A Scoundrel by Moonlight
Page 20
“And you can’t marry her.”
With a low growl, he surged to his feet and strode across to the window. He rattled the curtains aside to reveal the storm. What was the point of lying? His mother had apparently known for weeks that he had a yen for Eleanor. “She’s the most exceptional woman I know. She should have the world at her feet.”
“I agree.”
Surprised, he turned away from the depressing weather. “I don’t understand.”
His mother’s body might have failed her, but her spirit remained strong. The stare she leveled on Leath cut to the soul. “She’s not for you, James.”
He gritted his teeth and spoke the words that had beat in his head like a drum since last night. “She’s intelligent, beautiful, perceptive, generous, conscientious. In everything but her humble birth, she makes the perfect marchioness.”
His mother, always pale, turned ashen and recoiled against the pillows as if he’d threatened to strike her. “Oh, James, I’m so sorry.” Compassion weighted her voice. “You’re in love with her. I should have realized.”
He wanted to deny it. But how could he? He loved Eleanor and in making that love a shameful secret, he’d done her a heinous wrong. “Surely that, most of all, qualifies her to be my wife.”
His mother no longer looked like Boadicea ready to mow down a Roman legion. Instead her gaze was agonizingly sad. “Yes, it does. But as you said, her birth makes your marriage unthinkable.”
“You always lecture me on equality,” he said resentfully.
“Darling, she’s a wonderful girl. But she and I both see what you refuse to recognize. The Marquess of Leath can’t marry his housemaid and expect society to shrug its shoulders. You’d lose all the respect you’ve earned as a future leader of the nation. And a woman as proud as Nell would rankle at the world’s disdain.”
Did he want to marry Eleanor? She deserved a more honorable role than mistress. He’d always known that. That left two alternatives—make an honest woman of her or part from her forever. The second option condemned him to a barren wasteland. “There’s no legal impediment.”
His mother sighed with impatience. “We both know society’s rules. Marrying the girl who cleans out your fireplaces, however worthy she is, would turn you into a pariah.”
“Perhaps it would be worth it,” he muttered, facing the window again to avoid his mother’s disapproval. Wondering where Eleanor was, he caught the gold brocade curtain in one hand. He was no closer to knowing. When he’d asked his mother about his beloved’s whereabouts, he hadn’t expected an inquisition. He’d been naïve in the extreme.
“James, I beg of you, don’t sacrifice your ambitions because you’ve lost your head over a pair of pretty brown eyes.”
Numbly he stared into the night. “It’s more than that, Mamma, and you know it.”
Another sigh. “Yes, I do,” she said reluctantly. “You aren’t a shallow man.”
“All of this is moot. I don’t know where she is.”
“And you want me to help you find her?”
He turned and bit out an appalled curse. His mother stood unsteadily, clinging to one of the carved posts rising from the baseboard. She hadn’t stood without assistance in years. His conscience, already twitching over Eleanor, howled. Her expression warned him against helping her.
He’d driven his mother to this. For a man who prided himself on his scruples, he’d made a sodding mess of things.
“I fear for Miss Trim’s safety.” That at least was true.
His mother frowned. “She’s safer away from you, wherever she is.”
“So you won’t help me?” This was the closest he’d come to a serious quarrel with his mother since adolescence.
“I won’t let you sacrifice everything you’ve worked for.”
Angry words rushed to his lips, but when he saw her face, he bit them back. “Please tell me.”
His mother straightened against the bedpost. The burning light in her eyes made mockery of physical frailty. “Even if I knew where Nell is—and I don’t—I wouldn’t tell you. She’s left for your sake as well as her own. This ridiculous infatuation hasn’t overturned her mind the way it’s overturned yours.”
“I intend to find her.”
His mother’s hand tightened around the column until the knuckles shone white. “And if you find her, what will you do? Crush all my hopes? All your father’s hopes?”
He flinched. “I just want to make sure she’s safe.”
His mother’s face crumpled and tears glittered in her eyes. Despite her constant pain, his mother never cried. “Stop lying to me—and stop lying to yourself. No man who marries his housemaid will become prime minister. You’ll be a laughingstock. And for what? A girl who can never play her role as the Marchioness of Leath with any conviction? Surely you’re not so far gone in madness that you think that a fair bargain.”
Was he? He didn’t know. What he did know was that he felt like the lowest worm in creation for distressing his mother. He crossed the room and put his arm around her waist to stop her falling.
“I’m sorry I’ve made you unhappy.”
She was unyielding in his arms, although she couldn’t hide her relief once he’d returned her to bed. “But you’re not sorry about this destructive path you take.” His mother’s hand closed convulsively on his arm. Her voice vibrated with urgency. “I beg you to reconsider.”
He straightened. “I won’t do anything rash.”
All his life, she’d worked toward her son achieving the political greatness that fate had denied his father. If it became public knowledge that Eleanor was Leath’s mistress, the world would snicker. But if one of the nation’s greatest noblemen married his housemaid, an almighty scandal would ensue, one that would echo down the generations.
His mother was right. The kindest thing Leath could do for Eleanor was to let her go, let her find a good, respectable man who would love her and give her the life she deserved. Except that she was no longer a virgin. Guilt cut deeper every time Leath thought how he’d wronged her. Guilt that came with a wicked serve of pleasure as he recalled her body opening to his.
His mother was right about something else—Leath loved Eleanor and given his steadfastness, the affliction was likely to be permanent.
“James, you’ll break my heart,” his mother whispered. She looked deathly tired now that the brief vitality fueled by temper faded.
“Forgive me, Mamma,” he said softly, kissing her forehead and stroking back the strands of graying blond hair that escaped her cap.
Her expression didn’t lighten. They both knew that an appeal for forgiveness wasn’t capitulation.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Nell finally reached the end of the meandering drive leading up to Fentonwyck. This huge baroque palace was the family seat of His Grace, the Duke of Sedgemoor. The man the papers described as Leath’s implacable enemy. The man she prayed would expose the marquess’s crimes to public scrutiny.
She was shivering and soaking wet and her feet had turned into blocks of ice hours before she’d passed through the neat village clustering around the estate’s elaborate wrought-iron gates. Her mare had started limping a good ten miles ago and now trudged at her side, head lowered in misery. After Nell’s night with Leath, riding had felt like the worst torture—until she’d tried hiking through the storm.
“Not far now, darling,” she whispered to the horse, although the wind whipped her words away.
On Nell’s other side, the taciturn gatekeeper who braved the weather to accompany her stumped along, holding his lamp high. He wore oilskins and carried an umbrella. He’d offered one to her, but it provided little protection.
Still, she appreciated his kindness. He’d suggested she wait in the gatehouse while he fetched the duke, but Nell couldn’t bear any delay. She itched to lay her evidence before Sedgemoor at the earliest opportunity. She prayed that the letters had survived the journey. They were packed in straw and sealed in a saddlebag.
Nell gulped, stopping abruptly at the sight of the long façade. Even through the rain, Fentonwyck’s magnificence was visible. A symmetrical row of windows, nearly all lit despite the late hour. A curved double staircase rising to a balustraded terrace.
When she’d found those damning letters, she’d thought only as far as escaping Leath and fleeing to his enemy. Now that she stood outside this enormous house, feeling friendless and bedraggled, she quailed from facing a pack of supercilious aristocrats.
“I don’t—” she began.
But the gatekeeper slogged on through the rain and didn’t hear. Nell mustered her fading strength and followed him. Her mare—she hadn’t even had a chance to ask Leath what the animal’s name was—sensed that shelter was near because she moved more readily when Nell tugged the reins. The beast had been a gallant companion and Nell had suffered more than one pang over forcing the fine-bred horse to struggle on through exhaustion.
To her relief, the man took Nell around the back into a yard surrounded by outbuildings. Everything dissolved into movement and noise so that more quickly than she’d ever imagined, she found herself wrapped in a towel and dripping onto the tiles in a small office near the kitchens. Somehow through all the activity, she’d remembered to grab the saddlebag. Her numb fingers had trouble holding it. There was a fire in the hearth, but the heat returning to her skin was more painful than restorative.
Vaguely through her daze, she heard the door behind her open. “Miss Trim, you needed to see me urgently?”
Unsteady with cold and dread, she slowly turned. She’d never seen the Duke of Sedgemoor, although sketches of him often appeared in the papers. She couldn’t mistake that the tall, serious man regarding her with a mixture of interest and wariness was familiar with command. Leath conveyed the same air, although physically he was more heavily muscled.
“Your Grace,” she whispered, dipping into an awkward curtsy.
His hand caught her elbow as she struggled to rise. “Dear girl…”
“You’ll curse me for interrupting your evening,” she said, although that was hardly the most important thing she had to say. Tiredness and heartbreak made her stupid.
His grip was firm and strangely comforting. “That doesn’t matter. Rest now and we’ll speak tomorrow.”
She heard kindness, then reminded herself that she’d believed Leath was kind. These powerful men defied her instincts. “No, I must do this now.”
Shivering, she thrust the wet saddlebag forward. The room started to recede in an alarming way and she had a superstitious terror that if she failed at this last challenge, she’d fail altogether. “You must destroy the Marquess of Leath.”
The duke’s eyebrows arched in astonishment and he stepped back without taking the letters. “James Fairbrother?”
Bone-deep bitterness emerged through her exhaustion. “Is there another?”
“My dear Miss Trim…”
“He’s ruined hundreds of innocent girls, including my sister Dorothy. I want…”
She paused. Even through her desperation, she understood that one did not tell a nobleman of Sedgemoor’s standing what one wanted and expect him to leap to obey. She licked her lips and tried to straighten, but shudders racked her. She clutched the towel more closely, but it was as sodden as her dress and offered no warmth. She edged toward the fire, hoping to bolster her strength. Her head pounded and she had difficulty grabbing a full breath. Still, she made herself go on.
“I’m here to beg Your Grace to take action against this man.”
Nell wasn’t sure what she’d expected from the duke, but it wasn’t a cool and assessing inspection that made her feel beneath contempt. “Miss Trim, you can’t go around making wild accusations,” he said, the chill contrasting with his former kindness.
She raised her chin. She could do this. For Dorothy, who had deserved so much better. For all Leath’s victims. She didn’t count herself in that number. She’d invited her downfall. Unlike those other girls, she’d known what he was, yet she’d fallen as readily as a ripe plum from a tree.
“I have proof.” She battled to straighten her arm as again she held out the saddlebag. “You’ll see.”
He took the bag, mainly to save her from dropping it, she thought. “I’m sure there’s some mistake.”
Even through the storm in her head, a storm as violent as the one outside, a grim premonition arose that she’d made a mistake. This handsome, dark-haired man didn’t behave like someone who finally had his foe in his sights.
“No,” she croaked. “No mistake.”
“His lordship’s reputation—”
“Is a sham like his lordship,” she snapped, before reminding herself that she acted like a yahoo and that if she wasn’t careful, the duke would throw her out on her ear. If he did, where could she go to obtain vengeance? The marquess would squash any lesser man who came against him the way his boot squashed a bug.
The duke placed the bag on the floor and took her arm again. “You’re not well.”
“That doesn’t matter,” she said in a rush, knowing that her legs wouldn’t support her much longer. “All that matters is that you stop him.”
“We’ll talk when you’re feeling more yourself.”
The duke’s voice echoed eerily. She’d felt so frozen when she came inside. Now the fire in the grate crawled along her skin like biting ants.
She dug her fingers into his sleeve. “Please,” she tried to whisper. Darkness edged her vision. “Please…”
The floor rose up to strike her.
In too much turmoil to sleep, Leath retreated to his library. He bitterly regretted quarreling with his mother. All his life, he’d been protective of her frail health. But making his peace with his mother meant sundering his connection with Eleanor. And he wasn’t willing to do that.
He threw himself into the leather chair behind his desk and watched John light the candles and set the fire. When he was alone, he glanced around this extravagant room that he’d always loved, and at last recognized that Alloway Chase was indeed haunted. Not by poor Lady Mary reputed to walk the battlements on windy nights, although God knew the night was windy enough to wake a hundred specters.
No, the ghost who haunted him was the woman he loved.
“Goddamn it,” he growled, slamming his hands on the leather blotter and upsetting a pile of mail.
He rose and gathered the letters, idly flicking through them. Reports from his various estates. Invitations he had no intention of accepting. Correspondence from his dwindling number of political allies. A letter from Berkshire that must report on the search for that blackmailing bastard Hector Greengrass.
Leath’s heart crashed to a stop and he ripped one particular letter from the rest. Hands shaking, he tore it open and moved closer to the fire to read it.
It was from the inquiry agent he’d engaged to check Miss Trim’s background. She’d arrived bearing impressive references from a Lady Bascombe of Willow House in Sussex. The agent had written several times saying that he was yet to locate the manor.
Urgently, Leath scanned the few lines. Far too few lines to convey much information, he quickly realized. Sykes had covered Sussex from top to bottom and side to side and he could categorically state that Willow House did not exist. Lady Bascombe was equally fictitious.
Feeling sick, Leath lowered the letter.
The knowledge that Eleanor had deceived him from the start made him crush the note into a ball. Yet while he was bewildered and angry, he wasn’t surprised. He’d always known that she wasn’t what she claimed. As his mother had said, Eleanor was a most unlikely housemaid. She hadn’t even tried to hide that she’d been educated beyond the level of most servants or that her proud spirit was unaccustomed to bowing to authority.
The problem now was that if Eleanor had fabricated her history, he had no idea where to
look for her. Was her name even Eleanor Trim?
Then he recalled her father’s war records. Whatever else was false, everything she’d told him about Sergeant Major Trim was true.
Her father had been a Kentish man. With sudden determination, Leath returned to the desk and wrote instructions to Sykes to continue the hunt in Kent. Now he sought Eleanor Trim, daughter of Sergeant Major Robert Trim, late of Wellington’s Army in Portugal. Leath included all the information he had, including the timing of her mother and her half-sister’s deaths, and prayed that it was enough.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Nell stirred from sleep and blindly slid her hand across the bed, seeking James. When she encountered empty space, she remembered everything and opened her eyes with a sharp cry.
“Miss Trim, pray be calm.” A lovely dark-haired woman leaned over her with a concerned expression. “You’re safe here at Fentonwyck.”
Behind the woman, the room was vast and decorated with paintings that Nell recognized as masterpieces. She struggled to sit, wincing as her body reminded her that yesterday she’d traveled miles.
Had it been yesterday?
“What happened?”
The stranger was round with child and wearing a beautiful loose gown in green velvet. Her black eyes were bright with amusement and interest. “Last night you appeared out of a thunderstorm, spouting extravagant denunciations against Lord Leath, then you fainted into my husband’s arms. It was a performance worthy of the Theatre Royal.”
Nell felt as though she’d been battered by rocks, but she still managed to blush. This beautiful creature must be the Duchess of Sedgemoor. “Your Grace, I’m sorry to disrupt your household.”
Her Grace laughed. “Your arrival brightened up a party that became odiously dull. Please don’t apologize.”
Nell felt increasingly awkward. This room was fit for a queen, not a mud-spattered nobody. “I’ve put you to great inconvenience.”
“Rubbish. We have plenty of space and a regiment of servants standing idle.” She rose and crossed to the window where she flung the curtains wide with a rattle that made Nell flinch. Nor did the bright light help her pounding head.