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Bill Paying Service Payment Processing Service Credit Card - Merchant Services Online Payments Financial ServicesLord of the privateers, p.43
Lord of the Privateers, p.43
Clunes-Forsythe met Wolverstone’s gaze. “Why are you telling me this?”
In an even tone, Wolverstone replied, “In order to expedite the gathering of evidence to the point that any trial will be cut and dried—for obvious reasons, the government does not wish such a spectacle to be prolonged—I’ve been authorized to offer leniency to one of the six backers. Just one, for we don’t require more than one of you to give us the few pieces of information we’re still waiting on. To be clear, the crimes involved in the establishment and operation of the mine and profiting from it are hanging offences. The Crown’s leniency will extend only to commuting one sentence from hanging to transportation for life. That is the offer currently on the table. However”—Wolverstone paused in a histrionic manner Isobel, for one, appreciated—“once we have all the required evidence in our hands—which will be within a week, if not days—then the need for cooperation will vanish, and the offer of leniency will be withdrawn.”
Clunes-Forsythe was patently following every word. A moment elapsed, then he asked, “Have you made this offer to the other five?”
“To four of them. Risdale was picked up this evening—we haven’t yet spent time talking with him.”
Clunes-Forsythe arched his brows. “And none of the others took up the offer?”
“No.” Wolverstone smiled. “But none of them know about the investigations—all the rest I just shared with you.”
A touch of wariness seeped into Clunes-Forsythe’s expression. “Why did you share that information with me?”
“Because at this point, you, of the six, are the one who stands to gain most by cooperating. Consider—if, by some misbegotten chance, Ross-Courtney managed to get word out, and the king stepped in before we have the necessary evidence, and our ability to prosecute vanished, then the other backers might well walk free—but you won’t. You’re facing the gallows come what may. Tonight, your pursuit of the products of the mine led you to commit three major crimes. First, you kidnapped a lady from a ton ball. Second, you lifted a necklace worth a king’s ransom from about her neck and placed that necklace in your pocket.”
Clunes-Forsythe’s black gaze swung to Royd. “Frobisher could have done that.”
“No, he couldn’t have.” Dearne spoke from his position by the wall. “I was on his heels. You’d put a hood over Miss Carmichael’s head. Frobisher didn’t have time to lift the hood, retrieve the necklace, and put it in your pocket before I was there.”
Wolverstone caught Clunes-Forsythe’s eyes. “You see? And your third crime was to shoot Frobisher, at point blank range, in front of me, Dearne, Lostwithiel, and several others. Your chances of talking your way free of any of those charges are nil.”
Clunes-Forsythe stared up the room.
No one said anything; Isobel found it amazing that even though there were close to fifty people in the room, no one fidgeted, let alone moved. Not even Iona, who had insisted on attending and was seated beside her. They were all waiting to see which way this would go. Wolverstone had made their position out to be much stronger—much more immediate—than it actually was. But he’d been convincing, and Clunes-Forsythe appeared to have followed Wolverstone’s careful direction.
Eventually, Clunes-Forsythe straightened and drew a deeper breath. “If—I say if—I were to...expedite your investigations, would the commutation of sentence extend to the charges arising from my actions tonight?”
He was going to accept the offer. Isobel felt triumph well and tamped it down. He hadn’t accepted yet.
“That,” Wolverstone said, “would depend on those involved in those charges.” He arched a brow at Royd, to his right. “Frobisher?”
Royd had been standing with arms crossed, legs braced, his eyes rarely leaving Clunes-Forsythe’s face. His gaze still on the man, he nodded curtly.
Wolverstone turned to Isobel. “Miss Carmichael?”
Her gaze also on Clunes-Forsythe, she, too, nodded.
“St. Ives?”
Isobel glanced around.
His arms crossed over his chest, Devil Cynster was leaning against the edge of the fireplace. “I’m not delighted at the prospect.” The expression on his harsh-featured face made that obvious. “However, if agreeing means he’ll never darken England’s shores again and, instead, will slave away in a penal colony at the ends of the earth for the rest of his natural life...” Devil shrugged. “I suppose I can accept that.”
Wolverstone looked back at Clunes-Forsythe. “You have your answer.”
“In that case”—Clunes-Forsythe drew in a long breath—“you may consider your investigations complete.” He smiled, a thin-lipped gesture. “I never trust anyone and men like Ross-Courtney least of all. I’ve kept records of everything. All the details you might wish for. Far more than Ross-Courtney ever had an inkling I knew.” He raised his bound wrists and reached inside his coat. He struggled, but no one rose to help him. Eventually, he drew forth a chain from which dangled a key. “If you will send someone to my house, to my study, this key opens the safe behind my grandmother’s portrait to the left of the desk. Inside, you’ll find ledgers with all the details you might need.”
Wolverstone walked to Clunes-Forsythe and took the key.
“I have one question.” It was Caleb who spoke. “Pure curiosity. You just made a choice between hanging or what Cynster said. Why choose what many, especially of your age, would consider a fate worse than death?”
Clunes-Forsythe’s brows rose. After a moment, he replied, “Ironically enough, I daresay it was the same choice those I condemned to slavery made. Where there’s life, there’s hope.”
Wolverstone studied Clunes-Forsythe for a moment, then said, “Purely as a formality, we allege that you—along with Risdale, Neill, Lord Hugh Deveny, and Sir Reginald Cummins—were recruited by Lord Peter Ross-Courtney to fund an illegal diamond mine to be worked by slave labor in the West Africa Colony. The local management of the mine was provided by Arnold Satterly—a connection of Ross-Courtney’s and principal aide to the colony’s governor—along with Muldoon, the resident naval attaché, and William Winton, the assistant commissar at Fort Thornton. Can you confirm those details are correct?”
Clunes-Forsythe leaned back in the chair and met Wolverstone’s gaze. “Your summation is correct in every respect.”
Isobel smiled. She looked across at Royd as he looked at her.
“Done.” They mouthed the word simultaneously.
Then they laughed.
* * *
Triumph buoyed all those who’d been a part of the effort to capture the backers.
Wolverstone dispatched Clunes-Forsythe to Essex, then returned to congratulate everyone. During her husband’s absence, Minerva had arranged for champagne to be served in the drawing room. The company toasted themselves. They toasted the captives. They toasted Royd and Isobel and all the Frobisher captains and their ladies, who, as Wolverstone put it, “had been critically instrumental in bringing an ugly chapter in British colonial rule to an end.”
Isobel kept a satisfied smile fixed on her face; she felt the triumph as much as anyone, but she also had trouble ignoring the dark stain marring the left shoulder of Royd’s coat.
When he bent to whisper in her ear, suggesting they use his injury as an excuse to leave, she dallied only long enough to place Iona under Kate’s wing. Along with all the others, Iona had returned to the ballroom, where fully half the ton waited, agog to learn what had transpired. Rather than dally in the front hall, stationary prey for all those intent on speaking with them, admiring the necklace—