The Stepsister's Triumph (11 page)

There, she'd said it, and the words were as full of wicked intent as the air between them was full of heat.

“Oh no,” Benedict said. “You brought us here.”

“Are you sorry?”

His mouth shaped a single word, but there was no sound behind it. Instead, Benedict grabbed up her mug off the table and strode back to the stove, sloshing tea with each step and ignoring it.

“Perhaps you should go.”

She could go. This minute. She could remember she was mousy little Madelene Valmeyer, whom no one wanted and who had no business wanting anyone or anything. Except there was one small point to be considered.

Are you sorry?
she'd asked him, and he'd silently shaped his one word.

No
, he'd said.

“You have to stop that,” she said.

Benedict's brow furrowed. “Stop what?”

“Saying what you mean. Saying . . . nice things, beautiful things to bring me closer, and then sending me away. It's unkind.”

Why could she do this now? How had this courage come to her? It didn't matter. What mattered was Benedict was stepping back. Not far, and not as if he was angry, but as if he was shaken. He closed his eyes. He breathed, slowly, deeply. “You're right. Again. Do you make a habit of it?”

“Not that anyone would notice.”

Benedict smiled at that, just a little. He picked up the mug and lifted the lid on the ancient brown teapot that was sitting on the stove to pour the tarry, terrible tea back into its depths. When he finished, he replaced the lid. Madelene could sense that he'd also made some kind of decision.

“What do you know about me?” Benedict asked.

The question surprised her, but Madelene managed to swallow her stammer. “I know you're an artist, and a good one. I know you're friends with James Beauclaire and Lord Windford . . .”

He folded his arms. He was looking toward the far wall, where the finished canvases waited. “Do you know I used to be married?” he asked softly.

“Yes. I know that.”

“When my wife . . . died . . . things were very bad with me for a long time. I probably would have died myself if it hadn't been for James and Marcus. But even after I decided I wanted to live, it was a long, cold time before I could stand to pick up a brush. I decided then I would only ever paint landscapes, countryside scenes. No portraits, no . . . no women.”

“Because your heart was broken,” she murmured.

Benedict shook his head. “Because I didn't want to care again. You can't . . . you can't paint a portrait and not feel something for the person. I didn't want to look into another pair of eyes, or to open that person in my thoughts to find another beating heart, or wonder what was going on inside another mind. I was afraid . . . I
am
afraid of caring too much.” He hung his head. “There. Now you know.”

“No, I don't,” she said.
Oh, something's going to happen. The sky's going to fall. At least the roof will cave in . . .
“You agreed to paint this picture, of me. You didn't have to. Why did you do that if you're so afraid?”

“Because I do care. I didn't want to, but I do. You've made me care.”

There was singing somewhere. It was in the back of her mind. A whole chorus of triumph and joy, raised up by those simple words.
You've made me care
.

But how could she answer? If she spoke of how very much those words meant, she'd only frighten him. Madelene thought of Miss Sewell, who could navigate any social setting. What would Miss Sewell do?

Miss Sewell would make a joke.

“So, I want to be seen, but I want to hide, and you do not want to not care, but you do. Aren't we a pretty pair?”

Benedict chuckled. “That we are, Miss Valmeyer. That we are.”

“What are we to do about ourselves?”

“I wish I knew. Your friends are all very clever women. Perhaps they could tell us.”

Madelene gave a small laugh. “Oh, I'm sure if I told them the sorts of things that have passed between us, they'd have a great deal to say to me.”

“Then you haven't . . . said anything about what's happened here?”

She shook her head. “I wouldn't even be able to begin to explain.”

“I see,” he said slowly, and a spark of anger lit inside her.

“No, you don't,” she snapped. “You're think I'm ashamed, or embarrassed.”

Benedict's shoulders stiffened. So did his voice. “It would seem the obvious conclusion.”

“You're doing it again. You say something nice, then you're deliberately unkind.”

Benedict opened his mouth and closed it again. “I am, aren't I?” He rubbed his forehead, hard. “I'm sorry. I . . . I will try to do better. It's just that when you look at me that way . . . I am so afraid of what you must think.”

Madelene smiled. “You should take control of the space around you.”

“What?”

“It's something my cousin Henry talks about. He talks about concentrating only on the space around you, and yourself within it. Not about anything beyond it.” She waved her hand toward the door. “It doesn't matter who is looking at you. What matters is what you yourself are doing inside your space.”

Benedict blinked at her. “Your cousin Henry must be an unusual person.”

She smiled at this. “He's an actor.”

“That explains a great deal.” But before he could say anything else, the church bells began their low, deep, ragged ringing over the rooftops.

“The hour,” Benedict said. “Your friend will be here soon.”

“Yes.”

“We've done very little today.”

“I disagree.” Madelene met his gaze. This time it was much easier. “I think we've done a great deal.”

“Will you come back?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said. “And next time I will not be late.”

Once a week during the season, Benedict dined with his father, the Marquis of Innesdale. Usually, he looked forward to it. Tonight, however, when Benedict climbed down from the carriage, he gazed up at the pale facade of his family's London house and wondered if there was any way to cry off. He was not in the mood for family gossip over roasted capon and Stilton cheese. His head was still too full of his last meeting with Madelene.

When he'd thought she wasn't going to come, he'd felt an irrational panic. Then, when he opened the door and she was there, he'd promised himself he would maintain the necessary professional distance between them. He would not force his feelings upon her. It was not fair of him to try.

That resolve had lasted all of five minutes, if that long. Then he'd been terrified that she'd run away.

Then he'd been terrified she wouldn't.

Then he had asked her if she would come back.

How had sense and feeling become so twisted? He'd staggered from blunt attraction and nameless sympathy, to anger, to something like the beginning of friendship. And somehow, that possibility of friendship had frightened him in a way that the anger and the careening from emotion to emotion could not. Because when the friendship blended with the attraction, he could no longer even pretend to put it aside. Pain could be avoided. The lancing poignancy of physical need could be redirected into work. But that gentle sweetness that was the doorway to the deeper, truer emotions? What defense did any man have against that?

This all had gone round and round in his mind. In the end, he'd decided he should go to dinner simply for the distraction. Also, he told himself, because the old man looked forward to his visits.

That was easier than admitting how very desperately he needed someone to talk to about Madelene.

*   *   *

Benedict and Archibald Pelham, Marquis of Innesdale, did not look like father and son. The marquis was a blunt, squared-off man. Benedict had inherited his slender build and dark eyes from his mother. The marquis freely admitted he had little use for art, even his son's, and despite his father's best efforts, Benedict could only be brought to care for horses and dogs when they figured in landscapes and family portraits for paying clients.

When Benedict was still a young man, he made it clear that he would not put away his “artistic foolishness.” Neither would he relegate his painting to the status of a hobby. This made things difficult between him and the marquis. They'd fought almost daily. Benedict's older brother, Gregory, had struggled to restore peace between them, aided by their strong-willed mother. But in the end, Benedict simply walked out and refused to come home. He also refused his father's money, and kept on refusing it. He would make his own way.

Mother, Benedict found out later, left the letters he wrote from Rome and Geneva lying about for Father to see. An Englishman in Europe during the reign of Napoleon was in danger, and there had been one or two close calls. Then Benedict had come home with Gabriella, and Mother had finally put her foot down with both her husband and her son. Benedict was married. There might be a grandchild. The estrangement would
not
continue.

As usual, Mother got her way. Eventually. Father and son became reconciled. Benedict's continued refusal to take the marquis's money had helped. Gabriella helped. She was perfectly capable of being charming when it suited her, and it suited her to have Benedict in his father's good books. They might, after all, need that money one day. They did not know then how successful Benedict was going to be once he brought Gabriella out for the whole world to see.

Of course, they didn't know how far he was going to fall, either. But Gabriella had been beyond caring when that happened.

Benedict settled into his father's comfortable oak-paneled study and accepted a glass of his best port. They talked about the state of the roads, as the marquis had come up from the country. They talked about his older brother, Gregory, and the estate, and the prospects of both.

“You're looking tired, Benedict,” Father said eventually.

The usual topics of polite conversation are the weather and the roads and everybody's health
, Madelene's voice whispered in the back of his mind, and Benedict struggled to keep the smile off his face. “You're looking rather tired yourself, sir, if I may say.”

Father chuckled. “You may, but I'm nearing sixty, so it's to be expected. I hear your exhibition went well.”

Benedict shrugged. “Reasonably. I sold a picture.”
And took it back again.
“I gained a commission for a portrait. That should keep the wolf from the door.”

“Ah.” The marquis nodded absently, and then, because he tried to take an interest in Benedict's work, he asked, “Whose is the portrait?”

Benedict swirled the liquid in his glass. For a moment, he considered saying nothing. But the marquis was a canny old man, and he'd always known when either of his boys was trying to fib, or duck responsibility.

“Madelene Valmeyer,” Benedict said.

The marquis's bushy eyebrows shot up. “Oh-ho! The Valmeyer girl. Well, well. Wouldn't have thought her stepmother would unbend that far.”

“As it happens, it's a friend who asked for the portrait.” Benedict paused and took another sip of port. “Do you know the family?”

“Distantly. Didn't really move in the same circles.” He chuckled. “Now I sound like an old snob, don't I? Well, maybe I am. Never could abide Sir Reginald. Too calculating by half and nowhere near as competent as he needs to be for the kind of business he keeps trying to get himself into.”

“What of her mother?”

“Her mother . . .” He paused. “Now the mother was very different. Very.”

“Who was she?” Benedict's question wasn't as casual as he would have liked, but Father's attention was more on the past than on his son.

“Mathilde,” his father said softly. “Mathilde Cross. Her father was a partner in the East India Company. Went out in the very beginning and came back with bags of money. Invested in ships and warehouses and the like. Men started calling him Midas Cross, because everything he touched turned to gold.” Father paused for a sip of port. “Some called Mathilde spoiled. I think she just had an excess of spirit. Should have been a country girl. Riding to the hounds, a big estate to help look after, plenty of land, all that would have used up some of that energy. I think the city confined her.”

“I thought you moved in different circles.”

“Not as different as all that. I was rather taken with her for a time, I admit. Of course, as soon as I met your mother, that was over and done with.” He looked into his drink for a quiet moment. “Never worked out quite how such a woman ended up with a dry old stick like Reginald Valmeyer.”

“Not a romantic attachment, then?”

“Maybe on her part, at least at first, but never on his. In fact . . .” Father paused. “Well, it's old gossip, so I don't suppose it can do any harm.”

Benedict waited patiently. He wasn't concerned that the marquis would decide to keep his silence. After his family and his horses, the marquis loved telling stories best of all. Some of Benedict's earliest childhood drawings had been illustrations of ghost stories his father told by the fire in their country house. To the marquis, gossip was just another sort of good story.

Benedict was not disappointed.

“Reginald Valmeyer had a mistress at the time he married,” his father said. “And he never gave her up.”

Benedict gulped his port to hide his distaste. It was common behavior, he knew, and in many quarters, it was expected. A man needed two women. The one for duty, and the one for . . . everything else. But the idea of taking the wedding vows while wondering how fast to break them . . . It left a sour taste in his mouth.

So earnest, so jealous!
Gabriella laughed from his memory.
My righteous Benedict!

“Mathilde wasn't one of those women to conform quietly to a marriage of convenience. There were scenes. In public as well as in private. It got worse after their first son died. Mathilde blamed Sir Reginald for his death, you see. The boy was delicate, and Valmeyer accused Mathilde of making a mollycoddle of his heir. Sent him away to school to toughen him up.” His father winced, and so did Benedict. “Yes, well. They buried him less than a year later, and Lady Reginald never forgave her husband for it. There were two others who died in infancy, and a stillbirth after that. Then, just when everyone thought there couldn't be any more babies, along comes the daughter. She was a tiny little thing, and no one expected her to fare any better. But she must have drawn down some of her mother's spirit with her milk, and she did survive.”

“But her mother didn't?”

“She did, for quite a while, but eventually, she just . . .faded away. Everyone said it was an infectious fever, but I think it's as likely it was Valmeyer and his neglect that finally did her in. But she had the last laugh.”

“How so?”

“Well, before the final shovel of dirt was thrown down on his wife's grave, Valmeyer was in with the solicitor. Wanted to know how much of her fortune was left.” The marquis raised his glass and regarded his son and his memories over the rim. “Would have given a lot to see the look on his face.”

“Was the money gone?”

“Worse. It was tied up. Mathilde's inheritance from her father wasn't in land, you see, or any real property. It was all cash, and it seems a good chunk of that had somehow been . . . left out of the marriage settlement.”
Because Sir Reginald wasn't as competent as he needed to be
. The marquis's words echoed in the back of Benedict's mind. “A little fact that certainly didn't help the friction between them. What man wants to go to his wife for an allowance? Especially when he means to use it to pay his mistress's bills? Madelene was just fifteen when Mathilde became ill. Mathilde must have suspected it was serious, because she went to the solicitor and had a trust created that tied up her money as tight as a noose around a highwayman's neck.”

“So, Madelene . . . that is, Miss Valmeyer is rich . . .”

Father clearly noticed the slip, but he didn't say anything. “Rich as Croesus's daughter, and her father isn't. Not anymore. Valmeyer spent what he had and was depending on his wife's money to keep him in style. Those expectations only got worse after he remarried.”

“Let me guess . . .”

“Oh yes.” His father gestured with his glass. “The new Lady Reginald was his mistress. Not that they admitted it. They said she was a widow and that her three children were from her mythical first husband.”

“Good God,” breathed Benedict.

“Yes, indeed,” his father nodded.

“And I suppose he'd promised the mistress . . .”

The marquis shrugged. “I expect he promised that woman she'd be living like a queen on his dead wife's fortune. He certainly tried hard enough to get his hands on it. Petitioned the courts. When they said no, he petitioned Parliament. He wrote mountains of letters about the natural rights of a father and reminded everyone who would listen that he had absolute right to control his underage daughter and anything she owned. When none of that worked, he even tried to sue the bank holding the money and the solicitors who drew up the document.”

Benedict set the port glass down. With the way his hand was clenching, he risked breaking the thing.

The marquis cocked his head and regarded his son closely. “That poor girl,” he said. “Life must be pretty hellish with a father who cares more for the gold than her, not to mention a very disappointed stepmother.”

Benedict didn't answer. He couldn't answer. No wonder Madelene was so afraid. No wonder she thought no one would care for her or about her. She'd been raised in a house without love. She'd lost her mother while she was little more than a girl. Since then, she'd lived with her father's mistress, and his second family, crushed down under the weight of the money they had been sure was going to be theirs.

How could she be anything but sad and lost? How could she ever trust anyone?

Except she had. She'd trusted him.

“Benedict?”

“What? Sorry. Did you say something?”

The marquis's clear eyes twinkled. “I asked if there was anything I should know?” he repeated with rather exaggerated patience.

“No.”

“You're certain? Come, come, Benedict.” He set his own glass down and leaned forward until his elbows rested on his knees. “We've had our differences, but I hope you know you can count on me if your back's to it.”

“I do know.” Benedict couldn't help but smile as he spoke. When times had been very bad, it never failed that one or two of his paintings would somehow be bought just in the nick of time by anonymous purchasers. The last time he'd visited his father and brother at the country estate, he'd found those paintings in the attics, very carefully wrapped in cotton batting and oilcloth. “But this is . . . it's something I have to see through on my own.”

“Well. Whatever this is, you'll see it home safe. I've learned that about you, my boy.”

The pride in his father's voice touched Benedict to the heart and also left him a little ashamed. “I'm not so sure. I've made . . . I've made criminal mistakes.”

“That was not your fault Benedict,” his father said quietly. “She took us all in.”

“I was her husband,” he said doggedly. “I should have known. I shut my eyes to all of it when I should have . . . I should have . . .” He stopped. “I failed her, Father,” he whispered. “I failed her as a man and a husband, and she died because of it. How can I risk binding myself to another woman? Especially one who's known so much trouble already?”

Another man might have been surprised at the leap in logic and subject. But not his father. The marquis had always understood him, even when they were still fighting. So, Lord Innesdale just leaned back and stared thoughtfully at the fire for a time. When he looked back at Benedict, his eyes were shining with unshed tears. “My boy, I'm only an old man, and I've been a lucky one. Your mother, now, she was steady as a rock. I loved her as my second self, and she never once gave me cause to regret that.”