Edith Layton (25 page)

Bridget frowned. Gilly talked faster, trying to explain. “See, the world’s changing,” she said. “A man with coins to jingle in his purse can move up now. I ain’t saying he’s going to be invited to tea with the Queen, mind. But if he’s got the gelt to do it, he can live on a street next to gentry, can’t he? He can dress up fine and go to Vauxhall and rub elbows with them, too, if he wants. And he wants, believe me. His wife can go to the opera and sit right across from them. And if he sends his kids to the right schools—why, who knows what can happen someday?

“I
f
he knows how to behave, that is. Look, Miss Bridget,” Gilly said, looking up at Bridget at last, “Betsy purely loves you and you and I get along, don’t we? What I’m saying is that there’s plenty of them what would like to rise in the world, and they got the gold but not the language or the manners to do it. You could teach them! I could see to it. You could make good money at it, too. So, why don’t you come live with us, Betsy and me? We could do fine together, us three. Well, how about it?”

Bridget started to speak, but her voice caught in her throat. All that came out was a choked gulp. She cleared her throat, blinked back tears, and tried again.

“Gilly, I’m so honored. I thank you so much. I’ve been
doing some thinking, too. I don’t want us to part, either.”

“There we are,” Gilly said almost gaily, though her face was strained and white. “Well, let’s collect Betsy. I promised her I’d come soon as I saw you.” She stooped, scooped up her clothes, and rolled them into a bundle. “Got all I come with,” she muttered. “That’s all a body can expect to leave with, right?”

“No,” Bridget said, drawing a deep, painful breath. “That’s all a lucky person can leave with. I’m going downstairs. But I’m not leaving so soon. I’ll wait for the lady instead. I have some things to say to her now. I don’t know if Betsy ought to be there when I do.”

“Ha! Nothing she’d like better than to hear you tell her a thing or two, I promise you! Be good for her. Though I think she knows better words than you’ll use.”

Bridget smiled. “No, not this time. This time I think even you’ll be surprised, Gilly.” She squared her shoulders. “Let’s go get Betsy,” she said.

Experienced travelers, both Rafe and Drum slept deeply in their separate beds. But they both rose before dawn, if only because even in their sleeping minds they knew Ewen would ride on without them if they didn’t. They didn’t want to miss a thing that happened at Brook House. Ewen was a driven man, Ewen was a changed man, but he was the same man they both valued as a friend. And they were wildly curious.

They dressed in the dark and ate a hurried bite of breakfast in the rising gray of the broken night. They saddled and rode quickly, making such good time that they reached the long drive in front of Brook House as the sun began to brighten the morning mists from gray
to pearl. They swung off their horses, to the shocked surprise of the stable boys who were standing waiting in the drive. Ewen’s country coach stood there, too, but he didn’t spare a glance at it as he went up the steps to the front door. Rafe and Drummond were a foot behind him and so saw him beginning to smile, slowly, in sensuous expectation.

Ewen paused only a moment, realizing the extent of his disheveled state. He tugged down his jacket and ran a hand through his thick wind-tousled hair. He brushed dust from his breeches, straightened, and, finding the door already open, went inside, his friend and his cousin following on his heels. They stepped into the vast glass-enclosed courtyard, blinking. The brightness of the rising sun was amplified by the glass dome, and the brilliance of it temporarily blinded them.

But that wasn’t what stopped them. They halted in their tracks at the sound of a strident female voice.

“So,” the cold, clear voice said, “you’re here. That’s good. I came to be sure, you see.”

Rafe and Drum looked around quickly and so didn’t see Ewen stand arrested, the color draining from his face. But the voice wasn’t referring to him or them.

“You’re a clever girl,” it went on, speaking to someone they couldn’t see. “You’ve done the right thing. I’ve a purse for you here. You’ll find I haven’t been stingy. You’ll get the rest when you reach your destination. Just send word back with the coachman. He’s waiting. I bid you adieu.”

There was a silence.

“Come, come,” the voice said impatiently, “the price won’t go up if you resist. The sun is well up. Time to leave. Now, take the purse and go!”

The men narrowed their eyes against the radiant brightness, straining to see who was speaking and who was being urged to leave. The voice seemed to be coming from above them. They looked up to see a tall, golden-haired female in a flowing robe of white standing straight-backed on the stair, looking like an angel outlined by dazzling light. As they squinted they saw three other figures entering the room, walking slowly into the glowing light, hesitant as new souls tentatively entering heaven. The woman on the stair looked like an avenging angel, ordering them out again.

She spoke again, her voice impatient. “Come along now! Nothing’s changed. A delay will only cost you. I don’t care if you miss your coach. But I vow your slippers will!”

“No,” Bridget said, stopping opposite her, “I think not. I got up early, too, but only to be sure to speak to you personally. I’m not here to bargain, either. I’m not leaving, you see.”

Gilly and Betsy paused at her side, looking up at her.

“And so,” Bridget said firmly, her head held high, “if you want me to go. I suppose you must put me out. Because I won’t leave of my own free will. Ewen brought me here, and here I stay until he himself puts me out.”

“And you think he won’t?” Lady Elise asked from her position on the stair. She laughed, the brittle sound echoing around the bright glass room. Ewen’s hands closed to fists at his sides. But he neither moved nor spoke. He couldn’t. Because he couldn’t believe his eyes or ears.

“Very well, very well,” Lady Elise said, her voice simmering with fury. “I you don’t care about the shame of it—and why should you, being the creature you are?—
then I suppose I must. But I won’t just put you out. Oh, no. I don’t want you hanging about the place, sleeping in the barns, peering in windows, distressing me and the servants and my poor dear Louis. No. I’ll send for the local magistrate and have you evicted—and incarcerated in whatever jail they have here.

“Think carefully. You think Ewen will come to free you? He won’t. Not just because I won’t allow it, and he wants above all else to please me now. But because I know him of old. I’ll meet him in London or at his father’s estate. There’s been enough gossip here, thank you—and thanks to you, too. I’ll tell him what happened. Knowing him, he’ll leave you wherever the magistrate puts you for a month—at the least—for a lesson. Although he won’t put it that way. Oh, no, not he. When he finally has you let out, he’ll send a note filled with apologies. The man is good at apologies! Haven’t I heard them often enough?”

Bridget swayed a little. Her hands were trembling and her mouth was dry. She knew Ewen, she’d swear she did. But this woman was so convincing.

“The note will be filled with insincere guilt and many excuses,” the lady went on, “and a far smaller payment than I’d give you now. That, at least, I can promise you! You ought to be compensated for his pleasure, I don’t deny that. But I’ll see that you starve if you try to hold me up for more now. Well? Last chance. Leave now and take the coach far from us. Or take the consequences.”

“I’m staying, and I’ll face the consequences,” Bridget said. “Whatever you say, whatever ancient bits of paper you show me, whatever proofs you do or do not offer me—I’ll stay and wait for Ewen. He would
not
lie to me. He—”

She stopped because Betsy was tugging at her skirt and pointing.

“Very well,” the lady said furiously. She reached for the bellpull at the side of the stair to summon servants…but her hand paused on the cord. She turned her head to see what Bridget and the two girls were staring at.

Three tall men stood in the last shadows by the door. One stepped forward, his hands closed to fists at his side.

“E
wen
?” Bridget cried in a glad voice. He was here! He and his redheaded friend, and his cousin, too. But it was Ewen! She took a step—and stopped, because he was standing straight and still. He was staring at the lady. And she at him. And she was smiling.

“Ewen,” the lady said in a silken, satisfied voice. “It is you! Lord! I scarcely recognized you—you have changed. For the better, I must say.”

“Elise,” he said in a deep, dark voice, and Bridget could feel her blood chill in her veins.

“Yes,” the lady said, smiling, “it is I. I’m back, as you see. And not from the dead, as this…person said you told her.”

Bridget couldn’t read his expression. He had none at all. “Ewen?” she asked, her voice quavering. “You know her? She is Elise? Y
our
Elise?”

He didn’t answer. His eyes were on the woman in white.

“Ewen?” Bridget said again, her own face white, her heart pounding so loudly she could scarcely hear the words she said.

She shook her head, as though that might clear the confusion and pain she felt thrumming through it. She
could not, would not ask if he had lied to her. She couldn’t ask if he was married to another. That would be asking if everything they had together was a lie. Looking at him now, at that dear strong face, feeling the strength of his presence, she couldn’t doubt him or herself. She could only address the thing a lie at a time. She knew they were lies. She refused to believe they were
his
lies. She forced herself to ask what she had to, in the only way she could.

“Ewen,” she said, “
she
says you married her.”

He turned his head from the lady finally. He looked at Bridget. His face was taut, his eyes glazed with pain, alive with a wild light. His voice was strained when he finally spoke. But it was deep and slow and clear.

“I did,” he said.

The lady laughed. Bridget swayed on her feet and would have stumbled if Gilly hadn’t been there to steady her…and if Ewen hadn’t strode forward to put his hands hard on her shoulders, gripping them tightly.

He looked down at her. A world of betrayal and loss was clear in her eyes. She raised a hand and touched his face lightly, as though to convince herself that it was he. He was troubled; it made him look younger, more vulnerable than she’d ever seen him. But he also looked tired, and his eyes were stricken. She saw how he’d be when he was very old and weary with life.

“You did?” she whispered, hoping she’d misheard him.

He nodded.

“She is your
wife
?” she said, anguished.

“No,” he said, shaking his head, his voice shaking, too. “No, my dear. T
hat
she is not.”

“Y
ou married her, but she isn’t your wife? What are you talking about? I don’t understand, it makes no sense,” Bridget murmured wretchedly, searching Ewen’s eyes for an explanation of the incomprehensible.

“It does,” he muttered angrily. “God help us all, but it makes too much sense. What are you doing here?” he demanded.

He felt her slender shoulders stiffen with shock. His hands tightened and he rocked her gently to and fro, shaking her gently to banish her look of shock. “H
er
—I was talking to her. I heard what you were doing here,” he told her in low urgent tones. “Thank you for your faith in me. I don’t think you could have given me more.

“What are you doing here?” he repeated, raising his gaze to glower at Elise.

“What do you think?” Elise asked. But her voice was less assured.

“God alone knows,” he growled. “I thought I’d never see you again. You knew I’d no wish to. I ignored your notes over the years. I directed them to my man at law. I certainly never thought to see you in England again. Have you run mad?”

Her head went up as though he’d slapped her. “I had to talk with you,” she snapped. A second later her voice became gentle, soft, beguiling. “What sort of a monster do you think I am? When I heard of your father’s death, of course I had to come, whatever the risks to myself.”

Bridget saw the blood leave his tanned face, making it suddenly grim and sallow.

“We have our past, to be sure,” Elise went on, “but I’m not an unfeeling monster. I know what you thought of your father. We do share that history, and so I knew you’d need someone to talk with. I thought you knew me better than that, Ewen,” she chided him.

“Oh, be sure that I do. But how long have you been here? You were in France…I heard you went to Italy,” he said slowly. “Or did you return here, in secret, before this?”

“Oh, no, I’ve been living abroad. The war made life difficult, but not unduly; we’ve too many friends on both sides. We do what we must. I managed to survive.” She shrugged, as though her glowing looks and expensive gown were nothing to speak of.

“I only came here for you,” she went on. “I’d a letter from Georgette Halliday. Remember her? An old friend. And one—the only one—who did not desert me. She wrote to tell me about how the Earl was at death’s door.
Naturally, I packed instantly and came to offer you whatever comfort I could, whatever the danger to myself. I knew you didn’t open my letters—at any rate, a letter is cold comfort, is it not? I arrived in London a few weeks ago, sought you there—rather, had my servants do that. They were told you’d gone to your father’s deathbed. I’d have followed, but that’s hardly the best place for me, you’ll agree. But neither did I wish to be seen in London. I went to an inn on the north road and sent to find out when you’d return. When I finally heard you were here, I came straightaway, of course.”

“Ah, I see,” Ewen breathed, releasing his hard hold on Bridget. He nodded. “We must talk. And then you’re leaving—as quickly as you’d have had Bridget leave.” He frowned at her, his dark brows knitting. “That was badly done, even for you.”

“I was merely doing another favor for you,” Elise said. “She told me you’d wed her. I knew it couldn’t be.”

Ewen threw back his dark head and laughed. It was such a sudden, unexpected, and merry a sound in that tense moment that everyone in the room gaped at him. But he seemed genuinely amused. “Dear, dear Elise,” he chuckled, “time hasn’t changed you at all, has it?”

“Here,” a low hoarse voice said. It was Gilly. “All very well for you to laugh, but I ain’t. Is she”—she jerked a thumb at Elise—“your missus or ain’t she? And is that sour-faced brat your son or ain’t he?…your lordship,” she added when she saw identical looks of shock on both of Ewen’s companion’s faces.

“To the point as ever, eh, Gilly?” Ewen said. “No, he isn’t my son. And she isn’t my wife—your friend Bridget is. Rather, your friend, Bridget, the Viscountess Sinclair. No, Elise,” he said harshly when he saw her startle at
his words, “she isn’t the Countess Sinclair yet. And won’t be for a long, long while, either, lord willing. He’s recovered entirely. You didn’t think of that, did you? Why should you? If you’re running true to form, you probably didn’t even ask about him once you got here.”

The lady grew rigid. Her glittering blue eyes were the only things that moved in her face.

“Yes,” Ewen said harshly, “that’s the Elise I remember. Enough. Come, we must talk.”

He swept out an arm, showing where he wanted her to go. Elise came down the stairway with measured tread, moving toward the salon with stately grace, her morning gown flowing behind her as though she were a queen or a bride walking down the aisle in a hushed cathedral. Ewen took Bridget’s cold hand in his and began to follow. But she hung back, looking up at him with grave gray eyes. He closed his hand convulsively over hers and was about to speak…until he saw Gilly and Betsy standing by her other side, staring up at him. Rafe and Drum were behind him now, too, almost stepping on his boots when he stopped so abruptly.

Elise paused, turned, and saw them. “Really, Ewen,” she protested, “I hardly think this involves anyone but us.”

Ewen looked at the little parade he’d begun. “You’re right,” he told her, “in that it does indeed involve all of us. Drum and Rafe know all already, and Bridget must. Still, as for the children…”

He looked at Gilly. She stared back so defiantly, no one there could think of her as a child.

“Beg pardon,” he said with the trace of a smile, “I mean ‘as for those less involved.’ Still, I don’t doubt you’ll find out anyway. But the little one?” he asked, looking at Betsy.

“She knows more’n me half the time,” Gilly said with a shrug. “Folks forget kids has ears, but they’re like dogs under the dinner table, always waiting and watching, ’cause they never know when they might be something in it for them.”

Ewen smiled one warm and genuine smile. “I do not doubt it. So she may as well come, too. After all, why not? I suppose the more that know, the less chance of this ever happening again.”

“I hardly think—” Elise began.

Ewen cut her off in a hard voice. “The secret
was
kept, Elise, as per our bargain. Rafe knew because he trusts me with his life, and has done, as I trust him with mine, and so he had to know all my secrets. Drum only just found out. But apart from those first chosen few no one else knew, I kept my word. That was my mistake. Secrets are damnable things, because they can become weapons in the wrong hands.”

“Ewen,” Elise cried, “I never meant to hurt you!”

“Perhaps not,” he said with a twisted smile, “but you certainly meant to help yourself. And somehow that’s always meant hurting someone else, hasn’t it?”

They sat quietly, ranged round the room, waiting for Ewen to begin. Elise sat in a small gilt chair by the hearth, her head high as Ewen paced before her.

H
e looks weary
, Bridget thought. His dark hair was disarranged, his high brow was lined by a frown, his face was still pale beneath his tan. The dust of the road coated his high boots; his shirt and neckcloth were gritty with a film of it. He looked nothing like the suave gentlemen she’d met in London. He looked both more danger
ous and more desperate. Still, the power of the man was astonishing. He was here at last, he filled her eyes, he filled the room for her—even if he was now as a stranger to her. Because he paced in front of Elise and hadn’t a word to spare for anyone else since he’d entered the room. Bridget clasped her hands together in her lap to keep from reaching out to him. He wasn’t looking at her; she wondered if he even remembered her.

Her gaze flew to the Lady Elise, sitting proud and pale, her blazing blue eyes fixed on him, too. How could he remember her, or even consider her, Bridget thought miserably, when he had this fairy-tale princess come from across the sea to comfort him? A lady who had married him? And yet was not his wife. She didn’t understand, and suddenly was afraid to.

The silhouettes of the two gentlemen who had arrived with Ewen were as still as graven images against the long window where they stood waiting and watchful, too. Betsy and Gilly shared a deep chair, sitting back in it, scarcely breathing lest they be told to leave.

Bridget watched Ewen, yearning for him. She began to hate herself because of it, because she needed all her resolve now. She had to hide away her heart and use her head because it was her life and her future he would talk about now. One thing she knew: Despite how much she loved him, if he had betrayed her, then she must surely rise and go from here without a backward look. So she looked her fill now—and knew it would never be enough. And knew it would have to be if he had deceived her.

“The thing is so damnably simple,” Ewen said suddenly in a hard voice, shaking his head as he stared at the intricate pattern of the Persian carpet he paced. “So
utterly stupid, too. Worst of all, it could have been prevented if I’d thought about it. I promised to keep a secret. That was my only mistake. No.” he said sadly, “no, not my only mistake. I was young and callow. I might forgive the boy, but not the man. I never lied to you,” he said, looking up at Bridget. It was only then that she realized he was speaking to her now.

“I was lying to myself, you see,” he told her. “I gave my word to keep a secret, and forgot it was a boy who gave that word.” He tilted one shoulder in a shrug. “It may be that I had no choice, because the only way to really keep a secret is to forget it, and I did that—too well. If it’s any comfort, I remembered at last. I was going to tell you.”

Elise laughed shrilly. “Oh, to be sure!” she said with bright bitterness, “and I was going to tell her the truth, too. Really, Ewen. You have changed. The boy I knew was at least honest—to a fault.”

He shifted his head to stare at her. “Honesty’s never a fault,” he said. Then he turned his broad back on her. “The thing of it is that I was young, and so was she,” he told Bridget, his eyes steady on her. “Neither of us was too honest even then. If I had been, I suppose I’d have wondered why such a lovely young girl would have been so eager to marry me in the first place.”

“Why should she not?” Drum cried, but Ewen waved a hand to cut him off.

“No, Drum. I was old enough to be wed, but too young for my years. I’d led a sheltered life. Taught at home, unused to sophisticated company. When I finally did go away to school, I was fine with other young men, but totally at a loss with the ladies. Although how could you know that?” he mused aloud, his gaze growing
vacant as he stared at something only he could see. “Although I actually blush to think it now. I was actually a v—” He paused, looking around the room at the fascinated company.

He laughed, a flicker of the devilish Ewen that Bridget knew so well in his voice and face now. “As I was saying,” he continued, “I was a very inexperienced lad, to be sure. Indeed. I grew sweaty palms when I but danced with a pretty girl, and I stumbled over my words as well as my feet at every assembly or dancing party.”

It was hard for Bridget to imagine that. Ewen tongue-tied? Ewen gauche and graceless? Ewen at a loss with a woman? Any woman? No matter how she tried, it was impossible for her to imagine that.

He sighed heavily. “And so you may imagine that when my father introduced me to Elise. I was dumbstruck. She was the Incomparable of that long-ago season, fair and fairylike, always in demand, full of easy laughter, glib and gay, so facile, her dance card always filled. And yet she deigned to dance with me! It even seemed she favored me. I paid court. What a fine suitor I must have been.” he said wryly, “stammering and then yammering for hours when she actually sat moon-eyed listening to my drivel—my plans, my thoughts, my unformed philosophies.”

“Nonsense!” Drum finally said, the pent-up word bursting from him like steam from a kettle as he leaned forward, both hands tight on the back of a chair. “I admired you then, Ewen, everyone did. You were a bit poetical, to be sure. But you were so well read, so steady and even-handed in your dealings with your friends. More than that, you were a model of gentlemanly behavior, in manners and in manner. Why, you
were a bruising sportsman, an excellent pugilist, a neck-or-nothing rider, a fencer…”

“But not a swordsman,” Ewen said ruefully, laughing a little. “At least not the kind I came to be later. Because women awed and terrified me then—with a certain glad terror, you understand. They fascinated and inspired me. Surely you remember, at school, I never went out of an evening with our friends to sport with the kind of females that were so easily available to wealthy young men like us?”

“We respected you for it!” Drum said. “You were a man of taste and discrimination.”

“I was a boy with illusions,” Ewen said harshly. “I avoided whores because they seemed to me mockeries of all I admired in ladies. And how I admired ladies! But I lost all my finesse when I was with them. I thought them such supreme creatures, and Lady Elise their personification.”

Bridget bit her lip.

“Yes, that I do remember,” Elise purred. “But Ewen, how could you think I could forget? You loved me,” she said, casting a sidewise glance at Bridget.

“No, not at all,” Ewen corrected her. “I adored you.”

Bridget’s eyes opened wide on a sea of pain she hadn’t thought existed.

“There is a difference,” Ewen said, gazing at Bridget. “I’ve only lately found that out, in fact. Enough wordplay,” he said harshly, unable to keep looking into Bridget’s stunned eyes.

He took a turn around the carpet again, fretful, restless even though he kept pacing. When he spoke, it was to the room. “The sum of it is that I discovered the lovely Elise not only willing to wed me, but eager to do
so. My father exulted. Her father celebrated. It was a perfect match. Plans went forth with haste—in fact, with such haste that some thought it unseemly, wondering if it was a necessity. Idiot that I was, I was flattered both by her impatience
and
their assumptions for the reasons for it. I was full of myself and my pride and as eager as she for our wedding day.”

Bridget closed her eyes at the thought of their wedding night, Ewen’s long body entwined with Elise’s slender, supple one. That dark head bent over that fair face, his strong hands cupping her head as his hazel eyes burned with tender love—not just lust—as they gazed into the vivid blue of Elise’s. The two of them, enrapt, both elegant aristocrats, bred from the cradle for each other. She hadn’t allowed herself to see that, not once in all the nights she’d laid in her lonely bed thinking about the two of them. Now she did. It was almost unendurable.