Deceiver

by Nicola Cornick

  Marcus's gaze was somber. "It was too painful," he said. "But that was from guilt, not love."

  Isabella stared at him. She was clenching her hands tightly on the arm of the chair.

  "Guilt? About what?"

  Marcus came across and sat in the other chair at right angles to her. They were close enough to touch, but both of them held themselves stiffly upright. The tension in the room was palpable, like the crackling of sheet lightning.

  "I felt guilty that I could never love her," Marcus said simply after a moment "I realized that I could not make her happy. She deserved better." He looked up abruptly and Isabella flinched at what she saw in his eyes. "I married the wrong cousin," he said again, "and I tried to make her into what I wanted. I tried to make her you. She lived in your shadow for all of our marriage. She knew it and I knew it, but we never spoke of it"

  Isabella was shaking her head with bewilderment. "I thought that I was the one living with the incomparable."

  Marcus smiled wryly. "I can understand that you might mink that The room, the portraits, all her collections. . ."

  "And more than anything your fierce protectiveness of her memory!" Isabella made a slight gesture. "Was that guilt too, Marcus? That you had not been able to give her what she wanted in life, so you were determined to try to make recompense?"

  Marcus put his head between his hands briefly then looked up again. "It was the least that I could do," he said bleakly. "I felt responsible for her death. If only I had been with her in Town. . . But I spent as little time with her as I could."

  Isabella took his hand. She half expected him to pull away from her, but he did not. "I am very sorry," she said.

  He glanced at her. "You have nothing to be sorry for."

  "Maybe not." Isabella hesitated. "But I know what it is like to try to build something worthwhile and to fail. Al­though—" she smiled a little "—I must confess that with Ernest, I soon gave up trying. It was a lost cause."

  Marcus smiled, too. He raised the back of her hand and pressed a kiss on it. "Was it so bad, Isabella?"

  "Oh, shocking!" Isabella said. Her smile faded. "It was probably not as sad as for you, though, I think. You must have hoped for happiness with India, whereas I knew from the start that I had made a marriage of convenience."

  Marcus started a little, though he did not let her go. "I quickly realized that there was a part of India I could never reach," he said. "You said yourself that she was very self-contained and it was true. I knew there was something troubling her. She was unhappy and I was very afraid that I was the cause."

  Isabella trembled. This was her opportunity to tell Marcus about Edward Warwick and yet she hesitated to do so. Marcus had confided in her and there was a fragile trust between them. Would she blow it all apart before it had begun if she told him that she suspected she knew the real cause of his wife's unhappiness?

  Marcus had felt the tremor that shook her and was looking at her questioningly. His dark gaze was suddenly so tender that Isabella felt a fierce pang of regret at what she had to do. But there had already been too many secrets between them for her to keep quiet about what she knew. Besides, there was Warwick to consider.

  Still holding his hand, she went down on her knees beside his chair. She spoke very carefully.

  "I am sure that it was a source of regret to both of you, Marcus, that your marriage was not as happy as it might have been. However, I think there may have been another cause of India's grief."

  His hand tightened briefly on hers. "What can you mean, Isabella?"

  Isabella took a deep breath. There was no going back now.

  "I think that India was in love with someone else," she said. "I think she loved Edward Warwick, Marcus, and I think she had his child."

  She spared him nothing. All the things that Pen had said, their memories and joint discoveries, the news of the illegit­imate baby that was supposedly fathered by Lord John and the locket in the portmanteau. . . Throughout it all, Marcus sat silent, his dark gaze never wavering from her face, his expres­sion impassive.

  "I think that the tragedy of it all was that Warwick truly loved her," Isabella finished. "Why else would he come back to Salterton the following year but to find her? He wanted to marry her but Lord John refused to countenance his suit and he was powerless to act."

  Marcus moved slightly. He had been so still and so silent that it had been impossible for Isabella to judge his reactions to her words. He had not shouted her down, or condemned her words or instinctively denied her suggestions. Even so, she could feel the apprehension gnawing at the pit of her stomach, and not only for India but also for herself. She did not wish to destroy Marcus's respect for his dead wife but she was honest enough to admit that she did not want to lose his good opinion either.

  "I do not understand why Lord John and Lady Jane would not allow her to marry Warwick," Marcus said slowly. "If she had borne his child, surely the necessity to keep the scandal quiet would outweigh any other consideration?" He sounded distant, as though he were trying to. solve a puzzle that held no personal concerns but was a mere intellectual challenge.

  "You knew the Southerns," Isabella said. "I loved Lady Jane in particular, but she was very conscious of her position and her status. She was similar to my mother in that respect. Why, I remember her reminding me that I should not form a tendre for you when we first met because you were so ineli­gible. India was their only child. All their hopes and aspira­tions were invested in her. They could not permit her to throw herself away on some nobody without fortune."

  Marcus let go of her hand abruptly and got to his feet. He ran his fingers through his hair in an agitated gesture.

  "India in love with another man. . . Giving up her child. . ."

  "I cannot be certain," Isabella said quickly, "but the evidence suggests that may be so." She looked up at him, trying to gauge his feelings. "I am sorry, Marcus. I do not wish you to think ill of her."

  "I do not know what to think," Marcus said, with a long, unreadable look at her. "I am going out for a while."

  "Marcus—" Isabella scrambled to her feet. She was stiff from kneeling on the floor and her skirts were creased but all she could think of was the need to banish that empty expres­sion from his face and soothe the hurt. She put out a hand to him but it was too late. He was already turning away. The door of the room closed with a soft click. She thought about running after him, but she did not move.

  India in love with another man. . . Giving up her child. . .

  Marcus sat by the sea for a very long time. His gaze traced the movement of white sails on the horizon but his mind was largely empty. He was oblivious of the stares of curious pas­sersby. Someone even addressed him, but they withdrew when he did not even turn his head, let alone reply.

  After a while he became aware that he was chilled from the onshore breeze. He rose stiffly to his feet, walked along the esplanade and took the steps up toward the Hall. He saw Freddie Standish emerge from the inn on the harbor and exchange a few words with someone standing in the shadow of the doorway. He did not want to talk to Standish, not now. He picked up speed.

  The house was quiet.

  He found Isabella in the laundry room. She looked up when he came in and her hands stilled in the folding of the sheet. She put it down slowly. Her face was open and troubled. He realized that she was working to blot out more uncomfort­able thoughts. He could tell that she was deeply distressed at the thought that she had hurt him. It made him feel tender inside in a very different way from the raw hurt he had felt to think of India's lonely misery.

  "I always wondered," he said, without preamble. "I wondered whether India was holding the memory of someone else. God knows, I could not blame her, for was I not doing precisely the same thing myself? We never spoke of it and somehow we muddled along together and yet it was like hobbling on one leg when previously one had run. . . . Poor India. . ." He smiled ruefully. "We did try, but in the end the odds were too great."

  Isabella
came toward him and raised her hand to rest it on his chest. A curl had come loose from the ridiculous lace cap she was wearing. It rested against her cheek. She was flushed from the warmth Of the room and her exertions. -

  "You cared sufficiently about each other to try to be happy," she said softly. "That is what counts,"

  Marcus nodded. "I do not think any the less of her for what happened," he said. He turned his face away. "I did at first. I could not help myself."

  Isabella was silent, watching his face.

  "It was a shock," he said rapidly, pulling her down to sit beside him on a pile of sweet-scented bed linen. "I thought I knew her. Arrogant of me, I know, but we lived together for six years and I thought. . ." He scratched his head. "It was a shock to realize that I had got something so fundamentally wrong and did not really know her at all."

  "India was a difficult person to know," Isabella said.

  "I wish she could have confided in me," Marcus said, "but I see it would have been impossible for her." Instinctively he drew Isabella closer to his side.

  "She must have been very lonely," Isabella said softly, echoing his thoughts.

  Marcus looked down into her eyes. Her head was resting against his shoulder.

  "You know how that feels do you not, my love?" he said gently.

  Isabella sighed. "I have come to discover that India and I had more things in common than I had ever realized."

  Marcus kissed her. The relief of rediscovering her and holding her close overwhelmed him. He felt grateful and humble and exalted all at the same time. He plucked the cap from her head and tossed it aside, burying his face in her hair, pulling her backward to he in a tangle of sheets. Neither of them spoke, the urgency between them suddenly too great for words. Isabella ripped open his jacket and shirt to caress his chest. He kissed her with feverish insistence while his hand slid up her thigh beneath her skirts.

  "Marcus." Isabella freed her mouth briefly. "We cannot do this here! The laundry maid will come in at any moment."

  In reply, Marcus got to his feet, crossed the room and turned the key decisively in the lock.

  "She won't now," he said.

  Afterward he watched with languorous pleasure as she tried with spectacular lack of success to tame her unruly hair and push it beneath that ridiculous cap. She glanced over her shoulder, caught his smile and looked exasperated.

  "Marcus, if you would only help me instead of laughing at my efforts!"

  "You would still look as though you have been tumbled in the laundry room," Marcus said. Nevertheless he got to his feet obligingly and came across to help her.

  With his hands resting on her shoulders, he turned her to look at him.

  "There was one thing that I forgot to ask you when we were talking earlier," he said.

  He saw the bright light fade from her eyes and anxiety take its place. His hands tightened, trying to convey reassurance.

  "Edward Warwick," he said. "I do not understand why he has returned to Salterton. India is dead and buried and the past with her. What is the secret that he believes I hold? What does he hope to achieve?"

  An extraordinary expression chased across Isabella's face, part regret, part sympathy.

  "I do believe that he has come back to find something," she said. "Marcus, I think he wants his child."

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  "We shall have to trap him," Marcus said. He and Alistair were in the library. It was late. One lamp burned, casting a warm shadow. "Warwick is here in Salterton but we cannot flush him out without bait."

  "We could use Standish," Alistair said. "Warwick trusts him."

  Marcus hesitated, then he shook his head. "I doubt very much that he does. I doubt he trusts anyone."

  Alistair tilted the brandy in his glass and studied it thought­fully. "Your judgment may be affected, Marcus."

  Marcus grimaced. There was no maybe about it. "It is," he said. "I will do everything in my power to keep Isabella's brother out of this."

  "He is already in it to his neck," Alistair pointed out. "If you do not take him into account, he may well ruin our plans."

  Marcus's mouth set in a stubborn line. "Isabella and I are but recently reconciled. I cannot—I will not—jeopardize that for anything, not even Edward Warwick."

  Alistair's mouth twisted into a wry smile. "You are saying that there is nothing more important in the world than your wife."

  Their eyes met. "I am saying that," Marcus agreed. "I love her, Alistair."

  There was a moment's silence.

  "So," Alistair said. "How do we trap him?"

  Marcus picked up the silver locket from the desk. "With this," he said.

  Isabella was in bed, wrapped close in Marcus's arms, but she was not asleep. She was thinking of India, not in the way that she had previously thought of her cousin, but with sympathy and understanding, and a regret that the knowl­edge had come too late. In the morning, she thought sleepily, moving instinctively closer to Marcus's warmth, she would go up to the attic and choose something of India's for remem­brance. Then she would arrange for the rest of India's belong­ings to be given away and then—she admitted it—she would feel that they had finally closed that chapter.

  She was on the edge of sleep when she wondered suddenly what had happened to the child.

  It was a hot morning, certainly too hot for physical activity. Nevertheless, Freddie Standish was running. Ordinarily he would never do such a thing and as he hastened through the rooms of Salterton Hall, he realized why. Running was un­pleasant. It made him sweat and pant. But this was an emer­gency, so he was prepared to do it just this once.

  He could not find Marcus Stockhaven anywhere. He was not in the library nor the drawing room, although the house­keeper had assured Freddie that both Lord Stockhaven and Mr. Cantrell were in the house. Normally Freddie would not have dreamed of seeking Stockhaven out. He had spent the last three weeks trying to avoid him. There was something about Stockhaven that made Freddie feel deeply inadequate. Stockhaven was tough and ruthless and strong and all the things that Freddie had always wanted to be and never quite achieved. But again, this was an emergency and he had to put aside his prejudices for the greater good.

  He puffed down the garden passage and was about to fling open the outside door when someone stepped out of the gun room and grabbed his arm so tightly that he almost squeaked like a stuck pig. He managed to bite his Up and what came out was more of a gurgle.

  "Quiet!" Marcus practically dragged him into the room and closed the door behind them. Alistair Cantrell was there. He had a dueling pistol in his hand. Freddie almost fainted.

  "Warwick," Freddie wheezed. "He's in the house."

  Marcus looked no more than irritated. "We know. Keep quiet, there's a good fellow."

  Alistair, after a brief glance in Freddie's direction, bent to checking the pistol again.

  "How long?" he asked. "Three minutes," Marcus said, "then we go up."

  Freddie grabbed his arm again. "You do not understand, Stockhaven. It's Bella. She's in the attics."

  He was gratified to see that his words had rather more effect this time. Marcus swung round on him, his eyes nar­rowing. Freddie had all of his attention.

  "Isabella?"

  "That's what I'm trying to tell you," Freddie gabbled. "I heard Bella tell Mrs. Lawton that she was going up to the attic to fetch something and would Mrs. Lawton please arrange for the late Lady Stockhaven's trunks to be brought down later."

  Marcus swore. "When did she go up there?"

  "Fifteen minutes. . . T-t-twenty?" Freddie's teeth chat-tered although he was feeling extremely hot and sweaty. He ran a finger around the inside of his collar. "Warwick will think it's a trap."

  "It is," Marcus said grimly. "Just not the right one."

  Alistair cocked the pistol with a loud click. "Come on," he said. Neither of them looked at Freddie as they went out.

  Freddie sagged against the table with relief. He extracted his large, spotted, rose-scented ha
ndkerchief from his pocket and mopped his brow. He had to get out of this room. It smelled of grease and gunpowder and made him think of dead animals. He shuddered.

  He went out into the passage and walked slowly into the hall. The house was preternaturally quiet. Freddie went into the drawing room and sat down with the Gentlemen's Magazine. He could not concentrate. He would have to tell Stockhaven everything now and beg for his help. Freddie shifted uncomfortably. His brother-in-law could scarcely have a lower opinion of him than he already did, so it should not matter. Yet for some reason it did.

  Freddie cast the magazine aside in disgust. Why was it so quiet? Had they caught Warwick yet? If he had escaped. . . Cold sweat formed on Freddie's upper lip. It was no good. He could not sit here meekly waiting to discover his fate. For better or worse he had to go to meet it.

  Isabella knew exactly what she was looking for. In the night she had remembered the battered box of drawing sticks and the sketchbook and she had wondered whether India might have expressed her feelings in pictures rather than in words. She rummaged in the first trunk with its now-familiar scent of old lavender and dust and heard the crayons clink within their metal box. The drawing book was beneath. She pulled it out.

  The pages were blank.

  Isabella felt part disappointed, part puzzled. She had been certain that there would be something there. She sat back on her heels, riffling through the pages. Nothing. Nothing but for a faint pencil drawing on the last but one page. It was the cherubic face of a small child, but it was so pale and faded now that she almost missed it. The pencil lines had blurred and almost been rubbed away. The name beneath it read Edward John.

  There was a step on the bare boards of the floor. She had heard no one come up the stairs and now she realized with a frightened jump of her heart that this was because they had been here already, in the second attic, waiting. . . .