After spending an hour taking tea with the Erstwhiles, Vane returned to Hanover Square. He went straight to the drawing room, poured a glass of brandy and downed the entire contents.
Hungerford was dead — and he was not sorry.
Estelle had no intention of leaving — and he was elated.
Soon, he would have the answers he desired, and then eight years’ worth of suffering would be buried in an earthy grave, never to see the light of day again.
Excitement sparked in his chest when he considered a life filled with love, not bitterness and resentment. Reuniting with Estelle had wrought a change in him. The urge to fight rogues in the back alleys had abated. Though one man still needed to feel the full force of his wrath.
Vane contemplated stalking to the museum and creeping through the cold corridors until he found Lord Cornell. From what Vane had read, the explorer Belzoni had brought an Egyptian sarcophagus to London, and he imagined lifting the lid, gagging Cornell and depositing him inside.
A chuckle left Vane’s lips. There would be stories in the broadsheets of ghosts and curses, of strange mumbles coming from the ancient tomb. The museum would never be more popular as people stared at the gold coffin unaware that a man had slowly suffocated inside.
Or he could just march to Bedford Square, roll Cornell out of his bed and beat him into submission. But Vane refused to fight a weak man. And so that brought him back to Fabian’s plan to ruin the lord financially, to cause him great humiliation.
With his mind made up, Vane called Marley and informed the butler he was going to bed.
“But it’s ten … ten o’clock, my lord?”
“I know what time it is, Marley.” No doubt the man recalled the days when his master left the house at ten and retired at dawn. “It has been a long day.” And he’d not slept well these last few nights.
Marley inclined his head. “Of course, my lord, I did not mean to be impertinent.”
Vane noted the dark circles under his butler’s eyes. “You look as though you need rest, too. I have sent word to Sandford Hall, and you should be back to a full complement of staff in a few days.”
Almost t
hree years had passed since Vane left this house and swore never to return. Consequently, he’d sent most of the maids and footmen to his country estate. With a house as large as Sandford Hall the staff were never short of work.
“Thank you, my lord. I know Mrs Barton will appreciate help in the kitchen and Pierre is distressed about the time it takes to launder your clothes.”
“Pierre is only happy if he is complaining.”
“He decided that all your cravats needed pressing, and that Lord Farleigh’s staff were unskilled when it came to keeping your linen white.”
“I shall speak to him in the morning.”
“Thank you, my lord, and may I take this opportunity to welcome you home.”
“Thank you, Marley. Now, let us both retire.”
Vane ventured up to his bedchamber. Pierre arrived to undress him, but Vane had no time for dramatics this evening, not when his mind was the calmest it had been in years. After dismissing his valet, Vane washed, stripped off his clothes and settled into bed.
Sleep came upon him in a matter of minutes.
He woke an hour later to the creak of a floorboard. With awakened senses, he listened for another sound but heard nothing more and so closed his eyes as he lay sprawled on his stomach.
His mind was slowly drifting when he caught a whiff of jasmine in the air. The scent irritated his nostrils. A gust of cool air breezed over his bare buttocks, and the boards near the bed creaked again.
Vane turned over and sat up.
It took a moment for his eyes to grow accustomed to the dark. A figure stood but a foot away, gripping the corner of the bedsheets. He would have reached for the blade hidden under his pillow, but from her clawing scent and the flare of her hips, evidently the intruder was a woman.
“What the hell do you want?” And more to the point how the hell did she get in?
From the golden locks draped over her bare shoulders, it was not Estelle. Anyone else could go to the devil.
“Don’t play coy, Vane.” She slipped beneath the sheets. “You like to taunt me. You like to make it difficult as that is how you judge a woman’s worth.”