Addie was increasingly delighted with Viola and the effect she’d had on Phillip. Indeed, Addie was increasingly in charity with her previously detested half brother, given he’d had the good sense to fall in love with Viola.
That Phillip was in love with Viola and she with him was utterly beyond question. The way they looked at each other said it all.
Phillip’s conversion from arrogant prig to halfway-reasonable gentleman had Addie hoping that, now, Phillip might understand what had moved their father to marry again.
Time, no doubt, would tell, but at that moment, they had a blackmailer to deal with.
As the company settled on the settee and in the armchairs, Addie returned to a point that had been nagging at her. She looked around the company. “One thing I don’t understand—how did the blackmailer get hold of Phillip’s letters?” She turned to Viola. “I assume you’d kept them. Were they here? In this house?”
Viola colored faintly and nodded. “Yes.” She glanced at Nicholas and Dickie. “I kept them in a drawer in my bedroom.” She looked back at Addie. “I’ve thought and thought, but I can’t imagine how any thief might have found them.”
Dickie huffed. “And why would any old thief take letters like that, but nothing else?” He caught Viola’s eyes. “I assume nothing else went missing.”
“No,” Viola replied. “And you’re right. It’s the most puzzling thing. I know the letters were there several months ago, shortly after my husband died and I added Phillip’s last letter to the bundle.” She glanced at Phillip. “But after that, of course, Phillip had greater freedom to call, so there were no more letters.” She looked at the others. “I only searched for them when Phillip returned to London with news of the blackmailer. That was when I realized they were gone.”
“I hesitate to ask,” Addie said, “but are you sure none of your staff were involved?”
“Quite sure.” Viola’s nod was decisive. “All the staff here have been with me for years and…well, they’ve always been a great support.”
Phillip added, “They’re protective of Viola and highly unlikely to do anything that might harm her.”
“And, of course,” Viola went on, “being in mourning means I haven’t been entertaining at all, not even at the relatively restricted level I did when Styles was alive.” She thought, then added, “Since Styles’s death, the only visitors to the house have been family members, and I can’t see why any of them should have felt the need to search my room, for letters or anything else.”
Addie grimaced. “So how the blackmailer got the letters remains a mystery. As, indeed, does how he knew to search—or send someone to search—for them.”
She noticed that, while everyone nodded in sober agreement, Nicholas’s gaze was somewhat distant. She caught his eye. “What?”
He held her gaze for an instant, then said, “I keep tripping over the fact that the blackmailer knew enough to find the letters. He knew The Barbarian was in your father’s possession. Knew the horse was on the estate. He knew all that, yet he didn’t know enough to get Phillip to steal the horse’s papers as well.” When Viola looked puzzled, Nicholas explained, “Without the papers, which establish The Barbarian’s pedigree and provenance, his value is hugely diminished.”
He looked at Phillip. “If the blackmailer’s purpose is to sell the horse—if his aim is to make money—then he’s going about this in a deucedly strange way. Any horse thief worth his salt—the sort who might know enough to target a horse of the caliber of The Barbarian—would know about a Thoroughbred’s papers.”
Frowning, Viola asked, “Can the blackmailer sell the horse without his papers?”
Nicholas nodded. “But not for anything like the horse is worth. Without the papers, he’s just a good-looking horse.”
“He’s also an unrideable horse,” Phillip put in, “so it’s not as if just anyone would buy him.”
Nicholas nodded. “Exactly. Which brings us back to the notion that it’s an illicit breeder who the blackmailer is hoping to sell the horse to, but—”
Dickie flung up his hands. “But any illicit breeder would know about the papers, and he’d want them as well.”
“More,” Nicholas said, “without the papers, any illicit breeder would know that buying the horse would be a significant financial risk.” He glanced at Addie and Dickie. “As long as your father can produce the papers and we can locate the horse, the earl will be able legally to reclaim the beast.” Nicholas shook his head. “It really makes very little sense.”
Addie was frowning as well. “Even if everything goes according to the blackmailer’s plan, presumably, whoever he sells the horse to will know from whom they bought the beast, and once we turn up and reclaim The Barbarian, that buyer will promptly want his money back and set the authorities on the blackmailer’s trail.”
“So one would think.” Along with everyone else, Nicholas imagined that scenario. Finally, he glanced at Adriana. “Originally, I wondered if, perhaps, I had led the thief to Aisby Grange and The Barbarian, or rather that the thief had followed me there, spotted The Barbarian, and whisked him away.” Lips twisting, he glanced around the circle. “That sometimes happens. I’m known to rarely leave the Cynster Stable, at least not to travel into the country. Other major breeders have spotters in Newmarket to advise them of any unusual occurrences in the horse-breeding world, and one might have been curious enough to follow me into Lincolnshire, especially as it’s not hunting season.”
“But the thief turned out to be Phillip,” Viola said, “not some unknown spotter.”
Nicholas nodded. “And in reality, a spotter would have reported back regarding The Barbarian’s existence and location, not simply taken him. Anyone working for a major breeder would know about registration papers and the need to have them as well.” Frustrated, he shook his head. “Without those papers, The Barbarian is of limited value to anyone, even an illicit breeder willing to trade in stolen horses. Buying The Barbarian—a virtually unrideable stallion—without his registration papers makes no real sense.”
He looked around the circle of faces. “So what is the blackmailer’s plan? Why target this particular horse?”
Phillip was nodding. “And was it, in fact, the horse itself or some connection with us”—he glanced at Viola—“some link with either Viola or myself, that brought The Barbarian to the blackmailer’s notice?”
“You mean,” Dickie said, “that the blackmailer knew he had something he could use to force the pair of you to give him something in return, and he looked around and settled on The Barbarian?”
Phillip inclined his head. “To me, at least, that seems plausible.”
