Pain glimmered in his eyes before he masked it. “Do you think I would lie to you about it?”
“You’ve been lying to me about it all this time, haven’t you?”
“No. Just . . . omitting certain details.”
“You mean, like why you have to have secret meetings without me, even though we are now married? Or do you still think of me as some brainless fribble who doesn’t have the intelligence to be part of your family’s schemes?”
“I damned well don’t think of you as—”
“You’ve landed in the thick of it now,” Thornstock said with a laugh.
“Stay out of this, Thorn,” Sheridan snapped, “or I swear I’ll break your jaw.”
Vanessa caught her breath. Had she somehow missed this violent side to Sheridan’s character? She’d assumed that his striking Mr. Juncker was due to her, but now that she wasn’t sure if anything was due to her, she had to wonder.
Thornstock snorted. “Right. Saint Sheridan is going to fight me.”
“Don’t put it past him,” Vanessa said. “He’s punched a man before. I’ve seen him do it.”
When his family stared at her aghast, Sheridan said softly, “Only for you, sweetheart.”
She ignored the frisson of pleasure that his remark sent through her. Clearly, Sheridan was better at flattery than she’d heretofore realized.
“Whom did you punch?” Lord Heywood asked his older brother.
“Juncker,” Sheridan said, keeping his gaze fixed on her.
“Ohhhh,” everyone said in unison, as if that explained everything.
“No doubt he deserved it,” Thornstock added.
It was her turn to scowl at the man. “I thought Mr. Juncker was your friend.”
Thornstock shrugged. “He is. That’s how I know that sometimes he can be an arse.”
“Especially around ladies,” Sheridan told him.
“You are not going to distract me from my purpose with talk of Mr. Juncker!” Vanessa scanned the room. “Will someone who is not my husband please tell me what’s going on? Obviously everyone else’s wife has been included in the discussion. Why not me?”
“Why not you, indeed.” With a kind smile, the dowager duchess rose and walked over to take her hand. “Come sit by me, my dear, and we will answer all your questions.” As she led Vanessa toward the chair beside hers, she paused to relieve Sheridan of his plate. “I believe the food was meant for me, son.” Taking the glass, she handed it to Vanessa. “And heaven knows your wife can probably use some brandy to get through this discussion.”
If Vanessa hadn’t been so angry at Sheridan, she might have been amused by his astonished expression as his mother walked off with his food, his drink, and his wife. But Vanessa wasn’t in the mood to be amused just now. Staring rather defiantly at Sheridan, she took a large gulp of brandy.
It was like swallowing fire. When she had a fit of coughing, the dowager duchess handed her a handkerchief.
“Oh, my word,” Vanessa said when she could speak again. “Why would anyone drink that vile stuff?”
Olivia said, “It’s actually quite delicious once you get used to it.” When Sheridan looked surprised by that, coming from Olivia, she added defensively, “Well, it is. But in my experience, it’s better if you sip it.”
Sheridan muttered something under his breath, but Vanessa pointedly ignored him. This time she took a small sip and discovered that Olivia was right. A sip provided just enough heat without overwhelming her.
The dowager duchess patted her hand. “If it makes you feel any better, my dear, most of what you’re about to hear wasn’t even told to me until a month ago. What do you want to know first?”
After one more sip, Vanessa put the glass down on a nearby side table. “Eventually, I want to hear what part Mama plays in all of this. But it sounds as if this is a bigger story than that, so perhaps someone should start at the beginning.” When Sheridan opened his mouth, she said, “But not you.”
Her husband sat back with a curse and crossed his arms over his chest. The baleful look he gave her held fair warning that she’d have to deal with him soon. But first she needed to get the story straight in her head.
Everyone but Sheridan looked to Major Wolfe, and he sighed. “I suppose I am the most objective observer. Besides, there are things I need to report on to all of you anyway, so I might as well be the one to start.”
Report on? When they’d used the term investigation, they hadn’t been exaggerating.
Absently Major Wolfe rubbed his knee. “Over the past year, Miss . . . er . . . sorry . . .”
“Please call me Vanessa,” she put in. “I consider all of you my family, even if my husband doesn’t seem to think I am.”
Now Sheridan was positively glowering at her.
“Very well,” the major said. “Feel free to call me Joshua. Everyone else does.”
“Thank you,” Vanessa said.
“In any case, we have come to realize that the dowager duchess’s three husbands were quite possibly murdered.”
She thought surely she’d misheard the man. “Murdered?” she said, just to clarify. “Three dukes? Surely someone would have noticed that.”
“The deaths were disguised as illness or accidents.” The major cast Sheridan a quick look. “Indeed, it was your husband who first noticed the inconsistencies.”
“After our uncle and our father died within months of each other in suspicious accidents,” Heywood added helpfully.
Joshua nodded. “To be honest, we all thought Sheridan was daft at first. Then mysterious things kept happening—”
“Like a fellow named Elias trying to sabotage Thorn’s carriage,” Lady Gwyn said. “While me and Thorn and Mama and Joshua were traveling to London in it! Then there was the discovery that Grey’s father didn’t die of an ague, but was poisoned by arsenic decades ago.” She smiled over at Olivia. “Olivia actually discovered that.”
“No thanks to Elias,” Olivia said, “who blew up my laboratory the first time to keep me from discovering it.”
When a chill spread through Vanessa, she began to think she’d put the brandy down prematurely. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing! “The first time? And who’s Elias?”
“A villain for hire, we think,” Olivia said with surprising nonchalance. “He was poisoned in prison before he could tell us anything.” She laid her hand on Thornstock’s knee. “But that was after Thorn whisked me away to the country and bought me a whole new laboratory so I could do my experiments again.”
Good Lord. Explosions and arsenic poisonings and experiments and manufactured “accidents.” What else was this family dealing with? Sheridan’s treatment of her seemed inconsequential by comparison.
She thrust out her chin. No, she would not let him get away with it so easily. You lied to him about your feelings for Mr. Juncker. You wouldn’t have ended up married to him if you’d told him the truth.
Shoving that uneasy thought into a dark place in her mind, she picked up the glass of brandy and took another warming sip.
“I know this is a great deal to take in all at once,” the major said, having obviously noticed her brandy consumption. “But you can see why we’ve been trying to investigate it.”