Chapter Seven #2
“Do not bother returning,” Joy snapped. “Even if you have the culprit in hand. I do not want to see you ever again!” She didn’t mean that. Even she knew she didn’t mean that before she said it. But by heavens, he didn’t have to know that. “We will never marry! Not ever!”
The clock on the mantel chimed, drawing everyone’s eyes to the time.
“The hour grows late,” Jansen said, then fixed her with a look that both thrilled and frightened her. “We will discuss this further upon my return, because return I shall, my lady, and you will see me.”
“I will not,” she lied. “I will never receive you again. Even if I have to live in my bedchamber.” That sounded childish and petulant even to her, but there was no helping it now. After all, one could not exactly un-ring a bell. “Get out!”
With a nod and a touch of his forehead, he headed out the door, then paused in the hallway. “Keep her here, Lady Merry, Lady Felicity. You know how stubborn she is.” Then he charged away.
Joy shook a fist at her sisters. “If you try to stop me—”
“If you leave, we’ll send a runner to fetch Chance and Seri, and tell them where you’ve gone,” Felicity said with a sternness that reminded Joy of their mother.
“Then Chance will learn about your club and everything else. How do you think that will go over? Much less your running after a man without a chaperone?”
“I hate you, Felicity.”
“Then you might as well hate me, too, because I intend to help her,” Merry said, but her tone was sympathetic. “We do this because we love you, Joy. And you know it.”
Joy threw herself into the chair behind the desk. She was well and truly beaten. What in the devil had the world come to?
*
Jansen charged into the mews, almost running to get to the hollow tree in plenty of time to stow the money inside it and hide.
Gads alive, he prayed he hadn’t overplayed his hand with his precious angel.
Surely she hadn’t meant what she’d said about breaking the engagement or never setting a date.
She had told him she loved him—more than once.
He’d tasted the passion and yearning in her kisses.
Most of all, he had tasted her acceptance and their ever-strengthening connection.
Surely, once he presented her with her blackmailer, and her anger cooled…
surely then she would toss aside the silliness of the words she had shouted in anger.
They would marry. She would set a date, and they would marry.
Spotting the old hollow tree, he dashed to reach it and deposited the velvet bag inside the hole that was at about the height of his waist. As he did so, he noted four other bundles already inside the small well of the trunk.
So, Lady Frederica had received a note as well.
Apparently, their blackmailer was thorough.
He quickly scanned the area, searching for a place to lie in wait until the scoundrel showed to gather his or her ill-gotten gains.
The cobblestone mews was lined with stables and lodging for the elites’ coachmen and servants, who not only took care of the horses but also maintained the carriages and tack.
Thankfully, the stable closest to the blackmailer’s tree belonged to an old wartime friend, the Earl of Denby.
Jansen slipped inside and took his post behind a narrow door where he could see the tree through a missing knothole in the wooden planks.
“Come along, you greedy bastard. My future wife wants to meet you,” he said under his breath as he peered through the knothole.
“Can I be helping you, sir?” asked a young man from behind him.
“I am a friend of Denby’s,” he said without taking his gaze off the tree. “The earl knows I am here, and as soon as my business is finished, I assure you I shall be on my way.”
“And what business might that be?” asked a deeper voice, obviously an older man.
Jansen risked turning around, determined to keep matters brief. “I am in the process of snaring a blackmailer. Once I finish, you shall see.”
“Oy, a blackmailer? Cowardly lot, that is.” The older man, round as a barrel and clad in a stained leather apron, resettled his iron hoof nippers and farrier’s hammer in his meaty fists. “We can be helping you, then, sir. Crowdy and Pip, at your service.”
“Thank you, gentlemen.” Jansen pressed his eye back to the hole, praying the blackmailer hadn’t come and made off with the payment while he explained his presence on someone else’s property. “The scoundrel’s parcels are in that tree. He—or she—should be along any time now.”
“Well…we was headed outside to do a bit of work.” Crowdy waved the hoof nippers in the air with every word, as if conducting an orchestra. “But we can wait a bit. Don’t want to be scaring your scabby cove away.”
“Thank you, gentlemen. I appreciate that.” Jansen stared at the tree through the hole in the plank, willing the miscreant to show up and trip the snare. But the scabby cove, as Crowdy had named them, took their sweet time, making him wait. And wait. And wait some more.
A stray dog meandered past, sniffed the tree, then hiked its leg and relieved itself, making Jansen wish he could do the same.
“Anything yet, sir?” Pip whispered.
“No. Nothing.” Jansen straightened, rubbing his lower back, which had started to ache from his stooping to peer through the hole. “I would have thought they’d have been along by now.”
“Want me to stroll by and peep in there to make sure they didn’t come whilst we was talking to you early on?”
“Hold fast. Let me check the time.” Jansen popped open his pocket watch and huffed. It was well past teatime. In fact, it was nearly six o’clock. “Check the tree, Pip. But don’t look as if you’re looking into it. Understand?”
The boy nodded. “I can be right sneaky when I need to be, sir.”
“He can at that,” Crowdy said, “’specially when he’s trying to get out of his duties.”
Pip had the presence of mind to hang his head and assume an abashed look. “You said I been better here of late.”
“You have at that.” Crowdy nudged him. “On wi’ you, now. See what you can see.”
Jansen took one last look through the peephole and nodded. “Remember to meander along.”
“To what?” Pip stared at him as if he had spoken in a foreign tongue.
“Walk along and don’t look like you’re looking into the tree,” Jansen explained.
Pip brightened, then gave a jaunty salute and headed out onto the cobblestone road.
He sauntered along, lifting his face to the sun as if prouder than proud that he had gained a brief reprieve from his duties.
Jansen had to admit, the lad wandered in a most convincing manner.
As Pip passed the old tree, he casually glanced over, then halted, went to the tree, and looked into it closely.
With a grimace that made Jansen’s heart fall, the lad looked back at him and shook his head.
“’Tis gone, sir. Nothing in there at all. ”
“Damn and blast it all!” Jansen rushed to the tree and looked for himself.
Pip was right. Nothing in the hole but filth.
All five bundles were gone. “Damn, damn, damn!” he muttered.
The thief had come and made off with the money whilst he was explaining himself to Crowdy and Pip.
Deep in his heart, he knew Joy would crow like the proudest rooster and tell him that if he had allowed her to come along, they wouldn’t have failed to catch the blackmailer.
And maybe she was right. He hated that. It was a dangerous precedent to set.
“Did either of you notice anyone walking past?” he asked Crowdy and Pip, praying they saw someone or something.
Both shook their heads.
“Damn and blast!”
*
Chivalry demanded he immediately confess to the failure.
To wait until tomorrow would not only be cowardly but also look as if he had delayed sharing his news until he came up with a believable story.
His angel was no fool, and with her, honesty was imperative—especially since he was currently on her wrong side and about to sink himself even deeper.
He sat in the parlor, nursing a cup of tea that Lady Felicity had insisted upon placing in his hands. Port, whisky, or brandy would have been so much better, but the young lady hadn’t offered him anything other than tea.
Now she and Merry sat there staring at him as if he were about to march to the gallows—and he was, in a manner of speaking.
“A biscuit?” Felicity held out a plate of pale, crumbly-edged disks speckled with dark dots of who-knew-what throughout the baked dough.
“No, thank you, my lady.” He was not hungry and wouldn’t be until he had cleared the air between himself and Joy.
“Explain how you managed to fail,” Joy said from the doorway.
“You come right out with it, do you not?”
She sashayed into the room, her muslin skirts of pale pink swirling around her tempting curves. “I see no reason to tiptoe around the facts. Again, how did you fail? We must know so we don’t do the same thing next time.”
“Next time? How do you know there will be a next time?”
“If you had the opportunity to earn five hundred pounds in the blink of an eye, with little to no effort, would you not do it again?” She took his teacup away and placed it on the cart.
Turning to her sisters, she gave them a curt nod.
“I am quite certain Sir Jansen prefers brandy to tea right about now. Maybe even whisky.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “Am I correct, Sir Jansen?”
“Quite correct, my lady, and a whisky would be delightful.” At least if he had to sit here with his neck in the noose, he would have a proper drink to go along with it. He risked a smile. “Thank you.”
His lady love did not return his smile. Instead, she fetched him the drink, then perched on the edge of her seat, eyeing him with the stern ferocity of an archangel about to take her mighty sword and cleave his body from his soul.
After a deep draft of his whisky, he squared his shoulders and sat taller, ready to confess. “I believe our blackmailer slipped in and took the money whilst I was explaining my presence to the Earl of Denby’s servants. It was his property upon which I hid.”
“You do realize that had I gone with you, one of us could have explained our presence while the other kept an eye on the tree?”
“Yes, my lady. Of that, I am painfully aware, I assure you.”
“Painfully aware. Good.” She idly chewed on her bottom lip while studying him. For the first time since they’d met, he had no earthly idea as to what she might be thinking. “I suppose now we wait to be contacted again.”
“Five hundred pounds is a great deal of money,” Merry said. “Would it not take them a while to go through it?”
“It depends.” Felicity rose and fluttered about the tea cart like a nervous butterfly unsure as to where to alight. “Five hundred pounds can be a great deal of money for some and a mere pittance for others. It depends on their habits.”
“And their luck and propensity to gamble,” Jansen said. “They will be sorely tempted after winning this particular hand.”
“Indeed.” Joy rose and went to the window. “Next time I go along. Agreed?”
“It depends on their demands and where they wish the money dropped.”
She turned and glared at him. “You persist in this stubbornness? Even after today’s failure?”
He slowly shook his head. “I will not have you endangered, my lady. Even if it makes you hate me, I will see you safe before all else.”
She snorted in a very unladylike manner and returned to staring out the window. “You may go now, Sir Jansen. That will be all.”
“You will not dismiss me like a servant. We have much to discuss.”
“We do not, and you will not tell me what to do,” she said, obviously struggling to keep her tone even.
“This day has wearied me beyond compare, and I intend to retire early, whether you leave or not.” She flicked a hand at him.
“Sit there till the very hot place that spewed you forth freezes over. I no longer care.”
“Joy!” Mercy and Felicity said in shocked unison.
“And you may sit with him,” she told her sisters before marching out of the room.
Jansen watched her go, his heart plummeting lower than he ever thought possible. She no longer cared. Perhaps the worst emotion, or lack thereof, that ever existed. At least if she hated him, that passion might eventually revert to love. But to no longer care…
He pushed himself up out of the chair, bowed to the Abarough sisters, and left Broadmere House, uncertain if he would ever be allowed to return.