“How can it take years to find the heir to a dukedom?” Joshua asked, tossing a pencil onto the ledger before him. “Dukes die, and old dukes die fairly predictably. The College of Arms can’t say they were taken by surprise.”
“They can,” Duncan replied, “in this case. The old duke had heirs, a trio of second cousins, all between the ages of forty and fifty. One was married without issue, the other two bachelors in good health.”
“What happened to the heirs?”
Duncan rose despite a protest from his right knee, a legacy from too many winter afternoons spent kneeling on the stone floor of Uncle’s church.
“Bad luck happened, or so we are to believe. One bachelor was run down by a runaway team on his way home from Sunday services. The other bachelor had an ingrown toenail that turned putrid, but he refused surgery. The married fellow succumbed to a heart seizure soon after losing both of his younger brothers.”
Joshua pinched the bridge of his nose. “When a dukedom is going begging, bachelorhood is a singularly stupid indulgence, and that is a prodigious streak of bad luck for one family.”
Duncan refrained from pointing out that Joshua, wealthier than many dukes, was himself unmarried, and that Quinn Wentworth had enjoyed an even more prodigious streak of good luck, barring recent events.
“My numbers tally thus far,” Duncan said, “but they are curious numbers.”
He and Joshua had closeted themselves in the partners’ conference room and each taken a year’s worth of the ducal estate ledgers. The family seat was not far from York, though the dukedom held properties in several different counties. Each property had kept its own set of books, and the steward at the family seat—Mr. Harcourt Arbuthnot—had kept a general ledger.
Until he’d absconded for the Antipodes several months ago, likely taking the last of the Walden fortune with him.
“My numbers tally as well,” Joshua said, “but who pays a Yorkshire housemaid twenty pounds a year?”
“Nobody, unless she’s doing considerably more than polishing the silver.”
Joshua picked up the pencil and threaded it over, under, and through his fingers. “The former duke was ancient, and he dwelled mostly at the Berkshire property. That well-paid army of maids in Yorkshire wasn’t dusting and polishing him.”
“Arbuthnot lived at the Yorkshire estate. The maid is probably on his arm as we speak, enjoying a life of ease in New South Wales. She might well be wearing some of the Walden family jewels too.”
Joshua’s pencil stilled, the point end protruding between his third and fourth fingers. “Leaving Quinn to put the whole mess to rights. I want Mrs. Hatfield to look over these books.”
Mrs. Hatfield hadn’t said more than six words to Duncan at any one time. She prowled the bank like a cat that had caught a whiff of a mouse in the environs of the larder, her fingers ink-stained, her spectacles spotless.
“The figures tally,” Duncan said. “I thought auditors looked for figures that don’t add up.”
“Mrs. Hatfield has an instinct for what’s going on behind the numbers. She’ll spot when the maid’s salary was increased, put that together with the duke’s health failing as indicated by increased physician’s bills, and establish cause and effect in a manner that boggles the mind.”
Stephen had the same unnerving propensity, which made maintaining any sort of privacy around him—any sort of secrecy—nearly impossible.
“You admire this about her.”
“I am in awe of that woman, and not a little intimidated.”
Comforting, to know that something or someone could intimidate Joshua Penrose.
“You would not take her away from bank business simply to indulge idle curiosity about embezzlements of yesteryear.” And the year before that, for several years before the previous duke’s demise.
When Duncan and Stephen had discussed the ducal succession months ago, the fate of the real assets had been of particular interest to Stephen, while for Duncan, the peregrinations of the title itself had been fascinating.
Quinn’s good luck truly was astonishing.
“Timing is everything,” Joshua said, tossing the pencil in the air and catching it. “The estates were plundered, systematically and thoroughly, until three months ago, at which time Arbuthnot decamped in the dead of night. I suspect we’ll find the stewards at the other estates all similarly slunk into the hedgerows about the same time. How did Arbuthnot know that the College was on the trail of an heir? He might have instead assumed the estate was languishing for the mandatory seven years prior to reverting to the Crown.”
The conference room abruptly felt too close, too cut off from natural light and fresh air. “Perhaps he didn’t know, perhaps he’d reached the limit of his greed, but what matters now is that he’s gone and the debts remain—and that Quinn is alive.”
Joshua tossed the pencil again. “Greed has no limit, no expiration date, much like Quinn’s need for justice.”
“For revenge, you mean.”
The pencil rose in the air a third time, but Joshua let it fall to the ledger book, where it landed squarely in the crease of last year’s journal.
“He was hanged, Duncan, for a crime he didn’t commit. The College of Arms found him in the very nick. Five minutes later, two minutes later, and Stephen would be the duke.”
Duncan closed the volume he’d been studying and began a slow circuit of the room. Sometimes his knee eased up with moderate activity. If bad luck were to befall Stephen, the title devolved to Duncan, another observation left unspoken.
“What’s your point?”
“I have several. First, the College should not have taken years to find Quinn Wentworth. Jack Wentworth has been dead for nearly a decade, and you can still find people in York who spit at the mention of his name. He was notorious in a relatively small town. Why did it take so long to find Quinn?”
“Quinn no longer dwells in Yorkshire, and few would connect Jack Wentworth’s grubby boy with your business partner.” Quinn didn’t hide his antecedents, but he assuredly did not advertise them.
“Somebody connected them in time for Arbuthnot and his merry band of felons to abscond before Quinn assumed the title.”
Duncan’s knee had gone from twinging to throbbing. “You think somebody threw the College of Arms off the scent, and then warned Arbuthnot when the herald doubled back and picked up Quinn’s trail. Who would be in a position to do that?”
Who indeed.
“The aristocracy is inbred,” Joshua said, “especially in the north, where titles are few and ancient. A countess with blunt to spare could easily keep track of who had called on the vicar, who had nosed about the parish records of births, deaths, and marriages. I can guarantee you she’s kept track of Quinn. Arbuthnot might have piked off in an abundance of caution. More likely he was warned by a friendly neighbor.”
Duncan resumed his seat and resigned himself to suffering until his knee was done lecturing him.
“Let’s fetch Mrs. Hatfield, shall we? Your theory is fanciful at best, but it explains much, particularly if that neighbor was also benefitting from Arbuthnot’s thievery.”
“In other words, I’m right. Something stinks, all roads lead to York, and we’ve sent Quinn north with little more than a few grooms and a boy to guard his back.”
“My money’s on the boy,” Duncan said. “He puts me in mind of Quinn at a younger age. Ferocious, principled in his way, and nobody’s fool. Just like Quinn.”
Though Quinn, for a time, had been the Countess of Tipton’s very devoted fool.
* * *
“I see improvement,” Stephen said. “We’ve been at this little more than a week, and already you have a good eye and a steady hand.”
Althea had said something similar about Jane’s use of knives. In both endeavors, aim was critical, because, as her tutors had explained, using the weapon meant giving away her location, and that meant greater risk of retaliation.
The weapon had thus best be employed effectively the first time. Jane had no objection to the theory, but having rejected the lex talionis, she wouldn’t be carrying a knife or a gun on her person. An eye for eye left everybody blind, as Mama had often pointed out.
“I don’t care for the noise of firearms,” Jane said, “though hitting a target is gratifying.”
She’d graduated to moving targets, and for that exercise, Stephen had taken her to some rural property on the edge of London. The footmen had set up jars suspended on ropes, which Stephen had them swing from overhanging branches.
As a way to pass the time, target practice distracted Jane from Quinn’s absence, but each night she went home to a vast, empty bed, and equally vast worries. Where was Quinn—where was he really? What would he make of Papa’s daft maunderings about assuming guardianship of Jane’s child? What business required Quinn’s remove from Town barely a fortnight after he’d been pardoned?
Were the grooms, Ned, and the footmen keeping Quinn in sight at all times?
Quinn’s siblings worried as well, and thus Jane obliged their need to instruct, arm, and protect her. All very different from how she’d envisioned married life, but not dull.
“Quinn would be proud of you,” Stephen said, as the grooms gathered up the ropes, firearms, powder, and shot. “Give me that last pistol, Ivor.”
The footman passed over the gun, a small, double-barreled weapon that would fit easily into a lady’s reticule, then stepped back.
Safety mattered to Stephen, and thus Jane’s first lessons had been simple: Always stand behind the shooter, always handle a gun as if it’s loaded. Always. She moved behind Stephen, who surveyed the trees and hedges around them.
She hadn’t seen him shoot previously, but she had seen him walk. With the aid of two canes, Stephen could navigate slowly, step by painful step. For these shooting expeditions, he chose that option while Ivor carried the chair behind him.
Stephen had settled into his chair, lips nearly white, and remained seated for the duration of today’s lesson. He loaded the lady’s pistol, took aim at some distant twig or branch, then, without warning, swung the pistol and fired such that a blooming sprig of honeysuckle dropped from over Jane’s head to land at her feet.
He’d aimed a loaded gun in her direction and fired a bullet within inches of her head.
“Never relax around firearms, Jane.” He fired the second bullet at a fencepost five yards away. “Never. They can misfire, land in the wrong hands, and as long as somebody—”
“How dare you?” Jane snapped, snatching up the murdered honeysuckle and pitching it at him. “You did that for the puerile pleasure of frightening me, you vile wretch. The risk you took with my life is inexcusable, and this is the last lesson I take from you.”
She shook with a primal reaction that compelled her to get away, collapse, or strike back.
Ivor appeared at Jane’s side. “Lord Stephen will apologize.” His diction was perfect, right down to the w. His tone was arctic, worthy of Quinn.
“She needs to realize when she’s not safe,” Stephen shot back. “She needs to realize she’s a Wentworth.”
Jane marched up to him, Ivor hovering at her elbow. “You need to realize that a gentleman does not discuss a lady in the third person when she’s participating in the conversation.” She plucked the gun away and hoped Stephen’s fingers were bruised in the process. “You further need to realize that I will not abandon your brother on a whim. I spoke vows, Stephen, and I keep my word. Quinn is honorable, he has been kind and decent to me, and he will always have my loyalty.”
No sulky boy glared up at Jane, but rather a young man exercising a frightening degree of calculation.
“Quinn is not who or what you think he is,” Stephen said. “He’s my brother, but I owe you at least that much warning. Ivor, please escort the lady to the—”
Jane passed Ivor the gun and crossed her arms.
“I’ll meet you at the coach,” Stephen said, pushing to his feet and balancing on his canes.
Jane stood before him, unwilling to budge until she’d fired her own artillery. “Wentworths are stubborn because they’ve had to be, but you had no cause to upset me like that. You owe me an apology.”
Ivor took the chair and left Stephen leaning on the canes. No pain showed in Stephen’s gaze, only a long-cherished anger.
“I am sorry, dearest Jane. You were in no danger, and I meant well, but—”
“Must I teach you how a gentleman apologizes?” For she would if need be. She’d stand toe to toe with him until he toppled to the grass in a raging heap, and leave him there until winter before she’d relent one inch.
She who believed in turning the other cheek, in forgiving and forgetting, was angry enough to throw fragile blossoms and shout, which only made her doubly furious with Stephen.
And that, she divined between one breath and the next, was what he wanted. To test not her devotion to Quinn, but her respect for Quinn’s maimed younger brother. Did she respect Stephen enough to hold him accountable for his actions?
“I’m trying to figure out what my sin was,” he said, “so I can be at least somewhat sincere in my remorse.”
The afternoon was waning, Jane was hungry, and the child was moving about, likely unhappy with the noisy target practice. Too blasted bad.
“Your sin was adding needlessly to my fears,” Jane said. “I’m facing childbirth. Do you think the prospect of that excruciating and often fatal exercise fills me with good cheer? It’s a miserable, lingering death, and would leave my child all but orphaned.”
She paced away from him, battling the temptation to shout. “I’m afraid that my father, a bumptious, obnoxious bumbler who frequents jails and prisons, will fall prey to an illness as my mother did. He’s a miserable excuse for a father, but the only blood relative I have. Then there’s my husband, whom somebody has tried to kill, and who is even now attempting to reestablish normalcy by tending to business as usual. I have no time for your adolescent pride or its attendant histrionics, and I am in no way responsible for your ailments.”
Stephen smiled at the golden eagles that formed the grips of his canes. “I’m sorry. I should not have aimed the gun anywhere near you, and it won’t happen again.”
“Better.” Jane turned to stalk off toward the coach, but Stephen had put both canes in one hand, and caught Jane by the arm.
“I am sorry, and I should not have done what I did, but Jane, you should be a little bit afraid for yourself. Whoever brought Quinn low missed the mark, but only by merest chance. My brother is a duke now, and that might protect him or it might make him a more tempting target.”
Jane took one of the canes. “Quinn’s lofty station should make him even more intimidating than he already was, though what fool would challenge Quinn Wentworth even once, much less twice? Please take me home. I need to eat, and I’ve had enough drama for one day.”
They made a slow progress to the coach, arm in arm, and were soon bumping and jostling back toward Town.
“How did you break your leg?” Jane asked.
“My own dear father broke my leg,” Stephen said, “but let’s save that charming recitation for another time. Enough drama for one day, right?”
She let him retreat into silence, because she grasped the important lesson of the day: A broken leg had likely been the least of Stephen’s injuries.