The Revenge of Lord Eberlin (34 page)

From the salon window of Tobin’s Mayfair town home, he could just see the top of Darlington House. It had as many chimneys as Tiber Park. He knew that because he had counted them.

He stared at the chimney tops today through the mist of a light rain that had been falling for two days. He did not know the duke or any of his family. He did not have the requisite connections to accomplish an introduction. Tobin had his house in Mayfair; he had wealth that at times, to him, seemed immeasurable. But he did not have whatever it was the ton required to include him in their circle. He was an outcast, and he likely would always be an outcast.

Lily was in Darlington House. She might as well have been across the English Channel. Tobin could not see her, he could not call on her. He paced like a cat before that window, pausing at times to look at the tops of the chimneys again. For the first time since he’d made his fortune, he could not buy his way to what he wanted, and that enraged him.

“Uncle!”

Tobin turned from the window and chuckled as Catherine came bounding into the room. There was nothing like the little girl’s smile to make him forget his troubles. He swept her up and held her tight until she began to squirm. “What are you about, sweetling?” he asked as he set her down and ran his hand over her crown.

“Mamma said I might come in and see you before I go up for my lessons. Look,” she said and held out her hand. In her palm was a red rock. “I found it in the park yesterday. I’ve not seen a red one. Have you?”

“I have not,” he lied and took the polished stone from her hand to examine it closely. “Agate, I think.”

“Is it very valuable?” Catherine asked, going up on her toes to peer down at the rock in his palm.

“Extremely,” Tobin said. “It is a precious jewel. The king’s coffers are full of agate. Mind that you put it someplace safe.”

Catherine stared wide-eyed at the rock as he handed it back to her.

“Really, Tobin, must you tell her such tall tales?”

Tobin winked at his sister as she strolled into the room. “I am sure I don’t know what you mean.”

“You know very well,” Charity chastised him. “Catherine, my love, it is only a rock. I suspect the king would be quite at a loss to even name the sort of rock it is. Now go to Mrs. Honeycutt. She is waiting for you to begin your lessons.” She kissed the top of her daughter’s head.

“I think you are wrong, Mamma. It’s very precious,” Catherine said, giving her mother a withering look as she went out.

Charity frowned at Tobin. “She believes every ridiculous thing you say, you know.”

Tobin smiled. “I see no harm in allowing her to believe she has found a treasure,” he said. “There is tea, if you’d like.” He gestured to the service Carlson had brought up, then turned back to the window.

“What are you looking at?” Charity asked, and joined him at the window. She looked out at the gray day. Her gaze swept up, then down. And then she turned and faced her brother. “You’re thinking of her again, aren’t you?”

“Her?”

“
Her.
Lily Boudine.”

When Tobin didn’t answer straightaway, Charity sighed and turned away from the window. “I am not blind, darling. It is very obvious to me that you are a different man than the one who left here so many weeks ago. And since that blasted ball, you’ve moped about as if you’ve been soundly beaten.”

“Charity—”

“What I cannot understand is why
her
?” Charity said as she moved away. “She is the cause of all our unhappiness.”

Tobin arched a brow in surprise. “Are you so unhappy?”

Charity made a sound of impatience and folded
her arms. “Of course not. I am perfectly happy being locked away in this grand house with my daughter. What would I need with companionship?”

“I am sorry—”

“That is precisely my point, Tobin,” Charity said. “You have nothing for which you should apologize. You have tried in every way to give me back the life that she robbed from us when she accused Father of leaving Ashwood that night.”

“No.” Tobin shook his head. “No, Charity, I put those seeds in your head, but they are not true. Lily was younger than even Catherine is now. Think on that—Catherine is too young and innocent to invent such a tale. So was Lily.”

Charity’s eyes narrowed. “What are you saying? Has she convinced you that Father was at Ashwood that night? Dear God—”

“He never denied that he was, did he? Did Father ever once deny it, publicly or privately? He did not—because he
was
there.”

“That is ridiculous! If he was there, why would he not say that he was?” she demanded. “Unless he stole the jewels. Is that what she has caused you to believe? Do you now believe our father was a
thief
?”

“Of course not,” he said patiently. “But think—why would a man ride away in the night, in the rain, across a dark park instead of the road? We both know he was not guilty of the crime. So why, then? Because he was protecting someone.”

Charity looked confused. “Protecting who? The thief?”

Tobin sighed. This was difficult for him—there was so much Charity did not understand. He moved to her side and put his arm around her shoulders. “A lover.”

Charity gasped. She tried to twist out of Tobin’s hold, but he would not let her go. “How
vile,
Tobin—”

“It is true, Charity. Father was involved in a love affair with Lady Ashwood. He would not confirm his whereabouts that evening because it would have destroyed her.”

Charity angrily pushed him away. “That’s madness! Even if it were true, he would not have given his
life
so that she would not suffer having her husband discover it! He would not have done that to us!”

“It was more complicated than that,” Tobin said and took her hand. “Come and sit.”

Charity resisted.

“Please,” he said.

She reluctantly allowed him to pull her to the settee, where Tobin told her what he knew. That their father had fallen in love with Lady Ashwood. That there had been a heated affair. He told her about the piano stool, about the night the jewels went missing. He told her what it was that Lily saw, and how Lily had believed she was saving her beloved aunt and governess in repeating what she’d seen.

“Then why didn’t the countess tell the earl?” Charity
demanded angrily. “She would rather see her lover hang than admit her infidelity?”

“He threatened her. He told her he would put Lily in a London orphanage if she breathed a word. You know as well as I that an orphanage would have doomed a girl as young and sheltered as your Catherine is now.”

Charity blanched. She sank back against the cushions. “But why?” she asked. “Why would the earl rob us of our father and put the rest of us in the poorhouse? How could anyone be so heartless?”

Tobin couldn’t answer that for her. He’d wondered the same thing. In his travels, he’d run across cruel, empty men, slaves to pleasure who had lost their souls somewhere along the way. He wondered if the earl had been one of those men. “I suspect if we ever know what became of the jewels, we’d know the answer to that.”

Tobin suddenly did not want to be that sort of man. He did not want to be a man without a soul, without love. He did not want to be bitter and cruel, yet he felt himself standing too close to the edge, teetering on the brink of that black, black hole.

He looked out the window again.

“I suppose that is one theory,” Charity said and stood up. “Another is that Lily Boudine wanted to protect her aunt and her aunt’s true lover, with no regard for us.”

“Charity—”

Charity swung around, glaring at him. “I fear that you’ve bought into the fantasy she created because you
love her. But you will never be accepted in her world, Tobin. She will toy with you, seduce you, but she will never have you. You will
never
be one of them.” She swept out of the room.

Tobin stared at the door, her words ringing in his head. After a moment, he rang for Carlson. When Carlson appeared, Tobin said, “Have a carriage readied.”

Tobin honestly didn’t know who he was any longer, but he knew that he would not be that nebulous, bitter, empty man. Maybe Charity was right and Lily’s world would never accept him.

But he had to at least try.

T
he misty rain turned to snow late that afternoon, unusual at this time of year, if the servants’ chatter in Darlington House was to be believed.

Lily didn’t bother to look out the window to see it. Her mind was full of images of Ashwood and Tobin. The futility of her search for the jewels had begun to sink into her heart and the reality of her situation was becoming painfully clear. She could not repair the damage that had been done. She could not indulge in the fantasy of Tobin any longer. She had responsibilities to herself, her family, and to Ashwood.

Still, Lily felt lost. She could scarcely even think of a return to Ashwood after all that had happened. How odd, she thought absently, that she had come to consider Ashwood her home and wanted to belong there. In her determination to keep it from falling into Tobin’s hands, she’d found a surprising affection
for the house that held so many wretched memories. Once she’d swept out all the ghosts and goblins of her memory, she’d grown fond of it.

Until now, that was. Now that she realized she could never mitigate the tragedy of all that was lost there, she couldn’t bear to return to it.

Lily had also indulged in a fantasy or two that involved Tobin and Ashwood in the past week. She could see the two of them there, puttering about the gardens, taking the long walk down to the lake beneath the boughs of the elms. Laughing—
laughing
? Lily couldn’t help but smile at that image. Stoic, inscrutable Tobin laughing gaily at some silly thing.

But a future with Tobin would mean giving up all that she’d worked for at Ashwood and jeopardizing the futures of any children she had. Lily would, in essence, give up her right to belong to this society, to people like the Darlingtons—and belonging is all that she had ever really wanted.

Still, to imagine the children she and Tobin might have gave her a delicious little shiver. She could picture the little darlings: dark-haired like her, tall and sturdy like him.
Ah, Tobin.
Constantly in her thoughts. She’d wanted so desperately to find the jewels and free him from being forever branded the son of a thief. But it felt impossible—no one remembered things that had happened so long ago.

“Oh, they’re throwing snowballs!” one of the maids said laughingly.

“There’s scarcely enough snow for it,” the other maid said. “Who is that?”

“Who?”

“The gent just there, standing at the gate.”

“From town I suspect. There’s always someone looking in like a wet dog, eh?” The pair laughed. Lily could hear one move from the window and about the sitting room where she was pretending to read.

“Ho there, he’s coming in through the gate now.”

“On my word, Bessie, do you intend to gape out the window all day?” the other chastised her, and they went out of the room.

When they’d gone out, Lily stood up and walked to the window to see the snow. Whoever they’d been chatting about had gone. She shrugged to herself and quit the sitting room—she was too scattered and restless to read.

She walked down the long corridor aimlessly, pausing occasionally to look at a painting or admire a piece of pottery. She heard raised voices downstairs but paid little heed to it. The servants often talked loudly across the wide foyer.

But a moment later, Bessie came huffing up the stairs. “Madam, there’s a caller for you,” she said breathlessly.

“For me?” Lily asked, surprised.

“It’s a gent. The duchess said you should come at once.”

Lily followed Bessie down the staircase. She’d gone
halfway when her heart stopped beating for a moment. Tobin was standing in the foyer, snow on his shoulders, his hat held so tightly in his hand that she could see the whites of his knuckles. He was fighting himself, standing stiffly. Lily’s heart began to beat with a vengeance. He had come for her. She knew it.
He had come for her.

Standing next to him was Kate, looking anxiously up at Lily.

Tobin showed no outward emotion as he lifted his gaze to hers. He stood very still, unmoving. Lily hurried down the stairs. When she reached them, Tobin’s gaze seemed to melt over her.

“Lily,” Kate said quietly, “Count Eberlin has come to call. The dowager duchess is in the salon. Shall I go attend her?”

There was urgency in Kate’s voice. Lily knew very well that the dowager Lady Darlington would be beside herself to know that Tobin had come to her door. “Please,” Lily said.

“Perhaps you might receive Lord Eberlin in the drawing room?” Kate suggested, gesturing to a door just off the foyer.