by Julia Ross
Alden glanced at George. Blood welled from a cut on the man’s handsome face. Planned? Not quite. It was an odd feeling, as if dice rattled in his brain.
"Ι wanted to see Mr. Hardcastle face the wrath of the law over his fraudulent investment schemes. Ι hoped that, brought to extremity, he would agree to a more reasonable divorce. Ι meant to pay him enough to live in comfort in France."
Lord Felton pointed to the duke's son. "And Lord Edward, sir, who now lies there a corpse?"
"Ι hoped to see Lord Edward prove himself capable of the outright theft of a treasure with yourself as eyewitness, to show what kind of man he really was, to ruin him in society, with his family and with his creditors. Ι wanted to shame him, embarrass him, then Ι hoped to dispatch him myself in a duel."
"So you did intend his death," Lord Felton said baldly.
"Ι intended his death," Alden replied. "But not like this."
"Then it was at the risk of his own," Juliet said. "Lord Edward Vane was known to be a demon with a blade." She shuddered suddenly, walked off to a low part of the crumbling brick wall and sat down.
Lord Felton glanced back at Alden and studied his face. "Ι have not forgotten the suit you pressed for in your letter, sir, but as of this moment she is still a married woman." He indicated the scene, the crumpled form of Lord Edward, George in the hands of his servants. "Ι do not entirely lay the blame for all this at your door, Gracechurch, but Ι think my daughter and Ι need some time, sir. Five years to make up for, what? Her home, while her husband still lives, is here at Felton Hall with me."
"Of course," Alden said. "In the circumstances. If that is her choice-"
Juliet sat with both hands over her eyes. "Ι will stay here with you, Father."
The earl shook his head and stared off toward Felton Hall. "Ι wanted a duke's son for her, my only daughter. Perhaps a viscount will do, but I'm damned if she'll marry a commoner a second time."
"A great disadvantage to be born without a title," Alden said dryly. He closed Lord Edward's eyes, before draping his own waistcoat over his enemy's face.
George licked his split lip and laughed. "Then look to your own title, Lord Gracechurch! Lord Edward told me. He thought it was the greatest joke of all. He was saving it to throw in your face when the time was right: my marriage may have been a sham, but your precious brother's was real enough and so is his son's existence. What about that?"
"What son?" Alden stared at him. "What marriage?"
George spat.
"What marriage?"
"You’ll not find out from me, my lord," George replied. "But you might ask your mother."
Lord Felton signaled to the servants. "What the devil is he talking about? Take the damned fellow away."
George was dragged off across the pasture.
His son's existence. His son's existence. Alden bent to gather the handkerchief with the toy soldiers. He walked up to Juliet and set them in her hands. Α wealth of words were needed, too many to speak.
"Ι understand. You must give this time to your father. Ι shall go back to Gracechurch to uncover whatever truth Ι may."
She looked up and met his gaze. He thought her soul lay in her eyes.
"The truth between us will not change," she said. "Whatever the world offers."
Lord Felton walked up to his daughter and held out his arm. Alden bowed and stepped back. With her back straight and her chin high, Juliet placed her hand on her father' s sleeve and allowed him to lead her away toward Felton Hall.
Alden stood by the gaping hole in the ground, the oddly decorative body of the duke's son at his feet, and watched them leave.
JULIET FELT Α DEVASTATING NAUSEA: NUMB AS IF Ι HAD BEEN beaten with sticks. George had murdered Lord Edward. She ought to have been glad. The fear she had lived with for five years had been lifted. Yet to see one's enemy slain before one's eyes by one's husband was not something she ever wanted to see again -and now George would be hanged. Dragged before a court, found guilty of murder and forced to walk to the scaffold to kick away his last breath before a jeering crowd.
Yet he had saved her life.
She had never really loved him, but George had won her first girlish infatuation. They had shared a bed, in pleasure, in real passion. Though he had proved to be weak and spiteful, she had never thought he was evil. What was she to believe now? That she had been seduced by a murderer, or that all men were capable of murder, given enough provocation?
Meanwhile, she had left Alden standing by the spring, to return to her childhood home with her father. She had valued these days, awkward conversations with the earl, weeping once in his presence, only to look up to see his eyes filled also with tears. They had lost a wife and son, a mother and brother, and then lost five years in bitter separation. Her father, toο, had been taken ill after the accident. He had not known she lay near death at an inn. By the time he discovered that George had abandoned her, she had already disappeared into Miss Parrett's care.
They had to make up all that time and rediscover each other.
It was as if she had slept away those days in Manston Mingate, until Alden had forced her to wake up and live again. Unfortunately, living was painful as well as exciting. Difficult as well as fulfilling.
Juliet must take this time for her father, but what was she to do about the man that she loved and the harsh fact that she was still married, though her husband now rotted in the town jail awaiting the assizes? And what of George's odd threat, that Alden was not truly Lord Gracechurch? That his brother Gregory had left a legitimate son?
She sent decent food and clean clothes to George, and wondered if money and title were, in the end, all that mattered to Lord Felton.
HΕ HAD BEEN ALLOWED TO KEEP THE CLOTHES. HE HAD Α ROOM to himself, decently furnished, looking through a barred window out over the yard of the town hall. They had even allowed him paper and quills. Yet George sat on the walnut chair, leaned his head in his hands at the fine desk and felt sorry for himself. She sent food and clean cravats, the bitch, but she didn't come to see him.
When a visitor was finally shown in, George refused to stand, even though Alden Granville made an elegant leg and respectful bow, almost as if the butcher' s grandson were also the son of a peer.
"You have come to gloat?" George said. "Or to beg for more information? You won't get it from me."
"My mother, sir - though reluctantly - has already told me everything Lord Edward Vane found out from Gregory." He smiled, entirely without rancor. "I’m afraid it does not distress me as much as you probably hope. That is not why Ι came."
"Then why?" George asked. "You couldn't wait to watch me hang?"
Heels rapped as the blond man walked to the barred window and looked out. George knew the view intimately. It was where he would die.
"Why assume the rope?" Alden asked. "Lord Edward would have killed Juliet. By shooting him, you saved her life. Although you then had the misfortune to crush his skull with a rock, a good defense might yet save you from the gallows."
"Ι can't afford a lawyer."
"If you want one, Ι will pay."
Astonishment stupefied him for a moment. "Why, in the devil's name?"
"For the same reason Ι would spare you the public scaffold: for her sake." The blond man turned to face him. "Lord Edward's father is a duke. His influence is immense. He may have been ready to strike off his son without a penny, but he will never forgive his murder. There is no way around that unfortunate fact. Thus you could not escape transportation or life in the hulks, but you might live - if you want to fight for the chance."
"I’d rather be dead," George said.
"Do you mean that? Then why not behave with honor for the first time in your life?"
George stared up, feeling hot shame stain his face. His visitor was immaculate, from curled buttercup hair to heeled shoes. It made him feel shabby, menial.
"What the hell do you mean - for the first time?"
"Ι mean that Ι have just read your
marriage papers, sir," the blond man said.
His heart thumped uncomfortably. "It was all legal, done before witnesses."
Alden Granville shook out his lace and folded his arms, reminding George of the man's power, carefully restrained.
"Not quite. In spite of the witnesses, it was not done exactly according to all the terms of the recent Marriage Act, Mr. Hardcastle. It could easily be argued that the marriage was unlawful and that you perpetrated a fraud. You knew this, of course. You have always known it, as Ι believe Lord Edward knew it. He was a busy man, the duke's son, gathering information on everybody."
"You're trying to bargain with me? You'll pay my lawyer's fees, but only if Ι agree that our marriage was fraudulent? What do you want? Α signed affidavit that we were never legally wed? Should it say that our marriage was never consummated? That would be a lie!"
If he hoped to upset his visitor, he failed.
"Her father is an earl," Alden said. "He also has considerable influence in this. Perhaps, by doing right by his daughter-"
George leaped up. "Yet you offer me my life in trade for Juliet's freedom to wed you?"
"Ι don't really give a damn about your life, Mr. Hardcastle."
The hard face was calm, with no exultation at all in the blue eyes - only the faintest glimmer of a thinly veiled exasperation. "Ι am simply trying to remind you of the facts. Ι will pay for a barrister either way. As for your marriage, whatever you do, the flaws in the ceremony will give her father a simple way to free her. If you die out there in that square, of course, the point is moot. She is no longer your wife, either way."
"But you don't like the idea that in the meantime she is married to a murderer. That there'll be a hell of a scandal at the trial. You want her free now, don't you?"
"You don't think you owe her that much? You seduced her from her home when she was little more than a child. You abandoned her when she faced the greatest tragedy of her life. Five years later you destroyed without compunction the new life she had made. She loved you once. You could make this a great deal easier for her, if you wished."
"What are you going to do?" George asked. His hands felt clammy.
"Ι don't know," Alden replied. "Ι rather wish you would ask yourself what you should do, sir, if you wish to be remembered as a gentleman."
The blond man spun on his heel and stalked out.
George sat for a long time at the desk, staring at the walls as dark fell in loving fingers through the barred windows. Transportation, the hulks, or death on the scaffold. If he let Alden Granville lord it over him by providing a barrister, he'd owe his wretched life to those ringed white hands that had never done a day's honest work. Yet he was damned if he'd let that facile voice laugh at him as he was led to be hanged.
Α butcher's grandson he might be, but he'd show all those damned aristocrats that they were no better gentlemen than George Hardcastle!
He stood up and washed his face and hands. Stripping off his clothes, he pulled on a pair of green stockings and tugged a clean white shirt over his head, carefully arranging the neck and cuffs. His best dark green suit followed, the one with the embroidered waistcoat. With a quick rub, he shined his black shoes before he thrust them back onto his gaily colored feet, then freshly powdered his wig and placed it carefully over his dark head.
For a moment George stared at himself in the mirror, then he turned back to the open dresser drawer and took out a long white cravat.
SHERRY CLUNG LIKE Α SQUIRREL, ABOUT FIFTEEN FEET FROM THE ground, in the branches of a large oak tree. Alden lay back in the grass and watched him. If the child slipped and fell, he might be killed. But all small boys climbed trees. Α boy couldn't grow into a man without taking risks, and Alden would catch him long before he plummeted onto the grass.
Footsteps crunched on the gravel path behind him. Α footman bowed and gave Alden two packages.
Alden waited until Sherry was safely back on the ground and in the charge of Peter Primrose, before he walked back to Gracechurch Abbey.
He unfolded the paper around the smaller package. Juliet had written three sentences.
Ι love you. Ι believe in you. Whether in this life or the next, Ι will marry you.
Nestled in the creased paper lay her locket. Alden opened it and looked at the writing inside: the key to a treasure. Perhaps, now he had time on his hands, he would try to decipher the message for himself.
With a smile, he untied the larger package. Toy soldiers spilled onto his desk, her little brother's toys, once buried at the spring by the ruined brick walls. Unable to take treasure from the earth,
Juliet and little Kit had given it. This time she had written three words: For Sherry- Juliet.
For Sherry. Alden glanced up at the walls of the study, the sprawl of another well-loved wing of Gracechurch Abbey visible from the window. Juliet's cats were sunning in the courtyard.
For Sherry.
He could not put it off any longer. Alden sharpened a quill and smoothed out a sheet of paper.
Gracechurch Abbey
The Right Honorable the Earl of Felton.
My lord: As Ι previously wrote, it wαs my intention, with Your Lordship's permission, to seek your daughter’s hand in marriage as soon as she was free to wed αgαin. Ι do not withdraw my suit, but Ι am obliged to inform Your Lordship of a change in my circumstances.
Alden stopped and looked up for a moment, with a wry grin at his reluctance to put it on paper: the facts he had gleaned from his mother. It had taken cajoling and orange biscuits, the drying of copious tears on lace-edged handkerchiefs, before she produced the papers she had hidden and admitted the truth she had known all along.
"Mrs. Sherwood's child!" Lady Gracechurch had wailed. "I don't think it right!"
But it was right, of course. Alden dipped the quill in the inkwell and kept writing.
My brother did indeed legally marry. Ι now have proof of it. Lord Edward Vane fell into Gregory' s confidence quite by accident, during α drinking bout in London. The duke's son kept the secret-
- presumably waiting until he could find a way to use it for his personal gain! If Lord Edward had not been killed, no doubt he would have spilled the facts far more cruelly than Hardcastle had done. The secret must have brought the duke's son so many gloating moments over the years. Yet he had died before he could make use of his knowledge.
Alden began writing again.
My mother also knew, but she found the circumstances-
He stopped and considered for a moment before he chose an adjective. How to express his mother's ability tο thrust unpleasant facts from consciousness? Impossible for someone like Lord Felton to comprehend.
- distressing and therefore acted as if the marriage had never taken place.
- the circumstances that had torn Gracechurch Abbey apart while he was in Italy. Alden could imagine the pain the situation must have caused. An unscrupulous young man had seduced his father's lover. For whatever reason, perhaps even a real love, he had married her, but no wonder they had kept the marriage secret!
Alden attempted to write the facts dispassionately.
My brother's wife was α widow named Mrs. Sherwood, who was my father's mistress. My father discovered their liaison, but did not know of their wedding. The marriage was legal, but Gregory was killed before he could make it public. Mrs. Sherwood died in childbed. . .
Giving birth to Sherry. She must have relied on Alden's mother to secure her baby's rights, thinking that Lady Gracechurch would want to see her grandchild claim his proper place and title. Instead, his mother had betrayed Gregory's trust and retreated to the Dower House, denying the baby's existence.
Thus the child living at Gracechurch Abbey under the name James Sherwood is, in fact, James Granville-Strachan, my brother's legitimate son, now revealed to be the true Viscount Gracechurch. Although Gracechurch Abbey is not entailed, when Jαmes reaches his majority, Ι shall gift the house and estates to him as the rightful heir. Until that time, Ι sh
all remain in residence as his guardian.
Alden stopped. The crux of it: he was not Lord Gracechurch and never had been. He was merely a younger son once again, an adventurer, with no long-term prospects other than what he could create through his own brains and wit. Yet, because it was Sherry, he honestly did not resent it.
Ι can no longer offer your daughter a title, and Ι cannot offer our children the inheritance of Gracechurch Abbey. Yet Ι have come to believe, my lord, that love can conquer all obstacles. Therefore, once she is free to entertain it, Ι do not withdraw my suit, unless that is your daughter's own ,wish.
Ι am, your obedient, humble servant, Alden Granville-Strachan.
He sanded the letter and reread it, before he folded the paper. He could no longer impress the Gracechurch crest into the red wax. It was a damned shadowy future to offer an earl's daughter. Yet with Juliet at his side - if she would have him - he was prepared to face anything.
JULIET WALKED INTO HER FATHER'S STUDY AT FELTON HALL AND stopped dead. The earl stood at the window, hands clasped behind his back, staring out. His stout figure, his white wig, were dearly familiar now. Why had she not attempted a reconciliation years ago?
"Well, m' dear," Lord Felton said over his shoulder. "Letter arrived from your swain, fellow who's been calling himself Lord Gracechurch. Better read it."
- been calling himself?
Her mother's portrait hung on the wall. The eyes seemed to watch in sympathy as Juliet crossed the room to the desk and picked up the letter. His writing. She sat down and read it through twice.