The Secret Lover

by Julia London

  At least he hoped that was so.

  They lay quietly afterward, Sophie curled into his chest, his arm draped protectively around her middle, holding her close. Caleb whispered his love for her once more before drifting to sleep.

  But Sophie couldn’t sleep—she lay in his embrace, gazing up at the dozens of stars in that summer night sky, twinkling between the leaves of the elm tree. She counted them, wished upon them. Marveled at how far she had come to be sleeping beneath them as she was…tried to think of anything but the vague fear in her.

  It was only a matter of time before Julian caught up with her and she wondered what he might do this time. She was hardly a young girl without any knowledge of the world—she was a woman who knew very well what she was doing, who had made her choices and was prepared to live with them. At long last, she had determined her course in life, knew exactly who she was.

  Julian would perhaps seek to disown her. She pondered that; certainly he would find a justice who would, given her unfortunate history, sympathize with her brother’s plight and good name and grant him the dissolution of their blood relationship.

  But that seemed too harsh. For all of her brother’s faults, he had never been cruel. He had strong opinions of what was right and wrong, but he had always loved her. At least up until now, she thought, absently tracking a path over Caleb’s knuckles. God only knew how angry he must be at this very moment.

  She sighed, shifted her gaze to the moon. Whatever Julian might succeed in doing, this little glimpse of heaven had been well worth the consequence. She had spent years being numb, years pushing down any desire for romance and companionship. Those years had been a harsh exercise in learning to bury a burning need for acceptance and love. Honestly, she had actually convinced herself that she didn’t need those things, that she was different from everyone else, given her past.

  It had been a lie, of course.

  She had secretly watched Honorine through the years, had so often wished she had just an ounce of her courage. But if any man showed her even the slightest interest, she ignored it; she was too terrified of them all, too distrusting of their motives.

  But Caleb…well, she had known from the start that he was different, that the intensity with which he had worked was unlike the idle men of the aristocracy. He had been so sincerely driven in his desire to build a fine house, so intent on doing it right, and so terribly proud of what he was achieving. There was no artifice in him—he was exactly who he presented himself to be, and when he said he loved her, it was with all his heart, and when he told her he wished for a future, it was his fervent dream.

  Would that she were more like him. Would that she were as simple and sincere in her desires, as intent and as proud in what she did.

  As long as she lived, she would strive to love him as unselfishly as he had loved her.

  How would they survive?

  Did she care? As long as she was with him, would it matter if they slept in an open field or a house? Sophie snuggled closer to him; in his sleep, Caleb moaned softly and tightened his grip around her. Nearby, one of the horses snorted, shook his mane. Sophie smiled, looked one last time at the stars above, and made a final wish: whatever happened to them when they reached Hamilton House on the morrow—and every day after that—she would never regret this time she had spent with him. Never. And on her deathbed, she would remember this night with as much heartfelt happiness as she bore at this very moment.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  HAMILTON HOUSE

  NOTTINGHAMSHIRE, ENGLAND

  THE DISTANT SOUND of laughter slowly filtered into Trevor’s heavy sleep, so faint and sporadic that he first thought it was part of a dream. But he heard it again, and in his attempt to reach for it, to understand it, he could feel himself swimming leadenly to the surface of his consciousness.

  He forced his eyes open, blinked back the blur of not enough sleep, trying to remember exactly where he was. His bedroom. Hamilton House. With great effort, he pushed himself up onto one elbow and looked around.

  Sprawled across the bed sideways, the sheet draped across a portion of his right leg, he lay naked on the bare mattress. With a groan, he pushed himself up to sitting, rubbed his eyes.

  Laughter. There it was again, coming from somewhere in the house.

  Trevor stood, stumbled to the windows of his room without bothering to clothe himself, and opened the shutters. The sun blinded him—it was high in the sky, well past noon. How long had he slept? The faint laughter drifted up to him again in more than one voice. A man. A woman, too, perhaps?

  God, he could not seem to think. His head felt heavy; he turned away from the window and gathered his trousers from the crumbled heap of clothing on the floor and struggled into them. He then picked up his shirt, his nose wrinkling at the pungent odor—he had not changed his clothing in three days now. He shoved one arm into a sleeve, then the other, buttoning it as he walked out of the room in his bare feet, hardly conscious of what he was doing.

  He strode purposefully down the main stairwell and into the corridor, looking left and right, into any open room, finding no evidence of any one within. Where was his father, then? Had he perhaps imagined the laughter? Was he hearing ghosts?

  He swung the door of the study open, half expecting to find stiff ol’ Darby, laughing at something.

  Empty.

  Trevor blinked, tried to think. Inadvertently, he looked down, saw his rumpled clothing. He really ought to find a change of clothing. Undoubtedly Darby had stored things away for him. Probably in the attic—

  There it was again, the unmistakable sound of laughter. Only this time, he realized, it was coming from outside.

  He hurried to the window of the study and strained to see. Nothing. The back terrace, then.

  He hastened from the room, feeling a strong sense of urgency, as if he didn’t find the source of the laughter it might very well drift away. He reached the atrium, from which one could walk outside, and fairly burst through those doors and onto the terrace. He paused there, straining to hear. A wisp of red flashed across the periphery of his vision; he jerked his head to the right, saw the woman running down the garden path, toward the gate leading into the meadows beyond.

  Unconscious of his bare feet or state of semi-dress, Trevor went after her. He half-hopped, half-loped across the gravel path, stumbling into his stride once again as he passed through the gate and onto grass. Running now, he raced down the tree-lined path to the meadows, lurching through the last gate, where he paused at the top of the knoll, his hands braced against his knees as he dragged air into his lungs.

  The strange, eerie feeling that someone was watching him invaded his consciousness; startled, Trevor jerked his head to the right.

  His breath caught in his throat.

  For a single moment, he wondered if he had perhaps gone quite mad, was imagining what he was seeing.

  In the meadow, in and around a small stand of trees, was the house staff. Picnicking. Picnicking. Blankets were spread about; baskets of fruit and loaves of bread, as well as flasks of wine, were scattered all around. Was he hallucinating in his madness? He had to be—that was his father standing in the midst of all of them, taller than Trevor had seen him since before the seizure, wearing an expression of shock.

  He was the one who should be shocked. Trevor stared back, too exhausted to know if it was real—until the flash of red caught his eye again. She came slowly to her feet, stood beside his father, the ends of her unbound hair lifting lightly with the breeze. The French whore.

  He knew it was real then and slowly straightened, facing the absurd little scene fully, his anger mounting with each passing moment.

  The woman had the gall to step away from the others, to come forward as if she owned this house, as if she had the right to say anything to him at all! She glided forward, eyeing him as if he were some sort of apparition, coming to a halt a few feet from where he stood. Peering closely, she looked him over, as if she could not quite believe what she
was seeing, down at his bare feet. After a moment, she glanced up at him through thick lashes.

  “Bonjour, monsieur.”

  Bloody bonjour? Trevor’s anger soared dangerously; he narrowed his eyes, glaring hatefully at her. “This is all you would say after you have unlawfully kidnapped my father?”

  Her brow wrinkled in confusion. “Kidnap? What is this kidnap?”

  Now he was scarcely able to contain his fury. He stepped forward. “You have stolen him!” he hissed vehemently. “What, did you think you would succeed in your scheme? Did you think to persuade him to sign it over to you? Did you perhaps hope that your chances would be improved by refusing him the very medicine he needs to live? You have committed a grave crime, madam, and you are quite caught! Were I you, I would prepare myself for the worst, for I intend to press this crime fully within our courts!”

  The French whore recoiled at that, her blue eyes widening with fear.

  “Oh yes,” he breathed, “you are very right to fear it! English justice will grant you no quarter, not with your rotten French blood!”

  “What is this folie you speak?” she demanded, taking one step backward. “I do not steal Will! I bring him to his home! What crime is this?”

  That response only made him laugh. Hysterically. Her efforts to feign a lack of understanding had been overdone for far too long—she knew exactly what she had done, and Trevor was about to tell her so, but he was startled by his father, who moved surprisingly fast to the whore’s defense.

  “Trevor!” he said sharply and clearly. “M-mind your mouth!”

  The admonishment shocked him, not only because it was said with such clarity, but also because he would defend her. He gaped at his father, his thoughts swirling in a disordered state of fatigue and panic.

  “Father! You have no idea what she has done!” he insisted, balling his hands into fists at his side. “You are distraught, and you’ve been without your medicine for nigh on a week now! This woman is not your friend! Her scheme is vile—she thought to steal you away so that she might ransom you, or even worse, I shudder to think!”

  “Honor…” the viscount paused, put a gnarled hand on her wrist as he tried to force the words out. “She h-has helped m-me, tremendously!” he said adamantly. “Y-you’ve n-no right to c-come here and accuse!”

  “Monsieur, you look ill,” Honorine said to Trevor, cocking her head thoughtfully to one side. “Very ill.”

  What little was left of Trevor’s sanity imploded with that. His fists gripped tighter; he was unaware that his nails cut painfully into his palms as he clung to the tenuous grip he had on his composure.

  “Now you would accuse me of being ill? Madam, you have gone too far!” he said behind clenched teeth, and stalked around her, toward the servants, who were all now on their feet. “Darby!” he shouted wildly.

  The butler appeared almost instantly before him. “Milord?” he asked, his voice betraying his nerves.

  Trevor glared down at him. “Why haven’t you sent for the authorities? Send for the sheriff at once! Tell him that a French whore has kidnapped my father from London for the purpose of extorting money from him. Tell him to come and take her at once!”

  The butler flicked his tongue nervously across his lower lip, slid his gaze to the viscount behind Trevor.

  Trevor lurched forward. “Do you hear me, sir?”

  With a gasp, the butler staggered backward. “Yes, milord! Yes, I heard you quite clearly!”

  “Then go!” he roared, and stood rigidly, his fists clenched tightly, watching beneath the heavy lids of his eyes as the servants began moving, gathering picnic items, hurrying toward the meadow gate, looking furtively at him over their shoulder. But in the midst of their exodus, the French whore stood placidly with his father, observing him with her witch eyes.

  His pulse was beating erratically now; the blood pumped through him so fast and hard that it felt as if it might burst free of his veins at any moment. Unsteadily, he moved to where she stood with his father. “You will pay for what you have done,” he said low.

  The woman had the audacity to smile. Smile. “I do not frighten of you,” she said lightly. “Will, he is alive. He knows what you do.”

  Trevor’s pounding heart suddenly skipped a beat and sank like a rock, making him feel queasy. No. She lied. His father could not possibly know what he had done. He was a mindless old man! Unless…unless he was alive somehow, his mind alert in that shell but his mouth unable to speak. Trevor peered closely at his father, into the mirror image of his light brown eyes and wondered, was it possible? Was it possible his father knew how much he had taken from him over the last several months? The question scared him; he suddenly lunged forward, reaching for his father, desperate to take him away from her, and knocking her aside as he did. With a small cry of alarm, she stumbled to one side, tripping over the hem of her blood-red skirt.

  “Trevor!” his father shouted. “Unhand m-me!”

  Trevor forced a smile as he pushed his father forward, holding him up with the sheer strength of his fear propelling him forward. “Don’t worry, Father,” he said reassuringly as he moved the old man along, weaving and bobbing with his strangely bent leg. “I am here now. I’ll see that no harm comes to you.”

  His father struggled against him and began to labor in his breathing; Trevor glanced over his shoulder. The whore was on his heels, her gaze intent on the viscount, crying out, reaching out, each time the old man stumbled. Let her come. It would make it all the easier when the sheriff came to take her away. He ought to have her hanged for what she had done to him. Yes, he would enjoy that very much, and smiled to himself as he pushed the old man through the meadow gate.

  Darby had been in the viscount’s employ more years than he cared to remember. He had known Master Trevor all his life, had watched him grow into a man. But the man that had come to the meadow looking and acting half-crazed was not the Mr. Trevor Hamilton he knew. Madame Fortier was right; that man was ill—ill in his head, to Darby’s way of thinking.

  He walked briskly toward the stables, the note for the sheriff in his pocket, having penned it after assuring himself that the viscount was quite all right. A little shaken perhaps, but all in all, he seemed no worse. As Darby rounded the corner of the house, he heard a female voice.

  “Darby!”

  He paused, looked around. The housekeeper was standing outside the smokehouse.

  “Yes? What is it?”

  Wringing her plump hands, she looked nervously behind them. “Are you truly going to bring the sheriff round for her?” she whispered.

  Darby hesitated; he looked over his shoulder, then up the path to the stables, then looked at the housekeeper again, nodding.

  The woman’s doughy face fell. “Oh Lord,” she muttered. “Oh Lord, you mustn’t do that! The woman has done nothing wrong! Do you see how well he is now, Darby? She’s to be commended for what she’s done!”

  “It is not my position to say,” he said coolly, aware that anyone could overhear them out here.

  “Come now, Darby—”

  He quickly lifted his hand, stopping her from saying any more. “I have my instructions. You will not dissuade me from my duty.” He nodded curtly, continued walking, ignoring the unflattering utterance the woman made under her breath. He wanted to tell her, but he dared not. In his fifty-fifth year, he was hardly of a mind to find new employment, and he was quite certain that was exactly what he would be doing if Mr. Hamilton thought he had disobeyed him.

  He walked into the stables, calling for Jamie.

  The stable boy appeared instantly, a bucket of oats in his hand. “Yes sir?”

  Darby took the note from his pocket. “You are to deliver this to the sheriff in Nottingham, do you understand?”

  The boy looked at the sealed parchment, then at Darby, nodding solemnly. “Aye sir. I’ll get a mount straight away—”

  “No,” Darby said softly, and glanced covertly around to assure himself that no one else was present, then
went down on one knee before Jamie and placed the parchment into his hand. “You are to deliver this to the sheriff in Nottingham—but not until the morrow. Do you understand me, lad? Not before the morrow.”

  “Aye sir,” he said, and stuffed the note in the pocket of his waistcoat. “On the morrow,” he repeated.

  Satisfied, Darby stood, ruffled the boy’s blond head, then turned and walked out of the stable.

  He would not, under any circumstance, disobey an order given to him by the viscount or his son. But on occasion, he might see his way to obeying it in his own due time.

  He rather imagined Madame Fortier was going to need a bit of a head start.

  In the main salon, seated on a divan with a lap rug tucked securely about him, Will warily watched his son as he paced the hearth. He had never seen him like this, he was quite certain. In the bits and pieces of his memory that had started to come back to him, he recalled a young, handsome man, devoted to his wife and child. Not a madman as was pacing the hearth now, barefoot and in shirttails.

  God, if he weren’t so fatigued! When Trevor had pushed him onto the divan, he had been robbed of the strength to fight him. Although his vitality was slowly coming back to him each day, the seizure had left him remarkably frail; the road to a full recovery needed more time. Silently he cursed his debilitation—there he had sat like a withered old man as Trevor pushed Honorine out the door and locked it. For several moments afterward, she had pounded on the door, shouting in French for him to open. And then the pounding had abruptly stopped. Where was Honorine?

  “I brought your medicine, Father.”

  Will’s body jerked involuntarily, as if the force of those words had actually hit him. Medicine. What was it he should remember about medicine? He had not seemed to need it—