Bound by Love

by Edith Layton

  “I was paid handsomely to be here tonight,” Brown said, wincing as he tongued a loose tooth. “Not handsomely enough, as it turns out. I left Virginia years ago; couldn’t prosper there. I came home and am known to turn a hand at what I can. I heard about the new earl of Alveston. Who has not? Once, when I was in a tavern, I spoke about my knowledge of the boy he had been. I became instantly famous for it; many men bought me dinners on the strength of the tale. One offered me gold to come here tonight and tell it again. I did offer you the chance to pay more gold and stop me,” he told Jared, “but you never answered any of my notes.”

  “I’m a man of business,” Jared said tightly. “I know that silence is the most expensive and the most impossible thing to buy. Blackmail’s a bad bargain all around. And then, there was nothing left but to tell the truth, and everyone already knows that.”

  “Some of your fine friends mightn’t like that truth,” Brown said slyly. “Men have gotten rich on less.”

  “Men have been hanged for far less,” the magistrate commented.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” Justin asked his brother. Jared shrugged. “Why bother you with such slime?”

  “Perhaps he thought you were the one who sent the notes,” Brown suggested, and this time it was Jared who stepped in front of his brother to prevent him from attacking the man.

  “How did you get in?” an irate nobleman demanded imperiously. The assembly rooms were popular because they were so selective.

  “An invitation was secured for me, and I was admitted,” Brown said, shrugging. “I can look the gentleman.”

  “You were just supposed to tell the tale?” Justin asked.

  Brown gave an evil grin. “No, his lordship is right; that wouldn’t do more than cause gossip. But since I knew him when he was young, I was supposed to come here and debunk his identity entirely. I tried. He almost killed me—you saw it. I decided to run rather than be killed. My life is worth more to me than money.”

  “If so, it’s the only thing that is,” Jared said bitterly. “What man gave you gold?” Justin persisted.

  “Now, he’d tell me his name, wouldn’t he?” Brown mocked. “He paid handsomely. Promised more if I did it right. It was done in the dark, so I couldn’t even describe him—it could be any of you.” He laughed derisively as he looked at them all.

  “There is no crime we can prove now, and there is no punishment bad enough for this fellow!” one of the uncles said passionately.

  “Oh, I shall find a place for him,” the magistrate said furiously. “I doubt he’ll see the light of day again, one way or another, after this night’s work. Blackmailing a peer of the realm is a hanging offense—at least in my court, it is. And there I shall see him, to be sure. Don’t worry—I give you my word that none of you shall ever see him again.”

  As he was led away; Brown looked uneasy for the first time.

  Nearly all the others left with him, to go pour cold water on the gossip, as Dr. Franklin put it. But Jared and Justin remained in the room, unable to face the guests yet. Della lingered, watching them.

  “Who do you think it was?” Justin asked.

  “Oh, it could be anyone,” Jared said, but his voice sounded far away and his eyes were on the fire as though he saw something there besides the flames. “Anyone who would like to see me discredited, that is. Do any of our evil uncles’ sons still harbor hopes? It could be one of them. Have you any enemies, Justin? It could be one of them. As for me, I don’t know—maybe someone I slighted once. What man has no enemies? It could be anyone, as my former master said.”

  “But it is specifically someone who doesn’t want you to be earl,” Justin said thoughtfully. “Maybe even old Trusham. He’s charming, but also determined, and he hates to be crossed. His daughter was going to be a countess, with all that it involved. Your coming has put his nose in a knot, you know.”

  “Fiona’s father?” Jared asked, looking up in shock. “I didn’t know—well, maybe I did. But do you really think…?”

  “It’s possible. Trusham’s a man of high ambition who suddenly found his daughter was promised to a man with fewer prospects than he wished for her. Who knows?” Justin shrugged his wide shoulders. “It won’t help him now, whoever it is—not anymore. You could certainly see that tonight, yourself. It’s too late: you’re the earl now, legally and in the eyes of society. I’ve acknowledged it, as have the uncles. The lawyers have noted it. It’s done. The story will mean nothing.”

  “Nothing?” Jared asked with a crooked smile. “I doubt that. It’s too good a story. Our ancestors must be spinning in their graves—an earl of Alveston beaten, screaming with it, and giving some pervert his pleasure that way. Wonderful.”

  “An earl? No, a seven-year-old boy!” Della cried, rushing to his side.

  Jared turned to look at her. His face was suddenly flushed, and not from the fire. He stepped back from her, but not before she could see the sudden look of horrified dismay he tried to hide. “Blast! I didn’t remember you were here, Dell,” he said in a shaken voice. “It’s not a tale for a lady’s ears.”

  “I’m not a lady!” she cried. “I’m Della. And so what if I know? There’s nothing for you to be ashamed of. So he beat you—he was an evil man.”

  She saw the muscles in his lean jaw working as he clenched his teeth against his immediate answer. She hated the way the light had gone from his eyes; he seemed dazed, like a man who had taken a heavy blow. And when he’d been so proud, on the night he thought would be his greatest triumph—it wasn’t fair. Her heart ached for him.

  But Jared was a man who knew the value of discipline. When he spoke again, his voice was deep and the anger in it controlled.

  “The man did more than beat me—he took pleasure from it,” he said. “You may not know—damn it, you shouldn’t know!—but such things make the victim feel as shamed as the villain.”

  She saw the despair on his face and shuddered; she’d seen nothing like it since the day she’d seen his poor scarred back, all those years ago. There were things in her childhood she’d forgotten, but that sight of his back was as vivid to her now as it was then—perhaps even more so now that she loved him so much. She stood tall as she could for such a small woman. When she spoke, her words were as cold and precise as his had been, but her hands were closed to even tighter fists than his.

  “Well, I do know about such things. What woman doesn’t—whether she’s a lady or not? If some beast here in London should grab me one fine night, drag me off, and have his way with me—which happens, Jared, don’t pretend it doesn’t—should I feel as shamed as that villain? You’re saying I should? And so then if that ever happened to me, it would be my fault for being there when he felt lustful—is that right?”

  “Lord, no, Dell,” he said quickly. “Only a fool would think— Ah, I see: Della at her healing again. You’re right, but it isn’t the same. He never touched me otherwise…” He paused, ran his hand through his hair, and nodded in surrender. “And yet here I am, shouting and storming, carrying on as though he had, aren’t I? As though it were yesterday—which it wasn’t. I see. Yes, of course. You’re right, I was a child. I wasn’t even sure then of what was happening, exactly. I just knew it was ugly and somehow wrong. Not my fault at all, was it? I’m sorry, Della. I’ve been acting like a violated virgin, haven’t I?”

  He looked at her, stalwart, steadfast, lovely little Della, who stood watching him with her heart in her vivid blue eyes, always faithful, ever true, his sister in all but name. His face relaxed and he smiled at her.

  She exhaled her pent-up breath and nodded back at him, her hands unfurling like flowers.

  Justin stood quietly watching them both. It seemed to him that Jared hadn’t been carrying on at all. He’d been upset, yes. But all Justin had seen was his pallor and tension. Della had seen far more—she’d seen what Jared felt, she’d heard his unvoiced anguish. He wondered if either of them really knew how deep was their bond, and yet knew he could never tell either of
them that. Because looking at the yearning in Della’s eyes, he also saw what Jared evidently didn’t, and he knew she wouldn’t want anyone else to see it. He, of all people, understood what she was going through.

  “No apologies, and no thanks either, please,” Della said briskly, “not unless you want to listen to all those I owe you. You helped me when I lost everything, a long time ago—remember? And then about a million times since.”

  “Two million,” he said with a smile, once more himself. But when he looked at the door to the library, he tensed, realizing that although he could weather the rest of the night, its dreamlike beauty was gone. True, he was the earl of Alveston, returned to his land and his family again. But there was a blot on the glorious dream now, a terrible tale that would be whispered behind his back for all his life.

  “Well then,” he said, “to battle. Let’s go in and talk about wicked masters and poor bond-boys and give them a story to remember. Maybe they won’t slap their valets and lady’s maids quite as hard tonight.”

  “More likely they will, by tomorrow night,” Justin said dryly. “They lose interest in lessons as fast as they learn them.”

  “But they’ll never forget my story,” Jared said.

  “What of it?” Justin asked lightly, but he went to the door and opened it quickly because he knew there was no answer.

  The brothers walked out together, but were immediately separated by eager questioners. Fiona flew to Jared’s side, her eyes wide. Della was asked questions, too, but she could hardly listen because she was so intent on Jared as he looked down at Fiona gravely.

  “It’s a disaster. I’m sorry,” Jared told her. “No sense denying it. You knew I was a bond-boy. That man was my old master. He was a degenerate, and he did beat me. He had the right to, because he owned my papers. I’m sorry you have to be involved with this in any way. But Justin is blameless, so it shouldn’t affect you too much.”

  “Affect me?” Fiona asked. “Why, all it has done is get me more invitations than I’ve ever gotten in one night. Poor fellow,” she said, tapping him with her fan, “I never knew you had such woes. But they’re over now. You’re an earl, and no one can harm you anymore. They say that beast will go to Newgate for daring to harm an earl of the realm. They say he’ll hang, but I won’t even go to see it. Now then—the most important thing.” She smiled at him. “Are you going to come to the Bedfords’ ball with us next week? Or do you prefer the duke of Torquay’s? Because wherever you go, we shall, too. You’re the lion of the moment!”

  He looked down at her in bewilderment. She wasn’t joking; her eyes were shining. She was laughing up at him, without malice, without censure. The ugliness he had faced in the other room might have been on another planet from hers. What he had been meant nothing to her. She had no idea of what a bond-boy was, what servitude was, how debased he’d been and felt. It was of no importance to her; it was a thing that had happened in the New World, not her own. He realized that it always would be so, whatever she heard. He had no shameful history with her. With her, he’d always be free of that past and the pathetic, abused child he’d been.

  She was as beautiful as an angel, glittering and shining with innocence and merriment. She was promised to his brother, the man whose house and title he’d taken, and yet she didn’t shun him for that or for his appalling past life. She came from a different world and would never understand his old one…or cause him to remember it. He looked at her with wonder. Then he smiled, picked up her hand, and put it on his arm. He straightened his shoulders and walked into that other world with her as his guide.

  Della stared after them, distracted. She felt a hand at her own elbow.

  “Della?” Justin asked pleasantly. “Will you come to dinner now? I hear they have lobster patties, the latest thing. Come, you must be hungry.”

  She looked up at him and he saw a hunger no dinner could appease. “You don’t care?” she asked in a whisper, the hurt naked in her eyes.

  “I don’t know what I can do about it,” he answered just as bluntly, “or if I should do anything. She has free will. And so do you and I. Come.”

  “If it was her father who arranged this tonight, he needn’t have bothered,” she whispered, her face pale. “One earl or the other, it seems to make no difference, does it?”

  “Perhaps,” he said, smiling and nodding as he walked with her toward the dining room, as though it was his dinner and not his life and heart they were talking about. “Perhaps not.”

  She almost stumbled.

  “What would you have me say? Or do?” he asked in a low, savage voice.

  She looked up at him, startled by his anger. It was then that she saw that Jared’s brother was not so bland and controlled as she had thought, but was as upset by what was happening as she. He was not, she thought as she felt the iron tension in his arm and looked into those blazing eyes, so very different from his brother after all.

  Chapter 12

  Jared paced the study of his London townhouse. Justin sat in a chair by the fireplace, watching him. Alfred and Della were upstairs sleeping, the way most people were at this hour of the night. But the brothers were awake and talking. They had come home from the assembly rooms and talked over the events of the night until it began to turn into a new day.

  “You think it really might have been Trusham?” Jared asked again now, shaking his head. “He seemed to be one of the most outraged about what Brown did. Yes, yes, I know he would be if he was the one responsible—because the plan failed…”

  “More than failed,” Justin commented. “You got so much sympathy that anyone who said anything against you would have been thrown into Newgate with Brown.”

  “But Fiona’s father was more than angry; he seemed really concerned. It’s hard to believe he holds my taking the title against me.”

  “Not now—not any longer, of course not,” Justin said quietly. “But Brown may have been paid for his lies before Trusham realized tonight what had been happening under his nose. Sometimes it’s difficult to see what is exactly under one’s nose, you know.”

  Jared stopped pacing. He didn’t face his brother; instead, he stood by the fireplace, head down, stirring the dead ashes with his foot.

  “I will never hold her back,” Justin finally said into the stillness of the room. “I’ve known her too long and I have too much pride for that.”

  Jared bit off a muttered curse. “Who says you have to?” he asked angrily.

  “Her face tonight, for one thing,” Justin said simply. “Yours, for another.”

  “Damn, I didn’t mean to—” Jared said harshly, but his brother cut him off with a simple, quiet word.

  “Indeed,” Justin said. “Who does?” he went on, not letting Jared speak. “I understand such things are beyond one’s control. I wouldn’t know—I never looked at another woman.… No, that’s not true; I did a deal more than look when I was up at university. But that was considered part of a young man’s education, and I never regarded the females I visited as women, precisely. It was more in the nature of—nature studies. I’m sure you understand, brother. She was a child then, but once she was grown, I never looked at another woman seriously because I always had her in mind for my wife. Because she was, in effect, my wife, from the day you were lost. We both knew it.”

  “As she is now,” Jared said.

  “Is she? I wonder,” Justin answered, looking down into his goblet of port.

  “Do you think I came back to take your title, your home, and your promised wife?” Jared asked, turning to stare at his brother at last. “I won’t take her. I took the title because it was my birthright, and you were the one who insisted. The estate and all that entailed came with it. But that’s all I expect to get. People are not included in the legacy. They’re not negotiable.” He laughed bitterly. “You should know how I, of all people, feel about that. We traded names and places. We can trade beds, too, brother—and we will do exactly that one day, I suppose, although I don’t think I’ll ever slee
p easy in your room when you leave it, and I think you know that—but we can’t trade bedmates. I’m used to barter; it’s lifeblood in the Colonies. Sometimes a man hasn’t got the money to buy what he needs and so he trades goods for goods with his neighbor, to their mutual benefit. We call it ‘swapping.’ But we can’t swap people, brother.”

  “Ah, yes,” Justin said calmly, “but if you insist people have free will, sometimes we must, mustn’t we? I won’t hold her back. I won’t have a wife who wishes I had ’swapped’ her along with my bed. Would you?”

  “Plain talk,” Jared muttered distractedly, “and premature, at that.”

  “Is it?”

  “Another ‘swap’ then—plain talk for plain talk,” Jared said. “Do you love her?”

  “Of course. I grew up with her, I have known her forever, as she jests. You, of all people should know how it is with a girl you’ve grown up with.” Justin said it casually, but his blue eyes were intent as he watched his brother’s face.

  Jared nodded. “Yes. I understand. But do you love her as a woman?”

  “Enough to want her to be happy,” Justin said carefully.

  Jared knew it was an answer that was no answer. But he didn’t ask another question—maybe because he didn’t want to hear another answer.

  “By God!” he said instead, glancing at the window where the flat black of night that had darkened it had turned silvery. “Morning already? And we’re supposed to accompany the ladies on a walking tour of London tomorrow—or rather, today.”

  “We’ll make it a short walk, then,” Justin said, equally casual, rising and stretching his long body as though he didn’t have a care in the world except for his stiffness, “and pray for rain. Meanwhile, we have a few hours to sleep. This isn’t the countryside; no one who is anyone in London goes anywhere till noon.”