by Olivia Drake
“Thank you, my lady, but this isn’t a social call.” His frosty gray eyes studied her accusingly. “I understand you are a party to this preposterous school.”
Though he’d been like a father to her, she held her chin high, unwilling to let him chasten her. “Yes, I organized the school. We are helping people who would otherwise have no opportunity to better themselves—”
“No doubt it was your husband’s idea,” Hailstock broke in. “He would seize any chance to bring down disgrace on my family. He would have my son—my heir—associate with lowborn rabble.”
“That isn’t true. He didn’t even know about the school until today.”
But the marquess wasn’t listening. Rounding on Drake, he clenched his fists at his sides. “If I hear so much as a breath of scandal, I will hold you personally responsible.”
Drake fixed him with a hard, impassive stare. “Do as you will,” he said. “I’ve given my approval to the school. If my wife and your son choose to educate these servants, then I shall not stand in their way.”
He stood close to Alicia, a warm and solid presence. He had not lost his temper, thank heavens. Yet dislike radiated from him, and she knew he must be tempted to forget his vow.
Turning to Lord Hailstock, she felt a pang of regret. Why couldn’t he and Drake set aside their differences? Quietly, she said, “Though it pains me to say so, my lord, I must ask you to leave.”
A dull flush suffused his face. His lips thinned, he glanced from Alicia to Drake and back again. “My lady, if you wish to throw yourself into the gutter with Wilder, then so be it. But you will not include my son. He is going home where he belongs.”
Striding behind the chair, he gave it a hard push.
Drake made a move as if to stop him. But without any help, James grabbed the wheels, his knuckles whitening from the effort of holding the chair still.
“Blast it, Father! You’re treating me like a child.”
“Leave go. So long as you live in my house, you will obey me.”
“Then I shan’t live there anymore,” James said through gritted teeth. “I’ll move in with my brother.”
Lord Hailstock froze, his face pale as chalk, his fingers like claws around the caned back of the chair.
Certain she’d misheard, Alicia frowned at James. “Your brother?”
“But you haven’t any siblings,” Sarah added.
“I do, indeed,” James said in a hard voice. He whipped his head around, a strangely savage light in his eyes as he stared up at the marquess. “Tell them, Father. Tell them that Drake Wilder is your bastard.”
A moment of silence spun out. Alicia felt paralyzed, aware of the thumping of her heart, the coldness of her palms. It couldn’t be true. It couldn’t be. Yet a chaos of impressions whirled though her mind. Drake. Lord Hailstock. No wonder she’d never fully understood their hatred.
Until now.
Desperate for him to deny it, she clutched at Drake’s sleeve. For no reason, she noticed how smooth and fine the dark blue cloth felt to her fingertips, how his heat penetrated her chilled skin. “Please,” she whispered. “Tell me it’s a lie.”
He gazed at her with the blank face of a stranger. His features were etched in granite, his eyes inscrutable. The moment stretched out into eternity. Then her worst fears were answered when, in lieu of reply, he turned his attention to James. “How did you find out?”
“You came to our house a few weeks ago, to return a ring that Father had given to Alicia,” James said, gazing intently at him. “I was in the salon. Father believed me to be napping, but I heard you out in the corridor. You said … you were his other son.” He glanced searchingly at the marquess. “Then he threw you out of the house.”
“Wilder was lying,” Lord Hailstock said, his voice hoarse as he stepped out from behind the wheeled chair. “You are my son, James. My only son. He’s a swindler who wants to steal your inheritance.”
“If I’d wanted your money,” Drake said, “I’d have blackmailed you. And you’d have paid me, too.”
Lord Hailstock’s face twisted in a grimace of fury. “You are determined to besmirch my good name. I warn you, I won’t tolerate it.”
Their angry voices swirled around Alicia. She let her hand fall to her side. She couldn’t think; she could only stare with a shocked fascination at the three men. Never had she thought to look for similarities, but she looked now. And now the slight resemblance struck her: Though Drake had darker coloring than James with his tawny hair and pale complexion, they had the same piercing blue eyes, the same cleft in their cheeks that deepened when they smiled. And they both shared Hailstock’s muscular build, his noble bone structure.
“I’ll admit to hating you, Wilder,” James said, his gaze tight on Drake. “I resented your power over my—our—father. So I flaunted my rank at every opportunity. But I’ve since had reason to believe I was wrong.”
Drake said nothing. He merely returned his brother’s stare.
“If it’s no inconvenience,” James went on, “I’d like to stay with you and Alicia for a short time. Until I’m able to settle certain matters.”
He glanced obliquely at Sarah, who had been listening nearby, her violet eyes wide. Now she stepped forward. “That is an excellent notion.” She frowned severely at Drake. “Don’t you agree, Mr. Wilder?”
“Of course,” Drake said in a voice devoid of emotion. “My housekeeper can handle the arrangements.”
“No!” Hailstock ground out. His face stark, he sank down on one knee in front of his younger son. “Think, James. You cannot claim kinship to a common scoundrel. People will talk. What reason will you give for staying with him?”
“There is always the truth.”
“But he is a knave, a gambler. You have noble blood—”
“So, it seems, does he,” James said acidly.
The marquess took a deep breath, his nostrils flaring. “Don’t do this, I beg you. Wilder has no proof of his allegations. You’re making a disastrous mistake.”
“I rather doubt that,” James said. “And regardless, I will know the brother you’ve kept from me all these years.”
He maneuvered around his father, leaving Lord Hailstock crouched on the floor, his head bowed and his eyes closed.
“My carriage should be waiting out front,” the duchess said. “I told the coachman to return at precisely half past two.”
James nodded, then moved to Alicia, gathering her hand in his. “I’m sorry,” he said with a trace of regret. “I never meant to blurt out the truth that way. This must have been quite a shock.”
A shock? The shattered numbness inside her felt like the devastation after an earthquake. She could not assimilate her thoughts beyond one fact. Drake had lied to her. All this time, he had prattled excuses for his antagonism toward Hailstock.
And she had been fool enough to believe him.
James released her hand; then Sarah touched Alicia’s arm in a offering of support. “We’ll talk later,” the duchess murmured.
Alicia gave a wooden nod and the pair headed down the passageway toward the front of the house.
Hailstock rose slowly, his shoulders slumped. Rather than aim another venomous look at Drake, the marquess subjected Alicia to a probing scrutiny. She could think of nothing to say to him. He, too, had lied to her.
Then he turned on his heel and strode after James and Sarah.
As the front door opened and closed, a draught of damp air eddied down the long corridor. Shivering from a deeply penetrating chill, Alicia wrapped her arms around herself. She was aware of Drake’s presence beside her. But no longer did she feel an affinity for him. The connection between them had been severed.
Perhaps that closeness had never really existed.
“You’re too pale,” Drake said, sliding his arm around her back. “You need to rest.”
In a daze, she let him guide her down the corridor to the foyer, their footsteps echoing on the marble floor. But when he would have urged her up the st
aircase to the bedrooms, she balked.
Her disjointed thoughts came together in a cohesive whole.
Drake had known the marquess was his father. That meant he had not chosen her at random. With sinister intent, he had exploited Gerald’s weakness for gambling, then forced her to be his bride. All because Lord Hailstock wanted her.
And Drake had wanted revenge.
With that horrifying realization died all of her naïve hopes to win his love. He possessed no capacity for tender emotion. He was poisoned by hatred.
Alicia twisted away from him, backing up until her spine met the hard column of the newel post. Afraid she might break down in tears, she buried her pain beneath a bitter cold dignity.
“You used me for vengeance,” she stated. “You never cared about being accepted by society. You married me to spite your father.”
Drake wanted to flinch from those blunt words, enunciated in her cool, patrician voice. What a fool he’d been for believing he could keep Alicia in the dark. He was furious with himself for being so careless in letting James overhear him. Yet he couldn’t gull himself, either. Deep down, he felt a certain gloating satisfaction that James knew they were brothers.
As for Alicia, there was nothing to be done now but take his knocks. And hope that, later, he could charm her into forgiving him.
“Yes, that is why I married you,” he admitted. “Hailstock had been courting you. And I also wanted to enter society, so that he’d be forced to see the bastard he’d never acknowledged.”
The mere thought of that set Drake’s teeth on edge. Welcoming a surge of rage, he paced the foyer. None of this would have been necessary if Hailstock had accepted him long ago. If the wretch hadn’t threatened a defenseless boy—
“Why didn’t he acknowledge you?” Alicia asked. “Perhaps you really aren’t his son.”
Stunned, Drake pivoted toward her. “It’s the truth, damn it. My mother wouldn’t have lied to me.”
“You needn’t curse,” she said icily. “I merely wish to know if she offered you any proof.”
He tamped down his unreasoning anger. She didn’t know the whole story. “Yes,” he bit out. “She gave me a diamond stickpin bearing his coat of arms. That and her word are enough for me.” He didn’t mention his unusual skill with numbers, a trait he shared with Hailstock. He wouldn’t beg her to believe him.
“How it must gall you to be denied the title by an accident of birth.”
“It galls me that he used my mother, then refused to support his child.”
Alicia merely raised an eyebrow. “She died when you were ten. Then you came to London—not in search of a grand adventure. And not to join a theatrical troupe. To confront Lord Hailstock.”
She made him uncomfortable, reminding him of all his half-truths. “I did join a theatrical troupe,” he muttered.
“But only after you’d seen his lordship. Only after he’d rejected your claim.”
“Yes.”
“Tell me what happened when you went to see him.”
Loath to reopen that scar, Drake prowled around the foyer, stopping to peer out a window. Raindrops slid down the glass panes in an endless stream. “It was a long time ago. Suffice it to say he would have nothing to do with me.”
“But you did show him the stickpin, didn’t you?”
“Of course I showed it to him.” What had happened then had been the most painful experience of his life. He disliked exposing that vulnerability to anyone. But if it helped him to win Alicia’s sympathy … “He denounced me for a thief and a swindler. Then he called for his footmen to haul me off to the magistrate, and thence to Newgate Prison.”
Alicia didn’t even gasp. The blue eyes that had glowed with love only half an hour ago now regarded him as if she’d enjoy seeing him chained in a dank cell. “Did you go to prison?”
He shook his head. “I’d lived on the street long enough to learn a few tricks. I ducked past his men. We were on the ground floor, so I jumped out an opened window.”
She said nothing to that. In the murky afternoon light, she stood as straight as the newel post behind her, the rose-pink gown skimming womanly curves that he never tired of touching. He wished to hell he knew what she was thinking. Did she feel even a scrap of understanding?
What an ass he’d been to hurt her. He wanted to make it up to her, to hold her in his arms again, to hear her whisper words of love. Extending his hands, he walked toward her. “Alicia, I’m sorry—”
“Do not presume to touch me,” she said in that frosty tone.
He stopped, uncertain for one of the few times in his life. She regarded him with chilly composure, reminding him of the poised and remote Alicia of their wedding day. She might have been gazing at a despicable stranger.
And he felt despicable. “If you’ll give me a chance, we can discuss this reasonably—”
“Do not presume to question my reasoning, either.” She folded her arms beneath her bosom. “Everything is clear to me now. You kept watch at that first ball we attended. You were looking for Lord Hailstock. Waiting for him to appear so that you could flaunt your presence there.”
“He’d tried to bar me from his world—”
“You forbade me to associate with James, too. Not, as you claimed, because he is a vain, self-serving aristocrat. Because he is your half-brother.”
“Both facts influenced me. He is a haughty snob.”
“You were quite inventive in your efforts to keep me away from him,” Alicia said, continuing the litany of his faults. “You used your charm to manipulate me. You even resorted to seduction that day at your club.”
He had reached beneath her skirts and stroked her to climax. She couldn’t regret that. “You enjoyed what I did.”
“You gave me no choice,” she countered. “Everything in your life has been founded on revenge. I wouldn’t be surprised if you even see my child as yet another way to taunt his lordship.” She moved her hands to her waist as if to shield the baby from his unscrupulous character.
That single accusation stupefied Drake. He couldn’t find the words to express his exultation at learning about her pregnancy. A man shouldn’t admit to emotions so sweet and tender. Or to so intense a romantic attachment to his wife.
He took another step toward her. “Alicia … you’re wrong. My happiness about our baby has nothing to do with Hailstock.”
“Am I to believe you? After all the lies you’ve told?” She shook her head, as if appalled by her own gullibility. “You never meant that vow, either.”
“Vow?”
“To cease your hostilities.”
“I did mean it,” he muttered. He’d made that pledge out of the irresistible wish to have her believe him a man of honor. “I intended to make more of an effort to conceal my hatred of him.”
She made a small sound of derision. “And what if I had visited Lord Hailstock or James? Would you have set aside your petty hatreds then?”
“There is nothing petty about this,” Drake snapped, his footsteps loud in the foyer. “Of course I wanted to keep you away from Hailstock. He would have turned you against me.”
She regarded him with cool contempt. “No, Drake. You have managed to do that all by yourself.”
Then she walked past him and into the library, shutting the door.
Chapter Twenty-five
Alicia had a question to ask her mother.
Stepping down from the carriage that evening, she assured herself that was her sole reason for coming home. She needn’t brace herself for an encounter with her husband, either. At this hour, Drake would be at his club.
Her throat tightened with unshed tears. After his departure, Mrs. Molesworth had fussed over Alicia, bringing her tea and toast with jam, wrapping her in a warm knitted blanket, making a fire in the library hearth. Alicia had curled up in a wing chair and stared out at the endless rain. She’d spent the remainder of the afternoon alternately weeping and brooding, hurt and angry at Drake for using her to such a foul purpose.
>
And through it all, she’d had the nagging sense that she’d missed something vital. Something that nagged at the edge of her awareness. Pondering that puzzle, she’d dozed off there in the library, and she had awakened at dusk, remarkably clear-headed.
And with an astonishing question in her mind. Only Mama could provide the answer.
Though the rain had slowed to a drizzle, a footman held an umbrella over Alicia’s head as she walked across the drive, heedless of the puddles. Gazing at the house, she felt caught by a bittersweet sense of homecoming. How she had grown to love this magnificent four-story mansion with its tall white columns and the many windows glowing golden with lamplight through the darkness. How she had grown to love its master, the most deceitful, heartless, obstinate, domineering, stupid man who had ever lived.
As she walked up the marble steps to the portico and entered the front door, Mrs. Yates stood in the foyer arranging red tulips in a Grecian vase. She whirled around, her sensual features alight with an uncommon interest. “Good evening, m’lady.”
With a polite nod, Alicia headed straight for the grand staircase. “Is Lady Eleanor in her chamber?”
“Nay, she’s in the ballroom with Mrs. Philpot.” The flame-haired woman smiled a trifle indulgently; Alicia wondered if the housekeeper could actually show compassion for Mama. “She is Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine tonight.”
Alicia considered going to the ballroom, but she hesitated, her foot on the first step. Perhaps before she questioned her mother, she should take advantage of this opportunity. If Mama was deep in fantasy, she wouldn’t be able to tell Alicia where to search, anyway.…
Mrs. Yates cleared her throat. “You should know, m’lady, that the master had the morning room made into a bedchamber for Lord Scarborough so that he may get around more easily in his wheeled chair. They are both there right now, putting things in order.”
Surprise struck a painful jolt to Alicia’s heart. Drake was here, only a few steps down the corridor.