Edith Layton (14 page)

He didn’t answer right away. He was too busy trying to find a solution he could offer, an answer that would ease her pain and his.

She saw his distress and misunderstood it. Her own eyes widened. “Right! Yes, how could I forget? I might ruin your reputation! So it’s better that you’re going, after all!”

“Only I can ruin my reputation,” he said angrily. “And that’s difficult for a wealthy well-born man to do, believe me. I’m leaving because it’s better for everyone all around. I’m sorry, Alexandria. Have you no idea of your origins? Maybe I can investigate for you when I get back to London? I’m good at it.”

She laughed. It wasn’t the charming trill of laughter he associated with her. “Thank you. Mr. Gascoyne was thorough and knowledgeable. But the truth is that I could be a whore’s daughter or a duchess’s. Pray forgive my plain speaking, but that is what he told me. I am like Eve, sir. My father is God, my mother his consort, and I will not know either of them until the day I die.”

“Could he have lied to you?” Drum asked desperately. “For his own purposes?”

She tilted her head. “He might have done. It would be his way. But he didn’t. In the beginning he re
searched all our pasts in hopes that there might be some reward in it for him. He must have been influenced by the sort of thing written about in romances—gentleman’s son recovered, lady’s daughter found, kidnapped babies reunited with their noble families and such. His search came to naught. Kit has a vague memory of his origins, and they are humble. Vic and Rob have less, as do I. But the home knows. We’re simply nobodies, with no way to know if we ever were important to anyone.

“I wrote to them after Mr. Gascoyne died, when there was no longer reason for secrecy, if there ever had been. I had read too many romances, I fear. But the answer was the same. I was abandoned at an early age, and have no family of my own. Even my first name isn’t really mine. I was given it at the home,” she went on, staring into the wavering flame. “They took me in on the day of the victory at Alexandria. Kit had his name, but Vin was named for the battle at Vincennes.”

“And Rob for Robres?” Drum asked, doing quick calculations in his head, appalled at the thought of children so disregarded that they were simply named for the day they were found.

“Perhaps. There are only so many Marys and Elizabeths, Toms, Dicks and Harrys,” she said, bringing up her head and looking him in the eye. “The names of flowers, rivers, and counties are used up quickly too. But there’s no end of homeless children, so they had to be inventive. We’re lucky the directors of the home were patriotic. It could be worse. They could have named us after animals, and called me Bossy, and Vin and Rob, Spot and Sport. At that it would have been an
elevation in our states since we really weren’t as useful or valuable as animals, you know.”

“I’m sorry,” he said softly. “I hope you know it doesn’t change the way I feel toward you.”

But it did. She could feel it. The easy camaraderie between them was gone. That wasn’t the only thing that had changed. Any intimation of flirtation had vanished too. Though he hadn’t moved a muscle, she felt him withdraw from her. He lay back and watched her through half-lidded eyes, his expression inscrutable.

“Well, then, past time for you to get to sleep,” she said with a sad and knowing smile. “Tomorrow will be a busy day.”

“Alexandria,” he said again, “I’m sorry.”

She nodded. “Thank you,” she said, as she moved toward the door. “So am I.”

“It isn’t the way I wanted to leave,” Drum said on a huff of a laugh as his footmen carried him down the stair the next morning. “Lord! This is embarrassing,” he said while they arranged him in his bed in the coach. “Damn, damn, damn,” everyone in the front yard heard him muttering as the doctors strapped him in and made last-minute inspections of the cushions, pillows, blankets, and straps that held him fast.

Finally, all was in readiness. Drum had made his good-byes to everyone at breakfast that morning. The boys wanted to linger to watch him go, but Drum instructed them to go to school. After breakfast, Mrs. Tooke took his hand and his thanks. Alexandria was formality itself as she bade him godspeed and farewell. He showed no partiality for her by word or gesture;
neither did she to him. He was immensely grateful, he said. It was nothing, she said, and stepped aside to let his men come into the bedroom to bear him out.

Now, his men were on their horses, his valet in the coach, and all the outriders ready to go. Eric ducked his head into the carriage for a few final words with his friend. “I’ll investigate everything and let you know what I’ve discovered.”

Drum, a little pale from all the activity, a little shaken from all the handling, held his friend’s hand a moment more. “Don’t write,” he said softly. “If you’ve any news, come to me with it.”

“Done.”

“And Eric?” Drum said. “Be sure of the truth, and do what is right in everything here.”

Eric paused. “Always,” he said, smiled, and left.

Dr. Raines stepped in and the door closed. The duke signaled to his coachman, his own carriage leading the way. Slowly, the little procession left the front drive. Mrs. Tooke, Dr. Pace, Eric, and Alexandria stood in front of the cottage, waving good-bye.

Drum lay on his side, peering out the coach window. He saw Eric turn to Alexandria and say something to make her laugh. He saw her looking up at the big blond man. Drum watched until they were out of sight. He never stopped frowning, not then, and not for long miles afterward, remembering their laughter, remembering all he’d left, recalling all that he’d had to leave behind.

Alexandria went up to her bedchamber. It was truly hers again. The house was still. Dr. Pace had gone. Eric had left to see what he could discover in the neighbor
hood. For the sake of propriety, Mrs. Tooke was staying on until he left, but Alexandria knew she too would soon leave. The world was returning to normal, but Alexandria knew it would never be the same. The Earl of Drummond’s visit had changed her. He’d brought her the wide world and shown her all she was missing. He’d shamed her too, without trying to. His reaction to her state bore it forcibly home to her. But that couldn’t be helped, because that was just the way things were. She was a very practical woman; she had to be.

Still, she stripped the sheets from her bed with more energy than necessary. But Eric Ford had smiled at her, she remembered, and flirted, making her remember that the world hadn’t ended, only turned one more time. Eric was charming and warm, but not for a minute did she believe he meant more than flirtation. Still, that helped. She’d survive this blow to her self-esteem. She’d had far worse.

At least she’d done Drum a service. At least he’d been genuinely grateful and she could believe that if things had been different, if she’d had any sort of birth at all, he might have lingered, he could have stayed on with her. She didn’t blame him for going. No one knew better than she how disparate their stations were. But at least she felt it hadn’t been easy for him to leave her. That was something. He’d remember her. That was another thing. He’d marry well, have children, and rush through the productive years of his life. But one day perhaps, when he was old, when he had time to think back on what might have been, maybe he’d think of this strange interlude in his life and regret her almost as much as she regretted him. That was not nothing.

He’d been drawn to her and it was hard for him to
leave her, of that she was certain. If fate had treated her more kindly…It was a good thing to think about and made her feel better. He would remember her one day. She would miss him for the rest of her life.

Alexandria pulled off the sheet and flung off the pillows—and stopped.

There, under his pillow, was a small fortune in gold coins. Ten of them lay in a heap.

He’d left her gold pieces as payment for her help. Of course. He was too discreet to simply hand them to her. He knew she’d refuse. This way, he’d paid her the way a traveler at an inn might leave a gratuity for a good servant when he left, where he was sure she’d find it.

She hesitated, then quickly picked them up with the tips of her fingers, as though they were dead mice, and dropped them into her apron. Then she went to the window and shook out her apron, and when that didn’t make them fly she pitched them out as far as she could.

But she was practical and wise. And so after she’d stripped the bed she went outside and gathered up all the gold pieces again.

Then
she wept.

“I
F WE CHARGED ADMISSION, OUR FORTUNES WOULD
be made,” Drum said sourly, watching his father shuffle through the heap of visitor’s cards that had been left with Drum’s butler since he’d come back to London.

Drum sat in a great winged chair by a long window in his study, his injured leg stretched out in front of him. He could see the sunlight filtering through the trees in the back garden of his town house; he had his books and papers around him. He was dressed casually—a dressing gown substituted for a jacket, his shirt opened at the neck. A glass of wine sat at his right hand, along with a dish of comfits. He looked comfortable and at ease and in no way like an invalid, except for his immobilized leg. His expression was totally at odds with his state.

“I gather the thought of company repels you,” his father said coolly, riffling through the visiting cards with interest. “I believe it’s time you showed your face,
though. Rumor has it you may not have one anymore. That’s the mildest of the rumors about you, by the way.”

Drum shrugged. “Much I care. Half London knows better. At least that many people were standing on the walk, gaping at me when you had me carried off the coach and into the house like a corpse being readied for a viewing. Night would have been a better time for my return. At the very least you might have used the servant’s entrance instead of bearing me in on a litter like a warrior on his shield in front of the fascinated crowd. I submitted to it, if only because protesting all the way into the house would have made an even more delicious spectacle.”

“So it would have done,” the duke agreed. “And may I point out that even so, you complained too much to be mistaken for either a corpse or a warrior. Nevertheless, since we arrived in the morning I’d no intention of letting you lie in the coach all day until you decided it was dark enough to enter your own house. If we’d tried furtively to sneak you in by the back entrance, the rumors would have been worse. You should be flattered so many people want to see you.”

“Yes. As flattered as the lions and the elephant at the Tower, I suppose,” Drum said irritably. “Though my value as a diversion and curiosity must be greater than theirs since visiting me is by invitation only, and everyone is looking for an invitation.”

“Because visiting you is impossible,” his father corrected him.

“Not so!” Drum protested. “I’ve had company in.”

“Yes. Four people. Your bosom friends the Daltons and Ryders. If the Sinclairs hadn’t gone home to the
country, you’d have had them too, I know. You need more diverse company. I should like to see it before I leave you.”

“Oh, is that why you’re still here?”

His father stopped looking at the cards and stared at his son.

Drum’s lean cheeks grew ruddy. “Very well. I’m sorry for taking that tone with you, sir.”

“So you should be,” the duke said, dropping the cards back on their silver tray. “I’ve stayed to see you settled and on your way to recovery. But now I’ve a notion to see society again myself. The Season is almost over, yet there are still some persons of quality in town. I could go to balls and soirees, the gardens and such. But it would be easier to actually speak to people when they came here.”

“You could go to your clubs if it’s conversation you’re after,” Drum grumbled.

“So I could. But I wouldn’t meet any ladies there, would I?”

Drum looked up sharply. “No,” he said slowly. “That’s true. Have you a notion to meet a particular lady, sir?”

His father nodded. “So I do. But that’s not something I feel I must share with you.”

Drum blinked. “Quite so. Well, then. Yes, that being the case, I’ll have the horde in.”

Because, Drum thought quickly, that way he’d see just who his father had his eye on, and if it was the Lady Annabelle, he’d do his damnedest to end any romance that might arise there. Not only because his friend Eric might already have fixed his interest with the vain and lovely lady, but because Drum could think
of few things more distasteful than having her as a stepmama. He’d been sarcastic when he mentioned the possibility; he wished he’d kept his bitter humor to himself. Until now his greatest fear had been of finding himself permanently crippled. Now he could worry about finding himself lumbered with a stepmother younger than himself. Younger, clever, shallow, and vengeful as well.

“You’re cold?” his father asked, seeing a slow shudder cross his son’s shoulders.

“A goose walked over my grave,” Drum said with a shrug, and smiled for the first time that day, contemplating what Annabelle would think of his saying that about her.

“You’re entertaining us in style today,” Damon Ryder commented, looking around the seldom used, beautifully appointed salon he’d just entered and seeing the trays of cakes and the number of glasses that had been set up on the sideboard.

“I have to. I’m entertaining more than you today,” Drum said. “My father insists I make myself available to company. I think he won’t go home until I do, so I agreed. He’s been busy putting a word in every socially acceptable ear he could find, telling them it’s all right to come visit me today.”

“Well, what’s wrong with that?” Rafe asked, picking up a lemon snap. “Lots of fellows have been asking after you.”

“It’s not the fellows he’s inviting,” Drum said. “Remember why he dragged me away from the Gascoynes’ cottage? He wants to make me available to the fairer sex. He’s looking for a wife—for me,” he added
hastily. There was no sense in telling anyone his deepest fears now. There was nothing anyone could do about them anyway, except possibly make matters worse if they tried to meddle. It was a delicate matter he’d have to handle himself.

“It’s going to be like the ball the king gave for the prince so he could pick a wife!” Gilly cried, clapping her hands.

“Not quite so romantic,” Damon Ryder said, exchanging a glance with Drum.

“He’s going to be like a sitting duck,” Rafe said around the lemon snap he’d popped in his mouth. “Can’t even get up and walk away, can he?”

“Exactly,” Drum said. “So I’d like it if you could stay here when the doors open to the public. You could save me if you see I need saving.”

“Of course,” Gilly said enthusiastically. “Who do you want us to protect you from?”

Drum winced. “I don’t need protection. Just some…interception sometimes, perhaps.”

“But Gilly’s right,” Brenna Dalton said seriously. “If you tell us who you think will annoy you I’m sure we’ll do what we can to keep them away from you, but if you don’t, how are we to know?”

“Who?” Drum asked, frowning. “Anyone who looks like they’re giving me a headache, that’s who. That’s most of them. But not the Lady Annabelle, if you please.”

There was a sudden shocked silence, broken by Rafe. “Sits the wind in that quarter then?” he blurted. “Well, I admit I’m surprised. But she’s a good-looking female and there’s every chance she’s grown up since we last met, I suppose.”

“Nicely put.” Drum laughed. “You’re saying she’s not as self-centered and self-serving as she used to be? Maybe not. But it doesn’t matter, I’m not interested in her for any of the reasons you might think. Still, I don’t want you frightening her away from me.”

“It’s Eric, is it?” Rafe asked after a moment’s thought. “You want to lure her away from him. I remember how he looked at her the last time they met. Why not? She’s good enough to
look
at, if a fellow doesn’t know what lies beneath,” he added with a tender smile for his wife. “Makes sense, though I don’t know if you should bother. I doubt she’ll settle for a retired army man. Seems to me she’d want to hang out for a title to show everyone what she can do. So have a care. If she thinks you’re the one who’s interested you’ll be shackled to her before you can take your first step. That mama’s a dragon, and getting desperate.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll be careful,” Drum promised. “My legs are useless at the moment but in other ways I’m just as fast on my feet. The lady’s suspicious of me anyhow, and rightfully so. Trust me, my motives run deep.”

“So you’re yourself again,” Damon Ryder said, and they all laughed.

They chatted until the clock chimed three. Then Drum sighed. “I suppose I’m ready as I’ll ever be.” He picked up a bell from the table and shook it. Grimes entered the room immediately. “Tell Mr. Phineas I’m ready for company,” Drum said. “If anyone comes by today, that is.”

“There are a number of visitors already in the anteroom,” Grimes said.

Drum grimaced.

It turned out he had a good reason to. It was a large salon, but not big enough for the number of guests who soon filed in. Even the ballroom might not have been large enough.

Drum didn’t have a fear of crowds, but he soon felt he was suffocating. He’d never realized how mobility helped a man in social situations. Everyone else in the room could mill around, and every man there did, or else they stood in groups, chatting together. The only people sitting were himself and the mamas. They had brought every single young woman of quality in London to see him, it seemed. And he couldn’t move an inch away from being seen.

It could have been a man’s fondest dream come true. He was surrounded by women. The latest styles insisted women show most of what they had, and that it be ungirdled, untethered, and uncovered as much as could be, too. Spring was giving way to summer, and so fashionable gowns were not only cut low, they were made of zephyr-thin material. These woman were, if nothing else, fashionable. Drum hadn’t seen so many nearly naked bouncing breasts and bobbling bottoms since he’d last visited a brothel. He felt no desire, only a vague sense of panic. There was, he discovered, too much of a good thing—especially when every one of those good things came with a price tag that could cost him his freedom.

He couldn’t look at any women too pointedly or too often, or she’d descend on him to see if she’d scored a point over the other girls. Worse, her mother might. Worst of all, he was tacked to his chair, so he saw them all at stomach and buttock level. They had to bend to speak with him, and then he had to talk into their bos
oms. His expression grew grim, and his conversation terse.

He couldn’t have chatted reasonably with his nubile company even if they were dressed in suits of armor, he decided, because he’d seldom met a more trivial group of people. The only subject they brought up was his accident. When he said he was fine now, and refused to discuss it further, they had to fall back on the only other subjects they were expert in: the weather, and the gossip of the Season so far.

He knew he was being unkind and unfair. What should any strange woman talk to him about? It wasn’t as if they could suddenly start discussing
The Odyssey
, or art, or literature, as Alexandria had, he thought. Even she might have had a hard time introducing a new topic under these conditions. But one thing he knew: She wouldn’t have giggled incessantly, or shrieked with laughter over any trivial thing he said, the way so many of them were doing. He was sure she wouldn’t have stared at him open-mouthed, seemingly rapt in ecstasy at every fatuous thing he muttered.

But she hadn’t been on the catch for him, he reminded himself. Maybe she was behaving this way with Eric, he thought suddenly, and frowned at the thought because it seemed like a betrayal of her.

“Are you in pain, Drummond?” his father asked with a matching frown as he stood staring down at his son.

“Father!” Drum said. “Where did you come from? That is, I didn’t see you come in.”

“How could you, with such a bevy of lovely young women around you? I stopped by to deliver more company for you.”

Drum belatedly noticed who was with his father—Lady Annabelle, all in blue to match her magnificent eyes. And her plump mother, all in gold to match her ambitions. They both smiled down at him.

“But now I must apologize to the ladies,” his father went on, “because with this crowd of English womanhood in attendance, they must think I’m in the practice of bringing coals to Newcastle.”

“Never,” Drum said with the most charming smile he could muster, “How could you so malign them, sir? They burn so brightly they cast all others in their shadow.”

Drum was being polite, but he hadn’t lied about Lady Annabelle. She was still beautiful, even though she’d lingered too long on the marriage market, even though he knew her too well to overlook the person who lived inside that exquisite façade. She had raven curls and alabaster skin, just as all her love-struck suitors said in their bad verse. A short upper lip over a full lower one made her mouth seem to beg for kisses, her long-lashed blue eyes were bright under their graceful brows. Her form was sublime and further enhanced by her gowns, because her taste was impeccable too.

Everyone said she’d become a jilt and a flirt after her one true love had married another. What no one knew, not even the lady herself, Drum believed, was that was impossible. Because her one true love was herself.

“And Duchess,” Drum said to her mama, ducking his head in a semblance of a bow, “forgive me for not rising, will you?”

“My poor boy!” the duchess exclaimed, “just stay where you are! What a disaster. How glad we are to see
you on the road to recovery. We wouldn’t have missed seeing you for the world, but we heard you weren’t receiving visitors. How pleased we are that his grace informed us otherwise and offered to bring us himself.”

And how thrilled you are that he seems to be handing you my head and hand on a silver platter,
Drum thought, and said, “I’m glad you came whatever the reason. But please remember my father still thinks of me as a boy even though I’m easily a decade older than your daughter. You know how it is with doting parents of your generation, always thinking your children remain children even when we’re fully grown.”

There, Drum thought, a not too subtle hint about disparity in ages to start things off, and stem other things, in case his father had been making sheep’s eyes at the duchess’s daughter.

His father looked down at him with a bemused smile. “How eager one’s children are to put one into one’s dotage,” he commented to the duchess. “I only have a care for Drummond because he’s so late to mature. I myself became his father when I was even younger than your lovely daughter is now.”