In Love With a Wicked Man (14 page)

The ladies were arguing over a certain pair of shoes they should or should not have bought. They were not looking at him. Could not see him for the liar he was.

And suddenly a flood of thoughts came roaring like a swollen river through his head. Rising in waves, like white, frothy peaks in his brain. A crashing, rushing reality. And a history. He looked about, and recognized the milliner’s shop on his left.

He could see the yellow bonnet that had hung in the window the summer before Colombo and Trincomalee. Maria had wanted it. He hadn’t the money. But that was before the fire. Before the army. He could see the encampment again; they had been out shooting. Someone . . . someone had drowned. A terrible tragedy.

Maria?

No. Maria died in England.

The drowning—that was Ceylon. Edward shook his head, attempting to reorder his thoughts. To sort what mattered from what did not. Ceylon didn’t matter; it was over. But Maria mattered.
Annie
mattered.

“Edward?”

Miss Wentworth was looking at him strangely across the carriage.

Recalled to the present, he swallowed hard. “Yes?”

“Are you all right?” she gently prodded. “You look as though you’ve seen a ghost.”

Even then, he was not perfectly sure why he hesitated. Perhaps because the thoughts—the memories—were still so jumbled in his head.

“No,” he rasped. “No, I’m fine.”

Miss Wentworth smiled, and returned her attention to Kate and the shoes. She was quite sure they had been more green than blue. And the heels either too high or too low.

Faced with no alternative, Edward did what he made it a strict policy never to do. He took the coward’s way out.

He was not proud of it. But he pretended to go to sleep anyway, tipping his tall hat down over his eyes and crossing his arms over his chest.

“Look,” said Miss Wentworth after the business with the shoes was settled. “Edward has drifted off, Kate! Indeed, I’m a little worried. He didn’t look at all well this morning.”

“Did he not?” said Kate vaguely. “Perhaps he didn’t sleep well.”

“Obviously, he didn’t,” she said tartly. “Something must have kept him awake last night. Perhaps we should call Dr. Fitch?”

“There was a barn owl, I think,” Kate lied. “Up on the parapet. I didn’t sleep well myself.”

“A barn owl?” Miss Wentworth said incredulously. “Why would a barn owl be on a parapet?”

“I have no idea,” said Kate. “Perhaps it was some other sort of owl.”

“Perhaps you have owls in your belfry,” said her sister.

They squabbled good-naturedly all the way home.

Edward passed the time attempting to breathe beneath his hat brim, and trying to think of heroic ways in which a gentleman might kill himself—then, on his next feeble breath, reassuring himself that things could not possibly get worse.

The rest of the day was to prove him wrong.

Over and over and over again.

U
PON THEIR RETURN,
the trio was met in the great hall by Fendershot and Jasper. The latter was soon staggering under bandboxes and cloaks, while the former was motioning them into the library.

“The most amazing thing, Your Ladyship,” he was saying to Kate. “Do just come this way.”

All three of them followed the butler into the library to see a stack of books on one of the long oak tables, and Edward’s watch laid open on a velvet pillow, a magnifying glass beside it.

Fendershot cast an expectant gaze over them, then drew a deep breath. “The more I studied the lozenge—it was, you see, that unusual griffin
segreant
that caught my eye—and my great-uncle, you see, was once in service to the Earl of Oakley, and I remember he had a—a sort of silver tray that the earl gave him in honor of his many years of—”

“It’s all right, Fendershot.” Kate laid a hand on his arm. “You needn’t fully explain. It is clear you’ve seen something familiar?”

Fendershot drew a deep breath. “Just so, my lady,” he said, pointing to the watch. “This part of the lozenge is taken from the Earl of Oakley’s coat of arms.”

“I do not know Lord Oakley,” said Kate. “But then, I know scarcely anyone. Who is he?”

“I don’t know who he is
now
,” said Fendershot. “A cousin of the sixth earl, I believe, for the sixth earl had only daughters, two of them. And his title, unlike your own, could descend only patrilineally.”

Kate was nodding. “Only from father to son.”

“Just so,” said the butler. “Moreover, if we refer to your grandfather’s old peerage, we will see that Oakley’s eldest daughter was named Isabel and his youngest was named Caroline.”

Edward felt a rush of emotion; something cold and a little sickening.

But Kate and her sister were studying the book that lay open beside his gold pocket watch.

“So, if we follow this—” Fendershot was drawing his finger along a line of type.

No, let’s not
, thought Edward.

“—then we see that Isabel married Baron Keltonbrooke,” the butler droned on, “and became Isabel, Lady Keltonbrooke, now his relic. Further, my lady, it is important to note that Baron Keltonbrooke was an only child—”

“Yes, yes,” said Miss Wentworth, leaning over the book, “but we don’t want to learn all these names. What can they have to do with Edward?”

“I’m merely explaining that Lady Keltonbrooke has no nephews on her husband’s side,” said Fendershot patiently. “She hasn’t
anyone
on her husband’s side. And she hasn’t any children, either. Moreover, she has only two nephews on her sister Caroline’s side.”

“Yes?” said Kate, her brows knotted. “And who was her sister again?”

“She was Lady Caroline Smithers,” said Fendershot, pausing dramatically, “
but she married the Duke of Dunthorpe!
”

“Oh, my God!” squealed Miss Wentworth, clapping her hands. “
Is Edward
a long-lost duke?
Edward! Kate! How romantic!”

“Er—well, no,” said Fendershot, “but I’m fairly certain he’s Lord Niall Edward Dagenham Quartermaine, the duke’s second son.”

Edward must have made a choking sound. Kate had turned to look at him.

“Edward,” she whispered. “There were initials. On your valise.
Those
initials. Fendershot must be right. Mustn’t he?”

He shook his head. “No,” he said quietly. “Not . . . exactly.”

K
ATE WATCHED A
strange emotion pass over Edward’s face. No, not emotion. It was more an absence of emotion, bizarre and a little chilling.

Indeed, he had been behaving more than a little oddly since leaving Taunton. She had not for one moment believed he had been asleep on the drive home. She had assumed—mistakenly, she now feared—that he’d merely wished to avoid Nancy’s nattering over shoes.

But it was not that. No. He had seen something.
He knew something.

“Lord Niall Quartermaine!” said Nancy effusively. “It does suit you.”

“
Do not
call me that,” he uttered. “I was never called Niall. Nor do I now use a title.”

His voice was cold, and as absent of emotion as his expression. Nancy’s face fell, and she looked at him a little woundedly.

Kate drew a deep breath, and clasped her hands before her. “Well, Fendershot,” she said, “you are, as always, a marvel. Thank you. Now, would the two of you kindly excuse Edward and me? We will have particulars to discuss, I think, in light of this shocking development.”

The butler bowed. “But of course.”

Nancy opened her mouth to protest, then, with another glance at Edward, followed Fendershot from the room.

“This is not welcome news, Edward, is it?” Kate managed as soon as the door was shut.

Edward had begun to roam the room, which was not especially large. “No,” he said flatly. “I fear it is not.”

Alarmed at his tone, Kate followed him to the windows. Hands clasped tightly—too tightly—behind his back, Edward stood looking blindly out at Bellecombe’s formal rose garden, now bare save for those last, dry leaves that still clung hopelessly to the rose canes. His posture was utterly rigid, like that of a soldier, and the soft laugh lines about his mouth and eyes had hardened into something far more brittle.

“You remembered something on the drive, did you not?” Kate tried to sound matter-of-fact.

He did not answer. It was as if he had gone elsewhere, and could not even hear her.

“Edward?” Lightly, she touched his arm, and felt him flinch.

After a moment, he spoke. “You have been nothing but kind to me, Kate.” His diction was as flawlessly upper class as ever, but his voice seemed to belong to a different man. “And I owe you, of all people, an explanation. But it is to be an unpleasant one, I fear.”

She let her hand drop. “Edward,” she whispered, “Edward, please, you’re scaring me.”

He said no more, as if turning something in his mind. As if determining how much to tell her, or how he might soften the blow. “Kate,” he finally rasped. “Last night I lost my senses. I said things to you that I’d no right to say. I suggested things. I’m . . . so sorry.”

Kate felt a sort of cold numbness flooding through her body and into her extremities, and for a moment she feared she might faint, because the most horrific thought had just struck her.

“Dear God,” she murmured. “Edward. Please tell me you . . . you are not
married
?”

“No.” Finally, he turned from the window, but his eyes were soulless. “No, I have never been married. I was once betrothed. Or believed myself betrothed. But she died whilst I was in the army.”

“Oh.” Kate’s face fell. “Oh, Edward. I’m so sorry.”

He shrugged as if it didn’t matter. “Perhaps it would not have lasted,” he said. “She was young. And her family disapproved.”

“I . . . oh, I see.”

“I very much doubt you do,” Edward returned. “But that is neither here nor there.”

It was very much here and there to Kate, but she had grown a little frightened of the look in his eyes. She said nothing, and let the shoe hang.

“Your butler suggests I’m the son of the Duke of Dunthorpe,” he said. “It is true that I was born to the Duchess of Dunthorpe and called for some time Lord Edward Quartermaine. But when I was ten it was explained to me that I was not, after all, the duke’s son.”

“Oh.” Kate dragged in a breath. “Oh,
Edward
. That is terrible.”

“Oh, I think the duke rather relished telling me,” said Edward, the corners of his mouth drawing taut. “He had never been fond of me, for I looked very little like him. Indeed, I looked much like my mother who, I gather, had not the strongest of moral fiber.”

“Still, what a cruel thing to do!” Kate cried. “To . . . to tell such a thing to a child! And really, the law does not allow him to put you aside. If you were born to the Duchess of Dunthorpe, the law concludes you to be his son. One cannot simply declare a thing to be . . . to be
not so.
”

Edward shrugged, his profile harsh and stark against the window’s light. It was a dismissive, almost haughty gesture. “The law is one thing, and the practicalities another,” he said. “In the heat of an argument, my mother made the mistake of throwing my parentage in the duke’s face. And that, as they say, was that.”

“And that was
what
?” Kate whispered. “What happened?”

Edward turned at last to look at her—to truly look at her. “He told her to get me out of his house, and to take me to my father where I belonged,” he said calmly, “and that if she could not bring herself to do it, he would put the both of us out, and petition the House of Lords for divorce. And he would have got it, too.”

The feeling of cold and lightheadedness had returned. “And she . . .
she did that?
She took you from your home? To your father? But who was he?”

“Not a nice man,” said Edward, the words clipped. “Indeed, he was the sort of man, frankly, whose son should probably not be welcomed into your home. And beyond that, I would prefer to say no more.”

“But you are still the duke’s son in the eyes of the law,” said Kate, “if he did not take legal action.”

Something like rage fleetingly flared in Edward’s eyes. “If that is the straw your kind heart clings to, my dear, then it is a tenuous reed, indeed, that you grasp.” He thrust out a rock-steady arm, and pointed at the long library table. “I may well be listed in those fine, leather-bound tomes of your grandfather’s, but no one imagines me to be anything but what I am—the bastard of a beautiful but flighty duchess, and a vile piece of trash who was not fit to wipe the dirt from her shoes, let alone seduce her into his . . . into his . . .”

He spun away, back to the windows, pinching hard at the bridge of his nose.

“Christ!” he said. “I cannot believe this has happened. That I have dragged you, of all people, into this quagmire of filth.”

This time Kate did not touch him. “Edward, listen to me,” she said warningly, “this has happened because we had an accident—an accident which I caused—and that is the end of it. Moreover, I do not concern myself with what others think or wish to believe—”

“Well, you had better concern yourself,” he snapped. “If you cannot think of your own good name, Kate, you had damned well better think of your sister’s. She wishes to marry the rector, you will recall. And then there is Lady Upshaw. She has, what—? Two or three daughters in the schoolroom? And they are about to descend upon you within the next few days?”

“Edward, I’m sorry for all this, but your worry is premature,” said Kate, drawing herself up to her full height. “As to Richard, he’s a better man than to concern himself with such foolishness. As to my aunt, she’s not bringing her daughters, and even if she were, it is my opinion that carries the weight in this house. Do not for one moment think it otherwise.”

“Christ!” he said again.

“
Edward
.” This time she did touch him, but lightly. “Edward, do not fret so.
Please
. Listen to me. I’m glad your memory is returning. It will be all right. It
will
.”

But Kate was shaken. She could not escape the fear that her life had just changed inexorably; that it had just turned as brown and bare as the rose canes clattering in her garden, casting off the last shriveled leaves of autumn.