Chapter Eleven
“What is it you wish to tell me, Helen?” Toby said, turning his seat to face the women.
Liberty didn’t want him here, as she’d not wanted his help when she was hurt, but like him, Bidham was important to her, so she’d put up with Toby’s company.
“It’s regarding what we discussed, and your and Lady Liberty’s worry for Bidham,” Helen said.
Liberty sat still, her eyes on her maid. Anyone watching her would not think she was overly concerned to have the man who had ruthlessly ripped her from his life, without an explanation, sitting a few feet away. But he knew her well enough to see the signs of her agitation.
“It’s my brother, Sydney, my lord.” Helen’s eyes went from him to Liberty, and then over his shoulder to Anthony and Jamie again. She was clearly uncomfortable in their presence.
“Continue with your story, Helen,” Liberty said, patting her maid’s hand.
He looked at her fingers tipped with short nails and felt something uncomfortable settle in his chest. A longing for his old friend he had no right to feel.
Their drinks and food arrived while Helen began her tale about Sydney and how they’d seen him earlier, and he made himself focus.
“And you say there were barrels on the back of the cart your brother drove?” Anthony asked from behind Toby.
“Yes, my lord.” Helen bobbed her head.
“I think it’s likely something to do with smuggling,” Liberty said. “We knocked on the warehouse door and—”
“You are not serious?” Toby demanded, now glaring at Liberty. “Why would you do such a bacon-brained thing?”
“I beg your pardon. You do not get to speak to me in that manner,” Liberty snapped back. “I did what I felt was needed, as Helen was upset about her brother. The man was not suspicious, as I stated. I thought it was the warehouse where I could get my mother’s Greek sideboard.”
Tobias rolled his eyes, feeling his anger rise. “God save me,” he hissed.
“I love those sideboards,” Anthony said. “Especially with the saber legs.”
“She should not have gone, is the point here,” Tobias snapped.
“Excellent cover, though, it has to be said,” Jamie added. “I too like saber-legged chairs.”
“Shut up,” Tobias hissed, knowing what his friends were doing. Deflecting away from the fact he wanted to roar at Liberty for her foolish actions. “It was a risk you should not have taken, Lady Liberty.”
“We now know that it is indeed spirits they sell or store in that warehouse,” Liberty gritted out. “I did what needed to be done to confirm that.”
They glared at each other, so much more than anger over what she’d done simmering between them. There was also the fact he’d learned he was to be guardian of a small child riding him, which was making Toby irrational, but he’d deal with that after this… her.
“There is something else,” Helen said, shooting Liberty a look.
“Something you’ve not shared with me yet, Helen?”
Helen nodded at Liberty’s question.
One look at her cool blue eyes told him nothing of what she was thinking. Liberty had learned to hide as Toby had. He wondered why? She then squinted.
“Where are your glasses?” Toby said before thinking better of it.
“Continue with your story,” Liberty said, ignoring him.
“Mother sent me a note from Bidham, just yesterday,” Helen said. “I was going to tell you, Lady Liberty, but I knew it would be upsetting for you.”
“What has happened?” Liberty said calmly. “You know you can tell me anything, Helen.”
Toby knew Anthony and Jamie were also listening intently.
“It’s Sally Ackers, my lady. She went missing one night while walking home from Pippen farm. She was found dead the day after we left Bidham.”
Toby thought through the people he’d once known in Bidham. The Ackers were a large family who lived a two-minute walk from the entrance into the village.
“She was the youngest?” Toby asked Helen. “From memory, a sickly child.”
“She was,” Liberty whispered.
“I’m sorry, my lady.”
He was missing something here, Toby was sure of it. Yes, Liberty would be upset if someone died from Bidham, but he had a feeling there was more to this.
“Did you know Sally well, my lady?” Anthony asked Liberty.
“Not well—”
“Lady Liberty sent a doctor to care for her when she was poorly. Then visited regularly to ensure Sally got everything she needed to get better,” Helen whispered.
“How did she die?” Liberty asked, her voice brittle now.
Helen looked down at the cup before her, and Toby knew she wasn’t really seeing it. “She was found with her hands and feet bound, and it is believed she was strangled,” Helen whispered.
He kept his eyes on Liberty as her maid spoke. He saw her flinch and then lower her eyes too. He wanted to touch her but had lost that right. When she raised her head, she was every inch the duke’s daughter she’d been born to be. No emotion showed on her face.
Toby knew he played the part well. The carefree peer, the charming viscount women adored, who kept everyone but a chosen few at arm’s length. But watching Liberty struggle to mask her pain twisted something in his chest. He didn’t want that. Didn’t want to feel.
“Poor Sally; her family must be devastated,” Liberty said with a calm he knew she was not feeling. One hand was clenched into a fist in her lap.
“Yes, they are,” Helen said.
“Did your mother say anything else, Helen?” Toby said working through what he already knew about Bidham.
“She didn’t.”
“I think someone is threatening the village,” Liberty said.
“Why do you think that?” he asked. It had been the conclusion Toby had come to as well.
“After seeing what Sydney was unloading today,” she added. “Whoever is behind it must be using the route through the village, and perhaps—”
“You can’t know that, and nor should you involve yourself in this,” Toby interrupted her. His voice came out harsher than he’d intended, and the narrowing of Liberty’s eyes told him she’d heard it.
“You have no say in what I do.” Her chin didn’t lift at these words, but to him it was implied.
She then reached for her cup and knocked it sideways. Toby caught it just before the contents spilled.
“Where are your eyeglasses?” he demanded. “Why, if you need them, don’t you wear them?”
She glared at him, picked up the cup and sipped without answering.
“Just watch you don’t walk in front of a carriage,” he snapped.
“I would have thought that would be a relief to you, Lord Corbyn. After all, we know how coldhearted and ruthless you can be around people who you once pretended to care for.” Liberty regained her feet after delivering these terse words.
“Come along, Helen. There is a tea shop on the next street. I believe the company will be more preferable.”
Toby also rose. “I want to be informed if you hear anything.” His words were as cold as hers now.
“I’ll tell you what you can do, Lord Corbyn.” She then leaned in close. He took a deep breath and instantly his head was filled with her scent. Soft, subtle, but with a hint of something stronger. Orange blossom, Toby thought. “You can go to hell.”
“Again? I believe you’ve already told me to go there, my lady?”
They were close now. He could see the rapid beat of her pulse in her throat, and the flare in those pretty eyes. Made brighter by the matching ribbons of her bonnet, tied neatly under her chin.
“Such a shame you do not take orders well then, Lord Corbyn.” She turned and walked away with her maid on her heels.
Toby watched her, his eyes on the straight line of her spine until she’d left the chocolate shop. Only then did he sit once more.
“Seeing as they didn’t touch their food, we could—”
“Absolutely not. You’re a bloody marquis,” Toby snapped, interrupting Jamie. “You cannot eat off another table.”
Jamie raised both hands in the air in a gesture of surrender. Toby ran a hand over his face. Damn it to hell. Now the inquisition would begin.
“Now before we discuss what needs to be done for Florence, will you tell us what happened with Lady Liberty Talbot, Toby,” Anthony said. “Clearly there is anger between you, and a great deal more than what you told us earlier. I would go so far to say that there is a lot of history between you.”
“I don’t share my entire life with you two,” he said as the server brought their order. Three large mugs of steaming bitter chocolate, and a plate of food.
“Well, perhaps it is time you do,” Anthony said.
“We were once close,” Toby said, looking at the two men who knew more about him than anyone else. Men who had been beaten and tortured in the name of fun at Blackwood Hall. Tortured by older boys, a housemaster, and others who should have known better.
“And now she hates you,” Jamie said.
“Yes, and with good reason. I came home after Mathew’s death, which was a year after I arrived at Blackwood. Liberty visited me, but I didn’t speak with her, and she understood that was due to my brother’s passing.”
“But it wasn’t, because you’d changed, as had we all,” Anthony said solemnly.
Toby nodded, and then sipped his drink, needing it to ease the ache in his throat.
He’d gone home bruised, broken, and grieving for the little brother he’d no longer see.
His parents hadn’t realized what he’d become as they’d been deep in their own grief, and he’d not told them.
Liberty would have listened, but he’d refused to spend time with her.
“But you saw her when you came home after your father passed away?” Jamie asked.
“Yes. She found me leaving the house one day. I’d sent her away the previous times she’d called. I said some things, and she left, and I don’t regret that our friendship ended,” Toby added. “Only the way I did it.”
They fell silent, and for a few minutes, the only sounds were of them eating, which they all did well, and often.
“All right, so we know some of your history now, but surely you were young when you and she were friends?” Anthony asked. “Was your bond that strong?”
“It was, but I severed it.” Liberty was a raw wound inside Toby, no matter how much he’d denied it to himself.
“Back to this business in Bidham then,” Jamie said.
“When is the fair?” Anthony asked.
“Three weeks,” Toby said.
“First, you need to write to whomever you need to write to and tell them a Corbyn will once again be in attendance,” Anthony said.
“They may have no wish for me, too.”
“You’re a Corbyn; of course they will,” Anthony added. “Then send in your man to snoop around. You also need to speak with Lady Liberty again and find out where those barrels were delivered. We must search that place. If, as you both suspect, there is smuggling going on.”
“We need to investigate Sally Ackers’s death too, because someone murdered her, and that kind of thing just doesn’t happen in my village,” Toby added.
“Oh, so it’s your village now?” Anthony raised a brow.
“Smuggling is happening up and down the English coast,” Jamie protested. “Why is what’s happening in Bidham a threat to the village… if it is?”
“We need to visit there,” Anthony said. “I’m quite sure Evangeline would like a nice trip to the country. She has a way of getting information out of people.”
“Only you, because you are so pathetically in love with her,” Toby scoffed.
His friend smiled, and in that moment, he could have leaned across the table and plowed his fist into his face, because that look of genuine love and happiness was something Toby knew he’d never achieve. He wasn’t worthy of it.
“Considering Florence is arriving this week, I’m unsure we will attend the fair,” Toby added gruffly.
“She is a child, and it’s a fair. Of course, she will love it, and by then you will be comfortable with each other,” Jamie said. “You’ll see.”
Liberty slid into his head again, and he pushed thoughts of her aside. Once, he’d wondered if she’d be his wife one day even though they’d been children. She’d always seemed to understand him. Seemed to fit, which was an odd way to put it, but the minute he’d met her, she’d felt like part of him.
“Toby, you need to make amends with Lady Liberty,” Anthony said.
“No, that will not happen, and I will soon have little time for anything.”
“She will help you find peace,” Anthony added.
Jamie’s snort held no laughter. “There will be no peace for some of us, Anthony. Just because you found it, does not mean we will. You have to understand that.”
“I know that I have someone in my life who helped me to find it.”
“But that is not for us,” Toby said, and never will be.
Jamie raised his mug in agreement.
“Very well, if you say so, but tonight is the Pilkington ball, Toby. At least you can be cordial to Lady Liberty, because if whatever is taking place in Bidham is dangerous, then we must ensure it is snuffed out,” Anthony said.
“I’m sure over the years the village has relied on protection from both noble families living on its borders, and now more than ever will need it. ”
“The Corbyns were there many years before the Talbots,” he added.
To his shame, Toby had walked away from Bidham because he’d wanted to shut out every aspect of his life that made him feel, but in doing so, he’d turned his back on those that needed him most. Anthony was right. The village should be under his protection.
“I will do better once I settle Florence… if she settles,” Toby said.
“I’ll add to that. I’m not sure how she can when the only life she’s known is gone forever.
” Now Liberty had left, the weight of the responsibility he now faced settled again on his shoulders. How could he care for a child’s needs?
“We will ensure she settles,” Anthony said. “All of us will be there to help.”
That humbled him, so he drank a mouthful of chocolate to wash down the emotion clogging his throat.
“From your memory of Lady Liberty, is she one to take a risk? To throw herself into this investigation without a care for her own safety?” Jamie asked.
“She is quite capable of doing that,” Toby said.
“Really? That does surprise me,” Jamie added. “I’ve never seen an overt display of emotion from the woman. I’ve danced with her a few times, and her smile is usually polite, if a little chilly. I believed until today, she was a reserved type, and the epitome of a proper society lady.”
Toby barked out a laugh. “She was never that once.” The smile fell from his lips. “But yes, that is how she portrays herself in society.”
“Right, we have a way forward regarding Bidham and Lady Liberty. Now let’s talk about Florence,” Anthony said.
And they did. Through two pots of hot chocolate, and numerous plates of food, they worked through what they believed needed to happen.
It helped that his friends had sisters, and Toby would be leaning on them heavily for guidance as he had no clue what to do.
But one thing he now knew was that Florence’s welfare was his only concern.