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Chapter Five
Rose was a prize—he’drecognized it the moment he first saw her at Hyde Park.And to win prizes required boldness.He poured himself a whisky and allowed himself to revel in the pleasure of his success.
Rose Elliston, the duchess, had meant nothing to Matthew until three events at Sandhurst had caught Matthew’s attention.All real.All shocking and sad and seemingly unrelated.
Except they all happened in the same week in February.
Newspapermen,journalists, should have noticed something amiss and Matthew wasn’t even sure what it was that bothered him, other thanhe’d heardthat the younger brotherCyril was supposed to be stationed in India and how did he get home so quickly.A number of conspiracies could be spun without much effort.But one other nugget was dropped on his plate.The healthy duke had died, the Cato Street conspiracy had been revealed and Cyril Elliston had returned from the dead.And there were other Cato Street conspirators believed to be at large who were also tied to the military.What better place to hide than behind a ducal title?Who would ever believe a duke would attempt an overthrow of the British government?Or kill his own brother.
The conspiracy had dragged on.Sparling had been in the crowd when the executioner had dropped the criminal John Brunt’s decapitated head to the ground, which had enraged the crowd.Jack, too!He’d written a lengthy exposé on the brutality of decapitation, even for treason.It had started a hullaballoo about legal reform.Who knew where that would lead?
Matthew kept his thoughts about Cyril Elliston to himself, though no amount of arguing would convince him that Elliston’s head should not have been one of them to roll.Matthew glanced toward his safe where he kept the one letter from Cyril to the lead conspirator, Thistlewood, that had raised Matthew’s hackles.What should he do?The letter implied much, but was it enough to bring down Sandhurst?And who had the fortitude to challenge a duke in the open?The king’s ministers?The king?
And who would believe him if he shared what he knew?And what he felt intuitively?No one would believe him over a duke.Matthew would have to prove something happened.Cyril Elliston would only have to deny the accusations.
He blew out a deep breath.He would figure this out.
After lunch, Matthew sat at his desk and inked a note to his mother, announcing his news.Naturally, he wasn’t shy about mentioning that Rose had been a duchess of some repute.
And we have two daughters, Ava and Elaina.
He would like to see her expression at that news.
Ignoring for the moment he was due at Twenty Acres Dock, he started another letter, this one to Mrs.Gertrude Horner, Welliver’s long-suffering head housekeeper.She’d been there for thirty years and knew the comings and goings of most servants.He’d had to tap into the deep well of information and gossip at the Welliver pool before.As a result, he had developed reliable sources and devoted acolytes.After he finished the note to Mrs.Horton, he sanded the ink, then inserted five gold sovereigns before sealing.
He got information when he needed it.
And now he needed information about Mary Trimble and whether she’d born Welliver a child, too.So far, Matthew had found only other half-brothers.He’d always hoped there was a sister somewhere out there.Archie and Bobby could do little to help except pass on this sort of information.The real problem for Matthew was knowing that Welliver was a first-rate dog and treated women terribly.Welliver’s heir and Matthew’s half-brother, Byron, was married with three children whom he seemed to dote upon.
The Welliver title would safely pass on.
And Matthew would no longer lose any sleep over it.
Winters, one of his many men of affairs, came in for a few minutes to discuss the purchase of five new canal boats.Sylvan arrived shortly thereafter with afternoon tea.Matthew nodded but kept reading, pouring his tea without losing his place in the article.He skipped over the news of wars and revolutions and homed in on inventions, opportunities and finance, especially bank failures.He would swoop in to buy the debts for pence on the pound.
One of his other men of affairs was responsible for reviewing the obituaries, looking for opportunities to purchase goods at substantially below market value if the family was in deep debt, which he usually knew about before the rest of the family did.
