by Mary Balogh
“You go with him, love,” the same passenger advised aloud. “He’s a right handsome gent, he is. I’d go with him myself if he would take me instead.”
There was a burst of appreciative laughter from those within hearing distance.
“Go away!” Viola said, angry and embarrassed.
“Please, Viola.” He was no longer smiling. He was compelling her shamelessly with his dark eyes, which gazed very deeply into her own. “Please, my love. Don’t go.”
The other passengers awaited her reply with bated breath.
Hannah touched her arm. “We had better get out, Miss Vi,” she said, “before we are thrown out.”
The coachman and a few other men were still swearing ferociously. The guard had jumped down from his place and was advancing menacingly on Lord Ferdinand.
“If you insist upon staying where you are,” Ferdinand said, grinning suddenly again, “I’ll follow the coach, Viola, and accost you at every tollgate and every stop between here and Somersetshire. I can make a very public nuisance of myself when I choose. Take my hand now, and get down.”
He had made it impossible for her to remain in the coach. How would she look her fellow passengers in the eye during the long hours ahead? How would she be able to face the coachman and guard at the various stops along the way? She stretched out her hand slowly until it was resting in Ferdinand’s. He grasped it tightly, and the next moment she was descending to the inn yard while all the inside passengers, a few of the outside ones, and a sizable ring of spectators cheered and applauded.
“Toss down the lady’s bags and her maid’s, if you will, my man,” Ferdinand said, grinning at the guard and pressing a gold coin into his hand. With one glance at it, the guard forgot his wrath and did as he had been bidden. Ferdinand, meanwhile, was assisting Hannah to alight and then stretching up an arm to appease the coachman with another coin. His curricle and horses, Viola noticed, were still blocking the gateway, his groom holding the horses’ heads.
She stood mutely watching while the curricle was pulled ahead and the stagecoach finally rumbled out of the yard—without her—and turned onto the street. The grooms and other spectators were dispersing.
“Ma’am.” Lord Ferdinand was addressing her mother. “May I have your leave to take Miss Thornhill for a drive?”
She did not want to drive with him. At this particular moment she hated him. The worst should be over now. She should be on her way home.
“Of course, my lord,” her mother said warmly. “Hannah will return to the White Horse with us.”
They were all smiling, Viola saw when she looked from one to the other of them—just as if they were witnessing the beginning of a happily-ever-after. Even Hannah was beaming. Did they not understand?
He was offering her his arm. She took it without a word and went with him out to the street, where he handed her up to the high seat of his curricle before striding around to the other side and climbing up beside her. He took the ribbons from his groom’s hand.
“I am very vexed with you,” she said curtly when the curricle was in motion.
“Are you?” He turned his head to look briefly at her. “Why?”
“You had no business stopping me from doing what I had decided to do,” she said, “and what I wanted to do. This morning, when there were important papers to deliver to me, you sent them with a servant and a note signed F. Dudley. Now suddenly this afternoon you need to speak with me urgently enough to drag me from a stagecoach.”
“Ah, this morning,” he said. “I had a very important commitment this morning that made it impossible to call on you in person. But it struck me that you had a right to see those papers at the earliest possible moment. I had time only to dash off a quick note. Did I really sign myself that way? Were you offended?”
“Not at all,” she said. “Why should I be?”
He merely flashed her a grin.
“There is nothing more to be said,” she told him. “I have already sent a letter thanking you for the papers. Where did they come from, by the way?”
“Bamber,” he said. “He went to Yorkshire to call upon the countess’s solicitor. It seems that his father used his services occasionally. He did so just before his death because Westinghouse was away from London when you left for Pinewood. The York solicitor neglected to bring the papers to light afterward, though, probably at the countess’s urging. Bamber did not know where to find you with them, and so he came to me.”
“I would have expected him to keep his mouth shut too,” she said tartly. “He cannot feel kindly toward me, after all.”
“He is a ramshackle fellow,” Ferdinand said, “but not dishonest.”
“Everything has been said, then.” She turned her head away from him. “It could have been explained just as well in a letter. You did not need to see me again. I wanted to be on that stagecoach. I wanted to go home. I did not want to see you again.”
“We have to talk,” he said—and then was silent.
“Where are we going?” she asked after a few minutes.
“Somewhere where we can talk,” he said.
Her question had been rhetorical. It was clear that they were headed in the direction of the Duke of Tresham’s house—the one where his grace housed his mistresses. The curricle drew to a stop there a couple of minutes later and Ferdinand jumped down before coming around to her side.
“I won’t,” she said firmly as her feet touched the pavement.
“Sleep with me?” he said, grinning down at her. “No, you dashed well won’t, Viola. Not today anyway. We need to talk.”
Alone together. Here, of all places, where they had spent one night of delirious happiness.
She hated him with an intense anger.
* * *
HE TOOK HER TO the room he liked best—the back room with the pianoforte and books, where Jane and Tresham must have spent a great deal of time. She took off her outdoor garments and went to sit primly in the armchair beside the hearth. Her face was pale and expressionless. She had not once looked at him since they entered the house.
“Why didn’t you trust me?” he asked her. He stood some distance from her, his hands clasped at his back. She had lost weight and bloom since that day of the village fête. But somehow she looked as beautiful as ever. Or perhaps it seemed so because he was no longer able to see her objectively. “Why did you go to Tresham instead?”
She looked up at him sharply then. “How do you know that?”
“He told me so,” he said. “Did you think he would not, Viola?”
She stared at him. “Now that I think of it,” she said, “I can see that it is something he would do. He would want to tell you how I was willing to bargain with him and take money from him in exchange for refusing to marry you. Yes, I can see that he would get satisfaction from telling you how calculating and mercenary I am. Does he know about the receipt the Earl of Bamber brought you? How disappointed he must have been—and how terrified that after all I might accept a marriage offer from you.”
She was still angry, he could see. He had learned early that Viola Thornhill was not easily dominated. She would not readily forgive him for forcing her to get down from that stagecoach.
“Why did you not trust me?” he asked her again. “Why did you not ask me for the money, Viola? You must know that I would have helped you.”
“I did not want you to,” she said. “I did not want you to know why I worked for Daniel Kirby. I wanted you to believe that I was Lilian Talbot because I liked being her and doing what she did. I wanted you to abandon the foolish notion that we could marry. I still wish it. I was Lilian Talbot, even though I hated every moment of her life. And I remain what she was. I wish the Duke of Tresham had not told you. Better yet, I wish I had not gone to him or had waited another day. That receipt has set me free, you see. But not free to live here or to associate with people like you.”
“I can never ever be worthy of you, you know,” he said. She looked at him in astonishment, but he
continued. “When I learned as a boy of the life my mother and father lived, as well as most of their friends, I was so disillusioned with love that I shrank from it forever after and withdrew into cynicism. Apart from my studies I have done nothing worthwhile in all the years since. Certainly I have not given love. You, on the other hand, have stuck steadfastly by love even though it has hurt you immeasurably. And you keep on sticking by it. You are intent upon not hurting me, are you not?”
She turned her head away. “Don’t make a saint of me,” she said. “I did what I had to do. But I am a whore nonetheless.”
“I think,” he said, “that I have done one worthwhile thing in my adult life.”
“Yes. You gave Pinewood back to me before you knew it was mine anyway,” she said. “I will always remember you kindly for that.”
“Kirby won’t be troubling you again,” he said.
“No.” He saw her shudder.
“I would have killed him for you, Viola,” he said quietly. “I would like to have killed him.”
“Oh, no.” She was on her feet then and closing the distance between them. She set one hand on his sleeve and looked earnestly into his face. “Don’t get into any trouble on my behalf, Ferdinand. He has no more power over me.”
He covered her hand on his arm with his own. “Oh, I did not say that he has gone unpunished,” he said.
She looked at his hand as he spoke, and then she looked down at the other, her eyes widening. “Oh, Ferdinand, what have you done?”
“I have punished him,” he said. “No punishment could be adequate for what he has done to you, not even death. But I believe it will be several days before he can get up off his bed. Once he is up, he will be taking himself beyond these shores for the rest of his life.”
She raised his hand and set her cheek gently against his raw knuckles. “How dreadful of me to feel glad,” she said. “But I do. Thank you. But I hope no one else hears of this, especially the Duke of Tresham. You should not be seen to have any involvement with me. But no matter. I will leave for home tomorrow, and no one will ever hear from me again. I did not want to see you today, Ferdinand, but I am glad after all that you caught up to me in time. I will have this as a last memory of you.”
“Actually, Tresham does know,” he said. “He is the one who brought Kirby to me in the park.”
She looked at him in horror. “He knows? In the park?”
“With fifty or so other chosen witnesses,” he told her. “By now there is probably no one in the ton who does not know.”
She stepped back from him, her face suddenly pale. Then she tried to rush past him to the door, but he caught her arm and held her.
“By now,” he said, “everyone knows of your courage and selfless devotion to your family when you were little more than a girl. Everyone knows that the villain who preyed upon you has been publicly humiliated and punished. Everyone knows that the powerful and influential Dudleys, led by the Duke of Tresham himself, have taken your part and devoted themselves to restoring your good name and celebrating your heroism. And everyone knows that Lord Ferdinand Dudley has appointed himself your champion.”
“How could you?” she cried. “How could you? To have exposed me to such public …” She could not seem to think of the right word. Her eyes flashed at him.
“Do you not see that it is the only way?” he asked her gently. “Tresham is going to invite the ton to a reception at Dudley House. He wants you to be the guest of honor. Everyone will come, Viola. They will all be agog to catch a glimpse of you. But it is our version of you they will come to see. It is the real Viola Thornhill they will meet. You will become all the rage.”
“I don’t want to be all the rage,” she snapped at him. “Ferdinand, I was a courtesan for four years. I am illegitimate. I—”
“Bamber hopes to escort you to the reception and present you to the ton as his half-sister,” he said.
“What?” She stared at him. “What?”
“He was in the park too,” he told her.
“So were a dozen or more of my former clients, I daresay.” She glared indignantly at him.
“Yes.” He drew a slow breath and tested the idea in his mind. It really did not matter to him. “But not one of them will reveal the fact by so much as a flicker of an eyelash, Viola. You will be the acknowledged half-sister of the Earl of Bamber. You will be the protégée of the Duke and Duchess of Tresham. You will be my lady—or so I hope.”
He could see the moment at which anger drained out of her and a certain wistfulness took its place, parting her lips and making her eyes more luminous.
“Ferdinand,” she said softly, “it cannot be, my dear. You must not do this.” Tears welled into her eyes.
He possessed himself of both her hands. What he was about to do might look ridiculous, but he felt an overwhelming need to pay homage to her courage and loyalty and unfailing love—to her superiority over him. He went down on one knee and set his forehead against the backs of her hands.
“My love,” he said. “Do me the honor of marrying me. If you truly do not love me, I will understand. I will send you home to Pinewood in my own carriage the day after the reception. But I love you. I’ll always love you. It is my dream that you will marry me and that we will go home to Pinewood together and raise a family there.”
She drew her hands free of his, and he waited for rejection. But then he felt them come to rest lightly on his head, like a benediction.
“Ferdinand,” she said. “Oh, my dear love.”
He was on his feet then and scooping her up into his arms with a whoop that had her laughing. He twirled her about and carried her to the chair by the fireplace, where he sat with her cradled in his arms, her head nestled in the warm hollow between his neck and shoulder.
“Of course,” he said, “everyone will be expecting our betrothal announcement at Tresham’s reception. Angie will want to insist upon a grand wedding in St. George’s and a lavish breakfast for five hundred or so afterward. All of it preceded the night before by a great ball.”
“Oh, no,” she said, real horror in her voice.
“Ghastly thought, is it not?” he agreed. “She will be even more eager this time because Tresham foiled all her grandiose plans by marrying Jane quietly by special license.”
“Can we marry quietly?” she begged him. “At Trellick, perhaps?”
He chuckled. “You don’t know my sister,” he said, “though I daresay you soon will.”
“Ferdinand.” She tipped back her head and gazed up at him. “Are you sure? Are you quite, quite—”
There was only one way to deal with such foolishness. He covered her mouth with his own and silenced her. After a few moments her arm crept up about his neck and she sighed her surrender.
Ferdinand found himself thinking all sorts of mindless drivel—about being surely the happiest man in the world, for example.
25
IOLA WAS SEATED IN THE EARL OF BAMBER’S opulent town carriage, her mother beside her, the earl opposite. They were on their way to Dudley House.
It had been a turbulent week. The Duchess of Tresham had called at the White Horse Inn the day after Ferdinand stopped Viola from leaving on the stagecoach. She had issued a formal invitation to Viola and her mother to attend the reception she and her husband were giving. She had stayed for twenty minutes and had shown an interest in Claire, who was not working downstairs at the time. Her grace had mentioned that her godmother, Lady Webb, was considering employing a companion to live with her—she spent half the year in London and the other half in Bath. The duchess had wondered if Claire would be interested in the position.
The day after, Claire had gone with their mother, by invitation, to call upon Lady Webb, and the two had appeared delighted with each other. Claire was to begin her new position in two weeks’ time and had looked during the past few days as if she were walking on air.
“This is very kind of you, my lord,” Viola’s mother said to the earl.
He w
as looking stout and florid and very fine indeed in his evening clothes. He must be eight or nine years her senior, Viola guessed. She had not asked her mother how it had come about that she had progressed from being the boy’s governess to becoming his father’s mistress. That was her mother’s private, secret life.
“Not at all, ma’am,” he said, stiffly inclining his head.
He too had called on them during the week. His manner to his former governess had been distant, but not discourteous. With Viola herself he had been scrupulously polite. He had requested the honor of escorting both ladies to the Duke of Tresham’s reception. Viola wondered now why he was doing it. Her mother had been his father’s mistress, and she was the offspring of that illicit union. But he answered her question even as she thought it.
“M’father wanted Miss Thornhill to be recognized as a lady,” he said. “I will have no part in thwarting his wishes.”
“She is a lady,” Viola’s mother said. “My father …”
But Viola was not listening. She was nervous. Yes, of course she was. It would be pointless to deny it. Even without her scarlet past—and even if she had been Clarence Wilding’s legitimate daughter—she could never have hoped to be on her way to a ton party. Although both he and her mother were of the gentry class, they were not high enough on the social scale to mingle with the beau monde.
But she refused to give in to her nerves. She had decided to trust Ferdinand and his family to know what they were doing. In a sense, it was a relief to have everything out in the open. To have no more secrets. No more hidden fears. And no more doubts.
She was wearing a white satin gown with a delicately scalloped hem and short train but with no other adornment. She had been to several tedious fittings during the week with one of Bond Street’s most prestigious dressmakers. The gown, as well as the silver slippers and gloves and fan she had chosen to wear with it, had been exorbitantly costly, but the loan she had asked of Uncle Wesley until she could send the money from Pinewood had turned into a gift. Her mother had told him everything and he had been angry with Viola—but in a tearful, hugging sort of way. It had hurt him that she had borne the burden of her stepfather’s debts instead of going to him.