Sweet Revenge (28 page)

“Thank you, but no. I’ve imbibed enough for one evening.”

Saybrook lifted a brow. “Dancing does work up a thirst.”

“So, it would seem, does skulking through the dead of night,” she replied. “Which raises the question of why you were lurking outside my town house.”

“You mentioned your concern about Lord Ashmun. So I decided to have a look for myself.”

Arianna had a feeling that there was more to the matter than met the eye, but put off confronting him for the moment. Instead, she turned to Ashmun.

“And what have you to say for yourself, sir? I think it’s time you explained your interest in me.”

The baron hesitated and cast a mute appeal at Saybrook.

“You do not need the earl’s permission,” snapped Arianna. “He is not my guardian.” Her mouth tightened. “Or my protector.”

The older man flushed, and then cleared his throat. “Very well. I’ve been following you because I believe you are the daughter of my very dear friend Richard Hadley.”

She sat down rather heavily.

“
Are
you Arianna?” he asked. “You look exactly like the miniature he showed me—the one he carried inside his watchcase.”

For once, she couldn’t quite slip out of her real skin. “I knew I had seen you before—somewhere other than here in London.”

“I met with your father in Jamaica the day before his death.” Ashmun pressed a hand to his brow. “I—I tried to find you the next day, after I learned of the attack. But you had already disappeared.”

“I had no money to pay the landlord. And the barter he suggested was not a price I wished to pay for that hovel,” she replied.

“I am so sorry, my dear.”

She managed a careless shrug. “I wasn’t your responsibility, sir.”

“But you were.” He regarded her sorrowfully. “You see, I am your godfather, and should have saved you from having to make such wretched choices.” His hands knotted together in his lap. “Did your father never mention my existence?”

Arianna slowly shook her head. “It appears that there was much he did not tell me.”

“You were about to tell me earlier why you undertook a journey all the way from England to speak with Lord Morse,” said Saybrook. “Please do so now, Ashmun. His daughter is anxious to learn everything there is to know about the circumstances surrounding his death.”

“Before we get to that, I would like to be assured that you have a claim to her confidence,” said Ashmun. He slanted a questioning look at Arianna. “Do you trust him?”

“You may speak freely,” she replied, carefully evading a more specific answer.

Her response elicited a harried sigh. “Very well. But to be honest, my dear, I’m not sure that it serves any purpose to dredge up the past.”

“I’m afraid that it does,” answered Arianna. “Indeed, it may prove very important in solving a present problem.”

The baron shifted uneasily in his chair. “Then I assume you wish to hear the truth, and not some rose-tinted version of it.”

She signaled with a curt nod for him to go on.

After wetting his lips with a sip of brandy, Ashmun set his glass aside. “I need not tell you, Arianna, what a charming, fun-loving fellow your father was. But for the earl’s sake, I will try to paint a quick sketch.” He closed his eyes, taking a moment to frame his thoughts. “Richard had a magnetism that is hard to describe, an innate ability to convince you that black was white, even if the evidence to the contrary was right in front of your nose.”

Saybrook stretched his legs out toward the hearth.

A wry smile tugged at Ashmun’s mouth. “Now don’t get me wrong—there was not a more loyal or generous friend in a pinch. But he also had a harder, sharper facet to his character.”

Arianna stared at the freshly stirred coals, hot and cold points of ash and fire.

“You see, Richard took great delight in being just a little cleverer than the rest of us,” Ashmun went on. “He was extraordinarily gifted in mathematics. And at times he used that talent to his advantage.”

She quelled the urge to press her palms over her ears.

“You are sure that you want me to go on?” Ashmun’s face was wreathed in concern.

“Yes,” answered Arianna.
Was there really a choice?

The earl rose and went to pour a fresh glass of brandy. He placed it in her hands before resuming his place by the fire. “If it makes your story any easier, Lady Arianna already has reason to suspect that her father may have been involved in some questionable business dealings.”

Ashmun looked relieved. “Then what I have to say will not come as a complete shock.” He puffed out his cheeks. “I do not know the specifics of the deal—it happened twenty years ago—but Richard had some sort of partnership with a group of gentlemen he knew from one of his gaming clubs. Concord, Ham—”

“Yes, I know the names by heart,” interrupted Arianna.

“Then I shall not pain you by constantly repeating them,” said Ashmun softly. “Suffice it to say, Richard had become their friend . . . he enjoyed the camaraderie of his fellow peers, and was flattered that a set of young, fast gentlemen courted his company. He found it easy to fit into the group.”

Like a chameleon,
thought Arianna. No wonder she found it so effortless to change her skin. If one simply shrugged off all questions of right or wrong when it suited one’s purpose, the transformation was quite simple.

And apparently she had learned from a man who had mastered the art of amorality.

Looking up, she found the earl watching her intently, his dark eyes like daggers against her flesh.

“Yes, Papa enjoyed being the life of the party.” She summoned a cool smile, though her insides were twisting in a painful knot. “The center of attention.”

“Even when he had to cut corners to get there,” murmured the earl.

“That is a good way of putting it, I suppose. Richard didn’t see the harm in shaving a bit off the rules. I . . . but first, I should finish my story.” Ashmun crooked a tiny grimace. “In any case, he recounted to me how he had created a complex mathematical billing model for a company that his friends had invested in, one that allowed him to manipulate the numbers. Don’t ask me to explain it, but the formula created an extra profit for the company while shipping fewer goods than contracted for. So it proved extremely clever on both ends. And extremely lucrative for the investors. He was quite proud of himself for figuring it out.”

“I assume he was rewarded for his brilliance,” said Saybrook.

“Yes. A share in the partnership,” answered Ashmun. “But for a man who was a genius with numbers, Richard seemed to have no concept of money. He spent freely . . . or, rather, flagrantly. While his wife was alive, she managed to control his wilder impulses. But after her death . . .” He lifted his shoulders. “God knows, I tried to counsel him on the dangers of . . . of . . .”

“Of cheating?” suggested Arianna. “Of consorting with criminals?”

“Your father saw things far more abstractly,” replied Ashmun. “It is deucedly hard to explain, but Richard had great trouble seeing the connection between his actions and the consequences of them. He meant no harm—his calculations were simply an intellectual challenge, and he took boyish delight in solving them. It wasn’t until later . . .”

Ashmun paused for a swallow of brandy. “But before I digress, let me finish with this part of the tale. To make a long story short, your father’s cleverness went a touch too far, for you see, he couldn’t help but add an extra equation that skimmed off a little extra for himself.”

“In other words,” said Saybrook, “he cheated the cheaters at their own game.”

“Precisely,” answered the baron. “It took them a year or so to discover it, and to be honest, I’m not quite sure how it came to light. Perhaps Richard admitted the joke one night when he was in his cups. That would be the sort of thing he would do—ha, ha, ha, no hard feelings, eh?”

“Ha, ha, ha,” echoed Arianna.

“However, his friends did not find it amusing and so decided to take revenge. They, too, were very clever men. Ruthlessly so, as you have good reason to know, my dear.”

“So they concocted the accusation of cheating at cards,” murmured Arianna.

“Which forced Lord Morse to leave the country,” finished Saybrook.

“Aye.” Ashmun blotted his brow with his handkerchief and finished his brandy. “I believe that in the meantime, your father had constructed a few other ventures for them, and I suppose they felt they didn’t need him anymore.”

“And he couldn’t very well reveal their wrongdoings,” mused the earl. “For to do so would have ruined his own name as well.”

“Correct. My understanding is that they gave him a sum to leave quietly. Richard was in financial straits at the time and, well, he really had no choice but to accept his punishment. To have been publicly branded a cheat at cards would have been a fate worse than death. He would have been ostracized from Society and all the convivial company he so craved. In Jamaica, at least, he could pretend that he was still part of that world.”

“I can see that.” Arianna lifted her glass and set the amber liquid into a slow, spinning swirl. “But what I don’t understand is why they should want to have him murdered. They had taken their revenge—in spades, I might add. Papa’s sun had long since sunk into an ocean of rum. He posed no threat to them.” Her fingers tightened. “I am, of course, assuming that his death wasn’t a random robbery. Having inherited a little of his knack for numbers, I would say the odds of that are virtually nil.”

“Lady Arianna,” began Saybrook.

“However,” she said quickly, ignoring his interruption. “When I add two and two together, it becomes clear that you did not journey all the way to the West Indies simply to share a glass of planter’s punch with an old friend.”

“Unfortunately, your arithmetic is correct,” said Ashmun with a doleful sigh. “I was never close with Richard’s new set of friends. I was living in Scotland at the time of your father’s first foray into partnership with them, else I would have tried to steer him away from any involvement. Even then, they had a reputation as being dangerous men to deal with. However, I have enough contacts within the world of commerce to have gotten wind of some disquieting information in the summer of ’05. I heard that one of the group—I am not sure who—had approached a senior clerk at Richardson, Overend and Company, which, by the by, specialized in handling discount bills of exchange for a number of banks, both here in England and abroad.”

“What are bills of exchange?” asked Arianna.

“They are the grease that keeps the wheels of commerce turning.” It was Saybrook who answered her question. “They facilitate the exchange of money for goods, especially over great distances or across borders.”

Curious, she pressed for further information. “How so?”

“Let us say the owner of a sugar plantation in Jamaica sells his crop to a merchant in Liverpool. He may go to a bank in Kingston and draw a bill of exchange against the value of the shipment, which he verifies with a bill of lading and a certificate of insurance stating the goods are indemnified against loss. In other words, he is advanced the money for the sugar cane, minus certain fees and interest, and the bank retains the bill of exchange, which is redeemed when the merchant pays on delivery of the sugar cane.”

“I see,” she said slowly.

“The Kingston bank may then resell the bill of exchange, or use it for collateral against other loans. The rate of exchange is where profits can be made or lost. It’s a complex variable, which depends on distance, the scarcity of goods, and a number of other factors.” The earl looked to Ashmun. “Isn’t that right?”

“You appear well-informed on economics, Lord Saybrook.”

“I’ve been doing some reading on the subject lately.” He slanted a quick glance at Arianna before asking, “Samuel Gurney joined Richardson, Overend and Company in 1807, did he not? And controls the firm, which is now known as Overend, Gurney and Company?”

“Yes,” replied Ashmun. “The Gurneys are a well-known Quaker family, with powerful connections in banking circles.”

Gurney.
The name explained yet another bit of Kellton’s disjointed rant.

But then Arianna reminded herself that for the moment it was only speculation.

“Theory is all very well, but let us get back to your story, Lord Ashmun,” she prodded. However horrible, she needed to know the details. “I think we had better hear the rest of it.”

“Very well,” agreed Ashmun. “I received a letter from your father hinting that he had the promise of riches—and a return to England. It seemed to me that the only possibility was a new venture with his former partners.”

She couldn’t hold back an exasperated oath. “Bloody hell, you would think he had learned his lesson.”

The baron’s eyes flooded with sympathy. “He wanted so desperately to bring you home to England, my dear.”

Yet another unrealistic dream.
Genius could be a blessing or a curse.

“I sent him a long reply, trying to point out just such a thing,” went on Ashmun. “However, the more I thought about it, the more I worried that he was desperate enough to do something that he would regret.” A short exhale, hardly more than a chuff of air, emphasized the last word. “His missive made mention that a meeting to finalize the deal was set for sometime in the beginning of November. As I had some family estate affairs to settle in Jamaica myself, I decided to move up my trip in order to arrive in the West Indies before that date. I thought that I might be able to talk some sense into your father. As you know, we did meet. . . .” The baron shook his head. “In the past, he had always been willing to listen to reason.”

“He had been drinking heavily for some years,” said Arianna.