Page 23 of Redemption of a Marquess

Chapter Five

Valan did not throw parties. But then, he’d never before had a ward.

He spent the week out and about to ensure everyone knew about the upcoming party, whether they were invited or not. The spare moments of respite away from his once quiet household were spent at his club, where no one spoke above a murmur, even on days like today, when seats were in high demand.

Valan read his newspaper in the quiet corner hear the hearth, but noted the approach of Baron Rosemund, who claimed an empty chair at the small round table to Valan’s right.

“Kind of you to have brandy ready for me.” Brendan reached across the intervening space, lifted Valan’s decanter and filled the empty glass that sat beside Valan’s full glass.

“I regret to tell you, that the brandy was not for you,” Valan replied.

“I am wounded.” Brendan set the decanter down, picked up the filled glass, relaxed against his chair and rested the glass on his leg. “You are making quite a stir these days. Tell me the latest gossip isn’t true.”

Valan perused the business section of the paper. “At the risk of sounding pompous, which latest gossip do you mean?”

Brendan gave him a sideways glance.

“Aye, it is true,” Valan said.

Brendan sipped his brandy. “Is she beautiful?”

“Some would say so.”

“That is a new tack for you.”

“She is my ward,” Valan said.

“I know you too well to believe this isn’t something more,” Brendan said without rancor.

Valan chuckled. “You bear quite a burden being my friend.”

“A thankless task,” he replied with wry humor.

Valan lowered his newspaper and looked at him. “I beg your pardon, that was a fine dinner we enjoyed last month in Inverness—at my expense.”

Brendan lifted his glass in salute. “Many thanks.” He took another sip. “If you don’t have designs on the woman, what could possibly induce you to take her as your ward?”

Twenty years dropped away, as Valan once again fitted his booted foot to the final rung in the trestle leading to Lady Victoria’s bedchamber window and grasped the window sill. He hoisted himself up and swung his feet over, then straightened in the dimly lit room. It wasn’t the cool metal of the pistol pressed to the back of his neck when he stepped deeper inside the room that bothered him—if he had an underage sister and a man had climbed through her window, he would’ve done the same—but the pistol Gordon held when he emerged from the dressing screen across the room.

Despite prolonged efforts, Valan never learned how Gordon had discovered that Valan’s father had shot himself only hours before, leaving Valan a pauper. The only thing his father hadn’t lost in that card game was their ancestral castle on the Isle of Mull. Valan hadn’t visited the castle since.

As if on cue, Lord Gordon entered the sitting room. Valan reached for his glass of brandy and directed his attention back to the paper. Three heartbeats later, Lord Gordon entered his peripheral view. An instant later, he stopped in front of him. Valan kept his attention on his paper.

“Rosemund,” Gordon said with a curt nod to Brendan, then to Valan, “A word with you, Northington.”

Valan kept his gaze on the paper. “Of course.”

“In private, if you will.”

“I have no secrets from Brendan. Say what you will.”

A moment of silence passed, then Gordon said, “At least do me the courtesy of giving me your full attention.”

Valan lifted his gaze from the paper. “Forgive me. Will you sit? I can call for a chair and another brandy glass.”

“You can call for— I can have a chair brought, if I so choose,” he snapped. “I do not need you to command one of your lackeys.”

“I would hardly call Brummell’s servants ‘lackeys,’ and they are not my lackey’s, at any rate.” He sipped his brandy, then stared, waiting.