Crossing to the desk, she let her gaze dwell on the tapestries gracing the walls, the paintings in their gilded frames, the leather-bound, gilt-encrusted spines lining the shelves. The long library was one of the features of Morwellan Park, principal seat of the earls of Meredith. Morwellans had occupied the Park for centuries, from long before the earldom's creation in the fourteenth. The present gracious house had been built by her great-grandfather, the grounds expertly landscaped under her grandfather's exacting eye.
Regaining the large carved desk, hers for the last eleven years, Alathea looked at the letter lying on the blotter. Any chance that she would crumple in the face of such adversity as the letter portended was past. Nothing-no one-was going to steal the simple peace she'd sacrificed the last eleven years of her life to secure for her family.
Gazing at Wiggs's letter, she considered the enormity of what she faced, too practical not to recognize the difficulties and dangers. But it wasn't the first time she'd stood on the lip of the abyss and stared ruin-financial and social-in the face.
Picking up the letter, she sat and reread it. It had arrived in reply to an urgent missive from her dispatched post haste to London three days before. Three days before, when her world had, for the second time in her life, been rocked to its foundations.
While dusting her father's room, a maid had discovered a legal document stuffed inside a large vase. Luckily, the girl had had the wit to take the paper to the housekeeper and cook, Mrs. Figgs, who had immediately bustled into the library to lay it before her.
Satisfied she'd missed nothing in Wiggs's reply, Alathea set his letter aside. Her glance strayed to the left desk drawer where the wretched document at the heart of the matter lay. A promissory note. She didn't need to read it again-every last detail was etched in her brain. The note committed the earl of Meredith to pay upon call a sum that exceeded the present total worth of the earldom. In return, the earl would receive a handsome percentage of the profits realized by the Central East Africa Gold Company.
There was, of course, no guarantee such profits would ever materialize, and neither she, nor Wiggs, nor any of his peers, had so much as heard of the Central East Africa Gold Company.
If any good would have come of burning the note, she would happily have built a bonfire on the Aubusson rug, but it was only a copy. Her dear, vague, hopelessly impractical father had, entirely without understanding what he was about, signed away his family's future. Wiggs had confirmed that the note was legally sound and executable, so if the call was made for the amount stipulated, the family would be bankrupt. They would lose not only the minor properties and Morwellan House in London, all still mortgaged to the hilt, but also Morwellan Park, and everything that went with it.
If she wished to ensure that Morwellans remained at Morwellan Park, that Charlie and his sons had their ancestral home intact to inherit, that her stepsisters had their come-outs and the chance to make the marriages they deserved, she was going to have to find some way out of this.
Just as she had before.
Absentmindedly tapping a pencil on the blotter, Alathea gazed unseeing at the portrait of her great-grandfather, facing her down the long length of the room.
This wasn't the first time her father had brought the earldom
to the brink of ruin; she'd faced the prospect of abject poverty before. For a gentlewoman reared within the elite circle of the haut ton, the prospect had been-and still was-frightening, all the more so for being somewhat beyond her ken. Abject poverty she had no more than a hazy notion of-she had no wish for either herself or, more importantly, her innocent siblings, to gain any closer acquaintance with the state.
At least, this time, she was more mature, more knowlegeable-better able to deal with the threat. The first time…
Her thoughts flowed back to that afternoon eleven years before when, as she was poised to make her come-out, fate had forced her to stop, draw breath, and change direction. From that day, she'd carried the burden of managing the family's finances, working tirelessly to rebuild the family's fortunes, all the while maintaining an outward show of affluence. She'd insisted the boys go to Eton, and then to Oxford; Charlie would go up for the autumn term in September. She'd scrimped and saved to take Mary and Alice to town for their come-outs, and to have sufficient funds to puff them off in style.
The household was eagerly anticipating removing to London in just a few days. For herself, she'd anticipated savoring a subtle victory over fate when her stepsisters made their curtsies to the ton.
For long moments, Alathea stared down the room, considering, assessing-rejecting. This time, frugality would not serve her cause-no amount of scrimping could amass the amount needed to meet the obligation stipulated in the note. Turning, she pulled open the left drawer. Retrieving the note, she perused it again, carefully evaluating. Considering the very real possibility that the Central East Africa Gold Company was a fraud.
The company had that feel to it-no legitimate enterprise would have cozened her father, patently unversed in business dealings, into committing such a huge sum to a speculative venture, certainly not without some discreet assessment of whether he could meet the obligation. The more she considered, the more she was convinced that neither she nor Wiggs had made any mistake-the Central East Africa Gold Company was a swindle.
She was not at all inclined to meekly surrender all she'd fought for, all she'd spent the last eleven years securing-all her family's future-to feather the nest of a pack of dastardly rogues.
There had to be a way out-it was up to her to find it.
Chapter 1
May 6, 1820
London
Swirls of mist wreathed Gabriel Cynster's shoulders as he prowled the porch of St. Georges' Church, just off Hanover Square. The air was chill, the gloom within the porch smudged here and there by weak shafts of light thrown by the street lamps.
It was three o'clock; fashionable London lay sleeping. The coaches ferrying late-night revelers home had ceased to rumble-an intense but watchful quiet had settled over the town.
Reaching the end of the porch, Gabriel swung around. Eyes narrowed, he scanned the stone tunnel formed by the front of the church and the tall columns supporting its facade. The mist eddied and swirled, obscuring his view. He'd stood in the same place a week before, watching Demon, one of his cousins, drive off with his new wife. He'd felt a sudden chill-a premonition, a presentiment; perhaps it had been of this.
Three o'clock in the porch of St. Georges-that was what the note had said. He'd been half inclined to set it aside, a poor joke assuredly, but something in the words had tweaked an impulse more powerful than curiosity. The note had been penned in desperation, although, despite close analysis, he couldn't see why he was so sure of that. The mysterious countess, whoever she was, had written simply and directly requesting this meeting so she could explain her need for his aid.
So he was here-where was she?
On the thought, the city's bells tolled, the reverberations stirring the heavy blanket of the night. Not all the belltowers tolled the night watches; enough did to set up a strange cadence, a pattern of sound repeated in different registers. The muted notes faded, then died. Silence, again, descended.
Gabriel stirred. Impatient, he started back along the porch, his stride slow, easy.