Chapter Ten #3
“Just the one, thank you.” Mr. Rathbun noticed the letters on the desk. “Are these the evidence you spoke of in your note?”
“They are indeed.” Jansen poured two whiskies and handed one to the detective. “My sister is also being blackmailed by the same culprit, as are three of her friends: Lady Frederica Atterley, Lady Constance Burrastone, and Lady Prudence Kettering.”
Mr. Rathbun glanced up from the fiend’s letters of demand and arched a bushy brow. “What is this Reader’s Dare Club of which they speak?”
“My intended enjoys gaming. As do many of her friends. So much so, she devised the Reader’s Dare Club for ladies.
A female gambling hell, so to speak, and a portion of every pot is donated to charity.
Usually, the London Children’s Home. As White’s is to the gentlemen, the Reader’s Dare Club is for the ladies. ”
Both of Mr. Rathbun’s wild auburn brows arched nearly to his hairline. “I see.”
“And my intended’s brother, the Duke of Broadmere, is unaware of the true intentions of the club. He believes it to be a weekly book club for the ladies.”
“And you would like to keep it that way?”
“You understand me perfectly, Mr. Rathbun.” Jansen sipped his whisky, relishing the burn as it went down. “The scoundrel obtained the first payment without being detected. The second payment was picked up by a young lad with the speed and agility of a sewer rat.”
“Hence the final note where they say they are not pleased and intend to make you pay even more—either money or worse?” Mr. Rathbun sipped his own whisky, then held one of the letters up to the lamp, studying the script in the golden glow of the flame.
“This is not the cheap paper of a poorer criminal. I wager this is some of the best stationery that coin can purchase.” He took another sip and frowned down at the notes littering the desk.
“Does your Lady Joy have any thoughts on the blackmailer? A disgruntled gambler, perhaps?”
“At first, we suspected a pair of the ladies I named off. They’d had a bit of a disagreement with Lady Joy. But since they are being blackmailed as well, it seems unlikely that one of them would be the guilty party.”
“Unless they did that to conceal themselves,” Mr. Rathbun said.
“True.” Jansen refolded all the letters and handed them over to the detective. “Find the man or woman, Mr. Rathbun. My lady love needs peace of mind, or she will never grace me with a wedding date.”
Mr. Rathbun smiled. “I shall do my best, sir. I shall do my very best—in honor of my brother.”
“Good man.”
“I shall tell you of my findings within a few days. Good day to you, sir.”
“Good day.” Jansen watched the man go, certain he would handle the case with his full attention. His brother had been a good man, a man of honor. Jansen had no doubt that Mr. Rathbun was the same. That was one of those things that could be sensed without saying.
And now it was time to deal with Ambrose.
Jansen allowed himself a heavy sigh. He had never gotten on all that well with his only brother, and had both regretted and wondered at that fact.
Perhaps it was because they were polar opposites.
Ambrose was dramatic, overly sensitive, and thought worse about himself than any other person ever could.
The man had not an ounce of pride or sense of self-importance.
No matter what he achieved or how well he did, Ambrose never celebrated himself. Nothing was ever enough.
Mounting the stairs to Ambrose’s floor, Jansen picked up on his brother’s wails before he even reached his bedchamber door. “Ridiculous.” And all for a tart who would more than likely have given him the clap if she hadn’t already peppered him with it.
He reached Ambrose’s suite of rooms and knocked. “Let me in, brother. Aurie is worried about you.”
“But you are not, of course,” Ambrose said through the door before resuming his wailing.
“You know better than that.”
“Do I?”
“Open the bloody door and stop behaving like a sniveling fool!”
The door swung open, and Ambrose left it that way, choosing instead to throw himself face down on the settee and resume his sobbing. “I loved her. I truly loved her.”
Jansen shook his head, eyeing the brother who looked nothing like him or Aurelia.
He had often wondered if Mother and Father had found him as a babe somewhere and brought him home because they felt sorry for him.
For the life of him, he couldn’t remember Mother’s confinement or churching after his brother was born, as she had done after having Aurelia.
Ambrose was a head shorter than their sister, almost blond, and possessed the slight build of a thin lad still waiting to become a man.
But at the ripe old age of three and twenty, Ambrose was well past puberty, even though one could hardly tell it because he rarely needed a shave.
“Ambrose.”
His brother remained face down in the cushions, sobbing as if someone had died.
“Ambrose—this must stop. You do this for every woman you have ever sampled.”
“That is because, brother, unlike you, I only sample the women I love.”
“Bloody hell,” Jansen muttered. He went to the settee, grabbed Ambrose by the scruff of the neck, and set him upright. “From what Aurelia tells me, this is a blessing. What about Lady Serafina? I thought you loved her?”
“You were right about her,” Ambrose said, still sniveling. “She possessed the cruelty of the slyest predator and had the teeth and claws to match.”
“Well, at least you had the good sense to rid yourself of her. Now, get a hold of yourself, man. With your style and charm, you always have a lady beside you. And as soon as that lady steps away, another takes her place.”
“Until they find someone else with a title or a knighthood.”
Jansen deflated with a heavy sigh. That again.
The dreaded rankings of Polite Society. What was it with his siblings today?
Was it something to do with the phase of the moon, perhaps?
“Make yourself into the person you want to be, Ambrose. Is that not what Mother and Father always told you? You can be anything to anyone. Just set your mind to it and do it.”
“Can I be a duke? A marquess? Or even a baron?” Ambrose stumbled over to the liquor cabinet littered with several dirty glasses.
He filled one of them, drank it in one long draft, then filled it again.
“No. I cannot be any of those things. No title for poor old Ambrose. All I am is the younger brother of a war hero. A shadow. A nothing.”
“You are not a nothing. Our parents willed you land. A house. A generous allowance. You have everything you need to make yourself into whom you wish to be. Stop wasting your life and live it.”
“I cannot because I am no one! How can you not see that? With no title, no status, I am a nothing.”
“Go to the colonies, then. Make yourself into a hero there. They have no High Society and answer to no king. Make yourself into an important man of business. You’ve a head for numbers. For design. Help them build the cities I am sure they all long for since leaving England to tame that land.”
“And just how long do you really think I would survive in that barbaric land?”
“As long as you bloody well wanted to, damn you! Stop being such a coward. Believe in yourself.”
“That is so easy for you to say. You have everything!”
Jansen forced himself to hold his ground rather than storming over to shake his maudlin brother. Father would be so ashamed, and so would Mother. What had happened to Ambrose? Why was he so…so…different?
“I do not know how to help you, Ambrose. Honestly, I don’t. What can I do to make your life better? How can I help you achieve the happiness you so richly deserve?”
“Put a half ounce of lead between my eyes and bury me beside Mama,” Ambrose said so quietly that Jansen had to lean forward to hear him. “Mama understood me like no other.”
Jansen had no answer for that. Mother always had understood Ambrose and was the only one of them who possessed the power to calm him whenever he got like this. “I could never harm you, brother. Sometimes, I want to shake you, but I could never harm you.”
Shoulders sagging, staring down at the floor, Ambrose sniffed. “I know. I love you too, brother. No matter how much I complain about the darkness of being in your shadow.”
Jansen sat on the settee beside his brother, rubbing his eyes, which were gritty with weariness.
The demons had been particularly insistent on not allowing him to sleep last night.
“I need you to fight for yourself, Ambrose. Aurie and I do our best to fight for you, but you have to fight too. Can you do that? Will you try to do that? If not for me, then for Aurie?”
Ambrose leaned back and rested his head on Jansen’s shoulder. “Fighting is hard, Janny, and I am so very tired.”
“You haven’t called me Janny since you were a tot.”
“You will always be Janny the giant killer to me,” Ambrose whispered. “I remember how you ran off those boys whenever they threw taunts at me. I remember how you always protected me and Aurie.”
“And I always will. As long as I live and breathe.”
“You know I am not like you, Janny. I never will be. I am…different.”
Jansen’s heart ached for his sibling. He was at a complete loss for how to take away Ambrose’s pain. “I don’t care if you are different. You are my brother and always will be. No matter the circumstances. Nothing could ever change that.”
“Swear?”
“I swear on my life, Ambrose. I will always love and protect you.”