The Bluestocking Page 3

  “He has not.”

  Runners had been set up at each station, monitoring the boy’s . . . his son’s movements. Nay, monitoring the movements of those rotted street rats. “That will be all.”

  The man who’d served as his butler these past years made to leave, but not before he shot a pointed glance over the heads of Edwin’s in-laws, his meaning clearer than had the offer been spoken: if Edwin so wished it, Marlow would see the pair tossed out on their arses, titles of “duke” and “duchess” be damned. Edwin gave a near-imperceptible shake of his head.

  Marlow nodded and, with a final look at the pair of visitors, backed from the room.

  The minute the door had clicked shut behind him, the duchess launched into another diatribe. “We told her you were a damned fool, and you continue to prove us correct. Trusting those people to send your son safely on?”

  Her husband harrumphed his support. “A father has a responsibility to defend and protect his children.”

  “As you were so skilled at protecting Lavinia from me?” he jeered.

  The color bled from His Grace’s cheeks. “Bastard,” he whispered. “I should have called you out. Charles should have.” The ducal heir . . . and also August’s godfather. “All those years he insisted that you were respectable. A loyal friend. And what did you do? Get his sister killed.”

  Yet another vicious arrow found its mark, square in his chest. “Get out.” Edwin clipped that command out and leveled them with the same glower that had sent servants scurrying in the opposite direction.

  The duke’s monocle slipped from his fingers and twisted in a forlorn back-and-forth dance, and with his Adam’s apple bobbing, he jumped up with the speed of a man half his years.

  His wife scowled up at him. “Tremaine,” she snapped in an impressive display of resilience.

  When the duke only gave a shake of his head, her frown deepened. “Well, I am staying. I won’t be run off by this monster.” At last she turned her attention back to Edwin. “I will see my grandson and . . .” Her words trailed off as her gaze met his.

  She paled.

  It was “the look.” The one he’d perfected over the years in an effort that had come too easily. Everything he was . . . any hint of emotion within him . . . had perished in the blaze with his wife and unborn babe. Regardless of station, men, women, children—they could all recognize madness, and every animal knew to run. Knew that flight was safer than interacting with one such as Edwin.

  “You were . . . saying?” Edwin dared her with his eyes to continue.

  With fingers that shook, she used the arms of her chair as leverage to push to her feet. “We are not done h-here.” That warning was effectively ruined by the quaver to that last syllable.

  “Ah.” He stretched that word out. “But you see”—he spread his arms wide—“we are. You expected you could shred my reputation, seek to see me hang for the murder of . . .” Lavinia. My wife. He struggled to get either out. A word. A sound. Anything. “Your daughter,” he at last managed, that slightly divorced connection between his once young bride and her unflinchingly derisive parents far easier. “And you thought there should be no consequences? That I would turn the other cheek and allow you time with my son, poisoning him against me?” As they had so effortlessly managed amongst the ton.

  Through each word leveled, Her Grace’s tall, regal frame became more rigid.

  A man mindless with grief, he’d been forced to contend with the venom they’d spread throughout London. Edwin smirked. “For all that . . . I should thank you, still.”

  Her lips tensed. “Why is that?” she asked, her mouth barely moving as she squeezed that three-word query out.

  It did not escape his notice that she made no attempt to apologize, nor did the duke, for labeling him a murderer and enlisting the aid of the king himself to try and see Edwin hang. “You spared me from suffering through unwanted company. And as we are on the topic of ‘unwanted company’?” Not taking his gaze from the duchess opposite him, Edwin stretched a finger out, pointing past her husband, to the doorway. “Get the hell out.”

  His mother-in-law slapped a palm over her mouth and then wrenched it away. “A monster,” she spat and stood her ground with a remarkable show of resolve. “We warned her about the manner of man you were.”

  A rogue. A scoundrel. A rake. All had been insults leveled at him when he’d courted their daughter. And then those less harmful invectives had been replaced with “wife murderer” and “child killer.”

  “You couldn’t even be bothered to gather your own child. You learn he is alive and leave him in the folds of those murderous thieves?”

  Edwin’s neck went hot. “I’ll not answer to you,” he warned on a steely whisper. Having lived a solitary life for nearly seven years, with no one except cowering servants underfoot, he’d never had to contend with anyone calling him out . . . or challenging him. But then as a parent himself, albeit a lousy, pathetic excuse of a father, he identified with what it was to fear nothing, not even death, when it pertained to the matter of one’s child.

  “Pfft. As if you ever truly cared about my daughter or August or the other babe you got on her.”

  As she launched an impressively stoic rant, each insult fell harmlessly off him. There was nothing she could say or hurl that he’d not already felt himself. Nay, he’d long ago grown immune to feeling . . . anything.

  At last, she went silent. He winged a single brow up. “Are you done, madam?”

  Fire and fury blazed from her eyes.

  Edwin flicked an imaginary speck of dust from his crisp coat sleeve. “I do not answer to you, madam. Get out,” he repeated, adding layers of ice to his tone that managed to penetrate her earlier confidence.

  The duchess’s cheeks paled. “Come, Tremaine,” she ordered like the queen calling after her terriers. And without waiting to see if her husband followed, she sailed from the room.

  The duke lingered at the doorway, his back presented to Edwin, and then, not bothering to close the door in his wake, he left.

  The clock ticked off twenty beats while Edwin stood, staring at that entranceway through which his esteemed in-laws had taken their leave.

  And when the angry staccato of their footfalls faded from the corridors, he moved.

  Cursing roundly, he stalked over to his sideboard and, grabbing a half-empty bottle of whiskey and a glass, splashed himself several fingers full. He thought better of it and then poured until the amber brew challenged the brim of the glass. Edwin tossed back the drink, and it seared a path of fire down his throat.

  He grimaced and set the tumbler down with a hard thunk.

  Tension thrummed inside him, all his nerves coming to life, as they invariably did when the past was visited upon him.

  As though he could ever be truly free. In the dead of night, the nightmares were always there. But this . . . this day was different. It wasn’t the ghost of his wife, whose death deservedly rested at his feet, that haunted him in this moment. It was the ghost of the living.

  Edwin laid his hands on the edge of the sideboard and dug his fingers into the smooth mahogany surface. The layered edge bit sharply into his palms, the sting of discomfort welcome. And yet ultimately, it did little to vanquish the memories dragged forward by his damned in-laws.

  How very much their visit had been akin to another long-ago night. Memories trickled in of the morning he’d presented a formal offer to the duke for Lavinia’s hand. That offer had been rejected by the duke, who’d sent Edwin off, angry and vowing to marry her anyway.

  He stared blankly at the sapphire satin wallpaper.

  And that was just what Edwin had done. He’d married her. He’d married her, even though her parents had fought the union . . . and eventually capitulated, but only because of their son’s intervention on Edwin’s behalf.

  He squeezed his eyes shut.

  He’d not allowed himself to think of Charles, Lavinia’s only sibling and elder brother. Boyhood friends at Eton, Charles and E
dwin had been inseparable.

  There hadn’t been a hell they wouldn’t have visited or a woman they wouldn’t have seduced . . . until Edwin had fallen head over proverbial heels for the other man’s sister. When Edwin and Charles could have become a cliché—their friendship ended because of Edwin’s lack of suitability and his intention to wed the other man’s sister—Charles had instead only encouraged the match.

  A memory slipped in . . . of that same friend after Lavinia had perished. During that faux burial, made up of only garments Lavinia had left at Edwin’s country house, Charles had stood there . . . his gaze blank, his stare empty.

  Just another person Edwin was responsible for destroying.

  Like August.

  Edwin sucked in a breath.

  The demons, those both living and dead, could no longer be buried.

  With his son—Edwin’s hands curved hard into the wood, leaving crescent marks upon the once flawless surface—with August back in his rightful place, Edwin would be forever reminded of that night . . . and the dark days that followed. August would serve as a visual reminder of loss and pain and suffering . . .

  This child, who was, except for the blood they shared, truly a stranger to him in every way.

  And in his son, every day, Edwin would see his own failings. He’ll be a mirror in which you can see all the ways you failed him . . . and Lavinia, her parents, and Charles.

  Nearly a quarter of an hour later, footsteps fell outside Edwin’s office.

  His in-laws forgotten, Edwin turned.

  Marlow cleared his throat. “Another Runner arrived recently.” His man-of-affairs paused.

  “Yes?” Edwin bit out, impatience pulling that query from him.

  Color splotched the red-haired servant’s freckled cheeks. “He indicated that His Lordship had not yet taken his leave.”

  Edwin went absolutely still, and with a sharp bark of fury, he slammed his fist onto the sideboard. The crystal decanters jumped under the force of that strike. “Damn it.” It had been a mistake to leave him there for any length of time.

  So why did you?

  Marlow rushed over. “I am confident that my sister will not—”

  “Your sister?” he thundered over him. “The sister you’ve not seen in ten years?” he barked. “The same sister who’s been the lover of that Devil’s spawn?” he spat.

  His man-of-affairs remained wisely silent. Alas, what could he say?

  Only . . . Edwin’s rage was misplaced. Yet again, the blame resided with him.

  He began to pace a frenzied path back and forth along the edge of the Aubusson carpet.

  He’d been first presented with the truth that August was still alive weeks ago by Connor Steele, the detective Edwin had hired to investigate his son’s whereabouts. Only to find that same detective had gone and fallen in love with Ophelia Killoran. And when she’d been sent to Newgate, Steele had come to Edwin with the far-fetched tale that the youngest Killoran sibling was in fact Edwin’s son. As if Edwin should be grateful. As if he’d help coordinate her release out of . . . gratitude? No, he’d been duped by that family too many times to trust any lie fed him by one of their lovers.

  Until Marlow’s sister had demanded Edwin hear the truth . . .

  And then Edwin had seen it, in the forms of a birthmark and a scar on his son’s body. Only after he’d been injured, because of your failure to get to him . . .

  All Edwin’s muscles tensed.

  His mother-in-law, God rot her soul, had been proven correct about yet another thing. I should have taken August with me a week ago, after he was shot trying to protect Marlow’s sister. I should have insisted over the pleading and tears that the child make his goodbyes then and there, forevermore.

  It is my fault.

  My fault.

  Edwin dug his fingertips into his temples.

  “I trust they will be here, my lord,” Marlow said with the same quiet calm he’d had when he’d first come upon Edwin in those dark days when he had descended into madness.

  He stopped abruptly. “You had better hope, Marlow.” Because if Killoran and his lover turned wife did not honor the promise to return August, this time Edwin would not hesitate to become the murderer the world took him to be.

  Chapter 3

  They were late.

  And no one had remarked upon the man being kept waiting while Stephen said his parting words to his family at the Devil’s Den.

  For all intents and purposes, no one except Gertrude had even noted that particular violation of the terms.

  She hovered alongside the gargoyle, an interloper of sorts, as the Killorans made their goodbyes to Stephen. Just then, Stephen and Cleo were speaking. Near in height to the boy, though he’d reached only the tender age of eleven, that was where the illusion of Cleo’s frailty ended.

  Cleo had always possessed more gumption, spirit, and strength than every last member of Diggory’s gang rolled into one. And it was no wonder that Stephen . . . and everyone . . . looked to her for guidance as a de facto leader of their once ragtag, now powerful clan.

  All around, everyone from Broderick to Ophelia and her husband, Connor, to the guards, who’d been more family than anything else, surrounded that pair.

  Periodically, Stephen alternated between nodding at whatever Cleo was saying and jutting his chin up in a usual display of his defiance.

  “I don’t want . . . t . . .” Whatever was the remainder of those inaudible words was lost as Gertrude damned her one blind eye for obscuring those details that could save a soul in St. Giles . . . or see one destroyed.

  Reggie slid into place beside her, and Gertrude glanced over. “He will be all right,” Broderick’s wife vowed.

  Would he? “You don’t know that,” Gertrude reminded her. But then, living the life of a thief and an arsonist, then dwelling inside a gaming hell, had he truly been all right? What was “safe” after all? In her pocket, Sethos, the mouse tucked away there, wriggled back and forth. She slipped a hand inside her cloak and stroked the unlikely pet until he calmed.

  Worry twisted the other woman’s freckled features, and troubling her lower lip, she glanced once more at Stephen. “The marquess is his father,” she finally said, an unnecessary reminder of where Stephen’s place in fact was.

  Gertrude faced this woman who’d been more like another sister. “And Diggory was mine.”

  Reggie winced. “Gertrude—”

  “I am merely saying that his status as the marquess’s heir does not forge a bond between them. Blood does not a bond make,” she said, offering that long-memorized vow spoken to them by Broderick when he’d first joined their family. Ophelia glanced over, a question in her gaze. Mindful of the suspicion there, Gertrude schooled her features and faced Reggie directly, in a way that deliberately cut off Ophelia’s view of their mouths moving in speech. “Reggie, the man is rumored to be mad.”

  “And with reasons for his insanity.”

  She made a sound of impatience. “I am not disputing that.” With his wife and unborn child burnt to death at an order given by Mac Diggory, and his only other child, whom the world had believed dead, stolen from him, what fate awaited such a parent other than madness? “A person does not simply recover from that,” she said softly in hushed tones with words that were a reminder for herself. About the place Stephen would soon depart for. And the man he’d live with.

  Stephen would be . . . alone. She shivered and gently caressed Sethos, finding some comfort in the white creature’s downy softness.

  “My brother will be there,” Reggie reminded her, as if she’d followed Gertrude’s unspoken fears.

  Gertrude bit the tip of her tongue to keep from pointing out that until only just days ago, Reggie hadn’t seen the man in more than ten years.

  “They are strangers, all of them.” Gertrude slid her eyes closed. And Stephen would eat the marquess’s household for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and spit out their entrails for dessert. Everyone loved an easy, smiling child. The wor
ld didn’t have patience or a place for those who were snarling and angry. Except the Killorans. Only, we inadvertently shaped him into that, too.

  Reggie rested a hand on her shoulder, slashing into those guilty musings. “I will receive updates from my brother.”

  “And what then?” Gertrude asked calmly. “What if Stephen is harmed or frightened?” Because the world took him for one who was fearless. But there was a vulnerability to him buried under layers of carefully constructed armor. As one who carried her own secrets and fears, Gertrude recognized it in another. “Or what if he sacks your brother? Do you trust His Lordship will embrace having a child who’d rather be studying on weapons and practicing their uses than learning Latin and his familial history?”

  This time, Reggie had no false assurances. The other woman hugged herself.

  Gertrude’s heart quavered, and she wanted to throw herself prostrate and keen like that ancient Irish burial custom she’d read of. One she’d not understood until now. How could they just let him leave? How can you? You treated him as you would a son born of your own womb, and now you’d bundle him into a carriage and send him on his way alone?

  She found Stephen off speaking with Broderick now. While the two brothers conversed, Stephen’s little shoulders slumped; he had a defeated air she’d never before seen from the scrappy child. It hit her square in the chest, like a physical blow.

  And on the heels of that agony came the stirrings of annoyance. How dare the Killorans simply bow to the marquess’s demands. And how dare the man who’d sired him steal that small comfort from the child.

  “W-we should make our goodbyes.” Reggie’s voice broke, showing the first crack in her until-now stoic composure.

  “Hmm?” Gertrude said distractedly. “Of course. Right.” All the while, her mind continued spinning with thoughts of Stephen huddled in the Killoran carriage for one more ride with nothing but the loud churn of the wheels and his driver for company.

  From across the way, Ophelia and Cleo caught her stare. Her younger sisters frowned and made their way to Gertrude’s side.