Three Nights with a Scoundrel

Page 45

“He was with Leo that night,” she huffed. “They were … They were lovers.”
“What?” he signed. Julian was certain he’d misheard her.
“Lovers?” Ashworth and Morland echoed.
So. It would seem he hadn’t misheard.
She nodded, looking around the group. “Yes, lovers. I’m sure of it. I have letters from Faraday to my brother. They leave no doubt.”
For a prolonged moment, the armory was strangely silent. He and Ashworth and Morland looked from one to another. To their boots. To the horizon. Looking around in vain for explanations, he supposed. Or maybe just escape.
Considering Julian’s own history of debauchery, he’d never felt himself in the position to judge others’ sexual affairs. And to be sure, he’d known his share of mollies. His own tailors, for a start. It was no secret Schwartz and Cobb were more than just business partners. In his youth, there’d been a molly house just a block from Anna’s coffeehouse. And even within the ton, there were always those “confirmed bachelors.”
But those were other men. They weren’t Leo.
Lovers. Leo and Faraday, lovers.
Julian briefly considered reconstructing his mind to accommodate the concept. Then he pushed the idea away. Renovations on such a grand scale took more time than he could spare right now. “We already knew Faraday was there. He took the attack meant for me. I was supposed to be with Leo that night.”
“But you weren’t,” Morland said. “Faraday was. And if they had some kind of relationship …”
“A crime of passion?” Ashworth put in. “Is that what you’re thinking?”
“Wait a minute. You’re forgetting Cora Dunn. You know, the female prostitute Leo picked up that evening?” Yes, Julian reminded himself. He’d been with a woman. Lily had to be wrong. “Cora saw two men attacking them, and the brutes she described looked like Stone and Macleod down there. They were apprehended in the same neighborhood, on the same night. We’re here for a reason.”
Of all the untenable notions, that would be the most impossible to accept—that they were here for nothing. That after all this, no answers awaited him. No future.
Morland swore. “I have to leave. Jesus Christ, that man is in my house.”
“Faraday had nothing to do with it,” Julian insisted. Lily tugged at his sleeve, but he pulled his arm free and gestured toward the two convicts on the breakwater. “If those men killed Leo, we can’t let them walk free. He was our friend.”
“He was my brother,” Lily argued. “I’m his closest kin. If there’s a question over how to deal with this, shouldn’t it be mine to say?”
Click. The sound of a gun being cocked, uncomfortably close.
“I loved him. It’s mine to say.”
Julian wheeled around to see another man had joined them on the platform. Peter Faraday—standing tall and fit, armed with a double-barreled flintlock pistol.
Hatred flickered in the man’s gaze as he raised his gun. “No one move.”
Chapter Twenty-four
A shot cracked the air.
Julian had no time to raise his own weapon. No time to do anything, save throw his body in front of Lily’s. Faraday fired again, and a ball whistled past Julian’s ear.
After a split-second inventory of his vital organs to assure himself he was alive and unharmed, Julian whipped his head around, following the shots’ trajectory. Through the acrid cloud of black powder, he glimpsed Stone and Macleod reeling on the breakwater. The two convicts made slow, insensate dives into the Thames, shackles and all. If they weren’t already dead from their gunshot wounds, they would drown within the minute.
“No!” Julian cried. He surged toward the edge, in his desperation thinking to leap straight off the shipyard platform. How many feet down to the riverbank? Fifteen, perhaps? If he survived the jump with no broken bones, maybe he could fish the men out of the river.
But Lily wrapped her arms about him, holding him back. “No, don’t! There’s nothing you can do.”
Julian froze, swearing with helpless rage. He had no choice but to stop. It was that, or drag Lily over, too.
“It’s done,” Faraday said, coming to stand beside them. “It’s over.”
Yes, it was over. And Julian was done for. God damn it to hell. With those men went his only hope of identifying his enemy. His future was sinking to the bottom of the Thames like a lead weight. Nothing was left to mark Stone and Macleod’s presence on this earth, save a few ripples. The officers seemed not to have noticed a thing. It had all happened so fast, and what was the sound of two gunshots in the midst of an armory?
He choked on a sob. What did he do now? Numbness struck him in the knees. Feeling hopeless and doomed, he turned, took his wife in his arms, and held her. This was what he would do. He would hold on to Lily for as long as he could.
No one knew what to say.
Finally Morland said to Faraday, “I thought you were an invalid.”
“I was for a time.” He lowered his still-smoking weapon. “I got better.”
No doubt about it. Julian scarcely recognized Faraday as the same person they’d visited in Cornwall. Aside from his miraculous physical recovery, the man’s whole demeanor had changed. The Peter Faraday of Julian’s recollection had been vacuous, irreverent, shiftless. This Faraday was collected and sure. Ruthless, in a strangely professional way.
“Rot in hell,” the man said through gritted teeth, glaring hard at the breakwater.
Morland said, “You seem certain they were the right ones. Thought you said you couldn’t identify them.”
“I lied. I’d know them anywhere,” Faraday said. “They were the ones. They killed him.”
Another prolonged silence.
“Impressive marksmanship,” put in Ashworth at length, in some absurd attempt at small talk. “From your form, I would have marked you as military trained. But I’d know if you’d served in the army.”
“No. No army,” Faraday said, finally standing back from the edge. “My service to the Crown was in … shall we say, an unofficial capacity.”
“A spy?” Julian blurted out. “You’re a bloody spy?”
Faraday sighed and glanced around. “Yes, well. Generally, we avoid shouting that out in public.”
Julian could only stare at the man. Peter Faraday, a secret agent? In a dozen years, Julian never would have suspected him of espionage. But then, he supposed that was rather the point.
“What?” Faraday quirked a brow. “Did you think yourself the only man in England with a double life … Mr. Bell?”
“You.” Stunned, Julian allowed Lily to slide from his arms. He leveled a finger at Faraday. “In the street the other day … It was you.”
Faraday nodded. “It was me.”
“So when you said in Cornwall that the attackers had meant to kill me … you—”
“Lied. Yes. Men in my line of work tend to do that.”
Dizzied, Julian put a hand to his temple. From the beginning, everything that had led Julian to believe the attack was intended for him … all of it came from Faraday. And if Faraday had been lying to him the whole time, that meant no one wanted to kill Julian at all. He’d spent the past months seeing phantoms in shadows and tilting at windmills. “But why?”
“I wanted to keep you out of this.” He looked around at Morland and Ashworth. “Bloody amateurs, all of you.” He gestured toward the breakwater with frustration. “I had plans for them, damn it. To be sure, you’re all a bit slow, but it didn’t take me six months to learn who and where they were. I have connections, you know. I could have had these men killed at any time. Fallen overboard. Beaten to death in a prison fight. Shot during an attempted escape. Easiest thing in the world. No one would ever question their deaths, just like no one will question this. Stray shots from the firing range, the report will say. Happens all the time.”
He stared out at the river, toward the spot where the men had disappeared. “This is not what I had planned, damn it. I wanted to deal with them myself. Slowly, and at close range. I wanted them to suffer. I wanted them begging for mercy, and then I wanted the pleasure of denying their sniveling pleas. I wanted my face to be the last thing they ever saw.”
In a sudden fit of rage, he rushed to the platform’s edge and heaved the pistol out into the river. “Bastards!” he called after it, his voice breaking. “Goddamned filthy blackguards. That death was too good for you. I will hunt you down in hell.”
Julian looked to Lily. Her face was a blank mask of shock. How much of all this had she understood?
“Are you well?” he asked his wife, touching her arm.
“I’m not certain.”
Fair enough. At the moment, Julian wasn’t certain of much, either. He swiveled Lily to face Faraday and spoke and signed, “You owe us a great many explanations.”
Faraday nodded slowly. “You’ll have them. The two of you.” He turned to Ashworth and Morland. “As for you two, it’s none of your damn business. Morland, go home. Your ward is in labor.”
“Claudia?” The duke paled. “She’s giving birth?”
“May have done so already. When I left her, the doctor was already there. I couldn’t wait for your wife, but I sent word.”
“Amelia’s there with her,” Lily said. “She and Meredith both. They went back to Morland House straightaway.” To Faraday, she added, “They were at my house when your note arrived. That’s how I knew. I recognized your penmanship.”
“Ah.” Faraday’s eyes warmed. “So he saved the letters, did he?”
Lily nodded. “He did.”
A bittersweet smile curved his lips. “Incorrigible romantic. I expressly told him to burn them all.”
Leo had apparently disobeyed Faraday’s instructions, but to Julian’s eye the man wasn’t displeased. There was no denying it. It would seem the two had been more than mere lovers.
They’d been in love.
Lily took a step toward Faraday. “Mr. Faraday …” She sniffed. “May I hug you?”
Faraday blinked with surprise. His red-rimmed gaze slid sideways, and he gave a slight nod. “I’d welcome that.”
Lily moved forward and embraced the man, wrapping her arms about his shoulders and resting her cheek to his lapel. “I’m so sorry,” she said, starting to cry. “So terribly sorry. I miss him, too.”
“There, there,” Faraday murmured, patting her on the back. “Aren’t you a dear soul? And very much your brother’s sister, so much is clear.”
The two huddled together, drawing consolation from their shared grief. Julian felt a stab of ridiculous jealousy, but he forced it away. Far be it from him to deny Lily comfort from any source.
He would have his turn to hold her later. All night long. And for the lifetime after that.
Bloody hell. Belief hovered nearby, and his mind stretched to grasp it. Was it truly over?
“Go on,” Julian told Morland and Ashworth. “Go see to Lady Claudia and your wives. We’ll meet again soon.” As his friends started to leave, he impulsively added, “Oh, and thank …”
Both men halted mid-stride, turned, and stared at Julian as if he’d grown a third eye in the center of his brow.
“… you,” Julian finished self-consciously. This had been so much easier to say when they were faced in the opposite direction. But there they were, patiently listening, and it did need saying. “I, uh, just wanted to say”—he cleared his throat and made the next words almost part of the cough—“thank you. You know. For … not leaving. Earlier.”
The duke’s discomfort was plain. “Don’t go getting emotional, Bellamy. We aren’t going to hug.”