Elizabeth Kidd (26 page)

“Why not? But it was more than that. If I’d ‘found’ the missing marbles, I might have been a national hero. I do rather regret missing that, you know. At a last resort, I could have held them for ransom and turned a tidy profit.”

“What about Melville? He might have given you away even if he had not been apprehended.”

Carey could see by the flicker of irritation in Fenton’s scowl that he was unaware of this event, but he only shrugged and said, “He was expendable.”

“Were the Greeks he hired to steal the marbles expendable too? What did you tell them you were going to do with their stolen treasures?”

Fenton shrugged. “Who knows? I might have given them the real marbles and ‘rescued’ the fakes. A pity I never had the chance to work out all the permutations. It might have been most amusing to deceive absolutely everyone.”

Carey grinned. “Pity you won’t get away with it.”

“Oh, but I will. I’ve been building quite a nice little nest egg for myself in France. I can live there, or somewhere else where no one will find me, quite comfortably for the rest of my life.”

“You’ll never get out of England, Fenton.”

Fenton laughed. “My dear boy, I am as good as gone.”

“I think not,” Kedrington said then, standing upright and raising his pistol.

Fenton whirled around, but Kedrington was prepared and dropped to the ground again, so that Fenton’s shot went well wide of the mark. Before he could fire again, Carey shot forward and fell on top of him. Both men rolled down the slight slope Fenton had been standing on, and when they reached the bottom, Carey was on top. He dealt Fenton a single punishing blow to the jaw, and Fenton went limp.

Carey raised his fist again, looked disappointed when Fenton did not move, and lowered it.

“Nicely played,” Kedrington said, coming up just then. “I am glad to see that high living has not slowed you down.”

Carey got up, brushing the leaves from his clothes.

“I shouldn’t bother, dear boy. Nothing short of burning it will improve that coat.”

Carey laughed helplessly. “Duncan, you never change.”

“I trust not.”

“And I am once again grateful to you.”

“Think nothing of it. Who’s that over there?”

“Crewman. There’s another on the boat somewhere.”

Antonia burst into the copse at that moment, Dimitri directly behind her, and both stopped short when they saw who was still standing.

“Oh, thank goodness!” Antonia exclaimed, her hand to her heart. “We heard a shot.”

“I think Fenton wounded that tree over there,” Kedrington said. Antonia flung her arms around her husband’s neck and covered his face with kisses.

“I’m so glad you’re safe.”

“So am I, my love, but you’re embarrassing Dimitri.”

“Tell him to look the other way.”

But Dimitri was already embracing his sister. Carey, deprived of someone to hug, looked around him.

“I say, Duncan, what are we going to do with these fellows?”

The viscount, reminded of the late unpleasantness, looked down at Fenton, who was beginning to stir. A faint groan escaped him when Carey put his boot on his chest to keep him down.

“Perhaps you and Dimitri would be good enough to carry them up to my curricle—but for heaven’s sake, lay something down on the seats before you put them on it. I won’t have them ruining that new leather.”

Carey grinned and saluted. “Yes,
sir
!”

“As for the other crewman,” Kedrington began, then looked toward the sea. The yacht was now some distance away, making for open sea. “Ah. It appears he has acquired a new boat and will not be joining our little party.”

Kedrington looked down at Fenton, who was shaking his head as if to clear it. Suddenly, he reached down, took Fenton’s chin in his hand, and demanded, “Where the devil does that key fit, Fenton? The puzzle has been exasperating me from the start.”

A fleeting look of satisfaction crossed Fenton’s face, but he said only, in a slurred voice that strove ineffectually for defiance, “What key?”

“You know what key.”

Fenton sneered. “It belongs…to the house on…Cork Street. Afterwards…we just left the door open. Nobody would have known the difference.”

“Who killed the man who carried it?”

Fenton shrugged. “Not I. It was nothing to do with—with the man’s work for me…sheer bad luck.”

Kedrington looked disgusted, but he believed Fenton. He let him go abruptly, and Fenton slumped to the ground again. The two younger men lifted his limp body between them and made for the top of the rise, where Dimitri waited for Carey to have a hand free to retrieve the other crewman, who was likewise showing signs of reviving and had been bound hand and foot.

Antonia, detaching herself from her husband’s embrace, took Elena’s hand and kissed her cheek.

“Are you all right, my dear?”

Elena smiled. “I am now, yes. Oh, dear Lady Kedrington, do you forgive me? I have caused you no end of trouble.”

“Nonsense,” Kedrington said briskly. “It was no fault of yours.”

“Of course not,” Antonia agreed. “But Elena—why did you not tell us about your true relationship with your brother?”

“I was afraid for him. And in the beginning, we were indeed estranged. Dimitri had become so—so obsessed with returning the Parthenon marbles to Greece that he had no thought in his mind for anything, or anyone, else. There was no reasoning with him. That was why I came to England in the first place—it was both an attempt to make him see reason and a cowardly reluctance on my part to see him destroy himself. When he followed me to London, however, I had to see him. I still loved my brother. I could not betray him, even when I really thought he was mixed up in the plot to steal the marbles.”

“And you felt you had to make a choice between your brother and Carey.”

Elena nodded, unable to say more. Antonia dug a handkerchief out of her pocket and dabbed at Elena’s eyes with it, whispering soothing things to her until she finally gave a watery smile and thanked her.

“And you, too, my lord—that is, Duncan.”

“It was my pleasure to assist in any way I could,” he replied. “Besides, the sooner Carey moves out of my house, the sooner I can resume my peaceful retirement. I warn you, Elena, he is like an undisciplined puppy when kept indoors.”

Smiling, she said, “I shall train him before he knows it, you’ll see.”

“Well, then, you had better go and begin at once.”

Elena gave Antonia’s hand a last squeeze and went to join her brother and lover. Lord and Lady Kedrington lingered behind a little longer.

“Now that you are all safe,” Antonia said, with a little sigh, “I must confess that I have not enjoyed myself so much since the day I got tipsy on champagne and you proposed to me.”

He raised her hand to kiss it. “That was not precisely why I proposed to you.”

“Perhaps not, but you know to a nicety when to make a strategic move—as you demonstrated here today.”

“That was not strategy, only brute force. There was no time for subtleties.”

“Nonetheless, I wish you would teach me—”

“Certainly not.”

“How did you know what I was going to say?”

“It doesn’t matter. I shall teach you nothing that would even remotely prompt you to become embroiled in such an escapade again.”

“I don’t see how I could have helped it—this time.”

He looked toward heaven as if seeking wisdom from a greater power.

“Anyway,” Antonia said, “I shall have to stay out of mischief a little while.”

“And what miracle will keep you from it?”

She smiled. “A miracle indeed. You did not let me tell you my other story the other night, Duncan.”

He frowned for a moment. “Oh, yes—you did say you had two stories. What was it?”

“I shall tell you only the happy ending.”

He stopped and faced her, laughing. “Well, what is it? You are the most exasperating woman!”

She looked up at him, then lowered her eyes as a flush came over the face. In a low voice, she told him, “I have suspected it for some weeks, but was not certain until just the other day, but…you are finally going to be a father, my dear.”

He made no move and was silent for so long that she finally raised her eyes to his. There was a glow in them that she had never seen before, but it was even warmer than the light she had seen there when she first told him she loved him.

“Oh, my love….”

It was a long time before they joined the others, but they all waited patiently.

Copyright © 1997 by Elisabeth Kidd

Originally published by Signet (ISBN 9780451188199)

Electronically published in 2012 by Belgrave House/Regency

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This is a work of fiction. All names in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to any person living or dead is coincidental.