Liz Carlyle - [Lorimer Family & Clan Cameron 02] (49 page)

“In what way?” asked Evangeline, her hand fluttering weakly to her temple.

Lady Howell gave a sharp, bitter laugh. “Cicely could have had Godfrey, but she held out for Rannoch’s money, and that stung Godfrey’s pride. By the time she realized Rannoch wouldn’t have her, Godfrey had been shipped off to India to avoid Rannoch’s challenge—or the scandal, rather—for his father wouldn’t have much cared if Godfrey’d been shot dead.”

“And then what happened?”

“I don’t
know!
” Her haunted voice broke then, and she began to sob in earnest. “Cicely never deserved such a fine young man. His storming out that night was the last straw. I ordered Howell to get the girl out of my house. A few weeks later, I learned of her death.” Lady Howell’s voice began to rise, taking on a hysterical edge. “After that, I wanted to know nothing further! I never asked!”

“Calm yourself, Lady Howell,” insisted Evangeline, struggling to maintain her own composure. “You are not at fault.”

“But I am! Had I done as I ought, and spoken out—”

“Oh? To say what?” challenged Evangeline softly. “That your husband was an incestuous pig? Had you any proof ?”

“No, but by saying nothing, I let an innocent man suffer. And now we see what has come of heaping silence upon sin!” Her already homely face had crumpled into a hideously swollen mass, and tears were streaming down her reddened cheeks. Violent, choking sobs began to wrack her broad shoulders, jerking her repeatedly as she bent almost double.

Wordlessly, Evangeline left her seat and slid onto the sofa next to Lady Howell. She wrapped her arm around the wretched woman and tried to make some sense of all that she had heard.

There was some truth in what the woman said. An innocent young man had been allowed to pay the price for another’s grievous sin. It horrified her, and she wondered to what extent, if any, this poor woman was to blame. What, given such terrible circumstances, would most wives have done? Evangeline did not know the answer to that question. But as she watched Lady Howell, tormented by guilt, she realized that whatever crime this woman might have committed, she was now paying a horrific price. No doubt, she had done so for many years and would continue to do so for as many more.

Slowly, Lady Howell collected herself and began to wipe her face. “Oh, Lady Rannoch! I pray you will forgive me. Please forgive me for everything that I have done. Everything that I have allowed to happen—”

Evangeline took her hand into her own and pressed it encouragingly. “You are indeed forgiven, Lady Howell, for whatever part is mine to forgive. But indeed, ma’am, I do not understand why you are telling me this today, after all these years.”

Lady Howell’s face drew into a taut, bitter expression. “Because it will all come out now. I cannot help it. Moreover, I no longer care. I shall go abroad as soon as the funeral is over. My husband’s death releases me from any obligation I may have had to protect him.”

“Your husband’s death?” Evangeline stared at the woman in horror.

Lady Howell lifted her gaze to hold Evangeline’s. Her bleary eyes were wide with alarm. “Yes, my lady, his death. Have you not understood me? My husband attacked Lord Cranham. At Vauxhall last night. Rannoch tried to intervene, then Matthew Winthrop was forced to shoot . . .”

As Lady Howell’s words faded away, Evangeline felt caught in a tangle of emotion. She struggled to understand the implications of Lady Howell’s convoluted tale. “Why would Lord Howell—?” she managed to whisper.

“Oh, his vile deception began to crumble when Cranham returned from India. He began stalking Cranham; he was obsessed with where he went, to whom he spoke. Yet publicly, Howell avoided him.” Her voice turned to an almost steely whisper. “You see, Cranham made no secret of the fact that he wanted to make trouble for Rannoch. Howell was afraid to answer Cranham’s questions, for the man was like a loose cannon. I tried to warn Cranham away, to no avail. I suspect my husband knew that a meeting between Cranham and Rannoch was inevitable, given their animosity. And then, they might realize the truth: that Cicely had another suitor. Neither of them. A lover to whom she had easy and unsuspicious access . . .”

“I am not sure I understand.”

“Oh, my lady! The scandalmongers would have ruined Howell had his incest become public. And, of course, there was his dishonorable conduct in allowing an innocent young man to be blamed for Cicely’s death. He would never have been received in good drawing rooms again.”

“I see,” whispered Evangeline.

“But as long as her suitors remained on separate continents, it was easy for them to go on blaming each other. Then that actress—Antoinette Fontaine—managed to learn the truth somehow. I think she was blackmailing Howell. I found her name and direction in Howell’s ledger. He had begun to spend large sums of money, larger even than his outrageous gaming debts. He killed her . . . yes, I really think he killed her.”

Fontaine. Tanner. An inn near Wrotham Ford . . . what was the connection?
Suddenly, Evangeline felt her throat begin to constrict.

The strain of the last several hours was telling. She felt driven to escape. To return to Elliot’s side. She needed to touch him, to talk to him, to persuade him to fight to get well. For them, and for their child. Moreover, as much as she knew she should be grateful to this guilt-ridden woman, she was still seized by an irrational, nearly overwhelming urge to flee from her presence.

It was simply too much, too much ugliness to comprehend in one such tragic day. Abruptly, she rose and muttered what were almost certainly incoherent words of sympathy and thanks. Then, fighting the inclination to break into a run, Evangeline picked up her skirts, rushed from the room, and up the two flights of stairs to Elliot.

Evangeline spent a restless night by Elliot’s bed, carefully considering what Lady Howell had said yet saying nothing that might distress her husband. By the following morning, Elliot was well enough to slump weakly against a stack of pillows, drink a bit of beef tea, and spend a quarter hour sequestered with Gerald Wilson.

By that afternoon, however, matters took an altogether different turn. The dreaded fever seized hold with a vengeance. His huge body was wracked, first by chills, then by scorching heat. Potter returned to shake his head and make soft, sympathetic noises but otherwise did little. Kemble mixed up a bitter tea of bark and herbs which Evangeline dutifully sponged into his mouth during his more settled moments. They shared the task of changing the bandages and applying the appropriate compounds, for the wound must, the surgeon emphasized, be kept free of putrefaction at all cost. Evangeline remained by her husband’s bed, sleeping on a cot MacLeod had sent up.

Throughout the first full day, the worst throes of fever would seize Elliot, seemingly out of nowhere, and together Evangeline and Kemble would be forced physically to restrain him. Twice, they were required to ring for footmen. Elliot would thrash about violently, and each time Evangeline feared that the sutures in his thigh would rupture. Within twenty-four hours, Elliot’s fever began to spike faster but less frequently, and for the most part he slept restlessly, his breathing rapid and shallow. During the febrile spells, however, he would first rage wildly, then cry out for Evangeline.

Occasionally, he would carry on entire conversations, almost coherently. When his temperature dropped and the chills took hold, Elliot would plead with her to come to bed. Evangeline did so, gingerly at first, fearing that she would somehow worsen the wound, yet the heat of her body seemed to ease his otherwise uncontrollable shivering. The cycle went on and on into the second day, until both she and Kemble were on the verge of collapse and Elliot severely weakened.

It was following just such an episode when Evangeline awoke, somewhere near daybreak, to find herself tightly ensnared in Elliot’s arms. After three days of sleeping only intermittently, Evangeline realized she must have dozed off. She came fully awake with a start. Elliot had managed to roll toward her and now lay on one side. Sliding one hand up against his massive shoulder, she tried to press him back down against the mattress, but his eyes flew instantly open.

He blinked once, twice, then focused his smoky gaze upon her with a breathtaking intensity. “Evie . . . ?”he whispered. The desperation in his voice was almost tangible. His eyes searched her face with a strange urgency. “I thought—that is to say, I dreamed—that you were gone.”

“Gone?” she answered uncertainly.

“That you had left,” he muttered vaguely, lifting an unsteady hand to touch her face. “Aye, gone away . . . before I could explain . . .”

“Shush, Elliot,” she softly replied, touching his fingertips lightly to her lips, then placing his hand back atop the coverlet. “You must lie still. You have been feverish for quite a while, but I am here.”

As if perplexed, Elliot lifted his hand again and scrubbed the back of it across his four-day growth of beard. He eyed her speculatively across the pillow. “Aye, quite a while indeed,” he murmured. Then his mouth turned up into a weak, roguish grin, but his words were laced with doubt. “Had you worried, I hope?”

Evangeline rolled up onto one elbow to look down into his haggard face. Elliot had always been dark, his beard heavy, but he now gave every appearance of being a dockyard thug. A faint purple bruise colored the outer edge of his left brow, while harsh black stubble covered his face. His cheekbones, more pronounced than usual, were slashed with deep hollows beneath. And now that he was fully awake, Elliot’s eyes seemed darker, sunken, and ringed with shadow. Her expression apparently betrayed her thoughts.

“Umm—that bad?” One eyebrow went up as he struggled to maintain the grin.

Still propped up beside him, Evie shook her head. “A little gaunt, perhaps. And yes, you had me worried.”

Elliot reached out with surprising strength, circled his arm about her waist, and pulled himself a half inch closer before the pain obviously overcame him. He looked at her with a grimace. “Very worried?” he asked softly.

“Terrified, truth be told,” she answered grimly.

“How long?” he asked tentatively. “How long since Vauxhall?”

Evie pulled her gaze from his and pushed the bedcovers incrementally away. “This is the fourth day,” she answered.

“And you have remained here every moment, have you not?” He reached out to touch her chin lightly and turn her face back toward his. “Look at me, Evie. I know it. ’Tis as if I was aware of you throughout . . . throughout whatever it is I have been through these many days and nights. Aye, I sensed your presence. And then I dreamed—well, I cannot say quite
what
I dreamed. Just don’t leave me, Evie, promise that you will not?” He swallowed hard, and as she watched the faint movement of his throat, Evangeline was flooded with an overwhelming sense of relief and gratitude.

“I will never leave you,” she answered with unwavering certainty.

Mutely, Elliot nodded, fell back against the pillow, and dragged his arm across his forehead. For a long moment, he was still, and she thought he was sleeping. “Do you know, Evie?” he asked at last, the question punctuated by a little grunt of discomfort. “Did they tell you about Howell? I remember now . . . the bounder meant to shoot Cranham. And I think he shot me, too, though I’m damned if I know why.”

Gingerly, Evangeline moved across the bed and tucked in close to his side. “She came here,” Evangeline answered softly. “Lady Howell. Her husband is dead, Elliot. Did you remember that Major Winthrop had to kill him?”

Elliot’s soft voice was slow and uncertain. “I—don’t know what I remember. If he is dead, then I am not much saddened by it . . . but why would Lady Howell come here, Evie?” he asked, his voice suddenly protective. “Did she distress you in any way?”

Elliot lifted his arm and turned to look at her as she shook her head. “No, not distress. Upsetting, yes. She was that. But she was driven by grief and guilt. She came only to confess. To say that it was Howell who—who—”

Evangeline fumbled weakly with the end of her sentence, for she and Elliot had never openly discussed the death of his fiancée. “It was Howell, Elliot. It was Howell who got Cicely Forsythe, his niece, with child,” she finally managed to say. “You have a right to know the truth, though you should not hear it from me. In fact, you are too weak to have this discussion at all.”

Suddenly wincing, Elliot sucked air through his teeth and squeezed shut his eyes. A moment passed before he spoke again. “Aye,” he said bitterly, “that may be, but I’ve got a bloody hole in my leg for my trouble, Evie, so I’d like to know why. Go on.”

“Well, that’s about it,” she concluded softly. “I take it that theirs was a long-standing affair. You—and Cranham, too, for that matter—were merely used.”

Elliot remained quiet for a protracted moment until, at last, Evangeline sat up in bed and looked down at him. His eyes were closed, his face fixed in an expression of unmitigated grief. Had he loved her so very much then? Did knowing the name, not to mention the utter perfidy, of one’s betrayer make it worse? Of course it did, she acknowledged.

Elliot had a troubled past; she had known it, and been wounded by it, when she wed him. What she had not known, and had not bothered to consider, was just how badly his past had wounded him. Far more, Evangeline was beginning to realize, than she had ever imagined. She had been wrong about a great many things, and perhaps she had unwittingly wronged him in the process.

Though the artist inside Evangeline well understood that life was never black and white, the woman who had fallen in love with Elliot Armstrong had been unwilling to tolerate shades of gray in her life. Perhaps, she suddenly realized, that was just a bit too much to ask. Elliot was not, and never would be, perfect. He was just a man. A strong, good man who was honest at heart yet fraught with inner demons and insecurities which he was at last struggling to overcome.