Johanna Lindsey (11 page)

S
HE FOUND SEBASTIAN IN THE DINING ROOM, looking over the selection of pastries laid out on the table, his back to the door.

“When is luncheon served?”

Margaret was nonplussed. How had he known she was there? She’d made no sound as she’d entered the room, had been especially quiet, in fact, so no servants would come out to see if she needed anything.

“The usual time, but you’re going to be served a piece of my mind first.” He glanced over his shoulder and raised a brow. “Something wrong?” How could he look so innocent, as if he hadn’t just rearranged her life? A ruse, no doubt, but it wasn’t going to work.

“What could be wrong? You just dashed that young man’s hopes, and most brutally. That was not the way to break the news to a man I’ve long been friends with. And about that news, how dare you change your mind about…our
marriage
without warning me first? I specifically recall—”

“Settle down, Maggie,” he cut in.

He’d turned to face her and popped a small cream puff in his mouth, then licked his fingers—

slowly. Good God. Her stomach fluttered oddly, her pulse quickened. Thoughts deserted her as she stared at his mouth.

“Don’t do that,” he snapped.

She blinked. “What?”

“Bloody hell,” he said and turned back toward the table.

With his back to her again, her senses returned to normal, as did her thoughts. She wasn’t sure what had just happened, but she had a feeling it wouldn’t be wise to dwell on it. He’d managed to distract her from her anger for a moment, but she still wanted an answer from him.

“That nonsense about you being jealous—” she began.

“Was nonsense,” he replied, turning back around to face her.

“I know, but why did you do that? What was the point? And why are we suddenly ‘married’

when you weren’t even sure it would be necessary?”

“Timothy was very productive this morning. Now that I do deem it necessary to enact the farce, which was your suggestion, I might add, it was crucial that I stop you from making any blunders before the news spread.”

“I don’t make blunders,” she replied stiffly.

“In the usual sense, you probably don’t,” he allowed magnanimously. “But I was referring to your saying something to Courtly that would lead him to believe nothing has changed between you two, when in fact our ‘marriage’ changes everything. Are you getting the point yet, Maggie? If we’re going to go through with this, you don’t want to leave a doubting Thomas in the wings who could come forward later to denounce us.”

“It’s doubtful I would have said anything of the nature you’re implying. My relationship with Daniel wasn’t that close.”

“It was close enough for him to put his hands all over you.” She blushed furiously. “That was no more than he claimed. He was welcoming me home.”

“A handshake would have sufficed,” he pointed out dryly. “Be that as it may, I merely made sure in the quickest way possible that no doubts would arise later. As it happens, I was looking for you to tell you what Timothy found out. Finding you in the embrace of another man, well, I actually thought it was too late, that you already might have blundered. Mentioning our ‘marriage’ was a calculated risk at that point but the only way to set the stage for our deception.”

“A handshake and introduction wouldn’t have sufficed?” she shot back.

He actually started to smile. No, surely it was her imagination. “Sorry, not my way,” he said.

“No, your way is to shake things up and get everyone’s emotions in a tangle.” He shrugged. “Habit. Works very well in my line of work. People tend to say things they wouldn’t otherwise say, when they’re angry.”

She glared. “I’m not your mark, Sebastian, so don’t use those tactics on me.”

“But you exhibit such magnificent beauty when you’re angry, Maggie.” His golden eyes roamed up and down her body. “Hard to resist.”

“What rubbish.” She snorted and stomped angrily out of the room.

But she didn’t go very far. She was at the foot of the stairs when she realized he hadn’t told her why he’d deemed their pretend marriage necessary. He’d known she would come back, the odious man, because he was standing where she’d left him, facing the door and popping another cream puff into his mouth.

She glanced away before she could see him lick his fingers and stared at the floor as she began to pace it. “What was Timothy’s report?” she demanded.

“You might want to hear it firsthand. He’s pumped up proud of his deception.”

“Where is he?”

“Where else would a young boy be this time of the day? And while you’re there, tell your kitchen staff I’m ready for lunch.”

She bristled at the order but left to find Timothy in the kitchen. It looked like the boy had just finished eating, so she suggested, “Come for a ride with me, Tim. I’ve still to exercise my mare, and Ian has a horse saddled that you can use. You can be my escort.” He beamed. The boy really did like being assigned new responsibilities. Odd for a child his age, when most would rather be off playing.

They rode toward Edgewood and stopped on a knoll overlooking Sebastian’s ancestral home.

“So what did you find out this morning that disturbed Sebastian?” she began.

“He didn’t look disturbed.”

“He never looks disturbed about anything, which is beside the point. What did you learn?”

“Well, I was in the stable down there asking for a job. Couldn’t get hired, though. All the jobs were taken. One of the grooms was French. Seemed very out of place, him. Wouldn’t talk at all except to tell me to get lost.”

“That disturbed Sebastian?”

“No, didn’t even mention that to him.”

Margaret rolled her eyes and decided to let Timothy tell his tale without interrupting him. “Go on.”

“Well, I was about to leave and go ask at the kitchen for work, when the big lord himself walked in and started saddling his horse. None of the other grooms came forward to do it for him, so I hurried over and offered to help, just like I worked there. Didn’t think he’d know the difference, and he didn’t.”

“That was rather ingenious of you.”

Timothy grinned. “I thought so. Well, I started chattering a bunch, ’bout this and that, nothing personal, mind you, just enough to make him relax and not really hear me, if you know what I mean.

Then I mentioned his sons, told him I’d heard he had two fine ones. He definitely heard that. Got all stiff.

Could have chilled milk next to him, he got so cold-like.”

“That’s all? He didn’t say anything?”

“Oh, he did. He said I’d heard wrong, that he only had one son. The other was dead.” And dead men weren’t admitted through the front door, Margaret thought. Good God, it must have hurt Sebastian to hear that. Then again, maybe he really didn’t care, as he’d said. But he’d been right. The estrangement had escalated severely if Douglas now considered Sebastian dead to him. He wouldn’t be welcome, except as her husband. And even that was going to be highly uncomfortable. She could well lose her own welcome if she brought the “dead” son home to Edgewood.

S
EBASTIAN BLENDED WELL WITH THE SHADOWS, a knack he’d developed long ago. The moon was making only sporadic appearances through a bank of gray clouds that were moving rather rapidly overhead. But he’d taken that into account when he’d decided to wear his dark gray greatcoat, which covered him from neck to boots, and was less discernible than his black one on nights when there were no shadows. The air smelled and felt as if there were going to be a downpour at some point during the night, but not, he hoped, while he was skulking around the grounds of Edgewood.

His old home was still well lit at that hour of the evening. He had to be a masochist to come here and watch his family through the windows, knowing he was not welcome to join them.

He leaned against the tree he and Denton had often climbed as children. One summer they’d dragged boards up there and put together a little hut. It had been a nice hideaway until Denton had brought up one too many things to decorate it with, and the main branch supporting it had cracked. They were lucky the limb had fallen slowly and had dropped them rather gently on the ground. But it had frightened their father enough for him to forbid them to make another tree house.

That old tree was outside the dining room where his family was currently gathered. For once his expression wasn’t so inscrutable. Pain, regret, anger—they were all there for anyone to see, his guard completely gone as he stared at his father through the windows.

Douglas hadn’t changed greatly. He wore a half century of years very well. His hair was still as pitch-black as Sebastian’s. If there was any gray in it, it wasn’t noticeable at that distance. His grandmother, Abigail, had changed a lot. Her hair was snow-white now, her shoulders more bent than they used to be. She still wore her hair in the old style. On her it looked good.

God, he’d missed that old woman. She’d been more than just their grandmother. She’d been everything to them after their mother died when Sebastian was nine. Proud, regal, but warm and loving.

She didn’t look so warm and loving now. She spoke readily with Denton, but no smiles crossed her lips.

And not one glance was directed toward the head of the table.

Douglas sat there alone. Abigail ate at the other end. Denton kept her company there. He’d changed greatly as well. He had begun looking dissipated before Sebastian had left. He looked more so now, haggard, almost downtrodden. Juliette hadn’t made an appearance yet, but they obviously hadn’t waited for her.

The distance between his father and his grandmother at that table was telling. It was not a happy scene he was watching. A tightness welled in his chest. So much he had to account for. And so much more that he hadn’t even known he was responsible for. His family was no longer a family, they were just people who lived in the same house. All of the warmth was gone.

The contrast was tearing him apart. He remembered other dinners so clearly. Giles had been there more often than not, and even his father, Cecil, had been a regular guest. There had been laughter, revelry. Abigail had often been teased mercilessly and she’d loved it. And they’d all sat close together.

The table had been smaller, and all the chairs had been filled. There had never been a lull in the conversation, or in the laughter. It had been a place you wanted to be, not a place to quickly escape from

—as it seemed to be now.

Douglas left the table first. He said something to Denton in parting, but he barely even glanced at his mother. Sebastian moved farther down the side of the house until he was outside Douglas’s study. It was where his father usually retired for a few hours after dinner. Cecil had always joined him there when he and Giles had come for dinner. The two old friends never lacked for discourse, and their laughter frequently traveled through the large house.

The draperies hadn’t been closed in the room. Several lamps had been lit earlier. Douglas entered the room and closed the door. He poured a glass of brandy and brought the bottle and glass with him to his desk. He sat down behind it and downed the entire glass, then poured another. Alone there, unaware that he was being watched, he let his shoulders slump. He lit a cigar, but he didn’t smoke it. He picked up a paper on his desk, but he didn’t read it. His head dropped back against the chair.

It was apparent that he had become a man with nothing to look forward to, with nothing to hold his interest, no friends to share in the joys of life—no joys to share. He wasn’t just alone in that room, he was alone with himself.

The tightness increased in Sebastian’s chest. He’d done this to his father, made him a shell of the man he used to be. All these years and he hadn’t known that Douglas had become as empty inside as he was. They were so similar.

It was no wonder they’d all taken to Margaret while she lived with them. She’d probably brought life to the house with her incessant chatter.

A while later, Sebastian lay on his bed, arms crossed behind his head. He hadn’t undressed, had known sleep would be a long time in coming that night and he’d probably have to fetch another bottle of brandy from downstairs to help it along. He’d barely touched the first one, though, his thoughts so deep that he kept forgetting to drink it.

Dead. His father had told Timothy that he was dead. Figuratively, of course, but even so, had a gravestone been put up for him? He had assumed, once he came face-to-face with his father, that they’d have words. Harsh ones, probably, but at least he would have an opportunity to express his concerns, or rather, Margaret’s concerns, and possibly work with Douglas to unravel the suspicions that had been raised.

That assumption had been made before he knew about his father’s estrangement from Cecil and his own mother, and that his enmity toward his eldest son had increased rather than dissipated with the passing years, to the point where Douglas wouldn’t even admit that Sebastian was still alive. Dead. And he’d thought his own bitterness couldn’t be matched.

What he was looking at was an insurmountable wall. He couldn’t break it. Margaret possibly could. She’d been accepted into the bosom of his family. She was close enough to Douglas that she’d gone above and beyond in her effort to “save” him, if he really needed saving. Maybe he needed saving only from himself. Bloody hell.

Sebastian would have liked to blame his father for this current state of affairs, but he couldn’t. All of it, every reaction and result thereafter, could rest only on his own shoulders.

He snarled as he got back up, disgusted with himself for re-hashing what couldn’t be changed. He went in search of Margaret. They needed to finalize a plan so he could quickly accomplish what she’d hired him for and return to France.

She had refused to have dinner with him that night, which was why he’d gone to Edgewood instead. He wasn’t surprised. His behavior the previous night had been reprehensible. Deliberately reprehensible, but still, he hadn’t needed to be quite so insulting to get her to maintain her distance. She seemed to be having no trouble a’tall keeping her enmity high on her list of priorities without any help from him. Perhaps it was the other way around. He needed a reason to keep his hands off of her.