Fortune's Folly - The Confessions Of A Duchess Part 6

"You can ride like a Cossack, as well." Dexter remembered her proficiency in the saddle and wondered why on earth it had taken him so long to put two and two together. Probably it was because she had been a d.u.c.h.ess and as such, above suspicion. He felt an absolute fool.

"There was a weather vane at Cole Court with a highwayman on it," he said, remembering. "Was that your idea of a joke?"

"My wretched sense of humor." Laura's voice had the tiniest quiver in it. "I am afraid that a lot of people do not understand it."

Dexter ran a hand distractedly through his tawny hair. Suddenly, violently, his anger burst out in a huge, unrestrained blast. "h.e.l.l and the devil, Laura," he exploded, "what were you thinking? The d.u.c.h.ess of Cole riding out as a highwaywoman?"

She looked disdainful. "Is that your only objection, Mr. Anstruther? That I was a d.u.c.h.ess and it was therefore conduct unbecoming?"

Dexter had plenty of objections. For a moment he did not know where to start. He was so incensed that he had to put some physical distance between them to prevent himself from grabbing her and shaking her. He was not accustomed to feeling so unrestrained.

"You know that if I had caught you I would have had to arrest you and hang you," he bit out.

"Fortunate then that you did not." Her self-possession seemed flawless. "But I am not here to discuss the past, Mr. Anstruther. I am here only to see if I may help you in your current investigation. I gave an undertaking only to help in the matter of Warren Sampson. Nothing else is up for debate."

"Oh, is it not?" Dexter felt so hot he thought he was almost boiling with rage.

The door opened and Josie appeared in the aperture. "Going badly, is it?" she said with gloomy satisfaction, looking from Laura's tight face to Dexter's furious one. "Thought as much."

"Is there any other way for it to go?" Dexter demanded.

"Told you that you'd need that brandy," Josie said. She crashed two gla.s.ses and a bottle down on the table. "On the house. Must be a nasty shock for you, Mr. Anstruther."

"You could say so," Dexter said shortly. "I know the Glory Girls stabled their horses here. No doubt I will discover next that Mrs. Carrington rode out with them, too."

Josie opened her eyes wide at Laura. "Missed a trick there, your grace! Bill Carrington was a fine bareback pony rider when he was a lad! His mam always used to say she feared he would run away to the circus. He could have joined us and kept Lenny company. Ah well..." She sighed. "Too late now. I'll leave you in peace." She thundered out.

"I thought," Dexter said, "that the Glory Girls were female. Or is that too obvious?"

Laura smiled, and for a moment he almost forgot that he disliked her. The firelight burnished her hair with rich copper and gold strands and gave her face a soft glow. Her eyes were full of shadows.

"The members.h.i.+p rules were...flexible," she said.

"Like your standards of morality," Dexter said, and the moment of rapport vanished. Laura's smile faded.

"May we speak of Warren Sampson, Mr. Anstruther?" she said. "I am anxious to be here no longer than I need to be."

Dexter's temper flicked him again at her composure and her determination to dictate the terms of their meeting. "Very well," he said briefly. "Tell me what you know of Warren Sampson."

Laura inclined her head. "He was our neighbor at Peac.o.c.k Oak for a number of years," she said. "He was-and probably still is-a cruel employer and a greedy landowner. I detested him. I still do."

"You did not mix socially with him."

"No. He was a self-made man and I was a d.u.c.h.ess." Her smile mocked him. "We did not meet except in pa.s.sing, as we did at the a.s.sembly last night. Does that suit your sense of propriety, Mr. Anstruther?"

Dexter ignored that. "But you know his character?"

She thought about it. "I consider him harsh and brutal."

"Weaknesses?"

She smiled. "Vanity. And a love of money."

"He does not seek to try and gain social acceptance from the aristocracy?"

"He never tried to gain it from me." Laura considered the matter, her head on one side. "Actually, I do not think Sampson cares for social standing as such, only for money and what it can buy. He is unusual in that. Many men I have met have wanted to trade on their wealth to gain status, but Sampson never has."

That was interesting, Dexter thought, and might provide a motive for Sampson's behavior. If he cared nothing for acceptance but only for money, and he had various lucrative but illegal businesses operating, the threats of a magistrate like Sir William Crosby to unmask him as a criminal would need to be dealt with mercilessly.

"As Glory you burned his fences down," Dexter said. "Or was that Lady Hester?"

"No, I was Glory on that occasion," Laura said. Dexter remembered the tales of Glory the avenger, riding through the sleeping villages on a white horse, torch in hand. Something close to admiration stirred in him and he dismissed it ruthlessly. He knew that if he started to feel sympathy with criminals he was in danger of compromising his principles and chaos would ensue. His father had been just such a man, adapting his view of morality to suit whatever the situation demanded. It was a weakness, not a strength. Dexter would never allow himself to fail in that way.

"That was criminal damage and arson," he said dispa.s.sionately. "Those are capital crimes."

"Just so." Laura's lashes fanned across her cheek, hiding her expression.

"Why did you do it?"

Laura stirred. "Because Sampson had enclosed the common land and refused to let the villagers graze their animals there. He is an odious man. He had forced up rents and driven some families to starvation, Mr. Anstruther, and had laughed in their faces when they begged for aid."

"On another occasion you robbed his banker and redistributed the proceeds amongst his workers. Why?"

"I would have thought that was obvious."

"Humor me."

"Because the money was rightfully theirs. He had promised them their wages and then withheld them. We-the Glory Girls-merely redressed the balance."

Dexter was silent. Laura spoke with a pa.s.sion and conviction that was difficult to resist, even for someone like him who was always at pains to uphold the letter as well as the spirit of the law. But he could not allow such sentiment to influence his thinking. It was his duty and his responsibility to see justice administered. Compromise led to weakness and frailty. It was the beginning of the downward path.

"You broke the law," he said.

"I did," Laura said. "Many times. For the greater good."

"You are not ent.i.tled to make judgments like that." Dexter jumped to his feet. "That is the responsibility of officers of the law."

Laura shrugged. "I understand your disapproval, Mr. Anstruther. How could we ever agree on this when you are sworn to uphold the law and I was obliged to break it, even if I did so for what I thought were the best reasons? Anyway, we are here to talk about Warren Sampson, not my misdemeanors."

Dexter sighed. "Very well. So how do we catch him?"

Laura paused. She rubbed her fingers thoughtfully up and down the side of her brandy gla.s.s. "Through his vanity and his weakness for money, I think. Set a trap for him. One that is so temptingly financially baited that he cannot resist. He is too clever to be caught otherwise. He works behind a smokescreen of paid thugs and criminals."

"Yes," Dexter said. "One of his hired men may well have killed Sir William Crosby."

"Miles told me Crosby's death was no accident," Laura said. "If it is true that Crosby was working to bring Sampson down then he might well have paid with his life."

Dexter leaned forward. "If it is also true that Sampson has some of the local gentry in his pocket, who do you think they might be?"

Laura was silent for a moment. "I do not know that. Some bored younger son who has not got enough money to fund his gambling habit, perhaps? There are few such scattered through the Dales."

"Name them."

Laura lifted her hazel gaze to his. Her eyes were very clear and candid. Dexter thought of the way she had used him and marveled she could seem so honest when her heart was corrupt.

"There is Sir James Wheeler's son," she said slowly. "The gossip is that his father keeps him short on his allowance. They are forever at odds. Tom Fortune is a rackety young man but I have never thought there was any harm in him. I could be wrong. And then there is Stephen Beynon. He runs with Tom in a fast set." She shook her head. "I do not know. It is difficult because there may be those Sampson has bought off, or has some information on to persuade them to his point of view. I saw him talking to Henry Cole last night and it struck me as odd because Faye would never give a cit the time of day unless she had a particularly good reason. She is far too conscious of her position as d.u.c.h.ess of Cole."

"You think that Sampson might stoop to blackmail?"

"I am sure of it, if it benefited him."

"Do you know where Sampson's henchmen meet?" Dexter asked.

"They favor the Red Lion Inn on Stainmoor," Laura said. She looked up suddenly, her voice changing. "Don't go there, Mr. Anstruther. It is too dangerous. Even I would not have set foot in the Red Lion and the locals liked me."

Dexter raised a brow. "So you're concerned for my welfare now?"

Laura looked away. "I would not like to see you hurt."

There was a strained silence. Dexter found that he could not keep still. The frustrated fury burned in him too violently for that. Even though he knew they were there to discuss the present case and not the past, he could not prevent his mind from returning to it. He needed an explanation from Laura. His pride demanded one.

He strode over to the fireplace. "Explain something to me," he said harshly. "Was the work of the Glory Girls all a matter of principle of you?"

"No, it was not," Laura said. "It was in part but not entirely." Once again her expression was shadowed, hidden from him. She s.h.i.+fted a little in her chair. "The truth is that when I first rode with the Glory Girls, I did it because of Charles."

She looked up and met Dexter's eyes and he flinched at the pain and honesty he saw reflected there. It was like stripping her back to her soul. "Charles was so indifferent to me that I wanted to shock him," Laura said softly. "I had loved him desperately for so many years and I was frantic to make him take notice of me."

"You wanted your husband to know you were a highwaywoman?" Dexter was appalled. It seemed that Charles Cole's indifference to Laura, the neglect that he himself had observed when he had first met her at Cole Court, had driven her to the edge of sanity. Her appet.i.te for destruction had been terrifying.

"Yes, I wanted Charles to know." Laura's hazel eyes were blank. She looked through him as though she was looking back to a past so painful she could not acknowledge it. "I am being very honest with you, Mr. Anstruther," she said. "I hope you understand that. I loved Charles for so long and so deeply that it became a habit with me. I would have done anything to gain his interest. I wanted him to see me, not to look through me. I wanted him to notice me." She took a deep breath. "My love for him drove me close to madness, to the point where I did reckless things to gain his attention."

She looked up and her eyes were no longer blank but vivid with so much pain and misery that Dexter reached out toward her instinctively, before his hand fell back to his side.

"But the irony was that Charles did know that I was Glory and still he did not care," Laura said softly. A faint, bitter smile curved her lips. "In the end there was nothing I could do to gain his interest, still less his regard. He saw me as an ornament to his dukedom and wanted nothing from me other than that I be a gracious hostess to his guests, that is all. And in the end my love for him died."

"Charles Cole knew that you were Glory and yet he said nothing, did nothing?" Dexter knew he sounded frankly incredulous now. He was appalled. He was worse than appalled. He was astounded. He could not believe that the late Duke of Cole had known his wife was a highwaywoman and yet it had elicited not the slightest response in him. What had been wrong with the man?

"Yes." Laura smiled mockingly. "Are you thinking that he was a Justice of the Peace, and yet he did nothing to stop me? Not everyone has your moral compa.s.s, Mr. Anstruther. He did not care."

"So you were not even acting out of principle," Dexter said. He shook his head, trying to get a grip on the feelings her words aroused in him. "You shock me, your grace," he said slowly.

Laura gave him another faint smile. "Do I really? But you will not accept any justification, will you, Mr. Anstruther? When I claimed to have acted out of principle you still dismissed my actions." She stood up, crossing the room to confront him, stopping only inches away so that he was intensely aware of her physical presence.

"The irony is that you and I are not so different really," she said. "Like you I value integrity and honor and would seek to live my life by those standards." She took a few steps away from him then swung sharply back. "I hold to those principles," she repeated, "but I hold to them with humanity, Mr. Anstruther, because without compa.s.sion those qualities are worthless. But you..." She shook her head. "You never compromise, do you? You cannot bend."

"I am sworn to uphold the law," Dexter said. "You-the Glory Girls-broke it. It should be as simple as that."

"It should be," Laura said, "but it isn't." She turned away. "Think of the men, women and children who would have starved if the Glory Girls had not redistributed Sampson's pay where it belonged," she said. "Had the Glory Girls not acted, tens, maybe hundreds of people would have died. Yet Warren Sampson would never have been brought to justice for his greed and cruelty. The law would never have touched him." She took a deep breath. "Think of the people whose livelihood is destroyed every day by greedy landowners enclosing common land. Think of the women forced into marriage against their will and the factory workers slaving for a pittance and any number of people ground down and destroyed through the avarice and brutality of their masters. Those are the sorts of injustices that you cannot address through the exercise of the law, Mr. Anstruther. But the Glory Girls could redress them. Perhaps it is not strictly legal but it has a certain morality and a great deal of humanity."

Dexter felt cold. Her words were a dangerous seduction, tempting him to compromise the principles he had always believed in. She spoke with such conviction and he wanted to believe in her. His desire for her and the secret admiration he had always harbored for Glory was like a weakness in the blood, undermining him. If he once bent then he might break and fail. The fear drove out all else. He grabbed her arm and spun her around to face him.

"Fine words, madam," he said harshly. "But the truth is that you are no more than a criminal. You deceived me through and through. You welcomed me to your bed one night and cast me out the next morning. And at last it makes perfect sense to me."

Laura's chin came up sharply. Her gaze was bright and challenging. The awareness sparked between them like a flame set to dry tinder. It was all he could do not to wrench her into his arms. In that moment he wanted her with an ache so deep he did not know how it could ever be a.s.suaged and he hated her with an equally strong pa.s.sion.

"What do you mean?" she whispered.

Dexter stared down into her eyes for what felt like an eternity. "It was all a pretense, was it not?" he said violently. "It was all a sham. You made love to me merely to distract me from my duty so that I, poor fool, would be so lost in thoughts of you that I had no s.p.a.ce in my mind for anything else." He shook his head with bitter disillusion for his own youthful naivete. "You must have been aware of what I felt for you. I was young and I do not think I was particularly good at hiding my feelings when I was near you. You saw it as your chance to deflect my attention so that I would never imagine you were Glory, never even begin to suspect what you had done. You are no more than a heartless wh.o.r.e."

Laura looked at him and his heart turned over at the expression in her eyes. In that shattering moment of awareness he saw her facade splinter and glimpsed the cracks and the pain beneath. And then the glimpse was gone.

"You may believe that if you wish," Laura said. "I am sure that you will."

Once again their gazes locked. Dexter searched her face. She must be false. She had to be. She had tricked him, deceived him from the very first moment they met. But her eyes were so clear and so honest. He could feel his anger melting and doubt, hope and longing taking its place. His hand slid slowly, caressingly, down her arm from elbow to wrist. She s.h.i.+vered under his touch. Her eyes darkened, her lashes fluttered down and the pink heat of arousal flushed her skin. Her lips parted and Dexter leaned closer.

The door slammed back on its hinges as Josie marched into the room and they fell apart as the fire flickered and hissed in the cold draft. Laura cast him one quick, troubled glance and then reached for her cloak, fumbling to tie the bow.

"Your carriage is ready, madam," Josie said, looking from one to the other with ma.s.sive disapproval, "and a good thing, too. Seems to me Mr. Anstruther has had as much help-" she invested the word with scorn "-as he deserves tonight."

Dexter looked at Laura. Her head was bent. He could not see her face except in pure profile, illuminated in the bronze glow of the fire. When she looked up her expression was empty of emotion and it was as though that flash of intense pain he had seen in her had never been and the blaze of powerful awareness between them had not existed.

"Thank you, Josie," she said. She turned to Dexter. "I wish you luck in your investigation. Good night, Mr. Anstruther."

Josie stood aside for her to walk through the parlor door but when Dexter made to follow she blocked his way, as solid as a brick wall.

"Leave her be," Josie said threateningly.

Dexter looked at her. Her protectiveness toward Laura was striking. He wondered how much she knew. When he had been at Cole Court four years before he had noticed how much loyalty Laura commanded from the inhabitants of Peac.o.c.k Oak and all the surrounding villages. She had been a good and generous employer and a beloved benefactor. If the villagers knew she was Glory, as well, they probably held her in even higher esteem.

"I appreciate your loyalty to her grace, Mrs. Simmons," he said slowly, "but I am sure she can take care of herself."

Josie snorted. "That's all you know, Mr. Anstruther. Or care, I'll wager. You've done enough harm. Blaming her grace for what she's done when there was no one else to stand up for us! You should take your head out of your...nether parts and think a little. Men!" Upon which she stomped out muttering under her breath.

Dexter's thoughts returned to Laura. In that moment when he had looked into her eyes his belief in her guilt had faltered, but cynicism whispered to him that she would always deny deliberately using him. She had been an older, experienced woman who was probably accustomed to taking lovers to her bed to relieve the tedium of her marriage. He had just been one of many and she had used his infatuation with her to her own ends. What had happened between them had finished four years before. Based on secrets and lies, it had never really started. And now he had an investigation to complete and an heiress to court. His life was as simple as that and it was going to stay that way.

But though he a.s.sured himself that the matter was tidy, closed, ended now forever, he had the feeling that Laura Cole would not be so easily dismissed no matter how much he tried, and neither were his feelings for her.

CHAPTER SEVEN.

"THANK YOU ALL for joining us, ladies," Laura said. She scanned the crowd a.s.sembled in the circulating library. It seemed that every female in Fortune's Folly was present, not simply the single women affected by Sir Montague's Dames' Tax. Absolutely everyone was there, from old Mrs. Broad, who lived in the last cottage on the High Street and whose worldly possessions were no more than two chickens and a sheep, to Sir Montague's heiress half sister, Lady Elizabeth Scarlet. Lady Elizabeth sat next to Lydia Cole, her auburn head bent and her hands demurely in her lap in stark contrast to her behavior the previous night.