by Mary Balogh
When they reached Christopher’s suite at the Pulteney, Martin knocked on the door and waited. Christina was bouncing at his side as if she were expecting the greatest adventure of her life. Perhaps that was what she was about to get, Martin thought, though not in the way she expected.
Lady Nancy’s maid opened the door—the little slut he had had at Penhallow. Her eyes widened. Christina darted past her into the sitting room and Martin could hear her excited child’s voice.
“Here I am!” she shrieked. “I am going to stay all night. Where shall I put my bag? Has the Tsar left yet? I want to see him getting into the coach. There is ever such a big crowd outside. Uncle Martin could hardly get past.”
Trevelyan’s voice answered her, pitched low.
By the time Martin entered the sitting room, Christopher was there alone, looking tense and excited. “I have sent Christina into the other room,” he said, gesturing with one hand. “She is with Nancy. I have ordered the carriage for half an hour’s time. By then the crowds outside should have dispersed. Elizabeth did not see you or suspect anything, Martin?”
“No,” Martin said, allowing himself to look agitated and unhappy.
“But devil take it, Trevelyan, I had a hard time going through with it. She is going to be distraught. Promise me that you will take care of Christina on the way to Devonshire? I will never forgive myself if anything happens to her.”
“She is my daughter,” Christopher said. “I will guard her with my life. You are sure Elizabeth will follow, Martin? You think I will be able to win her back this way?”
Martin nodded slowly. “She will be angry and tearful,” he said.
“But she will see that you did it out of love, Trevelyan. She will melt. I know Lizzie. Do you have the note ready?”
Christopher reached into an inner pocket and drew out a folded piece of paper. “It was the most difficult letter of my life to write,” he said. “I wanted to pour out all my feelings, but I forced myself to keep it terse. Time enough for the feelings later.” He smiled, but the expression was more grimace than smile.
Martin took the note and patted Christopher reassuringly on the shoulder. “It will all work out, you will see,” he said. “A few more days and you will be able to start living happily ever after. I’ll speak up in your defense as I have always done. But Lizzie will not need my words, only the urgings of her own heart.”
Christopher stretched out his right hand. “Well,” he said, “it is a gamble, Martin. We both know that. It may not work. But at least I’ll always know that you did your best to make things turn out well.”
Martin clasped his hand firmly. He almost laughed. If only Trevelyan knew the ambiguity of his own words, he thought. “I’ll not keep you,” he said. “You must have last-minute preparations to make. Good luck!”
“Thank you, Martin,” Christopher said.
Martin checked Elizabeth’s room as soon as he returned to Grosvenor Square. She had left for Carlton House already. So had John. Christina’s nurse was snoring in her chair in the nursery. A fairly light blow to the side of her head ensured that she would not wake up for a while longer. The duke, fortunately, was not going to Carlton House, having declared that it would be too great a circus for his tastes. Martin quickly read the note Christopher had given him and smiled with satisfaction.
The Duke of Chicheley was in his private sitting room, his feet resting on a stool, a book open on his lap when Martin burst in on him after only the merest courtesy of a knock.
“Good God, Papa,” he said, “thank heaven you are here. What are we going to do? He has made off with Christina, the scoundrel, and left her nurse half dead from a blow to the head. It might not have been discovered until morning if I had not gone into Lizzie’s dressing room to see if she had left yet and found this note propped on the washstand. Lord!” Martin clutched his head with both hands. “It is all my fault. I thought the lie would be for the best. I should have known that only the truth will ever do.”
“Silence!” the duke ordered, setting his book down beside him.
“Stop the babbling, Martin, and explain yourself like a man.”
“I’m sorry.” Martin drew a few steadying breaths. “It was Trevelyan who kidnapped Lizzie from Hanover Square, Papa. He took her to Penhallow and kept her there and ravished her. When I brought her back to London I persuaded her to tell a different story, God help me. I thought she would be ruined and her chances of marrying Poole lost if the truth were known. I warned Trevelyan not to try to follow her to London, but he found out about Christina and came here in defiance of me. I have kept my mouth shut since, thinking that no harm could come to Lizzie in such a public setting. And once she was married, I thought, she would be safe from Trevelyan at last.”
The duke had set his feet on the floor and was gripping the arms of his chair.
“But Christina was not safe,” Martin said. “She has gone, Papa. I ran up to the nursery after finding the note in Lizzie’s dressing room and before running down here.” He handed the note to the duke and stood silently while it was being read.
“He cannot live without his daughter,” the duke said, still staring down at the note. “He is taking her to Penhallow. If Elizabeth wants to see her again, then she must go there too. I’ll see him swing for this.”
Martin swallowed. “He is probably doing it out of a mistaken sense of love, Papa,” he said.
“Silence!” the duke thundered again. “Enough of your excuses for everyone, Martin. It is time you grew up and learned some of the harsher realities of human nature. The man is a villain. The note has appeared since Elizabeth left for Carlton House. That cannot be long ago. He can’t have gone far with her. I’ll have him overtaken almost before he is clear of London. Pull the bell rope. What are you waiting for, you fool?”
“You are going to send men after them?” Martin said. “I think that’s a good idea, Papa. We can have Christina back in her nursery before Lizzie even knows she is gone. I’ll go too. There must be someone to bring the poor little child home.”
“Yes, go,” the duke said. “I’ll have my men bring Trevelyan back here and then he will be sorry that he was born. I’ll watch him swing, Martin. You may be too soft for the sight, but I am not.”
Six of the duke’s stoutest servants, in addition to Macklin, accompanied Martin half an hour later on his pursuit of Christopher’s carriage along the road west.
Once it had left the confines of the city, the carriage proceeded at a pace only a little faster than a snail might take. Antoine was at the ribbons. Christopher, seated alone inside, wondered how far he would travel before turning back. But he did not think he could have guessed wrongly about what Martin’s next move would be. Pursuit surely could not be far behind. He had not seen John since leaving the Pulteney, but he trusted that a good cavalryman would be able to keep out of sight beside the road without losing the carriage. How could anyone lose such a slow-moving carriage even if he tried?
Christopher was not given long to think. He did not hear the horses come galloping up behind the carriage, but the suddenly increased speed of the vehicle alerted him to the fact that they were being pursued at last. And then, just as the sounds of pursuit became audible even above the noise of his own horses and the carriage wheels, there was a single shot.
Christ! Christopher reached for the pistol in its holster against the side of the carriage. He had counted on there being no gunfire since Martin and the other pursuers would believe that Christina was in the carriage with him. He could hear Antoine swearing vociferously from the box and was relieved to know that at least he had not been killed. The carriage drew to a halt and one of the doors was thrown open.
“Out!” a harsh voice said—it was not Martin’s. “Leave the child inside. Throw any weapons you have to the ground. There are eight of us. We all have guns pointed at the doorway.”
Christopher tossed out the pistol and drew a deep breath. This was the unknown moment. Would they gun him down once the
re seemed no danger of hitting Christina too? He jumped down into the roadway.
“Put your hands above your head, Trevelyan,” Martin said. “I have already taught your coachman a lesson for not stopping as soon as he was ordered to do so.”
Antoine was still swearing in French. He was holding his left arm, but it did not seem to be immobile. Christopher guessed that it had only been grazed.
“What is this all about?” Christopher asked, looking politely about him.
“It is about the kidnapping of a child,” Martin said. “The Duke of Chicheley’s granddaughter and my stepsister’s daughter.”
“And mine,” Christopher said, raising his eyebrows.
Martin pointed his gun at him like an accusing finger. “No longer yours, Trevelyan,” he said. “My stepsister divorced you well over six years ago. You will answer for this crime in a court of law. These men will take you back to London to face the duke. I shall take Christina back to her mother.”
Christopher frowned in incomprehension. “You are under the impression that my daughter is in the carriage?” he asked. “What a strange time of day it would be to take a child for a drive. I would imagine that she is fast asleep in her bed at the Pulteney.”
“At the Pulteney?” It was Martin’s turn to frown. Then he nodded sharply at one of the servants. “Check the inside of the carriage, Macklin. Stand aside, Trevelyan.”
Christopher stood obligingly aside. Macklin looked and shook his head. “Empty, sir,” he said.
Christopher raised his eyebrows again.
“Ah,” Martin said. “So you thought to outwit us, Trevelyan? We will fetch her from the Pulteney. It is as much kidnapping to keep her there as to take her in your carriage to Penhallow, as your cowardly note to my stepsister indicated was your intention.”
“My daughter will stay where she is,” Christopher said. “She is there at my invitation and under my protection. And with my wife’s full knowledge and consent.”
Martin sneered. “That will be for a magistrate to decide,” he said.
“This is the end, Trevelyan. You have gone too far this time.” His eyes sparked noticeably even in the darkness. “And that will be the last time you will refer to my stepsister as your wife if you know what is good for you.”
“The Countess of Trevelyan is my wife,” Christopher said. “She became both this morning, Martin, when she married me. John witnessed the marriage.”
“Seize him!” Martin told the gawking servants. “Enough of this. I have to go rescue my niece.”
“I did indeed,” John’s voice said from the darkness beyond the carriage and the circle of men. “So you see, Martin and anyone else here present who is interested, Lord Trevelyan has every right to have his daughter at the Pulteney or even in this carriage on the way to Penhallow, with or without his wife’s consent. In actual fact, he has that consent.”
Martin whirled about and stared at John, who was sitting casually on his horse, smiling.
“Put the guns away,” John told his father’s servants. “This scene looks like a well-contrived farce and would be vastly entertaining to anyone else who happened along. There has been an embarrassing misunderstanding obviously. Lord Trevelyan is out for a leisurely drive just as I am out for a ride. Lady Christina Atwell is safe with her aunt at the Pulteney and will not be disturbed tonight. You may all return to Grosvenor Square.”
A few of the servants looked somewhat dubious, but the word of Viscount Aston meant almost as much to them as that of the Duke of Chicheley and certainly more than Martin’s. Soon all seven of them were trotting back in the direction of London.
“I see,” Martin said, “that you have been making a pretty fool of my stepfather and me, Trevelyan. He left a note in Lizzie’s room, John, to say that he was taking Christina. Naturally enough, since no one saw fit to inform either of us of the wedding this morning, we assumed that it was kidnapping that was taking place. Papa was frantic, as you might imagine. I offered to come after Trevelyan. Why was I at least not informed of the wedding? Lizzie must have known that I would be delighted.”
“Martin,” John said, his smile gone, “it will not do. Not any longer.”
“I would not have tried to stop her,” Martin said. “She knows that I did not support Papa’s idea of divorce in the first place.”
“It will not do,” John said a little more firmly. “Not any longer, Martin.”
Martin looked at him uncertainly.
“You hired the woman who claimed to be my mistress and mother of my child,” Christopher said, “and sent her safely off to America as soon as the divorce was accomplished. You paid Rhodes to say that he had seen me with that poor whore who died. You spread the quite erroneous story that I was the one who stripped Morrison of his fortune at a card game—after the one witness in London had left for Ireland. You deliberately and ruthlessly broke up my marriage, Martin.”
“How preposterous!” Martin said. He turned to John. “You see what he is like?”
“We have proof in all three cases,” John said. “You beat and raped Nancy at Kingston Park, Martin. You made her life a living hell and ruined my chances of happiness with her.”
“If she says that, she lies,” Martin said, flaring. “She was as eager as I was. More eager. I was only a boy. I did not know how to fend off her advances.”
“And you beat and raped my sister’s maid at Penhallow a few weeks ago,” Christopher said.
“A maid,” Martin said with some contempt. “A slut who begged and panted for it. She got what she asked for.”
“As I ‘ope you will, m’sieur,” the forgotten Antoine said from the box of the coach.
“And now you have been scheming,” Christopher said, “to make sure that Elizabeth and I never get back together again. Doubtless you have some plan to make sure that she does not marry Poole either.”
“You are a villain, Martin,” John said, his voice quite dispassionate.
“You deserve to die.”
Martin laughed rather nervously. “Can I be blamed for wanting to protect my sister from hurt and a lifetime of misery?” he asked. “You lust after her, Trevelyan, as does Poole and as do a thousand other men, just because she has been blessed with beauty. You don’t love her. No one loves her. Only me. I have loved her all my life and will love her until my dying day. You went off to Canada as soon as there was a little trouble. You went off to Spain to fight and perhaps to die, John. You had your own life to live when Lizzie was suffering. Who stayed with her and loved her back to strength? I stayed. I did.”
“She would not have been suffering if you had not broken her heart,” Christopher said. “She was a new and young bride, Martin, very much in love with her bridegroom. Until your satanic plot ruined it all.”
“Why?” John asked. “That is what I cannot understand, Martin. If you loved her, why not win her for yourself? Would she not have you in that way? Could she see you only as a brother?”
Martin’s voice was shaking when he answered. “Only someone with a filthy mind would even suggest that I try to defile Lizzie,” he said. “My love for her is pure. The love of a brother for a sister. But I would expect you to suggest that there is more. Living among soldiers has coarsened you, John.”
“What you have for her is an obsession!” Christopher said.
Martin whirled to face him, dismounted quickly from his horse, and stepped close so that his face was almost against Christopher’s.
“What I feel for her is love!” he said fiercely. “An emotion you would not understand, Trevelyan. You would not be able to love and keep your love pure and in restraint, would you? I love her. I loved her as a child and a young boy. I loved her as a lover briefly until my mother died when we were sixteen and told me the truth.” He stopped abruptly.
“The truth?” John prompted.
Martin was crying. Christopher watched in mingled fascination and embarrassment and disgust as his face contorted and tears coursed their way down his cheeks. “No o
ne knew but her,” he said between sobs. “Why did she have to burden me with it on her deathbed? I hate her for doing so. I’ll hate her to all eternity. Even he did not know. Chicheley is my father. My mother was his doxy when they were both still married to other people. He is my father, damn him to hell.”
There was silence for a few moments except for the sounds of his racking sobs.
“Lizzie is my sister,” Martin said after a while. “We have the same father.” He tried to laugh. “That is why we look alike. The old lecher was lying with my mother and his lawful wife both. I could no longer think of being Lizzie’s lover after my mother had told me, you see. I have loved her in purity ever since. No one can love as I have loved. I have sacrificed everything for her. No one else can say that. I am the only one who will be willing to stay with her until death and give up everything else that might make life pleasurable in order to protect her and keep her safe from harm.”
“And if there is no harm to protect her from,” Christopher said quietly into the silence that followed Martin’s impassioned words, “then harm must be created. Tonight she was to be made frantic for Christina’s safety in order that she would turn against me and toward you. Your mind is sick, Martin.”
“In order to stay pure for Elizabeth,” John said, “you have to work off your fury against your mother by beating other women, Martin, and your sexual frustrations by raping. And your guilt? Do you feel guilt?”
Martin turned to glare at him. John had also dismounted and was standing quietly beside his horse. “There are whip marks on my back,” Martin said viciously. “I have suffered too. I constantly suffer. What would you do, John, if you were to find suddenly that the woman you love was your sister? What if Lady Nancy Atwell were your sister? But even then you would not understand. You have not been with Lady Nancy every moment since the cradle. You don’t know what real love is.”