My Darling, My Disaster (Lords of Essex)

by Morgan, Angie

  It was as if all the air was sucked out of the room. Her chest rose and fell with frantic, gasping breaths, but Gray only stared at her, his eyes disbelieving. Agonized.

  “Marriage,” he repeated, his voice flat. “To a local boy.”

  “Yes.”

  He took a breath. “You are betrothed?”

  Lana nodded, unable to speak.

  “Then why did you…” He raised his chin, fury cresting in his injured glare. “Why in hell did you give yourself to me at the Crown?”

  She flinched, her eyes drifting from his as she dug deep, to the layers of cool reserve drilled into her from birth—the ability to hold one’s composure no matter what. For the first time in months, she reached for the hidden princess buried underneath all the layers of the servant.

  “I had heard so many rumors about your prowess in the bedroom. Can you fault me for being curious?”

  Lana was grateful for the cool tones of her voice that conveyed the despicable words, meant to flay him to the bone. They succeeded. Gray released her elbows, and they dropped to her sides, heavy as lead. He stared at her, stunned disbelief warring with confusion in his eyes.

  She delivered the final blow with an insouciant shrug of her shoulders. “What is it Lady Dinsmore always says—a girl can’t do better than to catch a duke? Well, I didn’t catch a duke, but I had a part of you. And you didn’t disappoint, Lord Northridge. You, a viscount, an English lord, the heir to an earldom. In truth, you were…a pleasant novelty for a mere maid like me.”

  “You’re lying,” he whispered.

  Lana strained to meet his stare. She had to make him believe, even if it gouged out her heart. “I am not,” she said, keeping her voice calm and steady. “I only wish I had made myself plain before now. Once Lord Langlevit helps me bring Zakorov and Count Volkonsky to justice, I plan to return to Russia with my sister and marry the one of my uncle’s choosing. I have no desire to stay here in England. With you or any man of my acquaintance.”

  More lies.

  Lies built upon lies. An entire fortress of them.

  She held herself entirely still, her expression cast of stone. One flicker of emotion, and she would crumble. A small, quiet part of her screamed for Gray not to believe her, to argue and force her to admit the truth, to dispute every ugly word trespassing her lips and violating her heart. But she had been too exact…too perfect in her cold, ruthless performance.

  “Any man of your acquaintance,” he said dully. “I understand now.”

  Lana longed to correct him…that he had been—he was—the only man, but she couldn’t lay it all to waste now. She had to cut him loose for good. “Perhaps I am more like Marianna than we both knew.”

  A muscle flexed in his cheek, and Gray stepped to the side, his eyes falling away from hers. His lips were parted, as if he wanted to say something. He licked them and then flared his nostrils as a sweep of pain and humiliated anger transformed his features.

  “Of course. How lucky am I to have been your entertaining diversion while Langlevit fixed all of your problems. Go home, then, now that you know what it is to lie with a lord. Go marry your pauper boy.” He flexed his hands into fists and brushed past her, pausing only to add, “You will be forgotten in a fortnight.”

  He stalked out of the alcove, and Lana’s heart went with him, stretching and ripping, completely destroyed. She closed her eyes and braced herself against the cold twisting stone stairwell. God, he hated her now. But she had done what she’d needed to do. He would not come for her. He would stay where he was needed, with Brynn and Sofia and his family. He would stay safe.

  Unlike what Gray had promised her, she would not forget him in a fortnight. She would never forget him. Never stop loving him. How absurd, how cruel, that this had been the only way she could show it.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Perhaps I am more like Marianna than we both knew.

  They were the most damning words he’d ever heard. Worse, because Gray had never thought to even compare the two women. Their only commonality had been their humble origins. But he’d been wrong. Lana, as it turned out, was far worse than Marianna had ever been. At least Marianna had been truthful about not wanting Sofia.

  Lana was a liar. A schemer. A fraud.

  She had hurt him worse than Marianna ever had.

  “That will do, my lord,” Harrison said, with a satisfied nod at his handiwork. Gray scrubbed a hand over his face as his valet finished the last touches on his cravat, completing the intricate knot with a diamond stickpin. The man in the looking glass looked exactly like the man from the night before—pressed evening clothes, clean-shaven jaw, not a strand of blond hair out of place. He looked like his normal self. The arrogant aristocrat without a care in the world. Which was what he intended.

  “Thank you, Harrison. Please send for my carriage.”

  “Already done, my lord. Rogers is out front.”

  Descending the staircase, Gray entered the waiting coach and sat back on the velvet squabs. He did not want to go out, but he would go insane if he remained another minute within the empty walls of Bishop House. The rest of his family had departed for Essex days before, leaving him with Harrison, a cookmaid, a footman, and his driver. The only reprieve had been that Brynn had taken her maid with her. Gray didn’t know if his heart could handle the sight of her, which was why he’d chosen to remain in London. To clear his head.

  It hadn’t helped a whit.

  She haunted him everywhere he turned. He couldn’t play a hand of cards without thinking about her sprawled on that sofa at the Crown. He couldn’t go into a garden without smelling her fragrance. Hell, he couldn’t even close his eyes without seeing her face.

  So, tonight, he was trying something different. He would attempt to replace her face with another. Not a courtesan—he’d tried that but couldn’t bring himself to do it, not after years of celibacy that he’d only broken with Lana.

  No, he’d replace her with something more.

  Be responsible, as she’d leveled at him. Marry to his station. Do his duty. A wife would do nicely.

  The King’s Theatre was crowded, glittering under the flickering gaslights. He’d invited Lady Cordelia Vandermere to his private box at the opera, choosing it for its exposure. It seemed like all the young ladies he was acquainted with longed for the chance to be seen at the opera with a prospective beau, and if he remembered something Brynn had once said, the opera was one of Lady Cordelia’s favorite pastimes.

  But as he walked through the crowded foyer of the King’s Theatre, the thought of sitting in an enclosed box with only the young lady and Mozart’s Don Giovanni for company made him feel ill. Not that he was anything like Don Giovanni, a notorious libertine and seducer of women, but the subject matter felt too close for comfort. He couldn’t help noticing the fact that the last woman of his intimate acquaintance had been promised to another and he had taken her innocence.

  He clenched his jaw. He hadn’t taken anything that hadn’t willingly been given.

  Cordelia had arrived with her parents and stood at the far end of the hall. He grasped a glass of whiskey from a nearby footman and drank it in one gulp. For fortitude. Determinedly, Gray made his way toward the lady and her parents, even though his feet wanted to flee in the opposite direction. He stopped to converse with a few people he knew, though it felt as if he were in some sort of waking dream. Like his body was a wooden puppet with someone else controlling the strings.

  “Lord Vandermere, Countess,” he said with a short bow to her parents before taking Cordelia’s gloved fingers in his palm and pressing his lips to the silk. “Lady Cordelia, how lovely you look.”

  “Lord Northridge, what a kind thing to say,” she said graciously and inclined her neck as her parents offered their greetings and pleasantries.

  His smile felt plastered on, but Gray had to admit Cordelia looked beautiful. The ice blue gown set off her figure to perfection. Her skin glowed with radiant health, and her flaxen curls framed spa
rkling eyes the same color as her dress. On the surface, she was everything he should want: cultured, poised, beautiful, and blue-blooded. She would make an excellent match. His mother would be ecstatic, but Gray felt nothing but hollowness in the pit of his stomach as he escorted her to his private box.

  Her parents went to theirs, but Cordelia’s quiet chaperone—the same young woman who’d been with her in front of White’s—trailed a few steps behind them and sat unobtrusively in the corner once they arrived. Her presence, dictated by society, was a necessity.

  “I must admit, Lord Northridge,” Cordelia said, flicking open her fan. “I was surprised when you called upon me the other afternoon.”

  “Why is that?”

  She inclined her head. “I had heard the rest of your family left for Essex shortly after Lady Eloise’s funeral, and I suppose I expected you to return as well.”

  “I had business in London.”

  She smiled from behind the pleats of her fan. “Of course.”

  Their conversation faded into silence as the first act began, but as the opera wore on, Gray found that he couldn’t concentrate. He shifted in his seat, his knee shaking with restless energy. His eyes swept to the woman at his side, and he saw, to his surprise, that she was looking at him instead of the stage. He arched an eyebrow, uncomfortable at the odd, incisive look in her eyes.

  She flicked her fan open again. “You don’t enjoy the opera?”

  “Not particularly,” he admitted.

  “Then why did you ask me?”

  “Because it is what you like.”

  The corner of her mouth tipped upward into a half smile as she stifled a laugh. “We have known each other for years, Lord Northridge, and never once have you cared a hoot for what I like. What has changed?”

  Surprised, Gray stared at her. She had never struck him as anything less than icy, but now he saw something else: a deep intelligence and a sly humor. He appreciated her bluntness and answered equally so. “I suppose it is time I chose a wife.”

  A faint flush shimmered over her cheekbones, her fan gliding into motion. “Though I am flattered, what makes you think I would be interested in such a suit?”

  Gray blinked. “Isn’t that what all young women want?”

  “Not all women, Lord Northridge.”

  She surprised him again. But this time, something in her voice tugged at him. It contained wistfulness. A resignation to a fate not wished for. He recognized the feeling intimately, and Gray was curious to know what she meant. He turned to face her. “And what is it that you want?”

  She angled her head toward the stage and took her time before answering. “I wish for freedom.”

  “If you marry the right man, you’ll have it,” he said, frowning.

  Her laugh was hollow. “Come now, Lord Northridge, surely you don’t believe that. I mean freedom from this.” She waved a gloved hand, her voice low and intense. “From expectation. From what should be done. Who says I must marry?”

  He tented a slow eyebrow. “You don’t wish to?”

  “Not if I can help it. How do you think I’ve managed to stay free for three full seasons?” Cordelia laughed. “I am as skilled at avoiding unwanted suits as I am at attracting them.”

  “And your parents?” he asked, starting to realize that her icy demeanor had been an act.

  “They only want for my happiness. My father married a governess after all, though it’s remarkable how well the ton chooses what it wants to remember.”

  Gray sat back in his chair. Had he known that Lady Vandermere had been a governess? He couldn’t recall any gossip of that nature, though it would have been twenty years ago.

  “Who says I must be a dutiful wife to some lord?” Cordelia’s slender shoulders rose in a shrug. “Become a broodmare for his heirs? I wish freedom from it all. To be who I want. To love whom I want.”

  Gray’s eyes narrowed at her. “Love,” he repeated.

  “The thing we live for…the one we breathe for.” Almost as if she hadn’t meant to, her eyes flicked over her shoulder to the woman seated in the corner of his opera box. The chaperone met Cordelia’s eyes only briefly, but it was long enough. Gray drew in a clipped breath. He shook his head, convinced he had misinterpreted the look of longing, but then Cordelia smiled and tipped her head to the side. “We want who we want.”

  Gray couldn’t help it. He laughed. For the first time in days, he laughed. She—the icy, unflappable, prim and proper Lady Cordelia Vandermere—had shocked him.

  “You are right,” he agreed.

  She leaned toward him, her eyes sparkling. “And it’s evident, Lord Northridge, that you do not want me.”

  Gray went silent and then swallowed, his eyes returning to the final act unfolding on stage. “You are right, but what if the young lady in question is promised to another?”

  “Do you care for each other?”

  His breath stalled at the blunt question. He’d thought they had. But Lana had well and truly shattered that illusion. Gray flinched at the biting recollection of her words. But then he took a breath and pushed past the dull ache to recall her face. Her eyes, glistening with unshed tears. The unhidden agony in them.

  He’d been so consumed with his own that he hadn’t seen hers. He knew what had happened in the mews had affected her greatly and that she worried for her sister. Gray frowned. Had she said what she had out of some skewed notion of protecting him? Was there even a man waiting for her? Or had she said it all to push him away? To protect him.

  Oh, Lana.

  “Yes,” he answered in a hoarse voice. “I think so.”

  Cordelia smiled at him. “Then why are you here courting me? Go, Lord Northridge. Find happiness. There is no cost too great to pay. Trust me on that.”

  His chest felt tight as he stood and bent to kiss her hand. “Thank you.”

  “Think nothing of it, my lord,” she replied with an airy wave. “After all, we free-spirited souls need to stick together.”

  “If there is ever anything I can do for you, Lady Cordelia, please do not hesitate to ask,” Gray said, and meant it. “I shall take my leave. My apologies for not seeing you home. Should I escort you back to your parents?”

  Cordelia hid a secret smile behind her fan. “I think I shall stay here a few minutes more, if that suits you, Lord Northridge. Precious few moments like these are not to be wasted.”

  “Please, stay as long as you like.”

  Gray left the box, drawing the curtains closed behind him. The sound of soft laughter reached his ears through it, but he had other things on his mind—his own happiness, as it were.

  With renewed purpose, he strode down the plush carpeted steps to his waiting carriage but was halted from climbing into it by a man shouting, “Milord! Lord Northridge!”

  Surprised, Gray turned to see Croyden, the man he’d hired to keep an eye on Zakorov, riding toward him. Gray frowned. Croyden was grimy and covered in filth, what looked like globs of crusted blood stuck to his face and clothing. “What happened to you?”

  “The baron, milord,” the man wheezed, sliding in a bone-weary heap from the saddle and clutching his middle. “Caught me and young Tommy tailing ’im. Thrashed me to within an inch. Dumped me in the river and left me for dead, he did.”

  Gray felt his insides turn to ice as he gripped the man’s shoulder. He knew all too well what a brute like Zakorov was capable of. “Do you know where the baron is now, Croyden? Is he still in London?”

  “No, milord.” Croyden shook his head. “Tommy followed him. North. His carriage rode north.”

  …

  The darkening clouds closing in on Ferndale worried Lana. She’d helped Brynn prepare for an early-evening ride less than a quarter hour before, and by the looks of it, her mistress would be caught in a downpour soon. Lana sat upon a chair just beyond the kitchen entrance, a bucket of soapy water at her feet. The cool breeze had been too delicious to pass up, so she had thrown on her black cloak to shield against the chilled air and tak
en the bit of laundry she had for Brynn outdoors.

  She scrubbed a few spots of dark red wine from the left half of a pair of delicate kidskin gloves, hoping to lift the stain. Lana’s mind wandered, her scrubbing intensifying as it touched on everything she did not wish to think about. Her sister and whether or not the Frenchman, or even Gray’s hired man, had reached her in Cumbria. Lord Langlevit and the now undeniable knowledge that something untoward had happened to him. There could be no other reason for his prolonged absence. Her uncle and Viktor’s whereabouts were up in the air as well, now that Lana had been in Essex for nearly a week.

  And Gray. She thought of Gray and winced at the cruel things she’d said to him. The lies she’d uttered in order to push him away and keep him safe. The pain of it still pricked her soul whenever she remembered the look in his eyes as she’d torn out his heart—and her own.

  “Lady Lana?”

  She stopped her scrubbing and looked up. James, the footman, was approaching her chair, which she’d dragged out from the kitchen and placed in the swaying grass. The breeze had kicked up a notch, and even the winter cloak she wore felt insufficient against the raw cold. James held out a slim letter. “This just arrived for you.”

  No one sent her letters. No one except the Earl of Langlevit.

  With her breath caught in her throat, her pulse pounding with hope, she took the letter. She let out a near sob of relief when she saw the waxed seal with the usual jumping hare.

  “Is anything wrong?” James asked, frowning with worry. Lana set the glove down and jumped to her feet.

  “Oh no. Nothing at all,” she said and, thanking him, darted inside the kitchen.

  She hurried toward a back corridor and dipped into the stillroom. It smelled of herbs, dried fruit, and the sharp scent of liqueur, but Lana paid no attention to that as she ripped the letter from the envelope. She instantly recognized the earl’s hand, though the contents were not coded.

  Deepest apologies on my absence. Followed a lead to Cumbria after finding my cryptographer contact dead. Did not wish to alarm you. No choice in matter now. Your sister has been taken. On my way to Essex. Reason to believe that is their destination. You are in danger. You must remain in London. Entrench. Request Lord Northridge’s help. He will give it, I am sure. Trust me to retrieve your sister.