What A Gentleman Wants (33 page)

But Marcus was not there. Hannah started to step back out of the room, but David stirred, blinking awake. “What? Who’s there?”

“I was looking for Marcus,” she said quietly. “I’m sorry I disturbed you.”

“Quite all right.” He sighed, setding into the pillows again. “You just missed him. He was here not long ago.” A frown flitted over his face, then he sat upright again. “I’m glad you’ve come, though. Hannah, what I did—”

“I’m sorry, David but I really must find Marcus at once.” She wasn’t in the mood to listen to his apology now.

“It was unpardonable—”

“Really, David—”

“I deserve to be shot—”

“Please, David,” said Hannah desperately. “I must find Marcus—Lily’s been working with the people who tried to kidnap Molly!”

His eyebrows shot up. “Molly? Kidnapped?”

Hannah nodded. “Yes, I found a note saying they’d taken her—didn’t Marcus tell you? But then Lily let slip that she’d taken Molly, and only hidden her instead of handing her over to whomever wanted to snatch her. And I must find Marcus to tell him—” The hysteria she thought she’d tamped down bubbled up again, and she covered her mouth with one hand, feeling just as sick as she had the moment she’d comprehended the note’s meaning. She needed Marcus, needed his advice and reassurance that things would be fine. Not being able to find him was shredding her nerves. What if the kidnappers came back, when Lily didn’t deliver Molly to them? What if they were armed? What if—what if—

“Hannah.” David had gotten out of bed and put on his dressing gown. “I didn’t know. What happened?”

Hannah heaved a sigh. “Someone tried to kidnap Molly. But my maid, Lily, was working with them. She was supposed to take Molly to them, I think, but she didn’t—but she must know something about the people who tried.” She took another deep breath and tried to gather her scrambled thoughts. “Marcus will want to question her, don’t you think? I’m so worried they may come back, or try again. But I don’t know where he is.”

David looked mildly dazed, but he nodded. “No doubt Here, calm yourself.” He pulled the bell. “But everyone is well, aren’t they? You said Molly is safe?” Hannah nodded, closing her eyes in relief. There was a light tap at the door, and David ordered the servant to go fetch Marcus at once.

“Have you had some tea?” Hannah opened her eyes to see David looking a bit unsure of himself. She swiped at her eyes, and forced a laugh.

“No, thank you. I don’t need tea. I just need—that is, I need to speak to Marcus. Your brother,” she amended hastily, but not before a knowing look crossed David’s face.

“Ah. I see.” He cleared his throat. “So, shall I wish you—”

“No,” she said firmly.

“Yes, of course.” David looked away, although she saw his smirking grin, and then the servant reappeared, saying his grace had gone out. David glanced at Hannah. “Send Telman in,” he directed the servant, who nodded and vanished. David shuffled his feet. “May I apologize now?”

Hannah glared at him. “No.”

He closed his mouth with a mumbled, “Sorry.”

“David!”

“Sorry, sorry,” he said hastily. “I wasn’t apologizing for that! Not at all, no, for the—the other thing!” He stopped, looking at her, and then they both choked back nervous laughter.

This was better. Hannah relaxed a little bit in her chair, her heart beginning to slow down. Surely if she could laugh with David, everything else would turn out right.

Telman made his appearance in short order, but had nothing useful to tell them. “He has gone out, my lord,” was his reply to David’s question.

“Where?” David prodded.

“I cannot tell you, my lord. I do not know.”

“What do you know?”

Telman stood a little straighter at the impatience in David’s question. “Not much, my lord. But I do know he left the house attired in your clothing.”

Hannah blinked. She turned to David. “Why would he do that?”

David was watching Telman with narrowed eyes. “Did he say anything at all?”

Telman swallowed. “I have always prided myself on my discretion, my lord, in serving His Grace, and I—”

“What is it, man?” barked David.

“He said nothing to me of where he meant to go or what he would do,” finished Telman rapidly, glancing at Hannah, “but I believe he did say something, rather to himself, about your daughter, madam.”

Hannah frowned in confusion and instinctive alarm. David swore, then threw off his dressing gown. “Bring a suit of my brother’s clothing,
now
,” he ordered Telman. The valet bolted for the door, letting it slam behind him. David peeled the sticking plaster from his forehead. “Can your maid cover this?” he asked Hannah, pointing at the cut.

“
Yes
.” Still not understanding completely, Hannah ran into the hall where Lily still stood, her eyes scared and her apron rumpled. “Fetch the cosmetics at once,” she ordered. The girl nodded and fled. Hannah ran back.

“What are you going to do, David?” she asked anxiously. “You know something, don’t you?”

Looking grim, David nodded. “I told Marcus every-thing he would need to know to find the fellows who beat me. He must think they took Molly—God, Hannah, I’m so sorry—that’s the only reason he would go off in my clothing.” A bitter smile twisted his mouth. “What a turnabout, hmm? Marcus posing as me, instead of the other way ‘round.”

“But Molly is here,” Hannah pointed out, confused and approaching hysteria again.

“Marcus doesn’t know that.” Telman flew back through the door, one of Marcus’s finest coats and waistcoats draped over his arm, boots and trousers and shirt in his other hand. David stepped into the trousers, then yanked the nightshirt over his head without a trace of embarrassment and reached for the linen shirt.

Hannah pressed one hand to her mouth and closed her eyes. Marcus was running headlong after the men who had tried to kill David, dressed as David. To save her child. “What will they do to him?” she asked in a shaky voice.

David shrugged, pulling on the waistcoat as Telman tried to knot his cravat. “There’s no saying. They weren’t too pleased with me, but I can’t imagine why they would have tried to steal Molly. You’re not my wife after all, and…” Lily hurried in then, the cosmetics case in her hands. David pinned her with a cool look. “What do you know about this, girl?”

He sounded so much like Marcus, and had just the right expression on his face, that Lily let out a terrified squeak, stopping in her tracks. Even Hannah, who knew for certain it was David and not Marcus, looked at him in amazement.

“Nothing,” Lily stammered. “I—I don’t know anything! I was just supposed to b-bring the baby to them, but I couldn’t. I didn’t! I would never hurt her—”

“To whom were you supposed to bring the child?”

Lily wet her lips, looking to Hannah in mute appeal. “Mr. Reece, madam.”

“What?” said Hannah, caught completely off guard. Lily flushed scarlet, the case shaking in her grip. Then David slammed his fist into the wall and muttered, “God damn it all!”

Hannah gave up trying to follow the tangled stories. “Hide the cut on his forehead,” she commanded Lily. “I’m coming with you,” she said to David as he sat on the bed to pull on the boots.

“The devil you are,” he retorted.

“You’ll be a better duke with a duchess,” she called back as she ran from the room. “Do not leave without me!”

Hannah changed into one of her new dresses in record time. She pinned back the curls that had come loose, and put on her old half boots, in case she needed to run like a country girl instead of stroll like a duchess. Then she hurried back to David’s room, where Lily was just finishing. The wound was well concealed, looking more like a shadow on David’s forehead, an impression Telman reinforced by quickly combing David’s hair a bit forward. It wasn’t quite the way Marcus wore his hair, but it was close, and when David faced her, Hannah had to admit he looked very much like the duke of Exeter.

“You’re not coming with me,” he said.

“I most certainly am.” She turned to Lily. “This way.”

Lily turned white. “Oh, madam, please! Haven’t I tried to help, as much as I can? Please forgive me, I beg you—”

Hannah pushed her into the dressing room that adjoined David’s room. “I shall deal with you when I come back.” She closed the door on her frightened maid, locked it, and handed the key to the thunderstruck Telman. “Do not let her out.”

“No, madam,” said the valet faindy. Hannah swept out the door, David in her wake.

They didn’t speak again until they were in the carriage, rattling along toward whatever destination David had given the driver. Marcus, they learned, had hailed a cab.

“Are you sure?” Hannah asked at last.

David was staring out the window, his face stony. “Yes.”

“But why?” she ventured a moment later. “I don’t see what Mr. Reece trying to kidnap Molly has to do with the men who beat you.”

David turned. “The men who beat me are counterfeiters,” he said. “It’s too long to relate now, but I didn’t know what they were until I was too far involved to get out easily—as you saw. Bentley must be the one running things; I always suspected Rourke reported to someone else. Using me must have been a grand joke to Bentley. Christ!” He shoved one hand through his hair, uncovering the cut. Hannah leaned forward to brush his hair back into place, and he winced. “He’s always been jealous of Marcus,” David went on more calmly. “When we were younger, he’d make jokes about how close he was to being a duke, and yet was still just a penniless nobody. Marcus never liked him, and just ignored him, and I… well, I just thought he was jealous. But he’s not penniless, or never seems to be—”

“Forged money,” said Hannah, beginning to understand. “He’s spending the counterfeit notes.”

David shook his head, “
I
was spending the counterfeit notes, and passing them to other people through card games.”

“But…” She shook her head, confused again. “What does that have to do with Molly? Why would they want to steal her?”

David sighed. “I don’t know. It would make sense if they wanted to get at Marcus instead of at me.”

“Does he?” asked Hannah in a shocked voice. “Could that be Bentley’s goal all along, Marcus?” David frowned. “If he did,” Hannah went on slowly, trying to fit the pieces together as she went, “it might make sense that he used you; if you were convicted of counterfeiting, you would be hanged—”

Transported,“ David corrected. ”Close enough.“

“And then Marcus would have no heir,” Hannah continued. “At least not one nearby… unless people thought he would have a son…”

“Most likely Bentley planned to keep that from happening. Of course, Marcus showed no inclination to marry—”

“Lady Willoughby!” declared Hannah. “She used to be Marcus’s mistress.”

David stared. “How the bloody hell do you know that?”

“Rosalind told me. And Lady Willoughby was with Bentley Reece! I saw them one day!”

David blinked, then shook his head. “So what does Susannah have to do with it?”

“Well.”‘ Hannah pondered a moment “She wanted to marry Marcus—Rosalind told me,” she said as his eyes widened again. “Perhaps, when I… turned up, she was upset—”

“Viciously disappointed, more like,” David muttered.

“And then she decided to help Bentley… ?” Hannah stopped, too confused. That didn’t make sense. David frowned, then leaned forward.

“Bentley would have sought her out. He would have known how much she must have hated Marcus then— and she would have hated him, believe me. And at the same time, his plans must have been altered by Marcus’s apparent marriage. For if Marcus fathered a child…” His voice trailed off as Hannah gaped.

“Do you suppose Lady Willoughby was working with Bentley all along, hoping to marry Marcus and never to bear him a child?”

David shook his head. “I can credit that she could contrive to marry him and enjoy being a duchess without wanting to become a mother; she’s as vain as the very devil. But that would take too long for Bent-ley. Marcus could live to be ninety and thwart his plan. No, if Susannah were in league with Bentley, you can be sure she planned to be the widowed duchess of Exeter before too long.”

Hannah digested that “She could have killed him,” she whispered. “And then Bentley…”

“Bentley would be the duke, and if she exercised enough pull over him, Susannah could make him marry her. Or she could just keep her tide, and the generous settlement Bentley would be sure to give her.”

“If that had ever come to pass,” said Hannah in a voice low with fury, “I hope they both would have wondered every moment if the other might kill them, too.”

David snorted. “No doubt. But we have to make sure it doesn’t come to pass.” He took another look out the window.

“But Lily,”‘ Hannah went on. “What was Lily’s role?”

David lifted one shoulder. “No idea.”

“We saw her going into Marcus’s study one night,” she continued to think aloud. “But she didn’t take anything, not that Marcus could see. And when I wanted to question her, he said no, he preferred to watch her and see what she did next.”

“Steal Molly away, that’s what she did,” said David under his breath. Hannah put up one hand to quiet him.

“But she didn’t. Money, then. Could he have paid her to be a spy in Marcus’s household?”

“Of course he could have.” David frowned. “He would have taken an awful risk, though. Marcus demands, and rewards, unwavering loyalty, and most of the staff have been with the family for years, if not generations. She could have told Marcus everything. Either Bentley did something to Lily that made her more likely to agree to his plan, or she already bore some grudge and he just stumbled across her. She had to have known what Marcus would do to her if she were discovered.”

“Yes, I think she did,” murmured Hannah, remembering Lily’s expression when she had said they were going to the duke. “He’ll send me to prison,” the maid had said. Lily had known, so why did she do it?

“Well, she may have saved herself by not handing over Molly,” said David, cutting into her thoughts. “And no doubt we’ll never know the whole story unless Bentley tells us, although I would be delighted to choke it out of him personally. We’re almost there.”