Dangerous to Love (8 page)

A groan broke from him, and he twisted to his side, one arm flung over his eyes as he tried to shut out the harrowing memories. He remembered the cold, little doll-like faces of his brother and sister, and the frenzied resistance he had put up when the orderly had tried to take the twins away from him. ’they’re not dead! They’re not!” he cried out helplessly. “They are sleeping. Why won’t you believe me?” Later, he’d heard that the parish officers never intended that young children should survive the appalling conditions. It was too costly to keep them.

He had escaped from the workhouse and had tried to find his father. Another blow awaited him. While he had been incarcerated in the workhouse, his father had died of jail-fever and had been buried in a pauper’s grave.

God knew what would have become of him, a boy of thirteen, if he had not fallen in with a whore, a madam of a brothel. Billie McGuire was her name, and for some inexplicable reason, she had taken to the waif who lived and slept rough in the alley outside her door. By this time, fearing that the authorities might be after him, Julian had changed his name yet again. From that day to this, he had been known as Julian Raynor.

At this point in his reflections, Julian got off the bed and went to stand by the long sash window, staring out at the scene below. Barrow boys were patrolling the streets, selling their wares, and footmen and maids from nearby houses were purchasing succulent baked pies and fresh fish and other delicacies for the noon meal.

A year ago, when he had opened his club in this fashionable neighborhood, it had seemed that he could go no higher. He’d owned other gaming establishments in his time, and though he had done remarkably well from them, those had been in the provinces.

In London, he discovered, gaming houses flourished in spite of the laws against them, and the authorities turned a blind eye to what was going forward under their very noses. They could hardly do otherwise when the chief offenders were gentlemen in the upper echelons of both government and court circles. So long as one was circumspect, no questions were asked. For this reason, his gaming house was officially known as a gentleman’s club.

He still felt as he had always felt since he had left his schooldays behind. He did not belong; he was a foreigner in a strange land; he had nothing in common with the people he met and mixed with. When a patron once paid
his gaming debts with a plantation in the distant Carolinas, a new dream had captured his imagination. He wasn’t looking for security or riches. He was looking for something worthwhile to give his life to. And just as soon as he had dealt with Sir Robert Ward, he would shake the dust of England from his feet and begin a new life in the New World.

That restlessness was upon him again. He strode to a large oak wardrobe, pulled out his riding gear, and began to dress.

It was one of his usual rides, and Saladin, his roan, would have known the route without direction. On a rise overlooking the hamlet of Chelsea, Julian dismounted. On one side, there were boats drawn up on the mud flats, and stands of plane trees and beeches shaded the foreshore. On the other side were the blackened ruins of Kirkland Hall. It was here that his mother had been born, here that his parents had met and fallen in love.

After mounting up, he descended the hill at a canter, then slowed to a walk as he approached the ruins. The gardens were a wilderness, and the once stately house, seat of generations of the earls of Kirkland, was now home to a flock of crows. They rose as one at his approach and croaked furiously before finding perches in the nearby avenue of oaks.

This was where it had all started, the night Lady Harriet Egremont had eloped with her brother’s tutor, but there was far, far more to the story than Julian had been told by his parents. What they had not told him was that same night, Lord Hugo and his friend, Sir Robert Ward, who were both Jacobite fugitives, both hiding in the house, were betrayed to the authorities and government troops had swooped down on them. Lord Hugo was shot dead in the melee; the old earl was taken into custody. His destination would be the Tower. Only Sir Robert
escaped. The last thing the soldiers did was put their torches to the Hall, burning it to the ground.

It was only in the last year that Julian had been able to piece the story together, only in the last year that he had discovered that Sir Robert Ward was the nameless, faceless monster who had stalked his father in revenge for what had happened that night. There had been some sort of proof, in the form of a letter, that William Renney was the informer, and when Sir Robert returned to England after the Jacobites received amnesty, he had made it his life’s work to discredit William Renney and bring him to ruin.

Not for one moment did Julian accept that his father had been an informer. He knew him too well. Both his father and mother had passed on a set of precepts that had become the plumb line by which he measured his life. He might not be able to live up to those precepts, but he knew what they were. William Renney had lived his principles. He could never have committed so base an act.

Sir Robert Ward had set himself up as judge and jury and the verdict had been to bring William Renney to ruin and despair. And he had succeeded. But not well enough. Renney had left behind a legacy—a son with a debt to discharge.

Serena Ward was a complication he had not foreseen.

J
ames, Earl of Kirkland, shook his head. “The chances of Sir Robert Ward receiving a p-pardon for his p-part in the Rebellion are not very high.”

This was not what Julian wanted to hear. Nevertheless, he treated Lord Kirkland’s words with the respect they merited. As deputy minister at the War Office, the earl was in a position to know. He was reputed to be a tireless gatherer of information, with spy networks all over England and Scotland. Kirkland had good reason to be cautious. If there were another Jacobite uprising, he was the one who would be called to account.

They were in the reading room of Julian’s gaming club, a very masculine haven done in shades of beige and brown, and not a flimsy, gilt-edged chair or mirror in sight. Sturdy oak tables and straight-backed armless chairs were set around the room in informal groups. This was the quietest room in the house, where patrons could amuse themselves by reading the latest copy of the
Daily Courant
and other periodicals, or, like his lordship and Julian, engage in quiet conversation. There were several gentlemen in the room, but none of them would have dreamed of imposing himself on a private conversation unless invited, and they expected the same courtesy to be extended to themselves.

“Others have received pardons,” said Julian. “Why not Sir Robert?”

“Because,” said the earl, “Sir Robert has defected to the S-Stuarts twice in his lifetime. That makes him a traitor
twice over. He is not one to learn from his m-mistakes. He will never give up. He will always plot insurrection.”

Julian thought about this for a moment. “Jeremy Ward was never of the Jacobite persuasion, was he?”

“No. Jeremy is not unlike m-me. Whatever we may think of the H-House of Hanover, we know that the Stuarts w-will only lead our country into anarchy. B-better the devil you know than one you don’t know, if you see what I mean.”

Julian laughed. “That’s a strange thing for one of His Majesty’s ministers to say.”

Lord Kirkland looked slightly abashed. “What I m-mean to say is that I am for peace and stability.”

“Yes, and like most Englishmen, you don’t care if a monkey sits on the throne of England?”

“Quite.” Lord Kirkland signaled to one of the waiters. “Bring us a bottle of Madeira, if you please,” he said.

Of all Julian’s patrons, Lord Kirkland always received the best attention from the waiters, not only because he tipped generously, but because he was unfailingly polite. Within minutes, the waiter was setting down a bottle of Madeira and two glasses.

As Lord Kirkland measured out the wine, Julian took a moment or two to study the older man and reflect on their friendship. The earl had made himself known to Julian shortly after he had opened his gaming house. He was half persuaded, the earl had told him in his diffident way, that Julian must be related to him, perhaps a distant cousin on the Egremont side of the family? It turned out that Julian’s likeness to Lord Hugo was uncanny.

From that remark, Julian deduced that the earl and Lord Hugo had been as different from each other as chalk from cheese, for there was certainly no resemblance between himself and the earl. Kirkland had a thin, ascetic
face, and his almost Puritan disdain for ornamentation gave him a monklike appearance.

A distant cousin on the Egremont side of the family? Julian had replied vaguely, revealing nothing. Nevertheless his lordship had convinced himself that Julian was the bastard child of his brother, Hugo. It’s what the earl wanted to believe, was pathetically eager to believe, as if Hugo lived on in Julian. As for his mother, Lady Harriet, she was never mentioned. Julian could not bring himself to raise her name, not trusting himself to speak of her without breaking down like a baby.

Blinking rapidly, Julian accepted the glass of Madeira his lordship held out to him. He coughed to clear his throat. “I was in Chelsea the other day and took the opportunity, I hope you don’t mind, of looking over Kirkland Hall. You never thought to restore the house to its former glory?”

“No, n-never. I leave that to my son, H-Harry. If it were not entailed, I m-might be tempted to sell the Hall. For me, it will always have too many tragic m-memories. And of course I don’t mind, my boy. I’m only sorry that the fire destroyed all the p-portraits of our ancestors. Hugo isn’t the only one you take after, you know, and it’s more than looks. You are very like Hugo in other ways too. He was always the adventurous one, very confident, yes, and sometimes, alas, foolhardy.”

“Lord Kirkland, I’m not convinced that—”

“I know, I know. F-forget I said that. It’s only, well, it would be comforting to think that we were related, you know?”

Julian nodded sympathetically, and sipped his Madeira. When government troops had descended on Kirkland Hall, the earl had been no more than a boy of twelve. At a single stroke, he had lost his whole family. His sister had eloped, never to be seen again, his older brother had been
shot to death before his eyes, and shortly after, the old earl had died a broken man in the Tower. The earl’s life and his own had many parallels. They had both become orphans at approximately the same age. He understood the earl’s sentiments only too well. Orphans never got over the feeling that they were alone in the world.

Though there were some similarities in their early lives, there was one major difference. He had been maddened by grief at the loss of his father. No one had mourned the old earl’s death. By all accounts, he had been a brutal, unfeeling father. His son, James, had succeeded to the title at twelve years. Unfortunately, he had also succeeded to a guardian who, it was reported, was every bit as ferocious as the old earl. He’d led a terrible life until he had reached his majority.

After that, the earl’s luck had changed. He’d married one of the richest heiresses in the whole of England, and if that were not enough, it was a love match to boot. There was a house in Hanover Square, and a palace of a place in the country near Seven Oaks. In spite of his wealth and position of eminence at the War Office, however, Kirkland was a very unassuming gentleman. It was said that he lived in fear of his own servants. This was an exaggeration, of course, but there was a germ of truth in it. Julian deduced that his lordship had had all the spirit beaten out of him as a young boy. He felt sorry for him, and at the same time, he liked him immensely.

He hadn’t forgotten his real purpose in seeking Lord Kirkland out. Turning the conversation back to the Wards, he said, “I have recently come into possession of some bills and mortgages belonging to Jeremy Ward.” This was not an unusual event for a gambler. Patrons frequently paid their gaming debts with vowels they held from others. “Is it possible, do you suppose, that he is trying to raise money to buy a pardon for his father?”

Lord Kirkland gave Julian a keen look. “I take it you would be in favor of such a m-move?”

Julian understood what was behind the question. Sir Robert and Lord Hugo had been fast friends. It was only natural that a son of Hugo’s would be sympathetic to the baronet. “Why not?” said Julian. “He is a beaten man. What can he do? At the first hint of trouble, the authorities would haul him off to the Tower.”

“What can he do?” Lord Kirkland snorted. “What c-can he do? If you only knew Sir Robert Ward, you w-would not ask that question.”

“What manner of man is he?” asked Julian, settling himself more comfortably in his chair.

“You never met him?”

“No. I didn’t come to London much until I sold out after Prestonpans. By that time, Sir Robert was in Scotland, fighting with the Prince. Later, of course, he was a fugitive and had made his way to France.”

“You joined the army at sixteen, I believe you told me, and did a stint in India?”

Lord Kirkland was doing it again, probing into his past, trying to find a connection to his brother, Hugo. They had been through all this before.