Elizabeth Thornton - [Special Branch 02] (24 page)

Her marriage to Barrie was one subject on which Gwyn could not be drawn. He’d respected her reticence because he thought it was natural. No. He’d accepted her reticence because he hadn’t wanted to hear a damn thing about a man he regarded as his rival. He was jealous, of course.

There were no mementoes of her late husband in her house in Sutton Row. She’d left them with her brother-in-law, she’d told him, but they would come to Mark one day.

He’d given a lot of thought to the Barries recently, and the more he thought about it, the more convinced he became that the brother-in-law was the most logical person to be the donor of the legacy. Gwyn had admitted there was some sort of estrangement. How else could Barrie provide for her and Mark except anonymously through an attorney?

And maybe there was more to their estrangement. He sensed … something. He didn’t know what.

He could almost hear Richard Maitland’s voice.
Make no assumptions and tie down every loose end
.

At last, here was something he could do. Suddenly reaching for Richard Maitland’s letter, he rose and went in search of Brandon.

He arrived in London late that night and put up at the Clarendon in Mayfair. He’d told Gwyn that he wanted to see Maitland to find out how the case was progressing and also check at the attorney’s office on
the odd chance that Armstrong had turned up. What he didn’t tell her was that he would then go on to Lambourn to pay a visit on her late husband’s family. Had she known, she would have told him to mind his own business, and there would have been an almighty row. He didn’t want to quarrel with her, he just wanted to get at the truth, and if he had to face the music, he would do it later, when it was too late to make him change his mind.

The next morning, he rose early and went to Richard’s lodgings only to be told that the colonel was still in Oxford. He had no better luck at the attorney’s office. He lost no time after that in hiring a chaise to take him to Lambourn.

J
ason pushed into the Black Friar’s taproom and found a table in a quiet nook, close to the fire, where he could watch the door. The place was filling up fast. Most of the patrons were respectable farmers, with an odd sprinkling of professional men or merchants, the cream of society, he presumed, in the small market town of Lambourn in Buckinghamshire.

He was waiting for Samuel Barrie to show up, which, according to his landlord, was a sure bet, since this was market day and Barrie was likely to have money to spend. Not that Jason wanted to conduct his business with Samuel Barrie in a public tavern. He had intended to visit Barrie the next morning so that he could see the man in his own setting, but his landlord’s description of Barrie had piqued Jason’s interest, and he thought he might get a good look at Barrie before he met him face to face.

The Squire
, the landlord called Barrie scornfully. A bull of a man with the nature of a bully, he elaborated. His regular patrons knew not to tangle with Barrie no matter what. It was the unsuspecting traveler who was most likely to become Barrie’s victim.
So be warned!
was the landlord’s parting shot.

Jason ordered a steak pie and a tankard of ale to wash it down. It was when he was on his second tankard of ale that Samuel Barrie swaggered into the taproom and made straight for the bar. Jason knew immediately it was him from the landlord’s description. The men at the counter moved over to give him room. Conversation lagged, then started up again. With tankard in hand, and one elbow on the counter, Barrie turned to survey the room. His posture was insolent, challenging, like a prize cockerel’s in a cock fight. Few patrons greeted him. Most kept their back turned and their eyes averted.

Jason would have been amused had Samuel Barrie been a stranger. But he wasn’t a stranger. He was, for a short time, Gwyn and Mark’s sole protector. He tried to imagine Gwyn and Mark in the care of this coarse-looking specimen of humanity and the picture that formed in his mind chilled him.

He reached in his pocket, found a cheroot, and lit it from the candle in the center of the table. He inhaled and exhaled slowly. This wasn’t the time to confront Barrie, he told himself. His only goal tonight was to take the man’s measure. Tomorrow, when he was rested, he would question him.

Their eyes brushed and held. Barrie’s bushy, black eyebrows came down. Jason looked away, drew sharply on his cheroot, and blew out a spume of smoke. Still carefully avoiding Barrie’s belligerent stare, he stretched out his legs and rested his booted feet on the flat of a chair. When next he looked casually in Barrie’s direction, he found those shrewd pig’s eyes were still locked on him.

After a moment, Barrie took a long swig from his tankard, wiped the foam from his mouth with the back of his sleeve, and sauntered over. “You must be a stranger here,” he said, drawling the words, “or you would know you’re sitting in my place.”

Jason stifled a sigh. So Barrie had decided to make him his next victim after all. Something entirely masculine and primitive in his nature urged him to accept the challenge. But that would only defeat his purpose in being here.

He quelled the urge, dropped his feet to the floor, and waved Barrie to the empty chair. “There’s room for two,” he said pleasantly. “Why don’t you join me?”

“I prefer to sit alone.”

“Then you’re out of luck.”

Barrie’s small eyes lit up with anticipation. “We’ll soon see about that.”

Jason tossed his cheroot into the fire. His patience obviously at an end, he said, “Sit down, Mr. Barrie. You and I have unfinished business to settle. We can settle it with words, or we can settle it with pistols at twenty paces. It’s all the same to me.”

The threat, an empty one, acted on Barrie as Jason hoped it would. He gave a start, stared hard at Jason as though trying to place him, and absently took the chair Jason indicated. “Lord save us,” he said. “I’m a simple country squire. I don’t settle my quarrels with pistols. Who are you, and what do you want?”

“Let’s just say,” replied Jason softly, “that I’m acting on behalf of Gwyneth Barrie and her son.”

Barrie sat back in his chair. “Gwyneth? This is about Gwyneth and her brat?” He gave a sarcastic laugh. “You’re wasting your time, Mr. Advocate or whoever you are. She got her widow’s share, aye, and there’s some say she didn’t deserve it. She came to my brother with the clothes on her back and another man’s brat in her belly. How’s that for one o’ them fine Radleys that lord it over us lesser folk? But I don’t suppose she told you about that.”

He was so caught up in his own umbrage that he didn’t notice Jason’s hands had curled into fists. “She deceived my brother in more ways than one. Nigel
expected a dowry, you know, when the family came round. A fine dowry she brought to him, her with her superior airs. The Radleys were paupers, but she didn’t tell Nigel that until his ring was on her finger. My brother died a bitter and broken man. But we did right by her. Ask my solicitor. She got everything she was entitled to.”

He pointed his index finger at Jason’s chest. “I see what it is. She’s gone through the five hundred pounds I gave her and now she wants more. Well, she can go sing for it. If she’s fallen on hard times, she’s no one to blame but herself. We Barries owe her nothing.”

Jason breathed heavily, forcing air into his lungs. There was anger in his voice, a cold, implacable anger. “You lie. Gwyn was an innocent. Mark was your brother’s child. She doesn’t need or want your money. She has me now. But repeat those lies to anyone else, and I swear I’ll kill you.”

There was a silence as Barrie stared at Jason. After awhile, a slow smile spread across his face. “Oh, ho, so that’s the way of it, is it? She’s taken you in with her innocent ways. Well, take her. She’s ripe for the plucking as I should know. Just don’t make the mistake of marrying her as Nigel did. You might find yourself with another man’s brat to support for the rest of your life.”

Jason was as brittle as glass. Inwardly, he was fighting for control. Barrie’s words had conjured up a series of pictures that made him want to put his hands around the other man’s throat and choke the life out of him.

It wasn’t true. It couldn’t be true. Barrie didn’t know Gwyn at all. “How do you know that your brother wasn’t Mark’s father?”

“He told me so.” Barrie leaned forward and grinned slyly. “Right after the wedding, he learned
that she was with child. There were a couple of cousins, as wild and reckless as they come. Nigel thought one of them might be the father, but we’ll never know. He couldn’t beat it out of her, or frighten it out of her. You can tell her that if she wants money, she should apply to the father of her brat.”

There was a roaring in Jason’s ears. His heart seemed to stop beating, then suddenly slammed against his ribs. A confusion of thoughts chased through his brain in quick succession, but he couldn’t hold on to a single one.

Barrie said, “Here, what’s your interest in the whore anyway? You don’t look like a solicitor to me.”

One remark Barrie had made emerged from the confusion in Jason’s mind. Through his teeth, he got out, “You tried to rape her?”

Barrie studied Jason’s expression and, well pleased with what he saw, put his tankard to his lips, drained it, then deliberately belched. Smiling into Jason’s face, he said, “How can a man rape a whore?”

Jason’s hand lashed out, and the tankard he was holding smashed into Barrie’s jaw. Barrie and chair went hurtling backward and toppled to the floor. Barrie moaned, made a slight movement to rise, then lay still.

The silence in the taproom was electrifying. With all eyes on him, Jason slowly rose, stepped carefully over Barrie’s inert form, and went to the bar.

“For your trouble,” he told the open-mouthed landlord, and emptied a leather purse onto the counter. “And I’ll take a bottle of your best brandy.”

One of the patrons knelt down beside Barrie and felt for a pulse.

“Is he still alive?” asked the landlord.

“Aye, more’s the pity.”

With that, Barrie hauled himself up. He spat out a
tooth. “He broke my jaw!” he howled. “He broke my jaw!”

Jason said nothing. He left the taproom to the sound of applause.

They had driven into Brighton to pay a call on Judith, and afterward were strolling down Ship Street when Sophie spotted the bonnet in the milliner’s shop window. Her cry of delight brought them to a halt. They crowded around the window.

“It’s a dream,” breathed Sophie.

“It’s heavenly,” sighed Judith.

Gwyn didn’t say anything, but a blaze of lust—there was no other word for it—suddenly overwhelmed her. Bonnets had always been her weakness, but that was in the old days, when she’d had pin money to fritter away.

The bonnet might have been made for her. It wasn’t quite blue and it wasn’t quite green. The wide brim was artfully decorated with a swathe of filmy net, and a series of satin bows adorned the crown. Just looking at it made her mouth water.

“I must try it on,” declared Sophie, and without more ado, she pushed into the shop with Judith and Gwyn following hard on her heels.

Brandon, who was their escort for the day, made a feeble protest that nobody heeded, and after emitting a long-suffering sigh, he trooped in after them. The outing to Brighton, in his opinion, was harmless, but he wasn’t sure that Jason would agree with him. But Jason had left for London two days ago to confer with his friend in Whitehall, leaving Brandon in charge, whatever that meant.

He mustn’t let Gwyn take risks, Jason said. But he’d left no instructions on how to handle three determined females who had made up their minds to
see the sights of Brighton. Trish had decided to forgo the outing at the last moment. Female trouble, Gerry had confided vaguely.

Female trouble. Now that was something Brandon understood only too well. Judith Dudley was nothing but trouble. He was still seething from his encounter with Judith’s mother earlier that morning, when they’d descended on her house on the Steine. The old dragon had got it into her head that he and Judith were engaged to be married. She’d even tried to pin him down to a date.