A Gentleman's Curse (Avenging Lords 4)

Lockhart supposed he should ask a few questions, but the urge to punch his cousin proved too great. The smack sent Justin’s head whipping to the left. A stream of blood and spittle shot from his mouth. The dandy coughed and spluttered.

Satisfaction thrummed through Lockhart’s veins.

“That’s for threatening my wife.” Lockhart flicked Justin’s tricorn, and the hat went skittering across the ground. He grabbed a fistful of his cousin’s hair, raised the fool’s head and punched him again. The crack, quickly followed by Justin’s pained groan, rent the air. “And that’s for taking advantage of a helpless man.”

Claudia came to stand at Lockhart’s side. “What did you hope to gain by threatening us with a pistol?” She kicked Justin in the thigh. “That’s for threatening to shoot my husband.” She kicked him again for good measure. “Well, what were you hoping to gain?”

Silence ensued.

“You’ve insulted my wife on more than one occasion.” Lockhart raised his fist. “Don’t insult her now by refusing to answer.”

“All right. All right.” Justin closed his eyes briefly. “I just want rid of you.”

“Rid of me?” Lockhart narrowed his gaze. “You said the pistol wasn’t loaded.”

“I was attempting to frighten your wife.” He dabbed his tongue to the corner of his mouth. “I thought if she felt unsafe here she might beg you to take her back to India.”

Lockhart couldn’t help but glance at the woman standing at his side. The woman who hadn’t run at the first sign of danger, but who had risked her life to save him. When it came to loving her, he didn’t have to pretend.

“What, and leave you to drain my father dry?” While watching Claudia sleep in the carriage, Lockhart had contemplated the dark stain on his father’s bedsheets. Only one plausible reason sprang to mind. “I know why you sit there, day after day. A visit to the bank will prove my theory.”

“What theory?”

“That you wait until my father rouses from his drug-induced state. That you thrust a quill into his hand and persuade him to sign his name to numerous banknotes.” Why else would there be an ink splatter on the bed?

Claudia placed a comforting hand on Lockhart’s shoulder before continuing the verbal attack. “It is why you object to the doctor’s presence, why you object to ours. One might wonder if Selina isn’t aware of your trick. Perhaps you share your ill-gotten gains.”

“That’s preposterous.” Justin’s eyes widened in disbelief. “I would never do such a thing. And Selina is a paragon of virtue. Look, I admit to pestering my uncle, admit to playing the doting nephew in the hope he leaves me a large portion in his will.”

“Then why drug him when there’s nothing wrong with him?” Lockhart countered. The doctor was yet to confirm the diagnosis, but something told him his father suffered from nothing other than the effects of an excessive use of laudanum.

Justin groaned. “Can I stand? My stomach aches like the devil.”

“Not until you answer my question.”

“At least give me my handkerchief so I can clean the damn blood off my lips.”

Claudia kicked Justin in the thigh. “Answer my husband’s question.”

“Goddamn,” Justin groaned. “All right. As far as I know, he is ill. He’s been suffering from some odd malaise ever since you left. Had it not been for Selina then your mother might have sent him to an institution.”

“What were his symptoms?” Claudia asked.

“Disquiet, a general weakness of the body, disinterest in food and conversation. Every time someone mentioned your name he’d clutch his chest and take to his bed.”

The answer tugged at Lockhart’s heart.

During his time in India, he had concocted a very different story. In his chronicle, Alfred Lockhart ranted and raved. He destroyed his son’s belongings and cursed him to the devil. He stomped down to his solicitor and demanded to have the name Hudson Lockhart wiped from his will, scratched from their family’s history.

“Your father pleaded with Terence to set sail and bring you home. He begged until he became too weak to utter the words.”

A lump formed in Lockhart’s throat, so large he had to swallow numerous times to breathe.

“Of course, your brother cares for no one but himself,” Justin continued. “If you knew what he’d put his wife through, you would understand why she spends so much time with your parents.”

Perhaps Terence lacked integrity. Perhaps he did have a gaming addiction that left him no option but to pander to the likes of Mrs Fanshaw. Lockhart imagined Selina was not an easy woman to love. And the absence of any children only added to the strain.

And yet something about the ink stain on the bed bothered him.