Caroline shook her head. “He looks rather like Sir Mark, I grant you, but that is mainly due to his extreme quirks of fashion—which he gained with Sir Mark’s clothes—and his hair—which are Sir Mark’s wigs.” Caroline gestured at Sophia. “Your face quite clearly shows your doubt. But you did not know Sir Mark well, did you? You told Anne that you grew up at Marston Grange, fostered to some family, were you not? You said you were not well-acquainted with Sir Mark until lately.”
“I was not.” Sophia’s lips moved soundlessly. “Could it be true?”
Sir Mark licked his lips. “This is—nonsense! Who else should I be? I’ve never heard such a Canterbury tale.”
Caroline continued, feeling more herself than she had in weeks. “That begs the question—where is the real Sir Mark? I fear—and I do not say this lightly—that he has passed. Lady Marston seems to have been on hard times. Most of her famous brooches have been replaced with paste—her ostrich feathers are dyed with inferior dye that bled in her trunk—and she would not gamble even for low stakes, although I recall her playing quite deep in town. She needed this inheritance, I assume, far more than anyone in society knew. And she found this man—whoever he is—to take Sir Mark’s place long enough to get the inheritance transferred. She also needed someone who would trust her implicitly and do her dirty work, and she knew her daughter, Sophia?—”
The captain gasped and Caroline gave him an impatient look. “Please, keep up, we all guessed weeks ago that Sophia belonged to one of them. Lady Marston knew her daughter, impoverished and recently widowed, was in dire straits. She recruited her, probably with promise of largesse in Lisbon. I don’t know precisely what letter needed to be destroyed, but if Sir Mark’ssolicitor knew that he had passed—even if she kept it out of the papers—he would write to the trustees in Lisbon.”
Sophia put an unsteady hand on the foremast. “I thought perhaps the letter contained an entailment issue or there were restrictions on funds, or perhaps Sir Mark’s creditors were going to garnish his fortune to repay his debts. I never guessed we might be perpetrating a—a fraud.”
“I was only hired to do a job!” Sir Mark blurted out. “Sir Mark was my second cousin, but my side of the family fell on bad times—oh, eons before my day! Not even on nodding terms with them. Then comes Lady Marston offering me a chance to recoup a little of what weoughtto have had all along—but keeping it in the family as one might say! It is all Lady Marston’s doing. I even have her letter of promise—I get half the inheritance if I play the role. I can prove what I say.”
“You—!” Lady Marston’s face was livid.
Caroline was not done. “And Lady Marston must have poisoned the parrot. She had quite a pharmacological collection for someone who is such a good traveler and ‘never quacks herself.’ In fact,” Caroline hesitated for the first time, but she felt thecertaintyof it as the puzzle pieces slotted together. “In fact, I would not be surprised if some of that was intended forthisSir Mark on the way back to London. She would hardly leave an accomplice to betray her if she could help it. And he would be the last one who knew. Then she could go back to England, and no one would be any the wiser. The dead Sir Mark would be, in fact, dead—give or take a few months.”
“That’s—Why, you murderess!” The fake Sir Mark turned on Lady Marston. “I see it all now. I should’ve known you would never give me the money. Why, you would barely let me out of the cabin. You don’t trust me!”
“Why would I trust you—you, bird-witted clodpole of a man!”
“And when I asked what you’d do now that at least three people knew of Sir Mark’s death, you were very cagey about it. Planned to get rid of me, didn’t you? It wouldn’t matter then!” He was wound up and didn’t let her speak when she tried to cut him off. His wig fairly shook on his round head. “Fiend seize it if I don’t pity my cousin! I wouldn’t blame him ifhewanted to be rid ofyou.Did he die of apoplexy like you told me, or did you kill him the same way you planned to be rid of me?”
“He would’vecut me off,” Lady Marston flashed. “After all his expenses, he had the gall to declaremethe source of all our financial problems! He would’ve cut me off without a cent and left me to rot in Marston Grange.”
Shocked silence followed.
“I’ll be darned,” Captain Smythe said blankly.
“They took a trip to Scotland,” Caroline said, remembering the news she’d heard months ago. “Perhaps so that Lady Marston would be away from home when Sir Mark finally—when it would be necessary?—”
Lady Marston drew herself up, but the seething anger remained banked in her eyes. “He died of apoplexy in some hamlet in the north—Dunlop?—and it could not have been averted. But the dreadful busy-body of a curate wrote in concern to my trustees and destroyed my plans. I might be a fraud, but I am not a murderer.”
“Are you not?” asked Caroline. “I believe poisoners often grow complacent.”
Sophia reeled. “You kept his death out of the papers, but you could not show yourself publicly since you were supposed to be in mourning. You sent me to buy passage on the packet ship and to buy supplies, but you kept me away from your townhouse… You were not seen with me or withhimuntil we came aboard. Your people have no idea what is happening here, do they? And I’m sure you meant to keep it that way—no matter what it took.”
Lady Marston began to speak loudly and vociferously in her defense, and the dam seemed to break loose. Sir Mark claimed it was all a “dashed hum,” and not his fault. Captain Smythe roared a demand for further answers, and even Donny, the young sailor, demanded to know why his poor Gregory had to be killed. Richard tried to regain quiet, but now Sir Mark was ready to flee the ship. Smythe blocked access to the gangplank and Sir Mark looked ready to resort to fisticuffs to get away. A few sailors addedHuzzah,andDraw his cork, cap’n!to the clamor.
“Whatever we do,” Anne said desperately, “we should not do it here like this, with such an audience.”
The sailors were agog. Even some on the nearest wharf were watching the fight like a round of badminton as the sunlight fell, but Anne’s voice was far too gentle to break through the racket.
“This free-for-all is no good, Smythe,” Wentworth shouted over the fray. “Have your men take him below.”
Sophia wiped overwrought tears off her cheeks. At least she had stopped Mr. Belvedere’s immediate incarceration. She had hoped—she didn’t know. She thought throwing herself on a pyre would be easier than this.
“It’s over, Lady Marston—Mother,” said Sophia under the cover of the hubbub. “It’s over—you must see that this can go nowhere! I’m not accusing you of murder, but?—”
Lady Marston made an inarticulate growl of rage and came for Sophia. They were in the narrow foredeck of the ship, and Sophia scrambled backward, hitting the bulwark with her hip.
Lady Marston, taller and heavier, took Sophia’s shoulders and wrenched. Sophia’s feet left the deck. The railing bit into her back and ribs as she thrashed…
A further shove from Lady Marston toppled her into the harbor.
23
Only a panicked bleat of terror left Sophia’s lips before she hit the water. The shock of cold and wet made her senses shriek, and the dirty brackish water filled her mouth as she went under.
