A Dangerous Collaboration (Veronica Speedwell #4)(61)

“Such as?”

He shrugged. “Breaking things that Tiberius loved. Giving away his favorite horse. Yanking him from a school in which he thrived to place him in one he detested. He did those things to all of us, really. They were designed to toughen us, to make us Templeton-Vanes,” he added with a curl of his lip. “Rupert kept his head down and did as he was told. He never rebelled, never fought back. Merryweather was too young for the worst of Father’s games. Besides, the old devil had his hands full with Tiberius and with me.”

“You fought back,” I guessed.

He grinned. “Every chance I got. And then, when I was twelve, I left altogether. He didn’t much mind. He made inquiries and sent detectives and eventually dragged me back home, but the sport had gone out of it when he realized I would just leave again. And Tiberius had developed his own strategies for dealing with him.”

“What sort of strategies?”

“Tiberius learnt never to love anything or anyone lest it be used against him. He developed that mask you know so well, that polished veneer of urbanity, so detached and lofty he might as well live on Mount Olympus. He has no use for us lesser mortals. Or at least, he didn’t. That is why this Rosamund business is so very disturbing. It makes him human.”

“He told me his wife died in childbed. What happened to the infant?”

“Dead too. Almost immediately after birth.”

“How tragic!” I exclaimed.

“All the more so because it was a boy,” Stoker told me. “Son and heir to the Templeton-Vanes. Lost at birth.”

“What does he mean to do without an heir?” I asked. “Will he remarry, do you think?”

Stoker narrowed his gaze. “Why? Do you mean to keep up this ridiculous charade of a betrothal? If you do, do not have a June wedding, I beg you. Such a cliché.”

“Don’t be nasty,” I ordered. “Very well. I will tell you the simple and rather silly truth behind the charade. Malcolm Romilly is a Catholic and somewhat conservative. Tiberius thought if he presented me as his fiancée, it would make me more respectable than a woman traveling with a man to whom she is not related.”

“I knew it,” he said with soft triumph.

“You did not. You were clearly annoyed at the notion of my becoming your sister-in-law,” I reminded him.

“Memory fails.”

I snorted. “I am very fond of Tiberius, I confess. But that will not dissuade me from my determination never to marry. But Tiberius has a title and an entailment. What will become of them?”

He shrugged again. “Rupert is next in the succession, and he, mercifully, has four sons. The line is secure so long as Tiberius doesn’t mind it going eventually to our nephew.”

“I cannot see him taking another wife,” I told him. “He spoke rather bitterly about the state of matrimony, and having his heart broken so badly over Rosamund—”

Stoker’s eyes rounded in amazement. “His heart broken? You cannot be serious.”

“Of course I am.”

“Impossible.”

“Why?”

“For Tiberius to have broken his heart, he would have to possess one in the first place. Believe me when I tell you, he does not.”

“Feathers,” I said succinctly. “You yourself just said that he learnt to guard his feelings. People who are forced to such stratagems often experience far stronger emotions for having to bottle them.”

“If you say so,” he replied with maddening calm.

“How can you be so immovable? A moment ago you said you felt sorry for him,” I reminded him.

“My sympathies are of the fleeting variety. I have remembered too many of his tortures of me during our youth to waste my tears upon his pain.”

“You are in a filthy mood, and if you cannot talk sensibly, you ought to go.”

He rolled his eyes. “What do you want of me, Veronica? Yes, Tiberius has experienced pain and loss. So have we all.”

“His is freshest right now. Being here is dredging all of it up again.”

“His own fault,” Stoker pointed out calmly. “He needn’t have accepted Malcolm’s invitation. All he had to do was refuse and spare himself revisiting his greatest tragedy, but instead he comes and sticks pins into the pain. Don’t tell me he is deserving of my pity. He has brought this on himself.”

I was silent a long moment—too long. Stoker gave me a searching look. “What?”

“He has brought this on himself,” I agreed. “But why? It makes no sense.”

“What are you nattering on about now?”

“Everything you just said. I am agreeing with you. Try not to let the novelty throw you off your stride,” I told him. “But you were right. Tiberius is as imperious and controlling a character as I have ever known. He has arranged every facet of his life to his own satisfaction except losing Rosamund. His correspondence with Malcolm has been spotty of late. They were the best of friends for years, certainly, but with Malcolm imposing exile upon himself, they have not met since before Tiberius left for Russia. Yet as soon as Malcolm asked him to come, he agreed. They both claim it is for the sake of rekindling their old companionship, but is that enough to bring Tiberius here knowing that he would encounter memories of Rosamund? Or does he have another purpose in mind?”