Before The Scandal (15 page)

“I don’t know,” Beth said slowly, looking at her older brother. “William is our first concern, and I’m not—”

“You’re certain you wouldn’t mind the lot of us staying overnight?” Phineas interrupted, sitting forward. “Because from what I’ve heard, your new cook is the finest in Lewes. I would hate to miss it.”

Alyse caught Beth’s frown, quickly covered. Privately, she agreed with Beth’s concern. The viscount’s health had been bordering on delicate since the accident ten years ago, and with a fever now, transporting him even just a mile down the road so that his siblings—his brother—could eat pheasant seemed the height of selfishness.

Of course, knowing this new Phin as she was coming to, he likely had a reason for wanting to be at Donnelly House. She took a quick breath. Could
she
be the reason? If so, she needed to do some thinking. Being discovered dallying with him could ruin the plans she’d been putting together. Would it be worth it?

“…hope they shot him dead,” Beth was saying. “I keep worrying that Phin will put on his uniform and go after the man simply because he’s French.”

“He needs to be shot simply for being a highwayman,” Richard returned. “Being a Frog only makes him more offensive.”

Alyse glanced at Phin, but thankfully he didn’t seem inclined to announce to everyone that she thought The Frenchman dashing. Richard had been increasingly venomous at the mention of the highwayman, and she didn’t relish the thought of being locked in the attic to polish silver because she felt more charitable than the rest of the family did toward the thief.

She continued feeling more charitable toward Phin, as well. And that could be much more problematic than fancying a thief she would likely never set eyes on again. The Frenchman had only wanted a kiss. Judging by their last embrace, Phineas wanted
her
.

Warmth swept down her spine. Being the focus of Phin Bromley’s attention, even when they were children, had been an exhilarating experience. Now, though—

“Penny for your thoughts,” Phin said, sitting on the couch beside her.

“What do you want from me?” she murmured, pretending to take a sip of tea to cover her words.

“Ah. You were thinking of me. I should pay double the price, then—once for the information, and once for the flattery.”

“It’s not flattery when you worry me. What do you want?”

“From you? I don’t know yet,” he returned in the same tone, more serious now.

“I’m not comforted.”

“I like being close to you.” He offered her a plate of biscuits, brushing her fingers as she selected one, and nearly making her drop it. “I like touching you, Alyse.”

She closed her eyes for a moment to concentrate on breathing. “You will ruin me all over again if you don’t stop this.”

He shook his head. “Do you think me that much of a blackguard?”

“I don’t want to, but the last time I saw you, you
were
that much of a blackguard. Should I ignore that because you protest now that you’re…benevolent?”

His lips twitched. “I never said that.”

“Phin.”

For a moment he sat still beside her. “I know you said you couldn’t help me, but answer this: Richard already knew about the dog attack, didn’t he?” he murmured even more quietly.

“My cousin is not the one hurting Quence. Look at him. He’s courting your sister.”

“That’s not what I asked. He knew, didn’t he?”

Alyse started to her feet. Before she could rise, Phin put a hand on her arm, keeping her seated. “Let me go,” she hissed.

“Very well. I won’t make you choose, yet. Eventually, though, you’ll have to take a side.” Making the touch on her arm another caress, he stood again. “If you’ll excuse me,” he said at normal volume, “I have some things to see to.”

Mostly Phineas needed a moment to himself so he could catch his breath and his scattering wits. He started out the door, but Donnelly stood before he could escape. “Would you inquire if your brother will see me?” the viscount asked. “I need to discuss a few things with him.”

Phineas kept his expression pleasant and mild. So Lord Donnelly was still trying to make himself indispensable to Quence Park. He nodded. “I will.” If that was what William wished, then so be it. For now. Until he had some proof.

Climbing the stairs to the first floor, he stopped outside the master bedchamber and knocked quietly. “Enter,” came William’s voice.

He pushed open the door. His brother was seated in his wheeled chair just beneath an open window, a blanket across his lap and a ledger book atop that. “You’re out of bed.”

“Your skills at observation continue to amaze.”

“And your sense of humor continues to surprise,” Phineas returned dryly. “How are you feeling?”

“I only slept in, for God’s sake.”

“Mm-hm. Donnelly asked for an audience, if you’re up to it.”

“I’ll see him.”

Phineas stifled his frown. “I’ll go tell him.” He headed back out.

“Phin?”

“What is it?” He stopped to face his brother again.

“You did well with the sheep. Thank you again.”

“You lost nearly fifty head. Don’t thank me for cleaning up the carnage after the slaughter.”

“You still handled it well.”

With every fiber of his being Phineas wanted to tell William not to trust Richard Donnelly, that he suspected the viscount of at least some of the ill things that had befallen Quence. And just as strongly he knew that William wouldn’t believe him, and that he would be accused of looking for trouble or excitement or some other daft thing. In addition, he would lose whatever incremental amount of his brother’s trust he’d been able to gain.

“Thank you, then.”

“And Phin?”

“Yes?”

“My window here has a very nice view. Over the back of the stables and the archway, in case you wished me to clarify.”

Damnation. Bloody hell
. “I—”

“I warned you not to make things worse for Alyse. She’s paid enough for one moment of foolishness.”

“I’m not trying to make things worse. I…” It didn’t seem like the time for honesty. What would he say, anyway? That he’d charged out to the stables to keep her from seeing Ajax and that Alyse—her presence, her taste, her voice—filled a chasm in him that had been open and dark and empty for a great deal longer than ten years?

“Leave her be, Phin.”

“I won’t ask for your trust, but I will say that I’m not playing.” He turned around again. “I’ll send Donnelly up.”

When he returned downstairs he leaned into the morning room and informed the viscount that William would see him. The three women remained behind, Beth attempting to chat with both Alyse and Mrs. Donnelly, and the older woman doing all of the responding.

For a moment he contemplated returning to the conversation, but he needed to make some plans for the next few days to be certain no further ill luck befell Quence Park. So instead he went to track down Gordon. His so-called valet was in the stables, feeding Gallant an apple. “You’re supposed to be starching my cravats and polishing my boots,” he commented, selecting an apple for himself.

“I already starched yer cravats, and yer wearin’ yer bloody boots, Colonel.”

Phineas bit into the apple, then pulled the knife from his boot and sliced the remainder in half, giving one section to Saffron and the other to Ajax. “Donnelly claimed not to know about the dogs,” he said offhandedly. “What would you do if you owned several valuable flocks of sheep and suddenly heard that a pack of dogs had just killed half a hundred of your neighbor’s animals?”

“I’d get home, collect me weapons and me men, and go huntin’,” Gordon returned promptly. “No question.”

“As would I.”

“Ye think the hounds are his, then?”

“His or Smythe’s, would be my guess.”

The sergeant strolled over to lean against the stall door beside him. “I heard some rumors of me own this mornin’.”

Phineas scratched Ajax behind the ears. “What rumors?”

“That The Frenchman got ’imself shot last night, stoppin’ a second coach.”

“Rumors are nasty things, Gordon. You simply can’t trust them.”

“Don’t ye go enjoyin’ this too much, Colonel. Yer family wouldnae come out well, were ye found t’be a highwayman.”

“I know that.” Phineas gave Ajax a last pat and walked away from the stall. “The problem is, they’re not doing well under the present circumstances.” Another bad fever or two for William, or another overturned carriage, and he might never have a chance to make amends.

“What’s next then, sir?”

“We go to Uckfield and see whether we can purchase fifty or so Southdown sheep. And we order lumber and hire workers to repair the burned cottages. And we hire some…gamekeepers, we’ll call them, to travel the property and keep an eye on things. And tonight we go out and try to discover who owns a pack of wolfhounds.”

It would just about wipe out his ready funds, but it would also put Quence back close to where it had been before its disintegration had begun, and at no additional expense to William. In the grand scheme of things it was little enough, but it was a start.

“That takes care o’ today,” Gordon commented. “What about tomorrow?”

Phineas smiled grimly. “Tomorrow depends on what we find out tonight.”

“If you’re not ready for bed, come and play whist with me. Or billiards, even.”

He shook his head. Thank the devil she’d never encountered The Frenchman, or she might have recognized the army greatcoat he carried draped over one arm. “Not the kind of amusement I’m looking for, Beth.”

“But you—we—”

“Come along, Beth,” William said from the stop of the stairs above her. “My billiards game is a bit rusty, but I think I can manage whist.”

“Phin,” she murmured, her tone making the single word into a plea.

“Don’t wait up,” he said, opening the door and slipping outside.

As soon as he was out of earshot, he began cursing. English, French, Italian, Spanish—the language didn’t matter, as long as it was black enough to suit his mood. What if he was wrong? What if he had invented some sort of conspiracy to avoid facing the fact that his family didn’t need him after all?

“Saddle Saffron,” he snapped as he entered the stables.

Gordon, already mounted on Gallant and holding Ajax’s reins, looked at him. “Beg pardon?”

“Beth might be watching.” He stepped back as Warner walked over to collect the butter chestnut from his stall.

“Then what—”

“Wait five minutes after I leave, and meet me in the glade just southwest of the bridge. The one with the lightning-struck oak. Do you know where that is?”

“I know. Don’t be doin’ anything foolish without me.”

“I’ll hold off on being foolish until you join me.”

“Fair ’nough.”

A moment later Warner led over Saffron. “Master Phineas?” the groom intoned.

“Yes?”

“Mr. Gordon says this highwayman business is to help Lord Quence and Miss Beth. Is that so?”

God, he hoped so. “Yes, that is my intention.”

The groom nodded. “Then keep your head down, sir. You can trust me and young Tom here.”

“Thank you, Warner.” With a nudge of his heels he sent Saffron through the double doors and out into the stable yard.

On the chance that Beth or William might be watching him ride off, he headed in the direction of Lewes until he was beyond view of the house. Only then did he turn south and east toward the River Ouse. He dismounted beside the old shattered oak tree and led Saffron into a thicket that held a patch of good grazing. Once he’d tied off the yellow gelding where no one would stumble over him accidently, he donned his highwayman attire.

He heard a low, two-toned whistle. Whistling back, he slipped out of the thicket to join Gordon in the glade. “Let’s begin at Beaumont’s,” he said, swinging up on Ajax. “We can take a look around Donnelly on our way back.”

“Aye. Any idea what ye want t’do if we come across ten or so wolfhounds partial to sheep?”

“Shooting them comes to mind.”

“I don’ think The Frenchman’d care about dogs.”

No, he wouldn’t. Not unless they were chasing him. And it could link the highwayman to Quence, which he couldn’t afford. “Then if we find them tonight I’ll make plans to discover them again tomorrow as Phin Bromley. And I’ll have the constabulary with me.”

It wouldn’t be the most satisfying way to deal with the trouble, but it was the way William would want it resolved. And therefore, however aggravating he found the idea of allowing someone else to determine the outcome of this malicious destruction, he would do so. To a point.

Once they’d crossed the bridge, they left the road, cutting through the pastures and meadows and scattered stands of trees belonging to Quence’s neighbors. No flooding here. No fires, no slaughtered sheep or poisoned feed—just peaceful, sleeping flocks and the occasional sheepdog or deer or startled pheasant. That alone should have been enough to convince William that Quence Park was being targeted. His brother, however, seemed to believe either that his fellow landowners were as honest as he was, or that he had to expect a certain amount of ill luck. After all, ill luck had found William ten years ago, and it hadn’t left him since.

“What d’ye think, Colonel?” Gordon asked from a little behind and to his right. “Start at th’ stables?”

“We’ll take a look, but I doubt anyone would keep sheep-killing dogs where all the servants would know about them. East Sussex owes its prosperity to sheep, after all.”

“Aye. Yer sayin’ those dog’s’d be difficult to keep secret.”

“Exactly.” Kicking out of the stirrups, he jumped down from Ajax. “But I’m a cautious fellow, and we will therefore check the stables and all of the outbuildings here and at Donnelly and anywhere else I can think of until we find them.”

“This could be a very long night.”

Phineas ignored the comment. “Let’s get moving. And remember to be French.”

Lights still showed in a few of Beaumont’s upstairs rooms, and though the stables were quiet he was unwilling to wager that all of the grooms and stableboys were asleep. Motioning Gordon to stay outside and keep watch, he pulled open one of the tall doors and slipped inside. Sixteen or so horses, but no dogs. Nor any sign that dogs had ever been housed in the stables. Beaumont didn’t have a kennel—not at the main house, anyway.

He made his way back outside. “Nothing. Let’s try the outbuildings.”

Gordon, his eyes nothing more than glittering slits behind his black mask, nodded. “Divide’n conquer?”

“It’ll go more quickly that way. I’ll take the west side.”

They searched the gardener’s shed, the small hothouse, the grain barn, the outlying cottages, and the small estate manager’s cottage. Growing frustration tightened Phineas’s muscles as they continued to find nothing.

An hour after they’d begun, he caught sight of a figure on horseback heading away from the manor along the private path that wound around the small lake and up the hillside. Though the Beaumont and Quence estates and families had never been friendly, he did recall some stories of the present lord going on drunken binges at his family’s small hunting lodge during his youth.

“Damn,” he muttered, striding for Ajax. A hunting lodge could mean a kennel. He gave the two-toned whistle to summon Gordon, but, not wanting to risk losing his prey in the dark, he mounted and rode off after the horseman.

They wound through the trees, turning away from the lake and into the rolling hills. Phineas stayed back as far as he dared, listening both for the rider in front of him and for any sign that Gordon was following behind.

A light flared up ahead, and he pulled up sharply. At the same moment he heard the muffled sound of dogs barking. Large dogs. Sending Ajax forward at a walk now, he approached the light through the trees.

The small cottage was long and low and dark. The light emanated from a lantern hung on the back of a railed wagon. The vehicle was stopped alongside a large kennel, and several men removed hounds to lift them up into the bed of the wagon.
Bloody hell
. By tomorrow the dogs would be gone.

He pulled out a pistol. No one could be allowed to remove the only evidence he had. Phineas gathered the reins in his left hand.

Something slammed into his left shoulder from behind. A heartbeat later he heard the shot, thin-sounding amid the trees.

Trying to keep from pitching forward out of the saddle, Phineas fired back in the general direction from which the shot had come. The reins dropped from his hand, pain belatedly tearing into him. Shoving his spent pistol back into his pocket, he grabbed the reins again with his good hand and kicked Ajax hard. In a second they were muscling up the hillside.

A muzzle flashed below him, and then another. “Come on, Frenchman!” Smythe’s voice, shaking with barely suppressed excitement, came from the direction of the woods. “Rob us now!
Vite, vite!
” Voices laughed, also excited at the prospect of blood. “Find him!”

Hoping Gordon had heard the commotion and gotten away, Phineas sent Ajax straight west at a gallop. Shot and in near-total darkness, if he hadn’t spent most of the past ten years of his life in the saddle, he never would have been able to do it. Thankfully he doubted that Smythe and his cohorts could match either him or Ajax.

For a moment he thought they might set the hounds after him, and he intentionally rode through the middle of one of Beaumont’s flocks, scattering it. Once a dog had killed sheep, it would go after them again at every opportunity.

Cutting back toward the lake, he listened, but couldn’t make out anything aside from the half dozen men and horses pounding after him. No dogs, then. They came to a fairly level stretch, and he took the reins into his teeth so he could dig the second pistol out of his left pocket. Abruptly the black veered sideways. A figure loomed out of the darkness directly in front of them.

“Don’t move,” Phineas hissed, lifting the pistol.

“Colonel!” Gordon’s voice rasped back at him.

Phineas didn’t take the time to ask what the devil the sergeant was still doing there. “Come on,” he grunted instead, tucking the pistol into his right pocket and grabbing the reins again.

“Ye’ve been hit,” Gordon said abruptly, his voice tense.

“A graze,” he grunted.

Another pistol fired, and a ball whistled past his ear. Their aim was improving, or his luck was failing entirely. Every thud of Ajax’s hooves against the ground jolted his shoulder, and sticky warmth crawled down his back.

The sergeant turned in the saddle to look behind them. “Six,” he panted, facing forward again. “How’d they know we were comin’?”

“They didn’t. Not specifically. The dogs are up at the lodge. Smythe’s moving them.”

“Then—”

“Bad people expect bad things to happen.”

“What does that say aboot us?”

Phineas smiled grimly. “We can debate that later.”

They plunged across a stream. Pain screamed through his shoulder as they pounded up the far bank. He swayed, gripping the pommel to keep from falling out of the saddle.

“Colonel.” Gordon edged closer, putting out an arm to steady him.

This was not good. They’d crossed onto Donnelly land, and were only about half a mile from the manor house. On any other night, he and Ajax could have ridden circles around their pursuers. Now, though, he was fast running out of time. “Gordon, take Ajax and lead these fools away from Quence. I’ll meet you back home.”

“And how is that?”

“It’s only a mile or so to Saffron. I can walk it, but I don’t think I can ride it. Not at this pace.”

“Then we stand’n fight.”

Phineas shook his head, tossing the end of the reins to the sergeant. “I want proof before I begin killing people. Wait for me in my bedchamber.”

He kicked out of the stirrups and jumped. The ground was damp, but it still stole his breath as he slammed into it knees first and rolled. With difficulty he came up onto his feet, and ran at right angles to the path Gordon took as the sergeant veered away from him.

Crouching against the fallen trunk of an elm, cradling his shoulder, Phineas held still as the riders passed by, close enough that if it had been daylight they would have seen him in an instant. He stayed where he was until the pursuit passed out of earshot. Then he stood, staggering a little and putting out his free hand for balance. If he couldn’t stop the damned bleeding, he wasn’t going to make it back to his blasted yellow horse.

Phineas looked over his shoulder. Just at the top of the rise he could make out the darker bulk of Donnelly House against the night sky. Not precisely friendly territory, but much closer than his horse and another mile home beyond that.

Lord Charles Smythe was an enemy. Whether he could prove it or not after tonight was another matter, but he knew it to be true. He could and did suspect further involvement, but he still found himself short of facts. If he approached Donnelly, who’d been so helpful to his brother, would the viscount help him, or finish what Smythe had begun?

There was, though, another course of action, something that wouldn’t involve a direct confrontation before he was ready for one. There was one person in that household whom he could trust. He hoped.