Mondrian had taken the top floor of one of the few buildings on the street that did not appear to be ready to collapse. The layout was secure—one front door and one back door with stairs that led to an alley should one wish to depart in haste.
The rest of the rooms ran one into another. The outermost room that connected to the front door was well protected by men he employed. Anybody wishing to rush him would find themselves out of luck.
He was so close to his goal.
Mondrian paused, reminding himself that he’d come close before. So close.
He’d posed as the heir to the Dedmont barony, successfully convincing that family that their son was dead and he was the only living cousin of James Conroy.
He had assumed the son really was dead and had since confirmed the truth of it. However, at the time, he’d forged the manifest of theLouisa, a ship that had gone down, to prove the fellow had gone down with it.
If it had not been for that nosy old dowager and all her questions, he’d be living as a baron even now.
He had every right to! He was the son of a lord long since dead. That he had inconveniently been illegitimate did not mean he did not have the same rights as a gentleman. He had a gentleman’s blood running in his veins.
Perhaps that blood was mixed with a tavern maid’s blood, but it was there all the same.
His mother had told him all his life that he had a right to it. She’d even taken him to the estate in Yorkshire three times in his youth to present him to the family.
They’d been thrown out on their ear every time.
They’d nursed that bitterness between them and, over time, began to think of how they might take what would not be freely given.
His mother had not lived to see that day. But he had.
That marvelous day when he’d read in the papers that Mr. James Conroy of Kent had run off with Lady Edna Edenborough and the family asked anybody with information to come forward. Apparently, the families of both involved had tried to keep the whole thing quiet, but when the couple appeared to be missing for a matter of six months, they were terrified that something had befallen them. All was forgiven, if they would just come home.
Mondrian had been waiting for such an odd circumstance to come along. He began to look into it, and it grew more and more promising.
There was no young brother to step in if James Conroy had perished. Eventually, the courts would declare him dead, which of course would take years.
However, the legal heir would live as a baron until the day the courts confirmed hewasthe next baron.
More looking into, more research. Where was this legal heir?
More good news. The fellow was a ship’s captain, sailing somewhere in the West Indies. He’d be gone for years, most likely. If he even came back at all. So many of those fellows died before getting home. And even if he did get home…well, Mondrian would deal with him then.
It had all gone along so well. He’d ingratiated himself to the family by showing them the manifest and expressing his grief.
He’d fooled them all, using the usual ways of fooling people. They were complimented and kept in the highest regard and continually assured that what had happened to James Conroy and Lady Edna was not really their fault.
Fooled them all except that dowager.
She watched him like a hawk. She asked a lot of questions. She commented on his manners, his speech, his very way of being.
She told him, one rainy afternoon, that she did not believe he was a gentleman.
He’d really thought to strangle her then and there and had set himself to finding a way to be rid of her.
He’d not done it fast enough, though. She’d exposed him to all the family by hiring a solicitor who got a copy of therealmanifest of the Louisa.
Their hope that James Conroy and Lady Edna still lived bloomed once more, he was condemned, and promptly thrown from the house.
To escape arrest, he’d faked his death by leaving his overturned sailboat in the channel.
Since then, he was able to discover that James Conroy and Lady Edna were in fact dead, though not by a ship’s sinking.
Apparently, they’d tried to make a go of supporting themselves, which had gone as well as it ever was going to go for two people who had never worked a day in their lives. Conroy worked himself into a grave and Lady Edna landed herself in a workhouse.
