CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Gabe leaned back against the large mahogany desk in his study and kept his gaze fixed on Adam sitting in the winged back chair in front of him. His little brother was feckless, spineless, irresponsible, lazy, incompetent…and now utterly stunned.
What Gabe had just told him about the events since he left for India had stuck Adam like a blow, and his face had drained to white, his hand shaking as he held a glass of cognac.
Good. Gabe had lived with the pain of what Adam had done for the past five years.
It was time his brother now shared the gravity of it.
Gabe casually crossed his ankles, his casual posture a far cry from the anger that seethed inside him.
But he wouldn’t let his brother see how furious he was, how much his forced marriage to Clarissa had upended his life.
He still had his pride, after all. Clarissa hadn’t managed to destroy that.
The only thing stopping him from pulping Adam right there in the study is that Helena didn’t deserve to have her fiancée thrown into prison this close to her wedding day for killing his brother.
He narrowed his gaze over the rim of his glass as he raised the cognac to his lips and quietly asked, “And you knew absolutely nothing about any of it?”
“No—nothing—God, no.” Adam leaned back in the chair and raked his fingers through his hair as he struggled to fathom everything Gabe had just told him. “When I left, you and Helena were…and Clarissa wasn’t…Christ.”
Based on the pallor of his face and the incredulity that prevented him from forming complete sentences, Adam was telling the truth. For once.
“I never received any of your letters,” Adam insisted. “If you tried to contact me—”
“I did. Multiple times.” Dozens and dozens of times, in fact, in all manner of ways.
“I never received any of them,” he repeated, more forcefully this time.
“And you never tried to contact me or Verity to let us know where you were or how to reach you.” The only bit of information Gabe had been able to garner about Adam was that he had taken a position with the East India Company in hopes of making his fortune on the subcontinent, only to be fired six months later for gross incompetence.
No one in the Company knew where he was or if he were even still in India. Or still alive.
“I did—I swear!” He sat forward, holding the glass in his hands between his knees.
Gabe expected him to push himself out of the chair at any moment and start pacing.
He pointed his glass at Gabe to emphasize his innocence.
“I sent letters—several of them. But it was India, not Brighton, for God’s sake.
You know how unreliable communications are from Calcutta, how long it takes any message to travel all the way to England, if it ever makes it here at all.
They were probably lost or still in transit.
” He smiled grimly. “They’ll turn up…in a few years or so. ”
Gabe didn’t find that attempt at humor at all amusing. He kept his hard gaze leveled on Adam even as he took a large swallow of brandy.
Adam slouched back in the chair and muttered disbelievingly as the truth began to sink in, “Clarissa…with child—my child… Are you certain? Absolutely certain?”
“Very.” Alice had Adam’s eyes and nose, after all. “You bedded her.” Not a question.
“Well, yes—but she was willing and eager. I didn’t attack her, for God’s sake.”
“You weren’t careful.”
A fierce curse left Adam’s lips, and he hung his head in his hand.
“I was left to clean up your mess.” He slowly swirled the cognac in his glass to let that statement sink in.
“You didn’t hear of my first marriage anywhere along your route back home?
” Gabe found that difficult to believe. “Nothing from friends in London about how I broke off with Helena to marry Clarissa? Nothing about her death?”
“Not one word.” Guilt darkened his face. “But I didn’t speak to anyone. I came straight to Grangely Park after arriving at Portsmouth.”
“Why do that?” Gabe knew how much Adam loved London’s gambling hells and stews. “After five years away, surely you wanted to spend some time enjoying yourself.”
He shook his head. “I’ve got more important things to do than play.
” Then a self-pleased smile curled his lips.
“The owner of a sugar plantation in the Caribbean is looking for a partner and invited me to buy in. I only came back to say hello, collect the last of my things—and my allowance—and travel on.”
That was a damnable lie. Adam might have needed his allowance, but it sure as hell wasn’t to purchase a sugar plantation.
Gabe knew his brother well, and he would never have passed up the opportunity to spend a few weeks enjoying himself during the heart of the London season unless his life was on the line or he was penniless.
Or both. Which meant the partnership offer was a lie.
No business owner or land agent in his right mind would give Adam the opportunity to buy into a stake without significant funds being placed down to hold it while he waited for the rest. Then again, no business owner or land agent in his right mind would have made Adam any serious business offer in the first place.
Most likely, his brother had gotten on the wrong side of gamblers, toughs, fathers, or husbands and was fleeing for his life to the Caribbean, avoiding London only to stay one step ahead of the men who were after him.
Gabe couldn’t find enough compassion in his stony heart to care if his brother were truly in trouble or not.
When Gabe’s hard gaze never lightened, Adam’s smile eased away, his expression returning to an appropriate solemnity. “But now to learn…” He scrubbed his face with his hand. “Clarissa’s dead. I can’t believe it. She was so alive, so lovely and fresh…”
“So willing to be ruined by you.”
Adam’s cold gaze darted to Gabe. “She wasn’t innocent, or I never would have taken her to bed. Nothing about that night made me think she was untouched. I thought she knew what she was doing and how to prevent…”
“Getting with child,” Gabe finished for him. How on God’s earth could his brother have been so stupid?
Perhaps, though, Clarissa knew exactly what she was doing.
If she found herself with child and knew that Adam was leaving for India while Gabe would do anything to protect his family and a wronged lady, it wouldn’t have been difficult for her to perfectly time a scheme to use the situation to her advantage and marry a duke.
It would be exactly like her to do just that.
“That was a stand-up thing you did, Gabriel, in marrying her like that,” Adam admitted with a firm nod for emphasis. “I’ll never be able to repay you for that.”
Never was right. “I didn’t do it for you.”
Adam had enough decency to drop his gaze shamefully to his cognac. “And no one except us, Aunt Verity, and James Wentworth knows the truth?”
“And Helena.”
“Of course—Helena.” He uttered her name as if she were a mere afterthought. “Everyone else thinks the child is—”
“Alice,” Gabe bit out. “Her name is Alice Elizabeth Jane Cavanaugh.”
He pulled in a hard breath and tried again, “Everyone thinks Alice is truly yours, including the little girl?”
“Yes.”
“I see.” He set his glass down on the round side table. The shock that had been on his face cleared into determination as he leaned forward, elbows on knees, and said, “I’ll keep the secret then, too.”
Gabe drawled, “How gracious of you to—”
“If you triple my allowance.” The quiet threat hung in the air like smoke over a house fire. “After all, why settle for a partnership in a thousand-acre plantation when I can own one all by myself?”
Gabe’s blood turned to ice, despite the red-hot fury that pulsed through him.
Yet he didn’t move, didn’t change his expression.
Except for a faint tick in his neck from clenching his jaw so tightly his teeth hurt, he didn’t let his emotions show.
Instead, he slowly circled around behind his desk, less to make a business transaction between them than to make it harder to kill Adam with his bare hands.
“To be clear,” Gabe said with chilling calm, “I am not under any legal obligation to give you an allowance at all.” He sank into the leather desk chair, rested his forearms across the granite desktop, and laced his fingers together.
It was the same granite-hard pose he took with opponents in Parliament and those businessmen who attempted to best him.
None of them won against him. Neither would Adam.
“The only reason I will give you your allowance is because Father wanted you to have it. I will honor his wishes and give you that much, but not one ha’penny more. ”
With hard-won restraint tamping down his anger, he opened the center desk drawer and withdrew his bank cheques.
“I’m assuming you’ll leave England via Bristol,” Gabe said in a casual voice that was all the more threatening for its control. “There are banks there that will exchange this for—”
“Three times the amount, or I’ll tell everyone your secret.”
He didn’t look up at Adam as his reached for the silver writing set on the corner of the desk.
“You misunderstand.” Gabe calmly dipped the quill into the ink well and filled out the blanks on the rectangular piece of paper.
“I couldn’t care less if you attempt to blackmail me.
And it would be nothing more than that—an attempt. ”
Adam said nothing.
He scrawled out his signature, continuing, “You see, in order to blackmail someone, the person being blackmailed has to actually care whether the information against him is spread, and I don’t give a damn.
” He coolly reached for the brass blotter.
“Clarissa and I were legally married long before Alice was born, which makes her my daughter under the law—the daughter of a very influential duke whom no smart man wants to cross.” He punctuated those words by forcefully pressing the blotter over the ink.
“No one would believe you anyway. You and I look alike, and Alice looks very much like a Cavanaugh. Her paternity will never be doubted.” He set down the brass blotter before he decided to heave it at Adam’s head. “Your threat is empty.”
He put his finger on the cheque and slid it across the black granite desktop toward Adam, then sat back in his chair with the confidence of a man who had the world at his feet.
Or at least a goodly chunk of the wealth and power in England.
He wanted nothing more at that moment than to use all that wealth and power to toss Adam out on his trouble-ridden arse and forbid him to ever return.
The only thing stopping him was Helena. She was dedicated to family and would want the two brothers to reconcile. Gabe was willing to give her whatever she wanted. Even that.
He nodded at the cheque, the amount equal to Adam’s allowance for the past five years since he left England.
“Take your allowance and go.” He reached for his glass of cognac and slowly swirled it as if the two men were discussing nothing more contentious than a new horse.
“Or take it, withdraw your empty threat, and decide to become a real member of this family again. The original allowance—and the choice—is yours.” He dismissingly raised the glass to his lips and muttered against the rim, “Personally, I don’t give a damn what you do. ”
Gabe wasn’t lying. He didn’t want Alice or Helena to be hurt by rumors and more scandal involving him, but he would also never let Adam blackmail him. He would never again let anyone level threats against him the way Clarissa had. Not even his own brother.
Adam glared murderously at him, his jaw visibly working as he clenched it so hard that Gabe wondered if he might just break a tooth.
“You’ve been away in India for five years,” Gabe acknowledged, throwing his brother a bone. “It’s a different world there, much harder and harsher. Perhaps you had to do whatever it took to survive. Perhaps I should give you a while to remember who you are and how to behave here in England.”
Adam let that attempt at a peace offer hang unacknowledged in the air between them. Then his eyes flicked down to the cheque, and Gabe could practically see the wheels turning inside his brother’s head as he quickly weighed his options.
Slowly, Adam pushed himself out of the chair and stalked forward to the desk. “Since I’ve come all the way here, I might as well stay a while so I can get to know my niece.”
Gabe said nothing, keeping his expression inscrutable. Adam was the worst kind of scapegrace, always had been. But even he was smart enough to know when he was beaten.
“I’ll stay until your wedding then.” He gave Gabe his most charming—and most fake—smile. “You might need a best man.”
“I already have one.” Caleb Parker would stand up at the wedding, the man who was more of a true brother to him than Adam had ever been.
Adam didn’t let that cut register on his face and casually crossed his arms. “It’s a damn shame your marriage to Clarissa didn’t work. I would have thought she’d have made the perfect duchess—the daughter of an earl, beautiful, fashionable…certainly passionate, in my experience.”
Gabe refused to rise to that bait. “Your room is most likely ready. No need to come down for dinner tonight. I’m certain Larkin would be happy to carry up a tray.”
Adam chuckled knowingly beneath his breath and reached for the cheque. “No need.” He folded the piece of paper and tucked it into his jacket’s inside breast pocket. “I’ll take supper at the village tavern. After all, wouldn’t want to put anyone out with my stay.”
He rapped his knuckles on the desktop as a goodbye, then turned and sauntered away. He stopped just as he reached for the door to open it.
“You know,” he said over his shoulder as if struck by an afterthought, “I’m surprised you’re marrying Helena. I mean, it’s jolly good of her to take you back after the way you jilted her. But you need to be careful, brother. In many ways, she’s exactly like Clarissa.”
Adam left and closed the door after himself.
“She’s nothing like Clarissa,” Gabe muttered.
Blowing out a harsh curse, he slumped down in the leather chair. His hand shook as he raised the glass of cognac to his mouth, the roiling anger inside him finally making its way to the surface. He tossed back the last swallow and welcomed the burn down his throat.