Indiscreet (19 page)

It was a good thing, at least, he thought, that he did not love her, even though he had never wanted a marriage without love. If he did, he might be feeling considerable pain along with the unexpected happiness these first few weeks of his marriage were bringing him. Of course there was something like pain. . . .

They both turned their heads at the same moment to look toward the great stone gateposts at the end of the drive, not far distant from the bridge. A strange carriage was turning in the direction of the house.

“Who is it?” she asked. “Is it someone I have not met yet?”

But he was smiling as he took her elbow and hurried her across the bridge so that they would not be bowled over by the approaching carriage. Toby came tearing toward them, barking with excited ferocity, as he did at all their visitors—it had not taken him long to lay claim to this new territory.

“No,” Lord Rawleigh said. “One stranger to you, Catherine. And perhaps two old acquaintances. Yes, indeed.”

The carriage had stopped as soon as it crossed the bridge, as its occupants had obviously spotted them. The viscount stepped forward to open the door. Lord Pelham jumped out without waiting for anything as unessential as steps to be set down, and proceeded to slap his friend on the shoulder and pump his hand.

“Rex, you old sinner,” he said. “Married without even waiting
for your friends to arrive in their wedding finery. Congratulations, old chap.”

He turned to Catherine while Nathaniel Gascoigne took his place, laughing and slapping and assuring him that he was a lucky dog, luckier than he deserved. He demanded that Eden stand aside so that he could hug the bride and steal a kiss since he had not been at the wedding to do so.

And then the Earl of Haverford came jumping out of the carriage. The Fourth Horseman of the Apocalypse—tall, blond, and elegant.

“Rex,” he said. “My dear boy. What is all this?”

They hugged each other. It had been several months since they had seen each other. Once upon a time they had lived and breathed together and fought side by side constantly—and almost died together on more occasions than they would care to remember.

“I read your letter with some amazement,” the earl said. “And then Nat and Eden informed me that your marriage was no big surprise to them at all. I take it unkindly that you would not hold back the wedding for us. But then, perhaps we would have fought over which of us was to be your best man. I take it Claude did the honors?”

Lord Rawleigh nodded and grinned. “Three best men—four with Claude—might have been considered a little eccentric,” he said. “But you felt compelled to come, and three of you. All the way from Cornwall. I am honored.”

The Earl of Haverford clapped a hand on his shoulder and turned to meet the bride, who was laughing and being laughed
over by the other two. But they stood aside so that their other friend could be presented to her.

Lord Rawleigh looked at the earl, about to make the introductions. But he paused, seeing the arrested look on his friend's face.

“Why, Lady Catherine,” he said.

A quick, sharp glance at his wife revealed to the viscount a face that had lost all color and eyes that stared with fear and recognition.

“My wife,” he said, somehow keeping his voice on an even keel. “Kenneth Woodfall, Earl of Haverford, Catherine. I take it the two of you have a previous acquaintance.”

His wife was curtsying. “My lord,” she said through bloodless lips.

“Yes, indeed.” Ken spoke loudly, heartily, quickly. “Pardon me, ma'am. It is Lady
Rawleigh
, is it not? Yes, I do believe we were in town at the same time a number of years ago. I was invalided home from the Peninsula for a few months. You persuaded Rex into matrimony, then, or the other way around. Nat and Eden have been telling me all the way here what a lucky dog he is. Now I can see for myself that they did not exaggerate.” He was taking her hand and bowing over it. He raised it to his lips.

“I am perfectly well aware of my good fortune,” the viscount said, taking her hand—it was icy cold—and drawing it through his arm as he smiled down at her. “It seems, my love, that we are to have houseguests.”

“How very pleasant.” She managed to smile. There was even color in her cheeks again. “I saw for myself at Bodley that Lord Pelham and Mr. Gascoigne were my husband's particular friends.
I am delighted to meet another. It will be lovely for you all to be together again.”

“We should have had that hound in Spain with us,” the earl said. “He would have sent the French scurrying back across the Pyrenees for safety even before the first battle was fought. Yours, ma'am?”

Toby had pranced about in an ecstasy of ferocity and exuberance ever since the carriage had turned between the gateposts. It had not helped matters that Nat had wrestled with him.

They made their way to the house, all talking at once, it seemed, rather too loudly, rather too heartily. There was a great deal of laughter and excited yipping.

Lady Catherine.

The recognition and the fear in her eyes.

Ken's hasty cover-up. Too late.

Lady
Catherine.

•   •   •

COOK
managed to supply luncheon for three unexpected guests at very little notice at all. There was a great deal of talk and laughter at the table. Afterward Catherine had several visits to pay alone while the men remained behind to spend the afternoon together. Dinner was almost a repeat performance of luncheon. In the evening they all went to the Brixhams' for conversation and cards—her husband had sent notice of the arrival of three friends and the invitation had been extended to them too. The unattached ladies of the neighborhood were considerably charmed.

It was a day like most others—crowded with activity. There had been not a moment to themselves since the morning on the bridge.

Catherine undressed for bed, had Marie brush out her hair, and dismissed her for the night. She put on her dressing gown and went through to her sitting room rather than the bedroom to wait. She was shivering, she found, even though her husband's friends had been commenting on the fact that it was an unusually warm evening for spring.

They were such pleasant gentlemen. They had gone out of their way to make her feel comfortable, to make her laugh despite the fact that she was the one woman among four men. The Earl of Haverford had been especially charming. He had not shunned her or treated her as if she had the plague, as she had rather expected as soon as she had recognized him.

She had a vivid memory of him as he had been that spring, exceedingly handsome in his scarlet regimentals, romantically pale from the wounds that had almost killed him in Spain. All the young ladies of the
ton
had sighed over him—herself included, though she had never done more than dance the occasional set with him at a ball.

“Toby.” She allowed her dog to jump up onto a love seat beside her, even though he was learning not to dare make himself comfortable on furniture when her husband was present. She wrapped her arms about him and set her cheek against his warm neck. “Oh, Toby, this was bound to happen. Why did I not tell him at the start? Before we were married. Before I started to—care a
little bit. Oh, I knew I should never allow myself to care for anyone. Not even a little bit.”

Toby licked her cheek. But before he could participate further in the conversation, the door opened and he jumped hastily down.

“Ah, here you are,” her husband said. “It was wise to come here rather than go to the bedroom, I suppose.”

He did not look particularly angry. But then, why should he? He had known that there was much of her story he had not heard. He had not tried to insist that she tell it. And she had never lied to him. Not really. She wondered what Lord Haverford had told him during the afternoon. But she knew the answer immediately. Nothing. He would have said nothing. She found herself on her feet.

“Well,
Lady
Catherine,” her husband said, “at least now part of the puzzle has been explained. You have settled to life at Stratton as if to the manner born. It appears that you were to the manner born. Are you coming to bed? You look as if you are set for confrontation, but it does not have to be that way. I can hardly insist now that you spill all, can I, not having done so from the start. And you can rest assured that Ken will keep his lips buttoned.”

“Lady Catherine Winsmore,” she said quietly, “daughter of the Earl of Paxton.”

He said nothing for a while, but stood close to the door, his hands clasped behind him, his lips pursed. “Ah,” he said at last, “you are going to tell me more after all, are you? You had better sit down, Catherine, before you faint. Is it really such a dreadful story?”

She sat and clasped her hands loosely in her lap. She looked down at them. Yes, she was going to tell him more. She was going to tell him everything. But only one foolish thought lodged in her mind while she tried to compose herself and decide where to begin.

She was in love with him after all, she thought. What a time for such a discovery!

She was in love with him.

H
E
crossed slowly to a brocaded chair close to the fireplace and sat down on it—not too close to her. Toby sniffed at his slipper and then lay down with his chin resting across it.

He looked at her—pale and composed, staring down at the hands in her lap. He was not sure he wanted to hear it. She had been his wife for three weeks. They had developed a working relationship during that time. They were almost friends. They were insatiable lovers. And yet they were strangers. He had not even known who she was until a few moments ago. Lady Catherine Winsmore—now Lady Catherine Adams, Viscountess Rawleigh—daughter of the Earl of Paxton.

For five years she had lived at Bodley-on-the-Water as Mrs. Catherine Winters, widow. Yet she had been the unmarried
daughter of an earl. He was acquainted with the Earl of Paxton. He had just forgotten that his family name was Winsmore.

“I made my come-out when I was nineteen,” she said. “A family bereavement had prevented it the year before. I felt old. I felt that I had been left behind.” She laughed softly without amusement. “I was very ready for flirtation, love, marriage. Above all I wanted to enjoy my Season. A bereavement can be irksome when one is young, especially when it is for a relative one has not known well and can feel no great sorrow for.”

This was the Catherine of five years ago. She would have been a beautiful and eager girl. He would have been in the Peninsula at the time. She had made her come-out the year Ken had been invalided home. He had come back to Spain and deliberately infuriated them with his descriptions of all the young ladies of the
ton
with whom he had flirted and danced and walked. Perhaps Catherine had been one of them.

“I was fortunate enough to have several admirers,” she said. “One in particular. He offered for me early. Papa was eager. It was a good match. I liked him. I was inclined to say yes. But—oh, but foolishly I found him a little dull. I would say yes eventually, I thought, but I did not want to be tied down by a betrothal before the end of the Season. I wanted other men to think I was free. I was not done with flirtation. I was such a foolish girl.”

“It is not foolish to want to enjoy life when one is young,” he said quietly. Toby, across his foot, heaved a deep sigh of contentment.

“There was someone else who excited me far more,” she said. “He was handsome and gay and charming. And he was made
quite irresistible by the fact that he had a reputation as a rake. It was rumored that he played deep at the gaming tables and that he was facing ruin and was in search of a rich wife. I was warned to stay well away from him.”

“But you did not,” he said.

She hunched her shoulders. “I had no illusions about the nature of his interest in me,” she said. “I had no thought of marriage with him. I was not in love with him. But it was exhilarating to be admired by someone so notorious and so—forbidden. I would sometimes dance with him in defiance of my chaperone. I used to exchange glances with him at concerts and at the theater. Sometimes, if he suspected that I was being kept at a distance from him, he would contrive to send me notes. I even answered one of them—but only one. I was uneasy about doing anything so outrageously improper. I was just—very silly.”

It must be very bad, he thought. She was taking a long while getting to it. She had not once looked up at him.

“Just very young,” he said.

“But then I did something outrageously improper after all.” She hunched her shoulders again and paused a long while before continuing. “We were both at Vauxhall—with separate parties. He asked me to dance with him, but my escort told him—very stiffly and firmly—that I was engaged for the evening. He smuggled a note to me with a wine waiter, asking me to meet him for a brief stroll along one of the paths. It was such a beautiful, enchanted place and it was the first time I had been there. But all my own party wanted to do was sit in the box that had been
reserved, eating strawberries and drinking wine. No one was willing to dance or to walk. I was so very disappointed.”

Her voice had quickened, become more agitated. He looked at her bowed head and knew one thing at least. It was a good thing she had not married the dull, respectable man who had sapped all the youthful exuberance from her first Season. Poor girl that she had been—he could feel the pull of the temptation she had felt. Surely a harmful temptation, which of course she had given in to. He supposed they had been seen alone together and she had been ruined. No, there must have been more to it than that. He remembered his wedding night.

“I said I was going to call upon a friend in another box,” she said, “and rushed away before anyone could jump up to escort me. I went for the stroll I had so longed for.” She laughed and spread her hands over her face briefly.

He had ravished her. God, he had ravished her.

“He had a carriage waiting,” she said. “I did not want to get into it, of course, but he promised me it would be just a short drive so that he could show me the lights of Vauxhall from a little distance away. I was too embarrassed to make a loud fuss, which I would have had to make to free myself of his grip on my arm. He—he did something to me in the carriage—and he took me straight home afterward. He was quite bold about it. He told Papa we were in love and had been together and that he would have eloped with me but he had too great a regard for my reputation.” She paused.

“He had ravished you?” It was hard to get the words past his lips.

Her eyes were closed and her hands tightly clasped in her lap. “Over the years,” she said, “I have persuaded myself that it was not my fault. I said no—over and over again. But I went willingly to him, and I got into his carriage without any undue pressure. I suppose it cannot really be called ravishment. No one else ever called it that. It was all my fault.”

“Catherine!” His voice was harsh and for the first time her head shot up and she looked at him. “You said no. It was ravishment. It was not your fault.”

She closed her eyes again and tipped her head back.

“He wanted to be sure of your fortune?” he asked, though the answer was obvious, of course. “Why did you not marry him, Catherine? Did your father forbid it?”

She laughed harshly. “I would not,” she said. “Oh, I would not. I would have preferred to die. He made no secret of what had happened, of course—or his version of what had happened. He wanted to make sure that I had no choice.”

Ruin. Complete and total ruin. How had she found the courage to refuse to do what she had seemed compelled to do?

“And so,” he said, “you were banished to Bodley-on-the-Water to live out your life under an assumed name and an assumed widowhood.”

She did not answer for a few moments. “Yes,” she said at last.

“Who was he?” His voice was almost a whisper. He felt such a murderous rage that he was almost paralyzed by it.

She shook her head slowly.

He would find out. She would tell him. He would find the scoundrel and kill him.

“Catherine?” he said.

And then he was struck by a thought. She had not loved either man—either the one to whom she had been almost betrothed or the one who had ravished her. She had gone to London eager for her first Season—so there could have been no one she had left behind.
Who the devil, then, was Bruce?

She had not answered him. She sat with her head still thrown back and her eyes still closed.

“Catherine,” he said, “who is Bruce?”

She looked at him then, her eyes at first blank and then filling with such torment that his breath caught in his throat. She opened her mouth to speak and closed it again. Then she tried once more.

“He was my son.” There was despair in her voice. “The child of that ugliness. He was born a month early. He lived only three hours. It was a very good thing he died, everyone said. How fortunate for me and for him too. He was my baby. He was mine. And he was innocent of that ugliness. Bruce was my son. He died in my arms.”

God! He sat rooted to his chair, frozen to it.

“There.” He was not sure how much time had passed since either of them had spoken. The emotion had gone from her voice. “That is what I should have told you before we married. That is what you should have insisted I tell you. You have married a woman who was doubly ruined, my lord. I would not marry him even when the full truth of my predicament was known. I was sent to my aunt in Bristol. But she did not want me and I did not want to be there, being treated as if I were too depraved even for the gallows. So I suggested a future for myself that would rid my
family of the embarrassment of my presence and would give me a chance for some sort of new life. I even chose Bodley-on-the-Water myself.”

He found himself doing mental calculations. Yes, it was six years ago that Ken had been sent back to England, not five.

“Catherine,” he said, “who was he?”

But she shook her head again. “Leave it,” she said. “Let it go. I have. I have had to in order to stay sane.”

“Who was he?” He recognized the voice as one he had used a great deal during his years as a cavalry officer. It was a voice that had invariably commanded instant obedience. She was looking at him again. “You will tell me who he is,” he said.

“Yes,” she said quietly. “I owe you that. Sir Howard Copley.”

If it was possible to turn colder, he did it. There was a buzzing in his ears. He wondered with a detached sort of fascination if he was about to faint. Was such a ghastly coincidence possible? Yet he remembered the conversation he had had with Daphne not so long ago. Copley had been a known rake and fortune hunter for a number of years. He had been involved in a number of scandals and even in two duels. Somehow—but such things happened—he still moved on the fringes of Society and sometimes even closer than the fringes.

Lord Rawleigh had been told all about Copley at the time his betrothal had ended. The memories were all strangely mixed up with the events surrounding Waterloo. He had heard the names of a few other young ladies whose reputations had been sullied or even ruined by Copley. Could he remember any of those names now? Had Catherine's been among them? Was it possible to
remember accurately?
Paxton's daughter
. Whom for some reason Copley had failed to marry even though
she had borne his bastard
.

Was he inventing the memory now? Or was it really there, lodged firmly in his subconscious? Angry as he had been at Horatia, hurt as he had been, he had thought at the time—at least she had been spared what that other foolish woman had endured.
Paxton's daughter
.

She had got to her feet, and Toby was scrambling to his. His tail was waving cheerfully back and forth, brushing Lord Rawleigh's leg as it did so.

“I am going to bed,” she said quietly without looking at him. “I am exhausted. Good night.”

Toby trotted out of the room at her heels. The viscount sat for a long time where he was before finally getting up and making his weary way to his own bedchamber, taking the candle with him.

•   •   •

SHE
slept deeply and dreamlessly. She awoke early, surprised that she had slept at all. He had not come to her—for the first time since their return to Stratton. It was the end, of course. She accepted that quite calmly. She supposed she had always known that she would tell him one day or that he would find out. And if she had known that, then she had also known that it would be the end.

She would not burden herself with the guilt of having cheated him into marrying her under false pretenses. He had known there
were secrets. He might have insisted on knowing them that day he had come with Daphne to her cottage. He had not insisted.

Well, now he knew that he had married a woman who could never again appear in decent society.

She would not allow her mind to move beyond the calm knowledge that this was the end. It was of no great moment. She had lived alone for five years and had even been happy. And it was not as if she loved him—she stubbornly refused to remember what she had admitted to herself just last night before she told him her story.

She would not go downstairs early. He had to be faced, of course, but not at breakfast. Not with the chance that his friends would be at the table too. She turned over onto her side and touched her pillow where his head usually lay. She willed herself back to sleep.

She woke up an hour later, surprised again that she had succeeded. It seemed that unburdening herself had released a great tension inside her and had left her totally exhausted.

His lordship was out riding with his guests, the butler informed her after she had entered the breakfast room and heaved a silent sigh of relief to find it empty. She hoped they would stay out all morning. She herself had three visits planned for the afternoon. There was luncheon to face, of course. But that would probably be like yesterday's meals. His friends liked to talk and laugh. She was not sure if they had all been covering up for Lord Haverford's revelation. She supposed they had been.