The Unscrupulous Uncle (20 page)

“Your imagination is out of control, Edith. Why would Sidney stoop to harping on minor indiscretions when he has already implied such large ones? Besides, finesse is not his style, and he has no real quarrel with me. He should lose interest before much longer.”

“Don’t be a goose, Cat,” snapped Edith. “Mr. Braxton has nothing to do with keeping the gossip alive. This pettiness comes from Lady Hermione. You must know her reasons.”

“Damon hurt her badly.”

“Ha! All she wanted was his title and wealth. She hated you even before she set eyes on you, for you won the prize she had been stalking. She cares for no one but herself and couldn’t get rid of her court fast enough when he turned his eyes in her direction. Lord Devlin is well rid of her.”

“That does not make sense, Edith. She has nothing to gain by vilifying me. Damon is the one who embarrassed her, yet she welcomes his company.”

“There are times when you really are naïve.” Edith shook her head. “Her personal feelings mean nothing. You stole the position she wanted. There is no chance of finding its equal this Season – the Duke of Norwood has settled on Lady Emily Sterne – which means she must either accept less or spend another year under her father’s roof. Of course she would seek revenge. It does not help that you are beautiful and sweet in a way that she can never hope to emulate. She is jealous, Catherine. And spiteful.”

“Nonsense!”

“It is she who is keeping alive Sidney’s charge that you are in the family way. And I also believe that she is behind the tales that you conducted affairs with servants and tenants.”

“It makes no sense,” protested Catherine again. “Perpetuating the gossip must hurt her more than it does me. I cannot believe she is that childish.”

“She
is
childish. The girl is barely eighteen and has been spoiled all her life. But you are right about the effect. If she keeps it up, she will become a pariah. She should realize that very soon. Or we can find someone to point it out to her – someone she will listen to.”

“And create a new charge to be bandied about town? No. Leave well enough alone, Edith.”

She refused to discuss it further. Edith was ignoring the only important fact – Damon had not chosen Hermione because of money and position. Whatever the lady’s motives, his heart was engaged. And would remain so. Damon was the most loyal man she had ever known, which was why they were caught in this wretched coil in the first place. If Damon ever thought she was scheming against Hermione, even their lifelong friendship would not survive.

 * * * *

Damon leaned against the back wall in Lady Peverell’s conservatory, hardly hearing the fluid notes that held the rest of the crowd spellbound. The first interval should be starting at Drury Lane. Was Hermione as bored as she had expected to be? He had not spoken to her at Vauxhall and still winced at the reproach that had blazed in her eyes the one time she had trapped his gaze. It had deflected him from his plan to recapture the camaraderie he had once shared with Catherine. Was it possible? The evening had started well, but by the time they had left for home, she was as coldly uncommunicative as ever. And it wasn’t from tiredness. She had been even worse today.

What was he doing here when he would have enjoyed the theater more? Catherine wasn’t even with him. He glanced across the room to where she sat, her attention focused on the soprano. This was how he had pictured her that day in the clearing – soft black curls framing her creamy face, those womanly curves caressed by shimmering silk that perfectly matched her violet eyes. Of course, he would never have placed that peacock, Lord James, at her side. His hands tightened into fists.

He should never have come. No one would care if he had gone elsewhere this evening. Many husbands refused to attend musicales, considering them dull and more suited to ladies.

The soprano ended her final aria, letting the crowd rise in search of refreshments. Damon deliberately avoided Catherine’s eye, instead ducking down a hall. Was it too late to go to the theater? He could not make the first interval, of course, but he could be there for the second. Slipping into the library, he paced the floor in indecision.

What was the point? Hermione did not need his escort tonight, and Catherine did. If he were not nearby to keep her from breaking one of society’s myriad rules, she might inadvertently invite new rumors. The arbiters of fashion did not take ignorance or naïveté‚ into account when condemning behavior.

He snorted.

Even when he was present, he was unable to either control her behavior or turn aside Sidney’s spite. But he would do nothing to add credence to the tales. For the time being he must dance attendance on her. Turning to the door, he prayed the harpist would be good enough to hold his attention. All this thinking was bringing on a headache.

Two giggling girls stopped just outside the library. He would have pushed past them, but their words stopped him.

“—like that scandalous Lady Devlin. She doesn’t even care who sees her! Lady Comstock watched her emerge from the Dark Walk at Vauxhall just last night, disheveled and clinging to Lord Rathbone’s arm. She is certainly no better than she should be!”

“So true. Miss Patterson was telling me only yesterday that Mrs. Bassington saw her return from the garden at Lady Wharburton’s masquerade practically draped around Lord James Hutchinson. If ever a woman appeared thoroughly kissed, it was Lady Devlin.”

“Well, what can one expect from someone so lost to good breeding that she would trap a man who was all but betrothed to another?”

“Too vulgar for words. And she treats her maid like a close friend. But that is all of a piece. I heard she was nought but a servant herself until her marriage.”

“Shocking!”

They moved on, entering the lady’s retiring room. Damon gritted his teeth. The insinuations were exaggerated and misinterpreted, as usual – at least he hoped they were. What had Catherine and Rathbone been doing in the Dark Walk?

 * * * *

Catherine lay awake, vainly trying to understand her husband. At Vauxhall, he had been the caring brother she had once known, until after the fireworks, when he reverted to coldness. Following Edith’s musicale – which he should have enjoyed – he’d seemed even grimmer. Yet the next morning he’d joined her for breakfast, sharing the latest gossip, discussing her life with the Braxtons, and even flirting lightly. In the three days since, his attentions had blown hot and cold, confounding every attempt to define him. He had driven her in the park during the fashionable hour, accompanied her to a ball, two routs, and a literary evening, and treated her with a warmth they had not shared in years. He had also snapped her head off for no reason at all, snubbed her for asking a personal question, deserted her to fawn over Hermione, and abandoned her at Hatchard’s bookstore to accompany a friend to Tattersall’s. She had been forced to take a hackney home. What game was he playing? It made no sense to think he was merely countering the continuing rumors. Being friendly in private could not affect society’s opinion, and ignoring her in public made the gossip worse.

His secrecy also bothered her. It would be better to honestly talk – and not just about the rumors and his courtship of Hermione. She still had no idea what her uncle had done. But Damon eschewed discussion, and his abrupt mood swings left her hanging in uncertainty. Which Damon would she meet tomorrow? The friendly charmer? The angry accuser? The remote stranger? Were any of them real? He had been so quiet on the way home this evening that she was afraid he was on the verge of some new attitude.

She pounded a fist into her pillow. London was not a place in which she would ever feel comfortable. Nothing was real. People wore masks that hid honest emotion. Events were staged that seemed glamorous on the surface, but were nought but empty posturing. No one did anything useful. Perhaps her years of servitude had colored her thinking, but she did not enjoy waste. And that included waste of one’s time – which was the perfect description of the London Season.

A scream from Damon’s room interrupted her thoughts. He was suffering another nightmare. Sighing, she drew on her dressing gown and went to wake him. The closest they ever came to conjugal relations was when she shook him out of one of his dreams. It was becoming almost a nightly occurrence.

But this one was different. She froze in the doorway as his muttering resolved into words.

“Peter—” He thrashed about on the bed. “Too much … not even for you … Hermione.”

Catherine gritted her teeth and reached out to grab his shoulder, but his next words stayed her hand.

“How can I live without you?”

Pain ripped through her chest at the plaintive wail. It was as she had expected. Damon loved Hermione with a depth that would never die. If only she had insisted on thinking over his offer. She should not have allowed him to force her into so momentous a decision without any consideration. Even the shallow courtship of a London Season would have given her more time. And why had he offered for her? An ancient vow to Peter should not have held precedence over the woman he loved. If that was truly his reason, why had he not claimed her when he sold out?

Leaving him to his dreams, Catherine quietly returned to her own room. But sleep was a long time coming.

* * * *

“I’ve met the most delightful girl!” Peter spoke so fast the words tripped over his tongue. “You must come see her, Damon. Even you must agree that she is something quite out of the ordinary.”

“Who is she?”

He frowned, agitatedly pacing the room, then shrugged. “Her uncle runs the confectioner’s shop on George Lane.”

“Peter, you fool!” Damon exploded. “You don’t dally with merchant’s daughters – or their sisters or nieces!”

“It isn’t dalliance I have in mind,” he countered passionately. “I love her. She is beautiful!”

“This is too much!” Damon’s fist landed on the table, knocking a wine glass to the floor. “How does she differ from the Black Hart’s serving wench you were in love with last week? Or the vision in pink muslin you saw in church last month? Rein in the emotions, Peter, or you will wind up in trouble.”

“This is different!” insisted his friend, hands clenched in frustration. “I want you to talk to Father about her. She is worthy of so much more than working in a shop. I need to dress her in silk, satin, and diamonds. You would not believe her glorious eyes, Damon. She should spend her nights dancing or singing for the sheer joy of living! I shudder to picture such perfection leading a life of drudgery.”

“No! Not even for you, Peter. You delude yourself – again. Your soft heart is notorious by now. Every chit in town makes a play for your attention. Come down out of the clouds and think for a change.”

“How can you judge without even meeting her?”

“But I have met her,” said Damon gently. “That confectioner has two nieces. Which one caught your eye? Agrippina or Hermione?”

“Agrippina.”

“As I thought. There’s a schemer, or I’ve never met one. She has been meeting Wallace for weeks, hoping for hush-up money when she cries rape. Now I know why she has not already done so. In you she sees a bigger prize – a title.”

“No!” Peter blanched, falling to the floor in a dead faint. Damon sprang to catch him, but they were no longer in Oxford. Portugal’s hills were silhouetted against a setting sun as he cradled Peter’s shattered body in his arms. Hope, love, and joy deserted him, flowing into the pool of blood below Peter’s head. Great rending sobs tore from his throat. “Dear God, Peter, how can I live without you?”

Blue eyes opened, glittering in the fading light. “You will find a way, my brother. And when you do, you will be happy again.”

Damon bolted upright in bed, cold sweat trickling down his back. For once the dream remained clear in his mind. What was not clear was why that memory would return. Peter had gone through two years of instability before they’d left for Portugal, flitting from one pretty face to another, swearing that each was the love of his life. It had become Damon’s duty to keep his friend from disgracing his name. Agrippina was a typical case. When her uncle discovered the liaison with Wallace – the girl was in the family way by then – he’d cried foul and demanded marriage. It had cost the lad’s father a sizable fortune to buy her off and suppress a potentially ruinous scandal. If only Peter had learned to look beyond appearance to the character beneath!

He drew on his dressing gown and paced the room. The real oddity was that last scene, for it had no basis in reality. While he had seen Peter fall in battle, he had not been able to do anything for him. Why had his mind conjured up a fictitious confrontation? Was it because he still felt guilty over Peter’s death?

He had no answers, but it was pointless to return to bed. He pulled on some clothes and went down to his study to ponder the latest figures from his solicitor.

Chapter Thirteen

Damon had already left when Catherine awoke. She ate, met with the housekeeper, then spent a desultory hour shopping. But melancholy banished all pleasure. She could not forget Damon’s latest nightmare. Giving it up as a lost cause, she returned to Berkeley Square.

Why had Damon married her? If Uncle Henry had absconded with her dowry, there was little they could do to recover it at this late date. Any promises Damon had made to Peter seemed feeble in light of his courtship of Hermione.

Enough!
She must distract her mind from this constant analysis. She retrieved her copy of Jane Austen’s
Emma
from the library, pausing to smile at the room. Books were the greatest benefit of her marriage. Damon’s library was extensive, and he had accounts with every London bookseller, so she could read anything she pleased. Her eyes scanned the shelves – classics, poetry, philosophy, recent scientific advances, novels, estate management, and much more. Many of them had been purchased since his return. In that respect, he had not changed. He had always had an inquiring mind.

Her eyes caught the name Braxton on a paper atop the desk. She gasped, dragging her unwilling feet closer. It was her father’s will.