She gave a choked laugh as she acknowledged that her first husband had not liked women at all, and her second liked them far too much!
Rupert sat up on the side of the bed to look across the room at her beneath hooded lids. At his wife. The wife whose disgusted expression said she no longer liked him, let alone trusted him. ‘I didn’t spend any part of last night in the arms of another woman, Pandora,’ he insisted wearily, a weariness certainly not caused by a night of debauchery.
‘That is a lie—‘
‘I will never lie to you.’
She snorted. ‘You are lying to me now.’
‘It was two o’clock this morning when I returned to you, to our bed.’
‘Don’t use semantics on me, Rupert!’ Her eyes flashed in warning. ‘Whatever time you returned, it was from the arms of another woman!’
‘No, love.’ He grimaced. ‘Unless you wish to count Henley as “another woman”,’ he added ruefully. ‘And I assure you, I went nowhere near that lady’s arms.’
Pandora stilled. ‘Henley? My Henley?’
‘Well, she’s certainly not mine,’ Rupert retorted.
Pandora looked confused. ‘I don’t understand.’
Rupert sighed deeply as he ran a weary hand through his hair, knowing that his appearance—tousled locks, shadows of sleeplessness beneath his eyes, his jaw unshaven, clothes crumpled and in disarray—must make him look every inch the adulterer Pandora believed him to be. ‘Henley was the woman who came here and insisted upon speaking with me yesterday evening,’ he explained heavily.
Her eyes widened. ‘My Henley?’
‘You really must stop repeating yourself, love,’ he drawled. ‘And I certainly did not spend our wedding night—or, indeed, any other night—in that particular lady’s bed,’ he added firmly.
Pandora swallowed before speaking, her hand trembling slightly as she pushed her golden curls over her shoulder. ‘Why did Henley come here yesterday evening and ask to speak to you rather than me?’
‘Ah …’ Rupert sighed appreciatively. ‘How reassuring it is, Pandora, to know your intelligence has at last won out over your emotions.’
She winced at his obvious sarcasm. ‘What has happened? What reason did Henley have to speak with you rather than me?’ she prompted insistently as he made no immediate reply.
Rupert frowned. ‘Someone broke into Highbury House again yesterday evening.’
‘Oh, dear Lord.’ Pandora paled as she put out a hand to grasp the back of the chair in front of the dressing table. ‘Someone was hurt.’ Her gaze sharpened in fear.
Rupert nodded approval of the quickness of her mind. ‘Unfortunately, Bentley received a severe blow to the head—’
‘I must go to Highbury House at once!’
‘He isn’t there, love,’ Rupert told her.
‘Not there?’ Her eyes widened, darkened, and she seemed to sway slightly. ‘Oh, God, is he—?’ She swallowed hard, her cheeks as deathly pale as she obviously believed Bentley’s to be.
Rupert crossed the room in two long strides and took Pandora into his arms as she looked in danger of collapsing completely. ‘Forgive me, love, I’m tired and handling this badly.’ He rested his head on top of her silky curls as her fingers clung on to his waistcoat.
‘Bentley isn’t dead,’ he assured her. ‘He is likely suffering a severe headache this morning, but he’s alive.’
Pandora collapsed against him weakly. ‘Oh, thank God! I could not have borne it if anything had happened to him.’ She lifted her head to look up at Rupert. ‘But if he isn’t at Highbury House then where is he?’
‘My estate in Cambridgeshire,’ Rupert said. ‘As are all your household servants. Seeing to their safe removal is the reason I did not return to you until almost two o’clock this morning. Smythe has had the good sense to discreetly place two of his men on guard near Highbury House, but I still thought it best to remove Bentley and the others from harm’s way, until this situation has been settled. To have allowed you to speak with Henley yesterday evening would only have caused you more suffering, when she was, as usual, in the throes of hysteria. For which I am this time willing to forgive her, as she did have the foresight to ask to relay the bad news to me rather than you,’ he added with satisfaction.
‘Thank you, Rupert. I—’ Pandora trembled slightly in his arms before glancing at him uncertainly. ‘I have accused you unfairly.’
‘Yes.’ His jaw tightened. ‘And, I believe, cried needless tears over it.’
‘Because I thought—believed—’
‘You have made it more than clear what you think of me, and my morals, Pandora,’ Rupert said grimly.
‘I was—it was just so reminiscent of—’ She shook her head, those violet eyes once again awash with tears. ‘I’m truly sorry, Rupert. I should not have— I had no reason to think …’ She chewed on the fullness of her bottom lip as she stuttered to a halt.
His expression softened. ‘Pandora, isn’t it time that we talked of your marriage to Maybury?’
Her eyes widened. ‘Barnaby? But—’ She frowned. ‘What does my first marriage have to do with any of this?’
In Rupert’s opinion, everything! Although he was still in the dark as to exactly how or why …
After settling matters at Highbury House, Rupert had rousted Benedict from his bed in the early hours of this morning, demanding to know what, if anything, the other man’s minions had learnt of the life Maybury had led at Highbury House during his years of marriage to Pandora.
He had heard that Maybury had owned Highbury House for some years before his marriage to Pandora. And questioning the owners of the neighbouring houses had revealed the names of trades people who had called at the house with deliveries, the presence of his valet, of the visits from Maybury’s man of business and his lawyer, along with some of his political cronies. None of which had been of the least help in solving the mystery of whom his mistress might have been.
Hard as this might be on Pandora, difficult as she might find it to relate the details of her admittedly unhappy marriage, she now appeared to be the only person who might be able to shed some light on that particular subject.
Rupert cupped her cheeks as he looked down at her intently. ‘Pandora, Maybury owned Highbury House for almost ten years before leaving it to you in his will.’
She looked puzzled. ‘Yes, so?’
Rupert breathed in deeply. ‘There really is no easy way to say this …’ He shook his head. ‘It is my considered opinion that Maybury bought the house in order that he might have secret assignations with his mistress—’
‘No.’
Rupert frowned at the flat finality of her tone. ‘I realise this must be painful subject for you, Pandora, but—’ He broke off as she pulled free from his hands before turning away from him, her arms wrapped about her own waist, as if to ward off a blow. ‘I have no wish to hurt you any more than you have been already.’ He sighed, realising he was doing exactly that, whether he wished it or not. ‘But Maybury—’
‘Did not have a mistress,’ Pandora assured him without turning.
‘You cannot possibly know that with any certainty, love.’
‘Oh, but I can.’ She turned back to face him, her eyes haunted purple smudges in the ivory pallor of her face. ‘Indeed, I can state without hesitation that Barnaby did not have a mistress, either before or after our marriage.’
Rupert studied her for several moments before slowly speaking again. ‘Was he impotent?’
Pandora’s smile lacked humour. ‘I don’t believe so, no.’
‘What exactly do you mean by that? You don’t believe so?’
‘I fail to see what relevance whether or not he had a mistress has to the fact that someone has repeatedly broken into Highbury House during the past year.’ Pandora abruptly changed the subject, finding that she didn’t have the courage to tell Rupert all the sordid details of her disastrous first marriage.
Especially as she seemed to be making as much of a
disaster of her second one!
It hadn’t occurred to Pandora that Henley might have been the ‘insistent lady’ wishing to speak to Rupert yesterday evening. How could it, when she had no knowledge of this latest attempt to break into Highbury House?
Even so, she had severely misjudged Rupert and had accused him of being unfaithful to her on their wedding night. Something for which she believed he would find it hard to forgive her, especially now that she knew where he had actually been, of how he had been taking care of her household staff during those hours he had spent away from her the night before!
He shrugged broad shoulders. ‘I believe that the circumstances of Maybury’s death may have resulted in some incriminating evidence revealing the identity of his mistress to have been left at Highbury House. Personal items, perhaps. Or maybe even letters.’
‘I instructed Bentley to see that all of Barnaby’s personal items were packed into a trunk and placed in the attic before I moved into Highbury House.’ Pandora pursed her lips at the thought of Barnaby and his lover together in what had been her own home for the past year.
Had Barnaby really been that cruel, that he could have dealt the wife he had never wanted nor liked, this final humiliation even after his death? There had been a viciousness in his manner towards her on occasion, as if he somehow held her to blame for the necessity of having to marry her at all. Enough that he had seen it as one last vicious joke to leave Pandora the house in which he and his lover had met in secret?
Yes, she acknowledged heavily, she could believe even that of the spiteful man she had come to know during her marriage to him. The sooner she accepted the offer for Highbury House, which Anthony Jessop had put forwards on behalf of his uncle, the better.
‘Pandora, for pity’s sake, talk to me!’ Rupert looked at her pleadingly.
Could she now tell Rupert the truth of her marriage to Barnaby? At least reveal to him the secret she had kept from everyone this past four years? Would he understand, both her humiliation during her marriage, and her need for silence even after Barnaby’s death, in order that she might protect Clara Stanley and her two children?
How could she not tell him all now that he had already learnt so much already of that situation?
‘Pandora …?’ Rupert’s voice was gentle as he held his impatience firmly in check, having watched the play of emotions across her face these past few minutes. The pain. The disillusionment, followed by dignified resolve as she now raised her chin and set her shoulders before looking across at him with determination.
That resolve seemed to waver slightly as she nervously moistened her lips before speaking. ‘If Barnaby had someone in his life—and I am certain that he did,’ she added, ‘then it was not a mistress but … a master!’
Rupert looked across at her uncomprehendingly. What did Pandora mean by that? It made no sense, except— ‘Good Lord, are you saying that Maybury was involved with another man?’
Pandora’s gaze now refused to meet Rupert’s incredulous one. ‘I believe it’s not unheard of amongst the gentlemen of the ton.’
No, it wasn’t unheard of, amongst gentlemen of the ton or otherwise. And, although Rupert did not share those preferences, he had no fault to find with them. Indeed, several of his male acquaintances in the army had been of that persuasion, and it made not the slightest difference to Rupert’s feelings of friendship towards them.
But, to his knowledge, none of those gentlemen had married a woman as beautiful and desirable as Pandora, as it appeared Maybury had, in order to hide those preferences from society …
Pandora turned away to look sightlessly out at the square below, no longer able to meet his compelling silver gaze. ‘Barnaby wished to further his political career,’ she spoke evenly. ‘Something he didn’t believe would be possible if it ever came to light that he—that he—’
‘Preferred the company of men to women,’ Rupert put in helpfully.
‘Yes.’ Pandora trembled slightly. ‘He explained the situation to me quite candidly after we were married. Of how he would provide for me, act as my escort during the Season, ensure that my life was a comfortable one, that I would want for nothing, but that he had no intention of ever becoming my husband in a … in a physical sense. That the mere idea of physical intimacy with me, with any woman, sickened him.’
‘And he expected you to meekly accept those terms?’ Rupert exclaimed with horror.
‘No,’ she murmured, ‘he did not expect it, he ensured that I had no choice but to accept those terms, when he paid off all my father’s debts, and warned that he would immediately demand the return of that fortune if I dared to leave or expose him.’
Rupert knew that there were plenty of marriages amongst the ton that were far from ideal, political and socially arranged marriages, in which both parties chose to find solace in the arms of others once the wife had provided the ‘heir and the spare’. Indeed, his own parents’ arranged marriage had been far from happy.
But for a man to deliberately mislead the woman he married, for him to callously and deliberately marry a woman as young and beautiful as Pandora, knowing he had no intention of ever truly becoming her husband, was beyond belief.
Or not …
If one thought about it logically, then Maybury had been extremely clever in his choice of wife. Pandora had been exceedingly young and trusting, and therefore malleable. A malleability Maybury had ensured would continue even after she knew the truth of it, by paying off her father’s debts and therefore making the whole family beholden to him.
Knowing her as he did, Rupert realised that it was the latter which had maintained Pandora’s silence on the subject; she was completely selfless when it came to the welfare of others, as proven by the group of unemployable misfits she had surrounded herself with at Highbury House. A selflessness she had proved included Rupert, when she had stood so steadfast at his side during that last confrontation with Patricia yesterday.
He shook his head. ‘Did no one else ever guess?’ Admittedly, Rupert had never heard so much as a word spoken on the subject in society, but then he did not trouble himself with gossip, and he had been away in the army for six years, only back in society for two, when the gossips had been full of the behaviour of Pandora, rather than that of the Duke.
She gave a rueful smile. ‘I learnt after Barnaby’s death that his valet knew the truth of it, too.’
Rupert frowned. ‘Maybury’s valet? How did you manage to keep him quiet?’ His eyes narrowed. ‘Is he the reason you have no jewellery but your mother’s pearls?’
‘How very astute of you, Rupert.’ She looked up at him admiringly. ‘I could not give him the Maybury emeralds, of course, but, yes, the despicable little man demanded my personal jewels in return for his silence on the subject.’ She shrugged. ‘I didn’t want anything that Barnaby had given me, so it was not such a terrible hardship. Rupert, what’s wrong?’ Pandora looked at him in alarm as he began to swear profusely.
He controlled himself with effort. ‘Do you think it possible this valet could also be the one responsible for breaking into Highbury House this last year?’
Pandora gave the idea some thought. ‘I don’t think so … I had no reason to like the man, but I don’t believe him to have been—to have been Barnaby’s lover.’ She looked at Rupert anxiously. ‘I— Does the … circumstance of my previous marriage disgust you?’
Disgust him? It infuriated him! And Pandora’s suffering all these years enraged him. To the extent that he sincerely wished Maybury were not already dead, just so that he might have the pleasure of personally dispatching the man himself.
Was it any wonder, married to such a man, that Pandora had eventually fallen victim to the flattering attentions of other men? Men who had undoubtedly given her the warmth and comfort which her husband had so completely denied her?
‘No, love.’ Rupert crossed the room to take her gently into his arms. ‘If I am angry with anyone it’s with Maybury, not you.’ He rested his head on top of her sil
ky curls. ‘How you have suffered, love …’
Rupert’s understanding, his gentleness were Pandora’s undoing, a choked sob catching at the back of her throat as the scalding tears once again fell hotly down her cheeks.
She buried her face against the comforting solidity of Rupert’s chest, her arms moving about his waist as she clung to that strength.
‘I am so sorry for the things I said to you earlier,’ she sobbed brokenly. ‘I’ve had little reason to trust anyone these past four years, but I should not have misjudged you so cruelly, when you have shown me nothing but honesty and truth. It was only that last night seemed so reminiscent of how I had been abandoned and left alone on my first wedding night. I—I couldn’t believe that fate had been so cruel as to deal me the same blow twice!’
Rupert’s arms tightened about her. ‘I will never leave you alone again for a single night, Pandora,’ he vowed fiercely. ‘Indeed, I intend to keep you so busy and satisfied in our marriage bed,’ he added teasingly, ‘that you will never have reason to seek the comfort of other men— What is it, love?’ He frowned as Pandora pulled away from him.
Her chin rose determinedly, but she could not raise her agonised gaze any further than the top button of his waistcoat as she whispered, ‘There have been no other men, Rupert.’
‘But what about Stanley?’
‘Lies.’ She at last raised her gaze to meet his. ‘Sir Thomas Stanley was never my lover, Rupert.’
‘But the duel?’
Her mouth firmed. ‘Was not fought over me.’
Rupert looked stunned, a tightness forming in his chest as he recognised the courage in Pandora’s gaze even as her lower lip trembled. For fear he would not believe her?
If he’d learnt nothing else this past few days—and some of the things he had learnt this last few minutes he could have well done without ever knowing—then it was that Pandora could be trusted to tell the truth, always. And if she said that she had never been romantically involved with Sir Thomas Stanley, or any other man, then Rupert believed her. Unequivocally.
Some Like It Wicked (Mills & Boon Historical) (Daring Duchesses - Book 1) Page 20