“No, you’d have a hundred questions when there’s no time for any. Besides, you’ll have all those answers shortly, so hurry!”
He was putting on his clothes nearly as fast as he’d removed them. He ended up helping her with hers, getting her back into the sapphire riding habit since it was closest at hand on the foot of her bed. But one button wasn’t aligned and she had no stockings on under her boots when he was dragging her out the door!
He’d already told someone to bring her horse back from the stable. Now that was disappointing. She’d thought she’d at least have an opportunity to get something out of him during the coach ride, but galloping across the fields allowed for no conversation of any sort.
By the time Edgewood was in sight, she was lagging behind. A coach was seen moving up the drive. Sebastian still didn’t stop until he was at the front door. He did wait for her there, though, and helped her dismount.
“We’re in time, after all,” he told her. “Surprising after that delay you caused us.”
“Me!” she sputtered. “I didn’t pounce on you, you dratted man.”
“But you wanted to.”
“Beside the point,” she said with a snort.
He smiled and caressed her cheek. “I promise, the next time we’re in your bed, you won’t be leaving it for hours, possibly days.”
Margaret blushed furiously because that coach had stopped behind them and John and Timothy could have heard what Sebastian had just said as they alighted from it. They gave no indication, though, as they both greeted her warmly. And she was then distracted by the others who stepped down from the coach after them, three men, two of them somewhat official looking, wearing caps similar to those she had seen on French gendarmes.
Someone else was still in the coach, a mere shadow, but Henry had already opened the front door and was saying, “Welcome back, sir. The family is having luncheon.”
“All of them?” Sebastian asked.
“For a change, yes.”
“Splendid. No need to announce us.”
Sebastian took Margaret’s arm and escorted her straight to the dining room. The others followed. Without a word, he pulled out a chair for her, sat her down, then took the chair next to her.
Timothy went straight to Abigail and gave her a hug. The old girl beamed. Margaret understood now why Abigail had still been moping, even though she’d finally made up with Douglas after he’d confessed to her what he’d told Margaret. She’d grown quite fond of Timothy while he’d been there.
John had moved to stand by the door to the kitchen. One of the other men moved to the French doors that faced the back lawn. The other two waited by the hall door. It quickly became apparent that all exits were being blocked, it just wasn’t apparent why.
Douglas stood up and demanded, “What’s going on?”
“A housecleaning,” Sebastian replied. “Long overdue.”
“I’ll need a better answer than that.”
“Certainly, and you’ll have it. But let’s get rid of the rubbish first.” And he nodded toward Juliette.
Margaret only glanced at the Frenchwoman now and saw that she’d turned a sickly white as she stared at one of the men by the door. Another had come up behind her chair and was reading from a long list of charges before he placed her under arrest and escorted her from the room. She went without a word. No hysterics, no shouted expletives, none of the dramatics she was known for. For once, Juliette was completely cowed, and it was due to the man she’d been staring at the entire time.
“By the by, Denton,” Sebastian said and tossed a piece of paper at his brother. “That’s a divorce decree that only needs your signature. Courtesy of one of the men your wife used to blackmail, in his gratitude for being exonerated of the crime he’d thought he’d committed. That’s assuming you still want a divorce?”
Denton appeared wary of accepting. “I do, I just—how is this possible, without an appearance before the courts?”
“The same way she had her own brother imprisoned without a trial. One of her victims was a high French official. But I did say this was going to be a housecleaning. Pierre, would you like to begin?”
“Certainly,” Pierre Poussin said and introduced himself. “I should first explain about my sister. She had made a career of dramatics that supported her very well but did not involve the theater. She was blackmailing at least a half dozen prominent citizens in Paris. None of them had actually done anything wrong, she had merely set up dramatic little scenes and enacted them flawlessly to make them think they had. She had several cohorts who assisted her in this. Her favorite scheme was to have one of her accomplices pick a fight with her target until the target would either push or punch him away. He would fall, break a sack of blood to make it more dramatic, and then she would pronounce him dead and accuse the target of killing him. Of course she would offer to clean up the mess. Then a month or so later she would go to him for money.”
“You were part of this?” Douglas asked.
“No, I never condoned what she did. But she considered me her greatest audience. Everything she did, she had to brag about to me. I was sick of the extent of her fraudulence. She would never listen to me about how wrong it was, what she was doing. She would only laugh. She really thought it was amusing that people could be so gullible. So I had already reached the conclusion that she must be stopped. I had even been following her for weeks, to acquire the names of the men she was blackmailing. I was going to have them all gathered in one place to have her denounced. But then she comes to me and she is changed. I could not discern what it was about her that was different until she mentioned him.”
He nodded toward Denton, who flushed furiously as every eye in the room fell on him. “For God’s sake, I barely remember meeting her! I was foxed to the gills. She claimed—”
“We know,” Sebastian cut in. “Let Pierre finish.”
“She was struck with love from the moment she met him,” Pierre continued. “It was like a fire in her. It was hard to believe it was possible, and yet I could not doubt it. For her, a woman without a heart, without morals, to suddenly be in love—my first thought was pity for the object of her devotion. I warned her that a man of his social stature would never agree to marry her. She said that she was going to England anyway, that she’d been shown a way to trick Lord Townshend into marriage and even end up with a lofty title. My mistake was trying to talk her out of it, and when that failed, telling her I would have to stop her. Not three hours later I was arrested and taken straight to prison, where I have remained ever since.”
“She actually sent her own brother to prison?” Douglas asked incredulously.
“A stay in prison she would see as a satisfactory arrangement to keep me from becoming an obstacle to her goals,” Pierre said. “She would not see it as my suffering.”
“You make excuses for her?”
“No, she just never saw things beyond her own agendas.”
“You poor man,” Abigail sympathized.
“No, madame, it was not a bad place to be. The official, in his guilt, made sure of that. I was detained, but it was not like a real prison. We were a community of friends, like a big family. But a cut on my foot became infected and I became very ill.”
Sebastian said, “He probably would have been dead in another day or so if we didn’t get him out of there.”
Pierre coughed. Abigail demanded, “But how did you know to ‘get him out of there’?”
“Denton sent us there.”
“You mean I finally did something right?” Denton said in self-disgust.
“What was this about Juliette’s being shown a way to trick Denton?” Douglas asked.
Pierre nodded toward Denton again. “People who knew him were aware that he bore some resentment toward his brother. My sister was shown how she could use that information to blackmail him into marriage if she couldn’t get him to marry her by normal means.”
“My God.” Denton blanched. “That’s exactly what she did,
and I’d been too drunk that night to remember, so I couldn’t even call her a liar.”
Sebastian raised a brow. “You actually thought you’d made such an infamous bargain?”
“No! It’s not something I would have agreed to, or ever suggested, no matter the circumstances. But it was so involved, what she did, to marry Giles just so she could seduce you to cause a duel between you two. Who would believe she did all that without a promise of some gain? And she did threaten to tell everyone that it was all my idea. You don’t know how much I’ve agonized over that, that maybe I did say something that she misconstrued, or—”
“Stop blaming yourself, Denton. She was made promises, but you didn’t make them.”
“But it’s still all my fault,” Denton said. “She did it all for love of me. And the irony is, she’s hated me now for years. It’s the only reason she’s stayed here this long, to make my life miserable.”
“That would not be the only reason,” Pierre said. “She and I grew up in the slums of Paris. This house,” he waved a hand to indicate the grandeur around him, “and the social stature that comes with it, she has always craved. She would never have left here willingly, for any reason. But indeed, it was all in her own mind, this grand love she imagined the two of you would have. If you never returned her love, she would blame you for destroying her dreams and want revenge for that, to make you miserable, as you say.”
Denton groaned. “What kind of twisted love is that, to get people killed—?”
Sebastian cut in. “She has committed crimes that will put her away for a long time, but she’s never caused anyone’s death.”
“Giles died,” Denton said, “and if you don’t see how she was directly responsible—”
“I believe this is my cue,” Giles said in the doorway.
Chapter 54
W HEN THE INCREDULOUS REACTIONS SETTLED DOWN, the questions began to fly. Sebastian listened with only half an ear as Giles repeated his story and Pierre filled in a few loose ends, mainly that Cecil hadn’t just shown Juliette how she could trick Denton into marriage. He’d also promised her there would be a nice title involved eventually. He’d been that sure that Douglas would disown Sebastian because of the duel. And it was that promise that had won him Juliette’s cooperation, part of the plan he hadn’t shared with his son.
Giles made no excuses for his father, just told his audience exactly what he’d told Sebastian. He had done one last thing for Cecil, though. He’d sent him word to warn him that he was coming home to put an end to both his and Sebastian’s long exile. Not surprisingly, Cecil had left England himself rather than face the condemnation of his peers for what he had set in motion. Sebastian was annoyed at how Giles’s mere presence was miraculously ending long estrangements.
“Douglas and Abigail had already made up,” Margaret said beside him.
Was she reading his mind now? She’d been holding his hand under the table, or rather, he’d been holding hers. He just wanted to get out of there with her. He’d done what he came there to do. Watching Giles be so easily forgiven and welcomed home was turning his stomach.
“I convinced your father to stop punishing himself,” Margaret continued, as if he knew what she was talking about.
“Excuse me?”
“That’s what he’s been doing all these years, you know. He deliberately cut himself off from the two people who would have consoled him. Well, it doesn’t sound as if Cecil would have consoled him a’tall, but—” And then she gasped, because she’d been listening to Giles with half an ear, too. “A son! I have a nephew?”
She started to cry in joy. Sebastian rolled his eyes but dragged her chair closer so he could put an arm around her. She wasn’t the only one crying. So was Abigail. And Douglas hadn’t stopped smiling. Bloody hell, he had to get out of there before some of that good cheer turned in his direction.
He stood up to leave and told Margaret, “Let’s go.”
She looked up at him in confusion. “You’re joking, right?”
“Not even close.”
“But—oh, dear,” she guessed. “You haven’t forgiven Giles yet, have you?”
“Was I supposed to?”
“Well—yes.” She yanked him back down to his seat. “You don’t blame your brother for being tricked. How is Giles any different, when what he did he did out of love and loyalty for his father?”
“Denton’s only fault was having a pretty face that Juliette fell in love with. He’s suffered just as much as I have all these years and saw no way out of it. While Giles hasn’t suffered at all and could have come home at any time to put an end to all this.”
She frowned. “This isn’t about Giles, is it?”
“Don’t press it, Maggie.”
“Of course I will,” she retorted. “I’m your wife now and I will not tolerate your being unhappy.”
He stared at her and then he burst out laughing. God love her, she was serious. And priceless. He didn’t deserve her, but she was his lifeline to happiness and he was going to hold tight to it.
He stood up again, lifted her up, and kissed her. “We can discuss this at home.”
“But this is your home.”
“Not anymore. And shh, it’s all right, Maggie, really. Nothing else matters now that I have you.”
She tenderly cupped his cheek. “You’re going to make me cry, saying things like that.”
“As long as you do it with a smile, I suppose I can tolerate a few tears,” he replied dryly.
“Is something wrong?” Douglas asked behind them.
Sebastian stiffened. “No. Maggie and I were just leaving.”
“Why?”
Sebastian closed his eyes. Just a few more seconds, and he wouldn’t have had to deal with this.
“Because this,” he waved a hand toward Giles, “changes nothing.”
“I agree,” Douglas surprised him by saying. “I was already displeased with Cecil back then for his weakness and lack of restraint. He was gambling with money he didn’t have anymore. He’d already lost everything. I took the deed to his home with the hope that it would make him step back and realize what he was doing and stop it. Of course I would have helped him one more time, if he’d come to me and told me his life was in danger. But Giles was right. I sensed he’d begun to resent me, resent that I had so much more than he did. I’m not surprised he’d rather trick me into canceling his debt than simply ask for my help again. But I never dreamed that he could perpetrate something this destructive. I had ended our friendship when he came here after Giles’s supposed death to force even more guilt on me, as if I wasn’t already carrying enough. I never did quite understand how he had the gall to do that, but you’ve cleared up the mystery. You don’t take any credit for that?”
“For what? Bringing Giles back from the dead? He could have done that. For getting the shackle off of Denton’s neck? He could have done that.”
“But neither of them would have. It took you to end this nightmare.”
“So I’m the hero? Funny, it doesn’t feel that way, Father. Still feels like I’m the dead son.”
He said it lightly, but the pain was still there and rising fast to choke him. He gripped Margaret’s hand and walked away with her. She was trying to stop him, but nothing could. He had to get out of there….
“Sebastian!”
That tone again that had always worked, and it still did. He stopped, but he didn’t turn around.
“You never gave me an opportunity to say this,” Douglas continued. “You still aren’t, but I’m not letting you walk out of here again without hearing it.”
“Don’t,” Sebastian whispered.
Douglas didn’t hear him. “What was said that day, my rage, was for your pain. Your pain. I never meant it. Cecil had been wrong in that, when he promised Juliette that the husband she wanted would end up being my only heir. He thought he knew me so well that that would be my reaction, and while it did happen, it wasn’t for the reason he assumed. I would have correct
ed that before the day was done, if I could have found you. But you’d left immediately.”
Sebastian dropped his head back, stared at the ceiling. Grasp the lie and—no, it would grow like a canker between them and never let go. There was no resolution to this. Giles had returned from the dead. Sebastian hadn’t.
He said nothing. The room had grown quiet waiting for his reply, but anything he said would rip him apart.
“I told you he wouldn’t believe me, Maggie,” Douglas said.
“Yes, you did,” she replied, then poked Sebastian in the ribs. “Are you listening, you dratted man? Your father told me this last week, when Giles was still dead.”
“Cor!” Timothy exclaimed from across the room. “He’s your father? But he’s not the man I spoke to in the stable, who said his son was dead.”
Sebastian turned incredulously to the boy to catch his furious blush. John came up behind Timothy and gently yanked a lock of his hair.
“No more reconnaissance for you, my lad,” John said.
“It was just one mistake!” Timothy complained.
“But a whopper.”
“Have you figured it out yet?” Margaret asked sternly beside Sebastian.
“That I let assumptions cripple me and never did anything about it?”
“Sort of what happened to Giles, eh?”
“Leave that blighter out of this.”
She sighed. “One step at a time, I suppose. But if you don’t hug your father and forgive him right now, I may have to divorce you after all.”
“You lost that chance, m’dear.”
“Don’t lose yours.”
He glanced at his father. Douglas was expressionless now, guarded, afraid to say anything else that might tip the scale the wrong way. God, he’d done that to him with the blasted shell he’d erected for his emotions, the shell that had just been cracked.
“I’ve missed you,” he said simply.
Douglas’s expression crumbled. He put his arms around Sebastian and hugged him hard. “Welcome home, son.”
Such simple words, and years of pain were washed away. The moisture gathered, uncontrollable, and then he caught sight of his ex-friend over his father’s shoulder, smiling happily at him.
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