‘But yes, Lucien has asked that I make our relationship clear to you.’
‘So to speed my departure,’ Valerian mused aloud uncharitably.
‘Be fair, St Just. Lucien has done nothing to earn your enmity besides stand my friend.’
Valerian studied her. ‘Is he your friend? I did not know him from before. He must be a new friend.’
‘Why, of course he’s a friend and he’s perfectly acceptable. He’s the oldest son of a viscount with excellent prospects of his own. He’s not a new friend, not to me anyway. I’ve known him since John…’she hesitated here and then corrected herself‘…Cambourne’s death. He was with John the day of the accident and he’s been with me ever since.’ Her sharp tone had softened at the mention of her husband.
Valerian matched it with a quiet tone of his own. ‘Beldon mentioned the accident briefly. Cambourne lived a while afterwards,’ he prompted, liking the quiet intimacy that had sprung up between them.
Philippa turned bittersweet eyes on him, her gaze far away with her memories. ‘Lucien got him home and arranged for a physician, even though he was hurt himself. We stayed by John’s side for the next few days.’ She shook her head. ‘The doctor had known immediately that there would be no recovery. I was afraid to leave him out of fear that he would slip away the moment I was gone.’
Valerian took Philippa’s hand, stroking her knuckles with his thumb, pleased that she hadn’t snatched it away. A queer pang jabbed at him. He was both grateful that Philippa had cared for her husband and yet envious that those affections had been given to another. ‘You cared for the duke, then?’ he asked curiously, wanting to know the nature of the relationship she’d shared with Cambourne.
‘I grew fond of him. He was a good mentor to me and he denied me nothing. He let me use his wealth and his name to build a model school for miners’ children in the village. It’s the one the vicar is modelling his own school after. He was a good and tolerant man. I sincerely missed him when he was gone.’
‘But Lucien was there,’ Valerian prodded.
‘Yes. He helped with all the details of transferring the estates to me and to John’s heir. That can be tedious work and Beldon was so busy settling the Pendennys estate in those days it was a relief not to burden him with my worries as well.’ Philippa sighed.
The bastard knows how much she’s worth to the farthing. He’s had an intimate look at her holdings. The thought was unworthy, but it was the first one that came to mind. How convenient everything was for the man. That raised an alarm for Valerian. He no more believed in ‘conveniences’ than he believed in Beldon’s blasted ‘serendipity’. A man made his own luck. Lucien Canton appeared to have manufactured quite a lot of it.
Valerian’s talk with Philippa in the garden did not go unremarked. Mandeville Danforth let the length of curtain drop in front of the library windows. ‘Look at them, close as courters. He’s holding her hand, damn it. Canton, how could you let him upset things so quickly and so thoroughly? He’s turning her head.’
Lucien pierced the man with a cold stare. ‘I didn’t know he was coming. He and her brother arrived unannounced, much like yourself,’ he said pointedly. ‘How was I to know that he was more than her brother’s best friend?’
‘You could tell the minute he saw her,’ Danforth groused.
‘We all could tell. It’s amazing the house didn’t spontaneously combust. But by then it was too late. I could hardly expel him from the house. We have to be careful with Pendennys. We need his blunt. Where he invests, others will follow. Giving his friend the cold shoulder won’t help our cause, especially with Pendennys still sitting on the proverbial fence where the bank is concerned.’
Danforth huffed in concession to Lucien’s wisdom. ‘Winning the Dowager Duchess of Cambourne’s affections would be enough to bring her brother into the fold. It’s a bad time for a kink in the works. Did you read your father’s letter? I hope it was important enough for me to hare down here from London.’
Lucien felt some inward satisfaction that Danforth didn’t know the contents of the letter. The man was getting above himself to think he could scold a viscount’s son. He had not missed Danforth’s barb about the need to win Philippa’s affections. But Danforth was wrong to assume his only role in this scheme was to play the suitor and woo Lady Cambourne.
While the thought of finally having Philippa in his bed after all this time was pleasant enough, he’d invested the last three years of his life for a far more lucrative gambit than a roll in the ducal bed. He had an empire at stake.
Lucien gave Danforth a cold smile. ‘My father writes that the London investors are in place. We may go ahead and officially announce that the Provincial Bank of Truro is open for business, with you, of course, as the nominal head.’ It went unspoken between them the reasons for that choice. A viscount or his son might sit on an executive oversight board of a bank, particularly if the bank was in his own area of the country, but he would never overtly sully himself with such work as the daily running of the bank.
Danforth rubbed his hands together in delight. ‘I am glad to hear it.’
‘As am I. The sooner we can begin loaning funds to the smelting companies and the mining corporations, the sooner we can have our cartel.’
‘And the sooner we have our cartel, the sooner we control the market. Everyone will be in our pockets,’ Danforth remarked shrewdly.
‘Not just the market, but the world,’ Lucien said meaningfully. He didn’t expect Danforth to understand. The man’s financial acumen was daunting on a domestic scale, but he had yet to grasp the implications of the new British mining colonies springing up in the Bolivian and Argentine territories. That was Lucien’s gift to the venture—futuristic foresight.
His eyes strayed to the window. His foresight and exquisite planning would come to naught if he couldn’t control the Cambourne interests. The strength of his cartel and its ability to regulate tin and copper prices would be minimal if the Cambourne mines and other associated industries remained outside the cartel’s umbrella to compete against it with prices.
St Just was an unfortunate distraction, but not insurmountable. He would have to send to London for news about the returning viscount. With nine years in the diplomatic corps, there must be dirt on the man somewhere—real scandal beyond his rakish reputation with women.
Lucien had yet to meet a diplomat who couldn’t be bribed to shape foreign policy. Not that there was anything wrong with greasing palms. Lucien was man enough of the world to know it took a bit of well-placed oil to keep that world running smoothly. But Philippa was another sort altogether. She believed in ideals, like the miners’ school the late duke had let her open.
Lucien rather thought she’d take badly to the news that the dashing St Just was not only a womaniser—a fact openly known in certain London circles—but a man who’d been involved with darker dealings, selling ‘opportunities’, as it were, to become involved in the great British Empire for a price—things like rights to waterways or trade commodities. Those were things that quietly went to the highest bidders and not necessarily those who deserved them most. Such injustice would not sit well with Philippa.
However, until he could manage to tarnish St Just’s sterling image a bit, he’d follow the old adage of keeping one’s friends close and one’s enemies closer. It was time to pay a visit to the garden.
Chapter Five
Philippa didn’t see Lucien approach, but was instead alerted to his arrival by the sudden tenseness in Valerian’s pose and the feral light that lit his green eyes. She tried to slide her gloved hand discreetly from Valerian’s grasp, but the effort was nothing more than an afterthought. The stormy visage Lucien wore made it clear that he had already seen her hand in Valerian’s.
She resented the intrusion. For a short while, she and St Just had been companionable, simply Philippa and Valerian again, like they had been on the dance floor. She’d liked the soft, intimate tones between them as they discussed her marria
ge to the duke. She’d liked the absence of witty repartee designed to spear the other, the social politics of claiming and possession. With Lucien’s interruption, all that was back, and back in force. The moment Valerian had spied Lucien, he’d become all St Just again—the rakish diplomat who would not be cornered or made to feel guilty for his actions by any man.
‘Philippa, it’s freezing out here,’ Lucien said, rubbing his hands together for good effect and trying to minimise Valerian’s presence by ignoring him. ‘What could possibly bring you outside?’
‘We’re reminiscing, catching up,’ Philippa offered smoothly. It was true. They’d been talking of the past, nothing more.
‘My dear, that is why we have a dozen sitting rooms, expressly for the purpose of talking.’ Lucien forced a laugh.
‘Is that true or is it merely an example of hyperbole?’ Valerian put in, shielding his eyes against the wind and making a great show of surveying the manor as if he could count all the sitting rooms and doubted the manor was large enough to uphold Lucien’s boast.
Philippa couldn’t decide what she wanted to do first: laugh at Lucien’s bluff being called—the manor was large by Truro standards, but there weren’t twelve sitting rooms unless one counted the small salons attached to a few of the larger bedchambers—or strangle Valerian for poking at Lucien’s pride so deliberately and with no greater purpose than to antagonise the man.
‘St Just has an interest in gardens. I thought he’d enjoy seeing yours,’ Philippa interjected quickly.
Valerian smiled beside her. ‘Yes, the family seat has extensive gardens over on the Roseland Peninsula. I am eager to get back to them.’
Lucien smiled back. ‘I hope you aren’t in such a large hurry to get back that you won’t stay on with us for a while? Perhaps I could entice you with a visit to some excellent gardens nearby?’ Lucien offered magnanimously. ‘I’ve heard rumour that the new vicar in Veryan, just a few miles from here, has been rebuilding the vicarage and has plans to expand the gardens. I could arrange for you to ride over tomorrow and talk about plants and whatever else you gardening types enjoy talking about.’
Philippa turned to Valerian. ‘Please say you’ll stay. I know the vicarage. It’s lovely and you would enjoy meeting Samuel Trist, the vicar. He’s an avid landscaper. The two of you would have much in common.’ The thought of Valerian leaving, after having only discovered he’d returned was suddenly unpalatable. But he wouldn’t stay if he thought he was beholden to Lucien in any way.
‘Who knows what other pleasant surprises might crop up if you stay long enough?’ Lucien put in, playing the expansive host to the hilt. ‘With luck, you could be one of the first to congratulate me on my good fortune. I have proposed to our dear Duchess this very morning. I thought it was best to start the year off on the right footing, beginning as I mean to go on and all that.’
Philippa felt the colour go out of her cheeks. How dare Lucien call his angry, jealous retort a proposal. She was keenly aware of Valerian’s probing stare.
‘Has our “dear Duchess” accepted?’ Valerian asked of Lucien, although his eyes didn’t leave her.
‘She has—’ Lucien began glibly.
‘She has not accepted the proposal,’ Philippa broke in angrily. Who knew what kind of fiction Lucien would fabricate? If he was willing to risk portraying their quarrel as a proposal, he might be willing to go so far as to say her storming out of the library was akin to ‘thinking it over’.
Philippa stared hard at each of them. ‘I will not stand here and be talked about as if I am invisible. That goes for both of you. However, since my presence is not intrinsic to this conversation, please feel free to stay out here and continue. I’m going in.’
She must have been momentarily mad to think she wasn’t ready for Valerian to leave. Valerian. That was another thing. Some time between his arrival two nights ago and this afternoon, she’d started thinking of him as Valerian again instead of St Just. Out in the garden, he’d been her friend, so reminiscent of the old days, and then he’d become St Just. On an instant’s notice, the mask had slid into place as assuredly as the one he’d worn to the ball last night.
Was that what it was? A mask? Why she was so certain the mask of cold, sharp wit was the facade? It could just as well be that the friend was the front instead.
Up in her room, Philippa threw her cloak onto the bed and paced in front of the window, her thoughts in turmoil. For a woman who’d thought herself well armed against the dubious charms of Viscount St Just, her defences had proven to be woefully inadequate. Already, she was willing to cast off what she empirically knew to be the truth for the old fantasy he’d spun once before in her girlhood.
Why was it so easy to fall back into believing those old myths? Especially when she knew they were myths. Inspiration struck. She would prove to herself that Valerian Inglemoore was not to be trusted with her affections. Yes, if she could visually see the proof with her own eyes, it would be harder to stray from the truth the next time he held her hand or led her in a waltz.
Philippa drew out a sheet of her personal stationery from the escritoire and sat down. Purposefully, she drew a line down the centre of the paper, dividing it into two columns: one for myths, the other for realities.
When she was done filling in the columns, she had three myths and five truths. Myth number one: he had loved her in their youth. Myth number two: he’d meant to marry her. Myth number three: he’d returned and hoped to woo her, to atone for bad behaviour in the past. Yes, those were the things she wanted most to believe about Valerian.
Then there were the dismal truths. Truth number one: he’d blatantly acknowledged their little affaire was nothing but a young man’s fleeting fancy.
Truth number two: he’d never meant to marry her. He’d known that very night he was leaving for his uncle’s diplomatic residence. What else could explain such a rapid departure? He must have been planning it for months, perhaps for even longer than their short-lived infatuation.
Truth number three: he’d never asked her father for permission to court her and certainly not permission to ask for her hand. If he had, her father would have told her, she was sure of it.
Truth number four: he had made no effort to contact her or Beldon in his absence.
Truth number five: he’d come home with a reputation to match the behaviour he’d shown her that long ago night in the Rutherfords’ garden.
The bottom line of her analysis convicted him. With the exception of a few fleeting moments, nothing corroborated the behaviour she wanted to see in him. Nothing supported the items listed in the myth column. Everything supported the facts both past and present. The stark truth was that Valerian Inglemoore was a seducer of women—a very good one at that. So why was it so hard to resist him, even with the truth staring her in the face? And why was it so hard to accept that truth?
Was it possible there was another side to Valerian that he deliberately kept hidden? Perhaps there was a side that he couldn’t afford to expose. There might be reasons for his tightly tied mask, reasons that had to do with his work for his uncle. Philippa drew out another sheet of paper. She had friends in political circles who could find out. All wishful thinking aside, it suddenly seemed of paramount importance she knew the truth about Valerian Inglemoore.
Philippa sanded the letter and set it aside, nagged by a growing sense of guilt. She didn’t feel right about the inquiry. It felt too much like spying, going behind Valerian’s back. No, she wouldn’t send it, at least not right away. Now that her initial anger was waning, she was beginning to recognize she had done little to get to know the man Valerian had become.
Before she sent off a letter of inquiry prying into the man’s background, she should try to exhaust more direct routes available to her. After all, she sat at the same dinner table with him and there was the outing to Vicar Trist’s in Veryan tomorrow if Lucien’s request was accepted. Those were prime opportunities to reacquaint herself with Valerian and determine the truth on
her own.
The evening was a relaxed contrast compared to the prior two nights. Many of the guests who had stayed over after the New Year’s ball had departed late in the afternoon for short journeys home. In addition to Beldon and Valerian, only two couples remained, a Lord Trewithen and his wife, and the ageing Baron Pentlow and his wife from the Penwith area, who were friends of Lucien’s father and had come to the ball en route from London on their way home.
With the exception of the queer Mr Danforth, Philippa knew the other guests as regular acquaintances from the Cornwall community during her marriage. It was a simple task to make conversation over dinner and have a congenial time with the two ladies after the meal in the music room while the men took their port.
Afterwards, the men joined them for a short night of cards. She and Beldon offered to play whist with the Trewithens. At the far end of the music room, Lucien already sat at the cluster of chairs and sofa, talking avidly with Danforth and Pentlow, to the exclusion of all else, leaving Philippa to consider what to do with the elderly Lady Pentlow.
Unlooked for, Valerian rescued her admirably. ‘Duchess, would you mind if I played the pianoforte this evening? I haven’t a desire for cards at the moment or for business.’ Valerian gave a quick nod to Lucien’s group deep in discussion, his tone indicating how inappropriate he felt such a topic of discussion was in this setting.
‘It would be delightful to hear you play again, my lord,’ Philippa said, inwardly laughing at the formality of their exchange, so bland and perfect compared to the heated, more imperfect exchanges they’d exchanged in private.
Valerian inclined his dark head in a gracious nod. ‘Lady Pentlow, if I might impose on you to turn the pages for me? I recall at dinner you said you enjoyed the country pieces. Canton has a decent collection of music, perhaps you could sort through it and select a few.’ Valerian offered Lady Pentlow his arm and escorted her to the pianoforte, bending his head low to catch the woman’s excited chatter.
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