Chapter 7
“God no,” Vincent groused while pressing the cut glass to his temple. “I do not want to have to navigate a sea of match-making vultures and their daughters just to reach the blasted claret. I appreciate the offer, but I will not be attending.”
Keaton narrowed his eyes. “Must you be so boorish?”
“Have you met me before?” Vincent drawled. “Boorish is my middle name.”
“It’s Alexander, but that’s an appropriate substitution,” Benedict chuckled.
“For god’s sake, just come,” Keaton groaned. “You won’t be dancing or dining anywhere you’d be forced to speak with other guests. Satisfied?”
“And just who are your guests?” Vincent asked.
“I may have pirated some of your list,” Keaton shrugged. “Weston was more than happy to lend a hand.”
Ballard might be there then… but so might be Emma.
Reaching over to rub a knot out of the nape of his neck, Vincent nodded lazily, “I’ll come, but don’t expect much.”
“Like what?” Keaton droned. “Riding in on a snow-white horse to slay the dragon hiding in my hedge-bush maze?”
“If you have Lady Patience Stenton on your list, you already have a dragon,” Benedict laughed. “That woman is a high-in-the-instep shrew if I’ve ever seen one.”
“So, just the type of woman you’re after,” Vincent said slyly.
Benedict’s mouth dropped. “Have you gone mad? I’d never dream of involving myself with a lady like that.”
“You have and you will,” Keaton inserted.
“I wager by this time next year, the two of you will be wed,” Vincent said while swallowing the last of his drink.
Rolling his eyes, Benedict dropped his edition of the Times. “Did you see this?”
Reaching for the paper, Vincent asked, “See what?”
“Earl Dallagh is putting a bounty on The Phantom,” Benedict shrugged. “Apparently, the Phantom tried to rob him a few nights ago, and he is out for justice. The bounty is three thousand pounds.”
Plucking the paper up, Vincent’s eyes roamed over the brief lines, and he clenched his jaw. Devil and damnation. This would certainly complicate things; security would be doubled, and any remaining evidence would be burned. Hell, Gibbs Custor would probably be notified by now, too.
Forcing a nonchalant look on his face, Vincent dropped the paper and shrugged. “Whatever he did to get into the crosshairs of the Phantom is none of my business. Maybe he is a bigamist too, like the other one.”
“I still can’t decide if the man is a menace to society or if he is doing something worthwhile,” Keaton shrugged.
“He can’t be both?” Benedict suggested.
“Tell that to half the lords in this room,” Keaton scoffed. “I overheard Mercer and Stenton arguing about it for the better part of an hour. Mercer thinks the Phantom ought to be knighted. Stenton thinks he ought to be hanged.”
Vincent chuckled. “We live in a time where both outcomes are a possibility.”
Raised voices drew their attention as four men stumbled out of the card room, one red in the face, the other as pale as a sheet. Vincent knew that look; it was the look of a man who had lost half his fortune, possibly a house, or even wagered his daughter into a marriage.
A redhead that Vincent vaguely remembered brushing by weeks ago strutted out after with a smug smile. He guessed he was one of the victors.
“Good game, Cillian,” a sixth man came out and clapped the redhead on his shoulder. “You really are card sharp. Five thousand pounds in one night is capital.”
Keaton whistled lowly. “That’s a fortune.”
Vincent scoffed. “For whom? A monk?”
“It’s more than I’ve made in the last three months,” Benedict said while giving Vincent an evil eye. “You’d be surprised who considers that a fortune. A lot of marriage-minded mamas would swiftly offer their daughters up to a man who makes ten thousand a year.”
“Isn’t that a line of that popular book that came out this January?” Vincent snorted.
“It is,” Benedict said, blushing. “It doesn’t hurt to get into the heart of the female mind a time or two.”
Pulling his timepiece from his inner pocket, Vincent checked the time; it was crawling to midnight.
It was not surprising; Parliament usually ran late into the night.
Normally, even with the fatigue from arguing with old codgers, he’d be up for a couple more hours, but the secret injury he nursed was pulling on him to find a bed.
The wound was a tether. Every time he moved too quickly or twisted at the wrong angle, it yanked him back to that study, to Ballard’s brute and the knife that had slipped past his guard.
The mask was in a locked drawer at Arundel House, and it would stay there until he’d fully healed.
He’d gotten sloppy, and sloppy men ended up dead.
Not to mention, thrusting the incriminating documents I found onto Ballard now would only set Custor deeper into hiding. As long as I have them in my possession, Ballard won’t be bold enough to make a move. Enough time to recover and seek out the elusive Gibbs Custor.
Throwing back the last of his drink, Vincent stood and reached for his jacket, wincing at the strain on his newly knitted skin. It was severe enough that he stumbled forward a little, dragging a chair with him.
“Damn, Arundel,” Keaton said from his place, half shrouded in darkness. “Foxed already?”
“No,” Vincent ground his teeth as he straightened and donned his jacket. “Merely fatigued.”
Standing, Benedict asked, “You bring a carriage this time? I don’t think it wise if you rode home.”
“I have my carriage,” Vincent said as he rubbed his eyes. “And even if I did not, I am armed. Put your fluttery heart at ease. Enjoy the night, gentlemen, and please do not come by. Weston has the shotgun at the ready.”
“Do send a smoke signal if you get home safely,” Keaton said dryly.
Vincent scoffed, and Benedict took his vacated seat with a refreshed glass of whisky. As he sent for his carriage, he spotted the redhead again, this time nursing a drink in hand.
“—Are you going to share your winnings with your family?” A man was asking of… what was his name again? Cillian, was it?
“Not this time,” Cillian murmured with one hand stuck in his pocket. “I need to clear a few debts first, and my cousin and his family are all right for now. His grandmother is taking care of them at the present.”
“Your Grace,” a footman bowed. “Your carriage is ready.”
Nodding his thanks, Vincent stepped out into the cold, bracing night and, with a grunt, stepped into the bed of the carriage and immediately sank into a slump.
His skin was sore, stretched, and so tight.
Rucking up his shirt, he traced his fingers over the knit skin and grimaced at the almost visceral memory of when the needle had first pierced his flesh.
It was still somewhat raw, but that little sprite had done such a perfect job at sealing the wound; it was not discolored, nor had an infection set in.
He wanted her to touch it up, with the proper tools this time—and he was ready to reach out for her the very next day.
Sitting up, he sighed and rubbed his eyes. “I wonder what she thinks of the flowers I’ve sent.”
For the past five days, he’d sent her daffodils, but for the last day, he’d sent her daisies and water lilies, reflecting innocence and purity of heart. He wondered what she had thought about his last card, too. A meager but honest compensation for quite possibly saving his life, to be sure.
The carriage headed off into the night as putrid yellow fog crept up from the river and slithered in between the cramped buildings. Hawkers trailed the walkways with carts as staggering drunks swerved around them before disappearing into alleys with painted molls.
If only life could be so simple.
Seeking pleasure when need struck and not being forced to worry that one’s name would be blasted across every newspaper from the next dawn to eternity.
Finally, at the townhouse, he bid good night to his driver and stepped in, craving a cup of soothing Chinese tea and some alone time. Peeling his jacket away, he jabbed a finger into the knot of his cravat to loosen it.
Picking his way through the silent house, he passed the door to his study and kept walking. His feet carried him down the corridor to the rear of the house, through the service door, and out into the garden.
The cold hit him first, then the silence.
Benjamin’s memorial stood in the far corner beneath the old elm, a modest stone column with his name, his years, and nothing else.
Vincent had commissioned it the month after the funeral because the churchyard in Hertfordshire had felt too far.
He needed his brother close, even if close meant a slab of cold Portland stone that said nothing of the boy who had laughed so freely and lived so briefly.
He lowered himself onto the bench beside it and pressed a hand on his lower abdomen.
The ache from the wound was a dull companion now, persistent but bearable.
It still stunned him how fearlessly Emma had decided to get her hands dirty and sew him without the hysterics he’d expected from any well-bred lady.
She is certainly something different.
He sat with that thought for a while, turning it over in the quiet.
The garden was black save for the thin light spilling from the house behind him, and the elm above creaked in the wind.
He could not recall the last time he had sat here with Benjy.
Weeks, possibly longer. It was easier to avoid the stone than to face the hollow feeling of loneliness it put in his chest.
Somehow, he always ended up here on the worst nights.
“Your Grace,” Weston declared, drawing Vincent’s attention from the memorial.
“Yes?” he bit back his irritation at being intruded upon. “What is it now, Weston?”
“I believe you have a bit of a dilemma on your hands.”
Frowning, Vincent asked, “What the devil do you mean?”
“Upon hearing the name of the family of our Lady Savior, I had this unsettling feeling that it was familiar,” Weston began. “So, I took the liberty of looking through your old records of the fraudulent investor scheme that ruined your father.”
Coming closer, the manservant laid a folio on the bench between them, “I found something more about Lady Emma that you might want to see.”
Spinning the folio out, he read an old report written in his own hand. “Silent partners in Boreas and Co…” his eyes skipped down the line of men who had lost their investments until he came down to the last one.
“Harcourt Haverleigh, Viscount Penrose, invested fifty thousand pounds…” he paused. “…there was no recourse. Nine months later, Penrose died, and the remaining ten thousand was recouped from his family upon his death as monies owed…”
He paused. “…to my estates.”
Weston nodded once.
“Why did I do that?”
“Well, Your Grace, if memory serves, you were waging a one-man crusade against anyone whose name so much as touched Boreas and Co. You did not discriminate between the guilty and the swindled.” His voice quieted.
“I do believe that money was all Lady Emma and her brother had left to live on—and it is the primary contributor to the family’s current impoverishment. ”
The words were a blistering punch to his face.
Every ounce of exhaustion vanished in a heartbeat.
“What—” the word scraped out of his throat and died on his tongue.
“There’s more,” Weston continued.
Of course there is. Vincent felt bile scorch the back of his throat. There always is. “What more could there be?”
“Remember when I said the lad was mentally diminished,” Weston went on.
“It seems the father had put aside a portion of that money to hire a permanent qualified teacher from America for the boy, one who understood his challenges so he could be some use to himself and others. And so that he may eventually be fit to be heir to the viscountcy.”
Instantly, Vincent’s thoughts drifted to his late brother Benjamin and he felt physically sick.
Illness was illness, no matter the reason, and he had taken away what little chance the lad had to gain a fulfilling life and look after his sister. Shame cut through him like a heated lance, and it was all he could do to keep his stomach from losing its contents.
Ten thousand pounds. Hadn’t he just mocked a man for winning a pauper’s sum?
One good turn deserves another as they say, but seeing as you brought me back from what could have been the brink of death, I think I owe you more than one turn.
Fate was playing a game or crueler, cutting irony on him that night. His blood was washing hot and cold under his skin as he stared blindly at the stone.
Sagging back into his seat, he stared at the name he knew by heart.
“I’ll leave you to your thoughts,” Weston bowed out. “Good night, Your Grace.”
How in God’s name could he face Emma as Duke Highminster knowing what he’d done? Maybe he could amend by paying her the sum for sewing him up? Maybe he could return the funds—with interest—as an apology? What could he do?
Did Emma have to know who he was? When they had met the second time, he had gotten the faintest impression that she thought he was simply a guest in the duke’s home.
Maybe, until he could find a way to explain it all, she didn’t have to know who he was at all. It could give him time to make this right.
But how do I explain the attack? Who would want to injure a random guest in the duke’s home? Surely, she is going to ask about that. And what about Keaton’s garden party?
Slumping forward, he rubbed his eyes. “What in god’s name have I gotten myself into?”
The elm creaked above him. Benjamin’s stone offered no answer. It never did.