Never Deceive a Duke (28 page)

“He has not found me at all,” snapped Litting. “I have thus far refused to see him—and I mean to continue refusing.”

Suddenly, the door opened again. Gareth was shocked to see Antonia enter. She had changed from her green frock back into a somber but elegant gown of charcoal gray and a black lace shawl which set off her blond hair to great advantage. “Lord Litting!” she said, coming toward him with her hands outstretched and a bright smile upon her face. “How lovely to see you.”

Left with little choice, Litting caught her hands and allowed her to kiss his cheek. “Your Grace,” he grumbled awkwardly. “A pleasure, as always. I did not realize you were still in residence.”

“Yes, I am to remove to the dower house as soon as it is renovated,” she said a little breathlessly. “Unless I decide to stay in London. His Grace has kindly given me time in which to ponder my options.”

Gareth wondered if Antonia’s cheery tone seemed false to anyone save himself. He was a little surprised to see her in this part of the house, which Coggins had professed her to abhor. But here she was, clasping her hands demurely before her and playing the welcoming hostess.

“Do pardon my barging in,” she said. “Coggins said Lord Litting had come to call, and I just thought perhaps I should pop in.”

Gareth waved toward a chair. “You are most welcome, Antonia, to join us,” he said. “But I collect this is not precisely a social call.”

“No, by God, it is not,” said Litting, who repeated his complaint to Antonia, who had perched herself on the edge of the chair nearest Gareth’s desk.

“Oh, dear,” said Antonia, her brow furrowing.

“Well, I simply don’t see what the problem is, my lord,” said Kemble in a solicitous voice. “If the Home Office has questions about your uncle’s untimely demise, you should feel free to answer them. We none of us have anything to hide, I hope.”

Litting sneered at Kemble, then looked back and forth between Antonia and Gareth. “We none of us have anything to hide, eh?” he said mockingly. “Well, I want you to put a stop to this, Ventnor, do you hear? Whomever these dogs belong to, you call them off—or you may learn something you’d as soon not know.”

“I know my cousin is dead,” said Gareth quietly. “And I should like to know why.”

Litting looked at him incredulously. “
You
should like to know?” he echoed. “Oh, Ventnor, that is rich indeed. No one gained more by my uncle’s death than the two of you”—here, he thrust a finger at Antonia—“as sorry as I am to say it.”

“I beg your pardon,” said Antonia stiffly. “I fail to see what I have gained.”

Gareth, who still stood, came from behind his desk and leaned very near Lord Litting. “Actually,
Jeremy,
you don’t sound sorry in the least to say it,” he answered in a lethally quiet voice. “So let me warn you that if you say it again, or if you impugn that lady’s good name by word or deed or even the slightest insinuation, you will be meeting me over a brace of pistols.”

Litting drew back, still sneering. “I am not at all sure I should trouble myself,” he said. “I am not sure I account you a gentleman, Ventnor.”

Kemble interjected himself between them. “Now, now, sirs,” he said. “And Lord Litting, in case you had not heard, Ventnor is now Warneham. I am sure he would appreciate the courtesy of your using his title. And if I may, Your Grace, I do not think Litting fancies being called
Jeremy
.”

Litting backed away first, looking just a little shaken. Kemble extended his hand. “Why do you not give me your coat, my lord, then take a seat?” he said calmly. “We are all on the same side here, I believe.”

Litting divested himself of his driving coat, then shoved his gloves into the pocket while watching them all warily. “No one is going to pack this murder off on me,” he said darkly. “I have already had to endure that presumptuous justice of the peace following me back to Town. I won’t have it, do you hear? I had absolutely no wish to see Warneham dead. None whatsoever. The man was not even my blood kin.” This last was said with a sniff which held a hint of disdain.

As an act of contrition, Gareth sat down in the chair opposite Antonia, rather than return to the more distant and authoritative position behind his desk. Kemble went to the small sideboard between the windows and drew the stopper from a bottle of sherry. “No one suspects you of anything, Litting,” he said, pouring. “Not so far as I know. Now I think we should all have a drink.”

When he returned with a tray of four glasses, everyone gratefully took one. Gareth continued to watch Antonia. She seemed reasonably composed, but she kept cutting long, assessing glances at him when she thought no one else was paying attention. Suddenly, it struck him. Antonia was
worried
about him.

“Now,” said Kemble brightly. “Why do you not simply tell all of us what you know, Litting?”

“That’s the very point, damn it,” he grumbled. “I don’t know a bloody thing.”

“Well, you must have come down here for a reason that day,” Kemble pressed. “You were not, I collect, in the habit of calling upon your—well, let’s just call him your uncle-in-law.”

Litting’s narrow shoulders seemed to fall. “Call him what you damned well please,” he said. Then he flicked a quick glance at Antonia. “Your pardon, Your Grace. I do not mean to sound unsympathetic, but I am not pleased that Warneham has caused me to be mixed up in this.”

Kemble was tapping one finger lightly on his wineglass. “You came down to Selsdon on the afternoon of Warneham’s death. Why? Did he send for you?”

Litting twisted uncomfortably in his chair. “Yes, not that it’s any of your business,” he finally said. “And he sent for Sir Harold Hardell as well. Has anyone questioned him? Has anyone been pounding at
his
door night and day? That’s what I should like to know.”

“Why?” asked Kemble pointedly. “Did he have cause to wish Warneham ill?”

Litting tossed his hand with weary disdain. “Oh, good God, no,” he said. “He came down here because the duke asked him to, just as I did. He said he needed advice, and Sir Harold could scarcely refuse him.
Who
are you, precisely?”

“Advice?” said Kemble sharply. “Legal advice?”

Litting’s gaze moved back and forth between Antonia and Gareth again. He licked his lips, a nervous gesture Gareth remembered from childhood. “Yes, legal advice.”

Gareth suddenly felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up. “What sort of legal advice?” he demanded. “Damn it, Litting, if it could have had any bearing on his death, you are obligated to say.”

Lord Litting seemed to swell with indignation. “So you really wish to know, do you?” he said, the nasty edge returning to his voice. “And you think it will help you, eh? I ought to tell you, by God. Right here and now.”

Suddenly, Antonia half rose from her chair. “Well,
do
tell it, then, Litting,” she said, her voice arching. “Get on with it, please. I vow, I grow sick of this.”

“Well, you may grow a good deal sicker, madam,” said Litting. “Fine, then. The duke told us he was planning to press forward a suit of nullity.”

“A what?” said Gareth. “What the devil is nullity?”

Kemble flashed him a dark look. “Oh, dear,” he murmured. “It sounds as if the duke wished to annul his marriage to the duchess.”

Antonia gasped. “An annulment? Of our marriage? Why? How?”

Litting was looking at them in mild satisfaction. “Well, there you have it,” he said. “Are you pleased? He said he was desperate to get rid of her—that he had grounds to do so—and he wished Sir Harold’s advice as to how to most smoothly extricate himself. And then Warneham turned up
dead
before he could further pursue it. Now, do either of you really wish me to tell that to Mr. Peel’s vulture? For my part, regardless of what happened to Warneham, I should prefer that no more of our family linen be hung in Fleet Street to dry.”

“A most intriguing story!” Kemble murmured, holding his chin pensively. “And what about you, Lord Litting?”

“What about me, pray?” The man turned his haughty gaze on Kemble.

“Why were you here? You are not a barrister—are you?”

“I—well—no, of course I am not!” he said. “It is a ridiculous question.”

“Then why were you here?” asked Kemble again. “What did Warneham want of you? The two of you were not especially close, were you?”

“I—well—that’s none of your business,” Litting finally said. “I was asked. I came. And I did not do a damned thing more—your pardon, ma’am.”

But Antonia had taken on a pale, anxious demeanor. Her hands were braced tightly on her chair arms, as if she meant to leap up. “But this—this is horrible!” she said softly. “How can he have done such a thing? I would have been ruined. I do not understand.”

Kemble reached out and covered one of her hands with his. “Your Grace, the duke could have been given an annulment under very few circumstances.”

She turned and looked at him dully. “Yes,” she whispered. “Yes, he would have had to claim we did not consummate the marriage—which, I daresay, he would never have done, for his pride wouldn’t let him. Perhaps he meant to claim that I was hopelessly mad, and that he did not know it. But he knew that I…that I had suffered a mental collapse. Papa made that clear before the wedding. And I am not mad. I am
not
.”

Gareth had risen and gone at once to her chair. This was bad. Very bad. To some, this could conceivably give Antonia grounds for wishing Warneham dead. Gareth now stood behind Antonia, one hand resting protectively on her shoulder. Almost instinctively, her fingers fluttered up to grasp at his. Litting was right, damn his hide. It would be most imprudent to allow this to get out. It would not simply blight Antonia’s future; it would obliterate it. Gareth was beginning to fear that before all this was done with, his meddling would have caused Antonia more harm than good.

“Did Warneham say, Lord Litting, why he wished to do this?” asked Kemble. “Was there…someone else whom he wished to marry?”

“No, no,” said Litting irritably. “It was nothing like that.”

Kemble took a long, slow sip of his sherry, then swallowed with equal languor. “Warneham was desperate for an heir,” he said musingly. “Did he mean to find another bride? Attend the season, perhaps?”

“What good would that have done him?” Antonia cried, springing from her chair. “He could not—it was not—it was not me who was the problem!”

Gareth caught her by the hand. “Please, Antonia, sit down,” he said. “We shall get to the bottom of this. No one will learn of it, I swear.”

“You had better hope, Ventnor, for her sake, that they do not.” Litting finished off his sherry in one hearty gulp. “The old gossip hasn’t yet died down. She does not need more on the heels of it.”

Kemble set his glass down with a sharp clatter. “Forgive me, Lord Litting, but Warneham simply
must
have said more than this,” he pressed. “I will go to London and speak with Sir Harold if I must, but I really should rather not.”

Litting shifted his weight uneasily. “Warneham simply claimed that his marriage to the duchess mightn’t be legally valid, and that—”

“If the marriage was not valid, why annul it?” Kemble swiftly interjected. “Must one do such a thing?”

Litting opened his hands questioningly. “All I can tell you is that Warneham said he wished to minimize the damage to the duchess, to the extent he could,” he said. “I think he was concerned about angering her father. He said Lord Swinburne had too many friends in Parliament, and that he would rather quietly sue for nullity and buy Swinburne off.”

“Buy him off?” said Kemble sharply.

“In a manner of speaking.” Litting made an equivocal gesture with his hand. “He was going to settle fifty thousand pounds on the duchess through her father, and give her his house in Bruton Street in exchange for Swinburne’s not contesting the suit.”

“Nonetheless, he was going to ruin me forever.” Antonia’s hands were shaking. Her eyes darted to their faces in turn, wide and anxious. “He was going to say I was mad. Wasn’t he?
Wasn’t
he?”

Gareth set his hand on her arm. “It is all right, Antonia,” he murmured. “No one can hurt you now.”

Kemble lifted his elegant shoulders. “We may never know what he meant to say, Your Grace,” he said quietly. “I rather doubt he could have got away with a claim of madness were you to appear.”

“He would not have let me,” she whispered. “He would have shut me away, just as Father did. He—why, he would have called witnesses. To say things. Vile things.”

Kemble looked at her pensively. “I am not at all sure that is what he meant to do,” he answered. “He may have been prepared to claim non-consummation.”

“And then what?” said Gareth sardonically. “Marry again?”

“Yes, to what end?” asked Antonia witheringly. “Did he think that someone else would be able to—oh, never mind! This is mortifying. Simply mortifying.”

Litting rose abruptly. “And it is also none of my concern,” he said. “I’ve told all of you what little I know. Now the two of you had best advise your friends in Whitehall to call off the dogs, for if they darken my door again, I’ll tell to them what I’ve just told you. And it will look dashed nasty for the duchess when I do.”

With obvious reluctance, Kemble retrieved Litting’s coat.

“It is rather late in the day to be driving back to London,” said Gareth, hating what he must say next. “May we put you up for the night?”

Lord Litting sneered. “Given the luck I’ve had, I should rather not spend another evening under this roof,” he said. “But thank you. I have a sister near Croydon with whom I shall stay.”

Kemble held open the door. “Allow me to show you out,” he said smoothly.

In an instant, they were gone.

Gareth was half hoping Antonia would bolt into his arms, but she did not. She was pacing restlessly through the room, her hands fisted in the delicate lace of her shawl. Gareth went to her and deftly extracted the ends. She looked down as his fingers unfurled the fine fabric, watching almost as if the hands were not hers but someone else’s.

Gareth flicked an anxious glance up at her. He hoped desperately that Lord Litting’s visit did not set Antonia back, for it had seemed lately that she was far more in charge of her emotions.