Caprice: The Masqueraders Series - Book One (35 page)

The front door opened and a footman appeared. “Your carriage is ready, Mrs. Willoughby.”

“Thank you.” As she bent down for her portmanteau, Emory got there ahead of her. “Let me carry it,” he said with a smile.

“That won’t be necessary.” She tried to pull it away from him. In doing so, it banged against his grip and the latch lifted, unhooking the top, and some of the contents spilled out across the marble floor.

“I do beg your pardon!” He bent to scoop up the assorted scarves and gloves. As he picked up a handful, a necklace slipped from the folds and fell out onto the floor.

Clarissa’s heart stopped. Would he recognize the piece as one of those stolen in London? But when his soft green gaze met hers, he said, “This is Princess Soltana’s veil.”

She did not know whether to laugh or cry. “Yes, it is.” She held out her hand. “May I have it, please? My carriage is waiting.”

He gave it to her and mutely rose to his feet while she knelt to repack her case. He was still standing and silently watching her when she finished. To her relief, Sarah and Aunt Heloise came hurrying down the stairs at that moment.

“Here we are, Clarie, love!” Heloise called gaily. “Why, Mr. Blackburne, are you seeing us off?”

“In a manner of speaking, Lady Arbuthnott,” he answered, but his questioning gaze never left Clarissa’s face.

“Good-bye, Mr. Blackburne,” Clarissa said formally and, without extending her hand, picked up her case and hurried out the front door.

The gazettes were full of the news. Mr. Emory Blackburne was to stand trial for theft. Jewels valued at over fifty thousand pounds had been discovered in the cabin he had occupied aboard a ship at Dover bound for France.

“I can’t quite believe it!” Heloise exclaimed as she read the latest edition at her breakfast table at Dolick Hall. “Such a nice, well-mannered young gentleman. What can he have been thinking of?”

Clarissa stared into her breakfast plate, which had suddenly become quite repulsive. Hadrian’s brother was to stand trial for theft! Was that possible? If only she had listened to him back in London when he had first hinted that he was in trouble. Yet the time had never been right. She remembered the strange look in his eyes when the stolen necklace had tumbled from her portmanteau. At the time, she would have sworn that he had been more interested in Soltana’s veil than in the gems. How could she have been so mistaken in his character?

“I suppose Ramsbury will stand by him,” Heloise said after a moment. “They are said to be close, for all their differences. Have you heard from the earl in the matter?”

Clarissa roused herself. She had received three letters in as many days from Hadrian. “Only yesterday he wrote to tell me that something momentous had occurred, and that I should stay out of London until it was settled.”

“How conscientious of him. But he ever was. Even as a boy, he could be counted upon to handle every matter. Quentin always said he would grow into a fine man.”

“Uncle Quentin knew Lord Ramsbury?”

“My dear, Quentin knows everyone. But what of poor Mr. Blackburne? I cannot help but feel for him. If not for you, I might be in his shoes this very moment.” She paused. “Do you suppose it was he who nabbed Lady Longberry’s pearl collar? It was a particular favorite of mine. In fact—”

“Aunt, please!” Clarissa came to her feet. “Don’t you understand? This is serious. Mr. Blackburne is in Newgate. There will be a public and humiliating trial. If he is found guilty, he will face imprisonment or deportation. How horrible this must be for his mother.”

Heloise looked a little ashamed. “You are right! I must write her a note of sympathy and concern. Few will think to do it until they learn which way matters really stand. Shall I include your compliments? I shall say, of course, that we don’t believe it. Why, do you suppose, a gentleman with Mr. Blackburne’s resources would resort to theft?”

Clarissa was no longer listening to her aunt. “If you will excuse me, there is something I must do.” She went quickly from the breakfast room up to her bedroom.

She found the letter where she had put it the day she returned to Dolick Hall. It was pressed between the pages of one of her father’s architecture books. She had not opened it before now because, as far as she was concerned, Princess Soltana no longer existed. But now she wondered if it might betray a little of Emory’s state of mind.

The letter was brief.

“Oh, Emory!”

With the note still in her hand, Clarissa rushed back down to the breakfast table. “Aunt Heloise, he did what he did for Soltana. Oh, I am so very stupid!”

Heloise looked up from her perusal of the gazette and noted her niece’s hectic color in surprise. “Who did what, dear?”

“Mr. Blackburne.” Clarissa held up the note. “Listen to this.” She read it quickly and then looked up, distress marring every line of her face. “He must have stolen the jewels for Soltana. At least, he took them for the money, I suppose.” She blinked back tears of anger. “I have been so thoughtless! Causing needless grief in everything I have done. If I had let well enough alone, you would have been content to remain in the country, and away from the temptation of other ladies’ jewels. If I had refused to play Soltana, I would not have engaged, however unintentionally, Mr. Blackburne’s feelings. Look what that has caused! He’s ruined himself for Soltana.”

“Had you remained here at Dolick, you would not have met and fallen in love with Lord Ramsbury,” Heloise said reasonably.

“Perhaps that would be as well. I fear I am the cause of his brother’s ruination.”

“Rot! Rot, I say.” Heloise pounded the table with a fist. “Well you may gawk. You flatter yourself if you insist on believing that you exert so much influence over the lives of those about you. You are not the cause of Mr. Blackburne’s present trouble. If he stole jewels for money, then I’d wager it was to settle personal debts. Doubtless he was as well as flat before he ever caught a glimpse of Soltana.

“As for me”—Heloise lifted her chin defiantly—“I have been known to be impetuous once or twice before. Quentin always returned in time to save me. I can’t think what kept him away this time. If you insist on being responsible for something, then believe that if not for you, I would be in the suds.”

Clarissa suspected she should have been more shocked by this confession of a propensity for theft. But the fact that her aunt still waited for her dead husband dismayed her more. “Do you mean you thought that stealing would somehow bring Uncle Quentin home?”

Heloise shrugged. “Not precisely, but it did occur to me that he had never before failed me.” She sniffed. “I can’t believe that he remains absent. I could face anything if he were with me.”

Clarissa sighed. Far from strengthening her aunt’s resolve to accept her uncle’s death, their sojourn in London had only intensified her need to have him return. That delusion would not seem to be soon cured, and there now were more pressing matters. “I am going to London. I must know why Mr. Blackburne stole those jewels.”

“If it was for Soltana?”

Clarissa bit her lip. “Then I must somehow help him.”

“Clarissa Holton Willoughby! I absolutely forbid you to become embroiled in further intrigue.” Her aunt came to her feet. “You’ve developed a propensity for adventure that is quite shocking!”

Clarissa smiled and hugged her aunt’s neck. “I am a Holton, after all. What else could you expect? Now, I must hurry, darling. I want to reach London by nightfall.”

Clarissa had given the Newgate gaoler three coins and now waited in the dark corner of a prison office. She had never before been inside a gaol. After five minutes of the experience, she hoped it would never again be necessary.

She knew it was daylight outside, yet dank stone walls, lit only by flickering smoky torches, enclosed the prison in a permanent twilight where the pervading stench, damp, and clamor of unseen prisoners quickly formed a picture in her mind of the corridors of hell.

A rat skittered past her and she flinched away. Pulling her enveloping cloak closer, she refused to give in to the fear that had begun to gnaw at her sense of purpose. It had taken her a week to gain entrance into Newgate and three days more to persuade a gaoler to listen to her entreaty that she be allowed to see the prisoner who was, at present, Newgate’s most prominent “guest.”

Ordinarily she might have been able to catch sight of him from the gallery above the common cell, if that had been her purpose. Visiting Newgate and the madhouse were common pastimes for many English people of fashion. Like going to a carnival or zoo, the place drew those who felt the need to gloat or be entertained by the misery of others. A few tenderhearted souls never came back after a first visit. Many others never connected themselves to the squalor and degradation they witnessed. When a prisoner was of more than passing interest, a vicious murderer or a popular highwayman, visitors often paid money to view the miscreant up close. Someone, more than likely Lord Ramsbury, had paid a great deal to protect his brother from that kind of exploitation. And that had made her attempts to see him nearly impossible … but not quite.

A cry echoed up the corridor, causing her to swirl about and face the door behind which she had been locked. Again she realized that she was a prisoner herself, though her safety had been his purpose in locking her in, the gaoler assured her.

She moved in close to the iron-banded door when the sound of the gaoler’s iron-studded boots again rang on the cold stone outside. When he finally flung open the door, she nearly flew past him out of the prison.

“Come along, then.” His hooded eyes hid she knew not what secrets. He turned and started up the corridor.

“Thank you,” she answered softly and followed. How did a gently bred soul survive this, she wondered fleetingly, thinking of her aunt. No, she would go mad.

She was led through a maze of corridors and passages until she knew with certainty that she would never find her way out of here alone, and that this was the purpose of the elaborately arranged cellblocks.

Finally the gaoler stopped before a door that had only a small barred window to distinguish it from the surrounding wooden framing. He put a key in the lock, turned it, and said, “Ye got a few minutes afore his lordship is due.”

“Five minutes should be sufficient,” Clarissa said crisply. She deliberately jingled the coins in her pocket. “Don’t forget me, and I will not forget you.”

With that, he pushed the door open.

Not knowing what horrors waited on the other side of the door, Clarissa braced herself. Her surprise was complete.

The cell, though plain, was absolutely clean—if one ignored the seeping walls. She saw in a single sweep a bed with fresh linen, a small barred window which let in light, a table, and a chair upon which the prisoner sat in shirt-sleeves while composing a missive.

As the door swung shut behind him, Emory said, “I’ve finished the list, Had——” He turned as he spoke. When he saw his visitor, he rose slowly to his feet. “I beg your pardon. You are … ?”

Clarissa threw back her hood to reveal her veiling.

“Princess Soltana!”

“Softly, sir,” she cautioned, and came forward to extend her hand to him. “You are a very difficult gentleman to see, Mr. Blackburne. I have waited these last ten days to do so.”

He took her hand gingerly, as if afraid she might disappear. “It
is
you.”

“Indeed.” She slipped her hand free of his sudden grasp. “But do not mistake the reason for my appearance, sir. I am only here to learn the truth of your situation.” She glanced about. “May I sit there?” She indicated his chair.

“By all means. It is not much, but it will serve.” He reached to snatch his coat from the back of it as his sense of right began to reassert itself. “I was expecting my brother,” he said as he shrugged into it. “Hadrian pays to see that I’m given soap and fresh water once a day, but they won’t allow me a razor.” He self-consciously touched his darkly bearded cheeks. “Afraid I’ll slit my throat.”

“Would you?”

“Dear me, no.” He wrenched his cravat straight. “I expect I’m made of sterner stuff than that.”

She smiled. “I’m glad to hear it. Now then, I’m here because of your final disturbing letter to me. Looking back on it, I believe that I am somehow connected to your present circumstance. If I am in anyway responsible—”

“How can you think that?” he cut in.

She looked him in the eye. “Did you or did you not steal for the purpose of amassing a fortune to impress Princess Soltana?”

Without thinking about the impropriety of it, he sat down on his bed, propped his elbows on his knees, and dropped his head into his hands. “God knows I’ve tried to get the right of it. There were many things…. The gambling began months ago. I was an earl then, about to come into a fortune. But then I began losing, and losing again. Soon I owed too much. My allowance wouldn’t cover it. I had to do something.”

“You might have appealed to your brother,” Clarissa inserted quietly.

He lifted his head. “Hadrian? He’d likely have put me here himself.”

“Go on.”

Emory shrugged. “I used the services of a Cent per Cent.” He smirked. “That compounded bill came due quickly. I sold everything I could safely dispose of. Then I saw how you doted on my brother after he won all that money from Tibbitts, and I thought, well, there’s the method to gain her attention.”

Clarissa’s lips thinned. “I should slap your face for the insult. Oh, Emory, you are such a child!”

Amazingly, he smiled at her. “You really do care.”

“Don’t preen, it ill becomes your circumstance.”

But the smile on his face remained. “It went pretty quickly after that. Stealing seemed easy, once I got accustomed to it. Oh, at first I panicked every time. The night Hadrian found the diamond necklace I’d dropped before the library door, I was certain he’d trip to the truth, being a spy and all, but he didn’t.”

Clarissa sighed. “How did you think to get away with it? What good were jewels that all of London would recognize as stolen?”

He lowered his head as a blush crept up his cheeks. “I took them abroad, on the advice of a friend.”

“What friend?”

He looked up, his blush receding into a grayish pallor beneath his beard, and she realized how much of a strain he had been under, for all his attempt at bravado. “Promise me you won’t tell Hadrian?” She shook her head but Emory seemed to feel the need to unburden himself on someone for he went on. “It was Tibbitts. He had advanced me money before Hadrian came home. He was very decent about it. Though I did wonder when he suggested theft.”

“When did he do that?”

“When I told him I could not repay him. Hadrian had cut him off from the
ton
by unmasking his cheat. Tibbitts said a man without means must learn to live by his wits. He suggested I steal from
Maman!”
He sounded absolutely insulted at the idea. “But then I thought, there’s enough jewels in London that to take a few of them would scarcely be noted.”

“That is the way to hell, Emory.”