Page 37 of My Deceitful Duchess
He offered her a bow, as a gentleman was meant to do, and headed for the door. But her words had rattled something in his head—something that had lurked there for some time, hidden beneath all the assorted information he had collected over the years.
The Venbrough murder.
It had beenyearssince he’d thought of it. He’d been just a boy when it had occurred, but it had captivated him like no other crime had before. The salacious scandal of it had dominated the news for weeks, and he had pored over stacks and stacks of papers, ferreting out each new revelation as it had been reported upon. The details were murky now, muddled in his mind after so many years—but then, they’d been languishing at the back of his brain for better than a decade.
But he knew how to resurrect them once more.
∞∞∞
“Sebastian, my darling boy—how lovely to see you! Do come in, it has beensolong since you’ve come round to dinner.”
Sebastian braced himself for the inevitable—two kisses upon each cheek, since Mumwasthe affectionate sort—and ground out, “Hello, Mum. Actually—”
“No, no,” she interrupted, “Iknowthat tone, Sebastian, and I won’t have it. You are staying for dinner, and that isthat.” She clapped her hands together, and did one of those distinctly mother-like nods, which Sebastian supposed meant that she considered the matter quite settled. “Besides,” she added, as she moved away and toward the dining room, “your brother has come round, too, and it has been justagessince we’ve dined as a family.”
“That’s hardly an inducement,” he muttered beneath his breath as he handed over his coat and hat to the butler, Norton.
Mum’s reproachful trill floated back through the doorway she’d exited through. “Iheardthat, Sebastian!”
“Of course she did,” he said to Norton, whose mustache twitched with barely-suppressed mirth. “She hearseverything.”
“I heard that, too!”
Sebastian turned to Norton. “Has she grown eyes in the back of her head recently?”
Norton coughed discreetly into his fist. “None of which I am aware, sir.”
“Good,” he said, and rolled his eyes, safe in the certainty that that, at least, would go unseen. “Mum,” he called, “have you seen my old hatbox?”
Her reply sailed in from somewhere near the dining room, where she was no doubt having a place set for him. “In your room, darling. You know I never touch your things. Andpleasetake that ratty old thing with you when you leave—afterdinner.”
At least Mum had always had a blessed tolerance for his eccentricities—meddlesome she might be, but unkind she was not. Despite the fact that he had, by all measures, been something of an abnormal child who had grown into an even stranger man, he could not recall a single instance in which she had ever made him feellessfor it. She was simply a motherwho loved her children, however much they might occasionally tax her patience.
Sebastian took the stairs two at a time and strode down the hallway toward his former room; the one his mother had never repurposed for anything else, because it had always beenjust his, and she had always known his penchant for keeping things orderly and familiar. The maids came in frequently to dust and straighten or to air out linens; that much was clear—but other than that, it was exactly the same as he’d left it when he’d moved into his own residence some years ago.
It felt rather like stepping into the past. And since Mum had likely instructed that it should be left ashehad left it, that meant—
He dropped into a crouch and peered beneath his bed. Buried at the very back, set deeply into the shadows against the wall, was an old hatbox. It had been ancient when he had asked for the use of it, and now it was even more aged and tattered. He had to slide onto his stomach to reach beneath far enough to snag one of the straps, but at last he managed to fish it out from beneath the bed.
It had beenyearssince he had thought to look through it. He’d forgotten it long before he’d even left home. Flipping open the togs that bound the lid, he peered inside. Newspaper clippings filled it nearly half full. These had been his first forays into science, into investigation—these crimes that had littered the newspapers of London; scandals of the highest order.
He had been fascinated by them, even as a child. It had become a hobby of his, to collect whatever tidbits of information he could glean from the papers in the interests of seeing what the authorities had learned, which crimes had been solved or had gone unsolved.
The murder of the former Duke of Venbrough had comprised rather a lot of them.
The aged papers were stiff in his fingers, and he had so many of them to go through—he supposed he might as well eat while he did so, even if itdidhave to be in Charles’ company. With a sigh, he peeled himself up off the floor, tucked the hatbox beneath his arm, and headed back for the stairs.
“Sebastian,” Father grunted as he made the dining room at last. “Good of you to join us.”
“Mum insisted.” He slid into his place—the one directly across from Charles—and set the hatbox on his lap. “What’s for dinner?”
“Lamb,” Charles said, with a grunt so very like Father’s. “Cook has outdone herself this evening.” His cool gaze flicked dismissively over Sebastian. “Have you taken a brush to your hair atanypoint in the last month?”
Sebastian found his salad fork and jabbed it into the salad that had been set before him, which was mostly watercress and endives with a few slices of boiled egg. Likely Mum had told Cook that he was staying for dinner, and she’d left out all the bits he didn’t much care for. “I named my dog after you,” he said, lifting the lid from the hatbox and setting it upon the empty chair at his side.
Charles narrowed his eyes as Sebastian began to sift through old clippings, sorting them according to relevance. “Notthisagain,” he said, his voice pitched to a disapproving mutter, as if he had been personally offended by Sebastian’s interest in such things.
“Boys,” Father chided as he waved his salad away. “Bickering upsets my digestion.”
