Ben only had a couple of servants at the vicarage, which was a tidy red brick house with a pretty walled garden at the back and, as he’d learned not long after his arrival, a secret passageway leading from the cellars into a series of smugglers tunnels that opened out onto the beach just below Beauchamp House. His predecessor had been severely injured thanks to a miscreant’s misuse of the passageway, and Ben had been happy enough to see that door sealed to prevent mischief.
Since he didn’t keep a carriage of his own, he’d accepted a ride home from the Morgans in the coach of the local magistrate, Squire Northman, and his wife. It had been a brief drive, but he was grateful to step down and bid them goodbye thanks to Mrs. Northman’s incessant chatter. He was also fairly suspicious that she’d felt his thigh for one moment when the conveyance hit a rock, but perhaps he was simply imagining it. It had been a strange evening. And there was no denying his senses were on high alert thanks to the moments spent cradling the luscious Miss Hastings against him.
The lantern at the door to the vicarage was flickering merrily when he shut the gate behind him. Though he’d instructed his manservant Jeffries not to wait up, that fellow was still conscious of the harm done to his previous master on his watch, and kept his own conscience on such matters that related to caring for the new vicar. And sure enough, the door opened wide when he stepped up to it.
“My lord,” Jeffries said bowing. “I hope you had a pleasant evening.”
Ben peeled off his gloves and handed the man his coat and hat. “It was well attended, and though I suspect Morgan wished for a crush it was hardly that.”
“My lord, I must inform you that while you were gone you received a visitor.”
Ben stopped just as he reached the stairs leading to his rooms. “Who—”
Before Jeffries could respond, an all too familiar voice spoke up. “I hope you’ll excuse the late hour, Ben, but it couldn’t be helped.”
Arrested, he turned to see his younger brother, Lord Frederick Lisle, lounging against the door jamb of the front parlor.
With a cry of surprise, Ben pulled the other man into a hug, which quickly devolved into their childhood habit of wrestling for the upper hand.
“Hah,” the vicar taunted when he’d managed to get his elbow around Freddie’s neck, “I still have it!” He knocked his knuckles on his brother’s head before turning him loose.
When he’d been set free, his younger brother shook his head, straightening his cuffs and cravat. “One would have thought that your years in the church would have taught you a sense of decorum.”
“Oh, I have plenty of decorum in the right company,” Ben said with a grin. “But you’re my little brother. I had to greet you properly.”
Dismissing Jeffries for the evening, he led Freddie upstairs to his study, and once they were settled in front of the fire with glasses of brandy, he waited for an explanation. While it wasn’t unheard of for one of the Lisle brothers to visit another unexpectedly, Freddie had only recently celebrated the birth of his second child and it wasn’t like him to leave his wife, Leonora, on her own at such a time.
They chatted a little about news from their parents, and their brother Archer, whose wife was expecting. “And I suppose you’ve heard that Cam is giving a paper at the royal society this week. One of his bits about bones or fossils or whatnot.” Freddie, nor indeed any of the other Lisles, had never been able to understand where Cameron, the second to last of the brothers, had got his love of all things ancient. It wasn’t as if the family were Philistines. They appreciated history and knowledge, but Cameron needed to touch everything he learned about. And spent his days digging into the earth in search of artifacts from the past.
“I’m glad for him,” Ben said, taking a sip of his drink, “but better him than me.”
“Amen to that,” Freddie agreed. “I’m quite sure I’d nod off before the first presenter finished a paragraph.”
“What of Rhys?”
Their eldest brother, Rhys, Viscount Lisle, heir to their father, the Duke of Pemberton, had, the last time Ben had spoken to him, been considering an extended stay on the continent. Since their father was in his prime, and needed little assistance in the running of the various Pemberton estates, he was a bit restless with life in the country. And London was far too full of matchmaking mamas for his comfort.
“On an extended stay at the hunting box in Scotland,” Freddie said with a frown. “I had given him any number of contacts in Paris when he was making plans, but at the last minute he changed his mind. If you ask me, there’s some trouble with a woman, though you know how tight-lipped he is about such things.”
Rhys had never been one to discuss his affairs with his younger brothers. Perhaps since their father had instilled his position as the eldest, and therefore the role model, from the time he was small. Ben remembered quite well how in awe of his brother he’d been when they were children. It was as if he could do no wrong. No high spirits. No misbehavior. He was the perfect child. And as they’d grown, he’s continued to be the one who pleased most everyone. There were lapses, of course—he was human. But Ben had often thought it must be very difficult to show so little weakness all the time.
Freddie’s theory that a woman might be involved was not without merit. The few times they’d seen their eldest brother act out, it had been over some affair of the heart. Or some other, less romantic organ.
“I’d say we’ll find out soon enough,” Ben said wryly, “but it’s Rhys. He might blurt it out in his cups at Christmas, or we’ll never know.”
“True.” Freddie raised his glass. “To the brothers Lisle. Wherever they may be.”
They drank deep, and sat in companionable silence for a moment.
Then, no longer able to hold back his curiosity, Ben said, “Speaking of locales, I don’t suppose you wish to tell me that brings you here with no advance warning so soon after little Libby’s birth?”
At the mention of his new daughter, Freddie’s face softened, and Ben was reminded once again of how much his brother had changed since his marriage to Leonora. Once the most eligible bachelor on two continents, Freddie had settled into life as a husband and father as if he’d been born to it. And in a way, if their father was anything to go by, he had been.
“You know I wouldn’t have left them without good reason, Ben,” he said, his expression turning serious. “It’s important, and I thought worth a quick trip down here to speak to you in person.”
Setting his glass aside, Ben leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. A listening posture.
“You remember Mainwaring does a bit of work for the Home Office from time to time?”
“I do,” Ben replied. The Earl of Mainwaring was one of Freddie’s oldest school friends and was well known to all the Lisles.
“Well, his man in the Home Office has some concerns about some dealings in this area, and Mainwaring immediately thought of you when he heard of the locale.”
It wasn’t exactly routine for a minister with the Church of England to become involved with the affairs of the Home Office, but nor was it entirely out of the ordinary, Ben knew. He’d never been asked to do so before, however, and was a little surprised that the earl had thought of him so readily. It wasn’t as if they were as close as he and Freddie.
As if hearing his questions, Freddie explained, “I’d just given him a rundown of family news and mentioned that you’d accepted a position in Little Seaford. So, it must have been in his mind when the fellow from the government spoke to him.”
There was something else, however, that made the hairs on the back of Ben’s neck stand on end. That conversation he and Sophia had overheard was still fresh on his mind. And it was far too coincidental to imagine that there was more than one conspiracy at work in their little village.
With a quick nod, he indicated that his brother should continue.
“According to Mainwaring, your tiny Sussex village has over the past year or so been flooding the homes of the newly rich and shall we say, artistically unfamiliar, with forgeries of valuable and coveted paintings.”
* * *
Immediately, Ben thought of Sophia, though it pained him to do so.
How long had it been since her arrival at Beauchamp House?
Almost nine months exactly.
“What makes them think that the culprit is in Little Seaford?” he asked, careful not to reveal what he was thinking.
“They’ve traced the origins of the forgeries to one of the two galleries in the village,” Freddie said, his mouth twisted in amusement. “Who would have thought a tiny village like this would have more than one gallery? I’d say it barely has enough inhabitants to sustain one.”
“There’s an artist’s colony at Primrose Green,” Ben said distractedly as he tried to recall if Sophia had ever sold her paintings through the local galleries. He wasn’t as familiar as he might have been with her work because most of his time since arriving in the village had been spent getting to know his parishioners and ministering to the poorer families of the area. He’d attended a few social gatherings at Beauchamp House and the other gentry residencies, but he was hardly so well acquainted with Sophia that he knew the details of her business transactions.
To his frustration, Freddie noticed his shift in attention. “You’ve thought of someone,” he said with a sharp gaze.
Ben cursed himself for a fool and despite his instinct to protect Sophia, he decided to trust his brother.
“There is a local artist.” He leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, looking down so that Freddie couldn’t read his expression. “She’s been here for about the same amount of time as you’ve indicated. But I have no notion of whether she sells her work through either of the local galleries. I don’t know enough about her art to assess whether or not she’d be able to create the sort of copies you’re talking about.”
He looked up and saw that Freddie’s expression had turned sympathetic. “That’s the way of things, is it?”
Unable to remain still, Ben stood abruptly and began to pace. “Don’t make assumptions,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck. “I barely know the lady. But I have found her to be a pleasant enough companion and I suspect she is quite talented since she’s one of the four Beauchamp House heiresses.”
This had Freddie cocking his head. “Is she indeed? Of course we’d heard about Lady Celeste’s unusual bequest, since Leonora runs in intellectual circles—the sort that welcome ladies, I mean. But I don’t think I knew there was an artist amongst them.”
“A classicist, a mathematician, an artist and a naturalist,” Ben said. “But surely she would have no reason to do paint forgeries now that she’s safely in Beauchamp House.” He didn’t add that he wasn’t convinced that she had the sort of questionable morals necessary to pass her own work off as someone else’s.
“Isn’t there some sort of contest amongst them?” Freddie asked. “Whoever remains longest gets to keep the house?”
“Yes,” Ben said, waving his hand in dismissal. “But I think they’ve agreed at this point to simply share the house amongst themselves. Two of the ladies have married peers, and have no need of the house as a domicile, and the other two, Miss Hastings the artist, and her sister Miss Gemma, the naturalist, would be content to share, I think. As far as I can tell, she has no need for funds.”
“It is difficult to know what goes on beneath the surface with some people, Ben,” Freddie said gently. “For all you know the lady has gambling debts or dressmakers bills or some other sort of financial troubles.”
But Ben couldn’t see it. Then, something occurred to him. In context of what Freddie had said about the forgeries, he ran back through the conversation he and Sophia had overheard at Morgan’s.
“Would people who trade in forged art be the sort to eliminate a conspirator who no longer pulled his weight in the scheme?”
Freddie’s gaze sharpened. “Absolutely.”
Quickly, Ben related the details of what he and Sophia had overheard.
When he was finished his brother gave a low whistle—something their mother would have skinned him for if she’d been there to hear it. “I’d say you stumbled onto the very men Mainwaring is looking for,” he said with a slight shake of his head. “What are the odds?”
But Ben was lost in his relief that Sophia was no longer a suspect. His gut had told him she couldn’t possibly be the person Mainwaring hunted, but it was calming to know that was true.
“And you have no idea who these two were you overheard?” Freddie asked. “There was no hint of an accent? Or perhaps a phrase someone you know uses?”
“No, neither Sophia nor I could decipher who they were. Their voices were simply too low.”
“Sophia, is it?”
Dash it. Ben knew better than to speak to Freddie when he was fatigued. His brother was a master at reading his weaknesses.
“Miss Hastings,” he corrected himself. “I misspoke.”
“Did you, indeed?” Freddie didn’t seem convinced. “So, it was the Beauchamp House artist you were secreted with when you overheard our schemers? That is fascinating. Tell me more about this lady, whom you know so little about.”
“Freddie?”
“Yes, Ben.”
“Shut up.”