The Sins of Lord Easterbrook (7 page)

“You will join me, Leona. It will reinforce my patronage of your efforts. Society will see you in my company, and the invitations will come no matter what your birth and history.”

“If I am in your carriage, alone in your company, won't society misunderstand?”

That gave him pause, but not for the reasons it should. His soft smile implied that to his mind they would misunderstand nothing if they drew conclusions, but that he would indulge her hesitation for now.

“Isabella will come too,” he said. “That should make it proper enough.”

While it might make it proper enough for his intentions, she doubted that Isabella's presence would prevent gossip. However, only a fool would refuse the influence of a marquess who had decided to aid her plans, no matter what his motives and no matter what her suspicions.

And Leona was not a fool.

C
hristian suspected that when he finally went to hell, perdition would bear an uncanny resemblance to the fashionable hour in Hyde Park.

The crush itself did not oppress him. He could tolerate crowds, and even sought them out for brief periods of time. Markets could be stimulating, for example. They were so full of variety in the people assembled that the good balanced the bad. Much like a symphony could invigorate with its contrasts and multiple instruments, a good crowd experienced sparingly, could actually be enjoyed.

The fashionable hour, unfortunately, was no symphony. Rather it consisted of innumerable horns bleating the same weak note, over and over. Even interesting people became tedious and shallow in Hyde Park at five o'clock. Being assaulted by the overwhelming vapidity exhausted him.

All the same, he instructed the coachman to plow into the thick of it. He centered his thoughts on the woman who graced him with her company in the open
carriage, until the horns became muted wails in the background.

Leona chatted with Isabella, pointing out hats and coaches and other things of a woman's interest. Isabella had dressed in English clothes, but her Oriental heritage showed in her soft, round face, distinctive eyes and simply coiffed black hair.

He remembered Isabella as a girl adrift between two worlds when he was in Macao. The unacknowledged daughter of a Portuguese official who had made her mother his mistress, she had been barely tolerated by the Europeans, despite her mother giving her a European name in hopes it would help. The Chinese for their part had completely ignored the child of mixed blood.

Leona had befriended the outcast Isabella back then. As best Christian could tell, Isabella was Leona's lady's maid and companion now.

Isabella had dressed her mistress's hair in a fashionable style that took advantage of Leona's mane of chestnut curls. He had seen those locks flowing wildly and sensually a few times, rather than primped into the knots and tendrils that fit so neatly beneath her straw bonnet today.

One time had been the night she helped him to flee Macao. Another time had been earlier in his visit, when she found him at his worst, then became the mirror in which he saw the coward he was.

Leona tried not to look at him while she enjoyed the park. Eventually she acknowledged his attention, however. Her dark, expressive eyes met his and lingered
just enough to reveal her caution regarding him. She was still inclined to run and hide, he guessed.

“You are talking to Isabella too much,” he said.

“Are you telling me that these fine people think it wrong to converse with one's servants?”

“I am saying that you should be talking to me instead. You will have to eventually, Leona.”

She leveled a direct gaze at him. She had no idea how much passion could be seen in her eyes when her temper was prodded, and how that could arouse a man.

“Fine, we will speak. Will you choose a topic, or should I? Mine would be a simple one and a product of the curiosity of the moment.”

“Now the curiosity is mine, so the choice must be yours.”

She glanced at the horses and carriages so close one could touch them. “Since we arrived, many of these people have tried to catch your eye and greet you, but you have cut every single one. Are you always so rude? Or does your title and station mean that the word rude does not even apply to you?”

It was more a scold than a challenge. He had no option except to turn his attention to the many bodies pressing past them. He nodded a few greetings as addresses were paid.

Since this was hell, a reminder of his sins was inevitable. No sooner had he unmuffled the horns than two of them blared right in his ear. Mrs. Napier approached from the other direction, displaying her blond beauty from her perch on a white horse. Seeing his carriage, she aimed toward him.

Around her neck she displayed a diamond necklace,
one most inappropriate for the hour. It served as proof to society that being thrown over by her recent lover had left her with more profit than enjoying his constancy ever would.

She smiled down while her cool eyes scrutinized Leona from the shadows beneath the brim of her violet hat. An unkind merriment communicated that she thought he had made a far worse bargain than she in the affair's final accounting.

As if one demon were not enough, another horse pulled up alongside Mrs. Napier's during the time it took Christian's carriage to pass her. Another of his sins joined the examination of the carriage's occupants, then the two women paced their mounts away, enjoying a private joke.

“For a recluse, it appears that you are not without friends,” Leona said dryly.

“I am not a recluse. That is a baseless rumor.”

“Obviously. I trust that the other rumor is baseless as well. The one that says you are mad.”

“Actually it says that I am half mad, and that is at worst an exaggeration.”

She laughed. It was a throaty, sensual sound, and the first memory he had of her. That laugh, coming from the back of her father's house, intruding on the quiet study where Reginald Montgomery received the traveler who had arrived at his door.

Nostalgia invaded him, for that moment and the next, when the girl suddenly appeared in that study with her vivacious black eyes. He had known two things in that moment, known them so essentially that
they required no thoughts. He knew that she was immune to his curse, and he knew that he wanted her.

He bore the passing crowd for a few more minutes, then shut them all out. “I had not noticed the attention paid me because I was intent on enjoying your company, Leona. And, I confess, I was picturing your hair down the way I saw it in Macao, and wishing to see it thus again.”

“It is unlikely that you will, even if you are Easterbrook and expect the world to conform to your pleasure. I am a mature woman now, and must look like one.”

He would soon see it however he chose, but he let it pass. “Tell me how your brother fares. You spoke of his capability with trade but nothing else.”

She settled back, perhaps relieved by such an easy topic. “He looks much like my father now that he is grown. There is little of my mother in him.”

“You said that he goes to Canton now. That means he has to leave you alone in Macao during the trading season. It must be lonely for you.”

From October to May, the European traders lived at Canton, outside its walls in the trading houses—or factories—maintained by each country on the narrow strip of land designated by the emperor. Their movements were strictly regulated by the Mandarins who executed the imperial will.

Even their visits to their families in the Portuguese enclave of Macao involved an elaborate protocol and the payment of high fees. Since Canton was the only portal for legal trade with China, the restrictive system was tolerated even though it was strongly resented.

“Not so lonely. There are other women who wait as I do. I have Isabella, and Tong Wei remains as a guard.”

“Does your mother's family aid with the business? There was no need to be involved while your father lived, but your brother is young still.”

Her expression turned cool. “Although our company still bears their name, the Tavares family chose to sign away their rights to their share when my father died. They calculated it would fall into ruin, and did not want any debts to make their way back to them.”

“Since it did not fall into ruin, they calculated wrong.”

“It appears so.”

The better calculations had been hers. She knew her own abilities and worth as her mother's family never would. Christian could picture her, the grieving daughter, perhaps dramatic in her desolation at her loss, silently weighing the risks and profits if the Tavares family handed over their share.

“Pedro broke the engagement at the same time, I assume.” He watched her closely, left with nothing more than normal instincts to ascertain just how sly she had been.

“Yes, it all happened at the same time.”

A little disturbance trembled toward him. Not from Leona, but from Isabella.
Sadness. Sympathy.
The companion remembered Leona's distress back then, even if Leona masked it completely.

Not so distressed that she did not play her cards shrewdly, though. Whether the Tavareses wanted to distance themselves from a failing business or from a
woman insulted by a fiancé, Leona had secured whatever remained for her brother, in total.

Leona made a display of gazing along the path, announcing with her distraction that this particular topic was finished. He occupied himself with admiring the fine bones of her face and the unfashionable, erotic fullness of her lips.

Maturity favored her unusual beauty. That mouth and her eyes reflected her Portuguese blood, but the rest of her face was English. The combination resulted in the familiar tinged by the exotic, and her dark eyes contrasted starkly with the translucent paleness of her skin.

“Lord Easterbrook, you are still summoning a good deal of attention,” she observed. “There is a man over there by those trees who just stares at you, much as if he is seeing a ghost.”

He noticed the man in question. Handsome, dark-haired, and elegant, he accompanied a woman far less fashionable in dress but lovely in her Celtic way. Right now the beauty was noticing her companion's interest in the Easterbrook carriage and expressing her own gape-mouthed astonishment.

“If you mean that man with the woman whose red tresses are flowing the way I would like to see yours, that is my youngest brother Elliot. The woman is his wife, Phaedra.”

“Why is he looking so stunned?”

“He is surprised to see me here. I do not partake of this social ritual often.” He told his coachman to pull aside and stop. “I should introduce you, I suppose.”

“If you only suppose, perhaps you should not.”

“The goal of this outing was to encourage introductions for you. We may as well start with my family.”

She accepted his hand and stepped down beside him. “Just how infrequently do you partake of this ritual?”

“Rarely.”

“When was the last time?”

He tucked her hand around his arm and strolled toward Elliot. “Let me think. I believe it was five—no, six—years ago.”

Lord Elliot Rothwell had swallowed his shock by the time Easterbrook hailed him. He bowed to Leona and listened with interest to the introduction.

“Macao, you say. How interesting.” Lord Elliot gave his older brother a deep, curious look. A peculiar awkwardness settled between the two men.

Lady Phaedra rushed to ease the moment. “More than interesting. I daresay fortuitous, for me at least. Let us take a turn together, Miss Montgomery, while I pepper you with some questions that I have about your experiences in the Far East.”

Lady Phaedra guided Leona away, leaving the two brothers alone under the tree. Lady Phaedra's strides caused her dress to flow around her body, revealing that she was with child.

Leona glanced back at Easterbrook and his brother. “Are they angry with each other?”

“The marquess is too peculiar to incite anger. Per plexity, yes. Confusion, often. Annoyance, daily. But not anger.”

“I have heard some rumors that agree with you.”

“People spin theories when they are not handed a story that explains what they see. In truth no one knows much about him. Not even his family. He shuns society and rarely leaves his house, or so we think. But we don't really know, do we? He does not suffer fools kindly, and can be autocratic, but any man of his station is like that. The fact is, even we do not know what he is about, or how he spends his time, or what he thinks about, or whether he thinks about anything at all.” She grinned mischievously. “Except
now
we know that he once visited China.”

Leona snuck another look at the brothers. Their conversation did not appear contentious, but it did not look convivial either.

“Enough about Easterbrook,” Lady Phaedra said. “I would much prefer to talk about you. I find it interesting that you journeyed here to act as an agent for your brother.”

Leona briefly told her story. She sensed that Lady Phaedra's mind was as unconventional as her appearance, and that the tale was received differently than it was by other women.

“What adventures you must have had,” Lady Phaedra said. “Just your journey here is remarkable, but your description of visiting India and the Far Eastern islands to secure trade while your brother was a minor is astonishing.”