A Daring Liaison(63)

“No one will ever know you are illegitimate. You are of excellent stock as Lady Caroline Betman’s daughter. I beg you, Georgiana, do not do anything rash. Think of all Caroline sacrificed to keep your secret safe. Mr. Hunter need never know. Promise me you will ponder this before you act.”

“I promise,” she said. In truth, she’d have promised anything to escape that house and unravel this web of deceit.





Chapter Fourteen




Charles knocked on the door of a small cottage in St. John’s Wood. Praying the address was correct and the man was still alive, he breathed a little easier when an elderly man with silvered hair peeked around the panel and smiled. “Something I can do for you?”

“Are you Tom Clark?”

He nodded. “I am. And who might you be?”

“Charles Hunter, of the Home Office. I’d like to talk to you about one of your old cases.”

“Call me Tom,” the man said, opening the door wider to admit Charles, then led him into a small room inside the tidy cottage and waved at two chairs set before a fire.

“Thank you for seeing me, Tom.”

“Not too many people come looking for information about things that happened back then. What case is it?”

“I found your name in a file, Tom,” he explained as he settled in the chair. “I gather you were one of the first to arrive at the accident.”

“What accident was that, sir?”

“A coaching accident involving a young woman—Lady Caroline Betman.”

The man frowned as if he was trying to recall the incident. Then his face cleared and he ran his gnarled fingers through his hair. “That wasn’t an accident,” he said.

“The report says that the coach overturned as it came around a corner. Speculation had it that the driver was going too fast.”

“Aye. That was the story. And the driver was dead, so there weren’t no arguing the point.”

This piece of news was interesting, but could this man’s memory be trusted? “And you think it was not an accident?”

“Stake my life on it, sir. One of the worst cases I ever worked.”

Charles sat back in the chair. This was a surprise. He hadn’t expected to learn anything so very different from the facts in the file. “Then why do the files say—”

“It’s who she was, sir. A lady. A peer’s daughter. Nobody wanted a scandal. And I was ordered not to talk. Ever.”

“Your secret is safe within these walls, Tom. We are on the same side here. Lady Caroline passed away six months ago, and her father a few years after the accident. No one could be hurt by the truth now.”

Tom looked down at his hands, resting in his lap. “Then why is it important?”

“It concerns a case I am working on. I think there may be a connection. At the very least, I need to determine if your case has any bearing or effect on the one I am investigating.”

“Don’t know how...”

“Neither do I, but there are some circumstances that are the same.”

“I hope not. The Betman case was awful. Tragic.”

Charles tented his fingers and waited. He sensed that Tom wanted to talk but was still wrestling with his conscience.

After a moment the man sighed and looked up again. “Me and Frank Grayson were first ones there. Someone put a ramp on the inside corner so that when a coach turned the corner, one side of the wheels would raise and it would tip. It wasn’t no accident, sir. It was a robbery. The driver was already dead, but not from the wreck. Somebody slit his throat. Blood everywhere. Everywhere.”

“What of Lady Caroline?”

“She’d been pulled from the coach and we found her in a nearby alley. She’d been cut real bad. Couldn’t even make out her face.”

“Were her injuries from the accident or from the robbers?”

“Robbers, we thought. Not enough broken glass to do that kind of damage. Only thing we wondered was if it happened before or after.”

“If what happened before or after the accident?”

“What was done to the young lady.”

“What was done to the young lady?”

Tom looked at him for a long moment, then looked away. “She was dragged outta the coach and robbed, sir. They’d cut her purse strings and pulled her jewelry off. Left marks on her throat where her necklace had been. Even her clothes were in shreds. Whoever did it musta liked his work. Went beyond the usual. Vicious, it was. We—me and Frank—thought she might have put up a fight for her jewels.”