Page 139 of The Bastard's Iberian Bride
“No laudanum. But perhaps you’ll join me in bed.”
“Agreed. Hurry then.”
He searched her eyes, frowning. “Are you sure, Paulette? It’s what he left you. He made it himself, you said.”
“I’m sure. And if this doesn’t work, we’ll take it down to the brick wall in Lady Hackwell’s garden.”
Bink pounded, and winced and she would have stopped him, but suddenly a huge crack appeared on the right side, along the stout joining of one of the seams. Bink ripped at it, examining it closer. “Look here,” he said.
A slim hollow space had opened into the side panel. Her pulse ticked up, excitement simmering in her. “I see something white.” She yanked out a hairpin and probed. A piece of tightly folded parchment slid closer. “Can you reach it?” she asked.
“Your fingers are slimmer.”
She poked and coaxed, and finally got a grip on the paper, easing it out.
The tight writing set her chest pounding as though she’d run all the way from the village to Ferndale Cottage. “A note. For an account at Drummond’s Bank. For a king’s ransom.”
Bink took the paper and bent over it, inhaling sharply.
“Quite literally.” A smile creased his face. “In the name of Paulette Silva Heardwyn.”
He studied the box, and reached for the poem, squinting over the words.
“Look here.” He pointed at the second and third stanzas and laughed. “Break—out—right—side.”
She shook her head. “Can it be? It might not be real…but…we must give it back, mustn’t we?” She searched his face.
He chewed on his lip. “We truly don’t need it.” He stood and began to pace, looking much stronger. “Money, lost outside Talavera. We looked for missing money, and we found Josiah Dickson in a hovel with your father and Filomena.”
She hurried over and reached for him, and he looked down at their hands locked together.
“Next thing I knew, I was taking a priest through the mountains. Only he wasn’t a priest. He was my father, dressed as a padre. He must have been carrying the new ransom.”
“You didn’t know him?”
“I’d never met him.”
She shook her head. “Shaldon is impossible.”
“Aye, he is. My mother was Irish, you know,” he said. “A spy, Shaldon says. For the Irish rebellion.”
“You didn’t know?”
“About her spying? No. Never.”
“Well. We are well-matched, in that way also, I suppose.”
His smile warmed her.
“He plans to acknowledge me. Now that I’m a propertied man, he wants me to stand for Parliament for one of his pocket boroughs.”
“Truly?” She squeezed his hand. “Then, if you’re to be a Member of Parliament, I suppose we must give the crown back this money.”
Bink gazed back at the broken box. “It’s your money, Paulette. All yours. And who’s to say that was British money? Maybe it was French money your father took as a prize. In any case, you may decide. Keep it. Give it back. Give it away.” He dropped a kiss on her forehead. “You choose, love.”
Her heart swelled and thrashed around inside her, sparking tears. She clutched the blue skirts of her mother’s gown and thought of Sela Heardwyn, locked away in the country, and so many women like her confined to their genteel poverty. She thought of Lady Hackwell and her children’s home. Of the maimed soldiers who wandered the roads and begged on the streets. Of Jenny and all the other vulnerable girls.
“We shall keep it for now. And then, I think we must give it away, without anyone knowing the money came from us.”
