Chapter 22
Sophia grew light-headed with relief. “I know I have done very wrong, but I have no reason to lie about this. Mr. Belvedere guessed that I was the culprit and even questioned me about it, but he was never in league with me. Nor I with him. He probably is not the man from the newspaper at all—I have no idea. I succumbed to the temptation to make him my scapegoat, which I should never have done.”
Mr. Belvedere exhaled mightily. “Mrs. Scott—Sophia, stop. There is no point to this—self-immolation.”
Lady Marston’s fingers dug bruises into her arm. “I don’t know what you mean with this ridiculous explanation, but even he thinks you’re mad.”
“But why would Lady Marston want to destroy a letter?” Caroline asked.
“I don’t know,” Sophia spread her hands helplessly, “but I know it has something to do with the solicitors who are handling Sir Mark’s inheritance.”
Mr. Belvedere whistled. “Can’t say I thought of that one.”
“Yes,” said Sophia, “and we found it last night when we searched the mail. Lady Marston took it.”
The captain reeled in genuine confusion, “What?”
“I mean—she must’ve destroyed it already, so I can’t prove anything—”
“Of course she cannot,” said Lady Marston.
“She is only attempting to throw mud on the matter in hopes of getting this gentleman set free. Well, I wash my hands of you, Sophia! This is beyond anything! Captain, if she is in on the plot, you may take her to the consulate with my goodwill. She shall certainly not be in my employ ever again.”
“Oh, no,” Anne protested. “Let’s not be hasty. We still do not know what happened.”
“Sophia, how could you agree to this and not know why?” Caroline asked. “That is absurd.”
“I—I was not in a position to demand answers. I assumed the letter contained some legal matter that might get Sir Mark disinherited. Perhaps an entail or a note from debt collectors…”
“No, no, no,” said Captain Smythe, not willing or able to rearrange his ideas so quickly. “What of the necklace? You will hardly say that you took it from Lady Marston! Or that she stole it from herself. That had to have been Mr. Belvedere.”
Sophia shook her head. “That was Lady Marston. She wished to draw attention away from the cargo hold since you had set a watch there. She hoped that if a theft occurred in the passenger quarters, you would relax your worries for the mail. Which you did.”
Mr. Belvedere cocked his head. “So it wasn’t you who took the necklace. I thought you were lying.”
“It was and it wasn’t,” Sophia said. “I knew—or at least, I guessed what she had done. I believe Sir Mark kept the necklace on himself that night we searched.”
Everyone’s gaze turned to Sir Mark, for everyone remembered that he had been the one to “find” the necklace among the jumble of mail.
“Well, now, see here—I don’t—she hadn’t ought to—It was Lady Marston’s idea!”
Lady Marston’s hawk nose was predatory. “Be quiet, you fool.”
“This is very serious.” Colonel Fitzwilliam stepped between them, motioning Caroline back. “If Mrs. Scott is telling the truth, then the only thing we have against Mr. Belvedere are his suspicious letters of recommendation. I don’t feel at all comfortable turning him over on such pretext.”
“Never said a truer word in your life,” said Mr. Belvedere, with a hopeful edge.
“However,” he went on, “I’m afraid Mrs. Scott’s word is not enough. No disrespect, ma’am, but your actions have not been above board—so to speak—and we cannot take such serious accusations on faith.”
“Obviously not!” cried Lady Marston.
“But it’s not an—accusation, precisely,” Sophia said. “This is a confession. Isn’t that enough?”
“Er, no,” said Captain Wentwoth, squeezing Anne’s hand, for she had clutched onto him for support. “Your story places Lady Marston at the center of the plot, and we still have no evidence or even logic to support it.”
“We’re not averse to helping you,” Caroline added, “but we must understand. Why would Lady Marston be so desperate? What information did she destroy?”
Sophia shook her head. “I hardly know. I don’t fully understand it myself.”
Captain Wentworth turned to Sir Mark. “What do you say, then? It is your business more than anyone’s.”
“Well—I say—I mean, it’s what my lady has said! Obviously a pack of nonsense.”
“That is what you would say,” Sophia shot back. “You will always follow where she leads.”
Caroline furrowed her brow. In her recollection, the Marstons had not always been like that. Lady Marston had always been described as a forceful woman, but one who wisely turned a blind eye to her husband’s crim. cons. He was hardly tied to her apron strings.
“I know I am in trouble,” Sophia went on. “I know I ought never to have consented to any illegal scheme, let alone one I did not understand. But I was—desperate.” She laughed drearily. “None of you would understand.”
“We must clear this up,” Richard said. “No further dramatics, please. I suggest we take this below.”
Lady Marston scoffed, but Sir Mark inclined his round face, now rather pale and doughy.
“Never fear, guvnor. This is a simple matter to clear up, I’m sure!
” He tugged at his cuffs and darted a glance at Lady Marston.
In Caroline’s opinion, it was the look of a man who is fully out of his depth and looking to another for direction.
It was not the look of a man who had moved confidently through the beau monde for decades; who had fathered several children out of wedlock, and who required his wife to ignore it all and present a perfect appearance.
In fact—
Caroline gasped as the answer fell into her lap.
Sir Mark, who was to inherit his uncle’s fortune, had not been himself since the start of their journey.
Sir Mark, whose deplorable manners could not fully be explained by the regrettable coarseness of his generation.
Sir Mark, who Lady Marston barely let out of the cabin and constantly shushed up or corrected…
“I—I know,” said Caroline, just as Richard geared up to begin questioning Sophia. “I know what Lady Marston hoped to do, and Sophia is—I suspect—ignorant of it all.”
Everyone looked to her, and Caroline thrilled to it. “It has been before us from the start. This man is not Sir Mark Marston. I suspect that this plot—whatever it consists of—is centered on using an imposter to gain access to the fortune of Sir Mark’s uncle.”
Sir Mark began to flush, his doughy face now getting blotchy, but Caroline pressed on. “Sir Mark said only days ago that he’d never fished before, but what gentleman with a country estate has never fished?”
“I did not,” he corrected. “I said I’d—er—never fished in that way.”
“You amended what you said when Lady Marston glared at you; I saw it. And he has deplorable manners—”
“Here, I say!” he expostulated.
“It’s true, isn’t it?” Caroline said. “We all excused it as the eccentricities of the older generation, but the older generation does not descend into cant when they are flustered, which Sir Mark has done multiple times.”
Mr. Belvedere broke in. “Would that explain why his snuff is so cheap that even I found myself reluctant to touch it?”
“And what sort of gentleman offers ladies his snuff, as Sir Mark did that first day?” Caroline continued. “Someone who is used to very different company, that’s who! Someone who smokes cheroots, belches at a fine meal, and is, perhaps, not a gentleman at all.”
Richard’s brow wrinkled. “Caroline—”
“I know it is absurd but do listen! All of Sir Mark’s clothes have been recently let out—I noticed when we searched their cabin.
Almost as if Sir Mark’s wardrobe suddenly needed to fit someone quite different.
Someone who put on a good act of pseudo-gentility but grew quite crass when he forgot himself.
Someone who is, you see, not Sir Mark at all. ”
“But surely, someone would notice.” Captain Wentworth looked between the two of them. “I have not been long returned from the Navy, but you have been in company with him. Didn’t you recognize him when first you met?”
Caroline shook her head. “He looks rather like Sir Mark, I grant you, but that is mainly due to his extreme quirks of fashion—which he gained with Sir Mark’s clothes—and his hair—which are Sir Mark’s wigs.
” Caroline gestured at Sophia. “Your face quite clearly shows your doubt. But you did not know Sir Mark well, did you? You told Anne that you grew up at Marston Grange, fostered to some family, were you not? You said you were not well-acquainted with Sir Mark until lately.”
“I was not.” Sophia’s lips moved soundlessly. “Could it be true?”
Sir Mark licked his lips. “This is—nonsense! Who else should I be? I’ve never heard such a Canterbury tale.”
Caroline continued, feeling more herself than she had in weeks.
“That begs the question—where is the real Sir Mark? I fear—and I do not say this lightly—that he has passed. Lady Marston seems to have been on hard times. Most of her famous brooches have been replaced with paste—her ostrich feathers are dyed with inferior dye that bled in her trunk—and she would not gamble even for low stakes, although I recall her playing quite deep in town. She needed this inheritance, I assume, far more than anyone in society knew. And she found this man—whoever he is—to take Sir Mark’s place long enough to get the inheritance transferred.
She also needed someone who would trust her implicitly and do her dirty work, and she knew her daughter, Sophia—”
The captain gasped and Caroline gave him an impatient look.
“Please, keep up, we all guessed weeks ago that Sophia belonged to one of them. Lady Marston knew her daughter, impoverished and recently widowed, was in dire straits. She recruited her, probably with promise of largesse in Lisbon. I don’t know precisely what letter needed to be destroyed, but if Sir Mark’s solicitor knew that he had passed—even if she kept it out of the papers—he would write to the trustees in Lisbon. ”