Vanity (11 page)

And now Lord Rupert Warwick stood in St. James’s Palace and observed his twin. It had been eighteen years since he’d called himself Cullum Wyndham, and he felt no regrets for the loss of the tormented lad who’d staged his
own death. But the desire for vengeance burned like hot coals in his vitals. He had come to claim his birthright, and Octavia Morgan would help him to that end.

Deciding abruptly that he’d indulged his obsession sufficiently for one day, Rupert left the palace. He would play a waiting game for a few days, give Miss Morgan time to reflect on the pleasures of his company—and, he hoped, to miss those pleasures—give her time to see herself as someone who could indulge in them again and turn such indulgence to their mutual advantage.

T
he Earl of Wyndham dallied pleasantly with his mistress, who seemed disposed to single him out this morning for special attention. “Will you drink tea with me this evening, my dear sir?” she inquired prettily as he escorted her to her carriage at the end of the levee.

“Do you expect a large party, ma’am?”

The viscountess seemed to consider this as she stepped aside to avoid a dog’s bone left carelessly by some royal pug in the middle of the corridor. “One or two, perhaps.”

The earl smiled, responding smoothly, “I’m not sure I’ve the time to share your favors, my dear ma’am.”

Lady Drayton was so unused to objections to the way she played her courtiers that she looked at him in surprise and, in even greater surprise, realized that there was something chilling behind the sweet smile, that the clear gray eyes held a shadow of menace. It was a look that the Countess of Wyndham would have recognized immediately, setting her knees atremble, but Lady Drayton had no reason to fear the Earl of Wyndham. And yet she found herself saying, “Well, if you would prefer a tête-à-tête, Philip, I’m sure it could be arranged.”

“Such indulgence, my dear. I protest you do me too much honor.” His smile broadened and he took her hand, raising it to his lips. “Shall we say at five-thirty?”

The viscountess inclined her head in agreement, displeased with the arrangement merely because it had been pressed upon her. Yet she couldn’t decide how she had
come to agree so tamely. The earl had become a trifle possessive in recent weeks, and she’d intended to tease him a little, to show him that she was not to be taken for granted. But, instead, she’d agreed to cancel her previous arrangements and accede to a private assignation that would inevitably end in her bedchamber.

P
hilip handed her into her coach with the Drayton arms emblazoned on the panels and set off to walk home down Pall Mall. Wyndham House stood on the south side of St. James’s Square, a handsome mansion that never failed to give the earl a surge of pride in his heritage. He preferred it to Wyndham Manor, a house he privately considered an unimposing and inconvenient country seat with all the disadvantages of early Elizabethan architecture. However, he had plans to add a Palladian facade and a new wing, which would give the house more consequence.

His brothers had both loved the manor, he remembered. They’d probably turn in their respective graves if they could see the architect’s plans for improvements. The idea made him smile as he ascended the steps to his own front door.

His wife was hastening down the stairs as he entered the hall. “Oh, my lord, I trust you haven’t forgotten that we expect my father and the Westons for dinner,” she said, offering him a timid smile.

“No, I haven’t forgotten,” he replied. “But did I not also desire you to invite Lord and Lady Alworthy?”

Letitia’s color ebbed. “Yes, yes, indeed, sir. But I thought it was perhaps unwise—”

“Let us conduct this discussion in the salon,” her husband interrupted icily as a footman crossed the hall to the dining room.

Letitia followed him into the salon, her eyes frightened in her pale face. She was a plain woman, five years her husband’s senior. Her predilection for sweetmeats showed in her ample waistline and the folds beneath her chin.

“Now, let me understand this, my dear,” Philip said
softly as she closed the doors behind them. “I directed you to invite the Alworthys, and you took it upon yourself to ignore my order. Is that correct?”

“Oh, no … no … not precisely, sir. It was not precisely like that,” Letitia stammered.

“Then, pray, how precisely was it?” There was no sweetness on his face now, no curve to the full lips, no light in the slate-gray eyes.

“My father … my father and Lord Alworthy have an old quarrel,” Letitia explained, her color fluttering in her cheeks like the wings of a wounded bird. “I felt it might offend both of them if they were invited to dine at the same table.”

“So you took it upon yourself to go against my express commands,” he repeated softly.
“Come here!”

The shocking contrast of the shouted command with his previous softness drained all color from her face, and she flinched, cowering against the door.

“Did you hear me?” His voice was once again soft and silky.

In terror Letitia took a step toward him, one hand raised to ward off the blow she knew was coming.

“Put your hand down,” he commanded in the same tone, and his eyes were alight with a vicious pleasure as he saw her terror and her helplessness.

Whimpering, she lowered her arm, ducking her head, hunching her shoulders.

His hand lifted and he watched her shake, but he had no intention of marking her face, not when they had dinner guests arriving within the hour. Her father was an ineffectual fool, but even he might remonstrate at his daughter’s bruises.

Philip lowered his hand slowly and instead caught her wrist, twisting it, watching the pain blossom in her tear-filled eyes. When she cried out, he released her.

“In future, when I give you an instruction, you will carry it out to the letter,” he said coldly. “Won’t you, my dear?”

Letitia was sobbing, massaging her wrist that hung limp and useless, the strength wrenched from it.

“Won’t you my dear?” he repeated.

“Yes, my lord,” she whispered through her tears.

He stood looking at her as she shrank back against the wall, tears tracking down her plump cheeks, her gown of purple taffeta increasing the sallowness of her complexion. Her lank, mousy hair was mercifully concealed beneath an enormous curled and powdered wig, but some ill-fated instinct had led her to decorate the coiffure with purple ostrich feathers that waved ludicrously above her dumpy figure. “Oh, get out of here,” he said in disgust. “And paint your face. You’re as sallow as a jaundiced frog.”

Letitia turned and fled the room, sobbing as she ran across the hall, no longer able, after two years of this marriage to summon the pride to conceal her shame from the servants. She stumbled up the stairs and along the corridor to the nursery wing, where her only comfort lay sleeping peacefully in her cradle.

The nurse glanced once at her mistress’s tear-streaked countenance and tactfully lowered her eyes, busying herself with her sewing.

“Has she been good, nurse?” Lady Wyndham asked finally, in an attempt to sound collected and in control.

“Oh, she’s an angel, my lady,” the nurse said, smiling fondly at the sleeping Lady Susannah. “Good as gold.”

Letitia gently stroked the smooth, round cheek. The earl had no time for the child because she wasn’t a son. He resented her, and Letitia knew what happened to those who displeased her husband whether through their own fault or not. She shuddered, swearing to herself that somehow she would protect this little mite from the viciousness of her father.

“P
apa, I have brought your medicine.” Octavia hurried into the room, throwing off the hood of her cloak. Her father, convulsed with a fit of coughing, appeared not to have heard her.

“Much good it does,” Oliver Morgan declared when his racking coughs had died. “Waste of good money. I’ve a greater need for parchment for my article, but I’m cursed with an undutiful daughter who …” Another fit took him, and he hunched over in the narrow cot, his white head quivering with the spasms.

Octavia was too used to the reproaches to be upset by them. “You know the doctor said you must have the medicine,” she said calmly, shaking the small bottle that had cost three of their precious shillings. “The apothecary made it up stronger this time.” She uncorked the bottle and carefully measured a dose into a small tin cup.

“Here, Papa.” She came over to the bed, holding out the cup.

Oliver glowered at her, his eyes sunken in his hectic cheeks. “It’s this damnable coal smoke,” he grumbled. “If we had a decent wood fire, I wouldn’t have this cough.”

“There are no logs in London,” Octavia said patiently.
“At least not for the kind of money we have.” She bent to support his shoulders, holding the cup to his lips.

For a minute it looked as if he was going to refuse the medicine; then, with a muttered “Odd’s bones, I’m not on my deathbed, child,” he straightened abruptly, snatched the cup from her, and drained it.

Octavia hid her relief, since it would only exacerbate his ill temper. The medicine contained a hefty dose of opium and it would bring him much-needed sleep as well as quiet the cough. In fact, it would bring them both peace and quiet for as long as he slept.

She set the cup on the table with the medicine bottle and bent to plump up the thin pillows and smooth the coverlet. “Can I bring you anything else?”

“Parchment,” he said, lying down again with a little moan of weakness that he couldn’t conceal.

“If I buy parchment, I must pawn the Virgil,” she pointed out. “And you can’t work without that. I must find some work tomorrow, anyway, as we’re down to our last five shillings. I’ll buy some vellum then.”

A look of distress crossed her father’s eyes, and his air of petulance faded, replaced for a moment with an expression of dismayed bewilderment. Then his eyes closed.

Octavia moved softly away from the bed to the hearth, still huddling in her cloak. A small fire burned, and she added a few more coals. It was extravagant, but the day was bitter and ice crusted the inside of the windows. Most of the time her father didn’t really comprehend his own part in bringing them to this wretched pass. But there were moments, like just then, when he would deliberately turn away from the understanding and from the mental distress it caused him. He had so few inner resources for dealing with poverty and deprivation. It was true he’d never had to go without anything in his life before—but, then, neither had she.

She blew on her hands and held them over the meager orange flame, the noxious fumes of the sea coal thick in her lungs. But at least they had a fire, unlike the majority of their neighbors, shivering in icy garrets and cellars. By those
standards Oliver Morgan and his daughter were rich beyond the dreams of avarice.

The sound of his breathing, rasping but deep, came from the bed, and Octavia relaxed, wondering how to spend the few hours of blissful solitude. At Hartridge Folly she would have curled up with a book, or played the harpsichord in the music room, or walked in the shrubbery.

Vigorously she scolded herself for bootless repining. It only made the situation worse, and since this was now her life and it was unlikely to change, she’d do well to make the best of it. But it had become much harder to do since her adventure with the highwayman. Adventure—was that the word for it?