Summerset Abbey (30 page)

“It is difficult to believe,” Esther admitted. “At least, of Charles, anyway. He just doesn’t seem the seducer/deceiver type. Who told you about it?”

“James Laughton—an unimpeachable source, wouldn’t you agree?” Imogen’s short laugh was without humor.

“James?” Esther frowned. “But he’s one of Charles’s closest friends.”

“He didn’t tell me deliberately. We were talking at the Beaumonts’ party last night and he let something slip about seeing Charles with Mrs. Dorothea Symonds and her son at the races the previous weekend.” She straightened from the fire and turned to face her sister. “Charles wanted me to go to the races, but I wanted to hear Millicent Fawcett. She was speaking about women’s suffrage in a church hall in Kensington. Charles was annoyed,” she added, turning back to the fire and viciously plying the poker again.

Esther nodded. Millicent Fawcett, the secretary for the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies, was Imogen’s heroine, and she went to hear her whenever she could. “Do you think he invited his mistress because he was annoyed?”

“I’d like to think that, but Charles is not petty, whatever else he may be,” Imogen said. “Anyway, when I asked James who Mrs. Symonds was, as I’d never heard her name before, he got all flustered—you know how James gets when he’s wrong-footed, all red-faced and blustery—which seemed a strange reaction to an innocent inquiry, so of course I made him tell me more. He flipped and flapped about, muttering that it was all quite ordinary and nothing to make a fuss about, and he was sure the affair was all over, although there was the child to consider, and . . . well . . . that was it, really.” Imogen shrugged and sat down on an armless chair beside the fire, her long fingers restlessly tearing at a scrap of chiffon and lace handkerchief in her lap.

“Charles didn’t deny it, did he?” she said after a moment’s silence. “He didn’t even attempt to.”

“But he did say he would pledge his fidelity on your marriage and would always keep his pledge,” Esther pointed out somewhat tentatively.

“That’s not the point . . . and besides, how could I possibly trust him when all these months he could make love to me and the next minute be in another woman’s bed?”

“Oh, Imogen, don’t say things like that, it’s shocking,” Esther exclaimed. “The fact that your own conduct was not exactly above reproach is not something to bandy about. If it became common knowledge that you and Charles had been lovers before the wedding, you’d never be received in society again. It’s as bad as, if not worse than, being divorced.”

“Exactly,” Imogen said with a touch of triumph. “Hypocrisy . . . which is exactly the point. Anyway,” she added, “I’m talking to you, my sister, I’m not bandying anything about. And you’re not about to shout it from the rooftops, are you?”

“No, of course not.”

“And besides, it has nothing to do with the case. I was not carrying on two liaisons at the same time, professing undying love to two men at once.”

Esther yielded the point. “Well, so be it. If you’re determined on this, love, you’d better tell Duncan without delay. As the head of the family, it will be for him to make the formal announcement from our end.”

Imogen grimaced. Duncan was their baby brother, only just down from an undistinguished career at Oxford and now playing vigorously on the social scene. It was hard for his elder sisters to take him seriously as Viscount Beaufort. He’d inherited the title the previous year on the death of their father but had shown little aptitude thus far for the responsibilities of head of the family. Until this moment his sisters hadn’t thought twice about it, but now he would have to play the role with a vengeance.

“Do we know where he is?”

“Sharpton might.” Esther rose to her feet. “And if he doesn’t, Robbie probably will. Duncan treats him more like a close confidant than a valet. I’ll go down and ask Sharpton to find out where he is and send him a message.”

“Thank you, love.” Imogen gave her sister a wan smile. “I’m so sorry, this is going to cause so much trouble, and we’ll have to leave town for the rest of the Season—or at least I will. A long period of rustication is the only way to get through this.”

“I’ll come with you to Beaufort Hall,” Esther said. “I like the country in the winter and there’s nothing really to keep me here. I’m tired of the endless round of parties and balls, and all the eligible bachelors are utter ninnies as far as I can see.”

Even through her distress, Imogen couldn’t help a weak smile. Esther was notoriously difficult to please when it came to the young men who courted her, but she still felt guilty condemning her sister to a winter of exile confined to country pursuits and county society—a society as narrow-minded and almost as judgmental as London’s ton. But unlike the denizens of London society, they wouldn’t actually ostracize the Misses Carstairs, who were too socially prominent to ignore. But the sisters would still have to endure the inevitable whispers and pointed comments.

When the door closed behind Esther, Imogen leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes. Was she overreacting? But she knew she wasn’t. She couldn’t live with a man whom she couldn’t trust. A man who actually couldn’t see why she was so angry and upset about something he considered perfectly normal and acceptable behavior . . .
for a man
.

For a moment she fantasized about Charles’s reaction if the situation were reversed and he had discovered that she had been carrying on a liaison with another man during the months of their betrothal. He would see a very different picture then.

Chapter 2

“Lor’, what a t’do upstairs then? ’Is lordship looks like he’s goin’ to ’ave a apoplexy,” the underparlormaid declared coming into the kitchen with a tray of dirty teacups. “And ’im so young too. What’s it all about, then?”

“None o’ your business, young Dottie,” Mrs. Windsor declared from the range, where she was tending bubbling pots. “What Miss Imogen does is her business, isn’t that so, Mrs. Dalton?”

The housekeeper nodded, but she exchanged a significant glance with Mr. Sharpton, who had appeared from the butler’s pantry. “That’s right, Mrs. Dalton. We’ll just get on with our own affairs and leave upstairs to theirs,” he pronounced in a tone that brooked no argument. “I’ll take a cup of tea with you, Mrs. Dalton, if you’ve the time.”

“Indeed, I have, Mr. Sharpton. I was just about to put the kettle on.” The housekeeper bustled out of the kitchen to her own parlor, the butler on her heels. Once in the sanctuary of the small parlor, where a trivet sat over a bright fire, Mrs. Dalton invited her guest to take a chair as she set a copper kettle on the trivet. She wasted no time getting to the subject in hand.

“Well, I don’t know, Albert, really I don’t. Miss Imogen was always a bit impulsive like, but calling off the wedding three days before—it’s more than I’d have believed possible.” The intimacy of her private parlor warranted first names, and she sat down comfortably by the fire, watching the kettle for the first curl of steam.

“If what I hear is true, then it’s only to be expected. Miss Imogen never could stand anything that wasn’t straight. You’d never catch her in a lie, even as a nipper.”

“So, what do you hear, Albert?” Mrs. Dalton leaned forward, her gaze sharp. She listened to the butler’s recitation of what he had learned through his own discreet eavesdropping and then shook her head decisively as she bent to pour water into the teapot to heat it.

“That’s a disgrace, that is. Mind you, I’d never have believed it of Mr. Riverdale, such a charming man, and he and Miss Imogen seemed so suited.” She poured the hot water out into the slop jar, added tea from a tin, and filled the pot with boiling water. “We’ll let that brew a minute.” She sat back and shook her head again. “So the wedding’s off, then . . . and Mrs. Windsor all but done with the wedding cake. A crying shame it is.”

The butler nodded his agreement. “She can always save it for Christmas, Letty,” he suggested. “Add a nip or two of brandy once a week and it’ll be all the better.”

“But what about all them guests—three hundred of ’em? How are they to be told in three days? And all those wedding presents to be given back.” She poured tea into delicate china cups and carefully added milk before handing a cup to her guest. “A body can barely move in the yellow salon for all that silver an’ china an’ the like.”

The butler took his tea with a murmur of thanks. “It’ll keep Miss Imogen at her secretaire for weeks, I’ll be bound.” He stirred sugar into his tea. “Months it’ll take for the scandal to die down though, Letty. It’s not right, whatever the reason, to jilt a man at the altar.”

“Be that as it may, Albert, I wouldn’t want Miss Imogen to be unhappy in her marriage. And she would be with a man who’s not straight with her.” She took a sip of her tea. “So, we’ll be off to the country then?”

“Reckon so,” Sharpton agreed, helping himself to a shortbread biscuit from the round tin on the little table between their fireside chairs. “Bit early for Christmas, but the family’ll need to keep their heads down for awhile. The ladies, at least,” he added, dipping his biscuit into his tea. “Reckon his young lordship’ll find a way to stay put—he never did much care for the country.”

“No, indeed,” the housekeeper agreed with a comfortable nod. “Used to be the despair of ’is father—couldn’t shoot straight if you paid ’im. And Miss Imogen and Miss Esther were always ahead of him over the fences . . . or so I ’eard.”

“True enough, Letty. True enough . . . Yes, thank you, I will . . . just a drop. There’s half an hour or more before I need to ring the dressing bell.” Sharpton held out his cup for a refill.

In the drawing room abovestairs, Duncan Carstairs, Lord Beaufort, was far from reaching similar resignation. He paced the long, elegant room from door to fireplace, slamming a clenched fist into the palm of his other hand. “You can’t do this, Imogen . . . you just can’t. Three days before the wedding—think of the scandal.”

Imogen’s restless fingers adjusted the bowl of late camellias on a small marquetry table beside an ornately gilded sofa. “I have thought of it, Duncan, and if I’m prepared to live with it, then you certainly can. It won’t affect you in the least—”

“Having a jilt for a sister won’t affect me?” he demanded, his color changing alarmingly from red to white. “You think I can hold my head up in my clubs when my sister is the talk of the town?”

“Oh, don’t be so melodramatic, Duncan, marriages are called off all the time.” Imogen was growing tired of her brother’s tantrum. She was close to tears herself, and the consequences of her decision haunted her, not just for her own sake but for the appalling inconvenience it was going to cause everyone else. But she was resolute. She would just have to wait until Duncan ran out of steam. She wished Esther was here though, but Esther had nobly volunteered to make the social rounds of the family members already in London for the Season and break the news to them before they saw the notice in the
Times
.

“You have to go and see Charles,” she continued. “It’s your job, Duncan. You’re head of the family now, and you have to go and inform Charles formally that the wedding is canceled. And you have to insist he sends a notice to the
Times
for the morning, just as you must do.”

“If I’m head of the family, then I can forbid you to do this,” he said sullenly and without conviction.

Imogen couldn’t help laughing. “No, my dear, you couldn’t. For a start, I’m no longer a minor and definitely not under your jurisdiction, and secondly, I have my own financial independence and am in no way beholden to the family coffers.” She came over to him, taking both his hands in hers, swinging them lightly as she used to do when he was a small child and out of sorts. “Dearest, you know you have to do this however much you don’t wish to. Just bite the bullet and go to Charles now and get it over with.”

“Am I supposed to challenge him to a duel for dishonoring my sister?” Even Duncan saw the absurdity in this and bit his lip on an involuntary quiver of amusement.

“That’s better,” Imogen encouraged, even though she had never felt less like smiling herself. “Charles will be civilized, I can assure you, but the formalities have to be gone through. No one is going to hold it against
you,
I promise. And once it’s all taken care of, Esther and I will leave town for Beaufort Hall and remain there until society has something else to occupy its tongue.”

Slowly Duncan nodded. He had never been a match for either of his sisters and didn’t think he ever would be. And he knew he had no choice but to fulfill his social and familial obligations. “I’ll come back when I’ve spoken to Charles.”

“Thank you, dearest.” She kissed his cheek. “And since you’ll be dining in tonight, I’ll ask Mrs. Windsor if she’ll make apple fritters.”

“I’m not still in the nursery, Gen,” Duncan muttered. “I don’t have to be promised sweets as a consolation prize.”

“Nevertheless, you’d still enjoy them, wouldn’t you?”

“Yes,” he agreed reluctantly. “I was engaged with a party to go to . . .” He let the sentence fade. This was not going to be an evening when the Carstairses would be seen on the town. He left the salon, wishing his father were still alive.

Charles was at home in his spacious lodgings on Upper Brooke Street. He had a modest independence, sufficient to permit him to maintain a married household, although there was no denying that Imogen’s significant personal fortune would make for a luxurious lifestyle he couldn’t manage on his own resources. He was well aware of this discrepancy, and equally well aware of the whispers that always attended marriages where the fortunes were unequal and the balance was in the lady’s favor.

Since the Married Woman’s Property Acts, women did not automatically lose possession of their property on marriage as had always been the case hitherto. Legally, a married woman now had the same rights over her property, capital, and investments as a single woman, but there was still an unspoken assumption that the wife’s fortune became a joint asset to which a husband had the same rights as the wife. Imogen had her own views on how her fortune would enrich their lifestyle, and Charles, much less accustomed to wealth, had a more frugal view on the matter. It didn’t suit his pride to be dependent upon his wife, and as his own legal practice grew more lucrative, he could see the point at which his wife’s private means would no longer be necessary.

Imogen had simply shrugged the issue aside when he’d brought it up. If she had money, why shouldn’t she spend it to make their lives extra comfortable? He’d let it lie, better to choose his battles. Once they were married, it would be different.

Except that today the whole house of cards had collapsed.

He couldn’t believe his own stupidity. Only now, when he was about to lose her, did he realize just how much he loved Imogen. The full acknowledgment of love, such a gentle emotion, had somehow been lost within the power of their shared lust. Passion had ruled their times together, and he had been thrilled, delighted, overwhelmed at times by the sheer joy of having his desire met and matched by this wonderful woman, whose glorious body opened as readily to him as did her mind. She was as passionate in her opinions, in her temper, in her pleasures and her dislikes, and he adored her as much as she provoked him.

And somehow, now he was about to lose it all. Just because he had not summoned the courage to explain to Dorothea that their understanding had to come to an end. It was hard to admit his own cowardice, but it was as simple as that. Dorothea was so vulnerable, so sweet, so almost childlike in her dependence upon him, and after Jamie’s birth he had felt enchained by his obligations. It seemed a long time ago when he had seen her first, coming out of the milliner’s shop on Praed Street, her straw bonnet tipped at a saucy angle, her pale blue eyes wide and curious, her small, delicate frame perfectly attired in a demure high-necked lace blouse, a blue serge skirt, and matching jacket. But his eye had been drawn to the cracked leather boots on her narrow feet, and the little anxious frown between her delicate eyebrows.

She had stepped off the curb just as a landau driven by some young blood waving his whip and shouting exuberantly had barreled around the corner from Norfolk Place. Charles had grabbed her unceremoniously by the waist and lifted her bodily onto the curb. He had taken her to a tea shop for a restorative cup of tea and watched as she had devoured the sandwiches and toasted tea cakes with a ravenous appetite that belied her tiny frame. She had chatted with disarming frankness, revealing an innocence that he found immensely appealing. Despite the grim poverty of an existence as a poorly paid milliner’s apprentice, she displayed a zest for life that transcended its hardships.

At that time in his life Dorothea had fulfilled a need by filling a large and lonely space. He had never thought to abandon her, and financially, of course, he never would. And, Jamie . . . he had never expected to feel anything like the flood of emotion he had felt when he had first seen his son. The soft, vanilla-scented skin, the rounded limbs, the chubby wrists and thighs creased with plump rings of flesh. And so he had never summoned the emotional strength to tell Dorothea that their relationship must now be on a strictly business footing. She would deal with his lawyers; everything would be signed and sealed. She had the house in her name and a decent allowance to keep herself and Jamie in comfort. And when the time came, he would pay for his child’s schooling.

Oh, it was all so clear in his head what had to be done. And somehow he had not managed to do it. Cowardice . . . guilt . . . duty . . . he had no idea what had ruled his inertia. If he had stopped for one moment to see the situation through Imogen’s eyes, he would have made damn sure his relationship with Dorothea, apart from his financial commitment, was over as soon as he had realized his incredible, unbelievable luck in meeting the love of his life, a woman who met and matched him in love, in bed, in war. And he had thrown it all away because he hadn’t summoned the courage to call a halt to an emotional commitment that had never had a future.