Tenacious Trents 03 - A Reluctant Rake (7 page)

Matthew pulled away from where he was
standing. “Is there something you wish to speak with me about? It
must be very important since you are still wearing the same
clothing from last night, and you haven’t shaved since sometime
yesterday.”

Jordan brought a hand to his face. The
scruff was rough against the tips of his fingers. He had left Lady
Rothsbury’s and gone straight to the Inns of Court where he had
spent a better part of the day in the extensive library and talking
to colleagues about inheritance laws and how to remove a guardian.
It would be no easy task but if someone else wasn’t put in charge
of the young Lord Rothsbury’s holdings, there wouldn’t be anything
left by the time the boy reached his majority. Though guardians
were prohibited from using funds in trust for their own purpose, it
still happened often enough and rarely was a gentleman punished for
his behavior. Jordan could not stand by and do nothing. However, as
soon as he was done with this visit he intended to go home and get
some sleep. His eyes burned and were scratchy from having been
awake for over a day. But, he knew he would not find rest until he
had answers.

“Is everything alright?” Matthew asked
and Jordan realized he had not answered his brother’s
question.

“Yes,” he shook his head and moved to
take a seat. “I am tired is all.”

“Well, if you didn’t stay out all
night, doing whatever it is you do.” His brother hitched an eyebrow
in speculation but Jordan chose to ignore it. “You would be
presentable now.”

“I was working,” Jordan admitted a
moment later.

“Solicitors must work through the night
now?” Grace inquired with a mischievous twinkle in her
eye.

“When one is helping save an
inheritance, yes.” That was all he would say. Jordan would never
discuss his clients or the work he did for anyone except in the
most general of terms. If one couldn’t trust their solicitor,
lawyer or barrister to keep one’s secrets then nobody could be
trusted, except perhaps a minister. Though Jordan knew plenty of
solicitors who didn’t hesitate to discuss cases and people when
speaking with others at the Inns, he was just not one of
them.

A maid entered a moment later with a
new pot and saucer. “Cook brewed some coffee after Wallace said you
looked as if you needed something stronger than tea.”

Jordan gave the girl his most
appreciative smile. “You are such a dear, always seeing to my
comforts.”

The young woman’s face grew
crimson.

She was a pretty young thing and if he
were the type of gentleman who pursued young maids, this one would
certainly take his mind off of Audrey Montgomery.

“Keep your attention away from my
maids,” Matthew warned.

The young woman bobbed a curtsey and
quickly left the room. Jordan reached forward and poured a cup of
coffee before settling back with a deep sigh.

“What is so important that you had to
see me before getting some rest?” Matthew asked.

Jordan chuckled. “It is not you I wish
to see.” He grinned at his sister-in-law. “But Grace.”

Matthew frowned.

“How can I help?” Grace asked
brightly.

“How well and how long have you known
Miss Audrey Montgomery?”

Matthew stiffened and looked between
Jordan and his wife. “I don’t think I’ve ever known you to ask
about a proper lady. Are you sure you are feeling the thing? Did
someone hit you on the head?”

Jordan shot his brother a look. “If you
will not remain silent, or at least helpful, you can leave the
room.”

Matthew laughed and took a seat,
crossing his legs and arms as he got comfortable. “Oh no, this is
too rare of a moment to be missed. I know you prefer the company of
whor… um… more experienced, or mature ladies, and never
thought I would see the day where you asked about an innocent
miss.” Matt’s grin widened. “Especially one who detests
you.”

If he weren’t so tired, Jordan would
wipe the smirk off of his brother’s face. Sometimes he missed the
pious vicar. At least that brother would have been encouraging him
because it led away from his sinful lifestyle. And what would Matt
know about Miss Montgomery’s feelings? Had she said something to
him?

Grace shot her husband a look. “Jordan
is here for assistance. I insist you don’t taunt him,” she
chastised and received a scowl from her husband. “He may leave and
I will never get to learn what this is about.”

“There isn’t anything to tell,” Jordan
insisted. “I simply wish to know how well you know Miss
Montgomery.”

Grace sighed happily. “I’ve known
Audrey since before I can remember. She, Millicent, that is Lady
Lydell now, and I were friends growing up.”

Had Miss Montgomery hounded him as Lady
Lydell had, perhaps he wouldn’t be as interested in her now. Not
that he would have ever been interested in Lydell’s wife. “Then
perhaps you could explain why Miss Montgomery, as Matt put so well,
detests me.”

Grace tilted her head and studied him.
“Why don’t you tell me what happened last spring?”

He leaned back and stared at her. “I
don’t know.” Jordan pushed his fingers through his hair in
frustration. At least Grace seemed to know something, but how much
was the question.

She frowned up at him. “You
don’t?”

“If I did, I wouldn’t be asking,” he
ground out.

“Oh dear.”

“What?”

“I don’t know what happened either. I
just know you did something because Audrey doesn’t like you very
well.”

Jordan blew out a breath. “Has she said
so specifically?”

Grace winced.

It couldn’t be that bad, could it?
“Exactly what did she say?”

His sister-in-law began picking
imaginary pieces of lint from her rose skirt. “She simply doesn’t
care for you.”

If she couldn’t look him in the eye,
then Miss Montgomery’s opinion must not have been scathing. “Do you
recall her exact words?”

A blush stained Grace’s cheeks and she
looked to Matthew for help, as if his brother would offer to
shelter Jordan from whatever words she would impart, or tell him
for her.

Matthew nodded for her to
continue.

Grace looked down again.
“
She said you were arrogant, a reprobate,
and all around scoundrel and if she never met you again it would be
too soon.” She winced and glanced up. “She called you a lothario to
your face that day in the dining room.”

He recalled that moment well as Miss
Montgomery also tried to smack him at the same time. “But she
didn’t explain why she felt this way?” her prodded.

She looked up at him and shrugged. “No
and I didn’t think to ask.”

Jordan raced up the stairs to the
Brachton town home, arriving late. But if one thought about it, he
was actually early. The dinner party wasn’t to begin yet but he’d
received a summons that he was needed an hour before the other
guests. That message had arrived while he was still dressing for
the evening so he couldn’t really be blamed for his tardiness,
could he?

The door opened just as he reached it,
held by a sprightly old man, his white hair sticking out in all
different directions, as if the man had no control of the wiry
mass. Jordan didn’t recognize the servant. “Where is
Dougal?”

“He stayed in Scotland,” the man, no
taller than Jordan’s shoulder, answered.

“And you are?”

“Fergus.” The man held out his hand.
“Yer hat.”

Jordan handed his beaver hat over to
the man. He would need to ask Brachton why Dougal hadn’t returned
to London with him. Where Brachton was, Dougal was usually not far
away, presumably as his valet but often butler, though never quite
acting the servant.

“Lord Brachton and his wife are in the
library.” The man turned and left without bothering to show him the
way, or requesting his name. Jordan shouldn’t be surprised;
Brachton’s household had always been a bit odd.

Voices drew him to the parlor. There
were more people here than his sister and brother-in-law. Had
Madeline changed the time on her dinner party? Even though she
didn’t have much experience planning such events, she knew that to
change the time so close to the event could upset anyone’s
schedule.

When he stepped in the room, he
realized that the only people present were his siblings and their
spouses. Did Madeline simply want a family gathering before her
dinner?

“I am glad you could make it, Jordan,”
Madeline greeted him. “Though you’re a bit late.”

“You didn’t give me much warning,” he
reminded her.

Brachton pushed a glass of whisky into
his hand and Jordan nodded his thanks. Nobody in the room appeared
very happy and Rose, his step-mother wasn’t here. His heart seized.
Had something happened to her? “What is wrong?”

A few glances were exchanged and others
shrugged.

“John wanted everyone gathered,”
Madeline offered.

Jordan looked to his youngest
brother.

“He wouldna tell us anythin’,” Brachton
said as he turned toward John, who stood beside Elizabeth, his
wife.

John walked across the room, shut the
door and leaned against it, his face grim. “We’ve tracked Adele and
Julia to London.”

The room was completely silent and
Jordan’s mind churned over the ramifications of anyone learning
Adele was alive.

What would Adele tell anyone, if she
decided to return to society? She had been gone twenty-three years,
along with Julia, her daughter and Jordan’s half-sister. The world,
or at least those in society, thought Adele and Julia died when
their carriage went over the side of a bridge. Nobody, outside
those in this room, and Rose, his current step-mother knew the
truth, which was that Adele had taken Julia and was running away
from her husband, who happened to be Jordan’s father, and that his
father had managed to arrange the wreckage and tell everyone they
had died all the while knowing the truth.

The man even sent funds into Paris,
where Adele had escaped for sixteen years, until Julia was
eighteen. That is when Father decided he wanted his daughter back
to arrange a marriage to a wealthy, aging lord. Jordan still didn’t
know how his father planned on explaining Julia’s presence after so
much time, especially after his father married Rose a year after
Adele supposedly died and fathered Madeline a year
later.

Until last spring, Jordan and his
brothers also thought they were dead, until Bentley inherited after
his father’s death and came across documents in the desk. Since, at
least one brother had been trying to track them down. Several times
they thought the two had been found from Paris to Italy to Scotland
to Ireland, but either the description didn’t match exactly or they
disappeared.

Jordan inwardly groaned.
The
ton
would
gossip about this for months and Rose would be ruined as her
marriage was never legal, even though she hadn’t known it at the
time, and the same circumstances left Madeline a bastard. At least
Brachton didn’t care what side of the blanket his wife had been
born on, but it would not be easy for any of them. This also could
have an effect on his career and potential marital options, though
Jordan was more concerned with his step-mother and Madeline at the
moment. They would receive the brunt of the gossip and possibly
have doors shut in their faces. Unfortunately, society may be too
narrow-minded to realize that those two had been duped along with
everyone else and paint dear, sweet Rose as a… He shook the thought
away. Jordan didn’t even want to think of the names Rose could be
called.

“Where are they?” he asked since nobody
else said a word. If anything, he would escort the two quietly out
of town. He had enough funds to pay them off and keep them
comfortable for years to come in some place like America. Jordan
would become a pauper before he let those two ruin Rose and
Madeline’s lives. Why else would they be here? They lived well
enough on the continent all of these years. Why return now? The
only thing that had changed was that father was dead.