Free Deadly Affair: A Georgian Historical Mystery (Alec Halsey Crimance) by Lucinda Brant Page B

by Alec at the window. “That’s why I— he —needs your help.”
    “What gives Cleveley the grand presumption I’d help save his neck?”
    Sir Charles stared into the middle-distance. “It would get you an ambassadorship…”
    Alec’s laugh was harsh. “My God, he thinks he can bribe me to help him?”
    “I would not call it bribery but a return on the favor done you.”
    “I beg your pardon?”
    Sir Charles turned and faced Alec in the window embrasure. “The whisper around town is that it was your godmother, the Duchess of Romney-St. Neots, who had the accusation of murder against you quashed. That it was through her efforts that you were elevated to the Marquessate Halsey because there are those in the Lords who were, and still are, against you inheriting your brother’s earldom. And before you ask it, I was not one of those who believed you capable of shooting your own brother in cold blood, not without good reason. Your brother was a repellant being. The Duke added his voice to your godmother’s efforts.” Sir Charles couldn’t help a smug smile. “It was through his efforts, not hers, that His Majesty was finally swayed to grant you letters patent.”
    Alec scowled at his school friend with a mixture of disgust and disbelief. “You think I should be grateful to the great man ? You think by telling me this I will be sympathetic to his predicament— to yours ? How very wrong you are!” He snatched up his frockcoat. “Tell your master to bestow his ambassadorship elsewhere!”
    Sir Charles was so taken aback that for a moment he just stood there, stunned. But in the next breath he came alive and hurried after Alec, tripping over his feet along the length of the Gallery as he tried to match Alec’s angry strides. He caught him up as he opened the door, and shuddering in breath said, “Listen—Alec!” He swallowed, chest heaving. “I grant you... You... You do not care for the Duke’s politics... And you... You care even less for the man, but I know you do care... You care very deeply for-for—Mrs. Jamison-Lewis…” He leaned his shoulders against the paneled wall and swallowed in air and breathed deeply. “Do you want to see her family disgraced? Do you want harm to come to her brother; her the center of scandal? Well? Do you ?”
    Alec slowly closed over the door. “What has Mrs. Jamison-Lewis to do with Stanton?”
    Sir Charles’s breathing became more regular. “It’s her brother; not Cobham, her younger brother, Talgarth Vesey. He’s the blackmailer.”
    “You seem certain.”
    “I am. The letters are in his fist.”
    “Why would Talgarth Vesey, a painter of portraits, blackmail Lord George Stanton?”
    “Do you know why the Duke bundled brother and sister from that exhibition in such a hurry?”
    “I imagine the embarrassment at having unveiled a mutilated portrait, and Vesey’s subsequent break-down in full-view of a hundred people, was all too much for his Grace’s delicate sensibilities.”
    “Because he realized at once who had mutilated that portrait and why.”
    “So you think?”
    Sir Charles ignored the heavy sarcasm. “Lord George did it. He did it in a drunken rage.”
    “I suppose he told you that?”
    “He has confessed all to the Duke, although his Grace had already guessed.”
    Alec was suddenly weary. “Would you get to the point, Charles.”
    “My friend, the point is this: If you cannot or will not put a stop to Vesey exposing Lord George’s indiscretion then I’m afraid steps will be taken to make certain Vesey can never voice his threats.”
    “Is that what happened to Blackwell? Did he discover Stanton’s sordid little secret while staying in the Cleveley household, and for that he was murdered?”
    “I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about. But we are not discussing the demise of one poor old vicar, are we?”
    “How brave are little men when protected by the hand of power and privilege,” Alec enunciated coldly.
    “I do not