Sir Archibald. Stephen froze. Sir Archie was in the next room, or as near as made no difference. How long had they been gone? How long before he’d come searching for his missing wife...who’d disappeared in the wake of his missing houseguest?
“Don’t trouble yourself, Mr. Cranbourne,” she whispered silkily, as if reading his thoughts. “Archie will be snoring by now. He can’t stay awake beyond midnight. Not much sport for poor me. Won’t you stay another day?” Her tone was cajoling. “Perhaps we could do this again tomorrow.”
His pulse skittered like a nervous schoolboy’s. He’d like to do it again tomorrow. He’d like to do it again every day. He gazed down at her with desperate fondness. No woman had ever wanted him like Lady Julia. In that moment they were as star-crossed lovers. Impulsively, he said, “You must come away with me.”
She cocked her head. “Come away with you? Where to?”
The ludicrousness of his words was brought home to him—he had no home. The army had been home for years. His father had departed this mortal coil when he’d been a boy. His mother had died when he was eighteen. In the time since then he’d drifted, making do on his paltry allowance of four hundred pounds a year. Good fortune had favored him on a few occasions at the horse races but he’d been burned and he’d learned his lesson.
Oh God, his wager!
She must have seen his panic. Leisurely she extended her hand, fondling his balls so that he hardened instantly, despite himself.
He closed his eyes, hardly able to believe that this lovely woman wanted to do this all over again with him.
After years as a young boy spent dodging his mother’s creditors while their well- connected friends dwindled, followed by a series of unexceptional liaisons while in the army, Stephen had been conscious of his shaky foothold on society’s ladder.
Tonight in the arms of Lady Julia, he’d been admired as a man and embraced by quality. One day he would be a viscount. In two short weeks his world had expanded, offering him unlimited horizons.
In a burst of adolescent daydreaming, he imagined pulling her up in front of him on his white charger as Sir Archie grasped ineffectually for its mane. Stephen the conqueror had claimed Lady Julia as his woman.
He was conscious of her reaching down to adjust her garter.
He glanced at her. She did not wear the love-limpid look he’d expected.
“Let’s see what that spider’s up to, shall we?” Her tone was matter-of-fact, her smile bright before she tickled him playfully under the chin. “If you’ve won the wager, I think I deserve a present, don’t you?”
He blinked, his throat dry. This was not how it was supposed to be in the aftermath of grand passion.
“Come, Mr. Cranbourne, let me smooth your hair and put you in order. That’s right, now... Goodness, we were awfully near the drawing room, I hadn’t realized. I hope Archie doesn’t mind. You’re right—if he suspects he’ll be awfully cross with me.” She put her finger to her lips. “Our secret, eh, Mr. Cranbourne?” Her eyes danced with seductive allure but this time Stephen didn’t respond. Couldn’t. He had no idea what to think.
Archie turned as Stephen entered the drawing room. “Ah, Cranbourne... Sorry, old fellow, but you owe me rather a few monkeys.” He beckoned to him from the escritoire.
“There’s the old chap, still loyally by her side.” He pointed. “Admittedly, she tried to best him.” There was gloating in his tone. “But he soon had her in order. As I maintained before, the male is the superior species, in every sphere.”
From his chair by the fire, the earl of Barston nodded gloomily as he corroborated his host’s pronouncement. “Sorry, old chap.”
It took a few seconds for the meaning of his words to sink into Stephen’s fuddled brain. He shook his head as if to clear it, picturing the mismatched spider couple. “But...I’ve seen it time and again. A male that tiny always becomes prey to its mate. I saw the way she moved. She was preparing to attack just as I was leaving.”
“You were gone quite some time,” Archie said, pointedly before resuming his mournful expression. “So unless you want to watch the two of them smelling of April and May until the morning?” He indicated the apparently honeymooning arachnid couple, yawning.
Barston was already snoring gently, his head rising and falling on his chest from each breath.
Lady Julia stroked Stephen’s arm, murmuring words of comfort. “Poor Mr. Cranbourne. Still, you’ll probably win that and more as soon as you take up residence with your rich relations. Perhaps you can ask your uncle for an advance on your inheritance.”
Stephen looked down at her face, pert with bright assurance. His stomach flip- flopped. He truly was all at sea. “I...I don’t see what choice I have but to ask Lord Partington,” he muttered, assessing the parlous state of his finances. His new coat was, literally, the most he’d outlayed on anything.
Sir Archie raised his half-drunk whisky. “Or perhaps you’ll find yourself in parson’s mousetrap allied to Lord Partington’s lovely daughter, Miss Araminta. She comes with a sizeable dowry. You could be wed before the season’s over and then it won’t matter how long His Lordship kicks around on this mortal coil.”
Lady Julia gave a snide laugh and said under her breath, “Designing little minx, that one.” When Stephen turned startled eyes upon her, she added unrepentantly, “I’m surprised you look at me like that. Miss Araminta caused quite a scandal last season. Had to be shipped home early, though it’s not my place to gossip about what crimes she may or may not have been guilty of.”
“Indeed not, my dear,” her husband cut in dryly, “in view of your own clever ploy in getting me to the altar.”
Lady Julia dismissed this with a toss of her head. “I’d say you are a marked man, Mr. Cranbourne. Why, Miss Araminta told me with her own lips that she intends to be mistress of the Grange, the home she grew up in.” She tittered. “At the time, her cabbage-headed cousin Edgar was her father’s heir, so of course her wish was implicit upon marrying him, and you never met a greater ninnyhammer.”
“Oh, Edgar wasn’t that bad,” drawled Sir Archie. “I won a few wagers against him.”
“Edgar was utterly bacon-brained. Do you remember how you gammoned him over that story you told him of your pointer, Benny, disappearing during a shoot and being discovered, turned to stone, in the woods a year later?”
Sir Archie sniggered. “Oh yes. I told him the story at my club and he demanded to see the evidence. Said he’d wager two hundred I was lying. It only cost me a couple of guineas to have a stone mason craft me a reputable copy of Benny, which we positioned by the river.” He grinned. “Well, he said he couldn’t refute the evidence when I took him to see it. Paid me on the spot, in fact.”
Stephen didn’t share in the hilarity at the expense of poor distant cousin Edgar. He was beginning to suspect he’d been set up the same way.
Lady Julia laughed. “A good thing for the whole family that poor Edgar took a bullet at Corunna. You must be awfully pleased too, Stephen. Otherwise you’d not be next in line for the title and chances are we’d never have had such a jolly time this evening.”
Her dancing green eyes searched his. In that moment her look seemed assessing, her pretty white teeth bared in a smile.
And Stephen did not respond with the rush of adrenaline to the groin he had earlier in the evening when she’d bestowed her attentions upon him.
Chapter Two
Sybil, Lady Partington, clasped her hands in her rabbit-fur muff as she watched the congregation file into their pews.
With her fortieth birthday looming, she felt old, as she watched proceedings through clouds of frosted breath. Particularly today. Old and superfluous. A failed wife. A failed mother.
Araminta had been dismissive of her well-meaning attempts to reassure her that the disgrace of her curtailed London season would not dash her chances of a good match. No, Araminta already had her mind up in that regard. She knew exactly who she was going to marry, and had done since she wa
s twelve.
There’d been an exchange of words before they’d walked to church. Or rather, Araminta had flounced off ahead while good-natured Hetty had stayed back to keep her mother company.
Sybil slanted a sideways look at the two girls now, neatly turned out in the family pew beside her. Araminta looked proud. Expectant. Sybil repressed a sigh. That’s all she’d been doing lately. But perhaps everything would all work out.
Beside her, Hetty smiled at several new arrivals. Nobody noticed her.
On her other side, her husband made a remark about the floral arrangement. Too flamboyant, he thought.
Sybil nodded distractedly. Nothing seemed to please Humphry unless he was with his beloved mistress, she thought bitterly, slanting a surreptitious glance across the aisle to see if Mrs. Hazlett and her family had arrived yet.
They had. She snapped her attention back to her neat rabbit-fur muff.
At least Humphry had pledged to play the dutiful host and mentor when Cousin Stephen arrived.
The heir apparent.
Not that young Mr. Stephen Cranbourne’s imminent arrival was anything to get excited over. It merely reinforced Sybil’s sense of superfluity through her failure to provide Humphry with an heir. Or rather, a spare, since the death of their darling boy, George, from the measles four years ago.
In those interim four years, Humphry’s nephew Edgar had been next in line. Humphry had refused to recognize him. Edgar was a clodpoll, he said, and the mere fact he was Humphry’s heir was incentive for Humphry to live to one hundred so he could outlive his cork-brained nephew.
Sybil supposed the bullet that had knocked poor Edgar out of the succession was rather fortunate for everyone, not least this unknown Mr. Cranbourne. But really, it changed nothing for her. She was still the unwanted wife and, as far as Araminta was concerned, the superfluous mother.
Thank goodness Hetty still needed and appreciated her.
A rustle went through the congregation. Sybil opened her hymn book and stared unseeingly at the lines designed to bolster her joy in God’s world. Once again she tried telling herself everything would work out. Humphry would take a liking to young Stephen, young Stephen would be the perfect match for Araminta, and wedding bells would ring out by the end of the year, a lusty son cementing the succession nine months later.
On painful joints, Reverend Bicklefield climbed the steps to the pulpit while old Mrs. Henshaw shuffled in on her handsome nephew’s arm. Sybil glanced up at the whiff of camphor and glimpsed the flare of interest Hetty sent the young man from beneath her lashes as she focused attention upon her hymn book. Poor Hetty, for it was Araminta, sitting beside her, who caught his eye.
Araminta. Sybil sighed. Araminta was, without doubt, the most arresting young woman in the district. She’d turn anyone’s head, however the man who won her would have a tussle on his hands from the outset. Araminta was only happy when she had her own way.
She wondered what kind of man Mr. Stephen Cranbourne was. She knew nothing of him and had had little time to prepare for his arrival.
Reverend Bicklefield cleared his throat and hymn book pages rustled. Glancing at her youngest daughter, Sybil did not miss the smile Hetty flashed at Thomas Hazlett in the pew almost directly across from them. He nodded briefly in acknowledgement before his stern young countenance refocused on his own hymn book.
As far as Sybil knew, the young people had never spoken, although they crossed paths each Sunday.
A chill of foreboding made her shiver and she touched her knee to Humphry’s. Could Hetty...know?
Yet when her husband glanced across at her, she could not put into words her fears.
Thomas and his two sisters were Humphry’s children by his mistress Elizabeth Hazlett. That made Thomas Hetty’s half-brother yet surely Hetty had no idea the Hazletts, who sat quietly and modestly through Rev. Bicklefield’s sermon every Sunday, were her father’s “other” family.
Further study of Hetty reassured Sybil, even after Thomas, looking up and locking eyes with the girl, grinned self-consciously.
Thomas Hazlett would know, of course. Perhaps he was consumed by impotent rage, knowing Hetty and Araminta, his half-sisters, enjoyed an easy, privileged life while he and his sisters, as Lord Partington’s sideslips, must navigate a hurdle-strewn path, denied social acceptance. He’d be especially outraged if he knew—as he presumably did—the reason he was not Lord Partington’s heir. His mother would surely have told Thomas that his father had buckled under family pressure and reneged on his marriage proposal to her. Shortly after Humphry had unexpectedly inherited the title he’d reluctantly married the much more “suitable” Miss Sybil Green. Yet even after such betrayal and after all these years Humphry and Lizzy Hazlett remained desperately in love.
Two generations had suffered the unhappy consequences—and always would. It was of no account that Humphry had regretted his marriage almost immediately, or consolation to Sybil that he’d told her it was not her fault.
She glanced at her husband’s impassive profile. Hard to believe they’d been married twenty years and produced four children, two of whom had died. Both sons. One stillborn, the other, George, only fourteen. The pain still sliced through her with the rawness of lemon juice in a fresh cut.
Still, it had taken Humphry three years after George’s death before he’d returned to Sybil’s bed. For so long she’d been half expecting it, for of course dear George’s death meant that without a direct heir the Grange and the fortune that went with it would go to Edgar.
Detested Edgar.
The memory of Humphry’s visit to her bedchamber made her cringe with shame. What a debacle it had been—Humphry plied with drink, mumbling that he felt like an adulterer as he tried to coax his unresponsive nether regions to perform.
It didn’t work. Nothing did, including Sybil’s extensive efforts to entice him with her dubious charms before she’d resorted to some crass pumping of Humphry’s flaccid member.
Oh God, this was not a reflection for church, but the embarrassment of being woken by her husband’s drunken snoring just as her maid had come in to draw the curtains still burned.
She looked at Araminta. Perhaps it helped to have no heart, she thought, immediately chastising herself for her uncharitable thoughts. Araminta was still so young. She’d learn.
Besides, Sybil had everything she could wish for. Except love.
Humphry didn’t love Sybil but he’d been kind in his way and he’d always tried to spare her discomfort. Not pain, for nothing could quite erase the hopelessness of knowing one would never know the love of a man.
Nor could she hate Lizzy Hazlett although on more than one occasion she’d wished her dead, wondering if perhaps then Humphry might be able to form for Sybil some small affection.
As the years passed, Sybil realized Humphry would never love anyone but Lizzy Hazlett, who had returned Humphry’s love by eschewing the respectable marriage she might have made as a solicitor’s daughter in order to become Humphry’s mistress. Her punishment had been social ostracism and she’d condemned her children to a dubious future. For what future was there for a bastard?
No, Sybil wasn’t the only one to suffer.
A ripple of interest stirred the congregation and Sybil turned her head as the door blew open to admit a new arrival. He was a stranger, she realized, taking in his large bulk. A dark, faceless cut-out against the sun, which lit him from behind.
As he progressed down the aisle, he paused as if suddenly uncertain, and a shaft of sunlight from one of the side stained windows lit up his face.
It was a handsome face, sensitive and finely rendered rather than rugged. Although young he had creases near his eyes denoting both good humor and experience. Active service perhaps. That turned a boy into a man, and this young man seemed both as his mouth, which had been pressed into a diffident straight line, curved up in recognition upon seeing Humphry.
She stiffened.
Stephen. It could be no other.
&nb
sp; The young man bowed, his broad shoulders filling out his sober dark coat nicely; certainly in Araminta’s opinion, it would seem. Sybil registered the girl’s sudden awareness, the flare in her eye as she locked glances with the stranger, who was now looking directly at them, the first family of the district sitting according to their station in the front pew.
And at the expectation in his eye Sybil’s heart began to beat rapidly while her breath caught in her throat. Humphry was staring, a wary smile of welcome softening his features. It was impossible to determine his thoughts, even though he’d invited the newcomer here.
Stephen Cranbourne, Humphry’s heir, had finally arrived, having been summoned from the other side of the country after much searching.
And on first impressions he did not disappoint.
Sybil released her breath in quiet relief. She didn’t usually worry about Araminta but this was the young man Araminta had pinned her hopes upon. Araminta would marry Stephen and so remain mistress by proxy of the family estate where she’d grown up and which she would have inherited had she been born a boy.
She’d declared it since her twin George’s death and she’d declared it when she’d been hustled home from her first season after the terribly distressing affair that no one spoke of. “If I cannot be Papa’s heir I shall marry Papa’s heir.”
Araminta’s famous saying. Everyone knew it.
Now Araminta was staring into the eyes of the most attractive young man Sybil had seen in a while and the look in his was wary, uncertain, and, yes, very interested.
Sybil heaved another sigh of relief. All would go well now.
The organ ceased, the shuffle of parishioners settling in to listen to another fire-and- brimstone sermon and the church door was firmly closed.
Sybil returned her attention to the front, following a sidelong glance to gauge
Humphry’s reaction.
Her Gilded Prison (Daughters of Sin Book 1) Page 2