Chapter Nine #2
“Thank you again, Mark,” she beamed up at the footman. “A lady needs a reliable retainer as much as…as much as…oh, I don’t know.” She glanced Neville’s way. “As much as a child needs a mother.”
His mother rarely, if ever, thanked a footman. What in heaven’s name was going on?
“That will be all,” his mother finished.
The footman rose, dirty pattens in hand, gave Neville a slight bow, and then headed for the back of the house. Not until he had left the room did his mother rise. She went to the door, pulled it closed, and then laid her ear against the paneling.
“Mother—”
She held up a finger.
He couldn’t imagine what she was listening for, but after a few moments, she was satisfied enough to turn around.
“He’s relatively new, is he not? I don’t remember him from my time here last Season.”
“Yes, he started just a few weeks ago.”
“You see?” She smiled a smile of self-satisfaction. “I was right not to trust him. The girl says the villain has spies in the houses of every enemy.” She cocked her head. “Do you think the nonsense about the wheel made Mark think me eccentric? That was my purpose, you know.”
What girl? What Villain?
She sighed. “Couldn’t have Mark inquiring into the reasons why I arrived in the middle of the night, although it is true that you don’t know the value of something until—”
“Mother?” Neville interrupted. “Why did you come in the middle of the night?”
“Because I’d just visited Farnsworth.”
Neville lowered his voice. “Has John taken a turn for the worse?”
“Just the opposite, actually,” his mother whispered back. “He is vastly relieved.”
“Why?”
His mother glanced heavenward. “Because of Temperence, obviously. Took me a few weeks and several false starts, but I finally found her.”
“Pardon?” he managed. His mother had found Temperence Wilson?
He didn’t even know she was aware of Temperence!
“If you had just told me the truth about John’s troubles, I could have done so sooner,” she continued.
“I told you I knew something was wrong. And still you chose to keep me in the dark. I only wish I had thought to check with Farnsworth months ago. Although”—she assessed him with a look he thought contained just a hint of pride—“I suppose that was your point. Who would suspect a vicar?!”
Neville rubbed his forehead. “Only kept you “in the dark” to protect you.”
“Pfft. John is my son. Why would I not wish to be involved, no matter what the risk? I nearly died bringing him into the world. There is nothing I wouldn’t do for him.”
They stared at one another for a fraught moment.
Then, she added quietly, “Or for you.”
A discordant note panged within. He’d thought her the loveliest mother in the world. Lovely. And clever. And warm.
When had that changed?
He didn’t know. But he did finally realize his father had worked to poison that well.
Oblivious of his thought’s direction, his mother continued, “Getting the whole story out of your uncle and John took some coaxing. Once I was appraised, I immediately went back to Brighton in search of the prostitute.”
“Mother!”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake. It’s not as if I haven’t lived long enough to understand the world. Have you never heard the rumors about my father?”
“Have you?” he asked, still in shock.
She leveled him a quelling glance. “When one’s father was a notorious libertine, only partially reformed by marriage, one is subjected to a certain type of attention.”
Her meaning took a moment to sink in. “But certainly, you had protection.”
“A lady cannot depend on a man’s protection all the time. Sometimes,” she glanced at him pointedly, “she doesn’t wish to do so at all.”
“Yes,” he agreed. “You made you stance quite clear.”
“My brother was determined to be the opposite of his father in every possible way, in other words, preoccupied with his own consequence. A little like—” She cut herself off. “Anyway, my nephew—precocious little Edward—has been a delightful surprise…a studied balance between his ducal predecessors.”
Neville quite agreed.
He only hoped Harbury had already agreed to Sarah’s scheme tonight.
“Mother, I am urgently expected elsewhere. Could you summarize what you’ve learned?”
“Certainly,” she replied, as if somewhat insulted. “Where was I? Ah, yes. The prostitute…”
Neville closed his eyes.
“Who turned out not to be a prostitute at all,” she continued. “In that, John was vindicated. Which is why, I’m sure, he is feeling so much better. I have a suspicion—but there will be time later to speak of such things.”
Neville frowned. “When you said, ‘the girl says the villain has spies in the houses of every enemy.’ Did you mean Temperence?”
“Yes.” She glanced to the ceiling. “Of course.”
He paced the length of his study and back. His mother had found Temperence. She’d convinced her to talk about Willard. “I can’t believe this.”
“I told you that you should have come to me in the first place.”
Clearly, she’d been more effective than he had. “Perhaps I should have. But this was my fault. I sent John down to Brighton. And I didn’t want to burden you.”
“Burden,” she scoffed. “Why do you think you must handle every problem on your own?”
“Because I do.”
“Please,” she said. “By putting ads into newspapers and running around the countryside with a false name?” Her curls bounced as she shook her head.
“Indiscreet at best. If you had taken the time to properly consider, you would have realized a lady—especially a dowager who holds regular soirees—can make much more subtle inquiries.”
He stared at her, dumfounded. Yes, he supposed that was true.
“Brighton’s society is not large,” she continued, “and one rubs shoulders with all kinds. Perhaps that’s why I prefer it to London.”
And here he’d thought she just wanted to get away from him. “Where is Miss Wilson?”
“Wilson is her mother’s surname, not hers. Only Temperence is her real name. At least she had the presence of mind not to give away the whole truth, which, apparently, she did at several junctures. Good instincts, that one, even if not yet fully developed.”
“Mother…”
“She is where she’s been since the sad events of last summer—in the care of her parents, who have been wisely keeping her out of sight while they seek to move her out of the country.”
“Out of the country?” he asked in alarm.
“Do not worry. I have persuaded them to give us time. Her statement will be crucial in clearing John, but, at present, she is too afraid of her real abductor to speak. But I’ve earned her parents’ trust. Soon, I hope to have hers as well.”
Yet again, Neville was reeling.
He took a deep breath and forced himself to think. “Did she give you the name of her actual abductor?”
“She doesn’t know his name. She was taken to him by a woman she described as having blonde hair in perfect ringlets and a lovely accent, except for the occasional slip. That woman told to do as the man said, else he would take her to a London brothel, and she’d never be heard from again.”
The man was Willard, Neville was sure. And the similarity to Mrs. Cartwright could not be coincidence. Had Mrs. Cartwright only been pretending to be on his side?
He remembered how easily she’d found him in the crowd. How she’d conveniently earned his gratitude after sending away the urchin child.
He was furious with himself. “What happened next?”
“Well, with the terrible fate awaiting her if she did not do exactly as the man said, naturally, the poor, innocent thing was frightened out of her wits. She feels awful about implicating John.”
From here, Neville already knew the story, but he listened to his mother relate the details—the meeting in the park, the ring, the accusation.
Temperence had given the man John’s ring directly after her first meeting with John.
The woman who Temperence described had accompanied her to the inn, keeping a careful eye on matters.
But when John disappeared, chaos ensued, allowing Temperence to escape.
If that woman was Mrs. Cartwright, everything she’d told Neville was suspect.
And if he hadn’t needed to take care of Millicent, he would probably have gone off to the address she’d provided without hiring a Runner.
And what would have been waiting for him there?
And hadn’t Mrs. Cartwright’s last words to him been that he’d be too late?
What fate had Willard planned for Millie? For him?
Had Millie not had the wit to escape first, Willard could have ensnared them both.
Speculation, of course. But he’d been five steps behind Willard from the start—he had better start thinking like a criminal. This enemy demanded shrewd focus, careful calculation, Machiavellian lucidity. On his own, he had not been up to the task.
But his mother had proven a more than competent ally.
“Thank you.” He took his mother’s hands and kissed them. “I should have trusted you.”
Chagrin didn’t begin to describe how he felt. In treating his mother as helpless, he’d been playing by rules that had hindered his progress, rules that had never made any sense at all.
Her gaze softened. “You’re so much like—”
“My father.” In his weariness, he let some of his bitterness slip. “So you’ve often said.”
“You believe I am insulting you when I say that—I can tell. But I mean only that you are staid. Careful.” She brushed an invisible something off his sleeve. “And, of course, just as impressively built.”
Neville pursed his lips as a pained feeling passed through his body.
Her smile grew rueful. “Things between your father and I were not easy, of course, but one thing is for certain. You and John are my reward. And, at the very least, my betrothal to your father brought a swift end to any impertinence on the part of the men of the ton.”
…just as he’d thought his presence, his name, the sheer force of his will would end any impertinence toward Millie.
“Why should you look so bleak?” She studied him further. “And what is this urgent matter you spoke of earlier? A matter more important than my information about John?”