“Oh, I think you do,Mr. St Clair. You and your lovely ladywifetold the Reverend Griffiths that you were a poor orphan in search of his mother.”
“We followed you.” Galahad stepped up beside his father, his expression defiant, and Giles kicked himself for his own shortsighted stupidity.
Of course they had followed him.
They had followed him and he had led them to the truth. Thanks to his own preoccupation with Diana, it never occurred to him to cover their tracks.
Galahad cocked one golden eyebrow, his smug expression a mirror image of his father’s. “Did you honestly think we wouldn’t talk to the good reverend, too, cousin? He was very helpful. Especially when he realized you had spun him a pack of lies in the presence of the Lord before you defaced his register.” He jerked his head toward Diana. “I told him that he’d been hoodwinked, as yourwifedoesn’t strike me as the usual fainting type, but I figure even she might swoon when she realizes the penalty for that serious crime.”
“Fourteen years transportation.” Gervais was delighted to be the one to break the news. “And the best bit is you shot yourselves in the foot. Because it turns out there are strict rules and regulations about the keeping of parish records for just this sort of deceitful eventuality. Who knew so many impostors try to steal another’s rightful inheritance that it is the law every parish has to file a duplicate Bishop’s Transcript with the diocese?” He beamed as if this was the most wonderful thing he had ever learned in his life. “I certainly didn’t until the betrayed but diligent Reverend Griffiths informed me of that convenient fact over tea after evensong.”
He picked up a silver candlestick. Squinted at the hallmark. “I have advised him to press charges for the theft. I also advised him of your whereabouts and confess, the prospect of seeing you dragged away in manacles was worth the effort of the long ride back to Shropshire in the cold and the dark.”
Bold as brass, Gervais wandered past him to inspect some of the other treasures on the wall. No doubt making an inventory of all he could sell. “Of course, a man with your connections, even tainted by scandal, is unlikely to be transported. So do not despair, nephew. A good lawyer will argue a lesser sentence, so I wouldn’t worry. But I doubt Miss Merriwell will be so fortunate.”
He turned and pinned her with a stare so malevolent it chilled Giles to the bone. “You are a forger’s daughter, are you not, Miss Merriwell?” She stood tall and unflinching as he walked slowly toward her like a lion stalking his prey. “And a wanted forger’s daughter at that. Unlike stealing the truth from a parish record, counterfeiting coin is a capital offense. Juries tend not to be quite so forgiving of someone with such a background and they will want somebody to pay for my nephew’s crime. I hear life can be difficult for a woman all alone in the Antipodes. Especially such a pretty one.” He reached out to touch her cheek and Giles gripped his wrist in his fist.
“Touch her and I will kill you with my bare hands!”
Something flickered in his uncle’s cold, flat eyes, until he shrugged free and moved out of arm’s reach. “The dregs of society have never been to my taste but clearly you follow your father in that. He always had his eye on poor little orphaned Ffion Jones, even as a boy. I should have known she was the one. Should have realized he had gone after her when I certainly wouldn’t have. Butif you will pardon the pun, it appears he had to have his cake and eat it when he could have had all the dessert he wanted and never taste the same one twice. But no. It seems his long-standing love of Welsh cake was his Achilles’ heel and now that you’ve discovered it, all this is mine.”
“Get out of my house.” At Giles’s acid-dripped words, Dalton raised his pistol and made a great show of pulling back the hammer.
“You heard His Grace. Get out or I’ll shoot you both where you stand.”
While Galahad’s eyes widened at the threat, Gervais simply smiled. “I will be back with the proof and the constable and the law on my side. Then we shall see whose house this is.”
Giles waited until the front door was firmly closed and bolted before he allowed the panic to take hold.
His fear wasn’t for himself but for Diana because he knew Gervais might be right. This was a man’s world and a rich man’s world at that. A woman who dared to compete in it would be frowned upon by a jury made up of such men. A wanted forger’s daughter would be frowned upon more. If they discovered what Diana actually did forThe Tribuneand made an argument about the ironic double standard of the most feared Truth Seeker and unmasker of villains on Fleet Street willfully breaking the law when it suited her to do so, she would be done for. Mr. Cribbage could likely save him from the worst, but they would likely punish Diana, and he wasn’t prepared to risk pitting his solicitor’s superior trial skills against a jury in what was effectively a game of chance.
He glanced at her pacing the hallway. Deep in thought. Her clever mind searching for another way to save him rather thanseeing the danger to herself that now loomed larger and cast a shadow darker than his pifflingDirty Secretever had.
“We’re missing something. I can feel it!” She tapped her head as she frowned at him but continued to pace. “Something is niggling. Something is not right.”
What wasn’t right was her being punished when all she had ever done was try to help. For him—because Diana only ever kicked hornets to rescue someone else with no thought or care for herself.
“I am going to turn myself in.” That was the only thing he could do to save her. “Turn myself in before Gervais has a chance. Confess I stole the page but only as proof of my illegitimacy and pretend I am as shocked to learn the truth of my father’s deception as everyone will be. If I am completely transparent and don’t try to fight it, there will be no need for any trial.”
“No, Giles. Not yet. Bureaucracy is notoriously slow, and it will likely take days before Gervais has his proof. There’s more to find. Another rattling skeleton. I feel it in my gut.”
“It’s over, Diana.” It all was. He drank in the sight of her. All shimmering, righteous indignation, intelligence, and beauty. Lord, how he loved her. Loved how she thought. Moved. Fought. Kissed. “I need you and Vee to pack.”
“What? No!” Her hands went to her hips.
“Dalton, be ready to leave with the ladies at dawn. Take them to Hugh in Hampshire. I want you to all be as far away from Harpenden as it is humanly possible before I surrender to the court in Shrewsbury tomorrow.”
Her finger prodded him in the chest. “If you think I am going to abandon you and scurry off like a rat leaving a sinking ship,then think again, Giles Sinclair! I want to help!” She prodded him again. “Don’t you see that I am the only one who can?”
He wasn’t going to argue the toss over basic common sense, especially when even the fearsome Sentinel couldn’t save him now. “If I have to wrestle you into the carriage myself, Diana, and padlock you in it, you and Vee are going home tomorrow.” Before she could formulate a single word of argument he raised his flattened palm to stay her. “My decision is made and I will not be swayed.”
It was all well and good that she was on a mission to save the world, but somebody had to save Diana from herself.
Loyal, stoic self-sacrifice might well be the most honorable and noble thing for Giles to do but it still grated on Diana’s last nerve. That he expected her to meekly obey—to climb into his carriage in a few hours and abandon him to his fate—beggared belief.
That he expected her to stand by and do nothing when there had to be something she could do to save him was beyond the pale. That she had spent the last hour trying and failing to come up with a plan was neither here nor there. Losing one battle did not mean they had lost the war and retreating to his bedchamber to prevent her from telling him so was unreasonable in the extreme. And as for the ridiculousMy decision is made and I will not be swayed…
Grrrrr!
