Page 53 of The Lawrence Browne Affair
“Who said you did? For God’s sake, sit down.” Lawrence peeled off his topcoat and tossed it over the back of a chair before sitting. “I’ve known for some time that you’re no ordinary secretary. And you’ve known that I know. It didn’t matter yesterday, it doesn’t matter today, and it’s not going to matter at any point in the future.” Lawrence had never been so certain of anything, but as he looked at Georgie’s shuttered expression, he knew he would have to work to convince the man. “Start from the beginning and tell me what was going on with Lady Standish’s brother.”
“I sold one of Medlock’s friend’s shares in a company that doesn’t exist,” Georgie said, sitting at the end of the sofa farthest from Lawrence’s chair. “I would have done something similar to you.”
Lawrence raised a skeptical eyebrow. “You planned to sell me shares in a fictitious company?” He would have thought he made a poor target for that sort of scheme—he had plenty of money and cared little about making more.
Instead of looking at Lawrence, Georgie busied himself in brushing imaginary lint from his sleeve. “I would have taken your plans for the telegraph and used them to, ah, endear myself to a business associate with whom I’ve had a falling out.”
“I see.” Stealing a man’s work seemed rather worse than preying on a man’s greed. Lawrence ought to be shocked, no doubt. But he found he didn’t care what Georgie had done to earn his bread before. There was a good deal of bitterness in Georgie’s voice when he spoke of this friend, and Lawrence wanted to know why, but that would have to wait until later. “But you didn’t.”
“Not yet.”
“I don’t think you would have.” He moved to the sofa and cupped Georgie’s face in his hand, tilting it up towards him. “I don’t think you went to bed with me last night planning to steal from me.” He remembered how very sad Georgie had sounded when asking Lawrence to lock up his ring.
Georgie turned his head away. “That’s true. Irrelevant, but true.”
Lawrence took in a long breath. “When did you change your mind? Was it before . . . before we . . . ” Before they fell in love, he meant. But those words seemed ill suited to a conversation about swindles and theft.
“Weeks ago,” Georgie said tightly, still looking at his hands, Lawrence’s ring glinting in the scant sunlight. “You might not hate me now, but you will. If I had taken your plans, and you had ever sought redress, your sanity would have been called into question. I would have seen to it that you had no proof of your invention.”
“This doesn’t change the way I feel about you. I knew you were some kind of thief, but I thought you were after the silver. Every morning I woke up and wondered whether you’d still be here.”
“And whether your silver and paintings would be here,” Georgie said dryly, not meeting Lawrence’s eyes.
“I didn’t give a damn about the silver or the paintings. I thought I’ve made that clear. Why do you think I made such a point of giving you the jewels last night? Those are worth more than all the paintings and silver put together.”You’re worth more,he wanted to say. “Now, let’s get rid of Lady Standish and her miserable brother and enjoy the rest of the day. I told Simon we’d play snapdragon.”
Georgie closed his eyes and let out a sigh. “I can’t. I told you. Medlock recognized me from when I swindled his cousin.”
“Bugger Medlock. What do I care what he thinks?”
“He’ll start talking when he gets back to London. It’s excellent gossip, so I can hardly blame him. The Earl of Radnor is being swindled. And he knows absolutely everybody, so it’ll be no time before all of London knows.”
“And that matters to me precisely why?” Lawrence had gone nearly thirty years in complete indifference to public opinion and wasn’t about to change his ways now.
“Because . . . ” Georgie opened his mouth and shut it again, as if unsure of what to say. “Halliday is concerned that Simon’s relations will try to wrest control of the estate away from you.”
“Pardon?”
A faint grimace flickered across Georgie’s face. “One of Simon’s relations got in touch with Halliday, wanting to know whether there was any case to be made that you might be mad. Halliday wrote a letter to a friend of my brother’s, who offered to send me to look into matters.” He laughed, dry and mirthless. “Of course, if word gets out that you’re harboring a confidence artist under your roof, that will only help Simon’s uncles get you declared incompetent. Which is why I need to leave. I need to hide somewhere else. Now.”
Lawrence’s mind scrambled to make sense of this. Of course one of Simon’s relatives—probably the same uncle who had taken down Isabella’s portrait—would try to have Lawrence declared insane. It was only a wonder that it hadn’t happened yet. He settled on the one aspect of Georgie’s narrative that didn’t directly involve him. “Hide?”
He watched as Georgie took a breath and seemed to come to a decision. “I came here not only to spy on you but to hide from the former associate I mentioned. I betrayed him, so he needs to make an example of me.”
“He wants to harm you?”
Georgie’s gaze cut away to the floor.
“To kill you?”
“I owe him.” He said this so baldly, speaking of his own anticipated murder with such matter-of-fact ease, that Lawrence was momentarily stunned. “I planned to swindle a very sweet, slightly daft old lady. But I couldn’t go through with it.”
“This sounds like honorable behavior.”
Georgie waved a bored hand, a tired dismissal of the idea of honor.
“Nobody is coming to Penkellis to murder you. London street criminals don’t creep into old castles to dispose of their enemies.”
Georgie looked at him with raised eyebrows. “He has to. Mattie Brewster can’t be known to tolerate double-crossers.”
