The Substitute Countess (16 page)

Jack suddenly recalled Laurel’s recognizing a spar on board the ship and she had even provided a few details of what had happened when she had sailed before. He had dismissed that as a dream or her rich imagination as a child, just as he had her memory of her mother, who was supposed to have died in childbirth. What if she did remember those things?

Would she have said anything about either if she was a party to the deception? And obviously, there
was
some sort of deception.

It could be, as he first thought, that Lady Portia and the midwife were conspiring to cause trouble for Laurel. Could the dowager’s hatred for her rival’s child last so long or be that vitriolic?

No, he decided. The birthdate would be too easy to verify. Somewhere there was a nurse who would know the truth about the birthmark. The women could not maintain a lie like that and they would know it.

He could not confront Laurel with any of this until he found more answers.

Jack drove the trap to the stables and ordered one of the grooms to saddle his gelding. “Send someone up to the house to inform Lady Laurel and our guests that I was suddenly called away to London.”

“You’ll need an escort, milord. It’s very late and highwaymen still roam,” the groom advised.

“No, do as I say,” Jack snapped. But he did go into the stables and retrieve the two pistols and bag of shot from beneath the seat of the carriage.

A quarter hour later he was well on his way, dread in his heart. He did not want to find that Laurel had deceived him in order to gain the wealth and title that another woman deserved. His only consoling thought was that perhaps she did not know what had transpired, that she had been used. But by whom and to what end? Most likely she and Hobson were in league. No one seemed to benefit by such a deception other than Laurel herself and the solicitor.

The ride was long and hard, broken only by two stops to rest the horse and refresh himself with a tankard of ale. He arrived in London, his initial anger dispersed by exhaustion and worry. A local inn stabled the gelding and Jack traveled on to Mayfair by hack.

The servants made no comment about his turning up in evening clothes just before dawn. He went immediately upstairs and changed into his old clothes, which he had left behind, then realized he had no idea where Hobson lived. It was a Sunday and he would not be coming to his office.

Jack rang for Echols and asked if he knew.

The butler smiled. “Of course. Mr. Hobson lives on Pembroke Street, number sixteen. Shall I send Will to bring him to you, sir?”

“No. I wish to go there. Find me a hack.”

That proved swifter than Jack thought possible, given the early hour. A good thing, too, since he meant to surprise Hobson, possibly catch him before he fully woke.

He paid the hack to wait for him and marched up the walkway to the attractive two-story home. A rather grand abode for a mere solicitor, even if Hobson had enjoyed a rich, noble employer for the better part of his career.

Jack banged the knocker.

An elderly woman answered the door, her mobcap askew and her apron untied. She reached behind her to remedy that as she inquired, “Yes?”

“Earl of Elderidge to see Hobson,” Jack announced.

She looked past him as if to find a nobleman.

“
I
am Elderidge. Get Hobson.”

She rushed away, leaving the door open, so Jack stepped inside and closed it. He waited for a few moments by the entrance, then ambled on into the wide hallway that divided the rooms of the lower floor.

Hobson had excellent taste, he noted. The furnishings had quality, as did the paintings on the walls. He glanced at a grouping of soft watercolors in simple frames, then moved on to a portrait of Hobson himself. It was a true, younger likeness of the portly little man, right down to the details of his fabulously groomed mustache and gold-rimmed spectacles.

He moved a few feet to examine the picture hanging next to it. The wife, he supposed. Jack’s gaze immediately landed on the face of the woman. “My God!” he muttered.

It was Laurel! Or how Laurel might appear in ten years time. The woman was dressed in the billowing skirts, cinched waist and exaggerated hairstyle popular at the turn of the century. Laurel’s mother, surely. And the hair was not red. It was that unusual shade of gold so familiar to him.

He heard Hobson approach, but still couldn’t take his eyes off the portrait. “Laurel’s yours,” Jack said. No question in his mind.

The solicitor remained silent.

Jack turned and pinned him with an accusing glare. “What happened to the earl’s child?”

Hobson sighed and ran a hand over his face. “She and the nurse died of a fever before reaching Spain.”

“So you put your own in her place,” Jack said.

Hobson nodded once. “Out of desperation.”

Jack could imagine nothing that would warrant such a move other than unadulterated greed. “You and your daughter have conspired to trick me into marriage so that she could become a countess and inherit a fortune. It will not stand, Hobson. You know as well as I that fraud is grounds for annulment.”

“You won’t set Laurel aside,” Hobson said. “The scandal would be horrific.”

“For you and her, yes. For me? You must forget that I have not been one of the elite long enough to care a damn what the others think! I was a privateer, for God’s sake. That didn’t exactly set me up for the Ton’s acceptance anyway! I could chuck it all and go to sea and consign the rest to hell!”

Hobson stepped back. “Please think about it, Elderidge. Remember the people who depend on you, who expect you to behave as earl on their behalf. Laurel is a good wife, isn’t she?”

“She’s a bloody
actress
is what she is! That sweet docile attitude, her ready forgiveness of how I persuaded her to marry me when we were virtually strangers to one another! I should have suspected she was not what she seemed!” He struck his forehead with the heel of his hand. “Fool!”

Hobson backed to the doorway of one of the rooms. “Come, sir, let me pour you a brandy. Let me explain.”

Jack surely felt the need for liquor at the moment, but he was too angry to drink with the crook who had manipulated him so foully. “You have ruined my life, Hobson. I’ll see you never work in England again. Maybe I’ll bring charges and have you transported along with that lying spawn of yours!”

“Laurel knew nothing about it,” Hobson said with a sigh. “The exchange was made when she was three years old, so how can you think she had a part in this?”

“You visited her. You took her gifts. Why should you not have told her? How could a man speak with his own child and not admit what she was to him? What he planned for her?”

“Please try to understand! I was a recent widower without the means to bring her up. The earl’s infant, her nurse and several others died aboard ship before they reached Spain. Elderidge had ordered that I never speak of the child to him, ever, so when I was notified of their deaths, I couldn’t tell him.”

Jack turned on him. “You let that man believe his daughter was alive all those years? You sent his money to pay for the support of one that wasn’t even his?”

Hobson nodded. “He did not deserve to know, and he owed me. Laurel is his niece, you know.”

“But not his own get!”

“I thought if I sent Laurel in the dead child’s place, my daughter would at least receive a good education and have women to care for her. She knows nothing of what I did.”

Jack planted his fist in his hand, stinging the palm with the force of it. “No, I cannot believe all this took place without her knowing and conspiring. She fell into it with no persuasion at all on my part. She had the temerity to blame me for marrying her for money and used it as an excuse to spend like the bloody Regent!”

“It is all my doing, sir, I swear it. You know how trusting Laurel is, how easily led,” Hobson reminded him.

Jack raised his chin and glared. “Then I shall lead her straight to the courts and trust she understands when I reveal her perfidy to the world, along with yours, Hobson.”

“I beg you, be calm and listen,” Hobson said.

Jack was having no more of Hobson’s cajoling treachery. He felt betrayed, embarrassed by his naïveté and furious with himself for falling in love with a woman whose chief emotion was greed. Beautiful, smart,
biddable?
Why had he ever considered her perfect? She had made an utter fool of him, and he had let her, welcomed it with open arms.

“We are quit, Hobson. You are no longer employed by the house of Elderidge.”

“Please reconsider,” Hobson implored and grasped Jack’s arm as he brushed past to leave.

Jack shook off his hand and glowered at the man. “Go immediately, today, and collect your daughter, Hobson. She had better not be in residence when I return tomorrow or I won’t be able to answer for my actions.”

Chapter Sixteen

L
aurel worried about the reason for Jack’s hasty departure for London. Estate business, she supposed, but who had come to notify him of it and when? And why had he not come inside to say a quick farewell and explain to their guests?

His parents had come all this way and had to return to Plymouth today to tend their shop. The Morleighs had also departed soon after breakfast, and Laurel had just finished the midday meal alone in the breakfast room.

“Mr. Hobson, ma’am,” the butler announced.

Laurel rose as the solicitor entered. “What has happened?” she demanded when she saw Mr. Hobson’s worried countenance. “Where is my husband?”

“Elderidge is in London,” he replied, approaching to take her hand. “We must speak immediately, somewhere private,” he declared. “The matter is urgent.”

“In the library,” Laurel replied, hurrying to lead the way. She turned as they entered and watched Hobson shut the door. “Has something happened to Jack?”

“He’s all right. Please sit down,” he said. “What I have to say will come as a shock.”

Laurel sank to one of the armchairs facing the large mahogany desk. Hobson took the other, leaning forward with his elbows resting on his knees. “Laurel, my dear, I have committed a terrible act, though I did it in good faith. Elderidge is furious with me, and with you, I’m afraid. Though it is no fault of yours and all my doing entirely, I could not convince him you had no part in it.”

Laurel frowned. “What have you done, sir?”

He sighed and looked down at the floor. “It is a long story, but we haven’t the time for my excuses or lengthy explanations. Here is the gist of things. You are my daughter, Laurel. The earl’s child died, and I took you to Spain in her place. Now Elderidge has found out and ordered me to remove you from here today.”

“What?” Laurel’s throat tightened. This could not be! She jumped up from the chair and covered her face with her hands. “No! Not true!”

Hobson’s hands gripped her shoulders from behind. “It
is
true, dearest. You are my daughter and I did it all for you. There was no going back once I set it in motion.”

Laurel rounded on him, breaking his hold. “You could have! You could have told me!”

“Then you would not have stayed. You would not have the education I promised your mother.” He stroked her hair. “So often I wished I could have you with me, to watch you grow into the beautiful woman you’ve become.”

She turned away. “How could you have foisted me off on Jack, pretending I was someone I was not?”

“Wrong of me, I know. I only wanted the best for you! The earl cared nothing for his child. Nothing! But I loved you beyond all reason. When she lay dying, your sweet mother made me promise I would see you educated, give you the best care I could find. I had very little then to offer a child. The opportunity presented itself and I took advantage. Believe me, I wish I had foreseen what trouble it would cause, but at the time it seemed the perfect solution.”

“And later, when you sent Jack to fetch me back? Did you never think how wrong it was to trick him into marriage with an
imposter?
”

Hobson hung his head. “I took nothing from him, Laurel. Without the real heiress alive, the fortune was slated to go to him as heir. He only thought it was yours for a brief span of time. With your marriage, he claimed what was rightfully his all along.”

“You forced him to pretend, too, to cozen me into marriage in order to support this estate with money he thought was mine! I almost left him because of that!”

“Please forgive me. I never meant to hurt either of you.” Hobson swallowed hard. “You love him, don’t you?”

“Yes, and now you have destroyed whatever regard he had for me.” Laurel could only think of Jack and how he must be feeling, especially if he thought she knew all about this and never told him. “He really said he would put me aside?” she asked in a heartsick whisper.

Hobson nodded. “I fear so, my dear. He would not listen to reason. But perhaps—”

“Reason? What reason is there about this? You deceived us both and now he hates me!” Now where would she go? What would she do?

“I truly am sorry everything has turned out this way.”

“There is nothing we can do,” she said. “Nothing.”

“We must leave as soon as you can pack your things,” Hobson said. “You will come home with me, of course, and we shall see what might be done to placate Elderidge after he has cooled his anger. Above all, we should try to convince him not to prosecute.”

“Prosecute?” Jack would do that?

“For fraud,” Hobson declared. “He could have us transported. He threatened as much.”

“Oh, God.” Laurel gasped. She tried to think what she must do now. She had to leave, no question about that, but she did not want to go with Hobson, the man who had ruined her life.

At the moment, she could not bring herself to think of him as her father. He had not seen fit to play that particular role in her life, and she refused to acknowledge him now because of it.

Laurel formed a decision on the instant. “Have you any funds about you now?” she asked.

He looked confused. “Why?”

“I need money. There is something I must do,” she replied. When he hesitated, she raised an eyebrow. “I have cost
you
little enough until now, have I not?”

Hobson took a leather purse from his pocket and opened it. “How much do you need?” he asked.

“Fifty pounds should do,” she answered without pause. “For those serving me under false pretense,” she offered by way of explaining why she would need it.

He handed over the entire purse, his expression quizzical. “Seventy-five’s there, I believe.”

“Thank you,” she said. “Please wait here.”

Laurel took one long, last look at the man she had thought of as a friend all her life and said again, “Wait here.”

She swept out of the library and rushed up the stairs. She rummaged in the back of her wardrobe for the keepsakes she had stashed there, the things kept to take out on occasion to remind her of her good fortune. She huffed at the very thought as she slammed the satchel onto the bed.

Quickly, she changed clothes, donning the wrinkled gray gown she had worn when Jack had rescued her from Orencio’s. She kicked off her slippers and tugged on the worn half boots.

As an afterthought, she gripped the small rosary Hobson had given her at her confirmation, something to serve as a warning not to trust so willingly or take things or people at face value in future.

On impulse, she ran to the desk and scribbled a hasty missive to Jack, a brief apology for Hobson’s actions and a curt plea for his forgiveness of her unintended role in the deception.

He would not forgive her, of course, but she could not leave without declaring her innocence even if he never believed in it.

She started to sign it, but realized she was not certain that the name she had always used really belonged to her. Laurel Worth, heiress to the Elderidge fortune, was dead. Hobson had not called her Laurel after informing her that he was her father and not the earl.

She certainly was not going back downstairs and asking the man what her real name might be. She scraped away the
L
and left a blotch of ink in its place.

Fine. She would choose another name.

Once done with the note, she propped it on her writing desk in plain view and hurried down the servants’ stair to the back entrance. From there, she went directly to the stables and bridled the mare. A stable boy approached to saddle the mount, but she motioned him away.

She climbed to the mounting block and straddled the mare bareback. “Tell his lordship he may collect the mare at the nearest posting inn. Tell no one this but his lordship after he arrives. Not Mr. Hobson or any of the servants. Understand?”

The boy nodded.

She kicked the mare into a gallop and set out across the field for the main road.

If she was to be transported, she would damn well transport herself. Hobson had disavowed her as an infant. Jack would never forgive her supposed deception, and he would annul their marriage. So be it and so much for love from any quarter. She was through with men.

* * *

Jack rode slowly, dreading his arrival at Elderidge House. Laurel would be gone and the place would never be the same without her.

He had spent the night in Town, wishing he could drink himself into oblivion, but knowing he must keep a clear head for the ride back to the country. There would be questions, perhaps silent ones due to his rank above those who would wonder at his wife’s hasty departure.

All night he had lain awake, asking himself how Laurel could have dissembled so. Yet how could she not know how when her own father was so adept at it?

He almost convinced himself that she was also a victim of the ruse, but then recalled how quickly she had forgiven him for usurping what he thought was her fortune. And how readily she had accepted the idea that they had to marry before reaching England. Not a word of protest. Not an ounce of caution. Not a single misgiving at wedding a perfect stranger.

Well, perhaps not so perfect. Hadn’t he fully intended to cajole her into marriage, thinking her to be the heiress? Maybe he ought to share some of the blame for making the confidence game so easy for the Hobsons.

It was still difficult for him to think of Laurel as a Hobson instead of a Worth. She was the old earl’s niece, daughter of his half brother born on the wrong side of the blanket. Perhaps Hobson thought he would get back at least a portion of what his father left to the legitimate son.

Yet Hobson had never asked for anything. His only thought from the beginning of the entire farce had been to advance his daughter, to see that she married well and gained a place in society. Who, besides Jack himself, had been hurt by the old fellow’s game?

Should he forgive Laurel for going along with her father’s plan? Could he forgive that? Well, he wanted to. He loved her, but was that enough? Could he ever trust her again?

What if she had not known? Could Hobson be telling the truth about that? Jack didn’t think so, but admitted the slight possibility. If that were true, then Laurel had been hurt, as well. She might have loved him, too, and for her to be suddenly cast out and threatened must devastate her.

He had to know one way or the other, but how? If she were guilty, she would only lie about it. If she were innocent, would he know the truth by observing how she behaved? There was only one possible way to find out the truth. He would have to see her, question her, see how she responded and judge from that.

Jack turned his mount and headed back to Town. She would be at Hobson’s now, for she had nowhere else to go.

* * *

“What do you mean, she’s gone?” Jack demanded.

Hobson, red-eyed from weeping and jumpy as a cat, backed away from Jack’s upraised fist. “She left me in the library, waiting for her to pack. After an hour or so, I sent someone to find her. Her maid gave me the note meant for you.”

“Give it to me!” Jack demanded, holding out his hand.

Hobson did so and, after Jack finished reading the short message, he continued. “A gardener finally admitted seeing her ride away across the field. Astride a horse. With a travel bag.”

“Was there no search?” Jack asked, too worried now to retain his fury. “Where could she have gone?”

Hobson wiped his eyes. “Of course I searched! Everyone did! She was nowhere in the village. Nowhere in the surrounding homes. No one had seen her there.”

Jack thought. “She has to be in the area. She could not have gotten far with no funds.”

“She had seventy-five pounds. I gave it to her, guilt money to pay her servants. She was furious at me when I told her the truth. I just wanted her to forgive me.”

“Fool! She could buy passage with that much!” Jack hurried back to his horse. “She’s going back to Spain. It’s the only place she knows.”

Hobson followed him out and grasped the stirrup. “Please let me come with you. This is all my fault. I told her you intended to prosecute us for fraud. I made her afraid.” He had tears in his eyes as he looked up at Jack. “She was so angry with me. I fear I’ve lost my girl forever.”

Jack looked down at the man and found it hard to hate him. It was so obvious he loved his daughter and worried about her.

Running made Laurel look guilty, but Jack thought she might have run anyway, out of fear or anger. Perhaps both. Or neither. He simply did not know, but he certainly intended to find out.

“Stay here, Hobson. She might calm down and reconsider, come to London and ask your direction. You are her father, after all.”

“Not by her lights. But you
will
find her, won’t you? You won’t hold her responsible for what I’ve done? Please!”

Jack shook his head as he mounted his horse. “I’ll bring her back.”

* * *

Laurel looked out across the waves as the coast of England grew distant. She had boarded a packet in London under the name of Laura Smythe. It was bound for Calais, just across the English Channel. From there she intended to travel by coach down the coast to Bayonne. That was near enough to the Spanish border that residents would speak both languages. While her Spanish was flawless, her French would improve.

She planned to find employment as a governess or perhaps a private tutor. Her newly composed letters of reference were false, of necessity, but it was doubtful anyone would check them. Circumstance had forced her to the fraudulence, and she resented Jack’s threat that had made her into what he accused her of being.

Why should she cavil at misrepresenting herself now, since she had been misrepresented all her life? And if she were checked upon and called to account, she would simply disappear and begin again.

Heartsore and cynical, Laurel suffered the short voyage with staunch resolution. Never again would she depend on anyone else for her well-being. She would be a self-supporting woman with no strings attached, no roots to bind her anywhere.

Nothing to bind her other than the unrequited love she would always feel for her husband. No matter that their marriage would be dissolved, declared invalid since she had wed him under someone else’s name, her love for Jack was all too real and too deep to disregard.