Page 87 of A Remarkable Rogue

“Arresting the Marquess of Hawking.”

Her hand stilled. “Pardon?”

Not wanting to upset her any more than she already was, he kept his face carefully blank and his tone even. “Clayton traced the message you delivered to General Braxton, and it led back to the marquess. He’s working for Scepter. We think he might be their leader.”

She stared at him, stunned. “Charles? That’s impossible.”

Charles.Jealousy bit at him. “Bois Saint-Louis was an incident during the last war with the Americans, a little parish in Louisiana. The entire village was murdered at the hands of Braxton and Hawking’s brother. No one else was involved but those two officers.”

“But Major Langley is dead,” she whispered. Her fingers began to stroke the boy’s hair again, but now they trembled. “He died in America. He never came home to England.”

“He must have sent off a letter to his brother before he died. It was that secret that was used to blackmail Braxton.”

“Lots of soldiers fought in the war. Anyone could have discovered what they’d done.”

He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “Braxton wouldn’t have been foolish enough to share that secret with anyone. A general murdering unarmed women and children… The War Office would have stripped him of his commission, and he would have lost all honor and reputation, become an outcast and hated across the empire. No, it had to be Jonas Langley, the junior officer in the incident, who shared the secret, and he shared it with the one man he thought he could trust—his brother. Since he died soon after, it’s likely he told no one else, certainly none of the men he served with, for the same reasons as Braxton.” He eased back against the squabs. “I know how soldiers think and what’s important to them. If any of them found out, they would never have tolerated in silence something so cowardly.”

“Hehadto have told someone else. Either that, or Lord Hawking was blackmailed himself into revealing it to Scepter.” She dropped her gaze to the sleeping boy on her lap. “Otherwise, what you’re suggesting is that the Marquess of Hawking is a revolutionary who wants to overthrow the government, and I simply cannot believe…” She shook her head. “What proof do you have?”

“Henry Everett was a bad mathematician.”

Confusion skittered across her face as she tried to follow that jump in logic. “Henry Everett?”

“Was a bad mathematician,” he repeated. “It was his sister, Olivia, who solved his equations. Anyone who looked closely at his work would have known that, yet he was invited to join the Royal Society. An invitation he didn’t deserve.”

She countered quietly, “Lots of men are invited to join the Society who do not deserve it.”

“Influential lords and wealthy patrons, not poor schoolmasters. Yet Everett’s invitation came anyway. Hawking would have had the influence to make that happen.”

“Any member of the Society could have done that.”

He ignored that, knowing there was no point yet in arguing with her until she knew all the facts. “Once the invitation was issued, Everett was strongly encouraged to socialize with the other members, which included evenings spent drinking and gambling at clubs where Hawking was a member.”

“Coincidence.” But her soft voice lacked conviction. “Many peers keep memberships to clubs they never patronize.”

“Where a mathematician good enough for membership to the Royal Academy can never win at the odds?” He shook his head. “His losses ran up as if the tables were rigged against him, because they were. Soon he owed over twelve hundred pounds—a lifetime’s earnings for a schoolmaster.” He nodded at her. “That’s when you became involved. You were blackmailed into buying up Everett’s debts because your fortune was large enough that you had ready money at hand, and you had a secret that could be used against you. Your son.”

His gaze dropped to Robbie as the boy stirred in his sleep, and her arms tightened protectively around him.

“Then, a few weeks later, you were blackmailed again, this time into demanding that Everett repay you, even though he couldn’t.”

She slowly shook her head. “Why would Hawking, of all men, do what you’re suggesting?”

“Hawking wanted to assassinate the prime minister by blowing up the Admiralty Club, but he needed to know the weakest places in the club’s construction to place the explosives for the greatest damage. Once Lord Liverpool was dead, he could assume control of the government himself, then call for the overthrow of the monarchy. When that assassination attempt at the Admiralty failed, he needed the same information to place explosives at Waterloo Bridge to assassinate both the prime minister and the prince regent during the opening ceremony. Luckily, the men of the Armory foiled their plans.”

She didn’t move, not even to breathe. Her eyes remained trained on his.

“Everett would never have willingly provided that information, so Hawking schemed to run up the man’s debts, then blackmailed you into demanding repayment. But Everett had no money to pay you and feared being sent to debtor’s prison, with his career ruined, his school and life destroyed. When Scepter conveniently showed up with a job for him, he felt he had no choice but to give them the information they wanted.” He paused to let her absorb this new information. “It was never about the money, Sydney. That was simply a means to an end. It was always about where to plant explosives to murder the right people.”

If her face wasn’t covered by shadows, he was certain he would have seen her turn white. “Henry Everett paid for it with his life,” she breathed out, and Nate suspected that her low voice had nothing to do with the sleeping boy. “Because of me.”

“No, he didn’t,” he told her quietly. “Henry Everett is still alive.”

“What?”

“Everett survived the fire at the school that Scepter set to kill him, and when we rescued him, he told us everything he knew. In exchange, he was spared the gallows and exiled from England, and an unidentified corpse was slipped into the charred remains in his place. The world thinks him dead, but he’s alive, most likely somewhere in Spain.”

She pressed the back of her hand against her lips, and her shoulders sagged with overwhelming relief. “Thank God.”