Six Degrees of Scandal (9 page)

He crossed the busy yard and jogged up the stairs two at a time to his room. The Stag and Hound was the biggest inn in Gravesend, allowing him to come and go without much notice. The fire in his room was nothing but ash, as expected, and it was cold, but not as cold as it was in the fishing cottage. He stripped to the waist to wash and shave.

He stropped his razor and pondered the next move. How was she getting on with the solicitor? He paused to fish out his watch. Still nearly half an hour until he was to meet Olivia. Jamie soaped his face and applied the razor, hoping she returned from her mission with a stack of docu
ments. As long as she got something useful from Armand, this would be worth it, but either way they were leaving Gravesend before Clary could catch up to them.

Just thinking of the viscount made him nick his chin. Jamie cursed and swabbed the blood away. Clary's persistence bothered him. Jamie had known many a person willing to go to great lengths to achieve their object once set upon it. If he was perfectly honest with himself, that could be said about him at times. But he had never pursued a goal beyond the bounds of reason or sanity, and Clary would be doing just that if he came after Olivia. Not only had he tried to kill Penelope and played some role in Lord Stratford's death, there was simply no reason Clary needed Olivia. If Jamie's theory was correct, and Clary was after a valuable piece of art, there had to be more discreet ways to find it than by terrifying Olivia, especially once it became clear she didn't have it.

And that only alarmed Jamie more. It meant Clary wanted her as much as he wanted the mystery object, and that made him even more dangerous.

He dried his face and changed clothes, then headed back out to meet Olivia. Just as he was about to step out of the taproom into the cold, the innkeeper hailed him. “Mr. Crawford! There's a letter for you, sir, delivered express this morning.”

Jamie stopped instantly. The only person who knew where he was, and what name he was using, was the man who had lent him that name. He gave the innkeeper a nod of thanks and took the letter with him, not wanting to miss Olivia.

It took only a few minutes to reach the place where he had agreed to wait for her. There was no view of the main street from here but he found a spot that offered some shelter from the wind and a fair prospect of the street she would take out of town, not too far from where she had come at him with the shovel the previous night. He checked his watch again and finally took out his letter.

His expectation of what it would say was not disappointed.

The answer to your parting question is no. I've run every rumor to the ground and found naught. All my sources are alerted though and will report if the news changes. My sister sends her best and urges you to return to town as soon as you may.

Yr servant, Crawford

That put one question to rest. No one had seen Lord Clary since he pushed Penelope off the Stratford yacht. To Jamie's mind that meant one of two things: either Clary had taken off in pursuit of Olivia, or he was lying low in a preemptive bid to rally his connections against any charges Atherton brought. Since the first choice had dire consequences, Jamie had gone after Olivia himself while setting Daniel to finding out if the second might be true. After all, if Clary was fortifying his alliances in London, it would buy some time for Olivia to sort out her late husband's secrets.

But none of Daniel's many sources of gossip in and around London had seen or heard news of Lord Clary recently, and Jamie knew those sources
included at least one member of the House of Lords. That didn't mean Clary wasn't spreading his own version of the events aboard the Stratford yacht, but it severely curtailed any relief Jamie felt at having located Olivia so quickly.

He checked his watch again. She should have come along by now, yet was nowhere to be seen. He craned his neck and looked down the lonely path toward the cottage, but they had explicitly promised to meet here. Whoever arrived first was to wait, concealed if necessary in the rambling hedgerows.

James walked down the road a hundred yards. From there he could see almost into Gravesend. The solicitor's office was a few streets down from this one, and Olivia would have only a short walk before she should come into view. Where was she?

He paced back and forth, torn between two unpleasant choices. She had insisted that she'd come this far on her own, and she could do this herself; he wanted her to trust him, and that meant he must trust her. But the note from Daniel crinkled ominously in his pocket, and the thought of Clary lying in wait for her outside the solicitor's office made his steps drift ever closer to Gravesend.

Breathing hard, he stopped. She was only a few minutes late. If he charged into the office it would blow away any chance of keeping their association clandestine. They needed every advantage they could find to stay ahead of Clary, even one as slight as the fact that she wasn't a woman alone any longer. Reluctantly Jamie returned to his waiting spot, but with his watch in hand. In another quarter of an hour he was going after her, and damn anyone who saw.

O
livia pushed open the door of Mr. Armand's office with fire in her eyes and vengeance in her heart. The solicitor had dismissed her and made her feel like a fool yesterday, and she meant to pay him back in kind.

“Good morning,” she said to the astonished clerk, who almost fell off his stool at the sight of her. “I've come to see Mr. Armand.”

“He's not in, madam,” he protested.

Olivia kept walking. Today she was not going to sit demurely and wait for anyone to deign to see her. “I'll wait in his office until he arrives.”

“Madam,” cried the clerk, trying—and failing—to scurry around her and block the door. “This is inappropriate!”

Olivia ignored him. Without breaking stride, she reached the door to Mr. Armand's office and threw it open. The office was empty.

The irate clerk folded his arms. “I told you, madam.”

“And I told you I would wait in his office.” She took off her cloak and tossed it onto the chair. “Some tea would be lovely, thank you.”

With an expression of deep outrage and hostility, the clerk drew himself up. “As you wish,” he sneered. Olivia just smiled at him and closed the door with a firm snap, right in his face. A few moments later she heard the outer door open and bang closed. He must be running off to fetch Mr. Armand to warn him there was a madwoman in his office.

Let him. Olivia felt a bit mad, to say nothing of impatient. The last thing she wanted to do was wait here all day.

Mindful of Jamie's warnings, she edged toward the windows, which looked east over the street. Nothing exceptional caught her eye, but she stepped well back from them anyway. She ought to sit properly in her chair and wait, and yet . . . This would be a prime moment to see if any of Henry's papers were at hand. Today the bookcases held thick legal books, and the boxes of papers she had seen yesterday were gone. Jamie, she was sure, would be rifling through everything in the office if he were here. But Olivia was still somewhat shocked her bold gambit had worked thus far, and so when Mr. Armand came thundering into the office, she was sitting calmly in the chair.

The solicitor's face was purple. “What do you mean by this, Mrs. Townsend?”

She rose and gave him her best smile. “Mr. Armand. I called upon you yesterday. You might recall it. You left me to wait for hours, then had the effrontery to tell me you had burned my husband's papers.”

He blinked rapidly. “I am sorry I was unable to oblige you, Mrs. Townsend, but my predecessor—”

“Yes, Mr. Charters.” Olivia resumed her seat without waiting for an invitation. Armand remained on his feet a moment, hovering in indecision, before he closed the door, cutting off the smirking clerk's observation. He strode around his desk to take his chair.

“I understand Mr. Charters was the soul of discretion.”

“He was,” said Armand at once.

“Utterly devoted to his clients' interest, of course.”

“Of course. But Mrs. Townsend—”

“And you lied to me yesterday.” Olivia smiled pleasantly at him. Her heart was pounding. She had practiced this speech during her walk from the coast, and so far, to her astonishment and delight, Armand was reacting exactly as Jamie had predicted. It sparked confidence in her breast, even though she still had doubts everything would work.

At her accusation, Armand's face filled with indignation. “You are upset and overwrought. Allow me—”

She held up one hand. “You told me you burned everything belonging to my husband. We both know you would never do such a thing.”

His mouth sagged open. “I assure you, I did,” he blustered, recovering.

Olivia leaned forward slightly. “Did you? I think not, sir. I think you would never destroy anything so valuable and profitable.” Mr. Armand's expression went blank. Olivia straightened, making herself smooth her skirt as if she hadn't a care in the world. “I made an error yester
day in not presuming you were fully apprised of my husband's enterprise. On the chance you truly had no knowledge, I thought it would be best not to reveal it. But on reflection . . .” She smiled. “On reflection I realized your position. Of course you wouldn't assume the practice of another attorney without learning everything about it. And for that reason, I am quite certain you would never have burned all of Henry's papers. Some, perhaps . . . but not all.”

Armand gazed fixedly at her. “Be sensible, Mrs. Townsend. I told you I had burned your late husband's papers because Mr. Charters requested it and Mr. Townsend agreed that it should be done.”

Olivia returned his steady stare. “That would be a great pity, as I had hoped it would aid me in contacting Henry's associates who were so vital to his business.”

She held her breath, even though everything had gone very well so far. Jamie believed Armand wouldn't have burned everything, either because he wanted to prove he had nothing to do with smuggling . . . or because he knew all about it and wished to conceal it, even participate in it. It had been her own idea to lead Armand into believing she wished to continue Henry's smuggling operations. If Armand only wanted to prove himself innocent, there was little chance he would hand over the papers no matter what she said or did. Jamie had suggested they could break into his office and steal them, but Olivia thought he was joking about that—probably.

Now that the scales had fallen from her
eyes, though, Olivia doubted very much that Mr. Armand hadn't known what Mr. Charters was up to; she wouldn't be surprised if the smuggling had been a chief attraction. Jamie was right: “free trading” had been a very lucrative endeavor since long before the war, and some of it still went on. And if Mr. Armand knew about it, and had been drawn to this practice because Mr. Charters had established a reputation for being friendly to free traders, then he wouldn't burn Henry's papers, and he would quite possibly leap at the opportunity to profit from it some more.

Mr. Armand's face was a stony mask. Olivia just waited, a faint smile on her lips. He was likely following the same lines of thought she was. “I'm sure I don't know what you mean.”

She lowered her voice. “No? No doubt it won't surprise you to hear that my husband did not leave a fortune. I'm tired of scrimping on my widow's portion. Mr. Townsend left behind something far more valuable, though, and it would benefit more than myself if I were to . . . revive the operation.”

The corners of his mouth twitched. “How do you propose to do that?”

Too late Olivia realized the flaw in her plan. If Jamie was correct, Henry had been the man in the middle, neither choosing nor receiving illicit goods. For her to run things as he had done, she would have to say she had interested buyers standing by. Unless Jamie wanted to pose as one, she had nothing. “Perhaps reviving the entire business is overdoing it a bit,” she said, improvising wildly. “I should have been more specific.
It had come to my attention that some of his clients were unpleasantly surprised by his death. At their direction, Henry laid plans to obtain what they sought, plans which were some time in the making and which required great delicacy of maneuvering. One gentleman in particular had arranged for a very specific piece to be located and delivered. Sadly dear Henry caught an inflammation in his lungs and passed away quite suddenly, but he had set in motion the efforts to secure this gentleman's object. I believe his associates were so efficient, they most likely procured it and brought it to England, only to find that Henry had died and was unable to complete the transaction. No doubt it has been gathering dust since then, and I intend to deliver it and keep my husband's promises.”

Olivia didn't even feel that she lied. Henry had been in the prime of life, only troubled by an affection for drink. His death had been swift and unexpected. He had surely run his smuggling ring right until the end, and that meant items would quite likely have been in transit when he died. Everything Jamie posited made perfect sense.

Slowly Armand leaned back. His expression didn't change, but Olivia could sense the calculation behind his steady gaze. “It's been a long time since your husband's death, madam.”

“It has been,” she agreed. “You must understand that this gentleman was quite naturally reluctant to approach me on the matter.”

“Naturally,” he repeated dryly. “But I've already told you, madam, I burned those papers—”

Olivia wanted to throw something at him. She
was sure he was lying. “I see. I had hoped you might have retained some part of them, as insurance if nothing else.” That shot hit home, she could tell. “However, if you've truly burned everything and my husband's entire network is indeed lost, there is nothing that can be done.” She started to rise, then inspiration struck. “I shall have to tell the gentleman in question that you destroyed any information that might have led to recovering his object. He may wish to speak to you himself to be certain of the matter. For your own sake, Mr. Armand, deal cautiously with his lordship. He's not the sort who likes to be denied or disappointed.”

“What—I can do nothing, Mrs. Townsend!” Armand rose as she did. No longer patronizing and superior, now he sounded far more reasonable. “There is no reason you should give my name to this man.”

“No,
you
don't understand,” she said with all honesty. “I promised him I would do everything possible to find what he sought—I believe he advanced Henry a large sum of money, in anticipation of the difficulty there might be in acquiring it—but your actions have ruined that hope. I really wish you hadn't done it.” She spoke with Lord Clary in mind. If there were any way she could divert Clary's fury onto Armand, she wouldn't mind doing it. If only her conflict with the viscount weren't so disturbingly personal.

Armand sighed. Now he was not just reasonable, but supplicating. “Mrs. Townsend, you must see that won't do any good. I cannot help him. I burned everything!”

“Did you?” She gave him a wry little smile. “The trouble is, Mr. Armand, I don't quite believe you. But either way, you have prevented me from keeping my promise. I'm not going to bear the brunt of his lordship's temper alone. You can simply explain to him that due to you, he has lost his item as well as the money he paid to procure it. Not that he wants the money, when there's a very real chance his main desire was actually obtained and merely needs to be located.”

The solicitor's eyes darkened and for a moment, Olivia feared she'd gone too far. If he really had burned Henry's papers, he had nothing to give her, and she might have made yet another enemy. Mr. Armand leaned forward, bracing his arms on his desk. “Mrs. Townsend,” he said in a very low voice, “I am not involved in any of that. Nor will I be. If I am able to locate any part of Mr. Townsend's papers, will that satisfy you?”

She wanted to blurt out yes and demand the papers on the spot. Instead she heard Jamie's voice inside her head:
Ask for more
. “Perhaps. If they contain enough information for me to locate this item.”

“I can't warrant anything . . .”

Olivia sighed. “If you give me everything—
everything
—related to my husband, I will give my word not to mention your name, regardless of the intelligence in the papers. But if I doubt you've provided all of it . . .” She lifted one shoulder. “Please don't lie to me again, Mr. Armand.”

Armand's eyes were bleak. He was caught and he knew it. He might not fully believe her threats, but he'd given away his knowledge of and com
plicity in hiding Henry's smuggling ring. “I am loath to break a confidence.”

She smiled gently, in victory. “But you're not. My husband left me everything”—which was close to nothing—“and you are merely transferring your duty to him, to me.”

“It will require some effort to locate any papers I may have . . .”

“I'll come for them first thing tomorrow morning.”

Armand looked frustrated. “There is also an outstanding balance, if we're to completely settle Mr. Townsend's accounts.”

“Very well.” Olivia drew on her gloves. “I'll settle it for fifty pounds.”

“One hundred seventy is owed.”

“I'll pay one hundred and not a penny more. You would have found me far more accommodating yesterday. Until tomorrow, sir.” She walked out without waiting for him to say another word. The sullen clerk was just scrambling back onto his stool, no doubt having been plastered against the door eavesdropping. Olivia beamed at him, too. “I expect to find my husband's papers neatly boxed and ready by tomorrow morning. I'm sure you know precisely where they are.”

The clerk scowled as Mr. Armand appeared in the doorway. “Do as she asks, Tompkins,” the solicitor said in a flat voice. “Good day, Mrs. Townsend.”

Olivia gave him another sparkling smile as she let herself out. Jamie had said he'd meet her along the road to the cottage, near where she'd attacked him last night. She spent several minutes savor
ing how pleased he would be when he heard how well it had gone. She didn't have the papers yet, it was true, but Armand had admitted he had some. She said a brief and desperate prayer that they contained something,
anything
, useful. It would be the ultimate insult if Henry had directed his solicitor to save bills of sale or mundane letters while burning the truly important information.

She barely felt the cold outside, though the wind tugged at her cloak. It was tempting to skip and clap her hands with glee. For too long she'd had no choice but to accept what people—
men
—told her. Today she'd finally made her own demands and won her point. She wasn't a natural liar, and it would probably take hours for her hands to stop shaking, but it felt powerfully good to emerge victorious for once instead of frustrated and anxious.

On impulse she decided to stop at the baker's. She had promised one hundred pounds to Armand tomorrow, but that left her almost eighty pounds of the money she'd borrowed from Penelope. She did blush a little over the thought that Jamie would probably insist on paying from now on; all the Westons were like that. But the memory of Jamie toasting bread over the fire for her filled her with warmth. The least she could do was provide him some decent food. She slipped into the shop and inspected the tray of savory pies. Or perhaps she should get some beef fillets, or a ham.