Primrose and the Dreadful Duke_Garland Cousins 1

by Emily Larkin

  Oliver reached out and touched the first clipping briefly. “Took my CO three months to realize he’d made a mistake. Lord, he was mortified. Kept apologizing to me.”

  He should have apologized to us, Primrose thought, remembering how stricken Rhodes had been, then she gave herself a mental shake. Oliver’s commanding officer was unimportant; what was important were the consequences of his mistake.

  “Basil fell off his horse and broke his neck in November,” she said. “I’m going to call that an accident. Do you agree?”

  Both men nodded.

  “Percival died in a shooting accident in January. Was he alone when it happened? Were there any witnesses?”

  “He was alone,” Rhodes said.

  “So . . . it might not have been an accident?”

  After a hesitation, both men nodded.

  “The duke died in March in a fire.” She looked at her brother. “Did anyone else die in that fire, or was it just him?”

  “It was just him,” Rhodes said slowly.

  “So that’s possibly not an accident, either.”

  Another hesitation, another two nods.

  “What I think happened . . .” Primrose moistened her lips, and chose her words carefully. “What I think is that the first death was an accident, and then you were reported dead, Oliver, and someone saw a . . . an opportunity that hadn’t existed before, and so they took it.”

  “No.” Oliver shook his head and turned away from the desk.

  “It’s not the only explanation for so many deaths in one family in such a short space of time, but it’s the most logical one. And it explains why someone tried to kill you last night.”

  “It’s not Uncle Algy!”

  “Then it must be your cousin, Ninian.”

  He turned to look at her. “Ninian? That namby-pamby? He couldn’t kill a fly!”

  “He’s tall,” Primrose said. “And young and strong. And if you die his father becomes Duke of Westfell.”

  Oliver shook his head again.

  “You think it’s impossible?”

  His gaze fell to the two newspaper clippings on the desk.

  “It’s possible,” Rhodes said.

  Oliver reached out and touched the second piece of paper, fingering the sentence that proclaimed him alive.

  “Must have been one devil of a disappointment when the correction was published,” Rhodes said.

  Oliver pushed the clipping away, sending it skimming across the desk. “I’ve been in England for a month,” he said, his tone almost angry. “Why wait so long to kill me? He could have done it that first week.”

  “Perhaps he likes you,” Rhodes said. “Most people do.”

  Oliver pulled a face and pushed away from the desk. He strode to the nearest window and looked out.

  Primrose had known Oliver her whole life. She’d seen him laughing and merry more times than she could count. On occasion she’d seen him quiet, tired, or thoughtful, and a couple of times she’d even seen him solemn, but she’d never seen him like this before. His arms were crossed, his jaw pugnacious. He looked dangerous—and nothing at all like the lighthearted and dreadfully annoying Daisy Dasenby.

  “How flush in the pocket is your uncle?” she asked. “How flush is Ninian?”

  “I don’t know,” Oliver said curtly.

  “Your uncle’s a gambler,” Rhodes said. “Dips pretty deeply, from what I’ve heard.”

  Oliver scowled at him.

  “Ninian’s not a gambler,” Rhodes said. “But he has some very expensive habits. Must spend a fortune on his wardrobe.”

  Oliver’s scowl deepened, and then he burst out: “I can’t believe either of them would want money so badly that he’d kill for it.”

  “Maybe it’s not the money,” Rhodes said. “Maybe it’s the title.”

  “I don’t want the damned title! They can have it, for all I care!” His voice was fierce, a tone that she’d never heard Oliver use before.

  Rhodes spoke the obvious: “That’s not how it works, Ollie.”

  “I know, damn it!” Oliver still had his arms crossed over his chest, angry, defensive. “So what now?”

  Now we try to find evidence that one of your relatives is trying to kill you, Primrose thought. Then she looked at Oliver’s face and rephrased her words: “Let’s try to find evidence that it wasn’t them. If it’s not, we should be able to prove it, correct?”

  Oliver seemed to relax fractionally. “Correct.”

  “So let’s find out where Lord Algernon and his son were when the last two deaths occurred.”

  “All right.” Oliver uncrossed his arms and pushed away from the windowsill. “I take it there were inquests? Which were reported in the newspapers? Did you cut those out, too, Prim?”

  “No,” Primrose said. “I only cut out the items about you.” And to her annoyance, she felt herself blush.

  “The newspaper office will have them,” Rhodes said. He looked from her to Oliver. “Shall we?”

  * * *

  They went by carriage. A horse might not have stepped on Oliver’s head, but one had certainly stepped on his leg. He was limping. Primrose forbore to comment. She’d never thought of Oliver as prickly and short-tempered before, but today he was both.

  Their findings at the London Gazette office didn’t improve his mood. Several witnesses had given evidence at the inquest into Percival Dasenby’s death on his father’s estate in Leicestershire. Five other people had been in the woods that wintry afternoon, shooting pheasants. They’d all heard the fatal shot, although none of them claimed to have witnessed it. Both Lord Algernon and his son, Ninian, had given brief statements, as had Percival’s bereaved father, and two gamekeepers.

  Oliver’s mood deteriorated further when they found the report of the inquest into the late duke’s death two months later, on his Wiltshire estate. A fire had sprung up late one night in the duke’s bedchamber. The coroner had concluded that it was the result of a candle tipping over. The only person who’d died had been the duke.

  As before, a number of people had given statements. Servants and family members.

  “Both of them were there that night,” Rhodes said, stating the obvious.

  “It’s not Uncle Algy,” Oliver said fiercely. “If it weren’t for him I’d still be jumping through bureaucratic hoops.”

  “Then it must be Ninian,” Primrose said. “He was at the Cunninghams’ ball. He could have pushed you.”

  “He was at Brooks’s last night, too,” Rhodes said—and then, after a pause, he added: “So was Lord Algernon.”

  “Damn it, Rhodes—”

  “Let’s keep an open mind, shall we?” Rhodes said.

  Oliver shut his mouth tightly.

  Rhodes looked at her. “Was Lord Algernon at the Cunninghams’ ball?”

  Primrose nodded.

  Oliver hissed between his teeth, but said nothing.

  * * *

  They went back to Sevenash House, where they sat down to a late luncheon. Oliver scowled while he ate. Rhodes didn’t scowl, but he was frowning, a deep groove between his eyebrows. Primrose picked at her food. How could they discover if one of the Dasenbys had tried to kill Oliver?

  Rhodes put down his knife and fork, pushed his plate to one side, and said, “It might be coincidence that three Dasenbys died in five months.”

  Both Oliver and Primrose looked at him.

  “It might also be coincidence that Ollie was pushed under a post-chaise last night. Maybe someone’s jealous of him, or maybe it’s a friend of Lord Algernon’s. Maybe it’s someone who wants Algernon to inherit the dukedom, not Ollie.”

  Primrose put down her fork, dismayed. “Lord Algernon has scores of friends.”

  “I don’t think it’s one of Algernon’s friends,” Rhodes said. “I think it’s most likely him or his son. Or perhaps the two of them together.” He held up a hand to stop Oliver’s protest. “But I know you don’t think so, Ollie. So, let’s start by proving it’s not them.”

/>   Oliver’s scowl deepened.

  Rhodes was undaunted. “Let’s give them both some rope and see if one or other of them hangs himself.”

  “How?” Primrose asked.

  “The Cheevers’s house party is next week. Lord Algernon will definitely be there, and I imagine Ninian will be, too.” Rhodes leaned back in his chair. “What do you say, Ollie? Let’s give your uncle and cousin some opportunities to kill you. See whether they take them or not.”

  “Opportunities to kill him!” Primrose said, alarmed.

  “Opportunities that we choose,” Rhodes said. “In circumstances we control. Ollie won’t be in any danger. I’ll be there.” He tilted his head at Oliver. “What do you say, old fellow?” There was a hint of challenge in his smile.

  “I say yes.”

  Rhodes looked pleased, and Primrose realized that he did believe that either Lord Algernon or Ninian—or both of them—was responsible for the attempts on Oliver’s life.

  “I’m coming, too,” she declared.

  Rhodes lost his smile. “No, you’re not.”

  “I was invited to the Cheevers’s, too,” Primrose told him.

  Rhodes’s eyebrows drew together. “You are not—”

  “You might find me useful,” Primrose said. “Another pair of eyes and ears.”

  Rhodes closed his mouth. He knew as well as she did that she had an advantage no one else had, an advantage that went well beyond eyes and ears. But Oliver didn’t know that—and it was not a subject to be discussed in front of him.

  “We’ll talk about it later,” Rhodes said.

  * * *

  She and Rhodes did talk about it later, a discussion that almost degenerated into an argument. “I don’t want you anywhere near the Cheevers’s,” Rhodes said. “It could be dangerous.”

  “You need me.”

  “No, we don’t!”

  “Can you translocate?” Primrose asked, her voice very reasonable.

  Rhodes gritted his teeth.

  “If there’s any danger to Oliver, then both of us should be there. The more people who’re looking out for him, the safer he’ll be. In fact, if we want him to be the safest he can be, Vi and Aster should come, too.”

  “No,” Rhodes said. “Absolutely not!”

  Primrose understood his refusal. If there was danger, then she didn’t want Aster or Violet anywhere near it, but equally, she wasn’t going to let Rhodes and Oliver face danger alone.

  “I’m coming,” she said. “I was invited and I have as much right to be there as you do. And anyway . . .” She smiled. “You can’t keep me away.”

  Rhodes gritted his teeth again. “All right,” he said, with poor grace. “But Vi and Aster are not coming. I don’t want you telling them anything about this. Your word on it!”

  “I won’t tell them,” Primrose said, glad to have won one battle. Although there was no denying that her sisters’ gifts could have been useful, Aster’s in particular.

  And so, it was settled: she would go to Oxfordshire with Rhodes and Oliver.

  A number of other things were settled that afternoon, too. The first one was that Oliver would stay at Sevenash House until they departed. It was a little eccentric, given that he had his own ducal mansion in London, but as Oliver was the only inhabitant of that mansion—not counting the servants—it seemed safer that he stay at Sevenash House. What Rhodes didn’t say out loud was that both Algernon and Ninian Dasenby were more familiar with Oliver’s mansion than he was, and if either one of them wanted to slip inside without the servants noticing, they probably could.

  The second thing they decided was that Oliver wouldn’t attend any more balls while in London—ostensibly because he’d sprained an ankle, but really to offer no more opportunities for assassination. He also wouldn’t go to Brooks’s club—or anywhere else—alone. He would only set foot outside Sevenash House in Rhodes’s company.

  The third thing was that when she, Rhodes, and Oliver went into Oxfordshire, Aster and Violet would go to stay with their aunt and uncle in Grosvenor Square.

  These decisions made, Rhodes wrote to the Cheevers, confirming that he and Primrose would be delighted to attend the house party.

  Oliver wrote to them, too, expressing his pleasure at the invitation and declaring that he was looking forward to a sojourn in Oxfordshire.

  After that, there was very little to do. Oliver’s valet relocated to Sevenash House, along with all of Oliver’s clothes. Oliver’s secretary didn’t relocate, but Oliver gave him carte blanche to make decisions as he saw fit. “The man knows what he’s doing. Kept things running before I arrived in England. And don’t give me that look, Prim. I know I need to learn how to be a duke, but I can’t make dukely decisions when I’m laid up with a sprained ankle, now can I?”

  “Dukely isn’t a word,” Primrose told him.

  “You mean I just made up a word?” His eyes opened wide. “How exciting!”

  “God give me strength,” Primrose muttered under her breath, and went upstairs to read Marcus Aurelius.

  Oliver and Rhodes spent the rest of the week doing absolutely nothing constructive, as far as she could see. They were as lazy as it was possible for two strong, healthy young men to be—and it seemed to do them both good. Oliver was soon back to his usual self, walking with barely a limp, his prickliness gone, and Rhodes was in better spirits than he’d been since Evelyn’s death sixteen months ago.

  For Primrose the days passed in a parade of balls and soirées, and, as the date of departure drew closer, a lot of packing. Not that she had to pack—her maid, Fitchett, did it for her—but there were decisions to be made. Which gowns did she particularly wish to take with her? What footwear? How many books?

  The very last thing that Primrose packed was her diary. She flicked slowly through its pages, finding first one newspaper clipping, and then the other.

  She touched them with her fingertips.

  When she’d read of Oliver’s death in faraway India, the grief that she’d felt had astonished her. Laughing, annoying Daisy Dasenby was dead—and she had shed tears over it. Quite a few tears, over quite a few weeks. And when the correction had been printed in the newspapers, she had shed more tears in her relief that he lived.

  Embarrassingly, she had almost cried, too, when Oliver had arrived back in London. Almost, but not quite, because he hadn’t been exactly the Oliver Dasenby she remembered. His hair was still the same brown and his eyes the same hazel, but he’d seemed a lot bigger, taller and broader, and a great deal older, his face tanned by the Indian sun. He’d looked almost like a stranger . . . and then he’d made her an exaggeratedly florid bow and shaded his eyes with one hand and told her that her beauty quite dazzled him, and she’d realized that even if he looked different, he hadn’t changed much in his years abroad.

  That was when she’d almost cried—when she’d seen the laughter in his eyes, heard that teasing note in his voice, and realized that he was, truly, the Oliver of her childhood, even if he no longer quite looked like he was.

  She had wanted to hug him tightly, then, and tell him how glad she was that he was alive. She hadn’t, of course. Oliver would have wondered what was wrong with her if she’d done such a thing, so she had merely told him that his years in India hadn’t cured him of his weakness for hyperbole, and given him a brief, sisterly peck on the cheek. But she had been glad to see him. Very, very glad.

  Chapter Six

  An afternoon in June, Oxfordshire

  “Tell me about Basil and Percival,” Oliver said, after they’d passed through Leafield. The chaise swayed gently as it bustled its way towards Shipton-under-Wychwood. “What were they like?”

  He saw Primrose and Rhodes exchange a glance. They both hesitated, each giving the other the chance to speak first.

  “You knew them better than I did,” Primrose said finally.

  Rhodes grimaced faintly. “Not really.”

  “You didn’t like them?” Oliver asked, trying to interpret that grimace.r />
  “I scarcely knew them,” Rhodes said. “We moved in different circles for the most part, and when we were at the same events we generally avoided each other.”

  Oliver lifted his eyebrows. “You did?”

  “Of course we did,” Rhodes said. “My father sided with your father all those years ago. Westfell never spoke a word to Father after that.”

  Oliver digested this statement for a moment, then said, “Which Westfell? My grandfather or my uncle?”

  “Both of them,” Rhodes said. “And Basil and Percival carried on the family tradition by never speaking to me if they could possibly help it.”

  “Oh,” Oliver said, disconcerted. “I didn’t realize. I’m sorry.”

  Rhodes shrugged. “Not your fault, was it?”

  No, perhaps it wasn’t, but he couldn’t help feeling uncomfortable, and perhaps Rhodes saw that, because he said, “It didn’t bother Father, and it didn’t bother me. As I said, we mostly moved in different circles, and even if our families hadn’t been at odds, we’d never have been friends. Your uncle always behaved like a man with a stick up his, ah . . .” He cast a glance at Primrose. “That is to say that he was a very cold fish, and Basil was a cold fish, too.”

  “Was Percival a cold fish?”

  “Percival was a loose fish,” Rhodes said. “You know the sort. Up to every racket. Thought it was prime sport to box the watch.”

  The chaise slowed, then made a careful turn. Primrose peered out. “We’ve arrived.”

  Oliver looked out the window, too. He caught a glimpse of high gates, and then a long sweep of carriageway down an avenue of clipped yews.

  “Now, Oliver . . .”

  Oliver brought his attention back to Primrose. “Now, Primrose . . .” he teased.

  She frowned sternly at him. “You will remember to be careful?”

  Oliver’s amusement evaporated. He had an abrupt memory of a hand shoving hard between his shoulder blades. He knew his assailant hadn’t been Uncle Algy, and he doubted it had been Ninian, but even so . . . “I’ll be careful.”