Her stepsister wore severe black, with no jewelry. She complained throughout the first act of looking like a crow, especially next to Amanda. Then her beau Martin arrived at the intermission. He thought she looked beautiful.
"He really does, you know. He's not simply being polite," Rex whispered in Amanda's ear, ruffling the black feather that curled down her cheek from a black velvet headband, tickling her skin. Or was that his warm breath that had her tingling, or simply his nearness? Amanda touched the necklace and turned away, knowing both the diamonds and her happiness were to be sacrificed soon.
Five days.
"You're free, darling!" He swung her up in his arms and around in a circle, laughing.
"You can put her down now, Harry," Rex said dryly, but he was grinning, too.
"I am free? You found Brusseau?"
Daniel stooped over and kissed her cheek. "It is true! Not the way we planned, but true."
Daniel and Harry took turns explaining the recent events, interrupting each other constantly. As near as Amanda could understand, Sir Frederick's deranged sister, Miss Hermione Hawley, never left the house, watched so carefully by her niece and nephew. So Rex took it upon himself to see what she would do if given free rein. What she did, sure enough, was creep out of the house while they were all at the theater, telling the servants, who were now on Rex's payroll, besides young Edwin Hawley's, that she was taking a donation to the nearest orphanage.
"I told you, didn't I?" Daniel crowed. "That friend of my sister's who eloped did the same thing. Charity, my arse, and especially at night. Sorry, my dear. If you see a trunk full of clothes being loaded on a hackney, worry."
Amanda's satchels were already hidden, one by one, behind the garden shed. At least she was not claiming to be giving her wardrobe away.
Rex was furious. "Why did no one send for me?"
Daniel looked at Harry, who looked back. "The sawbones said you shouldn't do anything strenuous for another week."
Amanda said, "I did not know that!" then blushed.
Rex said what he thought of the surgeon's edict, in one short word that made her blush deepen. "You should have sent for me!" he insisted.
Harry shrugged. "The family hope, don't you know."
"Do not protect me, not ever again, either one of you, do you hear?"
Amanda liked that the others watched out for Rex. "Do you want to argue or do you want to know what happened next?"
Rex conceded. "Go on."
"Our men followed the hackney and sent messages back," Harry continued the story. "Your guess was a good one, Rex," he added to appease the viscount. "And paying the Hawley servants was a downy notion, too. Some of them took off after the hackney, also."
"She did not go to any orphanage, did she?" Amanda wanted to know.
"Of course not," Daniel said with a snort.
Rex guessed she went to Sir Nigel's house.
"Exactly." Daniel admitted he was all for barging into the barrister's residence, but Harry said no, Miss Hawley and Sir Nigel were not doing anything wrong that anyone knew. Perhaps they were lovers, having a tryst.
Daniel made another rude noise. "Harry never met the aunt."
Then both of them got in the same hackney, with one of Sir Nigel's servants.
"Brusseau?" Amanda asked. "The other brother, Jean, the real valet?"
"Exactly!"
"Did you arrest them then?"
"No, we decided to see where they went." Daniel told how he and Harry followed behind on horses, with a coach full of Bow Street Runners coming after the Hawley servants' coach. They all went to Grave's End, where Sir Nigel anchored his private yacht, which was under watch by the Royal Navy and the Revenuers, again at Rex's urging.
"You arrested them before they boarded the yacht, didn't you?"
"Not exactly."
"Explain."
Neither Harry nor Daniel wanted to relate the next part. Finally Harry spoke up while Daniel poured them all glasses of wine. Inspector Dimm, it seemed, as the officer in charge of the murder investigation, ordered the suspects to halt as soon as they left the coach at the dock area. They did not. Sir Nigel and Brusseau ran for a rowboat that could take them to the yacht, with Hermione Hawley screeching behind them. Daniel and Harry and some of the Bow Street Runners ran after them. So did the Hawley servants who were promised part of the reward.
Sir Nigel leaped for the boat. Daniel leaped for Brusseau, who could not go as fast because of a bandaged leg, and dragged him back to the dock. He had his hands on Brusseau's neck. "Say it." He did not have to spell out what he wanted; he did tighten his grip on the valet's throat.
"I… I killed Sir Frederick."
"And Lord Rexford?"
"I hit him with the brick. If the cursed chien hadn't been hanging on my leg, I'd have killed him, too, and we could have gotten away."
Everyone heard him, right before they heard Sir Nigel shoot him from the rowboat. The barrister threw his empty gun aside and leaped into the water. Harry was stuck holding Hermione Hawley from leaping after. He pushed her into the arms of some of her former servants and jumped into the boat.
The crew of Sir Nigel's yacht sent a boat out to haul their master aboard. One of the Revenue officers sent out a skiff. They started shooting at each other. Then another ship, a merchantman in the distance, weighed anchor, set sail, and surprised them all by sending a broadside at the navy cutter. The merchantman, they later learned, was one of Johnston's traders. He'd been hiding out, ready to make his getaway too, as soon as Sir Nigel paid him his share. The harbor was all smoke and sails and shouts and small boats colliding, oarsmen falling overboard, servants screaming. The cutter tried to come about to stop the merchantman before it reached open waters. No one got to Sir Nigel in time.
"He got away?"
"He drowned. We fished him out. The navy boarded Johnston's ship and found Breverton-with the money from the bank! And Thibidoux, too. We got them all! Neither turncoat nor tuppence got to France to finance Bonaparte and his plan to conquer England and the world. All the ships were confiscated, the crews arrested, several fortunes rescued. The War Office is delighted, the navy and the Excise officers are fighting over the prizes, and we are all heroes!"
Amanda was happy for them, of course, but still worried about her own future. "But if Brusseau is dead, how will I prove my innocence? The others were traitors who sought to buy titles and lands at the expense of their own country, but the charges against me are not a matter of the nation's welfare."
Daniel and Harry reassured her. Scores of people heard Jean's confession, and his twin brother confirmed everything when he realized he was an accomplice to a huge failed plot. Claude confessed his part, and his brother's, in front of Dimm and his superiors. There was no hint of coercion, no chance of a lie.
As Rex and his parents expected, Sir Nigel was behind it all. Sir Frederick never had the wit to think up the false investment scheme, only lofty ambitions and greed. He followed Sir Nigel's plan, but then he was going to cut Sir Nigel out of the profits, to use Thibidoux and Johnston to get to France. He'd been a problem from the first, scrimping on his payments, which cut down on Sir Nigel's influence with the French, and leaving too many trails back to the barrister. He had to be eliminated. Jean Brusseau carried out Sir Nigel's orders while Claude was seen in a pub, then switched places with his twin. Claude could deny everything without perjury. Jean left the gun to point the blame toward one of the investors, all of whom had good motives.