“True enough
. But as it turns out, I lacked a critical piece of information about my future wife—one you obviously were aware of, but chose not to share. Charity is at my home because it is the best place I could think to leave her in her state.”
Monsieur Durand looked on with an expression of mild interest, while Beaufort’s scowl was starting to match Graeme’s own.
“Her state?”
“Aye, her state
. Her…condition. I may be frustrated at having been hamstrung with an unsuitable wife, but I would not treat her with cruelty. She is safe at home. I even hired her a nurse.”
“You did
what
?” the duke was half out of his seat, the Frenchman just behind him. “A nurse? As though she were a child or an invalid?”
Graeme sneered
. “Isn’t she?” He was tired of playing games.
“Bloody hell
. Is she injured?”
“Injured
? That’s an interesting way of putting it.”
“
Why, exactly,” the duke enunciated, “is your bride rusticating in the highlands while you are here?”
“I discovered her little secret
. After which, I told her she was unfit to be either wife or mother. Don’t worry, Your Grace, the nurse will ensure she comes to no harm. Nay, it is I who have been harmed, for now I am saddled with a wife who cannot fully fill that role.”
The duke and the Frenchman frowned at one another, then at him
. “Speak plainly, Leventhal. You said Charity was ‘unfit.’ Was she not a virgin? Or was she—” he wriggled a hand, “deformed in some way that makes the two of you unable to…”
“No, no
.” He swallowed, as images of Charity’s lithe body beneath his sprang unbidden to her mind. Her body was perfect. Utterly perfect.
Damn
. “It’s not her body that’s the problem, it’s her mind.”
“Her mind.”
“Aye.” Graeme shoved his lustful thoughts away, re-warming to his anger. “How did you keep her secret for so long? Or did you simply hope that face of hers, combined with a dowry befitting a duchess, would be enough for most men to overlook her defect?”
“Defect
? What in God’s name is he raving about?” the Frenchman asked the duke.
“I assure you…
”
But Graeme wasn’t interested in hearing any more
. “I wondered, I admit, why none of Charity’s relatives rode after us, given our rather, ah, unconventional means of marriage. Hah. More the fool am I. No, instead of riding to her rescue, you were home, laughing and toasting to your good luck. Not only was she married off, but to a
Scot
—tucked conveniently away in the country where she would trouble you no longer.” He stalked across the room to the table bearing the decanter and poured himself a brandy. Rude, but no more so than the duke failing to offer it to him in the first place. He lifted the glass toward the other men in a mock toast, and tossed it back.
“Leventhal, you begin to irritate me
. Exactly what ‘defect’ do you find in my sister in law?”
The duke’s tone was icy, but Graeme wasn’t backing down
. “She’s
mad
, Your Grace. A lunatic. Raves incoherently. I’d have sworn she was awake, but she acted as though she didn’t recognize me at all. Don’t tell me you did not know.”
The duke blew out a long breath
. The Frenchman watched them both, now with concern in his eyes.
“Mad,” Beaufort stated.
“Aye, mad.”
“Tell me,” asked the duke, “these ravings, as you call them
. When do they occur? At night?”
“Aye, at night.”
“Only then?”
Graeme shrugged
. “That is when I have observed them. Of course, I have not known her as long as you. But I assume, in order for her ailment to have remained hidden so long, it must not often affect her during the day.”
The duke looked thoughtful
. “And it is this condition of…madness, that has led you to abandon your wife?”
“It pains me to stay away
,” he admitted. “Much of the time she is simply the woman who so enraptured me as to inspire our elopement in the first place. But other times…one would believe the devil himself had hold of her.”
Monsieur Durand looked agitated
. “Beaufort, I made you an oath, that I would never again speak of certain events. I would ask that you release me from that oath now.”
The duke scrubbed a hand across his forehead, then pinched the bridge of his nose
. “She would have told him herself, if she wanted him to know.”
“He is her husband
. He has a right to know. Look at him. Think of her. They love each other, no? Yet they suffer. Also,” the Frenchman added, leaning forward and carefully emphasizing his next words, “he can protect her better if he knows.”
The duke nodded slowly
. “True. All right. I release you.” He turned to Graeme. “Were you in London last summer? Did you follow the news?”
“Nay,” Graeme told him
. “My sister and her husband had just been killed in a boating accident. Their young son came to live with me, and…suffice it to say, the news of the world at large was not my primary concern.”
“Understandable
. Bear with me, then, for my answer to you concerning Charity’s condition will make more sense with a bit of explanation.”
Monsieur Durand rose to pour them each another drink
. Graeme watched him closely, noting that the Frenchman’s own drink contained nearly a finger more of brandy than the others.
“Charity has a bright mind and a big heart, and until last summer, she never once experienced an episode of
…what you call madness.”
“Go on,” Graeme said. He didn’t want to get his hopes up, but if there was an explanation, or a cure…
I wasn’t always this way.
Charity’s truncated explanation echoed in his mind, the words repeating like an ominous drumbeat.
“Last summer, a small ring of Fre
nch spies infiltrated London,” the duke said. “They were attempting to help General Bonaparte in his quest to reclaim his empire.”
“Lady Beatrice Pullington, whom I had only just begun to court, was unfortunate enough to intercept one of their communications.”
“Lady Pullington is a good friend to both Elizabeth and Charity,” said the duke. “Since Elizabeth was in delicate condition, what with expecting our son, Lady Pullington included Miss Medford in her adventure.”
“Adventure?” Graeme asked, feeling stupidly lost
. True, he hadn’t followed the news, but this was quite a story the two men spun.
“She
did not know, at first, that the note she’d received had come from the spies. She believed it a lovers’ missive, and curiosity led her to seek its sender, so that the young man would know it had gone astray, rather than thinking it had been received and rejected. The note requested a secret rendezvous at Vauxhall Gardens. Lady Pullington and Miss Medford attended. Fortunately, they at least had the presence of mind to keep from being seen.”
Vauxhall isn’t safe
. Charity’s words from the picnic echoed in Graeme’s mind. They were beginning to make sense.
“Ah,
l’amour
. My daring Beatrice. When she discovered the true nature of the note, she turned it over to the authorities,” Monsieur Durand said. “I knew nothing of this at the time.”
“
Monsieur Durand knew nothing of it,” the duke pointed out, “because
he
was among those suspected. A famous French painter, who’d never come to London before, suddenly choosing to spend several weeks there? The British Foreign Service knew Bea was sitting for a portrait. They asked her to observe him.”
“Lucky for me
.” Monsieur Durand donned a lascivious expression.
Beaufort chuckled, then sobered
. “We told Charity to have no more to do with the matter. She and Lady Pullington had started out thinking it a harmless adventure, but of course it was not. Charity never said it, but I think she felt we treated her like a child. She wanted to show she could be as helpful as Lady Pullington.”
“In a matter concerning spies
?”
“Yes
. Don’t get me wrong. Charity is not at all stupid, but she does act rashly. She was in over her head. Still, she gathered what she knew, and what she’d seen, and tried to piece it together. She believed one of the spies worked as a servant in the home of a family she knew. She started snooping around.”
Graeme shook his head
. “Dangerous.” But it sounded exactly like Charity. From the first night they’d met, when she’d disguised herself to attend an illicit ball, he’d known she had a daring streak.
“
Oui
,” Monsieur Durand agreed. “Unfortunately, she was caught in the act. The would-be servant did not know what to do with her. So he took her to the leader of his group. Kidnapped her.”
“No
.” Graeme uttered a curse word he rarely gave voice to. He considered his drink, but found he didn’t want it anymore.
Beaufort and the Frenchman looked at each other
. “We found her,” the duke said. “Two days later.”
Graeme’s throat felt thick
. “Please tell me you killed each and every one of her captors.”
“Given the chance, I would have,” the du
ke growled. “They were gone. We found her, locked in a dank cellar on the riverfront.” He closed his eyes briefly. “Lord Maxwell, they’d left her there to die.”
Graeme leaned over, feeling dizzy and ill
. “Was she…did they?” he rasped.
The other two men exchanged a long glance
. “I don’t know,” the duke finally answered. “We had a physician examine her, after we got her home, and he said no. But of course, that is what physicians in the
ton
are paid to say, when a young lady’s reputation is called into question.”
“But thi
s is different!”
Monsieur Durand threw back the remainder of his brandy and poured another
. The duke reached for the decanter after him.
“Different, indeed
. And yet not so different. If it were bandied about by the gossips that Charity had been held captive by a group of vulgar criminals, let alone raped by them, do you think it would have matter that she’d been touched without her consent?”
Now Graeme closed his eyes
. “Nay. The gossips would eat her alive. She’d be tarnished.”
“Do
you
think her tarnished?” the duke asked sharply.
Graeme’s eyes flew open
. “Nay!” Then he realized that, only minutes ago, he’d thought exactly that—though he’d thought it was her mind, rather than her body, that was tarnished. “That is, not any longer.”
The other man’s shoulders relaxed
. “Good. I’d prefer not to have to kill you.”
“She could have told me.”
The duke nodded. “I’d rather hoped she would. But Charity never spoke of what went on down there.”
“When we found her,” Monsieur Durand put in, wincing as he spoke, “her fingertip
s were reduced to bloody nubs. She…she’d tried to claw her way out,” he finished in a whisper.
Graeme’s mind rebelled from the image.
“For weeks afterward, she could not even leave her room without gloves. You understand, now, why we made an oath never to speak of this. We wanted to protect her from any further ugliness. We wanted her to go back to her normal life.”
“Only she couldn’t,” the duke said
. “She struggled. I know she did. The family…did what we could to help. As much as we wanted her to live normally, we also wanted to protect her.”
“Of course you did
.” What dark hell had Charity lived through? Though his mind heard everything the two men said, he could not reconcile those images with the lovely, spirited woman he knew.
“Two of the spies wer
e later caught,” the duke went on. “The servant who first garnered Charity’s suspicion, and a stage performer. The man they served, who’d sought the information they were trying to steal, was also caught.” He looked at Monsieur Durand.
“My father,” the Frenchman said softly
. “The Brits were not so far off in suspecting me, as it turned out. They just had the wrong Durand.” He knocked back the rest of his second brandy, and Graeme understood why he’d poured himself extra.
“But two were never caught
. And Charity knows this.”
“The nightmares
…” Graeme mused, his mind shrinking in horror at what the content of Charity’s dreams might be.
“Yes
. The nightmares.”
All three sat in silent reflection.
“It is not madness, then,” Graeme said.
The duke sighed
. “Not madness in the way of Bedlamites, no. But sometimes she
is
terrified out of her mind. It takes her a few minutes, upon awaking, to regain reason. We had to pay the servants extra to keep from gossiping.”