by Emily Larkin
“He’s blue deviled,” Oliver said.
“You think I don’t realize that?” Primrose said tartly, and then she sighed and pressed both hands to her brow, as if her head ached. “I beg your pardon, Oliver.”
Oliver shook his head. He didn’t mind Primrose’s tartness.
“He should have gone with the children,” Primrose said, lowering her hands. “I told him that, but he won’t listen to me.”
“You want me to talk with him, persuade him to go?”
Primrose gave him a swift, hopeful glance. “Would you? Could you?”
“Count it as done,” Oliver said. “He’ll be heading for Gloucestershire before the week is up.”
“Thank you.” She smiled at him, relief shining as brightly as tears in her eyes, and he realized just how very worried she was. “If he says he has to remain in London because we need a chaperone, tell him that’s nonsense! We can stay with Aunt Rosemary and Uncle Jerram.”
“I won’t let him play that card,” he promised her.
“Thank you,” Primrose said again. She stood on tiptoe and kissed his cheek lightly. He smelled her perfume, a faint hint of orange blossom. “I’m glad you’re back in England, Oliver.”
Oliver almost blushed, a reaction he didn’t quite understand. To hide it, he said, “Even though I’m an addle-pate?”
Primrose tried to repress a smile, and failed. “Even though you’re an addle-pate.”
“Most magnanimous of you, Prim,” he said. “You set me all a-twitter.”
Her eyelids twitched in that not-quite eye roll.
Footsteps came on the marble staircase, and the sound of feminine voices. He looked up and saw Violet and Aster, dressed in their evening finery. At the same moment, a footman opened the huge front door. Cool evening air flowed in, bringing with it the smell of coalsmoke and the sound of hooves on cobblestones.
“The carriage is here, my lady.”
Oliver escorted the three sisters out to the carriage and handed them up into it, bestowing extravagant compliments as he did so. He compared Aster to the goddess of the dawn, Violet to the most bewitching of sirens, and informed Primrose, the last to enter the carriage, that she outshone Helen of Troy herself.
“Hyperbole, Daisy,” Primrose told him dryly.
Oliver grinned at her—and then caught her gloved hand, detaining her on the jump step for a moment. He leaned close, inhaling her orange blossom scent. “Don’t worry about Rhodes,” he whispered. “I’ve got this.”
Her eyes met his. She squeezed his fingers briefly. “Thank you,” she whispered back.
* * *
He took Rhodes to dinner at his club—Brooks’s, on St. James’s Street—and found Rhodes surprisingly resistant to the idea of going to Gloucestershire. It was obvious that Rhodes missed his children, but he appeared to be trying to prove something to himself. Oliver wasn’t quite sure what. That he wasn’t still heartbroken after the death of his wife? That he was capable of carrying on as usual?
Clearly, Rhodes was still heartbroken, he wasn’t capable of carrying on as usual, and he missed his children and should be in Gloucestershire with them.
But Oliver knew when not to push, so he let the matter rest. Tomorrow was another day, and he would win this skirmish—even if Rhodes didn’t realize yet that it was a skirmish.
“I’ve been invited to a house party in Oxfordshire next week,” he said instead. “Lord and Lady Cheevers.”
Rhodes looked up from his beef. “Ah, that explains it.”
“Explains what?”
“I received an invitation, too. Couldn’t figure out why. They move in an older set, the Cheevers. Great cronies of your Uncle Algernon. That’ll be why you’re invited—because he’s going. And Prim and I have been invited so that you don’t get too bored.”
“Prim’s been invited?”
Rhodes nodded, and then turned his attention back to his meal. “You going to go?”
He hadn’t planned to, but Shipton-under-Wychwood was practically in Gloucestershire. “I’m thinking about it,” Oliver said. “What about you?”
Rhodes hesitated.
“No need to make up your mind right now,” Oliver said easily. “Like some more claret?”
He soon had Rhodes laughing again, and by the time they’d finished both their meal and the claret, Rhodes was leaning back in his chair, looking mellow and relaxed and not a little sleepy. The club was growing busy. Oliver saw his Uncle Algernon heading for the cardroom, where whist and hazard were played for high stakes. “Care for a game of cards?” he asked Rhodes.
Rhodes stifled a yawn and shook his head. “I’m for bed. But don’t let me stop you.”
Oliver was feeling sleepy himself. “Not tonight.”
They had to wait in the vestibule while a footman fetched their hats and gloves. Oliver’s cousin, Ninian, was waiting, too. He was dressed for dancing, lace spilling over his wrists, jewels twinkling in the folds of his neckcloth. His waistcoat was a confection of lilac and cream, with silver threads glinting in the embroidery, and his tailcoat was a handsome shade of lavender. He looked almost as pretty as the Garland girls had in their ballgowns.
“On your way to the Turvingtons’ ball, are you?” Ninian said, pulling on his gloves. “So am I. Shall we go together?”
“We’ve decided to give it a miss,” Oliver said.
“Oh.” Ninian looked a little disappointed. “Well, enjoy your evening.” He raised one hand in farewell and exited.
Oliver accepted his hat and gloves from the footman and donned them. He and Rhodes strolled outside. It was barely midnight, early by London standards. They paused on the pavement for a moment and inhaled the coalsmoke-tainted air. “Want to ride out to Richmond tomorrow?” he asked Rhodes. “Get some fresh air?”
For once, Rhodes didn’t hesitate. “Yes.”
They parted ways, Rhodes heading back to Sevenash House, Oliver bound for his own ducal mansion in Berkeley Square. He strolled along St. James’s Street. There were quite a few pedestrians, not all of them sober. At Piccadilly, he waited for a hackney to pass and then a town carriage with a nobleman’s crest on it.
A post-chaise swept into view, traveling slightly too fast, the four horses sweating, the postilions dusty and eager to reach their journey’s end. Oliver waited for it to pass, too—and as he waited, someone shoved him violently between the shoulder blades.
Chapter Four
Oliver tumbled headfirst into the street, right in the path of the post-chaise. He fell heavily—rolled—one of the leaders stepped on him, and then the horses passed over him in a clatter of iron-shod hooves and loud jangle of harnesses, and the bulk of the carriage blotted everything out.
Oliver curled up into as small a ball as he could, aware of huge wheels scything past. Something brushed his wrist, plucking at his cuff—and then it was over.
He uncurled himself and scrambled for the pavement on hands and knees, dimly aware of shouts and cries of alarm.
Oliver didn’t try to stand. He stayed on his hands and knees for a moment, gulping for breath. There was thunder in his ears. The thunder of hooves and carriage wheels, the thunder of his heartbeat.
Voices jabbered at him. It took a moment for the words to make sense. “Sir? Are you all right, sir?”
Oliver lurched upright, staggered, and caught his balance. “I’m fine,” he said. “Fine.” But he wasn’t; he was shaking, and he couldn’t quite seem to catch his breath.
He looked for the post-chaise. It had halted some yards ahead, the horses snorting and tossing their heads, the postilions white-faced, craning their necks to look back, probably fearing they’d killed him.
They very nearly had killed him.
Half a dozen people were clustered around him, wide-eyed and excited. He didn’t recognize any of them. “Did you see who pushed me?” Oliver asked.
His audience gaped at him. “Push you?” said a man who looked like a lawyer’s clerk. “Ain’t no one ’as pushed you.”<
br />
Oliver knew damned well that someone had pushed him. “Did you see anyone running away?”
The little crowd began to melt into the shadows, people stepping back, turning from him, moving off into the dark. Did they think he was going to accuse one of them of trying to kill him?
One man didn’t turn away. A crossing-sweeper. He held out an object. “Your ’at, guv’nor.”
Oliver’s hat didn’t look like a hat anymore. It had almost been cut in two by the carriage wheels.
He took it and turned it slowly over in his hands. It could have been his arm crushed this flat. It could have been his neck.
He looked around, scanning the street, scanning the shadows. His audience was gone. The post-chaise was gone. He saw nothing out of the ordinary. No one loitering. No one watching.
The crossing-sweeper was still waiting, no doubt hoping for a penny in exchange for the ruined hat.
“Did you see what happened?” Oliver asked. “Did you see the person who pushed me?”
“I din’ see nothin’, sir.”
Oliver looked down at the hat again, and then at his cuff, where he’d felt the carriage wheels pluck at him. The buttons were gone, either crushed or shorn off.
If he’d fallen one inch closer to the wheels his hand would have shared that fate.
The skin between his shoulder blades tightened in a shiver. What had just happened had been no mean-spirited prank; it had been someone trying to kill him.
Oliver looked around again. Piccadilly stretched in either direction. Torches and lamps burned brightly—and shadows gathered in the spaces in between.
No one seemed to be watching him from those shadows . . . but that didn’t mean that his attacker wasn’t still nearby.
Oliver’s house on Berkeley Square was two minutes away, but he didn’t feel like making that walk alone.
He dug a guinea from his pocket and held it out to the crossing-sweeper. “Will you walk with me to Berkeley Square? I’m feeling unsteady on my pins.”
It wasn’t a lie, he did feel unsteady, and worse than that, he felt a little afraid.
Chapter Five
Rhodes had told her that he was riding out to Richmond that morning, so when Primrose went into the library she expected to find it empty. Instead, she found her brother and Oliver Dasenby seated on the sofa, heads bent close together, talking in hushed voices.
They looked up abruptly and stopped talking, almost as if they were children caught plotting mischief—except that they looked serious. Deathly serious.
Primrose’s fingers froze on the door handle. Her heart gave a great, frightened thump. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” Rhodes said.
Primrose studied his face, studied Oliver’s face, and shook her head. “Something’s wrong.”
Oliver grimaced faintly, and turned to Rhodes, said something in a low voice.
The two men held a brief, whispered argument, and then fell silent. They turned their heads and looked at her again, with that unnerving seriousness.
“What?” Primrose said, still clutching the door handle. She knew that whatever it was, it was bad.
This time it was Rhodes who grimaced. He made a gesture, an opening of his hand, yielding to Oliver.
“Primrose,” Oliver said, and then paused, as if debating the wisdom of telling her whatever the dreadful news was.
Primrose closed the door, crossed to them, and sat. “What is it? What’s happened?”
Rhodes and Oliver exchanged another glance, and then Rhodes said, “Someone tried to kill Ollie last night.”
Primrose’s mouth fell open. After a moment, she shut it. After another moment, she said, “What?”
“Someone pushed him under a post-chaise,” Rhodes said. “And the night before last someone pushed him down the Cunninghams’ stairs.”
It sounded too absurd to be true, but it clearly was true: Rhodes and Oliver had identically grim expressions on their faces.
Primrose had never seen Oliver look grim before. Usually there was laughter lurking in his eyes. But not this morning.
She studied him more closely. There was a faint bruise on his cheekbone. “Is that from last night?” she said, touching her own cheek so that he’d know what she meant. “Were you hurt?”
“Not much.” He shrugged. “One of the horses stepped on me, that’s all.”
“Stepped on you!”
“I’ve been stepped on by horses before, Prim,” he said, in the sort of tone that men reserved for ladies who were fussing needlessly.
“One can die if a horse steps on one’s head.”
“It didn’t step on my head. And before you ask, nothing’s broken. I’m perfectly all right.”
Primrose looked at him sitting there on the sofa, big and brawny and grim-faced, and decided that if he thought he was all right then he probably was. “Are you certain you were pushed? Might it not have been an accident?”
Oliver’s expression became grimmer. He shook his head. “It was deliberate. Both times. No mistaking it.”
“But who would do such a thing?” she said. “And why?”
“That’s what we’re trying to determine,” Rhodes said. “Why would anyone want Ollie dead?”
Under other circumstances Primrose would have made a joke of it, would have said, Clearly it’s because he’s so annoying. But this wasn’t a time for jokes.
She considered the question seriously. “The most obvious reason is that someone hates him.”
“But who?” Rhodes said. “He’s only been back in England a month. He hasn’t had any arguments with anyone.”
“Perhaps it’s someone who hated him before he went to India?”
Oliver considered this for a moment, and then shook his head. “I’ve never had an enemy.”
“Perhaps someone owes you money and can’t repay it?” Primrose said. “A gambling debt?”
Oliver shook his head again.
“What about your chère-amie, then?” Primrose said. “Perhaps someone feels that you’ve poached on his territory?”
“I don’t have a chère-amie yet,” Oliver said—and then he grinned. “And it’s very improper of you to mention the demimonde, Prim. Not ladylike at all.”
Primrose felt herself blush, because he was correct. “Do we know it was a man who pushed you? Could it have been a woman?”
Oliver’s grin vanished. He frowned—and then shook his head. “Whoever it was is pretty tall. Got me right between the shoulder blades both times. And strong. Strong enough to knock me down. My instinct is . . . it’s a man.”
Primrose frowned, too, and considered motives. What reasons did men kill for? Revenge, money, women, politics.
“The Duke of Westfell has traditionally voted Tory,” she said. “Maybe someone doesn’t like that you’re a Whig?”
“Uncle Algy’s a Whig, too, and he’ll be duke after me,” Oliver pointed out.
And that was the most obvious answer: Oliver’s assailant was Lord Algernon Dasenby.
“Could it have been him?” Primrose posed the question hesitantly, fairly certain of the reaction she’d get. “Your uncle?”
She was correct: Oliver stiffened, and shook his head. “Of course not!”
“He is your heir.”
“It’s not Uncle Algy,” he said, in a voice that brooked no argument. “From the moment I got back he’s done everything he can to help me!”
“Whoever it is,” Rhodes said, “they want it to look like an accident. Could have put a knife between your ribs last night and we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
Primrose shivered.
“You realize that if you do die,” Rhodes said, “you’ll be the fourth Dasenby to kick the bucket in less than two years?”
Primrose glanced sharply at him. So did Oliver.
“They were accidents,” Oliver said slowly—and then, in the tone of someone asking for assurance: “Weren’t they?”
“Were they?” Rhodes asked.
Primrose stiffened in sudden realization. “There was another Dasenby who died in those five months.”
Both men looked at her. She saw their astonishment.
“I’ll be back in a moment,” Primrose said. “I need to check the dates.” She caught up her skirts and ran from the library, up the sweeping marble staircase, and along the corridor to her bedchamber. She crossed to the escritoire, opened it hastily, and pulled out her journal.
As journals went, hers was rather boring. No gossip, no secrets, just notes about the books she was reading.
Tucked in among the pages were two items cut from the Gazette. Primrose removed them and studied the dates jotted at the top of each snippet, then shoved the journal back in the escritoire and ran downstairs.
Rhodes and Oliver both stood as she reentered the library. “Who else died?” Rhodes asked.
Primrose didn’t answer that question; instead, she asked one of her own: “When did the duke’s sons die?”
“Basil died in . . . November, I think it was,” Rhodes said. “Middle of the hunting season.”
“And Percival?”
“Five or six weeks later. Beginning of January.”
“And the duke?”
Oliver answered that question: “March.”
Primrose crossed to the great oak desk, with its French marquetry and lion’s-paw feet.
“Who else died?” Rhodes asked.
Primrose laid the clippings on the desk. “Oliver did. It was reported in the Gazette at the end of December.”
“Good Lord!” Rhodes said. “That’s right. We thought you were dead, Ollie.”
Both men converged on the desk. They stood, one on either side of her, and looked at the two pieces of paper. One was an account of the storming of the forts at Airani, Ranebennur, and Bidnur—and a list of the casualties—and then, in March, the correction: Captain Oliver Daintree had perished, not Captain Oliver Dasenby.