by Deborah Hale
Ford looked up at her at last with haunted eyes. “You took pity on me?”
Angry as she was, she pitied him now. And she pitied his tenants if they should lose him. Whatever his failings, he had been a better lord than his cousin, who had every legal right to the title. “Yes, I suppose I did.”
For all the havoc this revelation had wreaked upon them both, Laura experienced an unaccountable sense of relief once the burden of that lurking secret no longer weighed upon her conscience. It no longer stood like an invisible but impenetrable barrier between her and Ford. It had emerged from the shadows to be acknowledged and sorted out somehow.
And perhaps to be overcome?
Laura opened her mouth to ask Ford how they would go on from here. But before she could get the words out, he spun away from her with his mother’s marriage certificate still clutched in his hand. Then he strode to the door and marched away without a backward glance.
That night, in a room at the Brighton inn where he and Laura had spent their honeymoon, Ford sat staring at his mother’s marriage certificate in horrified fascination. The thing seemed to devour his identity as Lord Kingsfold, master of Hawkesbourne and the son of a virtuous woman, making him feel like a hollow shell of himself.
His first desperate instinct had been to doubt it was real. From Laura’s bedchamber, he had gone straight to the one they were to have shared, where all his belongings had already been stored. He’d opened a small but handsomely carved box of teakwood—the one possession he’d taken with him to the Indies and kept close throughout his exile.
It held an old playbill from Vauxhall with his mother’s name listed as featured soloist, along with some items cut from newspapers of the day, which lauded her divine voice and dusky beauty. There was also a gold locket engraved with two A’s entwined, for Anthony and Alice. Inside the locket were miniatures of his parents, painted at the time of their marriage. Ford had tossed these and other treasured trinkets aside until he found what he sought—a letter written by his mother to his father during their courtship. She had signed it twice, with her stage name and her birth name.
Comparing that writing to the bride’s signature on the marriage certificate, Ford gasped as his brittle bastion of denial was smashed to splinters.
Scarcely aware of what he was doing, he’d thrust the marriage certificate into the box, seized a few articles of clothing and ridden away from Hawkesbourne without any clear idea where he was going. Finding himself on the Brighton road, he’d decided that was as good a destination as any. In mid-November, the seaside resort would be deserted by society, giving him the solitude he craved to grasp this devastating development and decide how to deal with it.
The account Cyrus had given Laura dovetailed so perfectly with what Ford knew of his mother. Little wonder she and his father had eloped to Scotland—no doubt at her insistence. She must have feared any publication of banns might reach the ears of someone who knew about her earlier marriage. It also explained why Ford knew so little about her family, except that they’d lived in Devon and had not approved of her singing career. In light of the evidence, her taking of a foreign stage name was suspicious too. His father’s second marriage proved he’d been an easy dupe for designing women.
Taking out his mother’s locket, Ford flicked it open and stared at the tiny likeness of her. How he wished he could have her alive for an hour to demand an accounting for what she’d done. No matter what she told him, he doubted he would understand. His sympathy lay with Daniel Witheridge, the man whose wife had deserted him to build herself a new life upon a precarious foundation of lies.
That thought nudged a memory of something Laura had said when he’d pressed her for information about her father’s death. If you start digging now, everything you have built on those foundations may come tumbling down.
At the time, he’d suspected it was threat. Now he sensed it had been a warning, issued for his own good.
Casting aside his disillusionment and self-pity, Ford contemplated Laura’s role in all of this, though he could hardly bear to. For seven long years he had reviled her for jeopardising his inheritance. From the moment of his return, he had sought to punish her in dozens of subtle ways for what she’d done, while all the time she had been suffering his cousin’s cruelty in order to protect him from a far worse fate. And when she’d tried to protect him again today, pleading with him to trust her, he had repaid her love and sacrifice with vile suspicion.
Ford thrust his mother’s locket and marriage certificate back in the teak box and slammed the lid on them. He did not need that damning piece of paper to prove he was a bastard—his contemptible behaviour spoke for itself.
When morning dawned at last, Ford put on his hat and greatcoat and spent several hours roaming the chalk cliffs, listening to the remorseful lament of the sea. He tried to rally his spirit with the reminder that he had faced ruin once before only to overcome it.
Then he recalled what had saved him before—his intense twisted passion for Laura, his obsession with reclaiming her and proving himself worthy of her.
That very objective proved quite the opposite. No man who viewed the woman he professed to love as a possession to be won or lost could truly be worthy of her. Least of all if that woman was Laura. From the depths of his exhaustion and anguish, the dark siren song of despair urged Ford to hurl himself to the rocks below. That way Laura would be free of him, as she deserved, and he might escape the disgrace and loss of everything that made living worthwhile.
He might have gone through with it if he had not reflected on what it would mean for Laura. She would be engulfed in scandal, the object of malicious gossip. With Hawkesbourne gone to its rightful heir and his fortune forfeit to the Crown, she would be dependent on the Crawfords’ charity. Worst of all, she might hold herself to blame for his death, her spirits forever shrouded in unmerited guilt when she deserved all the happiness in the world.
In the end, he concluded there was only one way he could begin to repay Laura for every contemptible thing he’d done to her and every good thing she had tried to do for him. Now that he knew the truth, he could not continue to live at Hawkesbourne and carry a title that rightly belonged to someone else. But he would not entangle Laura in his disgrace, or encumber her with a husband who never had been, and never would be, worthy of her.
If she had any sense, she would walk out on him now without a backward glance. But she had given him too many undeserved opportunities to redeem himself in the past. He could not take the risk that she might find it in her bountiful heart to forgive him one time too many.
The greatest kindness he could do her now would be to make her hate him.
Ford must hate her, as she’d been certain he would. Laura stifled a yawn as she picked at an array of her favorite foods Cook had prepared for tea. But must he torment her by riding away with no hint of his destination or when he intended to return…if ever?
She had scarcely slept or eaten since he’d gone. She walked through the house with quiet steps, seldom raising her voice above a murmur. It felt almost as if she were holding her breath, waiting for the storm to break or the axe to fall.
Of course she had only to send word and her family would have rallied around to offer their support. But she could not face Sidney’s bafflement, Belinda’s grieved looks or Susannah’s probing questions. They were so happy again after many years of grief and worry. She could not bear to spoil it. Besides, she was accustomed to shouldering her troubles alone.
But not altogether alone.
The servants knew something was wrong, as they might have guessed during her marriage to Cyrus. But they did not intrude with questions or unsought advice. Instead they went about their work as quiet as ghosts, closing ranks protectively around her. Cook prepared the most tempting dishes at mealtimes while Mr Pryce hovered nearby, more solicitous than ever. Though he never presumed to intrude upon Laura’s privacy, his manner invited any confidence she might wish to share.
When, three
long days after Ford’s abrupt departure, Mr Pryce entered the dining room with a brisk, purposeful stride, Laura sensed he bore some news. She tensed, waiting to hear it.
“Lord Kingsfold has returned, my lady.” There could be no mistaking the relief in the butler’s tone. “He awaits you in the drawing room, at your convenience.”
Laura let out a shaky breath. At least Ford was alive. After the shock of discovering that he was not the legitimate heir to the Kingsfold lands and title, she’d feared he might do something desperate. But his request to see her in the drawing room, like a stranger come calling, did not bode well. Surely if he understood why she’d acted as she had, he would have come to her himself, without any formality.
A vindictive impulse urged her to keep him waiting while she changed into her finest clothes, dressed her hair and perhaps resorted to a subtle application of paint to hide the dark shadows beneath her eyes. Perhaps if Ford spent an hour pacing the drawing room, wondering when she would come, he might have a taste of what the past three days had been like for her.
But she was tired of playing tit-for-tat. It had never done anything but build thicker walls between them. With their marriage hanging in the balance, there had never been a more vital need to show forbearance.
“I will come at once.” Laura rose from her chair and smoothed out her skirts. With her insides constricted as tight as they’d been on the day Ford first returned to Hawkesbourne, she headed to the drawing room.
Seven months after that first encounter, the place looked altogether different. The furniture had emerged from beneath its dust covers to stand proudly, all cleaned and polished. The new window curtains were open, letting in plenty of pale November daylight. A fire burned in the marble hearth, taking the chill off the air.
But when Ford turned from the window, he looked far too much like the cold, enigmatic stranger who’d returned from India with unknown plans for her.
“Welcome home.” Laura tried to make her greeting sound warm and sincere, but the sight of him roused all her old wariness. “Are you hungry? Cook made twice too much for tea and I fear I have not done it justice.”
“Later, perhaps. First there are some matters we must settle.” Ford strode toward her, coming to a halt two arms’ length away. From behind his back he drew a paper Laura recognised from its charred edge. Grasping one corner between his fingertips, he held it out to her.
She was able to take hold of the other side without any danger of their hands touching. “What do you want me to do with this?”
Once the paper was in her possession, Ford lowered his arm and thrust his hands behind his back. “Precisely what you have done so well for the past seven years, for a little longer.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I am surprised. I thought a clever woman like you would have worked out what must be done now. I want you to keep my mother’s marriage certificate away from prying eyes until after the New Year, by which time I will be on a ship back to Singapore, where the scandal will scarcely signify.”
“And after that?”
“Oh, please don’t be tiresome. After that you will present this evidence of my bastardy to the Court of Chancery, so the Kingsfold title and estates can be given over to their rightful heir. In exchange for this service, I will put a sum of money on deposit for you with a reputable London banker, which should keep you in comfort for the rest of your life. I will also give you your freedom. You need not feel bound by the marriage vows neither of us meant. I certainly will not. In a few years, once the scandal has died down, I can return and sue for divorce, if you wish to remarry.”
The word divorce jolted Laura out of her daze and unlocked her lips. “I do not want a divorce and I do not want your money! Do you think I kept this so I could blackmail you with it?” She held the paper away from her as if it were contaminated with some horrible pestilence.
Ford ignored her question, addressing himself to her denial instead. “If you do not want money or your freedom, what in blazes do you want?”
Had the shock and disillusionment of the past few days made him forget the sweet, fleeting happiness they’d found together?
“I want you.” Laura struggled to hold on to her memories of a very different man than the one who stood before her now, making such a repugnant offer. She had to believe the other Ford was inside him somewhere, imprisoned by pride or pain. For both their sakes, she must try to reach him. “I want us to be happy together again, like we were before…this. We can be again, now that everything is out in the open and there are no more secrets between us.”
She searched his eyes for a glimpse of the man who had made her mother’s last months so rich and full. The one who’d ridden out in the rain to find her and fetch her home. The one who’d defended her against Lord Henry’s insults. The one who’d demonstrated so delightfully how a man’s hands could bring her pleasure instead of pain.
But he had disappeared behind a hard, cool wall of jade green.
Perhaps for ever.
Never had Ford needed his iron self-control more than at that moment. He prayed it would hold long enough for him to do what he must.
Lifting his chin, he forced himself to stare at Laura. Memories of their brief happiness tormented him, but he channelled his pain into a glare of arrogant hostility. “You are mistaken in supposing no more secrets remain between us. Now that yours has been disclosed at last, I believe the time is ripe to reveal mine.”
“I knew there must be something. How dare you condemn me for keeping secrets when you had your own to hide?” Laura steeled herself against the expected blow. “What is it, then?”
He wished he could spare her any further suffering, but it was the only way to spare her a lifetime of shame and regret. “The true reason I wanted to marry you, of course. Never quite satisfied with my explanations, were you? You should not have been so easily diverted. More than once I feared you might worm it out of me.”
“Worm what?” Laura looked dubious. He would have to make his performance very convincing. “What reason?”
“Revenge, of course.” He rolled the word around on his tongue as if it had the sweetest flavour, rather than the most revolting. “Revenge for jilting me and stealing my inheritance. I spent seven years laying my plans and making my fortune in order to carry them out.”
Strained and tired as she looked, Laura did not flinch. “Marriage to you was supposed to be my punishment, was it? I fear you miscalculated there. After my marriage to Cyrus, these past weeks as your wife have been like heaven. Until now.”
Her words caught him like a cricket bat to the knees. He did not want to hear that he’d made her happy. Neither could he bear to be reminded of the dizzying, delicious joy she’d brought into his life. Such thoughts only made it harder to do what he must.
“I will be the first to admit my revenge has not gone entirely according to plan. There have been a number of unforeseen departures.” Ford ground out the most agonising words he’d ever had to speak. “My original intent was to wed you so I could take control of the money you’d inherited from my cousin. I did not plan on finding it gone.”
“That was Cyrus’s doing!” Laura’s heavenly eyes flashed with pure, righteous anger. “I only took a pittance to provide for my mother and sisters. And what I needed to pay my father’s debts.”
“Spent is spent.” Ford shrugged with what he hoped was convincing scorn. “Though I calculate I have taken sufficient pleasure in your bed to compensate me for the monetary loss.”
No matter how great the necessity, it would be impossible for him to deny their rapturous passion. The best—or the worst—he could do was pretend the pleasure they’d shared had meant nothing more. Even that taxed his resolve to its limits.
Two bright spots flamed in Laura’s cheeks. “If you expect me to be flattered by that despicable remark, you are the most loathsome scoundrel who ever deceived a woman.”
She squared her shoulders and skewered him with an icy glare. “Y
ou can have nothing more to say that I wish to hear. I am going to Lyndhurst. As far as I am concerned, this wicked fraud of a marriage is over.”
He had achieved his purpose. But he could not take the chance that Laura might relent at some later date. Or was he only seeking to steal one last precious memory with which to torture himself?
“Must you go?” Seizing her by the wrist, he pulled her into a forceful embrace. “The other compensation I sought from you was an heir. It hardly matters now, I suppose, that the child would have no title or estate to inherit. Still, I might as well salvage what I can from this wicked fraud of a marriage.”
The black depth of his cruelty must have shocked her speechless. Or perhaps, in spite of everything he had done to destroy her feelings for him, a wayward spark of desire still smouldered. For an instant, Laura froze in his arms, mute and yielding.
Before she had time to recover her wits, Ford forced a harsh, blistering kiss upon her. Thrusting his tongue between her lips, he scoured her mouth, desperate to drive her away for ever. And to brand the taste of her upon his memory.
The next instant he felt a stinging pain as she struck him on one cheek, then the other. Again and again. Harder and harder.
“You wretched, selfish brute!” She punctuated her words with a rain of blows. “I never did anything to deserve such treatment from you! You should thank me on your knees for trying to protect you! How could I have been such a daft fool to trust you? You are worse than Cyrus. At least he never tricked me into loving him!”
With no more warning than when she had launched her attack, Laura stopped. Turning away from him she wrenched the drawing-room door open, then slammed it shut behind her.