“Dotty,” her husband said in a warning voice. “His Grace doesn’t want to hear gossip. Besides, I’ve already told him that.”
“But I’m always willing to hear more,” Gavin answered. “Tell me everything you know about Sally.”
“Well, I know she’d found a benefactor and wasn’t planning on dressmaking any longer.”
“Really?” Gavin said. “Do you know who her benefactor was?”
“I only saw him once. They would have lovers’ meetings away from here. After being with him for a while, Your Grace, she felt she was too good for me and everyone else.”
“But you set eyes on her lover?” Ben prodded.
“Once. He was a good-looking man even though he was only a bit taller than me. He had sandy colored hair, although it was red around the ears, and a strong nose.”
Her description matched many men. It also matched Robbie Morris.
“Did she ever speak a name?” Gavin asked.
“No, Your Grace. She was very secretive about him. Not like she’d been with the others she entertained. Very full of herself. I believe she expected him to marry her, but he was already married. I told her not to be a fool, but she said I didn’t know a thing, and now I learn she is dead. A sad tale.”
“And you can’t recall her ever using this man’s name?” Gavin pressed.
“I’m so sorry, Your Grace. She was careful about him.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Monroe.” Gavin took her hand and bowed over it. “We appreciate your sharing your knowledge.
The woman almost swooned while tossing an I-told-you-so glance at her husband.
“Enough, Dotty,” Monroe said. “Upstairs now. You’ve had what you wanted.”
She nodded happily and did as bid, backing up so that her adoring gaze never left Gavin’s face.
“I’m sorry, Your Grace, but once my wife knew you were out here, well, she was like a cat begging for a taste of cod. Pestering me and pestering me. Of course,” he confided, “she’ll now be very nice to me, if’n you know what I mean, Your Grace.”
Gavin appeared speechless. Ben took pity on him. “He knows, Monroe, he knows. Come, brother,” he said, tugging on Gavin’s sleeve. “Let us leave the good Monroe to his supper
and
his wife.”
“Yes,” Gavin agreed with great relief, and strode purposefully from the alley.
Once they were out of sight of Monroe, Ben doubled over laughing.
“It isn’t that funny,” Gavin muttered.
Ben’s answer was to open his eyes wide, mimicking Dotty’s, and gazing at Gavin in such a way, his brother gave him a shove on the arm.
“I can’t help it if I am better-looking than you,” Gavin said.
“A freak of nature,” Ben agreed amiably, and that startled a laugh out of Gavin, who tried to recover himself and couldn’t. Indeed, he laughed as hard as Ben did.
All of the resentment and grievances Ben had harbored against his brother fell away. He saw Gavin not as a rival—indeed, not even as a competitor for Elin—but as someone trying to do his best against impossible expectations.
Of course, Gavin couldn’t ever relax completely. He was Baynton. If the House of Lords didn’t have demands of him, the Fashionable World and Dotty did. Ben could feel a bit sorry for him. Ben preferred his freedom.
“Let’s talk to Robbie Morris,” Gavin suggested. “If nothing more, I’d like to hear what he has to say. My vehicle is around the next corner,” Gavin said. “My tiger is walking the horses.”
“You brought the phaeton?”
“Of course I did. I don’t have opportunity enough to drive it.”
“If you call what you do driving,” Ben had to say. In truth, Gavin was a notable whip—but a brother had to tease a brother.
“Scoundrel,” Gavin replied without heat.
“Cod,” Ben returned, and they both laughed at the name.
They set off to pay a call on Robbie Morris who generally could be found at this hour of the day with Fyclan.
Elin could think of nothing save Ben.
A little over two years ago, she had sat at this dressing table in her bedroom, looking into this mirror, and had asked her mother how could she be dishonest with Baynton?
Back then, her question had been asked about a youthful indiscretion . . . something she now realized had not been a mistake. No matter what her parents had told her, she’d belonged to Ben, even back then. When she was apart from him, she felt as if she was missing a necessary half of her being.
And when she was with him, the world felt right.
Elin had to cry off. It was easier for a woman to cry off than it was a gentleman although jilting an important person like the duke, especially for his brother, would cause talk.
But Elin was discovering it no longer mattered if people talked or not. She and Ben could live at Heartwood, and if her father would not let her live under his roof, then they would return to the forest.
Elin rose from the dressing table. She was dressed in a blue day gown trimmed with tiny ribbon flowers. Her maid, a girl assigned from the staff, had piled her curls high on her head.
The time had come to be honest with her father.
She went downstairs. The house was very quiet. She soon learned why. Her father was not in his office. Henry told her that her father had left with Robbie for the Exchange.
“Did you need something, Miss Elin?”
“I wanted to speak to him. I’ll wait in the library.”
“Is anything wrong?” Henry asked.
The butler knew her so well. All of the servants had taken good care of her over the years. She had an urge to tell Henry her decision and swallowed it. She needed to speak to her father first, then Baynton, and by that time, the servants would know. They always knew everything.
“All is good,” she informed the butler. He nodded, but his glance said he thought better.
“I need to tell you, Miss Elin, that I shall be going out. Mr. Robbie sent a note requesting I bring a certain book to the Exchange for Mr. Morris. Since this is the afternoon when most of the servants are allowed personal time, I shall make the trip myself.”
“Which book is that?”
“A ledger on the right-hand side of the desk.”
The request was easy to fulfill. Elin helped Henry find the book. After the butler left the house, she settled into the library, choosing her father’s chair in front of the dying fire.
Her parents had designed the library themselves. They shared a passion for books, for knowledge. Her mother had adored telling the story of how they’d first met at a private lending library.
The air in the room was cooling. She pulled a lap blanket around her and tried to read but started dozing off, which was not surprising since she’d slept so little the night before. However, now that she was taking decisive action, she was at ease.
The sound of the library door’s opening disturbed her. She was so comfortable and drowsy, she didn’t want to wake.
But then Robbie was beside her. “Elin, thank God I found you here. I’ve been looking everywhere. Something has happened to your father. You must come.”
She came alert instantly. “What is it?”
“There isn’t time to explain. Where is your coat? Never mind, use mine.” Robbie helped her up and threw his greatcoat around her shoulders.
“My hat,” she murmured, then said, “it is unimportant. Please, take me to Father.”
He led her out of the house. A footman was not in attendance at the door. Preparations were being made for dinner, and there were tasks to be seen to by the household servants who had not gone out for the afternoon. Usually, Henry would have this station, but he was with her father.
A hired hack waited outside. Robbie hustled her into it and told the driver to go.
Elin sat back against the hard seat. “Can’t he go faster?” She turned to Robbie. “Now tell me, what has happened to Father?”
“He’s not well,” Robbie answered.
“In
what way
is he not well?” Elin demanded. Her cousin was annoying her.
“You’ll see when we get there.”
“The Exchange?”
“Yes,” Robbie said, sounding distracted. He glanced out the window and swore. “What is Baynton doing out and about?”
Elin looked past her cousin and saw the duke with Ben on the seat beside him turn onto the street. They rode in a flashy rig with big yellow wheels and pulled by a matched pair of blood bays.
Her heart leaped not only at the sight of Ben but also at the knowledge that whatever was happening with her father, she would have Ben by her side. She reached across Robbie toward the window ready to wave down the brothers. “We need to stop them. They can help us with Father—”
Robbie jerked her back. He threw her to the floor, his knee on her chest, his gloved hand practically smothering her.
She closed her eyes and in her mind shouted, “
Ben
.”
A
hired hack around St. James’s Square was not in and of itself unusual.
What caught Ben was a sudden sense as the vehicle passed that something was wrong with Elin. He could feel her distress. It was immediate and deep in his soul—and it had to do with the hack.
He knew when to trust his instincts.
Grabbing Gavin’s arm, he said, “Turn around. Follow that hack.”
“What?”
“
Do it
.”
For once, his brother listened to him. Ben knew he sounded like a madman. But he couldn’t shake the sense something was wrong, and what he was feeling convinced Gavin to turn the phaeton in the middle of the road and follow the hack.
“Drive up on it,” Ben said. “And hurry before it reaches Pall Mall.” If his suspicions were correct, the hack could escape them in the traffic of the busy thoroughfare.
“What do you have in mind?”
“I’m going to stop that vehicle.”
“Do you know why?”
“Elin is in trouble. I believe she is in the hack.”
“How do you know?”
“I
know
,” Ben answered, not taking his eye off the vehicle ahead of them.
With a flick of the reins, Gavin set the horses prancing.
The hack driver glanced in their direction, and Ben could almost see the world-weary sigh. Gavin was not the first whip who had passed him, and he wasn’t happy about it. He knew there was little he could do save slow down and let them have their way
However, he was not pleased when Gavin pulled ahead and turned his animals to block the hack’s passage, placing both vehicles halfway into the intersection of Pall Mall.
Now it wasn’t only the hack driver who was upset but a number of drivers from coaches, drays, and even a dog cart were understandably livid when they found the road blocked. They did what every good Londoner did when needing to be on one’s way, they started shouting.
Ben ignored them as he jumped to the ground. Gavin set the brake and ordered his tiger into the seat.
“Sir, what do you think you are doing?” the hack driver demanded of Gavin.
“Stopping you,” he answered, unperturbed, as Ben yanked open the hack’s door.
Elin
was
inside. Thank God.
However, Robbie Morris held her in front of him, a knife at her throat.
“Leave us be,” Morris said. “Or I shall kill her.”
Ben held up his hands to let Morris know he would try no tricks. As he did so, Gavin opened the door on the other side of the hack. Robbie was surrounded.
“Let her go,” Ben said. “There are two of us. You can’t expect to escape.”
“I can,” Morris answered. “You’ll let me go to protect her. Tell Fyclan, I want twenty-five thousand pounds, and I’ll give him back his daughter. I’ll send a note telling him where to send the money.”
Ben’s eye met Gavin’s. His brother didn’t believe Morris’s promise not to hurt Elin any more than Ben did.
“Why?” Ben asked. “I understand your trying to have her murdered on the road. Fyclan hasn’t been well, and you would inherit provided she didn’t have a husband. It makes sense,” he agreed conversationally. “But what is this now? We have no evidence you have been involved in anything. Why are you being so desperate?”
“Do you think I’m a fool?” Morris pressed the knife closer to Elin’s throat, the edge forming a line against her skin. “I saw Baynton’s phaeton by Odette’s shop today.”
“Wishing to pay your respects to the lover you had murdered?” Gavin asked.
Morris frowned at him with complete disdain. “We weren’t lovers.”
“That isn’t what Mrs. Monroe thought.”
“She’s a busybody.” Robbie spit the words out with distaste. “Forms her own conclusions, and since she thought Odette and I were friends, we saw no need to let her believe different. No, Odette wanted the money I was paying her, plain and simple.”
“And you had her killed for it?” Ben suggested. “Not the best way to treat a partner.”
“A partner?” Robbie shook his head. “I knew what she was about. She’d blackmail me forever.”
“No honor among thieves,” Gavin agreed.
Several of the drivers, pedestrians, and the curious around them had drawn close. Someone had been able to glance inside the hack and had noticed the knife being held against Elin. Word traveled through the crowd. Necks craned in interest. Many had already recognized the duke, and London came to a standstill.
“I didn’t want to murder anyone.” For a second, Morris appeared remorseful. “I had no choice.”
“Why not?” Ben asked.
“I have four daughters and a wife who spends and spends.”
“But you are related to Fyclan,” Gavin said. “Ask him for help.”
“I did. Several times. He used to be quite good to me. However, after his wife died, he changed. He was no longer generous. He didn’t care about anything but his grief.”
“And you noticed he was failing,” Ben suggested. Elin’s face was pale, but she was listening. Her gaze never wavered from his face. She trusted him to rescue her . . . and he was frightfully conscious of how all Morris had to do was put pressure on that blade, and no one could save her.
“I did notice,” Robbie said. “So did my wife. She’s the one who said it was a shame that here I was so close to Fyclan, had done so much for him, yet everything would go to the man his daughter married.”
“But if she was gone before she married, then you inherited, correct?”
“Yes.” Morris didn’t even blush as he spoke. “It would all be mine.”
Ben leaned against the hack. “So where are we now, Morris?”
“You will let me go with Elin. You will tell Fyclan my demands and wait for me to send word where the money should be delivered.”
“What if he says no?” Ben asked.
Morris made a sound as if that was impossible. “He won’t say no. He wants her to give him a grandson who will become a duke, haven’t you heard? Fyclan lives for the fulfilling of some gypsy’s prophecy. All he has built has been for that child.”
“Do you blame him?” Ben asked, keeping his voice casual. “You have children, don’t you?”
“Daughters. Four daughters. Was there ever a man so cursed?” Morris raised aggrieved eyes to the duke. “You know how expensive it is to see them off right. My wife is adamant they should have the best. They are lovely girls. They could marry well . . .”
“But it is expensive,” Gavin agreed.
“Theresa doesn’t accept that. I made some poor choices. Fyclan says that building wealth takes time. He is conservative in his decisions. I don’t have ‘time.’ I tried doing what he had done. You know, advising those with money. I wasn’t afraid of risks the way Fyclan was.”
“My father agreed with you,” Gavin said. “He gave you some money. Quite a bit, actually.”
Morris didn’t deny the connection. “With luck, we could have tripled our fortunes. I lost money as well, Your Grace. I know your father was disappointed. We purchased two ships together. You can’t imagine how quickly a man can go from being wealthy to afraid for his future.”
Gavin asked, “Fyclan knows what you did, right?”
“Once he discovered what I had done, he has persistently refused to advance funds. The old duke was his closest friend. He felt I went around his back. He said he would have given me the sack except I was a relative.” A storm cloud seemed to cross his face. “I’ve come to hate the man.”
“And you could even the score by taking his daughter?” Gavin suggested.
“I could,” Morris said quietly, his attention on Gavin. “But I need the money. I need to leave the country.”
And Ben doubted if Elin would be handed over alive after the ransom had been paid.
He was also learning that his trust in his brother was well placed. Gavin was keeping Morris occupied. The man seemed to appreciate having the great Duke of Baynton commiserate with him.
In a soothing voice that had calmed many an irate politician, Gavin said, “I understand. I can appreciate your position.”
“I don’t mean to hurt her,” Morris said. “Elin should understand, this isn’t personal.”
“Of course not,” Gavin agreed.
“I’m going to tell the driver to go on now. You gentlemen leave me.” As Robbie spoke, he gave Ben the opportunity he’d been waiting for. Morris forgot himself. He gestured with the knife since his other arm and hand were around Elin.
The movement was not large. But in that moment, the blade was not tight against Elin’s throat.
Ben struck out, his fist as hard as a rock. He rammed it into the side of Morris’s head.
At the same second, Elin, bless her, went limp and slid out from under Morris’s arm to the floor.
Once she was safe, that was all Ben needed.
With a fury he didn’t know he possessed, he grabbed Morris and dragged him out of the hack. He held him up with one hand, his fist doubling—
Morris raised his arms and cried out in alarm. “Don’t hurt me. Don’t hurt me.”
The crowd gathered around the vehicles begged to differ. They had been enjoying the show, and a good beating would make a fitting end.
Gavin came around the hack. “Ben, don’t. He deserves a throttling and anything more you have in mind, but let us turn him over to the courts for justice.”
“Just one blow, brother. Just one.”
“Give it to ’em,” an ostler shouted.
“Please don’t,” Morris begged. He was visibly shaking. A coward to the end.
Ben let go.
The man dropped to the cobbled street like a wheel of cheese. He would have crawled off, but Gavin grabbed his coat collar, set him on his feet, and took control of the situation.
Ben didn’t care. Elin had climbed up on the seat. She leaned out of the doorway, her glorious curls undone from the pins that held them, her eyes wide and luminous with unshed tears. Ben didn’t think; he reacted.
He opened his arms and she leaped into them. Their lips met. Hot tears of relief rolled down her cheeks. He could taste the salt of them in her kiss and tightened his hold.
The world fell away. He didn’t care who was watching. All that was important was that Elin was safe.
The kiss broke.
“I was afraid,” she whispered.
“I was as well,” he agreed.
Her hands at his shoulders curled up tightly, clutching the material of his jacket. “I didn’t think you saw me. I wanted to call your name, but he covered my mouth.”
“I heard you in my heart.” Ben kissed her again. This time, lingering over her, worshipping her. How had he ever found life worthwhile without her—?
Gavin cleared this throat. “We should move out of the street.”
Elin appeared stupefied to see the crowd openly gawking at them, as did Ben. Having her safe and in his arms had robbed him of all sense of time and place.
And then the audience began clapping.
Ben felt himself blush. He’d been holding Elin so that her feet didn’t touch the ground and he wasn’t ready to give her up.
His brother understood his predicament. “Take her home. I’ll see to Morris. Use the hack.”
Gavin didn’t meet Ben’s eye as he spoke. He appeared completely divorced from the unseemly display save for one tight muscle that worked in his jaw. Ben understood. He had the same character trait, and his jaw muscle tightened when he was angry . . . or uncertain.
Ben would have to talk to his brother about this unseemly display of affection later. But for right now, he was overwhelmed with joy and thankful Elin was alive.
He did as his brother suggested.
The hack driver was happy for the coins the Duke of Baynton gave him and even more anxious to remove himself from such a scene. Elin and Ben could not release their hold on each other. They sat on the hack’s hard leather seats, shoulder to shoulder, thigh to thigh, hand in hand.
“Now what?” Elin whispered.
“Now I speak to your father.”
“He will not give us his blessing.”
Ben looked at her. “Will you come with me?”
“I will go anywhere with you.”
The Morris household was very quiet. Elin took Ben into her father’s library to wait upon Fyclan.
They did not have long to cool their heels.
The front door opened and shut. Elin reached for Ben’s hand. They laced their fingers together.
Ben didn’t think he had been this nervous since he’d been a boy.
There was the sound of voices. “Henry is with him,” Elin murmured as if to reassure Ben.
He nodded.
Footsteps on the hall tiles told him Fyclan was walking heavily on his cane. Ben wondered what he’d heard already and how to start explaining that the nephew one had embraced had attempted to murder the daughter. It was outlandish, actually. But then, murder rarely made sense, especially performed with cold reason.
Fyclan came to the doorway. He stood there a second, studying them. He did not appear surprised to see them together.
The clock on the mantel seemed to stop, then Elin spoke. “He has saved my life twice, Father. Do you know what happened?”
Her father nodded, his dark, somber eyes the very reflection of Elin’s. “I came across Baynton. He told me all.”
Suddenly, Ben didn’t care about Morris or murder plots. His concern was Elin. “I want to marry your daughter. I know I have broken all rules of good conduct for her. If I were her father, I’d want me flayed alive. Please understand, I meant no disrespect. But we must be together.”
Fyclan walked into the room. He stumbled over the carpet and almost knocked over a table.
Elin let go of Ben’s hand and would have gone to him, but her father raised his hand, warning her back. He sat heavily in the chair by his desk.
And then he spoke. “I am stunned by Robbie’s actions. I didn’t want to believe them, but Baynton and I went over to his house. Theresa and the girls are gone. Packed up. They’ll show up sooner or later. Baynton has a man looking into it.”
“Perkins will find them,” Ben said.
“Yes, Perkins . . . that’s the name.” He raised his gaze to his daughter. Ben fought the urge to step in front of her and protect her from the obvious disappointment of a parent . . . but what Fyclan said next surprised both him and Elin.
“I’m sorry, daughter. So sorry.”
“Robbie’s doings are not your fault,” she said.