Suzanne Robinson (25 page)

“Don’t, Liza,” Jocelin whispered. “Don’t lie anymore.”

Liza threw up her hands. “I’m not a liar, but perhaps you’re used to liars. Are your family liars that you expect to meet them under every sofa cushion? Is your father a liar? Is your uncle one too?”

There was a long silence. Jocelin felt the blood drain from his face. He’d thought his rage at Elliot immense, but when Liza spoke of his uncle, his mind turned to burning acid.

“You know,” he said on a note of wondering horror. “Bloody hell, you’ve known all along.”

“Known what?”

Liza was looking from him to her father. Once he would have been fooled by those fluttering lashes and that air of innocence. God, why had he ever thought her innocent?

Careful, he thought. Be careful. They know, and they could hurt Georgiana and Mother.

He sliced away his rage once again and stuffed it in a corner of his awareness. Summoning a veneer of calm, he allowed his body to relax.

“Very well,” he said quietly. “Now we understand each other, which is all to the good.”

Liza pointed to herself. “I don’t understand.”

Laughing nastily, Jocelin continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “The wedding you’ve been working like a sweaty peasant to get will take place tomorrow.”

Liza pounded her fist on a leather chair. “Now you wait, Jocelin Marshall. I’m not agreeing to anything while you’re behaving so madly.”

“No need to pretend outrage,” he said. “After all, your methods were only slightly more disgusting than those of other women I’ve refused. God, women are shabby, always trying to trap a man. And by the Almighty, I do believe you’d not stop at murder.”

Liza had turned more and more red the longer he spoke. She balled her hands into fists and trembled, glaring at him.

Elliot glowered at him as well. “See here, Radcliffe—”

“Shut up, Father.” Liza’s normally soft tones had roughened into a snarl.

Elliot’s cigar burned a brighter red. “I’ll not have my daughter talk to me in such a manner.”

Liza turned on her father and yelled. “Father, damn you, shut up!” She turned back to Jocelin. “And as for you, my lord. I don’t know what has happened between you and Papa, but I had nothing to do with it.”

She stopped long enough to swallow and gain control of herself. When she resumed, her voice shook.

“However, if you’d loved me as you said, if you had trusted me, you would have asked me, not accused me. Then I would have told you the truth. But it’s clear you aren’t interested in the truth or anything about me that’s real. I’m like all women to you, something hardly more deserving of esteem and respect than a dairy cow. Therefore, my lord, I think
I’ll change my mind and not marry you, thank you very much.”

Jocelin gawked at Liza. Elliot had long since collapsed into an armchair in consternation. Liza turned on her heel and, without a word to Jocelin, marched out of the room.

L
iza slammed the door to the study, grabbed hunks of her silk skirt, and ran. Her vision blurred by tears, she stumbled down the corridor. She could hear her father yelling at Jocelin, a dangerous thing to do. She hoped they killed each other. Lord, what if they came after her?

She tripped over her skirts, lifting them higher, and turned into another corridor. Tears ran down her nose and cheeks. She covered her mouth to muffle the ugly gulping sounds she couldn’t stop making. The servants’ stair appeared, and she raced past it. Papa would never look for her in the servants’ wing.

Blundering by the gun room and footman’s room, she turned down the housekeeper’s corridor,
turned again and slipped through the kitchen entrance and servery. Shoving open another door, she tripped over the threshold of the kitchen. The place was dark, but the high, louvered roof let in moonlight.

Liza bumped into a sink, then thrust out her hands and felt her way to one of the long central tables. Dropping to the floor, she ducked beneath it, nearly striking her head on a drawer. Thus concealed, she huddled with her knees drawn and her arms wrapped around them. She buried her face in the puffy clouds of her skirts and wept.

To have been offered a glimpse of something for which she never dared hope—keeping Jocelin—and then to have lost it gashed at her heart. Papa had destroyed their love. Hadn’t they felt love? She had. And Jocelin jettisoned that love at the first sign of danger. He had cast her into the sea storm and then shot his cannons at her instead of asking her to fight on his side. At the first sign of trouble, she had been tossed aside, accused of monstrous plots, and condemned.

Liza moaned at the physical pain her grief brought. She felt as if Jocelin had taken her heart and run it through a laundry wringer, squeezing it flat as paper, and as bloodless. And she was afraid, afraid to encounter him again and see the disgust in his eyes. Her father had looked at her like that all her life. To see the same revulsion in Jocelin’s eyes was to encounter hell on earth. She’d spent years telling herself she wasn’t unnatural, peculiar, an object of abhorrence; in a few moments Jocelin had shown her that her secret dread was true.

Minutes passed, during which Liza used her gloves as handkerchiefs. She hugged herself and endured the pain. After a long while she noticed a
slight change in the darkness. In her grief she’d been oblivious to the passage of time, and dawn was coming. She couldn’t stay here. She couldn’t stay at Stratfield Court.

There was a train before six o’clock. She would leave on it. Crawling from beneath the table, she trudged back across the house and up the young ladies’ staircase. The house seemed deserted, for everyone had gone to bed long ago. Liza woke Emmeline and sent her to rouse the head groom. They would take a pony cart to the station before anyone but the servants had stirred. She would sneak out of Jocelin’s life before he had a chance to hurt her again, because if he did, she didn’t think she could survive.

Several weeks went by, during which Liza tried to resume her old routine at Pennant’s.

She left a note telling her parents without detail that she had decided not to pursue a husband. A few days later her mother wrote to describe her father’s anger. Mama had been surprised at its mildness, and could think of no explanation for it. Liza was too upset to feel anything more than brief interest in the puzzle. March turned to April, but for once she failed to notice the appearance of new leaves on trees or the coming of daffodils in the garden that surrounded the house on three sides. She even ignored a song thrush that had made its nest there.

Finally her old concern roused her. A murderer still went free and most likely had killed again. The earl had been buried, and Toby had made inquiries for her. The accident with the carriage had been caused by a hole in the road concealed by mud and slush. The
carriage axle had been extraordinarily weak. Toby thought someone had tampered with it.

One morning in mid-April, Liza sat at her desk organizing her notes on the men in whom she was interested. Halloway and Stapleton were gone. She had sorted through the information on them and stowed it away in large envelopes upon which she had written their names. Now she stuffed pages into another, with Jocelin’s name on it.

She came across a sketch of herself in her fat dress. Betty had done it on the night before she first set out for the viscount’s residence. Liza examined the pen drawing. Betty had drawn her from the side, and she appeared far more buxom than she really was as a result of all that padding. However, Liza could recognize her own face beneath the voluminous, lace-trimmed cap. While she’d worn it, she’d been afraid Jocelin would dislodge it when he held her. Liza closed her eyes as she remembered his strength, his unyielding green gaze.

Hastily opening her eyes, she thrust the sketch into the envelope and placed it on top of the stack of men she no longer suspected. Next she opened a drawer and pulled out several folders, each with the name of a man on it. She had to consider whose house in which to obtain employment. Asher Fox and Lord Winthrop lived near Jocelin. If she went to either, she would have to change her appearance slightly on the chance that someone might recognize her. Perhaps she should go to Arthur Thurston-Coombes first.

She was leafing through the file on Arthur Thurston-Coombes when she heard raised voices outside the office. Without warning the door slammed open. Liza glanced up from the file. Jocelin paused on
the threshold, rigid and slightly out of breath. Toby shoved past him to stand barring his way.

“Gor, you’re a cheeky sot. You get out of here quick like, or I’ll toss you out on your bum.”

Jocelin left off glaring at Liza to look briefly at Toby and dismiss him. Before Toby risked injury, Liza stood.

“Never mind,” she said. “I’ll deal with him.”

Toby gave her a quizzical look, tugged on his lapels, and walked out. He muttered something to Jocelin on the way, and Jocelin moved his head in what could have been a nod. The door closed, and Jocelin walked over to stand in front of her. She remained behind the desk in silence.

Jocelin inclined his head. “Mr. Pennant.”

“How did you find me?”

“An inquiry agent. He’s no good at finding lost domestics, but he’s capable of tracing ladies, even when they pretend to be men. I asked your father where you were, but he seemed most anxious that I not find you myself. Said he’d find a way to bring you back. Now I know why. I knew I could find you without his help.”

“Congratulations. Now leave.”

“You still smell like lemons.”

“And you’re still a fool.”

She nearly smiled when his mouth twitched in annoyance. Instead she smoothed her skirts and seated herself in her desk chair. Taking up a pen, she opened an account book and began writing.

“When my agent told me about you and Pennant’s, I didn’t believe him at first.” He swept his arm, indicating her office. “How could you pursue such an inappropriate activity?”

“I enjoy eating and not having to sleep in the streets,” Liza said without looking up.

“Never mind Pennant’s right now. We’ve more important matters to consider.”

“I’ve nothing to say to you. Good day, sir.”

“It’s ‘my lord,’ not ‘sir.’ ”

Liza scribbled a sum and turned the page. “Good day.”

A shadow crossed the page, and she looked up to find Jocelin leaning over her. She made a mistake in looking at him. He deliberately held her gaze. His eyes widened, and he seemed to drink in her soul.

“We’ve unfinished business,” he said softly.

She started, then fumed. “Am I to understand you’re talking about marriage?”

“You’re clever, for a woman.”

Dropping the pen, Liza snapped the account book closed.

“By the Almighty in heaven, you’re serious.”

“I’m trying to be sensible.” Jocelin sighed. “I was upset, and I made some wrong conclusions, but now you’re just being stubborn.”

Liza stood slowly. “Stubborn, am I? I trusted you. I love—damn you, listen carefully. I don’t want your title. I don’t want your riches. And I don’t want you.”

She felt a tremor of fear as the conciliatory gleam vanished from Jocelin’s eyes. Shoving away from the desk, he met her gaze with the chill stare of a tomb effigy.

“Unfortunate. However, you are going to become my wife. We’ll marry quietly, and you’ll come with me to my house in Kent. I’m not enduring a season in London with you at my side and having …”

He stopped, and Liza followed the direction of his glance. His hand had been resting on the stack of envelopes. She’d forgotten them, but a shiver of dread came over her as she watched him read his own name. Without thought she tried to snatch the envelope. He knocked her hand aside and grabbed it. Opening the flap, he withdrew the stack of papers.

The clock on the mantel ticked louder than Big Ben as he read. The papers dropped from his hands and scattered on the desk. The sketch sailed from between two pages. He caught it. Slowly he looked up from it to her. Liza gripped the edge of her desk, unable to speak. His face went blank. He glanced again at the sketch, and when he looked at her again, he might as well have been staring at her over the barrel of his Colt.

“So I was right about you and your marriage traps. Did I frighten you when I found out about your plan? Is that why you ran away? Did you realize how dangerous it would be to force me and lose your backbone?”

Liza shook her head, but Jocelin didn’t seem to notice. He kept her snared in his gaze. “What a thorough little bitch you are in your quest for a husband, Miss Elliot.” Without dropping his gaze, he folded the sketch and stuffed it in his coat pocket. “My one consolation is that in marrying you, I’ll be able to get my hands on you. You’re going to pay, Liza. Don’t think you aren’t.”

Truly frightened, Liza held on to the desk with one hand and raised her arm to point at the door. “I’m not marrying you, and I’m not paying for something I didn’t do. Get out, or do I have to call Toby?”

She wished he hadn’t smiled. His smile reminded
her of Dante: “The hellish hurricane, which never rests, drives on the spirits with its violence …”

“Be at my house in an hour, Liza. Don’t make me wait.”

She said nothing as he raked her with his gaze, turned, and left her. Her hand hurt. She looked down to find herself gripping the edge of the desk so hard, she would have bruises on her fingers tomorrow. Forcing her hand to loosen, she gasped in belated reaction to the violence in Jocelin’s eyes. Her knees buckled, and she dropped into her chair.