Only a Kiss (26 page)

Sometimes, even in the privacy of his own mind, he could embarrass himself horribly. He ought to write the story and have it published by the Minerva Press—under his own name.

But there
was
something anticlimactic about this less glorious end to the business, satisfactory though it was in all essential ways. They had undoubtedly got the leaders. Ratchett, when confronted again, would find himself unable to maintain any pretense of innocence in light of his great-nephew’s confession and the evidence of the books that had been found. It did not necessarily mean that smuggling would stop in the area for all time, but it did mean he could control it on his own land, and it would be considerably weakened elsewhere if it did somehow survive.

Imogen was safe, though he would still not want her to be alone for a while yet. Not until the trials had taken place and the main players—including any who had not yet been apprehended—were behind bars for good and the sensation of it all had died down.

He felt sad that the murder of the valet, Cooper, had gone unavenged for so long and that now the decision had been made to offer Mawgan a conditional amnesty on that charge given his confession about everything else. But the decision had not been his to make. And it had worked. If Mawgan and Ratchett were not ultimately charged as accessories to the murder of Richard Hayes, Viscount Barclay, though, he would want to know why.

At the moment it was no longer his business.

And tomorrow there was a ball for which to prepare himself.

Life was an odd business.

*   *   *

Imogen was feeling as flat as a pancake, if that was a suitable image to describe the empty feeling inside she had not been able to shake since yesterday. Mr. Ratchett and James Mawgan were in custody, as well as Mr. Tidmouth, and both Percy and Sir Matthew were confident that the smuggling trade would collapse without them. There had been a few more arrests too of men high in the ranks of the gang whom James Mawgan had named, and there were others to be pursued for criminal actions that could not be ignored—the men who had broken Colin Bains’s legs, for example. But beyond that there was to be no witch hunt for the rank and file, for those who had done the smuggling work either for a little extra money or because they had had no choice. Such men were unlikely to reorganize without their leaders.

She ought to be happy, Imogen told herself as she dressed for the ball. Everyone had been exuberant yesterday when Percy returned from the village with his news. There had been cheers and laughter and even champagne. All the ladies and female cousins as well as Tilly, who had been visiting at the time, had hugged Imogen and even kissed her. Two of the uncles had hugged her too.

And so had Percy.

She did not believe he had intended to do so, but his mother had just been hugging her and had turned to lay a hand on his arm. And somehow his arms came about Imogen and hers about him and they had held each other more tightly and for a little longer than they ought. He had not kissed her, but he had raised his head and gazed deeply into her eyes for a few moments before releasing her.

Everyone around them had been beaming. His mother had had her hands clasped to her bosom and tears in her eyes. Imogen had moved away to bend over Cousin Adelaide’s chair and smile at her and kiss her cheek. Then she had patted the head of Bruce, who had exerted himself sufficiently to lumber to his feet and come sniffing at her skirts.

Everyone, without exception, had advised her for her own safety not to move back to the dower house until after she returned from Penderris Hall at the end of the month. She had, though, released Mrs. Hayes’s maid last night to sleep in her own room again.

But the maid had returned this evening, on the strict instructions of Mrs. Hayes, to dress Imogen’s hair for the ball. Smooth and elegant would simply not do, it seemed. There had to be at least
some
swirls and curls and a few wavy wisps to trail along her neck and over her temples.

She was wearing a high-waisted, low-bosomed gown of ivory satin overlaid with a tunic of dull gold netting, which she had bought in London a couple of years ago and worn only twice there. It had always seemed too grand for the country. But tonight was a special occasion. The house was almost unrecognizable what with all the gleaming surfaces and sparkling chandeliers and the banks of spring flowers everywhere. And, flat as Imogen’s spirits were, she must rise to the occasion. It was Percy’s thirtieth birthday party, for which an impressive number of his family and friends had traveled long distances and at which all the neighbors from a wider radius than just Porthmare and its environs were to assemble to welcome the Earl of Hardford home at last.

She looked well enough, she thought as the maid clasped her pearls about her neck and she looked at herself in the pier glass. The colors were a bit muted, perhaps, but with the addition of a smile . . .

She smiled.

“Thank you, Marie,” she said. “You have done wonders.”

“It is easy to do wonders with you, my lady,” the maid said, curtsying before she withdrew.

Imogen celebrated with deliberate intent for the whole long evening—
almost
the whole of it. She smiled and danced with a different partner each time. She danced the first waltz with Mr. Alton, the second with an elegant gentleman she scarcely recognized since he lived twenty miles away and they agreed it must be two years since they last met. And at supper, for which meal she sat with Viscount Marwood and Mr. Welby and Beth, a betrothal announcement was made. It took everyone by surprise, except perhaps those most nearly concerned. Mrs. Meredith Wilkes, Mr. Wenzel announced, looking decidedly red in the face, had just made him the happiest of men.

After a two-week courtship! But Meredith, also blushing, looked as if
she
was the happiest of women.

The larger family celebrated in its usual way with exclamations of delight and general hugs and kisses.

“But Tilly,” Imogen said, suddenly stricken as she hugged her friend, “what will happen to you?”

“Well,” Tilly told her with a smile, “I do like Meredith very well indeed, even though I hoped not so long ago that perhaps it was
you
who would be my sister-in-law. You have brighter prospects, however, and Andrew is happier than I have ever seen him. I believe Meredith likes me too. But I am not without hopes of my own, Imogen. My aunt Armitage wants me to go to London for the Season to keep her company now that all her daughters have flown the nest. She claims to have a whole regiment—her word—of eligible gentlemen awaiting my inspection. Perhaps I will be spoiled for choice if I go, and I believe I will. Go, that is.” Her eyes twinkled.

Tilly was twenty-eight years old. She had a trim figure and an open, pleasing face, even if it was not ravishingly pretty. She also had a pleasant disposition and a tendency to see the humor in most situations.

And then Mrs. Hayes hugged Imogen.

“Well,” she said, “I could not be more delighted by the announcement. Meredith lost her husband even before Geoffrey was born and before she turned twenty. She deserves happiness. But I must confess that I could be
as
happy with another such announcement. I suppose Percy has developed cold feet, the provoking man. But give him time. They will warm up, and it seems to me they are well on their way to doing so.”

She laughed merrily as she turned to offer her congratulations to Mr. Wenzel.

And then, with supper over at last and everyone returned to the ballroom, Percy came to solicit Imogen’s hand for what was to be an energetic set of country dances. He did not lead her onto the floor, however.

“Go and fetch your cloak,” he said. “Please?”

She hesitated. She did not want to be alone with him. She did not even want to dance with him. She had been telling herself all day that there was just today to live through and tomorrow and then she would be on her way to Penderris. She would find out somehow before the end of the month if he was still here and make other plans for herself if he was.

Just today and tomorrow.

She went to fetch her cloak and gloves. She pulled on a bonnet even though it was likely to ruin her hairdo.

They strolled out across the lawn in the direction of the cliffs, not touching, not talking. The sky was clear and bright with moonlight and starlight. The sound of music and voices and laughter spilled from the house even though the ballroom was at the back. The sounds merely accentuated the quietness of the outdoors and the silence between them.

“You have become marble again,” he said. “
Smiling
marble.”

“I am grateful for all you had the courage to do,” she told him. “Not just for me but for everyone here and in the neighborhood. And I am happy for you that so many of your family and friends and neighbors have come to celebrate with you tonight. It has been a lovely ball. It will be remembered for a long time.”

He said that word again—quite distinctly and unapologetically. He came to an abrupt halt, and Imogen stopped a couple of paces ahead of him.

“I do not want your gratitude, Imogen,” he said. “I want your
love
.”

“I am fond of you,” she said.

He spoke that word yet again.

“You see,” he said, “I have been spoiled all my life. I have always been given just what I want. I become petulant when I do not get it. It is time I changed, is it not? And I
will
change. But why should I change on this? Help me. Look me in the eye and tell me you do not love me. But tell the truth. Only the truth. Tell me, Imogen, and I will go away and never return. You have my solemn promise on it.”

She drew a slow breath and sighed it out. “I cannot marry you, Percy,” she said.

“That is not what I asked you,” he told her. “Tell me you do not love me.”

“Love has nothing to do with it,” she said.

“Should that not be
everything
?” he asked her. “Love has
everything
to do with it.”

She said nothing.

“Tell me,” he said softly. “Help me to understand. There is a gap, a huge yawning hole in the story you told me. It is a hole filled with horror and part of me does not want to know. But I must know if I am to understand. I will not be able to live with this unless I understand. Tell me.”

And so she did.

But as she drew breath to speak, she lost control of her voice, and she yelled the words at him.

“I killed him!”
she shouted at him. And then she stood panting for a minute before she could go on. “Do you understand now?
I killed my husband.
I took a gun and I shot him between the eyes. It was quite deliberate. My father taught me to shoot despite the disapproval of my mother. He taught my brother and me, and soon I could shoot better than either of them. And when I used to come here, I would shoot with Dicky—always at a target, of course, never at anything living. And more often than not, I could outshoot him.” She paused for a great, heaving breath. “
I shot him.
I killed him.”

She was panting for breath. Her body pulsed with pins and needles from her head to her feet.

He was motionless and staring at her.

“Now ask me to marry you,” she said. “Ask me to tell you that I love you. Do you understand now? I do not deserve to
live,
Percy. I am breathing and existing as a penance. It is my punishment, to go on year after year, knowing what I did. I expected to die with him, but it did not happen. So I have to be made to suffer, and I have accepted that.” She paused a moment to calm her breathing. “I did a terrible thing almost two weeks ago. I decided to give myself a holiday for what I expected to be a brief sensual fling. I had no intention of involving your feelings and hurting you. That I did both is fitting for me. I deserve that extra burden of guilt and misery. But for you? Go away from here, Percy, and find someone worthy of your love. And then come back if you will, for this is your home now. I will go from here. You will never see me again.”

He was still standing like a statue, his head slightly bent forward, hat low over his brow, hiding his face from her eyes.

“I killed Dicky,” she said, her voice dull now. “I killed my husband, my dearest friend in the world.”

And she walked away, back in the direction of the house.

“Imogen—” he called after her, his voice desolate, full of pain.

But she did not stop.

P
ercy was convinced that going back to the ballroom—smiling, mingling, talking, dancing—was the hardest thing he had done in his life. And it was not made easier when his mother and then Lady Lavinia and Miss Wenzel and several other people asked what had happened to Imogen and he had to tell them that she was tired and had gone to bed. He was not sure if any of them believed him. Probably not. Doubtless not, in fact.

“Oh,
Percival!
” was all his mother said, but her facial expression spoke volumes of reproach. And she only ever called him by his full name when she was exasperated with him.

Getting up the next morning to be cheerful and hospitable all over again with his family and friends and the few neighbors from more distant parts who had stayed for the night was further torture, especially after a largely sleepless night. He had stood outside Imogen’s room for perhaps fifteen minutes at some wee hour of the morning, his hand an inch from the knob of the door, which may or may not have been locked. He had returned to his own room without putting the matter to the test.

She did not come down for breakfast. He wondered if she would come down at all. Perhaps she was watching from her window, waiting for him to leave the house before putting in an appearance herself. He obliged her after he had seen all the overnight guests on their way. He went riding with Sidney and Arnold and a group of cousins. And no, he told Beth when she asked, he had not seen Cousin Imogen today. She was probably tired after last night.

It was only when luncheon was announced much later that Lady Lavinia decided she should go up and see if Imogen was perhaps indisposed. It was unlike her not to be up early in the morning even after a late night—and she had gone to bed before the end of the ball.

She was not there. A note was, however, pinned to her pillow and addressed to her aunt—who read it aloud when she returned to the dining room.

Do not be concerned about me,
she had written after the opening greeting.
I have decided to leave early for Penderris Hall. I shall write when I arrive there. Please convey my apologies to Lord Hardford and his family for not taking a proper leave of them. It has been a pleasure to make their acquaintance.

An hour later they were all—with the exception of Percy—still buzzing over the strangeness of Cousin Imogen’s sudden departure, two days earlier than planned. A search of her room had convinced her aunt that she had taken almost nothing with her—only, perhaps, a small valise and whatever it would have held. All the carriages and horses were accounted for in the carriage house and stables. How had she left Hardford? On
foot
?

That was exactly how she had left, as it turned out. No sooner had they all finished luncheon than Wenzel and his sister were announced.

“We have just returned from a short journey,” Wenzel explained after some opening greetings and a smile for his betrothed, “and thought it best to come straight here. Tilly and I arrived home from the ball last night to discover Lady Barclay sitting on our doorstep—she did not want to wake the servants by knocking on the door. She had hoped to wait at the inn for the stagecoach, but all the doors there were locked for the night. She asked if she might stay with us until the early coach was due. I did not think it appropriate for her to travel on the common stage, and Tilly backed me up when I told her so.”

“We offered to take her to Penderris Hall,” Miss Wenzel said, “or at least to send her in our carriage, but she would not hear of putting us to so much inconvenience. The best we could do was to persuade her to travel post and then take her to the posting house in Meirion. We did that this morning and have just returned from seeing her on her way. She will be quite safe, Lady Lavinia, though she flatly refused to take my maid with her. And she has only one small bag of belongings.”

“I will see that a trunk is sent after her,” Percy said, and found Miss Wenzel’s eyes resting thoughtfully upon him.

“I daresay,” she said, “
you
may know what this is all about, my lord. Imogen was not saying.”

It was what everyone was thinking, of course, and had been thinking ever since he walked back into that infernal ballroom alone last night. Everyone’s attention was suddenly riveted upon him. The air fairly pulsed with expectant silence.

But it was not the time for charm or easy social converse. Or lies. Or the truth.

Percy turned and left the room, shutting the door firmly behind him.

I killed him! Do you understand now? I killed my husband. I took a gun and I shot him between the eyes. It was quite deliberate.

And the devil of it was, he believed her.

And in doing so, he had plunged deep into the very heart of darkness with her—a place he had been at great pains all his life to avoid.

I killed him.

*   *   *

Imogen arrived two days early at Penderris, and she had come by post chaise, alone, with only one small bag. Nevertheless, George, Duke of Stanbrook, did not bat an eyelash. He must have seen the chaise coming and was out on the terrace waiting to hand her down.

“Imogen, my dear,” he said. “How delightful!”

But then he took a penetrating look at her and drew her all the way into his arms and held her tightly.

She did not know how long they stood like that or what happened to the chaise. The tension gradually eased out of her body as she breathed in the scent of him and of home—or what had been a safe haven of a home for three years and was still her refuge and strength.

He took her hand on his arm when she finally stepped back and led her inside, talking easily to her just as if her early arrival and the manner of it were not quite untoward. He talked to her in a similar manner for the rest of the day and all of the next, until Hugo and Lady Trentham arrived halfway through the afternoon, also early. They had set off from home a day before they needed to, Gwen, Lady Trentham, explained, all smiles and cheerfulness, because they thought perhaps they would need to travel by easier stages than usual with the baby. They had been wrong, however, and here they were.

Hugo, large and imposing and as severe looking as ever with his close-cropped hair and tendency to frown, slapped George on the shoulder and pumped his hand while declaring that he was now the slave of
two
females. “A more than willing slave, though, I make haste to add,” he said as he turned. “You have arrived even earlier than us, Imogen? That makes me feel better.”

And he beamed at her and opened his arms and then stopped and frowned and tilted his head to one side. “Come and be hugged, then, lass,” he said more gently, and once more she was enfolded in safety.

But there was Gwen to be hugged too and Baby Melody Emes to be admired—her nurse was just carrying her inside and Hugo was taking her between his huge hands, fairly bursting with pride.

The others arrived the following day. Ben and Samantha, Lady Harper, came first, from Wales. Ben walked into the house and up the stairs with his two canes, but he propelled himself about much of the time after that in a wheeled chair, having decided that it was not an admission of defeat but rather a moving forward into a new, differently active phase of his life.

Ralph arrived next with his very red-haired duchess, whom Imogen had not met before and who begged to be called Chloe. Imogen had not seen Ralph either since he inherited the dukedom on the death of his grandfather last year. His face was still badly scarred from a war wound, but there was a new serenity in his face.

Vincent came with Sophia, Lady Darleigh, and their son, and as usual it was hard to remember he could not see, he moved about so easily, especially with the help of his dog. Flavian came last with Agnes, Lady Ponsonby, and the announcement almost as soon as they stepped through the door that he was expecting to be a father within the next six or seven months and they must be very gentle with him because it was all a strain upon his nerves. And he spoke, Imogen was interested to note, with very little of the stammer that had stubbornly stayed with him even after he had recovered most of his faculties after his head injuries healed.

“In that case, Flave,” Ralph said, “then I need gentle handling too. Never mind Chloe. She is made of sterner stuff.”

And they exchanged shoulder slaps and grinned at each other in a male, self-satisfied, slightly sheepish way.

All of them—except Vincent—looked with narrow-eyed closeness at Imogen before hugging her. All of them hugged her more tightly than usual and looked into her eyes again before being caught up in the general hubbub of greetings. And even Vincent, after he had hugged her, gazed into her eyes—he had an uncanny knack of doing that—and spoke softly.

“Imogen?”

But she merely kissed his cheek and turned to hug Sophia and exclaim over how much Thomas, their one-year-old, had grown.

Two days passed and two nights, during which the seven of them sat up late, as they invariably did during these weeks, talking more deeply from the heart than they had all day.

On the first night Vincent reported that his panic attacks came far less frequently as time went on. Just sometimes it came over him, the realization that his blindness was not a temporary thing from which he would eventually recover, but a life sentence.

“I will never see again,” he said. “I will never see my wife or Thomas. I will never see the new babe when it arrives—ah, I was not supposed to mention that there is another on the way because it is not quite certain yet. I shall have to confess to Sophie when I go up to bed. But why is it that though I accepted my condition long ago and have a marvelously blessed life and rarely even think about being blind, it can suddenly hit me like a giant club as though I were only just noticing?”

“The trouble is, Vince,” Hugo said, reaching across Imogen on the sofa the three of them shared to pat his knee, “that most of the time
we
do not notice either.”

“Vince is
blind
?” Flavian said. “Is
that
why he walks into d-doors from time to time?”

On the second night, George admitted that he still had the dreams in which he thought of just the right words to speak to his wife to stop her jumping off the cliff and was close enough to catch her hand in his and pull her back from the edge—but always the words and the hand were just too late. In reality, though he had seen it happen, he had been too far away to save her.

Imogen had hardly spoken since her arrival except in purely sociable platitudes. Indeed, she had talked more with the wives than with her friends. But on the third night no one had much to say. It happened that way sometimes. Their lives were not always brimming over with problems and difficulties. Indeed, five of them at least seemed remarkably contented with their lives, even happy. And three of them—oh, goodness,
three
—were expectant fathers. Their future reunions were going to be very different. Even this year there was Thomas toddling about and jabbering in a language even his mother and father did not understand, though Hugo offered some marvelous interpretations as he tickled his daughter under the chin to see her wide, toothless smile.

Now on the third night, Imogen drew an audible breath during a longish, companionable silence and closed her eyes. “I told him,” she blurted out.

The silence took on an element of incomprehension.

But of course, they knew nothing. She had told them nothing. It seemed incredible to her that they did not
know
all that had been so central to her life for longer than a month.

“The Earl of Hardford,” she explained. “He came to Hardford early last month. He— I— We—”

Hugo, seated next to her again, took her hand and drew it firmly through his arm before covering it with his own. Vincent on her other side patted her thigh and then gripped it.

“I told him my story,” she said. “But he was not satisfied. He knew there was something missing and he asked again. It was the night before I came here. It was impossible not to tell him. So I did.”

She tipped back her head, her eyes still closed—and the back of her head bumped against Flavian’s chest. He had come up behind her, and his hands came to rest on her shoulders. Her free hand was suddenly in a strong grip. Ralph was down on his haunches in front of her.

And she realized she was wailing, a high, keening sound that did not seem to be issuing from her but must be.

George’s voice was calm and soft—ah, what memories it evoked!

“
What
did you tell him, Imogen?” he asked.

“That I k-k-killed Dicky,” she wailed.

“And what else?”

“What else is there to tell?” She hardly recognized her own voice. “There
is
nothing else. In the whole wide world, there is only that. I killed him.”

“Imogen.” It was Ben’s voice this time. “There is a great deal more than just that.”

“No, there is n-n-not,” she said, shaking her head from side to side. “There is
only
that.”

From behind her, Flavian cupped her jaw in his hands.

“One must ask,” he said with his sighing, rather bored voice—it was deliberate, she thought, to try to soothe her with normality. “Does this Hardford fellow
love
you, perchance, Imogen? Or does he merely like to play heavy-handed lord of the manor?”

She opened her eyes and lifted her head. “It does not matter,” she said. “Oh, but he is not heavy-handed or dictatorial or obnoxious, though I thought he was at first.”

“And do you perchance love
him
?” Flavian asked.

“I cannot,” she said, drawing her hands free of Ralph’s and Hugo’s arms and setting the heels of them against her eyes. “I
will
not. You all know that.”

Ralph and Flavian resumed their seats. Hugo set an arm about her shoulders and drew her head down onto his shoulder.

“Why are you so upset?” he asked. “I mean, why are you
so
upset?”

“Someone else betrayed him,” she said. “Dicky, I mean. He was never meant to come home alive from the Peninsula. Someone betrayed him to the French.”