“I accept change when it is beneficial,” he drawled, deliberately refusing to allow the man to rile him.
He paused to help himself, and offered to help Livia, to the dish to his right, which turned out to be lamb ragout. Haricot beans were set close by. The marquess, at the head of the table, had the roast beef to dispense to his neighbors, but Adrian could hardly demand a slice. That would be the height of bad manners. So he made do with the lamb, which turned out tasty enough.
“Everything changes, whether a man wants it to or not. For instance, after we are wed, I fully expect Livia to move to my houses, as a wife should.”
“Where are they?” the baronet demanded testily.
“My main seat is in Northumberland. But it is not a place I’m particularly fond of.” To put it mildly. “It is larger than Haxby and far damper. Stone walls do not make for comfort in wintertime.” He paused to take a mouthful of food. Perhaps the lamb suited him after all. “I tend to stay in my house in Oxfordshire more often. It’s more modern, and neater.” And it did not have his mother in it.
“So fortunate. I count myself lucky to have a tidy house and estate close by.” Sir Jeffrey found a dish of mushrooms that occupied his attention, and added, as if by accident, “And my army career, of course. I had a share of booty from that, but the main honor was guiding my company to victory.”
Someone across the table lifted his head. Lord Brampton, the husband of Livia’s twin, also a man who had served in the army. He raised a brow, and met Adrian’s gaze briefly, before nodding and turning his attention to Claudia.
Interesting. Brampton obviously had something to say. But Adrian could hardly shout across the table to him.
“A man of substance,” he murmured, lifting his glass and glancing at Livia over the rim.
Pink rimmed her cheekbones. She had an adorable blush, and because of her coloring, she treated him to it often. He wanted to lick that delicate heat, to see if it tasted as delicious as it looked.
He turned his thoughts away, back to the man sitting on her other side. Livia was engaged in conversation with him now, reminiscences he had no part in. He had no doubt that Sir Jeffrey had deliberately excluded him. He was not so unsure of her that he felt obliged to interrupt. Let the man have his small triumph. Adrian had the bigger prize.
Before tonight he had not understood how close the Shaws had been to Sir Jeffrey as children. They had not precisely run wild, but their parents hadn’t kept them apart from others in the neighborhood. And that had given them opportunities they could have taken advantage of. If Sir Jeffrey had not left to join the army so early, he’d suspect the man of being the one who took Livia’s virginity. Whoever had done that, she wasn’t saying, and although he’d kept his eyes and ears open, Adrian was none the wiser.
His instinctive dislike of Sir Jeffrey gave the rational side of Adrian, the part he kept well hidden, pause. His prejudice would assume too much. Where Livia was concerned, the fierce protectiveness that took him by surprise drove him to discover everything about her. And then prevent harm coming to her. He would have his work cut out to do that. But he had chosen his path, and the only person who could deter him was Livia.
However she seemed fond of Sir Jeffrey. Childhood sweethearts always had a place in a person’s heart. If Adrian’d had one, no doubt he’d feel the same. But Anna didn’t count. He’d married her at nineteen. She had been a symbol of his freedom, after his draconian grandfather had finally passed away. Together with the excesses they indulged in.
After three hours the meal eventually ended. The ladies left and the gentlemen settled in for port and gossip. Here, in these gatherings, the true secrets were divulged, the real core of power. Much of one’s standing and wealth depended on informal discussions like these, and in this exalted company they would reveal even more.
Adrian heard of a new venture at sea, of which he took careful note. Shipping had become increasingly important to him, since a rich seam of coal had turned up on his land. Transporting it to where it was most needed involved ships, so that he had built up a small fleet of coast-hugging ships. Most interesting. But not as interesting as learning about Sir Jeffrey and his proclivities. He did not hold his drink well. After the ladies left for the rarefied atmosphere of the drawing room, the men moved to the top of the table, filling in spaces.
Adrian did not imagine this was a convivial meeting. The other members of the family were judging him, especially the ones who had not yet met him except in passing. Lord Valentinian eyed him warily when he gave his twin’s excuses. “Darius will come up as soon as possible after the new year. He has urgent business in town.”
That business being not wanting to rile the sensibilities of the more Catholic of the people present. That would include Sir Jeffrey, who was remarkably silent as the others expressed their regret. Darius would have brought his—partner, people usually referred to Andrew Graham, since they were in business together.
The sticklers here would not have the flexibility of mind necessary to accept such a relationship. They would probably object to a man marrying a woman from the wrong village.
Recalling Livia, Adrian behaved himself remarkably well. At one point Sir Jeffrey, tiring of trying to irritate Adrian enough to force a scene, wandered off to talk to another squire. Lord Brampton chose that moment to slide into the seat next to Adrian. “We are to be brothers-in-law,” he said, coming right to the point as military men frequently and tediously chose to do. “Do we yet know the date?”
“Considering your wife is closer to Livia than most, I would think you would know first.” Adrian lowered his voice. “To be truthful, she is proving remarkably elusive on that point.”
“Ah,” said Brampton, as if he understood. “The Shaws are difficult to catch.”
“So am I.”
“As I was. I wished to continue my military career, and only when I was inveigled to visit the worst whorehouse I’ve ever had the misfortune to enter, did I meet the woman I was destined to spend the rest of my life with.”
“She went there?” The world knew that Lady Claudia had inherited a house in an area once respectable, now thronged with whorehouses and sinister private clubs. But the world assumed she’d sold it without inspecting her property.
“She wanted to see her property. I was in search of someone else entirely.” As the port came around, Brampton topped up their glasses and pushed the coaster on. Neither man took more than a cursory glance at the ruby liquid dancing in their glasses.
“You intrigue me,” he drawled.
“Mountsorrel was cast as the villain in Lady Drusilla’s timeless epic,” Brampton reminded him. “The Shaw women tend to take life in both hands.”
“And break it.”
“Ah yes, if they do not take care.”
Adrian turned his glass, watching the candlelight make the surface of the drink glitter and gleam, as if something sinister lurked beneath. A thistle was engraved on the side. “I wonder why I never noticed this. It’s a Jacobite symbol, is it not?”
Brampton’s laugh sounded forced. Idly, Adrian wondered if Brampton, who, before his father’s death had been Lord St. Just, and an officer in his majesty’s army, had anything to do with the struggle against the Stuarts. The Cause was all but dead now, but after Culloden the fight had gone on away from the battlefield. “The marquess collects all kinds of oddities. I daresay this is one of them. I wonder how the set arrived here?”
“I can answer that,” the marquess told them. “It came into the family recently from a source I cannot reveal, but one very close to us.”
“Mysterious,” Adrian commented. He’d never taken much interest in the doomed Stuarts, but he was glad they had gone. Romantic but foolish, most of them. Except for his great-grandfather, King Charles II, who had taken a brief but fertile interest in his great-grandmother. Exile had given that monarch a grain of sense.
Brampton f
idgeted and Adrian glanced at him again. Getting a man off-balance, for whatever reason, was a good way of discovering more. He lowered his voice and turned away from the men laughing at some sally of Sir Jeffrey’s. “I believe Sir Jeffrey was a childhood friend of Livia’s. He would have it that he was more than that.”
Brampton lowered his voice too. “As to that part, I do not know.” Pity. Adrian had thought Claudia might have confided some dire secret in her husband. “I came upon Claudia in London, and we conducted our courtship there. Only when she told me of her neighbor did I recognize him. A very good office man, Sir Jeffrey, by all accounts.”
“Ah.”
“Worked at headquarters, panderi—attending to the generals’ needs.”
Oh-ho. That slip of the tongue was deliberate. So Sir Jeffrey had spent his war making the generals a little more comfortable? Perhaps obtaining luxuries for them, like, say, good wine and doxies. “I see. Not on the battlefield, then?”
“Few of us had that honor.” Brampton shrugged, and by that Adrian knew he had seen action. “But I met him a few times and had to get through him to the other generals occasionally. The French have lords of the pen. He would have worked well there.” He had not deliberately shown disrespect to Sir Jeffrey, but he didn’t have to. Brampton was warning Adrian that Sir Jeffrey’s word was not always sterling.
“He left home very young.” After a scandal?
“So I understand, but for that part of his history, you are on your own. He was, for what it is worth, a great administrator. He has the ability to keep any number of people in line with a pen.”
Adrian understood. Sir Jeffrey was meticulous when he needed to be so.
Adrian would continue to watch him. He didn’t entirely trust Sir Jeffrey, who had appeared remarkably attentive to Livia during dinner and for that matter in London, far more than a childhood friend would be. Because if the man had taken Livia’s virginity and then sped out of her life, he would find out.
But why would he? Sir Jeffrey was ambitious. He was jockeying for a place in government, climbing the greasy pole of politics. A wealthy, influential wife of impeccable birth would help him enormously. So why, if he had Livia before, had he not taken advantage of her then? If he’d been the one to take her, he would have held on to her. Everything in Adrian’s understanding of the man told him that.
So why didn’t he do that?
Chapter 12
The next day being fine, Livia decided to get out into the fresh air. Besides, the constant congratulations and speculations about the wedding day wore on her patience until she was ready to scream.
The rain had eased off enough to make a walk possible. The ground was still soft, but if she kept to the paths, she could breathe the air and not hear the chatter of the guests and her parents. Her mother was beginning to talk about Livia’s dowry and the jewels she would bestow on her daughter. Livia didn’t want to hear it. Guilt wore her down.
She wore a broad-brimmed hat of waxed straw to help keep the drips off her face and a gown of grass-green woolen cloth that reached her ankles, with a plain dark green cloak over all. Her sturdy leather shoes would keep her feet dry.
Stepping out of a side door onto the path leading to the outside world, she paused to draw in a lungful of the clean, crisp air. The world was newly washed, the sky blue, the clouds pure white, not the gray of the past week or so.
Her feet crunched on the loose stones as she made her way around to the back of the house, and out to the garden. The roses were pruned, their stumps holding the promise of spring, but silent and still. No wind stirred the bushes today, as if today was a respite before more bad weather arrived. A gardener moved in the distance, going out of sight after glancing around and spotting her. Livia didn’t mind. She was home, and her restless spirit had stilled. Maybe she wouldn’t go to London next year and watch her putative betrothed flirting with other women and taking another mistress. He would not stay celibate for long, for all his protestations. One woman at a time was not no women at all. When he did that, she could jilt him. Or maybe, as he suggested, allow their betrothal to quietly die. The marriage contract had a six-month expiry clause. They should probably wait until it ran out.
But the thought of losing Adrian’s vibrancy in her life lowered her mood. She would have to say goodbye to him, but not yet. She could at least have this season.
The air of her home was doing her good. She could think properly again, and take control of her life as she’d always intended to do. Her last season was over. She would not go through another as an eligible young woman, although she would never be without suitors because of her position and her dowry. She might even become “poor Livia.”
A smile tightened her lips. Burying her hands under her arms, she continued with her walk. She wore only thin leather gloves. Vanity should have played no part in her outing, but she was so accustomed to considering her appearance, it had become a habit. The thought made her smile. She would not have to do that for much longer. She could become a real old maid, grumpy and eccentric, because she’d have nobody to please but herself. She could knit her own gloves.
“Livia!”
The soft voice heralded the end of her privacy. Fixing a smile to her face, she turned and found Jeffrey waiting for her.
This was not the Jeffrey of her childhood. This Jeffrey had some town polish, his brown coat fashionable and new, his neckcloth carefully folded and tied, instead of carelessly fastened with the ends thrust through a buttonhole to keep them secure. Moreover, he still wore his wig. As a child he’d doffed it at the first opportunity, declaring it got in the way. The thick, dark brown hair beneath had proved more than adequate in the adventures they got up to.
Memories of running her fingers through the dark mass evoked no fond images for her, although she had done so more than once. She had no urge to run to him, and feel his arms closing around her, as she had once. She had never noticed when those impulses had fallen away, but they had. They were gone for good.
But he was still her neighbor and she still liked him. “Sir Jeffrey,” she said, deliberately using his honorific. “I felt cooped up indoors, so I decided on a trip out.”
“Cooped up?” He sent a smiling glance back to the house. “You could sleep in a different room every night and not use the same one twice in a year.”
“Not quite true.” Haxby was a monster of a house, but not as big as some she had stayed in. Intrigued, she wondered if anyone had ever counted all the rooms. And did the little, accidental room without a fireplace where she’d met Adrian count? That had only been created because alterations had left the space. A bolt-hole, her brothers had called it once. She’d certainly bolted there enough times herself. “But near enough. I miss this air when I’m in London.”
“But the day is not warm. Could you not have walked the Long Gallery?”
That was where they had arranged trysts, back in the old days. The reference did not escape Livia. But she had not thought of it today. It had nooks where a couple might enjoy relative privacy and have some warning of a new arrival. The floorboards creaked and echoed, but Livia and her siblings knew every one, and where to tread without sound.
Livia didn’t reply, but turned and continued to stroll along the hard path. Unbidden, Jeffrey joined her. “I wanted to speak with you, Livia. I had word that you were searching for something in London. Someone?”
Her heart leaped. What did he know? “I’m not sure I understand you.” She needed to know more. He could be referring to something completely innocuous.
“You lost your grandmother’s brooch, did you not?” His gentle tones held a wealth of meaning.
“Yes, yes, I did, but it was restored to me.”
“You lost it in that orphanage you visited.” Alarm bells rang in her head. Had he been watching her? Having her spied on? “Why did you go there, Livia?”
She tried the excuse sh
e had used with everyone. “I wanted to become more involved with good works. Find a cause to support.”
“Why did you leave?”
What, he’d seen that too? Her mind leaped forward. Then he would have seen, or known of, the scandalous kiss she had shared with Adrian in the street later. Obviously she could not tell him the real reason she left the orphanage, but one of the minor concerns. “The children overwhelmed me. They crowded around and confused me.”
“You saw the records first, though, did you not?”
Yes, she’d perused them with the rascally owner. “How can you know that?”
“Because I spoke to them later. I wanted to find out what had taken you there.”
Discomfort crept up her spine. She didn’t like the idea of him following her in that way. “Why didn’t you tell me, or ask me? I would have spoken to you, explained.”
He shook his head, his mouth straightening. “I was not sure. I wanted to know why you abandoned our child, why you gave him away.”
Shock shot through her, a jagged fork of lightning rendering her speechless. She turned, her hand to her mouth, her shoulders shaking. No, she would not cry. This was too important. Eventually her control returned to her, and she forced steel into her body. Swinging back to him, she said, “You knew?”
Hard-faced, he nodded.
“Before you married Maria?”
He sucked in a breath. “No.” Coming back to her side, he offered his arm. “Please. Let’s walk, as if we’re taking the air.”
As she had been before he had arrived. Still numb with shock, Livia placed her hand on his arm, her movement born of years of training rather than conscious thought. She had kept the secret to herself for so long that even speaking of it made her rigid with fear. “I saw him briefly before they took him away.”
“And you thought he was at that orphanage?”
“Yes. At one point my grandfather had owned the place. I thought the slender clue was worth pursuing.”
“Did your grandfather know about the child?”
Boundless (The Shaws) Page 16