Page 102 of The Pleasures of Passion
She beamed at him, and threw herself into his arms. “Perfectly fine, now that you are here.”
He gave her a brief buss on the lips, which reassured her that he hadn’t thought she was really jilting him earlier.
Her uncle said, “What in God’s name are you doing here, Margrave?” but she no longer cared about Uncle Toby. She had Niall, and that was all that mattered.
Papa burst through the door next, looking as if his entire world had just shattered. “Toby, the officers are saying you’ve been counterfeiting banknotes! They’re looking at all the money you’ve given me over the past few months. Go tell them that it’s a mistake.” His voice grew frantic. “It can’t be true!”
“Of course it’s not true,” Uncle Toby said soothingly. “It’s a simple misunderstanding.”
“Hardly that, sir,” said a triumphant voice from the door. Lord Fulkham entered the tiny parlor, waving a sheaf of notes in his hand. “We found these among your funds, Sir Oswald. At least a quarter of them are fake.”
“So it’s true?” Papa asked his brother, clearly shocked. “You’ve been giving me counterfeited money to spread around town, you bloody arse?”
Assuming an expression of outrage, Uncle Toby turned to Lord Fulkham. “I don’t know what he’s talking about. I haven’t given him a damned thing. If there are counterfeit notes in his possession, they did not come from me.”
Lord Fulkham’s smile of satisfaction didn’t dim. “Ah, but these did.” He opened an apparently empty valise, then removed its false bottom to reveal more banknotes. “Thesewe found inyourrooms.”
Though the color had drained from Uncle Toby’s face, he shook his head resolutely. “My brother must have planted that valise in my bedchamber to implicate me in his scheme.” He ignored Papa’s roar of anger to add, “I’ll have you know, sir, that I’m a respectable merchant. Why would I break the law?”
“I don’t know thewhy,” Brilliana put in, “but you were certainly attempting it.” Drawing the document and its copy out of her pocket, she handed them to Fulkham. “I can’t be sure, but I think this is a French bill of exchange my uncle was trying to get me to forge a copy of.”
As Lord Fulkham looked over the two papers, Uncle Toby shot her a murderous look. “Don’t you see what is happening here, Lord Fulkham? My brother and my niece are in league to blame their crimes onme. I am not the one with the bill of exchange in my possession—sheis. And I am not the one with artistic abilities.Sheis.”
As Papa cast Brilliana a frantic look, Niall stiffened beside her, but she squeezed his arm reassuringly.
She was just about to explain how she’d changed the art to keep the bill from being used fraudulently, when Papa told Lord Fulkham, “Don’t listen to him, sir.” He drew himself up with a heavy sigh. “My daughter is just trying to protect me.Shedid not do anything. That copy was made by me.”
Surprise flickered over Uncle Toby’s face, but he masked it quickly. “You see? They’re in it together.”
“No,we’rein it together, Toby,” Papa bit out. “The jig is up.” Facing Lord Fulkham, he held out his wrists in an expression of resignation. “I will tell you everything, sir. Just take us both away, and leave my daughter be.”
Oh, for goodness’ sake, Papa chosenowto show he cared about her? “Lord Fulkham, my father had naught to do with—”
“Be quiet for a moment, Mrs. Trevor,” Fulkham ordered before turning to her father. “If that is so, sir, then tell me this.” He held up the original bill of exchange. “What sort of mythical creature appears in the emblem on this paper?”
As relief coursed through Brilliana, Papa blinked. “Mythical creature? What the bloody hell do you mean?”
“The artwork contains a mythical creature. The artwork ofbothcontains a mythical creature. What particular mythical creature is on this piece of paper?”
Papa looked as if he might faint right there. “Mythical . . . hmm . . . A dragon?”
Thank goodness she hadn’t chosen the dragon.
Smirking, Lord Fulkham turned to her. “And what wouldyousay is on there, Mrs. Trevor?”
She grinned. “A griffin on the original. The copy has a winged horse.”
Lord Fulkham nodded. “Very clever of you, my dear. It seems you are not so bad at subterfuge, after all.”
“You . . . youalteredit, you damned bitch?” her uncle cried.
She glowered at him. Now his true colors came out. “That’s what you ordered me to do, isn’t it? I seem to recall your saying that I needed to make only a few changes. So I did.”
As if realizing he’d given himself away, her uncle began to sputter, “This is not . . . I have friends,goodfriends in the government, who will not tolerate—”
“Take this scoundrel away, will you?” Lord Fulkham called to some men in the hall. As the officers entered to seize Uncle Toby, Fulkham added, “Judging from what Mrs. Trevorwasable to copy, you were planning to run, weren’t you? With a few simple changes to the name and the amounts, a ‘respectable man of business’ like you would have easily been able to get some foreign bank to honor the bill of exchange.”
Uncle Toby’s expression showed nothing. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, my lord.”
