Barely a Lady (28 page)

“Ah, that’s grand.” Harper flashed her a big grin and gave her a pat on the arm on the way by. “A touch of the home brew never hurt a soul.”

“What is this all about, Livvie?” Jack asked from where he sat in an armchair by his bed.

Olivia expected to see the cost of his fall on his features. Instead, he just looked impatient and angry. It made what she had to do that much easier.

“What else have you remembered, my lord?” she asked, keeping a careful distance. She clasped her hands at her waist to prevent them from giving in to overwhelming impulse.

“Don’t you think I am the one with the right to ask questions?” Jack demanded.

“You’ll have your turn. But it will help to know what you remember.”

He didn’t look any happier, but he answered. “My sisters warned me,” he said, looking beyond her. “Well, everybody but Georgie. She always sided with you. My mother reminded me that blood would tell.”

Olivia flushed, struggling to hold herself still. How odd that even this old insult could still affect her. “I’m sure she did. But as little as she respected my father, he is the brother of a baron. Not exactly the chimney sweep.”

Jack’s face screwed up. “A blatant toady.”

“Indeed he is. If he hadn’t been, you never could have married me so quickly.”

“Was it all planned, then?”

For a moment, Olivia stood there, too stunned to speak. Then she burst out laughing. She laughed so hard, she had to bend over to breathe. Seeing the shock on Jack’s face, she plumped herself on the other chair and wiped her eyes dry.

“Oh, Lord, Jack, even when you hated me most, you never resorted to that old chestnut. It was
you
who first approached
me.
You followed me into town when I gave out poor baskets. You trailed me through the market and demanded you carry my parcels. You helped me pick flowers and even put on an apron to help Maizie and me make plum pudding. You terrified me with your attentions.”

“I’m sure you’d like to remember it that way.” He shook his head, his face looking pinched. “I’ve changed my mind. I don’t want any answers from you.”

“Then I guess it’s a good thing Harper’s around to keep you from running. Because this time, you have no choice.”

She stood again, the strength of that old outrage propelling her. He watched her as if afraid she would strike. He should, she thought, and tightened her hands to keep from lashing out.

“I truly thought you’d changed,” she mused, looking out the window onto Lady Kate’s fine little garden. “You were never cruel, Jack. Just impulsive. Prone to believe the wrong people.” She rubbed at the ache in her chest that never seemed to die anymore. “You’ve been so different these last weeks. Still the Jack I loved, but wiser, more thoughtful. Stronger. I began to hope that this time you would weigh all the evidence before making a judgment.”

“Then the memory is false? I didn’t find you in the cottage with your cousin?”

The sudden pain was crippling. “The memory is absolutely true. You found us where your sisters had told you we would be, and you accused me of every faithless act imaginable. Those were the last words you ever spoke to me.”

“And then?”

She paused for a steadying breath, the memories dripping like acid. “Your father filed for a divorce for you. You couldn’t be there when the case went before Parliament, of course. Your family had long since shuffled you off to the West Indies to avoid prosecution for the duel. But your father represented you brilliantly. By the time he was finished with my name, I couldn’t secure a position on a street corner in Covent Garden.”

Then his family had seen Jamie. That had been the first time she’d gone into hiding.

“I kept waiting for you to contact me,” she said, knowing she sounded bemused. “To at least demand your ring back. I kept thinking that even an angry man would have made sure his wife wasn’t cast off without a ha’penny.”

He snorted. “Of course I settled something on you, Liv. And you had a perfectly good family. You make it sound as if you wandered the streets in the snow.”

Her smile was twisted. “Oh, Jack. You had the measure of my family. They were angrier than the marquess. Do you really imagine they would keep me close enough to constantly remind them of their losses? I think they would have forgiven a sin. But to forfeit that lovely patronage? My name was cut out of the family Bible in front of my father’s congregation. My sisters were told I was dead. I wasn’t even allowed to go to Tris’s funeral, and I… I was his only friend in the family.”

“It would have been unseemly.” His voice sounded less assured, as if he were trying to shore up his outrage.

“Indeed, yes. And if I hadn’t known, there were certainly enough people to remind me. As for a settlement, my lord? No. You made it very clear to your solicitors. An unfaithful wife deserved nothing. I believe that outraged my father most of all.”

There was silence for a time. “But how could you…?”

She shook her head. “Another story for a different day.”

He didn’t deserve the truth.

“And yet you haven’t denied you were in that cottage with your cousin,” he accused. “Not only that, but also you have given me no explanation.”

She closed her eyes, struggling against the rancor. “Not for want of trying. You were the one who barred me from the Abbey.”

Facing him, she braced herself. “Listen and listen well,Jack. I am tired of begging you to listen. So I’m simply going to tell you. I went to the cottage that day to say good-bye to Tris. He had decided to leave the country. It was the only way he and his lover could be together. Isnuck him my pin money to help him reach the Continent, where I’d hoped he’d finally find some peace. I had just forced the money on him when you burst in like a two-penny actor.”

Briefly he closed his eyes, as if avoiding her. He had one hand on his forehead and his other fisted. Her instinct urged her to go to him. To soothe him.

“Name his lover,” he ground out.

She shook her head. “I will not.”

His lip curled. “After all this time, it can hardly matter.”

“After all this time, my lord,” she said, “his lover could still be hanged.”

There was a charged silence, the kind that pulsed against the ears. She could see Jack begin to assimilate the facts.

“Yes, Jack. Tristram’s lover was a man. I knew it, but it was not my secret to tell. Lady Kate also knows who it is. I’m hoping you’ll trust her word more than mine, or you put a grieving man in terrible peril.”

For what seemed an eternity, Jack stared at his clenched fist, as if, Olivia thought, it could divine the truth. “If you were so innocent,” he said, “why were you in dishabille?”

Which meant they had finally come to the crux of the matter. The point on which her defense would either succeed or fail.

“Because your cousin Gervaise tripped me on the way to the cottage. At the time, I thought it was an accident. It was only later he made it a point to disabuse me of that rather naïve notion.”

That was what brought Jack to his feet. “Don’t be absurd.”

She faced him eye-to-eye so he could never say she’d lied. “Who told you about my fictitious gambling, Jack? Who gave you my pearls and said he’d recovered them from the moneylenders? Who whispered warnings in your ear that I was just a bit too close to my cousin for comfort? Your sisters might have directed you to the cottage, but they were just willing accomplices. Gervaise orchestrated everything. Even my ‘dishabille.’ ”

She hadn’t thought his eyes could grow any colder.

“Tell me you’re lying,” he grated, his eyes betraying fear.

She didn’t hesitate. “I’m telling the truth.”

He slumped back into the chair, his elbows on his knees and his head cradled in his hands. Olivia tensely watched and waited. She might have even prayed.

Finally, he raised his head. “No. I won’t believe it.”

And just like that, all her rage died a terrible death. It was as if a great, gaping hole had opened up inside her. There was so much more she had to say to him, so much he needed to know. There was no way she could do it now. She could only thank God she hadn’t told him everything.

“All right, Jack,” she said, and heard the despair in her voice. “It’s your choice to make. But I won’t wait around for you to destroy me again. Once we learn what you were doing on the battlefield, you’ll never see me again. That should make your life much tidier.”

He huffed impatiently. “Don’t play me a Cheltenham tragedy, Liv. If I want to find you, I will.”

“Gervaise hasn’t. Not for three years. It’s the only way I’ve been safe.”

He shot her a skeptical look “You’re saying he persecuted you?”

“I’m saying he has never stopped hounding me to become his mistress. I’m saying that it is only Lady Kate who saved me this time. That is what I’m saying.”

Jack shook his head again. “He’s my cousin. I’ve known him my whole life.”

Olivia sighed. “Actually, I don’t think you have. But”—she shrugged—“that is no longer my affair. I’ll leave you to Harper now, Jack. Tell him if you need more headache powders.”

She turned, feeling as if she were wading through water, and walked to the door.

Suddenly, behind her, Jack spoke. “You were breeding.”

It stopped her cold. Ah, and she’d thought she couldn’t feel any worse. She squeezed her eyes shut, desperate that he should never see this new anguish. “I was.”

“You’re going to say the baby is mine.”

She opened her eyes then and stared at the blank yellow wall across the hall. “Was, Jack. He
was
yours. But you don’t have to believe it. It doesn’t matter anymore.”

She started walking again.

“Livvie, wait!”

This time she didn’t stop.

Lady Kate was waiting downstairs in the foyer. “You didn’t tell him about the dispatch bag.”

Olivia had no time for this. She had to get away before she disgraced herself. “Finney can tell him if he’d like. I think I’m finished.”

She couldn’t bear the sympathy in the duchess’s beautiful green eyes.

“It was a lot to take in all at once,” Lady Kate suggested.

“I’m sure it was. I’m just tired right now. Would you mind if I sat in the garden again?”

“Of course not. In fact, some of my ugly bibelots have somehow found their way onto one of the stone benches.”

Olivia managed a smile. “Thank you.” She knew, though, that she would be throwing no ornaments. Suddenly she didn’t have the energy. “Oh, and, Lady Kate,” she said, stopping in the library door. “I think we need to get Kit Braxton over here as soon as possible. Jack is bound to begin remembering something now. It might help us solve our mystery. After I know you all are safe, I will take my leave of you.” She turned but couldn’t see the expression in Kate’s eyes past the hall shadows. “I know it sounds melodramatic, but you did save my life. Now it’s time to pay you back.”

“You’re certain?”

Olivia fought the familiar pull of despair. “I am.”

It seemed it was once again time to start all over again.

Chapter 20

H
e had to get out of here. He had to find Braxton, get to Whitehall, speak with his family. He had to locate Gervaise and discover what was true. Olivia had looked so desperately sad, and he knew that wasn’t right. She had sounded so sure, but that couldn’t be right either.

Not Gervaise.

He rubbed at his aching eyes. He felt as if the earth had tilted on its axis and was spinning off into oblivion. He felt as if his heart would explode in his chest and his brainbox split wide.

It couldn’t be true. Not Gervaise. Not smiling, funny, harmless Gervaise.

But not Livvie either.

She had no sooner left him than the memories had begun to return, disjointed and often meaningless. Him dancing with Liv at the Harvest Festival, her hair falling down her back and her eyes alight as he spun her about the big barn. Livvie ministering to any of the cuts or bruises he seemed to collect, her hands as soft as sunlight. Her patience when he’d come home late. Her delight when he’d brought her the silliest gifts he’d picked up on his rambles, like a schoolboy bringing birds’ nests to the little girl down the lane.

He could see the hallways of his home, softened by the passing of a thousand feet, worn by time and attention. Not so much a grand estate as a jumble of mismatched wings. He had a favorite, the old Jacobean with its coffered ceilings and linenfold paneling. He had a flash of Livvie there with him, laughing. She had always been laughing.

Not like now. Now she looked worn and sad and empty.

And the babe. She’d lost the babe? She must have. He couldn’t imagine any other reason for such a look of unspeakable loss in her eyes.

He looked down at his hand, to see that it was shaking. He’d laid that hand against the subtle swell of her belly, her hand covering his, her eyes brilliant with awe and delight.

“Can you feel him move?” she’d asked. “Can you?”

He had. He’d never had another moment to match it.

And now their baby was gone.

Then, oddly, he saw himself seated atop a magnificent bay horse, looking out to the sea. But it wasn’t the sea he knew from Yorkshire. It wasn’t Scarborough or Ramsgate or Bristol. From flat dunes, he had watched the gray sea and waited. He didn’t know what for; he didn’t know why. He only remembered the feeling of anxiety. Impatience. And underlying it all, a profound despair.

He remembered family and friends and places he couldn’t name, voices speaking English and French and Spanish.

Mimi. Laughing, happy Mimi.

And again, Livvie. He saw her, suddenly, standing tear-stained and rigid on the Abbey drive. He remembered the satisfaction of slamming the door in her face and then hurrying to the front salon window to watch Rogers, the gamekeeper, escort her off the property at the business end of a Purdy. He remembered the acid taste of betrayal that had fueled him as surely as steam, and how satisfied he’d felt at the pathetic look of her.

And who was that behind him? He didn’t see, but he heard.

“Maybe next time she’ll think twice before betraying her husband.”

“Next time it will be her protector she’ll betray,” he heard himself say, and was ashamed.

And he heard the other person laugh. Gervaise’s laugh.

The memory spun away, and Jack was left with the bitter dregs of self-loathing. Had he really been that brutal? Had he truly never listened to her explanation?

Had he been that sure, or had he let them all convince him? Especially Gervaise. Leaning close, looking so regretful, so embarrassed, just as Livvie said, hesitantly relaying—for Jack’s own good, of course—another rumor of what Olivia had done while Jack had been gone somewhere.

Could Gervaise truly have been the monster Livvie said he was?

Rubbing at the headache the memories incited, Jack got to his feet and wandered to the window that looked down over the garden. It was late now, the moon silvering the nodding foliage. She was still there, as motionless as a statue. She’d been that way all afternoon. Jack had seen people come and go, mostly just standing in the library doors to watch her, sometimes speaking to her. Once Lady Bea had just sat next to her, not even touching. He thought he saw Olivia shake her head once. Other than that, she simply hadn’t moved.

Why should that hurt so badly? Why should he feel so fearful for her? Even if she had spent that morning in his arms telling him how much she loved to watch the first sun wake him. Even if he could still smell her and hear her gurgling laughter as he nuzzled her neck. Even if he couldn’t quite imagine how a woman who trusted so wholly could seek to betray at the same time.

He had been unable to imagine it before, though.

He could remember his father now. Red-faced, thumping the desk, flinging accusations at Olivia like mud. But was that memory of his decision to marry or his decision to divorce?

He had to find out. He had to return to Grosvenor Square and hope his family was in residence. First, though, he had to make sure Livvie was safe. Reaching for his coat, he turned for the door.

“Ah, no,” Sergeant Harper said from the hallway. “You’ll not be wanderin’ the streets this night. Sure, wouldn’t you bash y’r head on the cobbles, and we’d be right back to where we started?”

Jack stopped in his tracks. He hadn’t even realized that the bandy-legged soldier had been waiting out in the hallway. “What makes you think I’m trying to leave?”

Harper, bold as brass, grinned and pushed himself away from the pale yellow wall. “Sure, haven’t I seen that very look on raw recruits before? One good skirmish and all they want is to go home to their mam. I’m afraid it’s somethin’ you can’t do, if you’ll pardon my sayin’ so.”

Jack was flummoxed. “And just who are you to stop me?”

Harper was still grinning. “One who’s got a good two stone on ya and steadier legs… well, now, leg, anyway.”

He seemed to find that hysterical. Jack felt as if he were trapped in a cage.

“Well, if you’re all that able, why aren’t you down making sure Livvie is safe? She’s been out there too long. Someone could see her.”

Harper tilted his head. “What should you care?”

He flushed with shame and looked away. “You don’t know the manner of enemy after me. They wouldn’t think a thing of hurting her.”

“And is it somethin’ you’re rememberin’, now?”

He could only shake his head. “A feeling. Stay with her, even if I can’t.”

“Ah, now, don’t fesh y’rself. That nice Major Braxton sent some people around to help fill in the staff. We’re watchin’.”

Jack’s head came up. “Braxton? He was here?”

“Nothin’ more than a note one of the men carried.”

“Ah.” He fiddled with his button. “Good. Well, if you have help, then you won’t need me.”

“And you think you should spend y’r time askin’ y’r family for the truth?”

Jack startled and looked over to see the most knowing blue eyes he’d ever seen beneath that red mop of hair. “How do you know?”

Harper shrugged. “Y’r rememberin’ things you can’t reconcile, and you’re thinkin’ y’r family’ll be happy to help you. Oh, lad, don’t I think they just would? But I’m also thinkin’ they wouldn’t have the charity to piss on my poor girl if she was on fire.”

Jack frowned. “You mean Olivia?”

“I mean that poor lost lass who thought she could trust you. I’ve seen a lot in my time, but nothing as bright as her eyes when she thought you loved her or as empty asher eyes when she found out the truth. Faith, you didn’t see her starin’ at nothin’ as if she didn’t have a tear left in her to shed.”

Jack glared at the little man. “She said she’d been acquainted with you for no more than two months. What could you possibly have to say to the matter?”

Harper nodded, as if considering the question. “Did you ever ask just how it was Miss Olivia found you, y’r lordship?”

Jack felt a wisp of dread snake through him. “What do you mean? Chambers found me.”

“And brought your wife to rescue you. Sure, wasn’t her ladyship in Brussels fetchin’ and humblin’ herself for a pittance as a companion to some bold-as-brass old trout who wasn’t fit to shine her shoes? When the battle started, your lady could have stayed safe, gone home to England like all them other English ladies. Not her. Didn’t she walk right into the tents with my Miss Grace and wear herself to shreds tendin’ the wounded? And if you think you know what that’s like, m’lord, I’d have to call you a liar, all right, and take the consequences.”

The tough little man shook his head, as if he saw that day right before him. Jack swore he could see them, too, and it was horrific.

“But even that wasn’t enough, now,” the sergeant continued. “Didn’t your little lady climb right up on a carriage with Miss Grace, lay a gun across her knees, and go with us right into the battlefield to turn over dead bodies so she could help my girl find her da? It was there she found ya, on a battlefield, my lord. A
battlefield
.”

Jack felt as if he’d been lashed with the man’s words. His Livvie? How could that be?

How absurd of him to question it. The Livvie he knew wouldn’t have hesitated.

He couldn’t look at the sergeant. “And you think that alone proves that she couldn’t have cuckolded me.”

“I think that I’ve never seen a truer child in all my life and that you have to be the thickest Englishman I’ve ever met not to know it. And if you’ll pardon my sayin’ so, after thirty years in this man’s army, haven’t I met a world of thick Englishmen?”

Jack walked back to the window to look down again. She was still there. Still not moving. He kept shaking his head.

“I need to talk to my cousin.”

“Ah, now, I’m not thinkin’ so, sor. Not ’til you talk to the duchess anyway.”

Jack turned around. “Why?”

“Well, I’m thinkin’ as how she’ll tell you who it was cost Miss Olivia her job with the trout. Who made sure she had nowhere else to go until the duchess caught wind of it.”

Why couldn’t he breathe? Before he realized it, he was sitting down.

“Ah, damn me,” Harper mourned, limping in. “I’ve gone and kilt ya.”

“No such thing,” he managed, his head in his hands. “I just need a minute. Would you send the duchess to me?”

“Soon as she’s finished helpin’ the staff ready another room for Miss Livvie. Sure, didn’t we think she was settled?”

And with not another word, Harper stumped out.

“Keep Livvie safe,” Jack called after him.

The words alone incited a new memory. But it wasn’t a memory of Livvie.

Blond hair. Big blue eyes. Breasts like pomegranates.

Mimi.

She was laughing, catching the sound behind her hand, her big blue eyes twinkling. It was evening, and they were strolling back to their hôtel. She smelled of lilies and coffee. It must have rained, because there was water on the cobbles. Music drifted from a cafe, a scratchy fiddle and a badly played accordion. He smiled down on her, even though his mind was a hundred miles away.

Tomorrow,
he thought
. It will all be over tomorrow
.

And from one moment to the next, his world disintegrated. Mimi stumbled alongside him and whimpered. He heard something behind him, a pop. He turned to see that blood had suddenly blossomed across her chest. She had such a look of surprise as she raised her hand and looked down, as if to find out what had struck her. And then her knees gave out, and she was pulling him down, down onto the glistening cobbled streets.

Was he screaming? He couldn’t tell. He didn’t remember any more. Only her surprised, falling face. And the blood.

“My God,” he groaned, shutting his eyes. “She’s dead.”

“Who’s dead?” the duchess asked as she strode in.

Distractedly, Jack looked up. “Mimi. I saw her die.”

Lady Kate nodded. “I’m sorry. But not as sorry as I am that you have once again hurt my dear friend. I thought better of you, Gracechurch.”

He blinked, not certain he had any words for what he’d been remembering. All he knew was that his memories had begun to hurt too much. And that the memories of Liv hurt the worst.

“I was in France,” he said baldly.

“Yes,” Lady Kate said with disconcerting frankness. “We thought so.”

That brought him to his feet. “You thought so? What do you mean?”

“Oh, sit down. I’m too small to pick you up off the floor.”

He did and she pulled another chair over so that they sat with the window next to them, as if each wanted to keep an eye on Livvie where she still sat in the garden.

After she’d arranged herself like a deb at tea, Lady Kate lifted the bag Livvie had held earlier. “Recognize this?”

He stared at it. “They’re looking in the wrong direction,” he insisted. “I need to tell them.”

“Tell who?”

If he’d expected startling insight, it still didn’t come. “I have no idea.”

“And you were in France.”

He could no longer argue the point. Hadn’t that been a Parisian street he’d been walking with Mimi? He remembered Paris from when his father had taken him there during the brief 1804 peace. There was just something distinctive to the city—the architecture, the smell, the flow of that musical language.