A Notorious Ruin

by Carolyn Jewel

  “It has been too long since last you saw me. I fear you find me greatly changed.”

  “If anything, you are more beautiful.”

  “I will warn everyone.” He could not do worse to her than had already happened. “If not for you, my husband would not have returned to the ring. He would still be alive.”

  “A woman has nothing but her reputation.” He glanced at his gloved hand and adjusted his cuff. “An observation.”

  “One may observe the same of men.”

  He flushed. Marsey had always been quick to take offense in that regard. Men not gentlemen. “What do you suppose Glynn or his lordship would say if they heard the rumors about us?”

  She made certain her smile did not falter. “I cannot fathom how you live with yourself.”

  He looked her up and down again, and then sneered at her. “Do not dare lecture me.”

  “You are no gentleman.”

  “You play at being a lady. You are not. If you’re not careful, others will learn the same.”

  “I have spoken to you this once. To be certain you understand that I do not give a fig for you or what you say about me to anyone. Tell all the lies you like, and I’ll still have no complaint of you. But if I discover you have done to anyone dear to me what you did to my husband, I am your unrelenting enemy.”

  “As if you’ve any idea how your betters get on.”

  “Good day, sir.” She walked around him again, and this time he let her pass. She increased her pace, paying no attention to the direction she went. Not home. Not yet. Not when she was shaking with anger. She took the path toward the river rather than The Cooperage, walking as fast as she dared with Roger at her side. She walked long past the time when she’d left Bartley Green behind and did not stop until she realized Roger’s gait had altered.

  Panic rolled through her when she saw he was limping. His mouth was open, his ribs heaving, and he was panting. Appalled by her inattention, she dropped to her knees and threw her arms around the dog. “Roger. Roger, I’m sorry.”

  He licked her cheek and lowered himself to the path. What had she done?

  “Roger, I’m sorry, so sorry, oh, my poor noble boy.” He groaned and lay flat on his side, ribs heaving. What if he was dying? What if in her absorption with herself she’d walked Roger beyond his endurance? She knew that was a danger with him, and she’d walked and walked and kept walking anyway. She kept her arms around him, stroking him, willing him to be better.

  She lost track of how long she stayed with him, not daring to leave while he was in this condition. If she left him to get help, he’d only follow, and that would make him even worse off. She was terrified he might die no matter what she did. “What have I done?” She held back tears. She couldn’t lose him. Not Roger. She couldn’t bear it if she lost Roger, too. “What have I done?”

  “What’s this?”

  Her father, Captain Niall, and Lord Thrale stood on the path, staring at her. She’d been so caught up with worry about Roger, she’d not heard them heading her way. Thrale, in boots and a battered coat, balanced a fishing pole on his shoulder. Behind them was Thrale’s valet. What was his name? The servant held another two fishing poles, a creel, and a wicker basket. The tail fin of a trout poked from under the closed cover.

  “Is he all right?” Thrale asked.

  “No. No, he’s not.” She burst into tears of self-hate and relief that someone who could help was here. “I walked too fast for too long, and he would have let me walk him to death—” She became incapable of speech. What sort of selfish, insensitive woman was she to lose track of Roger like that?

  Her father lifted his hat, ran his fingers through his hair, and replaced the hat. “Lucy, my dear. Perhaps it’s time you put him down.”

  She threw her arms around Roger. “Never! Don’t you dare say such a thing. You’ll never take him from me. I won’t allow it. He’s walked too far, that’s all.”

  “Sinclair.” Thrale spoke sharply. “Show Captain Niall to the house, won’t you? Flint and I will assist your daughter and her dog.”

  Captain Niall cleared his throat. “Mrs. Wilcott.”

  She looked up, ready to do battle again. “Sir?”

  He flushed. “I know how fond of him you are. I hope he recovers.”

  Lucy burst into fresh tears. His kindness made her feel worse. She did not deserve his consideration. She pressed her fingers to her eyes and willed herself to calm. “Thank you, Captain. I hope the same.”

  “Gentlemen,” Thrale said. “I’ll see you at the house in short order.”

  When her father and the captain were on their way, Thrale handed his fishing pole to his valet and bent down. “Fetch a dogcart or wagon, Flint. We’ll wait here for you.” He spoke firmly. “Quick on it, if you don’t mind.”

  “Straightaway, milord.” The servant tucked all three fishing poles under his arm and hurried off in the direction of The Cooperage, one hand on his hat, the other on the creel to keep it from bouncing. He made a wide arc around her father and the captain.

  “I thought—” Words jammed in her throat. Roger remained stretched out on his side, panting, eyes closed.

  “He needs rest is all.” He stroked the dog’s side. “A loyal beast.”

  “I might have killed him.”

  “You haven’t.” He sat on the other side of Roger with one knee bent. Without comment, he handed her his handkerchief.

  “I don’t deserve a moment’s kindness. None.”

  “You are too hard on yourself.” He took her hand, squeezed it, and let go. The contact, brief and undeserved as it was, helped. “He’ll be fine.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “I'll ask your father’s kennel master to look after him when we get him home.”

  “Thank you. Thank you. An excellent idea.”

  Before she expected Flint’s return, the servant appeared with a ramshackle cart. Between Thrale and the valet, Roger was lifted onto the back. When he was settled, Lucy sat on the open end of the cart, one hand on Roger who, though listless still, showed signs of recovery. Thrale walked alongside the cart. By the time they reached The Cooperage, Roger jumped down on his own. He landed with a limp and a whimper, though.

  “Oh, Roger.” She dropped to her knees beside him, and did not object when Roger licked her cheek.

  “Flint, please ask the kennel master to check on Roger as soon as he has a moment to spare.”

  “Aye, milord.” Flint bowed and dashed away.

  “Thank you. Thank you. That was an excellent idea,” Lucy said.

  “Mrs. Wilcott. Allow me.” Thrale picked him up and carried him inside. At the top of the stairs, he waited for her to point the way to her room. She hurried ahead and threw open her door. Thrale came in and set Roger down, waiting to be sure Roger was steady on his legs. When that proved the case, he straightened. Roger walked slowly to his favorite spot by the fireplace and lay stretched out by the fire screen.

  “You were so kind. Are so kind to help.” Lucy grabbed his hand and lay her cheek atop his fingers. “Thank you, my lord. Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

  “You are welcome.”

  She released his hand and hurried to the hearth to bring up the fire. As she did that, Thrale said, “What happened to upset you so?”

  She rose and stared at the ceiling. She counted the scallops in the plaster. “Nothing that matters.”

  “Mrs. Wilcott.” He scrubbed a hand through his hair, and she was at sea. Thrale had earned the right to her family’s undying appreciation and now hers a thousand times over.

  She crossed the room to fetch the pitcher by the basin. At the fireplace, she poured water into the bowl she kept there for Roger.

  “Not nothing.” Thrale fixed her with a glance that bespoke annoyance and some hurt. Her heart lurched. “If someone has made you unhappy, then, Mrs. Wilcott, I hope you would turn to me for protection.”

  The unsavory connotations of that word slammed into her. She knew he’d not
meant that—not a mistress, not as Marsey had meant when he accused her of setting her hopes on an illicit relationship with Thrale.

  This time he stared at the ceiling. “Mrs. Wilcott. Please.”

  “I know you did not mean that.”

  Under his protection. Her mind raced away with the indelicate notions such as no proper lady ever had. But heavens, would he not be a magnificent lover?

  He gave a rueful smile. “I hope you believe you might turn to me for assistance. In such a case as someone making himself obnoxious to you.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I do mean that.”

  She went to her side table and pretended to be enthralled by the flowers there. The roses he’d given her and Emily were long dead, but fondly remembered. She turned her head to one side so as not to have her back to him, but she was aware enough to wonder if there was significance to her not facing him.

  “Marigolds,” he said.

  She touched several of the blossoms. “They are a cheerful flower.”

  “They are.”

  She peeked at him. Johnson had described him as tireless. Merciless in the ring. He liked to have his newer fighters face Thrale, he’d told her, for they learned to take punishment from him. Here he stood in her room, present in that way he had that made it impossible for her to see or think of anyone else.

  “I don’t know why you are so kind to me.” Ten marigolds and less than a third of the arrangement counted. “Because of Anne, I suppose.”

  “I would do near anything to keep her sisters from harm’s way, that’s true. As would Aldreth or Cynssyr.”

  “Anne deserves that.” Twenty. “So do Mary and Emily.”

  “You believe you do not?”

  Twenty-six. She tried to distance herself from him and failed. She faced him though, because she was no coward. “I married a man who fought with his fists and took money for it. A man who betrayed his class in every word he spoke.”

  “So you did.” He adjusted the cuff of his coat, the comfortable sort that a man wore in the country. He’d been fishing in it and the pockets bulged out, doubtless stuffed with string and a knife and, even, bait. “You needn’t answer this impertinent question, but did you wish to marry him? I have no need to know the answer, only curiosity. Silence is answer enough if I’ve overstepped.”

  She curled her fingers in her skirts. She liked him in these rough clothes and had to fight a mad, mad urge to walk to him and twine her arms around his neck and see where they ended up. She never could. Never. She’d rather have his friendship, her only friendship since she’d returned to Bartley Green without her husband. “When he asked me to marry him, I said yes.”

  “I’d wondered if you’d eloped with him because you were in love.”

  “No. I mean, no, we did not elope.” Her silence on the subject was so ingrained in her by now that the words resisted her saying them. They weighed her down, made her feel she was betraying her father and sisters, yet, at the same time, Lord Thrale listened without scorn, and she could remember those days and the ones following and remind herself she had made a good life with her husband. “Devil had a special licence, and the vicar married us. In his front parlor. The vicar’s parlor.” The more she talked, the more confused everything became between guilt and shame and memories she cherished. “I did love him,” she said. “You know I did.”

  “Before, Mrs. Wilcott.” He held her gaze. “Before you married The Devil Himself. Did you love him before then?”

  She glanced away, then back. She touched the petals of one of the marigolds. “I agreed to marry him.”

  He crossed to her and took her by the shoulders. He was gentle and did not hurt her in the least. “Why?” His eyes bored into hers. With him like this, it was too easy to forget he was a marquess. Too easy to think of him as she had Devil. “Did your husband pay your father’s debts? Is that the reason you married a prizefighter?”

  She squeezed her eyes closed. “He cried, Papa did, when he told me.”

  “Crocodile tears.”

  Her eyes popped open, and he was still staring at her. His scorn was not meant for her. His fingers tightened on her. “He never said I had to.”

  “Bah.” He released her, and she took a step back, prepared for the worst. “What sort of man asks his daughter to marry so far below her station?”

  “You don’t understand.”

  He shot back an answer. “I do. Don’t think for a moment I don’t.”

  “He would have lost The Cooperage. The lawyers had been to the house twice. The bailiff would have been next.” She looked at him, stripped again of emotion. “We would have had to move away from our only memories of Mama. Our home. He’d already arranged to send Emily to a relative in Bath. Mary was to go away, too. And I was to be sent to yet another relative. He meant to keep Anne with him. Emily was a girl too young to lose everyone she loved, and Mary—I knew she meant to do something drastic, and I could not let that happen.”

  “It was not your dilemma to solve.”

  “But it was.” She was a rival for Thrale’s reserve. “To keep my sisters together in this house, all I need do was marry Jack Wilcott.” She swallowed the lump in her throat. The truth was not something she could change, and she would not lie to him or make what had happened sound less dreadful than it hand been. “He cried when he showed me the letters about Emily and Mary. The mortgages and the dunning letters, nearly a hundred of them, and correspondence from the lawyers and bankers. I knew what I was doing. You mustn’t think I did not.”

  “Lucy—”

  “He wanted me. He didn’t want Anne or Mary.” Why had she thought his eyes were the color of fog when they were cold, sharp steel? “I did not want to marry him, that is true.” If, somehow, Thrale did not understood what she’d done, how thoroughly she’d ruined herself when she’d married Devil, then he must be made to understand, or there was no use thinking they were friends. “I knew what it meant to marry a man like him and what others would think of me for it.” She clutched the sides of the table behind her until her fingers ached. “No matter any of that, sir. Devil was a decent, honorable man, and I will never say I’m ashamed of having loved him.”

  Still too close to her, he spoke in a hard voice, at the edge of indelicate. He touched her cheek, and her soul clenched at the contact. “What else could you have done?”

  She sat on the nearest chair, undone by his pity. She covered the top of her bowed head with her palms. “I could have let him send us away.”

  “Another girl might have submitted to that fate.” He’d come closer while she was bent over, and she was still, still hopelessly at sea. He did not despise her. He didn’t. Yet. When he’d had time to reflect on what she’d done, he would. She remained bent, for she could not bear to look at him. “Again I ask you,” he said in a steely voice, “what happened today that made you so distraught?”

  She straightened because she was no coward. “I ask you again, does it matter?”

  His expression softened, and that broke her to see that he wanted to be kind to her. “That is not a question you ought to ask me.”

  “I do not mean to offend you.”

  He crouched, hands on the arms of her chair. “Whatever you say I will not betray your confidence to anyone. Not to your father. Nor to any of your sisters.”

  She let out a breath, unsettled. She could trust him. If he made her a promise, he would keep it. “I saw Arthur Marsey in town.”

  “Marsey.” He pushed away, standing now.

  “He knew me before.”

  “Meaning?”

  “As Devil’s wife.”

  “He insulted you.”

  “No more than Mrs. Glynn or others like her.” She sat forward. “I do not blame any of them. They are rightly appalled. As you are.”

  “What’s appalling, Mrs. Wilcott, is your father having the gall to put such a choice before you.”

  “I’m glad he did.” She wiped her eyes of tears. There was no possible way
to make the truth anything but what it was. She accepted the consequences of what she’d done. Devil had not been a gentleman. Nothing like it. “Glad, my lord. I’ll never not be. We’d have been sent away if he hadn’t.”

  He gave her a curt bow. “If Marsey makes himself unpleasant to you, tell me.”

  “No.”

  “I’ll see he never does again.”

  CHAPTER 15

  At half past twelve in the morning, fewer than three feet separated Thrale from Mrs. Wilcott. “Afraid, my lord?”

  Her gaze locked on him. Determined. Focused. Her bare fists were up, one slightly in front of the other. A table and several chairs had been pushed to the side of the room. His coat hung half off one of the chairs. She’d kicked off her slippers. Her shawl lay abandoned on an ottoman.

  “Of a slip of a woman like you?” He kept his loose fists high, too, but he was aware now, having had a painful lesson, that he needed to protect his torso. “Never.”

  His neckcloth was wrapped around her waist in order to hold her skirts high enough to avoid her tripping on them as she had before. Pale-rose material bunched above, and he had told himself more than once now that he would not look at her ankles. He could not afford the distraction. Besides that, her informal gown was cut loose enough to give her less restricted movements of her upper torso.

  The damn woman was fast. Blindingly fast. They could not face each other in earnest, and yet her speed required his vigilance. No matter what he did, she anticipated him so easily he’d begun to think even if wanted one of his punches to connect, he’d not succeed.

  There was no hope of her landing a facer, and she wasn’t trying. He was too tall for that. But six times now, she’d tapped his torso; ribs, stomach, chest. She came in close, jabbed. His rapid twist to the side avoided contact.

  In his defense, he had strikes of his own to count. Not punches; loose-fisted touches. The presence of bosom was an adjustment. He had no experience with bosoms when he was within the ropes.