by Merry Farmer
Joanna snorted. “Mr. Wall indeed.”
Elaine stared at her, wondering what the devil had gotten into the woman to cause her to laugh so. She moved on, anxiety swirling through her stomach. Something was wrong. Something was very, very wrong.
“Good evening, Lady Waltham,” someone else called out to her as she reached the bookshop door. The lights were on inside, which was reassuring, since the rest of the world seemed to be growing dark, in more ways than one.
“Waltham?” she muttered as she pushed open the door, the bell above ringing out.
Her mind had just fit the pieces together, remembering all about the missing Earl of Waltham, as she mounted the stairs to Basil’s flat. Several other thoughts began to connect in her mind, all in a jumble on top of one another, but they were blasted away as she came to a stop at the top of the stairs.
Basil sat at his small table, another, finely-dressed man sitting across from him. Elaine knew in an instant that something had changed with Basil. No, she knew in an instant that everything had changed with him. He’d put on more suitable clothes, shaved, and combed his hair, but the difference was in the way he sat, in the gravity and the sadness lining his face, and in the guilt in his eyes as he glanced up at her.
But it was the other man who demanded more immediate answers.
“I beg your pardon,” she said, failing to keep her horrible mood out of the greeting. “But who are you?”
The stranger stood. He had a regal bearing and the kind of handsome face that could inspire both fear and attraction. Elaine couldn’t glean whether Basil was friendly with the man or his foe. The man approached her as though he wasn’t sure she was a friend or a foe either, which only added to her confusion. He raked her with the same sort of baffled and disapproving glance that she’d grown used to.
“Allow me to introduce myself,” he said with a formal bow. “I am Lord Malcolm Campbell.”
“Oh.” Elaine blinked in surprise, sending a confused look to Basil.
Before he could do more than rise from his chair and take a step toward her, Lord Campbell went on with, “And allow me to also introduce you to one of my oldest friends, Lord Basil Allenby, Earl of Waltham.” He gestured to Basil.
Elaine’s mouth fell open, and she gaped at the man she loved.
All it took was one, guilty nod from Basil, and her world was tipped on its side.
Chapter 9
Lord Basil Allenby, the Earl of Waltham. Elaine lay curled on her side in the spare room at Rose and Isaac’s house, rolling the name over and over in her head. Lord Basil Allenby, the Earl of Waltham.
The last twelve hours of her life were a blur. Basil, the man she counted as her closest friend, the rock that had stood by her side through everything from the death of her father to her struggle for independence to the loss of her house, the man she loved and had trusted to guide her through the mysteries of sensuality, was an imposter.
The thought still left her numb, even after Lord Campbell explained the details of Basil’s true position in society and how his duty was to his country at such a momentous time in politics. She’d sat at Basil’s table, floating, as if in a dream, as Basil had recounted the circumstances of his birth, his early years, his service in the Crimea, where he met Lord Campbell and others, and his work in the House of Lords. He’d insisted that who he had been for the forty-eight years before coming to Brynthwaite didn’t change who he was as a man, but he was wrong. It changed everything.
“Elaine? Are you all right?” Rose asked, popping her head around the door of the guest room. “It’s nearly noon, and you haven’t even eaten yet.”
“I don’t have an appetite,” Elaine mumbled from the bed, tempted to pull the covers over her head and sleep for the rest of her life.
Rose watched her with a pitying expression before coming into the room and sitting on the side of the bed. “I know it’s a shock, but….” She shrugged.
Elaine forced herself to sit. She still felt a twinge between her legs from her night with Basil, which only served to depress her mood further. She wanted that Basil. She wanted the man who had made love to her so passionately, who had promised his heart to her with every kiss, not the earl she didn’t know.
“He didn’t tell me,” she said, the gloom in her heart coalescing into those four words. “Two years we were friends, and he didn’t tell me.”
“You’re still friends,” Rose reminded her.
Elaine ignored her, heat rising to her face. “He could have told me.”
“Have you asked him why he didn’t?”
Elaine bit her lip, reluctant to meet Rose’s eyes. The thought had occurred to her that she’d overreacted because she’d been exhausted, she’d missed a train, and that Mr. Sudbury and everyone else she’d come across before returning to the bookshop had treated her abominably. The fury in her heart didn’t seem to touch on the core of her feelings for Basil. She still loved him, but that only made his lies sting more.
When she remained silent, Rose rested a hand on her back. “Why don’t you get up, wash and dress, and come downstairs for luncheon. I have cold mutton and potatoes from last night waiting.” Elaine’s stomach growled at the thought. “And then you can go over to the bookshop and calmly ask Mr. Wall—”
“You mean Lord Waltham,” Elaine corrected with a sideways look.
“You can ask your dearest friend why he kept the truth from you.”
Elaine frowned. “You’re my dearest friend.”
Rose laughed. “No, I’m not. He is. And everyone in Brynthwaite knows it. You know it too.”
Elaine couldn’t argue the point, so she did what she always did when faced with something she didn’t want to hear—she ignored it.
“I’ll come downstairs to eat,” she said, throwing back the bedcovers and standing. “But I’m not, under any circumstances, going to the bookshop.”
All the same, an hour later, clean, dressed, and fed, Elaine shuffled up to the bookshop door. She took a deep breath, cursing herself for being too weak to stay away, and pressed a hand to her stomach. The simple movement reminded her of the way Basil had stroked her naked flesh when they were in bed together.
“Bloody hell,” she sighed, frowning at herself. She stiffened her back, tilted her chin up, and pushed through the shop door.
“…election needs to go in our favor,” Lord Campbell was in the middle of telling Basil as the two of them stood on either side of the counter. “Our cause will never move forward under the continued rule of Disraeli’s Conservatives. We have to convince the May Flowers—”
Lord Campbell stopped his rant when Basil glanced up from being harangued and saw Elaine. His entire countenance shifted from that of a man who resented the scolding he was getting to one who knew he deserved the scolding to come.
“Elaine.” He stepped around the counter, starting toward her.
“I believe it’s proper for you to refer to me as Miss Bond,” Elaine snapped. Instantly, the fraction of hope in Basil’s eyes snuffed out, and she felt like the worst kind of heel. “Oh, all right. That’s never going to work,” she said with a sigh, crossing her arms.
A measure of relief washed through Basil as he closed the distance between them. He stopped just short of her, reaching out, then lowering his hands to his sides. “How are you today?” he asked with a tenderness that broke her heart.
“Put out,” she answered honestly. “Feeling as though I’ve been treated as a child or a plaything.” She glanced hesitantly up at him. “You weren’t just playing with me, were you?”
“No!” He didn’t stop himself from resting his hands on her arms this time. “God, no. I love you, Elaine. That hasn’t changed.”
Just as her heart began to melt, from behind them, Lord Campbell muttered, “Where have I heard that before?” Both Elaine and Basil turned to him with looks of such fury that Lord Campbell snapped to attention, his face coloring. “I’ll just stay out of it then,” he said, his lips twitching to a wry grin.
“Good,” Basil said, serious as a tomb.
He started to turn back to Elaine, apology in his eyes, but Lord Campbell interrupted with, “Only I can’t stay out of it.” He marched across the shop to stand between the two of them. “Basil, this is no time for you to let another one of your romantic dalliances get in the way. The fate of the nation is at stake.” He turned to Elaine. “I’m sorry, Miss Bond, but we don’t have time for this.”
“Malcolm,” Basil warned his friend.
Lord Campbell sent him a no-nonsense look before continuing to tell Elaine, “I’m sorry to be the one to disappoint you, but my friend here has a notorious reputation for getting involved with unsuitable women, only to grow tired of them and toss them aside.”
“Twenty years ago,” Basil shouted, angrier than Elaine had ever seen him. “How dare you assume that my feelings for Elaine, today and for the past two years, are comparable to the folly of youth?”
Lord Campbell raised an eyebrow at him. “I heard all about your feelings for Miss Bond at the pub last night, after you kicked me out and went to bed. This town is full of stories of how the two of you have carried on for years, and of how, in spite of sensible pressure from all and sundry, you haven’t married her. I wonder why that could be,” he finished with thick sarcasm.
“I couldn’t very well marry Elaine when she didn’t know who I was,” Basil fired back.
“Then why didn’t you tell me who you were?” Elaine shouted, the anger in her voice eclipsing that of the two men.
Silence fell. Basil let out a breath and dropped his shoulders. He rubbed a hand over his face, then dragged his eyes to meet hers. “I left London because I didn’t want to live that life anymore. I foolishly believed I could live out the rest of my days as a bookseller without consequences. I didn’t know I’d fall in love.”
Elaine crossed her arms. “That still doesn’t explain why you said nothing all this time.”
“I—”
Whatever explanation Basil was about to attempt was cut short as the shop door opened, bell jangling. A young man in livery from Huntingdon Hall rushed in, a gilded envelope in his hand.
“Please, my lord,” he said, scrambling to a stop in front of Basil, grinning up at him as though partaking of some jolly prank. “Lord Gerald Dyson, Earl of Thornwell, and his daughter, Lady Elizabeth, request the honor of your presence at supper tonight.” He paused, glancing to Lord Campbell. “And if you’re Lord Malcolm Campbell, he wants you there too.”
Basil took the gilded envelope from the man with a sheepish look. “Please give Lord Thornwell my regrets.”
“Tell Lord Thornwell we’ll be there,” Lord Campbell contradicted him in a loud voice. When Basil sent him a frustrated look, he said, “I’m not letting you avoid yourself anymore, Basil. You’re a bloody earl, and you’ll accept the invitations you’re expected to accept.”
“And now you’re going to bully me like my father?” Basil balked. “I’m fifty bloody years old.”
“Then stop acting like a child and do your duty,” Lord Campbell snapped. He glanced to Lord Thornwell’s footman. “Tell your lord we’ll be there tonight.”
“Tell him Miss Bond will accompany me,” Basil added in a louder voice than Lord Campbell.
“I never said I’d go,” Elaine said.
“Will you go if she goes?” Lord Campbell asked Basil.
Basil met Elaine’s eyes. “Yes.”
“Then you’re going, young lady,” Lord Campbell informed her with a nod that refused contradiction.
“You have no right to control me as though I’m a pawn in your game,” Elaine protested. “I won’t go if I don’t want to go.”
Lord Campbell looked as though he would give her a tongue-lashing, but before he could, Basil said, “Please come. I don’t think I could face it without you.”
All of Elaine’s resistance crumbled in a heartbeat. She narrowed her eyes at Basil. “You are a cruel, heartless, manipulative man, Basil whoever you are.” She let her fury burn through him for another few seconds before saying, “I’ll go.”
“There,” Lord Campbell said, still not looking pleased with things. “That’s settled. Tell your master that Lord Malcolm, Lord Waltham, and guest will be in attendance at supper tonight.”
The footman nodded, then bolted out of the shop.
“Why did you call yourself Lord Malcolm and not Lord Campbell?” Elaine blinked at the man, her fury and frustration momentarily giving way to curiosity.
“Because his sniveling bastard of a cousin was going around calling himself Lord Campbell while we were all bleeding on the fields of Sebastopol,” Basil answered. “And once we returned home, he kept being mistaken for the blackguard who had debauched half a dozen debutantes and cheated a third of the ton at cards while we were gone.” He ended his explanation with a chuckle that Lord Campbell—or rather, Lord Malcolm—shared.
“Do you remember when we caught up to James and threw him into the Thames?” Lord Malcolm laughed.
“I bet he still smells like sewage and rotten fish.”
The two of them continued to laugh. Elaine stood to the side, feeling as if a gaping chasm had opened under her and her soul had fallen in. The title didn’t matter. The rumors of past women meant nothing to her. But that laughter, the flash of humor and friendship, of decades’ worth of jokes and stories suddenly made Basil feel as foreign to her as the Emperor of China. Her mind had easily accepted that Basil had a whole other life that she wasn’t a part of, but it wasn’t until that moment that her heart knew the full extent of the truth. He had a life, a long, storied life, that she wasn’t a part of. He’d lived an entire lifetime without her. She was but a flash in the pan to him, as insignificant as the latest issue of a journal that had been running for years, to be read, enjoyed, then discarded. Without her, he was still a complete person with a rich life.
She’d never felt so alone.
Duty had a sour taste. Basil was reminded of that fact from the moment the carriage Malcolm insisted they hire to take them the short distance to Huntingdon Hall rolled to a stop at Thornhill’s front door. The footman opened the door, but made no move to help Elaine down. Malcolm didn’t seem inclined to go out of his way to help her either. Basil ended up alighting from the carriage and handing her down himself, the sense that he’d made a terrible mistake in letting Malcolm accept the invitation for them growing.
“It will be all right,” he assured Elaine as he tucked her hand into his elbow and led her up the front stairs and into the imposing front hall of the vast estate.
Elaine remained silent. That was the most foreboding thing of all. She hadn’t spoken a word on the entire ride up to Huntingdon Hall. She’d barely said a word since the confrontation between them and Malcolm earlier. She was pale and seemed smaller than usual. And frankly, that was a thousand times worse than having her shout at him, demanding answers.
He was losing her. Not in a rage and a flood of tears, but with the sureness of the tide coming in and the current pushing them farther and farther apart.
“Lord Waltham, what a delight it is to see you here tonight,” Lord Thornhill greeted him with a wide smile. He reached out to shake Basil’s hand in such a way that Basil was forced to let Elaine go to accommodate him. “You had us all fooled, my good man. You certainly did,” Lord Thornhill went on. He thumped Basil’s back, steering him from the hall into the front sitting room.
“Yes, well….” Basil glanced over his shoulder to Elaine, alarmed that the two of them had been physically separated.
His alarm was well-founded. Thornhill wasn’t the only one there to greet him. Lord Ramsey had been invited to the supper as well and, of course, Crimpley. Both men descended on him, simultaneously rushing him along and putting an unbreachable space between him and Elaine.
“I always knew there was something grand about you,” Crimpley said, grinning as though they were part of some exclusive club. “No bookseller I know has such a noble mien.”
The hoity-toity men around him snorted and guffawed.
“Noble in demeanor and humble enough to compare himself to a black man,” Lord Ramsey chuckled, winking as though it were all some joke.
They steered him most of the way across the room, to where Lady Ramsey, Mrs. Crimpley, Agatha Crimpley, young Lady Elizabeth Dyson, and a few others were gathered. Basil bristled with discomfort, desperate to get away, even though he’d only just arrived. He craned his neck to look for Elaine, only to find Malcolm speaking to her at the other end of the room with a frown that brooked no good. Elaine merely nodded at him, her hands clasped in front of her, head lowered.
It was killing him. He wouldn’t make it through the evening in one piece if Elaine continued to look so…so defeated like that. He didn’t hear a word Thornhill or the others said to him. He couldn’t just stand there while Elaine needed him so desperately.
Regardless of the conversation around him, he turned as if to march back to Elaine.
“I’ve been thinking,” Lady Ramsey said, stopping him by boldly grabbing his sleeve. “We should hold a ball at Burton Manor. I know our Victoria would love a ball just about now.”
“I beg your pardon?” Basil turned to her with a frown.
Lady Ramsey wore the same, coy smile that every scheming mama he’d ever had the misfortune of encountering wore. “Our Victoria is quite accomplished, you know. Although I would be certain to invite a wide variety of eligible young ladies. Or perhaps not quite so young?”
“I’m not interested,” Basil growled.
He turned away a second time, intent on taking up his customary spot at Elaine’s side. This time, it was the announcement of supper being served that foiled his attempts to get back to the only place he wanted to be.
“Ah, capital,” Thornhill declared as his guests began to drift toward the dining room. It was the perfect time for Basil to collect Elaine once more, but before he could so much as meet her eyes across the drawing room, Thornhill said, “Lord Waltham, I would be honored if you would escort my darling Elizabeth in to supper.”