Amanda Scott (27 page)

“Good,” Sybilla said, “but she still might not apply to the marchioness, you know.”

“She has no other recourse,” he said, “unless I am mistaken about Brentford and he agrees to help her. But since I believe gaming to be his primary source of income—although his victims are generally young men who are much more naive than Fanny—and since he has never been noted for his generosity, I cannot think she will win him to her cause. Moreover, I am convinced that it will appeal to her to apply to my own mother for the money to pay me. To know she was doing so right under my nose would probably add spice, too, but I don’t propose to let her know I am so near until the moment of reckoning.”

“Well, but I have been doing some thinking, Ned, and I cannot see how she can possibly make such a demand with your mother in Bath. Surely, it would be better if the marchioness went back to Axbridge Park. You could go with her, and that way when Fanny’s demand comes, you can arrange to have the money delivered by hand. It would be a great deal simpler.”

“Trying to take the reins again, my sweet?” he asked, sipping his brandy.

“I am only suggesting—”

“I have no wish to make the thing simple,” he said abruptly. “I want to make it dashed difficult for her. Moreover, my esteemed father has returned to Axbridge, saying London has worn him to the bone, and I don’t want to spoil Mama’s visit to Bath by sending her to join him there. I’ll wager she’s having the time of her life with my aunt, despite the beastly weather. Where did you go tonight?”

“To the most ridiculous production of
Romeo and Juliet
that I have ever seen,” Sybilla said tartly. But she could not deny for one moment that the marchioness had enjoyed it. To insist that Lady Axbridge return to her husband now would be wrong. Following that train of thought, she said, “But how can Fanny possibly manage to give herself away, if we do not help her?”

“Let her worry about that,” he said. “Trust me, Sybilla.”

“You keep saying that,” she retorted, “but how can you expect me to trust you when your lack of trust in me is what began all this. If you had believed me when I told you—”

“That accusation falls easily from your lips, love, but the fact of the matter is that that is the only occasion upon which I have failed, for in the ordinary course of things, I do trust you. I never raise a dust about the money you spend. Nor do I interfere in your decisions about the house or even my stables. And I have never objected to your charging about the countryside in your own phaeton—Well, at all events,” he amended quickly, “not until I thought I had good reason to do so. And don’t take me up on that small point before asking yourself if you have given me the same consideration, my girl.”

She hesitated on the brink of a scathing condemnation of his behavior, then bit back the words unspoken. He was right.

He said more gently, “If you hadn’t insisted upon debating everything I said till I was so angry I couldn’t think straight, I might have listened when you told me you didn’t write the letters. You didn’t give me a chance, and you never made much of an attempt afterward to talk about it at all.”

“I wanted you to see for yourself how wrong you were to accuse me, and apologize,” she confessed. “I could have proved easily enough that I had not been in London all those times, but I didn’t. I wanted you to have more faith in me.”

“We want the same things, love,” he said gently, “and we have both made mistakes. I ought to have made it clearer to everyone that the only woman who attracts me is my own wife, but it seemed simpler at the time to avoid offending Fanny. She would cling to my arm, and short of pushing her away, there seemed little to be done about it, especially since it is not customary to spend all one’s time with one’s wife.”

“I blamed your father, not only you,” she said.

“We’ve both blamed our fathers, but you at least have done your duty by yours. In defense of myself, I can say only that many others are in my position, and that the common reaction seems to be to wallow in excesses. It excuses none of us—”

“It does seem unfair that a man must wait until his father dies before he can have a say in how his birthright is managed,” she said, “and your father is more difficult than most, but I think he will begin to welcome your help as he grows older.”

“Well, yes, but I make you no promises about him. First we must attend to Fanny, and you will do well for once to try letting others take the lead. We’ll let Fanny make her own plan, and then we will discuss what to do, when we know what she means to do. You must not leap at the first sign of anything to handle it all yourself, however. If I trust you that far, can you trust me to deal with the rest in my own way?”

She bit her lip, wanting to be honest but not certain how he would react. Finally, deciding nothing would be gained by prevarication, she said, “I don’t know, Ned. I think you are wrong to believe she will do anything while your mama is in Bath. How could she possibly think Lady Axbridge would not simply come to me here? What will she tell her is the reason I need more money? And won’t she think your mama has learned that I am not the guilty party?”

He sighed. “She has no reason to believe that Mama knows anything other than that you have had financial difficulties and that I believe you have tried to make trouble for me with my parents. Since I believe her motive in all this has been to make mischief between you and me, she must think she has succeeded very well. All she has to do now is figure out a way to make Mama think she cannot just hand you the money.”

“She will certainly have to explain her ‘cousin’s’ rapid departure from Mr. Grimthorpe’s office,” Sybilla reminded him.

“True, but I doubt that that is beyond her capability, and as for the reason she will give for wanting the money, I have no notion. I do not think she will fail to think of one. If you insist upon giving her a reason for Mama’s not giving the money directly to you, however,” he added with a lazy grin, “perhaps I should simply move into Royal Crescent with you, and forget about concealing my presence in Bath. Mama can scarcely come to you here if I am known to be with you, never leaving your side.”

“No!” The exclamation was out before she knew she was going to speak, but the thought that he would simply move back in with her as easily as that was too much to bear. The time they had spent together in London had shown her that it was too easy to slip back into old patterns, and she knew she had to have room to think. Though she realized now that she wanted nothing so much as to be reconciled with him, she could not simply give in. She wanted time to accustom herself to the idea, time to adjust to the changes that would be necessary. The last thing she wanted was to have him constantly at her side in the manner he had just suggested, knowing that he might then use his skill in bed to bring her to heel in other ways. “I cannot do it so suddenly as this, Ned. Please understand, and don’t be angry with me.”

Setting his glass down on the floor, he stood up and moved toward her, but the look on his face gave her to understand that he was not in the least angry. When he held out his hands to her, she arose and moved into his embrace, sighing deeply when his arms folded around her and he held her tight.

He murmured against her curls, “I want us to find a way to make it work, love. I have missed you.”

“I know,” she said, “but I’m afraid, Ned. I don’t know if I can be what you want me to be. I can try to trust you, but I can promise no more than that yet. In any event, I don’t want you to stay here. Not until I know. Will you go to Camden Place?”

He nodded. “Aunt Lucretia’s people are discreet enough, though I doubt Fanny will think for a moment that I am anywhere near Bath. Even if she does, as I said before, it will tempt her all the more to think she is accomplishing her end beneath my very nose. As to how she will accomplish it, we will leave that to her to decide, and you will trust me to see that she is caught.”

“I will try. Kiss me, Ned.”

He complied with enthusiasm, and it was some time after that before he left her. But when he did, she went up to her bedchamber, wondering once again if she was making a mistake. For hours, she tossed and turned, trying to imagine a future in which she no longer had to consider anyone but herself and Ned, and they could be happy together.

She slept at last and awoke the next morning to a rattle of dishes as Elsie placed the tray with her chocolate and toast on a table near the bed. Sunlight streamed through her window.

“ ’Tis a fine day, m’lady,” the maid said. “There be a touch of spring in the air, I’m thinking, and Miss Medlicott said to tell you she’d be up directly.”

“Thank you,” Sybilla said, straightening and allowing the maid first to plump pillows behind her and then to place the tray on her lap. A moment later she was alone, and all the feelings from the previous night reasserted themselves.

What, she wondered as she sipped her chocolate, did she think she was doing? One moment she wanted nothing so much as to be with Ramsbury again, and the next she feared the household in Royal Crescent would disintegrate without her. Easy enough for the earl to say that wouldn’t happen. He had never cared one way or another if it did. But what would he say the first time she had to rush back to Bath to attend to some crisis? Was she not on the verge now of speeding headlong back into what had already proved to be an impossible situation?

And what about Ned himself? Fanny was surely a thing of the past, but would there not be other women? Could he really be content with only a wife? She sat up a little straighter and pushed the tray off to one side, drawing her knees up and wrapping her arms around them, to think.

There was no use denying that she had missed him. She had not realized how much until he had swept back into her life, but until then, she knew now, she had merely been existing from one day to the next, waiting for something to happen. To be sure, she had been busy, but she had always known that Mrs. Hammersmyth could manage the household perfectly well without her. The only thing the housekeeper couldn’t manage was Sir Mortimer.

Sybilla sighed. What could she do about her father? He was accustomed to letting her manage things, and she had given him no reason to believe he could not continue to trust her to do so. But Ned would not stand for any more frequent trips from London to Bath, and she could not really blame him for that. But neither could she ignore a cry for help. To do so would go against nature.

Ned had told her to trust him, but he had given her no particular reason to do so and no answers to these problems. For that matter, he had not really talked about any of them. But then, she reminded herself, he did not talk easily about such things, any more than she did. Where she had learned over the years to divert uncomfortable conversation onto a track she could control, he had learned to duck confrontation altogether when he wished to do so. Both of them, as Ned had said himself, had learned those lessons from their respective fathers.

Though she had had little to do with the Marquess of Axbridge, she knew from the reactions of both his wife and his son that nearly anyone would try to avoid confrontation with him. And her father, in his own fashion, had likewise taught his household not to arouse his temper. Both were selfish men, and arrogant, expecting everyone around them to leap to serve their needs without thought for anything else. They both expected obedience, and it was certainly the duty of their children to obey them.

There was no use asking herself what would happen if she simply abandoned her father to his own devices. She would not be able to do that. The habits of obedience and duty were too strong to be broken so easily. And Ned, she realized, would not much longer be able to ignore the marquess, or to avoid him. Too many times recently had she heard Lady Axbridge complain that the marquess was tired or not enjoying his customary health. The fact was that he was getting on in years, and soon he would need help whether he liked it or not. The proper person to help him was his son. Ned wouldn’t like it, but he would have to do his duty, just as she had to do hers.

How could she make him see that? Could she influence him to behave as he should? Or was that precisely the sort of thing he meant when he asked her to trust him? He said he had changed, and indeed, she had seen that much for herself. There had been little of his old, frenetic search for pleasure since the day he had come to find her in Bath. Of course, she had only been out with him a few times and had spent those evenings pretty much at his side, and Fanny had been there to claim her attention.

But just as she was settling her thoughts for a thorough recitation of Fanny’s iniquities and transgressions, Medlicott entered the room with a handful of letters, glanced at the tray and said, “No chocolate this morning, m’lady? You ailing again?”

“No, Meddy, just in a brown study.” Sybilla took her letters and sorted through them. “Oh, good, a letter from Miss Mally! But what is this?” she added, turning over the letter in question. “I do not know anyone named Porter.”

Quickly, remembering the last time she had received a missive from an unknown, she tore open the letter and began to read. Her worst fears were confirmed at once. “Good gracious, Meddy, get my driving habit and order out the phaeton! Master Brandon’s been shot! What will he think of next to startle us? This Mr. Porter says nothing of his opponent, only to come at once and to say nothing to anyone else. Brandon must have killed his man!”

“I
F MR. BRANDON DID
kill anyone,” Medlicott said as she moved with her customary dignity first to ring for a maid and then to fetch out the habit, “I should think he would have crowed about having hit what he aimed at for once.”

“But someone else wrote the letter,” Sybilla pointed out, “and what with all the riot and rumpus over Lord Castlereagh’s duel with Mr. Canning a few months ago, he will not have dared to write more than he has, lest he condemn Brandon. Mr. Porter says he will meet me at Biddlestone to conduct me to a place called Cheyne’s Farm, where Brandon is recovering from his wound,” she added before falling silent again when Elsie entered.