Chapter 34

34

‘I knew it!’ gloated the Marquess, the barrel of the pistol he held waving about from one target to another in a most alarming manner. ‘I knew the bitch took the jewels and you were caught up in it, Drake! That’s why I set a reliable man to watch you, and to bring me word of your movements. I knew you had betrayed me?—’

‘You’ve given me no cause to feel the least scrap of love or loyalty for you,’ said Rafe steadily. ‘If I’m betraying you, I’m only repaying the favour with interest. I have always been well aware you never gave a damn about me, or anyone but yourself, so to be expecting filial concern from me at this late stage is ridiculous. I hate you, and with good reason. And I don’t know how you have the gall to call Sophie a bitch – what does that make the woman you married, and set on to seduce me when I was only a boy? While you watched!’

‘By Christ, Drake, I’ll shoot you myself before I let those jewels leave my sight!’ said the Marquess, his face quite purple with fury and exertion. If he heard his son’s accusations, he had no response to make to them. It seemed that all he cared about was the possessions he’d lost and thought he had a chance of regaining now.

‘It’s very lowering to see how little you have changed, Gervais,’ said Nate, stepping forward in a manner, Sophie thought as she watched in silent incomprehension, that seemed calculated to draw Wyverne’s attention, and the aim of his pistol, away from his son. ‘I knew, of course, of your reputation – as does everyone in England, I expect – but here I see it confirmed in every unpleasant detail. What a nasty bully you have always been, and how I shall enjoy besting you at last.’

‘You!’ said the Marquess blankly. And then, ‘How dare you set foot on my land after all these years, you trespassing bastard? Have you forgotten the beating I gave you the last time I set eyes on you? Are you in league with the treacherous cub, eh?’

‘I never met my nephew before yesterday, nor had any contact with him,’ said Nate deliberately. ‘For all I knew, he was as vicious as you are. And yes, I am a bastard, as you so often reminded me when I was a boy, but those ancestors our father built his ridiculous temple to are mine also, which is why I arranged for us all to have our little encounter here. And don’t think of calling for assistance – some of the ruffians you think you’ve bought are in my pay now, and you don’t know which. They’re as likely to knock you over the head as help you.’

Sophie realised now why Lord Wyverne had always seemed oddly familiar to her, and how the unmistakeable resemblance between the two men had come about. A great deal that had been unclear now made perfect sense. She darted a glance at Rafe to see if this revelation had shocked him equally, but was surprised to see that his expression had not changed. He smiled at her, a strange moment of lightness in such a tense scene, and said softly, ‘There are others. I really should have made the connection myself. Many others. My grandmother had a great deal to bear in her marriage.’

Before Lord Wyverne could gather his wits to respond, Nate went on, ‘I’m not the only person here with good reason to hold a grudge against you. Tell him who you are, Sophie, and why exactly you did what you did. This is a morning for revelations, I think.’

‘I’d be delighted,’ she said, unbuttoning her pelisse and pulling the chain that held the Stella Rosa out of the neckline of her gown. She held it up, and the huge jewel sparkled with pink fire in the spring sunshine. ‘I’m Clemence de Montfaucon, and this is mine,’ she told him fearlessly. ‘And I’ve taken it back. You destroyed my family, but you didn’t destroy me. My father was shamed, and took his own life, and when you heard about it you laughed. You thought, if you thought about the matter at all, that you could tear down my reputation, and my mother’s, steal this from us, and just walk away, because I was a mere woman and too weak to fight you. But you were wrong, because you’re stupid as well as wicked. You’re a common thief – much worse than that, in fact, because common thieves steal to live, and you just do it because you enjoy it. When you’re in the ground nobody will mourn – people will spit on your grave until you are forgotten. There isn’t a person in the world who truly loves you or cares if you live or die.’

Wyverne’s eyes were wild, and his weapon was no longer pointing at anyone in particular, due perhaps to an over-abundance of possible targets. It was clear that nobody had ever defied him in so open a manner before, let alone three people in succession, and he was finding the experience most disagreeable. ‘I’ll tell the world I had you, bitch!’ he spluttered at last. ‘I said I would, and I will. I’ll say your father begged me to fuck you to get a better price for the necklace, and you must have got a taste for it because now you’re letting my whelp?—’

This sentence too was destined to go unfinished, because Fred, who hadn’t taken any part in the conversation thus far and whose presence Lord Wyverne had entirely disregarded, stepped forward and floored the older man with a punishing right that almost lifted him off his feet.

‘I don’t, as a general rule,’ he said, looking down at Lord Wyverne in a measuring fashion and poking him with one massive foot, ‘approve of the knocking down of elderly coves and those as weren’t expecting it. But I don’t like your dirty mouth, old man, and I don’t like what Nate’s told me you did to him when he was a green young shaver and you was a swell blade old enough to know better. Proper wicked, that was.’ He paused, his voice choked by some strong emotion, and then gathered himself and turned to Rafe, saying in a more level tone, ‘If you should feel the need to take up cudgels in your pa’s defence, my lord, it’d be a pleasure to stand up against you, even if I’m not the man I was when you saw me go to it with Jem Belcher.’

‘And even then he knocked you down and you stayed down, as I recall, despite that famous right of yours,’ said Lord Drake equably. ‘But that was before poor Belcher lost his eye, of course. No, I’m not likely to be leaping to Wyverne’s defence, man. Far from it. I’ve never come so close to laying hands on him myself, which would still be a shocking thing however much he deserved it. So I owe you my thanks, for sparing me the necessity. And it was very neatly done.’

‘Happy to do it,’ said Fred gruffly, clearly most gratified. ‘And sorry, in a way, not to have a chance for a set-to with you. You’re a rare gorger, and no mistake, unlike him . If he’d stand up, I might just put him down again. He’s not had all that’s coming to him, not by any means. What’s one blow to the muzzler.’

There didn’t seem to be any immediate prospect of Fred getting his wish. Lord Wyverne was still groaning upon the floor, not insensible but nearly so, and there was plainly no question of him taking any further part in the discussion, or making any move to prevent his half-brother leaving with the bag of jewels.

‘I don’t think he’s fit to walk back to the house,’ said Rafe. ‘He won’t be for a while. I’ll go and find someone to carry him back – a wheelbarrow would seem appropriate.’

‘What will you tell them?’ asked Sophie, tucking the priceless jewel back inside her gown and buttoning her pelisse securely over it. ‘There’ll be a bruise for everyone to see.’

‘I should say there will be. I’ll inform Kemp that His Lordship must have tripped and fallen while alone – that we came upon him upon the ground in a sad state. I imagine that you will be gone when I return,’ he said, addressing Nate and Fred.

‘Ashamed to own me, nevvy?’ asked his uncle with a sardonic smile.

‘Certainly not. Anyone who has spent thirty years as that man’s son must be more or less dead to shame by now. You’ll have to work much harder at if you desire to be known as the most disreputable member of this family. But I would have thought it might be awkward for you to be seen here by any of the staff, and raise questions in their minds that would be better left unconsidered. I don’t suppose anyone would think to suspect me of knocking him down, while you and the Fancy, on the other hand… But it’s as you wish, of course.’

‘You’re right in a way,’ said Nate. ‘Quite a few members of your household would know me well enough, even after all these years, and if they thought I’d laid the old bugger flat I wager they’d sooner cheer me on than hand me over to the constable. But they don’t know Fred, and perhaps on reflection it’s best they never do make his acquaintance.’

Fred, solid as the tower that loomed behind him, had so very much the aspect of someone who’d just knocked a man down, enjoyed it, and was prepared to do it again that Lord Drake and Sophie could only agree. ‘I’ll take my leave, then, Uncle,’ said Rafe. ‘It’s been interesting, that’s undeniable. I don’t know if our paths will ever cross again. Good luck to you.’

They shook hands, and Fred engulfed the Viscount’s hand in his great paw. ‘It was a pleasure to meet you, Drake,’ Nate said. ‘I’m quite glad to know – I must be getting sentimental in my old age – that this place will be in safer hands when Wyverne’s dead. My father, the old Marquess, wasn’t what you’d call a saint, but at least he did well enough by me and my mother, and all his other by-blows. He’d have had something to say if he’d seen how his precious heir has turned out.’

Rafe smiled briefly at this, and then said quietly, ‘I’m assuming – hoping – that you’ll still be here when I get back, Sophie.’

‘I will,’ she said. She couldn’t leave him in such an abrupt fashion. She probably should, but to do it was quite beyond her in this moment.

He strode swiftly away down the hill on hearing her reassurance, and she turned to face her companions. ‘You did it, Sophie,’ said Nate, smiling. ‘Everything we planned, and more. I’m proud of you. I’ll not soon forget Wyverne’s face when you told him what you thought of him. I hope it felt good.’

‘It did,’ she said. ‘I’m happy I pulled it off, and happier still that he knows it was me, and that some at least of his atrocious behaviour has come back to bite him. But my family will never know I did it, and it won’t bring them back, will it, Nate?’

‘No. Nothing will. Listen, my girl,’ he told her, taking her by the shoulders, ‘you’re still young, and you can choose which path you take. You’re free to do that now. If you want to come back to us, we’ll be very happy to have you, won’t we, Fred?’ Fred rumbled assent. ‘But you don’t have to. You’ve got other options, it seems to me.’

‘I can’t sit and take tea and mind my sewing and be a respectable lady,’ she said, hovering between laughter and tears. ‘I’m surprised you of all people would suggest as much to me. It’s far too late for that.’

‘But do you know he wants you to?’ Nate asked reasonably. ‘It doesn’t seem to me that he’s so much as raised an eyebrow at anything you’ve done. I’d call that rare. There’s not many men could cope with a woman like you. I’d have done so easily, of course, if I’d been in the petticoat line, which as you are well aware I’m not.’ Fred snorted. ‘But then I’m an exceptional man in many ways. Maybe my nephew is too.’

‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘He may be, I suppose. But I won’t be responsible for ruining him, even if some part of him wants me to. And it’s high time you were gone from here. Take care, won’t you?’ She stepped forward and hugged them both, a thing she’d never done before, and then watched as they headed off down the hill, Fred carrying the bag full of jewels, in the opposite direction to that which Rafe had taken earlier. I wonder if I’ll ever see them again? she mused, as the apparently ill-assorted pair vanished into the trees. It felt like an ending.