Truth about Leo (29 page)

“You can't leave me now! Not when I need you! How selfish is it to leave just when I need you most? I forbid you to leave! I absolutely forbid you to leave me in my time of Great Distress!”

“I have no choice. I must leave now.”

“Widdle, Mama.”

“Stop just where you are, Gillian. Don't you dare take another step toward this door!”

“Charlotte, give me the key.”

“Shan't!”

“Mama, want to widdle!”

“Char, Dante needs to use the necessary before we leave. Now please, if you have any love for me, hand over the key. Noble's going to be in a terrible fury if he finds out you're holding us prisoner in his library, and I can assure you from experience that Dante does not announce his intention to widdle unless that event is nigh on imminent.”

The petite blonde blocking the two oak doors cast a hesitant glance toward the figure of a three-year-old child doing an urgent dance before her. Two thin furrows appeared between her dark blond brows.

“It's a trick. You've taught him to say that. You're using your own child's plumbing as a weapon against me, cousin, and I find that a completely nebulous act.”

“The word is
nefarious
, Charlotte.” Gillian, Lady Weston, picked up her son and pointed him toward her cousin. “If you do not unlock the door and release us, I shall allow him to widdle upon you.”

The child giggled in delight. Lady Charlotte di Abalongia
nee
Collins, sucked in a horrified breath and leveled a defiant glare at her cousin. “You wouldn't!”

“Gillian? Wife, where are you hiding? This is no time for play, woman. We should have left an hour ago!” The doorknob rattled ineffectually.

“Papa, have to widdle!” Dante squirmed in his mother's arms.

“Now you've done it.” Gillian nodded, stepping backwards. “Now you've annoyed Noble. I would advise you to move away from the doorway since he is sure to—”

Three sudden bangs against the door at her back caused Charlotte to jump a good foot off the ground.

“—want in. We're in here, my love,” Gillian called. “Charlotte seems to have misplaced the key. We won't be a moment finding it.”

“WANT TO WIDDLE!”

“What's that? Charlotte? What the devil is she doing here? I thought she ran off to be some Italian's mistress years ago.”

“I didn't run off, we eloped!” Charlotte bellowed at the door. “We were married in Paris. It was
romantic
!”

“It doesn't matter. Open the door! Gillian, we have to leave.
Now!
”

“
WIDDLE!
”

“Charlotte,” Gillian said, her voice low and urgent. Charlotte eyed the door with alarm as the Black Earl pounded on it, demanding immediate entrance, but she paid heed to the steely note in her closest friend and relative's voice. “I understand you're terribly upset,” Gillian continued, “and I know you've had a horrible time returning to England from what sounds like a perfectly ghastly old ruins in Italy, but my dear, I have a son full of widdle, two impatient children in the carriage with Nurse, and a husband who”—she paused as a particularly loud barrage of swearing accented the increased pounding on the door—“is fast losing a temper that has been extremely tried today. Please, please, Char, give me the key before Noble is forced to take drastic measures.”

Charlotte glanced from the squirming child to the look of concern in Gillian's emerald eyes. Tears had always worked well for her in the past. Perhaps if she could work up a few, her cousin would see how serious she was. She waited for the peculiar prickling sensation to indicate that her cornflower-blue eyes would soon be becomingly framed in a pool of tears, and allowed a note of raw desperation to creep into her voice. “Gilly, I need you. I truly do. You're all I have left. There's no one else left who will receive me. Papa saw to that. I have nowhere to go and no money. I sold what remained of Mama's jewels just to buy a few traveling gowns and passage to England on a merchant ship. You're the only one in the family who will acknowledge me, and now you are sailing to the West Indies…” Her voice cracked as she brushed at the wetness on her cheeks, surprised to find her crocodile tears had suddenly become real. “Oh, Gilly, please stay. Please help me. I've never been alone. I don't know what to do.”

Gillian shifted the child in her arms and squeezed Charlotte's hand. “You know I will do everything I can to help you—”

Charlotte shrieked in joy and hugged her cousin, widdly child and all. “I knew you wouldn't leave me!”

A tremendous splintering noise reverberated through the room as Noble Britton, known by the (in Charlotte's mind, understated) sobriquet of the Black Earl, burst through the doors, followed by a tall, bewigged man with a hook where his left hand should have been, and two smaller footmen in livery.

“Are you all right?” the earl asked his countess, rushing to her side.

She smiled reassuringly. “Of course we are. Charlotte just needs a moment or two of my time, and then I will be ready to be off.” She forestalled protests on both her husband's and cousin's lips by thrusting the squirming child into his father's arms just before she grasped Charlotte firmly and tugged her toward a nearby emerald-and-gold damask couch. “While you're taking Dante for his widdle, I'll speak with Char. Crouch, please take Lady Charlotte's things up to the Blue Suite. She'll be staying here for a time. Dickon, Charles, tell the other carriages to start, we'll be along directly.”

Noble shot his wife a questioning look before settling a glare on Charlotte, who was profoundly thankful it was a short glare, as she never could stand up to one of the earl's scowls. Both father and child hastened away when the latter announced his intention to widdle right there in the library.

“You have five minutes until I must leave,” Gillian told her cousin sternly. “You are welcome to stay here for as long as you like. Now, what else can I do to help you?”

Charlotte's heart underwent a peculiar motion that felt suspiciously as though it had dropped into her jean half-boots. “You're leaving? You're still leaving me?”

“I have no choice,” was the calm reply. A burst of pain flared to life within Charlotte's breast at her cousin's defection, but a moment's consideration led her to admit that Gillian really could not remain behind while her husband and children sailed to their coffee plantation. She shoved down the pain of abandonment and focused her energies on explaining what a shambles her life had become.

“Very well. You received my letter that mentioned Antonio died of sweating sickness in November?”

Gillian nodded. “And you wanted to leave Villa Abalongia because you had a difficult time with his family, but you mentioned going to Paris, not home to England.”

Charlotte's eyes threatened to fill once more with scalding tears that she suspected would leave her with unattractive, swollen, red eyes and a nose that would require much attention with a handkerchief. “And I don't even have a handkerchief anymore,” she wailed, unable to stop the tears. Charlotte seldom had recourse to real tears, but they were just as uncomfortable as she recalled. “Everything's gone, everything! The contessa took it all for her two horrid, fat daughters. She said I wouldn't need my fine gowns when I was in mourning for Antonio. She said I'd have to go live on a tiny little farm in the mountains and tend a bunch of smelly goats, that I wasn't welcome to stay in Florence as I wasn't truly a member of the family, all because I hadn't given Antonio an heir!”

“That was very cruel of her.”

“Yes.” Charlotte sniffed. “It was. Especially since it wasn't my fault. I wouldn't have minded a child—you seem to enjoy yours so much—but Antonio refused to do his husbandly duty by me.”

Gillian's eyes widened. “He…he refused?”

Charlotte nodded, her eyes filling again at the memory of such a grave injustice. “It was all he could do to consummate the marriage. After that…oh, Gilly, he wouldn't even try. And the contessa was forever making nasty remarks that I was not doing
my
duty properly! I tried, I honestly tried! I wore naughty nightwear, I allowed him to catch me
en
dishabille
on many occasions, and I even sought advice from the local strumpet as to how to arouse the passion of Antonio's manly instrument, but to no avail. His instrument resisted all my efforts. I think it hated me,” she added darkly.

“Oh, I'm sure that wasn't—”

“It wouldn't even twitch for me!”

“Well, really, Charlotte.” Gillian looked a bit embarrassed. “It's not as if it were an animal trained to jump on your command.”

“I know that, but the strumpet said it should at the very least twitch once in a while, and not lie limp and flaccid like a week-old bit of blancmange. It wouldn't make even the slightest effort on my behalf. If that's not cruel and petty-minded of a manly instrument, well, I just don't know what is!”

Gillian blinked once or twice before patting her cousin's arm and handing her a lace-edged handkerchief. Charlotte viewed it with sorrow. “I used to have handkerchiefs like this,” she cried, mopping at her eyes and blowing her nose in a less-than-dainty manner. “But that evil woman took them away from me, just as she took everything else, even my husband!”

“Oh, surely she couldn't have taken Antonio's affection from you—”

“Not his affection.” Charlotte sniffled loudly. “He was fond enough of me, although he never dared act so before the contessa. No, she took him away and sent him to a nasty little town on the Mediterranean for his weak lungs. And he died there!”

“Char, I'm sorry about Antonio. I know you must have loved him greatly…”

Charlotte stopped dabbing at her eyes, a look of utter astonishment on her face. “Love him greatly? Where did you get that idea?”

Gillian stopped patting her cousin's hand. “Well…that is…you eloped with him! You dismissed all your suitors and eloped with the son of a minor Italian nobleman. Why else would you sacrifice everything you held dear if you didn't love him greatly?”

“Oh, that,” Charlotte responded dismissively, gently prodding the region below her eyes to ascertain whether they were swollen from her recent tears. “It was my third Season, and I didn't care for that year's suitors. Antonio was just like the hero in
Castle
Moldavia, Or, The Dancing Master's Ghost
. He was so very romantic, but Papa was being stiff-rumped about my marrying him, threatening to cut me off without a shilling if I didn't marry someone suitable instead. Papa became ever so tiresome, and the Season was really quite boring, so I did the only sensible thing.”

“Sensible?” Gillian stared at her cousin in disbelief. “Are you telling me you ran off to marry knowing that your father disapproved of your husband, knowing he would disinherit you, knowing that such an elopement would cause a scandal that would even now keep all of the doors of Society closed to you, and yet you did it not for love, but because you were
bored
?”

Charlotte frowned. “Most of the doors of Society, not all, and I don't see what that has to do with anything. You said you would help me. I really don't think spending my five minutes discussing the past four years is helping me. I don't see how chastising me for actions viewed by some as romantic and daring—”

Harry wished he was dead. Well, perhaps death was an exaggeration, although St. Peter alone knew how long he'd be able to stand up to this sort of continued torture.

“And then what happens?” His tormentor stared at him with eyes that were very familiar to him, eyes that he saw every morning in his shaving mirror, a mixture of brown, gray, and green that was pleasant enough on him, but when surrounded by the lush brown eyelashes of his inquisitor looked particularly charming. And innocent. And innocuous…something the possessor of the eyes was most decidedly not. “Well? Then what happens? Aren't you going to tell me?”

Harry ran his finger between his neckcloth and his neck, tugging on the cloth to loosen its constricting grasp on his windpipe, wishing for the fifteenth time in the last ten minutes that he had been able to escape capture.

“I want to know!”

Or found another victim to throw to the one who held him prisoner.

“You have to tell me!”

Perhaps death wasn't such a wild thought after all. Surely if he were to die at that exact moment, he would be admitted into heaven. Surely St. Peter would look upon the deeds he had done for the benefit of others—deeds such as spending fifteen years working as a spy for the Home Office—and grant him asylum. Surely he wouldn't be turned away from his rightful reward, damned to eternal torment, left to an eternity of hell such as he was in now, a hell dominated by—

“Papa! Then…what…happens?”

Harry sighed and pushed his spectacles high onto the bridge of his nose, bowing his head in acknowledgment of defeat. “After the hen and the rooster are…er…married, they will naturally wish to produce chicks.”

“You already said that,” his thirteen-year-old inquisitor said with the narrowed eyes and impatient tone of one who is through being reasonable. “What happens after that? And what do chickens have to do with my unpleasantness?”

“It's the process of producing offspring that is related to your unpleasantness. When a mother hen wishes to have chicks, she and the rooster must…er…perhaps chickens aren't the best example to explain the situation.”

Lady India Haversham, eldest daughter of the Marquis Rosse, tapped her fingers on the table at her side and glared at her father. “You said you were going to explain the unpleasantness! George says I'm not going to die despite the fact that I'm bleeding, and that it's a very special time for girls, although I do not see what's special about having pains in my stomach, and
you
said you'd tell me and now you're talking about bees and flowers, and chickens, and fish in the river. What do they have to do with
me
?”

No, Harry decided as he looked at the earnest, if stormy, eyes of his oldest child, death was distinctly preferable to having to explain the whys and hows of reproduction—particularly the female's role in reproduction, with a specific emphasis on their monthly indispositions—to India. He decided that although he had been three times commended by the prime minister for bravery, he was at heart a coward, because he simply could not stand the torture any longer.

“Ask Gertie. She'll explain it all to you,” he said hastily as he jumped up from a narrow pink chair and fled the sunny room given over to his children, shamelessly ignoring the cries of “Papa! You
said
you'd tell me!”

“You haven't seen me,” Harry said as he raced through a small, windowless room that served as an antechamber to his estate office. “You haven't seen me, you don't know where I am, in fact, you might just decry knowledge of me altogether. It's safer that way. Throw the bolt on the door, would you, Temple? And perhaps you should put a chair in front of it. Or the desk. I wouldn't put it past the little devils to find a way in with only the door bolted.”

Templeton Harris, secretary and man of affairs, pursed his lips as his noble employer raced into the adjacent room.

“What was it this time, sir?” Temple asked as he followed Harry. Weak sunlight filtered through the dingy windows, lighting motes of dust sent dancing in the air by Harry's rush through the room. “Did McTavish present you with another of his finds? Has Lord Marston decided he wishes to become a blacksmith rather than inherit your title? Are the twins trying to fly from the stable roof again?”

Harry shuddered visibly as he gulped down a healthy swig of brandy. “Nothing so benign. India wished to know certain facts.
Woman
things
.”

Temple's pale blue eyes widened considerably. “But…but Lady India is only a child. Surely such concepts are beyond her?”

Harry took a deep, shaky breath and leaned toward a window thick with grime. Using his elbow he cleaned a small patch, just enough to peer out into the wilderness that once was a garden. “She might be a child to our minds, Temple, but according to nature, she's trembling on the brink of womanhood.”

“Oh,
those
sorts of woman things.”

Harry held out the empty brandy snifter silently, and just as silently Temple poured a judicious amount of smoky amber liquid into it. “Have one yourself. It's not every day a man can say his daughter has…er…trembled.”

Temple poured himself a small amount and silently toasted his employer.

“I can remember when she was born,” Harry said as he stared out through the clean patch of glass, enjoying the burn of the brandy as it warmed its way down his throat. “Beatrice was disappointed that she was a girl, but I thought she was perfect with her tiny little nose, and a mop of brown curls, and eyes that used to watch me so seriously. It was like she was an angel, sent down to grace our lives, a ray of light, a beam of sunshine, a joy to behold.” He took another deep breath as three quicksilver shadows flickered across the dirty window, the high, carefree laughter of children up to some devilment trailing after them. Harry flung himself backward, against the wall, clutching his glass with fingers gone white with strain. “And then she grew up and had her woman's time, and demanded that I explain everything to her. What's next, Temple, I ask you, what's next?”

Temple set his glass down in the same spot it had previously occupied and wiped his fingers on his handkerchief, trying not to grimace at the dust and decay rampant in the room. It disturbed his tidy nature immensely to know that the room had not seen a maid's hand since they had arrived some three weeks before. “I assume, my lord, that as Lady Anne is now eight years old, in some five years' time she will be demanding the very same information. Would you not allow a maid to just clean around your books? I can promise you that none of your important papers or items will be touched during the cleaning process. Indeed, I would be happy to tend to the cleaning myself if you would just give me leave—”

Harry, caught up in the hellish thought of having to repeat with his youngest daughter the scene he'd just—barely—escaped, shook his head. “No. This is my room, the one room in the whole house that is my sanctuary. No one but you is permitted in it, not the children, not the maids, no one. I must have someplace that is wholly mine, Temple, somewhere sacred, somewhere that I can just be myself.”

Temple glanced around the room. He knew the contents well enough; he'd had to carry in the boxes of Harry's books, his estate papers, the small bureau of curios, the horribly muddied watercolors that graced the walls. “Perhaps if I had the curtains washed—”

“No,” Harry repeated, sliding a quick glance toward the window before daring to cross the room to a large rosewood desk covered in papers, scattered quills, stands of ink, books, a large statue of Pan, and other assorted items too numerous to catalog. “I have something else for you to do than wash my curtains.”

Temple, about to admit that he hadn't intended on washing the drapery himself, decided that information wasn't relevant to his employer's happiness, and settled with a sigh into the comfortable leather chair to one side of the desk. He withdrew a memorandum notepad and pencil from his inner pocket. “Sir?”

Harry paced from the desk to the unlit fireplace. “How long have you been with me, Temple?”

“Fourteen years on Midsummer Day,” that worthy replied promptly.

“That's just a fortnight away.”

Temple allowed that was so.

“I had married Beatrice the summer before,” Harry continued, staring into the dark emptiness of the fireplace as if his life were laid out there amid the heap of coal waiting to be lit should the warm weather turn cold.

“I believe when I came into your service that Lady Rosse was…er…in expectation of Lady India's arrival.”

“Hmm. It's been almost five years since Bea died.”

Temple murmured an agreement.

“Five years is a long time,” Harry said, his hazel eyes dark behind the lenses of his spectacles. “The children are running wild. God knows they don't listen to me, and Gertie and George are hard put to keep up with the twins and McTavish, let alone Digger and India.”

Temple's eyebrows rose a fraction of an inch. He had a suspicion of just where the conversation was going, but was clueless to envision what role the marquis felt he could serve in such a delicate matter.

Harry took a deep breath, rubbed his nose, then turned and stalked back to the deep green leather chair behind the desk. He sat and waved his hand toward the paper in Temple's hand. “I've decided the children need the attention of a woman. I want you to help me find one.”

“A governess?”

Harry's lips thinned. “No. After Miss Reynauld died in the fire…no. The children must have time to recover from that horror. The woman I speak of”—he glanced over at the miniature that sat in prominence on the corner of his desk—“will be my marchioness. The children need a mother, and I…”

“Need a wife?” Temple said gently as Harry's voice trailed off. Despite his best intentions not to allow himself to become emotionally involved in his employer's life—emotions so often made one uncomfortable and untidy—he had, over the years, developed quite a fondness for Harry and his brood of five hellions. He was well aware that Harry had an affection for his wife that might not have been an all-consuming love, but was strong enough to keep him bound in grief for several years after her death in childbirth.

“Yes,” Harry said with a sigh, slouching back into the comfortable embrace of the chair. “I came late to the married state, but must admit that I found it an enjoyable one, Temple. You might not think it possible for someone who is hounded night and day by his rampaging herd of children, but I find myself lonely of late. For a woman. A wife,” he corrected quickly, a faint frown creasing his brow. “I have determined that the answer to this natural desire for a companion, and the need for someone to take the children in hand, is a wife. With that thought in mind, I would like you to take down an advertisement I wish you to run in the nearest local newspaper. What is the name of it? The
Dolphin's Derriere Daily
?”

“The
Ram's Bottom Gazette
, sir, so named because the journal originates in the town of Ram's Bottom, which is, I believe, located some eight miles to the west. I must confess, however, to being a bit confused by your determination to advertise for a woman to claim the position of marchioness. I had always assumed that a gentleman of your consequence looked to other members of Society for such a candidate, rather than placing an advertisement in an organ given over to discussions that are primarily agricultural in nature.”

Harry waved away that suggestion. “I've thought about that, but I have no wish to go into town until I have to.”

“But surely you must have friends, acquaintances who know of eligible women of your own class—”

“No.” Harry leaned back in his chair, propping his feet up on the corner of his desk. “I've looked over all my friends' relatives; none of them will suit. Most of them are too young, and the ones who aren't just want me for the title.”

Temple was at a loss. “But, sir, the woman will be your marchioness, the mother of your yet unborn children—”

Harry's feet came down with a thump as he sat up and glared at his secretary. “No more children! I'm not going through that again. I won't sacrifice another woman on
that
altar.” He rubbed his nose once more and re-propped his feet. “I don't have time to hunt for a wife through conventional means. I mean to acquire one before anyone in the neighborhood knows who I am, before the grasping title-seekers get me in their sights. Cousin Gerard dying suddenly and leaving me this place offers me the perfect opportunity to find a woman who will need a husband as much as I need a wife. I want an honest woman, one gently born and educated, but not necessarily of great family—a solid country gentlewoman, that's what's needed. She must like children, and wish to…er…participate in a physical relationship with me.”

“But,” Temple said, his hands spreading wide in confusion. “But…ladies who participate in a physical relationship often bear children.”

“I shall see to it that my wife will not be stretched upon the rack of childbirth,” Harry said carelessly, then visibly flinched when somewhere nearby a door slammed, and what sounded like a hundred elephants thundered down the hallway outside his office. “Take this down, Temple.
Wanted: an honest, educated woman between the ages of thirty-five and fifty, who desires to be joined in the wedded state to a man, forty-five years of age, in good health and with sufficient means to ensure her comfort. Must desire children. Applicants may forward their particulars and references to Mr. T. Harris, Raving-by-the-Sea. Interviews will be scheduled the week following.
That should do it, don't you think? You may screen the applicants for the position, and bring me the ones you think are suitable. I shall interview them and weed out those who won't suit.”