“Jeremy,” she began gently, giving up the game. She hadn’t thought he would be this upset. “There’s no need to keep up the pretense. I know Anthony is your father. And I’m sorry I teased you like that. The reason I’m staying is because I married your father yesterday. He really should have told you.”
His mouth dropped open again, but this time he was quicker to recover. “My father, meaning—Anthony? You married Anthony Malory?”
“You don’t have to soundthatsurprised.”
“But…I don’t believe it. Tony getting married? He wouldn’t.”
“And why not, I’d like to be knowing?”
“He just wouldn’t. He’s a confirmed bachelor. He’s got all the women he could want chasing after him. What would he need a wife—”
“Careful, laddie,” Roslynn warned stiffly. “You’re getting very close to insulting me.”
Color flamed his cheeks. “I—I beg your pardon, Lady Chadwick. Truly, I meant no offense.”
“It’s Lady Malory now, Jeremy,” she said, holding up her hand in front of him and tapping her wedding ring. “It happened last evening at Silverley, with your cousin Regina as witness. So you might as well believe it, laddie. I’ve no reason to lie about it, and you can ask your father as soon as he comes home.”
“My father was there too?”
Roslynn sighed. “How could he not be at his own wedding?”
“No, I meant James. Heismy father, you know. He really is.”
It was Roslynn’s turn to be surprised, because Jeremy was too earnest to be lying about it now. “But you look so much like Anthony!”
“I know.” He grinned. “But so does Reggie, and so does Amy, Uncle Edward’s daughter. And my aunt Melissa, Reggie’s mother, did too, though I never met her. She died when Reggie was still a baby. All the rest of the Malorys are blonds. It’s just us five who took after my great-grandmother Malory.”
“I can see I’ve a lot to learn about this family, there’s so many of you.”
“Then he really married you? He really did?”
“Yes, Jeremy, he really did.” She grinned, coming down a few steps to lock arms with him. “Come along and I’ll tell you all about it. James—your father—was here last night when Anthony carried meover the threshold, you know. Now, if you thinkyouwere surprised, you should have seen him.”
“I’ll bet.” His chuckle was deep for someone so young, but infectious.
Chapter Twenty-four
When Anthony and James walked inside the tavern and paused to look over the crowded room, the same phenomenon occurred that had happened again and again throughout the afternoon. One by one, the occupants of the room noticed them, nudged their companions, and the room began to quiet, until the silence was as thick as the cloud of smoke floating above the scarred tables.
The riffraff of the wharves didn’t take too kindly to the gentry invading their territory, and there was usually always some down-on-his-luck fellow filled with enough resentment of the upper classes to pick a fight with the unsuspecting slummers, as any well-dressed gents were assumed to be. It could be the highlight of an evening, a chance for the lower masses to get a little of their own back from the wealthy who think it their due to exploit them, by wiping the floor with the nabobs’ beaten bodies and casting them out in the street half dead, and sometimes, actually dead.
But the sheer size of these two aristocrats gave even the meanest bruisers pause. They didn’t have the look of the dandies who thought it a lark to frequent establishments they scorned in the sober light of day. No, these two were obviously of a different quality, the menacing aura about them penetrating even the most sodden brain. Anyone who briefly thought of causing trouble quickly changed his mind at a second look and went on with his drinking and revelry, determined to ignore these particular nabobs.
The silence had lasted perhaps twenty seconds. Anthony didn’t even notice it this time. He was tired, frustrated, and just a little bit intoxicated, since they had ordered drinks in each of the nine taverns they had entered while questioning the barkeeps. James did notice, and was berating himself once again for not dressing properly for this excursion. Clothes fitted a man to his elements, and theirs were distinctly out of place in these elements. But how had either of them known this would turn into an all-day excursion?
Anthony was deciding he had had enough for one day when his eyes lit on a thatch of bright red hair. He looked at his brother and rolled his eyes toward the bar. James followed the indicated direction and saw the fellow too. Red hair did not make him Geordie Cameron, but it did raise the odds that he was likely a Scotsman. James sighed, hoping this was the end of their search. Wild-goose chases were not how he preferred to while away his time.
“Why don’t we take that table near the bar and see what we can overhear?” James suggested.
“Why don’t I just go ask him?” Anthony countered.
“Men of this ilk don’t like to be questioned, dear boy. They’ve usually, every one of them, got something or other to hide. Haven’t you surmised that yet?”
Anthony scowled but nodded. James was right. They had had deuced little cooperation from everyone they’d questioned today, but blister it all, he wanted this done with so he could go home. He had a wife waiting for him, and this was not how he had imagined spending the second day of his marriage.
What was supposed to have taken only a few hours’ time at the most this morning had turned into a comedy of exasperation. Anthony had been in the process of explaining to James about Geordie Cameron, the reason that he had married in such haste, when his man John had interrupted their breakfast with the fellow’s address, having successfully followed Cameron’s hirelings yesterday to his lair.
It must have been the look of predatory delight on Anthony’s face that prompted James to offer to come along. Not that Anthony was going to really harm the scoundrel. No, just impress him with a sound thrashing, give him the good news that Roslynn was out of his reach, since he wasn’t taking any chances that Cameron might miss the notice of her marriage in the papers, and send him off with a warning to trouble her no more. Very simple. He didn’t need James’ help, but he was glad of his company as the day wore on.
