The Duke's Night of Sin (20 page)

“Thank you! Thank you!” Miss Grassley dropped to her knees. “You are a saint.”

Siusan laughed. “Do stop being a goose. Stand up, you will wrinkle your frock.”

Miss Hopkins was giggling as she pulled Miss Grassley to her feet. “I have the latest edition of
La Belle Assemblé
in my bedchamber. You should take a look at it. Can’t very well wear your grays to your own wedding, now can you?”

Siusan shook her head. “Absolutely not. Go, go. Have a look. I fear I must finish some correspondence first.”

A few seconds later, the other teachers left the room, shutting the door behind them, but the door bounced open again before it had time to close. Siusan laughed as she glanced up, expecting Miss Grassley had doubled back for additional advice.

A tiny man, with an oddly shaped head and a cane in his hand stood in the doorway. His clothes were worn and dusty, but his boots were of fine quality and polished to a gleam.

Siusan shot to her feet.

The little man, who did not stand any higher than her waist stepped into the room. “May I come in, Miss Bonnet?”

As startled as she was by the appearance of this man, Siusan stepped boldly forward and had begun to raise her finger to the door when he spoke again.

“I beg your pardon. How ill-mannered of me—Lady Siusan … Sinclair. I have the right of it, do I not?”

“Who are you?” Siusan ground out, though she already knew. This man was the
on-dit
columnist … without a name, without a face.

He removed his hat, revealing his balding head. “Alas, we have not had the pleasure of meeting formally, and, given my position … and yours, we never shall—officially. Still, I will tell you my name. It is Mr. Hercule Lestrange.” He grinned at her then. “I can see by your expression, you already know my occupation, so I will confirm it. Yes, I am the
on-dit
columnist for the
Bath Times.”
He gestured to the wooden chair, silently requesting permission to sit.

Siusan nodded and watched the little man lean on his cane and walk in a slightly twisted manner to the chair. He set his cane down and worked
to pull himself up to the seat. Siusan snatched up her portmanteau and hurried over and set it down beside the chair. Then, she walked to her pallet and sat down.

The little man chuckled, then bent and moved the bag aside. He set his large hand on the arm and hoisted himself easily into the chair. “You are already in my favor, Lady Siusan.” He peered across the bedchamber at her, smiling in a very pleased manner. “In my lifetime, I have most commonly come across two sorts of people. Those who, knowing they are in my gun-sight, watch me struggle to climb up into a chair. There are also those who try to lift me into it as though I were a child. But once in a very great while, I come across a person who does neither, but instead gives me an arm, allowing me the choice of whether or not to accept it.”

“You did not accept it, but I see that is because you never needed my help to begin with—and yet you wanted me to believe that you were unable to climb into the chair yourself.” Siusan peered at the interesting fellow. “Perhaps, though, Mr. Lestrange, I knew you had the ability all along. You came to me in a position of power. You would not have forfeited that by demonstrating a weakness. You simply would have chosen to stand. You, sir, were assessing my character.”

He chuckled again. “You are so very entertaining and perceptive.
Oui,
Lady Siusan”—he bent at the waist as though bowing—“you are exactly correct.”

Siusan nodded her head. When she raised it again, she speared him with her gaze. “I know, too, why you have come. You have assembled my puzzle and are very intrigued with the mystery you have discovered. You are not the sort to accept pay for silence, so I can only assume you are here for clarification on some point and to inform me as to when your column will be published.”

“Very good, my lady.” His eyes took on a serious cast. “The column has been set and will publish on Saturday.”

“My thanks, Mr. Lestrange. I will have my affairs in Bath in order before then.” She schooled her features, forcing her eyes, her brow, and her mouth to appear impassive. But she felt her throat working to restrain a sob, and there was no obscuring that.

Truth be told, she did not entirely want to leave Bath. Her friends, the girls, her position, her teaching and writing had all become so important to her. And yet, she’d
always
wanted nothing more than to return to the bosom of her family.

But she could not allow the Duke of Exeter to learn her identity. If she could turn back the hands of the clock and never have slept with him at the gala, she would. That rash decision, made out of loneliness and grief, might have cost her a life of love with the very same man.

That act proved her the wanton, sinful, weak woman she was.

And now, as penance, she would lose both Sebastian, her teaching position, and, in time, her family, too.

“Dear lady, I do not know why you were running from the Duke of Exeter, nor how in your flight, you ran directly into his arms, here at this school. Will you enlighten me?”

Siusan huffed at that. “I will not tell you why I fled London, only that I felt I had no choice, and rather than hurt my family, I left the only people in the world who love me.” Siusan bit the inside of her mouth, steeling herself to continue. “And, when I met Lord Wentworth, for that is how he presented himself to me, I did not know who he was, in truth.”

“And yet, you nearly died for him. You ventured into the freezing night to save him.” He was studying her again.

She tightened her lips. “Did I?” If she said any more, she was fearful Mr. Lestrange would reduce her to tears.

“Oui.”
He leaned forward over his knees. “You chanced your life to save his—because you love him.”

Siusan raised her chin. “Aye, I do. But that changes nothing.”
We can never be together.

Lestrange slid forward on the seat, then turned over onto his belly and lowered himself to the floor. When he came to his feet, he bowed deeply to Siusan, then caned his way to the door. Before leaving, he turned to face her. “My dear lady, that is where you are wrong.”

Siusan rose from the bed and looked quizzically at him. “I do not understand.”

“Perhaps now … you do not understand. But you will in time. What you did, risking your own life because you love him, changes everything … for both of you.” He replaced his hat upon his head and opened the door. “Oh, did you know your manual is being rushed to press? It seems, since your daily lessons have now been acquired by
The Times of London
as well, orders for the manual are flooding your publisher’s offices.”

Confusion crowded Siusan’s thoughts. How
could this be? “But no one has formally agreed to publish my manual.”

He shrugged. “Nevertheless, the manual is being set and will be available before Christmas. Good day …
Miss Bonnet.”
He disappeared through the doorway.

“Miss Bonnet? What did you mean?” Why did he refer to her that way when he knew she was Lady Siusan Sinclair? But he meant
something
by it. Of this, she was quite certain.

Siusan rushed to the door, pausing for a blink to pull her ribbonless stocking over her knee, but when she reached the passageway, the strange little man was already gone.

B
y noon, Miss Grassley’s giddiness had caught the notice of every girl in school. An hour later, it had become clear to everyone, except Mrs. Huddleston, who hadn’t been seen all day, that the reason for the mistress’s infectious gaiety was that she was in love. From the roots of her pale blond hair to the tip of the toes she danced upon through the passageways—
in love.

Love.

Aye, Siusan knew it. Remembered it. She sat down and peered out her bedchamber window.

Or, at least she was almost certain she remembered the warmth of the all-encompassing feeling.
Aye, she’d thought she had known love when, after a short courtship, Simon asked for her hand, and her father blessedly agreed. The elation. The passion when he took her, his beloved betrothed, to his bed to show her what love meant.

Or, so she had thought at the time. Now, she was not so convinced that what she felt then had been love. Doubt pricked at her memories. She rubbed her temples vigorously.

Everything was different now … with Sebastian. Not just the physical act of making love. There was so much more to it. With Sebastian, her mind, heart, and body were fully immersed. There was no separating the emotion and the physical act of making love.

She frowned as she considered this. With Simon, the two were never so intertwined as they were with Sebastian.

With Sebastian, her heart throbbed in time with her body. She could not separate the intense passion she felt for him, as a man, as a lover, from the physical sensation of touching him, feeling him, wanting him inside her.

With Simon, it had been so very different. At the time she had thought what she and Simon shared was love, but that was because she had had nothing
against which to compare what she shared with him—until
now.

She always believed that Simon had loved her. Always. Even when he returned home after Waterloo, torn and raw from his wounds, she would not accept the truth he admitted to her—that he’d never loved her. That he only offered for her because of her family’s money and title. That he loved another, and if—if he survived, he would cast Siusan aside for her, for life was short … and love was rare, and he would never love her that way, no matter how hard he tried.

She hadn’t been able to believe it. Hadn’t been able to admit the truth to herself. Her heart would not allow it.

When her mother died and left her children behind, Siusan felt a pain that she did not believe she could endure. And then, when her father cast her and her brothers and sisters aside, choosing whisky instead of their well-being, he had shouted the most terrible things.

Though her heart shattered, her brother Sterling reminded them all that it was the pain of the loss of his wife causing their father to wound them. That it was not what was truly in his heart, for deep inside he still loved them all.

And she had believed her brother. She’d had to in order to survive.

So, when Simon spat the hurtful words to her as he lay on his deathbed, Siusan did not believe them. For they too were engendered of pain, not of truth.

Or so she had convinced herself most completely.

Now she wasn’t so sure. For what she felt when she was with Sebastian, even as they lay half-dead from the cold,
was love.
Authentic love. A love in which each was willing to die for the other.

Siusan clenched her fist as her realization became clearer still.

She
loved
Sebastian.

She had tasted true love, and yet, because of her past, because of her sinful ways, she could never live the life her heart begged of her.

She had ruined everything. She wrapped her arms around herself and began to rock.

She was too flawed, not worthy of being loved by anyone. She had proved this again and again to herself and to all of Society. And soon, Sebastian would realize it, too.

Siusan stilled, then resting her face in her palms, she began to weep.

***

On Thursday morning just before dawn, Siusan boarded the mail coach for London. By nightfall, two days later, she would arrive at Grosvenor Square. The journey would take hours upon hours, but it would permit her plenty of time to reflect on her days in Bath. As she peered out of the crowded coach’s window at the snow-encrusted fields, her thoughts fell to Sebastian, and her eyes began to sting.

Since the moment they first encountered one another in the dark library of Blackwood Hall, everything about her life had changed so completely, so fundamentally, that she barely remembered her old self. She was certainly no longer the same person she had been before the gala, and doubted that she would ever be again.

Or ever want to be. She had grown and become a better person.

Siusan marveled at the irony. It had taken a wicked indiscretion—one that, if made public, would disgrace her and her family name forever—to initiate a transformation so profound that she would at last become the daughter her father wished her to be. The woman she wanted to be.

She had learned so much about herself while teaching in Bath. That, too, was ironic. Lud, how
her heart ached that she had not been able to say good-bye to Miss Grassley or Miss Hopkins, Miss Gentree, or the other students.

Aye, leaving Bath had been inevitable from the outset, and for weeks she actually prayed for the day of her departure to arrive sooner. But when her immediate exodus suddenly became imperative because of her impending exposure, she was crushed with such sadness that bidding her friends and students farewell in person was impossible. And so, in lieu of a proper leave-taking, she wrote a letter informing them all that she was needed by a family member in Edinburgh who was ailing. It was true, in part.

Her father had succumbed to drink and, though he was gradually recovering, he still fell prey to periodic bouts of drink, resulting in angry letters focusing on the abject worthlessness of his children. His words’ sharp edges still scarred her and her brothers and sisters deeply, and she wondered, even if her father truly recovered, would they?

Would they hold true his assertions, and, as Siusan had, believe themselves unworthy of love?

Or would they heed her lesson and shed their wicked ways in time to earn love at last?

Only time would reveal the answer.

It was too late for Siusan. She had dropped her mask of the sin of sloth, but her delay had cost her a life with the man she had come to love with all her heart.

Siusan’s homecoming was a quiet one. None of her brothers dared to bring up the ordeal she had shared with the Duke of Exeter in the snow. Instead, they allowed her to pretend that she had never left home at all and that life had not changed for her so completely and irreversibly.