“You already tried coercion,” Westhaven shot back, “and it’s only because Gwen Allen is a decent human being her relations haven’t ruined us completely in retaliation for your failed schemes. I am ashamed to be your son and worse than ashamed to be your heir. You embarrass me, and I wish to hell I could disinherit you, because if I don’t find you a damned broodmare, I’ve every expectation you will disinherit me.”
“Gayle!” His mother was on her feet, her expression horror-stricken. “Please, for the love of God, apologize. His Grace did not have Mrs. Seaton investigated.”
“Esther…” His Grace tried to get words out, but his wife had eyes only for her enraged son.
“He most certainly did,” Westhaven bit out. “Up to his old tricks, just as he was with Gwen and with Elise and with God knows how many hapless debutantes and scheming widows. I am sick to death of it, Mother, and this is the last straw.”
“Esther,” His Grace tried again.
“Hush, Percy,” the duchess said miserably, still staring at her son. “His Grace did not have your Mrs. Seaton investigated.” She paused and dropped Westhaven’s gaze. “I did.”
“Esther,” the duke gasped as he dropped like a stone onto a sofa. “For the love of God, help me.”
“He was working for some London toff,” Eustace Cheevers informed his employer. “His name was Benjamin Hazlit, and he does a lot of quiet work for the Quality down in Town. He never discloses his employers by name, but it’s somebody high up.”
“Titled?” the Earl of Helmsley asked, mouth tight.
“Most like.” Cheevers nodded. “Folk down south distinguish between themselves more. A fellow who works for the titles wouldn’t want work from the cits or the squires or the nabobs. Hazlit’s offices are top of the trees, his cattle prime, and his tailor only the best. I’d say a title, yes.”
“That pretty much narrows it to Mayfair, doesn’t it?” The earl’s tone was condescending, as if any damned fool might reach such a conclusion.
“Not necessarily,” Cheevers said. “There’s a regular infestation of money and titles in Mayfair itself, but the surrounds are not so shabby, and there are other decent neighborhoods with quieter money.”
An earl worthy of the title would have spent some time in Town, Cheevers thought, keeping his expression completely deferential. But this young sprig—well, this not quite middle-aged sprig—had obviously never acquired his Town bronze. Pockets to let, Cheevers thought with an inward sigh. The word around York was to get paid in advance if Helmsley offered you his custom.
It hadn’t been like that when the old earl was alive. The estate had been radiant with flowers, the women happy, and the bills always paid. Now, most of the gardeners had been let go, and the walls had bleached spots where valuable paintings had once hung. The drive was unkempt, the fences sagging, the fountains dry, and nobody had seen the dowager countess going about since she’d suffered an apoplexy more than two years ago. Where the granddaughters had got off to was anybody’s guess.
“So that’s the extent of what you’ve learned?” Helmsley rose, his tone disdainful. “You can tell me the man’s name and that he’s a professional investigator with wealthy clients? Nothing more.”
“It’s in the file.” Cheevers stood. “You will have his address, the names of those with whom he spoke, what they told him, and so forth. I don’t gather he learned much of significance, as people tend to be leery of Town fribbles up here.”
“That they do.” Helmsley nodded, his expression turning crafty. Cheevers considered the earl and wondered what the man was plotting, as it boded ill for someone. Helmsley had the look of man who could have been handsome. He had height, patrician features, and thick dark hair showing only the barest hint of gray. Cheevers, expert at summing people up, put Helmsley in his early thirties. The man looked older, however, as the signs of excessive fondness for both the grape and rich foods were beginning to show.
Helmsley’s nose was becoming bulbous and striated with spider veins. His middle was soft, his reactions slow. Most telling of all, Cheevers, thought, there was a mean, haunted look in the man’s gray eyes that labeled him as a cheat and a bully.
Good riddance, Cheevers concluded as he showed himself out. There were some accounts that even the thriftiest Yorkshireman’s son was happy to close.
Thirteen
“WELL?”
Wilberforce Hammond James, ninth Earl of Helmsley, carefully composed his features before turning to face the man who’d thrust open the interior door to the study. He did not face a pretty sight. Hedley Arbuthnot, Baron Stull, was nearly as round as he was tall, and he wasn’t exactly short.
Worse, he was untidy. His cravat showed evidence of the chicken he’d consumed at lunch, the wine with which he’d washed down the chicken, and the snuff with which he’d settled his understandably rebellious stomach. That stomach, Helmsley knew, was worked incessantly.
But Stull, who was at least ten years Helmsley’s senior, had two qualities that appealed, despite his appearance, lack of couth, and tendency to flatulence. First, he was free with his coin when in pursuit of his own ends, and second, he was as determined as a bulldog.
“Well, what?” Helmsley flicked an imaginary speck of lint from his sleeve.
“Where are the girls?”
“Mayfair,” Helmsley said, praying it was true.
“Best get packing then,” Stull said, sniffing like a canine catching the scent of prey. “To Mayfair it is.”
“He’s been gone for hours.”
Anna stopped pacing and pinned her gaze on Dev, whom she’d accurately assessed as the more softhearted brother. Val was sensitive and perceptive but had learned as his sisters’ favored escort to keep some perspective around emotional women.
“He said we weren’t to hold meals for him,” Dev reasoned. “Meals, Anna, plural. Not just luncheon. He might have gone to talk with His Grace’s investigator or taken Pericles for a romp.”
“He romped Pericles this morning, when it was cooler,” Anna pointed out. “I liked you better when you weren’t trying to turn me up sweet.”
“I’ll go to the mansion and find out what’s what,” Val said. “When His Grace and Westhaven go at it, they are usually loud, ugly, and to the point. Anna’s right—it shouldn’t be taking this long.”
He shot Dev a sympathetic glance but knew his brother would not have offered to investigate. Dev did not show up at the ducal mansion uninvited or unexpected, and Val wasn’t about to ask him to break that tradition now.
The library door opened, and Westhaven strode in, surprising all three occupants.
“What’s wrong?” Dev asked. “Don’t tell me His Grace got the better of you.”
“Well, he did,” Westhaven said, going straight for the whiskey decanter, pouring one drink, knocking it back, and pouring another.
“Westhaven?” Val asked cautiously. But it was to Anna the earl spoke.
“For once,” he said, “His Grace was blameless. You were investigated by a man named Benjamin Hazlit, who is legendarily thorough and legendarily discreet. He was on the Moreland payroll, but at my mother’s request, not the duke’s. I did not become aware of this until I had shouted dear Papa down with every obscene expression of my petty, selfish frustrations with him. I ranted, I raved, I shouted, and I told him…”