Love With a Scandalous Lord (27 page)

Lydia sat in the chair, staring out at the rose garden. Her heart continued to beat but without meaning. The
world had never seemed so dull, empty, devoid of joy.

Lauren was insisting Lydia attend the Kimburton ball that evening. All Lydia wanted to do was get on a boat and go home. The glitter had certainly become tarnished.

The door opened, but she didn’t look to see who it was. Life went on around her, but she had little desire to participate.

“Lydia, you have a gentleman caller,” Lauren said.

She twisted around in the chair, unexpected hope filling her. “Rhys?”

“No, Lord Sachse.”

She furrowed her brow. “What does he want?”

“Well, silly goose,” Lauren said. “I don’t know. He’s talking with Papa right now. Let’s get you presentable so we can find out.”

What Lord Sachse wanted was to make good on his offer to marry her. She could hardly believe it as he sat beside her on the sofa in the parlor, awaiting her answer. She’d thought of this moment a hundred times while she’d been in Texas: gaining some lord’s attention, falling in love with him, having him fall in love with her.

Between her and Sachse, if she searched hard enough, she could find affection. She wondered if she’d ever care for him to such an extent that he could break her heart as Rhys had. Would she ever again dare love any man to such a degree that she would risk her heart?

Or had Rhys ruined any chance of future love for her? Would she hold herself apart, afraid, uncertain, not knowing if her shattered heart could ever be healed?

A quiet knock on the door saved her from having to give Sachse her answer.

“My lord? There’s a lad out here to see you. Says he
has an important message for you that can’t wait,” the butler said.

Sachse gave her a smile. “I’d better see what it is.”

She followed him into the hallway, where she was surprised to see William waiting. He wore a very serious expression as he handed Sachse a note. She desperately wanted to ask after Rhys, and yet his previous life was as he’d promised her it would be—abhorrent to her.

Sachse read the note before turning to Lydia. “It seems Harrington wishes to see me. A matter of some importance.”

“Is he all right?” she asked, unable to keep the concern out of her voice, unsure why she continued to care.

“I’m sure he is, but I’d better see what it’s about. Lad, did you want to ride back in my carriage?”

William pulled a watch out of his pocket, the watch Lydia had seen Rhys pick up in the village. He snapped it open and studied it carefully. “I’ve got a bit of time. Think I’ll walk, but thanks for the offer.”

Lydia touched his shoulder. “Join me for some sweet cakes before you go.”

After she said good-bye to Sachse, she took William to the garden, where she had a servant bring them some sweets. She doubted many lords gave their valets the kind of gifts Rhys gave his: expensive watches and readings at night.

William was stuffing a little cake in his mouth when Lydia asked, “Where did you get the watch?”

His eyes bulged as he worked hard to swallow. “I didn’t steal it if that’s what you’re thinking. Guv give it to me.”

“Why?”

He shrugged. “He said a bloke ought to have a watch.”

“That’s a very nice one.”

He squirmed in the chair as though uncomfortable under her scrutiny. He finally admitted, “Could be on account I mentioned how lucky Colton was to have a watch with all that fine carving on it.”

That she could believe. “Why do you call him Guv?”

“On account I was calling him that for so long I keep forgetting he’s His Lordship now…or His Grace. Just keeps changing, ya know?”

“So when you started working for him—”

“Well, I didn’t work for him, not at first anyways. We was partners, him and me.”

That
was interesting. Lydia leaned forward, and although she knew it was very unladylike, she set her elbow on the table and her chin in her cupped palm. “What sort of business did you have?”

“Weren’t really a business. Like I said, we was partners. If one of us found a job, we’d cut the other in on it. Helping each other out: loading things, lifting, carting stuff. Good, honest work it was.”

“How did you meet?”

His gaze darted to the cakes. “You got a lot of questions. Maybe you ought to ask him.”

She shoved the plate closer to him. “You can eat the cakes while you tell me how you met.”

He accepted the bribe and after finishing a cake, continued. “I was working as a pickpocket at the time. The man me mum sold me to had standards, you see.”

Her stomach roiled at the idea that his mother had sold him. She wanted to comment but didn’t want him to lose the flow of the story.

He took another bite of cake. “He expected us to bring in a certain amount of money, and if we didn’t, he didn’t feed us. Sometimes he beat us. I was sort of desperate one day, on account of the pickin’s being slim, and I saw this bloke who sorta looked like a gent, but not really. Like maybe he’d been a gent at one time. So I figured he might have something valuable on him. Only I was a bit slow, what with me arm bein’ broken the day before, and he caught me at it.”

He’d slipped into a harsher accent, the way she suspected he’d talked before Rhys had taken him in. “The gentleman?”

“Right. He had me by the scruff of me shirt, holding me up against the wall. ‘Guv,’ says I, ‘have mercy. Let me go.’ Only he wanted to know who beat me. Never seen a bloke look so angry. Only he wasn’t mad at me. Turns out he was mad at the bloke what hit me. Told him me tale, trying to get him to have mercy on me and let me go. Only he said if I’d come with him, I’d never get beaten again, never go hungry.

“‘No, thanks, Guv,’ I says. ‘I’ve heard about blokes like you.’

“Told me he wasn’t one of them blokes and if he ever did anything I didn’t like, I had his permission to slit his throat. Then he handed me this.” William reached down and pulled a knife from his boot. “I says, ‘You don’t know me, Guv, but I bloody well know how to use a blade.’”

“And he said, ‘You don’t know me. I’m a man who knows how to keep his word.’ So off with him I went.”

“And found your odd jobs around London,” Lydia added.

“That’s right.”

“But you didn’t stay working at odd jobs?”

“Ah, no, that was a stroke of bloody good luck, that was.”

He finished off another cake.

“Tell me about your good luck,” she prodded.

“I come close to dying, I did.”

“And how was that lucky?”

“Well, I was bad sick. Burning up with the fever. Don’t remember a lot of it. Remember Guv carrying me around, trying to get me into a hospital, but they didn’t want the likes of us dirtying their halls. Then he took me to the house we’re living in now. I remember Rawlings. He didn’t know if he should let us in. There was a lot of yelling. Then another bloke come to the door. The yelling got louder. We finally left.”

Rhys had told her that one night his family had turned him out. What must it have cost him, knowing he was responsible for Annie’s death, to have returned? But he’d suffered the indignity for William’s sake.

“And that’s when Her Ladyship pulled up in her fine carriage,” he finished.

“Her ladyship?”

“Right. Lady Sachse. She took us in.”

Lydia’s heart began to pound. “Lady Sachse took you in?”

He nodded enthusiastically. “She give us this nice, warm house. Had a doctor come fix me up. Then her friends started coming to see Guv. I became his valet. Sometimes we’d go for strolls in the parts of London good folks don’t like. That’s where he’d find his servants. Like Mary.”

Lydia sat back, hardly knowing what to say. Rhys had bombarded her with all the ugliness in his life, all the actions he’d known she’d find reprehensible. And
only now did she realize how unbalanced his confessions had been.

She’d listened to
what
he’d done. She’d never insisted he explain
why
he’d done them. She needed to know why. William’s story had explained a good deal, but it contained some gaping holes. She knew someone who could probably fill in the holes. Lydia was determined to get answers.

Standing in his library, Rhys mused that he’d been completely unprepared for the parade of visitors that afternoon. One gentleman had been blistering mad that Rhys had
not
slept with his wife.

“What the hell is wrong with you not to recognize what a beauty she is?” he’d demanded to know.

Rhys had merely mumbled that in hindsight he could now see he had indeed been quite blind. He’d decided against agitating the man further by asking if the suggestion he’d given the man’s wife on ways to help him not release his seed quite so soon had been of any help. Perhaps it was the woman’s beauty that got the man so worked up to begin with that he couldn’t quite contain himself long enough to get her with an heir.

Most of the gentlemen who visited were quite pleased to learn their wives had never passed over his threshold. In truth, during the time he’d been
kept
, as it were, by Camilla, he hadn’t truly pleasured that many women. Several, like Lady Whithaven, simply wanted a man’s comfort or his advice. For those who did want more, he’d happily obliged.

After all, he’d owed Camilla a considerable debt. She’d managed to have a physician tend to William, had saved the lad’s life while Quentin had merely sneered at him and demanded he leave. Going to
Quentin had been difficult, swallowing his pride to do so, but he couldn’t tolerate the thought of another death on his hands.

Now he turned to the Earl of Sachse, who had responded to his summons. “May I offer you something to drink? Port? Cognac?”

“No, thank you. I doubt this is truly a social call.”

“No, it’s not.” He indicated a nearby chair. “Will you at least sit?”

“I don’t believe.”

Rhys leaned his hips against his desk and wrapped his hands around its edge, needing the sturdiness it offered for what he was about to do. “I noticed you seemed to have an interest in Lydia.”

“More than an interest. I wish to marry her. I’d just broached the subject with her when your missive arrived.”

Rhys dug his fingers into desk. Bless William for his talent at tracking—not much different from Colton’s claim. Rhys would have to ponder that notion later.

“How is Lydia?” he asked.

“Heartbroken, but not defeated.”

Relief washed through Rhys. He’d been terrified that he might have been too brutal in his attempt to force her to hate him. He’d immediately sent a missive to Lauren last night because he hadn’t wanted Lydia to be alone.

Now it seemed she’d have not only Lauren at her side, but Sachse. He was unprepared to feel as though a red hot poker had been stabbed through his heart. He’d planned to convince Sachse that Lydia was an innocent, would make him a fine wife. But it seemed he had no need to convince the man of anything.

“I’m pleased to hear she is continuing on, even more
pleased to hear you wish to marry her.”

“I couldn’t give a damn if you’re pleased. You came close to ruining the girl.”

“I’m well aware of that fact. I want to assure you that nothing untoward passed between us.” What had passed between him and Lydia had been based on love, not gain. Although she would never believe that now. His harsh words had seen to that.

“I don’t need your reassurances. It is quite clear to me—and everyone else—that Miss Westland is a lady of the highest caliber, above reproach.”

Rhys was grateful to know Sachse’s sentiments were echoed by others. “Do you know if she’ll be at Kimburton’s this evening?”

“Yes. I assume you won’t be in attendance.”

“You assume wrong.”

It seemed Rhys had finally managed to say something to surprise Sachse.

“I am not skilled at the games the aristocracy plays, but I was under the impression, based upon all the whispers going about London, you would not be welcomed at Kimburton’s or anyone else’s social gathering,” Sachse said.

“Your impression is correct, and all the more reason I must go, and why you must ensure Lydia is there. It is imperative she give me a public snubbing; otherwise, she risks censure herself. Having you beside her will make it go easier for her, I should think.”

“I can’t imagine Miss Westland issuing a cut direct to anyone, much less to you.”

He nodded. “It will be against her nature, but it must be done. As an Englishman, you understand that. You must ensure she comprehends its importance. She must
in no way give any indication that she is anything but reviled by my presence.”

“And after tonight?”

“She won’t see me again. I’m quite good at disappearing.”

“You love her.”

“What I feel for her is unimportant. All that matters is that I do what I must to lessen the harm that could come her way.”

Sachse took a deep breath and seemed to relax. “I shall do my part, Your Grace.”

“Then I would ask one more favor of you.”

“And that would be?”

“To love her well.”

Arriving at Lady Sachse’s, Lydia tried to at least appear to be a lady, but she was trembling with such fury that it was difficult. She’d known from the beginning she hadn’t trusted or liked the woman. She found little comfort in knowing her suspicions were justified.

Nor did she find comfort in Lady Sachse’s apparent sorrow. She sat in the darkened room with the drapes drawn closed, a half-filled decanter on the table beside her chair, a glass in her hand.

“My life should have been ruined,” she whispered.

“Do you ever think of anyone besides yourself?” Lydia asked as she strode across the room and jerked the drapes open.

The woman screamed and covered her eyes. “Close those immediately.”

“No, I want to see you clearly when you explain to me how you could do to Rhys what you did.”

“And what did I do? I gave him a roof over his head,
coal for his fires, fine clothing, food, servants. He wanted for nothing.”

“Except love and acceptance.”

“Oh, he was loved and accepted. My God, girl, my ladies adored him.”

“The ladies who went to see him. How is it they didn’t know who he was?”