His Lady Mistress (31 page)

‘How did you…?’ Max smiled wryly. ‘Julian.’

Richard shrugged. ‘He walked back here on his way to White’s. Listen, Max—laudanum’s funny stuff. Gets a grip on you if you aren’t damned careful. Myself, I’d prefer the headache. Mama kept giving it to me after my accident. Gave me nightmares. Eventually I used to pour it out and tell her I’d taken it.’

Max stared. ‘You? Nightmares? You never told me.’

‘While I was awake,’ said Richard grimly. ‘It was after you’d gone back to school.’ He walked over to a tallboy and picked up a bottle. ‘Here. I’ll measure it for you. She shouldn’t have much.’ Under Max’s startled gaze he measured two drops into a tumbler of water.

‘Two drops?’ queried Max.

Richard grimaced. ‘Believe me—it’s enough. I have to be desperate before I’ll touch the stuff. Chap I knew at Oxford—’ he grimaced ‘—he’d go nearly crazy with pain if he didn’t get his dose. Frightening. Brilliant mind, but useless—no power to finish anything. The nightmares got to him too. He used to write them down. All snakes and cavernous ruins.’

Max stared into the tumbler Richard had handed to him, the brownish drops barely colouring the water. Verity’s father had drunk laudanum. ‘Ricky—could it drive a man to suicide?’

He shrugged. ‘Probably. If he didn’t get his dose. If he was heavily habituated.’

Max set the tumbler down very carefully. ‘Thanks. Sorry I disturbed you. I’ll leave it.’

He went back to Verity’s room and found her nearly asleep. Softly he went over to the bed and gazed down at her. She looked so small and vulnerable, nearly lost in the shadows of the heavy brocaded bed hangings. Her lashes lay on her cheeks. He bent to tuck the covers more securely about her shoulders.

‘Max?’ The dark lashes flickered as she blinked up at him.

The sleepy murmur shook him. He sat down on the bed and stroked the tumbled curls. ‘Yes. I’m back.’

‘What did you go for?’

‘Nothing. Is your headache still bad?’

‘A little.’

He brushed his fingers over the satin curve of her cheek. ‘Shall I rub your head again?’

A slight pause. ‘Would you mind?’

‘No. Not at all.’ Carefully, he shifted to sit with his back to the headboard and lifted her into his arms, ignoring the sweetness of tender curves under the lawn nightgown. Settling her safely against his chest, he cradled her forehead in his hand and began—slow, circling motions with fingers and thumb. Her sigh of relief breathed against his wrist and he felt his body tighten. He jerked the reins taut on his self control.

‘Max? Thank you for trusting me.’ The sleepy whisper pierced him.

An hour later she lay sleeping soundly in his arms, her breathing regular and the little frown smoothed away.

He should put her down and leave, before he was tempted to slide into the bed beside her. His self-discipline hovered on the brink of bolting as it was. Something to do with the slender arms snuggled around his waist, no doubt. And the delicate scent of roses and lilies sinking into him.

Stifling a groan, he made to lay her down, only to feel the arms tighten and hear her protest as she half-woke. He froze. Damn. What was a man supposed to do in this situation?

Answer: behave in accordance with the precepts of chivalry. He couldn’t lay her down without waking her. So he would have to hold her. At least until the choice was between waking her up by laying her down and waking her up in a far less chivalrous, if more satisfactory, way.

Somehow he needed to distract his mind from the temptation of soft breasts nestled against him, from the silken tangle of hair spilling over his chest. His gaze lit on a leather-bound book on her bedside table. He picked it up with his free hand. Anything would be better than lying here, thinking about seducing her.

Opening the book, he flushed and started to put it down. It was handwritten. Damn. He couldn’t read her private journal. Then, despite himself, a name leapt out at him. Two names. His own and—
Slender Billy
? Why would Verity write about the Prince of Orange…unless—his breathing tore—unless it wasn’t Verity’s journal.

Slender Billy in a miff. That young idiot Max B. had the temerity to wonder, in his Highness’s presence! when Old Hookey would make it back from Vienna.

Max choked back a laugh. Good God. He’d forgotten that. Slender Billy imagining that he could command the Allied army in the field against Napoleon in Wellington’s absence! Of course everyone in Brussels had been terrified that Boney would cross the frontier while the Prince of Orange was in the saddle. Everyone except the Prince, that was.

He read on. He’d never realised that William Scott kept a private journal. His eyes widened. A very private journal, he hoped. How in Hades had Scott known about
that
affair? Heat stole along his cheekbones as he realised just how much his C.O. had known about him. He scanned the pages rapidly. Lord! Even his brief connection with Lady Gainfort had not escaped notice!

A sudden thought sent even more heat flooding his cheeks. Verity had read this?
And you had the hide to take exception to her deciding, in desperation, to become your mistress.

He wondered that she hadn’t stuffed the journal into his mouth and forced him to eat it. He read on, reliving the whole Waterloo campaign, the breathless gaiety of Brussels as they waited throughout that spring until the entry on the morning of the fifteenth of June. The main item on Scott’s mind that morning had been the Duchess of Richmond’s ball that evening. And his mixed regret that his pregnant wife had elected to remain in England.

As well that they aren’t here. I cannot believe that Wellington will suffer defeat, but if, God forbid, the worst should happen, I could not bear to think of Mary and my little Verity caught up in the horrors of a flight.

Max looked down at the dusky curls spilling over his shoulder.
Little Verity.
Now lying in his arms. His wife. What would Scott think of his son-in-law?

He flipped the page. And found a different man. The first outburst of rage and despair didn’t surprise him. Returning minus an arm to discover your wife and son dead and buried—Max shuddered. Scott’s grief cried out in the bitter words. A page further on, he frowned. The writing sounded almost…insane? Rambling. Here and there what sounded like nightmares were jotted down.

He shifted restlessly. Perhaps he ought not to read this—another name leapt at him:
Verity.

Snakes. Her eyes are full of them. hiss and slide Mocking. She won’t stay in her grave…looks at me. I can’t look at her. says she is Verity I can’t look at her. The snakes haunt me. She won’t go away. I scream at her to go she won’t go.

Max closed the journal with a helpless shudder. Dear God. No wonder Verity didn’t speak of her father. No wonder she had flinched when he remarked on her likeness to her mother. Thank God he hadn’t given her the laudanum.

What had Richard said about his Oxford friend?
He’d go nearly crazy with pain if he didn’t get his dose. Frightening. Brilliant mind, but useless—no power to finish anything. The nightmares got to him too. He used to write them down. All snakes and cavernous ruins.

Pain splintered inside him as he understood what Verity had been through. No. He
couldn’t
understand. No one could, who hadn’t lived through something like this. But at least he knew now what had happened. After this, her father’s suicide must have been the final catastrophe.

Only to be followed by the Faringdons. Who stole her name and her inheritance. Who had driven her to the point of becoming his mistress just to escape…or was that it?
I’d like…to belong. To be part of people’s lives.

The memory of her innocent wish raked him. She had wanted to
belong
. Everyone had refused her that, even her own father in his inexorable slide to self-destruction. Yet she had still loved him. She had still gone out to try and give his burial some honour.

Without disturbing the sleeping woman in his arms, he replaced the journal. It was still a very private journal. Perhaps he should not have read it, but he couldn’t regret it. He had needed to know what was in it. But that didn’t mean Verity need know he had read it. She had not chosen to share it with him. At least he could respect her desire for privacy.

Very gently he lay her down on the bed and eased away from her. She had expressed another desire this evening—namely not to share his bed again. Grimly he faced what he had done to her. He had taken her and promised protection, demanding her trust. She had given it. Completely. Then he had pushed her away. He had called her back. She had come. Hesitantly, but she had come and given her trust again. And he had broken faith again, shattering what he had been given so freely.

Tonight something had changed. She had begun to trust again. Perhaps there was hope after all. If he was careful not to ask too much, too soon.

Over the next week Verity found Max constantly at her side. He attended her to balls, routs, dinners and the theatre.
His mere presence quelled every malicious rumour and innuendo. He treated her with kindly consideration, a gentleness that left her defences in tatters.

She couldn’t maintain her coldness. It melted in the tender warmth of his smile. She couldn’t maintain her guard. It retreated since apparently it had nothing to do.
He won’t hurt you. You know that.

But he made no move to persuade her to his bed. She had woken alone the morning after the Torringtons’ ball and he had not come to her since. He didn’t want her, no matter how much her own heart clamoured that she wanted him. Perhaps all that had happened was that he had decided to accept the situation with a good grace. Make the best of it. He would not wish to know that his foolish wife still harboured her pathetic dream of love.

So she accepted his escort and quiet presence. And in the afternoons when he often went to his club, she slipped out to the Green Park with the dogs.

Max watched from the drawing-room windows as Verity appeared on the footpath below, closely chaperoned by Taffy and Gus. With the spaniels whirling around her in a mad tangle of leashes and flapping ears, she set off.

Feeling like a spy, he gave her time to reach her destination before he left his post. He knew where she was going. Or at least where she had told her maid she was going. This afternoon he would find out who she met in the Green Park.

She had only given her word not to cause a scandal. A shudder went through him. She had to be meeting someone. She came back from her solitary excursions flushed, with something of a sparkle in her eyes and a spring to her step. And it terrified him. Not that she looked as joyous as that week at Blakeney, merely less
un
happy.

And she always came in ravenous. It all added up to a raging affair. Except the dogs always came home exhausted
enough to collapse in a heap in a corner of the library where they remained until the word ‘dinner’ penetrated their rabbit-infested dreams. And he simply didn’t believe it of her anyway.

The idea of following her left a nasty taste, but he ignored it. He had to. If she
was
meeting someone in all innocence, he needed to know who. Thinking that she might find herself at the mercy of someone who would not hesitate to take advantage of her inexperience…He reached the front hall and flung on his coat.

She had a big enough start that he need not fear the dogs noticing him. The last thing he wanted was for Verity to think that he distrusted her. He had regained a fraction of her trust. He couldn’t bear to lose it again.

He reached the Green Park and strolled through the gates. Time contracted, catapulting him back twenty or more years. Memories flooded him—playing cricket here in the holidays with Richard and Frederick. Other dogs that had preceded Gus and Taff. And further back, coming here as very small boys with Nanny. And being dragged home in disgrace on one memorable occasion after an indiscretion involving a cowpat. He wondered if Richard remembered.

He should be looking for Verity. Carefully, from the cover of a convenient tree, he quartered the park. Cows munched placidly by the lake. She shouldn’t be hard to find…not in that very smart and very visible turkey-red pelisse. Two lads playing cricket brought a smile to his face. They might be Richard and his own younger selves…One was making runs hand over fist, while the other jumped up and down, shrieking at a toiling figure racing back with the ball, an older sister by the look of it…his searching gaze passed on. And then swung back sharply as Gus and Taff careered up to the boys, barking madly. Where the dogs were, surely…and then he recognised her, pelisse discarded, curls flying as she flung the ball with all her strength and commendable aim.

The gown was the last thing he would have expected under
that pelisse she had set off in. It must be one of her old ones. No London modiste had fashioned
that
abomination but, he had to admit, it was admirable for cricket.

Dazed, he watched. A very few minutes served to convince him that Verity was a prime favourite with the boys and that her popularity extended far beyond her obvious willingness to field for them. The younger one gave up his bat to her with great alacrity and corrected her grip with all the aplomb of a master.

And Max noted with approval that the ball sent down by the elder lad was nothing like the scorchers faced by his younger brother. Which, chivalry aside, might have been a serious error, he admitted, as his hoyden of a wife hooked it for what would have been a clean six at any public school in England.

He watched Verity race up and down the wicket, conscious of a queer ache in his heart, an ache that he scarcely dared acknowledge, because to do so would lift the lid on everything he had thought buried. His longing for Verity had been bad enough when he could pretend it was merely lust, a physical desire for a lovely woman. It had been worse when he realised he wanted all of her, the laughter he had destroyed, the unconscious pride and dignity he had trampled and the sweet, innocent passion he had shamed.