He drew in a deep breath, closing his eyes as he released it in a heavy gust. "It is Bethany," he murmured, rubbing his temples as if they ached.
Bethany. By his dark tone, it was clear that something very bad indeed had happened to his adored sister. Julia's heart instantly went out to him, understanding his pain at his sibling's suffering all too well. Overcome with sympathy, she started to lean forward to take his hands in hers, to offer him comfort. Then she remembered the bitterness that lay between them and resisted the impulse. Letting her voice convey her compassion instead, she said, "Though I do not know the nature of your sister's trouble, you have my promise that I shall do everything in my power to help her."
"Thank you." He more grunted than uttered the words, the hand massaging his temples moving down to press against his still-closed eyes, as if they, too, pained him.
"What I do not understand is why you did not ride ahead," she continued, mindful of the agony he must be suffering in his anxiety to be by Bethany's side. "You could have made much better time had you not accompanied the coach, but I am sure that you know that."
"Yes." His hand was still pressed to his eyes.
"Then why did you not do so? I would have understood."
"What? And have my mother rise up from her grave and haunt me?" He dropped his hand then and opened his eyes, smiling wryly.
Julia frowned her bewilderment at his queer response. "I am afraid that I do not understand what you mean."
"My mother always considered gallantry toward women an important quality in a man, and she took great pains to instill it in Caleb and me. To leave you to make your own way to Lancashire would have been ungallant to the extreme."
"Your mother sounds most admirable," Julia remarked, adding to herself that the woman had done a commendable job of drumming that particular lesson into her son's head. Most men would have shirked the duty of escorting a wife they despised, especially under such circumstances.
"Yes," he said, his smile fading. "And I feel that were she here now, she would urge me to explain to you about Bethany. For better or worse, you are now a member of the Harwood family, so it is only right that you should know the truth, though I pray that you will treat the knowledge with discretion."
"You may be certain that I will keep private whatever confidence you choose to share with me," she vowed.
"Bethany lost the child she was carrying."
Julia recoiled, stunned by the news. "Your sister was with child?"
He nodded once, his face now impassive.
"But-" She shook her head, frowning her consternation. "But I did not even know that she was wed. You never mentioned her husband. And since she lives on your estate, I naturally assumed-"
"I did not mention a husband because she does not have one. She never did," he interjected, grinding the words out from between his teeth. "I must caution you, however, that both my household and village believe her to be a widow- the widow of an American sea captain named Nathan Matland, to be exact, so she is Mrs. Matland to them. It is a lie that I, myself, put about. After all that Bethany has been through, I would spare her the shame of being branded a harlot."
Uncertain what to say or how to react in the face of such a shocking confession, Julia merely nodded and murmured, "I see."
"No. You do not see. I can discern as much from the prim condemnation on your face." His voice was sharp and lashing, gentling to a silken sneer in the next instant as he added, "Then again, I expected as much. However, once you hear the tale of her downfall, I daresay that you shall understand well enough. Indeed, I believe that you will find her situation rather parallels your own in that she whored herself in an attempt to save her sibling, in this instance our youngest sister, Bliss."
Julia gasped, stung by his scathing assessment of her actions. "How dare you accuse me of whoredom?"
"After your performance on our wedding night, how dare you deny it?" he flung back. "For all that you possess wealth and a title, bartering yourself as you did makes you no better than the lowest harlot who sells herself in alleyways for a farthing."
She stiffened in her outrage. "I will have you know-"
"Enough!" he barked, imperiously silencing her. "I have neither the time nor the patience to listen to your indignant protestations, so I suggest that you save them to share with someone who is interested in what you have to say."
"Why you-"
"Enough, I said!" His command was accompanied by a brusque hand motion. "Though it shall no doubt come as a revelation to you to learn that the entire world does not revolve around you, this conversation is about Bethany. I instigated it for her benefit, and hers alone. I did so because I do not wish for her to suffer your shocked expressions and reproving looks should Bliss spill the truth about her to you by mistake. Bethany deserves understanding, not scorn, and I shall not allow her to be slighted by you or anyone else. Do you understand?" His voice had grown soft, dangerously mild.
Julia shot him a withering look, not about to be cowed. "Perfectly, though I might add that you have grievously misjudged me if you think that I would censure your sister out of hand. For all that I am not as worldly as you, I do understand that circumstances sometime force moral people to do things that might be perceived as wrong, and I try to afford them every benefit of the doubt."
"Like you have done with me?" he inquired with a sardonic quirk of his eyebrows.
She shrugged, refusing to take, his bait. "As you have so disagreeably pointed out, this conversation is about Bethany. Now, I believe that you have a tale to share that will help me better understand her plight?" She raised her own eyebrows, viewing him with an air of condescending query. "Like yourself, I do not wish to extend this interview any longer than is necessary."
He sketched an abbreviated bow. "Your servant, my lady."
She responded with an aristocratic wave of the hand. If he wished to play the peasant, then she would gladly act the role of queen. "Then pray do proceed."
He nodded once, his face hard and expressionless, his voice cold and exact as he complied. "Her downfall-all of my family's downfall, really-began with my father's death. Being a mere curate whose living was earned by the grace of the village rector, we were turned out of the cottage that went with his post the instant he was in the ground, in order to make room for the new curate and his family."
"Was your village so very large then, that it required both a rector and a curate?" Julia inquired, genuinely wishing to understand Bethany's story. The woman was her sister now, so it was her duty to do so.
Gideon shook his head. "Quite the contrary. It was a tiny, rather poor place. However, like many rectors in England, ours had several other, richer livings at his disposal, which, understandably, he preferred to pursue. That being the case, he hired my father to tend to the spiritual care of his parishioners in his absence."
"But-" she began, trying to further improve her knowledge of rectors and curates.
"But we digress," he interjected. "To make a very long story short, we were left with little money and even fewer resources. Since my mother was six-months gone with Bliss at the time, she had no choice but to take us to London and throw us on the mercy of her only living relative, a brother who lived in Cheapside. As it turned out, he owned a small wig-making shop that at the time was enjoying modest success."
"How old were you?" Julia asked. Exactly why such a thing mattered, she could not say, but it suddenly did. Very much so.
"Seventeen. Caleb was fourteen, Bethany nine, and Bliss was born three months after our arrival in London."
"And how old are you now?" she countered, stunned to realize that she did not even know her own husband's age.
"Twenty-nine," he replied with a frown, visibly impatient with her questions.
She ignored his annoyance, her curiosity whetted by the meager morsels of personal information he had tossed her. "And your birth date?"
"February twenty-sixth, but I really do not see how it matters. We are discussing Bethan
y, not me. Remember?"
"But I-"
"My uncle, of course, was hardly pleased to be saddled with five extra mouths to feed," he cut in, overriding her protest by continuing his story. "Not a day went by that he did not remind us of the fact that we were living on his charity, though I can assure you that we all earned our keep fairly enough by slaving in his shop. Even Bethany worked, as young as she was."
"What did you do?" Again, she simply could not resist asking.
"I waited on customers, collected payment, did whatever heavy labor was required around the shop, and delivered the finished wigs." Though Julia expected him to again point out her digression from their subject, he instead shrugged and said, "It was while on my way to make a delivery one evening that I was set upon by a press-gang and pressed into the navy."
Julia's hand flew to cover her mouth in her shock at his disclosure. She had read stories in the newspaper about men being pressed into the navy, and it was said to be a most brutal fate. Indeed, a great many men did not survive the experience.
He nodded, unperturbed by her horrified reaction. "It is how I ended up in India, though that part of the story is neither here nor there."
But it was very much here and there to Julia. So much so that she could not resist blurting out, "But how?" She made a helpless hand gesture, shaking her head. "I mean, surely seventeen was far too young to be pressed into the navy?"
He chuckled, a dark, brittle sound. "I was nineteen at the time, and I can vouch for the fact that I was not the youngest wretch they captured that night. As to the how of the matter, several sailors attacked me and beat me senseless. By the time I regained consciousness, I was at sea and there was no escaping." Another mirthless chuckle. "I soon discovered that even the most reluctant recruit becomes willing after several days of starvation and beatings."
"Oh, Gideon! How very awful," she exclaimed, shaking her head over and over again at the dreadfulness of what she was hearing. "I cannot even begin to imagine what you must have suffered."
"No, you cannot," he retorted shortly. "So I suggest that we return to the purpose of this discussion."
"But-" she protested, too fascinated by his role in the story to let the subject drop.
He cut her off, his tone brooking no argument. "Let it suffice to say that I deserted at the first opportunity, which happened to present itself in Calcutta."
"Calcutta?" Julia frowned. "Whatever was a British naval ship doing in such a place?"
"The one I was on had been consigned to the Bombay Marine, charged with the task of protecting East India Company merchant ships from pirate attacks." His mouth pulled into a sour grin. "Considering the fierce reputation of the pirates in that part of the world, it is little wonder why the navy could not assemble a willing crew for that particular duty. But"-he shrugged one shoulder-"that is a tale for another day."
"It is one that I would very much like to hear," Julia said. "Then again, I suspect that you have a great many other fascinating stories to tell as well."
"I do, most of which are unfit for feminine ears." He shook his head once, sharply. "But again, that is neither here nor there. To return to the business at hand, I soon discovered that there was a fortune to be made in India, and spent almost nine years doing exactly that. I wanted to be so damn rich that my family would never again have to depend on the charity of others. I was determined to buy them everything they could ever want or need."
"It seems to me that you more than succeeded in your goal," Julia commented, his dedication to his family forcing her unwilling admiration for him to rise another notch.
"Did I?" The utterance was harsh, edged with bitterness.
She frowned, taken aback by his tone. "Of course you have. With all your wealth-"
"All the wealth in the world cannot buy back Bethany's virtue and self-respect," he spat. "It cannot buy back the innocence Bliss lost living in a Westminster rookery, nor can it bring back our mother. It seems that it cannot even find Caleb, though from the most recent reports I have had from my Bow Street Runners, he may no longer be alive to find."
"No! Oh, Gideon, no," she exclaimed, genuinely stricken by the news. Even she knew how desperately he had been searching for his brother.
Gideon's sculpted lips twisted into a snarl. "Oh, yes. It is quite possible that his corpse lies rotting in an unmarked burial trench by the road to Oxford, along with two highwaymen whose company he is now thought to have kept, driven to a life of crime from my neglect."
"You can hardly be blamed for neglect when you were struggling to secure your family's future," Julia argued, her heart breaking at the torment in his voice.
"The truth of the matter is that I had amassed an impressive fortune after only five years in India, certainly enough to have kept us all in luxury for the rest of our lives. Had I returned to England then, my mother would most probably still be alive, and my siblings would not have been left in the straits that led to their ruin. But it was not enough. No matter how wealthy I became, it never seemed enough to buy the sort of security I sought. Hence, through my greed I became guilty of neglect."
Despite his detached tone and shuttered expression, Julia sensed the soul-crushing depth of his self-condemnation, his vulnerability. Aching for him, wanting nothing more than to draw him into her arms and soothe him, like she did her sisters when they were hurt, but certain that her gesture would be rejected, she sought to comfort him by coaxing him to unburden and share his festering anguish. "When did your mother die, Gideon?"
"Two years ago. Bethany says that she sickened while nursing our uncle, who was suffering from the same fever that took our mother. He died the day before she did. Caleb, too, was terribly ill for a time, but Bethany managed to pull him through." He spoke softly, his voice devoid of inflection, projecting an impenetrable calm that was devastating to hear.
"And you learned of the tragedy upon your return to England?"
"I learned of it through a letter from Bethany. I had been sending my mother money for several years by then, enough that she could have taken our family away from the wig shop and leased comfortable quarters elsewhere. But apparently she felt a sense of obligation toward our uncle and would not leave him, especially after the shop fell on hard times. As I understand matters, the powder tax Pitt enacted three years ago made men abandon their wigs, which, of course, put quite a strain on my uncle's business. Since my life in India was rather nomadic in nature, and the post was slow to arrive from England, my mother had been dead for well over a year by the time I received the news. I naturally returned to London on the first ship. But I arrived too late." He shook his head, desolation emanating from him in palpable waves. "It seems that I am always too late." That last was uttered softly, as if he whispered it to himself.
"Too late?" she murmured, wanting to understand his feelings.
"I arrived in London to find the wig shop turned into a lamp-makers shop and my siblings vanished. It took the Bow Street Runners two months to find my sisters. They were living in a Westminster rookery, under conditions that make me shudder to remember them. Bethany was with child and very ill from her pregnancy, and Bliss had taken up with a gang of young thieves, stealing whatever she could in order to keep a roof over their heads and a few scraps on their table. She had been lying to Bethany, explaining her ill-gotten gains by claiming to be employed by a feather worker, cleaning and sorting feathers."
"You-you said that Bethany sold herself to save Bliss?" Julia quizzed, her voice catching on her sorrow at what Gideon and his family had suffered.
He nodded. "Bethany is a very beautiful girl with a winning way. Once you have met her, you will see that it is not just my brotherly pride speaking when I say so."
"I believe you," she said. How could she not? As handsome as Gideon was, he could not possibly have a sister who was anything less than beautiful.
He nodded again. "Apparently my uncle noted her charms as well, for he made her his shop assistant when she was only fifteen, no doubt think
ing that her pretty face would draw customers. And by all accounts his ploy worked. When the news of Bethany's beauty spread throughout London, it attracted a great many noblemen to the shop, several of whom coveted her for their mistress and offered her the post. Being a moral girl, she naturally turned them down, though the offers were exceedingly fine. Then our mother and uncle died. The shop, which had been failing since the enactment of the powder tax, was forced to close soon after. Though Bethany and Caleb managed to provide for themselves and Bliss, Bethany by working as a millinery seamstress and Caleb by laboring for a wheelwright, matters took another bad turn when Caleb suddenly disappeared, much as I had done years earlier."
"And you now believe that his disappearance had something to do with an association with highwaymen?"
"Unfortunately, yes. All the clues we have found thus far point to his having been shot, and most probably killed, during a robbery gone awry. My guess is that desperation to provide for his sisters drove him to crime."
"But you do not know that for certain?"
"No."
"Then surely there is some hope left that you might find him alive." After all that the Harwood family had suffered, fate owed them the small favor of hope.
"Since the bodies of the highwaymen were never identified, I suppose it is possible that he could be alive. As for hope"-he shrugged-"if Caleb were alive, it seems that the runners would have found some evidence pointing to that fact by now."
"True. Then again, if he is indeed guilty of highway robbery, perhaps he has simply hidden himself well out of fear for the law. He might even have left the country." She shook her head, scrambling to find a plausible explanation, wanting to restore the hope he had so clearly lost. "It is not unheard of for people to turn up after being presumed dead for many years, you know." But even to her ears, her words sounded hollow and devoid of faith.
Gideon smiled at her attempt, though it was apparent from the bleakness of his expression that her words had failed in their purpose. "So I have heard. But again, we have digressed."
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