by Darcy Burke
North, who’d recently wed Lockwood House’s housekeeper, Sarah, allowed a small smile. “You’d be amazed what the love of a good woman can do for you, my lord.”
Jason barked a laugh. “For you, maybe.” He turned and strode across the foyer toward his office.
North had probably only been teasing in return, but Jason couldn’t ignore the underlying message: Love made things better. However, Jason didn’t need any reminders that love had never found him and likely never would.
His mother had loved him in her overbearing and manic way, but her mind was fragile now and she often thought he was his father. At those times, she despised him.
Jason paused at the doorway to the drawing room. It was large and airy, decorated in blues and browns with a touch of gold here and there. A pleasing environment his mother had once loved to entertain in. Now, it was the entry point to London’s most notorious parties.
This room had been something else, too. Once, it had seen him break down in a way very similar to his mother’s collapse, giving birth to his fear that he would end up just like her.
And maybe he would.
LYDIA’S AUNT Margaret sat in her upstairs sitting room in a chair near the windows overlooking Davies Street below. Her eyes were narrowed as she read through her mail, which was piled atop her lap.
Eager to share her news and perhaps earn a smile from her aunt, Lydia hastened into the room. “Aunt, I have incredible news to share.”
Aunt Margaret looked up, the dark irises of her eyes gleaming like tiny black marbles. Her lips were drawn tight, causing the flesh around her mouth to wrinkle more than normal. A lifetime of judging others had already carved deep grooves that did nothing to improve her fading looks and everything to indicate her character.
“Indeed?” Her mouth curved into an anticipatory smile. “Come, tell me.” She inclined her head to the chair situated beside hers.
Lydia smiled with relief. Life was so much more tolerable when her aunt was happy. “I wasn’t able to see Lady Aldridge—she’s ill.” Aunt Margaret’s face fell, but Lydia rushed to add, “However, I encountered someone who made the trip more than worthwhile.” Lydia paused for dramatic effect. “Lord Lockwood.”
But Aunt Margaret didn’t gape, nor did her eyes widen with excitement. No, her mouth tightened, and she looked . . . angry. “Where?” she snapped.
Lydia hid her disappointment. “At Lady Aldridge’s. He also went to see her.”
“He came out in the light of day to pay a call?” Aunt Margaret pierced Lydia with a look that would curdle most people’s stomachs. However, Lydia was used to her moods and didn’t flinch. “What did he say?”
“That he was there to pay his respects,” Lydia said nervously. Why was Aunt Margaret perturbed by this? Seeing Lord Lockwood surely had to be a coup, especially since Lydia had actually spoken with him. And flirted with him—though she didn’t want to disclose that. Some things were hers alone. Or at least she wished they could be.
“What else?” Aunt Margaret leaned forward, her chest, which only seemed to expand with age, rising and falling rapidly with expectant breaths. “There has to be more than that. You’re not so silly as to believe him when he says he’s there to pay his respects.”
Why not? Did everyone need to have an ulterior motive like Aunt Margaret typically did? Lydia tried to ignore that she’d had the same reaction upon meeting him. It was going to take some time to banish the bad habits Aunt Margaret had instilled.
Lydia did, however, need to reveal some of what she’d learned. “Well, he hasn’t been seeing her regularly. I’m fairly certain he hasn’t seen her at all. He also said his visit wasn’t a secret. In fact, he encouraged me to tell everyone I’d seen him.” Which was why Lydia didn’t feel too bad about sharing this with Aunt Margaret.
Aunt Margaret leaned her head back against the chair, appearing at least slightly mollified. “So the reclusive Lockwood suddenly shows up to call on a widow who’s been keeping company with his long-lost bastard brother. There’s something more to this story,” she mused.
Just as there was more to the story regarding Aunt Margaret’s apparent dislike of Lord Lockwood. Lydia weighed whether to risk further irritating her by asking about Lockwood. Probably, Aunt Margaret would become even angrier, and then she’d start threatening Lydia with removal to Northumberland. Or, and Lydia really thought this was the likelier response, Aunt Margaret would relish the notion of regaling Lydia with exactly why she didn’t like Lord Lockwood. Lydia knew precisely how to phrase her question.
“Aunt Margaret,” she began, infusing her tone with just the right dose of anticipation, “I should be thrilled to hear the story of how Lord Lockwood became London’s most reviled bachelor.”
Her dark eyes sparking with gleeful intent, Aunt Margaret cocked her head to the side. “Have I never told you the specifics of that tale?”
Lydia shook her head.
“It’s frightfully entertaining.” Aunt Margaret smoothed her skirt and lifted her chin, like an orator about to launch an important lecture. “To adequately tell this story, I have to go back very far. Back to my own days as a debutante. I’ve never told you why I didn’t marry.”
Lydia had always assumed it was because she’d never been asked, but didn’t say so. “No, you haven’t,” she said with an excitement she didn’t feel.
“I was on the verge of becoming betrothed to Lord Benjamin Lockwood—yes, the current Lord Lockwood’s father and father to Mr. Ethan Locke.”
Betrothed? Aunt Margaret had told her they’d courted, but Lydia didn’t realize things had progressed that far. She pivoted toward her aunt in anticipation, no longer having to feign interest. “You never said.” And neither had anyone else. Clearly, this wasn’t common knowledge.
“No, it was rather . . . humiliating.” The sparkly sheen in her eyes hardened to ice. “He was rigorously courting me when Harmony Millhouse showed up in Town. She was quite the toast. Nearly every young buck turned their attentions to her, but she had her sights set on Lockwood.”
And she’d won him, too, but Lydia waited for Aunt Margaret to continue.
“She used every nasty trick she could think of to woo him away from me. Told lies about me. Offered him favors I would never have done without a trip to church—regardless of what she said.”
Aunt Margaret had been the victim of gossip? Did that explain why she worked so hard to keep herself on the other end of it?
“Scarcely nine months after their wedding she whelped that brat. But I had the final laugh at her expense. Turned out Lockwood was as monogamous as she deserved. Which is to say, not at all. He took a mistress almost immediately, when she was fat with child, not that one can blame a man for doing that. But he never got rid of her, and a few years later, they had their own child—Ethan Locke.”
Lydia immediately wondered how that had affected Lockwood—the current Lord Lockwood—but waited for her aunt to continue. Since this was the story of how he had become exiled from Society, she was bound to learn how he’d been influenced.
“Lockwood’s care for his mistress literally drove his wife insane. Her jealousy was legendary, and she panted after her husband like a mare begging to be mounted.” One could always tell how far into a story Aunt Margaret had fallen by the vulgarity of her descriptions. This was a tale she obviously loved to impart. “When Lockwood died, everyone expected her to return to the sanity of her youth, but she only worsened. She sought out other women he’d dallied with—Lockwood was incapable of remaining faithful, even to his beloved mistress—and berated them. She was obsessed. I felt pity for her son, but then he began to exhibit signs of her madness.”
He hadn’t seemed all that mad to Lydia. A trifle intimidating perhaps, but in a rather dark, seductive way. Lydia internally shook herself and focused on her aunt’s tale.
“He was a quarrelsome child, often in trouble. He was even sent down from Eton for a time after he broke another boy’s arm.”
Lydia
stifled her gasp. She had trouble reconciling the gentleman she’d met that afternoon with a violent young man, but reminded herself she didn’t know him at all.
Aunt Margaret’s eyes regained their feral gleam. “About seven years ago, Lady Lockwood snapped. No one knows precisely what finally set her off, but she utterly lost her senses in the middle of a supper party. Jumped up from the table and threw her food about like an ill-disciplined child. The footmen tried to escort her out, but she hit at them and shouted insults. It was an obscenely coarse display.” And one her aunt had clearly enjoyed.
Another person would have demonstrated at least a modicum of pity—if only because it was expected—and Lydia assumed her aunt did so when relating this story to someone other than her. However, Lydia always got the unvarnished truth of Aunt Margaret’s emotions.
Contrary to her aunt, Lydia felt sorry for Lady Lockwood. “What happened to her then?”
Aunt Margaret waved her hand as if she were batting away a pesky insect. “She was taken to some hospital. Lockwood disappeared for a time, to see after her, I imagine. The next we heard of him, he’d suffered a similar loss of his faculties at Lockwood House, ripping rooms apart in a mad rage. Then he showed up a month or so later sporting that hideous scar.” She shivered in revulsion, her lip curling. “He went from Sought-After Husband to Social Pariah faster than you can say, ‘Bedlam.’”
Lydia had to work hard to stay silent. Aunt Margaret’s characterization was woefully unfair, but then she always drew her own conclusions and those conclusions became fact. Never had the cruelty of her “hobby” been more apparent. Lydia felt sick.
Aunt Margaret leaned forward, her gaze narrowed. “Don’t you dare pity Jason Lockwood. He dug his own spot in the gutter. Scared his entire staff away with his mad behavior and then started cavorting with Undesirables—demimondaines, dissolute rakes, the utter dregs of Society.” She sneered in distaste. “Then came the scandalous parties. He turned Lockwood House into a destination worse than a gaming hell and more offensive than a brothel. He has no one to blame for his downfall but himself.”
“How—” Lydia had been about to say, “can you say that when he was labeled a lunatic and lost all of his standing,” but instead forced out, “pathetic.”
Aunt Margaret sniffed. “Indeed.” Her countenance suddenly turned fierce. “I mean it when I tell you not to pity him. He’s not a victim, and neither is his mother. Yes, their madness is—I suppose—tragic, but that’s precisely why they shouldn’t inflict themselves on polite society. I can only imagine what Lockwood might do now that he’s back. Throw his long-lost half brother into the mix and . . . ” Her lips spread into an anticipatory grin. “There shall be no dearth of excitement this autumn.”
Lydia couldn’t find any of that exciting, but didn’t say so. Instead, she glanced at the stack of correspondence in Aunt Margaret’s lap. “What ‘exciting’ things are coming up?”
Aunt Margaret held up one of the invitations she’d been reading, “I need to attend a meeting with Mrs. Edgecombe on Thursday, so you’ll go to Mrs. Lloyd-Jones’s tea by yourself.”
Happiness sang through Lydia’s veins. She adored Mrs. Lloyd-Jones and enjoyed visiting without the pall of apprehension her aunt’s presence caused. Lydia kept her tone even, though, when she said, “Yes, Aunt.”
“Mrs. Lloyd-Jones is an old friend of Lady Lockwood’s. You might see if she knows anything about Lord Lockwood.” Aunt Margaret set the letters on her lap. “Although, I must warn you to tread carefully. While it’s of course fine to talk about Lord Lockwood, I don’t want you to seem too interested. His reputation is worse than black and I should hate for it to color yours. And above all, you must stay away from him.”
Lydia kept her shoulders from sagging. She’d been looking forward to seeing Lord Lockwood and perhaps flirting with him again. Foolishly, she tried to use a bit of logic to help her cause. “Perhaps my encounter with Lord Lockwood will make me the talk of the town again. I was quite popular after my name was written down at White’s.”
Last spring, a mysterious, masked woman had been seen at a party at Lockwood House. Gentleman wagered on her identity in the betting book at the gentlemen’s club, and some young buck had put her name down. Aunt Margaret had been horrified and had locked Lydia in her room for two days. But the young man had recanted, and Lydia had become inexplicably popular for a few weeks. It had been the best weeks of her life in London. People had spoken to her with genuine interest and had even offered sympathy for her plight. She’d do anything to recapture that—including befriend Lord Lockwood.
“Lydia!” Aunt Margaret barked. She leaned forward, her dark eyes spitting fire. “You were extremely fortunate things worked out as they did, but Society is fickle. Linking yourself to Lord Lockwood will ruin you, do you understand?”
Lydia didn’t, but realized further argument was futile. She nodded.
“Good.” Aunt Margaret inhaled, and her features relaxed. “Let us discuss Mr. Locke a moment. I was certain you were going to be introduced last night, but then you took a turn on the terrace with that worthless Goodwin. By the time you returned to the ballroom, Locke had already gone.”
Hardly anyone ever asked Lydia for a stroll or a dance, and she simply couldn’t summon an iota of regret. She could, however, come up with a tidy fib to rationalize it. “I’d hoped to learn what Goodwin’s cousin thought of Locke’s presence.”
Aunt Margaret squinted at her. “And?” she drawled, dragging the word out thrice as long as it needed to be.
Lydia clasped her hands tightly in her lap. “I’m afraid Goodwin hadn’t spoken to his cousin on the subject.”
“Why should he?” Aunt Margaret laughed cruelly. “Goodwin’s cousin is a bloody earl. He doesn’t make time for his nothing second-cousin. You should have known that.” She lifted her chin and glared at Lydia, delivering a visual set-down to go with the verbal. “You’re a right nodcock sometimes. Have I not told you time and time again that knowledge is how we retain our place in this world?”
Lydia wasn’t a nodcock ever, but again she bit her tongue. Things were always the way Aunt Margaret saw them. Always. “Yes, Aunt Margaret.”
“Tonight,” Aunt Margaret began in her clearest dictatorial tone, “you will make every effort to gain an introduction to Mr. Locke, and you’ll angle for a dance. Lord knows you’ll have plenty of space on your card. You will determine what he’s doing with Lady Aldridge. And now that we know Lockwood is somehow involved, you’ll query him about his half brother as well.”
So many of these things were out of her control, not that Aunt Margaret cared. “I’ll do my best.”
Aunt Margaret nodded slightly, which had the effect of looking like preening. Or maybe it just felt that way because of the sycophantic manner in which Lydia felt beholden to address her.
Lydia turned her gaze toward the windows and the world beyond. Someday she’d have the opportunity to leave her aunt’s web of gossip, but as each year passed without a marriage proposal, Lydia began to despair that she would become a jaded spinster. Just like Aunt Margaret.
Chapter Three
LYDIA SITUATED herself on Mrs. Lloyd-Jones’s settee. Her drawing room contained six ladies, including herself—a small affair, but then Mrs. Lloyd-Jones’s teas rarely saw above a dozen visitors. It was early yet, perhaps others would drop by. For now the usual attendees were present: the hostess, her spinster sister, Miss Vining, who resided with Mrs. Lloyd-Jones, her close friend, Mrs. Yarrow, and three other matrons.
Of the six, Lydia realized just one had a living husband—Lady Trevett, who was also the youngest woman in attendance aside from Lydia and a somewhat formidable gossip in her own right. How sad that most of these women were alone. Lydia imagined herself thirty years in the future with no one to keep her company save a few friends. She wouldn’t even have a young female relative to manage—not that she would ever do to anyone what Aunt Margaret had done to her.
But at least they had fr
iends, something Lydia had very few of as a result of so many years dancing to Aunt Margaret’s tune. She had one close friend and had begun to acquire a few others since trying to shed herself of her reputation for gossip. She’d only be able to continue on this path if she got away from Aunt Margaret, which meant she had to find a husband.
Next to Lydia, Mrs. Lloyd-Jones was deep in conversation with Lady Trevett, who was seated on a facing settee. They were discussing the previous night’s ball, where Lydia had once again failed to draw Mr. Locke’s notice and as a result had suffered Aunt Margaret’s anger in the coach on the way home.
Lady Trevett leaned forward in her chair. “Lady Lydia, is it true you encountered Lord Lockwood the other day? I heard it from Mrs. Horwatt last night, but I didn’t have a chance to find you and obtain the real story.”
Lydia nodded. “Yes, I happened upon him outside Lady Aldridge’s. We were both there to pay a visit. Unfortunately, she was ill.”
Everyone exchanged pitying nods. “Such a shame about Lord Aldridge,” Mrs. Lloyd-Jones said. “To lose one’s husband is bad enough, but to lose him in such a fashion . . . ” She shuddered delicately. Answering murmurs of agreement filled the room.
“How did you find Lockwood?” Mrs. Yarrow asked, her eyes wide. “Is he as fearsome as they say?”
Last night, Lydia had disclosed the details—well, not all of the details—of their encounter to a handful of people, but each time she’d grown more irritated by their questions. It was absurd, but her experience with Lord Lockwood felt personal. Intimate. She was inexplicably loath to share it.
To keep herself from glaring in response, Lydia turned her gaze toward Mrs. Lloyd-Jones. She seemed to be suppressing a smile. How curious.
Mrs. Lloyd-Jones addressed Mrs. Yarrow with a firm tone. “I can’t imagine why he would appear fearsome.”
Lydia inclined her head in agreement, glad for the support. “Indeed, he was a perfect gentleman. He held the gate open for my maid and me.” Lydia strove to direct the conversation where she needed it to go: To Mr. Locke. “Did any of you speak with Mr. Locke last night?”