Julia London 4 Book Bundle

by The Rogues of Regent Street

  She ran until she reached the manor grounds, stopping just below the gardens to press her hand to a stitch in her side as she tried to catch her breath.

  “Lilliana? Are you all right?”

  Oh God, not now, not today. Lilliana turned reluctantly toward the sound of the voice. “Benedict,” she gasped. “We weren’t expecting you.”

  He came forward, his hand falling on the small of her back as he leaned over to peer in her face. “What have you done, run from the lake?” he asked. “What on earth is the matter?”

  Perhaps it was the concern in his voice, or maybe just the need to hear the truth spoken out loud. “It’s … it’s Adrian! He can see!” she said, and instantly pressed her hand against the stabbing pain in her side. “Everything! Every blasted thing around us, he can see!” She caught a sob in her throat and swallowed hard against the emotion boiling within her.

  Benedict did not immediately respond. His hand slipped around her waist, and he attempted to pull her into an embrace, but she resisted. He settled for stroking her arm. “There now, Lillie,” he said softly. “This is wonderful news. I should think you would be happy for him.”

  “I am happy for him! I am ecstatically happy! God knows how I have prayed for such a miracle!” she cried.

  “Then what has you so upset?”

  “He didn’t tell me! He has known for days, and he didn’t tell me!”

  “Do you mean to say …” He paused. “Dear God, he didn’t tell you? I thought surely … But never mind. The important thing is that he has regained his sight.”

  He thought surely … what? Lilliana snapped her head up to look at him; Benedict’s brown eyes flicked to her lips. “You thought surely what?” she demanded.

  He shrugged; a queer smile snaked his mouth. “This is wonderful news, of course—”

  “You thought what?” she demanded again, and slapped his hand from her arm, stumbling backward.

  “I thought surely he would tell you before now,” he said slowly.

  Impossible! Adrian had told Benedict? He had confided in his brother when he had last called, but not his wife? Painful fury shot through her. “Would you have me believe you knew?” she asked, her voice breaking.

  “Ah, Lillie, I hate to see you so distraught.”

  “Did you know?” she shrieked.

  Benedict shrugged helplessly. “I am his brother.”

  That was it? That was his explanation for Adrian’s lie to her—that he was his brother? By God, what was she? Some country bumpkin who happened to live at Longbridge? What a colossal fool she was! AH those nights she had lain in his arms convinced that he loved her as much as she loved him! She knew better than to believe a leopard could change his spots!

  Infuriated, she began marching toward the house.

  “Lilliana! Wait!” Benedict called. “Believe me, I have tried to tell you!”

  That brought her up short. She jerked around and raked a scathing glare across him. “You have tried to tell me what?” she snapped. “That my husband could actually see me when I thought I was private?”

  “I tried to tell you that he could not be trusted,” he said gruffly. Unwilling and unable to hear his insinuations now, Lilliana rolled her eyes and continued toward the house. Benedict caught up to her. “I tried to tell you, but you would not listen! Lilliana, I have known him all my life! Adrian thinks of no one but himself—he cannot be trusted, he has alienated everyone who ever loved him, and he will lie to you without thought or reason!”

  “What in God’s name are you doing?” she exclaimed, and halted midstride to face him. “Why do you seek to denigrate him?”

  “Denigrate him? Are you truly so naive? I am trying to keep you from hurt! My only hope is that you will understand him as I do so you will not allow yourself to be hurt by him! Lilliana, think about it! He has never been truthful! Do you know why he married you? Do you truly know why?”

  She faltered, ashamed to admit that she did.

  “It was sick revenge,” Benedict continued hastily. “A strike against me because Father had disowned him. Oh, I am sure he has told you that Father is overbearing, distrustful, and God knows what else! Believe me, I have heard it many times! But on my honor, my father raised him like his very own son! He gave him every opportunity, every chance to be his heir, and Adrian squandered every one! It was he who caused the rift between them, not Father! It was he who had a quarrel with Rothembow, not the other way around! He will twist everything to suit his own ends, including something as tragic as his blindness! Why do you think he didn’t tell you?”

  “I … I don’t know,” Lilliana stammered helplessly.

  Benedict grabbed her shoulders and shook her. “For chrissakes, Lilliana, open your eyes! Why didn’t he tell you? To keep you exactly where he wanted you, don’t you see that? He needed you! If you left him, Father’s chances in the courts would be much improved, for what wife would leave her husband? It is unheard of, and it would prove he cannot provide as he should!”

  No! This was too fantastic, complete madness—she shook her head, but Benedict stubbornly dug his fingers into her shoulders. “Appearances mean much to the peerage, Lilliana. He needed you by his side for the sake of appearances. Nothing more!”

  Everyone around her was mad, she thought frantically, and something … something did not make sense. “If you care so much for me, why didn’t you tell me?” she demanded.

  Benedict immediately let go, frowning at her. “Because he told me in the strictest of confidence, and I am a man of my word. Besides, you are his wife, not mine,” he ground out. “It was not my place.”

  There was something in the way he said it, a twinge of bitterness that did not ring true. “Excuse me.” She stepped around him and hurried on to the house, suddenly sick to death of the Spence family and their mysteries.

  Their mysteries kept her pacing in her rooms for the better part of the afternoon. Twice she turned Adrian away, too confused and hurt to speak to him. Frantic, she tried to find a plausible reason why he would keep his sight from her, trying gamely not to think about other secrets he might have kept from her. And then there was Benedict—as detestable as his words were, could he be telling the truth? The truth is that my father raised him as his very own son. Could Adrian lie so easily? Adrian is not to be trusted. She could not help herself; she questioned everything he had ever told her. The sad tales about his mother, about Phillip Rothembow. Was any of it true?

  One of the Spence brothers was lying to her.

  All right, all right, she had to think. One of them was lying. Certainly Adrian was—his so-called blindness was a testament to his lies. No, she was the one who had been blind to everything around her. She was the one who had stupidly married for freedom and the chance to soar. But marriage was not about freedom, it was about honesty. And loyalty and commitment—concepts that had never crossed her mind until now. These concepts struck at her with a vengeance now because she understood she had signed over her fate to the notion of amusement!

  Well, there you had it. Everything that soars must eventually come down. She had come down, all right, like the little sparrow that had plummeted to earth in her mother’s garden. Adrian had lied to her while garnering her deepest sympathies. And in the course of it, he had blithely enchanted her, had made her fall hopelessly in love with him.

  Oh, and there was Benedict, too, always charming, always present, doing nothing that would suggest he would be lying. But something about him rang false. Could it be Benedict’s own need for revenge had caused him to try and poison the well of her feelings for Adrian?

  And swirling in the middle of it all was the question of Adrian’s birth. His birth was the very root of dissension between the two brothers, the very reason Adrian had married her to avenge the loss of his inheritance. Yet even here—there was something about the supposition that Adrian was illegitimate that did not seem quite right. It was nothing more than a vague intuition that had been bothering her, but—

 
; Polly.

  It was Polly! Lilliana suddenly realized. Adrian had said his mother was an only child. Polly often spoke of the girls. Lilliana suddenly pitched for the door of her rooms and went in search of her lady’s maid.

  She found her sewing contentedly in her rooms with her mending ankle propped on a tiny little stool. “Good afternoon, milady,” she said cheerfully after bidding Lilliana to enter. “It’s early yet, isn’t it? I shall be down to tend you at five o’clock, just as I always do,” she said, glancing at a clock.

  “Polly, do you recall the painting in the gallery I mentioned to you?”

  “Of Ladies Evelyn and Allison? Fine painting it is too.”

  Lilliana hastily moved to her vanity, grabbed the bench there, and dragged it to where Polly sat. “Who are Evelyn and Allison?” she asked.

  Polly grinned. “Why Lord Albright’s girls, of course! Darling little girls, they were.”

  “Were they cousins?”

  The woman snorted. “They were sisters, Lady Albright!” she exclaimed, and shook her head at what she obviously considered a ridiculous question.

  “Lord Albright believes his mother was an only child,” she stated, and watched Polly’s gray brows arch high, almost into her receding hairline.

  “Beggin’ your pardon, mum, but that’s silliness. Of course Lady Kealing had a sister! The two were thick as thieves!”

  At that bit of information Lilliana eagerly leaned forward. “What happened to them?”

  “Why, what happens to all young girls, naturally. Lady Evelyn, she went off and married Lord Kealing, and Lady Allison, she went off to London. I don’t know after that. The girls never came back to Longbridge, and Lord Albright, well, he wasn’t the talkative sort. I corresponded with Lady Kealing for a time, but she rarely spoke of her sister, not after …” Polly suddenly shifted. “Lady Allison always talked of living in Italy. Perhaps she did.”

  “But don’t you know where she is?”

  “No, milady. It’s been more than thirty years now.” A slight frown creased Polly’s brow for a moment before she resumed her sewing. “Ah, but they were the loveliest girls in the parish. Lady Evelyn was the youngest, and she was married first. Lady Allison left about the same time.”

  “But I don’t understand! Why wouldn’t Adrian know of his aunt?” Lillian insisted to the wall.

  Polly’s frown deepened. “You’ll have to ask him.”

  Ask him indeed.

  Lilliana left Polly’s rooms, lost in thought as she slowly made her way to her own rooms. It was as if pieces of a puzzle were scattered across her mind—the portrait of two girls at Longbridge, the portrait at Kealing Park of a man who so closely resembled Adrian. The paintings somehow fit together, she was certain, but for the life of her she could not see how.

  The afternoon was proving unbearable for Adrian. Having followed Lilliana to the house after retrieving their things, the first thing he had to do was face the dozens of servants and accept their congratulations for the miraculous recovery of his sight. He felt almost sinister, as if he had perpetrated some fantastic scheme on all of them. More than one looked at him a bit suspiciously, and who could blame them? What blind man went out for a picnic and came back with his sight fully restored? Still others marveled at the glory of God, insisting that he had been blessed. That was almost cruel—he wasn’t blessed, he was doomed.

  The second thing he had to do was face Benedict, who had appeared unannounced, as he was increasingly fond of doing, without invitation, and strutting about the place as if he owned it. Oh, but Benedict was in fine form. After proclaiming himself to be ecstatically happy about Adrian’s restored sight—and naturally, the end to Archie’s ridiculous suit, Benedict chatted easily about his attempts to soothe Lilliana, not caring who heard, and describing in great detail her pretty, tear-filled eyes. But he assured Adrian he had done his best to comfort her. Adrian could just imagine that he had. Now that he could actually see Benedict again, he did not trust him for a moment. Yet that ignoble thought made him cringe with self-loathing. Where was the mercy he was so intent on showing Benedict? Where was the benefit of the doubt?

  His insides felt as if they had rotted, but as the afternoon wore on he grew more distrustful of everyone around him. Damn it, he had seen the shadows of his wife and his brother together when they had thought he was blind. And as much as he would love to dispel that suspicion, Lilliana had locked the damned door to her rooms and refused to speak to him. And just what had he done that was so horrible? Could she not understand how awesome the gift of sight could be to a blind man? Could she at least attempt to comprehend how he might have felt at that moment?

  Or was there another reason she was so angry?

  When she came down to supper—wearing a rich blue brocade gown that hugged her curves and succeeded in lighting a torch in him—she walked past him with just a flick of her eyes. She glided to a seat across from Benedict, who immediately engaged her in some pointless chatter until Adrian thought he might explode. How he endured the meal, he hardly knew. It was impossible to take his eyes from her. God, oh God, how could he have missed her natural elegance? In the warm light of the candelabrum, her porcelain skin and rosy blush made her look ravishing. Her hair had grown well past her shoulders, and she swept it back and up in a very simple but graceful style. The Princess was gorgeous, he realized with a jolt.

  Benedict saw it too.

  Hell, he not only saw it, he catered to it. When they retired to the green drawing room after supper, his brother proceeded to practically make love to his wife right before his very eyes! He spoke softly to her, constantly touching her hand, her shoulder, her knee. He laughed at the things she said, hung on every word that fell from those full lips. Lilliana responded politely, Adrian noticed, but was never coy. Was her restraint for his benefit? Just what had gone on while he had been blind? As hard as he fought it, he was growing furiously jealous of Lilliana’s dimpled smile, particularly when that smile shone upon the weakling Benedict, no matter how briefly.

  When at last it came time to retire, Adrian made his way to his rooms after Lilliana had gone up, an irrational anger mounting in him with every step. His crime was not so great to warrant such cool haughtiness from her. Granted, he should have told her about his sight, but he could hardly see how that should condemn him. Perhaps he had misjudged her—perhaps she was much shallower than he had recently come to believe. Or was she perhaps more conniving than he had thought, even angry that they could no longer carry on their little affair right under his nose? He was uncertain about everything. Except that he was furious. And that his head was killing him.

  Fury pushed him to crash through the door of his rooms, shove out of his coat and drop it on the floor. He did the same with his neckcloth, practically clawing it from his neck, and then his waistcoat, which he also carelessly discarded onto the floor. All of this he did as he walked to the door to her rooms. God help her if he found it locked, he thought, and shoved hard against it. The door swung open, bouncing against the wall.

  At her dressing table, Lilliana shrieked and whirled around, bringing a hand to her throat. “You startled me!”

  Adrian clenched his jaw and surveyed the room as he made a half-assed attempt to get hold of himself. Honestly, he did not want to get hold of himself! He had been blinded for two months and had regained his sight, and he was not the villain here! And he had thought her so passionate, so extraordinarily forgiving. “You owe me a bloody apology,” he said through clenched teeth.

  Her eyes widened with shock, then narrowed dangerously. “I owe you an apology?”

  He walked farther into the room, facing her with arms akimbo and legs braced apart. “First and foremost for locking your door to me. Don’t ever lock your door to me,” he growled. “This is my house and you are my wife. I will enter here when I bloody well please.”

  Lilliana slowly rose, her hand gripping a hairbrush so tightly he could see the white of her knuckles. “The inventory of your chatt
el is duly noted. Is there anything else?”

  “Oh yes, madam, there certainly is,” he snarled. “You further owe me apology for having behaved so childishly today.”

  She gasped with outrage. “I beg your pardon?”

  “You heard me. Funny, isn’t it, that I should think my wife would be grateful my sight had returned? Yet I find myself wondering why she is incensed that I can see her!”

  “You must be out of your mind!” she snapped, and slapped the brush down hard on the vanity. “Of course I am grateful, but you are forgetting one important fact, Adrian. You lied to me! You didn’t tell me your sight was restored, and I can only presume it was because you were too preoccupied with spying on me and everyone else on this estate!”

  “I walked around this estate seeing nothing, hardly trusting what I was seeing! Do you have any idea how many images I saw in my mind while I was blind? Hundreds of them! Images so real that I questioned my own sanity! When my sight began to come back, I could not be sure it wasn’t my mind conjuring up those very same images!”

  “I am quite certain,” she said raggedly, “that it was traumatic. I could never have endured what you did, or as bravely as you did! But the fact remains that you did not trust me enough to tell me! Nothing has changed, Adrian, and I honestly thought it had!” she cried. “This … this is not about your sight, it’s about us. About you and me, and your ability to trust me, to be honest with me! You were spying on me!” she cried, and swiped angrily at a tear that spilled from one eye.

  “God in heaven, I was not spying on you!” he roared to the ceiling. “I have tried to explain to the best of my ability why I didn’t tell you! Oh, but you have made it exceedingly clear that you don’t like the reason, Lilliana. And I cannot help but wonder why you are so god-dammed intent on not believing me! Perhaps you are the one who is hiding something!”