Chapter 11

“Well,” Anthony said as soon as the door had shut behind the Mandevilles, “I should be getting home.”

“Not so fast.” Aunt Eugenia restrained him with a hand above his elbow.

“Yes, not so fast,” Frederick said, appearing around the corner with William behind him. The expression on his brother’s face told Anthony he was likely to heartily detest the next few minutes. It was a look of utterly delighted mischief.

Anthony was forced into the drawing room, then into a wingback chair near the empty fireplace. His aunt took a seat nearby, while his brothers went to the liquor cabinet and poured drinks from the crystal decanters there.

“Well?” Frederick said.

“Well?” Anthony parroted back.

“Oh, don’t be perverse,” Frederick said, taking a relaxed seat on the chair of the sofa. “I thought you had sworn off women.”

“As did I,” William said.

“No man swears off women,” Aunt Eugenia said testily. “They may say something of the sort, but they never mean it.”

Anthony bit his tongue. He certainly had meant it. None of them knew the reasoning, of course. They had no idea Anthony was meant to be with Silas and Langdon—and that if he had been, Lord Drayton would not have been able to get away with murder. No woman was worth the pain Miss Baxter had brought Anthony and Silas.

Both William and Frederick believed Silas guilty of the charges brought against him. His unhappy history with Langdon—borne of their own conflict over a woman in addition to Silas initially suspecting Langdon as the one responsible for the business’s decreasing profits—and his flight to France had been enough for them to believe Drayton’s story. Both of them resented Silas heavily for it. Frederick’s resentment was not just borne of the feeling of betrayal but of the way the scandal tainted him by association, making it more difficult to gain the respect he needed to achieve his goal: becoming a Member of Parliament.

William, on the other hand, had been against Silas’s investments from the beginning, disliking the way they tainted the family name. He had always thought Silas impulsive.

“How did it happen, then?” Frederick asked. “How did my ornery brother fall head over heels into love?”

Anthony swirled the brandy in his glass, thinking of his first meeting with Charlotte. If only he had snatched the reticule from her wrist right then and there. “Oh, you know how love is,” he said, keeping his eyes on his drink. “One minute, you are minding your business, and the next thing you know, it barrels into you, turning your life upside down and making you wonder how you ever lived without it.”

Happily. That was how he had lived before Charlotte Mandeville’s antics had upended his entire existence.

“Gads,” Frederick said, staring at him blankly. “You are in love.”

“And set to beat you to the altar,” Aunt Eugenia said significantly.

Frederick shrugged a shoulder. “I am in no hurry.”

“Even for five hundred pounds?” She cocked a brow.

“Ah, yes,” Anthony said. “I had meant to tell you, Frederick ...”

“Tell me what?”

“I am giving five hundred pounds to the first between you to marry.” Aunt Eugenia smiled as she waited for this information to sink in. Her gaze flitted briefly to William. “Not to you. You need no more money.”

William chuckled and tossed back the rest of his drink. “How discerning of you.”

It wasn’t entirely true. William was certainly better off than the rest of them, but the sizable estate in Kent came with hefty debts and obligations.

“Forgot to tell me, did you?” Frederick said to Anthony. “Or thought you’d get a head start?”

Anthony didn’t deign to respond. He hadn’t bothered to tell Frederick because he had known neither of them were interested in marrying.

“Hush now,” Aunt Eugenia said. “I told Anthony less than a fortnight ago, but I like things fair. You have that long, Frederick, to catch up. A grace period.”

He scoffed. “A fortnight to engage myself to someone? When I am in the middle of trying to make headway amongst the MPs?” He shook his head. “No. I am sorry, aunt, but I cannot possibly play this game of yours. There is too much at stake, and women are too much of a distraction.”

“I could not agree more,” Anthony said. The silence that followed brought his head up. Everyone was looking at him, confused. “A pleasant distraction, naturally.”

Not naturally.

He stood. “If the inquiries are at an end for the night, I am for bed.”

“The inquiries are not over,” Aunt Eugenia said, “but they can wait for dinner tomorrow. You are all coming.” It was an order rather than a question.

William frowned. “I suppose I could.”

“As long as I am not required to watch Anthony swooning over the hand of his betrothed.” Frederick winked at him.

“I will attempt to restrain myself,” Anthony said as he left the room, happy to escape further interrogation.

Once the door was closed, he let out a long, slow breath. Charlotte had been right; they needed to make their stories cohesive, preferably before dinner tomorrow.

He was exhausted, but sleep was not on the horizon. When would this madness end?

He slipped into the library to retrieve the diary, half-thinking Charlotte would have managed to steal it back somehow. But it was where he had left it—an entire book full of Marlowe’s observations and knowledge.

Anthony had heard of Marlowe, of course, but it was Harris who had informed Anthony that, in addition to having family connections in various quarters of Society, the man had kept a highly detailed diary—one with a specific entry that had the potential to clear Silas’s name.

Harris had been in discussions with Marlowe when Marlowe had died suddenly. Apoplexy, reports said. But Harris had managed to get his hands on the diary despite that.

And finally Anthony had it.

He went to his apartments on foot and, after shrugging out of his coat, sat with the diary at the escritoire and began to read it from the first entry.

It was not until nigh on three o’clock when he reached the final pages.

His eyes ran over the last lines of the diary until he reached the signature at the bottom of the last page. He stared at it for a few seconds, then slammed the book shut, and threw it at the wall.

Not a single mention of Lord Drayton in the entire thing. Nothing at all he could use as evidence of what had truly happened that fateful night.

Anthony sat back in his chair, shut his eyes, and ran his hands through his hair.

How could this happen? Harris had been certain the diary contained evidence Anthony could use to exonerate Silas. Perhaps this was Anthony’s just desserts for trusting anything that outlandish man said. He had been so desperate, though, to believe there was a path forward to bringing Silas home.

He opened his eyes, and they shifted to the diary, sitting on the floorboards next to the wall. That little book had turned his entire life on end. He had spent weeks trying to get his hands on it and now found himself engaged, of all things, to a woman he detested—all in pursuit of the information inside.

Information that was not inside. He was no closer now to clearing Silas’s name than he had ever been.

He kicked at a leg of the desk, and pain shot through his foot.

He didn’t care. Anything was preferable to this frustration, to this despair. He would have taken Silas’s place in France in a heartbeat if it would have made a difference. From his mother’s death, Anthony had promised himself that he would watch over his younger brothers. When it became clear that Silas’s and William’s temperaments and passions were too different to be conducive to a close relationship, Anthony had reaffirmed that promise.

He and Silas had attended Cambridge at the same time, lived together afterward, invested in Lord Drayton’s company together.

But Anthony had failed when it had counted the most. And now, the one certain way to clear Silas’s name turned out to be useless. Without it, Silas would be stuck in France indefinitely.

That was a prospect Anthony couldn’t bear. He had to bring Silas home. But how?

Anthony pushed through the door of The Pelican. It was a respected establishment, even if not among the finest. Perhaps the Mandevilles were not in such financial trouble as Harris had given him to believe. That would be welcome information, for he didn’t particularly relish the prospect of sending rumors flying that he had wooed and then jilted an impoverished young woman.

“How may I help ye, sir?” a maid asked, wiping her hands on her apron.

“I am looking for Miss Charlotte Mandeville,” he said.

“She’s in the parlor, sir.” She indicated the second door on his left, and he thanked her before marching toward it. He stopped short, though, at the sound of voices within, for he recognized Charlotte’s. He shifted so he could see through the small gap the just-ajar door afforded.

Charlotte and her mother were seated beside one another at a table. In front of them, were two teacups and plates with nothing but crumbs remaining. Mrs. Mandeville took her daughter’s hand, looking at her with an affectionate smile. “I cannot tell you how pleased I am for you.”

“Thank you, Mama.”

“No. Thank you. You cannot know this, but I have been at my wit’s end of late, unable to sleep for fear of the future, dreading that ghastly letter informing us the heir is on his way to oust us from our beloved Bellevue. But now ...” She squeezed Charlotte’s hand.

She was trying valiantly to match her mother’s emotion.

“But now,” her mother continued, “our fortunes have changed. Your fortunes have changed, and no one could be more deserving.”

Charlotte looked away. “Mama . . .”

“I mean it, Charlotte. No one has been a greater force for hope in the family since Papa died. No one has encouraged us as you have to believe in a joyful future despite our adversities.” Her voice faltered, and they both dashed away tears.

Anthony’s conscience pricked him, and he knew he should draw back, but Mrs. Mandeville’s whisper had him drawing nearer instead. “I am unspeakably proud of you. Indescribably happy for you. For you and your Anthony.”

His heartbeat quickened.

“And Tabitha is right, you know,” Mrs. Mandeville said with an enigmatic smile. “He is dashing.”

Anthony’s mouth quirked at the edge. Charlotte must be itching to set her mother’s view of him to rights.

But behind his amusement, there was something else. A heaviness.

Heaviness at the realization of the burden their lie required of Charlotte. Anthony had no desire to speak untruths to his brothers or aunt, but there was an obvious intimacy between Charlotte and her family that he had failed to recognize until now.

There was more heaviness at the recognition of the pressures the Mandevilles were facing as a family—and Charlotte’s attempts to see them through. That must be the reason behind the caricatures.

And dash it all if it didn’t make it harder for him to detest her with as much force.

The continuing silence brought him toward the gap in the door again. Charlotte and her mother were embracing, and the way Charlotte’s head rested on her mother’s shoulder, he had a full view of the tears and misery in her face.

When they pulled back, though, she had formed her lips into a trembling smile, the sight of which pulled at Anthony’s heartstrings.

It was the last thing he needed.

“We shall come about, Mama.” Charlotte stared deep into her mother’s eyes. “No matter what we face, no matter how terrible it may seem, we shall come about. I will make sure of it.”

Was it Anthony’s imagination, or was she trying to prepare her mother for when the engagement was broken off?

Frowning, he shifted his weight to his back foot, eliciting a loud creak from the floorboards.

Charlotte’s head whipped around, and her gaze met his.