Chapter 22
CHAPTER 22
“ I need to speak with you, Chris. Now.” Daniel’s voice was hard.
Christopher was lounging on the sofa in the parlor. Morning tea had finished. The Dowager Duchess had just left the room, saying that she was going to call on the Cole family to discuss wedding preparations. She had insisted that Daniel join her, but he had managed to wriggle out of it. He had bigger fish to fry at the moment.
Christopher put down his teacup, staring at him. “You are more jittery than a cat on a roof, Cousin,” he noted mildly. “Whatever is the matter?”
Daniel sat down opposite his cousin so that he could see his face. He needed to see his face when he laid the evidence at his feet. Christopher’s expression would be the best measure of whether this was true or not, or whether it was some kind of odd misunderstanding.
Daniel’s heart lurched. He loved his cousin. Chris had always been the closest thing to a brother he had ever had. He had relied on him, leaned on him, looked up to him. Chris had been the steady rock to Daniel’s rocky boat.
He had trusted him. And now, he had no idea who the man sitting so calmly opposite him was.
“I was going through the accounts for both houses,” Daniel began, narrowing his eyes, as he placed the ledgers on the table between them. “I’ve been meaning to get around to it.” He paused. “There’s a few discrepancies that I cannot account for. Perhaps you could explain them to me.”
He watched his cousin carefully as he put down his teacup. Christopher’s expression hadn’t changed, but did he see a flicker of alarm in his eyes?
If so, it was quickly gone.
Christopher gazed at him mildly. “Discrepancies? What do you mean?”
Daniel sighed, picking up the first ledger, the one that detailed Stansgate’s accounts. He flicked through the pages, running a finger along the margin until he found what he was looking for.
“Here,” he said, showing the book to his cousin. “You have listed the expenditure for the month in the last column. And yet, the figures do not add up. There is a discrepancy of one hundred guineas.”
Christopher shrugged. “And so? I must have made a mistake, Cousin. It does happen, especially when one is doing bookkeeping at night, which is my habit.”
Daniel stared at him. “Yes, that is what I thought myself when I came across it,” he said slowly. “However, when I went back over the previous months, the same mistake occurred, for exactly the same amount of money. One hundred guineas, every single time.”
Christopher met his eyes steadily. “More mistakes.” He shrugged, looking indifferent. “I am not trained in this, you know, Daniel. I took over the books for your estates as a favor to you and your family. Lord knows that you were not here to do it.”
Daniel flinched slightly but stood his ground. “And my family and myself have appreciated it,” he returned, his heart twisting. “We have always relied on your steady nature. Perhaps we have relied on it too much. Perhaps you have been resentful of it.”
Christopher’s expression changed. A look of guilt and shame flashed across his face.
There it is . There is the proof.
Daniel hadn’t wanted to believe it at first when he had gone over the books. But the realization that his cousin had been carefully skimming the same amount of guineas each month from the estate accounts was eventually overwhelming.
He had gone over the books again, and again, double-checking, then triple-checking. The result was always the same. It had taken up all his time this week since they had returned from Stansgate, the house party blessedly over.
And in some ways, his preoccupation with it had been a blessing—it had meant that he didn’t have time to think about Maddie and what had happened between them at Stansgate, just before she had run away from him.
Still, it had been niggling at the back of his mind, eating at him, like a rat gnawing on a wheel of cheese. He had taken her maidenhead. The game should be over. And yet, it wasn’t over. He had meant what he said when he had whispered it to her in the carriage, more than he had ever meant anything in his life.
But the dilemma wouldn’t solve itself easily. His cousin was courting her. Her parents wanted her to marry Chris. Was he going to challenge his cousin over her? But that meant that he must marry her himself. And he couldn’t do that. He couldn’t marry her.
If you succumb to the temptation, then it will end badly, just like it ended badly between your parents. You are your father’s son. You will end up betraying her. You will end up breaking her heart.
He knew he must find a way to let her go. He must find a way to resist her.
He had never been in this position before, wanting something that he couldn’t have. In some ways, that fiery, wonderful union between them at Stansgate had made it worse. Because now, his hunger for her had increased exponentially. The union hadn’t slaked his thirst, as he had believed it would—it had multiplied it by a thousand.
Daniel took a deep breath, trying to banish the problem of Maddie from his mind. At least, for now. Now, he must deal with his cousin.
“I know what you have done, Chris,” he said slowly. “The proof is there. I just need to hear it from your lips. I deserve that much.”
Christopher’s expression tightened. There was a taut silence, broken only by the ticking of the clock on the mantel. Daniel waited, ignoring the need to rush in and fill it, wrestling with his anger and sorrow and disappointment.
“All right, I admit it,” Christopher relented, his eyes flickering again with shame. “But I deserved some recompense for my devotion to keeping the duchy afloat. I thought of it as my wage for the hours I have put into it. Hours where I could have been living my own life, you know.”
Daniel’s face contorted. “You have been paid handsomely for the responsibility. You have been paid a stipend. As well as the increased status of being the Duke by proxy.” He paused, swallowing a painful lump in his throat. “It is theft, Cousin. Pure and simple.”
Abruptly, Christopher stood up. A vein was throbbing in his left temple. “It is all right for you,” he hissed, his face turning as red as a brick. “You were born to a great position. You were born with more wealth than you know what to do with. I am just the poor relation, hanging on your coattails. A poor relation who has worked damn hard to keep your estates running while you flittered around the Continent, having a grand time.”
Daniel stood up, facing him. He was shaking with anger. “You were never the poor relation,” he said sharply. “Your estate is not as flush as the Everly duchy, but you are no pauper. Go on. Say what you really think. It is well overdue.”
“I will,” Christopher snarled, his eyes glinting fiercely. “My father was an honorable man. He should have been born first and been the Duke. Then I would have inherited the title.” He drew in a deep breath. “Instead, it fell into the lap of your father, a dishonorable man, whose last act on this earth shamed your family. Tell me, where is the justice in that?”
“None of us can control that,” Daniel stated in a hard voice. “It is simply fate. The roll of the dice. You talk of honor, and yet you have been dishonorable, Cousin. You have lied and stolen, all the while pretending to be our friend and ally.”
They faced each other, both breathing heavily.
“Go on, then,” Christopher said, staring at him with such contempt that it felt like a slap in the face. “Are you going to call the constables? Because before you do, you should know that I know what you and Lady Madeline have been doing… and I can let Mrs. Camberwell know as well.”
Daniel gaped at him. “It was you,” he whispered fiercely, feeling all the blood drain from his face. “You were the one who tattled to the scandal sheet!”
Christopher laughed derisively. “You have become slower on the uptake since you went to the Continent,” he hissed. “It seems that a dissolute, idle lifestyle does not suit you, Cousin. Of course, it was me. I have been spying on you and Lady Madeline. I know that you brought her here and took her to your garden shed to have your wicked way with her, and that you did so at Stansgate as well.”
“ What?”
Daniel reeled back as if his cousin had punched him. He hadn’t expected that. He hadn’t even suspected that Chris had known what was going on between him and Maddie. His cousin had never intimated that he did.
But now… it all made sense, of course. His cousin’s resentment towards him had spilled over into interfering in his private life, as well as stealing from the estate.
Daniel rubbed a hand over his face. It was all such a mess. He had never suspected that his cousin had favored Maddie just because he did. Or that he wanted to take her away from him for his own purposes.
But now, that also made sense. Christopher had never been a ladies’ man. Daniel had never seen him act in such a deliberate, obvious way towards a lady. It just wasn’t in his nature. He had always been a cold fish. A calculating cold fish, as it turned out.
Still waters ran deep.
“You never even liked her at all,” Daniel said, shaking his head incredulously. “You pursued her so obviously just to rattle me.”
Christopher scowled at him. “I would never be interested in one of your trollops. She’s just like all the others, lifting her skirts for you as soon as you snap your fingers. I just enjoyed watching you boil with jealousy. That was all.”
Daniel seized his cousin by the lapels of his jacket. Their faces were only inches away. “Do not dare talk about her like that,” he growled, shaking him. “Do not ever talk about her like that! You aren’t fit to lift her petticoat.”
Christopher laughed in his face. “Go on! Hit me! And then I shall go to Mrs. Camberwell to tell the world that Lady Madeline Cole is indeed a trollop! She will be ruined. No one will ever marry her!”
Daniel shook him again, throwing him across the room. His blood was boiling. He wanted to hit his cousin so badly that he could taste it.
But he wasn’t going to stoop to his level. Christopher thought he had outwitted him. He thought wrong.
“Go on, then,” Daniel challenged, his face contorting. “Go and reveal her identity to your scandal sheet. It won’t matter, because as soon as the sheet is published, the word will be out that I intend to marry her. No one will care anymore if she is about to become a respectably married duchess.”
Christopher glared at him. “You are bluffing. You don’t want to marry anyone. You will never marry!”
“You are wrong,” Daniel countered, his heart suddenly lifting in the strangest of ways. “I will marry her. And I will count myself lucky that such a glorious woman would have me, for I do not deserve her.” He paused, his voice trembling. “For I love her, you see. More than life itself.”
Christopher stared at him uncertainly.
“So, you have nothing to hold over me any longer, Cousin,” Daniel spat, his chest heaving. “Leave this house, and do not return. If you do, I will have you arrested. Do I make myself clear?”
Christopher glowered at him for a moment, before shaking himself like a dog and leaving the room.
Daniel heard the bang of the front door as his cousin slammed it shut behind him. He then walked over to the liquor cabinet in the corner, pouring himself a double whiskey. His hand was shaking so much that he spilled a little of the brown liquid.
He took a long sip. The liquid was like a trail of fire to his stomach. He put down the glass, pacing around the room, like a lion in a cage.
I love her . I truly love her. And if I hadn’t been so muddle-headed about marriage, I would have realized that I was falling for her from the very start.
His hand tightened on the glass. Everything was clear to him now. The reason why he was so struck by her, unlike anything he had ever felt before. The reason why she haunted him, why he couldn’t let the game go, why he kept pursuing her so relentlessly. The reason why it had felt like a punch to the gut when his cousin had started pursuing her.
He had been afraid. He had been scared of the enormity of it, repressing it, deluding himself that it wasn’t what it was. But now… now, he felt the release of it, like a tight ball of string unwinding within him.
It felt good. It felt freeing.
He wasn’t going to run anymore. He had run for long enough.
He put down his glass and then walked quickly out of the room. He grabbed his hat and gloves off the hallstand. There wasn’t a moment to lose.
“Where are you going, Brother?”
It was Selina, drifting down the hallway towards him. His heart lurched.
“To Maddie,” he said slowly, wondering what she would think. “I… I think I love her.”
Selina’s eyes lit up like candles. “At last. What on earth has taken you so long, Daniel?” She smiled. “Good luck.”
Daniel grinned at his sister. He didn’t need any more encouragement. He rushed out the door, running down the street. Maddie’s house was three blocks away, but he didn’t care. He could have run across the whole of the city for her.
His heart contracted. Would she listen to him? Would she accept him? Or was it all too late?