by Anne Stuart
Page 49
Author: Anne Stuart
“Well, today she is Miss Harriman. ”
“And her sister?” Charles demanded, barely containing his temper.
Some good could come of all this, Rohan thought wearily. He smiled at Charles. “I think I might have her after all. Miss Harriman makes the most delicious noises when she comes, and it would be interesting if Miss Lydia did the same. ”
He barely got to finish the sentence before Charles flew across the desk, crashing onto the floor with him.
It was what he needed. A violent outlet, to hit and be hit. The battle was short and immediate, punctuated by grunts and curses seldom heard outside a stable. They were too-well matched, and eventually they both lay on their backs, bloody and bruised and struggling to catch their breath.
“Hardly a fair fight,” Rohan wheezed. “I’m still recovering from a duel. ”
“You bastard,” Reading said, his chest going up and down. “You touch Miss Lydia and I’ll kill you. ”
“Perhaps, dear Charles, I wouldn’t mind,” he said, and then laughed at himself. “My, how maudlin I’m being. ” He managed to sit up, groaning. “There’s only one way to keep her safe from me, Charles. Marry the chit. If you’re worried about money I suggest that is a mere trifle in the face of nauseating true love. I expect you will find a way to manage things. ”
Charles stared at him. “Never in all my life have I ever heard you advocate marriage. ”
“Of course you have! I thought Etienne should marry Miss Harriman. He thought he should marry Miss Lydia. If he does, I get her. And I don’t think you want that, do you?”
Charles sprung to his feet with an agility Rohan could envy. “I won’t let you touch her. ”
“So you said. Well, do something about it. ”
Charles slammed out of the office. With luck he wouldn’t realize he’d been manipulated until he arrived at the château. Any earlier and he might turn around and come back. He expected one look at Lydia Harriman’s exquisite face and tear-filled blue eyes and the last amount of his reserve would leave.
Love was a tedious thing, he thought wearily, reaching for his ale. He was heartily glad he was above such things. He’d been ridiculously sentimental last night, but then physical pleasure on that level caused its own kind of madness. Amour fou, the French called it. Mad, passionate love, the kind that drove one crazy and made no sense.
He was very lucky he was able to put all that aside. It was going to be difficult, handing Elinor the money to get away. And whether she’d go without her sister was always a question, but he expected, once she was certain Lydia was well taken care of, that she would be more than happy to quit these shores. Secure in the knowledge that she’d be in the one place he couldn’t reach her.
Sanity would hit her as it had hit him, and her disgust would be total. Anything would be better than fancying herself in love with him. Love was the one thing he couldn’t tolerate.
Perhaps he could count on Charles to make the arrangements, once he realized that Rohan had no real interest in his virgin bride. In the meantime he needed to stay away from Elinor. Amour fou was for the young and resilient.
Not for the old and jaded, who knew there were no such things as happy endings, true love, or the dangerous, deceptive peace that had swept over him last night.
Best to dispense with it before it crumbled beneath his touch. She would be far better off without him. His hands and his soul were stained with too much blood, and there was no washing them clean.
He leaned back in his chair. In the distance he could hear the sounds of the Revels, going full tilt. And he closed his eyes and began to curse.
Elinor backed away from the door. “You can’t treat her like one of your whores,” Charles had said.
And his devastating reply: “That is exactly what I did, and she liked it enormously…one night’s tup shouldn’t equal a lifetime of support. ”
She listened until she could listen no more, each word like a sharp stone thrown at her, until she felt as if she were dying from the constant, cruel blows. She backed away, too numb to cry, until she knocked into someone.
She turned, ready to snarl at the first hapless libertine she saw, but instead found herself looking up into her cousin’s handsome face.
“Cousin Marcus,” she said, astonished. “What are you doing here?”
He was still wearing his cloak, and he gestured for her to move away with him, to a deserted alcove far out of hearing. “Dear Elinor, I’ve come for you. I know that Rohan has some kind of hold over you, and I thought to help you escape. I had servants smuggle in a cloak and shoes for you last night, and my carriage was waiting, but you never arrived. ”
“That was you?” she said, disoriented.
“Of course it was me,” he said. “Why else would I be at such a foul place? Do you know your host murdered a man last night?”
The blood on his shirt, on her nightgown. “He did?”
“It was the pretext of a duel, but it was more wholesale slaughter. The poor man was no match for him, he just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Rohan was so angry he wanted to kill someone, and that poor man was the first one he came to. ”
And she was the second, she thought miserably. She looked up at her handsome cousin and his Harriman Nose. “I would be most grateful if you would take me out of here,” she said in a low voice.
“I shall indeed, cousin. I have several things I wish to tell you that you might find interesting, plus a proposal you might not find unappealing. ”
“I need to see my sister,” she said, trying to control the utter misery in her voice.
“Of course you do, Cousin Elinor. We’ll discuss that. Come with me. ”
She had Rohan’s fur-trimmed cloak with the matching muff. She would have preferred the rough one, but that was gone. She pulled the new one around her neck. “Yes,” she said, and put her hand in his. “Yes. ”
23
Lydia sat by the window, staring out at the gray day. She’d trained herself not to cry. It always grieved Elinor so, and besides, it did no good. It didn’t change things. It wouldn’t bring Nanny Maude back, it wouldn’t erase the fire and her mother’s agonizing death. It wouldn’t even give her back her sister when she needed her. Tears were a waste of time, and she had no intention of indulging herself, not when Mrs. Clarke and Janet were so good to her.
And it wasn’t as if she was actually worried about Elinor. Lord Rohan couldn’t keep his eyes off her, and despite his swagger, she knew he wouldn’t hurt her. It was too much to hope for a good outcome, but if Elinor could claim even a small portion of happiness then Lydia could only be glad for her.
Though why she should think happiness would come from a rakehell like Rohan was quite ridiculous. If she had any common sense she’d be terrified for her sister and her future.
But she had something better than common sense. She had her almost infallible instincts when it came to people. She knew who were the good ones and who were the bad. Not by society’s rules—if you went by them you’d know that Rohan was despicable and the man she had once thought was her father to be stalwart and upstanding.
That man had abandoned his real daughter as well as his false one, and while Lydia never held grudges, she knew that a truly good man wouldn’t turn a child away no matter how dubious the parentage. Rohan wouldn’t have.
No, Rohan wouldn’t abandon, wouldn’t force. And Lydia knew that Elinor was more than a match for him, or she never would have left Paris peaceably. They would have had to carry her out screaming. For a few short weeks, or even days, Elinor was going to have the novel experience of being charmed, courted, even seduced. She was going to have to face the fact that she was beautiful, outside as well as in. And if her virtue was the cost it would be her own decision, and well worth it. Elinor wouldn’t give up anything she didn’t truly want to.
And if truth be told, s
he wasn’t certain that Elinor was still a maid. Oh, she knew Elinor would never have given herself willingly to anyone in the past, but there were secrets, whispers and lies that had moved beneath the surface of their small family. Angry comments Nanny Maude had made, the grief and loss on Elinor’s face when she’d disappeared for a time when they were younger. Whatever had happened, it had been bad, and for her sister’s sake Lydia had chosen not to pry.
She’d instinctively known who to blame. The one person she could never forgive, the one person who had doted on her to the exclusion of everyone else. The author of their destruction. Their mother.
Somewhere along the way Lady Caroline had lost her right to the compassion Lydia held for everyone else. Not for her feckless ways and the disaster she’d drawn them into. But for her sister’s sake. Lydia could overlook anything, forgive anything. Except when it came to Elinor.
If she was wrong about Rohan, if he hurt Nell, she would find a way to make him pay. But she wasn’t wrong. She had seen him look at her when he thought no one was watching. Bad man or not, Lydia had faith in him. He might be the King of Hell, but there was redemption slipping past the brimstone.
And Lydia could do her part. She’d made up her mind, and indeed, as far as sacrifice went, it was little indeed. She’d learned long ago that bright pretty things were all well and good, but settling for dull and sturdy was the wise, the generous thing to do.
Not that anyone would consider Etienne de Giverney dull and sturdy. He was a very handsome man. A little lacking in humor, perhaps. A bit stiff, and most of his understanding had gone into his study of medicine and little into the rest of the world. There was something else beneath the surface, something she didn’t quite understand. It disturbed her, but she decided that was simply her own reluctance. A reluctance she had every intention of ignoring.
Which would be no problem. Her mother had been the same, and she knew just how to deal with it, fashioning conversation around them, rearranging life and the past to best flatter them. Etienne saw her as a pretty ornament to his life, and he would treat her well, never hit her, give her children and a secure life.
