A Breath of Scandal: The Reckless Brides (40 page)

He was followed closely by his brothers, who came out of their own rooms in similar states of undress. Antigone drew back, but neither James nor Thomas noticed her—they were too intent on joining their brother below.

“It is war,” the earl’s clear, deep voice resonated up from the entry hall. “The Corsican has left St. Helena and is now marching upon Paris. The French army returns to Napoleon as fast as they can declare their allegiance.”

“Father, I’m here.” Will’s voice came echoing up the stairwell.

“William. They have sent for you from Whitehall—from the Admiralty,” the Earl explained. “I came direct. You are made post captain. We must get you to Portsmouth with all haste—” The shocking words faded abruptly as Will and his brothers could be heard following his father down the corridor to another room, and the door shut behind them.

And the house fell ominously quiet.

In the ringing stillness, the last traces of her dream—the last hope of her innermost secret imaginings—were dashed and gone.

Will had warned her—she had warned herself—but she had not prepared herself for the empty shock of such an abrupt loss. For him to be so effortlessly taken from her. For the whole country to be so easily plunged back into war. But what had been unimaginable yesterday was all too real in the flat, gray light of morning.

A new day had come, and he was gone from her for good. The war was even more irrevocable than India had been.

She stood there for a long moment, held captive by the house’s long, tenacious silence, waiting for what would happen next. But nothing was going to happen if she did not make it so—if she did not stare fate squarely in the eyes, and dare it not to change.

She turned and began to slowly and methodically pick up her clothes and set herself to rights. To prepare for what would come next—the rest of her life without Will. She practiced her smile, and rehearsed the necessary words.

So pleased to hear of his promotion. What good fortune to get a ship.

When she at last felt herself equal to the challenge of leaving—of leaving him and his love behind—she checked the charge on her pistol, shoved the stick into the waistband of her breeches, and took up the money. The terrible price of her freedom.

Her worry and preparations proved to be unnecessary. The house appeared deserted. Everyone, from the family to the servants, seemed to be either with the earl in his book room, or clustered together in the servants’ hall below, discussing the shocking news of the war. The service stairway tucked at the back of the house was empty, as was the large walled garden that led away from the house toward the stable block.

Only the stables were a hive of activity. There, the lads were still at work with the earl’s lathered team, walking them in long circles up and down the aisles, or washing and wiping them down. Her small friend from last night was helping to sponge off the splattered coach.

Antigone stopped herself from checking on the lad, and forced herself to get on with it. She took a deep, fortifying breath, ducked out the Charles Street gate, and set her reluctant feet resolutely down the pavement toward Queen Street. Toward Lord Aldridge.

She wasn’t going to slink away in the night. She wasn’t going to let Cassandra, or even her mother—who did deserve whatever dire retribution befell her—be left to bear the consequences. Her mother may have betrayed her, but Antigone wasn’t about to repay her with a betrayal of her own.

She would not sell her soul so cheaply.

The walk from Sanderson House’s stables to Lord Aldridge’s house was the shortest of her life. Within two terrifying minutes she was standing in front of the door, and the words she had rehearsed and the plans she had made disappeared from her head. She was empty of everything but her resolve and her best intentions.

But there was no putting it off any longer. Not if she wanted any peace in her life. Not if she wanted to be able to look herself in the mirror and not see a shadow. She had slid as far down the slippery slope of lies as she would allow. If she did not reclaim herself here and now, there would be no climbing back.

She thought of sneaking in through the mews and slipping into the house unseen by climbing through a window without anyone the wiser, and surprising Lord Aldridge, but she needed to begin as she meant to go on.

No more secrets. No more silent, begrudging acquiescence.

She would go through the front door. The more people who might see her, the more gossipy, nosy neighbors who peered through their shutters, the better. She raised her hand to the shining knocker, intending to hammer it down decisively, to begin as she meant to go on. But the door was opened before she could put her hands to the polished brass.

Her unannounced presence on the doorstep startled the butler, a man very much in the mode of Lord Aldridge—thin, balding, and puckered tight with disapproval—who appeared to have been on his way out. He recovered his aplomb and looked down his long nose at her. “Yes?”

“Miss Antigone Preston.”

His eyes traveled the length of her redingote, from collar to hem, without finding anything to recommend or impress. “Your card?”

Antigone didn’t think. She had endured long enough, and would do so no longer. She let the dangerous amalgamation of rage and frustration goad her.

“I could wring your neck like a chicken,” she told the supercilious bastard as she stepped closer, and let him read the deadly violence within her.

He reeled back, away from her, ramming his head against the portal like the damned knocker, and Antigone calmly stepped over his feet and into the dark marble-tiled entry hall.

“You can’t just walk in here—” he blustered.

“I already have.” She turned around in the hall, taking the place in, trying to see if there was anything she could read in the surroundings, any advantage or insight that she might glean from the silent walls.

“I’ll have the law on you,” the butler threatened from as much distance as he could put between them in such a small space.

Antigone ignored his bluster. “Where is Lord Aldridge, my betrothed?”

“Your—?” The man sputtered to a stop, clearly reconsidering the wisdom of any further altercation with his future mistress. He tried to regain his sangfroid. “His lordship is from home.”

“Is he? I’ll wait.” She didn’t wait for him to show her up, but began to prowl around the place on her own. If there were more terrified boys to discover, it was best to collect them up before his lordship came back.

No boys were to be found. She could only hope the defection of the stable boy had prompted a mass exodus. But even without a bevy of impressive and imperious footmen, the town house was one of the most precisely elegant homes Antigone had ever seen. The house was austere and yet ornate, with nary an object out of place, or a mote of dust to mar the perfection. Lord Aldridge had always referred to his house as modest, and perhaps it was not as large as Lady Barrington’s stately manse on Dover Street, but the claim of modesty now seemed part and parcel of the false veneer Lord Aldridge showed the world. Calling such an opulently furnished house “modest” all but begged the visitor to contradict him, and to remark upon the exquisite collection of Chinese porcelain exhibited throughout. Even the entry corridor and the elegantly carved staircase held collections of priceless objects, as though once started, Lord Aldridge could not keep himself from collecting and displaying the fragile evidence of his costly good taste and power.

The small room at the back on the ground floor proved to be an office or book room in which she thought she might wait. It was decorated with dark lacquered wood furniture in the Chinese style and was—strangely enough for an office or book room—devoid of books, but appointed in a handsome color of dark green designed to highlight the luminosity of a rather startling collection of porcelain. The shelves housed row after row of almost identical Chinese porcelain figurines.

Upon closer inspection, the flat light from the window revealed that the figures varied slightly. But whether they were made of ivory, or alabaster, or jade, they were all nude figures of women reclining on a divan or pedestal.

They all stared up at her with their blank eyes and toothless, subtle smiles.

The creeping, roiling disgust came back so strongly she could feel her heart begin to pound in her throat. It wasn’t that the figures were actually revolting—she supposed they could be considered attractive in their strange way. But it was the sameness, the lack of individuality, the repetition of the features and pose, and the sheer number of figurines that disturbed her so.

It was knowing that he didn’t like women, knowing that he could take no pleasure in the rows upon rows of nude, passively reclining female bodies. That he had made this fetishistic display to give himself the appearance of something other than he was. To pretend. To obscure his true purpose. Mound after mound of breasts and bellies and legs and—

Antigone thought she was going to be sick all over the carpet. She felt dirty just looking at them.

She could not leave the room fast enough. But she couldn’t let her disgust drive her from the house. She hadn’t come this far to turn coward. She had to see it through. And it was better she understand exactly what he was, exactly what lay in store for her in dealing with this man.

She went upward, to the wide drawing room, a Rococo fantasy of carved wood and plaster in the Chinese style popular fifty years ago. The blue-painted walls were adorned with intricate chinoiserie plasterwork that blossomed out of the walls and grew over the doorways. Here and there in the carving, ledges sprouted to display no doubt priceless statuettes, figurines, and vases. The effect was exotic and overbearing. And nothing that she would have expected from Lord Aldridge’s severe austerity, but everything she should have expected from his obsessively acquisitive nature.

She studied the room, taking in the carved fretwork of the mantelpiece, and the japanned lattice chairs where one could perch like a bird of paradise beside its cage. She wouldn’t perch, and she wouldn’t be caged.

She propped a high-backed chair against the wall, and settled down to wait.

*   *   *

They had been at the particulars for hours it seemed. Will reached up to run a hand through his hair, and saw that the clock had stretched into the afternoon.

“That should take care of your preparations,” his father was saying with weary satisfaction. “And between your mother and Mrs. Dawson, I’m sure things are already well in order, and they are emptying the larder to provision you to Sanderson House standards.”

The earl, his two older sons, and his secretary had been engaged in making preparations for Will’s return to duty for several hours. It was a complicated business, as Will had never had the complete charge of arming, provisioning, and manning a vessel coming out of ordinary before. Yet Will stood at a distinct advantage, for he had the financial backing of the Earl Sanderson. Unlike many of his fellow captains who might be attempting to get their vessels ready, as well, he would have his father’s considerable clout in procuring credit with Portsmouth’s notoriously stingy naval storage yards. He would arrive at the port in the morning with his orders already complete, and having been sent ahead to the quartermaster. But what provision or materials were not available in Portsmouth, he could, courtesy of his father, now afford to buy elsewhere.

Yet, more than anything else, Will had the deep satisfaction of knowing he would be able to give good men employment. That Marcus Beecham, and perhaps even Moffat—to whom he had sent a note—and even Moffat’s brother, would be glad of the posting.

But there were other things that were just as important as duty.

His father, the earl, looked up from the stack of papers on his desk and passed them to his secretary, who reclaimed the sheets and slipped them into a leather portfolio.

“Will there be anything else, my lord?” Henry Jensen inquired of his employer.

“William?” his father asked. “Anything else?”

Will turned away from the window. The gray morning had given way to an afternoon of sunshine that boded well for an easier trip down to Portsmouth. But would he be making the trip alone?

He couldn’t leave London without speaking to Preston. She had left so suddenly. It had only been a few minutes after his father’s arrival when he had returned upstairs to find her already gone. And the note he had sent to Dover Street had remained unanswered.

Will rubbed the prickling unease out of his neck.

“William?” His father recalled him to his business.

“Yes, sir, I should like to discuss the matter of Miss Preston.” At James’s wary look, Will amended, “Miss Antigone Preston.”

“Ah, yes.” The earl sat back in his chair. “Thank you, Jensen. I’m sure I’ll have more for you this afternoon. But that will be all for now.”

“Very good, my lord.” The secretary gathered up his remaining papers and bowed his way out.

But as Jensen was going out, the butler came in. “Miss Preston to see you, Captain Jellicoe.”

Thank bloody God. Will felt his lungs fully fill with air as the rising tension within him began to ebb.

“So.” His father turned back to Will. “Have you had time enough to make up your mind?”

“I have.” He could feel his smile stretch across his face. Finally everything was right. Everything was falling into place, just as it ought.

“I wanted to speak to you first, before we put pen to paper. There seem to be some irregularities with Miss Preston’s money, and from what I know, I assume there will difficulties with Miss Antigone’s.”

“I’ll take her without a farthing.”

If someone had told him a month ago what he would be doing, and what he would be feeling this morning, he would have told them to stop smoking so much opium. But here he was. And it felt bloody marvelous.

But the feeling didn’t last. Because instead of his Miss Preston, it was Miss Cassandra Preston, her face white with worry, who hurried through the door.

“Annie is missing.”

The animal instinct that had seen him through ten years of naval life clawed itself fully awake within his chest. “Damn it all to hell. She’s gone to buy the bastard off.”