Chapter 28
28
M artin slouched in his chair and threw back the dregs from his glass of whisky. The library swam with the volumes of leatherbound books seeming to float in uneven waves on the shelves, yet he had no intention of slowing down. “Giles,” he shouted, “bring me another bottle.”
The door opened as if the butler had been standing at the ready. However, it wasn’t the doting servant who stepped inside. His sister, Lady Julia’s bloody accomplice, pattered inside and sat in the chair across from him.
He gave her the soberest stare he could manage. “I am to be left alone.”
“Aye, I ken your ridiculous orders. Heaven’s stars, you’ve been wallowing in here like a drunkard for the better part of a week—six days for heaven’s sake.”
“I command you to leave me be!” he bellowed, not caring for the slur of his words or how despicable he sounded.
The vixen pursed her damned lips and folded her arms as if she were planning to stage an insurrection. “I’d like nothing better, but Mama sent me in here and she told me not to remove my person until I’ve had my say.”
“Och aye? Our mother has sent my devious, scheming sister in for a chat. Tell me, what cunning plan does our mother have up her sleeve to thwart me?”
“I beg your pardon? You are referring to the woman who bore us, our father’s wife who does now and always has wished the best for her children.”
Since Giles had not yet responded to Martin’s request for more whisky, he stood and stumbled to his writing table. “After what transpired at the Pool of London, I am thoroughly convinced that all women are devious.” He pulled a bottle out of the drawer and turned it upside down only to discover it empty. “Giles!”
Charity stamped her foot. “Would you please do me the kindness of resuming your seat so that I may have my say and leave you to your self-destructive, unseemly inebriation?”
Martin stubbed his toe on the rug and stumbled back toward his chair while thrusting an accusing finger at his sister. “You helped that woman and do not deny it. The two of you were colluding together.”
Charity placed a palm on the table and leaned forward. “Only because you didna recognize Mr. Smallwood for who she was from the outset.”
“I am not accustomed to being deceived by stewards who have been vetted by my solicitor of all people.” Martin plopped into the seat, trying to look Charity in the eye, but blast it if she weren’t weaving all over the library. “I thought you were being kind when I realized you’d given Lady Julia some of last Season’s clothing.”
“I was merely helping her.”
“But you kent she was Mr. Smallwood all along, yet you did not reveal her deceit to me. You most likely watched and laughed while the Duke of Dunscaby made a damned fool of himself.”
Charity pounded her fist hard enough to make his inkwell rattle. “I did no such thing.”
“Aye.” Martin belched. “I’ll believe that when I see a chubby swine sprout wings and fly past this window.”
“Stop it. You are doing nothing but feeling sorry for yourself like a pathetic fool.” Charity shook a stack of missives and a small black book at him. Had she come in with those in hand? “Goodness, Marty, you liked Lady Julia—you truly liked her. I’ve never seen you so enamored with a woman. Not ever.”
He shoved a damned lock of riotous hair out of his eye. “It seems I have very poor taste in the opposite sex.”
“Wheesht your gob, whilst I finish what I came in here to say.”
Martin’s jaw dropped. Had he just been shushed by his sister? And why the devil had he not yet booted her out of his library?
“I’ll have you know that I admire that woman for her courage.”
He snorted. It took cast-iron balls to carry on as Jules had done. Except he-she had no testicles, which Martin should have realized when he caught sight of her damned silken shoulder on the eve he’d walked in on Smallwood taking a bath at the hunting lodge.
Charity threw back her shoulders, as if she were ready to do battle. “Lady Julia’s father ran his estate into the ground. He drank himself half to death exactly like you are doing now. The poor woman was in dire straits at no fault of her own. She had no choice but to don men’s clothing and take a position that would pay enough money to keep that horrid moneylender from stealing her home—Huntly Manor, the seat of the Earl of Brixham.”
Martin glowered. “No one takes an earl to debtor’s court.”
“I disagree. Mr. Skinner is too well connected in London to be ignored. He threatened and cajoled and took every farthing until there was no more money left to give. Julia was not only paying her father’s debts, she was paying for the earl’s physicians and the only two servants remaining at the manor, who, mind you, she kept on to care for her undeserving father.” Charity clapped her chest and took in a sharp breath. “Forgive me, undeserving is my word, not Julia’s.”
He drummed his fingers on his empty glass, wishing the copious amounts of alcohol he’d consumed had done something to ease the stabbing pain in his heart. “But she should have been honest with me.”
“And risk your ire? Risk losing the only thing keeping her and her father from utter ruination?” Slapping her materials on the table, Charity leaned forward like a prized fighter about to go on the offensive. “I might understand your anger if she had been a bad steward, or if she had stolen funds, but I say she was the best steward you could have had. Look at what she’s done for our brothers! She works tirelessly and?—”
“She is not a man.”
“Who gives a fig that she doesna have a penis between her legs?”
Snapping his eyes wide, Martin gulped. Had his sister just uttered such a vulgar word?
“Dunna look so shocked. I ken the difference between lads and lassies. If you’ll recall our nursemaid oft bathed me and Freddie together when we were wee ones.”
He raked his fingers through his mop of tangled hair. “God save us.”
“Can you not get it into your thick head that Julia only wanted a chance to be courted for once in her life. Moreover, she was resigned to only allow herself a fortnight of happiness. Lady Julia had absolutely no intention of trapping you—she was leaving, remember? But that vile swindler had to step in and ruin everything.”
“Skinner,” Martin mumbled, the name making his skin crawl. Only the most desperate of gentlemen borrowed money from that snake. And the lout had conjured the nerve to call him a damned fool.
Not that he was wrong. I am an unmitigated fool.
“I found these in a hidden compartment in Julia—er—Mr. Smallwood’s trunk. Silas Skinner was not only extorting money from Julia, and thus from her father at the exorbitant rate of a fifth, he was blackmailing her into doing his bidding.”
Martin leaned forward. “Blackmailing?”
“Aye, she made a note in her journal of every meeting she had with Mr. Skinner and those letters from the lout substantiate every word she wrote.” Charity leafed through the little black book rife with the handwriting Martin had come to know well. “Here it is. She clearly writes that Silas Skinner offered to wipe the slate clean if she would take a position as a woman of easy virtue at Deuce’s. But because she refused, he not only demanded back payment on installments missed by the earl, he demanded that she do his bidding.”
Sitting back, Martin crossed his legs as well as his arms. “What kind of bidding?”
“Deliveries of some sort.” Charity leafed through the journal’s pages. “It seems her first was to a bank manager at Messrs. Drummond where she feared for her life when the man berated her for merely delivering a message.”
Martin reached across the table and leafed through the journal. It wasn’t one of those diaries young ladies oft like to record their secrets in. It chronicled the earl’s debt and every payment she’d made to Skinner, every meeting, every letter. He stopped at an entry that made ice pulse through his blood.
He backed me against the wall and forced his tongue into my mouth. I would rather be sent to Australia for ten years transportation than allow that fiend to ever again place his hands upon me.
Sobering markedly, Martin shifted his gaze to his sister, his icy blood turning to fire. “I’ll thrash the bastard to within an inch of his life.”
“Luncheon is served, my lady, my lord” said Willaby, popping his head into Papa’s bedchamber.
Her father didn’t wake as Julia glanced up. “I’m afraid I’m not hungry.”
The old butler shuffled inside, carrying a tray with a bowl of cabbage soup which he spoon-fed the earl twice daily. “How about I bring you a spot of soup and some of those egg sandwiches you like so well?”
“Perhaps later.” She collected a book from the bedside table. “Mayhap I’ll read aloud whilst Papa eats.”
Willaby set the invalid tray across the earl’s lap and pulled over a chair. “I’m worried about you.”
“Don’t be.”
“If you continued to miss meals,” the butler continued whether she wished for him to do so or not, “you’ll end up ill and then I’ll have two St. Vincents to care for.”
Julia smoothed her hand over the leather volume. “I wish I could eat. Perhaps in a day or two my appetite will return.”
“The sooner the better.” The butler picked up a spoon. “Open wide, your lordship.”
It seemed her father wasn’t hungry either because he didn’t budge. In fact, he’d drifted off to sleep an hour or so ago and Julia had sat there rambling about her adventures over the past few months—more for her sake than anything.
She opened the book. “ The Scottish Chiefs by Jane Porter.” Emitting a blubbering snort, she rolled her eyes to the scarlet bedcurtains. She hadn’t noticed the title when she reached for the book which had been the third in a stack, the first two, she’d already read over the past few days. Why couldn’t she have opened a chronicling of Africa’s flora, or something about the construction of British canals, or the Roman occupation of Britain, or anything that had nothing to do with Scotland.
She cleared her throat and turned to Chapter One. “It was the summer of 1296. The war which had desolated Scotland was at an end…”
“My lord?” said Willaby, his tone hollow and eerie.
Julia’s gaze shot to her father’s face. His eyes were no longer closed, but half-cast and vacant. His color, though it had been papery and pale moments ago, had now turned nearly translucent. His blue lips parted slightly.
Blue.
As tears stung her eyes, Julia clutched at her heart. “Papa?”
Willaby set the spoon aside and placed his fingers at the side of Father’s throat. “My Lord Brixham, please respond.”
The book dropped from Julia’s fingers and clattered to the floor. Standing, she grasped the earl’s icy hand and rapidly patted it. “Papa!” When her action gathered no response, she patted his cheek. “Please! You cannot be gone!”
“My lady,” said Willaby sounding as if he were in a tunnel.
But Julia paid him no mind. She flung her arms around her father’s shoulders and wailed. “Please. Not now. I cannot lose you along with everything else.”
Crying, she babbled about all the things she’d planned for them to do. About Australia and how they might start anew. At some stage, Willaby came around and tried to tug her away but Julia shrugged him off.
Why must her life be in such a shambles? Why could her father not recover and revert to the man she knew as a child? She wept and wept until moonlight flooded the chamber while crickets sang their high-pitched farewell.
Dear God, what am I to do now?
There was a reason Martin preferred to stay away from the halls of Deuce’s Gaming Club. First and foremost, his father had warned him to stay away from the establishment. Normally, after such a warning from Da, he might have done the opposite, but his father put it in rather sobering words. At Deuce’s, the house didn’t lose. No one had been able to prove Silas Skinner to be a cheat, but the man was as underhanded as Satan himself. He had a reputation as the king of temptation, his club touting the best whores, the cheapest liquor, and the most generous of terms. Except the generosity was not for the benefit of the patrons. Oh, no. The only person Skinner was generous with was himself. On the one occasion when Martin had stumbled into the club with a mob of dandies out for a good time, he’d witnessed Skinner gloat over a gentleman who had gambled his last farthing.
After he’d watched the moneylender in action, enjoying issuing his torment and the resulting public humiliation of the sorry chap, Martin made up his mind that Deuce’s was decidedly deuced. Furthermore, because of the incident involving Lady Julia and her father, in the future, he intended to take steps to ensure every member of polite society agreed with him.
It was already past ten in the evening and at this time of night, the lout was sure to be standing on the mezzanine of his hell, gloating out over the hapless frowns of the fools he intended to swindle. On top of Charity’s chastising, Giles had found a very small mention of the Earl of Brixham’s passing in the Gazette which the butler had failed to mention for nearly two days. Martin sobered quickly, sent a messenger for his solicitor, and hastened for the East End. He absolutely must confront the moneylender before the cur had a chance to take steps to evict Julia from Huntly Manor.
Martin cued his horse to a stop outside the club and tossed his reins at a groom along with a silver guinea. “Tend my horse if you please. I dunna intend to be long.”
“Ta, my lord.”
“Your Grace,” Martin seethed under his breath as he mounted the stairs.
The doors opened to a smiling attendant dressed in immaculate livery, his smile too broad, his eyes too wide and filled with greed. “Welcome to Deuce’s, Your Grace. It is our greatest pleasure to receive ye.” He stepped too near. “May I take your coat?”
“No.” Martin cast his gaze to the mezzanine, but Skinner wasn’t there. He started for the stairs. “I need a word with the swindling owner of this establishment forthwith.”
“B-but Mr. Skinner is not ’ere.”
“I find that difficult to believe,” he said, marching upward.
“That may very well be so, but he ordered his coach ready and left town this morn. I saw ’im myself.”
At the top of the steps, there wasn’t a bloody person in sight. Martin rounded on the attendant, grabbing his lapels. “Where. Is. He?”
“I-I’ve no idea.” The man blanched. “I am merely a servant. I—. Please don’t ’urt me.”
Martin gave the man a shake. “Who in this contemptable hellhole can tell me where I can find the bastard?”
“J-just ’ave a seat in the saloon, a-and I’ll fetch someone straightaway, sir.”
Releasing his hands, he gave the fellow a push. “I’m not waiting a second longer than necessary. Lead on.”
Evidently, Martin’s presence had already run through the building because a door screeched open and an elderly butler walked through. “Your Grace, Mr. Skinner has left London to claim some property that has come to him. I’m afraid he won’t return for at least a week. Perhaps a fortnight.”
“Over my dead body,” he growled. Martin didn’t need to probe further to find out where the scoundrel had gone. He only hoped he wouldn’t be too late. “The Earl of Brixham is indebted to your employer and it is of utmost urgency that I understand to what extent.”
“That information is highly confidential, sir.”
“Wrong answer.” Martin grasped the butler’s arm, twisted it just enough, and walked him out the same door he’d just come through. “Either you find the information I need now, or I’ll have this place shut down and so tied up in the courts that you’ll be begging for alms on the curb before Skinner will be able to crawl out of the hole.”