A Good Rake is Hard to Find (32 page)

“Your brother was that sort of friend, too.”

“I know,” she said, turning so that they were face-to-face. “He told me. If ever he needed help, it didn't matter the time of day or the circumstance, he could call on one of you. The four horsemen.”

He smiled in the darkness. “That was a silly name,” he admitted, remembering the day they'd come up with it. The young men they'd been.

“Perhaps,” she said, nestling against his chest. “But young men are often foolish. From that silliness however were born lifelong friendships. That cannot be counted as silly,”

“I miss him,” he said, thinking how all this mess with his cousin had begun. “He would have loved the adventure tonight.”

“He would,” she said, and he guessed that she was smiling.

“I think we should be able to bring charges against my cousin now,” he said. “The fact that the curricle was there on his estate should be more than enough to prove that your brother's death was suspicious.”

“I hope so,” Leonora said, her voice sounding sleepy. “I want this to be over. I am ready to get back to ordinary life.”

He wondered how life with her could ever be anything like ordinary, but said nothing. There would be time enough for them to discuss such things.

With a sigh, he pulled her close against him and they slept.

*   *   *

The next afternoon, they arrived in London, exhausted. Though he was reluctant to do so, Freddy left Leonora at her father's house with an admonition for her to rest. Given his own exhaustion, it wasn't until the next day that he presented himself in her private parlor.

“I missed you,” Freddy said, reaching out to take Leonora's hand.

“We've only been apart a matter of hours,” she responded, squeezing his hand.

“I believe there is still the matter of an engagement to see to,” he said quietly. “A true engagement.”

Looking up, she saw that his handsome face was serious. And deadly earnest.

“I love you, Leonora,” he said, standing and pulling her up to face him. “I want you to be my wife. And I will not stop until that happens.”

“When we parted five years ago,” she said softly, “I thought I would die from the ache of losing you.”

“Then why did you turn me away?” he asked, the pain of that rejection evident in his voice. “We might have been together all these years. We might already have a nursery full of children and another on the way.”

At his wistful tone, Leonora's heart sank. It had been foolish of her to allow Freddy back into her life when she knew full well that they could never marry. And selfish.

Unable to face the confusion in his eyes, she dropped his hand and turned to compose herself.

Rather than pressing her, Freddy let her go. He'd always been good that way. Allowing her space to breathe. But it was time to tell him the truth, and she greatly feared that when they parted today, it would be forever.

“I regret not telling you the truth five years ago,” she said finally. To her surprise, her voice didn't break as she spoke. “I thought it best to keep the matter to myself, though I can see now that it was unfair to you. Not to let you know my true reasons for breaking things off. Especially since I had known all along that a marriage could never happen between us. I suppose I was just selfish. I wanted to know what it was I'd be missing, you see. And you were so terribly sweet to me.”

“Leonora,” he said, stepping up behind her—so close she could feel the heat from his body. “You are frightening me. What could possibly keep you from marrying me?”

Turning, she saw that he was serious. And suddenly she could keep her secret no longer.

“When I was fifteen,” she said, “I met a young man at our local assembly. He was charming and handsome, and was the first man to show me any sort of attention. Certainly not the sort of attention a man pays a woman. And I was smitten.

“I was already writing verse, and I suspect part of me thought I had to experience romantic love before I could ever begin to truly understand the emotions necessary for fully expressing them in poetry.”

She smiled ruefully at the foolishness of her younger self. “But I truly did believe myself to be in love with him. And he with me.”

“Since you are not now married to the man,” Freddy said tightly, “then I can only suppose something happened that prevented you from forming a lasting attachment.”

“Yes,” she said softly. “And by the time he was gone, I'd experienced enough emotion to last me a lifetime of emotional verse.”

“What happened?”

“Anthony was a soldier who had come to town with his regiment for several months. And we made use of every moment we could spend together that summer. Father was often busy with his own work, and my governess had been gone for a year then. So it was possible to spend quite a bit of time to ourselves.”

“You got with child,” he said, his voice carefully neutral. As if any hint of disapproval on his part would send her fleeing.

“It's such a clich
é
,” she said, grateful she hadn't had to say the words out loud. “But we were only together that way a few times. And as soon as I realized about the baby, I told him at once. Foolishly, I thought we could simply move up the date of the wedding we'd talked about all summer. But it is remarkable how quickly a rake's promises dissolve in the face of true commitment.”

“He refused to marry you?” Freddy asked, his tone a mix of disgust and disbelief. “To give your child his name? After he'd seduced you?”

“As I said,” Lenora said with a sigh. “A clich
é
. Oh, he promised to do all the right things. He would speak to my father the very next day and we would be married within the month. And when he did not appear the next day, I feared he'd been in an accident. Or had taken ill. When he didn't come the third day, I went to the village, to make sure he was all right. But his rooms had been vacated and one of his friends told me that he'd been called to London.”

She laughed bitterly. “Even then, I thought he'd come back to me. But when a month had passed with no word, I knew that what I'd feared was the truth. He wasn't coming back.”

“What did you father say?” Freddy asked, his fists clenched. “I hope he put a bullet in the bastard.”

“Papa searched for him, but by the time he found Anthony it was too late.”

“He was gone?” Freddy asked.

“He was dead,” Leonora said, flinching at the memory. “He'd gotten into a brawl in a tavern near the army barracks and was stabbed to death.”

“That saves me the trouble of killing him myself,” Freddy said, stepping forward to lay a hand on her shoulder. “For there's no doubt he deserved it.”

“Perhaps so,” she agreed. “But at the time, I thought my world was over. And that my child would have no father.”

It was obvious since she had no child now that something had happened, but to Leonora's relief Freddy didn't press her. Even so, she would have to tell him the truth of it now.

“Not long after that,” she went on, “I lost the child.”

He made as if to take her in his arms, but Leonora placed a staying hand on Freddy's chest. “There were complications,” she said, hating the words even as she spoke them. “And the end result was that I can no longer bear children.”

She watched his eyes change as the meaning of her confession sank in. And her heart clenched as he took a step back.

“Why didn't you tell me?” he demanded. “It would have made no difference to me.”

“But what of the children you just mourned, that you thought we might have had if I'd not broken our engagement the first time?”

“You cannot blame me for weaving castles in the air when you hadn't told me how things stood,” Freddy said sharply. “It was a logical hope that we would have children. Had I known the truth I'd have changed my expectations.”

“You say that now,” Leonora said, “because it is what you hope you'd have done.”

“We'll never know,” he said with a frown. “It's clear you didn't trust me enough to tell me the truth. Then or now.”

“Can you blame me?” she asked. “The only other man I'd loved abandoned me when I told him I was carrying his child. Was it really so foolish for me to expect the same thing when you were so clearly looking forward to fatherhood?”

“You didn't give me the chance to do the right thing,” he said quickly. “That you placed me in the same category as that bastard who left you before shows how little you thought of my sense of honor.”

His words hurt. Because they were true. And Leonora let the shame wash over her. “It was wrong,” she said at last. “I was a fool not to tell you. It was selfish and that is why I had to let you go. I was too cowardly to face you and tell you the truth, but I could make sure that you were free to fall in love with someone else. To have the family you wanted.”

“Do you know how much your rejection hurt me, Leonora?” Freddy demanded, his anguish visible in his face. “I had expected to live the rest of my life with you and you turned me away with no good reason. No explanation. I could only imagine I'd hurt you somehow.”

He laughed bitterly. “But it would seem that it was you who wronged me. For no good reason other than a fear of telling me the truth.”

“Do you deny that most men wish to marry in order to father children?” Leonora asked. “Is it not what the church says marriage was created for?”

“The church, perhaps, but we are hardly the picture of piety, my dear. It's my brother who is the vicar in the family. Not me.”

“I wanted to save you,” she said, knowing her words were not recompense enough. “I wanted you to have the children you'd wished for. And I suspected you'd forget about me before long.”

“You should have given me the choice,” Freddy said softly. “By refusing to tell me the truth you did the same thing you're always railing about when it comes to men's treatment of women. You made the decision for me. As if I didn't know my own mind and hadn't the sense to make the right choice. You robbed me of agency in the matter. If I'd done anything like that to you, you'd have rightly ripped me up over it.”

It had never occurred to her to look at her actions in that context, and Leonora knew that if their roles were reversed she would have dismissed him as a paternalistic typical male. If she hadn't already been ashamed of her actions, she would certainly be now.

Suddenly, she was exhausted and overwhelmed. And she wanted him to go so that she could cry in peace.

“Freddy, I have wronged you,” she said. “And now that you know the truth, you'll see that the only rational thing for us to do is to dissolve this betrothal. It was never meant to be real anyway.”

“I see nothing of the sort,” he said firmly. “And what if that physician of yours was wrong? You might even now be carrying my child.”

“That is wishful thinking on your part,” she said mournfully. “He was quite certain that the damage was permanent. And aside from that, you are not thinking clearly. When you've had a moment to think things over you'll see that parting now is the best decision for you.”

“And what of you?” He stepped forward and stroked a finger down her cheek. Leonora closed her eyes at the caress. “What about what's best for you? Surely a life of solitary reflection is not the way for you to live life to the fullest.”

“I am trying to do right by you,” she said, reaching up to take his hand in hers. “Perhaps you are a younger son, but you deserve to have a family of your own. I want that for you.”

“I am not convinced.” He squeezed her hand.

Knowing that if she let him he would persuade her out of her decision, Leonora pulled away and walked toward the door.

“It is for the best,” she repeated, then fled the room.

 

Twenty-four

Hours later, Freddy was halfway through another decanter of brandy when his butler arrived to announce that he had visitors.

“Tell them to bugger off,” Freddy said, hunching deeper into his armchair. “Don't want to see 'em.”

“Afraid not, old fellow,” Mainwaring said with a meaningful look at the butler, who took himself away with a nod. “There's news, and though from the look of things you are in no state to do anything about it, it's important.”

“Don't give a damn,” Freddy said morosely. “Not unless someone has figured out how to raise the dead. 'Cause I'd bloody well kill him again.”

“Kill who?” the Duke of Trent asked conversationally, dropping into a chair across from his drunken friend. “Not like you to be so bloodthirsty without reason.”

“Oh, I've got reason,” Freddy said with a laugh. “If ever a man deserved killing again it's Anthony.”

“Don't know any Anthony,” Mainwaring said, pulling up another chair for himself. “Though if you think he's worth killing, I have little doubt he is.”

The butler returned then with a tray of coffee and sandwiches, and when he was gone, Trent set about pouring Freddy a cup of the steaming drink.

But Freddy would have none of it. “What the devil are you about trying to sober me up, man? I'm not half drunk enough.”

“Which is not usual for you since you got back from France,” Mainwaring said meaningfully. “What's happened to put you in such a mood?”

“Normally I'd guess it's a woman,” Trent said thoughtfully, “but I cannot imagine the lovely Leonora doing anything to jeopardize things a second time around.”

Freddy gulped down his glass of brandy, then frowned as he began to search for the decanter that Mainwaring had hidden from him. “There's where you're wrong, friend,” he said absently while he patted the chair around him. “For Leonora has ended our engagement. Again.”

“What?” Mainwaring exchanged a look with Trent. “That's impossible. I've seen you together. You were like a pair of bloody lovebirds.”