“Especially for you,” Darcy said, thinking now of all the rounds of cards. “You played well and have a fat purse from your winnings.”
At first he hadn’t given much thought to it, but at some point in the evening when he’d drunk enough to stop thinking about stupid business matters or Bridget’s breasts, he noted his brother was winning. A lot.
It was curious, that.
“My lucky night,” Rupert quipped.
“No, you played well. It seems that luck had little to do with it,” Darcy said, straightening in his seat. He had been drinking, but not so much that his brain had stopped working. And it was working now, putting two and two together.
“Well, I’ve had some practice.”
“I wonder, Rupert, about all your gaming debts over the past year. Given how well you played tonight.”
“I told you, it is just luck.” Rupert spoke sharply, revealingly, because he hadn’t had the lessons and practice in modulating his tone and stripping all and any emotion from his voice that Darcy had.
“Are you sure it’s not something else?”
“Of course not. It is nothing.”
It was probably something. But there was only one thing to say.
“You can always confide in me.”
They rode the rest of the way in silence. A tense silence. But one that Darcy simply waited out because he had years of practice in waiting out silences. The trick was to just breathe and give in to it and to know that the other person was probably suffering through it more.
Upon their return home, Danvers was present to take their hats and gloves and to present a letter to Rupert. “An urgent letter.”
“Thank you, Danvers, that will be all for the evening.”
Darcy watched his brother closely. Rupert’s face fell upon seeing the handwriting. Then he paled when he read the contents.
“Rupert.”
“It is nothing.”
It was obviously something. Letters that arrived in the dead of the night were never nothing. Letters that made his normally happy and carefree brother become as shuttered as . . . him . . . were not nothing.
“Join me for a drink,” Darcy said, even though they had had enough to drink that evening.
“I’m tired. I think I shall retire.”
“Join me for a drink.” He repeated himself in his I-am-the-earl-do-as-I-say voice.
“Don’t get all high and mighty with me now, Darcy. I’m not in the mood.”
But they stalked into the library and Darcy closed the door behind them. A fire still burned in the grate and from it, Darcy lit a few candles so they could see.
“I want to help you. But I cannot do so if you won’t confide in me.”
Rupert laughed bitterly. “Help me? Not even you can help me. Not with this.”
He shook the paper in Darcy’s face, and Darcy was sorely tempted to wrench it away and wrestle the truth out of him.
“So it is something.”
“Aye, it’s something. Two thousand pounds of something.” Rupert crumpled the sheet of paper in his fist.
“More gaming debts?”
There was a long silence. A silence so long and so dark that even Darcy grew anxious. This wasn’t just something, it was something. It took all of Darcy’s self-control to stay still and not, say, cross the room and throttle his brother until he spoke the truth.
“More like blackmail,” Rupert said. Finally. Darcy exhaled. Blackmail he could handle. He asked the next logical question.
“Why are you being blackmailed?”
Rupert swallowed hard. He leaned against the mantel. And then he spoke, softly.
“Something that would ruin this family and see me hanged.”
Darcy wracked his brain for something Rupert might have done. But Rupert was not prone to trouble; not serious trouble, anyway. He kept decent company, he played cards well, he wasn’t a liar or a cheat. Perhaps there was an accident that he was somehow involved in?
“Have you hurt someone?”
“Quite the opposite,” Rupert said, his voice hoarse, head down. And after a long, excruciating silence, he said quietly, “All I have done is love someone.”
Love someone? That didn’t make sense. He thought first of Bridget—but he couldn’t imagine a blackmailable offense there. Perhaps there was another woman and an irate husband? A mistress deceiving her protector? Whom did Rupert love, anyway? He had never mentioned any one woman’s name. He seemed fond of Bridget, but these “gaming debts” had been coming in long before she arrived on the scene.
Whom, then, did Rupert love? And why was he being blackmailed over it?
It was another long, aching moment before Rupert lifted his head. And when their eyes met, Darcy knew that Rupert didn’t fear the blackmailer as much as he feared his own brother. But why?