The Secret to Seduction (35 page)

He needed time to think, regardless.

He wanted to ask the housekeeper more questions.
Do they resemble her?
These women Sabrina has looked for, longed for, all her life? To his knowledge, he’d never met either of them. Though he was acquainted with their husbands. Tom Shaughnessy from the deliciously infamous White Lily Theater. Kit Whitelaw…a former soldier, a former officer, like himself.

And it was possible, feasible, in this world, that Sabrina, his country girl, would never cross paths with any of them. He’d kept one secret this long; he could accommodate yet another, he told himself.

Instead he said, “Extend your apologies, but do inform them that the earl isn’t in at present, and that the woman they are seeking isn’t at La Montagne.”

And he congratulated himself, darkly, that it wasn’t entirely a lie.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

D
ISAPPOINTMENT MEANT THAT it was quiet inside the Grantham carriage as it pulled away from La Montagne.

“?‘The woman you seek isn’t at La Montagne,’?” Susannah repeated slowly to Sylvie in the carriage. “Where do you suppose she
is
? Do you suppose she’s moved on? Had she
ever
been at La Montagne? Not terribly helpful, was she, the housekeeper? I suppose we could have insisted upon staying and waiting for the earl to return. What a long way to come in order to be disappointed.” Susannah was sounding nearly peevish.

“Perhaps she has simply moved on to another visit?” Sylvie wasn’t terribly enthusiastic about country living. She’d lived in cities the entirety of her life, and vast open spaces made her a bit uncomfortable.

“Kit said Lady Mary Capstraw is known for ever visiting. And if she has Sabrina Fairleigh in tow, we might chase them in circles for ages.”

“Then let us return to London straightaway,” Sylvie suggested gently. “We shall send an urgent message to Lady Mary’s home stating that Viscount and Lady Grantham wish to see her. And we’ve already left a message at the home of Vicar Fairleigh as well. We’re very close, Susannah. We shall see her yet. And we’ll know soon if she’s
our
Sabrina.”

Sylvie squeezed her sister’s gloved hand, grateful for the reassurance, and hers was squeezed in return.

“Do you suppose we’ll like her?” Susannah wondered tentatively. They had both experienced the serendipity of liking each other from the very first. The very idea that they might have never met horrified them.

“She has been raised by a vicar, Sabrina. Perhaps she’s very quiet and sedate.”

This was such an appalling thought that they both fell silent again.

Susannah leaned forward suddenly and pointed. “Look, Sylvie, a little church! It looks so like the one in Gorringe. I wonder if they have a funny little vicar, too. Shall we have a look inside before we continue home?”

Matins had just been read, and Geoffrey thought he might have a bite to eat and maybe a nip of wine when he looked up and saw two women in the doorway of the church.

He blinked hard. For a moment he thought he was seeing two of Sabrina, but he hadn’t been so pleasantly, thoroughly foxed enough to see two of one person in much too long. But something about the way these two women stood, their height, their very presence, called Sabrina strongly to mind. One of them, in fact, could have been her twin.

He assessed them quickly. Fine clothes, from head to toe, both of them. Expensively dressed in fur-lined pelisses, hands tucked into fine muffs, a brawny pair of footmen hovering protectively behind them. Not only were they lovely, they were wealthy, and very likely titled.

“Good afternoon,” he said in his best mellifluous Gillray voice.

They curtsied, a pair of flowers bending, and despite his myriad other concerns, he was charmed. Bloody hell, he missed wealthy, titled women. When he’d last been in London, before his father had rescued him and consigned him to a peaceful purgatory as a curate, he’d found the Gillray name and his association with Rhys very useful when it came to charming and courting and bedding the willing married ones.

But now…there wasn’t a single parishioner in Buckstead Heath who approached Sabrina for beauty, and as Sabrina for some reason hadn’t paid a visit in weeks, he was rather starved for it. Because he was a Gillray in that respect, too: beauty was their nectar.

Beauty was their nectar.
Now
there
was an image that rivaled any Rhys could conceive, Geoffrey thought, pleased with himself.

“Good day,” the one who could have been Sabrina’s twin said. “I am Lady Grantham, and this is my sister, Mrs. Sylvie Shaughnessy. May we have a look at your pretty church?”

He frowned a little, and then realized he was frowning, and stopped. The names were familiar, somehow.

“But of course.” He bowed to them. “You honor our little church with your presence.”

And it had been too long since there had been someone worthy to charm. They smiled at him, and strolled up through the nave, footmen following—burly footmen, Geoffrey noted—studying the carved rood screen.

He refrained from introducing himself; he wondered if they noticed. He’d realized just in time that he was rather nicely hidden away here at Buckstead Heath, and he didn’t want any of his creditors to gain an inkling of his whereabouts. One of these young ladies, who no doubt hailed from London, might very well mention it idly on her next visit to the glovemaker’s.

“What brings you to Buckstead Heath?” he asked pleasantly instead.

“We are returning to London, and our carriage is passing through your town,” Lady Grantham told him.

And then it struck him:
Grantham!
As in
Viscount
Grantham. The other…well, he suspected this was the woman Tom Shaughnessy had married. Geoffrey had been to Shaughnessy’s theater, The White Lily, on many a happy occasion, until his tastes had acquired an edge that even The White Lily couldn’t quite satisfy.

Good God, but up close these women were beautiful.

“Which fortunate resident of our fair village is paying host to you?” It felt wonderful to employ his charms upon someone worthy of them.

“Oh, we’ve just come from a brief visit to La Montagne. But we were informed the earl is not in residence at present.”

This was intriguing, as the earl most certainly
was
in residence at present, as far as Geoffrey knew.

“Isn’t he?” he merely repeated idly.

“We are looking for a young lady named Sabrina,” Mrs. Shaughnessy told him. “We were told she might be visiting La Montagne. Have you perhaps met her, or heard anything of her? Her father is a vicar.” Eagerness in her tone.

This was very, very interesting. Something was amiss.

He’d been away from London for a few months now, but suddenly Geoffrey remembered precisely why the names of these women were so freshly familiar: in his last peek at a London paper, he’d read about Mr. Thaddeus Morley, the politician arrested for murder and treason, his alleged crimes committed many years ago. He was now standing trial. The scandal was undeniably succulent.

But Lady Grantham’s name had been mentioned in connection with the trial. And hadn’t he read . . .

He
had
! Lady Grantham had been the daughter of Richard Lockwood’s mistress. And she’d two other sisters who had never been found. Geoffrey didn’t know for certain, but he would warrant that Mrs. Shaughnessy was one of Lady Grantham’s sisters.

He could guess who the other sister might be, and these two women were in search of her.

A thrill of intrigue traced Geoffrey’s spine. They had come to La Montagne looking for Sabrina, and they’d been told that no such woman lived there. Geoffrey wondered whether Mrs. Bailey had been instructed by the earl to lie to these women about Sabrina.

Some instinct in Geoffrey made him decide to hoard the information and do a little investigating of his own. Because he instinctively suspected whatever he discovered might be worth something in terms of blackmailing his cousin, and God knew he needed some sort of capital desperately.

“No, I fear I don’t know anyone named Sabrina.”

He saw their lovely faces go briefly downcast.

And a few minutes later, Mrs. Shaughnessy touched Lady Grantham on the arm, and they thanked him and bid him farewell.

Geoffrey hated coming here; he hated the perpetual darkness, the empty bottles of futile potions everywhere, the incense lit to disguise the smell of encroaching death. The curtains were always pulled closed, as though dying were something to be ashamed of, or as if light would somehow hasten it. When he visited, which was rarely now, Geoffrey was always tempted to yank them back again, to prove there was a world outside this stifling room.

They weren’t close; they hadn’t been for years. His father and he were too much alike in many ways, and Geoffrey resented that he’d inherited many of his father’s weaknesses. His father was dying of drink. He’d conquered his other weakness, and was managing to die with a certain amount of dignity, with enough money to pay a nurse to attend him, but Geoffrey had inherited his other weakness: the taste for gambling.

And it was this weakness that made him desperate enough to enter this home of the dying.

His father had been handsome, once. All the bloody Gillrays were handsome, unless battle or a duel took off a limb or blinded an eye, as it had upon occasion over the centuries. But his father’s skin was yellow, his body shriveled in some places and bloated in others, his dark eyes sunken into pools of red.

“Geoffrey.” His father’s voice was ironic, even in its weakness. “To what do I owe this pleasure?”

“I just wanted to see you, Fath—”

The voice was surprisingly strong. “Don’t lie to a dying man, son. I know you too well. Tell me why you are really here. You want something. What is it?”

Geoffrey sat next to his father’s bed. “I’m afraid, Father.”

It was a blurt, and perhaps the most honest thing he’d said to anyone in some time.

“Are you in debt, son?”

Geoffrey didn’t answer; “debt” seemed like such a small word for the danger he now faced. His hands had gone cold.

“I asked Rhys for money, Father. He won’t give it to me.”

And it wasn’t the full truth, but it aroused his father’s sympathy just a little, which was what he needed now.

“He always had a streak of righteousness, Rhys. But he isn’t pure as the driven snow, is he, son? Has quite a reputation, doesn’t he still? Duels and whatnot?”

Geoffrey disregarded this for now. “I need you to tell me something, Father. Something I’ve always wanted to know.”

“What is it, Geoffrey?”

“Years ago…Well, first there was no money; and then we were all comfortable again, all the Gillrays. Where did the money come from?”

His father was silent for a long time.

“You were only fifteen years old then, Geoffrey.”

“But I remember being afraid, because there was never any money. And then there
was
money. But no one spoke of it. And Rhys…well, you should see what he has now, Father. La Montagne and everything in it. And I have nothing.”

His father was silent, and stared at him with those sunken, bleeding eyes. His breath was fetid, and Geoffrey struggled to keep from wincing.

“You’ve had your share of it, Geoffrey. And you’ve traded on our name to support your way of life for a good long time. I’ve given you money. You’ve squandered it.” He sounded more sad than accusing. “That’s why you have nothing.”

And Geoffrey’s palms began to go cold. “Papa . . .” The word had slipped out of him.

His father stared at him.

“Mr. Thaddeus Morley is on trial for murder and treason, Father.”

There was a silence.

“Is he?” his father murmured. “Is he now?” And that was all.

Geoffrey waited.

“Rhys might be a scoundrel, but still you haven’t his character, Geoffrey. You want to blackmail him, don’t you?” He sounded half amused, half sad.

Sick and dying, and his bloody father still read him like a book.

“I simply want to know.”

A snort. “Oh, I’ll tell you, son. But what I’m giving to you isn’t a gift, it’s a burden: the burden of a secret. Because if you share the information with anyone else in the world, it will destroy the family name, and thus whatever benefit, whatever capital you might have gained from the secret, will be gone, too. And Rhys knows that. So you can blackmail him, but if you ever tell the secret, it will be the end of you, anyway. Do you still want to hear it?”

At the moment, Geoffrey simply didn’t care. He would find a way to sell it, and he would begin life again somewhere else.

“Many years ago, son…Rhys and I did a very bad thing.”

She’d been so absorbed in her husband that she’d nearly forgotten about Geoffrey, and Sabrina immediately felt a twinge of guilt. As she rode into town to visit Margo Bunfield, she slowed her mare near the church.

He’d been so kind to her when she was so lonely. And deep down she knew she’d been avoiding him in part because he’d witnessed her vulnerability. And now that Rhys was here, and seemed inclined to stay, she didn’t want a reminder of her former unhappiness. A new dream was beginning to take shape, so different from the old one, yet somehow similar: she once wanted to visit new lands. And this dream…this was an entirely new
universe
. She was protective of it; it needed the sunshine and shelter of hope—and not the shadows of an old disappointment—in which to thrive.