“So, the rumors are not true?”
He glanced over and registered the intensity of the duchess as she hovered over Gabriella, reminding him, he hadn’t yet told his wife of his little fabrication that she was enceinte. “I didn’t say that,” James said.
The duke let it go, to James’s relief. But then lobbed James with another cannonball. “You won’t make it out of London. Liverpool has MPs covering every major thoroughfare out of the city.”
“Nothing I didn’t anticipate,” he grimaced.
“Did she do it?”
He would make the duke say it. “Do what?”
“I refuse to believe my sister murdered that bastard.” He stood abruptly and took up the brandy decanter, poured himself another. “Regardless, between the two of us, we’ll be able to keep Gabriella’s neck out of the hangman’s noose.”
James bristled. “Certainly not.” The very notion Gabriella could stab Stanford was ridiculous. But someone had, he thought grimly. “How is Lady Stanford taking the news?”
“It will take time, but she’ll be fine.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Rose and I were close as children being the two oldest as we were. But she seems a shell of the girl I grew up with.” There was a heaviness about the duke James hadn’t seen before. “Stanford’s death is an opportunity for her to start anew. She can certainly do better than Stanford, damn profligate,” he said in a sudden burst of fury.
This was a side of the duke James had a feeling he didn’t show to his siblings. After what Gabriella had told him of Stanford, James had to agree.
The mood shifted to dark determination. “I take it you’ll be doing a little covert investigating,” Ryleigh said.
“Indeed, I will.”
The conglomerate was breaking up. Good. James needed to talk with his wife. He started in that direction when she called out to Miss Clark. “Mabel, one moment. I must speak with you.” Gabby spoke quietly to the duchess before rising and linking her arm with the young woman’s and slipping from the room.
Ryleigh sauntered over to his duchess and sprawled on the settee with his legs stretched out before him, and folded his arms over his chest.
The duchess furrowed her brows. “What?” she asked Ryleigh.
“Huntley will be checking out a few things regarding Stanford’s death,” he told her. “I believe I shall accompany him.”
She turned a critical eye on James then leaned closer to the duke and lowered her voice, knowing James was perfectly within hearing. “I don't know, Sebastian. That doesn’t seem so wise. You know, you aren’t very good with a musket.”
“And, you're accident prone,” the duke shot back.
The scars, James thought.
Despite the duchess being known as fearless when it came to her causes, her face pinkened.
At once, the Ryleigh’s seemed to have forgotten James’s presence. But he couldn’t have looked away if someone held a pistol to his head.
A slight grin twisted the duke’s lips. “You needn’t worry, I have it on excellent authority that Huntley is a crack shot.”
“By whose authority?” Rebecca demanded. She thrust a thumb in James’s direction no longer bothering to speak quietly. “My recollection in Huntley’s and my introduction does not inspire much confidence.”
“That’s enough, Rebecca,” Ryleigh said mildly.
She frowned, then chewed at her bottom lip. “Perhaps I should accompany you.”
It was the testament of a true marriage in equality—not a popular notion.
The duke leaned up and gave her a hard kiss.
It flustered her, but she glared at James. “Don’t let him near a sling-shot, Huntley.”
Ryleigh looked both irritated and uncomfortable. “Stay with Gabriella. I’ll return for you in a bit.”
James grinned, suppressed the quip hovering that he would keep her husband safe, and followed the duke out the door.
