Johanna Lindsey (32 page)

“Perhaps because you forgot to tell her that you wanted to marry her? Or am I reading this wrong? Did you tell her how you feel about her?”

Sebastian downed the remaining brandy in his glass. “You’ve made some good points, John. I’ll give it more thought.”

“By the by,” John added curiously, “what did Denton have to say?”

“When?”

“In his letter.”

“What letter?”

John rolled his eyes. “I should have known you were too deep in thought earlier to hear me tell you I put his letter in your room. It arrived this morning.” Curious, Sebastian went to fetch the letter but was disappointed when he read it. He returned to the kitchen to tell John in disgust, “Cryptic as usual. I don’t know what his problem is these days, that he has to skirt every issue.”

“Why did he write to you, then?”

Sebastian snorted. “To tell me that if I want answers, I might find them with Juliette’s brother.

Why the deuce doesn’t Denton just give me the answers?”

“Perhaps he doesn’t know what they are,” John offered.

That thought gave Sebastian pause. He reread the letter:

Seb,

I didn’t think you’d leave this quickly. I needed time to readjust my thinking. Juliette
had me convinced for the longest time that you were the culprit. It quite removed the
halo I’d placed over your head.

I should have told you this sooner, that yes, Juliette has been responsible for father’s
accidents. Although he suspects nothing and swears they were just accidents, and she
hasn’t stated clearly that she’s caused them, she’s implied it, and has promised worse
will happen if I divorce her. But before that, there were other things she held over my
head.

God, even now I don’t have the guts to tell you. But her brother, Pierre Poussin, might
know. She had him tossed in prison on some charge she fabricated, because he was
going to stop her. At least, she throws it in my face that she got rid of him for me.

Maybe he doesn’t even exist. Maybe everything she says is just lies. God, I just don’t
know.

“Actually, he says as much,” Sebastian remarked, handing the letter to John. “That he doesn’t know. Although it sounds like Juliette has him convinced that she is causing my father’s accidents, which I

’m not sure is the case a’tall. She’s using them as a means to control Denton, though.” John looked up from the letter. “Ah, Juliette’s brother in prison…her remark the gardener overheard at Edgewood makes more sense now.”

“That she got rid of her brother for him, and got rid of me for him? For him? Hmm, I just may have to beat my brother senseless and rearrange his guts for him, since he seems to have lost them.” John chuckled, but only for a moment. “It does sound like Lord Denton is or was involved in more than we imagined. Though it also sounds like he wants it out in the open, or he wouldn’t be suggesting that you find Juliette’s brother in order to get some answers. Does he say which prison?” Sebastian shook his head. “He probably doesn’t know that either.”

“Well, this all began in Paris where they met Juliette, so we can perhaps assume it is one near there. You are going to pay him a visit?”

Sebastian frowned. “You know, if you think about it, Juliette’s name comes up too often in relation to strange events—the duel, Maggie’s sister’s abrupt departure from White Oaks, my father’s accidents. This is one hell of a convoluted scheme, whatever it is, much bigger than we could have guessed.”

“Cause and effect?” John suggested thoughtfully. “What might have started as a single plot could have spiraled into many more.”

“Could it be that simple?”

John chuckled. “Probably not, but—”

The caretaker opened the door to announce in high annoyance, “A visitor, monsieur. I tell him to come tomorrow at a better hour, but no, he will not go away. He says he knows you, but he will not give his name.”

“Where is he?” Sebastian asked.

Maurice thumbed his hand behind him. “Out front. It is amazing how many people will honor those outer steps as if a door still stood there blocking their way. Is that stew I smell?”

“Help yourself to a bowl, Maurice. I’ll see to our visitor.”

“Want me to go?” John asked. “Half of them say they know you just to gain access to you.”

“Which will make it easier for me to send him on his way. Is there light out there, Maurice, or should I take some with me?”

“My lantern. I leave it on the steps.”

Sebastian nodded and left the kitchen. He hadn’t needed to be concerned with light. It was a clear night. Moonlight bathed the debris in the ruined old great hall he had to pass through. And the glow of Maurice’s lantern was a beacon that outlined the broken stone arch that was all that was left of what used to be the entrance to the keep.

The chap stood on the steps there, his back to the arch, staring out at the moonlit countryside as he waited. He wore a tiered greatcoat for warmth, a thick scarf about his neck, and a hat pulled down low.

And then, apparently hearing Sebastian’s footsteps behind him, he turned. And Sebastian did recognize him. He just didn’t believe what he was seeing.

“I’m real,” he assured Sebastian. “Flesh and bone.”

“And blood? Let’s just make sure you aren’t vapor, shall we?” Sebastian said as he slammed his fist into Giles’s face.

S
EBASTIAN REACHED FOR THE BOTTLE of brandy as he took his seat again at the kitchen table. He ignored the glass now, drinking straight from the bottle. He didn’t want to think. He didn’t want to know.

He was so close to losing all semblance of humanity that the slightest thing could tip the scale.

John was staring curiously at the body Sebastian had carted in over his shoulder and dumped on the floor. “Should I wake him?” John asked.

“If you want to see me commit murder, go ahead.”

John glanced at Sebastian in surprise. “Good Lord, what did the fellow do?”

“Turn him over.”

John did and then stepped back with a gasp. “Oh, I say, he looks just like, well, that is, the likeness is uncanny, isn’t it? Didn’t know Lord Wemyss senior had another son tucked away. A bastard?”

“No.”

“But the resemblance is remarkable!”

“Because it’s not a resemblance.”

“But—” John didn’t finish because he came to the only conclusion left. He shook his head firmly.

“I don’t believe in ghosts.”

“Neither do I.”

“But you killed him!”

“Yes, and I’m going to kill him again as soon as he wakes up.”

“I’ll help you,” John said with some ire of his own. “When I think of all the repercussions due to his death, and for him not to be dead, well, it quite boggles my mind. By the by, what’d you do to him?”

“He was always a great shot, but he never could take a punch,” Sebastian said in disgust. “A bloody feather could knock him over.”

“That isn’t quite true,” Giles said as he sat up and fingered his jaw. “I can withstand punches well enough, just not from you. And you’re going to let me explain before you kill me, right?”

“Probably not. An explanation eleven years ago would have been welcome. Now there is nothing that can justify—”

“They were going to kill him!” Giles cut in. “When he showed up in Paris, he was already running for his life.”

“Who?”

“My father. God, Seb, I had no idea of what he’d done to us with his damn gambling. He paupered us! There was nothing left.”

“Bloody hell,” Sebastian snarled. “Start from the beginning!” Giles nodded and rose clumsily to his feet. The years hadn’t treated him well. His brown hair was dulled, riddled with gray. His face was nearly like leather parchment, lined and deeply tanned. There was little semblance of the aristocrat left in him.

“May I sit down?” Giles asked, indicating the extra chairs at the table.

“You’d be pushing it to get that close to me.”

“Quite right,” Giles agreed and began to pace. “So where shall I start?”

“That’s been established.”

“Very well. We were in Paris, Denton and I, rounding up the last week of our tour. He hadn’t enjoyed the trip, spent most of it foxed. Having reached his majority, the fact that he was a second son was making him miserable.”

“If you’re going to tell me that my brother was behind this—”

“No,” Giles said quickly.

“Then stick to the facts, which is all I’m willing to hear.”

“We were having dinner at our hotel. The Poussins, brother and sister, were eating at the next table and struck up a conversation with us. We were asked to join them. Nothing out of the ordinary.”

“What were they doing there?”

“Merely having dinner. They lived in the city nearby, often ate at that hotel. The brother, Pierre, didn’t stay long but didn’t insist his sister leave with him, either, which made me suspect that while they were portraying themselves as French aristocrats, and certainly dressed the part, they really weren’t. But anyway, as soon as her brother left, Juliette started flirting outrageously with Denton. He was too deep in his cups to really notice, but they ended up going up to his room together.”

“Why didn’t you stop them?”

“Whatever for? I concluded by then that she was a high-class whore who would cost him a few pounds instead of a few coppers. He’d been having such a lousy time on the trip, I thought he might enjoy the diversion. She was beautiful. She spent the night with him.”

“And yet ends up married to you? You might want to explain that quickly before my fist finds your face again.”

“I never married her. But do you want this out of order, or shall I continue?” Sebastian gritted his teeth. “Go on.”

“The next day my father showed up. He was waiting in my room when I returned to dress for dinner. I was delighted to see him until I got a good look at him. He was distraught. Good Lord, I could almost smell his fear. I was alarmed, of course. I’d never seen him like that before.”

“Gambling away one’s inheritance will do that to people,” Sebastian concluded from Giles’s earlier remark.

“I wish it had only been that, but it wasn’t. He’d not only lost his inheritance, and mine for that matter, but he’d continued to gamble in order to recoup his losses!”

“With what?”

“Borrowed money, of course. He’d been borrowing from your father for years, apparently. The debt got so high he’d even been obliged to turn over the deed to our home to Douglas. But even someone as generous as your father had to draw the line somewhere and refused to give him any more money. My father resented that. I could hear it in his tone when he was explaining all this to me.”

“‘Douglas had everything,’ my father said. ‘A better title, a wonderful mother who doted on him, more money than he’d ever need.’ My father didn’t understand why Douglas had to cut him off.”

“You said Cecil was running for his life?”

Giles sighed. “He ended up borrowing money from the wrong sort of people in London, the sort that won’t tolerate outstanding debts. They’d given him a date to pay up or pay with his life. He couldn’t meet the deadline.”

“And you had no prior warning of any of this?”

“None, but I didn’t really see my father often in those last couple of years. And he did rage at me once for spending too much money, which was a shock. But I didn’t take him seriously. He was foxed at the time. You see, he was trying, desperately, to continue our lives as if nothing had changed. Good Lord, he even let me take the tour, when there was no money to pay for it. Your father paid for it, by the way, and without being asked. He might have refused to support my father’s gambling anymore, but they were still friends—at least he thought they were.”

“What are you implying?”

“I think my father’s resentment against Douglas had turned to hatred by then. How else could he come up with such an outlandish scheme to use against Douglas in order to get himself out of debt?”

“Your supposed death?” Sebastian guessed. “How the devil was that going to get him out of debt?”

“Guilt. He was certain that Douglas would be so overcome with it that he would cancel their debt and even make further recompense. And he was right. Your father did exactly that.”

“And disowned me,” Sebastian snarled as he stood up.

Giles put up a restraining hand. “Wait, that was never part of it. I didn’t even know that had happened until years later. It was certainly never mentioned as a possible outcome. And I was in shock the day my father confessed all this and told me the solution he’d come up with. You don’t think I wanted to participate in my own death, do you?”

“You don’t want to know what I think right now,” Sebastian said, but he resumed his seat.

“Continue.”

“My father really was running for his life. He didn’t come to Paris with his plan already thought-out. He’d arrived a few days earlier and apparently had a run-in with Juliette. She’d tried some scam on him for money, which didn’t work. He’d laughed in her face because he had no money. But then he saw her having dinner with Denton and me and how she was flirting with Denton. He figured she was setting Denton up for a scam as well, and that’s when the plan came to him, to use her to manipulate you and me into a duel.”

“So he’d already talked to Juliette before he came to see you?” Sebastian asked.

“Yes.”

“And how did he get her to go along with his ‘plan’?”

“He threatened to have her tossed in jail if she didn’t comply. But later, when I learned she married Denton, I realized your brother was the real reason she got involved.”

“Let’s leave my brother out of this for the moment,” Sebastian said. “So the duel and the reason for it—my having slept with your ‘wife’—all of it was planned ahead of time?”