A few hours later, Deirdre arrived back at Tessa’s rented house, Lementeur’s bounty packed and piled upon the carriage roof. She’d not expected to receive such help from the staff, but Fortescue had spotted the bruises Baskin had left on both her arms and gone completely ashen.
She’d begun to protest, but Fortescue held up one hand. “I was here the day Lady Brookhaven died, my lady,” he said cryptically. “I know it is possible for even a man such as his lordship to go too far.”
When she alighted from the carriage in front of Tessa’s house, Sophie had already come out to greet her. “What is this?” The first pile of trunks grew to two. She stared at Deirdre. “Are you mad? Are you in danger? Can I move to Brook House and take your place?”
Deirdre snorted. “Don’t you even want to find out if I’m in danger first?”
Sophie shrugged. “Not particularly. Anything is likely better than here, although Tessa is out at the moment.”
Deirdre let out a breath of relief. Her stepmother was difficult at the best of times—and this was definitely not one of those! When Tessa learned that Deirdre had
left her not-quite-duke husband, she would fly into such a rage that they’d probably lose another entire servant staff!
“Well, that’s a mercy, at least.” She tucked her arm into Sophie’s. “Why don’t you show me to my old room?”
Sophie raised a brow. “You’ve forgotten already? You’ve been married less than a week.” Still, she guided Deirdre to her room and sat beside her on the bed.
“Calder doesn’t love me.”
Sophie blinked. “Does it matter? I thought it didn’t matter.”
Deirdre sighed, letting her eyes close for single exhausted moment. “It matters.”
“But you thought Phoebe was mad for turning down a marquis!”
Deirdre shook her head, a rueful twist to her lips. “No, I thought Phoebe was mad for turning down that particular marquis. I wanted him so badly … loved him so very much …”
She shrugged. “I’ve never had the slightest problem in prompting men to proclaim their undying love. I suppose I thought it was a given that he’d be as mad for me as I am for him.” She gazed up at Sophie, trying to blink away the tears that welled forth. “I’ve been quite thoroughly hoisted on my own petard, haven’t I?”
Sophie tilted her head and gazed back without flinching. “Yes, you have.” Then she sat next to Deirdre and put a comforting arm about her shoulders. “Yet it is truly sad nonetheless.”
Such kindness was the last thing Deirdre expected. She’d never been terribly good to her gawky cousin, although they’d forged a sort of truce when Phoebe had
needed their help. Now, that compassion quite laid waste to the last shred of her self-control. She leaned her head on Sophie’s neck and cried for Calder and Meggie and her own unhappy ending.
It didn’t change a thing, this moment of consolation and support. Calder still despised her, she was still going to be alone for the rest of her life and Tessa was still going to be the most hideous bitch about the entire matter—but it helped all the same. Knowing that she had Sophie and Phoebe to turn to in the world—well, it was more than she’d had since she’d lost Papa and quite possibly more than she deserved.
At last, empty of tears and her pain reduced, for the moment anyway, to a throbbing in her head and a sick turmoil in her belly, Deirdre lifted her head and sniffled away the last of her sobs. “Th—thank you.”
Sophie handed her a plain white square to dry her eyes with. “I thought I was going to have to build us an ark there for a moment.”
It wasn’t that funny, but Deirdre laughed helplessly into the handkerchief. Somehow lighter, though still devastated, she managed to give Sophie a watery grin. “Horrible. You’ll have to settle for marks for effort on that one.”
Sophie smiled, lending her thin features a flash of splendor seldom seen. “You’re welcome.” Then she stood and smoothed her skirts briskly. “Now time to get off that lovely arse of yours. You have plans that need making.”
“Plans?”
Sophie folded her arms. “Are you telling me that you’re going to give up just like that? Haven’t you learned anything from those tales I’ve translated for
you? There can be no great reward at the end without first passing some great test. This is yours. You must prove yourself to Brookhaven and win him back.”
“Prove myself?”
Sophie reached out to flick Deirdre on the ear like a recalcitrant student. “Don’t be a parrot. Now, we must figure out where you went so terribly wrong—”
Deirdre rubbed her ear and grimaced. “Well, I certainly didn’t flick his ear!”
Sophie grunted. “Perhaps you should have. Men can be so very thick.”
Deirdre narrowed her eyes. “Since when did you become so conversant with the opposite sex?”
“I—unlike some I could mention—am a very quick study. So, did you make yourself available to him?”
Deirdre blushed and looked away. “Sophie!”
“Oh, please.” Sophie waved the air. “I was brought up in the country, Dee. I know how mating works. It is only the
social
intercourse that I haven’t a clue how to pursue.”
Deirdre cleared her throat. “Ah, well … yes, I made myself available.”
“Did he want you?”
Want was far too pale a word to describe the dark hunger that had possessed him. Lust was too simple and love—well, had love, other than hers, even been present? “It was … complicated. Yes, he wanted me.” At least for a moment in time.
Sophie’s eyes brightened. “Ah! That is excellent. Ambivalence we can work with!”
Deirdre laughed even as she frowned. “What are you talking about, you mad thing?”
Although they discussed it for what seemed like hours, Sophie could come up with no better plan than
Deirdre’s, which was to lure Calder into courting her properly—starting over, so to speak.
The conversation began to drift, and then there was the sudden and intense need for sweets …
Sophie shook her head and popped another piece of toffee in her mouth. “I used to think how unfair it was,” she said around the sweet crunching. “After all, I have the same number of eyes and ears and limbs that you do. I have blue eyes—well, gray-blue, at any rate—and fair hair. Yet the overall effect is so different … .” She shrugged. “I always thought things were so much easier for you.” She rolled her eyes. “Except for Tessa, of course.”
Deirdre snickered. “Oh, yes please, let’s except Tessa. Where is my dear stepmother, anyway?”
Sophie took a deep satisfied breath. “Gone.” At Deirdre’s startled look, she laughed. “Oh, I didn’t do away with her or anything, though it crossed my mind once or twice or a thousand times.” She leaned close with a conspiratorial grin. “Lady Tessa has taken a
lover
.”
Deirdre simply shrugged. “I can’t imagine what took her so long. She rarely goes without.”
Sophie’s eyes widened. “She was like this when you were young?”
“She was like this within a month after my father’s death.” Old fury stirred, then subsided. “It doesn’t signify. Tessa is an amoral cat. One can only hope that her looks go before her stamina does.”
Sophie rolled over onto her back to gaze at the ceiling. “Tessa is so beautiful … almost as beautiful as you are.”
Deirdre raised a brow. “Thank you. Most people say it the other way around.”
“Until she opens her mouth, I’ll wager.”
Deirdre laughed. “Too right.”
“Beautiful, yet so awful. And here you are—beautiful, yet so sad. And here I am, unbeautiful, yet I’m having the most marvelous time …”
Her voice faded softly—a little too softly. Deirdre looked up sharply. “Why, Sophie Blake, you’ve met a man!”
Sophie grimaced. “Hardly. You and Phoebe nabbed the only two bearable gentlemen in Society and I’m not allowed to move in other, more interesting circles.”
Still, there rose a faint blush that brought something altogether new to the mix of features that made up Sophie’s “unbeautiful” face. She looked … pretty?
My, my.
Whoever he was, he must be quite the fellow to see past the ungainly shyness to find the fine wit beneath. Who might he be? As far as Deirdre knew, the only man Sophie wasn’t a complete goose around was—
Oh no
. Oh, dear heaven. “Sophie … Sophie, it isn’t … you haven’t lost your head over
Graham
, have you?”
“Of course not!” Yet the brief, panicked glance Sophie cast her said it all.
“Oh … but
Sophie
. Graham is—” Graham was too handsome, too highborn, too light-minded. The list was long and it led to one certain outcome—heartbreak for Sophie.
The blush deepened. “You needn’t worry, Dee. I don’t have any illusions about Graham. It would be like he said, a tiger and a giraffe.” She shrugged away the impossibility of being loved as if it were no more than an irritating thought.
She was an idiot for thinking she deserved anything less. Damn Graham for teasing his way into Sophie’s heart when he wished nothing but a clever playmate to ease his boredom. Now every man who followed, every bookish banker or scholar who might appreciate Sophie’s finer qualities, would be seen through the misty glass of first love. Who among them could survive being compared to handsome, charming, dashing in his own useless way Lord Graham Cavendish?
“I’m going to disembowel him,” Deirdre bit out clearly. “With a very dull spoon.”
Sophie laughed, covering her face in embarrassment. “You’ll do nothing of the kind. What’s the harm, anyway? He likes me and I make him laugh. I’ve a new friend and I’ve a lovely fancy to take away after the season, which is so much more than I came with.”
Deirdre wilted in the face of Sophie’s wry elation. She was happy now, but she had no idea of the pain in store for her when Graham grew bored and moved on to other, more interesting playmates—which he always did, sooner or later.
“Sophie, it—”
It hurts to be unloved. It leaves one hollow and aching and, oh, so very cold inside.
She couldn’t say it aloud, not with Sophie’s eyes softening simply at the thought of Graham, any more than she could say it aloud to herself.
Instead, she smiled and made a long arm to crack two more chunks of toffee from the batch. Handing one to Sophie, she raised her own chunk high. “Then here’s to lovely fancies,” she declared.
Sophie smiled crookedly and raised hers as well. “And here’s to new friends as well.”
Deirdre blinked back the mist that rose at the
knowledge that she wasn’t completely alone anymore. “New friends, then.”
They solemnly clinked the toffee, which promptly crumbled to the coverlet at the impact. They both looked down at the mess in horror, then sapphire-blue gaze met blue-gray gaze.
Their laughter could be heard throughout the halls of the house … if there had been anyone there to hear.
Left undisturbed by his uneasy staff, exhausted by the weeks past, and having found physical release for the first time in a long while, Calder slept through the evening and night, waking early the next morning alone in his enormous bed.
Of course, she would have returned to her own chamber. It was best that way. He would see her again in a civilized manner, a cool morning greeting over breakfast, perhaps a desultory conversation about the weather or Meggie’s progress—and then he would inform her of his decision.
The only problem was … he hadn’t actually made it yet.
To most men of his station, the matter would be cut and dried. Unfaithful wives were banished to the country where they couldn’t get up to mischief until they’d borne an heir. Then, if they didn’t invite too much ridicule with their “activities,” they were allowed to come to town and conduct their affairs with decorum and discretion. That was the way things were done in the aristocracy.
Calder disliked the casual immorality that surrounded him. His own father had sprouted a bastard along with
himself, careless of the differences in their futures which had caused the brothers endless pain over the years. Calder had never lain with a married woman, preferring to take his rare pleasure with the occasional widow, and he had always taken precautions against bastards. He would never wish such a future on any child of his.
So what of Deirdre? She’d claimed herself innocent of Baskin’s plans, yet he knew she’d entertained the fellow on a regular basis for quite a while.
She had not slept with the blighter at least. So was that scene he’d stumbled on yesterday one of illicit passion or something else? If she’d not been willing, then why not cry rape? She’d even stopped his vengeful beating of the whelp—which, looking back now, he was—mostly—glad he’d not killed the idiot.
Yet there was her daring in the bedroom, her willingness to do things that even now the memory of brought heat to his groin. She’d done them well, but perhaps not actually with skill.
So who was Deirdre: bold, flirtatious but virtuous wife, or calculating creature playing both sides of a dangerous game?
Argyle tapped his way into the chamber with a pot of coffee and a breakfast tray. Calder scowled. “I did not say I wouldn’t come down to breakfast.”
Argyle busied himself with the tray. “I’m sorry, my lord, but your usual breakfast hour was over long ago. I thought you might be hungry by now.”
Calder blinked. “I overslept?” He never overslept! Ever! Since childhood he’d been an early riser with no prompting whatsoever.
He rubbed a hand over his face. He’d been more worn by recent events than he’d realized, he supposed.
He felt a flash of guilt. Had Deirdre awaited him at the table for hours? She would think him angry or disappointed, when he was—well, he didn’t quite know what he was yet, did he?
“What time did her ladyship rise this morning, Argyle?”
Argyle made a great deal of noise with the tray. “I’m sure I wouldn’t know, my lord,” he mumbled.
Calder frowned. His staff knew he disliked evasions. “Argyle, when did her ladyship rise?”
The valet’s narrow shoulders slumped. “I would have to inquire of Lady Tessa’s staff, my lord, for Lady Brookhaven left the house last evening.”
Calder’s eyes narrowed. “Left? For a family dinner?”
Argyle looked absolutely miserable. “She packed, my lord. Everything”
She’d left him.
Deirdre!
This was his fault. He’d lost control with her, so soon after her first time, yet. He’d frightened and hurt her and she’d fled him! Flinging aside the covers, he sprang from the bed, ready to race to her side, to beg forgiveness. Then he halted.
Baskin claimed she wanted to run away and now she has.
Guilt and loss and insidious doubt mingled in a tangle within him. He would not chase another runaway bride, not after Melinda, not after Phoebe.
They wanted pretty words of love, he suspected, words he’d never used. It would be easy to simply say them, truth or not—that is, it would be easy if one weren’t Calder. He was never less than completely truthful. His strict code of honor permitted nothing less. So if he was to get his wife back—and he did want
her back, for she’d left an emptiness behind her that he didn’t want to look at too closely—he must find a way to appeal to her wiser, more practical self.
He’d seen what excess and emotion could do to people, causing loss and destruction. He’d seen where lies and betrayal could go. He would not forgo his own honor, not for anyone, nor could he have faith in people who were less rigidly honorable than himself. He only wished he knew which category his wife fell into. He suspected that the answer was not the one he’d like.
Yet responsibility tore at him. “Was she well, when she left?” Was she in good spirits, happy to escape her dull marital duty? Was she cowering and frightened, fleeing the Beast?
Argyle took too long to answer as he took out Calder’s clothing for the day. Then, with a furtive glance at the master’s set expression, he caved. “She was in fair shape, my lord … but for the … the bruises.”
Bruises. Oh God, he was a brute, just as the world claimed! He could scarcely recall what he’d done during those lost incandescent, orgasmic moments when he’d taken her hard and fast and—
He covered his eyes with one hand. “Leave me!”
Argyle left speedily and then there was no one left in the room but Guilt, Remorse and Self-Loathing. Those guests, he feared, were here to stay.
MATTERS AT THE house on Primrose Street had gone from relaxed to raging when Tessa reappeared at last.
A crystal dish flew through the air to shatter on the opposite wall. “You stupid cow!” Tessa was ever careful with her beauty, but apparently she’d never looked
in the mirror when in a temper. Deirdre had always marveled how someone so beautiful could look so like a gargoyle when angry.
Another valuable dented the wallpaper. “If you wanted a bit of pudding on the sly you ought to have been more careful! And then to leave—what are you thinking? You must go back to him at once!” Tessa demanded between shrieks of rage. “Seduce him from his anger, blind him with lust, make him forget the whole matter! It shouldn’t take much to make him forget his jealousy. After all,” she sneered, “it isn’t as if he actually loves you!”
Deirdre felt the shot of that truth but would never give Tessa the satisfaction of seeing the arrow penetrate. Instead, she gazed at her stepmother with cool disdain.
“That is your maternal advice? To distract him with bedroom acrobatics while I have my ‘pudding on the sly’?” Deirdre exhaled slowly. “Really, what was Papa thinking when he chose you to be my mother?”
Tessa’s head snapped back and bitterness flared in her eyes. “I should never have agreed to his proposal! First he makes an idiot of himself with those shipping investments, then when the ships go down in a storm, he has the nerve to die and leave me with nothing but his brat to look after!”
Tessa’s face twisted with resentment. “I told him not to risk everything, but he insisted that you have a worthy dowry. He didn’t want you to have to try for a duke, he said. He wanted you to marry for love!” She spat like a cat. “
Love!
What a ridiculous fool!”
Deirdre didn’t retort, too stunned to care if Tessa scored a point.
He wanted you to marry for love!
Papa had not been party to the conspiracy of modeling her into the perfect bait for a duke. Papa had not wanted her to endure the endless hours of “figure-training” and semi-starvation and punishments at Tessa’s vicious hand.
That had all been Tessa’s idea, in order to win wealth and connections for herself.
Of course it was. Oh, Papa. I’m so sorry I doubted you.
The irony of it was, she had blamed Tessa for the loss of her father’s wealth, when it had been herself at the source of it all the time.
Nothing is ever quite what it seems, is it?
Truth was the only constant in this world. If nothing else, all her manipulation and calculation had taught her that. If Calder had spoken the truth about having a daughter, or if Deirdre had spoken the truth to herself about her reasons for keeping Baskin close by, or if Tessa had spoken the truth about Papa’s wishes …
No, that thread didn’t wind, for Deirdre had loved Lord Calder Marbrook, Marquis of Brookhaven, from the very first moment she saw him. From then on, she had trained as diligently as Tessa could ever ask for, for she had one goal in mind … to have him for her very own.
And how did that wind up?
She’d ruined everything, of course. Yet, she could not regret aiming her own arrow toward Calder’s heart. Should she never feel his touch again, she’d known more happiness with him in her short time as his wife than she ever had. How could she regret that?
Tessa was pacing, her tirade escalating. “What if he decides to dissolve the marriage? Have you thought of
that? He has the money to pay the bribes, and he has no honorable reputation to uphold. The man’s a scandal three times over! Do you think he’d stop at something like divorce?”
Doubt wormed through Deirdre. Calder was a good man, but he might think himself in the right to divorce her. After all, he needed an heir. What if he didn’t believe her faithful enough to produce a true Marbrook?
It was an ugly thought and she didn’t think him capable of it—yet the doubt wouldn’t dissipate. Tessa was right about one thing. Calder didn’t love her. What if Tessa was right about this as well?
“We’ll be ruined!” Tessa, when highly wound up, required no actual response. “No one will want you now, and we’ve nothing left, not a farthing!” She whirled on Deirdre, her lovely face twisted with hatred. “This is all your fault!”
Deirdre nodded calmly. “Of course it is, but really, how could you expect matters to end any differently when I haven’t the faintest idea of how to live happily ever after, like in one of Sophie’s stories!”
She shook her head, suddenly unbearably wearied by Tessa’s self-absorption. “Tessa, since this house was rented with mine and Sophie’s money, I think you had better take yourself off to that lover of yours.”
Tessa blinked in surprise, then snarled, advancing on Deirdre with her hand raised. “I’ll do no such thing! How dare you? I am your guardian, you little—”
Crack!
Tessa’s head whipped to one side at the force of Deirdre’s open hand on her cheek.
“Oh, my,” Sophie breathed. “That was lovely.”
Tessa scurried backward, her eyes wide over the hands she pressed to her reddening cheek. “You dare!”
Deirdre ran her hand down her skirts, for her palm stung fiercely. “Get out, you nauseating harpy, or I’ll drive you out with my own hands.” Her voice sounded oddly calm, but her stomach trembled with rage and disgust.
“I’ll help,” Sophie murmured, but Tessa only had eyes for Deirdre.
“I’m done with you, Tessa,” Deirdre continued. “I am a married woman now, so you no longer have a reason to speak to me, or call on me, or wave to me when I pass you in Hyde Park.” She stepped forward, but took no real satisfaction when Tessa stepped quickly back. Bullying Tessa made her feel soiled. “
Done
, do you understand?”
Tessa slid a look in Sophie’s direction, but perhaps some scrap of common sense remained in her vain and vicious mind, for she did not play the chaperone card at that moment. Instead, she straightened and tilted her head arrogantly at Deirdre, who decided not to notice that her stepmother’s hands were trembling at her sides.
“I have things to do, in superior company, mind you, so I shall take my leave for a time.” She turned with twitchy dignity and nearly ran from the room.
Sophie came alongside Deirdre and placed a gentle hand on her arm. “She can’t leave forever,” Sophie said. “It would not be acceptable for me to stay here on my own.” Then she gave Deirdre’s arm a little squeeze. “But I’d definitely enjoy a brief respite from her ‘superior company’!”
Deirdre was too bruised, inside and out, by recent events to give an answering laugh, but she put her hand over Sophie’s, wordlessly thanking her for making the effort.
She sighed. “Tessa is the least of my worries at the moment. What am I going to do about Calder? He thinks I’m in love with
Baskin!
”
Sophie shook her head. “Sometimes I think I was better off not knowing any men. I truly had no idea they could be so very stupid.” She sighed. “It’s quite disappointing, really.”
This time Deirdre did laugh, a small damp sound that might have been a sob.
Damn Baskin anyway!