Dark Angel / Lord Carew's Bride (20 page)

Jennifer stood very still. She was beyond thought.

“My servant was bribed,” the Earl of Rushford said, “to deliver this into the hands of Miss Jennifer Winwood.”

She had become a block of stone. Or a block of ice. Sound—sounds of shock and of outrage—swelled about
her. It was something that was happening at a great distance from her.

“In the last week or so,” the earl said, having somehow imposed silence on his gathered guests again, “my son has more than once overlooked what was apparently the unfortunate but harmless indiscretion of youth and innocence. As a man of honor and sensibility, he has stood by his commitment to Miss Winwood and shielded her name from scandal and dishonor. It appears that he has been much deceived. And that the countess and I have been much deceived. We have been deceived in a friendship of many years’ standing. I will make it clear here and now that there will be no further connection between my family and Miss Winwood’s, that the betrothal announced earlier this evening is no longer in existence. Good night, ladies and gentlemen. You will excuse me, I am sure, if I feel that there is no longer anything to celebrate tonight.”

Lionel was standing beside his father, looking stern and dignified and very handsome. It was as if the part of Jennifer that was not her body had detached itself from that body and was observing almost dispassionately. It was as if what had been said and what was happening had nothing to do with her.

The Earl of Rushford stood, feet apart, on the dais, watching his guests depart. None of them approached him. They were perhaps too embarrassed to do so. Or perhaps they were in too much of a rush to get ouside so that they could glory in the retelling of what had just
happened. Lionel continued to stand there too, straight-backed and pale, his gaze directed downward. Everyone was leaving. Most people did not look at her. Again, it seemed as if they were in the grip of a massive embarrassment.

Then someone grabbed her wrist with painful tightness—Aunt Agatha—and someone else grasped her other elbow in a grip that felt as if it might grind her bones—Papa. And together they turned her and propelled her from the room faster than her feet would move, or so it seemed. Somehow, although everyone was leaving, nothing impeded their progress. Everyone fell back to either side of them, almost as if they had the plague.

And then—she did not know how it could have been brought up so fast—she was inside her father’s carriage, Papa beside her, Aunt Agatha across from her, Samantha next to Aunt Agatha, and the carriage was in motion.

“I have a horse whip in the stables,” her father was saying, his voice so quiet that Jennifer knew he was more than angry. “Prepare yourself, Miss. I will be using it when we arrive home.”

“Oh, no, Uncle,” Samantha wailed.

“Gerald—” Aunt Agatha said.

“Silence!” he said.

They all stayed silent during the remainder of the journey home.

“I
AM SORRY
,
MY
lord.”

His valet’s voice somehow got all mixed up with his dream. He was trying to leave London, but no matter which street his carriage turned along, there was always a press of traffic ahead of them and tangled vehicles and angry, excited people arguing and gesticulating. And no way past. And then his valet was standing at the door of the carriage, addressing him in his most formal manner. “I am sorry, my lord.”

“Sorry, dammit. Out of my way. Get up, Gabe. Get up before I throw a pitcher of cold water over you.”

For a moment Bertie was there too, adding confusion to the melee by trying to force a high-spirited horse past his carriage. And then the Earl of Thornhill woke up.

“I am sorry, my lord,” his valet said again. “I tried to—”

“Get up, Gabe.”

Bertie, resplendent in ball clothes, pushed the valet unceremoniously aside, grasped the bedclothes, and flung them back. He was quite furiously angry, the earl realized, shaking off the remnants of sleep and waving off his man.

“Go back to bed,” he told him. “Good Lord, Bertie, what the devil are you doing here at this time? What time is it, by the way?” He swung his legs over the side of the bed, sat up, and ran his fingers through his hair.

“Get up!” Sir Albert ordered. “I am going to give you the thrashing of your life, Gabe.”

The earl looked up at him in some surprise. “Here, Bertie?” he said. “Is the space not rather confined? And you do not have a whip, my dear chap. Will you at least
allow me to put on some clothes? I have an aversion to being thrashed, or even to holding a conversation, while I am naked.” He got to his feet.

“You are slime,” Sir Albert said, his voice cold with contempt. “I have always defended you from all who have defamed you, Gabe. But they have been right and I have been wrong. You were probably giving it to your stepmother after all. You are slime!”

The earl turned, having not quite reached his dressing room door. “Have a care, Bertie,” he said quietly. “You are talking about a lady. About a member of my family.”

“You disgust me!” his erstwhile friend said. “You are slime.”

“Yes.” The earl disappeared into his dressing room and came back a moment later tying the sash of a brocaded dressing gown about his waist. “So you said before, Bertie. Would it be too much to ask that you explain the reason for the violence of your feelings—at this time of the night, whatever time it is?”

“Your bribe was not high enough,” Sir Albert said very distinctly. “Your letter fell into the wrong hands.”

The earl waited, but clearly Bertie had finished. “Next time I try to bribe someone,” he said, “I must remember to double the sum. Corruption is more expensive than it used to be, it seems. My letter, Bertie? Which one is that? I have written four or five in the last few days.”

“Don’t play stupid,” Sir Albert said. “She has doubtless been at fault too, Gabe, meeting you in private, allowing intimacies. But she is basically an innocent, I
believe, just as Miss Ogden is and all the other young girls who have just made their come-out. They are no match for experienced rakes bent on seducing and ruining them. It was Rushford himself who intercepted that letter, you may be interested to know. He read it aloud to the whole gathering. She is ruined. I hope you are satisfied.”

The Earl of Thornhill looked at him silently for a while. “I think we had better go into my sitting room, Bertie,” he said at last, turning to lead the way, and lighting a branch of candles when he got there. “You had better tell me exactly what happened tonight.”

“How could you!” Sir Albert said. “If you had to be seducing a lady of virtue when there are all sorts of women of another class who would be only too pleased to earn the extra income, did you also have to be so mad as to risk exposing her to the whole
ton?
Did you have no fear that the letter would fall into the wrong hands?”

“Bertie.” The earl’s tone had become crisp. “Assume for a few minutes, if you will, that I do not know what you are talking about. Or pretend you are recounting the story to a stranger. Tell me what happened. In what way have I ruined Miss Winwood? I assume it is she I have ruined?”

Sir Albert would not sit, but he did calm down enough to give a terse account of what had happened in the Rushford ballroom less than an hour before.

“Did you see the letter?” the earl asked when the story had been completed.

“Of course not,” Sir Albert said. “Rushford was holding it. He read it in its entirety. Why would I want to see it?”

“For a rather important reason actually,” the earl said. “You know my handwriting, Bertie. That letter would not have been in it.”

“Are you trying to tell me that you did not write the letter?” his friend asked, incredulous.

“Not trying,” Lord Thornhill said curtly. “I am telling you, Bertie. Good Lord. You believe I am capable of that?”

“You are capable of kissing the girl in sight of the whole
ton,”
Sir Albert reminded him.

Ah, yes. Righteous indignation was denied him. Yes, this was something he might well have done. It was rather clever actually. And had obviously worked like a dream.

“Gabe,” his friend said, frowning, “if you did not write it, who did? It makes no sense.”

“Someone who wanted to embarrass me,” the earl said. “Or someone who wanted to ruin Miss Winwood.”

“It makes no sense,” Sir Albert said again.

“Actually,” the earl said, smiling rather grimly, “it makes a great deal of sense, Bertie. I believe I have just been outplayed in a game over which I thought I had complete control.”

Sir Albert looked his incomprehension.

“It is time you were in your bed,” Lord Thornhill said. “Staying up all night and tripping the light fantastic
through much of it can be ruinous on the complexion and the constitution, you know, Bertie.”

“I may be a fool and a dupe, but I believe your denials,” Sir Albert said. “However, it does not change the fact that she is totally ruined, Gabe. She will never be sent another invitation. She will never be able to show her face in town again. I doubt that her father will be able to find her a husband even in the country. It is a shame, I rather like her. And if you are to be believed, she has done nothing to bring on her own ruin.”

“Sometimes,” the earl said, indicating the door with one hand, “these things happen, Bertie. I need the rest of my beauty sleep.”

“And you will not be able to show your face here either,” Sir Albert said, moving toward the door.

“Now that,” the earl said as his friend was finally leaving, “I would not count upon, Bertie.”

Very cleverly done, he thought grimly, alone again at last. He did not bother to move back into his bedchamber. He knew that there would be no more sleep for him tonight.

Very cleverly done indeed.

W
HEN
V
ISCOUNT
N
ORDAL
’
S BUTLER
opened the library door the next morning to announce the arrival of the Earl of Thornhill, the viscount at first refused to see him and instructed his servant to throw him out. However, when that nervous individual reappeared less than a minute later with the news that the earl intended to stay
in the hall until he was admitted, the viscount directed that he be shown in.

He was standing behind his desk when the earl strode in.

“I have not a word to say to you, Thornhill,” he said. “Perhaps I should have sent you a challenge this morning. You have brought ruin on me and my whole family. But fighting a duel with you would suggest that I was defending my daughter’s honor. As I understand it, there is no honor to be fought for.”

“I will buy a special license today,” the earl said curtly, wasting no time on preliminaries, “and marry her tomorrow. You need not concern yourself with a dowry for her. I have fortune enough with which to support her.”

The viscount sneered. “Not quite what you anticipated being forced into,” he said, “when you have been enjoying the pleasures of the marriage bed without benefit of clergy and expected to go on doing so. Is it possible that you care enough for the opinion of your peers to do the decent thing, Thornhill?”

The Earl of Thornhill strode across the room and rested both hands flat on the desk before leaning across it to address himself to his prospective father-in-law. “I will make one thing clear,” he said. “To my knowledge Miss Winwood is as pure as she was on the day her mother bore her. And if I am to marry her, I will meet anyone who wishes to assume otherwise. Yourself included.”

The viscount bristled. “Get out!” he said.

“Your daughter’s name and honor seem to mean nothing to you,” the earl said, “except as they reflect upon your own. Very well, then. The only thing that can happen today—the
only
thing—is for her to affiance herself to me, for us to marry without delay. With your daughter safely and honorably married, you will be able to hold your head high again, Nordal. And eventually so will she.”

Viscount Nordal looked back at him with silent loathing.

The earl removed his hands from the desk and took a step back. “It is early for a lady to be up and dressed the morning after a ball,” he said, “but I do not imagine Miss Winwood has been troubled by too much sleep. I will see her now, Nordal, before I leave about other business. Alone, if you please.”

Viscount Nordal’s hand went to the bell rope behind his left shoulder.

“Have my daughter sent alone to the rose salon,” he told the butler, who appeared almost immediately. “While we wait, Thornhill, I believe we have a little business to discuss. Have a seat.”

The Earl of Thornhill sat, both his expression and his mood grim.

J
ENNIFER AWOKE FEELING SOME AMAZEMENT that she had slept at all. In fact, she seemed to have slept quite deeply and dreamlessly. But she awoke quite early without any of the illusions one so often has that the unpleasant events of the day before were merely dreams. Perhaps it was the soreness of her back and derrière when she moved. Sam’s tears and pleadings and Aunt Agatha’s admonitions had had their effect on Papa. He had not sent to the stables for a whip. He had used a cane instead and bent her over the desk in the library just like a naughty child while he did so.