Locked

Chapter Fifteen

Nicolas Gellentry, Marquess of Westray was the one and only son of Richard Gellentry, Duke of Westray. This primogeniture allowed Nicolas to simultaneously be adored and ignored by his father. Today was a case of the latter.

Nicolas forced his way into his father's library. He found his father to be reading a tiny volume, wearing tiny spectacles on the tip of his nose. At the abrupt entrance of his son, the senior Gellentry didn't even flinch. The younger Gellentry began fuming. He ranted on and on, never breaking. The senior Gellentry, subsequently, was only halfheartedly listening.

"Will and is insufferable smugness! He brings this girl, who I knew was not his father's uncles's grandfather's whatever, though I know not exactly who she is, and begins interrogating me about you! He asks me what you're up to and jokes at your expense!" Nicolas could have right then and there kicked a bookcase over. However, his father quietly removed his spectacles and book from the desk.

"Why is this so important?" He asked calmly, in the melodic voice that had once wooed women from all corners of the world.

Nicolas stopped pacing, his face flush with emotions – most of them in the negative range. "He knows," He said abruptly, "he knows about everything!"

"And did he say this explicitly?" His father asked skeptically. "No."

His Grace picked up the book again. "It's Violet."

Richard Gellentry put the book down and looked at his son like he had four ears.

"They said her name was Gibbrey, but she resembles your description. It has to be the Violet

Claymore who stole the locket."

Richard Gellentry didn't move. He didn't say anything. His son grew more impatient by the second. Suddenly, he stood.

"Are you positive?" His son nodded his head.

"Are you absolutely positive?" He nodded again.

Exactly what he needed, that bastard Hamilton was getting in his way again. He obviously knew his involvement, but now the Duke of Westray had the advantage – he knew where to find the bitch who stole his poison. If he knew William at all, the young duke would set a trap for the unsuspecting villain – His Grace was well aware of his own dastardly deeds – in a very public place. Ever the chivalrous and heroic noblemen, William Hamilton was about to play directly into his hands. He would have that poison, at any cost.

The Duke of Westray called for his manservant. He whispered a few words into the man's ear, and then sent him off again. A little recruiting and bribery was all he needed.

"My son," Richard said, wrapping his arm around Nicolas's neck, "it is very well time you take after your old man. I have a very important job for you." It was the most affection the teenage Marquess had seen in a long time.

"Anything father, anything at all."

• • • • • • • • • •

V knocked on the door.

A quiet voice answered from the other side, "Come in."

She balanced the tray she was holding to turn the doorknob. Entering the small study, V noticed piles and piles of teetering books, papers in disarray, and used tea cups. This room was an organized disaster. Will sat, stooped over his desk, three books spread across the wooden platform. He was reading a small passage and taking notes on a sheet of paper.

V put the tray on a precarious pile of encyclopedia's, and began collecting loose parchment off the floor.

"What are you doing?" Will asked, not even bothering to look up.

V didn't answer. He thought she was Mrs. Mason. V had offered to bring Will's tea to his study for the old housekeeper. He had been silent and moody, ever since the tea party at Buckingham Palace, three days previous. From what V had gathered, Nicolas Gellentry was the eldest son of Richard Gellentry – the man who had kidnapped V and who's poisonous locket they now held in their possession. V didn't believe Nicolas was involved in his father's plans, but Will seemed convinced his old friend was a schemer. Mrs. Mason had entrusted in V that the two had been best friends as children, but when Will became Duke of Stratford at the tender age of fifteen, well, Nicolas became jealous.

V continued shuffling papers; she stacked books in neater piles, and moved them off of sofas. "What are you...?" He stood angrily, but the thought trailed off as he looked up to see, not the

housekeeper, but a friend and guest.

"This place is a disaster." She stated, and continued cleaning.

Will rushed over, "No no no, everything is where it should be!" he began taking books out of her hands and replacing them on already toppling stacks.

V gave up and pulled the enormous curtains open; a greying sky extended, unwavering, over the countryside. The gardens were once again occupied by a single figure – the gardener. He seemed to notice her eyes passing over him, and raised his cap at her in a "good day to you" motion. She smiled; he seemed the happiest man in the world amongst the flora and fauna of the outdoors. She returned to the tense gentlemen at the desk. He was sipping his tea and watching her. She sat on the sofa, picking up papers and putting them on the small, adjacent table. Will joined her.

"What now?" She asked. Will was confused.

"What's the plan, the coup d'état, the hammer of justice? The Autumn ball is two evenings away and we haven't the faintest idea how to get Gellentry to confess."

"Ah, but we do." He said, with a twinkle in his eye, "I have a rather simple plan."

V laughed, "Well Mr. Inspector, what is this brilliant scheme you've concocted?" She moved closer to him on the sofa, their limbs almost touching. Will appeared a little uncomfortable, but too wrapped up in his thoughts to process the closeness of their bodies.

"Unfortunately, it involves you. There was no way around it."

V, who had been contemplating their proximity, and the way his breath smelled of mint and lemons, pushed away from him.

"What do you mean, 'no other way around it'? I am just as capable of taking care of myself as any man!"

"Sorry V, I wasn't implying you couldn't. I just meant... I hoped no one would have to be bait."

That appeased V's earlier outburst.

Suddenly interested in the chance to bring a criminal to justice, and perhaps attend an exclusive, royal ball in the process, V asked: "Well then, what do I do?"

• • • • • • • • • •

"Well then, what do I do?" Nicolas Gellentry couldn't help but soak in all the attention he was finally getting from his father. Will was wrong about him, he was wrong about a lot of things.

"Not yet Nicolas." his father was reading a letter his manservant had delivered from an unknown source. Unknown to Nicolas, that it. He had attempted to view the sender's name as it passed him by, but he wasn't much of a spy.

All Nicolas knew, was that this was the way to get back at Will. If all went well, Will would be humiliated by the court and his social standing would drop like a rock in a barrel. All his father had disclosed thus far was the fact that the woman he had been searching for – Violet Claymore, was not a lady at all. As Nicolas knew her, Violet Gibbrey, was in reality, a poor, orphaned, sea captain's daughter. Nicolas had been now been privy to his father's final goal – a grand real estate development in the poorer district of town. Seven months previous, the Duke of Westray had asked the Queen permission to drive the inhabitants of the musty, rat-infested streets of the river's edge so he could develop a grand utopia of town homes and apartment complexes. Shut down, and angry, he had discovered a small book on herbs and poisons in his library. From that, he had concocted a plan to simply dispose of that quarters residents and buy the land from them. This had now escalated into a full blown attack that could, in reality, spread across the entire greater London area.

All Nicolas needed was to prove his father proud, play his part to the T, and he would be in his father's graces once more.

All he knew, was in was all going down the night of the Autumn Ball.