“You did the right thing, cousin,” he added. “I hear Miss Fenton has lost all her money. It is the on dit all about town. And since you could argue that you were not legally married to her, you have no responsibility and were quite right to walk away.”
“You’re a bloody fool,” Sam said, striding across the room and fixing Ben with a glare that would have withered a cactus. “How could you do it, Ben? Only met the girl once but she was the bravest, sweetest, kindest—”
“Be quiet, Sam,” Gideon said sharply.
Ben hoisted himself up against his pillows. His mouth felt most unpleasant. Price was hovering just beyond the bed curtains but he offered nothing, no hot water to wash, no cold water to drink, no bag of ice for his head…Damn it, Ben thought, there should be plenty of ice to be had at the moment. It was a poor do that his butler would do nothing for him. But Price’s disapproval had always been a serious matter. And now Price had plenty to disapprove of.
“Sam’s right,” Ben said heavily. “I have been a confounded fool.”
“Worse than a fool,” Sam said with blistering contempt. He took a step forward. “You are a coward, Ben. You once told me you cared for no one but yourself and now I see the proof of it.”
The lines of irritation on Gideon’s face deepened. “That is nothing to the purpose. We are here because Miss Fenton has reissued her challenge, Ben. She demands that you meet her for the duel she previously canceled.”
Ben put his head in his hands. He felt sick with self-disgust. What had he done? He could barely remember that moment in the lawyer’s office. He had heard Churchward’s words and seen the look in Catherine’s eyes as she’d turned toward him. He had seen her despair and the appeal there. He had seen the love in her eyes and had felt utterly inadequate, unable to match her. And suddenly all the specters of his youth had been there to mock him, rising up to taunt him that he was no longer safe, they would hunt him down, they would win in the end…He would be penniless again, he would die from it, the way his mother had done, coughing the last of his miserable life up in the poorhouse. In that moment, he had been unable to breathe and had blundered out into the street looking for somewhere to run. Eventually—much later—he had found himself by the river and had reeled in shock into an alehouse. Catherine’s fortune was gone. Her father had betrayed her and she had nothing. And he had left her to face that future alone.
Price must have found him and brought him home. He struggled to sit upright. The remnants of the dream still clung to him. There was only one thing worse than dying in poverty, and that was losing Catherine. He could admit that now, now that he had dreamed of her and lost her all over again.
“I must go to her,” he said. He felt breathless, panicked. “I need to apologize. I need to explain.”
He was reaching for his clothes when the expression on both Sam and Gideon’s faces arrested him. For the first time in his memory, both his cousins looked the same. They were both looking at him with pity.
Sam shook his head. “It’s too late for that, Ben.”
Ben straightened. “But it can’t be! If I just apologize—”
“Miss Fenton never wants to speak to you again,” Gideon said. He made a slight gesture with his hands. “Naturally you do not need to meet the challenge she has issued. Just ignore the girl. She does not matter.”
“Yes, she does,” Sam interrupted hotly. “Ben has behaved like an absolute blackguard and the one thing he has to do now is give his wife the opportunity to put a bullet through him! So stop calling her Miss Fenton, Gideon, because she is Lady Hawksmoor and Ben has a responsibility to her and he is the worst sort of scoundrel for walking out on her!”
Gideon waited until his brother had finished and then continued talking as though Sam had not spoken at all. “There is nothing the girl can do. She is ruined now, both financially and because her reputation has been compromised. It is unfortunate, but—”
Ben hit him and Gideon’s words gurgled into silence.
“Thank God you did that,” Sam said gruffly, “because I was about to kill him.”
“What can I do, Sam?” Ben appealed desperately.
Sam turned to him and Ben took an instinctive step back to see the ice in his cousin’s eyes.
“Nothing,” Sam said. His face was set into hard lines. “I used to admire you, Ben Hawksmoor, but now I think you are no more than a fool.”
Ben caught his sleeve as he turned away. “But you will act for me?”
“Aye, I will,” Sam said, “and Gideon will, too.” He ignored the strangled noises of disagreement coming from his brother. “But that will be an end to it, Ben. After that I never want to see you again.”
DAWN CAME SLOWLY to Harington Heath. The moon was on the wane and slipping from the sky in the west as the sun came up, pale and cold.
Catherine’s coach was already there. As his carriage drew level, Ben could see her standing talking to Lady Russell. She was wrapped deep in a velvet cloak, and her face was serene and calm. For a moment Ben stared at her—his beautiful Kate, so strong and so proud. Then she sensed his gaze upon her and turned her face away.
“Come on,” Sam said grimly. It was the first time he had spoken to Ben on the journey. He swung the carriage door open and let in a blast of morning air. Ben shivered as he jumped down. Gideon followed, still grumbling that he had been roped into this fiasco at all.
Ben looked around him in the growing light. It was a desolate enough place, the low scrubby bushes frozen hard with hoar frost and the thin grass icy beneath his feet. They were the only people there. Ben thrust his hands into his pockets in an ineffectual effort to keep them warm and asked himself whom else he had expected to see. No one would be mad enough to be strolling around this godforsaken place at dawn on a February morning.
There was one other carriage present and Ben guessed it contained the physician Sam had promised would be present. This piece of information had not filled Ben with confidence. Now, as the inhabitants of the coach started to descend, he stared. As well as a sparse, sandy fellow whom he took to be the doctor, there was Churchward the lawyer and Price as well.
Ben stared in mounting horror. He turned to Sam.
“Have you been selling tickets for this?”
He thought his cousin almost smiled. “They insisted on coming,” he said.
“Sam,” Ben said urgently. “I mean to do the right thing. I mean to delope.”
Sam shook his head gently. “Of course you do. But you might be dead by then.” He gripped Ben’s coat suddenly. “You must tell her, Ben. Tell her you love her. Tell her the truth before it is too late and you lose her forever.”
Tell her the truth before it is too late….
Where was he to start? With the fact that he was an utter and complete fool who had lost the only woman he had ever loved because he was so afraid of losing the material things in life? Now he knew that there were some things so much more important. He could see so clearly now—now it was too late.
He grabbed Sam’s arm.
“You are right. I must speak with my wife.”
All the way in the carriage, Ben had been planning what he would say to Catherine when he got the chance. To apologize…to try to explain…It seemed so lame. And so fortuitously timed as a last-ditch attempt to prevent her from shooting him. And now it seemed he would not have that opportunity anyway, for as he strode toward her, Lady Russell stepped in front of her and barred his way. Over her head—Lady Russell was very small—he could see Catherine. Her face was intent and serious. She did not even glance his way.
“She will not speak to you,” Lady Russell said. “I am sorry, Hawksmoor. She needed you and you broke her heart. It is too late.”
After that, matters took on the stuff of Ben’s nightmares.
Sam was pacing out the ground. Gideon and Lady Russell went off to inspect the pistols.
Somehow—Ben was not sure how he got there—he was facing Catherine across an expanse of open ground. Sam offered h
im a pistol. He saw it was cocked and took it carefully, keeping it pointed at the ground. Lady Russell was speaking, saying something about the signal to fire, but he could not hear her. He felt a leaden dread inside that had nothing to do with contemplating his approaching death and everything to do with all the things he wished he had told Catherine when he had had the chance.
“Wait!” he shouted.
Lady Russell stopped speaking. She did not look affronted, merely curious.
“I wish to speak with my wife,” Ben said. “I insist.” He took a step toward Catherine and she immediately raised her pistol to point it directly at him.
“Stay where you are!”
Ben stopped. “Give me leave to speak,” he shouted. “Consider it the last words of a condemned man, if you must.”
He thought that Catherine almost smiled, but it could have been a trick of the dawn light.
“Speak then,” she said after a moment. “You have one minute.”
Ben was silent for a moment. What to say when this minute was all he had to gain his heart’s desire? What to say when the woman he loved was pointing a pistol at his heart?
“I love you,” he said. It came out too quietly and he shouted, “I love you!”
Nobody moved. Clearly that was not enough.
“I loved you on the night of the Frost Fair,” he shouted, “but I feared the past more. I thought that because you were rich—” He paused, cleared his throat. He thought of all the elegant words he might have used, but they would not come now. “I thought that because you were rich it was safe to love you!” he bellowed. “And when it was all taken away I was afraid!” He straightened. “I admit it. I was a coward. I let my fear win. But now…” He gasped for breath. He was losing his voice. “Now I love you so much I care nothing for whether we are rich or poor, wanting only to be with you and keep you from harm. I know I can be a better man with you than without you, Catherine. Give me the chance to prove it. Give me that time—” His voice broke.
He wanted to run toward Catherine, to beg her to listen, but then something moved behind him and he spun around. A man was crouching in the bushes directly behind him, and as Ben turned he saw it was Algernon Withers. Withers had a pistol and it was aimed straight at Catherine. Ben heard Sam give a shout of warning and he straightened up, moving deliberately into Withers’s line of fire.
Withers’s bullet took him through the arm and the pain was like a red-hot brand that made him feel a little faint for a moment. He staggered, his hand going to his sleeve where a stain had started to spread. Withers had run, and Ben could see that Sam was not going to be able to catch him as he vanished into the scrubland. Gideon was not even trying to join the pursuit.
The doctor was hurrying toward Ben over the frozen grass, but then Ben saw Catherine behind him and he ceased to notice anything else at all, could see only her. She was running toward him now, dropping her pistol on the grass, her hair streaming out behind her as she ran. He could she was crying, the tears pouring down her cheeks. When she reached him, he pulled her into his arms, regardless of the blood, regardless of the pain.
“Ben!”
He held her close and felt the frantic beating of her heart, and put his cheek against the softness of her hair and felt a huge thankfulness, for he had been afraid that he would never hold her in his arms again.
“I thought I had lost you forever!” Catherine gulped. “I am so sorry. I swear I would not have killed you, but I was so angry and sad and lost, and then I saw Withers’s bullet hit you—”
Ben cradled her head and held her so tightly he could feel her tears soak his shirtfront. He was shaking, too.
“Sweetheart, I understand. Everything is all right.” He tilted her chin up and kissed her. “Tell me you love me,” he demanded.
“I love you,” Catherine said. A spark of humor came into her voice. “You saved me from Withers again. I think I shall have to keep you close after all.”
She smiled, rubbing the tears from her face. “Are matters even between us now?” she asked, as once she had done when she was in his bed.
“No,” Ben said. “Not until I tell you again how much I love you.” The elegant words he should have said earlier were coming back to him now, and more besides.
“I have been a fool,” he said. “I am so sorry, Kate. I should never have walked away from you. If you trust me now, I swear I will never, never let you down again.” He broke off, suddenly aware that a large and very interested audience had gathered about them.
“Do you mind?” he demanded wrathfully. “I am trying to declare my love to Catherine.”
“Well,” Lady Russell said, “we heard all your other declarations of love, Hawksmoor, so I do not see why we should miss this one. Besides, the surgeon requires to bind your wound, but pray do not let that put you off your stroke!”
After that, things became somewhat hazy for Ben. Catherine held his good hand and Lady Russell poured most of the contents of her brandy flask down his throat while the doctor bound a makeshift bandage about his arm. They were all walking slowly—and a little drunkenly in Ben’s case—toward the carriages when there was the rumble of wheels on the road and a coach came clattering to a halt beside them.
It was a most fashionable silver equipage that had suffered somewhat on the country road for it was spattered with frozen mud.
The door swung open. And Lady Paris de Moine appeared in the aperture.
WHEN THE CARRIAGE PULLED UP Catherine was feeling tired, relieved and happier than she had ever been in her life before. It was as though the temporary madness that had possessed her since Lily’s death had lifted and she was at last able to see past all the horror and loss to the possibility of the future. And then the coach had stopped and Paris had appeared and looked at her in that frightful sneering way that Catherine remembered from the night at Crockford’s.
“Well,” Paris said. “Lady Hawksmoor! So you did not kill your husband after all. I am glad, for I have such a lovely surprise for the pair of you.”
Catherine saw Ben raise his head and his eyes meet those of his cousin. Sam blushed and Catherine realized what he had done. He was the one who had told Paris about the duel and brought this down on them.
“This is all most affecting,” Lady Paris drawled. She took the coachman’s hand and descended the steps as though she were about to greet the Prince Regent at a Carlton House ball. She was dressed all in white with a fur-trimmed cloak and diamonds. Her sharp blue gaze swept over them all, lingered a little on Catherine, then fastened on Ben’s face. Catherine felt him go still and knew, with a flash of insight, that like her he was afraid. Not of what Paris might say but of the damage it might do to the two of them when they had barely begun to rebuild a fragile love and trust.
He had sworn that he and Paris had never been lovers and Catherine had believed him. And suddenly she knew, with a powerful rush of love and conviction, that Paris could do her worst and it would make no difference. Ben loved her and only her, and nothing could change that now.
“I am desolate to disturb your idyll, Benjamin,” Paris said, “but there is something that I think you should know.”
Ben sighed. “Like the wicked queen in the fairy tale,” he said softly. “Why must you come now, Paris, to try to spoil everything?”
Paris smoothed the white satin of her cloak over her stomach. “Because I am your mistress, Ben,” she said, “and I am pregnant.”
It seemed to Catherine that the whole world was still and quiet. Ben had gone very white. His grip on her hand was painful.
“Do not, I beg, try to pin that on me, Paris,” he said, “when you know it cannot be my child.”
“No one will believe that, Ben,” Paris said. She was smiling. “The whole world knows you to be my lover. If I say this is your child, who will not believe me?”
Catherine took a step forward. “I will not,” she said. She glanced up at Ben’s face and spoke only for him. “If I do not believe it, does anyone else matter
?”
They stared at one another for a long moment.
“Sweetheart.” Ben’s words sounded choked. “I swear—”
Catherine put her fingers to his lips. “You need not. I trust you. I always did.”
“You stupid, naive child,” Paris began, but Catherine turned her back on her very deliberately and a moment later it was Sam who spoke.
“Paris, enough.” His voice was low. “Do not do this. You know it will do no good.”
Paris glared at him. From the shelter of Ben’s arms, Catherine could feel all the hatred and malevolence in her. Slowly Paris’s gaze circled around the group and pinned itself on Gideon Hawksmoor. “Then,” she said slowly, “it seems I must tell the truth for once. Mr. Hawksmoor, what can you tell everyone of the real identity of my child’s father?”
Catherine heard Ben’s swift intake of breath. Sam had frozen, his incredulous gaze going to his brother. And Gideon had turned a strange milky-white.
He started to gabble. “It’s a lie, I swear it, she always lies, she never tells the truth, I had nothing to do with it, don’t tell Alice, I promise it was not me, it is not my child!”
And then, to everyone’s amazement, he ran away across the scrubby ground and disappeared down the road that led to town.
SIR ALFRED FENTON WAS a conventional man and, with his wife back at his side in Guilford Street and his daughter married and preparing to move to the Hawksmoor estate in Yorkshire with her husband, he could almost convince himself that the terrible business of the previous months had never occurred.
Algernon Withers had not been apprehended and it seemed probable that he never would, but the grave robbers’ activities continued unabated across London and Sir Alfred shuddered sometimes to think of the man behind them. Catherine had been true to her word and had told the banking authorities that her father had been ignorant of the fraud, so he had no difficulties to contend with there. His business had even begun to show a profit for a change. And Lady Russell had set off on a tour of the Western Isles of Scotland, wanting to travel a little closer to home now that her goddaughter was to be settled in the north.
Lord of Scandal Page 28