Edward ran his finger along the rim of his glass. “Augustus? I do not recall that name.”
Oscar nodded. “He is not around much. He is very sick.”
“Sick?” Edward asked trying to keep his curiosity mild.
Oscar said, “The drink. He did not fare well after the war.” The sturdy lawman shook his head sadly. “We don’t speak much of him.”
“What about this Edward?” Edward asked to keep Oscar talking. Perhaps he could get some clue as to what happened all those years ago in France that ended up with him hanging.
Oscar frowned deeply. “Edward hanged.”
“Oh?” Edward asked as he lifted his glass up to take a sip.
Oscar scratched his head. “James—” Oscar shook his head. “I think I have had enough drink. Got to be back at work in the morning.”
Edward had to force himself not to scowl at the large man. “Of course, Magistrate.”
“Please call me Oscar. We are friends after all,” Oscar said as he stood up. “I will see you soon, my dear friend.” Oscar slapped a hard hand on Edward’s back sending him forward a bit under the weight of it.
Edward shook his head as he watched the man amble his way out of the building. It was taking longer than he liked to sort out what had happened, but he still had his revenge to see to. James might be suffering now, but Edward knew exactly how much of his father’s estate was left. Edward could not say what other holdings the man had stashed away, but he knew that James was close to having to resort to other means of payment.
***
James scowled as he fumbled through the drawer that held the official papers. He snatched up the deeds. “These might do,” James said to the study as if it could hear him. The weak light filtered in through the curtains that faced towards the setting sun. It would be time before long. He would have to leave early to assure that he got a seat at Duarte’s table.
As he made his way downstairs, Emily stepped out at the base of the stairs as if she had been waiting to entrap him. “What are those?” Emily asked as she gestured at the papers which James was currently stuffing in his coat.
“They are nothing, just papers,” James said with a wave of his hand. “Shoo, woman.”
Emily stood her ground with her hands on her hips. “Those are deeds, are they not? You are going to gamble the very ground beneath our feet.”
“Do not be so ridiculous,” James said with a scowl. “These are holdings and things that do not matter. I am just using them until I have funds.”
Emily shouted, “There will not be any funds if you give away all the parcels for which we collect rent!”
“I am not giving them away,” James growled.
Emily shot back, “You might as well be if you are going to play that Spaniard. How many times have you won against him, James?”
“The tides always turn, Emily,” James said as he glared at the woman. “Perhaps if I had a bit of confidence from my household, I would have more luck.”
Throwing up her hands in the air, Emily said, “Relying on luck got us here, James. You chipped away at your father’s estate until it was gone, and now you do the same thing to Edward’s legacy.”
James laughed coldly. “Now we get to the heart of the matter. You do not care what happens to me; only that Edward’s poor legacy remains intact. I would get great pleasure in handing over these deeds to a Spaniard just to see the look on your face, dear wife.” With that, James shoved past Emily roughly and left out the front door. James could hear the woman burst into tears before the door ever shut, and he felt a deep satisfaction in that.
Not that James was going to hand anything over to Mr Duarte. James had quite the opposite in mind.
***
“You should fold,” Mr Duarte said in a most gracious manner as one would be helpful to a child.
James scowled at the man. He had already lost one of the deeds, and the other was on the table amid the coins in the pot. His hand was dismal, but he would not admit defeat. If he just held on long enough, he could perhaps bluff the Spaniard into folding.
James shook his head. “You really are too smug for your own good, Mr Duarte.”
“What you call smug is merely reasonable,” Mr Duarte said as he flipped a coin into the pile. “I call, Your Grace. Show your hand.”
Mr Duarte’s hand lay before James, and he knew that he had lost. He knew it, and it filled him with rage. James growled, “You are a liar and a cheat, Mr Duarte. I know not by what means you trick me, but you do so.”
Oscar came over from another table and put his hand on James’ shoulder. It might have looked reassuring to most, but James felt the heavy weight and knew Oscar was warning him against going further with his accusations. James glared up at Oscar before he shoved the man’s hand off his shoulder. “So, you have made your choice then,” James hissed at the larger man.
As James left, people got out of his way as they should. The air outside hit him like a glove in the face, and James howled in rage at the indignation. He could not go home to Emily and see her face. Yet, where else could he go? He had to defeat Esteban Duarte. The man was taking everything from him, just like Edward. Edward always had everything that James should have had, now Esteban sought to come and steal it away from James.
“No,” James said through clenched teeth. “You will not beat me, Esteban Duarte. I will see you in a grave first.”
***
“I always offer to stop the games,” Edward said as he shook his head. He studiously painted his face with worry as he looked at Oscar.
Oscar patted Edward gently on the shoulder. “It is not in his nature to do so.”
“I could refuse to play him?” Edward suggested knowing the answer before Oscar shook his head. “Is there none who can talk reason into him? His wife perhaps?”
Oscar laughed. “No one comes between James and something he has set his mind to. I am sorry that he has chosen to focus on you. He has been my friend for a long time, and I think stress has gotten to him. He is not himself.”
“The trappings of power are heavy,” Edward said with a knowing nod. “I hope that for his sake and that of his household that his pockets are very deep if he continues at this pace.”
Oscar looked a bit worried but replied, “I am sure the Duke has it well in hand.”
Edward smiled and nodded. “As you say then,” Edward said. The look of worry on Oscar’s face had told him all he needed to know, and he had to fight to keep himself from looking too pleased with the information.
Edward did not know how long it was before he saw James again, but the man came bearing more deeds. The tracts of land were small at first. Night after night, and week after week, James came with papers and documents. Acre after acre of land was slowly coming back into Edward’s hand. It was not as quick as simply standing up and taking the title back, but it was very satisfying to watch James slowly being stripped of everything he had.
Edward could not even be seen as liable for it because James came to him and practically begged to play even when Edward turned him away or told him to gain control of himself. Who could blame Edward for all of this when it was James’ very persistence that had gotten him to this point? James’ eyes grew sunken and his skin gaunt as if his very essence were wasting away with every parcel that he lost.
Oscar grew increasingly concerned for his old friend, but James had all but sworn Oscar off. James refused to even look at Oscar, and that seemed to bother Oscar greatly. Edward had tried to talk to the man, but Oscar had been tight-lipped since that night in the bar. What had Oscar been going to say about James? Edward knew from all that the colonel had said that James had something to do with it, but what Edward could not say.
***
Emily stared at the drawer where the papers had been kept. Very few of the deeds remained. Emily shut the drawer back and went in search of her husband. She had not heard him come in, but sometimes she did not since they did not share rooms.
She knocked on his
door. When she got no answer, she tried the knob and found the door opened easily. James was not in the room, however. Emily searched the upstairs bedrooms, then the downstairs rooms. Finally, she ended up in the kitchen.
Emily bustled into the kitchen and asked, “Have you seen the Duke this morning?”
“No, love,” Pearl said as she straightened up from where she had been peering into the oven. “Is something the matter?”
Emily sighed. “Yes,” Emily admitted. “I told you that I would not go see Mr Duarte unless I had to, well, I am afraid that I have to under the present circumstances. We suffer already. We can barely afford to buy supplies. I had to tell three maids this morning that I cannot pay them.”
“I am aware,” Pearl said in a quiet voice. “If it comes down to it, I require no pay, love.”
Emily shook her head. “No, we have to fix this. Mr Duarte has to see reason. He cannot in good faith hurt us so.”
“Gamblers can be a thick-skinned lot, love,” Pearl warned.
Emily straightened her shoulders and took a deep breath. “Well, I certainly hope that he can handle a woman speaking her mind to him if he tries to build a bridge of excuses for his sins.”
***
Despite her bravado to Pearl, Emily felt sure her heart would simply leap out of her chest as the carriage pulled to a halt in front of the address that Emily had been told by the Earl’s wife was home to the enigmatic Spaniard. She told the coachman, “Wait here. I shall not be long.”
The doorman eyed her with open curiosity. Emily cleared her throat as she folded her hands primly in front of her. “I am here to call upon, Mr Duarte,” Emily told the man. “Could you please tell him that the Duchess of Danborough is here to see him?” Her tone was much like her mother had used on the kitchen staff, it left little room for anything but compliance.
The doorman bobbed his head up and down. “Of course, Your Grace,” the man said as he turned. He fumbled with the knob in his eagerness to get inside.
Emily waited patiently, and it took the doorman several minutes to return. The man held the door open for her. “Mr Duarte requests that you wait in the sitting room.” Emily assented with a nod and followed the doorman to where she was supposed to wait. “He shall be with you shortly.” The man bowed to her and then was swiftly out of the room.
The room was coloured in pastels that really did not seem like the Spaniard at all. She assumed the tastes of the room must have been the last lady that lived there. She doubted that Mr Duarte cared enough about décor to bother changing it.
A few moments later, a door opened, and Mr Duarte came out dressed as if he were on his way somewhere. “Your Grace, I am sorry to have kept you waiting,” he said as he came over to give her a bow before sinking down into an overstuffed chair that was across from the sofa where she now sat. “What is it that I can do for you?”
Emily froze for just a moment. What was it he could do for her? All that Pearl had said about gamblers, and other things she had heard about the type of men who made gambling their profession came to mind. Emily cleared her throat.
“It is about my husband,” Emily said in a quiet voice.
Mr Duarte’s eyebrow ticked up. “Is he well?”
“If by well, you mean alive, then I would assume so,” Emily said, and then she took a breath before she continued, “I beg you not to play against him anymore, Mr Duarte. You can stop this madness that he is under.”
Mr Duarte shook his head in confusion. “I do not know what you mean.”
“We are suffering, Mr Duarte,” Emily said with quiet force. “I can barely buy things, let alone pay my staff. My husband has a singular mind, and he will not stop until he has lost everything.”
There was sympathy in the man’s face that Emily cared little for, and she looked away. “I am sorry to hear of your woes, Your Grace,” Mr Duarte said in his soft Spanish accent. “I have tried to stop your husband from coming to the table. I always offer to stop the games and have attempted to refuse him entry into my table. He is, as you say, a singular man when it comes to something that he feels he must do.”
Emily wept. She had not meant to, but the tears had simply slipped out from under her lashes when she was not looking. She hastily wiped them away with a handkerchief that she pulled out of her coat pocket “Then we are lost,” Emily whispered. She channelled her frustration and ground out, “You are ruining my husband. Does that not bother you?”
“Your husband is ruining himself, Your Grace,” Mr Duarte corrected. “I am merely the means he has chosen to do so with.”
Emily glared at the man. One moment she swore she saw compassion in him and the next anything resembling human decency had fled from the man. “Do you not care for others?”
“Does your husband care for you?” Mr Duarte asked.
The question hung Emily up with its intimacy. She could not say for certain that James loved her, or ever had. Nor could she say that she loved him if she was pressed on the matter. “I don’t—”
Mr Duarte cut off her answer and said, “It seems to me that your husband is very unlikely to love you in this world and the next.”
Emily stilled, and for a moment that voice sounded so familiar. She frowned. Edward had said something similar to her. She looked at Mr Duarte and gasped. How had she not seen it before, that something about the man that seemed to be known to her even though he should have been a stranger?
“Edward,” Emily whispered.
The man shook his grey-haired head and laughed. “I do not even know this Edward,” he said dismissively. “I have heard people talk of him, though.”
“Why do you deny it?” Emily asked as she walked toward him.
The man held up his hands as if to ward her off, but Emily pushed past his arms and wrapped herself around his waist. “Edward,” Emily whispered against the man’s shirt. “You are not dead. How are you not dead?”
Mr Duarte was still for a long moment. He made no move to pry her off of him, and Emily clung to the man as if he might vanish. Her certainty of his identity never wavered, but questions plagued her mind.
“Emily,” Mr Duarte said the Spanish accent fading softly, but not quite going away after so long of keeping up pretenses. “How did you know it was me?”
Emily looked up at the man. “I did not, at first. It was only when you said that about this world and the next that I saw it. You told me that you would love me—”
“And no other in this world and the next,” Edward finished for her. Emily nodded and looked up at the man through her tears. “You must forget that you know me,” Edward said with sternness that Emily had not expected.
Emily balked at the very idea of it. “As if I could ever do such a thing,” she declared.
“If anyone finds out that I am alive,” Edward said as he grabbed Emily by the arms tightly. “I will be forced to flee, and you will never see me again, but I will make sure that I take you all down before I flee. Do I make myself clear?”
Emily could scarcely believe that Edward was here, and now he told her that she had to pretend not to know him. “What is going on?” Emily shook her head. “Is it about the war and those things …?”
Edward nodded. “Those things that they said I did,” Edward said.
“Why are you doing this to James? To me?” Emily asked.
Edward laughed. “I should do worse to him. I should hang him the way I was,” Edward said coldly. “And you, well, here you are married to James.”
Emily stared at Edward, her Edward. He had changed so much in appearance and mannerism; it was no wonder that she had not recognised him, that James and Oscar had not. “You cannot leave,” Emily said in earnest. “There has to be some way that you can stay. I never wanted things to be this way, Edward, but you were dead.”
The Revenge of the Betrayed Duke: A Historical Regency Romance Book Page 19
