“What did you do?” Col demanded.
“I challenged him to a chess game. He lost, and apparently he’d eaten something that didn’t agree with him. He dropped over dead in my sitting room, so my footman disposed of him. I’m not up to answering too many questions at my age.”
“Did he have my journal pages?”
“Yes. He was quite proud of that. He admitted to eliminating the clerk who’d stolen them. Oh, and he also had the midwife murdered.”
Col was afraid if the old man told him much more, he might cast up his accounts. “Where are my pages now?”
“In my fireplace, in the cinder grate.”
Col rolled his eyes. He’d have to round up his family after tea and take them home. The war was over.
THE END
EPILOGUE
Carrington-Bowles Surrey Estate
May, 1831
Col settled Charlotte onto one of the comfortable lawn chaises set up beneath the trees for guests not interested in the wild lawn games the clouds of children were enjoying entirely too much. CB’s Aunt Camilla, now slower and more delicate in her advanced years, had suggested Charlotte join her there. The older woman, as usual, was full of gossip of the eternally fascinating characters of theton, and had assured his wife she had plenty ofon ditsto share.
The front lawn of CB’s country estate had been transformed into a fairy woodland for a birthday party in honor of one of the young wards he and Nathaniel and taken into their family from Honoria Atherton’s Seven Dials orphanage.
Ath and Honoria watched over their own brood who were in the mad crowd of young revelers. Sythe and Julia’s son had brought a book to read, but soon tossed it aside to join the other young hellions in racing pell mell from the manor house terrace to the vast pond below and back.
Col tried to hide his concern for Charlotte. This was her third pregnancy, the first two having ended in miscarriages. They’d both braced themselves again for bitter disappointment, but this time, she’d been much healthier and had progressed well with only a few months to go.
He secretly feared her abuse as a child might have brought on the difficulties, but Charlotte refused to admit defeat. She yearned for a babe of her own.
He requested a blanket from a passing footman and tucked the soft woolen robe around her legs so that she could keep an eye on Dee while resting under the shade of an ancient oak tree. He took a seat nearby.
When he surveyed all the children romping through a three-legged race, he couldn’t locate Dee. The old fear clutched at him. Her cloud of bright gold hair always stood out in a crowd, but he couldn’t see her anywhere. When he stood and turned back toward the house, there she was surrounded by adults. He sighed, excused himself to Aunt Camilla and Charlotte, and headed for the group.
When Col reached his old friends on the terrace, Ath sang out, “Now what is it you do for a living, Mr. Colwyn?”
“It’s a mystery, a deep government secret I can’t reveal.” Col pantomimed twisting his lips shut.
A smaller voice chimed in. “He’s an investi…investigator.”
Col clutched his chest and fell to the ground with a mock wound. “She found me out. Off with her head.”
Dee ran over, her face flushed with excitement, and tried to help pull him up from the ground. “Come over here, Papa. Uncle Nathaniel said I can spend a day with him in his kitchens if it’s all right with you.”
“You’ll wear him out with questions. I don’t think he’s thought this through.”
Nathaniel slanted her an indulgent smile.
“And he let me hold the new baby and…”
Col hoisted her onto his shoulders, mainly to calm her down a bit. She wasn’t used to being around so many children, but loved the chaos.
Barrister Sythe held up his glass of lemonade and nodded toward Col. “I told her with a mind like hers, she doesn’t belong in the kitchen. She should be reading law or translating ancient texts.” He deftly put his arm around his Indian wife, an acknowledged expert on historic texts of her country.
Dee was still wound up with excitement. “And Uncle Ath made us sit still for hours down by the pond while he sketched a picture of all of us.”
Ath joined the group on the terrace and poured himself a lemonade with a bit of something stronger added. “My dear, inventive Dee, it was a mere fifteen minutes. The sketches are the only way I have of capturing all of you for a painting before the lot of you grow up and take over Westminster.”
