“My mother was English?” Mary prompted, as she had not asked Sir Henry very much about her mother—the story of her father had consumed her too much for that.
Rachel nodded. “I never met her, although we were much of the same age and social station. She was the daughter of a second son, none too plump in the pocket, so she was never presented. But it is from her that you got your beauty, Sir Henry tells me, and your good heart.”
“You don’t have to tell me from whom I inherited my less desirable traits,” Mary quipped halfheartedly. “No wonder I was so ready to indulge in intrigue with Tristan. It was bred in the bone.”
Sir Henry had already told Mary the truth about her father, so there was no reason for Rachel to try to dress the thing up in fine linen now. “Your father, aristocratic French blood to the side, was a villain of the first water, Mary. His main interest in life was the acquisition of money, and he made it by selling secrets to both France and England at the same time. That dual betrayal of trust cost many lives on both sides, and in the end St. Laurent forfeited his own life for his crimes. It was very much in character for him to start his house on fire to try to cover his escape that last time, not caring a single bit that his wife and child stood to perish in the blaze.”
Her chin resting on her chest, Mary said, “But he didn’t escape, did he? Sir Henry put a bullet in his back just before my mother tossed me out the window into Uncle’s arms, begging him to take care of me. He—he told me she backed away from the window then, not wanting anyone to be hurt trying to save her.”
Rachel drew Mary into her motherly embrace. “That she did, child, and a few moments later the roof collapsed. She was a brave woman and she died with dignity, even if her husband’s activities had caused her to live a life of horror.”
“She was wonderful, wasn’t she?” Mary said, smiling a little. “At least not all my blood is bad.”
Pushing Mary away from her a bit in order to look her directly in the eyes, Rachel said firmly, “Now you listen to me, you foolish girl. Take all this business about ‘bad blood’ and wipe it from your mind. You are Mary Lawrence, beloved of Tristan Rule, and you have a glorious future in front of you. Don’t waste time looking back—it serves no purpose.”
“Tell that to Tristan, Rachel,” Mary responded resignedly. “He must have cut his sleuthing teeth on stories of the evil Jules St. Laurent and the havoc he had wrought, the deaths he had caused. Even if Tris loves me, can he stand looking at me, knowing what he does about my father? Good Lord, Uncle Henry wouldn’t even let me travel to France because of my father’s reputation. Imagine the tumult if I went flitting about Paris, inquiring about my St. Laurent relatives?”
The bit firmly between her teeth now, she went on, speaking as soon as the thoughts hit her. “Not to mention, of course, the repercussions in the government if it were ever discovered that Sir Henry Ruffton, that trusted patriot, was harboring the daughter of one of His Majesty’s greatest enemies. No wonder he changed my name and hid me away in Sussex!”
“I doubt that consequence ever occurred to him,” Rachel replied firmly. “He told me all about you when he first asked my help in presenting you to the ton. Henry was always very open about things, you know. The love that shone from his eyes when he talked about you—why, he couldn’t love you more if you were his own daughter.”
“Instead of the daughter of his worst enemy,” Mary interrupted, shaking her head in disbelief. “Well, let me tell you—today we have buried Marie Lisette Vivienne St. Laurent for all time. I don’t care for myself, you must understand. All that talk about society doesn’t mean a thing. I was only grumbling about that to keep from thinking about Tristan. But Sir Henry is too dear for me to allow even a breath of scandal to sully his good name.”
“And Tristan, Mary?” Rachel asked. “How dear is he to you? Will you allow him the gift of a little time before condemning him for his reaction to your news?”
A single tear found its way down Mary’s cheek. “I don’t believe my forgiveness enters into it, Aunt Rachel. I love Tristan, and he says he loves me. I guess all that we can do now is to see just how much he loves me.”
The two women sat in silence for some minutes, their arms wrapped comfortingly about each other, until they could hear the dinner gong in the hallway. “I’ll meet you later downstairs, child,” Rachel said, rising stiffly from the bed. “I want to go down early to ease your poor guardian’s worried mind. He was feeling so guilty when I left him.”
Rachel’s words caused Mary to remember Sir Henry’s good news of earlier that afternoon and she grabbed the older woman yet again to give her a warm kiss on the cheek. “My best wishes to you, Aunt, on your upcoming nuptials,” she congratulated sincerely. “I knew if only you two would sit down and discuss things you would find your way to happiness. What was the misunderstanding anyway?”
Rachel smiled a secret smile. “We’ve decided to let Sir Henry take all the blame,” she quipped, patting her hair. “He was feeling so downpin about you that I thought it would take his mind off at least some of his troubles if I gave him the forgiveness he was so eagerly seeking.”
“And Lord Hether-something-or-other? What about him, Aunt?” Mary teased, remembering Rachel’s slip of the tongue at the Venetian breakfast.
Rachel batted her eyelashes at Mary, the picture of innocent confusion. “Lord who, my dear? I vow I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She then clapped her hands together briskly. “Hurry now, Mary, or you’ll be late to dinner, and Sir Henry has promised to bring out his best champagne in honor of our engagement.”
Mary refused to let her smile waver as she realized they could have been toasting a double engagement this evening if it weren’t for Tristan’s abrupt departure after hearing her news. “I’ll dress now and then go hasten Kitty along,” she promised, already ringing for her maid. “You know how long she takes when primping for her dearest Dexter. As if he’d even notice if she came into the room with a sack over her head, so besotted is the fellow.”
Rachel stopped just as she opened the door to leave. “Perkins said Dexter was here earlier today while I was out and you were closeted with Sir Henry. I’d worry about the properties, except I doubt either of them would know what to do in the first place. Dexter, for all his man-of-the-world claims, seems to be thoroughly baffled when it comes to dealing with innocents like Kitty. Ah yes, and yet another dandy succumbs to Cupid’s leveling dart.”
Mary chuckled at the little joke until the door closed behind the departing Rachel. Then her features reassembled themselves into a solemn expression as she sent up a little prayer that Tristan wouldn’t take too long to decide if his love for her was strong enough to outstrip his hatred for Jules St. Laurent.
SIR HENRY AND RACHEL WERE just moving away from each other after enjoying a pleasurable embrace when Mary dashed into the drawing room waving a scrap of paper and laughing delightedly. “Kitty and Dexter have eloped to Gretna!” she exclaimed, tossing the paper into the air. “And I thought Kitty had nary a trace of spunk in her beautiful, dim head. Oh, this is wonderful!”
Rachel, now a betrothed woman, but still a chaperon, wasn’t quite as delighted. Picking up the paper, she read Kitty’s hastily scrawled note, that spoke of undying love and mean brothers. “And something about damp sheets, I think,” she told Sir Henry, moving the paper closer to the light in order to better decipher Kitty’s childish hand. “Who would have thought Dexter could engineer such a scheme?”
Sir Henry picked up his glass and took a small sip before saying softly: “Engineer it, yes. But carry it through to completion? Oh, no. Not if I know my man.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
ALL PLANS FOR THE EVENING were quite naturally canceled after Kitty’s note was discovered, and Sir Henry sent a servant around to the Thorpe town house requesting the Rutherfords’s company as soon after the dinner hour as possible.
Although Dexter had reached his majority three years previously, it was common knowledge t
hat Julian, who continued to provide his cousin with a generous allowance, was still unofficially in charge of the younger man. Added to that, Dexter was Julian’s heir, at least for the moment, and Lord Thorpe would quite naturally be interested in Dexter’s choice of mother to the next generation of Rutherfords.
Lucy and Julian arrived just as Sir Henry was rejoining the ladies after enjoying the solitary cigar he allowed himself each day. “What’s wrong?” Lucy asked without preamble, dropping into a chair and settling the skirts of her ballgown around her—for she and Julian had been planning to attend Lady Cornwallis’s annual ball that evening. “Your invitation was curiously lacking in detail. As I told Julian, it seemed more in the way of a summons. Pray tell me it isn’t bad news. Have you heard from Jennie? Is little Christopher all right? Has there been an accident? I—”
“Hush, pet,” Julian soothed, standing behind her chair, a reassuring hand pressed to her shoulder. “How can we learn anything if you persist in cataloging the possibilities and giving no chance for anyone to answer yea or nay?”
Lucy looked up at her husband and pulled a face. “You were guessing too, sweetheart,” she reminded him. “On the way over here in the carriage you had me half convinced Kit had taken a toss from his new hunter.”
“I had a letter from Jennie just yesterday,” Rachel put in before Julian could make his rebuttal, “and all the Wildes are as fine as nine-pence. In fact, Christopher’s just cut another tooth. It’s just that something happened today—”
“Lucy, your Aunt Rachel has condescended to make me the happiest of men by consenting to become my wife,” Sir Henry broke in, deciding he was not about to let Dexter’s dramatic gesture overshadow Rachel’s own news.
“Oh, Aunt Rachel, how perfectly marvelous!” Lucy exclaimed, jumping up and running to hug her relative. “May Jennie and I have charge of your wedding—and Mary too, of course? You can be married from Bourne Manor. It has the loveliest chapel, you know. Oh, we must start making lists this instant. When is the ceremony to take place? You won’t want a long engagement, surely?”
Rachel took a peek at Mary, sitting slightly away from the rest of the group and looking so wistfully sad. “We’ll wait until after Mary and Tristan’s wedding, I think, as Sir Henry will be giving the bride away and we have already planned an extensive wedding trip through the Lake District.”
Mary’s cheeks turned chalk white, then rosy red, as she realized what Rachel had just made public. Rising to stand stock-still inside Lucy’s enthusiastic embrace, she accepted everyone’s best wishes in a small, wooden voice.
How could Aunt Rachel have done it? Already Lucy was asking why Tristan wasn’t present, and Sir Henry, who seemed to lie with great ease, she realized, was accepting full blame for having sent the newly engaged man off on a mission that would keep him out of the city for at least a fortnight.
What if Tris decides to cry off? Mary screamed in silent panic. He’ll never forgive me for making our betrothal common knowledge, not while the situation stands as it does now. He’ll feel he’s been trapped into going through with the marriage no matter what his feelings, if only to salvage his honor.
“I’m afraid our lovebirds here are rushing their fences, Lucy,” Mary said at last, scrambling for a way out. “In their happiness they wish the whole world married. Tris has made an offer, it’s true, but I haven’t as yet formally accepted it. We’re hoping this small separation will help us to be more sure of our feelings for each other.”
“Fiddlesticks!” Lucy countered, crossing her arms against Mary’s disclaimer. “You two were made for each other, and haven’t Jennie and I told you so a dozen times?”
Julian, seeing that Mary was close to tears, cut in smoothly, “Put your arrow back in your quiver, Cupid, and promise Mary you won’t breathe a word of Tristan’s proposal until she wishes it made public. And that,” he finished, tapping his wife gently on the tip of her nose, “also means you aren’t to spill the soup in a letter to Jennie, swearing her to secrecy.”
Putting out her full bottom lip in a becoming pout, Lucy reluctantly nodded her head before brightening once again as she begged to at least be allowed to be the one to give Jennie the joyous news once Tristan was returned and the engagement made official. “You surely don’t mean to turn him down, do you, Mary?” she asked candidly, earning herself an admonishing “tsk-tsk” from her husband.
“You’ll be the first to know my answer, Lucy, I promise,” Mary sidestepped neatly. “Besides, although you believe yourselves to have heard all the news, you have yet to hear about Kitty and Dexter. They’re the real reason we sent the invitation.”
“Oh, yes, they aren’t here, are they?” Lucy observed, looking about the large drawing room as if searching out the pair in a dimly lit corner. “That’s strange. I had begun to think Dexter had moved in, seeing as how he’s been camped on your doorstep day and night since Kitty took up residence. For such a dedicated flirt as Dex to have fixed his interest on a green girl like Kitty Toland fairly boggles the mind. Why, only last year he was amusing himself by pinching upstairs maids and chasing opera dancers.”
“I’m afraid your cousin has done more than ‘fix his interest’ with Miss Toland,” put in Sir Henry before Lucy could be off again, relating an incident concerning Dexter, her personal maid, Deirdre, and a large billiard table. “He and the lady in question are on their way to Gretna Green, to marry over the anvil.”
“Of all the paper-skulled idiot stunts!” Thorpe exploded angrily. “How can he profess to be in love with the girl, and then proceed to ruin her reputation that way? There’s a proper way and an improper way to go about things, and m’cousin has always displayed a marked tendency for taking the incorrect turning. But this—this is beyond belief. It’s more than incorrect, it’s—it’s—”
Now it was Lucy’s turn to calm Julian. “Low-bred?” Lucy finished tongue-in-cheek before Julian, displaying all the starch and arrogance that had gained him the reputation of a high-nosed snob, realized that everyone around him seemed to be much amused, thoroughly enjoying his momentary lapse into stuffiness—a legacy of his privileged upbringing that marriage to the irrepressible Lucy had pretty much put to rout.
Julian smiled, as the ability to laugh at his own foibles was yet another gift from his understanding wife. “Now that I’ve given you my esteemed mother’s opinion on Dexter’s recent course of action,” he went on, once again positioning himself behind Lucy’s chair, “I believe I may have a few questions. To begin—does anyone know the reason behind this melodramatic flight?”
Mary produced the letter she had found but did not bother trying to read all of it—most of it being either unintelligible or embarrassingly unintelligent. “To sum up her note as best I can,” she informed Julian, “Kitty’s brother Jerome, her guardian, has refused consent for his sister’s marriage to Dexter. Rather than waiting out the nearly five years until Kitty comes of age, Dexter elected to spirit her away to Gretna, just like the hero in some Theatre Royal comedy. I imagine they’ve been on the road since early this afternoon.”
Rachel spoke up then, apologizing to everyone for her failure to adequately chaperon Kitty. “How I could have scraped through without a scratch with a termagant like Lucy, and then failed so abysmally to ride herd on a wet-behind-the-ears schoolgirl I’ll never know,” she mourned, shaking her head in disbelief.
“You had other things on your mind today, my dear,” Sir Henry defended staunchly, lifting her hand to his lips as Rachel blushed beet red, looking much like a flustered schoolgirl herself.
Julian walked over to the collection of decanters residing on a side table and poured himself a drink. “Nobody’s blaming anybody here,” he said dismissingly. “If there’s any blame to be placed, then I’d say we can safely lay it on Dexter’s plate. What a devilish silly thing for him to do, no matter how pure his intentions. Has anyone thought to inform this Jerome person of his sister’s flight? He may want to give chase, you know.”
Mary spoke up then, telling Julian that an underfootman had been sent around to Toland’s rooms but no one answered his knock. “We’ll try again in the morning. I don’t believe the two of them to be very close, however, even if Dexter was impressed with the way Mr. Toland used his gambling winnings to bring Kitty to town for a chance at a Season. I only met him myself by chance one day when he was here visiting his sister, but he impressed me as a man very much out for himself. He treats Kitty like a child, which she is of course, but he’s not kind about it. She’s always in the glooms following his visits.” She shrugged. “I don’t know. I have no siblings. Perhaps theirs is a commonplace enough relationship.”
“You make him sound like a dog in a manger. After all, if he doesn’t care for her, why would he turn down the chance to have her taken off his hands?” Lucy puzzled, turning to Julian for an answer.
“I’d be willing to wager a tidy sum that if Dex were more plump in the pocket, Toland would have handed his sister over to him on a silver platter—as long as he was handsomely rewarded for his trouble,” he offered, earning for himself a snort of agreement from Sir Henry.
“Oh, that poor girl,” Lucy murmured, her tender heart touched by Kitty’s plight. “I never realized before how very lucky I have been, being surrounded all my life by people who truly love me.”
“And I,” Mary added solemnly, looking straight at Sir Henry and Rachel as she spoke. “Having people willing to sacrifice their life for you, people prepared to protect you no matter what the possible cost to themselves, people caring enough to risk losing your love in order to help you see things in their true perspective rather than to only concentrate selfishly on how they affect you—I can think of no greater blessing.”
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