He called upon Jessica’s grandmother and great-aunt and gave them a brief summary of the morning’s meeting. He discovered from them exactly where they planned to go with Mary and at approximately what time they expected to arrive at each place. And he told them he would be obliged to them if they would stay away from Hyde Park.
“We will certainly do so,” the dowager assured him, giving him a hard look. “But do remember, Gabriel, that in a duel it is just as likely that the aggrieved party will be shot dead as the offender. I would not wish to see my granddaughter widowed so soon after she has become a bride.”
“There will be no guns, ma’am,” he assured her, “and no shootings. No deaths.”
“I am almost sorry to hear it,” she told him. “But go now. Edith and I need to get ready for a day of pleasure.”
He went to Sir Trevor Vickers’s house next. Bertie had told him at breakfast that his mother was going to call upon Mrs. Rochford this morning.
She had indeed gone and was already back home.
“She received me, Gabriel,” Lady Vickers told him after she had asked about Jessica and been assured that she was recovering from her swoon and was in very good hands. “I sympathized with her over the ordeal she suffered last evening. My sympathy was genuine. She thanked me profusely for calling on her. No one else has. Not yet, anyway. Perhaps later. But that may be too late. I went mainly because I felt dreadfully sorry for the woman last evening. But I went also because both Trevor and Bertie felt that you needed to know if Mr. Rochford plans to leave London in a hurry to avoid any further inquiry into his own behavior all those years ago. And yes, Gabriel. Although there was nothing in the hall downstairs to suggest an imminent departure, upstairs in Mrs. Rochford’s sitting room, where she received me, there was a pile of packed trunks and bandboxes outside what must have been her dressing room. And I could hear activity inside there all the time we spoke. I do believe they are planning to leave tomorrow or even perhaps today.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” he said, taking both her hands in his and squeezing them.
She sighed. “Why is it,” she asked him, “that it is always the women who suffer? Do not make your wife suffer, Gabriel. She is far too young to be a widow.”
“I do not know what Bertie has told you,” he said, “but there will be no pistols at dawn, I assure you, ma’am. Or at any other time of day either.”
“Just remember,” she told him, “that only you stand between him and the earldom he has so craved, Gabriel. Watch yourself. Please.”
“I will.” He kissed the back of one of her hands.
Bertie went with him when he left the house. They proceeded to Archer House, as planned hastily when Gabriel was carrying Jessica from the private parlor at the hotel. While Bertie was shown into Netherby’s study, however, Gabriel was asked to step up to the drawing room, where Anna and Jessica’s mother were awaiting him.
“Jessica will be fine,” Gabriel assured them before they could even ask. “She was conscious before I left, and she is in excellent hands. Her maid is very competent, as I am sure you know. And Mary has healing powers that extend to all living beings.”
“Jessica is not a deer or a horse,” the dowager duchess said tartly. “But Ruth I know I can depend upon. I have never known Jessica to faint. I daresay the prospect of your being shot dead in a duel was too much for her sensibilities. I suppose she cares for you.”
She was on the verge of tears, Gabriel could see, but like her daughter—on most occasions—she had herself well under control and looked every inch the duchess.
“And I care for her,” he said. “There will be no duel. No pistols. No deaths.”
“There is a veritable army of Westcotts downstairs in Avery’s study,” Anna told him. “We have been excluded, of course. We are mere women.”
“One woman fainted this morning, Anna,” her mother-in-law reminded her, “because she was included and realized there was a possibility that her husband of less than a week could have his brains blown out before today ends.”
“But as Avery pointed out to us when we got home, Mother,” her daughter-in-law said, “Gabriel cannot afford to die just yet. If Mr. Manley Rochford could avoid prosecution, he would become the Earl of Lyndale after all, and that is unthinkable.”
“Hmph,” the dowager said. “You had better go down and join them, Gabriel. They are all doubtless bristling with ideas. But I will tell you this. That man deserves to be strung up by his thumbs.”
“I will keep it in mind,” Gabriel said, and he grinned at them—Jessica’s mother and her sister-in-law—before he left the room and went downstairs.
Good God! Every man who either was a Westcott or had some familial connection to them must be in the study. Plus Bertie. In addition to those who had been at the breakfast meeting, there were Colin, Lord Hodges; Molenor’s sons, Boris and Peter Wayne; Dorchester’s son, Bertrand Lamarr; and Dirkson’s son, Adrian Sawyer. All of them grim faced.
“They are packed and ready to leave,” Gabriel told them after nodding his greeting to the group.
“My men on the morning shift are keeping a close eye,” Netherby said. “No actual movement yet.”
“He has been thoroughly humiliated,” Hodges said. “And masterful choreography there, may I add, Lyndale. But he has probably concluded that it is unlikely he is facing imminent arrest. He is not likely to be convicted upon a thirteen-year-old rape charge, after all. As Elizabeth pointed out to me last night, it rarely happens. Enough doubt will be cast by any defense lawyer worth his salt to suggest that the encounter was consensual or that the woman lied about the identity of her assailant. As to murder, well, all the evidence is purely circumstantial. Unfortunately. There were no witnesses.”
“Proving Lyndale innocent is the easy part,” Dorchester said in full agreement. “Proving Rochford guilty is virtually impossible. Even his false claim to have seen Lyndale commit the murder can be explained by the fact that he was observing from a distance and was simply mistaken. His urging of Lyndale to flee can be explained by familial fondness.”
“We know what cannot be done, Marcel,” Lord Molenor said. “But what can be?”
“He cannot be allowed to go completely free,” Dirkson said. “Even though he would probably die of disappointment and live in abject misery until then. The whole business cries out for some sort of justice.”
“I plan to beat the stuffing out of him,” Gabriel said. “For what he was about to do to Mary Beck. For what he has already done to a number of the faithful servants at Brierley. For what he did to Penelope Clark. For what he did to Orson Ginsberg.”
“And for what he did to you,” Bertrand Lamarr added.
“And for what he did to me.”
“How?” Riverdale asked. “You have an idea, Lyndale?”
“Yes,” Gabriel said. “I would have written a note before leaving the hotel, but I wanted to get out of there before Jessica recovered sufficiently to . . . complicate matters. Perhaps I may write it here, Netherby. I will invite him to meet me in Hyde Park today, this afternoon, to discuss how we will proceed from here. I will inform him that I and my wife’s relatives are seriously considering having him arrested for rape and murder and attempted murder—of me. I will invite him to come and tell me why we ought not to do that. I will imply that I am willing to let him go unmolested if he can come to some sort of agreement with me—to keep out of my sight for the rest of his life, perhaps.”
There was a brief silence.
“Weak,” Hodges said. “He will know perfectly well that no solid case can be made against him.”
“But there may be enough doubt there,” Riverdale said, “to make him nervous.”
“I will emphasize,” Gabriel said, “that there are to be no weapons, that it is not a duel to which I am challenging him.”
“If he believes that,” Boris Wayne said, “he has feathers for brains.”
“There will be no weapons,” Gabriel said, “except my fists.”
“He would still be an idiot,” Peter Wayne said, looking him up and down. “If I were in his shoes, I would bring some weapon. Probably a gun.”
“So would I,” his father agreed. “He has every motive to get rid of you, Lyndale, if he possibly can.”
“I will not be going alone, though,” Gabriel said. “If one or more of you can be persuaded to go with me, that is. There would be too many witnesses. He would not dare risk being taken up for a hanging offense.”
“But what if he does?” Boris Wayne asked.
“I believe,” the Marquess of Dorchester said, “there must be more of us with you than will be apparent to the eye.”
“Slinking in the bushes?” Hodges asked. “Armed to the teeth, Marcel?”
“There is to be no shooting,” Gabriel said. “There are to be no deaths. No violence except what I plan to mete out with my fists—and what he may choose to return with his.”
“That is the ideal,” Riverdale said. “Sometimes, however, reality is different. Shall we agree that there will be no unprovoked shooting?”