Seven Nights in a Rogue's Bed (31 page)

“Hello?”

The only response was the echo of her voice. What on earth had happened in her absence? Had William turned off the staff? She knew things were bad with her brother-in-law, but she hadn’t realized his finances reached quite that pass.

She was walking toward her bedroom along the second-floor corridor when she heard a muffled bang from the schoolrooms above. Fear tightened her skin. Had a robber broken in? There wasn’t much to take. William had sold anything valuable. Whatever little remained after Jonas’s father had ransacked the house before his death.

Quietly, she set her bag down and lifted a chipped earthenware vase from a side table. If it had been whole, William would have sold it long ago.

She crept up the next flight of stairs. Carefully she inched the nursery door open and raised the vase above her head. Only to drop it in shock.

“Roberta?” she asked over the crash of pottery on bare floorboards.

Her sister whirled around from clearing the crammed and dusty shelves along one wall. At her feet sat two gaping valises. One overflowed with toys. The other was empty.

“Goodness gracious, you frightened the life out of me.” Roberta rushed forward through the pottery shards to hug Sidonie. “Are you all right? I’ve been so worried about you.”

Sidonie returned the hug, feeling Roberta’s trembling tension. Her sister’s manner was always brittle but this surpassed her usual nervousness. Something was seriously wrong. “I’m fine.”

Robert drew back and surveyed her with a frown. “That’s a little pat for a woman who’s just returned from the monster’s lair.”

“He’s not a monster.”

“He didn’t hurt you?”

What to say? “No.”

“I’m so glad. Although I can hardly believe it. I must hear everything, but not now. Now you have to help me.” Roberta turned to grab another handful of toys from the shelves and stashed them into the empty bag.

Apprehension stabbed Sidonie between the temples as she finally saw her sister properly. Roberta looked dreadful. Distraught and untidy, when Lady Hillbrook always appeared in public
comme il faut
. Dust hemmed her green muslin dress, grime smudged an alabaster cheek and her coiffure wasn’t far from collapse.

“What in the world are you doing? Where are the servants?”

With unsteady hands, Roberta pitched a cracked slate into the empty bag. “I sent them off for the afternoon. They’re all sneaks and spies.”

From habit, Sidonie checked her sister for signs of violence, but she seemed unharmed. “Are you all right?”

Roberta avoided her eyes and grabbed a worn set of lead soldiers that the boys hadn’t touched for years. She struggled to stuff them into the bag. “Of course I’m all right. Oh, for pity’s sake, why can’t these things fit?”

Sidonie surged forward and grabbed her sister’s busy hands, holding them until she caught Roberta’s undivided attention. This close, she saw the blind panic that underlay Roberta’s confusion. Only one person terrified Roberta like this. “What’s wrong, Roberta? What has William done?”

What in heaven’s name was going on? Had William found out about the losses to Jonas? Had the mental instability the duke mentioned at Castle Craven burgeoned into full-grown madness?

Sidonie could see Roberta was too distracted to think beyond the present moment. Even the peril she’d sent Sidonie into didn’t really register beyond her current fear.

“We can’t talk now.” Roberta flung off her sister’s grip and turned to snatch another handful of toys. “We have to go before William arrives.”

“Are you leaving him?”

Roberta dropped the toys willy-nilly. A cricket ball with a split seam missed the bag and rolled across the floor. “Yes.”

Sidonie wasn’t sorry to hear the news, although she wondered just how she and her sister would survive until the legacy came into effect in January. “But why?”

“The man’s a pig.”

“He’s been a pig your whole married life. Why leave now?”

“There’s no time to explain.” Roberta’s eyes glittered with spiraling dread. “For pity’s sake, help me pack.”

Sidonie’s tone firmed in an attempt to calm her sister. In eight turbulent years of marriage, she’d never seen Roberta like this. “Just tell me what’s going on.”

Nervously Roberta checked over Sidonie’s shoulder as if expecting William to appear like a bugaboo from a children’s story, rising to devour his victim. “Sidonie, don’t push.”

“This behavior seems lunatic. And what do you want with the boys’ toys?”

Roberta cast a fleeting glance at the overflowing bags. “Don’t be a slow top, Sidonie. I’ll need money. Curse that blackguard for stripping the house of everything worth selling.” Her expression brightened. “Did you find anything valuable in the library?”

Sidonie shook her head. “It’s all rubbish. What’s made you leave William?”

Roberta finally stopped flinging toys about and looked at her, twisting her hands in painful distress. “I lost at cards.”

Sidonie, still reeling from parting with Jonas, staggered back. Horror made her light-headed. Hardly believing what she heard, she pressed a shaking hand to her sinking heart. She was too appalled to be angry, although she’d be angry soon enough. “Roberta, you didn’t. After losing that fortune to Mr. Merrick?”

Roberta had the grace to look abashed, but she rushed on before Sidonie mustered further censure. “A mere trifle. Two hundred guineas at piquet to Lord Maskell. The scoundrel pressed for payment, then threatened to tell William.”

Oh, Roberta, no…

The scale of this disaster beggared imagination. Sidonie had assumed her sister would be so chastened after skirting disgrace with Jonas that she’d change her ways. What a naïve fool she’d been. Roberta would never change. She was addicted to gaming the way a toper was addicted to brandy.

“Roberta, how could you keep gambling after what happened with Mr. Merrick?” she asked through stiff lips.

Roberta’s shrug was unconvincing. She’d known what she risked, but she’d gone ahead and gambled anyway. “I had a run of luck. Only a ninnyhammer leaves the table when the cards are kind.”

“Until you lost two hundred guineas,” Sidonie said bitterly. Acrid rage curdled her stomach as she battled the impulse to wring her sister’s delicate neck. “Where do you intend to go?”

Oh, Jonas, I wish I’d stayed with you. I wish I’d never left Castle Craven and your arms.

“I thought Brighton or Harrogate. Somewhere amusing.”

Sidonie’s lips tightened, but she resisted screaming. It would do no good. “Haven’t you had enough amusement?”

Roberta’s lips started to tremble. “Don’t be cross.”

“I can’t help it.” Sidonie sucked in a deep breath and sought some solution to this catastrophe. The clamor of competing obligations made her dizzy. The marriage lines gave her some pull over William, but that meant never telling Jonas about his legitimacy. And if Roberta hurt William’s pride, it was possible that out of spite, he’d insist on her continuing to live with him, title or no title. Sidonie also needed time to arrange for William to release
guardianship of his sons. Roberta’s hysterical escape would make William so angry, he’d never negotiate. Sidonie knew from experience how unreasonable he was when taunted.

She struggled to speak calmly. “William will find you in a fashionable town. You need to disappear. At least until my legacy comes due. Even then, William mustn’t know where you are. He has the law on his side if he wants you back.”

The frenzy drained from Roberta’s eyes and briefly she became again the older sister Sidonie had always loved. “You know what my life has been. You of all people should support my bid for freedom.”

“You haven’t thought about this.” Sidonie stifled the urge to say more.

“I’ll think once I’m away.” With renewed agitation, Roberta reached for a set of spillikins high on the shelf beside her. “We must go. He’ll know I came here. It’s the first place he’ll look.”

Through the red haze of anger, she saw Roberta’s expression change. Her sister went white as new snow, the dirt on her face standing out like a scar against her ashen complexion. As she faltered back, spillikins tumbled from her grip to clatter onto the floor.

Like a deadly miasma, William’s oily tones oozed through the fraught atmosphere. “So gratifying you know me so well after eight years of wedded bliss, my dear.”

I
ce thickened Sidonie’s blood. “William…”

He slammed her against the wall when he shoved past, forcing the air from her lungs in a painful
whoosh
. As he strode toward Roberta, his boots crunched on broken pottery. Using his bulk to intimidate, he loomed over his cowering wife. “Tried to scarper, did you, bitch?”

“I… I’m sure I don’t know what you mean, dear heart,” Roberta stammered, edging away until she bumped into the empty shelves behind her.

Dread tangled Sidonie’s belly into painful knots. One look at William’s slitted eyes and swelling cheeks, and she knew the moment she’d fought so long and hard to avoid rushed toward them. William was about to kill Roberta.

On trembling legs, Sidonie surged forward to force herself between Roberta and William. “Don’t you touch her!”

“Get out of my bloody way, you useless slut!”
Keeping his gaze on his wife, William grabbed Sidonie’s arm with bruising force and flung her to the floor. As she went down, she banged her head. Agony overwhelmed her and briefly her world turned black. Frantically she fought to clear the fog of pain from her vision. Voices echoed weirdly as she sprawled at William’s feet, words only gradually making sense through the ringing in her ears.

“Don’t hurt my sister!” Roberta cried, flinging herself in front of Sidonie.

“Shut up, you useless cow.” Hazily Sidonie watched William seize Roberta by the hair and force her to her knees. He tugged roughly until her neck strained at an awkward angle, forcing her to meet his eyes.

“William, please, I beg of you!” Tears cascaded down Roberta’s ashen cheeks.

William’s face was scarlet and spittle collected at the corners of his mouth. He raised one beefy fist over his wife. Sidonie’s belly lurched with sick horror. “Maskell told me what you’d been up to.”

“Please don’t hit me!” Roberta struggled to break free but came up short when William savagely wrenched at her disheveled chignon.

“Let her go!” Sidonie screamed.

Clumsily Sidonie staggered to her feet and threw herself at William. Hissing, she dug her fingernails into the hand gripping her sister, deep enough to draw blood. For a few blind seconds, she wasn’t attacking Roberta’s violent husband but the jackal who had disfigured Jonas and laughed while he did it.

“Fucking hell! You little cat!” With a wild swerve, William released Roberta who subsided gasping to the floor and turned on Sidonie.

William was heavy with fat, but he was still a big, powerful man and more than a match for a woman Sidonie’s size. Ruthlessly he pried her fingernails off him then cuffed her. Pain exploded through her body as she smashed again onto the bare floorboards amid broken pottery and scattered toys. Her hands clasped over her head, she curled into a ball to protect herself. Fighting unconsciousness, she braced for William to kick her. Behind her, she heard Roberta edging across the littered floor away from her husband.

“What—” she heard Roberta say in choked astonishment, then there was a thunder of boots and a resounding crash.

“Touch her again and you’re a dead man.”

Astonishment kept Sidonie huddled against the floor. Her ears must be playing tricks. She was sure that was Jonas’s voice. But it couldn’t be. She’d left Jonas at Ferney.

Gingerly she lowered her arms. Hands fisted at his sides, Jonas stood gasping over William who lay splayed upon the floor.

“Jonas—” she croaked, her relief more dizzying than William’s blows. On a surge of hope, she tried to stand, but she couldn’t yet coordinate her limbs.

“Get up, you devil, so I can knock you down again,” Jonas hissed through his teeth to William. His angular face was stark with abhorrence and rage.

Shaking his head to clear it after what must have been a powerful blow, William struggled to sit. One plate-like hand nursed his jaw and his eyes focused on Jonas with a poisonous loathing that made Sidonie shiver. “Get off my property, you bastard scum.”

“Jonas, what are you doing here?” Sidonie asked.

Without shifting his attention from his cousin, Jonas stepped back to offer his hand. “Are you all right?”

“Yes… yes.” His hand was strong and warm and shored failing courage. Rising set her head swimming and she clung to him until she found balance.

“What the hell is this?” William lunged to his feet with renewed temper. Sidonie shrank toward Jonas as fear slithered down her backbone. “You call this blackguard by his Christian name? Have you lifted your skirts for this muck, you little trull?”

“Shut your foul mouth.” Jonas wrenched away from Sidonie and reached William in one bound.

William surged forward to hurl Jonas against the shelves. He landed with a deafening thud, dislodging what toys remained. Through the clatter, Jonas’s agonized grunt made Sidonie’s belly clench with horror.