Worth Any Price (24 page)

At last they turned onto a long, narrow drive that extended for a mile before a stately house came into view. Light from the outside lamps cast a warm glow over the entranceway and caused the front windows to glitter like black diamonds. Eagerly Lottie pushed aside the curtains at the carriage windows to obtain a better view.

“It’s lovely,” she said, her heart beating fast with excitement. “Just as Sophia described.” The large Palladian-style house was handsome, if unexceptional, the combination of red brick, white columns, and precise pediments designed with tidy symmetry. Lottie loved it at first sight.

The carriage stopped before the entranceway. Nick was expressionless as he descended from the vehicle and helped Lottie down. They climbed the steps to the double doors, and Mrs. Trench welcomed them into a large, oval-shaped hall floored with gleaming rose-colored marble.

“Mrs. Trench,” Lottie said warmly, “how are you?”

“Very well, my lady. And you?”

“Tired, but relieved to be here at last. Have you encountered any difficulties with the house so far?”

“No, my lady, but there is much to be done. A single day was scarcely sufficient to prepare things…”

“That is all right,” Lottie said with a smile. “After the long journey, Lord Sydney and I will require nothing more than a clean place to sleep.”

“The bedrooms are in order, my lady. Shall I show you upstairs at once, or will you want some supper…” The housekeeper’s voice trailed away as she glanced at Nick.

Following her gaze, Lottie saw that her husband was staring at the main hall of the house as if transfixed. He seemed to be watching a play that no one else could see, his gaze following invisible actors as they crossed the stage to speak their lines. His face was flushed, as if from fever. Wordlessly he wandered through the hall as if he were alone, exploring with the hesitancy of a lost young boy.

Lottie did not know how to help him. One of the hardest things she’d ever have to do was to summon a casual tone as she replied to the housekeeper, but somehow she managed it.

“No, thank you, Mrs. Trench. I don’t believe that we will require supper. Perhaps you will have some water and a bottle of wine sent to our room. And have the maids take out just a few things for tonight.
They can unpack the rest of it tomorrow. In the meanwhile, Lord Sydney and I will have a look around.”

“Yes, my lady. I will see that your personal articles are set out immediately.” The housekeeper strode away, calling out instructions to a pair of maids, who rushed quickly through the hall.

As the overhead chandelier had been left unlit, the shadowy atmosphere was relieved by only two lamps. Following her husband, Lottie approached the archway at one end of the hall, which opened to a portrait gallery. The air was laced with the crisp scents of new wool carpeting and fresh paint.

Lottie studied Nick’s profile as he gazed at the conspicuously bare walls of the gallery. She guessed that he was remembering the paintings that had once occupied the empty spaces. “It seems we’ll have to acquire some artwork,” she remarked.

“They were all sold to pay off my father’s debts.”

Moving closer, Lottie pressed her cheek against the broadcloth of his coat, where the edge of his shoulder flowed into the hard swell of his muscular arm. “Will you show me the house?”

Nick was silent for a long moment. When he glanced into her upturned face, his eyes were bleak with the knowledge that there was nothing left of the boy who had once lived here. “Not tonight. I need to see it alone.”

“I understand,” Lottie said, slipping her hand into his. “I am quite fatigued. Certainly I would prefer to tour the house tomorrow morning, in the daylight.”

His fingers returned the pressure with a barely discernable squeeze, and then he let go. “I’ll take you upstairs.”

She pressed her lips into the shape of a smile. “No need. I’ll have Mrs. Trench or one of the servants accompany me.”

A clock from somewhere in the house chimed half past midnight by the time Nick finally entered the bedroom. Unable to sleep despite her exhaustion, Lottie had retrieved a novel from one of her valises and had stayed up reading until the book was half finished. The bedroom was a cozy haven, the bed richly appareled with an embroidered silk counterpane and matching hangings, the walls painted in a soft shade of green. Becoming absorbed in the story, Lottie read until she heard the creak of a floorboard.

Seeing Nick in the doorway, Lottie set the novel on the bedside table. Patiently she waited for him to speak, wondering how many memories had been stirred by his walk through the house, how many silent ghosts had traversed his path.

“You should sleep,” he said eventually.

“So should you.” Lottie turned back the covers. After an extended pause, she asked, “Will you come to bed with me?”

His gaze slid over her, lingering on the ruffled front of her nightrail, the kind of prim, high-necked gown that never failed to arouse him. He looked so alone, so disenchanted…very much the way he had appeared when they had first met.

“Not tonight,” he said for the second time that evening.

Their gazes caught and held. Lottie knew that she would be wise to maintain a facade of relaxed unconcern. To be patient with him. Her demands, her frustrations, would only drive him away.

But to her horror, she heard herself say baldly, “Stay.”

They both knew that she was not asking for a few minutes, or a few hours. She wanted the entire night.

“You know I can’t do that,” came his soft reply.

“You won’t harm me. I’m not afraid of your nightmares.” Lottie sat up, staring at his still face. Suddenly she could not stem a flood of reckless words, her voice becoming raw with emotion. “I want you to stay with me. I want to be close to you. Tell me what I should do or say to make that happen. Tell me, please, because I can’t seem to stop myself from wanting more than you’re willing to give.”

“You don’t know what you’re asking for.”

“I promise you that I would never—”

“I’m not asking for reassurances or promises,” he said harshly. “I’m stating a fact. There is a part of me that you don’t want to know.”

“In the past you’ve asked me to trust you. In return I ask you to trust me now. Tell me what happened to give you such nightmares. Tell me what haunts you so.”

“No, Lottie.” But instead of leaving, Nick remained
in the room, as if his feet would not obey the dictates of his brain.

Suddenly Lottie understood the extent of his tortured longing to confide in her, and his equally potent belief that she would reject him once he did. He had begun to sweat heavily, his skin gleaming like wet bronze. A few strands of sable hair adhered to the moist surface of his forehead. Her longing to touch him was untenable, but somehow she remained where she was.

“I won’t turn away from you,” she said steadily. “No matter what it is. It happened on the prison hulk, didn’t it? It has to do with the real Nick Gentry. Did you kill him, so that you could take his place? Is that what torments you?”

She saw from the way Nick flinched that she had struck close to the truth. The crack in his defenses widened, and he shook his head, trying to navigate past the breach. Failing, he gave her a glance filled with equal parts of rebuke and desperation. “It didn’t happen that way.”

Lottie refused to look away from him. “Then how?”

The lines of his body changed, relaxing into a sort of wretched resignation. He leaned one shoulder against the wall, facing partially away from her, his gaze arrowing to some distant point on the floor.

“I was sent to the hulk because I was responsible for a man’s death. I was fourteen at the time. I had joined a group of highwaymen, and an old man died when we robbed his carriage. Soon afterward we
were all tried and convicted. I was too ashamed to tell anyone who I was—I simply gave my name as John Sydney. The other four in the gang were hanged in short order, but because of my age, the magistrate handed me a lesser sentence. Ten months on the
Scarborough
.”

“Sir Ross was the magistrate who sentenced you,” Lottie murmured, remembering what Sophia had told her.

A bitter smile twisted Nick’s mouth. “Little did either of us know that we would someday be brothers-in-law.” He slouched harder against the wall. “As soon as I set foot on the hulk, I knew that I wasn’t going to last a month there. A quick hanging would have been far more merciful. Duncombe’s Academy, they called the ship, Duncombe being the officer in command. Half of his prisoners had just been cleared out by a round of gaol fever. They were the lucky ones.

“The hulk was smaller than the others anchored just offshore. It was fitted for one hundred prisoners, but they crammed half again that amount into one large area belowdeck. The ceiling was so low that I couldn’t stand fully upright. Prisoners slept on the bare floor or on a platform built on either side of the deck. Each man was allowed to have sleeping space that was six feet long, twenty inches wide. We were double-ironed much of the time, and the constant rattling of chains was almost more than I could stand.

“The smell was the worst of it, though. We were
seldom allowed to wash—there was always a shortage of soap, and we had to rinse with seawater. And no through ventilation, just a row of portholes left open on the seaward side. As a result, the reek was so powerful that it would overcome the guards who first opened the hatches in the mornings—once I even saw one of them faint from it. During the time that we were locked down from early evening until the hatches were opened at daybreak, prisoners were left entirely to themselves, with no guards or officers to observe them.”

“What did the prisoners do then?” Lottie asked.

His lips parted in a feral grin that made her shiver. “Gambled, fought, made escape plans, and buggered each other.”

“What does that word mean?”

Nick shot her a swift glance, seeming startled by the question. “It means rape.”

Lottie shook her head in bewilderment. “But a man can’t be raped.”

“I assure you,” Nick said sardonically, “he can. And it was something I had a rather strong desire to avoid. Unfortunately boys of my age—fourteen, fifteen—were the most likely victims. The reason I stayed safe for a time was because I had made friends with another boy who was a bit older and a damned sight more hard-bitten than I.”

“Nick Gentry?”

“Yes. He watched over me when I slept, taught me ways to defend myself…he made me eat to stay alive, even when the food was so foul that I
could barely swallow it. Talking with him kept my mind occupied during the days when I thought I would go insane from having nothing to do. I wouldn’t have lived without him, and I knew it. I was terrified of the day he would leave the hulk. Six months after I’d boarded the
Scarborough
, Gentry told me that he was due to be released in a week.” The look on his face caused Lottie’s insides to tighten into cold knots. “Only one week left, after surviving two years in that hellhole. I should have been glad for him. I wasn’t. All I could think about was my own safety, which wasn’t going to last five minutes after he left.”

He stopped, sliding deeper into the memories.

“What happened?” Lottie asked quietly. “Tell me.”

His face went blank. His soul had clenched hard around the secrets, refusing to release them. A strange, cold smile flickered on his lips as he spoke with utter self-contempt. “I can’t.”

Lottie stiffened her legs to keep from leaping out of bed and rushing to him. The heat of unshed tears filled her eyes as she stared at his dark, shadowed form. “How did Gentry die?” she asked.

His throat worked, and he shook his head.

Faced with his silent struggle, Lottie sought for some way to tip the balance. “Don’t be afraid,” she whispered. “I’ll stay with you no matter what.”

Averting his face, he squinted fiercely, as if he had just been exposed to brilliant light after spending too long in the dark. “One night I was attacked by one of
the prisoners. His name was Styles. He dragged me off the platform while I was sleeping and pinned me to the floor. I fought like hell, but he was twice my size, and no one was going to interfere. They were all afraid of him. I called out to Gentry, to pull the bastard off of me before he could—” Breaking off, he made a strange sound, a shaky laugh that contained no trace of humor.

“And did he help you?” Lottie asked.

“Yes…the stupid bastard.” His breath caught in a low sob. “He knew there was no point in doing a damn thing for me. If I wasn’t buggered right then, I would be after he was released. I shouldn’t have asked for his help, and he shouldn’t have given it. But he drove Styles off, and…”

Another long silence passed. “Did Nick die during the fight?” Lottie made herself ask.

“Later that night. He’d made an enemy of Styles by helping me, and retribution wasn’t long in coming. Just before morning, Styles strangled Nick in his sleep. By the time I realized what had happened, it was too late. I went to Nick…tried to make him wake up, to breathe. He wouldn’t move. He turned cold in my arms.” His jaw shook, and he cleared his throat roughly.

Lottie couldn’t let it end there, without knowing the full story. “How did you switch places with Gentry?”

“Every morning the assistant medical officer and one of the guards came down to collect the bodies of the men who had died during the night, of disease,
or starvation, or something they called ‘depression of the spirits.’ Those who hadn’t finished dying were taken up to the forecastle. I pretended to be ill, which wasn’t difficult at that point. They took us both up to the deck, and asked who I was, and if I knew the dead man’s name. The guards knew hardly any of the prisoners—to them we were all the same. And I had changed clothes with his…his corpse, so they had little reason to doubt me when I told them I was Nick Gentry, and the dead boy was John Sydney. For the next few days I stayed in the forecastle, feigning illness so I wouldn’t be sent back down to the prison deck. The other men who’d been brought there were too sick or weak to give a damn what I called myself.”

“And soon you were released,” Lottie said quietly, “in Gentry’s place.”