A convicted daughter of Rebecca would surely get life. Yes, he would like to see her suffer through that after what she had done to him.
Harley got to his feet at last, shook out stiff limbs, and started on the walk back home.
Sir Hector Webb was in a bad mood. As he had told his wife numerous times and Maurice Mitchell during a visit the day before, he was being made to feel like a criminal, and he did not like it one little bit.
Here was this upstart reporter from London with his fashionable attire and his cultured English accent when he was very probably not even a gentleman, coming to question them about what was purely a criminal matter. He questioned them about rents and tithes and Poor Law taxes and road trusts and tolls. And all the time Sir Hector would swear that the man was siding with the damned rioters. Were the sharp rises in rents really necessary? What provision was made for a good tenant who could not pay his rent and had to forfeit his land? Why did tolls have to be collected from farmers who were about their business, hauling lime, for example?
The man in his ignorance did not realize that it was the carts with their loads of lime that were mainly responsible for breaking up the roads and necessitating more repairs. But Sir Hector had set him right on the matter fast enough.
It seemed that it was Rebecca who had brought the reporter to West Wales. He had had the gall to write and invite The Times to send someone to investigate. Crimes did not need investigation. They needed solving. The criminal needed to be caught and punished harshly enough to discourage anyone else from trying to follow in his footsteps. And yet this reporter would give no information at all about Rebecca. He would not even show the letter.
Sir Hector would wager that the man would arrange somehow to talk with Rebecca. Then he would be fed a parcel of lies and no doubt would believe them. Well, if Sir Hector got wind of it and if the reporter would still give no information, he would have the man arrested for something—for aiding and abetting a criminal, perhaps.
And if the reporter was to be believed, the government was seriously considering sending commissioners to West Wales to investigate the unrest and its causes. What was there to investigate? These were crimes that were being committed.
Sir Hector was in such a bad mood that he merely growled a greeting to Matthew Harley when the latter called quite early one morning and asked for a private word with him. He was shown into the study.
“Harley,” he said with a curt nod. “I suppose you have heard that the Penfro gate went again last night. Damned scoundrels with the gall to attack a gate they had already destroyed once. I’ll catch the pack of them if it is the last thing I do.”
“Sir.” Matthew Harley observed his usual respectful manner, yet even Sir Hector could see his eyes gleaming with suppressed emotion. “I know who Rebecca is.”
Sir Hector went very still.
“Rebecca and the Earl of Wyvern are one and the same person,” Harley said, triumph in his voice.
Sir Hector gaped for a moment, and then his jaws snapped shut. “Oh, nonsense, Harley,” he said. “Pure wishful thinking. You had me hopeful for a moment.”
“I saw it for myself, sir,” Harley said.
Sir Hector looked closely at him and then frowned. He stood before the fireplace, his hands clasped at his back, his feet braced apart. “Suppose you tell me exactly what you did see, Harley,” he said.
“I suspected it before,” the steward said. “When I looked for him one night to give me permission to take constables and pursue the rioters, he was not at home, yet none of the servants knew he had gone. And I saw him return alone on horseback very late the same night. But that was only suspicion and not even worth reporting. I waited for more definite evidence, sir.”
“And?” Sir Hector made impatient circling gestures with one hand. “Come, man, this is not a theatrical performance, though I can see you are relishing every word.”
“Last night,” Harley said, “I heard that Wyvern had left the house again and I lay in wait for his return up in the hills, from which direction he had come the other time. But this time I saw more. It was just before dawn, sir, and I had all but given up hope. And then I saw Rebecca.”
Sir Hector hissed in a breath.
“He was in full disguise,” Harley said. “He was escorting a woman home—that would account for the late hour. But after he had left her and ridden even closer to me, he peeled off the disguise, hid it away in a bundle behind his saddle, and continued on his way down to Tegfan.”
“Wyvern,” Sir Hector said in little more than a whisper. “I’ll be damned. He was Wyvern?”
“None other,” Harley said, the triumph back in his voice. “We have him, sir. With your permission, I will return to Tegfan now and have the constables there arrest him and bring him before you.”
But Sir Hector did not immediately respond. He was looking at Matthew Harley, and yet his gaze passed right through him. “No,” he said. “Unless we could find the disguise—and it is doubtless well hidden—the only proof we would have is your evidence. It would be your word against his. The word of the Earl of Wyvern against that of his steward. It might well not stick.”
Matthew Harley flushed. “I do not believe my integrity has ever been called into question, sir,” he said.
“This would be different,” Sir Hector said. “We cannot risk it. No, we need to catch him red-handed.”
“It should not be difficult now that we know the truth,” Harley said. “It will be merely a matter of watching and following him, sir. Perhaps we can net some of the other leaders too. I have reason to believe that the main one besides Wyvern—Charlotte he is known as—is the blacksmith at Glynderi.”
But Sir Hector was not really listening. He was frowning even more deeply. “If only we could manipulate things in such a way that he is discredited even with the people,” he said. “You realize that he is very popular with them, Harley? He is damned polite to all the gatekeepers he displaces, as if he were asking them to dance at a court ball. He allows them to leave and to take their personal possessions with them. And as if that were not bad enough, he pays them compensation out of what he calls the coffers of Rebecca. I wondered where the money was coming from. Now I know. We have to discredit him.”
“But how, sir?” Harley ventured to ask. “Perhaps the people do not even realize who he is. He wore his disguise even with his woman last night. Perhaps just exposing his secret would be enough.”
“Perhaps.” Sir Hector wandered to his desk and sat down heavily in the oak chair behind it. “I need time to think this out. Give me a day or two. What we need is a gate that is smashed in a less gentlemanly manner than usual.”
“If there were constables—” Harley began.
“No, no, no, no.” Sir Hector drummed his fingers on the desktop. “We have to make him behave badly.”
“There is a gatekeeper at the Cilcoed gate quite close to Tegfan, a Mrs. Phillips,” Harley said. “She told me a while ago that she is not afraid of Rebecca because the Earl of Wyvern himself had promised her his personal protection. I don’t know how that fact will help us, sir. It just entered my head now.”
“Did he indeed?” Sir Hector’s fingers drummed harder. “A day or two at the longest, Harley. I will come to Tegfan and have a word with you. I will think of something. In the meantime you can be thinking too. And keeping your eyes and ears open.”