The Deception (27 page)

I tried to smile, but it was not very successful. “I am fine, Harry.”

His eyes moved slowly to his brother. I could see him brace himself. “You brought her home, Adrian?”

“Bonds saw her getting into the cab with Chalmers and came to tell me,” Adrian said.

Harry closed the door and stepped forward into the lamplight. He was very pale.

“Did you get your vowels?” Adrian asked.

Harry swallowed. “Yes.” His eyes flicked briefly to me and then back to his brother.

I said, “I’m tired. I’m going up to bed.”

Neither man said a word as I walked to the door. I felt absolutely wretched. I had only been trying to help, but my clever scheme had made all of us miserable.

I lay awake for most of the night, but Adrian never came.

Chapter Nineteen

I saw Harry the following morning at breakfast, he was very subdued. I tried to apologize for having peached on him to Adrian, but he just shook his head and said that I had been right to do as I did.

He looked so miserable that I tried to cheer him up. “Well, at least you got your vowels back,” I said brightly. “The evening wasn’t a complete loss.”

He drank some coffee, gave me a pale smile, and agreed.

Breakfast was always set out on the sideboard so that people could help themselves, and I took a muffin and a cup of coffee and went to sit across the table from Harry. “If it wasn’t for that nosey parker Bonds, everything would have gone perfectly,” I said.

“No.” He shook his head. “Adrian was right, Kate. I should never have allowed you to be alone with Chalmers. I don’t know what I was thinking of.”

I was beginning to get annoyed. “The two of you act as if I were a helpless child! I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself, Harry.”

“Adrian told me that Chalmers wanted you to sleep with him,” Harry said bluntly.

“Well, it’s not as if I was going to do it!”

“I know that. But it can’t have been pleasant for you, Kate.”

It hadn’t been, but I had survived. I sighed and looked with some distaste at my coffee and muffin. The smell of the food was making me feel faintly nauseated.

I said, “I was only trying to help you, Harry, and instead I’ve made the situation between you and Adrian worse. I am so sorry. Was he very angry with you?”

“He wasn’t angry. Considering the circumstances, he was quite restrained.” Harry’s voice held a note that I couldn’t immediately identify. “He told me that in the future, if I came up against something I couldn’t deal with, that I was to come to him; that he would help me and I wasn’t to worry about him making judgments about my competency.”

I placed the note now. It was bitterness.

“Oh dear,” I said.

“He was very understanding,” Harry said.

Damn.

“If you’ll excuse me now,”
Harry
said, “I have an appointment.” Men always had an appointment when they didn’t want to talk to you anymore.

I watched him leave the breakfast room and thought grimly that if Adrian kept on being this; understanding he was going to drive Harry into doing something dangerous.

I was tired and depressed and in no mood for a garden party, but that was what was on the afternoon’s agenda for me and Caroline. Every year the Marchioness of Silchester had a garden party at her home on the Thames, and all the most fashionable people in the
ton
attended. Since the Countess of Greystone must always be counted as one of the most fashionable people, I had been invited. After Harry had gone out I thought briefly about crying off, but since my own company promised to be pretty dismal, I decided it would be better if I kept myself occupied. I went.

Silchester House was only a few miles outside of London, but the atmosphere was distinctly countryish. Fortunately the day was warm and sunny, so we were able to be outdoors on the Irish-green lawn that had been landscaped into three distinct terraces, the last one reaching right to the river’s edge. There was even boating available if one so desired.

Caroline and I were escorted by Edward, and at the last minute Louisa decided to accompany us, as Paddy was spending the day at the Tattersall horse sales. Adrian was supposed to have come as well, but he left word with Walters that something unexpected had come up and we would have to go to the garden party without him.

Another of those convenient appointments,
I thought mournfully.

We alighted from the carriage at the front of the house, then walked through to the drawing room where the French doors were standing open. The Marchioness was receiving her guests out on the stone terrace.

“I always have a beautiful day for my garden party,” the Marchioness said smugly as she greeted us. “It is part of the Silchester tradition.”

We smiled, and murmured polite compliments, and walked across the flower-banked terrace and down the stone stairs to join the people on the first stretch of lawn. It wasn’t long before Edward had found someone to talk to about cows, and Caroline someone to trade baby stories with, and Louisa and I drifted along together, nodding vaguely to people we knew and not saying much.

I was wearing a bonnet, but the sun soon began to give me a headache. I said as much to Louisa.

“You don’t look well, Kate,” she replied sympathetically. “There is a rose garden at the side of the house. Why don’t we go and sit under a tree?”

I agreed. It was true that I hadn’t slept well, but this was not the first morning that I had woken up feeling unusually lethargic. I had actually taken a nap the previous afternoon before venturing out to the gaming hell. I hadn’t napped since I was two!

“Was Paddy looking to buy something today, Louisa?” I asked idly as we took seats on a pretty but not very comfortable stone bench that was placed beneath the shade of a spreading beech tree. The small garden was filled with all different varieties of rosebushes, and their scent perfumed the air.

“No,” my cousin returned. “He merely wanted to get an idea of the prices that Tattersall was getting at his auctions.”

I nodded, picked up a single pale pink petal that had been lying on the gravel at my feet, and smoothed it between my fingers.

“It’s important that Paddy keep abreast of the market so that he knows what to ask for his own horses.” Louisa sounded very knowledgeable. “He can’t expect to get as much as Tattersall’s does, of course, but on the other hand, he doesn’t want to give his horses away.”

I said with amused affection, “You have got it down wonderfully, Louisa.”

Her cheeks flushed the same pretty pink color as the rose petal in my hand. “I... well, I have grown quite fond of Paddy, Kate,” she said. “I know most people would consider him socially beneath me, but I really think he is the most ... solid ... man I have ever met.”

“He’s a wonderful man,” I said. ‘He’s loyal and affectionate and honest and kind ...” I was running out of adjectives. “I have always considered him part of my family.” I shot her a look. “I can see that he is very fond of you, Louisa.”

I thought she would be pleased, but instead she looked downcast. “I think he is, too, Kate. But I am afraid that nothing will ever come of it. He says his way of life is not suitable for a lady like myself.”

“Well, it probably isn’t,” I said honestly.

“I would like it a lot better than spending the rest of my life drudging away for my sister-in-law!” Louisa said spiritedly.

She certainly had a point there.

I opened my mouth to tell her about Adrian’s offer, but then closed it again. He was so disappointed with me that he might not want people as closely connected to me as Louisa and Paddy living at Lambourn. I contented myself with saying merely, “I will talk to Adrian. If we can arrange some place permanent for Paddy to base his business, would you marry him?”

“Yes,” Louisa said. She glowed.

I smoothed the rose petal between my fingers and repeated, “I will talk to Adrian.”

* * * *

We sat in the rose garden for another hour, and a great number of people stopped and talked to us as they drifted in and out. Finally I had to bestir myself to go to the house to use the ladies’ withdrawing room. I was on my way into the house through the French doors when I ran into my uncle. He was coming out.

He saw me, and stopped as suddenly as if he had run into glass. “You,” he said.

There didn’t seem to be any appropriate reply to this, so I just nodded and asked rather feebly, “How are you, Uncle Martin?”

He came all the way out onto the terrace and stood beside me next to a great stone pot that was filled with azaleas. He said, “Is Greystone here with you?”

I sent up a brief prayer of thanks for Adrian’s appointment. “No.”

Charlwood’s crystalline eyes glittered. “Is Caroline here?” he demanded next.

It took me but a split second to make up my mind about how I should answer him. “Yes,” I said, “she is.”

He turned away without another word, crossed the terrace to the stairs, and stood there, his eyes searching the people spread out below him, his auburn hair blazing in the bright sun. Then he ran down the stairs, disappearing from my view. Slowly I crossed the terrace to the stairs and looked below myself.

I saw my uncle weaving his way in and out of the crowd of people, heading for the second flight of stairs that led down to the next terrace. I looked at the second terrace and saw the straw bonnet with blue ribbons that I knew Caroline was wearing.

She had to meet him sometime, I thought, and at least Edward was with her today. I went slowly back across the terrace and into the house to find the ladies’ withdrawing room.

* * * *

Caroline was very quiet on the way home in the coach, and Edward looked distinctly grim around the mouth. Louisa stared dreamily out the window next to her, probably looking forward to a blissful future with Paddy. It was a silent ride.

When we reached home, Caroline said to me in a low voice, “I’ll come up to your dressing room with you for a moment, Kate, if you don’t mind.”

“Of course I don’t mind,” I replied instantly. I might be tired and depressed, but I wasn’t dead. I was dying to know how her meeting with Charlwood had gone.

She followed me into my dressing room and waited patiently while I told Jeanette that I would ring when I needed her. As soon as the door had closed behind my maid, Caroline collapsed into a chair and said, “I met Martin.”

I moved to the chaise longue and perched on the edge of it. “I thought you might have,” I said.

“Did you see him too?”

“Briefly.”

She shut her eyes. “He’s changed, Kate,” she said.

“Has he?”

“Yes.” She opened her eyes and gave me a very troubled look. “He ... he almost frightened me.”

My attention sharpened. “What happened?”

She frowned. “It wasn’t anything very dramatic, Kate. He came up while I was with a group of other people and asked if he could speak to me. We walked down to the edge of the river, threw bread to the ducks, and talked.” She chewed on her lip. “It wasn’t even what he said that frightened me; it was more the way he looked.”

I slipped off my shoes and flexed my tired feet. “What did you talk about?”

“Oh, he asked me if I was happy. I said that I was very happy, that I had two wonderful children.” Her eyes met mine. “Then he asked me about Edward.”

I nodded slowly.

“He asked me if I loved him.”

“And what did you say?”

“I said that I loved him very much.” She grimaced painfully. “Martin didn’t say anything, Kate, but he looked ... oh, frightening, somehow. So then I said all kinds of banal things about time healing all wounds, and that he would find someone to love as much as I loved Edward if he would only let himself. I babbled on and on, because he made me so
nervous.”

I nodded. I knew exactly how nervous Charlwood could make one feel.

Caroline said, “I told him that he had to forget about me and go on to live his own life. That he had to let go of the past.”

“That was exactly the right thing to say,” I assured her.

“He said that he thought of me all the time, Kate, that he has never stopped loving me, and that he never would.”

“Oh dear,” I said feebly. I wasn’t surprised.

Caroline was actually wringing her hands. “We were
children,
Kate! It isn’t healthy for him to feel like this. It’s as if he’s become ... warped.”

“He is warped,” I said sadly.

“It’s all my fault,” she wailed.

Slowly, I shook my head. “No,” I said. “It’s not your fault, Caroline. I have been thinking about Uncle Martin for a long time now, and there is really no excuse for his behavior.”

Tears were dripping down Caroline’s face. “He had such a wretched childhood ... he was so unhappy ...”

I said, “Think about this, Caroline. Adrian’s childhood was just as terrible as Charlwood’s—maybe even worse.” I pushed down the rage I always felt when I thought about this, and said somberly, “Harry told me that your father used to beat him.”

She nodded and sniffled loudly. “I think my father hated Adrian,” she confided. “No matter how hard Papa tried, he could never make Adrian afraid.”

I leaned a little forward. “And has Adrian turned out to be a bitter, hate-filled man?”

She shook her head, sniffled again, and began to search for a handkerchief.

I continued my interrogation. “If Adrian’s elopement had been foiled, would he have sought revenge the way Charlwood has?”

Caroline blew her nose and said with absolute conviction, “Adrian would never have eloped. He would never have left Harry and me.”

I pushed away the unpleasant thought that my mother had eloped and left
her
brother and said instead, “There is the difference between the two men. Adrian thinks of others. Charlwood thinks only of himself.”

Caroline blew her nose once more and looked at me. A single teardrop clung to her lashes and shone like a diamond in the lamplight. “You don’t understand, Kate,” she said. “Martin
loved
me.”

“He wanted you,” I corrected. “If he loved you he would not have persuaded you into a clandestine elopement that could only have resulted in a terrible scandal. For God’s sake, Caroline, how did he think you were going to live? His father was still alive. Your father was still alive. Under the circumstances, neither one of them would have given you an allowance! How was Uncle Martin planning to support you?”