Ransom Redeemed (15 page)

Struggling against the potent sadness that seemed to have found a violent grip on her heart that night, she brought her mind back to the present. To Ransom Deverell— an effective, colorful, and noisy distraction for which she was grateful. She whispered his name to herself a few times and found that, after a while, it began to sound like "Handsome Devil." Very fitting.

Oh, pork chops with apple sauce and possibly a pudding! Almost as tempting as the man who offered them. Alas, the sacrifices one must make for the good of one's impressionable younger sister.

Chapter Thirteen

"But I do not want to marry your brother." Lady Stanbury's blue eyes gleamed briefly with cool amusement. "Why would I leave my wealthy husband and settled life for scandal, exile, and uncertainty with a twenty-four-year-old, restless, unpredictable boy?"

Ransom felt something sinking in his chest, leaving a hollow. Ah, he should have realized, but Damon had seemed so certain. "He has not mentioned marriage to you?"

"Certainly not. We never spoke of such a thing."

"But my brother is under the impression that you want a divorce from your husband, madam. He's making plans for a new life with you and the child."

She laughed curtly. "Then he should have consulted me instead of you. I certainly never encouraged such an idea. What can he be thinking?"

Elizabeth Stanbury was a handsome woman with sharp features, ivory skin and a long, swan-like neck. Everything about her was slender— willowy he supposed was the right word—and perfectly arranged. Even the ringlets on each side of her face were identically balanced. He could see what had attracted his brother Damon, who always sought the prettiest, fastest, most expensive and newest— whatever he thought others would say he shouldn't, or couldn't have. Especially if somebody told him he was not entitled to it, being only a bastard Deverell.

But Ransom could also see that this well-maintained lady was not likely to throw herself whole-heartedly into a love affair that meant abandoning her status in life. She was far too composed and orderly, a woman with everything she wanted.

Almost everything, apparently.

"I am thirty-four," she said, "and my child-bearing years are not infinite. After eight years of marriage my husband had begun to despair of producing an heir, but now at last he will have one."

"You've told your husband about the child then?"

"Of course. He is overjoyed. We both are. It is a miracle."

He stared. "Madam, if you imagine Damon will give up his child, and sit quietly by to see it raised by another, you must not know him very well at all."

"What would your brother want with a child?" she scoffed. "He is not much more than one himself."

Ransom studied her through narrowed eyes, his anger and disgust quickly mounting. The longer she talked the less attractive her face became. Miss Ashford's calm, quiet poise, even in much less fashionable attire and lacking a few of those willowy inches, was more pleasing to the eye. "Yet Damon was old enough to share your bed."

She did not blink or blush, merely kept her glassy gaze fixed to his, unashamed. There was a hint of weariness in her tone now when she replied, "Every marriage encounters a difficult patch occasionally. Boredom sets in. Wives, as well as husbands, have been known to seek recreation outside the marital bed. In some cases an affair can rejuvenate a tired marriage."

"So my brother relieved your ennui. I don't believe he realized that was his sole purpose. From the way he spoke to me, he thought a great deal more of the affair and of you. He thinks he's in love, madam."

"Love? Surely
you
do not believe in that any more than I do?" she sneered. "Your reputation precedes you, Ransom Deverell."

"Yes. I am irredeemable. My younger brother, on the other hand, is an optimist and something of a romantic. Life has not yet crushed that out of him. Not quite."

"Then perhaps this will stand as a lesson for which he will thank me later."

Suddenly the room felt very cold. He had instructed Smith not to bother lighting a fire in the study because he didn't intend to make Lady Elizabeth feel too welcome, and he seldom used this room anyway — most of his business matters were taken care of at the club. But now the chill crept into his bones and he wished they did have a fire. It was almost as if this woman emitted her own frost.

Ransom's mind flashed to an image of Miss Flora Pridemore, smug and spiteful— his own uncomfortable lesson in the cruelties of mercenary female cunning. He wished he could have spared his brother that pain. Now he understood the frustration his father must have felt as he watched his sons making these mistakes. A litter of young men all insistent on finding out for themselves. All thinking they knew better than the man who came before them.

"I cannot be held responsible for any expectation or misunderstanding on your brother's behalf," the woman added. "I never led him to think there could be anything more between us."

Now she reminded him of how he had ended his affair with Belle Saint Clair. Christ, he had been an ass. Perhaps he had wanted her to find those other women in his bed. He thought he had forgotten the date of her return from France, but it was possible that somewhere, in the depths of his mind, he had known that she was becoming too possessive, outstaying her welcome. He took the easy path out, like a coward.

"So you have no feelings for my brother at all," he muttered. "He was merely a plaything to break the monotony of your life."

"Yes, he made a change from my husband's inattention, and I was thankful for the diversion. Damon was a very good lover...although rather too demanding of my time and too often in a jealous temper. But I'm afraid he overestimated his place in my life if he thought this was
love
."

He turned away, one hand on the back of his neck. Suddenly he caught his reflection in the mirror above the dark fire place. Was that him? He did look tired. There were more creases across his brow than he remembered the last time he looked.

Maybe his mother was right and he did need to get away from town, but how could he when he had so much to do? Besides, he much preferred London, the noise, the activity and the crowds. The country was too quiet. Like a silenced scream.

His head began to feel tight and heavy when he thought of what he must say to Damon. The boy was not going to take this well at all.

He rubbed a hand along his jaw where it ached from grinding his teeth. "Why did you tell him about the baby? Now he knows, it's going to be much harder on him. You should not have told him."

"Yes, I rather regret that, but I was indisposed one morning in his company and he guessed the cause before I did." There was not a quiver of guilt or pity on her face. If he stuck her with a pin he suspected she wouldn't move. "Soon I leave for Kent. I will spend my confinement there. I do not want your brother to follow, or try to see me. That's why I agreed to come here and meet with you."

Meanwhile, Damon was making plans to take a second job and become a doting family man. If Ransom didn't care so much for his half-brother, it might have been amusing. But there was nothing humorous about the way this would all end. He always knew it was a mistake to care, of course, but he couldn't prevent it. The devil knew he'd tried.

"What if your husband finds out that the child you carry is not his?"

She drew herself even taller, as if to face a firing squad, and said firmly, "I have never said it is not my husband's child." Again her eyes were coolly superior, daring him to argue.

There was a pause. He thought he could see the breath in front of his mouth. "I see." So that was the way she meant to play her game. "Damon will be very angry when he learns that you have used him."

She opened the small, beaded reticule that dangled on a string from her thin wrist. "You can persuade him against any nonsense. I have seen him talk of you, and I know how he looks up to you. Give him this if it will help." Holding out a folded bank cheque, she added, "This should be a satisfactory fee for any inconvenience he might suffer."

Rather than take the note, he put his hands into the pockets of his riding breeches. That was better, get some warmth back in his fingers. "Inconvenience, madam?"

"Of giving up any foolish claim he might try to make."

"Damon is certain he sired your child, and he won't be persuaded otherwise."

"That's a pity," she snapped, "because if I say the child is not his he has no evidence to the contrary."

Ransom nodded his head at the bank note in her hand. "That looks like a stud fee to me, madam. Proof enough, surely."

She stuffed the note back into her reticule, drawing the string tightly closed. "Very well then. Perhaps you're right and to go away will be enough. But I want you to make it clear to your brother that this is over with. It is done. I do not want to hear from him again."

"Would that not be better coming directly from you, madam?"

"I have tried." Her shoulders softened, rounding almost imperceptibly. For the first and only time, he saw a glimmer of sadness in her pale eyes, although whether she felt it for Damon or herself was debatable. "But I found it challenging to be firm. He can be...persuasive."

Ransom shook his head.

"I am told all Deverells are the same," she added. "It was a mistake to become involved with one."

"But now you bring another one of us into the world."

The woman looked down at herself only briefly, her pale lashes sweeping quickly back up again. "This child is a Stanbury, heir to a title and an estate, not the offspring of a bastard Deverell."

She was lying; he was sure of it. Lying to the tips of her ice-blonde hair.

Now, however, the visit was ended. Like a grand empress who had benevolently granted
him
an audience, she slipped back into her cloak and fastened the frog clasps at her throat. With a cold, distant smile, she said suddenly, "Was that not Mary Ashford I saw leaving as I arrived? Mary Ashford once of Allacott Manor in Somersetshire?"

He pulled his hands from his pockets. "No. It was a basket of cabbages."

She squinted. "It was Mary Ashford. I am certain. What on earth was she doing here with you?"

"I daresay she wondered the same of you, madam."

"Gracious, I did not expect to see Mary in this part of town," she sneered, pulling up her hood. "The years have not been kind to her. I can see why she did not want to admit I knew her."

Ransom thought of the way Mary had bowed her head and hurried into the Hansom cab. "Perhaps she did not want to admit she knew
you
, madam. She may have thought to spare you the embarrassment of being seen and recognized at my door. Miss Ashford strikes me as the rare sort who worries more about the comfort and well-being of other people than she does about herself." He knew that about her already. Indeed, he felt as if he'd known her forever. "Very different to dark, jaded, selfish souls like you and I."

Lady Stanbury's features, briefly amused by Mary Ashford's plight, snapped back into rigid hauteur. "I came to see you at Damon's insistence, but I desire no further connection with your family. Keep your brother away from me. For his own good."

Ah, one more unsavory task dropped into his hands. Why not?

Eager to see the back of her as soon as possible, he rang for Smith to show her out and then poured himself a large glass of brandy. Something to warm him up.

If only Miss Ashford had stayed. Her wry honesty would have been a very welcome respite, something to make him smile— better even than brandy. But no, she wouldn't stay. Now he was alone with his demons until he got to the club later tonight.

Just how was he going to break this news to Damon?

It seemed to have been a year of trouble for the Deverell men when it came to women and he, for one, would be glad to see it draw to an end. Perhaps, in the new year, he could make a resolution to fast, giving up his favorite pastime.

Hmph. He swigged his glass of brandy. Sudden chastity? Good luck with that.

Besides, any such effort on his behalf —unlikely as it was to meet success—would not keep his brothers out of similar turmoil.

This past summer, Damon's elder brother, Naval Captain Justify Deverell, who was usually the epitome of good sense and propriety— at least by the standards of their family— had, for some god-forsaken reason, purchased an Indian woman at an illegal "Wife Sale". Although Justify would never admit it, Ransom suspected his half-brother had been as drunk as any self-respecting sailor on shore leave should be. But since Justify was required to sail off again soon after the sale, this pretty purchase had been left in Ransom's hands to manage too.

Of course, their father had yet to be informed of the curious acquisition, for if there was one thing he wanted it was for his sons to choose a bride wisely. It was highly unlikely that, even with his dark sense of humor, True Deverell would consider a woman purchased from her previous husband for six pounds, and who could neither speak nor understand English, to be a wise choice.

Ransom had been called upon to help find lodgings and respectable employment for the newest Mrs. Deverell, while Justify returned to his command at sea. Meanwhile, he was expected to keep all this a secret from the rest of the family, until Justify found— as he called it— "a perfect opportunity to break the news gently to our father".

"Best of fortune in that endeavor," Ransom had said to his brother when they parted company.

Best of fortune in that endeavor.
It might as well be the Deverell motto when it came to women.

Distracted by these troubles that had been put into his hands, he found he had no appetite for dinner after all. No desire to eat all alone at that long table. Instead he decided to leave early for the club. Perhaps he'd send for Damon tonight and break the news. The sooner he got it over with, the better, as a certain lady would advise.