Chapter Twenty-Eight
Lucian couldn’t stop taking deep breaths, reminding himself as the duke’s carriage lumbered slowly back to the town house that it was done. That the presentation had gone well, that there seemed to be a reconciliation of sorts, and now there was no impediment to his future.
His future with Diantha.
“Lucian,”
his father said, “can you speak with my man of affairs about purchasing the fabric in bulk? I think it is inevitable that others start to manufacture these things, once word gets out, and I want to be the one who controls the market on the fabric.”
“Excellent thought, your grace,”
Mr. Bishop said, his obsequious tone in full force.
Soon enough Lucian wouldn’t have to hear his voice, nor that of his father’s. Only—?
“Pardon, did you say you wanted me to take part in your business?”
Had he heard the duke correctly? Because except for a few minor concerns, his father had never actually invited him to do anything with the family’s business.
Perhaps because Lucian always found a clever and better way to off-load the task to someone else, but that was a solution in itself, and ended up with everyone being happy about the outcome.
“Yes,”
the duke said, sounding gruff but not cruel, “I think it is past time for you to take part in the goings-on of things. John is busy with enough in Scotland, and now that we have this concern we’ll need someone who is invested in the outcome.”
“I am glad to help as well, sir,”
Mr. Bishop said.
The duke gave him a dismissive glance. “Yes, but you have your own business interests to oversee. You’re dealing with a lot of my money, and I don’t want you to be distracted by anything.”
“Of course not,”
Bishop said. “The venture is going quite well—”
“I hadn’t realized you’d started,”
Lucian said, surprised. The last he’d heard, Bishop was still soliciting investors, still finding wealthy pigeons to pluck. He thought he’d have had more of an opportunity to warn anyone who might be in real financial danger if they trusted the man.
“Indeed I have,”
Mr. Bishop said proudly. “We have twenty or so investors, chief among them the duke. I secured all the funds necessary to put into certain holdings, and once we get more people putting money in, the original investors will see their money increase tenfold.”
“It’s a sound deal,”
the duke added.
“Ah,”
Lucian said, not wanting to say anything that would upset this rare peace between him and his father. “Well, I am happy to take more of an active part in the business, and I will begin finding the proper fabric at the best price tomorrow.”
“Good, Son.”
Lucian froze. He’d never heard that tone from his father before. He had when his father had spoken to John, but not in conversation with him directly.
It left him . . . unsettled. As though maybe the way he thought things were didn’t have to be. But what would that mean?
Too soon, Lucian, he reminded himself. This is one comment. Out of a wealth of comments.
The three men spent the rest of the short ride in silence, Mr. Bishop ostentatiously consulting his business prospectus, and the duke closing his eyes and leaning his head back in the corner.
The carriage rolled to a stop in front of the town house, and Lucian glanced outside, startled to see a crowd of people gathered.
“What is—?”
the duke said, as the footman opened the door and let down the stairs. Immediately there was a roar as the crowd turned their attention to the new arrivals, and Lucian instinctively put his arm in front of his father, moving to get out of the carriage first to handle any potential danger.
There were perhaps twenty-five people gathered, all looking to be relatively prosperous, due to their clothing. Several women were crying, and assorted children were either ignoring everyone and running in and among the people or staring up at their parents with stunned expressions.
“What is the meaning of this?”
Lucian said, standing in front of the carriage door so as to prevent anyone from hurting the occupants.
One man strode forward, pointing an accusing finger toward the inside of the coach. “That’s the man! That’s the one! He took our money, and we haven’t seen any of what he promised.”
Lucian turned to look at Bishop, whose expression was pugnacious.
“Tell me,”
Lucian said, turning back to the man.
“He told us he’d invest our money and we’d see a return and quarterly statements,”
he said. He held his hat and was running nervous fingers around the brim. His hair stuck up at odd angles, as though he’d been running his fingers there as well. “That was a year ago, and then he just left town without a word. Just ran off, and we didn’t know where he’d gone.”
Lucian turned back to see Mr. Bishop’s guilty expression shift immediately to one of outrage.
“How dare you,”
he called from inside the safety of the coach. “I have never decamped with anybody’s money.”
“We don’t know about decamped, but you stole it, sure as I’m standing here on this lord’s doorstep,”
Messy Hair yelled back.
Someone leaned in and murmured something in his ear.
“This duke’s doorstep, I mean,”
he corrected himself.
Lucian heard a creak behind him, and then the duke descended from the carriage, his arms folded over his chest. “I cannot believe an honored guest of mine would have done such a thing,” he said.
Lucian kept his mouth firmly closed. He didn’t want to say anything to further inflame the crowd, though he would share his thoughts in private with his father.
“How dare you!”
Now Bishop had descended also and had taken position right beside the duke. “Your money is being used for investments.”
“Where are our statements? You said the investments would pay out after six months. It’s been twice that,”
another man called from the crowd.
“You and you,”
the duke said, pointing to Messy Hair and Other Man, “come inside and let us discuss this. The rest of you can gather in our ballroom while we talk. I do not want this ruckus to be cause for any idle gossip.”
Already, however, there were some people gathering on the opposite sidewalk, and Lucian could just imagine what they were saying.
The two designated representatives were ushered inside, followed by Lucian, the duke, and Mr. Bishop. Lucian’s father strode down the hall, barely stopping to toss his hat to the startled butler, flinging the door to his study open and gesturing for everyone to step inside. Messy Hair and Other Man looked suitably terrified at being inside a duke’s home, but they made their way in, followed by Lucian and Bishop. The duke went to sit behind his desk, then nodded at Messy Hair. “Explain.”
The next twenty-three minutes were a detailed description of how Mr. Bishop had come to town, cutting an impressive swath with his manners and his clothing, attending local events and speaking to most of the residents about his guaranteed scheme, which only required investors to pony up twenty pounds each—a pittance to someone like the duke, an exorbitant sum to Messy Hair and Other Man.
When the recitation was over, the duke turned to look at Mr. Bishop, who had gone a startling pale shade of white. “Well?” he said.
“Uh . . .”
Mr. Bishop began, but it was clear what the truth was.
The duke’s face turned purple, and he took a deep breath before speaking. “Lucian, tell Mr. Hatchet to send someone to fetch my man of affairs. Then make certain all of these people get paid what he stole.”
He didn’t look at Mr. Bishop again. “And before that, make certain this scoundrel turns over all of the monies in his possession. He will stay here until we decide what is to be done with him.”
Lucian nodded, then took Mr. Bishop by the arm, pausing only to speak to the two men. “I will join you in the ballroom, where the others are.”
It wasn’t how he would have wanted all of this to play out, but he was relieved that his father was going to do the right thing by the hapless people who’d been seduced by Mr. Bishop’s oleaginous charm.
“That went very well,”
Drusilla said, following Diantha into her bedroom. She shut the door behind them and then went to plop herself on the bed.
“I don’t recall asking you in,”
Diantha said, arching a brow.
Drusilla shrugged. “I figure you owe me for keeping the parents occupied while you . . .”
and she winked while shaking her head back and forth.
Diantha immediately felt herself beginning to blush. “Yes. Of course. And it’s a pleasure to have you here, actually. Maybe you can help me with figuring out—”
“How to tell our parents that you’re going to get married to the son of their dearest enemy?”
Drusilla completed. She shrugged. “It shouldn’t be too difficult, especially given their current phase. I imagine someone as dullardly as the duke is who they aspire to be right now.”
“Is dullardly a word?”
Diantha said, only to startle when Drusilla snapped her fingers.
“That’s not the point,”
she said sharply. “Don’t you go and get distracted on me now. I’ve always been able to rely on you to be boringly predictable. Don’t change like they did.”
Diantha would have objected more to Drusilla’s words if there wasn’t real hurt in her sister’s tone. She sat down beside her on the bed and put her arm around her. “I’m sorry, dear. This is the oddest thing I think they’ve ever done.”
“You’re forgetting the blacksmith anvil and the marmalade,”
Drusilla reminded her.
“Oh, right. Well, except for that. And that, at least, was fun, if a bit sticky.”
“And now you’re going to leave me for your charming gentleman,”
Drusilla said, sniffing a little.
“Not for a little while. They’ll probably have moved on to something else by then. But I want to tell them before they do.”
Drusilla wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, then gave a decisive nod. “Let’s strategize.”
They were still discussing it when they heard a commotion downstairs. Both of them looked at the other, then leaped up and dashed down the stairs to the foyer. The earl and countess were there, still dressed in their somber clothing, the earl holding a piece of paper in one hand and pound notes in the other.
“It says Mr. Bishop cannot fulfill the obligations of his investment and to accept the return of our money as the end of it.”
The earl looked up at his wife, a quizzical expression on his face. “But why would the duke send this?”
The countess shrugged. “Probably because the duke discovered Mr. Bishop’s investment scheme was just that—a scheme.”
The three other Courtenays stared at her in shock.
“You didn’t know?”
the countess said. “It was obvious, but it was so fun to listen to Mr. Bishop talk about it, as though it wasn’t clear what he was planning to do.”
“What was he planning to do, dear?”
the earl asked.
“He gets people to give him money for his investment, and then when those people start wondering where their returns are, he goes and finds another set of people and gets them to invest. And so on, until he’s run out of people, at which point everyone knows he’s a fraud.”
Diantha stared at her mother, stunned. She had no idea she was so insightful about things. Was it possible she had been able to manage the family’s finances all along, not needing Diantha’s interference? And if that was true, why hadn’t she stepped up before?
Though there was a long way between seeing through a charlatan and taking care of paperwork. She could understand if her mother had decided the latter was far too tedious when there was a perfectly capable and responsible daughter all too willing to assist.
“The duke goes on to say—and this is written in his own hand, mind you—that he will be paying a call tomorrow.”
The earl looked even more confused, if such a thing was possible. “What could he possibly want?”
Diantha couldn’t begin to guess, but she got a cold, anxious feeling in her chest she just couldn’t shake.