“What aren’t you telling me? I can tell by your expression there are things you have not divulged.”
Declan exhaled sharply. “Do you remember what I told you I’d learned about the night Albert was killed?”
She nodded once, the gesture stiff.
“What I didn’t mention, because I wasn’t positive of its importance at the time, was that the groom said one of the assassins spoke with a Russian or some such accent.”
Furrows appeared between her brows. “And…you’ve now discovered a certain…significance to this?”
He lowered his brows. “The highwayman also spoke with a Russian accent.”
Her lips formed a perfect O. “They’re connected,” she whispered.
“It would appear so.”
“Why would someone wish to kill you and your brother?” She faced him, determination evident in the set of her shoulders. “I want to help, but you merely parcel information to satisfy me, as if I don’t know you’re only sharing part of the story.”
“There was an investment agreement between our fathers. If one died without an heir, the other received the man’s share. Your father was in considerable debt. To the Vicomte de Viguerie. Who makes his home in St. Petersburg.”
Silence rang loud, and Declan waited for the inevitable.
“Of course.” The two words contained a hundred stones of bitterness. “Of course you’d find a way to tie my father to this.”
He attempted to grasp her hand, but she sidestepped him, pacing to the other end of the room.
“Suspicions have hung over my father since that damn scandal, so why shouldn’t he play a part in this as well?” She whirled toward him, pinning him with an irate stare. “The investment partnership died with your father.”
“It didn’t. As my father’s heir, Albert inherited the Darington share of the company. It was the controlling share. The men worked together up until Albert’s death.”
“And what happened after? Before you returned as the new heir?”
“Your father had sole control over the partnership’s assets.”
A heartbeat passed. “So you believe that was his motive?” She scoffed. “In all the years since the scandal, I’ve never heard him discuss the partnership. Are you so sure it drove my father to hurt Albert?”
“Tell me,” Declan said, working hard to keep his mounting anger out of his voice, “does your father regularly discuss business with you? Does he seek your counsel on speculation opportunities?”
Alethea flinched, the question apparently hitting a sensitive spot. “He does not. But he’s reviewed estate business with Finlay. Surely he would have mentioned it to him in the last, oh, twelve years.”
“But this wasn’t estate business. And perhaps he didn’t want your brother to know his debt was owed to the villain who caused that horrid scandal.”
“It always goes back to that scandal.” She pressed her forehead. “There was never any proof Viguerie was involved with the investment scheme, let alone my father.”
“Perhaps not.” He took a step toward her. “But I discovered the reason Albert was in Spitalfields that night. He’d received a note promising him ledgers. I believe, and I’m confident Albert did, too, that they were the real shipping venture ledgers that outlined how the investment funds were dispersed and by whom.”
She blinked. “How did you learn that?”
“Albert sent a letter to Darington Manor, addressed to me. The note was inside. It had been placed in his desk for safekeeping, and the butler forgot it was there.”
“He wanted you to know,” she murmured, her eyes glazing over.
“Obviously. Although I wish I knew whom he’d met with.”
Alethea jerked her head. “That still doesn’t mean my father’s involved. And I refuse to heap censure on him for what happened with your father.”
“With both Albert and myself gone, your father would have control of the partnership. He’d be able to pay off all of his debts.”
Before he’d finished speaking, she’d turned her back on him, rapidly shaking her head. “You are accusing my father of scheming to commit murder.”
He sighed and continued with a calm he didn’t feel, “I don’t believe you know your father as well as you think you do.”
She spun around, an odd expression contorting her suddenly pale face. “I must leave.”
“What do you mean? You still have not told me why you wanted to meet.”
Alethea was already advancing toward the door. “I have been away too long. My father will discover I’m gone.”
She crammed her hat on her head and fled out the door. He followed her down the stairs and said nothing as he harnessed the horse to his gig. She kept her face averted as he worked, and hopped onto the tiger’s seat as soon as he had completed the task.
“Allie, please tell me what’s wrong.”
She glanced at him, her eyes shining with unshed tears. “I can’t.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
February 1818
I’ve long thought the most powerful weapon one could wield was their words. I cling to this belief with both hands.
-The Diary of Lady Margaret Gordon
How had things gone so horribly wrong?
Alethea paced at home several hours later. After Declan had delivered her home as stealthily as he’d stolen her away, she’d snuck inside and changed before departing to Campbell House. She had needed someone to talk to. Someone who could view the situation with a level head, something she found she was sorely lacking.
Once ensconced in Flora’s chambers, Alethea had recounted the entire experience, including the details Declan had learned and his suspicion of her father’s motives.
“My, that’s quite the case.” Lady Flora had paused, her gaze narrowing on Alethea in speculation. “What do you think of his claims?”
“Of course they’re not true.” She walked to the window that overlooked Grosvenor Street and pressed her head against the cool pane. “Perhaps they are. I don’t know what to think.”
She replayed the conversation she’d overheard between her father and the mystery gentleman. Based on his French accent, she assumed it was the Vicomte de Viguerie. A deeply troubling determination, yet she couldn’t bring herself to tell Declan about it. If one paired what she’d heard with Declan’s encounter with a highwayman, it would be too easy to believe her father had tried to have Declan murdered on his return trip to London. And if he was capable of ordering Declan’s murder, surely he’d have no qualms orchestrating the death of another duke.
The possibility had overwhelmed her and she’d fled. Even now, she didn’t dare utter a word of what she’d overheard to her friend.
Flora dragged her to the bed. Once they were seated side by side, Flora linked their hands together. “What you should think about is finding proof.” She arched a brow. “If there is any truth to the accusations, there has to be some sort of evidence. Without the truth, how can you and Darington have a future together?”
And that question troubled Alethea as she found herself prowling her mother’s old sitting room. Samuels was not sure when her father would arrive home, as proceedings at Westminster were running late, and for reasons she didn’t understand, she needed to feel close to her mother. As if she could absorb her thoughts, her secrets, through the paneled walls.
Her pacing, her fretting, delivered no insight. The only thing she knew for certain, and it filled her with shame, was she’d sided with her father, who sold her off in marriage to repay a debt, over the man she loved.
A sharp thrust of pain pierced her chest and she staggered, grasping onto the desk like a lifeline.
She loved him.
But of course she did. Alethea suspected she always had. From the time they climbed the towering elm in their clearing, he’d always been the keeper of her heart. From the first, the very attributes others found offensive because they were outside the norm—his unique background, his lovely gold skin, his success in trade—had made h
im singular in her eyes. Such traits, paired with his easy self-confidence, his droll humor and charisma, the love and respect he showed his family and their memory, left her completely defenseless from loving him.
With a sudden burst of clarity, she realized why the men who courted her in the past had left her cold. Because her heart had lay dormant, waiting for its match to spark it to life once again.
She sank heavily onto a plush chair, her movement causing the chair to crash back into the wall. The pictures clattered with the impact…all except one. Alethea angled her head to peer behind her, her eyes meeting her mother’s steely blue gaze.
Although, truth be told, they didn’t appear steely.
The portrait had been done before the twins were born, the twinkle in her mother’s eye a sight Alethea had always believed to be an artistic embellishment. But the rest of her mother’s features were much as she remembered them…but different. Her blond hair, which was usually pulled into a severe fashion away from her face, was free flowing, like a golden waterfall down her back. Her face, usually stiff and immobile, was carefree and smiling. The countess’s demeanor even seemed lighthearted in the portrait.
The countess couldn’t have been. Not when she never allowed her daughter to be.
Alethea stared at her mother for an indeterminate amount of time, almost expecting the countess’s lips to finally reveal why she’d always disapproved of her. Why she could never bring herself to love her only daughter.
She knocked her head on the wall beside the frame in disgust with herself. Once again, the frame didn’t move. She reached a hand to the portrait and tugged. It gave way to reveal a safe hidden in the wall. By chance, her fingers twirled the levers, turning them to her and Finlay’s birth date. When it popped open, she wasn’t surprised.
Alethea swung open the door, disappointed when she saw only one item. She grasped it, pulling it into the light of the room.
And when she flipped it open and read its contents, it robbed her of breath and almost knocked her to her knees.
…
Since Alethea had fled from him the week before, Declan had been irritable. On edge. Her uncharacteristic behavior and continued silence stung. Sharply.
In time, Declan had realized it was unfair to think she’d respond to such news in any other fashion, especially when he offered no proof of his assertions. She was loyal to her father, and until he could prove her loyalty was misplaced, he forced himself not to seek her out.
With that realization, any lingering frustration he’d experienced had dissolved. Still, what made his fingernails bite into his palms was that he still had no concrete proof to tie the Earl of Rockhaven to the investment scandal or Albert’s death. Both he and Sanders had torn through years of old investment partnership records and journals to prove his father wasn’t guilty of the crime that ultimately led to his death. The fact he could find nothing to aid his pursuit was like the thrust of a hot blade to the gut.
Desperate to leave the suddenly claustrophobic walls of Darington Terrace, he’d retreated to his club. Now, seated in a leather chair, a newspaper in his lap and a glass of the club’s finest brandy in hand, he stared moodily at the wall, unseeing. His return to London was supposed to fill the hole in his chest he’d come to live with since he’d stepped on a ship bound for France. Instead of easing that pain, it had only widened. Intensified.
“Darington.”
The sound of his name, low and without inflection, drew his head up. The Earl of Rockhaven looked down at him, his mien cheerful and his smile friendly. It was completely at odds with the tone of his voice, and set Declan’s hackles up.
“My lord,” Declan said, inclining his head and extending a hand to the empty chair across from him. “Please have a seat. How are you this afternoon?”
Declan hoped his own smile was welcoming, even as anger and suspicion settled on his shoulders.
“Well, well,” the older man murmured, sitting and handing his top hat to a waiting footman. “This time it’s me who finds this chance encounter fortuitous.”
“How so?” Declan toyed with the rim of his glass. “After our last conversation at the Gold Cup, it was my understanding you’d prefer to see as little of me as possible.”
The earl accepted a glass of brandy from a footman then directed his attention to Declan. “Perhaps I was unfair.” When Declan arched a brow, the earl waved a hand in the air. “I’m usually quite busy at this time of year, with the Season’s events and business at Parliament increasing. I should have shown more patience for your questions.”
Rather than contradict the man’s recollection of their meeting, Declan sipped his brandy, welcoming the familiar burn. “I completely understand. Between my responsibilities to the West Indies Interest and now to the dukedom, patience is a virtue I often fail to achieve.”
“Exactly, my boy. Which reminds me. My secretary told me he’s been communicating with you directly in scheduling meetings. You really must hire your own secretary as soon as possible.” Rockhaven may as well have made a tsking sound for all the censure his words held. “As the new Darington, you’ll need a man to keep your affairs in order. You wouldn’t want anything to fall through the cracks, as they say.”
Locking his jaw, Declan stayed his tongue. He could handle the man’s condescension…just this once. “I appreciate the words of wisdom.”
“I wanted to discuss a matter of great importance.” Rockhaven paused, the silence pregnant with anticipation. Declan guessed he was expected to fill the void with eager questions, but opted to maintain his silence. He already knew what the earl was going to say.
Relaxing in his chair, Rockhaven cast his gaze to the ceiling. “When your father and I were young men, before we’d ascended to our titles, we both expressed an interest in growing our allowances. While our friends flitted theirs away on gambling, drink, and women, we joined together to invest our funds in various ventures.”
“That was the beginning of the Darington–Rockhaven partnership, I take it.”
“Yes.” The earl frowned. “I wasn’t aware you knew about it.”
Declan shrugged. “Of course I’ve known about it. And my solicitor reviewed it with me.”
“Good.” Rockhaven’s mouth flattened into a line. “And did he explain the particulars?”
“That I, as the Duke of Darington, control the largest stake. That all proposals for use of partnership funds must be approved by me.” Declan looked into his glass, swirling the fragrant liquor. “That in the year following Albert’s death, you continued to invest the partnership’s capital in proposals of your choice, as you suspected I was dead.” He threw back the remaining brandy and set his glass down on the small side table with a thud. “Did I miss anything, my lord?”
Rockhaven shifted in his seat, the only indication of his discomfort. “Your family’s top-notch solicitor was unaware of your whereabouts and couldn’t even say when Albert had last heard from you. And seeing as you no longer have family for me to inquire with, I had to act.” He cleared his throat and pointed a finger at Declan. “But now that you’re here, I have a proposal we need to move on immediately.”
“What is it?”
“I’ll send you over the details. I’ve already spoken with the gentlemen in charge, and we’ve worked out the terms.”
Declan’s eyes narrowed. “I thought you wanted to act immediately. Since we’re together now, should we not discuss it?”
“I can’t recall all the details at this time.” Rockhaven took a drink. “But please be prepared to sign the contract approval when I send it to your home later today.”
“I’d like to review the terms, along with a project analysis and the expected returns, before approving it.” Declan signaled a footman for another glass of brandy, suspecting he would need to shore up his defenses.
“There’s really no need to concern yourself with those details. I’ve already reviewed everything with my solicitor, and in his opinion, everything appears sound. We sh
ould turn a tidy profit by Christmastide.”
Declan straightened his shoulders. “That’s not how I do business, my lord.”
“Your brother was not bothered by this method,” Rockhaven retorted, his eyes turning flinty. “I oftentimes did the research on prospective projects and he approved them, trusting me to present only stellar opportunities.”
“But I am not my brother.” Declan’s voice was low and firm.
“No, you are not.” The words were said without malice, but the earl gritted his teeth around them. “I’ll send the details around tonight. I’d like to move on this as quickly as possible.”
“So you’ve indicated.” Declan took a long sip of alcohol. “I will review the information as soon as I receive it.”
“Good.” The earl stood, adjusting his waistcoat and signaling for his top hat. He glanced down at Declan, the thoughts on his face undecipherable. “Until next time, Darington.”
Declan watched him leave, curious what the earl would do when he rejected the proposal. He didn’t have to look at the details. He was denying it on principle alone.
Chapter Twenty-Four
June 1806
She toddled to me and wrapped her pudgy arms around my neck. “Mama,” she cooed before she kissed me on the cheek with an open mouth. My heart shattered.
-The Diary of Lady Margaret Gordon
It had been a week since Alethea had left the house.
Since her discovery in her mother’s room, she’d been terrified to step outside Rockhaven House, convinced someone would recognized the truth, as if it were written in red letters across her face.
The truth that she was a bastard.
She, Lady Alethea Swinton, only daughter of the Earl of Rockhaven, was illegitimate. And, as her twin, so was Finlay.
Her mother’s diary sat in her lap, even now. She clenched her eyes shut, hoping it would disappear, along with the secrets it exposed. But the weight on her thighs told her it remained, taunting her with the knowledge its pages contained.
Lady Margaret Gordon had begun recording her thoughts when she was just an adolescent girl, the beloved daughter of a Scottish marquess. But as Alethea read her words, she couldn’t fault her mother for her transformation from a lively, open-hearted girl in love with her young husband, to a bitter, scorned woman.
To Love a Scandalous Duke (Once Upon a Scandal) Page 18
