Scoundrel of Dunborough (16 page)

Chapter Nineteen

A
vision leaped into Celeste’s mind, of the wood and Gerrard and...Audrey.

Lewis regarded her with pity. “I thought someone would have told you they were intimate. It was no secret that Gerrard came to visit your sister often, before and after Roland returned with a bride.”

Esmerelda and others had said Gerrard was a liar and a rogue, evil and debauched. And Audrey was beautiful. But had he and Audrey been lovers? No, Celeste still couldn’t believe it. Even if Gerrard had wanted Audrey—a thought almost too painful to bear—her sister wouldn’t have given up her maidenhead without an offer of marriage from a rich and titled man. Gerrard was neither, nor had he had hope for any such achievements until recently.

When had Roland made his offer of the estate to Gerrard? After Audrey’s death, or before? If it was before Audrey had been killed, perhaps she had taken him to her bed.

Maybe Gerrard was exactly what rumor and gossip described, after all.

Perhaps she had been wrong to condemn herself for their lustful encounters. Gerrard could be clever enough, deceitful enough, duplicitous enough, to seduce her in such a way that she didn’t realize he was doing so.

Perhaps he was even playing some kind of warped and twisted game with her, or exacting his revenge for the injury she had caused years ago.

She could not, would not, leave here until she had answers to those questions. “Has Gerrard left the castle yet?”

“I don’t think so. He’ll have to get his baggage—”

She limped toward the door.

Lewis hurried after her. “Where are you going? What’s wrong with your leg?”

“A minor injury, and I’m going to the castle. I must and shall speak to Gerrard before he leaves today.”

* * *

Gerrard sat on the dais finishing his bread and ale. As soon as Arnhelm was found, they would start the journey to DeLac. No doubt the soldier was saying his goodbyes to Peg.

Gerrard rose and was about to go to the kitchen in search of the errant soldier when the door to the hall opened and the last person he expected to see walked in.

Feeling like a trapped beast, he watched Celeste limp toward him.

“Gerrard, I would like to speak with you,” she said, coming to a halt in front of the dais, the skirt of her habit swinging and her beautiful face flushed.

His heartbeat quickened. Perhaps she’d heard he was leaving and had come to ask him to stay. Maybe she would tell him she was staying, too.

He hoped so, because he loved her.

Roland’s wife had been the first to make him yearn to be a better man, but only Celeste had both touched his heart and excited his desire. He had realized that the day before and done his best to make her want to forgo the life she’d chosen, hoping to eventually persuade her to be his wife. Instead, she had been adamant in her decision.

His wish that she might stay lasted just an instant, for the look in her eyes told him that she was angry and indignant.

It was more likely she’d come to say good riddance, despite her sore ankle, and he was suddenly sorry he hadn’t left the day before, if not sooner. Her expression also warned him that she wouldn’t leave until she’d said what she wanted to say, and it likely wasn’t something he wanted the household to hear. “We can talk in the solar.”

“No, I would rather talk here,” she replied. “I have questions about Audrey, and you.”

Oh, God! He’d dreaded this moment from the day Celeste had arrived. “I would rather answer such questions in private.”

“No, Gerrard,” she said, staying where she was. “I have been far too ignorant of my sister’s life and I will have my questions answered here and now. Were you and Audrey lovers?”

Her boldly stated query resounded through the hall with the clarity of a bell. The soldiers and servants still about swiftly departed and even the dogs made themselves scarce, until the two of them were, in fact, alone.

It was small comfort, yet better than having an audience.

“No, we were not lovers,” he answered honestly, his words seeming loud in the empty vastness of the hall.

Her eyes narrowed. “You were never intimate?”

How easy it would be to lie! To deny everything. To be a duplicitous scoundrel, a man without honor and unworthy of respect or admiration. To tell her they were not intimate. Instead, he chose the more difficult way and gave her the truth. “We kissed.”

Celeste sucked in her breath and the color left her cheeks. “How could you?” she demanded in a whisper, staring at him as if he were the devil incarnate.

She had started this and he would tell all, regardless of the cost. “We kissed after I had asked her to marry me and she had accepted.”

Celeste staggered back a little, as if his words had been blows. “You asked and she accepted? You truly wanted to marry her? Or were you simply trying to seduce her?”

The old accusations, the same foul charge based on past behavior, but also lies and speculation.

Yet he would answer this honestly, too. “I never tried to seduce your sister. She offered to use her wealth to secure a title from the king and persuade him to give me Dunborough, and I was willing to marry her to make it so. It wouldn’t have been a love match, but it would have been no worse a marriage than many another.”

He might never even have realized what he lacked, because Celeste would not have come back into his life. Only now, because of her, did he know what love between a man and woman could be, when it was too late.

Celeste regarded him steadily, her expression unreadable. “She had no wealth to offer.”

“What do you mean?” he asked, confused. “Of course she did. Your father was a rich man.”

“
He
was, but she was deep in debt, as any of the merchants of the town could have told you.”

His mind reeled. Celeste sounded so certain, yet how could that possibly be true? Audrey had lived as if she had vast riches at her disposal.

“How can that be?” he demanded. “You saw her clothes, the jewels, the furnishings in your father’s house.”

“Her jewels were paste, the furniture purchased by my parents. As for the gowns and everything else, she owes every merchant in Dunborough.”

Celeste had to be mistaken. “Have you seen proof of these debts?”

“Yes. I found the bills and I’ve promised to pay them. Yet you knew nothing about this?”

Her skepticism was as painful as her anger.

“Why would I?” he replied. “Audrey never told me, never even hinted, that she lacked for money, and she always wore the finest clothes. I’m not her husband or her father or her brother, so no merchant would have said anything to me about her liabilities.”

He saw doubt come into Celeste’s eyes and pressed on. “I swear to you, I knew nothing of your sister’s finances.”

At last Celeste looked as if she believed him. Unfortunately, that was not the end of it.

“And if you had known,” she charged, her voice still stern, “would you have married her regardless?”

“If I had discovered it after we were betrothed, yes, I would have married her regardless,” he said with firm conviction, and even though he would have been caught in a trap of Audrey’s making. “I had given my word. I’m not so lacking in honor as that.”

He could only hope that Celeste would believe that honest answer, too.

And there was something else to consider, something she might not have thought of when it came to her sister’s debts. “If another man had sought your sister’s hand and then found out she wasn’t as wealthy as she let on, he might have been angry enough to want her harmed, perhaps even killed. No man likes to be tricked. And if he wanted to justify his actions, thinking her a deceitful whore could do that. Men will often find ways to excuse their selfish decisions.”

“As you did?”

The accusation hurt him. Nevertheless, he would answer this honestly, too. “Yes, as I made excuses for my excesses and poor judgment for years.”

“Did Duncan know about your betrothal?” Celeste asked, her voice still hard, still merciless, still stubbornly determined.

“Just as I was ignorant of her debts, no one else was aware of the betrothal,” he answered, fighting to keep his distress from his features. “That was only between Audrey and me.”

“Or so you thought. If Duncan found out, that could have set him on his murderous path.” Celeste blinked, and suddenly he saw the pain beneath her stoic mask, a misery as deep as his own. “Yet you never told me. When I talked of possible reasons someone might want to harm my sister, you left me in ignorance to try to find another cause.”

If ever he had reason to loathe himself...

His heart breaking even more, he regarded her with remorse and regret. “Because I was ashamed. Aye, and greedy and ambitious, as your sister was. She wanted power and wealth and position, and so did I.”

“That is no excuse for not being truthful about what happened between you,” Celeste replied, her words more distressing than a slap. “Tell me, Gerrard, how far would you have gone in the wood if I hadn’t stopped you? Would you have made love to me?”

“Since it’s honesty you want, yes, I would have made love to you. I wanted to make love to you as I’ve rarely wanted anything before.”

“More than Dunborough?”

“Much more.”

“And Audrey? Did you want to make love to her, too?”

His brows lowered as the interrogation continued, and his anguished frustration grew. “What do you really want to hear, Celeste? The truth? Then here it is—I would have made love to your sister if she’d let me. She never did. But I didn’t set out to seduce Audrey or do anything that would get her killed. And if there was deception between us, she was just as guilty.”

Celeste stepped back as if he’d struck her. “Nothing’s ever your fault, is it, Gerrard? There is always someone else for you to blame.”

“I’m
not
blaming Audrey,” he cried with chagrin and despair. “I blame myself for letting my aspirations and envy and resentment cloud my better judgment.”

“You should have told me of your betrothal. Instead, you kept it from me all this time. Worse, you made me believe you had changed until...until you tried to seduce me in the wood.”

“
I
tried to seduce
you
?” he repeated incredulously. “Who grabbed
me
and kissed
me
? By God, Audrey may have been ambitious, but at least she was no hypocrite and didn’t try to make a man feel ashamed of his desire.”

Her cheeks aflame, Celeste regarded him with ire flashing in her eyes. “You think you knew her? She always said you’d never amount to much, and without your family’s name and rank and power, you’d be worth even less.” Celeste jabbed his chest, each poke sharp, as if her finger were a dagger. “You were nothing more than the poor third, the consolation prize, once Broderick and Roland were out of her reach. And what was she to you except a bag of coins to get what you wanted? At least Duncan wanted
her
.”

This was pointless. Because he had been less than forthright, she saw him as a villain and wanted to believe her sister was as innocent as an angel. Nothing he could say would ever change her mind.

He waved his hand dismissively. “Now that you’ve blackened my name even more, you can go.”

“I will and gladly,” she replied. “I hope I never see you, or Dunborough, ever again.”

As she turned to leave, wincing a little, the doors to the hall opened and another woman swept into the chamber. She wore a black cloak lined with fox fur and a heavy black veil of fine wool over a wimple white as clean fleece. A golden crucifix that hung from her neck glinted in the firelight.

The mother superior of Saint Agatha’s ran an imperious gaze over the two people facing her and, in tones as haughty as her posture, said, “So, Celeste, here you are. This deplorable disobedience is yet more evidence, if I required it, that you are not fit to be a bride of Christ.”

All Celeste’s righteous indignation drained away like water from a bucket with no bottom.

“What’s that you said?” Gerrard asked as he came down from the dais. “Hasn’t she taken her final vows?”

The mother superior ran a scornful gaze over him. “No, and clearly I was wise not to permit it. She is too wanton and disobedient
and
she’s a thief besides. She stole that habit from Sister Sylvester.”

“She
stole
it?” Gerrard repeated with an expression both incredulous and amazed.

Celeste blushed with shame, but only for taking Sister Sylvester’s habit without permission. She did not regret disobeying the mother superior’s command to stay in the convent. As for pretending to be a nun, she had done that for safety, even though it was a lie.

“I had a right to come home,” she said, addressing the older woman and trying to ignore Gerrard. “You kept me in ignorance about my sister’s death far too long as it was. And I thought traveling in a nun’s habit would keep me safe.”

“Your sister was a bold hussy and you are little better.”

“While you are cruel and mean-spirited,” Celeste retorted.

The mother superior’s face twisted with rage. “You spawn of Satan, you devil’s—”

Glaring, Gerrard stepped between them. “Watch your tongue, woman,” he said to the mother superior, “or I might forget who and what you are and put you in the stocks.”

Celeste flushed even more, her body hot as a summer’s day. That he should come to her defense after what she had just said to him, the accusations she had made...

“I’ve heard about you, too, young man,” the nun replied. “It is a miracle you haven’t been excommunicated for your scandalous behavior.”

“It’s a miracle to me you are in charge of anything, yet so it is,” Gerrard returned. “You can say what you have to say to Celeste with civility, or you are free to go.”

The silence stretched out for what seemed an eternity before the mother superior waspishly replied, “As you wish.”

“Good.” He gestured toward his chair on the dais. “Won’t you sit?”

Without a word in reply, the nun mounted the dais and sat. Gerrard set out another chair and then came to offer his arm to Celeste. She couldn’t look at his face as she took it and let him lead her, grateful and limping slightly, to the seat. Then he got himself a chair and set it between them.