Season for Scandal (35 page)

“The best sort.” He drained his port and set down the glass. “Well. What sort of game is to your taste now? Shall we continue chess? Or would you like to talk of collecting?”

“I’m losing the game of chess,” Jane pouted.

“Collecting it is, then.” Turner smiled. “And in answer to your earlier question, the price of adventure is a collection.”

“What do you mean?”

“That set of rubies.” Turner’s hand, again clutching for Jane’s necklace, twisted it around his fingers. “I want them.”

“They’re not mine to—
give
.” Her voice choked out the last word, surprised, as Turner pulled at the chain around her throat.

Edmund flinched, ready to fly to her; Xavier’s hand stayed him. “Wait,” the earl whispered. “Wait. Just a bit more.”

“Jane, Jane,” Turner said silkily, “you can’t have me think that a tiny matter of rightful ownership matters to you. You took the rubies once; you simply need to take them again.”

“I only borrowed them. I don’t think borrowing would satisfy a collector, though.” Jane kept a sleek smile on her face as she tried, unsuccessfully, to tug free her necklace. “Shall we play some more of our game?”

Once more, then twice, Turner wrapped the necklace around his fingers, pulling Jane forward until they faced each other, nose to nose. “This is the game now,” he said, all his good humor vanished. “You’ll collect those rubies, or you’ll pay the price. You know how gambling works, my
dear
lady, and you’ve just lost again.”

“I don’t understand,” Jane stalled. “What did I wager?”

Turner’s face, contorting, went ruddy. “Yourself, to begin. I’ll have those rubies now, you little slut. The only remaining question is whether I shall persuade you with charm”—his fingers, still holding Jane’s chain, trailed down her neck—“or violence?” He twisted the necklace again, until the wrought gold cut tightly into Jane’s throat.

“That’s enough,” Edmund muttered. “Xavier, let’s go. Pistols out.”

In a few seconds, the hidden trio had wrenched themselves free from their awkward hiding place and wrestled open the closet door. Blinking against the lamplight, Edmund careened into the door of the drawing room and flung it open. “Let go of her, Turner. Now.”

Startled, Turner leapt to his feet, and Jane took the chance to jump up and dart to the other side of the room.

Edmund tugged his pistol free and pointed it at Turner. He had no idea whether the powder had dribbled out or whether his strained shoulders and arms could even aim properly. No matter. The way he felt, he would happily beat Turner over the head with it.

Xavier came up next to Edmund. “Turner?” he murmured. “Not Bellamy?”

“I’ll tell you later.”

“It seems there’s much to the story I haven’t heard.” He coughed. “Like the fate of Jane’s dowry.”

“Later,” Edmund barked. “Where’s Lady Sheringbrook?”

“Here.” Her voice cold and proud, she marched up next to Xavier.

They formed a line facing Turner, whose face was still a mottled red. He had raised his hands and seemed to be struggling to smile. “Now, what’s all this? Some sort of mistake. Lady Kirkpatrick and I were merely having a friendly game of—”

“Oh, shut it.” Edmund was surprised by how pleasurable it was to say the simple words. “Just shut it, Turner. Three witnesses, plus Lady Kirkpatrick herself, heard your threat. And Lady Sheringbrook reported the theft of her pearls weeks ago. With what we’ve heard tonight, it won’t be difficult to solve that case.”

Turner blanched. “You’ve no proof.”

Edmund shook his head. “We’ve enough. We may not have all the points from
A
to
Z
, but we have—”

“At least every other letter,” Jane broke in, rubbing at her neck. “
A
and
C
and
E
and so on.”

“She can never be quiet, can she?” Xavier muttered.

Edmund ignored them both; the world was his hand, his pistol, and Turner’s dark eyes. “You do have a few choices. You can take your chances before the magistrate. Perhaps at the next assizes, you’ll be found innocent. Or perhaps not. As a convicted thief living under a false name, I shouldn’t think your chances were very good. Leniency has saved you before, but it won’t a second time.”

“Or?” Turner’s jaw clenched.

“Or you can leave. Go to the Continent. Go to India, finally. Back to Australia, even, if it feels like home. But you must never return to England.”

Turner opened his mouth, and Edmund cut him off. “I’m sure you’re about to ask what will happen if you do, because that’s the sort of rubbish you talk. Well, here’s the answer. If any of us sees you, the magistrate shall be notified. What is, for now, a private affair will become public. And at the end of it, a rope awaits you. It’s all but certain.”

He looked at Turner’s eyes, the dark eyes that also belonged to Mary and Catherine. “Don’t choose the rope, Turner. For their sakes, don’t.”

He had never expected this: pleading with the father of his sisters not to embarrass them with their bastardy. Not to make Edmund prosecute him, or pursue his execution. To see the father of his sisters killed, even if Mary and Catherine never knew who the man was.

“Don’t choose the rope,” Edmund said quietly.

Unblinking, Turner stared back. Then his shoulders sank. “Have you a ship, then?” He spoke in his natural brogue. It had probably been charming once.

“I have,” Edmund replied, “and I’ll take you there tonight. Xavier, will you tie his hands?”

In a few minutes, it was done: Turner’s hands bound, the pistols again stowed, a hackney summoned.

“I think it best,” Xavier said, “if we each swear out affidavits of what we’ve seen and heard, then leave the sealed documents with our solicitors. If any of us meets with an unfortunate accident, the statements shall be opened.”

“Excellent plan,” agreed Lady Sheringbrook. “Now. What have you done with my pearls, you thief?”

“Handed them over to your son, didn’t I?” Turner managed a flicker of his old grin. “Seems every family here’s got more than a touch of scandal.”

The elderly viscountess seemed to shrink. “Far more. Yes.”

Xavier braced her under the elbow. “As far as I am concerned,” Xavier said to the room at large, “none of you was ever here, and I passed a quiet Christmas Eve with my wife. But if you would like to join us for Christmas dinner tomorrow, you would all be most welcome. Except for the fellow with his wrists tied.”

Jane walked up to Edmund, holding a parcel in her hands. “Here. It’s his chess set.”

“It’s probably stolen.”

Jane didn’t even look at Turner. “Well, if you can figure out who it belongs to, give it back. Otherwise, let him take it. He’s a very good player.”

“That he is,” Edmund murmured.

With a nod, he took the parcel from Jane, and the whole company trooped downstairs. Edmund and a pair of burly footmen climbed into the hackney along with Turner, and the hired carriage rolled off to the London Docks.

Chapter 26

Concerning a Variety of Travel Arrangements

Turner’s hands remained tied, and he held his silence during the ride to the docks. Edmund took no chances, though: the two beefy footmen sat at attention on the backward-facing seat. One held a pistol, another a knife.

Once they reached their destination, the quartet climbed from the carriage. For the exorbitant price of a crown, the coachman allowed Edmund to borrow his lantern.

The docks at night—even in winter, even on Christmas Eve—bustled and hummed with activity. The engines of trade never halted, and sailors in port would never miss the chance for revelry. Voices of those at work unloading cargo echoed sharp and businesslike, while the drunken shouts of those on leave punctuated the steadier calls. To the city’s usual cesspool stench were added the odors of fish and oil, the scents of commerce.

Edmund marched at the head of their party, with the footmen flanking Turner. Winding their way through stacks of barrels and crates, past warehouses stuffed with luxury goods, they eventually found themselves at the side of a ship: the
Genevieve,
setting sail for the Mediterranean.

“Your passage has been paid,” Edmund said over his shoulder as they climbed aboard the ship. “Do you wish to be confined to quarters?”

“Do I have a choice?” Turner spoke for the first time since his hands had been bound.

When Edmund’s feet reached the end of the gangplank, the world rocked and shifted beneath them.
Genevieve
bobbed in the gentle lapping of the river water.

“You’ve always had a choice,” Edmund said. “The way you are treated depends on the way you behave.”

Turner looked amused for a second; that haughty unflappable expression that showed he thought the whole world
dobhránta
except for himself.

“The captain knows you’re not to be trusted, and he can confine you to quarters. Throw you overboard, too. But if you behave, he’ll take you to Spain or Italy; I don’t care where you end up.” Edmund let this sink in for a moment; then he added, “You can start over, Turner. You needn’t let your life be in vain, and you needn’t have it end.”

Turner spat on the ground. “I didn’t choose the rope, boyo. But don’t ask me to listen to your prosing or I may hang myself.” Turner’s mouth twisted; a hint of the lean, handsome man the former tutor had been. “All you’ve got to go home to now is an empty house. Took down a bit of the aristocracy from within, didn’t I? Seems I’m a better revolutionary than you ever knew.”

One last time, Edmund looked at the man who had formed so much of his life. Turner looked resentful but resigned, his shoulders square and jaw set, graying hair tied back in the old-fashioned queue he favored.

“I suppose I do owe you a debt,” Edmund said. “You helped to shape me into the man I am today.” He turned away. “Captain, I’m ready to disembark.”

The gangplank wobbled beneath his feet, but his steps as he strode away from the ship had never felt more sure. The heels of his boots echoed on wood, then pavement, their thump a counterpoint to the steady beat of his heart. Behind him followed the two footmen.

Faintly, beneath the muddled odors of waste and commerce, he thought he caught the salt scent of the sea. Maybe he was simply imagining it, for he stood at the edge of the sluggish Thames, and the sea was out of sight in the persistent dark.

Still, the new smell filled his lungs, and he pulled in deep breaths and slowed his pace as he drew near the hackney. He hadn’t been so close to any sea since his boyhood; he’d gotten used to air filled with smoke and fog and damp. Now, right by the water’s edge, the humid air felt different. Chill and bracing rather than heavy and dull; that promise of the sea, stretching away, seemed to scour him of a grime that had blacked him for a long time.

Done. After all this time, it was done. It was time to go home.

Home? Was that Cornwall? The memory of the sea had a powerful pull on him.

Or maybe that pull was simply the relief of being free.

Since he’d spent so much of his adult life in the Berkeley Square house, home ought to be there. But since Jane had left, he’d become more aware than ever that home was nowhere. In truth, it could be anywhere.

Wherever she was.

With one last look at the ship that would carry Turner away, then up at the star-powdered sky, Edmund made his decision. “Back to Xavier House,” he instructed the coachman, handing up the lantern, and then he climbed into the carriage.

It was almost Christmas, and there was much he wanted to give.

After the excitement of nearly being strangled, the rest of the evening passed slowly for Jane.

She had returned to Edmund’s house with none of her belongings, but with Christmas parcels for Edmund. Best to see how her gifts were received before she returned to him for good and all.

Mistletoe still adorned each doorway. But in the drawing room, the garland was looking rather sad, and the berries on the holly trim had shriveled. With the help of her maid, Hill, the greenery was tugged down and replaced, perfuming the air with its living scent, sharp enough to catch Jane in the back of the throat. She admired the room, then stowed her parcels.

And then she had nothing to do but wait.

She looked about the room, gaze landing on her painted Chinese vase. The glazed porcelain looked different to her now. Once it had held the promise of escape.

Now? It was art. Art she had chosen for her home to make it beautiful.

Eventually she fell into a reverie in a chair by the fire, not noticing Edmund’s tread on the stairs until he entered the room. “Jane, thank God. When you weren’t at Xavier House, I thought . . .”

Blinking, she sat up straight. “You thought what? That I’d gotten drunk and fallen into the Thames?”

“Uh. No, not that.”

“Well, I did use Xavier’s carriage to come here. It’s not as though no one in the household knew where I was.” She sounded like a crab apple, didn’t she? She pressed her lips together. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you’d be looking for me, or that my departure would be a surprise.”

“Didn’t realize I’d be looking for you?” He strode over, caught her hands, and gave her a hearty kiss on the top of the head. “Jane, it’s done.
It’s done.
He’s on a ship, and soon he’ll be gone.”

“Do you trust that he’ll stay away?”

“I do,” he said. “If nothing else, he’s good at looking after his own skin. Now he knows he won’t be able to do that anymore if he comes back here. None of his so-called love is worth as much to him as his own safety.”

“Or he did muster a bit of love in the end by leaving and keeping the secrets. If he truly did father your sisters, it would hurt them to know they’re illegitimate. They wouldn’t be able to marry well. Your mother would be disgraced. Saving his own skin and being selfless turned out to be the same thing.”

Edmund considered. “Maybe so.”

“I kept the black chess queen. When Turner opens his set, he’ll realize that, and he’ll know what it means.”

“That you’re a thief, too?” His voice was touched with humor.