The Duke's Men [1] What the Duke Desires (6 page)

I can say no more at present, in case this falls into the wrong hands, but for proof
of my suspicions, I enclose a rubbing of the embroidery on the handkerchief. If you
will be so good as to accompany this messenger to meet
me, I will show the item to you in person, and you may judge its veracity then.

Your servant,

Tristan Bonnaud

“Well?” he snapped. “It’s his signature, is it not?”

She raised a stunned gaze to him. “Yes. But I don’t understand. How could Tristan
possibly have come across your brother’s handkerchief?”

“That’s what
I
want to know. More importantly, I want to know what he’s trying to get from me. I
doubt seriously that he has noble intentions. He wants money, I daresay, for introducing
this impostor to me.”

“Now, see here,” she protested. “If he had such nefarious motives, then why didn’t
he show up for your assignation?”

The question was a valid one. “Perhaps after he considered the matter, he feared I
would bring the authorities. Or perhaps he got cold feet. Or . . .” He scowled at
her. “I don’t know. But I could ask you the same thing—if this is
not
a nefarious endeavor, why didn’t he show up?”

“Obviously he was prevented by something or . . . or someone.”

The way she said “someone” gave him pause. “Like who?”

“I-I don’t know. An enemy of some kind. He did mention being afraid that the note
would fall into the wrong hands.” She frowned. “Though it is odd. I mean, if Tristan
really had found your brother and wanted
to reunite the two of you, he should have just brought Peter to see you. That would
be simplest.”

The fact that she would point out something that cast even more suspicion on her brother’s
actions made him feel better about trusting her with the story. She truly didn’t seem
to know why Bonnaud had approached him.

He fixed her with a dark glance. “He didn’t bring the impostor to me because he wanted
me to come to him. That’s how sharpers work. The swindler lures the target of his
fraud away from his friends, to get him alone and confused. It makes the target easier
prey.”

“My brother is
not
a sharper!” she protested. When he lifted an eyebrow at her, she said stoutly, “He
isn’t.”

“Are you sure?”

Two spots of color appeared in her pretty cheeks. “Yes,” she said, though she dropped
her gaze to the desk, where she was worrying the note with her hands. “I’ll admit
he can be wild sometimes and he gets into trouble occasionally, but he’s a good man.
He’d never prey on someone’s grief.”

She’d gone right to the heart of Maximilian’s anger. “Then he’d be the first to have
such scruples,” he said bitterly. He paced the room, fighting his churning emotions.
“Do you know how many men have approached me and my family in the years since my brother
was kidnapped? How many have claimed to know Peter? To
be
Peter?”

And how many his parents had momentarily been swayed by, desperate to have their son
back. The son
that mattered. The son that hung golden in their memory.

“There’s a great deal of money and property at stake,” he said coldly, “and everyone
realizes that.”

“Yes, I imagine finding him alive would change your life considerably.”

Her matter-of-fact tone and searching gaze roused his ire. “What are you implying?
That I want to find him for some other reason than just having my brother back?”

“Do you?”

Anger roiled in his gut. “You think I want to hunt him down and murder him, so I can
hold on to the dukedom.”

She had the good grace to color. “I didn’t mean—”

“Of course you did.” A harsh laugh escaped him. As if he would actually
want
to keep the legacy that his family had handed down to him. “But unlike you, who have
a plethora of brothers, I had only the one, and I would give anything to have him
back.”

Indeed, he would gladly give up the confounded title to Peter, if only to avoid feeling
obligated to marry and risk passing on the madness that seemed endemic to his line.

“Besides,” he went on, “if I
did
wish to eliminate my brother, wouldn’t it be foolish to come here and reveal that
I’m searching for him? It would make more sense to refuse to tell you who Peter is
to me.
Was
to me.”

He glared at her. “But I abhor such deceit. Which is why I do not like being made
a fool of by swindlers
and impostors. I’m an easy target, since anyone who has heard the tale knows I would
never recognize Peter. I was only three when my . . . when
someone
absconded with him.”

He wasn’t about to reveal the truth of who that someone was. And how the abduction
had shattered his parents’ lives, his father’s in particular. Father had taken the
truth to his grave. Maximilian intended to leave it there.

But he wouldn’t be able to if Peter was alive.

The last words he had heard Father say, during the final stages of his dementia, came
abruptly to mind:
Do I have only the one son, then?

Maximilian had answered,
Yes, Father, your other son is dead.

No!
Father had protested, violently.
You don’t understand.

Could Father have been saying that Peter was alive? But then, why ask if he had only
one son?

Maximilian scowled. He was letting himself be taken in already. Peter couldn’t be
alive. Bonnaud was merely a scoundrel of the worst kind.

“Clearly Tristan is somehow mistaken about your brother,” Miss Bonnaud said, a trace
of pity in her voice. “I’ll write to him in care of his employer in France to tell
him so, and that will be an end to it.”

Whirling on her, he snapped, “Oh no, he will not escape me that easily. The handkerchief
that he enclosed a rubbing from is most assuredly Peter’s. And I damned well want
to hear how he acquired it, when my brother
and all his earthly belongings went up in flames in Belgium fourteen years ago!”

As the angry words echoed in the room, a knock sounded at the door. He jerked his
gaze to the aging woman who stood waiting in the doorway, a tray in her hands.

Miss Bonnaud rose slowly, as if afraid he would pounce on her if she didn’t use small,
careful movements. “Ah, Mrs. Biddle is here with our tea, Your Grace.” Instead of
calling the servant in, Miss Bonnaud swept toward the door, keeping a wary eye on
him.

It unnerved him. He’d seen that look before, leveled on his mad father. That look
was why Maximilian generally took great care with his every remark, his every action.
People were always watching and waiting for him to exhibit the same symptoms. And
Maximilian would never give them the satisfaction of thinking they had seen something . . .
off in him.

It annoyed him more than he liked that Miss Bonnaud had just seen him lose his temper.
This situation had him all out of sorts.

Taking the tray from the servant, she brought it back to set it on the desk. “Will
you have some tea, sir?”

Tea. It was so normal, so everyday. Right now, he wanted nothing more than to feel
normal and everyday. “Yes,” he clipped out. “Thank you.”

The calm he’d forced into his voice seemed to translate to her as well, for she relaxed
her shoulders. “And how do you take it?” she asked as she prepared the brew.

“Strong. Black. No sugar.”

“How odd,” she said as she set the cup and saucer on the desk in front of a chair,
unsubtly inviting him to sit down. “So do I. So did my father. Maman thought us both
quite mad.”

Had she mentioned madness on purpose to provoke him? He slanted her a wary glance.
“Then she would have to consider me so, as well.”

“Ah, but she would not. You’re a duke.” Her voice turned acid. “Dukes are above reproach.”

She couldn’t possibly know about his family’s dance with madness, or she wouldn’t
speak so glibly of it. And she hadn’t even known about Peter, so she wouldn’t know
the rest. “I take it you do not share your mother’s opinion of dukes.”

“She’s dead now,” she said with a small hitch in her voice, “but no, I did not share
her opinion.” She met his gaze boldly. “In my estimation, no man is above reproach.”

“Except your brothers?” he drawled.

She released a sigh. “Not even them. They often try my patience sorely.”

In spite of everything, he smiled. She was making small talk to put him at ease, and
it was working. She must be good at managing Manton’s clients.

Watching as she poured her own cup of tea, he took a seat and sipped the brew. It
was exactly as he liked it. And it was of surprisingly good quality, given the obviously
strained finances of her and her half brother.

“Now then,” she asked when she took her own seat,
“how can you be sure that this handkerchief belonged to your brother? You said you
were young when he . . . um . . . left.”

“Was kidnapped. Let us not mince words. And the handkerchief has certain distinguishing
marks. The embroidery is distinctive, for one.”

“But any embroidery design could be copied. I copy designs in my own embroidery all
the time, whenever I see something pretty on a gown.”

“You’ll have to trust me when I say it can’t be copied. It’s more than what was in
the design. Each handkerchief’s embroidery is unique to its owner. No one but the
family knows how. Unfortunately, it requires that I see it to be sure it’s the right
one.”

“How would you even recognize it? I mean, if your brother was taken when you were
barely old enough to remember anything . . .”

“Before we received word of Peter’s death, my father gave me a written account of
everything Peter was wearing or carrying when he was abducted, including the handkerchief.
That’s why it’s imperative that I meet with your brother. So I can get to the bottom
of this.”

Furrowing her brow, she sipped her tea. “It makes no sense, you know. If Tristan had
uncovered an heir to the dukedom and then had traveled to England to reveal that,
he would have told Dom and me.”

“Perhaps he
did
tell Manton. And Manton left you out of it.”

“Dom would never do that.”

“Then where is he? It can’t be a coincidence that
Manton ran off right before I was supposed to meet with Bonnaud. He has probably gone
to join the scoundrel somewhere.”

She glared at him. “Dom began planning this trip to Edinburgh weeks before you received
that note from Tristan. I have the letters he received from the client, notes about
the information he’s been—”

“Edinburgh?” Maximilian cut in, as hope of speaking to Manton died. “He’s in
Scotland
?”

A sigh escaped her. “I suppose you might as well know. He left by ship yesterday morning.”

“Confound it all. He has a day’s start, then.”

“Following him won’t do you any good. He doesn’t know where Tristan is any more than
I do. In fact, before he left we were discussing our concern that Tristan hasn’t written
for months, which isn’t like him.”

“Obviously Bonnaud was already planning his trip to England.”

“I don’t think so. He would have written us about it. Dom and I and Tristan are very
close. We have no secrets from each other. Dom would have told me if he’d heard from
Tristan.”

“Unless
Dom
is part of your brother’s scheme.”

Anger flared in her face. “He would never be part of any ‘scheme.’ ”

Maximilian considered that a moment. He had to admit that Manton had an excellent
reputation as a man of good character and principles. It was hard to believe he would
countenance a fraud, especially one involving a duke.

Manton’s half brother, however, was another matter entirely. “So your Tristan didn’t
tell either of you. That just points to his guilt. He was probably ashamed to admit
that he sought to defraud me.”

She shook her head. “I still say something bad must have happened to him. That is
the only logical explanation.”

Not as far as Maximilian was concerned, but clearly she had blinders on when it came
to her brother. “In any case, none of this helps me find him. He didn’t even leave
a note with the tavern keeper or inform the messenger boy what to do if he was gone
when we arrived. You have to admit that looks suspicious.”

“Yes. And it’s not like him at all.”

“Have you no idea of where he would go in London?” he pressed her.

“I’m telling you—he can’t possibly be in London. Not willingly, anyway.”

He sifted through his memory. “Then perhaps he went to the family seat. It’s in Yorkshire,
is it not?”

A hard laugh escaped her. “It is indeed, but clearly you know as little about my family
as I know about yours. My eldest half brother, George, hates us all, even Dom. Dom
stood up to him on our behalf, so George cut
him
off, too.”

“Too?”

Pain slashed over her features. “Because of my father’s negligence in providing for
us and because of . . . other things, George was able to cut off all three of us.
Why do you think Dom works in such an
ungentlemanly profession? Because he has no choice.” A contemptuous edge laced her
voice. “I assure you, Yorkshire is the last place Tristan would ever go.”

Frustrated by her answers, Maximilian drained his cup, then rose to pace again. “The
tavern was near the docks. Perhaps he stayed on board a ship. I can go through the
manifests of every one that has recently been at port in France.”

She lifted an eyebrow. “Good luck. Thousands of ships come through the Port of London
every year, and that isn’t counting the smaller vessels. You forget that steam packets
make the journey daily. If he took one of those, he might already have returned to
France, having missed you.”

Damn it all. “Steam packets don’t travel on Sunday, so perhaps he’s still nearby.”

“And perhaps he took the coach to Dover or Brighton or Southampton to pick up a packet
in those towns tomorrow morning.”