Gabriel joined the others on the wall that held the door. That door opened and a man rushed in on choppy, hurried strides. The sight of the sleeping Pritchard brought him up short.
“What the hell is this?” He grabbed Pritchard’s sheet and tore it back. “Where is this injury? Where is the surgeon? Wake up, you fool, or I’ll take a poker to your ass and see you jump fast enough.”
Pritchard woke with a jolt. He shrank back from his cousin’s hovering glare. “Injury? I’ve no injury.” He pointed frantically to where Gabriel stood, but Yarnell did not even notice.
“You wrote and told me you were injured, and I was to come with the carriage for you, but I do and I find you asleep like a prince in a chamber that must cost fifteen shillings a night.”
“I—that is, he—” More gestures.
“He did not write the letter, Mr. Yarnell. We did,” Gabriel said.
Yarnell froze. Slowly, he turned around and faced the wall across from the bed. He narrowed his eyes and examined them each in turn.
He did not ask who they were or why they were there. He only walked to the chair, sat, and crossed his arms over his chest.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
“She is a liar and a thief, and her daughter is no better.” Yarnell offered his defense of the accusations against him.
“You are also a thief,” Gabriel said. “You coerced Miss Waverly to steal for you. Or do you deny you currently possess an early medieval brooch and buckle that came to you the same way this dagger did? Your cousin has already admitted he brought them to you.”
Pritchard had indeed blurted all he knew. Faced with three dukes, he at once threw in with them against his cousin. Yarnell turned a sneer in his direction.
Mr. Yarnell was good at sneering, Amanda thought. It was his only expression. She supposed it gave him some distinction, at least. Otherwise, a more ordinary man could not be imagined.
He stood no taller than she did, and while not slight of build, he showed none of his cousin’s corpulence either. Dark, closely cropped hair topped his head. Dark eyes squinted from beneath thick eyebrows. If one saw him in town, one would assume he was a gentleman from his dress and speech, but not a well-to-do one. According the Mama, Yarnell was up to his ears in debt, due to spending all his income hiring men to dig up what should have been fields planted with crops.
They all had gathered in Gabriel’s room for this conversation. Mama wore muslin the color of lavender. The dress must have cost at least a pound, what with its embroidered gray spencer. Mama had enjoyed telling her story again, and added some unnecessary embellishments such as a critique of the food Yarnell had given her. She had skipped quickly over her own culpability, or tried to. Brentworth would have none of that and quizzed her closely until the damning details came out.
Mama did not like Brentworth much now. She avoided addressing him, and when she did, she saidYour Gracewith a disrespectful, sarcastic inflection. Each time she did that, Amanda gave her a solid nudge.
“I stole nothing,” Yarnell announced, finally giving in to the urge to defend himself, despite having insisted he would answer to none of them. “Those items belong to me. They were found on my land, and the thieves that dug them up absconded with them, to sell them in London. The pit they dug is still there if you don’t believe me. Tell me how claiming back stolen property is stealing?”
“There are legal ways to claim stolen property,” Gabriel said. “They do not include breaking into houses or removing items from museums.”
“I have been in Devon all summer. I entered no house or museum.” He crossed his arms and raised his chin, daring them to prove otherwise.
“You used your imprisonment of Mrs. Waverly to coerce her daughter to do the deeds for you,” Gabriel said. Amanda could tell he grew angrier with each sentence Yarnell spoke.
“Mrs. Waverly did that, not me.”
“If you were not at the heart of it, why did you not hand her to the authorities? Why keep her behind a barred door at your home?”
“It was all her idea. She said she would get me back my stolen items if I let her go. It seemed a fair trade, but I didn’t want her just walking off instead of fulfilling her side of it, did I? As for the daughter here, whom you seem to think is some poor waif caught in a scheme not of her own making, I’m guessing she has been helping herself to goods and money all over London as long as she’s lived here. Actually, I think she and her mother planned the entire thing.”
Gabriel took a step toward Yarnell. Only Stratton’s firm grasp on his arm stopped him from going farther.
Amanda hated being accused, but other than denying it, what could she say? At least two people in this chamber knew just how capable she was if she chose to put her skills to use. Yarnell was bold, and far slyer than she had expected. He was building a story that would probably convince a jury or judge, too. One in which he was a small player in the drama, sitting in the wings.
Her mother had been muttering and tensing all through the interrogation. Now she snapped. “How innocent you try to sound, you scoundrel.” She stood and glared at him. “You have left out the last of it. Tell them how you suggested just two days ago that we continue, and have my daughter steal other things to which you could make no claim at all. The ease of it all got the better of you. A few more payments, you said, for your trouble. Then it would have been one more, then one more again I am sure.”
“Is this true?” Gabriel asked.
“Of course not.” Yarnell dared to appear indignant that anyone would give credence to such an accusation.
“Do you expect him to admit it? He wanted a strand of good pearls next. He thought it would be easy to take it apart and sell it bit by bit.”
“I know nothing about pearls,” Yarnell growled.
