Once Again a Bride (27 page)

“Oh,” Lucy said.

“Right pretty, eh?” He looked out over the clusters of rose bushes spreading around them. A flood of reds and pinks and whites, climbing over an arbor and spilling along a stone wall, so many it was dizzying. The perfume was better than a hundred fancy shops. “You like roses, I remember.” Lucy turned to him. “It was one of the first things you told me. White roses in the moonlight.”

“Don’t try to get around me when I’m mad at you, Ethan Trask!”

“Mad? Why?”

“You know very well why.”

If that wasn’t just like a female, claiming you knew what was in their heads when you had no blessed idea. And no warning. “I do not. We rescued Miss Charlotte, like we came to do, and…”

“And you just dropped me in it here, with everybody staring and making up Lord knows what stories. What your family must think of me! Not that I’ve met any of them, properly.” She took a step away from him and stared down at a deep red rose.

He couldn’t pretend not to understand what she meant, not with that dratted Alice snooping and sniping for all she was worth. “I’ve wanted to introduce you, official like. As soon as my mother gets back from visiting tomorrow, I’ll tell her we’re getting married. Best to tell her first. Well, I have to, Lucy. But she’s a wonder, she is. She’ll make it all right…”

“You’ll what! I never said I’d marry you, Ethan Trask.”

“You…” Hadn’t she? Ethan distinctly remembered… what? Hadn’t she said…? It was all settled. They were
here,
and he’d got the position, with the cottage and all. And it was okay with his dad, against all the odds. As soon as the family was back from town, they’d marry and move in. He’d seen it all in his mind, clear as clear.

“There’s the matter of your lying to me. You’re forgetting that, seemingly.”

“Lucy! I didn’t lie. I might not have told you…”

“That’s the same as a lie!” She glared at him with those devastating blue eyes. “You think you can ‘forget’ to tell me things you don’t want me to know whenever it suits you?”

“I won’t do it again.”

“How would I know whether you did?”

He was getting annoyed now. Why did she have to make things difficult? “Because I told you I won’t, Lucy. I promise. You can trust my word.”

“Oh, what does it matter?” Tears trembled in Lucy’s eyes. “I can’t leave Miss Charlotte, after all that’s happened to her. She needs me more than ever.”

“I thought you weren’t going to let that stop…”

“And everybody here thinking I’m no better than I should be. How could I come to live among them? They’d always be whispering. I couldn’t
bear
that.”

“Nobody thinks…”

“It’s no good, Ethan! It’s not going to work. Just take your new job and your cottage and everything you always wanted and… be happy!” Lucy turned and fled from him. He chased her into the house, but under all the curious eyes waiting there he couldn’t follow her up to Miss Charlotte’s bedchamber and pound on the door like he wanted to. Thwarted, furious, Ethan strode back outside to sulk.

***

At last, at long, long last, Alec had Charlotte to himself. When the library door closed behind them, it was all he could do not to sweep her into his arms and crush her to him. All the details of their last time together flooded him—the feel of her skin, her lips, the soft sounds she’d made when he touched her just… His body responded so strongly to the memory that when her lips parted to speak he nearly groaned.

“I have to tell you about Lady Isabella,” she said.

Longing to consign his aunt to perdition, Alec offered her a chair and took one himself.

“You will find this hard to believe, I know, but she was the one who…”

Maddeningly, there was a knock at the door. One of the footmen looked in. “Mr. Edward Danforth is here, Sir Alexander. He says it’s very important that he see you.”

“Damned right it’s important.” Edward pushed in past the servant. “All right, man, you may go. No, wait, bring me some sandwiches. I’m perishing from hunger.”

The footman looked to Sir Alexander for permission, got an exasperated nod, and left.

Edward stalked in and dropped onto the sofa. “Have you got any brandy? There’s nothing at… at
my
house, and by God I need some.”

Could he throw his cousin out, Alec wondered? Just take him by the collar and the seat of his fine tailored breeches and… No. He went over to the sideboard and poured them both stiff brandies. “Charlotte?” She shook her head.

Edward drank deep and let out a sigh. “I’ve gotten most of it out of Martha,” he said heavily. “I think so anyway. But I wanted to hear your story. I can’t trust her not to have distorted things to her own advantage.”

Charlotte nodded. “I’ve had to sort through my memories to be sure. They gave me something…”

“Laudanum,” supplied Edward. In answer to Alec’s horrified look, he added, “Yes, just as Martha used to give Grandmama. Mixed in wine or milk. It is what she knows.” His tone was dry as dust. “Keeps her charge quiet when she gets… hysterical. I blame the drug for much of what occurred.”

“And what is that?” Alec hated the feeling of being on the outside of knowledge that Charlotte and Edward obviously shared.

“I’m clear now on what I heard,” Charlotte continued. She swallowed. “Lady Isabella killed Henry.”

“What?” He couldn’t have heard correctly, Alec thought. But Edward was nodding. “How could she possibly…?”

“She was the thief at my house, too. She had Henry’s cabinet keys and thought to take something to sell.”

“But…” Alec’s mind whirled. He grasped at the tatters of reason. “Begin at the beginning and tell me everything that happened, in order.”

And so she did, talking for half an hour, with one interruption for the arrival of sandwiches and the occasional interjection from Edward. Alec listened with mounting horror, particularly when Charlotte revealed the danger she’d been in, but also at the revelation of more mental disturbance in his family. Aunt Bella’s aberration was far worse than his grandmother’s.
She
had sniped and railed and thrown china; she’d been devious and selfish, though he could remember, too, flashes of gaiety that captivated a small child. Aunt Bella had gone so far beyond that line it was mind-boggling.

When Charlotte finished, there was a long silence in the library.

Edward went over to refill his glass. When he offered the decanter to Alec, he snatched it away and sloshed brandy into his own. Charlotte had glossed over her reason for fleeing the carriage after the opera, but the gap was easy enough to fill. Alec wondered if punching his cousin in the face would relieve his feelings. Possibly. But it wouldn’t solve the far larger problem of Aunt Bella. He drank, then topped up his glass once again. The three of them stared at each other. “And so it was all about money?” Alec said at last.

“Money to keep up her social position,” Charlotte corrected. “Lady Isabella sold all her own things…”

“
My
things,” Edward interrupted gloomily.

She nodded. “To buy the latest fashions and keep a carriage and… everything. And when they were gone, she formed the scheme of producing ‘antiquities’ for Henry to buy. But then, that wasn’t enough. So she thought to get Henry’s legacy for Edward.”

His cousin winced, drained his second brandy.

“Why didn’t you notice how much she was spending?” Alec asked him.

“I can’t keep track of everything.”

“You don’t know the revenues from your own estate?” Alec’s contempt leaked into the words.

“Of course I do! I just… I needed an income myself.” He shrugged defensively. “I thought Mama practiced economies…”

“Aunt Bella?”

“Well, she didn’t want me asking, did she? She threw a fit if I tried to discover anything about her expenditures. I hate brangling.” He reached for the decanter again, and Alec gave it to him. “Was I supposed to question the word of my own mother?”

“Apparently, that would have been wise.”

“Oh, it’s easy for you with
your
income and your damned…”

“What is to be done?” asked Charlotte in a crisp voice that cut through the incipient quarrel.

There was another uncomfortable silence.

“I know she deserves…” began Edward. “I know strong measures must be taken, but she is my mother. I can’t send her to the gallows, for God’s sake.”

“She is a murderer!” Alec pointed out.

“I know! But if it all comes out, the scandal wouldn’t stop with her.”

“Your difficulties seem to be of your own…”

“I’m mostly worried about Anne,” said Charlotte. Startled, Alec turned to her. “Her come-out would be a disaster if Lady Isabella were publicly accused and tried.”

She paused, and Alec saw the whole dreadful picture as her words sank in.

“There’s Lizzy and Frances, too. It would be awful for them. And not fair; they haven’t done anything wrong.”

“The Earntons,” added Edward in a frightened murmur. “My God, Amelia Earnton would skin me alive.”

Alec couldn’t argue with that. “We must do something. Aunt Bella cannot be left to… to go on as she has been.”

“No. I’ve been thinking of little else, you may believe. And I have a… proposal.” Edward drank from his glass. “You have some kind of place up in Scotland, don’t you, Alec?”

“A lodge near Inverness,” he agreed.

“I was thinking we could send Mama up there, with suitable… helpers.
Not
Martha.”

Alec considered the idea.

“I know it belongs to you, and she is my mother. Perhaps you think I should keep her here at my house…”

“No!” He did not want the newly revealed Aunt Bella for a neighbor. “I’ve never used the place. Grandfather bought it thinking he would hunt there, I believe.”

“Or get away from Grandmama,” Edward offered, some of his customary humor surfacing.

“It’s rather rustic, I understand.” He couldn’t imagine Aunt Bella in such a place. But did that really matter? No.

“Right at this moment, I don’t care,” was his cousin’s reply. “The farther it’s buried in the hinterlands, the better.”

Alec nodded. “Very well. We… you must find some trustworthy… staff.”

“And that fellow St. Cyr will have to be squared away,” answered Edward.

“I shall leave it all to you.” Now that the matter was settled, Alec wanted Edward out of the way more than he had ever wanted anything in his life. “Can we end this now? It’s late and we are all tired.” Charlotte looked exhausted.

“Yes, all right.” Edward rose, stumbled on the edge of a carpet, and sank back down into the sofa cushions. “Can I have a bed for the night, Alec? I’m half soused, and anyway I don’t want to go back. She’s sent all the servants off on ‘holiday’ except Martha and some ghastly old crone.”

Trapped, Alec went to ring the bell.

“I’m going to bed,” said Charlotte, standing.

Alec almost protested aloud. He had to talk to her.

“I’ll make arrangements to return to London in the morning,” she added.

“No!” The others looked at him, startled. Alec nearly cursed aloud. There was nothing he could say with Edward lolling so annoyingly on his library sofa. They were still staring at him. “I… I would be happy to… do that for you.”

With one wide-eyed look at him, Charlotte slipped away. Why had he said
that
? Damn, damn, damn.

“Trouble in that quarter, cuz?” his cousin smirked.

Alec spoke through clenched teeth. “If you start in on me now, Edward, you will be very, very sorry.”

For once in his life, Edward shut his mouth.

Alec stood by the bellpull, all that he had heard tonight churning in his brain. Without meaning to, he spoke the question aloud. “Do you ever worry that there is some… thread of instability running through our family? A temperamental imbalance? Our grandmother, and now your mother…”

“Hogwash!” Edward sat up straight and scowled at him. “Instability? My father was as stable as a clod of earth. Yours was dull as ditchwater. I didn’t know your mother well, but if she was anything like her sister Earnton…!” He shivered. “My mother lived under Grandmama’s thumb for the first thirty years of her life. You have never made any allowances for that.”

“I know it was difficult for…”

“Difficult! She was terrorized from earliest childhood. This does not excuse what she has done, of course, but in my mind it goes some way toward explaining it. That and Martha’s ‘medicines.’ We’re not under some… curse, Alec. My God, you’re as steady as your parents. More! And whatever you may think of me, at bottom I’m quite… level-headed.”

The footman arrived, and Alec gave the order for a room to be prepared. When Edward had gone, he stayed, contemplating the idea that the parent he’d modeled his life around could be seen as dull as ditchwater.

***

He didn’t want her here, Charlotte thought as she walked toward her bedchamber. He wanted her gone, had offered to speed her on her way. He’d scarcely looked at her as they talked. He was regretting their time together in her bed. He saw her as a mistake. Everything was horrible. Tears burned in her throat; she choked them back and entered her room to find her maid sitting on the chaise with reddened eyes. She jumped up as if stung. “Lucy, have you been crying?”

“No, miss! My eyes is just tired, that’s all. From… from everything.”

“It has been a bit too much, hasn’t it?”

Lucy merely nodded.

“We need to go back to London, to our own place.” The idea wasn’t comforting, not in the least.

“I asked about the stagecoach to London,” replied Lucy dully. “It goes through the village near here at eight in the morning.”

“Oh. Good. We shall be on… Ah, I have no money. I shall have to ask Sir Alexander…” The idea revolted her.

“I have some. Enough.” Lucy hadn’t told Ethan she’d brought her savings, as she’d been certain he’d make a fuss about it—the great lug. She’d known it would come in handy.

“You think of everything, Lucy. Of course I will pay you back as soon as we are… home again.” The word didn’t sound right. But that house in London was her home, and would be from now on, with no Lady Isabella to invite her to society outings. Edward wouldn’t want to see her, any more than Alec; she would forever be a reminder of his mother’s disgrace.