‘I do not know who he may be, or how she found him … indeed, she says it took some time to run him to ground, but that all the trouble was worth it.’
If that was what the Dowager was saying, it was obvious she had managed to dredge up somebody who knew that her own father had attempted to auction her off. Lord Matthison, most likely, since it was his money she had absconded with. It was amazing to think of the Dowager inviting a man like Lord Matthison into her house. It meant that her hatred was so intense it even overrode her reluctance to mix with any but the most socially superior.
Lord Matthison’s reputation was such that he only skirted the fringes of society. Her father had met him in the very lowest sorts of gambling hells where they whispered that his luck at the cards was so phenomenal, he must be in league with the devil.
‘She said he will expose you for the f-fraud you are …’ She hiccupped.
Fraud? Then she might have found out about the forged references too. Her connections to Hincksey and his criminal fraternity. She went to one of the stools by the sink and sat down heavily.
‘Oh, Aimée, I am so sorry! Is there anything I can do? You know, I hope, by now, that I am your friend? If there is any way I may help you, any way at all.’
Aimée covered her face with her hands. It was over. It was all over. Unless …
Her mind began to whirl. And as her plans took shape, she felt new life flowing through her veins. During these past weeks, while she had been trying so hard to fit in to the mould of English society, attempting to become more like dear, sweet, childlike Lady Fenella, she had been steadily withering away inside. That was why she had been feeling lost and insubstantial as a shadow.
While she had been falling in love with Septimus, she had lost sight of who she really was. Though she wore the clothes her husband had decreed made her look like a Countess, bore the title that qualified her to mingle with the greatest in the land, she would never truly be a docile, indolent, conventional English lady. She was the daughter of two outcasts from society. One of whom had looked upon life as a grand adventure, and the other, a series of opportunities to be seized with both hands.
She lifted her head and gazed up at Lady Fenella, who was hovering over her anxiously.
‘You have done me a great service by warning me of impending danger.’
Though, bizarrely, she welcomed the very danger itself, because her heart was beating now with the purpose and resolve she had lacked since setting foot in Bowdon Manor. No, before that, she reflected with a curl of her lip. Since giving herself up into a man’s keeping!
‘Oh!’ cried Lady Fenella. ‘Then it is true? This man will expose you for a f-fraud?’
She nodded. In all likelihood, the man in the gold sitting room was Lord Matthison. She had always known it was dangerous to take money from a man with his reputation, without yielding up what he thought he had paid for. But using it had been her only means of escape!
‘Oh, dear! And I did like you, so very much!’ Lady Fenella wailed.
‘I like you, too, Lady Fenella,’ said Aimée sadly. ‘Thank you for warning me about … this man. And for being a friend to me, while I have lived here.’ She stood up. ‘I deeply regret the necessity for deceiving you.’
Lady Fenella gave her a look of reproach as she continued, ‘And I wish you all the happiness you deserve, in your future. I will always remember you with fondness.’
‘You are going to run away, then?’
Aimée smiled ruefully. It was the only solution. She had tried so hard to live respectably. But the truth was that the staid life of a pampered lady, chained down in a marriage of convenience, did not suit her. She was bored, lonely and miserable. And had just realised that she was only going to grow more miserable with every day she spent shackled to a man who was determined he would never fall in love again, particularly not with his own wife.
Besides, she was not going to tamely walk downstairs and let the Dowager win the day!
‘I know I have no right to ask you, and I will understand if you refuse my request, but it would be an immense help to me if you could somehow contrive to conceal from your mama that I have returned from my walk. I need a little time to.’
‘M-make your escape?’ Lady Fenella’s eyes bulged in alarm. ‘Oh, dear! I do not know how I may do that! Mama said I was to tell her the moment I knew you were home.’
‘You could quite easily stay in here and close the door,’ Aimée said challengingly. ‘Nobody need know you have spoken to me at all. And afterwards, when all the fuss has died down, I am sure nobody will blame you for having tried to avoid what will, inevitably, be a most unpleasant scene.’
Because everyone knew how much Lady Fenella hated the sound of loud, angry voices. Or, indeed, any form of confrontation.
Lady Fenella still looked dubious. So Aimée ruthlessly aimed her next dart at the girl’s tender heart.
‘It will help his lordship, too,’ she said softly. ‘You know, none of this is his fault. I withheld several pertinent facts about myself when he agreed to marry me.’
And he had never been sufficiently interested in her to make any attempt to find out so much as one detail of her former life. Why had it taken her so long to see that? Why had she put up with being treated with such a lack of respect? This was what love did to a woman. She became a man’s plaything. When she thought of how she had let Septimus treat her like a … a doll, to take out and play with when it suited him, she wanted to hit something!
‘Oh!’ gasped Lady Fenella, eyeing her clenched fists with trepidation. ‘Mama maintained from the very first that you were an actress!’
Aimée did not bother to correct her misapprehension. What did it matter now? Besides, it only went to show how easily her flight could be explained away with no suspicion of any wrongdoing falling upon her husband.
‘Then surely,’ she said, ‘you must wish to help to spare him the embarrassment my exposure would bring him?’ And embarrassment, she was sure, was the strongest emotion he would feel. A man had to love his wife for his heart to be touched by anything she did. And Septimus was impervious to the gentler emotions. She should know! She had been pouring herself out on him, ceaselessly, without making the slightest impression. Passing every test he set her, she reflected bitterly, and yet never quite measuring up.
‘I promise you,’ she pushed on relentlessly, ‘it will be far better for him if I simply … disappear.’
Oh, yes, he would carry on with his duties as Earl of Bowdon and commence upon his charitable work, without missing a beat. Ironically, it was the very strength of purpose that made her admire him so very much which would enable him to carry on perfectly well without her.
She had played her part. He had needed a wife. Any wife. And it had been just her misfortune that she had stumbled into his path and fallen in love with him, when that was the last thing he had wanted.
She supposed it ought to be a comfort to know that she had enabled him to take up the role he had inherited, in the way he wanted to go about it.
He would be a good landlord to his tenants, just as he had been a good captain to his crew. He was so capable, and so diligent, that it would not be long before he made all his long-neglected estates prosper.
It would be as though she had never existed.
Pain ripped through her. And it occurred to her she ought to be grateful that Lord Matthison had turned up to denounce her for a thief. She had come perilously close to spending the rest of her life dashing herself to pieces against the unyielding rock that was her husband’s heart.
‘Oh, dear,’ said Lady Fenella. ‘I do hate the need to employ subterfuge of any sort!’
‘I know,’ said Aimée. ‘But once I am gone, there will be no more need for it, I assure you. And everyone will be far happier.’
‘I shan’t!’ gulped Lady Fenella, her eyes filling with tears. And then, with a little sob, she turned to the sink, picked up her scissors and set about a bucket of greenery with surprising
savagery.
Aimée knew she did not have much time. Somebody was bound to have spotted her return. Or Jenks would announce it, in all innocence, and somebody would be sent to fetch her.
So she hurried up to her bedroom, and, having glanced briefly about to make sure nobody was lying in wait for her there, went to her wardrobe. On the floor lay a prettily embroidered cotton bag. Lady Fenella had given it to her, after Aimée had showed her the flowers she had pressed. ‘You may use it for collecting more specimens,’ she had said. ‘I have no use for it,’ she had added, with a timid smile when Aimée had hesitated to accept it, because she was not really interested in pressing flowers, as a hobby.
But even then, she thought with a wry smile, she had seen that it would make an excellent overnight bag. There was a broad strap that went across one shoulder, and several little inside pockets that were supposed to be used for holding scissors, or string, or other little necessities. She went to her dressing table, tugged open the drawers and filled those handy pockets with a couple of pairs of stockings, a nightdress, some toothpowder and a toothbrush.
There was only one other item she was determined not to leave behind. Once she had that in the larger, central compartment of the bag, she scooped her brush and comb from the dressing table and did up the button that fastened the bag shut.
She had no need of further preparations for flight. She had not yet taken off her bonnet and coat from her walk. Her petticoats were heavy with guineas and her corsets stuffed with banknotes. There was nothing left to do but walk out.
Head bowed, and finding it hard to breathe through the mingled pain and anger that felt as though it was solidifying where her lungs ought to be, she made use of the back way that Jenks had just shown her. When she reached the corridor that ran past the kitchens, she paused, to make certain that the staff were busy enough not to notice one small, lone female scurrying to the back door. Though what would they think if they did see her? All she was carrying was one little satchel, which everyone knew Lady Fenella had given her for the purpose of collecting botanical specimens. She looked as though she was just going for another walk. They would have no idea that this was a flight.
Her daisy boots were still in the mudroom where she had left them. She stamped her feet into them. How on earth could she have been stupid enough to think that marrying somebody would save her from the lecherous lord her father had sold her to? Or running away to Yorkshire to work as a governess? She marched out into the kitchen garden. France, that was where she should have gone! Yes, she ought to have put the width of the Channel between herself and her tormentors.
It took her several attempts to fumble open the latch to the garden gate. But at length she was through it, and out into the formal gardens. She did not take the path Jenks had led her down earlier, but struck out across the lawns towards the copse, which she had seen from high up on the rise, that divided the park from the lane. She was going to take the lane to the main road and head for the town. She could find a room in an inn, and then discover the best route to the coast, without having to go back through London.
It would be harder, in many ways, to make a fresh start as a woman alone. But she had connections in Paris. And Amiens, come to think of it. And at least she could be herself. Free to make her own decisions, and live exactly as she pleased.
Yes, free, she sniffed, wiping at her eyes. She did not know why she had ever thought marriage would be the answer. Respectability was not all it was cracked up to be.
And love most definitely was not. Not when the man you loved felt nothing for you in return. No, that was the most painful state of affairs. Worse even than knowing your own father saw you only as a means of saving his own hide?
Yes. Much worse. Her father’s betrayal had shocked and hurt and angered her. Having to flee from the parent who should have protected her had left her scarred.
But staying with Septimus would destroy her.
She did not look back. She had no wish to have any further memories of Bowdon Manor. Particularly not seen through a watery haze of despair.
It was bad enough knowing she would never see Septimus again.
She stumbled on an obstacle that, had she not been crying so much, she would certainly have avoided.
‘Pull yourself together!’ she muttered angrily. Now was not the time to give way to self-pity. Tonight, in whichever inn she managed to reach, she could weep for the man she had loved and lost. And mourn the life that might have been hers if not for her shameful past.
She wiped her face with the back of her hand. Stupid! Stupid! There had never been any chance of making a success of her marriage to Septimus. And it was better to end it now, while she was young enough and still mentally strong enough to recover. If she had stayed, enduring his indifference, while she kept on loving him, it would have torn her to pieces.
Flinging her shoulders back and lifting her head high, she strode out with renewed resolve.
She needed to look like a Countess, going out for a walk.
Not a weak, snivelling, pathetic, broken-hearted girl, fleeing from the shattered remnants of her brief and ill-advised marriage.
Never, she vowed. She would never let anybody know that her heart had been broken.
And she would never let anybody touch it, ever again!
Chapter Twelve
Gone out again? What do you mean, gone out again?’
‘Like I said, Cap’n, I mean, my lord, sir,’ stammered Jenks. ‘I just went to the kitchen to get a jug of ale, and when I come out, she was running out the back door. Watched her set off across the park again, but not the same way we went before.’
Why should she do that? Go straight out again, not minutes after coming back from a lengthy walk?
Something cold twisted into a knot deep inside him.
She was leaving.
He just knew it. She had been growing more and more unhappy with every day she was married to him. At first, she had put a brave face on things. Done her utmost to fit in with what he wanted, without asking anything for herself.
And he had never asked her what she wanted. All he had thought about was resisting her, so he had rebuffed any attempt she made to show affection. And because she took her cues from him, because she was desperate to please him, she had stopped. He could not believe how much he missed seeing her face light up when he walked into a room. Or the little hugs and kisses she would give him. He had told himself it was just as well he had nipped all that sort of thing in the bud, if he could miss it so much after so short an exposure to it.
Though he could not help feeling a twinge of conscience as he noted that with each passing day she withdrew further and further into herself.
The men he had set to watch her said she just moped about in Lady Fenella’s wake all day.
He should have taken her out with him, in a carriage if she could not ride. Should have shown her off to his tenants. She would have been wonderful with them. Not haughty or patronising, but genuinely interested in them and their problems.
Instead of which he had deliberately excluded her. Forced her into the idle, useless role of the very kind of wife he had gone to such lengths to avoid marrying! He knew there would have been dozens of women only too keen to marry a relatively young, and wealthy Earl. Society women who would be content to just drift about all day, like Lady Fenella, sewing, and such.
But Aimée was not that kind of woman.
And she had finally reached the end of her tether.
She must have realised that she could not continue in the kind of loveless marriage he had decreed they should have.
She needed affection. And he had deliberately starved her of it.
When he thought of the way she had used to look at him, when they first became lovers, he felt his stomach curdle. During those early days, he had been aware of her burgeoning feelings for him. He attributed it to the fact that he had given this little waif more than anybody had given her in her entire life. Now he saw that with a little
effort he might have coaxed her into believing she loved him. What would it have cost him? A few soft words? A little kindness? Dammit all, he had vowed in church to cherish her! He had meant to, at the time.
But what had he done instead? Kept her at arm’s length, because he did not want to get hurt again, the way Miranda had hurt him. But God in heaven! If Aimée had left him, it would be far worse than anything Miranda had done to him. Miranda had been trouble from the start. If he had not been a green boy, he would not have been dazzled by her beauty, or hoodwinked by her wiles. He would have kept a wide berth from such a duplicitous creature!
He had been lying to himself when he had used the discovery of that money as a proof that Aimée was not trustworthy. The truth was that he had been afraid of the power she might have over him if he let himself love her.
Yes, it was true that she was concealing something from him. But she was such a good person that she must have some compelling reason for holding on to her secrets.
Could she simply be afraid of the consequences of revealing what she had been involved in? He only had to think of the state she had been in when they had met. Jumping at shadows. Running off into the night because she was used to men trying to take advantage of her, when all she wanted was to be respectable.
Aimée was nothing like Miranda. She was sweet, and kind, and brave, and …
And what the hell was he doing sitting here, working out where he had gone wrong, when with every passing minute Aimée might be getting further and further away from him?
He ran to the stables. He had not got back from Endon so very long ago, and, as he had suspected, the lad had not finished unsaddling his horse. It was a work of moments to get his mount readied and then he was galloping out of the yard, pounding along the drive for all he was worth. And it was only then that he realised he was in his shirtsleeves. He had taken off his jacket and draped it over the back of the chair, because he was about to launch into some paperwork and did not want the ink to stain the fine fabric.
If she was not leaving him, but only going about some innocent activity, he was going to look a complete fool, galloping up to her like this and pouring out all his doubts.
Captain Corcoran's Hoyden Bride Page 20