True Pretenses: Lively St. Lemeston, Book 2

by Rose Lerner

  She shook her head. “I hate London. Once you’ve done it for six months, the rest will be easy. Don’t—don’t give me practical considerations. Tell me how you feel.”

  He tried to smile. “Since when have either of us put feelings above practical considerations?”

  “I’m doing it now,” she said. “Do it with me.”

  “I told you…” For once he didn’t want to watch her face, but he couldn’t take his eyes away, couldn’t stop watching for a sign that something terrible was going to happen. He’d always been lucky, but this was too much. This was impossible. “I told you that you would start to question your own feelings. I promised I would know it was all a lie. I promised you, and you trusted me. I’ve never been trustworthy. Not once in my life. I’d like to be, with you.” He was in love with her too, but so what? He’d been in love dozens of times in his life. It had never meant a thing.

  Because you didn’t let it. The thought hung there. Maybe this time, it could mean something.

  She looked uncertain. She wasn’t sure either, then. Wasn’t sure what she felt. “I don’t…” She paused. “Wherever the feeling came from, it’s here now,” she said, her voice stronger. “If you know you don’t want to stay, that’s all right. Just tell me. But if you think you might…”

  Oh, why not? She wanted it, he wanted it. Why think further ahead than that? “I want to stay. Of course I want to stay. Who wouldn’t want to stay with you? You must know I adore you.” The words rolled easily off his tongue. Too easily, maybe. Surely something important should be difficult. But she bit her lip to keep from grinning and her eyes shone and she sat perfectly still, her hands still clenched in her lap.

  He went down on his knees and kissed her. He didn’t want to smear her rouge or her rose lip salve, so he covered her face with dozens of light kisses. “I love you.”

  After he said it once, it kept coming. He repeated it with every kiss, and she laughed and gripped his hands tight and said, “If you don’t like the curtains we can change them, I thought—I thought you wouldn’t have to look at them long,” so he told her he loved the curtains too.

  “I hope you can forgive my past rudeness,” Jamie said, pulling Ash to the side. The papers had been signed and new instructions given to the family banker. Just as Ash had predicted, once Jamie had decided to give in he had done it all at once. “You’ve obviously made my sister very happy. Everyone has remarked upon it.”

  “There’s nothing to forgive,” Ash said. “I know you were only looking out for her. You had no reason to trust me.”

  “That’s very good of you.” Jamie smiled sheepishly, very clearly relieved not to have to be hostile any longer. “You’ve been nothing but kindness from the first. I am ashamed to think what my conduct has been.”

  “Let us forget it.” Ash tried not to fidget. Somehow, joy was having the same effect on his nerves as a cup of strong coffee on an empty stomach.

  Jamie nodded, and held out his hand to shake. “Welcome to the family.”

  Ash thought the auction was going well. He was keeping a running count as best he could, and by his tally, the Pink-and-Whites were far outstripping the Orange-and-Purples. He had spent almost twenty pounds already himself, on things he didn’t want or need. He could afford it, so why not? Lydia hadn’t stopped smiling all afternoon, and every time someone told her that married life agreed with her, she took Ash’s arm and glowed.

  This charity business was almost as good as swindling, really. He thought he could do it for the rest of his life.

  When one of the ushers came to tell him that Lord Wheatcroft wished to see him outside for a moment, it didn’t even occur to him to worry about anything except that Lydia’s brother might have taken ill. He pushed open the door onto an empty street. Most of the shops had closed for the auction, and it was too cold to keep horses standing out of doors, so only one carriage lingered.

  He walked out onto the steps and barely had the presence of mind to keep his face blank of recognition or surprise. Jamie stood in a corner of the portico with a dark young man of about his own age, but it was the third member of their party who transfixed Ash’s attention.

  “Wheatcroft?” Ash looked at the strangers with idle curiosity. “You wanted to see me?”

  “Lord Prowse, this is Mr. Cahill. Mr. Cahill, do you recognize this man?”

  This was the Cornish viscount, then. Ash had built his life on the principle that a man couldn’t be found once he disappeared into England—but that was with the resources his flats usually possessed, their circles of acquaintance limited, extending for the most part less than twenty miles in each direction. He had never realized how true it was that rich people all knew one another. He shook his head, frowning slightly. “I’m sorry, my lord, have we met? Surely I would have remembered.”

  Jamie sighed impatiently. “Not Lord Prowse. This man.” He pointed at the craggy old man to his lordship’s other side.

  Ash gave an embarrassed smile. “Oh, I’m sorry. Are we acquainted?”

  “Mr. Maddaford, could you repeat to Mr. Cahill what you have told me?”

  Fred Maddaford squinted uncertainly at Ash in the fading light. He’d always had bad eyesight. Ash could make something of that. “My name is Fred Maddaford. I live with my daughter and her husband near East Looe, in Cornwall.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  With his daughter? But Maddaford hated his daughter. He’d done nothing but complain that she was after him to live with her so she and her husband could have his money and his furniture, and from some of the things he’d told Ash, he was right.

  Jamie’s face was pale and set. His hands were in his pockets. Ash thought it was to keep them from trembling. “That is near your…home parish, is it not, Mr. Cahill?”

  “Yes, but—I beg your pardon, Mr. Maddaford, for not remembering you.”

  Maddaford turned to Jamie. “I do believe it’s him, my lord. Maybe he’s swindled so many he can’t remember them all.” There was a flash of the cantankerous old sod Ash remembered. It was strange seeing the man so subdued. Maybe it was only the presence of two honest-to-goodness peers. “I’d recognize that voice anywhere. He went by Cas Carne then.” He turned back to Ash, and somehow those rheumy eyes seemed to see right into him. “Four years ago, you and your brother told me you’d discovered tin on my neighbor’s land, and that if we could buy it from him…” Maddaford shifted uncomfortably at the looks of distaste on Jamie’s and his friend’s faces.

  Ash would have liked to slap them. So the old man was greedy—what of it? It was easy enough not to be greedy when you had plenty of everything.

  “If we could buy it from him without him knowing why, we’d make a tidy profit. I gave the two of you a hundred pounds, and I never saw hide nor hair of you again. Well, I may be an old fool, Mr. Carne, but you are a thief, and that’s worse.”

  “I am not,” Ash said to Jamie, earnestly. “Bring out your daughter, sir. She must realize I’m not the man you knew.” He tried to sound regretfully respectful of an old man whose memory might be unreliable.

  “You never met my daughter, as you well know,” Mr. Maddaford said scathingly. “I—” He faltered. “She always said I was an old fool,” he muttered. “After I gave away a sum like that to a couple of strangers, I reckoned maybe she was right, and I’d no business living on my own, at my age.”

  Four years ago, Fred Maddaford had been nearly eighty. The amount of money had not been negligible to him, but it had left him with enough to easily live out the remainder of his life, however long. Ash had thought no more about it. Now he remembered, again, Rafe’s words: You don’t know what anyone can afford to lose. Maybe faith and self-respect were things they needed, things they couldn’t live without.

  “I beg your pardon, Mr. Maddaford, for questioning you, but you cannot ruin a man on the evidence of a voice half-recognized from years back.” The word
s were like sandpaper in his throat. Could he really look Fred Maddaford in the eye and tell Jamie that the man’s senses must be going? Hadn’t he taken enough dignity from him already?

  Jamie looked wretched. “This is going to kill my sister,” he told his friend Prowse. “You never met anyone so eager to help everybody. Such sordid cruelty—”

  “This won’t stand,” Ash told him confidently. He could still carry this off, if he didn’t look at Mr. Maddaford. “It’s misidentification and slander, nothing more.”

  Jamie looked him in the eye. “You didn’t go from robbing Mr. Maddaford to helping yourself to a slice of my sister’s money with nothing in between. How many more such deeds will I find if I really go digging?”

  If Jamie went digging, he might find Rafe. There was exactly one way to stop this now, and that was to summon Lydia and have her deal with her brother.

  “Are you even a gentleman?” Jamie asked.

  Ash found himself speechless before the question. What did that matter? If he were a gentleman who had talked an old man out of a quarter of his life’s savings, would that somehow be better?

  Lydia had been sure Jamie would never understand. She knew him better than anyone. And she’d said, Of all the good opinions in the world, Jamie’s is the one I cherish the most.

  “I blame myself,” Jamie said to Lord Prowse, clenching his hands tightly together. Lydia had done that this morning, when she asked him to stay. “I knew something was wrong. If I had tried harder to stop her…”

  “We’ll send for her,” Ash said. “See what she has to say.”

  Jamie turned on him. “If you imagine that I will allow you to continue living with my sister under any circumstances, you—” His voice failed him. “I won’t. If you have any affection for her at all, you will leave now with Lord Prowse and go to your trial in Cornwall and allow her to live in ignorance of what she has married.”

  “You think she’ll be happier having no idea at all why I left than—”

  “Yes,” Jamie said fiercely. “Yes, I do. As if she could bear the dishonor of—” He waved his hand in Mr. Maddaford’s direction. When you got right down to it, Ash didn’t want her to see the old man either. “Mr. Maddaford?”

  “Yes, my lord?”

  Jamie’s eyes met Ash’s. “Can you describe the gentleman’s brother again? Blond, I believe you said, and very tall?”

  So he could be ruthless too, like his sister.

  Oh, Ash could fight this. He could risk Rafe, and tear Lydia and her brother apart. He had no doubt she’d refuse to abandon him. But why? For what? Did he really believe that he could make her so happy it would be worth the loss of her brother, maybe her friends and the life she’d planned and fought and schemed for? Did he really believe that his own happiness was more important than Rafe’s safety? The idea was ludicrous.

  “Leave my brother out of it,” he said. “He hated this business with your sister. He tried to talk me out of it. Swear to me that you’ll leave him out of it, keep him safe, and I’ll go to Cornwall. Please, James.”

  Jamie rubbed at his temples and nodded. “Very well.” That settled, he didn’t seem to know what to do next. He looked at Lord Prowse, who looked back uncertainly. They were children, frightened by the magnitude of this disaster.

  Ash took pity on them. “I’ll write a note to your sister, telling her my aunt is on her deathbed and I’ve been called to go. I’m going to enclose a sealed note to my brother. I beg you will allow your sister to deliver it, should he ever come looking for it. I’ll give you a draft on my account at the bank to repay Mr. Maddaford—”

  Jamie shook his head jerkily. “My sister’s money isn’t going to pay for this. I’ll pay Mr. Maddaford back, and I’ll pay for your jailing and prosecution.”

  “Are you sure you wish to prosecute?” Prowse asked in an undertone.

  Jamie pressed his lips together. “I said I’d kill him if he hurt her. I ought to do it.” He shook his head. “I’m too much of a coward after all. But I’m not going to send him blithely off to defraud more innocent victims. It ends with my sister. I want him transported.”

  Ash could haggle. He could point out what had evidently not occurred to Jamie, that there were plenty of innocent victims in Australia. He could probably talk them into letting him walk away. It didn’t seem worth the effort.

  “I’ll take care of everything,” Lord Prowse said staunchly. He looked about twelve years old. “We’ll charge him as a rogue and vagabond under the Vagrant Act. I’ll keep your sister’s name out of it. This is a rotten thing to happen.”

  “Don’t ever come back here, C—” Jamie fumbled. “Whatever your name is. If once you’ve served your sentence you find yourself at loose ends—don’t come back.”

  “I won’t,” Ash promised.

  Jamie looked at him, a line between his brows, and Ash realized that in spite of everything, softhearted Jamie was worried about him.

  “I’ve been in prison before,” he said gently. “I’ll be all right.”

  He mostly expected Jamie to take this as evidence he wasn’t worth worrying about. To his surprise Jamie nodded, looking a little comforted.

  Pencil and paper were produced, his letter to Lydia carefully supervised and his letter to Rafe honorably not looked at, and then Ash climbed into Lord Prowse’s coach. He and Mr. Maddaford sat in silence as Jamie and Lord Prowse said quiet, tense goodbyes outside.

  He’d thought Jamie would be family.

  “Mr. Maddaford,” he said, “I won’t tell them I only took fifty pounds off you if you promise me something.”

  Mr. Maddaford gave him the serene, noncommittal look of someone who knew he had the upper hand.

  “If you ever meet with my brother, don’t recognize him.”

  Mr. Maddaford shrugged. “He seemed like a nice boy. I’ve got nothing more to gain by denouncing him.”

  “Thank you.”

  The old man chuckled, not unkindly. “I always did think you worshiped the ground that lad walked on. Good to know I was right about something.”

  Ash’s throat closed. “You were.” He wondered if Rafe would ever come back for his letter.

  Lord Prowse climbed into the carriage, and it rolled off down the street. There went the Market Cross, and the Drunk St. Leonard, and the Makepeaces’ coffeehouse. Ash watched the town pass, streets and shops and houses. He’d thought he’d see them forever. He owed some of those shops money. He’d actually meant to pay them, for the first time in his life.

  If you could open your heart a little farther, Rafe had said, and Ash had tried it. He’d thought that maybe, with Lydia beside him, he could take in a whole damn town. He’d pushed his luck, and now there was a big bloody mess.

  They passed Miss Tice’s. Mary Luff! He’d promised her he’d take her to her sister on Christmas Day. He hadn’t wanted to break his promise—but maybe it was for the best. Maybe she ought to learn now that she had to take care of her and her sister herself, because no one else would do it for her, even if they’d honestly meant to.

  Except that Lydia would. Lydia would remember. Lydia would take her to see Joanna for Christmas. He knew that.

  Lydia had wanted to rely on him the way he was relying on her. At least he’d got her her money before he left.

  He didn’t know how much longer he could keep the real pain at bay, but for now, all he felt was a sad tightness in the muscles of his face and a heaviness in his chest. He didn’t let himself think too much about Lydia.

  He’d believed that eventually, she’d know everything about him. The things he hadn’t told her—he’d believed there’d be a time and a place for all of them, even someday the ones she wouldn’t understand, even the ones that would shock her.

  He hadn’t even seen all her dresses yet.

  He could dwell on that later, when no one was watching his face.

>   It’s just one more town, he told himself. What difference does it make, anyway? No doubt he’d manage to talk someone into loving him in Australia too. Or maybe he’d get lucky and die on the boat over.

  Lydia had begun to think of going to look for Mr. Cahill when Jamie appeared beside her, pale and anxious. “Your husband gave me this.” He thrust a packet of paper at her. Lydia Cahill was written neatly on the outside in pencil. He had lovely handwriting, Mr. Cahill. He’d explained to her one morning that it was because he’d learned to write English when he already knew his way around a pen, and then hadn’t written enough to develop any shortcuts or tics.

  “Is he not feeling well?” she asked even as she unfolded the outer paper. Inside was another, folded smaller around something soft. It wasn’t sealed, but it said in the same hasty, neat pencil, If you are not Ralph Cahill, please don’t open this. “Please” was underlined heavily.

  Lydia felt cold. But no, it couldn’t mean what she thought it meant. It couldn’t. Not today. Not in the middle of the Gooding Day auction. Not a scant few hours after getting his three thousand pounds. She unfolded the paper and read it.

  Lydia, dearest,

  I’ve had word that my aunt is on her deathbed and to my surprise, she’s asking for me. I’ll return as soon as I can. If by some mischance you see my brother before I do, give him this.

  I love you more than life, sweetheart.

  Yours, Ash Cahill

  “He’ll be back soon,” Jamie said worriedly.

  Lydia took a moment to compose her face. “Of course he will. I’m surprised, that’s all. You know how I fuss.”

  There was nothing in the letter to mark it to any outside observer as the piece of cruelty that it was. To send her such a note, when she knew perfectly well he had no aunt, when he had promised to stay with her forever just that morning—

  “Don’t cry, Lydia.” Jamie sounded desperate. “Why, what’s the matter?”