A Debt of Dishonor

by Marek, Lillian

  “But she had a point about Ambruster,” Merton said. “He wants you to take either his daughter or his canal. I doubt he cares which one.”

  Ashleigh gave a sour little laugh. “Lady Ambruster most decidedly cares.”

  “But that does not affect me. Now that I have Miranda, I am protected from attacks of that sort. Nonetheless, I think I shall decline this investment opportunity. It is a family I would just as soon avoid.”

  *

  Later that afternoon, alone in his library, Ashleigh tried to concentrate on the details of the canal project, but failed. Thoughts of Kate—Miss Darling—kept intruding. He turned his chair around and stared out the window. He really ought not to let his mind dwell upon her. She was Andrew Darling’s niece, and to the Darlings he owed every bit of warmth and kindness in his childhood. Miss Darling was not someone he could marry, so he should not think about her at all.

  But she was a mystery. Everything about her—her speech, her manner—proclaimed her to be a lady. Remembering Clara’s comments, he smiled to himself. Everything except the garments in which she had first appeared, perhaps. Still, when he had met her in company, he had seen the difficulty she had in showing deference to those who could be presumed to be her superiors.

  Was she truly a gentlewoman? But why did she not say so? Why did she say nothing of her family? He could think of no reason why she should be ashamed of her birth. She did not have the hesitancy, the careful speech of one trying to rise above her station.

  What if it was not she who was ashamed of her family, but her family who was ashamed of her? That could be the explanation.

  Suppose she had been seduced, betrayed by some scoundrel. God knows she was attractive enough, with those eyes and that graceful figure. He doubted there was a man alive who would not be tempted by her. Then like as not, she would have been disowned by her family. That happened often enough—all the blame fell on the girl, when the real disgrace belonged to the family that had not protected her.

  Mrs. Darling had also been disowned by her family. She would have sympathized with her niece. She would have offered her a home, a refuge. And they would say nothing of her family, of her background, if that was necessary to protect her from any scandal.

  If that was true, he thought, if that was true, then he still could not marry her but he could offer her his protection. He could keep her safe, offer her security.

  Good God, what was he thinking? He leaned back and closed his eyes. There was absolutely no reason to suspect that Miss Darling was anything other than innocent and virtuous, but here he was concocting a tale that would give him an excuse for seducing her. He was no better than the “gentlemen” she had been excoriating.

  He turned back to the canal project, but gathered up the papers and put them aside. Merton had declined the opportunity to invest. He would decline as well, he decided. He did not wish to associate with Ambruster.

  *

  Walking back to Hawthorne Cottage, Kate berated herself yet once more. She had to keep control of her temper and her tongue. There had been no reason for her to lash out at the duke. He was in no way to blame for her father’s behavior, or for her brother’s. Why did she keep sniping at him? What he said was what any honorable gentleman thought. The fact that he thought in such honorable terms was one of the things she loved about him.

  No.

  Stop right there.

  She had no business thinking of love and Ashleigh at the same time. She had no right. Thinking that way was beyond stupid. He was not for her, and she was not for him. That had been decided by her brother.

  And that was over. What her brother had done had set her life on a course that could not be altered. But that did not mean she had to be miserable. She could be happy.

  She could not let her anger at her brother poison her life. She had to forget him. Forget everything about her past. She needed to begin anew, as if her life were just beginning. Here in Lewes, she could have a good, decent, safe life. Not a life as a duchess, but a life as the owner of a bookshop. It might not fulfill all her dreams, but it was far better than the degradation her brother had planned for her. She had escaped the fate he had planned for her. She would not be a whore.

  She held her head up and put a determined smile on her face. She could be happy with the bookshop. That would have to be enough.

  *

  London

  Farnsworth sat behind his desk and regarded Newell with disgust. The viscount had obviously spent hours in a cheap tavern trying to soak up enough courage to come here and recount his failure.

  “Did my best,” Newell muttered drunkenly. “Beastly place. They didn’t know anything. No respect.”

  It was a waste of time sending Newell, thought Farnsworth. I did it to punish him, and that was foolish. I need to send someone with at least a modicum of intelligence.

  “Your sister, she is the only family you have?” Farnsworth asked.

  Newell nodded and sniveled.

  Farnsworth subdued his impatience and persisted. “I know your father had no other family, but your mother? Had she no relatives?”

  Newell started to shake his head but stopped. “She must have had a family.” He shrugged. “No help from them. Never even saw them.”

  “Who never saw them?” asked Farnsworth with exaggerated patience. “You? Your father? Your mother?”

  “Don’t know.” Newell frowned petulantly. “Never met them. My mother might have seen them or written.”

  “And if she wrote, your sister might know them as well,” Farnsworth spoke in his silky tone. “And might you at least know their names? Their locations?”

  Eventually, he pried the information from the recesses of Newell’s wine-soaked brain. Lady Newell had been a Miss Langley, daughter of Sir Bertrand Langley, baronet, of Locksley Hall in Somerset. There also came the grudging admission that Mrs. Grant, wife of the Yorkshire squire, quite possibly knew more than she had been inclined to tell Newell. Farnsworth could hardly blame her. Only a fool would tell Newell anything, and there was no reason to assume Mrs. Grant was a fool, even if she did live in Yorkshire. He rang for his butler.

  When the man appeared, Farnsworth waved at the now comatose Newell. “Remove him.”

  “To a guest chamber, my lord?”

  Farnsworth grimaced. “Do not be preposterous. Just get him out of here. Take him outside and leave him anywhere, so long as he is out of my sight.”

  *

  The next morning, Farnsworth sent for Howard Hall, a man whose talents he had used before. Farnsworth smiled when Hall entered his office. He recognized the man when he saw him again. But before that, he had found it difficult to remember just exactly what Hall looked like. That, of course, was Hall’s stock in trade. His face was ordinary. His clothes were ordinary. His demeanor—in whatever society he found himself—was ordinary. People who met him, even people who conversed with him, dined with him, drank with him, found it impossible to give any sort of clear description of him.

  Hall was ordinary. He almost defined ordinariness, except for one thing. Hall was extraordinarily gifted at drawing out confidences. People found themselves divulging all sorts of things to him, betraying secrets they thought they would never betray. But it didn’t really count. Hall couldn’t possibly be trying to discover those secrets. He was so ordinary.

  At the moment, Hall looked like a perfectly ordinary gentleman. After all, he was calling on a nobleman. Anyone other than a gentleman calling at this house would be noticeable, like the rather disreputable creature he had seen outside, pulling himself up out of the gutter. Hall had recognized Newell. He had encountered the viscount a number of times. Newell had not, of course, recognized Hall.

  Farnsworth waved his visitor to a chair. He could have kept him standing—Hall was only an employee—but he had done that once and felt vaguely uncomfortable. These conversations were more comfortably conducted informally.

  “A young lady has gone missing,” Farnsworth began.

&nbs
p; Hall nodded. “You refer to Miss Russell?”

  Farnsworth frowned. “People know about this?”

  Hall shrugged. “I hear things. I make it a point to do so. Your… arrangement was known to the servants. I doubt anyone of importance to you knows.”

  Farnsworth continued to frown and tapped his fingers on the desk. “No matter,” he said finally. “I want her back. Do you know where she went?”

  “No. She seems to have managed it quite effectively. Vanished in the night, and no one knows where. Impressive for a young gentlewoman.”

  Farnsworth scowled. “I don’t care how impressive you find it. Can you find her?”

  Hall shrugged again. “Probably. Unless she vanished into the river. Or the brothels. I assume you wouldn’t want her then.”

  “Let us presume she survived her vanishing act intact. She had no resources, she knows no one in London. She must have managed to get out of the city. And someone must be helping her.”

  “Fair enough,” said Hall. “But who would help her?”

  “There seem to be only two possibilities. She had friends in Yorkshire, where she lived. Newell went there. They claimed to know nothing, but they may have been lying.”

  Hall nodded. “The viscount does not always impress people as trustworthy.”

  Farnsworth gave a twisted smile. “Then there are her mother’s people. She was from Somerset. Her father was a baronet by the name of Langley. Newell seems to think they were estranged, but he might not know. See if you can find the family. If no one there knows anything, you will have to try the Yorkshire connection again. When you find her, let me know.”

  Hall nodded and left.

  The butler showed him out. Later, when he went downstairs, the housekeeper asked about the visitor. The butler couldn’t quite remember what he had looked like, except that he had been a fairly ordinary gentleman, with an ordinary kind of name.

  Chapter Seven

  Sussex

  At first glance, Stephen Bancroft appeared a somewhat pale reflection of his cousin, the duke. His hair was not so dark, his eyes were brown instead of blue, and his figure was sturdy rather than elegantly slim. He was the elder by some ten years, and tended to be self-effacing in his manner, as befitted a steward.

  Yet when the cousins stood together in the library studying the papers spread out on the broad mahogany desk, the intelligence and intensity in their expressions seemed identical. They shared a commitment to the estate and its inhabitants. There had been lean years for the tenants before Ashleigh inherited and installed Bancroft as steward. Ashleigh’s father had been pleased to collect rents but had made no improvements on the estate for years, and the old steward had not dared to challenge him. The farms had yielded less each year, but the rents remained the same. When Ashleigh took over, under Andrew Darling’s guidance and with Bancroft’s support, he had ploughed every penny he could back into the estate and, for a few years, things had flourished. Then the end of the war brought not only a collapse in farm prices but an influx of discharged soldiers, all looking for work with none to be found.

  Ashleigh was determined to do right by his people and by the returning soldiers, and Bancroft shared that commitment.

  They had been investigating possible industries they could bring to the area, much as the Earl of Merton had begun a shipbuilding enterprise on his estate. When Lady Talmadge came into the study, they had their heads together over plans for a brewery.

  Bancroft sensed her nearness immediately. He straightened up and offered a small bow by way of greeting, and she returned a nod. He was struck anew by her beauty every time he saw her. She had been a pretty child when she had married Talmadge—far too much of a child for marriage, he had thought—but now she was simply the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. Like her brother, the duke, she had dark hair. But she had startlingly gray eyes. Her features were soft, delicate, refined, and she moved with such grace. He shook his head in bemusement.

  She met his eye and smiled slightly before she turned away quickly. There was a slight flush on her cheek.

  Ashleigh, realizing he had lost Bancroft’s attention, looked up and saw his sister. He, too, smiled. “Alice. How may I help you?”

  “I was wondering if you could tell me about my estate.”

  “Your estate?” Ashleigh looked at her blankly.

  “My estate. Longwood. The estate I inherited from Talmadge. It is mine, is it not?”

  “Ah, yes, of course.” Ashleigh smiled at his sister. “You need not worry. There is a good steward in charge.” He turned to Bancroft. “What is his name? Carter? Carson?”

  “Carstairs. Robert Carstairs.”

  “Yes, that is it.” Ashleigh turned back to his sister. “This Carstairs seems to know his business. It appears he has established a good mixture of crops and stock raising, and the estate is producing a healthy income. So you see, there is nothing to worry about.”

  “I was not worried. It is only that I know nothing about it. I do not know what my income is, or what the estate is like, or even precisely where it is, and I think I really need to know.”

  She seemed nervous, Bancroft thought. Why is that?

  “There is no need for you to worry,” Ashleigh assured her. “You and Clara are perfectly safe here. You will always be taken care of.”

  “I am not worried,” she repeated, “but I do not actually know what my situation is. It has been more than a year since Talmadge died. It is time for me to get on with my life.”

  “Ah.” Ashleigh smiled as if he understood now. “You are thinking that you might marry again. Well, that will be as you wish. You have your jointure as well as Longwood, so you are well set in your own right. You need not fear. You have no need to marry, and no one will pressure you to this time.”

  Bancroft frowned slightly. He had not thought that was what she meant, but it could be. There was no reason why she should not be thinking of marriage. She was a young, beautiful and wealthy widow. Suitors would be swarming around her the moment she set foot in London. His frown deepened.

  Lady Talmadge was shaking her head. “No, this is not about marriage, this is about the estate I have been told I own. I would like to know about Longwood. I have never even seen it. What does it look like? What is the house like? Who are the neighbors? Will I like them?”

  Bancroft’s frown eased into a smile.

  “I could take you there to see it, I suppose,” Ashleigh said slowly. “I have not seen it myself, but I understand that there is a fairly modest manor house, not far from Moreton-in-Marsh. A bit isolated, I should think. Why do you wish to see it?”

  She was smiling at him as if he were somewhat dim-witted. “For one thing, simply because it is mine, and I have never before had a house of my own. For another, because one of these days, you will wish to marry, and I think we will all be more comfortable—I am sure your wife will be more comfortable—if I am established in a home of my own.”

  “What nonsense, Alice. This is your home. For heaven’s sake, Kelswick is big enough to house a dozen families. Do you think I would even consider marrying the kind of woman who would turn my sister out of the house?”

  “It is not a question of turning me out. It would be one thing if I had no choice, if I had to make my home with you. We would all make the best of it, I am sure. What I want to know is, do I have a choice? Is Longwood a place where I would like to live? If not, could I sell it and buy some other estate? What sort of income do I command?”

  Ashleigh scowled at her. “This is foolishness. There is no need for you to worry yourself about such matters. You know I will always take care of you and Clara.”

  She closed her eyes, took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “You are being insufferably obtuse.” Then she turned to the steward. “Stephen, do you understand what I am saying?”

  He smiled gently. “I believe so, my lady.”

  “Then please be so kind as to try to make my brother understand.” She turned and left the room, head
held high.

  Both men looked after her, Bancroft with admiration, Ashleigh with something approaching shock.

  “What on earth has come over her?” Ashleigh asked. “Has Lady Merton been infecting her with her odd notions?”

  “I believe her ladyship is beginning to realize that she can have control of her own life.”

  “But she knows I will take care of her, and Clara as well. There is nothing she needs to worry about.”

  “It seems that she no longer wishes to be taken care of.”

  “Does she not trust me to know what is best for her?” Ashleigh was looking affronted but also stricken.

  Bancroft was close to feeling sorry for the duke, so he picked his words with care. “It is not a question of trust, Your Grace, but of independence. Lady Talmadge would, I am sure, always welcome your advice, but it appears that she considers it her right to make the final decision.”

  “When have I ever questioned her decisions? She is perfectly free to do whatever she chooses.”

  “Like decide to live at Longwood rather than here?” Bancroft felt obliged to point it out.

  “But that would be foolish!” Ashleigh stopped and seemed to listen to himself. “That is what you mean, I collect.”

  “Yes, Your Grace.”

  Ashleigh scowled and stared at nothing. “Very well. If Alice wants to know about Longwood, you will have to be the one to tell her. I have never paid it much heed.”

  “Yes, Your Grace.”

  He grimaced. “I did not like to think about it. It came to her from Talmadge, and I cannot forgive him for the way he wore down her spirit. She has regained some of herself since she returned home, do you not think so?”

  “Yes, Your Grace.”

  “And stop ‘Your Grace’-ing me. You do that only when you think I am being pompous.” He picked up the paper he had been studying earlier, frowned at it, and threw it down. “We will have to come back to this later. I need to go for a ride.”