Her touch was light on his sleeve. ‘You have criminals to catch. My journalistic opportunities are just starting to develop. Being a duchess is the greatest gilded cage of all, Ven.’
‘Maybe you’re looking at it all wrong. Maybe being a duchess is the greatest freedom. You can do what you want, you can redefine the rules, be a leader, set new trends instead of kowtowing to tradition.’ He covered her hand with his. ‘You wouldn’t be just anyone’s duchess, Marianne. You’d be mine. I like to think that makes a difference.’ He felt Marianne’s hand tense beneath his.
‘Is this a hypothetical proposal?’ Marianne raised an auburn brow. ‘I thought we were decided, Ven. You don’t owe me anything. I did not make love with you in order to trap you.’
‘Is that a hypothetical refusal?’ Vennor let her hand go.
‘No, it’s just a question. Why now? We had our terms defined between us, Ven. What’s changed?’ Marianne’s eyes were searching his face for answers.
‘I have,’ Vennor answered bluntly. ‘These last weeks with you, I have come alive again. I don’t have everything worked out yet, but I feel a sense of purpose I didn’t have before. You helped me see that perhaps it was always there, just unrefined.’ He was going to establish schools for children and night schools for adults. He was going to fight poverty.
‘What about your parents’ killers?’ Marianne prompted.
‘That may soon be resolved, but even so, perhaps you were right when you argued I needn’t make that quest and marriage mutually exclusive. Perhaps that was just an excuse to cover up for not having a purpose for myself.’ He’d made that quest his purpose instead, trying to fill that vacuum; he saw that now.
‘And the Vigilante? Is he to be set aside?’
‘I don’t know. I haven’t got that far yet. Perhaps in time he may not be needed. For now, he may still have a part to play. But does that matter, Marianne?’ He smiled briefly. ‘I thought you rather liked the Vigilante.’
She smiled, too. ‘I do like him. He’s a good kisser.’
Vennor sighed. ‘But his kisses aren’t enough, are they? Your position hasn’t changed.’ He’d hoped her reservations about marriage would change once the potential husband changed. ‘I won’t push you.’ How long, though, did she think they could slink off without being caught or brought to account for it? He reached into his coat pocket and drew out a small, square black box tied neatly with a length of pale blue ribbon. ‘Your present,’ he said as he offered her a half-bow.
‘I thought the Hayes dossier was my present.’ Marianne took the little box with surprised delight. ‘You didn’t have to, Ven. The dossier would have been gift enough.’ She untied the ribbon and lifted the lid, exclaiming over the hair clasps seated on black velvet inside. Diamond brilliants twinkled in their nests. ‘Oh, they’re lovely.’ She was lovely. He’d give her diamonds every day if it meant he could watch her face glow which such appreciation.
He reached into his pocket for an envelope. ‘This goes with the hair clasps.’ He watched her face as she opened the envelope, pulling out two tickets, her eyes scanning them, her brow knitting. ‘I want you to wear the hair clasps to the opera on Friday night and join me in my box,’ Vennor explained. ‘Everyone is invited. It will be quite the party.’ He stopped himself. He was starting to ramble.
Marianne’s gaze moved slowly from the tickets to him. ‘Are you sure? This is the anniversary of...’ She couldn’t bring herself to say it.
‘Of their deaths. Yes. I know. I picked the day deliberately,’ Vennor confessed. ‘I meant it when I said you made me feel alive again. It’s time to start living.’ He’d been doing penance for years now. Living was something else entirely.
‘Society will take note,’ Marianne cautioned. He thought he sensed a note of regret in the warning. Did she resent the subsequent deluge of debutantes that would follow? She needn’t. He knew what he wanted and he hadn’t given up on persuading her yet.
‘That’s what I am hoping for. Perhaps M.R. Mannering might even make an early mention of it. I hear he has a column due tomorrow.’ Vennor tucked her arm through his. ‘Shall we go in and disappoint your guests?’
They would all blame him, of course. If there was no proposal, they would lay the failure at his feet. But it was one small way in which he could protect Marianne. He would happily take the blame.
‘Ven, they will not be disappointed. It’s not the announcement they’re expecting, but they will be glad to hear about the opera.’ He could have kissed her for it if not for the knowledge that eight pairs of eyes were surreptitiously watching from the windows.
* * *
He was mostly right about the reaction to the opera invitation. His friends were supportive and suspicious, although they’d held off on voicing their suspicions until drinks at White’s on Wednesday. Inigo was late, but Eaton and Cassian were more than able to carry on the interrogation without him.
‘You’ve definitely made a splash with the opera. M.R. Mannering’s even covered it in his column.’ Eaton slapped the magazine down on the table, page folded back to the news. ‘Word travels fast when a reclusive duke comes out of seclusion.’
‘I heard tickets have sold out and people are selling them on the streets for exorbitant prices.’ Cassian took a seat and called for brandies before fixing him with a stare. ‘It will be a circus, everyone gaping and gossiping. I can’t say it will be pleasant, Ven. Have you thought this through?’
Eaton answered for him. ‘Of course he has, Cass.’ Eaton’s whisky eyes were on him. ‘This is more than announcing his return. He’s drawing Hayes out.’ Vennor and Inigo had briefed them fully on the Hayes situation in the hopes that they might be able to probe their own sources for information regarding the origins of Hayes’s financial problems. They’d all spent the last two days looking for that particular needle in the ton’s haystack. Eaton’s eyes were steady on him, seeing too much. ‘He’s setting himself up as live bait.’
Cassian rubbed at his upper lip. ‘I think that’s risky, Vennor.’
‘It may not be risky at all. We currently don’t have any motive as to why Hayes would be after me, only suspicions. It can’t be Marianne, although he’ll be angry over that. But if he’s after me, he was mad at the Penlericks long before this. We have no link to that scenario, just a man who is broke and desperate at this point,’ Vennor reminded Cassian. ‘Besides, you will all be there to guard my back.’ He was putting on quite the show for the ton. He hoped it paid off and that Hayes would expose himself.
A flurry of activity at the door drew their attention. Inigo had arrived. He divested himself of his coat and walked purposefully towards their table with long, eager strides. Vennor felt a bolt of excitement shoot through him. Inigo had found something. He tried to read his friend’s face as he settled in the remaining chair. Eaton offered him a glass, but Inigo waved it away. He definitely knew something. Vennor’s gut clenched.
‘Gentlemen, I may have the answers we seek,’ he began in low tones, his pale blue eyes moving carefully around the room to see that they weren’t overheard, but the club was still quiet. They were safe. ‘It appears a series of bad investments are at the source of Hayes’s financial woes.’ Inigo held up a hand. ‘Now, before you say that’s not news, look at this: they start with Hayes’s grandfather, the third Viscount. Right after he married, he began investing in infrastructure projects. They should have been sound investments and they might have been if they’d come about. But they didn’t.’
Inigo spread out a map. ‘He was part of a group who wanted to build a road here.’ He tapped a spot on the map showing the north of Penzance and Porth Karrek. ‘But the road ended up south of Penzance, making use of Newlyn Harbour instead.’
Vennor nodded, listening carefully as Inigo traced the accumulation of failed ventures. Roads. Mines. Investments that had not lived up to their potential. A pattern began to form. Newlyn had g
ained when the Hayes viscountcy had foundered. The road south of Penzance had benefited the mines transporting ore to a harbour for shipping, while mines north of Penzance had to spend more time and money transporting their ore to its final destination which cut into profit margins.
‘You mentioned that the investments started after the grandfather married. Who did he marry?’ Vennor was unaware that the family had any natural interest in Cornish environs. The Hayes family seat was in neighbouring Devonshire.
Inigo grinned, a satisfied cat indeed. ‘I’m glad you asked. The grandfather married an earl’s youngest daughter whose name is not important. What is important, however, is who he didn’t marry: Miss Evangeline Warnick.’
Vennor gave Inigo a sharp look. ‘My grandmother?’
‘Yes, apparently, the third Viscount Hayes was jilted in love. Like grandfather like grandson it seems in this case,’ Inigo added drily.
Vennor voiced the scenario forming in his mind. ‘You’re suggesting there was a grudge? That the third Viscount Hayes made a series of investments in the hopes of deliberately thwarting my grandfather’s successes.’ It made sense, competing for the right to build a road that would direct traffic to certain harbours and enhance the income of one region over another.
‘Hayes’s father carried on the legacy and now Hayes himself seems to be continuing the game,’ Inigo concluded. ‘Look at the last investment. Audevere found this among her father’s papers. Hayes had invested in Brenley’s ill-fated road.’ Inigo shot an apologetic look at Cassian. ‘The same one Collin invested in.’
‘The same one,’ Vennor confirmed for them. ‘There were others that my father’s legislation blocked because of how many families its construction would dispossess.’ He let out a low whistle. ‘No wonder he hates the Penlericks.’ Vennor could see how the history and the grudge had grown apace over time. How the thwarted Hayes family had vilified the successes of the Penlericks and held them responsible for the financial and matrimonial woes that had befallen them. Hatred was an effective poison. ‘But murder? What does that accomplish?’ Vennor asked. Now that they had established motive, they needed to connect it to the action. ‘Our next question is this: is financial hardship enough to prompt murder?’
‘Hayes was close to his grandfather,’ Cassian supplied. ‘I didn’t think much of the information at the time, but one of my father’s friends mentioned it when we asked. We are talking about three generations holding a grudge and spiralling circumstances. Who knows what that might prompt, especially if Hayes didn’t have to be the one holding the weapon.’
‘But what does revenge achieve? It can’t bring back the money; it can’t change the past,’ Vennor argued. As much he’d like closure and answers about his parents’ deaths, he was not willing to grasp at straws no matter how tempting it was.
‘Allow me to play the cynic,’ Inigo put in and they all chuckled, despite the weighty matter. Inigo was always the cynic, but it helped relieve the growing tension. ‘Perhaps Hayes is looking to the future. Eliminate the Penlericks and, forgive me, but how hard would that be? There were only the two males, you and your father, until you marry and have a son. Once he was rid of you and had a well-placed Cornish bride by his side such as Marianne, he’d be poised to fill the vacuum left by the Penlericks.’
‘That might be your darkest hypothesis yet.’ Vennor frowned. ‘It wouldn’t work though. There’d be no vacuum. There would still be the rest of you.’
Cassian stiffened beside him. ‘Perhaps he wouldn’t stop with you. Perhaps he has longer-ranging plans for his sons and their sons. Perhaps he means to wipe out the Cornish Dukes, one house at a time.’
‘Whoa, I think that might be a bit drastic.’ Inigo held up a hand. ‘Not that I don’t see your point. But that takes a certain unstable genius to pull off.’
‘The same kind of unstable genius that might take the opportunity to finish what he started at the opera three years ago,’ Vennor put in. What Cassian described was indeed drastic, but he knew better than anyone how deceitful and manipulative Hayes was. He’d seen what the man had done to Elise, all the while pretending to the ton to be the most regular of gentlemen while courting Marianne. His stomach shifted at the thought. Hayes had nearly got away with that.
Inigo gathered up the papers and folded his map. The club was starting to fill with late-afternoon members. Not that it mattered. They could decide nothing more, do nothing more until the opera. Vennor raised his glass. ‘Here’s to Friday night, gentlemen, and the end of the chase.’ He hoped it would be the end of it; he wished the culprit was Hayes and he wished the man would expose himself in the trap Vennor was setting for him.
The group broke up, but Eaton stayed behind, worry etched on his face. ‘You understand that Friday night might come and go without Hayes making a move, whether he is guilty or not.’
‘Yes.’ Vennor let out a breath. He’d told Marianne that he wanted to start living again. That meant living with successes and failures, the past and the future. ‘Eaton, I am coming to accept that I may never catch the killers, those who’d actually held the weapons that ended my parents’ lives. In fact, it seems unlikely I will. But I might catch the man who ordered it.’ Either way, he had to find a way forward.
‘I hope for your sake we catch the bastard.’ Eaton leaned forward with a comforting hand on his knee. ‘But for my sake, I’d rather have my friend safe and happy.’ He waited a moment before going on. ‘I was in your position not so long ago, thinking that I wasn’t entitled to happiness because I wasn’t a complete man. But the love of a good woman showed me I was wrong. Eliza couldn’t give me happiness. No one can do that. But she helped me find my own happiness, my own completeness.’
Vennor looked up, startled at his friend’s words. He’d never heard Eaton talk that way before, Eaton who was the nominal leader of the group, who’d been his rock during the funeral. Nothing seemed to faze Eaton. He took care of people and he always knew what to do. Vennor would not have guessed this self-assured man had carried such doubt within him. ‘I didn’t know,’ he said.
Eaton smiled and shook his head. ‘That’s the whole point with men like us, isn’t it, Ven? No one guesses. We don’t want them to. Sometimes, we don’t even guess ourselves because we wear our masks too well. Then someone comes along who can look into our souls and we’re never the same again. We’re better.’ He sighed. ‘I know Inigo has been pushing hard on the subject of Marianne. I don’t want to repeat that. But don’t let her get away. She sees you, Ven. That’s the most priceless gift you can have in a wife.’
Vennor swallowed, emotion threatening. ‘I know. I just need her to see that, too. She has other ideas about her life. She thinks marriage is a dead end.’
Eaton chuckled. ‘I’ve experienced that as well. Eliza thought the same thing. Perhaps I should send her to talk with Marianne?’
‘Well, if you think it would do any good...’ Vennor gave a half-smile ‘...I’m open to suggestions. It’s ironic really; I was the one who should have married first and you should have married last, if at all, and now our positions are reversed.’
‘Just for now. She’ll come around,’ Eaton offered hopefully as they finished off the last of the brandy.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Tonight was the night! Excitement ran through him as Hayes stuck a pin in his cravat. It was one of his favourites—a round blue topaz, the stone of loyalty. It had been a gift from his grandfather when he completed university. Hayes tugged at his jacket one last time and straightened his shoulders with a final look in the mirror. He’d dismissed his valet, wanting these last moments to himself, a private celebration of sorts.
After a string of bad luck, things were finally starting to go right. Tonight, he would fulfil his pledge to his grandfather to eradicate the Penlericks. They’d driven his grandfather and then his father into early graves, but not without cost to themselves. Their avarice would be t
he end of their line. They would be done to death by their own greed. Which just went to prove it was hard to keep a good man like himself, a man with direction and purpose, down. Never mind that his whore had fled in the night, never mind that his marriage proposal had been refused, his desperate finances exposed by his enemy. Those were merely obstacles set up to test him. He’d survived. More than that, he’d not let those obstacles beat him down.
He slid a sharp knife into a secret sheath inside his coat. He likely wouldn’t need it—his men would take care of the violence—but one must always be prepared for any eventuality. It was time for the opera, but the real show would happen afterwards and he would have a front-row seat for it all. Afterwards, he’d have Marianne all to himself. He would bring her to heel in short order, make her pay for her father’s refusal and for her own treachery. No wife of his would ever cuckold him. He would be damn sure her sons were his. She would regret the day she’d chosen Vennor Penlerick over him. He would show her what a real man could do and in turn she would give him abject obedience. The curtain was about to rise on the Age of the House of Hayes.
* * *
Tonight was the night! Marianne turned a circle before the long mirror in her bedchamber, laughing in delight at how the skirts belled out at the motion. The dress was new, ordered at the beginning of the Season, but never worn. She’d pulled it out of its box this morning for pressing.
‘You look delightful.’ The feminine voice at the door startled her and Marianne blushed, having been caught in a moment of giddiness.
‘Eliza, I didn’t know you were coming over.’ Marianne hugged the other woman. ‘You look beautiful. Green becomes you.’
‘Eaton’s downstairs. We thought you might like to ride over with us and your parents can follow.’ Eliza sat down on the bed. ‘What an exciting night this is—Vennor returning to the opera house, with you beside him.’ She gave a light laugh. ‘The men think everyone will spend the evening watching Vennor, but my money is on you.’
The Confessions of the Duke of Newlyn Page 18
