Page 84 of The Duke Undone

Anthony didn’t like it, this sudden silkiness of tone. He looked at Yardley sharply.

“What attachment? She comes to the garden from time to time. As my painting teacher.” He cleared his throat as Yardley’s smile widened, crinkling his eyes. “She doesn’t need your admiration. She needs justice so her house isn’t knocked down.”

“You were too long with Lawford.” Yardley shrugged. “Justice. That’s a bit too grandiose to serve. The gears of power are gritty little things in the vestries. Don’t worry, though, I kept my word to Miss Coover. I raised the issue of the evictions at last night’s board meeting. A special committee was formed to investigate the Charlotte Road properties. Your intervention is not required.”

Hot, boyish embarrassment. It flooded him. He’d kept his word, too, but to no purpose. He’d been turned away from Mabeldon’s twice and had yet to receive a reply to his letters. Yardley saw his discomfort. He always did. Slowly, the older man reached again for the glass of milk and held it up as though trying to peer through it. The solid white cylinder blocked the center of his face. He lowered the glass.

“Anthony.” He paused, thoughtfully. “I’ve looked the other way whenever possible, but you’ve been cheating so broadly, you gave me no choice. I felt compelled to arrange a little situation so I could honestly appraise your self-management.”

“Honestly?” Anthony snorted. “Not the best choice of words. There was nothing honest about it.”

A brief beat of silence; then Yardley continued.

“You’ve disrespected my intelligence,” he said. “You’ve shown no consideration for the delicate position in which I find myself as friend to both you and your father, not to mention as trustee of the estate. I’ve angered you by refusing to hunt high and low for your sister, but to do so would be to break my word to your father. You could handle the situation with maturity and patience. Take the codicil for what it is: a temporary check on your behavior. Instead, you continue to blow everything out of proportion. You’ve been surly, delinquent, hell-bent, to borrow the term, on proving that the very safeguards you despise are in fact essential and justified.”

His speech had gathered momentum, and heat. He paused, meeting Anthony’s eyes. He seemed reluctant to continue.

“But you’re not surprised.” Anthony goaded him grimly. “I’ve never been up to standard.”

Yardley thinned his lips.

“I would chalk your recent excesses to grief and youthful defiance, but . . .”

He shook his head.

“There is a larger, more troubling pattern.”

In the silence that followed Anthony’s voice cracked like a whip.

“You told me not to explain!”

Yardley had silenced him when he’d tried to speak of Maiwand, not only at their first meeting in Hampshire, but later, too, on the rare occasions he’d broached the subject. He’d implied that Anthony had no need to defend himself, that an understanding existed between them.

Anthony tensed his jaws, the muscles around his eyes. His face hardened into a mask, the mask he’d learned to present to his father, never Yardley himself.

Yardley felt the novelty of his stark expression. His eyelids drooped. He looked like a sad spaniel.

“Why make you relive such unpleasantness? You were acquitted, after all,” he murmured. “It was over and done with.”

“My father accepted the story they told him. I expected as much. But you? You didn’t doubt it?”

Leaning on the desk, he loomed over Yardley, whose large body seemed contorted, stuffed into the chair.

“Anthony.” Yardley cast his eyes up. He looked past Anthony, searching the ceiling, blinking rapidly. He gripped the arms of the chair. His gaze grew suspiciously bright. “Your father sent me to identify George’s body.”

Anthony jerked. But his face was adamant. He stared down at Yardley, impassive.

“I was the one who saw him.” Yardley’s voice sank into a whisper. “He’d spent two days in the water.” His chest heaved once, mightily, but he continued. “That day, I stopped doubting, and I started fearing. I feared for you, Anthony. That story—it had the ring of truth. Or maybe it was the knell of fate. You are very much her child.”

Her child. Son of the Hellenic harlot. The mad slut. All sorts of things had been said of her. His father had once referred to her within his hearing as a bitch in heat. On that occasion, his vision had blurred, a red wave crashing over him. He’d leapt on his father. He was still young enough to be shaken off, dragged away, locked in a room.

“I am her child,” he grated. “And I don’t plan on destroying myself. But I will live on my terms. You may not like them, I warn you.”

After a long moment, Yardley nodded.

“Very well, then.” He rose and picked up his briefcase. “I will be the first to wish you a happy birthday.”

He leveled Anthony with his gaze.