18
ISA GASPED. “KIDNAPPED him!” She couldn’t believe this—how much more had he been hiding from her all these years? “You mean you have a half brother somewhere? Who is also brother to the present duke?”
“Half brother to the present duke, as best anyone can be certain. And I don’t have him anymore. He’s dead. He’d been dead for four years by the time I met you.”
“Why didn’t you tell me about him?” she asked, unable to keep the hurt from her voice.
“I would have had to tell you about Father, too, which I didn’t want.” He stared blindly at the road. “Father claimed that Peter was his bastard by a whore. When the boy came to us at five, I was only four, so I always just knew him as my big brother.”
A brief smile touched his lips. “We were two peas in a pod, both of us rough-and-tumble, ready to stage mock battles with sticks for rifles and rocks for cannonballs.” His voice turned haunted. “It was Peter who kept me going during the years of Father’s madness; Peter who always talked of fighting Boney. It was for Peter that I ran off to join the army.”
He gripped the reins so tightly his knuckles were white. “Because he’d died in the same fire that took my mad father in Gheel when I was sixteen.”
“Oh, Victor,” she murmured, rubbing his knee for comfort. “I’m so sorry.”
He squeezed her hand, his eyes looking misty. “Manton’s Investigations didn’t just ‘find me’ in Antwerp, Isa. Max’s family had learned about the fire, and had known for years that a boy who resembled Peter had died with Father. But they didn’t know that Father also had a wife and son. So when Tristan and I began working together, and he noticed a handkerchief I had that was distinctive to Max’s family, he decided, based on some things I’d said, that perhaps Peter wasn’t dead after all. That I might be Peter.”
She sucked in a breath. “I take it that you were deemed not to be.”
“Yes. Tristan was very cagey about his suspicions, so I didn’t know what he thought until I met with Max.” His tone hardened. “That’s when I learned that Father was an even viler bastard than I’d thought. That he’d torn my poor cousin’s brother from him, and caused the madness and death of Max’s father.”
He cast her a brittle glance. “You and I are not very different, are we? My father was an adulterer and a kidnapper, and your sister and brother-in-law are thieves. Our families have mucked up our lives considerably.”
She tucked her hand into the crook of his elbow. “Yes, but Papa was a fine man who taught me everything I know about jewels. And your cousin must be a good man, if he can overlook your father’s crimes to take you into the family.”
Victor nodded. “There’s no one left but the two of us. He was so happy to have family that he didn’t care how I came to be his cousin. That’s how I know that Max won’t blame you for your family troubles. Because he’s been through that sort of trouble himself.”
Reaching over, he squeezed her hand briefly. “I think you’ll like him. And I know he will like you.” He arched an eyebrow. “His wife will be ecstatic. She resembles you a bit; she’s willful, impudent, a bit wild.”
“I’m not wild!”
He lowered his voice to a husky murmur. “You certainly were the night before last.”
Her cheeks heated. “It’s not very gentlemanly of you to point that out.”
“But I’m not really a gentleman.” He sobered. “I wasn’t raised as one, in any case.”
“Even though your father was a duke’s son?”
“He was also a criminal who didn’t want to be found. That’s why he joined the army as an enlisted man, why he avoided people of rank, why he lived a lower-class life with my mother. It was all designed to hide his true lineage. Yes, he made sure that Peter and I had a good education, and he spoke and thought like a gentleman. But I didn’t know I was a gentleman’s son until I came to England.”
Her heart went out to him. “That must have been . . . quite a change.”
“To say the least.” He managed a smile. “My cousin has been the soul of kindness; he treats me like a brother. But I don’t like taking an allowance from him; it seems wrong. That’s why I would prefer to work for Manton’s Investigations. And I have some experience in that area as well.”
Her breath burned her throat. “But what will happen if it comes out that you were connected to the theft of royal diamonds? Manton’s Investigations will have to wash its hands of you, if only to protect its reputation.”
He stiffened. “That’s why we must make sure that your family is dealt with before it comes out. Every story can be made to end well, as long as the principals agree on how the story is to be told. That’s why you’ve heard none of this about my father and Max’s half brother—because the truth never made it to the papers.”
“That might have worked for you and a wealthy duke, who both had much to hide, but you’re mad if you think you can get my family to lie for us. They’ll only keep quiet out of fear that they’ll be prosecuted themselves. And they still may find a way to implicate us without implicating themselves.”
“We’ll see,” he said noncommittally, though his expression was grim.
A thick silence fell between them.
He was up to something. She felt sure of it. “Are you planning something you haven’t told me? Do you know their whereabouts after all?”
“Not yet. But I will.”
“I’m glad you’re so sure,” she said sarcastically. “You just told me that until they land somewhere, you can’t find them. And you can’t do anything while the house party is going on. So unless you mean to have someone else—” Then she groaned. “Victor, please tell me that you didn’t write to your Bow Street Runner friends in London.”
When he said nothing to that, a chill passed down her spine. “Victor! We said that we wouldn’t—”
“You said, Isa.” He stared resolutely ahead to where the horses clopped along at a slower pace than that of her racing heart. “I didn’t agree, as you’ll recall.”
“I had good reason for what I said! Until we find my sister and brother-in-law, we are still suspects in a theft! I’m still the one who made the parure, and you’re still the one who left the strongbox long enough for thieves to get into it. What do you think your friends will make of that?”
He glared at her. “They won’t judge us, I promise you.”
“How do you know?”
“Because Tristan is the reason I found my family. He risked much to reunite me with them. He’s not going to do anything to hurt me.”
“But you don’t know if he’ll hurt me. He has no loyalty to me.”
“He will,” he said firmly. “You’re my wife.”
“And due to me, you’ve suffered. Your friends may not take that as well as you have.”
“Have faith in me for once. The way I always have faith in you.”
She snorted. “Not enough to consult me on your decisions or abide by my wishes.” Her blood thundered in her ears. “Did you go to Carlisle, too, after you promised not to? Did you lead Jacoba and Gerhart to Amalie?”
“Of course not!” he said, outrage in his tone. “I made you a promise, and I uphold my promises. But I never promised to keep my friends out of this. And I won’t, do you hear me? We need them, damn it. You’ll just have to trust me on this. If you’re capable of that.”
For him, it was a matter of trust, but for her it was so much more. She’d acquiesced to everything her family wanted when she was young, and she’d transferred that acquiescence to her husband after she married. It had nearly destroyed her life.
But after she’d been on her own, she’d begun to trust her own instincts, and her instincts were screaming that they should keep their past as secret as possible. So it didn’t sit well with her when he stepped in to take over her life as if she should have no say.
“Isa,” he said quietly. “You know damned well that if we don’t resolve this problem with Gerhart and Jacoba, they will come back one day—perhaps when Amalie is about to get married, or you’re heavy with our second child—whenever we least expect it. And they will attempt to wreak havoc again. I know better than anyone that family secrets rarely remain buried.”
He was right. But that didn’t lessen her terror of what might happen when he opened the Pandora’s box of their past for the world to see.
When she didn’t answer, he took her gloved hand and lifted it to his lips for a kiss. “It’s too late to stop Tristan and Dom from coming, lieveke. I sent them an express yesterday, and if I know them, they’ll be here before the house party is over.”
He hesitated, then added, “But I didn’t tell them why I needed them, only that it was urgent. So if, by the time they arrive, you’re still uncomfortable with their involvement, I’ll keep silent about why we’re seeking your relations. How’s that?”
A lump stuck in her throat. He was trying. He really was trying. “That’s all I ask—that you consider what I want, before you go off and follow your own instincts.”
He sighed. “I’ll do my best. But it’s been a long time since I had a wife.”
“I know. And a long time since I had a husband.”
They finally smiled at each other, and were silent awhile.
Then she brought up what she’d been thinking about during their discussion of income earlier. “Is there no possibility of us living in Edinburgh? Perhaps you could do some investigative work here.”
His expression was thoughtful. “I suppose it’s possible.” He glanced over at her. “But I’ve just begun to know my family. I would like to know them better if I can. And there’s no reason you can’t open a shop in London. You might make more money there.”
She eyed him askance. “I’m sure your cousin will be delighted to have one of his relations in trade.”
“That’s a good point. We’ll have to see how that will sit with him. Then again, his wife’s family runs Manton’s Investigations, so he obviously doesn’t stand on ceremony as much as a duke generally does.”
His cousin sounded more intriguing by the moment. Perhaps he wouldn’t look down on her so much after all.
“There’s another, more important consideration,” he put in. “Amalie could go to school in London, and then you wouldn’t have to send her away.”
Isa hadn’t thought of that. “That is indeed an important consideration. And one that might just tip the balance.” She glanced at him. “I miss her so, when she’s gone.”
He met her gaze with a smile, and her heart flipped over. Perhaps everything could work out after all. Assuming that her relations stopped plaguing them.
Victor was right: They couldn’t go on with the past hanging over their heads. They had to resolve the problem of Jacoba and Gerhart before it destroyed their lives again.