“Whatever business Minden is in can only be a sordid one.” He softly cursed when Olympia simply cocked one delicate black eyebrow as she sipped her tea. “But, of course. As I have learned to my cost, the stain on the money does not trouble my mother at all.”
The bitterness in his voice coated every word and Olympia had to struggle against the urge to wince. She wondered if he still mourned his lost love, and then immediately doubted it. He had not seen Faith for a year before he had discovered that his own mother had sold the woman to the brothel where she was cruelly murdered. It had been two years since that discovery. A touch of grief for chances lost would be reasonable even after so long but Brant did not strike her as the sort of man to cling to such a loss like some mournful poet. Something else kept him bitter and angry, but she knew now was not the time to try to work out that puzzle. Agatha needed their help and her cause held a great deal more urgency.
“Can you not simply refuse to consent to the arrangement?” she asked and frowned when he looked a little embarrassed. “You are the head of the household, are you not?”
“I am, but, let us just say that my power has been severely reduced, especially as concerns anything that pertains to my sister Agatha.”
“How was that done? Law always puts the man in the ruling position.”
“Well, I suspect some very attractive bribes were used. Perhaps a little blackmail. And, I also aided in my loss of power with my own less than sterling behavior over the last two or three years. Mother demanded full control over Agatha and got it. I was thinking of how I might get my sister out of Mother’s reach, especially since I cannot just send her to school as I did with my brothers, when all chance to do anything was abruptly taken away from me. It was as if Mother had somehow heard of my plans soon enough to ruin them.”
“Ah, well, I suspect she did just that. I believe your butler is her man. I began to suspect there was something amiss here when there was no response to any plea Agatha sent you or any of my messages. Debauched though you might be,” she said, ignoring his frown, “you never seemed to me to be the sort of man to be so, well, rude. Then when the man so disdainfully dismissed me and refused me entrance . . .”
“You knocked him down.”
“I realized my suspicions were right.”
“Ah, so that was what happened. Your acknowledging your own suspicions flattened him.” He smiled when she scowled at him and he could hear Thomas snickering. “Shall we have a word with Wilkins?”
“I believe that is a splendid idea.”
“I can have one now and then,” he murmured.
Olympia ignored him. “Shall we speak to him in here or in the hall?”
“I shall have your man bring him in here and help him into a seat.”
She watched Brant walk to the door. For one who spent far too much time buried in a bottle or a woman, he was still a fine figure of a man. There was a graceful strength to his walk. Broad shoulders required no padding to make his coat fit superbly. His long legs were shaped perfectly and clearly well muscled. To remain so fit, there had to be times when he was not sunk deep in the damaging ills of debauchery.
Olympia began to feel a little flushed and warm again and scowled. That made no sense to her. She was no schoolroom miss unused to dealing with men, and far past the age where a pair of very fine gray eyes set in a handsome face should be enough to make her heart beat faster. When Pawl dragged in Wilkins, who was very unsteady on his feet, she forced her attention to them. She refused to embarrass herself before the earl with signs of some foolish infatuation.
The moment Wilkins was seated with Pawl standing behind him, the man began to sweat and all the insolence he had shown Olympia rapidly disappeared. She looked at Brant as he stood in front of Wilkins and decided the butler’s nervousness was warranted. Brant was every inch the Earl of Fieldgate at the moment and, she sensed, a very angry earl as well. No one liked to be spied upon. To be spied upon by a mother he had disowned yet continued to support most generously had to gall the man.
“I have been told that my young sister Agatha has been attempting to reach me concerning some trouble she is having, yet I have seen not a word from her in weeks,” Brant said. “The baroness,” he nodded his head in Olympia’s direction, “has also sent me messages concerning the very same troubles for nearly a fortnight but, yet again, I have seen nothing, heard nothing.”
“M’lord, you have been indisposed,” began Wilkins and then he hunched his shoulders in a self-protective gesture as if he could defend himself against the fury darkening Brant’s eyes.