Trenton Lord of Loss (Lonely Lords) (30 page)

“Perhaps, but I’ve bought off your last scandal, my boy. Until you get your hands on my title, you’re as common as dirt, and you can be held to account for your criminal behaviors. The worry and heartache you cause your mother should be reason enough to clap you in irons.” 

“You see me.” Tye waggled the decanter. “Clapped, as it were.” He smiled at his own salacious humor. “If you’re so concerned about Mother, why aren’t you the one patting her hand and passing her tisanes?” 

“She’s asking for
you
,” Trevisham retorted, but that was as much as he’d say and they both knew it. 

Lady Trevisham had been asking for her older son pretty much since the day he had been born, and if the baron had been puzzled at first, he’d soon acceded to his wife’s preferences. She loved all three children, of course, but in her eyes, Tye would always be special. 

More’s the pity all around.

“You’ve evaded my question, my lord.” Tye set the decanter down, though it was almost empty. “Are we approaching dun territory?” 

Trevisham considered his son, saw the gray making inroads on Tye’s dark hair, the lines fanning out from his eyes. Maybe a serving of reality was in order. 

“We’re not rolled up. Yet.” 

“Yet? Do you plan to leave me a bankrupted title?” 

That would, of course, be the priority around which Tye’s world organized itself. “Of course not. You know as well as I do that harvests have been off lately, the winters long and hard. I’ve made investments, but they haven’t done well this year, and then too, you and Thomas go sporting up to Town as if I were a nabob. Have you any idea what it costs for the two of you to while away a Season in London?”

Even one free of expensive scandals, though Trevisham could not recall when the last one of those had been.

“I’m sure you’ll tell me.” Tye ran a thick finger around the rim of his glass. When his father named a surprisingly large sum, that finger paused. 

“And when I have to drag you home early,” the baron went on, “we get no refunds on the houses you rent, no forgiveness for the clothing you leave at the tailor’s, or the stalls you reserve in the mews. I am a simple country squire, Tye, and I am competent to manage that lifestyle. You, with your Town tastes and expensive misadventures with the fairer sex,
you
and you alone are what has put us in dun territory, make no mistake.” 

Tye resumed his seat, not visibly affected by his father’s accusations. When Trevisham saw his son would offer no apology—no comment, in fact—he stomped toward the door. 

“Don’t fret, though,” the baron said, turning his back on his son. “I’ve some things in train that will yield a return sufficient to keep me and mine in adequate style. Not that I’d expect you to care. Don’t forget your mother,” the baron admonished, and then he was gone, leaving Tye to wonder if he’d ever, at any point in his misbegotten life, been able to forget his mother. 

*** 

Ellie rolled over, which became more of a maneuver each week. Outside her window, night was fading and song birds cheerfully noted the approach of day.

Dratted birds.

A new day, one she should start with a sense of relief. She’d concluded her dealings with Lord Amherst, lover and dallier at large. Except she hadn’t planned on parting with him, it had just…happened, in an inconvenient and poorly timed display of the good sense she was supposedly known for. 

Good sense, and… love. Trenton Lindsey had doubtless strolled through the wood to come calling in the dark of night. Anybody seeking to harm him need only wait for him to take the same risk again, and Ellie would have another grief to deal with.

She had been honest, up to a point. A week of silence from him, followed by passionate tenderness, and no explanation for his absence, that had been difficult. The idea that he might have been followed through the shadows of the wood, that the next time he came to her by moonlight, harm might befall him… 

Ellie could not have that on her conscience.

Tears threatened again, the same tears that had assailed her the previous night—part sorrow, to be parting from a man she held dear, and part anger, because regard for Trenton had left her no choice. 

“Blast all men to Halifax,” Ellie muttered as she swung her legs over the side of the bed and sat for the now obligatory minute to get her bearings. Then she spied the bouquet on her nightstand. 

Ellie brought the flowers to her nose, smiling despite the lump in her throat. 

“How did he scamper up and down my balcony with flowers?” Rosemary, for remembrance; vervain, for enchantment; wood sorrel, for joy; and campanula, for gratitude. 

No roses, for love—that would have provoked at least two handkerchiefs worth of tears—but what lovely sentiments. Trenton had been a busy fellow last night, for he had to have gathered the flowers after Ellie had sent him packing. 

After Ellie had cried and held on to him so tightly and cried some more. After she’d fallen asleep still clinging to him in the darkness. 

The odd little bouquet wasn’t a note, wasn’t anything, but she took another whiff, and considered Trenton’s farewell gesture. She should dash off a thank you note. A thank 

you note sent between neighbors for a kindness rendered was the least courtesy required. 

Chapter Sixteen 

“You’ve a very pretty estate over in Hampshire.” Benjamin Hazlit, Heathgate’s preferred investigator for hire, offered the compliment to Trent and accepted a drink from Heathgate. 

“My father has a pretty estate,” Trent replied. “But thank you. My memories of the place are not exactly fond, but Benton does a good job with it.” 

“It’s thriving, in case you’re interested.” Hazlit was turned out in conservative country attire, but his complexion, dark to begin with, had apparently been subjected to the Hampshire sun. 

“I make regular visits. I have to pay the trades, and I also want to keep an eye on my father.” 

“Wilton himself wasn’t the object of my inquiry.”

“Nonetheless, he’s the ranking title in the parish,” Trent finished the thought, “and you heard gossip. I doubt we need to be delicate for Lord Heathgate’s ears.” 

“You do not.” Heathgate sat on his desk, a raptor in country-gentleman’s clothing. “Try the whiskey, Amherst.” 

Trent dutifully sipped his drink, then sipped again. “Where on earth did you get this?” 

Heathgate’s smile was smug. “It’s my private label. I think it makes the best argument against abstaining ever there was, is, or shall be.” 

“To your health.” Trent lifted his glass a few inches. “What did you hear, Hazlit?” 

“Your father is trifling with one of the local girls. She isn’t well liked, puts on airs, but she’s from decent people.” 

To have
this
conversation while sipping
this
whiskey was profane. 

“Imogenie Henly. I’ve talked to her father. I’ll do so again, sooner rather than later. What else?” 

“Your father is becoming great good friends with your former father-in-law,” Hazlit went on. “They rode to hounds together through the years, and now Trevisham has offered Wilton the use of his box in the north.” 

“Which Wilton will not get around to using.” 

“One hopes not, though Trevisham can’t very well leave Hampshire for an extended frolic on the grouse moors when he’s nigh pockets to let.” 

Well, damn. “How did you learn this?” 

“The usual means.” Hazlit sniffed at his whiskey, the gesture somehow elegant. “You have a pint or two or twenty in the local watering holes, ask if any of the Quality are hiring, and you hear the baron has started letting his older staff go, he’s slow paying the younger ones, hasn’t had any work done on the manor in ages, that sort of thing.” 

What was said at the local watering hole about Lord Amherst, and had Hazlit troubled himself to hear that, too? 

“What else?” 

“The baroness is not enjoying a social life,” Hazlit reported. “She’s supposedly prostrate with nerves over her sons’ latest debacle in Town, but I was told it’s an annual malady. Sooner or later, the older son, Tidewell, must be brought home in disgrace, year in and year out.” 

“Yet the entire five years I was married to his sister, he couldn’t be bothered to call on us, and we generally tarried in London for at least the start of the Season.” 

“As to that…” Hazlit exchanged a look with Heathgate. “How well did you know your wife before your married her?” 

“I knew
of
her,” Trent said, knowing as well that his business had been discussed between the other two men in his absence, the way physicians would consult on a vexing case. “She was six or seven years my junior, so we never moved in the same social circles, even in Hampshire. She was Tom and Tye’s pretty younger sister; I saw her at services, or assemblies, eventually, but I wouldn’t say we were even acquainted.” 

Another glance between the marquess and his snoop, which even good whiskey could not smooth over. 

Hazlit set his drink aside. “I suspected as much. I spoke with a lady who had been your wife’s undergoverness some twenty years ago.” 

“And?” 

“She describes a child who went from being sweet but shy to nervous in the extreme, and she attributed the shift to the ceaseless teasing and tormenting of her older brothers.” 

“Tidewell was fifteen years Paula’s senior. You’d think he’d be beyond teasing a sibling so much his junior.” 

“But Tom would have been less than five years her senior,” Hazlit pointed out. “Perhaps he was the more reprehensible of the two. Tidewell is still bothering young girls, though. His latest Season ended when he trifled with a young lady whose brothers took exception to her ill usage.” 

Every family had its burdens. “Trifled with?” 

“The details were not available in Hampshire. They will be in London. He might have called her an indecent name. Duels have been fought over less.” 

“He might have raped her,” Trent countered, thinking of his late, unhappy, nervous wife. “As a baron’s son, Tidewell probably considers himself above the law.” 

“He likely is, in a sense. His papa paid off the girl’s family.” 

With money the baron apparently could not afford to part with. 

“Where does this leave our investigation of the shooting?” Heathgate posed the question from his perch on the desk. 

“A little wanting for motive,” Hazlit admitted. “I could find nothing to indicate the Bennings are still grieving Paula’s passing, but I did hear mention that Lady Trevisham had also buried a sister at a young age.” 

“Paula told me that. Said she had an aunt who’d died at the age of sixteen at boarding school. Said it made her reluctant to go off to finishing school herself, but she enjoyed it, for all her misgivings.” 

“Do you know where she attended?” 

“Same place her aunt did.” Trent closed his eyes in concentration. “Miss Somebody’s Academy for Distinguished Young Ladies… Peachem, Pantry…” 

“Palliser?” Hazlit suggested.

“Yes.” Trent opened his eyes. “In the Midlands on the site of some priory old Henry confiscated. I saw it once on my way to Melton to meet Darius. Pretty place.” 

“One of my sisters considered teaching there before she took to governessing,” Hazlit said. “She’s a frightfully intelligent woman, my sister.” 

Ellie was frightfully intelligent, too. Also shrewd, kind, brave. 

Passionate. 

And done with him, as she should be.

“Paula was bright enough,” Trent said. “She lacked confidence, until her temper was goaded.” 

“Did she ever talk about her family?” 

Trent searched his memory, feeling like a witness in the box before hostile counsel, though neither of the other men could be enjoying this interview. 

“She spoke of her father, sometimes. She’d say she missed him, but never asked that we take the children to see him. She left Trevisham Grange to join my household and never once went back.” 

“Which isn’t so unusual,” Hazlit said. “What about correspondence? With her mother, her friends from school, anybody?” 

Not a detail, and yet Trent hadn’t noticed this at the time.

“Nobody. I think the baron’s sister had sponsored Paula’s Seasons, but the old dame has since died. Even she couldn’t spare Paula a note once we wed. It’s sad, now that I think on it. At the time, we had other concerns, and the children started showing up.” 

“What of her mother?” Heathgate asked. 

“Why do you ask?” 

“In a family of three men, you’d think the mother and lone daughter would become close. Forgive my bluntness, your wife was retiring, Amherst, another trait that would make a girl closer to her mother. Then too, you have the mother’s rather eccentric behavior, not socializing when she could be one of the queen bees of the parish. If her sons come up to Town, year after year, why doesn’t she? Why didn’t she present her own daughter? Something doesn’t smell right.” 

“You have a point.” An uncomfortable point Trent resented the man for seeing so easily. “I can’t say I know my mother-in-law much better than I knew my wife when I married her. The baroness was quiet, pretty, and legendarily devoted to her children. She didn’t strike me as the murdering kind.”