Thirty-seven
Thea: Tuesday
“No, you cannot let the scoundrels return to London and report to my father!” Thea paced the breakfast room the next morning. “If my father is entangled in this counterfeiting, he will bribe all Parliament! We need explanations!”
She’d ordered the duke’s son dragged from his students, but Fort’s suggestions did not reassure. She should have stayed last night and demanded answers from the traitorous villains, even if they had been in their nightshirts.
Fort tried again. “Rafe has Perser in the crypt. We cannot prove the others have anything to do with counterfeiting or murder, but they can’t go anywhere.
We have their horses locked in the stable.
Although, at this hour, I doubt they are even out of bed.
Verity is combing through Perser’s ledgers for reasons to charge them, and I have Weston sorting through Humphries’ papers, but financial matters aren’t necessarily crimes. ”
Thea definitely wasn’t reassured. She’d been fine with ridding the village of a fat annoyance, sending a message that she would not be intimidated.
But now, the plot was so much larger! Counterfeiters and killers and conspiracies!
No one was who they were supposed to be, and they were all still here.
She wanted her safe, sane world back. She wanted to plan a wedding. She wanted Arnaud’s arms around her every night, telling her she was finally loved for herself and not her money. And then she wanted to build a home and a life no one could take from her ever again.
But her father and his cronies were still out there, pulling the strings of their puppets. Catching puppets was useless. They needed to cut the puppeteers off at the knees.
If her funds were at her disposal, she’d happily pay all she was worth to have her father transported to the Outer Hebrides. But even if she married, the interfering bastard had the right to refuse to release her funds.
Her father probably knew she’d hire an assassin if she had the funds.
Arnaud caught her shoulders and pushed her into a chair. “Eat. You will feel better. Smarter heads than ours read the ledgers. With luck, perhaps Perser will tell all to a judge.”
Still not reassuring. Thea sat but she had no stomach for food.
Apparently realizing there was no escaping the drama to return to the schoolroom, the tutor, acting more like a duke’s son, helped himself to a plate of eggs and toast. “I have the notebook Rafe found in Perser’s belongings.
We are convinced it is not his but Calendar’s, the one Featherstone wanted found. ”
A welcome, familiar voice from the hall overrode Arnaud’s curse and Thea’s demand to see the notebook, and they all turned in shock toward the doorway.
“We’re officially a village in Worcestershire now!” Captain Huntley shouted at some poor soul in the hall. “I am no longer your bedeviled magistrate. I expect to eat in peace!” With that, he stalked into the dining room, brandishing his walking stick at his beleaguered bailiff—
Who might not be a bailiff any longer if Hunt was no longer magistrate? Thea didn’t know how the law worked.
Having just settled into a seat at the table, Fort hastily scrambled to his feet. Ignoring his belligerent cousin, Arnaud finished filling his plate.
Since no maids served, Thea filled a coffee cup and set it at the head of the table, where Hunt usually sat. Now, perhaps, the conspiracy problem would be solved. “Welcome home, Captain.”
Without taking a seat, Hunt grabbed his cup and glared at Rafe. Thea offered him a cup as well, but the red-headed innkeeper shook his head and glared back at the captain. The bailiff had lost any subservience he’d once had.
“Until notified otherwise, you are magistrate and I am bailiff and we have a counterfeiter and killer in the crypt and an inn full of thieving rogues, and a man likely to be a corpse soon. Shall I send for Sutter to verify our duties?” Rafe shouted back.
Thea feared the captain might suffer an apoplexy like Humphries.
“I am only just home! Can I not enjoy a warm welcome and a celebration of a rather major accomplishment, before being dragged into the depths of Hades?” Drinking his coffee, the captain paced, not limping enough to justify the cane he usually swung for effect. He’d left it hanging on his chair.
Silently, Arnaud dropped his plate at the place beside Thea, then shoved his cousin into his seat. Two identically large men, they generally did not test each other’s strength.
“The captain is correct.” Seeking normalcy, Thea fell back on the social manners she’d been taught since birth. “We should celebrate his victorious return. Are the cider presses ready? Shall we send out word and start the festival soon?”
Since Rafe was in charge of preparing the meal for the people helping with the pressing, he scowled at her but accepted the buttered scone she handed him.
“Festival, fine. I’ll set the citified scoundrels to setting up tables, shall I?
” Seeing he was getting nowhere until Hunt was appeased, Rafe collapsed his large frame into a delicate dining chair.
“Mayhap we can have the gambler and his cheating varlet of a valet set up card tables.
Shall we let Darley loose to show us knife tricks?
Maybe we can let Perser out to play a shell game. Hallow-e‘en tricksters, the lot.”
“Haggarty might not be,” Fort offered, sitting down again and sipping his tea. “He might just be their dupe. We need to question him and his servant.”
Hunt groaned and finished off his coffee.
Rather than hover worriedly, Thea placed a plate containing everything from the buffet in front of the captain. Both Arnaud and Hunt had spent the war years half-starved. Thea knew they appreciated their food, while she needed the peace and security Hunt provided.
Refusing to sit until Thea did, Arnaud place his hands on her shoulders, pushing her back into her seat while he announced, “If Clare hasn’t told you, Thea and I are owed congratulations as well.
We are to be wed in a few weeks. I want her father sent to prison as a wedding gift.
For that, we need to question Rafe’s unwelcome guests. ”
Thea silently cheered. Arnaud was a true hero.
“Et tu, Brute?” Hunt used the English pronunciation, not the Latin, to insult his cousin. He held up his cup for a refill.
Arnaud set the coffeepot on the table so Hunt could fill his own cup. Then he finally took his seat beside Thea and squeezed her knee under the table.
Her fiancé seldom made small gestures like that. The heat of his hand thrilled her as much as the intimacy. Satisfied now that she’d made the only point that mattered to her and knew she’d been heard, she let the men argue.
With his cup refilled, Hunt gestured with his toast. “Fine. Sutter is handling the final formalities of organizing a proper government. Until that’s done, we shall pretend I am a duke and that I own all the vast estate of Wycliffe and Gravesyde. Who do I need to summon first?”
Looking rather more determined than the mild-mannered tutor he purported to be, Lord Fortescue spoke with a curt authority.
Or like a schoolmaster. “We need time to examine the little evidence we’ve uncovered.
From what I’ve seen, the notebook discovered in the bookkeeper’s possession belongs to the architect murdered while in our protection. ”
The discussion immediately deteriorated from there.
Lord Fortescue still had much to learn about working with others, Thea concluded. But then, most men lacked the empathy to understand humors, including their own.
Lavender entered, garbed in her usual confectioner’s delight of gauze and lace. Amusingly thunderstruck, Fort jumped up and bowed.
The argument continued escalating.
With a sigh of exasperation, Thea leaned back in her chair, placed a hand to her brow, and moaned, “Lavender, you have brought their spirits with you! They are attached, pleading for release!”
The men dropped silent and stared.
Lavender scowled and began filling her plate. “I’ll tell Reynard he has another player for his troupe, shall I?”
Thea grinned and returned to eating. “Digestion is easier without shouting. Rafe, if you’ll tell Lavender when we’re holding the festival, her sewing ladies will spread the word.”
Unable to ignore their feminine audience any longer, the men settled into disgruntled silence to eat.
“You ought to learn more socially acceptable means of reducing argument,” Lavender scolded, sounding like her aristocratic grandmother.
“Where’s the fun in that? How would you shut them up?”
Before Lavender could reply, Clare drifted in, looking round and healthy and content, as a new mother should, Thea thought. It would be good to take lessons from a loving mother, if she was to have young ones of her own.
Clare brushed her husband’s hair affectionately, poured her own tea, and settled at Hunt’s right hand. No one else dared sit that close to the growling beast.
“Lord Fortescue.” Clare acknowledged his unusual presence at the table.
“Thank you for letting me see the notebook. I concur that it does not belong to the bookkeeper. The notes are cryptic but describe extortion-worthy conversations between his employers, along with complaints about Mr. Perser’s counterfeiting.
If they knew about these notes, I can understand why he was murdered. These are not pleasant men.”
“I’ll shackle them all,” Hunt said in disgruntlement.
Clare ignored him. Thea smiled in delight. Perhaps only wives got to ignore their beasts.
“The architect appears to have known Mr. Perser kept dual books and reported to two masters. No wonder the poor man went mad.” She sipped her tea.
“Calendar or Perser or both?” Hunt asked in irritation.
Fort ignored him as Clare had. “Calendar feared the company was overextended and kept notes for proof. His first encounter was after Humphries described his grandiose plans and hired him. Humphries told the architect to collect his fees from Gladstone, the company’s treasurer.
When Calendar went to him for payment, Gladstone stalled and said he had to consult with Featherstone.
When payment was not forthcoming, he learned Perser held the purse strings.
The bookkeeper finally released the funds.
Unfortunately, Calendar needed the money, and went along with this, but he watched the company closely. ”
“And they don’t have the funds, if Verity is reading the ledgers correctly,” Rafe added. “They are all accustomed to borrowing from Peter to pay Paul, but the actual cash—pardon the pun—petered out.” Rafe sat back in his chair and waited for orders.
Smart man, Thea noted. She was surrounded by smart people who built a big picture from small details. She’d never been allowed to deal with her money and lacked good understanding, but she knew about her father and his friends, and how they worked. Or rather, didn’t work.
“Can they pay their inn bill?” Lavender asked, more aware of the small details of money than Thea.
Before anyone could respond, Thea drew the full landscape for them. “If the swine are that far in debt, can we find out who holds their markers, declare them bankrupt, and heave them all in debtors’ prison?” Including her father and his cronies, she hoped.
Into the silence that followed, Arnaud added, “Ask Haggarty. I am told his law firm settles debt disagreements for his clients.”
In the first time since entering, Hunt grinned. “Let’s start there.”