The Saint (28 page)

He closed the library doors. “This will not do,” he said.

“What will not do?”

“This.” His arm gestured around the room, at the house in general and at her and him specifically. “You. Me. You fill my days, my nights, my thoughts, my heart. I cannot bear the torture of your presence, nor can I survive the hell of staying away. I cannot live like this. We must come to some resolution.”

Laclere, no, please no. Leave it alone and give me the few days left.
“You promised that I could have some time.”

“You misunderstand me, darling. I did not come to press my advantage, but to admit that I have none. My feelings for you have rendered every other concern insignificant.” He reached out to her. “You win. We will do it your way. Whatever arrangements you want. If you only want me for a lover, we will try to be discreet and hope for the best.”

Devastation paralyzed her. She longed to grasp that hand and press it to her heart. Love and gratitude spilled through her, but she could not demonstrate it.

She had hoped to run away and never see his reaction. To toy with him now would be inexcusable. He left her no choice but to throw his generosity back in his face.

He noticed her hesitation. His hand fell. “Of course, if you have decided that you do not want me at all, we can make arrangements regarding that too.”

Not want him? Surely, no matter what she said this day, he would know that could not be true. He would realize that she did not follow her heart and that something else drove her.

Yes, if she was not very careful, he would indeed realize that. She could not allow it. She had to make him believe whatever story she gave.

She lovingly studied every angle of his face. Crystalline blue eyes regarded her carefully, curious about her reticence. She wanted to fly into his arms and tell him everything. But how could he get them out of this?

She turned away. “I have been thinking.”

He became utterly still. He waited so silently that he might not have been in the chamber. She forced herself on.

“What has occurred between us … It is dangerous. Ruinous. We must have been mad. I have been thinking … you know that I have always believed that marriage was too permanent a punishment for so temporary a crime.”

“The punishment would not be mine, so do not pretend that you spare me, Bianca.”

His tone chilled her. She closed her eyes and grit her teeth. “No, I will not pretend that. It is my life that marriage will change, in ways that I do not want. Considering that, I do not think that any arrangement will suffice. If I want to pursue my music, I must go to Milan, we must part, and we only delay the sorrow by a few months this way.”

The words barely made it out. Silence shuddered in their aftermath. She still did not face him, but she could feel him behind her, large and dark and burning. She discerned that he had moved, but whether he had retreated she could not tell.

He had not walked away. When he spoke, his breath touched her hair. “Since I initiated you in love, perhaps I should instruct you in this as well. It is cowardly to refuse to face me, and you are nothing if not brave.”

“I am not brave. I am pitifully weak. If this is wounding you, I do not want to see it.” She forced down the ripping anguish that provoked the outburst. “And if it is not wounding you, I do not want to see that, either. That is just how selfish I can be, Laclere.”

His firm hand took her shoulder and turned her around. A crooked finger tilted up her chin.

Oh, how he looked at her. Not in anger. His eyes glittered with the memories of their intimacies. He looked at her so completely and openly that she knew it was the last honest look he ever planned to give her.

“It is always a lady's prerogative to end an affair, Bianca. A gentleman does not upbraid her for it or demand more explanations than she chooses to give.”

How could he accept this so easily? It was as if he had never believed in his heart that they might stay together. That was her own fault if true, but the thought produced a scathing disappointment. “You are being too kind and generous and making it too easy for me. I would prefer that you yell at me and accuse me of being wicked and flighty and bad.”

“You are none of those things. I am sorry that you have made this choice, but I knew it was possible.”

Unshed tears burned and knotted her throat and chest.
Do not look away. Do not listen to me. Take me in your arms. Make love to me here, now, on the floor. Refuse to accept this, please.

He lifted her hand to his lips and held it there, closing his eyes. “My dear girl.”

And then he was gone, walking away.

“Laclere.” His name tore from her as the tears overflowed. “I was not false. I did not lie to you. It is just … it is just …”

He paused at the door. “I know that you were not false, Bianca.”

Words choked her breath. “I did not lie to you. I do love you, I do … only …”

His expression revealed some anger now. Of course there would be some of that too. “I believe you. I think that you do love me. Only … not enough.”

chapter
20

S
he did not sneak away this time.

She waited at Laclere Park until she received Nigel's letter, telling her when to come. Then she packed her valise, gave Jane a note for Pen, and the next morning at dawn called for the curricle to drive her to Woodleigh.

She had kept to herself the week since they had returned to Laclere Park. Pen knew that she had broken with Vergil. The awkwardness about that had made it easy to create a distance. Charlotte was so distracted by daydreams about her impending debut season that she did not notice Bianca's reserve.

Contrary to his initial plans, Vergil had not accompanied them to Sussex. Affairs suddenly demanded his continued presence in London, he had explained to his sisters.

Well, what had she expected? That he would absolve her inconstancy and rise above the insult?

The curricle rounded a bend and pulled onto the road that led to Woodleigh. Gray brush and dull fields fell away on either side of the road. Low clouds muted the light, leaching the color out of everything, blurring distant forms into one depressing mass. Woodleigh loomed ahead, its huge bulk barely alleviated by the elegant classicism of its design. A hired coach and four waited in the drive.

Nigel emerged from the house in time to meet the halt of her carriage. A footman removed her valise, while another helped her down. It appeared that Nigel had hired a staff of servants since her last visit.

“You simply rode away?” he asked as her carriage departed.

“You wrote that we would leave immediately upon my arrival. It seemed overly dramatic to lower myself from my window by the bedsheets and trudge through the forest. Pen will be told when she wakes that I came here, but I trust we will be long gone by then.”

“Yes, long gone, and on our way to the packet at Dover.”

“I should warn you that I have very little money with me. I left most of what I had with Jane. Since I am abandoning her, it seemed only right.”

“Laclere will see that she gets back to Baltimore. Jane is no longer your concern. Nothing is. I will take care of you now.”

He escorted her into the house. More new servants were carrying down trunks and tying them onto the coach.

“I will make a poor showing in France, cousin. I only have the garments in that valise,” she said while she warmed herself near the drawing-room fire.

“You will look lovely in whatever you wear, and we will have a wardrobe made for you by the finest Parisian modistes.”

He smiled and flattered as a fiancé should, as if he expected them to pretend that he had not coerced her into this.

The activity in the hall ceased. Nigel extended his hand. “We should be off, Bianca. We would like to avoid a race to the coast with your guardian in pursuit, if possible.”

“He is not even at Laclere Park. But, yes, let us depart.”

The coach was luxurious as hired vehicles went, newer than most, with four matched horses. Nigel was already making headway into her inheritance by way of credit on her expectations.

A footman opened the door and set down the stairs. Nigel handed her up. She halted halfway in.

A woman waited inside the coach.

Mrs. Gaston smiled a welcome.

“Please, darling, seat yourself. I will explain,” Nigel said.

Bianca settled next to Mrs. Gaston. Nigel sat across from them.

“Mrs. Gaston has been kind enough to agree to accompany us and serve as your chaperon until we marry,” Nigel said.

“How generous of her.”

Mrs. Gaston patted her hand. “It is exciting, isn't it? Such a match this will be. Two musicians. Ever since I watched you both perform at the countess's party, I have thought this was fated.”

“I did not realize you and Nigel were such good friends.”

“We have had the pleasure of each other's company on occasion these last months, since meeting at Laclere Park. Your cousin is an accomplished musician, and I collect such stars in my circle.”

“Mrs. Gaston has proposed a subscription series of concerts for me next spring,” Nigel said with a broad, flattering smile at the great patroness.

“Goodness, Mrs. Gaston, your generosity to my cousin knows no bounds. Such an offer of patronage is extraordinary. Unfortunately, this elopement will ruin those plans. We will be in Milan in the spring. Isn't that so, Nigel?”

Nigel's smile turned a little crooked. “Of course.”

Mrs. Gaston smiled benignly and patted Bianca's hand again.

Bianca bit her tongue.

She did not believe that the two of them had met at Laclere Park. She suspected that Mrs. Gaston was the woman who had secretly visited Woodleigh. There was no other explanation for her presence in this carriage and on this journey. Mrs. Gaston, patroness of the arts, would not interrupt her plans to serve as chaperon for two unknown, unestablished musicians.

Nigel appeared contented, as well he might. The scoundrel was blackmailing her into marriage and would soon control her fortune, and he had not even bothered to get rid of his mistress for the elopement.

He misunderstood her expression. “All will be well, cousin. We are safe. Laclere will not interfere.”

Laclere. She wished Nigel had not mentioned him. Pen would send word to him in London. He would know by tonight.

What would he think? That she had truly forsaken him for Nigel? If so, it would change the way he remembered everything.

The coach rocked with a rhythm that timed out her seething frustration. Across from her Nigel relaxed and closed his eyes. Blond hair wisped around his face. He might have been a child sleeping, he looked so untroubled.

She would allow him to enjoy his triumph. She would wait until they were in France before she let him know that she had laid a few plans of her own.

Vergil wanted to smash his fist into something. Pen's footman guessed as much and darted away so the something would not be his jaw.

The little bitch.
That a grown man of his age, a respected member of the House of Lords, a confidante of the king's advisors,
a saint, damn it,
should have been made such a fool by a little colonial was bad enough. To now learn that her love had been a game, an elaborate jest, and that the whole time … his head split from the intensity of the outrage.

The footman tried to melt into the door.

“Damn it, go back to Sussex. I have no message for my sister.”

The footman beat a retreat. Vergil slammed the door after him with enough force to shake the books on the library's shelves.

He stared down at Pen's note on the floor, and then at Bianca's letter, crushed in his fist. He uncrumbled the latter and pressed it out.

It was ostensibly written to Pen, but he could hear Bianca talking to him.

My dearest friend,

When you receive this, I should be on my way to France. I apologize for leaving this way, but I thought it unlikely that I would receive your approval if I announced my plans. I thank you for all of your kindness toward me, but it is time to do what I left Baltimore to accomplish, and there is no reason to wait any longer.

Nigel has graciously offered to accompany me. He anticipates marriage, but I do not see how such an alliance will benefit me. However, in the eventuality that he can persuade me otherwise, I have taken measures through Mr. Peterson to ensure that such a development does not create difficulties for any of my friends in England. For the next few months, I will no doubt have to live off my expectations unless Laclere agrees to forward me funds when I contact him. I daresay that Nigel will be an excellent tutor in delaying payment to tradesmen.

Please address my heartfelt thanks and love to your family, Pen. I hope to see you again, if you have room in your circle for one more artist and room in your heart for one troublesome girl.

Please convince your brother that he must not follow me.

Your errant friend,

Bianca

He could hear her enunciating each word. He pictured her writing them. She did not sound or look smug or even excited. She appeared serious and determined and worried. She should be. She had no idea of the danger she may have put herself in by placing herself at Nigel's mercy.

What the hell was going on? Was she the most shameless of flirts, conducting an affair with one man while she rehearsed with another in the wings? This flight with Nigel suggested so, especially since she indicated that she might not bother to marry him, either.

He read that section again and experienced both delicious relief and dreadful misgivings. Shrewd, clever Bianca. She was absolutely right about the alliance benefiting her not at all. On the other hand, marriage to Bianca would settle things very nicely for Nigel.

Her cousin would be most displeased if she refused him. That displeasure, and the conclusions which it could suggest, kept presenting themselves to Vergil with merciless explicitness.

There had never been any proof that Nigel had tried to harm her. But over in France, if she blocked one path to her fortune … No one even knew her in that country. Who would voice suspicion if an accident should happen?

With a new, cold calm he read her letter once again. Its full implications unfolded. She made reference to arrangements having been made to prevent difficulties. His dread deepened. If that meant what he thought, she could be in grave danger when Nigel learned what she had done.

It also indicated that this had been planned while she was still in London, perhaps even before she had ended their affair. He tried not to put too much stock in the notion that Nigel had somehow forced this course on her, but a ridiculously heady beam of hope broke through the darkness that had filled his heart since that day in Pen's library.

Convince your brother that he must not follow me.
The order read like a desperate warning.

He called for Morton. “Prepare for a journey of about a week. Also, send for Dante, will you? He is still in the city. I need to speak with him.”

“Certainly. We will be going north again, I assume.”

“No, we leave for France. I must go to the City now. See that Pen's footman is fed and rested before he heads back. Tell him to inform my sister that I will be following Miss Kenwood despite her instructions that I not do so.”

“Mrs. Gaston is gone?” Bianca pulled her cloak tighter, to ward off the sea breeze blowing through the cottage garden. Nigel's great coat flapped around him.

“She has gone into Cherbourg to visit her friend.”

“I should like to be in Cherbourg myself, Nigel, and not this rustic farmhouse. Actually, I would like to be in Paris. I do not think that we should have to stop here for days because Mrs. Gaston has a sick friend.”

“It would be inappropriate for us to travel without her, Bianca. Unless you have changed your mind about marrying right away.”

She broke the dried head off a spindly stalk of dead sunflowers. “Let us go for a walk, Nigel. Actually, I welcome her absence today, and the chance to have some private conversation with you.”

He strolled beside her out the gate and through the orchard. They crossed the field of clover to the cliff walk. The wind whipped stronger here, icy from the water. It blew Nigel's hair into a tempest and ruddied his skin.

“I have changed my mind about marrying, Nigel.”

“You are tired from the journey, Bianca. Once we are settled in Paris you will see things differently. More clearly.”

“You mean that I will remember your threats about Laclere? I find myself thinking that the viscount can watch out for himself, dear cousin. And I am seeing things most clearly. Mrs. Gaston, for example. I see that she is more than an acquaintance to you. You must think me insufferably stupid if you believed I would not recognize the neat arrangement that you have made for yourself.”

He exhaled a laugh of defeat. “I will admit that she is an old friend. We met over a year ago when she visited Paris, and … But it is in the past.”

“After hearing the noise coming from her chamber last night, I am not inclined to believe that.”

He had the decency to flush at least. Either her frankness or her worldliness had caught him off guard, which was exactly where she wanted him right now.

“Did you assume that I would be asleep, or that I would be too ignorant to understand? The two of you might have waited until I was not under the same roof.”

“It was impetuous and indiscreet of us. I never thought that you … I will explain to her that our friendship cannot go on.”

“I would not be so fast to throw her over.”

“Between her and you, there is no choice. It does sound as if you expect me to choose. It is very provincial of you, Bianca. Very American.”

“You choose me so quickly? That must mean that she does not have a fortune and that her income is too small.”

“Now you insult me. I understand if you are vexed because of last night, but my first concern is your safety and my second is my affection for you. Your income is the least of it.”