The Beloved One

by Danelle Harmon

  "Yes. Though it seems a lifetime ago, now." He picked up her trunk and carried it up the stairs. "I daresay it has not changed as much in five hundred years as I have in twenty months. Come. Let's go inside."

  The familiar door with its massive oak timbers and iron hinges loomed before him. For one brief, insane moment Charles almost raised his hand to knock; but that was ridiculous. He was the long-lost son, come home at last. Everyone would be ecstatic to see him. He, of all people, did not need to knock!

  And so he turned the latch and pushed open the heavy door, and there was the Great Hall's high, vaulted ceiling of carved stone that he remembered so well; the tapestry on the wall, the suits of medieval armor, the primitive weapons and shields, the mullioned windows rising magnificently from floor to ceiling — and a liveried footman, already leaping to his feet at the sight of Charles and Amy. His face was tight with disapproval and indignation. "Sir! This is a private home, the residence of His Grace the duke of Blackheath, and you have no business —"

  Charles removed his three-cornered hat. "Simmons," he said gently. "Do you not recognize me?"

  The footman came up short, frowning. And then his eyes widened and he paled to the color of milk. "Lord Charles!" he gasped, bowing deeply. "Is it really you?"

  Charles, relieved, smiled warmly. "It is what remains of me, Simmons. I have come home at last."

  "You — you're several days earlier than the family expected you —"

  "Yes, I know. Is the duke about?"

  "Well yes, he's in the dining room with your brothers and sisters —"

  Charles smiled. The man was obviously befuddled, as he had only one sister. But he didn't wish to embarrass the poor fellow, or upset him any more than he'd already done by his untimely arrival. "In the dining room, you say? I shall go to him, then."

  "Please, my lord! Let me summon him for you!"

  "Come now, Simmons — I hardly think that is necessary."

  "B-but my lord, it is on His Grace's orders. I will return for you in but a moment."

  And with that he hurried off, leaving Charles staring after him in confusion and a slow sense of mounting anger.

  Let me summon him for you . . . it is on His Grace's orders. There was no need for Simmons to summon anyone! What the devil was going on here? Why was Simmons treating him like a visitor in his own home? And acting so damned nervous? Bugger this! He wasn't waiting for anyone! Bewildered and upset by this strange treatment, this total lack of fanfare when he'd expected everyone to be joyous at his arrival, he offered his arm to Amy and strode across the polished marbled expanse of the Great Hall, the empty suits of armor staring silently at him through the black slits of their visors as though in silent disapproval.

  "Charles," Amy murmured, hurrying to keep up with him, "Perhaps we should wait . . . after all, maybe your brother has a surprise in store for you and doesn't want you to spoil it by rushing in unannounced —"

  "My brother is treating me with the formality due a visitor and I dislike it. Come along, Amy, I wish to get this over with and I wish to do it now."

  His buckled shoes beating a clipped tattoo, he strode down the shadowy corridors. As he passed them, servants stared at him with wide eyes. "Hello, Puddyford. Hello, Rawlins," he heard himself saying, and though he greeted them warmly, the smiles they offered him in return were nervous, and there was an obvious apprehension in their faces.

  By the time he reached the double doors of the dining room, closed, unwelcoming, and stiffly guarded by Cooper, a normally stone-faced footman whose eyes shot wide with surprise before he schooled himself back into the deference expected from a servant, Charles was quietly furious. Why this tension in the air, this formal treatment, and this pins-and-needles behavior from servants with whom he'd always had an easy, informal relationship?

  The devil take it, he would find out what was going on and he would find out now.

  "Open the door please, Cooper."

  "But my lord —"

  "Open it now."

  Visibly tense, Cooper turned and was just about to push open the great doors so that Charles could join his family, when the left one opened from within and Charles found himself eye to eye with the brother he hadn't seen in well over two years.

  "Lucien!" he said abruptly, unable to keep the hurt from his voice at this treatment that had been bestowed upon him. "By God, what the devil is going on here? What is this business about my having to be announced, and to you my own brother, in my own home? Why would you keep me from joining you all in the dining room?" He clenched his fists, unable to keep the anguish from his rising voice. "Do you all hate me now? Am I so terrible that you cannot forgive me for the mistakes I have made?"

  His anguished cry echoed down the corridor. Mistakes I have made? . . . Mistakes I have made? . . . Mistakes I have made?

  Lucien only stared at him, as though he could not quite reconcile this desperate, emotional stranger with the crisp and confident officer who had taken his troops off to America. And though Charles knew he was coming apart before Lucien's very eyes, he couldn't recover himself, couldn't stop this spiralling freefall into pathetic behavior, couldn't ignore the deep and indescribable pain in Lucien's black and suddenly sympathetic eyes which told him that his brother no longer admired, but pitied him.

  "My dear Charles," he said gently. "My long-lost and much beloved brother." He reached out as though to embrace him — paused — and instead, laid his hand on Charles's arm. "It is not a question of whether or not I can forgive you," he murmured, "but whether or not you will forgive me."

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "Prepare yourself," Lucien said simply, and turning, pushed open the great carved door that had swung shut behind him.

  Chapter 19

  But nothing could have prepared Charles for what he found in the dining room.

  The first thing he saw was the candelabra, glittering at the ends and center of the table and drawing the eye away from the friezed ceiling he remembered so well, the carved mantlepiece of Italian marble, the centuries-old portraits, the drapes that fell in great sweeps of burgundy velvet from ceiling to floor, all of which seemed impossibly dark in comparison to the faces, glowing in the flickering light, that turned toward him in stunned surprise. It took Charles a moment to recognize each one. He never knew that Lucien came quietly up behind him.

  In that brief, fleeting moment that would remain amongst the most shocking of his life, ranking right up there with when he'd woken to discover himself blind, he saw Nerissa, the sister for whom he'd always had a soft spot, looking up at him with tears of sympathy in her pretty blue eyes. He saw Andrew, tall and handsome now, his brows raised in surprise before he slowly put down his napkin and looked nervously toward Gareth; and there was Gareth, for once not smiling, but looking almost sick with uncertainty and embarrassment as he stared at Charles and then, with a subtleness that did not escape his keen gaze, reaching out to cover the hand of the woman beside him with his own.

  A woman with dark hair and fine green eyes.

  A woman Charles had not seen in nearly two years.

  A woman who, as she slowly rose to her feet and stared mutely at him, her face paling, one hand pressed to her lips, could not conceal the fact that she was heavy with child.

  "Juliet?" Charles whispered, his stunned brain trying to absorb what he was seeing and sort it out into something he could understand . . . trying to reason why she was still pregnant when she should've delivered the baby months and months ago . . . trying to put together the pieces of this puzzle that made absolutely no sense. "Juliet, will you not come and greet me?"

  As though for approval, she glanced toward Gareth, who had also risen and now stood almost protectively beside her. And as Charles's confused and uncomprehending gaze went from Gareth's hand, which now supported Juliet's elbow, to his fiancée's swollen belly and finally, to the high chair drawn up beside her which contained a toddler whose curling hair was as bright a gold as Charles's own, he began to unders
tand.

  It felt as though God had slammed a fist into his stomach.

  "No," he murmured, shaking his head in denial and stepping backward, his gaze still fixed on Juliet's gently rounded abdomen. Involuntarily, his fists clenched and he was suddenly afraid that he was going to call out Gareth, his own brother, right here in front of everyone, for what he had done to her. "No, I . . . this cannot be —"

  And then Lucien was there, his hand like a vise on Charles's arm as he firmly turned him around and began dragging him out of the room. Charles resisted, trying to twist his head around, unable to take his disbelieving stare from Juliet's belly, from her face, from her eyes, which met and held his in a silent plea for forgiveness, but Lucien only tightened his grip and pulled him away from the table. Away from the others.

  Out the door, which he shut behind him.

  "Now you know why I did not want you to charge unannounced into this house," he said quietly, as Charles walked a little distance away and leaned his brow against his forearm, and his forearm against the cold stone wall. There he remained, head bent, totally undone by the confusion and despair of his discovery. "I am not angry with you, and there is nothing to forgive. But since you were unaware of the situation, and Juliet is obviously in a delicate condition, you can be sure that I would do everything in my power to protect you both from shock and upset. I am sorry that you had to learn of things this way."

  When Charles made no move to acknowledge him, he turned to Amy. "Who are you?"

  Amy had stepped up beside Charles, who stood with head bent, shoulders quaking. "My name's Amy Leighton," she answered. "I'm a friend of your brother's."

  "How close a friend are you?"

  "Well, that's hard to say, really, because —"

  "She's the only person in this bloody world who hasn't betrayed me!" Charles shouted hoarsely, his face still buried against his arm. And then his raw, choking sobs reverberated throughout the hall.

  Lucien stood there for a moment, his mouth tight, studying this wretched creature before him with a flat, expressionless gaze that revealed none of the heartache such a completely unexpected sight brought him. This was definitely not the brother he knew. The Beloved One was falling apart before his eyes, and any moment now the door behind them would open and everyone would see this shocking, pathetic sight that shook Lucien to his very soles.

  That would not do.

  "Come along, the both of you," he snapped, and roughly seizing Charles's sleeve, dragged him away from the wall. His brother jerked angrily out of his grasp and tried to charge back into the dining room, but Lucien anticipated it and nodded to the footman, who moved to stand in front of the door.

  "Let me through! Damn you to hell, let me through so I can give that — that bastard what he deserves!"

  "Charles."

  Lucien's voice was like ice. His brother stopped short, his eyes bleak with anguish.

  "I would prefer that you do not make a scene," Lucien said in a quiet, controlled voice. "At least, not until after you hear me out. Come, let us go to the library."

  And with that, he extended his hand, indicating that Charles precede him, and Lucien's astute gaze did not miss how this Amy Leighton, who proclaimed herself a friend, discreetly closed the distance between herself and his brother, there if he needed her, but allowing him the dignity of his own private grief.

  He made a mental note of that. And he made a note of something else as Charles, his head bent, turned on his heel and started off down the hall. His brother, who'd always been so capable, so confident, so easily able to handle problems no matter how large or small, had always walked with a quietly authoritative stride even before he'd bought his commission and entered the army. But now the proud shoulders were slumped, the back no longer straight, and there was an air of defeat and despair about him. Of insecurity. Whatever had occurred in America must have been terrible indeed. Lucien set his jaw. He would learn exactly what had happened to turn Charles into this emotional wreckage — and then he would endeavor to find a way to glue the broken pieces that had been his self-assured and admirable brother back together again.

  He ushered them both into the library, shut the door behind him, and after bidding Miss Leighton to take a seat, went straight to the decanter of brandy resting on a table before the fireplace. He filled a glass and offered it to his brother, who was walking silently back and forth, his fingertips pressed against his bent forehead.

  "Take it away," Charles said.

  "Drink it, it'll do you good."

  Charles merely paced the room once, then came to stand before the fire, his elbow propped on the carved mantlepiece, the heel of his hand shoved against his bent brow. His back was toward them both. "Gareth," he snarled. "That bastard, he got her pregnant, didn't he? I should have known such a thing would happen. He's always been The Wild One, recklessly out of control, priding himself on leading that confounded Den of Debauchery and getting up to all sorts of mischief. Now he's had his way with the woman I sent to you for safekeeping, the woman who deserved your protection, and it's his babe that's in her belly, isn't it?" He twisted to glare at Lucien. "Damn you to hell, Lucien, how could you allow such a thing to happen?"

  "Sit down, Charles, and drink your brandy."

  Charles turned from the fire and threw himself into a chair. He picked up the glass of brandy and drained it. He would not look at Lucien.

  But Lucien was watching him, and most shrewdly indeed. Not much got past his enigmatic, heavy-lidded stare. Now, he poured two more drinks, one for himself, and one for the young woman whose dark, anxious eyes flashed briefly to his before returning once more to Charles. Lucien saw the way she was looking at his brother, and the way his brother had taken the chair nearest hers, and suspected there was more between the two of them than just "friendship." Two years ago he would not have approved of Charles being involved with a woman so far beneath him in rank, and a Yankee at that. But Lucien had, after Juliet, learned a thing or two about American women, and he was not so ready to write off this young provincial as he might have once been.

  Especially as she might be useful in his plans for Charles.

  He offered her a glass of brandy, picked up the other, and turned his black stare on his brother.

  "You are not the man I once knew," he said abruptly. "You have changed since I last saw you, and you have changed in a way that brings me great sorrow and distress. I will hear all about what happened to you in a moment. But I think it best that I satisfy your curiosity about what has transpired on this side of the Atlantic, before I satisfy my own as regards what transpired on the other."

  Charles merely sat there, staring mutely, angrily into space.

  "I said but a moment ago that you have changed, Charles, but your brother Gareth has changed as well. He is no longer the wild, irresponsible young man who gave me daily headaches, spent his time in drunken debauchery and always came out the worse in the inevitable comparisons with you. He is no longer the black sheep of this family, the never-ending source of despair and embarrassment. He now owns a very lucrative estate in Abingdon which he won back for this family through his own courage and sacrifice, is a much respected Member of Parliament, and is a father, a husband, and a man worthy of the de Montforte name. I am very proud of him."

  Still, Charles said nothing, merely staring at the bookcases with their ancient, leather-bound tomes without seeing them.

  Lucien moved forward to refill his brother's brandy. "When Juliet — at your bidding, I might add — came to us last April, I saw a woman who was the complete opposite of Gareth. I saw a woman who was steadfast where he was impulsive, who was practical where he was reckless, who was grieving where he was full of fun and laughter. I also saw that she was greatly in need of a father for her little baby."

  Charles slowly turned his head, his expression going cold as he met Lucien's black stare. "No. Don't tell me that you're behind this, Lucien. Don't tell me that you, with your infernal machinations and manipulations, engineer
ed this damnable union."

  "I'm afraid that is precisely what I did. You were dead, or so we thought. Your charming fiancée needed not only a husband who could give your daughter her proper name, but someone to pull her out of her grief. In Gareth, I saw a man who was capable of doing both. She needed to laugh again, and he needed someone to teach him the meaning of responsibility. The two of them, as I was quick to discern, brought out the best in each other. Of course I —" he tapped a finger, once, against his pursed lips — "arranged things so that the two of them ended up together. How could I not?"

  Very slowly, Charles put down his brandy. "And just what was it you did?"

  "It is not important."

  "It is to me."

  "Very well, then." Lucien affected a weary sigh. "I told the girl that I could not make baby Charlotte my ward. Her pride was most grievously injured, and so she left, just as I suspected she might do. Meanwhile I allowed Gareth, who had pushed me beyond the limits of my patience with a certain act of public vandalism the night before, to think that I had banished her. He was already half in love with her, and determined to do right by both the young lady and the child of the older brother that he had so loved. He went after her, and had what he thought was his revenge on me and my apparent cruelty by marrying her — just as I suspected he might do. It was all very neat and simple, really, and I am most pleased with the consequences of my . . . manipulations. There is nothing that will make a fellow grow up faster than a little responsibility, and with a wife and baby to look after, I daresay Gareth had more than enough."

  Charles, who had gone very, very still, held up a hand. "Do you mean to tell me that you sent a young woman with a tiny baby off, alone — and then sent Gareth of all people, to rescue her?"

  "My dear Charles. Do not be so upset. I was in complete control of the situation —"

  "I cannot believe you would take such an unpardonable risk!" cried Charles, leaping to his feet. "When I bade Juliet to come here should anything happen to me, I thought you, not Gareth would be responsible for her! Gareth can't even be responsible for buckling his own shoes for God's sake, let alone a wife and baby!"