A Stolen Heart (26 page)

“I am sure the Countess will be pleased that you are such a watchdog of the family honor,” Thorpe said dryly. “Now, if you will excuse us, I believe the opera is about to begin again.”

He whisked Alexandra away from Exmoor and strode down the hall toward the Countess’s box. Alexandra cast a glance at him. His face was taut and furious.

“The head of the Montford family!” he spluttered. “It’s a blow to the Countess every time she looks at him and knows that he occupies the place where her son should be.”

“I hope you don’t expect me to believe that there is no bad blood between the two of you,” Alexandra said.

“Nicola despises him,” he said obliquely. “Bucky doesn’t know the full story, only that Richard was responsible for breaking Nicola’s heart.”

“What?” Alexandra looked at him, astonished. “Nicola was in love with him?”

Sebastian shook his head. “No. Nicola and her mother were staying at the Buckminster estate in the country after her father’s death. They are cousins, you know. Buckminster is not far from Tidings, the Exmoor estate where Richard lived. Richard, apparently, was quite enamored of Nicola. He is older than she, but still, it would have been considered a good match. But Nicola did not love him. The rumor is that she loved another.”

“Who?”

Sebastian shrugged. “Bucky doesn’t know, and Nicola won’t talk about it. Apparently she didn’t tell even her sister. I assume it must have been someone unsuitable, for her to have kept it secret. Most of what Bucky knows is surmise on his mother’s part. Nicola seemed suspiciously happy, then, suddenly, she was grief-stricken. She wouldn’t eat, wouldn’t talk to anyone, went around looking like a wraith. And she refused to be around the Earl. If he came to call, she left. She would not accompany the family if they went to his house. After a week or two, she left to stay with her grandmother in London. Her mother and sister remained, and about a year later, Exmoor married her sister, Deborah. Nicola rarely sees her. She won’t step foot inside Tidings, Bucky says.”

“Poor Nicola.” She paused and looked at Sebastian. “Is it because of her that there is ill will between you and the Earl?”

Sebastian looked at her, and a reluctant smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “Persistent, aren’t you? No, that is not the reason for it, though it certainly does not endear him to me. However, my dislike for the Earl goes back farther. He was—let us say that he was part of an episode that destroyed my naïve illusions in a particularly painful way.” He grimaced. “Part of a past that I would as soon forget.”

“I see.” Alexandra thought she did. Somehow the Earl must have been tangled up in the scandal Nicola and Penelope had told her about, the affair that had driven Sebastian to leave the country when he was young. Impulsively she laid her other hand on Sebastian’s arm. “I’m sorry.”

He looked into her eyes, surprised, and smiled. “Don’t be. It was long ago and is no longer painful.”

“It’s not?”

He chuckled. “No. Looking back on it now, it seems merely the indiscretions of a callow youth. Hardly the tragedy it appeared to me at the time.”

Alexandra smiled, finding herself curiously pleased by his words.

S
EBASTIAN CAME TO
A
LEXANDRA’S
house the following afternoon to take her to call on the Honorable Bertram Chesterfield. Alexandra could not help but be a little on edge. She had not been alone with Sebastian since the morning he had brought her home. Of course, seeing him the night before at the opera had lessened some of the awkwardness inherent in the situation, but they had been surrounded by people there, even when they were walking together along the hall. Here she was enclosed in the small space of the carriage with him, an enforced intimacy. She could not help but think of the way she had acted the other night in this carriage, the passion she had felt and Sebastian’s rebuffing of her. She supposed that his actions had been those of a gentleman, but, frankly, she would rather that they had been those of a man in the throes of desire.

She could not meet his eyes.

“Miss Ward…Alexandra…”

“Do you think that we will discover anything useful today?” she asked brightly to forestall whatever he was going to say. His voice had a deadly serious tone that she sensed boded ill. She did not want to hear any sympathy from Sebastian about her mother’s mental state, nor any further rehashing of his reasons for rejecting her.

He paused, then sighed and followed her lead, “I dare say not. I have never known Bertie Chesterfield to say anything useful before.”

They continued to talk of trivial commonplaces until the carriage pulled up in front of Mr. Chesterfield’s narrow town house.

It was something of a shock to Alexandra to walk into Chesterfield’s drawing room. Because he was a contemporary of her parents, she had expected a man who dressed and looked like most men his age—sober, perhaps a little old-fashioned, maybe even sporting a wig or formal knee britches. Instead, the ginger-haired man who rose and came toward them was on the cutting edge of fashion—beyond it, one might even say.

His waistcoat was puce, his collar points so high and starched that he could barely turn his head, and his snowy cravat was an intricate tangle of cloth that must have taken his valet half an hour to achieve. Though his form was rather short and squat, he wore skintight breeches designed to show the muscular leg of a man like Sebastian. Unfortunately, what they showed of Chesterfield was every bulge and roll of fat. A large flower decorated the buttonhole of his lapel. His hair, an improbable shade of orange, was combed carefully over the balding front of his head.

“Thorpe, dear chap,” he said in a cheerful tone, reaching out to shake Sebastian’s hand. “It’s been an age since I saw you last. That curricle race of Crimshaw’s, wasn’t it?”

“I don’t think so. I am not a fan of curricle races.”

“Indeed?” Chesterfield looked faintly surprised that such a man could exist. “You always were an odd sort. All those years in the Caribbean, I suppose.”

“India.”

“Was it? Are you sure? Well, now, isn’t that amazing? I would have sworn it was one of those islands. Ah, well. Delighted to see you anyway.” He glanced toward Alexandra, frowning.

Thorpe politely introduced her as a friend of the Countess of Exmoor. Chesterfield spent several minutes extolling the virtues of the Countess before he pressed them to sit down.

“We have come to ask you about those days in Paris during the revolution.”

Chesterfield looked surprised. “I say. That was an eon ago.” He chuckled. “Can’t think what you young people would want to know about such an old event. World’s completely changed since then. Yes, passing of an era.” He nodded as if in agreement with his statement.

“It is really for the Countess that we are asking. You see, some question has arisen about her grandchildren.”

“Grandchildren! What—you mean the ones who were killed then?”

“Exactly,” Alexandra said. “There may be some question, you see, as to whether all of them actually died.”

“Died! Well, of course they did,” he responded bluffly. “Saw it with my own eyes.”

“Could you tell us exactly what you saw happen to Chilton and his family that day—moment by moment?” Sebastian asked. “It’s rather important.”

Though he feigned reluctance, Bertie Chesterfield launched into his story easily enough. “It was evening, you see, just turning dark. The mob came pouring down the street. I was across the way, staying with Lord and Lady Brookstone. They’d rented a house there, you see—didn’t know something like this would happen, of course.”

“Of course.”

“Nice neighborhood, but mostly rented houses. That’s why Chilton was there. They’d taken the house so she could be near her mother—Lady Chilton, I mean, the French gal—” He paused, suddenly struck by something, and peered at Alexandra. “I say, you look a rather lot like Lady Chilton. I thought you seemed familiar.”

“I may be related to her,” Alexandra told him. “That is why it’s so important that we find out exactly what happened that day.”

“By Jove.” He gazed at her for a moment in wonderment.

“You were saying that Lord Chilton had leased the house.”

“Yes. Well, the mob came pouring down the street, carrying torches and shouting. They were after blood. They tried to beat down our door, but we had good English servants, and we barricaded ourselves in. Across the street it was a different story. Poor Chilton came out and tried to tell them that he was English, but then his in-laws said something in French, and they knew they were Frogs. They went wild, shouting about the aristocrats and how they must die. Pulled Chilton and his lady right out amongst them and killed them. Parents, too. Then they stormed into the house, and when they were done, they set it afire.”

“So you actually saw Lord and Lady Chilton killed?”

“My, yes—gruesome sight, I must say. Although I never held with his marrying a Frenchwoman.”

“What about the children, though?” Alexandra asked. “Did you see them killed?”

“No. Only Chilton and his wife, but the crowd went inside. Bound to have murdered the children, too. Burned the house to the ground, anyway. No way they could have survived that.”

“Did you see their bodies, perhaps? After the fire?”

“Good God, no!” Chesterfield looked shocked. “Not a ghoul, you know. Besides, we didn’t dare venture out of the house. No telling what might happen—they could have come back.”

“Then you cannot be absolutely sure that the children died, too,” Thorpe persisted.

“What else could have happened to them?” Chesterfield asked reasonably. “Poor little devils. They didn’t escape that house. It was surrounded. If they had by some chance done so, we’d have heard about it, wouldn’t we? No, I’m afraid they all died.” He looked at Alexandra, understanding beginning to dawn on his face. “Are you saying that you’re one of the children?”

“No,” Alexandra answered quickly. “It is just that we wondered what the possibilities were that one or more of them might have survived.”

“Not good,” he said, shaking his head. “Not good.”

“Well, thank you, Chesterfield,” Thorpe said, rising and shaking his hand again. Bidding him goodbye, they began to make their way to the door, even though Bertie continued to talk happily about his other memories of Paris.

As they reached the doorway, Alexandra turned, struck by a sudden thought. “Mr. Chesterfield, I wondered—did you know other people in Paris at the time?”

He looked at her oddly. “Yes. Knew lots of people there. Friendly sort, you know.”

“Did you by any chance know Hiram and Rhea Ward?”

He frowned, pondering the question. “Do you mean the Americans?”

“Yes.” Hope rose in Alexandra’s chest, and she prodded eagerly, “You knew them?”

“Acquaintances, really. Didn’t know many of the Americans. Not long after their war, you know. But, I say, now that I think of it, I believe Lady Chilton was quite chummy with Mrs. Ward. She used to complain of feeling like an outsider, you see, with all us Englishmen—silly, really. I mean, after all, she was married to an Englishman, now, wasn’t she? But I suppose that’s why she used to gad about with Mrs. Ward.”

Alexandra cast an excited look toward Sebastian, but spoke with admirable calm. “Thank you, Mr. Chesterfield. You have been most helpful.”

“Have I?” Chesterfield sounded surprised. “Glad to be of service, of course.”

Alexandra managed to hold in her excitement until she and Sebastian had taken their leave of Chesterfield and walked out the front door of his town house. Then she whirled to face Sebastian.

“Did you hear that? Simone knew my mother!”

Thorpe looked a trifle pale. “I heard. I—it certainly throws a different light upon things.”

“It could explain everything! It could—it could mean that I really
am
the Countess’s grandchild.”

“It would make the story much less coincidental,” Sebastian agreed. “It is possible that perhaps Alexandra was with your—Mrs. Ward for some reason when the mob came, and so she was spared.”

“Or that Mother went over there looking for her friend after the mob had been there and found the baby wandering around.”

They looked at each other in silence for a moment. It was difficult for either of them to speak of Alexandra as the lost baby. It seemed removed from Alexandra, as if they must be talking about a third person.

“I—I don’t know what to think,” Sebastian said slowly.

Deep down, he knew that he did not want to face the possibility looming before him. For the past few days, ever since Alexandra’s mother had been attacked, he had been struggling against the evidence that was piling up—the fact that his men had been unable to dig up any adverse information on Alexandra; the coincidence of the attacks on Mrs. Ward at the time she might reveal what had happened in Paris; Alexandra’s explanation about following her mother to Exmoor house, which rang with the authority of truth. It was becoming increasingly difficult to hang on to the idea that Alexandra was an adventuress out to cheat the Countess.

But if he changed his mind, if he accepted the idea that Alexandra really was the Countess’s granddaughter, then he had made a ruinous error. He had accused her of being a criminal and a liar. She must hate him, despise him for his lack of faith. He had said and done things that were unforgivable. Nor was Alexandra the sort of woman who would readily forgive. In short, he had ruined everything with the only woman he had loved since Barbara.