by Liz Carlyle
He thought again of the crowd downstairs, and cursed beneath his breath. Yes, he fit in perfectly. Even at a distance he had recognized the scandalous beauty, Lady Julia Burton, arm in arm with one of his regular customers, Sir Francis Smythe-Feldon.
The Frenchman, de Macey, he knew vaguely. For all his elegance, the gentleman was not one Quartermaine particularly welcomed in his club, for he was that rarest of the rare: a disciplined gambler. And a man who, despite his bonhomie, could be dangerous when crossed.
Still, their skills notwithstanding, Edward wished to avoid them all.
He particularly wished to avoid Lord Reginald Hoke.
Upstairs, he closed the door and leaned back against it, taking the weight off his leg, which ached a little. Somewhere in the afternoon’s chaos, he’d mislaid Stephen Wentworth’s walking stick—a provident loss, perhaps, for if he’d had it to hand upon discovering Lord Reginald Hoke kissing Kate, he might have snapped, and beaten the damned fool to a bloody pulp.
Slowly he exhaled and let his head fall back against the door, his throat working up and down. Good Lord, the coincidence of it all! Lord Reginald’s debt. Heatherfields. His meeting Kate. What were the chances of such happenstance?
Still, Edward was a man who had long survived—and thrived—by plying the slender blade of chance. Always, in the end, it had cleaved down on his side. But this time? When it felt, strangely, as if it might truly matter?
He was doomed. He’d seen the disdain in Kate’s eyes when he’d told her who—no, what—he was.
And he had brought that disdain on himself. Even without his memory, Edward had suspected something of his own character, for surely a man’s character was as much an immutable part of him as the color of his eyes. He had sensed very clearly that he’d no business in this beautiful Eden. That he’d no business with her.
Yet he’d let himself—what? Grow close to Kate? He would not call it more than that, for naming a thing gave it power over a man. He had learnt that lesson long ago.
But dear God, he had to get past this. This nameless longing; this emotion that could not—and would not—matter in the end. On a shaft of frustration, Edward pushed himself away from the door and went to the massive oak coffer at the foot of his bed and shoved up the lid with both hands.
There, just as Miss Wentworth had promised, he found his valise. He took it out, shut the chest, and sat down upon the ornately carved surface to unbuckle the bag. His memory clear now, Edward ran his hand around the bottom until he felt the familiar notch, then he hooked the tip of his finger in it and pulled up the false bottom.
The deed conveying Heatherfields lay beneath. And under it, some five hundred pounds in banknotes. A fortune to most people. Mere pocket change to him.
At least he would be able to repay Kate’s loan—assuming she would even touch his filthy lucre. But her compassion? The kindness of everyone at Bellecombe? Those he could never repay. Unwittingly, they had given him respite from a life that once had meant survival, but had long ago become just plain, reflexive ruthlessness.
It was as if the twisted course through his harsh and ugly world ran like parallel paths with one more pure of purpose, more sweetly ordinary, and now the line between them had blurred. One misstep had led him to slip unwittingly across that narrow vale and let him glimpse what he could not have. What he had, perhaps, thrown away long ago.
Once upon a time, he had persuaded himself that he lived such a hard, wicked existence for Annie. That he wished her to have a life free of want; one that was imbued with as much grace as a man’s ill-got gain could purchase a child.
But Annie’s wants—if not her grandmother’s—had long ago been satisfied. Mrs. Granger had been sent gowns and governesses aplenty for the girl, and along with them Edward had provided a dowry sufficient to make all but the most scrupulous of men overlook the obscure circumstances of Annie’s birth. And now there was Heatherfields to go with it; an estate, he hoped, that could be made worthy of being called a gentleman’s seat.
Thinking of Annie, however, made him realize what was not inside the valise. Annie’s pearls. The pearl and sapphire necklace he’d taken in such haste when he’d flown from Ceylon; his wedding gift to Maria.
Except that there had been no wedding.
There had been only a funeral, and a child so small and so weak of limbs and lungs that it seemed surely destined to die. And Mr. Granger, so angry and disbelieving, refusing to accept the responsibility for the unutterable tragedy his pride had brought down upon his house.
And now Edward was left to wonder what had become of the pearls. Though he had dreaded his every trip to Somerset—and made few enough of them—he had carried the pearls like a talisman. But Mrs. Granger still refused to allow Annie to have them.
Not yet, she said.
But never was what she meant. She didn’t want him in Annie’s life. Indeed, she did all she could to keep him from the child—as much as she dared, at any rate.
Still, pride usually went before a fall, and most of Mrs. Granger’s had gone shortly after her husband’s death, when Annie was just six. With her daughter and husband in the grave, and their small manor sold to settle Granger’s long-onerous debts, the lady had finally answered one of Edward’s letters.
Yes, she had been glad enough, at long last, to take his filthy money. To call him, with grim reluctance, Annie’s godfather. To live in the cottage he had bought and paid for, and to dine upon the food his stipend provided. But the pearls—and the story that went with them? No. Annie was too young to understand, she maintained.
It was a curious refusal when Edward was not even sure what story he’d even meant to tell the child. The truth? It was too ugly.
Probably he would have simply said that long, long ago he had seen her mother standing on the Chain Pier at Brighton with the wind whipping at her bonnet ribbons, and had fallen headlong in love. That he had worshipped her for her beauty and her blithe spirit, and had hoped with all his heart to marry her, but that it simply hadn’t worked out.
Which was the truth, so far as it went.
And amongst the truths he would not tell was that, after Maria’s death, he had set about making himself rich. Because rich men took what they wanted and to hell with arrogant refusals. Because with Maria dead, the good name and the military career he had so carefully crafted were no longer of any use to him. He had no need to become respectable.
And so he had become, once again, his father’s son.
He had immersed himself in that foul family business that traded in the frailty and foolishness of humankind, and had made, yet again, a blazing success of himself. And he had done it with spite seething in his heart.
Because he had known Granger for the prideful fool he was. He had known that, before the man was done, he’d finish driving his estate and his family into the ground. That in the end, it would all come down to whoever was capable of supporting Annie.
And he had known that that person would be Alfred Hedge’s hard-edged bastard, and that the Grangers would bloody well learn to like it. Because the child needed a supportive, responsible male presence in her life. No one knew that better than he did.
Edward had never doubted what he was capable of with the sweat of his brow and the toil of his brain. Never had he acknowledged defeat—not even in those darkest, bleakest hours of his childhood. He had always believed in himself. That he could—and would—fight his way through to prevail, and that he’d make those who had thwarted him rue the day.
But yes, pride did indeed go before a fall. And Kate, he very much feared, was his. If that gormless fool Granger was looking down from heaven—or up from hell—he was likely having his last laugh at Edward right about now.
He looked down and realized his hand had taken a death grip on the handles of his valise. Letting go on a stab of grief, he restored the false bottom atop the documents, and rose to go in search of Miss Wentworth. Since she’d stored the valise, she had probably taken Annie’s pearls for saf
ekeeping. It was unlikely, he thought, that anyone in this bucolic Eden would have stolen them.
It was also unlikely that it would be Kate whom he practically ran into.
And yet, it was. She was coming out of her parlor behind Mrs. Wentworth, her mother’s fat pug caught up in her arms, her face pale, and decidedly drawn.
“Bonjour, Mr. Quartermaine!” Mrs. Wentworth trilled, her gaze sweeping his length. “Do you deprive my three friends of your excellent company? You are indeed as cruel as they say.”
“Ma’am.” He made the lady a small, stiff bow, cutting a glance at Kate as he did so. “I was not aware my presence would be missed.”
“But how could it not be?” The lady beamed a smile so beautiful that he was reminded of why, even at her age, she was the toast of half London’s gentlemen. “What an exciting prospect it is, I am sure, for my companions to anticipate a few days in the great Ned Quartermaine’s company—and for me, certainly. A social coup, even, I daresay.”
“You’re very kind,” he said, still watching Kate from the corner of one eye, “but Lady d’Allenay and I have discussed it. I believe it is time I left Bellecombe.”
“Ah, but you must have heard, Mr. Quartermaine, of my wicked propensity to surround myself with handsome rogues?” Mrs. Wentworth hooked her arm in his, and cut him a coquettish glance. “Besides, you have been ill. What sort of holiday is that for a gentleman? We are here to dine and dance and hunt. You will stay as my guest. I command it.”
Edward looked steadily at Kate. “Thank you, ma’am. But I believe that choice must be Lady d’Allenay’s.”
“Bah!” With a dismissive gesture, Mrs. Wentworth cast her daughter not so much as a backward glance. “Why should Katherine mind? I’m forever dragging my friends to Bellecombe. She is used to it—and what opinion can society have of it? This was my husband’s home, was it not? How can anyone expect Katherine to turn me—or my choice of guests—away? Would she not be an unnatural daughter indeed, to be so cruel to her dear maman?”
The lady was offering him an out, he realized.
Or was it an in?
Whatever one called it, her message, however coquettishly delivered, was clear. He was to be her guest at Bellecombe—to join a party of houseguests who already clung to the fringe of polite society. A party that would be little more scandalous for accounting the Duchess of Dunthorpe’s baseborn son amongst their number. He might stay with no damage done to Kate. Was that her purpose?
Still, he knew he should go. But what about that blackguard Reggie? Would he continue to press his attentions on Kate? She was no fool, of course. And yet, he found himself loath to leave her side.
“You’re very kind,” he said again.
“Bien sûr, always,” said Mrs. Wentworth sweetly, “so long as I get my way.”
“A couple of days, then,” he said reluctantly, his gaze catching Kate’s. “Unless your daughter wishes otherwise?”
“She does not,” said Aurélie sharply. Then she turned, took the pug from her daughter’s arms, and waltzed off, leaving Kate alone with him in the passageway.
Staring after her, Edward was suddenly uncomfortable. He had the odd sense of having just been played in some way, and by a woman so silly and so vain, it seemed impossible. He didn’t like it.
“Behold a force of nature,” Kate murmured, watching her go.
“I cannot believe she is your mother,” he said honestly.
“Who could?” Kate replied. “All that beauty and charm skipped me altogether.”
“Blast it, Kate, I wish you wouldn’t—” He stopped and pressed his lips into a firm line.
She turned to face him. “Wouldn’t what?”
He dared not hold her gaze. “Nothing,” he said, his voice tight. “You know how I feel. It does not bear repeating.”
She shook her head, her eyes round, fathomless pools in the dim passageway. “I know how Edward felt about a great many things,” she said softly, “and I perhaps had some grasp of his regard for me. But I do not know Ned Quartermaine.”
“And you do not want to,” he said grimly.
“It’s possible you’re right,” she acknowledged, folding her hands before her in that quiet, slightly prim fashion he loved. “But isn’t that for me to decide?”
He made her no answer, but nor did he leave her and go back into his room as he should have done. Instead, his hand came up, only to freeze in place. He yearned to cup her cheek, to draw her to him and tell her she was twice the woman Aurélie Wentworth could ever hope to be. That she was flawless; prim and proper and perfect just as she was. That flirtation and flattery were ephemeral and easily found, but that good character was bone-deep and forever.
But she was watching him with a newfound guardedness. Besides, what would a man like him know of good character? He let the hand drop, having scarcely lifted it at all.
The tenderness in Kate’s eyes was at once veiled. “Edward, Aurélie has given you some time,” she advised. “There is no need for you to leave Bellecombe unless you have become unhappy here.”
“It has nothing to do with here or there,” he said tightly. “I am just … damn it, Kate, I don’t know what I am. I barely know who I am. And what I know I do not much like.”
“Then be something else,” she said simply.
At that, Kate, too, turned away, and set off in the direction her mother had taken. “Oh, by the way,” she said over her shoulder, “dinner is at seven.”
“Kate, please—” he called after her.
She turned at once. “Yes?”
He hesitated a long moment, caught between the words on his lips, and his better judgment.
Better judgment, for once, won out.
“There were some pearls,” he said, “in a blue velvet bag. In my valise, I mean.”
“Oh, yes.” The confusion cleared from her brow. “With the sapphire teardrop. Nancy put them in our vault for safekeeping. In the estate office. Anstruther is there; he’ll get them out for you. Just ask.”
He could see the curiosity plain on her face, but she didn’t ask. No, she doubted him—and his character—now. She would not press her luck with questions she mightn’t wish to have answered.
Edward gave a tight nod. “Thank you.”
They regarded each other for a time across the chasm of the passageway. He wanted to go to her and say … something. Something that might reassure her of how he felt—however that was. And he wanted to tell her about the pearls. But he wasn’t sure what to tell her, and not at all sure she would believe him.
Almost no one else did. Not when it came to Annie. And he, God help him, had left it that way. Until now, ambiguity had seemed better for Annie than the truth.
“Thank you,” he said again.
Disappointment sketched across her face. Then, with another faintly regal nod, Kate turned and vanished down the passageway.
An hour later, after penning a letter to Peters, his club manager, Edward crossed the inner bailey to see the door to the estate office closed against the chill. He cracked it to see John Anstruther seated at the battered and ancient desk, the front of which abutted Kate’s.
Apparently absorbed in thought, the man sat with his back to the massive fireplace, one of his magnificent muttonchops twitching as he dotted his pencil down a long, green ledger.
“Good afternoon,” said Edward from the threshold.
Anstruther glanced up at once. “Ah, Mr. Edward! Come in, come in.” His smile amiable enough, he laid the baize ledger aside. Still, Edward could see a hint of mistrust in the big Scot’s eyes.
He lingered a moment on the threshold. “It’s Quartermaine, actually,” he said evenly. “Mr. Fendershot finally jogged my memory for me.”
A sort of wince passed over Anstruther’s face. “Aye, I heard aboot that,” he acknowledged. “You’re a man of business, I take it.”
“That’s a polite euphemism,” said Edward. “May I sit down?”
“Surely, take Her Ladyship’s cha
ir,” said the estate agent. “Would you have a wee dram?”
Anstruther already had his desk drawer open. At Edward’s assenting nod, he extracted a bottle and two glasses, which he eyed judiciously against a low shaft of afternoon light.
“It’s clean enough for me,” said Edward.
Anstruther didn’t spare the whisky, filling the glass two-thirds full and pushing it across his desk and onto Kate’s.
“So it’s just Mr. Quartermaine, is it?” said Anstruther casually just before lifting his glass.
“As opposed to Lord Edward?” he answered on something of a snort. “I haven’t answered to that name in better than two decades.”
“Aye, but you could,” said Anstruther evenly. “Some men would.”
“A courtesy title isn’t worth a boot full of piss, Anstruther,” said Edward, “and we both know it. Besides, I’m content enough as I am.”
“Ah, and how fares Her Ladyship on that subject?” asked the estate agent.
Edward shook his head. “I don’t think Kate—Lady d’Allenay—gives a damn about titles,” he said. “But she’s none too pleased with my line of business. I should get out of here, Anstruther. I’ve overstayed my welcome. You know it as well as I do.”
“Aye?” said the estate agent, taking a good sip at his glass. “Then go.”
“I shall—or I meant to—but then Mrs. Wentworth said …”
“Ah!” Anstruther said knowingly. “In the middle of it, is she? I would na’ doot it.”
“She seems almost cavalier in her disregard for Kate’s wishes.”
“Nooo, not a bit of it,” said Anstruther. “She’s a canny one, though, is Aurélie Wentworth.”
“So she’s manipulating me, then?” asked Edward, lifting his gaze to Anstruther’s. “First simply ordering me to stay, then flattering me and batting her lashes in turn?”
Anstruther laughed a little grimly. “Better men than you, sir, have underestimated that lady’s will,” he said. “As to her purpose, none knows it save Aurélie Wentworth herself. Mayhap there is none.”
“You’ve known her a long while,” said Edward.