Dark Angel (41 page)

Adam had no other errand than walking off his fury by striding rapidly along the pavement. He was appalled by this new eruption of jealousy. What had he thought would happen when Caroline returned to England? Acquera was an aberration in the fabric of her life. Had he expected her to accompany him on endless forays into Spain, or to follow the army like some poor woman besotted with her husband? Caroline had lost her husband. That was behind her. She had to build a new life for herself and Emily, and if Sheriton or someone like him chose to marry her he had no right to object.

Adam stopped abruptly. He had paid no attention to his direction, and now he found himself facing the long entrance to the Foundling Hospital. Memories of Salamanca flooded his brain. They were in damnable straits and this was no time to be thinking of Caroline's marriage. Hell, Sheriton had only taken her driving. Adam cursed himself for a fool and rapidly made his way back to Red Lion Square. He ought to apologize, at least to Margaret. As for Caroline, he would tell her what he had learned that day. That would be apology enough.

He found her going up the stairs, a slender figure in a lavender dress that accentuated her fragility and the curves of her body. Adam felt the anger melt in his throat. "Caro," he said, putting his hand on the banister.

She turned abruptly and ran down the stairs toward him. "Adam, I'm so sorry about your mother. I didn't know. I'd no idea—I hate myself for all the insensitive things I must have said."

Adam tensed. "Aunt Margaret."

"Yes. It was her idea to tell me. I hope you don't mind."

Did he mind? God above, he could still scarcely bear to think about it. But Caroline's face showed nothing but an anguished sympathy. He could not fault her for what Margaret had chosen to do. In a strange way he was glad this barrier of ignorance had dropped between Caroline and himself. Part of him wanted to spill out his hurt. But that was to risk intimacy, and intimacy would only bring the pain he had felt on the
Sea Horse.

Then Emily erupted from the back hall, flung her arms about his knees, and informed him that she had baked bread that day and had saved some especially for him.

It was evening, with Emily safely asleep upstairs and the rest of them gathered in the parlor, before Adam was able to talk of his visit to Captain Leighton. "I went to the Ordnance Office today," he told the others.

Caroline looked up. "Did you find him?"

"Eventually." Adam drew up a chair near the fireplace, well removed from Caroline. To be near her was too painful and too dangerous.

Caroline turned to the others. "His name is Leighton. He was the man my husband bribed."

"A captain, an Artillery officer," Adam explained. "He resigned his commission and is living privately."

"I would have thought he'd have gone to prison," Charles said.

"I suppose Lord Anandale saw to it that he didn't. He wanted no more scandal than necessary surrounding his son's name. Still, it was punishment enough for Leighton. His career was ruined, and now no one in Ordnance remembers him at all." Adam grinned. "At least they don't want to talk about him. He's living in Hammersmith. Hawkins and I went looking for him."

"We didn't have his direction," Hawkins said, "so we had to ask a lot of questions."

"Which is why you were so late returning, yes?" Elena gave him a look that was not quite a reprimand. "Not that I missed you, of course."

He took her hand and kissed it. "Of course."

"But you did find him," Caroline insisted. "What did he say?"

Adam kicked back a log that had fallen out of the fire. "Not very much. He remembered me, all too well. He denies that anyone but Jared was involved in the bribery. He admitted to knowing Talbot, but only as an officer assigned to Ordnance. However—"

“Yes, Adam, get to the point," Margaret said.

"I'm not sure there is one, save that I'd swear he knows Talbot Rawley better than he claims. Also, he's living very well for a man who's lost his position and his pension. While I was with him, Hawkins was talking with the neighbors. They agree that he seems comfortably off. He bought a house in Hammersmith some five years ago, and no one there has a word to say against him."

Charles frowned. "You think he was paid off."

"It seems likely. His parents died years ago. He's never mentioned a rich relative, and his wife has no money of her own."

"You're very enterprising, Hawkins," Margaret said.

"People like to talk to Hawkins. He seems so harmless." Elena's mockery did not hide her affection.

"Do you think Lord Anandale gave him money?" Charles asked.

Adam gave the matter some thought. "It's hard to say. I can see him intervening to keep his son's name out of a trial, but he'd have no reason to buy Leighton's silence."

"He knows something," Hawkins said.

"Agreed. But we don't know how to beat it out of him."

No one spoke for a while. Then Caroline said, "I have something to report. About Talbot. Sherry—Lord Sheriton—told me. Talbot was responsible for putting contracts in the way of the foundry and the partners paid him for doing it—Jared and Sherry and Talbot's brother Edward. Sherry didn't seem to think there was anything wrong with it. He said that's how things are done."

Charles sighed. "Unfortunately. It's what you suspected, isn't it?"

"It doesn't put us much forward, does it? Still, we know Talbot had an interest in the foundry." Caroline indicated the boxes stacked up on one side of the room. "Shall we get to these? Maybe they'll tell us something more."

"Are you sure you want us involved in this, my dear?" Margaret asked.

"Because they're private? Nonsense. I have nothing to hide from any of you."

Adam and Hawkins carried the boxes to the center of the room and each of the six persons present took a handful of papers. It was a tedious and dreary business. They found bills and letters from unpaid tradesmen and transactions dealing with Jared's carriages and horses. Jared lived on tick, but Adam already knew as much.

They found letters from Jared's friends as well, which must be read over carefully for any clue they might give as to the business of the foundry. They also found letters from Matthew Bell, the ironfounder whom Jared and the others had employed, and copies of Jared's replies, including several that told Bell to go ahead as quickly as possible. Speed, Jared wrote, was of the essence. "I wonder why," Adam said after he had read one such letter aloud. "I mean, why Jared chose this means to recoup his fortunes. The Board of Ordnance doesn't even reimburse their contractors directly. They pay them with debentures, payable on the Treasury, and the Treasury is notoriously slow in payment."

"It didn't matter," Caroline said, "he didn't need the actual money, only the paper giving the promise to pay. He could borrow against that."

"What are these debentures?" Elena said. "I have not heard this word."

She addressed her words to Adam, but it was Charles who replied, explaining the matter with a simplicity uncommon, Adam thought, in a lawyer. "Debentures in this case were promises to pay, and debentures on the Treasury were as good as gold." When he was through, Charles turned to Caroline. "Your husband writes a neat hand, and he seems to know what he's about." He indicated the ledger on his lap which held Jared's notations on the foundry's expenses and expected and actual income.

Caroline smiled. "Jared always had a head for figures. That's why he took over all the actual business of the foundry. Edward was much too busy, and in any case Jared was his secretary and he expected him to deal with things like that. And Sherry, I'm afraid, wasn't serious enough about the foundry to give his time to it."

They worked in silence for another quarter-hour or so. Then Caroline gasped. "I think I have something."

Five faces turned to her in inquiry.

"It's a letter from Talbot. He writes from Surrey. 'I've been to see Bell,' he says. “He's the ironfounder I told you about. His furnace has been shut down these past six months. It's just as we heard. The man's desperate for a bit of capital. Can you talk to Edward? He trusts your judgment and he don't trust mine. Sherry will come in with us, he likes a bit of a flutter. Remember what I told you? The chance of a lifetime. Of this year at least. Move on it!'" Caroline looked up, her face drained of color. "The foundry was Talbot's idea. I'd always thought it was Jared's."

"It looks that way." Adam stared into the fire, trying to piece it together. Then he rose and faced the group. "What is it we know? Talbot learned about Bell and the chance of restarting his foundry. He suggested that Jared put money into it. He thought he could steer Ordnance contracts in Bell's direction, and he did. The partners paid Talbot for it. Talbot could have known about the bribe, but we have no evidence that he did. Leighton, who took the bribe, was probably paid off to keep quiet about something he knew."

Charles took off his spectacles and rubbed the space between his eyes. "That's some progress, Adam."

"But not enough." Adam looked at Caroline, his fear for her threatening to break through his self-control. "Talbot hired two men to kill Caro. There has to be more to it than complicity in the bribe. In the name of God, what is it that she knows?"

Caroline could not answer Adam's question, though she spent half the night lying awake and thinking about it. She fell at last into a fitful, dream-filled sleep and when she woke she knew the morning was well advanced. Emily, an early riser, was not in the bed. Her nightdress was flung across a chair and the clothes she had worn the day before were gone. She must have dressed herself and gone to Margaret or Elena for help with the buttons.

Caroline dressed hurriedly and went downstairs where she found Margaret in the breakfast parlor, attending to her mail. Margaret laid down the letter she had been reading, poured a cup of tea, and handed it to Caroline. "You seem to have had a restless night. I slept late myself. Adam's gone down to Surrey to look for Matthew Bell."

Caroline swallowed some tea. Her mind was still fogged with sleep. "The foundry was closed five years ago."

"That doesn't mean Bell has left the area. And if he has, it should be possible to learn where he's gone. Adam took Hawkins and Elena with him, and as they were leaving Emily begged to go too. I said it was all right. I hope you don't mind."

"No, No, of course not." Emily would be as safe traveling with Adam and Hawkins as she would be cooped up in the Wellstone house.

Margaret went back to her letters. Caroline poured herself another cup of tea and nibbled at a piece of cold toast. She would rather have liked to go to Surrey herself, but there were still two more boxes of Jared's papers to go through and she had told the others she would see to it. She was about to leave the table when Jessie, the Wellstones' parlormaid, entered the room and announced that Mrs. Rawley had a caller. "A lady," she repeated, as though to make this point clear. "I put her in the drawing room. I didn't think you'd want me to bring her in here."

Margaret looked at the table cluttered with the remains of breakfast and smiled. "Quite right, Jessie. Mrs. Rawley will be up directly."

Caroline left the room and hurried up the stairs, thankful to postpone the task of reading her husband's letters. There was only one woman in London who knew her direction and might come to call. She pushed open the drawing room door and saw she was right. "Dolly," she said with genuine pleasure.

Dorothy Rawley, Viscountess Farnwood, wife of Granby's eldest son Edward, turned round with a squeal of delight. "Caroline, you wretch!" She came forward and held out her hands. "Granby told me you called on him yesterday and you didn't leave the smallest message for me."

The two women embraced, then drew back to look at each other. Dolly hadn't changed a bit. She still wore her hair in a vastly becoming crop, her chestnut curls spilling out beneath an outrageous and obviously expensive hat. Her pink and white striped morning dress was in the height of fashion—Caroline knew that from her drive with Sherry—and her brown eyes were as bright and shrewd and kind as ever.

"My love, I know you've had an absolutely dreadful time." Dolly still had hold of Caroline's hands and she pulled her to the sofa. "I want to hear all about it, but not now, for I'm too excited to take it all in and I'm sure you're sick to death of telling the story. You have a daughter. Tell me about her instead."

Caroline smiled and released Dolly's hands, conscious of her dated green dress and the wisps of hair which had escaped the knot in which she had pinned it hastily that morning, and which were now hanging about her face. "Her name is Emily. She was born just before I went to Lisbon to join Jared."

"She'll be four. Ned's age. My little boy. He was born just after—" Dolly broke off with a flush of embarrassment. "Bella is six now," she went on brightly. "I hope they'll all be great friends. You must bring Emily to Granby House to play with them. They do get so bored. They'd be enchanted to have a new playfellow."

"How is Edward?"

"Harassed, my love, harassed. He works much too hard, but politics are his life and he can never say no when anyone wants something done. Unlike his father who never seems to work at all but has enormous influence nonetheless. I always think of Granby as a puppetmaster pulling this string and that. I sometimes think I run two households in one; entertaining for Granby and entertaining on our own account."