Dilemma in Yellow Silk (17 page)

Together they made a formidable bunch. Viola was sitting at table with some of the most influential people in the land. She was betrothed to one, however temporarily.

She had met them all before and knew them with various degrees of familiarity. Dru best—no, of course not. She had never lain naked in bed with Dru, her arms around her all night. Marcus, then. When she glanced at him, he smiled reassuringly.

“You look delightful this evening, my dear,” he said to her across the table.

“Thank you. You’re not too shabby yourself.”

The family laughed, but she meant he looked wonderful. He wore a dark blue coat that gleamed in the summer sunlight steaming through the windows. His waistcoat was embroidered with tiny flowers down the front opening and around the plackets of each pocket. He had on his finger the signet ring he often wore, but had not on the day of their escape. He must have more than one. And that awful wig had gone, for good she hoped.

“I’m flattered you should think so,” he said. He gave her far too much attention, considering Winterton was attending to her needs most solicitously.

At one point, when she’d thanked him shyly for helping her to a dish, he said, as he was replacing the porcelain on the table, “Since we are only family, as my aunt would say, I would count it a pleasure if you addressed me as Julius.”

She opened her eyes wider. “Not ‘Winterton?’”

“Our parents were so good as to bestow such interesting names on us. It would be a shame if we did not use them, would it not?”

Interesting was one way of putting it.

They ate, chatted, and then Julius asked Marcus what his plans were. He smiled and glanced at her. “We have decided to take things as they come.”

“That doesn’t sound at all like you, Marcus,” his mother said. She picked up her white wine and took a sip. Beads of condensation frosted her glass.

“Viola has reformed me and shown me what joys lie in impulsivity.” He toasted Viola.

She managed a smile. “I try to curtail the more outrageous.”

“Oh, this will be an interesting union,” Julius said, leaning back. “I predict fireworks.”

“You may live to be disappointed,” Marcus said.

“Nobody has ever managed to eke an impulsive action from Marcus except Viola,” Valentinian, commonly known as Val, declared. “When we were children, I saw him take dares from her he would never have taken from anyone else.”

“Marcus’s pet,” Val’s twin, Darius, put in. “But I think we are about to see a reversal. Will Marcus become Viola’s pet?”

“My only concern is for her,” Marcus said, just like a lover should.

Except he was not her lover, not in truth. Their betrothal was one of convenience. That was all. Marcus had said he was fond of her, but that made her sound like his pet again. Not his equal, his lover, or even his beloved. If she did not remind herself, she might forget it, with disastrous results.

She lowered her gaze and got on with her meal. Although it was better cooked and better served than anything she had consumed for the last four days, it turned to ashes in her mouth. It might already be too late. She might already love him.

After the meal, Lady Strenshall led the way to the drawing room, but the men were on their heels. Tea was served and port brought in.

Julius waited until the last servant had left the room. Until then, he had conversed easily on society gossip, keeping the topics light, but after the domestics had left, his expression turned severe. “I did not come by accident,” he said. “We had news yesterday.” He glanced at Lord Strenshall. “Your man brought the news, so you might wish to announce it.”

Lord Strenshall’s face showed signs of strain. His mouth turned down at the corners, and his eyes were grave. “It is no better coming from me than it is from you.”

Julius took her hands in his. This was so unlike his behavior she turned her attention to him immediately. She had not grown up with him as she had his cousins, and such familiarity shocked her.

“My dear, riders travelled ahead of you. We have been waiting for you to arrive.” He sucked in a deep breath, the buttons on his waistcoat glittering in response. “Unfortunately the people who attacked your father in his home returned. He is dead, Viola.”

She swallowed. The words meant nothing at first, but they returned with the impact of a bullet. Her father—the man who had championed her, cared for her, and never treated her as anything but his own. “I will never see him again?” were her first words, followed immediately by, “Are you sure?”

Hands touched her shoulders from behind, hands that trembled. “I did not know either,” Marcus said. “You should have told us earlier, Julius.”

“You both needed sustenance,” Julius said calmly. “And I did not want the servants to suspect anything. I wanted to discuss the matter with you and your family first. This is the first opportunity we have had to be alone.”

“I have no family.”

The grip on her shoulders tightened. “Yes, you do.”

The others fell silent, but they had known her father, too. They stared at her, obviously shocked. Not as shocked as she was. “Why did you not want anyone to know? Is the news so secret?” she asked.

“We received the tidings from a man I can trust not to speak. Tranmere, your footman. He fought the intruders, but they shot your father before he could reach him. Tranmere is currently resting at my house, but he is your servant. I will send him to you tomorrow. While your district is in an uproar by now, no doubt, nobody else in London knows of this. Yet.”

That didn’t precisely answer her question. Numb with shock, she let him talk.

“The house was set alight, but they extinguished the flames before they had properly caught hold,” Julius continued. “I believe they were trying to cover their tracks. They had searched the house. Did they find what they were looking for?”

“No.” Marcus rounded the sofa.

Julius released her hands and got to his feet, making room for his cousin.

Heedless of convention, he put his arm around her shoulders. She leaned against him with a sigh.

“I have the papers safe,” he said. “More importantly, I have Viola safe. I knew getting the stage was the right decision. Keeping people with us at all times.”

“Except at night,” Julius said, straight-lipped.

“I slept in the tap room, where I could keep an eye on the comings and goings,” Marcus said. Thank goodness for that one night he had done so. That meant he wouldn’t have to lie to his cousin. Uncomfortably, Viola suspected Julius could spot a lie the moment it was told.

When Julius turned his attention on her, she found his concentration unnerving.

Marcus spoke next. “I considered Gates safe once I’d taken their quarry away. I should have known better.” He shook his head regretfully. “I’m sorry, sweetheart.”

She barely noticed the endearment this time. Tears pricked her eyes and finally had their way. She dropped her fan to take the large white handkerchief Marcus pressed into her hand. Turning her into his body, he held her close while she wept for the man she considered her father. He would always be her father.

Marcus spoke quietly to Julius and the others. “I took her to the house Gates had bought in Scarborough, but there were people waiting for us there. I have no idea how they discovered the existence of the house, since Gates took care to make the purchase quietly. He knew who Viola was, naturally, and he took precautions with her care.”

Viola dried her eyes, ignoring the tears that still escaped. But the first torrent was gone now, and her mind started to work again. “The estate office,” she said, her voice quavering. “He kept a copy of the bill of sale in the estate office.”

“People come in and out all quarter day,” the marquess said somberly.

“So they discovered the existence of the house and bided their time. When Marcus took more than usual interest in Viola, they struck,” Julius said. “How long have you been courting her?”

Marcus paused, so Viola answered for him. “Not at all. He declared we were betrothed so he could care for me and keep me with him.”

Julius nodded, but before he could speak again, Marcus interrupted. “I have been courting Viola for a long time. We wrote and slowly we fell in love. That is what I want society to know when I marry her. Which will happen tomorrow or the day after.”

Shock fell on shock. Viola jerked away, shoving the handkerchief back at him. “There is no need.” The ultimate sacrifice. She could not allow him to make it.

With his whole family watching, he took her hands. “Look at me, Viola.”

She lifted her watery gaze to his. Nothing but sincerity lay in his dark gaze.

“We cannot marry once we hear the news of your father’s demise. Or rather, when society knows. We can officially hear the news the day after we marry. But marry we will.”

“No!”

An odd smile twisted his mouth. “Yes. I want to. Would you like me to demonstrate how much? In front of my whole family?”

He would do that? She caught her breath, everything else temporarily forgotten. His offer was so unlike the usually staid Marcus her mouth dropped open and her tears dried up. “No,” she managed to say. Clearly the man was deranged.

Marcus was chivalrous in the extreme. She could not accept his offer, naturally, but she appreciated his making it. “I’ll be safe here.”

“Possibly.” That was Julius again. “You would be better closer to one of us.”

“Who would do this?”

“I explained,” Marcus said. “Either the Young Pretender’s people or Northwich’s want her and their ambitions are different.”

Julius nodded briskly. None of the louche leader of fashion remained in his sharp, precise tone. “Indeed. So if you marry Marcus, that puts him in danger too. Except killing the heir to the Marquess of Strenshall, and an Emperor, would give even Northwich pause.”

“But not his sons,” Darius remarked. He sat on the sofa opposite to the one Viola and Marcus occupied. He crossed one leg over the other at the knee. His diamond shoe buckles flashed in the light. “They are reckless. At least, we know one of them is.”

“Maybe all of them,” Julius said. “He is ruthless but cautious. His sons are cut from different cloth.” He paced, three steps one way, tracking the pattern on the carpet, and then returned. “They would kill to obtain information.”

“Northwich would disown them in a minute if they were found out,” Marcus observed. “When William was nearly caught out by Tony, he sent him abroad for a time. But he will not repeat that if one of his sons is caught in wrongdoing. He has more than an heir and a spare, after all.”

They called their cousin Antoninus Tony. Viola didn’t know him very well. He’d joined the army and returned from service only recently. But he had married recently and become an earl, when the Crown granted him the title his wife’s family had borne.

Had he performed a special service to the Crown to earn the title?

She would not put Marcus in danger. But he obviously had other ideas.

Marcus watched his mother take Viola away with a sense of foreboding. He knew her better than she imagined. She would do her best to break the connection with him. “She needs us,” he said.

“Yes, she does,” Julius said. “Are the documents the same as the others?”

Marcus nodded. “A copy of the marriage certificate, a birth certificate, and a letter. Very short and to the point. She obviously didn’t have much time. Placing Viola with Gates and his wife gave the child all the protection she needed.” He turned his attention to his father. “What happened?”

Lord Strenshall studied his son. “We were in Rome, and a lady approached us. She carried a letter of recommendation. This was not Maria herself, but one of her servants, who said she needed parents for a motherless child. Gates jumped at the chance. We could not take her, obviously. That was all. When I read the papers later, I wanted to return her to her parents. I advised Gates to have nothing to do with the whole sorry business, but he had fallen in love with the mother and the child by that point. As, I recollect, you are in the process of doing. The daughter, at any rate.”

Marcus considered denying the accusation, but not for long. He chose to shrug and let them make their own conclusions. What he felt for Viola was private, mostly because he was not sure himself. She confused him and intrigued him to such an extent he suspected he would never discover everything about her. That appealed to his rational mind. And taking recent events out of the picture, he’d enjoyed their race to London more than he should have. Protecting her gave him a sense of belonging, of having a worthwhile task.

No, he did not want Viola out of his life.

“I have some very safe, very secluded places I can hide her,” Julius said. “Nobody knows of them. I have been very careful not to keep the associated papers anywhere they could be discovered.” Unlike Gates, whose passion for order had led him to keep the bill of sale for the Scarborough house with his other official papers.

“I was so anxious to get Viola safe I left him to face the wolves. He was hurt in the previous attack, but not seriously. Do you think the accident in the park that broke Gates’s ankle was a deliberate action?”

Julius nodded and took another turn about the carpet. At this rate he would carve a track into it. “I wondered when you’d come to that. I believe it was. Easy to rig a trip line in his way. We can no doubt discover for sure, but at this time there is not much point. The man did not die easily.”

“You will not tell Viola,” Marcus said. He would not have her hurt any more than she was already.

“I did not, did I?” Julius turned an accusatory stare on to Marcus, but he met his cousin’s gaze without flinching. “Neither will I.”

“Instead, we fled to the town and took the stage,” Marcus said. “They could not have done anything had they caught us in such a public arena.” He paused. He knew one way of getting his family on his side, but that would mean embarrassing Viola. He could tell them they slept together.

“I introduced Freddie Howard to Viola, calling her my betrothed. I had little choice.”

“Do you want her, Marcus?” Typical of Livia to get to the point and ask the question that mattered. The only one that mattered.