Frans smiled noncommittally.
“If it is, cast off. If it isn’t, go back the way you came. You should avoid plying your trade on the English coast for a long while.”
Frans bowed to acknowledge the threat. “There is one more thing you may find interesting. I tell you for the lady’s sake.”
“What is that?”
“I left England immediately after our unfortunate meeting near Brighton, and I only returned two weeks ago. I never disappeared from a bookstore. I never went to a meeting at one. I have no idea where this bookstore is, or what meeting you are talking about.”
Audrianna hardly noticed their path back toward the piazza. The sounds of this busy part of town sounded like a far-off din. She felt as though someone had bludgeoned her heart to where it bled in her chest, swollen and hurt.
Summerhays guided her. He said nothing the whole way. He stayed very close, however, with one arm across her back, as if he guessed that her mind might not remember to put one foot in front of the other.
He handed her into the carriage and settled beside her. They rode west in silence.
Her daze slowly lifted. She looked down and saw her hand in his. It touched her that he tried to comfort her. Her throat burned and she swallowed the emotion with difficulty.
“How much do you think he was paid?” she asked.
“Who?”
“The ordnance official in London who fixed the reports. What is the cost of such things these days?”
“I have no idea. It is an odd question, Audrianna.”
“As much as you paid Frans? If you sought to buy such a man, what would you offer?”
“Audrianna—”
“Please tell me.”
He exhaled heavily. “I would probably offer at least half his annual salary, maybe as much again.”
“Then less than you just paid Frans.” She worked it through. “I expect that if that man had a wife and family always wanting things, always asking for dresses and diversions, he might be tempted even for so little a sum. I expect that if his wife thought it humiliating not to have a carriage, and his elder daughter needed a settlement for the good marriage she hoped to make, and his younger daughter coveted fashionable clothes, he might convince himself it was a small thing.”
She tried to imagine her father rationalizing it. She could not. Even harder was picturing him taking the step. However, she had no difficulty at all seeing him plagued by guilt, when it turned out the rain had not washed away that powder in one terrible situation. If he had done this—he would never have forgiven himself.
A man born a thief like Frans might brave it out. A man who knew he had sold his integrity, his good name, and caused the deaths of others never could.
Her thoughts turned chaotic, and horribly sad. She had been so very sure of Papa’s innocence of even the least of the accusations. Now she found herself fearing that the truth might be far worse than she ever thought possible.
Sebastian’s hand squeezed hers. “Frans was never given a name. He did not know who the official in London was. He only assumed it was your father when our attention settled on him. You should not assume the worst.”
Her vision blurred. It moved her that he would pretend the evidence was not damning, in order to lessen her disillusionment.
She found one tether on her composure and held tight. It was bad enough he had felt obliged to marry Kelmsleigh’s daughter. He should not be obliged to defend a criminal on her behalf, even in the confines of this carriage.
“Let us speak of other things,” she said, forcing a smile. “Tell me about your misspent youth, getting into trouble with Hawkeswell and Castleford.”
He regaled her with stories of three young bloods ignoring decorum and good sense. She appeared to pay attention, and even laughed on occasion, but he doubted she truly heard him.
She kept her composure and poise, however. All the way home, and as they entered the house and walked up the stairs, only her eyes revealed the depths of her sad astonishment. Her bravery both impressed him and broke his heart.
The door to the library flew open while they passed it. His mother sailed out. “You are returned. Thank heavens. You must go to him at once. You must see. You must make him admit it and call the physicians and—”
“Becalm yourself. What has happened?”
She inhaled deeply. “Your brother’s leg moved while I was there. Most distinctly. We were having a . . . conversation and he was exercised while making a point and his right leg moved to one side. It was very clear to me. There could be no mistake. He denies it, however, although Dr. Fenwood said the physicians came last week and indeed they found he had some sensation. You must go up there at once and talk to him.”
Audrianna touched his arm. “I am going to retire to my chamber and rest. Go to him.”
She continued up the stairs. Sebastian watched her go while his mother waited impatiently.
“Morgan’s leg moved some weeks ago,” he said. “Fenwood has been forcing some exercise. I am glad to hear there are more signs that he may recover someday.”
“Why did no one tell me there had been this change? I think that I had a right to know.”
“Only if he chose to let you know did you have a right to know. Apparently he did not so choose.”
“Well, I know now. Come, we will go to him together and convince him to make more effort. We will make him try harder. He needs us now more than ever.”
He looked at the stairs and pictured Audrianna mounting them. Back straight and head high, gracious and poised, she had put on an impressive performance.
“I will visit Morgan this evening. Right now I have something else that I must do.”
He left his mother gaping at his dismissal of her demands. He went up to his chambers and entered the dressing room. He stood at the door to Audrianna’s room and listened. No sounds came at first. Then he heard feminine voices exchange a soft rumble, and a door closing. She must have sent Nellie away.
Silence then. Perhaps she was spent from the day’s drama, and had fallen asleep.
He turned away, to find his own silence so he could think about what they had learned, and decide what to do with it. Or whether to do anything at all. In particular he wanted to consider the implications of the last thing Frans said.
If the Domino had not advertised that meeting at the Muses, and Audrianna had not, who instead had?
A sound suddenly penetrated the wall. A musical crash, like china breaking, accompanied by an anguished feminine curse. Then muffled, strangled sobs.
He opened the door. Pieces of porcelain littered the floor. The drapes had been pulled against the daylight. Audrianna lay on the bed in her white undressing gown, her face buried in a protective pile of pillows.
She wept violently. Her emotion wrenched his heart. Anger sounded in her sobs, along with a disappointment too devastating to bear.
He went over to her. If she wanted her privacy, she would let him know, but he could not leave her like this unless she sent him away.
She startled when she realized that he stood beside the bed. She only wept harder, as if he reminded her of another grief. He slid his arms under her. He lifted her, turned and sat on the bed, and held her on his lap while she huddled in his embrace and cried out her heart.
His embrace freed her. She stopped fighting the horrible heartsickness and let it flow. She turned half-mad at one point, became so lost in the sorrow that nothing else existed. He held her more firmly and pressed a kiss to her temple that made her sane again. Such a small gesture, really. A small touch of care. Yet it created a peaceful breeze that stirred her alive and pushed out the dark clouds of this storm.
She calmed under that breeze and the comfort it brought. Spasms wracked her as the worst emotion ebbed. He handed her his handkerchief and tucked her snugly against him.
“I have made a scene, haven’t I?” she asked when finally she could talk at all. “I even broke something. I do not even know what I threw.”
�
�You were angry.”
“I do not know why, or with whom.”
“Perhaps you were angry with him. And with me.”
“Not you. Please do not think so.” Not him at all, although he had not been far from her emotions in the madness. She had hated the way that sore had been there in this marriage, and how the mention or thought of her father poked at the wound until it hurt.
“Him, mostly,” she admitted. “And myself, for being so sure and for assuming the worst of you.”
She had also released the last of a different kind of anger, she realized—that born of the self-righteous certainty that her father had been wronged. She had buried her grief within it and now, today, that grief had finally been freed and had its day. The grief had become more tragic, though—and terribly confused in its memories.
The certainty was gone, but she could not completely give up her belief in Papa. She could not accept he had been responsible for those young soldiers being killed and maimed. She could not bear the thoughts of his fear if such a sin hounded him. A horrible truth beckoned and nibbled at her mind, but her heart would not, could not, acknowledge it.
Sebastian made no move to release her. He just held her in a comforting embrace while she sniffed and dabbed her eyes with the handkerchief.
“You are supposed to be with your brother,” she muttered.
“No, I am supposed to be here. For as long as you want.”
She tipped her face and kissed his cheek. She laid her head against him and let his strength hold together emotions that still wanted to shatter.
Within their peaceful silence a new emotion filled her, one whole and confident and sweet, not brittle and furious. Freed too by the death of her certainty, it touched her heart with memories of the intimacy of their nights. It forced her to acknowledge the importance of this embrace.
She looked up at him. The old bedazzlement descended, only now it filled her heart with an ache of glowing warmth, and moved her in ways that she suspected she would never be able to deny after this day.
She kissed him again, because she had to. Her spirit was too bruised to pretend she did not need him to hold her like this. Eventually she would be able to face all these truths on her own, but she wanted to hide in the protection of his care a good while longer.
He looked down at her, so deeply that she wondered where his thoughts were.
“Aren’t you going to kiss me back?” she asked.
“I was waiting to see if waiting would lure you into kissing me a few more times.”
She thought that a sweet little joke, just light enough for their mood and closeness. Then she realized it was not a joke at all.
Another truth. There had almost been too many today. She sensed that there was more to this one than she understood. She heard an invitation to express the warm, beautiful ache in her heart, though.
She slipped off his lap, then climbed back on, facing him, with her knees bracing his hips. She circled his neck with her arms and kissed him yet again. Longer this time. Her gratitude for his comfort, her sorrow about her father, her vulnerability within this newly acknowledged love—the kiss moved her profoundly because all of her heart’s emotions poured out while she pressed her lips to his.
She unfastened her undressing gown and let it fall off her body so he would know what she wanted. He lightly trailed his fingertips over her skin, along her neck and breasts and chest, while she plucked at his cravat.
“Are you sure?” he asked. “You are very sad.”
“I am not only sad. I am very sure. I need this now.” She threw aside his cravat and worked on the buttons of his shirt. “Touch me and kiss me while I do this. Lightly. Very lightly, so I am not overwhelmed.”
He obeyed. His fingers and mouth coaxed the gentlest arousal to flow like warm water. It filled her sweetly while she removed his garments so she could caress him.
She closed her eyes so she could feel the warmth and texture beneath her hands better. She savored every touch, every physical inch. Then she rocked forward so he fell back on the bed, and straddled him so she could watch her hands move.
Caressing him felt so good. Love sparkled all through the pleasure it gave her. She could tell it pleased him to accept this slow care. She leaned forward and kissed his mouth, then his neck and shoulder. She tasted, tasted, and wondered at the way the sensations of her body touched those of her heart.
He rolled them both over and did for her as she had just done for him, kissing her body carefully, caressing gently. A more frantic excitement began beckoning, but she held it at bay. She did not want to lose herself. She did not want anything obscuring the deep poignancy that her emotions created right now.
He released his lower garments while he kissed her. She took his phallus in her hands and caressed him as carefully as he had her so they might share the exquisite intimacy she experienced.
Then she wanted nothing else but him. In her body and in her arms. She told him so. She asked him to take her then, right then, so she could bind herself to him and know a fulfillment of this emotion drenching her soul.
He settled in her deeply. Perfectly. She let him fill the rest of her too, all her senses, and lost herself finally, in him and his scent and strength. And as she held him closely and accepted both his need and his care, she was moved so profoundly that she wept again, only not in sadness this time.
Chapter Twenty-three
“Show them. It is a small request from friends who have affection and concern for you,” Sebastian said.
Morgan glared at him. “I am not an animal in a menagerie that does tricks for the crowd.”
Kennington reacted with surprise. “Animal? Tricks? My apologies, to be sure. I mean no insult. If in my joy at the news I showed disrespect, I am undone.”
“It is not your fault,” Sebastian said. “It is mine for being indiscreet. I had no idea my brother had not informed both of you of this progress.”
“Let us finish our game and speak no more of it,” Symes-Wilvert said.
Everyone picked up their cards. Kennington and Symes-Wilvert silently peered at theirs, trying to appear indifferent but communicating their hurt by the subdued angles of their blond heads.
Morgan threw his cards down. “Move the damned table,” he said with exasperation.
Sebastian stood up and pulled the table away. Morgan’s legs no longer appeared so lifeless in his trousers. The exercises had been restoring their mass. Except for their complete immobility, one might never know about his infirmity on seeing him like this now.
“Do not expect me to get up and dance,” he snapped. “This is a very small thing that my brother celebrates, and it will probably never amount to more.”
His friends nodded, but their eyes remained on those legs.
Morgan closed his eyes. His jaw clenched in concentration. His right leg vaguely flexed beneath the trouser’s fabric, then moved slightly to the right.
“By Jove, it is a miracle,” Symes-Wilvert whispered. He turned to Kennington. “Did you see that? Did you?”
“I did indeed. Ha-ha! Damnation, how could you keep this a secret? Why, it is astounding. A miracle, as Symes here said.”
“Do not make more of it than it is. Do not go telling the world about it either. I’ll not be performing for curious bastards who suddenly remember that I am still alive.”
“Of course. Certainly. And yet—what do the physicians say? When did this happen?” Kennington asked. “We are all ears and you must tell us about it.”
The card game now forgotten, Sebastian slipped away, to take care of private affairs in the City. He called for his horse, mounted, and aimed east.
Morgan’s secrecy about the improvement in his condition had been peculiar. It was almost as if he refused to believe it was happening.
The neglect in informing their mother had been understandable. She had been visiting Morgan every day since learning the truth, and any man can be excused for avoiding that as long as possible. Kennington and Symes-
Wilvert, however, were friends, and Sebastian truly had assumed that they knew.
When he arrived in the City, he visited his solicitor’s chambers near Lincoln’s Inn. Mr. Dowgill was not the family lawyer. Instead Sebastian became Mr. Dowgill’s client when, as a young man, he concluded that having privacy in certain affairs required him to use a lawyer other than the one who oozed flattery on the too curious and too ruthless Lady Wittonbury.
Dowgill had proven more than competent in those early duties. A bland, pale man of unimpressive appearance, he possessed a knack for convincing even the most obstinate mistress that Sebastian’s offered parting settlement was the best she would ever get.
Dowgill greeted him with his usual mild manner. They sat down in his inner chamber. Dowgill set some papers on the small table between them.
“As you requested, I looked into this company, P & E. I had difficulty learning anything more than you told me. It built a mill in 1810 and began making powder in the next year, which was sold to the Board of Ordnance. After the war ended, it ceased operations.”
“Did you find any information regarding the owners of P & E?”
“At first, almost nothing. From what I could ascertain, it was a partnership, not a syndicate. I communicated with an astute colleague in that county, and—I found this provocative, if I may say so—he indicated that while he had no particular knowledge of this business, he had formed the opinion that the owners were not named Pettigrew and Eversham at all, despite the mill’s own name.”
“That is indeed provocative.”
Mr. Dowgill pressed the fingertips of one hand against those of the other. He gazed over the construction thoughtfully. “It is impossible to know why such a deception occurred, of course. No one in the county ever met the owners. They did not avail themselves of the sort of hospitality that they could enjoy as proprietors of so significant a business. I found myself contemplating this oddity, for surely it might unlock the answers you sought. The most logical explanation was that the owners were gentlemen, and did not want to affix their names to a place of trade.”
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