“I will read the documents,” Jeanette said, “lest I enter a bargain in ignorance of its terms and thus render the agreement unenforceable.”
“Papa, I told you she would never—” Jerome began, only to be cut off by his father slashing a hand through the air.
Beardsley produced a sheaf of papers bound up with a red ribbon and waved them at Jeanette.
“You will take these to the library and sign them now. You will threaten me with no lawsuits, my lady. No consultations with the solicitors, no marginalia or hasty amendments. Your brother has been teetering on the brink of ruin for years. The rumors regarding his treasonous misdeeds never go entirely silent, and I can ensure they never do. If that doesn’t motivate you to see reason, I will set about destroying the Coventry for good measure.”
And there it was, the loaded gun pointed directly at Sycamore Dorning’s happiness, and ultimately at the social standing and financial security of the whole Dorning family.
Jeanette rose and took the rolled-up documents from Beardsley, though her knees had gone weak, and she felt again as if she’d eaten bad mushrooms. Peem had at some point slipped back into the room and stood near the door, looking pained and elderly.
“You slandered Orion?” Jeanette asked, pacing away from Beardsley. She had known that Sycamore’s enterprise was in jeopardy, but that Orion had already become a target for her in-laws ambushed her resolve.
Beardsley’s smile was smug. “Viola gave me the idea. She was grumbling about his lack of consequence, about him being in trade, about his departure from the military being under a cloud, else he might have been among the escorts standing up with his nieces by marriage. He’s not bad looking, in Viola’s opinion, but he was very nearly bad ton. For me to nudge him a few steps farther along the path to disgrace was the work of a moment and only reignited the glowing embers of old scandal. Nobody would ever attribute to jovial Lord Beardsley anything approaching a nefarious motive.”
Jerome was on his feet. “Papa, that’s not something a fellow ought to—”
“Hush,” Viola said. “Goddard weathers periodic talk adequately.”
Had Viola helped Orion weather that talk? Put in a quiet good word for him despite Beardsley’s campaign? Or had she fanned the flames?
“My lady,” Peem began.
“Not now.” Ire gave Jeanette’s voice an uncharacteristic edge as she rounded on Beardsley. “You have defamed my brother, or as good as. You are clearly much of the reason he and I have remained estranged. He is my only brother, and you…” She fell silent as Beardsley regarded her with patient bemusement. “Why? Why do that to a man who hasn’t harmed you in any way?”
Though if his lordship would attack Orion, he’d not hesitate to ruin the Coventry.
Beardsley waved a hand in another gesture the late marquess had favored. “You are easier to manage without a meddlesome brother to encourage your headstrong tendencies. Goddard’s own fellow officers don’t speak well of him, and haven’t for years. Then too, dashing Uncle Rye was the war hero in Trevor’s eyes. I didn’t care for that.”
Jeanette crossed the room to stand toe-to-toe with Beardsley. “Now you think you can get your hands on my fortune, run tame in Trevor’s house, and steer him to the bride of your choice by threatening my brother all over again?”
“No,” Beardsley said, his gaze running over her in a manner that made her flesh crawl. “Goddard has learned his lesson, tending to his vineyards and keeping to the social shadows. I’ll remind you of your place by destroying the Coventry. The Dornings are notably impecunious, with that club as their sole means of avoiding cash shortages and other emergencies. If I can wreck that one venture, I imperil the whole family. And a rumor of crooked tables is enough to close the Coventry’s doors.”
Jeanette felt again the sense of the late marquess sneering at her, while Jerome would not meet her gaze, and Viola’s expression was unreadable. Beardsley’s scheming was precisely what she’d predicted, but the arrogance with which he owned his plans took her aback.
“My lady,” Peem said, “you have callers.”
“Send them away,” Beardsley retorted. “Her ladyship is not receiving and will be indisposed until such time as she speaks her vows.”
Jeanette wanted to shred the damned settlement agreements to bits. She wanted to lay about with the fireplace poker. She had accepted that the Vincent family meant to get their hands on her money, accepted that she had become a liability to Sycamore and might well have to tolerate Jerome as a husband.
But she had sorely underestimated Beardsley’s capacity for sheer evil, and that blunder frightened her badly. Sycamore, I was wrong. I was so very wrong.
“Her ladyship has documents to sign,” Beardsley said, leaning closer. “Fetch her pen and ink, Peem.”
Peem slipped out the door as Jeanette realized that Beardsley even wore the same cloying, bay-and-clove scent his late brother had. That scent brought with it memories of staring at the floor while being lectured, staring at the bed canopy while praying for dawn, staring at a mirror that reflected a frightened young girl where a new marchioness ought to have been.
Jeanette pushed the memories aside and tried desperately to think. She’d miscalculated. She was without allies and signing the documents could well be the same as signing her own death warrant.
“Beardsley, I am barren,” Jeanette said. “You cannot think to marry your only son to me.”
Beardsley grabbed her wrist. “Sign the damned documents, Jeanette. I have had quite enough of your meddling with the solicitors, keeping Trevor in leading strings, and hoarding wealth you never earned.”
Jeanette tried to wrest free, which sent the papers careening from her grasp, and gave Beardsley the leverage he needed to jerk her arm over her head.
“Behave,” he snarled, “or you will wish you had.”
“Papa,” Jerome began, “a gentleman doesn’t… That is to say—”
A whisper as soft as a night
