Scandalous (32 page)

They glanced around the room to make sure they had left nothing incriminating behind, then went to the door and eased it open. There was no one about. The house stood empty and still. Above them, somewhere, a door closed. Evesham's bedchamber, Priscilla hoped. That would mean he was not anywhere about down here, about to jump out and apprehend them.

Bryan looked longingly at the front door. It was not far away, but the great lock on it had been turned, and he could imagine the sound it might make were he to turn it. Also, in the entryway, they were completely exposed, with no place to hide. He turned back to the room and walked over to one of the windows. Pushing the heavy curtain aside, he looked out. It was only a short distance to the ground, and the window was wide and tall, with a single lock. He tried the lock, and it slid open easily. The window, too, slid up with little effort. Once they were outside, he thought he could close it again. It would be impossible for him to relock it, of course, but perhaps no one would notice, or perhaps no one would think anything of it if they did. An unlocked window would not implicate him or Priscilla, anyway.

He helped Priscilla out, then crawled through himself, reaching back up to pull the window down. When it was closed, he and Priscilla navigated their way through the dark garden. He did not look up to see if anyone was watching. If they were, he didn't want them to get a good look at their faces. Soon they were past the edge of the garden, and they ran full tilt across the small open space to the woods beyond. It wasn't until they reached the trees that they stopped and turned around, panting, and
looked back at the house. It appeared as dark as it had before, except for the dim light that shone in Evesham's bedroom windows. However, the windows were only rectangles of vague light. That meant the drapes were closed, and it was unlikely that Evesham or his valet had looked out and seen them running away from the house.

Bryan threw his arms around Priscilla and hugged her, picking her up off the ground. His heart was pumping wildly, and though they had found nothing to help his father in the house, he was filled with jubilation. It seemed to him that Priscilla had told him clearly, without words, what she felt for him.

“Marry me,” he said, setting her down. “No more of this dancing around, no more playing games. Marry me.”

“Did you mean what you said back there?” she asked, looking up at him seriously.

“What? About not being able to live without you? That is true enough.”

“You have talked about marrying me. About saving my reputation. About wanting me. But you have not talked to me about love.”

He gazed at her blankly. “Love? Are you asking if I love you?”

She nodded. “I do not want to be an obligation to you. I do not want to be a burden, a regret.”

“I would never regret marrying you. Never.” He seized her hands and held them between his earnestly. “Priscilla, I love you. I have loved you for a long time now. Why else would I have asked you to marry me? I don't feel obligated to marry you. And I would never, never consider you a burden. Don't you understand? I
don't care that I am to be a duke. I don't care if your blood is not blue enough. I don't care what you have done in your past that you think is so terrible. Hell, I don't even care that you have a father who regularly blows up his workshop! I love you, and I want to marry you. Will you marry me?”

“Yes!” Priscilla threw her arms around him, beginning to weep. “Yes, I will. Oh, Bryan, I love you. It hurt so much to refuse you. I have loved you for weeks now. For— I don't know, I think I have loved you since I first saw you.”

“Then why have you held back?”

“I don't know. I was so afraid….” She paused and looked away. Now was when she should tell him about her writing, let him know the scandal that might await them. Let him decide whether he really loved her enough to accept her, to accept what she did.

“Of what?”

Her nerve failed her. “I'm not sure. Of your not understanding who and how you should marry, of your regretting it years later.”

“I promise you, I will not regret it.” He pulled her to him and kissed her soundly on the lips. “Now, get on that horse, and let's leave this place.”

She nodded, grateful not to have to elaborate on her words. They mounted up and made their way through the trees and out to the road, where they kicked their horses into a trot. After a few minutes of riding they rounded a corner and discovered two men on horseback waiting for them.

Priscilla started and reined in, realizing belatedly that it was the Duke and Mr. Rutherford.

“Father!” Bryan burst out.

“Bryan! And Miss Hamilton. Thank God! We weren't sure whether to wait for you or if you had already gone.”

“We were in that damn study with you the whole time you were jawing with Evesham,” Bryan told him.

“What?”

“How could you have been?” Rutherford asked in amazement.

“There is a secret room—more like a closet, really, just as you said there might be. It happens to be in the study. Luckily, we had found it earlier, or you would have walked right in on us.”

Ranleigh groaned. “I had no idea where you were. Sebastian and I were making fools of ourselves, practically shouting our sentences.”

“I know. We heard you. What the devil were you doing there, anyway? Your aim was to keep Evesham
out
of his house, not bring him right back there.”

Rutherford gave Ranleigh a fulminating look. “Damon took it into his head to start talking about Evesham's damn-fool collection of knickknacks.”

“Well, I couldn't converse with the fellow. By the time dinner was over, I had pretty much run out of anything to say. He doesn't even play billiards. I was desperate for something to keep him talking so he would not leave early. I remembered Anne saying that he collected things.” Damon paused and glowered at his friend. “Anyway, it was you who had to blurt out that you would love to see his collection sometime.”

“How was I to know the fool would take it into his head to show me right then?” Rutherford shot back.

The two men looked at each other and began to chuckle. “Lord,” Ranleigh said, “we looked like idiots
all the way over here, riding like old men and talking about every damn fool thing we saw along the way.”

They laughed, their relief turning them giddy, and the four of them turned and started back along the road to Elverton. As they rode, Bryan told them of their failure to find the necklace in Evesham's house.

“He has thrown it away by now,” Rutherford said gloomily. “I am sure of it. It was a wild-goose chase the whole time.”

“So what do we do now?” Bryan asked.

“Talk to the Childses,” Priscilla answered promptly.

The other three men turned to look at her, perplexed. “But they think
I
did it,” Ranleigh reminded her.

“Yes, I know. But if I could talk to Childs and get him to tell me exactly what his sister said, not what he interpreted it to mean, we might get some clues as to who it really was. Maybe he or his mother heard something that meant nothing to him but will mean something to you or Mr. Rutherford.”

Damon was silent for a moment, then said thoughtfully, “Yes. I suppose so. I know that Alec said on the way to the constable's the other night Childs kept raving about having proof, said there was something he found in Rose's room afterward. Some frippery thing her lover—he said me, of course—had given her.”

“What?” Rutherford asked, intrigued. “You didn't tell me about this.”

“I didn't remember it earlier. It just flashed into my mind when Miss Hamilton said that. It would be bizarre, wouldn't it, if she'd had in her possession something that would point to the real killer after all this time?”

There was a moment of stunned silence at his words.
Finally Bryan said, “You mean he assumed it was yours, this thing? And never brought it forward? But why?”

“I'm not sure. All I know is what Alec told me the other morning. I think he found it after I was already gone. He probably figured there was no point to showing it.”

“Then I would say it is very much worth a talk with our Mr. Childs,” Bryan said. “Is he still locked up?”

“I think so. Serving a couple of weeks for being drunk and disorderly. But I am not pressing charges on the other things.”

“You are going to let them set him free?” Bryan asked, appalled. “After he tried to kill you?”

“He's had enough misery in his life without being sent to prison, don't you think?”

Bryan seemed flabbergasted, but Priscilla said, “I think you are a very warm and generous man, Your Grace. And I am sure that Mr. Childs will be more willing to talk after this. It sounds hopeful.”

“It's worth a try, anyway,” Damon agreed. “I confess that if that doesn't work, I am a little stumped. The only thing I can think to do is choke a confession out of Evesham.”

Rutherford spoke up. “After spending several hours in his company tonight, I will be happy to do the choking myself.”

They rode on through the night, the three men dropping Priscilla off at Chalcomb Manor to spend the night. Because of the presence of his father and Rutherford, Bryan's farewell to Priscilla was necessarily quite chaste, but his eyes spoke volumes as he bent over her hand and kissed it.

“The wedding date must be soon,” he murmured.

Priscilla nodded and smiled, though inside she was already beginning to worry and doubt her decision. She knew she should have told him about her writing tonight; it had been cowardly of her to back away from it. She would have to tell him, she told herself as she opened the door and walked inside the manor, and soon, before he had a chance to spread the word that they were getting married.

 

P
RISCILLA ROSE LATE THE NEXT MORNING
and breakfasted with Anne, who was eager to hear all the details of the night before. Priscilla gave her a very much expurgated account, telling of their failure to find anything, but added that they planned to question Tom Childs further about what his sister had said about her “gentleman,” as well as the object he had given her.

“Damon didn't tell me about that!” Anne exclaimed, grimacing. “Men! They think a woman is too fragile to hear anything. Sometimes it is exceedingly annoying.”

Priscilla thought, a little smugly, that Bryan was no longer that sort. He had shown no qualms about her participating in their adventure last night.

After breakfast, Priscilla dressed in the clothes she had brought over the night before, chatted for a while with Anne, then started home. She was somewhat surprised, when she arrived at Evermere Cottage, to see the vicar's small gig in front of the house. She walked inside and found the vicar in the cozy sitting room with her father and Miss Pennybaker. Miss Pennybaker's cheeks were flushed, her eyes were bright, and she looked far prettier than Priscilla had ever seen her, even the night of the ball. Her father, too, looked different, though at
first she could not place why. Then she saw the bandage on her father's forehead.

“Papa!” she exclaimed. “What happened? Did another experiment blow up? You ought to be more careful, you know.”

“What? Oh, no. How was the evening with Lady Chalcomb?”

“Quite pleasant. But first, tell me about your injury. If it was not an experiment, what did you do?”

“Well, I, ah, actually, it was— Well, I think I shall let the vicar tell you about it. Right now, I have work to do. Isabelle?” He turned to Miss Pennybaker, holding out his hand and smiling in a way that Priscilla had never seen him do before.

“Papa?” she asked, wondering if the injury to his head had damaged the inside, as well. He was wearing a grin that was positively foolish. And why had he called Penny “Isabelle”? It
was
her first name, Priscilla thought, but she had never heard anyone use it, and it seemed rather rude of Papa to speak to her so familiarly.

“Yes, Florian.” Miss Pennybaker rose, all smiles, reaching out to clasp Mr. Hamilton's hand. She glanced over at Priscilla and hesitated. “But, Florian, don't you think we ought to tell Priscilla the news?”

“What news?” Priscilla asked, feeling as if she had walked into a house she did not know. Everyone looked the same, but they were all acting so strange.

“Well, my dear…” Florian paused, and Miss Pennybaker blushed, tittering behind her hand. “Miss Pennybaker has done me the honor of consenting to be my wife.”

Priscilla gaped.

“I see we have taken you by surprise,” Florian went on in masterly understatement. “Well, not such a surprise, really. Bound to happen one day, I suppose.”

“But how— When—?”

Florian waved an airy hand. “The vicar will fill you in on all the details. Isabelle and I have work to do now.”

With that, he turned and left the room with his fiancée, his head close to hers in talk. Priscilla stared after them, then swung around to the innocent vicar.

“What in the world is going on?” she exclaimed. “What happened? When I left, everything was as usual.”

“Well, we had a meeting last night. You know, your father, Dr. Hightower, the general and me. Miss Pennybaker was there, too, for she brought us the tea and all, and then she found your father's notes for him. We were talking about Mr. Edison's experiments in the United States, and then…well, I am not sure exactly how it happened. But the general addressed some remark to Miss Pennybaker, and your father took exception to it.”

“Why?”

“I am not entirely sure. As I remember, it was an innocuous remark, something about wanting to show her an experiment
he
had been working on. Then Florian got quite upset and declared that the general was making
warm
remarks to her. Well, the general, of course, said that he was not. He called your father a ‘dog in the manger,' I believe. And, well, it went rapidly downhill after that. Miss Pennybaker kept fluttering back and forth between the two men, trying to persuade them to stop their foolish argument. But no one would listen to reason. Finally the general said that he was going to ask
Miss Pennybaker to marry him, whereupon that good lady gasped and fainted dead away on the sofa. Florian got enraged and jumped up and popped the general right on the nose. The general got up, shouting and swinging at your father, all the while trying to hold his handkerchief to his nose to stop the bleeding. He chased Florian all around the room, and finally Florian fell backward over a footstool and knocked his head on a chair leg. That is the injury on his forehead.