CHAPTER SEVEN
“Astonishing, indeed. One marvels at a man’s tolerance for the intolerable when faced with the prospect of wifely deprivation.” —The Dowager Marchioness of Wallingham to Lady Berne upon learning of Lord Berne’s acquiescence to acquiring another feline companion.
By all rights, Maureen should have been watching the man standing atop a pair of galloping black horses, waving a red banner and shouting taunts at the clown spinning madly in the center of the ring. It was an astounding feat, one that made her younger sisters, Genie and Kate, clap and laugh and lean over the railing of their box with bright-eyed delight.
Instead, she gazed upon Phineas Brand, the Earl of Holstoke. Seated beside her in the row behind the two girls, the black-haired lord held himself still and expressionless, those pale eyes following the circular route of the acrobatic rider as though analyzing the man’s use of centrifugal force. He neither laughed nor smiled nor shifted in his seat. Rather, he sat calmly, like a quiet lake on a windless night, content for the commotion to occur around him.
What would it be like to kiss this man? she wondered. To marry this man? To bear his children? For, surely such a fate was coming.
This evening at Astley’s Amphitheatre constituted an escalation of their courtship—previously, they’d confined themselves to the landscaped parks, Kensington Gardens, and the British Museum—venues which facilitated their shared interests. This outing, however, proved the seriousness of Holstoke’s intent.
He wanted to marry her. He wanted to please her by pleasing her sisters. There could be no other reason to subject himself to a performance of such lighthearted revelry. Silliness was the opposite of Holstoke.
She frowned. Perhaps it was time to begin thinking of him as Phineas.
Eerie green eyes met her own. “What is your question?”
She smiled slowly. He did that often—guessed her thoughts without her having to say a word. The only other man who had ever done so was …
No. She refused to think about him. Not this evening.
Licking her lips, she shook her head and widened her grin. “Whether I should begin thinking of you as Phineas, rather than Holstoke.”
He took her statement as the declaration it was, his eyes flaring with surprised heat. “I should be glad of it,” he murmured, his low voice drowned by the thunder of hooves, the raucous play of the orchestra, and the roar of the audience’s laughter.
But she heard him.
For a man of few words and exceptional seriousness, it was virtually a vow of passionate devotion. She felt the Huxley Flush wash hot over her face. Forcing herself to remain connected to him, she held his gaze and nodded. “Very well, then.”
A face leaned past Holstoke’s opposite shoulder, intruding into Maureen’s vision. Despite creases around the liquid blue eyes and ivory forehead, it was jarringly beautiful—delicately sloped nose, symmetrical brows, dramatically high cheekbones. The cheekbones were, in fact, the sole feature marking her as Holstoke’s mother. “Have your sisters never been to Astley’s, dear?”
Maureen’s flush intensified. She glanced at where Genie and Kate leaned over the railing. Then, she answered Lady Holstoke’s implied criticism with a tight smile. “Forgive them their excitement, my lady. They are young, and Astley’s performances are spectacular.”
The older woman nodded, smiling placidly. “Ah, of course. To be expected, I suppose. I’m afraid I am unaccustomed to excitable children. Holstoke was tediously silent as a boy.”
Maureen did not know why the answer chafed her temper so sharply, any more than she understood why she had failed to warm to Lady Holstoke. She watched the woman sit back in her chair and applaud the rider as sawdust flew upward from the ring, showering the front of their box and driving Genie and Kate to retreat to their seats.
Holstoke’s mother was beautiful. Polite. Certainly, her demeanor could be both silken and cool, as it was now, but she was far more agreeable than Lady Dunston, whom Maureen had befriended even after that lady’s poor treatment of Jane. Puzzling, indeed, that she would continue her visits to Henry’s mother and yet be bothered by a hint of censure from Lady Holstoke.
Drat. She was doing it again. Comparing Holstoke and Henry. Or, rather, Phineas and Henry. Good heavens, why must she dwell upon him? Their friendship was over. She hadn’t seen him in weeks. Interminable, crushing weeks.
Deliberately, she returned her attention to the man beside her—the man who wished to marry her and father her children. With a deep breath, she stared hard at his high cheekbone until he sensed her regard and looked her way.
“If I haven’t already said so, thank you for this evening.” She swallowed, wishing she was better at reading those unreadable green eyes. “Phineas.”
His head tilted. He leaned closer, smelling of lemons and mint leaves and soap. “It is my pleasure, Lady Maureen.”
With a quick smile, she turned back to the show, wondering why she was suddenly chilled and a little queasy.
An hour later, as their coach pulled up in front of Berne House, her nerves had settled, but her thoughts had not. She considered how wrong it would be to pilfer a bottle of wine from the cellar and drink until she was sotted. Being sotted made one forget, didn’t it? How she longed to forget. To let go of what could never be.
Kate exited the carriage first, her brown ringlets bouncing merrily as she continued recounting the horseman’s final flourish. “Oranges! Can you imagine, Genie? He tossed oranges into the air and caught them all! I must learn the trick of it. I will learn it.”
“Papa would sooner lock you in a tower, ninny,” Genie replied, following Kate and giving Thomas, their newest footman, a lingering smile.
Maureen sighed and rubbed her temple as Kate protested that learning to juggle oranges posed little danger to which Papa might object, and Genie replied with her usual acerbity that doing so while standing atop a galloping horse might change his assessment. Their bickering was giving her a megrim.
She accepted Thomas’s help to descend from the carriage, but before she’d taken two steps, the front door opened and Mama appeared, dabbing her cheeks with her handkerchief and waggling her fingers toward the carriage. “Back into the coach, girls,” she said, beaming through her tears. “Our Jane needs us.”
Maureen gasped and reached for Genie’s hand automatically, comforted at once by the sisterly squeeze. “Is she well, Mama?”
Thankfully, Mama nodded, shooing them all back toward the carriage. “The babe is coming. We should go now. Your Papa is already at Clyde-Lacey House. It seems Harrison is in need of a father’s support.”
By the time they arrived at the elegant house in Berkeley Square and ensconced themselves on the sofas in the drawing room, Genie and Kate had already chosen names for the child. Kate proposed Oberon for a boy and Titania for a girl.
“You cannot name a duke’s child for characters in that silly play,” complained Genie. “Oberon, Duke of Blackmore. What a fanciful farce that would—”
Kate reached across Maureen’s lap to swat Genie’s arm. “Better than your suggestion! You would name our nephew after a footman!”
Genie shoved at Kate’s hand and grumbled, “Thomas is a fine name. A normal name for—”
Maureen grasped each of their wrists gently, watching their mother dab her eyes and disguise her trepidation as she stared down into the fireplace. “Hush now, both of you,” Maureen admonished. “Jane and Harrison will choose their child’s name, and we will have nothing to say about it apart from felicitations.”
The younger girls subsided, finally noticing their mother’s tension. Maureen rose and laid a hand in the center of Mama’s shawled back. “All will be well, Mama. You mustn’t worry.”
It was rare to see Mama so distressed. She was a merry sort, full of good humor and twinkling charm. She must be remembering the tragic loss of Annabelle’s first child two months before he should have been born. A year had passed before Annabelle and her husband, Lord Robert Conrad, had conceived again. Their daughter had arrived just before Christmas, a healthy little cherub they had named Beatrice.
Presently, Mama sniffed and nodded and dabbed her reddened, rounded nose. “I’m certain you are right. Our Jane is strong.”
From the drawing room’s open door, Papa replied, “That she is, dearest.”
Maureen’s heart warmed to see him, quiet and jovial, lean and tall with his thinning, silver hair only a bit mussed. He crossed the room to gather Mama into his arms before reaching out to clasp Maureen’s hand. As usual, Papa managed to reassure his girls with his mere presence.
“Oh, Stanton,” her mother cried. “Is Harrison terribly distraught?”
“He is fretting, as any husband awaiting the birth of his first child would. Jane ordered him from her chamber after he threatened to disembowel both the physician and the midwife. But John is plying him with drink in the study, so I expect he will soon either be less fretful or less conscious. Either way, an improvement is imminent.”
John entered moments later, a younger, slightly taller, more robust version of Papa, with the same distinguished nose and ready smile. Now, however, he was running a hand through Huxley-brown hair as though his wits’ end had come and gone. Behind him, an even taller man followed.
Jane liked to describe him as the Apollo of the aristocracy, blond and hard-jawed and so handsome that one was tempted to commission a marble sculpture of his likeness. It helped, Jane often said with wry affection, that his bearing was as stiff as stone. This evening, Harrison Lacey, the eighth Duke of Blackmore, was in disarray, his blue-gray eyes bloodshot and stormy, his over-starched cravat missing, along with his tailcoat.
Maureen blinked twice upon seeing her brother-in-law, a man who never lost command of himself, weaving in place just inside the doors of his drawing room.
Her brother reached back to steady the teetering duke.
“John, how much brandy did you give him?” Maureen asked.
“A better question is how much did he drink,” John said sardonically, patting Harrison’s shoulder. “By the time I had anything to say about it, half the bottle was gone.”
“How did you bear it, Stanton?” Harrison asked, his speech slower than normal but not slurred. “Six. Bloody. Times.”
Papa gave him a grin and approached with a sympathetic chuckle. “It gets easier, son. You’ll see.” He and John helped Harrison navigate the length of the room and eased him into a winged chair near the fireplace.
All the while, Harrison shook his head, appearing stricken. “No. Never again.”
Mama, unable to contain herself, knelt beside him and stroked his cheek with the backs of her fingers. “Dearest boy. When you meet your babe, all of this fear and worry will seem little more than a dream. You must trust me on this point.”
Harrison closed his eyes. “It is a nightmare, Mama. Jane suffers and I cannot …”
His concession to calling her “Mama” was a measure of either his drunkenness or his turmoil. Perhaps both. For two years, he’d resisted Meredith Huxley’s maternal overtures. Only since Jane had announced she was with child had he softened, gradually permitting Meredith to mother him as she longed to do.
Maureen understood Mama’s impulse. Harrison was a proud man, one who’d been scarred by a frigid upbringing and a cruel father. His love for Jane had opened his heart, but accepting affection from their family, especially her parents, remained difficult for him. Which only made Mama more determined.
Harrison’s sandy-haired butler, Digby, was next to appear in the doorway. He cleared his throat discreetly before announcing, “I do beg your pardon, your grace, but you have a visitor.”
Harrison blinked slowly and frowned. “Who?”
“Me.”
Maureen’s blood fired hot as a red iron, lighting her skin and scalp with tingling sparks. Henry. Oh, God. It was Henry.
Her eyes devoured him—chestnut hair longer than she’d seen it in months, cheeks leaner, dark coat and trousers looser on his athletic frame. But his waistcoat drew her notice above everything else. It was the dull yellow-brown of half-rotted leaves. Not a single gold thread. Not a single flourish of embroidery.
“Go away,” Harrison snarled.
“I cannot,” Henry replied, nodding to Mama and Papa before sauntering closer to Harrison’s chair. “I was summoned.”
“Not by me.”
“No. By your wife.”
A muscle flexed in Harrison’s jaw. “Bloody hell.”
“Are you sotted?”
“Yes.”
Henry raised a brow and quirked his lips. “Excellent. Perhaps now you’ll be reasonable.”
Harrison’s eyes narrowed. “I have misplaced my watch.”
“Good God, man. You without a watch? Alarming state of affairs, I daresay. How will you judge whether it has been five minutes or ten since you last set eyes upon the duchess?”
“It has been an eternity. A watch merely assures me that eternity may be measured, and therefore, may end.”
Ambling nearer with his usual grace, Henry pretended to search his pockets before lifting out a gold-colored watch with two fingers and dangling it before Harrison’s nose. “Here, now. A man needs his comforts, I suppose.”
Harrison took it, grumbling about how it was “strangely made” and “gilt brass rather than gold.”
Henry merely rolled his eyes and crossed his arms over his chest. “Tedious lot. I recommend drinking either more or less to achieve the desired effect, for this melancholia cannot possibly have been your aim.”
Observing the byplay between the two men, Maureen wondered again what had caused the rift between them. They’d once been as close as brothers. Henry had been Harrison’s best man at his wedding to Jane.
She remembered it well. She had stood as one of Jane’s attendants, and during the “with my body, I thee worship” portion of the vows, he had caught her eye and shot her a glittering, rakish grin from across the aisle. She had blushed and gone buttery inside, thinking the dashing Lord Dunston was flirting.
He hadn’t been, of course. It was simply Henry’s way to smile and laugh and charm. Except right now, the only smile he seemed able to manage was a wry twist of his lips. In truth, he looked quite unlike himself, as though a light had been snuffed out.
She dropped her eyes to her hands, which were stupidly folded one atop the other at her waist. Preposterous Grecian pose.
Digby interrupted again to announce that Jane had requested that both Lady Berne and Harrison return to her chamber. Mama immediately bustled out of the room, clutching her handkerchief to her bosom. Upon hearing his name, Harrison bolted to his feet, only to tilt alarmingly like a tree unmoored from its roots.
Swifter than a blink, Henry was by his side, grasping his arm and bracing him expertly. “Time for old sobersides to return, I think. Come now, your grace. Let us gather our watches and our senses.”
Harrison leaned on him heavily for a moment before regaining his customary rigid posture. “The room is spinning.”
“Let it spin. Jane needs you.”
Harrison nodded and blinked. “Right you are.”
Henry released his arm and slapped his back. “See? Reasonable. Perhaps the brandy you imbibed was sufficient, after all.”
Stepping to Harrison’s opposite side, John battled a grin. “I shall take him, Dunston. Already made this journey twice tonight.”
The two men moved with care and deliberation to the drawing room doors. At the last, Harrison braced his hand on the casing and turned around to spear Henry with a glance. “Do not leave.”
Henry nodded. “I’ll be here.”
After Mama and John and Harrison left, Papa gathered Genie and Kate together at the corner table to play a game of loo using Genie’s stash of ribbons as the pot. Maureen elected not to join them, remaining in her position on the periphery of the room, near the windows.
Henry had not looked at her once. Not once. Perhaps it was too much to expect that he would at least glance her way, or cross the room and say … something. Anything. You’re looking well, pet. New gown?
A faint smile tugged her lips, imagining the conversation.
No, Henry. I’m afraid only the most extravagant among us purchase a new waistcoat for every occasion.
Ah, there’s the problem with the world. Appalling lack of variety.
They had said their goodbyes weeks ago. After he had kissed her. Shocked her senseless. Made her burn inside her skin and then told her to go because he would never be an option.
She stared at his shoulders, the hair that brushed his coat’s collar. His back was to her as he stood gazing down at the fire, one hand braced on the mantel, one on his hip.
Was he eating enough? Had his arm healed properly? Did he miss her?
She’d visited Lady Dunston every week, those questions eating a hole inside her throat. She never asked them, instead drinking weak tea and nodding in agreement at the injustices and indignities of gout.
No, she decided. He was not going to look at her. He was going to pretend they were strangers. And wasn’t that what she’d wanted? To make room?
Distantly, she heard Genie crowing as she acquired another blue ribbon. Papa chuckled and Kate protested and the fire crackled.
Chilled, Maureen gathered her knitted shawl closer around her shoulders. With measured force, she dragged her gaze away from where firelight spun its shadows through Henry’s hair. She turned to the window to gaze upon the blackness shrouding Berkeley Square. In the golden reflection, she glimpsed her own face and knew. She might never speak to Henry Thorpe again. But, despite her best efforts, a piece of her would always be his. She only hoped it was possible to live without it.
*~*~*
He hadn’t been able to look at her since entering Harrison’s drawing room. Vaguely, he knew she wore blue. Knew she was close. Felt her eyes upon him.
An hour passed before Lord Berne approached him, leaving his two youngest daughters to divide their ribbon pot and settle the terms of loo disarmament.
“Dunston,” the older man murmured. “Cannot recall the last time you were silent for this long.”
Henry’s mouth quirked. “I’ve heard ladies fancy a brooding poet. Must practice the brooding, as it does not come naturally.”
Berne’s eyes warmed and sparked with amusement. Henry had always liked Maureen’s papa, whose easy humor and hazel gaze reminded him of his own father.
“Ah, yes. That explains the longer hair. Byron sported a similar style before he fled to the Continent, as I recall.”
Raising a brow, Henry replied, “Perhaps his valet was vexed with him. Mine is expressing his displeasure by misplacing the shears.”
“You could speak to her, you know.” Berne kept his voice low, his head tilted in a fatherly fashion. “Her mother and I might be opposed to marriage between you, but not to a conversation.”
At the reminder of their disapproval, Henry went cold. Lord and Lady Berne knew of his past work for the Home Office—a tidbit gleaned from Lady Wallingham, no doubt. Because Harrison was their son-in-law, they also knew he’d hunted Horatio Syder and that his pursuit had endangered Harrison’s brother. Naturally, they opposed his interest in Maureen.
Who could blame them? He was a danger to her. Every time he spun her about in a waltz, every time he rode with her in the park, every time he persuaded one of her suitors to abandon his suit, he risked the Investor realizing her importance. Yet, he’d been unable to stop. To his great, everlasting frustration, her nearness was akin to breathing. Without it, he drowned.
“No. Better I should leave her be,” Henry said now, keeping his back to the windows.
“Perhaps you’re right. What would you talk about, after all? Tales of her outing with Holstoke, one supposes. Astley’s Amphitheatre. A man stood on the backs of two horses at full gallop. Remarkable trick.”
Sharpening to razor fineness, Henry’s gaze flew to Berne’s. Hazel eyes crinkled at the corners, warmed with a knowing glint.
“Takes a committed rider to brave such a feat. Seriousness of purpose, wouldn’t you agree? Eugenia and Kate went along, incidentally. And Holstoke’s mother.”
Henry’s jaw tightened until his teeth ground as Berne’s message became clear: Holstoke intended to offer for Maureen. He would not have arranged an outing involving Maureen, her sisters, and his mother for any other reason.
Without a word, Henry nodded his thanks for the older man’s warning and crossed the room to where she stood. Maureen. Looking ethereally lovely in long-sleeved cerulean silk and a white knitted shawl. The firelight played with the light-brown curls at her nape.
Blast. His heart was pounding like a great drum. She made him dizzy. Made his skin prickle with heat. It was bad enough when he didn’t look directly at her, worse when he did.
As he approached, he watched her reflection in the dark window. Watched his own reflection come behind her. They’d always been a perfect fit, well matched in height and humor, synchronized like two watches keeping time together. He wanted to wrap his arms around her waist. Kiss that lovely nape and hear her whisper his name.
“Henry,” she breathed, meeting his eyes in the window’s reflection.
He stopped inches away. “Are you well, pet?”
She turned to face him. He devoured her beauty—the petite, rounded nose, the golden-brown eyes, the secretive lips.
“I should ask that of you. Your arm is improved, I trust.”
He shrugged. “Wounds heal, don’t they?”
She swallowed and dropped her eyes to her hands. “Sometimes.”
“Astley’s was a spectacular lark, I hear.”
Her chin inched up. “It was. Genie and Kate laughed themselves silly.”
“Did you?”
She blinked, her eyes darkening. “Of course.”
She was lying. The corners of her mouth twitched down in precisely that way whenever he asked if she approved of his puce waistcoat. Maureen loathed the shade, and she possessed no talent for deception.
“Thinking of me, pet?” he taunted, unable to help himself. Astley’s had been theirs. He had escorted her, his mother, and his sister, Mary, last season. Maureen had laughed and applauded and gasped until he’d thought he might burst into flames from watching her, imagining similar breathless, open-mouthed delight as he thrust inside her body.
“No,” she answered, her lips twitching downward at the corners.
He grinned for the first time in weeks. “Liar.”
Her mother chose that moment to bustle back into the room and announce with a sob, “We have a grandson, Stanton. A grandson!”
As Berne rushed forward to embrace his wife, Genie and Kate leapt up and surrounded the pair, chattering like magpies. Minutes later, John entered the room, harried and beaming. “It is twins. Jane has delivered twins. A boy and a girl.”
Lady Berne covered her mouth with both hands and spun with a gasp. “Twins? Good heavens! In my eagerness to report the news of our grandson, I didn’t realize she hadn’t finished!”
The entire Huxley family burst into delighted conversation all at once. Genie and Kate argued about whether Titania was an appropriate name for a girl. Lady Berne exclaimed her motherly pride at Jane’s fortitude. John laughed about the moment Harrison had turned whiter than a freshly starched cravat. Lord Berne marveled at how much his family had grown in only an hour.
Every Huxley was exclaiming, laughing, smiling. Everyone except Maureen. He knew because he hadn’t torn his eyes from her. Upon her gentle features he saw raw longing. Reluctant envy. Conflicted joy.
Inching closer, he lowered his head, the compulsion to erase her suffering burning through him. “For you, it will be a dozen, pet. Let us hope they do not arrive all at once.”
Her eyes flew to his, but rather than softening into amusement as he’d wished, they flared with agonizing doubt.
“Come now,” he murmured, nodding toward her family. “You are a Huxley. Huxleys breed. I shouldn’t be surprised to find hares in the Berne crest.”
There. He could see a spark of laughter in her eyes, the beginnings of a curve on her lips.
Discreetly, he slid a hand to the small of her back—his favorite spot—and savored the way she melted toward him. “One day, you will be round as a cabbage with a swarm of toddling, toothless little ones haranguing you for biscuits and marmalade. On that day, you will curse the Huxley name to the heavens, mark my words.”
She snickered. “Daft man. It will be scones and strawberries. Biscuits are too dry.”
He smiled. “There’s my girl. Sensible, as always.”
“Dunston,” John called sharply.
Henry stiffened and let his hand fall away from Maureen. He turned with a brow lifted in inquiry.
“Jane would like to speak with you.”
Frowning, Henry asked, “Do you mean Harrison?”
“No. Jane. Be thankful it is not Harrison, as he refused to let me leave the room until after the babes arrived. Something about sharing the misery. Deuced uncomfortable, I don’t mind telling you.” John rubbed his neck. “Come, I shall take you to her.”
Henry glanced back at Maureen, who wore a similar confused frown. She shook her head. He turned back to John. “Well, never let it be said I kept a duchess waiting. Lead on, my good man.”
Moments later, he entered the master bedchamber with a vague sense of trepidation. Facing an assassin in a black corner of London? A simple matter. Facing the Duchess of Blackmore after seven hours of labor and the delivery of twins? Terrifying. Particularly given he had little notion of what she wanted from him.
The room was well aired by an open window and warmed by a crackling fire. Gowned in white with her long, dark hair plaited neatly over her shoulder and her spectacles perched neatly upon her nose, Jane was propped up in the bed, surrounded by far too many pillows. Harrison sat in a chair next to his wife, staring down at the hand he held and looking as though he’d been brained with a copper pot. Nearby, a pair of cradles held what Henry presumed to be the future Duke of Blackmore and the boy’s twin sister, who would never marry because her father would never allow it.
“Oh, do come in, Henry,” said Jane, waving him closer with her free hand. “You must see the babes.”
He bowed formally and muttered, “Duchess. It is good to see you looking so well,” before approaching the pair of cradles.
What was it about infants that made one’s chest tighten? They were tiny. Gowned in white. Wrinkled and scrunch-faced like wizened old men. Both had a tuft of dark hair. One’s head was alarmingly cone-shaped.
“The pointier one is our son. We’re calling him Gabriel. I wanted Fitzwilliam, but Harrison was adamantly opposed. The midwife assures us his head will normalize in time. The angel with the long lashes is Emma.” Jane’s voice choked alarmingly. “Isn’t she b-beautiful?”
The girl’s mouth pursed and worked as though seeking her supper. Then she sighed. A tiny, shuddering sigh. And her miniature, delicate fingers fluttered like a harpist’s strumming.
“An angel, indeed, your grace,” Henry agreed, smiling down at the wrinkled, splotchy, perfect little human. “However did you persuade heaven to release her into your care?”
“Oh, Henry,” she sighed, reminding him of Maureen. “You always know the right thing to say.”
He turned his smile up to her. Jane was sniffing and brushing away a tear beneath her spectacles. Harrison was glaring daggers at him. Henry cleared his throat. “Well, the brandy wore off, I see. Old sobersides returns.”
“The very reason I asked you here,” Jane said, the fatigue of her long labor evident in her rasping voice. She drew Harrison’s hand to her lips and kissed his knuckles. Then, she leveled upon Henry a look of startling directness. “You are Harrison’s dearest friend. It is past time that bond was restored.”
Henry sighed. “Harrison is not the forgiving sort.”
“You deceived me for years,” Harrison gritted. “I believed you to be the man you pretended to be.”
Rubbing his forehead with his thumb and finger, Henry wondered why conversations with Harrison Lacey often ended in a headache. “I am that man.”
“You turned my brother into bait.”
“Yes, well. I am also that man.”
Harrison’s eyes narrowed.
“We do not all have your purity, Blackmore. You forget that the world you inhabit—the world of unblemished honor and parliamentary maneuvers and efficient household management—has no answer for a man like Syder. Vanquishing such a creature requires weaponry of an entirely different sort.”
Harrison stood, held in place only by Jane’s grip upon his hand. “So you have claimed.”
Henry raised a brow. “It is true.”
“Colin could have died. His wife nearly did.”
“Your brother chose to help me. Grant him credit for wanting to do something noble. After his appalling descent into the brandy bottle, I should think you would welcome his change of—”
“Now, you wish to marry Maureen.”
Henry’s voice abandoned him.
Harrison’s voice grew quieter. Icier. “Yes. I know.”
Cold fury rose inside him, emerging as a snarl. “Everything I have done—everything I am doing—is for her protection. Hers.”
Jane intruded gently. “That is not in question, Henry.”
Feeling as though they’d flayed him open and begun poking about his entrails, Henry ran a hand through his hair, peering at the pair before him. Jane, the plain wallflower who could scarcely speak a word in the presence of strangers. Harrison, the golden duke so proper and rigid, Henry marveled that he didn’t crack when he walked. They’d been no one’s idea of a good match. Their marriage had been one of necessity. Honor. And yet, they were perfect for one another.
He pointed at Harrison. “You are in no position to sit in judgment. You took advantage of Jane’s mishap to claim her.”
Harrison’s lips went white. His jaw flickered.
“Ah, you didn’t think I suspected, did you?”
Jane blinked, first at Henry, then up at Harrison. “What is he on about?”
Henry did not let up, holding Harrison’s roiling gaze. “I have known you since you were in leading strings, old chap. Did you suppose I would not see how you maneuvered her into marriage? Your urgency every time she was near? The way you monitored that bloody watch—”
“Henry,” Jane said, stroking her husband’s hand soothingly. “Leave off, if you please. Harrison is protective of Maureen because he regards her as his sister, not because he finds you unworthy. If the decision were his, he would lock everyone he loves inside a cushioned palace and set an army outside for good measure.” Jane nudged her spectacles and nodded toward the cradles. “They are why I asked you here.”
Forcing himself to relax, Henry quipped, “I’d be an appalling nursemaid, Duchess. Infants leak. Damaging to waistcoats, you know.”
Jane’s mouth curled up at the corners. Then, she giggled and shook her head. She never resembled Maureen more than when she laughed. “A brilliant notion. Perhaps you could wear an apron.” Her expression sobered. “In truth, we value your friendship, and we have missed it. Harrison is a father now. It is time you reconciled.”
Henry sighed and crossed his arms. “In other words, you wish my help in managing his tyrannical tendencies.”
“No,” answered Harrison.
“Yes,” said Jane. “But that is not the only reason.” She glanced up at her husband. “You need him, my love. I am perhaps the only person who understands you quite so well. What happens when I am indisposed, as I was today?” Harrison’s jaw clenched stubbornly, so she tried another tack. “He is your oldest and dearest friend. If you cannot forgive him, then you cannot forgive anyone. This bodes ill for our son and daughter, as they are bound to vex us eventually.”
Frowning as he often did when faced with impossible choices, Harrison sat and brought Jane’s hands to his lips. Then, he leaned forward and kissed her forehead. “Ruthless to make such a demand now, when you know I can deny you nothing,” he murmured.
“For your happiness, I shall use every bit of leverage I possess. This should come as no surprise.”
Harrison gazed down at his wife in a way that made Henry want to leave the room. “Very well,” he said before turning in Henry’s direction. “Your apologies are accepted.”
Henry raised a brow at the gruff concession. “Did I apologize? I do not recall.”
“Henry,” Jane groaned. “Do not spoil this by being droll.”
He sketched a bow. “Never, your grace.”
Rising from his chair, Harrison approached. His eyes were reddened by fatigue and strain, but they remained steady and resolute. “Jane asks this of me, but she also asks something of you. We both do, in fact.”
Henry looked to Jane, who wore a solemn expression, then back to his recently restored best friend. “What is your request?”
“I have three. First, take this back.” He tugged the watch from his pocket and lowered it into Henry’s outstretched palm. “Whatever you paid for it, you were fleeced. If you cannot do better than this piecemeal effort, I shall introduce you to my watchmaker at the next opportunity.”
As Henry tucked the thing into his waistcoat pocket, he couldn’t suppress a grin at yet another display of the Duke of Blackmore’s exacting standards.
Harrison raised a brow and clasped his hands behind his back. “Second, never lie to me again.”
“Hmmph. I predict you shall regret that stipulation. And third?”
Harrison braced a hand on Henry’s shoulder, gripping hard and exhibiting an alarming degree of concern. “Abandon this fool’s errand. Cease your pursuit of Syder’s benefactor before you get yourself killed.”
The unprecedented plea knocked away his next breath, lodging his usual denials inside his throat.
“I say this as your friend,” said the man he’d known since boyhood. Those blue-gray eyes bored into his, reminding him of every time Harrison had done what was right and honorable, rather than what satisfied him. Now, in a voice abraded by worry, he spoke the hard truth, as only a friend would do. “You may have the mission you’ve assigned yourself. Or you may find happiness with Maureen. You may not have both.”
Finally, Henry spoke, but found his own answer wretchedly inadequate. “I am doing this for her, to protect her from becoming a target. Why is that so hard to understand?”
From the bed, Jane called softly, “Your intentions may be noble, and we do not doubt your love for her, but she will not wait much longer, Henry. And you should not ask her to.”
Harrison released his shoulder and nodded. “Either claim her affections or let her go. The choice belongs to you. It is time you made it.”
*~*~*
Sebastian Reaver had a head for numbers. Probabilities were a particular specialty. He knew, for example, that a hazard caster’s odds improved marginally with a main of seven. As the owner of a gaming club, rapid calculation was a talent worth having. But knowing the odds could also be a burden.
Especially when they involved death.
“Four members are delinquent in their dues,” said Reaver’s majordomo, extending the evening’s credit slips across Reaver’s desk. “An improvement to last month, I daresay.” Apart from coal-black hair and skin the color of strong tea, Adam Shaw looked every inch the proper British butler. He dressed like one—black coat and trousers, white cravat—and spoke like one, too, his lofty vocabulary pronounced with overweening crispness. Reaver suspected the man did it to annoy him, but Shaw insisted it was his mother’s influence. His mother had been adamantly English.
Reaver took the slips between two fingers and donned his reading spectacles. A distraction was welcome, but he had trouble focusing. His usual interest in the mewling lords clamoring for credit was being swarmed by news of another death.
He’d been galvanized by one. Grown suspicious after two. This made three. The odds were now longer than credulity could bear.
Three elderly men dying unexpected, yet seemingly natural, deaths. All of them possessed either titles or estates waiting like ripe plums to drop into the eager hands of their kin. Reaver would have taken little notice if the first plum to fall hadn’t been a friend. The one bloody aristocrat he’d been able to tolerate.
George Gilmore, the Baron Gilmore, had been an iron-haired rascal fond of gaming, bawdy rhymes, and, oddly enough, gin. Every Friday for the past three years, the baron had summoned Reaver to a table in the club’s smallest parlor, where they shared a bracing round of vingt-et-un, a glass or two of Old Tom gin, and the latest obscene poem the baron had committed to memory. Reaver had no particular liking for vingt-et-un, Old Tom, or vulgar poetry, but he’d liked the baron very much, aristocrat or no.
So, when Gilmore had missed their Friday appointment, he’d made inquiries—and discovered the hale, robust, humorous baron had been found dead in his bed the morning prior. He’d been lying with his hands folded across his chest, lips curved in a disturbing grin.
Immediately, Reaver’s neck had begun to itch. It was a sensation he’d learned to heed as a fighter early on. The baron’s heir, as it happened, suffered significant debts resulting from investments in a shipping company that sank. The inheritance buoyed the new baron’s finances rather conveniently.
Whatever his suspicions, Reaver had no proof. Gilmore had been four-and-sixty. Some might say he’d lived longer than many and better than most. Natural thing. No cause for undue inquiry.
Then, it happened again. This time, the death was a lord Reaver knew only because the man had been a member of the club, and what he knew worsened the itch along his nape considerably. Elliott Hastings, Lord Lilliworth, had an ambitious heir with a spendthrift wife and two useless sons, along with an estate dangling like a ripe plum. He had died suddenly two days after his heir made inquiries about selling his fashionable Mayfair house.
The death had been widely reported as a natural, peaceful end to a long life.
Reaver had asked Frelling to search for other deaths that matched the first two. Now, there was a third. Another greedy family. Another wealthy, elderly victim.
“Shaw,” he called to the departing majordomo. “The Investor Dunston is pursuing.”
Shaw raised a brow. “Yes?”
“Have you discovered anything about his next venture?”
Retracing his steps halfway back to the desk, Shaw frowned. “It’s all a bit … murky. Syder’s name has been kept alive deliberately, used as a cudgel to keep his thievery rings in place. Drayton suspects this is the Investor’s work. Maintaining an army of ready messengers, I suppose.”
Tapping a finger on the year-old newspaper he’d been reading moments ago, Reaver removed his spectacles. “I suspect the Investor has found a new enterprise.”
“Oh?”
Reaver slid the newspaper across the desk and pointed to the article. “This man died last year. Read the description.”
Leaning forward, Shaw spun the paper beneath his finger and read. His brows lifted. His head came up. “Bloody hell. They were all poisoned.”
“Aye. I don’t know what substance would produce such an effect, but the odds of these deaths being unrelated to a common cause are—”
“Long, indeed. What makes you think it is the Investor?”
“Something Horatio Syder said.”
“You only met him once. Shortly before vowing to bring him down, as I recall.”
He grunted. “Strangest thing. He looked like a solicitor. Thin. Inconspicuous. Carried a walking stick. Twirled the damn thing incessantly. You’d think nothing of him, eh? Until you looked a bit deeper. Aye. Then you’d see what nothingness really was.”
“Yes, well, I was glad you asked me to remain here, comfortably ensconced with my brandy and my books.” Shaw gave his usual white, toothy smile. “So, what did he say in this singular meeting?”
“He mentioned a name. A man he said had recently ceased to be of use to him. At the time, I thought it was an odd bit of boasting, implying he had more powerful men in his pocket, should he require them.”
“The name?”
Again, Reaver tapped the article, his blunt, ink-stained finger settling just beneath the third man’s name.
Shaw met his eyes. “Bloody hell.”
“Syder was killed two months before this.”
“So, you think the Investor was cleaning up the mess, as it were.”
“We know he did so with others during that time.”
Shaw rubbed the corners of his mouth. “What do you want to do? We can take it to Drayton, but—”
“No. Bow Street is compromised. Dunston is the only way.”
Shaw scoffed. “No help from that quarter. You’ll have to wait until he needs another report on Lady Maureen Huxley’s suitors.”
Reaver sat back in his chair, recalling one such report he’d delivered to the Earl of Dunston only yesterday. “Perhaps not,” he murmured.
“Think he will change his mind, do you?”
Repositioning his spectacles, Reaver threw open his account book and began calculating. “I think sooner or later, the odds catch up with us all.”
*~*~*