It would be the first of his sire’s many misdeeds he would have to deal with as best he could, but sadly, that awful chore, while unlikely to be the last, would probably prove to be the easiest.
Chapter Five
“Shropshire!” Charlie Palmer, the proprietor and editor in chief ofThe London Tribunegaped at her in disbelief. “You cannot go to Shropshire!”
“I have to.” And, more to the point, Diana wanted to. She had decided not to analyze the reasons why in case she came to conclusions she did not want to consider. “The dead duke is being buried there, and because my brother-in-law is the new duke’s closest friend, we are all going up to support him in his hour of need. Besides, he’s practically part of the family.”
Which was another reason she had to be there—because it turned out he had no family beyond them, and nobody should have to bury a relative alone.
“But for two weeks, Diana! Two! When we need you here!” He slapped the haphazard tower of today’sTribunes stacked on his messy desk, the headline “The House of Harpenden Mourns” already a day too late.
Charlie had been peeved at that, too, because he had assumed— quite rightly although Diana vehemently denied it—she must have known about the duke’s death last night and should have, out ofprofessionalism and loyalty, sent immediate word to theTribuneoffice in Fleet Street so they could be the first to print the story. She hadn’t because it was too close to home—it crossed the fine line between her loyalty to the paper and her greater loyalty to her family—and because she couldn’t bring herself to add to Giles’s woes by unleashing all London’s press upon him within hours of receiving the blow.
And it had been a blow, of that she was certain.
She hadn’t expected weeping and wailing, or even deep sadness at the unexpected news, because she understood he had an uneasy relationship with his father. Having a diabolical one with her own feckless father, she would never judge Giles for lacking those emotions everyone else expected. Had Diana received word Alfred Merriwell was dead, she was certain the only emotion she would feel was relief.
Yet Giles hadn’t been either unmoved or relieved; he had been horrified. Perhaps even terrified by the prospect. She hadn’t expected the flash of sheer, blind panic that skittered across his much-too-handsome features before he covered it. And he covered it so well that had she not been sitting directly beside him holding his hand, and seen the way his face bleached and felt how his fingers shook as they gripped hers, she would be none the wiser. But she had, and she had heard the way his breathing became erratic, as if all the wind had suddenly been knocked from his sails.
Moments later, and without looking at her, he yanked his hand away to leave the table with Hugh in tow. Then Hugh had come back. His offer of accompanying his friend categorically rejected and his friend already gone. Thinking of him facing all that alone had kept her awake all night. She had only come to work to stop heracting on the overwhelming impulse to check if he was all right. An act of friendship that went way beyond the strict parameters of their we-only-tolerate-each-other-because-we-have-to relationship. Instead, she had consoled herself that she had spared him the trial of waking up to a sea of reporters and given him a few more hours to digest the tragedy.
As it happened, the news had leaked naturally quite early. Dukes didn’t die every day, and it was too big a story to contain. Especially after the announcement of that particular duke’s engagement had appeared inThe Times. Without Diana’s help, and to the relief of her conscience, Grosvenor Square had been swarming with reporters by luncheon and thetonwas abuzz with gossip before it was an acceptable hour for the first nosy visitors to knock on the duke’s door to pay their respects. By then, thankfully, Hugh was by Giles’s side to assist with the funeral preparations, and Olivia had temporarily appointed herself mistress of Sinclair House to assist with all the day’s many callers.
“How can you leave me in the lurch when you are my best bloodhound? Can’t you cut your visit short, Diana? Blame your tyrannical employer and tell them you need to return early or risk the sack?”
She offered him a half smile of sympathy. They both knew he wouldn’t sack her, because shewashis best bloodhound and had been since the day he took over six months ago and gave her a chance. “That excuse would only wash in the real world, where mere mortals have to earn their livings. I live in Mayfair now, Charlie, where working at all is frowned upon.” A staggering change of fortune she still couldn’t quite believe after twenty-two years of abject poverty. “My family—and by that I include theEarl of Fareham’s family—would expect me to put duty to them over my duties here. Besides, our visit to Shropshire proper is only fleeting.”
“Two weeks isn’t fleeting! Entire wars and revolutions have happened in less!”
“It isn’t two weeks—it’s barely eleven days.”
“Which is closer to two weeks in my book than one, and even one is too many!”
“What do you want me to do? The estate is nearly two hundred miles away and takes at least four days to get to and the same again to get back. We arrive the day before the service and are leaving on the morning after, so it is not as if I am dallying there longer than necessary. And you do have three other reporters working on the gossip column.”
“But those idiots don’t have your touch, Diana, or your canny eye for scandal.” He huffed out a resigned breath that fogged his thick spectacles. “Nor do they dig deep for those shiny golden nuggets that you bring me.” It was the gold he most appreciated. “Did you at least find out why the duke was marrying Dahlia Regis?” He had tasked her with that quest yesterday, knowing she would be visiting Grosvenor Square with her family to pay her respects to Giles, and once again her loyalties had been torn.
In the end, she decided that she would pry only if the opportunity presented itself and then decide what to do about it, but by the time they all arrived at the dead duke’s house, the drawing room was filled with strangers and poor Giles seemed overwhelmed. Or at least to her he did. To everyone else, he appeared to be bearing it all stoically, but they probably never noticed that the mischievous light in his dark eyes had dimmed or that, despite his usual dashingelegance even in mourning clothes, he seemed uncomfortable in his own skin. So much so that she had worried about him incessantly since and couldn’t shake the niggling feeling in her gut that something was very wrong.
“I didn’t.”
Charlie huffed. “Is the new duke as baffled as the rest of London is, or did he refuse to answer?”
“I didn’t ask, Charlie.”
“Why not?” He threw his arms up in frustration. “As it is the question of the hour and one my foxhound’s nose smells is a juicy story. An exclusive story! One I was relying on my best bloodhound to write.Today!”
“And just like that”—she clicked her fingers—“your best bloodhound is neutered. Even the worst hack at the tawdriest scandal sheet will be able to work out who the information came from because my association with the new duke is too close. I’ll never be invited to anything again, and my brother-in-law will be furious at the betrayal.” She couldn’t do that to Hugh after everything he had done for the Merriwell sisters. “The entire family recognizes my style every single time I write a piece for the gossip column, and while they encourage my career and find my stories entertaining, they would be devastated if I turned my privileged insider knowledge on them.” She shook her head emphatically. “I cannot andwill notinvestigate either the old or the new Duke of Harpenden.”
Giles would feel betrayed, too, and as much as he vexed her, she liked him. More than liked him, truth be told, even though she didn’t want to. They were friends—after a fashion—as much as a duke from Mayfair and a forger’s daughter from Clerkenwellcould be friends. Giles was… an affable rogue. A silver-tongued charmer who dallied with women who were only too happy to dally back. For all his many faults, he had never hurt a soul as far as she knew. He was too superficial to be a danger to anybody—female or otherwise. Although not quite superficial enough that she hadn’t been unnerved by his reaction last night.
“Trust me to hire a reporter with a conscience.” Charlie slumped in his chair. “I’ll put someone else on it, although I know already their piece won’t be half as good.”
She smiled at her friend, thankful he understood her impossible position and respected her enough not to push. Their relationship had always been like that. From the first day she had begged him to give her a chance on the gossip column to the day she had inadvertently become the Sentinel, he had listened to her and respected both her opinion and her instinct. “If it’s any consolation, I’m this close to disclosing a stocks and shares swindle.” She held up her thumb and index finger an inch apart. “For it seems the Camden Union Canal Company is all a sham, the plans for the overdue waterway are nonexistent, Lord Tubbs, the owner, is a charlatan, and the hapless investors are being robbed blind. The list of those investors is quite impressive and does contain another duke as well as a goodly few peers of the realm…”
“How many peers?” Already he was interested. It warmed her that Charlie trusted her abilities well enough not to query her sources or her information.
“Seven that I know of, and one that it’ll likely bankrupt. As soon as I have concrete confirmation of that fact, which I hope to have by the time I return from Shropshire, the Sentinel’s next column will be ready to go. You could probably have it that sameday, too, if I write it while I am away. It’ll likely fill a whole page, perhaps even a double spread, it is so scandalous and convoluted.”
