Deeply In You (27 page)

She had to admit it. “I am now his mistress. I was once governess to Lady Maryanne. I am sure you are shocked now, but please help me. Greybrooke is being wrongfully accused of murder, and I fear he is so hurt by his past that he will not fight for himself.”

“Yes, I saw the newssheets. The stories about his father. The accusations.” Miss Renshaw put her hand to her throat. “I wish to help the duke, but I’ve kept these secrets a very long time. . . .”

“If you can help Greybrooke, please, please, do so.” She was so hopeful, so desperate, all the control a governess should display went out the window. “He is such a good man. He’s artistic, did you know? But he hid his talent from his family because his father was so terrible. He’s such a wonderful gentleman, and I—” Goodness, she had almost said, “I love him.”

She did. It was a glorious feeling, and a deep intense pain, and it was happiness and longing wrapped up together.

She knew she’d revealed her heart to the former governess, and she bowed her head.

“You love him,” Miss Renshaw said softly.

With Will, Helena had protested and denied it. But Greybrooke was so wonderful, so sensual, so caring. How could she have done anything else?

With a shaky hand, Miss Renshaw set down her cup. “The tragedy is in what Lady Maryanne did. Before the fever that left her blind. The illness was awful—a sort of spinal sickness. The poor child had terrible headaches. Part of her face was paralyzed, and she could not move her eyes or her mouth on that side. It was the most frightening thing. The poor lamb was delirious. She was in the care of her brother, then; the old duke and his wife were dead. The poor child kept screaming that she had done something evil and this was her punishment. She was tormented, certain her soul could not be saved. The duke—the new duke, I mean, not her father—nursed her as much as I did. He barely left her side. But the illness left her blind.”

Helena remembered the secret Jacinta had written about in her letters and the terrible thing Maryanne claimed she had done. She declared softly, “Lady Maryanne has been very troubled.”

“The new duke indulged her, I am sorry to say. His Grace loves her dearly, and after she lost her sight, he let her have her tantrums, spoiled her rotten. It did the child no good.”

Helena ached to know what had happened, but she feared if she asked bluntly, she would make the woman stop speaking. She told Miss Renshaw of the progress she had made with Maryanne.

The older woman rested her hand on Helena’s sleeve. “Then you were a godsend for her, Miss Winsome. That is just what the child needs—firm and loving discipline. She went through—” Miss Renshaw stopped. “Well, I cannot say.”

“If it would help Lady Maryanne—and the duke—it would be best to speak the truth.”

Miss Renshaw frowned. “I know of some of the things that went on in that house. Very bad things.”

“Greybrooke was abused,” Helena said. “He has told me about some of it.”

Miss Renshaw wrung her hands. “It was horrible. She claimed it was for the boy’s own good. But what she did . . . well, I would not want to see my worst enemy endure it.”

“She?”
Helena gasped the word. “Do you mean the duke’s mother? His
mother
was the one who imprisoned him and abused him?”

“Yes. It was the duchess. They were both terribly cruel and quite vicious, the duchess and the old duke. I know I should not speak of it, but it makes me so angry. For the sake of those children—Lord Damian, Lady Jacinta, Lady Maryanne—I did not say a word once I was turned out. I kept the secrets. When I was in the home, I tried to defend them, but what could I do, pitted against a powerful duke and a wicked duchess?”

Helena’s stomach lurched. “Both parents abused them?”

Good heavens, she’d thought Greybrooke’s mother must have tried to help him—or she’d been too afraid of her husband to protect him.

“It was almost like a game between them, to outdo each other in cruelty.” Miss Renshaw’s eyes narrowed with remembered anger. “The duke—he was Lucifer incarnate. And the duchess insisted that she was doing God’s work by whipping the devil out of her son.”

“That is terrible.”

“It is a miracle those children survived it. Once Lord Damian was close to death, for he had been locked in a metal box and left outdoors in the dead of winter. The child nearly froze. Then he nearly died of illness afterward.”

Numbness raced over Helena.

“What had Lady Maryanne seen that was so horrible she thought blindness was her punishment?” Helena asked softly.

“I—I really do not know, Miss Winsome. Lady Maryanne would not speak of it to me. All I know was that it happened at the time of the old duke’s death. That was fortuitous—the death of the old duke. It happened before . . . it happened at a time to protect the girls. It hit Lord Damian very hard, though of course he knew it was necessary. Only weeks after the old duke’s death, the duchess passed away. I was not sorry to hear of it. The new Duke of Greybrooke is a very good man.”

“Yes, he is,” Helena breathed. But Greybrooke did not see that. There was more here. Why should Greybrooke feel such guilt?

It happened at a time to protect the girls . . .

“Did his mother and his father abuse their daughters too?” She heard the horror in her voice.

Miss Renshaw nodded sadly. “The father did evil, terrible things. And their mother punished them for it, as if it were their fault.”

Helena knew Lady Winterhaven would never allow her to approach the children in Berkeley Square. Not now that she was a scandalous mistress.

She hid behind the leafy branches of a shrub and watched the new governess. Filled with envy, Helena had to admit. The woman was very pretty with auburn curls, and the children looked happy.

No—Sophie, Michael, and Timothy looked happy. Lady Maryanne did not. Greybrooke’s young sister sat on a blanket in a circle of her skirts, tearing out fistfuls of grass.

Every so often the young governess would glance at Maryanne and bite her lip.

Envy quickly became a sharp pang of guilt. Obviously Lady Maryanne had been very upset by her leaving. The young woman was once again sullen, vacant, and childlike, just as she’d been when Helena had first arrived.

The young governess drew out some embroidery for her and Sophie, and the two females began to make swift strokes with their needles. Timothy and Michael played leapfrog on the grass.

Now was her chance. She believed the true secret to Greybrooke’s pain lay in the terrible thing that Lady Maryanne had done. She must do the very thing she had told that evil, fake Whitehall she would not do. She must coax Maryanne to tell her the truth.

“Maryanne, it’s me, Miss Winsome.” The girl, who was several yards away from the others, lifted her head, cocked it, then turned in the direction of Helena’s whisper.

“Miss Winsome?” She asked it softly.

“Yes, my dear.” The governess was absorbed in her needlework, so Helena slipped out from behind the lilac bush. She hurried to Maryanne and clasped the girl’s hand. “I need to ask you some questions. It is important you tell me the truth. Important for your brother’s sake. It is about what happened when your father’s died.”

Lady Maryanne’s eyes widened. “Do you know? Grey said I was never to tell. Never.” Her fingers curved like claws. Like a frightened animal preparing to fight for its life.

Miss Renshaw’s words floated back to Helena.
That was fortuitous—the death of the old duke.... It hit Lord Damian very hard, though of course he knew it was necessary.

Had Maryanne seen her brother kill her father? Was that what had tormented the girl? Keeping that secret? Heavens, the old duke had been evil. Greybrooke must have shot his father to protect his sisters. But she had to know if her suspicions were correct.

“Maryanne, how did your father die? Was . . . was Greybrooke responsible? I know he was beaten, locked up, and whipped—”

“Father never hurt Damian,” Maryanne whispered. “It wasn’t Father who did that. It was Mother. Damian had to be punished for being naughty and sinful. Mother wanted to make him good. But she was so very wrong—hurting him only wanted to make him misbehave more. The more she tried to stop him from being terrible like Father, the more he wanted to be bad.”

Maryanne tipped up her face, and for one moment Helena felt the young woman could see into her soul. “Father was so awful. I wanted Mother to be good. I wanted to be loved. But there was no escape.” Tears brimmed, then spilled to Maryanne’s cheeks. “It was my fault. That’s why I went blind.”

“It was an illness that took your sight,” Helena broke in firmly, and she put her arm around the girl’s shoulders.

Maryanne shook her head. “I did something terribly wrong and I had to pay for my sin.”

“Lady Maryanne, none of this was your fault. You were not bad—”

“Killing someone
is
bad.” Maryanne put her hand to her mouth. The words came out muffled. “Mother hurt Damian, but Father said he loved us. He said he loved me, but what he did felt so bad. It made me feel so sick. I knew it was wrong—it was the thing Mother punished Damian for. Young ladies weren’t supposed to do that. Father said it was all right, because he would always look after me, but he was lying. It was
wrong
.”

“Your father committed the sin. You did not. You were innocent—”

“You don’t understand. I should go—our new governess will miss me.”

Helena looked. The woman had not yet noticed Maryanne no longer sat on the grass. “It is all right. I do want you to understand you aren’t to blame, and that illness was not a judgment. It was just chance, Maryanne.”

“Damian said he would claim he did it, to protect me. Damian was going to kill Father to stop him. But then I knew I’d been a coward. It was my responsibility. I couldn’t let Damian do it when I should do it. So I—I took one of Father’s dueling pistols and threatened him. He was furious. He threatened to beat me until I could not walk, then keep me prisoner. Then he lunged at me and—and next thing I knew, the pistol exploded in my hand, knocking me onto the floor. There was choking smoke and—and then Father collapsed. I’d pulled the trigger. I killed Father.” Maryanne jerked helplessly as sobs claimed her.

“It wasn’t your fault. Dear heaven, it was an accident. Not your fault.” Helena wrapped her arms around Maryanne and cradled the girl securely against her chest. She said every soothing thing she could think of.

“Grey said if anyone ever found out that Father was shot, he would say he did it,” Maryanne whispered. “They said in the newspaper that Father was murdered. They know, don’t they? But I can’t let my brother be punished for what I did! I can’t!”

The poor girl. No wonder Greybrooke had vowed to take the blame for it. “Do not say anything, Lady Maryanne. No one knows anything. Greybrooke has not been accused of killing your father. You must keep silent. Please, you must trust me.”

The girl nodded. “I do trust you, Miss Winsome.”

Helena was shaky with horror over the nightmare Lady Maryanne had lived through. She could not let this ever be discovered. But her investigation of Greybrooke had begun to expose his secrets. Someone was accusing Greybrooke of murdering his own father.

First there had been the accusation of treason, then the story that his father had been murdered, now the accusation about Lady Blackbriar’s death. Was Whitehall behind everything? Was he the villain, not Blackbriar?

But why was he trying to destroy the duke?

H
elena hurried back to her pale-blue curricle. Finding out the truth from Maryanne, when Greybrooke had told the girl to never talk, was a terrible betrayal.

She slapped the reins, and her curricle launched ahead. Driving was still a challenge—she had her horses trotting slowly. Just as she would protect children, she was protecting others from her lack of driving skills.

When she reached her white town house, she turned her curricle over to her groom. As she entered the foyer, untying the bow of her bonnet, Betsy bobbed a curtsy. “His Grace has arrived. He is awaiting you in the blue drawing room.”

Helena choked down guilt as she reached the room.

Greybrooke sprawled in a wing chair, long legs stretched out. In his hand was a glass of brandy—he’d ensured her home was stocked with what he liked to drink.

He looked up, his mouth a brutal slash of grim anger. “Where in Hades have you been?”

“J-just for a drive,” she lied.

“I’ve been worried sick about you.”

He was concerned for her, and she had been finding out his secrets behind his back.

“The blackmailer has been found,” he said.

“Oh, thank goodness.” Greybrooke would be cleared and so would Will.

“Don’t be thankful yet, Helena. The blackguard’s body was dragged out of the Thames.”

For a moment she just stared. He drained his brandy, watching her over the glass. Then her wits finally worked. “He drowned?”

“No. He was found in the river, but he was dead when he went into the water. Someone strangled him, then threw him in. Bow Street’s magistrate suspects that someone is me.” His tones were cool and jaded, but his hand gripped his glass.

First the accusations about Lady Blackbriar, about the maid. Now this. “Does he have any reason to suspect you?”

“You mean—did I do it?” His voice was a low, deadly growl.

“Goodness, no! I mean was it like Lady Blackbriar? Was there supposedly a witness?”

He inclined his head, admiration in his eyes. “Yes. A couple of butchers, heading to work before dawn, saw a man of my description push a body into the Thames.” He paused. “Do you believe it?”

He was challenging her. She could see it in his green eyes. “No, I don’t. Someone is doing this to you. It must stop!”

A grin came to Grey’s lips, but it was a bitter one, as if he were laughing just before a noose was dropped around his neck. “Indeed? You have decided it should stop, have you, angel?”

“Don’t make fun. I suppose that sounds silly, but I am fed up with this. I refuse to have you hounded or arrested for something you didn’t do.”

The fury in his eyes dissolved. “I agree, Miss Winsome. This has to stop, and I have something I didn’t have before. Now I know what the blackmailer looked like.” From his coat pocket, he drew out a folded sheet of foolscap from the pocket.

“The blackmailer’s body was taken to a mortuary in Whitechapel. I went to take a look—it was the first time I saw the villain without his mask. I produced this.” He unfolded the page. “It gives us something to show people to find out who he was. I want to connect him to Blackbriar.”

It was one of his remarkable drawings. On the white foolscap, a strikingly handsome man came to life. This was the face behind the eerie mask, the face of the man who’d threatened her life. Hatred boiled up, but so did a stronger feeling. A warm, aching, intense feeling directed at Greybrooke, who had
saved
her life.

“I haven’t forgotten Will Rains of that damned newspaper either. With all that’s happened, I haven’t had time to destroy his newssheet. Though he’s had time to print more lies.”

“He was forced to print those things! I don’t believe he was working with the blackmailer. Mr. Rains is innocent.”

Greybrooke stared at her in surprise. “How do you know all this?”

How could she tell him without giving herself away? “I—I went to see him. I believed what he told me. We have only the word of a criminal that Mr. Rains was involved. He has younger sisters. Please, Greybrooke, do not destroy him. Please wait.”

He hesitated, and her heart lodged so firmly in her throat she couldn’t breathe. Finally he said, “All right.”

Helena almost sobbed with relief. Will was safe for now.

“I am going to take that picture to St. Giles where the blackmailer met Orley. See if anyone recognizes it.”

“We must go at once,” she declared.

“Soon. There’s something I need to do first.”

“What could be more important than clearing your name? Than proving you innocent?”

“One thing.” Greybrook set down his drink and stood. “Making love to you. Something quick. I can’t be in a room with you without wanting you. Lean over that table, angel, and let me tie your hands.”

Startled, she did what he asked. And made remarkable discoveries.

Who knew sex could be so exhilarating when it was enjoyed in mere minutes? Who knew he could make her come so many times, so quickly?

A quarter hour later, still dizzy from climaxes, Helena gasped for breath as Greybrooke straightened her skirts, untied her hands. She put her hand to her pounding heart. “That was amazing. But should we not go and prove your innocence now?”

He gave a soft, deep chuckle. “Yes, I suppose we should. But first let me fix your hair.”

Even on a gloriously sunny day, stepping into the Mast and Sails made Helena think she was climbing into a soot-filled closet. Dirt and grime clung to the windows, extinguishing any hope of daylight in the small room. At the bench tables, men hunkered over tankards of ale. In the corners, women sat in bedraggled finery with glasses of gin in their hands.

“Something should be done about such despair,” Helena murmured. After all, she knew how easy it was to tumble from respectability.

She felt Greybrooke’s gaze on her. Studying her. Had she said too much? Made him wonder about her past again?

To stop him from pondering—if he was—she asked, “What are you going to do?”

“Speak to someone.”

Every female eye had gone quickly to Greybrooke, but he singled out one woman, bestowing his stunning smile. She was middle-aged, her face marred by pockmarks. Wispy gray-brown curls stuck out beneath her gaudy purple bonnet. The woman shuffled away from the man beside her—a heavy-set, balding man—and scuttled toward Grey as he sat elegantly on the bench at her side. He ordered the woman a fresh drink.

Heavens, Helena thought, he was good.

She stayed near the door, watching as he took out the picture. Wariness came to the woman’s eyes. Greybrooke’s gaze held her captive though.

He drew out several gold sovereigns and dropped the coins into the woman’s hand. They fell with a melodious clink. The woman bent close to Greybrooke, cupped her hand to her mouth, and whispered something in his ear. He nodded, then he stood and bowed over the woman’s hand in parting.

Helena bit her lip as he prowled across the tavern to her. He had to duck since the timbered ceiling was so low.

“She will probably spend it all on drink,” she whispered.

“Agreed. But I cannot force the woman—her name is Mrs. Winslet—to change.”

“Sometimes you have to make people change whether they want to or not. I always have to do what is best for children.”

“There are some people you cannot change.”

Helena knew he meant himself. “I do not believe that.” She lowered her voice. “How did you know to speak to her?”

“Last time I was searching here, I was told Mrs. Winslet knows everyone in the stews. Now that I have the picture, she was able to help me. She is supposed to be able to tell fortunes too.”

“What did she tell you?”

“Something very valuable. And she told me my future, though I doubt her powers of prognostication.”

“Why doubt her?” Though Helena did not believe in any of that—in love she had stopped being practical, but she was determined to stay that way in everything else.

“She told me I was about to fall in love,” Greybrooke said.

She gaped at him in shock, then said quickly, “Did she tell you who the man is?”

“Come along, angel.”

He said nothing more about the prediction, nor did he reveal what else the woman said.

Finally, as the carriage rattled down the Strand, Helena exploded, “She gave you the man’s name. That’s why we’re racing so quickly. You must tell me who he is. We are in this
together,
and I want to know.”

Greybrooke sat across from her. “I suppose we are in this together. There’s no point in trying to protect you. You’re too stubborn. All right, his name is Turner, and he’s an actor. According to Mrs. Winslet, he’s been in several plays on Drury Lane. So we will show his picture around there.”

“An actor.” She thought of Whitehall, who had not been a real agent of the Crown. “Playing the part of a blackmailer?”

Greybrooke flashed an admiring look. “I wondered that myself.”

“But wouldn’t it have been a terrible risk?”

“Not if you intended all along to kill him.”

She shivered, struggled to make sense of it. “Why would Blackbriar blackmail his wife?”

“If he wanted to make her death look like a suicide, he needed to show she had motivation to take her own life. Escaping blackmail—and ruin—would give a strong reason.”

“But if he wants to make it appear that you murdered her, why give her motive to have taken her own life?”

“That’s the perverse madness of this.” With stunning coolness, he added, “All I can guess is that he wanted me to hang either for Caro’s murder or for the blackmailer’s murder.”

“Why would he hate you
that
much?”

“He was obsessive about Caroline.”

“You weren’t her lover though. You weren’t the father of her child.”

“I don’t know what Caroline told him—maybe she told Blackbriar I was the father to protect her real lover. Or perhaps she told him the truth and Blackbriar refused to believe it. He told me he believed she was always in love with me. Regardless, it doesn’t matter. She was my close friend, and she warned me that Blackbriar had always been jealous of our friendship.”

“Perhaps she really did love you.”

“She would have had no reason to. I never treated her as anything more than a friend. She wanted someone to give her what Blackbriar refused. Tenderness, kindness. Normal love. I couldn’t give her that. I’m more warped than Blackbriar.”

She hated to hear him say that. And say it with such cold acceptance. “That is not true. You have a terrible past and you must feel so much rage over it. But that is natural—what child would not be afraid to love and open his heart after enduring pain and torture from both his parents? After being whipped. Put in a trunk, for heaven’s sake. Your father was a complete madman and attacked his youngest daughter. I understand why you feel such pain, and why you have all this anger. But it doesn’t mean you have to feel that way forever.”

Greybrooke frowned. Helena had the suddenly sensation of a wall of ice growing instantly between them. Oh God—she realized what she’d said....

“How do you know about the trunk? How do you know about Maryanne? Who told you?”

Helena knew she could never think of a lie to explain how she could know something so specific, so she told him the truth. “I wanted to help you forget the past.”

I wanted it because I have a mad dream that I can be with you. Despite all the good sense I’ve learned to possess, I fantasize about being with you. About being loved by you.

She certainly didn’t let one word of that off her lips. He could draw back from her. Probably leave her in a minute if he knew how desperately she cared.

She took a calming breath. “I found your former governess, Miss Renshaw. From what she said, I realized what had happened. You are haunted by what happened to you. You are haunted by what happened to Lady Winterhaven and Lady Maryanne. Greybrooke, you mustn’t torment yourself. What could you have done?”

“We’re here,” was all he said.

The carriage had stopped near one of the theaters.

“I’ll show the picture.” She couldn’t sit in the carriage, knowing he was furious. She grasped the picture from his hand, flung open the door, and raced down the steps.

She went from one theater to the next, explaining to people that the man in the picture was a friend of her brother’s, that her brother was missing and she was praying this friend could help her. It had become so terribly easy to lie.

Greybrooke watched from the shadows. Helena felt his gaze on her like a burning brand.

Finally, at a theater called the Sans Pareil, which meant “Without Compare,” she found a young, pimply lad who was building a backdrop of a Venetian scene, and he recognized the picture at once.

“He’s one of the most popular actors here.” The redheaded lad hauled off his cap as he spoke to her. He blushed when he looked down into her eyes. “His name’s Richard Turner. He plays in all the risky plays. They call them the ‘burlettes’ or something like that.”

Helena knew those plays. Called
burlettas,
they were ribald versions of operettas from the Continent, filled with naughty jokes and scandalous innuendo.