gate.
‘Nice day for a walk,’Valerian offered drily, striding towards her.
‘I found the house a bit stifling,’ Philippa said shortly, bending to study a dormant plant.
‘The house or our Mr Canton?’ Valerian pried shamelessly. ‘I heard the two of you were closeted together over breakfast. I hope he wasn’t angry about last night.’ The last was a lie.
‘You are too bold, St Just.’ Philippa straightened, her eyes flashing as they studied him. He liked the feel of her gaze on him. Let her look and see that he desired her.
‘But yes, Lucien has asked that I make our relationship clear to you.’
‘So to speed my departure,’Valerian mused aloud uncharitably.
‘Be fair, St Just. Lucien has done nothing to earn your enmity besides stand my friend.’
Valerian studied her. ‘Is he your friend? I did not know him from before. He must be a new friend.’
‘Why, of course he’s a friend and he’s perfectly acceptable. He’s the oldest son of a viscount with excellent prospects of his own. He’s not a new friend, not to me anyway. I’ve known him since John…’ she hesitated here and then corrected herself ‘…Cambourne’s death. He was with John the day of the accident and he’s been with me ever since.’ Her sharp tone had softened at the mention of her husband.
Valerian matched it with a quiet tone of his own. ‘Beldon mentioned the accident briefly. Cambourne lived a while afterwards,’ he prompted, liking the quiet intimacy that had sprung up between them.
Philippa turned bittersweet eyes on him, her gaze far away with her memories. ‘Lucien got him home and arranged for a physician, even though he was hurt himself. We stayed by John’s side for the next few days.’ She shook her head. ‘The doctor had known immediately that there would be no recovery. I was afraid to leave him out of fear that he would slip away the moment I was gone.’
Valerian took Philippa’s hand, stroking her knuckles with his thumb, pleased that she hadn’t snatched it away. A queer pang jabbed at him. He was both grateful that Philippa had cared for her husband and yet envious that those affections had been given to another. ‘You cared for the duke, then?’ he asked curiously, wanting to know the nature of the relationship she’d shared with Cambourne.
‘I grew fond of him. He was a good mentor to me and he denied me nothing. He let me use his wealth and his name to build a model school for miners’ children in the village. It’s the one the vicar is modelling his own school after. He was a good and tolerant man. I sincerely missed him when he was gone.’
‘But Lucien was there,’ Valerian prodded.
‘Yes. He helped with all the details of transferring the estates to me and to John’s heir. That can be tedious work and Beldon was so busy settling the Pendennys estate in those days it was a relief not to burden him with my worries as well.’ Philippa sighed.
The bastard knows how much she’s worth to the farthing. He’s had an intimate look at her holdings. The thought was unworthy, but it was the first one that came to mind. How convenient everything was for the man. That raised an alarm for Valerian. He no more believed in ‘conveniences’ than he believed in Beldon’s blasted ‘serendipity’. A man made his own luck. Lucien Canton appeared to have manufactured quite a lot of it.
Valerian’s talk with Philippa in the garden did not go unremarked. Mandeville Danforth let the length of curtain drop in front of the library windows. ‘Look at them, close as courters. He’s holding her hand, damn it. Canton, how could you let him upset things so quickly and so thoroughly? He’s turning her head.’
Lucien pierced the man with a cold stare. ‘I didn’t know he was coming. He and her brother arrived unannounced, much like yourself,’ he said pointedly. ‘How was I to know that he was more than her brother’s best friend?’
‘You could tell the minute he saw her,’ Danforth groused.
‘We all could tell. It’s amazing the house didn’t spontaneously combust. But by then it was too late. I could hardly expel him from the house. We have to be careful with Pendennys. We need his blunt. Where he invests, others will follow. Giving his friend the cold shoulder won’t help our cause, especially with Pendennys still sitting on the proverbial fence where the bank is concerned.’
Danforth huffed in concession to Lucien’s wisdom. ‘Winning the Dowager Duchess of Cambourne’s affections would be enough to bring her brother into the fold. It’s a bad time for a kink in the works. Did you read your father’s letter? I hope it was important enough for me to hare down here from London.’
Lucien felt some inward satisfaction that Danforth didn’t know the contents of the letter. The man was getting above himself to think he could scold a viscount’s son. He had not missed Danforth’s barb about the need to win Philippa’s affections. But Danforth was wrong to assume his only role in this scheme was to play the suitor and woo Lady Cam-bourne.
While the thought of finally having Philippa in his bed after all this time was pleasant enough, he’d invested the last three years of his life for a far more lucrative gambit than a roll in the ducal bed. He had an empire at stake.
Lucien gave Danforth a cold smile. ‘My father writes that the London investors are in place. We may go ahead and officially announce that the Provincial Bank of Truro is open for business, with you, of course, as the nominal head.’ It went unspoken between them the reasons for that choice. A viscount or his son might sit on an executive oversight board of a bank, particularly if the bank was in his own area of the country, but he would never overtly sully himself with such work as the daily running of the bank.
Danforth rubbed his hands together in delight. ‘I am glad to hear it.’
‘As am I. The sooner we can begin loaning funds to the smelting companies and the mining corporations, the sooner we can have our cartel.’
‘And the sooner we have our cartel, the sooner we control the market. Everyone will be in our pockets,’ Danforth remarked shrewdly.
‘Not just the market, but the world,’ Lucien said meaningfully. He didn’t expect Danforth to understand. The man’s financial acumen was daunting on a domestic scale, but he had yet to grasp the implications of the new British mining colonies springing up in the Bolivian and Argentine territories. That was Lucien’s gift to the venture—futuristic foresight.
His eyes strayed to the window. His foresight and exquisite planning would come to naught if he couldn’t control the Cambourne interests. The strength of his cartel and its ability to regulate tin and copper prices would be minimal if the Cambourne mines and other associated industries remained outside the cartel’s umbrella to compete against it with prices.
St Just was an unfortunate distraction, but not insurmountable. He would have to send to London for news about the returning viscount. With nine years in the diplomatic corps, there must be dirt on the man somewhere—real scandal beyond his rakish reputation with women.
Lucien had yet to meet a diplomat who couldn’t be bribed to shape foreign policy. Not that there was anything wrong with greasing palms. Lucien was man enough of the world to know it took a bit of well-placed oil to keep that world running smoothly. But Philippa was another sort altogether. She believed in ideals, like the miners’ school the late duke had let her open.
