Wanted: One Scoundrel Page 9

  “I’m amazed he dared to steal from Father.”

  “Bambury paid enough. Sid’s drinking it up now.”

  “Who else is he confiding in?” Jed asked.

  “No one.” Francis grinned briefly. “He wanted reassurance from me. ‘When Aaron Smith finds out it was me who stole his watch, what’ll he do?’”

  Aaron looked up from his steak. “What did you tell him?

  “That he ought to consider the benefits of the life at sea.” Francis snorted. “Then he bleated something about not wanting to come up against Captain Fellowes, either.”

  “Ha.” Aaron returned his concentration to the steak, polishing off the last of it. Esme stacked the plates and popped them into the service hutch.

  Francis leaned forward. “So, what’s the plan?”

  “Apple crumble and custard.” Aaron smiled at Maud as she brought in the dessert. “I’ll just make us an after dinner coffee.”

  Esme declined, but Jed accepted thankfully. They vanished into the library and the marvels of the coffee geyser.

  “Sit down, Maud.” Esme patted a chair. “You’re part of the family.” She poured tea for both of them and refilled Francis’s cup.

  “Were you safe with Mr. Reeve?” the older woman asked in a low voice. “I worried. We don’t really know him.”

  “He was a perfect gentleman.” Esme smiled. “Father likes him.”

  Maud sat back with a sigh of relief as the two men returned with steaming mugs of coffee.

  “Now,” Aaron said. “Here’s the plan.”

  The men’s club was paneled in wood, smelled of leather and tobacco and to be honest, rather disappointed Esme.

  “I don’t like cowards, Bambury. Walk or I’ll shoot you where you stand,” Aaron Smith said as the man hesitated on the doorstep.

  “Sir, I protest this bushranger behavior.” The villain seemed to take courage from the familiar environment of the club where he’d lorded it over the younger men.

  Men looked up from newspapers and discussions. The grandfather clock in the hallway announced eleven o’clock.

  “Smith, you back in town? What’s this all about?” Dr. Palmer hurried forward, his eyes flicking from Bambury to the gun Aaron held, and then, to Aaron’s grim face.

  “I’m going to give Bambury a chance to confess,” Aaron said.

  “Sir, I believe it is you who must explain yourself, drawing a gun on an unarmed man.” Bambury tugged at his coat, ricked up by Aaron and Jed’s rough handling when they picked him up from his lodgings and dumped him in the carriage. Where he’d been silent on the short ride, only shooting a vengeful look at Esme, now he was vocal. But his hands trembled. “And I point out Miss Smith is transgressing the rules of this gentleman’s club by entering.”

  “So are you,” Jed said. “I personally wouldn’t let an egg-sucking snake like you slither over the entrance. But I think all the men who think you’re a fine gentleman deserve to know the truth.”

  “Hey, you can’t say such things.” One of Bambury’s followers spoke up, while Bambury tested the limits of his freedom by edging away from Aaron. When he wasn’t immediately grabbed, Bambury strode on into the reading room. He hid his shaking hands in his pockets.

  Esme ignored bleated protests from the members of the club and followed him, confronting him as the center of attention. She wore a naval-inspired blue walking dress with a gold braided short cape. Her polished black boots and stylish hat brought her equal height with Bambury.

  “On Monday, this sorry excuse for a man extorted a promise of marriage from me.”

  Her statement provoked a riot of exclamation.

  Bambury faced her, smirking. Evidently, he’d realized it was her word against his. Only the wary eye he kept on Aaron gave away his worries. “Preposterous.”

  “That’s what I thought. The whole notion of marrying you was preposterous—until you threatened Father.”

  As one body, the men of the club turned to look at Aaron as he loomed in the doorway, his gun still out, though hanging loosely by his side.

  “He threatened Aaron?” The elderly man’s doubts were clear in his voice.

  “Of course not,” Bambury said swiftly. “The truth is I rebuffed her attempts to make our friendly relationship more than it was. This story she tells, whatever it is, is merely hurt pride and disordered female intellect.”

  Dr. Palmer frowned dreadfully. He, at least, knew Esme’s long-standing opinion of Bambury—a narcissistic, chauvinist snob.

  Jed ambled around the room, apparently casual, his hand running along the miniature railway track that was so reminiscent of her own comfortable, safe drawing room—although here, the train probably provided whiskey and cigars rather than tea and cakes. And of course, it was part of Amberley’s disastrous experimentation with electricity. She much preferred the clean heat of steam power. At least it never magnetized everything in reach.

  “In fact, I feel sorry for Miss Smith,” Bambury continued. “Why, what normal woman would intrude in a gentlemen’s club?”

  “A justly angry one,” she snapped. “You are a cad. When I wouldn’t believe you held Father, you produced his fob watch. I knew he would never willingly part with it. It holds a photo of Mother.” She looked at the other men, at their indecision. “That is why I feared that there was some truth to Bambury’s threat of killing Father if I didn’t agree to marriage. All that saved me was the bishop’s absence from town and Bambury’s need for a special license. It gave me a few days’ grace to ride out in search of Father.”

  “And she found me riding in from my claim, chasing the sneak thief who’d stolen my watch,” Aaron finished.

  “Since Father was safe, we could have let the matter drop or handled it privately.”

  “But no one threatens my family.” Aaron folded his arms. “Nor do I like the idea of this cur misrepresenting himself as a gentleman.”

  “You have to understand,” Jed said. “Bambury didn’t want to marry Miss Esme, but he did want the Smith fortune. It’s interesting what a few letters of inquiry can turn up about the state of Bambury’s financial affairs—or should I say, debts?”

  Bambury’s face twisted. “You bastard.”

  “No, not that.” Jed leaned a shoulder against the mantel. “You mustn’t have answers to your letters of inquiry about me. I’m Senator Reeve’s son from California, an heir to the Reeve fortune. You must have heard of Washerwoman’s Mine? My granny found it, bless her passion for cleanliness.”

  “You liar.”

  “Nope.” The very coolness of Jed’s tone, in contrast to Bambury’s heat, gave credence to his words. “I have letters of introduction to the governor and various people tucked away in my hat. I just never got around to passing them on.”

  Because he didn’t want me to know the truth, Esme thought. He was playing a game. Pretending to support my political ideals. Pretending to be a scoundrel. But now the situation is so serious, he’s using the truth to break Bambury.

  Bambury’s sudden movement caught her off guard. He grabbed her arm and a split second later she felt something prick her neck.

  “Nobody move,” he snarled. “I have enough morphine in this needle to kill her. Smith, put your gun down.”

  “All right.” Her father obeyed slowly. He had patted Bambury down for knife or gun, but he’d missed the odd, compact, steel needle. “Take it easy.”

  “Originally I planned to get her hooked, to make her docile—more like a woman should be.”

  Around them, the men who hadn’t wanted to believe her accusations now looked sick. “Bambury, old man, what do you think you’re doing?”

  “What do I have to lose?” His breath panted against her ear as he answered an erstwhile supporter. “This bitch has ruined everything.”

  “Oh, I say! Language!”

  He ignored them all, impatient and focused on the threat Aaron represented. “I want a gig and safe passage to the harbor.”

  It was an impossible situation
. He had to know he’d never make it. He couldn’t drive a gig and threaten her. Even if he trusted her to drive while he held the needle to her throat, there were a number of men who, once outside and with the element of surprise, could shoot him dead as they passed by.

  And when he realized the futility of his flailing around, would he simply kill her out of frustrated rage and fear?

  She looked across the room at Jed—who wasn’t there! He’d vanished when the men surged forward in reproof at Bambury’s language.

  He’d left her.

  For a second, her vision flickered, darkening then lightening. She had barely enough time to register that it was the electric lighting, not her emotions, when the needle scratched along her neck and flew out of Bambury’s hand. A positive cyclone of spoons followed it. They all clung to the electric magnet behind her, the control center of the miniature railway.

  She wrenched free of Bambury, stamping on his foot.

  Jed vaulted a sofa and punched him. Bambury went down for the count. Jed put both arms around her and squeezed tighter than a corset. “Someone turn off the damn generator.”

  She could feel his heartbeat, as fast as her own.

  “Nice going.” Aaron strode into the room and planted a heavy boot on the needle. The glass ampoule splintered.

  Dr. Palmer pushed through the crowd. “Someone get my bag. He’s not going to die of a crack to the jaw—more’s the pity.”

  Jed put a pristine white handkerchief to her neck and drew it back to show a thin line of blood. “Bastard.”

  Under Dr. Palmer’s ministrations, Bambury stirred and tried to sit up.

  Esme shuddered and looked around the room of excited men. “I’d like to leave.”

  He nodded and, with an arm around her shoulders, ushered her out. The whispers grew to a roar behind them as Aaron followed.

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  “Yes, just shaky.” She tried and failed to manufacture a smile.

  “George will drive you home.” Aaron beckoned their groom, who brought the carriage up. “I never dreamed Bambury would try something like this. There’ll have to be explanations, a formal charge.”

  Silently, Jed helped her into the carriage. The fierceness of his grip hinted at strong emotion.

  “I’m fine.” She tried to reassure them both—these two men, so important to her. “It’s just…a men’s club isn’t as interesting as I’d thought it would be.”

  “Any more interesting and I’d have put a knife through Bambury’s heart.” Jed closed the carriage door with unnecessary force. “Drive on.”

  He and Aaron Smith watched the horses quicken to a trot and the carriage disappear around a bend in the road. They both let out loud sighs of relieved tension, before Smith insisted on shaking Jed’s hand.

  “Thank you,” he said simply.

  “We shouldn’t have let Bambury get so close to her.”

  They walked back into the club, shoulder to shoulder, and into a cannon fire of questions, exclamations and incipient rumor.

  Bambury was patched up and carried to a jail cell. He’d turned sullen and refused to answer questions or respond to charges read against him.

  Jed was the hero of the hour, a role he detested. Each time he thought of Esme at the mercy of that son-of-a-buzzard, his stomach twisted with nausea. He’d seen morphine and opium addicts. The thought of Esme—bright, challenging, desirable—reduced to a crawling shell of a person made him want to rip Bambury apart.

  He scowled at the men who now proclaimed they had always known there was something off about Nicholas Bambury the Third.

  All he wanted to do was return to Esme and hold her safe for the next thousand years or so.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Jed and Aaron Smith caught the ferry back from Perth and walked up the hill from the river to Smith’s mansion—and Esme.

  Francis met them at the door, accompanied by the three dogs. “Miss Esme told us all about it. Plus the town’s seething with gossip. We’ve had the world and his wife come calling. Nosey parkers. Miss Esme’s refused to see them all. She’s in the library.”

  Smith nodded. “Dinner in an hour.”

  Esme had changed out of her navy dress and into a rose pink gown with a soft grey shawl tucked around her shoulders. The scratch on her neck had stopped bleeding and she hadn’t bothered with a bandage. She met them at the door to the library and gripped her father’s arm. “Well?”

  “Bambury is in jail, charged with attempted murder. We have witnesses enough to that attempt. The attempt to extort marriage from you…the lawyers can’t decide on the charge. Either way, Bambury is ruined. And I got my watch back.” Aaron patted her hands, then transferred them to Jed. “I’m going upstairs.”

  His footsteps receded, slow and tired.

  “It’s been a long day,” Jed said. He walked Esme back into the library and sat beside her on a sofa. The sofa was positioned to look out across the harbor. With the sun setting, the horizon was a blaze of gold, silhouetting the skimmer-boats and steamships and the old-fashioned sailing ships. He’d watched similar scenes from his family’s San Francisco home. The end of the day, the westering sun and the people you loved.

  He put his arm around her and finally relaxed when she leaned into him. “How are you?”

  “Regretting that I only got to stamp on Bambury’s toe. I should have kicked him. But your punch was superb.”

  “I thought you might blame me.”

  She stared at him. “What? For punching that lowdown snake?”

  “For putting you in danger. It was my elaborate scheme for revenge that gave Bambury his chance to attack you. If we had simply gone straight to the police rather than confront him—”

  “No.” She shook her head vigorously. “If we had handled the matter quietly, there would always have been people who doubted my word, who wouldn’t believe such dastardly behavior of their precious east coast Bambury. This way he condemned himself.”

  “But at such a price.” He touched the skin below the scratch on her throat. His hand fisted as he withdrew it. His rage and terror for her were too recent, too raw for his self-control. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. I should have kept you safe.”

  “You did. It was an ingenious method of rescue—entirely appropriate for an inventor.”

  He studied the dimples of her smile. They didn’t quite disguise the hint of teeth. “I have a feeling I’m about to be scolded about something entirely different.”

  “Very perceptive. You, sir, misrepresented yourself.” But she didn’t move out of his embrace.

  He took heart from that fact, although a firm finger stabbed his chest.

  “You let me think you a con artist, when in fact you’re an inventor.”

  He captured her accusatory finger. “I would have denied the scoundrel charge, except—when I met you on the Athena, you were so lovely and so obviously committed to your political ideals, I thought agreeing to represent the Women’s Advancement League might be my only chance to spend time with you and hold your attention.”

  “Flattery.”

  “Truth. You are a beautiful woman, Miss Esme Smith.” He raised her hand to his lips and kissed it.

  She sighed and left her hand in his. “Are you really a senator’s son?”

  “Yes.”

  “Were you ever going to tell me?”

  “I started to, when we rode in search of your father. I told you I’m an inventor.” He smoothed his thumb over her bare ring finger, thinking how she warranted sapphires and diamonds to match her eyes. “Back home, my family considers me boring, not a scoundrel. I’m always preoccupied with my latest project.”

  “Your kangaroo-inspired car?”

  “Among other things.” He paused. “I sell the patents on my inventions. I don’t need my inheritance to support myself.”

  It seemed important she know he was his own man.

  She rested her head against his shoulder. “And I bet Uncle Henry knew all that?”<
br />
  “I suspect so.”

  “He’s the scoundrel.” But there was no heat in her voice. “You know, you haven’t seemed distracted here in Swan River.”

  “Oh, but I have been.”

  She looked up at his emphatic response.

  “I’ve been distracted by a golden-haired, passionate advocate for universal suffrage.” He stroked her face. “Your skin is as soft as I imagined.” He bent toward her, encouraged by the welcome in her eyes. He would woo his sweet, tempestuous suffragette with all the ardor of a man who’d found, and nearly lost, his true love. His arm tightened, drawing her closer. “And your mouth—”

  “Dinner-time,” Maud announced. “Why are you sitting in the dark?”

  Esme leapt up like a jack-in-the-box and cracked her head on his jaw. She collapsed back against the sofa, touched the top of her head and winced.

  He put a casual arm around her shoulders and rubbed his jaw. “Why are we sitting in the dark? I’m contemplating the perils of wooing a suffragette.”

  About the Author

  Jenny Schwartz is a West Australian author, born and bred. She studied Australian social history at university, never dreaming she’d end up rewriting it with a steampunk twist.

  We wish you a Steampunk Christmas!

  Four stories that combine passion, adventure and intrigue in a reality far removed from our own.

  Changed forever after tragedy, a woman must draw strength from her husband’s love.

  A thief steals the heart of a vengeful professor.

  An American inventor finds love Down Under.

  A woman with a secret tries to regain the love of a man she deceived.

  Immerse yourself in a Victorian Christmas with a clockwork twist in these four Steampunk novellas. Anthology includes:

  Far From Broken by JK Coi

  This Winter Heart by PG Forte

  Crime Wave in a Corset by Stacy Gail