The women all laughed.
“They should be coming in any minute now,” Cass said and joined them at the table. “They’re off shooting partridges. They do love their guns.”
“And their partridges,” Beatrice said. “Or at least Joshua always did. You have no idea how many partridges I have picked shot out of for my brother. That is definitely one advantage to marrying a duke.”
“Fortunately,” Gwyn said, “I do not have to pick shot out of partridges for Joshua. My husband knows better than to ask.”
“I would hate picking shot out of anything,” Vanessa said hoarsely. “It was bad enough just to witness Mr. Bonham being shot with a pistol.”
Gwyn put an arm around her and squeezed. “I completely understand since I witnessed that dreadful fellow Lionel being shot, too.” She grimaced. “Although honestly I would have preferred shooting him myself after what he put me through.”
“Not to mention what he put my brother through,” Beatrice said. “Getting back to Mr. Bonham, how is our mother-in-law faring? At some point, we all thought she might marry the arse.”
“Beatrice!” Cass said, shocked at her use of the word arse.
“What? Don’t tell me you haven’t wanted to use that word in reference to him at least once in the past month.”
“Well . . .” Cass said.
“The dowager duchess has been rather quiet about the whole matter,” Vanessa said, to avoid any more talk about cursing, “but not to any worrisome degree. I think he brought up a great many old memories about her first love and her first terrible marriage. Sorry, Beatrice. I know the man was still Grey’s father.”
“I don’t mind, and I doubt Grey would either. If Mr. Bonham hadn’t poisoned his father, none of the rest of us would probably have ever met.”
“Or been born.” Gwyn frowned. “Oh, let’s not talk about that.”
“I do hope that the money he stole will go back to his clients,” Beatrice said. “From what I read in the papers, he wasn’t just embezzling from the Armitage family.”
“Unfortunately, that has proved to be correct,” Vanessa said as she worked. “And in a couple of cases, he actually forged the client’s signature, so if he’d lived, he would have been hanged for his crimes anyway, and that is before his murders are even considered.”
“Joshua told me that those murders,” Gwyn said, “if taken singly, probably couldn’t have been proven sufficiently to see him punished for them, but considered together would have almost certainly resulted in a conviction. How clever of Sheridan to have recognized the ‘accidents’ as murders in the first place. If not for him . . .”
“That leech would still be trying to destroy the family,” Vanessa said. “I hope you all will give credit where credit is due.”
“I’ll be the first to do so,” Beatrice said. “But is Sheridan safe now? I assumed no one would prosecute him for Mr. Bonham’s death, but I wasn’t sure. I tried to find out if they had from Joshua, but he didn’t want to talk about it while I was enceinte, and he’s the worst letter writer in the history of letter writing, especially when it comes to writing his sister.”
“The magistrate deemed it a justifiable homicide,” Vanessa said, “since Sheridan was protecting me from almost certain death.”
She would never forget the look of terror in his eyes that night when he’d first seen her in Mr. Bonham’s clutches. His expression had held such stark determination to save her that she’d known he would do whatever he must to rescue her from harm. Remembering that expression on his face still warmed her heart.
“As for the money,” she went on, “that’s all tied up in legal issues, but if there is a settlement in the civil case against Mr. Bonham’s estate, then we may see some financial relief from it, especially since he has no family to inherit. I’m systematically going through the accounts right now to determine where the worst losses are for use in the civil case.” She tied a piece of wire on the end of a mistletoe branch. “Fortunately, Sheridan is convinced that without Mr. Bonham misleading the family, doctoring the books to cover his perfidy, and stealing our money, we can recoup even without a settlement, and I share his optimism.”
Cass surveyed them all. “Do you think Mr. Bonham was really trying to court the dowager duchess? I mean, if there was no one to inherit his ill-gotten gains, why keep on fighting?”
“You weren’t there, Cass.” Vanessa shuddered, remembering Mr. Bonham’s vile words to the dowager duchess. “I think if he could have killed her right there, he would have. He wanted to destroy her and all of her descendants. And if it had taken sucking the financial marrow out of the Armitage family, he would have done so.”
“Then thank heaven he’s gone,” Gwyn said brightly. “And I do not wish to give him any power beyond the grave by discussing this one minute more. Agreed?”
“Agreed,” Vanessa said wholeheartedly. “Now, I must hear about the babies. Did you bring them all? Did you bring any?”
“They’re all with us,” Gwyn said, tying a ribbon into a bow about a sprig of cedar, “mostly because both Beatrice and I are doing our own breastfeeding.”
“There will be no wet nurse for little Maurice,” Beatrice said stoutly.
“Nor for little Isabel and Andrew,” Gwyn said. “Even if it kills me to feed two of them. And it just might.”
“They won’t be any trouble, though,” Beatrice said. “We brought our nursemaids.”
“I appreciate that,” Vanessa said. “And that’s why we opened up and thoroughly cleaned the nursery, just in case.”
Olivia marched into the drawing room at that moment. “Vanessa, do you have any aqua regia?” When the group burst into laughter, she paused. “Oh, everyone is here. How lovely!”
“I told you she’d be doing an experiment,” Vanessa said to the others before turning to Olivia. “And what do you mean to do with aqua regia, if I had some, which I don’t?”
“I mean to dissolve gold. Mama doesn’t believe it’s possible.”
“Do you have gold you can spare to dissolve?”
“No, but Mama has a broken chain I could use.” Olivia sighed. “Although actually, it’s probably not wise to do it without laboratory equipment. You don’t have any flasks and such here, do you?”
When that last was said with a hopeful intonation, Vanessa shook her head, trying to contain her amusement. “The only flasks you’ll find on the estate are the ones the men have, filled with brandy and taken for their shooting expedition.”
“How much would you wager that both the flasks and the game bags will be brought back empty?” Beatrice said, nudging Gwyn.
“My husband will bring back a full game bag, I assure you,” Cass said.
“Well, we all know that Thorn won’t have shot anything,” Olivia said and took a seat at the table on the other side of Vanessa, “and he does love a bit of brandy, so I’ll wager one broken gold chain that my husband is the most likely to bring back an empty flask and an empty game bag.”