Edith Layton (23 page)

“I’ve been here before, too,” she added, “shortly after we were wed, on our way back to London. We left here and went directly to London, and then to the Continent for our honeymoon. That’s why dear Mr. Hines recognized me, you see.” Only the faintest moué disturbed her serene expression and showed she was slightly uncomfortable as she added, “He tells me that since
then Ewen has taken to bringing his…light ladies here—no,” she said, holding up one slender white hand, “please understand. I am not calling you such. I believe you believe what you told me. But you’ve been cruelly misled, my dear, and none can be sorrier for it than I. I’d hoped he’d changed. He promised he’d change. Why do you think I left him all those years ago? Still,” she said, cocking her head to one side, “to give the poor devil his due, he didn’t know that I’d finally decided to take him up on his promises, did he?”

Bridget put out a wavering hand and found a chair. She sat and tried to collect her thoughts. The only thing she could think to do was attack. “And I’m supposed to take your word—and a butler’s—for proof, am I?” she asked to buy time to think. B
utlers can be bribed
, she thought desperately.

“Of course not,” the other woman said gently. “Why should you? I’ve proof. I’m a sentimental creature, you see. When I decided to move back to England, as Ewen beseeched me to. I brought my mementos of him back with me, too. Oh, yes,” she assured Bridget, “he did beg me to return, or else I wouldn’t be here now. He came to me so many times to plead his case I grew weary of it. But I ask you—would you be willing to forgive a man who betrayed you on your very honeymoon? Mmm, I see that’s perhaps not a fair question to ask of you, poor dear. But I, you see, had expected better of him.

“I’ve come back now only because of his solemn promise to change his ways—and for our son’s sake. Yes, my sweet Louis. It’s true he boards at school most of the year. But when he returns in the summertime, as now, he needs a man’s companionship. More than that, he needs to know his father, and his place in his father’s life. It’s no
good his living abroad with me now. Not to be crass, but whatever their relationship is to be, there
is
the matter of coming to know the estate and properties he will inherit. I’ve come back for his sake. And for Ewen’s, of course. He vows he never stopped loving me.”

She paused, looking pained. “I can scarcely blame him for…this,” she said, glancing at Bridget, “when I, after all, had vowed never to come back to him. A man needs some company, some recreation, and I do realize that. I expected it, in fact.”

“I am not recreation,” Bridget said, fighting back her tears. “He said he lov—he married me, and I, too, have witnesses to prove it!”

“Indeed?” the lady said, eyeing Bridget coolly. She looked at her closely for a long moment. “And where are they?”

“Well, of course, wedding guests aren’t on one’s honeymoon,” Bridget said.

“And neither is one’s bridegroom, it appears,” the lady said. “And your family? Where are they?”

“My mother is all the family I have. She’s in Ireland.”

“I see,” the lady said, as if she saw much more. “And if you are wed, then why, pray, do you not wear a wedding band?” she finally asked politely.

“The one Ewen gave me was too big. He said he was going to give me his mother’s, but it’s in his father’s vault,” Bridget said, regretting it instantly. S
he
ought to be the one doing the questioning, she told herself fiercely.

“No, it’s not there,” the other woman said, waving one white hand so that the sunlight glinted off the gold ring she wore. “It’s here on my finger, as it has been since the day I wed him. No matter how I choose to live
out my days, I’m still a married woman. I’d scarcely go without proof of that. I only wonder that you do.”

“I’ll have the ring,” Bridget said desperately. “He said so. And I have the wedding lines to prove it, too…or at least,” she added, biting her lip, belatedly remembering. “I will when he comes home. He’s put them in safe-keeping!” she said triumphantly.

“Indeed? Isn’t that usually the case? Mine are in safe-keeping as well. The difference is that I can produce them at will, which is more than you can say. Oh, this is sad stuff, is it not?”

Bridget looked away, trying to rally her thoughts. So she didn’t see the lady studying her with a slight frown that marred the calm perfection of her expression. It was gone before she spoke again.

“I’ve kept my wedding lines only because I—sad to say—never completely trusted him with them,” the lady sighed. “Or with anything, for that matter. Well, after finding him entwined with a chambermaid scarcely four weeks after we were wed…”

Bridget turned to her, shocked. The lady nodded sadly. “Yes, completely entangled. It was no brief, light peck on the lips or playful pinch on the bottom he was treating her to, my dear. I found him in the most indecent position imaginable. Well, I’m sure
you
can imagine it. I became quite ill with despair and disgust, sick to my stomach, really, not even knowing that half of it was natural, due to my condition. Our dear Louis was already on the way. But I didn’t know of my condition then. What an innocent child I was.

“He loved that innocence,” the lady went on reflectively, “the fact that he had to teach me everything for his pleasure. And please him I did. Mightily. We scarcely
spent a moment out of his bed. Oh. I’ve shocked you?” she asked in amused tones. “How odd. I wouldn’t have thought I could, not if you’ve spent your time these last weeks similarly with him, as Hines said you have.

“No matter,” she said with another wave of her hand, as Bridget felt the blood rush to her face. “It was much the same with you, I suppose. Ewen strayed because his pleasure didn’t last. But then, it never does. We’ve talked about it often since, every time he came to visit Louis and plead with me. Which he’s done regularly ever since that ghastly morning. So you see, I know he always gets bored after a month. It is his pattern, unfortunately. He can’t help himself, he says. Nor can the poor girls who tumble into love with him. He’s very attractive, well nigh irresistible, to a certain sort of woman. The kind with no family to warn her and protect her, alas.

“So I can sympathize with you, my dear, truly I can. But that doesn’t mean I’m willing to let you stay on here. And why should you, after all? How embarrassing, how shameful for you. I’m willing to advance you funds so you can leave now and retain some dignity, spare yourself the cruelty of having him leave you.”

“No!” Bridget gasped. “I’ll wait for Ewen!”

The lady smiled sweetly, sadly. “My dear, haven’t you realized it yet? He’ll only return because of me. He never intended to come back here otherwise.”

Bridget’s eyes were so full of unshed tears that she saw the lady in a nimbus of floating light, until she looked to her like some kind of weird angel descended to spew spiteful, hurtful lies.

“He sends you messages, does he not?” the lady went on relentlessly. “He inundates you with them, I expect. No need to answer; the servants here complain
they’re run ragged with them. If he’s running true to form, which I don’t doubt he is, the next one—or at most, the one after that—would have contained some explanation of mysterious business he had to do, a long, perilous trip he must make.”

Bridget’s face paled.

“Ah, I see he’s told you some mare’s nests already, has he? I suppose the usual nonsense about his past, about why he was on the Continent so long? Forget it. He was there only because he couldn’t bear to leave me, or leave without me.”

“Then why
did
he leave you?” Bridget said, pouncing on that thought. “Because he did, didn’t he?”

The lady shrugged slender shoulders. “Of course. I imagine it was his last roll of the dice. And see? It worked. I decided to follow him, after all. Did he ever speak to you of me?”

“Not often, not much,” Bridget said, “but…”

“But never that I lived and thrived? My dear, how can you then believe anything he said? And as to those messages he’s been sending you, they fit a pattern, if you only open your eyes to see it! First they’re impassioned—aren’t they? Then he begins telling you all sorts of reasons he can’t return. Ah, I see, it’s come to that stage, has it?”

Bridget held a hand to her mouth, although she couldn’t have said a word. The lady nodded with satisfaction and went on implacably. “Then depend on it, the next message would be sure to have another such tangled tale in it. But this one would also enclose a cheque—to see you through until he could come personally. Which, I promise you, would be never. He is gone from you, my dear, and once Ewen leaves a mistress, he is gone from
her forever. The best thing you can do now is turn the tables on him and deny him that pleasure by leaving him before he can shed you. It will increase your value, I assure you.”

Bridget blinked.

“Ewen’s friends are wealthy men,” the other woman explained. “Many are happy to…attach the women he grows tired of. After all, he never keeps them very long. And as you have that disfigurement—trust him to seek diversity!—I imagine it won’t be easy for you to find another protector immediately. But if the word gets out that you left Ewen, why, what a coup! I don’t doubt you’ll be able to find another admirer—of your audacity, if nothing else—before the sun goes down.”

She smiled encouragingly at Bridget, who’d been sitting in a silent, aching morass of despair. Until her last words. Then Bridget’s head shot up. Her eyes blazed. The mention of her scar changed everything for her.

She’d been taking insult and accusation, unable to counter them. How could she prove what she knew to be the truth and yet now feared to be a lie? She’d never had a lover, much less an unfaithful one. She didn’t know how to deal with unthinkable betrayal. She refused to accept that Ewen would deceive her, and was dazed with the effort of trying to refute it.

But she’d lived with the scar and the misery it caused her all her life.
That
she knew how to fight. The lady’s insult woke her from the numbing terror of the accumulating evidence against Ewen. It was a deliberate cruelty.
That
she could deal with.

She rose from her seat, shaking with rage. “He’s told everyone you’re dead,” Bridget cried, “
everyone
! If what you say is true, why would he say that?”

The lady’s expression didn’t change, but her blue eyes went flat and cold. After a stunned second she sat back, smiling a chill smile. “My dear,” she said calmly, “to whom has he said it? Not to his intimates, not to relatives or friends of his heart, of that you can be sure.”

Bridget didn’t know those people. That was her first fear and a constant source of dismay. She still hadn’t met his family or dearest friends. Her heart sank—but then she remembered. “His friend! His redheaded friend was at our wedding,” she said triumphantly, “
and
Baron Burnham and his lady, and—and two other gentlemen who work with him were there, too!”

The lady’s laughter was bright, clear, and cold as cascading ice. “Oh, my dear! Not that rapscallion Rafe! He’s up to every rig. And Burnham? A riper rascal does not exist. And two gentlemen who work with Ewen? What work is that? Were they croupiers? Or tavern keepers or racehorse owners? Our Ewen works at play and nothing else. Or did he tell you differently?”

“He said he sometimes works for…for the government,” Bridget said carefully, as fearful of betraying Ewen’s confidence as she was of his betraying her.

“England’s ruler may be many things, but even he is not that mad, my dear!”

Bridget cast around for some weapon, some proof. “And his cousin Drummond was here last week!” she cried.

“I know, I was told. He stayed to visit, as family would, of course.”

“He would have, but he didn’t know we were just wed.”

“Oh, that makes more and more sense. Ewen’s own cousin didn’t know of his marriage.”

“It was because we had to marry so quickly, because of Ewen’s father being so ill.”

The lady nodded. “That at least is truth enough. But you still haven’t explained why Drum didn’t visit.”

“He—he came with inappropriate company.” Bridget said wildly.

“I heard about that. Is it the new fashion? I can’t have been out of England
that
long. A gentleman, a nobleman, is now expected to come calling on his newlywed cousin in a coach filled with rakes and their doxies? Come, my dear, he didn’t stay because he knew what you were, even if you say you did not.”

Bridget thought hard. She sensed a flaw; she wasn’t sure what it was and so tried to sound it out as she spoke it. “But if Drummond knew what I was, as you say…and he had other such women with him, then…then why
wouldn’t
he stay?” She smiled in victory.

The lady smiled, too, and it was a real smile at last. She looked at Bridget almost tenderly. “My point exactly. He didn’t stay because he was afraid Ewen would think he was poaching. You told him you’d only just met Ewen. You were fresh meat, so to speak. And as such you were untouchable—to everyone but him. Can’t you see? Everyone knows about his patterns in such matters. E
veryone
. Except you, of course. But now you do, and now surely you can’t want to stay here!”

Bridget kept staring at her visitor, unable to speak. The room grew quiet. She couldn’t answer. She couldn’t say a word yet. But she knew what she wanted to do. She only hoped she could decide what it was that she
should
do.

“A
nd here are some of the invitations,” the woman who claimed she was Ewen’s wife said, lifting a packet of yellowed cards tied with ribbon from the little chest resting on the table in front of her. “Over a hundred were sent out, but I’m lucky to have even these few in my possession,” she said smugly. “Most of the guests kept theirs as souvenirs, since it was the affair of the season. But since some of them weren’t well known, at least in the countryside—though they were famous in London, of course—their cards were given to the butler as they arrived so their names could be announced. I kept them. I am
such
a sentimental creature.”

Bridget touched them with a trembling finger. The flowing script on the top one bore the names of an earl
and his lady. She licked dry lips and raised her eyes to the serene blue gaze of the woman.

“But these could be name cards responding to anything—invitations to a dinner party, a concert, a dance,” Bridget said. “I have only your word it was for a wedding.”

Silently the lady handed her another packet from the box. Bridget read the top card, or at least she did until her eyes blurred with sudden tears.

T
he honor of your presence is requested
at the nuptials of
T
he
H
onorable
E
lise
H
onoria
E
lizabeth
E
vans
daughter of
L
ord
H
enry
T
homas
E
vans and
L
ady
E. E
vans
to
E
wen
K
enton
P
hilip
S
inclair
.
V
iscount
S
inclair
. B
aron
P
aige, son of

Bridget read no further, but kept her head bent, trying to think. There was so much to take in. She’d asked for proof. No sooner had she asked than the lady summoned her servant and asked her to bring the little gilt chest from her room. The drab woman scurried to her bidding. Then she’d stood back in the shadows behind her mistress, awaiting further orders.

Lady Elise carefully opened the little chest and one by one showed Bridget her yellowed souvenirs, each with a story linking her to Ewen. Pressed flowers from her first ball; dance cards from a dozen assemblies with his name scrawled on every one of them; place cards from her bridal breakfast; and now invitations to her wedding with Ewen.

So much evidence of the past, Bridget thought miserably.

But she had evidence, too, evidence she couldn’t deny or disprove. She saw Ewen’s face before her. She remembered his kiss, his touch, the gentle way he’d loved her, the fiery way he’d taught her to love him, the things he’d told her, the steady look in his eye when he’d left her, the essential power and force and truth of the man, and his caring for her. She raised her head. Her voice was steady now and her eyes were clear. It was as though she could still hear Ewen’s low, loving voice in her ear.

“I’ve seen all your mementos,” she said defiantly, “all except for one. The most important one. I haven’t seen your wedding lines. If you have them, I should like to see them.”

“Should you?” the lady asked with a cold smile. “The audacity of the chit!” she commented over her shoulder to her silent servant. “So you should, I suppose, so you should,” she mused, tapping her slender white fingers on the little gilt chest.

Then her blue eyes blazed. “But you shall not! Do you think I’m daft? Why, you might snatch them and throw them into the fire! Not that it would matter. The world knows who I am. But they are precious to me, if only because I am a sentimental fool. Once I loved him, you see. If I didn’t have his faithfulness, at least I have his name. And so I will keep my wedding lines safe—from him, and from his…familiars.

“Look you, my girl,” she said, snatching the cards from Bridget’s hand, tossing them into the box, and slamming it closed, “I’ve dallied with you long enough. I’ve been beyond fair about this. And see how I’m served
for my pity, eh?” she asked her servant, rising and handing her the chest.

“I will not put up with this any longer,” she told Bridget, wheeling to face her again, “There’s no reason for me to put up with this. You must leave. And at once.”

“Ewen asked me to wait for him,” Bridget said stubbornly, rising to her feet to face her.

“Have you no pride?” the lady demanded.

“Oh, pride in plenty,” Bridget said, lifting her chin, “but faithfulness, too. I’m also a woman of my word. I told him I’d wait for him, and wait I shall.”

“I can have you thrown out, you know,” the lady said furiously, “and I will. But I’d rather not. I don’t need more gossip, or a scene, good God, not a scene! I’ve my Louis to consider. He knows his father is a rake, poor child, but a scene on the doorstep of what I’ve told him is to be his new home? And after all I said about his father’s promise to reform? It will not do!” She paced the room once and then came to a stop in front of Bridget.

“Listen, and listen well,” she said, shaking a finger in front of Bridget’s face. “I’ll give you until morning. That’s only fair. This must have been a shock to you; you haven’t had time to think clearly. I understand that. I give you until tomorrow morning, then. You may think I’m cruel, but I am trying to be fair, too. I could simply cast you out; there isn’t a servant here who wouldn’t obey me in that. Y
ou
are the interloper, my dear. I am their mistress—not Ewen’s. I am his wife.

“But I choose to be charitable. After all, I believe you are more sinned against than sinning. Although to run off with a man of Ewen’s reputation…the thing speaks
for itself. Still, there are no coaches leaving at this hour, anyway. I’ll see you’re taken to the coaching station first thing in the morning. Shall we say at first light? That way you’ll have ample choice when you get to the station. And hear this. I’ll give you funds for your fare, and more, though not immediately, to go toward establishing yourself in London—or wherever you care to establish yourself. Simply give me your direction and I’ll be sure it gets there after you go. But go you shall. And remember: You can have the money only if you leave tomorrow morning, and not a second after.

“If you think you’ll get more from Ewen by waiting for him, do not deceive yourself. I’ll raise such a fuss he’ll be afraid to give you tuppence! He’s been waiting for me to come home for a decade; I hardly think you can have a stronger claim that that! And I do think you’d want to spare yourself the indignity of being bodily removed—you and those grimy creatures from the slums.

“Oh. I see you’ve forgotten them,” she said, watching Bridget’s expression change to fear at the thought of any harm coming to Betsy, and then change again, to terror, as she realized what would happen if Gilly flashed out with her knife against a noblewoman.

“Well, I have not,” Lady Elise said, her blue eyes narrowing. “It’s a shame and a scandal that they’re here at all. Ewen’s perversions must have become quite rococo—I don’t want to know about them!” she said, raising a hand to stop Bridget’s protests. “Well, but I am here to put a stop to that, too. Once he has me, he said, he’ll want no others. I’ll test him. That’s what this visit was intended to do, and well he knows it. But before I do, I’ll have them tossed out with you. Oh. I see you don’t care for that.

“But I ask you,” she said, stopping and staring into Bridget’s eyes, “what would you do if you were me?”

“And the thing of it is,” Bridget said as she paced her own room in front of Gilly and Betsy moments later, “I’d do the same if I were her. Wouldn’t you?”

“Me?” Gilly asked, amazed. “What would I do if someone tried to take
my
place? I’d trounce her, I’d pound her, I would! She’d be lucky she still had a scrap of hair on her head when I was done with her! But see, there it is,” she added craftily, “proof she ain’t got a real claim on this place. See? She’s giving you a chance to go by yourself,
and
she’s giving you money,
and
she’s letting you stay the night under her roof. Why? ’Cause it ain’t her roof! Was it hers, she’d turf you out right out. It ain’t. That’s why she’s so nice. She’s
too
nice.”

“No, there
you
are. There’s her best proof. It’s because she’s a lady,” Bridget sighed, “every inch a lady.”

“Hah!” Gilly said. “Lady or no. if she was sure of her ground, you’d be out in the cold right now, you would. Bet on it. Why ain’t she furious and raging and shrieking at you, eh?”

“Because she’s a lady,” Bridget said, but Gilly laughed.

“The more reason to carry on,” Gilly replied. “You’re a lady, and were it you, why, you’d turn and leave and not come back until he threw her out himself and begged you to forgive him for having her here in the first place. Wouldn’t you? Or else have the servants toss her the minute you seen her here. You wouldn’t waste words on her, would you? Ah, but not her. What does she do, huh? She chats with you. She listens to you and then she goes and listens to the servants. She did, din’t she? Then she tries to bargain and bribe you out. Now she’s
trying to scare you out. She ain’t all she appears to be, that I can tell you.”

“The servants said so?” Bridget asked eagerly.

Gilly looked at the floor. “Nah, well, but they couldn’t, y’see. Only Hines says he remembers her clear, and he’s the only one can say it, ’cause he’s the only one got a clear look at her. The others? The rest wasn’t here then. Since them days, the footmen and maids is all different—some went to the city, like so many’s doing these days, some got married, some just up and quit. Them kinda servants don’t hang around too long, leastways not at a house what don’t see much activity—guests coming and going, to tip them for service, y’see.”

“But the housekeeper,” Bridget said, “surely she was here then.”

“Aye. And she looked at his lady, too. But she din’t see her. Couldn’t. Her eyes are a scandal.”

“But she does such neat mending!”

“That’s all she
can
see. Put her nose on a hem, she’ll sew like an angel. But unless she put her nose right on him, she couldn’t see the Angel Gabriel in front of her if he came to call.”

“Cook?” Bridget asked. “What about her? What does she say? She’s been here forever, too, hasn’t she?”

“Aye, but what’s a cook got to do with a fine lady come for one night before she takes off on her honeymoon?” Gilly asked scornfully. “She just got a glimpse of her. All’s she remembers is a elegant lady, all blond and smiles.”

“But the boy,” Bridget asked, “her son, Louis. Did you speak with him?”

Gilly exchanged a worried glance with Betsy. Bridget’s spirits plummeted.

“Aye, for all the good it was worth,” Gilly said, head down and scowling. “He don’t speak to servants, says he. I asked him if he’d care to put up his fives with a
servant
, and he said he’d have me tossed out on my arse if I din’t leave ‘immedjit.’ He don’t speak like no foreigner, there’s that. But he don’t speak like no honest Englishman, neither. Anyways, he shut the door on my nose. They must have told him not to talk to no one. Whatever they done, he din’t need no icing on his nasty, and there’s truth.”

“I didn’t see his eyes from close enough,” Bridget said nervously. “Tell me—are they blue or…hazel?”

“They ain’t neither. Muddy is what I’d call them,” Gilly snarled.

“Ah,” Bridget said, another hope fading. They weren’t so different from Ewen’s to make the lady’s claim laughable.

“So what are you going to do, Miss Bridget?” Betsy asked tremulously.

Gilly looked up, waiting for her answer, too.

Bridget paced one way and then the other.

“I could go to London to look for him,” she muttered as she walked back and forth. “But he said I should not, so I can’t go there. Not that I’m afraid I’ll find him with another woman—not that at all. But he said I should wait for him. I can’t go to his father—not because I fear him, but because it would be embarrassing, you see. And Ireland is
so
far away, and I so need to see him now….”

She paced some more. Then she turned tormented eyes to Gilly and Betsy. “Whatever I do, I think I have to go,” she said finally. “She insisted, she said she’d put me out if I didn’t go quietly. And both of you, too. No,
don’t say it! I know you can fight, Gilly. Yes, Betsy, I know you can shout the house down. But it would only make it go harder for you. She has the right, you see.”

“Does she? What about your right, Miss Bridget?” Gilly said passionately. “What about all them things you said about trusting the man you love, eh? All them things about a good man’s gallantry and nobility, and code of honor and all, and about you knowing what you was doing when you trusted him? Huh? What about that?”

S
he argues like a child who doesn’t want to hear there’s no
F
ather
C
hristmas
, Bridget thought in astonishment.

“Gilly, I know those things,” she said, “and they’re true. But—but the thing of it is that he’s not here now, and she is, and Hines supports her, and I don’t want an embarrassing scene…or worse. Why, she could call in the local magistrate, and I have no friends here except for you. And no relatives either, anywhere in England. No one but the Viscount, really, and he’s in London somewhere and he’s told me not to join him, and I don’t know when he’ll return. The truth of it is that no matter the right of it, she
looks
like a viscountess, Gilly. And I look like a…”

The words “poor, scarred, foolish, deceived woman” hung in her mind, and from Gilly’s expression, it was as though she’d said them aloud.

Gilly’s eyes went blank and she shrugged. “Aye, well, we’ll stand by you, Miss Bridget, no matter what you decide to do.”

“But you said you loved him and he loved you,” Betsy said, her chin trembling.

“So I did,” Bridget said, kneeling to hand Betsy her handkerchief. “That won’t change. And when he returns,
why, then I’ll speak to him, and you’ll see, things will be right again.”