All I Ever Needed (57 page)

"Go on," the Prince Regent said. "It is all very fascinating. The ledgers tell their own story, but it is vastly entertaining to hear it from you. You were saying, Tremont?"

The earl glanced at the account book in Colonel Blackwood's hands. It was opened to the page detailing monies paid to his son through a scheme to defraud Lloyd's. "I am certain I was at an end," Tremont said.

"Oh, that is too bad of you. And here I was, set to inquire about the attempt on my life last year. You recall it, perhaps? At the opening of Parliament? It occurs to me that in light of this conspiracy, another investigation is warranted. What say you to that, Colonel? It is possible to believe anything of them now. Even that they would kill their sovereign."

There was a general murmur of protest from the Bishops, but the colonel quelled it before it had gone very far. "Have a care what you say, gentlemen, for I have it on good authority that one of your own acted in that regard. It remains to be seen if he acted entirely alone, or with your approval." The colonel lowered his spectacles so that he might more clearly see the writing in the ledger before him. "Now, about your investments in the opium trade, it has occurred to me that—"

He was interrupted by a knock at the door and the entry of one of Prinny's secretaries. The man bowed, made his apologies for disobeying orders forbidding exactly this sort of interruption, and presented the Prince Regent with a note that he was certain would excuse him.

Prinny dismissed him, read the brief correspondence, and passed it to the colonel. The Prince Regent gave Blackwood full marks for his unchanging expression; the man's frustration must have been enormous.

The colonel folded the note and used it to mark his place in the ledger as he closed it. "It appears we are all guilty of underestimating your son, Tremont," he said without inflection. "He has fled and has had the good sense to leave his mistress behind, though not sense enough to leave her alive."

* * *

Eastlyn found his friends gathered in his drawing room, keeping company with his wife. None of them took pains to hide their surprise that he had returned before the two o'clock hour—and alone. They all knew it meant that something was not as it should be.

Sophie started to rise in her chair, but sat down again when East bid her do so. "What has happened?" she asked, voicing the question for all of them.

East put forth his questions first. "Lady Dunsmore is here? And the children?"

"Yes. Yes, they are all abovestairs sleeping. Lady Gilbert also. Lord Southerton escorted her here."

West jumped to his feet. "You look as if you could use a drink, East. Brandy?"

"Whiskey." East went to the hearth, stripped off his coat and riding gloves, and warmed his hands. "Leave us, Sophie."

"I will not, my lord." She felt the room grow silent. Even West halted in his tracks to the drinks cabinet. "It is not my intention to embarrass you in front of your friends. It is no pleasure to oppose you in this, but I will remind you that Harold and Tremont are still my family. I may despise the fact of it, but it
is
a fact. I want to know what has happened."

East turned. He knew he could expect no interference from any quarter of the room. "Very well," he said. There would be no argument from him; there was no time for it. "Dunsmore was not at Mrs. Sawyer's. When he left Bowden Street this evening, he went to her home straightaway, but he was not there when I returned from delivering the colonel to Windsor Castle."

"The Bishops?" asked North. "They were at the castle?"

"Yes. All of them. Every invitation accepted, precisely as we hoped. I did not stay long. Prinny was anxious to put the whole of it before them, and the colonel was having difficulty containing him."

West put a tumbler of whiskey in East's hand. "What of Mrs. Sawyer? Did she say where Dunsmore had gone?"

Eastlyn's eyes darted to Sophie and back to West. "Mrs. Sawyer is dead. Murdered. It seems likely that it was by Dunsmore's hand, though what might have been his motive is not clear. I cannot be certain if he fled because he killed her or if he killed her because he meant to flee. I sent for the runners, then delivered a message to the colonel that gave him the particulars." He knocked back half of his whiskey. "There was a trunk in Mrs. Sawyer's dressing room that was partially packed. I could find no evidence of a specific destination. She might have been intending to leave him."

"Or leave with him," South said "What do you think, East? Did it seem the packing was done in haste or with some care?"

East considered what he had seen in Annette's dressing room. "It was done carefully, though not with the economy of space that one expects from a servant. I believe she must have been doing the thing herself." That seemed to indicate Annette had not wanted anyone in the household to know she meant to leave. The runners would question the servants, but Eastlyn wished he had taken the time to do the thing himself. Something of his frustration must have shown on his face, for the others were quick to remind him of what had already been accomplished.

"You put the Bishops in one room," said North. "That was no small feat."

West nodded and pushed back a lock of hair that had fallen across his forehead. "The colonel will get everything he wants to know from them. Prinny's presence will be a pure torture for them, East. Bloody brilliant of you to think of including him."

"Lady Dunsmore is safe," South said. "Given what happened to Mrs. Sawyer this evening, you may well have saved her ladyship's life."

East did not dismiss their statements out of hand, yet they rang a trifle hollow. He did not have Dunsmore, and the viscount ultimately had been his responsibility.

Sophie rose from her seat and went to her husband. "I am sorry for your loss," she said quietly. "I cannot imagine how terrible it must have been for you to find her."

East was made speechless by her sincere concern. He drew her close, at once mindful of his audience and uncaring of it, and rested his chin against the crown of her head. He breathed deeply of her scent and absorbed her hard-won calm. It was easy to forget that Dunsmore was her cousin and that she might harbor fears that his blood stain would attach itself to her.

He raised her face and kissed her smooth brow before he set her from him. "Some sherry, West, if you please." He led Sophie back to the couch and joined her. He looked to the others for suggestions of what could be done next. "Desperation will dictate if Dunsmore will come here for his ledger and his wife's journal. It can be planned for, but not predicted. I thought I would be escorting him here tonight."

"No one could have known he would be moved to kill Mrs. Sawyer," West said. The gravity of their situation kept him from pointing out that there were times he could have cheerfully done the thing himself. He handed Sophie a small glass of sherry and encouraged her to drink. "Does Dunsmore have a favorite haunt?"

"Only the usual places all gentlemen are wont to go," she said. "The clubs and gaming hells. The theatre." She glanced at Eastlyn. "What about the Flower House? Would he go there?"

"No," he said ignoring the startled expressions of his friends. "He would not go there tonight."

South rested his chin on his fist; his brow was creased with thought. "If he got some sniff of what was in the air tonight, he would go to ground. It is the only thing that makes sense. It is possible that he learned something from Mrs. Sawyer. She was remarkably well connected East. You know that."

"It is one thing to know the fox has gone to earth," North said "and quite another to find the den. It required considerable good fortune to find Elizabeth when she did not want to be found, and you know the effort that was made to return Miss Parr to London. How much more difficult will it be to hunt someone we do not know nearly as well?"

"Infinitely more difficult," South said. "Perhaps all of a week. Are you in?"

"Of course." North reached in his pocket and extracted two shillings and placed them on the arm of his chair. "I make it to be ten days before we find him. West?"

"Six and one-half days. I'm an optimist." He found two shillings and placed them beside North's. "South?"

"Seven full days." He tossed his money to North. "East? What chance do you give Dunsmore when we are all in the hunt?"

Sophie stayed East's hand when he would have gone searching for his coins. She remembered him regaling her with tales of these wagers but had never thought to witness one. To hear someone else tell her of this one, she would have wondered at the absurdity of it, perhaps judging it to be crass given all that had come before. Yet being a party to it, she saw it differently. The wager bonded them to a single cause and strengthened their resolve. For all that the thing was made with a certain black humor, it was also made in earnest. "Do you have enough for me?" she asked East. "I should like to be included."

"Of course." He looked to his friends for approval. "If there is no objection?"

They all agreed there was none and watched East show coin enough for himself and Sophie.

"I will be heartily glad if we find him in a sennight," he said, "but I think it will take twice as long to put him in the Tower. Sophie?"

"I suspect that if you are good at what you do, you shall find him before the night is out." She took a sip of her sherry as they exchanged puzzled glances.

"Perhaps you did not follow the conversation," East said.

"No. I followed it exactly. It was what Lord Southerton said about the hunt that made me think of it. Robert told me tonight that his father had gone to Artemis. She is the Greek goddess of the hunt, is she not? Might Artemis not also be the name of a ship?"

All four men surged to their feet at the same time. North dropped the collection of coins in Sophie's lap on his way to the door. "Your winnings," he told her. "Artemis is no ship, but a ship's captain."

East dropped a kiss on Sophie's cheek. "He is master of the
Raleigh.
It is a packet ship on the Black Ball Line, one that makes regular voyages to Boston from Liverpool."

"Liverpool? But you will never catch him tonight if he has gone to—" She stopped because Eastlyn had already picked up his coat and gloves and was following the rest of the Compass Club out the door.

* * *

Sophie dismissed the maid who was sitting with Lady Dunsmore and took up the position herself. Although she had prepared herself for bed, she knew there was almost no possibility that she would sleep for what remained of the night. There was some measure of comfort in being companion once again to Abigail.

It was difficult to reconcile the fragile figure in the bed with the one who had credibly resisted the efforts of Northam, Southerton, and Westphal to remove her from her home. Her shrieking aside, South reported a number of injuries to his person, most of them the result of well-placed kicks below the knee. North had taken a blow to his midsection, and West—who had been the one to finally subdue her—had sported several red marks along his jaw. Had Lady Dunsmore not chewed her nails to the quick, she would have drawn blood.

Sophie brushed aside damp tendrils of hair from Abigail's cheek and forehead. "Poor Abigail," she said softly. "What a secret you have required yourself to keep." There was no change in the cadence of Lady Dunsmore's even breathing, nor any alteration of her pale, drawn features. It was impossible not to note that she was considerably thinner than she had been this past summer, and Sophie could only suspect that her own absence from Bowden Street had contributed to the decline. Harold had been free to act against his wife without fear of reprisal from any quarter.

Sophie refilled a glass of water at Abigail's bedside before she sat down. To make the interminable waiting more bearable, she worked on an embroidery piece that required almost no thought and very little in the way of a fine hand. She occupied herself in this manner for the better part of an hour before she fell into a light doze.

"He's here."

Those two words pushed Sophie into wakefulness. The embroidery hoop slid from her nerveless fingers and dropped to the floor. Blinking, she sat upright only to find that Abigail had already done the same. It was then that Sophie realized the urgent whisper had not been part of a dream already forgotten but a cry from the wraithlike figure in the bed.

"Abby?" Rising, Sophie went immediately to her side and blocked her from easily leaving the bed. "What is it? What can I do for you?"

"He's here."

There was such insistency in the words that Sophie found herself glancing over her shoulder. "No one is here," she said. "It is naught but a dream." She remembered how often she had been required to soothe her father in just such a fashion, knowing all the while that dreaming hardly described the visions that had plagued him. Looking at Abigail's features, Sophie saw the same vacancy of expression she had seen in her father. There could be terror, sorrow, or worry expressed in the voice, but the countenance remained oddly calm.

She sat on the edge of the bed and offered Abigail a drink of water. The offer was not acknowledged, and when Sophie pressed the glass to Abby's lips, there was no attempt to sip or swallow. "Will you not lie down?" Sophie asked. She placed one hand on Abigail's shoulder and pressed lightly. When she was met with resistance, she stopped and allowed her hand to fall away. "Very well. But you must remain abed."