Season for Scandal (10 page)

He had the carriage summoned for Jane, but in a fit of pique, he declined to accompany her home just yet. Instead, he found the homeliest, poorest, plainest widow at the ball and danced with her until her thin cheeks grew rosy and her hard mouth relaxed into a smile.

The horrid ache within him dissolved a bit—just a bit—at the sight.

When he arrived at the house in Berkeley Square, he made his way to Jane’s bedchamber to apologize for his latest wrong. He would begin by praising her appearance; she had looked rather pretty tonight, and he should have told her so. A few compliments never went amiss, did they? And then, the nightly act: a few orgasms never went amiss, either. He’d take all the time in the world; make her feel treasured. Make certain she found her pleasure—twice, even.

Yes. That was a good plan.

But when he tried to turn the handle of her door, he found that she had locked it.

Chapter 8

Concerning an Unexpected Caller

Under most circumstances, it would be considered impolite for an unknown gentleman to call on a couple during their honeymoon.

But as Edmund and Jane had already ventured out in company, and as Jane had closed her door to him last night, Edmund couldn’t help but feel that the honeymoon was over. If they had ever had one at all.

It was a relief, then, when Edmund’s butler, Pye, scratched at the door of Edmund’s study the following morning to inform him he had a caller.

“My lord, a Mr. Bellamy to see you.” Pye spoke the name as though he doubted its veracity. Pye always sounded that way, though: starchy enough to stiffen a year’s worth of cravats. Of middling height, spare of build, and nondescript in his coloring, Pye blended into any space. The perfect butler.

Edmund looked up from a letter he’d read six times without taking in its contents. “Bellamy wishes to see me? It was Lady Kirkpatrick he spoke with last night. I hardly talked to the man.”

“If your lordship wishes, I can inform the caller you are not at home.”

Edmund considered. Jane hadn’t yet emerged from behind her locked door, and he had no idea what they would do together when she awoke. Invitations were thin for a newly married couple, since the
ton
assumed they would be basking in delights of the flesh. And it wasn’t as though Edmund was accomplishing any work while left to his own devices.

“Send him in,” he decided. “I don’t mind seeing what the man wants.”

He spent the few minutes before his caller entered tidying up the litter on his desk, covering private documents. There were always papers and accounts and bills to attend to when one possessed a barony that one never visited. From afar, he had to ensure that everyone in his care was prospering. Browning, the estate’s steward—a scrupulous young Londoner whom Edmund had placed in the post three years earlier—sent a positive flood of news his way. Edmund read everything carefully, then ended by approving nearly every request.

It was good to have one person in the world whom he could trust.

Just as Edmund finished squaring away his papers, Mr. Bellamy entered the study, a genial smile on his sun-browned features. He was dressed nearly as formally as he had been at the ball the previous night, though he’d exchanged his old-fashioned knee breeches for loose trousers. Ruby rings winked on both of his little fingers, and his cravat was an elaborate arrangement of starched linen and lace.

Edmund shrugged off these oddnesses of dress as a likely result of the man’s years away from England. “Good morning to you, Mr. Bellamy. Do you care for spirits? Or some coffee or tea?”

Bellamy waved a hand. “Nothing, nothing. I don’t intend to stay long.”

Edmund indicated a seat for his caller across his desk. Rightly, he should have inquired about Bellamy’s business, then sent the man on his way. But it was so good to see another human face—a face he hadn’t disappointed, a face that smiled at him—that he drew out the call. “Will you be staying until the Season, Mr. Bellamy? I imagine a London ball is quite different from the amusements of India.”

Bellamy chuckled. “It’s a bit odd, all those white faces in one ballroom. Haven’t seen so many in decades, especially not female ones.” He tapped his nose. “I’m not sure how long my business will keep me here. I’ve a nose for the main chance, my lord. That’s all the amusement I’ve ever required, no matter the continent.”

“The main chance?” Edmund turned his head, the better to examine Bellamy in his peripheral vision. Jane seemed fascinated by the fellow; why was that?

“It’s but a matter of business, my lord. Men of the world, men of the world. We must have our secrets, mustn’t we?” Bellamy looked around the study as though appraising the dark wood and battered antique furniture.

Edmund was glad he’d covered the papers on his desk. “I suppose.”

“Good to be back in the city,” Bellamy continued. “Especially this time of year. Chilly rain, gray sky—gad, a man gets to miss Merry Old England when it’s nothing but sun, sun, sun, all year. How is one to know what season it is when every day is the same?”

“I suppose,” Edmund said again. This must be what Jane liked: that sense of foreignness about Bellamy. His accent was as odd a cobble as his clothing. It rang flat, as though he’d heard so many different ways of speaking that his own speech had been altered.

“Well.” Edmund drummed his fingers on his desk. “What brings you to my house this morning, Mr. Bellamy? Is it a matter of business? Or something to do with Lady Kirkpatrick? Thank you for entertaining her so well at the ball last night, by the way.”

Bellamy turned his scrutiny from the room to Edmund himself. The focus was unsettling, especially when Bellamy smiled. A wide, confident, adventurer’s grin. “No, no. She’s not the one I’m interested in, except as . . . ah, well. Collateral, I should say.”

And then he changed.

With a lift of his shoulder, a narrowing of his eyes, his charm dropped away. His flat accent became a lilt: “Don’t you know me, boyo?”

Edmund fell into a nightmare.

“That’s not possible,” he managed to say, even as his heart began to hammer furiously.
Get out get out get out of here while you can
.

Over the past twenty years, Turner’s face had blurred in his mind, until now it was only an impression of spare features held together by a sense of revulsion. The man across from him was sturdy, blocky, genial. Every inch of his face and dress proclaimed him a merchant who’d built a fortune overseas, just as he’d said.

But the voice—oh, Edmund knew that voice as well as his own. Behind the flat tones of the
sahib
, the gentle hills of Ireland unrolled. The hills Edmund’s mother had roamed with Turner before she’d been trussed into marriage and sent across the cold sea.

Turner, here, in Edmund’s house. After all this time.

“Sent you a letter, didn’t I, last month?” Turner’s smile was back. Unlike his smile as Daniel Bellamy, it was lazy, devil-may-care. “I don’t see such call for surprise, Edmund.”

Edmund’s stomach gave a warning lurch. He tightened his fingers on the edge of his desk. “I beg your pardon, Mr. Bellamy. You appear to think we are acquainted.”

The man across from him made a dismissive sound. “Trying to brazen it out? But you know me as well as I know you. And now you know, too, I can get to you whenever I like.”

The man leaned back in his chair, studying Edmund with some interest. “You turned out looking like your da. May he rest in peace.”

“You’ve no right even to speak of him. I—” Edmund cut himself off. He must stop. Think. He had known this confrontation would come someday, and now it was here. “Turner.”

Slowly, the man nodded. “Asked you if you recognized me, didn’t I? Last night?”

Edmund pulled in a deep breath. Another. And another, until his heart slowed from its frantic pace, leaving him winded. “I do now.”

For a minute—surely one that lasted much longer than sixty seconds—the men watched each other across the desk. Finally, Turner broke the silence. “I wonder if you ever thought of how I’d spent my years.”

Every day.
“Why have you returned?”

“Reasons on reasons on reasons. You’ve got some explaining to do, boyo. And some . . .” Turner pursed his lips. “Some atonement.”

Later Edmund might laugh, that he and Turner—so long separated by an ocean—had settled on the same word.

But for now, he drew himself up straight, ignoring a chill that raced down his spine. “You may refer to me as ‘my lord.’”

“You’re off your arse if you think that’s going to happen.”

“No? Then perhaps I’ll refer to
you
as Turner. You’ve been cutting a swath through the
ton
over the past month, haven’t you? How would you like the polite world to know you spent the last twenty years in a penal colony,
Mr. Bellamy
?”

“How would you like the polite world to know why?”

No. The polite world could never be permitted to know. And Turner knew that as well as Edmund.

Turner was watching him, brows lifted, and Edmund wondered how he hadn’t recognized the man before. That considering expression; how many times had he seen it?
Try again, boyo. These sums won’t figure themselves.

Or when he was a bit older:
No lessons today, Edmund. Just me and your mam. Leave us alone, there’s a lad.

So long, Edmund had thought of him as a monster. Now he appeared in lace and gold; no knives or weapons in sight.

Yet Turner had never needed weapons to cause damage. Edmund might have forgotten the man’s face or failed to predict how twenty years would change it, but he would never forget that. Turner had sunk claws into their family, so deeply that they mistook the intrusion for roots and allowed his hold to strengthen. When he was finally—fortunately—ripped away, he had torn the family to ribbons. It had never healed.

“We are in a stalemate, aren’t we?” Edmund felt more tired than he could ever remember. “I presume you intend some sort of revenge. Blackmail? Murder? Or is theft still to your taste? Whatever you’ve in mind, just have done, Turner.”

“Is that an order?” Turner folded his hands over his belly and studied him, every bit the tutor regarding a student. “I don’t think you’ve the right to give me orders. Not after everything you’ve taken from me.”

“I only did what had to be done. I took nothing from you that you didn’t deserve to lose,” Edmund said. “And I certainly gained nothing in return.”

“If you didn’t gain,” Turner said slowly, “at least you kept what you had.”

“No, I didn’t.” Edmund rubbed a hand over his face. His eyes felt gritty. How long since he’d enjoyed an untroubled sleep? “You took my family and rent it apart. I haven’t been to Cornwall in twenty years.”

Unseen, the man across from him drew in a deep breath. “Likewise, boyo. Likewise.”

Maybe it was the childish nickname. The arrogance of Turner’s approach. Or the shock of knowing that Turner had been part of his entire marriage, beginning with his wedding day. It all roiled together inside Edmund like acid, and his weary lethargy snapped, unleashing sudden anger.

His hand formed a fist; it thumped to his desk. “How well I know your arrogance,” he said in a controlled tone. “Even so, you’ve surpassed yourself by coming to
my house
and accusing
me
of wrongdoing. You deserved your punishment, and worse—why, you could have been executed for the amount you stole. Especially if it became known you planned treason with it.”

“Money. Trash.” Turner lunged forward, almost in Edmund’s face. “It would have come to nothing if you’d kept your nose where it belonged. And your father would have come to nothing, too.”

Again, the mad urge to laugh.
Nothing:
that was as apt a description of Edmund’s father as any other. The man had had no will of his own. Left to his own devices, he would have been the ruin of his entire lineage.

Instead, his only son had ruined
him
.

Turner sat back in his chair, a sneer on his face. “But it’s not the money I’ve come for. Nor to hurt your precious body,
my lord.
I wouldn’t hurt a hair on your head. There’s people counting on you to stay healthy and take care of them.” He smirked. “Not that you’re doing such a job of that. You look skinny as a wet cat, and about as happy.”

Edmund stared at him. “You’re saying you don’t want money. And you don’t want to hurt me.”

“Have we a problem?”

The situation suddenly struck him as absurd. “I’m certainly not going to try to talk you into it.”

Turner smiled. “I’ve got another reason for calling on you, boyo. Got yourself married, didn’t you?”

A prickle of foreboding raced down Edmund’s spine. “You know I did. You were at the damned wedding.”

“Lady Kirkpatrick seems rather fond of you. Just how fond
is
she?”

Edmund, I love you
. He shuddered off the thought. “She’s under my protection.”

“Is she, now.” Turner opened the inkwell. Closed it again. “Is she, now. I wonder what that’s worth?”

He shoved back his chair and rose to his feet, strolling the length of the room. “I’ve been thinking for a long time what I’d want to do when I was free again. How to respond. What to do to you for your interference.”

Edmund’s fingers clenched the arms of his chair.

“We both lost our way of life, young Edmund. But I had no choice about it. So I’ll take a choice away from you. Only justice, isn’t it?” Turner paused. Trailed his fingers over the spines of the books. Edmund had to quash the command
stop—stop touching my things.

The next words were tossed lightly over Turner’s shoulder. “The wife you chose.”

Edmund fumbled for understanding. “What do you mean? A person can’t take away a wife.”

Oh. Yes, one could. Long ago, Turner had demonstrated that.

“You intend to try to make Lady Kirkpatrick love you?” The idea was nonsense.

“I don’t have to, do I? I just have to take away her love for you. And with what shall I replace it?” Turner’s blunt fingers tugged on a book, stretching the leather at the top of the spine. “Hate?”