Slightly Scandalous (40 page)

"It is good to see Garnett back from his travels," Mr. Perrie said, nodding his head down the line of dancers.

"Hugh Garnett?" Freyja looked at him, startled. "He is here?"

"In person." The innkeeper smiled his gap-toothed smile. "Third from the end."

Hugh Garnett, Freyja saw in one quick glance, was a dark-haired, youngish man and handsome in an oily sort of way. He was dancing with Chastity.

"Don't you worry none, lass," Mr. Perrie said. "Your lad is safe from harm."

Lass? Freyja might well have laughed aloud at the absurdity of it had she not suddenly felt rather alarmed-and strangely exhilarated. At last! Something was going to happen.

That something happened after the set had ended.

When all the dancers moved off the floor, Hugh Garnett did not. And in the lull that succeeded the music and the pounding of the dancers' feet on the floor, he raised his voice and spoke across the room.

"Sir Rees Newton," he said, and waited a moment while everyone's attention swung his way and conversations subsided into a surprised silence, "I wonder if you realize, sir, that this ballroom tonight harbors a murderer and a usurper?"

Freyja, looking sharply across the ballroom to where Joshua stood beside Mr. and Mrs. Allwright, instantly recognized in him the man who had burst into her inn room on the road to Bath and the man who had stood in the Pump Room the morning after the Sydney Gardens incident, waiting for her to finish stalking toward him. He looked alert, ready for danger, very much alive-and enjoying himself.

"I beg your pardon," Sir Rees said, all amazement. "Are you addressing me, Garnett?"

"I am amazed he had the temerity to return to Cornwall," Garnett said. "Joshua Moore murdered his cousin five years ago by rowing him out to sea in a small fishing boat and pushing him overboard and holding him under with his oar. He murdered for profit and has reaped all the rewards. You see him tonight as Marquess of Hallmere and in possession of all that has come with it. I am here to denounce him, sir. I was a witness to the killing."

No one, it seemed to Freyja, had moved a muscle except for Chastity, who had sunk onto a chair beside Morgan, and the marchioness, who was half tottering out onto the floor, one hand clutched to her throat.

Sir Rees sounded more irritated than outraged when he spoke.

"This is a serious allegation indeed, Garnett," he said. "But it is hardly the time or the place-"

Another voice interrupted him.

"I was with Hugh Garnett at the time," a squat, rough-looking man said, stepping out of the crowd, "and can corroborate his evidence."

"So was I and so can I," said another thin, bald man, stepping forward from the crowd close to the orchestra dais.

"And me, sir."

"And me, sir."

"Me too."

Five of them. And Hugh Garnett himself. Freyja's knees felt weak. She felt suddenly nauseous.

"Mr. Garnett." The marchioness clutched his arm with one hand, her other hand still to her throat. "When you came to me once before with these charges, I told you I would never believe them. Not of my dear Joshua, who was like a son to me, even though the victim was my own son. Not unless you could offer me proof that even I could not ignore. But I still cannot believe it of Joshua. Tell me there is some mistake. Tell me I am dreaming. Tell me this is some joke."

Freyja's hands closed into fists at her sides.

Sir Rees had also stepped forward. He looked deeply troubled, as well he might. This was not what he had expected of an evening of celebration. But before he could speak again, Isaac Perrie spoke up.

"Don't trouble yourself, my lady," he said affably. "They are lying rogues, all of them. I was standing in the doorway of my taproom that night, I was, because it was getting stormy and I knew the lads had taken a boat out. I watched it coming back. Young Josh-him that is now marquess-was rowing and your son was swimming beside him. They was close to shore, and I saw your son get to his feet while young Josh rowed off again. I was vexed with him for going back out when the sea was rough, but he was always a sure lad with the oars. I did not worry."

"I saw it too," another voice said. "I came to stand beside you, Isaac, if you recall. Young Josh's cousin was wading in, safe and sound and dripping wet."

"I saw them from the front road," another voice said. "It happened just like Isaac said."

"I was down by our boat with my dad," Ben Turner said. "I saw them too."

"I saw them from the house window," Mrs. Turner said.

Freyja unfurled her fan and fanned her face slowly with it. Her eyes met Morgan's across the room, and they exchanged half-smiles. It was obvious what was happening. At least a dozen other people had witnessed the event from the village exactly as Joshua had told it at the time. And as if that were not sufficient, a few of the servants at Penhallow had been strolling on the private beach the other side of the river and had seen it too, and a couple of the farm laborers had been walking on the cliff top above Penhallow and had seen.

For a stormy night, the area had been literally crawling with people, all with remarkably good vision, assuming there had been no moonlight during the storm.

Freyja met Joshua's eyes, and he depressed one eyelid slowly.

The marchioness and Mr. Hugh Garnett had not, it seemed, taken into account the fact that Penhallow and its environs were filled with Joshua's friends, people who knew him and loved and trusted him and were willing to perjure themselves on his behalf.

"They are lying, Newton, all of them," Hugh Garnett said, still holding his ground, though his face had turned somewhat more purple in hue. The marchioness was swaying on her feet, but no one was rushing toward her. "They are willing to defend a murderer because he has put a fancy ball on for them tonight. He is not the rightful marquess here. He should have hanged long ago. The Reverend Calvin Moore is the rightful marquess."

"You!" Isaac Perrie pointed a large, blunt finger in the direction of the squat, ruffianly individual. "I thought you were told six years ago to take yourself off from here with these fellow rogues of yours. You were told we did not need your bullying, smuggling ways around here. You were warned that if you showed your miserable hides here ever again you would be dragged off to the magistrate and left to your fate-a hanging or transportation most like. Yet you sneaked back one year after that to sail out on the sea with Hugh Garnett here, your former boss, did you, to witness a murder and not lift a finger to help the dying man or to apprehend his dastardly killer? A likely story indeed."

There was a gust of laughter and a smattering of cheers at his words and then rumblings of something uglier.

Sir Rees Newton raised both hands and everyone fell silent.

"I do not know what is at the bottom of all this," he said, "but it all sounds like a piece of malicious nonsense to me. You should be ashamed of yourself, Garnett. And if I discover one trace of your five fellow witnesses within my jurisdiction tomorrow, they are all going to be spending tomorrow night in my jail awaiting my pleasure-or my displeasure. As for all you witnesses for the defense, you might want to say an extra prayer for the salvation of your souls in church next Sunday. Lady Hallmere, ma'am, I apologize for the pain this foolishness has caused you. And, my lord." He bowed stiffly in Joshua's direction. "I have always believed your account of what happened that night, and I daresay I always will. You were known as a truthful, reliable boy and I saw no reason to doubt you. I would suggest that you give the word for the ball to resume if you feel the night has not been ruined."

"Not at all," Joshua said, as Hugh Garnett stalked out and his five accomplices slinked after him. "Indeed, I believe it is time for supper in the state dining room, though there will not be seats for everyone in there. Perhaps everyone would fill a plate and find a seat somewhere, and Lady Freyja Bedwyn and I will come around and speak with you all. This ball is partly in celebration of our betrothal, after all."

But just before everyone could rush gratefully into sound and movement, the Reverend Calvin Moore cleared his throat and spoke up unexpectedly, using his pulpit voice, though it shook with indignation.

"This has been a dastardly show of spite," he said, "occasioned, I do not doubt, by some trouble over smuggling in the past in which Joshua took the side of law and peace. I will have it known that I came here to deal as best I could with the understandable distress this looming crisis had caused my cousin, the marchioness. I did not come because I coveted the title myself. I did not and I do not. I am a man of the cloth and perfectly happy with my lot in life."

There was another smattering of applause, but most people by now were eager for their supper and the chance to astonish one another by repeating every word they had just heard as if they hoped to discover someone who had slept through it all.

Freyja raised her eyebrows as Joshua approached her, his eyes alight with laughter.

"You see, sweetheart?" he said. "Sometimes it is better to keep one's mouth shut and allow one's opponent to ram his foot in his own mouth."

"As I did in the Pump Room?" she said.

He reached out with both hands and circled her wrists with a thumb and forefinger.

"Now, you cannot expect a gentleman to agree with that," he said. "But if the shoe fits . . ."

"This, I suppose," she said, "is what Mr. Perrie meant that morning when he told you to leave everything to him."

He smiled at her.

"You see," he said, "my aunt and Hugh Garnett are not even worthy foes. It was all somewhat anticlimactic, was it not?"

"It will feed gossip hereabouts for the next fifty years," she said. "It will descend into folklore for generations to come."

He chuckled.

He had asked none of them to do it, not even Perrie. They had done it for him anyway, in an act of blind faith. Because they had known him and had known Albert, they had not doubted him for one moment. And there was not a one of them who had ever believed that he was the father of Anne Jewell's son, even though he had never denied it and even though it had taken some of them a while to accept her in the village. They had believed in him.

It was hard to believe that he had left such friends behind him and had wanted never to come back.

He spent suppertime circulating among the guests with Freyja, as promised. The only thing that weighed heavily on his heart was the one deception he had perpetrated against everyone. He had even just repeated it-tonight, he had told his friends, was a celebration of his betrothal. But they were not betrothed. Not unless he could persuade her to change her mind about him.

Yet that seemed hardly fair.

Chastity touched his arm just as the people crowded into the dining room were beginning to spill back into the ballroom. She looked ghastly pale. She looked as if she were holding herself upright by sheer willpower.

"Joshua," she said, "will you come to the library? I have asked Mama and Constance and Cousin Calvin and Sir Rees Newton to come too. And Miss Jewell. Freyja, will you come too, please?"

But Joshua grasped her hand and squeezed tightly. "No, Chass!" he said. "No! Don't do this. It is not necessary."

"Yes." She looked dully into his eyes as she withdrew her hand and turned away. "It is."

He closed his eyes briefly and admitted to himself with a deep inward sigh that she was probably right. There was no stopping her now anyway.

"Are we about to find out," Freyja asked quietly, "what did happen that night?"

"Let us go and see, shall we?" he asked, offering her his arm.

CHAPTER XXII

No one told the truth in the ballroom earlier," Chastity said. She had invited them all to be seated and all of them complied except Joshua, who stood close to the window, his back to it, and Chastity herself, who clung to the end of the desk as if for support. "No one."

"I realized that, Lady Chastity," Sir Rees Newton said. "I beg you not to distress yourself. Hugh Garnett can be a nasty piece of work when he sets his mind to mischief, and the men who spoke up with him are a pack of unsavory rascals. Do not think I was unaware of their smuggling antics years ago even though I said nothing at the time. As for those who spoke up for Lord Hallmere, well, they perjured themselves as surely as I am sitting here, but they know him and trust his word and had clearly decided that there are several kinds of truth. I am quite prepared to pretend I did nothing but dance and feast and enjoy the company of my neighbors here this evening."

"Perhaps that is the trouble," the marchioness said, her voice bitter. For once her mask of gentle sweetness was down. "Everyone has always loved Joshua. Everyone has always believed every word he spoke. No one-not even my husband-would press for a further investigation into what happened that night. Albert went to confront Joshua over his blatant immorality and corruption of our servants, and Albert died. Joshua was the last to see him alive. Is that not suspicious enough to put doubt into anyone's mind?"

"I know everyone was lying," Chastity said, raising her voice and speaking very distinctly even though her eyes were directed at the floor, "because there was no one out that night, either on water or on land, to witness what happened-no one except Joshua and Albert. And me."