Chapter Nine
Twice the Villain
The next two days must have been the slowest Richard could ever remember experiencing, and those included the days leading up to Christmas when he was a boy, when every tick of the clock felt like a minute rather than a second. He had spent the first evening, while Henry was trapped making small talk at some ladies’ concert, catching up on his correspondence and sending a letter to his man of business instructing him to have the hunting lodge he kept in Stratford spruced up and stocked. He had a feeling that in the very near future, he was going to have a need for a long hunting trip. Or more truthfully, a long holiday in the wilderness with him and Henry the only living souls for five miles.
Richard woke early and wished he had thought to arrange a ride with Henry in the park. Alas, Henry was probably still asleep. Those concerts, as insipid as they were, were still capable of running surprisingly late, especially if the guest list had a fair number of avid card players.
Richard spent the rest of the day dancing attendance on his elderly Aunt Margarette, whom he loved dearly, even if she did wear far too much potent French perfume and constantly chided him for his bachelorhood. She had also seen fit to make him the primary beneficiary of her substantial will, a fact with which she often amused herself.
“So, come to see if I’ve kicked off, have you?” she said with a wrinkled, crooked smile.
“Yes, and damned if you aren’t still at it,” Richard said in mock disapproval. “Are you tired of living yet? I have plans to buy a new curricle.”
“And top it with a pretty bit of muslin or two, I’ll wager!” The saucy old woman laughed, lifting her chin.
“Aunt! Such scandalous talk!” He pressed his hand to his heart.
“Bah! I know what young men do. I may be a widow these eight years, but don’t think I’m a simpleton. You’ll be spending my money on pretty little opera dancers and the like before I’m cold in the ground.” She eyed him carefully.
“Not if you die in the winter.”
“Oh! You wretched thing! I sometimes wonder where you learned that nasty wit.”
“You shouldn’t wonder at all, Aunt. The answer looks at you from your mirror every morning.” Richard accepted her last look of artificial outrage, then bent down and kissed her cool, wrinkled cheek as they entered the drawing room.
“Humph! Well…better you learned some of your ways from me than from that brother of mine. Truthfully, if you had turned out to be such an overbearing old toad as he, I just might be leaving my money to charitable organizations instead.”
The tea tray was already placed on a table near the fireplace. Richard wandered over to the mantel and touched a few of the porcelain figures. The ornate little clock resting in the middle reminded him of where he would rather be spending his time.
“You very well might anyway, Aunt,” he said, moving to take his seat. “You know I have more than enough already.”
“Now,” the old woman began as she poured them each a cup of tea, “tell me about the family. You know Culfrey doesn’t write to me about anything, and I have no wish to correspond with him either. How is Anne?”
“Very well, I should imagine,” he said cautiously. He did not want to say anything that might suggest Anne’s engagement was never going to happen, yet also did not want to say anything that might encourage his aunt in that route.
“Not engaged? I heard from Her Grace’s companion—we met at a soiree two Seasons ago, you know—all about this arranged-marriage business. I’m surprised, quite frankly.”
Richard frowned. He wasn’t really that surprised at all, now that he had had time to think about it. The late Duke of Culfrey, his father, had been a fair and reasonable man, but those traits had not often extended to the female members of his family, who were expected to grow up, get married, and get out. But it was all unimportant, since the engagement was not going to happen.
“Father was not always very thoughtful when it came to such delicate matters.” Richard shrugged. “He was more likely to believe that any woman would clutch at the possibility of becoming a countess, regardless of any other considerations.”
“What? Oh, I know that! The old fool was my brother, after all.” She shook her head, then continued. “No, no. I meant, I’m surprised at Brenleigh.”
“You know Lord Brenleigh? I mean, you knew his father?”
“Yes. He and Ashton were good friends from their school days,” she said, referring to her departed husband.
“Really? I don’t remember him at all.” Richard frowned thoughtfully, for he had spent a good deal of his boyhood in his aunt’s home. She and Lord Ashton had always joked that it was good to have a child around, since their marriage had not been blessed with children.
“Yes, well…” She sipped her tea and swallowed it roughly. “There was a…a falling-out between Ashton and Brenleigh. I’m not surprised you don’t remember him. You must have been five or six at the time, and after that, Lord Brenleigh would have no more to do with Ashton.”
Richard was shocked and more than a little curious. Gentlemen had quarrels all the time. Society was littered with feuds and arguments that extended for decades. He wondered what this one could have been about.
“What happened?”
His aunt stared at him in a most peculiar way, as if she was trying to decide on something. She slowly lowered her cup onto the saucer and smiled. “It…had something to do with Mr. Lavalee.”
“Lavalee?” Richard’s curiosity increased. James Lavalee had been his old uncle’s closest friend from their first days in the cavalry together, and a frequent guest at his uncle’s country estate for years. In fact, Richard had taken to teasing his aunt over the years for the fact that old Lavalee continued to hang around the house as a close family friend, and Richard liked to imagine that the old man was harboring a guilty tendre for her.
“Yes, you see…” His aunt cleared her throat again, an uncommon action for her, and began turning her teacup on its saucer.
“My dear lady,” Richard said, his voice softening with confused concern. “Is something wrong?”
“It’s just been a long time, and I’m not certain if I should say anything. To you,” she added, her eyes fixed.
“Well.” Richard was at a loss. “It is not my place to pry, Aunt. If it does not concern me, then it does not concern me.”
“Or it might,” she said, so low that he almost did not hear her. She drew a breath, took another sip of tea, then said, “You see, years ago Lord Brenleigh was a guest at one of our house parties, and he…he drank a bit too much one night and inadvertently entered a bedroom that wasn’t his. And stumbled upon something he should not have. You see, Ashton was with… He was in bed with…”
“Dear God!” Richard leaned forward in his chair, nearly spilling the remains of his tea. “Lady Brenleigh!”
“No, my boy.” She brought a hand to her forehead and rubbed her temple. “Not Lady Brenleigh. He would have called him out for that, and there would have been a great scandal.”
“Well, then, what? Who was he in bed with?” Richard cringed. He could not believe he was speaking with his aunt about one of his uncle’s indiscretions. The conversation wasn’t making any sense, and she had already said that the falling-out between them had had to do with Mr. Lavalee. What on earth did…Lavalee…
Richard’s teacup clattered as he dropped it to the saucer.
“You always were a quick one, though sometimes I wonder,” his aunt said with a sigh. “Yes, my boy.”
“Mr. Lavalee?”
“Yes.”
“And Uncle Kit?” he said, referring to his uncle’s given name.
“Yes.”
There were too many different thoughts running through Richard’s mind, too many questions, and he could not gauge if his aunt would be receptive to hearing them. Dear God! How long had she known? Did she feel betrayed? Why did Lavalee still hang around in her company so much?
“You must understand, I never wanted to marry,” she said suddenly. Her voice had taken on a resigned, though still wary quality. “I never had any interest in children or husbands. I just wanted to read my books and have my salons, be a successful hostess. And so, when…when Kit came along and told me that we could help each other, I agreed.”
“You knew all along? Before you were married?”
She nodded. “I was always a declarative sort, even when I was young. I made no qualms about letting others know that I had no interest in the marriage mart, and Culfrey had no qualms in telling me that I would do as I was told and marry without delay. Kit’s father was making similar demands on him at the time, and, well, it was perfect.”
“I don’t know what to say,” he said after a few moments. “Did you ever regret it?”
“Never,” she said immediately. “Ashton was a fine man. A
fine man
, and a good friend. We respected each other immensely, and I loved him like a brother. When he died, I thought James would do himself a harm, he was so distraught. We were able to prop each other up and move on. I think we both remind each other of Ashton, and so keeping each other’s company is like always having a little piece of him nearby.”
Richard slumped back in his seat in a most inelegant way but could not care less. He could not believe his ears. Uncle Kit and Mr. Lavalee. The only thing he found more unbelievable was that he had never known, never even suspected that either of them preferred men. Richard had always thought he was quite skilled at detecting that trait. Amazing.
“What did Brenleigh do?” he said, finally bringing himself back to the point at hand.
“It was terrifying for a time,” she said somberly. “He left the house early the next morning with his servants, did not say a word to anyone. Ashton refused to let James return to town. For weeks afterward, James nearly jumped out of his skin every time carriage wheels came down the drive. He was convinced it was the magistrate coming to arrest him. Ashton always tried to reassure him and told him that with his title and all, no one would dare, but it was still frightening.”
Richard nodded slowly. He had known that fear himself, though in much smaller doses, he imagined. He had known it the night his brother had caught him in the Scottish officer’s arms.
His aunt was still staring at him intently, her brow knitted in a worried sort of way. Richard noted the look and wondered at it. What was she waiting for? Was she afraid he would explode or declare his disgust of his uncle? Or, worse still, of Mr. Lavalee? There were few other reasons why he could imagine she was continuing to look at him that way, until he thought about the oddness of the entire conversation. Surely she had not told him this shocking story simply because Brenleigh’s name had come up in a conversation. Why, then?
“Aunt,” he said softly. “Why did you tell me this?”
She placed her cup back on the tray and rested her hands in her lap. “I thought… Well, I thought it was about time.”
“About time,” he repeated.
“Yes. You’re almost thirty now, and…” She cleared her throat again. “And you have never shown any interest in any lady, even fleetingly—”
“What?” he cried, his hands turning cold. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“It means…” She clenched her little fists and took a deep breath. “It means that there is no need for you to continue pretending with me, Richard. If you ever marry, it will be a union much like mine and your uncle’s.”
“That’s ridiculous!” Richard bolted to his feet, upsetting the tea tray. “That’s not true!”
His aunt rose to her feet too, her palms facing out like a groom pleading with a frightened horse. “Now calm down. I never knew how to bring this up. I always feared it would go badly.”
“Bring what up? This nonsense? This lie!” Richard cried, his voice breaking. He did not know why he was objecting so fiercely. She was obviously amenable to what he was. She had proved that with her marriage, and yet the need to hide and lie was so well ingrained in him after so much time that he was afraid to abandon it.
“Richard Gabriel Avery, you listen to me,” she said, grabbing his hand and pressing it between her tiny paws. “I know why you lie, my dear boy, and God knows I don’t blame you for it. How could I? But I shared a home and a life for more than thirty years with a man who knew every trick and turn of phrase in the world to hide what he was. And there are times when you say and do things that your uncle did exactly. I’m not fooled, my lovable boy. I haven’t been for a long time.”
Not knowing what else to do, he freed his hand from hers and rubbed both over his face. For the past eleven years he had maintained a near perfectly separated life, the only flaw being his brother. He was not certain how to react to this new crack in the wall.
“Richie, dear,” his aunt soothed, reverting to his childhood name. “You are being very quiet. Please say something.”
What could he say? There was only one coherent thought rattling around his head, and it did not even make sense after what she had told him. He spoke it anyway. “Do you still love me?”
“Oh! Stupid, stupid boy.” She cupped her hand over her mouth as she circled the little table and took his hand again. “How could you ask me such a thing?”
His voice was rough with emotion. “Because Thomas knows, and he doesn’t love me anymore.”
“I’m so sorry. I had no idea he knew. I had always hoped that your falling-out had to do with something else, but…”
He recounted for her, in the barest detail, how his brother had caught him with the Scottish officer that night. By the time he finished, they had both retaken their seats, and she had poured two fresh cups of tea, though neither drank much.
“You will forgive me, I hope,” she said when he was done. “I can guess that you probably would have preferred all this to stay unsaid between us, but I enjoy having you in my life, dear boy, and I don’t want to start seeing less of you because you might be…hiding things.” Looking at him, she continued, “For instance, there will never be any reason for you to worry that I might look curiously on any, eh, guests that might accompany you to any of my soirees or house parties.”
Richard groaned and covered his eyes with one hand. The sound came out as half-amused, half-mortified.