Three Times the Scandal (40 page)

“
Neddy, you know what I am. I’ve never hidden it from you.” They’d shared more than most brothers—lovers, secrets. Great, fat whopping secrets. Ned had covered for him in the early days. He’d never criticized, which made his current growl of disapproval all the more shocking.

“
You’re not the same as most of them. I know you like women. Just because Lucy’s decided to blacken your name doesn’t mean you have to do it yourself.” Neddy walked out of the porch, leaving him alone.

Darleston scratched his chin.
Stop worrying, will you
, he silently shouted after his brother.
I’m going to take myself out of the way.
The social whirl in the capital would continue without him. Gossip would slowly turn to other matters. Rumour mongering was all she was capable of. She had no proof of anything else.

Faking an easy gait, he followed the route his brother had taken from the church porch and found Neddy by the gate watching the road.

“
I still say one of us should have gone as back up,” Neddy remarked, as Darleston rested a hand upon the top of the gate. If one of Macleane’s lackeys has caught him, we’ll be lucky if we’re nursing him back to health tomorrow, not wishing congratulations on being wed.

Darleston lit a cigar and put it to his lips. He watched the smoke curl from the end for several moments before offering it to his brother, who shook his head.

“
Giles wanted to go alone. Having made such an abysmal pig’s ear of things, he feels he needs to prove himself. And I did roll a convenient gin barrel in the direction of Macleane’s men. With any luck they’re too busy tippling to worry about a shadow at the window. Besides, Neddy, I don’t think he wanted an audience for his declaration of undying love. Laying yourself bare and risking being slapped aren’t things you want witnessed.”

“
I’ll guess you’d lost such inhibitions, being completely in your cups when you proposed to Lucy. As I recall I had to help you back up off your knees.” Ned drew a small hip flask from his inner pocket and took a deep draft. “Fortifying drink?” he offered.

“
No thanks. I never know what poison you have in there.”

“
Brandy,” Neddy gasped having taken a swig. He coughed to clear his throat. “Damn, that burns.”

“
Shall we walk? I can’t bear to stand here until they arrive.”

They left the gate and followed a path worn in the sodden grass out amongst the gravestones. The snow had completely thawed over the last few days leaving behind the wet residue of the thawing frost. Here and there among the leaning, moss streaked stones, crocuses and daffodils were rearing their delicate heads. Some distance from the church, in a natural hollow shielded by a border of conifers, they paused by a raised sepulchre.

“
This reminds me of All Hallows Eve,” said Neddy.

“
Good evening, that,” Darleston mused. He drummed his fingers against the moss-streaked stone, thinking back to that night in Shropshire, chasing phantoms and maidens about Pennerley’s castle. Maybe he’d head in that direction, see if Pennerley would put him up for a while. His fingertips found the letters carved into the stone. H-A-R-R-I-E-T P-I-M-C-O-C-K, he traced. Startled, he stubbed out his cigar and tossed it into the long grass, and then bent to the green-grown stone. “Ned, this is Aunt Hattie’s tomb.”

“
Aunt, who?”

“
Pimcock’s wife. Fortuna’s godfather. This is the old girl Archie Gibbons swears was buried with the fake Fortune.” Seized with sudden energy, he paced around the sepulchre. Sure enough on the opposite side, a more recent engraving remembered
James Pimcock, loving husband and brother, who died in India, 17
^th
February 1800
.

His gaze locked with Neddy’s across the top of the stone slab. His twin’s pupils glittered like black fire.

“
I know where the original is,” Neddy remarked.

“
And the fake is right here.” They had to do this. It was too good an opportunity to pass up. “Help me open this up.”

Armed with their pocket-knives they cleared the debris of moss from lid joint, and together pushed. Slowly, painfully the heavy slab lifted out of its seating. They jimmied it with Darleston’s cane. The scrape of grinding stone echoed dissonantly around the churchyard.

“
Not too far,” Darleston warned through clenched teeth. “The last thing we need is for this thing to fall off.” He looked around warily, expecting an influx of law enforcers. The graveyard remained eerily quiet, as did the rest of the village.

“
We could do with a lamp, to get a look inside,” said Neddy. He drew back to wipe the sweat from his brow with his sleeve.

Darleston eyed the corner of the tomb they’d exposed. “No lanterns. It’ll only draw attention. Don’t think for a moment our arrival hasn’t been observed. Villages talk. We’ll manage blind.” Perhaps too that was the better way. He glanced at his hands, and found his white kid gloves already ruined. He’d have to discard them anyway. Meanwhile they’d protect him from whatever he was about to slide his hand into. “Pray this is the right end.” Cagily, he pushed his arm into the gloomy box up to his elbow. “I can feel the coffin, but the bugger’s nailed shut.”

“
Wait there. I’ll see what I can find to break it.”

Neddy tore off back towards the church, leaving Darleston pulling his arm free again. Alone, time passed with painful slowness. The clouds scudded away leaving behind a bright gibbous moon, which painted silver streaks across the dislodged granite. Darleston stubbed out a second cigar and attempted a nonchalant pose. He’d learned from years of experience that the best method of avoiding detection when engaged in matters one shouldn’t be engaged in, was to appear relaxed. Thankfully, his acting skills weren’t put to the test. There were no midnight wanderers, and eventually Neddy returned.

“
Did you find anything?”

Neddy passed him a heavy metal-headed mallet and what appeared to be a bent piece of iron railing. “Don’t ask,” he said in regard to Darleston’s raised brows. “Let’s just break this thing open and get back to the church before Giles arrives. I don’t think he’s going to be impressed with our efforts.”

“
Actually, I think he’d roll the old dear out of her casket. It’s Fortuna who’ll be horrified.”

“
I don’t know. I’ve always found her startlingly practical.”

“
I still think she’d baulk at robbing her dead aunt.” Darleston wiped the nervous sweat from his brows, and positioned the implements. The sound of the hammer hitting the makeshift anvil pealed like the church bells. He grimaced but struck again. Any moment they would surely hear the lolloping gait of investigators approaching. Curiously, not even Jenkins appeared to seek out the clamour occurring in his graveyard.

It was lunacy, of course, what he was doing, but he didn’t stop. He’d go to the devil before he saw Macleane walk off with what was rightfully Fortuna’s. That damned bastard had put them all through too much to let him walk away sporting a smug grin.

“
You’re just an old sentimentalist really, aren’t you?” Neddy remarked. His red hair clung to his cheeks, blown by the wind.

“
Maybe.”

Darleston struck the coffin again, this time pouring all his frustration into the blow. Wood crunched and splintered beneath his weight, pitching him forward against the tomb. He curled his stubbed toes and eased his hand and the tools free. “Head end, please.” He plunged his hand again into the inky, cold interior.

Even through his gloves, Darleston was morbidly aware of the many textures beneath his fingertips, mulchy softness, something dry and crackly. Eyes squeezed tight, he blanked everything but the necklace from his mind. Hair, skull, collar, throat.

His fingers curled around the string of stones. “I have it.”

It took a moment or two to negotiate the catch and pull the necklace free, but finally, he held it aloft.

“
Thank, God!” Neddy crossed himself.

They both stared at the necklace in wonderment. Even after a decade gracing the throat of a corpse, it glittered like starlight.

“
That’s a damn fine fake. I’m not sure I’d know it was a fake if I hadn’t seen the original.” Neddy flicked out a kerchief and caught the swaying red-black rubies in its snowy folds.

“
Then let us hope Macleane hasn’t seen it either.”

“
I don’t see how he possibly could have, the fake’s been in the ground eleven years and the real Star of Fortune in India until recently. Besides Messer’s Knapsley and Cox, I expect very few people have actually seen it. And I can’t envisage them admitting to something being other than expected. They’d have to admit to having been robbed first, and that would hardly advance their business.”

“
I entirely agree. However, let’s get this lid back in place. There’s no sense in deliberately raising suspicions.”

The stone lid ground back into position with considerably more ease than lifting it had been. Everything firmly seated once more, they strolled back to the church porch.

“
I can’t believe we just did that,” said Darleston as they neared the now illuminated porch. He took the bundle Neddy had made of the necklace and shoved it into his coat pocket before stripping off his discoloured gloves and pushing those in alongside. “This thing could probably do with a wash.”

“
There’s always the font.”

Darleston shook his head, smiling too. “I think we’ve shown almighty God enough disrespect for one night. We’ll find somewhere to polish it up after the ceremony. Right now, let’s get inside and make sure Jenkins is ready for them and he understands that we don’t want a full mass.”

“
You know, Rob, I think he probably already knows that.”

A welcoming basket of holly and mistletoe met them by the church door. Beyond, raised candles illuminated the path to the altar. “Are they here?” Jenkins asked.

Neddy nodded. “Those are Giles’s horses I can hear. Now where have I left my hat?”

Chapter Sixteen

Dawn was painting saffron cracks across the sky as Giles’s carriage returned to Jermyn Street. “Wake up, Mrs. Dovecote,” he coaxed. “I’m afraid we’ve business to conduct, as much as I’d like to simply take you home.”

“
I’m awake,” Fortuna groaned and snuggled more tightly to his chest. The scent of him, musky and familiar, so warm and vital beside her, soothed some of the unease she felt over facing her family. The Allenthorpes were expecting to attend a wedding, not to be told they’d already missed it.

After she and Giles had exchanged their vows in the lovely little church, the same one in which her godfather had married, and in which Aunt Hattie was buried, they’d driven out of the village and made gentle love in the carriage. The twins had left them at the church, promising to meet up with them again soon after daybreak.

“
Come, my love, you know we have to do this,” Giles further coaxed.

Fortuna smiled up at him, loving the way that when he said ‘my love’ it rumbled deep in his chest.

“
They can’t part us now. There’s nothing to fear. But we need to clear the shadow shrouding your family’s future.” He stroked her feathery blonde hair back from her brow. “Then, Mrs. Dovecote, I intend to take you home, and spend the rest of eternity bedding you.”

“
I think I shall like that.”

Giles shifted his weight slightly, so he leaned over her, and his breath whispered against her ear. “I think I shall like it too.” He blew. The tickle caused her to hunch her shoulders. She scrunched her face up too, trying to hide. Giles gently bit her earlobe, then sucked.

“
You shan’t coax me from the carriage if you insist on doing that.”

His attention remained fixed.

Fortuna sighed, as shivers tingled down her spine and through her breasts, causing her sensitive nipples to perk up in expectation. She straddled his lap, pressing up against his covered loins.

One hand still stroking her hair, Giles played the other lightly over her bottom. “What time were you expected to rise?”

“
Six. The wedding was to be at quarter past eight.”

He dragged his timepiece from his pocket by the chain and glanced at the ornate face. “Time yet, then,” he slid his fingers up her thigh, “to make you writhe like a virgin whore.”

Fortuna rubbed her nose against his. “Do they writhe more than the usual variety?”

Giles snorted in amusement. “I’m not sure I’m qualified to say. I don’t think I’ve ever had the misfortune of bedding a true virgin, just a handful of pretenders.”

She glared at him. “I didn’t pretend. I admitted the truth.”

“
A trust I’ll always appreciate.” His smile ran into the green of his eyes. “Lift your bottom a little, love.”

His newly exposed cock slid against her, teasing the swollen lips of her puss.

She pouted. “Don’t tease.”

Giles grinned. “I think you like it when I tease.”

“
I like it when you fill me.” She bore down and over him, taking his full length.

He groaned and tilted his head back, eyes closed. “And I like it when you’re insistent,” he ground out.

She arched against him, lifting herself, riding him until her moans of pleasure lapsed into incoherence. She thrashed in delight, oblivious to the street waking around them, aware only of the glorious building ache inside her as it spread, heating her flesh, until orgasm sliced through the haze of sensation. It struck like lightning, fizzled through every nerve as her body claimed him.