The Lady In Question (7 page)

His self-loathing was emphasized by the thunder outside and the sound of the rain striking against the window, the violence of nature in stark contrast to the warmth of the scene in Wilmont’s library. Lady Wilmont was vulnerable and alone, with no one to turn to. From what he’d overheard, even visits from her sister would be rare and, indeed, since they’d begun their work sorting Wilmont’s finances, had that insensitive twin appeared even once? There had been a note or two but nothing else. For that matter, had anyone from her family paid so much as a single visit? Certainly she had been the center of scandal, but that had been months ago. The woman had also lost her husband, and one would think that alone would be cause for her family to forgive and unite around her. Obviously, each and every Effington in existence was inconsiderate and thoughtless.

And was he any better? Wasn’t he taking advantage of her plight for his own miserable purposes, no matter how legitimate they may be?

Oh, he was indeed a scoundrel, a bounder, a nasty piece of work to be sure. The Effingtons had nothing on him.

He never imagined his opinion of her could change so dramatically and so quickly, never imagined he could have been so wrong and never dreamed he’d feel so wretched about deceiving her. In the days that Tony and Lady Wilmont had worked side by side sorting her husband’s papers, Tony had gained a much clearer picture of this woman his friend had married. She wasn’t at all as he’d thought, although she was substantially less willing to share confidences with him than he’d expected. Indeed, she was fairly reserved and prone to long stretches of silence when he was certain her thoughts turned to Wilmont. Blast the man anyway. It was now obvious to Tony that Wilmont had gone too far in his courtship and had probably seduced the woman. There was no other reason he could see for their marriage, although Wilmont had certainly never before wed a woman he’d seduced, and their numbers were legion. Still, if nothing else, Tony had learned a great deal about Lady Wilmont’s character. She was unfailingly kind and pleasant. As she considered him an elderly servant who was well meaning but not as sharp as he once was, a perception he turned to his advantage, her behavior displayed a good heart and a caring nature.

Damnation, the woman was bloody nice. And surprisingly intelligent, which meant her involvement with Wilmont made absolutely no sense at all. She was not the type to run off impetuously with any man, let alone a rake like Wilmont. She certainly did not deserve whatever game he had played with her. Was Tony any better?

“That’s it, then, isn’t it?” She slapped the pencil down on the desk firmly and leaned back in her chair.

“It, my lady?”

“As near as I can tell.” She rubbed her hand across her forehead in a decidedly tired manner. “We have managed to sort out Charles’s assets from his debts and all the odds and ends that entails. The accounts are in order, outstanding bills paid, investments and property identified. All in all, yes, I’d say that’s it.” She smiled wearily. “I could not have done it without your help, Gordon. I am most appreciative.”

“It has been my pleasure, ma’am.” As soon as he said the words, he realized how true they were. He had quite enjoyed these long hours in her company. Tony had always preferred women who could think over those who merely fluttered and simpered. Clever women were a challenge that fired his blood. If they were pretty as well, so much the better.

The rare woman who could engage his mind as well as his body was precisely the type of woman he would one day marry.

Pity this one was unavailable and unsuitable. The acknowledgment brought an odd, disquieting sensation to the pit of his stomach.

“I cannot believe how exhausting this has all been.” She closed her eyes and rubbed the back of her neck, her head dropping forward, her blond hair tousled.

He resisted the urge to reach out and let the silken strands run through his fingers.

“I feel as if I have walked from Great-Aunt Cecily’s to the village and back,” she murmured. “Over and over again.”

Caress the warm flesh of her porcelain neck.

“Still, it’s not as if we’ve done any real physical labor, after all.”

Feel the muscles of her shoulders relax under the gentle pressure of his hands.

“And what of you, Gordon?”

“Me?” The word was more a startled squeak than anything else. He cleared his throat and hoped she hadn’t noticed. “What do you mean, ma’am?”

She lifted her head and cast him a fatigued smile. “Are you tired as well?”

“Not at all.”

She raised a brow. “You have an amazing amount of stamina for a man your age, Gordon. Do you attribute it to anything in particular?”

He said the first thing that popped into his mind. “An honorable life, my lady.”

“An honorable life? How very interesting.” She fell silent, a thoughtful expression on her face. Abruptly her gaze met his. “Gordon, do you know if there is anything approximating a good brandy in the house? I daresay Lord Wilmont would have had some kind of spirits around and there is an impressive selection of wine in the cellars, but I have not yet had the opportunity to peruse every nook and cranny of this place and I was wondering if you had stumbled across anything of interest.” She blew a long breath.

“As tired as I am, I am rather too restless to retire. I feel not unlike a tightly wound spring. Brandy has always helped me sleep and I have not slept at all well of late.”

“Permit me, my lady.” He rose to his feet, crossed the narrow library and opened one of the small cabinets that ran in a row encircling the room and divided the upper bookshelves from the lower. He grabbed a decanter with one hand and a glass with the other.

“Well done.” She cast him an admiring look. “And do join me. This is as much your accomplishment as mine.”

“As you wish, ma’am.” A second glass awkwardly joined the first and he returned to place brandy and glasses on the desk. She glanced at them and bit back a smile. Damnation. A proper butler would have used a tray. Thank God she attributed his incompetence to advanced age and not simply to, well, incompetence. And thank God as well she didn’t question how he knew precisely where to find the brandy. He had shared many bottles with Wilmont in this very room.

He carefully filled both glasses, then resumed his seat.

She took a sip and sighed. “Excellent, but then I knew it would be. If I knew nothing else about my husband, I knew his taste in fine liquor would be exceptional.” For a long moment she stared at the amber liquid in the glass as if it held the answer to any number of unanswered questions about the man she had married. “What makes an honorable life, Gordon?”

“Honesty, above all else, I should think.” Unless, he amended silently, pure honesty conflicts with a higher purpose such as service to one’s king and one’s country. “Being true to one’s self, one’s principles.” And such principles should always be guided by the interests of king and country.

“Do you think Lord Wilmont lived an honorable life, Gordon?”

He chose his words carefully. “It’s not my place to say, ma’am.”

“Nonetheless, you have helped me set the leavings of his life in order. Surely you have formed some impression of the man?”

“I would not venture —”

“Nonsense.” Impatience rang in her voice. She rested her elbows on the desk, cradled her glass between her hands and studied him. “You are a man with a vast amount of experience and, I suspect, an acute observer of those around you. Is there anything you have seen in all this that indicates to you that my husband lived a dishonorable life?”

“No, my lady. Not at all.” It was the truest thing he’d said all night and came as something of a shock. Tony had had no idea what to expect from Wilmont’s papers, but he certainly hadn’t anticipated a total lack of questionable activity. Why, even some of Tony’s own personal transactions were, on occasion, not entirely aboveboard.

“He had a dreadful reputation, you know. Regarding gaming and wild living and drinking and” — she shrugged matter-of-factly — “women.”

“Reputations are not always as they appear, ma’am,” Tony said firmly. He couldn’t defend Wilmont at the moment and, even if he hadn’t been in disguise, would have been hard-pressed to do so at any rate. Some of Wilmont’s reputation was indeed exaggerated to hide his true activities, but much of it was well earned. Still, Tony wondered if perhaps he had judged his friend too harshly.

“He did marry me.” There was a cool note in her voice. “And that probably speaks well of him.”

Without warning she rose to her feet and paced the room.

Tony jumped up a beat behind her.

“Oh, do sit down, Gordon.” She gestured impatiently. “I cannot seem to sit still, but there is no need for you to be uncomfortable as well.”

“I couldn’t possibly, ma’am.” The shocked note in his voice wasn’t entirely feigned. She rolled her gaze toward the ceiling. “Very well.”

Lady Wilmont circled the room casually, brandy still in hand, and perused the shelves as if searching for something of interest, but there was a tension in the line of her body and edge of her step that indicated she had far more on her mind than reading. She stopped and peered at the shelves, then selected a book and glanced at him. “Do you like Lord Byron’s works?”

“I wouldn’t presume to say, my lady.” In truth, he thought both the man and his poems overpraised and overrated.

She chuckled. “No, you wouldn’t, would you?” She took another swallow of the brandy, set the glass on a shelf, then flipped the book open. “I myself am not overly fond of his more political offerings, but some of his poetry is rather evocative.” She paged through the book and stopped to read aloud.

“She walks in beauty like the night, of cloudless climes and starry skies…”

And all
that’s
best of dark and bright meet in her aspect and her eyes.

“It’s quite nice, ma’am.” It was one of the few works of Byron he did indeed like, and suspected it appealed to a romantic aspect of his nature usually hidden.

“Do you think so?” She continued to study the page, a frown creasing her brow. “
The smiles that
win, the tints that glow but tell of days in goodness spent. A mind at peace with all below, a heart
whose love is innocent.”
She glanced at him. “Is there such a thing as a heart whose love is innocent, do you think, Gordon? Is there, in truth, such a thing as love?”

“I fear you have me at an disadvantage, ma’am,” he said cautiously. “I am not entirely certain what you are asking.”

She laughed in a humorless manner. “Nor am I, Gordon.” She snapped the book closed and offered it to him. “Why don’t you take this? You might find it enjoyable. I have another copy.”

He moved to her and accepted the book. “Thank you, my lady, I shall treasure it.”

“You shall have to tell me how you like it. I know I could certainly use something interesting to read. To occupy my mind.” She plucked her glass from the shelf and sighed. “I daresay my odd mood is due to nothing more than weariness and being in this house and the storm raging about us. Or perhaps it’s the realization that with the end of sorting Charles’s papers we have come to the end of my grand adventure.”

At once he was alert for any hidden meaning in her words. “Grand adventure, ma’am?”

“I…” She shook her head. “I am rambling, Gordon, which in and of itself is unusual. I never ramble. Or at least, I never used to. I find myself doing any number of things I never used to do.” She sipped the brandy thoughtfully. “I’m sure you noted, as did I, that I am now possessed of a significant fortune.”

“I am aware of that, my lady.” Between Wilmont’s family fortune and a number of shrewd investments, the man was astoundingly well off. The missing fifty thousands pounds was something of a pittance to such a man, and as such would have played no role, for good or ill, in his actions.

“Perhaps I shall use it to travel. I have never been beyond England’s shores and there is an enormous world out there more than willing to show a wealthy widow its offerings. And I have always wanted to see the canals of Venice and the ruins of Rome.

“Did your Lord Marchant travel, Gordon? Did he take you with him to see castles and cathedrals, great mountains and grand oceans? Have you had adventures abroad?”

“No, my lady,” he said without hesitation.

In truth, he had had far too many adventures in far too many places during the long years of the war. He had ventured into the grim back alleys and dark, disreputable sections of Paris and Marseilles, where information was bought and sold and a man took his life in his hands just to pass there. He had seen the battlefields of Spain and Portugal and the hidden lairs of partisans and mercenaries eager to provide assistance for a price, paid in coin or blood.

Even after the war, when official military intelligence was deemed unnecessary, he’d become part of a newly formed arm of the Foreign Office innocuously titled the Department of Domestic and International Affairs. Together with men like Wilmont and Mac whom he’d trusted with his life in the effort to defeat Napoleon, it was a unique intelligence service intent on protecting national interests from threats within the country and without.

“Time enough tomorrow, I suppose, to think about what I shall do with the rest of my life.” She stepped back to the desk and tucked the now-neatly-arranged documents into a large ledger. “It seems I have a great deal of time stretching ahead of me.”

There was a resigned dignity about her that clutched at something deep inside him. He was seized with an urgent desire to take her in his arms and comfort her. Tell her that her life would turn out well. Assure her, promise her, that he and he alone would make it all right. And if his lips met hers in the process…