Bedegrayne had not been as trusting as he had initially appeared. He and three very determined footmen had tackled him before he reached the stairs. With Keanan outnumbered and not thinking clearly, her father had landed a respectable doubler to his gut and had him thrown out of the house. Disgusted that his efforts to speak to Wynne were proving the old man’s argument of his unsuitability, he had stalked away.
Glancing up, he finally noticed that his wandering had led him not to his house but to the Silver Serpent. For a time, this place had been home. When Blanche and her husband had tried taking him in, he had been too wild and angry to accept their caring. A good woman, she had ignored his harsh rebuffs, and time had found a place for her in his unyielding heart. It was now, when he hurt, that he realized she had become family to him.
“Keanan.” Blanche greeted him with a kiss. She took him by both hands and guided him to an empty table. Sensing his pain, her eyes filled. Producing a handkerchief, she started dabbing. “I’m so sorry. All your plans ruined. Though, and pardon me for saying so, it was probably for the best.”
Hearing his worst fears spoken aloud inflated his suffering. The blow he had taken to his stomach pounded in opposition to each breath. “I handled it all wrong.”
Reaching into his fob pocket, he removed the gold fob chain. Instead of seals adorning the end, he had attached a carved cameo. He had given a jeweler the silhouette of Wynne created from that afternoon at the fair. His thumb brushed over her relief carved into stone. Instead of being a symbol of all he possessed, it had become a brutal reminder of all he had lost.
“It is natural you have regrets. Contrary to your beliefs, you wanted acceptance more than death.”
Irritated, his fist tightened around the cameo as he tried to pay attention to their conversation. “Death? I will kill any man who tries to harm Wynne.”
Confused, she blinked at this through her watery gaze. “Wynne. You have a lady?”
“Blast, woman, I have no inclination for chatter. Is there someone out to harm her?”
“Your lady?” She sniffed, all affronted. “Keanan Milroy, you are closed as wax when it comes to the details of your life. You find yourself a decent woman, and have you brought her around for an introduction? No.” She nodded at his confirming wince. “It wounds me deep, knowing you think I am not good enough for her.”
He seemed to be offending all the women in his life. Awkwardly patting her hand, he tried to soothe her, “Aw, Blanche, she would like you just fine.” He did not doubt he spoke the truth. Wynne had her thorny barriers, but she was never snobbish. He should have told her so, he decided, feeling regret. Comforting words had never come easily to him. “It is I who offend her.” He thought of her alone, carrying his child. Perhaps she was still in danger. “Now don’t addle me further with this idle chatter. Who is in danger?”
Stunned, Blanche said, “You really don’t know, do you? Reckester is dead, Keanan. Murdered he was, just a walking distance from here.”
Reeling from the news, his vision went gray around the edges. “When?”
“Last evening. He came to the Silver Serpent looking for you. I was so shocked. Never has he ever asked after you. When I told him I hadn’t seen you, he left.” She dabbed at her eyes again. “It was the last I’d seen of him.” Blanche crumpled her handkerchief and banged her fist on the table. “Of all the rotten luck. One of my best patrons set upon by footpads and struck from behind. Do you know what this will do for my business when word gets around that he was murdered leaving my establishment?”
Her words battered him like dried leaves caught in a whirlwind. “He wanted to speak to me?”
Keanan recalled Reckester’s wild confession about his being the legitimate heir, and the talk of hidden proof. It was a tale he had longed to believe, but he had assumed the duke had been drunk, or toying with him. Disgusted, he had thrown him out of his house. “Did he leave me a message?”
Her eyes dulled as she thought back to the encounter. “No. He just said to put the word out that he was searching for you. I told him I’d send a lad after you, but he refused.”
“Was he drunk?”
Wrinkling her nose, she shook her head. “Nay. Still, he was acting odd. Anxious. He barely touched his beer and did not even glance at the gaming tables.”
Regret over the income she had lost with Reckester’s death warred with her concern for Keanan. Watching for the first time his struggle to keep his aloof mask in place, her personal skirmish faded.
“All these years wasted while the pair of you skirted each other’s lives. It took his last day on God’s earth to find the courage to summon you. Bad fortune is as fickle as good, it seems.”
Something had driven Reckester from his pleasures, and it was important enough to send him seeking out the son he had refused to acknowledge. Had he been carrying papers dangerous enough to incite murder, or was he just a victim of fate as Blanche had believed? If his sire spoke the truth, there were several people who would benefit from possessing this information, himself included.
His public dislike of Reckester would probably brand him the likely killer in the eyes of the speculative ton. If the old man were not already dead, the unappealing notion would have given him murderous incentive. All he needed was another barrier separating him and Wynne.
“Milroy,” Dutch said, lumbering toward their table. His clothes were rumpled and stained; he looked as if he had spent the night brawling. “I heard about Reckester.”
His friends stared at him, expecting some kind of grief from him. All he felt was a growing numbness that had started long before he had learned his sire was dead. The lack in him made him uncomfortable, since he should be feeling something. “It’s his family who needs your sympathy. He meant nothing to me.” And everything. “I have to go,” he said abruptly, getting up from the chair.
Blanche clutched his wrist. “Come back if you have the mind.”
Ineptly acknowledging her offer with a brief nod, he spun into his friend. The stench of the man’s clothes had him shoving the back of his hand up to his nose. “Christ, Dutch, you smell like piss and vomit.”
“Well, my apologies for not offering you a perfumed handkerchief for your newly acquired delicate sensibilities.”
His friend punched him hard in the arm, making it difficult for Keanan to suppress a wince. “While you lamentably spent the night mastering the folds of your new cravat, my evening included bear baiting, an impromptu fight for the favors of a rather large-breasted wench whose name I cannot seem to recall, and several barrels of ale.” He sniffed experimentally at the sleeve of his coat. “How I came to smell of fish will remain a mystery.”
He could not leave Dutch wandering about in his present inebriated state. The man had a propensity for trouble. “Blanche, could you see to our friend?”
“Of course, Keanan.” Pressing her handkerchief to her nose, she was already contemplating the fastest manner for removing him and his offensive garments from her establishment.
Dutch brushed off Blanche’s gingerly attempt to help him stand. “Where are you off to?”
“I dislike coincidences,” he replied, not having time to explain everything. “Nor do I like having my name tethered to them.”
Eighteen
“You of all people should have sense not to come calling,” Nevin snarled, still flustered from their butler’s announcement that a Mr. Milroy wanted to see him. There were purple shadows beneath the raw pain in his eyes, making him look far worse than Dutch. “My mother has already endured one shock. Seeing you in her drawing room might sweep away what remaining threads of sanity she possesses.”
“I did not come to torment her.” Once he would have enjoyed curbing her barbed, condescending tongue. “You have a choice. We could stand here in front of everyone bandying back and forth insults, which will provide entertaining fodder for this evening’s assemblies. Or you could invite me in and pretend to tolerate our regrettable paternal ties.”
Arms crossed, with his shoulders propped against the closed door, he watched as a carriage slowed in passing, one of its occupants glancing back at them. Nevin whacked his head against the door, his aggravation clearly evident. “Damn.” Unwinding from his pose, he opened the door. “Come in. Whatever my choice, I doubt anything we do will silence the talk.”
Keanan followed, not surprised by the opulence within the house. The elegant entrance hall bespoke generations of wealth, and a confidence of discernment borne from good breeding. Nevin’s direct, quick pace attested that he accepted this house and its beautiful treasures as his due.
Entering the library, he eyed the collection of birds represented in numerous forms about the room. There was a subtle, lingering masculine scent that must have belonged to Reckester. He stroked the feathers of a stuffed kestrel poised on a wooden stand as if it were prepared to take flight.
It had never occurred to him that the man had interests beyond drinking, gambling, and whoring. There he was, standing in a room in which he did not belong, and it took a dumb, dead bird to make him realize that despite all the information he had collected about the duke over the years, he was essentially still a stranger.
Nevin turned, finally noticing Keanan’s scowling preoccupation with the stuffed kestrel. “It rarely bites. Not even the uninvited. We might as well sit and be civilized.”
Avoiding the massive walnut desk and the cumbersome mantel it represented, Nevin chose one of the solid ivory armchairs, its legs rooted to the floor by four carved tiger paws. Keanan slid down onto the emerald cushion of its twin, his choice keeping an unspoken balance.
“Was he dead when he was found?” he asked, breaking the silence. This was not the first question that had arisen in his scattered thoughts, but one led to another, and he would have them all answered before he walked out of the house.
Nevin’s cheek twitched, unable to conceal his tumultuous emotions. “There is some confusion on that. All I can state with certainty is that he was dead when I arrived home.” Clearing his throat, he asked, “How did you learn of his death so quickly?”
Keanan removed his hat and dropped it in his lap. Scratching at his head, he laughed at the suspicion in his half brother’s question. “Not by delivering the death blow, if that is what you’re implying. I was doing just fine bungling my own life. I saw Wynne this morning.”
He had no intention telling Nevin of his failure. Their relationship barely qualified as amicable. Still, they had not been enemies last evening. He might not have spoken the words, but he had appreciated the man’s support. It proved they shared more than blood. They also were bonded through Wynne.
“From your expression, I gather she has not forgiven you.”
“Can you think of anything more amusing than an honest overture coming from such a dishonorable bastard? Have I given her reason to think different? I confess, my reaction was not to my credit. It confirmed Bedegrayne’s worst fears about bad blood. He had me thrown into the street right after doing his damnedest to break my ribs.”
The rushed, infuriated delivery of his confession had Nevin gaping. “Her father landed a hit?”
After watching him handle Digaud and his cronies, the man’s disbelief was understandable. “His footmen were holding me down,” Keanan added, noting the detail did not impress him. “So I let the old man hit me. It was less than I deserved.”
“So the incomparable Reckless Milroy is not the invulnerable man he appears,” Nevin softly taunted.
“No one is.”
“The police suspect robbery,” Nevin said, losing interest in provoking him about Wynne.
His gaze sharpened. “Do you agree?”
Flexing his hand over the ivory armrest, he sighed. “A plausible theory, considering his pockets were rifled and empty. No witnesses have been found, so the explanation will do as well as any other.”
“Do you hold me responsible for his death?”
The bold question seemed to shock his half brother from his unfocused bearing. “My father left town without explanation to me or my mother. No one, not even you, could have anticipated his return. Besides, we were together last evening.”
Keanan abruptly decided to take another risk. “The proprietress of the Silver Serpent told me he was asking for me there. He was sober and kept away from the gaming tables.”
Nevin had made his own inquiries into Keanan’s background to learn of his connection with Blanche Chabbert. Discovering that his father’s last actions on earth involved finding his unrecognized bastard was visibly disturbing. “You never saw him.”
Half expecting some nuance of suspicion, he never took his gaze off Nevin’s face. It relieved him that there was no doubt in the statement. “No. I can guess why he wanted to see me.” Keanan paused. Once said, their small truce would likely end. “Reckester has been bleeding the family fortune. You have sold off more assets than is common knowledge. Shelve your objection, Nevin, I have made it my business to ferret out your secrets—and have profited nicely from a few of them.”
The mild tolerance in Nevin’s expression vanished. “Were you blackmailing him?”
“My, my, you do have a nasty opinion of me, brother. To answer your question, no, there was no need for extortion when he was ruining himself without my assistance.”
“I was keeping him in line, damn you. He understood what was at stake. Marry an heiress, he said, as if that would have solved everything. He might not have liked it, but he would have curbed his gambling.”
Not bloody likely. “Rouse yourself and listen, Nevin. Reckester would never quit. He just switched the game and stakes. Cut him off, did you? He must have been furious. So much so that he was willing to—”
“What? Tell me.”
“Reckester claimed he was married to my mother. That I was his true heir. Supposedly had papers to prove it. When he had managed to impregnate both his unsuitable wife and his blue-blooded mistress, the family stepped in to help him correct his mistakes. What was the harm, after all? It only ruined the life of a poor Irish actress. He even had a surplus of heirs to choose from,” he said, the bitterness ringing loudly in his voice.
“I—you lie,” Nevin hoarsely accused him, his face becoming so white that his lips looked gray. “What purpose does it serve, conspiring such a chimera?”
“Absolutely none!” Keanan thundered. “I have been buying up your precious assets piece by piece as soon as you put them on the auction block. Everything will be mine if I’m patient.”
The notion that he was correct had Nevin standing. “Everything but a respectable bloodline and title. You could not buy that, so you thought to steal it.”
“Reckester was offering me everything without a whimper,” Keanan mocked. “He had two sons: one he had betrayed; the other had betrayed him. When you threatened to cut him off, he made one desperate gamble, thinking I was hungry enough to seize it all and compensate him for his sacrifice. Push down your anger and consider it. He sacrificed one family for greed. Why not the other?”
Nevin staggered backward, reaching out for the chair he had abandoned. Slumping into it, he pressed the heels of his palms into his temples. “What you are saying … I cannot believe.”
“Neither did I,” he admitted. “I distrusted his motives from the beginning and tossed him out of the house.” It had been the last time he had seen him.
“You think he had this proof when he was attacked?” The blood was seeping back into Nevin’s lips.
“Like you said, for what reason would he seek me out?”
Nevin started at his own words being thrown back at him, and then he began laughing. It was cold and self-derisive. “Well, well, you realize what this means, Milroy?”
Uncertain of his direction, Keanan warily shook his head.
“It means, brother, if true, that I had more cause to murder our father than you.”
* * *
Pen in hand, Wynne sat at her desk pretending she was writing a letter to her brother Brock. She had b
een staring at the same sentence for half an hour. What could she tell him that would not have him sailing for England, intent on challenging Keanan Milroy? Besides, between Tipton and Papa she had more than enough males prepared to defend her honor.
She had done what she had sworn she would never do: gambled on a man who could never appreciate her heart. It hurt to be so wrong about him. She had always prided herself on being sensible, the proper lady her mother would have wanted her to be. If not for the portrait Papa hoarded in his private rooms, her mother’s face would have faded from her memories. It was sad, really, she mused, fighting back the tears that surfaced with alarming regularity. All she truly recalled about her dear mama was that she smelled of her favorite strawberry water.
Wynne violently wiped away an errant tear. She had failed everyone. Paragons simply were not supposed to be scandalous. Oh, but what fun she had had, allowing her heart to lead before propriety. Her moments with Keanan had been romantic and magical. Too full of love and hope, she had gone to him, not seeing that it had always been her who had taken the steps bringing them together, while he had backed away. Not that she blamed him. He had not changed. Only her perspective had.
“Miss Bedegrayne,” her maid, Milly, said, interrupting her bout of melancholy. “Lady A’Court has come calling.”
Discreetly she turned away and wiped all traces of her tears. “Ah, I told you I did not want any visitors.” She could speculate on her own about what they were saying.
“I know, miss, but if you pardon my impertinence, the countess looks more miserable than you.” Backing out the door, she added, “An’ that’s a feat in itself. I’ll be showing her ladyship to the drawing room.” Milly closed the door, fleeing her reprimand.
Wynne opened a drawer and tucked her abandoned letter within. Her artful omissions could be put off another day. She wondered what could be troubling Brook. Nothing important. Her friend had the perfect life. She was happily married to a man who loved her, and now she carried his heir in her womb. It was difficult to be sympathetic to a woman who had everything she coveted. Sulking and already dreading their meeting, Wynne assumed Brook had been ordered by her husband not to associate with her.
The Scandalously Bad Mr. Milroy Page 25
