The only sound in the library after Gemma’s departure was the popping of the fire.
Cam watched as Serena looked from him to Paley, then back again.
“Well, gentlemen,” she said with a regal nod, “I’m going to see if Gemma needs my help.”
And without bothering to give them any parting wisdom, she left the room, sliding the doors shut behind her.
When Cam looked up it was to find that Paley still stood with his feet braced apart, as if expecting to ward off a blow.
“Oh stand down, man.” Cam strode to where the brandy was kept and poured two generous glasses. “It would cost more than my life is worth if I challenged you. I have little doubt Gemma would follow us onto the field and shoot both of us and leave without a backward glance. And we’d deserve it.”
But Paley was still skeptical. “What’s your claim on her? She doesn’t seem particularly ready to claim you.”
“It’s complicated,” Cam told the other man, handing him a glass. “I still have some persuading to do.”
“An understatement, surely,” Paley took one of the fireside chairs and didn’t seem particularly interested in leaving, much to Cam’s dismay. “And it doesn’t seem as if Miss Hastings is one who does anything not of her own volition.”
That was certainly correct, Cam thought. But aloud he said, “In time, I believe we’ll come to an understanding.”
“Then why not let me take a run at her?” the viscount asked blandly.
“She is not a fence to be jumped, Paley.” He was offended on Gemma’s behalf. “We are betrothed. Let that put an end to your meddling.”
“I suppose that will have to do,” Lord Paley said thoughtfully. “But if anything should happen…”
“It won’t,” Cam ground out. He took the seat opposite and the two men sat in tense silence for a moment, sipping their brandy and thinking.
“I couldn’t help but notice when I came in that you were looking at papers,” Paley said. “I don’t suppose those are Sir Everard’s?”
Since Paley had admitted to knowing they’d been in the baronet’s rooms, it wasn’t too great a logical leap.
“Yes,” Cam said. He wasn’t going to volunteer information unless absolutely necessary—especially since they had no idea who had killed Sir Everard and stolen the fossil.
When Cam didn’t say anything else, Paley made a noise of frustration. “I’m not your enemy. I ask because Sir Everard stole something from me and I wish to know if you might have found it.”
At the mention of theft, Cam went on alert, though he was careful not to show it. “We only took papers,” he said casually. “No objects or fossils or the like.”
“It’s papers I’m looking for,” Paley said with a scowl. “Sir Everard stole several papers from my home and I have reason to believe he brought them with him to Sussex in order to give them to Roderick Templeton.”
Templeton was one of the men at Pearson’s house party and published one of the newer, more influential scientific magazines.
“What makes you think Sir Everard brought them?” Cam asked. Though Paley’s stolen papers could explain why the documents from Sir Everard’s room were in two different hands. It was possible, of course, that Sir Everard had hired an amanuensis to copy them out. But there was usually some mark from the scribe on the pages they wrote, and he and Gemma hadn’t yet found any.
“As soon as the pages went missing I sent correspondence to the editors of all the major journals inquiring whether they’d received any proposals on these particular topics,” Paley explained. “Templeton sent word a month ago that he’d received an offer of one such paper from Sir Everard. We arranged for Templeton to tell Sir Everard to meet him at Pearson Close with the paper.”
“That’s quite the supposition,” Cam said thoughtfully. “Why would you imagine someone had stolen them? Perhaps you merely misplaced them?”
“Because my home was burgled,” Paley said with a scowl. “That’s when I noticed the pages were missing. And only someone with an interest in geology and fossils would have found them at all interesting. The papers were only valuable insofar as they could be published.”
“What were the titles?” Cam asked, curious despite himself.
“One was called ‘Thoughts on a Pebble from the Sandstone of the Tilgate Forest in Sussex’,” Paley said.
It was a mouthful. Which was precisely what Cam had thought when he’d seen it at the top of one of the pages currently in a tidy stack on the library table.
“Would you be willing to write out something to prove the piece is in your hand?” he asked without confirming they had the essay.
The other man put his brandy down on a side table and sat up. “You’ve found it.” It wasn’t a question.
“There is one such paper amongst the items we found,” Cam admitted. “But if you have someone else copy out your pages then I’m afraid I won’t be able to give it to you without some corroboration from Templeton.”
Paley laughed. “Oh, I write them out myself. Because I didn’t trust anyone else with the task.” He shook his head in disgust. “I was focused on the wrong thief, obviously.”
There was a pot of ink, pen and foolscap on one of the other library tables and Cam watched as Paley wrote out the full title of the article he claimed he’d composed.
When he was finished, he sanded the page and handed it to Cam.
“Well?” Paley asked as Cam looked at the title page they’d found among Sir Everard’s papers and compared it to the new version.
“I’m no expert, but I’d say these were written by the same person.”
His relief evident, Paley crossed to where Cam was standing at the wide table with Sir Everard’s documents on it. “May I?”
Cam indicated that he was welcome to study them, and took a moment to think.
It was not all that much of a surprise, given Sir Everard’s attempt to steal Gemma’s fossil, that he would have also stolen Lord Paley’s intellectual work to publish as his own. He’d often found that once a man began to practice deception, it became a way of life.
But one thing puzzled him. “Surely Sir Everard didn’t break into your home himself? He didn’t strike me as the sort of fellow who could move about a house in the middle of the night on cat-feet.”
Looking up from his study of the documents, Paley said with a scowl, “He hired a man to serve as my footman. I’d noticed some older pieces in my collection had disappeared a few months earlier. I thought I’d misplaced them until I caught the fellow at it. I made an inventory of my entire collection, and my papers, and discovered the Pebble write-up was missing.”
“The footman told you who’d hired him?”
Paley shook his head. “He didn’t know, but most of the major collectors in England are known to me, and it was hardly a leap to think it was one of them. Then I hit on the idea of writing to the editors.”
“I’m the editor of a prominent natural science magazine,” Cam challenged.
The other man shrugged. “To be honest, I didn’t think you’d respond. You’re well known for ignoring the magazine in favor of traveling to find fossils. I didn’t want my suspicions in the hands of some underling who would gossip about it.”
It was on the tip of Cam’s tongue to argue that his personal secretary, who was in fact the one who did the most work on the magazine, would never gossip about such a thing. But then he realized how damning the other man’s assessment was.
“I like to be there to find my own fossils,” he said, hearing the defensiveness in his voice but unable to stop it.
“Which is admirable,” Paley said with a raised brow. “But you must then accept that you will not be the best person to respond to letters like mine.”
There was more he could say on the subject, but Cam chose instead to change it altogether.
“It’s there, then?” He indicated the table of documents.
“It is,” Paley said with a smile. “He was able to take some that I’d written years ago and decided not to publish, as well. The man was a fraud, pure and simple. I have little doubt that the rest of the publications credited to him are also someone else’s.”
“Why go to the trouble, though?” Cam asked. “If he wasn’t interested in the work, why bother with it at all?”
“I don’t know,” Paley said. “It’s hard to know what motivates others without knowing them quite well. And I certainly didn’t claim friendship with the fellow. Though we did meet a few times over the years.”
The doors of the library opened then and Serena and Gemma stepped inside followed by a housemaid carrying a large tea tray.
“Lovely,” Gemma said with an approving nod as she looked them over—presumably to ensure that neither was injured. “It appears that you have worked out some sort of compromise.”
Then as she realized that Paley had some of the documents in his hand, her eyes flew to Cam’s.
“A compromise indeed,” he said. “And some clarification on the extent of Sir Everard’s crimes.”
“You can tell us all about it over tea,” Serena said in the voice she normally reserved for her son Jeremy.
Knowing to obey orders when he heard them, Cam moved to the seating area, Paley close behind him.
* * *
Though she’d left the two men together insisting they come to a compromise, Gemma had not, in fact, been at all sure one was possible. Especially once Serena reached her side in the kitchens.
“I hope they don’t actually come to blows,” the widow said with a troubled look.
“I’m sure they won’t,” Gemma assured her with a confidence she didn’t feel. “If for no other reason than they both know I will be extremely put out if they do. And for the moment at least, they both are intent on pleasing me.”
“Never say you are enjoying the fact that they’re fighting over you.” Serena only looked as if she were partly joking.
“No. Of course not.” Gemma wasn’t that far gone, at least. “But if their foolish rivalry keeps them from coming to fisticuffs then I am all for it.”
“And what will you do when they expect that you’ll choose one of them at some point?”
“Are you not the one who only last evening tried to convince me to break things off with Cam because of his temper?”
“That was before I realized he holds you in genuine affection,” Serena said. “He was serious about fighting for you, Gemma. I think he really does l—”
Gemma put a finger over Serena’s lips before she could finish. “Do not say it. I am already too close to abandoning all of my plans and deciding to take this betrothal seriously. I need no more encouragement. Especially not with the idea that he is thinking the same thing. One of us must be strong, And if Cam cannot be trusted to be the strong one, then it will have to be me.”
“But if you lo—”
“Shhh.” Gemma stamped her foot. “Do not say it. Please, Serena.”
Her chaperone looked at her in amusement. “All right. I won’t say it. But that isn’t enough to make it untrue.”
For the time being, Gemma thought firmly, it would have to be.
“Let’s go tell cook to get the tea ready,” she said, deciding a change of subject was necessary.
Some thirty minutes later, they were both seated in the library again, enjoying the sandwiches and cakes cook had included along with a steaming pot of fragrant tea.
And to Gemma’s relief, the men had settled their differences.
“It’s wrong to speak ill of the dead, Miss Hastings,” said Lord Paley apologetically, “but I fear you weren’t the only one Sir Everard stole from.”
Quickly, Lord Paley explained what he knew about Sir Everard’s scheme to steal artifacts and papers from other collectors.
“At least, I’m sure he tried to,” Paley assured them. “I spoke with a few of the others at Pearson Close last evening and they all reported having missed items from their own collections in the past year. No one had lost important papers, but they all intend to search their documents when Mr. Northman allows them to go home.”
“It’s extraordinary,” Gemma said. “How can one person so utterly fool a group of collectors and scholars into trusting him? And not only that, but holding him up as some sort of model of wisdom? It would be laughable if it weren’t so utterly deplorable.”
“I suppose we’re all too trusting,” Cam said, taking a bite of cake. When he was finished, he continued. “We take men at their word and don’t question them.”
“Especially men,” Gemma said scowling. It was really too frustrating to see how easily Sir Everard had fooled the major players in the world of fossil collecting. She had little doubt if Sir Everard had been Lady Evelina, there would have been a very different outcome.
“You aren’t wrong,” Cam said with a note of apology. “I daresay he’d not got as far as he did without the inherent trust of other men.”
Gemma was taken aback. “Do you really believe that now?”
“I do,” said Cam. “And you’ve opened my eyes to the uphill climb that ladies must face in the scholarly world.”
She looked at him through narrowed eyes. Was he serious? she wondered. Or was this another way to score points over Lord Paley? He looked sincere enough, however, and she felt her heart melt a little.
“Thank you,” she said, trying and failing to keep the admiration from her voice.
Lord Paley clearing his throat alerted her to the fact that she and Cam had been staring moonily at one another for several long seconds.
Dash it.
“Well, I mean to say,” she said hastily, “that is most interesting, Lord Cameron.”
“I see now I was mistaken earlier,” Lord Paley said wryly.
Gemma frowned, not knowing what he meant. But before she could speak up, he was speaking.
“There is something else I thought you should know,” he said. “In fact, it was my primary reason for coming here today, but we got a bit distracted.”
Distracted. What everyone called almost getting into a duel these days, Gemma thought with an inward sigh.
“The evening before Sir Everard was killed,” the viscount said, “after we’d returned from our tour of the collection here at Beauchamp House, and his false discovery of your fossil on the shore, Miss Hastings, he confided to a few of us that he was quite convinced that the skull was part of the Beauchamp Lizard.”
He turned to Cam. “I believe you’d already gone to bed, Lord Cameron.”
“What is the Beauchamp Lizard?” Gemma said, not waiting for Cam to comment.
To her surprise, Lord Paley looked at Cam.
Cam, whose jaw was set and whose cheekbones were tinged with red.
“What is the Beauchamp Lizard?” she repeated, beginning to feel a bubble of anger welling in her chest.
Lord Paley looked apologetic. “I thought Lord Cameron would have told you by now or I wouldn’t have mentioned it, Miss H—”
“Someone had better tell me what the Beauchamp Lizard is,” said Gemma angrily, “or I won’t be answerable for my actions.”
“It’s not as dire as you imagine, Gemma,” Cam said hastily. “I doubt the thing ever even existed.”
She didn’t miss the furious glance he gave Paley before he went on. “According to Sir Everard, Lady Celeste found a large lizard fossil on the shore just below Beauchamp House some twenty or so years ago. And it came to be known as the Beauchamp Lizard.”
“And when, pray, did you learn about this?” she asked him coldly. “And when did you intend to tell me about it?”
She tried to tamp down the sense of hurt she felt at being kept in the dark about something that, by rights as the heiress who shared Lady Celeste’s love of fossils, she should have known from her first day at Beauchamp House. She felt betrayed both by her benefactress and by Cam.
“To be honest, I haven’t really given it much thought since Sir Everard turned up dead,” Cam said, thrusting a hand through his hair.
She unbent a little at that. It had been an eventful couple of days.
Turning back to Lord Paley, she asked, “Where is it? And why would Sir Everard think that the skull I found had anything to do with the Beauchamp Lizard?”
“As to the first, I have no idea. And as for the latter, I asked him that very same thing, Miss Hastings, I assure you.” Lord Paley was warming to his topic. “But he assured me that it bore all the hallmarks of the Lizard, which he claimed to have seen years ago when he and his father had come to Sussex to visit Lady Celeste.”
“If he’d been to the house before,” Cam asked with a frown, “why wouldn’t he mention it when he came to visit this time?”
“I can only imagine because he didn’t wish anyone to know he had some prior knowledge of the Lizard,” Paley said. “And of course, it would have removed his reason for touring the collection if he’d been here before.”
“So that’s what he was looking for,” Gemma said with a start. “I got the feeling the entire time we were examining the collections that he was searching for something in particular amongst the shelves. And he wanted to go through the boxes in the attics.”
She turned to Lord Paley with wide eyes. “As did you, my lord.”
Now it was Paley’s turn to redden. “Sir Everard might have mentioned the Beauchamp Lizard on the drive here, and I became caught up in the fever to see it. Especially if it was as impressive as Sir Everard claimed it was.”
Gemma shook her head. It would appear that she was surrounded by mendacious men.
Getting back to the matter at hand, she asked, “What made him think that my fossil was the Lizard?”
“He claimed that there had been several attempts at theft not long after she found it,” Paley said. “And that his father suggested she bury it to keep it safe.”
“But surely one whose sense of right and wrong was as flexible as Sir Everard’s would have come here to retrieve it long ago.” Cam said, his expression puzzled.
“He said without knowing where or if Lady Celeste had buried it, he hadn’t the time or inclination to go digging for it. Of course, that was before he had the good fortune to come upon it after you’d done much of the hard work, Miss Hastings,” Lord Paley said. “I don’t know whether to believe the story or not, but the fact that he was murdered in the process of taking the fossil from where you found it tells me that someone among the guests at Pearson Hall he told did believe it was the Beauchamp Lizard. And likely killed him for it.”
It was too fantastical to be believed, but Gemma had learned over the past year that when it came to Lady Celeste, the most outlandish turned out to be the most accurate. And she would be just the sort of person to hide a thing in plain sight.
“You will know far more about Lady Celeste’s inclinations and actions than I will,” Lord Paley continued, “but I do know that it was wrong for Sir Everard to steal your discovery whether it was the Beauchamp Lizard or not. And I knew I had to warn you that your benefactress’s most celebrated fossil might very well be the same skull you’d unearthed.”
“Now,” he continued, “I must be off. I do apologize for our earlier contretemps, Lady Serena,” he said with a bow to the chaperone. “I misunderstood the relationship between Miss Hastings and Lord Cameron.”
Before Gemma could protest this last, he’d bid them both goodbye and had accepted Serena’s offer to show him out.
When they were gone, Gemma was unsure which of her multiple annoyances with Cam to confront him with first.
“A penny for them,” Cam said after a few moments of gathering her thoughts.
Deciding to start with the most troublesome, she said, “you should have told me about the Beauchamp Lizard. I had a right to know. Especially since Lady Celeste didn’t see fit to tell me about it.”
He sighed. “I know. I am sorry. I honestly didn’t consider that the fossil Sir Everard told us about on the ride here that day could be one and the same as the fossil you’d found on the shore. I did know he was trying to determine if it was in the house during the tour. But when he didn’t find it there, I thought no more of it.”
She wanted to believe him. Really she did. But a fossil find as big as this particular one was said to be would go a long way toward elevating its finder’s reputation in the world of collecting. And even someone as celebrated as Cam couldn’t simply rest on his laurels.
Rather than discuss something she had no way of knowing for certain at the moment, she turned to the next most troublesome issue Lord Paley had raised.
“I don’t know what he meant about our relationship,” she said with a shake of her head. “Clearly, Lord Paley has a very active imagination. And even if—”
She broke off with a squeal as Cam leapt up from his chair, gathered her in his arms, and turned to sit in her chair. All in the course of a few quick seconds.
“What are you doing?” she demanded, though once he’d settled again she made no move to escape him. “I’m quite cross with you. I have no intention of allowing you to kiss me again.”
“I’m taking advantage of your chaperone’s absence,” he said, nuzzling her neck. “It’s what fiancés do. It’s science, I’m sure of it.”
She closed her eyes against the feel of his hot mouth against the sensitive skin. “It’s not science,” she said in a credibly schoolmarmish tone, considering the shivers coursing through her. “And I haven’t forgiven you yet.”
“Haven’t you?” he asked, pulling back a little and looking into her eyes. “Because I am sorry, Gemma. Very, very sorry.”
At the sincerity in his eyes, she felt her stomach flip.
“Are you?” she asked in a voice barely above a whisper. And suddenly she knew she was asking for more than just an apology.
“I am,” he said, kissing her softly. “Please forgive me, Gemma.”
Closing her eyes, she let him tell her without words that he regretted his actions.
When they were both breathless, she said with mock severity, “If this is your way of proving to me that our relationship is…”
She trailed off when she felt his hand close over her breast.
“Yes?” he asked, amusement in his voice. “If our relationship is.… what?”
“Whatever,” she said on a moan as he stroked his thumb over her. “This isn’t fair,” she muttered as she found his mouth.
“I don’t play fair,” Cam said as he opened his lips to her. “I play to win.”