CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
“I don’t know who,” Cooper hastened to say before Gage could ask. “But I believe it was someone in this house. He instructed me that if something untoward should happen to him, I was to retrieve some items he’d hidden underneath a loose floorboard in his chamber and destroy them. When I heard about the state of his frock coat, and that no other trace of him had been found, I decided I should follow his orders. But when I went to retrieve the items, they were already gone.”
Gage and I stared at each other through much of this recitation, already acquainted with this hiding place.
“Do you know what items he’d hidden?” Gage asked, and then before the valet could reply added sternly, “It’s important that you be honest with us. In order to help Lord Langstone, we need to know what he was concealing.”
But Cooper shook his head sharply. “I don’t know. He never told me.”
“Did you ever peek?”
The valet drew himself up in affront. “Of course not.”
Gage glared at him in challenge, but I pressed a hand to his arm, letting him know I believed the other man was being truthful. Cooper didn’t know.
But I wondered if I did.
I frowned, recalling the sight of the dowager kneeling before her fireplace, frantically burning those letters from Lord Gage. I’d not yet had time to do much investigating into the matter, but I’d not forgotten. But if they were the items Alfred had used for blackmail, why hadn’t she burned them as soon as she found them? She must have reclaimed them at least several days before, since the letters had already been missing from the hiding spot when Gage and I searched Alfred’s room. Or had she wanted to keep them, but grown fearful when Alfred’s bloody coat was found that Gage and I might discover them in the course of our inquiry?
“Do either of you know what it was he might have hidden?” Gage asked, turning first to Anderley and then to Bree.
Both shook their heads, though Bree’s appeared less than definitive. Once Gage looked away, her gaze met mine, telling me she had something she wished to share with me. If she’d uncovered the same thing I had, I could understand why she didn’t want to admit to it in front of Gage.
“Perhaps Mrs. Webley knows,” Cooper suggested.
Gage frowned. “The dowager’s maid?”
“Yes. She’s been a servant here for longer than many of us.” He paused, but I could tell he had more to say. “And she has a decided talent at uncovering things the other servants wish she hadn’t.”
I couldn’t decide whether he admired this about her or he was purely intrigued.
“We’ll speak with her,” Gage said.
Cooper bowed. “Then, if there’s nothing more . . .”
“There is.”
Gage’s words halted his steps, though the tiny crease between his brows told me he wanted to disobey.
“Had Lord Langstone been ill recently? We understand he was suffering from a stomach ailment in the days before his disappearance, but what about in the weeks and months prior to that?”
The valet’s eyes were wide with mild surprise. “Yes, actually. Numerous times. Enough that I’d suggested he might wish to see a physician about it.”
If he’d offered such advice, then clearly he’d not believed his sickness to have been caused by overindulgence, and I was given to understand that a good gentleman’s valet knows the difference.
Gage tipped his head in consideration. “Did he accept your advice?”
“Not that I’m aware of, sir.”
He nodded. “Thank you. You may go.”
Cooper bowed again stiffly and hurried from the room.
“I have to say, McEvoy,” Anderley remarked once the door closed behind him, “I’m impressed. Never thought you’d convince the fussy toad to talk.”
Bree’s eyes sparkled with mischief. “Yes, well, that’s because ye dinna ken what I promised to tell him aboot you in return.”
Anderley’s eyes narrowed in suspicion.
“My valet’s odd grooming habits aside . . .” Gage began.
I smothered a giggle behind my hand as Anderley turned to him in affront.
“What odd habits?”
His eyes glinted with teasing. “I’m sure Mrs. Gage doesn’t want me to explain how you sometimes rinse your hair with ale.”
A tinge of pink crested Anderley’s cheeks. “Well, maybe I should share the method with Miss McEvoy. It’s quite effective.”
“Oh, aye,” Bree agreed. “Does make your locks wondrously shiny.”
“Why, thank you,” he replied, turning back to Gage. “Though, I’ve heard the smell of hops on a woman can be quite tantalizing. Perhaps you wouldn’t wish Mrs. Gage to attract so much attention.”
At this, I could no longer contain my mirth and laughed out loud. The others joined me, possibly driven to such hilarity by our present frustrations.
When our laughter faded, I found myself perched on the edge of the bed, swiping tears from my eyes. Anderley stood with his arms crossed, looking at ease despite being the cause of such glee.
“What do we make of Cooper’s assertions about Langstone having made other plans to avoid marrying Lady Juliana, and the possibility he was blackmailing someone?” Gage asked, recalling us to the matter at hand. He leaned against the bedpost beside me, lifting his eyes to the ceiling overhead. “Do we believe him?”
“Well, we’ve heard from several people that claim Alfred didn’t wish to marry Lady Juliana,” I pointed out. “But what plans could he have made to counter that?”
Gage’s brow furrowed. “Grandfather has been ill. Perhaps he hoped he would die before Alfred was forced to propose.”
“Yes, but I gather that’s the reason for all the extra pressure they were exertin’ on him to wed in the first place,” Bree said.
I tapped my fingers against the mattress. “And what of the mine partnership your grandfather formed with the Duke of Bedford? Does that in some way force Alfred’s hand? Is that what so upset him about it?”
“For that matter, why is he so against marrying her?” Anderley scoffed. “He must know he would be expected to wed sometime. He is the heir.”
“Aye,” Bree chimed in. “And Lady Juliana is a duke’s daughter, and from all accounts, attractive and pleasant. He could do far worse.”
“Is this the general opinion belowstairs?” I asked, for it sounded as if they’d shared these views before.
Anderley glanced toward Bree before shrugging. “More or less.”
“I’m thinkin’ there’s another girl.” Bree arched her eyebrows in emphasis. “Someone he’d rather tie the knot wi’.”
Miss Galloway’s face appeared before my eyes. Bree might not be far off. Though there was a great deal more information to be gathered before such a suspicion could be deemed as more than rampant speculation.
Had Rory debated the same thing? Was that the real reason why he didn’t like Miss Galloway?
“Continue to keep your eyes and ears open.” Gage scowled at the wall across from him. “I still think some of the staff know more than they’re saying.” He glanced at Bree. “And find out, if you can, whether any of the servants saw someone slip something into Lord Langstone’s food or drink. If he was being poisoned, he was most likely ingesting it.”
Bree nodded and turned to me. “Ye have need of me, m’lady?”
I knew this was her polite way of telling me I looked a dreadful mess.
“Yes. I’ll be there in a moment.”
While she moved through the connecting door, I looked to Gage to confirm he still wished to speak with his grandfather. I could see the questions about my disheveled state forming in his eyes—questions I didn’t particularly wish to answer at the moment. Not when they would result in a scolding for my carelessness. So I hurried across the room after Bree before he could voice them. “If you can give me a quarter of an hour, I’ll join you.”
With the door shut firmly between us and the men, I swiveled to allow Bree to begin unfastening the buttons down the back of my dress. “Now, tell me what you know about the blackmail.”
“I don’t ken anything,” she insisted. “But . . .”
I heard in her voice that she didn’t want to admit whatever she knew.
“Tell me,” I urged gently.
She inhaled swiftly. “I overheard some o’ the maids talkin’. One o’ ’em swears Lord Gage and the dowager used to . . . carry on wi’ one another.”
“Did she say why she thought that?”
Bree’s hands stilled as she registered my lack of surprise. “She said she saw him take her hand in the drawin’ room when they thought no one was lookin’. And that he used to send her letters.” She resumed her movements. “You knew.” She sounded relieved not to be the bearer of troubling news.
“I was told something in confidence that made me suspect the same thing,” I admitted, pondering whether I was willing to take a risk. When Bree finished, rather than let her push my gown off my shoulders, I swiveled abruptly to face her. “May I assume you also think the item Lord Langstone was using for blackmail was those letters?”
“I did wonder.” Her voice lowered and she glanced back at the door. “’Tis why I didna wish to say anythin’ in front o’ Mr. Gage.”
“Then I need you to do something for me.” I explained how I’d seen the dowager frantically burning papers, and about the singed corner of one letter I’d managed to save. Retrieving it from between the pages of the book where I’d hidden it, I passed it to her.
She gasped. “It’s true, then?”
“It’s probable,” I replied sadly.
Her face blanched in misgiving. “Does Mr. Gage know?”
Unwilling to betray my husband’s knowledge of the matter, I brushed her question aside. “You leave that to me. What I need you to do is show that around belowstairs. Make certain the maid who claims she witnessed their . . . affaire de coeur sees it. I also want Mrs. Webley to know you have it.”
Her eyes lit with comprehension. “You want to try to flush her or her mistress out. See what they’ll reveal.”
“Precisely.”
“I’ll do my best,” she declared, tucking the scrap of paper into her pocket. Her determined gaze then fell on my hair. “Now let’s tend to this bird nest.”
“I didn’t tell you about the mine partnership because I didn’t think it mattered,” Lord Tavistock snapped back at Gage.
The viscount appeared a bit haler today. A welcome ruddy tinge had entered his cheeks, and his breathing sounded less labored. But that also meant his words held more bite.
“It’s public knowledge. Appeared in most of the local newspapers and probably a few in London.”
“Newspapers that were published while we were in Ireland,” Gage retorted to his implied criticism that he hadn’t been keeping abreast of the latest news.
“That’s hardly my fault.”
“No, but it is your fault you never mentioned the mines.” Gage narrowed his eyes. “In fact, I believe you deliberately neglected to tell us because you knew Alfred had been upset about it. He didn’t wish to marry Lady Juliana, and he felt trapped into the union by this deal you’d made with the Duke of Bedford.”
The manner in which the viscount looked as if he were chewing on something unpleasant told me Gage had hit the nail on the head. “Alfred has always been a stubborn and recalcitrant boy.”
Gage snorted. “I wonder who he inherited those traits from.”
His grandfather’s scowl turned blacker. “He needed to be made to see reason. He’s nearly thirty-six. It’s high time he wed an appropriate girl and produced an heir.”
“An appropriate girl?” I interjected, latching on to what I deemed the most important words in that sentence.
The viscount’s silver eyes flicked to meet mine. “Yes. One of suitable family and lineage. I’m not ignorant to the sorts of women he courted while in London and at his friends’ debauch gatherings.”
Yes, but was that all he meant? I couldn’t tell whether he was aware of Miss Galloway or any attachment that might have formed between Alfred and her. If one even existed.
“What did you threaten would happen if Alfred didn’t accede to your demands?” Gage persisted.
His grandfather glared back at him, at first refusing to answer. Then he arched his chin like an obstinate child. “I told him I would strip everything I could from his inheritance. All he would be left with were those things that were entailed—Langstone Manor and its attached lands.”
“The estate isn’t self-sustaining,” Gage replied, grasping the implications before I did. “Without the mines and other tracts of land, in short order, he would be crippled with debt.”
“Only if he refused to wed Lady Juliana.”
I watched as fury transformed my husband’s face. “Is that why you really asked us here? You suspected Alfred had gone into hiding, and you needed us to find him so you could bring him to heel?” He flung his hand toward the window. “You never truly feared foul play. You simply needed a way to convince us to investigate.”
“At first, yes. I thought maybe he was ducking me and his responsibility,” he grudgingly admitted, shouting back. “But after a week, when he couldn’t be found, I began to worry I’d been wrong. That something had happened to him. I never lied about that.”
“Maybe. But you certainly summoned us with that letter under false pretenses.” Gage moved closer to the bed, looming over his grandfather. “What else have you neglected to tell us? What other means were you using to persuade Alfred?”
I knew to what he was referring, but Lord Tavistock shook his head. “Isn’t that enough? Power and money always did motivate Alfred more than anything.”
“What about fear for his life?”
The viscount’s eyes widened in shock and then his face suffused with red. “Are you accusing me of harming my own grandson?”
“Someone was. Someone has, if that bloody coat is any indication.”
The old man blanched. “I am not responsible for that. Nor would I ever condone such an action.”
Gage’s eyes weighed and assessed him. “Maybe. But regardless, you’ve gotten your alliance. With Alfred out of the way, Rory will be a much more tractable heir, won’t he? And I wager he’ll be happy to wed Lady Juliana.”
“You think he’s dead?” he wheezed between coughs.
“I suspect we’ll know soon enough.”
“Do you really think he’s dead?” I asked as we strode down the corridor away from the viscount’s chamber.
Gage’s arm was tight beneath mine, still holding in the anger and disillusionment he must have been feeling about his grandfather’s actions. “I don’t know. But the longer this search stretches on with no answers, the more I think we have to face the very real possibility that he has perished, either by natural or unnatural means.”
At the end of the corridor, he glanced to the left and then the right before guiding me through a doorway two doors down and shutting it behind us. It was the library I’d failed to locate on numerous occasions.
“Is anything in this house designed in a traditional manner?” I groused.
It was no wonder I’d missed it. Tucked off a corridor among rooms I’d assumed were more bedchambers, it didn’t appear anything like a normal library other than the shelves filled with books. Had I not known better, I would have called it a men’s reading parlor, for it was filled with heavy leather furniture and stark tables bearing lamps. I suspected it had once been but another bedchamber until it was converted to this use.
Ignoring my comment, Gage crossed to the window, pushing aside the drapes to allow more light into the shadowed room. “Let’s review the facts, shall we. We’ve searched for miles in every direction, spoken to all the people who live on the neighboring lands and in the village, interviewed Alfred’s friends, and yet we haven’t been able to locate him. Barring the possibility that someone is either a brilliant liar or that Alfred has fashioned himself some unknown bolt-hole—both options that are unlikely, but not impossible—I think we have to face the truth. Alfred truly has vanished.” He exhaled as if making this pronouncement was almost a relief. “He’s not in Plymouth.” He ticked off on his fingers. “He’s not in London. Father was almost certain of that.”
“Then where is he, Gage? I know we all keep saying he vanished, but that’s impossible. Unless you believe the pixies led him away, and I know you don’t.”
He planted his hands on his hips, shaking his head. “I honestly don’t know. Unless a bog actually did swallow him up.” He frowned. “Or someone buried him in a place where freshly turned soil wouldn’t give us pause.”
I considered this suggestion, but he rushed on before I could respond.
“Everyone in this family has purposefully led us astray, making this inquiry far more complicated than it needed to be. But I think it’s time I faced a truth I haven’t wanted to accept.” He exhaled forcibly. “That Alfred has likely been murdered.”
I’d considered murder to be a very real prospect almost since the beginning, but it was apparent Gage had not. After all, Alfred was his cousin. No matter their tussles in the past, he still cared about him. And it was obvious he found this shift in his approach to the inquiry to be troubling.
I wrapped my arms around his middle and rested my head against his chest, offering him what comfort I could. He continued to stare out the window, lost in disquieting thoughts, but he lifted his arms to embrace me back. We stood that way for some time with nothing but the clock ticking on the mantel to disturb the silence around us. From this vantage, I could see out into the front walled garden. Even in bright sunlight it still looked hopelessly forlorn.
“You know, I used to wish something awful would happen to Alfred,” he murmured. “He was just so dreadful to me, to Mother. I wished he would go away and never return.”
I looked up at his face, at the evidence of his tightly restrained emotion in the lines at the corner of his eyes and the brackets around his mouth. “You were just a boy,” I reminded him.
“I know.” His eyes dipped to meet mine. “But now I’m a man. And I owe it to him to find him.”
“Then we shall,” I replied, infusing as much confidence as I could into my voice. “Even if we have to dredge every bog between here and Okehampton.”
His lips curled into a tight smile. “Well, let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.” His gaze fastened on something on my right temple, and he lifted a finger to wipe it away. Lowering his hand, we stared down at a speck of mud. “Care to explain now what happened to you this morning? And who’s been talking to you about pixies?”
“Rory.” I briefly explained what happened that morning, including his cousin’s part in saving me from an ignoble fate. As expected, my husband was not amused by my carelessness.
“Kiera,” he began sternly.
“I know. I know. My only defense is that I genuinely believed the man I’d seen could be Alfred. But I shouldn’t have lost my head.”
“If it had been Alfred, and you were able to catch up to him, what did you think you would do? Insist he return home with you? I don’t like to think it, but if Alfred is alive and he’s gone to such lengths to remain hidden, he could be dangerous.”
“I’ll be more careful,” I assured him. “In any case, Rory claims there was no man, and he was close enough he should have seen him as well. Though I didn’t appreciate his trying to tell me I’d been pixie-led.”
“No. That doesn’t sound like him.” His voice trailed away as he turned toward the window again.
I waited for him to say more, but when he didn’t I redirected him to the more urgent matter at hand. “How do you wish to proceed?”
“Well, I think you should visit Miss Galloway again.” He shifted so that he could see me more fully. “Provided you can avoid running into any more bogs.”
“What if it’s the same one?” I replied tartly.
He arched a single eyebrow at my pitiable jest. “I believe I’ll try to speak with the Duke of Bedford’s steward at Endsleigh House about these Swing letters. I would have liked to speak with the duke himself, but now that we know he’s in London, I suppose that’s not possible. And I shall pay Mr. Glanville another visit. I’m curious if he knows anything about the blackmail, or if he can direct me to any of Alfred’s acquaintances further afield.”
“He was certainly forthcoming the last time we spoke,” I remarked, feeling slightly guilty for not sharing my suspicions about the blackmail. But I didn’t want to raise the matter until I knew. Until I was sure. There was also the matter of the gold button I’d found in Miss Galloway’s cottage, but I wanted to give her the chance to inform me of it herself, and Gage might not allow that if he were aware.
“Yes, well, let’s hope he doesn’t decide to share too much without your presence to rein him in.”
“My presence reined him in?” I asked dubiously, recalling all the shocking things he’d said and done.
Gage nodded. “You do not want to see him when there are no ladies present.”
“So long as you don’t share his brandy, or any of his companions,” I added pointedly, “I suspect you shall survive.”
He pulled me close. “Have no fear there. Just listening to him will be unenjoyable enough.”