Edith Layton (22 page)

Ewen was not famous for asking, for saying “please.” His cousin studied his face. Then he nodded. “For old times’ sake,” he agreed warily, “and the hope of new ones.”

Ewen gave him a tight-lipped smile. The stilted conversation around them grew more normal; laughter was heard. A footman who had been hovering nearby decided it was finally safe enough for him to interrupt the two dangerous gentlemen.

“My lord?” he said nervously, offering Ewen a note on a silver tray. “There’s a message for you.”

Ewen picked up the square of paper. He read it and then crumpled it in his fist. His eyes were bleak, and then afire. He sprang to his feet. “Damn! I have to go,” he told Drum. “Damn and blast, damn them all!”

Drum looked at him curiously. “Surely it can wait a moment?”

“I wish it could, but I must leave. Now.”

“Your father?” Drum asked anxiously. “I’m so sorry….”

“No, no, he flourishes. It’s…something else, entirely.”

Drum frowned, then his eyes opened wide. He rose and put a hand on Ewen’s sleeve. “I won’t ask your reasons. But I don’t lack funds, and I won’t ask for interest or a quick return. If you need something to see you through, you don’t have to throw yourself to the loan sharks. Whatever you’ve done doesn’t matter. As you said before, I’m family.”

Ewen’s stern expression vanished. He threw back his
head and laughed wholeheartedly. “That’s rich,” he said when he’d done, his voice softer, “and I don’t mean money. You’re ready to slay me for an imagined slight to a woman you never really met, but you’re also ready to empty your pockets for me? Well done! Even I’m not so befuddled.” He sobered. “But there’s no need. We aren’t boys anymore; I haven’t spent my allowance. I’m well to grass. It isn’t money troubles. But thank you.”

“Then why do you have to rush away? Who has such power over you? I saw your face when you read that note. You’re in trouble, Ewen.”

Ewen’s face grew graver. “No. A friend of mine is. Don’t ask, because I can’t tell you yet. Just trust me.” He winced. “I’m asking that of a lot of people these days,” he murmured, his eyes bleak again. “Damn and blast it all! I’ll see you when I can. Hold a good thought for—and of me—until then, will you?”

“I’ll try,” Drum said, but he said it to the air because his cousin was already striding from the room.

W
ell
, Bridget thought as she carefully folded the note,
that’s something
. It might only be desire talking, but it was something. But what exactly did he mean by “only a little longer”? F
orget about that, my girl
, she told herself. W
hat did he mean by saying
, “I
need to see your face when
I
speak to you
’?” That was worrisome. She sighed. So many questions, and only one answer: Ewen.

“So, from your face, I guess he ain’t coming today neither?” Gilly asked.

“No, but soon.”

“Oh, aye, and soon it’ll be winter, and where’s Father Christmas? Huh,” Gilly said, glancing out the window at the verdant lawns that made her statement seem even more foolish. “Listen, Miss Bridget, I can’t stay here all summer. Longer I’m away, less work I’ll find when I get back. Folks get to thinking you’re dead if you don’t show up after a week’s passed. And how long do you think they’ll hold Betsy’s corner for her? It’s been given away to someone else already, you know. I’ll have to talk sixteen to the dozen until they gives it back to Betsy, as it is.”

“Oh, Gilly, you could be a storyteller on that same street corner and make your fortune—you’ve only been here a week, and you know it!”

Gilly shrugged. “Feels like more.”

“Because you’re idle. Come along, we’ll go for another walk,” Bridget said, snatching up her shawl.

“Oh, good!” Betsy cried, skipping after Bridget as she left the salon and went to the door.

“Be an inch shorter when I does get back, we does so much walking,” Gilly grumbled. But she followed the pair out the door, into the enclosed courtyard, and then out into the sunlight.

They walked toward the little village nearby but never actually got there. They never did. Bridget always found a reason to turn back before they came in sight of it. She did again now.

“It looks like it’s clouding up to rain,” she said, screwing up her eyes and staring at a cloudless sky.

“It always rains. So what?” Gilly asked as she trudged along.

“And it’s nearing teatime,” Bridget added.

That did it. Gilly never passed up a chance for a meal. They turned back. Bridget was relieved to have thought up yet anther excuse not to go into town. It was bad enough that Gilly saw how the household staff was treating her these days. Going to the village would be worse, because Bridget knew that they didn’t like her there. She was only learning that about the Brook House staff now.

The longer Ewen stayed away, the worse his household staff behaved toward her. They did it in a way that made it hard for her to complain to Ewen, because there was nothing precisely to complain about. But they made her life more uncomfortable every day and night. It was done cleverly, but she suspected servants were masters of the art of subtly showing their distaste for someone they had to serve. Each day she was subjected to a dozen little things that showed what they thought of her, so little they were never enough to write to Ewen about, things that could be seen as her imagination—if you weren’t there to see them. An inflection in a voice here, a sneer on a face there, a slow look or a fast retort, and things never done the way she asked: a fire lit an hour after she asked, a cup removed long before she was done drinking from it, luncheon served late, dinner
cold, and always with foods they’d have to have been blind not to notice that she’d left on your plate the night before. Sometimes she suspected they were the same foods, too. All these little things added up to a miserable whole.

Betsy was still treated charmingly, and they’d even grudgingly accepted Gilly, for Betsy’s sake. Not for hers, Bridget knew. That was clear.

Brook House had been a terrible place for him to take her for her honeymoon, she thought. But then she admitted it really wasn’t. Hell itself wouldn’t have been bad if he’d been there with her. But he wasn’t, and this was where he’d always taken his light ladies, and so why should they believe her to be any better? Especially since the only title on her name was his. And now Gilly had introduced doubt that he’d even given her his title. Bridget refused to explain herself to servants. She knew they wouldn’t have listened, anyway.

This was her honeymoon, and she’d never been more wretched in her life. She no longer wrote to her mother. She hoped her mama thought it was because she was too busy spending every hour in her doting new husband’s arms. Messages or not, Bridget wasn’t even sure she was in his thoughts. He was constantly in hers—both the remembered joy of him and the new fears about his intentions.

She could hardly sleep at night, though she walked every hour of the day, either taking country rambles or pacing the time away. It showed in her mirror. She grieved to see that her finest feature, her gray eyes, weren’t so fine when they were so red. Her complexion looked more haggard than fair. More and more the scar dominated her pallid face. Less and less she looked like
the beloved bride of a nobleman, she thought as she and Gilly and Betsy straggled home from their shortened walk again.

So she literally stopped breathing when she looked up from her dusty slippers as they came to the top of the slope that overlooked Brook House. She only stood staring.

“Lookit that fine carriage!” Betsy cried. “Is it him, do you think, is it, Miss Bridget?”

“Him or the King hisself,” Gilly said, eyeing the fine carriage, with all the cases on top of it, stopped in the drive.

“Four horses!” Betsy said, dancing in place. “Matched blacks, too. Coo! It’s gotta be him!”

M
ore likely some more of his rakish friends
, Bridget thought warily. Whoever it was, she wasn’t going to run into embarrassment again.

“Well, I don’t think it’s my husband,” she told them as she began moving toward the house. She refused to run, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t hurry. “He left on horseback, and I think he’ll come home the same way. Maybe it’s guests.” N
one of whom
I
know
, she thought miserably,
and many of them
I’
m afraid to know
.

Still, it was company. And maybe news. So Bridget picked up her pace. She made her way down the slope as quickly and as daintily as she could, in case anyone was watching from the coach.

They weren’t. She saw some figures alighting, and they went right up the stairs to the front door. A party of three. Two women and a young boy. Might it be Ewen’s relatives? He had no sister, she knew, but perhaps another cousin? Now Bridget hurried faster.

The door swung open. The footman stared. The but
ler, Mr. Hines, appeared a moment later, and even from a distance Bridget could see his astonishment. He gasped like a fish and swayed, and she feared he might actually fall. But then his sour old face broke into a huge smile. She almost didn’t recognize him.

She hurried on, Betsy skipping beside her, Gilly lengthening her boyish stride. Even so, the group at the front door was about to move inside when she at last came close. They were going inside? But she hadn’t invited them in!

Then it must be relatives. Bridget reached the front stair before she slowed, smoothing her tousled hair, hoping she didn’t look too windblown and frowzy.

The butler saw her first and frowned. That made the trio in the doorway turn back to look at her. The woman closest to her was obviously a servant, because she stood in back of the other two and was dressed in the sort of shapeless, subdued brown dress that Bridget remembered all too well. The boy, a handsome youngster with a sulky mouth, stared openly and rudely at Bridget, Gilly, and Betsy. But the women with him stopped Bridget in her tracks. She felt like curtsying. This was obviously a lady, anyone could see that.

She was some years older than Bridget, but not many. The stranger was tall for a woman, and slender, and blond and fair as the meadowsweet blooming in the fields around them, but with all the refinement of an exquisite rose. She wore a perfectly cut black carriage dress that showed her shapely form. A dashing little pink and black bonnet tilted rakishly over smooth golden tresses, accenting a classically elegant face. Thin brows arced over blue eyes as she beheld the trio before her.

“My lady,” the butler said, “this is the young woman I was speaking of, and her…friends.”

But he was speaking to the visitor and not Bridget—the mistress of this house, and so then, however much he disliked her,
his
mistress. His
lady
. Bridget sucked in a breath. She may have been belittled by the staff in small ways, and so unable to fight back before. But this was outright rudeness and insubordination. Her chin went up. Her gray eyes grew dark with wrath. She knew her place, even if he did not.

“Oh, dear!” the strange woman said in dismay before Bridget could say a word. “This will be more difficult than I thought. Well, needs must when the devil drives. There can be no help for it, I suppose.” She pulled off her lacy gloves as she turned her perfect profile to Bridget and addressed the butler again. “Dear Mr. Hines,” she said, “would you please introduce me?”

“Of course, my lady,” he said with glee. “Viscountess, may I introduce Miss Bridget, from London, and her friends, Miss Betsy and Miss Gilly. Girls,” he said with a look at Bridget, “this is Elise Sinclair, Viscountess Sinclair.”

“Ewen’s mother?” Bridget said in confusion. “But—but I thought she was dead.”

“Alas,” the strange woman said, “so she is. I am not she. For one thing, I’m not old enough. Still, I suppose you might think a second wife—but the Earl never got over her death. Although how could you know that, poor thing? I’m sorry, truly I am. But I am Ewen’s wife, my dear.”

“His…,” Bridget said, staring.

“Yes. That’s right. Elise, Ewen’s wife. Ah!” the lady said, her voice beginning to crackle and fade in Bridget’s
ears, “do see to her, Hines, would you? I fear the poor thing’s going to swoon.”

“No, I’m not,” Bridget said as the faces before her wavered and drew together. Finally, and mercifully, they were eclipsed by all the darkness that was rushing toward them.

S
he hadn’t been dreaming. Bridget knew that the minute she opened her eyes. It wasn’t just because she woke choking on the lingering smell of burnt feathers or the stench of the salts that they’d used to revive her still scalding her nose. She knew because she hadn’t wanted to wake up.

She’d fainted, for the first time in her life. And as she woke she immediately remembered, too clearly, why. The woman downstairs
had
said she was Ewen’s wife, back from the dead. Only she looked very alive and well, and worst of all, exactly the way Bridget had always thought his first wife looked. She woke in a second, sitting straight up in the next one.

“They said as to how you wasn’t to get up right off,” Betsy said in a small, worried voice. She was sitting on Bridget’s bed with her, looking anxious.

“Huh! Them! They wisht she wouldn’t wake at all,” Gilly said, frowning fiercely as she studied Bridget. “They said as to how we should let you be until they calls for you.”

“
They
did, did they?” Bridget asked. She swung her feet over the edge of the bed. “Well, I’m not a servant, to be ordered about. This is my husband’s house. No one else has the right to tell me what to do.”

Gilly’s face was somber, and Betsy’s lower lip was quivering.

“Aw, Miss Bridget, the game’s up,” Gilly said sorrowfully. “Leave your losses, and let’s be gone from here.”

If she doubted now, she was lost. That alone, Bridget knew for certain now.

“He told me his wife was dead,” she said, as much to herself as to them. “Why should I believe otherwise? Because some fine lady says so? Who is she? Any number of women could claim anything at all. She looks like a lady…maybe more than I do, I grant that,” she added, her voice wavering. She pulled herself together and straightened her back. “But his wife is dead. He told me so, but you don’t have to believe him.
Everyone
knows that. You said so yourself, Gilly.”

“Aye,” Gilly said slowly, “so I did. Y’know, there’s something to that. I’ll be blowed if I wasn’t took for a flat! She looked so fine, I thought, W
ell
, G
illy old girl, that’s that
. P
oor
M
iss
B
ridget’s been hoaxed all right and tight—bammed, led right round the garden path, she was
. But come to think on, there’s something smells funny here.”

Gilly began to pace, her voice picking up excitement, her strange eyes glowing yellow. “All say she’s dead. Yet here she be, no ghost at all. Now, where I come from,
there’s them that would pretend to be a dead man’s son, or brother or father, or even his wife or mistress—don’t matter which, they might try to be any—just to get the boots he left. There’s more at stake here. Much more. Aye, there could be some rig running.

“Now,” she said, holding up a finger to stop Bridget from interrupting, “I ain’t saying your Viscount ain’t a rogue, mind. Nor that it mightn’t be him at the bottom of all this, even so. Remember that. But I’m just thinking that this fine lady may be a bigger rogue than him, or any you’ve met yet. See, like I said, I know London, and who to ask what there. One thing I know as sure as my own name: One person tells you a thing, bet your life it could be a lie—or not. Two or three people tells you the same thing, maybe it ain’t a lie. But
everyone
? Ah. Then either you got the biggest lie ever told, or the truth of it.”

“One thing I know,” Bridget said, getting down off the bed, “is that if Ewen told me something, it’s true. Don’t look at me like that, Gilly, I know what you’re thinking. But that’s what I believe, or I’ll believe nothing else. I’d bet
my
life on it.”

But hadn’t she already? Because what was her life but her reputation? And what could she do if he had lied to her? She’d burned all her bridges when she came with him; she’d known it then. If he’d duped her, she had no reputation left, and so no life to speak of: no possible way of finding decent employment without references, not even the goodwill of her father’s wretched family. She could only go to Ireland and seek out her mother and be a burden to her.

But luckily, she thought determinedly as she went to her wardrobe, that was not the case. Ewen hadn’t lied to her.

“You going to go talk to her now?” Gilly asked as Bridget cracked open her trunk and stared into it.

“Of course,” Bridget said absently. It had to be soon, because the more she thought about it, the more frightened she’d be. And she was already afraid.

“Then Betsy and me, we’ll go belowstairs and do some talking there, too,” Gilly said. “That’s where everyone knows everything, the servants do. And I’ll try to get a word with that lad who came with her. He’s a nasty piece of work, that one. Got little beady eyes, that’s always a sign. But he’d never guess what the game is with me, and since he don’t speak to servants, he might not know. He just might have a word with another lad, though—that’d be me. Or he might be willing to chat with a cunning little doll like our Betsy. No one can refuse her. We’ll sort this out for you, not to worry.”

Bridget gazed at Gilly, so fierce in her defense. She had more than a friend in Gilly, she had an ally. Impulsively she reached out and gave her a hug. She didn’t know who was more startled. But just hugging the girl—who turned out to be unexpectedly fragile beneath her baggy clothing—made Bridget feel stronger, better, less alone. She couldn’t have done that before her brief time with Ewen. He’d given her that—the ability to touch, to know how good it was to hold another human being.

Bridget let Gilly go, grinning at how surprised she still was. “Now,” Bridget said briskly, “you to your tasks, and me to mine. You’re right, we’ll get to the bottom of this.”

Gilly gave a tentative smile in return. A real smile, if a shy one. The first such Bridget had ever seen from her. Then she blinked, straightened her thin shoulders, and
took Betsy by the hand. “Aye, you to yours and us to ours, but be sure and call if you needs us. I can fight like a cornered rat, and Betsy here can screech the rooftops down if she got to. I taught her how to use her knees, nails, and elbows, too.”

Bridget grinned at the thought of the two tussling with the elegant lady who claimed to be Ewen’s wife. But the moment they left her room her smile faded. She picked up a gown, scrutinizing it. What she wore was important now. Her dress had to be modest, expensive, and elegant. She’d have to arrange her hair simply and neatly, too. She had no jewels to wear, but she’d paste on a small, secretive smile and never let it slip. She’d raise her head high and forget her scar, pretending there was nothing but a dash of powder on her face. She’d dress in her finest, so that she could be the finest lady to ever grace this house. Finer even than that paragon downstairs. Who was not Viscountess Sinclair. She’d bet her life on that.

Now she only needed to forget that she already had done just that.

Bridget finally choose a gray high-necked dress. It wasn’t servant gray, not remotely like the gowns she’d had to wear when she’d been little better than a servant. It was expensive gray, the color of heirloom silver. It was softly draped, the color shifting from that of a storm cloud to the quicksilver shade of fish flashing though clear water. The overskirt was slate silk with a tiny floral design. It had been cut by a master’s hand and flowed over her body like a lover’s caress, making her fine gray eyes shine as though they were touched by moonlight. She didn’t know that. She only knew it made her look like a dignified lady.

She went downstairs and found a footman.

“Please tell our visitor that I will see her in the library,” she said.

She’d thought it over carefully. If she sat behind a desk, the woman she’d summoned standing before her, then she’d clearly be seen as mistress of the situation, and the house. It would be a small advantage, but Bridget needed every advantage now. She knew she herself was Ewen’s wife; she knew the woman was some kind of impostor. And she was very afraid the woman might be Ewen’s wife, too.

She didn’t know how all these things could be at the same time, but so it was. She didn’t have time to sort it out. One thing was clear: She had to act before the interloper did.

The footman hesitated, clearly uncomfortable. He was a young man and a quiet one. Bridget had addressed only a few words to him in all the time she’d been here.

“The lady is in the salon,” he finally said, his eyes blinking rapidly, “and she asked me to tell you she wants to see you there…miss,” he added unhappily.

Bridget’s head snapped up as though she’d been slapped. Miss, was it? Not even
mistress
, so there was no chance at her misunderstanding her demotion? He’d taken sides, had he?

Now Bridget wavered. She could go to the library and wait there anyway. But she had a sinking feeling she’d be waiting there a long time. The thing had to be out and in the open, discussed and resolved long before evening. B
efore another hour passes
, she thought, taking a deep breath. There was only one course to take, and she could carry it off if she took it with the style and elegance Ewen himself would. This was
her
home now.

Bridget turned and marched to the salon. The door stood open. She paused in the doorway, looking in.

The lady was having tea there. It looked as though she’d been having tea there in just such a way every day for years. She was posed on a settee, her son lolling at her side. His hair was brown and lank, not curly as Ewen’s unruly crop, and he didn’t resemble him much in any other way. B
ut what of that
? Bridget thought with sinking heart. She didn’t look like her own father. And the boy
was
dark…but his face was made darker by a perpetual scowl. The lady didn’t share it; in fact, a small smile seemed about to appear on her lips at any moment. Otherwise her face was as smooth and fair as her blond hair; she was altogether calm and lovely.

She was pouring fragrant tea into little china cups from a fragile teapot Bridget had never seen. It was painted all over roses. The lady looked like some sort of rare rose herself. She wore a gauzy gown, a cloud of pink, with trailing skirts and puffed sleeves, the sort women of fashion wore in their homes on slow summer afternoons.

But it was
not
her home, Bridget thought, and, gathering her courage, she marched into the room.

“Ah, Miss Bridget,” the lady said, barely looking up, “I’ve been waiting for you. Would you like a cup of tea?”

“No, thank you,” Bridget said abruptly. “I would rather talk with you, I think.
Alone
would be best,” she said with a pointed look at the young boy. A pointed look and one of censure, a governessy sort of silent reprimand, remembered from the days when she’d worked as one—because the boy hadn’t gotten up at her entrance. He was at least ten years old, on the brink of leaving boyhood behind him. Even if he were younger,
he ought to know better. A boy ought to rise from his chair for any female but a girl younger than he—or a servant.

Bridget’s chin went up to keep it from quavering. She was in the right, she told herself fiercely; it was absurd the way this strange woman had taken over her home.

“Louis, my love,” the woman told the boy gently, “I’m afraid she’s right. This is not for your ears. Do find something to do, will you? Perhaps upstairs? I’ll call you later.”

With an ugly look at Bridget, the boy rose and slouched past her and out of the salon.

“Now, please sit down, my dear,” the lady said. “Some refreshments, perhaps?” she asked, nodding toward a plate of tiny cress sandwiches, little jam tarts, seed cakes, and scones and cream. S
uch a grand tea
! Bridget thought. T
he servants never prepared that for me in this house
.

“No, thank you,” Bridget said, standing before her hostess
—the strange woman
, she corrected herself quickly. “There’s little point to it,” she said, running a hand over her silken skirt for reassurance. “This isn’t a social occasion. I heard what you said, and I’ve thought about it at some length.” She took a deep breath and spoke the words she’d carefully rehearsed.

“There is a mistake, and it is not mine,” she told the lady, who sat listening politely, no discernible expression on her lovely face. “You can’t be Viscountess Sinclair, nor can you be Ewen Sinclair’s wife. His wife is dead. We married last month in London. In a church. With witnesses. Now, either you’re claiming my husband is a bigamist, or you’re entirely mistaken. Or…there is some baser motive here. I prefer not to believe that. And so I think it would be best if you admitted
your mistake and left this house immediately. I expect Ewen back any hour now. I know he’ll be very angry at this imposture. I, however, am willing to let you leave with no repercussions
—if
you leave at once.”

She was pleased with herself, she hadn’t forgotten a word. She couldn’t know that her breast rose and fell as rapidly as her fast-beating heart did, or that her eyes were open wide, clearly terrified. In her gray gown that matched her clear gray eyes, she looked as much fragile as she did elegant and demure, and altogether vulnerable.

“Oh, dear,” the lady said. She put the teapot down carefully and wiped her long white fingers with a little cloth. She fixed Bridget with a long sad, look. “My dear,” she said, and sighed again. “This is
so
difficult, you cannot know. I know you believe yourself to be in the right, and why should you not? That’s the tragedy of it. I could
strangle
Ewen, and would—if I hadn’t resolved to forgive and forget. And after all, the poor fellow didn’t know I’d finally agreed to his terms.

“My dear,” she said again, in an eerie echo of Ewen’s favorite expression, “I
am
his wife, you know. We were married eleven years ago, almost to the day. It was at his father’s estate. I would have preferred London, but it was Ewen’s family tradition, and Ewen is so traditional in some ways. In others, alas, he is not, or we wouldn’t find ourselves in this position, would we?