Hold Me Close Read online

  Debts? Julia’s cheeks were hot now, as well as her throat. It felt all wrong to be discussing a gentleman’s private behavior in this way. Especially a gentleman from the neighborhood, a man who had often been a guest at the Grantleigh table.

  “Oh, but come now, Holsworth,” she insisted. “We ought not to be talking in these terms. Gambling debts are an occupational hazard for the younger brothers of viscounts, as is excessive fondness for drink. If you come racing back from India every time an Englishman displays those common vices, you shall become permanently seasick. Brayles may be a wastrel, but how does any of this make him a black-hearted villain?”

  “That has to do with the man who won the ring from him. That man was a former military officer of the East India Company who’d resigned his post after losing a leg in battle. He then commenced, by some mysterious means, to make himself a fortune running a Calcutta tea shop.”

  “A tea shop?” The story only grew more muddled. “For goodness sake,” she said. “What sort of old sailor’s yarn are you spinning here?”

  “Do you not see the oddity, Lady Grantleigh? A tea shop might make a man a modest living, but it is too small a business to generate great fortune. And, in fact, that is not where the man’s money came from. The army was quite aware the tea-shop owner had taken up another shadow trade of a far more nefarious nature—he’d fallen in with agents of the Peshwa, the Maratha ruler who was preparing to make war on the British. In rooms behind the tea shop, the man traded in opium and stolen goods, and used the silver he gained to procure foreign weapons he could sell in turn to the Peshwa’s Pindari fighters.”

  The significance of that, at least, she understood. “A British officer selling weapons to the enemy! Well, that’s treason! Great heavens—why did the army not shut the tea shop down?”

  Holsworth shrugged. “The weapons were inferior to those the British had, anyway, and knowing the operation’s exact location gave our spies a convenient means of keeping track of other things being communicated between the Peshwa and his followers in Calcutta.”

  “Oh!” she said. “That’s rather devious!”

  “Espionage generally is.”

  “But . . .” Her head was wheeling a bit by now. “What can all that possibly have to do with George Brayles?”

  “Scarcely a week after I noticed the ruby ring was gone, it was back on Brayles’ finger.”

  “He got it back? Perhaps he simply got luckier at the gaming tables.”

  “His suits of clothes improved remarkably at nearly the same time, and his sister began to dress in the best of Indian-made fashion. They procured quite an elegant house in the best area of the city, and when I went to examine the ledgers of his debts again, everything had been paid off—many, many thousands of pounds, in the course of a single week. Enough for them to have lived on for years, had he actually possessed all that money in the first place.”

  An uncomfortable feeling began to creep into her stomach. “Perhaps he got much, much luckier at the tables.”

  Holsworth gave her a measured, meaningful look. His eyes seemed very black.

  “You think he—” She broke off. So very much money. So soon after getting in the debt of an unscrupulous traitor. But Brayles was a man who’d sat often at Christopher’s table, whose infant daughters she’d bounced on her knee. She sat at church every Sunday across from one of his aunts, a staunchly religious widow, and took tea with his kind-hearted sister-in-law, who still wept sometimes when they spoke of poor Caroline. “You think Brayles got all that money from the—the tea-shop man?”

  “I cannot imagine it came from anywhere else.”

  She recoiled from the idea, horrified. It just couldn’t be possible. Brayles might be an unpleasant man, but he was from Devonshire. From decent people. People she knew and loved well. “But why should you assume anything nefarious at all?” she said. “Perhaps one of Brayles’ failing business ventures suddenly paid off. Perhaps he invested in the Exchange back home, and earned a sudden dividend, or Lord Edgerton had a good report of him, or—or took pity on his poor young nieces, and provided a more generous allowance. I’ve even heard of men who believed themselves ruined, whose fortunes turned entirely when a ship thought lost at sea came safely home to port!”

  “Perhaps, my lady. But—”

  “And why would the tea-shop man wish to give him so much money anyway—as you say, many, many thousands of pounds? To a shabbily-dressed fellow with nothing to his own name but a ring on one finger?”

  “Brayles was no longer shabby once he had the money, remember. And as soon as he looked the part of a wealthy viscount’s brother, he was suddenly much sought out by what passes for British society in Calcutta. Most of the men of the East India Company—stunningly wealthy though some of them may be—are commoners by blood. And one thing they crave nearly as much as riches is the chance to elevate their place in society. Once it was clear George Brayles was a man of rank and status, he was much in demand for private dinners, for cognacs and cigars in the officers’ clubs, for tête-à-têtes with high-ranking officials. With men known to drink heavily among their friends. Men who knew the secret inner workings of the government and of trade.” His expression hardened. “And who knew the plans and strategies of the East India Company’s military.”

  Julia hung on his words, her eyes widening. “You can’t possibly mean to imply that—”

  “That Brayles was in the employ of a man who could turn enormous profit selling British secrets to the Peshwa, but who lacked the social connections to learn those secrets himself? A man who would pay Brayles generously to pass such secrets along? That Brayles was desperate enough for money to agree? It certainly looks that way to me.”

  “Good God!” She jumped up from her seat, her heart throbbing, and her head going light. “You really mean it! You’re accusing George Brayles of spying for the enemy! Of being a traitor!”

  “You believed it easily enough of the tea-shop man! Is that because he wasn’t a viscount’s brother?”

  Her cheeks burned. “You think I’m reacting out of snobbery? I don’t know the tea-shop man! George Brayles was a guest in my home! I—I danced with him at parties! The Grantleighs and the Brayles have been friends and neighbors for at least three hundred years! He might be a disagreeable fellow at times, but a traitor to the crown?”

  “Is he such a good friend to you? A few minutes ago, all you remembered was how rude he could be to card partners.”

  “Well, I remember more now.” She hugged her arms tight against her ribs, fighting down a terrible feeling of nausea. It couldn’t be true. She couldn’t bear for such a thing to be true. “For heaven’s sake, Holsworth—I stood near George Brayles at Caroline’s funeral. The man wept like a baby!”

  “You think traitors cannot weep?” Now Holsworth sprang to his feet, closing in on her, his eyes flashing. “You must listen to me, Julia. A man in my profession who’s spent years in Calcutta gets a sense of these things, and—”

  “A sense? You have a sense that Brayles is guilty of—of selling his nation’s secrets to a foreign power? What proof of this do you have? Surely you have some solid proof?? More than just ledgers showing he was once in debt? More than just the temporary disappearance of a ring? For all you really know, he may simply have taken it to a jeweler to have the setting repaired!”

  “Julia—”

  She stood her ground, balling her hands into fists and jutting out her chin. “Tell me right now, Holsworth: do you or do you not have some direct evidence linking Brayles to the tea-shop man?”

  Holsworth hesitated. “Traitors selling secrets tend not to keep elaborate records of their crimes. But I can certainly infer—”

  “Stop!” she cried. She backed away now, as far away from him as she could go, until her spine bumped one of the marble maidens that held up the roof. “Just stop!”

  Her brain didn’t seem to be functioning properly. The bright sunlight pouring down through the gaps in the walls was suddenly dazzl
ing, by contrast making the shadowed places beneath the dome seem darker than before. It gave her the feeling she was sinking deeper and deeper into a hole.

  “George Brayles is a gentleman,” she said at last, slowly and deliberately. “An accusation such as you are making would ruin him, ruin his family name, ruin his brothers and his sisters, people who are my friends. I am not saying he could not possibly be guilty of such awful things. But if you’re going to say so, and if you’re planning to take some action about it, a sense is not enough. An inference is not enough. You must have proof. Unassailable proof!”

  Holsworth made a sound like a growl. “Poor men hang every day with far less proof! For pity’s sake, Julia, are you defending Brayles simply because he’s a member of your class?”

  “Do you suspect him simply because he’s a member of my class?”

  Holsworth froze. “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “Oh, God.” She remembered something else, and it made her stomach sink. “Brayles was at Cambridge, wasn’t he, when you and Christopher were there? If he threw mud at you as a boy, I can’t imagine he treated you much better at university. Did he?”

  Holsworth stared at her, his face still as stone.

  “Did he?” Her thoughts were swirling madly. So much had passed between her and Holsworth in the past few hours, she’d felt so close to him, and yet she didn’t really know him at all, did she? And now the words he was saying were tearing at the very fabric of the life she’d known here at Grantleigh Hall. Anger surged through her, dizzing and hot, and made her vision start to blur. “Did Brayles treat you well when you were at university?”

  “No,” Holsworth admitted, his voice tight, his jaw stiff. “No, he made it his business to ensure everyone I came in contact with knew the sordid details of my origins.”

  “And you must have hated him for that.”

  “Admittedly, I did. Of course I did.”

  “Of course.” The muscles of her hands and legs began to shake. “You must hate him still. Is that what this is all about? Is it? These accusations against him?” Even as she said the words, she knew she might be going too far, might be entirely unjust for saying so, but the words came out anyway, angry and harsh and desperate. “Have you, at long last, found a way to get revenge?”

  Holsworth’s shoulders jerked, and his eyes drained of light. The air felt suddenly cold, and the marble floor between them might as well have cracked in a fissure a mile deep.

  Oh, damn it all.

  Everything about this felt horrid and wrong. The world felt off-kilter.

  And all at once, the wild pendulum of her thoughts swung abruptly the other way. Such a short while ago, she’d been defending Holsworth, horrified that he’d been mistreated by officers and gentlemen, and now here she was, attacking him, accusing him of the basest sort of behavior.

  That wasn’t right. That just couldn’t be right. Holsworth might be mistaken about Brayles, might have frightfully misjudged his behavior in India, but she knew Holsworth wasn’t a scoundrel at heart, he wasn’t a petty man.

  Christopher had trusted him. Christopher had always said Holsworth was a deeply honorable man.

  Suddenly she wished she could snatch her accusation back from the air and swallow it up again. “I’m sorry, Holsworth,” she said, stretching out her hand. “I didn’t mean…I only meant…”

  He backed out of her reach. “You meant that you trust Brayles more than you trust me.”

  “No! Of course not.” She pressed her hands to her temples—the pressure there had built suddenly to pain. “But listen, please. I—I know you would not act from selfish motives. But I am not wrong to want some concrete proof. Brayles may lack the charm and intelligence of his older brothers, but from all I know of him, he’s just a—he’s an ordinary man. Not evil. Not even…clever enough to do the thing you say he’s done. How can you know what you’re claiming is true?”

  “You live in a golden tower, Lady Grantleigh!” Holsworth bit out the words, his expression almost cruel, and though he came no closer, the sound of his voice made her crouch tight as she could against the wall. “Nothing in the real, dirty world touches you, does it? But I live in that real world—the dirty, ugly, messy world where, yes, ordinary men like Brayles do unspeakable things, every bloody day, and hide it with their money and their power and—”

  “Holsworth!” This was all becoming too much. Her husband had never so much as raised his voice to her, in all the years they spent together, much less spoken to her in such terms. “You forget yourself!”

  “Bloody hell, Julia! You’re as naïve as Christopher was.”

  It was as if he’d slapped her. “What are you talking about? Christopher? Christopher wasn’t naïve—”

  “Oh, God!” He advanced on her now, his eyes blazing. “You wanted to know what we argued about on that night when you heard us shouting at each other? This what we argued about. I’d written letters sharing my suspicions about Brayles, but they hadn’t swayed him, so I took leave and came all the way to England to beg him in person to intervene, before Brayles cost the lives of British troops.” Holsworth broke off, raking one hand roughly through his hair, looking as though his skull hurt as much as hers did. “He wouldn’t believe me any more than you will.”

  “What?” He’d told Christopher all this, and Christopher didn’t believe him?

  Cold spread through her limbs again.

  Holsworth loomed over her, his voice low and harsh. “I showed him the ledgers,” he said. “A thick stack of them, showing Brayles’ debts and their sudden repayment, plain as day. But Chris wanted to come up with more innocent explanations—just as you do. Christopher was a theorist, an idealist. Everything was philosophical to him. If he knew anything about what really happens in India—”

  “Christopher knew. He studied everything he could get his hands on, spoke to every officer who returned, corresponded with officials, read dispatches every day! He devoted his life to—”

  Holsworth slammed a fist against the marble wall, just a few feet from her head. “He never set foot there!”

  That brought her up short. Anger flared again, hot and sore just behind her breastbone. It was one thing to accuse her of naiveté, but to insult Christopher—that was intolerable. “Christopher couldn’t set foot there. The doctors said his heart couldn’t stand the strain of the heat and travel. That wasn’t his fault! But he knew all there was to know.”

  And Christopher hadn’t believed the accusation against George Brayles.

  She was shaking again, harder than before. Her thoughts were a whirlpool inside her, contradictions rushing hard in opposite directions until her head spun.

  “Tell me this, Major Holsworth,” she insisted, as a last logical piece fell into place in her mind. “Why was it necessary to come all the way back to England in the first place? There are British officials all over Calcutta. Could none of them intervene, as you say? If your case against Brayles was so persuasive—if the truth of it would be obvious to anyone who lived in India, to anyone who understood India—why did you not find help right there, right then?”

  Oh, she’d touched a raw nerve now—the muscles of his mouth screwed up, his fingers speared again through his hair, almost tearing it this time. He cast his eyes downward, and opened and shut one fist convulsively as though struggling to master himself.

  “I did try,” he said after a long pause, clearly tamping down his anger and measuring out his words with care. “But the officers of the East India Company were not inclined to have their aristocratic friend questioned. Several of his new drinking companions vouched for his good character—as if they knew anything about the man. I could not get anyone in the city to listen.”

  “They didn’t believe you.” Fury pushed her on, now, making her insides ache. “Perhaps because you misjudged Brayles. The officers were right, and Christopher was right, and you’re too prideful to admit that you were wrong! You’d rather have me believe my husband was a fool than—”
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  “I am not wrong about this, Julia!”

  “Aren’t you?” She was trembling from head to foot now, a dozen emotions coursing through her, clotting up together in her chest, in her throat—all her anger, and confusion, and guilt, and grief. “Is this about reason, or about resentment? I think perhaps you wish to hurt a man who once hurt you. Brayles. And maybe Christopher, too!”

  “Christopher? Why on earth would I—”

  “Why wouldn’t you resent him? He was to the manor born. Everything came easily to him. No one ever threw mud at him, or muttered insults where he could hear them, or questioned his word about anything. It’s natural enough that you would feel jealous of—”

  “Dear God, Julia! Stop!” Holsworth strode to the other side of the little room, clamping his fists over his ears as though her words were physically painful to him. “You have no idea what you’re saying!”

  “Why?” she said, fiercely. An abyss was opening before her, terrifying and cold. She could feel herself begin to fall, but she couldn’t seem to stop moving forward. “Why does it bother you? Because it’s true?”

  “Damn all that to hell! None of that matters to me. All that matters is keeping you safe.”

  “From what?”

  “From Brayles,” he said. “Brayles knows he’s guilty, even if you don’t. He knows with the war over, and captured Pindari being made to talk, a case may be built against him after all, a very damning case even a viscount’s brother could swing for. He wants to erase all evidence that may point to his crimes. He wants the ledgers I gave to Christopher.”

  “Ridiculous,” she said, but she felt an odd pulse of fear. “How would he even know the ledgers are here?”

  “Christopher told him.”