The Misfit Marquess (24 page)

She told him how Radford had revealed he had done this to other women as well, that he had blackmailed their fathers by promising to remain silent about the ruination of their daughters only in exchange for money.

"I thought he was wealthy enough not to want my dowry." Elizabeth said, shaking her head at her own gullibility. "But he wanted more, much more than one paltry dowry. I could not let him blackmail my father, nor ruin Lorraine's chances to marry well. So I left him in the dead of night."

Elizabeth glanced up, dreading to see the comprehension that indeed shone from Gideon's eyes; that she had believed herself married, that she had shared her "husband's" bed.

She went on, perhaps speaking a trifle too rapidly, to cover her humiliation. "I suppose he came after me to retrieve his horse. It was a fine horse, I grant you, well matched with the other in his team. But the horse was taken from me by a patient from the asylum, and I was injured, and Rad— He must have thought I was dead or dying. If you had not interrupted his taking of the ring, or pulled me from that ditch . . ." Her voice faded away, and she shivered.

Tell me his name—the man who did this to you." Gideon said, his voice level, but there was a high, hot flame of anger in his eyes.

"No," Elizabeth said with finality. At Gideon's astonished glance, she explained. "I do not seek to protect him, but to protect my sister and father. Any word against this man would be passed to them. The only thing that keeps him from doing my family mischief has to be the uncertainty of whether I am alive or dead, and the knowledge I still have his signet ring."

Gideon threw back his chair and began to pace, his jaw working as it had before, only now with a darker emotion. "I want to kill this man," he growled.

She surprised him with a laugh. "I know," she said. "So do I."

He scowled at her, but she began to laugh at the incredulity on his face. Then her laughter swept him up, and she could see that despite himself he was grinning with her. "You are a savage creature!" he accused.

"Only likely to grow more so with age and regrets, I should think," she agreed with a little shrug and an answering grin.

He gave a huff of a laugh, looked into the shadows, and then back at her. He crossed the room, stopping before her chair, his feet spread so that he loomed close enough for his breeches' legs to brush the silk of her borrowed gown. While the corners of his mouth turned up faintly yet, still she could feel the anger that had not completely left him, and in a curious way felt warmed by his outrage on her behalf.

"Elizabeth, why did you tell me this? Why not wait, as you proposed earlier, to state it all in a letter? Do you not realize that you have taken a risk, that I could spread your story?"

"Of course I realize it."

"Then why tell me?"

"Because..." she began, but she could not tell him it was because she would never see or write to him again, that she would disappear from the circle of Society in which he resided, even if at its very edges here in Severn's Well. Even if she returned to Papa's home, her life would never be the same; it would never coincide with a marquess's world.

So she told him another truth. "Because I trust that you will not cast my tale about."

"You trust me?" he echoed, as though the words scarcely made sense.

She gave a tiny laugh, little more than a breath. "It would seem I am doomed to be forever a fool for trusting people." She gave a small shrug that included a moue of her mouth. "My great flaw," she conceded.

He stared at her without blinking, so near that he blocked a little of the warmth from the fireplace, replacing it with a different kind of warmth, one that made her toes curl inside the ruined slippers that she wore beneath her gown. He stood thus for a long time, perhaps as much as a minute, and when he spoke, his voice had lost its angry edge.

"You have not answered the question I originally asked," he said to her.

"Remind me what it was."

"Do you, Elizabeth, have a home waiting for you?" His words were soft, gentle even.

"No." It was a difficult answer to give, but she was done lying to Gideon, forever.

He took a deep breath, letting it out in a rush. "Then stay here, with me. Be my housekeeper. You have a gift for managing—"

"No!" she cried, and now it was the greatest effort of her life not to allow tears to appear on her lashes. She lifted a hand, whether to reach out to take his or to fend him off, she could not say. She did neither, her hand held before her, becoming a poor shield against the pain that welled in her. "Gideon, my lord, thank you for the offer. But no." She swallowed hard. "I must go. I have to leave here." And she truly must go and soon, she knew, for those were the most difficult words she'd ever had to utter.

She stood, forgetting about her foot until a sharp pain laced up her leg.

He reached out for her at once, steadying her.

"A servant, to carry me," she said, unable to get out any more words through the thickness in her throat.

"What is it?" Gideon asked, his fingers tightening on her arms. "Why are you crying?"

She shook her head, her hands now both against his chest, pushing away from him, furious with herself for losing the battle with her own tears.

He scooped her into his arms, cradling her so close to his chest that all she could do was lean into him, letting her tears blot against his cravat and shirtfront.

"Elizabeth," he said in a distressed whisper, "I never meant to insult you. I know you deserve better than to be a mere housekeeper—"

She could only answer with fresh tears.

"What else can I do?" he lamented, and she wondered if he meant about his offer, or her tears, or something else. There was no answer to give.

She tried to swallow her tears, not very successfully, as he carried her up the stairs to her room.

He left her there, but with obvious confusion, and not until a maid had been summoned to care for her. Elizabeth had wanted to explain, had wanted to let him know she was not insulted to be asked to be his housekeeper, but how could she assure him of that without revealing the real reason for her tears? How could she tell him she could not stay, could not be in his employ, because she loved him?

To stay, to be his housekeeper, would be the sweetest torture, to be near him, to see him daily—but it would be torture all the same.

Gideon lifted his head from where he had buried it in his hands and stared at the chessboard on the dining table before him. What had he said? Had his offer of employment been such a terrible blow against Elizabeth's expectations?

What was a man to make of a woman's tears when she has just been offered a solution to all her difficulties? They had not been tears of joy, or relief, but rejection and denial.

Why had she told him about her past when she would not do so before? What had changed? Why not merely write as she had promised?

At least now he understood why some part of her had worried about being with child. Such was the legacy of a scoundrel. But that concern was behind her, as he had learned during her fever. Other things she had said made sense now. Indeed, many things at last were made clear ... except for why she had been reduced to tears.

Granted, his offer had not been a prime one for a cultured young lady, but it would have provided an income, shelter, food, and a place to belong. In fact, all the things she would have to find out in the cruel world by herself. Why was she so intent on leaving? Had there not already been enough change in her life?—the false marriage, the escape from her pretend husband, the events of the night of the asylum fire. ...

Gideon suddenly went very still, slowly lifting his head as the obvious at last occurred to him, as her words at last reached his dazed and confused brain: Elizabeth had not come from the asylum. She was not, nor ever had been, placed in the asylum for a "nervous condition."

She was sane—as sane and stable and unafflicted as any other person who lived outside asylum walls. Gideon sat up straight, feeling his heart take slow, pounding thumps in his chest.

Only, wait, he thought. What of all the times he had questioned her behavior? His heart felt as though it had begun to pound at twice its normal beat. Some of the odd silences, or hidden truths, could now be explained by the tawdry tale she had not wished to confide, as indeed no right-thinking person would. She had been duped, her innocence used against her, and such deceit could not be happily admitted to. But, still, he had thought her actions, her words to be lacking. . . .

Perhaps, he thought, shaking his head as though the motion could sort out his muddled thoughts, perhaps the whole world was mad. His own mama had resided but once in a hospital for the disturbed, and yet she had been undeniably touched by lunacy. Perhaps he saw in Elizabeth what others did not yet perceive, because he had spent so many years seeing it in his mama.

Or perhaps there was nothing to see; perhaps Elizabeth was sane, and it was Gideon who made too much of simple human vagaries. People said Gideon himself was mad. and God knew he sometimes had trouble believing them wrong.

One thing he did know for a certainty: Elizabeth meant to leave. And, heaven help him. if anyone's sanity would be challenged by her leaving, it would be his. She had brought change, good change, to his household. She had made Gideon stop and think that perhaps he had been mistaken, too wrapped up in his own miseries to see the misery he was able to relieve for others, that good was still possible to accomplish even after one had grown weary.

Elizabeth! God, she had to stay! But all this was ridiculous, impossible. What did he know of her? Only an unfortunate story . . . and that she knew how to show compassion to a servant's unemployed sister; to her own, older, last-chance-for-marriage sister who waited upon a slow-proposing beau; that Elizabeth knew how to laugh at herself, and how to make Gideon laugh despite himself.

She said she trusted him ... she had made a joke of it... but the words burned through his thoughts, like a brand burning into wood, leaving its indelible mark once the smoke had cleared. She trusted him.

But Mama had trusted him also. Until the very end, she had always known Gideon even if she had not known anyone else by name or feature. His voice, his hand on her shoulder, had always been a comforting thing for her.

It was possible, he had to admit, that Elizabeth had not spoken the truth at all. That she had made up a story, to stir his sympathy. She might still be that deluded creature who had somehow escaped the asylum's flames, with a glibness of tongue that had fooled her caregivers as easily as it fooled Gideon now.

His shoulders slumped, but more from confusion than disappointment.

He could not believe she was crazy. If Elizabeth could be so convincing, then she was no more mad than half the world. He would believe her .. . because she had said she trusted him.

"It does not matter," Gideon said aloud. "I do not care if she's mad or sane. Or an actress. Or a liar." It did not matter, because they had befriended one another.

She would leave, he understood that. And he also understood the hollowness in her gaze meant she did not expect anything beyond that. He was supposed to wave her a farewell, and that would be an end of things.

But her leaving would not be an end of things. Gideon picked up the white queen from the chessboard, cupping it in his hand as he gazed at the ivory piece.

"I have too few friends to give you up so easily," he told the chess piece, replacing it then on the board, near a center square. He picked up the black king, set it next to the queen, and nodded with satisfaction.

Gideon then turned to call loudly for his coat, hat, and a saddled horse.

Within the half hour, Gideon stood before the humble home of Clyde Arbuckle, who stared out his front door at the marquess before him. "M'lord?" the investigator questioned, busily buttoning his bed jacket closed. He stepped aside, signaling for Gideon to enter.

"No, thank you," Gideon said. "My business is brief. I have come to pay you for your services, and to let you know that I no longer desire for you to investigate the matter of Miss B."

"No, m'lord? I assure you, I were makin' progress—"

"Indeed, and I was most pleased. But I am satisfied that Miss B requires no more of my time and attention in this regard. Your fee?"

Mr. Arbuckle's fee was quickly and generously settled, and he retired with a cheery "Right-o!" to the comforts of his home.

Gideon, also intent on retiring to his home, rode through the streets of Severn's Well, not caring if his whistling at night was bad luck. Tonight he did not believe in bad luck. Tonight he felt lighthearted enough to wish to whistle. Not to invite bad luck, but because he finally felt as though a stroke of good luck had come into his life, via a ditch and a pair of brown eyes.

Chapter 17

The next morning in the library, a cameo, one matching pair of amethyst earbobs, another of pearls, a single topaz ear-bob, a diamond and amethyst choker, and two rings were placed in Elizabeth's cupped hands.

"What is yet missing?" Gideon asked while he resumed his seat opposite hers in the library.

She looked up, hoping the stricken feeling roiling in her stomach was not reflected on her face. "Only two rings," she answered.

"That is all?" Gideon asked, looking pleased.

Elizabeth nodded. "Where were these found?" she asked bleakly, not really caring, but because it would be expected that she ask.

"According to Frick, the cameo was hanging from a string from the balustrade, and one of the rings was decorating the cap to my inkwell, here on my desk." Gideon leaned away, half twisting to indicate his desk across the room. He turned back to her. "I do not know about the rest. Frick did not say, other than to mention that the servants are searching more diligently than when we have had things go missing in the past. We all assumed one of my servants must be taking and moving the things, and one hated to accuse without any hint of proof, of course."

He laid a finger to his lip for a moment of thought and narrowed his eyes. "I could never fathom why things were brought into the house. But"—he gave an elegant shrug—"I daresay the red-haired woman—"