The Toplofty Lord Thorpe (13 page)

“What have you pilfered today, O bold highwayman?” Thorpe asked the monkey, setting the creature down on his bed. He needed a moment's respite from
his troubles, and looking through Bartholomew's latest haul should provide a small diversion.

“Aha! And what is this?” he questioned, holding up a silver paperweight as the delighted monkey rolled over on the bed and awaited his reward, a satisfying scratching of his tight belly. “Pleased with yourself, aren't you, you little imp of mischief?”

Bartholomew bared his teeth in a wide monkey smile and reached into the little leather pouch that hung around his neck to pull out yet another treasure for his master's delectation and admiration.

Julian's smile faded as he took the object from Bartholomew's fingers and held it to the light. “Isn't that interesting,” he mused, rubbing the shiny object between his fingertips. Looking down at the monkey, he asked quietly, “Do you know where you got this, Bartholomew?” The monkey tipped his head and looked at his master inquiringly. Didn't he like it?

Realizing his error, Thorpe proceeded to make a very great business out of congratulating Bartholomew for bringing such a wonderful gift. “Can you bring me another one like it?” he asked the monkey, making clasping motions against his chest, as if to say “More, more.” Did the monkey understand? Julian asked himself, his heart beginning to pound as he felt he was hovering on the brink of discovering something truly important.

Bartholomew scampered down from the high bed and over to the door, chattering happily as he waited for the earl to let him out into the hallway.

Looking about quickly to see that the corridor was
still deserted, Julian headed off in Bartholomew's wake, hoping against hope that the monkey was leading him straight to the man who had nearly succeeded in his attempt to murder Lucy.

 

J
ULIAN WAS BEGINNING
to wish he had kept his own counsel. Not only was he getting a crick in his neck from watching Lord Rule as that man paced back and forth across the library carpet (at twice the pace of any other gentleman, but then Lord Rule seemed to do everything with more intensity than any other gentleman), but listening to the man as he described, in graphic detail, just what he would do with the murderer once he got his hands on him was becoming just the teeniest bit annoying.

“Leave the disposition of the man to me,” Julian told Tristan, just as the younger man was in the midst of describing the colors the murderer's face would turn as he, as avenger, wrung the man's scrawny neck.

“Just tell me who he is!” Rule demanded for the hundredth time. “I can tell that you know. If you trust me enough to ask me to guard your back, you can tell me whom to guard it against, damn it all to hell! Why don't you give me his name?”

Thorpe looked at Rule, surprised to see that no fire spewed from his mouth as the young hothead spoke. Shaking his head, Julian thanked his lucky stars that the sight of Rule in a temper had served to bring himself back to reason. He would capture the murderer and see that the man was punished. But ven
geance, earlier his only desire, was not the way for a sane man to go. In the end, revenge merely for the sake of the satisfaction he would feel in having the man lying dead at his feet would cut at him as well.

“I'm not going to tell you,” he stated firmly now, “because I wish to save you from the gallows. The moment you hear the suspect's name you will go off with murder in your eye—that's as plain to me as is the nose on your face—a nose, by the by, that seems to be breathing smoke at the moment.”

“Don't you care that Lucy was nearly killed?” Tristan asked indignantly, looking at Thorpe through dark, narrowed eyes.

The earl jumped to his feet. “That will be enough!” he exclaimed coldly. “I said I have a suspect, a very good suspect. I can't have you going off slaying suspects like you would dragons, until we rid the forest of anyone who seems the least bit suspicious. And,” he ended haughtily, “if you ever again question my love and concern for your cousin, sir, you may prepare yourself for the drubbing of your life. Now, are you with me or not?”

Rule ran a hand through his already disordered hair. “My apologies, Thorpe,” he offered sincerely, if not humbly.

“Accepted,” Julian agreed, and the two men sat down to plan strategy, only to be interrupted by Raleigh as he announced the arrival of Lord and Lady Bourne.

“Jennie, here?” Tristan exclaimed, jumping up so swiftly that he nearly knocked over the chair.

Julian watched, amused, as yet another man looked askance as Tristan Rule, the handsome devil, whirled yet another young, beautiful woman about him as that young woman clung to him in ecstasy. Walking over to Kit Wilde, Julian extended his hand. “Lord Bourne?” he offered silkily. “Perhaps we should join forces and petition the War Office to send him to the front. He does seem to have a most unsettling way with the ladies, doesn't he?”

Kit took the hand Thorpe offered and returned the greeting, not quite sure that this was the same Lord Thorpe he had so thoroughly disliked during his time in London. “The country air seems to agree with you, Thorpe,” he remarked, unable at the moment to say anything more sensible.

Julian smiled ruefully. “Being in love with the most beautiful woman in the world agrees with me, Lord Bourne. If your countess is anything like my Lucy, I'm sure we are both changed men.”

Jennie, who had been watching her husband and the earl out of the corners of her eyes, dragged Tristan over to meet Kit, saying smugly, “I knew Lucy could do it, dearest. Now we have only Tristan here to settle, and I will be the happiest of women.”

Kit drew Jennie into the crook of his arm as he and Tristan shook hands. “Consider yourself warned, my friend,” he said jokingly. “My Jennie is happy only when she is settling other people's lives. Oh, the stories I could tell you—but I'll refrain, for fear I should scare you off. Jennie would never forgive me.”

“Where's Lucy?” Jennie interrupted, not at all in
sulted by her husband's words. “We've been quite worried about her, my lord, which is why we have barged in on you so rudely.”

Surprisingly, it was Lord Rule who stepped into the breach, explaining that Lucy had taken a slight spill from her horse the day before, and Jennie watched Thorpe closely, hugely gratified to see the concern so clearly written on his face.

For Jennie had received a letter from a friend in London just the day before, which turned out to be the final, convincing argument that had made Kit agree to their visit to Hillcrest. Lady Cynthia's father had announced his daughter's engagement to Lord Seabrook.

It had been Jennie's intention to warn Lucy of this new development before Thorpe could get wind of it through an announcement in the papers, which, fortunately, took so long to reach the country. And yet, she thought, smiling beautifully as Thorpe talked about Lucy with her husband, she now believed that her errand of mercy had been turned into a congratulatory visit.

Rachel Gladwin's entrance into the room confirmed that suspicion, as Jennie quickly cornered her to ask that already answered question: “How fares the campaign?” Her mind no longer troubled, she was ready to hear all the juicy details!

After a pleasant luncheon, a little delayed by the temper tantrum the chef threw after being informed there were to be two more at table, besides the special invalid gruels he had to prepare for Lucy and the
tender-mouthed Parker, the men returned to the library to bring Kit up-to-date on events, while the ladies mounted the stairs to check on Lucy's recovery.

With Parker nursing his wounds in his chamber, Dexter, who was smarting a bit at being left out of things, decided to seek out Deirdre and discover whether or not she would like to spend an edifying half-hour in the deserted nursery wing indulging in a little game he had thought up in his idle hours.

All in all, the afternoon passed swiftly, and the growing house party, to an outsider, seemed quite ordinary. It was only as the dinner hour approached, when Lucy would insist on dressing and sitting at the table, that matters were to come to a head.

L
UCY HAD AWAKENED
,
much refreshed by two of the afternoon, immediately remembering the events of the previous night, although those memories came in spurts, not necessarily in order, and served to confuse her not a little bit.

Julian had come into her room and forced her to drink something vile that was meant to poison her. No, she objected, shaking her head (which still ached a bit), Julian had come to her room to save her! She could remember him walking her up and down the room, urging her to wake up and talk to him. And she had awakened, finding herself to be snuggled cozily in his arms, and they had… Oh dear! They nearly had, hadn't they! She pressed her hands to her flaming cheeks. She remembered now—she had tried to seduce him!

And not without a good deal of success, she recalled, smiling a bit in spite of herself before her nagging brain recalled for her the ending of that particular scene. She had accused Julian of trying to murder her! How utterly ridiculous a thought. It couldn't have been Julian. Julian loved her. It had been dark in the room, she told herself, not realizing that it could just as well have been full daylight, for she had kept her eyes tightly closed the whole time, and she couldn't
say for sure just who had forced the poison down her throat.

Thank goodness she had remembered the Gypsy's warning—even if the old woman had not quite got the straight of it. A man had tried to murder her—but that man wasn't Julian Rutherford. Lucy lay in bed gnawing on her knuckle, trying with all her might to remember more about her attacker. Yes, it was a man—but who? As to the
why
of the thing, that she would think about later. At the moment, putting a name to the man was paramount in her mind.

Closing her eyes, she tried to recall the feel of the man's body as he had held her, but her memory failed her. Even the Gypsy, with her description of a “blond god of eternal sleep,” was of little use. All three Rutherford men were blonds. If only her mind didn't keep straying from the point to concentrate on the memory of Julian's face as it hovered over hers, the feel of his hands as they roved over her body, the scent of his warm breath as he—

“Lucy! You poor darling creature!”

“Jennie! You, here? How marvelous a surprise!” Lucy struggled to sit up in the midst of her tangled bedcovers and was soon wrapped in her cousin's tight embrace.

What followed was a typical meeting between the two, full of teasing banter, shared secrets, and more than a few silly giggles, but at last they sobered, and Lucy brought Jennie up-to-date on what had transpired since her last letter.

“…and so, thanks to Julian's astute reading of the
situation, for it seems to me he acted quite rightly, not to mention my own quick thinking—helped by my remembrance of the murder plot in some novel I read long ago—I am here today, ready to help Julian unmask our murderer. Then,” she added, hugging herself happily, “we shall be married. Isn't it just like something out of a storybook?”

Jennie tried to look pleased, but a small frown persisted as she said what she had to say. “I received a letter from London, pet, telling me of Lady Cynthia's betrothal to Lord Seabrook.”

Lucy surprised her cousin by clapping her hands in glee. “Oh, it couldn't possibly be any better!” she exclaimed. “It just goes to show that Deirdre's right in her Irish sayings: ‘There never was an old slipper but there was an old stocking to match it.' They are a perfect match—a marriage made in their papas' pocketbooks.”

“You compare Lady Cynthia to a
shoe?
” Jennie asked, giggling a bit in spite of herself. “Lucy, how naughty!”

Lucy pretended to pout. “Well, she did give Julian the
boot,
didn't she?” she asked facetiously. “We shall have to send them a present, Julian and I. After all, it is only through their foolish snobbery that Julian and I found each other. Let me see, what shall we send them—perhaps a well-executed miniature of Hillcrest in all its glory? That should serve to put a bend or two in their branch, shouldn't it?”

“Lucy,” Jennie interrupted, wishing to tell her the rest of her news as soon as possible, unwelcome as
that news must be. “We didn't tell Lord Thorpe, although he must be informed shortly—we'll let Kit handle it—but we've had more news from London. It seems scandal wasn't enough—now the tongues are wagging about his lordship's possible involvement in the
way
Miss Anscom died. According to Amanda Delaney—who is quite incensed, let me tell you—some people are acting as if your Julian has already been found guilty of the crime. Much as it confounds Kit to say so, he believes your ideas about the letters to the papers were correct all along. Someone is out to see Lord Thorpe hanged.”

“I knew it!” Lucy exploded, pounding her fists into the mattress on either side of her. “It may have taken a bit longer than I thought—although I remember Julian telling me how it is folly to overestimate the intelligence of the average peer—but it would seem Julian's enemy was not too farfetched in his plans. Thank goodness we shall soon be unmasking the man.”

“You shall?” Jennie urged, already feeling better. “I thought something was up when Lord Thorpe asked Kit and Tristan to come to his library with him.” A small frown appeared on her pretty face as she added, “Dexter wasn't invited along, though. Surely you don't mean—”

Lucy, exhaled in a frustrated sigh. “I don't know, Jennie. I've been lying here trying to put a face to the man who tried to murder me, but I just can't do it. I…I thought at the time that it was Julian.”

“Dexter looks much like Julian, although he's a
much smaller man,” Jennie pointed out. “But I met Dexter last year when Kit and I were in town. He was such a likeable nodcock—I can scarcely believe him capable of such a heinous act.”

Lucy pushed back the covers and got to her feet, walking to the window to look out over the grounds. “I certainly don't want to believe it either. But Dexter isn't the only suspect. Julian's secretary, his cousin Parker, is also very like Julian in his coloring—although his sallow complexion does not compliment his hair, and his taste in clothing rather runs to the drab and uninspiring. Then there's his expression—Aunt Rachel says it is rather like he had just swallowed a prune whole.”

“Well, then?” Jennie urged. “Parker is our man. I trust your instincts, and if you don't like him, he's bound to be the one.”

“I said I didn't like the cut of his clothes, Jennie. It doesn't necessarily follow that the man's a murderer. Besides, he was kidnapped not two nights ago, only to return here badly beaten. Much as I would like to think that Dexter is innocent, I can't imagine Parker being able to administer his own beating. No—it has to be someone we've overlooked. Somewhere there must be someone with either an ax to grind or a fortune to be made.”

Jennie cudgeled her brain, trying to come up with a likely suspect. “Lord Seabrook!” she offered after some minutes. “He's got Lady Cynthia, after all.”

Lucy snorted, wrinkling her pert nose. “She's no prize. Besides, Lord Seabrook would have wed a fat
crone with warts if her fortune were big enough, and heaven knows we've got enough of that sort littering the ground all over London.”

“Lucy, you're incorrigible!” Jennie scolded, highly amused.

Her cousin grinned unrepentantly and held up a finger, pointing out, “Ah, but am I right? Indeed I am.” Her face fell slightly as she said wearily, “Which brings us back to our starting point, doesn't it? Pity—I would rather it had been Lord Seabrook myself.”

Jennie, who had been sitting with her chin cupped in one palm, mused almost to herself, “You know, if I didn't know you better, I'd say you were the one who had the most to gain through all this.”

“What!”
Lucy squeaked incredulously, rounding on her cousin, her mouth agape.
“Me?”

Nodding her head absently, Jennie ticked off her reasons on her fingertips. “One: you wanted Julian for yourself. After years of chasing him, your love turned to hate and you sought revenge. Two: you set up the entire scandal, although believing that you had taken an active hand in the seduction and murder of Miss Anscom leaves open the thought that you would have had to employ an accomplice. You made sure you were the one to rescue Thorpe the night of the Selbridge ball and then talked him into bringing you to Hillcrest. Three: once here, you insinuated yourself into his heart, causing him to propose marriage. Then, once Julian was convicted and executed, you would inherit the fortune he would be sure to leave you,
along with the dower house and all the jewels that aren't entailed. My goodness—you would even inherit Dexter, in a manner of speaking.”

“Dexter!” Lucy interrupted, listening in spite of herself. “Whatever would I do with Dexter?”

This puzzled Lady Bourne for a moment, but did not defeat her. “Dexter must be your accomplice. You both had so much to gain.”

“You know,” Lucy pointed out, giving her cousin a hug, “it's a good thing you compromised Kit into marrying you. You need a keeper.”

“Well, it did make sense.” Jennie blushed, ashamed of herself for getting, as she was so prone to do, a bit carried away. “I'm sorry, pet.”

“It certainly did make sense.” Lucy agreed kindly. “Right up to the point where I drugged myself. Or was that just the enterprising Dexter double-crossing his accomplice?”

Jennie colored and shifted a bit in her chair. “I already said I was sorry, Lucy. Don't keep at me. Besides,” she added, tipping her blond head to one side thoughtfully, “it isn't as if you and Dexter couldn't have had a falling-out—”

“Oh, give over, do,” Lucy pleaded, dissolving into giggles at the thought of Dexter ever being able to take the place of Julian in her heart. “You just keep to loving your Kit and raising more beautiful babies like Christopher. I don't think you have it in you to be a very successful Bow Street Runner. Besides, I thought we had already ruled out Dexter as a likely suspect?”

“Did you?” came Rachel's voice from the doorway. “I don't know how you came to that conclusion, although I must say I agree with you. He just doesn't strike me as a murderer. Only one thing bothers me—he refuses to tell me where he spent the winter; says he would be breaching a confidence or some such farrididdle. He could have secreted himself in this area, and that's how he struck up an acquaintance with the late Miss Anscom.”

The two younger women turned to give Rachel their full attention. Their aunt was a highly intelligent and intuitive woman—as they both learned to their dismay the day they had hidden themselves in Lucy's father's study to read one of the books he kept on the topmost shelf. If Rachel had a theory, they were anxious to hear it.

“I pointed out to Dexter that his evasive attitude didn't exactly enhance his declarations of innocence, but he merely countered with the fact—one we seem to have disregarded—that Parker was with Julian for the whole of the time he resided at Hillcrest last winter. Having already in my mind dismissed Lady Cynthia, Lord Seabrook, and even Lucy here as being the guilty party, I would have to say that either Parker or Dexter is our man. I have just left Julian, my dear,” she finished, looking at Lucy, “and it would seem he and the rest have come to much the same conclusion.”

“You thought
I
could be guilty?” Lucy exclaimed, astonished, while Jennie looked at her smugly, as if to say, “I told you so.”

Rachel patted her niece's hand. “I was just employing deductive reasoning, dearest. Of course I did not
really
consider you. Although I have to tell you that, if pushed, a court could make a mighty case against you. Why, Jennie, I thought you had left those monkey faces of yours in the nursery. Any moment now you will be sticking out your tongue. For shame.”

“Yes, Aunt Rachel,” Jennie agreed humbly, although her green eyes sparkled with mischief as she dodged Lucy's jabbing elbow.

“Well, we shall know soon enough,” Lucy told them confidently, going over to the table beside her bed, picking up the button she had seen there earlier, and holding it up. “Thank goodness I had the good sense to hold on to this when my horse shied.”

“Held on to it?” Rachel sniffed. “We had the devil's own time prying it away from you, the doctor and I. Where did you find it?”

“At the scene of the crime,” she said, her voice lowering a full octave. “Find the owner of this button, ladies, and we shall have discovered our murderer. Which,” she said, brightening, “is what I shall try to do tonight when we all gather for dinner.”

There then ensued a heated argument, with Rachel and Jennie protesting that Lucy was still too weak to go downstairs and Lucy pooh-poohing their concern, saying her place was at Julian's side—and failing to mention that she felt the need to see him as soon as possible so that she could apologize for ever doubting him.

 

J
ULIAN WAS STANDING
with his back to the doorway as Lucy, who had cajoled and coerced Deirdre into helping her into her best gown before Aunt Rachel could show up and gainsay her, walked into the drawing room a full half-hour early for dinner.

Look at him, she told herself, standing there appearing to be so solemn as he gazes out over his land. Her heart showing a tendency to skip several beats, she lost no time in crossing the room to lay her head against his sleeve. “Julian, please, can you ever forgive me?” she asked, looking up into his face.

“Lucy! What are you doing out of bed?” Thorpe exclaimed, turning to clasp her bare upper arms. “I have already told everyone you were still unconscious. Why did Rachel allow you to dress for dinner?”

“And hello to you too, dearest.” Lucy grinned, knowing that concern, not anger, colored his questions. “I'm here for several reasons, actually, the most important being that I can remember my atrocious behavior of last night and want nothing more than to throw myself at your feet and beg forgiveness for my stupidity. You must know I would never have thought to accuse you if I had been in control of my senses. I don't know how I could have been so silly.”