Mary Balogh - Slightly Wicked

So much pointless speculation was sending her brain into a spin again.

The journey proved to be a wasted one. Branwell was not at home and his landlord did not know when to expect him.

“Though the ‘ole world ’as been arsking for ‘im last night and this morning,” he said, “And now two females. If that don’t beat all.”

“Mr. Law is my brother,” Judith explained. “I need him urgently on ... on family business.”

“Ah,” the man said, leering at them and revealing a wide array of half-rotten teeth, “I figured one of you was prob’ly ‘is sister.”

“Did you indeed, my man?” Lady Freyja said, looking at him along the length of her nose. “And did you also figure to amuse us with your impudent observation? Who else has been asking for Mr. Law?”

The man lost his leer and looked instantly more respectful. “Now that, begging your pardon, ma’am,” he said, “is confidential.”

“Of course it is,” Lady Freyja said briskly, opening her reticule. “And you are, of course, the soul of integrity. Who ?”

Judith’s eyes widened when she saw that her companion had drawn a bill worth five pounds from her reticule and was holding it folded between the middle and forefingers of one hand.

The landlord licked his lips and half reached out one hand. “There was someone come last night,” he said. “ ‘e was some nob’s servant, wearing blue and silver livery. Two gents come this morning and a tradesman right on their ’eels. I know ‘im—Mr. Cooke. I s’pose Mr. Branwell owes ’is bootmaker some money again. I din’t know them gents from Adam, and I din’t arsk, though they was both real nobs.

Then another gent come ‘ere just before you. I didn’t arsk ’o ‘e were neither. And I ain’t arsking ’o you are.“

Lady Freyja handed over the bribe though she had got precious little information for such a vast fortune.

Judith looked on aghast. Bran’s creditors were still after him, then. Who were the three gentlemen? Lord Rannulf and two others? Or Lord Rannulf and one of his brothers and one other?

Horace?

Where on earth was Bran? Was he just out for the morning? Selling or pawning some jewels perhaps?

Or had he left London again?

She felt sick to her stomach.

“Come along,” Lady Freyja said to her. “We will get no more information here, I believe.” She gave directions to the hackney cab driver. “Take us to Gunter’s.”

“I am so sorry,” Judith said. “I have no money with which to reimburse you. I—I left Leicestershire in such a hurry that I forgot to bring some. I will have to repay you some other time.” But when ?

“Oh, pooh,” Lady Freyja said with a dismissive wave of one hand. “That is nothing. But I wish we might have been more royally entertained. You do not really believe your brother is the thief, do you? I far prefer the idea of its being Mr. Effingham. I have set eyes on him once or twice. He gives me the shudders though he presents all the appearance of believing himself to be the consummate ladies’ man.”

“I do hope ,” Judith said fervently, “that he is the guilty one. But however am I to prove it?”

Gunter’s, she discovered, sold ices. What an indescribable luxury! And in the morning too. She and Lady Freyja sat at one of the tables, and Judith took small mouthfuls from her spoon and savored every one, letting the ice melt on her tongue before swallowing. It seemed strange to indulge her senses this way when disaster hovered about every corner.

Whatever was she going to do next? She could not keep on staying at Bedwyn House or keep on relying on Rannulf to fight her battles. Yet there was no hope that she could move into Branwell’s rooms and await his return.

What was she going to do?

The Duke of Bewcastle, having returned at dawn from a night spent with his mistress, had gone out for his usual early morning ride with his brothers and sisters. He had gone to White’s for breakfast afterward, but did not then proceed to the House of Lords, the spring session having finally ended two days before.

In fact, had his sisters not arrived unexpectedly from the country just two days before that, he would probably have been at home in Lindsey Park by this time to spend the rest of the summer.

He returned home from White’s and withdrew to his library for the rest of the morning to deal with some correspondence. He looked up with a frown not half an hour later when his butler tapped on the door and opened it.

“There is a Mr. Effingham waiting in the hall to see you, your grace,” he said. “Shall I tell him you are from home?”

“Effingham?” The duke frowned. The whole melodrama surrounding Rannulf’s return to London the day before was something he would prefer to ignore. But the matter needed to be cleared up. He must go to Grandmaison before it was too late to see his grandmother. “No, show him in, Fleming.”

Horace Effingham was unknown to the Duke of Bewcastle. But he came striding into the library, smiling and confident, as if the two of them were blood brothers. The duke did not rise. Effingham strode across to his desk and half leaned across it, his right arm outstretched.

“It is good of you to see me, Bewcastle,” he said.

His grace availed himself of his quizzing glass, through which he looked briefly at the offered hand before letting the glass fall on its ribbon against his chest.

“Effingham?” he said. “What may I do for you?”

The other man smiled even more broadly as he withdrew his hand. He looked about as if for a chair, did not see one close by, and so continued to stand.

“I understand that your brother is in residence here again,” he said.

“Do you?” his grace said. “I trust that my butler has seen fit to inform my cook. I do, of course, have three brothers.”

Effingham laughed. “I referred to Lord Rannulf Bedwyn,” he said.

“Ah, quite so,” the duke said.

There was a short silence during which Effingham appeared disconcerted for a moment.

“I must ask your grace,” he said, “if he brought a lady here with him. A Miss Judith Law?”

“You must ask?” The duke’s eyebrows rose.

Effingham set both hands flat on the desk and leaned slightly across it. “Perhaps you do not know,” he said, “that if she is here, you are harboring a criminal and a fugitive. It is a crime in itself, your grace, though I am certain you would not continue to harbor her once you knew the truth.”

“It is a relief,” his grace said, repossessing himself of his quizzing glass, “to know that I hold such a high place in your esteem.”

Effingham laughed heartily. “Is Miss Law here, Bewcastle?” he asked.

“It is my understanding,” the duke said, half raising the glass, “that rape is also a felony. When the charge is merely attempted rape, of course, a conviction might be less assured. But the word of two persons against one might carry some weight with a judge and jury, especially when one of those persons is the brother of a duke. Can you find your own way out, or shall I summon my butler?”

Effingham straightened up, all pretense of affability gone.

“I am on my way to hire a Bow Street Runner,” he said. “I plan to run them to earth, you know, Judith and Branwell Law. And I mean to recover my step grandmother's jewels. There will be a nice little scandal surrounding the trial and sentencing, I daresay. If I were you, your grace, I would distance myself from it and advise your brother to do the same.”

“I am infinitely grateful,” the Duke of Bewcastle said, raising his glass all the way to his eye, “that you esteem me sufficiently to come all the way to Bedwyn House to advise me. You will close the door quietly on your way out?”

Effingham was slightly white about the mouth. He nodded slowly before turning on his heel and striding out. He banged the door shut.

His grace looked after him thoughtfully.

Rannulf looked at Judith in some exasperation. She looked vivid and gorgeous with her red hair uncovered, nothing like the almost invisible shadow she had been at Harewood. She had also been out this morning, venturing into an area of London where respectable ladies did not go, dragging Freyja with her. No, that at least was unfair. Freyja would have needed no dragging.

It had been entirely unnecessary for her to go. She knew that he was going himself to see if her brother was at home. Branwell Law had not been there, of course, and all the inquiries he and Alleyne had made at various likely places had turned up nothing useful. Several men knew Law. None of them knew where he might be.

But Bewcastle came into the room before Rannulf could rip into Freyja—since he had no real right to rip into Judith. Perhaps it was just as well. Judith would surely have witnessed a family brawl. Wulf had come to suggest in that soft, deceptively languid way of his that it might be in the interests of all concerned if the effort to find Branwell Law were redoubled.

“I have just had a fascinating visit from Mr. Effingham,” he said. “He was under the strange illusion that I harbor felonious fugitives at Bedwyn House. Since he received no satisfaction here, he will no doubt seek it elsewhere from another perceived fugitive, who has presumably not found a safe sanctuary and perhaps is even unaware that he needs to. You did not, I suppose, find Mr. Law at home this morning, Rannulf?”

Rannulf shook his head.

“Someone else is looking for him, though,” Freyja said and won for herself a long, silent stare from Wulf’s silver eyes. But Freyja was made of stern stuff. She merely stared right back and told Wulf what she and Judith had already told Rannulf and Alleyne. She added that she had bribed the information about the other visitors out of the landlord.

Wulf’s eyes, still regarding their sister, narrowed. But instead of the blistering setdown Rannulf had fully expected, Bewcastle’s next words were directed at him.

“You had better go back there, Rannulf,” he said. “I smell a proverbial rat. I’ll go with you.”

“I am coming too,” Judith said.

“Judith—”

“I am coming too.”

She gazed with stormy determination into Rannulf’s eyes, and for the first time he wondered if there were not perhaps some truth to the old cliché about redheads and tempers. All he wanted to do was sort out this mess for her so that she could be at peace, so that he could get back to the business of wooing her. And this time he would do it properly. He would make her his lady ...

“In that case,” Bewcastle said with a sigh, “Freyja had better come too. It will be a veritable family outing.”

They went in one of Bewcastle’s private carriages—a plain one that he used when he did not wish to draw attention to himself. Soon they were back at Law’s lodging house. Rannulf could see no particular point in returning there, but Wulf was in one of his incommunicable moods.

The landlord tossed his glance skyward when he opened the door to the coachman’s knock and saw them all arrayed on his doorstep.

“Lord love us,” he said. “ ‘ere we go again.”

“Quite so,” Bewcastle said, quelling the man’s impudence with a single cold glance and causing him to bob his head respectfully instead and pull at his forelock. How did Wulf do that, even to strangers? “I understand that Mr. Bran well Law is a popular young man this morning.”

“That ‘e is, sir,” the man said. “First a servant last night, then that gen’leman there with another this morning, then a different gent, then them two ladies back there. Quite a morning it ’as been.”

“And you could give none of them any information about Mr. Law?” Bewcastle asked. “About whether he has been here during the last few days? About when you last saw him?”

“I could not, sir.” The man drew himself up to his full height. “I do not give out personal information about my tenants.”

“You are to be commended,” Bewcastle said. “Some men in your position might try to make some extra money on the side by taking bribes in exchange for information.”

The landlord’s eyes slid uneasily toward Freyja and away again.

“When did you last see Branwell Law?” Bewcastle asked.

The man licked his lips. “Last night, sir,” he said, “after that servant come ‘ere. And this morning.”

“What?” Judith cried. “You said nothing about this to me this morning.”

“ ‘e come after you left, miss,” the man said.