The Widow Wager (29 page)

And yet she was still here. Because Crispin’s peace meant more to her than her own reputation. Than her sister’s.

That was how much she had come to love him. She could only hope it wouldn’t come to the worst.

The carriage stopped, and after a moment, a finely liveried footman opened the door and helped her out. With Kate trailing behind her, she made her way up the stairs and knocked on the great wooden door.

A butler met her, taking her card. She thought his eyes widened a bit before he said, “How can I help you, Mrs. Flynn?”

“I am here to see Lord Woodley,” she said, wishing her voice didn’t tremble. “I realize I do not have an appointment and this is very irregular, but it about a matter of great import.”

The butler ushered her in and showed them to a parlor that was finer than anything she’d ever seen. Every stick of furniture, every drop of paint, every portrait and landscape had been chosen with the clear desire to show off the importance and wealth of the inhabitants of this hall. Her heart began to beat faster at the thought of what kind of man she was about to meet.

“I will ascertain if the marquis is in residence,” the butler said, beginning to close the door behind himself.

She rushed forward. “Tell him I am here to discuss his late wife. And my husband.”

Now the butler blanched. Gemma’s cheeks flamed, but she somehow managed to keep her gaze even on the servant as he backed away. When he had shut the door, Kate stepped forward.

“Miss Gemma!” Kate gasped, so shocked, apparently, that she reverted back to her very first address. “What are you doing?”

Gemma straightened her spine and turned on her maid. “I appreciate your attempt to help, to protect me, but I know exactly what I am doing. You will say nothing more. And when the marquis comes…
if
he comes, you will step into the hallway.”

“I cannot—”

“Kate!” she burst out, raising her hands to her hot cheeks. “Please.”

The maid observed her, then she nodded. “Very well. I will do so, against my better judgment.” They stood in silence for a few moments before Kate added, “You must love Mr. Flynn very much.”

Saying it to herself was one thing, but Gemma nearly buckled at hearing it stated out loud. She forced herself to remain calm and merely said, “Enough to do this.”

The door to the parlor opened and this time it was not the butler who greeted them. It was a tall, wiry, very handsome and very young man, dressed in the very best but not in any way resembling a fop.

“Mrs. Flynn,” he said as he entered the room. His cheeks were pale. “I am Lord Woodley. I’ve heard you have come to discuss something with me.”

Gemma took a step back.
This
was the marquis? She had pictured him older, perhaps even decrepit, rather like her own late husband. She’d thought of the kind of man who would inspire a woman to want a younger lover like Crispin. But this man was…well, he was no Crispin Flynn, but he certainly would turn heads at any ball.

“Kate,” she said, and her maid stepped from the room with a deep frown, leaving them alone. The marquis watched her go with wide eyes, but said nothing. She cleared her throat. “My lord, I realize this is an abnormal visit.”

He arched a brow. “I would say so, considering the message my butler conveyed to me.” He looked her up and down. “I heard
he
had married. You look nothing like Alice. I thought you might, but I’m glad you do not.”

Gemma caught her breath. That was something she had never considered, that perhaps she looked like a dead woman Crispin had loved. But then, he hadn’t chosen her. If he had, maybe he would have looked for an Alice replacement.

“I am here, my lord, because I have only just learned about the existence of your late wife. And the important role she played in my husband’s life in the past year and a half.”

“It seems like longer,” the marquis mused, almost more to himself than to her. “Come, why don’t we sit? I do not think I can take this conversation while standing.”

She drew back. There was a great deal of kindness in this man’s eyes, even when she spoke of Crispin. And he had not yet put her out when he had every right to do so. Instead, he motioned to the settee and then moved to the sideboard.

“I could have tea made, or if you’d like to join me in something stronger, you can take your pick.” He poured himself what looked like sherry and lifted the bottle in her direction.

She found herself nodding as she sat down. “I think I could use one, despite the early hour.”

He smiled as he poured a second drink and brought it to her. He settled on the chair that faced her and took a sip. “So you have been told about Alice and Flynn,” he said. “It was long before he met you, if gossip is accurate about the whirlwind nature of your courtship.”

She drew back. Was he trying to comfort her? That was an odd thing, considering what Crispin had done behind his back with his wife.

“I wasn’t worried about that, actually,” she said. “Let me explain. Crispin was verbally attacked last night by your late wife’s sisters.”

Woodley pulled a face. “Ah yes, Isadora and Imogen. The twin visions of beauty and vitriol. If they attacked him, please tell him he is not alone in their blame. They show up here regularly to harangue me about causing Alice’s suicide.”

“They do?” Gemma breathed. “I am sorry, my lord. That must only add insult to significant injury.”

“What did Flynn tell you?” he asked, setting his drink down and steepling his fingers.

She shifted. Crispin hadn’t wanted to tell her this story, she was certain he would be angry that she had gone behind his back to tell another person, especially his lover’s husband. But she needed something from Woodley and this was likely the only way to get it.

“He told me that they met at a country gathering and Alice flirted with him. That by the time he found out she was to marry you, he was already smitten.” She hesitated, but Woodley waved her on and his face revealed no pain in the telling, so she pressed forward. “He said she told him she did not want to wed, but when he offered to take her away, she refused and went forward with the marriage. She asked him to be her lover in secret and when he said he could not. Ultimately, she—she killed herself.”

“He offered to run away with her on the eve of our wedding,” Woodley said, his voice very soft but not pained or angry. “If only…”

She shook her head at his words. “My lord, I don’t mean to hurt you with this story.”

He laughed. “Hurt me? Oh no, my dear, you couldn’t hurt me with this. It is everything I already knew or had guessed. What do
you
think of it? You must have an opinion since you came here to my door so brazenly.”

Gemma caught her breath in surprise. She had been taught not to speak ill of the dead, especially the dead’s bereaved loved ones. But what choice did she have?

“When Crispin told me the truth after the twins’ attack on him, I was taken aback. It seemed to me that your late wife—”

“Alice,” he corrected, his voice barely carrying. “Please don’t call her my wife.”

Gemma blinked. “A-Alice…it seemed to me that she was playing a bit of a game with Crispin. She lied by omission about her engagement and even when she was offered what she claimed to desire, she refused him. It seemed…”

“Unfair,” he said.

She nodded. “I recognize that you likely don’t see it that way. After all, she was your fiancée and later your bride, and I’m certain you don’t want to think—”

“That she led Flynn on?” He laughed again. “Oh, but I do. Let me tell you the story from my point of view. Alice was a beauty, a diamond of the first water, and she set her sights on me the moment she stepped out in her first Season. I tripped over myself falling in love with her. But after I asked her to marry me, I began to realize she was not what she seemed. She could be cruel when it suited her. She took pleasure in hurting those with less power. She was spoiled beyond measure. And her desires and expectations for me grew exponentially.”

He got up, his face darkening with what she realized was not upset or grief, but anger. She swallowed. “How so?”

“The diamonds weren’t big enough, the proposal wasn’t romantic enough, the gestures weren’t grand enough…” He turned away. “It went on and on, I shall not bore you. She left for that country party angry at me for some petty grievance, and she shouted at me, ‘If you do not give me what I want, someone else will.’ I admit I almost hoped she would find a new suitor.”

“She left threatening to overthrow you, despite your engagement?”

“With the wedding of the year planned in just two months’ time,” he said with a nod as he faced her again. “And when she came back, her wicked little smile told me she had found some prey. She wasn’t very secretive about it, not to me. And when confronted, she bragged that she could have the most notorious man in Society wrapped around her finger.”

Gemma clenched her fists at that statement. Alice had been using Crispin, far worse than she had ever imagined.

“There was no way out of the marriage,” he said, his tone very flat now. “She made it clear she had not bedded Flynn, and I had no recourse to break the agreements that had been made. So I married her. And she toyed with him, toyed with me for months. She became pregnant.”

Gemma gasped, and the marquis held up a hand. “With my child. She was going to do nothing that would give me cause to end the union, I assure you. Poor Flynn who could have anyone likely never got what he wanted from her.”

Gemma blinked, trying to picture any woman withholding her physical affections from Crispin, especially if she cared for him. But she was beginning to see that Alice hadn’t.

“I hoped the child might settle her,” Woodley continued. “That she would be satisfied, but she wailed about her figure. She wept about how much she hated me. Finally, one night we had a row and I told her how much I despised her. That all I wanted was my heir. It was a dreadful mistake.”

Gemma’s lips parted. “She killed herself.”

He nodded. “In truth, I don’t think she meant to do it. She wrote the note, of course, she threw herself from the staircase in the most dramatic fashion. But based on her diary, it is clear she hoped to injure herself, lose the baby and put me in my place where I deserved to be. Only she miscalculated how hard and steep those stairs are. She broke her neck and died before she even stopped falling.
That
is the true story.”

Gemma covered her mouth, her stomach turning with the tale. “I am so very sorry, my lord.”

His face softened with surprise. “Thank you. I know Flynn has wrecked himself since her death. I suppose I tried to tell myself there was more to it. But if he has blamed himself, he should know that Alice’s actions were almost entirely to hurt me. She did mention him in her note, but I saw it for the ploy it was.”

Gemma drew her breath, trying to calm herself, trying to keep from casting up her accounts on the fine Persian rug that graced his beautiful hall.

“You may have seen it as it was truly meant, but Crispin does not, I fear.” She squeezed her eyes shut to control the tears of anger and heartbreak that threatened to flood them. “My lord, he has punished himself for his part in Alice’s death. He continues to do so. I have come here in the hopes that you could offer me some proof to give him that he was not the cause of any of it.”

The marquis shook his head. “Such as? Do you wish me to speak to him? Because I admit that would be difficult.”

“No, I doubt he is any more ready for such a confrontation than you are. But I wonder…I wonder if you still have the note your wife wrote before her suicide.”

His eyes went wide. “Yes, I do.”

“Could I—could I take it to Crispin?” When he drew back, she hastened to add, “I know it is asking a great deal, too much, but it seems to me that your late wife was very content to destroy as many lives as she could. I don’t want Crispin to be her permanent victim. Because, you see, I am in love with him, my lord.”

His lips pinched. “I can see that. And I know the feeling of wanting to do anything for the one you love. It ended badly for me, but…but perhaps your fate will be different.” He let out a long sigh. “I do have the note. Give me a moment and I will retrieve it.”

She was glad to be sitting, for she felt she would have collapsed if she hadn’t been. “Thank you, thank you so much, Lord Woodley.”

He smiled, a tight and pained expression, and quietly left the room. When he was gone, she jumped up and began to pace the chamber. Her plan had only gone so far as to come here and hopefully retrieve the note so Crispin would see the truth and not just the horrible things he had built up in his head. Monsters created by guilt and heartbreak.

She hadn’t actually believed the marquis would indulge her, so now she had to come up with a second part to her plan. Crispin had left her this morning without a word and she had no idea where he had gone or when or if he would return.

“Where could he be?” she muttered as she stalked back and forth across the floor. Then she recalled another night when he had also disappeared. He had been at Annabelle and Marcus’s home that day. Was it possible that was where he was now?

She would have to find out.

“Mrs. Flynn?”

She turned to find the marquis was back. He had a much folded and unfolded letter in one hand. In the other, he held a slim, leather-bound book.

“Here is the note.” He hesitated before he held the letter out. “Perhaps you would be so kind as to burn it when Mr. Flynn has finished with it.”

Her eyes went wide. “You do not want me to return it?”

“You are correct that her poison has had its effect for far too long. Destroy it. Reading it again will bring me no peace.” He held out the other item. “This is her diary for the time just before she met Flynn to the night she killed herself. I think there are more answers there than anywhere else. And it will give her note more context.”

She stared at the journal. “I could not—”

“Violate her privacy?” Woodley asked, his tone bitter. “For your husband’s sake, I hope you will. Take it.”

She did as he asked and he wiped his hand on his trouser leg, almost as if he were wiping away the residue of something dirty. His face was such a twisted mess of pain, so similar to Crispin’s when he spoke of this dead woman, that she wished she could somehow help him as well.