Twice Fallen (32 page)

“I overheard two men discussing it at
our
club. They brought it up as a joke because apparently one of them had been invited there as a guest, not realizing the nature of the entertainment there.” Arthur looked weary, his eyes closing briefly. “I admit I was intrigued, and not just because of the sexual aspect. I don’t know if you
understand what a burden it is to keep such a secret. Most of my life I have felt extraordinarily alone. The idea there were others out there.… It was appealing.”

Not directly, but Damien thought he could understand. There were times during the war when he was working behind enemy lines, the missions so covert no one really knew where he was. Had he been captured and executed—spies were shown no mercy or respect for their rank—it was possible no one would ever know, his grave unmarked and his family left to wonder forever.

Yes, he understood the loneliness of secrecy. Better than anyone.

“Would you know if some of your acquaintances belonged to this same establishment?” He extracted the list of Kinkannon’s victims from his pocket and set it on the desk. “I believe there are others who are—or in some cases
were
—being bled for money by the same party as who approached you. Could the club be the connection?”

Arthur retrieved the list and read it quickly. He said hoarsely, “Good God, two of these men are dead.”

“Indeed they are.”

The meaning in his voice got through, but Arthur shook his head. “I don’t think it could have anything to do with the club. We conceal ourselves, and it is expensive and exclusive, which protects everyone who belongs. I suppose it makes it certain we are all from a certain level of society and therefore have an investment in our anonymity. Besides, I know all the men on that list; none of them are… like me.”

“You’re sure?” Damien lifted a brow. “You have managed to keep it hidden all these years.”

“I’m a bit better at recognizing the signs than you are, no doubt.” Arthur finished his drink in a convulsive swallow.

As Henry Lawson was being blackmailed not for his sexual preferences but his gambling troubles, that could be true.

Which left Damien as much in the dark as ever.

Damnation
.

“But they all are from within our social circle.”
Except the missing valet, of course
. Musing out loud, he settled back and remembered his brandy, taking a swallow. “Tell me, when Kinkannon first contacted you, what did he want?”

“Money. Ten thousand pounds, to be exact.” Arthur’s voice was bitter.

“That’s quite a sum. Did you give it to him?”

The other man’s mouth curved in a humorless smile. “Wouldn’t you, if faced with social ruin, not to mention the destruction of my political hopes? Kinkannon, of course, used my marriage against me as leverage, as apparently everyone understands that it is a complete failure.”

“What did you expect?”

“Of my marriage?” Arthur gave a negligent shrug, but his eyes were bleak. “I am really no different than any other gentleman who marries for reasons other than love. I needed a wife, her father’s influence could help me, and I have done my best to be a dutiful husband.”

Sebring was a
bit
different, Damien would argue, but true enough, not much.

So Kinkannon received his money, two men of the four victimized that he knew of were dead, and there
was still an unknown accomplice. “Did he offer you an option besides paying the money?” Damien asked, remembering the night in the garden when he listened to the conversation with Charles’s nephew. He was still intensely curious about that exchange. It was part of the key to solving this puzzle.

“No,” Arthur said bitterly, “he just asked for money, the blackguard, or he would tell my wife about the club. She already blames me for her childless state. I cannot imagine what she would do if she knew the truth. My life would be ruined.”

“I doubt she’d want to publicly humiliate you. After all, you are her husband.” But even as Damien said the words, he questioned them himself and he didn’t know Lady Sebring well.

Arthur walked over to the window and stared outside. It was breezy and overcast, and a few spits of rain touched the glass. “You have not lived with her for three years. She wanted my title, not my person, which is why I agreed to the marriage. I was never going to hurt her emotionally. I knew that from the moment her father introduced us. What I couldn’t do to Lily was not the issue with Penelope. It never mattered to her if I loved her in a romantic sense of the word. I doubt she would care one way or the other if I did.”

Damien had to admit, being newly introduced to the concept of a relationship based on deeper feeling, he was not envious of his friend’s loveless marriage. “Yet she seems to want to give you an heir.”

Arthur turned to face him, a humorless smile on his face. “She wants to
produce
an heir. That’s quite different. There is no reasoning with her on the subject, no
assurances she heeds that if the title passes on to my cousin I am not unduly upset over it. Quite frankly, I think that it is an all-consuming determination to contribute to an aristocratic lineage that has her so obsessed.” His mouth twisted. “And despite what you may be thinking, a child is definitely possible. We have been diligently trying for three years. It might not be my preference, but I am well aware it is my duty.”

The defensive statement was unnecessary. Damien wasn’t thinking about whether Lord Sebring could perform in the bedroom. Sitting there, his half-empty glass of brandy suspended in his hand, he was more contemplating an unexpected angle to the situation he hadn’t thought of before.

Reverse logic might be applicable. It wasn’t that the men who had been blackmailed looked all alike… it was that they all looked like Lord Sebring.

An interesting premise.

Unfortunately, it made sense. Carefully, he asked, “How obsessed is she?”

Arthur Kerr said with chilling vehemence, “There are times I think she might be mad.”

The card in her hand made her stare in consternation, as if looking at the embossed letters might change the identity of the caller. A glance at the clock showed it was not even time for luncheon, and Lily rose and smoothed her skirts in an automatic reaction. “Tell the viscountess I will be right there.”

“Yes, milady.”

With a swift glance in the mirror, she tucked an errant curl back into place, the uneasiness that tightened her
stomach hard to ignore. Why on earth would Arthur’s wife ever visit her? Their mutual dislike was hardly a secret.

Her steps measured, Lily went downstairs. Lady Sebring, she discovered, was in the drawing room, staring at the painting above the fireplace, her posture rigid and formal.

“Good morning,” Lily said coolly.

Penelope Kerr turned around. She wore a stylish day gown of lilac silk trimmed with ecru lace, as impeccably turned out as ever, but there was a cold glitter in her eyes that belied the persona of a friendly call. “Forgive my imposition, Lady Lillian.”

“Not at all.” Lily stood just inside the door, her wary gaze on her visitor. “How nice of you to call.” The polite words were forced and from her thin smile, Lady Sebring was not unaware of it.

“I am sure you are surprised.”

Well, that was undeniable. She had to incline her head. “I admit that, yes, I am a bit startled you’d pay a social call to someone you so openly dislike.”

“Have I given that impression?”

Lily’s response was brittle. “Yes, you have.”

“I see.” Without being invited, Lady Sebring took a seat in one of the velvet chairs, her gaze steady as she genteelly arranged her skirts. “You should close the door. I am here to discuss my husband. Do you want the servants to overhear the sordid details?”

“I am not even sure
I
wish to hear them,” she muttered.

In response Arthur’s wife raised her brows in a haughty mannerism that rankled.

It might be cowardice, but Lily suddenly wished for
the duchess to be present. It was true that the Dowager Duchess of Eddington was presumptuous, autocratic, and occasionally overbearing, but she certainly knew how to handle discomforting social conversations.

Actually, Lily thought in wry amusement, the dowager didn’t handle them at all. She simply walked over the problem with her typical disdain. However, it appeared Lily was going to have to deal with this one herself.

She went ahead and closed the door. She hadn’t protected Arthur for four years for nothing. And the infernal woman was right, there was hardly any point in stirring up the old scandal now, when her engagement was about to be announced. “What could we possibly have to say to each other?”

“I think I need to make my position clear.”

“If this is in regard to your husband, I believe you already have, and more than once. But if you are here to make some sort of point, please go ahead and do so.” Lily had to admit she was impatient with it all, with a part of her life that should have been long over. She didn’t want to deal with Arthur’s petulant wife, and she didn’t want to look backward but was instead happy to be able to move forward. To any other visitor she might offer refreshment, but in this case she just wanted it over as quickly as possible.

“I hear you are engaged.”

It wasn’t really what she expected to hear, and she weighed her response. In the end, she just said simply, “Yes.”

“The brother of a duke. How impressive.” There was a slight, almost chilling edge of malice in Lady Sebring’s voice that truly gave Lily pause.

“I wasn’t angling for a certain level of social prominence.” At least she could say that in truth.
Unlike you
, she thought, but perhaps that was better left unsaid. It didn’t seem to her that Lady Sebring had gained much from her advantageous match.

“I am a bit surprised, I must admit, that Lord Damien is willing to overlook your soiled reputation.”

To be courteous in the face of such open insult took some effort, but Lily only said coolly, “It’s a love match.” It was stretching it a bit to claim that, as Damien had never said he loved her, but she certainly was in love with him, so it was at least partially true. “I do not know if you understand the concept, which makes me pity Arthur very much indeed. Now, if you will excuse me—”

“My husband never bedded you, did he?” Penelope sat there, prim in her expensive gown, the silk gloves she’d removed next to her on the green velvet chair, the picture of elegance except for the venom in her eyes. “Did he even try? Never mind, there’s no need to answer. He finds the act of copulation distasteful with women. Did you know that? Yet, oddly enough, I think the wretch believes he loves you still. Poor Arthur, so confused. He loved you but couldn’t bring himself to desire you, and so he then gallantly—albeit a bit late in the day—decided you would be better off without him and his depravity.”

As much damage as what had happened had done to her life, Lily could never have summoned that amount of dislike for Arthur and it appalled her to realize how his wife really felt about him.

“He offered me the choice.” She said the words woodenly.

“And you chose infamy instead of a handsome husband with title and fortune. Rather idealistic of you, wasn’t it, Lady Lillian? All of London thought you promiscuous, and the speculation was that once he’d sampled your…
charms
, as it were… he’d been disappointed enough to refuse to marry you. It’s a pity you didn’t discover there are ways around his reluctance.”

Lily found there were limits to her civility after all, it seemed. “You and I both know the truth, though, don’t we? And while this has been an interesting discussion, I am still not enlightened as to why we are having it.”

“What about Lord Damien? Does
he
also know the truth?”

At last she understood the woman’s purpose. It was difficult to tell Arthur’s wife it was not her business, when indirectly it was, so despite how unpleasant Penelope Kerr had been so far, Lily said neutrally, “He would never reveal it to anyone. If Wellington trusted him to keep England’s secrets during the war, I believe you can trust him to keep this one. He and Arthur might not have seen each other for years, but they are old friends. There won’t be a scandal over it because of Damien.”

“That isn’t what I meant.”

Confused, Lily just looked at her visitor.

“You are hardly in your first bloom and he is an experienced man. Does he know Arthur never seduced you because Lord Damien is the one who took your virginity?”

The disconcerting visit was getting worse, Lily decided. She said stiffly, “I can’t see how my engagement is a source of such interest to you.”

“But it is. You see”—Penelope paused delicately—“if
you are to be married, you might become enceinte.… Or could you be carrying a child already?”

She
could
be. Lily knew it was possible, but she was hardly going to admit it.

“Ah. I see. That is a very telling blush.”

The observation was alarming, but she wasn’t sure why. Maybe it was the way Penelope Kerr was looking at her, as if analyzing her reaction to the bizarre conversation, her head tilted just slightly to the side.

“I am not quite sure what it is you are asking.”

“Let me clarify it for you, then.” In one smooth motion Arthur’s wife rose, moving gracefully across the room. Something gleamed in her hand, but Lily noticed it only in an abstract way, riveted by the look on the other woman’s face.

She wasn’t sure she’d ever seen pure hatred before. It was there in its most unadulterated form in the gleam in Penelope’s eyes, the twist of her mouth, the taut line of her throat. Lily took an involuntary step backward, wondering in that split second if it had been a mistake to close the door, before she realized that when Lady’s Sebring’s hand flashed up, what she held was a small knife, the glint of the blade startling in the late-morning sunshine coming through the elegant drawing room windows.

Sheer disbelief held her prisoner, her mind rejecting what was happening even as her visitor lunged toward her, dagger in hand.

Lily staggered backward, bumped into a table, hearing the lamp wobble. One arm flew up to deflect the blow, and as a slicing pain shot through her, she realized she hadn’t quite succeeded.