Never Deceive a Duke (18 page)

“Oh, it didn’t get that far this time,” Kemble assured him. “Now, do you know what you’ve done to incur Mr. Metcaff’s wrath?”

“Not a damned thing,” snapped Gareth. “He despised me before I got here—because I’m a Jew, if you must know.”

Kemble shrugged and dropped the brass back into his pocket. “Yes, that’s it—in part.”

Gareth looked at him strangely. “Well, what is it in whole, then?”

“Jealousy,” said Kemble matter-of-factly. “Metcaff is the old duke’s by-blow.”

Gareth stared at him. “You don’t say.”

“No,
I
don’t say,” he replied. “Mrs. Musbury says—but it’s taken me two days to winkle it out of her. The duke got one of the upstairs maids with child. Did Mrs. Gottfried never hear
anything
in the way of gossip?”

How the devil had Kemble learned about his grandmother? Gareth dragged a hand through his hair. “No one here spoke to her,” he admitted. “The denizens of Selsdon thought of her as more or less a servant, stuck up at Knollwood to wipe my nose and make me eat my porridge so that they would not have to be troubled with it.”

“Most unfortunate,” said Kemble thoughtfully. “I suppose she did not know about Mrs. Hamm, either. That would be far too recent.”

“Mrs. Hamm?”

“The duke once seduced her,” said Kemble.

“He
seduced
his rector’s wife? Dear God, is nothing sacred?”

“Yes, the duke’s memory—according to that sycophant Lady Ingham!” Kemble laughed. “Mrs. Hamm does not appear to hold him in quite such high regard.”

Gareth grunted and sipped at his brandy. “It makes one wonder if she was just seduced or something worse.”

“Something worse, I collect,” said Kemble a little grimly. “But given the duke’s power, there wasn’t a damned thing she could do about it.”

“No one would have believed her,” said Gareth. “Beginning with her husband—because he couldn’t afford to.”

“Yes, and shortly after, the rector got that new roof he was crowing about,” Kemble added. “How’s that for
quid pro quo
? And the poor woman was stuck dining with the bastard once a week until—well, until one of them died. Funny how that works.”

“Good Lord,” said Gareth, disgusted. “Is the whole village rotten to its very core?”

“These little villages always are.” Kemble held his brandy to the light. “They are a microcosm of society, with all the angst and sin and greed which goes along with it—multiplied times ten, in my experience.”

“You are just full of good cheer, aren’t you?” Gareth slumped deeper in his chair. “Tell me—was there
anyone
at dinner tonight who didn’t have cause to want Warneham dead? Lady Ingham? Sir Percy? Restore just a little of my faith in mankind.”

“Very well, Lady Ingham, I suppose,” Kemble conceded. “As to her husband, one never knows what skeletons are hidden in
his
closet. Perhaps he and Warneham had something going on?”

“Sir Percy?” said Gareth archly. “He’s just a harmless old fool!”

“Yes, but he’s as nancy as they come, I’m afraid,” said Kemble matter-of-factly.

“If I had to bed that yammering wife of his, I might consider my options, too.” Gareth set his elbow on the chair arm and propped his head in it. His temples were starting to pound. “And who told you of this little scandal? Not Mrs. Musbury, I hope?”

“Oh, heavens no!” said Kemble. “Sir Percy grabbed my arse when I bent over with the sugar tongs.”

“That’s disgusting,” said Gareth.

“Easy for you to say,” said Kemble. “It wasn’t your arse. Trust me, it was worse than disgusting.”

“God.” Gareth shook his head. “What do you make of all this?”

“That he finds my hindquarters attractive,” said Kemble. “And honestly, for my age, it really is quite decent. I mean, it could be a little less—well,
prominent,
perhaps. But with the proper tailoring—”

“Oh, not your arse, for Christ’s sake!” Gareth snapped. “
All
of this!”

Just then, the door flew open and Rothewell entered, looking rather rumpled.

“Well, look what the cat dragged in!” said Kemble.

Rothewell didn’t blink an eye. “Whose arse are we discussing?” he asked, flopping into the chair on the other side of the hearth. “I rather liked the one on Mrs. Hamm tonight. Is there any hope do you think?”

“No, and we were discussing mine,” said Kemble, flipping up his coattails. “What do you think? Too round? Or about right?”

Rothewell squinted one eye. “Turn to your left.”

Kemble did so.

“I think it’s fine,” said the baron. “Now—do you two have any more brandy?”

Gareth just shook his head, then got up to pour another glass. “Tell me, Kieran,” he said, pressing it into his hand, “is it thought frightfully bad
ton
for a nobleman to beat the hell out of one of his servants?”

Rothewell sat up a little straighter. “Not if he deserves it, I shouldn’t think,” he said, his expression brightening. “I’ll back you up, old chap. Who are we to pummel?”

“That brutish footman, Metcaff,” said Gareth quietly. “He’s been pressing his attentions on one of the housemaids.”

Rothewell shrugged. “But that’s just the way of things, old chap,” he said. “Human nature, if you will.”

“Human nature?” Gareth felt his temper spike again. “To force yourself on someone smaller and weaker than yourself? The poor girl wouldn’t weigh ninety pounds soaking wet, for God’s sake.”

The baron looked nonplussed. “Well, did he actually
do
anything to the chit?”

Gareth had stalked toward the fireplace. He set his boot on the fender and stared into the cold hearth. “He has not yet raped her, if that is what you meant,” Gareth snarled. “But he won’t stop. His sort never does.”

“Then you should simply sack him,” said Rothewell. “The girl deserves a safe place in which to live and work.”

“If I sack him, he will only take his barbarity elsewhere,” Gareth said into the hearth. “He will simply find another victim to prey upon.”

“Windmills! Windmills!” sang Kemble from the dressing room. “You are tilting at windmills again, Alonso.”

“Kemble is right,” said Rothewell quietly. “Sack the surly bastard and let it go, Gareth. You cannot fix all the world’s ills.”

But Gareth could not escape the feeling that
this
one he ought to be able to fix. Frustrated, he gave the fender a disgusted shove with his boot. It scraped across the marble and slammed into the pilaster below the mantelpiece. Damn it all, he was tempted to go and drag the arrogant devil from his bed this instant.

Rothewell seemed to read his mind. “You are overreacting, old chap,” he said quietly. “Just sit down and finish your brandy. Tomorrow will do well enough.”

Tomorrow, then, it would be. Reluctantly, Gareth returned to his guests and to his chair. “Come join us, Kem,” he ordered. “We have other fish to fry.”

Kemble came out of the dressing room and seated himself with languid grace. “Have you a particular fish in mind?” he asked.

“Yes,” said Gareth darkly. “I want you to seek out that JP everyone keeps mentioning—what was the name?”

“Mr. Laudrey, I believe.”

“Yes, Laudrey.” Gareth relaxed in his chair with a dark, inward smile. “Find him, Kem. And then light a fire under his frying pan. I want to find out just what the hell he knows.”

T
he sound of heavy boots echoed up the stairwell, and the knock which followed was sharp and certain. Gabriel opened the door to find a tall man in an officer’s uniform looking worriedly down at him. The caller wore the elaborate shako and red sash of the 20th Light Dragoons, and for an instant, Gabriel thought it might be his father.

“I am looking for Rachel Gottfried,” said the man, glancing at the letter he carried in his pristine white glove.

Gabriel hesitated. But the caller was, after all, an officer. “My grandmother is at synagogue,” he said. “Would you care to come in and wait?”

The man set his shako and letter aside and took the seat Gabriel offered in one of the small parlor chairs. He looked awkward, and a little nervous. He cleared his throat. “You…You must be Gabriel,” he finally said. “Gabriel Ventnor?”

Solemnly, Gabriel nodded.

The officer almost winced. “Well, Gabriel,” he said quietly. “I’ve come from the War Office in Whitehall. I—well, I am afraid I have brought some bad news.”

Gabriel looked down to see that the man was toying with something small and brown. With a sense of inevitability, Gabriel extended his hand. The officer laid the little wooden monkey in his palm, then gently closed Gabriel’s fingers around it.

Baron Rothewell remained in Surrey another week before restlessness got a firm grip on him and dragged him back to the stews and hells of London. Gareth was sorry to see him go. Mr. Kemble carried on as valet and secretary, turning up new and sometimes titillating tidbits about Selsdon and the residents of Lower Addington on a daily basis. Thus far, none of them seemed to have had much to do with the old duke’s death, nor did they lift any suspicion from the duchess’s shoulders, but Gareth felt strangely confident.

Every day or so, Kemble would mail a spurt of letters to Town. Gareth didn’t ask why. He was relatively sure he was better off not knowing. Letters returned to him in the same manner. Gareth sacked Metcaff personally with much satisfaction—and without a reference. The footman did not seem surprised and left with a vengeful glint in his eye. Spurred to action by his master’s
carte blanche,
Mr. Watson went to Town with a wad of banknotes, and returned with a draughtsman, four carpenters, and a motley crew of stonemasons and ditch-diggers.

A plan was quickly hatched to install French drains around Knollwood’s perimeter, to install modern downspouts, and to expose a part of the cellars where an underground spring was suspected. The spring would then be properly encased and piped up to the kitchens, where it could do some good. The carpenters stayed inside, ripping and hammering. Gareth just kept nodding and signing the bank drafts. The entire project was purely a defensive mechanism, designed to save his sanity. He and Antonia were back to dining alone. It was almost more than he could bear. The words
“just this once”
kept haunting him.

The weather was still unusually warm when he caught sight of her one morning in the garden. He had chanced to go into the cream-colored morning room, the room in which he had first encountered Antonia. Today, through the bank of windows which overlooked the fish fountain, he could see her. She sat alone on one of the stone benches, a wicker basket at her feet, her gaze focused into the depths of the boxwoods.

Even from a distance, Gareth could sense that something was not quite right. Her shoulders were bowed a little into the breeze, and she held the ends of her black cashmere shawl, which had slipped from her shoulders, in an awkward knot below her breasts. In her right hand she held a piece of paper, but it was crumpled. The wind had kicked up, and from Gareth’s angle, she looked to be almost in the path of the fountain’s spray. Something was very wrong.

Forgetting his vow to keep a polite distance between them, he pushed open one of the windows and went out. The flagstones around one end of the bench were wet. “Antonia?”

She jumped at the sound.

Gareth leaned over the bench and took her hand. “Come, Antonia, the wind has shifted,” he said gently. “Your hems are getting damp.”

She rose like an automaton and followed him across the little courtyard to a bench which was both in the sun and away from the spray. “Sit down, my dear,” he said, drawing her down to join him. “Has something happened to distress you?”

She shook her head but did not look at him. “I am well, thank you,” she said, further crumpling the letter. “I am fine.”

To his shock, he was flooded with an almost overwhelming tenderness. “Come, Antonia, you need not pretend for me.” Gently, he lifted the shawl and drew it back up her shoulders. “I have been watching you awhile through the windows. You look troubled.”

At last she turned to look at him, a weak smile turning up one side of her mouth. “I…I was lost in thought, I suppose,” she confessed, speaking in the small, hesitant voice which, he had learnt, signaled her distress. “I do that sometimes. I…I begin thinking of something, and I forget other things. Or I forget precisely where I am.”

“Or what you are holding,” he murmured, gently extracting the crumpled paper. “You are clenching your fists again, my dear. Your poor fingers have done nothing for which they should be punished—have they?”

Her smile seemed to become more genuine.

“You have had a letter, I see,” he continued. “One of your many suitors from Town, perhaps?”

She laughed a little sharply. “No, and for once I wish those rascals had—”

When she stopped, he gave her hand a little squeeze. “What is it that you wish, Antonia?” he asked softly.

Distress sketched across her face. “I wish only to be left in peace,” she answered. “The letter—it is from my father.”

“Not bad news, I hope?” he asked.

“He and his wife have returned home to London,” she replied. “They have been abroad for many months. And now he…he wishes me to visit.”

“Does he?” Gareth tried to look encouraging. “There certainly is no reason you cannot go. If we have questions about your wishes for Knollwood, I shall write to you.”

She made an odd face and shook her head. “No,” she whispered. “I…I cannot go. Indeed, I should rather not.”

He could sense the pain and perhaps even a little fear in her voice. Heedless of who might be watching, he set an arm around her shoulders. “Then you should write him back and give him your regrets,” Gareth quietly suggested. “This is your home, Antonia, until Knollwood is ready for you. There is no reason you should leave it unless you wish to.”

To his shock, she gave a pitiful little cry and brought her hands to her face. “Oh, Gabriel!” she cried. “I am a bad person. I am so petty, and so spiteful! I wish it were not so.”

He turned on the bench to look at her. “Antonia, that simply is not true,” he said, drawing her hands from her face. It was then that he saw the marks: two thin, silvery scars on the insides of her wrists, almost savage in their precision.
Good God
. How had he never noticed them before?

For an instant, he could not get his breath. Somehow, he forced his eyes upward. “Look at me, Antonia,” he demanded. “You are not bad or spiteful. What has Lord Swinburne said to upset you?”

She looked at him witheringly and seemed almost to shrink before his very eyes. “She—she—is—to—have…a
child,
” Antonia said haltingly and through tears. “She is to have a child, and I
hate
her for it. I hate her, Gareth! There, I have said it. She is to have a child, and Papa wants me to come, and to celebrate the birth—and I do not trust myself enough to go.”

Gareth was holding both her hands now. “I am sure your father meant well,” he said, hoping it was true.

Antonia hung her head. The breeze stirred the soft tendrils of hair at her temples and at the back of her neck. Today she wore dark blue, which emphasized the lighter blue of her eyes and the pale pink undertones of her skin. Such delicate, perfect skin. What in heaven’s name had driven her to so mutilate herself? The dead daughter? The unfaithful husband? He felt a well of pity—and yet it was all tangled up with fear and a measure of anger. Anger at her. Anger at fate.

Somehow, Gareth slipped a finger under her chin and lifted it. “What else did your father say?” he asked. “Why do I get the feeling there is something more? I think you should tell me, Antonia.”

Antonia’s gaze hardened uncharacteristically. “He wishes me to assure him ‘that I have kept my figure and my looks,’” she said. “Papa says that hiding myself in the country is the worst possible way to counter all the nasty rumors. He insists I accompany him in society whilst Lydia recovers her health, otherwise people might begin to believe I really am mad. Gareth, he says…he says it is time I was married again.”

Gareth was quiet for a time. He felt as if someone had just kicked him in the gut. Logically, of course, he was not sure he disagreed with all of Lord Swinburne’s argument. When her wounds were less raw, and the speculation about his cousin’s death had died away, Antonia should marry again. But to thrust her into society when she so clearly was not ready? And could Swinburne be trusted? Would he give her the time she needed to find the right man? The notion did not sit well with Gareth.

“Antonia,” he finally said, “do you wish to remarry now?” His heart leapt into his throat as he waited for her answer.

At last she shook her head. “No, and I have no wish to return to London,” she said. “Not for any reason.”

Gareth felt both relieved and wounded by her vehemence on the subject. “Antonia, you told me a few days ago that you were strong,” he said quietly. “That I should never underestimate your strength. I think your father has done that. He has underestimated your strength. You have only to write to him and tell him that you do not wish to marry. You must be very firm. You must make it plain to him that you are well enough now you will not be bullied.”

“It is not so easy, Gabriel, as you make it out.” Her voice was soft but stronger. “For the most part, Papa has always tried to help me. He and my brother are all the family I have.”

“Antonia, that simply is not true.” He knew he was going to regret if not his words, then the fervor in them. “You are a part of this family. You are a Ventnor until you remarry or die. Your father has no power here.”

“You are the only Ventnor left,” she answered, flashing a faint smile.

“Yes, but one is enough,” he assured her. “If you wish to hide behind me, Antonia, you are welcome to. If your father tries to cross me, I’ll make damned sure he regrets it. But the truth is, you do not really need me. You are stronger, I think, than even you know.”

She looked at him quietly for a long moment. “No, I do not need you,” she finally said. “At least—well, I am trying not to. But thank you, Gabriel, for saying that. I won’t hide behind you. I am going to have the life I wanted long ago—the life of a widow in control of her own destiny. No one, not even my father, will stand in my way. But I still do not relish the fight.”

He understood then what she was saying. And he was beginning to admire her determination. They sat together in silence for a time. There was nothing but the birdsong and the gentle rustling of leaves in the breeze.

At last, she shifted as if to rise. “Thank you,” she said again. “I came out, actually, to work in the roses, not to sit and mope. Would you care to join me?”

Gareth rose and extended his hand. “I am afraid I cannot,” he lied. “Watson is expecting me.”

He watched her quietly as she picked up her basket and walked away. As always, he was unable to take his eyes from her. Their conversation had oddly shaken him. But there was no denying that Antonia was beauty in motion. Her narrow shoulders straightened beneath the dark blue fabric of her gown, and she held her head up like the duchess she was as she stepped from the shadow of the house, and into the brilliant afternoon sun. The light caught her blond hair, warming it to a golden glow.

Although he had known many beautiful women—known some of them in the most intimate of ways—he had never felt drawn to one as he was drawn to Antonia. He was not perfectly sure what he wanted of her. Sexually, of course, he desired her. But she also stirred his protective instincts in a way no woman ever had, and that was troubling. Certainly Xanthia, the only woman Gareth had ever loved, had not needed him in that way. Actually, she had not needed him in
any
way—save for the physical satisfaction he had given her. That, at least, he knew how to provide.

But their youthful
affaire
had not lasted long. Xanthia had refused his proposals of marriage. They had settled back into their old routine of being, for the most part, good friends and coworkers. Nonetheless, it had hurt and frustrated him. Much of that frustration had been turned inward. Still young and impulsive, he had begun to grasp the fact that while he might be a nice port in a storm—sometimes almost literally—he was not what women needed in the long term. He was just a short-term remedy for an itch that needed scratching.

Was he about to make a fool of himself yet again? Over another woman who did not need him? Gareth shook his head. He did not have time for this. Watson was hitching up the threshing machine. It was time to see if the contraption would do them any good come harvest, which was right around the corner.

The Vicomte de Vendenheim-Sélestat stood at the deep window of his office and looked down at the crush of traffic in Whitehall. In his left hand, he clutched a letter, while his right was braced firmly on the window frame. London was suffering the last of a hot, damp summer, and even the horses looked wilted.

Feeling rather wilted himself, de Vendenheim turned his back to the window and thrust the letter into the light. Again, he read it. “Mr. Howard!” he bellowed to the front office clerk.

Howard came in at once, his spectacles sliding down his nose. “Yes, my lord?”

“When did this bloody letter come?”

“J-Just this morning, my lord.”

“Very well,” he said. “Is the Home Secretary in?”