must have known his family would object to this marriage,” he retorted, nettled.
“Of course. No doubt it will be quite a loss to you,” Eleanor told him.
Her tone carried a sting. Anthony was not quite sure what she meant by her words, but her contempt for him was clear. It would be useless, he knew, to try to persuade or reason with her. So he went straight to the point.
“I am prepared to pay you.”
“Pay me?” Eleanor’s eyebrows soared, and her voice became almost a purr. “You are offering to pay me not to marry Edmund?” She crossed her arms, considering him. “Just how much are you prepared to offer?”
For an instant he thought she would accept. Hope surged up in him, mingled, strangely, with a kind of disappointment, and he named a figure far higher than he had originally intended.
Eleanor rose to her feet, her movement not quick but with a kind of regal grace and power that made him realize suddenly how mistaken he had been in thinking she might accept his offer. He had, he saw, gravely underestimated his opponent.
“It is interesting to learn,” she said bitingly, “that your concern for your nephew is solely monetary. I shall not tell Edmund about your offer, as he inexplicably admires you, and I do not like to see him hurt.”
She was fairly vibrating with fury, her blue eyes blazing at him, and, much to Anthony’s surprise and self-disgust, lust coiled in his loins in response.
“I am sorry,” Eleanor went on in a clipped voice that clearly said she was no such thing. “But I must decline your offer. Pray tell Lady Scarbrough that it is too late. Her son is out of her grasp now. Sir Edmund and I were married yesterday by special license.”
Anthony had not seen Eleanor, Lady Scarbrough, again. Two months later, she and Sir Edmund had sailed for Italy. A year later, Sir Edmund was dead.
THE SOUND OF WHEELS on the driveway outside roused Anthony from his reverie. His sister’s carriage had arrived. He watched as a footman hurried forward and let down the step of the carriage, opening the door to help his sister down.
Honoria, Anthony saw, was dressed all in black, her figure still slim, though she had reached middle age. She looked touchingly fragile. A heavy mourning veil was draped over her hat, but as she came up the steps, she reached up and turned it back, so that it fell down on either side of her face in a flattering manner. Honoria always wanted to make a statement, but not, of course, to the detriment of her looks.
Anthony repressed the cynical thought, reminding himself that his older sister had recently lost her only son and had every right to be in the depths of sorrow—even if she did mourn Sir Edmund to the utmost effect.
He strode out into the entryway to greet her, schooling the impatience out of his face and voice. “Honoria.”
“Oh, Anthony!” Tears filled her limpid blue eyes, and she held out both her hands to him, her body somehow bending a little in such a way as to hint that she might faint.
Anthony took her hands in his, and led her quickly into the drawing room and over to the sofa. He had had enough experience with his sister not to allow her to develop her scene to its fullest extent.
“What brings you here today?” he asked, cutting to the heart of the matter.
“Oh, Anthony,” the older woman repeated, one hand going to her heart. She looked up into his face. “That woman murdered my son!”
CHAPTER TWO
HIS SISTER’S WORDS LEFT Anthony speechless.
He did not have to ask what woman she meant. There was only one—at the moment—who earned the title of That Woman, always pronounced in the most scathing of accents. However, even for Honoria, the accusation of murder seemed excessive.
Anthony frowned. “What basis do you have for thinking that? You cannot go about accusing people without any reason.”
“She has written me. She is coming back here.”
“It would seem the natural thing to do, Honoria,” Anthony pointed out, wondering if this could possibly be all that had set his sister off.
“Natural? There is nothing natural about any of it,” Honoria snapped, in her annoyance casting aside the mantle of wilting sorrow. “She is bringing Edmund’s ashes. His ashes!”
“But, Honoria, isn’t this where you would want Edmund to—”
“Yes, of course, this is where I want my son.” She raised the handkerchief to her eyes again. “This is where I want him buried. But she has denied me even that solace. She burned him, Anthony!”
“Yes, Honoria, I know.”
“Do you understand the horror of that? There is not even the shell of him left to bury in the Scarbrough mausoleum. It was wicked of her. Wicked! First she took him to that awful country, so far from home. And she did it only to spite me. I know it. And now…now that he has been taken from me forever, she deprives me of even this comfort. It is outside the bounds of decency. It is sacrilegious!”
There was, Anthony knew, a good deal of religious feeling against the immolation of a body. However, it was the first time he had heard of his sister being in any way religious.
He said only, “Wouldn’t you rather have his ashes here than have his body buried in Naples?”
Honoria cast him an irritated look. “That is not the point. He should not have been there in the first place. He should have been here where I could look after him. That is why she took him to Italy—to keep him from me. She knew that if she separated him from me and his family, no one could protest anything that happened to him. If only he hadn’t gone to Italy, none of this would have happened. He wouldn’t be dead now.”
She began to weep again. Anthony sighed.
“Edmund was a grown man, Honoria. She could not make him go. And we could not keep him here,” he pointed out.
“You could have made more of a push to stop him.”
“How was I to foresee that Edmund would be in a boating accident there?” he replied reasonably, his words as much for himself as for his sister. “I had never known him to show a preference for sailing.”
“That is just it!” Honoria said triumphantly, her eyes lighting now with fervor. “Edmund abhorred such activities. You know that. You remember how he was about riding. Or any sort of sport.”
“Yes.”
“Well? Don’t you see? How do we know that Edmund died in a sailing accident?” His sister went on. “All we have saying so is the letter that she wrote me!”
Anthony hesitated. His sister was often hysterical and given to dramatics, but he could not help but think that she had a point. It was very odd that Edmund would have taken up sailing. Edmund had found the desire for outdoor activities largely incomprehensible in others and absurd for himself. His lungs had always been too weak for him to engage in any strenuous physical activity, and the thought of perhaps injuring his hands and being unable to play his
