Hagen had the coach ready to take us to Hampshire before I could inquire for it.
Brewster, who’d not reached the end of the street before Bartholomew had passed him on the way to the mews, declared he’d come with us. He sent one of our stable lads down the road to Mr. Denis, letting him know what was happening.
In a very short time, Donata, Marcus, and I, with Brewster riding with the coachman, were rumbling through London on the way to Hampshire. Gabriella and Anne had been sent to Lady Aline’s with Denis’s men to watch over them.
I was tense and angry, Donata silent in her worry. Marcus left the two of us alone, so it was a quiet journey. None of us slept.
It was fifty-five miles to the Breckenridge estate north of Winchester. Hagen changed the horses several times along the way, Donata paying to hire the best Hagen could find.
We reached Branbury Castle, the centuries-old home of the viscounts Breckenridge, at eight the next morning, a fine spring day. The countryside should have been soothing, with flowers budding on the sides of the road, fields spreading under the open sky, sheep wandering the pastures, spring lambs behind them.
We rode through the village nearest the manor, a cluster of cottages with thatched roofs around a green and a church with a stumpy spire set off on its own.
Branbury Castle, which had ceased to be a castle long ago, was now a tall Palladian house of golden brick with a wide portico at its front entrance. The long windows on every side of the house were designed to give all rooms a view of the surrounding park and garden. I’d admired the place when we’d visited briefly last summer, musing that the architect had made the gardens a part of the inner decor.
At the moment, all doors and windows were closed tightly, shutting out the spring air.
Donata alighted from the coach, ready to storm inside. I was too slow to stop her, but Brewster put his bulk between her and the door.
“Best not, your ladyship,” he said. “Let us go in first.”
“He will not keep me out of my own house,” Donata snapped. “He is trespassing.”
“He might be trespassing with a pistol,” Brewster said, not moving. “Easy to remove you as a threat if he shoots you through the heart.”
Donata glared at him. Brewster’s intervention had allowed me to reach her, Marcus just behind of me.
“Very well, I take your point,” Donata said sourly. “Perhaps one of you gentlemen should go ’round to the back to make sure the rat doesn’t run from his burrow.”
She had ceased referring to Stanton as a person. He was a rat, a toad, a snake …
“I’ll go,” Marcus said, and strode away.
I stepped in front of Donata and started to lift the door knocker, but Donata stopped me.
“Do not bother. They know we’re here, and the servants ought to open the door for me—ought to have done so when the carriage was approaching. I never bother with keys, and I’ll not knock as though I have to request admittance.”
Brewster looked up at the many rows of windows. “Might stand here a while then.”
“Then we do,” Donata said in a hard voice.
It was perhaps two minutes. We heard the sound of bolts drawing back, and then the door creaked open and the castle’s stately majordomo peered out.
Atherton had more haughtiness in him than any crown prince, definitely more than Britain’s own. His silver hair was cropped close, his suit as fine as anything Grenville would wear.
“Your ladyship,” he said, bowing with a coolness that belied the situation. “Mr. St. John has arrived. He is in the dining room.”
“Thank you, Atherton. If the chef is here and not visiting his father, perhaps he could scare up some breakfast? It has been a long journey.”
“Of course, your ladyship.”
Atherton waited until Donata and I had entered the large square hall, dominated by a wide staircase of polished walnut, before he withdrew to the backstairs.
I tried to move ahead of Donata and prevent her from entering the dining room at all, and Brewster pushed past us both. He flung open the door and charged inside, sidestepping so that any frontal attack might be thwarted.
Stanton waited on one side of the long table, but he did not hold a pistol. No weapons were in sight, though I did not trust him not to have one tucked into his coat.
A second man was just rising from a chair, a sheaf of papers on the table before him. The dining table was a long affair of golden wood, its chairs of the delicate Hepplewhite style. The furnishings went well with the lofty ceiling and the wide French windows that let in the light to make the wood glow.
The second man wore a serviceable suit of a blue tailcoat and dark trousers, his cravat simply tied. I had no idea who he was.
“Good morning, Stanton,” Donata said in a ringing voice. “Please get out of my son’s house.”
“Mrs. Lacey,” Stanton said, emphasizing the Mrs. The lack of Lady anything—Lady Breckenridge as her widowed name or Lady Donata, her courtesy title as the daughter of an earl—was his feeble attempt at discrediting her.
“This is a bailiff,” Stanton went on, indicating the man in the blue coat. “He is here to deliver these writs that banish you from the house and to arrest you unless you reveal where Peter St. John, the rightful heir, has been hidden by you and your new husband.”
“I know who he is,” Donata said tartly with a glance at the man. “Breckenridge used Mr. Pimlott all the time.”
Pimlott, a small but solidly built gentleman with a square face and supercilious air, did not look worried.
“Can you produce his lordship, my lady?” Pimlott asked her. Behind him, Brewster began to quietly unlock the French windows. Pimlott glanced at him, but turned to Donata for her answer. Stanton ignored Brewster completely.
“Of course I can,” Donata said haughtily. “But not for Stanton.”
“Mr. St. John has made a case for the adoption of young Lord Breckenridge,” Pimlott went on. “And a case for you and your husband absconding with his young lordship and endangering him.”
Donata began, “As though I’d harm my own son—”
Her words cut off as I charged around the table and caught handfuls of the front of Stanton’s coat. I was exhausted, worried, and angry, had been beaten by a young, energetic, and very good pugilist, and stabbed by him to boot, and I was in no mood to listen to Stanton bleat.
“I told you what would happen if you dared threaten my wife again,” I said in a voice full of ice.
Stanton’s eyes gleamed even as I shook him. “Yes, you would challenge me. But dueling is illegal. A hanging offense if you kill me.”
“You will hardly be in the position to be concerned. You tried to kill Robert St. John by damaging his cabriolet, didn’t you? Attempted murder will not go down well with the magistrates.”
“I have no idea what you are talking about,” Stanton said loudly, though the corners of his mouth whitened. “You have no proof of that, Lacey, whereas I have proof that Peter has been abducted.”
“I will have proof,” I snarled, but I knew I had none. Though Brewster had inquired at Robert St. John’s stables, no one had seen anyone tamper with Robert’s vehicle.
“I advise you to let him go, Captain,” Pimlott said calmly.
“You little worm,” Donata said to Pimlott. “You throw in your lot with whomever you believe will win. When I am finished with you, you will have to flee to Canada before anyone will employ you again.”
One of the French doors opened, and Marcus stepped quietly inside. Stanton caught sight of him in the mirror over the sideboard and stared, eyes bulging. I made them bulge a bit more by jerking him up onto his toes.
“I see how you deceived me,” Stanton spluttered. “Good Lord, it’s a doppelgänger.”
“He is my cousin,” I said. Who had once tried to kill me, but I did not mention that. Cousins were dangerous things.
“Someone is coming,” Marcus said quietly.
A moment later a black coach rolled to a stop, not at the front door, but beside the dining-room windows. A liveried groom leapt down and opened the coach’s plain but polished door.
Out stepped Lucius Grenville, and behind him, James Denis.
Stanton looked confused as he hung in my grasp. The bailiff watched without expression as Brewster opened the door so that first Grenville, and then Denis could step inside.
Several brutish-looking men, who’d ridden on the outside of the coach, followed Denis. They arranged themselves before the windows, one moving to the open dining-room door.
“Good morning, Grenville,” Donata said, as though she were receiving expected callers. “Mr. Denis. Atherton is rounding up some breakfast for us. Will you partake?”
“Would love to, my lady,” Grenville said. “It is a tiring ride, even in the best of conveyances.”
Denis said nothing. He studied the tableau before him and made a motion to me with his gloved hand.
I released Stanton, but I didn’t do it gently. I simply opened my fingers and let him fall. He stumbled and clutched a chair, coughing.
“I am surprised to see you both,” Donata went on. “Quite a long way from London to look us up.”
Denis frowned at her continued pretense. “Mr. St. John,” he said in his cool voice, “it may interest you to know that you are being sought by the Runners for arrest. Robert St. John has accused you of attempting to kill him.”
Stanton put his fingers to his twisted cravat and tried to laugh. “You ought to have arrived five minutes earlier, sir, whoever you are. I have told the bailiff that there is no evidence to bring against me.”
Denis regarded him calmly. “There is evidence. The man who cut the linchpin on Mr. St. John’s cabriolet at your request has confessed. He is wanted for numerous crimes, and has been given the option of transportation rather than hanging if he will testify against you. Which he will do.”
“The testimony of a known thief and horse nobbler?” Stanton spat. “What sort of witness is that?”
“How do you know he nobbles horses?” I asked. “I don’t believe Mr. Denis mentioned that.”
Stanton shook his head. “It does not matter. You will not get me to trial.”
Grenville broke in. “I would not be too certain, Mr. St. John. I saw the accident, observed the cut linchpin. Even if you do manage to convince the magistrates not to try you, I can always ruin you.” He took a step closer to Stanton and looked him up and down. “A word from me in the right ears, and you will be anathema. No one will receive you. No one will support you adopting the young viscount. No one will want anything to do with you. For any reason.”
St. John started to speak, then wavered.
In his own way, Grenville was a powerful man. In a world where influence was everything, a man who had lost his reputation could be certain of nothing. Every door would be closed to him. Likewise, Grenville could ensure that the entire ton rallied around Donata.
“Mr. St. John.” Denis’s cold voice cut through the silence. “You will leave this house now. The coach outside will take you to Southampton. From there you will board a ship for the Continent. Your passage has been booked, the ship’s captain expecting you. You will not return. Or, you may wait here for the Runners, who will convey you to London to stand trial.”
Stanton stared at him, mouth opening and closing. He took in Grenville, whose face was granite hard and almost as frightening as Denis’s.
Donata looked on, as regal as an empress. Brewster, Marcus, and Denis’s men were between Stanton and the windows and door, penning him into the room. And I likely appeared equally as formidable, with my bleak expression and mussed and bloody clothes.
“Damn you,” Stanton said to me in a fierce whisper. “Damn you.”
“None of that,” Grenville said. “You’ve threatened a friend of mine, and even worse, her son. For that, you will never be forgiven.”
Stanton turned to Pimlott. “Do something.”
Pimlott shook his head. “Sounds like you’ve been given a good choice,” he said. “Good day, Mr. St. John.”
Worm, Donata had called him. She’d had his character well painted.
Pimlott started to gather up the papers, but I slapped my hand on top of them. “Leave them.”
Pimlott pretended to consider, then he shrugged and stepped away. He gave Donata a brief bow, then exited through a window, Brewster moving aside for him.
“Damn you!” Stanton roared, then his legs buckled.
“Do cease making such a noise,” Grenville admonished him. “Good Lord, I believe the man has fainted.”