London's Last True Scoundrel (39 page)

He searched her face for some sign that she understood, but her eyes—those glorious, gold-flecked eyes—did not relent. They simply filled with tears.

“You must not say those things,” she said, squeezing her eyes shut as if to block out his words. Tears slid down her cheeks. “I simply
cannot
…”

She shook her head vehemently, catching her lip between her teeth. She opened her eyes again. “It is too late for this, Jonathon. Far too late.”

“No! No, it can’t be.” Davenport strode forward, intending to pull her into his arms. Something he ought to have done immediately. She could never resist him physically, and he wasn’t above taking unfair advantage of that fact.

She warded him off with a sharp wave of her hand. “Don’t! Don’t touch me, I can’t bear it.” In a tone of near despair, she cried, “Oh, why can’t you just let me go?”

He’d reached for her, but now he let his hands fall by his sides. He felt as if he’d been gutted like a fish. He’d laid open his insides for her inspection and she’d spurned them without hesitation. Pain, jagged as a fisherman’s blade, cut through him. He took a ragged breath and realized there was nothing left for him to say.

Beckenham chose that moment to poke his head into the room, causing Honey to turn her back, wiping surreptitiously at her eyes with the back of her hand. “If you want to take Miss deVere home, Davenport, I can clear up here.”

When a tense silence greeted him, Beckenham’s dark gaze flicked from one of them to the other. “Oh. Sorry.” He cleared his throat awkwardly. “I’ll go.”

“That’s quite all right, Lord Beckenham,” said Honey, turning with a brilliant smile and only the slightest hint of dampness on her cheeks. “I’d like you to take me home, if you would be so good. Lord Davenport must attend to his business here.”

Beckenham cocked an eyebrow at Davenport for confirmation.

After a long pause, Davenport nodded. It was his responsibility to see that Yarmouth and Ridley got their comeuppance.

More important, he needed to stop digging a bigger hole for himself with Honey. He needed to find a way to convince her he was in earnest. He
had
to convince her. The alternative was unthinkable. He’d just discovered he couldn’t possibly live without Hilary deVere.

“I’ll send Lydgate over with the magistrate,” said Beckenham, offering his arm to Honey. “Yarmouth won’t stand trial, of course, but Xavier is already working on the problem of what to do with him, I believe.”

Adding clairvoyance to his other alarming qualities, Davenport thought. He watched with agonized frustration as his Honey smiled at his dependable cousin. Thanking him for his kindness, she tucked her hand into Beckenham’s arm and left.

All the light left with her, it seemed. Not even in the darkest hours of his exile had he felt so alone.

*   *   *

Hilary was too shattered to speak once they left Mr. Mason’s house, and Beckenham did not press her. The terrors of the past few hours seemed to fade into insignificance when compared with the agony of her final talk with Davenport.

The pain was too great for anyone to bear. How would she go on without him? Worse, how could she stop wanting him, even when she knew she’d made the right choice? Hadn’t she known all along how dangerous it was to fall in love with such a man?

She might have put on a brave face with Davenport when she rejected his proposal, but now she confronted the reality of ruin, the contempt of everyone she’d ever respected and admired. She dreaded facing anyone who belonged to that world. Cecily and Rosamund would be crushingly disappointed in her. Not to mention Lady Arden and the Duke of Montford. None of them would ever speak to her again.

What an idiot she’d been. She ought to have considered all of this before she’d fallen into bed with Davenport. What had he said once? It was his job to seduce her and her job to stop him. She’d failed at her duty quite miserably, had she not?

But she hadn’t succumbed to his outrageous charm, nor had she fallen in love with a handsome face. It was his innate kindness, his understanding of human foibles, and his readiness to forgive them in others that had undone her resolve.

He’d never judged her lacking because of her family or where she lived. He’d poked gentle fun at her insecurities, inviting her to laugh at things that once had so intimidated her. He’d defended her with his words and, when necessary, with his fists. He was a hero in the unlikeliest of all packages.

That’s why it killed her to hear those precious words on his lips. He’d said he loved her, and it seemed to her that he said it more easily each time. He’d almost convinced himself it was true. But he hadn’t convinced her.

Now she must do what was best for both of them and leave London for good.

As Beckenham’s curricle drew nearer to Half Moon Street, she wondered if even the vulgar Mrs. Walker would turn her out of doors once she heard the news of her disgrace. That seemed a prospect too humiliating to contemplate.

With a dull sense of inevitability, she said, “Lord Beckenham, would you take me to my brothers’ lodgings, please? They’re in Jermyn Street.”

*   *   *

When all was finished with Yarmouth and Ridley and it became clear that Gerald and Lady Maria had resolved their differences, it was far too late to do anything but go home.

Before he left, Lady Maria assured him she’d said nothing to anyone about “that other matter,” by which he took her to mean that now she was happy with Gerald she no longer sought to make everyone else’s life a misery.

Hilary’s reputation was safe. He meant to make damned sure it remained so by marrying her as soon as he could get her to actually speak with him again.

He wasn’t fool enough to make any further attempts tonight. Or this morning, as it now was. When his business was finished at Mason’s house, he went to find Beckenham.

They said confession was good for the soul, but it certainly wasn’t good for one’s amour propre. When Davenport finally divulged why Hilary might choose to hide out with her brothers rather than return to Mrs. Walker’s or Rosamund’s house, Beckenham’s response had been worse than a fist in the face.

Davenport was treated, at great length and in painstaking detail, to all the reasons he was less than dirt beneath Hilary’s dancing slippers. Every one of which he already knew.

“Why don’t
you
marry her, then?” he demanded of Beckenham, giving voice to the jealousy that had been gnawing at him for days now.

“I?” said Beckenham, his brows knit. “You believe I have an interest in Miss deVere? I have a kindness for her, of course, but that is all.”

He appeared bewildered by the accusation, as if when it came to love he was not even in the running and no one could expect him to be.

Cecily was right. Georgie Black truly had ruined Beckenham for all other women.

For the briefest of moments, Davenport’s heart lifted. But no matter what Beckenham felt or didn’t feel, that didn’t change the essential facts.

Honey wouldn’t have him because she didn’t believe he truly loved her. She thought he acted from chivalry. Chivalry! Now that was rich.

*   *   *

The following morning, Davenport dragged his aching carcass up to the rooms Hilary’s brothers had hired for the duration of their London stay and banged on the door. Hilary’s brother Tom answered the door on Davenport’s third knock.

“Oh. It’s you.” Tom leaned his significant bulk against the doorframe and crossed his arms.

“I don’t want to fight.” Davenport held up his hands in a gesture of peace. “I just want to see Miss deVere.”

“You’re too late,” said Tom, stifling a yawn. “Ben’s already taken her home.”

“What?”
Turning away, Davenport raked a hand through his hair. He swung back and said, “Did she leave anything for me? A note, a message, anything?”

The other man appeared to think about this question carefully before he said, “No.” The door slammed in Davenport’s face.

His first impulse was to drive all the way to Lincolnshire to plead with Honey to take him back, but he made himself stop and think. He used to be good at thinking.

He was a coward, she’d said. Afraid to love.

He kicked at a stone that lay in his path. He wasn’t afraid to love. He loved her, didn’t he? Of course he did. The seesawing emotions he’d experienced in the last few days had to be the product of either insanity or love and he wasn’t quite ready for Bedlam yet.

He adored her. He’d told her he loved her. It hadn’t been an easy feat to force those particular words past his lips but he’d done it. Yet it seemed that wasn’t enough.

He needed some perspective, which he wouldn’t get haring off after her as soon as he could saddle a horse. He needed perspective, and he needed help.

And he knew just where he might find both.

Sighing with a mixture of inevitability and apprehension, he wrote to Cecily, Rosamund, Lydgate, Beckenham, and Xavier, requesting their presence at a council of war. On second thoughts, he sent for Lady Arden and the Duke of Montford, too.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

“Letter for you, miss.”

“Thank you, Hodgins.”

Hilary watched the manservant depart with a twinkle in her eye. Ever since she’d persuaded her brothers to purchase a new suit of clothes and give him the official title of butler, she’d noticed a marked improvement, from the way Hodgins carried himself to his manner toward her.

Hilary had made other changes around Wrotham Grange. The large pack of dogs no longer roamed the rambling mansion at will but was confined to the library, her brothers’ domain.

Since their recent sojourn, Tom and Benedict had developed a taste for London and were home less often, which suited her. Presumably, her stipulation that they might entertain women only when she was away from home might have had something to do with that.

She kept herself busy with setting the household to rights, even persuading Tom to fund the most urgent structural repairs.

There wasn’t a moment in the day she wasn’t conscious of the ache of loss. An ache that turned sharp and jagged when she knew for certain she wasn’t carrying Davenport’s child.

She ought to send up thanks to Heaven. What a calamity that would have been.

There was nothing to do but carry on and make the best of her situation. Her notoriety did not seem to have spread to this corner of the world, so she grabbed at overtures of friendship from locals with both hands.

Her London stay, brief though it had been, had taught her much. She liked to think her experience with Davenport had mellowed her; she no longer minded everything she said and did, nor did she judge others as harshly. She, of all people, knew about fallibility now.

For the first time, she had friends. True friends, who she trusted would not abandon her if news of the stain on her reputation ever spread as far as Lincolnshire. She wanted to think these good people’s friendship underscored the falsity of what she’d found with the Westruthers. She had not heard from any of them in a month. They must be snubbing her on account of her disgrace. She’d expected as much.

Yet her heart was not so cynical and refused to feel disillusioned. She still believed she’d found something special with Davenport’s family. It hurt when they abandoned her, but she understood the reason.

Using the knife in her desk, she slit open the letter Hodgins had handed her. Two smaller cards enclosed in it fluttered to the ground. The letter was from Cecily and it read:

Dear Hilary,

Davenport strictly forbade us from writing to you before now, so do forgive our silence, won’t you? We were monstrous put out that you ran off without a word, but if my dear brother was being his usual Infuriating Self, who can blame you?

Only now we are in a quandary. Lady Arden procured these vouchers for Almack’s, as you will see.…

With a gasp, Hilary scooped up the two cards that had fallen free from the letter. The topmost one bore a blotchy red seal and the signature “M.S.”. It read:

Ladies Voucher

Deliver to:

Miss Hilary deVere

Tickets for the Balls on Wednesdays in
April,
1819

There was one Wednesday left in April.…

“What’s the matter, Miss Hilary?” Trixie asked. “You look like a goose run over your grave.”

“Yes, quite well, thank you,” said Hilary absently. Dear Trixie. How she’d stare to hear they were bound for Almack’s!

She looked at the other voucher and saw Davenport’s name scrawled in spiky black ink.

“He did it.” Wonder filled her as she read the voucher over and over.

“He
did
it!” She jumped up and grabbed Trixie’s hands and danced her in a vigorous jig around the room.

When she let go, Trixie put her hand to her bosom, her cheeks flushed, eyes bright. “Does that mean we’re going back to London, Miss Hilary?”

At the mention of London, Hilary’s initial flush of elation gave way to caution. She tried to calm herself, but the butterflies in her stomach thrashed about with gay abandon.

“I don’t know. Wait, let me see.…”

With a shaking hand, she snatched up the letter again. Greedily she devoured the rest of Cecily’s missive:

You will be pleased to know that the Trouble we anticipated from a Certain Quarter is no longer a threat. You are free and, indeed, welcome to return to us at any time. You should not have run away, dear Hilary. If you were better acquainted with the Westruthers you would know that when we set our minds to something, we
always
prevail!

If you choose to attend the subscription ball next Wednesday, I do beg of you to bring Jonathon’s voucher with you and meet him outside Almack’s at ten o’clock, for they close the doors at eleven sharp and do not admit anyone after that time.

My brother could, of course, call for you in Half Moon Street, but where would be the fun in that? A rendezvous is so much more romantic, don’t you agree? Just do not get yourself kidnapped again!! I’ve heard quite enough gnashing of teeth from my male relatives over that incident to last me a lifetime.