If He's Wild (3 page)

“I must see to my uncle, m’lord,” Alethea said.

“He did not look well,” Hartley agreed.

“Ah, no. No, he did not. Please, m’lord, I have heard that you do not remain at these social events for very long, but I would beg of you to wait for me. I truly
must
speak with you.”

Before Hartley could make any promise, Lady Alethea left him. She paused in her pursuit of her uncle only once, relieving a wide-eyed footman of a tray full of drinks. Alethea prayed that Lord Redgrave would wait for her return, that curiosity would hold him at the ball, if only to discover what odd thing she would say next. If he left, she would find him again, however, she promised herself, but now her concern was all for her uncle.

Hartley frowned after the Vaughn woman, torn between staying to discover what was going on and fleeing the odd female before he caught himself in some snare he had been too confused to see coming. Then he saw Claudette making her way through the crowd straight toward him, the gleam of a huntress in her eyes. His brief attendance at his cousin’s ball was turning out to be very complicated. He was supposed to be seducing Claudette. The fact that she had twice tried to approach him tonight was a very good sign, one he should take swift advantage of. Yet his inclination at that precise moment was to chase after two people named Vaughn. When he abruptly realized he could not think of the Lady Alethea as a Channing, his curiosity grew. Anyone who had such an odd effect upon him definitely merited more investigation.

A flirtatious young man distracted Claudette in her aim to reach his side. Hartley cursed over his own indecisiveness and then gave in to a surprisingly strong urge to go after the Vaughns. It took great effort not to stride right past his friends when they hailed him. He paused to look at Aldus and Gifford, men who understood the lies and secrets he lived with, for they shared them.

“Who was the little dark beauty with Vaughn?” asked Aldus, the glint of curiosity in his dark blue eyes.

“Vaughn’s niece, Lady Alethea Vaughn-Channing,” Hartley replied, hastily hyphenating her last name when he began to leave off the husband’s name yet again, and he had to smile at the looks of surprise and doubt on his friends’ faces. “His eldest brother’s child. Widow of the late, unlamented Edward Channing of Coulthurst.” And why saying the man’s name left a bad taste in his mouth, he had no idea.

“Damn,” muttered Gifford, scowling in the direction the Vaughns had gone. “There was a man who should never have married anyone, let alone a woman as young and pretty as that one.”

“Why not?” Hartley was aware of some information tickling at the edges of his mind, something he should have recalled when he had heard the name of Channing of Coulthurst, but that information was still proving elusive.

“Not one for the ladies. Never was. Never had been. Not sure he ever could be, although not certain of the why of that. No sign that he favored men or anything else, either.”

“Such a waste.”

“Quite so. Your current prey appears to have turned the tables and is now pursuing you, my friend,” whispered Aldus as he watched Claudette extract herself from one man only to be halted in her renewed advance on Hartley by yet another. “She now makes your job easy.”

“Suspiciously so,” said Hartley. “Duty bids me stay and let her ensnare me, but every instinct I have is urging me to follow those Vaughns.”

“Then follow them. Your instincts are usually right. I have heard that the Vaughns are an odd lot, but that they are honorable and that one can always trust the word of a Vaughn. We will wait here and keep the fair Claudette from following you, if needed.”

That was comforting, Hartley thought as he made his way out to the gardens. He was curious about how Aldus would know such things about the reclusive Vaughns, however. In truth, Aldus and Gifford often astonished him with the vast amount of knowledge they had concerning the members of society. He had no doubt that, if they had not already known his secrets, they would soon have ferreted them out. If the pair ever decided to turn their hands to blackmail, they would become very rich men.

After searching his cousin’s garden for several moments, Hartley began to fear that the Vaughns had fled the ball. He followed the sound of the fountain and finally saw the pair. The light from the moon and the torches encircling the area around the fountain clearly illuminated the couple. Lord Uppington was seated on a stone bench, his elbows on his knees, and his head held in his hands. Lady Channing sat by his side, lightly rubbing his shoulders. He felt his shoulders warm at the thought of her doing the same to him and quickly shook the thought out of his head.

When Lord Uppington slowly sat up straight, Hartley frowned. The man looked truly ill, and Hartley wondered if Claudette had anything to do with Vaughn’s shaken condition. Although he could think of nothing the woman could have said or done in a crowded ballroom to leave the man so overset, Hartley could not ignore the fact that Lord Uppington had been with the woman when he took this strange turn. Lingering in the shelter of the shadows, Hartley hoped the couple would say something that would absolve him from turning his back on his duty and walking away from Claudette, if only for a little while.

“Here. Drink,” ordered Alethea, handing Iago some wine. “You look like death warmed over.”

“An apt description,” Iago murmured and then sipped at the drink. “You did not have to bring so much drink. I think this one will serve.”

“The rest is for me. One look at your face, and I thought I would need it.”

Alethea was pleased to see him smile at her small jest. Seeing Iago so unsettled had alarmed her. He had been able to see into the shadows all his life and was, more or less, accustomed to sights she suspected would make her swoon. For Iago to flee, to look so sick and shaken, he had to have seen something truly horrifying. She was not sure she wanted to know what it was, but then told herself not to be such a coward. Iago needed a steady, calm presence and a willing ear right now. He needed someone he could speak to openly, honestly, without fearing that listener would run screaming into the night. That need for someone who could understand, who could accept such gifts without scorn or fear, was one thing that kept the Vaughns and Wherlockes so united as a clan. Sometimes each other were all they had.

She felt an old pain stir and beat it down. It was not her fault her mother had fled, she told herself for what had to be the millionth time, and wondered if that desertion was something she would never fully get over. Her father had tried to hide his heritage, and, though doubtful of his success, the rest of the family had dutifully played along. A small child did not know how to hide such things, however. The look upon her mother’s face when she had heard of a neighbor’s death, a death that had occurred exactly how, when, and where Alethea had told her it would only two days earlier, still had the power to break Alethea’s heart fourteen years later. Her mother had feared her then, just as she would soon fear her eldest son. When Gethin’s gift had appeared, Henrietta Vaughn had not waited to see what, if any, gifts her other two sons might have, but thrust her still nursing youngest son into his father’s arms and walked away. Her father had never really recovered from the desertion, either.

Forcing aside those sad memories, Alethea noticed that Iago’s color was a little improved and asked, “Lady Bartleby’s house is not clean?”

“Oh, no, not as ours is,” replied Iago. “Nothing horrifying or dangerous, however. I often see the others at such events. I swear, I think the music and the crowd draw them.”

“Yes, I think it would me if I were lingering about some place.”

“You will not pass for many, many years and will have no regrets or unfinished business. You will not linger.”

That sounded very much like a command, so Alethea nodded. “It was not a normal sighting that made you get so upset, was it?”

“No.” Iago shuddered and tossed back the last of his drink.

“If you would rather not speak of it,” she began.

“I
would
rather forget it all, if that were even possible. I cannot. It is all tied up with the reason you have come to London, I think.”

“Madame Claudette, who smells strongly of roses?”

“And death,” whispered Iago.

Alethea shivered. “She is to die soon? Not before the next full moon, surely? I still believe she is there when he dies.”

“No. It was not her death I saw, though retribution for her crimes must be drawing nigh.” Iago shook his head slowly. “I fear I have just discovered a new twist to my gift. Madame tows about a rather large group of the others. Enraged ones, ones who want revenge, justice. She seems completely oblivious to them,” he said in wonder.

“Ones whose deaths she has caused, do you think?”

Iago frowned in thought. “Mayhap, mayhap not. She is an émigré, one who fled the horrific bloodbath that has become the Revolution. These may just be sad souls who died when she was near them. Mayhap she was caught in some frenzied massacre but survived.”

“Then you would have seen such sad souls before. You know several men who were soldiers, who were in battle. They would have been near death, abrupt and brutal death. Yet you say you have never seen the like of this before.”

“No, I have not, not truly. Certainly not of this ilk. Not this writhing mass of fury and hate. One or two sad, confused souls. Knew who they were, too, for had heard the tale of the boyhood friend or beloved comrade dying in his arms. Even saw a Frenchman, but he was just as sad and confused as the others.”

“Because it was war, a death in battle, soldier against soldier, not murder or deceit or treachery. And they died quickly, without even knowing who fired the fatal shot or swung the sword that cut them down.”

“Oh, bloody hell, you are right. There lies the cause of all that anger and loathing, the whispered demands for retribution. She had something to do with their deaths. I did not see them at first. They appeared half the way through the dance, which was alarming, I might say.”

“They sensed that you could see them, understand them perhaps. One can only wonder how long they have waited for just such an opportunity. That might explain why it was such a strong, violent, even upsetting visitation. They were desperately hungry for someone, anyone, to hear their pleas and so rushed at you too fast, too overwhelmingly.”

“You seem to understand these things better than I do.”

“’Tis not my gift. I can calmly sit back and study it.” Alethea sipped at her drink. “And you are right. This is all connected to what I saw. She is the one who threatens him.”

“If what I just saw is the gathering of those whose deaths she has caused, she is a bloody, dangerous bitch,” Iago snapped, “and you will not have any more to do with her.”

“How forceful you sound,” Alethea murmured. “I am devastated that I cannot heed and obey.”

“No, you are not.” Iago cursed and dragged a hand through his hair, disordering his neat queue. “If I tried to send you back to Coulthurst, you would probably just turn around and come back here the first chance you got. On foot if you had to.”

“I can be stubborn.”

“Why? You do not know this man, have never even met Lord Redgrave before this eve. This is not your danger or your responsibility. You could leave me all I need to properly warn him and go home.”

“Uncle, we have already stomped down that path,” she said gently. “In a rather strange way, I have known the man since I was a small child. He is in danger. The moment I knew that, all of this
did
become my responsibility. After what you have seen, I believe we can assume Madame Claudette is not some honest émigré, one fleeing for her life. Recall what else we thought about her, about her choice of lovers, and you must see that our responsibility grows even stronger. Not just to the man, but, perhaps, to England herself.”

“What the bloody hell do you two know?!”

Alethea looked at Lord Redgrave, startled by his abrupt intrusion into what she had thought was a private conversation. He looked a little pale, and his hands were clenched into tight fists at his side. He had followed them, something she had not anticipated, and had obviously overheard at least some of what she and Iago had been discussing. The look of angry suspicion he was giving them was probably justified. When she opened her mouth to reply, the sound of laughter warned her that someone was approaching and there would soon be far too many ears close by to hear what the three of them might say to each other.

Redgrave scowled toward the sound. “Later. Meet me at my house in one hour.” He glared at Iago. “If I do not see you there, rest assured, I
will
hunt you down.”

“Oh, dear,” murmured Alethea as she watched Lord Redgrave stride away. “Do we obey?”

“I think we must,” replied Iago. “He did not ask what the devil we were talking about or what we meant, did he?”

“Ah, me, no. He asked what we knew. Perhaps the danger I must warn him about will come as no surprise to him. It will just be a matter of making him believe me.”

“My dear niece, if that man overheard everything we have discussed here, either he will have a few burly men waiting for us to take us off to Bedlam or he will see what you have to say as positively reasonable.”

“I want to know everything you two know about the Vaughns,” Hartley demanded of Aldus and Gifford as he poured them each a brandy. “Everything and quickly. They will be here soon.”

Hartley sat down on a plush settee facing his two friends. They had said little as he had dragged them away from his cousin’s ball, brought them to his house, and ordered them into his best parlor. They had not even commented on the nearly rude way he had dismissed Madame Claudette, a woman he was supposed to be seducing for the sake of king and country. He also knew they would continue to play the game by his rules for a while longer, confident that he would eventually explain everything. Hartley was just not sure he could explain, that his friends would even understand if he tried, or that the Vaughns would clarify much when they did arrive.

He took a deep drink of his brandy to still his agitation but was not completely successful. Everything he had overheard in the garden churned in his mind despite his attempts to dismiss all but one thing—they knew about Claudette. He had considered himself a man of logic and fact, blissfully clean of superstitions, but the things the Vaughns had said had roused a few from wherever he had buried them. Worse, he had found himself listening as if they were not talking utter nonsense.

“As I have told you,” said Aldus, “the Vaughns are known to be honorable and true to their word. They carry a wide variety of titles, starting with the patriarch of the clan, the Duke of Elderwood. The family seat, Chantiloup Castle, is in Cheshire, but one step from Wales. The current duke is a young man named Modred, if you can believe that. Poor sod. Do not know anyone who has met the man. Sons, cousins, nephews, and the like all seem to stumble into titles of their own, from insignificant ones to quite impressive ones. Some come from the crown for services rendered, but many come through marriages, especially from women of titled families who lack sons to inherit everything. Not all titles pass only through the sons, and a little bribery can get many a will or entail changed. There is wealth there, too, enough to make such changes. If they were not so reclusive and rumored to be odd, that family could probably wield a great deal of power. So could the other branch of the family, the Wherlockes.”

“But why are they reclusive and deemed odd?” demanded Hartley.

“Well, ’tis said they can do and see things we mere mortals cannot. Such things as what got several of their ancestors tried and executed as witches, and had them all heavily persecuted for a time. That might be the cause of this lingering tendency to hide away from the world. Both sides of the family have a sad history of wives and husbands walking away never to return. The last one to do so was Lady Henrietta Vaughn, who was, I believe, Lady Alethea’s mother. She left her husband and four children about fourteen or fifteen years ago. Retired to a small estate in Sussex with an aging spinster aunt and refused to speak of her marriage.”

“She did occasionally let slip the opinion that her husband was in league with the devil,” said Gifford. “I recall her telling my aunt once that all the Vaughns are cursed, that that curse had stained her children with the devil’s mark so that she had to flee to save her own soul. My aunt said the woman was frighteningly pious. Still visits the woman from time to time when she goes to Sussex to visit her son, but claims the woman gets worse every year. Actually spoke of her children last spring, but my aunt Lily said it was all nonsense and she thinks the woman is losing her mind.”

“Did she tell you what that nonsense was?” asked Hartley.

“Some of it,” replied Gifford, “though Aunt Lily thinks it all delusions born of guilt over deserting her own children. The woman told my aunt that her daughter could foresee death, that at only six years of age the little girl had accurately described their closest neighbor’s death two full days before it happened. Aunt Lily said she might have believed that, but that then the woman told her that her eldest son could hurl things about without lifting a finger.”

“Nothing about seeing ghosts?”

“Er, no, although she has said a few things about her husband and spirits. Again, all this is according to Aunt Lily.” Gifford shrugged even as he watched Hartley closely. “It is the sort of thing one always hears about the Vaughns and the Wherlockes. They can do magic, read minds, see the future, talk to the dead, and so on. Always felt that it was how people explained the family’s avoidance of society.”

“Do you, either of you, believe in any of those things?”

“I do not
dis
believe in them. Never seen anything to prove or disprove such things. Then again, look at Lord Iago. Young, handsome, titled, comfortably wealthy, and seems a good man. Why does he shun society so?” Gifford asked, and Aldus nodded his agreement.

“To avoid matchmaking mothers?”

“Possibly, but why does he not at least frequent any of the places bachelors do? He belongs to all the clubs, but one rarely sees him at any of them. He has a few close friends, true enough, but he is very reclusive, and I can find no reason why. No stutter, no disfigurement, no evil secret or even one of the sort the late Channing might have had, and no sign of a painful shyness, insanity, or even an unreasonable fear. All the Vaughns are like Lord Uppington to some extent. So, have you discovered their dark secret? Is that why we wait here to confront them, why you are so suddenly interested in them?”

“They know about Claudette.”

“Impossible,” said Aldus. “We have only just begun to suspect her ourselves. How could two recluses know about her?”

“My thoughts exactly,” said Hartley, “but they do. Supposedly, if I interpret what was said correctly, Lady Alethea has come to London to warn me about Madame Claudette, that I am in danger, possibly even for my life. They know about her lovers, are suspicious of her choices in men she takes to her bed, suspect she is not the frightened, innocent émigré she claims to be, and that she has a lot of blood on her hands.”

“Damnation—how?”

“Therein lies the problem. To hear them talk, all this knowledge it took us months to collect was given to them through her visions and his ghosts. Whatever I think or believe about all else I heard in that garden, one fact stands clear.”

“They know too much.”

“Exactly.” Hartley heard someone at the front door and tensed. “And now they might explain themselves. ’Tis to be hoped that they will do so without talk of spiritual visitations.”

Alethea clutched her sketchbook tightly against her chest as she and Iago were ushered into an elegant parlor to face Hartley and his two friends. The greetings and introductions were exchanged, and all the while she studied Lord Redgrave’s two friends. Aldus Covington was a minor baron with a very good chance of becoming a viscount. He was about Iago’s height and almost too slim, yet she suspected he had a limber strength. He was also handsome in a blue-eyed, blond, and classical way. Gifford Banning was an marquis, of an age and height with Lord Covington but broader in the shoulders, more obviously muscled, and quite startlingly handsome with his dark auburn hair and sharp green eyes.

All in all, she was standing amidst a veritable plethora of masculine beauty, wealth, and good breeding, she mused with an inner smile as she sat down on the settee Lord Redgrave led her to. The matchmaking mothers of society would tear her to pieces if they found out. She tensed slightly when Lord Redgrave sprawled on the settee at her side, leaving Iago to take the chair next to her side of the settee.

“At least there are no burly men with chains, ropes, or restraints of some sort,” she said quietly to Iago as the butler and a footman set out tea and cakes, refreshment that had obviously been readied for their arrival.

“They could be lurking in another room,” replied Iago in an equally quiet tone.

“We are the only ones here,” said Hartley the moment the servants left. “Would you care for something stronger than tea? Either of you?” When Alethea shook her head, he looked at Iago.

“No, thank you. Too soon after the drink I downed in the gardens.” He nodded when Alethea silently offered to pour him a cup of tea, and then smiled at the identical quizzical looks the other three men wore. “If you heard our entire conversation in the garden, Redgrave, then you will understand why I am cautious in my consumption of drink. It would not do at all for me to lose my, er, reticence.”

“Because you might begin to speak to the spirits you claim to see, and do so in public?” Hartley asked, inwardly cursing himself for mouthing the question, one formed from his curiosity, doubt, and, worse, a strange urge to be convinced.

“My lord, I never insist anyone believe as I do, only that they give the leave to do so,” Iago said.

Hartley nodded in appreciative response to that very polite set-down. It was very similar to the one Alethea had given him. He began to think they had to do it a lot.

“You truly see the dead?” asked Aldus, blithely ignoring Hartley’s glare. “Even speak to them?”

“I have since I was a very small child,” replied Iago. “I may have seen them from the moment I was born, but who can say? I would not be confessing such things except that it is quite obvious my secret is out, at least amongst the ones in this room.”

“Are there any here? In Redgrave’s home?”

“Yes, but not in this room, and none of them are malevolent.”

“Can you make them show themselves or reveal themselves in some way?”

“No.”

“Curse it, Aldus, we have not brought them here so that you can request parlor tricks,” snapped Hartley. “I have always been curious about such things,” said Aldus, “yet I have never seen any proof.”

“If you saw proof, you would soon come to regret your curiosity,” Iago said in a quiet, somber voice and then turned his attention to his tea. “In fact, we would not even be having this discussion at all if the conversation between Alethea and me had not been overheard. I was too overset to take the usual precautions. I believe you can understand why we keep such things as secret as possible. History has taught us all the value of secrecy.”

Hartley frowned at the Vaughns and then at his companions, who did not look as doubtful as he thought they ought to. He would never have suspected the two intelligent, well-schooled men would have a superstitious bone in their bodies. Then again, he mused, perhaps they did not, for they showed no unease at all, not as he did. They both looked simply intrigued. Hartley hated the thought that he might be the only one with a newly discovered superstitious side. He inwardly shook his head and turned his attention back to the Vaughns.

“For the moment let us say that we all accept your, er, gifts as fact,” Hartley said, irritated by the glint of amusement he could see in the eyes of the Vaughns. “Just tell us how and when you came to know so much about Madame Claudette des Rouches.”

“I shall begin,” said Alethea, “for it was I who started it all, dragging Iago along with me, m’lord.”

“One quick suggestion. We will undoubtedly have a long discussion. Shall we set aside the proprieties a little and leave off the titles? There are four m’lords here. I believe using our Christian names will help to make things a little less confusing.”

“As you wish,” Alethea said after a quick nod of agreement from Iago and the others. “I had a vision four days ago.” She noticed Hartley looked annoyed, but his companions simply looked curious. “In it I saw you step out of a fine house. It had rather poorly carved griffins upon the posts at the base of the front steps. I could smell roses, and you looked, well, smug.” Hartley looked even more irritated, but his friends briefly grinned. “Then you were accosted and dragged into a large black carriage. What followed was somewhat alarming. Swift, intense images and emotions. There was a lot of pain. Torture, I believe. Five men tried to get you to tell them your secrets. Then a sudden urgency rose amongst them, followed by your death. Your throat was cut,” she whispered and then took a deep breath to steady herself. “I could not, at first, understand why they would kill you when you had yet to tell them what they wanted, but I now believe that urgency I sensed meant that they feared discovery.”

“That would make sense,” said Aldus.

“None of this makes much sense,” snapped Hartley. “How could you have
visions
about me, Alethea? We have never met before tonight.”

“True, but I do know you in a peculiar sort of way.”

“Why does that not surprise me?”

She ignored that remark and handed him her sketchbook, the one she kept on hand to record her visions of him. There were a few other drawings in there, for she had, on occasion, grabbed the wrong book while still caught in the grip of the confusion and agitation that often followed one of her visions. It was, however, all she could think of to show him, holding the slim hope that it would be enough to make him take her warning seriously.

“I have been having visions of you for some time, since I was five years old.” She watched Hartley’s two friends move quickly to look at her sketches when Hartley cursed softly and grew pale. “’Tis why I gave you your own book. Well, mostly your own. A few times I grasped the wrong book whilst confused after a vision. I did not see you all the time, but at least once a year for the last fifteen years. Sometimes it was a vision, a strong one or just a fleeting glimpse. Occasionally I would have a dream. There were even times when I just, well,
sensed
things. I did not intentionally intrude upon your privacy, Hartley. Truly, I did not. It occurred to me that, perhaps, all these previous glimpses of you were leading to this very specific warning.” She waited for his reaction, so tense that she was surprised she did not hear a bone or two crack beneath the strain.

Hartley stared at the drawings as he leafed through the book, reading the notations she had made on each page. She had a true skill: her sketches were clear, precise, and full of emotion. It was easy to see how her skill had improved over time. Her notes revealed that she had a keen, precise mind. He suspected that later he would be able to appreciate that. At the moment, however, his blood had grown cold.