by Anne Stuart
Phelan simply stared at him, unmoved. “They’re all that kind of girl. Haven’t you realized that by now?”
Val hit him. It wasn’t nearly as good a punch as Phelan had landed a few days earlier, but it was satisfying enough, sending Phelan over backward in the chair, with Valerian following him down. The next few minutes were exceedingly enjoyable, punctuated by grunts, curses, and the occasional gasp. When it was over, Phelan lay against the wall, bleeding from a split lip, while Valerian was stretched out beside him on the floor, trying to catch his breath.
“You’re getting stronger,” Phelan said, panting. “I would have thought your time in skirts would turn you into a weakling. If I hadn’t hurt my hand, you wouldn’t be feeling so chipper.”
“How’d you hurt your hand?” Valerian wheezed.
“None of your damned business.”
“Damn it, Phelan, how could you have done that? No wonder she ran away.”
“As a matter of fact, it wasn’t my idea. Though it’s no concern of yours, she came to me.”
Dead silence filled the room. “Well,” Valerian said eventually, “I would have thought you’d do a better job at it. I’ve never heard the women complain before. Maybe true love made you clumsy.”
Phelan kicked him, hard. “True love has nothing to do with it,” he said grimly. “We spent a mutually enjoyable night together. The next morning she was gone, entirely of her own accord. It’s that simple.”
“I don’t think so. Did you tell her you loved her?”
“I told you before, love hasn’t anything to do with it.”
“She was in love with you.”
“I must have hit you too hard. Your brains are addled.”
“Deny it all you want. I’ve learned a great deal about women in the past few weeks, and I could see it in her eyes.”
“It’s that,” Phelan mused to himself, “or the insidious effect of the bluestocking. I’ve been told love makes a man a simpering idiot, and you’re proving that to be true.”
Valerian sat up and swung around, staring at his brother in disbelief. “You bedded her, and then just let her go, and now you’re denying the existence of love?”
“I’m not denying the existence of love, though I’ve yet to see solid proof of it. I’m simply saying it had nothing to do with what went on between Juliette Lemur and me.”
“Does that mean you won’t do anything to get her back?”
Phelan’s eyes narrowed. “That’s exactly what it means. She wanted to go, and her husband happens to know far too much about the Romney fortunes. He’s not a stupid man—he was just so besotted by his wife that he failed to look at you closely. She seems to have that effect on men; God knows why. If he sees you again, he’s bound to realize.”
“Do you think I could put my safety before hers?” Valerian countered.
“Don’t be absurd. Of course she’s safe. She’d hardly have gone with him if she wasn’t. Even so, it would be wise if you learned to think of yourself first. This is a cruel, harsh world, and we’re about to embark on exploring a large part of it. If you continue to be noble and self-sacrificing, you won’t last the year,” Phelan said cynically.
“Perhaps I don’t want to live like that.” Valerian rose, staring down at his brother. “Maybe it’s time to head back to Yorkshire.”
The cool mockery fled from Phelan’s face as he surged upward. “Don’t be an idiot. They’ll hang you, and you know it. You can’t sacrifice yourself for an old woman’s craziness.”
“I was a part and parcel of what drove her mad. Having to live with the evidence of her beloved husband’s unfaithfulness right before her eyes …”
“Bullshit,” Phelan said inelegantly. “She never loved him, never expected him to be faithful, and she was half mad long before you were born. Just ask Hannigan.”
Valerian stared at him, stricken. “Good God,” he said in a hushed voice. “I never thought …” He let his voice trail off.
“Never thought what?”
“You’re descended from that line.”
“So I am,” Phelan acknowledged coolly. “The strain of tainted blood runs through my veins as well as it does my mother’s. Does it worry you? Do you think I’ll come into your room and strangle you while you sleep? Perhaps it was my hand that plunged the knife into our father’s heart.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Valerian said. “You may be stupid, but you’re not crazy.”
“Stupid?” Phelan echoed, finally insulted. “What the hell do you mean by that?”
“Only a mental defective would have let Juliette go with her husband. Only a village idiot would think he was going to inherit his mother’s madness.”
“Dear boy,” Phelan said wearily, “the madness has already been passed through the generations. It would be extremely optimistic to assume I’m going to miss the taint, and even if I did, my children would doubtless be afflicted. Children are tedious enough as it is—I certainly don’t want to father some poor little maniac.”
“Phelan,” Valerian said earnestly, but his brother held up a restraining hand, and he saw the swollen, bloody streaks that hadn’t come from hitting him.
“Enough,” Phelan said. “You may break your heart over my doomed future, or my stupidity, or whatever you like. If anyone is going to go to the gallows for a murder he didn’t commit, it might as well be me. After all, I don’t intend to have children, and I haven’t even a bluestocking to lust after.”
“You have Juliette. If you only realized it.”
“Juliette has gone with her husband,” Phelan said, stooping down and picking up the scattered papers that had sailed off the desk during their tussle. “She’ll probably have a parcel of children by the time we return to England.”
“Will we return?”
“Eventually, I would think. Lady Margery can’t live forever, and Lord Harry wasn’t a well-loved man. In ten or fifteen years we might venture back. By then, however, you may find you’ve lost your taste for this place, and acquired an appreciation of foreign climates.”
Valerian shook his head. “Never. This is my home. Sooner or later I’ll have to—” He stopped. “What’s wrong?”
Phelan was staring at the disordered pages of his sketchbook, his brow knitted with confusion. And then he looked up, shaking his head. “Nothing,” he said, shuffling them together without another glance.
“You know, Phelan, you’re an impossible bugger at times.”
Phelan shuffled the papers together once more. “I know,” he said absently. “I know.”
“You must be tired, my dear,” Lemur said in a soft, chilling voice. “Don’t let me keep you up.”
Juliette huddled deeper in the chair. It was after nine, and she was exhausted, both in body and in spirit. She hadn’t slept at all the night before, and today’s ride through the rain had been almost as draining. She knew what awaited her upstairs, however. Lemur would have no qualms about coming to her—he’d taught her not to make any protest, even a faint whimper of pain.
She couldn’t bear the thought. She wanted one night, just one, when she still belonged to Phelan. By tomorrow she would accept her fate; for now, she still clung to a foolish memory. “I’m not really tired,” she said, stifling her yawn.
Lemur’s colorless eyes gleamed with amusement. “Nonsense. You look about to drop. Go on up now, and don’t wait up for me. I might be a while.”
A faint ray of hope penetrated her bleakness. She knew better than to ask, however, so she remained silent, waiting, knowing that he would have to expand on his own cleverness sooner or later.
“I’ve sent my card in to Lady Romney,” he informed her, too pleased with himself to make her wait. “I thought she might be interested in finding out what her son and his wife have been doing.”
“You aren’t planning to say anything!” Juliette said, horrified.
“Of course I am. I’m not about to let an opportunity like this one pass me by. Don’t look so horrified—we’re
no more than twenty-five miles from Hampton Regis. She must be on her way to visit them. I just wonder what she’ll think of you.”
“Why should she think anything of me?” she asked faintly.
“Why, because I have every intention of telling her that you are her son’s inamorata. That you left your husband’s bed for his, committing adultery under the same roof as his charming wife,” Lemur hissed. “You think I didn’t know what you were doing?”
Juliette felt sick inside. There would be no respite for her tonight. “Why do you think she’d care?”
“Oh, I don’t imagine she would. But her family name is already so plagued with scandal, I rather thought she might appreciate a chance to hush this one up. And I imagine she’d rather it not be bruited about where her son is hiding.”
“You’re going to blackmail her?”
“Such a harsh word. Merely ensuring our future financial security.”
“You’ll keep quiet about the Romneys? For money?” She couldn’t keep the hope from her voice.
Lemur smiled, and his sharp, pointed teeth looked like tiny fangs in the firelight. “No. But I’ll convince Phelan Romney’s elderly mother that I will, and that should suffice. You married a clever man, dear Juliette. A devious, careful, clever man. You didn’t realize that, did you? You thought you were fulfilling your father’s deathbed request, and that you were finding another father to indulge you. But I’ve surprised you, haven’t I? I have depths you wouldn’t begin to guess at.”
“You surprised me,” she said faintly. “You would have surprised my father as well. He thought he was taking care of me.”
“Not exactly. You see, I told him we had formed an attachment, but that you were too shy to talk about it.”
“He wouldn’t believe that!” she said furiously.
“You forget, he was dying. Half delirious. He still didn’t like the idea of your marrying me, so I added the coup de grace. I told him you were carrying my child.”
“You monster,” she whispered.
His eyes narrowed. “Go on up to bed and wait for me, Juliette. My interview with Lady Romney shouldn’t take long.” He smiled, a faint, evil smile. “Don’t bother getting undressed. I’m going to enjoy taking you in boys’ clothes.”
And Juliette rose, smooth and graceful, the sharp table knife hidden in the folds of her jacket as she started up the stairs.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Juliette wouldn’t have believed she could sleep. The room she was to share with her husband was small and ill-furnished, the better quarters obviously going to Lady Romney. Their room consisted of a straight chair and a sagging bed, and it would have done her no good to think she could delay matters by curling up in the chair. She lay down on top of the covers and closed her eyes, keeping her hands at her sides, the knife tucked beneath her. There was no way she could prevent the inevitable, short of flinging herself from a window, and she would never take the coward’s way out. She had little left but her pride, and she would have sacrificed even that to save Phelan. But it wouldn’t do any good. Her best chance was to keep her husband distracted enough so that he forgot about revenge. If the knife failed her, then she’d do anything else she could.
She was so very tired. It seemed a century since she’d slept, and she would have given anything to have a few hours’ rest. But she had to remain vigilant; she had to remain awake. There was no telling what Lemur might do to her. Consciousness was the only defense she had, weak though it was.
She could hear the noises of the old inn, the sound of voices carrying in the darkness, the whistle of the wind through the trees overhead, the rattle of the windows. Somewhere in the night she heard a muffled shout, a choking gasp that died away almost as quickly as it had come, and then nothing more to disturb her. And she slept, dreaming of Phelan, only to awaken to the cold gray light of dawn, and look into the face of death.
She didn’t move, frozen in time. The eyes that stared down at her were black, small, and indisputably mad. The woman was very old, and she looked like no one Juliette had ever seen before. Yet she knew without question that this was Phelan’s mother staring down at her.
“Had your beauty sleep, my little pretty?” Lady Margery crooned. “I’ve been sitting here waiting for you to open your eyes. You sleep soundly. That can be a dangerous thing. I could have slit your throat while you slept, and you never would have known. Your blood would have drained away, and no one would ever know. It’s not precisely neat,” she said, running a gnarled finger against the blade of a dark-stained knife, “but it has the advantage of being swift and silent and relatively fast. Your husband barely made a sound.”
She was sitting on the foot of the bed, a thin, scarecrow-like figure. Juliette held herself very still as horror swept over her. There was one other person on the bed, one who no longer breathed. She turned her head, an infinitesimal amount, to see the body of her husband, his cut throat like a second smiling mouth beneath his own, dead in a welter of his own blood.
Juliette scrambled off the bed, rolling to the floor in a desperate effort to get away. The old woman was blocking the exit, an eerily placid expression on her lined face. “You won’t escape,” she said cheerfully. “You needn’t think you can. I’m quite strong. It was a simple enough matter to kill your husband and drag his body in here. He never suspected that a sweet old lady like me could be so dangerous.”
“What do you want from me?”
Lady Margery’s smile was chillingly sweet. “I would think you’d be grateful. You needn’t look for that knife you were clutching beneath your coat—I removed it. I simply did the deed for you. And I must say I enjoyed it,” she mused. “I’ve never killed a man before. And he clearly deserved it. Thinking he could blackmail me!” She was clearly outraged by the notion.
The room smelled of death, and of madness. “What do you want from me?” Juliette asked again.
“Your husband was very informative before he died. He told me that you and my son were lovers. I can’t have that. No one can have Phelan. I did my best to get rid of his brother, and so far I’ve failed, but I’ve come to finish the job. I won’t allow a female to come between a mother and her child.”
“I wouldn’t come between you. My husband lied. Phelan thinks I’m …”
“Phelan?” Lady Margery echoed silkily. “You call him Phelan?” She shook her head. “You’re coming with me, child.”
“Why?”
The old woman seemed to consider it for a moment. “I imagine I’ll kill you, sooner or later. In the meantime, I’ll need your help. I had to hurt Barbe in order to go after your husband, and I’m afraid I might have hit her too hard. Hannigans are a tough breed, but even they have their frailties. I’m afraid you’ll need to take her place as my servant.”
“Hannigans?” Juliette said.
“Ah, yes, the Hannigans. A quite remarkable family. I don’t know what I would have done without them. I owe them more than I can say. That’s where we’re going, by the way. Not to Hampton Regis or Sutter’s Head. You see, I know perfectly well where my son and his bastard kin are hiding. We’re going to a tiny village a few miles inland until I decide what to do. The Hannigans live there, and no one else. They’ll make us welcome.”
Juliette thought of Hannigan, with his kindly, bearlike demeanor and his protective stance, and she felt a faint ray of hope. “All right,” she said. “I’ll go with you.”
“My dear,” said Lady Margery, fondling the bloody knife, “you really have no choice.”
Valerian had spent a more wretched time than the next two days, he was sure of it. He simply couldn’t remember when. Phelan had declared the town off-limits until they could book passage out of the country, and Valerian had no interest in arguing with him. He was so damned sick of his skirts that it would have taken force to get him in them. Force, or the knowledge that Sophie needed him.
He had no idea what Sophie needed, what she was thinking, how she was faring. She’d been ill when he’d brought
her home, but not desperately so. Mrs. de Quincey was an alarmist, the sort who tucked her only child in bed with tisanes and mustard plasters for nothing more than a cold. She should have been recovered by now, and that knowledge ate away at him.
For all he knew, Sophie had gone into a decline after the horror of his inadvertent kiss. Lord, the girl was innocent, but even she must have guessed that there was something wrong with an openmouthed kiss between women.
Or had she felt his beard? Had she finally guessed? The fact that she’d never even suspected his sex was simply another wound to his self-esteem. Surely she should have felt the sheer force of his attraction to her …
He was lucky she hadn’t. It would only confuse matters for her, and endanger him. He and Phelan were coming to the end of their stay here, and the Continent beckoned. He could fight it no longer. It would be years before they were back in England, if ever. Sophie was much better off remembering her eccentric friend than a man who loved her.
Phelan stayed closeted in the library, a forbidding expression on his face. He refused to mention Juliette’s name, and in a belated understanding, Valerian kept his peace. She was gone, disappeared beyond their reach, and he had no choice but to believe she’d gone willingly. Even if his brother refused to admit that it tore him apart.
Valerian rode fast and hard along the shore, the salt wind whipping against him, riding as if the hounds of hell were after him. When they got to the Continent, he was going to lop off his overlong blond hair, he was never going to shave, he was going to be filthy and disreputable and as grossly male as he could. He intended to drink and brawl and womanize, just to remind himself that he was a man.
The problem was, he’d never been in doubt of that. And the measure of a man wasn’t in his ability to outdrink, out-fight, and outwench anyone else. The measure of a man was in his own worth. And in his ability to love.
It was late morning on the third day since Juliette had left. Valerian rode back up to the house. Both he and the horse were sweating from their furious run across the strand, and he pulled off his shirt and tossed it at Hannigan as he wandered in through the kitchen. “Where’s my brother?” he asked Dulcie, grabbing a fresh raspberry tart on his way.