All I Ever Needed (54 page)

"Yes."

"Harold is demanding money from all of them."

Eastlyn nodded. "It is blackmail, Sophie. It serves no purpose to shy from the word. Dunsmore is blackmailing all of them, including his own father." He pointed to an entry at random on the open ledger in her lap. "One hundred pounds to
Gilhead."
He found a similar entry in the book he held open. "One hundred fifty pounds invested in the same ship the following day. I have Harte's ledger. Whose do you have?"

"This is Tremont's."

Eastlyn used the toe of his boot to topple the stack of accounts on the floor. He found Dunsmore's book at the bottom and picked it up. It required only a few moments for him to find the pertinent entries. "Here is a record of one hundred pounds deposited.
T. Gilhead.
And another for one hundred fifty pounds marked
H. A. Gilhead.
I think we can assume that H. A. is so that Dunsmore could distinguish between payments made by Harte and those made by Helmsley."

"Why
Gilhead?"
she asked.

"It's a ship trading in goods to India. Many of the entries refer to merchant vessels. It is merely a way for Dunsmore to keep an accurate record of what he is being paid. It provides a reference for the others in dealing with him. Some of the investments made by the Society are in reality just that, but I believe they were expected to share some fraction of their profits with your cousin. He made the same investments, so he knew which voyages were successful and which were not."

"Some of the ships transport slaves?"

"Yes." East thumbed through several pages of Harte's ledger. "Here.
Crusader
and
Valencia.
Their captains are known slavers. It appears the Society made investments to both and later paid Dunsmore with some of the profits."

"Bloody hell," Sophie whispered. She closed the ledger and looked up, catching Eastlyn's surprise before he could mask it. "You say it often enough. I cannot think of a single reason it should be the exclusive province of the male gender." Sophie's eyes were a shade defiant. "Bloody,
bloody
hell."

East did not take issue with the vulgarity, choosing to kiss her delicious mouth instead. It was a brief kiss, but the swiftness of it was part of what set Sophie so nicely off balance.

"What was that in aid of?" Her tone was not as sharp as she wished it might be. When Eastlyn merely grinned at her, she found her bearings. She lightly jabbed one corner of the ledger she held at his ribs and then dropped it hard on top of the others in his lap.

"Bloody hell, Sophie." He moved the books so they were out of her easy reach, including pushing those on the floor aside. "God's truth, but you are dangerous."

"Apparently it is a family trait," she said, more serious than not. It was sufficient to sober them both. "What is it that Harold holds over all of their heads? Is it really my father's shooting?"

"I suspect it began there. It is impossible to know the particulars without having been a member of the hunting party, but perhaps Harold was not meant to know the shooting was deliberate. It might be that he observed the whole of it but had nothing to do with its planning."

"He became part of it when he kept his silence."

"I agree. He is no less culpable in my eyes, though his guilt is not so clear as a matter of law. I think that while it began with your father, it did not end there. His leverage with them has increased over the years. The more they paid, the more they had to pay. He used their money to learn about their business, their perversions, their secrets. It is possible that Dunsmore knows more about the Society of Bishops than any other person outside of it."

"I don't understand why they haven't killed him."

"I have considered that. If I were in Dunsmore's position, I would put a detailed account of all that I knew in a safe place."

Sophie shook her head and gestured to the stolen ledgers. "I have learned that such a thing does not exist. You came by all of these easily enough."

East did not disabuse her of the notion that it had been a simple thing. She would not want to know how often the colonel's work had engaged him in similar activities. Neither would it ease her mind for him to confirm that none of it was without considerable risk. "Private things are rarely kept safely in one's own home," he said. "A better solution is to give them to someone else. In Dunsmore's place I would give my documents to a solicitor, with instructions to make them public upon my death—in the event that it was untimely. Because this is the Society, and one can never be certain who may be counted among their members, I might give copies of the documents to several solicitors."

"I am not certain Harold is so clever. Does he seem so to you?"

"He is alive, Sophie. His solution to the problem may be different than mine, but the fact that he is still blackmailing members of the Society is proof enough that he has given the matter thought and arrived at some plan."

"They all know their ledgers are missing, East. Why has no one come for them?"

"Because they do not know
all
the ledgers are missing. I doubt that they have spoken to one another about it. Would you? You must keep in mind that Dunsmore's book is the key to all the others. Without it, their accounts are harmless enough. Some of them may not be overly concerned. Pendrake kept his ledger quite openly with the household accounts. He was not worried that someone would understand the import of it. And no one save for your cousins has any reason to suspect that I might have taken their books."

Sophie could no longer remain seated. She rose and crossed to the fireplace, choosing to stab at the fire with a poker rather than do nothing at all. "I cannot reconcile that it is Harold, and not his father, who is the puppeteer. It seems to me that he is always in Tremont's shadow."

"Perhaps because it is a good place to hide."

Sophie smiled faintly. "I had not considered that." She glanced over her shoulder at East. "I better understand Tremont's desperation to have me make a good marriage. He must have wondered how he would secure the funds to keep paying his own son."

"I am certain that is so. Dunsmore put none of his money into the estate."

"How that must have galled Tremont. After all, he shot my father with an eye toward not only acquiring the title and estate for himself, but an inheritance for his son." Sophie replaced the poker and stepped to the edge of the marble apron. "Do you suppose Tremont knows what Harold is doing to Abigail?"

"It's more likely that he believes as we did, that Lady Dunsmore is doing the thing to herself."

"What will happen to her, East? And the children? If you expose Harold, he could very well believe that it was Abigail who betrayed him. Whatever he might do to her, I do not want it on my conscience."

"I have already decided that I must get her away from Bowden Street."

"Robert and Esme, also."

"Of course."

"Where will they go?"

"A safe place. Trust me."

"I do." She hesitated. "I could help you."

"I think not."

"The children trust
me.
You don't know them."

Eastlyn supposed the time had come to tell her about his encounter with young Robert Colley. "That is not precisely true. I expect Robert will not have forgotten me." Before she could insert a question, East told her the whole of it. He thought Sophie would be unhappy with him for disturbing the nursery, but he was not prepared for the sharp regret that made her teary. "I didn't mean to wake him," he said quickly, "but you must see that I had to return his soldiers. He would have been blamed for the missing ledger otherwise."

She nodded and gave him a watery smile, blinking back the tears. "You mustn't mind me. I expect it is because I miss them. You cannot know what it was like to be shut away from them for an entire month. I could hear them whispering in the hall. Sometimes Esme would slip drawings under my door. They did not understand any of it, of course, but I imagine they thought I had done something terrible to be locked in my room for so long. I was glad when Tremont made me accompany him to the Park. It was far better than being a prisoner at Bowden Street."

East stood and went to her. She stepped into his embrace and laid her head on his shoulder. His chin nudged her hair. It was no less a sweet comfort for him than it was for her. "Robert will be happy to see you again," he said. "His sister, also, I expect." He heard Sophie sniffle once, then felt her searching the pockets of his frock coat for a handkerchief. He set her away from him as she blew her nose and then led her back to the bench. She sat while he stacked the ledgers again and carried them to the table.

"I was never able to find your journal," he said, setting the books down. "I searched for it in the carriage and later, in my home. It doesn't seem that I left it behind, so I must have carried it here with these. Did you come across it?"

"No. Where did you find it in the first place?"

"At Number Fourteen."

"That's not possible. If you had taken it from Tremont Park, that would be understandable, but not from Bowden Street. I left none of them behind when I departed for the country."

"You are certain?"

"Quite. They are all accounted for. Why did you think it was mine? Did you read it?"

"No. That is, I only glanced at it. I found it when I was returning Robert's soldiers to the toy chest. I thought you would want it back, so I took it."

"If you found it there, it was probably one of Abigail's."

"She kept a diary?"

"She used to. I do not think she writes often now. Sometimes she wrote stories for the children. I expect it was one of those that you found."

East said nothing. He ran a hand through his hair, furrowing it deeply as he contemplated a point beyond Sophie's shoulder. The line of his mouth had flattened, and his eyes were narrowed.

"What is it?" She was becoming familiar with this particular expression of East's and knew it was nothing behind her that had captured his attention. "East?"

"I'm not certain," he said.

"Perhaps if you say it aloud..."

A crease appeared between his eyebrows, and he took a short, impatient breath before he spoke. "What if the journal was originally with Dunsmore's ledger? And what if Robert found it when he hid his soldiers there?"

"He cannot read her script," Sophie said. "He would have mistaken it for one of his mother's storybooks."

"Yes. And carried it back to his room."

"Why is that important?"

"It's not. What is important is why Dunsmore would have kept one of Abigail's journals in the same hiding place as his ledger." Now East focused his eyes sharply on Sophie and saw that she understood. "We have to find the journal."

Sophie was already rising to her feet. "If you truly carried it into the house, then it must still be here." She swept through the door as he opened it and felt him closely at her back as she hurried up the stairs. On the threshold to her bedchamber, she paused. "Wait here a moment. We must pretend everything is as it was on the night of the ambassador's ball." She did not wait to confirm that he was in agreement, but slipped inside her room and closed the door.

Sighing, East hooked his left arm as if he were hefting the books he had carried in that night. He placed his right hand on the doorknob and gave it a small twist. Sophie flung the door open and pulled him into the room. Her kiss was not as urgent as the one she had offered a fortnight earlier, but she threw her arms around him just as fiercely, and he had to tighten his grip on the imaginary pile of ledgers under his arm.

Sophie broke the kiss suddenly and whispered against his mouth, "What happened next?"

"I believe you demonstrated considerable eagerness to have me in your bed."

That was how Sophie remembered it also. She pulled him toward the bed, more impatient now than persuasive, her lips but a hairsbreadth from his. "It is awkward, is it not? Did it seem so at the time?"

"If it did, I didn't mind." He looked down at himself and realized his arm was no longer in a position to hold the books. "I dropped them here."

Sophie eased her arms from around his neck, but stayed close. "Here? At the foot of the bed?"

"Yes... and one started to fall... and—" East hunkered down and began sweeping under the bed with his hand. "I remember pressing it against the bed with my knee, trying to keep it from dropping to the floor and waking your aunt."

Sophie joined him, lowering herself until she was prostrate with a clear view of under the bed. "Will you give me the candle, please?"

East took it from her bedside table and put it in her hand before he stretched out on the floor as well. The tiny flame was all that was necessary to reveal the location of a book far under the bed. The green leather spine was dulled by a few dust motes, but it was recognizable to East as the journal he'd found.

Dropping his shoulder, East stretched his arm far enough to catch the book with his fingertips. "I must have kicked it under here." He pulled it out and sat up, leaning back against the bed frame. Sophie joined him, drawing her legs up, careless that her silk gown was stretched tautly from knee to knee. She peered over East's lap as he opened the book.