Chapter 30
Owen should have been dreading the confrontation with Barnes, but, strangely, he was looking forward to it.
There was no choice but to marry Ivy, and despite Barnes’s grudge, even he would be able to understand that.
Owen could have lived the rest of his life without being tied to his former best friend, but what was done was done.
He had let Barnes’s sulking go on long enough.
Ivy was going to be his wife, and Barnes could either accept it or get out of Owen’s house.
He did not have long to wait. The moment he and Ivy walked through the door, Fale said shakily, “My lord, Mr. Bennett wishes to see you alone in the drawing room.”
Ivy smiled, thanked the butler, and stormed ahead to the drawing room.
“Miss Bennett,” the butler called, about to hurry after her, but with one sharp look from Owen he halted.
“That is the mistress of the house,” Owen said quietly, “and she may do as she pleases. Always.”
Fale snapped a smart bow. “Yes, my lord.”
Owen grimly followed Ivy to the sitting room. The moment they stepped through the door, Barnes halted his pacing by the heavy velvet drapes. His face was a mask of cold fury as his eyes skated over Ivy and landed directly on Owen.
“Is it true?” His voice was as icy as his expression. “Did you compromise my sister after I warned you not to? After I gave up my life these past weeks to play chaperone so that she would come out of this unscathed?”
“Yes.” There was no point in making excuses. There were no excuses to be made. He had not needed to kiss her, but he could not have stopped himself even if were to happen all again.
Barnes’s dark eyes glittered as he drew himself to his full height, which was very near Owen’s. “In that case, I challenge you to a duel, Lord Owen Brackley.”
Silence fell around them, and for the briefest moment Owen almost laughed at the absurdity of it. Who would have thought a decade ago that he might die at the end of his dearest friend’s pistol?
The silence was interrupted by a very fierce “No.”
“This does not concern you, Ivy. Go upstairs.”
Owen’s temper sparked at Barnes’s command. “Do not speak to her like that,” he warned, and Barnes’s brows lifted in surprise. “She may be your sister, but she is going to be my wife, and any man who talks to her like that will have to answer to me, family or not.”
If possible, the tension in the room thickened further.
Heat was rising in Ivy’s cheeks. Owen very rarely saw her angry; she typically took Barnes’s heavy-handedness with more grace than he did, but for the first time he was getting a glimpse of his future wife in a temper, and it was a glorious, terrifying sight to behold.
“Barnes, I will not be told to run upstairs as if I am a little girl who still needs to be protected by her older brother. I want to marry Owen. Furthermore, there will be no duel. I will not have my brother and husband illegally shooting at each other in a field like two idiots.”
Barnes’s jaw was immovable. “I would rather die than let you tie yourself to him.”
“What is your PROBLEM?” Owen roared, finally, finally loosening the grip on his pride.
He had prostrated himself once before, determined to get to the bottom of Barnes’s sudden disgust for him, and when Barnes had refused to toss him even a crumb, he had vowed that he would never humble himself by asking again.
But it seemed there was one person he was willing to debase himself for: Ivy.
If making peace with Barnes was what it took to make her happy, then he would tear his pride down brick by brick.
Owen strode toward Barnes, intent on shoving him against the wall and demanding answers, and only Ivy’s worried face halted him a few feet away.
“What did I do to make you turn on me? We had plans to open our own horse breeding business. We were days away from starting the life we had always dreamed of, when you punched me in the face and told me never to speak to you again. Then you left Harrow and refused to see me again. And I still have no bloody idea why.”
Barnes’s cheeks were hot and his body tensed for a fight. “You are a rotter!” he spat. “How dare you pretend not to know?”
Owen wanted so badly to return the favor from a decade ago and punch Barnes in the jaw.
He wanted to take out all of his rage and frustration on this stupid, infuriating man in front of him, except Ivy was here.
So with the most restraint he had ever exercised in his life, he gave a low scoff and said, “I will not keep asking only to give you the joy of denying me answers. If you cannot accept our marriage, then you can bugger off.” He turned away.
“Meet me at dawn, or I will spread word that you are a coward.”
Owen halted, his arm outstretched for Ivy, but she bounded out of his grasp and walked up to her brother. Even though she was a full head and a half shorter than him, she was so fierce that Barnes took an involuntary step back.
“Barnes,” she said, her voice trembling as if she did not trust herself to speak, “you may know what Owen did, but I do not. If you want me to speak to you ever again, you will tell me right now. No duel would ever convince me. Only the truth.”
Barnes’s eyes were glittering with rage and something that looked a lot like fear. Fear for Ivy? Did he truly think Owen would ever harm her? “You need to trust me, Ivy.”
“I have always trusted you, Barnes, but I am no longer a child. If you will not treat me as your equal, then I am afraid our familial relationship ends here.”
“Fine!” he shouted. “You want to know how terrible he is? I’ll tell you. Do you know that you are not the first woman he has compromised, Ivy, but you are the first he has had the decency to offer marriage?”
Ivy’s lips parted.
“It is true that I had planned to start a horse breeding business with him. We were so close we were like brothers. Then mere days before graduation, my friend James and I were returning home from a walk at dusk when I spotted him on the street outside Moretons. He was kissing a young woman where he believed no one could see them, but when he lifted his head, I realized it was not a young woman but a—” Barnes’s lip curled.
“A girl. She could not have been older than fourteen.”
“That never happened.” Owen’s voice was so icy the temperature in the room dropped. Barnes could shoot a bloody hole through his chest before he allowed him to lie about something so reprehensible to Ivy, who was the only person in the world whose opinion Owen actually cared for.
“I was there,” Barnes snarled. “I recognized your coat: that ridiculous peacock blue coat that you wore simply because your father hated it. And still I did not believe my own eyes, not even when James confirmed what I was seeing. I could not believe you would do something so dishonorable, not until you left the note.”
“The note?” Ivy asked faintly.
“The note,” Barnes repeated, “written in his hand, where he apologized for what I had witnessed. Where he told me he could not help himself because the girl had looked so much like my sister, whom he had been obsessed with for years.”
Her eyebrows lifted and she silently mouthed, Me?
“Owen and I were eighteen at the time, and you were eleven, Ivy. Eleven! And the perversions he admitted to in that note.” Barnes’s jaw clenched. “Lewd things that no man should say about a woman, much less a child.”
Owen was stunned into silence while Ivy tugged her lower lip between her teeth.
Did she believe Barnes? In that moment he stood on the precipice of true, life-altering loss.
He had not been sad when his father died, or all that heartbroken when it had ended with Heidi.
It had not even been terribly awful to leave his life in London behind all those years ago.
But if he lost Ivy, lost her cheer and goodness, it would shatter him.
Her eyes traced over his face, and she sighed and turned away.
Owen’s soul began to fracture.
“Barnes,” she said severely, “did it not occur to you that such an act was extremely out of character for your dearest friend?”
Owen’s eyes widened with surprise.
“Ivy, I saw his coat. I read the note written in his hand,” Barnes said, all of his anger gone. Now he just looked defeated and bitterly disappointed.
She waved her palm as if the proof were nothing but circumstantial.
“I have known Owen a much shorter amount of time than you, and even I know his character would not allow for such a thing. Did it not seem odd to you that he decided to compromise a young girl outside of your boarding house? That it happened at dusk, when you could not see his face well but could clearly recognize his coat? That he did it knowing you were on a walk with your friend and would soon return? That he left you a note debasing the one person you felt most protective over?”
“Ivy—” Barnes began.
“No.” She held up her hand, halting her much larger brother’s speech with a single gesture. “Perhaps you should know what is going on, Barnes. Perhaps,” she said, turning to Owen, “that was your impostor’s first foray at impersonation.”
Instantly all the puzzle pieces snapped into a horrifyingly clear picture.
“My God,” Owen whispered. She was right.
There was no other explanation for what had happened.
It had seemed impossible that there even was an explanation, and yet she had found it, and within minutes of learning what had happened.
She had heard Barnes’s story and immediately peeled back the layers, because she had believed in Owen.
Owen’s soul returned to his body, once again whole and eternally devoted to this woman.
Never in his life had someone believed in him so unconditionally.
Her faith made him want to be a better man, made him want to be everything she would ever need.
“Impostor?” Barnes asked, a tiny spark of interest in his voice. “What do you mean?”
“How is it possible?” Owen asked. “Who could—”
“Excuse me,” Barnes cut in, “I believe I am owed an explanation.”
“Just ‘trust me,’” Ivy said, throwing Barnes’s words back in his face, and Owen felt savage satisfaction at her bite.
Barnes looked wound so tight that Owen was afraid he would snap, but then Barnes took a deep breath and said, “I am sorry, Ivy. I should not have treated you like a child. You have taken care of yourself for a long time, and you deserve better.”
“Thank you,” she said, once again Owen’s cheerful and loving Ivy. She did not hold grudges, not like her brother. Not like Owen. “Now take a seat, and let me tell you how Owen and I almost died today.”
Barnes paced in front of the chipped fireplace mantel, practically vibrating with angry energy.
The clock, which had not been wound when they first arrived but was now ticking merrily along, chimed the late afternoon hour.
Soon they would have to prepare for the opening ball of the Season, which was to take place that evening.
“You are telling me,” Barnes said, “that this impostor severed our relationship a decade ago, ensuring we would not enter into business together. He knew where you lived, who your friends were, how to snatch your coat, and how to forge your handwriting.”
The extent of the intrusion into Owen’s life made him feel ill. “Yes.”
“Why?” Barnes asked.
“I do not know.”
“Perhaps he intended another outcome,” Ivy suggested. “He could not possibly have known his actions would drive Owen to Prussia.”
“Did you have any issues with fraud in Prussia?” Barnes asked.
“Not that I am aware of.”
“Which would suggest the impostor stayed in England,” Ivy said, her honey eyes alight with intelligence as she pieced it together. “Perhaps he was satisfied with the results of his treachery.”
Barnes frowned. “If he was content for a decade, then what changed a year ago when he started sourcing funds for the factory?”
“My father grew ill,” Owen said softly.
Ivy nodded. “The impostor must have known your father was ill and that you would soon return to London. He began to impersonate you once again, using your name and visage to collect investors for his factory.”
“How does that make sense?” Barnes argued. “Would this man not do better to impersonate Owen when he was away, rather than when he returned to London and could reveal his scheme?”
They were silent, because no one had a good answer to that.
Barnes plunked on the settee and slumped, letting his head rest against the cushion.
“I do not know if this is the wildest fabrication I have ever heard, or if it is an equally wild truth.” He met Owen’s eyes and, for the first time in more than ten years, did not look as if he hated him.
“You—or he—remained in shadow where I could not see him well. I may have been blind with rage, but he did look like you, Owen. At least somewhat. I would not have mistaken a stranger for you.”
Ivy clucked her tongue. “That is what Lord Quincy said when we visited him this morning. Is it possible this man is using prosthetics to alter his face?”
Owen poured a glass of brandy for Barnes, who accepted, and then poured another glass for Ivy, much to Barnes’s disapproval, but she declined anyway, so he took a sip, relishing the liquid burn.
“Perhaps. Whoever he is, he has known me for over a decade. He looks enough like me, or has altered his appearance enough, that he is easily mistaken for me. He knew that Barnes and I were friends all those years ago, and he wanted to punish me by separating us. He knew I was returning to London.”
“He has been watching you.” A gleam entered her eye. “Just like the highwayman was watching for you on the road. The highwayman knew about your days at Harrow, and about your mother. You think it is him.”
“Yes,” he said simply. “Whoever the impostor is, he has targeted me specifically. Hates me specifically.” He ran his finger around the rim of the crystal glass, and was still frowning when the butler arrived in the doorway with a strained expression on his face.
“Announcing Mr. and Mrs. Denholm.”
Owen eagerly set the glass on the newly polished table and stood, just as London’s most notorious detective, Zachariah Denholm, and his equally intrepid wife, Emily Denholm, swept into the room.
It had been just over a week since Owen had sent the missive requesting their services, and he knew they would not be visiting now if they had not discovered something of interest.
“Of course the impostor hates you,” Emily said, inserting herself into the conversation as if she had been there from the start rather than having heard more down the corridor than she should have.
Her dark, curly hair was tumbling from her pins, and the way her husband was looking at her, one would have thought he was a lovestruck youth rather than an iceman with a fearsome reputation. “He is your brother.”