Derek nodded. “Eat Your Greens. In seven ear-splitting minutes, Lex managed to offend environmentalists, vegetarians, pacifists, and right-thinking people everywhere. Everyone else thought he was fantastic. Grayson must’ve thought so, too, though I’m hard-pressed to say what they had in common.”
“It wasn’t the music,” Emma objected, recalling the fine precision of the duke’s playing. “Perhaps he enjoyed the shock value. The old duke couldn’t have approved of Lex.”
Derek shrugged. “Whatever the case, the friendship didn’t last. The old duke died and Grayson came back to Penford Hall, while Lex went on to fame and fortune. Five years later, I was reading about them in the papers.”
“Wait,” Emma broke in. “Didn’t you meet Grayson at about the same time?”
“If you’re wondering whether I met Lex as well, the answer is no. I should think it would be self-evident. I was a grown man, with a ...” He faltered, recovered quickly, and went on. “With a wife and an infant son to look after. Hadn’t any time to waste hanging about garages with the likes of Lex Rex.”
A breeze rustled the leaves overhead, and a chaffinch streaked across the path. Emma watched Derek from the comer of her eye, saw his jaw muscles knot, his hands clench behind his back.
“Now, where was I?” he asked gruffly.
“Lex had gone on to fame and fortune.”
“Right.” Derek cleared his throat. “According to the newspaper accounts, Lex decided to pay his old friend a surprise visit. Treacherous things, country houses. Never know who’s going to turn up.”
“Sounds like the voice of experience,” Emma said wryly. “Do you have a country house?”
“Family does. In Wiltshire. Comes to me when the old man pegs out.”
“You don’t seem pleased by the idea,” Emma observed. “Don’t you want the family mansion?”
“Too many strings attached.” Derek’s mouth quirked in an ironic smile. “My father disapproves of my profession. I’m the son of an earl with the soul of a bricklayer. The lord of the manor is not supposed to get his hands dirty.”
“And a woman’s place is in the home. I’ve been hearing that since I was old enough to wear an apron. Ridiculous, isn’t it?” Emma picked up a stick and knocked the head off of a stray dandelion. “Your father should meet my mother. The world seems to be full of disappointed parents.”
“A good many disappointed children, as well, I’ll wager.” Derek’s smile softened.
“Please,” Emma said, “go on with the story. I’ll try not to interrupt.”
“Interrupt all you like,” said Derek, with a sidelong glance. “I don’t mind.” His curls tossed in the breeze and the sunshine made his blue eyes sparkle. Emma fumbled with the stick, then tossed it hastily away.
“Lex decided to surprise Grayson ...” she prompted.
Derek gazed at her a moment longer, then ducked his head and continued. “Surprise was on Lex, as it turned out, because Grayson wasn’t at home. Papers made a lot of fuss about this particular point, until it came out that Grayson had been in France, negotiating the repurchase of paintings his father had sold some years before. Grayson was understandably reluctant to advertise his father’s penury.”
“But if Grayson wasn’t home ...”
“His staff is awfully fond of him, don’t you think? Terribly eager to please?”
“I suppose, but ...” But it makes sense, Emma thought. It could have been a plot, with Grayson as the mastermind and the staff as co-conspirators. She thought back to her first evening at Penford Hall, to Grayson’s soothing, seductive words at the dinner table. She’d joined his cause without a second thought. If he inspired such devotion in a total stranger, what kind of fierce loyalty might he inspire in his staff? “Go on,” she said.
“Lex arrived, with his band in tow, and no Grayson to surprise. Fools got into his brandy, then decided to hoof it down to the Bright Lady.”
“That’s the pub in Penford Harbor?”
“Where we’re heading now. The band downed a few pints, jumped aboard Grayson’s yacht, and took it out into one of the worst gales Cornwall’s seen in fifty years. None of them were sailors, and the yacht was in poor repair. Miracle they got the ruddy thing going at all. But no one tangles with the Nether Shoals and lives to tell about it.”
“The ship was wrecked?” Emma asked.
“Smashed to matchsticks. The band ...” Derek’s lips tightened. “They searched, of course. Grayson came tearing back from his trip to mount his own search, as well. But the currents around the Nether Shoals are notoriously unpredictable, even in fair weather. In that storm ...” Derek shook his head. “Could be as far away as Spain by now.”
Emma drew her sweater more closely around her. “And the press gave Grayson a pretty hard time?”