After the Kiss (22 page)

“I love Sullivan,” she interrupted, frustrated tears welling in her eyes again. “And I’ll help him, with or without you.”

“By God,” her brother stammered, staring at her. “By God.”

“I know, I know. It’s impossible. But at the moment there’s something I can do to help him, and so I will. Will you assist me?”

Still slack-jawed, he nodded. “I’ll help. But if Mother and Father sell me to the Americas as an indentured servant, I’m going to be very annoyed with you.”

“They’ll sell me, as well, so you can be as annoyed with me as you wish.”

Together they hurried over to the coach. She’d selected it because it had the most room inside for hiding stolen items. As Douglas waved aside Eugene the driver, though, and climbed up to the high perch himself, she had to wonder if she’d thought even this much through.

“Why are you—”

“Get in, Tibby. I won’t have any of the servants arrested for assisting us in assisting him.”

He had a very good point. She clambered into the coach and closed the door. “Go!” she yelled. If she couldn’t save Sullivan Waring, at least they would both go down fighting.

He could have gotten away. The Bow Street Runners wouldn’t have expected a captive wearing shackles to run, and he would pit Paris against any of the broken-down nags they rode in a quick second. A few weeks ago, he might
have attempted it—lost what reputation he had, lost his cottage and his stable—to stay out of gaol.

After all, an attempted arrest would have done as much damage to Dunston and his illusion of perfection as having his bastard son hanged. Nearly as much, anyway. It didn’t look at all well for a son—even an illegitimate, unacknowledged son—to be arrested for burglary and theft.

Sullivan glanced at the curious crowd still surrounding him, then looked over his shoulder at Tibby just beyond, ably mounted on Zephyr and arguing over something with Phipps. She would now face hell because of him. And the larger the disturbance he made, the worse it would be for her.

So he allowed the men to shove him back on Paris, sat as they pulled the reins over the gelding’s head, and kept his silence amid the growing jeers and catcalls as they led him away toward the Old Bailey. He supposed that that was what he’d expected to come of all this in the first place.

Bram hadn’t needed to tell him that sooner or later his deeds would catch up to him, because he’d known it already. The difference now, though, was that striking back at his so-called sire wasn’t his foremost concern. That honor went to the young lady currently leaving Hyde Park and scurrying home posthaste.

He hoped she had enough wit to appear as shocked as anyone else by his actions. She needed to think about self-preservation; not about him. And only to himself would he admit that he wished it could be otherwise. From the look of things, he would have a great deal of time to make that wish.

“How do you know if this is even one of the stolen paintings?” Douglas asked, hefting a small landscape under one arm and an Egyptian urn in the other hand.

“Just put everything in the coach,” Isabel said, taking another painting off the wall. “We can sort them out later.”

“But someone’s going to get suspicious when they arrive here and all the walls are bare.”

“They’re going to be more suspicious if we’re here removing everything from the cottage when they arrive.”

“Not everything,” her brother returned. “I haven’t seen anything of ours yet.”

She hadn’t, either. Her one and only visit to Sullivan’s home had been limited to the hallway and front room, and she had no idea where he kept the paintings he’d reclaimed—or even if he kept them here at all. All she knew was that they didn’t have time to be wrong. “Just take all the paintings you
see. Most of them are Francesca Perris. Some of them are bound to be the missing ones.”

“This is interesting.”

Isabel yelped at the low drawl, straightening so fast she nearly dropped the painting she’d just liberated. As she turned toward the door, her heart began beating again. “Lord Bramwell.”

“You’re breaking the law, you know,” he said, nodding at Douglas as her brother reappeared from behind a chair.

“Bow Street will be here at any moment,” she pointed out, putting a pair of candlesticks into the sack she’d found.

“Then you’d best go and leave this to me,” Levonzy’s son returned.

“Leave it to you?
I
am helping Sullivan. You’re standing there talking.”

Brief amusement crossed his lean face. “It’s one of the things at which I excel. I also happen to know where Sullivan keeps what he’s taken, and I’ve brought help. So I suggest you cease robbing the poor fellow of his legitimate possessions and come with me.”

Pushing away from the doorframe, he turned down the hallway. With a glance at her, Douglas put down the armload of items he’d gathered and followed Lord Bramwell. Isabel looked about at the bare walls of the front sitting room. They already had a dozen paintings stashed in the coach, and whoever they actually belonged to, there wasn’t time to return them to their place. She hurried after the men.

She hadn’t even seen the door set into the back of the kitchen pantry. It was paneled in the same oak as the rest of the kitchen, and when closed it simply blended into the back wall.

“Excuse me, my lady.” A stocky man dressed in Johns
family livery squeezed past her out of the hidden room. Under his arms were two paintings.

“Thank you, Lord Bramwell,” she breathed, eyeing the half dozen men busily removing everything from the small, windowless room and carrying it to two wagons stopped behind their coach.

“I’m not doing it for you, Lady Isabel. And call me Bram.”

“Yes, he’s your friend.” One of the few Lord Bramwell seemed to have, as she recalled.

“He is.”

“Do you trust these men?” she asked, avoiding the use of his nickname. Sullivan might be a self-confessed thief, but Bramwell Johns was the one who…frightened her a little.

“I pay them enough to make them trustworthy,” he returned. “Now you and your brother need to leave. Tilden’s information might have caught Bow Street flat-footed, but for an arrest like this they know they’ll need to move swiftly—or risk irritating all the people who’ve purchased mounts from Sully.”

He hadn’t mentioned Sullivan’s father, and that had likely been intentional. “But—”

“They’ll be here soon, my lady—and you can’t be.”

“I’m the reason he’s in this mess.”

Lord Bramwell shook his head. “Sullivan and Lord Tilden have two things in common—their father, and you. This would still have happened without you. Perhaps not the arrest, but the scandal, yes. The only difference is that with you about, he won’t want to attempt fleeing.” Johns stepped back to allow her to leave the kitchen. “I told him he was a bloody fool, risking his life for a chit. You are apparently something unusual.”

Her heart skittered. Had Sullivan told him that? Did Lord
Bramwell suspect how dear a horse breeder had become to this “chit,” as he called her? “Thank you for telling me.”

“You’re welcome. Now go home, before you make this even more complicated.”

“I—”

Lord Bram took her by the elbow and practically dragged her outside. He probably would have flung her headfirst into her own coach if she hadn’t grabbed the doorframe.

“Will they release him if they find no proof?” she asked, as Douglas climbed back up to the driver’s perch.

His lips thinned. “Probably not. He’s been accused by a future marquis, who is apparently willing to see some damage done to his own reputation. It’ll be a matter of proving him innocent rather than finding him not guilty.”

“Then what are we to do?” she demanded, her voice getting more shrill as the scope of the disaster began to truly sink into her heart. “He…” She forced herself to calm down and lowered her voice. “He isn’t innocent.”

Black eyes regarded her for a moment. “I have a thought or two on the subject,” he finally said. “But if you don’t return home and
be
innocent, his betters will see him hanged on principle alone. They don’t like having a wolf in with their pretty sheep, my dear.”

She climbed into the coach. “I am not a sheep, Lord Bramwell.”

“No, I do believe there’s a bit of wolf in you,” he said with thinly veiled amusement, and closed the coach door. “Go!”

Douglas whistled at the team, and they rumbled down the rutted drive. Bram watched for a moment to make certain the stubborn chit didn’t change her mind and attempt a second attack on the house, then went back inside.

“Hurry it up, Grimes,” he ordered the most senior of his footmen. “And be careful with those paintings.”

“Yes, my lord.”

Much as he hated to admit it, Lady Tibby had a point: In the eyes of the court, a lack of evidence would not equate with innocence. Not when a lord had accused a so-called commoner. He returned to Sullivan’s hidden den and opened the trunk set against the back wall.

Filled with blankets and an old quilt, it could stay—except for the one item tucked into the corner. Bram lifted the black half-mask, apparently a replacement for the one Isabel had pocketed the night Sullivan had robbed her home. He sighed. Apparently he would have to squeeze in an unforeseen engagement between dinner and dancing at the Fontaine ball and dessert with Hannah Price, the latest diamond to grace London’s stages—and his bedchamber.

“We should not be going out tonight,” Phillip said, sinking into the corner of the coach.

“I agree,” Isabel added from beside him, wondering what her parents would think if they knew that just a few hours earlier this very coach had been filled with paintings and knickknacks from Sullivan Waring’s home, items which now rested securely in the tack room of the stable beneath a pile of straw and blankets.

“It’s certainly not our fault that we hired Mr. Waring,” her father put in, though his expression looked as dour as Phillip’s. “We had no idea that he was the Mayfair Mararuder.”

“That’s not the problem, Harry,” Lady Darshear countered. “The rumors of Tibby’s affection for Mr. Waring will be on everyone’s tongues again tonight. And I thought we’d made it through that fiasco.”

“I’m not going to apologize for anything,” Isabel stated. “And I think the problem is that Sullivan’s in gaol, not that people are talking about me.”

“You may think differently when we arrive at the soiree.”

“Yes, Mama. I’m certain it will be unpleasant.” She drew a breath. “That is why I would prefer to go see Sullivan at the Old Bailey instead of attending the Fon—”

“
What?
” her mother gasped. “What?”

“Everyone’s already condemned him,” she pressed on, ignoring the fact that he had actually committed the crimes. He’d been driven to it, for heaven’s sake, and he’d taken only what was his, with just enough other items that no one would suspect him. “This is all just because Oliver decided he didn’t like me riding with Sullivan. It’s my fault.” Lord Bram might have disputed that, but she knew that she was correct. And that made this worse than it already was. She’d told Sullivan that she loved him, and then everything had fallen apart.

“It is not your fault. And how do you know that Mr. Waring didn’t have anything to do with the thefts?” Her mother continued to look grim and disappointed, as she had since Douglas had driven the coach back up the drive.

“You know what I heard?” Phillip contributed. “All of the missing paintings were done by his mother.”

The marquis sat forward. “You mean
he
was the one who broke into our home and threatened Tibby? That—”

“No one threatened me,” she broke in, her throat constricting and panic seeping into her chest. “I scared that man away. Remember?”

“Francesca W. Perris,” he went on. “The
W
could very well stand for Waring.”

“Oh, good heavens.” Her mother fanned at her face. “What have we become involved with? Tibby, please tell me if you know anything more.”

A tear ran down Isabel’s face. She felt it fall, felt a second one follow it. Her feelings for Sullivan had been difficult
enough to reconcile when no one suspected anything about his late-night activities. To whom was she supposed to be loyal? And who was she supposed to betray?

“Isabel?” her mother said again, more quietly. “You do know something. Please, please tell us.”

A sob broke from her throat, and she flung herself across the coach into her mother’s startled arms. It was too much. How was she supposed to know what to do? Oh, she was so stupid. So stupid.

“Tibby?” Her father awkwardly patted her shoulder. “We know you liked him. He taught you to ride, after all, and that—”

“His mother died while he was away at war,” she said, her voice muffled against her mother’s shoulder. “When he returned home, Dunston and Oliver had stolen all of the paintings his mother had left for him. His entire heritage, and they took it because her house was on their land, and because they could. Who would find in favor of a horse breeder against a marquis? He just wanted them back.”

“Good God,” the marquis murmured.

“He told you this?” Phillip asked, his voice as shocked as her parents’.

“He would have stopped after he got the last painting. There were only two more. But Oliver knew, because Lord Dunston knew. They didn’t want to raise a stink—or Dunston didn’t, but then Oliver saw that Sullivan and I were…friends, and so he went to Bow Street, and now they’re going to hang Sullivan. I know they are.”

She couldn’t stop babbling. Apparently she could say anything about Sullivan and his situation except what truly mattered. As long as she kept talking and kept her face buried in her mother’s shoulder at least she wouldn’t have to see the shock and dismay undoubtedly showing on the faces of her
parents and her brother. Oh, and she’d even managed to tangle Douglas into this mess.

“Tibby, you must stop crying,” the marchioness said urgently.

“I can’t,” she wailed.

“Harry, stop the coach,” her mother commanded.

He rapped on the ceiling and the carriage rolled to a halt. “Helen, what—”

“You and Phillip must get out for a moment,” she went on. “Immediately.”

Sniffing, Isabel straightened. She’d seen that look on her mother’s face only a few times in her entire life. The last time had been when Douglas had brought a live goose into the dining room at Burling and it had both driven away the half dozen invited guests and committed an act of cannibalism before they recaptured it. No wonder the men fled outside and closed the door behind them.

Her mother looked out the window and made a shooing gesture, no doubt to send them farther away. Then she faced Isabel again. “Are you with child?” she asked bluntly, her face white around the edges.

“N-no!”

“Thank God for that. Why the tears, then?”

“Because…” Isabel closed her eyes for a moment. Obviously she was in this well over her head. The difficulty was whether telling anyone else would help, or make things even worse. Her mother, both her parents, had never been anything but sympathetic and understanding up to this point, though. She was the one who’d gone completely mad. “I love him,” she said aloud.

The marchioness didn’t look surprised. “Last year you loved John Hilgrandt. And Clark Winstead.”

“This is nothing like that. For heaven’s sake, Mama, you
know I never meant that seriously. John was simply amusing, and Clark danced well.”

“What about Oliver?”

“I despise him.”

“Did this happen before or after he had Mr. Waring arrested?”

“Before. Or at least I’d finished with him well before that. The only reason I didn’t tell him so was that I thought he might blame Sullivan. Oliver likes everything that he’s supposed to, and nothing that he’s not.”

Her mother sat back, her hands folded in her lap. “And what, precisely, is wrong with that?”

“Nothing, I suppose.” Isabel shrugged as she wiped at her cheeks. Her eyes felt puffy. “It’s just…ordinary. I realized several weeks ago that I didn’t know anything about his interests because I’d never cared to ask. And he doesn’t know anything about mine.”

“But Mr. Waring does?”

“He did manage to get me up on a horse. And he’s very smart. And well educated. I think his mother kept hoping that Dunston would acknowledge him, so she raised him to be a gentleman.”

“But Lord Dunston hasn’t acknowledged him, and he’s not a gentleman.”

“I know.” Her voice broke. “I know it’s impossible. I may be acting like a fool, but all of my faculties haven’t deserted me. I’ve traveled a hundred miles in my mind, just to find a way that everything could be the way I want it to be.”

The marchioness gazed at her for a long moment. “And where have you ended up after all of your travels, my dear?”

“Right back here. I don’t know what will happen, Mama, but if there is anything—
anything
—I can do to keep Sullivan Waring from being imprisoned or killed, then I will do
it. Because even if I had to live on the streets and beg for food, it would be better than feeling the way I feel when I think about what is probably going to happen to him.”