Her Husband’s Lover (31 page)

Lucy’s words might as well have been slaps, for they brought blood rushing to Emma’s cheeks as readily as any blow would have done. ‘’Tis bad enough my varmint of a husband treats me so abominably without having his doxy flaunting her good spirits in my face. Don’t think I don’t know of your actions. I know my husband, Mrs Langley, and his pitiful attempts at subterfuge are just that. You should hang your head in shame.’

More taken aback still, Emma clutched the banister for support. In truth, she could not deny Lady Darleston’s accusation, but she had not been prepared for such a direct or immediate assault. How had the woman come to know? Had her sister betrayed her? Amelia had certainly been peevish over the last few days, but surely she wasn’t that spiteful. Her embarrassment swelled further when she realised there were other guests milling about the hall below and that Lady Darleston’s words had almost certainly been overheard.

‘Can’t even utter an apology?’ Lucy remarked of Emma’s gaping response. ‘Well, know this, you little fool. I don’t tolerate anyone meddling with my husband. He is mine and, if you are wise, you will desist in your liaison at once. There’s many who’ll pay a handsome price for tattle, even about a country bumpkin.’

Would this have been worse if Lady Darleston had come upon them abed and torn Darleston from her side? In her mortification, Emma didn’t think so. She had no way of lulling the woman’s fury, nor could she feign contrition and beg forgiveness. Artful deception was not a trait she’d ever acquired.

‘Leave her be, Lucy.’ Darleston’s voice preceded him as he strode over to meet them. ‘She’s done you no ill, and you have no right to label any woman a whore without first labelling yourself as the biggest one of all.’

Lucy turned towards her husband and met him eye to eye, he at the bottom of the stairs and she three steps up. Darleston remained dressed as he had been when Emma had left him, in his greatcoat and boots and with his fiery hair curling gently upon his shoulders.

‘Are you denying she’s your tart?’

‘Of course I am. What trouble are you hoping to stir by even suggesting it? Mrs Langley is happily married and not the sort to dally behind her husband’s back –’

‘Dull, you mean.’

‘– so you may keep her out of your attempts to destroy my good name.’

‘Your good name! What name?’ Lucy jabbed Darleston square in the chest with two of her heavily jewelled fingers. ‘Your perversities are bandied about town as synonyms for unnaturalness. What have I to do with that?’

Darleston maintained a curiously stoic air of resilience throughout his wife’s response, leading Emma to wonder if they had played out this particular scene before. Despite Darleston’s coolness, Lucy hammered on at him as if greatly maligned. ‘What have I done?’ she howled, while she fanned herself furiously. She had become quite red about the face, and seemed likely to be overcome by a fit of the vapours. Emma wondered if she ought to call for some smelling salts before the woman expired.

‘How have I displeased you in such a way that you’d leave me bereft while you gallivant about the countryside pursuing such vices, and when I am quickening with your child?’ Lucy smiled rather maliciously as she spoke the last words, and cast Emma a particularly hateful glance.

For just a moment Darleston’s urbane façade slipped, which transformed his coldness into the most dreadful fury. If she hadn’t known him to be most gentle and tender, Emma would certainly have quailed at such intense wrath.

‘It is not my child,’ he growled and brushed Lucy’s hand aside a lot less gently then he might. She staggered as though he had struck her, though he had not, and began to shed piteous tears. Darleston took a further step back from her and clenched his fists by his sides. He spoke rather more calmly when he addressed her again. ‘As for your accusations of abandonment, as I recall it, madam, you left me. You climbed out of a window and ran into the night after I caught you being swived by another. Not content with that, you launched a campaign of terror upon me and my friends, spreading scandalous rumours for which there is no sound evidence at all. I find it incomprehensible that you should come to me seeking reconciliation only to immediately launch into yet more rumour-mongering.’

‘’Tis untrue,’ Lucy wailed, but the protest lacked sincerity.

‘Is there some problem?’ Mr Bathhouse strolled over to them. He’d shown some adeptness at dissolving minor quarrels over the course of his stay, which made Emma grateful for his involvement. Her relief didn’t extend to Mr Aiken and Mr Littleton, who appeared in the doorway of the dining room, their faces full of morbid curiosity.

‘Only one that perpetually ails me,’ Darleston replied. He did not to turn to address Bathhouse, choosing instead to deliver his response with an artful turn of his wrist.

‘My husband is an unconscionable cad,’ bemoaned her ladyship. ‘I am quite the most unfortunate of wives. Why must you deny your future heir?’ She jabbed at her husband again, at the same time as seeking Bathhouse’s hand to clutch in support.

‘It is not my child,’ Darleston repeated in a more conversational tone, though the purr of his former anger still rumbled deep in his throat.

‘Who else’s do you suppose it to be?’

‘That is a very good question, and one for which I shall endeavour to find an answer. What I do know is that you are not above two months gone and until your unwelcome arrival yesterday I had not set eyes upon you for four. So explain to me how the babe could possibly be my son?’ Darleston turned and looked questioningly at the assembled guests, who raised their eyebrows in unison.

‘I repeat my comments of yesterday when you first presented me with this nonsense, that you should make your doe eyes at the child’s real father. Petition him for money, for I will not support you. Your bastard will never lay claim to the earldom. I will not acknowledge the child.’

‘Perhaps this dispute might be better resolved in private,’ Mr Bathhouse interjected. He seemed most uncomfortable, having come to smooth things out and instead found himself forced into the thankless role of Lady Darleston’s protector. She would not release his hand, no matter how many times he sought to withdraw it. ‘Milord, the library might afford you such.’

Darleston waved aside the suggestion. ‘There’s nothing more to discuss. The facts are entirely straightforward.’

‘Still … well …’ Bathhouse muttered, trying to extract his hand from Lady Darleston’s death grip.

Ignoring Bathhouse’s straits, Darleston addressed his wife once more. ‘Leave,’ he said simply, then turned his back on her.

Lucy blanched in response to such a direct cut. ‘Oh!’ she cried dramatically and fell into a faint, so that Mr Bathhouse was obliged to catch her and lower her gently to the steps. ‘You foul beast. You monster.’ From betwixt her bosoms she produced a handkerchief, which she applied liberally to her eyes, though there was no evidence of tears. ‘I cannot believe you accuse me so when I have always been such a good and faithful wife.’ Perhaps that was stretching credibility a little too far, for there were several rather disrespectful murmurings from the assembled gentlemen. Her ladyship ignored them. ‘All you care to do is free yourself to indulge in further wickedness. Do you imagine you are so discreet that your nocturnal habits pass unobserved? I have been here but a day and they have already reached my ears.’

Still with his back to her, Darleston paused. ‘I think you mistake me for someone else, unless I’ve taken to sleepwalking, for I have spent every night here in my own bed.’

‘Sleepwalking,’ her ladyship scoffed. ‘Is that the newly fashionable term for it? Do you deny that you approached my maid last night? You went to her quarters.’

Darleston did not respond. However, as if on cue, Lady Darleston’s maid appeared at that very moment with vile-smelling salts to waft under her employer’s nose. ‘Tell them.’ Lucy gestured to the assembled onlookers. ‘Go ahead, girl, as you told me. Isn’t it so that milord made certain demands of you last night?’

‘It is,’ the girl responded. She was a plump lass with wide hips and an ample bosom. However, her mock-serious expression couldn’t entirely hide her all-too-knowing worldliness. She was no innocent, and likely a very saucy piece instead. ‘He came to me after midnight, he did. I was quite at my wits’ end as to what to do.’

‘You poor soul.’ Lady Darleston petted the maid in a soothing fashion, her own affliction clearly forgotten.

Darleston groaned and rolled his eyes, but refrained from offering an explanation, a fact that perhaps worked to his advantage, for no one seemed at all concerned about his supposed visit to the servants’ quarters. Even Emma felt certain it’d been for a legitimate reason, rather than the one Lady Darleston implied.

‘’Tis no new thing for you either, Robert.’ Lucy clambered once more to her feet in order to tick her fingers back and forth before his face. ‘What devilment is it that provokes you to accost innocents in this way? Oh, if I’d only known the extent of your depravity when I agreed to marry you, I should have saved myself such misery.’

‘That is the first truth you have spoken all day,’ Darleston said.

‘Well, let me speak another. I know you have a lover and I know who it is.’ She turned her steely gaze once more upon Emma. ‘You need not stand there so primly. I’m not fooled. Even your own sister is appalled by your behaviour. She was positively distraught when she confided last night.’

Amelia – Amelia had betrayed her, though whether out of malice or simple foolishness it was hard to say.

‘What is the meaning of this?’ Mr Hill shuffled in from the direction of the study, followed by a trickle of other guests. ‘I shall have the townsfolk and the constable here if this shouting keeps up, enquiring if we are to have the boxing in my hall.’ He eyed Darleston and Mr Bathhouse standing at the base of the stairs and asked, ‘Is there some quarrel between you gentlemen?’

Bathhouse’s eyes widened in alarm. ‘Good Lord, no.’ He gave his host to know that the discord was between husband and wife, a fact that turned Hill’s poker face compellingly stern. He offered a hand to Lady Darleston – thus freeing Bathhouse, who made a speedy retreat into the dining room. Her ladyship dipped immediately into an exquisite curtsy. When she bobbed up once more, a triumphant and unflattering – for you could see the badness of her teeth – smirk stretched across her cheeks.

‘’Tis rather unseemly to air one’s grievances in public,’ Mr Hill reprimanded her, immediately extinguishing her smile. ‘Whatever complaint you have against his lordship, my hall is not the place to declare it.’

Lucy’s eyes narrowed at the remark, but she offered her host no apology, whereas Darleston did so with unfaltering politeness, to which he received a nod in return. It seemed as though the drama was done

The tension in Emma’s chest eased enough for her to take an unsteady breath. She and Lyle and Darleston needed to speak with one another most urgently. While she still trusted Darleston, the issue of Lady Darleston being with child thoroughly complicated matters.

However, as Mr Hill turned to return to his other guests, Lucy stopped him with a woeful moan. ‘Please, sir, I’m sorry to raise such matters at this time, but I cannot let this go. For all his nice words my husband has cruelly abused your hospitality while here. He has made your daughter his mistress.’

‘Good God!’ Hill released Lady Darleston’s arm. Surprisingly, he did not round upon Darleston, but instead turned forthwith to Amelia, who had followed him from the study. ‘What devilment have you been about, young lady? I knew I ought to have sent you to your Aunt Maude’s.’

‘Not I,’ she squeaked, though the way her lip trembled suggested a degree of deceit in her answer. Foolishly, her gaze swept at once to Harry Quernow, who at least was less obvious in giving a tremulous shake of the head. So Lyle was right. That was where Amelia’s affections lay. Thankfully her father seemed not to notice. If such an obvious hint at a liaison had occurred in the past, Emma would have taken Amelia aside for a sound lecture, but considering her own promiscuity and its imminent revelation she no longer felt in a position to sermonise.

‘Um, no, you misunderstand,’ Lucy helpfully clarified. ‘I meant your other daughter, sir. Mrs Langley.’

Much to everyone’s surprise, Hill burst into peals of helpless laughter. When he caught Emma’s gaze, his mirth vanished equally fast. He might occasionally be insensitive and treat her like a dolt, but he was not an unkind father, and generally endeavoured not to cause her distress. His attention returned abruptly to Lady Darleston. ‘You are trouble, madam. I knew you would be the moment you stepped down from the landau yesterday. While I’m delighted to know my instincts are as sharp as ever, I’m sorry that I’ve had to listen to you besmirch my daughter’s reputation. I know you to be a liar.’ Mr Hill drew himself up to his full and rather considerable height, showing himself to be a stout and hearty man still, despite his thinning grey hair. ‘You will not make such idle accusations again. Whatever quarrel you have with my lord Darleston, I find it intolerably rude of you to try and embroil my family. Please collect your things. I can no longer welcome you as a guest in my home.’

‘It’s the truth. Ask her,’ Lucy protested. She had turned a rather ghostly shade, so that the white of her outfit thoroughly overwhelmed her. ‘Ask Amelia.’

‘I have no intention of asking anyone, let alone the opinion of an impressionable girl barely out of the schoolroom. Please have your maid assemble your trunk.’

‘Come, milady.’ The maid gently tapped her mistress’s arm. Lucy threw her a scathing look. ‘Take off your coat, Robert. Show them what lies beneath. ’Tis no ramble you’ve been upon this morn, but rather face-making with your harlot.’

Darleston remained buttoned to the throat. He observed Lucy calmly. ‘Making up tales in order to embarrass me will not better your situation. How do you suppose me able to conduct an affair with Mrs Langley when she doesn’t permit even her family to touch her?’ He sniffed. ‘Then again, perhaps you have not noticed that fact since you’ve been such a short time in this house.’