by Mary Balogh
“Rex heard what I called her, I suppose?” he asked half hopefully.
“He heard,” Lord Pelham told him.
“And it came as a surprise to him.” He did not have to frame the words as a question.
“Rex could never tread the boards,” Mr. Gascoigne said. “He is not a good enough actor.”
And yet he acted well enough for the rest of the day, smiling and welcoming and solicitous of his wife’s comfort. She was a beauty, too, as his friends had told Kenneth and as he remembered himself from six years ago. She was dark-haired and hazel-eyed.
But they could not stay at Stratton. Despite Rex’s near-perfect acting, they agreed that there was an almost unbearable tension between Rex and his wife. The best they could do was to leave them alone, pretend that they had come merely for a day or two on their way to London.
And so to London they went the day following the next, even though Lord Rawleigh took them aside first of all and assured them that he knew his wife’s story—that he had always known it. She had told him some time yesterday, then, they had understood. Kenneth almost forgot his own troubles in the terrible embarrassment of his faux pas. He was dreadfully afraid that he had wrecked a marriage that had probably had a shaky start, anyway. But how could Lady Catherine have married Rex without telling him about her disgrace? And how would Rex react to discovering the truth now when he was already married to her? It was none of his business, of course, Kenneth tried to tell himself.
But it became his business a little more than a week later. Viscount Rawleigh and his wife had appeared unexpectedly in town only a couple of days after his own arrival, and now Rex had asked his three friends if they would be sure to attend the Mindell ball, to which he had determined to take Lady Rawleigh, even though the chances were strong that the ton would cut her acquaintance. He wanted as much moral support—and enough dancing partners for his wife—as he could gather about him.
The ball took on even more significance when another guest arrived late—Sir Howard Copley, the very man who had ruined Lady Rawleigh six years before. The lady herself did not see him as she was dancing when he arrived, and he disappeared to the card room on catching sight of her. But a quick conference among the four friends determined a plan of action. Kenneth was the one elected to dance the following quadrille with Lady Rawleigh while the other three left the ballroom. After the set was over, Lord Pelham told him the expected news: The duel was to take place early on the morning after next. Eden was Rex’s official second, but Nat and Kenneth would go too, of course.
Dunbarton and Kenneth’s own frustrations had been pushed from his conscious mind. They had become only a nagging heaviness to cause him considerable sleeplessness at night and troubled dreams when he did sleep. Rex’s problems were so much more real than his own. One thing had become very clear during the past week: Rex was obviously desperately in love with his wife, and if Kenneth’s guess was not far from the mark, she returned the feeling. It was a happy realization—if Rex lived. He had escaped death a thousand times during the wars, of course, and was an expert marksman—the duel was to be fought with pistols. But one could be sure of nothing in a duel, especially with a blackguard like Copley as the opponent. It was said, probably quite correctly, that Lady Rawleigh had not been his only victim.
The following day—the one before the duel—was endless. Lady Rawleigh had invited her husband’s three friends to dinner, and they sat over it and in the drawing room afterward, talking and laughing and reminiscing—at her request. She wanted to know about their years together, she insisted. It was by all appearances a jolly evening, but Kenneth was thoroughly weary and worried by the time he arrived home. If he had been the one facing tomorrow’s duel, he would have felt sick and nervous and terrified. But they would at least have been familiar feelings. He had felt them before every battle he had fought, and would defy any soldier to boast that he had not shared those feelings. But he would have known, too, that once the danger became real and was to be faced, a cold concentration would take the place of all the negative feelings and his right arm would be as steady as a rock. But he was not the one facing the duel. It was harder to know that one would have to stand helplessly to one side and watch a man take aim at the heart of one’s closest friend.
He almost did not open the package that had arrived from Dunbarton during the day, addressed in the neat hand of his steward. It could wait. He would not be able to concentrate on business matters tonight. But neither would he be able to sleep, he realized. His mind was agitated. Perhaps reading a few dull reports would calm him. Perhaps—forlorn hope—they would even lull him to sleep. He opened the package to find the expected contents—and a sealed letter addressed in a different hand. A female hand, if he was not mistaken. Curiosity made him open it before he read anything else.
“My lord,” she had written, “I have ended my betrothal to Sir Edwin Baillie. I am three months with child. This is not a plea for help. I have, however, come to the conclusion that you have a right to know. Your obedient servant, Moira Hayes.”
He stared at the letter for several minutes before folding it carefully into its original creases and then crumpling it hard in one hand and hurling it across the room. Three months. The damned woman. The bitch! Three bloody months? His hand clenched into a hard fist and he closed his eyes tightly.
When had he asked her about her condition? It had been in the valley at the end of January. Two months ago—longer. She must have known already then. He had asked her right out. Of course not, she had said. What a ridiculous notion. He could see now the look of proud disdain on her face. And yet she must have known even then. And at Trevellas’s, only a week before he left Dunbarton, she had said nothing. He had spoken to her, tried to be kind to her, tried to free her from her guilt, and all she had done was look defiant and pretend to have forgotten the incident. She had been almost three months with child.
The damned—bitch!
She had waited until he went away to inform him coolly and curtly that she was three months with child and to assure him that she was making no plea for help. She had signed herself very formally as his obedient servant.
“Obedient.” He had said the word aloud through clenched teeth. “Obedient indeed, Miss Moira Hayes. For the rest of your wretched life, I swear. You may thank providence that you are not within reach of my hands at this moment. You may pray that my temper will have cooled by the time I reach Cornwall.”
A license, he thought. He would need a special license. He would get one as soon as possible in the morning and be on his way. But Rex was to fight a duel early tomorrow morning. Perhaps he would not survive it. There would be a funeral. . . .
He surged to his feet and dragged the fingers of both hands through his hair. “God damn it to hell!” he said aloud. He swore even more profanely. There would be no passion lacking in his marriage, anyway, he thought grimly and laughed aloud. It would be the passion of intense hatred.
His marriage. His marriage! He was going to be a married man. He was going to be a father in six months’ time. And Moira Hayes was making no plea for his help.
“God damn you,” he whispered. “Damn you, Moira.”
* * *
REX Adams, Viscount Rawleigh, survived the duel he fought against Sir Howard Copley. Sir Howard did not—and did not deserve to, for in addition to his past sins, which were legion, he broke the rules of the duel and fired his pistol prematurely, before the signal was given. He wounded Lord Rawleigh in the right arm but did not incapacitate him. He was then forced to stand and wait while his opponent took slow and careful aim, paused as if considering whether he should shoot to kill or merely to wound, and proceeded to kill him.
Mr. Gascoigne had aimed another gun at Copley after he had fired and the shocking red stain of blood had spread on the viscount’s shirtsleeve. Kenneth and Lord Pelham had stood frozen. They had not known how severe the wound was.
; But after it was all over, Rex came striding toward them, his expression grim, and began to dress without a glance at the surgeon and what he and Copley’s second were doing over the body. He did have to turn sharply away before his coat was on to vomit into the grass, but it was a reaction to a battle just fought that was familiar to all of them. One never became quite hardened either to facing death or to meting it out.
“Breakfast,” he said, his face ashen and resolute when he was dressed again. “At White’s?”
“At White’s.” Mr. Gascoigne slapped a friendly hand on his left shoulder. “He would not have lived, anyway, Rex. I would have done it if you had not.”
“Perhaps my house instead of White’s,” Lord Pelham said. “A little more privacy and all that.”
Kenneth drew in a deep breath. “I have to leave immediately,” he said. “I have to return to Dunbarton.”
He would have avoided this if he could, but of course it was impossible. They all turned and looked at him in some surprise.
“To Dunbarton?” Lord Rawleigh said, frowning. “Now, Ken? This morning? Even before breakfast? I thought you were here for the rest of the Season.”
It was suddenly starkly real, now that he had to put it into words. “There was a letter waiting for me when I arrived home last evening,” he said. He tried to smile but realized the impossibility of hiding his true feelings from these men who knew him almost as well as he knew himself. “It appears that I am to be a father in six months’ time.”
There was a strange stillness, considering the fact that there were four of them standing there and that a duel had just been fought. The surgeon was still kneeling beside Sir Howard Copley’s body.
“Who?” Lord Pelham asked at last. “Anyone we met when we were there, Ken? A lady?”
“No one you met,” Kenneth said grimly. “A lady, yes. I have to go home to marry her.”
“Dare I comment on the fact that you do not appear thrilled?” Mr. Gascoigne said, frowning. All of them were looking at him with the same puzzled concern in their eyes.
He laughed. “Her family and mine have been enemies for as long as I can remember,” he said. “I do not believe I have ever disliked a woman more than I dislike her. And she is with child by me. I must marry her. Wish me joy.” He laughed again and felt intensely disloyal. He had had no business saying that, even to his closest friends.
“Ken,” Lord Rawleigh said, “what are we missing?”
But he had said enough. Too much. She was to be his wife, and he had told them how much he disliked her. And Eden had called her a pale scarecrow and a colorless cadaver. “Nothing that I care to divulge,” he said. “I have to be going. I am glad things turned out as they did this morning, Rex. Have that arm seen to before you leave here. I am glad you did not shoot into the air. I feared you would. Rapists do not deserve to live.”
He strode away in the direction of his horse. He did not look back. There was a license to be purchased. It should not take long. Then there was a long journey to be made in as much haste as he could muster.
And at the end of the journey there was a woman to confront. Moira Hayes. His future wife. The mother of his child. God help her—and him.
14
SIR Edwin Baillie had replied at some length to Moira’s letter. He commended Miss Hayes on being a woman of more than usual sensibilities. She must have realized, he wrote, that he had regretted the impulsiveness with which he had sought his own felicity at a time when his dear mother had been gravely ill. Miss Hayes must have realized the guilt that his own gratified affections had aroused in his bosom when he had three orphaned sisters under his protection and guidance. And so Miss Hayes had had the courage and the selflessness and the kindness to release him from his commitment. She and her esteemed mama would do him the honor of considering Penwith Manor their home, at least until he felt free to renew his addresses—perhaps in a year or two’s time. He remained their humble and obedient servant.
“It is a remarkably civil letter,” Lady Hayes said when she had read it. “And so we may relax here for another year or two, Moira.”
“Yes,” her daughter said.
“And you can feel that a burden has now been lifted from your shoulders,” her mother said. “Do not imagine, Moira, that I have not realized that guilt and worry have sent you into this decline. Now, finally, you may recover your health. Have you been taking the tonic Mr. Ryder prescribed?”
Moira smiled noncommittally. She would give the Earl of Haverford two weeks, she had decided. After that, there could be no more delay. Her mother at least would have to know. Indeed, if such a thing were not so completely unthinkable, she would doubtless already suspect. Despite an overall loss of weight, Moira’s abdomen was softly swelling beneath her fashionably loose-fitting, high-waisted dresses.
She had seen the anxiety in her mother’s eyes. She knew that her mother feared for her and tried to convince herself that the spring air and the tonic—and now the release from stress that Sir Edwin’s letter had brought—would bring back the bloom of good health. It was unfair of her to allow Mama to fear that she was dying when she might have explained the true cause of her indisposition.
She had come to despise herself.
It was a particularly wet afternoon in early April when he came. There was no possibility of going out and no chance that visitors would venture all the way to Penwith. Besides, Moira was not sure how ready their neighbors were to call on them, even in the best of weather. She had told Harriet that her betrothal had been ended, by mutual consent, and had permitted her friend to pass on the news. Doubtless everyone knew by now. Moira sat with her mother in the sitting room embroidering while the rain beat so hard against the window that it was impossible even to gaze out into the garden.
She raised her head and listened for a moment. A carriage? But they were at the back of the house and the rain was loud. It would have been next to impossible to hear a carriage. Besides, it would be a risky business to try to bring a carriage along the valley. She lowered her head and plied her needle again, only to jerk her head up once more when there was the unmistakable sound of the knocker banging against the front door.
“Why, who can be visiting on a day like today?” Lady Hayes said, brightening considerably. She threaded her needle through her own work, set it aside, and rose to her feet just before the maid opened the sitting room door.
“The Earl of Haverford, ma’am,” she said and stood aside.
There was no time for any reaction. He strode into the sitting room on the girl’s heels. He looked tall, elegant, virile, and coldly angry, Moira thought, sucking in her breath and holding it.
“Lady Hayes?” He clicked his booted heels together and made her a stiff bow. “Miss Hayes?”
Her mother looked quite startled, Moira saw. “Why, Lord Haverford,” she said, “this is a dreadful afternoon on which to be out, though we are delighted to see you, of course. Please have a seat.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” he said. “Perhaps you would allow me to have a few moments alone with Miss Hayes. Either here or in another room.”
Lady Hayes looked even more bewildered. “With my daughter, sir?” she said. “Alone?”
But Moira had got to her feet. “It is quite all right, Mama,” she said. “I will take his lordship into Papa’s book room.”
She did not give her mother a chance to protest but moved swiftly across the room to the door, her skirts brushing against the Earl of Haverford as she passed. But he was before her to the door. He opened it for her.
“Thank you, ma’am,” he said to her mother before following Moira across the hall to the book room where her father had spent much of his time while he lived. “I do not anticipate keeping her long away from you.”
Moira hurried into the book room, leaving the door open behind her, and took up her stand before the window. She could scarcely see the grove of t
rees that always made such a pleasant walk on a warm day. The door clicked shut behind her and for a few seconds there was an almost unbearable silence.
“I understand”—his voice was icily cold and almost frighteningly quiet—“that you make no plea for my help.”
She drew breath slowly. “No,” she said.
“But you thought I had a right to know,” he said.
“Yes.”
“I must thank you for your thoughtfulness,” he said.
She licked her lips. She did not know where he was going with this conversation.
“A man does like to know when his bastard is within six months of being born,” he said.
One hand clenched about the edge of the windowsill. “You will not use that word in my hearing,” she said.
“Oh, will I not?” he said. His voice was ominously pleasant. “What, then? A by-blow? You doubtless find that word equally offensive. A love child, then? But he will hardly be that, will he? It was not a love encounter in which he was begotten.”
It was an unexpectedly hurtful remark. “No,” she said. “I have long been aware that you are incapable of love. And there was not even a pretense of it on that night.”
“Why the devil,” he asked, and for the first time he allowed some of his anger into his voice, “did you lie to me, Moira?”
“I did not—” she began, but it was pointless to add lie upon lie.
“I know why you did it.”
She gripped the windowsill with both hands and only just stopped herself from jumping with alarm. His voice had come from just behind her shoulder.
“It was because I told you quite categorically at the Tawmouth assembly that you would marry me if there was a child. It was because I directed you to send for me without delay if you found yourself with child. It was because you would do anything in the world to defy me.”