Never Deceive a Duke (31 page)

“I
want
you, Gabriel,” she said quietly. “I
choose
you.”

He hesitated, but Antonia could feel his resolve giving way. She waited and said nothing. It was not as though she did not understand his concerns. With her history, she was a grave responsibility to take on. Gabriel was also convinced his ancestry would be objectionable to her father—and he was probably right. But Antonia no longer cared what her father thought. And somehow, she must convince Gabriel of that.

Just then, a door opened and thumped shut again. Someone was rummaging about in the adjoining bedchamber. “It must be Nellie,” Antonia whispered. “She has come back.”

Gabriel kissed her lightly on the nose. “To check on you, God bless her,” he said. “Go, quickly. Go to sleep, my dear, and know that yes, I do love you. To distraction.”

And then he was gone. Antonia was left standing by the little rosewood desk. From the bedchamber, Nellie called out her name. With a vague sense of disappointment, Antonia turned and went in to prepare for bed.

Gareth was up at dawn the following morning to survey the damage with Mr. Watson. The estate agent had had the good sense to call over the carpenters and stonemasons who had been at Knollwood, and he set them straight to work on the carriage house. Three bays, their contents, and all the rooms above them were beyond hope, and demolition was begun. By nine o’clock, the damaged doors were taken down and, just as Watson had promised, tossed to a refuse heap for burning.

Fortunately, at that moment, Mr. Kemble turned up and reminded them that the doors were evidence and must not be burnt until the perpetrator was found. Then he sent Talford off in the gig, which was amongst the equipment which had survived the fire, to fetch the justice of the peace from West Widding. Everything, Gareth realized, was in good hands. He returned to the house with Antonia much on his mind.

In the long, narrow office by the great hall, he found Coggins going about his usual schedule of sorting out the mail and assigning the day’s duties to the footmen. Gareth lingered in the corridor beyond as the last of the servants were dealt with.

It had become a part of his routine, this dropping by Coggins’s narrow office each morning to enquire about Antonia and to review the work which was planned for the day. He remembered the first occasion on which he had done so, just a few weeks past.

After leaving her last night, Gareth had realized that they had never discussed their quarrel by the lake. Perhaps they never would. Perhaps it had not even been a quarrel. He had wanted, he supposed, absolution of his sins. But absolution was not always the same as understanding. Could Antonia ever understand? Could anyone?

Her words last night had made his heart soar. But as he had said to her, he did not want her to throw away her choices, for life thus far had given her so very few. He meant it—and yet he was beginning to believe that Antonia knew her own mind. She had begun to break out of the shadows of the past. She was becoming the beautiful, gracious woman she had always been destined to be.

It was time they had a long and earnest talk. He knew that. He wished only that the truth would come out about Warneham’s death. If Antonia came to him, he wanted it to be because she truly could not live without him. He could not live in peace if he was left harboring even a shred of fear that he was only the best Antonia could do under the circumstances. And he needed her to understand and to accept not just what he was but what he had once been. It seemed like a lot to hope for.

Coggins was ticking down the last of the day’s schedule with the footmen. When they were finished, Gareth went in. Coggins snapped to attention, though he looked worn and a little on edge. His gray hair seemed a little thinner, and his long, solemn face seemed rather more so.

“Good morning,” said Gareth. “Has the duchess come down yet?”

“No, Your Grace,” he said, laying aside his ledger. “I have not seen her.”

“Very well.” Gareth tried to relax. “When you have a moment, Coggins, there are some things I should like you to take care of.”

“Of course, Your Grace,” he said. “How may I help?”

Gareth set one shoulder to the door frame. “Talford and the stable staff are going to need their things replaced,” he said. “Clothing, boots, razors, Bibles, you name it. They have nothing left. Do what you can. Go up to London for a day if need be.”

“Certainly, sir,” said Coggins. “I think Plymouth will have what they need. What more may I do?”

Gareth crossed his arms over his chest and considered his next words. “Mr. Kemble has a theory about the fire,” he finally said. “He thinks Mr. Metcaff may have returned to the neighborhood. Have you any knowledge of that?”

Coggins looked alarmed. “Heavens no, Your Grace,” he answered. “That is disturbing indeed. I shall make inquiries amongst the staff.”

Slowly, Gareth nodded. “Yes, do that,” he responded, letting his arms fall. “If anyone has seen or heard anything of Metcaff, I want you to inform Kemble at once.”

Coggins nodded. Gareth thanked him and turned to go, but at the last instant, the butler spoke again. “Your Grace, if I might have a word? A…a rather frank word?”

Gareth turned back around. “By all means, Coggins,” he answered. “I hope we are beyond walking on eggshells around here.”

Coggins clasped his hands behind him. “It—well, it is about the fire, Your Grace,” he began. The butler was not a man much given to emotion, but today he looked oddly pained. “Not about the fire, per se, but the…the writing which was found?”

Slowly, Gareth nodded. “Yes, what of it?”

Coggins looked at him plaintively. “I know, sir, that I speak for all the staff in saying—well, in saying that no one really cares, sir, if you are a…a Jewish person.”

Gareth managed to smile. “Thank you, Coggins. That is good to know.”

“And no one here would have written those words, Your Grace,” Coggins solemnly continued. “The staff is very happy to work for you, and pleased to see the many improvements which are being made to the estate. Indeed, Mr. Watson says you are quite a genius. Truly, sir, Metcaff was the only real rabble-rouser, and we believed, of course, that he was gone. So…that’s it, sir. That is what the staff wished me to say. We are all so deeply sorry for what happened.”

Gareth set a hand on the man’s shoulder. “I thought as much, Coggins, when everyone turned up in their nightclothes to haul water last night,” he said. “But thank you for saying so.”

Again, he turned to go, then thought better of it. “And Coggins?”

“Yes, Your Grace?”

“Just for the record, I was confirmed in the same place as most everyone else here at Selsdon,” he said. “At St. Alban’s, to be specific. I recall it vividly. I was eleven.”

Coggins looked surprised.

Gareth hesitated for a moment. “My mother was a Jew,” he said. “Her parents were forced from their homes in Bohemia when they were young and fled to England in hope of a better life. I was deeply fond of them and proud of their piety. But for good or ill, I am just like everyone else around here. And if things ever settle down, I might actually shock them all speechless and turn up one Sunday for services.”

Coggins looked a little embarrassed. “Then we should be pleased indeed to see you there, Your Grace.”

Suddenly, a racket sounded in the carriage drive. Coggins went to his narrow window, which overlooked the front steps. “Why, I believe it is your friend Baron Rothewell, Your Grace. Were you expecting him?”

“Lord, no.” Gareth followed him to the window and looked out over Coggins’s shoulder. It was indeed Rothewell leaping down from his glossy black high-perch phaeton. “Poor devil,” Gareth muttered. “He really is quite desperate.”

Coggins looked up. “Desperate, sir?”

Gareth smiled faintly. “His sister recently married,” he said. “Now Lord Rothewell does not know what to do with himself. He has no one to quarrel with over dinner. Why else would he come back?”

A few minutes later, Rothewell was being shown into Gareth’s study. Kemble was already there, seated at the small writing desk and scratching out some sort of document. He did not look especially surprised to see Rothewell.

Gareth rang for coffee, then took one of the wide armchairs which flanked the hearth.

“Well, it looks as though there’s been some excitement here.” Rothewell stretched his long, booted legs out before him and made himself look entirely at ease. “The back of your carriage house has soot-blackened holes where some of its windows should be. What the hell happened?”

Kemble laid down his pen with a snap. “I was just making some notes on that little fiasco for our justice of the peace,” he said tartly. “We had a rogue footman exacting a little revenge, it would now appear.”

Gareth turned in his chair. “Are we certain of that?”

“It is as good as proven,” said Kemble with a sniff. “That rheumy stable boy of yours? He heard some racket in the tack room two days ago. He crawled out of his sickbed long enough to peek through the door. Metcaff was rifling the cupboards—looking for red paint and turpentine, I don’t doubt.”

“Good God!” said Gareth. “And the boy did nothing?”

Kemble reclined gracefully in his chair. “And the boy did nothing,” he echoed, opening his hands. “Now, in his defense—a slender reed though it may be—he was sick, and he had a snootful of Osborne’s infamous cough remedy. Care to guess what’s in it?”

Gareth could only groan.

“Perhaps we ought to go looking for the bastard?” Rothewell offered, rather too cheerfully. “The footman, I mean.”

“Oh, you really
must
be bored.” Kemble gave one of his dismissive hand tosses. “Don’t bother looking. Metcaff has already been spotted over in West Widding. Mr. Laudrey will have him under arrest”—Kemble pulled out what looked like a solid gold pocket-watch—“oh, right about luncheon, I daresay.”

“And then what will happen?” asked Gareth.

“A swift trial and a quick hanging—unless you wish to intervene,” said Kemble a little mordantly. “Perhaps you’d like to press for transportation to Australia? The man is, after all, your own blood kin.”

Rothewell was looking confused. “Yes, Metcaff’s the by-blow, is he not? How did he come to be involved in all this murder and whatnot?”

“In Warneham’s death, do you mean?” Kemble’s dramatic black eyebrows went up a notch. “That, I begin to believe, is a lot more
not
than
what—
though it’s the
why,
frankly, that I cannot quite make out.”

“I beg your pardon?” said Rothewell.

“Metcaff didn’t kill anyone, I am quite sure,” said Kemble impatiently. “He is completely innocent of that, if nothing else.”

Just then, one of the footmen came in with the coffee. Gareth gladly began to pour. “So, Rothewell,” he said, casually passing a cup, “what brings you back? Surely our little contretemps cannot compare to the excitement of London?”

“Actually,” said Rothewell, “I have come at the behest of the Vicomte de Vendenheim and his friends at the Home Office.”

“Have you indeed?” Kemble was up from the desk in a flash and swishing his way around the furniture. “Well, why didn’t you say so? This must be delicious!”

Rothewell looked at Kemble a little charily. “It is just that de Vendenheim wished me to convey some information he was not comfortable putting in writing,” he said. “Though it makes dashed little sense to me.”

Kemble’s eyes were alight. “What has happened to Max? Why didn’t he come himself?”

Rothewell looked vaguely uncomfortable. “I collect his twins had the chicken pox,” the baron reported. “Besides, I drive faster.”

“It sounds as if something exciting must have happened,” said Gareth.

“Well, in part, it is more about what
didn’t
happen,” said Rothewell. “He said I was to tell you that Lord Litting was avoiding him, and that he’d had no success running him to ground. He said you would understand what he meant.”

Gareth felt the excitement wane. “Oh, that,” he said. “Yes, Litting already came down here in a fit of pique. Accused us of setting our hounds on him. We didn’t get much more out of him, I’m afraid.”

“It doesn’t matter,” said the baron. “De Vendenheim went to see the barrister, Sir Harold Somebody-or-other.”

“Indeed?” Kemble sat down, his eyes widening. “And did he talk?”

“Jabbered like a magpie, as I understand it.” Rothewell paused to sip his coffee. “Apparently, de Vendenheim invoked Peel’s name, and that did the trick.”

“So?” said Kemble breathlessly. “Out with it. What did he say?”

Rothewell’s gaze turned inward. “I’ll tell it to you as best I can,” he said. “It is quite an amazing story—but de Vendenheim wouldn’t let me write anything down.”

“Well, get it straight,” snapped Kemble. “Leave nothing out.”

The baron’s eyes flashed with ire, but his temper held. “This Sir Harold fellow said the Duke of Warneham asked him down here to discuss a touchy legal situation,” said Rothewell. “The whole story was couched, I gather, in mights and maybes, but the gist of it was that Warneham hinted that he had made a Gretna Green marriage in his youth—this was prior to his inheriting the dukedom—and he wanted this barrister to explain the ramifications of the marriage.”

“What do you mean,
hinted
?” asked Gareth. “And why was he confessing such a thing now?”

Rothewell’s broad shoulders rose. “He said he was in his cups, and may have done it on a lark,” said the baron. “The barrister thought he was lying about that part, for what it’s worth. Anyway, Warneham wanted to know what the punishment would be if he confessed publicly.”

“Punishment for what?” asked Gareth. “Eloping to Gretna Green was thought scandalous, but it was hardly illegal.”

“No, not punishment for eloping.” Kemble had slid to the edge of his chair. “Punishment for bigamy—
that
is what he meant, wasn’t it, Rothewell? The man married four other women
that we knew of.
That could mean four bigamous marriages, depending on how long his Gretna Green bride lived. And he was going to own up to
that
?”