That Scandalous Summer (36 page)

And walking away from him had felt like such a betrayal.

Which was
nonsense.
She had no choice!

She fell back onto the mattress, causing a flurry of startled feathers to dance over her. “Go away,” she muttered. “I’m terrible company.”

The mattress tilted as James sat down on the edge. Incorrigible ass.

“Does Lydia know you’re barging into another woman’s bedroom?”

“Oh, it was her idea,” he said casually. “I know better. One doesn’t beard the lioness in her den.”

She laid her wrist over her eyes. “So insufferable, am I?” She rather agreed. What idiotic impulse had caused her to seduce a man whom she’d known from the start she couldn’t keep? No matter whether he was a mere country doctor, a duke’s brother, or a pauper prince—he was
not for her.
How had she ever imagined this would turn out well?

James made a
tsk
. “Come now, Lizzie.” His hand closed over hers, gently tugging it free. When he saw the tears, his smile faded and he frowned in truth. “What’s wrong?”

The concern in his gray eyes made her feel worse. “Nothing.” She couldn’t love Michael. Love would not survive poverty. Or more precisely,
they
wouldn’t. A duke’s brother and a professional beauty—yes, much luck they would have scraping by on pennies as her estates crumbled and her tenants turned against her!

But even poverty seemed lovely when she envisioned it with him.

She swallowed a groan. What a
ridiculous
notion. Her brain was clearly scrambled. All the more proof: this was infatuation, maddening, intoxicating,
fleeting
. It would pass.

“Oh, yes,” said James, “you
look
perfectly well. Really, Lizzie, recall to whom you’re speaking.”

She sighed. James did, indeed, know her better than most. He’d become a kind of brother during the
summers of their childhood, for his parents had often summered at Sitby, an hour’s drive to the north, and had invited her parents for long stays by the ocean there.

But he had been gone so long . . . and she barely recognized him now. Once he’d been beautiful and dissolute and a touch cruel. Now, in his face, she saw the kind of compassion he would once never have allowed himself to show. Lydia had taught him happiness. And truly happy people . . . they were willing to try to understand anything. But as a result of their own comfortable lives, they so rarely
could
understand.

Her stars were crossed. She had ill luck in love. Some primitive bolt of panic made her fear it might be contagious. She wished James only joy, truly.

So she said only, “Everyone must be wondering where I am.”

James leaned back on one palm, eyeing her. “Oh, you’ve kept them pretty busy, I’d say. That secretary of yours marched into breakfast this morning with a list of activities two miles long. But, yes, I do believe the Hawthornes, at least, are wondering rather pointedly how long a headache can endure.”

She rolled her eyes. “I should slap their puffed-up heads and let them learn the answer firsthand.”

“A very good idea,” he said. “But I don’t think you really have a headache. I’ll ask once more, and then I’ll simply start spreading rumors about possible answers: what’s going on?”

She turned her face away toward the window. “You were gone so long,” she said. Only as she spoke the words did she realize how much she’d resented his absence. She’d
needed
him.

He sighed. “Well,
Canada,
” he said, as though that were an answer. “Bloody hard to get to, and even harder to get out of. The ports freeze, the roads freeze, the snow mounts higher than your head. I was afraid, for a bit, that I’d have to
dig
us back to England—the long way, mind you, for we’d have emerged in China, and set sail from there.”

She smiled despite herself. “But you enjoyed it.” She could hear that in his voice.

“I certainly wouldn’t have done,” said James. “Only seeing it through Lyd’s eyes was something . . . quite new. Quite different.”

She swallowed. He was not going to be able to cheer her, not when his every promising witticism kept sliding back, so predictably, into love-struck praise for his wife.

How small hearted you’ve become.

She bit her lip.
Oh, Mama.
Mama had been over the moon at James’s wedding.
Finally, a woman who deserves him. I knew one would come along. And so, too, with you, my love. Only wait, and he will come.

“Look here,” James said. “I should have come home. By the time I got your telegram, we were two days out of Montreal. I should have turned around—”

“No.” She made herself turn back—discreetly wiping her nose before facing him. “I mean—that’s kind of you, James. But she was gone by then. And afterward . . .”

Afterward she’d been in no mood for solicitous consideration. She’d wanted only wildness, the sweet oblivion of forgetting. Nello had supplied that very satisfactorily, for a time. “I wasn’t alone,” she said with difficulty.

James was watching her, his expression sympathetic. “Bastard was bound to let you down. You’re better off without him.”

How well he knew her, to have followed her thoughts. “So you’d told me. I should have listened.”

He tilted his head slightly, his tawny hair slipping over his eye. “But that’s not why you’ve been weeping, is it?”

“No.” She hesitated, gripped by the urge to confide in him. But if she laid out the whole sad tale of her restricted circumstances, he’d try to solve the problem for her. Pay off her debts at the expense of his own welfare, perhaps. He could not afford that. Not yet. His relationship with his father was strained, his living drawn mainly from the profits of his factories in the north. Until he came into the title, he could not play the hero.

And regardless of what he might offer to do, Liza could not imagine his wife would appreciate such a marked demonstration of their friendship. Liza had not always been at her best in front of Lydia, who had been cut from a very bourgeois cloth. Such strict notions of propriety she had!

“It’s silly,” she said finally—her voice steady, no hint in it of the ache she felt. “I’m only . . . very anxious, I suppose. First you married. Then Phin.” For Lord Ashmore, too, had been part of their summer confederacy as children, most often as James’s guest at Sitby. At the thought of his new wife, Liza pulled a face. “Married to an American, of all people! And what a peculiar girl. She’s beautiful, I won’t deny it, but the last time we met, she tried to persuade me to go rolling down a hill for fun. I was wearing a Worth gown at the time, mind you—and worse yet, so was
she
!”

James gave her a sideways smile. “Phin’s rather peculiar himself. Perhaps we’re the ones who seem odd to them.”

“I suppose.” And Phin could probably afford any number of Worth gowns. She sighed. “At any rate, it does seem like everyone in the old childhood gang is finding their way. And I’m very happy for all of you, only perhaps I . . . perhaps I’m coming to realize that it’s not in my fate to be loved as you are.”

James laughed, a soft sound of disbelief. “As far as I can tell, you’ve at least two bachelors downstairs hanging on your every word. Not saying that either is the one for you, but certainly you’ve no cause to despair of finding love, if that’s what you want.”

She rolled her eyes at him. “Weston and Hollister? Would you really match me with either of them?”

Now his brows climbed. “Who mentioned Weston? I was thinking of de Grey.”

For the space of a moment she could not catch her breath. If only Michael were eligible for her purposes! If only life provided such fairy tale solutions . . .

“Lord Michael is a second son.” Her voice emerged roughly. She cleared her throat and tried again. “Surely you would aim higher for me! Am I not worth a prince or a king at the least?”

James studied her. “Without doubt,” he said after a moment. “Of course, I’m not blind to the way you look at him. There’s a tale there, I expect.”

Her throat closed.
Do you want me to say things that can’t be unsaid?
Michael had demanded on the terrace.
For I will, you know. I will say them to anyone who cares to listen
.

In this instant, she knew precisely what he’d meant. The urge to speak of him, to
boast
that he’d laid his hands on her and it had been
glorious,
was almost physical in its ferocity.

But the Duke of Marwick wanted for his brother a wife that nobody would criticize. That would never be Liza. Michael would lose his hospital for certain.

“Your face is speaking volumes,” James remarked.

She shook her head. “A volume of rubbish.”

“I confess, it did surprise me when I first considered it. You and Saint Michael? Always holier-than-thou, that one. And now a bloody hospital. I’m surprised he hasn’t earned a knighthood yet.”

The description startled her. “You misunderstand him. He’s not self-righteous in the least.”

“No?” James shrugged. “Well, I was never close to him at school. But he always seemed damned fierce in his convictions. Though knowing what I do of his brother . . .” He smiled, not pleasantly. “Marwick seems a fine tyrant, a man after my father’s own mold. So I’ll reverse my opinion, then, and say I like de Grey simply for having had the guts to defy the bastard—for I’m certain Marwick envisioned a more glorious path for his brother than mere medicine.”

She frowned, irked by the notion. “But the hospital is a very fine achievement! The . . . lowest death rates in the country, I believe. If Marwick doesn’t see glory in that, then he’s a fool!”

James looked at her but did not speak. In the silence, her own words rang in her ears, and she heard them as he must have—so earnest and defensive—and closed her eyes again. Who was the fool here? Not Marwick, it seemed.

“Lady Elizabeth de Grey,” James said. “Has a fine ring to it.”

She bit her lip. “James, don’t.”

“People do like him. You’ll have no trouble introducing
him to our crowd. Of course, he’s a bit somber for my taste—”

“Somber!” She gawked at him. “Says the man who married a lady lecturer!”

He grinned. “But Lydia is the last thing from somber. You’ll come to see it when you know her better. Her brain, Lizzie . . . it’s a thing of beauty; I cannot
begin
to track how it works. That I don’t bore her is a constant amazement to me.”

What rubbish. “You could never be boring. And if she isn’t somber, then Lord Michael
certainly
isn’t.”

“Ah, but he
works,
you know. Makes the rest of us chaps look a bit lazy.” He hesitated. “And then there’s the mess with his parents. Not surprising if he always had a . . . hard edge to him.”

She toyed with the lace detailing on the blanket beneath her. “Some court battle, I recall?”

“Yes, a very ugly divorce. The old duke accused his wife of any number of sins, some of them too indecent for print. And the duke himself emerged as no prize.” He sighed. “Granted, my own recall is somewhat vague—mostly collected from stupid jokes at school. De Grey was a target from the moment he enrolled—endured a good deal of taunting, as you may imagine. But he gave as good as he got.” With a faint smile, he added, “Quite a savage little beast, very good with his fists. Not that I disapprove.” His voice turned darker. “No honor in surrendering to bullies. Reply in kind, I say.”

Now it was Liza’s turn to divine where his thoughts had led him. Much of James’s hatred for his father was owed to that man’s abandonment of James’s sister, Stella, when her husband had turned abusive.

Stella had killed her husband. She now remained in an asylum in Kent.

“She doesn’t answer my letters,” Liza said softly. She and Stella had been very close, once. But all her overtures were rebuffed with silence. “You said she was . . . better. But she doesn’t reply. I wonder why that is.”

He shrugged. “Can’t say. I’d spring her free tomorrow if only she wished it. But she seems to be waiting for something. Our father’s death? I wouldn’t blame her.” His mouth flattened. “But she doesn’t belong there, Lizzie. She’s as sane as you or I.” He laughed without humor. “Saner, in fact. I
saw
her—right before the wedding. Did I tell you that?”

“You did,” Liza murmured.

He shook his head. “I can’t tell you how well she looked. Only she
insisted
she must stay—locked up there, like an animal—” He exhaled, a violent sound. “Lydia says I must leave her be; that I mustn’t try to persuade her. That I must wait until she’s ready.”

Liza put her hand over his. The pain in his face broke her heart a little. “Lydia is right,” she said softly. “Give Stella the choice. She’ll come back to us in her own time.”

His hand turned underneath hers, his fingers squeezing hers briefly before he withdrew them. “So, the devil take it,” he said. “I’ve nothing but admiration for de Grey. Fight back when struck. Rage against injustice. Hell—burn the place down. Far better than making nice.”

She drew back, slightly alarmed now. If he had decided that Michael somehow resembled his sister, then nothing would stop him from championing Michael’s case to her. “James, I have no designs on Michael.” For his sake as well as her own, she
mustn’t.

He nodded once. “You’re a jaded little pessimist, and I adore you for it. But take it from one who has learned: love may make you into an optimist yet.”

Her smile felt brittle. “That is not optimism but idealism speaking through you, James. Why, even if one were to find love . . .”

He waited a moment, then said gently, “One such as you, perhaps?”

Her heart felt as heavy as a stone. “Even if one finds it, that does not mean one can keep it.”

“Oh?” He smiled as he rose, a smile that was far from reassuring. “Then prove it,” he said. “Come down and flirt with Weston for me.”

•   •   •

In Liza’s absence, the dynamics of the party had grown complicated. Katherine Hawthorne had developed an inexplicable interest in Weston. Jane was sulking. And as soon as Liza entered the observatory for high tea, Hollister pulled her aside to request a private conference.