“But how? That is, but how, Your Grace?” Sir Henry added. “ ‘Your Grace,’” he repeated, chuckling and shaking his head.
Feeling like an utter scoundrel, Connor stepped around his former employer. “Sir Henry, I would be pleased if you and your family would join me for dinner in a few days’ time. But now I really must be—”
“Don’t suppose you’ll be returning to the stables, eh, Your Grace?” Sir Henry couldn’t seem to stop chuckling.
“No, Sir Henry, I’m afraid not. Perhaps you should promote Michael from stable boy. Or persuade Viscount Grayson to take the position.”
Sir Henry gave a bark of startled laughter and thwacked Connor heartily on the back.
Connor was so relieved his knees almost buckled. Thank God Rebecca hadn’t entered the conversation yet. And she wasn’t likely to—as long as he kept moving.
“Very good to see you, Sir Henry. Good evening, Sir Henry.” Connor all but bolted toward the townhouse front doors, a grinning Pierce and a glum Cordelia on his heels.
“Best damn groom I ever had,” he heard Sir Henry telling someone in the crowd as they left.
Edelston waited a moment just to be very, very sure he was alone again. When at last he was certain, he let out a ragged groan of relief.
It had been no mean feat to remain absolutely still and absolutely silent for the better part of an hour—his right leg was asleep, for heaven’s sake, and he was nearly dizzy from taking shallow breaths —but oh, the rewards. Once again, it seemed, fate had intervened on his behalf.
He’d seen Dr. Hennessey downstairs at Lady Wakefield’s, or rather Dr. Hennessey had seen him, and one look at the man’s face had told Edelston he’d better flee. For some time now, he’d owed Dr. Hennessey an outrageous amount of money, the result of a card game he could barely remember; he’d been rather too deep in his cups at the time to recall exactly how the damage was done. And now that Dr. Hennessey owed somebody else an even more outrageous sum of money, he was dogging Edelston relentlessly.
So Edelston had fled the festivities to the one room in Lady Wakefield’s townhouse where no one would ever expect to find him: the library. Safe at last, he thought, and then the damned library door had opened. He’d immediately ducked behind a tall corner chair, closed his eyes like a child trying to make himself invisible, and silently prayed. And then listened, avidly, with a steadily growing glee, to a fascinating conversation between Connor Riordan and Colonel Pierce and Cordelia Blackburn.
An hour later, he was in a philosophical mood. He stood, stretched, and stomped his sleeping leg, which was needling him, and smiled. Odd, he thought, how my gambling debts keep leading me to Rebecca. Clearly, it is all meant to be. For now he had a plan, a deucedly clever plan, perhaps the first concrete plan of his life. Anthony, Lord Edelston was going to the Cambridge Horse Fair, and he would come home with a bride.
Chapter Twenty-one
The first thing Edelston noticed about the girl standing at the side of the road was her hair. It was sinfully loose and waving like a sable flag in the breeze. His eyes were drawn next to her feet, which were bare, petite, and dusty; she was indolently scratching the ankle of one foot with the toes of the other. Up and down, up and down, up and down. The gesture for some reason communicated directly and immediately with his groin.
Aside from her bare feet, she was attired modestly enough in cotton faded to an indeterminate color, but her skin had an exotic tint to it, milk with a hint of tea. A necklace of reddish stones circled her throat.
A Gypsy, Edelston thought, pulling his horse to a halt. He was still several miles from the Cambridge Horse Fair, where all the Gypsies would be convening. Perhaps the Gypsy girl was lost, had been accidentally left behind, or had met with some accident—from what he knew of Gypsies, they rarely traveled alone, particularly the women. Perhaps she would need a ride to the fair; he imagined, with some pleasure, those slender arms around his waist as he rode. Perhaps she would not be adverse to a ride of another sort, he thought, eyeing the stand of trees she stood near. He gave himself a shake. It was becoming increasingly difficult to curb such thoughts; he was, in fact, a trifle resentful at the self-imposed need to do so. It would be an immense relief to finally have Rebecca Tremaine in his arms and in his bed.
“I can dukker proper, brother,” the Gypsy girl called to him, voice low and inviting. “If you’ve the blunt.”
Edelston swallowed hard. What on earth was dukker? It certainly didn’t sound proper. It sounded as though it was something one did quickly in a stand of trees, skirts lifted and trousers dropped. Could this be a test of his moral fiber? Did he even want to pass it? He eyed the stand of trees she stood before speculatively.
“D-d-ukker?” he stuttered.
She laughed, showing pretty white teeth, and turned her tiny palms up to him. “I can read your future in your palm, brother. Just give your hand to me, and I will tell it. But first I must see your coin.” Up and down, up and down, went her foot against her ankle.
Although he knew his immediate future included triumphantly returning with his wayward fiancée, he would enjoy standing close to the little Gypsy, admiring her sable hair and dusky skin, allowing her to hold his great hand in her tiny one. His heartbeat accelerated a little, as it always did when he contemplated a sensual adventure.
“If you will accept a sixpence, miss, I will be happy to hear my future,” he said gallantly. He dismounted and led his horse over to her.
“Aye, brother, I will accept a sixpence. Come closer, please.” She smiled, and tucked a bit of hair behind her delicate little ear.
Edelston moved until he stood about two paces from her, close enough to see the downy hairs on her cheek, the tiny freckle next to her mouth. He held out his hands, palms up.
There was a soft rustling, a mere hint of a sound, really, and a motion from behind a tree. Edelston idly lifted his head. Squirrel, he thought. But then he froze, dumbstruck: two men, faces swarthy and grimly intent, stepped forward, toward him. One of them raised an arm high.
It was the last thing Edelston remembered.
He regained consciousness an hour or so later, stripped of everything save his shirt and trousers, pain playing his head like a drum and reverberating through every limb. When he opened his eyes, two dark faces were floating over him—two men, but not the men who had beaten him. Their eyes were gentle and concerned. But then their mouths moved, and to Edelston’s horror, gibberish emerged. My wits have been beaten from me, he thought, terrified. But among the gibberish he thought he heard a word, a woman’s name. It sounded like Leonora. Perhaps I should try to speak to them, he thought distantly, but when they touched him to lift him, consciousness drifted away again.
Cool competent hands were touching him, a cup of something was held to his lips; he drank, thankful to be told what to do. Cool cloths were applied to his head. He answered “yes” and “no” to the dark-faced woman who asked “Hurts here?” and pressed her knowing hands in various places on his ribs and arms. Someone else hovered on the periphery of his vision; a woman with red hair; she had Rebecca’s eyes. The eyes widened in shock as recognition set in, and the woman reared away from him. The rearing motion made Edelston woozy.
“I’ve . . . I’ve come to rescue you,” he pronounced as gallantly as he was able. And then he was sick all over Rebecca’s skirt.
Rebecca was surreptiously divested of her dress and installed in another one. Leonora continued the ministrations while Rebecca stared in disbelief.
Dear God. Edelston. Not in all her dreams or nightmares had Rebecca imagined she’d ever be confronted again with Edelston, not to mention a semi-nude Edelston, prone and pale and helpless as a freshly caught fish.
His presence could mean nothing good.
“You came to rescue me,” Rebecca repeated flatly.
“Um . . . yes?” Edelston said weakly.
“How is it,” Rebecca said slowly, as though addressing a three-year-old child, “that you knew where to find
me?”
Edelston opened his mouth, then closed it again, then opened it and closed it again, as if trying to decide what to say. He resembled a freshly caught fish more than ever.
“Love, Rebecca. Love was my compass. I would follow you to the ends of the—”
“Try again, Lord Edelston.”
Edelston fell silent, his handsome face a study in petulance.
“Well?” Rebecca demanded.
“Does that matter so very much? I’m injured.”
Rebecca looked at Edelston’s pale body, which was well enough formed and not displeasing, though his chest was nearly as hairless as a boy’s, and his arms were slim, with just a hint of muscle. He was a rainbow of bruises. He was not Connor, and that was his gravest crime.
“Didn’t you have a pistol?” Rebecca said crossly.
“Yes, well—” Edelston was startled.
“Then why didn’t you use it? Did you even try to fight?”
Edelston gave an indignant squeak.
“I will return in a moment, Gadji,” Leonora said to Rebecca. “I would like Raphael to meet our . . . visitor.” She slipped out of the tent.
“Where is Connor?” Rebecca demanded, an ambush.
“Connor?” Edelston spluttered. “Who is Connor? Why should I know where this Connor is?”
“How else,” Rebecca explained through gritted teeth, “would you know I was here, Lord Edelston?”
Edelston sighed gustily.
“Oh, very well. If you must know, Connor sent me for you.”
Rebecca stared at him. “You are mad.”
“Am I, Rebecca? Well, you see, Connor, your father’s groom, the one who was so helpful to you, has really been the Duke of Dunbrooke all along, and—or perhaps you knew?” he added, in a mockery of solicitousness.
Rebecca stared at him, dumbstruck. Her heart began pounding sickeningly.
“The . . . the Duke of Dunbrooke? How—I mean—”
“Oh, yes, the Duke of Dunbrooke. Seems he lost his memory in the war, regained it recently, and returned to London. He is due to wed his brother’s widow, a very beautiful woman, before summer’s end. And this is why I’ve come for you, Rebecca—to rescue you from a hopelessly ruined reputation. A little gratitude would not be inappropriate, you know. The duke himself—Connor, as you call him—swore me to secrecy and told me where to find you, and wished me felicitations in our marriage. He has changed his mind about you, for now he cannot possibly marry the daughter of a mere knight.”
Rebecca reared back from him as though he had slapped her.
“The . . . the Duke of Dunbrooke?” Somehow it was all beginning to make a hideous sort of sense.
“Oh, yes, it was quite the talk of the ton when I left. His real name is Roarke Blackburn, or did you know that?”
“Roarke Blackburn. The locket . . . the locket said . . .” An icy hand clawed her heart. Rebecca stared at Edelston, unseeing, disbelieving.
“The damned locket,” Edelston agreed morosely. “I wish I’d never seen the bloody thing.”
“Who is Hutchins?” Rebecca was prompted by a sudden foreboding.
“The duchess’s footman?” Edelston was confused by the question.
“The duchess? Her Grace,” Rebecca whispered to herself, remembering. “Her Grace sent the highwaymen.”
A horrible suspicion crept into her mind. She remembered the look on Connor’s face, how still his body had gone when he’d opened the locket. The dark lover is faithless . . .
“Marianne Bell,” Rebecca said. “Is the duchess the woman in the locket?”
Edelston’s silence drove through Rebecca like a bayonet. It said all she needed to know.
There were questions she should have asked Connor, specific questions, but she had feared the answers would taint her perfect happiness. She now knew her happiness had been illusory. She went still for a moment, testing: Connor still thrummed inside her, as essential as her own blood. Would this be true, she wondered, if he had decided to sever her from his life? God help me, I am happier now than I have ever been, he had said to her, right before he had asked her to be his wife.
Perhaps it was true; perhaps he had lost his memory and had regained it only recently only to discover that his past exerted a sort of gravity, one that pulled irrevocably on him. Perhaps it was easier for him to surrender to it than to fight it. Perhaps he thought it wiser to leave her behind than to struggle onward to a new life.
But she did not believe it. She could not.
“It was she,” she spat suddenly, sitting bolt upright.
Edelston winced. Apparently sudden movements were visually unwelcome.
“The duchess. She sent highwaymen after us. Because she wanted Connor for herself. And she was an actress.”
“Even if she did send highwaymen after you,” Edelston said, as though the very idea was absurd, “he does not seem to mind it overmuch at the moment. She is a duchess now, you know. In fact, he seems overjoyed to be reunited with her. It appears he is enjoying being a duke very much.”
“Has he . . . did he say anything else about me?” She hated herself for asking the question, but perhaps, if there was a chance . . .
Edelston merely shook his head regretfully.
“But my father—surely he has questioned Con—I mean, the duke . . .”
“As your mama has been preoccupied with securing a titled gentleman for your sister this season, your parents left the finding of you in the hands of the duchess, who has been all that is solicitous in this manner.” Edelston said this without a shred of irony. “As far as they know, the duke—er, Connor—had nothing to do with your disappearance at all. But none of this will matter, of course, once we are married. And we should be married straightaway. If you gather your things, we can leave for Gretna Green in the morning.”
Rebecca stared at him, numb and incredulous.
Edelston’s face softened somewhat.
“Perhaps . . . perhaps you shall enjoy being married to me.”
Unfortunately, it was the worst thing he could have said. Rebecca’s face spasmed in revulsion.
Leonora pushed into the tent, Raphael on her heels.
“I am Raphael Heron,” he said to Edelston.
“Ah,” Edelston replied awkwardly.
Raphael raised his eyebrows in a prompting manner.
“Oh! And I am Anthony, Lord Edelston,” Edelston said, finally remembering his manners. “I have come to . . . to . . . ah . . . rescue . . . to rescue . . .” He trailed off, as though he had at last been struck by the absurdity of it all.
Just then, Martha poked her very unwelcome head into the tent.
“He says Connor is actually the Duke of Dunbrooke,” Rebecca said to Raphael.
Raphael went utterly still.
“And why would ’e say a thing like that?” he said at last. To his credit, he delivered the words with convincing indignation.
“Oh, perhaps because it’s true,” Edelston said irritably. “Perhaps that’s why.”
Resignedly, Raphael met Rebecca’s accusing stare.
“It is true,” she said slowly. “And you knew it, as well.”
Raphael shot a helpless look at Leonora, who shook her head; he would get no help from her.
Behind Leonora, from the opening in the tent, Martha was also shaking her head, but although her sorrow was masterfully feigned, her brown eyes were simply luminous with glee. Rebecca growled and took a quick step toward her. Martha gave a surprised little yip and ducked out of the tent.
“Ye best wait to talk wi’ Connor, little Gadji,” Leonora said gently. “We can tell ye no more.”
“Lord Edelston claims Connor is not returning.” Rebecca’s own voice sounded distant to her over the buzzing that had started up in her ears. “He says Connor will marry his brother’s widow, and that I am to marry Edelston, with Connor’s blessings.” She could hardly believe she was saying such words; each one hurt her physically, as though they were sharp little stones called up
from her depths.
“Nonsense,” Raphael said firmly, but Rebecca noticed the glance he exchanged with Leonora. Though his tone was entirely confident, Raphael was not.
Rebecca took a deep breath and squared her shoulders.
“He will return,” she said, cursing the wobbly sound of her voice; how naive she sounded.
The weight of Raphael’s and Leonora’s sympathetic gazes on her was almost a tangible thing; she wanted to shrug both of them off violently. Nobody said anything for a long uncomfortable moment.
“I think I shall leave Lord Edelston to rest now,” she said stiffly. “If you will excuse me?”
Raphael and Leonora stood aside so she could leave the tent. She refused to meet their eyes as she passed, because she knew she would find nothing there but pity.
Didn’t you have a pistol?
Dear God. What manner of woman was she?
Edelston waited for some emotion to stir in him, some celestial joy that would transcend his physical pain. It seemed he’d waited so long to see Rebecca again.
Nothing came.
The thought of Rebecca had consumed most of his waking moments, except for perhaps the moments that had included bedding Cordelia . . . good heavens, Cordelia did make the most amazing noises in the throes of passion . . . and then there was the Gypsy girl who was indirectly responsible for the godawful throbbing in his head and ankle and ribs . . . well, perhaps, he was partially to blame for that . . .
Still nothing.
Oh, wait, here was something: humiliation.
Rebecca had seen him lying helpless and nearly nude. He’d cast his accounts all over her skirt. He’d gotten himself beaten to a near pulp more or less on her behalf, and from the looks of things, she was perfectly content as she was, consorting with Gypsies. In love with a groom who was really a duke. She wasn’t the least bit pleased to see him. And is she in love with you? Cordelia had asked him the day of Rebecca’s disappearance. Cordelia had tried to warn him.
Edelston recalled the look on Rebecca’s face when she’d taken in all of his lies, and a foreign little burst of compassion for her straggled up out of the depths of his own bitterness and self-pity. Still, as he saw it, he had only two choices: marriage to Rebecca or debtor’s prison.
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