Lionhurst cocked his head back to look up at Callum when he approached. “Lord Lionhurst—” Callum began to reintroduce himself.
“Lionhurst is fine, and I remember you well,” the marquess said, giving Callum a long look. “Beckford assures me you are not the man you used to be. I imagine rising from the dead will do that to a man.” Lionhurst motioned to an empty seat, which Callum took.
“Yes,” Callum said as he sat. “That, and my father died.”
“I heard. I’m sorry.”
Callum nodded. “And I wed,” he added, unsure why he’d done that.
Lionhurst arched his eyebrows. “Yes, I was told recently that you were wed and disappeared on the same day, and then when you reappeared, it seems your wife was about to wed your cousin. It was Mr. Fergussoune who relayed all of this to me. He was worried that some might gossip about him and your wife and that it would affect my business dealings with your cousin. Is that why you’re here?”
“In a roundabout way.” Callum quickly told Lionhurst about his kidnapping and Ross’s part in it, and then shared their discovery that Ross was giving unwanted attention to one of his servants. Lionhurst’s expression was unreadable, like a true card player. “You may not believe my story, and I’ve only my word against my cousin’s, but I’ve no doubt Ross’s servant will tell you her story.”
“That won’t be necessary,” Lionhurst said, surprising Callum. “It did not ring true with me when your cousin rushed to see me and made a point to tell me that his almost wedding to your wife was regrettable but clearly not his fault since he had thought you dead. I didn’t care for the fact that Mr. Fergussoune didn’t seem overly happy that you had returned nor did he seem at all upset that he had lost the woman he loved. He seemed to care more for keeping my business than anything else. I did some investigating and uncovered some unsavory business dealings of your cousin’s, which I should have dug into before but regrettably did not. Luckily, I have a clause in my contract with Mr. Fergussoune, and I’ll be giving him back half the money he bought shares with, and he’ll no longer be invested in my company. He should receive word of it in the next few days.
“That’s excellent news,” Callum said, feeling as if the wheel of his plan for revenge was finally starting to turn. “I’ll let you get back to your son.” He started to rise.
“Kilgore, might I give you some advice, from an older man to a younger one?”
Beckford shrugged, as if to say he had no notion what the marquess might say, but Callum nodded, feeling somewhat obliged to do so.
“I would imagine,” Lionhurst said, “if I were in your shoes, I’d want revenge.”
Callum blinked in surprise. “You believe me?”
“Your cousin is, as you pointed out, the only man who would have gained from your disappearance,” Lionhurst said. “Though you’ll need much more than that for the authorities to haul him off. I’d hate to see your new start in life ruined chasing revenge.”
“Were it that simple,” Callum muttered.
“However complicated it may be,” Lionhurst went on, “I imagine your wife could make it less so. In my experience with my own wife, she has a knack for seeing solutions I cannot. And nothing in my life has ever been made better by keeping secrets from her.”
“Why would you think—”
Lionhurst laughed. “One of the benefits of my advanced years is you can see the mistakes of your own youth on younger men’s faces. Go forth with my wisdom and use it. I almost lost my own wife because I was a fool.”
“Are you calling me a fool?” Callum asked, though he was smiling. It sounded exactly like something Constantine would say to him.
Lionhurst rose and clapped him on the shoulder. “My wife assures me that all men are fools, and my wife is never wrong. You’ll likely discover the same about your wife with enough years.”
Callum certainly hoped he had the chance.
Chapter Eighteen
Constantine was quite bleary-eyed from a nearly sleepless night worrying about Callum. She’d fallen asleep after daybreak, and he had yet to return home by then, but when she’d woken a few hours later, she’d been informed he had been home, washed, changed, and had rushed out again. She had no doubt that all his rushing about had as much to do with seeking revenge as avoiding her.
She decided to dress in black that day because it suited her sour mood. She had her lady’s maid get out the widow’s weeds she’d worn when she thought Callum was dead, and as the woman helped Constantine dress, she gave her disapproving looks that she tried to disguise by lowering her lashes. Constantine didn’t care whether the servants talked or not. She felt like Callum was almost dead anyway. He was here, but he wasn’t. He was her husband, but he wasn’t.
A knock at her door found White there with a tray of food and a letter. He cleared his throat repeatedly as he entered the room and stared at her. “Ye’re in black, black, black,” he said, his face turning crimson.
She went to the gentle man and patted his arm. “It’s quite all right, White. I am, indeed, in black.”
Peter popped around White at that moment. “Why are you wearing widow’s weeds?”
“Weeds,” White blurted.
“I am wearing weeds, Peter, because Kilgore might as well be dead.”
“My lady?”
