Gareth: Lord of Rakes (11 page)

Which he might have been.

The cat sat upon a pile of bank drafts and commenced its ablutions.

“I’m concerned that a decent lady is consorting with a rake and murderer while you wash your ears.”

The cat offered no comment, but instead shifted to lick its belly.

Heathgate’s reputation was one of ruthless business acumen—no doubt a function of his plebeian antecedents—and unflinching self-indulgence in the personal sphere. While not known as a drunkard or wild gambler, the man did cut a wide swath with ladies of a certain description.

A
very
wide swath. Rather like the damned cat now in a purring sprawl over Holbrook’s open household ledger.

Holbrook allowed the cat to remain right where it was, while Heathgate’s proximity to the Worthington sisters was something to be watched very, very carefully.

“He has some blunt,” Brenner said.

“His name is Holbrook, and he has some blunt,” his lordship repeated. “It doesn’t seem our investigation has progressed very far, Mr. Brenner.”

The interview was taking place in Lord Heathgate’s estate office, and as with many of his interviews with the marquess, the occasion visited upon Michael Brenner a compelling urge to dive out the window.

“As you say, your lordship, this fellow is turning out to be deucedly difficult to investigate. He has no markers out. He doesn’t even gamble, for that matter. He keeps prime horseflesh and drives conveyances that are all the crack, but nobody knows where he or his money came from. His household servants have all come into Town with him, and they keep to themselves. If the help won’t gossip, your lordship, it is nigh impossible to get the particulars on the employer.”

Oh, blessed Saint Bridget, there goes the Eyebrow.

Brenner soldiered on. “He doesn’t receive many invitations that we can see, and he’s had no company to the house since we’ve been watching him—not one caller of either gender. He takes his coach to the park in the morning, and he sits there and watches the foot traffic. A prodigious amount of correspondence seems to come and go from his town house, and messengers come and go at all hours, but they arrive and depart on horseback, Lord Heathgate. Hard to see what’s in their satchels, if you get my drift.”

Heathgate scowled, which qualified as a sort of Double Inverted Eyebrow.

“Rifling satchels, Brenner, would be premature, and ill advised. For all I know, Holbrook is merely a country squire hiding in Town from his wife’s relations, and keeping a close eye on his interests at home. His interactions with the Misses Worthington might have been purely incidental.”

Would to God his lordship could content himself with such an innocuous explanation.

“Don’t think that’s the case, your lordship. Holbrook has taken his rig to the park every morning since that horse almost ran down Miss Worthington. Mostly, he sits there. We suspect he’s reading correspondence. Yesterday, he got out of his coach as soon as the young misses came into the park. When some other folk paused to offer pleasantries to the sisters, he stopped, and got right back into his coach, and took up his watching again. When the ladies left, he left—not before.”

His lordship stared into the fire, something Brenner had seen him doing a lot lately. “Brenner, good decisions are made…”

Brenner couldn’t help himself—he interrupted his employer to finish the oft-repeated saw. “Based on good information, yes, your lordship. I will bring you better information. Until then, we keep the ladies under watch, and their house as well?”

“You do, and the Pleasure House. Keep Holbrook under close watch as well. He may be simply an inconvenient coincidence, but something tells me his interest in Felic—in Miss Worthington is not… the obvious.”

“Very good, sir.”

***

By the time Gareth finished interrogating Brenner, reading his correspondence, and sorting through his situation with Felicity, the clock was striking an hour after midnight. He heard the front door slam, and recalled that Andrew was temporarily sharing quarters with him—something to do with wallpaper or new curtains at Andrew’s bachelor abode. The office door opened, and through it strode Gareth’s surviving brother, fresh from a night on the Town.

“You, Brother,” Andrew drawled in disgust, “are positively stodgy. Not thirty years of age, and all the fun has gone right out of you. Here it is, a fine if frigid spring evening, and you have no doubt spent the past hours sitting right where you are, balancing columns and reading reports from the home farms. I thank God above every night of my life that you stand between me and the title.”

He plopped his thankful self into one of the armchairs and began tugging off his boots.

“The Whore of Hamilton was asking for you,” he went on. “I gather you’ve thrown the little baggage over.”

“A gentleman doesn’t spank and tell, Andrew, but I did have Brenner find her a bauble to console her in her impending loneliness.” Along with the bauble, he’d also sent the requisite apologetic note, explaining that the press of business would render him unable to enjoy her company for the foreseeable future, and she should not limit her enjoyments out of any misplaced sympathy et cetera, et cetera.

She’d appeared to like the diamonds, at least.

“Don’t know what you saw in her, Gareth.” Andrew padded sock-footed over to the sideboard. “There’s only so much of her carrying-on a fellow can find amusing. Brandy?” He gestured with the decanter.

“Please. It’s been too long since I joined you in a nightcap.” Gareth folded the spectacles he used to read late at night and slid them into a drawer, then accepted the glass from Andrew and settled himself in the other armchair.

“My theory is”—Andrew paused to swirl his brandy glass slowly in his palms—“you saw nothing at all in the fair Edith, and that’s why you took up with her. Then too, Edith can be counted on to play by all the tawdry rules, poor thing. Your taste in women these past few years has given me considerable worry. What kind of example are you setting for me?”

“Worry about yourself, Andrew,” Gareth growled back, wondering when his little brother had become such an astute observer of the human condition. “I look to you to secure the succession.”

“I will if you ask it of me. Just don’t ask it of me quite yet. I am a young man, you know.” He sipped sparingly. “Where do you find this stuff? I’ve never come across its like elsewhere, anywhere.”

“It’s six-and-forty years old, Andrew. You aren’t going to come across its like, so enjoy. I certainly am.” He savored the drink and savored the quiet conversation with his brother.

“Oh, and speaking of your taste in women…”

“Which I was not.”

“What on earth is this I hear about you setting up that Worthington woman at Callista’s old place?”

“
What?
” Gareth hadn’t yelled, but the single word reverberated in the quiet office like a pistol shot.

“I was, shall we say, enjoying the healthy good spirits common to young men when one of the ladies present said she’d heard it from another cust—gentleman that the Worthington woman had retained you to buy a brothel for her. It’s just the kind of thing you’d do, Gareth, but having met Miss Worthington, I can’t picture it.”

How
had
this
happened?
“Andrew, you are my brother…”

“Oh, no,” Andrew groaned. “You’re doing it, aren’t you? She seemed like such a decent sort. What were you thinking, introducing her to Mother? I can’t say I find that amusing. This goes beyond what I expect even from you.”

Andrew set his glass down with a thump and gathered his boots to leave.

“Andrew, hear me out.”

Andrew turned, and Gareth was treated to what one of his bolder mistresses had termed the dreaded Alexander Eyebrow. Coupled with Andrew’s height and dark good looks, the effect was surprisingly daunting.

“I am relying on your discretion, Andrew.”

Andrew set his boots down. “Spare me your insults.”

“I am not buying Miss Worthington a brothel. If she can meet certain conditions of Callista Hemmings’s will, she inherits the brothel.” Which was, to quote the solicitors, a distinction without a difference. “She cannot meet those conditions unaided, and Callista specified the assistance should come from me.”

Andrew’s face was a mask of disgust. “That is scandalous. I never knew Callista well, but she struck me as hard, not evil. Why would she leave her business to a proper young lady like Miss Worthington?” He did not resume his seat, but remained standing over Gareth like Headmaster with the first form. “Well, is she a proper young lady? You did introduce her to Mother.”

How did one put a presentable face on unpresentable facts?

“Miss Worthington is the daughter of a viscount and well bred. Her father, however, died without male issue, and barring the last-minute appearance of a long-lost heir, his estate is in the process of reverting to the Crown. For reasons I do not understand, the young ladies were not made wards of the Crown, nor were they granted a competence from the incomes during their minorities. I don’t understand it—Brenner is checking—but I think this is simply one of the many details that have fallen beneath royal notice in recent years.”

Andrew appeared to consider Gareth’s words: King George had been mentally slipping for many years, and it was common knowledge, hence sentiment grew ever stronger in favor of a regency for the Prince of Wales. Two penniless female orphans were hardly of concern to a monarchy that had all it could do to wage war against Napoleon’s ravenous ambitions.

“But why her?” Andrew persisted. “Callista could have left the business to some other lightskirt and directed an income to be paid to the Worthingtons. That could have been handled discretely enough.”

Never once, by word or action, had Andrew ever betrayed his brother’s confidences. Fortified by that fact, Gareth answered his brother’s query honestly.

“Callista is a cousin of some remote degree to the Worthingtons. I assume she did not direct a stipend be paid to her cousins because, over time—over decades, possibly—that would have involved others who had no loyalty to Felicity and Astrid. Callista was not in the business of trusting to others’ noble natures.”

He fell silent, while the fire crackled. Andrew retrieved his drink. Again, Gareth had to wonder what could have motivated Callista’s cruelty toward her only female relations.

“I
liked
Miss Worthington, Heathgate. She seemed like such a nice change of pace for you,” Andrew said, sounding cross. “If she inherits that brothel, she’s ruined. If she doesn’t, I suppose she’s destitute—not a complicated choice when one’s belly is empty and there’s no coal in the hearth. What will you do?”

Andrew had ever been a bright lad—damn him.

“What I thought I’d do is provide the assistance requested of me so she does inherit, then manage the business for her until it can be sold one year from Callista’s death. I had hoped the whole matter could be handled quietly, as had Felic—Miss Worthington. But you tell me there are rumors?”

Andrew nodded, finishing his brandy.

“Only rumors and only among the soiled doves. I, of course, laughed uproariously at the very absurd thought, and explained you had quite properly escorted the lady in question to the theatre, introduced her to Mother, upon whom she would be calling Wednesday next… ‘Ha-ha, how these things do get garbled in the minds of the less intelligent…’ says your loyal brother. I’ll try to find out where it came from, but God’s bones, this is a mess.”

Andrew assumed the mess was one they now shared, and that warmed Gareth more effectively than the fire or the brandy.

“A mess, indeed. I took Felicity out the other night precisely to create a proper impression. I suppose now she will have to call on Mother, though I cannot like the idea.”

Not for himself, not for his mother, and most of all, not for Felicity.

“You underestimate our dam, Gareth. She would like nothing,
nothing
, more than to be of use to you in unraveling a scheme like this. She has good instincts when it comes to people, and she liked Miss Worthington on the spot. Her good offices could go a long way toward scotching rumors and avoiding scandal. For all we know, Mama knew the late viscountess, or some such rot.”

Not even the Marchioness of Heathgate could scotch this scandal if the particulars became public, and yet, that wasn’t what bothered Gareth most.

“There’s more, Andrew.”

“Only you, Heathgate.”

“Shut up, brat. I have reason to believe somebody wishes Felicity harm…” He was outlining the incident with the runaway horse, and the strange lack of information on Felicity’s “rescuer,” when a knock interrupted him.

“Enter.”

Brenner appeared, uncharacteristically disheveled and out of breath.

“Begging your pardon, your lordship, Lord Andrew, but I thought you’d want to know now. There’s been a fire at the Worthington residence.”

***

Felicity sat at the worn worktable in the kitchen, her icy fingers clutching a mug of tea. Her mind was unaccountably concerned with the question of why in the aftermath of a fire, she should be so cold. Though she had a dressing gown wrapped around her nightgown, she couldn’t stop shaking. Astrid sat beside her—right beside her—pale as a winding sheet and for once beyond chattering.

“Close that damned door, Brenner,” came a familiar growl from the hallway.

Gareth.
Relief flooded her, unreasoning, physical, emotional relief.

“What are you doing here, my lord?” She stood as Gareth and his brother tromped into the kitchen, followed by a red-haired man who looked a bit the worse for wear but closed the door at his lordship’s barked command.

Relief gave way to a need to hit something—or somebody.

“I wanted to air out the smoke in here, my lord, and you haven’t answered my question.” Felicity gripped the table to steady her unreliable knees. The Crabbles rapped on the now-closed door, then joined them in the kitchen.

Gareth walked right up to her and opened his arms, spreading his cloak wide. He enfolded her in its depths by virtue of wrapping his arms around her, then tucked her face against his chest without acknowledging her questions.

She took a big, shaky breath, and loved him for bringing warmth and the scent of spices, flowers, and safety to her cold, smoky kitchen.

He began speaking while Felicity listened to the beat of his heart beneath her cheek.

“You’d be Crabble, I take it? Was anybody hurt? No? Thank God for His mercies. Andrew, please take Miss Astrid upstairs and have her gather what the ladies will need for a short stay elsewhere. Send the tiger with a message to Mother, telling her she will have company for the balance of the night, possibly longer. Crabble, you and your missus will present yourselves at my town house tomorrow morning that we may discuss this… unfortunate situation in detail. For tonight, I want you to secure this residence after we leave. My man, Brenner, will assist you once you’ve shown him the damage. Brenner, I’ll expect a report.”