No, Jeremy Swifton had not been arealLightholder. He’d only been in the family by marriage. And that meant, as far as the rest of them were concerned, that he wasnothing.
Even Ezra’s mother had hardly ever acknowledged him. She had mostly lived with her sisters before she died. The last time Ezra saw his mother was at his father’s funeral the year before. They had not spoken, and a few months later, Peace was gone too.
And Ezra was left with a dukedom and the knowledge that he could not forgive any of them.
“And does His Majesty demand my presence?” Ezra asked Hugh sardonically, rolling his eyes. “Does he need me to bend the knee?”
“Christ, who pissed in your whiskey?” Hugh demanded. Ezra almost smiled at that. “No, it’s none of that, as you perfectly well know. But Xander is taking his family abroad for a year. And… they’re family, Ez.Yourfamily.”
Ezra fought a wince, in part due to the familiar nickname, in part because he was so bloody sick of being told that he hadobligationsto these people who had never once looked at his father as a member of their family.
Especially now, given Tilford’s confirmation of what Ezra had suspected for years—that there was more to the fire than he had been told.
But he didn’t want to argue with Hugh, who was the least intolerable of the lot. So, he kept his tone neutral.
“I didn’t know Xander was going abroad. Being important in England wasn’t enough for him?”
Well, he hadtriedto be neutral. It wasn’t his fault that Xander was soannoying.
Hugh gave him a combative sort of smile. “You didn’t know because you only show up when you absolutely cannot avoid it,” he said tightly. Well, Ezra had walked right into that one, he supposed. “Maybe if you let the rest of us in a little, you might find that we aren’t as awful as you think.”
This was surprisingly sharp, coming from Hugh, who was usually too busy either scowling or making eyes at his wife to notice others. He was wrong on one key point, however.
They were definitely at least as awful as Ezra thought. Probably worse. He could only assume he had blocked some of it out of sheer self-preservation.
Ezra didn’t want to argue with his cousin, however. He was exhausted. He’d been traveling back and forth across London all day, pursuing Tilford, who had apparently never found a gambling den that he disliked. It was just Ezra’s bloody luck that, tonight, the lord had ended up at Hugh’s club. He wanted to go home, take a long, hot bath to soak off the day’s grime, and then collapse into bed, so that he would be fresh and ready in the morning to plot and scheme.
It really isn’t too much to ask for.
“I will consider it,” he told Hugh, in the spirit of getting the hell out. They both knew it was a lie. Ezra wasn’t about to do something as utterly pointless—or even downright destructive—asletting his family into his life. It was frankly egregious of Hugh to ask. Until his blissfully happy marriage had made him into this absurdly cheerful version of his former self, Hugh had been as cantankerous as the rest of them.
And now he wanted…what? For Ezra to come into the blissful domestic fold? Ha. No.
“Fine,” Hugh sighed. “But don’t come whining to me when the girls start showing up and badgering you.”
The girlscould mean so very many people, and so many different levels ofbadgering. It had been bad enough when thelist only included his female cousins, but the male ones kept getting married, too.
And all of them were perfectly obsessed with theimportance of family.
“Your involvement is duly noted,” Ezra called over his shoulder, relieved when Hugh finally stopped following him and let him leave.
Even though it was late, and the neighborhood was not precisely the well-maintained streets of Mayfair, Ezra walked for a while before attempting to hire a hack. He needed to burn off some of his irritation, both at Hugh’s attempts to cajole him and at his increasing certainty that something was amiss with the fire.
None of the rest of them had ever seemed to embrace the possibility. From the beginning, they had all treated it as a terrible accident. At first, Ezra thought his cousins were just shocked by the loss. But as the years went by, not one of them—not a single one—had said a word of suspicion.
Well, it had made Ezra even more suspicious. One of them had to know something. Somebody had to knowsomething.
Eventually, his weariness won out over his rage, and he hired a carriage to take him the rest of the way home. When he approached his door, he was surprised to see not the usual night footman standing there, but his butler, looking worn and harried.
God above.Whatever this was, Ezra didnothave the patience for it.
“Your Grace,” the man said, a tremor of stress in his voice as Ezra brushed past him. “Thank goodness you’re here.”
This was sounding worse and worse. Ezra had put a great deal of effort into his inheritance, into hiring the kind of people who made him almost useless to the household’s functioning. Really, he paid them well to handle everything so he could focus on his research into the fire.
“What is it, Marling?” he asked shortly, handing over his hat, coat, and walking stick. The butler paused as he accepted the items, his mouth moving as though he didn’t know quite what to say.
Ezra had averybad feeling.
