Royal Revels by Joan Smith Page B

everyone, by Jove. A regular old lady for gossip and family connections. He even knows what a once removed relative is. And his mama is worse. They’re in London now, I believe. That’ll save me a long haul in bad weather. I’m off to London,” he said, squeezing the list into a ball and tossing it toward the grate.
    As long as he was off to somewhere, Belami didn’t mind. The trip to Ottery and back would take four or five days, and the time involved in tracing Smythe would take another two or three—too long to be of much real use. The prince would have gone public before that if they didn’t stop him. The Wyckertons just might prove helpful too. They were as Pronto had described them, busybodies with a good knowledge of their neighbors and neighborhood.
    When Pronto had left, Deirdre turned to her fiancée.
    “What do you really think of all this, Dick?” she asked.
    “I think Mr. Smythe is a more cunning adversary than McMahon told me. He’s convinced everyone he’s nothing more than an innocent tool of the prince, but in fact he’s done his homework well. I wonder where he got that ring and if it’s actually the one Prinney gave Fitzherbert. If I could be sure, I’d have somewhere to start. It must have been lost or stolen—she’d never give such a gift away.”
    “He smiled and said the prince only remembered the inscription after he had read it. He always seems to be cutting the ground from under his own feet.”
    “Its purpose was to convince the prince, not us. Once that was achieved, he wasn’t eager to convince me. He doesn’t want to be revealed as a crook when the thing blows up in his face. All he has to do is raise his hands and say, “I told you so!”
    “But what does he hope to get out of it?” she asked.
    “Money, probably. A quiet settlement from Papa—the prince—and a gentlemanly offer on his own part to remove himself from the public eye. A perfect gentleman, you see. That must be why he keeps the whole thing so low key.”
    “But where did he get the ring? Where did he even get the idea?” she asked.
    “I smell an older person behind it, and Captain Stack is the only one who’s turned up thus far. Keep hounding your aunt for old friends of Fitzherbert. She must know someone I could talk to.”
    “I will. There’s Mrs. Morton, Dick. She is fiftyish, the right age.”
    “Morton?” he asked, surprised. “You’ve got your cases mixed up. She’s part of the Lady Gilham affair,” Belami reminded her. “That’s what we get for coursing two hares with one hound.”
    “So she is. I forgot for a moment. Yet there are a few similarities between the two cases. An older woman and a young lady on one side; an older man—Stack, I mean, and a younger man on the other. Both trying to relieve Prinney of money. You have mentioned the importance of method in the past. Their methods are vaguely similar.”
    “The timing, too, coincides,” he said, always ready to consider all angles. “Gilham came in September and Smythe not much later. Both were in London before that and both from an inconvenient distance. It’s an interesting notion, but for the present, I mean to concentrate on Smythe. He’s the bigger hare.”
    “Here I thought it was Lady Gilham you’d be concentrating on,” she said, looking at him archly. “Since she’s so very attractive, I mean.”
    Belami’s hand went around her neck, his fingers stroking her throat as he pulled her toward him. She looked into his smoldering black eyes and felt a shiver course through her. His lips touched hers, a brushing touch. A sensation like an electrical charge jolted through her, and suddenly his arms were around her, pulling her mercilessly against him, while he kissed her with passion.
    “Why should I be interested in that hussy when I’ve got you?” he asked, his voice husky.
    She pulled reluctantly away and patted her hair, with a prim face from which a pair of excited gray eyes betrayed her tumult. “We’ll