Читать книгу Regency Society Collection Part 1 - Sarah Mallory - Страница 31

Cristo sat by the window in a chair allowing him good access to the arrangement of the rooms. Eleanor Westbury was late by about twenty minutes, but he had decided to wait just in case some unforeseen difficulty had waylaid her.

He was glad that he had when he saw a figure dressed in deep blue hurrying in the door and, when she tipped her face to look around and her visage was seen beneath her ample summer hat, he knew it to be her.

Standing so that she might see the movement, he waited, though she did not come over immediately, but went to the desk instead and placed a pile of books before a small, efficient-looking man.

The librarian, Cristo guessed. He saw her speak to him for a few moments before traversing the room, picking one book from this shelf and another from the next. He doubted that she truly wished to read such tomes when he noticed one to be on the progress of the burgeoning railways, a book he had already struggled through a few months before.

Still, with an armful of reading material, she had given herself an excuse to wend her way towards the chairs at his end of the room, for there were places here to sit undisturbed and make one’s choice as to what to take home.

‘Lord Cristo! I do hope that we can make this very quick,’ she said as she finally stood before him.

Her voice was exactly as he remembered it, though now she spoke in English, the King’s English, each vowel rounded and proper, a thread of irritation easily heard.

‘Thank you for coming, Lady Dromorne.’

Her whole face blushed bright as their eyes caught and he noticed that her hands shook as she sat down and placed the chosen books in her lap.

‘I cannot stay very long at all, my lord.’

‘Are you recovered from your malade of the other day?’ Damn, he should not have used the French word for illness, he thought, for the frown on her forehead deepened considerably. He regrouped. ‘You look very different …’ Another mistake. He usually prided himself on his tact, and yet here he was like a tongue-tied and obtuse youth.

Fury marred the blueness of her eyes.

‘Different?’ she whispered, the anger in it making her undertone hoarse. ‘If it is the past that you are referring to, I should think that it might be wise to know that I should not hesitate to relate back to your family your own part in our unfortunate meeting, should you choose to be indiscreet, my lord.’

He ignored her rebuke. ‘Why were you there, then? In Paris, at the Château?’ He wanted to add ‘dressed as a whore’, but the rawness of the word in the light of all she had become seemed inappropriate and so he tempered his query.

She looked around, checking the nearness of any listening ears. ‘I was in the city visiting a good friend and I was at the Château Giraudon because of my own foolishness.’

‘You came in with the other women there that evening? Women who were prostitutes.’ He could no longer skirt around the issue.

She nodded. ‘I had heard that the Parisian fashionable set were somewhat … daring in their dress, or their lack of it. I took it to be a truth when we were all bundled inside together. I certainly had no thought to join them.’

‘God.’

‘The brandy, however, was all my own fault and I have not touched a drop of alcohol since.’

‘God,’ he repeated again, and drew his hand through his hair. Not her fault, but his own. He should have seen that she was everything the others were not, should have read the clues with more acumen and aptitude. He was a man paid for uncovering duplicity, after all, and yet he had let himself be duped by a pretty face and an unexpected gift. His conscience pricked sharp. If a man had treated his sister as he had treated Eleanor, he would have killed him.

Cristo suddenly wished he could have spirited her away to some far-off and unreachable location, and one where he could replace the lines of worry on her forehead with laughter and ease.

He was surprised how very much he wanted that.

Yet still there were unanswered questions! ‘There was a letter left in the folds of the bed-coverings that morning when you left. I presume it was your doing?’

‘It was.’

‘Had you read the missive?’

‘The envelope was sealed in wax. I would hardly break my dead grandfather’s trust.’

‘Your grandfather?’

‘I was Eleanor Bracewell-Lowen before marrying Martin Westbury, the Earl of Dromorne. Nigel was my brother.’

Her short, sharp nod encompassed a wealth of censure and the history between them solidified again. Every time he met this lady his world spun into an unbidden and opposite direction.

Nigel Bracewell-Lowen’s blood dripping onto his hands as he tried to stem the flow from the wound in his throat, the empty brandy bottle before them denoting another evening of unbridled excess. Wild youth and wilder morals. Consequences had had no credence in the riotous foolhardy waywardness of Cristo’s pubescence. Until Nigel!

‘My father killed himself the following year.’ Her voice again, layering guilt. ‘So it is well that you know that you have already taken the full measure of happiness from my family.’

He shook his head, at a loss for words as he reached out for her hand, and in that second he knew that he had just made the second biggest mistake of his life.

It was like the newfangled electricity tingling up his arm and pouring into the very depths of his soul, filling it up with need, lust, urgency and spineless warmth.

Snatching his fingers away, he looked straight at her. The blood had run from her face, the blush now a pale and ghostly white as the books on her lap fell to the floor.

Everyone looked. The librarian with his thick spectacles, the two women over by the door, and the group of men who perused the latest daily newssheets! Yet instead of bending to pick up the volumes, he could do nothing save gaze back at her and remember.

Remember the way she had felt beneath him, lying on burgundy velvet as he had teased her into response. Remember her wetness and abandon and seduction.

‘Can I help you, sir?’ The man at the desk was now right beside him. ‘Are you quite well, Lady Dromorne?’

Cristo had to give Eleanor her due as she smiled and turned to the librarian, her voice husky.

‘I am all right, thank you, Mr Jones. This gentleman was just asking me about the lending system here. He is new to London and it seems that he may want to join.’

The librarian’s face brightened considerably.

‘If you will follow me to the desk then, sir, I would be pleased to show you the details.’

Cristo stood, just as Eleanor did, her wedding ring catching the light when she straightened her bonnet. Further and further away from the woman in Paris, the fetters of responsibility and obligation chained across feeling. Married. Happily.

He could do nothing save stand and watch her leave, and the hand with which he had touched her lay fisted tight in the pocket of his jacket, fingers curled around self-reproach.

She should not have gone, should not have met him alone or allowed him to touch her, because now blackmail was the very least of her worries.

Leaning back against the seat beneath the trees in one corner of Hyde Park, she liked the way summer crept into the shadows. Misty almost, overlaid with the dust of sunshine. Her heart beat with a rhythm she had felt only once before and she pressed down hard on the sensation, needing this small time to recover her wits.

Forgotten. Alive. Decadent. Intemperate.

Martin’s age and impotence had been the one reason that she had accepted his proposal of marriage and the core of her contentment with him had been unquestioned until today.

Until Cristo Wellingham’s fingers had unleashed a feeling in her body that was undeniable. Like water to a desert, unfolding into life, again, unbidden, and the crouching chaos ready to strike just as it had before.

Well, she could not let it!

Martin preferred the quiet life and the unexpected was not to be encouraged. ‘A peaceful life is a happy life,’ he was fond of saying, such a sentiment appealing after the débâcle in Paris. Her hands threaded themselves through the supple leather strap of her reticule, tying knots with her fingers. She did not catch the eye of a single person walking by, but sat very still, summoning calm.

‘Lady Dromorne?’ The question came quietly; looking up, Eleanor saw Lady Beatrice-Maude Wellingham had stopped before her.

Smoothing out the crinkles in her gown, Eleanor tucked back her hair before standing. She knew Beatrice-Maude Wellingham only slightly and when the woman dismissed her maid to a respectable distance worry blossomed.

‘How fortunate to find you here, Lady Dromorne, for there is a small matter that I wish to speak to you about that has been rather a worry to me.’

Eleanor indicated the seat next to her and the other sat as she did. ‘I hope, then, that I might be of assistance.’

‘It is a matter pertaining to my brother-in-law, Cristo Wellingham.’

The name lay between them like an unsheathed dagger, sharp and brutal, and Eleanor was lost for a reply.

‘As you may be aware, he has returned home after many years abroad and as a family we would very much like him to stay in England. It is in that respect that I am seeking your counsel.’

‘My counsel?’ The words were choked out, almost inaudible, and Beatrice-Maude Wellingham looked at her strangely.

‘Perhaps this is not a good time to worry you with anything,’ she began. ‘If your health is fragile after the theatre …’

‘No, I am perfectly recovered.’

Eleanor hated the panic she could hear on the edge of denial and the question she could determine in the eyes of the one opposite.

‘Very well. It is just that it has come to my notice that you may have a vested interest in seeing my brother-in-law unsettled here in England.’

‘Your notice?’ Everything she had feared was coming about. Had Cristo Wellingham confided the truth of her predicament to his family?

‘Through various sources, you understand, and most of them quite reliable.’ The woman opposite seemed to have no idea of the horror that was fast consuming Eleanor. ‘I realize, of course, that the whole predicament may be rather difficult for you, but hoped that charity might persuade you to see the facts as we see them.’

‘As you see them?’

‘Many years have since passed and as his crime was only one of passion …’

Only one of passion!

Eleanor had had quite enough and she stood. ‘I am not certain why you have brought this to my attention, Lady Beatrice-Maude, but I would prefer it if you would leave! The truth of my relations with your brother-in-law is something I do not wish to discuss and if he is adamant about ruining my reputation, then rest assured I shall fight him until the very last breath I take. I have my daughter to consider, after all, and any of his defamations of my character will be strongly denied in any forum you might name. I might add that the amount of my husband’s money is endless and dragging any matter through the law courts would be prohibitively expensive.’

‘His defamations?’ Beatrice-Maude looked more than shocked. ‘It was not his defamations I was referring to, Lady Dromorne, but your own. I know that he was involved in the scandal concerning the death of your brother and I thought to smooth the waters, so to speak, and find a resolution to such a loss.’

‘My brother?’ The world turned again ‘You are speaking of Nigel?’

‘Indeed. It was said at the time that Cristo was responsible for the accident.’

‘I see.’ Eleanor swallowed back bile. My God, she had, in her fear, read the whole situation completely wrongly, and given away things that she had admitted to no one else. Her fingers squeezed together. Beatrice-Maude Wellingham was one of the cleverest women in London. The cleverest, were rumour to be believed, and she had just laid the bare facts of the relationship right into her hands.

She hardly knew what to do next; did not trust herself with any other utterance, the horrible realisation of exposing everything a potent reason to keep her mouth firmly closed.

Finally Beatrice-Maude spoke. ‘I think I should probably take my leave.’

‘I think that you probably should.’ Eleanor could no longer cope with pretending manners. Sparring with two Wellinghams in one day was more than enough.

She watched as the older woman turned, though she did not walk away immediately.

‘You may count on my saying nothing of this matter to anyone, Lady Dromorne.’ Her words were softly said, as if she was cognisant of the importance of care.

‘A service that I would thank you for, Lady Beatrice-Maude.’ Eleanor did not stand, but waited till the footsteps receded before looking up. The wind was heightening, buffeting itself against the leaves and sending a few of them scattering in the air.

She held herself tight with silence, the mute reserve helping her to come to terms with the gravity of her mistake.

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

Could she trust the woman? Would Beatrice-Maude Wellingham be true to her word of maintaining her silence? The thicker tie of blood would make things more difficult and, looking at the family group the other evening, she had detected a strong sense of solidarity. Too strong?

When Martin called her as she arrived home some half an hour later, she pinched colour into her cheeks before walking out to greet him, for none of this could ever be his problem and his health was fragile. Slipping her hand into his, she kissed him on the cheek, leaning against the handles of his chair for balance.

‘When will Florencia be home?’ he asked her. ‘Her governess said that she was not here yet.’

‘Soon, I think. Your sister has taken her out for the afternoon.’

‘You look pale.’

‘I sat in the park on the way home from the reading room and it was a little chilly. Lady Beatrice-Maude Wellingham stopped to ask how we were.’

How easy it was to stretch out the truth when all your life depended on it, Eleanor thought.

His hand squeezed her own. ‘Sometimes I worry that I have made your life very dull, my dear.’

She stopped him simply by raising her hand to his face. The stubble of an eight-hour shadow scratched and she noticed the way his skin had shrunk around the bones of his cheek.

Thinner. Older. More tired.

His fingers interlaced with hers. A good and honourable man, and a long way from the husband that she would have struggled to find had the true enormity of her predicament ever become public. No, she was the most fortunate of women and if the sacrifice of marital intimacy was the payment for respectability, then far be it from her to wish it different.

As he continued to stroke the back of her hand, however, worrying her skin with a dull repetition, she wondered how it was possible for Cristo Wellingham’s simple touch to engender a reaction that had raced through all her body.

‘I would like to hold a party, Taris, to celebrate Cristo’s return.’ Beatrice entwined her feet through those of her husband’s as they lay in bed later that night. His warmth was welcomed.

She felt his chest rise in laughter, the darkness of the room obscuring any expression. ‘I am not certain he would welcome such a thing. I know I should not. Besides, as yet we have no real idea of his motives for returning to England. He may be here to slander the name of Wellingham yet again and will leave as soon as he gets bored by the uneventful routine of everyday life.’

‘He is your brother, Taris. Whatever happens, you will need to mend your fences or face a lifetime of regret.’

‘Asher would rather erect higher barriers and push him out altogether. The sins in his past have not been simple and when he left last time the arguments between our father and Cristo were, at the least, vitriolic. He was a wild youth, I suppose, with few boundaries, though Ashborne always kept a certain distance from him, which probably made matters worse.’

Beatrice broke in with her own understanding of the matter. ‘Yet he is not an evil man, or even a bad one.’

His smile curved into the tips of her fingers. ‘You can tell so quickly?’

‘I was married to a miscreant for years. One gets a feel for them.’

‘Lord, Bea. Sometimes your wit is careless …’

Her laughter drifted across the room. ‘Only with you, Taris,’ she said softly, her nails running across the bare skin of his arm, before she returned to the matter in hand. ‘It could be a weekend house party down at Beaconsmeade. Not a huge affair, but a small one.’

‘Who would you invite?’

Bea felt her heart begin to race a little faster, for deception was something she had always been very bad at. ‘The family, of course, and a few other friends and acquaintances.’

His palm took her wrist, measuring the beat. ‘Acquaintances?’ There was a tone in the word demanding truth.

‘I saw Lady Dromorne today in the park, Taris. Did your brother ever mention her to you?’

Taris pushed back his pillow. ‘Eleanor Westbury? In what way?’

‘Had he been … interested in her at all?’

‘Did she say that he had been?’

‘No.’ Even to her own ears the denial was too quick. Too forced.

‘There was that fracas many years ago with Nigel Bracewell-Lowen that many insisted was a result of Cristo’s antics, though of course such an accusation was never proved. I do not think that she would welcome your invitation. Besides, she is a married woman and Martin Westbury rarely ventures out.’

Bea nodded. Reason pointed to a happy union, but her own intuition was telling her something very different. Lady Dromorne had fainted when she had seen Cristo at the theatre and this afternoon Prudence Tomlinson had mentioned she had seen them touching hands in the public reading room.

Bea had squashed this rumour by swearing her brother-in-law to be at Beaconsmeade for the day and Prue had laughed at her own silly imagination, glad for the chance to clear up such a misunderstanding. Yet the meeting with Eleanor had made Bea curious.

How could Cristo’s revelations be responsible for ruining Eleanor’s reputation? Her mind ran further afield to the age and infirmity of the husband. There was a daughter, too, of about five, if memory served her well. She wondered how such an unwell and aged man had been able to father a child. Another thought charged in over the top of that one and Beatrice took in a breath. What if Martin Westbury was not the true parent of Eleanor’s daughter? Cursing her fertile imagination, she listened again to her husband.

‘If you are bent on repairing the relations between our family, perhaps an invitation to the two younger Westbury nieces might be a better way to do it. They are reputed to be sensible girls. Ask some of the young bucks about Beaconsmeade to even out the numbers.’

Beatrice smiled tightly. Sense told her to leave the matter entirely, yet there was sadness in the pale blue eyes of Eleanor Westbury that was undeniably interlaced with her brother-in-law. The small opportunity to play out the conclusion of something important could not hurt, could it?

She snuggled down into the arms of her husband and pulled the light cover across them, his heavy masculinity treasured and safe.

‘I love you, Taris.’

He laughed as he turned her over, and covered the soft desire in her body with his own particular molten heat.

‘Show me.’