Page 32 of The Rogue and the Viscountess

“But I am curious what led your father to Wales, Sir Peter,” Prunella asked when the conversation reached a lull. It was a moment of overlap in calls, with Mrs. Paul Cobb Methuen and her lovely daughter, Gertrude, sharing the parlor with Mrs. Anthony Guy and her Elizabeth, who might be old enough to angle after Pete, and her daughter Jane, who was not. “Would you say it was a spirit of adventure that led him away?”

“I am more like to think it was bad blood between him and his brother, my uncle,” Pete said, wary of her interest in his past. “Though it is fair to say my father was an adventurer, in his own way.”

“We won’t speak of unpleasant topics.” Barbara flicked a hand as if she were shooing away a pest. “Lady Penrydd, you have just come from the marriage of the new Lord Penrydd, have you not? Do tell us all about it.”

Prunella reached into the basket on the table beside her chair and pulled out an embroidery hoop with a half-worked design. It was likely Barbara’s, and she might not appreciate Prunella’s meddling, but she required an occupation for her hands.

“My mother-in-law, Lydia, the Dowager Lady Penrydd, thought the ceremony quite small and poky, and not much to remark on.” Prunella threaded a needle with crimson thread. “But Sir Peter, did you never visit Wiltshire and the family home at all? Surely there must have been some contact between your families, with a cousin so close in age.”

Pete raised his eyebrows at her. She did like his dark, thick eyebrows, so expressive. She liked that rugged face of his overall, too much for her own good.

“My father mentioned my uncle now and again, but only to curse his name.” Pete attempted to cross his legs in the small chair, gave up the effort, and planted both booted feet on the floor. “I heard when Barnaby inherited, but I’m not sure we sent any acknowledgement, nor him to us.” He paused. “I was actively employed in my career at the time, so occupied with other business.”

“Yes.” Prunella cast him a sidelong look, keeping her face bent over her embroidery. “I am curious about this occupation of yours.”

Their guests attempted to lean forward without appearing eager, all save Jane, who leaned forward unabashedly, determined not to miss a word.

“We shan’t speak of that, either.” Barbara pursed her lips. “My Nathaniel could have challenged Barnaby for the title, but he did not. I am thankful to him for keeping the peace.” Her eyes glittered. “I know where one of my sons is buried, but not the other. In fact I did not learn of his death until long after his burial, as his wife did not see fit to inform me.”

Pete turned his head with deliberate slowness to regard his grandmother. Prunella sensed he was restraining his temper. “My mother was ill herself after nursing Bethan through the smallpox,” he said. “I suppose she had other things on her mind, what with burying her husband and several children, which might explain her lax correspondence. What grounds would my father have had to challenge the succession? Barnaby was the son and heir.”

“Indeed he was,” Barbara said. “Lady Penrydd, tell us about the house in London you plan to take this summer. Is it in one of the fashionable squares?”

“Penrydd house is near Hanover Square, so perhaps not the height of fashion.” Prunella tugged at a knot in her embroidery floss. “Sir Peter, have you given further thought to extending an invitation to your sister to visit? It sounds as if there has not been much exchange between your Wilshire and Wales families. I wonder how Lady Wilkins was able to locate you with the sad news of your cousin’s demise.”

“I always knew where my son was.” Barbara spoke softly, staring at the hands lying in her lap, fingers clutching her rings. “It is the regret of my life that I never met Nia. Or the young ones, before they passed. They are my blood, and your grandfather’s children, too, Peter.”

All the more reason to bring Pete’s sister to Wiltshire, so she might at least know her grandmother, Prunella thought. But she held her peace given Pete’s look of complete surprise. He looked as if he’d been struck in the gut with a heavy object, and he needed a moment to catch his breath.

“Indeed you must bring your sister to us, Sir Peter,” said Mrs. Methuen. “Perhaps she is the same age as one of my girls? They might find one another bosom beaux.”

“She will be one-and-twenty soon, madam,” Pete answered politely.

“Nearly the same age as my Elizabeth,” Mrs. Guy said. “Such a lovely age, so tender, and yet so ready to embark upon the next stages of a woman’s life.” She sent a meaningful look at her daughter, clearly hoping to direct Pete’s gaze to Elizabeth, who did not have the advantage of embroidery to occupy her.

“I would not be so bold as to pretend to know my grandson’s mind,” Barbara said. “But I believe he may already have lost his heart.” She cast an arch look at Prunella.

Prunella hid her face over her embroidery. It was one advantage that a bit of sewing afforded a woman during calls—something to stab when she could not state her feelings.

Would Barbara be so quick to arrange a marriage for Prunella if she too suspected Pete had had a hand in his cousin’s demise?

“Speaking of marriage, I ought to tell you of the lovely wedding breakfast I attended in Bath, for my friend Miss Carruthers—Mrs. Turbeville, I should say. Miss Carruthers was the young lady my mother-in-law, Lydia, the Dowager Viscountess Penrydd, had wanted to marry to the new Viscount Penrydd, who succeeded my husband.”

Prunella held them in thrall for the duration of the visit with tales of Penrydd and Gwen’s unconventional romance, the story of how Miss Carruthers had rescued Turbeville from being assailed by thugs, and how the clever miss ultimately won herself the hand of a gentleman who stood to inherit a fine house and no deeper concerns than paying off a few gambling debts and marrying off three gently reared sisters.

The most interesting expression flitted across Pete’s face when she spoke of the attack on Turbeville. It was not more than the wildest hunch, and yet. Prunella was one to trust her conscience. Or to discover later, if she let some other dictate guide her, that she ought to have listened to her suspicions all along.

Turbeville had been a friend of Rhydian’s. Turbeville had been accosted by men who, according to the tales he told at his wedding breakfast after a third glass of champagne, had been trying to find the viscount.

Pete had worked for the Black Hound, and before he had redeemed himself by helping Rhydian defeat the Hound, he and his friend Morys—so Prunella had gathered from Rhydian’s comments about the incident—had been the ones to confront Rhydian with threats of extortion. Their methods of persuasion had been enough to deprive Rhydian of his memory for a time, affording Gwen the opportunity to nurse him back to health, win his heart and hand, and acquire herself the title of viscountess and all the estates that Prunella had once had a hand in running.

And the entire motive for harassing Rhydian, and his friends, had been the debts Edwin owed the Black Hound.

Pete had been one of the Hound’s best men, the strongest and most fearless, so Rhydian had said. He’d considered it quite a boon to win Pete’s loyalty.

Unless he hadn’t. Unless Prunella’s being here at Rowan Hill, in Pete’s house, was all still somehow connected to rotting Edwin and his rotting debts, may his soul rot for the predicament in which he had left her.

The house, incidentally, where Sir Barnaby Wilkins, Bart., had died under what Prunella now found to be very suspicious circumstances, with his death giving a known brute, a rogue and a criminal, reason to keep his neck from the hangman’s rope and acquire a lovely estate in lovely Wiltshire with fat lovely sheep parading across the pasture.