Chapter 22
Ravenscourt had not felt secure since the afternoon in town.
The estate had always been a place Gabriel regarded as difficult to breach.
The walls were high, the gates watched, and the household knew every path through the grounds, yet none of those protections had mattered when Julian’s men had walked into Bath, separated Sophie from her mother, and nearly carried her into a waiting carriage.
Gabriel could still see Eleanor running after them. He could still hear Sophie crying for her mother. The memory had followed him home and refused to loosen its hold.
By sunset, additional guards had been posted at every entrance to the estate.
Gabriel had ordered that the gates be watched continuously and instructed the men stationed along the boundary to question anyone approaching the property without a clear reason for doing so.
The gardeners had been told never to allow Sophie beyond the house without an escort, and the governess had been given strict instructions regarding the child’s movements.
The dowager had made her own arrangements.
She appeared at Gabriel’s study door shortly after dinner with two footmen behind her and announced that Sophie’s room would be moved.
“Moved where?”
“To the east room beside mine.”
Gabriel looked up from the papers on his desk.
“Mother, Sophie has always been comfortable where she is.”
“Comfort is no longer the only consideration,” the dowager said as she entered and dismissed the footmen with a glance.
“I have had the room prepared. It is closer to my rooms, and there is a connecting door that can be secured from both sides. If anyone reaches the house through the east passage, I will hear them before they reach her.”
Gabriel studied her. “Do you intend to watch her yourself?”
“I intend to sleep considerably less than I did before.”
“Mother—”
“Do not argue with me. That child is frightened, although she is trying very hard not to show it. She has taken to you, and you have taken to her. That is why I want her near me. She has already lost too much stability. She should not spend another night wondering whether someone will come for her.”
Gabriel nodded.
“Thank you.”
“You need not thank me. She is family.”
The words stayed with him after the dowager left. He had, indeed, begun thinking of Sophie that way without realizing when it happened. The knowledge made the threat against her even more terrifying.
***
The next morning, Gabriel met the investigator in the study before breakfast. Several files lay open across the desk, but one name appeared again and again.
Tibbs.
“He remains Julian’s strongest witness,” the investigator said.
Gabriel looked over the statement. “He should not be.”
“He will be if the court believes his original account.”
“But he was paid!”
“We know, but knowing it is different from proving it. We have the financial trail, but we need to establish that the payment was connected directly enough to his testimony that the court cannot dismiss it as coincidence.”
Gabriel leaned back. “Can we find anyone who saw the money change hands?”
“Not yet.”
“What about his employer?”
“The apothecary claims Tibbs was unreliable before the case and became strangely confident afterward. It helps, but it is not enough.”
Gabriel looked toward the window. “Then we need to show why his testimony should not be trusted even without the payment.”
The investigator opened another file.
“There are inconsistencies in his statements, enough to matter. His account of Lord Marbury’s condition has changed twice. He originally described one symptom and later claimed to remember another that was never mentioned in his first statement.”
Gabriel took the page.
“Tibbs has also changed his account of your wife’s movements,” the solicitor added.
“Then we use every discrepancy.”
The investigator nodded. “We can have him questioned carefully at the hearing. If he contradicts his earlier statement under oath, his credibility will suffer.”
Gabriel closed the file. “And if he admits he was paid?”
“Then Julian’s keystone witness becomes the thing that weakens his entire case.”
Gabriel allowed himself a brief breath of satisfaction. “Good.”
But Tibbs was not the only problem waiting for them.
The guardianship motion remained unresolved, and the hearing had been moved forward. Julian’s attempt to take Sophie had proved he was no longer content to rely upon lawyers and rumors.
They needed evidence, and they needed it quickly. For that, they needed Faulks to keep believing he was safe. The investigator closed Tibbs’s file and looked at Gabriel.
“We agreed that Faulks must remain unaware that we suspect him. If he senses that we are watching, the information will stop moving and we will learn nothing about Julian’s network.”
“I know, but my wife and I had an idea.”
“And what might that be?”
Gabriel reached for a sheet of paper they had prepared the previous evening.
“We will tell Faulks that the investigator has located a witness in Wiltshire who was prepared to swear that he saw Julian near Lord Marbury’s stable before the hunting party.”
The investigator considered the detail. It was specific enough, and valuable enough that Julian would want to know. The investigator folded the paper.
“I will arrange for the information to reach Faulks naturally. It is best that we let it appear that Faulks has overheard something he was never meant to hear.”
“And then we wait.”
There were very few people Gabriel trusted with the plan. He disliked keeping even his own brother in the dark, but he knew that the fewer people who carried the secret, the less chance there was of Julian discovering the trap.
The investigator rose. “I will make the arrangements.”
“Good.”
When the door closed behind him, Gabriel remained alone in the study. A soft knock came a few minutes later, and Eleanor entered.
“Is it done?”
“Almost. We are to give him the witness in Wiltshire.”
She stood beside the desk, looking over the papers.
“I should have known,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “I should have known when I saw him that night. It makes me wish I had listened to the unease that I felt sooner.”
Gabriel shook his head.
“You saw him at the gate because you were paying attention. You remembered the night in the study because you trusted your instincts enough to revisit what had troubled you. You brought that to me instead of ignoring it. You have done everything that you could, and if you ask me I think you are brilliant for that.”
She smiled. For a moment, the tension that had existed between them over the past weeks seemed to ease.
They had spent so much time working together that cooperation had begun to feel natural.
Gabriel noticed the familiar warmth in her eyes, the softness that sometimes appeared before she seemed to remember herself and retreat.
This time, she did not retreat. She remained beside him, close enough that her sleeve brushed his. In spite of everything happening around them, he could not stop himself from admiring her.
She was beautiful, of course, but that had always been the case.
What he had never truly seen was how perceptive she was, nor the way she would go to any lengths to protect those she loved.
He wished he could say as much, but it was not the time.
It was never the time, which meant all he could do was long for her.
“We will get through this,” she said. “Together.”
Gabriel nodded, rather in shock at how natural the word sounded in her voice.
“Together,” he agreed.
A knock sounded from the corridor before either of them could say more. Gabriel straightened as the investigator returned.
“Yes?” he asked.
“Faulks has just left the house.”
“Already? Where is he going?”
“We have a man following him.”
Gabriel exchanged a glance with Eleanor. The trap had been set, and all they had to do was see whether Julian would fall for it.
Neither of them spoke as they followed the investigator from the study, but Gabriel felt a quiet certainty settling over him. For weeks, Julian had been watching them, anticipating their movements, and using their private lives against them.
Finally, they were the ones watching him.
Eleanor’s aunt appeared that day. She came before luncheon with two trunks, an overnight case, and an expression that suggested she had no intention of allowing Eleanor to protest. The moment she stepped through the front doors, she removed her gloves and placed them in the hands of the nearest footman as though she had every expectation of remaining for some time.
“I have decided that you need me.”
Eleanor, who had been waiting in the hall, could not help smiling.
“I have not requested you.”
“That has never stopped me before.”
Beatrice embraced her before Eleanor could answer, holding her tightly enough that Gabriel could see some of the tension she had carried since the attempted abduction finally loosen.
The dowager appeared from the drawing room with Sophie following close behind her. Beatrice offered a graceful curtsy.
“I hope you will forgive the intrusion.”
“I invited the intrusion.”
Beatrice laughed, and at last everyone understood what had taken place. Once again, the two ladies had planned something and everyone else had been none the wiser. His mother’s mouth curved slightly.
The exchange brought a little warmth to the hall, and Gabriel felt something ease. There had been so much fear surrounding Ravenscourt lately that it felt almost strange to see people arriving because they wanted to stand beside them rather than because some new crisis had forced them together.
By afternoon, Beatrice had settled into the house as though she had always belonged there. She took tea with the dowager, spent an hour with Sophie in the nursery, and listened with extraordinary seriousness while the child explained the unfairness of being denied two cakes at luncheon.
“Your mother is quite right,” Beatrice told her.
Sophie looked disappointed. “About what?”
“About two cakes being excessive.”