Lady Dearing's Masquerade (16 page)

“How can it not? It is my fault!”

“Do not take any heroic notions into your head, Sir Jeremy. I am quite content with my position—or lack thereof—in society and have no wish to change it.”

He laughed harshly. “I don’t believe you. What woman wishes to be ostracized?”

“I . . . I enjoy the freedom. People call me eccentric, but I have created my life exactly the way I wish it to be.”

“Exactly?” A hard, suspicious gaze raked her. “Why
did
you go to the masquerade?”

She wrapped her arms around herself. Dear God, did he want the entire truth now? Perhaps he deserved a part of it.

She cleared her throat. “As you know, my marriage was not a happy one. After my year of mourning was complete, I thought myself free to go to London and enjoy some of its entertainments. I wanted to dance again.”

“To dance? That was all you wanted?”

How could she answer? That night, she hadn’t known her own reasons for going. She still was not entirely sure what she had sought. She stared down, trying to find words to explain, and her eye fell on the toy elephant Sir Jeremy had tripped over.

The children.
She had to think of the children.

“That was all . . . just a lark.”

“Then why did you take up with Arlingdale afterwards?”

She lowered her eyes to avoid his burning mahogany gaze. No, it would not be wise to tell him the entire story. Instead, she let out a brittle laugh. “So now you do believe the scandal sheets? Lord Arlingdale and I are
friends
. He escorts me to the opera and the theatre, but that is all.”

“How can I know you are telling the truth?”

“Unless you wish to follow me about everywhere, you cannot.” She lifted her eyes to his. “All you have is my assurance that when I went to London it was not with any plan of finding either a husband or a lover. Amusement was all I sought.”

“I am glad to have afforded it to you then.”

The raw sarcasm in his voice pierced her; for a moment she felt as evil as her reputation.

It would soothe him, no doubt, if she told him how she’d tried to find him. How she’d fed the fires of gossip by seeking out Arlingdale, only to find that the article had named him in error. How disappointed she’d been to find he was a blue-eyed man whose voice, though pleasant enough, stirred no secret chord within her.

But if she explained all this, who knew what Sir Jeremy would wish to do. And if he embroiled himself with her—the most scandalous widow in England—Lord Bromhurst would have the children away from her before she knew what had happened.

“I . . . did not mean to harm anyone,” she murmured, loathing the inadequacy of her words. “I have since realized that what I did was a mistake. One I have regretted, and intend never to repeat.”

He vibrated with some unnamable emotion. He took a step toward her. “Never, Livvy?”

Every nerve screamed for flight, but she held her ground. He was so close, his breath warmed her cheek.

“Never?”

His voice was rough velvet. Hunger laced with anger.

She stood her ground, battling fear. Running would only make him angrier. The pretense of indifference was her safest course.

So when his arms came around her, she passively submitted to his embrace. When his lips came down on hers, bold and greedy, she did not pull away. It would be over soon enough, she prayed.

Then fear deserted her.

For though he kissed her in avid, hungry strokes, though he held her tightly, her body responded only with delight. Her breasts tingled, her womb tightened and a whimper of pleasure rose to her throat. She fought that too.

But she was losing the struggle.

He reached a hand up to cup her breast. With her last shred of will, she leaned back and pushed her hands against his chest, using all her might. He wrenched his mouth from hers, breathing wildly.

“Have you quite finished?” she asked coldly.

His hands fell away. He staggered backward, his face twisted in a maelstrom of anger, hurt and remorse.

Livvy watched, holding her breath, listening to his harsh breathing intermingled with the twittering of finches. After a moment, he straightened up.

“My apologies,” he said, face wiped clean of emotion. “I shall not force my attentions on you again.”

Stifling a sob, she turned away. Her hands shook as she tried once more to tuck the lace back into her bodice.

“I am going to the schoolroom now, to take my leave of the children,” he said in a chilling, controlled tone.

She swung around. “You are not-not going to change your mind about them, are you?”

His eyes gleamed black with pain, but his voice remained stony. “What happened here is between us. I shall not act hastily where the children’s welfare is concerned. For now I see no reason to alter my report to the Committee.”

She bowed her head.

“They are yours. You have won.”

The bitterness in his voice brought a rush of tears. She blinked them away, averting her face.

“Thank you.”

Yes, she had won. At an agonizing price.

* * *

It was nearly dark when Jeremy finally rode through the gates at Fairhill Abbey. The sprawling structure lay like a twisted, dying creature on the well-kept lawn. Lights shone forlornly in several windows, leaving the rest in shadow.

His mount pricked up his ears, knowing his comfortable stall awaited, then quickened his pace, while Jeremy reflected on yesterday’s meeting: the report he’d given on matters at Rosemead, Bromhurst’s satisfaction that Jeremy would see Livvy no more, his own contradictory desire to ride straight back to her and seek less maddening answers than the ones she had offered him.

The devil of it was that he still longed to believe that fate had brought them together at the masquerade. That she hadn’t gone there coldheartedly seeking a lover and later found that Arlingdale suited her. That her indifference to his kiss was feigned, and not because she preferred the attentions of a far more experienced lover. But he could not forget what Bromhurst had said about Arlingdale being seen escorting her into the luxurious Pulteney Hotel.

Weary of going over and over the same arguments in his head, Jeremy dismounted and handed his horse to a groom. Stiff from his long ride, he walked toward the house that offered no solace but bath and bed. But it was better than remaining under Aunt Louisa’s curious nose. Better to be alone with his black mood.

“Welcome home, sir,” said Grayson, opening the door to the entrance hall. “A cold supper awaits you in the library, and Haye is preparing a bath.”

“Thank you, Grayson.” Jeremy sighed wearily, mounting the steps.

He allowed the butler to take his coat and hat, then crossed the accursed stone floor of the hall to the library, a childhood haunt and still his favorite room in the house. Part of the original Abbey, it still seemed to echo with the muffled footsteps of monks. A bitter laugh escaped him. That made it all the more appropriate a retreat for
him
.

Velvet curtains had been drawn across the tall, Gothic-spired windows along the outer wall and a fire had been kindled in the hearth. He forced down some bread and ham and drained a tankard of ale, staring morosely into the fire, hating the quiet. There was no music here, no finch song. No laughter.

He tried picking up a book, but soon rose from his chair, overwhelmed with a sense of defeat. Entering the hall again, he caught himself skirting the cursed spot near the bottom of the steps.

He thought he had given up that habit years ago.

Grimly, he climbed the stairs. At the landing, he hesitated. To the right lay his bedchamber. To the left was the room that had been his mother’s. It was the best room in the house; he’d had it redecorated for Cecilia, hoping new furnishings would banish painful memories. That they’d make happier ones there.

What impulse pulled him there? He must be mad. There was no point in recalling anything that had happened in that dark, quiet room.

Or thinking of the nursery on the floor above.

He shrugged and turned toward bath and bed.

* * *

Jeremy woke suddenly, feeling hot, restless, strange. Then he realized he’d had another dream about her: the woman in that tattered, smeared engraving one of the chaps at Eton charged sixpence to look at. Then he realized he was no longer at Eton; it was the Christmas holidays and his first night back at Fairhill Abbey. How proud his parents had seemed at the reports they’d received on his academic progress. He liked making them proud. For a few moments they had almost seemed like a real family, like Uncle Thomas and Aunt Louisa and his jolly cousins.

He wished he could spend Christmas in London with his aunt and uncle. That was wrong, wasn’t it? A boy should want to be with his own parents.

Then he heard it. They were fighting again. Now that he no longer slept in the nursery he could hear them better.

They always started up soon after he returned to Fairhill. Or did they fight when he was gone, too? He understood the words now. He’d learned some of them from the other boys. It made him embarrassed to think of his parents speaking of such things. Doing such things. And not just with each other.

Why did they have to be that way?

But he stayed huddled in his bed. Aunt Louisa had counseled him not to interfere in their arguments. It is not your duty to reconcile them, she’d reminded him over and over. He fingered the tiny scar on his temple, hearing his aunt’s soothing voice in his head. He wished she was his mother; and that was wrong, too. His own mother did love him; he remembered how fiercely she had embraced him on his return.

He wished he could forget what he’d overheard Aunt Louisa telling his uncle: that his parents’ passions would be their downfall.

Now he heard his mother’s voice in the hall. She was pleading with Papa, begging him to let her go. Jeremy didn’t like how frightened she sounded. Was Papa hurting her?

He rose out of his bed and stumbled in the darkness. Somehow he found his way to the door, groped around for the handle and turned it.

He’d barely come out when he saw Mama rushing toward him from the gloom on the opposite side of the staircase. She turned, not seeing him in the shadows. The light from the oil lamp burning in the entrance hall below reflected brightly off her pale nightdress before she disappeared from view down the staircase.

Then Papa emerged from the darkness, shouting Mama’s name and ordering her to come back. He, too, missed seeing Jeremy in the shadows as he turned down the staircase to follow Mama, shouting that he loved her, not as if he did at all.

Then Papa cursed, and there was a dreadful thumping noise. Mama screamed from below, and the thumping went on and on and then stopped. But Mama kept screaming.

Feeling sick, Jeremy took a few steps forward and peered down the stairway to see his mother sprawled across his father’s body, no longer screaming but saying ‘no’ over and over again in a strangled-sounding voice.

He stood there staring down. Papa couldn’t be dead. But he was, and Jeremy had just stood there in the shadows watching it all like a coward.

He should have said something.

A moment later servants came rushing to the scene. Mama lifted her head and said it was her fault, and Jeremy knew everyone thought she’d pushed Papa down the steps.

He began to shout, telling them that he’d seen it all, that Papa had tripped going down after Mama. Everyone stared up at him as if he were a ghost and he could see they doubted his word. He kept shouting, telling them over and over what had happened, then Mrs. Grayson, the housekeeper, came up and told him to go to bed. Grayson and Papa’s valet came up too, and between them they carried him to his room.

Finally, he calmed down, listening to the comings and goings and voices downstairs. Finally he slept.

When he awoke after noon the next day, feeling sick to his stomach, Aunt Louisa was there to hold a basin for him. Then she put her arms around him and he was sick again when he learned that he had his wish. He was going home with her and his uncle, because Mama was gone too. Aunt Louisa told him gently that Mama had made a mistake in her grief and taken too many drops of laudanum.

Jeremy knew better.

Chapter 12

“Sir Jeremy, I am delighted to introduce to you my dear young friend, Miss Wellstone. She is paying us the kindness of a visit for the next fortnight.”

Jeremy bowed and smiled perfunctorily as Lady Bromhurst, in purple silk, diamonds flashing on her matronly bosom, introduced the young lady garbed in simple white muslin who sat beside her in the Bromhursts’ opera box. When he’d accepted the invitation, out of politeness, he’d suspected it masked another attempt at matchmaking from Lady Bromhurst.

The orchestra commenced a disgustingly festive overture.

After exchanging the conventional courtesies, he sat down in the conveniently vacant seat next to Miss Wellstone. At least he’d plenty of practice being civil to young ladies without raising false expectations.

“You must know, dear Sir Jeremy, that Miss Wellstone is the daughter of the vicar of Maplethorpe,” said Lady Bromhurst cheerfully. “The parish adjacent to ours, you know.”

Perfect.
Another vicar’s daughter, demure and modest. Another Cecilia.

He smothered a grimace, murmuring polite words while the musicians scraped away at their instruments.
Mozart.
Did everything have to remind him of Livvy?

It was nearly a month since he’d seen her. The roses must be in full bloom now, and still the same hard knot of suspicion and loss twisted him inside.

“Miss Wellstone has been most active in the charities practiced in her parish,” said Bromhurst, in a blatant attempt to prod the conversation along. “She is most interested to learn more about your efforts regarding the branch hospital.”