Chapter 21
Both Connor men stared at the fellow who now sat across from them in the downstairs drawing room. It had taken all the restraint Liam possessed to make sure his brother didn’t resort to beating the man bloody in order to get whatever information he claimed to possess. It had been a close call, but apparently having an idea of the type of welcome he might receive, the man had come prepared. Calmly he pulled a pistol from the inside of his coat and leveled it at Rian, effectively slowing his descent down the stairs.
“I can assure you that not only am I a very good shot, but you present too large a target for me to miss,” the man said as Rian came to a shuddering halt at the foot of the staircase. Behind him Liam continued at a slower pace. He crossed the foyer, giving the appearance of having all the time in the world to wait for the stranger to dictate their next move. He was, after all, the one with the weapon.
“If I can have your word that we can all behave like gentlemen, this will not be necessary,” the man said, tilting his head toward the pistol.
Hearing his brother mutter something vulgar under his breath, Liam took it upon himself to speak for both of them. His tone was frigid as he said, “Entering my house and brandishing a weapon hardly constitutes gentlemanly behavior.”
The man raised a brow. “A matter of self-preservation, and a prudent precaution it would seem.” Having decided the older Connor was far too volatile to deal with, the man gave Rian a hostile look before turning to address Liam. In a strange way, he was grateful for the younger sibling’s more rational attitude. “May I have your word, as a gentleman, that you will keep your brother calm, at least until you have heard what I have to say?”
The brothers looked at each other, silent communication passing between them. With the barest of nods, Rian indicated that he would keep his temper in check for as long as their visitor proved useful. After that, he would not be held accountable.
“Would you care to introduce yourself?” Liam asked, adding no warmth to his voice.
“My name is John Fletcher.” The man did not bow or even incline his head as was customary, not wishing to take his eyes off either of them.
“He’s Isabel’s man!” Rian exploded, making Liam step quickly in front of him. “Did that bitch send you?” he snarled over his brother’s shoulder.
John Fletcher took a half step back as the violent outrage in Rian’s voice confirmed what he already suspected. Isabel had put herself in a situation that was far beyond her understanding. She had seriously underestimated both Rian Connor and Phillip Davenport, and the consequences for her would be disastrous once her involvement was discovered. John’s instinct had been right. Somehow he had to extract a promise from Rian Connor, the equivalent of a pardon that would show leniency for Isabel’s part in the abduction of his wife. He hoped the man would listen to reason because looking at Rian’s muscular build, John Fletcher doubted he would be able to best him in a physical fight. He wondered briefly if the younger man could restrain his brother long enough to allow an escape out the front door. As if sensing his plan, two footmen suddenly came and stood before the closed door, each crossing his arms over his chest and blocking his way. The idea of making an escape was abandoned.
John turned and stared at both men, each of whom seethed with anger. He decided to get to his business quickly.
“Lady Howard did not send me, and is completely unaware that I am here.” He did his best to act as if Rian’s outburst was nothing more than a schoolboy’s tantrum. “I expect my dismissal will be immediate when she discovers my actions.”
“This does not concern you?”
“If she did not threaten to dismiss me at least once every month, I would think something was amiss. This time, however, I do believe she will have no choice but to make good on her word.”
Liam looked over his shoulder at Rian, but a movement in his peripheral vision distracted him. Mrs. Hatch stood at the top of the stairs, worry on her face. The commotion had brought her from Felicity’s bedside.
“Come, we should conduct whatever business we have in here.” Liam gestured to an adjacent open door that led to a receiving salon. He fixed Rian with a look that told him to keep a tighter hold on his temper before leading the way. With an unhappy sigh of resignation, John Fletcher followed. Once seated both Connor men looked at John fixedly, but he did not flinch under their ferocious scrutiny. He had withstood worse. Carefully he put the pistol down on a small table, where it remained in easy reach.
“Do you know what has happened to my sister-in-law?” Liam asked directly.
“Yes, I do.”
“Well, for God’s sakespit it out!” Rian gripped the wooden arm of his seat with enough force to blanch his knuckles.
“In time.” John paused, and his gaze flickered briefly to the clock on the mantel. “She is safe enough…for now.”
“What exactly does that mean?” Liam asked.
John Fletcher sighed. Faced with Rian’s enraged manner, he wished he could deal with the younger Connor alone. As if he could read John’s mind, Liam reached out and put his hand on his brother’s arm. The effect was almost instantaneous, and John looked at Liam in surprise at the sudden change that permeated the air between them. Rian physically locked his rage away, and allowed a breath of calm to wash over him.
Liam repeated his question, “What do you mean when you say my sister-in-law is safe enough?”
“It means that she still has a few hours left until the potion in her system wears off completely.” John narrowed his eyes.
“What potion would that be?” Liam asked.
“The one that was put in her wine,” John answered, grateful to turn his attention away from Rian.
“By you?”
The man shook his head, making both Connor men wondered if he realized he’d just condemned his mistress.
“How can you be so sure that she is safe?” Liam asked curiously.
“Because he will want her to be fully conscious, and completely lucid before he proceeds. Besides,” John continued hurriedly, seeing the furrow in Rian’s brow, “I gave her an additional dose before handing her over.”
“Handing her over to whom?”
John’s expression became quizzical, and it took him a moment to process the fact that neither of them knew anything about Phillip Davenport’s existence. He had been told that Catherine’s memory had returned, but now it was clear that some critical gaps still existed.
Rian spoke though gritted teeth. “Exactly whom has my wife been handed over to?”
“You’d best answer him, Mr. Fletcher,” Liam advised, allowing the other man to hear the edge in his own voice.
The fragile calm was being rapidly replaced by a naked hostility that told John he was walking a very fine line. If he had any hope of coming out of this unscathed he need to speak, and quickly.
“I need certain assurances from both of you.” Picking up the pistol, he casually placed it in his lap. “Before I reveal the location of the lady in question.”
“Assurances? What type of assurances?”
Liam flashed his brother a look that, while full of empathy, requested that Rian allow him to ask whatever questions were necessary.
“I want your guarantee that you will not seek any form of retribution for my mistress’s misguided part in this…unfortunate incident.” Resting his elbows on the arms of the chair, John Fletcher steepled his fingers beneath his chin as both men weighed his words.
“You bastard!” Liam exclaimed vehemently. “How can we be sure that you are speaking truthfully, that you even know where Catherine has been taken? It would seem more reasonable to believe that you are here on the express orders of your mistress.”
John seemed genuinely nonplussed. “To what purpose? What would my mistress gain from such a ploy?”
“To confound and prevent us from actually finding my sister-in-law.”
Rian wanted desperately to believe John Fletcher was telling the truth but he needed more than his word. He needed—no, he demanded—irrefutable proof. For all Rian knew, the man could have been listening behind a closed door to his altercation with Isabel earlier that morning.
It would seem that John Fletcher was thinking along similar lines. Reaching in his pocket, he brought out an object and handed it to Liam, who gasped before handing it to Rian. Capturing the light, the gemstone sent up an arc of brilliance, creating a kaleidoscope of color that danced on Rian’s cheek. It was almost as if Catherine’s diamond wedding ring was kissing him.
“How?” Rian couldn’t say any more as he closed his fingers over the ring, securing it inside his fist before putting it to his mouth.
“I removed it from her finger before she was taken from me,” John said quietly.
“Who has my wife?”
Liam and Rian were not the only ones with fluctuating emotional states. For the first time in a very long time, John Fletcher was going against Isabel’s wishes. By deliberately spoiling her plans, he would save the life of another woman, and as this understanding came to him, he was struck by the oddest notion. John felt that if he told either man his reason for defying his mistress, they would, without question, believe him. Although he needed to save Isabel from her own folly, as well as from the very real predicament she had put them both in, he was acting to save the only truly innocent victim he had ever come across. Catherine. It would be John Fletcher’s one good act. Something that could not begin to atone for a lifetime of wickedness but perhaps it might help to tip the scales in his favor on Judgment Day.
“Please, gentlemen, let me speak as it will save all of us a great deal of time,” he said before revealing in detail the events of the previous night. When he was done, Rian turned to Liam.
“Your assumption was correct. Isabel meant to prevent me from discovering Catherine had been taken in the first place,” he said, sounding both angry and horrified.
“So it would seem.”
“Gentlemen, your assurance?”
Two pairs of eyes turned toward him, and John Fletcher shifted a little uncomfortably in his seat.
“My guarantee would be better kept if your mistress realized the full extent of her actions and understood how far my retribution can reach,” Rian told him grimly.
“Of course.” John had known that some bargain would have to be struck and being allowed to get Isabel to a place of safety was more than he could have hoped for. “I think her estate in Ireland would be a good place for reflection. Would such a distance be satisfactory?”
Hades would not be far enough, but Ireland would suffice.
“What makes you certain she will go willingly, or even at all? What if she refuses?”
“I will persuade her that it is in her best interest,” John said firmly.
“And why would she heed your advice?” Rian asked in disbelief.
“There are times when circumstance dictates the choices that we make,” John snapped, clearly irritated that Rian doubted his influence.
“Circumstance?” Now it was Liam’s turn to question. “What circumstance?”
“Gentlemen, I am not as stupid as you might wish me to be. I know that Lady Howard has become involved in something that has consequences far beyond those she anticipated. Leaving these shores is the best course of action. Besides, there is now another concern that must be weighed. One that changes everything.”
Though he did not look directly at Rian, John Fletcher’s expression was mocking. The man knew exactly who had fathered the child his mistress carried in her womb.
“What other concern might that be?” Liam asked with a frown. “Just what exactly is your relationship to Isabel?”
John smiled at him, an oddly smug lifting of the corners of his mouth. “I am in her ladyship’s employ. Nothing more, nothing less. Over the years I have proved useful, and Lady Howard values my insight on a wide variety of matters.”
Liam was not convinced. Clearly the man was hiding something, and if his relationship with Isabel was a longstanding one, the secrets would be dark, and numerous. But what could be so important that he would risk coming here, without her knowledge, to bargain for her safety and return Catherine to them in exchange? Whatever the relationship between them, Liam could sense it was far more involved than that of a loyal family retainer.
“Tell me, Mr. Fletcher, just to satisfy my own curiosity, do you actually have any balls, or did you allow Isabel to castrate you a long time ago?” Rian spoke so softly that Liam wasn’t sure he had heard him correctly. Had his brother lost his mind? A glance was all he needed to see John Fletcher also had excellent hearing. “It must have been particularly galling,” Rian continued in the same tone, “to know she would lift her skirts and spread her legs for the lowliest farm boy if he caught her fancy, but still deny you, eh?”
John’s face darkened, his expression turning murderous, and Rian grinned broadly at him.
Liam wondered if he should try to keep Isabel’s man back or simply let his brother have at him.
“Would you like me to share the secret of pleasuring her?” Rian’s voice now dropped to a dangerous level. “It would be to your advantage, surely, because you’re in love with her, aren’t you?”
For a moment there was nothing but silence, a heavy, dangerous quiet, and then John Fletcher began laughing. It was not the reaction Rian was expecting, and the look he cast his brother said one of them had miscalculated. But which one? Why else would John Fletcher risk so much to bargain for Isabel’s safety?
“Forgive me, Mr. Connor, but I could probably better educate you as to how her ladyship likes to be pleasured, both in bed and out of it,” John told him scornfully. “And perhaps if I had, the need for this conversation would never have occurred.” He shook his head. “Your assessment is quite wrong; I am not in love with Lady—”
“No, you’re not,” Liam interrupted. He spoke slowly, weighing each word with care. “I should have seen it before, and I suppose I did, but I thought—”
“—it too preposterous to be true?” John finished for him.
Liam nodded while Rian fixed him with a blank stare. “It’s all in the shape of the mouth and the eyes,” Liam told him. “Stupid of me, really, not to have noticed right away, especially as their eyes are so similar in color.”
It was now Rian’s turn to stare at the man sitting across the room from them. Of course! How could he have missed it? “Isabel is your sister?” he asked incredulously.
“You see, Rian, he does love her, but he’s not in love with her,” Liam clarified before addressing John again. “But she doesn’t know blood ties you to her, does she?”
John shook his head. “How, if I may ask?” Liam was, as always, unfailingly polite.
“Different fathers, but the same whore of a mother.” John Fletcher shrugged as if the entire matter was of little consequence, but that careless gesture spoke volumes.
“And her marriage to Lord Howard, I suppose you had a hand in bringing that about also?”
John permitted himself a wry smile. “I can take credit for the introduction only. What happened afterwards, well, Bella managed that all by herself.” He stared at both Rian and Liam, sensing a shift in his favor. “Perhaps we should get back to the matter at hand. Do I have your assurances, gentlemen?” He spoke with a firmness that said he would not be swayed from his course.
“And if we choose not to give any?” Rian said, wanting his adversary to know he, too, could be stubborn.
John Fletcher sighed. “Then we will be at a stalemate, which will not be to your advantage. Time is running short.” He made a point of looking at the clock before turning back to Rian. “I will not divulge your wife’s whereabouts without an agreement in place.”
“When you next see your mistress you may tell her I will seek no reprisal,” he said, and then his gaze bored into John. “Provided she follows your advice, and departs for Ireland before the day is out.”
John Fletcher inclined his head, thankful that neither man could see his relief. He had not been as confident as he appeared.
“Tell my brother where his wife is,” Liam said, placing his hand on Rian’s shoulder and squeezing lightly. Another gesture from their childhood games, saying it was over, finished. John Fletcher gave them the address he knew Catherine had been taken to. “Who lives there?” Liam asked.
“Has your wife ever mentioned a man called Phillip Davenport?”
Rian looked at Liam, who shook his head slightly. “No, I’ve never heard the name mentioned.”
“He is your wife’s cousin, and the reason she was taken from you.”
“Come.” Rian stood up. “You will take me there.”
“But you have the location,” John protested. “There is no need for me to accompany you.” The last thing he wanted was to be trapped in a claustrophobic carriage with Rian Connor.
“Your presence will assure me that there is no trickery on your part,” Rian said, fixing John with an icy stare, “and you are going to tell me everything you know about this so-called cousin.”