Trapped by Scandal (2 page)

TWO

T
he carriage drew up outside the Marquis of Bruton's imposing double-fronted mansion on Grosvenor Square, and the footman jumped down from the box to let down the step and open the door for Lady Hermione.

“My lady.” He offered a hand to help her alight.

“My thanks, Derek.” She gave him a friendly smile as she stepped down into the quiet square. It was long past two o'clock in the morning, but her brother's house was still brilliantly lit in every window. She would have expected some illumination—even if the majordomo had already retired, the doorman would be waiting to let her in—but the house looked as if a ball were in full swing, which, considering that the Marquis and his lady had been intending to dine quietly, seemed somewhat unlikely.

The front doors opened as she set her foot on the first of the shallow steps leading up from the street, and the Marquis's majordomo stood bowing in the doorway, the lamplit hall behind him. “Lady Hermione . . . I trust you passed a pleasant evening, my lady.”

“Pleasant enough, thank you, Jackson.” She moved past him with a smile, then paused in the marble-floored hall,
conscious of a strange feeling in the house, a certain expectant tension in the air. “Is his lordship still up?”

“In the upstairs parlor, my lady. I believe he's waiting for you.” Nothing in the man's expression gave a hint of anything unusual, but then, Jackson was renowned for his inscrutability.

Hero drew off her gloves; she had untied her mask in the carriage. “I will go up to him, then. Good night, Jackson.” She ascended the curving horseshoe staircase, twirling her mask on one finger, the silken folds of her domino swishing around her sandaled feet.

The upstairs parlor was a small, intimate family sitting room overlooking the garden at the rear, behind the grand formal salon, which ran the length of the front of the house, looking down into the square. The equally intimate morning room, where the family dined when they were alone, was opposite the parlor. The parlor door was slightly ajar, and Hero pushed it open.

There was a chill in the October night air, and a fire burned in the grate, the candelabra all illuminated so that the room seemed a blaze of light. The Marquis of Bruton was sitting in a chair beside the fire, nursing a brandy goblet. He did not look in the least restful and jumped to his feet the instant his twin sister stepped through the doorway.

“Oh, Hero, thank goodness you're back. I've been waiting for you.”

“Is something amiss, Alec?” She looked in some alarm at her brother. He was usually very careful of his appearance, but tonight his reddish fair hair was tousled and his collar unbuttoned.

“Yes . . . no, no, I don't think so, at least I hope not.” He pushed a hand through his tumbled hair. “Marie Claire's pains have begun, and I don't know what to do.”

Hero unbuttoned her domino and tossed it over the back of a sofa. “Dearest, have you called Dr. Barrett yet?”

“Oh, yes, of course. He's with her now. And Nan's there, of course. But she's hurting, and I don't know how to help.”

Hero offered a reassuring smile. “I don't know a great deal about these matters myself, Alec, but I think hurting is inevitable. And if she has Barrett and Nan in attendance, she could not be in better hands.” She moved to the sideboard to pour herself a glass of brandy and took it to the fire. Her apple-green gown was of the most diaphanous silk, as was de rigueur, the décolletage pronounced and the little puff sleeves offering no protection from drafts or the evening chill. “When did it start?”

“Just after dinner. We dined quietly—you know how Marie Claire tires so easily these days—and we were sitting to a game of piquet when the first pain came.” He looked distraught. “Oh, Hero, I wish I could suffer it for her.”

“I know you do, love.” She kissed his cheek. “But nature didn't plan it that way. Where's Aunt Emily?”

“Fast asleep. You know the last trump wouldn't wake her once she's taken her nightcap. She decided to have dinner in her own quarters, a quinsy developing, apparently.” Despite his anxiety, Alec grinned. Great-aunt Emily was always developing something or other. “Anyway, she has no idea the house is in an uproar.”

“Hardly an uproar,” Hero said with a responding grin.
“Jackson would never permit it, baby or not. I'll go up and see Marie Claire. Will you come?”

He shook his head miserably. “Nan told me to stay away. She said I was agitating Marie Claire.”

Hero couldn't help a chuckle. Nan had been their nursemaid and the person most responsible for bringing them up. Their parents had had little or no interest in their offspring, once the heir was assured, much preferring the giddy whirl of London Society life, with frequent travels to Paris and Italy, over any form of domesticity. The twins had scrambled into adulthood under Nan's direction and the rather ineffective schooling of a series of governesses, who did not last very long in the twins' schoolroom, and rather more effective tutors, who remained for as long as they could hold their pupils' interest in their subjects. Since both Hero and Alec had decidedly lively minds and much preferred to direct their own lines of educational inquiry, the tutors who did succeed in teaching them were those who were prepared to follow their lead. As a result, they were very accomplished in some subjects and woefully ignorant in others.

“Well, I'll run up and see what's going on. I'll report back.” She hastened from the parlor and up the narrower staircase to the bedroom floor. She heard voices and soft moaning from behind the double doors to Lady Bruton's bedchamber and opened it quietly, slipping into the room, where a fire blazed in the hearth and candles illuminated the large canopied bed. It was insufferably hot in the room, the windows closed tight against drafts and blocked by the long damask curtains.

An elderly woman turned from the foot of the bed at the sound of the door. “Ah, 'tis you, Lady Hero. Now, don't you get in the way.”

“I wasn't going to, Nan.” Hero stepped quickly to the bed. “How are you, darling?” She smiled down at the white face on the white pillows.

Marie Claire struggled to find a responding smile. “Well enough until the pain comes.” She put out a hand, and Hero took it in a firm clasp. “Is Alec all right?”

“No, he's tearing his hair out, poor love,” Hero said. “He looks half demented. You know how he can't bear not to be able to control things.”

Marie Claire smiled feebly. “Just like you, Hero.”

“True enough,” she said, then stopped as the other woman's grip on her hand intensified and her face contorted with pain. Hero didn't wince, although her hand felt as if it was going to break, but then Marie Claire's grip weakened and she fell back against the pillows with a little sigh.

“Leave her be, now, Lady Hero,” Nan instructed. “There's things we need to do.”

“I'll come back later,” Hero said, bending to kiss her sister-in-law's damp brow. She moved away from the bed, and the doctor followed her to the door.

“'Tis likely to be a long night, my lady,” he informed her with appropriate gravity, his somber black suit and the pince-nez swinging from a chain around his neck giving him a reassuringly professional air. “But everything is going as it should. Try to reassure his lordship.”

“I'll try.” Hero moved aside as a maid came in with a pile of linen, followed by another carrying two jugs of
steaming water. The landing was cold after the heat of the bedchamber, and she turned aside to her own room to fetch a wrap before returning to her brother.

Alec was standing in front of the fire when she entered the parlor. “How is she? Is it over?”

She shook her head. “No, love, it's likely to be quite a few hours, according to Barrett, but she's managing wonderfully. Better than I would, anyway.”
Would or will?
She dismissed the unbidden reflection instantly. It was irrelevant. She had no intention at this stage in her life of bearing children.

“I saw William at Ranelagh,” she said abruptly, almost as if her reflection had given birth to the statement.

“Ah.” Alec refreshed his glass from the decanter, his back to her.

Hero looked at him, her eyes narrowed. “You don't sound surprised.”

He shrugged, still with his face averted. “I'm not, particularly. It was inevitable at some point.”

Hero perched on the arm of the sofa. “You knew he was in London.” It wasn't a question.

“He's been here for several weeks.” Finally, he turned back to the room, lifting the decanter in invitation.

She shook her head. “No, thank you, I've had my fill for tonight. Why didn't you say anything?”

Her brother sat down with a sigh. “I was . . . am . . . sworn to secrecy, Hero.”

She frowned. “He's on business, then?”

Alec merely looked at her, and she took his silence for an affirmative.

“And I'm not to know of it, is that right?”

“I'm sorry, love. I cannot break a confidence.”

“No, of course you can't. But why? Does he think I can't be trusted . . . after everything?” She couldn't disguise her hurt and anger.

“I can no more speak for William than you can,” Alec responded. “He didn't tell me as such that I shouldn't confide in you, but, as I say, he swore me to secrecy with no specific exemptions.”

“He can't be on the same business as before,” Hero mused, pressing her brother no further. “The Terror is over; Paris is quiet again . . . or at least, no longer rioting. The Directory is in charge after that Brigadier Napoleon finally defeated the mob with his ‘whiff of grapeshot,' and now he's commanding the army with a host of victories behind him. So I wonder who William is working for.” Alec said nothing, and after a moment, his sister asked, “Are you joined with him in this work, whatever it is?”

Alec sighed. It was impossible to keep secrets from Hero; he knew her technique all too well. She would duck and dodge around a subject until she somehow trapped him into giving something away. “Only very peripherally. Can we not talk of it anymore, please?”

“Well, it would take your mind off what's going on upstairs,” she stated. “I won't ask questions, but I'll speculate and watch your face.”

“Hero, don't do this . . . please,” he begged, half laughing despite himself.

She merely smiled. In truth, she
was
more interested in keeping his mind from his wife's labor than anything else.
It was going to be a long night, and Alec already looked worn to a frazzle. “So, is he spying
for
the French government or
against
them? He is spying, isn't he?”

Alec stared into the fire, struggling to keep his expression neutral.

“Of course he is,” Hero continued briskly. “It's the obvious answer, after what he was doing before. So, is it his French or his English half that commands his loyalty at this point, I wonder?” She regarded her brother quizzically, her head tilted to one side, her eyes bright. “Or is he still an independent, managing his own operation? That would be most likely. He'll be following his own true north, as usual, throwing himself behind whatever issue on either side catches his sense of fairness . . . ah!” She gave a little crow of triumph. “I saw your eyebrows move. I'm right, aren't I?”

Alec shook his head in resignation. “So what if you are? Hero, you know him better than I do.”

“In some ways,” she agreed tartly. “But obviously not in others.” She stood up restlessly. “I won't pester you any further. Would you like to play piquet?”

“I don't think I could concentrate.”

“All the better for me, then.” She picked up the deck of cards that Alec and Marie Claire had discarded earlier and shuffled them. “Come, it'll distract you a little, love.”

He nodded and took the seat opposite her at the table as she dealt swiftly. “Are you not fatigued? You must have had quite a night at Ranelagh.”

“Oh, I did. Tony was so besotted with drink he lost everything at dice and then tried to get me to stake my
bracelet, and then two ruffians pursued me down one of the pathways. Oh, and of course, I met up with William,” she recited blithely, picking up her cards.

“I do wish you wouldn't go to these public masques and ridottos, Hero.” He frowned at his hand as he sorted the cards. “You know it's indecorous. Tom wouldn't have permitted it.”

Her expression darkened, shadows dimming the luster of her eyes for a moment. “Tom would never dictate to me, Alec, you know that.”

“Maybe not, but he still had some influence on you. You were never so wild and reckless when he was alive.”

Hero called carte blanche on her hand. She had no answer to her brother's statement. It was undeniable, but before Tom was killed, she had a sense of purpose, a sense of the future. Once he had gone, all that went, too. She only felt properly alive these days when she was walking some kind of tightrope. And at twenty-three, it was high time she stopped. But that dangerous, exhilarating time with William and his dedicated group had given her everything she needed, a purpose, a challenge . . . and, of course, the passion.