“And why should I?” the dowager duchess snapped. “I’ve protected this family. I’ve provided for Gerald here, ensuring that the trustees would allow him access to the family fortune as he needed it. You think your pretty face and that portrait in the hall will be all that’s required to sway them? Think again!”
“The sworn testimony of people who worked in the theater with Veronique Delaine might help with that. As well as documentation from the church where the former Duke of Averston married his mistress prior to the birth of their child will no doubt carry some weight, as well,” Highcliff informed her imperiously.
“I don’t want the money,” Callie said. “I’ve managed my whole life without it. I certainly don’t need it now.”
Highcliff blinked at that. “Don’t be so hasty, dear girl. Your future husband might wish to have some say in the matter.”
Callie looked at Winn. “I don’t want it. I really don’t. Do we need it?”
Winn stared back at her. “No. We don’t. You and I shall be fine without it.”
The dowager duchess laughed then. “Oh, my! You are certainly like your mother… in far more than looks it would seem! You’ve snagged an earl, no less. She managed a duke, but then I suppose she was a bit more alluring than you, and certainly no stranger to seducing men to her will. Pity, Montgomery, I had thought you were smarter than all of this.”
Callie ignored her. Instead, she walked toward the desk where the Duke of Averston was seated. “I’m sorry that you’ve been hurt by all of this, and that you’ve lost people you cared for. But you needn’t worry about the money. I really could not care less. I don’t wish to be acknowledged. I don’t wish to be recognized as a member of this family. I only want the chance to live peacefully with my betrothed and his wards without worrying that we might be attacked at any moment.”
The duke looked up at her. “You can’t possibly be serious. No one would simply walk away from that amount of money.”
“What would I do with it?” Callie said. “I’m a governess. That’s what I do. That’s how I even came into this world where my past was finally discovered. If the earl states we do not require it, then we do not require it. But if you wish to have it, in truth, without any hindrances placed upon you, then you will have to support us when we go before the trustees. And something will have to be done with her… an asylum perhaps. It’s not the hanging she so richly deserves, but it will at least prevent her from being able to do damage to anyone else.”
“I’ll see to her,” Averston stated. “That I swear to you. And no one will be making any further threats upon your person. I may be cold-hearted, but I’m not a monster. No matter how often she tried to make one of me.”
Callie nodded. “I am sorry. I know that you cared for Mr. Burney.”
Averston shook his head. “I didn’t. Not really. But I could have, given time and opportunity. It will be handled, Miss. St. James. You and your earl, and whatever Highcliff is in all of this, may depend upon it.”
Looking at him, Callie realized that the outward persona he presented, the cold and distant facade, was just that. He was a lonely man, made lonelier by the burden of keeping up appearances to suit the Machiavellian woman next to them. Sparing a look at the woman who was, by blood at least, her grandmother, Callie addressed her directly. “There are no words for what you are and what you have done. But there is a hell waiting for you when you die… one that will burn hotter and brighter and longer than any other hell before it. Because you, Madam, have earned the lord’s wrath and the devil’s attentions with every breath you’ve taken.”
The dowager duchess smiled coldly, her blue eyes pale and hard, glinting like the crystal of the chandelier that hung above them. “My dear girl, you are foolish to think it matters. There is nothing beyond this earth. I’ve watched enough people die, gasping their last breaths, to know that when a life ends, that’s all it does. It just ends. There is no soul, no eternal part of us. There’s what we leave on this earth when we are gone and whatever manages to grow in the ground above our rotting flesh. Keep your talk of hell and the devil. Even if he existed, it is not I who should fear him.”
Callie’s own gaze hardened and she said with all the ice she herself could muster, “Then at least when you breathe your last, you will leave no lingering presence to taint the rest of us.”
The old woman laughed. “You aren’t just like your mother. There’s a bit of me in there, too. Watch that you don’t let it spread like a cancer and turn you into what you most despise. Though there would certainly be some poetic justice in that.”
“I could never be like you… because I don’t see people as a commodity to be bartered and sold and used. I’m capable of actually loving someone. I don’t think you ever were.” With those final words, Callie turned and walked away from both Averston and the dowager duchess. She marched toward Winn and kept her gaze on him, lest she look back at the horror of what she’d actually come from. As she reached him, she asked, “Will you show me the portrait of my mother? Let me see her.”
“Come along,” Winn said and offered her his arm.
Callie accepted it and let him lead her out into the corridor. Halfway down, he stopped and they turned toward the portrait of Mademoiselle Veronique Delaine. Callie gasped as she saw it. “She was stunning. She was so beautiful.”
“She certainly was,” Winn agreed. “And you are just as beautiful… more so to me, because I can see beyond your pretty face. What that horrid woman said to you—you’re nothing like her, Callie. You never will be. Your heart is too kind and your soul too filled with compassion for others.”
“I don’t feel very compassionate right now. I feel angry and even a bit mean. I hate her, Winn. I’ve been angry before, I’ve been wounded and hurt and afraid of others… but I’ve never hated. Not until now,” Callie said as she looked up at the portrait of her mother once more. She’d never know her, never know her father, and all of that was because of that awful woman.
“She took so much from you. It’s only natural,” he offered.
“We don’t have to marry so quickly now,” she said. “I think, despite what we might have initially believed of him, that the Duke of Averston is not our enemy.”
“We’re getting married tomorrow… and if you think my decision to marry you and my desire to do so with the utmost haste can be laid solely at the door of those people, then I have done a very poor job of expressing my feelings to you. I want to be your husband. I want you to be my wife. And I’m too impatient to wait.”
“Is it really over? Can it really be that simple?” she asked.
Winn looked past her to the door of Averston’s study. Highcliff was still inside. “It may be for us. I daresay what’s taking place in there at this moment is simple for no one.”
*
Highcliff approached the desk and stared down at the Dowager Duchess of Averston, who’d seated herself there. “You won’t just stop because you’ve been discovered and told to do so. Those two in the corridor might be naive enough to believe that… but the three of us know better, don’t we?”
“What are you suggesting?” Averston asked, never bothering to look at his grandmother.
Highcliff removed a small vial from the inner pocket of his coat. It was something he’d carried for emergencies since his days in France. Being a spy was a terrible way to live. But a captured spy? He’d always vowed to end his own life rather than betray his country. So that small vial of poison had been often replaced and never used, not by him. But it would finally have its day.
“Colorless, odorless, undetectable… and, I’m told, painless,” he said, placing the vial on Averston’s desk.
“You wish for me to poison my own grandmother?” the duke demanded. “I can’t do that… no matter what she deserves.”
“Relax, puppy,” the dowager duchess said. “He never intended that you should do it. You’re offering me the coward’s way out, Highcliff?”
“I’m offering you a cha
nce to spare your family more scandal and degradation. After all, who would question a woman of your age passing peacefully in her sleep?”
The dowager duchess picked up the vial. “The sooner the better, no doubt… at least for the lot of you!”
“If you wish to avoid scandal, certainly. Naturally, you will need time to get your affairs in order,” Highcliff replied.
“Young man, my affairs have never been out of order,” she snapped. “And you may keep your poison. If I do this, it will be on my own terms, by my own means and in my own time.” With that, the woman rose.
“You’re not leaving here,” Averston stated. “Whatever you decide to do, it will occur in this house. I cannot trust you to leave it and do no harm to others.”
“I’m to be your prisoner, then?”
“My guest,” he corrected. “Since you are so very concerned about scandal, we can hardly call it what it really is. I’ll send for you things and have one of the servants show you up.”
“As I know the way, that’s hardly necessary. You mean to set them to guard me.”
“Yes,” Averston said. “I do. He didn’t deserve to die like that. He was a boy. Young, impetuous, foolish perhaps… but he loved his family and was trying to secure a solid future for them. His mother and sister will be impoverished. Heaven knows what will become of them, and all of it for the sake of your pride and vanity.”
Highcliff cleared his throat. “I believe that’s my cue to leave. You have only to send word, Averston, if you require further assistance in this matter.”
With that, Highcliff sketched a quick bow and then left the room to join Montgomery and Miss St. James in the corridor. “Time to go,” he said. “Our work here is more than done. Much, much more.”
“And the dowager duchess?” Montgomery asked.
“Averston has it in hand. Trust me,” he said.
Montgomery shook his head. “Against all probability, Lord Highcliff, I do. Rather implicitly.” To Miss St. James, he added, “Let’s go home, Callie.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
“What has occurred between you and Lord Highcliff?”
Callie had asked the question softly. She was very aware of Effie’s strange mood. Her friend and mentor had been quiet, but not in that thoughtful way she normally was. Callie could feel the sadness emanating from the other woman.
Effie looked up from straightening the folds of Callie’s gown. She appeared startled by the question. “Nothing has occurred between us.” The denial was hot and quick. It was also completely untrue.
Callie glanced at her reflection, noting the perfection of the gown Effie had gifted her for her wedding. The lilac silk fit her to perfection. “This was never your gown, was it?”
“It was,” Effie said. “But I might have sent it to Madame de Beauchamps for alterations… rather speedy ones. It turned out perfectly.”
“He’s been your friend for many years,” Callie said, switching seamlessly to the previous subject. “But I’ve often suspected that you feel much more for him than friendship. Is that it?”
Effie sighed. “Our feelings for one another are friendship… and many other things besides. They are so complicated now that I think the words do not exist to express it fully. But complicated or not, we’ve said and done things to hurt one another, Calliope, and I do not think Highcliff and I can recover from.”
“You love him,” Callie said. It wasn’t a question. It was obvious and perhaps it was only because she’d managed to fall in love herself that she finally understood the truth of Effie’s feelings for Highcliff.
“I love him, I hate him, I adore and revile him,” Effie stated with a bitter laugh. “We’ve too much history between us to ever have a future. It is long past time that I face that and perhaps sever ties for good.”
Callie took Effie’s hands in hers. “Do not make rash decisions that you will have to regret for many years to come. This past week has been impossibly difficult. It’s been fraught with danger and uncertainty on so many fronts. Now is not the time for irrevocable actions.”
“If not now, when?”
Callie smiled. “You always told me to act prudently, to consider the consequences of any action before taking it. Is it terrible of me to offer that advice back to you?”
Effie moved to the small settee where she’d placed her pelisse and reticule. From within the little velvet pouch, she retrieved a pretty hair ornament of silver and pearls. “You’ll need something borrowed,” she said. “And no it isn’t terrible. You’re very wise to throw my own words back at me. I can’t refute them without looking like a fool. I shall not make any decisions for a while. Not until things have settled a bit between Highcliff and me.”
Callie didn’t let out her sigh of relief. Instead, she did a slow and measured exhale. She had not given up hope of a happy ending for Effie and Highcliff. It was obvious that they were terribly in love with one another, once she’d opened her eyes to the possibility of it. It was equally obvious that they were both terribly lost in their own ways.
“If we do not hurry, you are going to be late for your own wedding,” Effie pointed out.
She’d insisted that Callie return to the Darrow School for the night, but she hadn’t stayed in her old room. Instead, she’d shared a room with one of the other older girls and was now getting ready in their shared chamber. “Winn is supposed to send the carriage.”
“It’s already arrived,” Effie said. “I believe his household is as eager to see him married to you as he is. Are the children really that incorrigible?”
“No… well, perhaps William,” Callie admitted with a smile. “But he’s very sweet and wants so desperately to love and be loved. He’s just full of life and mischief.”
Effie smiled, albeit a somewhat watered down version of her normally sunny expression. “He reminds me very much of a little girl I once knew.”
Together, they descended the stairs and exited to the waiting carriage beyond. It was a short distance to the church. They’d elected to get married at St. James’ Church, Piccadilly as it was the parish church for both of them, though they’d never encountered one another at services there.
After only a few moments, the carriage rolled to a halt and a footman climbed down from the perch on the back of the carriage to help them down. Walking toward the doors of the church, Callie stopped short. The Duke of Averston stood there. What on earth was he doing there? Surely, after everything that had transpired, he hadn’t come there to halt the ceremony?
“I’ve not come to cause problems,” he offered, as if sensing her discomfiture.
“Then why have you come?” she asked.
He was silent for a moment. When he finally spoke, he held his hands out in a gesture that could almost be interpreted as pleading. “For good or ill, we are the only family… the only blood… that either of us has. Barring our grandmother, of course, but she’s rather a sore subject at the moment.”
“I’m going inside now,” Effie said. “This seems very much like a conversation that requires a bit of privacy.”
When Effie had disappeared inside, Callie turned back to him. “So you wish to… what? Attend my wedding as if we are bosom companions?” she demanded.
He smirked, his lips quirking in a sardonic way. “No. The past is gone, after all, and cannot be reclaimed. But someone whom I… admired… recently expressed an abundance of sympathy for me due to my lack of relations. I find myself wondering if perhaps he was not correct in pitying me so.”
“You are here because you wish to be a family?” Callie queried. She couldn’t quite fathom it. He’d seemed so cold and distant, so disdainful of any softer emotions or sentimental connections.
“I had hoped we might lay the foundation for a future where we can at least be civil to one another,” he said. “But perhaps there is too much muddy water under this particular bridge.”
As he began to walk away, Callie wavered. Uncertainty prompted her to call out, “Wait!”
&nbs
p; He turned back to her. “Yes?”
“I’ve never had anyone beyond Effie… even my foster parents when I was a small child—well, they could hardly be classified as kind. They were certainly not what one could consider family. I’m not entirely certain how we should proceed with this.”
“I wish I could offer more guidance in the matter. I think, in this instance, we are the blind leading the blind… but I had thought it would be appropriate to attend your wedding. That is what cousins do, isn’t it?”
She smiled. “Then perhaps we should go in before my betrothed thinks I have run away.”
He shook his head as a soft laugh escaped him. It was a rusty sound, as if it were something he hadn’t done very often. “We can’t have that. But before we go inside, I wanted to tell you that I have written to the trustees and informed them that I have complete faith in your claim to be the missing child of my uncle and the woman he secretly married, Mademoiselle Veronique Delaine. In short, Miss St. James, I am here to provide my support, little as it may mean to you.”
Callie was silent, not really knowing how to respond. Finally, she managed, “I’m sorry.”
He frowned, seeming to be suddenly unsure. “You don’t want me here?”
“No,” she said. “Well, yes. I mean… you’re certainly welcome to be here and I’m glad of it. I’m sorry that we’ve never had an opportunity to be family. I hope, going forward, we will have a chance to rectify that. And I’m sorry that you’re losing everything that ought to be yours.”
He smiled, though it was but a cautious quirk of his lips. “Not everything. I might not be the wealthiest duke, but I am still a duke. Even poor, I’m still a catch.”
She laughed. “I suppose you are.”
“If you’d permit me to escort you in? I believe you have a very eager bridegroom awaiting you.”
What Happens in Piccadilly Page 23