No Marriage Of Convenience - No Marriage Of Convenience Part 43
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No Marriage Of Convenience Part 43

"How unfortunate," the lady said, handing her back her cup. "Who was it?"

"A servant," Riley told her, reciting the tale Mason had sworn the house to tell. "Cleaning a window when he accidentally tumbled out it."

"Really." The Countess said the statement more as a question than a comment, and Riley refused to offer any further explanation.

Lady Marlowe shook her head. "I find the entire situation especially odd, considering this servant had a pistol stuck in his waistband. Are all of Lord Ashlin's servants armed?"

A feeling of unease drove Riley to her feet. "I fear I have taken up too much of your time, my lady. Good day to you."

The Countess stopped her. "I haven't finished with you yet. I will know who you are! Who was your mother? Your father, girl? Tell me!" The woman's eyes held a wildness, a desperation.

Riley shook her head and turned to leave, facing the doorway through which she'd entered, seeing now the portrait which had been hidden behind the open door when she'd been announced.

Unlike the man in the bucolic painting on the other side of the room, the figure in this one was more than just vaguely familiar.

She spun around and faced the Countess. "Where is she? Where is Elise?"

Chapter 19.

"O h, aye, my lord, he was Daniel Nutley all right," Mr. McElliott, the Bow Street Runner Mason had hired, said. The man doffed his hat and took the seat Mason motioned to. "I verified it not an hour ago. There isn't a Runner in town who isn't celebrating that rotter's demise-bad to the core, that one was."

"That still doesn't answer the one remaining question," Mason said. "Why was he after Riley?"

McElliott rubbed his stubbled chin. "'Twould have to be for gold, milord. Daniel Nutley didn't lift a finger for anything unless he got paid." McElliott wiped his ruddy brow with a less than clean handkerchief. "There's them that say he demanded a farthing from his own mother when she whelped him for the inconvenience it caused him."

"Then you're positive he was paid to carry out these acts."

"Aye," McElliott nodded. "He was paid. Nutley had a reputation for doing a gentleman's less savory business-no questions asked. Heard tell he was braggin' down at the Iron Pig that a toff who was up the River Tick owed him quite a bit for a big job he'd been working for the last year. Claimed he was going to introduce the poor bugger to Mr. Crusher, since it didn't look like the fellow was gunna pay. I'd guess that job must have been your miss."

"Mr. Crusher?" Mason inquired.

McElliott snorted. "Yea, Mr. Crusher." He held up his right hand. "It was what he liked to call his best hand-because he could snap a man's neck with it. Was his trademark, you could say."

Mason shuddered, the memory of arriving in Riley's room and seeing Nutley's hand around her throat leaving him feeling cold. If Bea hadn't heard the noise...if he'd been a few moments later...

"Then we need to determine who Nutley's employer was," Mason said.

Nodding, McElliott said, "Nutley wasn't one to drop names-part of why he always had work. Had astrict code of discretion-about the only thing he had any morals about.""And one would assume, since we haven't heard of any member of the ton having had their neck cracked," Mason said, "that Nutley was still holding out to collect his bounty."

"That, and he was still working," McElliott pointed out. "He wouldn't have tried to put your miss's lightout if he didn't think he was going to get paid.""Ah, yes. A day's pay for a day's work," Mason said."That was Nutley," the Runner said."So whoever wanted Riley dead is still out there.""Must be. Odd, though," McElliott commented. "Nutley had almost a year to kill her, but you said up until she came to you, there were nothing but accidents-only mishaps to drive her out of business and out of England."

"Yes," Mason agreed.

"So," McElliott said, continuing his hypothesis, "why did her moving in with you escalate Nutley's actions? Why did it suddenly become so important for her to die?"

They sat silently, each considering his own theories, when McElliott finally said, "One thing's for sure,Nutley's death won't stop this fellow. In my experience it only makes them more unpredictable. Yourmiss is still in danger."

Mason got to his feet immediately. He reached over and rang the bell for Belton. Moments later, the butler arrived. "Belton, where is Miss Riley?"

"She is still calling on Lady Marlowe, milord," Belton said.

Mason glanced over at McElliott. "She thinks she's safe. I have to warn her. Get her back here."

"Bringin' her here may not be the best idea, milord," the man pointed out."You're right," Mason agreed. "I'll send her away." And this time she wouldn't so easily slip out of hisgrasp.

He rose and extended his hand to the Runner. "If you'll pardon me, I have a lady to rescue."

"Where is this woman?" Riley repeated. "The one in this painting?"

"So you do remember her," the Countess replied. "Remember my daughter?"

Her daughter? Riley's throat constricted. If Elise was the Countess's daughter, then that would make

Riley her...

The room started to spin, and she reached out and steadied herself on the back of a nearby chair.

The Countess rushed to her side. "'Tis quite a bit to take in. I know I felt rather unsteady last night after

we met.""I don't know what you mean," Riley stammered, still unwilling to admit what was happening."I think you do," the Countess said. "Everton was right-you have her mannerisms, her way about you, her eyes."

Riley shook her head. "I don't know what you mean, my lady."

"Quit being coy with me, girl. You know exactly what I mean and what I am talking about. Is it so

difficult to admit you are my granddaughter?"Riley continued to shake her head. "How can you be so sure?""I wasn't when Everton came here last week to tell me about you.""The Duke? What has he to do with any of this?""If anyone would be able to spot Elise's child, it would be him. Probably easier than his own issue." The Countess paused and glanced at her daughter's portrait. "He loved her very much. I didn't realize how much until after she was gone. He would have protected her...and you, if only I hadn't been so stubborn." The Countess laughed. "A trait common on the Fontaine side of the family-one apparently all three of us share."

"Fontaine?" Riley whispered, chills tingling down her arms.

"Yes, my maiden name. Elise used it after she went to France. 'Twas how I eventually found her."

"You sent the letter," Riley said, the memory of the liveried servant with the message in hand rising forth

in her memory. She glanced back at the portrait of the Marquis-the servant in the background holding the horse-he wore the same colors-the same uniform. "You sent the money and carriage to bring her back here."

The Countess nodded.

Riley took a deep breath and asked the question she'd wanted answered all these years. "Where is she?"

This seemed to take the Countess aback.

"Where is Elise?" Riley persisted, backing away from the Countess and into the middle of the room.

"Where is my mother? In Scotland on a hunting trip? Upstairs still sleeping away a late night? Or is she off in Brighton, enjoying the sea air?"

The Countess just stared at her.

"I am not supposed to ask where my mother is?" Riley said. "If you brought me here, surely you knew I would ask where she is."

"You don't know?" Her grandmother's words were but a whisper."Know what?""Child, your mother isn't here," the Countess said, reaching out her hand to take Riley's.She shook off the lady's attempt at familiarity. She would have her answers. Now.

"All these years and you didn't know," the Countess whispered, a sad sense of wonder in her voice."What is there to know?" Riley asked. "My mother abandoned me.""No, Riley, she didn't."Riley shook her head. "You weren't there. Ask her yourself. Ask Elise why she left me behind. Why she abandoned her only child to be sold on the streets of Paris.""I can't." The Countess's shoulders shook with emotion.Obviously the lady didn't like to admit that her daughter was capable of such a heartless act."You can't, or you won't?" Riley prodded.The lady turned around, tears shining in her eyes. "I can't, my dearest girl, because your mother never made it home all those years ago. She died in a carriage accident not an hour after she set foot in England."

It took Riley and the Countess over an hour to put their disparate stories together...and make their peace with each other.

"How can you be so sure I'm your granddaughter?""Beyond the obvious-your mother's mannerisms and the Fontaine green eyes-your name ratherconfirms the matter. When you finally introduced yourself last night, it was as if Elise were laughing at mefrom her grave."

"My name?"

"Yes, Riley. 'Twas the name I proposed for her fatherless child. I offered it in spite, and apparently shetook it."Riley still wasn't too clear how her name could be such a clue as to her identity. "Is Riley a family name?"The Countess laughed. "In a sense." She pointed at the portrait of the Earl. "Do you see that beast there to my husband's left?"Riley nodded."'Twas his favorite hound...and your namesake.""I was named after a dog?" Riley had never really questioned where her odd name had come from-for it was the only thing she'd ever recalled with any certainty from her childhood."Yes, I suppose that is rather odd, but thank your mother she didn't name you after me.""And that would be worse because...?" Riley asked. The lady leaned over and whispered her name into her ear. "I see. Now I feel much better about my canine namesake."

They both laughed, and for the first time in her life, Riley felt the warm connection of family. This woman was her grandmother-a link to a past she'd never known.

But the moment of levity was soon replaced by a bittersweet silence.

"I blame myself for all this," the Countess said, shaking her head. "If only I'd acknowledged Elise'smarriage-"

"-My mother was married?" Riley sat back from her grandmother."Yes," the Countess said. "You didn't know that either, I can see it from your expression. Here you'vespent all these years thinking that you were born on the wrong side of the blanket and that your motherleft you, and none of it is true."

Her parents had been married. So that meant she was a lady-not just a pretend one on the stage, but a lady as much as Cousin Felicity, the girls, and even more so than the illustrious and oh-so-mercantile Dahlia Pindar.

"I was wrong about your father and his family. I admit that now, though it pains me to say it."

Her father. She tested the word to herself silently. "Who was he? Is he still alive? Does he have other relatives?" Riley asked in a rush.

The Countess held up her hand. "Slow down. The issue of your parents' marriage is a complicated one."

"How can a marriage be complicated?" Riley asked.

"Having never been married, you would ask that," the Countess joked. "Now, back to your questions.

Your father's name was Geoffrey Stoppard."Geoffroi, my dearest Geoffroi...The line whispered through her mind-yet it wasn't from the play, but from her childhood. Her mother had often said those very words in her sleep, and they had stuck in the darkest reaches of Riley'smemory until they'd come to life in The Envious Moon."Why are you smiling?" her grandmother asked.

Riley shook her head. "'Tis nothing, Grandmother. Pray continue."The Countess looked unconvinced but went on anyway. "After your parents' elopement to Scotland,they were returning to London when their carriage was attacked by brigands. Your father tried to stopthem and was killed for his efforts."

Her father had died protecting her mother-it was more romantic and tragic than one of her plays. Still,that didn't answer a very important question. "But why should that have ruined my mother? They weremarried, after all."

"Not without proof. The marriage documents were stolen, along with their money and Elise's jewelry.""There must have been a record somewhere," she insisted. "The church, a clergyman, a witness.""No, none," the Countess said. "The blacksmith who'd married them was killed in a tavern fight a fortnight after your father's death. With no one to vouch for them and no proof without those documents,only your mother's word that she'd been married to Geoffrey Stoppard remained."

"So my mother was ruined," Riley said.

The Countess nodded. "Utterly. She was already pregnant with you, and with no proof of a marriage, there was nothing to be done but to send her away."

"What about my father's family? Wouldn't they have helped?"

The Countess blanched. "That is where I made my mistake. I believed the Stoppards too far beneath us to consider an alliance with them. I couldn't stomach the idea of Stoppard's father taking control of your mother's inheritance." The lady glanced up at Riley's mother's portrait, as if casting up an apology for the umpteenth time.

"And?"