Dangerous to Love (35 page)

The walls and ceiling stopped shaking; the chandeliers gradually stilled. There was the sound of muted laughter, then that, too, died away.

W
as that really Serena’s message?” asked Julian. He held out his hand and helped Flynn to his feet.

Flynn took a moment to work his sore jaw and feel his nose for broken bones. Satisfied that his beauty was unimpaired, he answered, “She told me to thank you for the use of your coat. It was her tone of voice that suggested the beating.”

Julian couldn’t help laughing. “Bloodthirsty wench!”

“Yes, well, she ’as good reason to wish to see you ’ung, drawn, and quartered, as I’m sure you’ll agree.”

As they spoke, they righted tables and chairs that had been knocked over in the course of their brawl.

“What about this mess ’ere?” asked Flynn, pushing at the fragments of a broken vase with the toe of his shoe.

“My man will take care of it.”

Flynn chortled. “After the way you raved at ’im when ’e burst in ’ere, you’ll be lucky if the poor devil ain’t already ’anded in ’is notice. Barbarians, that’s what we are.” He looked at the porcelain fragments at his feet. “Ugly old thing, wasn’t it? What was it—a present from your old auntie that you was afeared to part with?”

Julian looked from Flynn to the remains of what had once been a collector’s piece, a Meissen urn that was worth more than Flynn could earn in a lifetime. “It was in payment of a gaming debt,” he said.

“Oh well,” said Flynn grandly, “tell me what the damages amount to and I’ll be ’appy to settle them.”

Julian turned away to hide a smile. “That won’t be
necessary. I never liked it. You’ve done me a favor, truly. Now, what’s your tipple, Flynn?”

“Whatever you’ve got.”

Julian poured out two glasses of brandy and brought one to Flynn. Settling themselves in armchairs on either side of the hearth, they sipped at their drinks, grinning occasionally like mischievous schoolboys.

Breaking the silence, Julian said, “You said something about Serena having good reason to wish to see me hung, drawn, and quartered. I presume you are referring to our quarrel at Ranelagh and my refusal to destroy the record of our Fleet marriage?”

The mellow expression on Flynn’s face evaporated to be replaced by something resembling belligerence. “If you don’t wants ’er, you should let ’er go. I thought it was all settled?”

“And so it was. And so it will be. You may believe, Flynn, that I have no more wish to be married to Serena than she has to me.”

“Then why did you mislead ’er?”

“Because,” said Julian, more vicious than he meant to be, “she got my dander up.”

Flynn scratched his head. When Julian did not explain himself, he said, “I don’t know why you should take on so. You was the one who wronged her, gallivanting off to America with nary a word to let ’er know if you was alive and well.”

“She knew.”

“What did she know?”

Julian bolted the dregs of his glass. His smile became twisted. In that moment, he decided he’d had a bellyful of swallowing the praises of his erstwhile wife. Flynn had set Serena on a pedestal. It was time someone showed him that she had feet of clay.

“She arranged for my abduction,” he said. “I was transported
to the colonies as a convicted felon, oh, under an assumed name, you understand. I tried to explain who I was and why I should be set free. For my pains, my masters tried to beat the defiance out of me. In due course, I escaped. As you see, it all worked out for the best. You will not be surprised, however, if I do not fall on my knees and thank Serena for the favor she did me.”

Flynn’s expression was gratifyingly shocked. His mouth opened and closed like that of a fish out of water.

“I see from your face,” said Julian, “that this has all been a great shock to you. That’s something, I suppose. I had wondered if you and Serena were in this together. Now I have my answer.”

Finding his voice, Flynn stuttered, “And you think .  .  . but why would .  .  . she said that you blamed her for something, but I never thought .  .  .” Then, in gathering volume as his senses came back to him, “What in blazes made you think that Serena was capable of such a thing?”

Julian reached for the brandy decanter and replenished his glass. “She told me she would, when she found out that I’d tricked her into marriage.”

“What did she tell you?”

“That she would find a way to punish me. And she succeeded.”

Flynn emitted a snort of disbelief. “And you thought that a girl of Serena’s character could play such a mean-spirited trick?”

“Not at the time, no. I thought it was just temper speaking. Oh, you need not look daggers at me. Don’t you think I’ve gone over it in my mind a hundred times over, a thousand times? Who else could it have been? And in case you should ask—no, I was never a spy for His Majesty or for any secret Jacobite sect either, so don’t go looking for scapegoats, Flynn, because it won’t wash.”

Julian had told himself time out of mind that he’d closed the door on that chapter of his life and that Serena’s betrayal no longer had the power to affect him. He was coming to see that he had been deceiving himself. In South Carolina, he hadn’t allowed himself the time to think about her. He’d been like a man demented, working as hard as any field hand in his determination to drive her from his mind and heart. Work and other women had proved the perfect panacea to Serena Ward, or so he’d thought at the time.

It had been a mistake to come back to England, a mistake to see her again and resurrect all the old anger, all the old pain. He’d buried it so deep inside him that he hadn’t been aware of its existence until now. He wished he had buried it deeper. At the same time, now that he had finally voiced a small part of his bitterness, he experienced an odd sense of relief.

He hadn’t wanted to confide his suspicions to Constable Loukas, because of some twisted sense of loyalty to Serena. Looking at Flynn, he knew that there was nothing he could say, no argument, no proof he could make that could shake this young man’s faith in her. Instead of goading him, that knowledge acted like a lance to draw off the poison that had been building to a head.

“Mean-spirited?” said Julian. “I never said that Serena was mean-spirited, never thought such a thing. In point of fact, she has more spirit than is good for her. That’s the trouble with Serena, as I should know. I was her victim. God, have I not been her victim!” He made an abrupt motion with one hand to silence Flynn as he made to answer him.

“Flynn, you
know
what she is like when she is in a temper. Her wrath cannot be contained. She acts first and repents at leisure. You know I speak the truth.”

Flynn leaned back, studying Julian with an unsettling
shrewdness. “And you think that she plotted your abduction in a fit of temper, then came to regret it almost at once?”

“It’s the kind of thing she would do.”

“If you can say that, you never knew ’er.”

A chill crept into Julian’s voice. “And you do, I suppose?”

Flynn nodded, then grinned, not with humor, but in a taunting way. “I
should
know ’er. I became ’er page when I was six years old. You wants to know about Serena? I’ll tell you. Serena is as straight as a plumb line. She could never do what you ’as described because that would be like stabbing a man in the back. That’s not ’er style. If Serena was to best you at your own game, she’d want you to know it, not let someone else take the credit for it. Ask that beau of ’ers who she jilted at the altar.”

Julian’s brows snapped together. “Serena jilted someone?”

“In a manner of speaking. She was only a girl of seventeen at the time. Captain Allardyce ’e called ’imself, but if ’e ever served in ’Is Majesty’s cavalry, my name ain’t Richard Flynn.”

Satisfied with the intent look in his companion’s eyes, Flynn went on, “ ’e was a rake of the first magnitude, as well as penniless. I tried to tell her, but she wouldn’t listen. In those days, Serena ’ad a dowry.”

“What happened to the dowry?” cut in Julian.

“What? Oh, she gave it to her bleeding father when she came of age, you knows, to ’elp him with ’is political ambitions.” Flynn snorted. “ ’e squandered the lot of it on guns for them there Jacobites of ’is.”

“And Letty? Did she lose her dowry too?”

“Oh no. Letty and Mr. Clive was underage. Sir Robert couldn’t put ’is greedy paws on their moneys. It was left to them in trust, by their grandmother, you see.”

“Yes, I do see. Poor Serena. Go on.”

“Well, as I was saying, anyone with a lick ’o sense could see that all Allardyce was after was ’er dowry. ’e told ’er that ’e loved ’er and ’ad become a reformed character. ’Course, Sir Robert would never ’ave entertained such a match. So they was going to elope. I don’t mind telling you, I was at my wits’ end.” He paused to take a swallow from his glass.

“Then what happened?”

“Then Serena discovered that all the time ’e was courting ’er, ’er loving suitor was ’aving an affair with that Lawrence woman.”

“Lady Amelia?”

“I see you knows ’er,” said Flynn dryly.

“Never mind that now. Get on with your story.”

Flynn grinned as the recollection came back to him. “On the night they was to elope, guess who climbed down the ladder and into ’er lover’s arms?” Flynn nodded. “Yes, your ’umble servant, Richard Flynn. You must remember, in those days, I was a smooth-faced boy of fourteen summers, and all dolled up in Serena’s finery, with a veil to cover my face, even my own mother would not ’ave recognized me.”

“Good God!” exclaimed Julian. “You and Serena were incorrigible even then!”

“Yes, well, to get on with my story. ’e took me to that chapel in Mayfair, you knows the one, where ’is friends was all waiting for us. At the altar, when I threw back my veil and ’e saw ’ow Serena ’ad tricked ’im, I thought ’e would kill me. ’Is friends, on the other ’and, was all laughing their ’eads off.”

So was Julian, and the tears ran down his cheeks. Mopping at them with a large linen handkerchief, he choked out, “Flynn, what possessed you to do such a thing? You
were fortunate that the scoundrel did not run you through on the spot.”

“Serena made it worth my while. She gave me the ring the villain ’ad given ’er to plight their troth. At least it was genuine even if ’e was not. ’Course, I didn’t ’ave no use for no ring, so .  .  .”He touched his finger to the emerald in his left earlobe.

“I always wondered about that earring,” said Julian.

“Well, now you knows. ’Course, I told Serena that anyone could see from the ring Allardyce ’ad given ’er, that ’is affections were not worth a tinker’s damn. Well, look at it! This emerald ’ere could fit on the ’ead of a pin. ‘Serena,’ I said, ‘you’ll know when a man loves you, cos ’e’ll give you an emerald that’s worth a kings ransom.’”

They both fell silent, remembering that the wedding band Julian had given Serena had been fashioned from a curtain ring.

At length, Julian said, “Whatever happened to the suitor?”

“ ’E was laughed out of London and we never seen ’is face again. But the point I am trying to make is this—even if no one else knew it,
’e
knew that Serena ’ad given ’im his just deserts.”

There was a long, thoughtful silence as Flynn’s words hung between them. Julian breathed deeply as though inhaling the clean scent of them. When he realized that Flynn’s account of Serena’s aborted elopement was having the very effect that Flynn intended, he shook his head at his own gullibility.

Gullible or no, he felt as if a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders. Becoming aware of Flynn’s searching look, he said, “Point taken. But how did you manage to keep Serena’s name out of it?”

“Oh, we let on that ’er brother ’ad engineered the ’ole
thing. And Allardyce was too ashamed to let the world know that ’e ’ad been bested by a mere girl.”

“Bold little hussy!” said Julian, laughing, and there was a trace of pride in his voice.

“Not so bold as you would think,” corrected Flynn.

“No?”

Flynn sighed. “Well, you must ’ave formed an opinion of the sort of men she takes up with? Stephen ’Oward? Mr. ’Adley? Tame, predictable specimens, and that’s the best you can say about them.”

“And you think that’s Allardyce’s doing?”

“She loved ’im,” said Flynn simply, then he went on, “ ’Er own father was no ’elp to ’er. Sir Robert was no saint and that’s the truth of it. Even when ’er mother was dying, ’e was off with one of his light-skirts and no one could find ’im. It was a long time before Serena could bring ’erself to forgive ’im for that.”

When Julian offered the decanter, Flynn held out his empty glass. “Tell me about Serena’s mother,” said Julian, filling Flynn’s glass to the brim.

“What about ’er mother?”

“I saw her portrait once. Serena’s resemblance to her is remarkable.”

“Poor Lady Ward,” said Flynn. “I ’ardly remember ’er. She died when Serena was sixteen, poor thing. Sir Robert only married ’er for ’er money, leastways, for ’er father’s money. ’e was rich, see, and Sir Robert’s debts were astronomical. What more can I tell you? She never made no impression on me. I will say one thing, though. Serena was close to ’er mother. You might say that Serena was ’er mother’s champion. Poor Lady Ward didn’t ’ave it in ’er to say boo to a goose.”