Chapter Thirty

T he sun had sunk below the horizon, and Saffron had re-donned her dress—much to Leo's disappointment—when there was a knock at the door.

"Come in," he said.

The door creaked open, and Simon stepped in. "Do you feel up to getting around?" his cousin asked. "My wife is eager to hear from you."

"Your wife ? You, Simon Mayweather, are married?" Leo shook his head. "I must still be dreaming. How long was I in that sickbed?"

"Not so long that you will not be forgiven."

Saffron, still clinging to Leo's side, giggled. "You should have seen it. Lord Canterbury drank rather more than he should have and lost a small fortune to Simon at the card table. He accused Simon of cheating and demanded he give back everything he had won. When Simon refused, the duke challenged him to a duel. A duel! Can you believe it? Angelica was furious."

Leo scanned his cousin from head to toe. "I assume you won this duel?"

Simon snorted. " His Grace didn't show. He sent his second with a note saying he wished me…" Simon coughed. "I will not repeat the words with a lady present."

"My sister still almost refused to marry Simon," Saffron said. "After the duke fled, it took both me and Rosemary to convince her to seize her chance at true happiness."

Simon looked acutely uncomfortable. "Yes, well, I am no duke, but I've given up gambling and taken up a post as an assistant to a barrister. What I won from the duke is not enough to last us a lifetime, after all."

Leo suppressed the urge to laugh. His cousin, a working man. A true miracle.

"I'll gift you some funds, as a wedding present," Leo said. "Enough to rent a small house in London for a year or two."

Simon's cheeks reddened, but he didn't refuse the offer. He made a slight bow and murmured his thanks.

He really has changed.

"Well, let's not keep Angelica waiting," Saffron said, breaking the silence. She stuck close to Leo's side as they followed Simon down a grand set of stairs and into a warm, inviting dining room.

There, Angelica sat at a table, breaking her fast. She was dressed in a soft muslin gown of striped lavender. When they entered, her full lips turned down in a frown. "Sit, Lord Briarwood. My husband forgets his manners. You do not want to strain your leg."

Simon pulled out a chair, and Leo slumped into it.

"Well, now that the reunion is over," Simon said with a small cough. "Perhaps we should tell you what happened after we pulled you from the water."

"I would appreciate that," Leo said, linking his fingers with Saffron as she pulled up a seat beside him. "I feel I may have missed some important details. What happened to Percy? Is he dead?"

"Yes," Saffron said. "His body washed up this morning."

Simon put a hand on Angelica's shoulder. "We don't know exactly how he did it, but as far as we can tell from your records, that boat held dozens of Ravenmore paintings. I am sorry, cousin, but we could not recover them in time."

He felt a pang of loss. His sister had spent so many hours working on those paintings. But in the end, that was all they had been. Fragments of a sister he had once loved. They could not fill the hole in his heart.

"Do we know why he had all the paintings in the boat?"

Simon tapped his fingers on the table. "Scotland Yard searched Percy's office in London and found a ticket to the continent."

Leo whistled. "Clever man."

"How so?" Angelica asked. "That's what I don't understand. Someone would have figured it out, eventually. As soon as the museum appraisers checked any of their paintings, I would imagine."

"Ah," Saffron said. "But if Percy had replaced every Ravenmore supplied to him with a forgery…"

Angelica laughed. "Oh, I see. Without an original for comparison, the forgeries would have passed authentication, assuming the same forger painted all of them. That is clever."

"The auction," Saffron said, suddenly. "If that boat held every known genuine Ravenmore painting except one, he had to have it."

"Why?" Simon asked, helping himself to a piece of bread on Angelica's plate and getting his hand swatted. "What harm could one genuine painting have done? Why not simply leave and cut his losses?"

"Greed," Angelica said. When all eyes turned to her, she shrugged. "What purer motive is there?"

"More than that," Saffron said. "Mr. Morgan was determined to purchase that painting. He brought a purse large enough to buy a small country. Percy would have researched the prospective buyers and known that. And Mr. Morgan would not have been content to let such a piece sit in his home. He would bring the painting to an appraiser. The appraiser would compare the painting to the known samples in museums and since the painting was genuine, it would appear aberrant, and therefore would be declared a forgery."

"And where would Mr. Morgan go next, but Lord Briarwood, where he had purchased the piece," Angelica said, crossing her arms over her chest. "To demand a return of his money."

"From there, the entire plot would have unraveled," Leo continued. "Percy's plan depended on my remaining out of society and unaware. The moment I saw one of the forgeries in a museum, I would have known at once. Percy must have decided, because of greed or fear, that it was worth the risk."

"We should be glad he did not simply choose to kill you and avoid the whole mess," Simon said. "There are ways to kill a man that would seem like an accident."

"Like a carriage accident?" Saffron asked.

The room fell silent for a moment, then Angelica put down her silverware. "I believe I have lost my appetite."