Gareth looked over his shoulder. Lance had just entered the library, appearing his formidable, unconventional self. Dark-haired, dark-eyed, dressed in arrogance and sharp intelligence as surely as black coats and boots, he flashed a smile that stupid men misunderstood as friendly. He had not shaved today, and the rough growth on his face emphasized rather than hid the long, thin scar on his right cheek.
He strode over, clapped a welcoming grasp on Gareth’s shoulder, then helped himself to some brandy. He faced them cup in hand.
“Pity I did not have the courage to do it. I think we are all in agreement, gentlemen, that Percy was a terrible excuse for a human being who sowed sorrow wherever he went. Let us toast him in death for the years of misery he will never now create.”
“You must stop saying things like that,” Ives snapped, slamming down his own glass. “A modicum of discretion is in order at least.”
“He is worried they will hang me,” Lance said to Gareth. His tone contained indifference to Ives’s concerns, or anyone’s opinion.
“I am not worried they will— Damn it, do you want people to wonder your whole life, should no culprit be found?”
“Hell if I care. As Duke of Aylesbury I expect I could survive a few cuts.”
“Listen to me. I do not expect you to weep over his grave, just try not to dance on it. Damnation, a man has died, and it is incumbent on his closest relatives to at least show some seriousness, lest eyebrows rise.”
“He is right,” Gareth said, working his face into an expression suitably glum. “A man has died, as he said.”
“Of course I am right,” Ives intoned.
Lance lowered his eyelids and smoothed away the smile. Feature by feature he created a mask. “More like this?”
“Yes, much better,” Ives said.
“Hellishly uncomfortable. It will take too much thought to keep it up.”
“Yet you must. Think of me inheriting everything after you swing. That should keep that grin in check.”
“Don’t they have to prove there was a murder before accusing someone of murder?” Gareth asked.
“The damned physician wrote up that he was possibly poisoned,” Lance said. “Hell, wouldn’t you think that if the man paying you is dead, you would be currying favor with the man who will pay you next, and not create drama by putting in writing there may have been a murder? That scribble was enough to stir the pot, and to support the accusation should other facts become known.”
“Which will not happen,” Ives said. “There are no other facts. There was no murder. Percy ate something that was tainted, or succumbed to a long-festering malady of the gut. That is our story, gentlemen. The magistrates are on a fool’s errand, and the coroner is making much ado about nothing.”
Still wearing his sobriety, Lance threw himself into a chair, lounging in the bored, languid pose that so clearly communicated both his arrogance and ennui with life. Gareth thought he appeared thinner, and somewhat haggard. He could not tell if current events caused that, or if it only reflected a long period of hedonistic excess prior to Percy’s death. They none of them had reputations as saints, but Lance also could not be bothered with discretion or restraint.
For a few minutes Lance’s vision turned inward, but then he focused attention on Gareth. “Perhaps you should give the eulogy, Mordred. You were the first to see all he could be.”
“Do not be perverse,” Ives scolded. “And I trust you are not going to pick up using that nickname for Gareth.”
“If you want, I will do it,” Gareth said. “As for how he addressed me, Ives, he is only reminding me of how eloquent my eulogy could be if I am given a free hand.”
Mordred had been Percy’s name for him. Resentful that their father had graced a bastard with the name of one of King Arthur’s knights, just like his legal children, Percy had decided a more appropriate one was in order. The conceit of those names had been the duchess’s idea. The duke’s using it on his bastard, too, had been an insult to her that just kept cutting.
“I am joking of course. You can be a pallbearer at the interment if you like. If you prefer to decline that is understandable.”
“I will watch it the way I watched my father’s funeral, from afar, if you do not mind.”
Lance threw back the rest of his brandy. “Hell, no, I don’t mind. I think I will ride. Waiting for something to happen is driving me mad. I would suggest we all visit a brothel, but Ives here has insisted we must pretend to be too sad for pleasure.”
He strode from the library. Ives watched him go, then turned and aimed for the garden doors. “Come walk with me, Gareth. I need to speak to you on another matter.”
***
“He laughs at the danger, but he is no fool. It is unlikely that he will ever be formally accused—he is now a duke, after all—but the shadow can follow him forever.” Ives spoke between puffs on a cigar. Ives smoked only when agitated. That he had resumed the habit said he was concerned about recent events and not assuming it would all turn out well.
“I expect his reputation does not help.” Lance had been a hell-raiser as a young man. Being the spare had made him more reckless than Ives, or even Gareth. A darkness lived in Lance, too, its origins unknown to Gareth. Not a criminal darkness, however. The notion Lance would poison anyone, let alone his own brother, could not be taken seriously.
“What truly does not help is that he cuckolded one of the magistrates,” Ives said. “The man knows it and will not let this chance pass, duke or no duke.”
