He sat across from Irene and though he kept his expression neutral, Irene saw the merriment that burned in his eyes. Greg, her brother, had often worn the same expression when he got over on someone. Unlike their father, Greg had had more trouble hiding his vile tendencies. Irene missed her brother, but part of that was because, as his sister, it was her duty to.
At the moment, Lord Edmund reminded her of Greg.
He was handsome. His arms were crossed before him, one knee was thrown over the other. It was a show of strength and indifference.
“Lady Irene or should I call you Lady Fawley?” His lifted a brow that mocked her.
Irene folded her hands on her lap as she studied him. “Do you play piquet, Lord Edmund?”
∫ ∫ ∫
4 2
* * *
Irene’s question seemed to throw him off his rhythm. She knew the answer before he spoke. “Sometimes.”
“It’s quiet complex, isn’t it?” she asked. “I don’t know how anyone keeps the score correctly.”
“Yes, it’s complex, but the rewards have been known to be sweet.” His grin was that of a man who knew what it was like to win.
When Irene thought about her wedding, she remembered the faces of Edmund’s children. The tension in their eyes. She thought of her father and Greg. Her father had controlled him. Did Edmund do the same with all his children?
“I already knew you liked piquet, Lord Edmund,” she said.
“How?” her father-in-law asked. “Did Clive tell you?”
“No, my father did.” Irene watched Lord Edmund’s eyes shift. He was still grinning but now it was tight. People always felt fear when she invoked her father’s name. She hadn’t known why until recently.
“Your father spoke of me?” Lord Edmund asked. There was a slight edge in his voice. “I was not acquainted with your father at all. In fact, I made it my life’s work to stay clear of him.”
“Did you?” she asked. “Well, forgive me, because it was likely my obsession with Clive that brought you to his attention.” She smiled. “I went on and on about your stepson. For years, he was all I spoke about. Dreamt about. My father’s disapproval of my love meant nothing to me. He wanted me to marry someone else. Anyone else, but I refused, and he got desperate.”
Lord Edmund was no longer smiling. “I’m still unsure of what this has to do with me.”
“Clive says my father knew too much about too many people. I didn’t know until recently how correct he was.” She looked away as she recalled memories. “He knew so much about Clive’s life and when that wasn’t enough, he began to speak about the family that raised him. Or rather, the man who’d raised him.” She looked at Lord Edmund again.
Her father-in-law dropped his arms and straightened in his chair. “I’d heard that The Book of Affairs was lost.”
“You know about the book?” Irene was genuinely surprised.
“Everyone’s talking about it at every club.” He frowned. “Do you and Clive have it?”
“Perhaps.”
“You’re lying.” He leaned forward. “I play piquet, my lady. I know a liar when I see one.”
“I believe you know a liar when you see one for an entirely different reason.”
He was a liar.
The words hung between them.
“But I don’t need the book to know the things you’ve done, Lord Edmund,” she said. “Clive has told me some, but he has no idea of the secrets you hide.” She was bluffing. She didn’t know a single thing outside of what Clive had told her. Her father had rarely mentioned Lord Edmund.
He moved and the pin in his cravat caught the light.
She looked there and jumped when he covered the stone.
His eyes went hard. Was the pin the answer to his secrets? Just who had he stolen it from?
“What do you want, Lady Irene?” he asked.
“For you to leave my husband alone,” she said. “For you to allow him to see his mother. That is all.”
“Have you any clue what he did to her?” he asked. “I’m hardly the reason she doesn’t see him more often.”
Irene held his eyes and told herself not to inquire. She was winning this debate.
Gambling had risk. If she walked away now, she may free Clive of the burden of his father-in-law, but maybe not.
She took a risk. “Why doesn’t his mother wish to see him?”
“He is responsible for her father’s death,” Edmund said. “Angelini was never in love with her first husband. I am her one and true love, but more than me, she loved her father.”
She hadn’t been prepared for his. “How did Clive kill him?”
“He was running. He headed toward the stairs and his grandfather followed to save the boy.”
Irene knew how the story ended, but Edmund told her anyway. “He fell down the stairs. Broke his neck right in front of Angelini. She told me so herself. She blames Clive.”
Did she? Clearly, Clive had been no more than a boy when the accident had occurred.
“Angelini had a ring that belonged to her father,” Edmund said. “Clive stole it when he was sixteen. She nearly died from her grief.”
Irene was shocked again. “He stole it. You must have put him up to it.”
Edmund shrugged. “I may have told him we needed money, or we’d all starve. He formed the plan to steal the ring on his own.”
“And working was beneath you,” she countered.
“My Angelini almost died with grief. It was all she had of her father and he took it from her. Imagine what she’ll do when she knows that Clive not only took her father but also the last gift that remained of him.”
“She doesn’t know?” Irene asked.
Edmund shook his head. His eyes were smiling again. “Like a good father, I’ve kept the truth from her, but that truth cost him.”
‘His mother?”
“No, his loyalty to me.” Edmund frowned. “I don’t hate Clive. I love him. I wish him to come back to me.”
Love. No wonder Clive didn’t understand the word.
“You wish to use him. I won’t allow it.” She stood.
He stood as well. “Surely, you see him differently now that you know the truth.”
“I don’t.”
“Then perhaps I should give you something else,” he said. “It’s clear you don’t know the man you married. Allow me to enlighten you.”
“No.”
“He stole something from you,” Edmund began. “He came to me afterward, his father, to confess all.”
Irene shouldn’t have taken the risk. “Are you going to allow him to see his mother or not?”
“Not, I think,” he said.
At that moment, she wished she had the book. She wished she was more like her father. She didn’t know how to lie. She’d never been good at it.
She’d failed Clive. This journey had been pointless.
“Lady Irene, perhaps we can come to some sort of compromise.” He moved closer. “I know your wealth—”
“I don’t have the book.” She met his eyes. “And I don’t need it to destroy you.” That wasn’t a lie.
Edmund stiffened.
She narrowed her eyes. “As you said. I am a very wealthy woman. My husband doesn’t believe in pin money. He has given me full control of my fortune—”
“Foolish—”
“He’d let me do as I please with it. He wouldn’t bat an eye if I decided to use my last shilling to bring you down, to see your throat in the grip of a noose.”
Edmund stumbled back. Fear flashed in his eyes. “I heard the stories of the great Van Dero. You sound like your father.”
“And you…” She reached up and touched his pin. He flinched. “…shall find out just how much I inherited from him.” She patted the pin and then took a step back.
“Because of Clive?” Edmund asked. “Because you love him?”
She turn to pick up her reticule and then looked at him again. “No, because I hate you. Because you
have made me your enemy. It was wrong of you to do that.”
Edmund swallowed before reaching up to touch his pin. “Destroy me and you destroy Clive’s mother.”
“You’ve not given me reason save her.”
Edmund’s eyes were wide. “She’s his mother.”
Irene said nothing.
Edmund cursed. “All right. What do you want?”
As Irene stared into Edmund’s eyes, she felt as though she could see his soul. It was right there. She could reach out, wrap it in her fingers, and crush it. A deadly power flowed through her. She remembered her father saying that she could have ruled if she hadn’t been so tenderhearted.
What would he think of her now?
Before her stood a trembling man. He’d be proud.
Disgust made her pride vanish. She needed to get away from Edmund and this situation. “Allow Lady Angelini to see Clive on her own terms. Tell her nothing about the ring.” Clive should tell her himself.
“And you’ll have mercy?” he asked.
“Yes.” She couldn’t look at him anymore, so she turned away. “Tell your wife I said hello.”
Edmund gasped. “Who? Angelini or…”
She looked at him in confusion. “Yes, Angelini.” Who else would she be speaking of?
Edmund’s hand was at his pin. He lowered it and nodded. “I will.”
She left quickly, but there was no escaping what she’d done and what she’d said. She’d threatened a man’s life. She’d never done anything like that before. It troubled her, and she feared just how much of her father truly resided in her.
∫ ∫ ∫
4 3
* * *
Clive met Irene at the door and took in her pained expression.
She knew. Edmund had told her everything. She’d hate him forever.
“He told you,” he said.
She nodded.
“About my mother?”
She sighed. “Yes.”
“About… the hairpin?”
She narrowed her eyes. “The hairpin? You mean mine? I already know about that, Clive. What else could there be to tell?”
There was so much to tell. Why hadn’t Edmund told her?
Irene walked past him into the house. “He vows not to get in your way again. If you wish to see your mother, he will not stop you.”
Was this a parting gift?
“Irene…”
She turned to him. “Do you see my father when you look at me?”
The questioned disturbed him. “No.”
She rolled her eyes and sighed. “I don’t mean if I look like him. I mean, do you think we are anything alike?”
He thought about that. His immediate answer would have been no, but that wasn’t entirely true. “You want something, you go after it. You are both determined people.”
“And you hate that about me.”
“No, we’d not be here together if that were true.” He cupped her cheeks. “What I said in the garden was a lie. I enjoy every part of you.”
“I threatened your stepfather,” she whispered. Her eyes filled with tears. Her lips trembled. “I threatened his life.”
And she thought this bad? “Is it wrong that I wish to make love to you right now?”
She batted his hands away, but then slowly she began to smile.
He watched her. “You don’t hate me.”
“I told you I wouldn’t,” she said. “The past is the past. You are mine, and that is all that matters.”
Clive’s shoulders sagged. Then he wrapped his arms around Irene and pulled her close. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” She patted his back and then stepped away. “My father has a garden here. We should see if it needs tending. Together.”
Even though he would rather attend his wife in bed, he smiled and took her hand. “Excellent idea.”
They spent the rest of the day in the garden. Amongst the mums and the daisies, they talked and laughed. Angelini arrived in the afternoon and they shared a quiet meal, the three of them. Edmund had gone to a gentlemen’s club for some gaming.
At first, there was tension. He saw Irene glance at his mother’s hand and knew she knew the truth, but Angelini’s stories about his nieces and nephews slowly let the tension out of the air. Clive eventually found himself having a rather pleasant day and hoped it would be the first of many meals he shared with his mother.
Once Angelini left, Clive took his wife upstairs and worshipped her body with every part of his. Then he watched her fall asleep in his arms.
He hadn’t been sleep long when he heard the noise. There were footsteps in the dark.
The assailant had followed them to Bath.
Clive was in a terrible position for a fight. Irene rested on one of his arms. His stave was across the room. It the man realized Irene wasn’t alone…
Gently, he slipped his arm from underneath his wife and then slowly rolled onto his back.
If he could get up...
A soft glow filled the room.
He had no more time.
He straightened and his eyes met those of the assailant. The rest of his face was covered with a black cloth. He stood across the room over a lamp.
Clive reached out to grab the first thing he could find just as the light went out.
He flung a boot where he thought the assailant was and heard a grunt that filled him with victory.
He was out of the bed and made it to the door just as the assailant got it open.
They struggled in the dark hall, fighting hand to hand. Clive threw the man against the wall in the hall. The landing rattled the portraits. The assailant managed to slip under him and strike him in his side. Clive crouched when the pain rocked and spread through him and then a hard elbow connected with his head and snapped it back.
Clive fell, dazed for a moment, but reached out and grabbed the man’s ankle. With a yank, the attacker was down as well. Clive crawled next to the man, found his face with one hand, and struck him with the other.
The assailant let out a shout. Then he kicked Clive right in the gut.
Clive doubled over and gasped for air. Another kick had Clive flat on the ground. He rolled away just in time to feel the wind from the man’s boot blow past his face.
He grabbed the attacker’s foot as soon as it landed and punched the assailant in the side of his knee.
The attacker gave another cry and then went down just as Irene came out.
“Stay back!” Clive shouted before he crawled over the man and wrestled the mask down.
“No!” the attacker cried. He tried to get away, so Clive used his fist keep him down, landing blows to his gut and face over and over until Irene touched him.
“Stay back!” he cried again, though he was glad she’d reminded him of her presence. He’d have done more if she hadn’t been there. He’d have killed the attacker.
Irene’s fingers slipped away. She was weeping.
The assailant stopped resisting Clive’s hold.
He knew who he was before his face was revealed. Very few men knew about Clive’s trip to Bath. Kent and the others didn’t even know about it.
Irene stared at the man who laid on the floor, and her eyes widened.
Harry spoke before either could say anything. “That book should have been mine. The houses, the wealth, everything you own should have been mine, but it went to him!”
Clive guessed the ‘him’ was Cassius. “So, why not kill Cass instead of harassing my wife?”
“Clive!” Irene cried.
He lifted a hand to quiet her. He didn’t actually want Harry to go after Cass. He only wished to understand how Harry’s mind worked. Then, once he did, he’d kill Harry himself.
Harry’s breaths were rushed. “I tried.”
He didn’t explain more.
Irene moved back a step. “I can’t believe it’s you, Harry.”
“But it makes sense, does it not?” Clive asked. “You thought the assailant wouldn’t attack while
Cecilia was around because there was someone else in the house when, in reality, he just didn’t wish Cecilia to recognize him. It’s why he attacked you at my mother’s. No one would have known him there.”
When another light filled the hall, Clive looked up into the housekeeper’s eyes. “Call for the constable.”
She dashed off to do what he’d asked.
“How could you?” Irene asked, weeping. “How could you do this to Cecilia?”
Cecilia? Was she not offended for herself?
Harry looked away. “You were never meant to get hurt. I just needed the book. The book would have given me power. I never meant to hurt you.”
“Yet you did,” Irene whispered. “You crawled over me in bed and…” Irene stopped suddenly.
Clive’s pain disappeared as a newfound emotion filled him. He squeezed Harry’s throat and yanked the man off the floor before he dragged him back into the bedchamber.
With only his destination in mind, Clive kicked open the balcony doors.
Harry began to fight then, but it was no use. Clive had him halfway over the rail before he snarled, “You touched my wife!”
Harry was sputtering blood. His hands were around the one Clive had on his throat as he tried to get leverage back onto the balcony. Fear filled his eyes. “She wasn’t your wife. It was before—”
Clive dipped him backward.
Harry cried out. “She wasn’t yours!”
“She was always mine!” Clive released him.
But then Irene was there, holding Harry. “No, Clive! Don’t do this!” Her small frame was being dragged over the rail as well, and Clive had no choice but to grab the man again.
Harry slumped onto the balcony, weeping. He’d be dead if not for Irene. The night was young. Clive could still kill him.
Irene grabbed Clive’s arm and turned him to face her. “You can’t kill him.”
He looked her over. “You’re in nothing but a robe. Return inside.”
“No, I can’t leave you two alone. Clive—”
He took a step that brought their bodies together. “I will not let him see you this way. Inside. Now.”
Irene touched his cheek. “Promise you won’t kill him.”
“Irene,” he growled.
Pain of The Marquess: (The Valiant Love Regency Romance) (A Historical Romance Book) Page 21