Anne Barbour (24 page)

March stared at his aunt, and it was several moments before he responded to her question. “I suppose,” he said slowly, “he was a great deal like Susannah. I loved him dearly, but there is no denying he was a care-for-nobody—as was I at the time, truth to be told. He was basically decent, but wild to a fault, indulging in all the vices of a young man about town—cards, women, the bottle. But after he married”—his gaze sharpened—”I left for the continent shortly after they married, but surely he settled down—did he not?” He frowned again, remembering his father’s fretful letters.

“No, he did not, March. He left his young wife completely alone while he continued his carousing—and his philandering. Susannah was terribly hurt by his neglect, and she was devastated by his womanizing. As you say, she had been spoiled all her life, and she did not suffer his slights in silence.

“She treated him to public tantrums to no effect, and then fell in with a set of persons who might have been created for the sole purpose of ruining her. Her name became a byword, and it was rumored that she changed lovers as she would her slippers. I do not know if this is true. I do know she became addicted to gambling in its worst forms. At every fashionable event, she arrived alone and would disappear immediately into the card room, emerging in the small hours of the morning, her purse disastrously lighter than when she came in.”

“My God,” whispered March, stunned, “didn’t Will make any effort to stop her?”

“He apparently did not care what she did until her losses became too large to ignore. She dipped deeply into her own funds, and when those were exhausted, she began selling family jewels and stealing money from her husband’s purse. I was not privy to their discussions on the subject, of course, but your father told me of late-night quarrels filled with loud recriminations and vituperative insults—on both sides.

“I cannot say I knew nothing of this.” March’s face was gray. “Father begged me to stay home, and I would not. I was so damned anxious to escape the duties of a peer’s son ... He wrote something of Susannah’s escapades and mentioned Will’s ruinous behavior, but I thought he was exaggerating, with the purpose of bringing me home. Or, at least, that’s what I told myself. God, I should have listened. I should have come home.”

“What could you have done?” asked Lady Edith gently. “Was William in the habit of listening to you?”

“Of course he was,” came the instant response. Then, March paused. “Well, actually he usually came to me for advice after he was already in trouble. The few times I tried to counsel him against some piece of folly, he just laughed at me, saying it would be like a toper taking advice from the village drunkard.”

“Well then, if William would not listen to his father, was it likely that he would have paid attention to your strictures?”

“Perhaps not, but...” He shook his head. “No wonder Susannah fell prey so easily to Lissa Reynard.”

The signs of fatigue on Lady Edith’s lined face were obvious, but she straightened in her chair. “It is my firm belief that Susannah was not Miss Reynard’s prey, March. After her death, I spoke at some length with Susannah’s maid and with some of the other servants of her household. At any rate, by now, Susannah was in dire straits. She began to frequent all the notorious hells in town, and before long, put herself deeply in debt. From what I have been able to determine, in order to excuse her excesses, she spread it about that the Reynard woman had cheated her out of thousands of pounds. At last William came to a sense of his duty, and prepared to bundle Susannah away to the park—”

March grimaced. “But none of the family lived there at the time.”

“No. William hired a companion. A sour old woman, big as a navvy, who was obviously chosen to act as jailer.”

“I suppose Susannah was not happy about this state of affairs.”

Lady Edith’s mouth turned up in a ghastly smile. “No. She ran away with one of her lovers—or she was all set to do so, but her plan was discovered before she could put it into effect. That was when Will said he would accompany her himself to Marchford Park.”

Her veined hands shaking, the old woman put a hand to her head. “A storm came up shortly after they set out, and it was still raining by the time they reached the river. Susannah’s maid, who had accompanied her mistress, reported later that Susannah had worked herself into a fit of hysterics by then. Just as they reached the bridge outside Little Marchbeck, she wrenched open the carriage door and leapt out into the night. She scrambled up the bridge’s stone railing and turned to scream something at William. I truly believe she was only trying to scare him, but when William went after her, she stepped back out of his reach. The next moment, she had disappeared over the side of the bridge. To his credit, William did not hesitate a moment, but jumped into the swollen stream after her.

That was the last time they were seen alive.” Lady Edith’s voice was a rasping whisper as she finished.

“And all this time, I was busying myself with the affairs of the world,” said March, his eyes empty. “I should have been here.”

“But you were not,” replied his aunt. “You were living your own life, as you had every right to do.”

March rose abruptly. “Be that as it may, if I had followed Father’s behest, I could at least have spared Susannah the machinations of such as Lissa Reynard.”

At this, Lady Edith rose to her feet. She tipped her snowy head back to stare belligerently at her nephew. “I am about to lose patience with you, March. You are so blinded by your own guilt, so eager to find a scapegrace for the deaths of William and Susannah—and your father—that you have lost the power to see reason.”

March whitened. “You are very dear to me, Aunt,” he said stiffly. “But, I will allow no one to talk like that to me.”

“Then, it’s time you did,” snapped the old woman. Trembling visibly, she walked to the door, where she turned to add querulously, “You are making a grave mistake in thinking her guilty of the deaths of Susannah and William. She is innocent of wrongdoing—as are you.”

After she had left the room, March listened to the soft sound of her receding footsteps. He stood for some moments, staring sightlessly at the carpet, before striding out of the room and into the silent corridor. In a mindless daze, he collected hat, cane, and gloves when he reached the hall, and exited the house.

He crossed the street and, striding away from Royal Crescent, he plunged into the parkland and fields bordering the city. He did not stop until he flung himself, exhausted, to the ground beneath a tree overlooking the village of Little Weston.

He felt as though the world had exploded beneath him, leaving him adrift in a midnight void. The vendetta he had nursed to his bosom with such persistence was dissolving in his grasp. Alison denied all, and his aunt, whom he knew to be a woman of great perspicacity, believed her implicitly. Believed her as he so desperately wanted to do.

He thought back to his aunt’s words. His guilt? Was that really why he had pursued Lissa Reynard with such driven perseverance? Beneath his rage at what had been done to his family, was there an underlying theme that had tortured him all this time? He had admitted long ago that he was partly to blame for the tragedy that had befallen his family, but had he sought an additional scapegoat? Had he singled out Lissa Reynard for vengeance in order to ease his own conscience?

Even if that were the case, it surely did not excuse Alison’s part in all of it. But just what
was
her part? He stared blindly at the columns of smoke issuing from chimneys in the village below him. That was the nub of the problem, wasn’t it? If Alison was telling the truth, his house of cards was even now tumbling about him in ruins. Everything in him cried out that of course she was telling the truth. Her sincerity had proclaimed itself in her every word, gesture, and action. To be sure, the facts about her as he knew them had not changed. She had gone to London to gamble. She had won money from his sister-in-law, and she had covered up her activities by fleeing the city. Everything else he wanted to believe about her would have to be taken on faith.

He drew a deep breath. He had put away the follies of his youth and had spent the last four years of his life living as an eminently practical, dutiful man. He had grown cynical and worldly, and he had almost become affianced to a woman who would drive him to screaming boredom inside of a fortnight. Had all this been an overreaction to his previous carelessness, which he believed had cost the lives of three people?

Now, another life had opened up for him. He had been given the opportunity to release himself from the guilt that had caged him for four years.

He loved Alison Fox. At last he was able to answer this thought, for he now realized with blinding clarity that she was worthy of all the love a man could give her, and any man that could win her heart was blessed beyond measure.

Another thought struck him, one not nearly so pleasant. Unfortunately, that man would not be him. She had gone in terror of him for a long time, and she had opened herself to him last night, only to be insulted and, in the end, crudely propositioned. He still could not believe he had invited her to be his mistress—and in such a manner, as though he had only to crook his finger and she would hurl herself with becoming gratitude into the dubious haven of his protection. She had mentioned friendship. God, he wanted that from her and so much more. He wanted to be her friend, her lover, and most of all her husband. His thoughts drifted into a rosy fantasy of early mornings with her hair spread out on the pillow next to him, of late-night wine sipped by the fire, of intimate murmurings on long walks at Marchford Park.

He shook himself abruptly. Lord, he must be going round the bend. Friendship had been all he could ever have hoped for from her, and now he had ruined even that possibility. She had not even deigned to tell him that she had no need to consider his despicable offer, that her position with his aunt was secure. He had not even been given a chance to recant his threat—to tell her that he had no intention of seeing her thrown into the street. Would she believe him now if he told her that even if his aunt was prepared to act on his words, he would persuade her not to discharge Alison? Would it make any difference to her? He shook his head, and the next moment his breath caught in sudden memory. What was it she had said about Jack Crawford? He, too, had made her an offer? The taste of bile rose in his throat, which, he conceded a moment later, was clearly ludicrous. If Jack had, in fact, made her an indecent proposal, it was no more than he had done himself. And, surely, it was no more likely to be accepted than the one he had made. It was clear she held Jack Crawford in as much disfavor as she did the Earl of Marchford. God, what a mull he had made of everything.

What was he to do now? He must apologize, of course. Perhaps, for Aunt Edith’s sake, she would listen to him. He would go back to Royal Crescent that afternoon. He would speak to her then, and to his aunt, offering his apology and his assurances of support in the future. Then he would announce his departure from Bath the next day. He would, in all probability, never see Alison Fox again. He grunted involuntarily at the stab of anguish this prospect caused him, but it was probably all to the good.

He would return to Marchford Park. He realized suddenly that he was weary to death of London and all that living there entailed—the stuffy parties at which he was obliged to appear, the duty visits, the obligatory appearances at the theater and the opera. And Frances.

March sighed heavily. He would have to marry eventually, for the closest heir to the title at present was a ne’er-do-well cousin living in the Indies. However, he would do himself a favor and pass on Frances Milford. It had only been his exaggerated sense of duty that had forced him to dance attendance on her. No, he rather thought he would hie himself to Almack’s and pluck some seventeen-year-old bud from next year’s crop of eager debutantes—a biddable miss, who could be counted on to present him with the requisite heir “and one to spare,” and to leave him to his own devices.

Contemplating this laudable course of action with the most profound depression, he hauled himself to his feet. The morning sun was now high in the sky, but, as he retraced his steps with dragging feet, he took little comfort in its warmth.

* * * *

In Royal Crescent, the sunlight streamed through the window of Meg’s bedchamber. That young lady lay propped up on a mound of pillows, sipping a cup of broth as she expostulated with Alison, who sat at her side.

“But, I feel quite well now,” she said in a martyred tone. “I’m a little weak, but I believe I am fully recovered. Could I please have something to eat? I mean real food, not this stuff.” She indicated the broth with a disdainful gesture.

“Later,” replied Alison with a smile. “The doctor said that if you keep the broth down during the day, you may have a light meal this evening.”

Meg sighed into her pillows and said in that case she would take a nap. “For I am still rather tired,” she admitted.

Alison tucked the quilt about the suffering patient, and, gathering up the empty bowl and a half-finished glass of barley water, tiptoed from the room.

In the hallway, after setting the utensils on a table for later collection by one of the maids, she paused irresolutely. There were a hundred small tasks demanding her attention but she could not seem to focus on a single one of them. She felt curiously hollow inside, as though someone had scooped out her heart with a crude instrument. Last night, after she had left March in the library, she had wept until there were no more tears to cry. Now, she felt detached, and void of emotion.

She glanced at the closed door to Lady Edith’s chamber. From her window, she had observed March’s departure from the house early this morning and was thus aware that he had returned to divulge his supposedly earth-shaking news to his aunt. The thought of the short shrift he must have received at Lady Edith’s hands brought a grim smile to her lips.

She turned to make her way downstairs, but was stayed by the opening of Lady Edith’s door. The old lady emerged a moment afterward, looking pale but composed. She nodded good morning to Alison, then gestured for her to come into the room. “We have a good deal to talk about,” she said somberly.