One Night With A Prince (33 page)

“But others, like the Tories, would champion him. It would embroil England in chaos for years, Gavin. Years . The dispute over Charles II’s succession went on for over fifty years and caused the Glorious Revolution, not to mention the Jacobite rebellion a mere sixty years ago. Why do you think Mrs. Fitzherbert agreed to send her son away? Because she didn’t want him at the center of such a storm. Because she loved him too much to put that burden upon him.”

“No, she did it because Prinny forced her to. Because she let that arse pull the wool over her eyes.”

He’d be damned if he’d accept her comparing Maria Fitzherbert’s sacrifice to his mother’s. “And once again, Prinny gets what he wants. But don’t you understand? This is the chance to rid England of him. To make him suffer—”

“For what he did to you and your mother.” Her eyes filled with tears. “Gavin, all you want is vengeance. But wreaking your vengeance would split the country apart.”

“You’re wrong. They’d simply put Prinny’s brother Frederick on the throne, and that would be that.”

“Even if you’re right, and I’m certainly not willing to take that chance, have you even stopped to think what it would do toyou if you take on the Prince of Wales? You’ll be denounced as the man who brought scandal upon the crown for his own purposes—”

“What do I care about that? Nothing they say could be any worse than what’s been said of me before.”

“Yes, but you have a measure of success and respectability now. Will your mother, who takes such pride in how far you’ve come, enjoy watching you be vilified in the press?”

That gave him pause. “She’ll understand,” he said through gritted teeth. “She’ll cheer me.”

“Will she? All the nasty things they said about her will be amplified tenfold. The press will surely find her, too.”

“At least she’d finally get justice.”

A look of sheer desperation swept over her face. “And what about me? And my father?”

“What do you mean?” he said hoarsely.

“I told you before—if the letters are published, Papa could lose his commission. And if he’s arrested for treason—”

“He wouldn’t be arrested, damn it. Even the Whigs who despise Prinny wouldn’t attack a war hero for loyalty to the crown.”

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“Interfering with the line of succession is a treasonous offense, punishable by hanging.” She swallowed.

“You don’t think Prinny would pursue that? And succeed? He might lose his chance to be king, but he’d still be a prince with influence. Papa had been instructed to burn the letters, but he didn’t. So His Highness would have him punished one way or another.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “And me, for telling Philip about them in the first place.”

Gavin ruthlessly ignored the instant punch to his gut that her words delivered. “He couldn’t touchyou, my darling. I wouldn’t let him.” He leaned forward to seize her hands. They were so cold they were like icy fingers of fear squeezing his heart. “As for your father, I wouldn’t let anything happen to him, I swear it. I’m not without influence myself. Between me and my brothers—”

“Brothers?”

Damn. He hadn’t meant to reveal that.

“I know about Lord Draker but—” She broke off, awareness dawning in her face. “Lord Iversley is one of the prince’s by-blows, too, isn’t he? I did wonder at the closeness between the three of you.”

“Yes, and Iversley is an earl, which counts for something. Between the three of us, we can protect your father, and I know I can protect you. I have plenty enough wealth to take care of youand your father. I can’t believe the general would lose his commission, after all his service to his country, but if he did, he could live on my estate. As could you.”

She dropped her gaze from his. “I’m sure Papa would be delighted to live with his daughter and her lover.”

“And if I were your husband? What then?”

He hadn’t meant to say the words, but now that he had, he let them stand. Christabel as his wife. The possibility that he’d sneered at only a couple of weeks ago, had come to seem like a dream. If they married, none of this could touch them—they’d have each other. And then who cared what anyone said? Her face was shadowed with disappointment, and her hands trembled in his. “You are so desperate for those letters that you would make this patently spurious offer?”

“No!” He refused to release her hands when she tried to draw them from his. “It’s not a spurious offer, and it’s certainly not intended to get me the letters. Why not marry me? We could make a good marriage, you and I.”

She lifted a haunted gaze to him. “You and I and your current mistress.”

“No.” He dragged in a weighted breath, hardly able to believe what he was about to say. “I’d be faithful to you.” When she looked skeptical, he added fiercely, “I’d be faithful, I swear it.”

“And to gain this position as your wife, I need only stand by and watch as you betray my country, sentence my father to a life of condemnation—”

“It has nothing to do with us!” he cried.

“It haseverything to do with us,” she hissed. “If you steal those letters to publish them, then you are not a
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man I can marry.”

His eyes narrowed. “You would take the side of that selfish arse—”

“It’s not for him, blast it!” Frustration wracked her face. “Forget, for a moment, what this would mean for His Highness and the country. Forget what it would mean for me and Papa. Consider what it would mean for Cameron.”

He jerked his hands free of hers. “Who the bloody hell is Cameron?”

“Mrs. Fitzherbert’s son. The one those letters concern. He’s spent years believing that an army captain and his wife are his parents. They’ve treated him kindly, given him a loving home. And now you wish to destroy that—”

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but this ‘boy’ is about twenty-two now, is he not?”

“Yes. What of it?”

“I was twelve when I lost my pathetic excuse for a home, and when, for all practical purposes, I lost my mother. Don’t ask me to feel sympathy for some lad who’s had a loving family and comfortable home until now. Because of Prinny’s favor, he probably has fine prospects. Do you know what prospectsI had at twelve?”

“Gavin—”

“Do you know that days after the fire, the blackleg who’d taken me in actually made several appeals to my dear ‘father’? That he told His Bloody Highness I was alone in the world and could use some assistance? And that Prinny ignored every appeal?” Gavin snorted. “Prinny no doubt feared that if he gave me any money, it would be a tacit admission of our connection.”

Gavin’s anger burned in his gut like a hot brand. “And the prince wasn’t about to admit that he’d been, as you put it, a liar and a cheat, that he’d grievously wronged my mother. No, it was much better to ignore the plight of a boy who heknew was his child, to let his mistress’s name continue to be so vilified that she felt she could only help her son by abandoning him.”

Christabel’s face now filled with such pity that he had to look away. “You saw her, lass. Surely you realize how much she suffered from his neglect.” His voice grew hoarse. “Do you know how she got so badly burned?”

“I know she saved you,” she whispered.

“Yes. Late at night, she returned from some piddling job she’d managed to find. When she heard I was still inside, she wrapped herself in a wet rug and came in after me. She found me asleep and couldn’t wake me. Since she couldn’t carry me out while keeping us both wrapped in the rug, she chose to wrap me in the rug and face the flames herself.” The old pain rose to choke him, acrid as the smoke that had clung to his clothes for weeks afterward. “And for her sacrifice, she suffered months of pain, still suffers even today.”

Violently he fought the tears stinging his eyes. He had never let them fall before and wasn’t about to do so now. He could at least be as strong as his mother had been that cruel night.
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His hands balled into fists as he swung his gaze back to Christabel. “If not for His Bloody Highness, she would have been living in some comfortable brick house in a decent part of town where fires didn’t happen with appalling regularity. I wouldn’t have been left alone at night while she slaved at some menial job. She deserves justice for what he did to her, and I mean to get it for her.”

“But she doesn’t want justice,” Christabel protested. “Whatever hatred she felt for him is long gone. You’ve got to put that part of your life behind you, and getting vengeance won’t do that.”

“It might. How can Inot avenge her, when every time I look at her face—”

“She’s happy, Gavin. Can’t you see that? If you do this, do you really think it would improve your life? And what about your brothers? I take it they don’t share the same difficult relationship with the prince as you do—will they be pleased to watch you destroy His Highness’s chance at being king?”

“If they aren’t, they ought to be,” he growled.

“And me?” she whispered. “You know howI feel about it. I can’t just stand by and watch while you destroy everything I’ve worked for, no matter how much I love you.”

Love. The word dangled between them, a glittering promise. With other women, he’d only seen it as a signal that a pleasant affair was about to turn into a prison. But with her, it was an invitation to a life he’d never expected to want. A life he began to think he might want after all. And that terrified him. Because it meant he would have to be a different man. Marrying her was one thing—it was practical, even sensible. Butloving her? Bloody hell. “Don’t say that,” he rasped. She paled. “What? That I love you? I can’t help it. It’s true.”

Panic swelling in him, he tore his gaze from her. “It’s not. What you think you love is an illusion. Meeting my mother put some notion in your head that I’m noble and unselfish and all those damned things you admire. But I’m not. I only survived those years of poverty by beating my conscience into silence and trampling my heart.”

“But you don’t have to do that anymore. You have a successful business and friends and family—”

“The point is, it’s done. I can’t regain what I lost, Christabel. This is all that’s left, this…this creature of will with no heart, no conscience. If you can accept that, then we can probably have a decent marriage. But if you want more, then I can’t be what you want. I’m the man with no soul, remember?”

“I don’t believe that.” She caught his chin, forcing him to look at her. “I’ve seen you be kind to your servants and generous to card cheats and fierce in the defense of those you love. If that’s not a man with a soul, I don’t know what is.”

The love shining in her eyes was so bright, it hung before him like a palpable temptation. But to live up to her belief in him, he’d have to give up his chance to make Prinny pay. And he couldn’t. He simply couldn’t.

“See what you want to see, but that makes it no less an illusion.” Tearing his gaze from hers, he said in a hollow voice, “I’ve never before let talk of love override my reason. I’m not about to do so now.”

The low moan she gave, like that of a wounded beast, cut him so to the heart that he nearly wished the
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words back. But if they were to have any sort of future, she would have to realize what he was.

“You mean to publish the letters, if you find them,” she whispered.

“I mean to use them however I can to strike at Prinny.”

“I can’t allow that,” she said in a small voice. “So I’m afraid that from now on, we must part ways.”

His heart thundering, he shifted to stare at her. “What do you mean?”

“I’ll look for the letters alone. And I can no longer…share your bed.”

An unreasoning rage seized him. “My other mistresses have tried to manipulate me by withholding their favors, my sweet. It has never worked before, and it won’t work now.”

The hurt in her face made a hard knot fist in his gut. “I’m not trying to manipulate you. I’m simply telling you that I can’t bear to stand by and watch while you bring the world down about your ears. And that means I can’t bear to share your bed. It would be too painful.”

“Fine,” he snapped, his rage so murderous that he feared what he’d do if he stayed there a moment longer. He knocked on the ceiling. “Driver! Stop the coach.”

“What on earth are you doing?” she said, her face showing alarm. As the coach shuddered to a halt, he reached for the door. “Since you can’t bear my presence,” he said snidely, “I’ll ride the rest of the way up top.”

He leaped out, then paused to glare at her, his hand still on the handle. “But good luck finding those letters without me. Or should I say, finding thembefore I do. Because I mean to get my hands on them one way or the other.”

Chapter Twenty-One

Some lovers never give up.

—Anonymous,Memoirs of a Mistress

One way or the other.

For the hundredth time in two days, Christabel wondered what Gavin had meant. Did he plan to bargain with Lord Stokely for the letters? The two men were at cross-purposes, so she doubted that would work. Lord Stokely didn’t really want to publish them—he wanted to marry the princess. Whereas Gavin definitely wanted to publish them to prevent His Highness from gaining the throne. A lump settled in her throat. He would never understand, never be able to see past his vengeance. She’d gambled and lost.

Yet she didn’t regret telling him everything. At least now, if he found them before she did, he might think before he acted. He might remember what she’d said, let it break through his wall of anger.

“Cut the cards, Lady Haversham,” said a taut voice across from her.
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She looked up to find Gavin and the other players watching her. Forcing her attention to the game, she cut the cards and pushed them back at Gavin, who began to deal. Despite everything, he’d chosen her as his partner. He’d given her no chance to protest or choose someone else—after their return from Bath, he’d simply announced before the assembly that he and she would be partners.