The Fall of a Saint

by Christine Merrill

‘I thought you dead,’ she said flatly. ‘The Horse Guard could tell me nothing of your whereabouts after the Battle of New Orleans. I spoke with your parents, and they knew nothing either.’

  ‘Probably because I had not contacted them until just last month,’ he said with a dismissive wave of his hand. ‘You know my father had no patience for me when I refused to take over the shop from him. It was why I bought the commission.’

  ‘He was upset because you took money from the till without asking,’ she said as gently as possible. Richard had been stubborn then, as had his father. The fights had been horrible. ‘And they did not approve of what happened between us. I was not welcome in the house after you left. But the school did not mind if I remained there during holidays.’

  ‘Do you blame me for that now?’ He looked indignant.

  ‘Certainly not,’ she said hurriedly. ‘It did not matter so very much to me. But I did miss you, once you were gone. To hear not a word, even after the war had ended...’ There was probably a logical explanation. Soon he would tell her of a wound followed by fever and a recovery in some distant sick ward. He would assure her that contact had been impossible. Then she could go back to feeling sorry for her betrayal instead of annoyed that he had waited so long to come to her.

  He smiled in the same knowing way he had when he’d seen her. ‘I was busy.’ He glanced down again. ‘Just as you were.’

  Busy. She deserved more than that after all this time. Months had turned into years. Had he really been too busy to write to his true love? There was no point in resurrecting the exact reason for his disappearance. ‘I am married now.’ Any marriage, for any reason, meant a permanent parting from Richard.

  ‘So I see.’ Richard was still trying to look hurt.

  ‘I waited,’ she reminded him, lest he think her too changeable. ‘I waited for years. And I did my best to make it easy for you to find me if you returned. I wrote your parents as well, with each change in position.’

  ‘When I visited them, they gave me your last letter and informed me of your intent to move again,’ Richard said with a smile. ‘But when I went to find you, another governess worked in your place. And your employer told me a most interesting story. And then there was the announcement in The Times of the sudden marriage of the Duke of St Aldric.’

  He knew. Perhaps not everything, but enough to guess what had happened.

  ‘There was an embarrassing misunderstanding,’ she said, amazed that she was saying such a thing. ‘For a time, it was all quite difficult. But we have settled things between us and are quite happy now.’ Not as happy as she might have wished, but better than she had ever imagined.

  ‘It is a comfort that you did so well from it and avoided any scandal.’ There was a dangerous pause. ‘Because of an accident in Dover, St Aldric made you a duchess.’ He looked down again. ‘I suppose that it is his child you carry?’

  ‘Suppose?’ This hurt even worse than his expression. ‘Of course it is his. Who else’s could it be?’

  Richard shrugged. ‘There was a rumour about that he was unable. And you must understand, after what we were to each other, that I of all people know that you are quite willing...’

  ‘I loved you!’ Surely he did not think her some common trollop.

  She heard an approaching footstep in the hall, louder than usual, as though someone wished to be heard before he entered. A moment later, St Aldric stood in the doorway, smiling and gracious, pretending that he had heard nothing of the previous conversation. ‘I was told you had company, my dear. A Mr Colver?’ He was looking at Richard, as though weighing him with a glance. ‘Am I to meet a member of your family at last?’

  Maddie rose to encourage Richard to get to his feet. ‘Your Grace, may I present Mr Richard Colver.’ She would not stammer or flush. She was the Duchess of St Aldric and should be more than able to handle such a temporary awkwardness as introducing her former lover to her husband. ‘He is the eldest son of the family who raised me.’

  Richard had the sense to bow, and St Aldric acknowledged him with a nod of his head and a smile that was several degrees cooler than normal. ‘Mr Colver.’ Michael put a slight emphasis on Mr. It was unusual, for he never felt the need to point out another’s inferiority.

  Perhaps there was some military rank she could use when addressing Richard to make a better impression. She chided herself for this sudden snobbery. Had a few months with the duke really changed her so much? At one time, she’d sworn that she did not need money or rank to wed Richard Colver. But neither did she enjoy her husband’s insolent pleasure at the lack of them.

  ‘Maddie and I are old friends, your Grace. Very old, very dear friends.’ Why could not Richard manage to behave as a gentleman? He was a shopkeeper’s son in the house of a peer. Their old friendship did not give him right to such a possessive smile and the deliberate use of a diminutive that St Aldric did not make use of himself.

  ‘Of course,’ the duke replied. ‘She speaks of you often.’

  ‘Does she really?’ Richard was grinning in response, as though wondering about the truth of this. But he could not be as surprised as Maddie was. At times, St Aldric might be evasive. But she had never heard him speak total untruth.

  ‘But I have not seen Richard in a very long time,’ she reminded them both. ‘Years, in fact.’ She looked at Richard again. ‘As I told you, I thought you dead. In the Battle of New Orleans.’

  Richard responded with a puppet-like nod, as though he were only agreeing with a complete falsehood to keep the peace.

  ‘He saw the announcement of our wedding and sought me out to offer congratulations,’ she finished, for her husband’s sake. It might not have been his reason for the visit, but it was the only one she was willing to accept. ‘Now that you have done so, Mr Colver, you must be eager to continue on to visit your parents. They are in Norfolk,’ she added, to assure St Aldric that this would not be a regular occurrence. ‘That is quite a distance from here.’

  ‘Then I expect you will want to rest before your travels,’ the duke said with his usual false smile. ‘If it has been years since you’ve talked, there is much you must wish to say, if you are indeed such old and dear friends.’

  ‘I am sure that Mr Colver has other plans,’ she said hurriedly.

  ‘On the contrary, I am at liberty.’ Richard smiled back at the duke, ignoring her attempts to put him off.

  ‘Then you must stay with us as long as you like,’ the duke said, the picture of hospitality. ‘In fact, I insist upon it. Should we put him in the red suite in the west wing? The view is lovely. It will be most convenient, I am sure.’ The phrase was innocent enough, but she knew his meaning. The red suite was part of the discreet maze that connected to her bedchambers. He was asking if she meant to cuckold him. To carry on as his mother had, entertaining lovers while he was still in the house.

  ‘That will not be necessary,’ she said, firmly hoping that it would reassure him.

  ‘That will be delightful.’ Richard had talked over her objection, accepting before she could find a way to put him off.

  ‘The blue rooms are much more suitable,’ she insisted. ‘They are larger and more convenient to the servants.’ And less embarrassing, since they were nearer the head of the stairs and opened onto the main corridor of the wing. ‘I will speak to the housekeeper immediately and arrange for them to be opened. If you gentlemen will excuse me?’

  It was a risk, leaving the two of them together to compare stories. But she had other things to worry about. The staff must prepare a guest room in a house that was not fit for guests. And she must invite... No. She must demand the company of Sam and Evelyn at dinner. A few minutes alone with the two men had seemed an eternity. She did not think she could stand to take supper alone with them, as well.

  But first and foremost she must find Peg and tell her to lock all doors in the duchess wing t
hat were not the blue suite, especially any that connected to her own room.

  Chapter Fifteen

  So this was the man that his wife truly loved.

  Michael could not help but be disappointed, for he’d thought that she had better taste. He supposed Richard Colver was handsome enough, with thick, dark hair and the devil in his eyes. If she’d known him all her life, Madeline might have been too young and naive to resist his charms when he’d first seduced her. But it did not explain what the man was doing in his house and why he had heard his wife protesting that she loved him.

  Now that Madeline was gone and they were alone together, the lout had the gall to stare back at him with a smug smile upon his face, all but announcing his previous intimacy with Michael’s wife.

  The duke waited. And waited still longer, until nearly a minute had ticked by and the smile of the man at last began to fade. Then he walked to the sofa and arranged himself upon it, gesturing to the most uncomfortable chair in the room. ‘Please, Mr Colver. Let us sit.’

  The interloper took the offered chair and tried to find a comfortable position in it, then reached for his brandy.

  Michael stared at the glass, making no comment about it one way or the other. But the intense gaze was a reminder of the fact that the man who paid for the liquor had the sense not to drink it before noon.

  Colver set it aside again.

  ‘So, Mr Colver—’ he smiled ‘—I am always interested in meeting friends of my wife. Please, tell me about yourself.’

  Colver’s silence to this was telling. In Michael’s experience, men who paused significantly when asked such a simple question were searching for the best lie to tell. ‘I am an old friend of Maddie’s.’

  ‘So you said.’

  ‘And a veteran of the war in the Americas,’ Colver added.

  ‘The Battle of New Orleans,’ Michael reminded him. ‘But that was several years ago, was it not? What has occupied you since?’

  ‘That is of little importance,’ Colver said.

  Which likely meant drinking and gambling and whoring.

  ‘When I discovered that Maddie had married, I was eager to renew our acquaintance and assure myself that she was happy.’

  ‘She is.’ He was unaccustomed to making such blanket statements for her. But who better to do it than the man who shared her bed each night?

  ‘We were quite close, your Grace.’ Colver was smiling again, regaining his confidence. ‘One might even say we were betrothed.’

  ‘Either you were or you weren’t,’ Michael said bluntly. ‘Which was it?’

  And there was the pause again. ‘We had an understanding,’ Colver said. ‘She agreed to wait for me while I made my fortune so that we could be married.’

  ‘How unfortunate that you did not arrive sooner.’

  ‘Unfortunate indeed, your Grace. I would have withdrawn from the situation had she not reached out to me, speaking of her unhappiness and her longing that we might be together again.’

  It was obviously an untruth. She would never have said such a thing. At least not lately. He was sure of it.

  ‘And when she told me of the unfortunate circumstances of your meeting, the uproar in the night when you were discovered....’

  He knew about Dover. Who could have told him of that but Madeline? Had his wife’s sudden change in manner towards him been nothing but a trick? Of late she had seemed aloof. And there was the continual use of his title.... What did he really know of women?

  Most important, how well did he know Madeline?

  Nothing would be served by ejecting the man from the house before he understood the extent of the problem. ‘Whatever occurred has been settled between us for some time. She is married and with child.’

  ‘I had not expected that she would marry another,’ Colver argued. ‘But the fact that she is with child is not so big a surprise. When one is in love, one is sometimes less than careful about such things.’

  ‘She deserves none of the blame for this,’ Michael said, conscious of his wife’s honour. ‘I was the one who was careless that night.’ And she had not loved him when they had conceived.

  ‘But we were very much in love,’ Richard admitted.

  Suddenly, Michael realised that they were talking at cross-purposes. He had been blurting awkward statements to a man whose meaning had been quite different.

  He felt like a fool.

  He had been sure of only one thing in the past nine months. Despite his fears, he had been able to father a child. But suppose Colver spoke the truth and Madeline had rushed to him with another man’s baby?

  No matter what had passed between them, this man had waited until he was sure Madeline had married well before coming to her aid. His behaviour was suspect and his answers to other questions had been evasive. There was no reason to believe him now.

  But there was always the possibility that, in this, he spoke the truth. Michael’s doubt was small. But if he was not careful, it could grow like a worm in an apple.

  ‘So you were in love,’ Michael said, dismissing something that had no part in the discussion. ‘How fortunate for you. But I fail to see what your lost love has to do with my wife and my child.’ No matter what the truth might be, and what he might feel for a woman who could not even call him by name, he was positive he hated Richard Colver.

  ‘We will not argue about the parentage of the child, for that is beneath contempt.’ But Colver smiled as he said it as though he had no doubt of the truth, but wished to humour his host. ‘Maddie is another matter entirely. She claims she thought me dead. Accepting your offer was clearly an act of desperation.’

  Then take her and be gone. It was the wounded cry of his heart. But since Michael was not even sure he had a heart, he ignored it. ‘You assume, now that you have finally arrived, that she would prefer to go with you.’

  ‘We would leave the baby with you, of course,’ Colver said.

  ‘How magnanimous of you,’ Michael responded.

  ‘But should that child be a girl, it would be quite awkward, would it not? Then you would have no heir and no wife.’

  Or he could succumb to instinct and have Colver thrown into the street. Then he would lock the doors of the duchess wing with his wife inside and visit her nightly until they had a son. There would be no further nonsense about escaping from a life of luxury with an itinerant soldier.

  Then he imagined Madeline tugging helplessly on an immovable door, just as he had done so long ago. Madeline, to whom he had promised everything, including her freedom, should she want it.

  ‘Of course, we might handle this in another way,’ Colver suggested to fill the silence. ‘A simple settlement for the loss of her affections and I will take my broken heart and go.’

  ‘You wish me to pay you to leave her?’ Michael laughed. ‘It did not take money to make you go away before.’

  ‘But now I am concerned with her welfare. After what happened in Dover...’ He shook his head in disgust. ‘I could not part from her so easily,’ he said.

  ‘You wish me to buy you off.’ Michael thought about this for a moment and laughed again.

  ‘We were practically married,’ Colver repeated.

  Then Michael rose and advanced on the man. Colver was the taller by a tiny margin. One hoped a trained soldier would have skills to defend himself.

  Colver raised his hands, ready to fight.

  ‘Before you strike, remember who it is you hit. It is more than a simple crime to slap a peer. You will hang for it.’ It was a pity, really, for Michael most wanted to punch the man. But it would not have been fair to provoke a fight just to see his opponent arrested.

  ‘Then do not threaten me,’ Colver said with a stammer.

  ‘I am not threatening,’ Michael said with a smile. ‘It is more of a promise.
If you go from here, it will not be because I paid you to do it. I might have the power to buy you off, but if I do, you will be back again when the money runs out. I have the power to make you disappear. A word from me and you will be in Newgate. Two words and you will hang.’

  ‘You would not dare,’ Colver said with no real conviction.

  ‘I would not bother,’ Michael said in response, ‘unless Madeline requests it of me. My affection for her has kept me from interfering so far. Since you are such an old friend of hers, I would not deny her your company. If, once our child is born, she wishes to go with you, I will not stop her. I promised her anything. And I mean to give it to her, even if what she wishes is you.’

  Michael stared at the man until he was sure that Colver understood what an unworthy choice he was, and then continued.

  ‘But if Madeline grows tired of you, or you annoy her in any way, God help you. There is no telling what might happen. What with the pregnancy, she is in a most volatile frame of mind. I suggest, whatever she might decide to do with you, that you treat her well. For if you hurt her, I will end you.’

  And then he excused himself from the room to give his wife’s lover the privacy to run or stand his ground.

  * * *

  For the first time since he’d come back to Aldric House, Michael locked the door behind him before taking to his own wing. He did not like locked doors, even when he held the key to them. Tonight, however, the less he knew about what went on in the rest of the house, the better.

  He had hoped that the problem might have solved itself after his terse conversation with Colver. But though the man was not particularly smart, he was persistent. He had moved into the room that Madeline had selected for him and would likely be there until someone put him out by force. Since Michael had no intention of intervening, it would be up to his wife to settle the matter.

  Dinner had been a tense affair, even with Madeline’s attempt to keep things civil by inviting the Hastingses. Colver had taken any chance to remark on his close association with Madeline, trying to turn the conversation to mutual friends and jokes that only they would understand. Madeline was clearly uncomfortable, looking the way he had felt in their early days together, when he expected any word from her mouth to be a snide reminder of the past.