A Priceless Gift: A Regency Romance (13 page)

Over the next weeks, Lucian was as good as his word. He stayed at Amanda’s side, cossetting and entertaining her, alert to her moods and helping her recover her strength in walks, protectively holding her arm outdoors or inside. She became so used to his presence that sometimes she turned to make an observation even when he was absent, usually in his office dealing with his large correspondence. Mattie discreetly left them alone except at meals.

During a heavy rainfall, Amanda and Lucian found themselves in the Long Gallery, suitable for mild exercise albeit a little chilly. Amanda was wrapped so warmly that the cool air did not signify.

“This is your sister, Amaryllis, isn’t it?” She stopped in front of the Gainsborough. “In the garden, in springtime. She was very pretty. What was her hair colour when she did not powder it?”

Lucian’s face was inscrutable as he considered the picture. “Similar to mine. We used a great deal of hair powder in those days, no matter how heavily it was taxed.” After a moment, he said, almost inaudibly, “Poor Amaryllis.”

“She drowned when you were only fourteen, didn’t she? Were you at school when it happened? It must have been a shock to lose your only sister.”

“So one would suppose, but we were not particularly close. Boys that age are self-centred, and I was no exception. The news of my sister’s death saddened me for a few days but did not affect either my appetite or my delight in sports.” Lucian’s voice was ironic, looking back from the distance of decades. “At the time, I took the news that her death was an unfortunate accident at face value. Death was always lurking, after all. My mother had died some two years earlier of pneumonia.”

Amanda turned, looked steadily at him. “You took it to be an accident
then
? Do you know differently since? I confess that I’ve been wondering. That horse pond is too shallow for anyone to drown easily.”

“It was no accident.” Lucian did not seem inclined to say anything more. It was not genteel to pry, no matter how curious she was, and Amanda reluctantly allowed the subject to drop, drawing him towards his own youthful image.

“This portrait,” she stopped once more, “intrigues me greatly. It is you and yet not you. This arrogant young man, like the heedless schoolboy you just described, is not the man I know as my husband, and I would never have expected him to turn into
you
. During your absence, I compared my memories to this picture and concluded that I preferred the current version of Lucian Rackington.”

He pulled her into an embrace and kissed her full on the mouth. “I am glad to hear it,” he said when they pulled back. “I don’t like that young man very well either. He was a proud, ignorant fool.”

She had to smile. “And now?”

“Now, I’m still a fool, but no longer quite so full of myself.”

She squeezed his hand. “Did this change happen gradually, over the years, or suddenly?”

He sighed. “It is a sordid, horrible story that I would rather spare you, my dear.”

“If there is anyone here who can cope with sordid and shocking secrets, surely it is I. One gets accustomed.”

“I suppose one does, but it’s deplorable that you should have to. Very well. At the risk of giving you a permanent disgust of me and the whole family, I’ll tell you all. In a way, it will be a relief to share this burden, though you are so young—are you quite sure you want to know?”

“Entirely sure. How can I truly understand you otherwise, learn how you became the man you are today?”

Lucian put her arm on his again. They resumed their amble around the long hall. No servants were near. Whatever tragic family secrets she was about to learn, Amanda would keep to herself.

“Both my parents, but especially my father, espoused the notion that no moral limits applied to them, that they were free to do and act as they liked, as long as they got away with it,” Lucian began, then paused.

“That sounds somewhat amoral.”

“Oh, entirely amoral. That is the right word, rather than
immoral
; they simply did not care about right or wrong, or how their actions affected others. I remember once coming across my father with no less than three of our maids in bed with him.”

Amanda sniffed. “That cannot have been good for household discipline.”

“You’d imagine, but he still expected them to do their work or be dismissed without a character. When I came to his room, I don’t remember on what errand, he calmly invited me to join in the fun, though I was only twelve, on vacation from school. When I refused, more from shyness at such a crowd than lack of interest, he mocked me as a blushing violet. My father was good-looking and could be very charming, but he was a monster and brought me up to be like him.”

Amanda tried to picture what such a childhood had been like, but her imagination was unequal to the task. “I must be grateful that he did not succeed.”

“To my regret, he did, at least for a time. When that picture was taken, I was in a fair way of imitating him. At that period, I thought nothing of seducing a married woman and risking her happiness for a few casual encounters.”

She frowned. Was he not still doing that? “What is the difference now?”

“For the past fifteen years, I’ve avoided women whose families, especially the husbands, would punish them if the affair came out,” he explained. “Those who are not protected by the greater license enjoyed by the aristocracy. There were a few duels with jealous husbands before I knew better.”

“Ah.” Amanda had hardly absorbed this when he went on in the most casual way, “I tried men, too, while at school—or rather, other boys—but found it was not to my taste.”

“
Men?
Boys?
How could that even work?” Amanda stared at him in puzzlement.

Lucian shook his head, whether at himself or her, she could not tell. “I’m sorry. I keep forgetting how sheltered you still are. I’ll explain about that some other time, when you are more experienced. To make a long story short, that I preferred to take my pleasures with adult and freely consenting partners already put me several steps above my father and some of his vile cronies, not that I want to defend the thoroughly selfish, spoiled youngster I used to be. My Father’s ruthlessness did not extend only to pleasures of the flesh. In business matters too, he was beyond cruel. He would not lose any sleep over driving some competitor to ruination and suicide. That happened more than once. We are enjoying the fruits of his scheming even now.”

How fortunate that the man was long dead in his grave. “Was that why you ordered his portrait burned?”

“No, that was the least of it. You must understand, Amanda, that I did not see anything particularly wrong with taking advantage wherever possible.”

“Your aunt’s doctrine of the wolf and the sheep?”

“Exactly. You don’t lose any sleep over the suffering of the chickens or pigs who supply the meat on your plate, do you? But in the end, my father shocked even me and jolted me out of my depraved complacency.”

He paused again, his face shadowed.

“Does it have anything to do with your sister?” Amanda guessed.

“Indeed. My father died quite suddenly of a stroke, at fifty-six, while making love to a courtesan. Whips, ropes, and blindfolds were involved. It was hushed up, as usual in such cases, more frequent than you’d imagine. Even then I did not perceive anything intrinsically wrong in his values and way of life, though I hoped to meet my own end in more dignified style. I buried and even distantly mourned him. He had never been an affectionate parent.”

Amanda thought of her own beloved father. Poor Lucian. He’d have been too proud to see that he deserved pity, or accept it, even now.

“I quite enjoyed taking the helm of the earldom and rearranging father’s various businesses according to my own preferences. Naturally, I went through his papers and discovered that he’d kept a diary, in code, though it was not difficult to break. A whole series of them, in fact, seventeen books in all. Once I had dealt with everything urgent, I got around to reading them.”

Amanda pressed his hand to show her support but did not interrupt.

“What I read turned my stomach. It was all very boastful, with a vile kind of satisfaction at the havoc he routinely caused in others’ lives. I began to wonder if I truly wanted to emulate a man who had spread so much misery and desperation. Then I came to the fifteenth volume, covering the time after my mother’s death.” His voice became even drier. Amanda shivered. “He noted that Amaryllis was prettier than our mother ever had been, that he should spend more time in Racking to get to know her better . . . When I read that, knowing how his mind worked, my blood ran cold.

“He dismissed the governess and did not hire a replacement. I’ll spare you the detailed description of what followed. He was not interested in mere rape, like your uncle, but in thoroughly corrupting my sister, making her a willing and enthusiastic participant in incest. She resisted for a while.”

Amanda was speechless. “How perfectly . . . revolting,” she said in a choked voice when she could. “The poor child!”

“He did not stop there. He made her do things that most courtesans refuse to perform, watched as he had his valet take her. You get the idea.”

Amanda doubted it; that was so vile she could not envisage what it must have been like, infinitely worse than her own ordeal. How could a girl live with herself after that? Her disgust tasted bitter on her tongue. “So she killed herself?”

“No. According to my father’s possibly biased account, they were looking forward to a happy future of such scenes, even after marrying her off to one of his friends. She was to become a full-fledged member of his set, provide entertainment to his cronies . . . but she became with child.”

“Surely that was to have been expected,” Amanda said, her heart heavy.

“Yes. Father was not too concerned at first. He gave Amaryllis a book handed down from his grandmother that contained a recipe to deal with the matter. He considered it infallible. But for some reason, to his surprised displeasure, it did not work.”

Amanda said nothing. So that was the origin of the book still in her possession . . . The old earl had believed in its recipes, then?

“Things went from bad to worse. Amaryllis had a change of heart and refused to have anything further to do with him, and even talked wildly of denouncing his wickedness. Apparently she also poisoned his valet, though I can scarcely believe it.”

Amanda could imagine it all too easily. “Did the man die?”

“No, but he was ill for a time and never the same after, according to my father’s diary. He was pensioned off and sent to live in the colonies.”

Bribed because he knew too much, Amanda surmised. Had the valet swallowed the potion that would ‘shrivel a man’s privates’? It seemed only too likely, though, in that case, why had Amaryllis not administered it to the earl as well? If he stood before her at that moment, Amanda would hand him the cup herself and laugh when he’d finished drinking.

“There was some kind of struggle—it was not clear over what. She tried to poison Father, too, I think. He killed her, Amanda; he drowned my sister and her unborn child, pretending it was an accident or suicide afterwards. She did not want to die.”

Horror held Amanda immobile, even her breath suspended until she gasped for air. “That . . . that is even worse than I suspected. He actually wrote all that down in his diary? Was he not afraid to be found out? Even a peer would hang for such a crime.”

“He held only contempt for the rest of the world, and as events proved, his confidence that he would escape unscathed was perfectly justified. He lived on in his accustomed way for nearly a decade until that stroke.” Lucian searched her eyes. “Do you feel disgust for me now? A murderer’s son? We are said to look alike.”

Amanda shook her head. “You are not he, and you do not share the same nature. I cannot and do not want to believe that the sins of the fathers are visited on their children, for that would imperil my own twins.”

“I suppose.” He closed his eyes for a moment. “I should be whipped for polluting your innocent ears with these unspeakable revelations.”

“No matter how awful, I would rather know the truth, Lucian. What did you feel when you discovered your father’s crime?”

“At twenty-three, I was not quite as far gone in corruption as he had been. Though, who knows? Had he not written down his boastful account, I might have followed in his footsteps and come to do even worse by now. Remembering the little girl with whom I had shared the nursery in my earliest years, I felt impotent fury and disgust. Had my father still been alive, I might have become a patricide at that moment. I seriously contemplated ending the Rackington line there and then by taking my own life. As a kind of posthumous punishment from my father, for despite all his crimes he was proud of our name and title and the royal connection. Eventually I decided that it would be a waste to throw my life away to no purpose, and instead accepted a somewhat hazardous mission for the Crown.”

Amanda guessed he had been lucky to survive it, but only said, “I am glad your common sense prevailed.”

“Before leaving the country, I had my father’s portrait burned. It was a good one, too. Gainsborough caught a trace of his sly malice, visible to those of us who knew him well. Still, I cannot regret, to this day, that I had it destroyed. I could not bear to look upon it, after what I had learned.”