Call Down the Moon (32 page)

“Yes, but wagers at White’s are general knowledge,” Foxlane said with a shrug, as if Hugo was a fool for asking. “Any number of people could have seen my entry in the book—in any case, what does that prove? You know yourself how many people were betting on your making a match with Amelia. That most certainly doesn’t make me a cheat at cards.” He spread his hands out. “What would be my motive? I only learned about your marriage today. Naturally I was slightly upset to learn I had just lost a large wager, but who wouldn’t be?”

“True enough,” Waldock said with a curt nod. “Lady Hugo, forgive me for questioning you so closely when we are not even acquainted, but your allegation is a serious matter. Is there anything else you can tell us about what you overheard and from whom you overheard it?”

“I cannot tell you from whom I heard it, my lord,” she said, turning to face him, “but I can tell you that Mr. Foxlane took my husband around the clubs that night with the deliberate intention of getting him intoxicated so that he would lose his judgment. He also deliberately ended up at Boodle’s, knowing my husband would not be able to resist the deep play.”

Foxlane snorted. “What is that supposed to prove? We went together to the clubs, yes. Do you say I forced him to come along, Lady Hugo, that I forced the drink down his throat? Or perhaps you are saying that once at Boodle’s, I forced him to play hand after hand, staking large amounts of money on each, and then forced him to lose each hand?” He turned to Hugo, his eyes glittering. “If you recall anything at all about that evening, Montagu, you might recollect that I wasn’t even playing.”

“I remember well enough.” Hugo wearily rubbed two fingers over his forehead. “Meggie, put an end to this, if you please. You can have nothing else to say, so apologize to Mr. Foxlane for misinterpreting a piece of gossip. If we are fortunate, he will understand that you are not accustomed to London and know nothing of its entertainments, and that you were overset to hear that I engaged in some ill-advised card-playing and lost a great deal of money.”

Foxlane laughed, the sound so sinister that it sent chills down Meggie’s spine. “Don’t be absurd, Montagu. Do you think you can bamboozle me into accepting an apology because your wife is a complete innocent?” He tilted his chin in Meggie’s direction. “She already informed me that she knew not only about your wayward past, but also about your most recent fiasco in all its glorious detail, and she saw fit to inform me of the facts with no prompting on my part.”

Hugo’s hands fell away from Meggie’s shoulders, and he stepped away from her as if she were a pariah. He clearly thought that she’d somehow learned the truth and had been playing at some awful game designed to shame him. His extended silence only confirmed her fear.

She drew in a deep breath, seeing that there was nothing else to do but expose Foxlane completely and in exact detail, no matter the cost to herself. She fixed her gaze on the man who was now every bit as much her enemy as he was Hugo’s.

“You speak of facts, Mr. Foxlane. I wonder if the name Joseph Potter means anything to you. He has been employed at Boodle’s for the last eighteen months, his wages generously supplemented by your monthly bonuses.”

To her immense satisfaction, Foxlane turned white as a sheet. Stretched to the breaking point, his thoughts were in chaos, blind panic obscuring his reason. “Who—what the devil are you talking about?” he sputtered. “I know nothing of a Joseph Potter.”

“How odd,” Meggie said coolly, reeling him like a hooked fish, “since he is the footman who supplies you with the decks of cards you like so well.” She took advantage of the stunned silence that came from all three men. “You may not have been playing that particular night, Mr. Foxlane, but you were dealing,” she continued, watching him cautiously, knowing that he might do anything once cornered. “Marked cards make such a difference in the outcome of play, do they not, especially when one has a vested interest in the result of that play? What was the winning hand that you intentionally dealt Lord Waldock … let me see. I believe it was the six of spades down, ace of diamonds up, finally crowned by the four of clubs? Would that be right?”

“You—you must have paid Potter a small fortune for that information! I’ll kill you, you little bitch!” Foxlane made a lunge for her, but Hugo caught him before he reached her, holding him in a viselike grip, one arm across his throat.

“What is this?” Hugo hissed from between his teeth. “Have we been misbehaving ourselves, Foxlane?”

Foxlane gasped for breath and Hugo abruptly released him, throwing him to the floor. “She’s lying,” Foxlane choked. “Lying through her accursed teeth.”

Meggie stepped away and moved into the shadows, trying to make herself invisible as Waldock strode up to Foxlane. He bent down, taking a fistful of Foxlane’s coat in a tight grip and hauled him to his feet.

“I wonder who is lying through his accursed teeth, my dear friend? My God, there were times I wondered at your runs of luck, especially at Boodle’s, but I never went so far as to imagine you would stoop so low. To learn that you deliberately went about ruining Montagu for your own gain and used me as your pawn, to accuse his wife of lying about it—I should kill you.”

He pulled back his fist and delivered a punch to Foxlane’s jaw that cracked across the hall, then violently shoved him back onto the floor.

Foxlane skidded across the marble, with his hand to his bloodied mouth, and his feet scrambling to get a grip. He pushed himself to his knees. His head lowered, and his breath coming hard.

“Damn you all to hell,” he spat. “Damn you! You’ve always thought yourselves better than me with your titles, your inherited wealth—what did I ever have except a useless pedigree and my wits? Answer me that! You try being a fourth son in a family that could barely afford to keep its head above water but insisted on image and respectability at all cost. What was I supposed to do, get a job in the city like a plebeian? Or maybe I should have become an accountant and worked for one of you.”

He raised his head and glared at them. “You would have liked that, wouldn’t you, like to see me degraded, humiliated by my betters? You’ve always looked down at me, both of you, ever since our days at Harrow. Well, I made you sit up and pay attention, didn’t I? I made my fortune, I kept up with the best of you after all, despite my disadvantages.”

Meggie couldn’t bear to look at him, couldn’t bear the self-pity that emanated from him. He made her feel dirty, invaded. She was infinitely grateful when Hugo moved over to him and took him by the elbow.

“Get up,” he said quietly. “Get up and stop behaving in such a pathetic fashion. You might not have any morals, but show a little self-respect, man.”

Foxlane did as Hugo commanded as if automatically responding to the voice of authority. He stood, brushing himself off, then straightened his shoulders. “What do you intend to do now?” he asked through a swollen lip, assuming an air of bravado that fell flat.

“Quite obviously you are finished here,” Waldock said. “If I were you, I’d take myself out of the country as quickly as possible and not make any plans to return.”

Hugo raised one eyebrow. “Did Waldock say quickly? I’d amend that to instantly, if you value your life.”

Foxlane smiled sardonically. “Odd hearing that threat coming from you, Montagu. As I recall, you were the one whose life was forever at risk for your depraved deeds. Of course, you always had an influential brother to bail you out.”

“I doubt even my sainted brother would have come to my rescue had I done what you have. I have no leg to stand on when it comes to my past sins, but I can at least say that I have never cheated anyone.” He suddenly looked over at Meggie. “At least never at cards,” he added in a low voice.

Meggie could only stare at him, stunned. She didn’t need her gift to know the truth; she could see it in his eyes. He’d married her only for the money—it had always been about the money. Somehow he’d found out about her inheritance, and he had come to claim her not for love, but from necessity. Love had never entered his mind.

She wanted to die right there on the spot.

“Please, just leave, Foxlane,” Hugo said with a weary sigh. “Do me the extreme favor of never showing your face to me again, and I will do my best to forget not only your crime to me, but also the insults you paid my wife.”

“Never fear, Hugo, I will see this piece of filth out of the country personally,” Waldock said, taking Foxlane by the arm and jerking him around to face the door. “By the by, that bank draft you signed today? I’ll tear it up. Consider it null and void. As far as I am concerned, the evening never took place. We, at least, are men of honor.”

Hugo nodded without a word. He looked more exhausted than Meggie had ever seen him before. Oddly, she found she didn’t care. She didn’t care about much of anything.

“My apologies, Lady Hugo,” Waldock said, noticing her for the first time in the shadow of the column where she’d stepped back from the fray. “I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me for doubting you, if only briefly. I also hope we can be friends in the future. You were very brave to speak up as you did, and I admire you for discovering the truth on your husband’s behalf.”

Meggie did her best to smile at him. She wanted nothing more than to be away from all of them, Hugo included. Hugo especially.

The second the door had closed behind Waldock and Foxlane, Meggie made a move for the staircase, praying Hugo would let her pass in peace. She was too filled with the confusion of her own thoughts to be able to deal with his.

“Meggie—Meggie, stop,” he said, catching her arm as she hurried by. “We must talk. I have a hundred questions to ask you, and you must have a hundred questions also.”

She couldn’t meet his eyes. “I do not wish to talk,” she said, disengaging her arm. “In all honesty, I wish to be left alone.”

“My love—I’m sorry for everything that just happened, even sorrier for what you learned about me, about my past, but for God’s sake, please don’t walk away from me. Tell me how you discovered everything that you did about Foxlane, why you even thought to try to discover it? I cannot understand how you would have had the first inkling about what happened.”

For the first time, Meggie looked directly at him. “I read Foxlane’s mind.”

“I suppose I deserved that,” he said, rubbing his finger against the comer of his mouth. “Your anger is completely understandable, but at least will you tell me the truth?”

“You’ve told so many lies that you can’t recognize the truth when you hear it,” she said quietly. “Anyway, does it really matter? You betrayed me. You married me not for love, but for the money that you knew I had coming to me.”

He lowered his gaze. “I did. I betrayed you and lied to you, Meggie, I fully admit it, and you know the reason why. You seem to be aware of a great number of my transgressions. But please, give me a chance to explain?”

She turned her head away. Those transgressions were far too enormous for her to absorb just now. Everything was too much. She felt as if every last nerve in her body had been rubbed raw, every last emotion stretched so far that she was beyond feeling anything. She could only reach for a quietude she desperately needed. It was then, with an enormous sense of relief, that she knew exactly what she had to do.

Home. She needed to go home.

“I don’t want explanations. I want to leave, Hugo. I’m going back to where I belong.”

He stared at her, his face turning as white as Foxlane’s had been only minutes before. “You can’t be serious.”

“Perfectly serious,” she replied with as much dignity as she could muster. “Your life is very full here, and you have no need of me that I can see. I would ask only that you not try to dissuade me, as it will do no good. I won’t change my mind.”

“I see. There is no way I can convince you to reconsider?” he asked, looking as if she’d struck him just as hard as Waldock had struck Foxlane.

“There is nothing to reconsider,” she replied. The pain in her heart tightened into an unbearable knot. “I need to go. Would you be so kind as to give me the use of one of the carriages?”

He inclined his head in assent. She couldn’t see the expression in his eyes, but she didn’t wish to. She was in enough pain as it was.

“As you wish, Meggie,” he said softly.

She heard the heavy irony in his voice and it nearly undid her, but she steeled her resolve. “Thank you. I will leave tonight as soon as I am packed. You needn’t worry, I will take Hadrian with me.”

“Take anything you wish,” he said, and then he was gone.

“M
eggie did
what
? And you let her go, just like that?” The dowager duchess looked at her son as if he’d lost his mind.

“Yes, just like that,” he replied, turning his back and gazing out the window of the drawing room. He was so tired from battling with himself that he could hardly think, let alone speak. He certainly didn’t want to go into a long explanation of why Meggie had left him. His mother would only agree with her decision.

“Darling, when I left you earlier, all was perfect, and this evening I come downstairs for dinner only to discover your wife gone, you looking like something the cat dragged in, and the staff all tiptoeing around with long faces as if it were the end of the world. What on earth did you do to chase her away?”

Hugo just shook his head. What he’d done, he’d done in what seemed like a lifetime ago. His crime had caught up to him, as he’d always knew it would. Really, it was a miracle he’d managed to fool Meggie as long as he had.

“You might find it helps to talk about it,” his mother said.

He turned back to face his mother, but found the sympathetic look on her face almost too much to bear. “Leave it alone, Mama,” he said, his voice hoarse. “There’s nothing to be done, nothing to be said. Meggie made her position perfectly clear: she wants nothing more to do with me, and I can’t say I blame her.”

“Don’t be absurd,” the dowager said firmly. “I have to assume this is your first marital tiff from the way you are behaving, so let me give you a piece of unsolicited advice. Whatever you did to upset Meggie can most likely be mended with a few well-chosen words of apology, and the sooner you make them the better. It doesn’t do to let these things drag on.”

“The only apology I can see Meggie accepting would be one in which I put a gun to my head and pull the trigger,” he said bitterly.

“Hugo!” his mother cried, jumping up from her chair, her lips and cheeks suddenly bloodless. “Don’t ever say such a thing—not
ever,
do you hear me?”

Hugo, who had never seen his mother so visibly upset, stared at her in astonishment. “I was only speaking metaphorically,” he said, wondering if she’d actually thought him serious. “I’m not so despondent as to want to take my life, Mama, although right now I feel as if it might be a great deal easier to be dead. Dead men can’t feel.”

The duchess slowly sat down again, her hands gripping the sides of her chair. “Nevertheless, I would rather you not say such things,” she said in a nearly inaudible voice. She cleared her throat, pressed her hands flat on her knees, then raised her head and looked at him, perfectly composed again. “Now, back to the business of patching up your quarrel with Meggie. I presume she has gone back to Lyden, which would be the sensible thing to do, and Meggie strikes me as being a sensible girl.”

“Infinitely sensible,” Hugo replied. “She also has a remarkable sense of self-preservation. Look, Mama, to save you wasting your breath, the truth of the matter is that Meggie discovered some unsavory things about me that I’d rather not go into. My past, shall we say, is rearing its ugly head.”

“Oh, is
that
all? Well, really, darling, what else did you expect?”

Hugo very nearly laughed. “I have no idea. I suppose I expected nothing less. As I said, I deserved what I had coming. Meggie would be ma—Meggie has no reason to take me back.”

“Save that she loves you,” his mother pointed out. “Hugo, it is not like you to sit back and lick your wounds. You have always been a fighter, so I suggest that you fight. You love Meggie—that is obvious.”

Hugo bowed his head. “That is also the point. I love her more than I can say, and because I love her, I wish only for her happiness. Unfortunately, now that she knows the ugly truth about me, all I am able to give her is what she asked for—a life at Lyden free of me.”

“My dear child, you seem to think that by sacrificing yourself on this ridiculous pyre of nobility you have built that you can atone for all of your past mistakes. I am afraid it is far too late for that.”

“Thank you so much for your words of comfort,” Hugo said caustically. “And here I was thinking you were trying to help.”

“You really can be a silly boy,” his mother said, ignoring the acute pain he was in. “My point is that mistakes are to be learned from. The way you are going about matters, you are only going to compound your mistakes tenfold. You are under the impression that the past is the issue, when the issue really is the future.” She waved her hand at him. “Now go and order a carriage and be on your way. By now Meggie must be wondering where you are.”

Hugo, already exhausted and pushed to the limit of his emotional endurance, snapped. “I don’t think you’ve heard a bloody word I said,” he roared. “Meggie doesn’t
want
me!”

“That’s perfectly ridiculous. Of course Meggie wants you. She’s just upset, and when women are upset, they like to make a statement. She’s made hers, and now it’s time for you to make yours. Really, Hugo, sometimes I wonder if you understand the first thing about human nature.”

“I am trying,” he said tightly. “I have not had much practice to date.”

She smiled at him fondly. “If you remember nothing else, remember that you are no longer that foolish, rebellious boy who so liked to get into trouble. You are a responsible married man who is devoted to his wife, his land, and his tenants.” She chuckled. “I’ve often thought it peculiar that men govern entire countries but never seem to understand what is going on right under their noses.”

She pushed herself to her feet, marched over to the window, and gave him a peck on the cheek. “Do let me know how it all turns out. I will be here in London for at least the next fortnight, spreading the good tidings about your marriage. Yes, and I think a wedding announcement in the papers would be a good idea…”

Hugo shook his head in exasperation. “You really haven’t been listening. Still, if you wish to embarrass yourself, go right ahead.”

“I do love you, darling,” she said, not looking the least bit concerned. “Loring, order up a carriage for Lord Hugo,” she called as she vanished through the doorway. “He needs to depart for Suffolk immediately.”

Hugo stared after her, his eyes narrowed in thought. Exactly fifteen seconds later he bolted out of the room and commanded Mallard to pack his case.

“My dear girl, as lovely and unexpected as it is to see you, I can also see that you are distressed,” Sister Agnes said, looking unperturbed by Meggie’s dawn arrival. “I think what you need is food and sleep in that order, and then we will talk about what troubles you.”

For some ridiculous reason, Meggie felt vastly relieved and reassured by Sister Agnes’s matter-of-fact control of the situation. She was right. Meggie was deeply distraught, exhausted, and hungry, and the latter two problems were the first that needed fixing. The most important issue could wait. Meggie knew she wouldn’t make much sense right now anyway.

She’d ended up at the Woodbridge Sanitarium rather than at Lyden because she’d felt the deep necessity to search her soul, and Sister Agnes was the only person she knew who could help her in that quest. Sister Agnes was also the only person who could help her with the answers she needed about Hugo.

She did exactly as Sister Agnes suggested, eating an early breakfast, then curling up in the bed of her old room. Hadrian rested in his accustomed place on the floor next to her. She closed her weary eyes and finally slept.

“Hugo, darling boy! How wonderful to have you back!”

Dorelia and Ottoline had come rushing out of the house the instant they’d heard the carriage and were now jumping up and down in tandem, their hands flapping wildly in the air.

“Why, where’s Madrigal?” Ottoline asked, peering inside the carriage.

“Hugo … what have you done with her?” Dorelia demanded, turning to him, her eyes filled with deep suspicion.

Hugo’s heart sank. “Do you mean she’s not here? She should have arrived at least three hours ago.”

“No, she’s not here, and I would like to know why you think she should be,” Dorelia retorted, her eyes flashing. “Since when does darling Madrigal leave London without you and drive through the night, may I ask?”

“The Betrayal!” Ottoline gasped. “Oh, Sister, it is the Betrayal to be sure!”

Dorelia’s eyes grew huge. “Ottoline, I do believe you must be correct. Oh, dear. What are we to do now? Does your B.G. tell you anything, anything at all? Poor Madrigal, the dear, darling angel. She must be in a terrible way. Quickly, beloved, you must see what you can see.”

Hugo, who had been on the road for eleven hours with no sleep, a stomach knotted with anxiety, and a guilty conscience screaming at him the entire ninety miles, bellowed, “What the
bloody
hell are you two jabbering about?”

“Hush,” Dorelia snapped. “Ottoline is working.”

Hugo stared at the other auntie, who had closed her eyes and was swaying back and forth, while her sister started to hum and sway along. “Oh, dear God,” he muttered. “They’re mad. Utterly gone. Lunatic.”

“If anyone is lunatic, it is you,” Dorelia said, pinching his arm hard. “We should never have let you go off to London, not with the Betrayal waiting in the wings, and now you’ve gone and lost Madrigal, so shut your trap while Ottoline tries to find her. The B.G. does
not
like to be interrupted.”

“What the devil is the B.G.?” he demanded, rubbing his bruised bicep.

“The Blessed Gift, you idiot. All the women in the family have it one way or the other, your wife included.” Dorelia stomped on his foot, and he yelped in surprise. “Now be quiet!”

Hugo glowered at her, then at her undulating sister, who looked as if she thought she were about to receive the Word of God directly from heaven. The Blessed Gift? What the hell was that? “What do you mean, Meggie has it, too?” he hissed in Dorelia’s ear. “Explain yourself, woman!”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Dorelia whispered back. “Ottoline has the Sight of the Future, I have the Healing Power, and Madrigal has the ability to Read Minds. If I didn’t know better, I’d think that she’d read yours and run away, which would make perfect sense, but she says you are the only person she can’t access at all. You’re a blank to her, always have been.”

Hugo peered down at her in disbelief. “You’re trying to make me believe that Meggie really
can
read minds?”

“I’m not trying to make you believe anything. I am simply stating the facts as they exist. She thought her B.G. was a curse instead of a blessing, the little lamb, until she came here and discovered that she was perfectly normal, just like us. Now stop interrupting.”

Hugo didn’t know what to think. He didn’t believe in that sort of hocus pocus at all. Yet for the first time he had an explanation of how Meggie might have learned not only the truth about Foxlane, but also the intricate details of that night, when there had only been the three of them to see the cards dealt in that last hand. He’d been puzzling over it ever since.

He’d been puzzling over so much. She had given no indication that anything was amiss until she’d run into Foxlane in the entrance hall and suddenly—too suddenly—she’d been a mine of information, information that Foxlane most certainly hadn’t handed her. Furthermore, as far as he knew, Meggie hadn’t even heard of Boodle’s, let alone been aware of what it was and what went on there.

And since when did she know anything about vingt-et-un? The nuns surely hadn’t taught her. They’d been too busy teaching her Latin and Greek.

The nuns … of course. Sister Agnes.

Hugo’s head shot up.
I’m going back to where I belong.
Oh, God. Oh, dear, dear God. That was what she’d meant, that was why she hadn’t come home. She really had left him.

“Never mind,” he said to Ottoline, who was now weaving her hands back and forth in front of her face. “I know exactly where Meggie is.”

Ottoline’s eyes snapped open. “Well, if you know so much about it, what are you standing around for, pray tell? All
I
can see is something that looks remarkably like a penguin, which makes no sense at all to me.”

“That would be Madrigal’s Sister Agnes, dearest,” Dorelia said triumphantly. “Quick, Roberto,” she called to the butler who had been standing close by, listening to every scintillating word, “launch the barouche!”

“You will launch nothing,” Hugo said, shoving both hands through his already disheveled hair. “Roberto, if you wish to make yourself useful, saddle up one of my geldings and bring it around instantly. You, aunties, will both stay here and out of trouble, do you understand?”

They both nodded, looking extremely pleased with themselves.

“Very good.” He turned to go up into the house to splash some water on his face before setting off again.

“Yes, but Hugo, dear,” Dorelia said, poking him on the arm, “what are you going to do about the Betrayal?”

“What betrayal?” he replied, wishing she’d stop abusing his person.

“How am I supposed to know?
The
Betrayal. Ottoline said there would be one, and it would all come out in London, and Madrigal had to be there at your side or else, and it must have come to pass, or why would Madrigal have run back to the sanitarium?”

Hugo gave her a long, hard look, wondering if there really wasn’t something to this B.G. nonsense after all. “Never mind about that. I need to talk to Meggie and the sooner the better.”

He had no idea what possessed him, but he leaned down and kissed Dorelia’s cheek. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ll find a way to bring her home.”

“As Virgil said,
‘Amor vincit omnia,’
”
she replied, to Hugo’s blank astonishment.

“
‘Et nos cedamus amori,’
” Ottoline added, standing up on tiptoe for a kiss of her own. “Remember it, Hugo dearest.”

“I’ll remember,” he said, gently brushing her soft, wrinkled cheek with his lips. “I will remember.”

Love conquers all, and let us yield to love.

“Meggie dear, I have no trouble at all understanding why you are upset,” Sister Agnes said when Meggie had finally finished. “What I cannot understand is why you feel that your marriage is compromised.” She folded her hands in front of her on the desk and regarded Meggie impassively.