He took David’s note from his pocket and unfolded it. The arrogance of it had infuriated him, but until he saw the woman in the Holly Lane house, Marcus had really thought, deep down, that it was a joke. He held the letter to the window.
Dearest brother
—
Many thanks for your note reminding me of my numerous failings. You have awakened my sense of responsibility, and I shall try to be more aware of such things. In fact, since we brothers must look out for each other at all times, I have taken the lib-
erty of remedying one small oversight of yours. As you have not yet seen to the task of getting a duchess, I have found one for you. Apply to the vicar of Middleborough for details. I look forward to receiving your thanks when I return to town.
Yours ever, DR
Marcus threw the letter on top of the register. It had been a punishing ride to Middleborough and back, and his eyes burned from lack of sleep. Only fury was keeping him moving at this point: fury at a vicar who shook his hand and inquired after his bride, fury at a woman who told him to leave his own house, fury at a brother who could do this to him. It had been a long time since Marcus truly regretted having a twin. David’s previous pranks had been limited to tricking creditors into transferring his debts to Marcus, and that time at Oxford when he had tried to pass as Marcus to avoid being sent down. Marcus had promised to cut his throat if he ever tried it again, and David hadn’t, until now.
He wished David had at least had the courtesy to choose someone obviously impossible, who would realize her proper place and be glad to go back to it. Instead David found a woman who already had all the self-confidence and bearing of a duchess, just above medium height with glossy black curls, snapping blue eyes, and a full mouth that Marcus might have found appealing under different circumstances. As it was, he had to get rid of her and have the register altered before anyone else got wind of this.
The carriage stopped in front of Exeter House, and the footman swept open the door. Marcus unfolded himself from the seat, collecting the register and letter. The buder bowed as he strode through the door, the footman took his gloves as he removed them, and another servant was waiting for his hat. They operated in silent efficiency, the way Marcus preferred things, and he was turning toward the stairs when the butler broke protocol. He cleared his throat.
“Your Grace, Lady Willoughby is here.” Marcus turned and looked at the butler. Harper bowed his head and waited.
“Was she told I was at home?”
“No, Your Grace. She insisted on waiting.” Marcus waited. The butler bowed lower. “I shall tell her you are not at home for the rest of the day.” Marcus inclined his head, and turned to go. Harper knew he didn’t like people waiting for him when he returned home. He was halfway through the cavernous hall when the drawing room door opened with a resounding crash.
“How dare you!” cried Susannah, Lady Willoughby, in a dramatic tone. Marcus stopped, leveling a cool stare at her. God, he hated female theatrics. She crossed the hall with smooth, measured steps, her narrow skirts clinging to her legs. She came to a halt within arm’s reach, drew back her hand, and slapped him full across the face.
“How dare you do this to me!” she hissed at close range. “You lying, arrogant, manipulating scoundrel!”
Marcus was glad he hadn’t promised her anything. She had handed him the perfect excuse to get out of the assumptions she had drawn and he had not corrected. “Then I bid you good day, madam,” he said coolly, turning on his heel.
“Exeter! Wait!” she screeched, flinging herself at him. “How could you? After all we’ve meant to each other—to find out like this—I’m humiliated in front of all society!” She pressed her face, and her breasts, into his arm and sobbed, her hands like an iron band around his wrist
“And you decided to make a spectacle of yourself in front of my servants as well? I fail to see how that improves your situation.” He had a sinking feeling he knew what she had found out, and wanted to know how.
She shoved away from him, her bosom heaving. “It was in the
Times
, of all places,” she went on in the same tragic voice. “Everyone will know that I won’t be your duchess. How can I hold my head up? How can you expect me to suffer this?”
“I myself never knew you were to be my duchess,” said Marcus in clipped tones. “How, I wonder, did the rest of London know it?” She jerked backward, a flash of dismay in her eyes. “Perhaps you were indiscreet, and rash, in telling your friends of your hopes, for that is all they ever were. I make no apologies, for I made no promises to break.”
“You’re cold,” she said under her breath. “You’ve ice in your veins, just as everyone says. I never would have taken you to my bed if you hadn’t been Exeter.”
“And I never would have gone had you not made it so freely available,” he returned just as quietly. “Good day.” He walked away, and Susannah shrieked at the buder to fetch her carriage. Marcus waved aside the footman who held open the study door and went to the desk where the newspaper lay. He spread it open and flipped though the pages until he found the announcement. David had made his little prank public. Marcus swore; a retraction would be almost as humiliating as this, and generate even more gossip, but a retraction he would get as soon as the woman was gone.
He dropped into his chair and rubbed one hand over his face. At least there was one side benefit: Susannah was out of his hands. Everyone in town knew of their affair, but she had crossed the line when she began spreading rumors of their impending engagement. Marcus never knew what on earth possessed women to try trickery to get a husband. First Susannah, then this Hannah Preston. Surely neither one had actually expected to end as the duchess of Exeter.
If only he hadn’t gone into Kent for a few days to see those thoroughbreds. If only his secretary hadn’t fallen ill and left all the work to that idiot Adams, who neglected to pass on Walters’s message that David was at Holly Lane. Then he might have nipped this disaster in the bud, prevented the announcement in the
Times
, and caught up with David before he vanished from sight.
As he sat plotting a variety of bad ends for his brother, there came a quiet tap at the door. “Yes?” he growled.
Harper appeared in the doorway. “Mr. Timms, Your Grace.”
Marcus closed his eyes and waved one hand in grudging assent. Harper left, and a moment later a bluff hearty gentleman who looked nothing like his timid name came in. “Well, Exeter, I would have thought you had your plate full. Congratulations are in order, I suppose.”
Marcus opened his eyes to glare at the man. Timms, damn him, just chuckled. “I would prefer, Timms, that my private affairs remain private.”
“Well! Ought not to publish them in the
Times
, then.” Timms caught sight of the paper open on the desk and smirked. “I take it your investigations of Lady Willoughby are complete, then. I saw her leave, and she seemed rather displeased.”
“She was never going to be pleased, at least not in the manner of her choosing.” Marcus got to his feet, subtly taking charge. “But essentially, yes, my investigations were complete. She knows nothing, and cares for nothing beyond her own comfort. The money could be printed on tea leaves and she wouldn’t notice.”
“She’s been used, then.”
Marcus nodded. “I believe so. She hasn’t the intelligence to conceive of a plan of this scope herself.”
Timms sighed. “I don’t know if I should be pleased or not. It would have been so nice to find the culprit.”
Marcus shrugged. “Keep looking. Susannah Willoughby’s not the only one who’s been passing counterfeit notes.” It occurred to him to find out if Hannah Preston had received any money from David, but he kept the thought to himself. Timms and the other bank directors had promised David would not face punishment if he were involved in the alarming amount of counterfeit money that had been circulating in London lately, but Marcus wouldn’t go out of his way to incriminate his brother. David had done a fine job of avoiding him for the last few weeks, which was not unusual, but in these circumstances it was somewhat alarming.
“I suppose we’ve no other choice.” Timms looked at the newspaper again. “I’ll leave you to it, then. Good day, Exeter.”
Marcus nodded curtly. When Timms had gone, he went around his desk and unlocked the cabinet behind it. He took out a slim file and opened it, arranging some pages on his desk. Drawing up the chair, he studied his notes.
First, he could mark off Susannah. Marcus made some notes next to her name, just as glad to eliminate her as a suspect as he was to lose her as a lover. He hadn’t meant to have an affair with her, although once she proposed it, he had seen the advantages. Marcus didn’t waste a moment on guilt over his ulterior motive; she had one as well, to judge from her visit this morning.
But if she weren’t producing the banknotes—and Marcus was quite sure of that—where had she gotten them? His eyes moved over the paper, where more than two dozen names were arranged in clusters. Some of them had exculpatory comments, some incriminating, but only one name on the paper concerned Marcus: David Reece, written squarely in the middle of the page. Every other name on the paper could be linked to David, many entirely too closely. No one had any direct evidence David himself had been passing false notes, but a large number of his friends and associates had been doing so, and Marcus disliked a coincidence that glaring.
But the penalty for counterfeiting was death, or, for the upper classes, transportation. Regardless of David’s personal failings, Marcus couldn’t stand by while his brother faced that. Timms, acting on intuition and the complaints of his wife’s brother, who had gambled with David only to find himself left with a handful of fraudulent banknotes, had come to Marcus and offered him a deal. If Marcus would use his influence and position to find the counterfeiter and put an end to his business, Timms would see David bore no public consequences for any role in the scheme. Marcus agreed, preferring to deal with David on his own. As he always had.
He went over the list of other suspects. Everyone on the list moved in the upper ranks of society; the forged notes had been passed at some of the finest establishments in London. Everyone had some connection to David: friends, school mates, former lovers. otherwise there were no common factors, at least none Marcus had seen so far. All of them had been linked to the counterfeit money, aldiough Marcus was sure many had had no idea. Whoever was printing the false notes was terribly good at it.
But if David were behind the scheme, how? Marcus had searched David’s town house from top to bottom, taking advantage of his brother’s absence and underpaid servants, and found nothing. Of course a man would be an idiot to print money in his own sitting room, but Marcus hadn’t found so much as a smudge of ink. The servants had told him nothing useful, except that David continued to spend as much as ever, but not more. The wine cellar was still full, the deliveries from the butcher still came weekly. Marcus had watched David’s every move for over three months, looking into everything from the contretemps over Lady Barlow to David’s change of tailor. There was nothing even remotely noteworthy.
And yet, Marcus just sensed David had a part in this. His brother had grown more reckless of late, more careless than ever of his reputation. Lady Barlow had been only the most conspicuous indiscretion. Marcus replaced the pen and sighed. He had hoped David’s absence from town would help matters. He had hoped the stream of forged money would continue unchecked. That would be a mark in David’s favor. But as far as Marcus could tell, the supply had diminished to damning levels.
At least now he knew where David had been, and what he had been up to. Was the Preston woman an attempt to divert his quiet investigations, or simply revenge for Marcus’s banishing him from London? The latter meant nothing to Marcus—she would be gone in the morning anyway—but the former possibility worried him. David wasn’t stupid, and could have become suspicious. It was possible the woman was meant to distract him. It was hard enough to shadow David without his knowledge. It would probably be impossible if he were aware of it.
He never considered just asking David. His brother reacted with violent affront to any suggestion of judgment, and since Marcus devoudy hoped David would be completely absolved in the end, he saw no point in bringing it up. Besides, he knew David, and knew that the worse the trouble was, the less likely his brother was to tell the truth about it If he asked, David would deny it, and Marcus would still have to prove it to himself.
He rose and went to pour a drink. First he must deal with this Preston woman. She appeared to be a common country maid; a large enough settlement, and she would leave. The notice in the
Times
would attract some attention, but if no bride could be found and Marcus accused the paper of mistaking the matter, the gossip would blow over quickly.
He hoped.
Hannah had intended to leave on her own, and Walters hadn’t said that the plain carriage that came wasn’t the one she had asked him to get. Only when the door was shut did she realize that it was far too luxurious to be a hired vehicle. She rapped on the driver’s door, but got no response. Her worst fears were confirmed when the carriage halted in front of a monstrous mansion and a liveried footman let down the steps. With no other choice, Hannah took Molly’s hand and let the servant march them inside, simmering with anger.
It was the largest building she had ever seen. The ceiling soared three floors above, its frescoed surface as distant and as beautiful as heaven. The floor was a milky veined stone Hannah decided must be marble, and it went on forever. The servant left them standing there alone, and Hannah hated the owner of this beautiful home more than ever. She would never have left a guest standing by the door, let alone kidnap someone and force them to call on her.
“Mama?” Molly’s whisper echoed around the hall. “Where are we?” Her eyes were wide and round, and
Missy was clutched close to her chest Hannah squeezed her hand.