Bronwyn Scott's Sexy Regency Bundle (253 page)

Scott

mean to see you both happy. She doesn't have to choose you unless she wants to. It's a bitter pill to swallow, to know all that happened, happened for me. I was the heir. You can't sugarcoat the bottom line, Val. I was the one who benefited most from Father's choices. It's been a hard discovery, finding out that your sister and best friend gave up their personal happiness for your benefit.'

'She doesn't know,' Valerian put in, foolishly thinking for a minute that might ease Beldon's guilt.

'Ah,
but she will. To win her, you'll have to tell her everything,' Beldon said. 'Making a clean breast of it will probably make your road with her easier to travel.'

Valerian scuffed his foot in the dirt in mild protest.

'Since when did the shortest distance between two points become confession?'

'Since confession was good for the soul,' Beldon laughed, stomping the mud from his boots as they mounted the terraced steps of Roseland.

Beldon was right. He did have to tell Philippa.

He'd seen how painful the story had been for Beldon and he did not relish going through it again with Philippa. But it would go a long way in explaining things to her.

However, Valerian was acutely aware that it might not go far enough. He acknowledged what Beldon had not yet realised. He'd led a very different life the nine years he'd been gone and he had a reputation to contend with from that life. Mr had made that blatantly clear at the dinner table. But there were other 'pigeons' too from his time abroad that would come home to roost, pigeons

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far more damaging than his wenching. It would only be a matter of time before they migrated north.

Reputations could be damnable things, Lucien Canton reflected, rereading with ill-concealed glee the extensive missive that had

in the mails

from London. He splayed his hands wide on the smooth surface of the cherrywood desk that denoted his power at the Provincial Bank of

He came in daily to read the post and the week-old Times financial section and to conduct private business for the bank. The local squires and gentry found it comforting to apply directly to him for a loan. It lent an air of status to know that they were able to do business with a viscount's son. Lucien traded on that cachet liberally and often.

knocked and stuck his head in Lucien's elegant, private office. 'Good news, I hope?' he asked solicitously.

Lucien smiled and said only, 'Yes, very good.

Thank you for

He'd learned the power of in-

formation was a highly prized commodity. He had no intention of letting anyone, especially not that status-tailcoat-riding,

self- fashioned

banker, Danforth, in on his latest on dit. Technically, it wasn't an 'on dit' yet, but it would be when he chose to let it out. And really, the gossip would be the aftermath. All the action would have occurred already.

It was all Lucien could do to refrain from rubbing his hands together in unabashed joy. He re-read it a third time. It seemed the Viscount St Just had par-

Scott

ticipated in an ill-fated rebellion in a town called Negush.

been a massacre, the town had

burned. Women and children had died brutally. St Just had failed to quell the rebellion before such atrocities occurred.

Lucien had no idea where Negush was and since he had no mining interests there, he cared very little what part of the map it was on. But St Just would care a great deal if such

got out. If the tale was

told in just the right way, St Just could be made out to be a murderer of innocents, which he likely was, even indirectly. If Lucien spun the tale enough, he could have the
ton
thinking St Just capable of treason for his part in the uprising. At the very best, St Just would hang. Not even peers were immune from treason, especially not if his father and cronies at Whitehall decided to make an example of them. At the least, the man would hang in a different way. The
ton
would not countenance a man capable of such actions either from his own negligence in quelling the rebellion before it got out of hand or from actual participation in such meaningless bloodshed.

St Just would pay and

would come

running to him. Really, Lucien thought, he couldn't lose.

would shun Valerian and congratulate

herself on avoiding being taken in by such a monster, or, if she had fallen for the man, she'd come running, willing to bargain all she had for his clearance.

Lucien would be in a prime position to offer that protection, to call off his father's watchdogs.

Maybe he would look up Negush on the map after all, since apparently he owed the success of his

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The Viscount Claims His Bride

future to the little speck. Lucien waked to the small sideboard and poured himself a brandy and toasted his imminent success.