The Marquess Method by Kathleen Ayers

29

Theo paced outside the small coaching inn they’d stopped at to change horses, frowning at the way the sun was dipping lower in the sky. The sense that she must get to Haven immediately had her walking in circles, growing more anxious by the moment. What if she was too late?

No one at Greenbriar suspected Erasmus of anything worse than petty theft so he could buy himself a bottle. Not even Haven thought his uncle capable of plotting his demise.

Theo tapped her chin with her forefinger. He had fooled everyone. Even her. He’d had the audacity to ask her for an allowance, sing his ridiculous songs, and pick her violets, all the while planning to kill her husband.

I’m coming, Ambrose.

Bloody idiot didn’t even know he was in danger. Theo’s only consolation was that Erasmus on his own was unlikely to do much damage. He was still a sot, though a very devious, malicious one. But he could have hired someone. As he’d done in Italy. Because she was fairly certain that Erasmus was behind the attack on his nephew. Which is why he’d gone back to Greenbriar because he’d assumed the attack would be successful. And told everyone who asked that the fairies told him his nephew had died.

Fairies my—

“My lady, we are ready.” Coates appeared next to her, probably wondering why she’d been circling the courtyard like some crazed chicken for the better part of an hour.

“How much longer, Coates?” Erasmus could wield a pistol. Probably, depending on how much he’d had to drink.

“Not too much longer.” The footman looked up at the sky.

Or slit Haven’s throat while he slept.

“Tell Stitch to drive faster.”

* * *

Ambrose sat outsideon his newly renovated terrace, admiring the recently trimmed row of hedges in his garden, and took another sip of his mildly expensive wine. The sun was setting low, hanging over the edge of the trees as it sank into darkness. Soon, the stars would come out, filling the sky above his head with their brilliance, very much like what was depicted in the drawing room.

Not one bit of it interested him.

He took another sip of the wine. There weren’t enough bottles in all of England for Ambrose to drown himself in. Finally, Ambrose understood some of his father’s grief. Why he’d started drinking. Theodosia wasn’t dead, not in the way his mother was, but she was gone all the same.

Each morning, when his fingers crawled across the mattress, searching in vain for her slender form, Ambrose considered riding to London to fetch her. The smell of paint no longer suffused the bedsheets. Nor lemon. Yesterday, he’d gone up to her studio and taken out one of her sketchbooks to look at. In her haste to be away from him, Theo hadn’t packed any of her things here, nor had she sent for them. She’d only taken her maid.

Ambrose took that as a sign of hope.

The pad was full of sketches of her father, the progression of his illness apparent in the drawings. He could make out Theodosia’s grief in every brush of the charcoal. Saw the water stains of her tears blurring the edges of the paper. Another sketchpad held drawings of her sisters. Her mother. Several of the duke. One page revealed Leo Murphy, flawlessly handsome with a smug grin on his lips, staring up at Ambrose.

He’d stared at that face for a long time, allowing the anger to ebb and flow over him. Theodosia loved her brother.

Even if Theodosia forgave him one day, and he prayed she would, she would never give up her family. And if Ambrose didn’t put aside his anger—

Leo Murphy was likely guilty of many questionable things; he had to be in his line of work. But he hadn’t made Edmund Collingwood a drunk. Ambrose’s father had managed that all on his own. Acceptance of his father’s failings was painful, but also necessary. He had to believe the evidence his father’s behavior presented and put the past behind him, as difficult as that may be. It would do no good to continue to blame Murphy.

Because he loved Theodosia. Every half-blind, clumsy, brazenly improper, artistic bit of her. He probably had from the beginning.

After she left him without allowing him to explain, something that infuriated Ambrose even though he knew the fault was his, his temper had slowly faded. Barely hours after the Averell coach had rolled away, Ambrose was left with an enormous hollow feeling in his chest. A gnawing emptiness that would not be assuaged. The very worst sort of hunger. He’d always be starving without Theodosia.

Ambrose had shut the drawing room the very day she’d left, threatening Rolfe with bodily harm if anyone so much as dared step inside.

Rolfe, to his credit, hadn’t so much as flinched at the threat.

Ambrose, to his everlasting shame, couldn’t allow anyone else to see what Theo had painted for him. At the very corner, tucked near the windows, was the outline of a man and his son. Watching the stars together outside Greenbriar. A message meant for Ambrose alone.

And I let her leave.

A small growl left him. He sat down on one of the stone steps and took the bottle of wine he’d brought with him, refilling his glass.

Jacinda had been devastated by Theo’s departure. She had only recently started speaking to Ambrose again, and when she did, it was not without censure.

‘What did you do?’Her delicate frame had shaken with unshed tears once she’d found out Theodosia was gone, pushing away any attempts by Ambrose to explain himself.

A hand crawled across his chest, pressing a palm against his heart. He was surprised the bloody thing was still beating.

Ambrose wore himself out to the point of exhaustion every day, traveling among his tenants and addressing their concerns, trying not to think or feel. He tried to focus on his family being made whole again, taking back everything Murphy had taken from his father. Meeting with Barnaby in Warwick to talk about the textile mills he no longer cared about. Watching as crates of books arrived for Jacinda and then seeing his sister burst into tears at the sight. Eating the dishes carefully prepared by Mrs. Dottie, barely tasting the food.

A shame really. Mrs. Dottie was an excellent cook.

His uncle, thankfully, kept to himself after Ambrose tossed him a small bag of coins. He hadn’t seen Erasmus in days and idly wondered if he’d drowned in the pond.

Ambrose would check tomorrow.

“Hell.” Draining his glass again, he resolved to go after Theodosia. Control his temper and swallow his pride in regard to her brother. Apologize to the entire family including that fucking butler who hated him.

What mattered most to him was Theodosia. First, last, and always.

* * *

Theo nearly jumpedout of her skin as the coach finally pulled up in front of Greenbriar. Briefly, she took in the freshly painted front door. The two pots full of bright red flowers which stood on either side in welcome. Exactly as she’d instructed.

I must remember to thank Rolfe.

Coates had barely opened the door when Theo leapt out. She marched up to the door with purpose as Rolfe opened it. Surprise showed on his stoic features.

“Lady Haven.”

“In the flesh. Where is Lord Haven?”

Rolfe took her cloak and kept pace beside her. “I’m not certain, my lady.”

“Have you lost my husband, Rolfe?”

“No, my lady. But Lord Haven . . . wanders in the evenings. Mostly no further than the terrace, where he takes a nightcap.”

“Wonderful. Coates and Stitch are outside. Have you seen Lord Erasmus?”

“No, my lady.”

Well, that at least was good news. Still, Theo marched into the drawing room and went right to the sideboard. Scotch, the kind Haven favored, sat next to a bottle of expensive French brandy. The brandy told Theo that at the very least, Erasmus hadn’t been here long enough to steal it. Perhaps she’d beaten him to Greenbriar. Her hand grabbed the brandy bottle by the neck.

But it would be best to be prepared.

Just in case Erasmus was lurking about.

* * *

Ambrose putdown the bottle of wine as the shuffle of footsteps met his ears. For a moment, he thought it might be Jacinda. She liked to berate him about Theodosia around this time every evening. It had become something of a nightly ritual. But there’d been no thump of a cane. Nor was the tread heavy. So not Rolfe. Nor Mr. Henderson, though he did shuffle somewhat. The stale smell of brandy and unwashed clothing met his nose.

“Hello, Uncle.” Ambrose didn’t turn around. “Looking for coin? I was growing concerned that I’d have to fish your body out of the pond.”

A small, impotent whine came from behind him, and Ambrose turned, lifting his brow at the sight his uncle presented. Trembling. Half-drunk. Pistol quivering in one hand. Rather interesting. Eramus looked more likely to shoot his own foot off than Ambrose.

“Is that thing even loaded?” He took another swig from the bottle, nodding in the direction of the pistol.

Honestly, Haven hadn’t given his uncle much thought as of late, considering he had more important things on his mind, like how the fuck he was going to retrieve his wife. But when he did consider Erasmus, it was to remember the words his uncle had hurled at him when Haven had found him stealing for what seemed the hundredth time.

‘I know what you did.’

He hadn’t mistaken the words nor the hatred in them. It had given Ambrose something else to consider besides Theodosia.

“The pistol is loaded, you worthless whelp.” Erasmus raised his arm. “And I’m so close it’s unlikely I’ll miss.”

“Now, why would you want me dead, Uncle?” A ridiculous question. Ambrose was fairly sure he knew the answer.

“This is my home.” The pistol shook. “My estate. It should never have been yours to begin with. Now that you’ve married a fat Barrington dowry, I want it back.”

“That isn’t exactly how all this works, Uncle.” Ambrose took another lazy sip of his wine. “You reek of brandy, by the way.”

“I never cared for you in the least, Ambrose. Or your tragically lame sister. I should have pushed the ladder harder. Now I’ll be stuck with Jacinda. Your wife will insist she be cared for. And I, her adoring uncle, will have to ensure she is comfortable.”

His fingers tightened on the bottle. The thought had crossed his mind that it had been Erasmus and not his father who had knocked Jacinda from the ladder, especially in light of recent considerations. Jacinda had said they’d both been in the library with her that day. But his father had admitted to accidentally pushing the ladder. And Erasmus had been stricken, according to Mrs. Henderson. All an act, that much was becoming clear. “My father—”

“Believed whatever I told him.” A smile crossed his uncle’s thin lips. “Poor Edmund was prone to blackouts when he had too much scotch. Made him forget all about how he gambled away the family fortune at Elysium. Couldn’t even recall that he went to London so often. Or that I did.”

Ambrose sucked in a breath. Impossible. How had Erasmus managed it?

I wasn’t here.

“You have no idea how wonderful it was to be addressed properly as the Marquess of Haven instead of as the brother no one remembered Edmund even had. When we were younger, your father and I used to change places all the time, and no one was the wiser. I learned to imitate him, you see. After a time, he didn’t care for it.” His brow furrowed. “Matilda knew after—well, after that one time. I don’t think she ever told Edmund.”

Christ. “You pretended to be my father with her. My mother.”

“I loved Matilda. I just wanted to be with her. Once. He got to marry her. Sent me away because I loved her too. Incredibly unfair.”

Ambrose felt sick to the very bottom of his stomach. How had he never guessed? Never looked in his uncle’s direction? “You hated my father.”

“So very much.” His uncle’s lips twitched to form a sneer. “Edmund took the title. Took Matilda. I was left with nothing. All because of one minute.” Spittle collected at his lips. “When she died trying to give that greedy prick another child, I knew it was finally time to act. Edmund was stricken with grief and guilt. I popped in every so often to commiserate with him. Help him through his sadness. Scotch helped. Gambling. Whores. The only thing we disagreed on was cards. I preferred dice.”

His uncle was insane. Not harmless. Or sweet. But completely mad. “It was you at Elysium. But why? Why would you beggar him? He gave you money. Supported you—”

“I finally decided that if I couldn’t have it, he shouldn’t either. And it was such delightful fun, Nephew. Spending your inheritance on whores and dice. The things they’ll allow at Elysium.” He smacked his lips. “I adored demanding Leo Murphy extend my . . .” A giggle. “Credit.” The pistol waved wildly. “I demand you extend my credit, Murphy,” Erasmus said in a voice sounding remarkably like Ambrose’s father. “You never guessed. You weren’t here. How did the streets treat you in Venice, Nephew?”

Ambrose glared at him. Erasmus had tried to have him killed. Hoped he was dead. And then Jacinda had had her accident. Perhaps he meant to kill them both. No one ever suspected Erasmus of doing anything other than being a sot. Not even his father. A forgotten piece of Collingwood history Ambrose had inherited along with Greenbriar, the title, and his father’s debts. How long had Erasmus been slipping in and out of the estate pretending to be Edmund? How many of the servants had even known his father had a twin?

“You aren’t terrified of the ocean, are you? Nor seasick.”

“Not a bit. We went sailing as children once. I ate too many sweets and became ill. I let everyone believe it was the terror of the sea,” he thundered in an imperious voice, once more sounding like Ambrose’s father, “because I didn’t want to get in trouble. I never bothered to correct anyone. It was easier for everyone to assume I was weak.”

A terrible thought occurred to Ambrose. “Was it you I argued with that day, or my father?” It was that argument that had driven Ambrose from his home. Estranged him from his father. A relationship that had never been repaired. The pain and regret never left him.

“Me!” Erasmus let out a laugh at his prank. “And you never guessed because you’d forgotten I even existed. Perfect Ambrose. So much his father’s son. Such a bloody hothead. It was hilarious when you stomped about, blaming Murphy and Elysium for your ills. And as much as I enjoyed watching you twist in the wind, wearing your worn boots and a perpetual look of worry, I was much relieved when you married Theodosia. My plan to bankrupt Edmund might have been somewhat short-sighted. Sometimes my emotions get the better of me. But you, Nephew, exhibited such deviousness in ruining Murphy’s sister so you could get back the wealth I so willingly gave him. I never knew you had it in you.” He shrugged, and the pistol waved yet again. “I think Murphy may have actually felt bad for taking everything, but he was far too greedy to say no. Except Jacinda’s dowry. He didn’t want to take that. Eventually, he came around. I can be very persuasive.”

Ambrose wondered if he could grab the pistol before Erasmus fired and was fairly sure he could.

“Did you kill my father, Uncle?”