Project Duchess

by Jeffries, Sabrina

  Brightening, Gwyn grabbed Beatrice’s hand. “You must show it to me, my dear!” She tugged Beatrice through the arbor.

  As soon as the ladies were out of earshot, Wolfe faced Grey with a hardened stance. “Don’t think I’m blind to what you’re about, sir.”

  “Oh?” Grey asked, feigning ignorance. “What is it that I’m ‘about,’ exactly?”

  “Enticing my sister into your snare.” Wolfe’s face darkened with rage. “Seducing her with your compliments and suave city manners.”

  “I was unaware I even had suave city manners.” Indeed, Grey was perilously close to using his not-so-suave fist to bash the major’s face in.

  How dared Wolfe accuse him of anything? None of this situation would even exist if not for the man’s possible criminal acts and Sheridan’s subsequent suspicions.

  “This may be a joke to you,” Wolfe snarled, “but I’m warning you, Greycourt: Stay away from my sister!”

  Grey stared him down. “Or what?”

  That seemed to take the major aback. Then, with a scowl, he rested his weight on his good leg and brandished his cane at Grey. “I’ll call you out. Duke or no, you will not take advantage of Beatrice. And don’t think my bad leg has impaired my shooting ability. I assure you, it has not.”

  Grey was about to point out that the challenged party got to pick the weapons, and he would certainly pick swords, if only to put a swift end to Wolfe’s foolish idea of dueling. Fortunately, the ladies returned before he could utter words the proud major would probably find intolerable.

  Moving to Wolfe’s side, Gwyn said flirtatiously, “You really should go look at the well, sir. It’s rather amazing.”

  Keeping his gaze trained on Grey, Wolfe said, “Another time perhaps. Beatrice and I are going home.”

  Beatrice set her shoulders. “But we haven’t had our picnic. Why, Grey hasn’t even seen the ruins yet!”

  “I don’t care about any damned picnic!” Wolfe cried, then stiffened when both Gwyn and Beatrice scowled at him. “I’ll take you on a picnic another time, duckie,” he went on sullenly. “And Lady Gwyn can show His Grace the ruins.”

  Gwyn looked from Wolfe to Beatrice, whose face had gone pale. “I think Grey can find the ruins all by himself. They weren’t that impressive anyway.” She offered her hand to Beatrice. “Let’s return to the house, shall we? Mama is probably tired of dealing with the dressmaker and ready to continue our come-out lessons.”

  Wolfe stepped between Gwyn and his sister. “She doesn’t need lessons from your lot. She can find a husband on her own, right here in Lincolnshire.”

  Gwyn looked as if she might answer, but Beatrice stepped around her brother to join her friend and said, “What if I don’t want a husband from Lincolnshire? This is not your choice to make. No matter what you think, I could use their help in making a decent match.” Beatrice slid her hand in Gwyn’s arm. “Come, let’s go find your mother. I am more than eager to continue preparing for my debut in London.”

  As the two women flounced off, neither casting Grey even a backward glance, Wolfe looked momentarily unsettled, as if he hadn’t anticipated this turn of events. Grey hadn’t either, so he understood exactly how the major felt.

  Nonetheless, he would take advantage of the ladies’ exit. “Perhaps you should show me the ruins, sir,” he drawled.

  Wolfe looked nonplussed. Then he snapped, “I’m afraid you’ll have to tour them yourself. I put off important matters so we could go on this little expedition.” With the merest bow of his head, he added, “Good day to you, Your Grace. And remember what I told you: Leave my sister be.”

  Grey wished to counter with a warning to the same effect—that Wolfe should leave Gwyn alone. But Gwyn had a mind of her own. If she wanted the major, Grey’s interference—hell, Sheridan’s interference—would only make her want the man more.

  So he let Wolfe walk away without making a similar threat. There was no point. As Sheridan had said, Gwyn knew better than to choose a man like Wolfe.

  A man who might be a murderer. It bothered Grey that Wolfe had refused to go near the site of his uncle Armie’s death. Perhaps Grey should view the spot himself, see if he could find anything Sheridan had missed.

  But when he searched the area, Grey found nothing of significance. So he headed back to the manor, part of him wondering if he might see Beatrice. His pulse quickened at the thought, damn it.

  Why did she do this to him? No woman in society had even raised his temperature, yet some country chit made his blood heat and his mouth water? It made no sense. Even in his wild days of wine, women, and song, he’d always managed to enjoy himself without losing control. Or yearning to see any woman more often.

  Yet he couldn’t deny his disappointment at discovering that Beatrice had left Gwyn and his mother not long after she’d arrived back at the hall. He turned to asking about Sheridan, but his half brother hadn’t returned to the hall yet. So after changing his clothes for dinner, Grey waited for him in the study. And was rewarded for his diligence when Sheridan appeared a couple of hours later.

  “Where the devil have you been?” Grey couldn’t help asking.

  Sheridan glowered at him. “You were supposed to keep Joshua out of my way so I could do some exploring. But as I was searching the river, he appeared on the bridge. I had to hide from him.” He looked irate. “Hide, mind you! I never hide from anyone.”

  “Aren’t you fortunate?” Grey had spent half his life hiding—from his aunt’s and uncle’s machinations, from women who wanted to snag him as a husband . . . from himself.

  “What the devil is that supposed to mean?” Sheridan asked.

  “Nothing. Anyway, today’s expedition didn’t turn out quite as planned.”

  Sheridan rolled his eyes. “Obviously. But I discovered something important all the same.” He went to pour himself some brandy. “After I left the area, I decided to see what the gossips in Sanforth might have to say about Joshua. And that’s when I learned that Uncle Armie was planning to sell the dower house. Right out from under Joshua’s feet.”

  A chill ran down Grey’s spine. “Not just Joshua’s. His sister’s, too.”

  Looking suddenly uncomfortable, Sheridan downed some brandy. “It was well known in town that Uncle Armie wanted to sell the dower house to help pay his debts. And supposedly Joshua knew it, too. So the murder might have had nothing to do with the dukedom. Joshua might simply have decided to kill Uncle Armie to keep the man from selling his home.”

  “Possibly,” Grey said grimly. “Though that theory doesn’t explain your father’s death.”

  “Actually, it might.” Sheridan stared down into his glass. “I’d forgotten about it, but at some point after we took up residence here, Father mentioned that if worse came to worst we could always sell the dower house.”

  Grey suddenly found it hard to breathe. “Could Wolfe—or even Beatrice—have overheard Maurice?”

  Sheridan shrugged. “I honestly have no idea. But if Joshua did, whether from her or from town gossip—”

  “Then it gives him a motive for wanting both men dead.”

  Grey’s heart sank. It gave Beatrice a motive as well. And though he still couldn’t see her riding out to murder two men, she, not Wolfe, had known of the little hiding place not far from where their uncle Armie had died.

  Still, Grey doubted she had the strength—or the will—to pull a man off his horse and break his neck, even a man in his sixties. She would need her brother to help her. Despite Wolfe’s bad leg, the two of them might manage it between them.

  But to assume that, Grey would have to believe he’d been entirely wrong about her character, had mistaken every word, every blush . . . every sweet, hot caress. Could he really have been that wrong about her?

  Staring off into space, Grey examined her behavior since they’d met. Until today, she’d actively avoided being around him, especially whenever he brought up her brother or uncle. Even today, she’d probably only taken him aside so she could ke
ep him from seeing Wolfe’s reaction to the spot where her uncle had died.

  All this time he’d assumed she might have another reason for her evasions, but what if she hadn’t? She’d accused Grey of cozying up to her . . . but what if all this time she had been cozying up to him, just more subtly and effectively than any woman he’d ever met? What if she’d been trying to allay his suspicions by tempting him into madness? Trying to find out what he knew, what Sheridan knew . . . if Sheridan was planning to sell the dower house?

  If she had been such a schemer, she was even more manipulative than his aunt and uncle, which he had trouble believing.

  The more he thought about that possibility, the angrier he got. What if, in his . . . foolish infatuation for her, he’d simply played into the hands of a murderer and his accomplice?

  “Grey. Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine.” Grey rose. “But I need to go. There’s something I must check on.”

  As Grey headed for the door, Sheridan said, “I almost forgot—what happened with you and Joshua on the trip to the ruins? Did he react to seeing the spot where Uncle Armie died?”

  “We didn’t get that far,” Grey said.

  No, they hadn’t. Because Beatrice had made sure that they hadn’t.

  Beatrice was eating her supper when a pounding came at the front door. What on earth? It couldn’t be Joshua. He wouldn’t knock, and anyway, by the time she’d returned from Armitage Hall, he’d already ridden off to Leicester. At least that was what their maid-of-all-work, their only servant these days, had told her before going home to her family.

  Leaving Beatrice alone here. Which made her reluctant to let anyone in now that night had fallen. She told herself it was probably a servant from the hall, come to fetch her for some reason, but still . . .

  “Open this door!” demanded a voice she recognized only too well.

  Him.

  She hesitated a moment longer. Grey sounded angry. And given how they’d parted, perhaps he had a right to be. She’d as much as admitted he had good reason for his suspicions, even though she wasn’t sure of that herself.

  Still, she knew him too well to think he would just go away and leave. And when he cried, “Wolfe, damn it, I want to speak to you now!” she ignored the butterflies in her belly, strode to the door, and swung it open.

  “What do you want, Your Grace?” she asked, fighting to sound unafraid. It was hard not to be afraid when he was looking so ducal in his evening attire.

  He seemed startled to see her standing there in her nightdress and wrapper. Then he collected himself. His gaze took in the empty room behind her. “Where’s your brother?”

  “I believe we had this discussion before,” she said tartly. “The appropriate greeting—”

  Temper flared in his face. “I don’t give a damn about social rules just now. I want to speak to Wolfe!”

  “He’s not here.” She started to close the door. “Go away and come back tomorrow.”

  Grey stuck his foot in the door to prevent her from shutting it. “Not until I get some answers. Where is he?”

  Grey wasn’t just angry—he was well and truly furious.

  She shuddered. “Joshua is in Leicester. He was supposed to go this morning, but he put his business off for our outing. Why are you asking? What has happened?”

  “Your brother has left you, a woman, alone at night?” He ran his gaze down her, obviously taking in the flimsiness of her attire.

  “Our maid-of-all-work generally stays with me if he’s gone, but her babe is sick, so I told her to go home. It’s safe enough on the estate.” And she kept a loaded pistol on the console table near the door, though she didn’t have the best aim. “Joshua will be back tomorrow.”

  He leveled a hard gaze on her. “Are you sure he’s coming back?”

  What an odd question. “Of course he’s coming back. When he goes to Leicester on business, he’s rarely gone more than one night. Now please go and leave me to my supper.”

  Instead, he shoved open the door and entered. “Then I will talk to you in his stead.”

  As he shut the door behind him, she swallowed hard. “This is most inappropriate.”

  “I don’t care.” He tossed his hat onto the console table and caught sight of her pistol. “You shoot?”

  “Not very well, no,” she admitted, then realized perhaps she should have kept that detail to herself. Though honestly, she couldn’t see herself shooting a duke. Particularly this one. “I keep it there for protection.”

  “From whom?”

  “People like you who barge into my home without an invitation,” she bit out.

  A faint smile crossed his face before he squelched it. He picked up the pistol and turned the handle toward her. “Then go ahead—feel free. Though it won’t help you or your brother advance your aims in the same way that pushing someone off a bridge might have.”

  She felt all at sea as she took the pistol and carefully set it back on the table. “Advance our aims? What do you mean?” Then it hit her. “Uncle Maurice? Now you suspect my brother of murdering him, too?”

  “Your brother,” he said coldly. “Or you.”

  “Me!” She burst into laughter. The idea of her killing anyone was ludicrous.

  But Grey’s grim expression showed that he didn’t find it so, and at once her amusement vanished.

  She stared him down. “Why in God’s name would I murder Uncle Maurice? I liked him!”

  “He was planning to sell this house out from under you and your brother.” Grey cast her a triumphant look as if he’d finally unveiled all her secrets.

  “Yes, and so was Uncle Armie.”

  The triumph in his face vanished. “You’re not denying that you knew about it.”

  “Why would I?” This conversation got stranger by the moment. “Everyone in the whole blasted town of Sanforth knew. I daresay half of London knew. Even if I hadn’t heard about it from several people eons ago, I wouldn’t have been surprised to learn of it. Since this parcel of the estate isn’t entailed, selling it was one of the few ways left to my uncles to shore up a failing dukedom. Indeed, I assumed that the reason for my come-out lessons was that Sheridan was planning something of the sort himself, so your mother figured she’d best find me a husband and quick.”

  Grey looked as if she’d sucked the wind right out of his sails. “So you weren’t concerned about it.”

  “Well, yes. But it’s not as if I could do anything.” She cocked her head. “I certainly wouldn’t have tried to murder anyone in a futile attempt to prevent it.” She shook her head. “You actually thought I would . . . kill your stepfather over such a thing.”

  “It crossed my mind.” He ran his fingers through his hair distractedly. “But no. Not really.” His gaze shot to her. “Your brother is another matter entirely, however.”

  “He would never have murdered Uncle Maurice,” she said stoutly.

  “But you’re not so certain about his murdering your uncle Armie.”

  So they were back to that, were they? Her hands grew clammy. “H-He wouldn’t have done it over that, to be sure.”

  The moment the words left her mouth, she could have cursed her quick tongue.

  Especially when Grey’s eyes focused on her with great intensity. “Not over that? Then over what, pray tell?”

  Her stomach sank. She should have known from his questions this afternoon that he wouldn’t let his suspicions slide. Especially after her parting words in the clearing.

  Not sure what to do or say, she headed back toward the kitchen. “My supper is getting cold.”

  He followed her, his presence looming behind her like a thundercloud. “By all means, don’t let me keep you from supper. It’s not as if we’re discussing anything important.”

  As she entered the kitchen, she asked, “Have you eaten? There’s still some beef stew, and I think—”

  “Leave it.” Taking her arm, Grey pulled her around to face him. “This afternoon you said you didn’t know
if Joshua killed your uncle Armie. But if he did, what reason do you think he’d have for doing it?”

  “I’d rather not go into it,” she murmured, though his threatening visage made it clear he wouldn’t let that go. “Why does it matter, anyway? Uncle Armie was an arse and now he’s gone.”

  “It matters because Sheridan thinks your brother is after the dukedom—that he killed both your uncles and is plotting to kill Sheridan and Heywood so he can become duke himself.”

  She gaped at him, but clearly he was serious. “Joshua doesn’t care about the dukedom. He doesn’t care about much of anything these days, except for his stupid trips to Leicester . . . and perhaps protecting me.”

  “Perhaps?” He relaxed his grip on her arm and softened his tone. “Trust me, he definitely cares about protecting you. He made that painfully clear this afternoon.”

  A pox on her brother. “Did he say something to you? Oh, Lord, what did he tell you? I suppose he warned you away from me.”

  “He threatened to call me out if I didn’t leave you be.”

  “What?” Pulling free of him, she balled her hands into fists. “I will thrash that devil myself. How dare he suggest a duel, after the way Papa died?”

  Grey lifted an eyebrow. “You can’t blame him, considering what you and I were doing in that clearing. Any fool could have seen through our excuses. And your brother is no fool. Not to mention that he seems determined to protect you from any man who—”

  He halted, a look of horror spreading over his features. “So that’s what you meant when you said he wouldn’t kill over the sale of the dower house. Because you know there’s only one thing he would kill over. You. Keeping you safe.”

  She turned away, unable to bear his expression. He knew. Or rather, he suspected the truth.

  And all at once, her years of embarrassment and shame came flooding back.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “Bastard!” Grey growled.

  Beatrice shot him a wary glance. “Who? My brother?”

  “No. Your uncle Armie.”

  When Grey saw the color drain from her, he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move. He felt rooted to the floor. What kind of monster did . . . what that arse must have done to her to make her brother wish to murder him?