Page 113 of Gentleman Jim

“This is a rum business.” Sir Roderick’s voice faded as he departed the drawing room with the others. “Can’t say I approve of the way it’s transpired.”

Maggie gazed up at St. Clare. She looked as though she might say something, but he forestalled her with a subtle shake of his head.

They weren’t yet alone.

Fred hadn’t gone in to dinner with the rest of the party. He remained by the mantel, his face contorted in a frightening mask of hatred. “I expect you believe you’ve won.”

St. Clare drew Maggie closer to his side. He knew Fred, even after all these years. Knew that he was at his most dangerous when he believed himself to have been humiliated.

“I’m not a prize to be fought over, Fred,” Maggie said. “I’m a grown woman with thoughts and feelings and opinions of my own.”

Fred didn’t seem to hear her. He was too incensed. “I would have done anything to have you. I’d have treated you like a queen. But all you cared about was Seaton.” He bit out his words as though he might choke on them. “The two of you, with your secret meeting places and your private jokes. Always laughing at me behind my back.”

Maggie shook her head.

“You were a bully then,” St. Clare said. “Just as you are now.”

“I was your better,” Fred retorted.

“Is that what you call it? To beat a servant boy—a boy who couldn’t fight back?”

Fred was unrepentant. “Someone had to put you in your place.”

“I’m in my place now, aren’t I?” It wasn’t a good idea to provoke him, but St. Clare couldn’t seem to help himself. “Despite all your scheming, all your machinations, Maggie and I are together.”

“Are you? Are you? I still hold power here, Margaret. Over this house and over your fortune. If you marry him—”

“Enough, Fred,” Maggie said. “Enough. I’m not going to marry you, not even for Beasley Park. I don’t think of you that way. I never have, not in my entire life.”

“Because of him. If he wasn’t here—”

“You’ve already tried to get rid of me once,” St. Clare said. “That didn’t work out so well for you, did it?”

Fred’s brawny frame quivered. “I could have killed you that night.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“Because I wanted you to suffer. I wanted you to hang. And worse.”

St. Clare’s brows lifted. Worse?

“I wanted you to see what it was like to be entirely alone,” Fred told him. “Abandoned, with no one to shield you.”

St. Clare chest tightened. Even after all of these years, the memory of that night, locked in the loose box, was as vivid to him as if it had happened yesterday. The fear of it, and the desperation. The way he’d pounded his fists on the walls until they’d bled.

And then the blessed sound of the bolts sliding back from the door, and of his name whispered in the dark.

“I wasn’t alone,” he said. “Maggie came for me.”

Fred looked away from them. “She wasn’t supposed to know you were there.”

“I mightn’t have,” Maggie said, “if I hadn’t overheard my Aunt Daphne gossiping with the vicar’s wife.”

“That was my mistake,” Fred said, as much to himself as to them. “I should have hidden the jewelry the day before. If I’d arranged to find it earlier—”

“Hidden the jewelry?”

St. Clare turned his head to the open doors of the drawing room.