The Earl's Countess of Convenience

by Marguerite Kaye

  There was a long silence. She could not read his expression, but she could tell from the way he kept it so very carefully empty that he was thinking hard. When he spoke again, his tone was icy. ‘Very well, then, if that is what it takes to make you see sense, then I’ll tell you. There was a woman. Her name was Claudia Palermo. She was my lover. Because she was my lover, she died.’

  ‘No! Oh, Alexander...’ She made to rise, all her instincts to comfort him, but he put his hands out to ward her off.

  ‘I met Claudia at a party at the Embassy in Madrid. She was a widow, her husband had been a senior officer in the army. She was sophisticated, beautiful and unattached. We became lovers. A temporary affaire, it meant nothing—in those circles, where people move around all the time, it happens all the time. I assumed she felt the same. I didn’t ask. My last assignment had been—it had been one of the tougher ones. I was simply relieved that it was over and happy to forget myself for a while.

  ‘I shouldn’t have forgotten though, that was my biggest mistake, to forget who I am, what I am.’ Alexander leaned his head back on the sofa, staring up at the ceiling. ‘It wasn’t over, that last assignment, and I had stayed too long in Madrid. They came looking for me, and they found her instead, in my rooms. They left me a note. They promised to free her if I surrendered myself. I knew that regime would never honour such a promise, I knew that they would—that she might already be dead. I should have made good my escape but I decided to try to rescue her. I thought myself invincible, you see. I always had been before.’

  Speechless with horror, Eloise waited as Alexander continued to stare bleakly up at the ceiling, his throat working, his hands clenched. ‘I tracked them down. I found her, and I almost succeeded,’ he concluded roughly, ‘I almost got her out alive.’

  Tears trickled down her cheeks, but Alexander, now looking over at her, remained stony-faced. ‘You loved her.’ Eloise’s voice cracked.

  ‘No, I didn’t love her. I fooled myself into thinking that she felt as little for me as I did her, that it was a fling, nothing more. Looking back, the signs were there, only I chose to ignore them. And she—Claudia—she knew, I think, that if she let me see that she cared, I’d end it.’

  His voice cracked. He cleared his throat. ‘But that is no excuse. If I’d ended it sooner she would not have been there. If I’d cared enough to worry about her, she wouldn’t have been there. If I’d left sooner—but I didn’t, and she was there. She died because she loved me. I am responsible for her death and for the fiasco that followed, all the work I’d done in the months before, completely undone. And Claudia dead.’

  ‘What happened to her, Alexander?’

  ‘She was caught in crossfire.’

  ‘And her family?’

  ‘There was a sister, that is all I know, who lived in Seville. To this day, I doubt she knows the truth. I don’t know where Claudia was buried, they wouldn’t tell me. I don’t know what tale they put about in Madrid to explain her disappearance, but I’d guess it was an elopement, since the pair of us left the city at the same time. I have asked and asked, but it’s useless. I won’t ever know now.’

  ‘So that is what Sir Marcus meant when he said you’d made a mistake?’

  ‘A gross error of judgement. It won’t happen again.’

  ‘I’m so very sorry. I don’t know what to say. I can’t imagine...’

  ‘I don’t want you to imagine,’ Alexander snapped. ‘It is bad enough you know—what you have surmised. You think you know me, but you don’t. My work is dangerous, Eloise. I could be killed in action. I could be captured, executed, or simply locked away for life. I might disappear off the face of the earth one day and you will never know what happened to me any more than Claudia’s people will ever know what happened to her.’

  ‘No, no, it’s different for us. We are married. They would tell me—surely Sir Marcus...’

  ‘Such delicate matters of international politics are kept tightly under wraps. You would receive a bland official communiqué informing you of my demise—“in the performance of my duties”—nothing more. I warned you before we married not to become too fond of me, for your own good. But it is for mine too. Do you think I want to have you on my conscience when I’m making life-or-death decisions?’

  ‘No, of course I don’t. I didn’t mean to tell you, I wanted only to...’

  ‘You cannot love me, Eloise. Rid yourself of the notion while I am away, for both our sakes.’

  ‘Please, don’t go just yet, Alexander. I need time to think, to...’

  ‘There is nothing to think about. The decision is made.’ In the distance, the front doorbell peeled. ‘Are you expecting anyone?’

  ‘No. Whoever it is, Wiggins will deal with it.’ Eloise searched frantically for her handkerchief, determined not to break down. A soft tap on the library door made them both jump. ‘What is it, Wiggins? Tell whoever it is that we are otherwise engaged.’

  ‘It is the Dowager Countess, your mother, my lord. I have taken the liberty of showing her to the drawing room and ordering tea.’

  ‘Your mother is here!’ Eloise exclaimed. ‘What is your mother doing here?’

  Alexander looked as confounded as she. ‘I have no idea.’

  ‘But what are you going to say to her? Why must she turn up without notice today of all days!’

  Belatedly realising that Alexander was standing stock still, Eloise pulled herself together. Now was not the time for hysterics. His mother was here. She was going to have to find a way to put aside her own feelings and the last awful hour and support him through what could only be a traumatic conversation. ‘At least Wiggins had the sense to serve her tea,’ she said, getting to her feet and quickly checking her reflection. ‘Despite everything that has happened, we need to put on a united front. Would you like me to go ahead and introduce myself? It would give you a little time to think—to prepare yourself.’

  ‘I’ve had more than enough time to think. But you are quite naturally upset. I can’t expect you to...’

  ‘I am absolutely fine.’ She smiled up at him in what she hoped was a reassuring manner. ‘Where else would the new Countess of Fearnoch be but at her husband’s side when he meets his mother for the first time after their nuptials?’

  ‘Thank you,’ he said gruffly. ‘I don’t deserve you.’

  ‘Of course you do.’ He wanted her by his side. Despite everything that had just passed between them, Eloise’s foolish heart leapt as she tucked her hand into her husband’s arm.

  * * *

  ‘Alexander. Please excuse my calling without giving you due notice. I have been staying with a friend in Kent. Your letter was forwarded to me there, and I thought I would take the opportunity to spare you the long journey to Lancashire.’

  The Dowager Lady Constance Fearnoch was a very attractive woman. In her late fifties, by Eloise’s calculations, she had a figure that many females twenty years younger would envy and which was complemented by a simple gown of cream-and-coffee-striped cotton. There was no grey in her hair, which was the same very dark brown as Alexander’s, and the fretwork of lines at the corners of her eyes did not detract from their rather unusual almond shape.

  Alexander bowed over her hand. ‘This is Eloise, my wife, Mother.’

  The Dowager studied Eloise with cool detachment. ‘How do you do.’

  ‘It is a pleasure to meet you at last, my lady.’

  ‘You have not rested on your laurels. You have made some changes here already, I see.’

  ‘A few.’

  ‘Footmen with unpowdered hair at Fearnoch House. Your father will be turning in his grave, Alexander.’

  ‘So he’s dead, then?’

  ‘What do you mean? Of course he is dead. As is your brother, else we would not be sitting here.’

  ‘Mother. I know—have known for years—that, whoever my father is, he is not the Si
xth Earl.’

  Lady Constance set her teacup down with a clatter. ‘What on earth do you mean by that?’

  ‘I know that I am not legitimate.’

  ‘You know?’ Lady Constance looked quite bewildered.

  ‘Truth be told, I’m glad I’m not the Earl’s son. I wanted to talk to you about it, not to blame you or to cause you pain, but simply to hear your side of the story.’

  ‘But why do you—after all this time...?’

  ‘We have my new wife to thank for making me look at things differently,’ Alexander said, taking Eloise’s hand. ‘It was she who made me see that I have judged you very harshly.’

  ‘I doubt you can judge me any more harshly than I do myself.’ Lady Constance smoothed out the skirts of her gown, making an effort to regain her composure. ‘I presumed that your proposed visit was a mere formality, to introduce me to your wife. I did not expect...’

  ‘You’ve had a shock. I’m so sorry. Would you like me to pour you another cup of tea?’

  ‘Tea! A sherry would be more appropriate. No, Lady Fearnoch, do not put yourself to the trouble,’ she added hastily as Eloise made to rise. ‘I was not serious. Not wholly serious. May I ask, Alexander, what has convinced you that your father is not your father?’

  ‘It is the only explanation for the way I was treated by all three of you—you, the Earl, Walter. Not to mention the sudden and significant change to the Earl’s will in 1802, to your detriment.’

  ‘Yes.’ Lady Constance smiled tightly. ‘I should have anticipated that he would seek to punish me from beyond the grave. While he was alive, he was forced to keep me here in the style which I had been raised to expect for propriety’s sake, but after he was dead, it was another matter. Walter stepped into the breach to prevent the world from speculating what heinous crime I had committed to make my husband leave his widow a pauper. They would have come to the same conclusion as you did, Alexander, that I had treated him to a taste of his own medicine. But they, like you, would have been wrong. I didn’t.’

  Confused, Eloise turned to Alexander, wondering if she had misunderstood this unexpected outburst, but he was focused wholly on his mother. ‘You’re claiming you were not unfaithful to the Earl?’

  ‘Not claiming, asserting a fact.’ Lady Constance reached over to touch her son, then changed her mind. ‘You are the second son of the Sixth Earl. I was not unfaithful to my husband. But—he thought I was.’

  ‘Why would he think that?’

  ‘Because I told him so.’

  * * *

  Alexander stared at his mother, trying to digest the bombshell she had just uttered, but he couldn’t. The man he was so certain was not his father, was his father? But his mother had told him he wasn’t? ‘I’m sorry, but what you said makes no sense whatsoever.’

  He waited for her to agree with him. Instead, she asked Eloise if it would be too much trouble for her to have that sherry, after all, and when Eloise poured her a drink from the decanter, his mother downed it in one gulp. What the hell was she having to brace herself to tell him? Alexander had imagined any number of scenarios when he’d first decided to confront his mother, but none of them included this thunderbolt.

  ‘Thank you. I do not usually imbibe at such an early hour, but I did not expect—to be honest, I never expected to have this conversation at all. We have not been close. That is entirely my fault. I will spare you any claims to unrequited maternal affection. After what I did to you, I deserve none and expect none.’ His mother frowned down at her hands. She was not wearing her wedding ring. ‘But now we are having this conversation, and you wish me to explain. I am not sure where to begin. How aware are you of your father’s reputation and standards of behaviour, or rather lack of them?’

  His father! ‘If you mean the Earl, sufficient to know that you must have been miserable.’

  ‘Oh, I went into the marriage with my eyes relatively wide open,’ she said with a grim little smile. ‘It was an arranged match, of course. Your father, like the Fearnoch Earls before him, was required to marry before he was thirty. He was twenty-eight to my sixteen, and already well established in his ways. I come from good stock, but my family was rather down on its luck. Marriage would make me a countess, a rich one. My husband’s philandering was a small price to pay. Or so I thought. I am sorry to have to subject you to this, Lady Fearnoch, it is a rather sordid tale.’

  ‘Please call me Eloise. Anything that concerns Alexander, concerns me.’

  Lady Constance smiled faintly. ‘That is much to your credit, my dear, and my son’s good fortune. I will be as brief as I can. Needless to say, I discovered I had to tolerate a great deal more than philandering from my husband. I did not love him any more than he loved me, but I had expected to be treated with dignity and respect. I was instead treated with contempt, and being young and strong-willed, I objected. My protests were not well received.’

  Alexander had expected this, but it was a very different matter to hear directly from the sufferer of her suffering. His hands curled into fists. ‘He beat you.’

  His mother made a helpless gesture. ‘He would not tolerate what he called insubordination.’

  ‘I remember.’

  ‘Do you?’ His mother paled. ‘I hoped—you were only five, I hoped you would not recollect too much of that time.’

  ‘I didn’t. Not properly. Not until I came to live here. But we were talking of you, before I was born.’

  ‘Yes. It was when Walter was weaned, that was when the real trouble started. That was when your father started to—to teach him the Fearnoch ways, mould him into a chip off the old block, so to speak,’ she said through clenched teeth. ‘I tried to protect my son, you must not think I didn’t try to intervene, Alexander, but—I could bear what he did to me, but when he started punishing my child for what he called my pernicious influence—I gave in. By the time you were born, Walter was eight and long lost to me, set on a course that I couldn’t rescue him from. A course I was determined not to allow you to follow.’

  His mother was searching in her reticule. Anticipating her needs, Eloise handed her a handkerchief, twining her fingers back around his when she sat back down.

  ‘You were a very different little boy from Walter,’ his mother continued, dabbing at her eyes. ‘Walter had always run to his father, always preferred his father, but you were mine. I did my best to keep him from you, but it was no good. It’s a tried-and-tested process, the making of a Fearnoch man. Nothing and no one must get in the way. But I was determined to save you.’

  He had never seen his mother like this. He had rarely seen her show any emotion. Strong-willed, she’d called herself. That was an understatement.

  ‘You were like me,’ she said, smiling over at him as if she’d read his thoughts. ‘You had a will of your own from a very early age. It cost you so dear in those early days. I couldn’t bear the thought of him breaking you. You would not be as malleable as Walter, but I couldn’t take the chance, Alexander. I had to get you away from him. He wouldn’t hear of sending you to school, so I told him the only thing I could think of that would be guaranteed to cut the tie. I told him that you were not his son. He was surprisingly easy to convince, you were so very different in nature from your brother. But Walter was your brother, Alexander, and my husband was your father.’

  How many more revelations would this day bring? He felt as if his world had been turned inside out as well as upside down. ‘Are you certain?’ Alexander asked, somewhat ridiculously.

  ‘I think if anyone would know it would be me! I can see this is not what you want to hear, but there is absolutely no doubt.’

  He swore under his breath. ‘So you didn’t abandon me, you sacrificed me in order to protect me, at enormous cost to yourself.’

  ‘I take solace from seeing the honourable man you have become. You are so independent of spirit, you might have forged your own path despit
e your father’s best efforts, but it was a risk I could not take. I gave you up, but it was a price worth paying, looking at you now.’

  ‘But after—when he died—there was nothing to stop you putting me straight with regard to your behaviour. We could have been reconciled.’

  She flinched. ‘Firstly, I didn’t want you to feel guilty in any way about my situation. I chose to act as I did willingly, and would do so again. Secondly, I felt I had forfeited the right to play any part in your life. That is not to say I didn’t monitor your progress keenly from afar. I was forced to do so by subterfuge. I was forbidden all contact with you at school, but there was a sympathetic master, a friend of a friend. He told me you were a clever boy, and a popular one.’

  ‘But afterwards, Mother. When the Earl—when my father died...’

  ‘What would I have said to you, Alexander? Forgive me for a lifetime’s neglect, but it was for your own good?’

  ‘You made an enormous sacrifice for me.’

  ‘Do not make a martyr of me. I made my bed and I had to lie in it.’

  ‘You gave him your life, you sacrificed two children to him, and he repaid you with a pittance.’

  ‘That was wrong of him, but it was very wrong of you to marry in order to change matters. Excuse me, Lady Fearnoch—Eloise—but I was very angry with Alexander when he told me that he was getting married in order to make my life more comfortable. A marriage made for any other reason than true affection and esteem is bound to be miserable. Though we’ve only just met, it’s plain to me that I need not have worried.’

  ‘Your son is the most honourable, the most—I could not be more—you should be very proud of him, Lady Constance.’ Eloise got to her feet. It was obvious to Alexander that she was overcome with emotion, though she held out her hand, smiling warmly at his mother. ‘If you’ll excuse me, I will leave you alone to catch up. I’m sure you have a great deal to talk about.’

  * * *

  Headed for her favourite spot at the end of the garden, Eloise was confronted with a newly constructed tree house. A narrow, wooden spiral staircase snaked its way around the trunk of the plane tree, incorporating some of the broader branches for support. Entranced, she climbed the stairs, noting that whoever had installed this stunningly inventive piece of carpentry had been careful to damage as little of the tree as possible. The tree house itself was suspended about two-thirds of the way up, a rustic cabin with a small balcony just big enough to accommodate two padded sun chairs. The resinous smell of newly cut wood mingled with the smell of varnish. The roof of the cabin had been clad with bark so that it seemed to melt into the tree. A window had been cut into one wall, giving her the view directly down the gardens of Fearnoch House. There was a small desk and a comfortable chair, a chaise longue covered in cushions with a soft cashmere blanket, a lamp, a bookcase. The books were all novels, new and uncut. The stationery in the desk was printed with her title. In a cupboard fitted cunningly into the corner, she found a tea set, a kettle and a spirit stove. And on the side table beside the chaise longue, a beautiful marquetry sewing box. Lifting the lid, she found it already stocked with needles, threads, a pair of silver scissors, a thimble, even a pin cushion and pins.