'Twas the Night After Christmas (33 page)

And for what? To strike back at his parents? It hadn’t done that. It had merely obscured the past even more. He could have spent his time more usefully, but he’d been too angry to see the forest for the trees.

He was damned well seeing the forest now.

“You
are
coming for Christmas, aren’t you?” Sharpe asked as he pulled up in front of Pierce’s town house.

Down the street, carolers were regaling a household with a warbling version of “Here We Come A-Wassailing.” His neighbors had clearly been busy this evening decking the outside of their houses with greenery, and the pungent scent of fir wafted to him on the night breeze.

“No,” he heard himself say. “I’m going home.”

Home?

Yes, home. He’d been banished from it for so long that he’d grown used to thinking of it as something denied to him. But it wasn’t anymore.

Sharpe turned to gape at him. “You don’t mean Montcliff?”

“I do. I mean to spend Christmas with my mother and her companion.”
The woman I intend to marry.

She deserved better than a life as his mistress. He could never drag her down into such a situation; he saw it now. And marriage didn’t have to mean becoming some besotted fool like Sharpe and giving up control over his life. He could still protect his heart.

She won’t settle for that.

She would have to. It was all he had to give.

Sharpe was looking at him oddly. “But I thought you and your mother didn’t . . . er . . . get along.”

“We didn’t. But now . . . well . . . it’s a bit hard to explain.”

“Trust me, I understand ‘hard to explain.’ I have a family full of ‘hard to explain,’ as you well know.” Staring ahead to where his horses were champing to be off, he frowned. “When will you leave?”

“Tomorrow morning, at first light.”

Sharpe brightened. “Then you’ll have plenty of time to stop at our place in the country. It’s right on your way, and we’re not leaving for Waverly Farm until late in the afternoon.” When Pierce drew breath to protest, Sharpe said, “Virginia will never forgive me if you don’t at least come by. You haven’t even seen our new home yet. For that matter, you haven’t even seen the baby.”

Pierce winced. He’d forgotten that Virginia had recently given birth to their first child, a baby girl named Isabel. “All right. I’ll stop in on my way to Hertfordshire.”

The next morning, Christmas Eve, Pierce arose early and ordered the servants to pack up his bags. The very prospect of heading to Montcliff lifted his spirits, which told him he was doing the right thing.

But just as he was shrugging into his greatcoat, Manton arrived. He had information for Pierce, he said, and some of it couldn’t wait until after Christmas.

Blood pounding in his ears, Pierce brought the man into his study and prepared himself for anything.

“First of all,” Manton said after they’d exchanged the usual
pleasantries, “I tracked down a few of your mother’s relations, including your mother’s second cousin Edgar Gilchrist.”

Pierce blinked. “You spoke to him.”

“I’m afraid not. He died a few years ago, but I was able to talk to his widow.”

“He was married?”

“Yes.” Manton shifted nervously in his chair. “But she said he only married her after he’d given up all hope of being with your mother.”

Pierce sucked in a breath. Camilla was right—Mother
had
been involved with Gilchrist. “His wife knew about him and Mother?”

“Oh, yes. She gave me quite an earful. All about how your mother was the siren who’d broken his heart and ruined him for any other woman. According to her, he courted your mother behind your grandfather’s back. It started when she was sixteen and he was twenty.”

“Sixteen!” That stymied him. She’d married Father at eighteen. “How long did Gilchrist court her?”

“Up until the time they attempted to elope, shortly after she turned eighteen.”

Great God, that was a serious courtship. “Attempted? How, exactly?”

“Well, as best I could determine from the man’s wife, who’d been admiring him from afar all those years, your mother and Gilchrist ran off to Gretna Green and actually got across the border, before her father caught up to them and made them come back. One of your mother’s other relations confirmed that. The
family managed to hush it up, and it rapidly became apparent why, when the earl proposed to your mother.”

“Ah, yes,” Pierce mused aloud. “By then, the earl must have agreed to pay off Grandfather’s debts in exchange for Mother’s hand in marriage.”

“That would explain why she married him.”

No,
Pierce thought with a sinking in his stomach.
The babe in her belly explains why she married him.

Gretna Green was a long way off, after all. Plenty of time to consummate the wedding before it took place. Then she would have been too ashamed to admit to her father that she wasn’t chaste. Or perhaps she
had
admitted it, and Grandfather Gilchrist hadn’t cared. After all, he already had an earl waiting in the wings.

Or had he? “Did Mother know the earl before she eloped?”

“Yes. Apparently the reason your mother and Gilchrist ran off in the first place was because the earl had taken a fancy to her, and since her father didn’t approve of her marrying Gilchrist, the couple feared they would never get to marry unless they eloped.”

“Did my father—” He checked himself. “Did the earl know about her connection to Gilchrist?”

“That, I could not discover. All I know is that he met your mother at some grand ball during your mother’s come-out. According to Gilchrist’s wife, a friend of the family even then, the earl was instantly smitten and pursued your mother relentlessly. When she ran off, he was told she was visiting relatives, and as far as Gilchrist’s wife knew, he believed it.”

“But then Gilchrist came along years later and threatened to tell my father that she’d borne him a bastard,” Pierce mused.

Manton snorted. “A bastard? If that’s what you’re worried about, my lord, you can set your mind to rest. The earl was engaged to your mother for six months before they married—it took that long to prepare the large wedding that your father insisted upon. Unless Gilchrist found a way to get around her father and see her during that time—which I seriously doubt, considering their previous attempt at elopement—you are almost certainly the earl’s son.”

That’s what Mother had claimed, too. He’d thought she might be lying, but perhaps she hadn’t been.

Still, if Mother
had
shared Gilchrist’s bed while they were eloping and Father found her unchaste on their wedding night, he might have suspected her of infidelity later with
someone
. Father had to have believed Pierce wasn’t his, despite all evidence to the contrary. That was the only explanation for why the man had despised his own heir.

But it still didn’t explain why Father had spurned him only after Pierce turned eight. Had Gilchrist tried to blackmail Mother by threatening to tell Father that he’d been the one to take her innocence? Given the Gilchrist family’s predilection for gambling, perhaps the man had needed money and had thought that a way to gain it.

And if Mother had stood firm against his threats, then he might have gone to Father, threatening a scandal if Father didn’t pay him off.

But then what could Father have been holding over Mother’s
head to make her cut off her son so completely? Knowledge of some botched elopement wouldn’t have made any difference in their marriage.

Unless . . .

A cold chill passed through him. “Are you absolutely certain that Gilchrist and my mother didn’t make it to a church or even an ‘anvil priest’ in Gretna Green?”

Manton’s eyes narrowed. “Gilchrist’s wife said they didn’t.”

“What else
would
she say? If Gilchrist
had
managed to marry my mother, even in one of those havey-cavey Scottish weddings, and it became known, his marriage to this other woman would be entirely void. She would be left with nothing.”

Manton’s gaze locked with his, reflecting the same horror Pierce felt. “And your mother’s marriage to your father would have been entirely void as well.”

“Exactly. Except that my mother wouldn’t have been the only one left with nothing.”

As the full ramifications of that hit him, Pierce’s heart plummeted into his stomach. At last he knew what Father had held over Mother’s head. And perhaps even what Gilchrist had told Father that day at Montcliff.

Pierce rose, his mind racing. If his theory was right, it changed everything. He had to see Mother. He still had a couple of stops to make on the way out of town, and he’d promised Sharpe . . .

That was one promise he must keep. The Waverlys were his family, too, after all, and he was just beginning to realize how important a part they had played in saving him from his father’s wrath.

“Forgive me, Manton, but I have to go.”

Manton rose as well. “Of course, my lord.”

“You will keep this to yourself, I assume.” With a sudden sick feeling in his gut, he remembered that Manton’s brother had always hated him. What if Manton—

“You have nothing to fear from me,” Manton said fiercely. “My clients always have my complete discretion. Sir Jackson would never have recommended me to you if he didn’t trust that.”

“True,” Pierce said tightly, only slightly reassured.

“Besides, I know better than you think how family arrangements can destroy people’s futures.” Manton looked as if he were debating something, then added softly, “My father had another family, a mistress and two illegitimate children—my half brother and half sister. It is because of them that I am estranged from my brother. Father left them provided for, but George refused to honor the agreement. It has wreaked havoc on all our lives.”

Pierce instantly understood why the man was telling him this family secret. Manton clearly knew that the best way to reassure a man that his secrets were safe was to offer one of his own.

Feeling more easy about Manton, Pierce turned for the door, and Manton said, “Did you wish to hear about the other investigation you charged me with?”

“Other investigation?”

“The one concerning Mrs. Stuart.”

“Ah, right.” He’d forgotten about that. It felt like years since he’d asked Manton to look into her background. And now it seemed rather . . . sordid.

“I don’t have much to tell you,” Manton went on. “When I
spoke yesterday to the couple who run St. Joseph’s Home for Orphans, they were evasive. They admitted that she’d worked there and had an exemplary record but said they had to check their files concerning how she’d ended up there. They said they would report to me this morning about whether they could even speak of the matter. That’s one reason I’m here. I thought you might wish to attend the meeting with me.”

So he could find out if Camilla was the daughter of a whore or a princess? He didn’t need to know that, because he already knew he wanted her in his life.

It didn’t matter who her parents were. It didn’t matter how she’d come to be at St. Joseph’s. Pierce knew the kind of woman she was, inside and out. She was the kind of woman who stood up for those who wouldn’t or couldn’t stand up for themselves. The kind of woman who took delight in a simple pastry, who could tease a lord about naughty books in one moment and defend the man’s mother in another.

The kind of woman who still believed in love. And who apparently had been fool enough to fall in love with
him.

The least he could do was accord her privacy in her personal affairs. She had never asked him to find out who her parents were, and she could have discovered that herself when she worked at St. Joseph’s, if she’d wanted. So he was far overstepping his bounds by pursuing this. He certainly hadn’t asked about it for her sake. He had done so for his own, so he could feel safe in marrying her.

Well, no more. If any problems ever arose out of her murky
background, they would face them together. Assuming she gave him that chance.

When he saw her, he would tell her that if she wanted Manton to pursue the matter, he would arrange it. But it would be her private affair. Because it truly was none of his concern.

“No,” he said. “I don’t need to be there for the meeting. And neither do you. I’ll pay you for what you’ve found out so far, but unless I’m directed otherwise by Mrs. Stuart, we’ll leave the past in the past.”

“Whatever you wish, sir,” Manton said, a decided note of approval in his voice.

Clearly they were both in agreement on this—there were some Pandora’s boxes that should never be opened.

•  •  •

“What do you think?” Lady Devonmont asked as she held up a delicate figurine in the early evening of the night before Christmas. “Too extravagant for the tree?”

Camilla gazed at the glass angel and remembered Pierce’s words about angels and devils. Perhaps if she’d never looked past the flip words to the clear heartache behind them, she wouldn’t now be sitting here with her own heart bleeding.

“Camilla?”

“Hmm? No, not too extravagant.” She stared at the countess. “We should have gone to London. He shouldn’t be alone for Christmas.”

The countess sighed. “He isn’t
in
London, my dear, and he’s
certainly not alone. He’s at Waverly Farm. And it’s better this way. I’m willing to take some risk in telling him all, but . . . I can’t bear to do it amid all the madness at the Waverlys’. There’s more of them now, and I’m sure they think I’m—”

She pasted a determined smile on her face as she turned back to the boxes of baubles. “It doesn’t matter. But I would rather have him to myself when I talk to him.” She cast Camilla a long glance. “And you said you didn’t want him thinking you were interested in being his mistress.”

“I know. We made the right decision not to go. It’s just—”

“Mama, Mama!” Jasper cried as he ran in ahead of Maisie. Bored with the tree decoration, he’d gone out earlier to feed Chocolate sugarplums. “Someone’s coming!”

Camilla’s heart leaped into triple time, and she surreptitiously smoothed her skirts. “His lordship has returned?”