Page 22 of One Night with a Prince
“Then you shouldn’t have kissed my hand and called me ‘my sweet’ when you took your leave.”
She had a point. But hearing them tell her about his sordid childhood in the streets had provoked him. He had spent his life amassing a substantial fortune, yet no one could forget where he’d begun. That was Prinny’s fault, and Gavin meant to make the man atone for it, one way or the other.
“Well, as you say, it hardly matters.” He led her outside and down the steps to his cabriolet. “They don’t move in Stokely’s circle, so you’ll have little occasion to see them.” He cast her a side glance. “Unless you plan to take society by storm after this is over.”
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“Hardly. I’ll have enough trouble withthis scheme. Once I have my property back, I’ll retreat to the country and never show myself in London again.”
He helped her up onto the perch, then climbed up beside her. “Do you hate town that much?”
“Actually, I like town. It’s society that terrifies me.”
“Yet you’ll throw yourself upon its mercy for the sake of family property.”
“I have no choice.”
He set the horses off at a smart pace. “Speaking of your property, do you know where Stokely might keep it? His estate is rather large.” And her answer might give him an idea of what the bloody thing was.
“I have no idea,” she said coolly.
“Where did your father keep it?”
“In a strongbox.”
So the object was small. Jewelry perhaps? But how would that affect Prinny? “How do you know Stokely isn’t keeping it in a strongbox or even a safe?”
“I don’t. If he is, I’ll have to find a way into it. Or take the entire thing with me. Surely he won’t have more than one.” She paused. “Doyou know how to break into such things?”
“I can get into any safe, I promise you.” Though she would undoubtedly disapprove of his methods.
“And if your property was in a strongbox in the first place, how did your husband get his hands on it? Or even know about it?”
At her long silence, he glanced over to see her face suffused with shame. “I told him.” She caught him staring and cast him a defiant glance. “Before Papa left for France last time, he gave me the strongbox. He explained what I was to do with the contents if something happened to him. When I brought the box home and wouldn’t tell Philip what was in it, his curiosity was roused. He badgered me about it, asking why I didn’t trust him. It already galled him that Papa didn’t.”
A defeated sigh left her lips. “I couldn’t stand to see him so hurt. Philip had been distant toward me, and I thought if I could show him how much faith I had in him—” She shook her head. “It probably sounds silly to you.”
“Not at all.” Haversham had been exactly the sort to play on his wife’s affections to get what he wanted.
“Well, it sounds silly to me, especially now that I know that while he was begging me to tell him the family secrets he was also trotting off to London to—”
When she stopped there, he prodded, “To do what?”
Color filled her pretty cheeks. “Gamble. And…and other things.”
Other things. Gavin wracked his mind, but could think of no other vice he’d heard of Haversham engaging in. Strong drink? As he recalled, Haversham had swilled his share of Gavin’s brandy when heGenerated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.htmlwas at the club. Still, if she’d grown up around soldiers, she had to be used to that. A mistress? Not that he’d ever heard.
Whatever it was, her closed expression made it clear that she didn’t wish to discuss it. Very well, he’d get it out of her later. Besides, that wasn’t the important thing right now. “So you gave him the key to the strongbox, did you?”
“No, indeed, I’m not that much a fool.” She scowled. “But his steward knew how to break into such things—he was that sort of person.”
Gavin bit back a smile. “Like me, you mean.”
When she tossed her head back, the wind nearly carried off her large-brimmed bonnet. “It does take a certain sort of scoundrel to break into things.”
“It does indeed.” And another sort to betray his wife for a gambling debt. No wonder she distrusted gamblers. Gavin began to wish he’d exacted a different sort of payment from Lord Haversham. “So he never confessed what he’d done?”
As their speed increased down a long stretch of road, she grabbed for her bonnet ribbons. “I never even guessed they were missing until it was too late. After the prince summoned me, and we spoke, I immediately went to check the contents of the strongbox, only to find that they were gone.”
