Twenty-seven
Arnaud
Execrable villain, besmirching Thea’s excitement on the first announcement of their betrothal! Arnaud would like to strangle Humphries. Now that he had the right to defend his betrothed, he was a man with family and must take charge. No more hiding.
With the women and children safely returned to the manor, Arnaud stalked down the corridor to the east wing, determined to take the offensive in this battle with evil.
He saw no reason to enlist his brother or Ferguson in another skirmish.
Both were newly married, and after a week away, they needed time with their families.
Arnaud may have been raised by wolves, but this past year with his cousin’s family had taught him one or two things about considering others.
He found Fort, Weston, and the boys studying Wycliffe’s insane puzzle.
They barely glanced up at his entrance. Oliver was more showing than explaining what he’d learned while Davy had been at church.
If he followed Davy’s questions, they now seemed to think the angled lines referred to a written code.
Arnaud did not attempt to decipher more. After the encounter with the oily American, his simmering rage needed more physical outlet. He tried to speak calmly so as not to alarm the boys. “Humphries and his entourage must go, if we cannot determine the killer.”
Weston and Fort eyed him warily.
“They need to go even if we do discover a killer. The problem being that they might go straight to Hunt.” Understanding the argument could become heated, Fort ushered his students and the puzzle back to their school room.
“Hunt can take care of himself.” Arnaud paced the salon with its growing accumulation of furniture. “I will not weep if he and his cohorts put bullets through the lot. And as much as I respect our indomitable ladies, they have children and servants to consider. It is up to us to remove the vermin.”
“With what army?” Weston asked, sitting back in the room’s only comfortable chair—apparently hauled from the main house to accommodate his noble lordship. The household was accustomed to Thea regularly rearranging furniture.
“Your army, my lord. Spalding’s. Villiers’.
” Naming nobles related to the manor inhabitants, Arnaud gestured at the once-elegant chamber.
“This manor was originally a fortress built to house armies. Hunt has fought on his own this past year because few believed in us. But he has proved the estate can return to operation, that the Priory can support not only the family but a village. Clare and Thea have written everyone they know of the situation. If good English citizens cannot gather to end this travesty of injustice, then we must all despair of the future of this country.”
“I despair every day,” the cynical earl said. “Have any of your army returned your correspondence?”
“So far, they have only been asked to look at the sponsors of the proposed petition to break the Wycliffe trust and take it out of Hunt’s hands.” Arnaud glared out the window to the drive to the stable.
This time, they’d locked the knife-wielding prisoner in the crypt.
Arnaud’s decision not to lock up the architect had been disastrous.
But making no decisions had not worked well either.
He had to step up like his cousin Hunt and defend this new home with all the limited weapons he possessed—or die trying.
“I am not one of your relations.” The massive earl shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “Why should I become involved?”
Before Arnaud could slap sense into him, Fort returned with a tea tray. “Because you came to us when you needed help. Don’t be a prick, Monty.”
Arnaud experienced a moment of relief. Friends were sometimes even better than relations.
Fort resumed the discussion as if he’d never left.
“After some digging, Earl Villiers reports, as surmised, that Thea’s father initiated the petition.
Talbot has found a few other sons and husbands of the late earl’s relations eager to divide up the proceeds of the trust and sale of the Priory.
Villiers and Spalding are discouraging the bill’s introduction, but the populace is rioting in the streets.
There are far more important political issues pressing. ”
Arnaud snatched up a scone and didn’t sit.
“As I understand your law, Gravesyde, under The Earl of Wycliffe, had two representatives, himself and one other, when there were actually people living here. Now that the village grows, we need representation again, but that is what the villains are trying to prevent—the locals from voting.”
He practically inhaled the scone. He had thought himself done with politics and revolution and fighting.
He simply wanted to paint. But to do so, he must remove evil monsters before they multiplied.
Life was never easy. Unfortunately he had learned that unless one fought villains, life only got worse.
“Women can’t vote,” Weston said scathingly. “Gravesyde will never have representation if they own the Priory.”
“Which might be the point. Have you learned anything from the prisoner?” Arnaud had merely locked up the mustached scum and left him to rot last night. He’d had more important things to do on a Sunday morning.
“He was still sleeping off the drink when I last checked.” Looking a lot less like a meek tutor and far more the angry warrior this morning, Fort bit off a scone as if it were raw meat.
“His ramblings last night were of being cheated and hating pretty much anyone he ever knew, with special emphasis on his drinking companions.”
“Sots.” Arnaud finally slumped in a chair and drank his tea to prevent flinging the cup against a wall.
Fort ignored the interruption. “After we left the tavern, Henri questioned the witnesses, as far as he was able, given their state of liquefaction. He gathers that Perser had paid the servants in guineas. Word of counterfeit coins spread and they’d determined their generous salaries were worth nothing.
The argument wasn’t simply about Tatum’s cheating at cards.
Darley threatened Humphries’ man, Jones, as well. ”
Arnaud kept a mental tally of names and occupations. “If Tatum is Featherstone’s lackey he probably was cheating. Gamblers are not known for honesty.”
“They are none what they seem. Darley and Jones claim to be valets—except valets are generally not armed ex-soldiers and pugilists. My assumption is that they are bodyguards, although Darley, at least, appears to keep his employer nicely tricked out.” Fort glanced down at his own rumpled coat and brushed crumbs from his neckcloth.
Interesting. The quiet, retiring tutor’s normally modest but impeccable image was descending into the casual sloth of a gentleman unconcerned with his position. The real Lord Fortescue was emerging as a dangerously rakish aristocrat—or warrior unconcerned with appearances.
“Darley is the investor’s, Gladstone’s, man, correct?
” At Fort’s nod, Weston shifted his wounded shoulder to a more comfortable position and continued.
“Gladstone made his first fortune in the slave trade. He has a habit of driving a business he wishes to acquire into bankruptcy by various devious means, then buying them up cheaply as salvage. I can name half a dozen men who want to kill him. Pity it’s the servants who are dying.
And you think you’ll drive off these leeches how? ”
Arnaud knew next to nothing about armed warfare beyond wielding sword and pistol in self-defense.
But he’d spent the worst part of his life with artists and in society’s salons.
He knew people. “We separate them. We bribe and we threaten. And then, even if we cannot identify the killer, we gather our army to give them better things to do and run them out of town. I am not Hunt. Justice be damned. They will all end up stabbing each other in the back eventually.”
“The ladies will object,” Fort reminded him. “They like justice tied up in neat little bows.”
“My lady will not. Thea would hang them, if she could. If we do not stop their plans, she might kill her father. I should like to prevent fleeing to France if it can be avoided. Perhaps, if we export the scoundrels, places with more officialdom than we possess will do their duty.”
“Or let us set up our own government and hang them ourselves,” Fort said with a dry laugh.
“Or grant Hunt the earl’s title that Humphries wishes to resurrect. If maternal lines are accepted, Hunt is certainly more closely related.” Weston sat back to sip his tea, looking thoughtful.
“Hunt would despise that above all things.” Arnaud dismissed the absurdity. “Since the knife-wielding sot is Gladstone’s man, I want to question Gladstone. I assume Rafe can set up a room at the inn rather than allow any of the scoundrels here?”
“Excellent notion. I’d like to interrogate Perser about the coins.
He strikes me as easily frightened, if separated from the pack.
” Fort was nearly smiling, until he turned a stern glare to his brother.
“We can no longer continue the measles charade. If you wish to continue hiding, we have an entire wing above this you can move into. We’ll assign you a servant.
I’d rather you use this time to write your own minions and gather information, if not armies. I can write Father, if I must.”
“I’d rather write Venetia,” the earl said dryly.
“But like you, I don’t wish to endanger women and children.
If your fight has become mine, and possibly vice versa, I will begin making inquiries.
Send them out under your cover so we can pretend I am not here a while longer.
I think I am capable of managing stairs—even without my beef. ”
Arnaud assumed the role of beast of burden was his. He could move the earl’s bed to the empty chambers above this floor, install him on the far end of the wing from Clare’s suite. One trusted servant could be given the key to the rear tower. It should work.
“I’ll have Thea consult with the housekeeper about a footman to serve you.” Ignoring the complaint about lack of steak, Arnaud rose, grateful no one had questioned his authority or his plan to drive out the villains.
Fort rose as well. “I want to speak with Clare about setting the boys up in bedchambers on the family floor instead of the nursery. They shouldn’t have to sleep with infants.”
Infants. Did Thea want children? Until now, in their infrequent encounters, they’d taken what meager precautions were available. But once married and sharing a bed nightly. . . They’d be living in each other’s pockets.
His parents had slept in separate wings of the castle. Infants had still happened.
He shoved away his roiling thoughts. Ridding the village of vermin came first.
He found Thea and Lavender already with Clare.
When he explained about the boys, the females immediately began charting empty chambers in the main priory.
Relieved that he had the ladies safely occupied, Arnaud tracked down the housekeeper, asked about a footman for the earl, and sent her to join the ladies.
With domestic logistics handled, he set out on his own scheme.
By the time Fort joined him at the inn, Arnaud had Rafe opening up one of the derelict downstairs parlors of uncertain purpose.
They’d installed a few equally shabby chairs and tables from the attic of castoffs.
The closed-up room smelled of damp and old cigars and seemed a fitting interrogation chamber.
“I’ll need to start repairing this rubbish if you’re turning the place into a courtroom,” Rafe grumbled. “Or charge rent so I can buy new.”
Fort produced a purse and handed him a coin. “Rent is fair. We can’t risk bringing criminals of this ilk into the manor without an army to watch them.”
“Rich suspects are more dangerous than poor?” Rafe dropped the coin into his pocket without looking at it. “You’re thinking they’re spies, aren’t you?”
Arnaud hadn’t even considered that. He simply wanted to strangle Humphries. But if this lot were in any way associated with the earl’s injuries—
“I wrote the duke,” Fort said flatly. “I merely asked if he or Weston were in any way involved with them.”
“Have you heard back?” Rafe asked.
Concentrating on the task at hand, Arnaud half listened while examining the shuttered windows. The panes were intact. The slats were loose or missing entirely. Rafe had renovated upstairs bedchambers before these rotting ground floor parlors.
“The duke tells me Gladstone wants to acquire a steamboat operation and canal belonging to a neighboring estate.” Following Arnaud’s lead, Fort surveyed the room, testing old panels.
“Weston was investigating. That might mean he is in Gladstone’s way.
My noble brother is not inclined toward sharing. ”
“Your noble brother is a pain in the posterior and ought to be the one questioning financiers and not me. I have never had the money to invest,” Arnaud grumbled, now that he’d satisfied himself that the shutters might make useful weapons. “Which scoundrel do we interview first?”
“Perser,” Fort decided. “He is their weak link and most likely to give away secrets. We may gain information we can use on Gladstone. Do you wish to stand outside as guard or inside to hear?”
“Arnaud will terrify that mouse,” Rafe warned. “These doors are thin. If he stands outside, he’ll hear.”
“Outside, where I might terrify curiosity seekers?” Arnaud asked. “Perhaps I should hold a scythe.”
“I rather like that idea. Isn’t that what the peasants used in the revolution? But a pistol might be more effective.” Fort revealed the one he carried in his coat pocket and the bludgeon in his trouser band.
Arnaud rolled his eyes. Rafe snorted and stalked off to use his authority as bailiff to command an accountant to the makeshift courtroom.
“I shall be across the hall until you have Perser behind closed doors.” Following Thea’s lead, Arnaud amused himself by adding, “Lady Lavinia has decided the younger son of a duke is quite suitable for Lavender’s husband. You stand forewarned.”
He sauntered off, leaving the young Iordling open-mouthed.