Willoughby 03 - A Rogue's Deadly Redemption

by Jeannie Ruesch

  Cordelia had been right.

  Annoying as that was, Lily hadn’t wanted to leave Robert before his accident. Why else had she stayed so long to tell him she was leaving? She had wanted him to fight for her.

  It stung that he’d let her leave, with the brush of his hand and the offer of a divorce. Yet that was nothing compared to the hollow ache in her chest now.

  Robert hadn’t returned.

  She’d pieced together enough to understand what had happened. With the loss of their baby and the complicated loss of his mother, the demise of their marriage was almost foretold.

  Lily hadn’t the security in their relationship to believe anything but the worst. She had lived with the sharp reminder that he’d courted Cordelia. He’d chased her. He had met Lily while visiting Cordelia, and Lily had never stopped believing she was second choice.

  That night Lily had sent the letter, she’d been beyond happy to believe he’d come for her. To see her. It was the one thing she’d clung to.

  But that might not have been true, either. So many of her beliefs, at every point, were false.

  She’d had the dream for a short while. But it wasn’t real, and it wasn’t enough. She would fool herself no longer. Starting today.

  Or perhaps tomorrow, after her head stopped feeling like a pin cushion.

  “Lily? We’re in the parlor.”

  Or not.

  Adam’s voice echoed and rattled around in her skull. Lily winced, but turned in the new direction.

  When she entered, she found Adam and Michael.

  “Does everyone get up at this ridiculous hour?” she muttered.

  Michael stood looking out the window—the offending thing let far too much light in, and Lily put a hand to her eyes as she lowered them.

  “It’s seven in the morning. Feeling all right?” Her brother’s amusement was clear.

  “Fine.” She looked around. “Tea? Please?”

  Adam chuckled. “That won’t be strong enough.”

  “Are you ill?” Michael asked from his stance at the window.

  “I believe she’s afflicted with the morning after illness,” Adam answered. He moved to the sideboard, where a service had been set. “I found an empty decanter this morning and two glasses.” Cup in hand, he brought it to her. “Here. Coffee, with a liberal amount of sugar and cream. It will help.”

  The rich aroma wafted up, and Lily took a deep breath. It was stout, and it perked her senses a little. She took a small sip. The warmth slid down her throat with a bitter sweetness, but not with the fiery trails the spirits had left the previous night.

  “Have you and Cordelia reconciled then?”

  “We’ve come to terms.” The strides they had made last night were too new, too fragile to put pressure on. But Lily wanted to believe that they would hold.

  “Could we move this discussion to the matter at hand?” Michael asked, swiveling around. His face was tight with tension, regret. “I want to know about Keenan.”

  “You aren’t starting without me, are you?” Blythe entered the room with her usual grace, headed toward Lily. “You look a little ragged, my dear.” She pressed a kiss to Lily’s cheek. “But sometimes, it does prove just the thing, doesn’t it?”

  “Keenan?” Michael prompted.

  “Don’t badger her.” Blythe scrunched her face at him. “She will be no help if her head is spinning.”

  “I’m fine.” To pretend the spinning wasn’t happening, Lily continued to sip the coffee. She’d never partaken much, though she’d appreciated the scent that filled the house. But right now, it tasted like ambrosia.

  She finished the cup and headed to the sideboard to pour another. “I’m sure Adam has already told you what I know. I was only in the captain’s company for a few moments.”

  Michael paced around the edges of the room. “Yes, but I want to hear you tell it. Don’t leave anything out.”

  Lily took in a ragged breath through her nose, hoping the coffee would clear the cobwebs. Then she repeated, again, everything that had happened at that establishment. She wasn’t even sure what to call it.

  “It can’t have been him. Damn it!” Michael smacked a fist on a table. “I shouldn’t have let him go so long without communication. I should have known something was wrong. But I was so bloody wrapped up in my own life—”

  Blythe cleared her throat.

  Lily looked between them. “Why? What was wrong? Did something happen?”

  Michael met her gaze, and she saw the pain and regret etched in his face. “Keenan married a few years ago, and he lost his wife a year ago—a tragedy, their house was robbed and she was killed.”

  “Oh my God.”

  “After the funeral, his correspondence stopped coming. I assumed he needed time to grieve, and…hell, I shouldn’t have let it go so long.” His lips thinned. “If he’s here, in London, and he’s who you saw, he’s taken that grief in a direction I never thought possible.”

  Blythe reached out to him, placed a hand on his arm. “It isn’t your fault, Michael. Whatever William has done, you couldn’t have known.”

  “I should have. Well, now we fix it. Now we discover what the hell he’s gotten himself into and we get him out of it.”

  Lily bit her lip. The captain hadn’t appeared “caught” in anything.

  “Lily?” Blythe asked. “What is it?”

  “It’s just…he…he was in charge. He was the one controlling things, making decisions. It didn’t appear he was coerced in any way.”

  “We don’t know the truth yet,” Michael snapped, then sighed. “Forgive me. I feel as though I failed my friend, but I shouldn’t take that out on you.” He racked his fingers through his hair, more distressed than Lily could recall seeing the ever-solid, ever-calm duke.

  “We need to address the issues at hand,” Adam said. “I’ve sent a missive to Wayfair letting him know we’ll call today. We’ll hand over what we know of his brother and let him pursue his own ends.”

  “Isn’t Wayfair on the committee for forgeries?” Michael asked. At Adam’s nod, he gave a low whistle. “That’ll be a blow. I wonder what he’ll do.”

  “What do you mean, what he’ll do?” A warning flared in Lily’s belly.

  “I don’t give a fig how he handles it,” Adam replied. “My priority is to make sure you are out of it.”

  “I am leaving for America. What more do you need?” she countered.

  “Are you? Are your bags packed? Your feet on the deck?”

  “So eager to see me leave?”

  “I’m eager to see you alive. And safe. And across an ocean from that man before he drags you back into his madness.”

  “My ship leaves on Friday, and I shall be on it.”

  “We must throw a party.”

  The unremarkable words came from a remarkable source, and they all turned as Aria strode into the room. “What, pray tell, are you all gawking at?”

  “You, suggesting we throw a party?” Blythe said, her tone full of amusement.

  Aria looked unfazed. “Every society has its culture and traditions. In this one, sending a loved one on a voyage without pomp or circumstance would imply we want her to leave. With the endless prattle in those insidious papers about her marriage we don’t want it to seem she is skulking away, do we?”

  “They’ve stopped,” Blythe mused.

  “What has?”

  “The papers. At a time when your marriage offers a goldmine.” Blythe offered a chagrined smile. “Forgive me.”

  “No, it’s true,” Lily replied. “I don’t understand it, either. Reports about the day I packed my things were the last. It is odd.”

  Aria turned toward Lily. “A goodbye party. Small, but weighty in its message.”

  At that, everyone erupted into their own conversations. Lily stood to the side and watched them, as she’d often done. Sadness curved her lips into a melancholy, affectionate smile.

  She hated to leave them.

  “A goodbye party it is, th
en,” she said to no one in particular. Not that Aria was waiting upon her agreement anyway.

  Lily had other considerations. She needed to say her goodbyes at the library, but she had no idea how. She couldn’t separate out the funds she had provided them versus what Adam had helped her set up.

  What was she supposed to do? Remove half of the books because they were gained by ill-gotten means? How could she?

  But how could she do nothing, either?

  Chapter Twenty Seven

  “Do you know what blasted time it is? Robert, you—what is that horrendous smell?”

  Marcus looked like hell. He wore a dressing robe, his hair hadn’t been combed and a drink rode his hand as though permanently attached.

  Robert stood in his brother’s entry way, a mess of blood and God-knew-what tracked into the pristine room. The butler had been shocked at the pounding upon the door at such an unrespectable hour but after Robert had shoved open the door, he’d hurried to get Marcus.

  “I need your help.” He had no time to waste.

  “You’re…” Marcus stared at him. “You’re covered in muck. And blood.”

  “Not mine. Mostly.” He had a few minor knife wounds somewhere. “You told me to ask for help, and I’m here. I’m asking.” Even if the very action ate at his insides.

  Robert flicked a hand at his brother’s dressing robe. “I’ll explain on the way. Get dressed.” Morning had come too quickly, and Robert knew that precious minutes remained until the sun was full in the sky. Every minute delayed meant a greater chance of Edwin being discovered, even in the disgusting space he’d left him in.

  Marcus hadn’t moved. “What have you done this time?”

  “Damn it, we must hurry.”

  “What have you done?”

  “This isn’t about me!” he yelled. “It’s Edwin. He’s… He… Bloody hell, Marcus, I am asking for help. But I need it now.”

  “Why?”

  “Edwin is dead.” He spoke with the flat rage that simmered just underneath everything. “He’s dead, and I need you to help me get his body to a safe place.”

  “After Cary died on the street because of you, you come in here demanding I help you move a dead man? Whatever you’ve gotten yourself into, you can get yourself out of it.” Marcus turned, walked down the corridor.

  Robert dogged his heels, ignoring the sharp edges of pain that embraced his every move.

  “I didn’t know what I’d done when you came to me before.”

  Marcus whirled into Robert’s face. “You left him to die on the street!” His roar was hoarse, filled with a torment Robert couldn’t fix.

  “I didn’t leave him. I was taken. If I’d had a choice, I never would have left him.”

  “No? You didn’t care that he was dead. Or how I might find out.”

  “I didn’t know Cary, I couldn’t remember him. Or you. Anything. I remember now. I remember all of it, everything.”

  “I don’t give a damn about what you need now. Get out.”

  “This is what you wanted, isn’t it? Me to come to you when I have nowhere else to turn and everything to lose, just to give you the opportunity to turn me down. You are a cold-hearted bastard, the spawn of our mother.”

  “You don’t know a thing about our mother. You don’t understand a bloody thing about what I’ve done for you. How I helped you.”

  “You never helped me,” Robert yelled back, even as Cary’s cryptic words came to him. “You were too busy accepting her adoration, her accolades, watching her treat me worse than the muck I smell of now.”

  “I was protecting your ungrateful ass. You never knew the mother that Cary and I did. We kept you from that person. The one who lost her temper and threw vases at our heads. The one who thought nothing of pouring boiling water upon our backs, then two days later, couldn’t bear the thought of spending two minutes out of our presence.” Marcus heaved in a breath. “You should be grateful she ignored you. Grateful we never let her turn her obsessions your way.”

  “I spent my life protecting you. Helping you. And you’ve spent a lifetime hating me for it.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “Of course you don’t. That would mean you were wrong. If you gave me one shred of respect, it would mean the years you’ve spent trying to provoke me—and don’t deny it, we both know it’s true, would have been in vain.” Marcus spread his arms open. “Your entire life’s work of debauchery and gambling—everything I’ve read about you in the papers, all for a hollowed out cause. That life you led killed our brother and now Edwin. How many lives lay on your shoulders, Rob?”

  Robert flinched. His brother’s revelations flayed open his beliefs, the walls and causes he’d built in his head to justify every move he’d made but they did nothing to stem the anger and bitterness. “How the hell was I supposed to know? All I knew was that not one person in my family cared if I lived or died.”

  Marcus looked down at the blood on his hands. “Are you dying now?”

  “No.”

  “Good. See? I care. Now get the hell out.”

  “You’re blaming me for something I didn’t know?”

  “I’m blaming you for Cary’s death.”

  Robert stared at Marcus’ retreating back, knowing he deserved it, knowing he’d played a large part in destroying any efforts Marcus and Cary had made. Robert hadn’t been able to accept them, and now it was too late.

  The hard truth crushed him under the weight of regret. Regret that he hadn’t been able to…

  Edwin.

  He hadn’t been able to help Cary. But he had to help Edwin.

  Without another word, he turned away. He would find a way, damn it. There had to be someone. He had servants. He would ask…bloody hell. He’d pay someone. He didn’t need to grovel.

  But he did need to protect Lily.

  His steps faltered. Images flashed: Lily held by those men, Lily on the ground.

  Lily, dead.

  Muttering a curse, he followed after his brother into his study.

  Marcus stood at his desk, his head down, his hands flattened on the desk as though the pain he’d caused Robert by upending Robert’s childhood beliefs echoed inside himself.

  Robert fought the demons that wanted to nitpick. Argue. Whatever it took to provoke his brother. Marcus had been right. It was their never-ending battle—of wit, of pain, of seeing who could disregard the other first.

  “I’m not leaving. I have to protect Lily, and that means I need you.”

  “To clean up your mess.”

  “Is it your intent to make me grovel? Now who is playing games? You won’t let harm come to my wife to spite me.”

  Marcus walked to the wall where he jerked on a long rope. But that was all the ground he gave in this silent war of theirs. “How does this involve her? How did Cary die? Or Edwin?” His tone held a bleak sadness Robert had never thought to hear from his brother, the Marquess.

  The heir and the spare.

  Robert was the spare now.

  That thought pierced his heart so quick, so hard, he had to suck his breath in and straighten so he wouldn’t double over.

  “I will explain,” he managed, “but we have to get Edwin now.”

  “I’ll send men to clean up your mess. But we’re also sending for the constable—”

  “No.”

  “You are hardly in a position to bargain, brother.”

  “I am not here to bargain.” Robert stuffed down the annoyance and stepped forward. “Damn it, Marcus. Will you make me beg? For her life, I will.”

  Just then, the butler entered. “Yes, my lord?”

  “Hasgood, I have a rather grizzly request, I am afraid,” Marcus told him. “My brother and his valet were attacked, and while he escaped, his valet lost his life. I need you to engage an undertaker. Take some footmen with you and ensure that he collects the body for his family.” Marcus grabbed a pen and sheet of paper from his desk and handed it to Robert. “My brother will write the address.” />
  “Very good.” To Hasgood’s credit, he didn’t muster an expression of any sort. He took the paper and without reviewing it, turned.

  “Hasgood?”

  “Yes, my lord?”

  “I shall guess that whomever you send to that address will need to be well armed.”

  “It shall be done.”

  Marcus turned to Robert. “There. Now, you’ll tell me what this is all about. What have you done?”

  “Lily first.”

  “I can’t protect her until I know what the threat is. Talk.”

  “You aren’t going to like it.”

  “When do I ever like what you have to say?”

  “Rarely. This is no exception. No, I take that back. This is a grand exception, because it will give you justification for every rotten attribute you have ever ascribed to me.”

  “This day is turning around then.”

  Robert paused. At one time, telling his brother what he’d done had seemed a lark. Now, regret reared with a vengeance. Telling his brother the truth would sever any threads of family that remained between them.

  “Speak up already,” Marcus snapped. “You are wearing my patience, and where you’re concerned, I have precious little.”

  “There are men threatening Lily’s life, my life, if I don’t continue to work for them.”

  “What sort of work?”

  “I engrave copperplates.”

  “For what?”

  “To create banknotes.”

  When his brother continued to stare, Robert added, “Forgeries, Marcus. I create copperplates for forgeries.”

  “The hell you do.”

  “I’m certain my spot is already reserved there, but yes I do. I’ve done it for two years. And I’m good. Damn good. Good enough that they refuse to let me quit.”

  Marcus’s hands laid flat on his desk and he tilted his head down, dragging in a long, slow breath. “Do you have any idea what this means? I am on the bloody committee to stop the bloody forgeries.”

  “Yes, I recall meeting them. Nice chaps.”

  “Is everything a game to you?” his brother roared. He came around his desk and strode up to Robert. His fist struck with little warning, but Robert stood like a man and took it.