For now she was free. The clouds that had threatened all day were finally beginning to give way, splattering wet drops on her cloak. She did not look back at the house, nor let herself think that she might never see Geoffrey again. Instead she pulled the hood of her cloak up to shield her face, and with her head bowed against the rain, she hurried away from Bloomsbury Square to look for a hansom cab to take her to an inn near the docks. Tomorrow she would find passage for France, and make her way across the Channel to Calais.
The idea came to her so suddenly that she realized she must have already unconsciously made such a plan for escape. She’d visited often with her aunt, and she was comfortable speaking French. She could live frugally on the sale of her jewels until after her child was born. Then together they would return to Calcutta, where no one ever asked questions of an Englishwoman. If she took another name, she could disappear completely, and never be found.
That is, if Geoffrey bothered to look for her.
Kismet, she thought miserably. Kismet.
“It’s the absolute truth, Harry,” Rivers said, deftly blowing the smoke from his cheroot over the glass of the open carriage window. “Bay horses are slow as mud, and always have been. In all racing history, you’ll never find a bay horse standing to take the cup.”
“What’s the absolute truth, Rivers, is that you are as wise in such matters as that bay horse’s ass,” Harry said crossly, waving his hand through the haze of tobacco smoke. “For God’s sake, must you smoke that infernal sot-weed in my carriage? Even if you have the windows open, the stink clings to the silk panels. You know Gus will sniff it out, and blame me for letting you light the damned thing in the first place.”
Geoffrey leaned forward, frowning as the carriage slowed. “Whose coach is that before my door, taking the space before my curb on a rainy evening?”
“Most likely it belongs to some friend of Serena,” Rivers said blithely. “What a territorial old Turk you’ve become since you wed, Geoffrey! You can’t lay claim to every paving stone as if you’re the everlasting satrap of Bloomsbury Square.”
But Geoffrey wasn’t listening. “Damnation, it’s Radnor. Driver, stop at once! How the devil does he have the audacity to come to my house again?”
Harry grabbed his arm. “Wait until the carriage stops. We’ll be with you to make sure you do nothing rash.”
“But if he’s hurt Serena—”
“Then he’ll answer to all three of us,” Harry said firmly.
Despite the warning, Geoffrey charged into his front hall moments later, prepared for another fight even with his brothers following close at his heels. Yet the scene he found was hardly what he expected. True, Radnor was there, standing to one side, with three strangers and a constable clustered around him.
But there was no sign of Serena. Instead, Colburn was attempting to calm Serena’s lady’s maid, Martha, who was sobbing inconsolably against the shoulder of the housekeeper, Mrs. Harris. Other servants were hovering about in the hall to watch, in the way that servants did.
None of it made any sense, and instinctively Geoffrey began with Radnor.
“Where the devil is my wife?” he demanded. “You were forbidden to enter this house again, Radnor, yet you’ve returned to distress her.”
“I might ask you the same question, Fitzroy,” Radnor said, daring to interrupt Geoffrey. “Where is Serena? Where have you hidden her? You’ll be named as an accomplice, you know.”
“Damn your accomplice!” Geoffrey said furiously, lunging for Radnor, only to be pulled back by his brothers.
“Lady Geoffrey is not here, my lord,” Colburn said, a solemn voice of reason. “We were attempting to determine what has become of her.”
“What in blazes do you mean she’s not here?” Geoffrey demanded, shaking his brothers away. “She can’t simply vanish as if it were some conjurer’s trick.”
“She’s gone, my lord,” Martha said, curtseying even as she wept, her words running together in a teary babble. “She came home in the carriage, and said she wished to rest, and then when she didn’t send for me, I went to make sure she was well, and she was gone. Gone!”
“Gone,” Geoffrey repeated, unable to comprehend. He thought of how he’d seen her last, blushing and laughing as he’d kissed her good-bye. How could she be gone? “How? Where?”
“The driver said she asked to be taken into the park this afternoon, my lord,” Colburn said. “She stopped and spoke with the puppet-master you saw the other day, my lord. The driver says that afterward she appeared most distraught, my lord.”
Geoffrey shook his head in disbelief. It made no sense, none of it. “What possible reason could she have for addressing a one-legged beggar like that?”
That made a fresh torrent of tears flood Martha’s face. “She—she left this for you, my lord,” she said, holding out a single sheet of paper. “This, and her betrothal ring, both on her pillow-bier.”
He took the ring and the paper, and read the hurried words. It was Serena’s handwriting, and Serena’s words as well. But what could she possibly have done to beg his forgiveness? What could have driven her to such an action? If she loved him as she claimed—no, as he knew—then what could have made her flee like this?
He looked down at the ring in his palm, the bright golden stone that was so much like her eyes. She’d left it behind, which hurt. But she must still be wearing her wedding band, which gave him hope.
“We came to ask her certain questions of her past, that is all,” Radnor was saying. “Questions I’ve a right to have answered. But I never intended any harm to her, not like this, and I—”
“Go at once, Radnor,” Geoffrey ordered curtly. “Now.”
Whatever nonsense Radnor was sputtering could wait. All that mattered now was finding Serena.
Serena sat alone in the tiny room, lit by a single candlestick. She’d paid extra for a room that she wouldn’t have to share with other women, for she could not have borne their company, not tonight. As it was, the inn was bustling with other travelers coming and going, the noise unfamiliar to her ears. Tomorrow she would be joining them, sailing on the noon tide; the innkeeper had helped secure her a place on a packet for Calais. He’d told her she was fortunate, very fortunate, for most ships bound for Calais left from Dover, not London. Silently she’d listened to him ramble on, and nodded, and paid him what he’d asked for the service and the passage, but she’d volunteered nothing in return. The less anyone else knew of her, the better.
Now she sat beside the room’s single, narrow window, numb to the world as she watched the rain fall and the twinkle of lights in other windows. She was not tired, and had no desire to sleep on the damp and musty sheets. By luck her room faced the river, and she forced herself to think to the future, and try to forget the past that lay behind her on Bloomsbury Square. From the window she could make out the ships at their moorings in the river, their masts with furled sails like a black forest of leafless trees. The tallest belonged to great ships of the East India Company, the same fleet that had once brought her to London seven years before. She had arrived with few possessions, and she’d leave tomorrow with the same.
The only difference was that this time, she’d be leaving her heart behind with Geoffrey.
It had taken Geoffrey less than an hour to find the one-legged soldier from the puppet-box, here in this grimy, smoke-filled tavern not far from the river. At his father’s insistence, he was accompanied by two large and menacing hired men, while a small legion of their fellows helped comb the city in search of Serena. Geoffrey wasn’t surprised that Father had such men at his disposal—to say the Duke of Breconridge was well connected would be an understatement—but Geoffrey was endlessly grateful that he had.
Now he stood in the small storeroom that the barkeep had provided for privacy in exchange for a few coins while the soldier from the puppet-show sat on a bench before him, nervously rubbing his remaining leg as his gaze shifted from Geoffrey to the two guards and back again.
“I told you, m’lord, I don’t know where her ladyship’s gone,” he whined. “How could I, a poor wretch like me?”
“My driver said she went specifically to speak to you, Abbot,” Geoffrey said curtly, his patience long gone. “Whatever you told her distressed her.”
“Forgive me, m’lord, forgive me,” Abbot said, ducking his head to avoid Geoffrey’s scrutiny. “But how am I to know what a fine lady like that was thinking?”
The guard beside Geoffrey reached out and snatched the man’s hat from his head. “Show more respect to your betters,” he barked. “What do you know of Lady Geoffrey?”
“The barkeep told us you were boasting of becoming a rich man,” Geoffrey said with disgust. “He said you promised you’d buy everyone a dram on tomorrow night. I’d wager that had something to do with my wife.”
Still Abbot didn’t answer, muttering to himself and looking away.
“Tell his lordship what you know,” the guard growled, “or I’ll shake the truth from your worthless body, see if I don’t.”
Abbot looked up at the guard, obviously weighing the consequences, then heaved a great sigh, and swore to himself.
“I’d something her ladyship wished to buy,” he said grudgingly. “Something of great value to her, but to no one else.”
Geoffrey frowned. “What could you possibly possess that would be of any value to my wife?”
“This, m’lord,” Abbot said, fumbling inside his coat and finally pulling out a filthy cloth knotted into a tight, small bundle. He held it up to Geoffrey, who hesitated.
“Go ahead, m’lord, take it,” Abbot said bitterly. “It will be worth my loss to see the look on your face when you unwrap it.”
Unsure what he’d discover, Geoffrey took the bundle and began to pull away the cloth. Something small, hard, and round was wrapped inside. A coin, he guessed, or a medallion. At last the object fell into his palm, a small gold pendant or locket, decorated with bright enamel-work of swirling vines and flowers that had to be Indian.
“Look inside, m’lord,” Abbot urged. “It’s that what made your lady weep.”
Geoffrey flipped open the locket in his hand, and caught his breath. Surrounded by a ring of bent, empty prongs was a portrait of a strikingly beautiful dark-skinned Indian woman, dressed in rich clothing and covered with jewels. It was a face to captivate, and except for her coloring, she could have been Serena.
“Oh, aye, m’lord, you can’t believe what your eyes are telling you, can you?” Abbot jeered. “That’s your precious lady’s mother, m’lord. She was a nautch girl, a dancing whore. You can tell by how she’s dressed. You married a native bastard, born of that chit and the great Lord Thomas Carew.”
Geoffrey stared at the locket, his thoughts spinning. “How did you come by this?”
Abbot cackled. “You should be thanking me, m’lord,” he said, “because I was the one that saved your dear wife. When Lord Thomas’s household was struck with a terrible fever, he sent to Hyderabad for a doctor, and I was one of the party sent to escort him. Like a plague, it was, with bodies everywhere, including Lord Thomas himself, and we’d orders to burn the place to the ground to stop the sickness.”
Abbot paused, reaching for the tankard on the bench beside him.
“Go on,” Geoffrey ordered, striking the tankard from the man’s hand. “Damnation, go on. Tell me all.”
“Not much more to tell, m’lord,” Abbot said. “We found his lordship’s two daughters, one English, and the other a bastard, the pair of them kept like princesses. The English one was dead, but the bastard still lived. On account of not wishing to leave her behind, the doctor pretended the bastard was the true daughter, and had us save her. I took the locket and more besides—we all did—before we burned the lot. That’s God’s own truth, m’lord, and you have the proof in your hand.”
Still Geoffrey stared at the locket. Abbot’s story matched Serena’s nightmare perfectly. It had to be the truth, for there was no other way the man could have known what had happened.
Everything about Serena made sense to him now, and at last he understood all the mysteries that had always hovered between them. He understood the little things, like why she danced with sensual grace, as well as the big ones, like why her nightmares held such power over her. He even understood why, when her past seemed at last to be catching her, she’d run away. She’d had every reason to be reserved, to hold back, to keep the secret of who and what she was that would be her undoing. He didn’t fault her for any of it, either. He could imagine all too well what her fate would have been in India as a penniless, fair-skinned girl without a family to protect her.
The only thing he didn’t understand was why she believed he’d care about any of it.
“Her ladyship was going to buy the locket from me,” Abbot said, wheedling. “A hundred pounds, she promised me.”
“It wasn’t a sale,” Geoffrey said sharply. “It was blackmail, wasn’t it?”
Abbot cringed. “I’m a poor man, m’lord, what needs to earn my bread however I can.”
“Here.” Geoffrey dropped five guineas into the man’s lap. “That’s for saving my wife’s life, not for trying to blackmail her. Be grateful I won’t have you charged for that, or for the theft of the locket from her, either.”
Swiftly Abbot tucked the coins away, and then looked up at Geoffrey with surprise as he realized what Geoffrey had said.
“ ‘Your wife’, m’lord?” he asked, unable to keep back his curiosity. “She’s still that to you, now that you know what she is?”
“She is my wife,” Geoffrey said, for to him there’d never been any doubt or question. “And now I must find her.”
Despite her intentions, Serena must have fallen asleep; she knew the moment she awoke in the dark room, the candlestick guttered out on the table beside her. Her face was pillowed awkwardly against her arms on the windowsill, her thoughts groggy and disoriented as she heard the innkeeper’s voice outside her door.
“She seems respectable enough, sir,” he said. “A grieving widow, if I’m not mistaken. I wouldn’t have taken her in otherwise. I run an honest house, sir, and I don’t take strumpets.”
He knocked, his fingers rapping sharply on the thin wooden door.
Serena didn’t answer, her heart racing. Who would come asking after her at this hour? Who would care if she were respectable or not?
“I expect she’s asleep, sir,” the innkeeper said apologetically. “She seemed all worn out, and she’s a long journey ahead of her tomorrow.”
“Open the door.”
She pressed her hand over her mouth. Was her mind playing tricks upon her, or could that truly be Geoffrey?
“I can’t, sir,” the innkeeper said, balking. “I told you, this is a respectable house, and I can’t go opening the doors of my lady-guests for gentlemen who—”
“The lady is my wife,” Geoffrey said. “Open the door now.”
Serena rose, her heart racing with anticipation, or perhaps dread, and she clutched the chair beside her for support.
The innkeeper’s passkey scraped in the lock, and the door swung open. There by the light of the candlestick in the innkeeper’s hand stood Geoffrey, his face expressionless.
“Leave us,” he said curtly. “I wish to speak to my wife alone.”
The innkeeper nodded, leaving the candlestick on the table before he closed the door.
For a long moment she and Geoffrey simply stood there, the silence growing deeper and deeper between them until she could bear it no longer.
“You—you came,” she stammered, her trembling voice echoing hollowly in her ears. “Why?”
Without a word, he held out his open hand to her. In his palm was the locket with her mother’s portrait. With a little cry, she sank into the chair.
“So you know,” she said. “You know.”
“Not everything,” he said, his voice surprisingly quiet. “Tell me more of your mother.”
She twisted uneasily in the chair
, unsure of what he wanted. “Likely you’ve heard all there is to know.”
He came closer to take her hand, and pressed the locket into it. “Not from you,” he said. “Tell me.”
She looked down at her mother’s painted face, and seven years disappeared.
“I did not know her,” she said softly, tracing her fingertip around the damaged frame where the diamonds once had been. “She died while I was a baby. Father was devastated, and ever after spoke of his grief. He had other bibis, but he swore he never loved again after she died.”
“Tell me more,” he said, drawing a second chair close beside hers. “Please.”
She took a deep breath, her mother’s little smile giving her courage. “Her name was Ramya Das, and she was—she was not a lady. She was a nautch dancer, and Father met her in a brothel near the fort at Golconda, where she danced for the foreign soldiers, and likely—likely did other things for them as well. Father did not care. He said he loved her at once, and took her from that place to Sundara Manōra, where they lived in great happiness together until she died. She was his favorite, but they never wed. I am their only child, their illegitimate daughter.”
She steeled herself to look up at Geoffrey’s face, to see the repulsion that surely must be there.
“You pretended to be your sister,” he said, his voice so full of gentleness that she felt tears welling up behind her eyes. “She was the real Serena, wasn’t she?”
She bowed her head over the locket. “My true name is Savitri Das,” she said. “ ‘Daughter of the sun.’ But I have been called Serena for so long it seems more true than any other.”
A Sinful Deception Page 32