The Wicked Duke

by Madeline Hunter

  “I took no mind of that, Your Grace. It was a confusing time.”

  “You are living with your daughter here, I am told.”

  “She was good enough to have me. Her husband is a farmer. My situation suits me. The air is fresh, and the neighbors are honest. Do a bit of gardening, I do now. I have a knack for it. Who would have guessed?”

  From up the lane, they could see the gardens again. The girl had returned to the woman. “I am happy to hear you are contented.”

  “Thank you, Your Grace.”

  “I did not only come about that, though.”

  “I did not think so. I expect you’ll be wanting to ask about him.” Payne appeared bland, even resigned.

  “You may have known him better than anyone else. I am not asking you to be disloyal—”

  “I knew someone might ask me about him eventually. What with how he died— I have thought hard about loyalty, and what I may owe him. He settled a good sum on me, didn’t he? More than I expected.” Payne made a face of consternation. “I decided not to see it as a bribe, Your Grace. A man has struck a bargain when he accepts a bribe, hasn’t he?”

  “A clear bargain, with two parties in agreement.”

  “That is how I see it.”

  Lance allowed that conclusion to sit there a few moments before broaching his question. “My brothers and I have believed he died naturally. However, I have decided to see if perhaps the suspicion it was not natural may have some credence. I must now be more disloyal to him than you could ever be, when I ask you if you were aware of any reason why someone might do this?”

  “Kill him, you mean. Murder him. Most definitely.”

  Not only the admission surprised Lance, but also the plain, flat way Payne said it.

  “Was he unkind to any of the servants at Merrywood? To you?”

  Payne’s gaze turned flinty. He looked Lance right in the eyes. “Does a man kill another because of unkindness? He does not. Does he even kill him over one dastardly act of cruelty? Did you kill him because of that scar? Oh, yes, I knew about that. He told me, the little—” He caught himself. He took out a handkerchief and wiped his brow. “Forgive me, Your Grace. I forgot myself. That was uncalled for.”

  “Was it? I am thinking not.”

  Payne composed himself. “A man does not kill so easily because of slights to himself, but those that might kill could have had good reason to do him in. What I am trying to say is that a man might be moved to murder to protect those dear to him. A man not given to violence might well entertain such notions then.”

  Lance said nothing. Payne would either confide, or not. Damned if he was going to badger the man on such a topic. It entered his mind that he should have brought Ives, for whom badgering witnesses was a profession.

  Payne stopped walking. He looked back at the cottage. “He had a part of him no one saw, except me and those bloods he found to ride the countryside with. You know what I am talking about.” He glanced again at the scar. “He had a taste for young girls, for example. Sweet girls, from farmers’ families and such. I could tell when he went hunting, so to speak. He had a look to him then.” He sighed heavily, and shook his head. “Forgive me, but he was not a good man, and that is the truth of it. Sneaky he was too. Sly. The kind that might embrace you as a friend, in order to slide the dagger between your ribs from the back.”

  He spoke like he relieved himself of something that had needed saying for years.

  “The steward gave me the names of three servants there that night, who have since left Merrywood. Cooper, Young, and Sharp. Did you know them?” Lance asked.

  “I knew them enough to believe you waste your time with them. Cooper was a timid man. Young had little contact with His Grace, being as how his situation did not involve serving the duke. Sharp was a footman. A more mild-mannered man you would never meet.”

  “Can you think of anyone else I should consider?”

  “I have no name for you. I am sorry. I am not sure I would give it even if I did. Can you understand that?”

  He could. Better suspicion fall on a duke than some servant who might find his neck in a noose without sufficient evidence.

  “I have one other question. Can you think of someone there who might be amenable to a bribe? Who would perjure himself, for a price?”

  “It would have to be a big one, from someone who could guarantee it would never come to light, wouldn’t it? I cannot say I know of such a man.”

  “If some name comes to mind later, I hope that you will write to me.”

  “Is someone lying about that night? Bold, if you ask me. I am not sure there is a price large enough to get most men tangled into such a thing. Who knows where it might lead, and who might get angry enough to strike back.”

  “Who indeed.”

  They strolled back to the cottage. He took his leave of Payne, mounted his horse, and rode back to town with Payne’s revelations repeating in his head.

  * * *

  Aylesbury had retreated into his own head. Marianne did not think he was melancholic, although one might interpret his distraction that way. Rather she sensed deep thought in him.

  He had come back from that ride in the country preoccupied. Even while she described her activities with Lady Kniveton, and how the lady kept asking about Gareth, all the time she expressed her reassurance about the procession in two days, only half of his mind listened, at best.

  His mood touched their passion too. Did he seek her out hoping pleasure could obscure what weighed on him? She thought it did, for a while. Afterward, as she lay in his arms, her ear against his chest and the comforting warmth encompassing her, she sensed the thoughts claiming him again.

  “After the funeral, we will go to Merrywood,” he said.

  “Should I have the maids pack up everything? Or will we first return here?”

  “Pack. I do not think we will stay long, but I do not know.”

  She turned so she could look at his face. She ran her fingertips along the firm line of his mouth. “You are distant. Almost gone from me. You hold me, but you are not really here.”

  He smiled, as if to prove she was wrong. He lifted his head and kissed her. “I learned something today that did not surprise me as much as it should have. I am trying to convince myself that I was not deliberately blind.”

  “I am sure you were not.”

  “I am not sure. Not at all.”

  “And when you go to Merrywood, you will know?”

  “Possibly.”

  She snuggled back down. “I will be happy to return. I miss my mother and Nora. I think I may even miss Uncle Horace a little.”

  His hand trailed up and down her back. “Have you received any news from him?”

  “News? He does not write to me. He leaves that to my mother.”

  “But he is well? Not ill, or overwhelmed with duties?”

  “My mother did not say he was. Why do you ask?”

  “I wrote to him two days ago. I have not received a reply.”

  Aylesbury had written to Uncle Horace? Perhaps it had been a kindness, to make it clear their connection was now one of family. If so, Uncle Horace should have been delighted.

  “I am surprised he did not reply. Perhaps he is ill.”

  “I am sure we will find him busy, but otherwise in fine form.”

  She drifted, cocooned in the contentment she experienced when they lay like this together. Sometimes she thought he relished it too. Not from anything said or done. Her soul simply reacted as if it knew that another soul embraced it.

  CHAPTER 19

  Lance entered Merrywood with a short list of things to do without delay. One he loathed. The other he hoped would change everything.

  Marianne had been relieved to have the state funeral over. She had looked beautiful despite her mourning ensemble, and correct in every way. He wou
ld have to find a way to thank Lady Kniveton. He doubted she would find his gratitude sufficient. She had taken up the tutoring of Marianne with one hope in mind—that she would see Gareth, and he would be so overcome with desire he would forsake his new wife.

  Of course that had not happened. Lance wondered if some pearls would salve any hurt feelings.

  He left his apartment at Merrywood and strode to the one he was supposed to be using, that of the duke. He walked in and looked around. Nothing had been changed since Percy died here. Payne had left before orders could be given to clear out Percy’s belongings. Nor had Lance thought about issuing such a command. Without it, no one had done anything except dust.

  Percy’s presence pervaded this space even worse than the apartment in town. This had been his real home. His lair. Battling his distaste for the reminders of his brother’s life and death, Lance looked around. He opened the wardrobe in the dressing room, and the drawers in the writing table. He perused Percy’s diary, and flipped through the letters received that last day.

  He was not sure what he hoped to find. Not direct evidence of who, if anyone, killed Percy. Rather he wondered if some indications of his brother’s misdeeds might at least provide a possibility or two regarding who might have a motive.

  When he was done, he stood in the middle of the sitting room, accepting failure. There would be no quick resolution, the way he hoped. No damning letter, or written confidence. He had two weeks to settle this, and Merrywood contained nothing revealing.

  His thoughts broke. He realized he was not alone. He pivoted. Marianne stood at the doorway to the sitting room, watching him.

  She turned her attention to the chamber itself. “I expected it to be grander. More ducal.”

  “My father was not given to grandeur.”

  “With the grave marker he has, I expect he was not.” She strolled in, and stuck her head into the bedchamber. “You speak as if your brother changed little when he inherited. Perhaps he thought living as your father had might make him more like your father.”

  It was an interesting notion. Lance had never attributed Percy’s preference for leaving the properties as they had been to that kind of sentiment. “I never thought he felt inadequate to his inheritance.”

  “He scarred you, didn’t he? That sounds like the act of a boy who guessed his younger brother fit the role of duke better than he did.”

  She slipped into the bedchamber to get a better view. Then the dressing room. “There is little to tell me about him in any part of this apartment. I suppose that is how it is with such men. Their valets and servants keep their lives so tidy that they leave little of themselves behind.”

  He wandered around in her wake, hearing her observations. She saw more clearly than he did. Her reactions to the sites they visited in town and along the river had been similar. In seeing with fresh eyes, she both enlightened and impressed him.

  “What were you doing here?” She lifted and flipped through Percy’s last day’s mail, and what had come in the days right after his death. “Seeking information about his demise?”

  “I had hoped there would be something. Anything. Instead—” He gestured around, and shrugged.

  She walked back to the bedchamber. “Are your chambers so devoid of you? When your father lived here, were his? I find the utter lack of personal effects increasingly peculiar, and chilling.”

  “There had been many personal effects when my father lived here. I even took a little statue he had bought, as a remembrance of him. There were other things. His favorite books, bits of his life since he was a boy—”

  “It appears your brother was a blank, however. Or else he never became comfortable here.” She returned to the sitting room, and its doorway. “I did not mean to intrude. I came looking for you to say that Mama has written to ask us to join them for dinner tomorrow night. Do you mind if we accept? I could go alone if you prefer not to—”

  “We will both go.”

  She favored him with that smile that could light up the world. She came back and embraced him. “Thank you. I know that you must fear they will be a nuisance. I promise to make sure that my mother does not become one.”

  “I fear nothing of the kind.”

  “Then you are better than I am. Because I do fear just that.” She went back to the door, and left.

  The invitation to dinner ensured the second thing he had to do would be accomplished quickly. Glad for that, he returned his attention to the apartment.

  Marianne had been correct. There was little of Percy here. Nothing really. This may have been his home, but it had not been his lair at all.

  Which meant that lair lay elsewhere.

  He was almost certain he knew where to find it.

  * * *

  Nora did not join them for dinner. Mama appeared happy she remained in her chamber, and with a whisper promised to tell Marianne why once they were alone.

  The dinner progressed well enough. Mama asked lots of questions about the funeral, and Marianne’s role. Uncle Horace quizzed Lance on how the government would accommodate this most rare situation. All in all the meal was pleasant, if somewhat formal for a family affair.

  The pleasant part changed when she and Mama left the gentlemen alone and went to the drawing room.

  “Your cousin has shown an unhealthy interest in the entire proceedings regarding the king’s death,” Mama reported as soon as they sat down. “She pores over the newspapers. She talks about it far too much. The news has raised a morbid element in her character that is most disconcerting.”

  “I will go and see her before I leave. I will encourage her to be less morbid.”

  “I simply do not have the time to coddle her as you used to do, daughter. My life has become far too busy now. I receive callers almost every day, except the days when I return the calls. Why, even Lady Barnell paid a visit last week. I am close to exhaustion, I tell you.”

  “I regret that my marriage has put such strain on you. Had we but known, I might not have married at all.”

  Mama’s gaze sharpened at the sarcasm. “Are you unhappy that you followed my advice? Do you wish you were not a duchess, and did not take high precedence in the procession at Windsor?”

  “I am not unhappy, but my contentment is not due to the things you enumerate.”

  Mama did not miss the implications of that, nor, Marianne feared, the blush she felt warming her face.

  “That is good news, daughter. My one concern was he might prove to be a brute when you were alone with him. Although, I suppose if he had as many conquests as is rumored, he has to know what he is about in that regard.”

  “Let us talk about other things. Is there any good gossip in the region? Has Uncle Horace regaled you with humorous doings at the petty sessions?”

  Mama told a funny story about one of the minor offenses brought before the magistrates at the sessions. It was just the kind of story Elijah Tewkberry was known to retell well. All the while, however, Marianne sensed that her mother swallowed another tale, and had been doing so all night.

  “You still have not told me the local gossip. Surely something worth whispering about has transpired during my absence.”

  Her mother took an intent interest in the buttons on her sleeve. “Nothing much.”

  “I am sure to hear whatever it is you resist sharing.”

  Her mother primped at the curls around her headdress. “I resist sharing nothing.”

  “Then I am all ears.”

  A deep flush rose from her mother’s chest to her neckline. “You are sure to hear, that is true. Perhaps it is better coming from me.” She rested her hand on Marianne’s. “There is talk about your marriage. Scurrilous, slanderous talk.”

  “I hope it is not assumed he got me in the family way. If so, that will be disproved with time.”

  “I wish it were that. I truly do. Marianne, the
re are those who—and let me say they are horrible people whom I will never receive if I learn their names—have put it about that Aylesbury married you so that your uncle would not send forward a magistrate’s report calling for a trial. I speak of that matter of the last duke’s death and the idle talk about Aylesbury’s character that resulted.”

  Marianne thought her heart might stop beating, this news so appalled her. Even worse was how it gave voice to something she had tried hard not to wonder herself. “Who told you this? It is not the sort of thing to be spoken of openly.”

  “Mrs. Wigglesworth, of course. That meddling old woman has never heard a bad word about a person that she was not eager to repeat. She enjoyed revealing it to me, as you can imagine. Oh, she almost cried because she felt so terrible, she claimed, but that kind will explode if they cannot spread such tidings far and wide.”

  “You and I listened often enough. I suppose I should not bear her ill will if I now get what so often I was willing to give.”

  “This is different. So very different. This gossip is without merit. Completely made up by some malevolent minds. I only hope Mr. Tewkberry does not hear of it. I have lived in a state of fear for three days now that he might. I read the Times with trepidation, and will continue to do so for a year.”

  “I would not fear that too much. He has not corresponded to the Times for over a fortnight.”

  “Only because he has been ill.”

  “He has been ill?”

  “According to Mrs. Wigglesworth, a bad fever claimed him, but he is on the mend.”

  “Does she know him?”

  “Not personally. She knows a woman whose brother claims to have met him, however. Mr. Tewkberry has let chambers in Cheltenham, while he takes the waters at the spa. Gout is his enemy.” Mama wrung her hands. “Oh, daughter, I am plagued by worry. What if he hears of this, and shares it? I can just imagine how he will do it too. No names, but enough that everyone will know it is you.”

  She patted her mother’s hand. “I do not think Mr. Tewkberry is so rash as to do battle with a duke. Do not let this rumor distress you either. Such nonsense is for fools.”