Virginia Henley (41 page)

As the Prince of Wales sailed past him, His Highness condescended an aloof nod, murmuring, “Kildare,” before turning back to his friend Churchill, who drawled, “I warrant the brothers Montague have enough filthy pictures between them to paper Carlton House.”

Sean O’Toole’s eyes slid impassively over John Montague, Earl of Sandwich, as they scanned the crowd for the two men who fueled his savage need for vengeance. When he finally located William Montague, he was in conversation with John Wilkes. To O’Toole the irony was unbelievable. Did Montague not recognize one of the enemies responsible for his downfall? O’Toole felt no surprise that Wilkes was here for the auction. Though he was a pious political reformer, he was also a coarse sensualist and pornographer addicted to practical jokes.

The Earl of Kildare knew he could not have selected a more perfect audience for his announcement. The Montagues would be devoured by these vicious sadists; their humiliation totally devastating.

The raptor inside him watched and waited for the right moment to strike. As Jack Raymond joined William and His Royal Highness, they became the focal point of attention. Kildare stepped forward and raised his glass.

“I believe a toast is in order. Your daughter is about to
produce your first grandchild.” He gestured toward Raymond. “I knew he was incapable, so I did the job for him. Never underestimate the Irish.”

The hush that fell encompassed the entire room. Kildare held up his hand, exposing his mutilated thumb. “Don’t bother to thank me, gentlemen, the pleasure was all mine.”

As he walked out the crowd parted, then closed in behind him, jubilant to have witnessed such a shocking and ruinous revelation. Public disgrace and shame provided a succulent dish to feast upon.

    
E
merald, caught in a nightmare from which she could not awaken, struggled to free herself from its bonds. But like the tentacles of a clinging octopus, the bad dream held her fast, imprisoning her so completely, it was impossible to break free.

She dreamed that she was back at Portman Square and no matter how she tried, she could not awaken. She struggled to her feet, extremely disoriented, yet slowly realizing, against her will, that she was not dreaming. She denied the reality of what was all about her.
This cannot be happening to me!

Her thoughts in total disarray, her hand went to her head in an effort to clear away the cobwebs. With a trembling hand she brushed her disheveled hair back from her damp brow and stared about her in horrified disbelief. The last thing she remembered was the storm.
How did I get here? Where is Sean?

She had insisted on sailing to England with him, never dreaming in a million years she would end up back in Portman Square. The child inside her felt as if it did a somersault and suddenly Emerald knew she was going to be sick. Somehow she made her way to the staircase and, with the help of the banister, began to climb, hoping she could
hold down her gorge until she reached the bathroom water closet.

Emerald retched violently, clutching her belly, fearing it would turn itself inside out. Gradually the nausea lessened, but the sick feeling in her heart increased with every breath she took. Emerald heard someone approaching. She struggled to her feet and turned, thinking it was one of the maids come to help her. She stared into the aghast face of Jack Raymond and watched it contort with fury and loathing.

“You filthy bitch! O’Toole said he’d return you when you had an Irish bastard in your belly! Have you no shame, you faithless whore?”

White faced, Emerald shielded her distended belly with her arms as if she could protect her baby from his hatred. Jack was lying; Sean could never have done such a brutal thing.

“Get out! I won’t take you back! I won’t have that dirty swine’s leavings.”

Emerald refused to be cornered like a rat. She gathered her pride about her, pulled her back as straight as she could, and raised her chin. “You will never have that opportunity, Jack Raymond. The Earl of Kildare is a magnificent lover. It is laughable to think I would allow you to ever touch my person again.” In spite of her advanced pregnancy, or perhaps because of it, she found the inner strength to sweep regally from the room.

“He won’t foist his Irish bastard on the Montagues; I’ll destroy it first!”

At the top of the staircase Emerald turned with alarm, realizing he had followed her and sensing his evil intent. As if time and motion slowed, she saw his arms rise up to push her down the stairs. Emerald reached out to grasp hold of the banister in a desperate attempt to save herself from falling.

She felt the hard impact of his cruel hands against her
back, felt herself going down. She lunged against the handrail, grabbed, and held on for dear life. Her foot slipped off the step, her leg twisted beneath her, and Emerald heard the bone snap as it broke. She screamed in agony, but beyond her own scream, she heard her father’s voice roar, “What in Christ’s name is going on here?”

Through a red haze of pain she saw the hated figure of William Montague standing at the foot of the stairs. Behind him stood the corpulent Belton, agog at the scene he had just witnessed. He tried to dismiss two housemaids who also had seen and heard everything, but fear seemed to have rooted their feet to the floor of the vestibule.

“Get a doctor,” Montague ordered. He looked at Emerald with disgust, but his duty as her father was clear.

Belton dispatched one maid for the doctor and ordered the other to prepare a bed for the patient.

“Not in my suite,” Jack hissed. “This woman is no longer my wife.”

“Put her in the servants’ quarters,” William ordered.

They made up the bed in Irma Bludget’s old room, but when Jack moved toward Emerald, she spat venom. “Don’t touch me, you murdering swine!”

In the end it was the cook, Mrs. Thomas, who carried her to the bed, undressed her, and found one of her old nightgowns. The pain in Emerald’s leg felt like a searing red-hot poker, but her overriding concern was for her baby, not her leg. Mrs. Thomas questioned Emerald about her pain and checked for blood. When she found none, both were fervently thankful.

William Montague was livid. If he had been carrying a pistol when O’Toole strolled in and made his shattering announcement, the Irish swine would now be dead, and no court in England would convict him! Even worse than the humiliation over his daughter, however, was the instant realization that O’Toole was the one who had ruined him financially.
When those black eyes bored into him and he heard the mocking words
Never underestimate the Irish
, William knew all their losses were the culmination of O’Toole’s compulsive revenge. Well, the fucking O’Tooles weren’t the only ones who could wreak vengeance, as they’d learn to their everlasting sorrow.

The arrival of the doctor interrupted Montague’s plotting. He was momentarily dismayed that the stupid maid had brought his own personal physician. Any doctor would have done to set a broken leg; preferably one not privy to his family’s affairs. But then William realized Dr. Sloane could be an ally.

“There’s been some sort of accident?” Sloane asked, looking from William to Jack. “By the looks of things you could both use a sedative.”

William, looking askance at the maid, said, “Come into the library, Doctor. You, too, Jack. This concerns you, even though you think to wash your hands of the matter.”

William firmly closed the library door before he spoke. “My daughter has broken her leg, which will need splinting, but that isn’t what concerns us. She is large with child and by the looks of things very near her time.” William glanced at Jack. “It is not her husband’s baby. We want you to dispose of it.”

Dr. Sloane’s eyebrows bristled with outrage. Montague loved power for its own sake, but if he thought he was in charge here, he had another think coming.
“Dispose?
I shall give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you are not suggesting a criminal act. If you mean find someone who will take the child off your hands, however, that can be arranged. For a price.”

Goddamn money! In the end everything boils down to pounds, shillings, and pence.
William’s temper was rising by the minute. The O’Tooles had a bloody reckoning coming.

“I’ll see the patient,” Sloane said gravely.

William led the doctor to the servants’ quarters, where Mrs. Thomas, still panting from her exertions, was doing her best to make Emerald comfortable.

The young woman on the bed cringed when she recognized the family doctor. She recalled his brusque manner and rough hands from the few times he had tended her as a child.

Sloane did nothing to conceal his disdain as he stared at Emerald’s belly. Finally, he took shin splints from his voluminous bag and began to straighten the leg. Though Emerald tried to remain stoically silent, the pain was too agonizing and she cried out.

“What?” Sloane demanded.

“It hurts,” she whispered through bloodless lips.

“Of course it hurts; it’s broken,” he said brusquely. He gave the leg short shrift, dismissed the cook, then focused his attention on the protrusion that threatened to burst the seams of the nightgown. After a few pokes and probes he placed both hands on the mound that continually changed shape. His bushy brows drew together in a frown.

“What’s wrong?” Emerald demanded, her eyes apprehensively watching the expressions that crossed the doctor’s face.

Sloane put a rubber cup device against her swollen belly and bent his head to listen. After a full minute he straightened and in a voice that clearly condemned her for committing a double sin, he said, “There is more than one child here. You are having twins.”

M
ontague was pacing in the front receiving room while Jack slumped in a chair.

“Is she in labor?” William demanded, as if he could not wait to get the humiliating business behind them.

“No, I would say another week; perhaps more, perhaps less.”

Montague made a rude noise that conveyed his estimation of the doctor’s learned opinion. “Just be here for the birth, so you can remove the little Irish bastard from Portman Square!”

“I’ve just examined her,” Sloane informed him, not without a trace of malice. “There will be two little Irish bastards.”

    
T
he minute Sloane departed, William vented his temper on Jack Raymond. “You are useless as tits on a boar, sitting there with your stupid head in your hands. Don’t you realize it’s been O’Toole systematically destroying us all along?”

William’s words penetrated Jack’s drink-sodden brain. He sat stunned as realization dawned.

“Mayhap O’Toole is right; you have no balls!”

Jack came to his feet, stung into taking the offensive. “You old swine! It is
your
daughter who has played the whore, just as it was
your
wife who played the whore before her! It was
you
who betrayed the old earl,
you
who betrayed
your partner,
you
who plotted Joseph O’Toole’s murder,
you
who sent Sean O’Toole to the hulks with a mutilated hand. Well, I’ve had enough of the Montagues for one bloody night!” Jack flung from the room, then the house, slamming the front door after him.

William, now in an uncontrollable rage, rushed to the library and rifled through the desk drawers for his gun case. To hellfire with everybody. His son-in-law had turned out as useless as his son. He would have to take care of O’Toole himself. His ship had to be moored in the Thames, and sooner or later O’Toole would have to return to it.

    
E
merald was in shock. As she lay in Irma Bludget’s bed, she paid little heed to the angry male voices echoing from another part of the house. The pain in her leg was so piercing and pervasive, it began to radiate into the rest of her body. And yet she clung to the pain, refusing to separate from it, for if she did, she feared the greater pain in her heart would kill her.

Sean had done this thing. He had done it for revenge. And what devastated Emerald the most was the knowledge that she still loved him. She realized that when one truly loved, it was forever. How ineffably sad that Sean’s heart was so filled with hatred, there was no room for love; not for her, not for his babies.

Her hands stroked her abdomen. The instant she learned there were two, her love had doubled. Her greatest concern was not for herself, it was for her children. “Everything will be well,” she whispered to them. “We won’t stay in this house long. We’ll go to my mother. Johnny will help us.”

Emerald turned her face to the wall. The tears she had been fighting spilled over. She had never seen a woman give birth. It had not daunted her when she thought she belonged to Sean O’Toole. How would she get through it alone?

*   *   *

J
ohnny Montague sat in the dimly lit office at Bottolph’s Wharf, a great wave of relief washing through him. The brief visit from Sean O’Toole had lifted a heavy burden from his shoulders. Sean had been cool and detached; all business. John went over their conversation in his mind to assure himself that he had heard correctly.