minutes. Richard reached Stapleton first. He leapt from his horse and both men went rolling on the ground. Caspar and Tracey had caught up to them, but they didn’t dismount. Richard had his knee on the small of Stapleton’s back and his arm around his throat, dragging his head back.

“The chief won’t hurt him,” said Harper, glancing uneasily at Rosamund, “not really.”

“I hope he breaks his neck!” said Rosamund savagely.

But he didn’t. He hauled Stapleton to his feet, said something to Caspar, who then dismounted and trained his pistol on Stapleton. Richard mounted up and he and Tracey cantered over to the stable block.

When they reined in, Richard said quietly, “Are you two all right?”

“This is just a scratch,” said Harper, holding his shoulder.

“I’m fine,” said Rosamund. But she wasn’t fine. She was looking at Charles Tracey, steeling herself for what she knew must come next. The curtain was coming down on the last act, but the final scene was nothing like Callie had anticipated.

Tracey dismounted. Grim and white-faced, he said, “Where is she? Where’s Callie?”

Rosamund said, “Charles, prepare yourself for a shock—”

“I know she’s dead!”

“Take him to her,” said Richard quietly.

Rosamund led the way. When Charles saw Callie, he didn’t say anything. He simply gathered her in his arms and wept like a baby.

R
osamund was in her bedchamber in Twickenham House, seated in the window embrasure that overlooked the drive. A week had passed since Frank Stapleton had been taken into custody, one of the worst weeks of her life, not because of Frank Stapleton, but because Richard had surrendered himself to the authorities, and he, too, had been incarcerated.

It could have been worse. He could have been sent to Newgate or the Fleet, but Special Branch had been called in, and through their influence, Richard was allowed to wait out the investigation in a comfortable cell in the round house at Richmond, only five minutes from Twickenham. Today he had been summoned to meet with the prime minister, and her father and Caspar had gone with him.

What alarmed her was that the truth might never come out. Frank Stapleton couldn’t deny who he was, not after she had made her statement to the magistrates
and Peter Dryden had identified him, but the only murder he would admit to was Callie’s. He knew he would hang, but he seemed as determined as ever to see Richard hang, too.

Mr. Massie, Richard’s replacement at Special Branch, had told her that Stapleton showed no remorse for what he’d done. He killed Mrs. Tracey in a jealous rage, he said, and everybody else was lying for reasons he could not fathom.

“He thinks he’s clever,” said Massie, “and we’re stupid. His arrogance knows no bounds.”

She remembered those words when she attended Callie’s funeral. It was a graveside service with less than a dozen people in attendance. She couldn’t say the right things to Charles or Aunt Fran because she’d felt frozen inside. And bewildered. She still couldn’t grasp that the Callie she thought she knew had never existed.

At least Charles Tracey’s grief was genuine. He, too, had to make a statement to the magistrates, but all he could tell them was about Newgate, and the attack on Prudence Dryden. He could smell the powder on Callie, he’d said, but he couldn’t bring himself to think it was more than one of her outrageous pranks.

When he’d taxed her with it, she’d admitted it. She knew the party would be a bore, she’d said, so she’d brought her little pistol along just to spice things up. And she laughed, because she liked nothing better than to shock him.

But the more Charles thought about it, the more uneasy he became. The bullet had nicked Miss Dryden. It might have killed her. Something else disturbed him. There was no doubt in his mind that Callie had mistaken Miss Dryden for Rosamund.

That’s what he’d been trying to tell her when she’d bolted from him and run off to meet Callie. He was going to come after her, and had just had his horse brought
round, when Richard and Caspar arrived. So they’d come out to the house together, just in time to apprehend Stapleton.

And from that day to this, she had not seen Richard or spoken to him, not because the authorities wouldn’t allow it, but because Richard said that when he came to her it would be as a free man, claiming her openly as his wife.

She was wearing her wedding band now, if only to bolster her confidence.
Richard will be cleared and come back to me
. She repeated the litany now, as though saying it would make it happen.

She almost missed seeing the ducal carriage enter the drive because of the tears in her eyes. She blinked them away, saw that she was not mistaken, and bolted for the door.

“Justin,” she screeched, “they’re home.”

As she descended the stairs, Justin came out of the library and went to meet her. “Calm down, Roz,” he said, his words at odds with the excitement in his voice. “Everything will be fine, you’ll see.”

Hand in hand, they walked to the marble entrance hall, where the groom of the chamber was already stationed. Turner was no calmer than Rosamund or Justin. He was pacing back and forth in front of the door, glancing at the timepiece pinned to his coat each time he made a turn.

“Now!” he said suddenly to the porters on duty.

They opened the front doors and ran down the steps just as His Grace’s carriage rolled to a halt.

His Grace was the first to enter. His expression was inscrutable.

Rosamund looked past him. She saw Caspar, but no one else. “Father,” she cried out. “What happened? Was Richard pardoned?”

“No,” said the duke.

When she sucked in a breath, Justin squeezed her hand.

“He was completely exonerated,” said the duke, beaming. “Of course, it must go through the usual channels, but that’s only a formality. Meantime, he’s a free man. Turner, champagne in the library, if you please, and see that there’s ale or beer for every man in my employ and sherry for the ladies.”

Richard and Caspar entered the hall, with Harper trailing after them. Servants who, a moment before, had been nowhere in evidence seemed to appear out of cracks in the walls. Richard’s greeting to Rosamund was drowned out by their riotous cheers. Everyone was smiling and laughing except Rosamund. Tears were streaming down her cheeks as she walked into Richard’s arms.

But this wasn’t the moment for tears, and soon she was laughing, too, as they ran the gauntlet of servants who wanted to congratulate Richard on his good fortune.

Caspar was the last to enter the library. He shut the door and leaned against it. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” he said. “Our servants are usually so sedate.”

“These are exceptional circumstances,” replied the duke. “It’s not every day that a member of our family cheats the hangman’s noose by the skin of his teeth.”

This last remark brought tears to Rosamund’s eyes again. She was impatient with herself. She’d been brave all week, and now she was turning into a watering pot.

When they were all seated, Justin said, “Well? What happened? Don’t keep us in suspense. Rosamund and I have been biting our nails down to the quick, waiting for your return.”

Everyone laughed, then the duke said, “Go ahead, Richard. This is your show.”

Richard looked down as Rosamund linked her fingers with his. “What happened,” he said, “is that Special Branch accumulated enough evidence to satisfy the
prime minister that a grave miscarriage of justice had been done, and that my conviction should be quashed. Massie, he’s acting chief of staff, by the way, also came up with the bright idea that Stapleton should be there when the prime minister passed on the good news. You see, there wasn’t enough evidence to convict Stapleton of any murder but Mrs. Tracey’s, and Massie wanted to get a reaction from him, and by God, he succeeded.”

Caspar said, “He exploded. There’s no other way to describe it. Then all the bitterness and hatred came pouring out of him like a dam bursting. It wasn’t a pretty sight.”

“No,” agreed Richard.

Stapleton’s hatred went far beyond that unfortunate episode in Cambridge. It seemed that he, Richard, had become the focus of every slight and humiliation Stapleton had ever been made to suffer. His mother, his father, his friends at Cambridge had all made him their victim, and none more so than Richard Maitland, who had wreaked a terrible vengeance on him for nothing more than a boyish prank.

“Never again,” Stapleton had said, wiping the spittle from his lips. “If anyone was going to be a victim, it wouldn’t be me!”

After that, anyone who had found fault with him or made him feel small was seen as an enemy—his wife, his father-in-law, Digby, and last but not least, the boy, Sebastion.

Once he started talking, he couldn’t stop. By this time, he’d pulled himself together and lectured them as though they were slow-witted children. They never would have caught him, he said, if it hadn’t been for the boy. Sebastion had become too reckless and could no longer be checked. Going to Newgate on a mission of mercy had been his own idea, as had shooting Prudence Dryden in mistake for Lady Rosamund when she came out of the folly. But there was something else. Mrs.
Tracey was angling for marriage, and Mrs. Tracey meant nothing to Withers. That’s why she had to die. That’s why the boy had to die with her.

If they hadn’t all known that Mrs. Tracey and Sebastion were one and the same person, they wouldn’t have known what to think.

“He sang like a bird,” said Richard, and summarized his thoughts, ending with, “But it was too pat for my liking. I don’t think he needed a motive for killing. I think killing had become his sport. I’m not convinced that the wound I inflicted—his words—festered like an open sore for seventeen years. I think he returned to England to buy horses, and when he heard how I had prospered decided that the pleasure of killing me was a challenge he could not resist.”

Rosamund shivered, remembering Callie’s words. “What about Lucy Rider?” she asked quietly.

Richard’s hand tightened on hers, crushing her bones, but she did not flinch. She saw his pain and wanted only to share it.

Caspar took up the story as though no one was aware of Richard’s distress, which they all were. “She fell in love with him, and he used her. It’s as simple as that. Oh, she was innocent enough to begin with. It was only after Stapleton came on the scene that Miss Rider changed. The poor girl didn’t know what she was getting into.”

“But how did he find her?” asked Rosamund.

Richard said, “He struck up a friendship with Digby, and got him talking about me. Seems like the major didn’t trust me, and kept himself informed of my movements. At any rate, he mentioned that I dined regularly at the George & Dragon and Stapleton took it from there.”

Richard breathed deeply, remembering how Stapleton had boasted about how easy it had been to bring the chief of staff of Special Branch to his knees. There was no remorse,
not a shred of regret for what he’d done to Lucy Rider.

He cleared his throat. “As Caspar said, Lucy fell in love with him and he used her. She knew that Stapleton—or Withers, as she knew him—wanted to discredit me, but the story he told her was that it was for raping his sister, years before, when we were both at Cambridge. She believed everything he told her, you see, so she followed his instructions to the letter.

“The idea was to convince everyone that I was a jealous lover who attacked her in a fit of rage. She was supposed to start screaming the moment I entered her room. Stapleton told her that he would be there and would hit me over the head with a brass candlestick. Then they’d call in the Bow Street runners, accuse me of attempted murder, and I would be completely discredited. And that would be the end of my career in Special Branch. That’s all Lucy thought my punishment would be.”

Justin burst out, “But that’s incredible! Nobody is that stupid!”

“There goes a man who has never been in love,” drawled the duke.

Rosamund said, “Poor Lucy,” and shivered.

Richard squeezed her hand. He couldn’t tell her the rest, how Lucy had trustingly torn her own garments before she stretched out on the bed. She hadn’t even questioned the boy’s presence, so great was her faith in Stapleton. Two witnesses would be more convincing than one, he’d told her. Then he’d watched as the boy cut her throat. After the deed was done, the boy had calmly removed his coat, now covered in Lucy’s blood, returned to his own room and put on another. Not long after, he was at the top of the stairs, waiting for Richard to appear.

But he wasn’t a boy. He was Callie Tracey, Rosamund’s best friend. That’s what sickened Richard. Rosamund
and Callie had grown up together. Corruption on this scale didn’t suddenly come into existence.

It must have festered for years.

He looked at Rosamund, and thanked God that Callie’s infection had left her untouched, his lovely, innocent Rosamund.