Scandal (32 page)

He grabbed her arm and leaned in. “There will be no disgrace, Sophie. None.”

She pulled free. “I'll have you know I am writing again.”

“In secret,” he said bitterly. “And in the dark of night, I'll warrant. As if you had no other choice.”

“Choice? What choice have I, my lord?” She put her hands on her hips and glared at him.

“I'd never let you give my child another man's name.”

“I don't need a husband.”

“That's absurd beyond belief.”

“When I've sold the book,” she said, looking ahead to the phaeton, “I intend to remove to lodgings elsewhere. In Duke's Head, perhaps. If I tutor some of the children—young ladies are always in need of French lessons and I think I sing tolerably well so I might add music to my repertoire of useless talents to pass on to future generations of idle young wives—I expect I'll supplement my income and scrape along well enough. I'll only have my own bills to pay.”

“Scrape along. On ten pounds a year. If you're fortunate and only if you're not with child.” The corner of his mouth curled.

“You've never been without more money than anyone should have, my lord. But I assure you, I have. I'll manage on ten pounds a year. I'd manage on five, if I had to. For me, that is a fortune. And I shall be happy to have the money, I do assure you again.”

He turned, grabbing her hand so that she had to stop. “You wrote Fidelia pages of nonsense, lies about how pleasant it was at Havenwood. How you and Mrs. Mercer had become bosom friends. You told her you'd been to Brighton and enjoyed a bathe in the ocean. I recall the setting quite distinctly.”

“I've a gift for a telling detail.”

“You wrote an excellent fiction, Sophie. I only wonder that you never added in a brooding hero who lived in the next village and whom you suspected of nobility and of having a heart you felt had been cruelly treated. Or perhaps a villain with designs on your delectable innocence.”

“I might have got around to it eventually.” She hated that he was so much taller than she. He made her feel insignificant the way he towered over her. “Do you make it a habit to read letters that were not directed to you?”

“My dear Mrs. Evans.” He loomed over her now. “Fidelia read your letter aloud. We were all touched by your description of the day your brother's headstone was placed. And Fidelia is now mad to go to Brighton herself.”

“I meant to entertain, after all. I'm pleased to know I succeeded. And if she longs for Brighton, then you must take her.” She was beyond rational reaction. She wasn't in a state of hysteria, but she knew she was overreacting and could do nothing to stop herself. “On your wedding trip, perhaps.”

“This is absurd.” He took a step toward her, and she stepped back, and he came toward her again. And by then, she found herself with her heel against a rock. If he hadn't put his hands on her shoulders she would have tripped.

“It's not absurd at all. I won't be the only woman to support herself with her pen.”

“Marry me.” His voice went low and harsh. His fingers dug into her shoulders. “I fail to understand this absurd conviction of yours that you must live without friends or lovers or anyone who cares for you.”

“I hate it here,” she said. The words came from nowhere. “I've been so terribly unhappy. I'd do anything to be free of this place. Even if it was the worst mistake of my life. Even if it meant I'd never be happy again.”

“Marry me, Sophie, and you will never want for anything.” He loosened his grip on her shoulder. “I don't mind if you write, you know that. You know I'd encourage you in that.” He spoke dispassionately, which seemed so odd in a man making his second offer of marriage. “I'll take you away from here. You need never see the Mercers again.”

“Banallt, I—I couldn't bear it.”

“You'll never forgive me for that night, will you?” His mouth twisted. “I was out of my mind, you know that.” His fingers tightened on her. “You know that, Sophie. You know what happened. I was not entirely myself.”

“You're wrong, Banallt. You don't understand.”

“Then help me understand. Make me understand.”

“I can't marry you, Banallt. How can I?”

“All you have to do is say yes.”

She took a step toward him, hands fisted at her sides. “Imagine that I did, Banallt.”

“Very well.”

“You'll be bored one day, and you'll see a woman who's lovely and I'll be miserable all over again. Trapped, just as I was with Tommy. You'll crush my heart into dust the way Tommy did.”

“I am not Tommy Evans.”

“I cannot live like that again. I won't!”

“Don't be a fool, Sophie.”

Twenty-eight

Rider
Hall,
AUGUST 10, 1813

 

 

 

SOPHIE CAME INTO THE BACK PARLOR AT SUCH A CLIP THAT by the time she saw Banallt, it was too late to slow down. Not that it mattered. He had some nerve calling here at half past ten at night when everyone knew that only something dreadful would bring a man from London at this hour. Banallt, she well knew, had been in London. With Tommy. She came to a halt and smoothed her skirts. But Banallt never thought of those things. He'd come here never imagining the terror she'd feel at being told she'd a caller so late at night.

“What is it, my lord?” she asked without bothering to hide her annoyance at being disturbed so late.

The moment she saw his face, her heart stopped beating.

Lord Banallt stood at the fireplace, his greatcoat still on, a beaver hat in his hands. His hair was brushed back from his high, pale forehead, spreading like spilled ink to his shoulders. Cashmere trousers fit close along his legs, and one of his driving gloves poked out from his greatcoat pocket. Absurdly, she noticed the aquamarine he wore on his right index finger. A cabochon set into a heavy gold band. He seemed never to keep a neckcloth properly tied, and tonight was no exception, though a diamond sparkled at the base of the knot. Standing there in the shadows, with his dark, too-long hair and his too-pale face, he looked like a man whose life had just shattered beyond repair.

Tommy must be injured or ill or worse, she thought with a suffocating panic. Why else would Banallt come here with that broken horror in his eyes? A plate of figs, left by the day servants who ought to have known better than to leave them out, sat on the table near where she'd stopped. A stack of books from the subscription library was too near the edge. She put her hand on the table to steady herself and had to catch one of the books to prevent it from falling to the floor.

“Mrs. Evans.” He took a step from the fireplace. His eyes were tortured. He'd not shaved. He wasn't untidy, but he wasn't immaculate. “Sophie.”

She gripped the edge of the table. “What's happened?” she asked. She pressed a hand to her heart. “Is Tommy all right?”

He smiled, but it was the bleakest smile she'd seen in her life, and it struck cold terror into her blood. “Your husband is, to my knowledge, quite well.” His voice was low and controlled. Horribly controlled. For a moment he turned back to the fireplace, but only to balance his hat on the ledge. Just so.

“Then why have you come?” she asked. Something had happened. She knew it. She knew the moment she saw his eyes that something dreadful had happened. While his back was turned, Sophie picked up the book next to the figs. It was not one of the few volumes in the house and not one from the circulating library, either, but one from Banallt's private library. He must have brought it with him. The morocco cover was engraved with his crest.

“Do you read Latin?” he asked without moving from the fireplace.

She dropped his book. “No.”

“Just as well. Ovid is a rather ... fast poet. I do not think you would approve. I should not have brought it. I wasn't thinking.” His expression was perfectly calm, but his eyes frightened her. She found herself looking into a storm of despair. How would he survive if that storm broke?

“Why not?” She couldn't bear his eyes and so stared at the straight black hair falling to his collar. His beauty had always unsettled her. He looked as she imagined Satan had looked in the instant after he was cast forever out of heaven.

“If you read Latin, you would know.” He watched her with his tarnish eyes and then walked to the table of books. “But you do not read Latin, and there I think we should let Ovid rest. Perhaps one day I will translate him for you.” He took another book and inspected it, coldly controlled. “I wonder what you would think of my library, Sophie.”

She let his use of her given name pass. “I'm sure it's much better than the circulating library here.”

“Mm.” He closed the book and said, “I like to balance the light with heavy, spice with bland. Hot with cold.”

“Romance with Latin?” she said. Why was he here? The chill in her blood settled in her chest and slowly spread.

“Amour with hate,” said Banallt. His hair spilled across his cheek when he turned his head toward her. As always, his eyes defied interpretation of his thoughts. The pit of her stomach clenched. With another of his reserved smiles, Banallt tapped the top of the stack of books. “I'm curious, Sophie, do you write novels to feed your reading habit? Or does your reading habit feed your novel writing?”

“Why have you come here?” She stared into Banallt's pewter eyes, her throat threatening to close, as if he'd somehow transferred to her the horror banked within those tarnished depths. She filled her lungs with air, but it didn't help, because she knew, she knew with absolute certainty, that someone had died.

“If not Tommy, then who?” she whispered. Banallt's face slid into nothing. He opened his mouth and then closed it. She went to him, against her better judgment, narrowed the distance between them, and laid a hand against his cheek. “Banallt, what's happened?” At first she thought he meant to deny anything was the matter. “You know you can tell me anything. Anything at all, Banallt.”

“My daughter,” he said, and then his voice cracked, and with that break emotion stormed in his eyes. He bent his head to her shoulder and put his arms around her, holding her tight. He sobbed until Sophie thought her heart would never mend itself. She held him until the worst had passed.

“What happened?” she softly asked.

His breath trembled on the way in and more on the way out. He shrugged once, a slight movement of his shoulders as he lifted his head. “Everyone said she'd be fine. The physician more than anyone, and I believed him. Children fall ill and recover all the time. But she didn't. She died in my arms, Sophie, and there was nothing I could do.”

“My poor Banallt,” she said. Emotion quavered in her voice, too. She knew he loved his daughter, wholly and without any reservation whatever. She wanted there to be a way to take away his devastation and there wasn't. “My heart is broken for you.” She stroked his cheek. She'd never touched him like that before, and despite the unshaven face, his skin was softer than she'd imagined. “But you held her, and that must have been a comfort to her and to you, as well. She was not alone.”

“I am her father,” he said. “I should have been able to save her. It was my duty. She is the only good thing I've ever done in my life, and now she's gone.”

“Hush,” she said. Tears dammed up in her throat.

“The world stopped,” he said. “And began again. Without her.”

“I am here.” She walked to the sofa and sat down, Banallt next to her. “Tell me,” she said. “Tell me everything.”

For quite a long time he talked about his daughter, the why and how and all the moments when he fell into the unconditional love of a parent for a child. During the silences, she held his hand and sometimes pulled his head to her shoulder. But after a while, he recovered himself and sat back. She stroked his cheek, brushed away a lock of hair that fell like silk across her fingers. His gaze found hers and held hers. She was aware, all too aware now, that theirs could be a lover's embrace. She stood, and his hands slid along her hips as she did. “Let me get you something to drink.”

He watched her all the way to the side table where Tommy kept the brandy she never touched. How many times had she wanted to dash the bottle against the wall? The silence was altogether different now. His mood had shifted from broken to dangerous, and she was no longer certain how to behave. An intimacy had been breached. She wiped her hand on her skirt before she dared fill a glass with brandy. Banallt left the sofa. Her pulse raced at the thought that he was walking toward her, but he was only going to the fireplace. She heard the skittering of the scuttle against the bin that held the coal.

He wouldn't, she thought. She trusted him. He wouldn't presume.

The silence deepened. Banallt replaced the screen. She could not see him but knew he'd walked behind her. If she were to look at him now, she'd have to crane her neck. She took great care in stoppering the brandy. The stopper tapped the rim of the bottle and let out a perfect crystal chime.

“Are you writing still?” he asked. He wasn't as near to her as she thought. Thank God. She turned, put the glass into his hand, and retreated.

“Yes.”

“Is your heroine in danger?” he softly asked.

“Yes,” she replied. His voice sent a ripple of awareness up her spine. “Trapped in the ruins of an abbey with a ghost and the body of her murdered mother.”

“Has she swooned yet?” His fingertips moved up and down the glass, and the light from the fireplace caught the aquamarine.