Mistress - Amanda Quick [59]
Iphiginia’s eyes widened. “Good grief, I left it in the grotto.”
“Bloody hell.” Marcus stood up and pushed open the trapdoor in the carriage ceiling. “Turn back, Dinks. To the cemetery. Quickly.”
Dinks shrugged. “Aye, m’lord.”
Iphiginia frowned. “Do you think we’ll get there in time to see the blackmailer pick up the money?”
“I doubt it. Not with the way my luck has been running lately.”
Marcus leaped out of the carriage the instant the cemetery gates came into sight. He ran down an aisle of tombstones, straight to the grotto. Iphiginia’s cloak swirled out behind her as she followed close at his heels.
They were too late. In the few minutes that it had taken to drive away from the cemetery, turn around, and return, someone had managed to get into the grotto and retrieve the five thousand pounds.
Iphiginia stared out into the foggy mists that surrounded the monument to Mrs. Eaton. “He must have been watching,” she whispered. “And waiting. All the while I was in there, nearly going out of my mind, he was out here.”
“He suspected someone would come to rescue you,” Marcus said softly. “But how the hell did he know it?”
Iphiginia pulled her cloak more tightly about herself. “You are right, my lord. Whoever he is, he knows too much. About all of us.”
NINE
MARCUS LEANED AGAINST THE MANTEL IN IPHIGINIA’S library and contemplated his next move. “We will start with the sepulchral monument. The site was obviously chosen with careful consideration. There may be a connection between it and the blackmailer.”
“Perhaps.” Iphiginia set her teacup down onto its saucer. “Or he may have selected it merely because it was remote and atmospheric and bound to create an extremely unpleasant effect on the sensibilities of whoever brought the money.” She shivered. “He was not wrong on that last point, I assure you.”
Amelia gazed into the fire that Marcus had lit. “Whoever is behind this enjoys frightening people, first with threats of murder and now with ghosts. But what possible connection could the monument to this Mrs. Eaton have to do with the thing?”
“I don’t know,” Marcus conceded. “But it’s worth making a few inquiries in that direction.”
“I agree,” Iphiginia said quietly.
Marcus glanced at her. He was still brooding on the notion that someone had gone out of his way to terrify her tonight. His hand knotted into a fist on the mantel top.
He deliberately dampened the fires of anger that burned in his blood and tried to take a more rational, objective view of the situation and of Iphiginia.
He was relieved to see that she was showing no obvious ill effects from the three hours she had spent sitting alone in the funeral grotto. He did not know any other female who would have come through the experience in such fine form. For that matter, he did not know many men who would have come out of it in such good spirits.
His mistress-in-name-only had great courage, he thought. Nevertheless, when he finally got his hands on whoever had locked her in the grotto, he was going to take great pleasure in avenging her.
“How do you intend to proceed?” Amelia asked.
Marcus considered the question closely. “To begin, we must try to discover who Mrs. Eaton was and, more important, who built such an elaborate monument to her.”
“Our man of affairs, Mr. Manwaring, can look into it,” Iphiginia said.
Marcus recalled the man he had seen leaving Iphiginia’s town house the previous day. Manwaring enjoyed much too casual an entrée into the household, he decided.
“I’ll have my own man of affairs handle the matter,” he said, and then broke off as a thought struck him. “Devil take it. That will not be possible. At least not immediately.”
“What’s wrong?” Iphiginia asked.
“Barclay is, ah, out of Town on a business matter at the moment.” Marcus drummed his fingers on the mantel. He could hardly explain that Barclay was in Devon looking into Iphiginia’s past. “But he will not be gone long. He’ll deal with the problem when he returns.”
“Are you certain that you