“Has anyone laid down information that would imply something untoward happened?”
“No, but eyebrows are up. A sudden digestive infirmity with extreme pain and quick death—well, my eyebrows would be up too.”
Hence the notice in the paper in Amsterdam, that inquiries were under way. “You worried that they would look to me, didn’t you?”
“The enmity between the two of you has been long, and the business over that legacy might encourage them to wonder.”
“Have no fear. I was out of the country. I can prove it.”
Her expression lightened. She suddenly looked younger than her forty-eight years. Also intelligent and formidable. She would have made the duke a splendid duchess had he not already married Percy’s mother, and had Amanda Albany not been a butler’s daughter.
Her change in mood implied she had worried a bit about his doings recently. It is a hell of a thing when your own mother thinks you capable of murder. Then again, given the right circumstances, she probably was also.
“I expect Lancelot and Ives will be at Merrywood,” she said. “What with the title’s transition to Lance and the settling of the estate.”
“I hope so. I want to see them.” Since Lance now became duke, presumably he would be involved in the inquiries. Ives would take a hand in the estate settling, being a lawyer.
He did not lie in saying he wanted to see his half brothers. Unlike the relationship he had with Percy, Gareth had gotten on well enough with them over the years. And, of course, Lance would now decide about that case in Chancery.
“There is to be a reinterment next week,” his mother said. “A mausoleum was quickly built, to Percival’s deathbed orders. Now that it is ready, they are digging him up to put him in it. It is a monstrosity, according to Mr. Stuart. I have a drawing here somewhere. I shall find it, so you can prepare yourself.It is so hideous that one wonders if he was determined to be remembered for something, even if it was being the duke who was buried in the ugliest pile in the family graveyard.”
“He never had any taste. Father always said so, which drove him mad.” He spoke absently, his mind on other things. If magistrates were sniffing around a duke’s death, the new duke was not likely to turn his mind to minor matters, like a small property tied up in the courts. Damnation, even in death Percy was going to be an ass.
“I rode up near Langdon’s End,” he said, “before coming here.”
His mother’s expression of forbearance chastised him. She thought he should let it go. The daughter of a butler and the mistress of a duke, she did not have a sense of property, even if she had a life interest in this house.
“He has let it go to ruin. There is no caretaker. It is derelict and turning into a shell. I doubt any furniture remains worth using. I was told thieves have been busy.”
“Did you enter it?”
“I am forbidden to, remember? I walked around the outside, however, and looked in a few windows. He knew contesting the will would not hold, so he made sure when I finally got it, the house would be almost worthless.”
“Perhaps fate has intervened before that happened. Lance has no reason to continue the fight.”
“Perhaps.” He stood. “If you don’t mind, I will go above. I have been on the road too many days.”
He took his leave, but her voice stopped him at the door.
“Lady Chester wrote to me. Her niece still sighs over you, and wonders when you will return to London.”
Lady Chester’s niece was an attractive woman in an unhappy marriage to a boorish viscount. “When I do, I will call on her, but she will be disappointed if she expects anything more.”
“You love and leave too quickly, Gareth. No wonder your reputation is not the best.”
“I would have stayed longer in the lady’s bed if she had not started to try to buy me. A man does not allow his lover to keep him if he has any pride. I did us both a favor in ending it.”
“You were not so particular with Lady Dalmouth.”
“I was much younger then, and Lady Dalmouth had much to recommend her besides her gifts.” Most notably, Lady Dalmouth possessed sexual experience such as few men are honored to enjoy. Randy, resentful, and ready to take on the world, he had been a willing student, and had barely noticed how he had become the lady’s whore until the morning she ordered him to change his coat because she did not favor its color that day.
“Women are kept all the time. I managed to hold on to my pride well enough. I do not see why it should be any different for men if two people share affection.”
He had hurt her. He had not meant to, but one hour in his mother’s presence and he was fifteen again, and she was trying to plan his life.
“You were not merely the duke’s kept woman. You were his true wife and the law be damned. Write to Lady Chester and tell her that I am enthralled with a widow in Amsterdam, so her niece does not expect me to dance attendance if I go up to town.”
CHAPTER3
