Meg did not know if she made some sound, to hear all her suspicions confirmed, but she was aware that she was clutching Maria’s hand convulsively, and that her sister was clinging to her just as fiercely in return. So it was true!
‘That’s why he was blackmailing me!’ said Lady De Lacy sharply. ‘He knew that when Dominic found out, as he must after the wedding, he could say nothing. What an utter scoundrel! Oh – I’m sorry, dear girls, but I cannot restrain myself from naming him so. I hope you will forgive me.’ She didn’t sound enormously sorry, in truth.
‘You will hear no disagreement from us,’ Maria responded instantly, spectacles glinting fiercely. ‘He is all that and more. He has grievously wronged all of us. The question is, what are we going to do about it?’
‘Well, the horrid old rascal hasn’t done me any direct harm,’ said Lady Primrose bluntly, ‘and I’d sure he doesn’t know of my existence, so it’s not for me to say, but I think he should be horsewhipped – to begin with – for what he’s done to you, Maria. Then shot, possibly. I’ll have to think seriously about it.’
‘Quite right!’ agreed Lady De Lacy with bloodthirsty relish. If Lord Nightingale had entered the room at that moment, Meg would not have given a farthing for his safety.
‘That’s not all,’ Francis said, ‘and I’m in full agreement with all of you. Bound to be, because Clarke – excellent fellow – has discovered that he’s been messing about with the entailed property as well. Selling pieces of land he has no right to sell, actually forging my signature on legal documents. All manner of shocking things!’
Meg said, frowning, ‘Does my father know you know? I’m not blaming you for it, I’m sure it couldn’t be helped, but I don’t see how your lawyer could ask to look at all the papers without raising grave doubts in my father’s lawyer’s mind. Even if he didn’t think anything was amiss, he must surely mention the matter to Lord Nightingale, or he’d not be doing his duty to his employer.’
‘Ah, well, that would be correct, Meg, except that young Clarke is a deep one. He went to see the fellow in his office with no appointment, thought he’d surprise him – Sallow, his name is, little rat of a man. Clarke took his measure in an instant and pegged him for a blubbering coward, and so he took a high hand with him from the start. He told him he knew for certain that Lord Nightingale had been up to all manner of skulduggery – even though he actually knew nothing of the sort, only suspected it – and said that he’d make sure Master Sallow went down with him if he didn’t help prove it. Who d’you think will get transported to Botany Bay, he said, or hung, for that matter – a peer of the realm, or a ten-shilling lawyer with no powerful friends to save him? Apparently the fellow knew exactly what was amiss, started bleating about how none of it was his fault, he’d only been obeying his master’s orders, and after that he did all he could to help, in the hope of saving his own neck.’
Francis showed great animation as he continued. ‘I’ve written proof that would satisfy any court in the land – there’s documents supposedly signed by me on dates I wasn’t even in the country, if you can credit it, but taking a toddle to Paris with a couple of other fellows, friends of mine. Can call a dozen witnesses to prove I was gambling in the Casino when I was supposed to be sitting in Lincoln’s Inn dashed well signing away my sister’s fortune, and my own. There’s no doubt about any of it, I promise you. We’ve got him.’
Someone – perhaps everyone – breathed a deep sigh of relief.
‘So now,’ Sir Dominic said, smiling at Meg, ‘we only need to confront him. Your father can have no notion that anything is afoot, and we may take him by surprise and sweep him entirely off his feet. When shall we do it – today?’
36
Lord Nightingale’s butler raised his eyebrows at the curious little family deputation that arrived in Grosvenor Square a short while later, but he could hardly deny admission to his master’s three children (one of whom was resident in the house), accompanied by Miss Maria’s intended husband. Primrose had discreetly gone home, after squeezing Maria’s hand and wishing them all luck, and Lady De Lacy too had decided not to come; she had no desire to see the odious blackmailer again, she had said, since she could not trust herself to address him with anything resembling common courtesy. She depended on her son to say and do all that was necessary, and was presumably now reclining on her fainting couch with her smelling salts, contemplating ingenious methods of revenge in the manner of Lady Macbeth or Clytemnestra.
They were ushered into the drawing room and awaited their unwitting host in tense silence. It seemed to take an inordinate amount of time before he made an appearance, and Meg had just been about to suggest that they go to confront him boldly in his library when the door opened, and her father stood blinking on the threshold, surveying them impassively.
Even with all she knew of his wickedness, and all she had suffered at his hands, it was hard to reconcile the harmless-looking scholar she saw before her with the ruthless and cruel actions she knew he had perpetrated. Lord Nightingale was tall, like his children, and had presumably once been fair – his brows and lashes were sandy, but he covered his hair, or his lack of hair, with an old-fashioned wig, which made him appear older than his sixty years. Endless hours of study had left him stooped and pallid, and like his older daughter he wore gold-rimmed spectacles perched on his nose. His dress verged on the shabby, his face was heavily lined and his expression unreadable. His silence made an extraordinary impression on his younger daughter. Would he not speak? He must be astonished to see the two children from whom he was estranged here, together, in his house. Surely he must fear discovery, and wonder how much they knew. And yet he said nothing.
The moment of silence stretched, and then he shuffled forward into the room and the waiting butler was able to close the door behind him and exit smartly. ‘To what do I owe the honour of this most unexpected visit?’ Lord Nightingale said drily at last. His voice, appropriately, was papery thin, little more than a rustle, as if from long disuse. ‘It must be something vastly important, that you have all come to interrupt me so rudely when you know, or should know, that I am busy with my most important studies.’ His tone did not alter a jot when he turned to Meg and Maria, who stood close together, and said levelly, ‘I suppose your bitch of a mother sent you?’
Meg gasped and a gloved hand flew to her mouth. Before the Baron could turn on her and ask her what the devil she and her sister were about – the words could almost be seen hovering on his parched lips – his son stepped forward and said fiercely, ‘If you weren’t an old man and my father, to my sorrow, I’d dashed well knock you down for that foul remark! You must know perfectly well why we’re here!’
‘I know nothing of the kind,’ Nightingale said waspishly. ‘But I presume you’re going to tell me. I have never had a high opinion of your intelligence, Francis – you must take after your fool of a dam rather than any member of my illustrious family – but I’d assume you can manage to explain yourself adequately in simple words.’ An unpleasant little smile hovered around his lips and he snuffled disagreeably, as though he was congratulating himself inwardly upon a witty riposte. He appeared to be oblivious to the almost palpable waves of loathing coming at him from every person in the room.
‘I am happy to do so,’ said Francis stiffly, his face flushed. Maria, who stood by him, reached out and put her hand on his arm, and he achieved a grateful little smile in her direction before he continued. ‘In simple words, then, so that you may understand them, we have discovered exactly how much you have cheated us, Father. My sister’s portion, stolen from her, and the entailed estates, plundered. You have even forged my name on legal documents, and I can prove it.’
‘Nonsense.’ Lord Nightingale appeared tranquil and unaffected.
‘It’s not nonsense,’ Meg said hotly. She had forgotten how easily her father filled her with rage; it was one thing to know all he’d done, and another to see him calmly denying it, as though he could distort the very nature of reality by his unshakeable belief in himself. ‘Francis can prove that he was abroad on an occasion when he was supposed to have signed an important document. He has the forged paper, and he also has witnesses who will swear that he was in Paris with them on the date it was drawn up.’
‘They dashed well will,’ Francis growled. ‘They’ll be delighted to.’
‘No one will believe a word your ramshackle friends say,’ his father answered serenely. ‘I am sure you must have bribed my idiot of a lawyer, or something of that disreputable nature. My word as a peer and an eminent scholar will naturally count for far more than theirs or yours. Imbecile boy! And in any case, I can’t believe you really want to air our family secrets in public. The illustrious Beau De Lacy, who is to be your brother-in-law so very soon, I am sure has not the least desire to do so.’ His eyes found Sir Dominic’s; unbelievably, the old man was still smiling, his smug confidence apparently unshaken.
‘You may be confusing me with my mother,’ said Sir Dominic icily. ‘I would never have given in to your unconscionable blackmail if she’d told me of it directly, and I won’t do so now. Spread any tale you like about my family; I’m sure it will be drowned in the enormous scandal that will be created when the extent of your theft and fraud is exposed to everyone.’
‘You’re bluffing,’ Lord Nightingale said, his smile slipping a fraction. ‘You’re all bluffing. You wouldn’t dare expose me.’
‘Do not continue to delude yourself, I beg you. It would give me a great deal of satisfaction to enlighten the whole world as to exactly what you are,’ Sir Dominic told him. ‘It would be nothing more than you deserve, and I don’t think for a moment that anyone in this room would shed a single tear if you were imprisoned or transported. If we refrain from seeking legal remedies for your many crimes, it is not out of any compunction for you, or fear of scandal. It’s only because between us we have had a better idea – a much more fitting punishment.’
‘De Lacy’s hit the nail on the head. The truth is, we have a mind to try a little blackmail of our own,’ Francis said steadily. Meg could see that he shared – as they all did – in the exhilaration of facing her father down and doing so as a team. ‘You should appreciate that, I’d have thought – just like one of your blasted dull Greek tragedies. Hubris, that’s the ticket! You will pay for your dashed hubris by auctioning off your precious collection and paying us back what you’ve stolen from us.’
‘I will do no such thing!’ Lord Nightingale said. His face was ghastly pale now, and his eyes were wild. Clearly the threat to what he held most dear in the world had hit home, and he was taking his assembled family seriously at last.
‘You will, or Francis will place all his proof in the hands of a magistrate and demand he acts on it,’ Maria said. ‘We shall all go there together, right this instant, and denounce you in the strongest possible terms. If you imagine for a second that I will allow you to get away with stealing my inheritance, and my brother’s, you don’t know me at all. You don’t know any of us. Which frankly doesn’t surprise me, since Meg has been living here and masquerading as me for days and days and you haven’t even noticed. You may think you’re very clever, Father, but in all the ways that count you are actually exceedingly stupid!’
‘I will cast you off, you impudent hoyden!’ he cried, staggering a little and clutching at the back of a chair to support himself. ‘You are no longer any daughter of mine! I have no children! I disinherit the whole pack of you!’
