Chapter Eleven
S hay tossed Pearson’s unwanted resignation onto the desk, then crossed the study to the side table to open a new bottle of Martell waiting on the silver drinks tray. He wasn’t at all happy to have his uncle here. He didn’t trust Malcolm. And he sure as hell didn’t trust him anywhere near Sophie.
But one drink would be hospitable enough, and more graciousness than the man had a right to. Then he could send him on his way and, hopefully, never have to deal with him again.
“So you were in London,” Malcolm commented as he settled into the chair in front of the massive desk and did his best to sneak a surreptitious glance at the papers and account books spread across its top. “And married.” He reached out to turn one of the books toward him for a closer look. “You can imagine my surprise when I heard.”
Surprise? Shay was surprised Malcolm hadn’t suffered apoplexy at the news. He must have been confident Norton would have married Sophie, tormenting Shay for the rest of his days. After all, that was why Malcolm had set Norton after Sophie in the first place. His uncle was nothing if not vengeful.
“I’d wanted to tell you myself,” Shay lied, having had no intention whatsoever of contacting Malcolm about his marriage or anything else. He splashed a less than generous pour into two glasses. After all, the shorter the drink, the shorter his uncle’s visit. “But the moment hadn’t yet seemed right.”
Shay could only imagine the lies his uncle had told Sophie before he’d returned to the house. He should have warned her, he supposed, told her to avoid Malcolm at all costs. But Shay could count on one hand the number of visits Malcolm had paid to Ravenscroft Manor since the fire and had thought the man ensconced in London, and he hadn’t wanted to upset Sophie any more than necessary while she was adapting to life here. Now he could add that mistake to the growing list of things she had a right to be furious about.
He carried the glasses to the desk and handed one to Malcolm. His eyes not leaving his uncle, he closed the account book and sank onto the leather chair behind the desk.
“I’m certain Sophie appreciates your well wishes on our marriage,” Shay said evenly, certain that Malcolm hadn’t given any. At least not until Shay arrived.
“Lady Sophie,” his uncle mused with a chuckle as he swirled his brandy. “So she found a way to become Duchess of Malvern after all. You have to admire determination like that.”
Shay had no intention of explaining the circumstances of their wedding to him. Ever . “She’ll make an excellent duchess.” He took a sip of cognac and muttered into his glass, “Far more than the dukedom merits.”
“I agree.” An amused smile tugged at Malcolm’s lips. “Or at least the current state of the dukedom. And its duke.”
The brandy turned rancid on Shay’s tongue. Slowly, careful to control his expression, he placed the unwanted glass onto his desk and bore his gaze into Malcolm’s. “Why are you here?” There was no point any longer at playing at niceties. “You know you’re not welcome.”
“As I said, to meet my new niece and receive her into the family.” The bastard had the audacity to look offended. “You doubt my sincerity?”
“Yes.”
This time, his uncle’s laugh was cold. “Very well. Let’s get right to it, then, shall we?” Malcolm let go of all pretense of pleasantries. “Does she know you killed your brother because of her?”
Shay kept his face painfully inscrutable, despite the anger searing him from the inside out. It was no secret that Malcolm blamed him for the deaths of John and the late duke. He’d openly said such to Shay’s father in the days immediately after the fire and then to Parliament in the days after his father’s death in a blatant attempt to possess the dukedom for himself. In that, though, Malcolm wasn’t alone. Shay’s father and the rest of society had thought the same.
“I keep no secrets from my wife,” Shay told him. What was one more lie among all the others being swirled about in the study as easily as the cognac?
“Good. Because she needs to know what she’s gotten herself into.” He tapped his finger on the rim of the glass and narrowed his gaze. “Of course, in truth, your marriage is nothing more than a sham, isn’t it? You…marrying the daughter of an earl, your dead brother’s fiancée, no less.” Malcolm raised the glass to his lips and laughed into it. “I suppose you’ll attempt to insult me by claiming yours is a love match!”
“I would never attempt to appeal to your heart that way.” After all, his uncle didn’t possess one.
“Because you can’t. Because she was most likely scheming for money and position, her father hoping for the marriage he didn’t—”
“She wasn’t.”
The icy coldness of Shay’s voice made his uncle censor himself. Good. If he dared utter one more negative word against Sophie, Shay would pound the conniving bastard to a pulp where he sat.
Malcolm stared silently at Shay for a long moment, then said quietly, “You forced her into marriage by using the old contract against her, didn’t you? Force her to marry you or bankrupt her family… After all, it’s the only way you could have gotten her away from a man like James Norton. It’s the only way you could have gotten any wife at all.”
Shay forced a tight smile and summoned every ounce of restraint he possessed. “My marriage is none of your business.”
The quiet statement reverberated through the study with the force of cannon fire.
“It is very much my business,” Malcolm countered. “Should your new wife whelp an heir, the dukedom will be stained forever. But it’s not too late. You can still end this sham of a marriage and send her packing back to London where she belongs.”
“Make no mistake, Uncle,” Shay replied in a voice that was deadly calm and all the more murderous because of it. “Ours is a real marriage.”
Malcolm leveled a knowing look on him. “Not in every way.”
An electric jolt fired through him like a shot. Shay knew what he meant. The marriage bed. Not for the first time since he inherited, a suspicion curled through Shay that his uncle had spies within his household. No—long before that, before his mother ran away with her lover. Even though Shay didn’t move a muscle, such white-hot fury raged through him that his vision turned red.
“Uncle.” Sophie’s soft voice jerked Shay’s attention to the doorway, her eyes blazing at what she must have overheard. “I came to inquire if you had planned to stay for dinner and spend the night.” Her gaze flicked between the two men, then landed on Malcolm with a carefully guarded expression. “But I believe you must be taking your leave soon. I wish you well on your return home.”
“Sophie, dear.” Malcolm rose to his feet with a patronizing smile. “Surely, you’ve misunderstood—”
“Did I, my husband?” She calmly arched a brow at Shay. “I was certain you were just about to say your goodbyes.”
In other words… Get this man out of my home. Now . She couldn’t have been clearer if she’d screamed it. Shay knew Malcolm understood that, too, but his uncle didn’t possess enough shame to look at all embarrassed.
Shay rose to his feet and gave a polite nod to Malcolm. “Goodbye, Uncle. I’m certain you don’t mind showing yourself out.”
“Of course. I offer my goodbyes, then.” His eyes gleamed with a mix of fury and laughter, a look that sent a cold warning pricking at the backs of Shay’s knees. “Again, my sincerest congratulations on your marriage. And don’t let that old wives’ tale about winter weddings leadings to wintry marriages bother you. I’m certain marrying at the coldest time of the year will have no effect whatsoever on your affections.”
Sophie’s spine straightened at the sting of that backhanded pleasantry, yet she forced a bright smile. “Thank you, Uncle. It’s good to know I’ve been welcomed into the warm embrace of the Douglass family.”
Shay bit his cheek to keep from chuckling. He’d never been prouder of her than at that moment.
As Malcolm left the room, he paused in front of Sophie in the doorway and cast a lingering look over her, one that reassessed his previous opinions of her. If Malcolm knew what was good for him, he would come to the same conclusion Shay had—she was far more capable and resilient than she first appeared.
“Tell me, my dear,” Malcolm murmured as he narrowed his gaze on her face. “I heard your mother left your father shortly after they were married to run off with an American lover. Is it true?”
She lifted her chin. “Yes.”
“Well then.” He glanced back at Shay with a laugh as he slipped out into the hall. “At least you two have that much in common!”
Sophie closed the door after him and collapsed back against it, deflating like a balloon. When she finally took a deep breath and raised her eyes to meet Shay’s across the room, he saw stunned disbelief in their stormy blue depths.
He held his glass of cognac out to her. “Welcome to the family.”
A shocked laugh of absolute astonishment bubbled from her, although Shay knew she most likely laughed only to keep from screaming. She crossed the room to him, accepted the glass, and took a gasping swallow. She stared up at him with wide eyes, her fingers pressing to her lips to keep a cough at bay as the cognac surely burned its way down her throat.
He took the glass from her and tossed back the last of the brandy. “I am very sorry you had to experience that.”
“It isn’t your fault. You had no idea he’d visit us.”
Us. He should have been happy she used the word so freely, as if they truly were a couple in lock-step in their married lives. Instead, he kept hearing Malcolm’s insinuations, although none of them were surprising, knowing Malcolm as he did. He’d hoped that news of his marriage would keep his uncle away from Ravenscroft and Sophie. He’d been wrong.
He blew out a hard breath and raked his fingers through his hair. “I should have anticipated it.”
“You couldn’t have known how he’d react to the news of our marriage. He must have been shocked to hear you’d married without telling him, especially to me.”
“Not shocked,” he corrected, circling the desk to her side and leaning back against it, bringing his eyes level with hers. “Infuriated.”
She threw him a quizzical frown.
“He’s a second son who had no choice but to make his way in the world on the kindnesses of my grandfather’s allowance, my father’s name, and an army commission without ever once leaving English soil. He thought he had an ally in me because our lives were so similar. He was wrong.” He crossed his arms. “We’re nothing alike.”
“Thank goodness.”
His lips twisted in an ironic grimace. There was little about him that was good.
“But there’s more to it than that,” she pressed gently. “There has to be, for him to come here like this, openly hostile to both of us.”
“There is.” He looked down at the empty glass, wondering if he should refill it. Cognac would certainly help to get through this conversation. “When my father died,” he explained, carefully choosing his words, “Malcolm thought he and his sons should have been the rightful heirs to Malvern, not me. So he filed an inquiry with the Committee on Privileges in Parliament.”
“Why would he think that? The title passes through male heirs of the body, and you were next in line.”
“He didn’t think someone with my past should be allowed to become a duke.” Not technically a lie. Yet he couldn’t bring himself to look at her as he said it. “My past was too…”
“Mercenary?”
“Murderous.” The single word hung on the air between them, as close to a confession as he would ever give her. She knew enough about the night of the fire as it was. She never needed to know the full truth about her role in it. “He petitioned to have the letters patent changed to remove me from the line of inheritance, claiming I was a trained killer who had attacked and murdered John in cold blood to become the heir presumptive, making certain to kill him before his wedding so he would potentially have no heirs of his own to stand in my way.”
“That’s ludicrous,” she breathed out, too stunned to find her voice.
“The Committee agreed. They ignored his inquiry request into John’s death and dismissed his petition for lack of evidence, and I inherited the dukedom.”
“Do you think he’ll ever try something like that again?”
“No,” he assured her, wanting to calm her fears. “He has no more evidence now than before. But he’s never forgiven me for inheriting.”
“Then it’s past time he does.”
He admired her resolve, yet he couldn’t help but warn, “I don’t want you to ever be alone with him again. Make certain Henley or Pearson is with you if he attempts to approach you. Promise me that.”
Her bright eyes widened with alarm, their blue depths reminding him of a storm-tossed sea.
“He won’t physically harm you. That’s not how Malcolm wages war. He’s too cowardly for a direct attack.”
With a harsh exhalation, he picked up Malcolm’s glass and carried it back to the side table, pushing it away as if it were poisoned.
“Besides, he’s not exactly an expert at fighting.” His mouth twisted as he shot her a glance over his shoulder. “There’s a reason he never served anywhere but England during the wars. You could put him in his place with your little fists if he ever tried.”
She didn’t smile at that exaggeration as he’d hoped, only continued to look at him with a concerned countenance.
With his back to her, he paused and let his heavy shoulders sag. The irony wasn’t lost on him that perhaps he was still more like Malcolm than he wanted to admit. “He’s an expert manipulator with no conscience whatsoever. He isn’t above blackmail or leveling threats to get what he wants. He cannot be trusted.”
“Do you think we’ll have to see him often?”
The wariness in her voice was unmistakable. “No. After today’s visit, he’ll never bother us here again.” He returned to the desk and let his attention drop to the piles of account books, lists, and correspondence. Pearson was right, blast him. Since Shay returned from London, he’d been paying attention to all the wrong things. “Halston Hall is three hours away by carriage. Not so close as to be a nuisance—”
“Yet close enough that we can’t wash our hands completely of him.”
We. Another one of those words she tossed out without a second thought that cut him to the quick. “He now knows that the rumors of our marriage are true, and he had the chance to spew his venom.” He flipped closed the books. “He knows he’s no longer welcome here.”
“Was he ever?”
His mouth twisted into an expression somewhere between a grimace and a smile as he collected the loose sheets of papers and stacked them together. “He thought so. Once.” He picked up Pearson’s letter of resignation that he’d tossed onto the desk and mused, “Malcolm is right about one thing, though.”
“Which is?”
“You are the Duchess of Malvern, and it’s time everyone knew that.” He called out toward the hallway, “Henley!”
The butler opened the door and stepped inside the room with a deferential nod to both of them. “Your Grace?”
Shay ripped the resignation in two. “Have the sleigh readied.”
Sophie’s face fell. “You’re going out again, then?”
“No. We are.” He gestured toward the door. “Go put on your coat and boots, Duchess. We’re going to meet the tenants.”