The Gallant Guardian (16 page)

The marquess sat wrapped in deep thought for some time. In a way, he almost envied Hugo’s near obsessive love for his wife. Maximilian could not ever remember caring for anyone or anything with even a fraction of the fervor that the earl had felt for his Maria, but on the other hand, he had been able to remain remarkably level-headed and cool during most of his life—quick to act and able to make decisions without being blinded by his feelings—while he had seen many of his friends, some of them highly intelligent, rendered perfect idiots by a beautiful face or a charming manner. Max had never been a fool in his life.

Until this moment, he had been exceedingly grateful that he had never fallen victim to this sort of paralyzing passion, but now, reading these letters, he was not so sure. He felt very much like an outsider looking in, like a poor street urchin peering through a window at a sumptuously laid table and a warm fire on a cold winter’s night. And if the coldly cerebral Hugo had once been madly in love, what was wrong with Maximilian, Lord Lydon, that he had never experienced the tender passion? Tender, no; passion, yes, he amended, and grinned as he remembered the way Madame Dufour had licked her lower lip in anticipation, how her magnificent bosom had risen and fallen with her quickened breaths as she had undressed him with her eyes in the silken drawing room of her house in Cadogan Place.

Yes, there had been a great deal of passion in the marquess’s life. Women had been casting alluring glances at him since he had been a tall and gangly youth of fourteen, with his bold eyes and smoldering air of pent-up anger and frustration. He had been more than happy to oblige one and all, but none of the women who had thrown themselves at him had ever made his pulses stir with anything more than purely physical desire. Did he envy Hugo his all-consuming love, a love so overwhelming that when the object of it had died, the earl had, to all intents and purposes, died as well?

Max carefully refolded the last letter. No, he did not wish to be so obsessed by anything or anyone that he would cease to exist as a person in his own right; however, it would be nice to look forward to something as much as the earl of Harcourt had looked forward to seeing his wife after a long absence in London, too long for something as much as Hugo had longed to hold Maria in his arms.

How curious it was to look back over his own life in the light of these letters and realize that, despite an existence filled to the brim with travel and adventure, passion and excitement, in a certain sense he had never really lived. With the exception of Felbridge, Max had never really cared a great deal about anyone, never felt great regret at having to say good-bye or great excitement at the prospect of seeing someone. This certainly had kept him free from entangling relationships, but on the other hand, it had made him rather rootless—a man who never truly belonged anywhere. Until this moment, that sort of belonging had never mattered to him—he had actually avoided it—yet now he wondered if he had made a huge mistake in avoiding so assiduously all those ties that might have made him feel part of something.

He watched the motes of dust dancing in the sunlight that filtered through a crack in the drapes. The pain of loss must have been intolerable for Hugo to give up the vast green fields and spacious magnificence of Harcourt for these sparsely furnished and dimly lit chambers. At last Lord Lydon gathered up the packets of letters and the portrait, locked the door, and descended the stairs out into the sunlight.

Strolling along Mount Street he puzzled over how best to share his discovery with Charlotte. Surely the knowledge that her parents had loved each other dearly would wipe out some of the bitterness she seemed to feel toward her father, and surely an understanding of her father’s real reasons for avoiding his family would erase some of her mistrust of love and marriage in general, and men in particular.

And what had these discoveries done for him? That they had had an effect on him Max was certain. What that effect was, was more difficult to articulate.

This somber and reflective mood was quickly banished the moment Lord Lydon entered his own chambers in Curzon Street. He had barely settled down at his desk before Felbridge handed him a heavily perfumed letter addressed in Isabella’s unmistakably flowery script.
I
do hope this finds you at home though it has been such an age since I last saw you, I fear you have left town again. At any rate, I expect to see you at Lady Charlton’s rout. Isabella.

It was as desperate a note as Lady Hillyard had ever written. Accustomed to being able to pick and choose among her admirers, she had never been forced to sit at home and wait for one to call on her, which was precisely what she had been doing since she and the marquess had returned from Sussex. It had been a humiliating and enraging experience. Life in the elegant house in Brook Street had been unbearable for all those forced to endure her ladyship’s ill humor.

Isabella had expected the shared experience in the country to bring her and Lord Lydon closer together and in fact, when she had first set out on her journey to Harcourt, she had fully expected to return to London as the future Marchioness of Lydon. Not only had this happy state failed to materialize, but she had not laid eyes on the marquess since their return. Marie’s optimistic observation that if she had not seen Lord Lydon at any of the
ton
functions, at least that meant she had not seen him with any other fashionable beauty, had only earned the maid a scolding in language that would have made a sailor blush.

At last Isabella had resorted to this note, a step she had never been forced to take in her life, and one that did her already questionable temperament no good. She labored mightily over it and by the time she handed it to the footman to deliver she was so fatigued by her travails that she was forced to retire to her darkened boudoir where a solicitous Marie made sympathetic noises and bathed her ladyship’s aching head with lavender water as she lay in bed, prostrate from having to sink to such desperate measures.

“He cannot help but call now,” Isabella muttered as her maid removed one sweetly scented compress to replace it with a fresh one.

“Even he, oblivious as he is to these things, knows that Lady Isabella Hillyard never begs for the attention of any man. I vow I shall make him pay for this.”

“Hush, Madame. Lie still now. You are working yourself up.” Marie dabbed gently at her mistress’s brow and rubbed her temples soothingly.

“But Madam, surely you do not wish to have it thought that you are willing to share his lordship with an actress?” Nancy, bringing in a fresh bowl of lavender water, spoke up despite the murderous looks directed at her by her superior.

“What!”
Isabella shrieked, sitting bolt upright in the bed upon which she had been reclining so limply.

“'Tis nothing, Madame. Now lie back.” Gently but firmly, Marie tried to force her mistress back against the pillows. “Calm yourself, Madame, it is only an empty rumor.”

“I will not be calm.” Isabella struggled against the restraining hands on her shoulders and turned to face the hapless Nancy. “Where have you heard this, girl?”

“'Tis but common knowledge, Madam. Everyone knows that Lord Lydon can be found at the New Theatre Royal every night. Why he has seen
Othello
three times running, all to catch a glimpse of Madame Dufour. And it is also said that he is the only one among her crowd of admirers that she admits to her dressing room after the performance.”

“Is this true?” Isabella looked to Marie for confirmation.

The maid nodded.

“I shall go mad! All that time wasted! Those endless boring days with Lady Marling in Sussex! Ooooooh,” Isabella moaned, sinking back among the pillows while both maids applied cool compresses to her brow.

“Madame must not waste another thought on such a scoundrel. Madame must appear tonight at Lady Charlton’s rout more beautiful than ever and looking as though she had not a care in the world. And Madame must be seen on the arm of my Lord Atwater, who is just as wealthy and of a family far older and far more distinguished than that of Lord Lydon’s. While it is true he is only a baron, his—”

“Be quiet, Marie,” Isabella snapped. She sat up and pressed her fingers to her temples. “Leave me now, both of you. I must think.”

The two maids crept out silently, closing the door behind them so carefully that even the click of the latch could not be heard. But once outside, Marie turned on her underling with a vengeance.
“Quelle Betise! Stupide!”
she hissed. “How could you upset Madame so? Now our lives will be a misery, and all because of your tongue. You will never be a true lady’s maid, for that requires the utmost of discretion, of which you have none!”

However much she was in awe of Marie, Nancy was not about to suffer such accusations in silence. “Perhaps I have no discretion, as you call it, but at least I am kind. Far better that Madam knows the truth than that she make a fool out of herself going after that one.
He
is not one to get caught in the parson’s mousetrap; and since Madam will settle for nothing less, she is better off without him.” Nancy smiled slyly. “Not to say that he is not a handsome devil, though. If I were Madam, I should forget about marriage and enjoy him; better to have a lover like the marquess than a dull dog of a husband like Lord Atwater.”

Marie snorted disdainfully. “In Madame’s world, reputation is everything. A husband of Lord Atwater’s standing is not easily found.”

“All the more reason to forget the marquess and look for someone better, if marriage is what she wants.”

Though she would never go so far as to admit it to anyone else, Marie acknowledged to herself that Nancy had been right in telling their mistress of Lord Lydon’s perfidy—not that they were not all going to suffer from it, but the sooner Lady Hillyard’s mind was turned to more productive channels, the better. Long ago Marie had planted the notion of Lord Atwater’s availability in her mistress’s head; it was time to concentrate on that.

Chapter Eighteen

The Marquess of Lydon was also intruding entirely too much in the thoughts of another woman, but unlike Lady Hillyard, she was trying to focus them elsewhere. Back at Harcourt, Charlotte was trying to concentrate on some of the things she had not paid attention to during their guardian’s visit, but it was turning out to be a more difficult task than she had imagined. The man had only been part of her life for less than a month, but his impact on it was as profound as if she had known him for years. She constantly caught herself wondering what he would think of this or what he would say to that.

It bothered her intensely that he kept interrupting her thoughts in such a manner. Perhaps Almeria and the Winslows were right after all and a Season would do her good. If she were to go to London she would be exposed to lots of men and then perhaps one man in particular would cease to preoccupy her to the extent that he did now. She would be able to put him in perspective, forget about him, and continue on with her life as before. William needed her and she had no energy or thought to waste on anyone else if she were going to help him take his place in the world.

As it was, she had been remiss in assisting him with his lessons. In order for him to absorb or remember anything, she really needed to go over in the evening what Dr. Moreland had taught him during the day. It was agonizingly slow, and her patience was frequently tried as she grappled with different ways of explaining the same thing to him in a desperate effort to make him understand. Sometimes she was forced to give up, as she had today when her brother had protested. It made her head ache to recall the entire scene. William had been trying so hard, but he could not help feeling discouraged, nor could she. “But Charlie,” he had protested, “why shouldn’t I spell
through
‘thrue” like
blue,
or even “throe” like
shoe,
when it sounds the same if you say it?”

“Because it just
is
that way, that is all.”

“But why?”

“I do not know, William.”

“But that does not make sense, Charlie.”

“I know, dear.” Charlotte rubbed her aching head as she struggled to come up with some logic that would help him remember such illogical spellings. “To tell you the truth, I cannot explain to you why it is that way; it just
is,
and the only thing you can do is to commit it to memory.”

“Oh.” William looked doubtful.

“You can do it, dear. I know you can.”

“If you think so, but it is very hard.” He sighed and ran his hand through hair so rumpled already that he looked as though he had been dragged backward through a hedge.

Yes, it took everything Charlotte had to help William cope with the world. The last thing she needed was to be troubled with thoughts of a man who at this very moment was probably out carousing, a man who had probably ceased to remember their existence the minute his curricle had passed through the gates of Harcourt.

Charlotte sighed and forced her attention back to the copy of
The Times
she was reading. Ordinarily she treasured these hours in front of the library fire after the rest of the household had gone to bed and she was alone at last, free to think her own thoughts and read whatever caught her interest. However, what had formerly been an oasis of peace and quiet from her crowded routine, now gave her some of the most unsettling moments she had yet experienced as she relived the evenings she had spent with the marquess as they had shared her special time of day in the warm and intimate atmosphere of the library—her sanctuary in the vast magnificence that was Harcourt.

These once-treasured hours of tranquility now seemed more like hours of emptiness. For the first time in her life, Charlotte began to question whether the existence she had chosen for herself was enough. At the moment, she was kept busy with the demands of the estate and her efforts to give William as normal a life as she could, but what about the future when her brother had learned all that he could and gained all the confidence she hoped to give him, what then?