Chapter 9
Grandmama was tired, but not in distress, thank goodness. Helen ushered her home quietly. She did not confess the trouble she was in. Let her grandmother brace herself with a good night’s rest before she had to deal with more worry and anger.
Simpson was waiting when they arrived and she scolded and soothed as Grandmama headed upstairs to her room. The butler was also hovering. As her grandmother disappeared, he turned to Helen.
“There is a . . . person here, Miss Crawford. She refused to leave until she’d spoken with you.”
What now? The second destruction of her reputation was not enough for one night? Strangely, she wasn’t truly worried about the censure of the ton. They would be merciless, but she was stronger now. She was more concerned about how Ben might suffer—and about how he might feel about her, amidst a new scandal. Helen wanted only to retire to her room and relive his incredible kisses. They seemed so much more relevant than Miss Ventry’s scorn and the tales she would surely be telling right now. Helen also found herself wishing for time to think about that strange exchange of looks he’d had with Leighton, but instead she nodded and took a candle from the servant as he opened the parlor door. Helen stepped into the room, feeling both curious and wary. She stopped when she saw the young woman waiting there.
“Oh! Good evening . . . Maggie, is it not? Or perhaps I should say, Miss Wilson?”
“Aye. I offer my apologies for coming here, Miss Crawford, for I know it must distress you, but I ask that you hear me out.”
Helen frowned. “Did Will send you?”
Her family’s former maid looked startled. “Mr. Will Crawford? No, miss.” She shook her head. “There was never nothing between your brother and me save for one kiss. And that was only because I was a fool and trying to make another jealous. But your mother caught us at it . . . and well, here we all are.”
Helen thought back. “Make another jealous? But, who?”
Maggie lowered her gaze. “I shouldn’t have done it. I knew it then. Part of me knew it all along, but I see it so much more clearly, now.”
Helen blinked. “It was Leighton, wasn’t it?” she asked with sudden certainty. Leighton had seduced their maid? It seemed . . . unnecessary. She knew he received plenty of female attention. Had it been just another way to annoy her father? She stiffened. Maggie had been blamed for posting those letters, but she had bitterly denied it. “Leighton,” she whispered.
Images began to drift together in her mind, sifting themselves into the truth of the thing. Scenes of Leighton fighting with her father. His raging resentment at him and the other trustees for refusing to grant his inheritance early. His constant attempts to irritate. Memories of Leighton sneering at her brother and his friends. At the ton.
“It was him?” she asked, but the question was directed more at herself than at the former maid.
Leighton had stayed by her side during those years of social exile, but never in true sympathy. It had been more a shared isolation as he tossed sarcastic comments and withering insults at Society. She stiffened, recalling the strange excitement he’d shown the day of the garden party. He’d known Ben would be there. She recalled the light in his face as he’d pushed them together that day. And he’d pushed Ben in the pond and allowed everyone to believe she had done it.
Always pushing. Poking. Denigrating those he perceived as enemies. Never satisfied. Always believing he was better, smarter. Owed what he wanted, at the exact moment he wanted it.
“Leighton,” she whispered. “It was him. He took the letters. He gave them over to the newspaper. It’s been him, all along.”
She thought of the bitter, triumphant glance he’d tossed at Ben tonight and shivered.
“Yes. It was him.” She’d nearly forgotten Maggie, but the girl continued, anxious. “But I didn’t know it, I swear! I never knew, until today.”
“You’ve been with him? All of this time?”
The girl nodded.
“You told him. About the letters. Where I kept them.”
“I did.” It came out in an agonized whisper.
“Did you give them to him?”
“No! I’m not wicked at that, Miss, but I am so ashamed! I saw you laboring over them, more than once. Such a big stack of them, and one day I saw you tuck them away in that drawer. I don’t know why I told him. But he was always pressing me for information. Secrets he thought I might know, about your family. I shared what I had seen with him and I just thought it would be a shared joke. Then when the papers came out and the scandal broke, I asked him if he’d done it. He swore he knew nothing of it. Denied it outright. I could not puzzle out who might have taken those letters, but he always insisted you had likely done it yourself, in a bid to get Mr. Hargrove’s attention.”
Helen could not stop the scowl from breaking over her face. “You said you discovered this today?”
Maggie nodded. “I found the proof of it, today. And I packed my bags and left. He’s in Town and doesn’t even know I’ve gone. I hope I’ll be far away before he finds out, but I had to talk to you, first.”
“How did you discover it?”
A great sigh came from the girl. “I had a visitor the other day.”
Helen waited.
“It was your Mr. Hargrove. He set me to thinking. And the doubt wormed in. But it was when I saw the Prattler’s last issue, the one about Lady Littleton and her lovers, that I really knew.”
“How does that relate to my scandal?” asked Helen, confused.
The former maid shrugged. “Another man came after Mr. Hargrove, in the evening. He demanded to speak to Leighton. I listened in and heard him demanding the money he was owed. Leighton put him off and the man blustered about the next printing. He told Leighton he shouldn’t include himself in the article, but Leighton insisted he must, to keep everyone from suspecting him. The visitor swore this was the last he would print until he got his money. I didn’t understand any of it, until the Prattler came out and named him as one of Lady Littleton’s long-time affaires.”
“Oh, dear.” Helen knew the girl must have had her feelings hurt, but her mind was buzzing with the word printing and article and suspecting him. More of the puzzle snapped into place with a click that struck her hard. Leighton hadn’t only betrayed her with the letters, he was the unknown editor of the Prattler!
“Of course, I assumed he must have other flirts. He stays over often in Town. I’m not a complete fool. But I had no idea he had a longstanding affair with this Lady Littleton! That is a betrayal of a different sort and I suddenly understood that he had hadn’t hesitated to hurt me, to protect himself. Just as he must have hurt you, to prod at his enemies.” Tears welled in her eyes. “I couldn’t stay. But neither did I wish him to get away with all of his sins. Today was my first chance to search the house. I found some handwritten copies of articles that I recognized from the Prattler.”
“Proof that he’s the anonymous editor.”
“Yes, but I found more. I discovered the vowel that McKay wrote out, pledging the paper as collateral in their gaming. And an agreement between the two of them, after Leighton must have won the thing. He forced McKay to pledge to never reveal how he lost the paper or to whom it went.”
“You have these papers?” Helen asked.
“I do.” The maid reached into her portmanteau and dug out a folder. “I thought you must have them and decide what to do with them.”
Helen took the thing and sank down into a chair. She rifled through and saw all was as Maggie said. For a long moment, she said nothing, but then she looked up. “Maggie, I fear I must be going away, quite soon. Probably to the country for a while, but afterward, I meant to travel. It will likely be a long trip. I’ll need a small amount of staff to go with me. Might you be interested?”
“Oh!” The girl looked shocked. “Travel? Me? With you?”
Helen nodded.
“Yes, Miss. Thank you!”
“Good. You should stay here, then. But first, there are things we must see to. Loose ends to tie up.” She stood and tucked the folder away in a drawer before she swept her cloak back on.
Maggie stared. “Tonight, Miss?”
“Tonight. It ends tonight.”
Ben checked the offices of the Prattler, but they were dark and locked up. He gambled that Akers would not wish to travel out to Camden so late and he took himself off to the boarding house off Holborn. He’d been lurking in the shadows on the third floor nearly two hours, though, before he heard footsteps approaching up the stairs. He ducked into his corner, held his breath and waited.
The air exploded out of him when two figures emerged from the stairwell. They carried a dim lantern as they headed for Akers’ door. It showed?—
“Helen! What are you doing here?”
“Ben!” She clasped a hand to her chest. “You scared the wits out of me!” Her expression darkened. “I’ve come to see Leighton.”
“You knew he lived here? But—” He slapped a hand to his forehead. “But of course, you would know his address.”
“Yes. I’ve never come to his rooms before, but now I find I must . . .” Understanding dawned across her face. “Oh. You followed that courier here? You wouldn’t know it was Leighton’s rooms.” She looked suddenly stricken in the dim light. “Oh, no. If only we had spoken more thoroughly earlier tonight, we might have realized . . . we would not have?—”
“No.” He said it earnestly, but he could not suppress a smile of reminiscence. “I do not regret a moment of the time we spent together, tonight.”
Her mouth twitched and he felt it, deep down in his gut. “Not even that last moment?”
“Not even that one,” he rasped.
“I . . . ah . . . I think perhaps I’ll go down and keep watch at the front.” The second skirted figure sat down the lantern and headed quickly down the stairs.
“Was that . . . “ Ben frowned after her.
“Yes. Maggie Wilson. She told me you visited her and it seems you sparked some doubt in her. She found?—”
He pressed a finger against her mouth. “Hold a moment. I want to hear everything, but I’ve been sitting here in the dark with plenty of time to think and I find I have something to say.”
She pulled his hand away and offered him the familiar smile that had only lately began to tie him in knots. More fool, he. “Please do. And afterward, I shall take my turn.”
“Ever stalwart,” he murmered. He sighed. “Akers has been a foul, unmitigated ass and I look forward to making him pay, but I must confess,, I have cause to be grateful to him, too.”
Frowning, she opened her mouth, but he shook his head and she closed it again, waiting.
“It makes me feel wild, thinking of the pain he caused you, and yet, had he not, you would likely have been married to someone else by now. I would have returned and it would have been too late for me to really look at you.” She smiled tenderly and his heart lurched. “I would not have had the chance to layer my memories of that intrepid girl over the vision of the kind, warm, beautiful woman you are today. I would not have shared laughter?—”
“Or adventure,” she cut in.
He touched her face, cradled it in his palm. “I might have never have had the chance to touch you, kiss you . . .” His other hand came up to frame her face. “Or to ask you to be mine.”
The soft expression on her face began to fade. “You are under no obligation?—”
“Not obligated,” he interrupted. “Honored. I do see you, Helen, and I am enraptured. You are at the center of my thoughts, of my soul. I can think of nothing that would make me happier than spending the rest of our lives together.”
Wonder emanated from her. It lit her from within and he surely felt it easing inside him, warming his chest and stretching a smile across his face.
“I see you, as well,” she whispered. “So many more layers than I could have recognized as a girl and I treasure them all, even the ones made of pain and strife, for they made you who you are—perfect for me.”
Joy spread through him, as warm and thick as honey. When he lowered his head to kiss her, he could nearly taste it. He took a moment over it, then pulled away to place kisses on her chin, her cheeks, on the tip of her nose. “Now that that’s settled, tell me about Maggie and what brings you both here, tonight.”
They compared notes and realizations and sobered at the thought of all the lies and manipulations Akers had resorted to.
“Like you, my first instinct was to confront him right away, but now I wonder.” Ben frowned. “You have the papers Maggie brought you? You have hidden them away?”
“Yes.”
“Good. We will need to lock them up. I think we should pause a moment, and recruit a couple of reinforcements. Let us make all of our case at once, so that we might see the back of him for good.”
“Tell me what that brilliant mind of yours is thinking.”