‘That’s a relief,’ Jared drawled. ‘I was worried that I might have caused some embarrassment. Heaven forbid.’
‘What would you have had me do?’ his father demanded, red in the face now.
‘Look harder? You accused me of having no honour whatsoever, you took Bella’s word against mine that I had seduced her with no intention of marrying her and you believed William when, for the first time in his life, he showed an inclination to do something involving self-sacrifice.’
He stood up, now that he had the urge to smash the furniture under control, and began to pace up and down the room. ‘How are you? Don’t pretend with me, this must have hit you hard.’
The Earl passed his hand over his eyes. ‘It is a nightmare. He was fit, healthy – and then he was gone.’ He shook his head, a wounded, confused bull. ‘I am Huntingford and I will not give way to this grief.’
The defiance affected Jared as tears would not have done. He turned towards the desk, his hand held out, and his father flinched. It stopped him dead in his tracks as no word could have done.
‘Are you frightened of me?’
‘You come in here with that damned sword at your side and every excuse in the world to use it.’ His father stood, suddenly every inch the Earl of Huntingford. ‘I would not blame you if you did. I thought you dead but, yes, I should have looked harder, I should not have given up and told myself that the family name and avoiding scandal was more important than my son.’ He turned, hands open, defenceless. ‘I would not blame you,’ he repeated, the words almost a whisper. ‘And I do not know you, the man you have become. My son.’
Jared drew the rapier from its scabbard and laid it down on the desk, the hilt towards his father’s hand. ‘You wounded me more than that ever could. Hanging on to hate is not going to heal it. I do not know if I can forget, I have no idea whether anything will ever be easy between us and this is complicating my life almost more than is tolerable, just at the moment. But I am Ravenlaw now and so I suggest we try and make this work.’
The Earl picked up the weapon, flexed his wrist and tried the balance of it. ‘A fine blade.’ He was recovering his composure again, his breathing was slowing. He handed it back to Jared. ‘Just who are you now, Jack?’
‘Jared Hunt the swordmaster hired by the late Viscount Northam. I am hunting his murderer.’
‘For one moment I believe he thought I was there to kill him.’ Jared unbuckled his sword belt, dropped the rapier on the table within reach and collapsed into the biggest, deepest chair the turret hideaway possessed.
‘But that is ghastly.’ Guin took the chair opposite. ‘Does he understand that you forgive him now?’
The look Jared gave her was decidedly jaundiced. ‘Do I, I wonder? I understand him and that’s the next best thing, I suppose. I was always the unsatisfactory son and he was stuck with his heir marrying beneath him, as he thought. He reasoned he couldn’t add scandal to that, conveniently assumed I had run away to join the army and tried not to think too hard about the situation. If my mother had been alive she wouldn’t have let him get away with it, of course, but she had died two years before. Now he has sent to Bow Street and to private investigators in an attempt to track down his lost heir. He has been spared that expense, at least.’
‘He must be devastated by William’s death.’
Jared nodded. ‘But he is keeping it all inside. He was always good at maintaining the façade, his composure. He hasn’t lost that.’
‘Reminds me of someone,’ she murmured. ‘And now that he has you?’
‘Now he wants to give me everything William had – the allowance, the run of the London house, the hunting lodge. Thankfully the law does not permit me to marry my brother’s wife or no doubt he would like me to do that as well in order to tidy up all the loose ends.’
‘Surely not, if she has only borne daughters,’ Guin commented, feeling suddenly and uncharacteristically bitchy.
‘There is that.’ Jared smiled for the first time since he had returned.
‘Is there a Dower House?’
‘No. Widows were always accommodated about the place – it’s ludicrously large and there are suites in the most unlikely corners. Father says she is hinting at him buying her a house near Scarborough, which seems an excellent idea to me.’
‘Provided she does not find herself on trial for conspiracy to murder,’ Guin said tartly. She should be pleased that Jared’s confrontation with his father had not been as dreadful as she had feared, but her nerves were jangling and she was finding it difficult to hold on to any sense of humour. She could just imagine the Earl’s reaction to her as his next daughter-in-law: twice widowed, no family or connections to speak of, no dowry, trailing clouds of scandal – and scandalous prints – behind her.
But it seemed she could not have Jared any other way than by marriage if his determination to do the right and honourable thing persisted and he would not take her as his lover.
‘And what does your father want from you?’
‘For me to cut my hair, stop this nonsense of working for my living, stop associating – ’ There was a breath of a pause ‘– with murderers and come home to live.’
‘He has heard about me, hasn’t he? The London papers reach Yorkshire the next day, I suppose.’
‘Yes,’ he agreed. He was as wary as if she was sharpening a long knife in front of him, Guin realised. ‘And he has not disinherited me of all that he might, as I had expected.’
‘So you are a desirable marriage prospect.’
‘Yes.’ Jared’s eyes narrowed.