“Aye.”
“I should have told her the truth then. But after Father…”
He trailed off, still unable to speak easily of his father’s suicide, which had occurred six years after Charlotte opened the school. Two suicides—his father’s and later, his wife’s. The first was not his fault, but the second…
Baines glanced up, then frowned. “Sir, there is a man approaching.”
David scarcely had time to turn before a stranger reached the table, hat in hand. “Good evening, my lord. My name is Ned Timms, and I am—”
“I know who you are,” David growled as he recognized the name of a moneylender notorious for shady dealings. He rose to tower over the man. “You have the audacity to corner me in this public place?”
Timms wore the placid expression of a man used to being rebuffed but not deterred. “You leave me no choice, my lord. Your servants refuse to admit me at your home.”
“Because you can have nothing to say to me. My wife has been dead for some time. Try as you might, you can’t get blood from a corpse.”
“She left behind many debts.”
“Yes. And I paid off every legitimate one.”
“Her debt with me was legitimate, I assure you.” Reaching into his frock coat pocket, he pulled out a jewel case and opened it to reveal the Kirkwood sapphires, which David had been unable to locate since Sarah’s death. “She used these to secure it.”
With his stomach roiling, David stared down at the glittering parure—a matched set of ear bobs, necklace, bracelet, and ring. It was part of the collection of jewels that had been in his family for generations. Even Father, in his darkest hour, had never attempted to sell or pawn any part of those.
How could Sarah have done it? Had she hated him so much that she would pawn something precious to his family rather than come to him for money?
He knew the answer to that. Their arguments had always been over her gambling. “If my wife owed you, then you have the means right there to cover it. The sapphires are surely worth more than any debt she could possibly have contracted. That’s how your kind operates, after all, by preying on those willing to take a pittance for their valuables.”
That garnered a reaction from the bastard. His gaze turned deadly cold. “Ah, but sir, such a lovely heirloom. I should think you would want to keep it in the family. I’ll be happy to return it to you for a reasonable price—”
“Go to hell,” David snapped, knowing full well that the man’s reasonable price would be more than the jewels were worth. “You’ll never get a penny from me. Between you and your kind, you killed my wife. I have no use for you and your blood money.”
The man’s eyes narrowed to slits. “You would do well to rethink your position, sir. I’m sure the papers would love a tantalizing little tidbit about what your wife was willing to do to gain money for her…pleasures.”
It was the wrong thing to say to him, of all people. He marched forward, forcing Timms back with every step. “Are you threatening me, you little worm? I would advise against that. Because I’m very friendly with the local magistrates, and I daresay a hard look at your affairs would turn up certain illegalities. Are you willing to chance it?”
Timms was forced to halt when he came up against a nearby table. “Forgive me, my lord,” he said, an edge of resentment in his tone. “I thought to do you a favor. I see that I was mistaken.”
“Quite mistaken. But now that you’ve been set straight, I expect no repetition of this discussion. Have I made myself clear?”
Bobbing his head, Timms slid from between David and the table. “I shall not trouble you again, sir.” Then he scurried off.
David was still trembling with rage when he returned to take his seat at the table with Baines. “You heard, I suppose.”
“I did. Are you sure you don’t want them back?”
“Absolutely certain.” How could he ever look at them again without thinking of where they had been and why? Wondering what had possessed his fool of a wife to give over something of such sentimental value to his family?
Wondering again how he had managed to go so wrong with her.
He called for more ale. “I should never have married Sarah.”
“You did what you had to.”
“That’s little comfort now.”
He should have married Charlotte. Indeed, he’d been on the verge of approaching her to reveal his foolish deception, when his father had sent the family finances crashing. That and Father’s suicide had changed everything, putting the burden of supporting his family on David’s shoulders. Faced with crippling debts, he’d known there was only one way to save them—by marrying an heiress.
So he’d married Sarah, and the masquerade had continued. After all, he couldn’t let his wife know that he was supporting another woman’s school.
A chilling thought occurred to him. Had that been the key to Sarah’s pain? Had she somehow found out about his connection to Charlotte?
It was hard to believe that she would even have cared. Their marriage had lapsed into a formal one shortly after their elopement, though that had been her choice as much as his. Indeed, that’s why her suicide left him reeling. He would never have guessed that his petty and frivolous wife would have felt any pain so deeply that she would kill herself over it.
And her brief note had been distinctly uninformative: Forgive me, David, but I can no longer endure this intolerable life. He’d told people she’d killed herself over her gambling debts. What else could he say? That his wife had been living in utter misery, and he’d been too much of a bastard to realize it?
Clearly, he had no talent for reading women. First Charlotte, then Sarah…
He ran his fingers through his hair. How he wished he could go back and do everything differently. Not take up with Pritchard. Not marry Sarah.
Not lose Charlotte.
The rumble of long-ignored pain settled in his chest. What if he had gone to her the day her letter hit the papers? What if he’d demanded to know why she’d written it? Why she’d actually been so angry as to let the papers publish it? Now that he knew her better, he realized how strange that had been.
But back then he’d been too bent on salvaging his pride to do something as silly as talking to her. And what good had pride done him? While he’d been posturing and cursing her name and plotting a stupid revenge, James Harris had swept in to marry her.
Her turning to Harris for comfort still gnawed at him. Even knowing that Harris had proved a disappointment as a husband didn’t assuage his jealousy.
Jealousy? Nonsense. He refused to be jealous of Charlotte’s husband, suitors, or male friends. He would not let her mean that much to him. Confound it all, he’d put that behind him!
Muttering a curse under his breath, David thrust his empty tankard at a passing taproom maid and barked, “Another!” He would not let Charlotte get under his skin this time. This was just…tying up loose ends. Correcting a disastrous mistake. Nothing more.
Right. And the Taj Mahal was just a building.
“Keeping the truth from Charlotte was the worst mistake I ever made,” he growled. “But I honestly thought matters would resolve themselves before they came to this pass. I expected her to have remarried by now and closed the school for good. She’s a beautiful woman, after all.”
“She certainly is that,” Baines agreed, with more enthusiasm than warranted. When David glared at him, he said hastily, “Merely an observation, my lord.”
David bit back a hot retort. What in the bloody hell was he doing provoking Baines, the only man with whom he could discuss any of this? David dared not bare his soul to his friends—they would be appalled by his wicked behavior to a woman who’d done well by them. And the only way he could explain was to reveal her past actions, which he didn’t wish to do.
The taproom maid set another tankard in front of David, who stared blindly into its foam. “Pritchard will evict her without a thought in eight months. I have no doubt of that. I have to ge
t her out of there before that happens.” He drank deeply. “I will get her out of there, damn it!”
Baines eyed him over the tankard. “Why not just tell her the truth?”
“That Cousin Michael, a man she’s trusted for years, was setting her up for failure? That I hated her that much? It would devastate her. And then she won’t trust me to help her. She doesn’t have the money to save the school without me; nor will she take the money from me outright. She’s too proud for that.”
He stared down into his ale. “It’s better this way. All I have to do is keep shoving that thirty thousand pounds in her face and giving Sarah the credit until Charlotte sees the writing on the wall and moves the school. Hopefully she’ll do it before Pritchard can evict her.”
“I wish you luck,” Baines said. “You’re going to need it.”
A frown creased David’s brow. “Don’t I know it.”
He would also need time with her to break down the barriers of their past. Would she give it to him?
The next day, as he approached the school, he grew nervous. Two days of thinking things over might have convinced her to refuse the legacy. Then what would he do?
Expecting to be shown into her office, he was surprised to be taken down a dim hall and ushered into a small sitting room instead. As he waited for the butler to fetch her, he popped a peppermint in his mouth, then strolled about the room. He noted with curiosity the books on racing, the carafe of wine, the needlepoint cushions stitched with such odd sentiments as “Bread and jam warm the heart” and “The truth always shines in a clean face.” He was just tipping a cushion over to read it better when Charlotte entered.
“Good morning, Lord Kirkwood,” she said, her voice brisk and businesslike. “I see you are admiring my students’ work.”
He turned to face her. “It’s…er…not the usual sayings embroidered on cushions, is it?”
She laughed as she closed the door behind her. “No. The usual material is rather dull. I let the girls invent their own. Then I display the most interesting ones in my sitting room. I find it inspires them to work harder and be more creative.”
“A novel idea.”
“Too novel for my fussier parents, I’m afraid.”
“Yet they keep enrolling their daughters here.”
Her amusement faded. “Not lately.” Taking a seat on the edge of a Windsor chair, she gestured to a settee opposite. “I hope you do not mind meeting in my sitting room. People are always darting in and out of my office. Here, we will have more privacy. I do not want any of my staff or servants hearing us discuss this delicate matter until it is…more firmly resolved.”
Though she clearly wanted privacy for perfectly respectable reasons, his blood rose into a wild heat at the idea of them alone together. He sat down abruptly, fighting to quell his inappropriate reaction.
It didn’t help that she looked so bloody fetching today, in a simple blue gown that led the eye inexorably down to the breasts that strained against her bodice. He rose again and began to pace to keep his traitorous body under strict control.
“I received your mother’s invitation to the dinner for Amelia and Major Winter that she’s throwing at your town house,” Charlotte said, to break the uncomfortable silence.
Winter was David’s cousin, who had married Amelia, one of Charlotte’s former pupils, while in Charlotte’s care.
“I confess I was rather surprised that she invited me,” Charlotte went on. “Under the circumstances, I assumed it would be a small family affair.”
“It is. I think it’s a little soon, but Mother is languishing under the restrictions of mourning, so she has convinced herself that a private dinner won’t offend sensibilities too much. And when she wrote to my cousin’s wife about it, Amelia insisted upon your being included. I take it that Amelia doesn’t know about our past together?”
“No,” she said in a small voice.
He wondered if Charlotte knew that he’d offered for Amelia and had been refused before he’d turned his attentions to Sarah.
“Do you plan to attend tonight?” he asked, wishing he didn’t care so much about her answer.
“Of course. It will be my first chance to see Amelia and Major Winter since they arrived in England. I wanted to go to Devon to visit with them as soon as they reached her parents, but matters at the school…”
She trailed off, not needing to finish the sentence. He knew better than anyone that it wasn’t a good time for her to leave.
“Have you had the chance to show the agreement to your attorney?”
“Actually, yes. He said it is all in order.”
He let out a breath. “So you mean to accept the legacy.”
“I have a few questions first.”
Gritting his teeth, he halted to face her. “What sort of questions?”
“Why would you want to give up your valuable time to oversee the building of my school?”
“It’s a condition of the bequest. Assuming you accept the money, I am bound by the terms of it as surely as you.” That was sort of the truth, wasn’t it?
“Let me put it another way. You did not have to pursue the matter. Assuming you were alone when you found the codicil, you could have burned it and no one would have been the wiser. But you did not. I want to know why.”
The woman had a maddening ability to ask pertinent questions. Perhaps it was time to make her as uncomfortable as she was making him. “Because no matter what you think of me, Charlotte, I do have a conscience.” That was definitely the truth.
She colored. “Still, it probably would not have pricked your conscience too much to make it so that the money came to me without your having to be involved. So why didn’t you?”
“Perhaps because I thought helping you build your school would be a challenge. And there are few enough challenges in my life these days.” He stalked up to loom over her. “Are we done with the questions?”
Neatly slipping out from between him and her chair, she rose and went to stand beside the fireplace. “Just one more.” She paused as she stared into the flames. “Did Sarah know about…did you ever tell her that you and I—”
“No,” he said curtly. “And since I gather that you never told her, I doubt she would have found it out on her own. My mother wouldn’t have mentioned it, and neither would Giles. As you might imagine, I myself never spoke of it to anyone.”
“Except Anthony, Foxmoor, and Lord Stoneville,” she murmured. “Though I suppose that does not count since you left out my name. Indeed, I am grateful that they did not know who the ‘vindictive bitch’ really was.”
He groaned as his past sins rose up to taunt him. “Confound it all to hell.”
“I’m sorry. I-I did not mean to throw that in your face. I understand why you said it. Honestly, I do. When Anthony casually mentioned it to explain why you hate the press—”
“Anthony ought to know better,” he snapped.
She faced him with a tight smile. “My point is, I am well aware that you have no reason to be fond of me.”
He couldn’t address that without blatantly lying. “I don’t see what that has to do with anything.”
“Actually, a great deal.” She steadied her shoulders. “You see, I didn’t only show the document to my attorney. I also showed it to Charles Godwin.”
He fought to keep his temper in check. “You showed it to a bloody newspaperman?”
Alarm sparked in her eyes. “No! I mean, yes, I did, but not because of his affiliation with the press. I consulted him because he is my friend.”
Though he knew that, it still provoked an unwelcome burst of jealousy. “Just how close a friend is Godwin to you, anyway?”
Her expression went cold. “My friendship with Charles is none of your concern, my lord.”
David bit back an oath. She called Godwin “Charles,” but he was still “my lord.” “And the legacy is none of his concern. The last time I checked, Charles Godwin had no experience in legal matters.”
“Tr
ue, but he does know quite a bit about the parties involved. And like me, he found it curious that Sarah would have bequeathed anything to the school.”
“Tell Godwin he can keep his opinions about my late wife to himself.”
Charlotte stared him down. “Charles did have an interesting suggestion for how this ‘bequest’ came about.”
David’s heart began to pound. “Oh?”
“He pointed out that while Sarah might indeed have left money to the school out of some vain impulse to have her name plastered on a building, the part about your involvement seems suspect. He is of the opinion that you might have turned the situation to your own use.”
Damn Godwin. The man was too bloody clever by half. “Why would I have done that?”
“First, I need to explain how Charles and I met.”
“I already know—he served in the same regiment as your late husband.”
A strange look passed over her face. “Where did you hear that?”
You told me in one of your letters.
Confound it all. “Sarah must have mentioned it,” he hedged.
Her expression cleared. “Oh. Of course.”
“But I don’t see what that has to do with anything.”
“You will.” She drew in a steadying breath. “Shortly after Charles joined the regiment, Jimmy and I and Charles and his late wife were invited to an officer’s dinner where the talk turned to scandal.”
Folding her hands at her waist, she began to pace. “When the men began saying what a shame it was that poor Mr. Masters had been savaged by a cruel female in the papers, Charles jumped in to defend the woman.”
Her breathing grew labored, her tone agitated. David’s breathing was none too steady, either.
“As it turned out,” she said, “Charles had been working for the Morning Tattler when her letter arrived there. He told his editor that the letter was clearly personal and not meant for publication. When his editor published it anyway, he was so disgusted that he quit the paper and joined the army.”
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