The Secret Lover (38 page)

Empty.

Trevor blinked, tried to think. Inadvertently, he looked down, saw his rumpled clothing. He really ought to find a change of clothing.

Undoubtedly Darby had stored things away for him. Probably in the attic

—

There it was again, the unmistakable sound of laughter. Only this time, he realized, it was coming from outside.

He hurried to the window of the study and strained to see. Nothing. The back terrace, then.

He hastened from the room, feeling a strong sense of urgency, as if he didn't find the source of the laughter it might very well drift away. He reached the atrium, from which one could walk outside, and fairly burst through those doors and onto the terrace. He paused there, straining to hear. A wisp of red flashed across the periphery of his vision; he jerked his head to the right, saw the woman running down the garden path, toward the gate leading into the meadows beyond.

Unconscious of his bare feet or state of semi-dress, Trevor went after her. He half-hopped, half-loped across the gravel path, stumbling into his stride once again as he passed through the gate and onto grass. Running now, he raced down the tree-lined path to the meadows, lurching through the last gate, where he paused at the top of the knoll, his hands braced against his knees as he dragged air into his lungs.

The strange, eerie feeling that someone was watching him invaded his consciousness; startled, Trevor jerked his head to the right.

His breath caught in his throat.

For a single moment, he wondered if he had perhaps gone quite mad, was imagining what he was seeing.

In the meadow, in and around a small stand of trees, was the house staff. Picnicking.
Picnicking
. Blankets were spread about; baskets of fruit and loaves of bread, as well as flasks of wine, were scattered all around.

Was he hallucinating in his madness? He had to be—that was his
father
standing in the midst of all of them, taller than Trevor had seen him since before the seizure, wearing an expression of shock.

He
was the one who should be shocked. Trevor stared back, too exhausted to know if it was real—until the flash of red caught his eye again. She came slowly to her feet, stood beside his father, the ends of her unbound hair lifting lightly with the breeze.
The French whore
.

He knew it was real then and slowly straightened, facing the absurd little scene fully, his anger mounting with each passing moment.

The woman had the gall to step away from the others, to come forward as if
she
owned this house, as if she had the right to say anything to him at all! She glided forward, eyeing him as if he were some sort of apparition, coming to a halt a few feet from where he stood. Peering closely, she looked him over, as if she could not quite believe what she was seeing, down at his bare feet. After a moment, she glanced up at him through thick lashes.

"Bonjour, monsieur."

Bloody
bonjour
? Trevor's anger soared dangerously; he narrowed his eyes, glaring hatefully at her. "This is all you would say after you have unlawfully kidnapped my father?"

Her brow wrinkled in confusion. "Kidnap? What is this kidnap?"

Now he was scarcely able to contain his fury. He stepped forward. "You have
stolen
him!" he hissed vehemently. "What, did you think you would succeed in your scheme? Did you think to persuade him to sign it over to
you
? Did you perhaps hope that your chances would be improved by refusing him the very medicine he needs to live? You have committed a grave crime, madam, and you are quite caught! Were I you, I would prepare myself for the worst, for I intend to press this crime fully within our courts!"

The French whore recoiled at that, her blue eyes widening with fear.

"Oh yes," he breathed, "you are very right to fear it! English justice will grant you no quarter, not with your rotten French blood!"

"What is this
folie
you speak?" she demanded, taking one step backward. "I do not steal Will! I bring him to his home! What crime is this?"

That response only made him laugh. Hysterically. Her efforts to feign a lack of understanding had been overdone for far too long—she knew
exactly
what she had done, and Trevor was about to tell her so, but he was startled by his father, who moved surprisingly fast to the whore's defense.

"Trevor!" he said sharply and clearly. "M-mind your mouth!"

The admonishment shocked him, not only because it was said with such clarity, but also because he would defend
her
. He gaped at his father, his thoughts swirling in a disordered state of fatigue and panic.

"Father! You have no idea what she has done!" he insisted, balling his hands into fists at his side. "You are distraught, and you've been without your medicine for nigh on a week now! This woman is
not
your friend! Her scheme is vile—she thought to steal you away so that she might ransom you, or even
worse
, I shudder to think!"

"Honor…" the viscount paused, put a gnarled hand on her wrist as he tried to force the words out. "She h-has
helped
m-me, tremendously!" he said adamantly. "Y-you've n-no right to c-come here and accuse!"

"
Monsieur
, you look ill," Honorine said to Trevor, cocking her head thoughtfully to one side. "Very ill."

What little was left of Trevor's sanity imploded with that. His fists gripped tighter; he was unaware that his nails cut painfully into his palms as he clung to the tenuous grip he had on his composure.

"Now you would accuse me of being ill? Madam, you have gone too far!"

he said behind clenched teeth, and stalked around her, toward the servants, who were all now on their feet. "
Darby
!" he shouted wildly.

The butler appeared almost instantly before him. "Milord?" he asked, his voice betraying his nerves.

Trevor glared down at him. "Why haven't you sent for the authorities?

Send for the sheriff at once! Tell him that a French whore has kidnapped my father from London for the purpose of extorting money from him. Tell him to come and take her at once!"

The butler flicked his tongue nervously across his lower lip, slid his gaze to the viscount behind Trevor.

Trevor lurched forward. "
Do you hear me, sir
?"

With a gasp, the butler staggered backward. "Yes, milord! Yes, I heard you quite clearly!"

"Then go!" he roared, and stood rigidly, his fists clenched tightly, watching beneath the heavy lids of his eyes as the servants began moving, gathering picnic items, hurrying toward the meadow gate, looking furtively at him over their shoulder. But in the midst of their exodus, the French whore stood placidly with his father, observing him with her witch eyes.

His pulse was beating erratically now; the blood pumped through him so fast and hard that it felt as if it might burst free of his veins at any moment. Unsteadily, he moved to where she stood with his father. "You will pay for what you have done," he said low.

The woman had the audacity to smile.
Smile
. "I do not frighten of you,"

she said lightly. "Will, he is alive. He knows what you do."

Trevor's pounding heart suddenly skipped a beat and sank like a rock, making him feel queasy.
No
. She lied. His father could not possibly know what he had done. He was a mindless old man! Unless… unless he
was
alive somehow, his mind alert in that shell but his mouth unable to speak.

Trevor peered closely at his father, into the mirror image of his light brown eyes and wondered, was it possible? Was it possible his father knew how much he had taken from him over the last several months? The question scared him; he suddenly lunged forward, reaching for his father, desperate to take him away from her, and knocking her aside as he did.

With a small cry of alarm, she stumbled to one side, tripping over the hem of her blood-red skirt.

"Trevor!" his father shouted. "Unhand m-me!"

Trevor forced a smile as he pushed his father forward, holding him up with the sheer strength of his fear propelling him forward. "Don't worry, Father," he said reassuringly as he moved the old man along, weaving and bobbing with his strangely bent leg. "I am here now. I'll see that no harm comes to you."

His father struggled against him and began to labor in his breathing; Trevor glanced over his shoulder. The whore was on his heels, her gaze intent on the viscount, crying out, reaching out, each time the old man stumbled.
Let her come
. It would make it all the easier when the sheriff came to take her away. He ought to have her hanged for what she had done to him. Yes, he would enjoy that very much, and smiled to himself as he pushed the old man through the meadow gate.

Darby had been in the viscount's employ more years than he cared to remember. He had known Master Trevor all his life, had watched him grow into a man. But the man that had come to the meadow looking and acting half-crazed was not the Mr. Trevor Hamilton he knew. Madame Fortier was right;
that
man was ill—ill in his head, to Darby's way of thinking.

He walked briskly toward the stables, the note for the sheriff in his pocket, having penned it after assuring himself that the viscount was quite all right. A little shaken perhaps, but all in all, he seemed no worse. As Darby rounded the corner of the house, he heard a female voice.

"Darby!"

He paused, looked around. The housekeeper was standing outside the smokehouse.

"Yes? What is it?"

Wringing her plump hands, she looked nervously behind them. "Are you truly going to bring the sheriff round for her?" she whispered.

Darby hesitated; he looked over his shoulder, then up the path to the stables, then looked at the housekeeper again, nodding.

The woman's doughy face fell. "Oh
Lord
," she muttered. "Oh
Lord
, you mustn't do that! The woman has done nothing wrong! Do you see how well he is now, Darby? She's to be commended for what she's done!"

"It is not my position to say," he said coolly, aware that anyone could overhear them out here.

"Come now, Darby—"

He quickly lifted his hand, stopping her from saying any more. "I have my instructions. You will not dissuade me from my duty." He nodded curtly, continued walking, ignoring the unflattering utterance the woman made under her breath. He wanted to tell her, but he dared not. In his fifty-fifth year, he was hardly of a mind to find new employment, and he was quite certain that was exactly what he would be doing if Mr.

Hamilton thought he had disobeyed him.

He walked into the stables, calling for Jamie.

The stable boy appeared instantly, a bucket of oats in his hand. "Yes sir?"

Darby took the note from his pocket. "You are to deliver this to the sheriff in Nottingham, do you understand?"

The boy looked at the sealed parchment, then at Darby, nodding solemnly. "Aye sir. I'll get a mount straight away—"

"No," Darby said softly, and glanced covertly around to assure himself that no one else was present, then went down on one knee before Jamie and placed the parchment into his hand. "You are to deliver this to the sheriff in Nottingham—but not until the morrow. Do you understand me, lad? Not before the morrow."

"Aye sir," he said, and stuffed the note in the pocket of his waistcoat.

"On the morrow," he repeated.

Satisfied, Darby stood, ruffled the boy's blond head, then turned and walked out of the stable.

He would not, under any circumstance, disobey an order given to him by the viscount or his son. But on occasion, he might see his way to obeying it in his own due time.

He rather imagined Madame Fortier was going to need a bit of a head start.

In the main salon, seated on a divan with a lap rug tucked securely about him, Will warily watched his son as he paced the hearth. He had never seen him like this, he was quite certain. In the bits and pieces of his memory that had started to come back to him, he recalled a young, handsome man, devoted to his wife and child. Not a madman as was pacing the hearth now, barefoot and in shirttails.

God, if he weren't so fatigued
! When Trevor had pushed him onto the divan, he had been robbed of the strength to fight him. Although his vitality was slowly coming back to him each day, the seizure had left him remarkably frail; the road to a full recovery needed more time. Silently he cursed his debilitation—there he had sat like a withered old man as Trevor pushed Honorine out the door and locked it. For several moments afterward, she had pounded on the door, shouting in French for him to open. And then the pounding had abruptly stopped.
Where was Honorine

?

"I brought your medicine, Father."

Will's body jerked involuntarily, as if the force of those words had actually hit him.
Medicine
. What was it he should remember about medicine? He had not seemed to need it—

"You must take it or you may never hope to recover," Trevor said, and moved to the sidebar, eyeing the different decanters there. "It's a blessed miracle that no more harm has come to you, really. You cannot imagine what I feared."

Something about his son's voice rang false. Silent, Will watched as Trevor selected a crystal decanter and poured an amber liquid into a glass.

From the pocket of his filthy trousers, he pulled a small vial, and emptied the contents of it into the glass, then turned and looked at Will.

His expression was oddly blank; Will felt his blood run cold. As this son approached him, he struggled with the lap blanket, determined to gain his feet. But Trevor was quickly upon him, straddling him with one knee on his lap, one strong arm wrapped around his shoulders, pinning his arms.

"I have no idea what that whore might have told you, but you
need
this,"

he said, breathing heavily.

Overcome by the stench of his son's breath and the growing awareness that something about the medicine wasn't right—
if only he could think for
a moment
!—Will struggled. But he was no match for Trevor. He forced his mouth open, poured the liquid down his throat, then let go, falling backward, catching himself before he tumbled to the ground, his gaze never wavering from Will's face.