Amy Lake (23 page)

If she couldn’t find Jody herself, surely Lord Tremayne would help.

* * * *

The Earl of Ketrick was a desperate man. How had he ended up escorting Danilla Hansfort home from one more dreary, interminable ball?  He could barely endure the woman’s company another moment. Lady Hansfort’s hands were moving up and down his thighs, and she had somehow adjusted her bodice so that he could see practically the whole of each breast.

It would be so easy. So easy to have her, here and now, in the carriage. Edward tried to imagine himself on top of Danilla, pressing her down into the cushions of the coach, pushing her skirts aside with one hand, loosening the buttons of his breeches–

He imagined her face looking up at him, passionate, trusting–

Claire’s face. Edward swore out loud.

“Darling?”

Women!  A pox on the whole tiresome sex!  Why not just take her now and be done with it?  Tomorrow he could visit Gaston’s, make some arrangement with Pardy, and never again need to see the same female twice. Yes, thought Edward. Gaston’s was definitely the answer.

Can’t you just hear Chedley laughing?  came that obnoxious little voice, his constant companion for the last several months. Edward Tremayne, the Earl of Ketrick, resorting to whores!  The viscount would surely see to it that no patron of White’s remained uninformed of the earl’s activities. If word ever got back to Claire–

Claire. But of course! said the little voice, mocking him. You could always go back to Wrensmoor. Your wife is there–remember her?  You could bed her any time you pleased.

Edward groaned and swore again, louder.  It was fortunate that the carriage had now stopped in front of Lady Hansfort’s house, because the woman was relentless in her pursuit and the earl was nearing the end of his tether. Another ten minutes inside the coach and she would be unclothed. He grabbed suddenly for Danilla, who blushed prettily and cooed, “Oh, Edward, I never–”

Shouting for his driver, he flung the carriage door open and pushed her into the street, sticking his head out of the coach only long enough to ensure she had landed upright.

“Edward!” shrieked Lady Hansfort.

“Drive on!” yelled Edward.

Chapter Fourteen

Claire stepped out of the carriage and looked up at the lights of Tremayne House. She was exhausted from the drive, worried about Jody, and deeply apprehensive about seeing her husband again. There had been no time to warn him of her arrival, and she hoped
that
interview could be put off until the morrow. 

The earl probably wasn’t at home now, anyway. There are many things to keep one busy in London in the evenings, reflected Claire, with a tired sigh. So many ways for a man to occupy himself with a mistress. She started towards the steps, the front door looming above her. The thought that she would be knocking on that door as an unwelcome guest was oppressive.      

Could Edward be at home?  And if he was–

Oh, heavens, he wouldn’t have
her
at Tremayne House, would he?  Claire hesitated on the first step. What if–at this very moment–the earl and his mistress were . . .

Well, it couldn’t be helped. She needed Edward’s assistance, and, for Jody’s sake, she would have to ask for it. Claire had faith in the essential goodness of her brother’s nature. She didn’t believe he would do anything intentionally hurtful, but there were just too many ways in London for a naive boy to call down disgrace upon his head. And Jody’s relationship to the Earl of Ketrick might make things worse, instead of better, if there was to be scandal.

She hated the possibility that the de Lancie name might involve the earl in gossip. Still,  the sooner the matter was dealt with, the better. Jody had been gone only a day and a half, surely he couldn’t have done anything irreparable yet. She mounted the steps, squared her shoulders, and lifted her hand to knock, remembering that with Boggs at Wrensmoor, the under-butler was now in charge at Tremayne House. What was his name?  Oh, yes. Lodge.

Lodge opened the door, looking not the least bit surprised to see the Countess of Ketrick standing there.

“Ah, your ladyship. I’m glad you’ve arrived safely.”

“Ah . . . yes. Thank you, Lodge.”  Claire was confused. Who could have told the household that she was arriving?  And if they knew, certainly Edward knew, too. Oh, dear.

“He’s waiting for you in the library, my lady. He said you’d probably be tired but to please  have a word with him first.”

Lodge took her traveling cloak and was giving instructions to her driver as she pulled off her gloves. Claire, assuming they would take her things to the bedroom she had used before her marriage, did not pay much attention to what the butler was saying.

“Thank you, Lodge,” she repeated, heading towards the library with heart pounding. She would have preferred a night’s rest before facing Edward, but there it was.

The door to the library was ajar, and she could hear the crackle of a warm fire. Stopping briefly to take one deep breath, she stepped into the room to face–

Jody.

* * * *

“Here, milady, let me take you to your rooms.” 

Claire looked up to see one of the maids–Sally?–standing at the library door. Jody must have rung for her after he left, thought Claire. How long had it been?  How long had she been sitting here, staring into the fire? 

“Thank you, Sally,” she said, the words coming automatically to her lips. She followed the girl upstairs, her head aching with fatigue, too wrung out by the dispute with her brother to think coherently. First get some sleep, Claire told herself. And stop this fretting. No one has been injured, there will be no scandal, and you can sort out everything else in the morning.

The room Sally brought her to was not her old bedroom, but Claire was in no state to argue or even care. It was clean, the bed-linens were fresh–she allowed herself to be undressed and tumbled into bed, asleep before her head reached the pillow.

* * * *

The Earl of Ketrick was nowhere near as drunk as he would have liked to be. Brandy–and lots of it, alas–was the only way he could manage sleep lately, but he’d been partnering Cecil Drere at four-hand Casino all evening, and the cards had been flying too fast for drink. For his part, Edward would have been happy to lose the money and get back to the brandy, but he had Drere’s finances to think of as well as his own. And, in truth, it would have been embarrassing to show up at White’s more inebriated than his current partner. A man had to draw the line somewhere.

Edward had always been fascinated by how Cecil could remain perfectly sober at the card table. Lord Drere was consistently underestimated by his opponents, to the detriment of their finances, because everyone seemed to have difficulty thinking of him as anything other than a drunk. He and Cecil had won a tidy sum that evening.

And considering the substantial amounts that he knew Drere had won over the years, Edward reflected, perhaps the man is sober rather more often than one tends to think.

Edward wasn’t sure how long he had been asleep–or if he had slept at all–when he heard footsteps in the bedroom next to his. The countess’s rooms–

Soft footsteps, as if someone was trying to creep unheard through the house. Edward heard the balcony doors open, and he was out of his bed like a shot, knife in hand, throwing open the door to the adjoining suite. It was a cloudy, moonless night, and he could barely make out a figure on the balcony. Edward was behind him in a moment, his knife at the man’s throat–

And his hand brushed against soft skin, delicate bones, the pulse a quickened thrumming under his fingertips–

–before he realized that the intruder was a woman, not a man and then–finally, in confusion–that it was his wife.

She hadn’t made a sound, but she put a hand to her throat, and Edward realized, to his stunned horror, that he had drawn blood.

“Dear Lord–lie down–I’ll call the doctor at once–”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” came his wife’s voice, sounding strangely calm.  She was looking down at her fingertips. “It barely qualifies as a scratch. There might be a drop or two of blood all told.”

Edward wasn’t about to waste time arguing. He swept Claire into his arms and carried her to the bed. After lighting a candle he realized, with a wave of relief that pounded through his veins and left him weak, that she had been right. A tiny nick on the side of her neck had bled for a moment but was now stopped. He left to get a clean cloth and water from his own rooms, and by the time he returned, Claire was sitting up in her bed.

She smiled at him wryly. “Such a dangerous place, London. First I’m shot, and now my own husband has knifed me.”

It was meant as a jest, but it was a poor one, and Edward had just had the scare of his life.  Fear and relief had destroyed any self-control he might have otherwise mustered, and the words poured out of him with no thought to their effect.

“What are you doing here?  You are never to come here!  You are to stay at Wrensmoor!  I believe I had made that perfectly clear!” he thundered..

“Edward–”

“How dare you come to London!  I thought you were a thief!  I could have killed you!”

“My lord–”

“And don’t ask me if I’m quite through yet!” roared Edward. “No!  I am
not
through!” 

This was enough for Claire, who was now as angry as her husband. She swung her legs over the side of the bed and stood, tearing at the ties to her nightgown.

“Get back into bed at once!” shouted the earl,  He exasperated beyond all measure. His mind flashed back to the moment he had held the knife at his wife’s throat, and he shuddered and felt something threaten to break loose inside him. He could still see a delicate tracery of blood on her skin -

She ignored him. Marching over to the wardrobe, she pulled her nightgown off and chose her warmest day dress from the wardrobe. She started to put it on over her chemise.

“What do you think you’re doing, you little idiot!”

“Leaving!” Claire yelled back at him. She was too upset to think where she could go in the middle of a London night. But if he thought he could just stand there and
shout
–

The earl was in front of her in two long strides. He ripped the dress out of her hands, picked her up, and slung her over his shoulder. 

“Let me go!”

 She kicked and pounded with her fists to no avail. He tossed her onto the bed and neatly sidestepped a flailing foot. The earl looked around for her nightgown; he found it, and threw it at her.

“Put this on!  Now!”

She glared at him mutinously, but, feeling acutely vulnerable in her thin chemise, she donned the nightdress. It gave her a few moments to collect her wits, and the more she thought about her husband’s behavior, the madder she felt.

 She looked up from fastening the ties to see him sitting in a chair and staring at her, his expression unreadable. His next words, however, were clear enough.

“What the hell do you think you are doing, coming here?”

“If you’d given me the chance to explain,” she informed him, “I would have told you. And don’t swear at me.”

Edward scowled. “You are my wife, and I’ll speak to you any way I please. Now, what are you doing in London?”

Claire hesitated. She had known this question was coming, of course. She’d sat in the carriage all the way from Kent preparing her explanations, planning to ask the earl to help her find Jody.

Now what could she say?

The truth, she decided. It might make Jody seem flighty and irresponsible, but her brother was going to tell Lord Tremayne the entire story, anyway. If she told him first, perhaps he would have a chance to cool down before confronting Jody.

She searched for Jody’s note, and–finding it–held the sheet out, wordlessly, to Lord Tremayne.

“What is this?”  He scowled again, and took the vellum from her. She watched her husband’s face as he read Jody’s letter, seeing first puzzlement, then amusement. Finally, he burst into laughter.

“Who is she?” he asked Claire between chuckles. “He’s a handsome lad, of course, but I would have thought that at fifteen–”     

“‘She doesn’t exist,” Claire told him. “Jody made it all up.”

“What?”

“It was just his way of getting me to come to London.”  Then she told Edward the entire story, ending with Jody’s successful attempt to convince Lodge that this was all a grand surprise to please the earl.

“Which explains why I didn’t even know Jodrel was in the house these past twenty-four hours.”

“Yes. I believe he’s been living in the kitchen on Mrs. Huppins’s fried apple tarts.”

 “Ah.”

Silence fell between them. Then–

“It’s freezing in this room,” said Edward. “Why were you out on the balcony?  And why is your fire not lit?”

“I don’t know,” Claire told him. “I was so tired after talking to Jody, I just went to bed. I don’t remember waking up, but I must have gone out to the balcony thinking I was at Wrensmoor.”

“This is the countess’s suite.” 

“Ah.”

The earl’s last words hung in the air between them. These were “the countess’ rooms,” Claire noted, not “your rooms.”  But then, what did she expect?  Lord Tremayne had never planned on seeing her here.      

“I am very tired, my lord,” Claire said finally, as the earl showed no signs of moving from his chair. “I should like to retire.”

“Yes. Of course,” said her husband.

 And he left. The Earl of Ketrick slept very badly that night.

* * * *

Claire found her brother at breakfast the next morning.

“I’m going home,” she told him, without preamble.

“What?  Not
today
!”  Jody looked at his sister in consternation. She couldn’t leave!  Not after all the trouble he’d gone to in getting her to London!  Jody was about to voice further protest when he glanced again at his sister and saw the droop of her shoulders, the pain in her eyes. She seemed thoroughly exhausted, and although he had been waiting for months to see her look heartsore, now that his wish had been granted he felt ashamed.

Why couldn’t he have left well-enough alone?