A Heart of a Duke Regency Collection : Volume 2--A Regency Bundle

by Christi Caldwell

  “You are fortunate then,” Lady Clementina murmured. “I quite despise it all, you know.” She wrinkled her nose. “All that is, except the books. Though I suspect if one had a large enough estate house one might have all the books…” Her words trailed off. “My father wanted me to make a match with Lord Chilton, my lady,” she said…for a second time.

  A cinch squeezed at Bridget’s already broken heart, draining the blood from that useless organ.

  “Lord Chilton, however, did not want me.”

  It did not escape her notice that the other woman failed to speak of her own wishes.

  “His heart was not engaged.” Lady Clementina brought them to a stop at the opposite end of the hall, and surveyed her father and Vail engrossed in their discussion. “My father said he was mad for not wishing a union between our families, said anyone who’d not wed his daughter didn’t deserve his books. Until he met you.”

  Bridget forced her gaze away from her husband, meeting the other woman’s direct stare.

  “Both of them. My father saw your understanding of literature and antique books and pardoned Lord Chilton.” She smiled. “Which is why we’re now here.”

  Bridget looked out once more.

  Which is why they were now here.

  Chapter 19

  Vail’s meeting had been a success. Nor had Bridget known as much from any words he’d shared, or because of a tangible excitement, but rather because of the smile and handshake he’d offered Lord Marlborough. That had been the last smile she’d seen from him that day, and also the last sight of him.

  The house now quiet and her husband gone for the evening, she remained alone…more alone than she’d ever been. For in Leeds, there had been Virgil and Nettie. Her eyes slid involuntarily closed. Both of whom would have been expecting her, worrying after her. And coward that she was, she’d delayed this visit—until now.

  Slipping out through the kitchen, and making her way from the mews, down the connecting alleys between Vail’s townhouse and his neighbor, she quickened her step. More than half-fearing Edward, who’d been following her throughout the day, had noted her departing her chambers, she shot a look over her shoulder. The moon sent eerie shadows dancing off the brick walls as her only company.

  She reached the end and, drawing her hood closer, Bridget stepped out. Having lived in the country for the whole of her seven and twenty years, much of her time had been spent walking. There were no phaetons or fancy carriages. Rather, there was an old sprigged curricle that had once belonged to her grandfather that Bridget drove to the village. Walking down the quiet streets of Mayfair, however, was vastly different. Even being the fashionable side of London, the roads were cold and damp.

  Finding a hack at the corner of the thoroughfare, she handed over the coins clasped in her fist. “Five Lambeth Street,” she instructed.

  With a nod, the man took the coin and helped her up.

  Soon, the carriage was rattling on, carrying her from Vail’s home to the temporary residence Bridget had set up for her family. And for all the nervousness she’d felt over this upcoming meeting, tears pricked behind her lashes as a hungering to be with those very people filled her.

  The carriage hadn’t even come to a full stop at the small townhouse before Bridget tossed the door open and jumped out. She grunted and shot her arms wide to steady herself. “Please wait.” With the promise of more coin, she sprinted over the pavement and up the two steps. She knocked once.

  The hair on the back of her neck stood as the sense of being watched swept her. Whipping about, she inventoried the darkened streets. Her driver, smoking a cheroot, stared back, the only figure about.

  She turned back to again knock, when the door flew open. “Oh, saint’s alive, girl.” Nettie grabbed her by the hand and yanked her inside. She closed the door behind them.

  Bridget collapsed into the familiar arms of her nursemaid and took the solace she offered.

  “When you didn’t come back I thought your brother. I thought…” She drew back quickly and, taking Bridget by the shoulders, searched her face. “Did he hurt you?”

  “He didn’t.” Her voice emerged hoarse. “I hurt myself.”

  Flummoxed, the maid sputtered and then dragged her through the dark, narrow halls, onward until they reached the kitchen.

  “Virgil?” she asked, as soon as Nettie pushed a cup of tea across the table.

  “He’s abed. Worried sick about you, girl. Convinced his uncle,” she spat. “Found you and did something to you.”

  Her heart hitched. All these years she’d believed she’d kept her son from fear, only to find that at ten he was aware and fearful of Archibald’s evil. “Why would he think that?”

  “Said he had a feeling something was going to happen.” And something had. Blankly, Bridget stared into her drink. “What is it?”

  “He caught me.”

  Nettie froze, the glass halfway to her lips.

  “Lord Chilton. H-He came upon me with the book…” The teacup clattered in her hands and she dimly registered the other woman relieving her of it. And then the tears came. She broke down, giving in to the grief that had gripped her for two days now. Bridget covered her face with her hands and sobbed until her entire body shook and she thought she might break. She wept for all she’d lost and for all that could never have been anyway. She cried for hurting Vail. “I-I loved him,” she rasped as her nursemaid gathered her close. “I-I fell in love with him.”

  “Shh.” Nettie made nonsensical murmurings as she stroked the top of Bridget’s head, the same way she had with Bridget as a child.

  “He hates me. Hates me. And why shouldn’t he?” she cried against her chest. Her nursemaid said nothing, just let Bridget weep until her tears faded to a shuddery hiccough. She sighed and sat back in her seat.

  Nettie went to reclaim a spot on the opposite bench.

  “He married me.”

  With a horrified gasp, the older woman fell into her seat. “Bridget?” It was an evidence of her upset that she’d strip the “Lady” from that address.

  “I know. I know. I had no choice,” she breathed, dragging her hands back and forth over her face. She proceeded to explain the terms Vail had put to her.

  “Does he know…everything?”

  Other than Bridget, Nettie, and Archibald, no one knew everything. It was far safer that way. Vail’s palpable hatred for her now, only reinforced that. She let her silence serve as her answer.

  “Mm. Bridget.” Nettie stretched her hands across the wood plank dining table and gathered her hands, squeezing them. “What have you done, girl?”

  “The only thing I could do.”

  “Then you need to tell him everything.”

  Tell him everything? Her mouth went dry. And risk Virgil’s very life on the hope that Vail might put aside his hatred of her? To help a Hamilton? You know he would…

  “Mama!” That excited cry pealed around the kitchen and Bridget instantly hopped up from her seat. She opened her arms and a bleary-eyed Virgil came racing across the room. He hurled himself against her, knocking them both back.

  Finding her first laugh that day, she righted them both, and then hugged her son for all she was worth.

  “Where were you?” he demanded, wresting out of her grip, indicating the precise moment he’d been restored from adoring child to perturbed older boy. “I thought we were for Hyde Park and you didn’t come,” he accused. “I thought something had happened to you. When you say you’re going to be somewhere, you honor your word,” he scolded, throwing a lesson she’d ingrained into him long ago, back into her face.

  “I’m sorry,” she entreated.

  Virgil squinted in the dark and, leaning forward, he peered at her eyes. “Who hurt you?” he demanded, fisting and un-fisting his smaller hands.

  Had he always seen this much? “No one,” she said quickly. “I just missed you, is all.”

  He eyed her with a heavy dose of mistrust.

  “Come,” she said with a fei
gned smile. She glanced about for an apron and, shedding her cloak for that modest white scrap hanging on a hook, she donned it. “Nettie tells me you’ve missed my Shrewsbury.”

  Her son grinned. As she went through the motions of baking his favorite treat and being regaled with his tales of the week, she could almost believe they were back home and that her world had never fallen apart.

  Vail sat at his back table at Brooke’s because… he simply didn’t wish to be home. His meeting had been a success with Marlborough and for all intents and purposes it was all he’d been searching for from the earl for the past two years.

  And it didn’t make him feel any damned better. It didn’t do anything to ease the ache that had sprouted in his chest since he’d discovered Bridget’s perfidy.

  He stared into the contents of his brandy, lifting his head at the requisite moments that congratulations were called out. For all Society had, of course, learned of his marriage to Bridget. He wanted to hate her. He wanted to be filled with the righteous indignation he was entitled to since she’d crawled around Erasmus’ painting with the Chaucer in hand. And he’d been content and able to do so.

  Until damned Huntly.

  …You can’t pardon me so freely for my actions against Justina and not at least try and understand what drove your wife…

  This betrayal, however, was different. It was black and… “White,” he breathed.

  …Life, much like color, doesn’t exist in a neat, orderly way, no matter how much easier it might be to categorize it…People are no different. You cannot neatly file them as sinners or saints. We are all simply people, flawed by our own rights…surviving in an uncertain world…

  He froze. She’d been trying to tell him. Mayhap it was his own need to make this woman who’d so captivated him into something she was not, but now every word she’d uttered rang with new meaning. Veiled statements that had offered unknown glimpses into who she was.

  What had driven her? Those funds…those funds contained the answers to all the questions about Bridget’s treachery, but in the immediacy of his own hurt sense of betrayal he’d failed to see there was more at play here.

  And he needed to know all…before he passed judgment on his wife.

  A shadow fell over his table and he looked up. His brother, Colin, met his stare with his usual somberness.

  Vail swiftly set his glass down and motioned to the chair opposite him. “What did you discover?” he asked, after the younger man slid into the seat.

  Not so much as moving his head, Colin shot a hand up, halting an approaching servant. The liveried footman with a tray and decanter shifted course to another table. “Nothing regarding the meeting at the Coaxing Tom.”—Disappointment swamped him.—“Not yet,” his brother corrected, that determined glimmer in his eyes one of the reasons Colin had risen to the ranks of one of London’s best Runners. Dropping his elbows on the smooth mahogany surface, he leaned forward. “One of my men sent word that your wife was seen leaving your townhouse this evening.”

  Vail’s heart thudded to a slow halt and then picked up a frantic beat. “What?” I shouldn’t have gone. “And he let her go?” he gritted out, matching Colin’s position. What if she was fleeing even now? And why did his stomach churn with dread at the thought of it? “By God, the whole bloody reason you had one of your men watch her is to prevent her from running away,” he gritted out.

  Colin shook his head. “Not when we can learn far more following her and determining where she’s gone off to.” Leaning back, he withdrew his small leather notebook and tugged out one of those pages. He slid it across the table.

  Vail glanced down, staring blankly at the concise information scrawled there.

  “It’s an address. She’s there now. I’ve two men stationed outside the residence. One at the front, the other at the back.”

  She’d waited until he’d gone out and then snuck out like a thief in the night. This paper and address contained answers to questions he had. But God help him for proving a bloody coward, he couldn’t bring his legs to move. Feared what else he’d learn about her. Because if there’d been one lie, then what proof did he have that any of what they’d shared was real.

  “Vail?” Colin prodded.

  He swiped the page from the table and stuffed it inside his jacket. Standing, he started through the club, carefully sidestepping lords who moved into his path with goodwill wishes for the new bridegroom.

  Bridegroom.

  Everything about his marriage and his relationship with Bridget was a farce.

  But I wish it wasn’t. I wish I could go back to how it had nearly been the night we made love together.

  Frustration, regret, and pain all roiled together, near crippling in their hold, and as he stepped out of Brooke’s, he filled his lungs with the cool night air. Trying to settle his emotions. In vain.

  Colin settled a hand on his shoulder, startling him. “I’ll accompany you.”

  “I do not require assistance with…” my wife. He winced. For he had required help putting together the details surrounding her betrayal. This meeting, however, he’d handle alone. Vail collected his reins from a waiting street lad, turning over a heavy purse for the child. “You have men there,” he said calmly, swinging himself into his seat.

  Colin hesitated. “You’re certain?”

  Vail wasn’t certain of anything more. Offering a brusque nod and a word of thanks, he urged Atlas forward. The streets were largely quiet at this late night hour. He leaned over his mount’s shoulders and encouraged it to stretch its legs.

  With a whinny of appreciation, the stallion lengthened its stride. Vail hung on to the reins, guiding him from the fashionable end of St. James Street. Soon, the roads gave way to narrow buildings, closer together. Those uneven structures, with their grime-covered windows and peeling plaster, revealed their age.

  A chill skittered along his spine. What underhanded business had sent his wife fleeing here? Reaching the corner of Lambeth, he drew on the reins, slowing Atlas to a walk, and then he brought the horse to a stop. Vail swung his leg over and leapt down.

  The full moon’s glow cast a bright white light upon the dirty cobblestones and he peered through those shadows. His gaze collided with a child. Silently, he inclined his head. The boy hesitated and then rushed over. “Guv’nor?”

  “I need you to care for my mount,” he said in hushed tones. Offering the child several coins and the promise of more, Vail handed over Atlas’ reins and then continued along the pavement. He did a search of the numbers displayed above each doorway…and then stopped.

  His gaze climbed the townhouse. With just four front windows and in desperate need of repair to the roof, this was the place Bridget had gone. In these dangerous streets of Lambeth. The idea of her coming here, alone, unchaperoned to see to whatever underhanded business called her sent terror through him. He briefly closed his eyes. Anyone could come upon her in these streets and it didn’t matter that she’d betrayed him, or how she’d cut him to the quick with his own suffering, the idea of her hurt knifed at Vail’s insides.

  He remained beside the gas lamp outside that townhouse so long that moments rolled over into minutes and then stretched on. What if Colin’s men had been wrong? What if she was, even now, at home in their house, sleeping in her bed and he was here worrying for naught? What if—?

  The front door of that townhouse finally opened and a small, cloaked figure stepped out. Bridget. His breath froze in his chest as he took in her furtive movements. She looked back over her shoulder and spoke to someone inside. Vail’s feet twitched with the need to storm the twenty paces, climb those steps, and see just who that person was. But he’d never been one given to rashness: not since his days on the battlefield, nor in his business across London. And he’d not give in to that weakness now.

  Bridget took the steps two at a time and settled her feet on the pavement. As soon as she started for the hack across the street, Vail leapt into movement. The driver caught his approaching figure and
, not taking his gaze off Bridget’s back, he pointed to the perch. That young man smartly complied.

  Bridget reached for the door handle and, coming up behind her, Vail pressed his hand over hers, keeping that door in place.

  His wife’s shriek echoed around the streets of Lambeth and she spun about. Arm drawn back, he easily caught her ineffectual blow.

  Vail curled his lips up in a slow, menacing smile. “Hello, my lady.”

  She flared her eyes, those cerulean pools hopelessly wide in her pale face. “Vail.” There was a breathless accusation there. “What are you doing here?”

  He folded his arms. “What am I doing here? The better question is what are you doing here, madam?”

  Since he’d come upon her in the Portrait Room she’d been downcast, averting her eyes whenever he was near, and he’d missed her earlier shows of spirit. Given the transformation that had overtaken her since she’d revealed her duplicity, he expected more of that same woefulness. He should have already learned never to make assumptions where Bridget was concerned.

  Glaring up at him, she propped her hands on her hips. “You followed me.”

  He’d not point out that there were, in fact, two men who’d trailed her here and another who’d reported back to Colin. “You haven’t exactly given me reasons to trust you.”

  She tossed her hands up and a frustrated little cry escaped her. “I married you. You had your appointment with Marlborough; can I not have some freedoms?”

  His patience snapped. He stuck his face close to hers. “No, you may not. And do you know why that is?” He took her by the shoulders and brought her up on her tiptoes. “Because women who confess to being thieves and then sneak about the streets of Lambeth lose those rights and privileges.” Fear flashed in her eyes and she stared at his hands upon her person. Vail abruptly released her. My God, what am I becoming? “Who were you meeting?” he asked in flat tones.