Unmasking Deception, page 13
“My brother tells me he had the felicity of driving you in the park yesterday afternoon,” he said as they approached Park Lane.
“Indeed, he was kind enough to do so.”
“Did you enjoy it?”
“Sir Alfred is good company.”
“He can be. When he is not totally self-absorbed.”
Viola let out a breath of laughter before she meant to, but George regarded her with the first positive gleam of approval she had seen in him. Certainly, brotherly jealousy was strong in the Minton family.
The horses had turned onto Park Lane, but to Viola’s surprise, they kept trotting north toward Uxbridge Road.
“Are we going in by a different gate?” she asked.
“The main gates are always so crowded. And variety is the spice of life. Do you enjoy the ‘strut,’ Miss Dove?”
“It is a little too busy for me,” she said, following her new habit of being herself. “But I enjoy the fresh air and the flowers.”
“There are many places to enjoy flowers,” he observed. He bowed to a passing couple in a perch phaeton, traveling in the opposite direction, and turned left into Uxbridge Road. However, to her surprise, he drove past the next gate and away from the park into Edgeware Road.
“Sir, you’ve missed the park altogether.”
“So I have. You do not enjoy the promenade, so I have something else in mind.”
“What?” she asked bluntly.
For the first time, she saw a flash of irritation cross his face, although it was gone so quickly, she might have imagined it. “Wait and see.”
“I hope you don’t plan to make me wait too long, for my mother expects me back in little more than half an hour.”
“Trust me,” Mr. Minton said and urged his horses to a gallop.
Chapter Eleven
Just after five o’clock, Mr. Dunne was announced.
Richard was seated in the library of Sedgemoor House with his father and his brothers—all but Dominic, whom he had left pacing like a caged tiger in his rooms off Piccadilly.
Mr. Dunne was a tall man with steady gray eyes and thick hair of almost the same color. Despite this, he was not yet thirty years old. He dressed with neatness and no frills, but definitely as a gentleman.
Richard rose as the man walked into the room.
“Is this your fellow?” the marquess demanded quite audibly. “I was expecting a grubby little man in glasses.”
“Mr. Dunne is licensed to practice law,” Richard said reprovingly. “And he certainly seems to beat the nobility in manners. How do you do, Dunne? Thank you for coming.”
While his father glared, Richard shook hands with his investigator and turned to perform the introduction. “Father, this is Mr. Dunne, whom I asked to look into Dominic’s case. Dunne, my father, the Marquess of Sedgemoor, and my brothers, Lord Rampton, Lord William Gorse, and Lord Charles Gorse.”
Dunne bowed, and Richard indicated a chair.
“So, what have you found?” Richard asked, trying to curb his impatience. It had been a long time since he had been impatient for anything, so the feeling took him by surprise.
As he sat, Dunne took a thin sheaf of folded paper from a pocket inside his coat. “I found that the case was handled appallingly badly, with far too much speed and too little care.”
“That was me,” the marquess growled. “I didn’t want the boy hanging around causing even more scandal.”
“If the magistrates, or your own man, had been instructed to investigate the matter,” Mr. Dunne said, “they would have easily found what I did. That Lord Dominic was seen going into his own rooms at two of the clock that morning, after saying goodnight to a parcel of other young gentlemen.”
“Then that was true?” the marquess said in surprise.
Richard bit back a retort. After all, he hadn’t believed Dominic either, regarding it only as the unreliable memory of an ashamed and guilty drunk.
“It appears so. Moreover, the servants of both Mr. Minton and Mr. Jarvey told me their masters did not return home until around half-past six the same morning. I have their signed affidavits here.” He placed two of the papers on the small table in front of him.
Richard drew in his breath. “Minton’s brother Sir Alfred would appear to confirm that. He said George had only just gone to bed when Alfred woke him again at seven.”
His brothers bore stunned expressions. His father’s was more complicated, with more than a hint of anger and shame thrown in. Good.
“Lord Dominic’s landlord,” Dunne began.
“Dobbs,” the marquess said impatiently. “He couldn’t vouch for Dominic coming in at two. He heard nothing.”
“No, but he was up at six and heard Lord Dominic snoring.”
Richard frowned. “Not enough by itself to prove Dominic didn’t go out again between two and six.”
“No. But I found Mr. Crawley’s valet, who is now with another gentleman. And he claims that two other gentlemen came home with Mr. Crawley, around two o’clock the night he died.”
“Did he see them?” the marquess demanded.
“He says he recognized Mr. Jarvey’s voice. He didn’t know the other, but it wasn’t Lord Dominic’s.” He laid another sheet of paper on the table—the valet’s signed affidavit.
Richard felt a huge weight slip off his shoulders. He should have done it weeks ago, but at least it wasn’t too late for Dominic. Leaning forward, he asked, “How does the valet know Lord Dominic’s voice?”
Dunne sent him a crooked smile. “He’d been present when Lord Dominic quarreled with Mr. Crawley. Over a woman, I believe.”
“Do you suppose the woman did it?” Charles asked. “Dom claimed Crawley mistreated his ladybirds.”
William glared at his brother with distaste, but the question was valid. Even just looking at a possible culprit other than Dominic was an improvement.
“She was at a theatre party that night,” Dunne said. “She slept in a friend’s rooms, and both she and the friend say she was there all night and until eleven the following morning. They’re prepared to swear it if necessary.”
“So, Dominic didn’t do it,” the marquess marveled. “Damn me if I didn’t wrong the boy!”
“You did,” Dunne said bluntly. “A fair trial would have cleared him.”
The marquess began to turn purple, clearly about to give a blistering set-down to the nobody who dared scold him.
“We owe Mr. Dunne a debt of gratitude,” Richard snapped. “And Dom one of apology. For what’s it’s worth, I think Minton and Jarvey did it together, and I’d quite like to prove it.”
“First things first,” the marquess declared. “Let’s get Dominic home. Where the devil do we start looking for him?”
Richard glanced at him. “I might be able to help with that. But first, we need the warrants against him lifted. And his sentence.”
*
Viola’s unease deepened as they crossed the Regent’s canal and approached Maida Gardens.
“Sir,” she said firmly. “We have come too far. I would like to go home now.”
“The truth is, Miss Dove, that I have something particular to discuss with you.”
She had set out with something particular to discuss with him, too, but his flow of talk had given her no opportunity to pursue his knowledge of the night Mr. Crawley died.
“Perhaps we could have that discussion as you drive me home,” she suggested.
He did not appear to hear her. “The point of all this is, Miss Dove, that I have grown attached to you.”
Whatever she had expected, it was not such a declaration. “Attached?” she repeated uncertainly.
“Sincerely. You are a peaceful person, blissfully lacking in the constant inanities of most of your sex. You are, besides, most pleasing to the eye, and I believe you to be the perfect lady to become Mrs. Minton.”
She blinked. “I am flattered, sir, if astonished.”
“Astonished? I have been paying you marked attention for more than a month. I believe there is a book in White’s on how long it will take you to bring me up to scratch.”
“They bet on such things in gentlemen’s clubs?” she asked, momentarily distracted.
“They bet on anything in gentlemen’s clubs, the more foolish, the better. I care not who wins or loses in this wager, so long as you and I can be married.”
The gates to Maida Gardens were ahead on their left. People were milling around, no doubt preparing to go home to their evening meal. Some walked past Mr. Minton’s curricle, laughing and chattering. The hackney stand was full, with several taking passengers aboard.
Fortunately, Mr. Minton slowed his horses at last. With relief, she assumed he meant to turn them here to drive back. She would still be late home but not so very much.
They came to the end of the hackney stand. A hired post chaise—known colloquially as a yellow bounder—drawn by two horses, waited behind it, facing the other way. A servant emerged from the chaise as Mr. Minton drew alongside it.
Mr. Minton transferred the reins to one hand and covered hers in her lap with the other. “Miss Dove, it is time to change our vehicle. I must ask you alight and enter the chaise.”
She stared at him. “I will do no such thing.”
“If you please,” he said implacably.
“I do not please. And if you imagine you can abduct me in a crowd of people, you are wildly mistaken. Though why you would even contemplate such a thing is far beyond me.”
“I anticipated maidenly reluctance. And I do not have time to court you any longer. Marriage has become imperative.”
She frowned in confusion. “But I have no fortune. You have nothing to gain by marrying me, with or without abduction.”
“You have a powerful family. Lady Wenning is fond of you. If his lordship is in any doubt of his duty, I’m sure she will explain it to him.”
“But—but what do you want of my cousin Wenning?”
“His countenance, his support, financial and otherwise. His name has come in for a bit of battery recently, with another cousin forced to flee the country for cheating. I’m sure he will do anything to avoid another scandal in the family.”
“There will not be another scandal in the family,” Viola snapped. “If you will not take me home, I shall take a hackney.” She pulled away from him, preparing to alight unaided, but the servant from the chase stood there. Alarm grew quickly into outright fear. “I won’t go with you,” she warned. “I’ll scream.”
She even took a deep breath to do so, but Minton took the wind out of her sails.
“Scream away,” he said largely. “You are my unfaithful wife, and I am sending you into the country to recover from your hysterics.”
“No one would believe such a tale!” she gasped.
He laughed. “My dear girl, men are always believed, gentlemen particularly so. Now, I have no further time to waste on this. You will either get down of your own free will and into the chaise, or I will knock you out and carry you. Someone might bat an eyelid, but no one will intervene. Which is it to be?”
There was a horrible truth in his words. The world seemed to be falling in on her, but she wouldn’t let it, not yet. “I can still make a scene. Such a memorable one that word will reach my family.”
“I am depending on it,” he said calmly. “Why do you think I drove you past the park at its busiest time? The world will soon know that you drove off alone with George Minton. Marriage is your only option.”
Oh no, it isn’t! There must be another. Only right now, she couldn’t think what it was. She could scream and plead for the help of those milling at Maida Garden gates. And he would hit her unconscious and carry her off. If she was to escape, she had to be clever—and conscious.
Almost without breathing, she allowed Minton to place one of her hands in that of the servant and stepped down. Like an automaton, she walked the few feet to the chaise and was handed inside. She wondered, while the servant returned to the curricle, if she could simply step out of the other door and skip the queue into a hackney…
But there was no time. Minton climbed in beside her and seized her arm. The postilion called to his horses, and she was jolted into motion, away from her home and family. And Dominic.
*
Miss Mather did not earn a particularly good salary with the Doves, but, not for the first time, she thanked the Almighty—and Mrs. Dove—for her position in their household. In no other post would she have been allowed the luxury of lazing around for the better part of a day just because she had been traveling. Particularly when she had been absent for the last fortnight. Besides which, she did enjoy the informality of the Dove household, the friendship of Viola, and the affection of the children, which she returned in full.
She would not save much money for her old age, but she was happy.
Viola, at the age of nineteen, was beyond the care of a governess, and she was no longer included among Miss Mather’s charges. But Viola’s reading difficulty and the problems that came with it had touched her heart and her professional pride. And so, though she was not required to give the children lessons that afternoon, she did seek Viola out before dinner in order to practice reading.
Viola’s bedchamber door was opened almost immediately—by Susan. Beyond her, the other children and Pup, who had grown even more enormous in the last fortnight, sprawled on Viola’s bed, all gazing expectantly at Miss Mather.
“We thought you might be Viola,” Susan said, dragging her inside.
“Why would Viola knock on her own bedchamber door?” Miss Mather inquired.
“She wouldn’t, of course,” Catherine agreed. “But we are worried enough to hope. She has not come home.”
Miss Mather frowned as she closed the door behind her. “Home from where?”
“She drove out with that Mr. Minton.”
“Yes, I know. To the park.”
“That was almost two hours ago,” Adrian said unhappily. “And I don’t think they even went into the park.”
“What makes you say that?” Miss Mather asked with a first tingle of unease.
“We were in the park,” Adrian stated. “Catherine and I, with Pup. We were training him.”
“He was doing really well,” Catherine interjected with a hint of pride. “Which is why we stayed so long. It started to get busy as the fashionable throng arrived to parade around the paths, and we had just decided to put him back on the leash and take him home when something moved in the bushes, and he shot off after it.”
“After all that training, he didn’t pay a blind bit of attention to us,” Adrian said gloomily, “so we did what we always do and chased after him. He was right at the gate before we caught him, too, terrorizing some spoiled lapdog, though he only wanted to play with it. Anyway, this was the far gate, Cumberland gate, and while I was putting the leash on Pup, we saw Viola, clear as day.”
“Outside the park?” Miss Mather asked.
“Yes. In a curricle with Minton. Catherine waved to her—we both did—but she didn’t see us. She looked…anxious. And then the curricle swept up Edgeware Road and drove away. And she’s still not back.”
Miss Mather felt dread begin to settle in the pit of her stomach. “Who is this Minton? What do you know of him? He must be a gentleman!”
“Nominally,” Catherine replied with a grimace. “He’s the brother of Sir Alfred Minton. They’re received everywhere. But then so was Cousin Phineas, and we all know he proved to be no gentleman.”
“We don’t talk about Cousin Phineas,” Arabella reproved. “But the thing is, we don’t understand where she was going with him. It was meant to be a drive in the park at the fashionable hour, not a drive past the park to who knows where.”
“Perhaps she talked him out of it,” Miss Mather suggested. “She doesn’t enjoy those busy park promenades.”
“That is true,” Catherine agreed. “But why hasn’t she come home?”
“Why did she agree to go in the first place?” Miss Mather demanded. “Is she taken with this Minton fellow?”
“Oh, Lord, no,” Susan said. “But we need him for information, and I don’t think he can be a very pleasant man.”
“What information?” Miss Mather demanded as her stomach began to sink further. “Why isn’t he a pleasant man?”
“Susan,” Adrian warned.
“We have to tell her,” Susan said fiercely and turned back to Miss Mather. “We think he did not bother to clear Lord Dominic’s name when he could have.”
“Who is Lord Dominic?” Everything was sinking now.
“Lord Dominic who hid in our cellar.”
“Gorse,” Catherine supplied. “He’s the youngest son of the Marquess of Sedgemoor and was sentenced to transportation for murder, only before they could move him to the ship, he escaped from Newgate.”
“To our cellar?”
“Via Maida Gardens.”
Miss Mather groaned. “Please do not tell me Viola went there, too, because I know it was not with your mama!”
“No, it was with Amelia, and of course, she went there because that is where she met Lord Dominic. He had been shot, and he was clearly a gentleman…”
“Like this Minton and Cousin Phineas?” Miss Mather said brutally.
The children looked at each other.
“Oh, he is not like them at all,” Catherine said earnestly. “And he makes Viola smile, and she doesn’t go all stiff and proper with him, as if she’s had her character removed by a surgeon.”
Miss Mather began to suspect the source of Viola’s new happiness but had no time to dwell on the unwisdom. “We must take a hackney and look for her. She may have had an accident. Or…how taken with Viola is this Minton fellow? He would not have eloped with her, would he?”
“He seems too boring for that,” Adrian offered.
“And yet somehow involved in the crime Lord Dominic Gorse was convicted of?”
The children stared at her.
“You have a way,” Catherine said gloomily, “of getting to the heart of the matter. I don’t like it.”
“Neither do I. You had better ask your mother to send apologies to whatever entertainment they were engaged to this evening. Probably best if she pleads illness so that Viola is not involved. If you saw her at the park, other people will have done so. I shall take a hackney and look for her.” Although, if Minton had abducted her, or, less likely, they had eloped together, they would be long gone.
