“It’s a fair question,” Fox said. “One I’d like the answer to, also. If we’re to get Shaldon back, we’ll need to know what you know, Kincaid, Farnsworth.”
“Who was Sir Richard to Father?” Perry shook loose his hand and stalked to the bed. “Tell me, Kincaid.”
“Let him rest, Lady Perpetua,” Farnsworth said. “I’ll explain. Sir Richard came to us a few months ago offering information on Carvelle. Said he’d heard we were looking for him. Which we were. I know you knew that much.”
She opened her mouth, closed it. Nodded. Took a deep breath. “Hewasyour source. And why would you doubthim? He’s a justice of the peace.”
“We considered that.” Farnsworth paced again. “A justice of the peace. A baronet. A country man with no debts and no known enemies. There didn’t seem a reason for him to lie. Quite the opposite. He’s privy to rumors about the free trade in these parts and might be inclined to enforce the law.”
Farnsworth turned to Fox, his gaze boring into him. The skin around his fresh scar prickled.
“And then,” Farnsworth said, “one of our agents following up on a lead that Sir Richard provided was almost killed.”
Perry’s gaze followed Farnsworth’s and her eyes widened. “The fresh scar on your chest.”
The muscles in his back tightened like a death grip. Fox shrugged, trying to loosen them. Shaldon and his games—there was always more than one. “And you sent me here to recover, right under the man’s nose.”
“He never knew the identity of our man.”
Anger flashed through him. If Sir Richard hadn’t learned it, it was because Fox had killed the man who’d attacked him in Belgium. “So you say.”
Perry pulled her hand away and began to pace. “Sir Richard plays a double game. He’s a squire passing on information on a smuggler. And as John Black he runs a smuggling enterprise. Which might have stumbled last year when a substitute was tried and transported.”
“Why?” Perry asked. “Why would Sir Richard do this?”
“It may be he’s trying to take out the competition,” Fergus said.
Perry stopped in front of him and drew herself up into a tight determined line. “But why bring in an assassin? Why take Father?”
“I know why.” Lady Jane’s skirts rustled as she rose from the room’s only chair. “We talked about it earlier. Sir Richardwantsthe man who stole the woman he thought should be his bride. He wanted Felicity Landers, enough to try to wrestle her into a carriage and make off with her. He’s been stewing in anger for decades. He wants revenge.”
Perry went still. He moved his hand to her waist and felt anger trembling through her.
Kincaid grunted and Farnsworth shrugged.
The logic of women, those shrugs said. A man, educated, propertied, with a position in the community and a business to run—albeit an illegal one—wouldn’t stew thirty years about a bride who was lost, would he? Not even a brute like the Baronet.
His chest tightened. What had he done for many years about his brother’s bride? What had Shaldon been doing about the murder of his wife?
“Revenge?” Farnsworth said, sighing. “Not greed. Could it be that simple?”
Perry’s breath caught. “It’s that simple for Father.”
Farnsworth shared another glance with the other old plotter, Kincaid.
Was it truly that simple for Shaldon? Was it that simple for him?
Fox shook his head. He’d stewed in revenge, as had Shaldon, but neither had turned to villainy. Shaldon had his spying, not always honest, but always honorable, at least where his country was concerned. Fox had his painting—and Perry.
Could he truly have her honorably, with her family’s blessing? Hewouldstew for decades if he were to lose this chance with her. He had to find a time and a place to tell her.
“Your father wants more than revenge,” Fox said. “He wants to know how your mother really died. He wants to know who killed her.”
Davy’s thin voice came from the place near the door. “It’s him.”
The eyes turned his way made Davy squirm. He cleared his throat. “I allus thought it was Scruggs what did it.”
Tension knotted Fox’s brain, right behind his eyes, and Perry’s face had gone stiff as a bad portrait. What the hell else had this little man kept hidden all these years behind tankards of ale and flasks of gin? Fox took Davy by the collar. “Tell the lady what you know.”
