Page 46 of The Soldier's Scoundrel
At that moment, he felt that it would be well worth being on the receiving end of a punch or two if it meant that Oliver Rivington left for good. Here Jack was, volunteering to poke around in a death best left unresolved. There was no reason for Jack to interfere in that business except Oliver’s peace of mind, and Oliver wasn’t a client. He was just some aristocratic bastard Jack had had the bad luck to fall in love with.
A month ago, if an earl’s son had come to Oliver, accused him of criminal acts, argued with him about the rule of law, and then expressed concern about a grand lady’s good name possibly being tarnished by connection with a murder, Jack would have—
Well, Jack would not have let the earl’s son into his office in the first place, would he? That was where he had gone wrong, clearly. But it was too late to wring his hands over that. However it had happened, Jack now had Oliver Rivington’s needs and interests mixed up in his own, and he couldn’t see his way out of it.
Oliver turned for the door without even offering Jack a handshake. “Oh, by the by,” he said, half out the door and looking back over his shoulder. “Mrs. Durbin is spending tonight at her daughter’s house, and then leaving for Kent.”
Jack could care less about Mrs. Durbin or blackmail or anything else. He’d be damned if he was going to drag his tired, travel-stained, stupidly heartsick body to the Wraxhalls’ house and finagle a way inside. He was in no mood for subterfuge.
Distracted, he caught himself reaching for the card case yet again. He took it out of his pocket, intending to immediately wrap it in paper and send it by messenger to Rutland House. Or maybe he’d hurl it out the window.
Instead he absently traced the initial and returned the case to his breast pocket.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The brick wall in the lane behind Lady Montbray’s house was still cold despite the warmth of the day. Jack leaned against it, letting its coolness seep into his body.
“How long are you going to keep this up?” asked a familiar voice. It was Georgie, plainly wearing last night’s evening clothes, cravat rakishly askew.
Jack didn’t answer, keeping his gaze fixed on the back entrance of the house. He had been watching the comings and goings here for most of the morning and a good part of yesterday as well.
Georgie idly kicked up small clouds of dust with the toe of an expensive-looking boot. “Your friend is inside, visiting his sister.”
“He’s not my friend,” Jack replied automatically.
“I can call him the toff you’re shagging, if you require that level of specificity, dear brother.”
“If you’re going to pester me, at least be quiet about it. I’d rather not draw too much attention. Don’t you have somewhere else to be?”
“Don’t you have somewhere else to be? Like attending to the business of paying clients, for example?”
Jack made a dismissive noise. He ought to have followed Oliver’s suggestion and found a way to speak to Mrs. Durbin, but that matter seemed to be less pressing than standing around in Oliver’s sister’s mews.
“It’s over and done with Rivington,” Jack said. “So you can relax and stop pestering me about it.”
“Oh, so that’s why you’ve been outside his sister’s house for hours? Makes perfect sense. Carry on, then.”
Jack pressed his palms into the rough bricks at his back. “I want to know who offed Montbray.”
Georgie was silent for a moment. “I thought the inquest found that his death was accidental.”
That was true but irrelevant and they both knew it. Jack held up his hand to silence any argument Georgie was about to make, because at that moment the upstairs maid came out of the house. She was met in the lane by the groom, a man who had been in service at this house since before Jack had served as Montbray’s valet. Yesterday had been the man’s half day off, and Jack had taken him to the nearest public house to loosen his tongue.
The groom had told him that Montbray began “bothering,” as he called it, the upstairs maid and one of the kitchen maids almost immediately upon his arrival in London. The second footman, who was willing to speak freely in exchange for a few coins, confirmed what the groom said, adding that Montbray and his wife had the sort of quarrel that ended with the footman being required to sweep up the remains of a smashed decanter, and the lady’s maid summoned to pack her mistress’s trunk.
As for the night of Montbray’s death, neither of the servants Jack spoke with had noticed anything out of the ordinary—or if they had, they weren’t telling Jack about it. Montbray had been, according to the footman, drunk as a wheelbarrow. He had gone out drunk, come home even worse, and then the next thing anyone knew he was dead at the bottom of the stairs. The only people in the house had been servants; only the nursery staff and lady’s maid had traveled to Richmond with Lady Montbray and Miss Sutherland. But the footman had noted that he and the butler had spent a good portion of the evening trying to remove a copious quantity of sick from the library carpet, so there could have been a time when someone slipped inside and did away with the master.
Jack now watched the upstairs maid talk with the groom. He wasn’t close enough to overhear their conversation, but based on the way he glanced shyly at the girl, and the way she brushed some dust off his coat, he thought they were likely stepping out together or soon would be. Both of them had every reason to wish Montbray dead, and they had both been present the night of his death. He didn’t want either of them to hang for it.
“Think of everything in that house that you could steal,” Georgie mused. “Watches, silver, all those little bits of nonsense made of ivory and whatnot. You could set yourself up for life, and they wouldn’t even know they were missing anything.”
“You could also get yourself hanged or transported,” Jack felt obligated to point out, even though he knew Georgie was too brashly confident to worry about getting caught. Neither had Jack when he was younger.
“But that’s not why you don’t take anything from this lot.” Georgie gestured to the house. “You leave them be because you’re fond of them.” His tone made it clear that the words were an accusation.
“Bollocks.” He didn’t steal anymore because he had other, more reliable, ways to earn a living.
