Frovtunes’ Kiss (43 page)

“True.” Graham nodded. “But few of them survive. And though rather thin, this child doesn't appear particularly small for his age. In fact, he's all but walking even now.”

“Then you mean Michael isn't…” Heart lashing beneath her breast, Moira pushed to her feet.

“Indeed not, Moira. It's highly unlikely that Michael is Everett's son. And extremely likely he's
this
man's son. I'd stake my life on it.” Upper lip curling, Graham aimed a finger at the bishop. “Somehow the old cobra orchestrated a scenario that convinced your stepfather Michael was his. What did you do, old man, slip Susan into Everett's bed while he slumbered unaware, then have her tell him some wide-eyed lie in the morning?”

Feeling light-headed, sickened, she clamped a shaking hand to her mouth. Graham was at her side in an instant with an arm about her waist to support her. “I'm sorry, darling. I know this hurts, but I thought the truth would sting less than the falsehood.”

She forced her gaze to the bishop's face. “Is it true?”

“He's grasping at straws in order to impress you, my dear.” The man's hands opened like a supplicant's. “Why would I do any such thing?”

“There's your answer, right there.” Graham gestured to her mother's letter, bearing mute witness on the tabletop where Benedict had placed it. “Your seat in Parliament. You didn't dare risk a scandal.”

“Ridiculous.”

The protest, tendered a beat too late to resonate with truth, only fueled the anger fomenting inside Moira. Yet in the next instant, she realized it wasn't anything the bishop said or did, or even the newly revealed facts that made her certain of his guilt. Rather, it was the intensity in Graham's face, the grim earnestness, the utter lack of dimples. Only a burning truth could rob a cavalier so thoroughly of his arrogance.

Though an erratic panting threatened consciousness, she somehow gathered breath enough to speak. “Uncle Benedict, you'd never have been considered for the House of Lords had it become known you'd sired an illegitimate child on one of your own servants.” Certainty propelled her toward him with the desire to strike, though she held her hands stiffly in the folds of her skirts. “You'd likely have lost your bishopric if Papa hadn't provided an easy escape.”

“I've endured enough of this nonsense.” The bishop heaved his bulk forward in preparation of gaining his feet. “I want you both to leave this instant.”

“Not just yet.” Graham dipped a hand carefully into his coat pocket—the opposite one from which he'd taken the pendant. Then he placed the same hand on Benedict's chest. “Don't move. Not so much as a muscle. If you do, she'll likely dart straight for your neck and sink her fangs into you.”

“What the devil are you going on about?”

Both Moira and the bishop followed Graham's line of sight straight to where Isis sat twitching her pedipalps on the man's bulging waistcoat.

Benedict's arm jerked upward, but Graham caught his wrist before he could swat the spider away.

“Don't. A sudden movement may prompt her to leap. She'd very well land on your face or neck, and the bite would be instantaneous. Even for a man of your size, the poison would spread within minutes.”

“By God, get her off me.” Beneath the bristly line of his eyebrows, the bishop's eyes nearly crossed as he gawked at his chest. “She…she isn't truly poisonous…is she?”

“Yes, quite.”

“Moira?” He sought her confirmation without moving, without so much as drawing a breath.

“I'm afraid she's very deadly, Uncle Benedict. I don't dare go near her.”

The trembling man's gaze darted back to Graham. “Why didn't she bite you?”

“She knows my scent, knows I'm the hand that feeds her. Tell us the truth, and I'll remove her.”

Benedict leaned as far back as the chair allowed, glazed eyes widening in horror as Isis ventured several steps across his stomach. A single word fled his lips. “Laudanum.”

“You drugged Everett?”

The man nodded almost imperceptibly. Isis went still as if fascinated to hear the tale. “Laced his wine. Susan was several weeks along. Her brother found out and tried blackmailing me, but I'm not a wealthy man. This house and everything in it belongs to the bishopric. Oliphant threatened to destroy my career, everything I've worked for—”

“What a familiar story.” Grasping Moira's hand, Graham calmly led her to the settee where they settled side by side as if awaiting tea and cake. He smiled at the bishop. “Do go on.”

“I conceived a plan that would satisfy Oliphant and keep him quiet. Then—” The rest dissolved into a wheeze as Isis tapped his watch fob, each step as dainty as a ballerina's.

“And then months later,” Moira finished, the words raising a bitter taste, “Papa accepted an illegitimate son born two months early.”

At a half nod from the bishop, Graham pushed away from the settee and lowered his wrist to Isis. She readily clambered up. Benedict's relief rasped through lips gone pale, the upper one awash with perspiration.

Graham held Isis out to Moira. Without a moment's hesitation, she took the spider in her cupped hands and transferred it carefully to her skirts. The bishop's reaction came in a grunt of indignation.

She shook her head at him in disgust. “Did you never once consider how your deceit would affect my mother and me? And poor Papa. He must have been devastated, believing he'd used that woman in a drunken stupor.”

“At first he was. He dreaded your mother finding out.” The man Moira knew as Uncle Benedict regarded her with the indifference of a stranger. “But the boy delighted him. He believed he'd fathered a son, his own natural child. He did love you, Moira, but you were another man's daughter. Not at all the same thing.”

“No? Michael is yours. Your own flesh and blood, you cobra. And do you give a tinker's damn what happens to him?” Graham lurched toward Uncle Benedict, stopping short a pace away. “If you weren't a fat old man, I'd call you out.”

“Graham.” When he turned, Moira caught his gaze and held it. “Don't. He isn't worth your ire. He's pitiable.”

Perversely, the old cleric smiled. “Pitiable? Why? Should either of you decide to gossip, no one will believe you. It will be the word of a respected bishop against that of a scoundrel who was expelled from university and fled the country in disgrace. People will term it a pathetic attempt at revenge and discount it.”

“And what of my word?” Moira scooped Isis into her palm and held her higher for the bishop's benefit.

He blanched but remained undeterred. “You? You're merely the poor young chit who threw herself at the scoundrel's head.”

The assertion sent a flood of heat to her face but no words of denial to her lips.

“Not everyone will discount Lord Monteith's story.”

She jumped at the sound of the male voice, neither Graham's nor Benedict's, but nonetheless familiar. Twisting around, she saw a black shoe and gray trouser leg appear through the open window, followed by the stooping figure of Miles Parker of Bow Street.

Once inside, he straightened his coat and tugged his lapels aright. “I'm fairly certain I won't be accused of harboring a motive for discrediting you, my lord.”

Benedict's smug expression had turned to outrage. “Who the devil are you?”

“Uncle Benedict, this is Inspector Parker of the Bow Street Runners.” Despite her calm reply, Moira felt utterly taken aback by Mr. Parker's sudden materialization. Ah, but not Graham, whose satisfied grin revealed the success of a well-laid plot.

“Forgive me for eavesdropping at your window,” Mr. Parker said in his most polite tone, “but I've heard enough here today to warrant a formal inquiry into the matter.”

“What matter?” The bishop took no pains to conceal his disdain. “I did nothing but convince a foolish man he fathered a child. I made Everett
happy
. And I certainly never forced him to leave the child a farthing.”

“Perhaps not,” Moira countered, “but I'll wager you were quick with the suggestion.”

“And let's not forget the bishop's part in having Oliphant installed in Smythe's office,” Graham interjected. “A convenient method of looking after both their interests.”

“I never asked the man to commit murder.” Benedict leaned heavily on the arms of his chair and heaved to his feet. “You can hardly blame me for his indiscretion.”

“Then you're admitting your connection to Oliphant.”

“I am admitting nothing.”

Mr. Parker offered Moira a nod of greeting, then started to say something more when his eyes widened to saucers.

“It's all right, Mr. Parker, Isis is quite harmless,” Moira assured him, and enjoyed the sight of Benedict's scowl.

Looking dubious, the inspector returned his attention to the bishop. “I have a theory about Wallace Smythe, my lord. I believe he knew of the fraud perpetrated on the late Lord Monteith and was willing to help you cover. Until, that is, Miss Hughes showed up with her quest for the truth. Perhaps his conscience began to nudge. Or perhaps he feared being implicated if the truth got out. Either way, Oliphant needed to silence him, or he'd lose access to the money wrongfully left to his nephew.”

“What about Nigel?” Moira asked softly, her fingertip stroking the hairs on Isis's back.

“What
about
Nigel?” the bishop parroted with no small amount of sarcasm.

“It's my guess,” Graham said, not to Moira or Benedict but to Mr. Parker, “that if we show my sister's sketches of Oliphant around the vicinity of Nigel Foster's death, someone might remember seeing him there.”

“Poor Nigel.” Moira sighed. “He must have discovered something suspicious when he came to London to secure his rights as Baron Monteith. Perhaps he began asking questions and…” The notion pricked her eyes until they throbbed. She buried her face in her hands. “Oh, Nigel.”

“You'll never prove anything. Not even that Michael isn't Everett's son.”

The bishop's assertion forced Moira's head up and dried the tears that had begun to brim. Her intended retort died unspoken, however, when Graham knelt in front of her and took her hand.

“Are you all right?” When she nodded, he regarded the bishop over his shoulder. “You may be correct. We might never prove a thing but, ah, the scandal. Your career shall likely never recover.”

Benedict treated him to a sneer. “So after all these years, you finally have your revenge.”

Graham gave a laugh. “Believe it or not, you old cobra, this has nothing whatsoever to do with revenge. Nothing to do with you at all really. After today you'll no longer even exist for me.” He turned back to Moira. His dimples flashed, and his smile conveyed a tenderness that stole her breath. “Everything I've done has been for one person only.”

He brought her hand to his lips, holding it there a long moment. “All I've wanted was to convince you that Everett didn't betray you. The codicil was merely his way of meeting a responsibility he'd accepted. His actions were those of an honorable man, Moira, for at the time he believed your future, and your mother's, secure with Nigel.”

He eased closer, blocking out the bishop, Mr. Parker, the room, everything but his bright ocean eyes and gold-tipped hair and reckless, devil-may-care spirit that had swept her off her feet from her very first glimpse of him. “Moira, darling, not all men stray. Not all disappoint.”

Those last words shot forth in a whisper, fierce and adamant. Sincere. Her heart splintered—painfully—with the memory of each unfair charge she'd leveled upon him these past days, whether spoken aloud or merely thought.

“I'm sorry. So sorry…” The apology lodged in a blistering throat. She turned away, but he caught her chin and turned it gently to him.

“There are some men, an incredibly lucky few, who do realize the value of what they have. Or even…of what they don't have.”

She leaned more fully into the warmth of his hand. “What a blazing coward I've been…”

“We're all cowards when it comes to our hearts. Me most of all.” His thumb brushed across her sodden cheek. “I know I couched my feelings in jests and foolishness. I've said one thing when I've meant another. I was afraid, afraid to trust. To love. But you've made it impossible for me to go on pretending. Because of you I've faced my demons. And my angels. You're
my
angel, Moira. You're my…oh, hang it, please stop crying and tell me if I'm saying anything at all right here.”

His words only made her cry harder. His arms went around her, hands smoothing through her hair, pulling her bonnet off and making shambles of her tidy coif. She burrowed her face in his collar and held on; she realized she had
been
holding on since first accepting his help in finding the codicil. Deeply she inhaled the essence of male strength and knew herself for the pretentious, prideful fool she was.

She had wanted to be self-sufficient, had insisted upon her independence, and yet…this self-described blackguard who shunned the notion of family had been her rock, her haven, the very framework holding her together through everything.

Had she ever truly believed she might willingly see him off to Egypt, that his honor was too important to be sacrificed for the sake of her heart? When she had rejected him, thinking to protect the very same wretched organ, hadn't she secretly prayed he'd do exactly as he had done—pursue her, fight for her, defy her every spoken wish?

And throughout all of it, there had been but a single honest moment: the one that sent her to his bedroom that night at Monteith Hall.

“You're much too quiet.”

She lifted her face, her cheek grazing the reassuringly rough stubble of his.

“I do hope you're not thinking things over, Moira.” He smiled and dabbed at her tears with his fingertips. “It won't likely turn out in my favor.”