The Countess (17 page)

Richard stared after Christiana and her sisters as they hurried from the room chattering away. He really had thought she’d be as eager to get to Gretna Green and legalize their marriage as he was. He was sure she’d enjoyed last night as much as he and would be eager to be able to do it again. It seemed, however, that he hadn’t a clue when it came to Christiana. It also looked as if he would be sleeping in the guest bedroom tonight . . . alone.

“I did warn you,” Langley said dryly once it was just the three of them. “You should have listened. I
have
known them all my life, after all.”

“Yes, you have,” Richard agreed, turning on him. “And while the women are packing, you can tell us everything you’ve learned about them in that time.”

Chapter Twelve

I
do not know how you can do that with the carriage bouncing about as it is.”

Christiana glanced up from her embroidery at Richard’s words and smiled wryly. The truth was she was poking her fingers more than the cloth and the stitches she had managed would have to be ripped out and done over again anyway, they were such a mess, but it helped pass the time and distracted her from the fact that she was shut up all alone in a carriage with Richard.

In the end, the men had agreed to take three carriages for this trip to Gretna Green. Each man had contributed one. The maids rode in Langley’s carriage at the back of their little procession, she and Richard rode in the Radnor carriage at the front and Suzette, Lisa, Langley and Daniel all rode in the Woodrow carriage in the middle. It seemed an unfair distribution of their party to Christiana and she would have preferred at least one more person in the carriage with her and Richard to act as a buffer, but when Daniel had suggested he and Suzette needed a chaperone in their own carriage for the journey, Langley had volunteered and Lisa had insisted on joining them. Apparently, none of them considered that Christiana and Richard were not yet properly wed and should also have a chaperone.

Of course, her sisters still had no idea Richard was Richard and Dicky had actually been George and she wasn’t legally either man’s wife. But the men knew it. Obviously, they weren’t as concerned for her reputation as she was. But then Christiana supposed she had little reputation to save after the night she had spent with Richard when she’d still thought him her husband. Despite that, she was determined to behave as she’d been raised to and not make the mistake of sleeping with Richard again until they were legally wed. The problem was, she really wanted to. Temptation was an awful thing, she decided.

“It helps me pass the time,” she said finally in answer to his comment.

“Hmm.” Richard peered out the window at the passing scenery. “It
is
a long journey.”

“Made longer by our insistence on three carriages and stopping at night,” she suggested gently. “I am sorry about that.”

“No.” He smiled wryly. “Now that we are on the road I am grateful you ladies insisted on it. I am already looking forward to getting out and stretching my legs. And sleeping tonight in something that isn’t bouncing up and down will be nice.”

Christiana murmured agreement and struggled on with her efforts at embroidery.

“Have you been to Radnor?” he asked suddenly. “Has George taken you there since you married?”

Christiana lowered her embroidery to her lap and smiled wryly. “We stopped there for a night on the way to London after the wedding, but it was only a brief stop. We arrived after dark and left at first light so I didn’t get to see much.”

“The wedding was at your father’s home?” he asked.

Christiana nodded.

Richard peered at her silently for a moment and then said, “I was surprised neither yourself nor your sisters suggested collecting your father on the way. I would have thought you’d want him to attend your weddings.”

Christiana sighed and stabbed her needle into the cloth, set it down and admitted, “I considered it, but Suzette was so angry at Father for gambling again and forcing her to marry so abruptly that . . .” She shook her head unhappily. “I just thought it better not to even bring up the subject.”

“And you? Are you angry too? If not for the first round of gambling you would never have had to marry George.”

“I didn’t have to marry him,” Christiana said quietly. “Had I seen through him and refused his troth Father would have supported me in my decision. Marrying Dicky was my choice. He wooed me, I believed his lies sincere and made the wrong choice.”

“What other choice was there?” he asked.

“What Suzette is doing now, I suppose,” she said with a shrug. “Find myself a man in need of money and strike a deal with him.”

He frowned slightly and then commented, “Christiana, you have a tendency to take responsibility in every situation . . . even when it is not yours to take.” When she started to protest, he pointed out, “You understand why Suzette is angry, but don’t claim that anger for yourself for being forced to marry Dicky when if the gambling hadn’t happened the first time you never would have been forced to make the decision at all.”

“But—”

“And then while talking to Grace, you tried to take responsibility for our night together when it was wholly my fault.”

“I was a party to it,” she said blushing and lowering her head with embarrassment. It was the first time they’d spoken of that passionate night. “I am the one who started stripping you and set the whole thing in motion.”

“And you thought I was your legal husband while I knew we weren’t legally wed,” he pointed out quietly. “That night was my fault. As a gentleman I should have brought a halt to things.”

“Yes, well . . .” She sighed, terribly uncomfortable with the conversation and not sure what to say.

“I bet you have spent a good deal of this last year trying to figure out what was wrong with you or what you had done to make George treat you the way he did,” Richard murmured.

Christiana turned to peer unhappily out the window. She
had
spent the last year trying to work that out and trying to figure a way to fix things and bring back the sweet, complimentary man who had courted her.

“I hope you realize now it wasn’t you,” he said gently. “George would have treated you poorly no matter who you were. He treated everyone that way.”

“I suppose,” she murmured, peering down at her embroidery again.

Richard sighed, a sound that struck her as slightly exasperated, but he let that subject go and instead said, “While I understand why you and Suzette would be angry with your father, I think it may be undeserved.”

She raised her eyebrows in question. “Oh?”

“Do you know how the first losses happened?” he asked.

Christiana shook her head. “All I know is Father went to town to meet with his solicitor about estate business and came back several days late, terribly upset. It took some effort to get him to tell us what was wrong, and then he finally confessed he’d somehow wound up at a gaming hell and gambled us into debt and that the owner of the gaming hell was demanding payment and while he’d managed to pay some of it, he just didn’t have the money to pay the rest. We were all upset and trying to work out a way to get the money when Dicky showed up to save the day.”

“How did he know to save the day?”

Christiana blinked at the question. “What?”

“You said Dicky showed up to save the day,” Richard pointed out. “How did he know the day needed saving?”

“Oh.” She frowned. “Well, I didn’t mean that he knew about it when he arrived. It was just a grand coincidence, or at least I think it was. I’m not sure about anything now, but at the time it seemed coincidence, and I just assumed that Father told him of his troubles while they talked and Dicky offered to pay his remaining debt to sweeten his offer of marriage.”

“Hmm,” Richard’s mouth thinned out, and then he said, “Well, Daniel and I suspect Dicky had something to do with getting your father to the gaming hell in the first place that time too.”

“You do?” she asked with surprise. “Why?”

“Because there are rumors in town that the Earl of Radnor has become friendly with a certain owner of a gaming hell where it’s suspected the players are drugged and fleeced. I believe it’s the same gaming hell where your father lost his money. And it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that George had taken your father there both times.” He frowned and added, “I shall ask your father about that on our return. If I’d been thinking clearly I would have done it yesterday.”

Christiana stared at Richard blankly, and then blurted, “But why? Why would he do such a thing?”

“Well, if he did it the first time, it was probably to force an opportunity to marry you and get his hands on your dower,” he said apologetically.

“But no one knows about it.”

“Langley does,” he pointed out.

“He’s like family. Robert wouldn’t tell anyone,” she assured him firmly.

“While I knew him as a child, I don’t know him as a man yet, so I will trust your judgment on that,” he said and then asked, “Who else knows?”

She frowned. “No one. Robert only knows because we were playing in the attic when the lawyers visited and there is a spot where you can hear what is said in Father’s office.”

Richard was silent for a moment and then asked, “Who is your father’s lawyer?”

“An older gentleman with a funny moustache . . . I believe his name is Buttersworth,” she said after a moment’s thought.

“Ah.” Richard, said with understanding and sat back in his seat. “John Buttersworth Junior has been a friend of George’s since school.”

“You think his father told him about my grandfather’s will?”

“He wouldn’t have to. John Junior works with his father now. The plan is for him to take over his father’s clients when the time comes.”

Christiana scowled at this news. “So you think that John Junior told Dicky about our dowers and that he deliberately took Father to the gaming hell both times to be drugged so that he’d gamble when he wouldn’t normally?”

“Your father isn’t a gambler?” Richard asked.

She shook her head. “He’d never gambled before in his life until that one time last year. And then he didn’t gamble again until now. Father is more a stay-at-home type. He works the estate and spends the evenings dining with friends in the area or reading by the fire. Even when he had to travel into the city to see his lawyer or manage other business, he was more likely to stay in than go out, and then it was only to stop at the club for a drink and catch up with old friends. That’s why it was so shocking and upsetting when we learned he’d gambled and so deeply.”

“And this time? Was it as much?” Richard asked.

Christiana shook her head. “No. I gather it’s about half what it was the first time. But Father drained the estate to pay his debt the first time. Dicky only paid off what was still outstanding after he’d squeezed all the money out that he could. The estate would recover slowly, but there is little actual money to hand, so even the smaller amount this time would force the sale of the estate.”

“Unless Suzette married,” Richard said thoughtfully.

“Yes.” Christiana frowned. “I suppose it makes sense that Dicky took Father to the gaming hell the first time to force my marrying him, but why would he do it this second time?” That had been troubling her even before she’d heard Richard’s suspicions that Dicky had been the one to take her father to the gaming hell the first time. Why had Dicky taken him there when he’d known what had happened the first time?

“I don’t know,” Richard admitted on a sigh. “He wouldn’t have profited from it this time.”

Christian clucked impatiently and stabbed her needle into the cloth, wishing it was Dicky. She wished the stupid man would come back to life long enough to answer these questions, and then kindly drop dead again. However, that simply wasn’t going to happen. She’d seen Dicky when the men had taken him from the bed and folded him into the chest presently resting on top of the carriage she and Richard rode in. The man was definitely dead, and they were removing him from the house none too soon. It was time he was buried. And good riddance to him, she thought unhappily.

Of course, it just meant she would be married to the real Richard Fairgrave, Earl of Radnor instead, but even after the last two short days it was becoming obvious that he was nothing like his brother. He hadn’t once tried to control her, not even raising an argument against having to sleep in the guest bedroom though she’d expected he would. He also hadn’t criticized her even once yet, but instead had given her a handful of compliments, which was a handful more than she’d received from Dicky during their marriage. Many of those compliments had been during their night of passion, which might not be that reliable. But one had been at the ball the night they’d met, and he’d greeted her that morning with another, saying she looked lovely with her hair in the much softer style Grace had arranged it in. More importantly though, he seemed to respect her opinion, trusting Langley on her say-so twice now, and that was very important to her. She had always considered herself a relatively intelligent and sensible young woman, but George had made her feel stupid and clumsy. Richard didn’t make her feel that way.

“I am surprised you do embroidery,” Richard said suddenly. “From all Langley has told me it sounded as if you were more into horseback riding and other physical pursuits while growing up.”

“Yes.” She smiled faintly at the thought of her childhood, and explained, “Robert was often at our home while we were growing up, and we were always running, jumping, riding and whatnot. I fear my sisters and I were never really interested in the more ladylike pursuits such as”—she glanced down at the cloth in her hand and grimaced—“needlework.”

“And yet you do it now,” he pointed out.

“Dicky—I mean George—”

“You can call him Dicky if you like,” he interrupted gently. “I don’t mind so long as you never call me Dicky again. That was George’s nickname for me and I always hated it.”

Christiana nodded, but simply said, “He insisted I learn embroidery and other more ladylike pursuits. He said I was far too unruly and needed to learn discipline and needlework would teach it to me.”