The Truth About Lord Stoneville (25 page)

“So you decided that my feelings, my worries, didn’t matter?”

He let out an exasperated sigh. “Of course they mattered. But I figured you would understand once I achieved the goal we both wanted—a speedy marriage.”

“If a speedy marriage was our goal, we could have eloped,” she pointed out. Disillusionment crept into her voice. “But you wouldn’t have risked that. Papa might have refused to leave his half of the company to you.”

“Now, Maria, you know that’s got nothing to do with it,” he began in the placating voice that had seriously begun to grate on her nerves.

Her temper flared again. “Do you think I’m stupid?” She swallowed the bile rising in her throat. “Or maybe you just thought me so desperate for a husband that I would sit patiently waiting until you remembered you had a fiancée. Clearly you weren’t worried I might find someone else during the months when I didn’t hear from you.”

He blinked.

A bitter smile twisted her lips. “And why should you? After all, who would want to marry the too-forthright daughter of a bastard? I’d be lucky to have a man of your social consequence, right? I’d never risk losing a fellow as lofty as you. I’m sure you thought I would wait for you forever.”

“That’s not . . . I didn’t look at it . . . Dash it all, I knew your character! You’d made a promise to me. I knew you would honor your promise.”

She fought to ignore the twinge of guilt his words roused. “Yet you felt no compunction to honor
your
promise.”

“What do you mean?” he asked warily.

“You’re courting the daughter of Mr. Kinsley, who owns the company that might buy the ships you don’t fully own.”

A dull flush rose in his face, and his gaze shot to Mr. Pinter, confirming what she’d heard. Her heart sank. How had she not seen this side of him before? How could she have been so blind to the shark in him?

“I suppose
you’re
the man spouting these lies in my fiancée’s ear?” Nathan snapped at Mr. Pinter.

“I passed on what I heard here, yes,” Mr. Pinter said coolly. “That’s what she hired me to do. You were seen out walking with Miss Kinsley several times, not to mention accompanying her and her mother to concerts and the like.”

Nathan tugged at his cravat, as if it was choking him. “I was merely attempting to be polite. It’s not unusual in business.”

“Rumor has it that you’re on the verge of making an offer,” Mr. Pinter said.

Nathan returned his gaze to Maria. “You don’t believe these rumors, do you?”

She gazed steadily at him. “Should I?”

“No!” When she merely lifted an eyebrow, his color deepened. “All right, I’ll admit I smoothed the way for this deal by cozying up to Mr. Kinsley’s family, but—”

“That’s what I thought.” She turned for the door. “You’ll be hearing from my attorney. If you wish to purchase my half of the company—”

“Dash it all, Maria, don’t be absurd!” He grabbed her by the arm. “I made no promises to the young woman. She means nothing to me!”

She snatched her arm free. “How odd. Neither do I, apparently.”

“That’s not true!”

Anger surged up in her again. “I cried for you. I worried about you. When you didn’t answer my letters, I came all the way to this curst country to find you—and you hadn’t even left word at the company as to where you’d gone! I had little money, and no idea what to do—”

“Then you should have stayed home, where you belonged!”

She stared at him incredulously.
Now
the real Nathan came out. All this time she’d believed him to be her friend, a man who understood why she wasn’t like other women. But the truth was, he’d always tried to suppress whatever he saw as improper in her. He’d done it in little ways—an admonition here, a disapproving smile there—but disapproval had always lain beneath their easy relationship.

If she were honest, she’d admit that he’d never approved of her the way she was. Only Oliver had done that.

The thought of Oliver roused a powerful yearning to see him. She could almost hear the cynical remarks he would make about Nathan; then he would tell her she deserved better. She would know he meant every word, because for all Oliver’s faults, for all his reticence about his past, he’d never lied to her.

“You have no idea how glad I am that I did
not
stay home,” she said softly. “Otherwise I wouldn’t have discovered how utterly unsuited we are to marry.”

He shook his head. “You’re wrong. You’re just angry right now.” He reached up as if to caress her cheek, but when she recoiled, his expression hardened. “We’re still legally betrothed. If you break it off because of some silly petulance over Miss Kinsley, you’ll force me to take action.”

Her pulse pounding in her ears, she stared at him. “What do you mean?”

Determination glinted in his eyes. “I’ll sue you for breach of promise. The court will be very understanding when I point out that your father wanted us to marry, you agreed to the betrothal, and only a fit of pique has you refusing me. I’ll regale them with stories of all I did to enhance the company’s worth. I can keep the company’s assets tied up in the courts for some time. Is that what you want?”

“How dare you?” she cried, appalled that he would even try such a thing. “And what about
your
fraudulent behavior, making business deals based on a lie? What do you think the courts will say to that?”

“They won’t even blink,” he said coolly. “There’s nothing illegal about a man setting up another company. I had to protect my own interests. I’ll say I kept your father out of it for his own good, which is the truth.”

“It is not! You operated behind his back.
That’s
what you did.”

“You can’t prove that. He’s dead. I could argue that he consented to the subterfuge.”

“You know perfectly well he did not,” she said, shocked by his utter lack of ethics. “What sort of man are you?”

His eyes glinted with determination. “The sort of man who wants a chance. Who still wants you for his wife.”

Oliver’s words of a week ago leapt into her memory:
I’m watching you head blithely for a marriage to some fellow who will set you up on a shelf with his other possessions, and take you down only when he has a use for you.

“You don’t want
me
for a wife. You don’t even know who I am. You want the daughter of Adam Butterfield, half owner of New Bedford Ships.”

“Think what you wish. But if you take this hasty action and bring lawyers into it, you’d better be prepared for a battle.”

She glared at him. “Go to hell.”

While he was still gaping at her over her scandalous language, she walked out.

But even as she congratulated herself for giving him what for, her practical side pointed out that everything was in his favor. She knew how easily a man could blacken a woman’s reputation. And once the court learned of her odd “betrothal” to Oliver, any sympathy for her over Nathan’s ignoring her for months would evaporate.

A chill swept through her. She glanced at Mr. Pinter, who walked silently beside her. “Can he really sue me for breach of promise?”

“I’m afraid so. I know of at least one case in America where a man sued and won a large settlement.”

“He can’t take my half of the company from me, can he?”

“It’s possible. He’ll argue that he had every expectation of receiving it upon his marriage to you, and that by refusing the marriage you originally contracted for, you deprived him of what was promised to him.”

Her stomach twisted into a knot. “But won’t his fraud sway the court?”

Mr. Pinter grimaced. “As he said, you can’t prove he wasn’t acting on your father’s behalf.”

Despair gripped her. “But surely it would hurt his plans with Mr. Kinsley to have it be known that he had a fiancée the entire time he was courting Miss Kinsley.”

“The deal isn’t set yet, and he has no chance of it being so without your half of the company, which I daresay he lacks the blunt to buy. So if he can’t have your half through marriage, he means to get it through treachery. It’s his only choice, if you refuse to marry him. He’ll blacken your name to get what he wants.”

“And he’ll use my public betrothal to Lord Stoneville to bolster his case.”

“Most likely. Unfortunately, the court disapproves of jilts.”

They walked on in silence.

She wished to God she’d never laid eyes on Nathan Hyatt. If Papa had only realized what the man was. At least she had the satisfaction of knowing that Papa had been just as deceived in his character as she.

Or . . . maybe not. Papa
had
dragged his feet at their marriage. A pity that he had left his will intact.

They reached the inn. She was surprised that Freddy wasn’t waiting in the hall for them. He had to be spitting mad by now.

“What we need to do,” Mr. Pinter said as they climbed the stairs, “is hurry back to London and engage an attorney as soon as possible. I’m sure that your father’s will can be circumvented somehow. Don’t give up hope.”

She sighed. “Thank you, Mr. Pinter, but I think your generosity has been stretched beyond acceptable limits. I truly cannot afford to pay you any longer.”

“Nonsense,” he said with a wave of his hand. “It is to my advantage to pursue this to its ultimate conclusion. Think of it this way: if I can extricate you from Mr. Hyatt successfully, you will receive your fortune and be able to pay me, not to mention recommend me to all your friends.”

“Of which I have none in England.” She thought wistfully of the Sharpes, but seeking their help was impossible. Not only did they have their own troubles, but she could never face Oliver, considering how she had left.

He patted her shoulder as they halted before the door to his and Freddy’s room. “You have one friend, Miss Butterfield. You have a friend in me. Remember that.”

She tried to swallow past the lump in her throat. “I don’t understand why you’re doing this. Surely you have more pressing matters to occupy you in London.”

His expression turned serious. “I once knew a woman in a similar situation to yours. She truly had no friends, and it was her undoing. I like to think that by helping you, I’m doing what someone should have done for her.” He forced a smile as he unlocked his door. “But that is neither here nor there.”

The room was empty.

“That’s odd,” she said. “Freddy ought to have been back by now.”

“I’ll go fetch him from the pie shop while you go pack up.” Tipping his hat, he hurried back down the stairs.

She walked to her own room, discouragement weighing her steps. She couldn’t believe that it had come to this—Nathan threatening to sue her.

Reaching her door, she looked down to see a parcel. When she opened it, she found two kidney pies, still warm. So Freddy had already been here, and recently, too. Where was he now? Shaking her head in bewilderment, she unlocked her door and walked in.

Oliver’s voice said from the window, “It’s about time you returned.”

Startled, she dropped the pies.

Despite the shadows beneath his eyes, she’d never seen a more welcome sight. Even with his cravat badly tied, his black hair sticking out in all directions, and his expression uncertain, he made her breath catch in her throat.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

“You forgot something when you left Halstead Hall,” he said hoarsely.

“What?”

Her heart leapt into her throat as he strode purposefully toward her. “Me.”

Chapter Twenty-Five

Before Maria could even answer, he was kissing her, his mouth a feast of excess, his arms crushing her to him as if he wanted to absorb her into his body.

For one heady moment she gave herself up to the embrace, letting herself revel in the joy of it. Then reality sank in. Just because he’d come after her didn’t mean anything had changed between them.

She pushed him away. Though his eyes darkened, he let her go.

“How did you find me?” she asked as she edged away from him.

His gaze never left her. “Pinter’s coachman let it slip to one of my grooms. When I arrived I saw a pie shop, so I just waited until Freddy showed up. Then I followed him here.” He arched one eyebrow. “Your cousin never can resist a good English pie.”

A heavy sigh escaped her. “I swear, Freddy will be the death of me one day.” Painfully conscious of how dowdy her attire must look to him, she removed her bonnet and tossed it onto a chair. “But where did he go? He’s not here.”

“
That
I can’t help you with.”

“So how did you get into my room?”

He shrugged. “Climbed in through the window. It wasn’t locked.” His eyes gleamed at her. “Through the years, I’ve gained quite a bit of experience at climbing through women’s windows. Though usually I’m climbing out.”

That reference reminded her why she’d fled him in the first place. “You shouldn’t have come.”

She regretted the blunt statement when an expression of pain crossed his face. “Look here, Maria. I made a mistake by trying to push you into marriage. I should have given you more time to consider it, before running off to gain a special license.” He fisted his hands at his sides. “But you can’t marry Hyatt. You don’t believe me when I say it, but he’s clearly a fortune hunter—”

“I know.”

He blinked. “What?”

She just couldn’t tell him the whole story. It was too mortifying to have him know what a fool she’d been, putting her faith in such a man. “I’m not marrying him. You needn’t worry about that.”

He narrowed his gaze on her. “All the more reason that you should marry me.” He strode up to grip her arms. “I know that the only thing I have to commend me as a husband is my title, but—”

“Don’t say that,” she protested. “It’s not true.”

“Then why did you leave me without a word?” he asked, his voice so hurt that she cursed herself.

“Because you don’t really want to marry me. You’re only doing it to assuage your conscience for having taken my innocence.”

He uttered a harsh laugh. “You’re the first woman ever to accuse me of having a conscience.”

“That’s only because they don’t know you.” Her throat raw with feeling, she reached up to stroke his stubbled cheek. “But
I
do. I know that you’re a good man.”

Bleakness showed on his sharp features as he released her. “Don’t lie to yourself about that. I want you as my wife, but not if you’re convinced I deserve you. I assure you, I don’t.”

The flat tone of his voice made her heart ache. “You’re wrong,” she whispered. “You
are
a good man. You just don’t trust yourself to behave like one—and how can I trust you when you don’t trust yourself?”

“You can’t,” he said coldly. “You don’t know who I am . . .
what
I am. If you did, you would never even consider marrying me. I long ago proved myself to be—” A low curse erupted from him.

Long ago? Her blood began to race. “This is about what happened to your parents that night at the hunting lodge, isn’t it?” She laid her hand on his arm. “You still feel guilt over that. But just because you weren’t there in time to stop it doesn’t mean you caused it.”

“That isn’t why I feel guilty!” He snatched his arm free and paced to the window, where he stared out over the inn yard.

“Tell me,” she pleaded. Mrs. Plumtree was right—he desperately needed to talk about this cancer that was eating at him.

His only answer was silence.

“I know that you quarreled with your mother,” she persisted. “Your grandmother told me that. But she didn’t know what you quarreled about.”

“Thank God,” he muttered.

“It can’t be that bad.”

He shot her a blistering glance. “You don’t know a damned thing about it.”

“Which is why you must tell me. So I can understand.”

“You can’t possibly understand.”

“Was your quarrel over your father? Is that it?”

“The quarrel was over . . . I did something so . . . unconscionable that . . .” Dragging his fingers through his hair, he gave a shudder. “I can’t tell you. If I do, you won’t marry me.”

“I won’t marry you if you don’t,” she said softly.

“Damn it all to hell.” His voice was desperate.

“I mean it, Oliver.”

He faced her, eyes blazing. “My mother caught me in bed with a guest at our house party, all right? She caught me in the act of tupping a married woman.”

She stared at him, not sure what to make of that.

He went on in that same awful voice, “It was the last time I saw Mother before she ran off to the hunting lodge to find Father.
That,
my dear, is why she killed him.”

Maria could see that he believed it, that he was tormented by it. But she couldn’t understand why. Yes, it would be a shock for a mother to find her sixteen-year-old son in bed with a married woman, but would it anger her enough to make her kill her husband? That seemed highly unlikely.

“But why . . .”

He let out a strangled oath. “Lilith Rawdon was an army wife. She and Major Rawdon had been invited to Halstead Hall for my parents’ house party. When they arrived, Lilith seemed upset over something. But it didn’t stop her from flirting with me when no one was watching.

“I was flattered. At that point I’d never bedded a woman. I’d kissed a tavern maid or two at Eton, but nothing more.” His voice hardened. “It didn’t take long for Lilith to realize how ripe I was for the plucking. When everyone else was at a picnic on the second day of the house party, I cried off because I always hated watching my parents make cutting remarks to each other in the guise of being witty and sophisticated.”

Maria didn’t speak, afraid to stop the flow of words.

“Lilith found me in my bedchamber reading some dry tome about farming that Father had assigned me to read. I was bored to tears. So you can imagine my reaction when she walked in, closed the door, and began to remove her clothes.”

Though shock at the woman’s blatant wickedness coursed through her, Maria fought to keep her expression neutral.

“I couldn’t look away. Lilith was remarkably beautiful, and she acted as if she found me attractive.” He shook his head. “God, what an idiot I was.”

Maria wanted to cry at his self-loathing. The cursed woman probably
had
found him attractive. Maria could easily picture Oliver at sixteen—a lithe, olive-skinned Adonis with the energy and vitality of youth. Having watched her male cousins at that age, she could also see how he would have been dazzled by the attentions of a beautiful older woman.

He went on, his breathing ragged. “She climbed on top of me and . . . well, you can guess the rest. I was happily engaged in losing my virginity to the very talented Mrs. Rawdon when the door swung open and Mother walked in.” A dull flush rose in his cheeks.

Poor man. Given how furiously one of her cousins had blushed when Maria had found him merely kissing his future wife, it must have been ten times more awful for Oliver.

But she still didn’t see why it would lead to such tragedy.

Oliver stared as if the scene were playing out before him. “Instead of covering herself,” he went on, “Lilith rose up to stare boldly at Mother. When a vicious smile crossed her face and the color drained from Mother’s features, I knew. Lilith had intended for Mother to find us—to find
me
—in that state all along.”

“Why on earth would she want such a thing?”

“Apparently I was part of some sick need she had to strike at Mother. That was confirmed when Mother looked at Lilith and said, ‘Isn’t it enough that you have
him
? Must you take my son, too?’ ”

So Lilith Rawdon must have been his father’s mistress. Great heavens.

Oliver’s face was a mask of revulsion. “I’d always wondered why the Rawdons spent so much time with my parents. Mother didn’t seem to like Lilith, and Father made fun of Major Rawdon in sly ways that even I could recognize. But that day, when Mother saw me . . .”

He balled his hands into fists. “Oh, God, there was so much pain in her voice. It has haunted me all my life. Mother told me to get out of her sight, and fairly tossed me from the room. The last thing I saw was Lilith smiling at my mother like a cat in the cream.”

“But why did the woman do that? If she and your father were engaged in an affair, why taunt your mother with it?”

“I’ve spent years trying to figure that out. Several rumors were circulating back then about the Rawdons—that their marriage was in trouble, that there was talk of a separation. Divorce was out of the question, of course, but perhaps Lilith hoped to convince Father to run off with her somewhere they could live together. How better to accomplish her purpose than to make Mother angry enough to ask for a separation herself? She would never have left without a strong impetus.”

“Or maybe the whole thing was just how it seemed,” Maria pointed out. “Lilith Rawdon, clearly a woman of low character, couldn’t resist taking a young man into her bed whom she found attractive. Did she try to see you again after that?”

“No. They left that night. I tried to see her later, to get the truth out of her, but when I went to her home, the servants informed me that she and her husband had gone to India. I wrote to her—she never wrote back. My other letters came back marked as undeliverable, so they’d apparently moved on.”

He fixed Maria with a tortured gaze. “But there’s no doubt in my mind that Lilith had a purpose in what she did that day. And that I, in my stupidity and my weakness for women, let her use me to hurt my mother, to cause her to—”

“Oh, my darling,” she said, fighting back tears as she went to him. “It wasn’t your fault!”

“Wasn’t it?” he choked out. “Mother’s last words to me, while I scrambled to hide my nakedness, were, ‘You’re a disgrace to this family! You’re behaving exactly like your father. And I’ll be damned if I let him turn you into the same wicked, selfish creature as he is, sacrificing anyone to his pleasures!’ That’s why she shot him. To prevent what she saw as his bad influence on me.”

Oh, her poor dear. What a curse, for that to be the last memory of his mother. No wonder he had lived all these years trying to forget the past. Who wouldn’t?

Anger at his mother for putting that burden on him rose up in her. “She shouldn’t have said those things.”

“They were true.”

“They were not true!”

“Maria, all my life, I watched Mother suffer over Father’s affairs. He was rarely discreet and she, having foolishly given her heart to him, became more brittle with the passing years. She always said that we children were her only joy, that we made up for everything. Then, in one careless moment, I drove the dagger in her heart.”

The anguish on his face tore at her. She grabbed him by the arms, forcing him to look at her. “You did
not
cause your mother’s rash act. She made her own choice. When she said those cruel things to you, I’m sure she didn’t mean them. She was just angry at your father and took it out on you—because you were the only one available, and because she couldn’t take it out on him.”

“Ah, but she
did
take it out on him.” His eyes blazed at her.

“Yes. And that is a tragedy. But not one you’re responsible for.”

“You can’t possibly understand,” he bit out.

“I understand far better than you think. My mother died in childbirth, remember?” Tears clogged her throat, but she pressed on. “For most of my childhood, I felt responsible for her death. I’m sure you can imagine how it feels to know that one’s very existence is owed only to the suffering and death of one’s mother.”

“It’s not the same.” The stark anguish in his features tugged at her heart. “You didn’t intend—”

“And you did? You knew that this Lilith woman hated your mother? That she was involved with your father? That by sharing her bed, you might set off such an awful chain of events?”

He tried to thrust her from him, but she wouldn’t release him. He scowled down at her. “I may not have known about Lilith and Father, but I knew she was married. I knew what I was doing was immoral. I just didn’t care.”

“You were sixteen! You had a father who daily broke those rules. And you knew that other men of your station behaved that way, as well.” Tears streamed down her cheeks, but she paid them no mind. “Tell me this: while you were enjoying yourself with Mrs. Rawdon, did you have any thought about your mother and how she might disapprove of your behavior?”