‘What, the chit is in London with her confounded family now and you’re no nearer to finding out where those damned jewels are?’ Lord Derneley whispered furiously and he could fit a lot of fury into a mere whisper.
‘They suddenly packed, upped and left, Derneley. I could hardly stop them,’ his lady said and looked as if she preferred his room to his company for the first time in their joint lives. ‘It was quite pleasant to get out of this horrid house for a few days, though,’ she added sulkily.
‘You’ll be stuck here for good if we don’t get hold of those jewels. One day even those fools on my tail will get in and find me and I’ll be hauled off to the Fleet.’
‘Oh, no, Derneley, we can’t stay here. It’s not at all what we’re used to.’
‘And I can’t rot in a debtors’ prison, woman, so you’ll have to do better next time, won’t you? What did you do to find those papers I wanted?’
‘I found a maid servant willing to search her room and bring them to me.’
Her lord’s eyes narrowed against the dim light of a single tallow candle that was all the nip-farthing old lady allowed her niece when she thought the best use for darkness was to sleep. ‘Why didn’t she do so, then?’
‘I don’t know, Derneley. She didn’t come to the place we were to meet and I waited for hours. Next thing I heard the Selford brats and that silly chit of Chris’s were off to town and Barberry’s brother and some manservant escorted them all the way here. Even if I could catch up, I could hardly pretend to be a highwayman and hold them up, could I?’
Derneley brooded on her tale for a few moments, then seemed to untangle the gist of it and arched over the weak candle light so he could look straight into her eyes. ‘To guard them that closely, they must have been suspicious,’ he told her harshly. ‘You did something stupid, didn’t you?’
‘No, I was quite clever to find a girl whose family are even more miserable and in debt than we are.’
‘Hmm, what did you offer her for the Hancourt girl’s papers?’
‘Oh, only five pounds,’ Lady Derneley told him proudly. ‘Just enough to tempt her and not enough to seem desperate.’
‘Five pounds,’ he echoed as if he could hardly believe his ears.
‘Yes, she wouldn’t do it for less.’
‘You negotiated,’ he said flatly, frowning so fiercely he looked as if he was only managing not to shout with a huge effort of will. ‘You offered this cunning little doxy all she might earn in a year for one trivial task and expected her to keep quiet about it?’
‘Yes,’ Lady Derneley said, sounding a little uncertain now.
‘You damned fool,’ he said and she flinched away, looking terrified of the fury in his eyes as they glinted back at her in the semi-darkness. ‘You brainless, feckless, stupid woman,’ he managed with angry despair. ‘What the devil are we going to do now?’
‘Find that paper some other way?’ she said with a desperate sort of helpfulness that somehow didn’t look to be very helpful to her once-dashing lord.
‘No, they know we’re after it now,’ he said and turned his back on her as if he could brood better on the misfortunes dogging him without the sight of her defensive, sulky face distracting him.
‘Then we must stay here for ever?’ she asked as his despondency made her realise they might be penniless for the rest of their lives. The sound of despair in her voice instead of her usual shallow optimism seemed to make even selfish and spoilt Lord Derneley consider someone else’s miseries for once in his life.
‘No, we’ll find another way, Lexie, don’t you worry your pretty head about it,’ he said and she smiled brilliantly and he seemed to forget his ill temper. ‘I’m not staying in the old cat’s cellar for the rest of my life,’ he went on. ‘If they’re on the hunt for the Lambury Jewels I could always let them find them, then snatch them out from under their noses at the last minute.’
‘You’re so clever, Derneley,’ his lady said admiringly.
‘Lucky one of us is, then,’ he muttered under his breath.
* * *
‘You’re a success, Nell,’ the Duchess of Linaire told her husband’s niece as they travelled back to Linaire House one night with the dawn.
‘My fortune has cast a wonderful gilt over me.’
‘Nonsense, now you’re dressed as befits Miss Hancourt everyone can see what a lovely, lively young lady you are at last. You are a refreshing change from the usual empty-headed young miss launched straight out of the schoolroom into the ton.’
‘Fine feathers make fine birds,’ Nell said, because somehow her success in the wider world meant far too little. She had been shut up in a large old house in the country with four girls for so long she should be eager for every new experience, but instead she felt as if she was acting in a play about someone who wasn’t the real Nell Hancourt at all.
‘That really is the most ridiculous saying. Not even a fine gown like that one would make you appear as you did tonight if you were not a very pretty young woman to start with. No, don’t dismiss what I say as partial because you’re Horace’s beloved niece. Remember I aspire to be an artist and don’t argue with me because I don’t flatter, I simply report what I see.’
‘Affection can distort even the clearest vision.’
‘And false modesty can infuriate the most patient of souls. I am not one of those, Nell, so please don’t try me any further tonight.’
‘Very well, I shall accept all praise as my due from now on.’
‘Hah! That’s about as likely as Horace becoming prime minister.’
Nell chuckled at the idea of her uncle’s face if such an invitation came his way. ‘He would drag you on to the next ship sailing to America and refuse to come back, however much we missed you, lest they ask him again,’ she said.
‘And now we’ve come all this way to be a duke and duchess it would be wrong of us to run away. These things have to be faced, as your Lord Barberry finally seems to have accepted, since he’s firmly settled at Berry Brampton.’
‘He does, doesn’t he?’ Nell said sweetly, refusing to rise to her aunt’s bait and reveal her still-raw feelings for the stubborn great idiot.
‘As well there are so many personable young men in town for you to choose from and you danced twice with Mr Rivers tonight, didn’t you? Now he really is an Adonis and a knowing young rogue with it.’
‘And very young and not in the least bit inclined to marry and settle down yet. I wonder Lord Barberry can spare him, though.’
‘Perhaps he can’t,’ Aunt Barbara said and Nell could think of nothing to say in reply to such a cryptic comment.
For a while there was silence inside the luxurious coach and Nell wondered if her aunt had nodded off. Not so, she felt the Duchess’s acute gaze on her face as they rattled over the cobblestones and surely they would be home soon, so she could go to bed and try not to dream of a man who certainly didn’t want to marry her. Aunt Barbara smiled in the strengthening light with too much understanding in her eyes and Nell felt a wave of love for this strong, loving and clever woman who had taken her to her heart and given the Selford girls a temporary home as well.
‘I have enjoyed the last few weeks, Nell dear, but I’ll be glad if Eve or one of Lady Farenze’s friends can chaperon you now you are properly launched and a success. I shall be far too tired to do aught but sleep in the morning, not that it isn’t already morning and I’m far too old to be out half the night.’
‘You know I’m always glad of your company, Aunt Barbara, but now Colm and Eve are back in town you can get some painting done at last.’
‘Especially as they brought Eve’s old governess with them. Now that scamp Verity is back at school while her father and stepmama sail the seven seas for a while, I’m glad Miss York has agreed to keep your girls occupied while Lord Barberry makes up his mind what to do with them, despite the fact she must be in need of a long holiday. The best thing Lord Barberry could do is consult you, of course, since nobody knows as much about his wards as you do.’
Nell was so tired after dancing all evening and trying hard to pretend she was happy she felt as if she’d smiled until her face ached. She had to blink her weary eyes several times to stop herself crying. It was ridiculous to let the wretched man affect her this way when he’d been back at Berry Brampton for a month and obviously didn’t care about her. He’d certainly found it easier to forget her than she had him. Nothing seemed to erase the way he made her feel when they were close. ‘I have no wish to speak with him ever again,’ she said as soon as she could steady her voice.
‘Do you not, my love? Well, hasn’t the world changed since your uncle and I were courting? I longed for the next time we could speak and hated every event my mother dragged me along to if he wasn’t there.’
‘You and Uncle Horace were in love.’
‘Yes, and it’s wonderful to find the man you can be happy with for life, Nell. Are you sure you haven’t met that man yet?’
‘Very sure, I think I danced with half the young men in London tonight and my heart only beat faster because I needed to get my breath back,’ Nell said lightly, telling herself it was stupid to feel so disappointed not one of her partners had outshone a man she hadn’t danced with and now never would.
* * *
Fergus would have laughed, cynically and rather hollowly, if he’d been able to read Nell’s thoughts. He’d spent three weeks camped out in his rather shabby London mansion with nothing much to do but think about Miss Eleanor Hancourt and how not to miss her as if half of him had been cut away. Of course, the contrary, stubborn, confoundedly popular female was never still long enough to pine for him. On the other hand, he had hours on end to watch her new home through the best spyglasses money could buy by day and lurk about the Square at night in the hope whoever was after her letters at Berry Brampton would try again. He was in the ideal position to know Miss Hancourt was so much in demand among the younger gentlemen of polite society that she was rarely at home for very long unless she was asleep. He caught glimpses of her dressed in the first stare of fashion and groomed to perfection as she stepped out of a fashionable town coach with some eligible man’s sister or mother, or climbed the dizzy heights up to a dashing curricle. He frowned at the house across the Square and watched her being handed up into one so ridiculous the coachmaker ought to be shot for selling such a vehicle to a mere whipster. Tempted to run across and mill the flash young fool down, he hit the nearest wall to relieve his outraged feelings instead.
He was the best man to watch out for any mysterious strangers haunting Grosvenor Square because nobody here knew him, but he was slowly going insane while he pretended not to be here and Eleanor Hancourt ran about town pursued by eager suitors. And what would Miss Hancourt make of the fact her nearest and dearest were deceiving her for her own good as well this time? No doubt she would be furious and declare she could look after herself, thank you very much, and it was all his fault. Which was exactly why he was stuck here, trying to pretend he was nowhere near the capital, so she couldn’t take a pet and ruin the whole enterprise, then insist on going about alone to frustrate him. Fear for Nell and his cousins’ safety goaded him into coming back here to watch over them in case whoever was after her secrets got desperate enough to kidnap one of them. And life was devilish flat and empty at Berry Brampton House now anyway.
He’d been watching from the eyrie he’d made in one of the top-floor rooms overlooking Linaire House when Brendan arrived to escort Miss Hancourt and her aunt or sister-in-law to any events Hancourt or the Duke could not attend. At least his brother was welcome at Linaire House, but suspicion such dangerous proximity might make a marriage between his little brother and Miss Hancourt had got Fergus so desperately overwound with frustration and fury that he wanted to hit something very hard until his fists were as numb as the rest of him. He couldn’t risk that because he might need them to protect her and the girls one day soon, but Nell wouldn’t let him escort her if he begged on bended knee. If he came out into the open she would be more stubborn and uncooperative than ever just to prove she didn’t need him, so he had to stay here and watch for her enemy to make a move and somehow he’d find a way to contain all this raw emotion and keep his temper before he punched his way out on to the roof and could watch her from out there as the rain dripped into his fine London house.
He glanced down at his latest less-than-aristocratic outfit. Whose idea had it been for him to pretend to be a down-at-heel footman? Surely he wasn’t fool enough to want to spend his days in a shabby and mismatched set of livery in case he had to fool someone he was a willing conspirator in whatever mischief they had planned this time? So far he might as well have spent the time at his tailor’s and strutted about the place in new clothes for all the good it had done him not to. He hadn’t been entirely idle, though, and was beginning to get information from Poulson’s sources now he’d put the right feelers out. As well to be certain before he moved against the man he suspected was behind this nonsense, so he waited and watched. At last his patience was rewarded when his most likely quarry left his lair in the depths of the darkest night Fergus had lurked in since he’d got home. Now it was time to bait his trap and wait for the desperate idiot to walk into it. He just hoped the man would leave his wife at home this time.
* * *
‘Are you sure about this, my boy?’ the Duke of Linaire asked his nephew a few nights later.
‘No, but Barberry says Derneley is desperate for the Lambury Jewels and he might hurt Nell or Eve if they get in his way,’ Colm Hancourt said grimly.
‘Miss Hancourt won’t be safe until we smoke the fool out,’ Fergus confirmed.
‘And he was behind that odd business at Berry Brampton?’ the Duke asked.
‘He seems to think that because his sister-in-law was given paste copies of the Lambury sapphires and emeralds he was defrauded of the fortune they should have been worth when she died and he found out they weren’t real.’
‘He’s mad, then,’ Colm said impatiently.
‘No, he’s selfish and vain and ridiculous, but he’s not mad,’ the Duke said before Fergus could argue it didn’t matter.
‘He’s desperate enough to be dangerous and we need to contain him before he does any more damage.’
‘Well then, we must do so, but he’s no gentleman.’
‘After what he tried to do to Eve last year we know he’s nothing of the sort, Uncle Horace, and don’t forget Lady Derneley fooled me into writing to Nell so they could find out her address,’ Colm pointed out irritably.
‘And she was the female who offered to pay my servant to steal your sister’s papers,’ Fergus pointed out.
‘Is that why you’re taking such an interest in my sister’s affairs, Barberry?’ Colm challenged.
‘My wards seem to love her and this business did start under my roof,’ Fergus said defensively, avoiding his gaze because somehow he didn’t want to ask for Nell’s hand with this farce hanging over them. He wanted her free and clear of danger and misunderstandings before he dared try to court her, because it would be hard enough to get her to believe a word he said without a shabby villain trying to steal the jewels she was so indifferent about and distracting him at every turn.
‘No, it started here, more years ago than I care to recall,’ the Duke said as if all this was his fault though he wasn’t even in the country when Lord Chris set his little girl a funny little puzzle.
‘Then why tonight?’ Colm Hancourt asked as if he didn’t care about the jewels either and they were a minor inconvenience he could have done without.
‘Since I found him loitering outside your house one dark night it’s taken me a while to wriggle into the man’s confidence as your disgruntled former employee, Your Grace,’ Fergus told the Duke. ‘I told him I’d persuade my sweetheart to leave the garden door unlocked tonight, if he gave me the silver inkstand from your study as my share of his ill-gotten gains.’
‘My grandmother gave me that,’ the Duke said indignantly. ‘It’s the only thing I took to America and back again, apart from the Duchess, of course.’
‘Just as well I don’t really want it then,’ Fergus said.
‘Or my aunt, I hope?’ Colm muttered.
Fergus had to muffle a surprised laugh at that wry comment and wondered if he and Hancourt had something in common after all, apart from Miss Eleanor Hancourt, of course.
‘So he will get in once most of the servants are in bed and the light goes out in your study, Your Grace. Mr Hancourt is rumoured to be out tonight and the ladies are from home. I told him he would just have to risk the younger ladies all being asleep and I hope they don’t hear anything from the schoolroom floor and come creeping downstairs to find out what’s going on. That’s why I needed you both on hand, in case we have to contend with more than Derneley tonight.’
‘Hmm, that’s wise, I suppose,’ the Duke said. ‘Just as well the ladies are out, though, or we would certainly have to contend with them.’
‘True, now perhaps you could check the servants are all abed except the footman on duty downstairs, Hancourt? We need to get on lest the man gives up and goes home and it’s all to do again.’
‘Heaven forbid,’ Colm Hancourt said, rolling his eyes at the elaborately plastered ceiling at the very thought of lying to his wife for much longer.
He’d told her he was meeting some old army comrades tonight and even Fergus could see how much it pained him to lie to her. How must it feel to love a woman that strongly? he wondered, then assured himself he wasn’t the kind for such overwhelming emotions, even if a goodly part of him didn’t believe it.
‘And what happens once we blow the candles out in this room, my boy?’ the Duke asked genially.
‘We wait for Derneley, confront him with his sins and send him packing across the Channel where he can do less damage. Until he’s in we only have Faith’s word that it was Lady Derneley who offered to pay her for your sister’s private papers and a lot of vague suspicions he’s after the Lambury Jewels.’
‘Not much to prosecute him with, then, even if we wanted to.’
‘So long as he goes away for good that’ll be enough for me,’ Fergus agreed.
‘I’m not a vengeful man and they’ll be miserable enough with nothing in their pockets but what they can earn for once in their lives.’
‘Are you sure your niece hasn’t already worked this riddle out, Your Grace?’ Fergus asked, wondering if it might be cause to hope if she was too distracted to search for the jewels because she ached for him as much as he did for her.
‘She would have told us if she had.’
‘Yet her father’s words seemed to mean something to her at the time.’
‘Will you show me?’ the older man asked.
Fergus opened his pocket book to the page where he’d scribbled the words so angrily when he’d discovered Nell Hancourt’s secret, then lost his temper so spectacularly he’d lost her as well before he’d finally cooled down and realised what he’d done.
‘Through the eyes of a grandfather clock everything that is hidden will be found again,’ he read out.
‘The clock in the red drawing room looks as if it has eyes,’ the Duke said with a visible shudder. ‘Our father used to make us explain our sins in there and Chris always used to say the clock shared Papa’s low opinion of us both.’
‘Is it still there?’
‘Yes, although I’ve been meaning to have it taken down and stored in a dark cellar ever since we got back to England, I haven’t got around to doing it yet.’
‘Perhaps we should see if we can make sense of it while we wait,’ Fergus suggested.
‘My brother did leave that clue for Nell,’ the Duke argued uneasily.
‘She hasn’t pursued it though, has she? Hush, did you hear that? And we haven’t even put out the light,’ Fergus whispered, puzzled because the soft steps outside the Duke’s study sounded too light for a man of Derneley’s build and former habits. Surely the man hadn’t sent his wife again?
‘I knew you were all up to something,’ an all-too-familiar feminine voice exclaimed and how the devil had she got wind of this?
‘Nell, m’dear, whatever are you doing here? You’re supposed to be dancing away at some ball with your aunt and sister-in-law until the sun comes up.’
‘Colm is a terrible liar and we thought we ought to know what was going on here before one of you got hurt. If I don’t send word within half an hour, Aunt Barbara and Eve will send Eve’s Uncle James and half-a-dozen grandees to rescue us, so don’t look at me as if I’ve run mad.’
‘You’ll drive me to Bedlam then, even if you don’t end up there yourself,’ Fergus told her in a furious undertone.
‘And what are you doing here?’ she said haughtily, the only female he knew who could manage it dressed in a governess’s dull plumage and when had she found time and chance to put that absurd get up on again?
‘Tracking down your family treasures, since you’re obviously too busy to bother,’ he told her and wasn’t it satisfying to get under her skin again? ‘You’re a woman of so much substance you obviously can’t spare the time to worry about it,’ he told her with an ironic bow in the hope of doing it again. He hadn’t wanted her to march into danger with her nose in the air, but his whole world felt wider and more vital with her nearby. God save them both, but he’d missed her.
‘You look like a derelict,’ she said with a disdainful look at his down-on-my-luck servant’s garb.
‘And you look like a governess,’ he said with a humble bow, as if he really was the Duke’s footman, before he did something disgraceful and was dismissed.
‘Half an hour, you say, m’dear?’ the Duke said with a glance at his watch to remind them time was a-wasting.
‘You’re not planning to go on with this now your niece is here, are you, sir?’ Fergus only just managed not to yell as fear for her nearly felled him.
‘If not tonight, Nell will get involved in some other way, when we’re not by to stop her getting hurt. The Lambury Jewels were left to her as well as Colm.’
‘But...’ Fergus began to protest, but the Duke calmly went about snuffing candles before he could find words powerful enough to forbid it.
‘My wife is a lady of iron resolution as well, so you might as well get used to it, Barberry,’ the Duke told him kindly.
‘I don’t see why I should,’ he managed to mutter grumpily before Miss Hancourt elbowed him in the ribs and he decided to save his breath, not sure if he wanted to kiss her senseless or leave her to find the Lambury Jewels without him, but very sure the idea of her being in danger made him afraid as he’d never been before.
‘You’re supposed to be at Berry Brampton,’ she told him in an irritated whisper.
‘And you’re supposed to be at a ball,’ he retaliated.
‘Hah! A ruse to get us out of the way that a five-year-old child could see through,’ she told him softly.
‘Will you two be quiet?’ Colm demanded irritably.
‘I wasn’t making a noise,’ Nell muttered darkly and Fergus recovered his sense of humour and his delight at being close to her again at the same time as terror for her made his heartbeat gallop in his ears.
‘And crows aren’t black and fish don’t swim in the sea,’ he parried and this time it was his turn to nudge her in the ribs and surely it wasn’t right to feel such joy at being shut up in a dark room with her and her closest male relatives? She was speaking to him again, even if it was in insults though, wasn’t she? ‘I missed you,’ he informed her softly and somehow he knew she was smiling rather smugly about that, even in the stuffy darkness of this closed-up room.
‘You two can croon at each other later, someone’s coming,’ Colm whispered sharply.
Fergus decided nothing about this evening was going to plan, but he might as well learn to reshape them, because Nell would never be a predictable female if they both lived to be ninety. He wouldn’t want to spend all those years with her if she was, but he very much wanted all that time with her and they were in the middle of a dangerous muddle that could go horribly wrong. He listened for their quarry and wondered if it was too late to kick up enough row to make an intruder jump out of the window and dash back into the night. Anything rather than endanger Nell and her otherworldly uncle, although Colm Hancourt could obviously look after himself. The whole untidy business might still have gone smoothly enough if the Duke hadn’t sneezed at exactly the wrong moment.
‘There you are, Lexie, didn’t I say it could be a trap?’ Derneley observed as he uncovered the dark lantern he carried in his other hand and saw the Duke and two pretend servants plus the Duke’s nephew not even trying to hide from the cocked pistols he had stolen from Lady Derneley’s aunt. ‘Keep Hancourt covered, my dear, but don’t get close enough for him to get hold of your gun. He’s tricky, that one,’ he observed coolly, taking a closer look at the smaller servant as he put the lantern where it cast the best light to watch them all by, ‘just like his sister.’
Somehow Colm managed to look amused by the fact he was being held at gunpoint by Lady Derneley. Fergus cursed himself for not taking this threat more seriously and getting the Bow Street Runners involved, whatever Hancourt and his uncle had to say about keeping it in the family. He wondered if it was worth trying to overpower the couple before they settled.
‘I may not be clever or accomplished, but I am an excellent shot,’ the lady boasted as if she could read his mind and he decided it wasn’t worth the risk.
‘It’s true,’ Derneley told them proudly. ‘Once won me a pony by shooting the pip out of an ace at fifty paces. Wish I’d bet a monkey; I could do with it now.’
Fergus could imagine the wild and rather dashing couple they must have been thirty years ago, but look what all that fizz and sparkle dulled to after years of headlong pleasure seeking. ‘Which brings us to business,’ he said laconically.
‘Who are you really, then?’ Derneley asked, his long-barrelled and over-decorated old pistol aimed at him, and Fergus bit back a sigh of relief. If the fool shot Nell he’d rather die himself than endure seeing her hurt in any way.
‘The Earl of Barberry’s land steward,’ Fergus lied. If he could keep the man talking long enough James Winterley and his cohorts would rescue them. On the other hand, the more people there were here, the more chance there was that someone might be hurt.
‘What the devil are you doing here, interfering in my business, then?’
‘My lord asked me to; his wards live here,’ he said and watched the weight of the clumsy old pistols taking its toll. Another few minutes and Lady Derneley would need a flat surface and her other hand to keep her gun level. Derneley didn’t look in very good shape after hiding from his creditors and a lifetime of dissolute living either.
‘Tell me where the Lambury Diamonds are or I shoot the wench,’ his lordship said as if he’d noticed that, too, drat him.
Lady Derneley narrowed her eyes at Colm as if she had a suspicion he was up to something she wouldn’t like. ‘And the rest of the jewels are here somewhere,’ she reminded her husband.
‘Nonsense, of course they’re not. Do you really think a fortune in diamonds could be been hidden in a public room for so long without them being found long ago by the servants?’ Nell asked scornfully.
‘He must have hidden them very well,’ Lady Derneley said with a shrug.
‘So well that no maid, clock-winder or upholsterer has found them in all these years?’
‘Even a fence couldn’t hide having so many stones to cut up and as your father managed to fool Pamela with his tricks he’ll have hidden them cunningly,’ Lord Derneley told Nell, as if Lord Chris was the one at fault instead of him.
‘My sister had the rubies inspected and cleaned. They were the real thing, so why would we have doubted them when he gave her the sapphires and emeralds as well?’ Lady Derneley said indignantly.
‘You stole them when she died, didn’t you?’ Nell accused with such bitter contempt Fergus was afraid Derneley might shoot her anyway and tensed to jump in front of her if the man’s finger tightened even a shade on that heavy old trigger.
‘I had to wait until that useless treaty in ʼ02 and I searched for nearly three days up and down those mountains before I found them both lying at the bottom of a valley nobody thought they ought to be anywhere near. Finest stones I ever laid eyes on, netted us a fortune, didn’t they, my lady?’ Derneley boasted. ‘How your sister would have cursed Chris for tricking us out of the rest if she’d known.’
‘He was my father,’ Nell said through clenched teeth.
‘Left you behind for Augustus to neglect though, didn’t he? Can’t have loved you very much to do that,’ Lord Derneley taunted and Fergus felt any mercy he’d been inclined to grant the worm seep away.
‘This thing is heavy, Derneley, how much longer must we stand here talking?’ Lady Derneley asked querulously, bracing her gun hand on the back of a chair this time and looked ready to wilt into it if he didn’t hurry up.
‘Until we get what we came for,’ he said impatiently. ‘So where are they, wench?’ he asked Nell. Fergus stiffened as the pistol in Derneley’s hand swerved away from him to aim straight at her heart and fear froze every inch of his body for a long and terrible moment.
‘I don’t know. We only found his message when your wife came looking for it and I’ve been too busy to work it out,’ Nell explained impatiently.
‘Too busy for a fortune in jewels?’ Lady Derneley sounded so incredulous her gun wavered from her own target until she caught Derneley’s glare and steadied it on Colm Hancourt again.
‘She don’t need a fortune, she’s got one, Lexie. You, steward—read me this riddle and if you’ve got a pistol I’d wonder if you can get it out and shoot me before I shoot her if I were you,’ Derneley ordered.
‘Which clock does he mean?’ the man asked after Fergus did as he was bid.
‘It’s the biggest one in the small drawing room,’ the Duke said mildly and Fergus hoped the man was a lot cannier than Derneley thought him.
‘They’re not in the clock,’ Nell said wearily when they got to the old-fashioned room that looked as if it was rarely used even by family.
‘Why does it say it is, then?’
‘“Through the eyes of the clock...”’ she quoted the puzzle Lord Chris left behind as if they were slow infants and she was an impatient governess again.
‘Clocks don’t have eyes,’ Derneley argued and swung about to look hard at every dial he could see.
That was enough of a chance for Fergus. Every muscle and sinew must work to get him to that pistol in time, so he sprang and prayed at the same time. Almost, he thought in a daze, as the confounded thing fired anyway. He waited for the terrible reality of the bullet to strike him and hoped he’d expire in Nell’s arms if that was all they were going to be allowed.
‘Stupid great idiot,’ his love all but shouted in his ears. He marvelled she’d got her breath back and could speak so abruptly to a dying man who had only just realised he loved her with everything he was when it was too late.
‘Don’t you love me, then?’ he asked in a bewildered voice even he hardly recognised.
‘Why the devil should I after you nearly got yourself shot like that?’ she demanded furiously. ‘And I don’t know why the rest of you are standing there grinning,’ she went on to accuse the Duke and her brother, who were now holding the Derneleys at bay with Lady Derneley’s pistol.
‘Would you rather we let them go then, Sis?’ Colm Hancourt asked with a shrug that told Fergus he no longer figured in the man’s list of enemies he must have banished to a dark corner of the earth.
‘No, but I don’t know how we’re going to explain this to the rest of the world,’ she said a little more reasonably.
‘Explain, my dear? Why would we Hancourts lower ourselves to enlighten the curious?’ her uncle asked haughtily.
‘Ah, I see,’ Fergus heard Nell say and groaned.
‘You need to marry me,’ he argued. ‘Before I die.’
‘We’ll have time to sort you two out later,’ the Duke said soothingly.
‘You’re not going to die, you idiot,’ Nell said once she finished poking and prodding his helpless form as if he was related to the sofa he had refused to lie on. ‘The bullet went through your coat sleeve,’ she pointed out as she helpfully pushed her index finger through the hole it left behind it to demonstrate. ‘You’re not even grazed,’ she added kindly, as if she was humouring a half-wit.
‘You need to marry me anyway,’ he said gruffly as he got to his feet feeling very sheepish, but determined not to let her off that easily again.
‘No, she doesn’t,’ the Duke argued calmly. ‘Unless you want to of course, my dear?’
‘Not if he can’t do better than that,’ Nell said grumpily and Fergus wished everyone else would go away so he could kiss her breathless and persuade her he loved her with everything he was, Earl or not.
‘Ah, well, that’s sorted out then. We’d best get these two turned over to the Runners and go to bed, I suppose,’ the Duke said as if nothing very much out of the way had happened tonight.
‘On what charges?’ Derneley managed to ask gloomily.
‘Breaking and entering, being a greedy worm who never did a decent hour’s work in his life let alone a day of it? Owing your creditors a fortune will do if nothing else sticks,’ Colm Hancourt said briskly.
‘And don’t you ever even think about stealing the Lambury Jewels again,’ Fergus said, feeling as if he ought to assert himself after making such a monumental fool of himself just now.
‘We’re still ruined, then?’ Lady Derneley said wistfully.
‘The diamonds aren’t here anyway,’ Nell said comfortingly.
‘Why don’t you give them a pat on the head and invite them to supper?’ Fergus demanded caustically.
‘Don’t be rude,’ she told him with a militant look in that made Fergus groan out loud as he sensed her spotting a cause in Lady Derneley that the foolish and heartless creature did not deserve to be.
From the sound of it Mr Winterley and his bevy of powerful friends had just arrived and Fergus wished he cared enough to find out what they were going to do with Derneley and his wife as the Duke and his nephew shepherded them out of the room and at least now they were out of Nell’s orbit and they could concentrate on more important things.