Chapter 19

CHAPTER NINETEEN

I f Oakley had imagined that Lady Lenora had not heard him, or that she would let it lie, he was sorely mistaken. Scarcely had the gentlemen—all of them, including his lordship, replete with the scent of cigars and port—joined the ladies in the drawing room when she pounced on him.

“Reason to hope? Does that mean you have given up on your married lady, or do you mean to see her husband killed off?”

“Do you not need to exhibit at an instrument or something of that sort?” he teased in reply. “I thought young ladies were always eager to display their talents.”

“My primary talent is gathering information.”

“I fear this information is not mine to share.”

She gave him a little pinch. “Come, now! You know I would never give up your secrets. What did you mean when you said you had reason to hope?”

They had arrived at a small sofa by the window where Oakley hoped there might be some privacy. Spirits were high and the conversation and laughter being had by the rest of the family were loud; it was conducive to a clandestine conversation. Loath as he was to reveal what Bess had told him, he needed a plan to extricate her; thus, for the greater good, he would trust those he knew could be trusted.

“What it means is that she might not be as married as was previously understood.”

“That sounds intriguing! Pray tell me more,” Lady Lenora urged.

“The whole of it was a sham. Do you remember Mr Hanson, to whom Adelaide was briefly engaged?”

“From whom Adelaide made a most fortunate escape, you mean? I have only seen him once or twice—and I have never consented to an introduction. Nor this Beamish fellow.” She sniffed. “I hear that the estate—Beauvis, is it?—is bleeding money rather violently and is sure to be sold soon.”

“Your talent for gathering information is to be lauded. I had heard something similar, but I did not think it known abroad. In any case, Hanson posed as a vicar to unite Bess in unholy matrimony with Beamish. Beamish was after her fortune, and Hanson was meant to get a piece for his efforts, although it seems Beamish swindled him out of that.”

“And they say there is honour among thieves,” Lady Lenora said with a quirk of her brow.

“Beamish was certainly all for what he could get, and it seems he did not care whom he needed to stab in the back to get it. In any case, Bess believed herself lawfully wed, as does all of society, and never mind that she has hardly even seen her own husband in the entirety of two years.”

“Because Beamish was out stealing jewels with Damian?”

“Beamish was…well, my evidence is weak, but my gut tells me I am correct. I think he was stealing jewels and crossing people. Perhaps murdering Damian.” Oakley rubbed his forehead. “I can scarcely keep it all straight.”

“What are you two speaking of over here?” Kem asked, sliding a chair to be closer to them. “Pray tell me it is anything but babies and nurseries! Being a father is by far the most wonderful feeling I have ever known, but I confess I have reached the end of discussing it.”

“You may not like our conversation any better when I tell you whom we are discussing,” Oakley replied—and indeed when he relayed, in the briefest terms possible, the heinous plot he had uncovered, involving two of Kem’s most detested acquaintances, his brother-in-law looked suitably grim-faced.

“And so this Beamish fellow has crossed Hanson and possibly murdered Damian?” Kem asked.

“It would seem so.”

After a pause, Kem gave a tight shake of his head. “If it were not for his treatment of Miss Leighton, I should say the man deserved a medal, for you well know I have little enough regard for either of the other two—but his actions towards the young lady are abhorrent. And unfortunately, it seems she is neatly trussed. Scandal on one side and crime on the other.”

“Unless Beamish dies,” Lady Lenora said. “If he is caught, he will be hanged. Why not see him arrested? If there are jewels belonging to anyone else at his estate, it would be evidence enough, I daresay.”

Oakley shook his head. “That would rid me of Beamish, but the notoriety would ruin Bess as well. Wife to a hanged criminal? She might be implicated in the scheme herself and certainly would never be received again.”

“And if she reveals herself to have never been married, that would be equally undesirable,” Kem added. “I presume that the marriage was…consummated?”

“Yes, but without…with no issue. Obviously. She has not seen him in a twelve-month. In any case, an annulment, should she even be able to obtain one, requires Beamish’s agreement. Which brings us round, again, to the problem of no one being able to find him.”

“A twelve-month? Since Damian’s death, then.” Kem shook his head. “Very suspicious.”

“But you think Hanson knows where to find him?” Lady Lenora asked.

“I believe Hanson is able to get word to him, even if he does not know precisely where he is.”

“Then we have it.” She grinned. “Beamish must be persuaded that his death is in his own best interests.”

“I cannot see that we could persuade him to kill himself,” Oakley said dubiously.

Lady Lenora rolled her eyes. “His pretend death. He must agree to feign his death and leave for parts unknown, wholly persuaded that if the law does not get him, the Carters will. A drowning would be best if we can manage that—no body to worry over.”

Oakley and Kem both stared at her, and Oakley suspected that he looked as astonished as his brother-in-law did.

“What novel did you read that in?” Kem finally enquired.

“Oh, pooh!” She waved a hand at him. “One does not linger about the gaol as I do without developing a taste for scheming. Now, how shall we go about it? Perhaps Hanson might get word to him, let him know that the noose is tightening, and arrange a meeting?”

“I had thought to pay Hanson to give him up…” Oakley said slowly.

Lady Lenora shook her head. “If Hanson knew where Beamish was, he would not need to importune Bess to try and get payment—but I imagine he knows how to get word to him.”

There was a short silence until Kem said, “Lady Lenora is probably correct.”

“I am certainly correct,” she informed him loftily. “Thus you must get word to Beamish that Lord Tipton intends to see him swing for Damian’s murder, that the Rundells mean to pin that robbery on him, and that the Carters intend to exact their due—but that you are willing to help him escape all of that.”

“But why?” Kem argued. “Why would Oakley have such mercy on him?”

“Because above all, I love Bess,” Oakley said quietly but staunchly. “And winning her hand means more to me than seeing my worthless uncle’s murderer brought to justice.”

Lady Lenora gave a firm nod of her head. “Just so! If Beamish can be persuaded to feign his death and leave England forever, then Oakley—” She gave him a little pat on the arm. “Oakley will get his wife.”

“What about Hanson? Or any of the other men involved?” Kem asked.

“They get all the enjoyment of unpunished misdeeds,” Oakley replied, sitting up straighter in his seat and taking up Lady Lenora’s idea. “The jewels are at Beauvis, and Damian’s money paid for the theft of them—nobody else’s. If whatever remains on English soil could be returned to their rightful owners, the families would be happy, the thieves would be forgot—we hope—and everyone would continue on as they were. Even the Carters, for surely they would be well pleased to see the problem of traceable jewels removed for them. But Beamish must be persuaded they care about his neck above all, even if we know they likely do not, else he should be dead already.”

“What if I were to pretend to be mistress to one of them? I could tell them that I know it well that Mr Carter is highly displeased to see Damian gone,” Lady Lenora suggested, her eyes sparkling with excitement at the notion of some mischief. “I do not know this Beamish, and I should imagine he does not know me. I could wear a veil? I should imagine mistresses to the Carter gang must wear veils.”

“Good lord!” Oakley said with a laugh. “Len, the very idea!”

“What? It is a good idea! You know I have always been excellent at home theatricals.”

“This is hardly drawing room amusement,” Oakley said. “Beamish may have killed my uncle and he has certainly proved quite a thief! He might be dangerous.”

“I might be dangerous too, you know. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned,” Lady Lenora replied. “Pray do not scorn me.”

He held his hands up in a gesture of surrender and said, laughingly, “The last thing I should do is scorn you. Indeed, once all of this is written into a play, you will be the first person cast as the smuggler’s mistress. Will that do?”

“Very well then, but I shall wish for a full accounting of the meeting,” she said good-naturedly. “I would have done it to acclaim.”

Lady Lila approached their group. “Lenora, Mama wishes you to come and play.”

Lady Lenora rose with a heavy sigh. “Prepare yourselves for something very dreadful, good sirs, for I have not touched the instrument for a six-month complete.” The two ladies walked off, leaving Kem and Oakley behind.

“We will need some protection for ourselves, you know,” Kem mentioned. “Some overgrown footmen ought to do us well.”

“Us?” Oakley enquired. “Do you mean to accompany me on this escapade?”

“I cannot let you go alone, can I?”

“Bess’s brother will be there as well,” Oakley replied. “I should not wish to put you in danger any more than my cousin.”

Kem shot him a sidelong glance. He was, of all their circle, likely the largest and most brawny. Oakley had watched him as he broke a horse last spring with scarcely a bead of sweat on his brow.

“Yes, yes, I see the nonsense in my words now,” Oakley said with a chuckle. “No doubt you could beat Beamish with one hand and the Carters with the other.”

Kem smiled. “Let us do it, then.”

“‘Nothing ventured, nothing have’, as they say,” Oakley replied determinedly.

“Hanson is just the sort of fellow to always be lingering about when he is not wanted, and then lost to the ether when one needs him!” Oakley gazed about Lady Barcroft’s crowded ballroom two evenings later with disgust. “Where has he taken himself, now?”

By his side, Bess said, worriedly, “Perhaps it is a sign that the scheme ought not to be attempted.”

She had not been in agreement with him about his plan. Leighton had thought it terribly brilliant, but Bess had been more difficult to persuade. Only the hard truth, that without some sort of daring scheme, she might be bound to Beamish forever, caused her to relent.

“If anything, it is a sign that Hanson is, as I have long suspected, mostly useless,” Oakley scoffed. “Shall we dance? We might catch sight of him going down the line.”

As it was, Oakley could only keep half his attention on the other dancers; the rest was wholly devoted to Bess. She was positively beside herself with excitement that Scarlett was increasing.

“She will be such a wonderful mother! I can still remember in Stanbridge how much she enjoyed it when the little ones would come to her needing help learning their sums or tying their boots. I confess I had begun to worry for her, that there might be some difficulty conceiving.”

“Perhaps there was,” Oakley agreed. “I shall admit, I try to hear as few of the details as possible.”

She laughed merrily, and he realised how rarely he had seen her do so since her marriage. It lifted his heart even as part of him wished she might be as she once was, where merry laughter was a daily, if not hourly, occurrence for her. It was undeniably pleasant to put aside thoughts of Hanson and Beamish and speak as courting couples spoke. To his delight, Bess was full of happy tidings. Leighton, she informed him, was quite in love with Miss Talbot.

“Does your brother think of matrimony?” he asked.

“He is a little young, I suppose, but there is nothing to speak against it.”

“And a good deal to speak for it,” he replied with a devilish grin as he surreptitiously squeezed her hand.

They continued on in this vein throughout their dance. It reminded Oakley why Bess was such the ideal woman for him. He could speak to her about anything, even things ladies did not often enjoy speaking of—at one point touching upon the matter of mine subsidence, and at another on the finer points of his most recent bout in the fencing parlour.

He enjoyed hearing of her little nothings too, a favourite book she was re-reading for the eleventh time, and how she believed autumn to be the finest season, particularly late autumn when she might see her breath outside. “I do not know why,” she told him, “but seeing my breath has always seemed exceedingly magical to me.”

“At Chiltern Court, we see our breath routinely from November through to February,” he told her. “We are like dragons up there.”

“Really?”

“No, not really,” he admitted with a laugh. “I only wish to make you feel as if you would enjoy living there.”

“I would enjoy living in a cave so long as I lived there with you,” she told him in a low voice.

“There we have it, then,” he said in similar accents. “If the first plan does not succeed, you and I shall find ourselves a charming cave dwelling.”

The dance ended then, and they removed from the floor, chatting affectionately as they went. Oakley observed an occasional gimlet-eye upon them, and one or two who dared to whisper; no surprise there, for the ton was adept at finding bits of interest even in the least interesting places. It might have angered him had he not known that one day none of it would signify. We will see how brave you all are when she is Viscountess Oakley , he told them all silently. Sister to a duchess and two countesses, with my mother as her own. See how you want to bow and scrape to her then!