“The earl almost has me interested in this business,” Laclere said.
“Glasbury is many things, dear brother, but interesting is not one of them.” She turned her attention to Dante. “How is Fleur?”
Dante smiled the smile that brought women to swoons. “Glowing. Serene. I am the one who will age ten years before this child comes.”
“Do not get into a state so soon. There are still many months for that,” Laclere said. He glanced at the clock on a shelf behind him. “He is late. No doubt that is Glasbury’s way of exercising his precedence.”
“I hope it is a divorce,” Dante said. “I would like to see Pen completely free of him.”
Charlotte’s attention slid around the room and came to rest on Julian. “Do you know what this will be about?”
“I agree with your brother that it probably has to do with your sister.”
“That is obvious. Do you know just what it has to do with her? Did she write to you from Naples about something that she neglected to tell any of us?”
“If she did, it was a private correspondence, Charl,” Laclere said. “You have benefited from Hampton’s discretion, so allow Pen to as well. I am sure that none of us wants the whole family knowing all of our legal affairs.”
Charl retreated, but not before she cast Julian a very sharp and suspicious glance.
Glasbury arrived just late enough to make his point that others wait for him and not the other way around. He was brought to the study at half past one.
He was not alone. A man of neat but common appearance accompanied him. This other man stayed near the door like a servant and did not advance on the assembled party as the earl did.
Julian barely received the earl’s acknowledgment during the greetings. However, he did not miss that the nod in his direction was accompanied by a smug smirk that temporarily twisted the earl’s flaccid mouth.
Julian did not allow himself to react, but a small fury swirled in his head. He hated Glasbury, and not only because of Penelope. The man embodied all of the decadence and callousness that inherited privilege could breed when it was visited on the wrong kind of character. He wielded his power irresponsibly and selfishly
Most recently the earl had been one of the few lords to argue against the bill abolishing slavery in the colonies, because he owned some plantations in the West Indies that would be affected economically. Few men in Parliament had the audacity to stand on the side of selling human beings anymore, but it had not bothered Glasbury to do so at all.
Worse, that smirk had reflected triumph. It was the reflexive expression of a man who knew he had won a game. Julian’s concern for Penelope instantly deepened.
Glasbury took a position beside Laclere s chair so he could look down on the dark head of the man sitting in it. Julian considered that it was probably the earl’s only opportunity to do so, since Laclere towered over Glasbury when they both stood.
The earl’s slender body assumed a military rigidity. With his gray hair and lined face, he appeared a generation older than anyone else in the chamber even though he had only ten years on Laclere.
“I have little time to waste on this business, so I will be blunt,” Glasbury said with all possible pomposity. “I demand to know where she is.”
“By she, you must mean our sister. Penelope is in Naples, as you know. You wrote to her there.”
“She is not in Naples any longer. She was seen in London yesterday. I have learned that she took a room at Mivert’s Hotel upon her return, but she is no longer at the hotel this morning.”
“I am sure that whoever saw her is mistaken. If my sister did return to London, she would not have to reside at a hotel, since she has a house. Did you try calling there?”
“The house remains closed. There has been no activity to indicate she is living there.”
“Glasbury, forgive me for not being overcome with concern at your pique, but it has been many years since my sister’s activities were your business or interest. I assure you that she is in Naples, but if she is not, what do you care?”
“She is my wife.”
“In name.”
“In the law.”
“In reality she has not been your wife for over a decade.”
“The law is the only reality that matters, as Hampton here can explain to you. I am done indulging her whims on the issue.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” Dante asked. “Do you plan to change the legal reality by divorcing her?”
“Indeed not. I have decided that our long estrangement is no longer acceptable. Laclere, I demand that you return her to me.”
Laclere s eyes reflected astonishment. Julian could see the truth sink in, and the dismay that after all these years the earl wanted Penelope back.
“I cannot return what I do not have.”
“If you are hiding her—”
“My home is always open to her, and when she visits she does not have to hide. But she is not in this house, or at Laclere Park, or even in England.”
“I demand that you prove it. That man by the door is Mr. Lovejoy. He is an inspector with the Metropolitan Police. He will search this house to see if my wife is here.”
“The hell he will,” Dante said.
Laclere leveled a piercing gaze on Mr. Lovejoy. “You brought the police into my home, Glasbury?”
“It was necessary.”
“I doubt Mr. Lovejoy agrees. You are not searching for a criminal. The inspector’s authority in such a case is ambiguous at best. Isn’t that so, Hampton?”
Julian donned his most severe professional demeanor. “Most ambiguous. I assume, Mr. Lovejoy, that the superintendent is aware of your intentions?”
Mr. Lovejoy mumbled something noncommittal.
“In any case, Laclere’s word as a gentlemen is good enough for the police, is it not, sir?”
Another mumble was accompanied by a vague nod.
“There. That is settled,” Laclere said, dryly.
Lovejoy, recognizing a dismissal when he heard it, ducked out of the room.
Glasbury’s face got red. “When I learn that you are lying, I will—”
“Be careful, Glasbury.” Laclere’s voice turned steely. “The insult of bringing Lovejoy here cannot be excused, and I do not take well accusations that I am a liar.”
The earl turned to include Dante and Charlotte in his final pronouncement. “If any of you take her in, you will deal with me. If I learn that she is living on any of your properties, I will make you regret that you have interfered. Do not doubt that I will bring the full force of my rights and influence to bear on the matter.”
He strode from the study.
“Vergil, we must do something,” Charlotte said, her expression barely recovering from her shock. “For heaven’s sake, he really expects to force her to come back.”
“It is the heir,” Dante said. “He must be, what, forty-five now. There he is, with no son and no way to get one since he has a wife who has left him. I always thought it odd that he let her go before there was a son.”
Laclere darted a glance at Julian. “Yes, well, I expect he had his reasons for such generosity.”
Charlotte did not miss the pointed look. “You know what those reasons were, Mr. Hampton. You negotiated that separation. It was a private arrangement, and you were the mediator.”
That brought Dante’s expectant attention on him, too. Julian tried his usual silence but their expressions indicated it would not work this time.
“Madame, I did as your sister bid me do. We were fortunate that the earl saw the rightness of her preference and did not force her to remain in his home.”
“Oh, don’t turn into the lawyer on us, Hampton,” Dante said. “You procured an allowance and her freedom. There had to be a reason he agreed to it. What was it?”
Julian refused to respond.
Charlotte gave him a critical glare. “Well, if you should have any communication with my sister, please tell her that she is welcome in my
home, and that Glasbury can do his worst. That little toad does not frighten me.If he brings Mr. Lovejoy to myhouse, I will tell the footmen to throw them both out.” Marching like a palace guard, her parasol pumping like a baton, she headed for the door. “If he has not left the street yet, I will tell him so myself. Insufferableman.”
The study echoed her words, then pulsed with a hollow silence.
Dante laughed. “It appears I have been upstaged by Charlotte. I am left with merely repeating her words. Hampton, if Pen writes to you, tell her she will be safe with us. Glasbury will need an army to get her away.”
Dante took his leave. Julian began to follow.
“Not yet, you don’t,” Laclere said, stopping him.
Laclere still sat at the desk, his gaze on a pen that he handled absently. Julian waited, counting on their long friendship to spare him an interrogation that would get too pointed.
“I did not miss the look Glasbury gave you when he entered,” Laclere said.
“Nor did I.”
“She is no longer in Naples, is she?”
Julian did not answer.
Laclere leaned back in his chair. “Years ago you told me that you got him to release Pen because he had bigger secrets than most men. Secrets that, I assume, he would not want exposed if he or she sought a divorce.”
“Did I say that? How indiscreet of me.”
“It appears the years have dulled his appreciation of my sister’s consideration for his reputation.”
“It would seem that somethinghas.”
“Yet you were silent while he was here. You did not point out that she holds those aces.”
“I try not to threaten men when there are witnesses present.”
“I trust that you will find a private way to remind him of the cost if the world knows whatever it is that Pen has on him.”
“I will attend to it very soon.”
Julian began to leave, so he could attend to it immediately.
Laclere’s voice caught him at the door. “If you should have communication with my sister, please tell her that I am always here for her. We all are. She is not to worry that we care a fig for whatever Glasbury threatens or tries. Let her know that the earl really would need an army to take her from us.”
“I am sure that she knows all that.”
Laclere looked at him. A pause stretched into an eloquent silence. Julian hoped nothing passing between them would be put into words.
“Julian, if for some reason my sister cannot or will not turn to us for aid, I trust that you will do all that you can for her.”
“I always have, Vergil.”
Mr. Hampton’s house was proving a very comfortable sanctuary. Penelope did not mind her seclusion at all. Mrs. Tuttle saw to her comfort in the morning, then appeared every hour or so to inquire if anything was needed. Other than a few books from the library, Pen asked for nothing.
Her trunks had arrived during the night, and she poked through the small one for her letters and papers. Sitting by the window that looked down on a nice garden, she studied a long document that had arrived in Naples before she left.
It was to be a pamphlet criticizing the legal position of married women. She and several other ladies had contributed to this work during the last year. Now, with the recent passage of the bill ending slavery in the colonies, the time was ripe for their treatise to go to print. The country and Parliament were in a mood of reform. It was time to emancipate the last human chattel on British lands.
Married women.
She carefully read this most recent draft, penning in a few changes. They would wait until the new year before publishing it. They wanted the country to digest the recent bill before raising this issue. She had intended to return in late fall and see to its final preparation. Now she could ensure its completion more quickly.
Unless she had to flee the country, of course. She hoped that Mr. Hampton was correct that she would not need to. She wanted very much to see this project through. Her name as an author would give it weight. It was also the only worthwhile thing she had done with her life.
A knock on her door in the afternoon distracted her from her work. She tucked the document away and opened the door to find Mr. Hampton.
“Is there news?” she asked.
“Yes. May I come in? I apologize, but we can hardly go down to the library or drawing room for a conversation.”
No, they could not. She bid him enter, and they sat in two green-patterned chairs near the window.
He appeared indifferent to the location of this conversation, but she could not entirely ignore that he was in her bedchamber, with the door closed.
His back was to the bed itself but she could see it plainly behind him, bright and happy with its jonquil drapery. She had slept in that bed last night, and now this man was here. It was a silly reaction to have, but she suddenly remembered the sensation of his hand on hers last night. The sparkling vitality that she had felt when he kissed her through her glove returned and danced all through her.
“The news?” she prompted, forcing herself to look only at him and not see that bed. Except there it was, just looming in the background, provoking some alarming curiosities about Mr. Hampton and how he made love, or whether he ever did at all.
If he did, with whom? And if he did not, what a shame, because she could not deny that there was something exciting about his dark good looks and mysterious silence and—
“Glasbury called on Laclere,” he said, interrupting her sudden speculation on what he looked like without his coats and shirt. “He also arranged to have Dante and the Dowager Baroness Mardenford present. He demanded to know which of them had you as a guest. He dared to try and have Laclere’s house searched for you.”
“Vergil must have been ready to call him out on that. And poor Charlotte. It was very ignoble of him to try and browbeat her.”
“I think that Lady Mardenford is well equipped to deal with the earl, madame. He was fortunate that she did not browbeat him,most literally, with her parasol.”
She giggled at the image of that. “See, I was correct. They did not have to lie for me, because they do not know I am in England.”
“That is true. They did not have to lie.”
“Did you?”
“It did not come to that.”
“But it will, now that the earl knows I am here. Eventually he will ask you where to find me.”
“As your solicitor, I am under no obligation to answer. Quite the opposite.”
His tone made her heart heavy. He looked very serious. Too serious. And thoughtful.
The bed disappeared, as did her foolish, wanton musings. “He will find me. If he was so bold as to try and search my brother’s house, he will not give up easily. Even if I hide forever in this room, he will eventually learn I am here.”
“I called on him to remind him of a few things he seems to have forgotten. He either was not at home or would not receive me. However, I will have that conversation with him very soon. That will end his pursuit.”
“It will not make a difference. He has forgotten nothing. He merely does not worry about exposure anymore.”
She abruptly got up and turned to the window. She scanned the space below, even though her mind knew that a private garden would not hold any danger for her.
Memories tried to force themselves into her mind. Ugly, old ones that she had learned long ago to deny. Explicit scenes flickered that showed the slide into degradation she had lived the first years of her marriage. She had been so ignorant that she had not even known it was not normal, even if it was shocking.
Then the earl went too far, and she realized the hell she had bargained for. It had not been the pleasure that the earl took in perversity that had gotten her free, however. When she went to Mr. Hampton for advice, he had asked questions that revealed bigger secrets, more damning than anything that Glasbury did with a wife.
Mr. Hampton had been so enigmatic at that meeting. She had turned to him because he was a
n old friend, and because he knew the law, and because if she had confided in her brothers one of them might have killed Anthony. Mr. Hampton had been all she had hoped, steady and sober and unemotional, but she had not missed the fire in his eyes that spoke his disgust of what he heard.
Fortunately, he had understood the significance of her evidence in ways she had not. He had used that, ruthlessly she suspected, to negotiate with the earl. He had gotten her free.
Now she felt that freedom slipping away. The earl would get her back, and this time there would be no escape. She would be at his mercy, and the anger of the years would drive him this time.
She began shaking inside. The trembles affected her soul and heart and eventually her body. They weakened her so much that her composure broke.
She turned away so that Mr. Hampton would not see her tears. She had given the poor man enough trouble without expecting him to deal with that, too. She fought to calm the panic that threatened to send her raving.
He was suddenly standing right behind her. She could feel his warmth. His proximity distracted her enough that her emotions did not entirely overwhelm her.
His hands came to rest on her shoulders. That should have astonished her, but instead she savored their strength and the way they steadied her.
He turned her to face him. Barely touching her face, but touching it all the same, he tilted her head up so he looked in her eyes. “I said that I would not permit the earl to force your return. I meant that, dear lady.”
The expression in his face mesmerized her. As he looked down and made his promise, she saw the youth she had known years ago. The boy she had played with was talking to the girl she had been. Both of those people had been lost to the world when they matured, as had their easy friendship. Now, for a brief respite, it was all back again, and the reasons for her trust were rawly alive between them.
The realization moved her so much that she could not contain her emotion. She closed her eyes but the tears flowed anyway, snaking down her cheeks.
Did he reach for her, or did she move to him? Suddenly she was in his comforting embrace. She welcomed the intimacy. They were old friends, after all.
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