Page 90 of Miss Determined
“What ishedoing here?” Purvis muttered. “And those documents belong to—” He made a swipe for the file, but Kettering—bigger, younger, faster—easily evaded the attempt.
“The file,” Trevor said, “belongs to the client. Jerome had no agent or factor in Bordeaux and certainly none with offices on the Rue du Vignoble, because there is no Rue du Vignoble anywhere in the whole city. He finished out his days as the long-term guest of an Austrian household and left no bills behind. The file is a complete fabrication, but the funds you removed from my account to pay those false claims are all too real.”
Purvis shifted to stand behind the bench he’d just been occupying. “You can’t prove any of that.”
“Mama’s banker had a word with your banker,” Lissa said. “The transactions are all duly documented. I’m told the trail of your thievery balances to the penny.”
Mama waved cheerily from her bench.
“So I took a few pounds here and there for services rendered,” Purvis retorted. “Do you truly wish to see Miss Brompton ruined? Miss DeWitt’s ailing reputation finished for all time? Shall I tell all of Society of your defective relation dwelling in the shires, my lord?”
Purvis was no longer keeping his voice down, and Sycamore and his brother—the Earl of Casriel sort of brother—had left their bench to stand a few yards off. At the busier end of the walkway, heads were turning.
A nattily attired fellow as tall as Trevor came strolling along, his walking stick balanced against his shoulder. His clothing fit him to perfection, and when Trevor gestured for him to join the conversation, Lissa could have been knocked over with a well-aimed hot cross bun.
“Phillip?”
“Lord Phillip Vincent.” He tipped his hat. “At your service, Miss Dewitt. Rumors of my defectiveness have been vastly exaggerated. Purvis, sorry to disappoint you.”
“He’s an impostor,” Purvis snapped. “The fellow at Lark’s Nest has a withered arm and no use of his right hand. Slow of speech. A dull-witted, shambling Lumpkin, and no sort of heir for a marquessate.”
“Do tell?” Trevor drawled. “His lordship looks to be quite in the pink to me, and I’m told he has authored at least a dozen pamphlets on Berkshire soils, crop rotation, and how to reap a double crop of peas in one growing season. I’m fairly sure he drafted those treatises with his right hand too.”
“Peas?” Had the Earl of Casriel been a hound, he would have gone on point. “A double crop? We really must talk.”
“Not now,” Lissa said. “Purvis, if you think to wreck Lord Tavistock’s prospects by revealing that he has a long-lost handsome and learned brother, please be about it. I’m prepared to inform all of Society that Lord Phillip has been a pillar of the community out in Berkshire. By the time the matchmakers are done fawning over him, and your fraud on Jerome Vincent’s estate has been revealed, you will be enjoying the crown’s hospitality at Newgate.”
She ought not to have said that. Trevor wanted justice, not a public spectacle.
“How dare you address me thus,” Purvis spat. “You are little better than a shopkeeper’s daughter, and—"
“And that,” Trevor said, “means your own sister is no better than a shopkeeper’s wife, albeit a wealthy and happy wife. She chose love over ambition, and you turned your back on her.”
Mrs. Adelia Winntower had been very articulate regarding her past and the brother she’d all but disowned years ago.
“Perhaps Purvis forgot he had a sister,” Phillip mused. “And here I thought disowning innocent family members was one of the stated privileges of the aristocracy. Another gap in my education reveals itself.”
Purvis clenched his walking stick before him, as if he were menaced by footpads rather than the truth of his own misdeeds. “I will not stand here and be insulted.”
“You were happy to insult me,” Lissa said. “You certainly took a few shots at Lord Phillip. You’ve been none too kind toward Miss Brompton.”
“Whom,” Trevor said quietly, “you will never bother again, Purvis. She has no use for me as a suitor, but I’m happy to serve as her champion. One word of gossip in the clubs about her or her family, and I will go to the authorities.”
Kettering opened the file bearing the record of Jerome’s expenses. “Please do. This is precisely the sort of evidence the Old Bailey delights in. Forged invoices, forged records of payment, Purvis’s signature on nearly every page. The bank records will dance step-by-step in accord with this file, and every single farthing ended up in Purvis’s account.” Kettering beamed at the documents. “A public hanging is all but guaranteed.”
“Because he,”—Purvis jabbed his walking stick toward Trevor—“lied to me. Fed me a false premise and urged action on me at every turn. When no expenses showed up, I merely sought to… to—”
The fellow who’d been reading his paper folded it down. “Do go on.” He rose, leaving the newspaper on the bench. “I thought I was the professional thespian in this crowd, but your performance shows some promise. Such sincere, spluttering outrage, while you clearly battle the urge to run all the way to Dover. Well done.”
“Gavin?” Lissa had to lean on Trevor lest her knees buckle. This was not the same Gavin who’d left Crosspatch two years ago. Even his voice was different, more resonant, more cultured. He’d put on muscle and gravitas, and his attire was ever so subtly less staid than that of the other gentlemen.
Mama went hurtling past to wrap her arms around her son. “You are alive. You are alive and well, and oh, I could spank you, Gavin DeWitt. Where have you been?”
“Purvis knew my itinerary,” Gavin said, gently hugging Mama back. “I sent it to him town by town, quarter by quarter, along with playbills, programs, and newspaper articles critiquing my performances. He always knew precisely where I was. I labored under the impression—the carefully crafted lie—that all the correspondence I sent to my family, care of my solicitor, was being passed straight on and probably read in the common of the Crosspatch Arms on darts night.”
“You were on the stage?” Lissa asked, still not sure this handsome, self-possessed gentleman was her younger brother.
“I have always wanted to act professionally, but at every turn, I was told that Papa had not freed us from the shop just so I could tread the boards. I am respected in my profession, and I have enjoyed every performance—almost every performance—but to have not one letter from home in two years? I suspected that silence was my family’s way of shunning me, and Purvis’s notes only encouraged my misperception.”
