Chapter Thirty-Seven #3
“You were a mere boy,” Grayson cut in. “One facing constant censure by my mother, I might add. I should have stood for you the way you always did for me, but my jealousy would not allow it, and for that I am profoundly sorry. But I will not apologize for this.” He wagged the letter in the air.
“I would not try to hurt your Gwen, especially as she somehow appeared to magically give me back my brother. Now tell me, why do you accuse me of this?”
Gideon searched Grayson’s face for any sign of duplicity, and could find no trace. “Because I’ve just come from the home of the man behind all of the trouble aimed at Gwen. Initially, it seems, the stipulations in the purchase agreement did exist to protect the publishing house’s reputation.
“Then, I returned from the dead—at which time, he claims, you began issuing demands for him to make Gwen’s purchase untenable.”
“Me?” he demanded with affront. “I did no such thing and I’ll call out anyone who claims otherwise. Tell me, did you simply take this man’s word? Or do I merit any sort of trust?”
Gideon glared at Grayson, but a tiny flicker of hope sparked inside him that somehow his brother had not plotted against the woman he—His mind went blank. The woman he what?
“Gideon? You look as if you’ve just seen a ghost. Perhaps we ought to sit down.”
“I’m fine,” he snarled, and fixed his brother with a hard stared. “He showed me your seal, Grayson. Your seal.”
“Why could it not have been Father’s?” Grayson parried, jutting his chin in an obstinate manner.
“Holt showed me the letters he received, all signed Lord G. He said your representative was very clear that he should make certain her purchase fell through, and if he did not, he would make an enemy of the future Duke of Ashwood.”
“I see.” Grayson met Gideon’s eyes. “I wasn’t behind any of it. Do you believe me?”
“For the sake of argument, let’s say I’m willing to consider the possibility.”
Grayson’s expression turned pragmatic. “What we must ask ourselves is why someone might wish to cause your wife such distress—and use me to do so. Have you any ideas?”
Gideon shook his head. “Only the one—that whomever he is, he wished to get to me through her.”
Grayson nodded. “Undoubtedly.” His gaze sharpened on Gideon. “What about this previous offense? What is it I supposedly did to damage our relationship? I confess, I have long wondered why your attitude toward me turned frosty.”
“You’re claiming you truly have no idea?”
“None.”
Gideon nodded. “All right. I’ll bite. Fannie.”
Grayson arched his brows, looking nonplused.
“I married her for you,” Gideon gritted out. “While you enjoyed a tour of the bloody Continent and washed your hands of the whole mess.”
Grayson snorted. “What mess? And how on earth would your marrying Fannie aid me, other than getting the duchess off my back? Admittedly, she pushed the chit…er…your late wife as a marriage candidate nearly from day one, but when I told her I did not wish to marry her under any circumstance, she seemed, finally, to accept my decision. In fact, it was her idea for me to tour the Continent that summer. She all but—no, she did book my passage, as I recall, saying it would help Fannie’s chances of securing a good match if the ton did not see me as vying for her affections.
” He rubbed his chin, as if remembering.
“I had no notion the two of you would be married when I returned, or I wouldn’t have left and missed the ceremony. ”
“You didn’t know,” Gideon said, marveling.
Years. He’d wasted years believing the worst.
Grayson shook his head. “That’s what I just said isn’t it? Wait. There’s something more to this.”
“You got her with child.”
Grayson’s eyes bugged. His mouth worked, but no words came for several seconds. When he finally spoke, he erupted. “I never got her with child. I never touched her. I swear on my honor I did no such thing.”
All the breath went out of Gideon. Of all the things Grayson could have said, this was the last thing he expected.
“Why would you ever think that?” Grayson continued. “I really must know. Did Fannie say she and I…But, why would she lie?”
Gideon began to pace, thoughts spinning. “Because someone did get her with child and she needed a scapegoat.”
“Dear God,” Grayson exclaimed. “No wonder you changed toward me. You must’ve thought—blood of the saints, what you must’ve thought.
I’m amazed you ever spoke to me again. But I still do not quite see why you felt compelled to marry her.
Unless…” Grayson’s complexion darkened with anger.
“She told you I was the father and that I’d abandoned her.
I swear to you, Gideon, I never touched her. ”
Gideon faced his brother. “I believe you. But no, she did not tell me she was breeding. She did not tell me anything.”
“Then, who?”
“The duchess came to me. She said Fannie had tricked you into bedding her. I did not doubt this because…” He spread his arms wide.
A sardonic smile twisted Grayson’s mouth. “Because she was forever trying to corner you before you escaped to Calcutta.”
Gideon inclined his head.
Grayson’s eyes narrowed in thought. “The duchess told you I bedded Fannie. What else did she say?”
Gideon saw no reason to sugarcoat the truth. “She said I owed the family, and if I married Fannie, my debt would be paid in full.”
A crash sounded from the garden through the open French doors, as if one of the clay flower pots had hit the paving stones.
Grayson’s face mottled with anger. He directed his voice outdoors. “You might as well come in, Mother, where you can hear better. Besides, you have some explaining to do. Now.”
A moment later, the duchess appeared in the doorway, face pale as moonlight, mouth set in grim lines. She glided in and met Grayson’s eyes. Not Gideon’s though.
“What did you do?” Grayson bit out. “And don’t try denying that you have been listening.”
She moved toward the sitting area, and sat atop the very sofa she had when she brought Gwen here the night he had introduced her to the family. “What I did, I did for you.”
“Whatever you did, you did for you,” Grayson countered. “How would forcing Gideon to marry Fannie benefit me? Admit it. It was a sick ploy to punish Gideon for your own miserable existence.”
Her dark eyes turned pleading. “Brice came to me. He said she had tricked you into compromising her, and that you were distraught over the event. I had no reason not to believe him.”
“You had every reason,” Grayson spat. “You should have discussed the matter with me.”
“But you’d already told me you did not want to marry her,” she argued. “If I confronted you, you would have been honor bound to marry her.”
“If you came to me, you would have learned the truth. And, by the by, had I compromised her I would have been honor bound to marry her.”
She sniffed. “Not if someone else was willing to pay the price for your indiscretion.”
“Someone else as in my brother. So you guilted him into cleaning up my mess, as he had all of my life. Bravo, Mother. You could’ve shared with him that she was pregnant. It was particularly cruel that you did not.”
“I didn’t know.”
Grayson snorted in disbelief.
“I swear it,” she insisted.
“I think she’s telling the truth,” Gideon murmured.
“Why? Why believe anything she says? Frankly, I don’t how you can stand to look at her,” Grayson said, and Gideon noted the sheen of tears on his brother’s lashes. “I can barely stand the sight of her and she’s my mother.”
Gideon reasoned it out for him. “Fannie lost her shine for the duchess once she supposedly tricked you, and she dropped even lower in your mother’s eyes once she became my wife and not yours.
And then the evidence of her pregnancy began to show—much too soon for the babe to have been mine.
Suddenly the duchess took an interest in her again.
I admit, I was taken aback. Nothing about me had ever drawn the duchess’s attentions—aside from… ” He shrugged.
“From when she was chastising you, or berating you, or belittling you?”
Or reminding him never to embarrass the duke or Grayson, he added silently.
“So, Mother”—Grayson fixed her with a glare—“thinking she carried my babe, you suddenly grew a heart.”
A sad smile curved the woman’s face. “You cannot know the joy I experienced, imagining holding your baby in my arms. When both mother and child died, all I wanted was to never see Gideon again.”
Suddenly, pieces that hadn’t fit fell into place. “I take it you worked out a plan to achieve your goal?” Gideon asked.
Grayson glanced between him and the duchess.
“I did not. I only made my desires known.”
“Known by whom?” Gideon asked, though he already had the answer.
She lifted her chin. “Brice.”