“Is that why Miss Pratt killed her?” Hannah asked.
“Well . . .” Ambrose stopped again and looked at Concordia for direction. He was not certain how many of the sordid details of the case she wanted the girls to know.
Concordia took over. “After what these young ladies have been through, I think they can tolerate some straightforward talk.” She turned to the girls. “Miss Pratt was in love with Alexander Larkin. They were in the habit of conducting their trysts in a secluded room in one of Larkin’s many properties. But she began to suspect that he had plans of his own for the auction. Distraught, she went to the Doncaster Baths to confront him one night. That was when he informed her, quite carelessly, that he intended to marry one of you four.”
The girls wrinkled their noses in disgust.
“He was so old,” Phoebe said.
“And he was a murderous criminal,” Hannah added, shuddering. “None of us would have married him or any of those dreadful fortune hunters he intended to invite to his auction.”
For a moment no one said a word. Ambrose looked at Felix and Stoner. He knew that they were thinking the same thing he was thinking. The girls would have been raped and ruined by the vile men who had purchased them. There would have been no choice left for any of them except marriage. Society would have accepted the husbands readily enough. Gentlemen fortune hunters were common in Polite Circles. Trimley was a case in point. The state of a man’s finances was not nearly as important as whether or not he had been born into the proper social class.
“Quite right,” Concordia said, smiling proudly. “I am sure that none of you would have allowed yourselves to be forced into marriage, regardless of the scandal or the threats involved. But Edith Pratt and Larkin and Trimley had no way of knowing that you are all such modern, free thinking young ladies.”
Hannah, Phoebe, Edwina and Theodora glowed. Ambrose hid a smile. Concordia’s influence on them grew stronger with each passing day.
“As I was saying,” Concordia continued, “Edith Pratt was enamored of Alexander Larkin. So when he told her that he was going to marry one of the young ladies she had found for him, there was a terrible quarrel in the baths. Edith was in a great rage when she left the private room where she had met with him. She had only taken a few steps when Larkin put his head around the door and summoned Nellie Taylor for a private session.”
“It was too much for Edith,” Felix said. “Until that point she had been able to tell herself that Larkin considered her better than his bathhouse girls. But that night she realized that he had no more respect for her than he did for the Nellie Taylors of the world.”
“Pratt hid in a private room and waited until Larkin had left and the baths had closed for the night,” Ambrose added. “When Nellie began her nightly scrubbing tasks, Edith crept up behind her and struck her with the poker. It was a murder committed out of frustration and rage but it served another purpose. It made certain that Nellie could never tell anyone that she had seen Edith Pratt meeting with a suspected crime lord.”
Concordia looked at Felix. “How did Larkin and Trimley come to form a partnership?”
“We can give Edith Pratt credit for that, too,” he said. “Pratt and Larkin had a long-standing connection. It was formed several years ago when she was in charge of another orphanage for girls. Larkin was still doing a lot of his own dirty work in those days. He approached her about the possibility of purchasing some of the orphans for his brothels. She agreed and both a business arrangement and a personal connection was formed between them.”
Concordia shuddered. “Dreadful woman.”
“Indeed.” Felix glanced at the girls and shifted somewhat uncomfortably in his chair. “Pratt was well aware that Larkin was a womanizer, but she consoled herself with the knowledge that she occupied a special place in his affections. She was respectable, after all. It was true that she was impoverished and forced to make her living as a teacher, but she was, nevertheless, the daughter of country gentry. She knew that status mattered to Larkin. It convinced her that their association was based on more than mere passion and convenience.”
“She also considered herself his business associate,” Concordia said softly. “A partner of sorts.”
“Yes.” Ambrose went to stand at the window looking out into the garden. “Larkin never considered her to be anything other than useful, however. Nevertheless, he did her a few favors and she prospered. Eventually she decided to get out of the business of selling orphans to brothels. She believed it to be too risky. One major scandal in the press linking her name to such transactions and she would lose everything. In addition, she wanted to become the headmistress of a more respectable institution. Larkin helped her obtain the position at the Winslow Charity School for Girls.”
“Miss Pratt immediately realized that the best way to turn a profit at the school was to find a generous benefactor or benefactress who would supply an unlimited amount of funds but who would not take an active role in the operation of the school,” Concordia said. “She did some research and came up with Mrs. Hoxton’s name.”
Stoner nodded. “And with Mrs. Hoxton, she got the added bonus of the lady’s new friend, Edward Trimley. Pratt took one look at him, recognized Trimley for the ruthless social parasite that he was and realized that he could be useful.”
“That was when she began to put together the grand plan to acquire some young heiresses and auction them off to ambitious gentlemen eager to advance themselves in Society,” Ambrose said. “She realized at once there was a fortune to be made. She presented the scheme to Larkin and he was delighted with it. To obtain Trimley’s cooperation they all agreed to split the profits three ways.”
“She understood Trimley very well,” Felix said. “He was delighted to form an alliance with a genuine crime lord. I think he had visions of wielding great power. It is safe to say that he underestimated Pratt, however. He likely never saw her as anything other than Larkin’s mistress.”
Concordia sighed. “As for Edith Pratt, she did not understand until too late that Larkin planned to take advantage of her scheme to obtain a respectable heiress of his own. When she did discover what he intended to do, she felt utterly betrayed. After she murdered Nellie Taylor, she immediately began to plot Larkin’s death.”
“She arranged for the murder to take place the night of the Gresham ball,” Ambrose said. “She sent word to Old Henry to open the baths as usual for one of Larkin’s late-night meetings there. Then she sent urgent messages to Larkin and Trimley informing each that a critical problem had come up and that they had to meet immediately. She hoped Trimley would eventually be arrested for the murder.”
“She confronted Larkin in the baths before Trimley arrived,” Felix said. “When he realized that she had tricked him into the rendezvous, he was annoyed. She found it remarkably easy to kill him, however, because, in spite of his obsession with his own security, he never dreamed that she would turn on him. She struck him from behind with a poker. He fell into the water, unconscious and probably dying. He quickly drowned.”
“Pratt then fled the premises,” Ambrose said. “A short time later Trimley arrived. He found the body, panicked and tried to escape the baths through one of the rear doors. But he stumbled into the attendant and immediately realized the man was a threat because he could place him at the scene. He concluded that he had to kill him.”
“But at that moment you arrived,” Concordia said.
Ambrose nodded. “And shortly thereafter, so did you.”
“Trimley never stood a chance against the pair of you,” Stoner said with an air of satisfaction. He looked at Felix and the girls for confirmation. “They make an excellent team, don’t they?”
“They do, indeed,” Felix agreed with a suspiciously benign grin.
“That is very true,” Edwina said, face glowing with enthusiasm.
Theodora nodded. “Perfect.”
“It is quite amazing how well they seem to work together,” Phoebe offered in a very
emphatic manner. “It is a very modern sort of relationship, isn’t it, Hannah?”
“Yes, but nevertheless a very romantic relationship,” Hannah insisted.
“Pratt’s scheme really was quite clever,” Ambrose said before anyone else could comment on the subject of his relationship with Concordia. “Trimley mined Hoxton’s detailed knowledge of Society to select the first batch of heiresses. They wanted girls descended of solid, respectable country gentry families that were not well known in fashionable circles.”
“The ideal candidate was a young lady who was alone in the world and who, because of her status as an heiress, was inconvenient to someone,” Felix added.
“In other words, if the young lady was removed, her money would go to another heir,” Stoner said.
“Precisely.” Felix drank some more brandy. “An heiress is always inconvenient to someone, of course. It is merely a question of identifying that person. Trimley was very good at doing just that. He located the one individual in each situation who might be willing to pay to have the heiress vanish, no questions asked.”
“And then he made the girl disappear in some sort of tragic disaster that left no body for identification,” Stoner said.
“But instead of murdering the girls in those so-called accidents, Trimley brought them to Winslow,” Ambrose said. “The plan was to keep them there until the news of their deaths had faded and an auction could be arranged. But Phoebe’s aunt started to make inquiries. Pratt became alarmed and decided that the girls had to be sent somewhere else. She could not afford to have them discovered at the school.”
“Trimley and Larkin forced Cuthbert to make the arrangements to send the girls to the castle,” Concordia said. “The girls’ reputations were an important part of their value, however, and that meant that Edwina, Theodora, Hannah and Phoebe had to be properly chaperoned. Hence, the creation of the so-called academy for young ladies at the castle.”
Ambrose looked at her, aware of the pride and admiration flooding through him.
“Miss Bartlett didn’t work out for obvious reasons,” he said. “So Pratt used the agency files to find a replacement. That was where she made her most serious mistake. When she hired you, she got someone who truly cared about her students. She got a real teacher.”
45
That night Concordia waited in bed until the household fell silent. When she was certain that everyone was asleep, she pushed aside the bedding, rose and reached for her robe and slippers.
Enough was enough.
She found her eyeglasses and pushed them on her nose. Taking a deep breath, she lit a candle, opened the door and went out into the hall.
The door of Ambrose’s bedroom was firmly closed. She knocked once, quite softly.
Ambrose opened the door immediately, as if he had been expecting her. He wore his black dressing gown. For some reason she noticed that his feet were bare. He had very nice toes, she thought.
“Have you come here to compromise me yet again?” he asked.
She raised her head quickly. The flame of the candle wavered. She realized that her fingers were trembling.
“No,” she said.
“Pity.”
Irritation steadied her nerves. “Ambrose, that is quite enough of your strange sense of humor. We must talk.”
“About what?”
“Us.”
“I see.” He folded his arms and propped one shoulder against the door frame. “And just where did you intend to have this conversation?”
“The library?”
“I seem to recall that the last time we were together alone late at night in the library, I got ravished.”
“Ambrose, I swear, if you do not cease teasing me—”
“And don’t even think of suggesting the conservatory.” He held up one hand. “It would be too cruel to let Dante and Beatrice take the blame for another floral disaster.”
“That is quite enough.” She straightened her shoulders. “Follow me, sir.”
“Yes, Miss Glade.” Obediently, he moved out into the hall and closed the door of the bedroom very quietly. “Where are we going?”
“A place that not even you will be able to view as a suitable location for a passionate tryst.”
“I would not depend upon that if I were you.”
Pretending that she had not heard the remark, she led the way downstairs and along the hall to Mrs. Oates’s immaculate kitchen. Setting the candle down on one of the worktables, she faced Ambrose from the opposite side.
“Sir, I realize that you find the little jokes and quips about marriage amusing, but they must cease.”
“I assure you, I am quite serious about the subject.”
She squeezed her eyes shut to force back the threat of tears. When she had recovered her composure she looked at him very steadily.
“I am aware that your sense of honor has convinced you that you must give me the option of marriage. I appreciate it more than I can say. But it is unnecessary.”
“Speak for yourself.” He looked around the kitchen. “I wonder if there is any of the salmon pie left?”
She glared. “Try to pay attention here, Ambrose.”
“Sorry.” He sat down, folded his hands on the table and regarded her with the air of a well-behaved schoolboy. “What was it you were saying?”
“We both know that, in spite of your attempt to make light of the matter, your reputation is not in grave danger here. And neither is mine, for that matter.”
“Huh.” He rubbed his chin. “Are you quite certain of that?”
“Yes.” She drew herself up and attempted a brave smile. “I can deal with any problems that might develop from this affair. Do not forget that I have spent many years concealing my past. I will be able to forge a new identity again. Sooner or later I will obtain another position in a girls’ school.”
“I see. You do not need me to protect your reputation, is that it?”
“My reputation is my responsibility, Ambrose, not yours. It is very kind of you to assume such a gallant attitude, but I assure you, it is not necessary.”
“What about the girls? I got the impression that they rather enjoyed living here. I know that Phoebe has written to her aunt and is quite looking forward to being reunited with her. But surely you do not intend to send the others back to the very same relatives who were only too happy to pay Trimley and Larkin to dispose of them.”
“Of course not.” She stiffened, shocked by the notion. “I gave the girls my word that they would have a home with me as long as they wished. I would not dream of going back on such a promise.”
“No,” he said. “You would never do that.”
“They may be wealthy young ladies now, but they still need protection and stability until they are mature enough to go out into the world,” she continued. “They must also learn to manage their inheritances and to be cautious of men who might try to wed them for their money.”
“I agree.”
“But the girls are my responsibility, Ambrose, not yours,” she said earnestly. “Now that the danger is past, you must not feel that you have any further obligations toward them. Or to me.”
He got to his feet, leaned forward and planted both hands on the table. “In other words, I am free to go back to the life that I have created for myself. Is that what you are saying?”
“Well, yes. Yes, I suppose that is what I am trying to say.”
“But what if that life no longer appeals to me?” he said.
“I beg your pardon?”
“What if I have discovered that I rather like having a partner again?”
“Ambrose—”
“Before you offer any more excuses for your failure to make an honest man of me, will you answer one question?”
She could hardly breathe. “What is that?”
“Do you love me, Concordia?”
The tears that she had been struggling to hold back leaked from the corners of her eyes. She removed her eyeglasses and dabbed furiously at
the moisture with the sleeve of her robe.
“You must know that I do,” she whispered.
“No, I did not know. I admit that I had hopes in that regard, but I could not be sure and the uncertainty has been damn near intolerable. Concordia, look at me.”
She blinked hard to clear her eyes and replaced her glasses. “What is it?”
“I love you,” he said.
“Oh, Ambrose.” More tears welled up and spilled down her cheeks. “You must see that it is impossible.”
“Why?”
She flung her arms wide. “You are a wealthy gentleman, one of the heirs to Stoner’s estate. If you truly wish to marry, you can look much higher than an impoverished teacher with a disreputable past.”
“How many times do I have to tell you I am no gentleman. I am merely a somewhat reformed thief who is still addicted to the dark thrill of crawling through other people’s windows late at night, opening locked drawers and digging up secrets that are none of my business.”
She frowned. “You know very well that is not an accurate description of yourself. You are a noble, dedicated knight who is committed to righting wrongs.”
“No, my love, I’m a professional thief who is descended from a long line of rogues and scoundrels. You are the noble, dedicated person in this kitchen, not me. It is clear that I desperately need your strong moral guidance and influence if I am to resist the temptation to fall back into my old habits.”
“Ambrose.” She did not know whether to laugh or cry. “I do not know what to say.”
“Ask me to marry you.” He straightened and moved around the end of the table to take her into his arms. “That is the best way to ensure that I stay on the right path. It will also settle your account.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I take my fees in the form of favors, if you will recall. The favor I wish from you is an offer of marriage.”
She put her hands on his shoulders. She could see the warmth and the promise in his eyes. Ambrose would not lie to her, she thought. She had trusted him with her life and the lives of her students. He had said that he loved her. She could trust him with her heart.