Lady of Sin

by Madeline Hunter

  “Why have you concluded I am having an affair, James? It is an odd accusation to make.”

  He crossed his arms. It did not make him look strong, but only petulant. “He was with you on that journey. My aunt sent me word that his presence alongside you at some political meeting was noted in a county paper.”

  “He was helping with the petitions.”

  “He was also helping himself to your favors.”

  “It is disgraceful of you to make such rude accusations.”

  “He was been to your home at early hours. You have been to his at very late ones.”

  “How do you know this?”

  “Your Mr. Knightridge is not the only one who knows how to investigate people, Charlotte.”

  Her heart skipped. She rose from her chair and advanced until she could see him very clearly. She noted the tightness in the long, sullen face, and the hot sparks in his eyes.

  He knew. He had learned about Nathaniel’s inquiries. He had possibly discovered the visits to the coastal villages.

  “I am sure that you are superb when you investigate, James.”

  “Better than him.”

  “Whom did you quiz on my movements? My servants?”

  “My servants, Charlotte. Not yours. Mine. Just as the house is mine, and the furniture, and the coach.” He smiled slyly. “The coachman did not want to tell about your night visit to Albany, but then I reminded him who was lord of that manor.”

  “So you know of my friendship. I have been very discreet, and that is no reason to close your door to me, to deny Ambrose—”

  “It is not just any friendship, damn it.” He shouted suddenly. His fury exploded so unexpectedly that it startled her. “It is one that is disloyal to me, and my dead brother, and even to my son. The bastard has been asking questions about the family. About me.” He strode toward her, snarling as he spoke. “Why is he doing it? You know, I’m sure.”

  She backed up when he reached her. She had never seen James really angry before. He exuded a frightening energy.

  She had not intended to lie, but she did now. “I do not know. Surely you misunderstand. He is probably only curious about my relatives.”

  “Curious enough to ask about my old tutor? That is a lot of curiosity regarding the relatives of a woman he is having his way with.”

  “If he has been asking questions, I am sure they will stop. Very sure.” She tried to look beneath the mask of anger and find the man she knew. “It is cruel of you to separate Ambrose and me because of this. You know the child depends on me. He will never understand if I disappear from his life.”

  “He is too young to dwell on it. When he is older, I will explain how you traded our love for the cheap pleasure that you found with that scoundrel.”

  Our love. It was not the words that made her heart pound, but the bitter way he spoke them.

  Suddenly another part of the past rearranged itself.

  She had never guessed James had those kind of feelings for her. Never suspected that the little family they had formed was all the family he wanted.

  If that drove his anger as well as his worry about Nathaniel’s inquiries, she doubted she could sway him. She tried anyway.

  “I am sorry you are angry, and disappointed in me. Truly, I am. Bar me from this house if you must, but let me see him. Allow his nurse to bring him to me at my house. I cannot bear the thought of losing him, James, and this will break his little heart. You are not so cruel as to require that.”

  “I am not being cruel. I am being careful with my son’s upbringing and character.” He turned on his heel and strode away.

  At the doorway he stopped and faced her again. A nasty contentment marked his expression. He was glad he had hurt her.

  “As for his visiting at your house, you have no house. You live in one that is mine. I have decided that I want to sell it. My solicitor will call and explain it all tomorrow, but you should pack your personal property at once.”

  He watched her shocked reaction at this last blow and smiled with satisfaction. Then he left her to her dismay.

  “He is simply turning you out?” Bianca asked, incredulous.

  “My abigail is packing even as we speak.” Charlotte said. She sat down beside Bianca on a patterned settee in Pen’s dressing room.

  The meeting with the solicitor two hours ago had been just shy of insulting. The man had not only informed her of Mardenford’s decree but had quizzed her about the furniture and objects, taking inventory.

  If he expected her to haggle, he had been disappointed. She would remove what was hers, clear and free. Later, she would send her own solicitor to embark on the unseemly task of settling the rest.

  Rather than watch the packing, she had kept an appointment to meet Bianca at Pen’s house to help choose her sister’s wedding garments. Pen now stood with a yellow silk dress in her arms. A decision on the dress had been forgotten as soon as Charlotte entered the dressing room and impulsively blurted her news.

  “You must come live with us,” Bianca said. “At least until you make other arrangements.”

  “Thank you. I may have to accept but I do not want to. It is not that I question my welcome. I would feel like a girl again, returned to my childhood.”

  “Nonsense. Pen lived with us for a spell last year and she was not reduced to childlike dependency.”

  Charlotte caught Pen’s eye. They exchanged a tacit acknowledgment of the disagreeable aspects of any dependency.

  “Bianca, she is referring to Laclere, not financial matters,” Pen said gently. “You know how he can be. I am his older sister and he still wanted to manage and protect. Charl is so much younger and he may not be as . . . accommodating with her.”

  Bianca turned thoughtful. She gazed down at the pattern on the upholstered seat of the settee and weighed that problem.

  “Yes, I can see what you mean. Also, Laclere was very sure of Hampton, but wonders a bit about Mr. Knightridge.”

  Pen’s brow furrowed. “What has Mr. Knightridge to do with this?”

  “Oh, he is Charl’s lover now.”

  Pen laughed. “That is a rare joke, Bianca.” She began fussing with the yellow dress again. “Charl and Knightridge. Goodness, they can barely stand the sight of each other.”

  Bianca laughed too, carefully.

  Pen laid the dress down. As she turned to the wardrobe for another choice, she shot Charlotte and Bianca a merry glance and grin. The outrageous suggestion of an affair with Nathaniel still amused her.

  Charl tried to appear bland. Pen quickly assessed her studied passivity, and then Bianca’s wide-eyed innocence.

  She froze. Her face fell in shock. “Good heavens, is it true? You have a liaison with Knightridge?”

  “I apologize for my indiscretion, Charl,” Bianca said. “However, what fun is an affair if your best friends don’t know?”

  “You told Bianca and did not tell me?” Pen asked, looking hurt.

  “I told no one. Bianca is guessing.”

  “Hardly guessing. It is mere luck that Laclere and I did not walk in and find you—”

  “You are still guessing.”

  “My guess is you do not want to live with us because of what cannot happen there with the discretion you would like. Although midmorning in a library is hardly discreet, if you want my opin—”

  “What I would like is to avoid having my big brother lecturing a certain friend on honorable intentions and whatnot. That is inappropriate and unfair.”

  Pen and Bianca exchanged quick looks.

  Pen bit her lower lip, but Bianca had never been known to swallow frank questions. “Unfair? Charl, dear, are you saying there have been discussions regarding honorable intentions?”

  “All I have said since entering this room is that I no longer have a house. Now, the problem I face is where I will live tomorrow, and how I will arrange to see Ambrose.”

  That turned them back to matters of substance.

  “You will stay here, of course,” Pen s
aid. “In two days I leave for the coast, and when I return I will be living at Russell Square. This is not even a third as grand as your current home, but it has served me well over the years.”

  “Laclere will continue to maintain it, I am certain,” Bianca added.

  “I will not need his help. I am not destitute, just homeless at the moment. My settlement contained enough for me to live in style even without Mardenford’s assistance.”

  She considered that assistance again, and how generous it had been. Unusually so. She should have wondered why. She prided herself on being astute, but her ignorance and blind faith in Mardenford’s motivations had been unbearably naive.

  “Most likely Mardenford plans to remarry,” Bianca suggested. “Perhaps his intended wants to be queen, and demands the dowager be thoroughly uncrowned.”

  “Bianca is probably correct. His refusal to allow you to see the child is peculiar, however,” Pen said. “Turning you out with only your personal property, severing you from the child you love—he never appeared to be such a harsh man. It is as if he were divorcing you.”

  Pen had no idea how accurate her description was, and how it touched on the reasons for this harshness. The implications left Charlotte a little sick whenever she considered them. Yet another set of memories had taken on new meaning in the last day.

  She hoped there would be no more of that. An entire decade had been rewritten already.

  “I must see Ambrose. I will not accept that part of Mardenford’s plan.” Not a plan. A punishment. For infidelity and disloyalty. His goal was to make her pay, no matter what the pain and distress to his own son. Already her heart mourned the loss of the child.

  A warm hand reached and covered hers. She looked over to see Bianca’s sympathy.

  “We will find a way for you to see him, Charl. If we put our heads to it, we can devise some plan.”

  Charlotte hoped so. She had lost much recently, but most of it was in the past. Ambrose was part of her life now. Her heart might learn to accommodate the rest, but the grief forming over the child would never go away.

  Nathaniel rode his horse slowly through Hyde Park. It had rained yesterday, so his rare participation in London’s fashionable hour had been delayed by a day.

  Carriages and horses filled the park. Society was returning to town in preparation of the season. Soon the park would be jammed on fair days, and even busy on those that threatened rain. Much had changed in the rituals in recent years, but not the desire to see and be seen while on parade here.

  He greeted and chatted and flattered, as was expected. He avoided the lures of mothers looking to marry off daughters this year, and dodged the bait of ladies casting for amorous diversions. All the while he kept his eyes on the passing coaches, looking for Charlotte’s.

  A quick note two days ago had requested he meet her in the park yesterday if it did not rain, or today if it did. The weather’s delay meant he had already learned the news she would impart. Word had reached his ears that Charlotte was leaving that big house after all these years.

  He did not see her until she was almost upon him. She had not come in a coach, but was riding a pretty horse. Fine boned, compact, and spirited, the dark filly’s lines matched Charlotte’s own.

  He moved his horse forward, and they “accidentally” met on the path.

  “Lady M., this is an unexpected pleasure. I can see you agree that the day is too fair to be imprisoned in a coach.”

  “To be sure, Mr. Knightridge. It is also too brisk to be bound to this path. I have been looking for someone foolish enough to ride with me on the sodden fields, and your display of that quality on so many occasions suggests you might do.”

  “By all means. Lead the way.”

  “Aren’t you afraid that lacking your leadership we will find ourselves in Canterbury? You strike me as someone who would not allow another male to lead, let alone a woman.”

  “I do not take the lead when I have four in hand, madam, but it is clear who is master on the road all the same.”

  The occupants of a passing carriage giggled at the sparring. Two nearby riders slowed their pace in order to enjoy the show.

  Confident that they had shown society the bristling nature of their relationship, Charlotte turned her horse and cantered off the path and across the field.

  She did not stop until they were a good distance from anyone, even if they were still in full view of the world.

  “You are better?” he asked as he drew up alongside her and they slowed to a walk.

  She had left him after their last night subdued and thoughtful. He knew that his embrace had not resolved all her fears and questions, however.

  “Much better. It will still be some time before I truly accept it all, but I no longer want to hit you. Or him.”

  “I am glad. However, it was not wise to confront Mardenford with your discovery, Charl.”

  “I did not confront him. He does not know that I learned about any of it.”

  “When I heard of your leaving that house, I just assumed—”

  “He claimed he wants to sell the house, but that is a feint. He will no longer receive me. He knows about you and me, and that is partly why he has done this. He also knows that you have been asking questions, so our liaison is a special betrayal in his eyes.”

  He had been feeling guilty, and this added to the burden. “I am sorry, Charl. I was very discreet and am surprised he learned of my inquiries. Perhaps I trusted the wrong men.”

  “Or perhaps he went looking for evidence of inquiries. He implied as much. He mentioned the tutor. Maybe Mr. Yardley learned of your questions himself, and in turn informed Mardenford.”

  “Even so, turning you out is a harsh reaction.”

  “Pen says it is as if he is divorcing me.” Her mouth tightened as she said it.

  When he did not respond, she shot him a sharp glance. “You knew. You saw it, didn’t you?”

  “I saw enough to wonder. Nor do I think it is base lust.”

  “That only makes it worse, and more hopeless. It would help enormously if you had not seen it. Then I could pretend it was not so obvious that I should have seen too. I am feeling stupid again, and recently I have had enough of feeling stupid to last a lifetime.”

  “It was not obvious. No one whispers about it.”

  “Then how did you know?”

  “It was in his eyes that first time I called on you.”

  She laughed, and her eyes glinted for the first time this day. “Oh, it feels so good to laugh.” She gasped, catching her breath. “I must learn to trust what you see in all those eyes, Nathaniel.”

  “Despite your laughter, I see pain in yours, Charlotte. A new one.”

  The glint moistened. She stopped her horse. He paced around so he could face her as they sat side by side.

  “In barring me from the house, he has also barred me from Ambrose. This divorce is quite thorough.”

  He barely bit back a curse. “Mardenford is a scoundrel to do this. You are like the boy’s mother. He is sacrificing his child’s happiness.”

  “Yes. It seems he loves his own pride more than his son. That shocks and worries me. I fear that Ambrose will have very little attention now that I am gone.”

  She contained her sadness, but it was there, brimming at her eyes. He wished they were alone, out of sight, and he could hold her again.

  That would solve nothing, however. Once the embrace ended, she would still face the loss of the child she loved like her own. It was their embrace that had cost her that love too.

  They sat in silence, surrounded by a brisk breeze carrying the scents of resurrection. The odors of spring mocked the hollow forming in his chest, where the echoes of nostalgia joined the slow, sad beat of a song’s final notes.

  He knew what he had to do, but a visceral rebellion resisted anyway. His gaze lingered on her face as time pulsed by.

  “He will relent about the child, surely. If we end this affair, he will at least change his mind on th
at.” The words felt thick in his mouth.

  She did not respond at once. She gazed to the distant path and its parade of the fashionable world. Then she looked in his eyes.

  “I considered it.”

  Of course she had. Any mother would.

  “Short of moving to France, I am not sure that I can, however,” she added.

  Her gaze communicated her affirmation of their passion more clearly than her words. His pride soared at this acknowledgment that the hunger was mutual and impossible to deny, but he wondered if she would soon resent how much it cost her.

  “I do not think he would relent, either,” she said. “It is not only the insult to his pride, or his affections for me, that caused this rash move. He was very calm until he spoke of your inquiries. Then he became so angry it frightened me. He is worried, Nathaniel. He is so worried, it has made him a different man. What does he fear, that has transformed him so?”

  “Perhaps he fears losing something valuable. You alone would qualify.”

  She shook her head. “He would have left the door ajar, then. He would have given me a way to return. Instead his repudiation is complete. He fears losing something else.”

  He had decided two nights ago not to contemplate what that something else might be. “Do not dwell on it. Who can know a man’s mind in such things? It was probably just jealousy.”

  “I do not think you believe that.”

  “Lady M., you are trying to be vexing again, claiming to know what I believe.”

  She did not pick up the playful cue. “You are trying to protect me, Nathaniel, and it is very sweet. You said that the asking and the knowing were over, because you want to spare me. However, I think one more inquiry is necessary.”

  He stifled a sigh. Whether in the lead or holding the reins, he actually had no control over this woman once her mind started working. “Which one would that be?”

  “I want to speak with that tutor.”

  “No.”

  She raised her eyebrows at his blunt response. Another glint, an old one that he knew very well, entered her eyes.

  While it would help if she submitted to his displays of mastery, he doubted he would want her so much if she did. He tried a more appeasing tone and refusal.