“He is angry at you,” Alicia said quietly. “Or on your behalf. I cannot be sure.”
Lady Wyndham blinked. “Oh, dear. I can understand if he is angry with me. I was a very poor mother. I was no more than a girl, an unhappy girl at that, wed and bred too young. And I have ever enjoyed the social whirl—although in those days I suppose I tried to lose myself too much within it.” She frowned, delicate brows drawn together in a charming manner that Alicia despaired of ever mastering.
“However, if he is angry on my behalf—well, there would only be one reason for that! I have comforted myself for years that he knew nothing of that particular situation . . .”
She glanced hesitantly up at Alicia through her lashes. Again, delectable, and somehow not the least inappropriate on a woman her age.
“I suppose it doesn’t matter anymore,” she said slowly. “I suppose it truly wasn’t as great a secret as I thought either.”
She straightened and looked Alicia in the eye, apparently having had decided something. “My husband had a mistress, as many men do. Unfortunately, she was situated long before I arrived. Inside of a week after my vows, I was put thoroughly in my place. I was to bear the heir. She was to share my husband’s bed before my very nose.”
Alicia’s eyes widened. “She was in your house?” She hadn’t meant to interrupt, for she was fairly sure Lady Wyndham shouldn’t be telling her anything so personal—although she was absolutely perishing to know!
But Lady Wyndham only nodded miserably. “In my house. In charge of my house. Choosing my meals, directing my staff, even selecting the nurses and tutors for Stanton, when that time came. She was our housekeeper, you see.”
Her tone was so miserable with remembered pain that Alicia reached for her hand without thinking. Lady Wyndham gripped her fingers tightly in her own as she continued.
“All of which was bad enough, to be true, but to make matters worse, she was of a resentful nature despite her privileges. She wanted to be his wife, but his lordship was not a man to throw aside generations of Wyndham tradition to marry someone so far beneath him. He merely wanted it all—the woman of common birth he loved in his bed, the woman of high birth giving him his well-bred Wyndham heir.
“Consequently, she hated me and she hated Stanton more—for he was the reason I was there. Except I wasn’t, was I?”
“What do you mean?”
Lady Wyndham sighed. “If I had paid attention, I might have realized that Ilsa hired only those she could control and influence against myself and Stanton. His tutors were sots, his nurses ignorant and unkind. I have no idea what he must have endured in that prison of a house. All I saw was that he grew more silent every day, losing himself in his books, or in long rides about the country. He would be out of the house from dawn to dusk, while the people who were supposed to tend him were drunk or carousing or both.”
Alicia swallowed. She knew a little something about living in a place that felt like an iron cage. She would have given much for a boy’s freedom to ride away—although she escaped often enough to run wild through the very wood she’d traversed this morning.
“As I said, I make no excuses. I am entirely at fault. I was much too lost in my own unhappiness. I had affairs of my own in retaliation, the more public the better. I thought Wyndham far too young and too isolated to have any idea. But Ilsa—Ilsa made sure that my lonely little son heard every story, read every word in the gossip sheets.” She closed her eyes. “My husband never noticed, nor cared about my behavior. If only I had known who I was truly hurting.” A barely perceptible tremor went through her.
“You must realize what you did to them.”
Alicia sat back in her chair, deep dismay coursing through her. Was she any different than the marchioness?
Not in Wyndham’s eyes, it was obvious. If she had known of his history . . . but would that have stopped her need for her petty vengeance?
Vengeance, or validation? Had she actually wanted to hurt her family? Hadn’t she truly been crying out for them to see her?
Just like the marchioness. Alicia covered the woman’s hand with her own. “I understand.”
The marchioness opened her eyes. “I know you do, my dear. Unfortunately, that is the very reason Wyndham might rebuff you in the end.” Then she brightened. “On the other hand, he has not let your history diminish his passion for you so far. It might be that you have finally healed those old wounds!”
Sorrow laced through Alicia. It wasn’t true . . . and likely never would be. She had a mighty mountain to climb in overcoming Wyndham’s pain—even if she were brave enough to try.
Then again, she wasn’t after his heart. A week of passion to take with her into her uncertain future, a chance to experience the very thing she was reputed to be guilty of, an opportunity to possibly make all she’d been through worth the losses and the regrets.
A moment with a man like Wyndham would be more than most women had in their lifetimes.
She wished she could be as open as the marchioness was being, but she dared not expose Wyndham’s plan, even to his mother. The Sirens’ warnings went through her mind. No, she wouldn’t risk it.
“I cannot reassure you of Wyndham’s attachment, I fear,” she told the marchioness. “Yet, if all goes well tonight,” she said, “that might change.”
The marchioness smiled. “You are a woman of increasing potential, Lady Alicia.” She leaned forward and gave Alicia a wily, mischievous smile. “Have you grand plans?”
Alicia smiled back. “Why do when you can overdo?”
The marchioness’s eyes went to sly slits. “Precisely. Have no mercy.”
Interested eyes watched from a copse of evergreens while four fine horses thundered past, their gentleman riders upright and laughing with the speed.
Wyndham wasn’t alone anymore. Perhaps he ought to have killed him earlier when the fellow wandered the woods looking for his wayward lady. Oh, well. He’d always had a weakness for the appeal of watching one’s enemy in pain.
The three gentlemen in question, however . . .
Four of them.
It was them. A jolt of hot excitement shot up his spine, making his hands twitch in eagerness.
Four men. Four clever, loyal men . . . just like the legendary Quatre Royale. He felt a fierce grin stretch the ragged scars on his face, breaking the frail new skin. He ignored the hot trickles of blood and pus that ran rivulets through the furrows of his cheeks.
The Royal Four.
At last.
Greenleigh, who had escaped the clutches of the man who had suborned his father.
Reardon, who had turned on his own mentor.
Dryden, who had married that seething bitch Julia. The watcher cackled. “Sonny!”
Once upon a time, the sound of his own shattered laugh would have alarmed him, but no more.
“I’m not the man I used to be,” he told the four men in the distance, his tone madly conversational. “Not as subtle, not as surgical, perhaps. Yet, there can be beauty in large gestures as well.”
His vision blurred for a moment, but he scarcely noticed. The infection that had settled into the bones of his face kept his fever high and his mind euphoric. He would surprise that puny despot, Napoleon. He would return with four handsome heads in a bag along with his other prize and Bonaparte would be forced to return his lands and titles to him forthwith.
Simple, ham-handed, and crude. Oh, well. Perhaps he could derive some enjoyment from torturing the bastards in the meantime.
Or their ladies . . .
To avoid the intimacy of disrobing in the same room with Lady Alicia, Stanton dressed early for Masque that evening. Herbert swiftly and efficiently turned him out impeccably, after which Stanton went to dawdle precious hours away on the terrace, spinning his severe black mask in his fingers.
The limitations of the house party reminded him of why he avoided such events. Here he was, only days left to prevent the kidnapping of the Prince Regent, and he was cooling his heels,
waiting for a lady to curl her hair and attach her garters and—
No. Don’t think about garters, because garters lead to stockings lead to knees lead to sweet, silken thighs lead to—
He barely refrained from physically smacking himself on the skull, substituting instead a quick biting of his tongue. The sharp pain helped focus his thoughts. God, she was insidious, twining into his brain when he needed to be thinking of much more important things.
Who was the conspirator? It could be Cross himself, though the man was a loud and generous supporter of George’s regency and the British war effort.
A lord. That ruled out half of the present guests. They were mostly Court hangers-on, kept about for entertainment value. No one took them terribly seriously, least of all George himself. Other than helping George choose his wine, none of them could be considered to have any sort of real power.
It must be someone who had not yet arrived. Better if this unidentified suspect never arrived at all, although Stanton was itching to know who it was that dared such an impossible crime.
At any rate, the conspirator would definitely be in place soon. The separation of the ladies and gentlemen all day was not helping Lady Alicia’s efforts to identify the voice of the mystery lord among those present.
On the other hand, she seems to have no trouble getting their attention.
Stanton found himself with a strong desire to spit. That lot of fools were too easily influenced by a bright smile and a delectable pair of—
This time he did give himself a rap on the forehead. “There will be no reflecting on delectable anything!” His sotto voce self-scolding couldn’t have reached much farther than his arm’s length, yet he heard a soft laugh from the shadows.
He turned quickly. There was no one there—and yet he smelled jasmine. “Hello, Moth—my lady.”
She drifted out from behind a piece of Grecian statuary that paled in comparison to herself. “Good evening, darling. Enjoying the air, I assume?”
Stanton relaxed, which was certainly not his usual response to his mother’s presence. “You look miles beyond exquisite, my lady.”
“I know, darling, but thank you for saying so.” She walked past him to lean over the stone balustrade and peer at the dark garden. “It is cold outside. Why don’t you come wait for her in the garden suite? It’s very pleasant. Cross absolutely festooned it with hothouse blooms this time.”
Lord Cross had been pursuing Catherine’s affections for years. “I’m sure he considers it damning you with faint praise, my lady.”
“Please, darling, call me ‘Mother.’ ” She put her hand in his. He took it automatically, his surprise deep. She had always been effusively, theatrically affectionate, but this was something else—something simpler and entirely more packed with meaning.
“I realized something today . . . something about the past.”
Stanton went still. The marchioness never looked back, keeping her beautiful eyes always firmly forward as if to look behind were to acknowledge that any of the past was actually true.
“And what is that . . . Mother?”
She turned toward him and for the first time he noticed the delicate but undeniable lines about her eyes. This contradiction of her seeming immortality struck him hard.
“I was but sixteen when I became a mother,” the marchioness said softly. “And a silly, careless sixteen at that.”
“Mother, I—”
She shook her head sharply to halt him. “I am not a brilliant woman, darling, but I am not quite the fool the world thinks me. It is possible that I could have risen to the challenge. I could have been more steadfast, more selfless. I ought to have worried more about your happiness than my own. Instead, I chose to flee Wyndham and Ilsa. To flee you.”
Every word she said was the truth. Stanton watched, stunned, as the flighty, restless, inconstant creature he had called “Mother” transformed into a sincere, truthful woman before his eyes.
She took both his hands in hers. He felt her cold fingers shaking through two layers of kidskin. “I’m sorry, darling.” She looked up into his eyes with more intensity than he had ever witnessed from her. “More sorry than I will ever be able to make you understand.” Her face was strained, her age apparent in her pallor.
She had never been more striking.
For a moment, Stanton remained speechless with surprise. Then a terrible thought crossed his mind. “You’re dying, aren’t you?” He stepped back to peer into her face more closely. “That’s it, isn’t it? You’re making amends before you pass on!”
For a long moment, she stared at him, lips parted.
He went cold. “We’ll find the best physicians in England—in the world. We’ll go to Bath. You can take the waters.”
She put her hands over her face, crying . . . or was she?
No, she was laughing, gasping with hysterical giggles. Stanton straightened. “What—”
She reached to put her hand over his. “I’m sorry, darling. I—I shouldn’t laugh—but you see, I’m quite well.”
She did look well, of a sudden. Her eyes shone in the lantern light and her smile had never been brighter.
He shook his head. “I don’t understand.”
She patted his hands. “Really, darling, I’m not a bit ill. I simply thought it was time to—well, time, at any rate.”
Stanton let out a slow breath. His gut was still shaking from the severity of the blow. Apparently he was more attached than he’d ever imagined.
She reached up to stroke his cheek. “I did not expect you to take on so, but I must say that I am gratified to learn that it would grieve you to lose me.”
Stanton shook his head. “Of course it would grieve me. You are my mother.”
She smiled a bit mistily. “I haven’t been, but perhaps it is not entirely too late for you and I to be family for each other.”
Family. What an odd thought. Then again, he had not sprung from an acorn, had he?
She glanced over his shoulder and smiled. “I believe there is someone waiting for you, darling.”
Stanton turned to look behind him and his breath stopped.
Alicia stood in the open doorway, with the light behind her setting her hair afire and her gown to pure gold. The gown was daring and alluring, yet somehow gave her the regal air of a goddess statuette rather than simply that of a well-dressed mistress.
When she turned her head slightly, offering her profile in an almost shy motion, the gilded half-mask she wore gleamed richly against her perfect russet hair. She was . . .
Mine, his male nature said.
All mine. Forever.
19
The marchioness leaned forward to whisper into Stanton’s ear. “You should take Lady Alicia in to the ball. I find I’m not nearly so interested in this sort of affair anymore. I believe I shall go to my room to pack. Perhaps I shall see you at Christmas, if you find your way to Wyndham this year.”
She swept past him on her way back inside, but paused when she came even with Alicia. To Stanton’s astonishment, his lady mother deposited a kiss upon the cheek of his mistress.
“You look delightful, my dear,” Catherine said. Then she bent closer and whispered something that sounded very much like “Good for you, pet.”
With a last little finger wave and entirely alarming smile for him, the marchioness glided away.
Alicia watched him with wide eyes. It occurred to Stanton that she was waiting for him to denigrate her gown, as he usually did.
Instead, he clicked his heels and bowed deeply. “My lady, you look—” Ravishing. Inspirational.
Like a beacon in the night, guiding sailors home.
And Vikings to raid.
And he was about to take this confection of fire and gold and ripe ivory flesh into that ballroom full of lechers and deviants.
To find a traitor, he reminded himself. There is more at stake here than one woman’s dignity and already dubious chastity.
Right. Think on the mission and not h
ow she looks like a fancy foil-wrapped confection among a horde of starving men.
She was watching him, still waiting. “I look—”
Collecting himself, Stanton presented his arm. “You look ready.”
She placed her hand upon it. “Of course.” Behind the mask, her lashes swept down over her eyes, but he got the distinct feeling that she was disappointed.
That was unfortunate, but he had not come here to ply her with compliments. They both had a job to do and time was running out.
Alicia was so distracted by Wyndham’s contradictory manner that she was unable to appreciate the impact Garrett’s “princess trollop” gown made upon the party guests. When she first swept into the ballroom on Wyndham’s arm, a true hush fell upon the crowd.
She was vaguely aware of white-feather-masked Lady Davenport shooting glares of hatred at her like a quiver full of arrows, and the Sirens, all masked and gowned in subdued but elegant shades of blue, giving each other meaningful glances, and even the Prince Regent, masked as a feathered eagle, who watched them with a decidedly odd look upon his face of mingled anticipation and regret.
All that she could see and feel was Wyndham and the chill depth of his glacial control.
She’d almost had him there for a moment. The light behind her had shone full upon his face and in his first moment of surprise he had clearly been attracted.
Then again, she had already known he was attracted. That was very nearly meaningless insofar as she seemed to have the required inches of figure to attract most men at the ball at least a little bit.
What she’d wanted was the next moment, the one after the surge of attraction. She’d wanted a smile, an intimate gaze, a tender touch—but there had been nothing. It was as if a door had slammed between them, decapitating that next moment before it even began.
Even now when they were mere inches apart, so close that she could feel the heat from his body upon the skin of her arm and shoulder and nearly bared breast—there was nothing emanating from Wyndham but that temperature that did naught to warm her.
“You look very handsome,” she whispered to him, because it was true. “Rather like a dashing highwayman, in fact.”
Celeste Bradley - [Royal Four 04] Page 18
