Captive (19 page)

She retreated. But only so she could muster her forces to begin the fight again.

After Denbigh’s lapse of control in the study, she noticed he was careful never to be closeted alone with her. If she came into a room where he was by himself, he left. He invited his grandparents to join them. And his sister.

Which was a good thing, because Olivia needed the company.

As the days turned into a full two weeks with no word from Braddock, Charlotte watched the light die in Livy’s eyes. The butterfly who had emerged from her chrysalis under Braddock’s admiring eye, folded her wings and transformed herself into … a mouse. Not an easy feat, when one considered the biology involved.

But the resemblance to a mouse was definitely there. Livy wore browns and grays. She peeked around corners before entering rooms. She never spoke without being spoken to. Even in company, she was quiet … as a mouse.

Charlotte damned Braddock aloud every chance
she got for disappearing without a word, but Olivia also felt the lash of her tongue.

Things came to a head one morning when Olivia joined Charlotte in her bedroom to share hot chocolate and toast, while Sally tried out another original creation with Charlotte’s hair.

“Braddock is not the only handsome man in the world,” Charlotte railed.

“He’s the only one for me,” Olivia replied calmly.

Charlotte whipped around to challenge Olivia and nearly pulled the curling iron out of her maid’s hands.

“Sit still, Charlie,” Sally said. “Otherwise I’m going to end up either searing your scalp or yanking your hair out by the roots.”

In the mirror, Charlotte saw Olivia shake her head in dismay, but whether it was because she encouraged her maid to speak to her as an equal, or because Charlotte was lecturing Livy again about Braddock, she didn’t know.

Charlotte examined herself in the mirror. Her head was covered in tiny golden ringlets. “This new arrangement looks awfully … curly,” she remarked to Sally.

“That is what generally occurs when one uses a curling iron,” Sally replied.

“What do you think, Livy?” Charlotte asked. “Do you think your brother will like it?”

“I doubt Lion will notice the difference,” Olivia replied.

Charlotte scowled. “How could he miss noticing this?” she said, pointing to her head. “I look like Medusa with a headful of golden snakes.”

“Give me a chance to finish before you complain,” Sally said.

Charlotte stuck her elbows on the dressing table and dropped her chin in her hands. “It’s useless. He’s hopeless.”

“Who is hopeless?”

“Lion. Who else have I been speaking about?”

“Braddock,” Livy said.

“Speaking of Braddock,” Charlotte said, perfectly willing to change the subject, “I wish you would stop moping over the man.”

“I don’t notice any difference in my behavior,” Livy said.

Charlotte snorted. “What happened to having hopes and dreams?”

“I have accepted my lot in life, that’s all.”

“Accepted your lot? What does that mean?”

“I know I will never marry.”

“What about Braddock?” Charlotte asked.

“Braddock is gone. He and lion … with the enmity between them … it would never have worked.”

“What I don’t understand,” Charlotte raged, furious that Olivia seemed determined to go back
into her hidey-hole and remain there the rest of her life, “is why you didn’t tell Braddock that Lord James had compromised Lady Alice the first time you had the chance!”

Livy had just taken a swallow of chocolate. She choked when she tried to speak before she had swallowed it. “How …?” She set down her cup, coughed and choked and coughed again.

Charlotte jumped up from her seat in front of the mirror, leaving Sally standing alone with a hot curling iron, and pounded Olivia on the back.

“Are you all right?” Charlotte asked.

“How—did you—find out?” Olivia gasped between coughs.

“Oh. I figured it out from clues Lion gave me. First he said he had a good reason for killing Lord James. Then he confessed that Alice had betrayed him. I simply put one and one together and got … two men dueling.”

“Do you know all of it?” Olivia asked.

Charlotte
tsk
ed. “Now, Livy, what sort of question is that? If I didn’t already know it all, I would certainly know there was more I should ask about.”

Olivia flushed. “I cannot believe Lion told you … everything. What happened was so terrible … and so sad.”

Charlotte took Olivia’s hands in hers. “He told me Alice was carrying Lord James’s child when she died.”

“I could hardly believe it myself when I heard,” Olivia whispered.

“Why didn’t you tell Braddock what you knew?” Charlotte asked. “It might have helped him to understand why your brother challenged Lord James to a duel in the strange way he did. Why Lion did not want the world to know the real reason he killed James. That if the truth were exposed, it would only hurt more innocent people, including Braddock himself.”

“I stayed silent,” Olivia said, “because I was Fool enough to believe an explanation was not necessary. I believed Braddock wanted me badly enough to take me no matter what Lion had done. I realize my folly, now that it’s too late.”

“When Braddock returns, you’ll have a chance to make amends,” Charlotte promised. “What puzzles me is why Lady Alice betrayed your brother with Lord James. You must have seen Lion and Alice together, Livy. Did it seem to you that she loved him?”

Olivia’s lips pursed. “I am not the one to be asking. I thought Braddock cared for me, and look how wrong I was about that.”

“You were not wrong about Braddock,” Charlotte insisted. “He has simply gone away on business somewhere. I expect him to show up at the door any day.

“But let us put that aside for a moment and go
back to Lady Alice. Do you believe she loved Lion?” Charlotte asked.

“She did.”

The voice that answered was not Olivia’s. Both women turned to look at Sally, who was standing by the mirror, still holding the curling iron, her eyes brimming with tears.

Charlotte rose to her feet. “Sally, did you know Lady Alice?”

“I was her maid. I was with her that day … the day she … I was there when the earl found her.”

Olivia’s face blanched. “How could you have ended up here, working in his house, where he might see you and be reminded of … of her?”

Sally let the curling iron fall on the dressing table and dropped her bulk to her knees in front of Charlotte. “Please, Lady Charlotte, don’t throw me out into the street. I didn’t know the earl lived here at first, and when I found out, I had no place else to go.

“I have tried not to let him see me, but even so, we crossed paths once. Only, he did not seem to know me. Please don’t send me away, I beg of you.”

“Up off your knees, Sally,” Charlotte said. “It’s no place for a woman unless she’s sitting beside her husband at the fireplace or scrubbing floors.”

“I’ll scrub floors,” Sally babbled. “I’ll do anything—”

“Stubble it,” Charlotte said.

Sally closed her mouth.

“She has to go, Charlie,” Olivia said. “She simply cannot stay.”

“Why not?” Charlotte said. “You’ve already heard her say that Lion did not recognize her.”

“That does not mean he won’t in the future,” Olivia said. “And be distressed by her presence.”

“Sally was not to blame for what happened,” Charlotte said. “I don’t see why she should be made to suffer any more than she already has. Imagine losing your position because your mistress—”

“That will suffice, Charlie,” Olivia interrupted.

Charlotte turned a speculative eye on the maid. “And Sally may know Lady Alice’s reasons for what she did.”

Olivia looked thoughtful. “Perhaps you have a point.” She directed her gaze at Sally. “You said Lady Alice loved my brother. How do you know?”

“Oh, she said so many times, milady.”

Charlotte frowned at Sally for using the more formal address, but it appeared the maid was taking no chances of offending Olivia.

“Then why did she take up with Lord James?” Charlotte asked.

“I cannot tell you.”

“But you know?” Charlotte asked excitedly.

Sally nodded. “It was told to me in confidence by my lady. She made me swear on the cross she wore about her neck that I would tell no one. And I have not.” She straightened her shoulders and said, “I have kept her secret as I promised, milady, even from the earl.”

“Damn and blast!” Charlotte said. “What a coil!”

“Yes,” Olivia agreed. “Quite.”

“What are we going to do now?” Charlotte said to Olivia as she paced the room, her curls bouncing. She flung a hand toward Sally. “Here is the one person with the answers to all our questions, and she cannot tell them to another living soul for fear of eternal damnation. What are we to do?”

“A promise made on a cross is inviolable,” Olivia said glumly.

“I know,” Charlotte said. “But maybe I can come up with some way around it, if I think about it long enough.” She turned to Sally and said, “I don’t suppose you would consider breaking your vow.”

“I cannot,” Sally said. “Even if you threaten to kick me out in the streets,” she added, to show how hopeless any possibility of learning the truth was.

Charlotte sighed. “At least we know a little more now than we did before.”

“We do?” Olivia said.

“We know for certain that Lady Alice loved your brother. Which means we know for certain that Lord James used some sort of coercion to have his way with her.”

“We have no proof of any of that,” Olivia said.

“We have Sally.”

“She’s not talking,” Olivia pointed out.

“But Lord James may have,” Charlotte said. “All we have to do is find out who his friends were and ask them a few questions.”

“We can’t do that!” Olivia protested.

“Why not?”

“Because when we begin asking questions, people will begin to ask why we are asking questions. What happened to Lady Alice was a tragedy. If more were known, it would create a scandal.”

“We’ll be discreet,” Charlotte promised.

“I could help,” Sally offered.

“How?” Charlotte asked.

“I’m not sure,” Sally said. “But if you need to know anything that I did
not
promise to keep secret, I will be glad to tell it to you.”

“Thank you, Sally,” Charlotte said. She turned to Olivia and said, “Just think, Livy, if Lion could be made to see that Lady Alice did not willingly betray him, his memories of her might be less painful. He might become a less bitter man.”

“That is a goal worth trying to achieve,” Olivia conceded. She took a sip of her chocolate and made
a face when she discovered it was cold. She set her cup aside and said, “All right, Charlotte. I’ll help you.”

“You won’t be sorry, Livy,” Charlotte promised. “And don’t worry. We’ll be subtle. And sly. No one will even suspect us of interrogating them.”

Lion had decided he could no longer delay finding a gentleman who would make a good husband for Charlotte. The incident in the study had brought home to him the dangers of leaving her unattached any longer. Maybe once she belonged to some other man, he would cease having the sort of thoughts about her that had plagued him more and more lately.

Charlotte in his bed. Charlotte naked beneath him. Charlotte’s breast in his mouth. Charlotte arching up to him as he thrust inside her
.

Good lord. What was he thinking? The girl was his ward. He was responsible for making sure her honor was protected.

A definite case of the fox guarding the hen coop.

That was how he had ended up standing next to
a sharp-edged palm, avoiding the stifling crush of perfumed and cologne-doused bodies at Lady Hornby’s ball. Olivia was sitting along the opposite wall, lace spinster’s cap firmly in place, with a cluster of young misses who had not taken and their doting mamas.

Charlotte was standing not far from Olivia, surrounded by a collection of fashionable fribbles, coxcombs, and court cards. She was smiling rather too broadly, he thought, but so long as she did not laugh out loud, he was content to let her peruse the gentlemen around her at her leisure. He had informed her earlier in the evening that she was to examine them and make her choice.

“Are you saying I may choose whatever man I wish to marry, and you will respect my choice?” she asked, brows raised high in disbelief.

“So long as he is not a gazetted fortune hunter,” he said. Immediately, several other possibilities for disaster occurred to him, and he added, “Or addicted to gambling, or continually cupshot.”

“Is that all?” she asked, looking amused.

“The choice is yours, as I said, but you might want to eliminate second sons.”

He knew she had misunderstood his reasons for saying it when her brows arrowed down between her eyes, her lips flattened mutinously, and her cheeks puffed out like a ship at full sail.

“Because they end up as soldiers or clergymen,”
he explained. “One will leave you behind to go off to war. The other will bore you to death.”

Her expression lightened. “Oh. I see. Any other suggestions, before I go out to make my selection?”

Choose me
.