The Beloved One (28 page)

"God of perfection.  My, my, you know him well, don't you?  If he is still that, my dear, then perhaps he has not sustained as much damage as I had feared."  The duke smiled, but behind the gesture was a discerning sharpness that made Amy feel as though he could look right through her and know every thought that went through her head.  "Are you in any hurry to get to bed tonight, Miss Leighton?"

"Not if I can help you find a way to help Charles."

"My sentiments exactly, and help me, you will.  But first some supper for you," he said, tugging on a bellpull, "and then we shall talk.  Something very terrible must have happened to my brother to turn him into what I saw tonight, and you, being the perceptive young woman I think you to be, are surely the best person to fill me in on just what has brought him to such a deplorable state."

"Starting with the events of April, 1775?"

"Starting before that, if need be."

"Then I'm afraid it's going to be a very long evening, Your Grace."

Again, that benign little smile.  "Ah.  But my brother is worth it, don't you think?"

Chapter 20

The dining room had gone as quiet as a tomb after Lucien had, thankfully, dragged Charles out.

"My God," Andrew said, speaking for them all.  His face, in contrast to the dark auburn hair that framed it, was still a bit pale.  "I wonder what the devil happened to him?"

"He looked terrible," Gareth agreed.

"And it is totally unlike him to carry on so," said Nerissa, putting down her napkin.  She rose to her feet.  "I must go to him."

"No.  Let Lucien handle it," Gareth said, waving her back down into her chair.  "After all, it was his meddling that brought on such a complicated mess."

None of them voiced what was also uppermost in their minds:  just who was the woman with the dark eyes and high, striking cheekbones?

And then Nerissa, noting that Juliet had gone silent, reached out and touched her sister-in-law's arm.  "Are you all right, Juliet?"

Juliet, who had lost all appetite, nodded.  Tears burned beneath her eyelids, but she would not, could not, let them fall.  The husband that she so loved had suffered enough heartache over the years by being constantly compared to his perfect, saintly older brother.  If she cried now, he might think that she was crying because she wanted Charles — when nothing was further from the truth.

She had not seen Charles for nearly two years.  She had loved him, once, and she had loved him deeply, but when he'd charged into the room she had felt nothing.  No.  That was not true.  She had felt something, and it was the complete opposite from the almost worshipful admiration that she had once harbored for him.

Pity.

The tears grew closer. 
Oh, don't let them fall.  For Gareth's sake, don't let them fall.
  If she sobbed, it was because pregnant women often did, she told herself.  If she sobbed, it was because the anguish she had seen in her former lover's face had totally annihilated what had remained of her self-control.  And if she cried, it would be for Charles himself, for all she could think of was the steely-eyed, confident British officer he had once been, so godlike and untarnished up there on his horse as he'd drilled his troops, so above the cares of the everyday world.  Such a man might as well have died and been buried at Concord, for the one who had pushed his way into the dining room tonight was a shadow of that proud English officer who'd been so full of confidence and elegant aplomb. 
Oh Charles, Charles . . . what has happened to you?

"Juliet?"

Gareth must've seen the telltale glassiness in her eyes.  He reached down and gently, drew her to her feet.  "Shhh, my love.  None of us could have been prepared for what we saw tonight, least of all you.  I know Lucien warned us that he might not be all that he had been, but you have every right to cry for him . . .  We all do."

She turned her face against his chest.  "But I don't want you to think my tears are because I want him back, or that I have regrets about which brother I actually married."

He cradled her to him, tenderly.  "I don't."

"It's just that seeing him the way he is now . . . it has upset me.  I was not prepared  . . .  Oh, Gareth.  Please know that what I once felt for your brother is dead.  It is you,
you
, that I love."

"I know that, dearest."  He tipped her head up and wiped away her tears with the pad of his thumb.  "Come.  You are upset, and I think it is best we go on up to bed."  Reaching down, he picked Charlotte up and held her to his chest.  Juliet looked at him and felt a raw ache at the back of her throat.  And what would become of their fourteen-month-old baby?  Would Gareth have to give the daughter that he'd loved as his own back to the brother that had made, but never even seen her?  Would Lucien come down on their side or Charles's?  Would Charles's return threaten all that they both held most dear?

No
, Juliet vowed.  Charlotte, no matter who had sired her, was Gareth's daughter.  Gareth's!  Gareth had nearly lost his life for the two of them, and there was no question in Juliet's mind about who her little girl belonged to.

She moved close to her husband and, drying her tears, allowed him to lead her from the room.

~~~~

Gareth, sending away Juliet's maid, undressed his wife, helped her into bed, and stayed with her, gently stroking her hair, until she finally fell asleep.

And then he rose and, determined to tell Charles just what the lay of the land was, went looking for him.

Gareth's heart was in turmoil.  He had always respected and admired his brother, had always thought him pretty much infallible.  And who wouldn't?  There had been nothing that Charles could not do.  No problem he could not solve, no challenge that was too daunting for either his mental, physical, or emotional capabilities.

But now . . .

Charles was not in his old apartments.  He was not in the Gold Parlour, the dining room where Andrew and Nerissa still sat talking quietly, or in the library.  But Lucien was, and as Gareth entered the domain of his brother the duke, he saw that Lucien was standing quietly at the window, gazing out over the night-enshrouded downs toward the twinkling lights of Ravenscombe in the valley below.

"Hello, Gareth," he said, knowing, without even turning, that it was Gareth who had entered.  "I have been expecting you."

Six months ago, Gareth would've taken offense at such words and bristled.  But now . . . Well, he'd changed a lot since meeting and marrying Juliet.  Now that he had an estate to oversee, business headaches, and responsibilities toward not only his wife and daughter, but his home, his tenants, and his parish, crops to put in, livestock to purchase, a community image to maintain and of course, his challenging and varied duties as an elected Member of Parliament, he had more respect than resentment for Lucien, who had always managed to handle those sort of concerns, and then some, without so much as a second thought.  But Gareth had not always respected his brother so.  There had been a time not so long ago that he had hated him.  Of course, he didn't want Lucien meddling in his business any more, but over the past six months he had come to understand his brother, to comprehend the reasons why he was the way he was, and to see him as the infallible being that most people who knew him, perceived him to be.

Lucien would straighten Charles out.

Gareth was sure of it.

He went to the decanter and poured himself a drink.  "So," he said, leaning against the mantle.  "What are you going to do about him, Luce?"

Lucien remained unmoving, a tall, slender figure in black.  "Me?"

"Yes, you.  You 'fixed' me, surely you can fix Charles as well."

"Hmm.  Yes.  I am not sure, Gareth, if I shall do anything."

"You have to!  He's a wreck!"

Lucien turned around.  "Do you think I don't know that?  But if I had not manipulated events so that you felt obligated to marry Juliet, he might not be such an emotional mess.  I am not sure it is wise of me to interfere this time."

Gareth shook his head and gave a disbelieving little laugh.  "Really, Luce.  Can you honestly stand there and tell me this and expect me to believe that you
won't
interfere?  You are very good at arranging circumstances and events so that things come out exactly as you would wish.  You are very good at finding the strengths and weaknesses in people and then using them to bring about desired results.  You are very good at playing games with people's heads, and doing it in such a way that they never even know what you're up to.  If anyone can help Charles,
you
can."

"I am not so sure of that, Gareth.  Despite the warning in his letter, I must confess that I did not expect him to be so damaged.  Miss Leighton told me everything, you know.  He was seriously injured at Concord, then left for dead.  Her brother brought him home.  They trepanned him — ghastly thought, that, especially as the surgery was performed by a colonial doctor.  And when he came to his senses, it was only to find himself completely blind, dependent upon people he thought were his enemy, and sadly, almost completely lacking in that spirit of self-confidence with which we have always associated him."

Lucien gazed thoughtfully down into his brandy, swirling it a little in his glass.  "He had Miss Leighton write letters to Juliet, to his commander, and to us, but they were intercepted and destroyed by her two sisters before they could be posted.  Apparently they had designs upon Charles, and sought to keep him neatly trapped with them in the hopes of winning him for themselves.  They fabricated responses from all of us that were guaranteed to hurt him, to turn him away from everyone he loved, never to trust anyone again."

"And he
believed
such rot?!  Why didn't he try to pursue things and see for himself how we all felt?"

"He believed it because he could not see to read the false letters; they were read to him either by Miss Leighton, or the sisters who had fabricated them."  Lucien was silent for a moment.  "And as far as his failure to pursue these matters, I suspect that
that
is what he cannot live with."

"You don't think it's the fact that I've married Juliet?  That she's
my
wife, not his?"

"No, Gareth.  I don't believe that's the problem at all.  Your brother, who never put a foot wrong in his life, has not only put a foot wrong, he's walked straight off the damned path.  He is in uncharted territory, and his only companion is guilt at having made such a botch of things.  He is a perfectionist.  He is not accustomed to, and cannot accept, the fact that he is as flawed as everyone else.  That he makes mistakes just like the rest of us."  Lucien took a sip of his brandy.  "Of course he's angry, but it is not because Juliet is married to you.  No, I suspect that he is genuinely angry with himself.  Or with me.  But not with you.  Never with you."  He smiled.  "After all, are you not the brother he always loved best?"

"And now I'm the brother who has betrayed him."

"No, Gareth.  You picked up the pieces of the mess he made.  And I suspect that he just can't tolerate the idea that you, the brother he last knew as irresponsible and dissolute, the one he tried to teach by example and take under his wing, have been the one to fix his mistakes.  Though Charles loves you, I do believe that he always pitied you in some small way, especially as it seemed destined that you were never to make anything of yourself whereas he was destined from the start to go far.  You know as well as I how much he hated the comparisons between the two of you, his guilt that he always came out on top.  And now look.  Now you are the one who's a Member of Parliament, who has an estate, who has a wife and daughter and more admiration than you know what to do with.  You're the one who has everything that he once had . . . whereas now, he's the one at the bottom looking up.  Now he's the one who is pitied and despaired of.  For someone like himself, can you not see how such treatment would completely demoralize him?"

Gareth nodded, slowly.

"And to complicate matters even further, there's Miss Leighton.  She cared for him when he was ill, gave him some sense of independence and worth, and captured his heart, though I daresay he may not realize that, and certainly won't admit it."

"Guilt over supposedly betraying Juliet?"

"Of course."

"And what does she think of him?"

"My dear Gareth.  Charles may be broken, but he is still handsome, gallant, and kind — enough to make any young lady sigh with wanting.  As she strove to give him dignity and independence when he had neither, so he strove to give her confidence in herself, and to defend her from a family that, from all accounts, quite despised her.  What do you
think
she thinks of him?"

"Given that she followed him across the Atlantic, I should think she's quite in love with him," Gareth said, wryly.  "I should also think that, because she's a commoner, and because Charles has been engaged since birth to Lady Katharine, you will crush any hopes of a romantic union between them."

"On the contrary," Lucien said smoothly.  "For one thing, Lady Katherine has recently accepted an offer from Viscount Bisley, so her engagement to our brother is off.  Furthermore, I have learned a thing or two about American woman since Juliet came into all our lives.  Amy Leighton is exactly what Charles needs, and I will do all in my power to get them together."

"The best of luck to you, then.  Charles is smarter than me, and far more perceptive.  He'll know what you're up to when I did not, and he will know immediately."

Lucien gave a benign smile.  "My dear Gareth.  Do you have such little faith in me as all that?  He will not discern my hand in this — just as you didn't."  He put down his glass and, hands clasped loosely behind his back, returned to the window, where he stood gazing out over the silent, starlit downs.  "And he will not discern my hand in anything else, either.  It is time for me to play God, I think.  To find some sort of challenge that will restore our brother's confidence in himself and his abilities.  To begin the Restoration . . . of Charles."