Sweetheart? What the hell was he doing?
Wooing Vanessa, apparently, for she gave him the tenderest look she’d ever given him. “I’m fine, thank you,” she said softly.
Good. Excellent. Now, what was he to do with that? It was impossible to know.
They finished their meal, making the politest of conversation with his family. The guests drifted back into the ballroom, and a gentleman snagged Vanessa for a dance.
Sheridan was about to head to the card room when Thorn pulled him aside, looking annoyed. “Olivia told me she blurted out my secret earlier. So your needling me merely served to reinforce the public impression that Juncker writes my plays.”
“Well, now that you know I know, I assume it’s all right if I tell Vanessa.”
“It certainly is not.”
Sheridan scowled. “Why?”
“Because you so obviously want to.” Thorn flashed him a thoroughly devious smile. “I suppose that’s enough comeuppance for your remarks earlier about my writing ability.”
“You know I didn’t mean any of that.”
“I’m sure my guests assumed you did.”
That stymied Sheridan. “Since when do you care what other people think?”
“I don’t.” Thorn laughed. “I merely get the same amount of pleasure from tormenting you as you did from tormenting me.”
He did have a point. Sheridan stared him down. “I don’t need your permission to tell Vanessa, you realize.”
Thorn shrugged. “But if you do, you’ll be breaking your promise to Olivia. Are you a man of your word or not?”
Sheridan released a frustrated breath, then started to walk away.
“It really bothers you that Miss Pryde has a tendre for Juncker, doesn’t it?” Thorn said.
Halting to face his brother once more, Sheridan said, “Don’t be absurd. I don’t care about that. She and I are merely friends.” Perhaps if he kept telling himself that, it would eventually become true. Because he couldn’t afford to have her as anything but a friend.
“No man who is merely a friend to a woman looks at her the way you do.”
Sheridan bit back an oath. “And how is that?”
“As if you aren’t likely to see her kind again. As if she’s the answer to your unhappiness.”
“What makes you think I’m unhappy?”
“Come now, Sheridan, you’ve been unhappy since before Father died. Admit it—you hated how he pushed you to learn estate management when all you wanted was to serve England in the diplomatic services.”
Sheridan tamped down the pain that knifed through him. “Clearly you don’t know me at all.” It wasn’t estate management he disliked. It was his own inability to grasp the nuances of double-entry accounting so he could get a good grasp on what the property needed and where all the money had gone. “But I guess nine years apart does change things a bit.”
Thorn eyed him askance. “What do you mean?”
“Never mind. You wouldn’t understand.” And he wasn’t about to explain. It angered him that he couldn’t handle the numbers. It was apparently a necessary part of overseeing his role.
At least Father had thought it was. He’d relied on his man of affairs out of necessity, since Bonham had been attached to the Duke of Armitage for years, but Father had insisted on Sheridan learning how to make sure things were done right, too. Sadly, Father had died without ever being certain his son could handle that aspect of the burden put on him as duke.
“Very well. You can keep your secrets to yourself.” Thorn moved closer. “But just so you know, Grey told me he was having you question his aunt Cora. Any luck?”
“Not yet. At the play, she was decidedly uncommunicative on the subject. I do wonder, however, if she stayed away from your party precisely because she doesn’t want to discuss what happened.”
“Or she wanted to give you and Vanessa time together.”
Sheridan gritted his teeth. “I told you, Vanessa and I—”
“I know, I know. You’re just friends.” He shook his head. “You might be able to find out something from Vanessa, you know.”
“Vanessa wasn’t even born until after both your father and Grey’s were dead.”
“I don’t mean about those murders. I mean about your father’s murder. My true father’s murder. Because you know I consider him my only father.”
“Of course.” Sheridan had no doubt of it. All three of his half-siblings had grown up as his Father’s children, with only Grey leaving home as a boy. Thorn and Gwyn hadn’t even been born when their own father died. “But I don’t see how Vanessa would know anything about either of the two later murders. Surely you’re not suggesting that Lady Eustace actually went out to meet Father in the country and shoved him off a bridge. Why, she’s older than Mother!”
Thorn shot him a rueful smile. “And you think our mother too old to push someone off a bridge?”
“I guess she could, but—”
“You’re right.” Thorn sighed. “I don’t believe any of our suspects could do that, either.”
“Or pull Uncle Armie off of his horse a few months earlier.”
“Precisely.” Thorn cocked his head. “But if one of them—Lady Eustace, for example—hired someone like Elias to do it, Vanessa might have seen the fellow. Or heard her mother talk about him or to him.”
Sheridan nodded absently. A young criminal they’d uncovered during their investigation, Elias had been murdered before revealing who’d hired him. “I suppose. I’ll see if I can learn anything from either of them.” Remembering what Olivia had said, Sheridan stared at his brother. “And how is it going with the questioning of Lady Norley?”
“Oh, God,” Thorn muttered. “I can’t do that myself. She’s my mother-in-law, for pity’s sake. She’ll hate me.”
A laugh escaped Sheridan. Olivia had been serious about that. “So? Have your wife do it.”
“She will. But we just got married, and frankly, I don’t think Lady Norley’s capable of it.”
Sheridan smirked at his brother. “I see. Don’t want to rock the boat.”
“You have no idea. Just wait until you’re married, and then you’ll understand.”
Not if I have anything to say about it. Sheridan saw their mother approaching.
“Olivia is looking for you,” she told Thorn, blessedly keeping Sheridan from having to answer his brother. “She’s in the ballroom.”
“We’ll talk about this more later,” Thorn told Sheridan before walking off to find his wife.
“What were you discussing?” Mother asked.
Sheridan forced a smile. “Nothing important.”
Mother stared hard at him for a moment, but she’d always had an uncanny ability to recognize when her sons shouldn’t be probed for more information. “If you say so.”
“I thought you were going to dance with Sir Noah again.”
She shrugged. “Later. Although I suspect the dancing is dying down. With this small a crowd—”
“Small! There must be thirty people in there at least.”