Edith Layton (26 page)

“Over a hundred at our wedding,” Elise said dreamily. “You were there, Drummond, you recall. It was May, and there were roses, bowers of them—and lilies of the valley and sweet flag, and meadowsweet. Everyone said how cunning it was to mix the elegant with the common, the cultured blooms with wildflowers. But then, the whole affair was done beautifully. Some guests vowed to write it up for other brides to copy, they were that enchanted. And why not? No expense was spared. An outdoor breakfast for the guests, and such guests! The crème de la crème. Hundreds of them…”

“Yes,” Ewen said, “and only the two of us on our wedding night. Remember that, too?”

Bridget stiffened. But Elise stopped talking. She glanced down at her fingers and inspected her nails with sudden interest.

“Well, but of course I believed my lovely young bride would be too weary after such a celebration,” Ewen went on, his deep voice filled with sarcasm. “And of course, I understood that such a gently bred girl would not wish to tumble into…” He paused, looking over to where Gilly and Betsy sat, enthralled. “So we rode on to London,” he said roughly, turning back to Elise. She still avoided his gaze.

“Then, of course,” he said sardonically, “I understood she wasn’t used to such hard travel and needed her rest. We took the packet to Calais, and the motion of the boat made her so sick she had to keep to our bed in our cabin, alone except for her maid, as I paced the deck worried sick for her. Such a gentle flower that she was,” he said with irony, “of course it took days for her to recover from that, too.

“I was filled with understanding,” he said, pacing again now as he had then. “Females are such delicate creatures. Hadn’t my own mother been an invalid? I worried for my young wife. So young, so fragile, so gently bred that she trembled at my lightest touch, fluttered her lashes in agitation when I but kissed her cheek, and actually flinched when I dared touch her lips. At least your emotions were true, I give you that,” he growled to Elise.

He took another agitated turn about the carpet, then stopped and confronted her, his dark head high, hands on his hips, his stare direct and cold.

“And I was not a monster, was I? And certainly not man enough, or bold enough, or bright enough, to broach the matter too often. In fact,” he mused, “I wonder now if I was not relieved at the delay, for fear I’d bungle matters.

“But that was then. And after a while, even I began to wonder. We were in Paris, we were at a grand hotel. Weeks went by, and yet you were still ill, and so I called for a physician.”

“How could I tell you?” Elise said simply, finally raising her bright blue eyes to look directly at him.

“How could you
not
?” he demanded.

Bridget looked from Ewen to Elise, her heart growing cold. They were still fighting about something that had happened over a decade past. It was as if the years had never intervened. Such heat could not come from a cold hearth.

“I thought that, in time, when events took their course—” Elise began.

“They did not,” Ewen said grimly. “And now I thank you for it. Because you could have achieved it, you know. I was young and smitten and totally without guile—and certainly not expecting any from you. You could have been as calculating as you obviously had planned to be. I see that now. How would I have known it was anything but maidenly terror and not the disgust it was? How could I have known I was not your first lover?”

“I did like you!” Elise cried, bolting to her feet. “I was willing to try, but I was so damned ill—I wasn’t lying about that!”

“Then that was the only thing you weren’t lying about,” Ewen said scornfully, as cold and contained as she was wildly angry now.

“I told you all!” she shouted back.

“Only when you had to,” he countered.

“I didn’t have to—but I liked you well enough by then to be honest with you,” Elise said, trembling with rage.

“You turned from my embrace and vomited in my lap.
I think it was possible you owed me an explanation,” Ewen said bitterly. “Your stomach was truthful, at least. Never was a man so sincerely rejected.”

“I could have said I was ill,” she protested.

“You’d have had to say you were dying,” Ewen said with a grim chuckle. “That didn’t mean I would have believed it. Why should I have? We weren’t at sea, nor on the road; it was a bright morning and you were very fit—warm and rosy with health—and very willing in my arms until then. There was nothing for it but the truth then.”

“But then I told you all,” she said, sitting again, calming her voice, visibly gathering herself again.

“Only after I called you a slut,” he said bitterly.

“I recall the word you used was
whore
,” Elise reminded him.

“Yes!” he said with something like triumph, wheeling around to face her again. “Because kinder euphemisms rolled right off, didn’t they? But then—and only then—did you at last tell me you weren’t a whore, that you were a respectable female. How you defended your honor!” he said with a bitter chuckle. “Oh, yes, a very respectable female, and no whore at all, you said, it was only because you were already married. And so quite
respectably
with child.”

Bridget blinked, but when she looked again she only saw the same bizarre truth. He’d loved his Elise. He’d wed her gladly. But it had turned out that she was pregnant with another man’s child…and was still married to another man. So, then, she and Ewen had been married—and yet had not been married? It all began to make sense, terrible sense.

“R
espectably
—oh, to be sure. Even though your new
husband had abandoned you,” Ewen went on relentlessly, “doubtless remembering that slight oddity about your nuptials—the fact that no one but you and he knew you were married at all.”

Elise’s lips grew tight. “Nevertheless, he accepted responsibility.”

“After your father and mine had him tracked down and pinned down to it,” Ewen said, prowling the room again, throwing the words at her as he passed her. “Cut line, Elise. He couldn’t bed you without marrying you, but you couldn’t bear his child without a husband. Hence me. I can’t blame you for what happened to you before we met. He was a dashing officer when you met him. You couldn’t have known he’d be faithless to you once he discovered that your father had plans for you and your dowry that didn’t include a cashiered army officer. Nor could you have known he’d be discovered cheating at cards and drummed out of the uniform he wore so handsomely.”

He gazed at her with something like sympathy. “You were young. You were frightened. I accept all that—now. But it was a damnable thing to do to me. What if we had consummated our false marriage? How could I have known I was raising the son of another man—a man who was not above blackmailing anyone who could pay his bills if the need arose? If I owe you anything, it’s gratitude that at the last your will—or your body—thwarted your plans.”

“Gratitude?” Elise spat. “Yet then you abandoned me!”

Ewen wheeled around to face her. “Did you really think I’d stay with you after I knew? Even if I’d felt something more for you, how could I? You were a bigamist! That’s a crime punishable by death. Granted, they
mightn’t hang a female, and hardly one with your wealth and connections. I was a dupe, but you were a criminal. It would have been transportation for you, at the least. I doubt you’d have enjoyed living in the Antipodes with the other convicts. Then there was the matter of the scandal. We weren’t even married. I’d been a fool and would have looked one, so I deserved it and the scandal that would have tainted my name. But your family didn’t.

“I came back to England to seek advice. I found that, and more—proof of your duplicity. My father achieved that; he was the one who returned with me and made you produce your real marriage lines. But it was
your
father who sent you into exile,” he told her. “Remember that. It was he who demanded that, after he agreed to support you and your lawful husband—whom
he
located and sent to you. You went with him gladly. Remember that? I do. God help me, but I can hardly forget, can I?”

His face was set in hard lines and his eyes glittered like topaz crystals. Elise sat still, white as a statue on a tombstone, gazing into his face without answering.

Bridget watched the pair of them. Surely she thought, Elise still cared for him. How could she not? She’d traveled so far to see him again to console him—and, finding him remarried, had tried to cast his new wife out. That was the act of a jealous woman, a woman who was still willing to fight for what she’d lost. Surely he still cared for her, too.

Bridget heard the bitter hurt beneath his every savage word as he fought with Elise again. He was usually so clever with words, so cool, so contained, so urbane. It was his hallmark. But he couldn’t control the hatred
in his voice, and he was anything but calm. And hate was, after all, only the bitter, rejected bastard twin of love.

Which meant that whether he was still wed to his fair Elise or not, his heart was still hers, and always would be, she realized. Because Ewen was a good man, a man of his word, a man a woman could trust for all time. Hadn’t she been telling Gilly and even Elise herself that all these past days? Hadn’t she been telling herself that, too? And she’d been right—in a way.

It came to her suddenly. So suddenly that she closed her eyes, trying to protect herself against the stab of unexpected revelation. He’d married Elise in good heart and good faith, pledging himself to her forever, whatever Elise had done. It was his way; she herself wouldn’t have married him if he weren’t that kind of man. She wouldn’t have loved him if he were not.

And so the truth was worse than his having lied to her. Because he hadn’t. He
had
given her his name and his protection in good faith. Whatever the facts of his married state, though, the truth was his heart could never be hers. But, she remembered as she sat in self-imposed darkness beneath her closed eyelids, despite all that he’d promised her, he’d never said anything about his heart, had he?

“W
hy?” Ewen demanded, shattering the silence that had fallen over the room. “Why return now? Is the gallant captain dead?”

Elise pulled herself up. “My husband is well, thank you. I came, as I said, when I heard your father was ill—dying. I do have a heart, you know.”

Ewen sat back on the arm of a chair. For the first time since he’d come into the room, the tension left his face. He ran a hand over his eyes and smiled wearily. “Oh, lord, Elise. Give it up. It’s over. I know you better than that. You heard my father was dying, and there was one thing he had that you wanted—and it wasn’t his parting blessing.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Elise said. “I only wished to give consolation.”

“Yes,” Ewen said, “and get your wedding papers in return.”

Elise’s eyes grew wary. Ewen’s shoulders relaxed. He sighed. “That’s it, isn’t it? Has to be. There’s no other logical reason for this visit. Sorry you wasted your time. He doesn’t have them anymore, my dear. He kept them as insurance against anything you and your dear husband might attempt in years to come. You thought that when he died you’d have a chance to get them? You remembered the youth you wed and how easily gulled he was? You thought if you came to me with tears and lamentations, some tale about your needing them—no, better still, some story about your son needing his parents’ marriage lines for some pressing reason—a school to get into, an unexpected inheritance, perhaps?”

He watched her eyes widen and then narrow against all the thoughts she was busily concealing. “Yes. Good thinking.” He nodded. “It might have worked—then. But an odd thing happened as the years went by. I grew up, my dear. Those papers are mine now, and safe with my man at law. Still, if your son really requires proof, I suppose you may have them back.”

Someone in the room gasped. Not Bridget. She was too sick at heart to be shocked anymore.

“Because they weren’t enough for me,” Ewen said, rising to his feet again. “My father’s a trusting soul. I, my dear, am not. Not anymore. I’ve worked in a strange arena, against people who make you look like innocence personified. I kept an ear to the ground to hear about you and your captain’s adventures. If you’d wed me to protect yourself once, I felt you were capable of anything twice. I never opened your notes. But I knew
what was going on: the gambling losses, the dealings with those on either side of the late conflict in order to pay them. Your morals, my dear, are even more flexible now than they were then.”

“One has to survive in hard times,” Elise said sharply. “Only gentlemen such as yourself can afford pure principles.”

“Really?” Ewen asked quizzically. “Tell that to Drum and Rafe, and the good men we knew and lost. Those who risked the only thing they could not afford—their lives—for their principles.”

He shook his head, the fatigue from his sleepless night evident in his face. “But that hardly matters to you, does it?” he said. “Remember, however, that I was aware of your unusual friendships and the reasons for them. It occurred to me then that you might someday return. That, failing to retrieve the papers, you might claim they were forged. That you might yet threaten to bring shame or scandal to my door. So now I’ve even more proof. I went to that little church in Scotland where you were first wed—”

Now it was Elise who couldn’t control a gasp of surprise.

“A charming spot, just over the border,” he commented. “Very romantic, I agree. I have written statements by all the witnesses as well as the vicar, and the actual ledger where the marriage was recorded. It’s sworn to by all involved. And to cap it all, I have a statement signed by your father.”

Elise’s eyes widened.

“Yes, my dear, he, at least, is a man of principle. And he knows you, too,” Ewen said. “But there, I think, is your answer. If funds are tight—and they must be if your
husband is running true to form—I suggest you apply to your father. He’s a difficult man, true, but a lonely one. If you went to him discreetly, promising to leave with the same stealth, and told him your problems, you might find you still have his affection. Or at least the route to his purse. The years blunt some hurts—and he did dote on you once upon a time.

“But,” he said, covering a jaw-cracking yawn, stretching his long body as though he hadn’t a care in the world but to get the kinks out of his back, “I must ask you to leave. Immediately. And why not? There’s nothing here for you.”

Elise stared at him. “You have changed, Ewen,” she finally said with reproach—and grudging admiration.

“Thank you. I have, thank God,” he agreed.

“But wait!” Bridget cried, shaking her head. “It’s not settled. It can’t be. If money’s all she wanted, why lie to me? Why tell me to leave? Why try to turn me against you? I don’t understand!”

“Oh, Bridget,” Ewen said sadly. He came to her side, dropped to one knee, and took her two cold hands in his. “Can’t you see? Because you were a formidable enemy. She hadn’t heard I’d wed. Oh, as to that—” He reached into his inner pocket, withdrew a folded sheet of newsprint, and laid it on her lap. “Fresh from the printers, a notice of our marriage from the T
imes
. You had me so transfixed I actually forgot,” he told her ruefully, “never realizing what mischief it could cause.”

“But how could I have known?” Elise protested.

“Oh, I believe you understood clearly enough,” Ewen said, without turning his head to look at her. “You sounded out my wife’s situation, doubtless making her volunteer some of it. The rest you got from servants. But
I can’t prove that. For that reason, and that reason alone, I won’t detain you…or worse. Can’t you see?” he asked Bridget, his eyes searching hers. “She needed you gone. She probably thought to sell me the information about where you were. Remembering the man I used to be, she must have also hoped I might turn to her. But if you were here, she knew, I’d have no eyes or ears for her.”

“As if I’d be jealous of her!” Elise said scornfully. “Really, Ewen, I thought with your new reputation as a rake—although I allow, I couldn’t understand that before I saw you again—you’d choose someone with breeding, with background, with beauty! At least to match mine!”

Ewen didn’t turn his head. His eyes were on Bridget. “She has more than you ever had, Elise,” he said softly, “and more than you ever will.”

“Have you no eyes?” Elise spat. “She is scarred! Disfigured!”

“Have you no ears?” he snarled, turning his head at last. “Get out, Elise. I owe you no explanations. But one thing I will tell you. My wife has no defect. Except,” he said to Bridget, a small, sad smile on his lips as he gazed at her ashen face again, “she has no faith, I think, in herself, or her power over me.”

Elise and her son were gone within the hour. Ewen’s guests watched from a window to be sure. Ewen himself did not look; he was eating his breakfast without seeing it, because he could only look at Bridget.

She wanted to look at him, too. But to her surprise she discovered she was as shy with him now, here in the light, as she’d been with him that first night in his town
house. It made no sense to her. She’d waited for him for so long, and doubted him even longer. Yet now that he was here, and now that she knew he’d never deceived her, she was wary of him. Or wary of her reaction to him, she realized in surprise.

All her doubts were gone. Now she saw they had muted the full force of her desire for him. With them gone, the enormity of her emotions frightened her. He was hers, and he was here, her husband, her lover. She’d always wondered about his sincerity, and then was made to question his honesty. Now that the clouds of distrust and fear had been dissipated, there was nothing to shade the stunning truth of her love. It was astonishing in its intensity. It overwhelmed her.

“Nice touch, that,” Rafe said from the window as the carriage pulled out of the drive, “sending Hines with her. Old wretch!” he grumbled as he sat at the table again. “To think he’d side with her! How much did she pay him, you think?”

“Nothing,” Ewen said, putting down his fork, his eyes still on Bridget as he drank in the pleasure he felt in her presence. “He was, in his way, doing his job, or so he thought. He remembered she was my wife, and that was the reason behind his every act. How could he know otherwise? No one else in England did. Elise and her family realized she was better off supposedly dead than wed to two men. I’d only have to cope with embarrassment; it would have been the prisoner’s dock for her.

“Hines knows the truth now. He is, for all his sins, a faithful man. He’s coming back when he’s absolutely sure she’s safely gone. He owes me that much, he said. He’s very sorry, he said. He’s very old, and very repentant. What choice have I but to believe him?”

“I’d’a scragged him,” Gilly commented, with her mouth full.

Drum shuddered. “Doubtless,” he said.

“When do we leave for your father’s manor?” Rafe asked Ewen.

“In the morning,” Ewen said, watching Bridget’s expression, seeing how her skin glowed in the morning light, approving again that delicate small straight nose, noting with increased interest a pale freckle he hadn’t seen before, to the side of her soft, full lips. “We’ve traveled far enough today.”

“Amen!” Drum said fervently.

“If that’s all right with you?” Ewen asked Bridget. “You must be sick to death of this place by now.”

“I am,” she admitted, looking at him, and then at her plate, “but you’re here now. Tomorrow is fine for me, too.”

“Well, then, I guess we’ll be shoving off, too,” Gilly said, getting to her feet and grabbing her hat. “Thanks for the grub, but it’s time for us to get going.”

“We?” Bridget asked, confused. “But things have changed. Why must Betsy leave now?”

Gilly’s face grew pink. She fidgeted with her atrocious hat, holding it in front of her, looking down at its crumpled brim, “Well, y’see, I missed her something fierce,” she said. “I don’t know I can let her go again, and I do know she don’t want me to.”

“Then join us,” Ewen said.

“Me? In the country? Nah. How’d I earn my bread?” Gilly asked, but she sat down at the table again.

“You won’t have to, my dear,” Ewen said gently. “There are good people who will take you in with Betsy, help you find a better life than you’ve known. I’ll help you find them. And don’t think it’s because I’ve designs
on you—I owe you much for supporting my bride in her time of need.”

Drum snorted. “As if you’d have designs on a scrubby lad. How much ale did you have on an empty stomach, Ewen?”

“The lad,” Rafe said, watching Gilly, “is a lass.”

“Are you mad?” Drum demanded.

Rafe grinned. “Maybe a lord can’t tell a female without her petticoats, but you can’t fool an army man.”

Drum plucked a quizzing glass from his waistcoat and stared at Gilly. He saw a skinny, unkempt tow-headed youth in baggy workman’s clothing, and winced at the hat the lad was turning in his work-worn hands. He looked longer. He noted the hands were small-boned. He raised his eyes and saw the fine features set in a scowl, the badly cut shock of platinum hair brushed back impatiently, the golden eyes that glowered at him. “Extraordinary,” he breathed. “It may be so. But if she is going to travel with us, she needs suitable attire. I’ve no wish to enact a scene from T
welfth
N
ight
, and she is no Viola.” He sniffed. “Rather more like an onion, I’d say.”

Gilly’s small hands fisted, but Ewen disarmed her by saying gently, “There’s no more need. Gilly. I promise you that.”

She hesitated and looked at Bridget. Bridget saw the mixture of hope and fear—a mixture she knew too well—in the girl’s eyes. That, and Gilly’s hesitation, told her all she needed to know. She nodded in agreement. “That’s the old life, Gilly. You’ll be safe with us. Please stay. You know it would be best for you and Betsy. She won’t take up a new life without you, and you know very well how much she needs to.”

“And Drum is the perfect man to help you pick out
your new clothes,” Ewen said. “There’s a shop in the village, Drum. See to it that she has everything she’ll need for the trip, and afterward.”

“I’ll come along,” Rafe said, after looking at the way Ewen was watching Bridget. “There’s things I need, too.”

“I dunno,” Gilly said nervously.

“Do you imagine I’ll be driven mad with lust at the sight of you in a gown?” Drum asked scornfully, looking down his nose at her, making the idea sound about as palatable to him as eating mud, and about as probable. “Enough of this maidenly dithering. Are you coming?”

“M
aidenly!
” Gilly said, bridling, because it took her mind off her second thoughts and made her forget the dizzying combination of relief and terror she felt at the idea of what she was about to do. “C’mon, Betsy. Maidenly, huh?” she asked Drum, looking up at him fiercely. “I can work hard as any male, harder than any
gentleman
I ever seen! Can you lift a keg of nails, huh, can you?”

“Easily,” Drum said loftily.

“Like to see it,” Gilly said as she marched to the door with him, Betsy at her side. “How about a crate of turnips, huh?”

“With no difficulty at all,” Drum said, stepping aside and bowing, indicating that she should go out the door before him.

Gilly frowned. Then, nose in the air, she swept out the door in front of him. “But a barrel of ale,” she said as she went, though her voice was light, breathless with surprise at herself and him. “Like to see you roll a full one into a taproom, I would.”

“Would you?” he asked as he followed her. “I shouldn’t wonder. I can do it with grace and ease.”

Their voices faded as they went out into the hall. Rafe looked back at Ewen and Bridget and grinned. Then he slapped on his hat and went out with the others.

The room seemed very empty without them. Ewen turned to Bridget and smiled. Then he frowned, because she was looking at the plate on the table, at her cup, at a spoon—everywhere but at him.

He cleared his throat. “Well,” he said, rising, looking down at himself, brushing at his jacket, “I washed my face and hands, but I seem to have the whole North Road on my shirt and britches. Indeed, I’m sure I tasted it in my eggs. I think I ought to go up and make use of that Roman bath again. I missed that; it’s the best thing about this place, you know. Apart from you, of course.”