What Price Love? (20 page)

Dejected, Barnaby sighed. “With only that to go on, I can't see any prospect of finding this ‘London gent.' I found the inn at which he ate dinner before driving a team of post-horses south, heading down the London road.”

“His carriage?” Dillon asked.

“Hired from a large posting inn,” Barnaby replied. “No chance they'll remember him.”

Demon was frowning. “How much was the loan?”

“The solicitor wouldn't say, but admitted it was more than ten thousand pounds.”

“Great heavens!” The General's eyes widened. “Imagine…”

“Interesting,” Demon drawled. “That might give us a trail to follow.”

Barnaby frowned. “How so?”

“Because money, my fine lad, comes from somewhere. No one has ten thousand pounds sitting in his dresser. If you wanted to give someone ten thousand pounds, how would you do it?”

Still puzzled, Barnaby replied, “I'd write a bank draft…” His eyes widened. “Ah.”

“Indeed.” Demon nodded. “And we know just the person to track the transaction, if it's traceable.”

“Gabriel Cynster?”

“Not just Gabriel.” Dillon had worked closely with Gabriel over the past decade. “He has contacts that would make you salivate—and give your father nightmares.”

Barnaby instantly revived. “How fascinating.” A moment later, he said, “I rather think I'll head down to London tomorrow. Gabriel's there, isn't he?”

Demon grimaced. “At this time of year, he most definitely will be. The balls are starting up again. If you promise not to mention that horrifying fact in front of Flick, I'll write a note giving Gabriel Collier's background, and what we need to know—stop by tomorrow morning and pick it up.”

“Excellent!” Barnaby looked around their small circle. “I'd thought we'd lost the scent, but it looks like the hounds are off again.”

Dillon clapped him on the shoulder. They all rose. Demon took his leave of them and headed home. With renewed vigor, Barnaby headed upstairs to get some sleep; taking his father's arm, Dillon followed more slowly.

His father glanced at him as they stepped onto the landing. “And how did your evening go?”

Dillon considered as they climbed the second flight. Gaining the gallery, he answered truthfully, “I honestly don't know.”

 

P
ris woke late the next morning. Lying in her bed staring unseeing at the sun-dappled ceiling, she logically and carefully, without letting emotion cloud her judgment, considered what she knew and what she had to do.

She had to save Rus. She had to find him and help him get free of Harkness and what ever else threatened.

Regardless of all else, the impulse to find and rescue her twin was unwavering; recent events had only made the need more desperate, more urgent.

She'd fixed her hopes on the register. She'd naïvely supposed that seeing it would instantly reveal what scheme Rus had stumbled on, that she would see some connection between that and where he was hiding, or at least where to look for him, what he would be pursuing.

Instead…

She heaved a dispirited sigh. Beyond confirming that the register did indeed contain details pertinent to racing swindles, there'd been so
many
details, of so many different types; it hadn't occurred to her until she'd read the entries just how many ways there might be to fiddle a race.

Disappointment dragged at her, but her failure wasn't the sole source of her escalating worry. Since her arrival in Newmarket, the situation had deteriorated—or rather, she'd learned how bad it truly was. Initially, it had been possible to view Rus going into hiding as one step up from a lark. But Rus wasn't a child; years of responsibility had matured him—if he was in hiding, it was for some compelling reason, no lark.

And Harkness…that he'd shot at her thinking she was Rus proved Rus was still about, still unharmed, but, as Dillon had forcefully pointed out, Harkness had shot to kill. Until last night, she'd managed to push that knowledge to the back of her mind, disregard it in her push to view the register.

After her success-crowned-by-failure last night, after all Dillon had let fall, she could no longer refuse to face the grim reality.

Dillon was right—this game was dangerous.

Replaying his words, hearing his tone, she grimaced, and amended that thought. This game was dangerous on more than one front.

She'd become involved with him as a means to see the register, yet in reality, Rus's difficulties had played only a minor role in landing her in Dillon's arms. However, now that she'd landed there, more than once, her relationship with Dillon was going to make things difficult.

Last night, she'd seen something in his eyes, had heard—very
clearly—a tone in his voice that had instantly made her wary. Perhaps it was being the eldest in the family, equal with Rus—a male no one imagined anyone owned—that had made her from her earliest years totally inimical to the notion of being a man's anything. Not a chattel, not a possession. Many wanted to view her that way; her beauty was something men coveted much as they might a work of art. She was a work of nature they wanted to own, to have in their homes to look at and feel smug that it was theirs. But not even her father “owned” her, nor could he control her, because she'd never ceded him the right.

But Dillon…

She sighed even more heavily, then stretched beneath the sheets. Sensual memory stirred; she closed her eyes, and could almost feel his hands on her body, feel him inside her.

Her mind filled in the rest, the emotional color, the niggling uncertainty over how he saw her, what he thought of her and her reasons for giving herself to him—what she'd allowed him to believe….

She couldn't afford to let emotions distract her. Frowning, she moved on to the words they'd later exchanged. Did all men like him think they owned a lady once they'd slept with her, once she'd allowed them to…?

Was there some unwritten rule she'd never heard of?

With a snort, she opened her eyes and tossed back the covers. Standing, she shook down her nightgown, and headed for the washstand.

If Dillon harbored any thoughts of owning her, of controlling her, he would learn his error soon enough. Meanwhile, she was going to have to tell him all and engage his help on Rus's behalf. The decision stood plainly in her mind; she hadn't had to think hard to reach it.

She'd run herself to a standstill; she had no idea which way to turn to find her twin, and that remained her principal aim. She'd put her trust in the register, and that had proved no help, but Dillon…he would know. He would help. He was the right person to tell.

Aside from all else, given what she'd seen in his eyes, heard in his voice last night, if she didn't tell him, and soon, he was liable to act—as men of his ilk were so fond of doing. If he thought to appeal to Eugenia…

She hadn't told anyone about Harkness shooting at her. If Dillon
told Eugenia of the dangers Rus and she, too, now faced, Eugenia would be horrified and would certainly insist she speak to the authorities.

In this case, as far as she could tell, Dillon was “the authorities.” She owed her aunt a great deal and was sincerely fond of her; it was only right she spare Eugenia the unsettling distress and speak to Dillon herself.

Her maid had already brought her washing water; Pris splashed her face, mopped it dry, then went to the armoire. Opening the double doors wide, she surveyed her wardrobe. And considered, the full circumstances being what they were, what gown she should don to most effectively deal with her lover.

 

P
lease tell Mr. Caxton that Miss Dalling wishes to speak with him.”

The clerk behind the reception desk in the foyer of the Jockey Club stared at her, then surged to his feet and bowed. “Yes, of course, miss.” He bobbed again. “At once.”

He started backing away, then, blushing, tore his eyes from her and hurried down the corridor leading to Dillon's office.

Pris inwardly sighed; crossing her hands over the head of her parasol, the tip resting on the tiles before her feet, head high, she pretended to be oblivious of the doorman, still staring, and the other clerks who, bustling past on various errands, stumbled in their headlong rush when they set eyes on her.

Yes, she'd dressed to kill in a gown of crisp, vertical black-and-white stripes, highlighted with thin gold stripes, with a scooped neckline and ruffled hem, and a ruffled black parasol, but her intended victim was a great deal less susceptible than the norm. Indeed, she wasn't sure he was susceptible at all.

She didn't have to wait long to find out; Dillon strode around the corner, the clerk in his wake.

“Miss Dalling.” With not the slightest indication he even noticed her attire, he took the hand she offered, bowed over it, then waved to the front door. “Come—let's stroll.”

Futile to gnash her teeth at his immunity to feminine wiles. She spoke quietly, aware of the clerk slipping back behind his desk.
“Given the subject I wish to speak of, I would feel more comfortable discussing it in your office.”

Dillon trapped her eyes, equally quietly stated, “To keep our meeting and its subject from anyone connected with racing, we should cast our interaction as purely social.”

She held his gaze, swiftly debated. While she remained in town, she risked being seen by Harkness or Cromarty. She'd had Patrick drive her there in a hired closed carriage; he was waiting outside. Neither she nor he had thought it at all wise for her to appear on the High Street.

And here was Dillon proposing precisely that.

She opened her mouth to insist she could only speak in his office.

He murmured, “At this time of day, the coffee room”—with his head he indicated a corridor leading in the opposite direction to his office—“is full of owners and trainers, many not members of the club itself, but who use its amenities. Luckily, they use another entrance. However, the clerks going back and forth are often dealing with those in the coffee room. If I take you to my office, that fact will spread like wildfire via the clerks to the coffee room. Speculation will run rife as to what club business you've come to discuss.”

He quietly added, “If I stroll out with you, the clerks won't gossip—they'll assume our meeting is personal, and therefore of no interest to them.”

Slowly, she nodded. “There are two people—an owner and a trainer—who mustn't see me. Can we stroll somewhere they'd be unlikely to go?”

He nodded. “Come on.”

They left the building; descending the shallow steps, Pris unfurled her parasol, as she did indicating the carriage and Patrick, visible through the trees flanking the path. Dillon looked, then took her arm. “This way.”

He led her away from the club, parallel to the High Street, but in the opposite direction to the Helmsleys'. The wood on that side had been thinned; it was easy to stroll beneath the trees. On some, the leaves were turning, golden and russet amid the green, summer giving way to autumn.

The wood ended at a graveled path running behind a series of properties. Dillon turned away from the High Street.

Pris relaxed. “This doesn't look like the sort of area the racing fraternity frequent.”

“It isn't. This is the residential area where the townsfolk live.” He indicated a space between properties farther along the path. “That's a small park—we can talk there without risk of being observed or overheard.”

The park was neat and quiet, a place where well-to-do merchants' and guildmasters' nannies could take their charges. An oval pond stood at its center, while birches bordered both sides. The flagstone path wended around sections of lawn and between occasional flower beds. It was clearly a place apart from the central industry of the town, the racing folk, and all the associated visitors.

Dillon guided her to a wooden seat set beneath one of the birches. Pris sat and drew in her skirts.

As Dillon sat beside her, high-pitched voices and gurgling laughter drew her gaze to three young children tumbling on the lawn nearby, under the benevolent eye of a nanny. The children—a girl and two boys—reminded Pris of herself, Rus, and Albert when they'd been just as young and exuberant.

Just as innocent.

It seemed the right moment to say, “The Irishman who tried to break into your office was my twin brother, Rus.”

Dillon's gaze touched her face; when she didn't meet it, he murmured, “Russell Dalling.”

She hesitated for only a heartbeat, then nodded. She and Rus often used Dalling when they wanted to conceal their identity; if someone called him Dalling, he'd respond. There seemed little sense in unnecessarily involving the family name, the earldom, and even less their father in what ever was to come. “I came to England, to Newmarket, looking for Rus.”

Opening her reticule, she drew out the letter she'd received before leaving Ireland. “I got this.” Handing it to Dillon, she watched him unfold it and read. “But even before that…”

She recounted the entire story with few omissions, concealing only the family name. Her tale ended with her hopes for the register, for what it would reveal, now dashed. “So.” She drew in a breath. “I have no alternative but to tell you all, and hope you can make better sense of the pieces of the jigsaw than I can.” Her fingers clenched on her parasol's handle. “Above all, I have to find Rus.”

Turning her head, she met Dillon's gaze, unsurprised to find it hard and unforgiving.

“You should have told me
all
before—from the first.”

The words were condemnatory, bitten off; she raised her brows and stared him down. “I would have if it hadn't involved Rus. I would never willingly do anything that might harm him.”

Slowly he raised his brows back. “So what made you change your mind?”