The Trouble With Being Wicked (42 page)

The part of him that thought playing the hermit in Devon wasn’t all that interesting anymore. Perhaps that part.

Lady Elizabeth appeared hesitant at first, but then she opened the door with an impressive amount of force and stepped through it. He applauded himself for persuading her to come out with him then stepped away to allow her to join him in the wind and rain.

There, that was better.

Or it would have been, if she’d been in more robust health. Instead, the skeletal depression at her collarbone made him wish he had a warm hock of ham to feed her with.

She huddled into her insufficient wrap. “This is quite miserable, my lord.”

He nodded sagely. “You ought to try it on horseback.”

A crease formed in her cheek. Hardly a smile, but better than the heartbreaking look of a minute ago.
 
“You needn’t watch over me.”

He wiped at the rain dripping into his face. It fell into his eyes, now that he faced the moors instead of the door. “Obviously.”

“I’m not one of your sisters.”

“Certainly not.” But she was someone’s sister. Lord Oliver Spencer’s, in point of fact. Ash could smash the young man’s face in.

“You don’t need to bother with me. I have enough servants and…books.”

Books invariably reminded him of Celeste. They’d never finished the lurid novel he’d poached from her servant. They hadn’t finished a great many things. He’d never wanted to confront her, but he detested the open end of their relationship. And he detested the reminder. “I’m not a great proponent of books in place of company.”

She smiled a placid smile without agreeing with him.

“Why are you alone here?”

She looked at him in surprise. “Do you mean the captain?”

“No. I meant…” But he couldn’t say it. Not Celeste, not Miss Gray. Certainly not the other, more intimate name he thought of her by. He didn’t want to give Lady Elizabeth any indication of the loneliness in his heart.

“Miss Smythe?”

He didn’t feel it necessary to confirm or deny. That is, he did feel the need to shout her name, to scream,
For God’s sakes, where is she?
but it seemed inappropriate. What sort of man asked after his former mistress, after he’d so callously rid himself of her?

“She wasn’t ready to make the journey, my lord,” Lady Elizabeth explained.

He drew up. “Why? Is she unwell?”

“No, no.” Lady Elizabeth shook her head. Then she shook it again.

His hackles rose. “But something has happened.”

“No.” Her head shook again. “It is just as well you let it be, my lord.”

“Leave off ‘my lording’ me.” He wanted answers, not this mock distance. Damn it, he wanted her to trust him.

Her eyes skimmed his face with an expression akin to curiosity. “Celeste is engaged, my lord.”

That stopped his world cold. “Engaged?”

“Otherwise engaged, I mean,” she said, turning back to gaze at the horizon. “Pray, do not press, my lord.”

She
wanted
to ‘my lord’ him. He wasn’t part of her world, or Celeste’s. Blindly, he shrugged out of his greatcoat and draped it over her shoulders. Her lips were tinged blue. A gust of wind blasted stinging raindrops against his face, but he welcomed them. Elsewise, he would have sworn he’d lost his ability to feel. “Otherwise engaged? Is she with someone else or isn’t she?” he demanded.

Elizabeth burrowed into his warm wool coat. She worried her lower lip. “It’s not
who
she’s with. She may never settle on any one man again, for I fear you’ll always own that part of her. But she’s more herself now, and I wouldn’t interrupt her with my problems after all she’s done for me. That’s why she isn’t here.”

Celeste was whole again, while he was just a shell of a man.
What had he thought? She’d pine for him forever?

But no matter what he thought of her, or whether it was too soon for her to entertain other men after their falling out—and he did think it soon, even if over a month had passed—he couldn’t ignore Lady Elizabeth. She’d finally admitted she needed his help.

“What can I do?” he asked, because he knew there must be something, else she wouldn’t be in Devon shivering beside him in the relentless rain.

She turned to him. Her eyes searched his face, trying to read him. A minute passed in which he did his best to look trustworthy. He needed to help her almost as much as she needed his help.

Finally, she straightened. Her shoulders set. When she spoke, her voice didn’t falter. “I need my son.”

* * *

It took a full week for Celeste to track Elizabeth to Devon.

The patched hedgerows occasionally broken by an outcropping of granite had offered her so much hope in the spring. Celeste paid little mind to the pretty hillocks now as her carriage, burdened by her hastily packed trunks, rattled over the rutted road.

She paid little mind to Hildegard, too, whose matronly nature had been a comfort in her frenetic search for Elizabeth. From seedy taverns to upscale boarding houses, Celeste had looked everywhere a spurned mistress might flee. Hildegard had accompanied her without complaint and, more importantly, without judgment.

But Celeste hadn’t thought to look here. Not until she’d exhausted her hope of finding Elizabeth in London, and had even considered posting an inquiry to the Earl of Wyndham. Only fear of being wrong had stopped her from penning that note. There was no need to rattle that cage if Elizabeth could be found without his help, though Celeste wouldn’t hesitate to contact the earl if this last location proved futile.

She let her breath out when they made a bend in the road and Elizabeth’s docile mare came into view. The horse’s head bobbed over the hedgerow as if in greeting before lowering again. Celeste’s eyes briefly met Hildegard’s.
Thank God
.

She returned her attention to the long glass pane at her shoulder. The carriage would round the final hedgerow soon. The cottage, her cottage, would be standing there, awaiting her return. Silently, she urged the coachman to drive the team of four faster, and when at last they drew before the gate she pushed open the carriage door and alighted without waiting for the steps to be set out. Nor did she wait for a servant to open the cottage door and welcome her in. This was her property and her friend who was in desperate need of support.

She dashed to the front parlor so quickly her skirts clung about her legs. She stopped short at the door. On the settee beside Elizabeth was Lord Trestin. His teacup hung suspended before his lips, his face frozen in a comical look of surprise. Yearning hit Celeste so hard she fairly wept with it.

Oh, Ash. How I’ve missed you.

“Celeste!” Elizabeth leapt to her feet and came around a low table where the remnants of a tea spread over folded newspapers and a discarded sampler. Elizabeth had never been tidy, but Celeste was too relieved to see her friend—and too shocked by Ash’s presence—to mind. She welcomed Elizabeth into her arms, taking care not to break her. She felt like skin and bones.

Ash rose behind Elizabeth awkwardly, visibly recovering from his earlier startle.

“Dearest Celeste,” Elizabeth murmured against her cheek, “I did hope you would come. I trust your journey wasn’t a difficult one? And look, you brought Hildegard, too—she just walked by the door. Do you mean to stay long, then? Would you care for a cup of tea?”

Celeste gave Elizabeth a squeeze, then pulled back to examine her. She’d lost at least a stone, and her hair was done in a simple knot instead of the elegant curls she usually favored, but her skin was flushed and her grip strong. Celeste’s concern ebbed. It seemed Elizabeth, too, had turned back from the point of utter despair.

“Oh, sit.” She pulled Celeste to a chair and pressed her into it. “I can’t stomach you looking at me like I’ve grown warts.”

“I’m sorry,” Celeste murmured. Her palms pressed uneasily against the chair arms. She felt off. In her own home, and all because
he
was in it. “I wasn’t sure how I would find you.”

A shadow passed over Elizabeth’s eyes before she turned and found her seat alongside Ash’s empty cushion. His face was unreadable, but Elizabeth’s was not. She sought his strength.

Celeste’s belly turned.
She might be sick, right on her shoes
.
How it hurt to see him! With another woman. Her best friend, no less. The twisting, yearning feeling in her stomach would surely kill her.
Unbearable.
Far worse than she’d thought possible. She’d foolishly believed it would be days before she’d encounter him in Brixcombe, and altogether likely she’d never set eyes on him at all. She’d certainly not expected to find him here, in a coze with the very woman she’d come to rescue.

With every ounce of effort in her, she pulled her eyes from the man standing mere feet from her and turned her attention elsewhere—anywhere. She couldn’t say for a certain what she looked at, for she saw nothing, as though her mind refused to process any image but his. Yet she didn’t want to see him. He’d hurt her. She was ashamed to know she’d hurt him, too. In the last month, she’d forced her feelings into a new tiny box, the kind that had served her so well. She couldn’t backslide now, when she’d finally come to terms with the futility of her desires. Men like him didn’t marry deceitful, loose women like her.

“Good afternoon.” He broke the silence, but he didn’t wait for her to respond before retaking his seat. To his credit, he left a great distance between his knee and Elizabeth’s. Despite being a man who commanded every inch of space in the room, he managed to wedge himself into the tightest corner of the settee possible. Celeste’s experience with the opposite sex, however, refused to allow her to believe it. The respectable span between his thigh and Elizabeth’s proved nothing but that he desired to make their association appear less than it actually was.

Jealousy gripped the little box in her chest. With one surging motion, it could pop the nails from the lid and release a torrent of unrequited love, enough to force her to her knees to beg his forgiveness, or to throw herself into the narrow space between her best friend and her former lover in a vain, petty effort to keep them apart.

No. She wouldn’t make a fool of herself. She wrestled for composure and reached for the teapot. She poured out as mechanically as an automaton, then raised the cup. The bone china seeped warmth and she paused, cupping the teacup in both hands. Her fingers suddenly felt like icicles.
Silly goose.
More than once she’d spent an evening as a third wheel to Elizabeth and a lover. This ought to be no hardship.

Nevertheless, she’d never played second fiddle to her friend with her old paramour. Evidently, even a woman as seasoned as she could still encounter new experiences.

“And good afternoon to you, my lord,” Celeste at last managed in a surprisingly even voice.

Elizabeth looked from Ash to Celeste, then folded her hands in her lap. “I hope you don’t mind that I’ve come for a visit, dearest. The city is so hot in the summer, and this cottage is very fine, now that the garden is tended and the roof no longer leaks.”

Celeste, too, glanced at Ash before she spoke. Her heart turned over. She fancied she could smell his soap, even at this distance.

No doubt Elizabeth could. Just thinking she could was enough to set Celeste’s stomach roiling again. She took a sip of tea to calm herself, then pulled a face. She set the teacup onto the saucer and began blindly heaping lumps of sugar into it. “When I found you were not at home,” she said, stirring her tea with odd, disjointed concentration, “I made a few inquiries about town. I hadn’t expected you to leave without telling me.”

“Yes,” Elizabeth replied with a weary sigh, “it wasn’t well done of me. But if you’ve been to my rooms then you know they aren’t mine to call home anymore. I ought to have purchased a house of my own long ago instead of depending on a man, but…” She didn’t say in front of Ash what Celeste already knew: Elizabeth had always hoped Captain Finn would elope with her. She shrugged and waved her hand through the air. “Where was I to go when he abruptly declared my services were no longer required?”

Celeste dearly wished to retort, “You might have come to me!” for she wished Elizabeth would have confided in her. Instead, she smiled softly and murmured, “I’m so sorry. He didn’t deserve your affections.”

Ash cleared his throat. “I’ll take my leave now.”

“Oh, don’t,” Elizabeth importuned him. “Celeste is only just sitting down.”

But he wouldn’t be dissuaded, and within seconds he’d donned his hat and gloves and taken himself from the room. Celeste bit her lip as Elizabeth watched him leave. He hadn’t bent over either of their hands, an understandable oversight in this situation, but off the mark for someone who lived and breathed good manners.

When the parlor door closed behind him, Celeste began the arduous task of selecting a sandwich from the plate on the tray. She simply couldn’t bring herself to look at Elizabeth while her heart seemed pinned to her sleeve.

“He promised to talk to Nicholas about Oliver,” Elizabeth said of a sudden. Celeste’s head snapped up, the sandwich forgotten. Her friend’s complexion, which moments ago had bordered on rosy, was white. “I’m dearly indebted to him for it.”

Celeste’s ears rang as if a gong had just been struck. She knew what debt meant to a courtesan. An arrangement had been made.