“You weren’t jesting,” Vienne remarked, impressed. “You are brilliant.”
He shot her a very pointed glance. “Good taste runs in the family.”
“Was that a compliment?”
The duke tipped his head. “Could be, yes.”
Vienne set aside the swatches. “Why are you here, Your Grace? You didn’t come all this way to solve my decorating dilemmas.”
He leaned back on his hands. “I want to talk about you and Trystan.”
She sucked in a breath. So he knew. Of course he knew; Trystan would have told his siblings just as she would have if her sisters still spoke to her.
“I don’t know what he told you, but he is not something I wish to discuss.”
“He didn’t tell me anything except that I could buy more shares in this place if I wanted.” He glanced about. “Now that I’ve seen it, I think I’ll have to do just that. You’ve done a wonderful job.”
“Thank you, but I have not been alone in its construction.”
He tore his attention away from the scrollwork on the ceiling. “No, my brother has left his mark here as well. The two of you make a good pair.”
“At least in business,” she allowed. The anticipation was getting to be too much. “Are you here to tell me that you plan to make good on your promise to ruin me?”
The duke shook his head, dark hair falling over his forehead. He looked so much like an older version of Trystan that it hurt to look at him. She forced herself not to look away. “I have no interest in ruining you, Madame La Rieux. Hurting you would only hurt my brother, and I would rather take my own eyes out.”
Her eyes widened. This was not what she had expected. Where was his ranting diatribe? His threats? Why didn’t he call her every name she deserved to be called, and had already been called by herself?
“Then why are you here?” She didn’t mean it to come out so mystified, but this was very unexpected.
He smiled crookedly, which accentuated the jagged scar that ran down the left side of his face. “I came to offer you some advice—if you’ll take it. Advice from someone who has a fairly good idea of what’s been going through your head lately.”
Vienne arched a brow. “I assure you, Your Grace, that you have no idea whatsoever of what’s been going through my head.”
He only chuckled. The Duke of Ryeton found her no more intimidating than a butterfly. “You don’t think you’re good enough for my brother. You think you’ve done him a favor by breaking his heart—again. And you think you saved him from being disappointed by you sometime in the future. In short, you’ve put up a cross and nailed yourself to it good.”
She stared at him, jaw slightly slack. Aside from the blasphemous bit about the cross, what he said was true. “I do not believe Trystan would appreciate you discussing this with me.”
The duke’s gaze hardened just a little bit. “And I don’t appreciate you treating one of the best men I know like his feelings and opinions have no more worth than a pair of torn stockings.”
Vienne swallowed. “Of course his feelings matter, but I’m not going to continue our . . .
relationship
when it’s not good for either of us.”
“That’s where you and I have a difference of opinion. I happen to think you’re one of the best things to ever happen to Tryst. He used to be a lazy bastard—no direction. Then you broke his heart and suddenly he had a purpose.” Vienne remembered what Trystan had said to her about wanting to prove himself.
“Then he comes back to London and the two of you made this magnificent place together. I’m not sure what you think is so wrong about the two of you, but I’ll bet my entire fortune it’s not worth turning your back on something so special.”
“With all due respect—”
“You’re an ornery bit of baggage, aren’t you?” he interrupted, scowling. “Did I not explain to you that the purpose of this visit is for me to talk and for you to sit there and listen?”
She shook her head.
The duke shrugged. “Now you know. Here’s what I’ve learned over the last few months since giving in to my Rose. I’ve discovered that love does not care if you think you deserve it or not. In fact, this sadistic emotion seems to take great pleasure in plaguing those of us who know we do not deserve it by sending us the most amazing people, who seem to know better.
“The true test for people like us, Madame La Rieux, is whether or not we can abandon our dear mantle of misery and nurture that love. I have discovered that it takes a much better and stronger person to accept love and hold it than to deny it.”
“I appreciate your concern, Your Grace—”
“There you go, talking again. Listen to me, you foolish twit. My brother is the best man you will ever—
ever
—find. I have a few ideas of what he sees in you; and if he likes you, then I suppose you can’t be as cold and amoral as I thought. I don’t know what mistake you made in the past and I don’t want to hear it. What I do know is that no matter what it is, it is not worth missing out on the life Trystan can give you. If a man can forgive you for breaking his heart, anything else you’ve done won’t matter.”
Vienne didn’t think she’d ever heard the duke say so much at one time. When he rose to his feet, she just sat there, staring at him.
He pointed at the swatch in her hand. “I really do like that one. Good day, Madame La Rieux. I hope to see you at Christmas.”
She watched him leave in stunned silence. What had just happened? Had she been lectured on love by a man rumored to have once bed a mother
and
her daughter? At the same time no less. And what did Christmas have to do with any of it?
He certainly gave her something to think about. Ryeton had done worse things than she in his past. He had to have, otherwise she really was the worst person in the world. If he deserved happiness enough to have found it, shouldn’t the same apply to her?
It certainly gave her something to think about.
T
he man responsible for the incidents at the construction site was most likely a man named Francis Gibbs, according to Ira Fletcher’s sources. Inspector Jacob’s investigation pointed in the same direction.
Trystan wouldn’t know Gibbs if the man walked up to him and poked him in the eye. It was a bitter and hard medicine to swallow to think that Vienne could have been severely injured by someone with whom she’d never had contact—and he knew for a fact they’d never met because Jacobs had checked thoroughly for any ties that might possibly provide a better reason for why Gibbs was so barking mad.
The only explanation the lawman could give was that Gibbs had once been fairly well-to-do and had married a young lady with a large dowry. All had been good between them until the lady began shopping at an emporium. Then she began spending huge amounts of money and ran off with a store clerk. That was Gibbs’s story. According the wife, she had spent her own money, and Gibbs had gambled away the rest. She ran off with the glovemaker because she loved him, and Gibbs was a complete tosser.
Gibbs was the head of an organization that called themselves the Coalition for the Preservation of Morals and Virtue. Over the past three years, the members protested anything they felt might lead women and men down a vice-ridden path, from shopping to dancing to excessive fresh air.
“Have you arrested him yet?” he asked Jacobs as they sat together in a coffeehouse not far from the construction site.
“Not yet,” the inspector replied. “I’ve only just collected enough evidence against him to charge him and make it stick. One of my men has been watching his residence and is to let me know where he goes.”
“Good.” Trystan couldn’t quite bring himself to sigh in relief just yet. Once this Gibbs was arrested and in jail, then he would believe Vienne and everyone else involved was safe.
He took another sip of coffee. That was all the time that elapsed between his thoughts of safety and Jacobs’s man rushing into the coffeehouse.
The inspector’s back went rigid. “
Abrams!
Good lord, man.
Whatever
has happened?”
“It’s Gibbs, sir,” the young man replied, flushed and gasping for air. “He’s gone to Lord Trystan’s business. I think he might be armed.”
Trystan’s heart literally stopped.
Vienne
.
He bolted out of his chair at the same time that Jacobs leapt to his feet. The three of them raced out of the shop with the rest of the patrons staring out the windows after them.
Trystan bellowed at Havers and practically threw himself into the carriage as it lunged into motion. His driver pushed the team to top speed and steered the carriage through traffic like a madman—a very skilled madman.
He just prayed they were fast enough to get there before another madman—a very dangerous one—hurt Vienne again.
W
hen Trystan burst through the door, Vienne didn’t know whether to kiss him for coming for her, or kill him for being so foolish as to put himself at risk. Where the devil was Jacobs?
Mr. Gibbs whirled around, swinging the gun in his hand toward Trystan. “Ah, his lordship has arrived.” He jerked the pistol toward Vienne. “Go stand by your woman.”
Holding his hands up by his shoulders, Trystan did just that. “I’m not here to hurt you, Gibbs.”
“Of course you are!” The small bespectacled man had a wild look in his eye. “If I didn’t have a weapon, you would have tried to rip me apart by now.”
“Mr. Gibbs,” Vienne began in a placating tone, “why don’t we talk about this? Surely you don’t want to hurt anyone.”
“It’s the only way your kind ever listens,” he told her hotly. “You don’t respond to morals or reason, but enough people get hurt and start to cost you money and suddenly you’re all ears. After today, no one will ever have to worry that this pit of debauchery will ruin any other lives, because it will cease to be. Once word gets out that people actually died here, no one will work for you. Hard to work for a dead woman. Or man.”
Vienne swallowed, trying to moisten her parched throat. “You have a very strong hate for my business, sir. Might I ask why? I have never personally harmed you, have I?”
“Of course not.” He glared at her. “Nor has he, but you do everyone whose wife or mother will shop here a gross disservice indeed.”
“So your gripe is not with us, but with this building?” He truly was just a fanatic, then. Not a foe or competitor. He was simply a loon.
The pistol wavered slightly. “My wife bled me dry because of a place like this. She ran off with a glovemaker!”
“I’m sorry for you, but your wife obviously wasn’t the woman you thought she was.”
“She was a good and virtuous woman before that damned stack of shops drove her to the devil. The two of you didn’t listen to me before, but you’ll listen to me once I take away someone you care about.” He leveled the pistol at Vienne.
Fear knocked her knees together. She did not want to die, but she would if it would save Trystan. “Yes,” she said. “I’m the one to blame. I want women to come in here and spend as much money as they possibly can.”
“Vienne!” Trystan shot her a look that was half anger, half terror. “Do shut up.”
The man with the gun paid him no mind. “Jezebel.”
The poor fellow was clearly unhinged and more than a little melodramatic. Vienne smiled. “Calling me names won’t bring your wife back. But to be safe, I will make certain I hire a female glovemaker.”
The gun cocked. The man squeezed the trigger and fired. It all happened in excruciatingly slow motion. Vienne heard a shout and then she fell to the floor as something heavy slammed into her.
It was Trystan. He had knocked her out of the way.
He had been hit by the bullet meant for her. Blood seeped through his waistcoat. Vienne would have cried out had she been capable of making a sound. Instead, she acted on pure instinct. Trystan’s coat was opened and she saw that he had a pistol at his side. Vienne grabbed it, lifted it, and pointed it at Mr. Gibbs.
She pulled the trigger, hitting him in the exact spot she’d shot William. It was fortunate she was such a good shot, because he had been aiming to shoot her next, only his hand shook too badly.
With Gibbs down, she turned to one of the workmen. “Get Havers.” Then she lifted her skirts and pulled a wide strip off her petticoat to use as a sort of bandage to put pressure on Trystan’s wound.
“Vienne?”
Her gaze leapt to his face. Trystan was pale—too pale. “I’m here, Trystan. I am here.”
His hand fumbled for one of hers. She let him take the one that wasn’t trying to keep all of his blood from pouring out. “Are you unhurt?”
“I am, thanks to you, you great stupid article. What were you thinking, jumping in front of me like that? You could have been killed!”
He smiled faintly. “I knew you cared.”
“You truly are too full of yourself. Now stop talking and rest. Havers is going to get you to the hospital.”
“You shot him, didn’t you? With my gun?”
“I did. And if you say another word, I will gag you. I mean it.”
Havers rushed in then, and he and another man lifted Trystan from the floor—there was a puddle of blood where he’d lain. Vienne blanched at it, but Havers gave her a blunt nod. “ ’Tis a good sign, ma’am. Means the bullet went through him and isn’t still stuck inside.”