His Wicked Reputation

by Madeline Hunter

  The next day he rode into Coventry much recovered. He had a lot of practice at swallowing disappointment, and had learned early that if he allowed Percy to ruin his mood for days on end, he handed Percy a victory.

  Besides, Percy was dead. That thought alone made the day sunnier.

  He dismounted in front of an elegant house of more than average size. No ruin this, but then Percy had never been able to touch what their father had given to Mrs. Johnson. Gareth hoped that Percy’s last thought had been one of fury over how neatly Father had worked that out.

  Mrs. Johnson received him in her delicate drawing room. He strode over, bent, and kissed her. Her arm encircled his shoulders so the kiss became an embrace.

  “It is so good to see you, Gareth. I assume you have heard the news.”

  He settled into a chair. “I returned as soon as I read about it, Mother. Terrible news. Just terrible.”

  His mother maintained a sober face, but her eyes sparkled at his ironic tone. “Yes, terrible. He was still so young. Why, what, thirty-three? So sudden and unexpected too.”

  “A tragedy.”

  “Have you been back to Merrywood yet?”

  “I thought I would see you first. I will head there in the morning.”

  She reached over and patted his arm affectionately. He rarely had to explain much to his mother. They were of like minds, just as surely as they were of like visage. His eyes, his nose, even his mouth came from her. Had Allen Hemingford, the third Duke of Aylesbury, been less sure of her he might have suspected Gareth was not his bastard at all. Instead, he had accepted his mistress’s claim, and fulfilled his contract to her.

  That contract, worked out when she was eighteen, had not only provided this house, a carriage, servants, and an income for life. Being shrewd, she had also insisted her children by the duke be provided for, and be allowed to have the surname Fitzallen in the ancient way—bastard of Allen. Percy had never been able to interfere with the income Gareth received, either. The house near Langdon’s End was a different matter. Aylesbury had left that to him in a codicil to his will. Percy had contested the legacy before his father was cold.

  Not that the income came close to his mother’s. On it, he could live as a gentleman bachelor with a decent degree of fashion. As it was, however, almost all of it went to the lawyers pleading his case in Chancery.

  So he had found ways to augment it. Fortunately, he inherited his mother’s shrewdness, and doing so had not been too difficult after finishing the education also provided in that contract. An eye for art had helped.

  Other gentlemen might not invite him to their parties and would never introduce their sisters and daughters to him, but his blood meant they might trust him to find a buyer when they had a collection to sell. With the economy in shambles these days, a great deal of art was changing hands. It was the sort of occupation that did not reek of trade, since he did it all as a favor for everyone involved.

  “You just returned, you said.” Mrs. Johnson spoke while she served the coffee one of her servants had brought. She was entitled to four of them. There had been a Mr. Johnson for a short while. Perhaps as long as a week, Gareth guessed, before the man took the healthy payment made to him and sailed to America.

  When the duke had met Amanda Albany, she was unmarried. An innocent. What the duke wanted was not done with unmarried girls. So he arranged a marriage for her, with an army captain by the name of Johnson. Only it was not Johnson’s nuptial bed to which young Amanda Albany had gone that wedding night.

  “I disembarked less than a week ago. Why? Does it matter?”

  “It may. I have been in correspondence with old Stuart. You remember, the footman with the limp. He and I have remained friends since Allan died. He says there is some question about Percival’s death. The coroner has left the entire matter open, and investigations are being made by the magistrate.”

  “Has anyone laid down information that would imply something untoward happened?”

  “No, but eyebrows are up. A sudden digestive infirmity with extreme pain and quick death—well, my eyebrows would be up too.”

  Hence the notice in the paper in Amsterdam, that inquiries were under way. “You worried that they would look to me, didn’t you?”

  “The enmity between the two of you has been long, and the business over that legacy might encourage them to wonder.”

  “Have no fear. I was out of the country. I can prove it.”

  Her expression lightened. She suddenly looked younger than her forty-eight years. Also intelligent and formidable. She would have made the duke a splendid duchess had he not already married Percy’s mother, and had Amanda Albany not been a butler’s daughter.

  Her change in mood implied she had worried a bit about his doings recently. It is a hell of a thing when your own mother thinks you capable of murder. Then again, given the right circumstances, she probably was also.

  “I expect Lancelot and Ives will be at Merrywood,” she said. “What with the title’s transition to Lance and the settling of the estate.”

  “I hope so. I want to see them.” Since Lance now became duke, presumably he would be involved in the inquiries. Ives would take a hand in the estate settling, being a lawyer.

  He did not lie in saying he wanted to see his half brothers. Unlike the relationship he had with Percy, Gareth had gotten on well enough with them over the years. And, of course, Lance would now decide about that case in Chancery.

  “There is to be a reinterment next week,” his mother said. “A mausoleum was quickly built, to Percival’s deathbed orders. Now that it is ready, they are digging him up to put him in it. It is a monstrosity, according to Mr. Stuart. I have a drawing here somewhere. I shall find it, so you can prepare yourself. It is so hideous that one wonders if he was determined to be remembered for something, even if it was being the duke who was buried in the ugliest pile in the family graveyard.”

  “He never had any taste. Father always said so, which drove him mad.” He spoke absently, his mind on other things. If magistrates were sniffing around a duke’s death, the new duke was not likely to turn his mind to minor matters, like a small property tied up in the courts. Damnation, even in death Percy was going to be an ass.

  “I rode up near Langdon’s End,” he said, “before coming here.”

  His mother’s expression of forbearance chastised him. She thought he should let it go. The daughter of a butler and the mistress of a duke, she did not have a sense of property, even if she had a life interest in this house.

  “He has let it go to ruin. There is no caretaker. It is derelict and turning into a shell. I doubt any furniture remains worth using. I was told thieves have been busy.”

  “Did you enter it?”

  “I am forbidden to, remember? I walked around the outside, however, and looked in a few windows. He knew contesting the will would not hold, so he made sure when I finally got it, the house would be almost worthless.”

  “Perhaps fate has intervened before that happened. Lance has no reason to continue the fight.”

  “Perhaps.” He stood. “If you don’t mind, I will go above. I have been on the road too many days.”

  He took his leave, but her voice stopped him at the door.

  “Lady Chester wrote to me. Her niece still sighs over you, and wonders when you will return to London.”

  Lady Chester’s niece was an attractive woman in an unhappy marriage to a boorish viscount. “When I do, I will call on her, but she will be disappointed if she expects anything more.”

  “You love and leave too quickly, Gareth. No wonder your reputation is not the best.”

  “I would have stayed longer in the lady’s bed if she had not started to try to buy me. A man does not allow his lover to keep him if he has any pride. I did us both a favor in ending it.”

  “You were not so particular with Lady Dalmouth.”

  “I was much younger then, and Lady Dalmouth had much to recommend her besides her gifts.” Most notably, Lady Dal
mouth possessed sexual experience such as few men are honored to enjoy. Randy, resentful, and ready to take on the world, he had been a willing student, and had barely noticed how he had become the lady’s whore until the morning she ordered him to change his coat because she did not favor its color that day.

  “Women are kept all the time. I managed to hold on to my pride well enough. I do not see why it should be any different for men if two people share affection.”

  He had hurt her. He had not meant to, but one hour in his mother’s presence and he was fifteen again, and she was trying to plan his life.

  “You were not merely the duke’s kept woman. You were his true wife and the law be damned. Write to Lady Chester and tell her that I am enthralled with a widow in Amsterdam, so her niece does not expect me to dance attendance if I go up to town.”

  CHAPTER 3

  “They look dry to me,” Rebecca said. She gingerly tapped the surface of the painting with her fingertips, then peered to see if any paint had come off on them.

  “That one needs another week,” Eva muttered, her attention mostly on the painting she had carried home three days earlier, at the cost of a pair of shoes.

  “The others don’t.”

  “I cannot go to Birmingham every time a painting is ready. We can ill afford that. I will wait until all of those are dry, then transport them all at once.”

  Rebecca sighed loudly and threw herself on the divan. Eva felt bad for her sister. Compared to the excitements in Birmingham, their home on the outskirts of Langdon’s End and the town of Langdon’s End itself held little of interest. The place where one was born and raised never did if one had an adventurous spirit. Rebecca itched for novelties, travel, and the worlds her reading revealed to her.

  For a year now, Rebecca had been petitioning to go to London. Eva appeased her by letting her go along on the periodic visits to Birmingham when Eva took her paintings to Mr. Stevenson, a stationer who put them in his window for sale.

  Her sister lounged on the divan, one of the few substantial pieces of furniture that had not been sold. She pouted prettily, but then all of Rebecca’s expressions looked adorable. Her hair poured down her shoulders, making a thick stream of shiny curls so luxurious no one would notice that the dress she wore had been mended in four places.

  Eva envied Rebecca sometimes, which was not fair. Rebecca could not help being beautiful. Only it felt unjust that Rebecca had gotten the better version of everything they had in common. Rebecca’s blue eyes possessed the color and depth of a clear, perfect sea, while Eva’s could only be called really blue on the sunniest days. The looking glass reflected back some nondescript color too pale to be notable, no matter what it might be. And Rebecca’s hair had the rich, deep color of mahogany, while Eva’s own appeared the flat, dull brown of a tree trunk. If that were not bad enough, Rebecca was also smarter. If she demonstrated none of the wiliness required for survival, it was only because Eva sheltered her from the experiences that called forth such shrewdness.

  A girl as lovely as Rebecca deserved better than what she now knew. So far, however, other than those day trips to Birmingham, Eva had not been able to give Rebecca the chance for better. She had a plan, however, and this painting she now started was part of it.

  Eva turned her attention back to her task and debated whether to remove the heavy plaster frame before proceeding. She would have to put it back on if she did, but she worried she might get paint on it if she did not. It dwarfed the oil canvas it decorated. She had never understood how owners of art could not see as clear as day when a frame detracted from the treasure it held.

  Deciding to leave the frame on, she set her canvas panel on her easel next to the chair. Her canvas was larger than the painting by almost three inches in height, but she could not afford another. She would just have to dab in more up there, extending the trees and sky.

  “Why did you choose that picture this time?” Rebecca asked, now standing by her shoulder. “I can’t imagine who will buy your copy. The subject is not grand at all.”

  The painting showed three little boys playing near a fountain. Rosy-cheeked and bedecked in their best garments, they formed an informal group portrait most likely, but might have been done merely to indulge the artist’s whimsy.

  “It is by Gainsborough, Rebecca. Someone will buy it for that reason alone since his style is still popular. And the boys will appeal to mothers and grandmothers in ways Greek gods will not.”

  “Only if the gods are clothed. Paint them naked and those mothers will like them well enough.”

  “Rebecca!”

  “Please do not act shocked. If the sisters Neville have books of engravings of naked statues in their library, I think it is safe to say that women do not mind viewing such things.”

  The sisters Neville were two spinsters of considerable income who lived in Langdon’s End. They saw in Rebecca a potential fellow bluestocking and made their library available to her—including, it appeared, engravings of ancient statues of naked men.

  “I am sure the sisters have those books only because they are educational about the ancient Greeks.”

  “Oh, yes, they are educational.” Rebecca smiled slyly. “I have learned a lot. Come with me sometime and I’ll show you the best ones.”

  “If I come with you, it will be for better things than that.” Eva opened her paint box and began smearing paints she had mixed yesterday onto her palette. “Now go away. I must concentrate on this.”

  Rebecca pouted again. “But I wanted to talk to you about something very important. I have been thinking about our lives here, and believe we should make a change. I have a plan . . .”

  Eva stopped hearing what Rebecca said. The words became a sound in the background of her consciousness, much like a running brook will flow without one hearing every bubble. She barely noticed when Rebecca left.

  Four hours later, while she cleaned her brushes and admired the day’s progress, a few of her sister’s words poked through the fog of her memory. They nibbled and jabbed until she paid them some mind and tried to reconstruct the content.

  When she thought she had, she laughed. Surely Rebecca had not said that. Her sister would never propose in all seriousness that they sell the house, take the money, and go to London to become courtesans.

  * * *

  Merrywood Manor, five miles outside Cheltenham in the Gloucester hills, had not changed one bit during Percival’s time as duke. He was leaving the renovation of its dated Palladian-derived design for his future duchess, he liked to say. Gareth assumed Percy was too miserly to ever renovate, or even take a wife, although the latter probably would have eventually occurred, a duke’s duties being what they were. Percy’s unwillingness to invest in the estate’s properties had been obvious as Gareth rode in. A tenant cottage that had burned down at least five years ago still remained a pile of charred wood, and even Merrywood itself displayed evidence of needing some maintenance.

  Gareth presented himself at the door of the manor house the way he always did, as a visitor. A bastard did not treat the family estate as home. The first time he came after his father died, Percy made the limitations clear by refusing to receive him. His father always had, and even the servants gave him entry during his father’s life, even if his father was not at home.

  He had watched his father’s burial from the saddle of his horse on an overlooking hill. As the cream of the peerage carried the casket to the simple grave, a carriage rolled up and his mother stepped out. Head high, wearing an expression that dared Percy or anyone else to interfere, she had walked through the gathering of nobles to stand by the graveside while her lover was laid to rest. The duchess had been dead a good dozen years by then, but Gareth suspected his mother would have done it even if the duchess, too, had stood by the grave.

  Today the door of Merrywood Manor bore a huge wreath draped in black bombazine. He wondered if Percy, with his last breaths, had ordered this gargantuan wreath along with the mausoleum.

  He waited
in the reception hall while his card was carried away, and followed the butler to the library after his reception had been given the nod. In the library he found Ives, the youngest of the legitimate brothers, and at thirty, two years older than Gareth. Officially named Ywain, which he hated, Ives was tall like all of the third duke’s progeny. He now stood by a window that showed off his classical features. Its light caught the golden streaks in his dark brown hair. Upon hearing the door open he turned. A black armband wrapped the sleeve of his dark coat.

  They waited for the butler to leave. Ives fought a battle with a grin that wanted to break out on his face. Devilish delight showed in his green eyes. He bit back the expression, coughed, and assumed a somber demeanor appropriate to the reunion. “Good of you to come, Gareth. I know Percy would be touched.”

  Gareth kept his expression blank with difficulty. “I read about it in Amsterdam and was on a packet by morning. So unexpected. So shocking.”

  “Yes, yes. As you can imagine, we are beside ourselves.”

  Oh, he could imagine. Around the time he turned fifteen, Gareth had realized Lance and Ives were his comrades in arms against Percy. They knew why he hated the duke’s heir, but he still did not know what had happened in this family to set full-blooded brother against full-blooded brother.

  “Amsterdam, you say?” Ives asked.

  “Yes.”

  “I am glad to hear it. I assume your journey was both pleasurable and profitable.”

  Someone else who had wondered whether Percy had been done in by his bastard half brother. Gareth could hardly mind. He must have threatened to kill Percy half a dozen times in Ives’s hearing.

  “I am brokering a French count’s collection. I found an industrialist here who has the money, and who desires an instant gallery to grace his newly built grand house. The paintings should arrive in a fortnight.”

  Ives gestured to a tray with a brandy decanter and raised his eyebrows quizzically. When Gareth nodded, Ives proceeded to pour. “Lance will want you to find such a buyer for some pictures from here. The ones Percy bought are not to his taste.”