A Rogue in Sheep’s Clothing (20 page)

Ellie watched her sister struggle for composure. “It’s hard to say,” said Claire, after a moment’s hesitation.

Lady Davenport sat up. “What do you mean?”

“Your life line extends all the way from your wrist to your fingers. Notice here that another line branches off quite late. That means you are going to, or you already have made a major change — either an adventure, or a metamorphosis of the heart.”

“How fascinating,” Lady Davenport said.

Running a finger over the older woman’s thumbnail, Claire’s face grew thoughtful. “You were very ill at one time, weren’t you?”

“I nearly died.”

“When was that?” asked Hugh.

“You were too little to remember.”

Claire whispered in Lady Davenport’s ear.

A shocked expression filled the older woman’s eyes and her face went white. “Twins,” she said hoarsely. “I lost them both in childbirth.”

Hugh’s jaw dropped. “You had other children?”

His mother leaned back on the couch and closed her eyes. “We should be discussing this in greater privacy. However, when I lost the twins, your father left me.”

“That’s not true, Mother. He left when your interests strayed to another.”

Her eyes flew open and she bolted forward, waving a finger at him. “Banish that thought! Your father left because I couldn’t recover from the loss of the twins.”

“Excuse my struggle to believe that, but I knew my father and he was a warm and kindly man.”

Lady Davenport looked for a moment as if she might storm out of the room, but her eyes softened and she settled back on the sofa. “Well, perhaps his warmth and kindness were what did us in. When I lost the babies your father retreated to the nursery, spending his days with you, and eventually, his nights with your governess.”

An electric silence consumed the room. Someone coughed in embarrassment. Ellie couldn’t look at mother or son. Instead, she gazed at the window, noticing how the rain left streaks of clarity in the midst of splatters on the pane.

Chase broke from the group. “Shall we play a game of — ”

Lady Davenport cut him off. “No more games.”

She took Hugh’s arm and pulled him onto the couch next to Claire. “Tell my son what his future will be.”

“I didn’t mean to upset you,” Claire told the older woman.

“Nonsense, girl. Read him.”

Hugh removed his hand from his mother’s grasp. “Don’t be absurd.”

“I have been many things,” his mother replied, “but never absurd.”

Claire bit her lip. “My lord, would you let me to read your palm?”

Poultney clapped Hugh on the shoulder. “Go on, good fellow, your audience is waiting.”

Hugh swallowed. “It’s all parlor tricks and nonsense.”

“Yes, of course,” coaxed Claire. “May I see your palm?”

Hugh sighed and shook his head. The assembly settled again, all eyes trained on him.

Ellie pulled up a footstool and sat near his feet. Though she saw Hugh’s hand coming, she jumped when it dropped in her lap. “You read it,” he said.

“But, my lord, I don’t read palms.”

Hugh shivered. Claire took his arm, but he jerked it from her and put it back in Ellie’s lap.

Through her thick glasses, she tried to see his expression, but his eyes were inscrutable. With everyone waiting, she couldn’t say no. The weight and warmth of his hand was familiar, but she hadn’t noticed its beauty before, magnified tenfold by the spectacles. Square at the wrist, muscular, with elegant tapered fingers — she yearned to press his palm to her cheek — to feel the callused fingers run through her hair. “The first line … ”

“Shows a deep and abiding heart,” Claire finished for her. “I think you will be lucky in love, for your heart is unwavering.”

“Oh, thank God,” Lady Davenport breathed. “What else do you see?”

“His head line … ” Ellie looked to Claire for guidance.

“Is long and feathered in places,” explained her sister. “Not so deeply rooted in the practical as your mother. Your line shows a strong intellect and an active imagination.”

Ellie traced the line with her fingertip, following the small breaks and crevasses.
This hand cupped my breast,
she thought.
Touched me in places …
Memories of High Tor made her swallow and heat rise to her cheeks.

“Tell me what his life line says,” his mother urged.

Love filled Ellie’s heart as she gazed at the third line on Hugh’s hand. “It’s not so deep to start,” she said. Claire nodded and smiled. Ellie continued, “It’s hesitant. Perhaps, a little afraid?” Hugh stiffened. “It’s a transitory time for you, but one day you will learn there’s nothing to fear.”

“My son will be happy?” Lady Davenport asked.

“Very happy, is my guess,” Ellie kept her eyes low for fear someone might notice the mist in them.

Poultney shook Hugh’s shoulders. “Good news, my friend.”

Hugh took his hand out of Ellie’s. He fixed an icy stare on her. “Just what are you and your sisters up to?”

“What do you mean?” Her heart contracted.

“Guilt, that’s what I see in your blue eyes, despite the glasses. And yours, and yours.” He twisted violently to glare at Peggity and Claire.

“Hugh, how could you treat our guests so inexcusably?” his mother scolded. “Apologize immediately.”

“Bah! There’s a plot afoot, and you’re the puppet master of them all.”

To accuse her of scheming was one thing, but to cast her kin in the same shadow drove Ellie over the brink. “Tell my sisters you’re sorry,” she said, jumping to her feet.

Hugh smiled, lips bowed in a smug curve. She balled her fists. “Tell them!” she demanded, more than willing to crack his scar.

Claire’s cool hand gripped her wrist. “I believe it’s time we were going.” She nudged Ellie out of her fighting stance while Peggity took her other arm. The three sisters went to the parlor door.

“You are the rudest young man it has ever been my displeasure to meet!” cried Peggity, “Let my Ellie tie herself to you? I’d sooner make beggars of us all.”

“Wait! Wait!” Lady Davenport cried, leaping from the couch. “Oh, this is horrible. Chase, make them stay. My poor girls.”

Chase shrugged, and as if it were an afterthought, let his gaze fall on Hugh. “Really, you volunteered to have your palm read.”

Hugh glared at him. “But I didn’t volunteer to be hunted in my own home.”

Furious, his mother turned on him. “Then where can you be sought after?”

“Tricked, deceived, betrayed, you mean,” Hugh said, vaulting from his chair.

“Sit down, fool, and behave like a gentleman,” his mother barked. “If everyone will excuse us, I’d like a word alone with my progeny.”

“Beware the cane,” Poultney whispered, slipping out the door.

Lady Davenport fixed a baleful eye on Poultney — a glower that did not waver until all the guests left the room and clicked the door shut behind them.

• • •

It’s time she learned I’m not her game piece
, Hugh fumed, prowling the far end of the parlor.

His mother smoothed her hair, watching him with disgust tightening her lips. “I am, no doubt, the woman who has, I believe you said, ‘tricked, offended, and disgusted’ … or something along those lines.”

Hugh lifted a decanter and poured a deep snifter of brandy. “‘Offended.’ Nice word — simple, unassuming, and utterly lacking in responsibility. No, Mother, the word was ‘betrayed.’”

“Ah, ‘betrayed.’” She sat down. “You’re referring to Thornton Henwright, fourth Duke of Carlow.”

“Perhaps.”

“He was a mistake.”

Hugh’s pacing quickened. “Gad, was he ever! A mistake that I paid the price for.”

“I tried to protect you.”

“Don’t take me for a dolt. You bundled me up in that dirty rag of a public school and scarcely looked my way for two years.”

“I hid you. Thornton was determined to oust William Pitt as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Had anyone learned what he’d done to you it would have destroyed any chance to get Pitt out. He wanted me to commit you to Bedlam or lock you in your room, out of public view. He tried to convince me you were insane.”

“A madness that he was driving me to, and that horrible school nearly put me over the brink.”

“Poor darling. Poor, poor darling. Your mama is weak and afraid to be alone. I couldn’t let Thornton near you anymore, but I lacked the strength to rid myself of him. I hid you in that miserable institution because he’d never look for you there.”

“Then why didn’t you write to me or visit on holidays?”

His mother put her hand to her throat. “I, I don’t know why, except that I was so afraid. Everything went blank while I was with him. I worried about you constantly, my love, but I was terrified to contact you.”

“Did he hit you? Did he threaten your life?”

“If only I could tell you he did. But it wasn’t like that. He was just a terrifying man. You remember, don’t you? How his footstep chilled to the marrow. I knew he didn’t love me. He loved the Mayfair address, this estate, the coachmen, the servants, and most of all, my money. With me he could shine at court, and nothing was allowed to threaten that. I remember I used to pray Napoleon wouldn’t kill your father in Italy. As long as I wasn’t a widow, the Duke of Carlow couldn’t marry me.

“But I came to see you the moment I could. We were in London. The House of Lords was consumed with worry about Napoleon selling the Louisiana Territory to America. We all knew that French monster planned to use the money to invade England. Thornton had to attend every meeting.

“Lady Hester Stanhope, William Pitt’s niece, of all people, smuggled me out of London to visit you.”

His mother began to tremble. She sat back on the sofa. “How you hated me,” she said, her voice a choked whisper. “Even when that horrible headmaster commanded you to kiss me, you refused, brave boy. How could I explain to a ten-year-old child trapped in hell that his rich mama couldn’t help him?”

A hand fluttered to her face, covering her eyes, but Hugh saw tears sneak between her fingers. Crying … for him? A thin curl of sympathy tugged at him. He pulled a chair up beside her and sat down. How she’d scolded him for rumpling his handkerchief. Unnerved, afraid, he found the crushed cloth in his pocket and pressed it to her cheek. She took the handkerchief, held it over her eyes, and then kissed it.

“I filled the coach with tears that night,” she said, laughing a little and blowing her nose into the sodden cloth. “You were so thin and pale. Your clothes were too light for those grim, dank buildings. I gave the headmaster funds to find you a warm coat and feed you more. Did your life improve after my visit?”

“I suppose it did. Improvement was so easy at that school — an extra blanket made a child a king. I do remember we were given beef after you left. That’s right … we all thought it an early Christmas present. So yes, life did improve.”

“I’m so glad,” she said, smiling, her wet eyes glistening.

“But there is a happy ending,” she went on, “if you care to call it that. You were already at Eton on the tenth of May in 1804, when William Pitt regained his seat as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Thornton demanded I come to the House of Lords to hear him denounce Pitt. A pitiful last-ditch attempt. No one listened.

“Thornton was fuming as we left Westminster, so he didn’t notice a little boy running to him. ‘Murderer,’ the child cried. He spit blood at Thornton’s face. Over and over again, crying ‘murderer, murderer.’

“Thornton hit that boy with his cane, but the child wouldn’t cease. We were too shocked to move. Other members of Parliament gathered. They witnessed everything.

“Within months the duke was dead of tuberculosis.”

“My God,” said Hugh, too stunned to say more.

“I never saw the duke after that — didn’t even help him to the coach. I ran, and I told the driver to gallop. I did not look out the window until we were miles away.”

The picture of his mother, his childhood, was suddenly distorted, like a watercolor splashed until nothing was recognizable. Hugh swiped a hand through his hair. “Why didn’t you tell me any of this before?”

“I wrote to you. I told you the duke was dead.”

Hugh got up and paced again. “Yes, but the rest of it. The twins … Why didn’t you write me about the little boy?”

“That’s not the sort of thing you put in a letter, especially about a Peer of the Realm when the country is riddled with wartime spies.”

Hugh hit his fist on an inlaid side table. “Why not tell me that you didn’t love him? What would have been the harm?”

As if retreating to safer ground, Lady Davenport left her chair and went to the window. He heard her teeth chatter, but he couldn’t stop the question surging in his soul. “Why, Mother?”

She jumped a little. “I was ashamed. I was afraid you and your father would cackle about me. Two bitter men sharing bitter memories … ”

She spun from the window, her face a mask of anguish. “Why do you suppose that little boy cried ‘murderer’?”

Hugh shook his head.

Her fingers dug into her hair, raking through the strands until the combs clattered to the floor. “I think it’s because he didn’t know the word for ‘rape.’” A sob shook her. Eyes closed, she shivered as if she would rattle apart. “Did he ever … touch you?”

Hugh felt hollow. For the first time he could remember, he looked at his mother without rancor. Her high cheekbones, scored with the wrinkles he once made fun of, were formed by rivers of worry — for him. Her eyes — once luminous, now dulled with age — had seen his tragedy and had lost their shine for his sake. He had scoffed at her pain, her weakness, but he couldn’t anymore.

He went to her and held her trembling body in his arms. He drank in the perfume of her hair and buried his face in her neck. “He never did get to touch me, Mother.”

She threw her arms around her son and sobbed into his chest. “How I wracked my brains for excuses to interrupt when he was with you. But I’ve always worried that maybe … maybe once I wasn’t there in time.

“No,” Hugh said. “You kept me safe.”

Her arms tightened around him. An ache so old it had become part of him shredded as his heart pressed against hers. Each beat communicated the complicated terms of trust and forgiveness. Their breathing steadied, muscle and sinew relaxed, until they each possessed a nugget of security that their souls would never shut on one another again.