Alarm slithered though her. “Are you ill?”
Henry’s mouth was a flat, hard line. “No…no, nothing of the kind.”
A profound sense of relief swept through her. “Does it have anything to do with why you haven’t replied to my letters?”
Henry had the grace to flush. “I’ve meant to pen my replies, but I’ve been busy.” He leaned back against the cushions of the sofa, looking distinctly uncomfortable.
A shiver of foreboding went through her. “Does it have to do with Viscount Redgrave?”
A knock on the door interrupted their conversation, and the housekeeper bustled in a set of tea, cakes, and sandwiches, then discreetly left.
“Tea?” she asked, lifting the teapot and a cup.
“No,” he muttered, scrubbing a hand over his face.
After she prepared a cup for herself, she sipped the refreshing brew, peering at him over the rim. “What is wrong, Henry? I do hope you know you can confide in me.”
“What do you know of the viscount?”
She angled her head, studying him thoughtfully. “Enough to know that man is not your friend.”
His mouth tightened in annoyance. “I…I’ve made some ill investments and engaged in a spot of gaming to recoup my losses. It did not pan out.”
“My goodness! How much did you lose?”
The fear in his gaze made her mouth go dry.
“Everything.”
Shock stabbed through her, and she froze for precious seconds. “You’ve gambled away the family’s fortune?”
He tugged at his cravat. “My fortune.”
“All thirty thousand pounds Papa left you?”
Henry sagged weakly against the arm of his chair. “All of it,” he said, his voice tortured.
She could hardly credit it. “Dear God. What are we to do?”
“We? You’re the Countess of Carrington, and your husband is indecently rich. You are not in dire straits.”
She shot him a reproving glance, and he flushed.
“I will speak with Sylvester—”
“Don’t bother.”
“Henry, he is—”
“I already sent him a letter. He didn’t even reply.”
“It is unlikely he would be so discourteous.” Though she knew her earl had no love for her father, surely his disdain did not extend to her brother. “Did you ask for a loan, or insight into an investment? What did your letter say, and why didn’t you write to me first?”
Henry observed her as if she were a fascinating creature. “I sent him a note demanding twenty thousand pounds in exchange for my silence in his scandal.”
She dropped the teacup onto the carpet, hardly caring if a stain was made. “You jest,” she said.
“I was desperate,” he said tightly, “and I knew a scandal of the worst sort exists. It says so in Father’s journal.”
“You sent a blackmail note to my husband?”
He made no reply, nor did he have the grace to appear repentant.
Fury lit in her veins. “I am ashamed to call you my brother.”
His eyes widened in shock. “Daphne, surely you must see—”
She surged to her feet. “You feckless wastrel! What I see is how cavalier you were with the inheritance Father gave you, and instead of finding the honorable solution you decided to do something as vile as blackmail my husband. Father gave me ten thousand pounds that my husband was never interested in touching. In fact, our marriage agreement said that money is mine. I’ve managed to triple it with sound investments, and you have whored and gambled yours away. Did you think I did not hear the rumors declaring you a libertine?”
Her brother stood and dealt her a pitying glance. “And how did you believe Papa made his wealth? Land and property? Rents from our tenants?”
He made his way to the desk flushed against the wall near the sole window in the study, opened the top drawer, and withdrew a leather-bound book. “This is how Papa gave you your inheritance.”
“What do you mean?”
He handed her the book. “This is father’s legacy, Daph.”
She took it, peeled back the cover, and skimmed the pages. It only took her a few seconds to comprehend the truth he had written. Her father had founded his wealth on people’s sordid secrets. He blackmailed them with the information, and those families that had been desperate to keep the vicious claws of the ton from their family had paid—an obscene amount, too.
“He left you those letters, Daphne. It says so in his journal. Where are they?”
“Do you think I am a part of this?” she demanded, outraged. “This is beyond despicable.”
“This is why you are now a countess and so well sought after by the polite world.”
She recoiled, staring at him in ill-concealed shock. “I was never a party to father’s vile schemes.”
Her brother scoffed. “Yet you complained to me that your husband had shamed and abandoned you when you full well knew that father had blackmailed him into marrying you? You dared to be angry when his disgust for father extended to you. What had you expected? Declarations of love?”
Something in her expression betrayed her, for Henry’s eyes widened with incredulity. “You expected Carrington to love you…or even pretend to love you after what Father did?”
Daphne steeled her spine, burying the pain and the doubts his words elicited. “When did you send your demands to my husband?”
Henry grimaced and raked his fingers through his hair.
“When?”
“A week ago,” he said with a sigh of resignation. “He hasn’t responded, so I can only deduce he knows I am not in possession of the letters. I need them, Daphne, they are my salvation.”
She stared at him, trying to find the sweet boy she had run across the glen and swam in the lake with. Their relationship had not been the same since he went away to Eton, which she had allowed as normal between brothers and sisters. Henry had always been so good-natured and kind, and she had never thought him inclined toward cruelty or disreputableness. “I do not have the letters, and even if I did, I would never give them to you or Redgrave.”
“Do you know the pain Carrington has caused our family?” Henry tapped the journal with a fingertip. “It is all here. He blackballed our father. Pushed him from investments and even got White’s to revoke his membership, all within weeks of his marriage to you. He promised Papa he would institutionalize you if Papa revealed any of his secrets. He was clearly the cause of Papa’s heart failing. And you would defend Carrington? He does not deserve your consideration or loyalty. You have no notion of the pain he administered to our family.”
She closed her eyes briefly before meeting her brother’s gaze. “Have you not considered it was deserved?” She had never imagined before that her husband could have been justified in his pain and anger. “Have you not considered that Papa must have done something so horrible that Sylvester was pushed to ignore his honor and seek revenge?”
Henry flinched, and his jaw slackened. “Daphne, please—”
“No.” She moved over to the fire and dropped the journal into the cackling flames.
“What are you doing?” He rushed forward and attempted to use the poker iron to remove the journal, but the flames were already licking greedily at the pages. Without waiting for a response, she walked from the study and called for her carriage.
The journey back to town would be long and arduous, and they would have to stay overnight at an inn, but Daphne did not mind. Henry had sorely disappointed her, and it pained her to realize he did not condemn their father’s dishonorable conduct.
Had her husband gotten Henry’s ridiculous letters? Why hadn’t he said anything?