Forever Your Earl (13 page)

Marwood stood beside Daniel's chair. Unsurprisingly, he, too, carried the issue of Miss Hawke's paper.

“Interesting article,” he continued. “I wonder if anyone knows that you're Lord Rakewell.”

“Keep your voice to a dull roar, if you please,” Daniel snapped.

“And there is no Cousin Ned,” Marwood said.

Daniel glanced around to ensure no one was listening. “If there is, it would be a great shock to my aunt and uncle.”

“Why?”

“Because their sons are named Jasper, Edmund, and William,” answered Daniel.

Marwood shook his head. “Why would you allow a journalist into your life?” he pressed.

It was impossible for Daniel to tell even Marwood the truth, though they were friends. “Maybe our continual round of debauchery has led to ennui,” he said instead. “Maybe it seemed entertaining.”

But Marwood frowned. “I suspect an ulterior motive.”

“You've known me almost my whole life, Marwood,” Daniel said. “Have you ever observed me engaged in anything that doesn't give me some gratification or profit? Even just a momentary amusement.”

“It's precisely because I know you that I'm wary.” He pointed a finger at Daniel. “You're up to something, and if you won't tell me what, I might just have to seek out the answer myself.”

Panic iced along the back of Daniel's neck. As much as Marwood was a dissolute rake, like Daniel himself, his marks at university had been excellent, and he possessed a keen and discerning intellect, for all his mad carousing. Though distracting Miss Hawke was Daniel's main intent, if Marwood also looked too deeply into Daniel's true activities, it could be disastrous. The man could not hold a secret for long. He'd tell someone, and that someone would tell someone, and soon Society would be like a pack of vultures pulling apart the sprawled body of Jonathan's family's reputation.

“As you like.” He waved his hand in bored disinterest. “Chase after dust motes, if it amuses you.”

Marwood stared at him for a moment before shaking his head. “Shall I see you at the theater tonight? There's a new play by the mysterious Mrs. Delamere, and she's often quite diverting.”

“Perhaps I'll see the first few acts,” Daniel answered, “but I've other entertainments scheduled for later tonight.”

“Something with your female scribbler, perhaps?” His friend lifted a brow.

Daniel picked up his paper. “Have a dreadful afternoon, Marwood.”

“Have an excruciating day, Ashford.” With that, the other man strode off, whistling a tune from the latest theatrical sensation. A devotee of the theater, was Marwood. He hadn't missed a single burletta by the enigmatic Mrs. Delamere since first her subversive work began appearing on the stage.

Once Marwood was gone, Daniel laid the paper on his lap and gazed abstractedly into space. He ought to have considered that someone in his social circle would deduce he was Lord Rakewell, and thus question why he'd permit the liberty of a journalist acting as his shadow. But most of them would be satisfied with the same explanation he'd given Marwood. It was just his damn bad luck that Marwood could puzzle things out so well.

He'd have to worry about Marwood later. Right now, he had an appointment to keep.

A footman had his carriage ready and waiting as he strode from the club. He called up the direction to the driver, and they were off. He needed to get his mind focused. Stop his thoughts of Miss Hawke. Block out his concern over Marwood's suspicion. But both were difficult as the coach drove on toward Mayfair.

It stopped outside a town house on Dorset Square. He alit and mounted the stairs leading to the front door. Before he could even knock, the door opened, and a somber butler greeted him.

“Miss Lawson awaits you in the Green Salon, my lord,” the butler intoned.

After handing over his hat and walking stick, Daniel went down the hallway. No one needed to show him the way, and he was as good as a member of the family, anyhow. Though the home was furnished in the latest style, and everything was scrupulously clean, tension and heaviness lay over the enameled clocks and Gainsboroughs, as if the family's worry and despair had its own barometric pressure, weighing down everything within the house. He pushed through it as he walked, and felt it trying to drag down his own shoulders. The responsibility had fallen to him, and he was the only way to get this home—­and its inhabitants—­to its former condition. He was the key.

He stopped outside the doors to the Green Salon, and, after knocking and receiving permission to enter, went inside.

A young blonde girl in mourning black sat upon the striped sofa, her hands knotted in her lap. Catherine Lawson was pale in the afternoon light, but then, these past weeks had slowly leeched the color from her cheeks, as if loss and fear had bled the life out of her. Now she looked ashen, and far older than a girl of seventeen ought to appear.

She didn't speak when he entered, only nodded when he bowed.

They always had their meeting in the Green Salon, since it was at the back of the house, and sheltered from the other rooms. As if what they discussed couldn't be heard or borne anywhere else.

She waved him toward the chair opposite the sofa, and he sat. Silently, she offered him a cup of tea from the tray set up on the small table, but he held up a hand, declining the beverage.

Finally, she spoke. “Any sign of him?”

Regretfully, he shook his head. “He wasn't at Donnegan's.”

Her fingers unknotted, and she rubbed wearily at her eyes. “That's one of the most infamous gaming hells of London. Surely he had to be there.”

“What can I say? I looked for Jonathan, but he wasn't anywhere to be found.”

“Perhaps . . .” She gulped. “Perhaps he was upstairs with . . . with one of those women.”

“I was there all night, my dear.” He tried to make his voice as gentle as possible. “There wasn't a sign of your brother.”

Abruptly, she stood and walked to a demilune table. A newspaper lay folded across the top of the table, and he had a sudden feeling he knew exactly which paper it was.

“You might have been too busy to notice,” she said tartly, picking up the newspaper, “keeping company with that female journalist.”

Ah, he expected this would be coming. “I'm capable of doing several tasks at once. Believe me, I might have been using Miss Hawke as a diversionary tactic, but that didn't stop me in my search.”

Her shoulders sagged. “Forgive me, Ashford.”

He resisted the impulse to go to her and pull her into a fraternal embrace. Catherine might be young, and alone, but she was proud, too. She'd only push him away. It was already difficult enough for her to reach out to him for assistance.

Instead, he poured a cup of tea and walked it to her. She took it, but her hands shook as she sipped at her beverage. She set the cup aside, stood, and looked up at him, her blue eyes so very much like Jonathan's it was eerie. And now her eyes bore the same shadows that her brother's held, but for very different reasons.

“I read an article in the scandal sheet,” she said. “About a certain Lord Rakewell. I couldn't help thinking of the similarities between him and you.”

“You were always a clever girl,” he said.

“But why would you invite such scrutiny?”

“Because of you and Jonathan,” he answered. “To throw the scent off our search for him. I assumed that with the attention on me and my supposedly rakish ways, the journalist wouldn't have a chance to learn what you and I were doing.”

Catherine bowed her head. “Thank you. Whenever I think your kindness must reach a limit, you prove me wrong and are kinder still.”

“You deserve kindness,” he answered softly. “You and Jonathan, both.”

Her mouth twisted. “The world hasn't been so benevolent toward him.”

He carefully set a hand on her shoulder, and it was a measure of her worry and weariness that she didn't shake it off. “It's been my sad experience that those who deserve mercy the most are the ones who are often denied it.”

“Whoever is in charge of making the rules is sorely in need of instruction,” she said bitterly. “I thought that men who served their country in war would return home to glory and peace. But that hasn't been the circumstance with my poor brother.”

“No, I'm afraid it hasn't.”

“So dashed unfair,” she said, tears choking her voice.

Unfair
was a terrible understatement. At school, Jonathan always took the less popular boys under his wing and kept them from being tormented by bullies. But, unlike Daniel, Jonathan was a younger son, and had to make his way in the world. The commission in the army had been purchased for him. Jonathan had been proud of his bright, gleaming uniform, and he'd made an excellent peacetime commander, beloved by his men. But war had broken out, and Jonathan had gone abroad to fight.

Thankfully, he'd survived. And with all his limbs intact, unlike other veterans. But his scars were invisible. Daniel had thought he and Jonathan would resume their friendship where it had left off. In that, Daniel had been proven very wrong. Jonathan had been inattentive, his concentration and memory limited, and his sentences would trail off, unfinished. He'd lose his temper easily, too. At first, he'd just snap an angry retort, but then things had gotten worse. Throwing things. Punching walls. And then laughing wildly as blood had run down his hand.

No one had known what to do. Least of all Jonathan's elder brother and parents. They'd insisted he was fine, just needed a little time to get back into the pattern of civilian life. Even Daniel had believed that what Jonathan needed was time. But the same kind, amicable man was gone, replaced by a mercurial, angry stranger.

A stranger that began to prefer a rougher, seedier crowd.

Jonathan stopped attending assemblies. He didn't go to any of the Season's sanctioned events. He didn't come to White's or any other club, never went to the theater or the races. He took up with a band of miscreants, men who weren't just disreputable but downright criminal. As the second son to a ducal title, such actions were beyond scandalous and bordered on the disgraceful.

And then, he disappeared.

A wave of self-­recrimination flooded Daniel as he stared at the top of Catherine's head. He should have done something sooner. Tried harder to reach out to Jonathan. But it had been so unpleasant being in his company, so frightening, that when Jonathan had stopped talking to him, he'd let his old friend go, missing their friendship but telling himself that Jonathan was a grown man who could make his own decisions. But that had been simple indolence on Daniel's part. The hard truth was that Jonathan had needed help, and Daniel hadn't given it.

No one had. Except Catherine. But she was just a girl, and couldn't hold back the flood of her brother's demons.

It was a bitter measure of Daniel's self-­absorption that he hadn't realized Jonathan had vanished until the news had come down that the heir to the Duke of Holcombe had died of fever.

Daniel had attended the funeral. And Jonathan had been absent from the ceremony. That in itself had caused a small tempest of scandal. Perhaps, Daniel had reasoned, Jonathan had been traveling and was at that moment making his way to join his family in their hour of grief. And accept his new role as heir.

Yet the night of the funeral, Catherine had appeared on his doorstep in the small hours of the morning, her face soaked in tears. She'd pleaded with him for assistance. She'd had nowhere to turn.

He'd given her a brandy, sat her down by the fire. It had taken some time, but eventually he'd learned the truth. And it wasn't a pretty truth. Because it revealed just how much he'd failed his friend.

“It's been nearly a month,” Catherine said now, turning away. “And not once has my brother written me. I caught a glimpse of him once, outside Drury Lane, and he was so changed, I almost thought I was looking at a stranger.”

“You're certain it was Jonathan?” Daniel pressed.

She twisted her hands together and nodded. “You understand how close we are.
Were,
” she corrected herself. “I know him. I doubt anyone else would, though.”

He stared bleakly out the window at the garden in the back. The spring had been a cold one, and summer seemed even more shy in making an appearance. The normally bountiful plant life that Catherine spent so much time cultivating was all but bare twigs and brown grass now. Hard not to see that as a reflection of the fruitlessness of Daniel's current search.

“Damn,” he cursed softly to himself. He hated this feeling of powerlessness. He'd failed Jonathan before, and now he had to
do
something to make everything right.

Going public or to the authorities regarding Jonathan's disappearance was impossible. The disgrace could ruin the entire family, especially Jonathan and Catherine.

Daniel had been combing the city, with and without her, in search of Jonathan. Everything until now had been fruitless, but it was only when he began to read about himself in
The
Hawk's Eye
that he realized how precarious the situation truly was. If someone like Miss Hawke caught wind of what fate had befallen Jonathan—­Daniel shuddered to think of the consequences. Catherine would be completely unmarriageable, her life over before it had begun. And Jonathan . . . Jonathan would be lost entirely. Even his title couldn't shelter him from that kind of scandal.

But Daniel's rakish reputation had its uses. No one questioned his presence in the less respectable parts of town, making him the perfect vehicle for the hunt. He didn't care if it hurt his own reputation. Like Miss Hawke, he had none to speak of, and even so, his gender and title sheltered him from the worst of the harm.

“And now you're consorting with
reporters
.” She shuddered. “I thought the company we encountered along the docks was low.”