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“No time…to look.” Vawtry was having a hard time getting the syllables around his swollen gums and mashed lips. His utterance sounded like “Oh—die—ooh—rook,” but with Phelps’ help, Dain was able to interpret.
“In other words, you never saw it before this night,” said Dain. “Which means someone told you about it—Bertie most likely. And you believed him—which is imbecilic enough, for no one in his right mind listens to Bertie Trent—but then you had to go and tell Satan’s own whore. And she, you have discovered, would sell her firstborn for twenty thousand quid.”
“You was foolish, no mistake,” Phelps chimed in mournfully, like a Greek chorus. “She sold her boy for only fifteen hundred. Now, don’t you feel like a bit of a chucklehead, sir? Meanin’ no offense, but—”
“Phelps.” Dain turned a baleful eye upon his coachman.
“Aye, me lord.” Phelps gave him a wide-eyed look that Dain did not believe for one minute.
“I did not give Charity Graves fifteen hundred pounds,” His Lordship said very quietly. “As I recall, you most sensibly suggested that you head to the back of the inn, to prevent her escape in case she eluded me. I assumed you’d been too late and she’d fled. You did not volunteer information to the contrary.”
“Her Ladyship were worrit the ma might make a fuss in front of the tyke,” Phelps said. “Her Ladyship didn’t want him upset no more than he was like to be already with you chargin’ in. So she told me to give the gal some quietin’ money, Her Ladyship said, ’n she could spend it how she liked. So she spent it on quietin’ the ma, ’n wrote a note, tellin’ the gal to take it ’n go to Paris ’n have a good time.”
“Paris?” Vawtry sat up abruptly.
“Said the fellers there’d like her better and treat her kinder ’n them hereabouts. ’N I guess the gal liked the idea, cuz she lit up purty, ’n said Her Ladyship weren’t a bad sort. ’N I was to tell Her Ladyship that she done what Her Ladyship said—tole the boy some’at or other like Her Ladyship asked her to.”
…it was better to leave him where he would be safe…and provided for. Jessica had told the whore what to say and the whore had done it.
Then Dain saw how much trust his wife had placed in him. If she hadn’t, she would have come with him, no matter what he said or did. But she’d trusted…that he’d make the boy feel safe, and make Dominick believe that what he’d been told was true.
Perhaps, Dain thought, his wife knew him a great deal better than he knew himself. She saw in him qualities he’d never discerned when he’d looked into a mirror.
If that was the case, he must believe she saw qualities in Charity he’d never suspected were there. Charity must possess something like a heart, if she’d taken the trouble to prepare Dominick for her desertion.
Jessica had also said that Charity was a child herself.
That seemed true enough. Plant an idea in her head, and she would run away with it.
He found himself grinning at Vawtry. “You should have found another bauble to distract her with,” Dain said. “Something safer to scheme and dream about. She’s a child, you know. Amoral, unprincipled. At present, she has fifteen hundred pounds in her hands, and she’s forgotten all about the icon—and you. She’ll never know—or if she hears, she won’t care—that you risked your life and honor for…” Dain gave a short laugh. “What was it, Vawtry? Love?”
Beneath the bruises and lumps and caked blood, Vawtry’s countenance turned a very dark red. “She wouldn’t. She couldn’t.”
“I’ll wager fifty quid she’s on her way to the coast this very minute.”
“I’ll kill her,” Vawtry croaked. “She can’t leave me. She can’t.”
“Because you’ll hunt her down,” Dain said mockingly. “You’ll follow her to the ends of the earth. If, that is, I don’t see you hanged first.”
The color abruptly drained from Vawtry’s battered face, leaving a mottled landscape on a sickly grey background.
Dain studied his former comrade for a long moment. “The trouble is, I can think of no more fiendish a purgatory than the one you’ve stumbled into all by yourself. I can imagine no torment more hellish than being hopelessly besotted with Charity Graves.” He paused. “Except one.” Dain’s mouth curled into a mocking smile. “And that is being married to her.”
It was the most efficient solution, Dain decided. It was certainly a great deal less bother than prosecuting the besotted fool.
Vawtry had committed one crime, arson, and attempted another, theft.
Still, he had set fire to the least valuable structure on the estate and, thanks to the damp and the quick action of Dain’s people, the damage was minimal.
As to the theft: Jessica had punished the inept criminal more brutally than Dain would have done. That a woman had administered the punishment added a lovely touch of humiliation to Vawtry’s other woes.
Any gentleman possessing a modicum of masculine pride would rather have his ballocks torn off with red-hot pincers than allow the world to learn he’d been thrashed by a slip of a female.
Therefore, with the wisdom of Solomon—and a vivid recollection of Jessica’s blackmail method in Paris—His Lordship pronounced sentence.
“You will find Charity Graves, wherever she is,” Dain told his prisoner. “And you will marry her. That will make you legally responsible for her. And I will hold you legally and personally responsible if she ever comes within ten miles of my wife, my son, or any other member of my house-hold. If she bothers us—any of us—ever again, I will throw a large dinner party, Vawtry.”
Vawtry blinked. “Dinner?”
“To this dinner, I will invite all of our boon companions,” Dain told him. “And when the port goes round, I shall stand up and regale the company with your fascinating adventures. I will provide a deliciously detailed account, in particular, of what I observed this evening from my front doorway.”
After the moment it took him to comprehend, Vawtry went to pieces. “Find her?” he cried, looking wildly about him. “Marry her? How? Gad, can’t you see? I wouldn’t have got into this if I weren’t three paces ahead of the bailiffs. I’ve nothing, Dain. Less than that.” He groaned. “Five thousand less, to be precise. I’m ruined. Don’t you see? I wouldn’t have come to Devon at all if Beaumont hadn’t told me I could win a fortune at the wrestling match.”
“Beaumont?” Dain repeated.
Vawtry didn’t heed him. “Fortune, indeed. With those buffle-headed amateurs. Do you believe it?” He raked his fingers through his
hair. “He was roasting me, the swine. ‘Greatest match since Cann and Polkinghorne,’ he said.”
“Beaumont,” Dain said again.
“Twenty thousand, he told me the thing was worth,” Vawtry went on miserably. “But he was roasting me about that, too, wasn’t he? Said he knew a Russian who’d sell his firstborn for it. And I believed him.”
“So it wasn’t Bertie Trent who put the idea in your head, after all, but Beaumont,” Dain said. “I might have known. He bears me a grudge,” he explained to the bewildered Vawtry.
“A grudge? But why pick on me?”
“To make you resentful of me, in hopes of creating ill will between us, I suppose,” Dain said. “That he could add to your miseries at the same time simply made the business more delightful for him,” Dain frowned. “He’s nothing more than a sneaking troublemaker. He hasn’t the nerve to seek revenge like a man. Which makes it all the more annoying that he has succeeded in his spiteful game far beyond his wildest dreams.” His frown deepened. “I might have had you hanged. And he would have laughed himself sick.”
While Vawtry was trying to digest this, Dain took a slow turn about the small room, reflecting.
“I believe I will pay your debts, Vawtry,” he said finally.
“You’ll what?”
“I will also make you a modest annual allowance,” Dain went on. “For services rendered.” He paused and folded his hands behind his back. “You see, my very dear, very loyal friend, I had no idea how valuable my icon was…until you told me. I had actually planned to give it to Mrs. Beaumont, in exchange for a portrait of my wife. Jessica had told me how much Mrs. Beaumont admired the icon. I thought it would be a more pleasing reward to the artist than mere coins.” Dain smiled faintly. “But no portrait, even by the brilliant Leila Beaumont, is worth twenty thousand quid, is it?”
Vawtry had finally caught on. His battered face was creasing into a smile.
“Naturally, you will write to Beaumont, thanking him for sharing the information,” Dain said. “It would be the polite thing to do. And naturally, as your very dear friend, he will be unselfishly delighted that you were able to profit from his wisdom.”
