All's Fair in Love & Seduction (The Elusive Lords, Novella)

by Beverley Kendall

  Charlotte held a breath and nodded, steeling herself for what was to come.

  After a prolonged sigh, Katie began. “He was already at the church when James told him. He left soon after, no doubt in shock and grief. James was left to inform everyone the wedding was off. Of course, he was also frantic with worry. We all were.” Censure was blatant in her sister’s tone. Charlotte squeezed her hands, attempting to convey just how sorry she was to have caused them even a moment of distress.

  “After a day or so Alex joined James, Thomas, Mr. Wendell and Lord Bradford in the search for you.”

  Charlotte briefly closed her eyes. These were the things she’d tried so hard not to think about. Her family, her friends searching for her. Worrying themselves over her. Only the knowledge that she’d saved them from certain social ostracism and grief made the ordeal bearable. And of course, then Nicholas had come, needing her just as much as she’d needed him.

  “Oh, they were all quite discreet about the matter. To this day everyone believes you’re residing somewhere in the north of England. James wanted it so. The gossip surrounding your departure must have kept every printing press running non-stop for well over a year. He had no desire to feed the frenzy by admitting that we had no idea where you were. Anyway, when your first letter arrived two weeks later, Alex abandoned the search. I believe it was then he was convinced you had left of your own volition. It probably would have been easier for him if he thought you’d been taken by force.”

  Katie sighed and extricated her hand from hers. Charlotte instantly missed the warmth of her touch. “After hearing you were settling into your new home, he seemed to close himself off entirely. He wasn’t sad anymore he was just…empty. Then he started drinking. And carousing.”

  Charlotte bolted to her feet, her moiré silk skirt sweeping the low center table of knotted pine. She simply couldn’t bear to hear anymore. The pain inside her was excruciating and blinding. “I see. You needn’t tell me anymore,” she said, trying not to choke on her words. She failed utterly.

  Katie arose, treating her to a look of concern. “It is difficult to hear is it not? It was even more difficult to watch, and I didn’t witness the half of it. You have no idea how many years James and Thomas spent beside themselves trying to save Alex from himself.”

  Charlotte closed her eyes, willing away the images of Alex lost in the stupor of drink as he caroused about town in quest of a warm willing female. And he’d no doubt found them to be had by the droves. But the images persisted with unforgiving relentlessness. She bit back a wave of nausea.

  “Darling, you look pea green. Are you all right?”

  Determinedly, Charlotte mentally shook it off, opening her eyes to take in the worried expression on her sister’s face. “You did warn me it would be hard to hear.” Agonizing, excruciating were more apt terms.

  “Alex loved you. He took it exceptionally bad.”

  “And now? How is he now?” Silly as it was, what she really wanted to ask was did he ever talk about her? When had he stopped missing her? Within weeks, months, years?

  Her sister gave a sad smile. “Well, he doesn’t drink anymore. Not one drop. Gave it up entirely.”

  Thank God! Her guilt was suffocating enough. “Has he married?” Charlotte hadn’t meant to ask, in her heart was afraid to know. But there it was, her insatiable need to know everything about him exerting its control.

  “Would it assuage your guilt and make you feel better to know he’s married with a brood of children?” Katie asked, compassion in her eyes.

  God no. It would destroy her. But she had no claims on him. She was the last person who should begrudge him happiness, even in the arms of another woman.

  Turning from her sister, Charlotte advanced to the bay window. “Perhaps a little.” This time she couldn’t look her sister in the eye when she voiced the lie. Anyway, it was how her sister would expect her to feel given she’d just admitted she hadn’t truly been in love with him.

  “Then you’ll be disappointed to hear he remains single. But all signs indicate it won’t be for much longer as it appears he intends to ask Lady Mary, the Earl of Cranford’s daughter, for her hand. The ton is expecting a betrothal announcement before the end of the Season.”

  Charlotte couldn’t see the beauty in the profusion of budding daisies and violets landscaping the front lawn for the pain and grief swelling her heart. Ready to send her to her knees. But truly, it was a small miracle he wasn’t already wed with several children by now.

  “I see.” Charlotte paused. “Well I wish him well.” And she did. She sincerely did. It would be utterly selfish of her to begrudge him happiness with someone else. And by God she wasn’t selfish. Her absence from his life attested to the fact. Marrying him would have been selfish.

  “Charlotte, do you know what I believe?” Katie said softly from behind. She hadn’t even heard her approach.

  Charlotte turned. Her sister took her cold hand in hers and looked her in the eye. “I don’t for a moment believe there was ever another man—this husband. And I don’t believe you left because you didn’t love Alex.”

  Stunned, Charlotte went stiff, her spine ramrod straight, feeling vulnerable and exposed. “What?”

  Katie’s mouth curved into a sad smile. “My dear, do give me some credit. I’ve known you all your life. Perhaps, the story you most convincingly spoon-fed me would have fooled strangers, acquaintances, and perhaps even James and Missy. But this is me. We occupied the same womb for nine months and bedchambers for fifteen years. You would have walked barefoot across the desert for Alex. And as for finding someone else? You had eyes for only him, which would have made that impossible. You loved him then and I’m quite convinced the years apart haven’t changed that one little bit.”

  It should have been a diatribe, for Charlotte had lied to her, but it was not. Katie had exposed her web of well-rehearsed lies in calm, gentle tones, her only proof being her twin’s intimate knowledge of her.

  Charlotte briefly thought of issuing an emphatic denial but the lure of understanding in her sister’s eyes had her head dropping as if her neck could no longer support its weight. Her admission conveyed the truth without a single spoken word.

  Chapter Three

  Alex returned home and executed a swift change of clothes. His waistcoat suffered the loss of three of its four shanked, brass buttons. His rage ripped his linen shirt near the seam of the arm. He savaged the button closure of his trousers with his impatience. His drawers were the lone garment to survive the ordeal unscathed. He tamped down his anger long enough to ensure donning his riding clothes was a much less destructive affair.

  He made good time getting to the stables, his long strides clashing with hard earth. Minutes later he sat bent over Shalais, his favorite Arabian mare, his gloved hands closed tight about the reins, flying across Reading’s flat grassy terrain with the wind at his back.

  With his every labored breath and every stretch of dirt kicked up by Shalais’s hooves, he tried not to think about her. Since the moment he’d left, he had successfully pushed her image and memories of her as far back into the dark recess of his mind as they would go. But her image and the memories would not go willingly, refusing to be bowed by the strength of his will.

  Little by little, they seeped back into the forefront of his thoughts as his gray-stoned manor house shrank against the backdrop of a deceptively cloudless, sunlit sky. She had returned bringing with her ugly and unforgiveable lies, effectively darkening the skies like a swarm of locusts.

  Dusty rose lips, just as soft and full as he remembered from countless dreams, looked too tempting to be the vehicle of such egregious lies. But those same lips had lied to him before. I love you. Yes Alex, I’ll marry you. I can’t imagine my life without you.

  With a squeeze of his thighs, Alex urged Shalais into a full out gallop, trying to expend himself physically to quell the lure of oblivion a glass of alcohol could bring. He needed exhaustion enough to prevent him from the insanity
of barreling a path through heavily wooded trees and underbrush to return to Rutherford Manor and force the truth from those same lying lips.

  For years his feelings for her had drifted on the plane of indifference. He ceased to care where she was, what she did, and he never allowed himself to even venture near thoughts of with whom. Her return upended his long dormant emotions. His hatred now pulsed with new life, a new reason for its existence. Alex had never thought he could—would—ever despise anyone more than he did his father. Today he discovered he was wrong.

  He returned to the house two hours later sweaty and hot. He was greeted by his rather anxious looking butler, Alfred, who approached him the moment Alex stepped a dusty booted foot in the corridor leading to the main part of the house.

  Alfred’s powdered wig and severe black garb should have demanded a mien of stoicism, instead of the wringing-of-the-hands look on his face.

  “My lord, Lord Cranford is awaiting you in the withdrawing room.” Alfred had a tendency to speak as if he’d lived a century ago.

  Alex quirked a brow. “Pardon?” he asked sharply, taking a moment to digest his shock. What the hell is he doing here? He almost blurted out the question, but good manners—at least the vestiges of those he still ascribed to—prevented him from doing so.

  “My lord, he was quite insistent on awaiting your return.”

  The Earl of Cranford, Lady Mary’s father, was definitely one of the last persons Alex wished to see today of all days.

  “Please tell him I’ll be with him shortly. As you can see, I’m not fit for company,” Alex replied with a dismissive nod.

  “Yes, sir,” Alfred said with a bow before he strode off.

  Twenty minutes later, Alex presented himself in the drawing room, freshly bathed and dressed from head to toe in cotton and wool in a brown as sober as his mood.

  “Ah, Cartwright,” Lord Cranford said upon his entrance, slowly rising to his feet with the help of a mahogany cane, his bare hand proffered in greeting. “I hope I haven’t inconvenienced you by calling without an invitation.” His jowls quivered from the force of his smile, which stretched across a small narrow face unbalanced by the leftward hook of his nose.

  Alex forced a smile, taking the earl’s hand in a brief handshake. “I hope you weren’t terribly inconvenienced by the wait,” he said, smoothly evading the question.

  “Think nothing of it. I passed the time comfortably. I hope you won’t mind if I sit. My knees have been paining me all day. A sure sign of rain tomorrow.” The earl renewed his place on the brushed velvet sofa and although Alex would have preferred to stand, he followed suit and took up a seat in a wing-backed chair. There wouldn’t be anything particularly pleasant about the coming conversation.

  “Can I offer you something to drink or perhaps something to eat?” Alex asked.

  Lord Cranford dismissed his offer with a negligent toss of his hand, the diamond on his signet ring glinting as it caught the sunlight pouring through the window behind him. “Your man saw to my needs. I couldn’t eat another bite.”

  Which meant his wait had been considerable, possibly over an hour. Better to get the damn thing over with. “So to what do I owe to this call, my lord?”

  The earl cleared his throat, straightened his legs with a slight wince and shot a look about the spacious drawing room before returning his gaze to Alex. “Cartwright, how long has it been since you began calling on my daughter? Three, perhaps four months?”

  “No more than three months if I remember correctly,” Alex replied blithely. He hadn’t been wrong in his thoughts. The earl had come to press his own suit.

  “Yes, yes indeed. Just as I thought. One might consider three months ample time to decide on the suitability of a person might one not?” he said, inclining his head toward Alex as if to compel him to agree.

  “Indeed, I believe three months might be more than ample time to make a judgment on such matter.” It certainly had been for him. Alex thought of the emerald betrothal ring in his master suite upstairs. He’d purchased it with every intention of asking Lady Mary for her hand three weeks ago. But a day’s delay had slipped quickly and all too easily, until soon he could count the delay by weeks instead of days. Now, given the change in circumstances, he was more than a little relieved he hadn’t gone through with it. A betrothal would have been a nightmare of a predicament to extricate himself from.

  Lord Cranford made a pleased sound, like the purr of a tiger, deep in his throat. He smiled again, showing off a row of white, slightly crooked teeth. “Ah, very good. I’m happy to hear. Then I assume I can expect a call from you before too long. I’m sure you know my Mary comes with quite a substantial dowry. Not to say, my good man,” he hastened to add in a jovial tone, “that you are in need of it. Why, to your fortune, you no doubt see it as but a paltry sum.”

  Alex’s mouth twitched, not quite a smile or a frown. When had thirty thousand pounds ever been considered paltry? The earl was being coy. “My lord, am I being pressed to fish or cut bait?” he asked blandly.

  A wash of red suffused a complexion that probably hadn’t been touched by sunlight in years. The earl appeared taken aback and didn’t speak for several moments, eyeing Alex as if attempting to gauge the true inference of the question.

  “What I’m attempting to convey, my lord, is that my daughter is much sought after.” He said it with all the pomposity of a father who knew his daughter’s worth.

  Indeed, thirty thousand pounds.

  “Many men have already approached me for her hand. She is of course, partial to your attentions, but she won’t wait around forever. I’m merely urging you to press your advantage.”

  In other words, you have the advantage because you are excessively wealthy and heir to one of the oldest and most powerful dukedoms in all of England. Alex had long since become familiar with aristocratic speak: the polite way to express one’s single-minded ambition for money and position.

  Alex tempered a wry smile at the earl’s equating three months to forever as he was certain it would not be well received. “Then I would urge your daughter not to refuse any further marriage offers on my account.”

  Lord Cranford’s eyes widened and his jowls shook this time from the force of his inhalation. Bending his knees, he clambered unsteadily to his feet without the assistance of his cane or a wince even when his lower leg banged against the curved leg of the rosewood table. What followed was a silence that strained every bit of civility in his narrow-eyed countenance.

  “Are you telling me you have no intention of asking my daughter for her hand?”

  Alex pushed to his feet and with his half foot height advantage had an eagle’s view of the bits of pink scalp peeking through the earl’s gray thinning hair.

  “I don’t believe we would make a good match.” Another face appeared in his mind’s eye One with dark gold ringlets and eyes the blue of the Mediterranean Sea. How apropos she’d returned and resumed where she’d left off—wreaking havoc on almost everything in his life. But good God, this time he’d make sure she paid.

  Alex could tell by the venomous look in Lord Cranford’s brown eyes that the man would like nothing better than to be his physical superior. His hands, much like the rest of his slight frame, shook with rage. “Not make a good match? You insolent little cur, you won’t find another better than my Mary.”

  “Then I shall consider that my loss.” Lady Mary was lovely and would have made an adequate wife, carrying out the duties of a duchess with aristocratic aplomb. But she certainly wasn’t irreplaceable. No woman was. Many others would fill the role just as nicely. What annoyed him was the inconvenience of having to begin the ordeal of a courtship again after he’d concluded the whole affair with her.

  “You are a—”

  “And while I understand your anger, beg I remind you, my lord, I made no promises to either you or your daughter.”

  “You are nothing but a—”

  “I will bid you adieu before you say something you will no do
ubt come to regret.” Alex turned to one of the footman who never ventured far when he entertained guests—although that itself was a rarity—and now stood framed in the opening of the drawing room. “Please see the earl out.”

  While Lord Cranford sputtered in growing affront, Alex quietly departed.

  Five years ago, he would have felt more than a pinch of remorse, for despite his avowal to the contrary, his manner would have led any parent to believe marriage would be the result of his attentions to their daughter. Today he couldn’t summon up any emotion beyond irritation. And Lady Mary would hardly suffer. As her father had been eager to point out, she had a litter of men vying for her hand.

  Alex made his way to his study, a place where he could bar the outside world from entry. But he didn’t bar the door, he merely closed it, instinctively crossing the room to the sideboard. He pulled himself up with a vigorous shake of his head just as his hand reached for the crystal decanter, the fingers of his other hand already curved in anticipation of the glass.

  The decanter was empty. The glass was naught but a decorative piece of etched crystal. Both had gone unused for two years. Alex abruptly dropped his arms, curled his hands into fists and strode over to the black leather armchair.

  Memories of why he sought comfort in this particular room assailed him. It was in this very room he’d so often found solace—oblivion—at the bottom of a glass of rum. When all the rum was gone, he’d start on the whiskey. He had spent hours in a day—days on end sinking deeper and deeper under its spell. But not anymore. But damn, he needed a drink.

  Damn her!

  Tugging off his necktie, Alex pushed himself back into the sloping pocket of the high backed chair. His mouth curved into a cynical smile. The duke would think he’s been handed heaven on earth when he learned about Nicholas. A living replica of his late beloved son would be like a dream come true. His mother, in her own dramatic fashion, would clutch her hands to her chest and cry copious tears. The ton, of course, would not only relish the scandal, they’d all but wallow in it. Something else to befall the future Duke of Hastings whose misfortunes had begun even before he’d been jilted at the altar. They’d practically rub their hands in glee.