Celeste Bradley - [Heiress Brides 03] (30 page)

Everything that could be sold would be sold. He should put the London house up for auction. He didn’t believe it was included in the entail. Perhaps it would be enough to quiet the most vociferous—and violent!—creditors and purchase new roofs for the cottagers still determined to stick out the winter at Edencourt.

After that, he truly would be poverty-stricken.

He was not frightened for himself. He no longer seemed to possess an appetite and after the last twenty-four hours it was quite evident that he wasn’t capable of ever drinking enough to shut out that tart, lying
voice in his head. So he’d need no food or drink, only a roof over his head and chair to sulk in.

He’d be that mad, brooding duke in the crumbling manor, the one mothers used to frighten their offspring into obedience.

Be good or the duke will get you
.

Shadows of his own childhood terror shivered through him. Spurred to restless action, he sprang to his feet—

But he had nowhere to go. There was no one waiting for him at Primrose Street but Tessa. There was no caustic strawberry-blond with endless legs and vastly too much brain for her own good.

Where did she go when you abandoned her at the church?

He hadn’t abandoned her. She’d been safe and sound, in the middle of a crowd.

A crowd who despised her. Even the priest was casting her hostile glances
.

Not his concern. Not his love, not his darling. Not his Sophie.

Just your wife
.

He rubbed a hand over his face. His wife, Sadie.

Sadie
.

He said it out loud, trying it out. “Sadie, Duchess of Edencourt.” It sounded all wrong. A washerwoman’s name and a title second only to the queen’s. The combination was ridiculous.

He heard delighted laughter in his mind.
Ridiculous yet perfect
.

“See, I told you he was drunk.”

Graham didn’t bother to turn. “You missed my wedding, Deirdre.”

“That’s fair. You missed mine.” She strolled into the room, followed by Phoebe. Graham waited for their smitten husbands to enter as well, then let his breath out in relief when they didn’t. He thought they were all right most of the time, but the last thing he wanted around him now was love so thick in the air that one could hardly breathe.

I can’t breathe. I can’t feel my heart beating. I can’t live without my Sophie
.

Who didn’t exist.

What a pickle
.

He pressed both palms to his head, hoping the pressure would drive the voice out. Perhaps he should consult the priest. Didn’t they do exorcisms from time to time?

The voice in his mind shut up, but there was no silencing Deirdre when she was on a roll.

“What are you doing, sitting here in the dark, drinking?” She strode to the window and whipped the curtains wide, letting in a horrible, harsh glare. She turned to regard him with her fists on her hips. “You have important matters to see to!”

Graham blinked at the sunlight currently piercing his brain with white-hot needles. “Shut that, would you? The carpet will fade. I might have to sell it soon.”

Deirdre waved a sheaf of papers in his face. “You must do something to help Sadie!”

Phoebe took pity on Graham and shut the draperies partway. “Deirdre, why don’t you take some of that
fury out on Graham’s execrable butler? I think we could all stand a cup of tea.”

Deirdre exhaled in frustration, thrust her papers at Phoebe, then swept from the room in a righteous sputter. Poor Nichols.

Phoebe straightened the sheets as she watched Graham sink into the large chair behind the massive desk. “This is the strangest room,” she said conversationally.

Graham grunted. “You should have seen it before the bonfire.”

She smiled. “There’s nothing like a good bonfire. I like the bear, though. That looks like something So—Sadie would do.”

Graham closed his eyes. She was in his very blood and bones. What did it matter if traces of her kept appearing elsewhere? “She added the bow.”

“Ah.” Phoebe came to seat herself on the low stool at his knee. “Graham, I haven’t known you that long. I’ve known Sadie no longer. Yet it seems to me that she truly loves you.” She sighed. “She’s so very sad.”

She was at Brook House. Of course.

Safe and sound
.

He didn’t care. Not a whit. Still, something deep inside ceased its circling worry and settled down wearily to mourn instead.

Stupid loyal hound. Stupid loyal heart.

He tipped his head back on the chair. “Phoebe, what does it matter if she loves me? I don’t even know the woman.”

“Graham, if you don’t quit that tuneless drone I’m going to dump this putrid tea in your lap.”

Graham didn’t open his eyes. “Oh, lovely. Deirdre’s back.”

Aren’t you just a bit sick of yourself by now?
He was, actually. He opened his eyes.

“I think you ought to be good and sick of yourself at this point,” Phoebe pointed out.

“I know I am,” agreed Deirdre.

Still, his aching heart seethed. “She ruined me!” In the financial sense, of course, not the other. Except that actually, she’d ruined him there as well.

Phoebe glared at him. “Sophie only did it for you, Graham!”

“She lied!”

Deirdre snorted. “One lie. One teensy little lie. Surely you’ve lied to someone, somewhere, haven’t you, Graham?”

“But—”

Phoebe weighed in. “She was all alone!”

That struck him. He knew what that was like.

Phoebe continued. “You put her on a pedestal. That’s not fair. Sooner or later she was bound to make a misstep and fall. She’s only human.”

He hadn’t thought of her as human. He’d thought of her as . . . as . . . as some sort of icon—a symbol of truth and decency and blah, blah, blah—God, he was sick of his own circling thoughts!

It was easy to blame her for everything, but Edencourt had been in trouble since before she was even born and it was going to remain in trouble for a very long time. Even with some astounding influx of cash, there was no miracle cure for the estate. It was going to
be hard, slogging, gradual work—work that he hadn’t wanted to admit that he might not be up to.

He’d thought he needed Lilah’s money—but that was simply the old Graham, hoping someone would take away the hard parts. He raised his head from his hands and looked at Deirdre and Phoebe.

Sadie Westmoreland had lied to them as well. She had tricked them and made fools of them and even tried to steal their inheritance!

Hell, she’d tried to
give
him his heritage, all wrapped up in a pretty pink silk bow.

All she’d stolen from him was his heart.

But then, he had given that willingly, hadn’t he?

Deirdre was watching him closely. “Lementeur told us that you had your chance to back out of the wedding. Have you really asked yourself why you didn’t?”

He ran a hand through his hair. “I couldn’t ruin her.”

Phoebe smiled at him. “But you could ruin yourself?”

Deirdre’s satisfied smile would have put a well-fed cat to shame. “Sounds like love to me.”

Love.

“Bloody hell!” Graham stood abruptly. “I forgot! That Blake woman told me she intended to press charges!”

THE BITTER, VENGEFUL
Mrs. Blake had taken up residence at the house on Primrose Street. Tessa, having won the battle to save Deirdre’s inheritance, had graciously
allowed it, then within the hour had packed up her things and moved in with her new lover.

When someone was even more poisonous than Tessa, that someone bore watching.

Graham, Phoebe and Deirdre mounted the steps of the house in unison. When Tessa’s slackard butler finally answered the knocker, he found himself face to face with three cheerful angels of retribution.

Deirdre stunned him with a glowing smile that didn’t reach her furious eyes. “Good afternoon, Harrick. We’ve come to make a
family
call.”

In the parlor of the house on Primrose Street, Graham, Phoebe and Deirdre surrounded the stiffly quivering Mrs. Blake.

“You say she was a servant?” Phoebe exuded patient ruthlessness. “Yet you never paid her, is that correct?”

“I gave her a home, didn’t I? Treated her like family! No need to pay her as well! That money came addressed to
my
daughter! And she stole it! That ungrateful, wicked—”

“Your daughter?” Graham spoke slowly, holding the gazes of Phoebe and Deirdre as he raised his brows with significance.

Phoebe’s eyes widened, but Deirdre caught on immediately. “Yes,” she agreed with Mrs. Blake, nodding sympathetically. “Your daughter, Sophie.”

Mrs. Blake immediately leaned toward the only source of sympathy in the room. “Yes, my sweet darling, my precious—”

“Daughter.” The corners of Phoebe’s lips began to rise. “Your daughter.”

Mrs. Blake began to catch on that something was
amiss, that her audience kept repeating the same phrase over and over again. “Yes,” she said tartly. “My daughter Sophie! What of it?”

Graham looked down at his folding hands. “After you lost your daughter, you brought S—Miss Westmoreland home, correct?”

The woman’s gaze was truly wary now. “Yes. I missed my own Sophie, so when she passed, my housekeeper brought me an orphan girl to keep me company. She said she chose her because she looked like my sweet darling—although I never saw the resemblance—”

From what Graham could see of the woman and the miniature she clutched dramatically to her chest, Sophie—er, Sadie, looked enough like them both to be naturally born in that family. Hair too red to be properly blond, eyes of a particular storm cloud gray, and the Pickering nose in full flower. He could see that Phoebe and Deirdre were drawing the same conclusions. The woman had intended to pass the orphan off as her own daughter to win the Pickering fortune!

“Hmm.” Deirdre’s smile was a bit too bright. “What is it called when someone takes a child from an orphanage and gives her a home?” She snapped her fingers in the air. “Graham, help me here. What’s that word?”

Graham smiled. “I believe the word you’re thinking of is ‘adoption.’ ”

Deirdre’s smile became like that of a satisfied cat. “Yes, that’s the word. Precisely.” She was all but purring as she watched Mrs. Blake through narrowed eyes.

Phoebe followed suit. “The money was meant for your daughter, as you said. Does adoption not make Sadie Westmoreland your daughter—and thus the rightful great-granddaughter of Sir Hamish?”

The woman’s eyes narrowed. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”

Phoebe tilted her head with a smile. “I think I know someone who can explain it to you.”

Mr. Stickley, when he arrived, was ushered into the familiar parlor and confronted with the eerie tableau of the Duke of Edencourt, the Marchioness of Brookhaven and Lady Marbrook, all standing behind a chair like a handsome warden and his two beautiful guards. The chair was occupied by a subdued and uneasy version of the awful woman who had ruined Miss Blake’s beautiful wedding.

Except she wasn’t Miss Blake, was she?

“Oh dear,” Stickley blurted. “What a pickle all this is.”

He blinked in mystification when the three people standing broke into spontaneous laughter.

Once matters had been explained to him, however, Stickley was in his element. “In entailment, an adopted son is not considered a legal heir,” he explained. “But an adopted daughter could most definitely inherit from an ordinary will, provided that said will did not stipulate blood relations.”

He gazed at the marchioness in consternation. “Are you concerned that Miss Blake—er, the Duchess of Edencourt will be allowed to inherit before you?”

“Not in the slightest. I hope she does.” The marchioness
smiled at him, her eyes brilliant with momentary fondness for him. She truly was a beauty, wasn’t she? That golden hair—those stunning eyes—

The duke snapped his fingers before Stickley’s face. “Ease back on the candlepower, Dee. The bloke’s not used to it.”

Stickley cleared his throat and fiddled with his neckcloth. “Er . . . yes. Well. Excuse me . . .
what?”

Lady Marbrook put a hand on Stickley’s arm. “Sir, we
want
the duchess to inherit the Pickering fortune.”

“She deserves it,” the marchioness agreed stoutly. “I don’t need it.”

Lady Marbrook smiled. “Neither do I.”

The duke nodded. “But most importantly, we need to obtain Mrs. Blake’s assurance that she will not press charges for the theft of her daughter’s money.”

Stickley sniffed. That was a legitimate concern, for even a duchess could be accused of a crime. “Mrs. Blake ought to have informed us of her daughter’s death immediately.” Then he relented. “Or as soon as she felt able to, in her grief.”

The marchioness muttered something like “which means never” but that couldn’t be, for the marchioness was the image of ladylike propriety.

Mrs. Blake snarled. “I’m due what I’m due. No one steals from me, not even a stick-shaped orphan!”

Stickley shared worried glances with the duke and his two lovely companions. The entire arrangement wouldn’t work if the woman wouldn’t cease her vendetta and claim the duchess as her legal daughter.