Page 107 of The Rogue's Last Scandal
“Would you tell us the rest, please, Graciela?” Shaldon asked. “I promise you, it won’t leave this room.”
“Father, she’s been through enough tonight.”
He thought to speak for her? But the tone had been kind. He was not trying to bully her.
She squeezed his hand. “Lord Shaldon, how could whatever I say not leave this room, if it leads you to take some action against…” She shook her head. “Someone. Someone who is a traitor, or someone who killed Charley’s mother, or mine?”
Lord Shaldon blinked once, twice. “You will have our promise, daughter,” he said. “Mine, Kincaid’s, Farnsworth’s, and of course, your husband’s.”
She dabbed her eyes again. “I have promised my father. Unless he is dead…and I will not believe it on the word of those men Captain Llewellyn picked out of the water.”
“Llewellyn was there tonight,” Charley said, “lurking about.”
“We plan to investigate,” Shaldon said. “If you have anything that will help us—”
“It is not for the Crown,” she said.
Charley’s hand stilled.
“Papa’s words. If he died, go to you and give you…” She swallowed more tears. “And I must tell you ‘it is not for the Crown.’ But if he is alive, and he comes back, I will have betrayed him.”
“We know your father,” Farnsworth said. “All of us except Charley. We’ll explain to him when he returns. We’ll keep his secrets, and if we can, we will use them to help find him, or to find out what happened to him.”
She looked at Charley.
“It is a hard choice, Gracie,” he said. “But something is very fishy about Kingsley, Llewellyn and Carvelle. Throw in the Duque too, and,” his mouth firmed, “another man who I met the other night at the club, a Major Payne-Elsdon, recently in Spain. He was hovering near Llewellyn tonight.” He squeezed her hand. “In any case, with or without your secrets, I intend to take action.”
“How?” she asked.
“We will all take action,” Shaldon said.
“I will know what that is before I speak.”
Charley’s gaze narrowed on his father. “Does this have to do with Pamplona, Father?”
“What is Pamplona?” she asked.
“Your father had a deep commitment to your mother, my dear,” Shaldon said, “and a great loathing for Spain. He has thrown his support to the rebels of New Spain.”
They had completely ignored her questions. Very well, she would hold her peace for now and see where this was leading.
“This I already know about my father, my Lord. Do you know who killed my mother?”
“No.” Kincaid spoke. “Yet perhaps whatever Captain Kingsley asked you to safeguard might help us discern the truth.”
“It is up to you, Gracie,” Charley said.
Up to her.
Papa always said, on a ship, the captain decided everything. He was god as far as the gunwale, and then the sea ruled, and one must learn how to roll with old Neptune’s changes. Like these men, the sea played its games and hid its secrets. Papa might be alive, or he might be dead, but either way, he’d left this charge to her. And she would have their help.
Forgive me, Papa.
“He told me, he told me, she said, ‘the book holds all I have found’. Later, after that, he gave me a prayer book in Spanish with a blade in the spine, but nothing else. I did check the bindings. I read every page.”Dios, by then she had needed those prayers. “I examined the pages in front of a candle. I washed them in vinegar. I could see nothing.”
The men continued their silent study. Charley’s arm lent his strength.
“It was big, this book. I could not manage it going out the window. I left it behind.”
