A Perfect Hero (24 page)

Julianna sat in her favorite Queen Anne chair and tucked her feet beneath her.

Sebastian frowned. “You’re not in some sort of trouble, are you?”

She shook her head. Taking a deep breath, she lifted her chin.

“I saw Mother last night.”

Her quiet pronouncement engendered a stunned silence.

Justin broke it with a terse laugh. “The devil you say! Jules, if this is your idea of a grand joke—”

Julianna shook her head. “I wouldn’t joke about such a thing. I saw her getting into a car
riage after the play last night at Theatre Royal.”

“How can you be sure?”

“I can’t,” she admitted. “But the portrait at Thurston Hall ...Justin, oh, I know how you hate it, but she still looks so much like you I vow it made my heart stop.”

“Good God. I should imagine that seeing
her
would be enough to make one’s heart stop.”

“It was. Oh, God, it was! I know it’s absurd. I know it’s painful. I know it brings back so much we would all rather forget ...yet it was uncanny. And if you had seen her, you would know, too...It was Mother. I felt it with everything in
side me!”

Justin made no response. His brilliant green eyes lowered. There was no hint of what he was thinking—what he was feeling—reflected on his features.

Dane stepped forward. “If you wish, I am in a position to make certain . . . inquiries.”

Sebastian’s gaze sharpened.

“Discreetly? Our name has been dragged through the muck enough. I have no wish to put our wives and children through the nightmare the three of us endured when we were chil
dren.”

“Unquestionably.” Dane inclined his head. “Ju
lianna has disclosed”—he sought to be tactful— “the circumstances of your mother’s departure—”

The ghost of a smile curled Justin’s lips. “Let us not mince words, man. Daphne Sterling, Mar
chioness of Thurston, left England with her lover. Their packet capsized in a storm off Calais. Everyone aboard went down with the ship.” He turned and walked to the window, his gait stiff.

Dane looked between them. “So while it may be exceedingly improbable—and most incredible!—it is indeed possible that Daphne Sterling may have survived. But if so, where has she been all this time?”

Quiet descended. Neither Sebastian, Justin, nor Julianna said a word.

“She said she was going to the Continent,” Se
bastian said in an odd voice. “Paris. Venice. She said the weather would be lovely.”

Justin pivoted. “What! Sebastian? How do you know?”

“Because I saw her leave. I saw her get into the carriage and leave Thurston Hall—the both of them. She and her lover.”

Both of his siblings stared at him in shock.

“I know,” Sebastian said quietly. “I was ten, wasn’t I? She and Father quarreled so bitterly that night! I knew he would have been angry if he knew I’d seen her. At
her
. At me. Then came the news that she had died.” He paused. “No one else knows but Devon.”

Julianna was still stunned. For years, years he had kept the secret locked tight inside him. Her heart went out to him. It hadn’t been easy for any of them, growing up with the scandal wrought by their mother’s abandonment. Their father’s harshness. That night had changed all of their lives . . . perhaps it had changed them all!

But never had she guessed that Sebastian had been there. That he had witnessed his mother walk away—walk from his life and never return. No child should have had to bear such a thing. Oh, how it must have hurt!

And how brave he had been. “Sebastian,” she
whispered. Before she knew it, she was at his side.

“Don’t look at me like that, Jules. It’s all right. Really it is.”

He gave her a quick hug, then drew back. Ju
lianna smiled mistily. Her gaze slid to Justin, who watched them very gravely. He managed a sem
blance of a smile, but his expression was drawn, his posture wooden.

Julianna and Sebastian exchanged a troubled look, both aware of his strain.

“The man with her that night,” Dane said. “Her companion. Who was he?”

Sebastian shook his head. “I have no idea. We were children. Do such things really matter in a child’s world?”

True enough, Dane reflected soberly.

Justin had been strangely quiet. “Suppose she is alive,” he said suddenly. “Suppose she
is
here in London. It’s not just the question of where she’s been all these years. Why has she suddenly returned? Why now?”

“A very good question.” Dane advanced the thought. “Not only that, but who was she with last night?”

They all looked at each other.

It was Julianna who voiced the thought fore
most in everyone’s minds. “The man with her last night. Do you think he was her lover? The man she left with all those years ago?”

***

Julianna accompanied Sebastian and Justin to the entrance hall a short while later. Dane stood just to her right, near the vase of flowers on the table.

Sebastian turned to him and extended a hand. “It’s good of you to lend your assistance.” He en
gaged his eyes directly. “May I ask how it is you’re acquainted with my sister?”

A slow smile crept across Dane’s lips. “Cer
tainly,” he answered mildly. “I intend to marry her someday. Preferably soon.”

Julianna gasped.

Sebastian arched a brow. “You might have told us, Jules.”

“I gather,” Justin added, “this comes as news to her.”

“No,” Dane said softly.

Sebastian hadn’t missed the mutinous flare in Julianna’s eyes either. “Ah,” he said smoothly. “A source of ongoing debate then?”

The pair in question spoke at the same instant.

“Yes!” said she.

“No,” said he.

“I see.” Sebastian nodded, as if in perfect un
derstanding.

Dane’s smile widened. “She has yet to become accustomed to the idea,” he supplied. Catching her fingers, he carried them to his lips.

“So noted,” Justin observed dryly.

Mrs. MacArthur appeared with their canes. She opened the door.

“Well,” Sebastian murmured, when they strode into the sunlight, “this has been a day of revelation, has it not?” He glanced at Justin. “What is your opinion of Granville?”

“A most confident chap.”

“Yes, he is that, isn’t he?” Sebastian looked back at the house. “And when we left, I noticed something different about Julianna. When she spoke to him, the sunshine was back in her voice.”

“Is that what it was? I’d have called it some
thing else entirely,” Justin said with a low chuckle. “But you’re right. Her spark is back. That alone would endear him to both of us.”

“Indeed. I don’t believe we should interfere, Justin.”

“No,” he agreed. “Our sister has a mind of her own.”

Sebastian glanced at him. “Shall we walk for a while?”

“I could certainly use a brandy.”

“Capital idea. The club then.”

Once they were seated inside White’s, Justin glanced over at Sebastian. “So,” he said. “Do you think it’s true? Do you think Julianna saw Mother last night?”

Sebastian could be no less than honest. “Damned if I know.”

“I think she did. Sebastian, I feel the same as Julianna. I have this queer feeling that it
was
.”

Sebastian sipped his whisky and eyed his brother. “Are you all right?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Justin paused, his brandy halfway to his mouth.

“No reason, other than it
was
quite a blow to hear what Julianna had to say, wasn’t it?”

“No. Not a blow. A shock, to be sure. It doesn’t hurt to think of her like it once did. Until I married Arabella, I believed it was a curse to look like her. For so many years I was convinced I was
like
her.”

“As if it’s one’s outward appearance that makes a man—or woman,” Sebastian said with a quirk of his brow.

Justin smiled crookedly. “Yes, yes, I know. But it took my wife to show me that I wasn’t.”

Sebastian was puzzled. “What then? Surely you cannot doubt yourself again?”

“Lord, no!” Justin flexed his shoulders. “I’m just not sure I want to know if it’s her,” he admit
ted. “And yet I . . .”

He stopped short. Something flickered in his green eyes. “What’s troubling you, Justin?”

Justin’s throat worked as he swallowed the brew in his glass. “It’s nothing. Really.”

They moved on to their families. Sebastian mentioned how Devon seemed to understand
perfectly their twins’ babble, while it was totally beyond him. Justin laughed as he relayed how his daughter had wet his knee before his arrival at Julianna’s.

No more was said of their mother, for he knew his brother well. If Justin was inclined to confide in him, he would, in his own good time. If not, there was nothing he would say or do that would change his mind.

Once the front door was closed and Julianna had bidden her brothers good-bye, she swung around, her lovely little mouth pinched tight.

Dane had meandered back into the sitting room. “What?” he murmured.

“Dane Quincy Granville—”

“Kitten,” he drawled, “you sound remarkably like my mother and my sisters when they sought to give me a scolding.”

“And I can well imagine the occasions were many when it was necessary to do so!”

“Oh, but I was an angel.”

“You?” She marched across and prodded his chest with a finger. “Dane, how could you say such a thing? I haven’t agreed to marry you, and you know it!”

“Well, I knew that
you
certainly weren’t about to tell them. Besides, I sought to lighten the mo
ment. The three of you looked as if you needed it.

And in my defense, I restrained myself. I merely stated we would marry someday. I could have said you were my betrothed.”

“Oh,” she countered sweetly, “but I am not. Why, I should have told them I shot you!”

“I should advise saving that particular bit of information for later, kitten.”

“You are maddening!” She turned, stepping away to stare through the paned glass at the trees outside.

Maddening, was he? She hadn’t said she
wouldn’t
marry him, and he couldn’t help but be rife with satisfaction. He wasn’t sure why, but just moments ago, something had come to him in a rush. It wasn’t just that she was wary after Thomas. What was it she had told him yesterday?

I want a husband who will put me above all else.

Seeing her with Sebastian and Justin—hearing them—he suddenly understood so very much. He suddenly understood
her
as he hadn’t before. It wasn’t so difficult to see. She wanted stability. She wanted what had never been hers as a child. She wanted what she and Sebastian and Justin had not had as children—a mother and father who stood together and fast. Who were there when they wept and when they laughed. Her brothers had found love already.

And now it was Julianna’s turn.

Stepping up behind her, he brushed aside curl
ing wisps of baby-fine curls and kissed her nape. His large hands closed around her narrow shoul
ders. She didn’t resist as he turned her.

“Are you still angry, kitten?”
“It’s difficult to be angry with you.”
He couldn’t help but laugh at her grudging ad

mission. “Really?” Lightly, he traced the two tiny lines etched between her brows. “Then why do you frown so?”

She hesitated.
“Your mother?” he guessed.
“Yes,” she admitted. “I must thank you for be

ing here, Dane,” she said, her voice very low. “Your presence has made it much easier to bear.” Her words pleased him. “But what?” he asked. “There is something else on your mind, kitten.”

“There is,” she said slowly. “You asked about the man she was with last night. My mind has been so filled with her, I’ve scarcely given him any thought. But I recall that when he walked by, there was something different about him. That’s what drew my attention.”

“What was different about him?”
Julianna took a breath. “He wore a patch over

one eye.” Dane froze.
“What?
” “It was the side closest to me. Yes, I’m quite

certain of it.” She nodded. “There was a patch over his right eye.”

ranville. We’ve not seen much of your face of late.” Nigel Roxbury didn’t sound surprised as Dane walked through the door of his office.

Good God! Surely Roxbury didn’t know! The comment was enough to nearly make Dane stop short. He caught himself just in time.

He forced himself to relax. “Yes,” he replied, “and more’s the pity.” He lowered himself to the chair across from Roxbury.

Dane had gone straight from Julianna’s to the Home Office. Roxbury’s quarters there were cramped, but the top of his desk was like the man himself—scrupulous, neat, and ordered. Rox
bury had been his superior on more than a few
endeavors. He’d never particularly liked the man, but that was immaterial.

“What, my lord, do you grow bored since we’ve not engaged your services for a while?” Roxbury looked across at him—with his left eye. His
left
eye.

Dane crossed his ankles and offered a faint smile. “I journeyed to the country for a time.”

“An uneventful journey, I presume? With this wretch the Magpie haunting the roads one never knows, does one?”

“I have faith that the robin redbreasts will catch him soon. If not, perhaps we can put a man on it.”

“Do you offer yourself?”

“It is a task I would undertake with the utmost enthusiasm, sir.” Dane didn’t bat an eye.

“Well, you have certainly proved useful in the past. And if you are anxious to put your talents to use again, I shall speak to Mr. Casey.”

“I would appreciate it, sir.” Reaching out, Dane picked up an Egyptian statuette on the cor
ner of Roxbury’s desk. “An interesting piece,” he murmured.

“A reproduction. Remarkably well done, isn’t it?” Roxbury reached for a stack of papers, a sign of dismissal.

Dane replaced the statuette and got to his feet. “By the way, sir, I believe I saw you outside The
atre Royal last night.”

Roxbury looked up sharply.

“Your hack departed before I could reach you. A pity. I should have enjoyed meeting your wife.”

“Oh, not my wife,” Roxbury said immedi
ately. “My sister.”

“Ah. Forgive me.”

“No harm done. I shall be in touch, Granville.”

Dane closed the door to Phillip’s office with the flat of his hand and swung around to face his friend.

“I need a favor,” he said without preamble. “A personal favor. And you cannot reveal what I am about to tell you to anyone. Not a soul, Phillip.”

The corners of Phillip’s eyes crinkled as he smiled. “Yes, well, old man, that’s the nature of the business, isn’t it?”

Dane’s mind was still whirling as he hauled a chair next to Phillip’s desk. Very quietly he re
layed all he had learned about the Sterling family.

When he’d finished, Phillip raised his brows. “He did not deny he was at the theater?”

“That is correct.”

“Then it was he,” Phillip said slowly. “As for the veiled woman Julianna saw last night—or thought she saw—you must admit, Dane, if she is their mother, it’s strange for all those years to pass with no word of her.”

“Yes, I know, Phillip. I know. But I believe her. And Roxbury was so glib. Almost
too
glib. Yet
what possible reason could he have for lying? Un
less it’s true. Unless he has something to hide.”

“An interesting consideration. So let us pre
sume the woman who accompanied him last night is the Sterling siblings’ mother. Let us pre
sume that she
is
Daphne Sterling. That means—”

“That Nigel Roxbury lied,” Dane concluded quietly, “and that woman could not possibly be his sister. Julianna would surely have known her uncle, wouldn’t she?”

“Point conceded,” Phillip acknowledged.

“How much do you know of him?”

“I’ve worked with him as much as you. He’s been involved with the Home Office for some twenty years, I believe. To my knowledge his record is unblemished. But then, I wouldn’t ex
pect otherwise.” He sent Dane a keen glance. “You say neither Julianna nor her brothers are aware of the identity of the man who was with their mother the night she left England?”

Dane nodded. “My first thought was that Nigel Roxbury was the man with whom she ran off that night. That perhaps they both survived—”

“Unlikely that it was Nigel,” Phillip said thoughtfully. “He would have been some years younger than she.”

“Yes.” Dane’s expression was grim. “I’d thought of that. At any rate, they were all chil
dren when it happened. It was a door to their past no one cared to open. That’s why I cannot risk
being too openly blatant about delving into this affair. I would spare the Sterlings any further scandal.”

“It would take some time, but I might be able to find out the name of the ship she took across the Channel, the passengers who died. Though the fact that it’s been so many years will make it more difficult,” Phillip admitted. “But I’ll see what I can discover.”

Whistling a merry tune, Phillip strode across the floor of the coffeehouse later that afternoon. Dane sat in the corner, scowling rather fiercely into a whisky.

Phillip slid into the opposite chair. “Why so glum?”

“Not glum. Thoughtful.”

“Ah,” he said lightly. “I’m glad you made the distinction.”

Dane signaled for a whisky to be brought to his friend.

“As a matter of course, I have more to add to the brew,” he said.

Dane eyed him. “Meaning?”

“Meaning,” Phillip stated very deliberately, “it is just as you said.”

“I’ve said many things, man, and I can hardly recall all of them.”

“Perhaps you will recall an assumption you made just this afternoon.”

Dane sucked in a breath. “Phillip—”

Phillip leaned forward. “You were right, Dane. Roxbury doesn’t have a sister.”

Dane slid to attention.

“He had a brother.”

Dane narrowed in on that one word. “
Had?
” he echoed.

“Indeed. James Roxbury died some twenty-four years ago. Perished”—Phillip paused for effect—“at sea.”

“Sweet Lord. How the devil did you learn that?”

“A simple matter, really. Something kept nag
ging me after you left. So I managed to take a look at Roxbury’s record of service. Born and bred in Westminster, he was. And my examina
tion of the parish records proved most enlighten
ing, wouldn’t you say?”

Dane’s laugh dissolved the severity of his ex
pression. “My word, Phillip, you amaze me.”

His smile died away, and he mulled for a mo
ment. “It’s odd. Damned odd. But now we know for certain that he lied. And if Roxbury lied about this, what if he has lied about other things? What if there are other things he wishes to conceal?”

“I agree, Dane. He warrants further scrutiny. I only wish I’d done it earlier.”

“So,” Dane said slowly, “in regard to the counterfeit scheme, you’ve not yet looked at Roxbury?”

Phillip shook his head. “No. I have been search
ing for someone whose circumstances appear to have bettered. A man whose dress is not the same. Perhaps someone who has made what appears to be an extravagant purchase beyond his means.”

“Of course. Perhaps I should proceed on an
other tack. A methodical if highly unscientific manner.”

“And what might that be?”

Dane hid a smile. “By order of the alphabet?”

Phillip blinked, then laughed. “Given the fact that there are no obvious suspects and
everyone
is suspect, that might not be such a bad idea,” Phillip said dryly. “And if we were to find him that way, that would indeed be amazing, wouldn’t it?”

The last rays of afternoon sunlight flickered off the wood-paneled wall as Roxbury poured a glass of wine for his visitor.

“I’m glad I found you at home,” she said.

She laced her fingertips together in her lap. His gaze lingered on the movement.

“You appear nervous,
madame
,” he observed. “And you are empty-handed. Have you no pret
ties for me? It is most ungracious of you. Particu
larly after our night out at the theater.”

“I have a message for you from François. There will be no more of your ‘pretties’ until he receives his gold.”

Roxbury’s lips continued to smile. His eyes did not. “As imperious as the little Corsican upstart, isn’t he?”

“He is a businessman,” she said coolly. “He merely tends his affairs.”

His hand fisted and unfisted. “The Magpie plagues me,” he muttered. “He steals from me. I could almost believe he
knows
.”

Her chin lifted. “Our liaison. I would end it now.”

“Our liaison will continue until I have what I want. Do not tell me when and where it will end.”

“I want no part of this.”

“My dear, you are already a part of this.”

“No. I want out.”

“I deal harshly with those who cross me.”

“I am not afraid of you.”

“Perhaps you should be.”

“What do you mean?”

Oh so pleasantly he spoke. “The man who as
sisted me greatly in my endeavor...His wife in
terfered. She dared to taunt me that she would have told tales on me! But the lady ...Well, her husband had served his purpose. And let us just say she’ll be telling no tales from the grave. Nor will her husband.”

His eyes delved into hers. His laugh was cruel. “Yes, I see you take my meaning,
madame
.”

She pressed her lips together, watching as he lifted a sack from behind his desk and dropped it
on top. Opening a drawer, he rummaged around inside.

The very next instant, a long, sinister-looking pistol lay next to the sack.

He glanced at her. “Go back to your hotel. Send a message to François that I will have his gold. I will be back in London in two days.” He strode to the door and flung it wide.

“Where are you going?” Somehow, she man
aged to conceal her shock.

A hard light shone in his eyes as he grabbed the sack. “Why, just as you say,
madame
. I’m off to Bath. A man must tend his affairs, mustn’t he?”

It was late in the day, and the building was nearly

empty as Phillip made his way back to his office.

A thin-faced young clerk stepped forward.

“There’s a woman waiting for you in your of
fice, sir,” said the clerk.

Phillip frowned. “A woman?”

“Yes, sir. She said she had information we’d be very interested in hearing. She refused to tell me what it was. Insisted she had to speak to an agent.”

He frowned. “Thank you.”

He stepped inside. He saw her immediately, though she was hidden in the shadows. She was incredibly petite, immaculately dressed. Her spine primly erect, she perched just so on the
edge of the chair, her gloved hands arranged deli
cately on the reticule in her lap, her tiny feet shod in kid boots tucked beneath the chair. Everything about her spoke of a certain elegant flair.