Jo Beverley - [Rogue ] (4 page)

"This way, ma'am," said Lord Stainbridge, ushering her into a richly appointed salon. "Perhaps you would care for some breakfast?"

Eleanor shuddered at the mere thought of food. "No, thank you, my lord."

"Perhaps some tea, then?" he persisted. "I am sure it would do you good."

To end his fussing, which she found most peculiar, Eleanor agreed to this. When the tea came she sugared it more than was her habit and did find it settled her nerves a little.

The servants were too well trained to exhibit shock, and yet she was conscious of embarrassment at being here, unescorted. Then she remembered she was no longer a respectable woman who need consider such matters.

For a few minutes they sat drinking tea and making desultory conversation. Eleanor guessed Lord Stainbridge was finding it difficult to raise the subject that needed to be discussed. She found she could not raise it either.

A bubble of hysteria was growing in her at this grotesque parody of a morning call.

Was this all an extension of the nightmare? It seemed as unreal as the events of the night before. Despite her knowledge that it was so, she found it impossible to believe that this elegant gentleman was the monster who had attacked her.

Then her idly wandering eyes caught sight of a graceful prancing horse of green jade.

Could it be? The fact that it was carelessly placed on a small table, not displayed in any way, made her think it was in fact the piece that Lionel had told her had been Lord Stainbridge's reward for her ravishment.

Mesmerized, she interrupted Lord Stainbridge's small talk and walked over to the statue. She picked it up and turned it gently in her hands. The horse was such a free spirit, leaping blithely into the air.

"It is very beautiful, is it not?" she mused. "Perhaps I should be honored to be priced so high. I understand other less fortunate women are bought for pennies every day. But then you did not pay, you were paid..." She turned to look at him. "It is most peculiar."

She had broken through the veneer of social normality and he looked lost, unable to respond. His teeth worried at his lower lip.

"I did not know my brother had the taste or the money for such as this," Eleanor remarked dryly. "Please don't concern yourself. I will not smash it, though it is perhaps what you deserve."

"Jade does not break easily," he said as he rose. He was looking at her with great care, but she had no way of telling whether his concern was for her or for the piece of art.

"How very strange," she said, stroking the sinuous curve of the horse, from head to flowing tail. "How very strange that an ornament should endure longer than a human being, and be less easily hurt... No, what an inane thing to say!" She sat down abruptly in a nearby chair, biting her lips for fear of what she might reveal.

He took the horse from her limp fingers warily, as if he expected her to bite.

She had to know. "Why did you do it? For a piece of rock?"

He paled, then flushed. "No, no! Good heavens, I would never have..." She saw the effort with which he collected himself. "The fact is, Miss Chivenham..." He swallowed hard. "The fact is that it was not I. It was my brother."

Eleanor could not believe her ears. In a world gone mad this was the final straw. Unsure whether she would scream or giggle insanely, she thrust a hand over her mouth to prevent either. Little choking sounds escaped anyway.

"Miss Chivenham. Miss Chivenham." She heard his bleating and bit her finger hard to gain control so she could speak.

"Lord Stainbridge," she said. "I
saw
you."

After a moment, what he was saying began to make sense.

A twin.

"...told me before he left town what had happened," he explained anxiously. "He can be a little wild, but he was concerned about what had occurred at your brother's house. That was why I was watching your home, trying to decide what best to do."

He had crouched down so his eyes were level with hers, soft brown eyes filled with frantic concern. Eleanor thought it made a kind of sense, if there could be any sense in the world anymore. This fastidious and elegant gentleman was difficult to link with the madman of the night before. That was why she had been surprisingly unafraid of him. But what did all this mean for her?

She dragooned her straying wits into order and asked the question, adding, "You said you would have a solution for me."

With a sigh of relief at her calm tone, Lord Stainbridge became businesslike. "And so I may have, Miss Chivenham. First, can you tell me what your brother hopes to gain by this dastardly business? As far as I can see, he is merely the loser of a precious object."

"And the gainer of my share of our inheritance," said Eleanor dryly. "Both by my disgrace and by leaving his 'protection' I have forfeited it."

"But surely he can be held responsible for what has occurred. How could you be penalized?"

Eleanor looked down at her hands as she explained. "My father had no great opinion of my character. He was probably correct insofar as I have always been too determined, too unconventional to be the ideal daughter, but his worst opinion of me came through the machinations of my brother. Lionel has a way of pleasing people—until they stand in his way—and persuading them to his point of view. My parents were never undeceived and died believing him a paragon. My father's will stipulates that I must live under my brother's roof and lead a life free of all blame in order to receive my inheritance when I reach twenty-five, or when I marry with his consent. Until recently I have lived in Bedfordshire, but now my brother's roof is the house in Derby Square." She looked up. "Can you imagine me trying to go to court with this story, Lord Stainbridge? Would you care to be my witness?"

She was not surprised to see him pale at the prospect.

"So he has thrown you out on the streets?" he queried incredulously.

"Oh, no. I am not sure the business last night was sufficient to ruin me outright. He would find it equally difficult to prove in court, but... but the consequences may do the job for him in time." Though she had faced the thought that she might be pregnant, Eleanor was almost overcome by it now. She gathered herself. "For the moment he has kindly offered me marriage as a solution to my problems. In fact," she added thoughtfully, "I believe that may have been his aim from the first."

"Marriage to my brother? Or to me?" Lord Stainbridge's voice was choked at the prospect.

"To Lord Deveril." She saw the look of disgust on his face and said, "Quite. I understand he is rich and is prepared to be most generous. I don't understand why he was not given the pleasure of my shaming from the first, but Lionel will have his reasons. He always does. Perhaps he did hope to trap you, for he believed it was you and not your brother, into marriage. He may have hoped to tap into your fortune. I understand you are rather rich."

"Rather," echoed one of the richest men in England. "How ironic that he should have entrapped only my impoverished younger brother in one of his tricking moods."

Eleanor looked around the elegant room. She wondered if this man had any notion of what poverty was. "It is difficult to imagine anyone in your family being purse-pinched," she remarked.

He perhaps guessed what she was thinking. "Wealth is always relative, Miss Chivenham. Our fathers seem to have had much the same idea. I think that if you are to understand my solution you should understand my family situation."

He disposed himself elegantly in a brocade chair. He seemed to be recovering rapidly from his earlier distress, and Eleanor resented it, even if he was not the villain of the piece.

"In order to give me authority over my twin," he explained, "I control his inheritance until he is thirty. On his deathbed, my father made me promise that I would give Nicholas only the income from his properties until that time. That sum is enough, of course, for all reasonable expenses, and Nicholas has never asked that I break my promise, but I do have a little leverage, you see. That is why he will marry you. If, that is, your experience has not turned you against marriage forever."

"I would have thought it made it highly desirable." Eleanor spoke out of conventional instinct but immediately experienced a qualm. Her marriage would be with Nicholas Delaney, not this gentle, sympathetic man. She remembered the wild eyes and grunts of her attacker. Perhaps he would be no better than Lord Deveril...

No! Anyone was better than Lord Deveril.

Even with that, Lord Stainbridge's plan made her uneasy. Her conventional upbringing said marriage, any marriage, was essential. Her reason rebelled. "I could not—"

"You would not need to fear him, Miss Chivenham," the earl hurried to assure her. "My brother is not unkind, and you would see little of him in any case. He travels. He is rarely in England. You would live here or at Grattingley, my principal estate. It too is in Bedfordshire, so it should be comfortable for you. If you were to bear a child it would thus grow up with its rightful inheritance. If it should be a boy," he continued hesitantly, "it would in all likelihood become the Earl of Stainbridge in time."

He turned his face away and there was a tremor in his voice as he added, "I will not marry, you see. I was married, and Juliette died in childbirth. I could not again..."

He suddenly turned back and stared at her wild-eyed.

Eleanor shivered and thought that he could, after all, have been her attacker, except that this wildness was grief rather than lust. The poor man.

"I'm very sorry," she said, but added, "Marriage to a stranger is a dreadful step to take, though, and to such a one as your brother..."

She saw her doubts distressed him, but no matter how much he might love his twin, how else could he expect her to feel?

"It is not necessary that you decide at this moment," he said hurriedly. "Nicholas left the country early this morning. It will be some weeks before he returns."

He calmed and smiled gently. "You must be exhausted, Miss Chivenham. This is no time to be making decisions. Just be assured, whatever you decide, I will take care of you. What I suggest for now is that we install you in a hotel with a hired maid. You will be a widow. We will buy what you need immediately and you can assemble a modest wardrobe at your leisure."

Eleanor fought back a surprising flood of tears. The prospect of someone taking care of her was likely to undo her as all her trials had not. Her sturdy independence, however, would not let her acquiesce so easily. "What will happen, Lord Stainbridge, if I do not marry your brother?"

The question did not appear to upset him. "If you prefer it, Miss Chivenham, you may set up house quietly somewhere as a widow, and I will support you. It is not, however, a course I recommend. There are always those ready to question a widow without connections, especially if she has a child. And, to be honest, I would prefer a child of my... my brother's to grow up as part of the family."

Eleanor had already faced the threat of pregnancy, but this cool discussion frayed her nerves. "From what I gather of your brother," she said sharply, "there should be any number about."

Again he flushed uncomfortably. "I have heard of none, and Nicholas would never abandon a child. He is very kindhearted. You must believe me. In truth," he added, almost with desperation, "when he learns of this affair he will want to marry you and make all right. He will be as shocked as I by what was arranged. You will see."

Eleanor looked away, bewildered by this relationship. Lord Stainbridge, an elegant man of the world, appeared to idolize his debauched twin and suffer to the heart at any criticism of the man. She, however, had experienced the other at his worst, even if in the briefest of encounters.

Either Lord Stainbridge was grossly deluded, or Nicholas Delaney had acted completely out of character.

"Perhaps when I meet Mr. Delaney," she said carefully, "and we become acquainted, I may be happier at the prospect of this marriage."

She was surprised to see that this conciliatory speech did not ease the earl at all. "I am not sure that is possible, Miss Chivenham," he said, nervously pacing. "As I said, it will be weeks before Nicky returns. If there is a... a child, then the sooner you are wed the better. I believe you should be married as soon as he returns. In fact, I had thought we might give it out that you met in Paris and married there, returning with him."

Surely the recent events have turned my wits, thought Eleanor, for this plan seems insane. "Even if I were fleeing the country this moment, my lord, and I do not have the means, it would be a very sudden attachment."

Lord Stainbridge chewed his lip again. Eleanor was beginning to find it an irritating habit. "Where exactly was your home in Bedfordshire?" he asked suddenly, "and how long is it since you left it?"

"Near the village of Burton Magna. I left just after Christmas."

He nodded with satisfaction. "Then if it should become necessary, we can give it out that you met Nicky in the country. It is only ten miles from Burton Magna to Grattingley, though I do not recall that our families knew each other."

Eleanor was bleakly amused that he would even consider that the lowly Chivenhams of Burton Magna would be on terms with the local magnates, the Delaneys of Grattingley. He seemed to be cocooned by wealth and privilege from all understanding of lower forms of life. It must be that same wealth and privilege, however, that made him confident that all problems would bend to his wishes. She hoped he was proved correct.