“Come now, Sibyl, give me your word. I promise I will help you, and you will be glad you decided to trust me.”
“I do trust you,” Sibyl said at once. Did she? “I believe you have a kind heart beneath a sharp tongue.” Horrified, she fell silent.
Lady Upworth chuckled. “Is that so? Well, yes, I suppose it is. Now, give me your entire attention, please. You heard me speak of meeting William in the gambling hells.”
“Yes.” Sibyl had heard of such places but couldn’t imagine what they were like.
“They are low places where foolish people gamble away what they cannot afford to lose. Oh, certainly there are very well-heeled young rakes who lose fortunes without as much as scratching the extent of their wealth. But for the rest, a night at the tables can bring about ruin.”
“But William wasn’t one of those, was he?” Sibyl asked. “I can imagine his being curious, but not risking the fortune he was so pleased to accept.”
“The fortune to which he had no right, you mean?”
“He had a right,” Sibyl said without inflection. “Because he is a man, he had the right whereas Meg and I had none.”
“An outrage, one of so many visited on women. William did gamble heavily and probably still does. The last time I saw him in such surroundings, he was accused of cheating. Most unpleasant and bad for the reputation.”
“Accused?” Sibyl said. “But it was not proven.”
“Your insistence upon defending the man does surprise me.”
“He is a member of my family.”
“Quite so. But on this occasion there was no mistake. The accusation was just. You see, he wagered a house, a house in Puckly Hinton. And he lost it.”
William wagered The Ramblers? And lost it? But he wouldn’t—he couldn’t have. “That’s impossible. He would not do such a thing.”
“He did, I tell you, but that’s when he was accused of cheating. It seemed in fact that although he had the right to call the house his own as long as he lived in it, should he decide to sell, half of the proceeds belonged in two equal parts to his second cousins.”
Sibyl and Meg had been aware of such a provision, but it had seemed of no importance since they had never expected William to sell. Sibyl longed to be silent, to think what to do next. “I beg you not to speak of these matters elsewhere,” she said.
With layers of red gauze flying, Lady Upworth rushed toward Sibyl. She took her by the shoulders. “I have told you that none of this conversation must go outside this room—it must not go beyond the two of us. And I tell you that you are living under a threat.”
“From William?” Sibyl whispered.
“I’m not sure how he will go about what he must do to secure his own good reputation, but he is a desperate man and will do what he considers necessary.”
“You are correct about the terms of Papa’s will. The provision was made to discourage William from letting the house go out of the family.”
“But Mr. Godly-Smythe has a plan, I believe. And since he knows his time to make good on his gambling debts is limited, he is forced to move quickly. He has asked you to marry him. That is the first step, hmm?”
Sibyl lowered her voice. “So that my share in the house would become his.”
“Yes. But there would still be Meg and her share. What of that?”
“William would expect Meg to live with us and give up any rights to take the proceeds from a quarter of the sale in return for his kindness. She wouldn’t do it.”
“Not even for your sake? Because she thought it would be better for you?”
“Meg is clever. She will know what is best. I will not allow her to give away her inheritance for me, though.”
“Then what will you do?”
“Agree to marry him, of course.”
31
He did not want to put her down. As long as he held her in his arms, he would not have to wonder if she was safe.
His head wasn’t clear. Too much claret. An unusual event for him, but one he recalled too well from other occasions when he’d become angry, so angry he feared he would not control his actions unless he diverted himself.
“I can walk,” Meg said, and she shifted as if to encourage him to set her down.
She did not guess how dangerous it was to her safety to move against him, to do anything to arouse him.
He was already aroused. “I shall carry you, Meg. Verbeux will tell us if we need to send for the doctor.”
“No doctor,” she said, wriggling again. “I have a few little blisters. He can do nothing I cannot do myself.”
“Meg—” he stopped and drew her higher in his arms “—rest your head on my chest. I need to feel you. You will never know how badly I need to feel you, and to know you’re with me.”
Her eyes grew huge, then her eyelids lowered and he saw her lips move silently. She could withdraw into herself at will. Very gently, he kissed her brow. She spoke in an unintelligible whisper while her eyes slowly closed completely. He felt her relax and grow heavier.
“You’re going away from me,” he breathed. “You’re going because you want to. You don’t trust me not to hurt you.” And he couldn’t blame her.
At the end of a long corridor, he entered the anteroom to Verbeux’s rooms and stood still. “Pierre?” Jean-Marc frowned. “What are you doing?”
“Listening for M. Verbeux,” Pierre said from a chair behind Verbeux’s desk. He looked at Meg and asked, “Is there something I can do to help?”
“Yes. Watch over Miss Smiles until I can rouse Verbeux.”
“Oui, monsieur,” Pierre said, but he appeared puzzled and stood up.
“Miss Smiles is meditating, Pierre. She is an expert at these things and employs them to steady her nerves. Best let her sit in silence.”
“As you wish,” Pierre said. “I have wanted to speak with Miss Smiles about her hand.”
“Understandable,” Jean-Marc said. “But not tonight. I shall hope to return soon.”
“I don’t think you should disturb M. Verbeux,” Pierre said. “He doesn’t feel well.”
Jean-Marc set Meg down carefully on a couch covered with purple and gold striped silk. “Foxed, is he? Happens to the best of us. Won’t be the first time I’ve seen him the worse for a little drink.”
“He told you he was set upon?” Pierre said. His coat and trousers were of the finest black kerseymere, and his neck cloth was tied à l’orientale. Quite the dandy.
“Verbeux did come to me,” Jean-Marc said. “During the party. He’d been shaken up a little, but he has known far worse, I assure you.” With that he strode to enter the bedchamber.
A lighted candle glowed brightly beside the canopied bed. More purple, velvet this time. Jean-Marc went to look down at his man. “What the…Did something else happen? You weren’t—”
“As badly hurt when I saw you in the ballroom?” Verbeux smiled wryly. “My new friends waited for me here—in my own bedchamber. They wanted to remind me what I must do.”
“Make sure I leave London?”
“Yes.” Verbeux’s face was so white as to seem transparent. “Unfortunately, I couldn’t tell them you had agreed. Even though I said I intended to discuss the matter with you again, they weren’t impressed. Thus the added character to my person. I am told that next time they’ll break bones.”
“Here in my house.” Jean-Marc shook his head, bewildered. “Villains are coming and going in this house without anyone stopping them.”
“Seemed to know their way about.”
“And you couldn’t make yourself heard? Didn’t you call out, man?”
“Difficult with rags in your mouth.”
“Tomorrow we go to Windsor.”
“Won’t help. They’ll find us.”
Jean-Marc didn’t say that he also thought they would be followed in short order. But it would be harder for a stranger to walk into Riverside and not be noticed. There was too much going on here, too much easy cover for someone who wanted to get lost
among the host of vendors and craftsmen who came every day—to say nothing of the multitudes of guests and callers.
“Let me look at you,” Jean-Marc said. “What have they done to you, apart from the obvious?”
“You can see the worst of it. They took a strap to my back, but I have a salve. I’ll find a way to get it applied.”
“Pierre would do it.”
Verbeux shook his head. “He’s not accustomed to such things.”
“I’ve brought Miss Smiles to you. I hoped you could look at the burns on her ankles, but you’re not fit.”
“Burns, My Lord? How was she burned?”
“Undoubtedly by one of your friends. He made her dance over a lighted taper. Took some liberties, too, unless I’m much mistaken.” He felt Verbeux’s eyes upon him, assessing. “Yes, I’m angry, if that’s what you’re trying to decide. The thought of some foul creature putting his hands on her sickens me. And it angers me enough to know I could be dangerous—to others and to myself.”
“Foul,” Verbeux agreed quietly. “They are without scruples, without any honorable cause.”
Jean-Marc looked at Verbeux with curiosity. “You speak as if you know these people.”
“Perhaps I do,” Verbeux said, defiant. “Perhaps you do, also.”
Jean-Marc turned his back on Verbeux.
“They do not intend to stop,” Verbeux said. “Surely you see that now. Surely you understand. They would prefer you dead. Too much risk with that. Reprisals likely. Driving you out is the next best thing.”
“They will not succeed.”
“Why? Why would you fight for something you do not want?”
“Until now the answer to that question has been unclear,” Jean-Marc said, “but now I believe I know what drives me to stand my ground. It is not for myself. I will tell you that it is for my father, but there is also another, and I cannot tell you who it is. I cannot know who may be listening, or from where. To mention that name might be to put another life in even greater danger than we have so far feared.”
“Your father?” Verbeux said. He winced and hunched his shoulders. “You would protect the man who has never shown you the smallest amount of affection?”
Jean-Marc’s vision lost focus. “We cannot know all that is in a man’s heart. He makes decisions based on what he has been taught, what he believes his duty to be. But he is just a man and can only guess the right path.”
“So you think your father has been hiding a great love for you?”
“We will not speak further of this.” He could not, because the bitter longing he felt was too destructive.
Pierre stepped into the room. “Lady Upworth is here. She wishes to see M. Verbeux.”
“Damn it,” Jean-Marc said. “What could she possibly want at such an hour?”
“Evidently she is concerned for his health,” Pierre said.
Verbeux said, “I think I have become her confidant for the moment. Not a happy woman.”
“She is comforting Miss Smiles,” Pierre said.
Jean-Marc threw up his hands. “I said Miss Smiles should not be disturbed.”
“Shall I send Lady Upworth away?”
Ila, pushing her way into the room, favored Pierre with a deeply disdainful stare. She smiled at Jean-Marc and immediately turned her attention to Verbeux. Rising to her toes, she approached the bed. “M. Verbeux? Oh, I should not have rushed away. They attacked you again, didn’t they?”
“Those people used a whip on his back,” Jean-Marc said. “Pierre, kindly get M. Verbeux’s salve and apply it.”
“Hurry,” Ila told Pierre. “Bring it at once.” She tugged off the cape she wore and threw it aside. “I was frightened, so I shut myself away for a time. Then I went about some errands that had to be done. Why didn’t I return to you sooner? You, who are always so kind to me.”
“Don’t babble,” Verbeux said, and Jean-Marc’s lips twitched. His man was confounded by such a show of womanly concern for him.
“Remember your place, sir,” Ila said. She whipped the covers back so swiftly that Verbeux’s attempt to catch them was too late. “On your face. At once. I am no stranger to nursing men. My husband’s final illness was long, and he would only allow me near him. Pierre?”
Obediently, Pierre produced a jar from which he unscrewed the top.
Ila considered Verbeux, who had yet to turn onto his stomach. “Do as I tell you or I shall have you held down and—”
“Yes, yes,” he interrupted. “Turn your back.”
She threw up her hands, but did as he asked. Verbeux shook his head, but pulled the sheet up to his waist and rolled to his stomach.
“He’s ready,” Jean-Marc said, barely swallowing a chuckle.
Ila took the salve from Pierre and went to Verbeux. An instant, and his nightshirt was over his head. At the sight of his vicious wounds Ila’s nostrils flared with anger. She sat beside him on the high mattress and proceeded to smooth the thick, white substance over his back.
She was exceedingly gentle, Jean-Marc noted.
Each time Verbeux sucked in a breath, she made soft clucking sounds or hushed him quietly and murmured encouragement.
Pierre withdrew.
Jean-Marc studied the two on the bed for moments longer. There was probably nothing between them—yet. “What would you suggest be used on the burns?” he said.
“Pierre will give it to you,” Verbeux said. “The air will make the wounds hurt more. They should be kept covered. The preparation is well-known among some. An old remedy, but efficacious. If she suffers too much pain, brandy will at least help her not to care. Ah.”
Evidently Lady Upworth’s fingers, coated in salve, could do magical things for a man’s wounds.
Neither Verbeux nor Ila noticed when Jean-Marc left them.
Pierre, who evidently overheard every word that had been spoken, gave Jean-Marc a bottle. “They say there is silver in it. I don’t know if it is true, but many swear the lesions heal faster, and there is much less pain.”
Meg’s cheek rested against the back of the couch. The veils obscured her face. “She is asleep again,” Jean-Marc said. “Sleep is good for her, but she would undoubtedly be less disquieted if she awakened in her own room. Between us we could lift her very carefully.”
But Jean-Marc didn’t want help lifting Meg.
She turned her face in his direction and said, “I am not asleep.”
“Is that so?” Jean-Marc said. “Then we had best make our way.” And, although he was careful not to touch her ankles, he scooped her up without ceremony.
She didn’t uncover her face, but settled it against his chest as if it were the most natural thing in the world to do.
“When Lady Upworth leaves, please keep careful watch over M. Verbeux,” Jean-Marc told Pierre. “He is unlikely to complain, regardless of how much pain he suffers. Do not hesitate to send for my physician if you consider it necessary.”
“You may rely on me, My Lord.”
Pierre opened the door, and Jean-Marc thanked him as he passed. He went swiftly to his own rooms. There, where weapons were easily to hand, he felt more confident of reacting appropriately to any intrusion.
Meg seemed to drift and felt less substantial. When he glanced at the blistered wounds on her ankles, it was with horror. The savage fool who did this could have caught her afire, and this would be a very different moment. She would not be resting in his arms, with trusting, almost childlike serenity.
With barely a shred of conscience, he took her into his bedchamber and stretched her out on the counterpane.
The drive to keep her safe, to keep her with him, constricted his throat. All so strange in a man who had tailored his relationships to assure the least possible attachment.
He could do as Verbeux suggested and toss aside all concern for his father, for Désirée and Mont Nuages. He could make public his attachment to Meg Smiles and announce that he planned to leave public life and make his permanent residence in England. He would fa
rm the hundreds of acres of fertile lands that were presided over by the lord of Riverside Place. No doubt his villagers in tiny Castleberry would be glad enough to know the lord of the manor was at the helm, rather than the steward who acted in his stead. There was a church to be better tended, and a village school in need of repair. Livestock should be brought in, and the workers’ homes improved where necessary. He could make his life count for something simple and good, and with a supportive woman at his side, perhaps he could learn to feel complete. And if his father wanted his assistance as an ambassador, well then, he would always be willing to do his duty.
Then there was the matter of Désirée. The missish creature was probably hatching some plot to run off with an impoverished painter. A talented painter, but without substance and certainly without breeding. That Jean-Marc couldn’t allow, particularly since he had definite plans for his half sister and they would not allow for any kittenish infatuation.
It was true that he doubted Adam Chillworth entertained ideas that included marriage to a seventeen-year-old and very spoiled princess.
He must not delay any longer in tending to Meg’s burns. Perhaps he should clean them. If he did, it would surely cause her to cry out, and to struggle, and she might hurt herself further.
The lotion Pierre had given him had a sharp, metallic scent.
“I’m going to make you more comfortable, Meggie,” he said. “If I hurt you a little in doing so, please be patient with me.”
She undid the little jeweled clasp that held the veil in place and pulled it off. “Jean-Marc, what is to become of us?”
He was instantly still.
“I was told that I must leave this house—” her eyes slid away “—and take you with me. I have been warned that there is great trouble all around us and that if the wishes of certain people are not met, the result will be terrible.”
“And I have been told the same thing. In my case the message was sent via Verbeux, by those who assaulted him.”
“He came to me, too. But that…As I’ve told you, the man in the attic told me the same thing.”
“I’m no longer sure how much good it may do, but we will leave here in the morning,” Jean-Marc said. “I will take select members of the household. You and Sibyl will come. Ash, I suppose. No one I have not spoken to in advance.”
All Smiles Page 35