Page 46 of Stolen By the Cruel Duke
“I didn’t use a coach with the Eavestone crest,” Phineas snapped. “I’m not an idiot.”
James’s eyes widened, as if to say,Oh, aren’t you?
“Well then,” he countered, “one of your servants could have been paid to spy on you. It’s not such an unusual thing. They’re underpaid as it is.”
“I pay my servants very well.”
“And Carfield would pay more, now that he knows his daughter isn’t spying on you anymore. You don’t think he’d just give up on his plan to spy on you, do you? No, of course not. He’d find someone else.”
Phineas didn’t know what to say to this, so he turned away and stared out the window. Not that he really saw anything. All he could see was the scene at his townhouse playing out in his mind’s eye over and over again. He wasn’t sure what to believe or think anymore. All he knew was that as he’d been speaking to the Constable, it had dawned on him what might have happenedto Iris had she been in the house during the robbery. And as that had hit him, he’d been filled with a blinding rage that he didn’t know where to direct.
But do you really believe she was spying for her father?a little voice whispered in the back of his head.
I don’t know, he inwardly snarled back at it.It’s possible.
But it was easier to be mad at Iris and believe the worst of her than to feel the other feeling that was battering inside of him, trying to force its way out into the world. It scared him too much.
“It was definitely a servant,” he heard James say. “How else do you explain how Carfield knew you and Iris were falling in love?”
“What?”
“You told me that when he came to the mines, he said he’d heard rumors of the affection that was building between the two of you. How else can you explain how he knew, if it wasn’t a servant spying on you? It’s not as if you and the Duchess had been seen in public much together, where others could gossip about you falling in love.”
“Don’t use those words,” Phineas snapped, glaring at him. “We are not… in love.”
James snorted, looking completely unconvinced. “Right. And I’m not the cleverest gentleman in the ton.”
Phineas shot him an irritated look. “Well, right now, I’m seriously doubting that moniker.”
The carriage jolted to a stop, and Phineas looked out the window. They had arrived at James’s accommodation. His friend was currently lodging at the Albany, where he leased a set of apartments for one hundred pounds per annum. It was a large sum for the second son of an earl, but James liked to live in style. And nowhere was more stylish than the Albany. All of London’s most fashionable bachelors lived there—as well as a few married men who no longer lived with their wives.
As Phineas stepped down from the carriage, it suddenly struck him that if a man left his wife, he could still rent or buy a fashionable apartment in one of the most exclusive residences in London. If a lady left her husband, however, as Lady Carfield had done, she was ostracized from all of Society and barely even spoken of.
It went a long way toward reminding Phineas that Lady Carfield had made big sacrifices to leave her husband. Not only had she given up seeing and speaking to her children, but she had been barred from the society she had spent years being part of. She must have lost all her friends. And all to leave Lord Carfield because he had paid someone to murder Phineas’s parents.
For the first time since he’d discovered the truth, Phineas felt a rush of gratitude and admiration toward Lady Carfield. She had given up everything, and all because she couldn’t live with a man who would do something so evil. He wasn’t sure she had made the right choice, in the end—or that it had been worth it to hurtIris and her sisters like she had—but it did go a small way toward redeeming her in his eyes. And it explained why she hadn’t come forward with the truth earlier. She’d given up so much, and she wanted to hold onto the last vestige of power she could.
Once they were inside James’s rooms, Phineas went immediately to the bar. The arrival of Iris’s note saying they’d been robbed had sobered him up significantly, and now he needed a stiff drink.
“Pour me one, too,” James called as he threw himself down on the sofa in his parlor. “My closest friend is being the world’s greatest arse, and I need to drown out some of my anger at him.”
Phineas gritted his teeth but said nothing as he poured himself and James two glasses of scotch. He then sat down on the sofa opposite his friend and handed him his drink.
They both sat in silence for a moment, sipping their drinks. Then James set his glass down on the table between them.
“Tell me truly, old friend,” he began, his tone less angry and indignant than it had been before. “Do you really think Iris is working for her father?”
“I… I don’t know,” Phineas admitted.
He looked down into his drink, afraid to meet his friend’s eyes. He was sure that if he did, he’d see his own doubt and hurt in them.
“Why did you make those accusations against her if you weren’t certain?”
Phineas shrugged, still not looking at James. “I suppose it’s easier to think she’s spying on her father than to think… that she could have been hurt.”
“Been hurt?”
“By the men who had robbed the house. I keep thinking what might have happened if she’d been there. I know she would have tried to stop them. And then they could have beat her. They might have hit her over the head like they did Malloy. That could have killed him, and if they’d done it to her… they might have killed her as well.”
