But her arm against his felt so right, and her scent of lilies fogged his brain so much that he forgot why he mustn’t marry her. Lost in the glory that was her wearing a flattering gown, he was having trouble concentrating. Now that the moon was rising, lending a romantic glow to the garden, he could too easily imagine her in his bed, those ample breasts freed of constraint, and her curls, as black and shining as his freshly polished top boots, recklessly tumbled across a pillow while he—
Sir Noah and Mother came toward them. God, he hoped darkness and his greatcoat covered his body’s reaction. No man wanted his mother to see him in such a state. He could only pray his desire didn’t show in his face.
But clearly both Mother and Sir Noah were too distracted to notice such things. “Vanessa,” her uncle began as the pair reached them, “I am going to accompany the duchess home in my curricle. I don’t think I can face your mother right now. Tell her I will call on her tomorrow.”
With a scowl, Sheridan stood, then helped Vanessa up. “No need for you to trouble yourself, sir. I will see that my mother gets back to Armitage House myself. Besides, my carriage is a damned sight safer at night than an open curricle.”
“I’ll be fine with Sir Noah,” his mother said. “And didn’t you want more time to visit with Vanessa?”
Vanessa sighed. “Alas, I’m not sure either of you would be welcome inside our house just now. But if I don’t go back, she will stew in her own anger until she takes it out on the servants. So it’s best I return to soothe her temper.”
Mother looked torn. “I’m sorry you got caught in the middle, my dear.”
“I’m not sorry.” Vanessa’s ghost of a smile showed she meant it, too. “You spoke the truth. I can always hope she got a lesson out of it, although knowing Mama, I doubt it.” She looked at Sheridan. “I should go back.”
“I’ll go with you,” Sir Noah said. “But I’m not going in.”
“You’ll leave your niece to bear the brunt of her mother’s anger alone?” Mother surprised Sheridan by saying.
“I suppose that would be unfair.” Sir Noah sighed. “But don’t expect me to like it.”
Then he offered his arm to Vanessa, who glanced at Sheridan. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“I’ll be there at the same time I came today,” he answered. Then he watched as Sir Noah and Vanessa headed back to the Pryde abode.
He gestured to his footman waiting on the steps of the Pryde town house, and the servant hurried off to fetch the carriage.
“You’re coming here again tomorrow?” his mother said.
“Yes. I promised Vanessa I’d bring Juncker with me.”
“So you and Vanessa can make him jealous.”
“Exactly.” But it wasn’t something he was looking forward to. And he still hadn’t found out what he wanted to know from Lady Eustace.
“That woman is not interested in Mr. Juncker, you know. She wants you.”
He shook his head at her. “You just think she does because you can’t imagine her wanting anyone other than your son.”
Mother snorted. “I can tell a woman who has set her cap for someone when I see her.”
“Trust me—she’s not interested in me. Long before she and I grew . . . cozy, she told Grey of her interest in Juncker.”
“If you say so.” Mother sounded skeptical.
Time to change the subject. “What were you and Sir Noah discussing? Or dare I ask?”
“Mostly we talked about Cora. He wanted a fuller explanation of what I was accusing her of, and I wanted to know where he’d been when all of it was happening.”
“Ah.” Sheridan put his arm around his mother’s shoulders, reminded of how small and fragile she really was, despite her fierceness. The grief of suffering three husbands’ deaths would weigh anyone down. “What did he say?”
“He reminded me of something I already vaguely knew from way back when Cora and I were friends—that his estate is far up north in Cumberland, which is one reason he and his wife rarely came to London before her death. The other was she was ill a great deal. So he didn’t like to leave her.”
“That all sounds perfectly reasonable.”
“Unfortunately, he couldn’t so easily explain Cora to me: why she’s the way she is, what makes her so mean, and how she managed to raise a daughter as fine as Vanessa.”
“I actually think Grey might have had something to do with that.” Briefly he told her what Vanessa had said about growing up with Grey as an “older brother.”
His mother sniffed. “I think she merely got lucky with Vanessa. But more and more I believe Grey is right about Cora. She has the best motive of anyone to murder my husbands, if only out of resentment toward me. I married the duke she coveted, and then after she killed him, I landed in clover again with Thorn’s father. After she killed him, I married a man she would have seen as inconsequential and, anyway, he was out of her reach in Prussia. Until he became a duke, too, once again giving me what she wanted—prestige and wealth. So she had to kill him.”
Sheridan stifled a smile. “And the fact that she was vile to one of your children has nothing to do with why you believe this.”
Mother tipped up her chin. “It just shows she is vile in general.”
“There are two problems with your theory. The first is that the Armitage dukedom hasn’t had wealth in years, thanks to Uncle Armie’s spending.”
“But she didn’t know that.”
“Which leads to the second problem. Your theory doesn’t explain why she would wait all those years and suddenly decide to kill Uncle Armie to bring Father back to England, thus making Father into a duke as well. Wouldn’t his new status contribute to her envy?”
Mother’s lips thinned into a severe line. “Well . . . I mean, we don’t know for certain that your uncle Armie was murdered, do we? We’ve just assumed it was part of the pattern. But it might not be.”
That brought Sheridan up short. She had a point. If Uncle Armie had genuinely died from drunkenly falling off his horse and breaking his neck, then their father coming back and becoming duke might have merely infuriated Lady Eustace that Mother was once again “landing in clover.”
“It’s something to think about, I suppose,” he said as their carriage approached. “I’ll mention it to the others.”
The carriage halted, the footman put the step down, and Sheridan helped his mother inside. Once they were settled into their seats and on their way back to Armitage House, Mother asked, “Are you angry with me?”
“For what?”
“Letting Cora have it with both barrels. I know I was supposed to question her about the house parties, but I just saw her sitting there with her cat-in-the-cream smile, and I . . . I wanted to tear her hair out after what she did to Grey.”
“How could I be angry over that? She deserved it.”
“But it makes your task all the more difficult.”
Mother had no idea. He’d be lucky if he could even get inside the Pryde house now. “I will work it out, never fear. At the very least I have to uphold my promise to Vanessa that I will bring Juncker to visit.”