Dauntless

by Lynne Connolly

  Charles pursed his lips, touching them with one long finger. “That could be so. Will you allow me to make a few enquiries? I think the questions are better coming from my people. You are too agitated to face her. She will not speak to you. Stay away for the next few days, dear brother. Let tempers cool.”

  If she was in debt, he could help her. Gambling amounted to a sickness in society these days. He’d seen men unable to stop, even when they’d lost everything they had. But after the way he’d made his feelings clear, she would not speak to him. She would not confide in him. Yes, much though he hated to admit it, Charles was right. “Very well. But do nothing without coming to me first.”

  Anger still rode him, but a touch of fear curled in his stomach. If he had married an inveterate gambler, he would have to force her to stop. He could never stop watching her.

  * * * *

  Two mornings later, Dru tapped on Charles’s door. Reading her own book could not be worse than the cold shoulder she’d received from Oliver. She was close to begging him to talk to her. He spoke to her when he had to, but only to ask her to pass the butter or to remind her they had some social event to attend that evening. He never came to her at night. Dru didn’t know a way to cope with this. After their close intimacy, how did anyone walk away from that? She might as well be an unwelcome guest for all the notice he took of her. This must be how discarded mistresses felt. Or couples who detested one another.

  “Come!”

  Obeying Charles’s gentle command, she entered the room. His smile broke her, but she retained her calm demeanor and even managed to smile in return. The room was flooded with sunlight, and Charles wore spring green, the color of the grass in the garden. A bird sang outside the window. How could anything be wrong on a day like this? Except it was, of course. Everything was wrong.

  She went to the table and picked up the book. It would hurt so much to read it. Punishment, perhaps. Taking her seat, she watched Burnett pour tea, part of their daily ritual.

  “I wish you and Oliver would finish your stupid quarrel,” Charles said, a touch of petulance coloring his soft voice.

  “I wish it too,” she answered, “but he is dreadfully hurt.”

  Charles shrugged in that one-shouldered way he had. “Angry, more like. He does that, you know. Always responds with anger. I swear, he needs to control that temper.” He paused, glanced behind him, and motioned for Burnett to leave the room.

  The door closed. Beneath the watercolor on the wall stood an odd object. A walking cane, its silver knob gleaming with polishing.

  He followed her gaze. “Ah, yes. I keep it in case I might need it one day. I do not think I will.”

  The engraving on the top wasn’t fresh. “It looks used.”

  “It belonged to my father.” A reminiscent smile touched Charles’s lips. “That is the main reason I keep it.”

  She could understand that. If her father—God forbid—died, she would want his spectacles as a keepsake, not the signet ring or something more valuable and less personal. “I see. Do you miss him?”

  “Not particularly.” He turned his attention back to her, his eyes chilly. “He always put the dukedom first and then his sons. He was a cold man.”

  She had heard different from his mother. Returning the day after the ball, her ladyship had wisely chosen not to comment directly on the breach between the newlyweds. Instead, she’d taken to reminiscing about her own marriage. “He was indulgent to a fault,” she had said. “Always ready to listen to me and attend to my needs.” Perhaps she’d said that to persuade Oliver to do the same. But he had not disagreed, instead clasping his mother’s hand warmly, in a way that brought a lump to Dru’s throat. Would she ever feel his touch again?

  But a man in charge of an estate as wealthy and extensive as the Mountsorrel one might take his responsibilities seriously and try to make his sons do the same. However, the soft expression in Oliver’s eyes was not only for his mother. Dru would have sworn he was sparing a thought for his father, too.

  Forcing a bright smile, she picked up the book and found the leather marker she had set in it. “Shall we continue?”

  “Yes, let’s.” They only had a few chapters to go before the end of the book. “I would dearly love to know what happens next.”

  Dru felt sick. “I no longer have the original manuscript, so I cannot read it to you until it is released.”

  “But you can tell me what happens. Or do you mean to make me wait?”

  “Yes.” Longer if she could, but Dru had run out of ideas. She could not face Wilkins again, and in any case, what good would it do?

  “Poor Dru,” Charles said so sympathetically she could not bear it any longer.

  After whipping off her spectacles she fumbled in her pocket and found her handkerchief, pressing it to her eyes.

  “Does this foolish fuss cause you so much distress?”

  She nodded, unable to speak, fighting to regain control. Eventually she lifted her face to him. What she saw, the sympathy and kindness, nearly overset her all over again. He just didn’t understand what it felt like to face the people so ready to condemn her. Seeing her happy ending turn to dust in her hands and to have nobody to blame but herself.

  “Oliver will not speak to me about it. He is so angry. I don’t think he will ever speak to me again in anything but a civil tone.” She swallowed and blew her nose, not in the least gracefully.

  “You caught many things truthfully. For instance, I have never been completely sure if the disaster that caused me to lose so much was an accident at all.”

  Shocked, Dru stared at him. “Someone would have been brought to justice.”

  “It depends on who plotted it and what control they had of the outcome.” He met her gaze, his own bleak.

  Their father? Why would he—

  Dru’s mind came to a complete stop. Oliver? He meant Oliver?

  “That’s madness.”

  Charles gave her one of his sympathetic smiles. “If it was, it was done on impulse. Oliver had always resented being the heir, you know, and teased me that I had all the benefits and none of the responsibilities. An edge of rivalry always existed between us. But I do not think it. Only, when I cannot sleep some nights, I am reminded of that moment just before. He turned to me…” He shook his head. “Forget what I said, Dru. A nightmare, no more. You see, you are not the only one with a vivid imagination!”

  But Dru could not forget. That night, in her lonely bed, she recalled what Charles had said and went over his words. Could Oliver, in a moment of impulsive behavior, have caused the accident? Did he have it in him to do such a thing?

  Her heart said no, but she had seen such behavior in him. He was impulsive. The way he’d stolen kisses from her, his sudden decision to propose marriage, and above all the swift marriage ceremony told of it. He could have done something—aimed for a fallen branch, pulled too hard on the reins—and caused much more than he’d planned. That would increase his guilt. That would explain why he flew off the handle so much, instead of choosing to discuss the matter frankly.

  She could do nothing about what had happened in the past. But she could help herself in the future. If she could only prevent Wilkins from publishing that book! Would he have distributed it yet? No, it was too early. If he sent it out too soon, the booksellers could preempt the release. They had special customers they would oblige. He would not send them out until the end of the week, Friday or Saturday. Even Saturday night, to give the booksellers, who must close on the Sunday, even less opportunity to read the book and release the details ahead of the planned day.

  Wilkins had taken out advertisements in all the newssheets, and they had posted bills all over town. Dru had seen them and longed to leap out of her carriage and tear them down.

  “What did he say?”

  Charles shook his head. “Nothing important. Only that he did not want the
dukedom, and wouldn’t it be fine if we could change places?” He trained his attention on her. “As I said, foolish. He has made an excellent duke. A little dour, but that is his privilege, is it not?” He smiled brightly.

  Dru listened to him in horror. That didn’t sound like Oliver at all. But how well did she really know him?

  Did Charles know his comments pointed to Oliver perpetrating such an unthinkable act? As an accident, it was a tragedy. A deliberate incident would make it a crime. But Oliver wouldn’t do that. Would he?

  She wished she’d known him better before she married him. But she knew she loved him.

  * * * *

  Oliver sat in his study, tapping his pen against the paper before him. He had dedicated today to catching up with the business that had brought him to London in the first place. But he could not keep his mind on the job. He read everything before he signed it, however tedious he found it, but after perusing the same legal paragraph four times without understanding it any better, he gave up.

  He leaned back, letting the worn leather enclose his body. The feeling had always soothed him. It failed now. Because of Dru. His wife, Drusilla, Duchess of Mountsorrel. She was his wife, and he had to find a way to cope with her, to give her what she needed.

  After his initial fury had subsided, he received letters from people concerned about his wife’s activities. People she had never heard of, but who had immense influence in society and the wider world of business and finance. They wanted reliable partners, and Oliver found himself crowded out of a few deals. None would make a great difference to his position and wealth, but they were indicators of what might come if he did not stop the rot.

  He could divest himself of Dru. While divorce was out of the question, he could create a distance between them. Once they had produced the heir, they need not even live in the same house. But even thinking of that hurt him. Forgoing what he had so briefly found to return to the soulless world of bought women and kept mistresses hurt him in a place he thought he’d hardened—his heart.

  In everything else, he’d found Dru a delight, a charming companion and passionate lover. Standing with her had the inevitable risk. Some would call him henpecked. Others would judge that a man who could not control his wife or who considered such a flighty piece a suitable partner for him.

  He heaved a sigh and tossed the pen on to the desk. He had become such a sadly predictable, serious person. The hint of devilry had gone, crushed by that carriage as surely as Charles’s legs.

  And he had other concerns, which he had shared with nobody. Those strange accidents that had forced him to bring the marriage forward because he was so worried about Dru. They still stood. Losing the wheel of the carriage and a stone in a horse’s hoof—they had been done on purpose. The first could have meant to hurt either or both of them. The second was definitely aimed at Dru. To incapacitate her, to kill her…or to deter her from marrying him?

  Oliver sat up, suddenly alert. He needed to talk to somebody. He checked his watch. Lord Strenshall would probably be at his club at this time of day. Oliver could catch him there. He might find Strenshall’s oldest son, too. They needed to know of his suspicions. Then he would make his plans. The book would have to wait. The only person damaged by that was he, and he could take it.

  Having made his decision, he strode into the hall and called for his coat, although he found it annoying to have to follow the dictates of society. The day was sunny, and he could easily walk to the club in his shirt-sleeves. Except they wouldn’t let him enter in such a scandalous state of undress. At least his valet had the sense to bring a light coat, one of the fine wool ones with silk lining, together with his small sword. The coat’s wine-red color seemed vaguely appropriate, considering where he was going.

  He waved away the offer of a carriage, a hackney, or a sedan chair. He wasn’t soft yet, and the walk would help him clear his head.

  Through the West End, where the rich disported themselves and the poor darted among them, selling flowers at extortionate prices, snatching handkerchiefs, snuffboxes, and quizzing glasses. Not from him, though. He only had one of those items, and it was tucked into an inner pocket.

  He barely stopped at the surprisingly small and cozy foyer of White’s Club to scrawl his name in the book and toss his hat to the man behind the desk. Then, more reluctantly, he handed over his small sword.

  The more imposing entrance held classical columns and a statue, together with a huge painting on the landing of the founders of the club and their distinguished members. Her father was in there somewhere. Probably lurking at the back.

  He found his quarry in the main member’s room. Father and his son Marcus, Lord Malton, sat at a small table, a decanter of burgundy between them, desultorily tossing a die. Discarded newssheets lay on a table next to them. The marquess had a paper in his hand, and as Oliver approached, he tossed it on to the discarded pile.

  Oliver strode across the polished parquet floor, barely acknowledging the stares and murmurs as he passed. He caught the word “Tirolly” more than once.

  He snapped a bow. “May I speak with you?”

  Lord Malton hooked a foot in the rails of a nearby chair and dragged it over. “Do take a seat,” he said civilly, raising a finger to get the attention of the waiter. “Do we need a private room?”

  Oliver accepted the invitation and took the seat. “Perhaps we do. But the club isn’t full, and if we keep our voices down, nobody will hear us.”

  “So you’re not here to call us out?”

  Oliver shook his head. “I need to know your family secrets. Who is trying to hurt Dru?”

  Ten minutes later, in the private room the marquess had bespoken, Oliver outlined what had happened so far. “I believe the two incidents involving the carriage and the horse are connected. But the book?”

  The marquess’s mouth flattened. “Drusilla has scribbled and written stories, poems, and journals for years. None of them reached publication because she took care that they would not. I cannot believe she would risk it this time.”

  Marcus nodded. He leaned forward, his elbows firmly planted on the table between them. Oliver saw a man who faced his problems head-on, his blue eyes direct and uncompromising.

  “Do you know how the book reached the publisher?”

  Oliver shook his head. “Not exactly.” Facing this man, he knew why not. He had backed off. Forbore from asking his wife in case she gave him the answer he was afraid of. That she had taken the book and sold it to Wilkins.

  “She always kept her writing carefully locked up.” Marcus lifted the decanter. The cut glass glittered in the beam of sunshine striking across the room as he poured two glasses of brandy.

  Oliver retained his glass of burgundy.

  “I am certain she never meant it to see the light of day,” Marcus continued.

  Oliver picked up his drink and took a reflective sip. The blinding revelation struck him as hard as a slap across the face. His concerns for his brother, insisting on tackling every problem on his own—what good had that done him? He needed help here. “So what’s to be done?” he said.

  “More to the point,” the marquess said, “What are we going to do?”

  Marcus sighed and leaned back, swallowing the contents of his glass in one gulp. “I foresee a long night ahead. Perhaps we should order dinner. And send for Darius and Andrew. Their particular expertise will be useful.”

  Chapter 15

  Burnett appeared in Dru’s room shortly after she’d finished the meager repast that was all she could manage. She pushed the plate away and glanced at Forde.

  The maid stared at the intruder, but not with her usual air of superiority. Dru had never seen that expression on Forde’s face before, but for all that, she knew it. Adoration. She’d seen it in her own eyes when she caught sight of herself in her dressing-table mirror after her husband had made love to her.

&nbs
p; Forde was sweet on Burnett. Interesting.

  Burnett bowed. “If you please, your grace, my master requests a moment of your time.”

  Nodding dismissal to Forde, Dru followed the man to Charles’s room. Whatever could he want at this hour? Charles usually retired early. He’d never contacted her after nine at night, not even with a note. Halfway up the stairs, she turned around, a thought striking her hard. “Is he ill?”

  “No more than usual, ma’am.”

  On scanning his face, she saw no perturbation. Burnett did not have the calm demeanor most servants cultivated. He cared deeply for his master, more than for Forde, she guessed. She would speak to her maid about her connection with the man in the morning. While she had no objection to servants enjoying their private time, she did prefer to know what went on in her own house.

  She had given up all expectation of receiving her husband tonight. Or any night in the near future, come to that. Her silk robe swished against the stairs as she ascended, the hush in the house almost complete. Except for the city sounds outside, nothing stirred.

  Charles’s sitting room was empty, lit only by a couple of candles set in the wall sconces. They glimmered against the mirrors behind them, flickering as they reached the stubs. Burnett spoke, still keeping his voice low. “I have helped his lordship into bed, ma’am, after a small attack.”

  “A fit?” Alarm raised her voice. She clapped her hand to her mouth. The last thing Charles needed was her screaming all over the place.

  “A minor one only, but it tired him. However, we have received news we thought you ought to know.”

  Dru raised her brows, surprised at the “we.” “Bad news?” Was Charles more ill than she assumed?

  “No, ma’am. Exceedingly good news, but since it concerns you, we thought you should know.” He went ahead, pushing open the double doors leading to the bedroom and bowing her in.

  Charles was lying in bed, propped up with a bank of pillows. Dru had only been in here once before, when Charles had his fit, and at that time she had taken little notice of her surroundings.