by Lynn Kerstan
A fat lot of good that will do me, Bryn thought, as they pulled away.
The innkeeper assured him that in the morning he’d send his son to fetch a reliable mount, and meantime his lordship was welcome to the best room at the Black Sheep and a bottle of vintage port. Declining the wine, Bryn wearily mounted the stairs, suspecting from the silence and the darkened rooms that he was the only guest.
He stripped and climbed between the sheets atop a lumpy mattress, breathing a sigh of relief. Tomorrow he would confront Landry and make certain the whoreson never troubled Elizabeth again, even if that required putting a bullet through his head. One way or another this business would be settled, and he could forget everything but what mattered most to him.
Clare.
The picnic by the river seemed a lifetime ago, with all that had happened since. He buried his face in the pillow, trying to recapture the happiest hours of his life.
As the memories flooded back, they carried him into dreams where he made love to her again and again.
IT WAS LATE afternoon before Bryn arrived in London. He’d forgot to tell the innkeeper to wake him up and had slept until well past noon. After plodding twenty miles on a swaybacked mare, he was resolved that Landry could wait another day before being informed his daughter had eloped.
First, he wanted to see Clare and tell her what he’d done. She would approve, he thought. After a quick bath, shave, and change of clothes at St. James’s, he set out for Clouds with a bouquet of daffodils and a sense of pleasurable anticipation.
That was quickly dashed when Charley Cassidy opened the door with a despondent look on his face. “She’s gone, milord,” he said.
Bryn stared at him blankly.
“Went for a walk with her maid and didn’t come home,” Charley explained. “Amy came in a few minutes ago. I dunno what happened. She’s with Mrs. Beales.”
Bryn shoved past him, bellowing for the housekeeper.
Mrs. Beales met him in the salon, her thin lips tight. “You had better sit down,” she advised.
Suddenly terrified that Landry had somehow made off with Clare, Bryn grabbed the woman by the shoulders and shook her. “What the hell is going on?”
Pulling away, she pointed to a chair.
After a moment, he muttered an oath and dropped obediently onto the cushion. “Tell me. And make it fast.”
She folded her arms. “This afternoon Miss Easton said she wished to take her kitten for an outing in the park. She appeared somewhat unsettled, although I didn’t know why at the time. Her maid went with her and has just now returned. It seems that Miss Easton hired a hackney a few blocks from here and instructed Amy to occupy herself for several hours before coming home. I was questioning her when you arrived.”
“That’s all she knows? Clare got in a hack and disappeared?”
“This may explain why.” She crossed to a table, picked up a newspaper, and tossed it to him. “Miss Easton was reading it during lunch.”
He caught the paper in midair. It was folded open, and he saw coffee stains on the page. He scanned rapidly until he encountered his own name.
The Earl of Caradoc is honored to announce his betrothal to the Honorable Elizabeth Landry, daughter of Lord Landry.
“I’ll tear the bastard to pieces and feed him to the goats,” Bryn swore, crushing the paper in his hands.
“You might have told her,” Mrs. Beales said acidly. “Not left her to read it in the Times.”
He threw the housekeeper a scathing look. “It’s all a humbug. Landry planted this item to force my hand. And it might have worked, devil take him, but he was too late. Last night, with my assistance and blessing, Elizabeth eloped with Robert Lacey.”
Her face softened. “Ought to have known you would never serve the young lady such a turn. Sorry I jumped to conclusions, milord. Will you be wishing to speak with Amy now?”
He nodded, slumping in the chair with his forearms on his knees as Mrs. Beales left the room. If only he’d thought to send Clare a message, telling her what he was about. But he had been wrapped up in plans for the elopement and had expected to be at Clouds before morning to explain in person.
It was easy to imagine how she felt. After the picnic, he’d promised to spend the night with her and then dispatched Charley to tell her something had come up. When she read the notice in the Times, she doubtless assumed that the “something” was a proposal to Elizabeth.
He knew Clare thought him selfish and manipulative. Which he was. And it certainly looked as if he had seized the perfect opportunity to secure the Talgarth line, confident his mistress would not leave him after what they shared in that silken pavilion beside the river. She must think he had staged the elaborate display only to win her over before arranging his marriage to another woman.
Clare had no reason to trust him, because he gave her none. He never confided in her. For that matter, he never confided in anyone. What he felt was none of their business, and other people could take him or leave him—so long as they didn’t get in his way.
He released a painful breath. That wasn’t the case with Clare, to be sure, but he was not in the habit of explaining himself. Or of confronting his own feelings, let alone finding words to describe them.
“Milord?”
Looking up, he saw Clare’s maid standing in the doorway, wringing her skirt with both hands. She was pale as candle wax.
“Come in, child,” he said gruffly. “I won’t eat you.”
Amy advanced two short steps, her gaze focused on the floor. “I knowed it was wrong,” she blurted. “But she made me promise not to come back here before five o’clock. And I never thought she was going away permanent like. All she had was her reticule and the basket with her cat. Maybe she’s just payin’ a visit.”
“Perhaps.” He stood and saw her flinch. “None of this is your fault, girl. I only want to know if you heard Miss Easton tell the coachman her destination.”
Looking miserable, she shook her head. “No, milord. She said as how I oughter visit me mum, who’s been ailin’, and I took off down the street right away.”
“Can you think of anything she said that might help us find her?”
“She was awful quiet. She don’t talk much anyway, though she’s real friendly, but today it was like she was someplace else.” She shuffled her feet. “You’ll be wantin’ me to pack up now, I ’spect.”
He waved a hand. “Certainly not. Miss Easton will be returning to Clouds, and meantime you can stay with your mother. Your wages will continue to be paid.”
Color returned to her cheeks as she curtseyed. “Thank you, milord. I know you’ll find her. Didn’t seem to me she wanted to go. Her eyes was unhappy.”
“What was she wearing?” he snapped, just as Amy reached the door.
She turned around. “A blue dress, and a hat with a veil. I remember her pulling it over her face when she got into the hack.”
Clare had left in the same clothing she wore when she first came to Clouds. It seemed to him a declaration of sorts, her way of closing the circle. Dismissing the maid, Bryn headed upstairs.
When he entered the larger bedroom he immediately saw a folded sheet of vellum on the bed, but he couldn’t bring himself to look at it straightaway. Instead he examined her jewelry cases, unsurprised to find every necklace and bracelet and set of earbobs intact. The enormous armoire was filled with clothing. She had taken nothing, except that damned cat.
Little fool. He remembered Clare telling him the ten thousand guineas he gave her were already spent, to repay some sort of debt. How was she to live?
Finally, with shaking hands, he picked up the letter.
Dear Bryn,
You will be angry that I have gone in this fashion. Please do not blame Amy or turn her off without a reference.
May I wish you happy? Elizabeth is lovely and brave. You could not have chosen better, and she is the most fortunate of women to have you.
I wish I had the courage to face you and say goodby
e, but it is better that we not see each other again. You must devote yourself to your wife and to the children she will give you. To me, you were generous and kind beyond anything I deserved. Yesterday was the most beautiful day of my life, and I shall never forget it. Or you. Always, you will be in my prayers.
—Clare
Her lovely handwriting had faltered near the end, and he knew she had left a thousand things unsaid.
As he had done, all the time he was with her.
He sat on the edge of the bed, head bowed, for a long while, seeing her again as he had the first time, poised on the marble steps at Florette’s Hothouse in her blue dress and veil. Remembering the first time she slept in his arms, wrapped in that tent of a night rail. Kneeling, almost naked, on this same bed when he accused her of failing him. Of not doing her job, as a whore, to at least pretend he satisfied her.
He saw her at the Opera House, lost in the music. At the theater, clutching his hand when Laertes’ poison-tipped sword cut Hamlet down. He felt the bite of her tongue when she raked him over the coals and savored again her deft, subtle wit.
And he could almost feel her in his arms again, on the satin pillows by the river, afire with passion for the first time. While he imagined, also for the first time, the possibility of falling in love.
Carefully, he folded the letter and put it in his pocket. He would find her and bring her home if he had to crawl over every square inch of England on his hands and knees. But where to start?
At the beginning, his instinct told him. Only Florette knew anything about Clare … where she had come from and where she might go. The problem was, he didn’t know where Florette had gone either.
Coming to his feet, he resolved to find out.
ROSE WELCOMED the Earl of Caradoc to the Hothouse with a false smile and a malicious gleam in her eyes.
She despised him, Bryn knew, although they had met only a few times, and briefly. He followed her into the salon, noticing she’d redecorated it to suit her abysmal taste. In shades of red, he imagined, to match her name, although most everything looked brown to him. So did the dress she barely wore, two quarter-moon curves of nipple showing at the bodice.
“Trolling for another virgin mistress?” she inquired slyly. “Or dare I hope you have finally condescended to pay for a toss upstairs?”
Biting back the setdown she deserved, he produced an amiable smile. “Neither, at the moment. But be assured I will apply to you when I require either service. Meantime, I have need of Florette’s address.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Had Florette wanted you to know her direction, she’d have provided it.”
“She promised to do so,” he said honestly, “but it must have slipped her mind. Now a matter of some urgency has arisen, and she would wish to know the details.”
Rose tossed her head. “How vexing for you, since I am not at liberty to disclose her whereabouts. Florette would not sign over the deed until I gave my word to that effect. And even a whore, Lord Caradoc, must honor her word.”
He remembered Clare telling him the same thing, a lifetime ago. But Rose was cut from different cloth. “How much?” he asked bluntly. “I’ll pay well for the information.”
He saw the flash of greed in her eyes before she turned away. Calculating the price, no doubt, trying to figure out how badly he wanted the information.
After a long silence, she walked to the door and opened it. “You must apply elsewhere,” she said with obvious reluctance, and a touch of satisfaction at thwarting him. “Florette took me off the streets, and thanks to her I now own the finest house of pleasure in London. I’ll not betray her confidence.”
Squaring his shoulders, he crossed the room and stopped directly in front of her. “Such loyalty does you credit, Rose. Will you at least send her a letter on my behalf? Naturally I’d compensate you for the favor.”
Her smile became positively malevolent. “Since you have refused, all these years, to buy what I was selling, I will not accommodate you now in any fashion. Good night, Lord Caradoc.”
It was a clear dismissal. Fingers itching to wring her neck, he bowed curtly and returned to his carriage, directing the coachman to Isabella’s house.
Izzy, dressed for a night on the town, greeted him with a flurry of questions. After assuring her that Lacey and Elizabeth were safely on their way, he lowered himself onto a chair and combed his fingers through his hair.
“Clare’s run away,” he said dully. “She saw the notice in the Times and thinks I mean to marry the chit myself.”
“Good God, Bryndle. Didn’t you let her know about the elopement?”
“Everything happened too fast. I thought Landry had set himself to get hold of Elizabeth and use her to bring me around. But he had another card up his sleeve, one I failed to anticipate. It never occurred to me to send word to Clare.”
“Nor to me,” she admitted with a frown. “I read the announcement this morning and laughed to think how humiliated Landry would be when the truth came out. But surely all we have to do is tell Clare what happened. She’ll understand.”
“If we can find her. I’ve had Runners tracing her background since we first met, and they’ve come up with precisely nothing. It’s as if she materialized from thin air. I have no idea where she came from or where she’s gone. Izzy, do you know anything that would help?”
“No.” She looked thoughtful. “But Ernie might. The three of us have had lunch at her house several times in the last three weeks.”
He raised his head. “Indeed?” Mrs. Beales had told him about Ernestine’s visit to Clouds while he was on his travels with Max Peyton and said that Clare spent the next day in her company. But he could never bring himself to quiz either of them about it. Clare had seemed so much happier when he returned, even welcomed him to her bed. If Ernestine had accepted her and influenced her new attitude, so much the better. And he’d been in no hurry to face the duchess again.
Now he was, heading for the door at full speed.
“I’m coming with you,” Isabella said as she snatched her cape from a hook.
ERNESTINE FITZWALTER gazed solemnly at the earl through her round-rimmed spectacles. She had never seen Bryn like this, humbled and desperate. But while her heart went out to him, there was nothing she could do.
She had given her word.
By now, several letters had come to her house addressed to Easter Clare. She had sent them over to Clouds, noting the awkward penmanship on some and the neat, precise handwriting on others. Two individuals wrote to her, both from the Langbourne School for Young Gentlemen. Clare had confessed to giving the address at Grosvenor Square to her “friends” and begged forgiveness for the impertinence.
Of course, Ernestine had interrogated the driver who took Clare to Berkhamsted. He described the pair of sandy-haired boys waving goodbye when they drove away. They were too old to be Clare’s children, which had been her first thought, but surely related in some way.
Over the luncheons they shared, she had discovered a bit more. Clare insisted she had no living family, and Ernestine believed her. But for some reason those two boys were important to her, and wherever she’d gone, she would stay in contact with them.
Yes, Ernestine thought with a sigh, she knew a great deal about the earl’s mistress, including her real name. “Caradoc, I have promised the young woman not to reveal anything she confided in me,” she said brusquely. “Miss Easton has favored me with her trust, and I cannot betray it.”
“Devil take it, is everyone in London sworn to secrecy? I thought she might have gone to stay with Florette, but Rose won’t tell me where that is. Now you have apparently joined this conspiracy of silence. Doesn’t anybody understand that Clare would want to know the truth? That it will make all the difference?”
“Yes, Brynmore, I do,” she said kindly. “And I hope you find her. Knowing your tenacity, I expect you will. But when she returns, I’d not have her think the people she considers her friends have turned against her. She is too much a
lone, in spirit, already.”
He lifted troubled eyes to her face. “What am I to do, Ernie, if you won’t help me?”
“I have an idea,” Isabella put in. “The day we met, Clare asked me to deliver an envelope to a messenger waiting at a post house just outside London.” Before Bryn could ask, she shook her head. “I, too, swore not to say anything, but perhaps I could go there tomorrow and ask a few questions.”
“Just tell me the name of the inn, Izzy, or who the letter was addressed to. The Runners can take it from there.”
She sighed. “I cannot. Like Ernie, I promised. But if the innkeeper knows anything—”
He threw up his hands. “Useless, the both of you. Why the hell are you more loyal to Clare than to me? Especially when you are hurting her by not telling me what you know.”
Ernestine leaned back in her chair. “Nothing is stopping us from trying to find the young lady ourselves,” she observed placidly. “I suggest you continue the search in your own way, while Isabella and I pursue other avenues. If you think Clare will come back to you once she knows the whole story, it doesn’t matter which of us reaches her first.”
“And you must make sure the newspapers publish a correction to Landry’s announcement,” Isabella reminded him. “She might see that and come back of her own accord.”
After a few beats, he nodded and came to his feet. “I must rely on you, then. For now, Landry should be informed that all his hopes are dashed, and I shall take great pleasure in doing so. Izzy, the coach can drop me at St. James’s Street and take you wherever you are headed.”
“Lady Sefton’s rout,” she said. “Mr. Peyton is meeting me there.” When he lifted a brow, she laughed. “I promise to make an early night of it and head out for that post house first thing in the morning.”
When they were gone, Ernestine Fitzwalter summoned her own carriage and directed her driver to the Hothouse, suspecting that Clare had indeed taken refuge with Florette.
She had ways Caradoc had never thought of to get this Rose person to talk. Before the evening was out, a coach would be dispatched to bring Clare back to London.