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CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

OF TRAITORS AND GENTLEMEN

“I haven’t been in your bedchamber since you had spent two days in a fever, and the doctor instructed us to bid you farewell,” Frederick observed, strolling into Joshua’s room without knocking.

Having requested to meet with Lord Devin the following morning, Joshua was trying to pass time reading dispatches from the British Ordnance Department. “Good evening.”

His brother threw himself onto the bed.

“You might remove your boots.”

Frederick ignored that, crossing his arms behind his head. “So, little brother, would you please recount your conversation with the delightful Livie, who informs me that she will never be my sister-in-law? I’d like to know just how much of a sapskull you are—for my own amusement, naturally.”

“When did Livie tell you that?” Joshua growled.

“After you left her in the duchess’s sitting room in a puddle of tears,” Frederick replied. “Moreover, I just spent the day with her. Would you like to know what we were doing?”

Violent impulses rocketed through Joshua’s mind: red, ferocious, bloody urges. Every muscle in his body tensed.

Frederick rolled his eyes. “For God’s sake, you know I don’t go near women who aren’t wearing wedding rings.”

“Just what were you doing with Livie, then?” Joshua asked through clenched teeth.

“Reading letters.”

“What?”

“Letters written by Livie’s father. Letters that evidence treachery. Letters that plan a nefarious act that apparently involved regicide.”

Joshua let out a short, blunt curse.

“The correspondence between sweet Livie and her father was a cover. The captain regularly posted letters that disguised treasonous messages spelled out in ink blots. A spy in her household decoded the messages and presumably added replies to letters she sent in return.”

Joshua’s mind reeled. The captain’s guilt was a shock. He’d felt certain that Livie’s father would be found innocent by the trial’s end. How could this be?

Suddenly he realized that when Livie pleaded her father’s case, he had believed her absolutely. He had trusted that the captain was innocent—and still he refused to help. Where was the honor in that?

The image of her looking up at him when he first opened the wardrobe door popped into his mind. Livie, beautiful Livie, would never marry. Her father would be executed. She would never have a place in society again; there would be no second Season for her.

“Captain Sir Tyron is a traitor,” he said, dumbfounded. “Livie’s father plotted against the king and crown.”

Frederick nodded. “Guilty as the day is long.”

“She thought …”

“She thought wrong.” Frederick smirked as he raised an eyebrow. “Of course, Livie also thought you loved her, so it’s been quite a week for misapprehensions, hasn’t it?”

“I do love her,” Joshua snapped, without a second’s thought.

“Indeed?” His brother pushed himself to a sitting position against the bed board. “Do tell. Though I have to say, your revelation is as unlikely as the conclusion to Miss Austen’s masterpiece. No one will ever convince me that Darcy gave a damn for Lizzie Bennet.”

“Livie asked me—” Joshua bit off the sentence. He was a fool. Had she actually spelled out what she wanted, or had he leapt to the conclusion that she wanted him to influence his father’s judgment?

“Livie believed that her father was innocent. She knows better now. She also believed you a gentleman, yet a gentleman never deserts his lady in her hour of need. A gentleman places her before all others.”

Their father had taught Joshua everything he knew about being a gentleman, back when the earl was plain Baron FitzRoy, more interested in honor than rank.

A gentleman was gentle toward a lady. He didn’t find her in a wardrobe, pull up her gown, and pin her to the floor with his weight, allowing her breath to escape only in sighs.