The Last Hellion (31 page)

If Bertie had been sleeping as he normally did, cannon fire would not have wakened him. But his sleep was fitful, agitated by visions of crocodiles snapping at the dainty feet of bespectacled maidens attempting to flee from leering cavaliers who wore nothing but the golden sausage curls clustering about their heads and shoulders.

This was why the hubbub in the hall penetrated his consciousness and shot him Loretta Chase - The Last Hellion

up from the pillows and, in short order, from the bed.

He found his dressing gown and slippers and, decently covered, opened his door in time to hear pain's remarks about family portraits and the last, intriguing word:
cousin
.

Before Bertie could fully digest these revelations, the quartet had filed into Dain's chamber and the door closed behind them.

Bertie was about to retreat to his room to ponder what he'd overheard when out of the corner of his eye he spied a flash of white, at the hallway's corner near the top of the stairs.

An instant later, a bespectacled feminine face, surrounded by white ruffles, peeped out from the corner. A small white hand, also surrounded by ruffles, beckoned.

After a moment's inner debate, Bertie went whither he was summoned.

"What's happened?" Miss Price enquired—for it was she in the bewildering concoction of white ruffles. The silliest froth of a nightcap covered her dark hair.

Ruffles encircled her neck and fluttered downward along the borders of her wrapper, which encasing cloud of a garment left absolutely everything to the imagination except her face and her fingers.

"I ain't exactly sure," Bertie said, blinking at this vision. "I only heard the last of it. Still, it looks like I were on the right trail but come by the wrong direction. It weren't the cavalier fellow but Dain's father. Only Dain called her 'cousin,' which were a jolt to me. I figured she were his sister—mean to say…" His face heated and his hand went up to tug on his neckcloth. He found he wasn't wearing one, and the discovery made his face several degrees hotter. "Mean to say, half-sister, only without the parson's blessing, if you know what I mean."

Miss Price stared at him for a full twenty seconds by his count. "Not the Loretta Chase - The Last Hellion

cavalier," she said slowly. "Who was the Earl of Blackmoor, you mean. Instead, Lord Dain's father. Is that it?"

"She looks like him," Bertie said.

"Miss Gren—the Duchess of Ainswood, I mean, resembles the previous marquess."

"And Dain said 'cousin.' That were all. Then they went in his room." He gestured that way. "The lot of 'em. What do you make of it? If Dain recognized her, why didn't he say so before? Or were it a joke, do you think, which I can't figure what else, bein' as how if he didn't want to know her, he wouldn't say 'cousin,' would he?"

Her sharp brown gaze strayed toward Dain's door. "A joke. Well, that would explain. I discerned a resemblance—that remarkable stare—but I thought my imagination had run away with me." Her attention returned to Bertie. "It's been a most exciting day. And this makes a splendid conclusion, do you not think? That Miss Grenville—that is to say, Her Grace—turns out to be a relative of the duke's good friend."

"Best of friends," Bertie corrected. "Which is why I were so surprised when Dain said I was to be groomsman, not him, and told Ainswood we drew straws, when we never did. It were Dain who decided he'd give away the bride, and no one argues with him usually—except Ainswood, but he weren't there at the moment."

Behind the spectacles, Miss Price's enormous eyes glistened ominously. "I thought she hadn't anyone and was quite alone in the world, but she wasn't, was she? Her kinsman gave her away." She blinked a few times and swallowed. "I'm glad I didn't know. I should have made a watering pot of myself. It is so…

affecting. Such a kind gesture, to give her away. And she deserves it, you know.

She is the kindest, m-most generous…" Her voice broke.

Loretta Chase - The Last Hellion

"Oh, I say." Bertie gazed at her in alarm.

She withdrew a scrap of a handkerchief from somewhere in the voluminous froth of her wrapper and hastily wiped her tears away. "I beg your pardon," she said shakily. "It is simply that I am happy for her. And… relieved."

Bertie was also relieved—that she'd stopped short of waterworks. "Yes, well, like you say, it were an exciting day and I reckon you could do with some rest.

Not to mention there's a draft, and even if there wasn't no danger of you takin' a chill you oughtn't be wandering about in your unmentionables at this hour. Most of the fellows're half-seas over at the very least, and no tellin' what ideas they could take into their heads."

She stared at him for a moment, then her mouth turned up and parted and a soft laugh came out. "Oh, you are so droll, Sir Bertram. Ideas in their heads. Those tipsy fellows should grow faint with exhaustion trying to find me in all these yards and yards of… unmentionables," she finished with another small chuckle.

Bertie wasn't tipsy, and he was sure he could find her easily enough, considering she stood well within easy reach. Her eyes were sparkling with humor now, as though he were the wittiest fellow on earth, and a pink glow was forming in her cheeks, and he thought she was the prettiest girl on earth. Then, realizing he was the one with ideas in his head, he told himself to make a bolt for it.

Only he moved in the wrong direction and somehow there was a great deal of white froth in his arms and a soft mouth touching his and then colored lights were dancing about his head.

At this same moment, Lydia was strongly tempted to make her cousin see stars.

He had flummoxed her utterly.

"Dain could lecture on family history for weeks," Lady Dain was saying. She Loretta Chase - The Last Hellion

and Lydia sat in chairs by the fire, glasses recently filled with champagne in their hands. "He pretends to find it boring or makes a joke of it, but it is one of his hobbyhorses."

"It isn't as though I can escape it," said Dain. "We've rows upon rows of books, boxes of documents. The Ballisters never could bear to discard anything of the slightest historical value. Even my father could not bring himself to wipe your mama's existence altogether from the records. Still, Jess and I wouldn't have known to look if Sellowby hadn't whetted our curiosity. He'd spotted you after our wedding and noted the resemblance to my sire and his ancestors. It wasn't until after your Vinegar Yard encounter with Ainswood made the gossip rounds, though, that Sellowby wrote to us. Everything he'd heard, coupled with his occasional glimpses of Grenville of the
Argus
, inclined him to suspect a Ballister connection."

"If you only knew how careful I was to avoid Sel-lowby," Lydia said. "And all for naught. I vow, he must be part bloodhound."

"By gad, Grenville, was that why you climbed up to the first floor of Helena's house instead of going in by the door, like a normal person?" Ainswood said in soft incredulity. "You risked your neck to avoid Sellowby?"

"I didn't want the past raked up," Lydia said.

Their keenly alert expressions told her they expected more of an explanation, but she couldn't bear to say more. Those who'd known about her mother's elopement and its sordid consequences were dead and buried. Anne Ballister's was a lowly cadet branch of the family tree. To the Great World, they were virtually unknown. Her sad story had commenced and ended out of the glare of the Beau Monde's stage, where more sensational dramas with more important principals—

most notably, the Prince of Wales—riveted attention.

Loretta Chase - The Last Hellion

Lydia had kept the secret, determinedly, because she did not want her mother's folly thrust upon that stage, her degradation the topic of tea table conversations.

"Some of it must come out now," Ainswood said. "I'm amazed Sellowby held his tongue for this long. We can't expect him to keep quiet forever."

"He doesn't know the details," said Dain. "Grenville is hardly an uncommon surname. It's enough to say her parents quarreled with the family, and no one knew what had become of them or had the least idea they'd produced a daughter until now. Even that is more explanation than the world deserves."

"I should like something explained," said Lady Dain to Lydia. "We still haven't learned how His Grace made his amazing discovery."

"It followed directly upon his discovering my birthmark," Lydia said.

Her Ladyship's lips quivered. She looked up at Dain, who had gone very still.

"It isn't possible," he said.

"That's what I told myself," said Ainswood. "I couldn't believe my eyes."

Dain's dark glance darted from his cousin to his friend. "You're sure?"

"I should know that mark from a furlong away," Ainswood said. "The 'mark of the Ballisters,' you told us at school—the one incontrovertible proof that your mother did not play your father false. And when Charity Graves started pestering you about the brat Dominick, I was the one who went down to Athton to make sure he was yours, not mine. There it was in the same place, the same little brown crossbow."

He glowered at Dain.

"I had no idea my cousin bore that mark, I assure you," said Dain. "I was under the impression that it appeared only in males of the family." He smiled faintly.

"A pity my dear papa didn't know. The holy badge of the Ballisters appearing on Loretta Chase - The Last Hellion

a female—product of the union between a nobody and a young woman he doubtless assisted in permanently ejecting from the family. He'd have gone off in an apoplexy the instant he heard—and I should have been one delighted young orphan."

He turned to the duke. "Well, then, are you done working yourself into a lather over my little joke? Or are you appalled to find yourself connected with me? If you don't want a Ballister for your wife, we shall be happy to take her."

"The devil you will." Ainswood drained his glass and set it down. "I haven't endured five weeks of trials unimaginable in their horror only to turn her over to you, long lost family or not. As to you, Grenville," he added irritably, "I'd like to know why you haven't offered to break his big nose. He played you for a fool as well—and you were upset enough a while ago about your peas-ant blood contaminating mine. You're taking this precious calmly."

"I can take a joke," she said. "I've married you, haven't I?" She set down her nearly empty glass and rose. "We must not keep Lady Dain up all night. Mothers-to-be require a reasonable amount of sleep."

Lady Dain rose. "We've scarcely had a chance to talk. Not that one could hope to carry on an intelligent conversation with a pair of noisy males at close hand, competing for precedence. You must return to Athcourt with us tomorrow."

"Certainly you must," said Dain. "It's the ancestral home, after all."

"I have an ancestral home as well." Ainswood advanced to place a possessive arm about Lydia's shoulders. "She's only your cousin, Dain, and a distant one at that. And she's a Mallory now, not a Ballister, no matter what's stamped upon her

—"

"Another time, perhaps," Lydia cut in smoothly. "Ainswood and I have a great deal to sort out—and I have work to complete for the
Argus
, which—"

Loretta Chase - The Last Hellion

"Yes, as you said, a great deal to sort out," her spouse said, his voice tight.

He made quick work of the good nights, and they'd started down the hall when Lady Dain called to them. They paused. She hurried up to them, pressed a small oblong package into Lydia's hand, kissed her cheek, then hurried away.

Lydia waited until they'd reentered their own room to unwrap the parcel.

Then a small, startled sob escaped her.

She heard Ainswood's voice, alarmed. "Good God, what have they—"

She turned in his arms, felt them close, warm, and strong about her. "My mother's diary." The words were muffled in the folds of his dressing gown.

"They've given me back Mama's d-diary."

Her voice broke, and with it, the composure she'd so determinedly maintained with her newfound family.

Pressing her face to his chest, she wept.

Loretta Chase - The Last Hellion

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Anne Ballister's Diary

I can scarcely believe it is my nineteenth birthday. It seems twenty years since I
left my father's house, rather than twenty months.

Does my father remember what day this is, I wonder? He and his cousin, Lord
Dain, have between them obliterated my existence by all means available, short
of actual murder. But memory is not so easily blotted out as a name in a family
Bible. It is easy enough to rule that a daughter never again be mentioned; yet
memory submits to no will, even a Ballister's, and the name and image persist
long after death, literal or figurative.

I am alive, Father, and well, though your wish almost came true when my dear
baby girl was born. I had no expensive London accoucheur to preside over my
labor, merely a woman no older than I who has borne three children already,
and is in a family way again. When Alice Martin's time comes, I shall return the
favor and play midwife.

It was a miracle I survived the childbed fever, all the wise matrons of this
humble neighborhood agree. I know it was no miracle, but an act of will. I could
not submit to Death, however much he insisted. I could not abandon my infant
daughter to the false, selfish man I married.

John is sorry now, I don't doubt, that both I and Lydia survived. He has been
Loretta Chase - The Last Hellion

obliged to take whatever minor roles come his way, and exert himself to study
his handful of lines. I have arranged for his wages to be put directly in my
hands. Otherwise, every farthing of the little he earns would go to drink and
women and gaming, and my Lydia would starve. He complains, bitterly, that I
make his life hardly worth living, and rues the day he set out to win my heart.