Autumn Rain

by Anita Mills

  Lucien groaned inwardly. He'd refused her once, and rather shabbily, and what there was of his conscience still pricked him for it. Reluctantly, he heaved himself up to head the fool off. "Kingsley!" he called out.

  But he was too late. With Tom Fenton urging him on, Charles Kingsley already confronted the inebriated viscount, who was sprawled back in his chair. Weaving above him truculently, the boy demanded, "Take Lady Kingsley's name from the betting book, damn you! Take it back!"

  Bell blinked. "Wha—? Don't—can't." He tried to sit up, then fell back. "Oh—it's you." He grinned foolishly. "Ain't her husband—not your affair."

  "She is my kinswoman, and I'll not stand to have her name sullied, sir!" Charles shouted. "It's an insult not to be borne!" Retrieving his glove from his coat pocket, he was about to strike Townsend in the face, when Longford caught his arm.

  Leaning close, the earl murmured, "A duel will keep the tale alive."

  "What the devil—? Longford!"

  Diana's brother spun around in disbelief, then his jaw jutted out belligerently. "Ain't your affair, Luce!"

  Bellamy looked up, blinked again to focus reddened eyes, then sneered. "Never shay you mean to de—defend the ladish honor, Lu—Luce? I saw her, you know— and-"

  He never got to finish. Lucien's hand caught him under the chin, lifting him from the chair. Bell's neck seemed to lengthen above his starched cravat, and his eyes bugged out. He moved his lips, but could not speak.

  "No, but I am prepared to defend mine," Lucien said almost softly. "Before you accuse, you'd best ask."

  "But—"

  Lucien's grip tightened as the viscount's face purpled. Alarmed, Leighton threw his arms around his friend, trying to hold him. "For God's sake, Luce—the man's disguised!"

  "Gentlemen, not here!" the proprietor implored them. "If you must quarrel in your cups, go outside."

  But Lucien's black eyes were on Townsend's. "Is there a quarrel, Bell?" he asked silkily.

  "N-no," the other man gasped. As the earl relaxed his grip, Townsend slipped back into his chair and began rubbing his neck, looking up balefully. "Did—didn't have to cho-choke me, Luce."

  "You saw nothing, Bell—nothing."

  The other man's eyes dropped. "Must've been mistaken," he muttered."Got no quarrel with you." When he perceived that that was not enough, he added, "Could've been the Wilson woman—got red hair, too, you know."

  "Precisely." As though nothing had happened, Lucien adjusted the cuff of his shirt beneath his coat sleeve. "I'm glad—I should not want to put a hole in you before

  I leave the country." Turning his back on Townsend, Fenton, and Charles Kingsley, he walked over to where the attendant still held the book.

  Awed, Charles followed him. "I say, but—"

  "I'd have the pen."

  The proprietor himself produced one—and an inkpot. "Was you wanting to lay a wager, my lord?"

  But rather than answer, Lucien took the pen and scratched out Townsend's entry, inserting instead the motto of the Garter, "Honi soit qui mal y pense. " As those around him exchanged perplexed glances, he snapped the book shut. "I suggest you give him back the money you are holding for him," he told the man coldly. When nobody moved, he added, "I believe it was one hundred pounds."

  "What the devil—? You cannot expunge his wager," Sefton protested.

  "I just did."

  "I say, Luce—but—" Once again, Bellamy Townsend tried to rise, supporting himself with his table. "It was about La Kingsley—not—" He stopped, aware that Charles Kingsley glared at him.

  "Suffice it to say, Bell, that if I ever read my name— or Lady Kingsley's name—in any of the betting books again, I shall choose to make a wager of my own—shall we say ten thousand pounds that I can score a solid hit at twenty paces?"

  "Who the devil'd take that?" Alvanley demanded. "Crack shot."

  Fenton turned to Charles and whispered, "What'd he write?"

  "Honi soit qui mal y pense, " Charley hissed back.

  "What?"

  "Shame to him who evil thinks—or something like that, if I remember it right."

  "Well, he ought to know about shame," Fenton muttered.

  "Still doesn't settle the matter," Charley began, only to realize that Longford had his arm again.

  "You're foxed," the earl declared coldly. "You'd best go home."

  "But I ain't—"

  "We'll speak of it in my carriage."

  It was Charles's turn to blink. "Your carriage? You'd take me up?"

  "I'm leaving anyway."

  Despite the earl's awful reputation, Charley considered it a signal honor. "Going to the Peninsula with you, you know," he confided as Longford propelled him toward the door. " Dragoons."

  "You won't like it."

  "Be a hero like you," the boy mumbled. "Come home a hero to Nell."

  There was a low murmur as Lucien passed, a muttered "Lucifer" under someone's breath, and Bell Townsend proclaiming loudly to any who would listen that he wasn't afraid of Longford. To which the usually taciturn Earl of Rotherfield, a rather sinister fellow himself, replied that even he was not such a fool as to quarrel with Lucien de Clare.

  Charley stumbled as he tried to step up into the conveyance, and Lucien had to boost him up. "Love her, you know."

  "You're in your cups." Lucien looked up at his driver. "Kingsley House."

  "No—cannot go there," Charley protested. "The Pulteney."

  "You ought to go home."

  "Old man won't let me—don't want me in the house because of Nell."

  "Nell?"

  "Elinor." Charley leaned back against the squabs and closed his eyes against the dizziness he felt. "Lady Kingsley. Mean to marry her, you know."

  Longford surveyed him soberly for a moment, then shook his head. "When it comes to women, there are two kinds of foolish fellows, Kingsley—the very young and the very old."

  "It ain't like that. Nell's different—great gun—only he don't see it. Won't let her—" The boy swallowed hard, trying not to disgrace himself before Longford, but he couldn't. Grasping the door handle, he wrenched it open to hang outside, where he was heartily, thoroughly sick. When he was done, he pulled himself back in, and fell back against the seat. There was no mistaking his misery.

  "What was I saying?" he mumbled.

  "It doesn't signify."

  But Charley wasn't to be denied. "No—it was the old man—you don't know—keeps her a prisoner."

  Longford's eyebrow rose. "Coming it too strong—half the females in London would welcome such a prison."

  "He don't even want her to think. Got to be what he wants—always got to be what he wants. But he ain't living forever, you know—make it up to her. Mean to marry her," he repeated.

  "What you are suggesting is incest," the earl reminded him.

  "Take her out of England—America maybe—start over." Charley's blue eyes opened briefly to meet Longford's dark ones. "Don't care if I'm a baron or not. Just want to support her. Love her," he insisted almost defiantly.

  Salad days, Lucien thought privately. But he'd not yet seen a youth ready to part with his idealized dreams of a female. That came later, sometime after the conquest, when the poor fellow discovered that one woman was in truth much like any other. The only things that separated Sally Jersey or Lady Oxford from courtesans like Harriette Wilson and her sisters were money, aristocratic birth, and complacent husbands.

  Nonetheless, he found himself inquiring hesitantly, "Er—Does Lady Kingsley return your regard?"

  "If you are asking if there's anything havey-cavey between her and me, there ain't." Once again, the blue eyes met Lucien's, and this time they were almost sober. "But I know she loves me—cried when she found out I was going to war. Going to wait for me."

  There was something earnest, something quite appealing about the boy, possibly the innocence Lucien had never had. When he remained silent, Charley thought to add, "She ain't the sort as would cuckold the old man, you understand. Got char
acter. And for all that he'd make her like the rest of 'em, she don't want to be like that."

  Lucien thought of her as he'd last seen her—her bright hair straggling where she'd missed some of it with her pins, her bonnet tied slightly askance, her straight back as she'd sailed out his door—and he felt a twinge of conscience once more.

  Sally Jersey is right—you cannot be brought to care about anything, can you? Once again, her words seemed to echo in his ears, stinging him with their truth. I have never betrayed my marriage vows... I am not bought at all... She'd offered him nothing—nothing at all-when she'd asked his aid, not for herself but for the boy. It would not have required much effort on his part, but he'd rebuffed her. Now, facing young Kingsley across the seat, he felt almost sorry for it.

  The carriage rolled to a halt, and a coachman promptly hopped down to open the door. "The Pulteney, my lord."

  Charles reached unsteadily for the pull-strap, then sprawled back. "Sorry—had too much—gone to m'head."

  Cursing inwardly, Lucien helped him lean toward the door, advising the coachey to catch him. Then, jumping down after the boy, he thrust a shoulder beneath his arm, supporting him.

  "Deuced good of you—," Charley mumbled. As Lucien dragged him through the elegant lobby, the boy drew attention to them by rousing, calling out, "It's Longford—going to be a dragoon like him! Come back a hero like Longford—come back a—" The earl's free hand covered his mouth, stifling his ramblings.

  "Get someone to help him, will you?" he growled at the nearest liveried attendant. When the fellow moved forward, Lucien shoved Charles Kingsley into his arms, then palmed a coin into his hand. "Put him to bed."

  He turned to leave, ignoring the stares of the curious as the boy called after him, "Be like you one day, you know—dragoon just like Longford!"

  "Going back to one of the clubs, yer lordship?" Lucien's coachman asked politely.

  "No."

  "But ye ain't supped, have ye?"

  "No. I'm not hungry."

  Lucien swung back up into his carriage and leaned back against the squabs. He wasn't going to sup—he was going home to bury himself in his cups. As the carriage bowled down the street, he reflected resentfully that he'd managed to survive nearly thirty years without help from anyone. When one only counted on oneself, one was seldom disappointed—it was when a fool embroiled himself in the lives of others that he suffered. If he'd learned naught else from his father, that had been a lesson well-learned.

  And yet when he got home, after he poured himself a rather large glass of brandy, he sat staring for a time into the empty brazier. Outside, it had begun to rain, and the sound of wind and water against the windowpanes reminded him of the night he'd first met her. She'd been a little chit then, her face nearly as white as her nightgown. Briefly, he wondered if his life would have been any different if Ashton's ploy had worked, if she'd come to him instead of Kingsley. But she wouldn't have, for there was Diana—and even then he was beyond caring, beyond acting out of honor.

  It wasn't until after his third glass that he rose to move to his desk. And, whether from drink or some other weakness, he sat down to write a single line to her.

  "I'll do what I can for the boy."

  He left it unsigned, telling himself she would know from whence it came, and he'd not cause her any more difficulty with the old man. When done, he glanced up to the blank space above the cold fireplace, the place where Jack's portrait had once hung. Despite fresh paint, the sooty outline of the frame could still be discerned.

  "You think me a fool, Papa—don't you?" he said, his voice harsh. "Damn you, Jack—damn you! It isn't the war that takes my soul—it's you!"

  He knew not how long or how much he'd drunk, but after he finally managed to stumble up to his bed, he lay there in his rumpled clothes, remembering first Elinor Kingsley's plea, then the boy's almost fawning admiration, and somehow it amused him to know that he was not entirely immune to flattery, that somewhere deep within him, perhaps he could be moved to care. With that drink-induced, maudlin notion, he turned over to cradle his head against his pillow. His last rational thought was that he was going to pay for the brandy on the morrow.

  CHAPTER 16

  She came down to luncheon to discover her opened letter on her plate. From the end of the table, Arthur watched her sourly. She looked up, surprised. It was obvious that he was vexed with her.

  "I have no intention of franking that, I'm afraid."

  "But why? Surely you cannot object to my sister."

  "I have no patience with children still in the schoolroom," he told her coldly. "And I'd as lief not remind any of the connection."

  For a moment, she could only stare, then she felt anger. "Arthur, my family has held property under patent longer than yours. Papa's title—"

  "Oh—I have no objection to the breeding, my dear-it's the parent himself I fault."

  "It's the same!"

  "Not at all. Thomas Ashton is a wastrel—a waster of his substance—and I tire of his hanging on my sleeve. It's enough that I said I would give him the allowance he chooses to waste in the hells."

  "Arthur, you said I could bring Charlotte out! You promised!"

  "Lower your voice, Elinor."

  "But you said—"

  "The girl's still in the schoolroom," he repeated. "And I said I should not object to assisting her in making a good marriage—perhaps next year. Your mother can take her to Bath for the short season." He looked up at her, and there was no mistaking the displeasure in his eyes. "Sit down that I may eat."

  She felt ready to cry. "Arthur, now that Charley is gone, I shall have no one."

  "Apparently you have no need of anyone else to get yourself into a scrape, my dear." He began carving a slab of cold tongue, slicing it thinly. "It's enough that I had to send Charles away."

  "Charley and I did nothing! A trip to Vauxhall to see the fireworks—to sit under the stars—to buy food from the stalls—it was all, Arthur—all! It was utterly harmless! We did not even go near the Dark Walk! And as for Almack's—"

  "I was not speaking of Charles alone, my dear."

  "The market was—"

  "Nor the market."

  She sank into her chair, temporarily dispirited, for she knew whatever maggot he'd gotten in his brain, he would keep it. And she was at a loss as to the source of his manner. "I know not what you have been told, my lord, but I can only think it was a lie. I can think of nothing—"

  "How long have you been seeing Longford?" he asked abruptly.

  "Longford! But I haven't—I—" She stopped, wondering who could have told, who could have spied on her. Her chin came up almost defiantly. "I collect you are referring to yesterday, and if you wished to know of that, you had but to ask."

  "The reason is immaterial—it's outside of enough that you were seen."

  "I walked there to ask that he look after Charley."

  "A likely tale!" he snorted. "Longford would not put himself out for anyone. He could not even be brought to his father's bedside in the end."

  "Well, he could not be said to be very pleasant," she conceded. "But I did not know that when I went." Trying to control her shaking hands, she reached for the bread rack. "He turned me away."

  His eyes narrowed, he regarded her shrewdly. "A likely tale," he said sarcastically. "No—I did not bring you to town to disgrace me, Elinor."

  "And I have not. Arthur—I have not!" She wet her dry lips with her tongue, trying again. "Please—I'd have Charlotte. She'll not vex you, I promise!" But even as she spoke, she knew he did not mean to let her have any company beyond his. She felt a sense of defeat. "Indeed, but she'll give you no cause—Arthur, she is a quiet, biddable girl!"

  "You will lower your voice when you speak to me."

  "Then you will not accuse me of baseness, my lord."

  "I may accuse you of anything I wish, my dear—you would forget what I have given you. I have made you the envy of every female in London."

  "I should rather be
poor, I think," she muttered bitterly.

  "You would not like the life." He pressed his fingers together and continued to stare at her. "But you are like Charles, are you not? I have made it too easy for you."

  "Easy?" Her voice rose incredulously. "Easy? Do you think I like this life you have given me?"

  "I'll not have your name bandied about like a common whore's."

  Somehow she knew he was getting to the heart of the matter, and she was perplexed. "What? Arthur, I have not the least notion—"

  He favored her with an impatient frown. "There was a great deal of excitement at White's last night, I am told. In the guise of friendship, Lord Sefton stopped by rather late to report of it." He waited for her to react to that and was disappointed. "I understand Townsend placed a bet that he would have you when Longford was through."

  "What? Townsend?" She nearly choked. "When Longford was through—? Arthur, I can assure you it's no such thing! The earl rebuffed me—that is"—she amended hastily—"he refused to help Charles. All I wanted was for him to keep Charley safe, Arthur!"

  "Sefton is neither deaf nor given to invention, Elinor.

  "This is preposterous! And I care not who wagered on it—it's not true!"

  "You have made me a laughingstock!" he snapped. "And I'll not stand for it!"

  Her color rose in her cheeks, and her own anger made her reckless. "No more so than when you wed me, I should think," she bit off precisely. "And what of Sally Jersey? Or Lady Oxford? Or the Melbourne woman? It would seem infidelity is the fashion, so I cannot think any would refine overmuch on it."

  "Then it's the truth."

  "Of course it is not! I am sure Lord Longford, having taken me in dislike, would most certainly deny it. And as for Lord Townsend—well, I cannot account for his malice. Indeed, but I thought him a friend."

  "He has run tame here for weeks," he reminded her.

  "Because he is fashionable! Because he amused me a little—but certainly for nothing more. You did not discourage Lord Townsend, Arthur!"