Authors: Imperial Scandal
Teresa Grant (46 page)
“Livia’s gone to have something to eat with the boys, but only after I assured her that she could see you again later. I hope you don’t mind. I thought seeing you would reassure her.”
“Difficult to imagine the sight of me like this reassuring anyone.”
“One’s imaginings are always worse than reality. And children are blessedly practical. Much more so than adults.”
“Very true. And no, I don’t mind. On the contrary.” He turned his head on the pillow so he could see her better. The light from the window fell across one side of her face, showing lines about her eyes that hadn’t been there five years ago and marks of strain that hadn’t been there when he said good-bye to her at the Duchess of Richmond’s ball. It wasn’t only those on the field who’d been touched by the battle. “I meant it, you know,” he added.
“What?”
“That having met Livia I wanted to come back. It’s an odd thing, that sense of being responsible for another person. I’d never felt it before.”
“No.” Her gaze locked with his own. “Nor had I until she was born.”
He let his head sink deeper into the pillows, his gaze still on her face. “I meant the other thing as well.”
Her finely arced brows drew together. “Which thing?”
“Your name. My last word before I lost consciousness on the battlefield. For a moment I was one of those romantic idiots who can think of nothing but that he’ll never see his wife again. War does damnable things to a man.”
She turned her head away. To his amazement, he saw the prickle of tears against her skin. “Damn it, Harry, don’t.”
“I admit it’s not the most elevated language, but I would have thought it would take more than that to make you cry. Haven’t you been hearing the like from starry-eyed undergraduates since you were sixteen?”
“Don’t turn me into something I’m not. You idealized me as all sorts of things I wasn’t five years ago. Don’t form another false picture of me now.”
He tried to push himself up against the pillows and winced at the stab of pain through his chest. “Harry, no,” she said, hands on his shoulders.
“I’m at too much of a disadvantage flat on my back.”
She eased him up and propped the pillows beneath him. He set his shoulders against them and regarded her with a hard stare. “I’m not a fool, Cordy. Not such a fool as to think a kiss in a ballroom with bugles sounding in the distance and the fact that you’re sitting by my sickbed have anything to do with our future.”
“That’s not—”
He grabbed her wrist, ignoring the fire that shot through his chest. “I don’t know if you’ve been nursing me out of some sense of obligation, but for whatever reason you have my thanks.”
Her gaze fastened on his face, wide with shock. “Harry, don’t be silly.”
“It’s a reasonable assumption. Of course, you’ve been nursing all sorts of men—”
“Harry.” She linked her fingers through his own. “For the past three days I’ve been consumed by the terror of losing you.”
Something sang through him, something he’d never known or ever thought to feel. “Damned odd, considering—”
“I didn’t have you to begin with. Quite. The irony isn’t lost on me.” Her gaze moved over his face. “I’m not a fool, either, Harry. I don’t expect the past week to wipe away the past four years.”
He inched up against the pillows. Amazing how much less it hurt. “I think the past is less important than the future.”
“The past is always going to be there between us. I’ve done quite unspeakable things to you, Harry.”
“I think you’re puffing yourself up a bit. You haven’t done anything half the wives in Mayfair haven’t done.”
“But their husbands aren’t—That is—”
“I was in love with you. That made it worse. Granted. Go on.”
She stared at their linked hands. “There’d be a sort of rosy glow at first. But eventually I’ll do something or say something and you’ll realize I haven’t really changed. That I’m still the sadly commonplace woman you married in the first place.”
“Are you saying you’re planning to resume your affair with George Chase?”
“No, of course not, but—”
“Or with someone else?”
“That’s not the point. My past is there. People are going to gossip. They’re going to give you sad looks like they do William Lamb because you’re saddled with an impossible wife.”
“I’ve just survived a battle against Napoleon Bonaparte’s army, Cordy. I think I can cope with the London gossips.”
“And inevitably you’ll remember. Some unthinking comment will bring it all flooding back. I don’t want to find you looking at me across the breakfast things recalling past betrayals, knowing you’re trapped but unable to say anything because we’ve papered over the past. Some cracks can’t be papered over.”
“All right.” He rested his head against the pillows. “That’s what you don’t want. What
do
you want, Cordy?”
do
you want, Cordy?”
“I don’t see—”
“It’s a fair question. I don’t want a wife who isn’t happy. Do you want me to leave you free to go your own way? Do you want a divorce so you can marry again? I can afford it. I can make it as easy for you as possible.”
“No, I told you—”
“Because I can be Livia’s father without being your husband.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
He kept his gaze steady on her face. “What then?”
Her brows drew together in the way he remembered from when she was trying to puzzle out a particularly difficult bit of translation. “What do
you
want, Harry?”
you
want, Harry?”
“Oh, that’s easy.” He tightened his fingers round her own. “I want the same thing I’ve wanted for five years. I want you, my darling.”
50
“
M
alcolm.” Billy turned his head against the pillow. The curtains were closed to allow the prince to rest, but the heat of the day leached into the room. The air smelled of toast, beef tea, and lavender. “Glad to see you alive.”
M
alcolm.” Billy turned his head against the pillow. The curtains were closed to allow the prince to rest, but the heat of the day leached into the room. The air smelled of toast, beef tea, and lavender. “Glad to see you alive.”
“I could say the same.” Malcolm looked down at his boyhood friend. The inexperienced general who had sent men to their deaths. Amelia Beckwith’s lover.
“So many friends gone.” Billy’s fingers twisted in the fine linen sheet. “You know about Gordon?”
Malcolm nodded. “But Fitzroy looks as though he’ll pull through.”
“I heard he lost his right arm.”
“He’s already learning to write with his left hand. He’ll be buried in paperwork again in no time. Apparently he made them stop and remove the ring Harriet gave him from his amputated arm before they carried it away.”
Billy gave a weak smile, then searched Malcolm’s face. “You haven’t come to congratulate me on cheating death. Do you know what happened to Julia?”
“Not yet.”
The prince regarded him in silence for a moment. “You’d better sit down, Malcolm.” His gaze was dark in his pale face. “And then ask me whatever it is you’ve come to ask.”
Malcolm dropped down on the edge of the bed. “Amelia Beckwith.”
Billy’s brows drew together. “Amy? What on earth does she have to do with—”
“You were her lover.”
Billy flinched. “I was in love with Amy.” He tried to push himself up against the pillows. “I wanted to marry her.”
“But you didn’t.” Malcolm put a hand on Billy’s shoulder to still him before he could do himself an injury.
Billy turned his head to the side, gaze fastened on the bar of light spilling between a gap in the curtains. “I was only eighteen. I wanted to elope to Gretna Green and damn the consequences, but Amy was afraid. I had to go to my parents for the Christmas holidays. I meant to tell my father, but somehow I couldn’t bring myself to. Then I had to go to a damned house party in Devon. I wrote to Amy telling her to be patient. Perhaps one of my letters went astray. Somehow they—my parents—learned about us. I was summoned to London. They sent Rebecque to talk to me.”
“I doubt I could have held out against such pressure at that age.”
“No.” Billy’s voice cut with surprising force. “I refused to give her up. I stalked out and ordered my carriage. I got back to Carfax Court only to learn that Amy had died.”
Malcolm studied his friend’s indignant face. “Did you know Amelia was carrying your child?”
“What?”
Billy pushed himself up, then winced in pain.
Billy pushed himself up, then winced in pain.
Malcolm gripped the prince’s shoulders. “She confessed to a friend that she was pregnant just before she died.”
“But—” Billy’s eyes were wide with confusion. “Malcolm, Amy and I never—” He shook his head. “I wouldn’t have. I was going to marry her.”
Malcolm pulled up the pillows and settled Billy against them. “Scruples have a way of giving way to need. Especially when one’s eighteen. I’m the last person who’d be scandalized by a love affair, Billy.”
“I’m not saying it because you’d be scandalized. I’m saying it because it’s the truth.” Billy stared at Malcolm with mingled indignation and confusion. “What does this have to do with Julia?”
“Lady Julia may have uncovered information about Miss Beckwith’s death.”
The prince’s eyes went wider still. “And you think—Malcolm, I got back to Carfax Court the day Amy died. Just after they found her in the lake.” Remembered loss suffused his young face. “She couldn’t have been carrying a child.”
Billy’s gaze held genuine torment. Malcolm drew a breath and placed his hand over Billy’s own. “She couldn’t have been carrying your child.”
Suzanne had just finished changing Henri Rivaux’s dressing when the door opened. She looked up, expecting Malcolm, and saw instead a slender figure in a lavender muslin gown and a chip straw hat standing on the threshold, looking about with an uncertain gaze.
It was Violet Chase. Suzanne got to her feet and went to meet the other woman. “Miss Chase. Do come in. I’m afraid we’ve quite abandoned any pretense of ceremony. Our footmen are too busy tending the wounded.”
“Of course,” Violet said. “I’m sorry to disturb you.” Her gaze swept the hall and settled for a moment on Robbie, as usual sitting with Colin beside Christophe. “I came to see if you’d had any news of Captain Ashton.”
“Colonel Davenport saw him alive and unhurt late yesterday,” Suzanne said. “But nothing since then, I’m afraid.”
Violet nodded, put her hand to her face, and burst into tears.
“Oh, my poor dear.” Suzanne steered Violet into the empty study, exchanging a glance with Brigitte, who had emerged from the kitchen with tea for the wounded.
Inside the study, Suzanne pressed Violet into a leather armchair. Violet collapsed, hands pressed to her face, tears streaming between her fingers. Suzanne tugged a clean handkerchief from her sleeve and knelt beside the chair, waiting for Violet’s tears to subside.
“I’m sorry,” Violet said at last. “It’s just so hard not knowing.”
“I can well imagine.” Suzanne put the handkerchief into her hand. “Captain Ashton is a capable soldier. From what my husband says it’s still chaos at the battlefield. I wouldn’t infer anything from none of us having heard from him.”
Violet nodded, twisting the handkerchief between her fingers. “So many have fallen.” She wiped her eyes with tugs of the handkerchief that were almost vicious.
“I’m sorry about Captain Chase,” Suzanne said. “How is Mrs. Chase bearing up?”
“Almost frighteningly calm. But then Jane has much better self-command than I do. A Captain Flemming called on us last night with news of the battle and to give his condolences. That seemed to make her feel better.”
Suzanne drew a breath, greatly relieved for Jane Chase’s sake that Will Flemming had survived the battle.
“And Major Chase?” Suzanne asked.
“He came through without injury. He came to see us this afternoon. He got leave to return to Brussels and see Annabel and the children.”
Brigitte knocked at the door with a fresh pot of tea. Suzanne poured a cup, stirred in liberal amounts of milk and sugar, and pressed it into Violet’s hand. Violet managed a sip, sloshing some into the saucer. She cast a quick glance at the door. “What must they all think of me.”
“With everything that’s happened these past days, what anyone thinks seems singularly unimportant.”
Violet opened her mouth as though to protest, then gave a sudden, desperate laugh. “How very true. And how odd to think that I would ever say so.” She managed another sip of tea. “I heard Colonel Davenport had been wounded. How is he?”
“Weak but recovering. Cordelia’s with him now. She’s scarcely left him.”
Violet’s mouth twisted. “All the things Cordelia did to him, and yet she’s had the right to worry and ask for news all this time and now she has the right to sit by his bedside and nurse him and no one can look askance at it because whatever she’s done to him he’s her husband.”
“For what it’s worth, Cordelia’s been every bit as distressed these past days as you seem to be.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—” Violet bit her lip. “Of course I’m pleased Colonel Davenport is recovering.” She stared into her tea for a moment. “Do you think he and Cordelia will actually patch things up?”
“I don’t know. But they each clearly still have strong feelings when it comes to the other.”
Violet hunched her shoulders, gaze on her tea. “Do you think one can ever get to the point where one forgets the horrid things a person has done?”
Suzanne took a sip from her own teacup and swallowed, hard. “Not forgets, perhaps, but finds one isn’t sorry to remember.”
“Forgiveness.” Violet drew out the word, as though it was a foreign concept she couldn’t quite comprehend.
“It’s amazing what people can manage to forgive.” Assuming they knew enough to even attempt to try.
Violet wiped at a trace of tea on the side of her cup. “I said some beastly things to Johnny when he got engaged to Julia. I can be horrid when I’m in a temper, and I was in a dreadful one. I think I wanted to provoke him into being angry back, so I’d have an excuse to hate him. Instead he just looked at me with this puzzled expression and said he’d never meant to hurt me. I saw something die in his eyes then. It was one thing when he chose Julia over me. This was worse. Like I wasn’t the person he’d thought me to be.” She cupped both hands round her teacup and took a quick swallow. “I don’t think Johnny hates me anymore, but I don’t know that he’ll ever forgive me for that.”
Suzanne choked back an hysterical laugh. “I very much doubt anything you said could be unforgivable, Miss Chase.”
“You don’t know. Not that it matters if he’s all right. I swear I won’t mind. That is, I’ll try my best not to let it show.” She tugged at the ribbons on her hat and jerked it from her head. “When Johnny chose Julia I thought if he ever loved me in the future it wouldn’t matter to me. How wrong I was.”
Suzanne knew that Malcolm wouldn’t have married her if he hadn’t thought she’d been left orphaned and penniless by the war. Which he wouldn’t have thought if she hadn’t lied to him in the course of a mission. And yet for nearly a year now, she’d known, with a bone-deep certainty, that she loved him. And since last autumn in Vienna, she’d known he loved her. Or at least the woman he thought she was.
“Miss Chase—” Suzanne hesitated, a dozen possible platitudes trembling on her lips. “Try not to be too hard on yourself.”
Violet gave a lopsided smile. “That sounds so ridiculously sensible.”
“Mother’s logic.”
A rap sounded on the door. “Forgive me, madame,” Brigitte said. “But there’s a gentleman asking for you. Captain Ashton.”
Violet gasped and nearly dropped her teacup. A moment later, John Ashton stepped over the threshold and gave a formal bow. “Mrs. Rannoch. Forgive the interruption. I’ve only just got leave. I saw Robbie in the hall. I wanted to thank you for your kindness—”
He broke off as his gaze fell on Violet, who had pushed herself to her feet.
“Johnny—” Violet stretched out a hand, then let it fall to her side. “I’m so glad you’re all right.”
“Unlike so many poor devils. Violet, I’m so sorry. That is—”
She gave a quick nod. “We know Tony was killed. Cordelia sent word.”
“He took a bayonet thrust that should have killed me.”
Violet’s eyes widened. “I don’t—”
“Nor do I. But I’ll be forever grateful to him.”
Suzanne moved to the door. “I should check on the children. Do have some tea, Captain Ashton. Miss Chase, I know I can rely upon you to look after him.”
Ashton and Violet emerged from the study twenty minutes later, not touching but with a certain intimacy in the way Ashton held the door and Violet walked beside him, almost brushing his shoulder. Ashton knelt beside Robbie again while Violet hung back, gaze fixed on the two of them. “Tony sent Johnny back to me,” she murmured to Suzanne. “That is, he sent him back. I don’t understand—”
“Nor do I,” Suzanne said. “I’d simply be grateful for what you can salvage from the wreckage.”
When Ashton joined them, Suzanne offered to take him up to see Cordelia and Harry. But she hesitated at the base of the stairs, her hand on the newel post. “Captain Ashton. Did your wife ever say anything to you about Amelia Beckwith?”
“Amy?” It wasn’t Ashton who responded, it was Violet. “What on earth does she have to do with any of this?”
“I’m not sure,” Suzanne said. “But she and Lady Julia were confidantes.”
“Yes, of course,” Violet said. “We were all friends. But it was years ago.” She moved toward the stairs then paused, fingering a fold of her muslin skirt. “It seems beastly now, but I was quite jealous of Amy. I think Julia was as well.”
“Jealous?” Suzanne said.
“She kept claiming she knew what love was, while we were still stumbling about in the dark. She got all mysterious about it.” Violet frowned. “And then at a party at Carfax House—it must have been just a fortnight or so before she died—she told me she’d thought she’d understood love, but it was so much more complicated than she’d ever guessed. That real love wasn’t a fairy tale with a prince, it was finding a man one couldn’t live without. After she died I wondered who on earth she’d been talking about. I asked Julia about it once, but she just went all quiet and changed the subject.”
“I remember Amelia, of course,” Ashton said. “Julia was most distressed when she died. But I don’t recall Julia mentioning Amy in recent years. That is—”
“What?” Suzanne asked.
Ashton frowned at the molding on the wall opposite. “She did mention Amelia once. It was just after we came to Brussels. We’d come home from the Marquise d’Assche’s. The first time we’d seen you and Rannoch in Brussels. Julia was taking a candle to go upstairs. She looked at me over the candle flame, and she said it was odd, she scarcely knew Malcolm Rannoch, yet he and she were the only two people Amy had confided in. She went upstairs before I could ask more.” He cast a glance at Violet, then looked back at Suzanne. “I didn’t realize Rannoch had known Amy that well.”
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