Chapter 28
The Devil’s clubhouse was not busy at this time of day. The footmen guarding the entrance hastily threw open the doors as soon as they spied Tristan, hurrying so that he did not have to wait for even a minute.
He stamped inside, waving aside a third footman who hurried forward to take his coat and hat.
“Lord Lovell,” Tristan snapped. “Where is he?”
The footman pointed dumbly, and Tristan strode off in that direction.
James was sitting on the mezzanine, chatting with a dandy in whose company he was often seen. He glanced up briefly as Tristan approached, then pointedly looked away, picking up a glass of brandy. The snub was pointed, and Tristan was conscious of a rush of anger.
He strode toward his cousin, his fist flashing out before James even bothered to glance up.
Crack.
The blow caught James squarely on the chin. Tristan heard his teeth clack together. He went flying backward, toppling off his chair, with the glass of brandy flying out of his hand. Liquor sloshed onto the floor. The glass shattered, sending pieces flying everywhere.
James sprawled on his back, dazed and shocked.
“I say!” exclaimed the dandy, half rising to his feet. Tristan did not look at him, but merely lifted a hand.
“I suggest you leave us alone, Sir Jack.”
“I really can’t…”
“Leave now,” Tristan interrupted, “or I’ll see to it that all of your creditors call in your debts by morning. Do you understand?”
Sir Jack visibly paled. He glanced over at James and winced, offering a helpless shrug.
“Sorry, old boy.”
He scuttled away, throwing fearful looks back over his shoulder. His departure left Tristan and James alone on the mezzanine.
“You have poor quality of friends,” Tristan remarked after a long stretch of silence. “No threats would have coerced Isaac from my side if I had just been attacked in such a manner.”
James glowered at him, wiping a trickle of blood from the corner of his mouth. He dragged himself into a sitting position, but made no move to get to his feet.
Wise, if cowardly, Tristan thought grimly. He knows I won’t hit him again if he stays off his feet.
“Are you going to explain why you attacked me, cousin, or shall I guess?” James snapped.
Tristan narrowed his eyes. “Blood will out. What a curious thing to say to my wife.”
“I said no such…”
“She told me,” he interrupted. “And what is more, Juliana told me all about your involvement in all this. She told me how you encouraged her to win me back and how you plotted together to separate me from Madeline. Of course, in Juliana’s case, she hoped to regain her status.
You had a more prosaic motive, didn’t you? ”
James tilted his chin up. “I have no idea what you mean.”
Tristan crouched down in front of his cousin.
“If I have no children of my own, you would inherit the dukedom after me,” he whispered.
“Accidents happen, and life is cheap. Anything could befall me. A carriage accident or a fall down the stairs, perhaps. Of course, there is the problem of Adam, but again, children die so easily. Why, it would be well believed that after his fever, the baby was weak. If he were to go to the country, for example, without any ducal protection, anything could happen.”
James paled. “How dare you, Tristan? How dare you imply any of this? You can prove nothing. You think that I would kill you and have a baby killed?”
“I don’t know,” Tristan responded, dropping into a crouch to force his cousin to look him in the eye.
“But I know that you have tried hard to separate me from my wife. You were not pleased when I married, were you? I suppose you would not have to do anything terrible to Adam. If I were to die, you could legally wrest guardianship of Adam from Madeline. And then you would have full control of everything. A baby, after all, cannot be a duke in anything but name. All of my money, all of my lands—they would be yours. You could pay off your creditors and go on a spending spree, couldn’t you? ”
“You are a terrible liar. None of this can be proved.”
“No,” Tristan answered briskly. “It cannot. But you are greatly invested in separating me from my wife and nephew. You were clever not to tell her the full truth, by the way. You told her just enough to make her wary, to make her pry for the truth. You knew that I would not tell her about my past, not about that, and you knew that it would drive a wedge between us.”
James scowled, folding his arms. “This is all lies. Falsehoods. Nonsense.”
“I can prove little, to be sure,” Tristan agreed, rising to his feet.
“But what can be proved is the extent of your debts to other club members. Once it is revealed how much money you have wheedled away from other members, with no means of paying it back, you’ll lose your membership.
You’ll lose protection, and once it’s known that I am no longer paying your debts, your creditors will descend quickly. ”
The color drained out of James’ face. “It’s not fair,” he whispered. “You should never have become the duke.”
“But I am the duke, James. I am the duke; haven’t I taken care of you? Haven’t I paid your debts? Didn’t I supplement your meagre income with my own? Didn’t I buy you presents and trinkets and support your ridiculous lifestyle? Wasn’t I a good cousin to you? Didn’t I try?”
His voice rose on the last sentence. James flinched, glancing away, and closed his eyes.
“But it was not enough,” Tristan finished, his anger suddenly draining away. The blinding rage had receded, and his urge to throw his cousin bodily over the railings had entirely gone. He simply felt empty and disappointed.
“No, I suppose it wasn’t,” James whispered. “I should have been the duke, Tristan.”
“You would have gone bankrupt within two years,” Tristan sighed, shaking his head.
“You could never have managed it. I’m sorry, James.
A duke has more to think about than money, women, and parties.
I have duties. I have tenants, I have workers, I have countless dependents.
They call me a devil, to be sure, but if I lived as recklessly as you, I’d die in debtor’s prison.
Just as you will if you don’t leave London. ”
James’s head snapped up, eyes bulging. “What?”
“You heard me. I cannot prove what your intentions were regarding the dukedom and my life, but I will not forgive you for what you have put Madeline through. Juliana is going to the Americas. I’ll pay for your ticket too if you wish to go.
At any rate, if you wish to live your life outside of debtor’s prison, you’ll leave London and won’t return.
Don’t let me see your face again, cousin.
Your attempts to separate me from my wife have only succeeded in separating me from you. ”
He turned to leave, intending to end the conversation here. Behind him, however, he heard James scrabbling to his feet.
“Attempts?” he spat, snarling. “I have not attempted to separate you from your wife. I have succeeded. I’ve done it, Tristan.
She’ll never take you back. She won’t relinquish that baby, and I imagine she’ll flee to the countryside.
You won’t find her. You’ll die alone, and one of my children or I will serve as the Duke of Tolford anyway. You’ve lost, Tristan. You’ve lost.”
Tristan rounded on him, fists clenched. James gave a squeak of alarm, backing away and lifting his arms, fearful of a blow.
Tristan found that he did not want to punch his cousin again. He let his arm drop.
“It turns out that marriage has changed me a little, then,” he murmured.
“Once upon a time, I would have beaten you thoroughly for such a comment. The urge and the rage have gone, which I suppose is a good thing. Bad for the heart, rage is. Listen to me carefully now, James. Constables are already on their way here in search of you. Your creditors will soon receive correspondence to indicate that you are all but bankrupt and no longer under my protection. In two hours, constables will arrive at your lodgings. I suggest you get yourself packed up and ready to go within that time, because in a few hours, London will become a very, very inhospitable place for you. Do you understand?”
James had gone entirely white. He stood there for a moment, swaying on his feet, and gave a tiny nod.
Tristan breathed in and out, surprised to find that the rage he’d always relied upon so heavily was not there. In its place, he felt only faintly sad.
I shall miss my cousin. Or rather, I shall miss the man I thought he was.
“Goodbye, James,” he said aloud, and turned on his heel, striding away.
Tristan hired a carriage back home instead of walking.
The walking would have cleared his head, but there was really no time to lose.
He had to get home and confront Madeline.
She would need to hear the whole story of what James and Juliana had planned, and she deserved to listen to the truth about his past, too.
It would not be a pleasant conversation, but it would be necessary.
The journey passed quickly, his head whirling with what had happened. His spies would keep a close eye on James, but there was something defeated in his face that told him that his cousin really would leave town and had finished with his pointless battle to inherit the dukedom.
He could never have done it, though. He could never have been the Duke of Tolford. It would have destroyed him and the estate. I could never get him to understand that. All he saw was injustice.
The carriage came to a rolling stop in front of the house, and Tristan leaped down, tossing money to the cab driver. He hurried up into the house, stripping off his hat and coat.
“The duchess, where is she?” he demanded, throwing his things at the footman. “The nursery? The library? Where, man, where?”
“Oh, Tristan,” came Dorothea’s voice from a nearby doorway.
Dorothea, it seemed, had been crying. Her cheeks were tear-streaked, and she still clutched a damp handkerchief in her hands.
“What is it, Mother?”
She sniffled. “Oh, Tristan. Madeline is gone. She packed up her things, took Adam, and left a couple of hours ago.”
He stood still, feeling almost as if his feet had been rooted to the ground.
“I don’t understand. Gone where?”
“Well, I don’t know, Tristan. I don’t know!”