Temptation Has Green Eyes (25 page)

“Thus it took you weeks to instigate normal relations,” Julius said. “Impressive speed, considering the circumstances. Would you like me to kill him, or will you do it?”

“He’s all mine,” Max said between his teeth. “I want more. I will make him pay. He’ll suffer for a long time.”

“Good. But I might kill him anyway,” Julius said. “How many women will he serve the same way?”

Max hadn’t considered that. “Perhaps I’ll castrate him.” He would get enormous satisfaction from doing so. Except he might find he had a glorious castrato voice. The castrati were the toast of society. If Max cut out his tongue as well, the man wouldn’t have the chance. Nor would he be able to spread any more lies.

Something he had in common with Julius was his cold temper. He could think through it better than when red-hot rage took him, and for that reason it was much more dangerous. He felt scalding fury for Hayes. He wanted to see the man’s guts on the end of his sword. Not the fancy small sword he used in town, either.

Julius shrugged. “We shall see. But for now, we need to leave him alone, let him think he’s free.”

“Agreed,” Max said shortly. Because more was at stake than his happiness, loath though he was to admit it. “What do you think he’s up to?”

Julius picked up the nail buffer and passed it over his forefinger. “Something unpleasant. He’s working as a political secretary for Kirkburton, or at least that’s what he’s being paid for. Probably a dirty dog. Paid for carrying messages, instigating conspiracies, anything to disrupt the regular order of things. By the way, I was on my way north, which is why I’m here.”

“Visiting a remote estate?”

“Chasing Tony.” Julius drove the buffer over the surface of his nails with a savagery rarely seen in that activity. “He’s gone off on a harebrained scheme of his own. He has some idea that he’s unearthed a nest of spies.”

“Where?”

“Lancashire, where else?” Another grimace. “Tony is rushing into something he doesn’t understand. He’s not an idiot, merely impulsive.”

“Of course.” Max felt some anxiety for his cousin, but after all, Tony had been in the army. He could take care of himself. “So do you plan to continue?”

“I want to know your plans, if you have any. Northwich is up to something. I don’t know what, but after a few years of relative peace, suddenly he’s moving. I don’t know what or how, and that worries me.”

“What about your father?” Max asked. The all-powerful Duke of Kirkburton had previously taken a serious interest in the Jacobite peer.

“He has other matters to deal with.” Julius took a deep breath and expelled it in a heavy sigh. “This is to go no further, Max. My father isn’t well. We’re not sure what it is yet, but he tires far too easily. The slightest exertion exhausts him. I don’t like it. My mother is harassing me to allow Helena to go home, to be her support at this time, but I will not allow it. Helena wouldn’t help our father. He has people to care for him. She still wants Helena to dance attendance on her. Helena doesn’t wish for it, although now she feels guilty about it. It allows my mother to apply more pressure. So I can’t spare much time on Tony. You should know I’m eternally grateful to your mother and Poppy in staying on, but my mother may prevail on her yet to leave and let Helena go home. I will fight that every inch of the way. I’ve discovered a few distant relatives who could serve beautifully as a companion to Helena, though I’m still interviewing professional candidates. I will find someone.” He grinned. “Perhaps in Lancashire.”

Max shrugged. “My mother doesn’t like your mother. She’ll help with Helena just to disoblige her.”

“Good to know.” Julius didn’t look surprised. He probably knew already. “It doesn’t make me any less grateful.”

“We’ll head to London tomorrow. I’ll keep an eye on affairs for you. If necessary, Helena can come and stay with us.” Max knew as well as Julius did that once the duchess got Helena back in her house, he would have to enlist an army to get her back. Not because Helena didn’t want to go, but the duchess, whose diminutive size and frail appearance concealed a powerfully determined personality, would not let her leave again.

“Thank you. I hope it won’t come to that. In that case, you’ll have to move Caroline too, and her nursery and all her nursemaids.”

Max didn’t bother to point out that Julius was spoiling his daughter mercilessly. Julius already knew. Instead he turned to matters closer to his heart at the moment. “Is there anything I need to do once I return to London?”

“Once you’ve taken care of your wife, you mean?” Julius dropped the buffer carelessly, but somehow it landed exactly parallel to the nail file. “Do that first. If a problem arises with Helena that you can’t easily solve, I’ll take care of it when I return. Sophia must be the priority.” Gracefully he rose and crossed the room to the table set by the window, which had a worn leather pouch on it. Out of it, he drew a sheaf of papers. “There is a mystery around your wife, and I believe I’ve hit upon the truth, or at least some of it.” He turned, holding the papers. “I have the originals locked up at home, but I made copies for you.”

Max raised his brows. “That important?”

“Possibly. And when I say original, some of them are merely records of records. Well, then.”

Max got to his feet and went to where Julius stood. They bent over the table.

“This is a copy of the record of your wife’s parents’ marriage. They married in Italy, at the Embassy in Rome. They let it be known that they married a year before the actual date, for obvious reasons. I don’t know who else was present, but probably the bride’s parents.”

“Lady Mary Howard,” Max said. “One of those Howards?”

“Distantly. She isn’t a Norfolk Howard specifically. Her family was a minor branch and lived in Lancashire.” He gave Max a telling glance, one brow arched. “Strange how that county keeps appearing. Her father was the Earl of Morningside. Although he was an earl, the family had fallen on hard times. They sent Lady Mary to London to find a wealthy husband, under the aegis of the Duchess of Northwich.”

Max swore.

“Indeed. Lady Mary became pregnant. There is no doubt that Russell isn’t the father of her child. He wasn’t there when the baby was conceived. I have an idea who was. I enquired as to who was in Rome at the time Sophia was conceived.” He paused. “A few names cropped up, but I narrowed it down to one. I think her father is the Duke of Northwich. That would explain his extreme interest in her. And sending a spy into Russell’s household.”

Max closed his eyes and let rip with as many foul curses as he could think of.

Julius turned over the paper as if Max had said nothing untoward. “I like your wife. I believe her when she says she was nearly raped by John Hayes, who we know is working for the duke, probably was working for him all along. Either he wanted to make sure of her for herself, and she is a considerable heiress, or he wanted to push her into your hands. Your alliance with Russell was well known.”

“Is Russell working for Northwich?” Max couldn’t believe he could be taken in so extensively. He’d trusted Russell. If his father-in-law was a charlatan, Max might as well give up now with obviously flawed judgment. So much of his business depended on personal relations with someone and a degree of mutual trust. If he doubted his judgment, he might as well throw in his hand.

“No,” Julius said. “I’m sure that he was not. Otherwise he would not have ejected Hayes from his household. Maybe Northwich wants him. I think Northwich wants to expand his interests in shipping. After the Forty-five, much of his property was confiscated, but he was never convicted of any direct involvement with the Stuarts. He’s regained most of what he lost, or rather, his son has, and he’s moving again. A shipping empire in control of a Jacobite? Imagine what they could do with that. His son has extensive interests, but so far he hasn’t moved to help his father. I am watching.”

Max sighed. “Alconbury. Yes, I’ve come across him in the City. We politely ignore each other.” But not for much longer, if he approached Sophia again.

Julius nodded. “Fair enough. You should perhaps warn Russell. He may not have been aware that his wife had close connections with the Northwiches. That wasn’t how he found her, after all. He married a pregnant woman for a considerable sum of money, ostensibly given by his father-in-law, the Earl of Morningside. He wasn’t to know that Morningside didn’t provide the sum.”

He put the papers down. “These confirm what I’ve discovered so far. I’ll leave them with you. So what does that mean to you?”

Max had been assessing the information. Swiftly, he shuffled through the papers. “Either the duke is sending a cuckoo into our midst in the form of his daughter, or he intends to claim her and ask her to work for him. I won’t allow Sophia to become a pawn in this game. That goes for you too, Julius. She is nobody’s pawn.”

Although his heart ached, he tried to think clearly. “She didn’t realize until recently that Russell wasn’t her father. And Hayes tried to rape her.” Rage surged up once more, and he took a moment to regain control of his emotions. “Her father told me he’d interrupted Hayes seducing his daughter and he realized how vulnerable her position as his heiress made her. The inducements he offered me…” He shrugged. “Everything I’ve ever wanted. I can restore this house, I can support a wife, and I’m a force to be reckoned with in the City. I can’t trust her. No,” he corrected himself hastily. “I
do
trust her. But she visits her father, and his house is compromised, is it not? Russell is a clever man. What if he’s in league with the Dankworths? What if he let Hayes into his house voluntarily and then saw me as a richer prize for his beloved daughter? He knew Sophia wasn’t his get, knew it all along.”

“Then he offered his daughter as part of the bargain,” Julius said tersely. “Yes, I see. You can’t deny Sophia her visits to her father, and she trusts him implicitly, does she not?”

“I believe so.”

“You can’t tell her,” Julius said. “None of this. It could affect the safety of the country, if what I suspect is coming to pass. Northwich’s ambitions in the shipping industry concern me greatly. It could affect the nation’s security. So you can’t tell her, not until we know more. Can you do that?”

He’d have to return to keeping secrets from her, in case she let slip too much to her father. What a wretched situation, to keep confidences from his own wife! “I won’t keep the secret of her parentage from her. I’m sorry, Julius, but she deserves to know.”

Julius stared at him. “And what will she do? Rush around to confront her father? Warn him that we know?”

Max shook his head. “That’s her affair. If she does, we’ll just have to live with it. However, I won’t let her too close to my most sensitive papers, the ones that don’t concern her father.” Max frowned. He could, but it would be hard.

“I can’t change your mind, can I?”

Max shook his head.

“I’ll continue with my research,” Julius said. “I have a strong feeling that I haven’t reached the bottom of this puzzle. There’s something left, something I haven’t seen or been allowed to see.” He glanced at the clock over the mantelpiece. “When are you serving dinner? Or should we have private meals?”

“No.”

Only one niggling seed of doubt remained, and Max hated himself for it. She hadn’t told him about the meeting with Hayes in the park and what she’d learned there.

Was his lovely wife a Trojan horse? Unwittingly carrying secrets to her father? He refused to believe the alternative, that she was complicit in some scheme to trap him into working with the Dankworths, and thus, the Stuarts. No, he trusted her, but he didn’t entirely trust the man she called Father.

Odd that the man had no idea that Northwich could be involved, or that he hadn’t made enquiries. Unless a deeper secret existed, one he hadn’t discovered yet. What he knew was bad enough.

Discovering the secret she’d kept from him about her parentage when she’d had ample opportunity to reveal it sent a thorn under his skin. It would irritate him until he could remove it. One way or the other.

Sophia didn’t approach the subject that lay between her and her husband until they were nearly in London. After a disturbed night’s sleep in the same mediocre inn they’d used on the way there, she sat in the coach framing her question. Until she realized she’d never get it exactly right. So she came out with it. “Who was my father?”

He turned his head sharply to stare at her, eyes wide and very, very green. “What?”

“You didn’t stay with me when Julius was at the house. That meant you talked with him, and he had news that you didn’t tell me. I know it could be other things, but I don’t believe so. It was about my father, wasn’t it?”

True, Julius could have discussed all manner of things, but during this journey she’d caught Max looking at her and then away when she met his gaze. And staring at her speculatively. He knew. All her instincts told her. “Who is he?” she insisted.

He kept her gaze this time and took a deep breath. “Julius discovered evidence that points to the result. It doesn’t prove it beyond doubt. We don’t have proof, only speculation.”

She waved her hand dismissively. “Don’t prevaricate.”

Despite the gravity of the situation, he smiled, but shook his head. “You shouldn’t be able to do that. Make me smile, I mean. Especially when I have to tell you. I’d hoped to avoid this, but how could I hope to keep this from you?”

“You can’t. I’d badger my father until he told me.”

Julius answered her swiftly. “He knew your mother had a child when he married her, but not who the father was. Likely if he asked, either they didn’t tell him or they lied.”

Fear clutched her heart. “Why would they do that?”

“Because they wanted to keep the true parentage secret.” He bowed his head, before lifting it and meeting her gaze.

The outskirts of London came into view, houses straggling along the road now they’d crossed the Heath. They didn’t have too long before they got back to their town house. He might want it that way, because then he wouldn’t have to share a coach with a hysterical female. Not that she would. She had shed all her tears when she’d relived the experience with John. Washed the experience clean away. Now she felt nothing but anger that someone had used her, had thought so little of her that he would think she was his for the taking.