Nobody's Angel (41 page)

41

Over the next two weeks Ian showed her London. He took her to Astley's Amphitheatre, and to a street fair, and to view the wild beasts at the Exchange. She saw mummers and minstrels, a roaring lion, and a bawdy farce that made her laugh even as she blushed. He took her driving down Bond Street, where she was much amused by the sight of fashionable beaux on the strut, as he termed it, and to the museum where she was able to view what he described as a very good copy of Venus, which put her to the blush, and to Winchester Cathedral, the majesty of which awed her. The world he showed her was so removed from the world in which she had grown up that she could scarcely believe they were on the same planet. As she thought that, she was once again aware of a pang in the region of her heart and a desire, quickly stifled, to go home.

He told her about the ball. He spoke of it in a very casual way at first, which made her suspicious. He was very casual only about things that mattered a great deal to him. With a little effort, she managed to pry out of him the information she needed to make sense of his manner —on the upcoming Wednesday, his mother, the Duchess of Warrender, would be holding a grand ball to kick off the season at her town house in Berkeley Square, to which she had just removed. Ian meant to attend. Susannah had no intention of letting him go alone.

Her wardrobe had arrived the previous Tuesday, but none of her dresses suited her so well as the gold and so Susannah decided to wear that. She felt some qualms about being introduced to Ian's mother as his wife when she was not, but considering the alternative she again did not object. Besides, under the circumstances it was doubtful that any formal introduction would occur. Did one introduce one's wife to the mother who had tried to murder one?

Ian acted as lady's maid for her—he wanted to hire one, but to that Susannah objected strenuously; she had done for herself all her life and had no intention of changing that now—and very creditably, too. At least all her hooks were fastened and her hair felt secure in its new curly style on the top of her head. Just that afternoon, he had presented her with a fan with creamy ivory sticks and a charming meadow scene painted on white silk. It dangled from a ribbon at her wrist.

Ian, of course, was so handsome she could hardly take her eyes off him. He'd been fitted for a new wardrobe, and his ball dress was especially magnificent. He wore a long-tailed coat of midnight blue, a white silk waistcoat with an extravagant design of birds and flowers embroidered on it, and a pair of black breeches so tight that he joked that he feared to sit. His white silk stockings were clocked with gold, and his shoes had red heels. He'd been wearing nearly identical shoes and stockings when he'd been sent to Newgate, he informed her, and he had managed to retain them for exactly one day. They'd been stripped from him while he slept, and he'd been lucky to replace them with the shoes of a prisoner who had died. Susannah, both fascinated and appalled as she remembered his awful brogues, had begged to hear more of his experiences in the notorious prison, but he was in the process of tying his neckcloth (a weighty matter for a gentleman, she'd discovered) and thus could not converse without the danger of ruining its delicate folds.

The street leading to Berkeley Square was thronged with carriages. All of fashionable society seemed to be going. By the time the carriage had been driven away by a coachman Ian had hired for just that purpose and they were making their way through the crush of people ascending the stairs, it was nearing midnight. Susannah, having learned that London kept very different hours from Beaufort, was not much disturbed when the watch called the hour.

She was, however, disturbed about the prospect of the ball itself. Never had she attended such a grand affair—it made the Haskinses' party look paltry in comparison— and she had not the slightest idea of how to go on.

"Stick close to me," Ian advised when she whispered her concern to him. Susannah, who could have hardly done anything else with her hand tucked firmly in the crook of his arm, thanked him for the advice.

Ian was greeted on all sides with much exclamation, and he patiently explained again and again that he had been in the Colonies (he didn't explain exactly how he had come to make such a visit) and had brought back a bride. By the time they reached the door, where a portly butler, who looked far more like Susannah's idea of what a marquis should be than Ian did, sonorously announced the new arrivals, Susannah felt as if she'd been introduced to half of London.

When it was their turn to be announced, the butler took one look at Ian, and then a second. His eyes popped.

"Mr. Ian!" he said. "I mean, my lord! We were given to understand that you were . . ."

He broke off and coughed delicately into his white glove. Ian grinned with wry understanding.

"Dead," he finished. "Yes, I know. How are you, Reems?"

"Very good, my lord. It's very good to see you, if I may say so, my lord. The staff will be in alt when I tell them that you're, ah . . ."

"Resurrected?" Ian suggested with a gleam. "You'd best announce us, Reems. We're holding up the line. Ah—this is my wife."

Reems goggled at Susannah, who smiled weakly. Really, the lie was getting harder and harder to bear. Something was going to have to be done, soon. . . .

But before she could decide exactly what, Reems intoned, "The Marquis and Marchioness of Derne!"

A ripple of astonishment seemed to run along the receiving line that snaked out in front of them until Susannah, following Ian's gaze, saw a tall, blond-haired woman at the head of the line turn to face them. She looked only at Ian, and as their eyes met she seemed to sway slightly and pale. But then she appeared to take herself in hand. Head high, she waited as Ian, Susannah in tow, made his leisurely way toward her. Had it not been for the tension in the arm beneath her hand, Susannah would have thought him perfectly at ease.

They reached her at last. Susannah saw that the lady was older than she had first supposed, and not so lovely. Her hair was not blond but powdered white, and she wore a light maquillage that did not conceal the deep lines that bracketed her mouth. Or perhaps it had, until she had set eyes on Ian.

"Mother." Ian inclined his head, but his smile was not a pleasant one.

"Derne." Any woman who could call her own son by his title instead of his name was not one that Susannah wanted to know. She bristled in instinctive defense of Ian as his mother glanced her way.

"You've married?" Her voice was husky, and there was a tiny nerve at the corner of her mouth that seemed to have gone mad. It twitched rhythmically, like a pulse. That was the only sign she gave that she was less composed than she seemed.

"While I was enjoying my delightful sojourn in the Colonies. As a matter of fact, Susannah very likely saved my life." He smiled again, but this time it was no more than a baring of his teeth.

"We must all owe her a debt, then." She looked again at Susannah. "As Derne does not introduce me, I suppose I must do it myself. I am Mary, Duchess of Warrender."

"I know very well who you are, ma'am," Susannah said, and she did not smile.

"Ah." The Duchess swayed again but did no more.

"I suggest we repair to the library to talk, Mother. After all, we have not seen each other in—how long?"

"A long time," she said tonelessly, and allowed Ian to draw her hand onto his arm.

"Is Edward here? 'Twould be best if he heard this, too."

"We will leave Edward out of this, if you please." For the first time her voice was sharp.

Ian shook his head. "There is no way to leave Edward out of it, I fear. But come, we will talk in private. There are too many ears to listen here."

Indeed, Susannah was aware that they were being stared at on all sides. As Ian started off through the crowd, polite smiles pinned to his face and his mother's, she got a glimpse of Helen Dutton, Countess of Blakely, the notorious lightskirt (or so said Ian) of Madame de Vangrisse's establishment. The lady was with a rather elderly, very fat man who kept a firm grip on her arm and talked very fast at her with an angry look on his face. If that was her husband, Susannah suddenly understood the reason for "the Baddington miscellany." She would not like to be married to a man like that. A few other faces looked vaguely familiar, but Susannah was able to put names to none of them until she saw Serena, Lady Crewe, staring angrily after them just as Ian opened a door in the hall and stood back, allowing first Susannah and then his mother to precede him.

"Does she have to hear this?" The Duchess nodded jerkily toward Susannah as Ian closed the doors behind them.

Ian nodded. "Susannah deserves to be in on the denouement. Were it not for her, your plan just might have succeeded."

The duchess flashed Susannah a look of hatred, then crossed the room to stand nervously before a large, leather-topped desk before turning to face them again. She was framed by shelf after shelf of leather-bound books set into the wall, and her face was lit by a fire that blazed in the hearth to the right of the desk.

"What is preventing me from putting a period to your existence right now, and to your wife's, too?" There was a note of almost gloating triumph in the duchess's voice as she raised her hand to reveal a silver pistol. Ian stared at it for a moment and then with a jerk of his head motioned to Susannah to get behind him. Of course she did no such thing. Instead she stared at the weapon with horror and dawning fear. Was the woman really mad enough to shoot them both, with several hundred witnesses gathered in the house? She prayed not, but sidled a step closer to Ian. Perhaps she could throw herself between him and the bullet or at the very least push him out of the way.

"Before you pull the trigger, you should know what I, or rather Mr. Dumboldt, whom I commissioned to look into this, has discovered. We know the truth about Edward, Mother. The whole tale is written down, with names of witnesses and dates. Should anything happen to me, it will be an open scandal throughout England. And, of course, Edward will not inherit."

"I don't know what you are talking about." Her voice was hoarser than before, and Susannah thought her hand trembled. Susannah edged closer to Ian. She could not stand it if he were to be killed before her eyes.

"I am talking about the date of Edward's birth, Mother. He is three months older than you have always claimed. At the time of his conception, my father had been away on the Continent for six months. Therefore Edward cannot be my father's issue."

"That is not true!"

"Dumboldt has found witnesses who swear it is, including the midwife who delivered him. He has also discovered evidence of the identity of Edward's real father. All this is in writing, Mother, and will be revealed if I die or disappear. The scandal will ruin Edward's life, to say nothing of yours."

The duchess's face contorted violently. Her mouth shook. Her hand shook. Susannah took another sidling step toward Ian, to be rewarded by a sidelong glare before his attention focused on his mother again.

"I've always hated you, Derne. You were the most repellent little boy. Your father doted on you, and you were in flaming need of a birch applied to the seat of your breeches, which remedy he would not countenance. If I had had my way, you would have been sent to a foundling home."

"Which brings us to another point—my father," Ian said, his voice far too casual for the subject matter. Susannah's gaze left the wobbling gun to fly to his face. "You arranged for that hunting accident that befell him, didn't you? He had found out about the circumstances surrounding Edward's birth and was threatening to divorce you."

"That's not true!" Her mouth shook again.

"Isn't it? If I could prove that to the satisfaction of a court of law, I'd have you locked away for the rest of your life, mother or no."

She laughed then, a high, hysterical sound. The pistol wavered again. "That's the ultimate jest, isn't it, and with all your investigations you haven't discovered it and never will! Well, I'll make you a present of the information. I am not your mother, for which I devoutly thank God! Your mother was a nobody from the country whom your father dallied with and wed only because she was expecting you. When she died at your birth, he was relieved, because she'd been totally unsuitable to be the Duchess of Warrender. Then he wed me, a Speare, whose bloodline goes directly back to William the Conqueror. I was, and am, suitable to be a duchess! I was so suitable he wanted everyone to believe that his heir was my son. Well, you are not, and never will be. You're the son of a slut, conceived under a hedgerow somewhere in Sussex! You're unworthy of the name you bear!"

For a moment the silence in that room was so thick it was tangible. Then, with a dive so fast and low that Susannah didn't even see it coming, Ian was across the room and grappling with the duchess for the pistol. He wrested it from her hand, then stood looking at her without pity as she dropped to her knees and covered her face with her hands.

"Thank you for telling me, Your Grace," he said with icy courtesy, pocketing the pistol. "You've set me free."

Then, taking Susannah's arm, he half-led, half-pulled her from the room without a second glance at the silent, kneeling woman he left behind.

Toward morning, when he got Susannah home, his lovemaking was especially passionate. Afterward, she held him wrapped in her arms until he fell asleep.

42

When Susannah awoke the next morning, it was nearer to noon than to dawn. Ian slept beside her, his breathing harsh and heavy. They were both naked, their clothes strewn around the room, and sunlight spilling through a chink in the curtains streamed across the bed. A sunny day in London! Susannah marveled. It was the first she'd seen since she arrived.

She knew, though she didn't know how she knew, that last night a chapter in her life and Ian's had come to a close. He was free of the nightmare that had hurtled him from his rightful world into hers. He could live his life out as he was meant to live it—as a rich, pampered English aristocrat. So where did that leave her?