Amanda Scott (43 page)

“How can you have money to bet on races if you cannot even pay your debts?”

He waved airily. “One arranges these matters, that’s all. Ah, there you are, Silas, and about time, too. I’m famished.” As the footman set a platter of beef and a loaf of bread on the table and poured his coffee, Oliver said casually, “What are you going to do these next few days, Melissa? I thought Nick would take you to Epsom, but perhaps you don’t care for horse racing.”

She flicked a warning glance toward Silas, waiting until the footman departed again before she said, “You keep forgetting that my father was murdered. It would not be seemly for me to dash off to the Derby, especially since I did not like him much. People will be watching to see what I do, and although I am not certain exactly what I ought to do in such a case, I am persuaded that Nicholas is right to say I should stay home.”

“Then he ought to have stayed, too,” Oliver said, piling beef on his plate and tearing a large chunk from the loaf of bread. He chuckled. “Daresay that notion didn’t suit him though, not after he’d missed all the best heats at Newmarket.”

She hesitated, not wanting to tell him about her encounter with Yarborne, or to try to explain Nicholas’s behavior when she really did not understand it herself. Although her headache had disappeared overnight, a certain dullness lingered, making it difficult for her to think, but she longed to confide in someone who knew him well. Meeting his brother’s curious gaze with difficulty, she said, “There is a little more to the matter of my staying here than I led you to believe, I’m afraid.”

“Well, I know Nick’s in a temper again. What is it, if it ain’t Vauxhall?”

She grimaced. “Some of it is private, Oliver, but when I said before that he had ordered me to stay here, I meant here in this house, not just here in London. He says he’s worried about rumors arising from Papa’s death, but I know he’s angry with me, too, and he’s got good cause to be, so I don’t know how much about the rumors is true. But I’m not a child, after all, and I think I could deal with the sort of gossip he’s talking about as well as anyone else can.”

“Well, if he’s angry, I can dashed well believe he rang a peal over you,” Oliver said, grimacing. “The way he talks when he’s in a fury makes most folks shiver in their shoes and fear he might do more to them than talk, but no matter how angry he is with you, you certainly can’t believe he’d harm you.”

“Oh, no,” Melissa said quickly. “I am not afraid of him, but I never seem able to please him, either, and oh, how I’d like to please him, Oliver, if only to repay him for saving me. You don’t know the whole tale about that, I daresay, and I don’t propose to tell you now, but he did save me, and it cost him a great deal of money. Perhaps, now that Sir Geoffrey has died, I’ll inherit enough to repay him, but indeed, I am sure he must wish by now that he had never married me. He only did so, after all, because he felt obliged to protect me from Sir Geoffrey, and now that reason no longer exists.”

“Are you sorry he married you?” Oliver asked bluntly.

“Oh, no, I—” Tears choked her, and she turned away so he would not see her distress. When she could control her voice, she said quietly, “I know I’ve been talking wildly, and most of what I’ve said must seem foolish, but I want only to do what would be best for Nicholas. I just don’t know what that is.”

“You love him, in fact.”

Melissa did not answer, but to her surprise, Oliver made no effort to pursue the point. Instead, he said, “You know, I’ve been thinking, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Nick wasn’t right about protecting you from the rumors. There’s bound to be a lot of dashed unpleasant talk, you know, and it’s his duty to protect you.”

“But his notion of protecting me is to lock me up till he makes it safe for me to show my face again,” she protested. “I don’t want that, and in this case, it’s silly. I know Charley said people might think ridiculous things about who killed Papa, but the villains must have been footpads, and the authorities are bound to—”

“Dash it, Melissa, if Nick didn’t explain, I daresay I oughtn’t to either, but you must have thought about who’s most likely to have wanted your father dead.”

His words and the way he looked at her sent an icy chill racing through her. “Nicholas? I thought about that before, because of how angry he was about all that Papa did to me, but Nicholas was with me, Oliver.”

Oliver stared at her. “What a dashed ridiculous notion! I can’t believe I’ve heard such nonsense from two people I’d have expected to know better, and all in less than a day. I never meant that at all, and that’s exactly what I told Rigger, too. It’s Penthorpe, not Nick, who had reason to kill Sir Geoffrey Seacourt.”

She realized Oliver did not know what she had meant, that he was unaware of all that Nicholas knew about what Sir Geoffrey had done. No one knew as much as Nicholas did, not even her mother or Charley, and no one else had seen the look of rage on his face when he learned about the dreadful things in her past. But even as the thought crossed her mind, she rejected any notion that Nicholas might have killed Sir Geoffrey. Not only had he been with her at Yarborne’s, but it was as absurd to suspect Nicholas as it was to suspect Penthorpe. “Oliver, do you really think anyone could believe Penthorpe killed Papa to keep him from charging Mama with bigamy?”

“Not
could.
People
are
believing it.”

“Good gracious, how very odd. Penthorpe is the gentlest of creatures. Although he was in the army and even fought at Waterloo, I don’t think he would murder anyone. Moreover, he was not in town when it happened, and Nicholas was with me.

“But we don’t know when Seacourt was murdered. We know only when he was found. Moreover, though I’ve heard that tale about Penthorpe’s dashed odd abduction, you’ve only his word for it, and he’s got the most to gain from Seacourt’s death. As for this crazy notion that anyone could think Nick might have murdered him—”

“Robert Yarborne thought so. You said as much.”

“Oh, Rigger was just out of sorts because Yarborne’s been a bit short with him of late, but he says he can set that to rights again in a trice. In any case, I’ll tell you like I told him, you can just put that notion out of your head. I don’t deny Nick’s got a fearsome temper. I won’t even deny, between these four walls, that I’ve taken good care to keep out of his way since Tuesday because, whatever you say about his being only a trifle vexed, I don’t trust him not to tear me limb from limb for taking you to Vauxhall and dashed well abandoning you there.”

“But that was my fault, not yours. After all, you thought at the time—”

“It don’t matter what you cozened me into thinking, Melissa. I knew then, and I know now, that I was wrong to take you there when I couldn’t stay and wrong to leave once I’d taken you there. Whether you’ve noticed it or not, Nick is devilish protective of you. Good Lord, he’s been so ever since you first met, if half what I’ve heard about that night is correct.”

She felt the blood rushing from her head. “Then you
do
know! But I’ve not heard a soul speak of that awful night. Oh, Oliver, pray don’t tell me that talk about that night is running through all the gentlemen’s clubs!”

“Nothing of the sort. Nick would soon put a stop to it if that were the case. I chanced to hear about it from—”

“Robert Yarborne! But he was not there, was he? I don’t recall much about that night, but I do think I would remember him.”

“He wasn’t at the Little Hell, but he was in Newmarket, and since you were being delivered as a bride to his father, of course he heard most of the tale. You needn’t worry that he’ll tell anyone else, though. He agrees that it wouldn’t help his father’s reputation to have it noised about all over London that he was willing to take you in exchange for Seacourt’s debts. And if Yarborne—Lord Yarborne, that is—cares about anything, he cares about guarding his reputation.”

“I do wish you wouldn’t discuss me with Mr. Robert Yarborne,” Melissa said gently. “It makes me feel very uncomfortable to know that you have done so, especially since I particularly asked you not to.”

“Well, it needn’t,” Oliver said, “and Rigger’s had some dashed good notions. I told him you never know from one minute to the next what Nick is thinking—like you told me—and he said it’s no doubt dashed uncomfortable for a wife not to know, but that it’s likely Nick just ain’t accustomed to letting his emotions show. He’s a gamester first and foremost, Rigger said, and he’s trained himself not to wear his emotions on his sleeve. In many card games, after all, to do so would be to betray to his opponents whenever he had a winning hand.”

“But I am not his opponent,” Melissa said.

“True, but Nick treats everyone the same. He believes, like any good gamester does, that the only time a man talks about his feelings is when he expresses satisfaction at winning the game. He don’t gloat, of course, and he don’t keep talking about what a good thing he did, but all the same,” Oliver added with a smile, “I don’t think he’s sorry that he married you, you know.”

“Because he won their stupid game that night? It cost him a great deal.”

“I know it did, but he won more than he expected, after all. In gaming, that’s called velvet, and it’s a very good thing.”

“He may have won more than he expected,” she said with a sigh, “but I don’t think Nicholas thinks of it as a good thing right now.”

“You
are
in the mopes, but Rigger did suggest that there is one way to learn the truth about Nick’s feelings.” Oliver pushed away his plate and refilled his cup from the coffeepot Silas had left at his elbow.

“How?”

“Leave him. Now, don’t look so amazed. I reacted the same way, but as I told you before, Rigger’s a dashed clever chap, and I think it will serve. First, if you go, it will show Nick you don’t mean to knuckle under each time he tries to hide you away from trouble, and secondly, he’ll follow you like a shot. Of course, I can’t say what he’ll do when he catches you, but at least you’ll know he don’t want you to leave.”

Seeing the glint of mischief in his eyes, she opened her mouth to tell him he must be mad to suggest such a thing. But her own words to Charley echoed in her memory:
If I should choose to go out of town, be sure I will do so for my own good reasons.
She said, “Where would I go?”

His eyes twinkled. “Why not home to Scotland? Now don’t bite off my head. You can’t just go wandering hither and yon, after all. That would be foolish. And if you imagine Nick won’t follow you that far, you’ve mistaken your man. Moreover, if you ask Penthorpe and your mama to take you, you’ll accomplish two ends in one.”

“Because it would remove Penthorpe from harm’s way?”

“Well, it would.”

She did not argue. The malaise that had settled over her since waking to discover that Nicholas had left the house without so much as bidding her farewell—although he had taken time to leave money on her dressing table for Lady Ophelia—began to lift. Charley thought she ought to go away. Clearly, Oliver did, too. Perhaps they were right. Nicholas had not really wanted to marry her. She was not certain he even had intended to rescue her. Now that she had come to know him better, she knew it was quite possible that he had outbid the others that night in Newmarket simply because he could not bear to lose.

No doubt some similar passion was to blame for the impulsive declaration that had led to their marriage. Having feared that Sir Geoffrey might win that hand if not the entire game, Nicholas had played his only trump card and taken the prize again.

She did not really care what his reasons had been then, but she wanted passionately to know what he felt now. She had seen signs that he cared for her, but he had never said so, and in truth, she had vexed and exasperated him more than she had pleased him. Their evening together at Vauxhall had been wonderful, and things might well have improved afterward, but that was before he caught her at Yarborne’s flat, and before Sir Geoffrey’s death had changed everything. Now, she feared that Nicholas might be relieved to let her go, and indeed, that it might be better for him if she did.

Oliver could dismiss the notion that people might suspect his brother of the murder, but now that she realized his presence at Yarborne’s flat would not protect him, Melissa was not reassured. If they could believe Penthorpe had killed Sir Geoffrey, they could certainly suspect Nicholas. Robert Yarborne might even have started such a rumor. She had learned enough about the
beau monde
to realize people might believe anything if it were sufficiently scandalous, and her husband’s temper was legendary. But if he let her return to Scotland, no one could seriously believe he had committed murder for her. One thing she would not do was ask Susan or Penthorpe to go with her, for despite Oliver’s assumption that they would, she knew they would refuse to leave London so long as the smallest cloud of suspicion lingered over them. They would also insist that her proper place was with her husband.

“You going to do it?”

Soberly returning Oliver’s mischievous gaze, she said, “He may not follow, you know. He is more likely to divorce me. I would certainly be giving him cause.”

“Aye, abandonment. Of course, you’d have to stay away for quite a time before he could make Parliament swallow that, but since the circumstance won’t arise …” He grinned, clearly seeing no reason to finish the sentence.

“He won’t have to wait. Thanks to Mama’s experience, I know something about Scottish divorce, you see. All I need do is suggest to the Commissary Court in Edinburgh that Nicholas has enjoyed sexual congress with another woman.”

Oliver stared at her. “Look here, what do you know about such things?”

“Lady Hawthorne made no secret of their connection, nor has he.”

“By Jupiter, I’ll warrant neither of them claimed any such connection since your marriage. Well, Clara might have,” he amended. “I don’t trust that wench. Shouldn’t even mention her name to you, of course, but dash it, Melissa, you can’t go about saying Nick has committed adultery when he wouldn’t do any such thing!”

“I don’t know that,” Melissa said, though her conscience pricked her. She went on steadily, “If I do say it, no one here needs to know, and if I divorce him in Scotland, he can easily obtain a divorce here. He will then be free to play his games any way he chooses. I suspect he might say no more than that I’ve put down my cards and left the table, having no wish to risk more of my stake on the outcome.”