The Bridal Quest (31 page)

"Jasper!" Pansy looked at him in horror. "What are you saying? How could you! You betrayed Cecil?"

"Cecil?" Jasper repeated in amazement. "You are upset because I dared to love Cecil's wife? Cecil was a brute. He murdered Selene. He was a bad-tempered bully, and he never had the sense to appreciate what a jewel his wife was. He betrayed her a hundred times over, yet he railed at her if she so much as smiled at another man. She loved him when she married him. She would not have taken a lover if he had not ground her love for him into dust. Cecil kept a mistress in London for his visits there, yet he never allowed Selene to even go to London for fear some other man would catch her eye. There were the tavern wenches in the village, the barques of frailty in London or Bath, for a little variety when he tired of his mistress and his wife. But he ranted at Selene if she gave a dance to the squire at the assembly or nodded to the doctor in greeting on the street."

Jasper swung away, struggling to gain control of himself, then turned back to Gideon, his voice cold as he continued. "Your mother was a good woman, Gideon. Do not think her loose or wicked, I beg you. She was faithful to my brother for six long years. I was the one who pursued her. And she did not turn to me until my brother had finally broken her heart one too many times. Even then, she hated the deception, the sin of it, and after a few months, she sent me away. I traveled, I studied—I occupied myself in every way I could think of—and I did not come home until you were three years old. Mother had written me about your birth, but I did not realize that you were my son, not Cecil's, until ... until Selene told me when I returned. That was when I begged her to leave him, to take you and come away with me. But she would not. She said she could not take you from Cecil, that he believed you were his. She could not take your future inheritance from you. We ... for a time, we had what happiness we could, until I could not bear any longer to watch her being his wife. That is when I deserted her the second time." Jasper's face was grim. "You know the rest of the story."

"My God." Gideon stared at him for a long moment. "I scarcely know what to say."

"Say that you forgive me."

"I forgive you," Gideon answered promptly. "I— The truth of it is, I am glad to know it." He smiled a little crookedly. "It is nice to know who my father is. To know that he is not a murderer."

Jasper smiled in relief. "Thank heavens. I feared I might have lost you forever."

"Well, then that is all settled," Lady Odelia said with a sigh of relief. "It is scandalous, of course, but no one need know about it. I have been thinking, and I believe that the best course is to stay with Cecil's original story and say that Lady Radbourne was abducted. It was obviously the ruffians who took her who killed her and hid her in the caves. And what poetic justice, everyone will say, that her son, returned to his family, is the one who found her and will be able to put her to rest at last."

"But it is not settled, Aunt Odelia," Gideon corrected her firmly. "There is still the matter of Timothy. I am Lord Jasper's son, not the earl's, and not even a legitimate one at that."

"No one need know that," his great-aunt pointed out. "After all, none of us can prove it, now, can we? Cecil accepted you as his son. You were born to his wife in wedlock. I do not see how the succession could fall any other way."

"I cannot deprive Timothy of what should rightfully be his," Gideon argued. "He is the only true son. He should inherit the estate and title, not I."

Lady Odelia groaned. "Well, there can be no question but that you are a Lilles. You are as willful as your greatgrandfather."

Beside her Pansy nodded. "Yes, he is very much like Father, but, Odelia, that is not the point, is it?"

"What is the point—that we should let that odious Teresa rule the house again? Timothy is all very well, I suppose. Perhaps he will grow up well enough—though I cannot imagine how, with her for a mother. But there is nothing of the Lilles about him. Or even the Bankes."

"That," Jasper put in firmly, "is because there is no Lilles in him, or Bankes, either."

Once again he had everyone's attention. He shrugged. "You have only to look at him. Lady Odelia is right. I have no idea who Timothy's father is, but I am sure it was not my brother. Cecil could not have children."

"Jasper, no! That was a cruel rumor," his mother objected. "How can you repeat it?"

"It was not just a rumor, Mother, and you know it. It was the truth. Selene was married to the man for six years without conceiving. The only child she gave Cecil was mine. Cecil knew it—he was simply too proud to admit it. Why do you think he accepted Gideon as his son? He knew that he could not produce an heir, so my child, his nephew, was as close as he could come. Why do you think he waited so long to marry again? It was not love for Selene, and obviously it was not hope that she was still alive. It was because he knew that he could not produce an heir anyway, and he had no wish to prove it all over again. With all his mistresses, I never heard of one who had a child by him. You know his reputation hereabouts—we all do. Yet did ever a tavern wench or a maid turn up on our doorstep, claiming to hold his babe in her arms? No. I have no idea how Teresa managed to get him to marry her, but it was two years before she conceived. I am sure she was less naive than Selene. No doubt she did not believe Cecil's accusations, as Selene did, that it was her fault she could not get with child. So she went out and found some other man who could give her the child she needed."

Pansy looked at him with reproach. "How can you say all this? Have you no respect for the dead? For the family?"

"I have no respect for a murderer," Jasper retorted bluntly. "And I am tired of all our secrets. The truth, and you know it, is that Cecil and I caught the mumps when we were children. I was fine. I was only six. But he was twelve years old, and though he recovered, he was sterile."

His mother began to cry again, and her sister snapped, "Oh, hush, Pansy, do. I know he was your son, but really, dear, we all knew he was a rotter even before this news that he killed his wife and turned Gideon over to thieves. If I were you, I would dry my tears and do some good hard thinking over the wrongs you did your grandson and Jasper by keeping silent all these years."

Her sister's eyes widened in dismay. "But I didn't know!"

"Of course you didn't. You are always careful not to know," Odelia retorted. Her sister's eyes welled with tears, and Odelia said, "Oh, don't start up again, please."

Lady Odelia surged to her feet, her last exchange with her sister seeming to have restored her old spirits. "Well, Gideon, there you are. It may not be much, but this is your family. The best you can do for that little boy is to give his mother a house in the city and let Timothy stay here. I'll warrant she'll be more than happy to let him grow up in the country while she enjoys life in town. And you, no doubt, will make sure he has all the advantages. With luck, he will turn out better than either his mother or ... well, whoever his father was. You, I fear, will simply have to learn to live with being an earl."

"I promise you, I shall endeavor to do so," Gideon replied.

Jasper stepped forward to speak to him, and Irene seized the opportunity to slip away. She had not made it to the door, however, before Gideon called her name, but she did not look back, only continued out of the room.

"Excuse me," Gideon told his newly found father. "I would like to talk with you. But first I have some very pressing business to attend to."

He hurried out into the hall, half expecting to find Irene disappearing into her bedchamber, but instead she stood waiting for him in the corridor. Her face was no longer angry, merely weary, and he felt a sharper pang than anything her bright-eyed fury had cost him.

"Irene, please ..." He took a step forward, his hand going out to her. "Let me talk to you. Let me explain."

"All right. But let us at least go out into the garden. I do not care to make my personal life the subject of gossip for everyone here."

He nodded, and followed her down the stairs and out onto the terrace. They wound their way through the garden until they came at last to a secluded bench.

Irene turned to face him, straightening her shoulders, and said, "I am sorry for striking you. I hope you will forgive me."

He gave her a faint smile. "Of course I forgive you ... if you will forgive me for being a clumsy fool."

She quirked a brow at him. "I suppose you cannot help it."

A short laugh escaped him. "I can always count on you, can't I? You never allow one the easy way."

She shrugged. "Then you are well out of it, are you not?"

"I don't want to be well out of it," Gideon replied. "What I want is to marry you."

She grimaced. "Then I fear you are doomed to disappointment."

"Did you mean what you said?" he asked. "That you love me?"

She lifted her chin. "I am not in the habit of lying. Yes, I love you, but that doesn't mean I have any intention of marrying you."

A smile tugged at one corner of Gideon's mouth. "Not even if I become a rag picker?"

The familiar temper lit her eyes. "Do not mock me! I offered you my love, and you offer me—money and ... titles ... and ..."

"My love," Gideon said simply, going to her and taking her by the arms. He looked down into her face. "I offer you my love. First, last and always. Everything I have is yours. Without you, I fear that none of it would be worth anything to me anyway. But most of all, you own my heart. You have from the moment I first saw you, pointing that gun at my chest, those golden eyes blazing down at me."

"But I—" Irene felt herself begin to tremble with the aftermath of all the tumultuous emotions that had swept through her this afternoon. "You said—" Tears welled in her eyes, and she stumbled to a halt, feeling at once foolish and wonderful.

"I offered to release you because I could not in fairness hold you to your promise. That does not mean I wanted you to accept that release. What I hoped was for you to do as you did ..." He paused and with a rueful grin, rubbed his cheek. "Although perhaps somewhat less forcefully. I had to give you the chance to choose, knowing everything."

She let out a little sound, half sob, half laugh, and moved into his arms. "Please, do not offer me such chances again."

"I will not," he assured her, wrapping his arms around her tightly and laying his cheek upon her hair. "Believe me. I intend to give you no other chance to get away from me. Fair or foul, you are mine, and I will never let you go."

Irene circled his waist with her arms, pressing her cheek against his chest and drinking in the feel of him, the warmth, the strength, the scent. After a moment, though, she leaned back and looked up at him. "But you said—you told me last night you could not love me. You said you—"

"No doubt I said a number of foolish things," he interrupted her. "I thought— I told myself that I did not love you, that what I felt for you was hunger, desire, friendship, admiration—and it was all those things. But this afternoon, when I watched my uncle—my father—as he bent over my mother's body, dead so many years, and I saw the tears well in his eyes ... I knew. I knew that was how I would feel if you were taken from me. Twenty, thirty years later—the rest of my life later—I would still ache for you. And I knew that I was only pretending that what I felt was anything but love. I love you."

"Gideon!" Irene flung her arms around his neck and went up on tiptoe to kiss him. "I love you, too."

After a long moment he released her, looked down into her face and smiled. "I think," he said quietly, "that we should leave Aunt Odelia to spread her story about without our help."

"I think that sounds like a very good idea," she replied, smiling back at him.

"I also think that I should tell the servants to send our supper up to us in the tower. I am not, I fear, feeling well enough to join our guests this evening."

Irene's smile broadened. "You know, I believe that I am not feeling well, either."

"Then we agree? I believe this may very well be the second time."

"And the last," Irene put in.

"Then I think we should celebrate the occasion."

He kissed her until she melted against him. Then he slipped his arm around her shoulders, and they strolled off toward the ruins.

It was generally agreed that the marriage of the Earl of Radbourne to Lady Irene Wyngate was the wedding of the year. It was not perhaps the grandest, for it was put on with unseemly haste. But no expense was spared, and there had not been a wedding in years that was so rife with drama and rumors.

It was enough to keep the city buzzing for the whole two months between the announcement of their engagement and the actual wedding in November. There was the matter of the vanished heir returned to his family years later, the abduction that it was whispered was not an abduction at all, not to mention the shiveringly horrifying discovery of the body of the earl's long-dead mother—during a house party, if one could imagine that. And other, much darker things, which none dared mention above a whisper, with a knowing look.

It was rumored to be a love match. And while very few could claim that they actually knew the groom, which gave him a titillating air of mystery, there were many who were well-enough acquainted with the bride to be astounded at the notion that either she or the groom had tumbled headfirst into love.

But none who attended the wedding could deny the glow of love that shone on the face of both the earl and his new wife as they said their vows. And when they took to the floor for the first dance of their married lives, not even the most hardened heart among the guests could deny a twinge of tearful joy.

Lady Francesca Haughston, standing at the edge of the dance floor, watching them, glowed with a pleasure that owed only a small measure to the lovely silver epergne that Lady Odelia had given to her in gratitude for bringing off the engagement—and which would keep Lady Haughston's household operating through the winter. The truth was that Francesca had come to like both Irene Wyngate and her new husband very much during the time she had spent with them, and she was filled with the happy certainty that their marriage would be a loving one.

The dance ended, and the couple left the floor. Smiling, Irene came toward Francesca, holding out both hands in greeting. "Francesca! I am so pleased to see you!"

Irene was a trifle flushed, and her eyes glittered with pleasure. She was, Francesca thought, the very picture of a beautiful bride. Clearly Gideon, beside her, thought the same thing, for he gazed down upon his new wife in a way that in a softer man would be termed besotted.

"Lady Haughston." He took his eyes from Irene long enough to bow politely to Francesca.

"I wish you both very happy," Francesca said. "Though it is clear that you have no need for my good wishes. Your joy is quite apparent to all."

"It could not keep from being so," Gideon replied, raising his wife's hand to lips and planting a kiss on her knuckles. "I am the luckiest of men." He turned to look at Francesca. "I know that I have you to thank for it."

She smiled. "No, I merely gave you an opportunity. It was you who won her over."

"Despite great resistance," Gideon added, grinning.

"Nonsense. I was merely being logical," Irene told him, her smile as bright as his.

"Logic? Oh, was that it?"

"Yes, indeed. It was quite logical, you see, not to want to enter the married state, given the examples of marriage I had seen. But then, of course, I saw that it was even more logical to say yes to your proposal." She cast a flirtatious look up into his face.

"Indeed?" Gideon responded indulgently. "And how is that, pray tell?"

"Well, as anyone can tell you, it never makes sense to fight love."

"My very intelligent wife," Gideon said and pulled her into his arms for a kiss.

"Gideon!" Irene exclaimed, laughing and blushing, as she emerged from his embrace. "We are in public!"

Gideon bent closer, murmuring in her ear, "Then I can only suggest that we remove ourselves from the public at once."

With a last smile and nod at Francesca, Irene took the arm he offered, and they strolled away through the crowd. Francesca watched them with fondness as they made their way across the floor, stopped frequently by well-wishers.

"Such a lovely couple," said a voice at her elbow, and she turned to see Lady Bainbridge standing beside her.

Francesca smiled a little vaguely at the woman and at Lady Bainbridge's sister, Mrs. Fennelton, who was, as usual, at Lady Bainbridge's side.

"Yes, you must be so proud, Lady Haughston," Mrs. Fennelton added. "Everyone says that you are responsible for the match."

"Thank you," Francesca said politely. "However, I fear that I had little to do with it. I merely introduced them."

"Come, come," said a male voice behind her, and the women turned to see that the Duke of Rochford had strolled over to join them.

The two sisters bridled and simpered at finding themselves being addressed by so great a personage.

The duke favored them with a general smile as he went on. "Lady Haughston is merely being modest. This is, after all, her second triumph this year. She introduced her brother. Viscount Leighton, to his bride, as well."

"Oh, yes, of course," Lady Bainbridge agreed. "They were married at the end of the Season. And haven't I heard—isn't there an interesting event expected?"

Francesca's smile was pleasant but dampening of pretensions. "Yes, the family has made an announcement."

"So wonderful," Mrs. Fennelton added, unabashed by the slight reserve in Francesca's tone. "Well, I can see that you do work magic, Lady Haughston. Lady Fornbridge said so to me just recently, but I had no idea you had such a touch."

"La, Your Grace," her sister said with an arch smile at the duke. "Perhaps you should seek Lady Haughston's help. You have been a bachelor far too long, one might say."

Lady Haughston stiffened and cast a quick glance at Rochford.

"Might one?" The duke's smile was somewhat chilly. He turned to look at Francesca and said blandly, "Lady Haughston, I fear, would not wish to take me on. She is too well aware of how ill-suited I am to marriage. Are you not, my lady?"

Francesca's eyes met his for one long moment before she turned toward the other women with a light laugh. "Of course. Everyone knows that the Duke of Rochford is a confirmed bachelor. Now, if you will excuse me ...?" She gave them a stiff smile, and turned and walked away.

The duke watched her leave, and for a brief moment, something that might have been regret shadowed his eyes.