“You’re wrong. They’d simply put Prinny’s brother Frederick on the throne, and that would be that.”
“Even if you’re right, and I’m certainly not willing to take that chance, have you even stopped to think what it would do to you if you take on the Prince of Wales? You’ll be denounced as the man who brought scandal upon the crown for his own purposes—”
“What do I care about that? Nothing they say could be any worse than what’s been said of me before.”
“Yes, but you have a measure of success and respectability now. Will your mother, who takes such pride in how far you’ve come, enjoy watching you be vilified in the press?”
That gave him pause. “She’ll understand,” he said through gritted teeth. “She’ll cheer me.”
“Will she? All the nasty things they said about her will be amplified tenfold. The press will surely find her, too.”
“At least she’d finally get justice.”
A look of sheer desperation swept over her face. “And what about me? And my father?”
“What do you mean?” he said hoarsely.
“I told you before—if the letters are published, Papa could lose his commission. And if he’s arrested for treason—”
“He wouldn’t be arrested, damn it. Even the Whigs who despise Prinny wouldn’t attack a war hero for loyalty to the crown.”
“Interfering with the line of succession is a treasonous offense, punishable by hanging.” She swallowed. “You don’t think Prinny would pursue that? And succeed? He might lose his chance to be king, but he’d still be a prince with influence. Papa had been instructed to burn the letters, but he didn’t. So His Highness would have him punished one way or another.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “And me, for telling Philip about them in the first place.”
Gavin ruthlessly ignored the instant punch to his gut that her words delivered. “He couldn’t touch you, my darling. I wouldn’t let him.” He leaned forward to seize her hands. They were so cold they were like icy fingers of fear squeezing his heart. “As for your father, I wouldn’t let anything happen to him, I swear it. I’m not without influence myself. Between me and my brothers—”
“Brothers?”
Damn. He hadn’t meant to reveal that.
“I know about Lord Draker but—” She broke off, awareness dawning in her face. “Lord Iversley is one of the prince’s by-blows, too, isn’t he? I did wonder at the closeness between the three of you.”
“Yes, and Iversley is an earl, which counts for something. Between the three of us, we can protect your father, and I know I can protect you. I have plenty enough wealth to take care of you and your father. I can’t believe the general would lose his commission, after all his service to his country, but if he did, he could live on my estate. As could you.”
She dropped her gaze from his. “I’m sure Papa would be delighted to live with his daughter and her lover.”
“And if I were your husband? What then?”
He hadn’t meant to say the words, but now that he had, he let them stand. Christabel as his wife. The possibility that he’d sneered at only a couple of weeks ago, had come to seem like a dream. If they married, none of this could touch them—they’d have each other. And then who cared what anyone said?
Her face was shadowed with disappointment, and her hands trembled in his. “You are so desperate for those letters that you would make this patently spurious offer?”
“No!” He refused to release her hands when she tried to draw them from his. “It’s not a spurious offer, and it’s certainly not intended to get me the letters. Why not marry me? We could make a good marriage, you and I.”
She lifted a haunted gaze to him. “You and I and your current mistress.”
“No.” He dragged in a weighted breath, hardly able to believe what he was about to say. “I’d be faithful to you.” When she looked skeptical, he added fiercely, “I’d be faithful, I swear it.”
“And to gain this position as your wife, I need only stand by and watch as you betray my country, sentence my father to a life of condemnation—”
“It has nothing to do with us!” he cried.
“It has everything to do with us,” she hissed. “If you steal those letters to publish them, then you are not a man I can marry.”
His eyes narrowed. “You would take the side of that selfish arse—”
“It’s not for him, blast it!” Frustration wracked her face. “Forget, for a moment, what this would mean for His Highness and the country. Forget what it would mean for me and Papa. Consider what it would mean for Cameron.”
He jerked his hands free of hers. “Who the bloody hell is Cameron?”
“Mrs. Fitzherbert’s son. The one those letters concern. He’s spent years believing that an army captain and his wife are his parents. They’ve treated him kindly, given him a loving home. And now you wish to destroy that—”
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but this ‘boy’ is about twenty-two now, is he not?”
“Yes. What of it?”
“I was twelve when I lost my pathetic excuse for a home, and when, for all practical purposes, I lost my mother. Don’t ask me to feel sympathy for some lad who’s had a loving family and comfortable home until now. Because of Prinny’s favor, he probably has fine prospects. Do you know what prospects I had at twelve?”
“Gavin—”
“Do you know that days after the fire, the blackleg who’d taken me in actually made several appeals to my dear ‘father’? That he told His Bloody Highness I was alone in the world and could use some assistance? And that Prinny ignored every appeal?” Gavin snorted. “Prinny no doubt feared that if he gave me any money, it would be a tacit admission of our connection.”
Gavin’s anger burned in his gut like a hot brand. “And the prince wasn’t about to admit that he’d been, as you put it, a liar and a cheat, that he’d grievously wronged my mother. No, it was much better to ignore the plight of a boy who he knew was his child, to let his mistress’s name continue to be so vilified that she felt she could only help her son by abandoning him.”
Christabel’s face now filled with such pity that he had to look away. “You saw her, lass. Surely you realize how much she suffered from his neglect.” His voice grew hoarse. “Do you know how she got so badly burned?”
“I know she saved you,” she whispered.
“Yes. Late at night, she returned from some piddling job she’d managed to find. When she heard I was still inside, she wrapped herself in a wet rug and came in after me. She found me asleep and couldn’t wake me. Since she couldn’t carry me out while keeping us both wrapped in the rug, she chose to wrap me in the rug and face the flames herself.” The old pain rose to choke him, acrid as the smoke that had clung to his clothes for weeks afterward. “And for her sacrifice, she suffered months of pain, still suffers even today.”
Violently he fought the tears stinging his eyes. He had never let them fall before and wasn’t about to do so now. He could at least be as strong as his mother had been that cruel night.
His hands balled into fists as he swung his gaze back to Christabel. “If not for His Bloody Highness, she would have been living in some comfortable brick house in a decent part of town where fires didn’t happen with appalling regularity. I wouldn’t have been left alone at night while she slaved at some menial job. She deserves justice for what he did to her, and I mean to get it for her.”
“But she doesn’t want justice,” Christabel protested. “Whatever hatred she felt for him is long gone. You’ve got to put that part of your life behind you, and getting vengeance won’t do that.”
“It might. How can I not avenge her, when every time I look at her face—”
“She’s happy, Gavin. Can’t you see that? If you do this, do you really think it would improve your life? And what about your brothers? I take it they don’t share the same difficult relationship with the prince as you do—will they be pleased to watch you destroy His Highness’s chance at being king?”
“If they aren’t, they ought to be,” he growled.
“And me?” she whispered. “You know how I feel about it. I can’t just stand by and watch while you destroy everything I’ve worked for, no matter how much I love you.”
Love. The word dangled between them, a glittering promise. With other women, he’d only seen it as a signal that a pleasant affair was about to turn into a prison. But with her, it was an invitation to a life he’d never expected to want. A life he began to think he might want after all.
And that terrified him. Because it meant he would have to be a different man. Marrying her was one thing—it was practical, even sensible. But loving her? Bloody hell. “Don’t say that,” he rasped.
She paled. “What? That I love you? I can’t help it. It’s true.”
Panic swelling in him, he tore his gaze from her. “It’s not. What you think you love is an illusion. Meeting my mother put some notion in your head that I’m noble and unselfish and all those damned things you admire. But I’m not. I only survived those years of poverty by beating my conscience into silence and trampling my heart.”
“But you don’t have to do that anymore. You have a successful business and friends and family—”
“The point is, it’s done. I can’t regain what I lost, Christabel. This is all that’s left, this…this creature of will with no heart, no conscience. If you can accept that, then we can probably have a decent marriage. But if you want more, then I can’t be what you want. I’m the man with no soul, remember?”
“I don’t believe that.” She caught his chin, forcing him to look at her. “I’ve seen you be kind to your servants and generous to card cheats and fierce in the defense of those you love. If that’s not a man with a soul, I don’t know what is.”
The love shining in her eyes was so bright, it hung before him like a palpable temptation. But to live up to her belief in him, he’d have to give up his chance to make Prinny pay. And he couldn’t. He simply couldn’t.
“See what you want to see, but that makes it no less an illusion.” Tearing his gaze from hers, he said in a hollow voice, “I’ve never before let talk of love override my reason. I’m not about to do so now.”
The low moan she gave, like that of a wounded beast, cut him so to the heart that he nearly wished the words back. But if they were to have any sort of future, she would have to realize what he was.
“You mean to publish the letters, if you find them,” she whispered.
“I mean to use them however I can to strike at Prinny.”
“I can’t allow that,” she said in a small voice. “So I’m afraid that from now on, we must part ways.”
His heart thundering, he shifted to stare at her. “What do you mean?”
“I’ll look for the letters alone. And I can no longer…share your bed.”
An unreasoning rage seized him. “My other mistresses have tried to manipulate me by withholding their favors, my sweet. It has never worked before, and it won’t work now.”
The hurt in her face made a hard knot fist in his gut. “I’m not trying to manipulate you. I’m simply telling you that I can’t bear to stand by and watch while you bring the world down about your ears. And that means I can’t bear to share your bed. It would be too painful.”
“Fine,” he snapped, his rage so murderous that he feared what he’d do if he stayed there a moment longer. He knocked on the ceiling. “Driver! Stop the coach.”
“What on earth are you doing?” she said, her face showing alarm.
As the coach shuddered to a halt, he reached for the door. “Since you can’t bear my presence,” he said snidely, “I’ll ride the rest of the way up top.”
He leaped out, then paused to glare at her, his hand still on the handle. “But good luck finding those letters without me. Or should I say, finding them before I do. Because I mean to get my hands on them one way or the other.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Some lovers never give up.
—Anonymous, Memoirs of a Mistress
One way or the other.
For the hundredth time in two days, Christabel wondered what Gavin had meant. Did he plan to bargain with Lord Stokely for the letters? The two men were at cross-purposes, so she doubted that would work. Lord Stokely didn’t really want to publish them—he wanted to marry the princess. Whereas Gavin definitely wanted to publish them to prevent His Highness from gaining the throne.
A lump settled in her throat. He would never understand, never be able to see past his vengeance. She’d gambled and lost.
Yet she didn’t regret telling him everything. At least now, if he found them before she did, he might think before he acted. He might remember what she’d said, let it break through his wall of anger.
“Cut the cards, Lady Haversham,” said a taut voice across from her.
She looked up to find Gavin and the other players watching her. Forcing her attention to the game, she cut the cards and pushed them back at Gavin, who began to deal.
Despite everything, he’d chosen her as his partner. He’d given her no chance to protest or choose someone else—after their return from Bath, he’d simply announced before the assembly that he and she would be partners.
Though she’d realized he probably just wanted to keep her in his sight at all times, she hadn’t protested. It was crucial that she stay at Lord Stokely’s as long as possible, and she always played her best with Gavin. They seemed to understand each other on a level deeper than most players. And she learned so much just from watching him.
Playing with him these past two days had taught her something else, too: how difficult it must have been for him to turn himself into the man with no soul. Because at the card tables, she’d had to turn herself into the woman with no soul. It was the only way to stay in the game—by thinking of him merely as her card partner, blotting out the emotions that swelled in her whenever she looked up to find him hard and cold and remote.
Like now, when he arranged his cards with methodical precision, like a mechanical toy in circumscribed motion.
Hard to believe that the same man had actually offered her marriage. If he’d even meant it. Even if he had, by now he’d certainly rethought the words he’d spoken in a vain attempt to bring her over to his side.
A sigh escaped her lips.
“Bad cards, Lady Haversham?” Colonel Bradley asked.
She blinked at the man. “If it were, I’m not fool enough to admit it.”
“Well, if you mean to signal Byrne with your sighs,” the colonel retorted, “I’ll make sure Stokely hears of it.”
Gavin’s eyes narrowed. “Are you implying that Lady Haversham and I cheat?” he asked in that velvet-over-steel voice that never failed to make her shiver.
Colonel Bradley blanched. Men fought duels over such accusations. “Just making idle conversation, old chap.”
“The colonel is merely annoyed that we’re winning,” Christabel put in. Gavin’s temper had been dangerously close to explosive lately, and anything might set him off.
Besides, she and Gavin were winning. They’d made it into the top eight teams, and the competition had been fierce. Fortunately, Lady Jenner had indeed been forced out of the game because her injury kept her abed. But that had left several others of equal competence. So although she and Gavin were closing in on a hundred points, they had to reach it soon. Two teams had already made it—Lady Hungate and her lover, and Lord Stokely and Lady Kingsley.
That last pairing had surprised some of the other players, but not her. Clearly, Lord Stokely hoped to unnerve Gavin, his main rival, by having Anna as his partner. And since the woman’s idiotic, unsuspecting husband regarded Lord Stokely’s choice as a compliment to his wife’s superior playing, he hadn’t blinked an eye as he’d toddled off to the nearby inn where the other banished guests were staying.
Christabel meant to avoid ending up there herself. Gritting her teeth, she walled off her emotions, and turned herself into a card-playing machine like her partne
r. How Gavin had done it for years, she would never understand. But it did explain how he’d become the man of sheer, unadulterated will who sat across from her.
No one spoke as they played. There was none of the earlier banter and jokes, none of the possibilities for distraction. Everyone was too busy fighting for a chance at the pot, which, last she’d heard, was up to forty thousand pounds.
They won the game just as the gong sounded. When Christabel breathlessly asked to see the tally, Gavin said with a satisfied smile, “We’ve reached a hundred, my sweet. We’ve made it to the final four teams.”
Tallies around the room revealed that the team below them still lacked nearly thirty points to reach a hundred, so they’d have a few hours’ reprieve from play tomorrow when the others sat down.
That meant some solid time for searching and another chance to thwart Lord Stokely. But time grew short; at most, they had another two nights and one full day.
Colonel Bradley and his partner wandered off in search of entertainment, leaving her and Gavin alone at the table. She rose, eager to escape him before she was tempted to round the table and kiss the grim line from his lips.
But as she turned away, he asked in a low voice, “Have you found them?”
She glanced about the room, but the only people left in the room were Lord Stokely and a few others in conversation several yards away. “I wouldn’t still be here if I had. Have you?”
“No.”
The clipped word frustrated her. It told her so little. She eyed him speculatively. Perhaps if she told him what she knew, he’d unbend enough to tell her the same. “I searched the drawing room and some of the guest rooms. I still haven’t been able to get into Lord Stokely’s room, however. He keeps it locked.”
“They aren’t there. I searched it while he was drinking with the others after last night’s games.”
She lowered her voice to a whisper. “You picked the lock?”
He nodded. “And yours, too,” he said dryly. “Then I tried your door, but it wouldn’t open.”
“I’ve been wedging a chair under the handle because of Lord Stokely.”
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