Читать книгу Regency Silk & Scandal eBook Bundle Volumes 1-4 - Louise Allen, Christine Merrill - Страница 16

Lord Narborough sat quite still for a moment, the fragrant sprig in his hand. Then he dropped it back into its wrapper, gathered up his post and rose. He was pale, but steady, and Marcus, who had reached out a hand to take his elbow, dropped it away.

‘Excuse me, my dear,’ the earl said to his wife. ‘Would you join me in the study, Marcus?’

‘Of course.’ Nell, after her bright remark, had fallen silent. If she knew anything about this, then she was a good actress. He frowned at her, angry with himself for wanting to trust her.

The threat to his family, now that the initial shock of the rope was over, had strengthened his father, made him resolute, Marcus realized, watching the older man’s firm jaw. He set himself not to fuss.

‘As Miss Latham says, rosemary for remembrance,’ he remarked, closing the door. ‘Does it mean anything to you, sir?’

‘Oh yes.’ The earl sat behind the oak desk and waved Marcus to the chair in front of it. ‘That night, when Kit Hebden died, I found him and Wardale together, locked in each other’s arms just outside my study window. I told you.’ Marcus nodded. ‘There had been a great storm. A cloudburst. Everything was soaking wet, but the air was hot despite that and all the scents of the garden were intense. There was a big rosemary bush, under the wall just by the long window.’

‘It is gone now.’ Marcus struggled to recall the planting in the town house garden.

‘I had it pulled out. They had crashed into it, the leaves were everywhere, we were all covered in them by the end. I could never smell it again afterwards without remembering.’ He lifted the sprig and held it to his nose as if to defy its power. ‘That and the scent of blood like hot metal.

‘I was expecting them both to meet me in Albemarle Street to talk about the search for the spy—the traitor in our midst—who we were pursuing together. Then I got a note to go to the Alien Office. Some clerk had made a mistake over a message that could well have waited until the morning. Or perhaps it was a deliberate ploy to lure me away—I have wondered often about that.’

‘You got back home, went through and found the long study window open.’ Marcus nodded. His father had told the tale before Christmas when Veryan had brought his new assistant to visit and the young man had asked about the old mystery.

‘Hebden died on the wet stone, in my arms. All he said was, Verity…veritas. It made no sense, he was rambling, Verity was a babe then. All Wardale could say for himself—standing there with the knife in his hands and the man’s blood all over him—was that Kit had been stabbed when he arrived and he had pulled the knife out to try and help him. He wouldn’t say where he had been earlier. I could guess. He had been with Amanda, Kit’s wife.’

‘The adulterer you spoke of at dinner was William Wardale, Lord Leybourne?’ His father had not repeated that piece of incriminating gossip before.

‘Yes. Hebden was no saint himself, of course. When he thought her barren, he had forced his wife to raise his own bastard son, which gives you some idea of his character. He was a clever devil, with a chip on his shoulder wide enough to make a refectory table. He was the one with the brains, but only a barony. We two earls, he was convinced, had the status but not the intellect to match his.’

His father shrugged. ‘Mathematics and codes were never my strength. But arrogant though he might be, and neglectful and inconsiderate of his wife as he most certainly was, he was our colleague, our friend. Wardale had no call to seduce Amanda.’

‘Perhaps she wanted comfort and he gave it to her,’ Marcus mused aloud, thinking of another woman entirely. ‘Was that enough motive for murder? One would have thought Hebden, the wronged man, would have struck the blow.’

‘If Wardale was the traitor, it could have been a motive,’ his father said slowly. ‘We both knew Kit was getting very close to cracking the intercepted coded letters. At least, that was what he would have us believe. And when he had done that, the man’s identity would be revealed.’ He held out the rosemary to the candle flame and it caught with a dry crackle, burning into scented ash. The earl brushed his fingers fastidiously. ‘We never found Kit’s notes or the letters after his death. The trail went cold and the spy ceased his activities.’

‘As you’d expect if he was in prison,’ Marcus commented.

‘Exactly. How could I defend Wardale? How could I not say what I had seen? He was my best friend—but he killed a man in front of me, he was apparently betraying his country. What should I have done?’

It was the old torment that had stolen his father’s peace of mind, his health; and it had never left him.

‘Nothing, in all honour,’ Marcus said, as he had said when he had first heard the story. And he believed it. ‘So. The silken rope a peer is hanged with, a sprig of rosemary from that last desperate fight. There is no doubt now that they refer to Hebden’s death, the search for the traitor and Wardale’s execution.’

‘But who is sending them—and why now?’ The earl ran his hands through his hair as though to force some answers into his head.

‘We’re back to Wardale’s son again, aren’t we? That’s the only way I can make any sense out of the timing—a child grows into a man, a long-held resentment festers into an obsession with revenge.’

‘And your Miss Latham is his accomplice? I find that hard to believe. She’s a delightful young woman.’

‘So was Lucrezia Borgia, by all accounts,’ Marcus remarked darkly. It was important not to let his guard down, not with his body telling him to trust her and his mind half inclined to follow it. ‘She’s hiding something, more than one thing, if I’m any judge.’

‘This wasn’t franked.’ The earl flipped over the folded sheet. ‘No postal marks on it at all.’

‘Hand delivered. It could have been her; we have rosemary growing all over the garden here. I’ll ask Watson about it.’

‘Marcus.’ He stopped, halfway to the door. ‘There is no need to let your mother know about this.’

‘Of course not, sir. Are you…all right?’

‘Yes, thank you. Better than I’ve felt for a long time, strangely.’ His father shook his head, a rare smile on his lips. ‘It’s like the old days, having someone to confide in, think with. I’m glad you’re here.’

Something twisted inside Marcus. ‘I’ve always been here, Father.’

‘I know, and I’ve leaned on you harder than I should have done. But this isn’t estate business, this is a mystery, danger. And, damn it, it is painful remembering, but do you know—I’m enjoying it.’

‘Good.’ Marcus swallowed, suddenly fearful that the sensation behind his eyes was tears. ‘Good,’ he said again, gruffly, and left while he was still in command of himself.

Nell closed the door into the flower room quietly behind her. She had managed to shake off her persistent footman escort by dint of joining Lady Narborough in her sitting room and had just completed an errand for her to the gardener to ensure there were more evergreens included with the hothouse flowers.

Now, there was nothing to stop her thinking about the sprig of rosemary that had so shaken Lord Narborough. What on earth had that been about? It made no sense. At least she understood the silken rope, for that was what a peer of the realm was hanged with. Although why someone was trying to terrorize the Carlows now with that reminder of her father’s death was a total mystery.

And what had possessed her to quote that foolish old saying when it should have been apparent from the men’s faces that something was very wrong? Something else that Marcus would blame her for, no doubt.

‘Watson?’

There he was. Nell drew back into the cover provided by a massive suit of armour as Marcus stopped the butler in the middle of the Great Hall.

‘My lord?’

‘This letter that came for his lordship this morning. Delivered by hand, I assume?’

‘Indeed, my lord. It was handed in at the kitchen door by young Francis, Potter’s son.’

‘The under gamekeeper? Find out who gave it to him, will you, Watson.’

‘I have already ascertained that, my lord. I do not appreciate post for the family arriving in such a manner. According to Andrewes, who took it from the lad, it was handed to young Potter with a small coin by a man early this morning.’

‘A stranger.’

‘Just so, my lord. Do you wish me to make further enquiries?’

‘If you would. A fuller description would be helpful.’ Nell took a cautious step backwards and then froze as Marcus continued. ‘Was Miss Latham about early on? Perhaps taking the air before breakfast?’

‘You think she may have seen the transaction, my lord?’ Being well trained, Nell thought bitterly, Watson did not ask the obvious question: why did Marcus not speak directly to her? ‘To the best of my knowledge Miss Latham did not leave her room between retiring last night and breakfast this morning, but I will enquire.’

She waited until the butler left, then, not giving herself time to think, stalked out from her hiding place. ‘Marcus!’

He turned on his heel to face her, a frown on his face as she said the first thing that came into her head. ‘Do you never stop scowling?’

To her surprise, he laughed, transforming himself from a handsome, hard figure of authority into a charming, and much younger, man. ‘I have much to scowl about, Nell.’

‘Is your father ill again? That rosemary was another threat, was it not?’

‘It was. And, curiously, I believe he is invigorated by the puzzle.’

‘My lord.’ They turned as Watson advanced down the length of the hall. ‘I have spoken to young Potter myself; he was loitering in the kitchen. The man was unknown to him, but he assumed from his dress, speech and general demeanour that he was a groom. A short, wiry individual with brown hair, so the lad says.’

‘Thank you, Watson.’ Marcus put one hand under Nell’s elbow and steered her through the nearest door into a small panelled chamber. ‘Not your dark man, then.’

‘His agent perhaps?’ Nell perched on the edge of a great oak chest, her feet dangling. Sinking into one of the deep chairs would make her feel trapped, she sensed, yet standing around stiffly felt awkward. ‘My lord—Marcus. What have I to do to convince you that I know nothing more of this?’

But she did, of course. She knew of a dark and painful episode in the Carlows’ family past. She knew that Lord Narborough had known her father, had been involved, in some way, with his death. It was certain her family tragedy was linked somehow to whatever lay behind this persecution. Had Lord Narborough gone through life making enemies? Surely it was too much of a coincidence that she had been the messenger. If she told Marcus who she was it would probably help him solve the mystery—and she would be handing him the most perfect motive for her involvement.

‘I am just a milliner,’ she said. ‘I do not know who is doing this. If I could help you, I would.’ As she said it, she almost believed it, crossing her fingers behind her back. It all depends what the letters show, she qualified to herself. Did Lord Narborough simply fail to help her father—or was his role more sinister?

‘You have to let me go home.’ Marcus was staring out of the window, hands thrust into his breeches’ pockets, seemingly paying her no attention. ‘I cannot stay here. I must earn my own living.’

‘Go home to that garret?’ he asked, swinging round. ‘To scrape a living working long hours while your fingers are still nimble and your eyes sharp? And then what? Where will you be in ten years, Nell? Twenty?’

‘I will manage. I must. Thousands of women have to.’ Nell tried to keep the desperation out of her voice, not to listen to the little voice, the one that kept her awake at night, the one that murmured about insecurity and poverty and a slow slide into destitution. You are all alone, it would insist. All alone.

‘There are alternatives,’ Marcus said.

‘Domestic service?’

‘You are an attractive woman. If you were not so thin, not so anxious, you would be a beautiful one.’ There was a note in his voice that reached inside her, a hint of husky desire that twisted a hot ache low in her belly.

‘You suggest I should sell my body?’ she demanded harshly.

‘Find yourself a protector.’

Nell made herself meet his eyes, her chin up. ‘Are you offering me a carte blanche, my lord?’

‘Perhaps.’ He moved closer, almost touching her knees. Nell gripped the edge of the chest and fought with herself.

Marcus Carlow was strong and powerful. He would protect her—for as long as she was his mistress. He would be generous, and if she was prudent, she could save. He was attractive. Oh God, so attractive. And that is why you are giving even a second’s thought to this insanity, she argued with herself. You are discussing selling your body, putting yourself in a man’s power. Ruining yourself.

But she was so tired of being alone, of fighting every day for food and respectability and some semblance of a decent life. ‘Why?’ she demanded. ‘Why me? I thought you had a new mistress.’

‘Not yet.’ Marcus moved a little closer, his thighs pressing against her knees as she perched on the high chest. ‘Why? I wish I knew. I tell myself I do not trust you and yet I read more fear than cunning in your eyes. You are too thin, you throw out no sophisticated lures to attract me—and yet, when I have kissed you, there has been a spark of such fire in you that I am in danger of burning up.’

As she stared back into the intent, dark gaze, her throat tight, her heart banging against her ribs, he nudged his leg between her knees, parting them. And then he was standing between her thighs, the heat of him soaking into her trembling limbs, the scent of his body filling her senses, the breadth of his torso filling her sight.

‘There is a kind of purity about you, Nell,’ he murmured as he lifted his hand to run the back of it down her cheek. She shivered, turning her face against his knuckles, trying to control her breathing as a primitive pulse began to beat where the heat of his body met the aching warmth of hers.

Purity. He thinks me a virgin. I can’t…I want him. Is this so wrong if I want him? But I must tell him.

‘Marcus.’ His hand slid round to cup her chin, turn her face up to him. ‘There is something…I am not a virgin.’

For a long moment he stood quite still, then he flung himself away from her, leaving her shivering with the sudden withdrawal of his heat. ‘Then I was right. You are his mistress.’ There was a curious kind of bitterness in his voice and, keyed up to tell him what had happened, she was thrown off balance.

‘Whose mistress?’ Then she saw what he was thinking. ‘You believe I am his whore? Salterton’s whore.’

‘Don’t use that word.’ Marcus swung round, his face dark with anger. ‘Don’t ever use that word of yourself.’

‘Why not?’ Nell slid off the chest, jarring her heels as she landed on the bare boards. ‘It is what you think, what you would make me, is it not? Or are you too much of a hypocrite to face it? You leap to conclusions, accuse me on no evidence, cannot wait one moment to let me explain—but of course, you are disappointed so you make wild accusations. You want a virgin, don’t you? That’s what men always want, after all.

‘Well, I am not a virgin, so you can go back to your expensive, skilled mistress and make her an offer and enjoy her expertise and her practised tricks. Not as titillating as fear and screams and pain, but I am sure it has its satisfactions.’

‘Nell, for God’s sake!’ Marcus reached for her as she stood there, panting with anger and the terrible relief of pouring it all out at long last. ‘Nell, come here.’

‘No.’ She lashed out at him, hitting his face more by luck than intention. They stared at each other as the sound of the slap echoed against the carved panelling of the little room, his eyes so wide she could see her own tiny reflection in them. ‘No.’

Fear and screams and pain… The words buzzed in his head, more painful than the sting of Nell’s fingers on his cheek or the ache of unsatisfied arousal in his groin. She had been forced? Had the ferocity with which she had fought him in the carriage, the rejection in the Long Gallery, had those been terror and not the sudden recollection that she was betraying another lover?

‘Hell!’ he said out loud into the empty room as the echoes of the slammed door died away. What had he done? But he knew. He had raked up a past that was agony to her. He had offered a sexual relationship when that was the last thing she needed. In his male arrogance he had crowded her with his body, his strength, blocking her escape, reminding her, inevitably, that he had the power to do with her what he wanted.

Marcus strode to the door and then stopped. Nell did not need him pursuing her all over the house. She needed, he was certain, another woman to talk to and there was no one here but strangers she could not trust. As he had shown her she could not trust him.

Nell ran up the stairs, scrubbing at her face as if she could stop the tears by brute force. Damn him! Now he knew what had happened to her and he would despise her for it. It was always the woman’s fault, of course, the woman who was ruined as a result.

By dint of sheer willpower, she stopped crying, got the hiccupping sobs under control and looked around. She was somewhere on the first floor, but in her distress she had missed the turn to the wing where her bedchamber was and now she was lost. The old house rambled like a living organism. Passages led off from corridors, doors might open onto chambers or stairs or more corridors. Small flights of steps appeared for no apparent reason.

At random she opened a door and found herself in a small library. There was a desk in the window, a fire in the grate and a pleasant smell of apple-wood smoke and leather. A book—that would help her compose herself. Nell walked across and began to examine the shelves, taking slow breaths as control returned.

It was a very masculine selection, she decided, opening a copy of the Racing Calendar for 1810 at random, then replacing it. Heavy bound editions of the Classics did not tempt her either. There was a glass-fronted bookcase on one wall. She tried the handle as she peered in. Locked. The books inside did not seem particularly valuable: a row of matching volumes, each with the date in gilt on the spine. Diaries, she supposed.

With a sigh Nell dragged her sodden handkerchief out and blew her nose again.

‘If you want poetry and novels they are in the main library downstairs, Miss Latham,’ said a deep voice behind her.

‘Ah!’ She jumped and spun round. ‘Oh. Lord Narborough. I do apologise, I had no idea this room was occupied, I was just—’

‘Looking for somewhere to hide?’ He put down a book, rose from his deep winged chair and held out a large white handkerchief. ‘Here, take this.’

Beyond trying to pretend nothing was wrong, Nell took it and applied it to what she was certain was her very red nose. ‘Thank you, my lord.’

‘Homesick?’ She shook her head. ‘Marcus?’

‘Yes. He does not trust me and I am afraid we…argue. I have just slapped his face,’ she admitted in a rush.

‘Do him a world of good, I’ve no doubt. Pull the bell, would you be so kind? What we need is a cup of coffee. Now, you sit there, my dear.’

‘But, Lord Narborough, you do not understand.’ And what was she going to tell him, exactly? That his son had offered his protection and she had hesitated for long, betraying minutes before refusing him?

‘Have you got anything to do with that rope or the rosemary at breakfast?’ he asked her abruptly.

‘No!’ Nell bit her lip. ‘I have things I wish to keep secret and Lord Stanegate can tell that. It makes him suspicious. But, I give you my word, my lord, I do not know any more about why you have been sent these mysterious objects than I have said.’

‘Well then, we have no need to speak of it any more. Ah, Andrewes. Coffee and biscuits if you please. And, Andrewes, should anyone—anyone at all—be enquiring for Miss Latham, you believe you have not seen her since breakfast.’

‘Very good, my lord.’

‘Now then.’ He settled back in his chair, steepled his fingers and regarded her benignly. ‘Tell me how to make a hat.’

‘But you cannot want to know that, my lord.’

‘I most certainly do. Have you any idea how much I pay for hats for three ladies in a year?’

‘One hundred guineas?’ Nell hazarded.

‘Nearer three. Now, I want to know what is involved in making a hat. I would like to know where my money goes.’

By the time the gong sounded for luncheon, Nell had forgotten Marcus, her distress, even who the man she was so comfortable with was. They drank coffee, ate all the biscuits; he asked questions about hats, teased her, told her about the latest litter of hound puppies in the stable. She asked about the history of the house and found he was an authority on it.

‘Really? A priest hole?’ she gasped, wide-eyed.

‘A hidden room, certainly, and it was used during the Civil War—we stood for the king, you understand.’ George Carlow regarded her with a smile. ‘You know, you remind me of someone. I wish I could remember who. There’s something when you smile…’

‘Oh.’ Mama. She had always been told that she was the image of her mother, except for her colouring, which was her father’s. If Lord Narborough had been so close to her father, she realized, the realities flooding back, he would have known her mother well also. ‘Listen—wasn’t that the gong for luncheon?’

The elusive memory escaping him, Lord Narborough got to his feet. ‘So it is. Shall we go down?’

Nell stuck to his side on the way downstairs, then took refuge between Verity and Honoria at the table. But Marcus was absent. After half an hour, when she felt physically sick every time the door opened, Honoria put her out of her misery by remarking, ‘It’s too bad of Marcus, going off to Aylesbury like that without stopping to see if there’s anything we want from the shops.’

‘He’s gone to the bank, darling,’ her mother remarked. ‘And then he’s dining with the Wallaces. You cannot expect him to trail round haberdashery counters for you.’

‘Well, if he was going to the Wallaces, he could have taken me,’ Honoria persisted. ‘It is an age since I spoke to Georgina.’

‘I believe it was a last-minute decision to go. He is just dropping in on them to take pot luck,’ Lady Narborough said. ‘We will invite Georgina and Harriet over next week if the weather holds.’

So, Marcus had made an unplanned trip, just to avoid her. Nell shivered, anticipating the look she would see in his eyes next time they met. Pity? Or disgust?

Nell retired early that evening, the puzzle of her feelings for Lord Narborough driving her back to her mother’s box. She liked the man, she trusted him instinctively. Could she be so wrong about him?

The diary lay at the bottom of the box. Nell stood, twisting her hands together for several minutes before she reached in and lifted it out. The red morocco cover was scuffed and dull and a brown pressed flower fell out and crumbled into brittle fragments as she opened it.

Resolutely Nell began to read, the earl’s big handkerchief tight in one hand.

An hour later she laid the book down, dry eyed and drained. In 1795, her father, William Wardale, Earl of Leybourne, had been convicted of the murder by stabbing of Christopher Hebden, Baron Framlingham, in the garden of the Carlow’s London house. He had been found, literally red-handed, by Lord Narborough. The woman he had been having an affair with had been Hebden’s wife, Amanda. And almost worse than anything, her mother had written on the tear-blotched pages that he had been suspected of spying for the French, although that had never been made known publicly.

Somehow that, and the name of his lover, had been kept a secret. He was stripped of his title and his lands by Act of Attainder, meaning her brother, Nathan, could never inherit. And so he was hanged.

Stunned and shaking, now she could see it all laid out so clearly, Nell put the diary back in the box and locked it. No, it was impossible that her unwitting involvement in this was coincidence. Someone had deliberately implicated her in their plot against the Carlows. But why? If her father had been guilty, then he had paid the terrible price for his crimes. His family had all paid it with him. Why should anyone seek to involve her now?

If her father had been innocent, then why not come to her, tell her? It was as though someone wanted revenge on both families.

The clocks began to strike. Midnight. Lord Narborough was often late to bed; she had heard his wife nagging him about it. He might still be awake, and if he was, then she was going to confront him, tell him who she was, demand to know the truth about what had happened.

Before her courage failed, Nell tied her wrapper, put on her slippers, picked up a chamberstick and let herself out into the dark corridor.

There was no light under his door, no sound from within. Frustrated, Nell leaned against the panels feeling absurdly let down. It was foolish to have this sort of conversation at this time of night in any case, shocking to visit a man’s bedchamber at any hour. Much better to speak to him in the morning, she told herself, shivering with cold and reaction.

As she straightened up, there was a sharp noise from the room, the sound of breaking glass. Then silence.

She stared at the door. Perhaps the earl had knocked over a water glass. Or perhaps he was ill, flailing out in the throes of a heart stroke. She could not simply ignore it. The doorknob turned silently under the pressure of her hand as she stepped inside. Nothing, just the sound of heavy breathing from the curtained bed. Then she felt the draft from the window, saw movement from the corner of her eye, spun round. Her candle blew out but there, silhouetted against the faint light, was a lithe figure. A figure she had seen before.

Nell grabbed for him, saw the flash of metal in the gloom and was thrown roughly to one side. She staggered, reached out, found nothing under her groping hands as she fell. She opened her mouth to scream as her head struck something hard and solid. The darkened room was spinning—or was it her? Everything went black.