Once Upon a Scandal (32 page)

“That’s enough, I think.”

“You will listen to what I have to say.” Her voice had gone shamelessly loud. “I’ve earned that right, because I hardly even exist anymore. You’ve made me accountable to no one.”

He said nothing. He simply looked past her, as if she’d been dismissed.

“The truth is your father saved you because he loved you. In that instant, the thought of life without you was too terrifying.”

“He should have saved Aiden,” he bit out.

“Of course. But it was hardly the first time in history that love trumped common sense.”

With a violent twist of her skirts, she turned and fled from the room, leaving behind the echo of his voice, calling her name.

Sorrow is better than laughter, for by the sadness of the countenance, the heart is made better.—
Fordyce’s Sermons to Young Women

“You’re certain you must leave so soon?” Sophia asked, something like pity in her voice as they walked together towards the door, alone in the hall. “You don’t look up to the journey, I must say.”

“You are unfailingly honest, Lady Marchmain,” Jane replied, attempting a half smile. She’d barely slept since that awful night more than a week ago, and not in her bed, either. The memory of Benjamin, his body wrapped up in hers there, was far too painful. Nor had she been able to stomach much in the way of food. It had all tasted too bitter. “But I am eager to get underway. I’m excited to see Scotland again.” She could only hope she sounded convincing.

“Other than the opportunity to watch handsome men hiking in their kilts,” Sophia replied, “I can think of little else to draw me there this time of year. And you haven’t yet worn all of those beautiful dresses. How can you leave them behind?”

“They might look a bit out of place on the coast, especially since I’ve no wish to call attention to myself.” She would order new clothes once she was free of London, free of Lillianne Fauchon. She certainly had the means to do so. A shocking amount of money had been delivered via messenger from Whitehall, an all too generous payment for her deceit. Another messenger had brought a note from Benjamin, but she’d not bothered to read it, nor the dozens of others he’d sent, along with flowers and extravagant gifts. Forgiveness could not be purchased. She’d returned them all.

“Come now, my dear. You’re far too intelligent to hide yourself away in the dreary northern climes. Why not travel? I’ll come with you, and we’ll make merry together. We’ll behave disgracefully in as many countries as possible.”

She was tempted to smile, but that would be woefully at odds with her mood. Because she was heartbroken. How could he have done it? Inveigled his way into her heart, knowing all along she’d feel betrayed in the end? How he’d wounded her. The only way to heal was to leave him behind and never look back.

For now, there was only one last scene. The house staff had assembled on the stairs to see her off, a rented carriage fully loaded at the curb and ready for her departure, the horses straining on their leads.

“I cannot thank you enough,
madame
, for all you’ve done. Such an adventure it has been. I take you with me in my heart.” Embracing Sophia tightly, she whispered in her ear. “Please don’t tell him where to find me. I plan on forgetting he even exists.”

“I can’t think whom you’re speaking of, my dear.”

With a relieved smile and a final
au revoir
, Lillianne Fauchon climbed into the carriage, blinking at the dark interior, which suited her perfectly. And then she was off.

• • •

Everything was a bit unsteady. The sharp pain in Benjamin’s knee told him he’d probably knocked into something, and with force, too. Not that he remembered. He was trying very hard not to remember anything and had chosen the most effective and least responsible means of achieving it. Sadly, though, the cognac was done. He knew this for a certainty, because he’d upended the bottle and was currently staring down the neck of it. Not even a drop was left. A tragedy of terrible proportions but not as epic as the greatest tragedy of all.

Madame Jane Lillianne Fitzsimmons Fauchon had left London this morning for parts unknown. Not a note, not a word, not a glance. Oh, she’d whispered something to Sophia Middleton, but the countess would never tell. Damn spies and their secrecy.

What a wreck he’d made of everything.

He quite liked being drunk. Perhaps he should make a habit of it. It numbed his feelings, fostering a heady state of unreality, in which it was likely—nay, certain—that Jane would soon rush back through that door to forgive him. To never leave.

God, he was a fool.

Thus the downside of drunkenness. Generally, he excelled at self-flagellation, but in this state, his thoughts had teeth. What was the point, after all, of sparing oneself? A mind so self-absorbed should also be unflinching when it disappointed. It was an immensely logical observation, of which he was especially proud.

Or he would be, if he didn’t feel like flinging himself down the stairs in order to break an appendage, so he could suffer for his sins long past tomorrow, when he would likely be incapacitated.

He missed her desperately. He had the awful premonition he always would. That he’d lost the one opportunity he’d ever had to feel whole and worthwhile. That Jane alone might have made him a better man. Certainly, she was the only person brave enough to call him out for his own stupidity. Because what was his so-called revenge against his father, if not that? He knew now what the bitter pain of living without forgiveness was like. His father had lost two sons on the day Aiden died, though one had still lived.

Somewhere down the hall, there was noise at the front door. Whomever it was, they could go away. Benjamin, Lord Marworth, was hardly at his best. His cravat was askew, his hair a tangled mess, his vaunted wit indubitably soaked in spirits. If he closed his eyes and wished very hard, perhaps he’d be spared.

The knock on the library door, not ten feet away, told him otherwise. Even worse, a moment later, the door swept open to usher in Winchester, resplendent in evening finery.

“You’re looking quite disreputable,” the earl observed, his mouth curving. “If the ladies of the ton could see you now, I’d not have to fight so hard for their affections.”

The urge to mount a spirited defense of his charms died when he saw the reflection in his glass. He looked like hell.

“Bullocks.”

It was the best he could manage.

“Bullocks? That is your best retort? You’re far worse off than I thought.”

Winchester shouldn’t cast stones. He was hardly sober himself. Benjamin could tell.

“You persist in imagining a friendship between us,” he said, even though it sounded churlish and he’d slurred his way through it. “I don’t like you, Winchester. I never have.”

The bastard chuckled. “Probably because we’re mirror images of each other. I want power and prestige while you can’t wait to rid yourself of both.”

“Hardly likely,” he mumbled.

“I will spare you because you are not yourself. What I do want to know, however, is what you intend to do about Miss Fitzsimmons.”

He stilled, even though his head persisted in spinning. “Why do you care?”

“I’ll admit she might have feelings for you, which she does not yet have for me.” He hated the way Winchester had emphasized the word yet. “And your feelings are obvious to everyone except yourself. So I would like to know your intentions. If you don’t want her, I do.”

“Of course I want her. She just doesn’t want me,” he said morosely. “That’s the problem. She’s left, and no one will tell me where she’s gone.”

“Given our line of work, I hardly think it would be too difficult to find out.” Winchester had thrown his ungainly frame into the nearest armchair when Benjamin hadn’t offered the seat. But he was too depressed to protest.

“So if you don’t plan on going after her,” Winchester continued, “I will. She’d be an excellent asset in my political career.”

“She is far more than an asset,” he said indignantly. “Besides, you are forgetting something. Jane Fitzsimmons no longer exists. And as Britain’s next prime minister—self-proclaimed, mind you—you can hardly marry a Frenchwoman.”

Winchester waved the point away like the merest trifle. “If she wants to return to London as Jane, I’ll simply invent a story. It couldn’t be any more outrageous than the one you concocted. I’ll say she drifted downstream but was saved by … an illiterate washerwoman. Yes, that would work quite well.”

“You are being absurd.”

“Not at all,” Winchester insisted, clearly warming to the idea. “Jane knocked her head against a rock and developed amnesia. It took weeks for her to come back to her senses.”

Benjamin snorted with disdain. “Obviously, you’ve been reading too many gothic novels.” Had the man blushed, or were Benjamin’s eyes playing tricks?

“They’re marvelously entertaining,” Winchester finally admitted. “But back to Jane. She could also continue as Lillianne, if she wishes. The war is nearly done. Who better to negotiate a final peace than an Englishman with a French wife?”

“She is not allowed to be your wife,” he said, an edge to his voice now. Winchester could fantasize all he liked, but Jane would never be his.

“You’re not in any position to dictate her future. Not when you’ve already let her go.”

Let her go. Such finality the words had, when he’d never had her to begin with. When he’d done everything he could to push her away, until it was too late. Idiot fool. And for what? To harm whom? Besides himself, the only person he’d hurt in the end was the one he cared most about.

“I didn’t have a choice,” he said. The reality of it felt like bathing in ice.

“Yes, you did. You just weren’t willing to give up enough to keep her. Starting with your pride.”

He stared again at the morose reflection in his glass. “I’d give up anything and everything to make her mine.”

Winchester sighed. “I suspected as much. So as long as you will admit I am the better man, I will cede defeat and retire from the field.”

He swallowed. “If you are willing to give Jane up, then you are the better man. I just can’t think of a path that will bring her back to me.”

“Oh, if we put our minds together, I’m sure we can think of something.”

Honorable love converts the savage into a man, and lifts the man into a hero.—
Fordyce’s Sermons to Young Women

The weather along the Solvay coast had grown cold, the late October wind carrying a hint of the coming frost, but Jane would not be dissuaded from her morning walk. It had become a refuge of sorts. Climbing along the rocky shorelines, assaulted by the bracing salt air, she had little time for memories. Little time for Benjamin Marworth. She was quite close to forgetting him already. She didn’t think of him more than a dozen times per day, if one only counted the hours between the sun’s rise and set.

And if she did happen to think of him, caught off guard in a moment unawares, she had only to remember that every good thing in his character had a correspondingly bad aspect. His beauty hid an ugly core. Even though it was also a tortured one. His compassion for others was easily explained. Wasn’t it? Every action had been measured by what it could net him, in terms of trust earned and secrets gained.

She shook her head disdainfully, stomping her boots along the path she’d worn through the brush these past several months, wincing at the pebble now stuck in the pad of one sole. Tortured compassion indeed. She gave him far too much credit.

Rain clouds threatened in the distance. She’d become quite good at predicting the weather here, though she didn’t yet know many of her neighbors.

Perhaps because there weren’t any.

The closest town, Loch Maben, was not three miles distant, but it was a small one. A church, an inn, and a pub completed the necessary triumvirate of country life. There was also a dressmaker’s shop and a tiny post station that doubled as a stopping point for the mail coach. A blacksmith’s shop. A local purveyor selling the barest essentials. As a fishing community, rumor had it smugglers abounded here, but it suited her quite well. In this remote outpost, she was known as Jane Fitzsimmons Martine, her name a nod to her past and hopefully her future, no matter how bleak it currently seemed.

Best to move quickly then. Being soaked to the skin only recalled days she’d rather forget. Turning back from the shore, she hiked towards her small stone house, leased for now. It represented safety and security. And if there was loneliness, too, she had only herself to blame. Jessica Oakley had surprised her by showing up on her doorstep, not two weeks after she’d arrived. She’d left Painshill Park because she’d been worried for Jane. God bless her and her son, Arthur, who loved the wide open vistas of the coast. The three of them had made quite a happy little place for themselves, even if she envied the bond Jessica had with her son. Jane would never feel that now. She knew it with a certainty that would curl her to a crisp, like a note tossed into a fire, if she let it.

There was a black coach in the drive, a surprise since they’d not been expecting anyone. Yesterday’s post had brought a letter from Sophia Middleton, but she’d not yet opened it. She’d worried it might mention Benjamin, coward that she was.

Rushing now to reach the house, she made it through the front door just as the first fat raindrops fell. Shaking them from her hat and cloak, she hung each on wall pegs and walked into the front parlor to find a man seated there, stiff-necked and attired in unrelieved black. Jessica was there as well, stiff-necked, too, her face leached of color, as Arthur cheerfully rolled marbles on the floor in front of them.

“I made it in just before a storm,” Jane said, wanting to startle the unsettling quiet.

The man in black stood, as if at attention. “Miss Martine,” he said. “I’m sorry to importune your household. My name is Bentley Wiggins, Esquire. I’m here on a matter of sad business.”

She immediately turned to Jessica, heart sore when she saw her expression. Whatever news the lawyer had brought, it wasn’t good. And Jessica had had too much of grief. “I’ll retreat to another room to offer you privacy.”