Chapter Seventeen
Henry leaned wearily against the impressive front door as it slammed behind him.
There. He was home. He had reached the Dulverton family townhouse in London, and only just before midnight, too.
Everything ached—but it was not the ache of shoulders and backside after several hours in a godforsaken coach, bumping over the rough roads and cobbled streets between here and Pathstow.
No, it went deeper than that. Henry shrugged off his greatcoat and handed it wordlessly to the footman who appeared at his side. Dear God, he had missed servants.
“I’ll take a little supper in the drawing room,” he said quietly. “I have no wish to disturb Lady Margaret, I am sure she went to sleep hours ago—”
“Lady Margaret is…um…”
Henry blinked. It was unlike the Dulverton servants to contradict their master, but it was even rarer to hear a tone of uncertainty in their voices.
Trying to summon all the energy lost when he had confronted Minny on her deceit—erroneously, as it turned out—Henry fixed his gaze on the unfortunate servant.
The footman shuffled his feet, fingers tightening around his master’s greatcoat. “It is just—Lady Margaret is not abed.”
Henry waited for further details, but none it appeared were forthcoming. “Not abed.”
The footman shook his head.
Only then did a noise interrupt their conversation.
It was a giggle. A laugh, high pitched, almost certainly his sister’s. But what on earth was Peg doing up at this time of night—and she was clearly not alone, for a dark hum of a masculine voice murmured after her laugh.
Henry’s stomach churned. What on God’s name was going on?
“Supper, in the drawing room,” he snapped as he strode to the drawing room door.
“Your Grace, I wouldn’t—”
Henry threw open the door. The sight of his drawing room swiftly met his eyes. A well-proportioned room, elegant by day and refined with the curtains pulled and candles lit.
There was also a fire in the grate, which was most astonishing at this hour. There were two glasses of wine, almost empty, on a console table near the large sofa. And there, on the other side of the room, standing breathlessly and with wide eyes, was his sister.
“Peggy,” Henry said, closing the door and stepping forward. “What in God’s name are you—”
“Nothing,” she said swiftly.
Henry’s eyes narrowed. “Pegs.”
His sister flushed. Now he came to think, her cheeks were already flushed, but they darkened as he said her name.
It was most strange. Peg had always been one for early nights, Henry thought wildly, famous for it in the family. Why, there were evenings when it would not be possible to keep Peg from going upstairs to bed before nine o’clock!
Yet here she was, the clocks of the house chiming midnight, and she was awake!
“Where on earth have you been?” Peg said defiantly. “You’ve been gone for months, and half of London is talking about it.”
Henry winced. Damn. That was precisely the opposite of what he had intended, but it couldn’t be helped now.
He had sufficiently burnt the bridge that had taken him from London. There would be no reason to go back there, not after what he had said to Minny.
“You scoundrel. You miser. You cruel harpy—you villain!”
“Henry?”
“Peg,” Henry said heavily, sitting on the sofa and lifting the glass. “Thank you for procuring the wine, I don’t know how you knew I would be home today.”
His sister smiled weakly. “Yes. Yes, the wine—the wine is for you.”
Henry nodded as he picked up the bottle. That was one of the things he loved about his sister—she was so thoughtful. The poor thing did not deserve to have such slander…
He lowered the bottle, then raised it again. “Don’t tell me you’ve drunk all of this?”
His sister’s eyes snapped to the bottle, then back to him. “No.”
Henry hesitated. Two wine glasses. “Peg, you weren’t…”
The thought was distasteful before he spoke it—and he must be mistaken. There was no possibility that his sister was entertaining a gentleman?
No, if Henry had learned anything, it was that when he made assumptions and acted rashly, he was the one to be made a fool of, ending up on his ear feeling wretched about the whole thing.
Pushing the suggestion of what could have occurred to one side of his mind, Henry poured himself a large glass and drowned the wine in one gulp.
The heat of the red wine seared his throat, but it was nothing to the painful burning in his chest.
“I would be grateful if you would depart from my forge and my home.”
Henry grimaced.
“Henry?”
“Nothing, just…an unpleasant memory,” he said quietly.
One day, perhaps, he would share with Peg just what had occurred when he had gone missing. The connection he had shared. The warmth, the love…
Perhaps it would not be a good idea to share that particular sensation.
Henry grimaced as he poured himself another glass of wine. “You are well?”
“You have been missing,” Peg shot back as she sat beside him on the sofa, eyes narrow. “Just a single letter would have sufficed, you know—that Jenks wouldn’t tell me—”
“Good,” said Henry heavily. “I instructed him to keep it to himself.”
He should have known his sister would not have taken that as sufficient an answer.
“Henry Everleigh,” Peg said sternly. “Where have you been?”
It was no use. Henry knew he would have to tell her—at least, tell her something, even if not the whole truth. She deserved to know what he had done to protect her reputation; the lengths he had gone in his hunt to discover who was slandering her.
He looked at her, heart twisting. She was the only family he had left, and he would protect her. Even if he had hoped that one day he and Minny—
A sneeze.
It would not have been remarkable, except that Henry had not sneezed—and he had been looking at Peg in that moment, and neither had she.
She did, however, flush a violent shade of red. “Henry—”
“By God, you’ve got a man here,” Henry breathed, putting down his wine glass and rising to his feet, heart pounding.
“No, I haven’t!”
He heard the lie in his sister’s anxious voice the moment she spoke. He had thought he’d heard a man’s voice when in the hallway—and that sneeze was certainly not one of the Everleighs.
“Margaret Everleigh, you tell me right this moment,” Henry started, raising a finger to point it at his sister.
She leapt to her feet. “You have no right to tell me what I should and shouldn’t do, you’ve gallivanted off with your mistress no doubt for weeks and—”
“I have not—that is beside the point!” Henry blustered.
Oh, how could this have gone so wrong? After everything he’d done to protect Peg’s reputation from complete falsehoods, here she was, managing it destroy it all by herself!
“Come out, you blaggard, so I can see you!” Henry shouted.
There was a moment’s pause in which his heartbeat throbbed painfully, then…
Then a man, a gentleman from the looks of him, stepped awkwardly out from behind one of the curtains, a rueful look on his face, his cheeks splotched red.
“Sorry about the sneeze, old thing,” he said apologetically.
Fury grasped at Henry’s heart and refused to let go. “Sorry!”
“I wasn’t actually apologizing to you,” said the man stiffly. “To Peg—”
“Don’t you dare talk to my sister in that—that tone!” Henry spat, taking a step forward and wondering if it was physically possible to tear a man in half with his bare hands.
Dear God, his sister, alone, with a man! In the house!
If the gossip columns got a hold of this…
Well, that left him with no alternative.
“You, sir, are contemptible,” Henry growled. “And after dishonoring my sister—”
“Henry!” Peg grabbed at his arm, trying to pull him back.
But Henry was having none of it. After all he had been through, the sacrifices he had made—eating Ted’s pies! Sleeping in that godawful bed!—he would not permit a gentleman to spill just how inappropriate the Duke of Dulverton’s sister was.
No. Minny had taught him many things, but one of them he would never forget.
Strike while the iron is hot.
“You challenge me, sir?” the man said, his expression darkening.
Henry hesitated. Yes, he did. At least, he would like to march the cur to Hyde Park and shoot him—but duels were hardly appropriate any more, and were severely frowned upon. If they were to be caught…
The whole point was to avoid scandal, wasn’t it?
Henry slowly lowered his accusatory finger. “No. No, but I want you gone—from London, from England.”
The man’s face fell. “Dulverton, you do not know me but I am the Duke of—”
“I don’t care if you were Prinny himself, I will not have gentlemen cavorting with my sister!” Henry blustered, feeling heat searing his cheeks. Oh God, the very thought!
“Be gone, and be grateful I have no pistol on me at present,” Henry said, his chest heaving. “Go on.”
For a moment, he was not sure if the man would obey his stricture. Peg was still pulling at his arm, and Henry ignored her as best he could as he stared at the villain before him.
Then the man nodded. “As you wish.”
“No—Ashcott, no!”
Henry’s heart broke to hear Peg’s voice so pained, but it was no good. The man strode out of the room, slamming the door behind him, leaving the Everleigh siblings in silence.
Only then did Henry realize how heavily he was breathing, how his hands were clenched into fists, a red mist descended before his eyes. As he blinked, it started to fade.
Peg’s hand slipped from his elbow. “He’s…he’s gone.”
There was agony in her words. Henry saw a tear falling down her cheek. “If he were a man of honor, he would have asked for your hand.”
His sister laughed dryly. “Yes. Yes, I suppose he would have done. Perhaps that was why I liked him so much.”
Henry’s stomach clenched. “You didn’t—”
“Henry Everleigh, do not even think to ask me that,” Peg said, her cheeks flushing.
She dropped heavily into an armchair.
Mind reeling, hardly able to understand what had occurred, Henry fell in a similar manner onto the sofa where, only minutes before, his sister and that cad of a duke—if he even was a duke—had been drinking wine and laughing together.