“His Grace and I were second cousins.”
The duchess gasped. “Second cousins? But why would he never mention you? You must have been his heir? My son’s heir now.”
Leopold was very good at reading the lies people tried to hide. Her wide-eyed innocent questioning caused a flutter in his chest. She wasn’t lying in any way. She honestly hadn’t known of his existence before today. No wonder she had been wary of him. The thought settled in his stomach like a rock. If she had not known of him then it stood to reason that she might not even know the whereabouts of his family.
Although his heart pounded, Leopold shrugged as if his potential elevation in rank meant nothing. And it didn’t make the slightest difference to his plans. He had never wanted to be Romsey. “My father fell out with the old duke, his cousin, some years back. Family affairs have been tense ever since.”
The duchess glanced up at her sister. A silent communication seemed to pass between them, and then Lady Venable gave a tiny shake of her head. Her Grace bit her lip then set her teacup away from her. “Well then, that is all in the past. We are glad you have returned to Romsey. Wilcox, have a room prepared for our cousin.”
Stunned by the unexpected gesture, Leopold set his cup aside and held up his hand. “Your Grace is far too kind. I have already secured lodgings in the village for the extent of my stay. I would never impose upon your hospitality.”
Her mouth fell open, but she quickly recovered. “Well then.”
Silence thickened. He couldn’t ask his questions now. Clearly, she knew nothing of his family, or she was more of an accomplished liar than he’d first thought. He needed time to think, to regroup and determine a new strategy of how to broach the subject. He couldn’t scare her off with his knowledge of the old duke’s treachery. Instead, Leopold offered a half smile. “Thank you for agreeing to meet with me, Your Grace, but I should not monopolize your time. Perhaps I might call upon you another day?”
The duchess inclined her head, but her expression betrayed her confusion at his rather abrupt leave-taking. “That would be acceptable. Perhaps you would join us for luncheon tomorrow. No doubt you would like to meet the duke.”
Leopold’s heart thumped painfully, but he managed to nod, climb to his feet, and leave her presence. As he crossed the entrance hall to collect his hat, he briefly regretted his decision not to press for information today. He didn’t want to remain in the district longer than he had to where loneliness for his family would only build in strength. He would avoid the usual haunts he and his brothers frequented and keep the memories of old close to his chest for another night.
But tomorrow he would come to dine and meet the infant duke. Tomorrow he would meet his last known living relation.
CHAPTER FOUR
Despite the shocking impropriety, Mercy’s joyous shriek echoed around the drawing room, bouncing off the formal portraits of the Dukes of Romsey quite nicely. Satisfied beyond measure, Mercy settled back into her chair and turned her head. “See, I told you we would be perfectly safe.”
Blythe sat where Leopold Randall had been moments before, but her expression hinted there would be a lecture coming. “You must keep up your guard at all times. He is an ambitious man by all accounts.”
Mercy threw her hands up to stop her words. “Oh, posh. Mr. Randall wouldn’t hurt anyone. He seems much too nice for all the evil you’ve just told me.”
Blythe scowled. “I merely repeat what I overheard your husband mentioning to mine years ago when he asked about the lack of family in the Romsey line. If you had been at his side as you should then you would heed the warnings. You must be on your guard from now on.”
Mercy chose to ignore the fact that Blythe had known about Leopold Randall’s existence before today and not told her about him. However, she honed in on the comment that she’d been a poor wife to her husband to have ever left his side. Blythe had doted on her husband. Yet Mercy had not had that kind of marriage. They had sometimes gone a whole week without speaking more than a few words together. It had stung, at first, but Edwin had made it clear that he preferred his privacy to her company.
She raised her hand toward Blythe to end her prattle. “Edwin had his physician on hand to care for him. Everything that could be done was done. Should I have left my son in the care of servants during that terrible time of illness? I could not have borne it.”
Blythe’s face grew taut with strain. “The nurse I recommended would have spared you the necessity so you could be at your husband’s side during his last days. You knew he had never fully recovered after the fever that took my Raphael and Adam.” Blythe’s voice cracked at the mention of her son’s name. Little Adam’s death was still a sharp loss for her sister.
Mercy pressed her lips together. They’d been down this road before, arguing over every small detail of wifely responsibility, and Mercy’s failure. She was so sick of feeling her younger sister’s censure. Blythe had had a marriage to make a woman envious. Mercy had not. But because of Blythe’s grief, she often held back from saying exactly what she thought of her sister’s advice on the subject of husbands. It took two willing people to make a marriage perfect. Mercy had been willing, Edwin had not.
She ran her hand over the silk of her gown, thinking of Leopold Randall’s visit. “He is handsome, don’t you think?”
Blythe fussed with the folds of her gown, heightening her appearance of prim respectability. “I hardly think a duchess should notice those things about men.”
Oh, Mercy noticed. Yet she’d never met a man to put such thoughts into her head so quickly. Mr. Randall’s sun-kissed complexion, his obvious good health and virility, appealed. “Duchess I may be, but I think Mr. Randall is quite attractive. Do you think he spent many years in India?”
Blythe shuddered. “By his own words, he suggested as much. But I am not interested in speculating about such heathen places. We have more important things to discuss.”
Mercy couldn’t imagine what they might be. The life of a duchess was just plain dull, especially now that Blythe had lost her sense of fun. She had once been Mercy’s best friend, a trusted companion she could tell her deepest, most scandalous secrets to. But that was before Mercy had married, and learned there were some matters she couldn’t discuss with anyone. Since becoming a widow, Blythe’s manner had grown so stiff with propriety that Mercy feared she never could confide in her again.
She slapped her hands onto the arms of her chair as a marvelous idea came to her. “The book.” Mercy dashed from the room, leaving her no doubt disapproving sister to trail along at a proper snail’s pace. The book was her savior. The book was a secret. At least, from the past Dukes of Romsey, that was.
When she’d first married Edwin, he’d given her a gift belonging to his late mother. At the time she’d smiled, accepted the unexceptional duchess’ jewel case from a woman long dead, and ignored it. But on a day when the wind blew heavy with rain, and boredom had led her to play with the pretty baubles she’d inherited, she uncovered a secret compartment.
The journal, a diary begun by her predecessors, contained the sort of gossip that the dukes always tried to hide; who they had wronged.
Mercy found the goings on in the family she’d married into fascinatingly evil.
So far, she’d added nothing to it. Her late husband, given his fragile state of health, had been somewhat of a recluse. But the book might tell her of the falling out prior to her marriage.
She hurried to her chamber, pulling her keys from her pocket as she went. With one quick turn of the lock, she retrieved the book and sank into a deep chair beside the window. She flicked through pages, eagerly searching for the last duchess’ remembrances until Blythe arrived. “Nothing yet.”
Since Blythe disapproved of the book, Mercy ignored her gasp.
“Mercy please put the book down and come with me.”
Mercy tapped the page. No, this was the wrong duchess. She flicked the pages in rapid succession until she found a more likely date. I susp
ect my husband disapproves of his cousin’s wife not because she is so comely but because she has birthed yet another son while I have but one. Hmm, could that be the reason for the fall out? The production of heirs was of paramount importance to every great family. Not everyone wanted a cousin to inherit. She knew from her sister’s experience that seemingly healthy children didn’t always live to adulthood. Had fear been the reason for discord?
“Mercy!”
Oh, could Blythe ever be quiet when she was in one of her scolding moods? Perhaps enough time had passed for her sister to put her grieving aside. Really, Blythe should be listening to her, not the other way round. With every intention of putting her younger—and lower ranked—sister in her place, Mercy stood and crossed to her. But Blythe’s pale complexion stilled the cutting retort she wanted to utter. Her sister appeared about to cast up her accounts.
“My dear, are you all right?”
Blythe shook her head and took a step back. When her arm rose to point at the bed, Mercy turned to see what she stared at. Atop her bed, blood spattered in a wide ark on her favorite comforter, sat a poor dead rabbit. Mercy gagged and rushed for the chamber pot.
Once she had retched until her sides ached, Mercy returned to find her sister—though still pale—examining the poor dead creature. Mercy thought she might be sick again. “Blythe, come away from that.”
To Mercy’s horror, Blythe’s hand reached out as if to touch the pelt. Mercy grasped her sister’s arm and dragged her out into the corridor.
Blythe blinked as if dazed, and then her features hardened. “This has to stop.”
Mercy ran her hands up and down her arms to try to bring warmth back into her body. She did not know how to stop these special gifts being left upon her doorstep, her chair, and now it appeared on the very bed she slept in. It was as if someone was sending her a warning, although she had no notion of what message these gruesome gifts were meant to convey. As far as she knew, she had no enemies.
“I’ll call Wilcox to take the mess away,” Blythe said.
Mercy swallowed down the bile rising in her throat. “Thank you, Blythe,” she whispered.
When Blythe hurried away, Mercy collapsed against the wall. She didn’t understand. She’d done nothing, offended no one. Yet somewhere out there was someone with a very peculiar notion of her needs. She did not need threatening letters delivered with the morning mail. But she could ignore them. It was a little harder to ignore the dead gifts found irregularly about the abbey.
Wilcox and a footman scurried past her and entered her bedchamber. She didn’t watch the grim business of removing the mess, but she listened and heard her butler’s outrage about the oddities of Romsey Abbey.
When he’d handed the mess off to the footman with instructions to burn the lot, Wilcox approached her. “If I might be so bold, Your Grace, I believe it would be prudent to seek family counsel on how to put a stop to these despicable acts.”
Mercy considered his words, but she didn’t know what to do. This matter was slowly escalating beyond her understanding. “You think I should write to my brother for his advice?”
Wilcox shook his head. “No, Your Grace. I thought it prudent to seek Mr. Randall’s assistance. He has returned at a fortuitous time.”
Mercy frowned, thinking the matter through. She didn’t know Mr. Randall well enough to confide in him. Not yet at any rate.
“Why would you think Her Grace should confide in Mr. Randall?” Blythe asked as she rejoined them. “Is it not suspicious that he would return at just such a moment?”
Mercy startled at her sister’s suggestion.
“He would never threaten a woman,” Wilcox blurted out in Randall’s defense, but then his cheeks darkened with embarrassment. He rarely contradicted Blythe although Mercy had given him leave to speak his mind should he feel strongly about any matter. Rather than let a servant feel the wrath of her sister’s sharp tongue, Mercy waved Wilcox away. He bowed and moved off.
Mercy read the disgruntled look in her sister’s eye. “Why would you think Mr. Randall involved?” she asked, trying to turn Blythe’s tide of anger before she suggested Wilcox be dismissed for insolence yet again. “He has only just returned from India.”
“So he says.” Blythe looked away. “We know so little about him.”
Really, why was everyone so eager to label Mr. Randall a troublemaker? Mercy had a good feeling about him. One glance into those dark, smoldering eyes had promised her that here was a man she could rely upon. It had absolutely nothing to do with the way her pulse leapt at his brief smile. The man had revealed a pair of delightful dimples. No one with dimples could be truly evil.
Mercy stood tall. “Well, we shall learn more when he comes to dine tomorrow. In the mean time, we cannot condemn him without cause.”
“Then what shall we do?”
Mercy grinned. “We shall go along and smother my son with kisses and then tell him he has a cousin. He’ll be wondering where we are.”
~ * ~
Leopold settled into a vacant corner of the Vulture’s taproom and kept his eye on the crowd. The low-beamed inn thrummed with locals, all easing the day’s aches over a tankard or two of dark ale. Gradually Leopold grew accustomed to the competing noise of English voices, and the smell. India, with her cloying spices permeating the air, had made England the foreign country to his senses. But like India, he’d grow used to the difference if given enough time.
One by one, each patron whispered into each another’s ears until the whole room knew of his return. More than one local tipped his cap to Leopold in respect. During their time here, his family had been well liked. They considered him one of them still, even if he stood next in line for the title.
A tankard slid across the battered table. “Here you are, Mr. Randall. Just the way you liked it when you were young. Put hair on your chest, that will.”
He glanced up and found Eamon Murphy, the biggest gossip in the district, hovering at his elbow. “Eamon. Are you still knocking about these parts?”
Eamon grinned. “Nowhere else in the world like Romsey. Why would I leave?”
Leopold clapped him on the arm. “I seem to recall you had taken a fancy to a girl who lived a few miles away from Romsey. I thought you’d have taken over her father’s farm by now and moved away.”
Eamon scowled. “Haughty witch, that one. She got only her airs to keep her company nowadays. No one else would have her. But look at you. You’re a real gentleman now. Too fancy to be hanging about with the likes of us. Why are you not up at the abbey with the duchess?”
Leopold forced a smile to his face, but kept the whys of his presence to himself. “What’s afoot, Eamon?”
A cunning smile lit Eamon’s face as he slid into the opposite seat. He leaned across the table toward Leopold. “What do you fancy?”
Leopold smiled, enjoying the familiar banter. “What is the latest entertainment?”
“Heard tell of a cock fight over Crampmoor way. Rough crowd, but that’s not unusual. There’s a brothel up at Timsbury now. New one. Expensive. Caters to well turned out gentlemen such as yourself. But you’ve been in India. Bet you’re after some of the white smoke?” Eamon’s eyes glittered, as if he’d delivered Leopold an early Christmas gift.
Leopold did not partake of opium. He liked to keep his wits about him. When he shook his head, Eamon slumped. “The white smoke ruins a man, Eamon. Best not to start at all.”
Opium might make a man forget home, but he merely traded one need for another. Leopold had seen enough of that sickness among the English in India to last him a lifetime.
Eamon sat back and scrubbed a hand over his face. “Only other thing is the duchess herself, and there are plenty of men wagering on her taking a lover soon. Odds are on Lord Shaw, but he’s chasing the skirts of a few noble ladies so it’s hard to judge who’d have the best chance. But the earl’s been calling on the duchess pretty regular. He’s the favorite to make it a permanent arrangement by marrying her.”
“Is that so?” Anger ripped through him. Gods, a Shaw couldn’t gain control of Romsey. Even as a boy he’d heard tales about the family, none of them very complimentary.
Although Leopold had attempted to keep the disgust from his tone, Eamon must have picked up on his tension. The man straightened. “That’s what I heard. Might be nothing more than gossip. Now you’re home, the odds will change.”
Leopold picked up his tankard, and took a swallow. Did people really think he could have any influence where the Duchess of Romsey was concerned? He wiped his hand across the back of his mouth before he dared to speak. “As good as I remember. Do you know they can’t make a decent drop in India? Must be why the white smoke is so popular.”
“Ain’t nowhere like Romsey. Welcome home.” Eamon smiled cheekily as he slipped away from the table.
So, the duchess, for all her prim innocence had lovers lining up. Knowing her weaknesses could only help his chances of finding Oliver, Rosemary, and Tobias. If Leopold learned enough about her faults, he could use the information for leverage should she prove resistant to helping him. He’d use every trick he knew to get his way this time. The warm spark of mischief in her eyes wouldn’t deter him.
Leopold smiled and took another drink while he watched Eamon working the room, wringing every last shred of gossip from the locals. Given enough time, Eamon would tell him everything he needed to know. He might even let slip some things he didn’t know he knew too, and help put Leopold’s family back together.
CHAPTER FIVE
Leopold Randall was prompt, polite and, to Mercy’s way of thinking, even more handsome than yesterday. After some initial awkwardness in his greeting, the dark-suited gentleman had sat down to luncheon, displaying exquisite manners—far more than Blythe had assured her he would possess—and kept up a lively conversation about his travels.
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