One More Kiss (26 page)

“It could have been much worse. If Crenshaw had still been among us there would have been a fight at least, if not a challenge to a duel.”

“Is Lord Crenshaw that hot-tempered?” Beatrice leaned closer and her spicy perfume made him want to tell her what was really on his mind. Instead he answered her question.

“Crenshaw loves nothing better than to savage someone, anyone, with words or fists. Appearing to stand for a lady would make it even sweeter.”

“My lord,” she began in a tentative style that was not her usual approach. “What is it between you and the baron that created such ill will this evening? I risk a set-down, I know, and understand if you do not wish to speak of it.”

Jess hesitated, which was not his usual style, either. The bastard had so many fooled that Jess had long ago abandoned any second thoughts he had about the part he’d played in Crenshaw’s divorce. It might not be solely his story but perhaps he could tell it in a way that would leave the innocent protected. And keep this innocent from being misled by Crenshaw’s supposed charm, but this was hardly the place for such a conversation.

“Beatrice, what is between Crenshaw and me has nothing to do with Destry’s behavior tonight.”

“I know, I know, and I understand that there is nothing that can be done about my sister and him until both parties are more themselves.” He smiled at the delicate phrasing and she smiled back. “This seems to be a good time for an answer to a question that has plagued me since we first met.”

“The only thing good about this moment is that we are alone together, but I am sorry, Beatrice, the corridor is not an appropriate place for me to talk about Crenshaw.”

As if proving his point, they heard footsteps coming their way and, much to Jess’s relief, Michael Garrett turned the corner and came toward them.

Jess was not sure what Garrett had heard, but he
showed not one ounce of censure. “If you two would like to continue your conversation, you can use our sitting room and Olivia and I will be your chaperones.”

He did not wait for an answer but opened the door just next to the Brent sisters’ suite.

“Just a moment while I tell Olivia.”

It did not take Garrett long, but it gave Beatrice enough time to enter her bedchamber and tell Darwell and Cecilia where she would be. Jess overheard Cecilia’s “There is nothing the marquis’s ambassador can say that will make me speak with that boor again!”

Jess did not hear how Beatrice replied but apparently she thought what he had to say was more important than calming her sister.

Michael opened the sitting room door and invited them in. Once he had the door closed he explained, “Olivia is already abed as she wishes to bake bread with Cook in the morning, the very early morning, but I have some work left to do on Sunday’s sermon.”

He ushered them to the fireplace, poured wine for them, plated some biscuits and moved a discreet distance away. He did seem truly busy with his Bible and papers.

The two of them sat and the silence grew and stretched and lengthened. Jess had told this story before, but he still did not know where to begin.

Then he realized that it all began and ended with dear Annie Blackwood.

B
EATRICE WAITED IN
silence for him to start until she wondered if he had forgotten her. Or changed his mind.

She had been sitting in a chair at a right angle to him and moved to sit beside him on the sofa. “Mr. Garrett has gone to all this trouble, my lord. You have to explain your anger with the baron. Please.” Best to add the “please” lest she sound too much like a duchess herself.

He began with a voice full of resignation and pain. “Crenshaw’s first wife was a close friend of our family.”

Beatrice wondered if he was referring to Annie, the woman whom Olivia had mentioned. Jess took a sip of wine before he continued. “My father, the duke, was her guardian and she grew up as Olivia’s dearest friend and remains so to this day.”

Beatrice began to sort the players in her head: Lord Crenshaw, Annie, the Duke of Meryon, and Lord Jess.

“How did she come to be part of your household?”
And how well did you know her?

“Her mother was Olivia’s governess until she became too—unwell—to continue.”

It sounded as though the word “unwell” was chosen out of kindness or the better part of discretion. Beatrice decided it was best not to give any thought to what compelled this governess to leave the duke’s employ.

“When Annie’s mother left our household she asked that Annie be allowed to stay. Of course my mother would not have it any other way. And for the rest of her growing years she was as part of the family.”

Did Jess realize he had used her given name?

“I have no idea how Crenshaw met her, but he asked for her hand at a point in his life when he had no expectations of inheriting the title. He had a brother who
would inherit and this brother had a son. Still, Crenshaw could have married higher than the guardian child of a duke.”

The kindness in his voice elevated the woman who held that tentative place in his family to something, someone, dear to his heart.

“I suppose Crenshaw thought an alliance with a ducal family would be to his advantage. And Annie was a woman accustomed to running a large household. Crenshaw had a nice enough estate very near Birmingham.” What he said made sense, but wasn’t it possible that Crenshaw had fallen in love with the girl? Beatrice kept silent, not wanting to interrupt the story.

Jess looked at Beatrice for the first time. Now the memory suffused his face with anger. “Crenshaw married her with my father’s blessing and they came to London.” He shook his head as if trying to understand how so great a wrong could have started so innocently.

“That must have been hard for all of you, especially Olivia. To lose her best friend and have her be at a distance where travel was not easy.”

“I suppose. I was in London, too, but beyond an initial call I rarely saw them. I sensed that Crenshaw was jealous and I did not want to make Annie’s life difficult. Beyond that, the entertainments of married couples are somewhat different from those of bachelors.”

He picked up a biscuit and then put it back down.

“To be honest, I wanted no reminders of my family. After my mother’s death, the duke, my father, became less and less pleasant. Those of us who could left home, and Olivia escaped to the kitchen. After my father died and my brother Lynford became duke, my life was
firmly placed in London. The only time I recall going back to Pennford was for his son’s christening.”

Did he know how revealing that was? How important his mother had been to his father and perforce to the family as a whole? She would have to think more about that later.

“Olivia tells me there were letters and all was well enough. But then there was the accident that took his brother and the heir’s lives and suddenly Annie’s husband was Baron Lord Crenshaw.”

Grief that brought good fortune could make for a very difficult period in any marriage, Beatrice thought.

Jess was staring at his hands, which he held between his knees in a relaxed way that made Beatrice think of defeat. There was another long silence before he went on.

“The letters from Annie stopped and my brother, who was duke by then, ordered me to call and see if all was well. I put it off for a fortnight just to be difficult.”

Jess caught her eye again, and the pain she saw in his gaze made her reach for his hand.

He held on to it with both of his.

“She was unwell?”

“Thin to the point of starvation, with bruises on her arms and a black eye. I asked her what had happened, but I did so in front of the baron and Annie would only say she had been ill and had fallen in a faint.

“I wondered if she had suffered a miscarriage, if you will excuse me for mentioning such a delicate subject. Trusting time would heal her, I left to meet my friends.”

Oh dear, that could not have been the right thing to do
, Beatrice thought.

“The next day, Annie’s lady’s maid came to me to
tell me that Crenshaw was off at a meeting and that I must come talk to her mistress. Annie’s bruises had haunted my dreams and I went back to his townhouse.” He shook his head. “I think if I had done no more than write to my brother, she would have been dead within the year.”

“But you did not and she is safe now.”

“Thanks to Leonie Darwell.”

“Our Darwell was Annie’s maid?” What a small world they were part of now, but that did explain Darwell’s strong defense of Jess and how he knew her Christian name.

“Yes, Darwell was her maid,” Jess went on. “She brought me back and insisted that Annie tell me the truth, that whenever Crenshaw was angry he would use his wife as his whipping boy. When they were to go out socially and he did not want her bruises to be seen he would shut her up in her room and not allow her to eat.”

Beatrice gasped. “But that sort of treatment is grounds for divorce, is it not?”

“Yes,” Jess said, but he was not done. “When Annie finished her story I told her she was coming with me, leaving everything behind, and that I would take her home to the Pennistans’ house in London and then escort her to Pennford when she was well enough. She left with me within the hour.”

If the story did not involve such pain for Annie, it would have been a very romantic rescue.

“It will tell you how ill and abused she was that she obeyed me without the slightest argument.”

Beatrice wanted to comfort him, put her head on his shoulder, but could hear Mr. Garrett rustling his papers.
She feared he would think it too intimate a gesture. Instead she whispered, “I am so sorry.”

He patted her hand in a fatherly way and she withdrew it from his. “Annie is the one who suffered the most. In every possible way.”

Beatrice nodded, but that did not mean his suffering was any less painful.

“When we arrived back at Pennford my brother was sickened by her story.”

He drew a deep breath and glanced over her shoulder toward where Mr. Garrett sat working. Whatever passed between them was communicated without words and Jess went on.

“But when my brother the duke confronted Crenshaw, the man insisted that Annie and I had contrived the alleged abuse to cover an affair.” He shook his head and actually smiled a little. “I love her, but like a sister, mind you, and my family knew it. More than once my father had hinted that we two should make a match, but neither of us wanted that.”

Beatrice wondered if he had ever “wanted” any woman enough to consider marriage. Or was the entire idea of being tied to one woman unappealing to him?

“In the end I told my brother that Crenshaw could apply to the House of Lords for a divorce on the grounds of infidelity and name me as the paramour, even though it was a lie.”

Too noble, Beatrice thought. Much too noble.

He looked at her for the first time since he’d started recounting the story, his face all too revealing, a mix of cynical, sober, and sad. “It was the one time in my life that my reputation for wildness was a help and not a
hindrance. For Annie it meant the end of her life in society, as much by her own choice as the ton’s. She stayed at Pennford and never went to London or even Birmingham again. Among the ton, Crenshaw had all the sympathy any cuckolded husband without an heir could possibly want.”

He sighed as if exhausted with the telling. “When another scandal made the rounds in a few months I was forgiven, for the most part, and welcomed back into those corners of society that I enjoyed the most. I never was one for Almack’s. And so I expect that when you have your Season we will hardly move in the same circles, my dear Miss Brent.”

“It is a tale of heroic proportions, my lord. Your willingness to sacrifice all for the good of a friend. I commend you for it. But then, tell me, why would you still wager with the man?”

“Make no mistake, we avoid each other. I suspect if he had known I would be in attendance here he would have found a way to back out.”

There was a tap at the door and Jess went to answer it. Darwell came in and, with a curtsy to the two gentlemen, addressed her. “Miss Beatrice, you must come back to your room now. Your sister needs you.”

Beatrice stood and took Jess’s hand. “I will keep your words in complete confidence.”

Jess smiled. Truly. “Thank you. Leonie Darwell is among the few who know the truth. As does Lord Destry. Your sister must be your dearest confidante, so I will trust your judgment to impart as much of the story to her as you wish.”

“To ruin his reputation, if only with Cecilia, is no less than he deserves. Death would be too kind.” Beatrice
regretted her words immediately. She walked over to Mr. Garrett. “I’m sorry, sir. That is unchristian of me, but anger rules at the moment.”

“I forgive you, and please believe that God understands anger better than we do. Crenshaw will have to explain his deeds when he is before God. Even I take great pleasure in thinking about that meeting.”

Beatrice nodded and left them with a gracious curtsy, following Darwell. As she and Darwell made their way down the passage, Beatrice told her, “Lord Jessup told me about Annie’s marriage to Lord Crenshaw, and the divorce.”

Darwell’s nod was her only comment but a moment later she could not seem to resist. “Lord Crenshaw does not know the meaning of truth. I think if he were to face death he could not be honest.”

Beatrice heard the bitterness and understood it. How awful it must have been to be so close to Annie and not be able to do anything to stop the abuse. The baron’s wife was not the only one who had suffered.

“And to think that I welcomed his attentions in Birmingham and even here as well.” It made her shiver. She was determined to avoid him. If nothing else, she would have the opportunity to practice the social nicety of being cordial to someone you hated.

“It makes Cecilia’s tantrum seem petty.” She would not allow herself to feel disloyal for speaking the truth.

“Yes, miss.”

As they moved through the sitting room toward her bedchamber and her sister, Beatrice took a moment to contemplate the oddities of life. The story she had just heard had been fascinating and would forever change her opinion of both Lord Crenshaw and Jess Pennistan,
and even her understanding of Darwell and what a lady’s maid must know and never tell.