“Do not ever interrupt me. Kildaire thought because he purchased my damned wife’s debts that he owned a senior magistrate who would smooth over his misdeeds! And he threatened to reveal my longtime connection with the Grenvilles. How could he know about that?”
Swallowing hard, Percival forced himself to keep looking at the barrel-chested thug in front of him. “There was one occasion I may…have said something a little indiscreet. I was drunk. Kildaire was drunk. I never thought for a moment he would remember—”
“Ah, so I have you to thank. Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t gut you first, Mr. Grenville. I daresay your aunt wouldn’t mourn you overmuch. Now there is a worthy woman.”
Sweat gathered and soaked the small of Percival’s back. He should have had twenty footmen accompany him. Perhaps a regiment of battle hardened soldiers to boot. “As I said, because there is a far greater problem than Lord Kildaire.”
In a shockingly fast movement, Sir Malcolm withdrew a dagger from his jacket pocket and began to polish it with a crumpled handkerchief. “Damned blood spots. So hard to remove. Before I left Calais with your men, I couldn’t resist paying a return visit to my captors. Such a shame they will never fornicate, or walk, again. But do share your great problem with me. Tell me why the marquess shouldn’t forfeit everything.”
Percival shuddered now, his legs threatening to buckle. On another occasion, he might have even felt sympathy for Emily and her children, living so many years with this man.
But not now. Not after late last night when Howard had returned, his entire memory intact, and his wrath unleashed—a side of his cousin he had never imagined. Fierce. Furious. Harshly uncompromising. It had been so very unseemly. The shouting. The wanton destruction of vases, inkpots, and even a brandy glass against the library fireplace. But far worse after the initial explosion: Howard had ordered Percival and Charity gone from the townhouse immediately, allowed only to take what they could pack in ten minutes. The indignity of being thrown out into the cold night like old food scraps! They had been forced to secure less than palatial rooms in a lackluster Bond Street hotel favored by filthy merchants without even a purchased knighthood.
Actually, the previous evening was a timely reminder. It gave him the necessary anger and hatred to face Sir Malcolm with a sterner spine, like Aunt Charity always had.
“Kildaire has already forfeited everything.”
“Oh?” said Sir Malcolm, cocking his head. “How so?”
Three words, and infused with infinite menace. Despite his vow, Percival shifted on the spot in discomfort. “The marquess currently resides in the Tower of London. In due course he will face trial in the House of Lords for attempted murder.”
“Attempted murder? Caught in the act before completion, or just a failure to ensure his victim was actually dead?”
Percival sighed in relief as the conversation moved onto a topic far easier to discuss. Sir Malcolm was so matter-of-fact about it; they had much more in common than the man realized. “The latter. Kildaire is a decent fencer and delivered some adequate stabs to his victim’s chest and side, but then he became sloppy. He not only neglected to remove some belly padding the man wore to reach his vital organs and watch him bleed out, he did not finish him with a strike to the heart.”
“Belly padding?” said Sir Malcolm. “Why was the victim wearing that of all things?”
“Because he was in disguise. The victim had gained employment as a very wealthy heiress’s comportment tutor to earn money to pay his debts, but needed to be someone other than his rather well known true self.”
Sir Malcolm’s lips quirked, as though curious despite himself. “A peer?”
“Even better. Your stepson.”
“George,” he hissed, and the malevolent hatred in the word warmed Percival to the core. “Why won’t that rancid pisspot die? When he was younger I did as much as I dared to break him. Beatings. Burning him with a hot poker. Shredding his back with my whip. But even on my best days, he would just look at me with those insolent, defiant eyes. After a while he didn’t even cry. And that little bastard never begged for mercy. Not once.”
“Unfortunately not a bastard. And you are almost too late to finish him off now.”
“Am I?”
Percival took a deep breath, but it didn’t assist much in quelling his nerves. “Howard was found alive and well in the colonies and returned home to England—”
“No!” said Sir Malcolm, and for the briefest moment he almost thought he saw a flicker of fear in the man’s eyes.
“Yes. He had amnesia, and it was all going well for Charity and me. Howard thought he was unwed and childless, and that I was his heir thanks to an illness he suffered in the colonies rendering him incapable of fathering any. But then he began to have dreams—little flashes of memory—and decided he must return to London. Your former stepdaughter saw him from afar in his carriage, and last night he was reunited with your former stepson, Lord George Grenville, Earl of Trentham.”
Sir Malcolm’s fists clenched, and the black rage emanating from him made Percival take a step backward. “You have been pushed down the line of succession, Mr. Grenville. I take it you are displeased by that?”
“Very much so. The dukedom should be mine.”
“You must have some sort of proposal to discuss, then. One that would satisfactorily conclude our mutual desire to see a certain new earl cold in the grave.”
“As a matter of fact, I do. It is just a case of luring him away from the protective bosom of his family.”
“Impossible. George never strays far from them.”
Percival smiled. “True, but he has a woman in his life.”
“He always has women in his life. The man is a damned whoreson.”
“But now he has seemingly settled on…one.”
A feral grin twisted Sir Malcolm’s lips, the expression infinitely more terrifying than his frown. “Not the heiress he was tutoring?”
“Quite. Louisa Donovan is her name.”
“Well, well. Worth millions, I heard.”
“You heard correctly. Father a merchant trader and mine owner, common as they come, but a honed skill of turning a penny into a mountain of guineas. Reports I received from my creatures say she returns George’s affection. In fact, I believe she was the reason for the bad blood between Kildaire and your stepson. The marquess planned to marry her, you see, and I think perhaps George may have, ahem, plucked the flower first. Why else would Kildaire have been driven to such an act as attempted murder?”
Sir Malcolm shrugged. “I’m sure I don’t need to explain the satisfaction gained in power over another, and the irritation in being thwarted. But a stabbing? In a residence with so many possible witnesses about? Not even I could dismiss such a case, even if I was so inclined. The Irishman was intemperate in many things.”
“I am not intemperate,” said Percival softly. “And we already know George’s weakness—love. I’m sure I don’t need to explain the reward that would be on offer should I again become the sole heir to the Mannering dukedom.”
“Then by all means, let us discuss this further in private.”
Percival bowed. “I know just the place. My carriage will take us there.”
As they left the docks, he could barely walk at a gentleman’s languid pace, such was his anticipation and enthusiasm. Kildaire had been a hotheaded fool, and not at all the right man to engage in a partnership with. But with Sir Malcolm’s help, all would be well.
Just as it should be.
Chapter Fourteen
“Where is she? Where is my wife?”
George looked up at his father, who was pacing the well-lit gold parlor within Grenville House like a caged lion. It was not quite five o’clock in the morning, and even sprawled on an overstuffed and very comfortable chaise his body hurt like hell, but he’d wanted to keep his sire company until the momentous reunion happened.
“Mama will be here soon,” he said for the hundredth time. “Pearce said she was visiting
a friend living halfway to Kent of all places. And it is freezing out. They will have to travel slowly.”
“Damn it, son, now is not the time for logic,” said his father, rubbing a hand across his jaw in a gesture so bloody familiar, George shook his head in smiling disbelief.
Not that anything that had happened in the past several hours was believable, it was so perfectly astonishing. His father alive. His father a duke. George Edwards, scarred, poverty-stricken pretender, in fact Lord George Grenville, Earl of Trentham. A fucking earl! And he’d been transported from Hastings House to the Grenville residence as if he were Prinny himself, to an arrival complete with lines of beaming servants, bows and curtsies, and calls of “Welcome home, my lord!”
Indeed, at last he had a home. Somewhere to belong. Somewhere warm and safe.
It was, quite simply, a miracle.
“Father,” said George, just for the sheer pleasure in saying Father. “I’m sure it will be any minute now. For the rug’s sake, let us hope so.”
Howard shot him a rueful grin. “I find I cannot be still.”
“I wouldn’t be able to either,” George admitted with a laugh. “Wait…is that horses?”
His father bounded over to the street-facing window. “It is! They’re stopping! I…hell. I should have changed my clothing. What will she think of me?”
“I think she would love you even if you wore a sack, but you might find her not so eager for kisses.”
“Ha!” But as he turned, Howard hesitated. “I even sound different. Too different?”
“Father,” said George softly, all humor gone. “You really think you are going to be the only one nervous as hell after twenty years apart? But no matter what she was forced to do, she’s still Emily. And no matter what you are wearing or sound like, you are still Howard. Now go and get her, damn it, so I can see the reunion I’ve been hoping for most of my life, and can then go to bloody bed.”
“All right, all right. On your feet then, my lord. We’ve a duchess to greet.”
“Aye, aye, your grace,” he replied, with a jaunty salute, as he carefully got up from the chaise. They walked from the parlor to the foyer, arriving just as the butler dashed to the front door to open it.
Christ. His heart was pounding and his hands were clammy, George could only imagine how his father felt. And then his shockingly pale mother stood in the doorway, one hand gripping the frame as if afraid to cross the threshold, her gaze darting left and right.
Howard stepped forward and bowed low. “Come in, Emily Grenville, Duchess of Mannering. Come in to your true home.”
She screamed. And began to crumple to the floor.
But it seemed his father, even aged fifty, could still move like a wolf because he lunged toward her, his hands outstretched, just managing to haul her into his arms before she hit the marble.
“Emily,” he said hoarsely, cupping her face and smoothing her hair. “Em.”
“Howard?” she replied dazedly. “Are you real? Because I thought of you every day and dreamed of you every night. And I couldn’t…and I couldn’t bear it if I woke one more time to find it wasn’t real. It hurts too much.”
“You’re goddamned right I’m real,” he replied, and then he leaned down and kissed her fiercely, and Emily’s whole body shook as she attempted to plaster herself to his chest, her arms winding tightly about his neck.
George looked away and wiped his eyes, although he needn’t have bothered with the discretion, because it seemed every servant in Grenville House had arrived in the foyer, and they were quietly and openly weeping as they witnessed the scene in front of them.
“But how,” sobbed Emily eventually, tucking her head into Howard’s shoulder. “How did you come back to me? They said you were dead!”
“I should have died. It was a once in a lifetime storm that whipped up when we’d only been at sea for a half day. The ship’s hull cracked and began taking on water, then it split entirely in two, and everyone on board was thrown overboard. I hauled several others up onto a piece of mast…but one by one they slipped off as the waves smashed into us, shoving us closer to a rocky headland.”
“Oh God!”
“I clung on for as long as I could, but I was so tired and cold…next thing I knew I woke up in a stranger’s house in San Francisco with a raging fever, a head injury, and absolutely no memory apart from my first name. The stranger’s name was Theodore Jones, an old sea captain himself, and he saved my life and eventually offered me employment. Everyone thought I was a poor English sailor who had come to the colonies for a new start. I didn’t know any different…God, Em. I swear I didn’t know. And hearing what happened to you and our children…I…sorry isn’t nearly adequate. It kills me inside. But now we will be a family.”
Emily leaned back from him, her shoulders rigid. “I’m not worthy of being a duchess. Not by birth, and certainly not by deeds.”
“I know about Sir Malcolm,” Howard said gently. “And I don’t blame you. Not for a second. Actually, I think you are the bravest woman in the world.”
“A brave woman doesn’t let her son be whipped! Be burned with a blasted poker!”
“No, Mama,” called George. “That is Sir Malcolm’s sin. If you had done more, he only would have hurt you or Caro further. You were a wonderful mother. Still are.”
Emily shuddered. “Perhaps. But a brave woman certainly does not gamble away a fortune.”
“When life hurts very badly, sometimes we make poor decisions. Do destructive things,” said Howard quietly. “When I fell ill in San Francisco and was told I would never father children…I couldn’t bear that on top of having no memory. For a time, I turned to opium. A little more and a little more each time, and more frequently. I was very, very fortunate to have such a good friend in Theodore—he dragged me from a den one night and gave me the most thunderous lecture of my life. Then he destroyed the supply I had, and escorted me to a hospital where I stayed in restraints until I no longer craved the drug. It was hideous. And difficult. And shames me to this day. So do not think I don’t understand. I do. And I will help you overcome your addiction. Lastly, don’t you dare say you are not worthy or brave. You are.”
“You really think I could be Emily Grenville?”
Howard dipped his head so his forehead could touch hers. “Yes. Because that is who you are. Emily Grenville, Duchess of Mannering. My wife. My love. My world.”
George swallowed hard as his parents kissed again, but it was no good. Tears were pouring down his cheeks now, and the effort it was taking to keep himself upright was exhausting. As quietly as he could, he turned away from his mother and father and the stark evidence that true love not only existed but couldn’t be halted by time or incident, and stumbled toward the staircase. Two footmen rushed to assist him, each hooking an arm under his elbow to help him to his brand new bedchamber, a room sumptuous in a way he’d never imagined.
Soon, for the first time in so many years, he would be fast asleep.
Because, even though it wasn’t quite perfect with Louisa not here to share the moment, it seemed finally all was going to be right with the world.
Finally.
~ * ~
Several days later, as George stood in the frozen Grenville House gardens, he wasn’t nearly so sure. While his parents, and Caro and Stephen, were wrapped in their damned marital bliss cocoons, he was the fifth wheel. And that status was unlikely to change, because Louisa was bloody well avoiding him.
Shivering, he looked around at what would be a truly beautiful spot in spring and summer when the neatly clipped rose bushes bloomed amongst the emerald green shrubbery. Right now the temperature was so cold that his eyes were watering and breathing almost hurt, but he couldn’t make himself go back inside, even in his invalid state. He’d had his fill of bedchamber walls, even grand examples like his new one in Grenville House. And while he couldn’t be happier for his parents, seeing their deep affection and stolen kisses, hearing their banter as they demolished the ba
rrier of twenty years apart, only made Louisa’s absence more bloody damned infuriating.
“Woolgathering, Lord Trentham?”
Hastily pulling his new greatcoat tighter around him so his bandages weren’t visible, George turned and raised an eyebrow at Stephen. “You look too tense to be bringing news that I’m an uncle, Lord Westleigh.”
His closest friend sighed. “I thought the shock about Mannering might bring on labor, but it seems the baby is quite content in Caro’s belly, much to her displeasure. Actually, Dr. Murray said probably another fortnight or so. I think it was fortunate he then moved across the room to discuss tonics with Miss Murray, and that there were no figurines handy.”
“Come on. We both know no one is at risk from my sister’s throwing arm.”
“Statistically and historically untrue. More importantly, how are you faring?”
“Is this…a social call?”
Stephen grinned. “Indeed. I brought your favorite brandy just in case I needed to coax you out of a cupboard. It’s no small thing when a mister suddenly and unexpectedly becomes an earl. I wanted to reassure you it gets much worse from here.”
A reluctant bark of laughter escaped. “Are you referring to the transition from ideal for an affair to perfect husband material? Unfortunately that torture is well underway. But my God, Stephen. I never thought I’d say this, but the men are worse. Do you know how many are asking for an introduction to Trentham? People I’ve known for years? Wanting to meet Father, I could understand. But me? And others who were absolute bastards have written long, flowery notes as though we have been the best of friends for years.”
His friend snorted as he leaned against a tall stone birdbath. “The same thing happened when I inherited my earldom. Several men were damned lucky to avoid a broken jaw, acting like I was an entirely new person with a brand new brain.”
“I must say, though, you might have warned me exactly how much more determined and persistent the matchmaking mamas are when there is a title involved. It’s only been a few days, but invitations are ankle-deep in the parlor. We aren’t ‘at home’ to callers right now, so they are parading back and forth outside the window with their daughters in tow. Or sending scented notes and flowers and even one rather disturbing gift wrapped inside a handkerchief. Why the fuck would I want a thumb-sized dildo?”
Rake to Riches (The London Lords Book 2) Page 19