Ashton: Lord of Truth (Lonely Lords Book 13) (35 page)

“
I
have no use for Stephen,” Ashton retorted. “He’s a lecher, a liar, and a thief.”

“He’s worse than that,” Portmaine said, accepting a glass of Ashton’s best brandy. “Samuels confirmed that Stephen wants
Matilda to disappear, very quietly, so Chancery will lumber along, leaving the financial matters just as they are for years to come.”

The glass in Ashton’s hand slipped to the floor and shattered. “Matilda was right, then. She’s safest if she runs, unless I kill Derrick
as quietly as he would like to do away with her.”

Helen shot a worried gaze at him. Sir Archer took a deliberate sip of his brandy.

“You are not a murderer,” Hazelton said, “though I grant you, Stephen is a blight in breeches. If you’ve a plan for making him
repent of his sins—and recant his lies—we are at your service, for his sworn recounting of events the night of the murder is the sole evidence
against Lady Matilda. The servants were not interviewed by the magistrate. When Sir Archer spoke to them yesterday, they claimed not to recall anything
that would corroborate Stephen’s version of events.”

Helen hopped off the window seat and used the broom and dustpan from the hearth to start sweeping together the shattered glass.

Ashton picked her up, the implements still in her hands. “Footmen clean up spills, child. I wouldn’t want you to cut yourself.”

“Got you,” Sir Archer said, smirking at his cousin, “and got me, because Kilkenney’s right.”

“Do a thorough job,” Helen said, “and then you should scrub the spill up, or it’ll bring the ants. Waste of good brandy, though.
Somebody should get a proper switching.”

Ashton set her down. “Stephen should be…”

“What?” Helen stuffed her braids into her cap as Hazelton swept up the mess.

“Switched,” Ashton said quietly. “Stephen holds two advantages over us, one being his sworn testimony. The other is Lady Kitty. As it
happens, I have a plan for how her little ladyship can be wrested safely from the Derrick household. Helen, how fast can you run in a dress?”

“Damn fast. I can also climb trees, swim, and scream bloody murder. Won’t even cost you too many cobblers either.”

“Pippa is a natural,” Sir Archer murmured, twirling his walking stick. “I could use her. She has the knack of being smarter than she
looks.”

Hazelton walked along at Portmaine’s side, while across a grassy swath of Hyde Park, Pippa and Helen played catch. Helen was attired as the child of
a well-to-do family and Pippa as her governess. The day was beautiful, and the game was on.

“Helen is the one you want to recruit,” Hazelton said. “She’s devilish observant, nimble, and has a healthy sense of
self—”

“So that’s Lady Kitty?”

Right on schedule, another small girl and her governess came trundling down the path from the direction of Park Lane.

“Lady Kitty,” Hazelton said, “and your recently acquired best friend, Miss Reynolds. I assume you offered her a Banbury tale?” Lady
Matilda had drawn a sketch of the child, and the resemblance between sisters was marked, even given the difference in their ages.

“Cousin, you shame your upbringing,” Portmaine replied. “I told Miss Reynolds the God’s honest truth. I might well be in the market
for a governess, though I haven’t raised the notion with my lady wife.”

“Coward.” Hazelton took out his handkerchief and pretended to mop his brow, the signal that Lady Kitty had arrived rather than some other girl.

Pippa and Helen switched to kicking the ball, their acknowledgment of Hazelton’s message.

“You miss the game,” Sir Archer said. “You were too bloody good at it not to miss it sorely. If Kilkenney hadn’t come up with this
scheme, you would have proposed it by sundown, or something even more clever.”

“More clever than kidnapping an earl’s daughter from the park in broad daylight?”

“The occasional felony adds a bit of spice to the—Good God, that girl can kick.”

Helen’s ball went sailing off toward a hedge. Retrieving the ball took Helen right past Lady Kitty, who was occupied with tossing a ball to her
governess.

“Recall Helen’s prowess with a kick if she’s ever aiming for your privities.”

“Saints defend me if that child takes me into dislike. What’s stopping you from accepting the occasional case? You’re quite the earl now.
You wouldn’t have to do it for money.”

If Helen had been playing at footman, she’d never have stood by and watched another clean up a spilled drink. She became the role she’d
rehearsed, in this case, a genteel girl lonely for the company of another genteel girl. She and Lady Kitty were soon kicking the ball back and forth
between themselves, while the two governesses settled onto the same bench to supervise and socialize.

“Earls don’t sneak about,” Hazelton said, “peering through the hedges and listening at keyholes.”

“You sound so wistful, and you did far more than peer and listen. Have a word with your countess, promise her you won’t do anything dangerous,
and then keep your word. More or less.”

Maggie had all but told Hazelton to find a hobby, for being an earl was downright boring compared to investigations.

“My countess has no objection to the occasional case. She would assist me to the extent she could. One hesitates to court the disfavor of my
father-in-law.”

“Moreland? You’re daft. His Grace would be envious if he learned you’d resumed your investigative activities.”

Helen was playing Lady Kitty like a fish on a line, kicking the ball seemingly in all directions, but ending up ever nearer to the hedge behind which
Maggie waited with a puppy in a basket. The puppy had been Kilkenney’s suggestion, immediately seconded by Helen. Archer would rush to the aid of the
soon-to-be-distraught governess and offer her a goodly sum to look after Lady Kitty in a different household without giving notice.

Or screaming.

With any luck, Lady Kitty would have no idea she’d been kidnapped.

“If I took an interest in investigating again,” Hazelton said, “the Duke of Moreland would not merely be envious, he’d meddle. His
Grace’s ability to meddle is excelled only by his duchess’s ability to do the same, smiling graciously all the while. And there they go.”

The girls made a third foray behind the hedge, nominally searching for a well-kicked ball, but mostly laughing and chasing each other. The governesses
continued to chat happily on their bench, and the satisfaction of a well-laid plan coming together coursed through Hazelton like new wine on a crisp autumn
day.

Five minutes passed before Miss Reynolds left off speaking to rise and call for Lady Kitty.

“That is your cue to be charming,” Hazelton said, “and my cue to leave.”

Damn it.  

“Take one case,” Sir Archer said, propping his stick on his shoulder. “Take just one case, then tell me again you don’t miss
it.”

Hazelton watched him stride off, a gentleman determined to be of assistance to an increasingly distraught pair of governesses.

Lady Kitty’s safety mattered, but having spent the last day conceiving and executing the plan to keep her so had been the closest thing to excitement
Hazelton had had since… well, since courting Maggie Windham.

Without Helen’s company, Ashton’s rooms at the Albany became a prison. He sent a clucking, fussing Cherbourne off to visit relatives, and the
two footmen spent most of the day lounging about in the kitchen, waiting for Ashton to concoct errands for them.

He’d taken Helen’s suggestion and paid a late-night call on Matilda. Her ladyship was as impatient as Ashton, and worse, she was anxious to
take flight.

The time had come to confront Stephen Derrick—or to make him disappear.

A knock sounded on the door, but not in the right sequence to herald a call from Hazelton. Ashton opened the door the width of two inches and beheld
Hannibal Shearing.

Sweet Jesus in the garden, not this again.

Ashton unfastened the chain. “Shearing, how do you do?”

“You’ll not let me in? Have I become that much of an outcast? I expected you, of all people, to give a fellow a fair hearing, Kilkenney.”

Ashton did know how easily a fair hearing was denied on the basis of class, standing, or family associations.

“I was about to go out and haven’t much time for socializing.”

“And Fat George hasn’t much time for me,” Shearing said, pushing past Ashton. “You said you’d do what you could for me. If
it’s a matter of money, then say so. I’ve pots of the damned stuff.”

Shearing offered an insult, and Ashton would have tossed him back over the threshold for giving offense, but for the despair in the older man’s eyes.

“You want your barony so badly that you’d insult me for it?”

“Personally, I don’t give a single hearty goddam,”—Shearing thumped his walking stick once against the floor—“for a
title, but my missus has asked only one thing of me. The old girl has stood by me, for richer and for poorer, and she suffered far too many years when poor
was putting it nicely. She raised our daughters to be ladies, despite the snubs and the talk. You think titled men put their noses in the air? You should
see the cruelty their wives and daughters are capable of, but my wife endured it all without complaint.”

 Shearing’s Yorkshire accent had become thicker as his lament went on, until he sounded not like a wealthy gentleman of means, but like a mine
foreman weeping for his beloved.

“Is your wife ill, Shearing?”

Shearing examined the Gainsborough portrait above the mantel. A smiling, rosy young family, such as a wealthy bachelor might see in his future.

“I doubt she’ll last until Christmas, though we’ve a grandchild on the way, and that’s put some heart back in her.”

What mattered damned money, or a damned title, when the woman you loved was leaving you forever?

Shearing produced a handkerchief and wiped his eyes. “I’ll be going. I mean you no insult, Kilkenney, but there’s nothing I’d not
do to secure my wife’s happiness. I’d give George my whole fortune, crawl down Park Lane, or swear an oath never to touch another drop of
drink, if I could grant my lady this boon.”

I know how you feel.
“I have pled your case to George, and I will do so again.  May I offer you a drink, Shearing?”

“I’ll stop ’round the Goose and have a good old pint of ale,” Shearing said. “They rob me blind there, but I’m happy to
do my bit by a hardworking publican. For too many, his is the only reliable comfort, aye?”

Shearing left, closing the door softly.

Ashton was still standing behind the closed door, trying to ignore a dawning sense of hope, when another knock sounded on the door. Two short taps, a
pause, and three more.

“For God’s sake,” came a low voice, “let me in, Kilkenney. I bring news.” Hazelton himself, and in a foul humor.

“What news?” Ashton asked, opening the door and standing aside.

Hazelton charged past him, straight into the sitting room. “Stephen has Lady Matilda, snatched her right off my back terrace with an entire
press-gang of toughs. The ladies were having tea outside, Maggie was summoned to the nursery, and in the next instant, Lady Matilda was seized. The equally
bad news is that we can’t find Helen.”

After much wandering about the city, possibly in the interests of avoiding pursuit, the coach finally meandered into familiar territory. Matilda knew
Knightsbridge, having walked its streets many times. If she was being taken to Knightsbridge, there was good news—Bow Street lay to the north and
east—and bad news.

Ashton would never think to look for her here.

“Don’t attempt to escape,” the larger of her captors said. “The warrant says you’re a murderess, and if you’re shot
while fleeing arrest, nobody will care. And you would be shot dead.”

He chucked her on the chin with the barrel of a big, ugly pistol. Samuels was an angel compared to this thug. Whereas Samuels’ attire had been
nondescript, Matilda’s captor was a rogue dressed to mock his betters.

His clothes were the battered castoffs of some fine gentleman, for all that his cravat was perfectly tied and he wore gold at his cuffs. His incisors were
gold as well.

“We could have some fun with her first,” the second man said. He was small and dirty, though he had all of his teeth and displayed them in a
rodent’s smile.

“No time,” the leader replied. “Sooner we dump her off, sooner we get paid. I do fancy a lively murderess from time to time. They have a
lot of fight in ’em.”

“I have plenty of fight, but I’m not a murderess.” Neither was Matilda a countess, though she could have been, in which case these men
might have been unwilling to kidnap her at any price.

“Word to the wise,” the leader said, “save your fight for the man who means to kill you. He’s stupid as shite, and it’s him
you hate. This,”—he waved his pistol—“is just business.”

Helen might understand that definition of business. Matilda understood only that she’d fallen into Stephen’s hands and had thus put herself and
Ashton at risk.