Chapter Four
TO BE THROWN out of an earl’s house once was careless. Twice, and a pattern was developing that Kit’s sore knees would rather didn’t persist. At least this time, it was in broad daylight, though the one-eyed footman was even uglier in the afternoon sunshine. Wisely, Kit refrained from telling him so.
After attending to his horse, Kit returned to his cell at the inn, where he nursed his knees and his grievances with a bottle of gin and concentrated his efforts on devising a plan to bring down Sir Ambrose Gartside without the aid of the Earl of Rossingley. Needless to say, with very little money, no status, and no family or friends in possession of either, Kit’s options were few.
He could kill him and be done with it, as simple as that. But Kit was no murderer, and as Rossingley had so plainly pointed out, murder came with its own set of unique risks. And how could Kit’s own death ever advantage his sister?
For the same pragmatic reasons, he crossed duelling off his list. Like all these feckless gentlemen of the ton with too much time on their hands, Gartside was no doubt a decent shot and an adequate swordsman. Kit was neither.
Reporting the crime to a magistrate? That was out of the question too. Not only was it Anne’s humble words against a baronet, but a well-connected one such as Gartside could extricate himself from the criminal justice system as swiftly as a snake through grass.
Which left…trickery. Trickery on a grand scale. Set a thief to catch a thief. Set a lord to catch a baronet. A lord with a grievance himself, a lord of high moral standing, wealth, and time. A lord with a secret he would prefer remained concealed. Kit had tried softly-softly, appealing to the earl’s better nature, and it had been an unmitigated disaster. It had left him with no choice but to increase the pressure and make bolder insinuations, no matter how much threatening to expose Uncle Charles’s deviancy pained him. The earl never needed to know Kit wouldn’t go through with it. Kit didn’t want money from Rossingley, simply his cooperation, his sharp mind, and the doors his involvement would open so that Kit could crush Gartside once and forever.