With a touch of shame at the depths to which he was willing to sink to further his plan, he gave a stifled moan of pain. Phaedra rushed to his side. “Mr. Lawrence, you poor man! Here I have been chattering away insensible to your pain. What can I do to make you feel better?”
Hardcastle looked up into her heavenly blue eyes and thought that if he was truthful, she would run from the room; no, she would slap him and then run from the room. So subterfuge would become his weapon.
“Would you just sit with me and hold my hand? You have a strangely soothing affect on me.”
“All right,” she said with a somewhat reluctant tone. “But just for a moment, and then you must sleep.”
He stifled a smile. Where would this strange interlude take him?
Chapter Six
“Deborah!” Phaedra welcomed her guest with warmth. She had known Deborah Daintry from that young lady’s birth, and had been amazed at the transformation, in the last year, from boyish hoyden to delicate young lady of beauty and flawless dress. Today’s outfit was a springtime confection in pink percale over a white muslin chemise with small bunches of silk roses and green ribbon leaves gathering the skirt up into deep swoops of fabric. Her bonnet was a masterpiece that no local milliner had created, a sweet turban that perched over Deborah’s dusky curls. Two pink-died ostrich feathers nodded jauntily at Phaedra. It was clearly direct from London. Which reminded her— “What are you doing back in Ainstoun? I had thought you in London for the Season.”
The young lady’s brow furrowed. Absentmindedly, as she entered the hallway and followed Phaedra into the parlor, she tapped her parasol against her leg as if it were a riding crop. “Charles left London suddenly, and I have come home to find out why. His closest friends are not talking to me; they would not tell me why he left. It is most annoying.”
She spoke of her childhood sweetheart, Charles Fossey, now Baron Fossey since his father’s death the previous spring. Her green eyes darkening with annoyance, she went on, “I cannot imagine what is wrong. He was to escort me to Almack’s—Almack’s, Phaedra; can you believe I received tickets?—but sent me a note saying he was going home immediately. So after trying to worm out of his friends what prompted his sudden departure, I came home, too. I rode over there yesterday afternoon, but if you can credit such an outlandish notion, I was turned away! Some nonsense about fever in the house!”
“I’m sorry, Deborah. Come and sit. Let’s have a chat.” Phaedra rang for Sally and ordered tea. She wasn’t quite sure why, but with Deborah, one of her oldest friends even though there were some years between them, she could not bring herself to bustle around like a housewife making their tea as she normally did when it was any other guest. She often wondered if the girl was looking down her charmingly retroussé nose at the “poor vicar’s daughter.” Even more galling, though, was that she could be so shallow. Deborah had truly never given her reason to feel the difference in their stations. The girl was kindness itself. Before going off to London she had brought over a trunk full of her old dresses, telling Phaedra that she had far too many, and since they were of a size she thought someone might as well get the use out of them. Phaedra was grateful—she really was—and did not mind too much the remarks some made about recognizing the dresses from Miss Daintry’s previous Season.
But the girl had been chattering away and she had not been attending. Sometime in the intervening minutes the subject of Deborah’s chatter had changed to the stranger in their midst.
“—and so I told Mrs. Lovett that such a grand gentleman could not possibly be simply Mr. Lawrence, and that I wondered if he had received a blow to the head and did not know who he was.”
“Our patient is quite coherent, Deborah, I assure you.” She chuckled to herself at the girl’s romantic imagination. “I suppose, like Miss Peckenham, you are imagining him to be the dastardly Earl of Hardcastle, even though that man has been dead these long years.”
Green eyes snapping with curiosity, Deborah said, “Miss Peckenham has seen him and fancied some resemblance to the old Earl of Hardcastle? What she cannot know is that the new earl—not so new; it has been twelve years or more, I suppose—is accounted to be the very image of his father, only even more wicked!” Her voice hushed and she leaned over. “It is said that he has never seen a woman he will not bed!” She shrieked with laughter and covered her mouth. “Is that not delicious?”
“No, that’s scandalous,” Phaedra said, deliberately squelching Deborah’s high spirits. It was one of the things she found reprehensible in the girl, her willingness to listen to gossip. She would be as bad as Mrs. Lovett and Miss Peckenham given time.
“Do you not love a rogue? I thought every woman did,” Deborah said with a sly smile on her pretty face. “If I were not devoted to Charley, I would be susceptible. The earl is very, very handsome, I assure you. He is said to be able to seduce a maiden with the merest look of his black eyes.”
“Black—” Phaedra paused. Black eyes. Well, many men no doubt had black eyes. “Where is Sally?” she said, glancing impatiently toward the partially open door. How long did it take to make tea? “Excuse me, Deborah, but I must go see what is keeping that girl.”
She bustled back to the kitchen to find Sally leaning against the doorjamb, giggling at some witticism the butcher’s lad was making. “Sally! We are waiting for our tea!”
With a guilty blush, the young maid skittered back into the kitchen with just one flirtatious glance back at jaunty Joe, who went whistling about his business, which was certainly not delivering anything to the Gillian household! It was only Monday and they did not get their Sunday joint of mutton delivered until Friday. It was surprising how many times Joe Mudge just happened to be “passing by” on his way somewhere.
Feeling ashamed of her shrewish behavior toward Sally, Phaedra made it up to her by staying for a moment and preparing the tea tray, laying out some of her best linen napkins and china teacups, and filling a platter with a pretty spread of scones, thick-sliced bread and butter and blackberry jam. She directed Sally to bring it to the parlor. But when she returned to announce that their tea would be there momentarily, it was to an empty room. Where had Deborah gone? She waited a moment, but at a sound from above she gathered her skirts and raced up the stairs in unladylike haste.
There, at the door to her room, was a wide-eyed Deborah just ready to enter.
“Deborah Daintry,” Phaedra hissed. “Don’t you dare bother my patient.” She pulled the girl away and headed with her back down the stairs. “You did not awaken him, did you?”
“No, Phaedra, but, oh!” Deborah hopped as they reached the bottom of the dim stairs and clapped her hands together. “How can you not know? Your patient is no Mr. Lawrence! It is the Earl of Hardcastle himself, ‘Hard-hearted Hardcastle’ as he is known to all! I know, for I happened to see him once. He must have had a blow to the head and lost his memory to tell you he is mere ‘Mr. Lawrence,’ for it is the earl himself, I assure you.”
• • •
Hardcastle awoke to the crash of a tray on his side table. “Wha—?” It was Miss Gillian at his bedside, and dazed, he smiled up at her. “Is it time for my midday meal already?”
“It is.”
Watching her for a moment, Hardcastle thought something had occurred; she was not acting herself. Her movements were jerky and awkward, with none of the grace she had always shown. What was wrong?
“Smells wonderful,” he said, watching her, noting the little glances she cast his way as she moved the unused laudanum bottle to the washstand. He was adept at reading women, he had always thought, and if he did not know better he would think that she was longing to give him a scathing tongue-lashing. But that did not accord with what he knew, so far, of Miss Phaedra Gillian’s mild temperament.
“It is merely beef broth with bread and some cheese and pickle,” she said stiffly, laying a napkin out over the quilt. “Homely fare, not worthy of much notice.” Her cheeks pinked as she said that, and she glanced at hi
m with a fulminating look.
“Miss Gillian, have I offended you in some way?” He shifted uneasily on the bed and groaned at the twinge of pain that shot down his back.
She immediately crouched at his side and gazed into his eyes. “Are you uncomfortable, sir? Do you need to move?”
Now that was better. She was back to being solicitous. He gazed over at her, thinking how pretty she looked with her cheeks still pink and her blue eyes full of worry. She was adorable, but not in any childlike way.
“I’m still in pain, of course, but don’t worry about me, please, Miss Gillian.” He had not meant it to, but it did sound rather plaintive.
She bit her lip and looked away, then directed a more open gaze into his eyes. She took a deep breath and said, “What is your name, sir? Your true and complete name?”
Damn and blast. So that was it; someone had twigged to his true identity. He frowned. “I am Hardcastle. Have I never told you that? Lawrence Jamison, Earl of Hardcastle.”
Her eyes widened. “Earl of—” She stopped. “Oh, Lord.” She rose and sat down abruptly on the edge of the bed and stared out the window, where a small bird—the same constant visitor—hopped on the ledge and twittered. “Your first name is Lawrence?”
“Yes,” he said, watching the play of emotions over her face. Would she accept that he really had not meant to mislead her or would it require an explanation?
“But you let me continue calling you Mr. Lawrence. What a fool I have been!”
“How a fool, my dear?” he said, finding himself unexpectedly chagrined that his deception had caused her such consternation. “You didn’t know. To be truthful, it was an honest mistake at first. I was groggy. But then I didn’t want you to feel—I was concerned—” He shifted uneasily, and her hands automatically went out to fluff his pillow and help him settle more comfortably under the hand-sewn quilt. He caught her hand in his own and she gazed down at their twined fingers. “I didn’t want to distress you. I worried my title might hinder your sweet, unaffected generosity. It tends to make people stiff and formal, and I did not want that.” He found that some of that, at least, was true. He did not want her to put him at a distance.
She smiled. He sighed with relief, unexpectedly concerned that she not toss him from the house. It was not his physical condition that worried him. With the help of his serving staff and a London physician, he was sure he could be removed to his London house with little suffering, but he didn’t want to leave. Not yet.
“I thought—” She stared back down at their entwined hands, and her cheeks flushed a deeper crimson. He watched her face, entranced by the flicker of emotions that twitched her lips and fluttered her eyelashes.
“I worried that you were secretly laughing at us—at our simplicity, at our—oh, our country ways and country food.” She pulled her hand from his grasp.
“I would never laugh at honest goodness such as yours. How could you think it?” And that was true, too. He was not one of those so puffed up with London manners that they found country ways ridiculous. No one with her dignity, composure and perfectly elegant, if relaxed, manner should worry about being an object of laughter.
“It was just a shock, I suppose. I had no idea—” She trailed off and left unsaid what she had no idea of.
“How did you recognize me?” he asked. In a curious way it was a relief to have the truth out.
“You made quite an impression on Miss Deborah Daintry, a friend and neighbor. Though she seems only to have seen you from a distance in London, she recognized you immediately.”
A young miss in London for her Season? No, she wouldn’t have seen him closely. London mamas and chaperones guarded their chicks when he was around, though he had never been in the habit of seducing little misses in their first Season. His reputation preceded him, though, and London matrons looked at him with a skeptical and knowledgeable eye. They knew that even to be asked to dance by such as him threw into question a young lady’s character. Not that he often asked the young girls to dance. He was more likely to be prowling a ballroom looking for a willing widow or wanton wife. And how much of this had the precious Miss Daintry offered to her friend?
“I see,” he said. “Though I am at a loss to know what Miss Daintry was doing up here in this room.”
“You must know the whole village is curious about the Gillian household’s mystery man. We were trying to find out who you were as we were concerned about your family and friends.”
“And instead you find I have none to worry about me.”
She frowned. “How is that? Surely you have some family, somewhere?”
Hardcastle thought about his family, such as it was. Living, there was only his sister, and she was older, married, and ensconced in comfortable middle age on an estate near the border with Scotland. He had not seen her in ten years, though she faithfully sent a package every Christmas with a letter asking the same question: when was he going to marry and carry on the family name? He told Phaedra about her. “But I haven’t seen her in years.”
“I see.” She stood and gazed down at him. There was indecision on her face, but her next words were merely, “Your lunch is quite cold by now, I imagine.”
“I don’t mind it cold, Miss Gillian. I suppose now that you know I could easily order my serving staff to come get me, I should unburden your household.”
She shook her head. “No. Do not worry, Mr.—uh, Lord Hardcastle—”
“Just Hardcastle, please, Miss Gillian.”
She laid one hand on the blanket over his stomach, and he felt his muscles contract involuntarily at her touch. “I truly feel you will recover best if you do not attempt the move back to London, but—but also—” She broke off and searched his eyes. “I feel as if you have been sent here for some reason.”
“You think brigands and robbers were sent to accost me?” he said, laughing. “Oh,” he groaned, holding his ribs. “That hurt. I’m not well enough even to laugh yet.”
She grinned, and Hardcastle caught his breath. It was like sunshine poured from her when she smiled so brightly. “No, sir, I do not think God uses brigands and robbers to do his work. Or do I?” She cocked her head to one side. “I’ll have to think about that.”
It occurred to Hardcastle in that moment that the robbers had affected one thing; he had not made his way to that reneging whelp Fossey’s estate yet, to demand his due. Somehow, with the pain reviving in his back, he could not care much about it, but when he recovered some he would. He knew that with a certainty borne of experience. Dishonor always angered him.
A small quiet voice asked if there was no dishonor in the pack of lies he had told Miss Gillian lately, and if it was not equally dishonorable to stay in the Gillian household under false pretenses, as he had been, draining their likely meager budget. Surely it was not the same thing. And it was all aboveboard now; the deception was over. He would make it up to them somehow.
Phaedra turned and picked up the tray. “I should get you some fresh broth; this will be cold by now.” She rubbed her thumb against the tray handle and gazed down at her patient. “You—you really are an earl?” she asked.
“I am.”
Sighing, Phaedra turned back and gazed down at the man laying in her narrow bed. She should have known; there was always something about him. But those stories Deborah had told about him! “Mr. . . . uh, Hardcastle, Deborah Daintry said—well, she told me . . .”
She caught the look in the depths of his black eyes; it was expressive of good humor, patience in the face of adversity, and—and, oddly enough, humility. Yes, humility; he was not got up with his own conceit, nor was he the pompous prig she had always assumed the nobility would be. Surely his reputation could not be so very black, but she could think of no reason her friend would lie. However, Deborah had been known to exaggerate. That must be it, blessed thought! Deborah was retailing secondhand gossip and innuendo. She nodded.
“What is it, Miss Gillian?”
“Nothing at all. I’ll be bac
k in a moment.”
Brooding, Hardcastle watched the door, thinking that lying as a helpless patient had made him a different man. In London a simple country girl, a vicar’s spinster daughter, for God’s sake, would not have interested him. He had always preferred a knowing look in the eyes of his conquests, a signal that they knew what they wanted and they knew what he wanted, and were willing. In a London ballroom, would her sky-blue eyes and sweet, artless smile have him captivated as he was now?
Perhaps, but more likely not. More’s the pity, he thought. Maybe if he had spent a little more time with the unaffected goodness of someone like Miss Gillian, and with men of Mr. Gillian’s intelligence and good nature, he would not have so much in his history to hide from someone like his hosts. Wretched thought! There he was back at pure females and their redeeming qualities. And the knowledge that he had concealed so much from the Gillians. But he was not hiding anything, he just was not burdening them with the darker side of his exploits. That would be idiotic and pointless. And they might shun him; that would matter to him. Why, he still did not know, but it would.
He turned his mind from such thoughts. It disturbed him to think he was changing, that he was somehow a different man than the one who had rashly galloped down a country road in the dark. It had to be merely a temporary affect of his invalidism. Instead, he turned his thoughts to Fossey. Lord, how had he forgotten, over the last few days, his anger toward the young man? He supposed most of his forgetfulness could be put down to the pain and the laudanum. Even now that young dog was probably making plans to leave the country. One just did not renege on a deal, and a gambling bet was a deal. He moved uneasily in his bed and groaned aloud at the pain, which now centered in his back.
A Rake's Redemption Page 6