‘We’ll go and see him, thank you, Betsy.’ Bree led the way down the flagged passageway as the housekeeper bustled off in the direction of the kitchen. ‘Perhaps he is unwell? A brain fever? That might account for saying strange things about you. Perhaps that was the doctor last night.’
‘Staying into the small hours?’ Piers queried reasonably as she tapped on the planked oak door.
‘Uncle, it’s us, Piers and Bree. Do let us in.’ Silence. Bree lifted the latch and pushed. The room was gloomy with only one candle lit against the gathering dusk. A figure was slumped at the cluttered desk. As they came in George Mallory pushed back his chair and gaped at them. Bree saw, with a sinking sort of dread, that he was unshaven and that his hands were trembling.
‘I was writing to you. Trying to. To you both. Oh, Bree, lass, Piers, my boy, I’ve done a dreadful thing. Your father would never forgive me.’ He dropped his grizzled head into his hands.
‘Uncle, don’t … don’t say that, it can’t be that bad. Come, we will sit down and you can tell us about it.’ She pressed him back in his chair, suddenly very conscious of the feel of his shoulders under her hands. He was losing weight, ageing, when he had always been ageless to her. She felt full of dread. ‘Piers, light some more candles.’
The older man flinched at the light and Bree realised she could smell stale brandy on him. ‘Tell us, we’ll help,’ she said, desperately hoping it was true.
‘I’ve lost my share of the company,’ George blurted out, so suddenly she could only stare at him, waiting for the words to make sense. ‘Gambled it away. Lost it at cards.’
‘Oh, bloody hell.’ Piers sat down with a thump. ‘Who to?’
His uncle did not answer him directly. His eyes were fixed on Bree. ‘I got to playing cards, a few nights a week, down at the Queen’s Head. Same men—I was there every night. I found I enjoyed it, lost a bit, drank too much. Then I found it was difficult to stop and I was losing more. Nothing too much to manage, though.’ His voice trailed off.
‘Is that when you wrote the letter that brought me here the other day?’ Bree asked gently. How could he have lost as much as half the company is worth? She fought her impatience and let him tell the story at his own pace.
‘Yes. Tried to stop going down there in the evenings, but I went again, night before last. Got to talking to a gentleman, a real London swell. He bought me a drink or two, we played a hand. I won.’ Bree’s heart sank. It was all to obvious where this was going.
‘I won again, and again. I felt a bit bad about it, to tell you the truth, so I asked him back for supper—the food’s not up to much down at the Queen’s Head.’
‘And you played some more, and began to lose?’
‘Yes. He said he’d come again last night, give me a chance to win it back. I lost again, and when we added up the IOUs—Bree, it was everything I have and more.’
‘So he said he’d take your share in the company?’
‘Yes. I offered him all my horses, all my cash, asked for time to raise the rest, but he said no. All he wanted was the Challenge Coaching Company. He knew all about it, called it by name.’
‘Where is he now?’ Bree got to her feet, a hard determination settling over her. Who this sharp was and how he had come to be there, preying on her uncle, she could not fathom, but he was not going to get away with it.
‘Down at the inn. He’s leaving tomorrow—I was writing to warn you to expect him at the Mermaid with his lawyer.’
‘I will go and see him and buy it back.’
‘We have that much money?’ Piers stared at her.
‘No.’ Bree stared into the candlelight, wrestling with her conscience. For herself she would not dream of it, but for Piers’s future she was prepared to sacrifice both pride and principle. ‘But I know a man who has.
‘I will ask Max. What’s the alternative?’ she demanded in the face of Piers’s gesture of protest. ‘To go to a moneylender? Or to James?’
‘James would never agree,’ her brother said positively. ‘He does not approve of the business, and we would never convince him how important this is.’
‘I will ask Max to lend it to Uncle—it will have to be repaid.’ George Mallory was too sunk in gloom to take in what she was saying—the brief discussion seemed to have gone over his head. ‘Piers, stay here with Uncle.’
‘You cannot go off to a common inn by yourself to meet a strange man. I’m coming too.’ Piers clattered at her heels as she strode down the hall, and out of the front door. Bree did not argue: Piers’s tall frame and fierce indignation were too much of a comfort to have at her side.
It took only twenty minutes to have a pony hitched to the gig and to drive the quarter mile to the Queen’s Head, sitting next to the church in the little hamlet. ‘What’s he doing here, this gentleman?’ she asked. ‘A London swell, Uncle said. It is hardly the place for a sharp to find pigeons for the plucking.’
‘Perhaps he came for a reason, deliberately to find Uncle,’ Piers speculated. ‘But who? Why?’
Bree shrugged. Speculation would do them no good. She flicked the reins around the hitching bar outside the inn and swept inside. ‘Good evening, Mr Tanner. You have a gentleman staying here? He dined with my uncle the other night.’
The publican came out from behind his counter, his expression puzzled at the tone of her voice. ‘Aye, Miss Mallory, he’s taking his supper in the back parlour. Private like,’ he added as Bree headed off in the direction he pointed.
She did not trouble to knock, sweeping in to confront the man who looked up in surprise as the door banged back. He laid down his knife and got slowly to his feet, a wary smile on his face.
Bree’s stomach performed a slow flip. ‘Brice Latymer. I should have guessed.’
‘Mr Latymer?’ At her side Piers stared. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘He is taking his revenge, I suppose,’ Bree said with loathing. ‘At the picnic he made advances to me. I rebuffed him. Lord Penrith and Mr Harlow threw him out. I imagine his pride is severely dented.’
Latymer was warily keeping the table between himself and the Mallorys, a wise precaution as Piers lunged forward, fists clenched. ‘You bastard! I’ll call you out. How dare you touch my sister!’
‘Piers, no.’ Bree held his arm and he subsided, his lanky frame quivering with anger. ‘I want to know how he knew about Uncle.’
‘You told me, my dear. Don’t you recall confiding your worries about poor Uncle? I thought then it might come in useful, and how right I was.’
‘How despicable you are,’ Bree observed. ‘Do you save every morsel of gossip, every hint of weakness, every possibility for advantage on the off chance that you can profit by it?’ It was strange, but she felt quite cold and controlled, as though she was dealing with a reptile, not a human being at all.
‘Of course.’ He smiled and she wondered how she had never before seen the cold that lay behind his eyes. ‘I was not born with a silver spoon in my mouth like your lover Penrith. I have had to make my own way by my wits.’
Bree ignored Piers’s growl at Latymer’s description of Max, but the significance of the words had not escaped her. ‘So that is what it is—you are jealous of the earl. I turned you down, he called you to account.’ The flush on the man’s cheekbones betrayed him. ‘I imagine he is your superior in every way one can name,’ she said contemptuously. ‘I will buy the company back from you.’
‘And I will not sell it.’ Latymer moved back from the table, his lean elegance incongruous in the modest inn parlour. His