“Yes. All that business about five thousand pounds was nonsense! I don’t know where they got such numbers.”
“But this money—could it implicate you somehow?”
“Not a bit,” he said cheerfully as the flames ate the second document. “It’s real currency, same as any other. And twenty-pound notes are a little high, but they will not draw notice the way a larger denomination would.” He began to roll them up,except for one, and reinsert them into his ingenious cane. He showed her the trick of it and had her practice. “Just in case anything should happen to me, I’d want you to be able to extract them.”
“But you don’t think anything will happen, do you? I would be heartbroken to—it would be terrible to lose you so soon.”
“I solemnly do not. If someone comes to this exact hotel with our description, we may be in trouble, but like I said, I doubt that Captain Smythe or any other will expect it. They will not think we are so bold or so plump in the pocket as to stay at one of the foremost hotels in the city.”
“That’s true.” Sophia began to smile. “Meeting up with Caroline and the colonel was quite bad luck, but she was rather magnificent, wasn’t she?”
“She was, and I believe I have you to thank for that. Both she and Mrs. Wentworth were very much on your side.”
“They were, weren’t they? It was very strange.”
He held out a hand to help her rise from the chair. “It is not strange to me. I was quite on your side from the very beginning. There I was, fleeing the country, and the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen happened to be in the next cabin! Oh—that reminds me. Did you mean to stumble into the captain and knock all those newspapers into the sea?”
“Yes, I did. Lady Marston gave me a sharp nudge, and I went along with it. I knew not why, but now I realize she must’ve feared that news of Sir Mark’s death had been printed in the papers.”
“Ah, of course. I like to understand it all. Now, shall we go see about having some supper? I amfamished,and I can only imagine how hungry you must be.”
“That sounds delightful.” She took his arm, wondering when was the last time she had felt so light. “In fact, if we are truly not purse-strapped, I’ve one more idea we might execute tonight.It would relieve my mind, but it’s a little reckless. If you don’t think?—”
“I am the last man in the world to censure you for recklessness. If it can be done, I’ll make it happen.”
29
Anne’s headache was forgotten when Caroline returned with the news of the runaways.
Caroline sat on the edge of the bed and gave Anne a beautiful custard tart from the city—along with the news of Mrs. Scott and Mr. Belvedere’s elopement.
Such an immediate and drastic reversal quite shocked Anne. “They had signed amarriagecontract? I never dreamed anything would come of it.”
“You were right apparently, and I hope you will not tell me I had a responsibility to let Richard bring them in, because I shall be very cross and eat yourpastel.” She nudged the tart a little closer to Anne.
“I don’t know what I would have done,” Anne said gravely. “I am glad that I wasn’t there. I would havewantedto help them; I think I would have! But if one or other of our husbands had insisted—the poor men reallydohave duties, you know?—”
“I do know, and while I think you are a lovely person and a good wife, I am very glad that I encountered them. I have far fewer scruples. Now do, please, eat this while I tell you howadorable they were.” She hesitated. “Unless it will distress you to think of two irresponsible young people acting in haste?—”
Anne finally bit into the tart, which was creamy with a sprinkling of cinnamon. “This is delicious. And no—it wouldn’t pain me. I decided long ago that placing risk and imprudence above love, at least in some cases, is not wisdom at all. It entirely depends on the young people involved. Sophia and Mr. Belvedere, despite their difficulties, strike me as level-headed young people. In fact, watching them reminded me very much of when I was only seventeen and I fell head over heels for a dashing and brilliant officer…” She swallowed another bit and laughed. “Perhaps don’t tell Frederick I compared him to Mr. Belvedere!”
Caroline swiped a crumb off the bed with a smile. “You should have seen Mrs. Scott’s face. You know how her eyes are always a little sad? There was none of that. I think Mr. Belvedere might have kissed her on the street if we had not surprised them. Which is quite shocking and vulgar, of course, but I wouldn’t have begrudged them. To be sure, I was indignant at first, but when I saw the contract, I understood.”
“I can’t help wondering what they will live on, but they must have a little if they could immediately afford a notary.”
“I thought that, also. And I don’t know for certain—but I fancy Mr. Belvedere is one who lands on his feet. The only thing that bothers me is their baggage!” She wrinkled her nose. “She had nothing with her, so I must assume her valise and trunk—and his as well—are lost to them.”
“That is untidy, but I can’t think what we could do to help.”
“No, I suppose not.”
Captain Smythe rejoined them for supper, exhausted and dispirited. Anne felt for him, but she kept mum on the subject. So did Caroline and Richard. The captain did not ask if they had seen his fugitives, and they did not volunteer it.
Captain Smythe ripped a leg of chicken quite viciously. “It is the outside of enough that that scoundrel managed to walk out of a consulate fairburstingwith soldiers, but now the consul is not even particularly interested in pursuing him! They are preoccupied with the parade they will have in honor of Vitoria in a few days’ time.”
“What of Lady Marston and Mr. Knapp?” Captain Wentworth asked.
“Thatis a dark matter and no mistake. The third—or was it the fourth time?—I went back to the consulate today, the solicitor Thompson was there. The fortune devolves on a distant cousin if Sir Mark is deceased. But they cannotproveSir Mark is dead at present, except that Mr. Knapp has confessed that he is not the man. So far, Sir Mark’s demise is hearsay, for Lady Marston is denying everything. They will have to send for information from the Scottish curate who wrote to begin with, and that inquiry must go through Lady Marston’s solicitor in Yorkshire—it is a terrible tangle. I wouldn’t be surprised if they spend years in prison. Eventually,ifthey can prove murder, I expect Lady Marston will be hanged at Newgate. Most likely theywillprove it, too. If her husband intended to cut her off or divorce her, and if he spoke to anyone about it—his steward or his secretary or even a friend—they shall have evidence. To think of a murderer on my very own ship! And she looked quite normal, did she not? I would never have guessed.”
