Page 100 of Never a Duchess
“Ye’ll sit. I may be in this bed, but I can still put my boot up yer arse.”
“Ye’re in nae position to make threats. Tell me the truth about my mother.” He had a date with the devil and didn’t have time to linger.
“Sit down, lad, or I shall leave ye to wallow in self-pity.”
“Self-pity!” Callan growled as he snatched the chair, brought it closer to the bed and sat down. “I watched her take her last breath. She died in my arms, fighting the poison writhing in her veins. I carried her a mile or more, fell to the ground too many times to count. So dinnae pretend I’ve got nae reason to be angry.”
“Aye, ’twas a tragedy.” Shadows moved like ghosts over the wall behind Angus’ head, dancing with every flicker of the firelight.
“’Twas murder.”
Angus jerked, and not from the effects of the poison. “Murder? Come now, yer father was nae kind but—”
“For once, my father is innocent.” Frustration tightened every muscle. For years, he’d been blaming the wrong man. “Do ye mean to play dumb? Am I to act the governess and spell it out for ye?”
“What is it ye think I’m hiding?” Angus wiped the beads of sweat off his brow. “If I’ve kept something from ye, it will have been for yer own good.”
“My own good?” Callan firmed his jaw. He told him about Baudelaire’s notebook and why the perfumer kept a tally. “My mother’s name was in that damn book. They fought for her affections in the months before she died. Valmary won. Baudelaire poisoned her. And ye kept the truth from me.”
Silence swung between them like the executioner’s axe.
“We knew Moira had a lover,” Lorna said, entering the room. “And who could blame her? Nae one wants to spend their life in a loveless marriage.”
Callan sat back in the seat, the truth like an elixir for his troubled soul. “I wouldnae have blamed her, either. That’s nae the issue here.”
“We didnae know who it was.” Lorna came to sit on the bed. “But I found a letter amongst her personal papers. A letter from a man named Thaddeus. I didnae want yer father to find it, didnae want anything to tarnish her memory. And so I threw it on the fire and watched it burn till it was nought but ash amid the embers.”
Callan’s sigh came from the heart, not the lungs. “Thaddeus Valmary used her in a game with Baudelaire.” That made three men who had taken Moira Maclean for a fool.
Three men who’d pretended to love her.
Three men who’d ruined her life.
The thought tore him to shreds.
“Why keep it a secret all these years?”
Angus reached out and gripped Callan’s coat sleeve. “We had nae proof other than the letter. And when she died, we thought only of protecting ye, Callan. Why in blazes would we think she’d been murdered?”
Lorna placed her hand on his shoulder. “Moira wouldnae want ye getting embroiled in this mess. She wouldnae want ye chasing about London threatening men. Getting into bother.”
“I’ll nae rest until they’re dead.”
“Ye’re a duke with a long life ahead of ye,” Angus pleaded. “Dinnae do anything rash. Punish the men if ye’ve evidence, but nae at the cost of yer own future.”
Callan hung his head, his roiling anger turning to despair.
“Daventry will see justice served,” Angus added.
And yet the need to kill the men with his own hands compelled him to stand. “Ye’re like kin to me. Ye should have told me the truth when my father died. But I understand why ye kept the secret.”
Lorna rubbed his upper arm in soothing strokes. “I’ll fetch some tea. Happen we’ll think of the best way forward once we’ve taken some time to reflect.”
“I cannae stay, and I’m sorry for charging in here, causing distress.” Perhaps he would let fate decide the outcome. Perhaps he would visit the shop in Old Bond Street. Scout Baudelaire’s known haunts. “Rest now. I shall see ye soon.”
Angus must have sensed Callan’s restlessness. “What’s going on in that thick head? Tell me what ye have planned.”
In truth, he didn’t know.
