That Scandalous Summer (27 page)

Their father had charged toward her. Alastair had pulled Michael’s head into his chest, as though blindness would protect him from the sounds.

He exhaled now. Stood and walked to the basin. The cool water was soothing to his throat. On the desk a few feet away rested the letter that had been awaiting him on his arrival home—a note from Alastair, sent by Halsted. His brother was closing the hospital unless Michael reappeared in London by the end of the week.

Was it an empty threat? He wasn’t sure. But while the letter had enraged him earlier, he gazed on it now and felt nothing but . . . grief.

As children, they had survived a hell together. Alastair had helped him to survive it. And now his brother had discovered a fresh hell, and was striking out from that place of darkness.

He returned the tin cup to the table, the metal so cold against his fingertips. Yes, he felt grief. But not hatred. Hatred was born of relationships like his parents’. They had hurt each other so terribly. Alastair’s threats could never approach that level of betrayal.

That was good. Michael never wanted to be betrayed like that.

Marriage had always seemed to him like an invitation for such betrayals. Behold, for instance, what had happened to Alastair. But . . . he supposed marriage was not required to betray someone.

“Fuck.” He sat back down on the bed, the ugly word still ringing in his ears.

His father had tried to walk away from their mother. She had fought back against his abandonment—for the custody of her children, which she had lost; for money to live on, which she had been denied; and above all, for her dignity, though in the end, the publicity attached to her legal efforts had destroyed that, too. She had not been able to move in public without being cursed and accosted.
Loose
: Michael had not known the word could be a slur until he’d heard it applied to his mother by his classmates.
Whore. Slut.

She’d been none of those things. But such were the ways of the world, which cared little for facts—or creativity—when it came to condemning a woman.

One rotter is much the same as the next,
Elizabeth had said to him.
Did you imagine you were somehow different?

He was
not
his father’s son. Not in the ways that counted. He’d done wrong by her? Then he was not going to walk away before he made it right.

He lay back down, staring at the ceiling. She needed money. How was that? He could not imagine that her parents would have wed her to Chudderley were the man unable to support her in style.

Well, whatever the cause, she needed money. He would not quarrel with that; he would never scorn a woman’s mercenary concerns. He had seen what the
want of funds might do, even to a lady of high birth. His mother had possessed friends in the highest places, but they had not, in the end, protected her. Poverty was not
fashionable
.

He’d been too young to help his mother. Had she not died while he was at university—well, medicine would not have been his choice. Instead he would have made it his business to make money, the better to see her comfortable. He would not have depended on Alastair for that. Alastair had been too inclined to take the middle road, to strike compromises, to claim their father had his own reasons that mitigated his sins.

No, he would never have trusted Alastair with their mother’s surety. But instead she had sickened, and Michael had loathed and mistrusted the bumbling doctors’ treatments, and so he’d decided to learn how he could help her recover.

He’d learned too late. She was gone by the time he’d entered his practice. But if he had not been able to help her, he could help now. He had no money to give Elizabeth, but he had knowledge of men who did. Weston, in particular.

The pain in his knuckles startled him. His hands had curled into fists. He forced them to flatten on the sheets. His own feelings were immaterial in this. He
had no money
. And Alastair would never approve of her. God, no. His brother was too much a pompous prig to give her a single chance.

So. He would do this. And then he would go back to London. For suddenly his exile seemed foolish. He had proved a point, but now he was no longer interested in protecting his own pride.

Weston. Weston it would be. A decent fellow. But Michael would wager he had never once thought of Elizabeth as a marriage prospect. Weston had such tedious tastes in women. Conventional femininity appealed to him. Knitting, and watercolors, and skill at the piano, and needlepoint . . .

A smile twitched his lips. He recalled her confession at their first meeting. No artist with a needle, she. Her flowers emerged as blobs.

But that talk wouldn’t suit Weston. He would admire her wit only when it did not cut too sharply. Would be drawn to blushes rather than saucy flirtations. If she had a talent for the harp or piano, all the better.

She would need to know these things. So, tomorrow he would tell her. And he would begin, too, to work on Weston—encouraging the man’s awareness, and ultimately aiding his courtship, of the woman whom Michael . . .

He rolled over to smother his groan in the pillow.

The woman whom he
owed
. And that was all it could be.

That, he told himself, was
all
.

Liza was dressing when Mather burst in with the news: she had spotted Lord Michael strolling with Lord Weston on the east lawn. “Wasn’t he supposed to have left?”

“Yes.” Perhaps the exhaustion of another sleepless night had stupefied her, but Liza could muster only the smallest flicker of outrage. She knew he hadn’t gone on to the station; the coachman’s message had been awaiting her with her morning tea.

Perhaps . . . in some part of her . . . she was
relieved
. He had kept his promise not to go.

That did not mean she would let him stay, though. “I’ll deal with him when I’ve dressed,” she said, and dispatched Mather to go keep an eye on him.

Not half an hour later, Mather returned. “He has joined the breakfast table, madam. Mrs. Hull was . . .
loudly
delighted by his change of plans.”

Liza now sat at the dressing table, where Hankins was pinning up her hair. “Something simple,” she murmured—archery and croquet did not support high
style. “I suppose everyone thinks he’s actually a proper guest, then.”

“Yes, madam.” Mather shifted her weight. “Shall I have the footmen toss him out?”

“No, of course not. I’ve told you, we mustn’t cause a scene.” Hankins stepped back, and Liza nodded her approval: a simple bun, high on her head, with a fringe of Josephine curls over her brow. “The pearl earrings,” she said, and Hankins went to fetch them.

“He’s eating all the food!” Mather was twisting her wrists. What she thought of Michael’s sudden elevation in rank, Liza could only guess, but judging by the girl’s ferocious scowl, she disliked being fooled as much as Liza did. “There were at least six eggs on his plate, by my count!”

Despite herself, Liza laughed. “Matters aren’t quite so desperate as
that,
you know. Why, I believe we can even spare eight eggs, should his appetite require it.”

“I thought you didn’t wish him here!”

In the mirror, she watched her smile slip away. “You’re right.” Her humor was misplaced.
What is he about, here?

A knock came at the door. Mather went to answer it, cutting off Hankins by two long strides.

Michael stood in the doorway.

Liza spun around on her stool. She was impressed, despite herself, by this newest evidence of his temerity. Finding his way to her bedchambers required the kind of audacity she’d thought native only to Americans.

“You can’t come in here!” Mather hissed. “She’s still dressing!”

“No,” said Liza, “do let him in.” She turned back toward her reflection, eyeing herself. She would not lose
her temper today. Indeed, the memory of her distress last night was embarrassing. She’d reflected on it all through the night. That he had almost driven her to tears! She barely recognized herself around him.

That would not do. Her guests had come to Cornwall to be entertained by Elizabeth Chudderley, fashionable beauty, consummate hostess. Michael de Grey had sprung a surprise on her, but he would not manage to discompose her again.

She smiled at herself, very deliberately: the same smile she wore in all the photographs.
Your face is like a beautiful mask,
an admirer had once told her.
I can see nothing of your thoughts.

It was quite the compliment. Only now did she realize that.

Michael came into view in the glass. “Good morning,” he said.

“Another fine suit,” she observed. Pinstripe, this one. “I suppose you must have an entire wardrobe hidden away. Did you think the countryside could not bear such well-cut jackets? I assure you, even mere doctors may dress well.”

A rueful smile tipped his mouth. “Compliments to my wardrobe, when I came prepared to duck a vase. My luck is turning.”

She sighed. “All my vases are carefully chosen. I regretted the loss the moment I threw it.”

He caught the insult. “Not worth it, was I?”

She shrugged. Yes, her smile was holding.

“Perhaps your mind will change when you hear my proposal,” he said.

Mather gave a violent start—interpreting the comment, no doubt, as an overture to seduction. Liza
returned her scandalized look with a benign smile. “Mather, darling, I’ll ask you and Hankins to leave us be for a few minutes.” For her maid had just returned with the jewelry case, which Liza took before nodding toward the door.

“But—” The girl looked between them. “Madam, you’re in your
dressing room
!”

“Then make certain not to tell everyone where we are,” Liza said. “You shouldn’t like to foment a scandal—or a marriage.” She winked at Michael. “God knows that would serve neither of our purposes. Lord Michael requires a saintly virgin, and I . . . well, you know what I require.”

Mather’s mouth formed a perfect O. Hankins, who had seen worse—she had, after all, known Nello—took Mather’s arm and guided her out.

Once the door had closed, Liza turned back toward her dressing table, busying herself with a jar of powder—dipping her brush, then carefully smoothing it over her skin. She had spoken truly to Katherine Hawthorne; these sleepless nights were very bad for the skin. “Your proposal, sir?” If he
was
bent on seduction, she had a laugh prepared for him.

“I propose to help you land Weston.”

A puff of powder flew up, dispersing in a brief haze. “I beg your pardon?”

“I know him.” Movement in the mirror: he took his hat out from beneath his arm, then turned it around in his hands. “From school. You’re going about it wrong. He likes the demure ones. Blushes instead of quips.”

“I see.” She laid down the powder brush and reached for the rouge.

“No cosmetics, either.”

Her hand stilled over the pot as her temper began to kindle. She welcomed its return; without it, she’d felt very much like a burned-out candle, cold and dark. “I believe I know how to snare a man’s interest, but
thank
you for your advice.”

He took a step toward her. “I mean what I say. You offered me friendship once. I mean to be a friend to you now. You need money. I have none. But I have knowledge that can help you secure it. And, more than that, I can influence Weston. Or Hollister, if you prefer. A well-placed comment here; a suggestion there.”

She stared at her hand atop the rouge pot. A new freckle, damn it. Right atop her middle knuckle. “You mean to . . . help me win a husband.”

“I do.”

She glanced up at her own expression. A very pretty face, though too round to belong to a great beauty. With Michael’s cheekbones, age might not have terrified her so. But she still looked young, though perhaps that was a trick of the emotion on her face. Surely only the young were still vulnerable to such a great and illogical sense of
hurt
.

She blinked very rapidly, then reached for the earring case. So. Her lover—her former, one-time lover—wished to help her secure the attentions of another man. “How amusing,” she made herself say. The pearls were slippery, troublesome little devils. One of them simply did not want to go in.

Suddenly he was behind her. “Let me,” he said, and the air carried the warmth and scent of him, that faint musk that her body had grown to know. He bent down and she froze, disbelieving, strangely unable to protest.
Get away.

His breath coasted across her cheek. His fingers gently brushed over her hair and a shiver rippled through her. His touch on her earlobe was warm and light. Large hands, so skilled at delicate operations. The earring slid through her piercing. His mouth—it must have been an accident—brushed the rim of her ear as he withdrew.

Her hands hovered uselessly over the dressing table. She let them fall to her lap as she exhaled.

The silence felt charged with something unspeakable and fragile. Yet it seemed to accumulate weight by the second, until her throat was full and she needed to swallow. When she braced herself sufficiently to look at his face in the glass, his eyes were shut. But he opened them immediately, as though he felt her regard.