“Before I call the servants and have you cast out, I ask again, Sir Gaylord. What is your purpose here?”
“Rest easy, my lady.” He leaned a long-barreled musket against the back of a chair and took a seat, propping his muddy boots on another. “I have been about business of my own and only sought to have a word with you in private.”
Shanna rose and smoothed her velvet gown and sleep-mussed hair, conscious of his roving eyes upon her. She tucked her feet into her shoes and glanced at the clock on the mantel. The hour was shortly past noon. She had only slept a few brief moments after all, and Ruark would be returning soon to repair the door.
“I cannot imagine what topic we have in common, Sir Gaylord,” Shanna declared haughtily as she folded the quilt and laid it neatly at the foot of the bed. If the boorish dolt was bent on renewing his courtship, she would put short shrift to it. She had no intention of staying to listen to his panted endearments.
“Ah, my lovely Lady Shanna.” Billingsham leaned back in the chair and pressed his fingertips together, forming a steeple over his belly. “The ice queen! The untouchable one! The perfect woman!” There was an evil echo in his soft, wheezing laughter. “But not so perfect. My dear, you have practiced deceit and now the debt falls due. The time has come to pay.”
Shanna frowned at the knight. “What are you saying?”
“Your marriage to John Ruark, of course. You don’t want anybody to know about it, do you?”
So, he did not know that the secret was out. But he knew about the marriage. She led him on.
“Sir? Do you mean to extract money from me?”
“Oh, nay, my lady,” he averred, his eyes following her with undisguised hunger as she moved a bit away from him.
Gaylord came to his feet and, with a seemingly casual stride, positioned himself between Shanna and the door. He faced her abruptly and struck that inane pose with his cocked knee as he fixed her with a glowering gaze.
“Nothing at all so devious,” the good man smirked. “ ‘Tis only that I need your assistance and have something to yield in return. If you will convince your father and the Beauchamps to invest a goodly sum in my family’s shipyard, I shall say nothing of your marriage to this Ruark chap, nor will I inform the authorities that your husband is, in fact, an escaped murderer.”
Shanna’s face was carefully blank. “And how do you know that?”
He snorted. “The fool Ralston, told me on the Hampstead of his dreaded secret, that he had bought a murderer from the gaol and that that same one was John Ruark. I had followed my father’s writings very carefully on your husband’s trial. Of course, he was Ruark Beauchamp then. What bemused me most was how you came to be married to the rogue. I understood that he had been hanged, and when you portrayed yourself his widow, I was surprised, for I had thought the man unmarried, or so my father’s documents stated. I had never seen Ruark Beauchamp, so I couldn’t name John Ruark as the same until Ralston informed me of his misdeed, and I could only surmise that John Ruark and Ruark Beauchamp were one and the same. You did marry him in the gaol, didn’t you?”
Shanna gave a slow nod. “Aye. And what will you do should I submit to your demand?”
“Why, I am off to London, of course,” he replied with an offhanded gesture, “to see to my affairs there.”
“Back to London, you say.” The faintest glimmering of a notion began to tickle at the back of Shanna’s mind. She had thought to ridicule the man with the truth, but she decided now to further satisfy her curiosity. She kept her voice in the same half-angry tone she had used but asked a different question. “It occurs to me, Sir Gaylord, that you have been much in need of coin. You plead your poverty but comport in a most splendorous fashion. You were friends with Mister Ralston. You might have borrowed a few pounds from him—”
“And what if I did, madam?” He was at once nervous and almost angry. “Is it any affair of yours?”
“Of course not.” Shanna smiled to allay his fears and continued more casually. “Tis only that he had a ring of much value, and he insisted it was payment for a debt.” She urged him to reply. “A cameo one? Of some age?”
“Oh, that!” the knight seemed relieved. “Most of my jewelry and some coin were in the baggage sent to Richmond. I borrowed a bit from him until I could reach the port and repay him.”
“And the ring? How did you come by it?”
He looked at her narrowly. “I paid out some coins to a Scotsman, and I took that piece for his debt.”
“ ‘Twould seem there are many debts in this world.”