Lord Harry's Folly (37 page)

“Ah, your unusual education rears its head again. We’re special, Hetty. Very special. Will you trust me on that?”

“I suppose I must since you saved Sir Harry and rubbed Filey’s nose in it.”

He smoothed down her skirts. “How do you feel?”

“I feel full of energy,” she said, sitting up on his lap. “My side doesn’t even hurt now. Is that odd? I want to dance. I even want to tease you about something. I want to laugh and kiss your ear. This is all very new to me, Jason.”

“To me as well, Henrietta. Now, sweetheart, we must get back to business. It kills me, but we must. No, don’t touch me. Oh damn.” He picked her up and set her on her feet. Then he led her to a chair, sat her down, and took three steps away from her. Still he could feel her soft flesh on his fingers, breathe in the sweet scent of her. Oh God, he couldn’t wait any longer than a week. He drew a deep breath. He had to gain control of himself.

He said finally, “I have something of a more serious nature to tell you. While I was chatting with Filey, I accused him of knowing what happened to Damien. He swore that he knew nothing, indeed, he was quite bewildered, and I believe him. But there was something he said, Hetty, something that meant nothing to him, so he blurted it out in an attempt to appease me. He said that Damien had talked about ‘political ambitions’ one evening when he was foxed. Filey evidently taunted him about Elizabeth making a very poor wife for a politician.”

Hetty frowned, then shook her head. “Jack said something about Damien’s feelings on the growing poverty in the industrial cities. He said Damien likened the people’s lives to bondage and slavery, and that it could but grow worse. But Jack said nothing about Damien wishing to take an active role in political life. I’m afraid that I really don’t see the importance of Filey’s statement, Jason.”

“Hetty, don’t you see? Only someone highly connected in the ministry could have had Damien sent so quickly and permanently from England. Only someone very powerful in the government could have put him at the lead of that cavalry charge.”

Hetty nodded slowly, her mind working furiously. “Yes, perhaps someone who didn’t agree with his politics. Perhaps even a group of men who feared he might succeed and displace them.”

She pulled up short, rubbing her palm against her forehead. “Ah, that’s ridiculous. I just pulled that out of a hat, like a rabbit. It’s all speculation. I can’t credit such a motive.”

“There are some men, powerful men, whose very lives are consumed by their political beliefs. Don’t forget our English history, Hetty, it’s filled with powerful men struggling to govern the country as they wished. It’s a bloody history.”

Hetty rose, her hands pressed against her temples. “Even so, Jason, it is 1816, and the vicious struggles for power are over. There’s no more Cromwell, no more bonnie Prince Charles. And even if it could be true today, who could have done such a thing? Who could have even known what Damien believed and feared him for it?”

“I did.”

Both Hetty and the marquess whirled about, openmouthed, to see Sir Archibald standing quietly in the doorway. Jason’s first thought was that he’d been a fool not to have checked that the door was locked before he’d loved Hetty. Well, that wasn’t important now. Sir Archibald said again, “I did.” He smiled at both of them impartially.

“Father,” Hetty said, running to his side. “What are you talking about? No, you didn’t hear what Jason said. We were speaking of Damien and who would have had the power, the motive, to have him removed from England. Certainly not you. Damien was your son.”

Sir Archibald gazed fondly down at his daughter and fought down the stab of pain he felt whenever he thought of his second son. “You must forgive me,” he said, his eyes searching out the marquess, “for overhearing your discussion, but I was coming to greet you, my boy. I understand you were at Thurston Hall with my darling Hetty here. Did you much enjoy yourselves?”

“Yes, sir, we did. But what do you mean that you did it?”

Sir Archibald sighed deeply and laid his hand upon Hetty’s shoulder. “I didn’t realize, my child, that you had even discovered that there was more to Damien’s leaving England than a simple reassignment. I had hoped to spare you further pain. Now I see that you and the marquess have become embroiled in the affair. You must understand, my child, there was no other choice. You see, Damien had become a traitor to his country.”

Hetty stared in shocked silence at her father.

The marquess said, “Surely, sir, that can’t be so. What do you mean, Damien a traitor? That makes no sense, he died for England at Waterloo.”

Sir Archibald sighed again and shook his silver head. “Alas, it’s all too true. I never told either you, Hetty, or Jack, for I didn’t want you to think less of your brother. I didn’t want you to hate him. I wanted to protect both you and Jack from what he’d done. But now that you and Jason here seem to understand more than I’d ever believed possible, then I must tell you the truth. I’m sorry for the pain it will cause you, Henrietta, for the hatred you will doubtless feel for your brother.”

Hetty gazed at her father, a gentle man, yet a man impassioned by political fervor, a man whose life was dedicated to directing English affairs as he envisioned them.

She placed her hand on his sleeve. “Please, Father, you say that Damien was a traitor. I must know what you mean by that. I can’t believe it.”

Sir Archibald looked at Lord Oberlon. “I must tell Henrietta the ugly truth. And since she has obviously confided in you, my boy, then you will hear it, too. I beg both of you to leave Damien’s shame in this room, to allow it to go no further. I have intended you all along as the husband for Henrietta, and since soon you will be one of the family, it is your right to hear of our disgrace. If you wish to cry off, then surely even Henrietta will understand. It’s a sad tale, Damien’s story is, but I fancy that he gained redemption at the end, as I meant him to.”

“I don’t understand this,” Hetty said flatly. “Stop speaking in circles, Father. What do you mean that Damien was a traitor? A traitor to whom? Father, please, you must tell me if you had anything to do with Damien’s death. How could you ever believe Damien a traitor?”

“Very well, my child,” Sir Archibald said finally. “You must be brave, for you will be as shocked as I was when you learn of your brother’s actions. I trust when I’m done, you will understand why I had to take such drastic steps. It was for the honor of our family. For the honor of England.”

The marquess moved next to Hetty and took her hand in his. He squeezed it. Neither of them said a word. Sir Archibald moved wearily to the large winged chair near to the fireplace, one so shortly before that had given rise to Hetty’s first sexual pleasure, and sat himself down. He stared a moment into the glowing flames before continuing in a surprisingly strong and forceful voice. “You hadn’t yet come to London, Henrietta. For some reason that I did not at first comprehend, Damien asked for and received an extended leave from his military duties. I believed at first that he had finally decided to find himself a wife and settle down. I was disabused of that notion when your brother informed me that he intended to run as the Whig candidate from a borough in Somerset, under the patronage of that infamous, thieving Lord Grayson. I was, of course, appalled that my own son would desire to join in the political fray against me, and I reprimanded him sharply. He told me that Tories Whigs they were all one and the same to him, and that he sought only justice for Englishmen. His notion of securing justice, Henrietta, was to join forces with the baser element of the Whig contingent to incite the rabble in Manchester and Leeds to riot. You won’t wish to credit this, my child, but he then called me a mindless old fool. Accused me, he did, of trying to hold England back from her rightful destiny and that was the destruction of the aristocracy. Only their destruction would elevate the common man to political equality with his betters. His subsequent words were even more fanatical and traitorous, and I refuse to sully your ears with his raving insults, his vile accusations. He accused me of fanaticism. Me! I couldn’t believe that I’d spawned such a vile creature. I finally became convinced that my blood my son was one of that lot bent upon destroying the very fabric of England. I couldn’t allow it.

“So you see, my child, I had no honorable choice left to me but to use my influence with Lord Melberry in the ministry to have your brother removed immediately from England. I wanted only distance between him and that damnable fool Lord Grayson.”

Hetty said in a peculiarly quiet voice, “You’re telling me, Father, that because Damien held radical political views, you had him ordered from England? You arranged that he be engaged in dangerous missions in Spain and Portugal? You arranged that his orders be changed so at the last moment he led a suicidal cavalry charge at Waterloo?”

“Yes, but not Waterloo until I learned that Lord Grayson was in contact with your brother even then. They were planning together what they would accomplish when your brother returned to England. They were going to join the Luddites, Henrietta. The Luddites! They planned to have men infiltrate the factories and destroy them from within. They would have men march on the House of Lords itself and demand reform. It was then that we all knew we had to act, to remove the stain on my family, to remove the stain on all of England.”

“You killed your son because he didn’t want to be what you were? You killed him because he disagreed with you politically?”

Sir Archibald gazed at his daughter with some surprise. “You make it sound as if I dismissed your brother out of some fanciful whimsy. You question my actions in this affair?”

The marquess said quietly, “What then was your role, sir, in Damien’s activities?”

Sir Archibald’s voice suddenly became stern, a strange glint of inflexibility in his blue eyes. “As I’ve told you, Damien was a traitor to every honorable belief that I had instilled in him from his youth. He had shown himself a radical bent upon the destruction of all that any decent Englishman holds dear. You can quite imagine that Lord Melberry and indeed many of the gentlemen in the ministry were appalled when I told them of my own son’s subversive activities. It was my request that Damien be forced to serve his country, to shed his blood, if need be, so that he would in some measure lift the dishonor from our house. I gave no direct order for him to lead that cavalry charge. I later learned that an overzealous general under whose command Damien had been placed dispatched him to the battleground. You must know that I grieved at your brother’s death. But he died as a hero of his country. The world will never know that without my actions, your brother would have heaped shame and dishonor upon all those who cared for him, upon all those who loved him, who trusted him.”

By God, the marquess thought, gazing at Sir Archibald, he is quite mad in his saneness. He suspected that his uncle, Lord Melberry, was as deeply involved in arranging Damien’s missions as was Sir Archibald. He gazed past Sir Archibald to Hetty. Her face was pale and drawn with shock, her eyes unseeing. He shook himself into action.

“Sir,” he said to his future father-in-law, “you will understand, of course, that your words have caused Henrietta great surprise and distress. Needless to say, that since I am to become her husband, you can rely implicitly upon my discretion in this matter. If you wouldn’t mind, I think it best that you leave her with me alone for a time, so that she may recover from her shock.”

“I suppose since I chose you for her that it wouldn’t be improper. See to her, my boy, don’t let her despise her poor brother. Don’t let her hold his memory in abhorrence.” Satisfied, Sir Archibald rose with surprising grace for a man of his years, smiled down at his daughter in his gentle way, then turned and stretched out his hand to the marquess. “I accept you into my family, my boy. I told Henrietta all along that you would make her the perfect husband. Such a dear child she is always obeys her father’s wishes, always wants to please her family.” He patted Hetty’s stiff shoulder and let himself out of the drawing room.

The marquess gazed at Hetty, wondering just what the devil he could say to her. He strode over to her and sat down beside her, clasping her limp hands in his. “Hetty, my love, I wish to be here for you forever. And I will be. We will talk about this. It’s incredible. I suspect that my uncle Melberry is in just as deep as is your father. That he believes he saved your family from dishonor leaves my brain waving in the wind, but, Hetty, he believes himself to have behaved appropriately, to have behaved in the only way open to him.”

She looked at him, straight in the face. “I would rather you leave, Jason. This is a home of tragedy, of murder, and it’s the murder of a son by his father. It’s not a nice family, Jason. No, I want you to leave. I can’t marry you. I carry my father’s blood. Jesus, there’s nothing I can salvage from this. My father’s blind honor, it doesn’t surprise me all that much, but to kill his own son. His own son! You don’t want a wife who’s so tainted.”

His black brows met over his eyes and his hands tightened over her fingers.

“Poor Jason,” she said in a soft, singsong voice. “I’ve done naught but unearth old wounds and create new ones for you. How strange it is that you, whom I believed to be a vicious, cruel devil, are the innocent one. You who are the kind one, the man who wants to see justice done. But that’s not possible. Damien is long dead, rotted on that damnable battlefield, and my father killed him, no matter how you slice the bread, that’s what happened. You want to leave, Jason. You can’t want me for your wife now.”

She felt strong arms enclose her, and for an instant held herself stiff and unyielding. The tears that were not far from the surface welled up and she collapsed against him. He held her until the hoarse sobs became rasping hiccups.

He pulled a handkerchief from his waistcoat pocket and pressed it into her hand. She clutched at him, burrowing against his shoulder. Finally she raised a tear-streaked face, her voice forlorn between the hiccups. “Whatever shall I do? I can’t remain in the same house with my father. Of a certainty, Lord Harry cannot challenge Sir Archibald to a duel.”