Page 5 of Til Death Duke Us Part
He wanted to pat her on the head. Good girl. But she wasn’t good, not in any way he wanted her to be. A damn nuisance was what she was.
“No, I’ve not seen a grave digger before.” He pretended to inspect his fingernails and saw only his glamoured gloves. But he felt the dirt beneath his nails. At least he no longer employed a valet to chastise him over it. “Dukes do not often make the acquaintance of such creatures.”
She snorted. “A duke? Ha. And I’m a lady.” She dropped a wobbly curtsy. “Nice to make your acquaintance, your grace.”
“Do not expect me to say the same.” He started down the passageway and into the glowing steady light of the orbs.
He heard her little puff of annoyance behind him and the stumble of her small footsteps. “Are you truly a duke?”
“Of Morington.”
She appeared beside him, almost running to keep up with his long strides. “I am surprised to find a duke robbing graves, but not surprised you are robbing graves.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“That you give off an immediate aura of general trouble.”
“I’ve never been so insulted,” he grumbled.
“Now I see the duke in you. What exactly is it you're looking for?”
“A grave.”
“Truly? A grave? How surprising.”
He almost laughed.
“What are you looking for at the grave? I know it’s not solace or to mourn a friend or family member. I don’t buy that for a moment. You don’t have the look of someone who cares overly much about anyone.”
“You’re like an ill wind. You never stop, and it’s not pleasant.”
“I’d like to think of myself as tenacious. Tell me or I go get the constable.”
He sighed and stopped. She stopped, too, taking the opportunity to gulp in several breaths. When she recovered, she stood before him, arms crossed in an imitation of him. A tiny dirt-covered mirror. But then… right now… He inspected the sleeve of his jacket, the revealed cuff of his shirt at his wrist… Right now he was rather dirt covered, too.
“Very well,” he said, throwing his arms out wide. “You’ve caught me. I’m looking for something that was left at my brother-in-law’s father’s grave. An heirloom. He wants it back.” His brother-in-law did not in fact want the object back. But he wouldn’t find out it was missing from his father’s grave until Victor had already turned it into blunt. “The problem is I don’t know which tomb is his.”
She peered at him from beneath thick, dark, dirt-speckled brows, and damn but those green eyes seemed capable of peering into his very soul. She must have approved of whatever she saw there because she loosened.
Her little face became amenable.
He didn’t trust it.
“Whose grave are you looking for?” she asked. “I could help.” Her voice arched a bit too high for believability. Horrid little liar.
But better to keep her by his side than have her running off after the constable. He could use her help to find the grave then return tomorrow night when she, hopefully, was somewhere else to… unburden the dead man of his treasure.
“Nicholas Bowen Senior. A copper alchemist.” Who had apparently invented a device of particular importance then requested he be buried with it instead of leaving it to his penny-poor son to sell for remuneration. And food. Or a housekeeper. Or a decent suit not painted with soot from his forge. Fool.
And now the fool’s son was married to Victor’s sister, Jane, who should have been married to a decent man with enough money to buy them all out of penury. But no. She had to fall in love with an alchemist toymaker who thought children’s smiles more valuable than gold. Fool. Fools the lot of them.
Not Victor, though. He’d known the lowered voices from the other room weren’t meant for him to hear, but he’d listened anyway. Why not? A man had to be cunning when his pockets were empty. Jane and Bowen’s conversation had been, mostly, inane, mortifying stuff, filled with ‘darlings’ and punctuated with the stomach-roiling sounds of kissing. But it had also contained gold. Metaphorically speaking. If only, Bowen bemoaned, he had his father’s device. Then his toymaking could proceed at a faster pace. More toys meant more money and more money meant more time for Nico to lavish his wife with darlings and kisses and… Victor had stopped listening at that point.
Not only out of disgust. The words revolutionary device had caught his attention. So had the ones buried with the old man.
What a waste. The dearly departed Nicholas Bowen certainly did not need whatever it was. Even if his bones remained after all this time, he would possess no muscle to move them. Best not to share any information with the lying vagabond beside him, though.
She could do nothing truly to hurt him. She possessed no status to put gossip in the right ears, and whatever constable she called would look away when Victor placed the right number of coins squarely in his palm. Not that Victor had many coins to use in such a manner. But he kept a stash of them specifically for emergencies. And bribery was sometimes necessary for the greater good.
