Married to the Rogue

by Lancaster, Mary

  Hunter stuck his head around the door, and she nodded.

  “You might tell Mr. Halland,” she murmured, walking past him.

  In the reception room stood two men, one stout, one thin, hats in hand. The stout one looked slightly worried, though his thinner colleague possessed an air of grim determination that suggested he had dealt with gentry before and found them uncooperative. It was, she reflected, a thankless task, with revenue-dodging regarded as a legitimate pastime by so many.

  She hardened her heart. “I am Mrs. Halland. How can I help you?”

  “Name’s Bright, ma’am, and this is Hobbs,” the thin man said. “Pursuing cargo that was landed secretly last night without paying duty.”

  “And how might I assist your pursuit?” Deborah asked.

  “We think it stopped here, ma’am,” Bright said bluntly.

  Deborah twitched one brow. “My good man, you are not accusing me of something, are you?”

  “No, no, ma’am,” Hobbs said in horror. “What my colleague means is, we believe the cargo came in this direction, and we wondered if any one of your household had seen anything.”

  “No, they would have told me of anything out of the ordinary. To be honest, we all retired early, and I imagine the servants did, too. We are having a great deal of work done, as I’m sure you noticed, and everyone is exhausted.”

  “Then you had no unexpected visitors to the house? No young gentlemen, perhaps?”

  “Young gentlemen? Not unless you count my husband’s cousin, Lord Bilston, who arrived yesterday afternoon.”

  “No, ma’am,” Bright said with less patience. “This man would have been wounded. We winged one of the smugglers as they landed. He would have arrived here sometime after midnight.”

  “That, I would remember,” she assured him. “But why on earth should you imagine he came here?”

  “Blood, ma’am,” Hobbs said apologetically. “On various paths and the drive.”

  “And the gentleman’s name,” Bright declared, “which is Halland.”

  “It’s conceivable,” she said doubtfully, “but unlikely to be a relation. I’m afraid you will not find the man you seek here. Or the goods. But I commend your industry. Good day. Hunter will show you out.”

  Bright showed an inclination to object to this dismissal, though his colleague nudged him to silence.

  Deborah swept to the door, then paused. “One thing? Why do you think his name is Halland? Do you know him?”

  “Had it from someone else. Said the cove was Rupert Halland.”

  A roar from right beside her almost blew her back into the room as Lord Hawfield strode furiously after her.

  “How dare you come here hectoring and badgering my family! My grandson, Rupert Halland, is in the Americas, has been for more than a year, and I will not have you barging in here and raking up old tragedies! Be gone! And be assured I shall have words with those much farther up your command!”

  There was nothing for the two alarmed excisemen to do but slither out.

  “I do believe someone was having a joke at your expense,” Deborah said to them sympathetically, crossing her fingers in the folds of her skirt. “Good luck in your endeavors.”

  “Dashed disgrace!” Hawfield fumed as Hunter firmly closed the door behind them. He swung on Deborah without warning. “If you’d known the family, you’d have been able to eject them at the outset.”

  “They were already on their way out, sir,” she said mildly. “Although I’ll not deny you shifted them faster. Thank you for your support. Please excuse me.”

  *

  However, it was to be a day of interruptions. As agreed, Deborah sent the carriage to Coggleton to fetch her mother and siblings. But she had only just taken some luncheon to Rupert and returned to her cleaning in the library when the maid, Anne, appeared, saying urgently, “Come and change, ma’am! Lady Letchworth’s carriage in on its way up the drive!

  Deborah, slightly irritated to be disturbed for what she was sure was an assignation between Lucy and Sir Edmund, made without telling her, sighed and rose once more.

  For a moment, she glanced at her gown and then her hands, wondering if she could get away with a splash of cold water and quick hair repin.

  “No, ma’am,” Anne said firmly. “It’s a bride visit. You must dress accordingly.”

  Deborah, startled enough to give in, followed the maid upstairs and submitted. Of course, she was a bride, but she felt so little like one that she had never expected the usual etiquette to apply to her. She supposed word must have spread about Lord Hawfield and Lord Bilston being here.

  Inevitably, she kept the Letchworths waiting, but only for a few minutes. And when she eventually hurried into the drawing room, Christopher was already there, properly dressed and entertaining their guests, who included Sir Edmund, his mother and sister, and Lord Hawfield and Dudley.

  Deborah curtsied. “So sorry to keep you waiting. How lovely of you to come. Christopher, did you ring for tea?”

  “No, but I shall.”

  When the business of tea pouring and so on was done, Deborah found herself seated beside Sir Edmund’s sister, Mrs. Ireton.

  “So, how do you like being lady of Gosmere Hall?” Mrs. Ireton asked pleasantly.

  “Very much,” Deborah replied. “Of course, there is much to do, but it is exciting watching the house reemerge from its cocoon.”

  Mrs. Ireton’s finely arched eyebrows flew up. “I’m surprised you found it in such poor condition.” She smiled, and yet Deborah was sure the remark was barbed. For one thing, Lord Hawfield was listening sardonically close by.

  “Oh, it isn’t,” she replied. “Or at least not that Christopher or I could find. It has been merely shut up of necessity for too long, and Mrs. Dawson could hardly be expected to keep the entire house clean and ready for occupation with one maid and a kitchen assistant.”

  “I suppose your marriage was quite sudden,” Mrs. Ireton observed. “If you had waited even three or four weeks, it could all have been ready for you without the drudgery.”

  “I don’t regard it as drudgery.”

  Mrs. Ireton laughed as though she had said something witty. She was relieved when Hunter appeared and announced her mother and siblings.

  The Letchworths and Lord Hawfield looked stunned to be overrun suddenly with children, who at least remembered to curtsey and bow politely to the company before they scampered to Deborah and then to Christopher. It was Christopher who performed the introductions, while Lucy quickly discovered a seat by Sir Edmund.

  Deborah, knowing it wasn’t common for children to be present at such civilized gatherings, suggested the younger ones play hide and seek as they always wanted to.

  “What a lively family,” Mrs. Ireton drawled as they could be heard running and laughing along the gallery.

  “I find them delightful,” Sir Edmund commented.

  “Though perhaps not among the teacups,” Lucy said with a laugh.

  “I’m glad to find you all together,” Lady Letchworth stated, “because I wanted to invite you to dinner at Coggleton House on Friday. I don’t know if you will still be here then, my lord,” she added to Hawfield, “but you and Lord Bilston are naturally included in the invitation. It will be nothing over-formal, just dinner with friends.”

  “Thank you. It sounds delightful,” Deborah murmured.

  After twenty minutes or so of conversation, Lady Letchworth declared it time to leave. Her son, who would clearly have preferred to linger and then escort Lucy home, departed with reluctance. Only just in time, for the carriage had not even left before the children burst back into the drawing room, laughing with pure mischief.

  “Deb, who’s the man still in bed?” Stephen asked with disastrous clarity.

  Chapter Ten

  “He’s sick,” Deborah said faintly. “The doctor told him to stay in bed. But what were you doing up there? You know you’re not meant to go up to the bedchambers.”

  “Sorry, we got muddled
when we found the other staircase,” Giles explained.

  “Do you have another guest, Deborah?” their mother asked. “Or is one of the servants sick?” She frowned at her younger offspring. “You didn’t go up to the servants’ quarters, did you?”

  “Oh, no, he’s not a servant,” Stephen said, amused by the very idea. “Though he did seem surprised to see us. He growled like a bear, which was quite funny.”

  “Well, leave him be,” Deborah instructed. “Play on this floor or downstairs. Or outside, if you prefer.”

  Lord Hawfield muttered something about leaving them with their nurse.

  “We invited them,” Christopher said evenly, not troubling to point out that the same could not be said about his grandfather.

  Hawfield didn’t seem to hear. He was frowning at nothing in particular, clearly mulling something over in his head. Uneasily, Deborah met Christopher’s gaze and then glanced at Dudley, who was also looking somewhat alarmed.

  However, the earl could say nothing while Deborah’s mother and Lucy were present.

  Only when they waved everyone off in the carriage did Hawfield say to Christopher, “This sick man of yours who is not a servant… He wouldn’t have anything to do with the injured smuggler the excisemen were looking for earlier? A smuggler who appears to share our name?”

  “Whatever gave you that idea, sir?” Dudley demanded. “We have no say in—”

  “It’s Rupert,” Christopher said flatly. “Do you want to see him? If you do, you’re not to quarrel with him, for he’s fighting a fever.”

  The old man’s face was flushed as he glared from Dudley to Christopher and then to Deborah. “She knew. Even she knew, and I did not?”

  “Who do you think cared for his wound and patched him up?” Christopher retorted and ushered her before him back into the house.

  Without a word, everyone marched upstairs and kept going toward the bedchambers.

  “Is he dying?” Lord Hawfield burst out.

  “No,” Christopher replied. “The doctor does not think so. As such wounds go, it is minor.” He knocked peremptorily and strolled into Rupert’s bedchamber. “Visitors,” he announced.

  Having thus made certain, presumably, that his cousin was decent, Christopher stood aside for Deborah to precede him.

  Rupert scowled from his pillows. A breakfast table sat over his knees, where he seemed to have been playing patience. “What is this? A deputation to see if I’m bored to death?”

  “You see?” Christopher murmured. “Not dying,”

  “Oh God,” Rupert said as his grandfather strode into the room. “Damned—dashed!—traitors, the whole parcel of you!”

  “You can talk!” Lord Hawfield said. “Smuggling!”

  “Free-trading,” Rupert corrected breezily. “I had to do something.”

  “You were meant to do it in America!”

  “We’re at war with the United States.”

  “There is still Canada, the West Indies…”

  “I preferred to be closer at hand when you proved my innocence.”

  “Proved your…” Hawfield touched his palm to Rupert’s forehead. “How bad is his fever?”

  “It’s fine,” Rupert growled, pushing his hand away.

  “Then what are you jabbering about? Proved your innocence indeed! You deliberately fired a pistol into another man’s heart before witnesses. No one can prove that did not happen.”

  Rupert stared, then his eyes flickered to his brother. “It didn’t. I never fired. You never even told them this, did you?”

  “There was no point,” Dudley said wearily. “No one would have believed me. The man died of a ball in his chest while you pointed a pistol at him.”

  “But I didn’t fire it! You only had to show the pistol hadn’t been fired.”

  “In retrospect,” Dudley allowed, perching on the bottom of the bed, “that is what I should have done, but it seemed more urgent to get you out of harm’s way. By the time I returned to London, the pistols were with Harlow’s family. I couldn’t barge into a grieving household, demanding to see his possessions, could I? Especially when it was my brother who pulled the trigger.”

  “Only I didn’t!” Rupert’s eyes locked with his brother’s. “Why didn’t you tell them, Dudley? At least my grandfather and Chris? And Georgianna? To make sure I was out of the way while you married my betrothed?”

  Dudley dragged his hand over his face. “It wasn’t like that,” he muttered. “Though even you didn’t blame me for stepping into the breach. And, frankly, I didn’t believe you hadn’t pulled the trigger.”

  “He was many things,” Christopher observed into the tense silence, “but never a liar.”

  Dudley flushed. “We all lie to ourselves. Rupert knew he’d been a fool over the duel. Of course, he didn’t want to believe he’d actually pulled the trigger and killed the man. I know it was an accident, but who else is going to believe that? He had to stay out of the country.”

  “Only he didn’t,” Hawfield said in a hard voice. “And no one saw fit to tell me.”

  “Well, if you had known, you wouldn’t have been nearly so convincing with the excise men,” Christopher observed.

  “If we’re talking about that incident, it seems your wife is a better liar than even I imagined!” Hawfield snarled.

  She might not even have been there. Blindly, she grasped a chair arm to steady herself. How had this become about her?

  In the silence, Christopher and his grandfather stared at each other.

  “Apologize,” Christopher said curtly, “or leave.”

  The old man’s lips curled, and she knew there would be no apology. It had all become about his authority.

  “You’re in the wrong, Grandpapa,” Rupert said.

  “Very wrong,” Dudley said seriously.

  There might have been a breath of fury, but Hawfield’s gaze fell. “Then I apologize,” he said mildly. Still, he did not look at her, let alone bow his acknowledgment, and Christopher’s angry step forward was clearly into another stage of battle.

  Impulsively, Deborah reached out and seized his hand, and his head jerked around to face her.

  “His lordship has apologized. Let us leave it there. Don’t tire your cousin with quarrels.” With that, she released his hand, curtseyed, and walked out of the room.

  *

  “You certainly gave us all a lesson in dignity.”

  Startled, with her arms full of books she was replacing on a cleaned shelf, Deborah glanced down from her ladder to see Christopher standing inside the library door.

  “I don’t think anyone would say so now.” Awkwardly, she piled the books on the shelf and began to climb down.

  “We have manservants we can send up ladders,” he said mildly, coming to meet her.

  “Oh, they have been. I was just doing a little extra while they have a rest. They will be back in a few moments. What do you think of the ceiling and the upper walls?”

  “I think it makes a massive difference to the place, clean and bright. I like the white, edged with gold.”

  “So do I,” she said with relief. “There is a new red Turkish carpet, quite unused that I found in the attic store. I think it will look very well in here.”

  “I’m sure it will. Come and change and have tea.”

  She glanced at him uncertainly. “Did you quarrel further with your grandfather?”

  “I didn’t need to. Your dignified exit seemed to make more impression on him than the rest of us telling him off.”

  She hesitated, then. “What of Rupert. Do you believe him? Do you think Dudley deliberately kept this quiet?”

  “Possibly,” Christopher said with reluctance. “Their rivalry for Georgianna was fierce. She never needed to care for money or position, so Rupert won from sheer charm. But Dudley was there very quickly to fill the breach.”

  “He took advantage.” Deborah glanced up at him. “Would he do more?”

  Christopher frowned. “You mean kill Harlow just t
o have it blamed on Rupert? No, of course not! No way he could have, in any case. He wasn’t a second and wasn’t there.”

  “Then how did he get Rupert out of the country so quickly?”

  Christopher stared at her.

  “Sorry,” she said. “I’m only thinking aloud.

  “Maybe you should be,” he said slowly. “One can be too close to family to see clearly.”

  “I don’t believe for a moment that Dudley is a bad man,” she said anxiously.

  “But, we all do bad things occasionally.” His gaze came back into focus on her face. His lips twitched into a faint, rueful smile. “I know I do.”

  Throughout the remaining day, those words kept coming back to her. She gathered he had a reputation for behaving badly and recklessly, that there were incidents with women and with dangerous wagers. But mostly, she thought his reputation came merely from a failure to conform. Apart from quickly controlled flare-ups against his grandfather, she had seen no further signs of the temper that had endangered her and Lizzie on their first encounter. In fact, she had found only kindness in him, to her and his household, and in his ambitions to better the lives of others. There was no wickedness in him.

  And yet, he confessed to doing bad things. Did he mean marrying her? It hurt that he might regret doing so, but she had seen no other signs of this. In fact, she thought he was pleasantly surprised by the friendship growing between them. A friendship that made her heart ache for something more.

  After his outburst in Rupert’s sick room, Lord Hawfield seemed to have subsided into courtesy toward her. He watched her a good deal, which was not comfortable, but at least she sensed no outright hostility. In fact, she hoped he was readjusting his view of her, though that was probably over-optimistic.

  They had just gathered in the drawing room for dinner when letters were brought in on a silvery tray by George, the new footman. He presented them to Christopher, who immediately passed one to Deborah and one to Dudley, before breaking the seal on the first of the others.

  Surprised, Deborah unfolded her missive. She did not recognize the writing and glanced first at the signature. Your friend, Hazel Curwen.