A Masquerade in the Moonlight(123)
But he won’t win this time either. He won’t have Marguerite. He won’t have anything. I’ll see to that. Once Maxwell has worked his magic, I will have my revenge on William. I confess that sin now, to lump it with the others. Geoffrey deserves at least that—that his Marguerite will be saved from William. For if he ever learned about the American, about the way he tumbled her, he’d kill her, that’s what William would do. I will be doing a good deed, won’t I, saving Balfour’s daughter? I’m not a bad man.
And so I vow, on my most sacred oath, that this is my full confession, given freely, as Maxwell says it must be. I am now released from my old life and ready to enter into the world of the reborn, the world of eternal life, and I will accomplish what William could only dream and scheme of, for nothing will be impossible for me. I will rule fairly—
“The rest is drivel,” Thomas said, throwing the pages on the table and looking at Dooley, who was shaking his head in mingled horror and disbelief.
“Marguerite can’t be allowed to read all of this, read these horrible details of dear Geoffrey’s final agonies,” Marco said, flicking at the pages with the back of his hand. “She’d never be content to turn it over to the authorities and let them punish Laleham and Harewood. Not the Marguerite I know. No, she’ll take up her pistols and go after them herself. She can do it, you understand. I’ve seen her shoot, and she can do it. And then, because her heart is good, she will fall into very little pieces not even you, my new friend, will be able to put together again.”
Thomas picked up the pages and began reading through them again rapidly, trying to think. According to the dates mentioned in Harewood’s confession, Geoffrey Balfour had been murdered when Marguerite had been no more than eleven or twelve. She’d admitted to Thomas she hadn’t known immediately that her father’s death had been a suicide. And no wonder. Who would tell a child her beloved father had hanged himself?
“Oh, sweet Jesus, I ought to be horsewhipped,” he breathed quietly, remembering how harshly he had judged Geoffrey Balfour, and then opened his big mouth and said as much to Marguerite. It was a wonder she hadn’t skewered him on the spot! She had to know some of what Harewood had confessed, some inkling of The Club’s involvement with her father’s death, or she never would have acted. How had she learned any of it? And did it matter? No. It didn’t. It was enough that she knew. But Marco was right—she didn’t know it all. If she did, those five men would already be dead. She didn’t know it all—and she could never know it all!
“What are you going to do, boyo?” Dooley asked, returning to the table after getting them all fresh drinks. “You have to let her know her father died a hero. She deserves to know that.”
Thomas took a long drink, then came to a decision. “Paddy—get yourself pen and ink and some paper. Marguerite won’t know Harewood’s handwriting, I hope, and if she does, the words she’ll be reading will keep her from questioning it. Copy down the confession, all that information about bubbles and business ventures. That and the very end. Marco—help him rework the middle pages, where Harewood talks about the details of Balfour’s death, and that business about her mother as well. Say that Geoffrey fought like a man possessed, but William threw him down and he—he hit his head on an andiron or something, killing him instantly. They strung up the body so no one would know it was murder. Marguerite can read that. She can handle that. She has to know her father never planned to leave her without saying good-bye. But that’s all she has to know. Understand?”
Paddy nodded, already writing. It was after one in the morning, and they all knew Marguerite expected Marco at the kitchen door before ten. Harewood was a wordy man, his confession running to ten close-written pages. They didn’t have much time. “What will you be doing, Tommie?” he asked, looking up at him.
“First,” Thomas answered, shrugging into his jacket, then fitting a knife, his favorite knife, up one sleeve, “I’m going to climb a Portman Square drainpipe and love that brave, courageous, wonderful aingeal to within an inch of exhaustion—because she deserves it and because I’d like to think she’ll sleep late tomorrow after I leave her.”
“And then?” Dooley was looking at him strangely, as if there was something visible in his eyes the Irishman had seen once or twice before. “There’s more. And not just because I saw you slip that fancy sticker up your sleeve. I know it in my bones. What will you be doing while your Marguerite is sleeping, a smile still on her pretty face?”