The colonel looked a little affronted. “I’m half blind, Amherst, not half dead. I can still get . . . well . . .
out
on occasion.”
With a soft chuckle, Terry Madlow interceded. “Papa-in-law also has a
dear friend
in the neighborhood near Drury Lane, Cole. That is what he is trying to say.”
“Oh,” answered Cole, feeling the heat rise to his face. He certainly had not meant to impugn his old mentor’s sexual prowess.
“Mercer was not much younger than you, was he, Jack?” asked Madlow, diplomatically changing the subject. “Louisa said you were acquainted.”
“Indeed?” interjected Cole. Louisa was Madlow’s wife, and a particular friend of Cole’s, for she had followed the drum across Portugal with them. He returned his attention to Lauderwood. “Did you know Mercer well?”
Lauderwood grunted again and took a generous pull from his glass. “Knew ’im? I suppose that I did in my salad days—or as well as a younger son of a mere viscount might presume to know a fellow like Mercer. We ran in some of the same circles—the Fancy, you know. Always loved a good turn-up, Mercer did. And it was a far more bruising sport twenty-five years ago. Not like it is today. Bah! The Pugilistic Club and all that rot! When we were young, a good mill was an honest mill.”
Madlow sat to one side, smiling as he lazily shuffled their cards but making no effort to deal. It was an opportunity Cole could not resist. He leaned intently forward in his chair. “And so you saw one another with some frequency, sir?”
The colonel pulled a thoughtful face. “I’d say so. Races, boxing, the occasional cockfight—always something for a gent to fritter away his money on. But Mercer was usually in company with Kildermore and Delacourt—all three very thick in those days, don’t you know. The rest of us were just lowly hangers-on.”
“Delacourt?” Cole could not suppress his shock. The man he had seen was quite young.
“Aye, but the old lord,” Lauderwood explained. “Not that young fop of Lady Mercer’s.”
Cole found it interesting that both Jonet’s father and her husband had been good friends with Delacourt’s sire. He tucked that fact away for further consideration and returned to his questions about Jonet’s husband. “And what manner of man was Lord Mercer, Colonel? I should very much like to know.” He gave a wry grin. “You see, as the family foundling, I was permitted in his exalted company for weddings and funerals only.”
Lauderwood puffed out his cheeks and held his breath for a long moment. “He was pretty much the same sort of fellow that he was when he died, I daresay. Haughty, selfish, and a womanizer, too. But the first Lady Mercer was a timid sort. Gave him no trouble a’tall. Nothing like that she-devil second wife the poor bugger got!” The colonel laughed richly, then, just as quickly, his face became serious again. “Now mind what I say, Cole! Jonet Rowland is the sort of woman a man crosses at his own peril!”
Cole sipped pensively at his port for a moment. “And what sort of woman is that, Colonel? I hardly know her. And yet, I can plainly see she and her husband were ill suited. How did that come about?”
“Oh, it came about in the same manner as do most of life’s troubles. Mercer asked for it. He and the Earl of Kildermore were two of a kind. Scoundrels and philanderers of the first order. And Kildermore had a wife and daughter tucked up in the Highlands, a fact he ignored.”
“Oh?”
“Indeed! But as soon as the chit was old enough, Kildermore brought her to London to marry her off. Scots, you know. Wanted to get his heir through her as quickly as possible.”
Across the table, Madlow snapped the cards into a neat shuffle. “I remember her come-out,” he said, his voice a little wistful. “I was three-and-twenty at the time, and eager for a wife myself. Lady Jonet was by far the prettiest girl in town that season, and the most agreeable, too. No pretense or conceit about her, so far as I ever saw.”
Grinning, Cole gave his friend a little jab with his elbow. “Were you in love, Terry? I cannot imagine anyone save Louisa stealing your heart away.”
Terry Madlow almost blushed. “I fancied her a little, as did we all,” he said softly, swirling the dregs of port in his glass. “But nothing came of it. Kildermore made it plain that fellows like me weren’t good enough. He wanted his family linked to a great English title.”
Lauderwood drained his glass and propped back in his chair as if planning a comfortable coze. “Aye, and he found one rather too quickly. His good friend Mercer was just six months out of mourning and keen for a new bride.” He turned to wink conspiratorially at Cole and continued. “Mercer was desperate for an heir, as it happens. Couldn’t have all that wealth trickling down to that pompous uncle of yours, could he? Much less that worthless scapegrace Edmund Rowland, eh?”
Cole felt a prickle of unrest at Lauderwood’s words. It was perfectly true. Until Jonet Cameron had come along, his uncle James and cousin Edmund had been next in line for the title. Madlow slapped the deck facedown onto the table and looked uneasily around the room. “Speaking of Edmund,” he said very quietly, “rumor has it that he’s fallen in with a gang of blacklegs from the West End, Cole. It is not a pretty tale, either. Roly-poly this time.”
“How much?” asked Cole sharply, keeping his voice low.
“Nearly a thousand pounds. On top of all else.”
Cole slid a hand over his jaw. “Bloody hell! James will surely kill him this time.”
Madlow elevated a brow. “It may well be less painful than what those West End sharps will do.”
“Bah!” growled Lauderwood. “Let the blacklegs do their worst. Lord James shan’t do a damned thing, for he hasn’t the backbone. When all is said and done, Mercer did us a favor by getting his heir on the Cameron girl.” The colonel cocked his head. “Don’t think she was any too pleased by it, though.”
“No, I fancy not,” agreed Cole dryly, far more interested in Lady Mercer than in worrying about his tiresome cousin. “Even now, she makes little secret of it. Did Mercer apply to her father, and that was that?”
Lauderwood chuckled. “Oh, no! Mercer offered for her within a fortnight of her come-out, but Lady Jonet wouldn’t have ’im. Said he was too old, which he was. At first, Kildermore refused to push the girl, but the season wore on, and the chit refused one offer after another.”
“And so Kildermore pressed her?”
Lauderwood gave a puzzled frown. “It did not appear so, but by all accounts, Mercer was mad for the girl, and one can see why. He offered again, with wildly generous marriage settlements, and still Kildermore deferred to Lady Jonet. At the end of the season, Lady Jonet went back to Scotland, and all of us lesser mortals thought that was the end of it.”
“But obviously it wasn’t,” Madlow interjected. “Though I never knew what happened.”
Lauderwood shook his grizzled head. “Mercer got Kildermore drunk is what happened. Challenged him to some very high stakes. Kildermore was in very deep, hardly enough to impoverish him, but enough to aggravate. He was anxious to reverse his losses, and Mercer agreed to one more game, provided the earl would stake his daughter’s hand.” The colonel laughed softly. “Kildermore lost, but he got his revenge when he sobered up.”
“How so?” asked Cole.
Lauderwood laughed. “His solicitors drew up the most god-awful marriage settlements ever a man was saddled with. ’Twas the talk of London. And a large part of why Mercer could not control his wife. That, and Kildermore’s guilty conscience. It ate at him a bit, I always thought. In his later years, they did say that the old Scot mellowed.”
At that moment, the door burst inward to admit two more officers from their regiment. Quickly, Terry Madlow pulled up more chairs, Lauderwood sent for more port, and the subject of Lord and Lady Mercer was tactfully postponed.
Later that night, as soon as the door thumped shut behind Lord Delacourt, Jonet flew up the two flights of stairs that led to the boys’ rooms. As was their custom after dinner, the boys were playing with their soldiers in the middle of Stuart’s bedchamber. “Mama!” cried Robert, leaping up to hug her. “Look! Look! Tonight we’re the First Royal Dragoons!”
Laughing, she released him, and he dragged her across the room to see the game the boys had laid out across the rug. Gingerly, she knelt beside Stuart and ruffled his hair. “Yes, it looks like quite a bloody battle here,” she said appreciatively, her eyes surveying the clutter strewn across the floor. “And is that . . .
heavens
! Is that my blue shawl?” Intently, she studied the long swath of silk spread down the center of the rug.
“Aww, Mama!” said Robert dejectedly, “it’s not a
shawl
! It’s the River Dos Casas! And these are Massena’s cavalry. And see here”—his face brightening again, he lifted up her small chip bonnet which was situated far downstream—“this is Fort Conception!”
Stuart cast his mother a worried glance, but Jonet forced a smile. “Yes! To the trained military eye, it is obvious!” she agreed. “And let me guess—in your version, the brave Dragoons will crush Massena single-handedly? Is that it?” Robert nodded, then yawned broadly.
Jonet stood up and studied them both carefully. “I think you boys like your new tutor a good deal. Am I right?” Both boys enthusiastically agreed.
“Then I am pleased,” she said, after a long, quiet moment. But in truth, she wished she were as comfortable with Captain Amherst as her sons quite obviously were. “Now! Off to bed with the both of you, sirs! Come, Robin, and I will tuck you in first.”
After a restless night spent rethinking his conversation with Lauderwood, Cole arose from his bed in a somewhat foul humor. Ellen Cameron’s naïveté aside, it was becoming increasingly obvious that Jonet Rowland had had more than ample reason to wish her husband dead, and Cole found it inexplicably disheartening.
One question kept tormenting him. Trapped in a loveless marriage, could Jonet have learned that her beloved David had formed an attachment to someone else? Could that have been the impetus which had driven her to such a desperate act? To free herself for the man she loved? Was Delacourt that important to her? Cole could hardly bear to think of it. Despite his intense dislike of Jonet, he was loathe to believe her to be a murderess. Indeed, at times, he felt strongly—perhaps even foolishly—that she could never have done such a thing, despite the fact that she had had means, motive, and opportunity. But in the next breath, Cole had to admit that it was not Jonet’s, but his own shortcomings which he was reluctant to examine.
How lowering it was to realize that he could feel such a vast and intense range of emotions for a woman whose moral character was questionable at best. And there was no denying the fact that one of the most intense emotions he felt was lust, pure and simple. The breathless rush of tenderness he had felt for her upon seeing her fight back tears was almost as alarming. Perhaps more so, now that he fully considered it.
But the facts were plain. Jonet had never loved her husband, and she loved Delacourt very deeply. Cole had seen it in her eyes that day in the corridor of Mercer House. There had been no mistaking that look of feminine anticipation. Yes, the facts were damning. Incriminating enough to ruin her, but not to convict her. Cole wondered which was worse.
Perhaps the pressure of it all explained why Jonet behaved so strangely, almost as if she feared that James might seek to avenge his brother’s death. Perhaps that was the explanation behind her hulking footmen and the other watchful servants. Nonetheless, had she admitted her fear of James, Cole would have reassured Jonet that his uncle did not have the guts for such an act.
Did he?
In truth, Cole had found his uncle’s indifference about Lord Mercer’s killer rather surprising. He had been stunned when James had admitted that he did not think it would be possible to convict anyone of the crime. Ostensibly, James’s only reason for sending Cole into the Mercer household was to control the welfare of the children, not to search for a killer, nor even to incriminate Jonet. Did James perhaps know that his sister-in-law was innocent? Did he have some reason to hope that the real killer would not be uncovered?
No, just as Cole believed Jonet incapable of a ruthless murder, he believed it equally impossible of James. But there was always Edmund to be considered. Edmund was lazy and extravagant, and wed to a woman who was even more so. Together, the two of them had elevated vanity and dissipation to an art form. Moreover, according to Terrence Madlow, Edmund had again found himself in serious financial straits, which was no unusual occurrence.
Still, Cole could not imagine Edmund summoning up the energy to have anyone murdered. Most certainly he would not have sullied his own gloves with such an act. And one murder would hardly have solved Edmund’s problem. Jonet’s sons had placed him far down the line of succession. Tormented by such questions, Cole shaved and dressed in haste.
It was not yet seven o’clock, and the house was still quiet. Although he did not yet know the habits of the family, Cole was sure he would have ample time in which to fetch his horse from Jonet’s mews, go for a ride, and return in time for breakfast. Quietly, he crept downstairs and walked through the back of the house, only to hear a great deal of squealing and laughing just inside the breakfast parlor.
The double doors of the parlor were flung wide to reveal a small but sunny room which was already laid for breakfast. For a long while, Cole stood unnoticed in the shadows of the corridor, reluctant to intrude upon such a scene of domestic harmony. Robin sat perched upon his mother’s knee, a red smear of jam across one cheek, squirming madly as Jonet tried to clean his face. She certainly looked nothing like a cold-blooded murderer.
“Do hold still, Robin,” she ordered, the words coming out on a giggle. “You are like a sack full of puppies!” With a quick, careless motion, Jonet dunked her napkin into her water glass, then proceeded to scrub with vigor as Stuart, grinning, looked on.
“Ow, ow!” squalled Robert. “You’re rubbin’ off my jaw bone, Mama!”
“Good,” chortled Stuart. “That’ll be one less place to smear your food.”
Jonet’s brows drew together in mild irritation, but her smile never faltered. “Ah! And who is the young man who dumped porridge in his lap last week,
hmm
, Stuart?” Stuart pulled a rueful face as Jonet scrubbed the last bit of jam from Robert’s ear. With arms that were surprisingly strong, Jonet lifted Robert from her lap and set him on his feet. “And it was an accident, was it not?” Her voice took on a cheerfully cautioning tone. “And had it been otherwise, such as the time you and Robert decided to pelt one another with scrambled eggs—”