One Little Sin

by Liz Carlyle

  Esmée considered telling him it was much too late to take care of her heart. It had long been his. But the awful task which lay before her was heavy on her mind now. “We will see one another tomorrow—or rather, today—will we not?” she said hastily.

  He shook his head and dragged in his breath roughly. “Merrick leaves for London at first light,” he answered. “I must go with him.”

  “Must you?”

  He ran a hand through his disordered hair. “I think it the only honorable thing to do, under the circumstances,” he said hollowly. “I cannot bear to remain here, partaking of Quin’s hospitality—and his fiancée.”

  Esmée shook her head. “Alasdair, it isn’t like that.”

  The clanking and scraping in the library had begun now. Somehow, they’d unlocked the library, and would be moving on soon, perhaps in this direction. Alasdair opened the door again and gently pushed Esmée out. She hesitated an instant, then considered the risk she was running. With one last glance over her shoulder at Alasdair, Esmée left.

  She made her way quietly through the house and up the stairs, certain she would sleep no more that night. Instead, she slipped back into her room, lit the lamp, and curled up on her bed with the same dull novel which had sent her downstairs to begin with.

  Alasdair was not going to ask anything of her, he had said. She was to do what was best for her. But the decision had been made a lifetime ago, it seemed, and what she cared most about was Alasdair. That much had never really changed, and never would change. Which meant that everything else—Wynwood, Mrs. Crosby, Aunt Rowena, Sorcha, all of it—would somehow work out. It had to. It just had to.

  Chapter Eleven

  In which Contessa Bergonzi draws her Weapon

  When the horizon began to show the first hint of daylight, Esmée rose and went to the window to wait for Alasdair’s carriage. She did not have to wait long. With her fingertips pressed lightly to the glass, Esmée watched as his baggage was loaded. Then Alasdair and his brother came out, flanking Lord Wynwood, and shook hands all around.

  At the last instant, Alasdair hesitated, then grasping Wynwood’s right hand again, he set his left upon his shoulder, as if reassuring him of something. They exchanged a few quiet words, then the men climbed in, the coachman clicked to his horses, and the carriage spun away.

  That was it, then. Alasdair was gone. Esmée turned from the window and began to lay out her clothes. With any luck, most of the other guests would still be abed, and there was no putting off what she had to do this day. Reluctant to ring for a servant, she bathed in the previous night’s cold water. Her body, she noticed, was sore, and there was just the slightest hint of blood when she washed. Alasdair had been gentle, but no matter. Her body was forever altered. Forever his.

  She would certainly never be Lord Wynwood’s, she thought as she dressed and twisted up her hair, and the sooner she told him so, the better. And yet, he had been exceedingly kind to her. She wished very much that she could love him; that she need not humiliate him. The thought brought a tear to her eye. She rummaged through her valise, extracted a handkerchief, and went out into the passageway. There, she hesitated. Perhaps she would find Wynwood in the breakfast parlor?

  The breakfast parlor was indeed occupied, but not by Lord Wynwood. “Good morning, Lady Charlotte,” she said.

  “Why, good morning, Miss Hamilton,” said the elderly woman. “And what is this ‘lady’ nonsense? You must call me your great-aunt now.”

  Esmée smiled weakly. “Thank you,” she said. “You are very kind.”

  Lady Charlotte laughed. “I see you are an early bird like me. All the others will be abed for another hour. May I pour you some coffee?”

  Esmée hesitated on the threshold. “Actually, I was looking for Lord Wynwood. Have you seen him?”

  The old lady’s eyes twinkled mischievously. “Oh, he came in for coffee, then scuttled off to his study,” she said. “He’s still in there, I do not doubt. Do you know how to find it?”

  Esmée twisted a little desperately on her handkerchief. “I do not,” she confessed. “Could you please direct me, ma’am?”

  Lady Charlotte set her cup and saucer down. “It would be easier to simply take you there,” she admitted. “This is an inexcusable monstrosity of a house. I should know. I grew up here.”

  She set off down the corridor at a pace which seemed too brisk for a woman of her advanced years. “The study is in the very back of the house,” she said over her shoulder. “In the oldest part, overlooking the rear gardens. Quin hides there when he wishes to escape Gwendolyn’s whining.”

  Esmée followed along, her dread deepening as Wynwood’s great-aunt turned left, then right, then trotted up a little flight of stairs, along a crooked passageway, and back down an even shorter flight of stairs. They passed a pair of housemaids assiduously engaged in sweeping the carpets, then suddenly, a huge slab of solid oak appeared around a corner.

  “And here it is!” Lady Charlotte whispered, gleefully pushing the door open against a gust of cold air. “Nowadays, I can forget my own name, Miss Hamilton, but I have not forgot—”

  The old lady froze on the threshold.

  A woman lay sprawled across the desk in the center of the room, forced down by a man who was violently kissing her. The woman was kicking and flailing like a tigress, but the man—good God, Lord Wynwood—held her pinioned by both wrists.

  Somehow, she jerked her face away. “Fa schifo!” she spat, jerking up her knee as if to do him serious injury. “Sporco! Get off me, you bastard English pig!”

  With a muttered curse, Wynwood half lifted his body from hers. Only then did Esmée see the riding crop clutched in her glove. The woman lashed it hard across Wynwood’s face, sending bright red blood spattering across his linen. Neither seemed aware of the two ladies in the doorway. Not, that was, until Wynwood’s great-aunt fainted dead away.

  Silent as a stone, the old lady collapsed, slithering into the floor with remarkable grace. Esmée must have screamed. The housemaids appeared from nowhere. The woman—Contessa Bergonzi—shoved Wynwood away and rushed toward Charlotte, tripping over the hem of her riding habit as she came.

  The contessa fell clumsily to her knees, but did not heed it. “Quin, you fool!” she cried, trying to push the hair back from Charlotte’s face. “Basta! Basta! Now you have killed your aunt!”

  Esmée had her fingertips on the old woman’s throat. “Her pulse is fluttering,” said Esmée. “But she is not dead.”

  Wynwood still stood as if frozen. Behind him, a French window stood wide-open, the cold air from the gardens streaming in. “Shut the window,” Esmée snapped at one of the maids. “Wynwood, send someone to fetch a doctor. For God’s sake, hurry!”

  Wynwood leapt into action. Charlotte emitted a pitiful groan. “No…no doctor,” she managed.

  “Oh, poveretta!” the contessa was murmuring, still stroking the old lady’s face. “Oh, non ci credo!”

  When Esmée next looked up, Wynwood was gone. The two housemaids were staring after him, eyes wide and mouths gaping. Dear God. They must have seen everything.

  The doctor was not long with Lady Charlotte. “Nothing is broken,” he pronounced to the crowd which waited in Lady Wynwood’s sitting room. “But her pulse is still erratic, as it has been this last decade or better. I wish her to have a day’s bed rest, and her usual heart tonic. Tomorrow she’ll be her old self, and may return home, I hope.”

  “Oh, thank God!” Lady Wynwood clutched a crumpled handkerchief to her breast. “Oh, I feared the worst.”

  “Mark me, Gwendolyn, it was the blood!” asserted the elderly gentleman beside her. “Charlotte never could abide the sight of blood!”

  “No, I think it was her weak heart,” said Lady Wynwood. “She overexerted herself, perhaps.”

  Reflexively, Lord Wynwood ran his finger along the wound on his cheek. He had been pacing the floor ever since his great-aunt had been carried up by the footmen. His sister, Lady Alice, was scowling
at him from the corner and twisting her own handkerchief into knots.

  “Remember, Helen, how Charlotte fainted and fell out of the dogcart that time we ran over a squirrel?” the gentleman continued to a woman on his other side.

  “Oh, heavens yes!” said the round, silver-haired lady—another great-aunt, Esmée thought. “Charlotte needed six stitches!”

  Esmée cleared her throat. “This was a terrible accident, too,” she remarked in a clear, carrying voice. “Really, Wynwood, you ought not creep up on people like that. The contessa jerked instinctively, just as anyone would do.”

  The room fell silent for a moment. Lady Wynwood eyed Esmée very oddly over her handkerchief. “Yes, a dreadful accident!” she finally echoed. “We are lucky Great-aunt Charlotte did not break a hip, Quin. Do have a care next time!”

  “I’m sorry,” he said for about the tenth time. “I’m just so bloody sorry.”

  The doctor looked faintly embarrassed. “Well, I’d best be off then,” he said. “I’ll look in on Lady Charlotte tomorrow, just in case. She isn’t getting any younger, you know.”

  The excitement over, the early risers began to trickle from the room and make their way down to breakfast. Lady Alice dragged her mother out, mumbling something about the children. The contessa had already excused herself, leaving Wynwood’s study the way she’d apparently entered it, through the French window which opened onto the gardens. Everyone else was yet abed. Nonetheless, the gossip would likely be running rampant before noon, despite Esmée’s efforts at obfuscation.

  Soon, Esmée and Lord Wynwood were alone in his mother’s sitting room. It was time to do what she’d come downstairs to do. She turned to see that he was still staring blindly out the window, as if unaware of her presence.

  She went to him and set a hand on his shoulder. “I fear there will be gossip, my lord,” she said quietly. “But perhaps we can counter it. We must continue to assert that silly accident story.”

  Lord Wynwood refused to look at her. “Esmée, I can explain.”

  “No, don’t,” she said. “I would really rather not discuss it.”

  “I don’t blame you,” he whispered. “I am such a fool—and worse, I’ve humiliated you. Can you ever forgive me?”

  “’Tis not a matter of my forgiveness,” she said quietly.

  “If you think that, my dear, then you are a fool, too.”

  Esmée drew a deep breath. “I ought to explain, Wynwood, that I came looking for you this morning to tell you…to tell you that I cannot marry you,” she went on. “I made a grievous error in accepting your offer. I apologize.”

  He threw back his head and gave a bark of bitter laughter. “I am not surprised you’d wish to cry off now,” he answered. “What an embarrassment this will be! And I believe it is I who owes the apology.”

  “You are not listening, my lord,” she said firmly. “I was coming to tell you I wished to cry off the betrothal. I am sorry I interrupted you in…in whatever it was you were doing—”

  “Ruining my life,” he interjected. “That’s what I was doing.”

  Esmée shrugged. “In any case, it had nothing to do with my decision. I mean to tell your mother so as well. I would not have her think you responsible for my choice.”

  Wynwood’s shoulders sagged. “I will send a notice to the Times this afternoon,” he said, dragging a hand through his already disordered hair. “No one will be surprised. My dear, I am sorry this has ended so badly.”

  “Don’t be so sorry,” she whispered. “Trust me, I never should have said yes. Something…something happened last night to convince me of that.”

  Wynwood tore himself from the window and began to pace the room. “I thought it a good match, Esmée,” he said, his tone almost mystified. “I persuaded myself we could make a go of it, you and I. I was a fool to imagine I could—or would ever—oh, damn it, why didn’t I just listen to Alasdair?”

  “To Alasdair—?”

  “He told me from the very first I was not good enough for you,” Wynwood admitted. “And I knew, even then, he was right. I thought perhaps you might make a better man of me. But it isn’t working, is it? Even Alasdair can see it. Last night, he read me the riot act, then tried to thrash me into a bloody pulp.”

  “Alasdair? But—but why?”

  “He thought I wasn’t paying enough attention to you,” Wynwood answered. “He thought you looked unhappy. He wanted me to call off our wedding, but I refused, of course. How could I? A gentleman may not do such a thing.” He flashed her a crooked, bittersweet smile. “But now you have done it for me.”

  Esmée dropped her gaze to her feet. “Aye, and I think it best,” she said. “We do not perfectly suit after all.”

  For a time, he simply watched her without speaking. “Are you a secret romantic at heart, Esmée?” he finally asked, his voice musing. “Do you believe there is but one perfect partner for all of us?”

  “I—yes, I begin to believe that might be so,” Esmée admitted.

  He turned again to the window and braced his hands wide on its frame. He stared into the distance so long, Esmée wondered if she ought simply to slip out. “I do not know, Esmée, what there is between you and Alasdair,” he said quietly. “Certainly it is none of my business now.”

  She began to interrupt, but he turned and threw up a staying hand. “Please, just let me speak.”

  Esmée owed him that, at the very least. “Yes. Of course.”

  He looked at her almost pleadingly. “All I am saying is that if there is even a scrap of sincere regard between the two of you, I urge you not to let it go. Not until you are sure nothing more can be made of it. For once you let go of that tiny scrap—by accident or by design—it is sometimes gone forever.”

  Esmée could not look at him. “That is good advice, I am sure,” she answered. “Now, if you will excuse me, I must go and tell my aunt what we have decided.”

  “I shouldn’t wish her to be angry with you,” said Wynwood. “Tell her the truth, by all means.”

  “The truth is that we do not suit,” she said again. “We never did. We are meant for other things, you and I. We were fools ever to think otherwise.”

  He smiled at her almost wistfully. “Little Esmée,” he murmured. “Always the wise one. Why is it that we cannot love one another? It would make life so much easier, would it not?”

  She returned the smile ruefully. “Aye, but I begin to think we do not get to choose whom we love,” she answered. “And that life was not meant to be easy.” Then she stood on her tiptoes and lightly kissed his cheek.

  Feeling very much as if she might cry, Esmée turned and hastened from the room. Aunt Rowena would surely be awake. She believed her aunt would support her choice, but by now, Esmée’s nerves were so thoroughly rattled, she wished this next step over with quite desperately. Regrettably, she was not quick enough in her errand.

  Esmée went into her aunt’s bedchamber as soon as her knock was answered. Her face a mask of indignation, Lady Tatton sat stiffly in bed with a breakfast tray laid out before her. It looked as though Pickens had carried up the tale of Lord Wynwood’s indiscretion along with her mistress’s morning chocolate.

  “Don’t speak!” ordered Lady Tatton, holding up one dainty hand. The lace which cascaded from her wrist trembled with indignation. “This is an outrage. An insult. Do not even think of defending him! I always said Wynwood was a rogue and a scoundrel, did I not?”

  “You did, Aunt,” said Esmée in spurious deference. “I cannot say I was not warned. I’ve cried off the engagement, and I’m sure ’tis just as well.”

  “Good girl!” said her aunt. “Oh, the gossip we shall endure! Oh, Lud, I feel one of my headaches coming on. Pickens, my vinaigrette! And we return to London this afternoon. Get everything packed up. I shall speak with Gwendolyn as soon as I can collect myself.”

  Esmée went to her aunt’s bed and settled herself on the edge of it. “Pray do not quarrel with Lady Wynwood over this,” she begged. “She
can no more control her son’s behavior than…than you could my mother’s.”

  Lady Tatton sniffed, but her indignation faded. “True, very true!” she agreed. “Still, it is a terrible insult he’s done you. And with an opera singer! A foreigner! The rumors are running wild already.”

  Esmée covered her aunt’s hand on the counterpane and gave it a light squeeze. “I was going to cry off anyway,” she insisted. “I really was. I had decided I could not go through with it and was working up the courage to tell you.”

  “The courage?” Lady Tatton echoed incredulously. “Oh, my dear child! I would never press you to marry a scoundrel.”

  Esmée managed a weak smile. “I know,” she answered. “Now, if you will excuse me, I have some packing to do as well. And I must say, Aunt Rowena, that I will be very glad indeed to see London again.”

  “Hmm,” said her aunt with a suspicious, sidelong glance. “I did not realize you had developed such a fondness for town life, my dear.”

  Chapter Twelve

  In which Captain MacGregor explains Everything

  Esmée awoke in Grosvenor Square the following morning with a strange mix of both dread and expectation hanging over her. Something was about to happen. She could feel it in her Scottish bones. Unable to settle her nerves, she dressed and went downstairs to pace the floor in the family parlor until Grimond came in with a large silver tray.

  “Would you care for some coffee and the morning’s paper, miss?” he asked politely. “Her ladyship is still indisposed with her headache and means to stay abed awhile.”

  “That would be lovely,” said Esmée. At least it would occupy her mind.

  Esmée settled down on the settee, spread out the paper, and began to read another day’s worth of speculation over Wellington’s resignation. Then it occurred to her with a strange, sinking sensation that the word of her broken betrothal might possibly have made it into the papers. Lord Wynwood had been very insistent about sending it straightaway. It had felt as if he wished the awful episode over and done with almost as much as Esmée did.