In Love With a Wicked Man (33 page)

“Richard’s reputation will weather it, Kate,” Edward said calmly. “And perhaps it won’t even get out?”

She turned on him then. “Secrets always get out,” she said a little bitterly. “Always. Scandals cannot be contained, no matter what subterfuge we engage. Do not kid yourself on that score, Edward.”

A sudden coldness settled over him then, and he had the distinct impression they were talking about something a good deal more dire than her mother.

He went to the sideboard and pensively poured another whisky, though the last thing he needed was another drink. But he did need time. Time to think. To calculate.

Good old Ned
, he thought.
Always figuring the odds.

Kate was still standing at the window, staring out into the dark of night, practically vibrating like a tuning fork, radiating anger over something that had been, in his opinion, pretty damned clever, so far as complete and utter checkmates went.

“Edward,” she said, her voice flat. “Earlier tonight you said . . . you said that we might have to have more than an arrangement. That you were not careful.”

“I did, yes.” He turned uneasily from the sideboard, certain now that her rage ran deeper than Aurélie’s antics.

“What did you mean by it?” Kate was still staring at the glass, her arms crossed.

“I don’t think it has anything to do with what just happened, Kate.” He willed his voice to be calm as he felt his way through the minefield. “We’re talking about your mother. Aren’t we?”

“Nonetheless, I wish to know,” she said. “God forbid, Edward, if I were to find myself with child, what would you do?”

“I would do the right thing.” He watched her reflection warily in the glass. “And God help you, Kate. But what else could I do?”

“Yes, it would be frightfully awkward, wouldn’t it?” she said, dropping her voice. “I am Baroness d’Allenay, not a nobody. You could not hide me away in the country on some small annuity, and see your child once a year, could you?”

“Well.” He set his brandy down with a harsh
thunk!
“Well, Kate. It sounds as if we need to have a serious discussion.”

She whipped around at that. “Do we, Edward?” she asked sharply. “Do we really?”

He held up one hand, but he felt his ire rising fast. “Kate, you invited me down here tonight,” he reminded her. “I have tried, my dear, to keep my distance.”

“Yes, you’re quite right,” she whispered. “You’re a weakness for me, I won’t deny it. From the very first, I have been unable to resist wanting you and craving the pleasure you give me. Even when I knew I ought not.”

“And you
ought not
?” he said coldly. “Thank you, Kate, for announcing the obvious with such an air of discovery. Of course you
ought not.
I
ought not.
And yet
we did.
And we continue to. And yes, if the worst should happen, you would damn well marry me—and rue the day, I do not doubt. But that, my dear, is the risk we run. Did you not grasp that?”

“I did not,” she said, “until it dawned on me that, in such a case, our child would be, at the very least, heir to the d’Allenay barony.”

He closed the distance between them then. “Now, just wait a damned minute,” he said, his hand seizing her wrist. “That sounded like an ugly accusation. Tell me
exactly
what this is about.”

“This is about Annabelle Granger,” she said, “and I think you know it. Now, will you kindly relax your grip on my wrist?”

He let go as if she’d exploded into flames. “Well, if this is about Annabelle,” he snapped, “then why didn’t you just say so?”

Her lips thinning, Kate just shook her head. “It wasn’t,” she admitted. “Not at first. But now? Yes. Yes, I want to know what your relationship is with her.”

“I am . . . her godfather, of sorts,” he said gruffly.

“And are you her actual father?” There was a hint of a challenge in her question.

For a long moment, he weighed telling Kate to go to hell. But it was not an unreasonable question. Not for a woman who, as she pointed out, might be carrying his child.

“In confidence?” he finally said.

She hesitated. “Yes. In confidence.”

“I am not,” he said tightly.

Her gaze faltered. “And what if I do not believe you, Edward?”

He shook his head. “Then that is your choice, Kate,” he said. “Like everyone else, you may choose what you think. You may choose to think me Annie’s father or Annie’s savior or Annie’s rich Uncle Croesus. I generally do not trouble myself to clarify the issue. Because it matters just about this much”—here he gave a sharp snap of his fingers—“what other people think of me.”

“But don’t you think you should have shared her existence with me?” Kate demanded. “I mean, after all we have been—” Her words jerked to a halt, her face heating.

“Been to one another?” he finished, a bitter smile curling his mouth. “Kate, your desire for me might as well be mud on your shoe, as pleased as you are to have it.”

“That is not what— Why, how can you—” She jerked to a halt, blinking. Then she shook her head. “I am sorry. You’re quite right. This is none of my concern.”

“I did not say that, Kate,” he coldly countered. “I think we can make an argument that it is very much your concern. But don’t put words in my mouth, and do not dare call me a liar.”

She tore her gaze from his and turned. “I wish I didn’t want you so desperately,” she whispered.

“I can accommodate that,” he said. “Say the word. I can be out from under your roof in ten minutes. But be very sure, Kate, that you understand who you’re angry at, and why.”

“I am angry at myself,” she said. “Of that I am very, very sure.”

There came a long moment of silence then, the night so still Edward could hear a clock ticking in the next room. He felt thwarted and angry and insulted—but most of all, he felt deeply wounded. Damn it, did he never learn his lesson on that score?

“I shall remove to Heatherfields tomorrow,” he said tightly, turning toward the door. “I beg your pardon, Kate, for any offense I’ve given.”

“Heatherfields is not habitable,” she said, still looking out the window.

“Heatherfields will do,” he retorted, jerking the door wide. “I spent too many years in the army to be put off by a dripping roof and a couple of rats. Good night, Kate. You will send word to me at Heatherfields or in London should the worst occur.”

“Ah, yes.
The worst.
” Her voice was distant; almost disembodied. “Thank you, Edward, for making that plain.”

“You’re welcome,” he returned—just before he slammed the door.

CHAPTER 17

Lady d’Allenay’s Advice

to the Lovelorn

W
ith her daily workbook carefully angled into a shaft of morning sunlight, Mrs. Peppin adjusted her reading glasses, then scribbled yet another line in the list headed
Dinner Menu
.

“Right, then, we’ve the sweets settled,” she said with satisfaction. “Now, for cheeses Cook has put out the Stilton and the Camembert. We haven’t aught else, miss, on such short notice.”

“Yes, yes, I’m sure,” Kate murmured, her elbows propped on Peppie’s long table.

On a faint sigh, the housekeeper flicked a glance up to look across the table at her. “Miss Kate, do gather your wits,” she gently chided. “You’ve not spared two words for this menu and you know His Lordship be partic’lar about his cheese.”

“Sorry, Peppie.” Kate tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear, and sat more upright. “No, he likes Stilton well enough. But after last night . . .”

“Aye.” Mrs. Peppin’s nose wrinkled, cocking up one side of her glasses. “We could serve up his Stilton on a solid gold platter, and he’d been no better pleased.”

Having dashed straight downstairs after breakfasting alone in her room, Kate had given the housekeeper an abbreviated version of the previous night’s fiasco. Peppie had replied sharply that it was her dearest wish Lord Reginald Hoke should burn in the hot fires of hell. But more importantly, she had reassured Kate that although the commotion had indeed been overheard, the servants had put it down to the usual antics of Mrs. Wentworth’s friends.

“What a mess it all is, Peppie!” Kate propped her chin in her hand. “Has there been word from the rectory?”

“Mercy, yes! Jasper says Miss Nan come up on the first train,” said the housekeeper, “just as Mrs. Wentworth said she would.”

“I hope they will not mind coming to the dinner tonight.” Kate jerked herself upright again. “Has everyone accepted?”

“What, with the rector wed so hurry-scurry?” Mrs. Peppin snorted. “Oh, aye, they’ll all wish to eye Miss Nan’s belly. At least I can cross Lord Reginald off the list.” So saying, she leaned forward and drew a thick, black line over his name.

“De Macey has kindly ordered him to leave,” Kate murmured, “to spare me the embarrassment. And honestly, Peppie, it cannot be too soon.”

“Why, bless me, miss, but Lord Reginald left betimes,” said Mrs. Peppin. “Dressed for riding, he were, and carrying naught but a postmantle and his coat. Left his man upstairs, Jasper said, to pack his trunks and come arter.”

Kate exhaled with relief. “Well, thank God that’s over,” she said. “His valet may stay as long as he pleases. It’s Reggie I wanted shut of.”

Mrs. Peppin eyed her a little appraisingly across the table. “Well, seems we’re soon to have the house half empty, then, what with Miss Nancy wed and Mr. Edward gone.”

Something in Kate’s heart sank low indeed. “
Has
he gone?”

“Heavens, miss, well afore breakfast!” she said a little accusingly. “Did you not know? Off on that gurt black horse o’ his to stay at Heatherfields, he said, but how he’s to live there I’m sure I cannot think, for the roof leaks like a sieve, old Cutler what keeps the place be deaf a post, and Mrs. Cutler as slammickin’ a housekeeper as ever I knew.”

“Mr. Quartermaine assures me he’s not the least deterred by leaks or rats,” said Kate, “so I doubt Mrs. Cutler’s slatternly ways will much put him off.”

“Oh, miss!” Mrs. Peppin eyed her darkly across the table. “How, pray, is he to have his eggs the way he likes them?”

Kate arched both her eyebrows. “Why, how
does
he like them, Peppie?”

“Dry, miss!” said the housekeeper, as if it were the Christian way, “and his bacon the same.”

“—which would explain the overcooked breakfasts we’ve been eating round here,” Kate added in an undertone. “I thought, Peppie, that you’d decided he was a rich scoundrel who’d left his illegitimate child hidden away in the countryside?”

Mrs. Peppin’s gaze left Kate’s. “Oh, well, it’s not for me to judge, miss,” she said a little guiltily. “It’s hard not to like the gentleman, that’s all I’ve to say in the matter. Ever so polite, and never a sharp word to staff.”

Kate’s head was beginning to ache—this, on top of eyes which had been so red and stained from crying, she had been compelled to hold a cold facecloth to them before coming downstairs this morning.

“Well,” she said, pushing up from the table. “I’m off to the estate office to find Anstruther. After that, I’m meeting Uncle Upshaw at the new rectory to make sure he finds it good enough for Nancy. In between, if I’ve time, I’d better go round through the village and look in on the newlyweds, just to give them the cut of Uncle’s jib.”

“But what can Upshaw have to say about any of it now?” demanded Mrs. Peppin. “The house
or
the marriage, come to that?”

Kate shook her head. “There’s nothing he can say, honestly, with Nancy having spent a night alone with Richard,” she said. “Even an annulment, or whatever one calls it, would spell ruin for her. But Mamma has treated Uncle shabbily; as if his wishes were of no import whatever.”

“I don’t know, miss,” said Peppin. “Seems to me His Lordship was being unreasonable and your mother cleverly got round him.”

“Good heavens, you sound like Edward,” Kate muttered. “Then end justifies the means! And perhaps it does. I do not know. But I’m going through the motions of trying to appease Uncle Upshaw because his feelings do matter, Peppie. He has been nothing but kind to Nancy and me.”

“Oh, aye,” said Mrs. Peppin, “in his own stiff-rumped and mighty way!”

“But he is family,” said Kate, rising from her chair, “and one should not quarrel with one’s family if it can be avoided.”

“Well, blessed be the peacemakers.” Mrs. Peppin had stood and was going through the pocket of her smock. “But about Mr. Edward—”

“What about him, Peppie?” asked Kate a little snappishly.

The housekeeper extracted a letter. “This came for him in the morning’s post,” she said. “From London, it is. Isn’t he to be at dinner tonight?”

“Oh . . . heavens.” Kate considered it. Edward was a new neighbor; one who had until today been a guest in her house. “I don’t know. Give me the letter, Peppie, and I shall think what’s best done.”

Taking up her hat and her riding crop, Kate left the housekeeper’s sitting room feeling more beleaguered than when she’d gone in—which had been quite a lot—and wondering if Peppie, too, meant to take Edward’s side in this business.

Which was foolish, she told herself, when there was no
side
. She was not at war with Edward.

She was at war with herself.

And this morning she had awoken the most dreadful suspicion that she had somehow wronged him. He had said he was not Annabelle Granger’s father. And Edward had never shown himself anything less than honest—almost blatantly so. From the very first, he had admitted things about himself he might easily have hidden, or glossed over.

But she could not think of that now, Kate reminded herself, going out into the sunlit bailey. Their relationship had been dangerous at best, and if it was truly over . . .

She found herself blinking back tears again, and hastened across the cobblestones into the shadows of the estate office, relieved to find it empty. After blowing her nose and dashing her cuffs beneath her eyes, Kate set about catching up the accounts that had been let go since her mother’s arrival, while she lay in wait for Anstruther.

He came in half an hour later, his boots muddied and his attitude formal. He greeted her civilly, of course, and sat down at his great desk opposite to bring Kate up to date on the morning’s events around the estate. She, in turn, went over the accounts. They were still looking for ways to come up with the cash to purchase the tin mine in Cornwall.

At the end of it, Anstruther sighed. “Nay, it’s not to be, lass,” he said, shaking his head. “Ask Upshaw, but to borrow money now, rates in the City being what they are . . .”

“No, no borrowing.” Kate closed the account book with a heavy thud. “We’re nicely above water, Anstruther, and we’re staying there. I do not need to ask Uncle’s advice in that regard.”

Anstruther looked relieved, and set his hands on his broad, muscular thighs as if to be off.

“No, no, no,” said Kate, throwing up a hand. “Anstruther, we are going to talk.”

“Aye, we just did, didn’t we?” But with a wary expression, he sat back down.

Kate drew a deep breath. “Something happened last night,” she said. “A bit of awkwardness to do with Aurélie. I should hate you to catch wind of it, and think wrongly of her.”

He set his head at a sharp, quizzical angle. “That’s naught to do with me, my lady.”

“Oh, don’t
my
lady
me, John Anstruther!” said Kate impatiently. “You’re no more sensible than Aurélie, I begin to think. And by the way, just how long—and how often—have you been—er,
keeping
company
with my mother?”

“
Hmph
,” he said. “That would be our business.”

“It was,” Kate admitted, “until this week. Now out with it. Mamma will make me no sense; I needn’t even ask her. We’re a family, Anstruther. I wish to know everything.”

“Then you’ll have to wish on, miss,” he said stiffly.

Kate scowled. Then, shoulders slumping, she shook her head. “Not
everything
,” she said wearily. “Just . . . the
when
, and the
who knows
. What else can come back to bite us, Anstruther? I cannot guard your back unless I have some notion.”

Anstruther was quiet a long moment, his huge index finger going
thump, thump, thump!
atop his desk. Then he stopped, and rubbed it alongside his nose. “A long while, then,” he said, “if ye must know. Since you were a wee lass, and I came down to take up this post. And no one knows, as best I can tell ye.”

“Were you . . . in love with Mamma?”

“Aye, long ago, I suppose,” he said, “when I first met her. I’d just come down from university, and was visiting here. Aurélie was young still, Nan’s age or thereabout, and your brother was just a babe.”

“But nothing came of it?”

He shook his head. “Not until your father strayed some years later, and took to dice and drink,” he said. “But I dinna wish to speak ill of him, miss, so I’d as soon leave it at that.”

“You don’t feel guilty, I take it.” Kate managed to smile.

“I didna say that.” Anstruther’s expression was grim. “But in any case, aye, your mother and I have known one another long and well, Kate. Sometimes we’ve been friends; sometimes more.”

Kate was beginning to think it was mostly
sometimes more
, for a great number of things seemed to be falling into place—this, despite the fact that she was so distraught over Edward she could barely think straight.

She drew a deep breath. “So—all those business trips to London all these years—for me and for Grandpapa,” she ventured, “it was not just to save him the travel, or to save me the embarrassment of running into Reggie, was it?”

He gave a barely discernable shrug. “No.”

Kate leaned back in her chair, and crossed her arms over her chest. “So, in summary,” she said, “you and my mother met, fell for one another to some uncertain degree, and commenced an on-again off-again love affair both here and in London. And all the while, gossip has pegged her to the Comte de Macey, along with various other rakes, rogues, and scoundrels?”

“Aye, weel, from time to time, lass, your mother and I fell out,” said Anstruther darkly, “when I didna do to suit her.”

“Yes, but we’re talking about a span of twenty years,” Kate pointed out. “And Mamma’s actual
affaire
with de Macey, I begin to think, was of very short duration.”

Anstruther looked sheepish. “Aye, a few months,” he admitted, “until I came to my senses.”

“Ah, bucked up stubborn over something, did you?” she muttered. “Well, I need not know what. But Anstruther, Aurélie is a widow, and has been some years. De Macey can find someone else to use as wallpaper. Why don’t you pursue her openly if you care for her?”

“What,
court
the woman?” Anstruther looked aghast. “Miss Kate, it wouldna do.”

“I can’t think why,” said Kate. “Unless you’re put off by the fact that she’s mentally unhinged.”

“I haven’t the wherewithal to give her the life she should have,” declared Anstruther. “I’m not of her ilk.”

“Indeed not, you’re a good deal more sensible,” said Kate. “As to your wherewithal, I don’t doubt for a minute you’re rich as Midas. You’ve a lovely manor house at South Farm, and you’re certainly as wellborn as Mamma. Her mother was the governess, you’ll recall, and her grandfather little more than a jumped-up Parisian greengrocer.”

“Nay, it wouldna do,” he said again.

Kate shrugged. “You must suit yourself,” she said amiably. “No doubt she’s more than most men would wish to take on. But your post here could not be more secure, as you very well know, all your bad-tempered, self-sacrificing protestations aside. So if you wish to have her, but haven’t the courage to pursue her seriously, then you must take the blame upon yourself, not me.”

“
Hmph
” was all he said.

“Very well, then.” Kate gave up, and snatched her hat and crop. “I’m riding into the village to drop in on Nancy and Richard. May I depend upon you to bring Uncle Upshaw out to the new rectory for our poke-about?”

“Aye, I’ll bring the carnaptious, fykie fellow,” grumbled Anstruther under his breath, “and will be wishin’ my ears stopped wi’ wax, I dinna doot.”

“I have no idea what you just said,” Kate replied evenly, “but I shall see the both of you at eleven o’clock sharp. Pray do not be late, for we’ve twenty-odd guests for dinner tonight.”

“Aye, aye, I ken.” He waved her away.

Then, her memory stirred, she turned from the door and extracted the letter. “Anstruther, could you drop this by Heatherfields, and tell Mr. Quartermaine we still hope to see him at dinner tonight? After all, he’s our neighbor now.”

Some inscrutable emotion passed over Anstruther’s face. “Aye, lass, no trouble a’tall.”