“I doubt that,” Marcus said acidly. “You could hardly have conjured Edmund up out of thin air all by yourself.”
Despite the gravity of the moment, Isabel almost smiled at his comment. Trust Marcus to be so prosaic.
Standing up, he grabbed his robe and shrugged it on. He was shaken more deeply than he had thought possible. The knowledge that Isabel had been a virgin had filled him with exultation ... and remorse that he had not taken greater care with her. But except for that one second of sanity, his whole being had been focused on easing the carnal demons that rode him. Merged with her soft body, coherent thought had been beyond him. It was only afterward, in those few moments he lay beside her on the bed, that he considered all the implications.
Feeling as if he had stepped off into a chasm, Marcus struggled to make sense of what he knew—or thought he knew. Isabel had been a virgin. That was a fact that he knew. His eyes dropped to the pink-stained water in the bowl. She had never borne a child and Edmund could not be her son.
He frowned. The boy was clearly a Manning, and he didn’t doubt that Edmund was Hugh’s son, but not Isabel’s. So why had she returned to India claiming that Edmund was her son? To give himself time to think, and to destroy evidence of her loss of innocence, Marcus gathered up the bowl and cloth.
Isabel watched him as he efficiently cleaned up all signs of blood, carefully rinsing the cloth he had used on her and then, taking the bowl with the stained water with him, he walked over to one of the windows and, opening it, threw out the evidence. Setting down the bowl on the table next to the bed, he finally turned and looked at her.
His gaze locked on hers, he said bitterly, “I’m now part of your lie. No one but the two of us know that you and Hugh never consummated your marriage and that Edmund is not your son.”
She nodded, too full of emotion to speak. She had always known that Marcus would never betray her secret and Edmund’s, but it wasn’t until this very moment that she understood what she had thrown away by not telling him. Never once had she given him any chance to decide for himself whether he wanted to be part of the lie that she had lived since the moment she had first learned of Edmund. Intent upon ensuring her son’s position—and she could never think of Edmund as anything but her son—determined to keep the vow she and Hugh had made on that long ago, hot, tragic day, she had never considered Marcus’s role in the lie. Never realized the choices she had made for him.
There was no one in the area, she admitted miserably, who was held in higher esteem than Marcus Sherbrook. Everyone, from the most titled aristocrat right down to the lowliest scullion, knew that Marcus Sherbrook was a man to be trusted, an honest, fair man. And now she had made him part of the lie she lived every day.
Her hand rose, as if to reach out to him, then fell to her side. “I’m sorry,” she said baldly. “I never meant to involve you.”
“And how did you think to keep me out of it?” he demanded, not certain which infuriated him most: that she had not trusted him with the truth, or that she had ensured that it would be impossible for him to do anything but continue the conspiracy. “You had to know that once I discovered that you were a virgin, I would know the truth.”
Her ready temper spiked and, eyes bright with anger, she said, “If you will remember, I tried everything I could to end our engagement.” She pointed a finger at him. “This is your fault! I never wanted to marry you. You forced this marriage upon me, and if you had not married me, you’d have been none the wiser. So don’t blame me!”
Marcus grimaced. She had him there. “Very well,” he agreed. “It is my fault that we are married and because of that I’m now privy to some unexpected truths—or lies if you will.” His gaze narrowed. “Is this what Whitley was blackmailing you about? Edmund?”
Isabel ran a hand through her tumbled locks. “Yes,” she said tiredly.
“How much does he know?”
“He can’t prove anything and, if I hadn’t lost my head that first day and given him money and had brazened it out instead, he would have gone away. I think.” She sighed. “But once I had given him money, he was like a jackal scenting a tiger’s kill: he knew there was something in the wind; all he had to do was keep circling around until he found it.”
“But he has no proof of anything?”
She sighed again. “Not that I know of. The locket is the closest thing to proof, but in and of itself, it proves nothing.” Her eyes met his. “But I didn’t know what he had and I couldn’t take any chances.” Her eyes pleading for understanding she added, “But even without the locket, even if he couldn’t prove anything, all he would have had to do was to plant suspicion and speculation in other people’s minds about Edmund’s legitimacy and Edmund’s life would have been blighted and the baron’s peace destroyed. The circumstances of my unexpected marriage to Hugh caused, I’m sure, a great deal of gossip here at home. And when the announcement of Edmund’s birth arrived at Manning Court, I don’t doubt there were some raised eyebrows when certain people counted on their fingers and realized he was an eighth-month child.” She laughed bitterly. “Of course, it was probably no more than anyone expected of me, but if anyone had been paying attention, they’d have realized that Hugh wasn’t even in the neighborhood when Edmund had to have been conceived.” Wearily, she added, “While Hugh was alive we always worried about that, but there was no reason for anyone to look farther or to actually try to prove that Edmund wasn’t anything beyond what we claimed: Hugh’s and my son.” Her hand closed into a fist and she threw Marcus an appealing look. “But if Whitley were to start asking questions, poking about, offering idle speculation, it’s possible, though unlikely after all this time, that someone might uncover the truth. I could not take that chance.”
Marcus cast his mind back to those painful months after Isabel had run away and married Hugh. Too well did he remember the gossip and speculation; even more did he remember the sly looks and smug smiles exchanged between several old tabby cats when the baron, delighted and proud, talked of his grandson, Edmund. He should have realized the reason behind the looks at the time, but he had still been reeling from the knowledge that Isabel was lost to him forever ... and that she had borne a son to her husband. Even now, he felt the knife-edge of black despair he’d suffered then. He shook himself. That was over. Isabel was his wife now. A fierce, satisfied smile crossed his face. And she had never been Hugh’s... .
He studied her wan little figure, aware that it didn’t matter too much to him what lies or half-truths she and Hugh may have concocted around Edmund. All that mattered to him was that she was here and she was his wife. His wife. Not Hugh’s. Never Hugh’s.
Marcus tried to feel remorse over the intense pleasure that knowledge gave him, but it was beyond him. He wasn’t, he thought wryly, that noble. Reminding himself that there were greater things at stake here than his personal gratification, he forced himself to concentrate on the lies surrounding Edmund’s birth. Putting aside the right and wrong of it, she’d borne this burden alone for over a decade and, while he might have been furious that she had never given him the chance to share that burden, he was keen to hear the truth.
He glanced around the feminine room and grimaced at the two dainty chairs. It was going to be a long night and he sure as the devil wasn’t spending it sitting in one of those fairy-sized chairs.
Abruptly, he said, “Come to my room. There’s a fire.” He looked at the teapot, shuddered, and muttered under his breath, “And something considerably stronger to drink than scandal broth.”
Isabel was grateful for the interruption and she said nothing when he took her hand and fairly dragged her from her bedroom to his. Only after he was ensconced in a burgundy mohair-covered chair near the small, cheery fire and had shoved a snifter of brandy into her hand did he say, “Now tell me. All of it.”
Chapter 13
Isabel looked around the comfortable room lit only by a pair of tall, silver candlesticks on the wide, carved oak mantel, gathering her courage and t
rying to think how to start. For too many years, she had lived with the fear that someday the events surrounding Edmund’s birth would be made public and everything she and Hugh and Edmund’s mother had tried to do would be destroyed. Not so many lives would be ruined now—Edmund’s mother and Hugh were dead—but Edmund and Lord Manning were very much alive and it was for them that she had lived the lie. She glanced over at Marcus’s hard face. A lie that was no longer hers alone ... Stalling for time, she sipped the brandy. The liquor warmed a path from her throat to her belly and, knowing the moment could not be postponed, she took a deep breath and said, “Her name was Roseanne Halford.”
Marcus started. “Not Ham-Handed Halford’s only child?” he asked incredulously.
Isabel shrugged. “I don’t know, but probably. Roseanne came from a very well-connected family.” Leaning forward, she said fiercely, “She wasn’t just a little nobody. Her birth and family was as good as yours and mine. Her father had even arranged her marriage to the heir to a barony, although it was never publicly announced.”
Marcus frowned, recalling some old gossip about Halford and Lord Brownleigh, known to be great friends, and the possibility of a match between Halford’s daughter and Brownleigh’s heir. The unexpected death of Halford’s daughter while touring in Italy had cut up both families and ended any hopes of the two families uniting. If Roseanne Halford had died in India, the direction Isabel’s tale was going, then it appeared that Halford had done some altering of the facts surrounding his daughter’s death.
When Marcus made no reply, keeping her eyes on the fire, Isabel said softly, “Hugh met her when he was traveling in the north of England and when ...” A knife-blade of pain sliced through her as she remembered that awful day. She took a deep breath and pushed on, saying, “And when she died, I wrote to a Mr. Halford at Vyne House in Bellingham to tell him that his daughter had died.” Her face hardened. “I didn’t tell him how she died, only that she had been visiting some friends in Bombay and had taken ill and died suddenly.”
“Vyne House is Halford’s country estate,” Marcus said quietly. “So his daughter and Edmund’s mother are one and the same.” He hesitated, waiting for Isabel to take up the story; when she did not, he prodded, “She and Hugh met and ... ?”
Tiredly, Isabel said, “They fell in love. Hugh offered for her, but her father turned him away.” She flicked a glance at him. “At that time, Hugh was not in line to inherit the title and Mr. Halford informed him that he had a better match in mind for his only child.”
Marcus nodded. “Halford was ambitious.”
“And his ambition killed his daughter,” Isabel said harshly. “If he had allowed her to marry Hugh, she might still be alive.” Sadness overcame her and she muttered, “Even Hugh might still be alive. He ... he was so unhappy after she died that he stayed away from home as often as he could. If it hadn’t been for Edmund ... and me, I don’t doubt he’d have lost himself in the jungles.” Her hand closed into a fist. “If it had been Roseanne waiting for him at home, he wouldn’t have been sleeping in that wretched hut in the middle of the jungle where he was bitten by a cobra.”
Attempting to distract her, Marcus asked, “Hugh and Roseanne, uh, anticipated their vows?”
“They were in love,” she said dully. “They didn’t mean to, but ...” Her eyes daring him to say otherwise, she declared passionately, “Hugh was an honorable man. He intended to marry her. He would never have deserted her. When her father crushed their hopes he begged her to run away with him, but at the time she was too timid to defy her father. Hugh left Bellingham with neither one of them having any idea that she was already carrying his child.”
Isabel rubbed her forehead and said painfully, “And then I met him by the lake and ruined everything by convincing him to marry me.” She raised tragic eyes to Marcus. “It is all my fault! If I had not badgered him into marrying me out of hand none of this would have happened.”
“You didn’t get Roseanne pregnant,” Marcus said dryly.
Isabel bit back an unhappy spurt of laughter. “No, but I created an insurmountable impediment to their happiness.”
Discovering a streak of selfish single-mindedness, and not too interested in Hugh and Roseanne, Marcus asked with suspicious idleness, “Since you and Hugh were married, how is it that the marriage was never consummated?”
“I know the match was my doing,” she admitted, “but if I could have undone it, I would have. It all happened so fast, there was no time to think, to reflect ... to come to my senses. One moment I was sitting beside the lake begging Hugh to marry me and take me to India with him and the next we were at the Manning townhouse in London and married.” She bit her lip. “Almost immediately, though we said nothing to each other at the time, we both realized that we had made a horrible, horrible mistake.” Her expression miserable, she added, “We spent a horrid afternoon together, trying to pretend that we were thrilled with the marriage. And that evening ...” She swallowed. “And that evening when he came to my bedroom, I locked him out. He was my husband, but he was a stranger and I was frightened. I spent the night huddled in bed terrified. Hugh went downstairs and got roaring drunk.”
Marcus tried to feel sympathy for Hugh and failed, but he had no trouble applauding Isabel’s actions. “And the next morning? What happened then?”
“Hugh was very kind. He said that we were both under a great deal of strain and that we had all of our lives together; there was no need to rush. He was sailing for Bombay within two days and we had much to do before he left. He said that we could put off any intimacies until I had arrived in India. He swore that he would court me as I should have been courted before we married, and only when I was comfortable would we consummate our marriage.”
Marcus couldn’t fault Hugh’s reasoning. “But I take it Roseanne appeared before this admirable plan could be put in motion?”
“Yes. Hugh made all the arrangements for my sailing to India on a ship that was leaving two weeks after his. He hired a companion for me, Mrs. Wesson, and had spoken with a young colleague of his, Mr. Akridge, who was sailing on the same ship that I was, to act as my escort. Before he left, he set up accounts for me to draw on and made a list of purchases I was to make—or rather, his man of business in London, Mr. Babb, would make.” She smiled faintly at Marcus. “Hugh was very capable and he made certain that I had nothing to worry about.”
“Until Roseanne showed up on your doorstep. Which is what I presume happened?”
Isabel nodded. “Yes. Precisely one day after Hugh sailed. She was terrified her father would find her and exhausted from the desperate journey to reach Hugh before he sailed. Meeting me devastated her.” Isabel shuddered. “I’ll never forget the look on her face and the horror in her voice when she cried, ‘His wife?’ and fainted dead away at my feet.”
“Couldn’t have been very pleasant for you.”
“No, it wasn’t! By the time she roused, I had ordered William, the butler, to take her upstairs to one of the bedrooms and had summoned a physician. He had just begun to examine her when she came to.” She shook her head. “Poor Roseanne! She was so confused, so startled and frightened when she woke in a strange bedroom with a strange man bending over her. It took us several moments to calm her down and assure her that she was safe and that we meant no harm.”
Isabel took a sip of brandy, her gaze on the fire, her thoughts far away. Finally she shook herself and looked over at Marcus. “She was a very sheltered, sweet girl and she would have been perfect for Hugh.” She smiled faintly, memories rushing through her mind. “Roseanne was biddable and agreeable and so very willing to please that one couldn’t help liking her.”
“You apparently did.”
She nodded. “By the time she died I loved her dearly and I would have done anything for her. I know you’ll find it hard to believe—she and I only knew each other little more than six months—but in that short time, she became the sister I never had. There was no jealousy between us; I didn’t love Hugh,
had never been in love with Hugh, and more than anything in the world, I wanted them to be together—as they should have been. I blamed myself for the situation we were all in, but Roseanne”—her eyes filled with tears—“Roseanne blamed herself and tried to comfort me!”
“I would remind you that it wasn’t your fault. Hugh had no business running away with a chit just out of the schoolroom! If anyone is to blame,” Marcus said grimly, “it is Hugh. Not you. Not even Roseanne.”
Isabel smiled sadly. “I think you are forgetting how determined I can be when I want something. I gave Hugh no chance to think about what we were doing. I pushed him into the marriage.”
“You were seventeen!” Marcus said furiously. “He was a man of thirty or more. He should have known better.”
Isabel waved a dismissing hand. “It doesn’t matter now. What matters now and what has mattered all along is Edmund and his fate.”
Marcus took a grip of his unexpected show of temper and muttered, “Yes, yes, of course. Tell me the rest of it.”
“Once the physician and everyone had left us alone, in her fear and despair, Roseanne blurted out that she was pregnant with Hugh’s child. I was horrified because it changed the whole situation. It was no longer just a case of not being able to marry the man she loved, but there was a child at stake now. She would have been ruined, but worse, the child would be branded a bastard, just another by-blow of a well-born gentleman. From the beginning, Roseanne and I were united to prevent that from happening, and fortunately, so was Hugh.”
Marcus’s grandfather, the Old Earl, was noted for cluttering the English countryside with his bastards, so Marcus was well able to understand and sympathize. He’d always been appalled by his grandfather’s numerous illegitimate children, even if the Old Earl had carelessly acknowledged and provided for them, but even the Old Earl’s blessing never took away the stigma of illegitimacy. The ranks of the ton were closed to them and their position in life was not always easy. Hugh had tried to act honorably and Marcus would not fault him on that even if he blamed him for the situation. Finding Isabel staring expectantly at him, he said, “So you and Roseanne sailed to India together to lay the problem at Hugh’s feet—where I might add, it belonged.”
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