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F rom the nearby cluster of flowering trees where he’d hidden, Will fought the instinct to go to Lucy’s side. If Fleetwood was responsible for the abduction of Miss Blackwood, then he was not to be trusted.

But he knew instinctively that Lucy would not thank him for the interruption. Besides, Fleetwood didn’t appear to have a weapon, and he was slight enough that Will doubted he could overpower Lucy easily.

Still, he could tell from the tremor in her voice that Lucy didn’t feel altogether safe with the man.

“Wh-what do you mean that you are responsible, Sir Charles?” she asked with a composure that gave Will a burst of pride. His Lucy was no coward.

The question hung in the air as Fleetwood appeared to struggle with some inner demon for a moment. Then looking defeated, he said, “I asked you here to give you some sort of Banbury tale about how Miss Blackwood had been spirited away by rookery thieves or some nonsense, Miss Penhallow. But I find that I cannot stand to deceive you any more than I already have.”

What the devil was the man nattering on about now? Will wondered. He was beginning to wonder whether Fleetwood didn’t suffer a malady of the mind.

Lucy, however, continued to treat the man as if he made perfect sense. “Why don’t you simply tell me the truth, then, Sir Charles.”

Fleetwood seemed to visibly sag, not unlike a hot air balloon with the air let out Will had once seen as a child.

“Very well, Miss Penhallow,” the baronet said. “She wasn’t taken by thieves or brigands. She was taken by her American betrothed. And I am the one who arranged it.”

Will watched Lucy as she gasped, and he was damned glad he’d not done the same.

“What? How?” Lucy’s words echoed Will’s thoughts.

Turning to pace again, Fleetwood finally stopped once more to face Lucy. “It is likely not a surprise for you to learn that my estate is badly in need of funds.”

This was the first time Will was learning of it, but though he’d received much of the gossip from London while he was away, he hadn’t particularly paid attention to the fortunes of any gentlemen unless they were attempting to pay court to his sister. And to his knowledge Fleetwood had never approached Meg.

Sir Charles’s words told him, however, that the man might have numbered among the fortune hunters whose dogged pursuit had caused Lucy to give up dancing.

“I have heard something of your ill fortune,” Lucy said kindly. “And was this why you pursued Vera?”

As if his legs would no longer hold him up, Fleetwood dropped down onto the bench beside Lucy. Will’s jaw tightened, but he let them be.

“I needed her money,” Fleetwood said, leaning forward to drop his head in his hands. “But I also cared about her. You must believe that, Miss Penhallow.”

“What happened?” Lucy asked.

“I was approached last week by a man, an American, claiming to be Miss Blackwood’s betrothed,” Sir Charles said with a shake of his head. “You must understand, Miss Penhallow, that I would never have considered his offer if it weren’t for the fact that I am in such desperate need of funds. I was willing to wait for Miss Blackwood to make up her mind about me, but my creditors do not care about such things.”

“And this American, what was his name?” Lucy asked calmly. She no longer seemed to be unsettled by Fleetwood, only impatient. Will couldn’t blame her.

“Hamilton. Christopher Hamilton of Philadelphia.”

Well, at least they knew the fellow hadn’t lied about being Vera’s betrothed, Will thought wryly.

“And he paid you to, what? Lure Vera into the Leighton-Childe mews the night of the ball?”

Fleetwood turned toward Lucy in astonishment, as if she’d just conjured an apple from the air with a snap of her fingers. “How did you guess?”

“Vera must have had some reason to go outside that night,” she said with a slight shrug. “And you did get me to meet you tonight. I suppose you used an anonymous note with Vera as well?”

At this, Will saw Fleetwood’s face flame, even from his relative distance.

“It was not anonymous,” Fleetwood said, the shame evident in his voice. “I signed the note with my own name. I told her I was desperate to see her. Her father refused to approve the match, you see. So we’d had to pretend in public that there was nothing between us.”

“So, Vera had consented to your suit?” Lucy asked thoughtfully. Will could imagine how hurt she would be if that turned out to be the case. Women cared about sharing such things with their friends.

But Fleetwood looked abashed at the question. “Not precisely,” he admitted. “While I do believe she cared for me, she was determined to abide by her father’s wishes. But I had every hope of persuading her to go against him.”

The man was living in a delusion, Will thought with disgust. It was clear Vera Blackwood had been hiding behind her father’s disapproval in order to keep Fleetwood at arm’s length, but the man was so desperate for her dowry that he refused to see it.

Lucy still seemed mindful of the need to keep Fleetwood talking, but Will could tell by her pursed lips as she listened to the other man that she was no more impressed with his reasoning than Will had been.

“You must understand, Miss Penhallow, I thought Vera was lost to me.” Fleetwood dragged a hand down his face in despair. “This man had a prior claim on her, and though she’d never made mention of a fiancé in America, he knew details of her and her household that he wouldn’t have known without some inside knowledge.”

And he’d offered Fleetwood a small fortune for simply getting Vera out of the ballroom and into the mews, Will thought cynically. It was clear now that most of Fleetwood’s agitation was for himself and his guilt over his own greed.

“Why haven’t you gone to the police or Vera’s father with this information?” Lucy asked, and this time she did allow some of her scorn for the baronet show. “It’s been two days. If they’d known about Christopher Hamilton sooner, the police might have been able to track them down.”

Fleetwood responded with his usual histrionics. “No one can chastise me more than I have chastised myself, Miss Penhallow,” he said in a wheedling tone. “As soon as I learned what you and Lord Gilford witnessed that night, I realized my mistake. I had hoped that I was playing a role in reuniting separated lovers. But instead, I merely lured poor Miss Blackwood into a predator’s trap.”

Will rolled his eyes. If this fellow hadn’t been born into the gentry, he would have had a promising career on the stage. What he said about luring her into a trap might be true enough, but again, all his chagrin was on his own behalf.

He was inclined to make up some excuse to come blundering into the clearing around the fountain, even if just to remove Lucy from the other man’s posturing. But before he could invent something, another man approached from the other direction.

Theodore, Lord Cheswick, Will thought with disgust. He’d been at school with the earl and he’d been a troublemaker even as a boy.

“I might have known you’d find it impossible to keep quiet for long, Fleetwood.” Cheswick strode toward Lucy and the baronet, and Will’s hands clenched at his sides.

Fleetwood’s face went slack at Cheswick’s appearance. “What are you doing here?”

“I was invited just as you were, Fleet,” said the earl with a little sound of impatience. “Now, tell me what you’ve been tattling about to the inquisitive Miss Penhallow. She’s already proved to be a thorn in my side from the moment she and Gilford wandered outside at just the wrong moment.”

To Lucy, the man said with exaggerated sweetness, “You must understand, Miss Penhallow, it’s not that I don’t find you charming in the normal course of things. But you and Gilford got in the way of what was supposed to be a lucrative enterprise.”

Deciding he’d had enough of fearing for Lucy’s safety, Will stepped out into the clearing opposite the trio. “If you have a quibble with me, Cheswick, then you can damned well tell me to my face.”

If he’d expected Cheswick to be surprised, Will was to be sorely mistaken. Instead, the earl gave a little snort. “Tut tut, Gilford,” he chided. “There is a lady present.”

“I think you’d better tell us how you were involved with Miss Blackwood’s abduction,” Will said, ignoring the other man’s taunt. Glancing over at Lucy, he extended a hand, and she rushed to his side.

Fleetwood meanwhile looked as if he couldn’t decide whether to flee or faint.

“If it’s all the same to you, Gilford, I’d prefer not to.” Cheswick looked over at his apparent partner in crime. “It is, after all, nothing to do with you.”

To Fleetwood he snapped, “Don’t look like you’re about to have a fit of the vapors, Charlie. You’ve got the money Hamilton paid you, and the Blackwood chit isn’t any concern of yours anymore. Or mine, for that matter.”

As if Cheswick’s taunts had given him a jolt of backbone, Fleetwood stood up straighter. “You promised that she wouldn’t get hurt. You promised.”

“I promised that Hamilton would take care of her,” the earl retorted, looking bored. “I didn’t say how he would do that.”

“Do you have any idea what they’re talking about?” Will asked Lucy in an undertone from where they stood several feet away from the arguing men. “From what Fleetwood said, it sounds like he was the one who turned Vera over to Hamilton.”

Before Lucy could respond, though, Fleetwood made a sound of fury. And to Will’s astonishment, he pulled a pistol from his coat pocket and aimed it at Cheswick.

“What the devil?” the earl asked in shock. But then he began to laugh, which Will could have told him was the exact last thing one should do when facing a man as prone to emotional outbursts as Fleetwood when he was holding a gun. “What are you doing, Charlie? You don’t have the bottle to pull a trigger on me.”

Even as he spoke, Will saw Fleetwood’s arm tremble, though his grip on the stock seemed steady enough. Still, Cheswick would do himself a kindness by refraining from taunting the other man.

“You don’t know what I have the bottle for, Cheswick,” Fleetwood said in a surprisingly calm voice. “Especially when it comes to the woman I love.”

Cheswick, though his hands were raised now, rolled his eyes at Fleetwood’s profession. “The woman you love? You do realize you barely knew the girl. It wasn’t her you loved. It was all of her delicious money.”

“You take that back, you, you, viper,” Fleetwood spat out.

Cheswick might have chosen that moment to issue another taunt, but he didn’t get the opportunity.

Because that was when Fleetwood, whether on purpose or by accident, fired the pistol.