But right now she didn’t regret her few stolen moments with Pierce. They would sustain her for years to come.
They would have to. Now that she knew what love was like, she didn’t want to go through it with anyone else. She didn’t think she could bear this pain more than once.
Tears threatened again, and she lifted her handkerchief to blot them before they could fall.
“Perhaps you should have gone with him,” the countess said in a ragged whisper.
The words, sounding like a dismissal, startled her. “Will it be so hard for you to endure my presence now?”
“No! Never, my dear, never. But I hate to see him go off alone.” Her ladyship seized Camilla’s hand and squeezed it. “And I hate to see you so unhappy.”
The countess’s words made Camilla want to cry even more. She squeezed her ladyship’s hand back. “I’ll be fine.”
One day perhaps. But at the moment, it didn’t feel as if she’d ever be fine again.
“I suppose you did the right thing. It wouldn’t do for Jasper—”
“No, it wouldn’t,” Camilla said firmly. It wouldn’t do for her, either. Spending her life as Pierce’s sometime lover would have drained the heart out of her.
“He shouldn’t have asked it of you,” her ladyship said. “It was very wrong of him.”
“He was just being Pierce.”
And yet . . .
She kept seeing the look of betrayal on his face. He’d been sure she would go with him, especially since she’d been foolish enough to tell him how she felt about him.
Of course, then the wretch had tried to use that against her. Anger coursed through her, and she choked it down. What else had she expected? That he would profess his undying love? She should have kept her feelings to herself.
The door burst open, and Maisie rushed in with a wide-awake Jasper in her arms. “What’s going on, milady? The poor lad woke up in a fright at all the noise.”
Lady Devonmont drew herself up, becoming her usual restrained self once more. “His lordship is leaving.”
“In the middle of the night? But why . . . what . . . ” Maisie glanced to where Camilla stood, now dressed but with her hair still down about her shoulders and her eyes teary, and Maisie’s lips tightened into a line. “I see.”
“You are not to say a word about this,” the countess commanded. “Not to anyone, do you understand?”
“Of course, milady,” Maisie said fiercely. “I would never do anything to harm you or Mrs. Stuart.”
Camilla cast the maid a grateful smile.
Sudden silence descended on the house, and her ladyship sighed. “He must be gone now.”
“Yes.” Camilla’s stomach plummeted. Oh, how would she bear it?
Jasper reached for Camilla, and she took him from Maisie. He stared up at her sleepily. “Why did his lordship go away, Mama? And why didn’t he say farewell to me?”
“I’m sure he wanted to, my dear boy,” Lady Devonmont put in, “but he was in a very big hurry. He has a lot of important matters requiring his attention in London, you know.”
Jasper stared at the countess. “Because he’s the great earl, you mean.”
“Yes, exactly,” Camilla choked out. The great earl who equated believing in love to believing in flying reindeer. Because if he believed in love, he’d have to put the past behind him, and he just couldn’t.
“But what about Christmas?” Jasper asked. “And what about Blixem? He said he’d give me Blixem when we got home, and he forgot.”
“I’ll give you Blixem,” her ladyship answered. “Don’t you worry about that.”
“And if you’ll recall,” Camilla added, “his lordship did say he wouldn’t be here for Christmas. He has to go to Waverly Farm.”
“I remember.” Jasper pouted. “I just thought he might change his mind.”
Thank heaven Pierce had left when he had. Right now Jasper was merely intrigued by the man, but many more encounters and his leaving would have hurt the boy deeply.
Rubbing his eyes, Jasper stared into her face. “Does this mean I don’t get to learn to ride a pony? His lordship said there was a Welsh pony in the stables, and I could learn to ride it.”
“And you shall.” Lady Devonmont’s voice was firm. “I’ll speak to Mr. Fowler about it tomorrow.”
“I don’t know if I want to anymore.” Jasper laid his head on Camilla’s shoulder. “It won’t be the same without his lordship. Will it, Mama?”
“No, muffin, it won’t,” she choked out.
Nothing would ever be the same again.
23
Pierce tried to sleep on his way back to London, but it was impossible. He couldn’t cast Camilla from his mind. At first all he could do was rage at her for her small-mindedness. How could she not see the value of what he offered? And how could she claim Jasper would be harmed by their association? He would never hurt the lad. Never!
Jasper would gain advantages beyond her wildest imaginings: schools and money and—
And after we no longer have you? What becomes of us then?
He clenched his hands into fists. The words rankled. Yet as his temper cooled, his rational mind reasserted itself, and he recognized that her words were fair. She had every right to worry about the future. Her idiot husband had died unexpectedly, and she and Jasper had been left with nothing. It could happen to Pierce just as easily.
All right, perhaps that was true. But he would make provisions, legal provisions.
It has nothing to do with money! I can’t risk your coming in and out of Jasper’s life at your leisure. Small children don’t understand such things. You of all people should know that.
He did. God, how he did.
His heart pounding, he stared out the coach window at the pre-dawn darkness. The snowy fields glowed white beneath the waning moon, reminding him of the day he’d left home for school, not knowing it would be his last day at Montcliff for years to come.
And he realized with a jolt that if Camilla had chosen him over Jasper, she would be no better than his own mother, who’d chosen Father over him.
Or had she?
He’d scoffed when Mother had said she’d acted in his own interests, but now he had to reconsider that possibility. If Father had held something over Mother’s head, as he and Camilla had postulated, what if it really had been something having to do with him? Pierce couldn’t see how that was possible, but then, he couldn’t see straight when it came to the past.
Camilla had recognized that.
I truly do love you. But until you put the past behind you, you won’t be free to love me or anyone else.
Try as he might, the words kept thrumming through his brain. It was easy for her to say—she didn’t have his past.
No, he thought wryly, she merely lived with the daily realization that her parents hadn’t wanted her at all. That she’d been born destitute in ways he couldn’t begin to understand, even with his own painful situation.
He let out a long breath. No wonder she couldn’t accept his offer to make her his mistress. She yearned to be wanted for herself, as she never had been, and what he was offering was a poor substitute.
But could he offer her more? Did he dare? Or would he be better off not risking it?
He still had no answers by the time the coach arrived at his town house shortly after dawn. The servants were prepared for him since he’d sent word ahead, but even their presence couldn’t liven a place that felt like a tomb after the bustle and cheer of the dower house. He hadn’t realized until now how sterile his life had become, with his mistress relegated to her own lodging.
Indeed, even before he’d gone to Hertfordshire, his most pleasant days had begun to be the ones spent with his cousins and their friends the Sharpes. What did it say about him that he increasingly found enjoyment only with happy couples and relations?
He ought to go to bed—he hadn’t slept in twenty-four hours. But he was too restless to sleep. And a few moments playing the pianoforte in
his drawing room gave him no comfort, either.
The brandy decanter tempted him briefly, but he’d gone that route three days ago. It had been oddly unsatisfying.
Thinking that losing himself in work might be the best alternative, he headed for his study. But as he stood behind the desk, sifting through the pile of mail that Boyd had left for him, he was arrested by the sight of the infamous box of Mother’s letters.
Pierce’s throat tightened as he stared at them.
Then he sat down, dumped out the box so that the very first letter was on top, opened it, and began to read.
My dearest son,
You cannot know how much I have missed you all these years. You probably have trouble believing that, but it is the absolute truth. Being with you at the funeral, even with you so very angry at me, made all the rest of it bearable.
May I say that you were dressed very well? I was glad to see it. Your great-uncle always said that you wore a fine coat better than any man he knew, and I quite agree.
The nine-page letter went on in that vein, mixing her observations of him from the funeral with information she had apparently gleaned from his great-uncle. He hadn’t known that his uncle wrote to her, but it wouldn’t have mattered if he had, for apparently she hadn’t written back to Uncle Isaac, either, since she made no mention of it.
But here and there her letters to Pierce contained a reference to this or that anecdote Uncle Isaac had written about him. Some events she described had so faded into the distant mists of his memory that he was astonished anyone remembered them, especially her.
As he tore through letter after letter, she commented on her daily life, but the accounts always rambled into memories she’d stored up of him from myriad sources. Some were gleaned from the newspapers—in one letter she waxed on for pages about how Eugenia wasn’t worthy of him—and some were taken from his great-uncle’s and the late Titus Waverly’s letters.
Occasionally she would recount something that Fowler had told her of Pierce’s work at the estate. She even offered advice, and he realized with faint amusement that although he hadn’t read any of it, it had still filtered to him through Fowler, and he’d often taken her advice secondhand.
It took him several hours to read all of her letters, and when he was done, he sat back with a tightness in his chest. Years of tales of him were recounted, some that he couldn’t believe she’d even heard about. It was as if she’d stored up his entire life for the day when she could relive it with him. The day when she could be with him again.
And he had spurned the gift without even giving it a glance. Why? Because she wouldn’t explain herself or her actions.
She didn’t do it in the letters, either, just as Camilla had predicted. There were no references to his years of banishment, no mention of that horrible day in the study. She barely spoke of Father at all. It was as if the man had disappeared from her thoughts and memories on the day of his death. Clearly, there’d been no love there.
Yet love for her son shone in every word.
He sat there with the last letter in his hand, his blood thundering and his eyes misty with tears, and read the last line. It was the same last line of every single letter in the box:
Even if you can never forgive me, my son, know that I will love you until I die. And beyond, if God would allow it.
He stared blindly across the study, and Camilla’s words came to him.
Your mother may have abandoned you at eight, but you had her until then. And when she gave you up, she made sure you were put in a safe place, a comfortable place, with good people who cared about you. . . . So don’t tell me how justified you are in throwing away a mother who loves you.
Mother had loved him. He could see that now.
Camilla had said that the very fact of her love might have to be enough for him. That he might never know the truth about why she’d banished him for so many years.
But could he put the past behind him and just go on, build a relationship with his mother outside of the past?
He didn’t think he could. Not because he didn’t want to but because he didn’t think Mother could, either. No matter how they tried to ignore it, those years of pain would taint every encounter.
If Camilla was right, however, and Mother would never reveal the truth, then he’d have to discover it on his own. He knew more now than when he’d gone off to Hertfordshire. He might even know enough to get him started solving the puzzle.
Because it was time he got to the bottom of things. Since she wouldn’t reveal it, he would unveil it. It was better than sitting around brooding over Camilla, better than parsing his wreck of a life for what he might have done differently.
And he knew just the man to help him do it, too.
A few hours later, fueled by coffee and a fresh purpose, Pierce was being shown into Sir Jackson Pinter’s grand new office in Bow Street.
The famous former Bow Street Runner had been knighted for solving the twenty-year-old murder of the Sharpe siblings’ parents. Thanks to that—and other celebrated cases—he was now chief magistrate, but as far as Pierce knew, he still did investigative work. At least Pierce hoped so. Because if Sir Jackson couldn’t find out the truth, no one could.
But only when the former runner greeted him with a decidedly cool manner did Pierce remember that the fellow didn’t like him. Unbeknownst to Pierce at the time, the woman who was now Sir Jackson’s wife had briefly used Pierce as a pretend suitor in part of a scheme to thwart her grandmother’s edict of marriage.
He’d forgotten that rather sticky point.
“Have a seat, Devonmont,” Sir Jackson said with a jerk of his head toward the chair before his desk.
As Sir Jackson sat down, Pierce did the same. “You look well,” Pierce said, figuring he’d best smooth the past over if he could. “Marriage suits you.”
A smile stole over the man’s face, softening what were generally rather harsh features. “Marriage and fatherhood. I have a son now, you know.”
“I heard. Congratulations. Did he come out brandishing a pistol?”
Sir Jackson blinked, then laughed. “No, but if Celia has her way, he’ll be learning to aim one by the time he’s three.”
“If anyone could teach him how to shoot, it’s your wife. And if anyone could teach him when to shoot, it’s you.”
“Thank you, my lord.” Looking a bit more genial, Sir Jackson settled back in his chair. “Now tell me, what brings you to Bow Street?”
Pierce got right to the point. “Actually, I have need of your services to find out information about a cousin of my mother’s.”
“Your estranged mother?” Sir Jackson said.
“You know about that?”
“Aside from the fact that the Sharpes are notorious gossips, I . . . er . . . did a bit of research into your background for Celia.”
“Ah.” Pierce wasn’t surprised. He wasn’t even annoyed. Since Sir Jackson seemed a bit embarrassed by it, he might be willing to make up for it by helping Pierce now. “Well, that’s all water under the bridge.” He arched an eyebrow at Sir Jackson. “As long as you’re willing to take the case.”
“Willingness has nothing to do with it, I’m afraid. I don’t do that sort of work anymore. Between serving as chief magistrate and being asked to supervise a number of criminal investigations, I have no time.”
Pierce sighed. “I was afraid that might be the situation.”
“However,” Sir Jackson continued, “I’ve passed off the private investigations part of my work to a new fellow. He’s very competent, worked for me for years, and has now struck off on his own. And you’re in luck—he just happens to be here today, questioning some fellow in our custody. If you can wait a minute, I’ll have him fetched.”
“Thank you,” Pierce said.
Sir Jackson rose and headed for the door. “You’ll like the man. He was a Harrovian like yourself, though in a younger class, I believe. His name’s Manton. Dominick Manton.”
And before Pier
ce could react, Sir Jackson was out the door.
Manton? The brother of George Manton did investigative work? How the devil had that come about? Viscounts’ sons, even younger ones, didn’t do work for hire. And certainly not that kind of work for hire.
He vaguely remembered Dominick Manton—a sullen, quiet chap with a passion for dogs and mathematics, who was two years Pierce’s junior. While George had stalked about bullying all the younger boys, including Dominick, his little brother had sat in the corner reading tomes by Sir Isaac Newton. Strange fellow.
But as Sir Jackson brought Manton in, Pierce had to acknowledge that he’d grown up well enough. Nor did he much resemble his brother. George, now the Viscount Rathmoor, was beefy and hard-faced, though handsome enough to have snagged himself a very wealthy wife. The last time Pierce had seen Rathmoor, the man still had a body like a mastiff, all head and brawn.
Manton, however, had a body like a Labrador—leaner and sleeker, with intelligent eyes. His black hair was unfashionably short, and a light scar crested one cheek, giving him a rakish appearance.
“My lord,” Manton said after Sir Jackson introduced them.
Pierce found the formal address ironic, considering they were both gentlemen. “You may not recall, but I went to school with you and your brother.”
The tightening of Manton’s lips at Pierce’s mention of Rathmoor told Pierce a great deal. The brothers clearly didn’t get along.
Which was fine by him. Anyone who hated Rathmoor was a friend of Pierce’s.
“I remember,” Manton said. “You had asthma.”
“For a while, yes.”
“If you gentlemen don’t mind,” Sir Jackson broke in, “I’m expected at a meeting down the hall. But you’re welcome to talk in here if you like.” He sighed. “The only thing I hate about being chief magistrate is all the damned meetings.”
Pierce chuckled. “Not as exciting as running after nefarious criminals, I would expect.”
“Not even as exciting as eating supper,” Sir Jackson said wryly, before he disappeared out the door.
Once again, Pierce took a seat in front of the desk, but Manton took the chair next to his.
’Twas the Night After Christmas Page 23