Leslie Lafoy (24 page)

“You.”

“And how you expect to marry me?” he added, his pulse beginning to pound behind his eyes.

“I really thought she ought to know that I’m carrying your child.”

For a second his jaw dropped and his heart fell to his feet. And then reality slammed home. His mind racing furiously ahead, his blood coursing white-hot through his veins, he snarled, “You have to be kidding.”

“The mother of the groom should not be the last to hear of such things, sweeting.”

“Christ Almighty, Sarah!”

“Sweetheart, please,” she cooed. “There’s no reason to be upset. Your mother seemed quite pleased at the news.”

Why his brain chose that precise moment to go absolutely numb … He stared at Sarah, dully thinking that he must have been damn desperate to have ever chosen her as a lover.

“You have a really interesting life.”

He looked down to meet Simone’s dark gaze. The corner of her mouth was tipped up and one raven brow was arched. God, she was beautiful. And intelligent. And as soon as he could deal with Lucinda, he was going to put their relationship back to rights. If he had to crawl through glass to grovel at her feet, he would. Well, maybe not crawl literally. Just because he was going to admit stupidity didn’t mean he had to give up self-respect and pride.

“And you are?” he heard Sarah ask caustically.

Simone’s smile went ever so slowly wide as she shifted her attention to his former lover. “Dredge your memory. We met on the dock two days ago.”

Ah, yes. What a perfect response. How perfectly Simone
.

“My, my,” Sarah drawled, glaring up at him. “Haven’t you been a busy boy.”

He nodded and decided that there was no point in mincing words. “Sarah, I’ve tried to be kind and understanding, but we’ve now passed the point where I have the patience for it. Listen carefully. I am not going to marry you.” As she looked at him aghast, he pointed to the rented carriage and went on, saying, “Put your arse back in that hack, have it take you to the inn, pack your bags, and be on the next ship sailing west.”

“I’m afraid that I can’t, sweetheart,” she countered, her smile in stark contrast to the flint of her tone. “Your mother and I are having dinner this evening to discuss how to best make you accept your responsibility and do the
honorable
thing by me. If you’d like to spare us the effort, you could join us and we could spend the evening planning the wedding instead. It would be
ever
so much more enjoyable.”

“I won’t be there,” he declared flatly, firmly. “I am
not
going to marry you, Sarah.”

“We’ll see about that, sweetheart.” She wiggled her fingers at him, pivoted on her heel, and walked off toward the waiting hack, calling back, “Toodles!”

Toodles.
Good God.

“Well, I’ve completely forgotten all of my problems.”

He looked down at Simone. “If she is pregnant,” he said, cutting to the core of the current matter, “it’s not my child.”

“Are you sure?”

He nodded. “It was over a year between the last time I saw her and the other day when she showed up on the dock. Yes, she was my lover when I left San Francisco for my last trading voyage. When I returned ten months later, it was to find both the news that I had inherited the family title and an invitation to her wedding to a man out of Seattle. I had Gregory send them a gift and I sailed for England three days later. I didn’t see her in that time. I didn’t talk to her. I sure as hell didn’t bed her.”

Simone seemed to consider it all for a moment and then shrugged. “All of which doesn’t matter in terms of the scandal she can create with the accusation.”

“I don’t give a damn about scandal.”

“But if Lucinda thinks you might—”

“She knows me better.”

“No. Let me finish,” she said softly. “If Sarah really were carrying your child, it would be a potential heir. If Lucinda thinks there’s even a remote chance of Sarah forcing you to marry her in the next few months so that the child is born legitimate…”

The full scope of the consequences hit him square on. “Jesus,” he muttered, raking his fingers through his hair. “Why is my brain not working?”

“I’d suggest you avoid going to dinner,” Simone offered with a half smile. “A massive dose of arsenic slipped into your and Sarah’s soup and all Lucinda’s dreams come true.”

“An accidental death by what everyone would assume was food poisoning.”

“It’s not a neat and tidy way to die, but I don’t think Lucinda cares all that much about neat and tidy.”

How very true. He sighed and looked off in the direction of the departing hack. “Sarah has no idea of the danger she’s placed herself in with her lie.”

“Yes, you have to warn her.”

Oh, Jesus. Wasn’t the whole situation ugly enough already? To go anywhere near her would simply escalate the woman’s hopes even further. “I’ll write her a letter and have Gregory deliver it.”

“And if she thinks you’re simply trying to scare her off?” Simone calmly posed. “If she takes that note to dinner with her this evening and shares it with Lucinda as proof of the extremes to which you’re willing to go? The cat will be out of the proverbial bag and Lucinda will have to kill you as quickly as she can manage it.”

Part of him was tempted to let her and be done with all of it. The stronger part of him rebelled at the notion of letting her win. “The results would be the same if I go in person to warn her. She’ll simply tell Lucinda about it.”

“Then the solution is to keep Sarah from going to dinner tonight.”

“And tomorrow night,” he countered, his brain finally—finally!—beginning to work in something approximating a normal manner. “And the night after that. And all the calling hours and teatimes between now and frigging eternity.”

“And even that’s no guarantee that Sarah will be safe. As long as Lucinda can find her, she’s a heartbeat away from being the victim of a tragic accident.”

“She has to go back to the States. Willing or not.”

“Or anywhere as long as Lucinda can’t find her,” Simone offered with a tiny shrug. “At least until the baby’s born.”

True. But … “If there really is a baby,” he growled. “I wouldn’t put it past her to lie about it.”

Behind them, the doors of the cathedral swung open and organ music spilled down the stone steps. Simone glanced over her shoulder and then looked up to somberly meet his gaze. “Just out of horrible curiosity, what is it about Sarah that appeals to you?”

“Not one damn thing,” he assured her.

“Something must have at one time.”

“I have no idea now what it was,” he admitted. “I suppose it was that she was easy and willing.”

He regretted the words the instant they left his tongue. He regretted them even more as Simone’s eyes darkened with obvious pain. “Don’t even think it, Simone,” he hurried to say. “You’re not at all like her.”

Her laugh was shallow and brittle and she didn’t turn away quickly enough to keep him from seeing the tears well along her lower lashes. Instinctively he reached out and laid his hand on her shoulder to stay her, saying gently, “You’re not, Simone. Honestly.”

She glanced at the church and then quickly stepped away from his touch. With a wholly false smile, she said, “Do stay safe, Tristan.”

Of course. They were bringing the casket out. People were watching them. He couldn’t expect her to say anything more personal than that. “Thank you for caring.”

She laughed softly, the sound still a bit fragile, as she put more distance between them. “I don’t care about
you,
Tristan. It’s simply that the mayhem around you is the only interesting thing in my life. If you die, I’d have to find another entertainment, and that’s such a bother.”

And then she turned and walked away. No wiggling of her fingers, no threats, no stupid
toodles
. No, Simone was a woman of considerable substance. And pride. He’d done an excellent job of battering the latter over the course of the last few days. Odds were, when she got past the hurt of thinking of herself as being in the same class of throwaway women as Sarah Sheraton, she was going to be furious at him for putting her there.

“Is everything all right, Lockwood?”

He looked up from the walkway and into Noland’s pale blue eyes. Actually, everything was as close to disastrous as Tristan ever wanted to get, but explaining it all wasn’t something he was going to do as mourners streamed past him.

“I assume that Lady Simone recovered from her grief?”

It depended on what grief they were talking about. At the moment, he couldn’t say that he’d done anything except add to her sad memories. And until he dealt with Sarah and then Lucinda … “We have a task to undertake, Noland.”

“Oh? Could I hope that it’s a matter of grave national concern?”

“Would you settle for a significant personal problem?”

“If I must.” He grinned. “Does it have to do with a certain well-curved young brunette?”

“A blonde, actually.”

Noland tsked and shook his head. “Damn, Lockwood. And here I thought you and Lady Simone made a rather attractive match.”

“Really,” he drawled, intrigued. “How so?”

“You have like temperaments and seemed—to my eyes, anyway—to share a certain … well, shall we say an unrestrained enthusiasm for life.”

“That’s putting it delicately.”

Noland grinned. “I try.”

“And it’s deeply appreciated,” Tristan assured him. “Now, about this blonde…”

*   *   *

How in the world
, Simone silently groused as she waited for Fiona and the others to join her. How in the world she could be furious with him one minute, and not a heartbeat later fully and happily in league with him … For god-sakes, the man had seduced her, ended the affair in what had to be considered, even among rakes, to be record short order, then turned around and flaunted another of his lovers, and she couldn’t seem to loathe him for any longer than it took for him to smile at her.

If she wasn’t certifiably insane, then she was at least spineless. Weak. A complete idiot without a single shred of common sense or self-respect. She should have kept quiet and let him trot right off to dinner with Miss Yoo-hoo and slurp down a liter of poison. She’d have been doing the world a favor. But no, she’d piped right up and warned him of the possible danger. And then, as though that hadn’t been enough, she’d told him that he had to warn his new old lover! Had to go off to her room at the inn and save her from the plotting of the evil Lucinda.

That was assuming, of course, that Lucinda really was the vicious killer Tristan claimed her to be. He might very well have made it all up to play on her sympathies and draw her more easily into the seduction. It had been the tipping point. Until then she’d decided against …

No, she amended, taking a deep breath, she had to be honest. When she’d gone out to meet him in the garden she had been willing to let him sweep her into an affair if he was so inclined. She’d decided that she didn’t want to own the decision herself and put it all on Tristan’s shoulders. He’d held to his course and she’d gone happily along. And she’d been more than content with the outcome, more than willing to continue on with him.

Then he’d ended the affair and she was left with … with … nothing. Well, nothing aside from the memories of one night of incredible pleasure. And the regret that she wasn’t going to have any more.

God, men complicated life. But she’d learned her lesson and learned it well. Never again was she going to let a man disrupt the … boredom. The sheer, unrelenting, absolute boredom of her existence.

“Are you feeling better, Simone?”

Fiona. Soft, quiet, ever gentle Fiona. The sister who could see through false smiles and breezy lies. “Not really.”

“Would you care to talk about it? Drayton and Haywood are discussing politics on the steps and I’m a very good listener.”

Simone shrugged. “I don’t know what to say or how to begin. Sometimes I think I know what’s troubling me and then, even as I try to sort out a solution, I lose track of it as my mind flits off to consider something else.” She laughed weakly. “And with just as much success.”

“What were you thinking about as I walked up?”

“How utterly boring my life is.”

“Boring in what way?”

“There isn’t anything to it, Fiona. Nothing of consequence, anyway. I get up in the morning and have absolutely nothing to do with my day that means anything to anyone. When someone asks how my day has been and what I’ve done with it, there’s nothing to tell them that’s even remotely interesting. Honestly, if I didn’t get up, if I decided to spend the rest of my life lying in bed and staring at the ceiling, it wouldn’t affect a single person on earth.”

“That’s not—”

“Oh, Fiona, please. Your animals would perish if you weren’t there to care for them. If something happened to Drayton, the Liberals in the House of Lords would be staggered and Caroline would make Victoria look like a piker in terms of grieving. And if something happened to Caroline, all of our worlds would fall apart. But if I cocked up my toes in the next five minutes … Not one ripple.”

Fiona considered her for a long moment and then smiled softly. “But it’s different when you’re with Lord Lockwood.”

A statement, not a question. The truth, plain and simple and undeniable. “Which was inexcusable of me,” Simone countered. “I know better. I know better than most women, actually. Caroline and Drayton were the only people I’ve ever known for whom a relationship is more than trading sex for money.”

“And what’s wrong with hoping that you can have the same kind of happiness as our sister’s found?”

“There’s nothing wrong with hoping,” Simone admitted. “But it’s absolutely pathetic to be disappointed when your luck isn’t as good as someone else’s.”

“Are you sure it’s over between you and Lord Lockwood?”

“Yes.” On his side of it, anyway. On hers … Apparently her pride wasn’t quite battered enough yet. “He promised Drayton that the affair was done.”

“People often say things because they’re expected to, not because they mean them.”

“He means it, Fiona.”

Her sister sighed and arched a pale brow. “So he promised Drayton. You make promises to Drayton all the time and have no intention whatsoever of keeping them.”