Page 21 of The Duke’s Indecent Scandal (Indecent Dukes #1)

Chapter Twenty

G regory

Delicately questioning his staff was an exercise in frustration. He did not want to cause turmoil among them, which meant he could hardly go around demanding they inform him of anyone who might have had ill will against his father. It would cause an uproar within the household.

But, of course, discreetly questioning them when he was a duke was rather difficult since he did not normally interact with any of them. Certainly not for casual conversation.

Finally, he summoned Montblanc, Paulson, and Mrs. Bryant to him. Assistance was required, and they were his intermediaries to the understairs staff. More Paulson and Mrs. Bryant, of course, but Montblanc had worked with his father for the past five years and knew those outside the house his father interacted with as well as some of the understairs staff.

Truthfully, he should have gone to them initially, but his inclination had been to keep things close. Just as how he had not admitted anything to the other dukes at first.

Still, all of them were loyal to him; he was certain of that.

All three were horrified by the revelation that the previous duke had been murdered, however they personally felt about him. Mrs. Bryant audibly gasped while both Montblanc and Paulson went pale. Thankfully, Paulson was quick thinking enough to hastily pull a chair over for Mrs. Bryan to sit in as her stance wavered. She looked up at him with a weak smile of gratitude.

“I cannot question each member of the household, not without raising alarms I would rather not have raised,” he explained. He looked at Montblanc. The other man had taken out a handkerchief and was dabbing at his hairline where droplets of sweat had gathered. “And you can speak with others in my father’s employ. I am sure you have all heard complaints about him at one time or another.”

The three glanced at each other, then away.

Mrs. Bryant’s lips tightened.

“One should not speak ill of the dead,” she murmured.

“One should not have so much ill to speak of,” Paulson muttered back, then coughed, looking ashamed as the others in the room all focused on him. He met Gregory’s gaze. “My apologies, Your Grace. I…” He floundered, and Gregory took pity on him.

“Thank you, Paulson. I am well aware of my father’s shortcomings.” Gregory grimaced. “There is quite a bit of ill that I could speak of myself, but my concern is for the living. As Lady Tiffany and I will shortly be married, I would like to reassure myself that neither myself, she, nor any children we have are in danger from whoever was willing to cause the death of eight dukes. Possibly nine.”

“Northumberland,” Montblanc whispered, putting his hand to his heart. “Surely not…”

“I cannot ignore that he died shortly after his father. In which case, it could be that his heir was involved… but it could also be a horrible coincidence, and only our fathers were targets. As we said, there was much ill about my father to speak of.” Gregory sighed. “But murder is murder, and he was not the only one lost. Until we know why the dukes were targeted, none of us can feel assured of our safety or the safety of our families. Discovering the ‘why’ requires discovering the ‘who’.”

“Goodness,” Mrs. Bryant muttered, fanning herself with her hand. “To think… No, it is too horrible to think. We must do everything to protect Your Grace, as well as Lady Tiffany and your future children.”

“Your Grace, I do not mean to be indelicate, but who is your heir?” Paulson asked anxiously. “What should I do if he comes to the door?” Ah, his butler was concerned about letting a possible murderer into the house. Very understandable.

“I have to ask Mother.” Gregory winced as they all looked at him in surprise. Yes, he likely should have known, but he had been a bit busy, taking over the duchy long before he’d anticipated the need to, setting up his half-sisters to make up for his father’s neglect, Sinclair’s death and funeral, then needing to find a bride, and all while trying to run the damn duchy that he’d inherited. “The family tree is rather sparse. It will be some cousin or such. I am sure Mother will know.”

After all, she’d been going through the family tree to send out wedding invitations.

“Does she know…” Montblanc started to ask, his voice trailing off.

“She believes my father died in a tragic accident, and I would not like to disillusion her,” Gregory said firmly. All three of them nodded, appearing relieved. “That it was murder should be kept as quiet as possible. Thus far, the murderer likely thinks he has gotten away with it. I do not want to alert him to the fact that we are aware of his crime, much less investigating.”

Gregory said ‘he’, though he supposed it could be a ‘she’, but the sheer violence of the way the dukes had died made him think it must be a man.

“Very good, Your Grace,” Paulson said with a bow. Mrs. Bryant and Montblanc echoed the sentiment as Mrs. Bryant got to her feet. “We will help assure you and your duchess of your safety.”

“Thank you. Anything you find at all suspicious, report back to me immediately. Or as soon as possible,” he amended. “After all, I am in the middle of planning a wedding.” An event that was quickly approaching, yet not quick enough for him.

He found that he was rather impatient to have Tiffany under his roof and to himself. Parading about in front of the ton was an exercise in patience. He was very much looking forward to spending more time with her, both in and out of bed, which was a rather surprising revelation to have. In the bedroom would not have been surprising once he found out that she was passably pretty, but out of it?

Sebastian had been as blind to her charm and her intellect as much as he had been to her beauty. Gregory was sure he was not only going to tolerate his bride, but he actually liked her. He certainly felt protective of her.

He looked at the steward.

“Montblanc, can you stay for a moment longer? I wanted to speak to you about my sisters—” The steward had been the one to help him set his sisters up and had spent the most time with them and their families, but his conversation with Montblanc was going to have to wait because a commotion out in the hall had all of them turning their heads in alarm.

“Gregory!” The door burst open, and his mother came to an abrupt halt as Mrs. Bryant dropped into a curtsy, and the two men bowed, her cheeks coloring as she realized that he was not alone and that she was making a scene. She immediately dropped the volume of her voice to a speaking tone. “Gregory, I need to speak with you.”

“Of course.” He looked at the others. “Montblanc, we’ll speak tomorrow.”

“Yes, Your Grace.” He dabbed at his brow again, turning to follow the others out the door, dipping his head in acknowledgment as he passed by the duchess. Turning, he shut the door behind them to give Gregory and his mother some privacy.

“What is wrong, Mother?” he asked, bewildered as to what could have put her in such a tizzy as the dressmaker’s.

“That woman!” She actually stomped her foot as she said it, her hands clenching and unclenching by her sides. “That poor girl… I do not know how she has turned out as well as she has with that harridan for a mother!”

Gregory blinked, as his mother was speaking without any context, though it did not take him more than a moment to come to the proper conclusion. Part of his confusion was because he had never heard his mother speak so about anyone.

“The Duchess of Bolton?” he asked, just to be sure he understood.

“Yes.” His mother shook her head, starting to pace as if to rid herself of excess energy. Gregory had never seen her like this before, not even when dealing with his father. “That woman is a bully! She did not let Tiffany pick one thing for her trousseau. The poor child looks terrible in those colors she insists on dressing her in. I had to offer to buy her a blue dress, which is a color she actually likes!”

“Who likes blue?” He was losing the thread of his mother’s rant again.

“Tiffany! And she looks much better in blue than those oranges or yellows her shrew of a mother insists on.”

“Mother!” Gregory was both aghast and slightly amused at his mother’s vehemence.

“Well, she is a shrew,” she huffed, coming to a halt and crossing her arms over her chest.

It must have been quite a scene at the shop to set his mother off like this. After living with his father for so many years, she could be very sensitive to anyone telling another person how to dress. Tiffany’s mother was a very different kind of person than his own, so perhaps he should not be so surprised they were not getting along. The Duchess of Bolton had very strong opinions, which she obviously used to make the choices for her daughter’s life, as was her right.

“As her mother, I am sure she is just choosing the colors she thinks are best,” he said soothingly, walking forward to wrap his mother in a reassuring hug. Perhaps he should not have been surprised that something like clothing would make his mother react so badly. “Once she’s my wife, Tiffany can choose whatever color dresses she likes, and I will replace her entire trousseau if necessary.”

“Well, thankfully, it will not be necessary.” His mother sniffed, breaking apart from him, her dander obviously still up. “Her mother departed to look at a hat… a hat of all things. If I were not so grateful that it gave Lady Astrid and me the opportunity to set things right, I would have been incensed over her choosing a hat over her own daughter, for goodness’ sake.”

“Lady Astrid was there?” Drake’s fiancé and his coming together in friendship. Gregory was rather pleased to hear it. Lady Astrid would be a good influence on Tiffany, he was sure. After all, she had been raised to be Drake’s duchess.

“Yes, and she agreed with me wholeheartedly.” His mother shot him a narrow-eyed look, and he held up his hands in a gesture of surrender. Far be it from him to get involved in any kind of fashion debate between the females. “Thankfully, while Tiffany’s mother was buying her hat , we were able to talk the modiste into some sense, and Tiffany will have a trousseau and wedding gown worthy of her.”

“Then I look forward to seeing it,” he said placatingly. Something about his tone must have alerted his mother that he was not taking this as seriously as she wanted him to.

“You will see,” she muttered, turning on her heel and stalking out of the room. If nothing else, having a daughter-in-law to focus on was certainly giving his mother something to invest her energy in, which he was glad to see. Hopefully, that would continue to keep her occupied while he hunted down whoever had murdered his father.

Tiffany

Smoothing her hands over her engagement ball dress, which had been delivered a mere hour before, Tiffany stared at herself in the mirror.

It had been too late to change the style, much to Lady Astrid’s displeasure, or the main color, which was a rather sickly looking yellowish-green, but the trim had been replaced with blue lace in several layers so that the chartreuse was not directly against Tiffany’s skin. A matching lace ruffle was wrapped around her throat, like a necklace, the fabric hugging her skin.

She’d never had a dress that she liked so much. Though she would have preferred a less bold color of green, less bright, less yellow, it was at least green. And the blue ruffle made all the difference. Her skin looked creamier. Not so sallow. Her brown eyes appeared darker, richer. Her hair even looked better somehow, though Tiffany could not pinpoint the difference.

She looked almost pretty.

Reaching up, she pressed her fingertips against her cheek. The figure in the mirror did the same.

It was really her.

“The blue really sets you off, my lady,” Sarah, the maid assigned to assist Tiffany this evening, said. Harleen was helping Tiffany’s mother. Originally, Tiffany had thought Harleen would help her as well, but her mother had claimed she needed Harleen to herself exclusively. She’d been in such a temperament since the modiste, Tiffany had not dared request that Harleen attend her if there was time. Especially knowing how upset her mother was likely to be when she realized that all the instructions she had given for Tiffany’s trousseau and wedding gown had been countermanded by the Duchess of Clarence and Lady Astrid.

Her mother did not like to be opposed.

“Do you think so?” Tiffany asked, twisting in front of the mirror to try to see her back as well. She wanted to look nice for the engagement ball.

“I do. Suits you much better than… well.” Sarah coughed to cover the criticism she was about to utter, though Tiffany did not mind. “I never understood why her grace insisted on the colors she put you in. They dinna do anything for your complexion, always made you look a mite sickly, I thought. This green is bright too, but the blue… the blue makes it work.”

“I think so, too.” Tiffany stared at herself in the mirror. Astrid had said she needed a signature color.

Blue it was.

The knock at the door had her stiffening up, then relaxing when it was revealed to be Sebastian rather than her mother. The idea of facing her mother in the altered dress, even though they had done nothing more than add a few ruffles, nearly made her want to run and hide in the attic.

“Bloody hell…” Sebastian stared at her from the doorway. The green of his coat was much darker than her dress, but it gave her some consolation that they were dressed in the same color, if not the same shade. “Tiffany, you look…”

Her nerves rose up again.

“Bad? Good? Presentable?” She smoothed her hands down over her skirts, trying not to squirm in place as Sebastian continued to stare at her.

“Lovely,” he replied firmly. “I really was blind to how pretty you have grown. I think you should wear blue more often. It looks quite well on you.”

Relief flooded through her. If even Sebastian thought the difference was enough to comment on, she knew that she had made the correct decision in allowing Lady Astrid to alter the dress.

Stepping back through the door, Sebastian turned, offering up his arm.

“Come along, sister. Your fiancé and his mother await.”

“And our mother?” she asked, moving to take his arm.

“Overseeing some last-minute touches on the ballroom, though it is very likely she will beat us to meet Gregory and the duchess in the foyer.” He grinned down at her. “It should be quite the gathering.”

Tiffany dug in her heels, grinding them to a halt in the middle of the hallway. Sebastian stopped with her, obviously startled.

“Sebastian… I… does Gregory have a mistress?” She blurted the words out before she could lose her courage.

“What? Tiffany, that is not an appropriate—” Sebastian was hissing the words at her, his face turning bright red in embarrassment.

Turning toward him, she put her other hand on his arm, digging her fingers in as she looked up at him imploringly.

“I do not care if it is not an appropriate topic of conversation, Sebastian. I am going to be marrying him. I just want to know what to prepare myself for. He… he introduced me to his half-sisters. That was why he whisked me away from the rest of you at Clarence House.”

Sebastian let out a long, slow breath.

“I see.” He said shortly. Then he sighed. “To my knowledge, Gregory has never had a mistress.”

“But… he is a rake.”

Sebastian scrubbed his hand over his face, obviously unhappy with the entirety of this conversation.

“A mistress is long term. Gregory’s… partners are not.” The pained expression on Sebastian’s face would have been amusing under other circumstances.

“Does he have a lover right now?”

“Tiffany!”

“Sebastian!” She glared at him, and he huffed.

“No. And I told him that he is to make you happy. That means discretion. If he does ever embarrass you, I will pound him.” Sebastian groaned. “Can we please stop talking about this now?”

Though she did not feel all that much better, Tiffany nodded. At least she knew that Gregory did not have some long-time love he was pining for. From what Sebastian was saying, Gregory had rakish conquests. Not lovers.

She did not know if that made it better or worse, but at least now she knew.

“Yes, let us go and meet them.”

They walked in silence the last bit of the way to the top of the staircase. Voices drifted up from the foyer. Her mother speaking with Gregory and his mother. They were all down there.

Tiffany and Sebastian stepped up to the top of the staircase, and she looked down, instinctively looking to Gregory for his reaction to seeing her. Dressed in a navy superfine jacket with a gold and blue patterned waistcoat, his hair brushed back from his head, he looked almost unbearably handsome. His mouth parted slightly as he stared up at her in wonderment, blinking rapidly before refocusing, as if he were having trouble believing it was her that he was seeing. Warmth, interest, and delight filled his eyes and his expression, his lips curving up in appreciation.

Butterflies burst into flight in her stomach, but in a good way. A way that made her feel tingly and excited. Her heart pattered faster in her chest.

Her own smile lifted in response.

Then she looked at her mother and saw nothing but rage on her mother’s face.