Chapter 34
“Drop your weapon, you filthy miscreant!” Philip Stoneham’s voice took on an extra shrillness as it reverberated off the vault’s stone walls.
Manchester glanced around, his expression furrowing to a look of utter bewilderment. “Clarissa, what the devil is your brother doing here?”
“Rescuing me from perdition, you black-hearted villain!” She shrank back a step. “I went to fetch him instead of the carriage and explained how you blackmailed me with a … a youthful indiscretion to steal secrets from my husband and …”
A sob wrenched from her throat. “… and surrender my honor to your carnal appetites.”
Charlotte watched as Manchester’s confusion gave way to a wave of molten rage as her words sank in. “Why, you conniving, double-crossing little bitch—”
“Shut your gob!” cried Stoneham, cocking the hammers of both his pistols.
“How dare you insult my sister with such foul epithets when it is you—you unspeakable monster—who betrayed the trust of your closest friend and abused Clarissa’s tender heart, forcing her to …
to yield her virtue to protect her dear husband from shame. ”
Manchester let out an incredulous laugh. “Is that the Banbury tale she has told you?”
“Drop your weapons now!” ordered Stoneham, who didn’t miss his adversary’s subtle movement to bring his own pistols into play. “Or by Jove, I—I shall shoot you dead this instant!”
Noting the fellow’s shaking hands, Sheffield nudged Charlotte. “Slide over to your left,” he whispered. ‘I’d rather not give up the ghost because Stoneham has terrible aim.”
“Don’t move,” she counseled. “With tempers at a flashpoint, either one of them might suddenly panic.”
Manchester hesitated in obeying Stoneham’s order, as if gauging his chances of getting off the first shot, then seemed to surrender to the harsh reality of the situation. He placed his weapons on the floor, then raised his hands.
“I’m unarmed,” he called. “Surely you’re not going to murder me in cold blood.” A pause. “There are witnesses present.”
Stoneham lowered his aim slightly.
“Don’t trust him!” hissed his sister. “Shoot him now and save the hangman the trouble of stringing him up!”
Intent on calming emotions so that the vault didn’t suddenly explode in a hail of ricocheting bullets, Charlotte was about to speak up—
“Trust? That word should stick in your craw, Clarissa!” exclaimed Manchester, breaking the momentary silence. He shifted his gaze to her glowering brother. “My dear Philip, let me tell you just how much you should trust your saintly sister.”
Beads of sweat had broken out on Wrexford’s brow despite the chill of the night, and every thud of his racing steps hammered home the fact that Charlotte was likely in mortal danger.
Lungs burning, he willed his legs to move faster.
Faster, faster …
Lost in his fears, the earl was only yanked back to his senses by von Münch, who managed to seize him by the coat and force him to a halt.
“We’re nearly there, Wrex.” He gave the earl’s shoulders a hard shake. “Uncontrolled emotion is just as dangerous an enemy as the mastermind,” he counseled.
Wrexford glanced at the fearful faces of Raven and Eddy watching him through the swirls of night mist and drew in a measured breath. “Be assured I’ve not forgotten the lessons of the battlefield, my friend.”
“I didn’t doubt that for an instant.” A smile. “It was simply a comradely reminder.”
The earl looked up and down the deserted street. “At the next corner, we turn onto Bond Street. Manchester’s art emporium is two doors down on the right.” Logic had reasserted itself. “As we don’t know what we’re facing, we’ll have to move noiselessly. You and I will enter the shop.”
To the Weasels and MacArthur, he added. “You three will remain outside to stand watch and alert Griffin that von Münch and I are inside.”
Raven’s scowl announced how little he liked the plan, but he nodded. “Oiy.”
After checking the priming of his pistols, the earl gave a brusque wave. “Follow me.”
“Philip, don’t let him—” began Mrs. Ainsley, but Manchester’s booming voice cut her off.
“Have you ever wondered why your dear Clarissa suddenly took up gardening?” he said, “A passion that was so near and dear to the heart of your late wife?”
Stoneham went pale as a ghost.
“Why, it’s because it gave her the opportunity to learn all about herbs and botanicals—including the deadly ones that often grow in English gardens—from Priscilla!” continued Manchester in a rush.
Mrs. Ainsley lifted her chin as she met her brother’s confused stare. “Lies, more scurrilous lies! I loved Priscilla—you know that.”
“Ha! She hated your wife!” cried Manchester. “The truth is, Clarissa slowly poisoned Priscilla because she feared that she was losing her influence over you. You see, you had proved such a perfect pawn for her to involve in the Lisbon Conspiracy!”
Ye gods … Charlotte leaned back against the wall, not quite believing her ears.
“The fact that she arranged for you to be asked to make improved copper for Archie Campbell’s printing plates was not out of sisterly support of your career.
It was so that if the authorities ever got wind of her association with Campbell and his gang, she could point the finger at you as the real conspirator and say she was merely an unwitting pawn.
” A laugh. “Indeed, she has used the fact that Society thinks the fair sex isn’t capable of cunning or cleverness to engage in any number of sordid enterprises over the years. ”
“Your lurid accusations are as ridiculous as they are disgusting,” said Mrs. Ainsley, her lips quivering in outrage as she fixed her brother with a beseeching look. “Don’t listen to a word from the forked tongue of that snake. As you can see, he’s a desperate man.”
Stoneham didn’t respond. He was staring straight ahead, eyes glazed with shock.
“And speaking about being seduced!” Another harsh laugh from Manchester.
“Clarissa knew of my interest in guilloches and slowly pulled me into her plot for counterfeiting. Through her volunteer work in one of the charitable societies that aid children of the working class—for, of course, she had to give the appearance of possessing a noble and unselfish heart—she heard about Archie Campbell’s genius son. ”
“More lies!”
Ignoring the accusation, he continued. “Knowing that I was strapped for money to keep my shop afloat, she seduced me into becoming engaged in her plot. We studied different styles of scripts and ornaments, then she made friends with Archie— an easy task, for at heart they were kindred souls in manipulation and treachery. Archie used the art we had created to train his son, and then they concocted their evil plan for betraying her husband and the Bank of England.”
He pointed a trembling finger at Mrs. Ainsley. “She was the mastermind of the Lisbon Conspiracy, and by the time I realized the full extent of her plans, I had no choice but to continue!”
Charlotte felt a wave of revulsion rise in her gorge as Manchester desperately tried to wriggle out of any responsibility for his actions. And yet you cut Fletcher Campbell’s throat without blinking an eye and wrenched the ring off his finger in order to once again profit from the Bank of England.
Not to speak of his intent to murder her and Sheffield. He of the silver tongue had a heart black as sin.
“She methodically stole or copied sensitive material from her husband’s study,” continued Manchester, “and using Archie Campbell and his gang to handle the actual printing and logistics of the swindle, she ruthlessly used the material to fleece the bank out of a fortune.”
Stoneham finally seemed to come out of his trance. He turned his head and regarded his sister with a searching stare.
“Damnation,” whispered Sheffield. “If I weren’t so banged-up I would suggest that we intervene—”
“No, it’s too volatile,” replied Charlotte, though she was watching intently for any chance to seize control of the situation. For the moment, however, she was mesmerized by the drama playing out before their eyes.
“Bloody hell, don’t be a fool, Philip!” snapped Mrs. Ainsley. “You can’t possibly be so gullible as to believe any of that filth.”
“Gullible?” he whispered in an oddly pinched voice.
Sensing Stoneham was listening—and wondering—Manchester went on in a rush.
“I haven’t begun to finish her litany of evil.
Clarissa was increasingly intrigued by guilloche patterns and designs and suggested to me that they might be the solution for creating a banknote that couldn’t be counterfeited.
And so she urged her husband to have the Bank of England consider how modern technologies could create the Inimitable Banknote.
And of course, she pumped him for information of who was leading the innovations in lathes and printing techniques. ”
He paused to gulp in a fresh breath. “By that time, I was fully ensnared in her web. Through some of her other sources—I know not which ones—she learned that Archie Campbell’s genius son had escaped to America and was working with an inventor named Jacob Perkins—”
“Enough!” cried Mrs. Ainsley. “Show some backbone, Philip—stop him!”
Stoneham stumbled back a step as she snatched at his pistols.
Charlotte stifled a cry as all hell suddenly broke loose.
Reacting in a flash of self-preservation as the siblings tangled, Manchester lunged for his weapons just as Mrs. Ainsley seized the barrel of her brother’s closest pistol and wrenched it around to take aim as he slithered across the floor.
With a wordless cry, she squeezed Stoneham’s fingers, and the pistol fired with a thunderous bang.
At the sound of gunfire, Wrexford abandoned all efforts at stealth.
A pair of marble satyrs crashed to the floor as he shoved past a Louis XIV console table in the main display salon and rushed into the darkened main corridor.
Spotting a faint flicker of light from a connecting passageway, he slowed, emotions steeling to the dispassionate calm needed for any battlefield.
Feeling von Münch’s hand touch his shoulder, he gave a reassuring nod that his mind was where it should be.
“There are stairs leading down to what looks like a subterranean storage area,” he said softly.
“We need to approach cautiously and assess the situation before making any move. You keep to the left and I’ll keep to the right as we descend.
Stay hidden while I venture a quick look inside. ”
His friend cocked a silent salute, and they hurried down into the gloom.
The shot’s echo gave way to a piercing scream and then a groan as Manchester twitched and curled into a fetal position. Blood spurted through the hand clutched over his belly, a rush of ink-dark drops slipping through his fingers to spill onto the stone tiles.
Charlotte knew from Wrexford and Henning that most gut wounds were fatal, and usually caused a long and agonizing death. Still, she couldn’t muster much pity for Manchester.
Ut sementem feceris, ita metes. As you have sown, so shall you reap.
Stoneham was still staring in disbelief at the gory scene, but his sister wasted not a whit in remorse. Seizing his second pistol, Mrs. Ainsley sought to wrench it from his grasp.
Holding her breath, Charlotte started to inch forward toward Manchester’s weapons …
“Stop! Or I’ll put a bullet through your brain!” cried Mrs. Ainsley, having quickly bested her brother in the struggle.
Charlotte froze, having no illusions about whether the lady would hesitate to pull the trigger. Manchester had gone deathly silent, and a rivulet of blood snaking toward her shoes was a graphic reminder of the lady’s utter lack of scruples.
“It is you who are the monster!” Stoneham somehow broke free from his mental fog and lunged at his sister, forcing her to retreat a step and lash out a punch, which only grazed his chin.
He kept coming, his own fists flying. Ducking away, Mrs. Ainsley struck a vicious blow to his temple with the butt of the pistol.
Stoneham swayed and crumpled to the floor.
“Move again and I’ll kill your friend,” she warned, seeing Charlotte shift. Keeping her pistol aimed at Sheffield, she quickly backed up to the vault’s door and hurriedly fiddled with the levers, causing the bolt to slide into place with an ominous thunk.
A heartbeat later, the outer latch rattled … and then went still.
“Ha! I thought I heard a noise from upstairs, but the locking mechanism is now in place.” She turned to face them. “And by the by, it’s a sophisticated design that’s impossible to pick.”
Seeing Charlotte’s expression, she let out a triumphant laugh. “In all modesty, I’m smart enough to stay one step ahead of everyone.”
A tiny scrape of metal against metal floated in from the other side of the door, drawing another laugh.
“Yes, yes, you certainly did outwit all of us,” said Sheffield loudly. “In so many ways.”
Charlotte realized it was to distract their captor. Oh, how very, very clever of you, Kit.
“I assume it was you who had the idea to poison Lord Langley with a botanical substance,” continued Sheffield.
“Very few physicians or coroners are clever enough to notice the subtle signs,” she responded.
“You fooled even Basil Henning, who is intimately acquainted with death,” he added.
“Why did Langdon have to die?” asked Charlotte, though she was well aware of the answer.
“Because he learned that your oafish Bow Street Runner friend was investigating the death of Campbell’s brother—”
Click, click.
A frown ghosted over Mrs. Ainsley’s face as she paused, but she quickly shrugged it off. “Whoever is out there can fiddle away until Hell freezes over.”
Charlotte watched as the door opened noiselessly, allowing a fluttering of shadows—along with Wrexford—to slip in from the landing area.
“Unless,” said the earl, taking point-blank aim at her chest, “one happens to possess the right key.”