Chapter Two #2
Tony looked out the window. “I suppose, I shouldn’t ask you why you did it?”
“No.” He poked at the cold beefsteak in time with the throbbing in his head.
“You should have told me about Henry.” Tony appeared at his elbow.
Oliver wasn’t surprised. “Why? What could you have done? Brought him back from the dead? Stopped him from riding that day?” Oliver looked away.
Good lord, his chest hurt.
“He was my friend.”
“He was my brother!” Oliver spat out standing up and knocking his chair over. He walked over to the windows which overlooked the busy street beyond. “Your mother sent flowers,” he said, his voice flat. “Your brother, Warrington, wrote a lovely eulogy for the papers.”
Tony nodded. “Yes, he’s good at those. I am sorry, damnable way to go.”
Oliver looked back at him. “No, hardly a glorious ending, was it? Breaking your neck is dramatic, but not glorious.”
“It could have happened to anyone,” his friend said.
Oliver didn’t reply. Why was he so angry at Tony?
Tony was a man you would never guess as being anything other than what he was—a younger son of an aristocratic family.
He was so much more. Of average height, with sandy blond hair he was able to blend into a crowd easily.
However, if he wanted to have his presence known there was no way of escaping his gaze.
Oliver had met him during the war where Oliver was a code breaker under Scovell.
Oliver had been quick-witted and handy with a pistol and so he had found himself often picked to go on special missions.
He missed those times. At least then he’d had direction in his life, a purpose.
The danger for some reason had never bothered him.
“Oliver, there is something else…”
“Please. There is no need of any pity. You can go away now.”
“Oliver,” Tony began.
“It is done.” And it was. There was nothing anyone could do for him or say to him, which could make this right.
It was all wrong. It was supposed to have been him.
He was the soldier, after all. He was the one who should have died on the battlefield—not Henry—with his neck broken and his face in the mud.
Oliver rubbed at his chest again. Will this ache ever leave him?
“The ton is going to want to know what happened last night,” Tony explained.
“The ton can go to hell!” he said, and he meant it.
Tony’s lips quirked. “Right, well, that would make the queues at Covent Garden less tiresome, but it won’t make this go away. You need a plan.”
“I know.” Oliver glanced at the note again. The precise handwriting mocked him.
Open me!
“I’m thinking on it.”
Tony smiled then. “Good, because I need you.”
“You need me?”
“I assume you know the story. The Black Raven, her dead husband, and a certain financial speculation?”
“What of it?”
“It’s the reason you are in this… situation.”
Tony knew? Well, of course he knew. “Oh, that situation.” He narrowed his eyes then. “How exactly is she the reason?”
“Henry invested in the speculation with Blackhurst, along with others. When Blackhurst died, the scheme was found to be fake.”
Oliver sat down in the nearest chair. “Henry invested in a fake speculation? He gambled the family fortune on a speculation? It doesn’t sit right. Henry never did risky things.” Except jump fences.
“Blackhurst was known to be very convincing; he managed to persuade many high-profile men into this farce. They all lost out, but Henry…”
Oliver nodded but still it didn’t make sense. He tried to picture Henry but it was getting harder. Perhaps he didn’t know his brother as well as he thought. Perhaps, he let himself become distant from him. How had his life fallen apart so quickly?
“I suppose I should have known you would find out. I suppose everyone knows. Should I start packing for the Continent?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Nobody knows and nobody will if you do the sensible thing.”
Sensible thing? Easier said than done it seems.
“We need you to continue whatever it is you started with the Black Raven. You’re the first, Bellamy. No one else has been able to penetrate her inner sanctum.”
Oliver coughed. “What makes you think I penetrated her inner sanctum?”
Tony rolled his eyes. “I mean you were the first to be let in.”
Oliver looked away. “Oh, right.”
Tony watched him. He hated when he did that.
Like he knew what he was thinking simply by where he put his hand or moved his eyes.
Could he tell he had been very attracted to the Countess of Blackhurst?
Under better circumstances, Oliver would not have been opposed to being near her inner sanctum at all.
“This wager has been in place for two years. Two years we have been trying to get someone in with no success… until you.”
Oliver turned back to Tony, his eyes narrowed in anger. “We? Are you saying the Home Office is behind this?”
Tony laughed at the apparent stupidity of his accusation. “No.”
Oliver was beginning to dislike the turn in this conversation. “Then who?”
“A very influential person lost a lot of money in the speculation.” Tony shrugged. “He wants answers. I’m doing it as a personal favor.”
Oliver shook his head but the knocking on his skull was still there and getting louder. “What has it to do with the countess?”
“She was Blackhurst’s beneficiary. Everything that wasn’t entailed went to her. An obscene amount of money. There are persons who think she killed him or had him killed. She refused to repay the investors their capital. It made her very unpopular.”
“I thought she was acquitted of his murder?”
“She was, but still there is reason to believe she knows more about her husband’s dealings than she is willing to tell. We need you to find out what that more is.”
Now it was Oliver’s turn to laugh. “And you think she is going blurt it all out to me?”
“Given time and certain incentives, I am sure she will slip up and give herself away.” Tony pushed the countess’s note towards him with a forefinger. “Read it,” he said, taking a seat back at the table.
Devil take him, Tony was right. If she was the cause of Henry’s misery, if she was the cause of his current despair he must find out.
Oliver looked at the note again. How bad could it possibly be?
The fact last night was more blur-ish nightmare than actual memory was contributing to his lack of muster, but it wasn’t as though she could kill him with ink, unless of course, it was poisoned.
He shook his head to shake away the cobwebs.
He picked it up, weighed it in his palm, and frowned for the forty-fourth time this morning. It was a little heavy for a note. What was in there, her whole life story, a confession, his requiem mass? Open it, his brain buzzed.
He broke out in a sweat as he broke the wax seal and unfolded it.
He read it briefly and stifled a laugh, read it again and then roared with laughter, ignoring the pain in his head.
He was quite sure now she hadn’t killed her husband.
“The daft bugger must have dashed his own brains out if this is the kind of thing she forced upon him on a daily basis,” Oliver said, passing the note to Tony.
He gave it a cursory glance but not more. His face still serious. “Glad to find you are so amused by it.”
“It hardly matters what’s in it. I’m not going to do it anyway.”
Tony’s eyes turned cold. “I think you are. You have to.”
“Ashton, I can hardly conceive how you know about any of this, let alone what this note might say.”
“I don’t really care what the note says, but I knew who it was from. I saw it being delivered this morning from the lady’s house. I had to ensure you read it.”
“So, you are spying on me?” Oliver put his hands on his hips.
Tony smiled. “Not you, Bellamy. Her.”
“Why should I do this for someone I don’t even know?”
“You’re not. You’re doing it for me. And, if you do, I will make sure you are handsomely rewarded. Is that incentive enough?”
“Do I have much choice?”
“Not really,” Tony replied before patting him on the shoulder.
“Well, hell, now you’ve taken all the fun out of it.”
“I am sure you will find the countess more than entertaining. I’ll be gone for a few weeks. When I return, I’ll come to see you. Or, if you find out something interesting, you know how to contact me, discreetly.” Tony turned and left the room.
Oliver looked around the now quiet room. This certainly changed things. He picked up the note again. Could she have had anything to do with Henry and the loss of the family fortune?
*
An hour later and feeling much more the thing, Oliver took a hackney to his tailor in Piccadilly. He needed decent clothes if he was going to be escorting a certain female around London. He pulled out the note and just for fun read it again.
Bellamy, he read. Here is your schedule for tonight.
You will notice I have allowed fifteen extra minutes’ time between appointments for traffic and fog.
“How thoughtful, Countess.” Do not be late.
“As if I would dare,” he said to the interior of the hackney.
I will expect you to be properly attired and sober.
“Cheeky chit!” I will expect you at exactly nine o’clock tonight.
Tardiness will not be tolerated, as we must keep to the schedule at all costs.
“No, Countess, at your cost.”
Only it wasn’t at her cost at all, was it?
She had quite cleverly arranged for the ton to pay her debt to him.
He could only tip his hat to her. Combined with what Tony had said would come to him for information on the countess, he could find himself retiring to the country and raising hunting dogs before he knew it.
Surprisingly, the Black Raven never strayed far from his thoughts all day. Not because of the natural interest of all who had met him, but because her schedule had outlined exactly what she was doing practically every minute of the day.
While his tailor was being astonishingly gymnastic in his bending and scraping and general groveling, trying to extract details of his famous client’s night with the Black Raven, she was having a dress fitting.
While Oliver was enjoying an excellent glass or two of claret with his slightly overdone spatchcock in orange sauce, she was tending her garden.
Despite the toughness of his lunch the thought of the Countess of Blackhurst bending over was a more than appealing picture.
By the time he reached his brother’s townhouse on Cavendish Square in the late afternoon, he was quite familiar with the lie he had made up for the masses.
He and the Black Raven had become quite cozy on her Egyptian-styled chaise lounge, while she had lured him with good French cognac and seduced him with her crystalline eyes and husky dulcet tones until he gave in to her considerable charms. It was so far from the truth as to be almost believable.
If there were a few who didn’t trust his story they would no doubt be choking on their disbelief when he strolled into Wainwright’s ball tonight, with the delightfully beautiful and terrifying Countess of Blackhurst on his arm.
The thought alone made him smile. Men were making more wagers by the moment, intent on catching him out, when really all they were doing were aiding him on cashing in.
He had been at a distinct disadvantage last night, but tonight he would be in full control of all his mental and bodily faculties.
She would not be holding the trump card this time for he had one or two aces up his considerably well-turned-out sleeve.
The Black Raven was to find Oliver Whitely, Earl of Bellamy, could easily handle one fussy black-clad female.