Free Desire Becomes Her by Shirlee Busbee

protested, his expression guileless. “How else could Harlan arrive home with his own vowels. . . and a few from Jeffery in his pockets?”
    Lamb grinned at him. “Don’t try to bamboozle me, my clever buck.”
    “How much did you take Jeffery for?” asked Barnaby.
    Luc shrugged. “I cannot remember. Enough to make it painful for him and perhaps make him think twice before preying on fledglings.”
    “Did you see Lieutenant Deering when you were at Nolles’s place?” Barnaby asked, swirling his brandy around in his snifter.
    “Non,” said Luc, looking surprised. “Was our favorite riding officer there?”
    Barnaby nodded. “Yes, he was.” He smiled. “Broadfoot wasn’t the first to tell me of your visit to The Ram’s Head. I met Deering on the road yesterday afternoon returning from my visit to Farmer Calkin.”
    “Ah, yes, the damaged barn roof,” Luc murmured. “How did that go?”
    “Well, for once Calkin had a legitimate complaint. The roof is beyond repair.” Barnaby sent Luc a level look. “But you will not distract me from my meeting with Deering.” He swallowed some brandy and said, “It appears that Nolles and his gang have reorganized after the blow we gave them in February. Deering says that during the last month or so, there has been an increase in the smuggling activity in the area—rumor has it that Nolles has a new financier.”
    “Another one such as Cousin Thomas?” asked Luc, referring to their cousin killed by his brother, Mathew, back in February.
    “That I don’t know, but most likely,” Barnaby answered. “He can’t prove it, but Deering doesn’t feel that Nolles is putting up the money for the runs to France. He suspects that Nolles has made contact with a wealthy landowner in the neighborhood or, and this is Deering’s best guess, someone in London is financing the smuggling—as Thomas did.”
    “One hopes that this new investor is not another relative of ours,” Luc muttered.
    “I doubt that Mathew has the stomach for any connection with smugglers—killing Thomas devastated him and discovering his brother was financing the Nolles’s gang did nothing to ease his anguish. I think we can eliminate Mathew, don’t you?”
    Luc made a face and nodded.
    Lamb spoke up, saying, “And can you imagine Simon doing such a thing?”
    Thinking of affable, charming Simon, the youngest of the English Joslyn brothers, Luc shook his head. “ Non! Simon and Thomas may have been at daggers drawing, but his grief was deep over his death.”
    “Simon’s mourning is more, I think,” observed Lamb, “for the pain and guilt that Mathew suffered than for Thomas’s death.”
    The other two men nodded.
    Discovering that Thomas Joslyn had been the shadowy figure behind the handsome sums of money that had filtered through Nolles’s fingers on their way to France to buy shipload after shipload of contraband goods for sale in England had stunned the entire family, but Mathew most of all. Already reeling from the horrific knowledge that he had shot and killed his own brother, the discovery of Thomas’s unthinkable alliance with a vicious gang of smugglers had only added to the guilt and horror that consumed Mathew.
    “Has he stirred from Monks Abbey yet?” asked Luc, mentioning Mathew’s estate some distance away.
    Barnaby shook his head. “Simon is worried about him. Says he locks himself in his rooms at night and drinks himself into a stupor.”
    Thinking of the staid and proper Mathew drinking himself into a stupor, Luc frowned. “We shall have to do something about that. It was an appalling situation, but he’s had enough time to lick his wounds and realize that none of it was his fault.”
    “I agree,” said Barnaby.
    Glancing at Barnaby, Lamb said, “You’ll have to do something very un-viscount-like and annoy him enough to bring him posthaste to the steps of Windmere.” Lamb half-smiled. “Once we have him here, we’ll figure out a way to shake him from the worst of