Page 29 of The Rogue's Last Scandal
“Perry sent for him also. I know the solicitor’s name, though: Watelford.”
“Bakeley or Shaldon would know what’s what with him.”
“Yes. Meanwhile, Penderbrook is investigating him at the club, and is looking into what bank Captain Kingsley might have used. I’ll pay a call on the solicitor later.”
“I’ll go with you.”
“I thought to bring Penderbrook.”
“I’ll go. I’m on a committee looking at some changes in estate law.”
Charley laughed. “Of course. I’d forgotten—we’re Members of Parliament.” It was a useful cover if he would but show up for the tiresome meetings, debates, and votes. “You’re brilliant, Bink. It will get us in through the door.”
“Yes. And Kincaid and his Scotsmen will keep a sharp eye here. Now, is there a magistrate we can trust?”
“For what?”
“To bring charges against Lord Kingsley. He’s the one who beat the girl, isn’t he? Or was that Carvelle?”
“It’s worse than that. Kingsley left the girl alone in the house and sent the servants away to give Carvelle free access.”
Bink cursed and rose and stopped in front of him. A few inches taller, a bit bigger in muscle, his brother, when angered, was a force unto himself.
“He didn’t succeed. She says it, and I believe her. She says she stabbed him, and clubbed him, and went out of the window to the next bedchamber.” His heart filled. “And to my thinking, any man who would think it mattered is a fool.”
“They were forcing the issue, though. True or not, they’ll pass the word around to force her to marry him.”
“She is not going to marry him.”
“Then she won’t be marrying any of your blue-bloods, I’m afraid, not with that in the scandal sheets.”
It was true, but Graciela had the right of it. If she left England with some of her fortune, she would be a plum pick for some colonial man starved for the company of a pretty woman with some coin in her reticule.
“Yet Carvelle is not one of your nobles, is he?” Bink asked. “Why did they match her with him, I wonder?”
Outside, a bank of fog drifted and light from a street lamp pierced the window. “Bink, I must say it again, you are brilliant.” He should have thought of the question himself—would have, had he not been so matrimonially averse, so lacking in sleep, and so determined to find a rich, beautifulSeñorita.
Lord Kingsley’s spending spree hadn’t started until after the report of Captain Kingsley’s death. The man had the usual broken-down country estate and a house in disrepair. But why was he short on money? He wasn’t known at the gambling hells. He hadn’t spent on lavish furnishings, a stable, or an errant heir. And if Graciela’s guardian needed money, why marry her off and hand her fortune over to a husband?
And why to Carvelle, who was thought to be rich already? Though, in the way of successful criminals everywhere, perhaps that wasn’t true at the moment.
Money might be a factor, but his gut told him there was some other urgency driving Lord Kingsley to force Graciela into this particular marriage.
And in that case, there was no sense in waiting for Father.
Charley clapped his brother on the shoulder. “Give me your cup. I'll serve your coffee and we’ll get Kincaid to plot with us.”
“We’re plotting?” The voice was Penderbrook’s. “Then I have information you’ll want to hear about your solicitor.”
Sometime later, across town…
Lord Kingsley scanned the blurry lines of the cheap paper. “Where did you get this?”
“A boy shoved it in the cook’s hand and left.” Lady Kingsley slammed a fist into her other hand. “I should box her ears for not detaining him, but then we wouldn’t be sure what we were eating.”
Fingers of pain pulsed in his chest, echoing the aches in his jaw and the tapping behind his eyes. This might well be Carvelle’s work. The man had bollocksed up the easy matter of making his bride certain, and now he was trying to extract revenge in the scandal sheets.
“Do not worry, the cook cannot read. She gave this to the housekeeper who can barely read, but who will not talk.” She crinkled her brow. “She ran away, did she not, Kingsley? You don’t think Carvelle—”
