Kate Moore (13 page)

***

The quarter-hour bell sounded from a nearby church tower. Teague had not returned. Warne doffed his hat, shed his coat, and descended from the hack. The jarvey protested, and Warne tossed him another coin. He crossed the street and stood flush against the outer wall of Hill’s in the shadow of an overhanging upper story.

Just then, a group of young gentlemen burst through the doors, clumsy with drink, staggering, swearing, laughing.

“Hey ho,” said one of the group, coming to a swaying halt. “There’s a hack.”

“What do we want with a hack, Garrett? There’s eight of us. Come on. It’s not far to Roxy’s.”

“Right,” said the first gentleman. He spun on his heel, nearly tripped, and lurched after his companions.

Silently, Warne drew up behind the group. Garrett had been at the Royston ball, and the thief might have used him as an entré. He scanned the backs of the heads in front of him, but they all looked much the same.

They reached the first corner, and one of the young men groaned. “Going to cast up my accounts,” he proclaimed. His fellows giggled. Then Warne saw a hatless, coatless figure stumble around the turning. The next moment he heard purposeful steps running away. With a cry he lunged through the young men and dashed after the runner.

The thief’s ploy had given him yards on Warne, but a broad straight street lay before them with no corners before the distant thoroughfare of Drury Lane. Warne lengthened his stride and pushed himself. They were well matched for height and speed, and Warne knew the thief’s head start was just the edge that had to be overcome. He gained a yard, and the thief brushed a stack of crates standing outside a shop, sending their contents tumbling into the road, forcing Warne to check and swerve.

He closed the gap again, could hear the breathing of his adversary. Drury Lane was just ahead, choked with carriages lined up awaiting theatre goers. He stretched out his arm. They burst into the lane. The thief angled right and dove between the horses of one carriage and the rear of another. The startled animals shied, and the driver cursed and wrestled with his team.

Warne sidestepped to the next opening in the line and plunged through. He saw the thief roll under a carriage further down the line, and when he broke through again, the man was gone.

***

Kirby figured he had lost his father somewhere around the theatre, but he didn’t stop running until he’d passed Covent Garden. Then he stopped and cast up his accounts on a pile of refuse against a wall. For several long minutes he could not decide whether it was more necessary to breathe or to wretch. Then he picked himself up and headed back to his rooms. Lord, his father was fast.

15

Warne made an afternoon call upon the Lacy household in order to fix the date for the proposed party to Vauxhall Gardens. He was fortunate to find the ladies alone in the blue and gold drawing room, a circumstance which no doubt accounted for Lady Lacy’s welcoming effusions, Miss Lacy’s listlessness, and a slight stiffening of Mrs. Bowen’s back. He accepted a seat at his hostess’s right, from which he could observe the neat, steady movements of Mrs. Bowen’s hand as she set stitches in a bit of linen.

Lady Lacy professed herself delighted with the Vauxhall scheme. “How clever of you, Warne, to have procured a box just after the royal wedding. They say the world will be there.”

Warne saw Mrs. Bowen’s hand falter. Her gaze flew up to his, and he met it with a steady look of his own. She had to know he could not bend in this. He had been inches from catching the thief and would not be denied again.

“Juliet, dear,” Lady Lacy continued. “What a treat for you. Your first time to the gardens. The program is bound to be extravagant.”

“It will be,” Warne agreed. “I understand the cascade is to be altered to honor the royal couple. Of course, the fireworks will be extended.”

Juliet Lacy stirred at that. “It’s a public garden, isn’t it, Lord Warne?” she asked, not meeting his eye, but plucking at the folds of her skirt.

“It is, Miss Lacy,” he replied. “Thieves and Cyprians frequent the place, but I assure you in the company of your family and friends and with a private supper box, our party will be quite safe from any unwanted attentions.” He felt Mrs. Bowen’s gaze, but did not turn.

“Ma’am,” he said to Lady Lacy, “that brings me to the point of my call. I thought you might advise me as to which of your acquaintances I should include in the party.”

“Oh how kind, of course, let me think.”

Susannah looked at her flustered aunt. Evelina was naming her favorite companions one by one. How clever the Iron Lord was being. Flattered and surrounded by friends of her own choosing, Evelina would be absorbed in the pleasures of Vauxhall and pay no heed to Juliet at all. What, Susannah wondered, did Warne mean to do with her to see that she, too, relaxed her chaperone’s guard? And how did he plan to alert the young highwayman of his plans? Would he put a notice in the papers? Her reflections were interrupted when she realized the others were staring at her.

“I beg your pardon,” she said.

“Susannah,” Juliet said, “I think you should invite someone.”

Susannah could see that Evelina did not share her daughter’s view. “Who?” she asked.

“Well, your brother, of course, and his friend,” Juliet suggested.

“Thank you, Juliet,” Susannah said, recovering from the surprise of being noticed and considered. She looked at Warne. He was frowning, and it was plain he had not anticipated Juliet’s request. “I would love to have Henry and Ned included, if Lord Warne does not mind.”

Lord Warne made no objections. The guest list was decided upon, and the gentleman stood to take his leave. Just then Chettle announced new callers, and Evelina greeted them. A single stride brought Warne to Susannah, so near her skirts might brush his boots. With a light touch of his fingertips he traced the stitches she had made.

“Have you been to Vauxhall before, Mrs. Bowen?”

She watched the fine strong fingers moving across the little stitches. “Once, long ago,” she whispered.

“I hope you will enjoy the evening,” he said.

She looked up at that. “I hope so, too, Lord Warne.”

***

Warne returned from his morning run with one black thought on his mind—she had not walked. He understood now that that solitary, free-striding walk was necessary to her, the only unconstrained act she allowed herself each day. And though his mind suggested a dozen impediments to keep her from the park this morning, his heart could think of only one. She would not chance an encounter with him.

He opened the door to the breakfast room and stopped short. There, in his usual place, bent over the spread pages of the morning
Chronicle
, was Neil Bellaby.

His friend looked up, grinning. “Need me I see. You haven’t found a bride or a thief, have you?”

“Neither,” admitted Warne, stepping forward and extending a hand in greeting. In truth he had forgotten about his search for a bride in the past week. “Don’t tell me you’ve converted that mill to steam already?”

Bellaby explained that the project was going well, so well that he could leave it in the hands of an able assistant while castings were being made of new machine parts. As he listened to Bellaby, Warne toweled off. He settled himself across from his friend with his customary orange and a cup of coffee. He was separating the bright sections of fruit when Bellaby said, “So tell me about the thief.”

“He reminds me of me,” Warne said. “He’s done nearly everything I did to punish my father and at least one thing I wish I’d thought of.” He told Bellaby about the thief’s stealing his hat and cloak from the Royston ball. “No score left unpaid,” he repeated bitterly.

Bellaby was frowning. “But no attacks on your business or finances,” he pointed out. “You hurt your father far more with the ready than with petty tricks.”

“True,” Warne acknowledged. “I thought of that first. I went to Coutts’s the day you left and my other bankers as well. They would have informed me of any action of that kind.”

“But we have dozens of businesses, hundreds of clients. Have there been no moves against any of them?” Bellaby asked.

“Nothing suspicious.”

Bellaby folded up the
Chronicle.
“You still think this fellow is your father’s tool?”

“He must be. How I don’t know. I’ve investigated all father’s hirelings—Jopp, Reed, Alewood, Bunell. No one is up to anything the least bit suspicious.”

“Then the man must be acting alone,” Bellaby concluded.

Warne planted his elbows on the table and rested his head in his hands. “I thought of that, but what would drive some stranger to repeat my history? What satisfaction could he gain from embarrassing me?”

“He must not be a stranger. What else do you know about him?”

“I know everything about him except the why. He won the purse at Hill’s two nights ago.” Warne lifted his head. He watched the expressions on Bellaby’s face as his friend calculated the effort and determination that must have gone into such a victory.

“How did you find out?” his friend asked.

“He sent the purse here, with one of my cards, of course.”

Bellaby jumped up. “The devil, you say.” He began to pace. “It’s not revenge, it’s flattery. Imitation . . .” Bellaby waved a hand as if to summon the words he wanted.

“. . . is the sincerest form of flattery,” Warne finished.

“Yes, yes! And what does the fellow look like? Hill must have been able to tell you.” Bellaby was standing at the window looking out.

“He looks like . . . me, damn it, but . . .”

Bellaby let out a long breath and turned. “The cards say
With my father’s compliments
, Warne, not
No score left unpaid.
”

“Bellaby, what you’re thinking is impossible. If I have a son, he’s five or ten, not twenty as this fellow must be.”

He sank his head back in his hands. The moment when he knew he would never have a child with Ellen Kirby came back to him. “There’s a grave in Scotland, in a village near Dumfries. The girl I married is buried there.” He heard Bellaby come back to the table, pull out a chair, and sit down heavily.

“You never told me,” Neil whispered.

“I never told anyone. I loved Ellen Kirby from the time we started doing our lessons together under her father’s tutelage. He was the vicar in Dovedale. He taught us Latin and Greek and left us to our own devices for part of every afternoon. When I was sixteen, my mother noticed my interest in Ellen and she could not approve. There could be no alliance between our house and the impoverished daughter of an undistinguished cleric. My lessons were ended, would have ended in any case as I was to go off to Oxford. I was forbidden to see Ellen. My father encouraged a young housemaid to seduce me, and she succeeded in educating me and stirring the fires of lust so well that I was soon making love to Ellen secretly. At Christmas my mother discovered us together and reported to my father, who then called me to his library, where he waited with Molly, the maid. He asked me what I thought I was doing. I protested that I loved Ellen and meant to marry her. He reminded me of my absolute dependence on him and pointed out Ellen’s father’s equal dependence on his good will. He told me I merely had an itch between my legs and that he expected me to satisfy it with Molly and to wait for him to arrange a suitable match for me when I came of age. He knew everything I had done with Molly and suggested I had barely begun to sample the pleasures she could offer. No doubt he was using Molly for his own pleasure. He expected to hear from her by the end of the week that I was a man. But I was already a man, and I would not betray Ellen.

“I went to my mother and got her to plead for me, to let me leave for Oxford at once. I argued that it would separate me from Ellen. Mother got father to agree, and I began to plan an elopement. God, Bellaby, I cost Ellen her life.”

His fists closed in futile rage. “We had three days together before he found us. I don’t know how he did it. They had no reason to suspect that I had left Oxford or that Ellen was not with her aunt, whom she had said she’d gone to visit. He came with four men and laudanum. They put me in chains. He threatened to rape Ellen in front of me. ‘She’s the village slut, isn’t she,’ he said. ‘The girl who gives her favors to the highborn sons of the manor. How else does that befuddled father of hers keep his position? That’s what they’ll say,’ he said. ‘You’ve ruined her.’”

Warne stopped for a moment. The hate he had lived with for so many years rose like bile in his throat.

“The chains did not last long. The drug was harder to shake off. I went back as soon as I could, first to the inn where we’d stayed, then to a little village outside of Dumfries. Less than a month had passed, but what I found was that grave. The sexton led me to it. He said she’d died of a fever, like so many others that winter. He gave me the ring I’d put on her finger.”

He stopped again, recalling the blackness of that time. He had wanted to kill his father, but on the long numb journey back to Oxford he had decided instead that he would strip his father of everything that mattered to him as he had been stripped of his one joy.

“The bastard,” said Bellaby, and Warne heard a world of understanding in the word.

“He was,” Warne agreed. He stood and crossed to the window, staring out at the early morning bustle, seeing little.

“You never told anyone, you said.”

“Not ’til now.”

“But your mother knew, and that maid. Did your sister know?”

“No.” Dullness made him uncomprehending. He had replaced pain with hate, and now he had drained himself of hatred. “What are you getting at, Bellaby?”

“Well, this thief can’t be your son, but he wants you to
think
he’s your son.”

“Why?”

“You’re the marquess now. All London must know that you are thinking of marrying. He wants to stake some kind of claim before you leg-shackle yourself and bear a legitimate heir.”

Warne turned and stared at his friend.

“Hear me out. The fellow has heard the story. “He looks like you. Maybe he’s a by-blow of your father’s. They must be legion. And he sees a way to profit from his looks.”

Warne shook his head. His intuition told him the thief was not acting from a motive as shallow as profit. There was anger and vengeance in these acts, as there had been in his war against his father.

Bellaby shrugged. “Well,” he said. “It’s a theory. The question is, can you catch the man?”

“I think so,” said Warne. “At least I have a plan. Are you willing to help me?”

“Is the regent fat?” Bellaby grinned. “Tell me, what’s your plan?”

Warne explained his knowledge of the thief’s apparent weakness for Miss Lacy and how he meant to exploit it on their outing to Vauxhall.

“Is Miss Lacy a beauty?” Bellaby asked.

He thought about it. Of course she was, but he had grown accustomed to looking at her dark, slender cousin. “Yes,” he said.

“But you’re not interested?”

“No.” He ran his hands through his hair. “Not in any of this year’s girls, I confess. If one is intelligent enough to know what she’s about, I can see her weighing the discomforts of my reputation against the size of a marchioness’s allowance. The sweeter ones are terrified of me in spite of Maria Sefton’s efforts to make me acceptable. Then there’s Miss Elphinstone, who had the temerity to tell. Byron, and everyone else, that he wanted managing and should have married her. I’d have my hands around her throat inside of a week.”

Bellaby laughed. “You’ve made a rare mull of it then, haven’t you? I told you that you should find some improper widow and take her to bed.”

Bellaby’s words stopped him, bringing to mind that remarkable moment in the park when he had found himself kissing Susannah Bowen and wanting to lose himself in her sweetness. Something in his face must have given him away, for Bellaby sat up sharply.

“There is someone,” he said worriedly. “Warne, you promised I’d meet anyone you were seriously considering.”

“Don’t worry, Neil,” he said. “Susannah Bowen has as good an opinion of me as I had of my late father.”