"I suppose you must also say that about Richard," Nicholas said.
"Perhaps. I told that impertinent girl you wish to wed that you would likely pass on your grandfather's insanity, but it was for naught. The chit exhibited no understanding of the human brain." Miranda, Lady Mountjoy, looked from him to Richard and back again, and frowned. They were even dressed similarly this morning, and everyone in the drawing room knew they looked clearly like brothers, unlike her precious Lancelot.
"Tell me, ma'am, where is my third half brother, Aubrey?"
"Ah, so now you think he's a murderer? Well, Aubrey isn't in London," Lady Mountjoy said, and sighed. "He is at Oxford. Aubrey is a scholar, if you must know, studious from his earliest years, always surrounded by his books."
Richard said, "Aubrey wouldn't know which end of a gun to use, so forget about him."
Miranda thought about the thick violent red hair that covered his scholar's head-Aubrey's hair was almost the exact color of that little hussy who would take precedence over her if she indeed married Nicholas, and that was surely a revolting prospect.
Miranda pictured Aubrey in her mind. How she hated that his shoulders were stooped, that he had to wear glasses because he'd surely read every book at Oxford. Ah, how she'd begged him to let Richard take him to his private boxing salon, straighten his back, get his chin to go up, to show pride in his heritage, perhaps give him a dollop of aggression. How could a man stand up for himself if his shoulders were round as a bowl? His father hadn't been any help, he'd simply clouted the boy whenever he chanced to say something clever or quote from an ancient Greek philosopher. Ah, but she wasn't about to tell this interloper any of that.
As for Lancelot-at least he shot well, enjoyed hunting and riding. Even though he comported himself like a romantic poet, his shoulders were straight. Even though there wasn't much hair on his face for that valet of his to shave, he could still sneer as well as Richard.
And now here was Nicholas standing in the drawing room, her drawing room, big and fit and hard, just like her precious Richard, but there was something more in his dark eyes, something that bespoke experiences and fantastic adventures and something else-and what was that? Pain, black and deep?-no, she wouldn't think about his life after his grandfather died. After hearing nothing from him for years, they'd believed him dead, and in her heart, she'd rejoiced at the justice of it and swelled with pride when she looked at Richard.
Only Nicholas wasn't dead. He was alive and looming, ready to kill her boys. "You could have died when you were a boy," she said, "so why didn't you?" Miranda was aware that Richard was staring at her and she shut her mouth.
"I am like a tough strip of leather, ma'am, although"- he looked her up and down-"perhaps I am not as tough a piece of leather as you are."
"See here," Richard said, taking a step forward.
"No, dear," said Miranda, halting him. "So someone tried to put a period to you-well, you can forget about any of my sons."
"No," Nicholas said, "I don't think it was Richard. We'll have to see about Lancelot, won't we?"
"See here, my name is Lance, damn you!"
"Lancelot-" Nicholas rolled the name around on his tongue as he turned to see his half brother, the sunken-chested, pallid butler standing just behind him.
"Lance! My precious boy, what are you doing back in London? Richard told us you were visiting a friend in Folkestone."
Lancelot shrugged. "We had a wheel break on the carriage. No choice but to come back. So what? What is he doing here?"
"So you might easily have been the one to try to put a bullet through my brain this morning," Nicholas said, a blast of cold in his voice, wondering how long it would take him to strangle this supercilious little sot, and enjoy every second of it.
"Nonsense," Lancelot said, and frowned at a tiny speck of dirt on his burgundy velvet jacket. "I am an excellent shot. If I had been in London, if I had shot at you, you'd be lying dead on your damned back."
"You're not as good a shot as I am," the butler suddenly said. "Don't you remember our competition? And Master Richard is the best of all of us."
The butler was very free in his speech with his employers, Nicholas thought, and watched his stepmother gape at him. Nicholas asked, "What is your name?"
"I? I am called David Smythe-Jones."
Nicholas couldn't help himself, he laughed. "Davy Jones? Your parents are seafaring people then, with strong ties to irony?"
"No, they believe in treasure, trapped in long-ago sunken Spanish galleons, lying deep in the sea. However, since they live in Liverpool and haven't a groat to go searching for their prize, it isn't likely they will ever find it. Still my mother spends her life searching out old treasure maps and making plans."
Nicholas studied the young man, his petulant mouth, his nervous hands always moving. Then he looked at his two half brothers. So very different they were. And here, of all things, the third half brother, Aubrey, was a scholar. He wondered what his sire had thought about what his seed had produced. He raised his hand to get their attention. "No more bickering, no more insults, no more protestations of innocence. Including you, sir," he added to Alfred Lemming, who was standing on his tiptoes, ready to leap. "All of you will listen to me now. I am Lord Mountjoy, the Earl of Mountjoy. None of you will ever take that title. My son will follow me and his son will follow him down through future generations. If your mother taught you this was really your birthright, and not mine, if she taught you that you were the rightful hairs, than she did you a grave disservice.
"I will say this only once. If anything happens to me, I have several close friends who will avenge me." He turned to face Richard. "If I die, you will die, and Lancelot will die. Given my friends' rage were I to be murdered, I doubt Aubrey would survive either. Then there will be no Vails, the line will be dead as all of us. Do all of you understand me?"
Lady Mountjoy yelled, shaking her fist at him, "You're utterly mad! You are so mad you threaten my sweet boys who have never harmed you."
"Attend her, my lord, for that is the truth!" Alfred Lemming bellowed, his face now alarmingly red.
Nicholas sketched his stepmother a brief bow. "I will see that you are not killed, ma'am. I would want you and your fat lover to continue on; perhaps eventually you would feel despair that you taught them to hate me, taught them I was an enemy to be destroyed, rather than their brother whose responsibility it would be to protect them, to be at their backs, perhaps even to assist them. In the end, madam, you would realize you were surrounded by nothing at all."
There was stone silence for a moment before Alfred Lemming stepped forward on small well-shod feet and said, barely above a whisper, "I say, my lord, you should not make such a blanket statement as that." His very white brow was damp with perspiration, but he persevered. "Despite the venom and threats floating around the drawing room, it is no excuse for bad manners. I am Lord Heissen and I will personally vouch for the young gentlemen. That is the point, my lord. They are gentlemen, not hooligans. You have come from heathen places, doubtless tracked by heathen enemies with no sense of what is suitable in a civilized world. No English gentleman would fire a gun in the midst of traffic-to possibly be seen and identified. It is absurd that you would be suspicious of these fine upstanding boys."
Nicholas eyed the very dapper Alfred Lemming, Lord Heissen, whose white hands were as plump and beringed as his stepmother's. "I am pleased to hear your opinion, my lord. Since you appear to be slithering about in this pit of vipers, I have decided to add you to the list. If I die, this entire drawing room will be cleaned out, save for my venomous stepmother. I bid you good-bye. Oh, yes, madam, stay away from my betrothed."
"Betrothed! It is not to be borne. Why, I-" Nicholas took a step toward her at the same time one of Alfred Lemming's white hands gently pressed down over her mouth. Nicholas nodded at him, noted that despite its apparent softness, that hand of his looked, surprisingly, very strong. Nicholas said, "Keep it there, my lord, for her own safety."
"What? It is a noble name, it is a name that carries countless unspoken tales of bravery and adventure."
"How long have you been employed here as the butler?"
The soft, white chin went straight up. "I took care of Master Lance at Oxford. I was ready to assume greater duties in London. I am now in charge of this magnificent house. All look to me to resolve difficulties, to train the tweeny, to ensure Master Lance's cravats are white as a virgin's spit, and well folded. I am perfection and that is what I demand from all the servants."
Nicholas had a sudden memory of actually smelling the rot eating away at the books in the library just down the corridor. It was odd for a five-year-old boy to remember that. He looked over the young man's head at Lancelot. "See that you keep your butler in line," he said, and he paused in the doorway, looked at each of them, his expression pensive. Then he left the town house, seeing their stony faces in his mind's eye. As he took the front steps, he heard his stepmother yell, "Why did you even let him in, Smythe-Jones? That is not perfection, that is serious bungling. What sort of butler are you?"
"But I wasn't even here! Master Lance and I were still at least a mile away when he shoved his way in. Had I been here he would have walked on my face. I didn't have my gunso I couldn't have shot him. He is dangerous, that big fellow."
Big fellow? Clyde nickered. Nicholas smiled.
25
An hour later, Nicholas was closeted with Ryder Sherbrooke. Thankfully the Earl of Northcliffe had escorted the wives and Rosalind to Madame Fouquet's. It was a vast relief because Nicholas knew Rosalind would realize something was wrong, and then the three of them would hold him down and question him until he spurted out everything he knew or imagined he knew. And then they would all throw their opinions into the ring and it would be chaos. Rosalind, he thought, something of a fatuous smile on his mouth, would have gotten a gun and gone off to murder the lot of the half brothers. And his stepmother as well, he imagined.
He said now to Ryder, "One of them is behind the attempt on my life, I simply cannot prove which one it was and so I threatened all of them. Funny thing is, I do have friends who would gladly avenge me. If I leave word, as I most assuredly will, all that pernicious family would be wiped out were I to die.
"However, since I do not believe them stupid, perhaps that is the end to it." He paused a moment, looking toward the empty fireplace grate. "Still, I cannot be certain. Fact is, I don't know what to do, sir."
Ryder paced the beautiful Aubusson carpet in the library, a splendid room filled with five thousand books covering three walls, floor to ceiling. Ryder remembered his father gently cutting each of the pages, handling all the books with incredible gentleness, placing them carefully on the shelves. "The world is in this room, Ryder," he'd told him.
After the silence stretched long, Nicholas said, defeat leaching out all emotion in his voice, "I will leave right this moment and never return if you believe it the thing to do."
Ryder looked down at a massive globe, spun it slowly, watched England appear, then quickly disappear. So small, he thought, England was so very small, insignificant really, in terms of the size of the earth, but still- He said finally, looking over at the young man, "I want to agree with you, Nicholas, I really do, but I cannot. Actually, you will add me to the list of your avengers.
"But I do not believe murder will be done. We will take steps to ensure it does not. Now, I know Rosalind wants you for her husband. I know that Rosalind being what she is, being made how she is, being as loyal as she is, she would doubtless follow you back to Macau if you tried to leave her. Thus, I don't believe I have any choice in how to proceed."
Ryder rubbed his forehead, cursed low and fluent. "You and Rosalind must wed immediately and leave London. What do you think of Wyverly Chase? I know you spent time there before you came to London."
"Yes, nearly a month there, putting repairs into motion, so many needed since my father left that beautiful old estate to rot. As for all the tenant farmers, they were in dreadful straits, but that is being corrected as well. I have an excellent estate manager there to oversee repairs."
"I trust you have sufficient funds to see to all of it?"
"Yes, of course. The penniless boy who left England at the age of twelve made good, sir, as the vernacular goes. You wonder if Wyverly Chase is a good sanctuary. That is what you mean, isn't it, sir? You want Rosalind safe while I sort all this out."
"Yes. Do you think you and Rosalind will be safe there or should you simply leave the country for a time?"
Nicholas marveled at the decency of this man, his logical brain, and the fact that, when it came down to the meat of the matter, he was doing what Nicholas wished him to do. Nicholas wondered if Rosalind would really follow him to Macau. He said slowly, "Wyverly Chase is set atop a lovely hill with open views all around. There is a thick pine and maple forest that ends a good one hundred yards from the house.
"As I said, I have an excellent estate manager, Peter Pritchard, the son of my grandfather's man. I have already hired servants, all local, which bodes well for loyalty to me. The tenant farmers are very pleased with me, as is the town of Wyverly-on-Arden since I've ordered most all our supplies from the local merchants. I honestly believe both of us will be safe there until I am able to find out who is behind this."
"You don't wish to take Rosalind on a honeymoon?"
"Not yet, sir. There would be too many risks to her safety. Let her settle into Wyverly first, see what she thinks of the place."
Ryder eyed him a moment. "I hate to tell you this, but it wouldn't matter if Wyverly were a grand palace, she would still redecorate it. She will doubtless redesign and replant the gardens, she will add peacocks, and heaven knows the racket they make."
Nicholas's left eyebrow shot up.
"It's in her blood, she says, whatever blood that is. She was always trying to change Brandon House, and when Jane refused, Rosalind brought herself to our house and made immediate plans to change the draperies in my estate room as well as rearrange all my furniture." He grinned. "She has no taste in clothes, but show her a room and she will make it glorious very quickly indeed. But first- I strongly suggest that this wedding take place as quickly as possible. Hmm, it's Thursday. How about Saturday? Do you think it sufficient time?"
Nicholas nodded. "I shall visit Bishop Dundridge to procure a special license. I know Rosalind is having her final fitting today with the earl and his wife and yours."
Ryder nodded. "I will meet with Willicombe and Cook to see that all is in order for Saturday morning." He paused a moment, then nodded to himself. "We shall invite all your relatives, Nicholas." He quickly raised his hand. "No, this is important. Trust me on this."
"They won't come."
"You are the head of the family. Society would not look kindly upon them if they refused to attend your wedding. And trust me, society will know if they come since I will ensure that all know."
"But-"
"No, it must be done. Your half brothers and your stepmother must see that it is done, it is over. Douglas and I will be there. It will be all right."
Nicholas left the Sherbrooke town house feeling a bit light-headed. He paid a visit to Sir Robert Peel on Bow Street, then returned to Grillon's Hotel to inform Lee Po of the new plans.
Lee Po raised a thin black brow that was already arched high, sending it nearly into his hair, and said in perfect English, "And I had thought to be bored in this frigid rain-soaked country. But instead, you and your betrothed are both in mortal danger, not to mention the magic and mystery of this Pale place-what an excellent diversion, my lord. You can be sure I shall be on my guard. None of the three halfwit brothers will harm you when I am about."
Nicholas laughed. "Thank you. Now, there is much to be done." Then he told Lee Po about the two men Sir Robert Peel was sending to him.
Rosalind found out quite by accident about the a
ttempt on Nicholas's life. She had raised her hand to knock on the estate room door, when she heard Uncle Ryder's low voice and pressed her ear to the door. Uncle Ryder was telling Uncle Douglas about someone firing a gun at Nicholas.
"You fleabrain," she whispered to the absent Nicholas. "You will learn to confide in me if I have to box your ears." But since the debacle was the catalyst for their quick marriage, and that was surely very fine, she kept her peace. She had years in front of her to bring Nicholas around to trusting her absolutely. Given his unfortunate childhood, not to mention the villains he'd surely had to deal with since he was twelve, she knew it would be small of her not to accept his silence, but still, it hurt. What hurt too, but angered her more, was the attempt on his life. She wished she had Richard Vail's neck between her hands.
It was Grayson, told by his father that Rosalind had very likely eavesdropped when he told Uncle Douglas about the murder attempt, who warned Nicholas to stay away. Grayson told him, "Otherwise, she might call it all off and shoot you herself. She's a fine shot, my word on that, so don't take any chances. My father fed her some drivel about a problem at Wyverly Chase and that was why you needed to have the wedding moved to Saturday. Rosalind pretended to believe him, though I know very well she didn't. Truth be told, I don't know what she's thinking right now, she's been very quiet, perhaps too quiet."
Nicholas said, "I would wager every groat in my pocket she's planning something."
Grayson agreed, told him to keep his distance, and wished him the hast of luck.
Nicholas called after him, "Please invite Lorelei Kilbourne,
Grayson. Both Rosalind and I are very fond of her. Since she suffered for Rosalind, it's only right she be invited." Grayson said stiffly, "I will consult her father." "Ask her parents to come as well," Nicholas said. "And her four sisters?" "Naturally."
Nicholas laughed when Grayson muttered, "The giggling gaggle."
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