Hardcross Manor
THAT EVENING
Julian said quietly from the doorway of the drawing room, “Vicky.”
She looked up from the book she was reading. She didn’t move, merely regarded him without expression. “You should not be here, Prince. Surely you are still too weak from your injury. You were stabbed only two days ago.”
He had to keep standing, he thought, despite the vicious gnawing in his side. He would keep standing. He had to finish this. Now. He said, “I am well enough.”
“Why is Richard standing behind you? He might have a gun, you know; he might shoot you and bury you near to where you shot Lily. Don’t you think that fitting? You’re here as well, Papa. What is this?”
Baron Purley walked into the drawing room and sat down next to his daughter. He picked up her hand. It lay limp between his strong ones. He studied her long fingers, so much like Lily’s. “Would you like to have a Season in London, Vicky?”
“I? Now? Why should I?”
The baron said, “Did you not tell Leah you didn’t wish to have a Season because you might meet a prince and he would kill you, like Lily was killed? But you know, Vicky, you know the prince did not kill Lily. You know it.”
Vicky grew very still. She stared at each man’s face.
Julian said, “I know, Vicky. I know.”
She looked from her father’s face to her brother’s, both set and still. She looked down at her father’s big hands. She shook her head.
Julian said, “I know Lily never had a lover, Vicky. It simply wasn’t in her, not the girl I knew all my life, not the girl I married. I also could see no guilt in anyone else. So I was forced to face it—she either killed herself for some reason I simply could not fathom, or something else entirely happened. For the life of me, I couldn’t find my way to the truth. Until Leah came into the room today wearing Lily’s grown, her hair dressed like Lily’s hair. By you, Vicky.
“Tell us, Vicky. Tell us what happened that afternoon in the garden. Tell us what happened between you and Lily.”
Vicky never looked away from him, but Julian knew she wasn’t seeing him, she was seeing her sister on that hot, long-ago afternoon in the wildly blooming garden.
She said, her voice far away, as if reciting a story she’d read, “You still don’t know anything, Prince—particularly, the truth. The fact is Lily was going to leave me.”
“What do you mean she was going to leave you?” Baron Purley squeezed her white limp hand, but there seemed to be no life in that hand. He said gently, “Vicky, Lily was here nearly every day after she married the prince. When he was gone from Ravenscar on his shipping business, she spent entire days here; she even slept here in her old bedroom. I saw very little change. What do you mean she was going to leave you?”
There was no pain in Vicky’s simple words as she spoke them, her voice utterly without feeling. “I killed her. I killed my own sister.”
Julian clutched the back of a wing chair. He felt nausea and pain, and couldn’t think. Then the sickness passed, leaving only the pain. “Tell us why you killed her, Vicky.” He walked slowly to sit on her other side. He raised his hand and cupped her cheek. “It’s time, you know, time to understand what happened, so all of us can place it in the past, where it belongs.”
Richard was still standing by the open doorway, his face deathly white. He said, “Please, Vicky, tell us.”
Vicky looked again at her hand held between her father’s big ones. She raised her eyes to Julian’s face. “Lily loved you, Prince, she loved you too much, more than I wanted her to, but since I knew you all my life, knew you liked me, I wasn’t all that upset when she married you. She would live at Ravenscar. If you went to London, I would go with you. Everything would continue on the way it always had.
“I don’t think you realized it, but our souls were one, Lily and I, and we both knew it, even though Lily never said the words to me. From the very beginning I recognized I was part of her, and she was the very best part of me. She was my mother, my sister, my very best friend, and she loved me without reservation. But then it happened.”
“What happened?” the baron asked.
“I came to her in the garden. Her hands were dirty from pulling up weeds, and she was smiling, wildly happy, and it burst right out of her. ‘I am going to have a baby, Vicky. The Prince and I are going to be parents.’
“She’d come to tell me she was letting me go, that it was time I matured, that I spread my wings and became my own woman.
“I couldn’t believe these words came from her mouth. She nearly sang the words, she was so happy. She told me it was time for me to leave my home, time to get away from her, time for me to go to London and have a Season, as she had. She told me I would find a gentleman who would please me, that I would marry, and have my own children. She told me I didn’t need a mother any longer—namely, her—that since our own mother had died so long before, she had played that role to me, but now I was grown, I was my own woman. She would now be my sister, and I would soon become an aunt.
“I knew to my soul I didn’t want that, knew that I wanted only her, and I wanted her forever, but I saw she was resolute. I knew she’d made up her mind. And so I finally agreed and left her. I fetched one of your pistols, Papa, and I found her still in the garden, humming, happier now because she’d done her duty by me and set me free. I still remember her face—how very radiant she looked.
“I told her we belonged together, that I wouldn’t let this child in her womb continue to grow and come out of her and make her leave me. She tried to grab the gun, to protect her babe, and the gun went off.” Vicky stared down at her hand, still held in her father’s. “She looked up at me in the instant before she died. She smiled and told me it would be all right. Then she was gone.”
Julian felt the past whip into the present and crush him. Lily was pregnant with his child, and Vicky had killed her, killed his babe. He felt such pain he wanted to yell. This damnable girl had been responsible for all the pain and death and misery. He wanted to kill her, to take her white neck between his hands and choke the life out of her, as she had killed Lily, as she had killed his child. His child, dead with its mother, never to know life, to know him, his father, or Lily, his mother—
Julian had believed he’d understood, but he hadn’t. He’d thought of the obsession in father and son but had not considered Vicky, not really, until he realized obsession was part of her as well, and he’d believed Vicky had considered her sister marrying him as betrayal. But she hadn’t. No, it was all about their unborn child.
He hadn’t realized how profoundly Lily had affected Vicky’s life. But he did now, only it was too late. And what would he do? Accuse Vicky of murder and see her hanged?
No justice, he thought, for Lily, for him, for Richard, or for Vicky’s father. He wanted only to lie in bed and sleep away the pain in his body and the pain in his heart.
There was not a single sound in the room except for Vicky’s sobs and her low strangled words, “I wanted to die, too, but there was only one bullet in your gun, Papa, only one bullet.” Lily’s father drew her against him. Lily’s brother stood, again utterly alone, in the center of the drawing room.
Julian looked from the baron to Richard to Vicky, now lying limp against her father’s chest, her father’s hand lightly stroking her hair.
Julian knew the truth would remain in this room. He also knew that what Richard had done, what his father had done, that all of it would remain in this room as well. None of it would ever be spoken of again.
Such misery, he thought, such utter waste, and he thought again of his unborn child and wanted to weep.
73
Ravenscar
FOUR WEEKS LATER
Corinne sat in the Ravenscar pew at the front of the beautiful Norman church, built by the conqueror’s own hands. The church had been protected by the long line of Brabante dukes throughout years of interminable wars and destruction. Ravenscar was large for a local church, a
nd most villagers were able to cram inside. Those not able to be seated in the row upon row of wooden benches lined up against all the walls. There were even those who stood outside the open doors, listening to the service. All the Ravenscar servants, Pouffer at their head, were seated directly behind Corinne. She knew the moment the service was over they would scramble madly back to Ravenscar to set out enough food to feed the entire village. It would be a fine celebration, and Julian’s wine cellar would be severely depleted by the end of the day.
Corinne looked at the two couples standing tall and proud before the Reverend Hubbard, known as the Young Vicar, having attained only his sixty-fifth year. He was so happy he looked fit to bursting with it. She listened to his words, beautiful, rich words that flowed smoothly out of his mouth, words that would bind these beautiful young people together. The four of them were so happy the air seemed to glow around them.
She listened to her son’s strong voice, to Sophie’s sweet one, so pure and happy, and saw dear Roxanne looking at Devlin through her veil, and who knew what she was thinking? When she spoke her vows, her voice was resonant and calm, reaching to every ear in the church, and to Corinne’s ear, she already sounded like a duchess, and she smiled, thinking, You will surely set Lorelei back on her heels, Roxanne. Devlin, so vampire-white he was today, he’d announced to them all, and wasn’t it perfect for his wedding? He was so obviously pleased with himself that it fairly burst from him, sounded arrogant and happy; odd, she thought, but true.
Both uncle and nephew were dressed in stark black. Roxanne wore a pale yellow gown, her glorious red hair piled atop her head, lazy curls drifting down to touch her shoulders. As for Corinne’s soon-to-be daughter-in-law, Sophie wore a gown of pure white. She looked very young and innocent, yet, Corinne remembered, she was older than Corinne had been when she’d wedded Julian’s father. Ah, it was so long ago. How was one to remember what one felt so many years before? But these two, they were right for each other, their bond deep and abiding.
Corinne heard a slight sniff, and looked from the corner of her eye toward Devlin’s parents, the Duke and Duchess of Brabante. Both were sitting straight and proud, the duke obviously content, but Lorelei, dressed in blazing purple, mouth pursed, was not at all pleased the ceremony wasn’t in Saint Paul’s Cathedral in London so all who counted could see her son’s nuptials. And what, Corinne wondered, did the old besom really think about Roxanne taking her place one of these days? She could imagine Lorelei bursting her corset stays with rage. Julian had told her Devlin had confided to his father that Roxanne was gifted with financial matters, and everything had changed. Devlin said his mother had actually bestowed one stingy smile upon Roxanne. Corinne didn’t believe it, but still she’d wager the old bat was deliriously happy the Monroe coffers would overflow, and who cared if she was only a baron’s daughter and her hair was the color of sin? But she’d carped and carped about Saint Paul’s, where she and Devlin’s father had pledged their troth so many years before. Devlin had patted his mother’s hand. “It is all right, Mother, you will be a radiant star shining amongst low-lying clouds.” Whatever that meant. To Corinne’s surprise, Devlin had told Roxanne his mother had shut her mouth. A radiant star shining amongst low-lying clouds?
As for Roxanne’s father, Baron Roche, he towered over those who sat next to him, his eyes—Roxanne’s green eyes—glittering with pleasure. His hair was a rich burnished copper color, threaded only lightly with white at his temples, a beautiful man, a kind man, filled with humor and the sheer pleasure of being alive, and she wondered, had Leah become a shrew because the father had preferred Roxanne? Who knew why people were like they were? Sophie had told Corinne, laughing, that Roxanne promised to continue dealing with her father’s financial investments. She’d added that Julian was giving it consideration as well.
As for Leah, Lady Merrick, she sat three rows behind Corinne, alone, silent, contained. Had she changed a bit since Richard Langworth? She appeared more aloof, perhaps, more measured in her speech to her sister and niece. Was she really less of a viper now? Corinne was surprised to see Richard Langworth standing against one of the nave pillars at the back of the church. She hadn’t seen him come in. Was he looking fixedly at Leah? What was he thinking? She thought again about what Julian had said—Vicky had accidentally shot Lily while showing her their father’s new pistol, and then she’d been too paralyzed with fear to say anything. Somehow, Corinne thought, deep down, she knew there was more, but she would never know.
But what did it matter? Lily was long dead; there was no more strife between the Langworths and her beloved son. As for Baron Purley and Vicky, they’d left two weeks before for America, to Washington, the colonists’ capital, but Richard had remained, the master of Hardcross Manor. What would happen, she wondered, between Richard and her son?
She heard a slight cough and looked over to see Lord and Lady Hammersmith—James and Corrie Sherbrooke—sitting next to Sophie’s father, the Reverend Wilkie, who’d acted when he’d arrived at Ravenscar three days before like he’d been shot in the gut, so disbelieving he’d been of his daughter’s “uncalled for” good fortune, the obnoxious bore. Corrie actually looked pregnant now, and as lovely as could be, gowned in pale blue, her husband holding her hand, never, it seemed to Corinne, letting his wife out of his sight, and wasn’t that lovely?
The service was over. Reverend Hubbard beamed as he gave the two grooms permission to kiss their brides. Corinne watched Julian lift Sophie’s veil off her face. He looked down at her, but not all that far down, laughed, picked her up, and twirled her around. When he lowered her, he gave her a smacking kiss that brought laughter and cheering from the crowd. There was even more laughter when Sophie grabbed his face between her mittened hands and kissed him back.
The crowd seemed to hold its collective breath as they watched Devlin and Roxanne. Devlin slowly lifted his bride’s veil, looked at her for a very long moment, then slowly brought her against him. He kissed her gently, then rested his white cheek against her equally white cheek. He closed his eyes as they stood silent together.
Corinne found herself looking up at the beautiful stained-glass window her husband had commissioned for the church back before the turn of the century. A sudden beam of sunlight speared through. Corinne lifted her face to the warmth. Our children are joined, Bethanne, as we wished them to be. I know you can see them and know you are smiling along with me. I miss you, dear friend, but know I will keep watch over our beautiful daughter. Corinne felt the warmth deepen, felt it all the way to her bones, felt a peace flow through the air itself, and she thought of Julian’s father, an old man who’d worshipped her all those years ago, and the gift he’d given her, a prince.
74
The Shapewick Inn
THAT NIGHT IN PLYMOUTH
Roxanne paced back and forth in front of her new husband, who was lying at his ease on the huge tester bed in the center of the corner room that looked out over Plymouth Harbor. He was naked, a single sheet pulled to his waist, and he was harder, he thought, than the floorboards beneath the bed. He eyed her with amusement mixed with lust. She was wearing a sinful pale pink peignoir, sheer as a veil, over her equally sinful pale pink nightgown, striding back and forth in front of him, the long-legged stride of a young Amazon. His Amazon. He wanted to grab her and consign that pale pink to the ether, but he knew her—and prepared to enjoy himself. She whirled about to face him, her hands on her hips, the firelight behind her outlining her long legs, haloing her glorious hair, hanging all loose down her back. He thought of those long legs of hers around his flanks and shook with it.
“It’s true, I tell you, Devlin. It’s true! The little hussy was laughing just now in the hallway, telling me how the prince was helpless to say no to her, how she seduced him in his estate room surrounded by all four spaniels—two full days before the wedding. She all but danced off to their bedchamber after she whispered to me she knew everything now, and I didn’t know spit, and here I was, her elderly aunt. She la
ughed and laughed, telling me how much fun I was going to have if you were but half the lover the prince was. Then she looked mournful and said she couldn’t imagine any man being a more superb lover than the prince, but doubtless you and I could admire our mutual whiteness if you weren’t all that certain what to do. I could have smacked her, Devlin.
“And then I could have smacked you. You want to know why?”
He nodded, trying not to laugh.
“I could have smacked you because I remembered that night in the hallway and you wanted me against the wall, and I was eager, I’ll admit it, Devlin, I was excited and feeling things I’ve never felt before. I wanted to learn what this lovemaking business was all about. But nooooo—you became all saintly and noble, and sent me back to my bedchamber with a pat on the cheek. But the prince didn’t send Sophie on her way, did he? No, he did not wait.” She waved her fist at him.
Devlin was laughing so hard he nearly fell off the bed, aware that his bride was standing, watching him, tapping her foot on the carpet. When he was finally able to speak, he said, still grinning like a fool, “Sophie is a wonderful actress to convince you so completely. She made fine sport with you.” He laughed again. “My darling, listen to me. When Julian told me a man shouldn’t take a woman until she was his wife, he meant it. Julian has so much honor, it sometimes makes me want to punch him, like this time, since I wanted you so very much. But you see, I took what he said to heart. I believed him. I know he would never take Sophie until”—Devlin looked at the ormolu clock on the mantel—“until about now.”
Roxanne’s eyes were narrowed on his face. “She could not fool me; surely, she could not. Did she?”
He nodded, laughed, then choked.
Roxanne waited until he got himself together again, wiped his eyes, then said, her own eyes even more narrowed now, “How I wish you’d never asked him anything at all. What prompted you to ask him? Who cares what he thinks? Look at the result. We missed our wall opportunity at midnight because he’d already told you his damnable marriage rule, and you believed he was right, damn both of you.
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