The Importance of Being Wicked (25 page)

He pulled himself onto his knees but could see nothing in the direction of the interruption, no fallen table or vase. Everything was as usual: an unadorned section of paneling.

“Did you hear that?”

“Not a thing. You've reduced me to porridge.” But she lied. Her head had also jerked at the noise, and now he caught a glimpse of something in her face—shock? guilt?—hastily concealed.

He went over to the corner and placed his ear to the paneling, trying to remember the plan of the house and which room lay on the other side. Could one of the servants be listening? The hair on the back of his neck prickled.

He thought about the rooms on this floor. The bedroom took most of the area. Then there was the dressing room, the water closet, and a smaller room that housed their clothes and was used by her maid and his valet as a sewing room. None of these lay beyond this section of wall, neither did the back garden. It made no sense.

If he hadn't been looking, he wouldn't have seen it, the fine door-sized crack. It was skillfully done.

“How does this open?” His heart sank to the floor. He had no doubt Caro knew about it and had failed to tell him. The possible reasons for her silence frightened him.

She looked frightened, too, eyes wide, fingers pressed against her lips. He ran his fingers around the outline of the secret door and pulled on the molding, but it failed to yield. There must be a hidden catch.

“Where is it?” he demanded. She merely shook her head, so he banged on the wall, dreading what he might find on the other side.

Chapter 25

C
aro's first thought when she heard the crash was that the Titian had fallen, but that was unlikely. The last time she'd looked at it—she hadn't been in the closet since her marriage—the painting had been securely attached to the wall. No breath of wind penetrated the secret room. The alternative was too terrible to contemplate, but it was the only explanation. She should have guessed Marcus knew about the secret closet.

Escorting her in after their ride, he'd been solicitous in settling her on the sofa in the drawing room, despite her assurances that she felt perfectly well. Instead of showing himself out of the front door, he must have crept upstairs. He'd been in the closet when she came up to change out of her habit and been trapped there by Thomas's early return to the house. How was she going to convince her jealous husband that Lithgow's aim was theft, not seduction? Her stomach lurched with nausea. She could see no way to talk herself out of this pickle.

Her limbs still trembling from the exquisite pleasure of Thomas's ministrations, she climbed down from the bed and found her dressing gown. The coming confrontation would go easier if she was covered from head to foot.

“Please be calm, Thomas. This is not what you think,” she said as she pressed the catch beneath the mantelpiece and resigned herself to her fate. Her husband—huge, angry, and very menacing, despite the lack of a single scrap of clothing—wasn't heeding her plea.

The door slid open to reveal a grinning Marcus, destroying her faint hope she had nothing worse than a hidden picture to explain. “Congratulations, Castleton. I would never have taken you for a man of such eloquence and imagination.”

For heaven's sake! Did the man have no sense?

Any further provocation on Marcus's part was cut off by a fist slammed into the jaw. He crumpled to the floor, out cold. Caro tugged on her husband's arm to prevent murder. “Stop, please. You don't want to kill him.”

“I do, and I will. Don't try to protect your paramour.”

“He isn't. He is not my lover, never has been, never will be.” She continued her fruitless effort to hold him back, a mouse trying to stop a Thoroughbred. He pulled sharply away from her, flinging her against the corner of her dressing table, which caught the bruise on her leg. She landed on her bottom and howled. “Ow!” she cried. “That hurt!”

Though he remained poised for attack, his head snapped in her direction.

“Thomas,” she begged through gathering tears. “You must listen to me. I didn't know he was there but I know why. I know what he wanted.”

“I'd say that was obvious, madam. I assume he got it earlier, before your husband came home. Should I be flattered by your willingness to suffer my attentions too?”

She could tell words weren't equal to the task. Using the edge of the dressing table as a lever, she rose painfully to her feet, her throbbing thigh a painful reminder that while she hadn't betrayed Thomas as he believed, she was hardly free of guilt for this day's alarms. She tottered over to the threshold of the closet, which was blocked by the unconscious Marcus.

“Keep away from him, I warn you,” Thomas growled. ”Touch him, and he dies!”

“I don't want him dead, since you'd have to pay for it, but I'm not sorry you hit him. I hope he has a black eye and a headache for weeks. I have no intention of touching him,” she added, speaking clearly as though to a child or a foreigner. “I need to get into the closet.”

She stepped over Marcus and, as expected, found the Venus removed from the wall. “Come here,” she said. “This is what he wanted. I told you he wasn't a thief, but it turns out I was wrong.”

The tension in Thomas's entire musculature, still gloriously exposed, lessened at the admission. He lowered his arms and peered in. “Is this the something Titian? Some Italian word?”

“The Farnese Titian. How did you know?”

“I overheard a rumor that you had it.”

She threw up her hands. “So did everyone in London. That's the problem. It's what Marcus
says
he won from Robert. I'm not sure I believe him now.”

He shook his head. “Why didn't you tell me?”

Why indeed? She now doubted the reasons that had seemed so sound and her ability to make Thomas understand them. “I'll explain when we're alone. What shall we do with him?” She kicked her traitorous friend in the chest with her bare foot.

The light impact had some effect. He groaned and opened his eyes. As a veteran of low brawls, he recovered quickly, blinking a couple of times as he looked around, at Caro on one side and Thomas, once more in fighter's stance, on the other.

“Naked pugilism, Castleton?” he drawled, as he sat upright. “How Greek.”

“For once in your life, Marcus,” Caro said, “could you manage not to be a complete ass? I recommend you get out of here before my husband really loses his temper. And this time, I won't save you.”

“Of course. I'll just collect my property and be gone. I can see you two have
a lot
to talk about.”

Marcus's impudence failed to amuse. She doubted it ever would again. “If you think the Titian is yours, you can bring suit.
If
you have an IOU from Robert. And even then, as a gaming debt, it's worth nothing.”

“I wonder how my dear innocent little Caro acquired such knowledge of the law. It's most unbecoming in a lady.”

“Being left penniless is an incentive to education. And if you feel in need of more tutoring I'm sure my husband will be happy to oblige.”

Thomas, who had observed the exchange in silence, cracked his knuckles. Outsized and outgunned, there was nothing for Marcus to do but leave, which he managed to do with unruffled self-assurance. Thomas put on a dressing gown and followed him downstairs.

“He's gone,” he said when he returned. He regarded her with a troubled expression for a long time, and she squirmed under his gaze. Bitterly regretting that her stupid desire for a lark had hurt him, she'd give anything to turn back the clock a few hours and dismiss Marcus from the house.

“I truly had no idea he was there when we came up to bed,” she said finally.

His jaw clenched.

“Please say you believe me.”

“I don't understand why you didn't tell me about the picture.”

“I was afraid you'd sell it.”

“Sell your property?”

“I think it's yours now.” She ventured a nervous smile. “My knowledge of the law isn't entirely unwomanly.”

“I wish you'd trusted me.”

“I wish it too, now. But I've lied about keeping the Venus for so long, I suppose it became a habit.”

He drew up a chair for her and perched on the padded dressing-table stool. “Why didn't you sell it and pay your debts? I heard Bridges tell Denford it was worth five thousand pounds.”

“Five! Julian told me three.”

“Such good friends you have.”

Her instinct to defend them was ingrained. “Well, dealers must make a profit.” Then she thought of Marcus's behavior. Had Julian also tried to cheat her? “The rat!”

Thomas reached for her hand. “Why did you keep it, Caro? Why?”

“Robert bought the painting for me as a wedding gift. He said her hair reminded him of me.” Her eyes welled up. “It was all I had left of him.”

Through her tears, she detected a momentary warmth retreat from his face. He stood. “There's no need for you to worry about losing it now. I expect you'd like to hang it downstairs. Was its place where my horse is now?”

She nodded and tried not to cry.

“Shall I carry it down?”

“No,” she whispered. “Not now.”

She wasn't sure she wanted the painting in daily view. She was used to having it hidden away in Robert's secret room, like a secret place in her heart that would always be his.

Thomas looked at her in despair, saw her cheeks shine with tears. The thrill of their earlier lovemaking was forgotten. Even the deep humiliation of knowing that Marcus Lithgow had been listening to every uninspired word, every sigh or moan. He'd never felt more hopeless. His suspicions of Caro's infidelity were groundless. She was still in love with Robert, and if she was an adulteress, he, her new husband, was her partner in sin.

And yet . . . “How the devil did Lithgow get in? I'm going down to have a word with the servants.”

“No!” Caro gasped. “Don't blame them. It was I. He stole upstairs when he brought me home.”

“Home? From where? You stayed in today.”

Her faced creased, her mouth spread in a monkeyish grimace. “I went riding,” she said quickly, folding her arms over her chest.

He still didn't understand. “Whom did you ride with? Anne? Lady Windermere?”

“Marcus.” A mouselike squeak.

He stood up and loomed over her. “You arranged a tryst with him?” he shouted.

“He called. You mustn't blame Batten. He's known Marcus forever. I know I shouldn't have, but I was feeling grumpy with you for leaving when I wanted to go out.”

Thomas paced around the room, a massive rage dispersing the misery in his chest. His deep fear of cuckoldry came roaring back and clashed with his newer conclusion. He saw her cowering on her stool and thought of his mother. Only the Venus, visible through the closet door, kept him from certainty that he shared his father's fate. Then one odd fact penetrated his confusion. He clung to it like a life raft because it was firm and unassailable.

“How did you get the bruise on your leg?”

“I fell. Off the horse.”

“You're not a good enough horsewoman to go out without me. Yet, against my orders, you put yourself in danger.”
Now
he was angry.

She sat, shoulders slumped, the picture of misery. “I'm sorry,” she said, without a trace of her usual spirit. He couldn't doubt her contrition, but he was in no mood to forgive. “What are you going to do?”

“I don't know.” He had no idea how to deal with the tangle of pain in his heart. “I‘m going to dress. I think it would be better if I dine out.”

Chapter 26

C
aro woke in the dark, alone. She missed Thomas's breathing, the light snore when he turned on his back, the heat of his body keeping the chill out of the bed, his heavy limbs draped over her. Would she ever feel them again? The tears that had cried her to sleep threatened to return.

Then she realized what had woken her. Her stomach cramped. At first she thought it was her menses, though they rarely troubled her much. Then it deepened, a sharp pain like a knife in the gut. She clutched her middle in fear. She knew this feeling, and she must be dreaming. She'd had the dream before, though it wasn't exactly the same.

“Robert,” she moaned, as she had the last time. “Robert.”

And like the last time, he wasn't there. He was never there in her dreams, either.

The pain came again, harder, and she clenched into a ball. She realized she was awake. Such agony couldn't be anything but real. Her hand found something wet between her legs, a hot, thick liquid. She brought it to her nose and smelled blood.

“Thomas!” she screamed, again and again. But he didn't come.

She must find him, was her only thought. She struggled out of bed and doubled over when another knife attack hit her gut. Groping her way in the dark, she managed to stagger to the dressing-room door, twisted the door handle, and almost ran to the narrow bed. It was empty. Thomas wasn't there. She was all alone, just like last time.

She collapsed onto her hands and knees and sobbed, her head on the floor, and felt the gush of blood between her legs. And through the waves of pain, she could only think of finding Thomas because he would make it stop. He always made everything all right.

Think, Caro. Think. Where is he?

Upstairs. In one of the other bedchambers. The bed in the dressing room was too small for him.

She grasped the narrow mattress and her attempt at standing was foiled by the worst attack yet. So she crawled, inch by inch, foot by endless foot, back into the bedchamber, across the floor. Opening the door into the passage took every drop of strength. Before she finally fell across the threshold, she believed she was about to die. She screamed again, kept calling his name. She wasn't sure any noise emerged from her mouth. Certainly, he didn't come. Following the landing carpet, its roughness a comforting guide under her knees, she at last hit the bottom step. In the dark she envisioned the staircase, the world's highest mountain, an insurmountable alp.

Summoning any scrap of force that remained, she screamed as the pain hit her again. She knew, with absolute certainty, that she couldn't move another inch, and she would die here alone at the bottom of the stairs and never see Thomas again.

“Caro?” With a supreme effort she raised her head and saw an angel with a halo standing at the top. She wondered if she needed to climb the mountain to get to heaven. “Oh my God, Caro?” Then he placed his candle on the top step, charged downstairs two at a time, and knelt beside her.

“I think I'm dead,” she said, and knew no more.

B
lessed unconsciousness didn't last. She woke to find herself in bed with no cessation of her agony. But she was no longer alone. She had a cool damp cloth wiping her brow, a hand to squeeze when the pains stabbed her, a strong male voice to comfort her through each crashing wave. “I'm here, sweetheart. I'm here.”

Sometimes she thought it was Robert, home from the gaming tables at last. Once he wasn't there. It was like last time. She started to weep. Then the hand was back and the voice. “I'm here.”

“Thomas?”

“Yes.”

“Don't leave me alone.”

“I won't. The doctor is here. We'll look after you.” She heard another, more distant, male voice.

When the pain mounted to its peak, she dug her nails in and screamed.

“It's coming out now,” said the strange voice. She felt an added heat below, then the agonizing waves subsided. The worst was over.

“Why?” she asked, when she found herself carried upstairs against a broad male chest. Undoubtedly Thomas. She'd come to her senses enough to know that Robert was long dead.

He dropped a kiss on her hair that clung damply about her forehead. “I'm taking you up to a clean bed.”

The sheets were fresh and cool, and she wore a crisp nightgown. Someone had washed away the blood. He tucked her in.

She started to cry again, weighed down by devastating grief. “I lost a child, didn't I?”

“Don't think about it now. Get some sleep.”

“Don't leave me alone.”

“I'll be here.” She sank into oblivion, with his reassuring weight next to her.