by Lucy Ashford
He shrugged his broad shoulders. ‘It was tedious. These affairs always are. So I left early.’ He was looking around the garden with an air of mystification. ‘You’ve done something to it all. It looks different.’
‘To be truthful, I was glad to find something here that I could do,’ she said quickly. ‘And Garrett recruited some men to help. I hope you don’t mind?’
‘Twisting us all round your little finger, Mrs Rowland? No. Why should I?’
‘There are so many wonderful plants out here.’ She was pointing. ‘My mother used to have this one—it’s called anemone pavonina. Isn’t it beautiful?’
He was looking at her, not at the scarlet flowers. She just kept on surprising him with her knowledge. With her own damned beauty. ‘You told me your mother loved her garden in Oxfordshire. But surely it was only small?’
‘Yes, but her home in France used to be famous for its gardens; people would travel from far and near to admire them—’ She broke off, seeing his expression.
‘Would travel … Where did your mother live?’
She had frozen. ‘I thought I told you. She was born in a fine house—a château …’
‘You didn’t tell me that.’ He was watching her with a slight frown. ‘It strikes me you’ve seen even more changes of fortune than me.’
Around the lantern that hung by the back door, the moths fluttered in a distracting dance. She felt as if she were being drawn to a flame also, helpless as those poor creatures. Alec. She remembered his kiss. His hands caressing her. Heat flooded her at his nearness.
She eased her dry mouth and tried to smile. ‘I’ve only really known our rather penny-pinched existence in Oxfordshire. My mother’s family’s fortunes vanished during the Revolution and she always told us that all her relatives fled from Paris.’
‘You have lost a great deal in your life, Mrs Rowland.’
She lifted her gaze to him steadily. ‘So many have lost more. You know that.’
‘You’re thinking about my soldiers?’
‘Indeed. I know nothing about war, but I hate to hear it glorified. I know that Lord Byron visited the field of Waterloo and detested all the pointless spilling of blood. The red rain, he called it, that made the harvest grow, but achieved so little else …’ Her voice faded away.
For one brief moment Alec recalled the horrors of the battlefield. The screams of the dying. The heaps of dead … He turned to gaze at her, unable to help himself. Such tenderness. Such—awareness of all the sadness in the world. So very different to those harridans who’d surrounded him at Lord Fanton’s tonight, with their simpering daughters who adored a war hero in uniform, but knew nothing of the reality of war. Damn it all, he wanted to kiss her again. He wanted to take her in his arms, carry her up to his bed and soothe away the sadness in her eyes by making passionate love to her.
You fool. He clamped down hard on the arousal that was pounding through his veins. ‘Rosalie. I think I might have picked up some more news about your sister tonight.’
‘Oh, is that why you went out?’ Immediately she could have bitten her tongue off. ‘I—I’m sorry,’ she stammered. ‘Ridiculous of me to expect you to become as obsessive about my sister’s story as me.’
‘Obsessive is hardly a fair word,’ he said, ‘for a search after justice like yours. But will you tell me exactly what you remember about the threats that were delivered to your friend Helen?’
Her brow puckered slightly. ‘When her press was wrecked? And the fire started? Let me see. The first note said, Gossip-raking bitch. That was all. But the second one said, Write one more word about Lady A., and you and those close to you will be the target next, not just the house.’
Alec was very still. ‘Do you know who this Lady A. is?’
‘No. But I do know that she had a maidservant whipped and dismissed for dropping a vase. Helen wrote a piece about it.’ She was looking up at him anxiously. ‘Does that help?’
Alec had heard that story, too. About his stepmother, Lady Aldchester. Somehow he forced a smile. ‘Possibly. Look, it’s getting cold, you’re shivering. Don’t you think it’s time to go inside?’
Ajax nudged at her hand and she fondled him abstractedly. She picked up her shawl. ‘Alec—’
‘Hmmm?’
‘Alec, I’ve been thinking. Up till now, my one aim has been to find this man and confront him. But now I’m starting to think that perhaps I don’t want Katy’s father to know about Katy.’ She looked up at him anxiously. ‘Do I sound very foolish? You see, I don’t want him to have anything at all to do with her.’
His hard-boned face was grave. ‘Then what do you want, Rosalie?’
‘Oh, I was thinking that I’d find him and get an apology from him, perhaps. Above all I wanted to make him realise just what he’d done to Linette. But now?’ She gave a little sigh. ‘Sometimes, I wish I’d never even begun this.’
Then she realised that his hand was over hers, his strong, long-fingered hand that had wrought such wicked magic on her at his father’s house. He meant it as a gesture of friendship, she knew, of reassurance, but it felt so wonderful that she hardly dared to breathe. Suddenly all she wanted was to lean into him, and lift her face to his, and perhaps he would kiss her again …
No. He is not for you. The moths were still fluttering helplessly round the lantern, scorching themselves. It was time to pull herself away from a similar fate.
Alec was saying, steadily, ‘You know the story of Pandora’s box, don’t you, Rosalie? I’m afraid you’ve opened it and there’s no going back. The threat is still there—my men hear the word on the streets. You still need guarding, as does Katy.’
‘Yes. Yes, I’m sorry; you’re more patient with me than I deserve.’ She dragged herself away from him and pulled her old shawl around her with resolution. ‘You’re right, I really must go in now, it’s getting chilly. Tomorrow, I thought perhaps we could find out if anyone remembered Linette from that place off the Ratcliffe Highway, where she died. Your men might be able to help.’
‘What a good idea,’ he said, heartily despising himself for his duplicity. ‘I’ll speak to Garrett in the morning and get him to send someone out there.’
She hesitated. ‘Alec, I don’t know why you’re helping me like this, but I just want you to know that I’m truly grateful to you for offering us shelter here. I don’t know why you became estranged from your father, but I think it is his loss, not yours!’
‘Please don’t make me out to be anything that I’m not.’ His eyes, she saw, looked bleak. ‘I must warn you again that I have nothing, I am nothing beyond the man you see before you. I’ve been living a hard life, with hard men, for years, which alters a person and not necessarily for the better.’
She lifted her head, her eyes bright with—what? Defiance? Obstinacy? ‘I don’t believe you have nothing, Alec Stewart!’ she said steadily. ‘I don’t believe this—this façade you put up, of being of no worth to society! You have this house, for a start.’
‘A wreck,’ he said, shrugging bitterly as he looked around. ‘A ruin.’
‘No!’ she persisted. ‘It’s of enormous value to many poor ex-soldiers! And you have your reputation as a hero of the war. Your superlative skill as a fencer. You have friends like Lord Conistone, Mary told me.’
His face softened at last. ‘Lucas is one in a million.’
‘And some might say that you are also,’ she breathed, so quietly that she wasn’t sure he heard her at all.
But unless her whole world was totally awry, Alec Stewart was good and brave and true. And she’d discovered it too late. ‘Now, I really must go in,’ she went on lightly. ‘I’ve already taken too much of your time. But, Captain Stewart, I’m so very glad to have your help. Goodnight.’ She turned to walk steadily into the house, leaving a faint trail of the scent of her skin and hair.
Alec watched her go. A flower—honeysuckle—lay close to where she’d been sitting. He picked it up, then let it drop again as the stars twinkled in the da
rk sky overhead. Her sweet face had brightened with such hope just now when he’d told her he might have found more news of her sister.
The dog had come to nudge sympathetically at his hand. ‘Well, Ajax,’ Alec said softly, ‘I’ve landed myself in one hell of a mess, haven’t I, boy?’
How was he going to tell her that the villain they were looking for was his own damned brother?
Family loyalty. Oh, God.
Chapter Eighteen
Whenever Alec came across Rosalie over the next few days, she was busy organising her small but eager band of soldiers in the garden, or helping Mary with the sewing, or playing with the children. Always she was cheerful and kind to his men, who were coming perilously close to adoring her.
Yet always now she kept her distance from him and jumped if he so much as touched her hand by accident. As well, thought Alec bleakly. He couldn’t forget how she’d melted to his shockingly intimate caresses at his father’s house. And he’d resolved that such a thing must never happen again.
She’d entrusted him utterly with her quest and with the safety of her tragic sister’s child, and Alec was determined not to break that trust.
There were no more direct threats, though his men reported that the underworld reward was still out for her and the child. Alec didn’t tell her this. He just doubled the guard on the house by night as well as day and made his men swear never to let her know that her little team of gardeners had actually been hand-chosen, by him, to protect her.
Nor did he tell her that next on his agenda was a meeting with his brother.
Stephen rose abruptly from his seat when he saw Alec entering the Pall Mall club. Though he hadn’t seen his younger brother since the night of the poetry reading, he still fumed every time he remembered the way Alec had taken the girl from him. Then there was the humiliation of the party he’d planned at his father’s house. And the business of the paintings.
He’d received the message this morning, to meet Alec here tonight. Alec, as he came in, looked tall. Imposing. Well dressed, for once. The doorman bowed as he let him in.
‘Good day to you, Stephen,’ said Alec softly. ‘I thought it was time that you and I got together.’
Stephen had deliberately chosen a quiet corner; now he gestured Alec tensely to a seat. ‘Indeed.’ His voice was already shaky with suppressed anger. ‘But first—damn you, Alec, last week I had a party arranged!’
Alec ordered brandy from a hovering waiter. ‘Ah, you’re talking about my visit to our father’s house. I realised that our father, being absent, must have forgotten to cancel a rather large order for party food. So I took it away.’ His hard eyes fastened on Stephen. ‘To a place where it wouldn’t be wasted.’
Stephen’s face was tense with rage. ‘You interfering ruffian—’
‘And as for those paintings,’ continued Alec as if his brother hadn’t spoken, ‘it was exceedingly kind of you to arrange substitutes, while the real ones were away for cleaning. I take it you’ve got the originals back in time? Our father will be returning any day, I believe.’
Stephen was pale. Yes, and it had cost him a fortune to buy back those paintings.
‘Are they all back?’ repeated Alec softly.
‘Yes. Damn it, yes, they are!’
‘Good. Then I’ll get on to my real business of the night.’ Alec leaned forwards. His voice was knife-edged. ‘Listen, brother mine. Those who stay at Two Crows Castle—all of them—are under my protection. Including the young woman you were trying to take home after the poetry reading.’
‘That slut? I’d forgotten her.’
‘Really? But you took an interest in that same woman a couple of weeks earlier at the Temple of Beauty, didn’t you? She had a sister—is that why you were interested in her, Stephen? A sister who had a child.’
‘What the hell has that to do with me?’
‘I’m hoping you’ll tell me. A threat has been made, on Rosalie Rowland and the child. There’s even an underworld reward out for them.’ Alec leaned back in his seat, but his eyes never, for one second, left Stephen’s face. ‘I do hope it’s nothing to do with you.’
Stephen laughed shakily. ‘You’ve got a wild imagination, brother.’
‘I’m not the imaginative kind,’ said Alec flatly.
‘I could retaliate by asking—why is this Rosalie Rowland of such interest to you? Though she’s a spirited jade, isn’t she, if a little outspoken for a whore.’
Alec’s fist stopped just short of Stephen’s jaw. ‘You’ll never call her such names again. Ever.’
Stephen flinched, then began to sneer. ‘Really? Why not?’
‘Because,’ said Alec softly, ‘I’ll take retaliation if she and that child are in any way harmed.’
‘Is that what you’ve come here to tell me?’
‘I think it is, yes.’
‘Falling for Athena, are you?’ Stephen’s lip curled. ‘Has she submitted to your rugged charms yet? My God, and you’ve still got Susanna hankering after you, too—she’s had enough of me, that’s for sure. Thanks to you.’ His voice was bitter.
Alec caught his breath. ‘Our stepmother pleases no one but herself. I don’t imagine for one minute that I can influence her decisions.’
‘But I heard you were with her at Lord Fanton’s ball.’ Stephen’s voice was rising. ‘And I know that you spoke to her when our father was taken ill, before he went with her to the country. You must have said something, to make her spurn me!’
‘Perhaps it took very little. And keep your voice down, brother. You’re beginning to sound hysterical.’
‘Hysterical! My God!’ Stephen was on his feet. People were looking. He sat heavily back in his chair. ‘I think it would be suitable revenge,’ he ground out, ‘to tell your Rosalie everything about you and Susanna.’
So. The blow Alec had long expected had at last been struck. Family loyalty. Aloud he said nonchalantly, ‘You’ll not win on that one, Stephen. I don’t think for one moment that Mrs Rowland would care.’
‘No? Should I tell her, then?’
‘By all means, if you wish,’ said Alec shortly. ‘It would mean exposing your own sordid secrets, remember.’ He got up to leave. ‘I repeat—Mrs Rowland and the child are under my protection. My warnings, as you’ll know, are not to be taken lightly. You see, unlike you, Stephen, I’ve nothing whatsoever to lose.’
He turned to go. Stephen said, in a voice tinged with venom, ‘So sure of yourself! So confident, damn you! Have you considered, Alec, what would happen if the father of this bastard child actually decided, quite legally, to claim his brat?’
Alec swung round to face him, jaw clenched. ‘Let him just try it, brother mine,’ he breathed. ‘Let him try it.’
After Alec had gone, Stephen ordered another brandy and sat alone. He most definitely could not afford to have any more dirt raked up over his past; he’d been flying too close to the wind anyway because of Susanna and he’d always half-suspected that she only used him to get closer again to damned Alec!
But now this widow, Mrs Rowland, had emerged and things were looking more dangerous by the minute.
Most of the gentry paid for their pleasure from time to time, or kept discreet mistresses. But Linette had been a mighty big mistake, because she had been gently born and a virgin.
The stupid girl had thought Stephen would marry her. Kept pestering him, until he’d paid her off—generously, he’d thought—and by God, he’d taught her a few skills she’d find useful in earning her living keeping other men happy! But he’d not known she’d been pregnant and had gone to her grave lamenting him. If word got around that he’d abandoned her, that she’d died in deep poverty …
He could deny it! But hell’s teeth, there was a child. Damned Alec had clearly worked it all out. And now, Alec had taken both the child and Rosalie Rowland under his wing.
Alec was, unfortunately, pretty unassailable in his fortress-like house that was, not without reason, called a castle. Alec was considered a hero among
st his band of ex-soldier ruffians and didn’t give a damn what society thought of him. But if the child really was Stephen’s, which seemed all too likely—what should he, Stephen, do?
What would a true gentleman do?
Stephen’s lip curled in an unpleasant smile. He would do just what he’d hinted at to his brother. He’d admit, sorrowfully, that he’d sadly lost contact with the mother whom he’d adored, but announce that he was willing to provide for the child. To claim her as his own, in fact.
Oh, how Alec and his pretty little widow from the Temple of Beauty would hate that.
Francis has news, my dear, such surprising news, of your family …
That night while Alec was out, Rosalie received a letter. It had been delivered earlier to Two Crows Castle—Sergeant McGrath had taken it from the post boy, grumbling at the charge—but then McGrath had been called out and forgotten it; it was past nine in the evening when Mary spotted it lying on the kitchen table amongst a heap of bills and brought it to Rosalie.
The letter was from Helen. As Rosalie opened it, another folded-up missive slipped out; she put it aside and started on the first one.
Helen’s letter began with the usual expressions of concern for herself and Katy in that place. Rosalie could almost hear Helen’s disdain. There was news of Toby, who was well, and good news, too, of the church school that Francis had been asked to set up. There were also fervent wishes that Rosalie and Katy would join them in Oxfordshire—in time for Helen and Francis’s marriage!
Rosalie was glad because she felt that Francis was ideal for her old friend. Helen went on to tell her that the first banns had already been read.
But then came the real bombshell.
You know, of course, Rosalie, that Francis has contacts in Paris and lately he received interesting news about the Lavalle family.
Rosalie’s hand tightened on the letter as she remembered how her sister, alone in London, had called herself Linette Lavalle—their mother’s name, before she married.