Her Notorious Viscount (24 page)

Nicholas turned to the second sheet. “This is from her father, a declaration of his son’s death and confirmation that you are the true heir.”

Patrick nodded slowly.

“But these letters speak of proof. Of a ring.” Nicholas held up the sheets.

Patrick dug into his pocket and withdrew a signet ring. He held it out and Nicholas took it, examining the shining gold carefully. An ornate “F” decorated the front.

“That was my cousin’s. It was a family heir-loom. Even in his darkest hour, Marcus did not sell it. Jane doesn’t know this, but my uncle
was
in contact with him before his death. He saw Marcus about a month before he vanished permanently and he had it still. Someone stripped it from his body, and the investigator who uncovered the truth somehow found it in the trade shops and paid a pretty penny to return it. When he brought it to my uncle, dried blood still stained it.”

Nicholas shut his eyes. These letters, the ring her brother had protected even in his most mad state, coupled with the information Nicholas had garnered from the poor, crazed man in the hells would surely be enough to prove the truth for Jane.

“And why did you bring these things to me?” Nicholas asked, his tone flat as he held the items out to Patrick.

The other man shook his head in refusal. “For so long, I have tried to allow my cousin to forgive me. I allowed her to leave my protection even when I could have forced her to stay. I helped arrange for her to be hired by Lady Ridgefield.”

Nicholas’s eyebrows went up in surprise.

“Oh yes. If you do not believe me, ask the lady herself. She was in no need for a companion until I asked her to grant me the favor. She grew to love and depend upon Jane, but she never would have sought her out.”

“If you cared for Jane so much, why did you not allow her to remove her father’s letters?” Nicholas asked, remembering how much pain had been in Jane’s voice when she spoke of those precious items.

Patrick sighed heavily. “If she was not forced to return to her father’s home to go over his papers and effects, she never would have come at all. It was the only way I could keep watch over her. To see for myself that she was well and not in need of anything. If you do, indeed, marry her, I will happily turn over any and all papers to you. They are her legacy, along with a healthy sum of money she has always refused. I would be happy to offer that to you as her dowry, if you will agree to make sure she receives it.”

Fenton ran a hand through his hair restlessly. “You asked me why I brought you this proof tonight. It is because I have finally accepted that Jane will never see me as anything but a villain who stole what was rightfully Marcus’s. Someone who is plotting against her at every turn. She will
never
reach a point where she will believe any evidence I present to her. But she seems to trust you. Perhaps more than just trust, judging from her smile with you tonight.”

Patrick turned away, but not before Nicholas saw his sour frown. “It is not an expression I have seen in a very long time. So perhaps, if the word comes from you, she
will
believe the truth. That Marcus is gone.”

Nicholas stared at the papers in his hands and then looked at Patrick. “Can I verify these things are true?”

The other man nodded. “I will put you in touch with the barrister who witnessed her father’s signature on that letter. And the investigator he used will happily provide you with more details on what he found.”

Nicholas turned away. He would follow up on Patrick’s proof, of course, but he had always trusted his gut. And it was telling him that this man wasn’t lying. About any of it.

“This will break Jane’s heart. Her spirit. Her hope for her brother is all she has left,” he murmured, more to himself than anything else.

Fenton cleared his throat, a raw sound that drew Nicholas’s attention. The other man looked as sick as he felt. If they had nothing else in common, they shared a distaste for bringing Jane pain.

“I know it will,” Fenton said softly. “That was part of why I allowed this charade to go on for so long. But I’ve always thought that keeping her hopes alive indefinitely, making her watch and wait forever for a brother who will never come home…was a greater cruelty. But I leave it to you to decide what is best. And since it is so late and you did not invite me here, I will take my leave.”

Shoulders slumped, Patrick Fenton began to make his way to the door.

“Wait,” Nicholas called out, moving toward him.

Jane’s cousin stopped, turning back with wariness in his eyes. But the wariness faded when Nicholas held out his hand wordlessly. As they shook, a world of understanding went between them. Nicholas could certainly appreciate how difficult keeping this secret had been for Fenton.

Once the other man had gone, he sat down to read and reread the letters. When the door opened a short time later and Rage entered the room, he quietly folded them and put them away.

“What did he want?” his friend asked.

Nicholas glanced up at Rage. He would share any of his own secrets with this man. They were as close as brothers, Nicholas could trust him with his very life. But this secret wasn’t his. It was Jane’s. And
she
would be the first person he told, not someone who was a veritable stranger to her.

“Nothing of consequence,” he lied. “Just wanted to make certain I wasn’t ruining his cousin.”

Rage laughed. “And what did you tell him?”

“That I intend to make her my wife,” he said.

Rage nodded. They spoke for a few moments more, and then his friend departed.

When he was alone, Nicholas withdrew the ring from his pocket once more. It wasn’t heavy, but it felt like a huge weight in his palm. A burden Patrick Fenton had passed on to him.

The burden of breaking Jane’s heart.

How in God’s name was he going to do it?

For so long, she had kept herself from happiness out of some misguided loyalty to her brother. As if punishing herself would bring him home. Or that being happy would prevent him from being found.

But tonight…Tonight she had been in high spirits. He’d seen it as she found acceptance from her former friends and peers. He’d watched it in the way she held herself in that beautiful gown.

The moment he told her the truth, all that happiness would vanish, and it wouldn’t return for a long time. She would mourn Marcus, just as he had mourned Anthony, for many months to come. A piece of her would never be the same.

And the worst part of it was that if he told her now, tonight or tomorrow, she would suffer all that grief alone. Lady Ridgefield was sweet, but she wouldn’t know what to do with Jane’s pain. She wouldn’t hold her through the night as she cried. She wouldn’t know when to allow her anger, or when to let her sob, or when to make her smile.

But
he
would. Once they were married, he could reveal the truth to her. Gently. And he would be there for her night and day as she came to terms with it.

But only if he waited.

Just a few more weeks of lies. Secrets. As soon as he asked for her hand, they could start reading the banns and be married at the earliest time. A few days to celebrate, and then he could sit Jane down and give her the truth she had sought for so long. A bitter gift to begin their marriage, but a gift nonetheless.

And in the meantime, she would have a little of the joy she had more than earned.

He set the ring on the table and stared at it.

“Soon Jane,” he murmured. “Soon you will have everything you deserve. Including the truth. As much as it will break your heart.”

Despite her outburst at the Lady Bledsoe’s ball, Nicholas’s mother had continued her kindness. And her sponsorship, with the support of the other women in their circle, had led to Jane being accepted back into Society. She was not treated with the same recognition she had been given when she debuted before, but slowly more and more people spoke to her. Smiled at her. Acknowledged her existence.

The men had all but forgotten her once lowered status. Since Nicholas had danced with her, she had never been without a partner or admirer.

With the women, it was harder. Her harsh words to Georgiana and her cronies had caused a setback. Most of her former friends still held up their noses. But she had found new friends. Women who had been a bit older or a bit younger than she when she debuted. There was a small circle whose company she actually enjoyed. Kind women who treated her as one of their own.

And though she was changed, and she would never be the girl who had once frivolously prayed for a sparkling debut, she could admit that she liked being accepted again.

But it was none of those things that made her cheeks flush as she set her brush down and began to plait her hair into a braid before she got into bed. It was Nicholas.

Since the ball a few weeks ago, he had been…well, she could call it nothing less than courting her. At every event, he insisted on dancing at least three times with her. He found ways to stand near her. Touch her. Talk to her. No matter how she tried to discourage him, turn him toward women who could make a more successful match, he ignored that.

Others were beginning to notice, as well. The men who danced with her now no longer flirted. They were friendly and attentive, but everyone knew that the recently reformed Lord Stoneworth was staking his claim. And they respected that as much as they were beginning to respect him.

She smiled, her heart lighter than it had been in ages. She didn’t dare hope for too much, but she was beginning to believe that she could be happy again. Better still, she was starting to think that Marcus would want that for her. After all, Nicholas was continuing his search for her brother. He was vague about the details when she asked, but she felt certain he wouldn’t give up, no matter what the future held for them.

A light rap on her door drew her thoughts back to the present, and she turned to face her guest. “Yes?”

One of the housemaids stepped inside, looking a bit furtive and uncertain.

“I’m sorry to bother you, Miss Jane, but you had a letter delivered to the back. I was told to bring it straight to you.”

Jane wrinkled her brow. A letter, this time of night? She got to her feet and held out her hand to take the missive. The housemaid curtsied her way from the room, closing the door.

She stared at the handwriting on the address, but did not recognize it. It wasn’t her cousin’s, for which she was grateful. Patrick had actually sent word to her that he was leaving London three weeks ago, and she had not been forced to endure his presence since.

Shrugging, she broke the seal and unfolded the pages. The moment she read the first line, she sank into the chair she had vacated moments ago, her entire body tingling. It was from Nicholas.

Hurrying to the window, she looked outside. Her room overlooked the garden, and sure enough, there was a dark carriage parked just over the wall. If she waited another hour or so, the household would be quiet and she could slip away, just as she had all those other nights.

With a laugh she couldn’t stifle, Jane rushed to her wardrobe and began to ready herself.

Nicholas fingered the letters he had been carrying with him every day since Patrick Fenton had given them to him. The proof that Jane’s brother was truly dead had sat in his pocket like a weight. A heavy reminder that even as he watched Jane blossom and lighten with happiness, even as he grew more and more anxious to have her as his wife…he also held the keys to her utter heartbreak.

Tonight he had sent for her. Tonight he would ask her to be his bride. Once the marriage was performed, he could tell her the truth and be there for her in the aftermath.

“Nicholas?”

He turned and caught his breath as Jane stepped into the parlor and pulled the door closed behind her. Every time he saw her, she seemed to become more beautiful. It was as if a candle had been lit inside her when she returned to Society, and with each passing day it burned brighter, making her luminescent.

She smiled as she moved toward him. “I have missed you,” she admitted as she wrapped her arms around him and hugged him.

“You have seen me at least a few times a week for the past three weeks,” he teased, even as his arms came around her and he reveled in her soft warmth and light scent.

“It isn’t the same,” she said as she drew back. “And you know it, for you wrote it in your letter to me.”

She reached into the reticule that dangled from her wrist and withdrew the short missive he had written to her that evening. She held it out as if it proved everything, and he couldn’t deny that it did. They both knew that their time alone here was very different from the stuffy ballrooms where they had to play as if they’d never touched, never kissed. Where they could be close, but not too close.

“And what is that?” She laughed, motioning toward his hand. “More letters for me?”

Nicholas froze. He had all but forgotten he still held her cousin’s proof in his hand. When Jane was near him, he seemed to forget
everything
but her.

“No,” he said his tone sharper than he had intended. “They are nothing.”

Her brow wrinkled, but her smile remained. “So determined that I not see them. I hope they are not love letters from some other lady. I would hate to have to fight a duel over you.”

He opened his coat and began to put them in his pocket, with Jane tilting her head to read the address all the while.

“They do not look like love letters, though. The address is so formal. Viscount Nicholas Stonewor—” she stopped midsentence as Nicholas let his coat fall back into place.

“These are not important, Jane,” he said, forcing a smile.

She slowly straightened, and to his horror, all the frivolity and joy had left her face. Her cheeks were pale and her lips thin as she stared at him.

“Perhaps I am wrong,” she said softly. “Perhaps I am simply looking for trouble, but the hand that addressed the letter you so desperately hid from me looks very much like that of my cousin, Patrick Fenton. Am I mistaken?”

Nicholas stared at her, locked in a war with himself. If Jane were any other woman, he would have simply lied to her and kissed her until she forgot everything else but him. It was tempting to do that now, but he found he couldn’t. For she
was
Jane. The woman who had changed him, in more ways than one. The woman he intended to marry.

“They
are
from Patrick,” she whispered, her tone filled with hurt disbelief and confusion. “That is why you hid them from me.”

Nicholas cleared his throat and slowly nodded. “Yes, they are from Patrick.”

She held out a hand, pale and trembling. “I want to see what he sent you.”

Nicholas clasped her hand in both of his. “Jane, this isn’t why I brought you here tonight. I had the packet out and was examining it and I meant to put it away before you came. But when I saw you, I was so captivated by you that I didn’t. But I never meant for you to see—”

“To see letters from the man I hate more than anyone else in this world?” Jane interrupted, snatching her hand away and clutching it in a fist against her chest. “If he has written to you, the subject can only be me. And I have a right to know what he is saying. Is he lying to you about me? Is he telling you things? Is he—”

“It isn’t about you, Jane,” Nicholas said, trying to keep his tone low and calm when his heart was beating so fast he feared he would lose consciousness.

“Don’t lie to me,” she whispered, and her voice broke. “Of all the people in the world,
you
cannot lie to me.”

Nicholas shut his eyes. She could have said many things, but that was the one he couldn’t ignore or argue against. He hated that he was going to have to reveal the truth to her this way. Tonight, when he had meant to give her nothing but happiness and a bright future.

Instead, he would crush her and make her face the past.

But there was nothing else to be done. He took out the evidence Patrick had given him and held it out. She took the packet, her eyes brimming with tears, but before she could do anything else, he held up a hand to stop her. Reaching into another pocket, he withdrew her brother’s signet ring and placed it on top of the letter gently.

She stared at the ring, all remaining color bleeding away from her face. She stood there so long, so quietly that Nicholas almost said something to her.

“No.” She drew out the sound of the word, long and harsh like a wail. It was the worst thing he had ever heard in his life. “No. No. No. No.”

She said it so many times that it flooded the room.

“I’m sorry, Jane,” he whispered as he moved to her.

He wrapped his arms around her as the weight of the truth she had probably always known, but never faced, hit her. Jane went limp in his arms, sobs racking her even as she continued to scream “no” again and again and again.

Jane sat on the parlor floor, half in Nicholas’s lap. She had been crying for nearly an hour, and now it seemed as if there were no tears left. No sorrow left. She was all but numb.

Her brother was dead.

Seeing the ring, seeing Nicholas’s ashen face when he presented it to her…that was all the proof she needed. Marcus was dead and she was alone in the world.

Or at least that was what she had always believed. If Marcus was gone, she would be alone. Except right now a man’s strong arms were around her, silently allowing her grief as he held her, rocked her.

She blew her nose and wiped her eyes before she straightened up slowly and looked at Nicholas.

“I-I’m sorry,” she gasped, her voice still hiccupy and choked.

“Never apologize for your feelings.” He shook his head. “Of all things, Jane,
this
I understand.”

She stared at him in wonder. “Yes. You do, don’t you?”

He nodded wordlessly.

Her fingers ached as she opened them from the tight grip she had made around the letters and ring when she realized what they meant. The ring had cut a circle into her palm, and it throbbed gently. Quietly she slipped the ring on her thumb, for it was far too large to fit on any other finger.

Then she stared at the letters.

“Patrick gave these to you?” she said softly.

Nicholas pushed a lock of tangled hair from her eyes and nodded. “Yes.”

A little flicker of hope swelled in her chest. “He’s a liar, Nicholas. What if he isn’t—”

He cut her off quickly. “Angel, I checked everything. Your cousin didn’t interfere.”

Her chin dipped down as the last hope died.

Nicholas cupped her face and tilted it back up. “Why don’t you read them? I think you’ll understand more when you do.”

Dread overtook her as she stared at the packet in her hand. Such a big part of her didn’t want to read them. Didn’t want to see. Didn’t want the truth to be final.

But she couldn’t be a coward. This was what she had been searching for. And she owed it to her brother to see her search through to the end, no matter how much she hated it.

Slowly, she nodded and untied the ribbon that bound the papers. The first letter was from an investigator and detailed the search for her brother. Eyes dry, but only because she was out of tears, she read the cold, businesslike recitation of a very lengthy search. She read about the ring, which she squeezed gently. Her brother had kept this, even when he was lost to opium. She would never take it off.

When she reached the final sheet, her breath caught and she let the others flutter to the ground. There was her father’s hand. And it was dated just a few days before his death. It validated her cousin. It admitted he knew his son was gone. And it was addressed to the very solicitors who had named Patrick heir just a few weeks later.

The tears she had thought were over flowed again.

“He knew?” she whispered, fighting against the tide of anger that mingled with her pain. “My father
knew
Marcus was dead?”

“He solicited the search that found the evidence,” Nicholas explained softly. “He had known for many months, apparently.”

“Why didn’t he tell me?” she said, pushing away from his arms and getting up to pace around the room. “He let me believe my brother could still be alive? In fact, he told me on his deathbed never to give up hope for Marcus. Why? Why did he do that?”

She was saying it more to herself than Nicholas, but he answered nonetheless. “He felt you were not strong enough to deal with so much grief at once. He asked your cousin to wait until you were stronger. Until you were ready to hear it.”

“And Patrick was happy to keep the secret,” she spat as she swiped at the tears, forcing them away to focus on her anger.

Nicholas got to his feet, watching her pace. “No. He wasn’t. I realize you have put every angry and bitter emotion into hating your cousin, but I spoke to him, Jane. I believed what he said, and the evidence supports his words. He tried to convince your father to tell you the truth before he died. And ever since, Patrick has been waiting for you to get to a place where you would actually
hear
him.”

She stopped. In her mind, she played through all the exchanges she’d had with Patrick over the past year. Not all of them had been pleasant, but he had always remained calm. Polite. The only time he ever lost his temper was the last time they met, when she implied that he might have had some part in Marcus’s death.

She shook her head. Could she have been so wrong about her cousin? Had she simply transferred all her anger over the pain in her life onto him…unfairly? And pushed away the one remaining family member she had?

Just as she had accused Nicholas’s father of doing weeks ago.

“Oh God,” she whispered, covering her mouth as she stared at him. “If this is true…can it be true?”

He nodded. “As I said, I spoke to him and I do believe he is sincere.”

She covered her eyes. There was so much horrible information hitting her that she could scarcely process all of it. But slowly, layer by layer, it sank in.

“Wait,” she said softly, reaching for the stack of papers that had fallen to the floor when she staggered up. She turned them over and reread the address. All that was written on the back of the papers was Nicholas’s name. No street, no neighborhood.

“Did my cousin deliver these to you, himself?”

Nicholas wrinkled his brow as if he didn’t understand why she asked the question. “Yes.”

Her lips parted in surprise. “But—but Patrick has been out of London since the day after your mother’s ball. That was three weeks ago, Nicholas. How long have you known that my brother was dead and not told me?”