The Surrender of Miss Fairbourne (34 page)

If Southwaite learned of it, he would never forgive her. Should her acts be discovered, his alliance with her would instantly become the most dreadful mistake he had ever made. Even worse, Robert himself might turn from her. He would not want the guilt of being the reason for her actions.

When Robert wrote to her, had he guessed that his captors used him to lure first Papa and now her into crime and compromise, then betrayal and disloyalty?

She sat on a stone bench and hugged herself so perhaps she would not shake from the fear that would not fade. She heard her own thoughts and question. Already her mind tried to avoid naming what she would be doing.

Betrayal and disloyalty were hardly forthright descriptions of this “favor.” She would be bargaining for Robert’s life with nothing less than treason, and she would not spare herself the truth of that.

Twilight came while she sat there. Finally, Mr. Dillon walked into the garden.

“Will you be wanting to go home now, Miss Fairbourne? The horse needs feeding and water.”

She forced herself to her feet. “I have been inconsiderate. It has been a long day and we can all use feeding and water.”

Mr. Dillon thought that very funny. He followed her into the exhibition hall through the garden door, and waited while she went to the office and scooped what was left of the money into her reticule.

“Should I bring this?” he asked when she rejoined him. He pointed to the wall.

A painting hung there. Even in the dim light its blues and reds shone from an internal light. St. George slew his dragon once more, while a princess watched.

She looked around the exhibition hall, half expecting to see Southwaite emerge from a dark corner. He must have returned the painting and left at once.

He had probably deciphered the provenance, despite her efforts to make that hard to do. He would have realized this had been Papa’s and that she had sold it for herself.

Had he returned it out of sentimentality, so she might not lose one of Papa’s prized paintings? Or did he suspect where the money would go, and wanted to distance himself from being touched by it all?

“Yes, please bring it, Mr. Dillon. It is too valuable to leave here unguarded.”

In the carriage, she admired the Raphael for a few minutes, thinking it would be nice to have a St. George to slay her dragons. Then she set it aside, and began composing the letter she must write to Southwaite, to tell him that their personal alliance was over forever.

D
arius approached the massive house on Grosvenor Square at ten o’clock the next night. He would rather not knock on this door, but he could think of no other way to get answers to his questions quickly.

The first question would be settled in mere moments. Would he even be received?

A servant took his hat and another accepted his card.

“Please tell His Grace that I come on a matter of government,” Darius said.

He waited in the reception hall. The house seemed quiet. No sounds of a dinner party broke the silence, nor even those of footsteps. The duke must be at home, however, if the card had been borne away.

He fought to conquer his impatience. There was the chance he would be left here a long while with no response to his calling card. It would be a childish retaliation for all the cuts and silence, but dukes were allowed to indulge in pique.

It seemed like an hour before the servant returned, but on checking his watch he saw it had been only fifteen
minutes. He was told His Grace would see him. He followed the periwigged servant up to the public rooms.

The Duke of Penthurst received him in the library. It appeared his host had been enjoying a quiet evening alone, reading in the company of two of his hounds.

He set aside his book as Darius was announced, then gestured to a chair facing his own. He stretched out his legs, crossed his boots, and dangled his hand to give the closest dog a scratch. He subjected Darius to a scrutiny that made his dark eyes appear even more hooded than normal.

“A matter of government, you said. Last I recall you were on the back benches on the wrong side.”

“I did not send up word that I brought you information
about
the government.”

“You want it to go the other way, in other words.”

“Yes.”

Penthurst found that amusing. Even as he smiled, his eyes lit with brittle lights. “Why would I be agreeable to that?”

No reason. Not anymore, at least. Not long ago he would do it in friendship, perhaps.

“It touches on that chain we were establishing on the coast.”

“Ah, yes, that. Did you ever manage it? That was a very ambitious plan.”

“You are nothing if not an ambitious man.”

“As I recall, it was a joint effort.”

“It still is, and it is now in place. It has been for more than a month. It has seen some success.”

“You refer to the prisoner you brought back from the coast with you, I assume.”

“You know about that?”

“Of course. Is that why you are here? I would suggest we toast your role in his capture, but he freely admitted only to being a smuggler. I could nab any fellow walking along a road in Kent and have an even chance of capturing one of those.”

“I had heard of that confession. I thought perhaps he later was more forthcoming.”

Penthurst gathered his limbs and leaned forward so he could scratch the head of his dog. The candles on the table with his book caught the sheen of the yellow silk ribbon that bound his old-fashioned queue at his nape.

“By
later
, I suppose you mean after he was tortured.” He looked up. “We might as well call it what it is.”

“Was it called that when you heard about it?”

“Of course not. We are a civilized people, so we never admit to such things.” He made himself comfortable again. “Officially, on his own, after due deliberation of his situation, the prisoner chose of his own free will to make a confession that would get him hanged as a spy. Your chain indeed worked, Southwaite.”

“It is not his confession that interests me, but his explanation, if he gave it, of how he expected it to go if it went well. When he claimed to be a smuggler, I am told he said he would be met onshore, for example.”

“In assuming I know anything more, you are assuming much.”

“I know you share my concerns about our special vulnerabilities. If you heard a spy had been taken, you would ask for the details, and get them.”

Penthurst rose and walked to a table behind his chair. He lifted a brandy decanter with an offer in his eyes. Darius nodded, and soon two glasses had joined them in their conversation.

“I am told that by the end he was cursing the decision to send him over at all, with no more protection than the pretense of fleeing France. It seems they had a more secure way of doing it that fell apart recently, perhaps a few months ago. Your chain may have caused that disruption, I suppose.”

“Did he describe the old way of doing it?”

“Someone watched from the coast and sent a signal into the night that the way was clear. The French boat would put in not far from where your people found his, and its special passenger was met and brought to a house that was safe. As soon as possible, he would be moved on to London, or
whatever town or city he aimed for, where another safe abode waited. Information would be given to the special passenger, and he would leave the same way.”

“He was a courier, then. Did he say who sent him, or who was to meet him? Did he give names of who passed him information?”

Penthurst drank some brandy. “Regrettably, he was not in the best of health. A bad heart, I am told. He unexpectedly expired before he shared those details.”

Darius glared at Penthurst.
“Damnation.”
He stood and paced away to relieve his outrage. There was much about this story that raised profound concerns. That the most important pieces had been lost maddened him.

“If it helps at all, I have expressed my displeasure to Pitt,” Penthurst said. “I suggested that if England is going to dirty its hands thusly, we should at least find men to do it who get all the information before their darker natures get the better of them.”

“He probably expressed shock that you would think such things happened at all.”

“Of course he did. Still, I was heard.”

“Well, I’ll be damned before I hand over another one to them.”

“You will do it yourself instead?” He ruminated. “You could use Kendale, I suppose. Do it the army’s way. Just put a pistol to a temple and ask the questions. The poor bastard has only to look at Kendale to know he would pull the trigger.”

As would you
. Darius almost said it, but swallowed the words along with more brandy. If Penthurst had killed a friend, he could kill a spy.

Penthurst looked over with the vague smile of someone who knew Darius too well. “Yes, I would, if necessary. As would we all.” He set his glass aside and stood. Both dogs rose up in unison. “Come with me. I will show you where I hung the Guardi.”

Darius had not intended a social call, and did not care to do anything that would make it one. Still, he had been
received and had been given the information he sought. He had no choice except to follow Penthurst and the hounds out of the library.

“That woman at the auction house. Fairbourne’s daughter,” Penthurst said as they made their way to the gallery. “Have you had her?”

Six months ago the question would have been normal, even expected. Tonight, under the circumstances of both their estrangement and the recent conversation, it was startling.

“Why would you ask?”

“Curiosity. Nothing more. She has a certain something to her. I thought you might have found out just what it is.”

I
t was well past midnight when Darius returned to his house. He immediately went up to his dressing room. “Open it,” he said through the door.

The latch moved. Kendale opened the door and stood aside. “There has been no undue curiosity from your household,” he said. “Our guest is so contented with the accommodations that he is asleep.”

Darius paced into the dressing room. Ambury looked over from a chair where he read a book. Snoring came from a divan, where the man with the sack had stretched out.

Darius was in no mood to behave like a gentleman. He had hoped to learn from Penthurst that the spy had talked long and fast and revealed the name and location of all the others he would meet while in England. Instead this fool on his divan might be the only chance left to discover that information.

Darius walked over, grabbed the front of the sleeping man’s coat, and jerked him upright.

He woke up fast, with a yelp. After a moment of confusion, he righted himself and turned his body so his boots hit the floor. He glanced askance at his company, each man in turn.

Darius pulled over a chair. Ambury set aside his book.
Kendale hovered behind the divan, which made their guest very nervous.

“I am going to ask questions again, and this time you will answer them. What was your business at the auction house?” Darius bit out the words, but his anger was not so much with this man as with a situation that was slipping out of his grasp. He silently prayed that what he suspected was not true, and waited for this man to say something to relieve his sickening worry.

The fellow’s response was to tighten his lips hard.

“What is your name?” Kendale asked. “I can find out within a few hours if I have to. It might go better for you if you do not put me to the trouble.”

He thought it over and decided he could reveal that much without endangering whatever or whomever he sought to protect. “Hodgson.”

Still standing behind him, Kendale leaned over so his mouth was very close to Hodgson’s ear. “Now, Mr. Hodgson, you will answer my friend’s questions. You have already wasted too much time. We are with the government. Your body will never be found, and no one will be the wiser if we kill you.”

Hodgson twisted his neck to stare at Kendale in astonishment. Hodgson proved Penthurst correct. Hodgson clearly concluded that at least one man in the room would indeed kill him.

“I was only negotiating a little private business at that auction place,” he said. “I stole nothing. The money in the sack is mine.”

“We do not suspect you of theft,” Darius said. “Did you leave town for a few days recently? Did you visit Kent?”

Hodgson’s eyelids lowered. “What if I did?”

Ambury groaned with impatience. “Listen to me. We know enough to hand you to men who will surely learn the rest from you. They will use ways that will make being killed a mercy. If you went to Kent, you went by stagecoach and we can learn about that too, from the staging inns. You are facing the noose and worse, Mr. Hodgson, and your only
hope is to speak plainly. If you do, perhaps we can use our influence to keep the worst from happening.”

Kendale glared his disapproval at the last part of that. Hodgson’s eyes grew wide at the word
noose
.

“I’m only a messenger. I deliver this an’ that, is all!”

“Why were you in Kent?” Darius asked.

“I was to meet a man, and bring him to London. He never came, though.”

“This was not the first time you met men. You have been to the coast often before on similar errands, haven’t you?”

“A few times.”

“Tell us about your business with Maurice Fairbourne, and now his daughter.”

“Ah, hell. Ye already know about that?” Hodgson flushed. His expression fell into one of miserable worry. “I would bring him messages. I’d also bring him some things, wine and such, for his auction house to sell. That is where that sack of coin came from.” He coughed and rubbed his mouth with his sleeve. “He has a cottage on the coast, and a few times these men I met—usually they do come, not like the last one—would stay there a night or so before we went to London.”

“Did you kill him? Push him from that cliff? Was that one of the messages that you delivered?” Darius asked.

“No! That fall was nothin’ but trouble for me. No cottage after that, and no help. The fool went and fell on his own.” He shook his head. “What a bad night that was. See here, I keep telling ye, I am just a man who does errands. I deliver things. Now, I’ll admit that it entered my head now and then that I was being hired by them that smuggle, what with that wine and such, but that ain’t a real crime. Most everyone does it.” He tried a smile. “Most likely your lordships have drunk some of it, at those fine parties you have.”