Led Astray by a Rake

by Sara Bennett

  “She knows,” he said grimly.

  “Then why…? I don’t understand.”

  “Olivia!” he roared.

  She stopped and glanced down. Her face looked pale but he couldn’t really see her expression. She released one hand and tucked her hair out of her eyes. “Please don’t distract me,” she called down primly.

  “Distract you!” he blazed. “What the devil do you think you’re doing?”

  “I want to see the view,” she said blithely. “You said it was magnificent.”

  For a moment he was speechless. “You’re risking your life for the view?” he choked.

  “Why not?” she said. “What else should I do? I suppose I could sit and wring my hands.”

  “Don’t be so bloody melodramatic!” he growled.

  “You lied to me,” she replied, her voice like ice.

  “Olivia, please…”

  She looked away from him, back at the top of the wall, and then began to climb again. Another couple of steps and she clamped one hand over the top, then the other, and soon afterward she’d pulled herself up and was sitting astride the wall, her feet dangling either side. Olivia peered down at him, her bright hair silhouetted against the gray sky.

  “Go away, Nic,” she called breathlessly. “I have nothing to say to you.”

  “What does she mean, you lied?” Lady Lacey interrupted.

  “Not now, Mother.”

  “If you won’t tell me, Dominic, then go up and get her down.”

  Nic hadn’t climbed since he fell and broke his leg—he hadn’t wanted to. Now he looked up, gauging the distance and the hand holds of the route he had once known so well he could have climbed it in his sleep.

  The memory of the agony when he’d broken his leg was still sharp, and it was difficult to gather any enthusiasm for what he knew he must do. But this was Olivia, his wife, and he loved her. He didn’t want to lose her. Climbing up to be with her was probably the only possibility at this point, and he knew he had to do it.

  Nic stripped off his jacket and handed it to his mother. She didn’t try and dissuade him, but he could see she was worried. Just before he stepped up to the wall, she caught his arm and forced him to look around at her. Her dark eyes searched his.

  “Take care, Dominic,” she said.

  Nic smiled, and then she let him go and he moved to the wall.

  His heart was pounding. His hands were sweating. He took a deep breath and, reaching up, began to climb. At first he felt clumsy and out of tune with his body. His leg ached, and at one point his foot slipped, so that he almost did fall. It took him a moment to find his courage again, and to still the thudding of his heart.

  As he climbed farther the old rhythm began to come back to him, while as if by magic his hands went to the correct holds, and his feet slid into the gaps. A feeling of elation came over Nic as he realized that despite his lame leg he was still more than capable of achieving the top. Perhaps he wasn’t a cripple after all.

  Before he knew it, he was lifting his head and there was Olivia’s solemn face, just above and to the right of him, gazing down into his.

  “You were right, the view is wonderful,” she said evenly. “Worth the climb.”

  She spoke as if he was a stranger, and a not very interesting one. If he’d felt as if he was in a hopeless situation before, then it was worse now. His chest constricted with loss and misery, but he knew he still had to try.

  Nic dragged himself onto the top of the wall beside her and swung his leg over the uneven stones, settling himself nearby. His estate lay all around him, the woods and the park and the garden, the gatehouse, and the castle. He could hear his father’s voice in his head, telling him what his future held and what sort of man he needed to be to make a good master.

  “The land is what counts. The land is what makes us what we are. We must care for the land and all those who live upon it, under our authority, just as we have for hundreds and hundreds of years.”

  He spoke aloud, remembering. As a boy he’d found the thought of such responsibility daunting, but his father had assured him that with time, and training, his position would become natural to him.

  “My father told me that I could mold myself into the kind of man needed to take charge of the Lacey estate. I was his son and he expected great things from me. I idolized him.”

  He tipped back his head and looked at the sky, feeling the sting of the wind against his face. It looked like it was going to rain, but as much as he wanted to urge Olivia to climb down with him, he had to tell her the truth. It was his only hope for the future he wanted.

  Chapter 34

  The woman came to the door carrying the baby in her arms and demanding entry. Nic’s mother was visiting friends, and only he and his father were there to receive her. Until that moment Nic had no idea that he was about to have the solid foundation of his world rocked beyond repair.

  “My father took her into the library. I could hear them talking, and then she was crying. He was comforting her. After a time I couldn’t stand it anymore, so I went in to see what was happening.

  “He was holding her in his arms. Gently, tenderly, like a lover. When he saw me he didn’t let her go. He held her tighter, cradling her face to his shoulder, and stared at me over her head, as if defying me to stop him.”

  The memory was very clear, even now, and just as painful. “He arranged for the woman and the child to be looked after and sent them off with Abbot. I didn’t know what he said, but later on I found out he’d told Abbot the child was mine, and the woman was someone I’d seduced. I suppose it was safer that way, as far as he was concerned.”

  “Oh, Nic…”

  “No. Let me finish. I need to finish, Olivia.”

  He felt her hand, soft and warm, close over his.

  He felt her strength and her love, and he bowed his head.

  “We had a terrible argument, my father and I. In the library. I shouted at him. I said unforgivable things, but I was so hurt and angry with him. I’d believed him to be perfect and he wasn’t. He was begging me not to tell my mother, pleading with me one moment and ordering me the next. At first I refused, but he wore me down, and I suppose I could see the sense in what he said. Why hurt her when it was possible to keep it all a secret? Abbot would never tell, he was completely loyal to the family.”

  “So you came around to his way of thinking,” Olivia said quietly.

  “Yes.” He looked at her, and her lips trembled into a smile of encouragement. “I left him there in the library. He looked utterly exhausted. I felt as if everything I thought I knew had been turned inside out.”

  “I felt exactly the same when I saw Sarah.”

  He turned his hand in hers, grasping her fingers tightly. “I’m sorry. I promised to tell no one the truth. I promised my father I’d let everyone believe Sarah was my lover, and that Jonah was my son. He resembled me anyway.”

  “You’ve allowed yourself to be blamed for this, Nic. For a promise to your father ten years ago?”

  “For my mother’s sake,” he corrected her. “It didn’t matter that she wouldn’t talk to me. Like me, she loved my father beyond reason. If she’d known what he’d done she would have been destroyed. When he died, it was the least I could do to keep my promise to him, and protect his memory.”

  “You should have told me,” she said, and she was angry and upset. “Sarah is my sister and I thought she was dead.”

  Nic put his palm against her cheek, feeling the tears. As he’d been speaking she’d been crying, mourning for him and his father and her sister.

  “I should have told you,” he murmured, “but how could I? What would you have done if I had?”

  Olivia stared back at him. “I would have asked why I was lied to.”

  “Of course you would have. And if I’d then gone on to tell you that my father was Jonah’s father and not me?”

  “I…I don’t know.”

  “Could you have kept silent? My mother”—and he glance
d down to where she was standing, waiting anxiously, below them. “My mother would find out. I wanted to tell you, Olivia, but I had to be careful.”

  “But you took the blame, Nic!”

  He shrugged, dismissing it, but she wouldn’t be stopped.

  “It changed you, Nic. You weren’t able to live your life as you wanted to.”

  He grinned. “I’ve led a very good life, Olivia. A very diverse life.”

  She shook her head, refusing to be pacified.

  “You sacrificed yourself to your father’s conscience, to save him. He should never have asked that, Nic, and you should never have agreed.”

  “Olivia,” he murmured, inching closer. “I can’t change the past, but I don’t want it to mean nothing. I will continue to let people believe that I am Jonah’s father.”

  Her eyes filled with tears. “Sarah…”

  “That was your parents’ doing. They wanted to pretend she was dead so there was no scandal attached to them or you. And Sarah has suffered, too. The man she loved died and she was left with a young child. I’ve done what I can but she hasn’t been well. You saw for yourself. Sometimes she gets mixed up about the past and the present.”

  Olivia had seen for herself. The thought of her sister, alone and suffering, was almost too much to bear. She remembered her own childhood and her mother’s desperate attempts to keep her from repeating Sarah’s mistakes.

  “Did my mother and father know about Sarah and your father?”

  “Yes. When they discovered the affair they tried to separate them, and then when Sarah was expecting Jonah they sent her away, but she came back. She loved him, Olivia, and I think, in his way, he loved her. I didn’t understand that then, or I couldn’t understand it. Now that I’ve lived myself, I can understand and forgive, even if I don’t want to go down that road myself. Not if you’ll stay here with me and be my wife, Olivia. I swear”—and he leaned closer, his dark eyes intent—“I will never look at any woman but you.”

  Olivia wrapped her arms about him, forgetting their precarious position, and rested her cheek against his shoulder. “Nic, I’m sorry I didn’t stay to talk to you. I was so upset when I recognized Sarah, and then to think you’d lied to me…”

  “My fault.”

  “No, no…”

  He turned her face and kissed her, lingering. “Let’s go down,” he said. “It’s starting to rain.”

  Surprised, Olivia looked up. She’d forgotten where they were, so intent had she been on the conversation. With a shaky nod, she allowed Nic to precede her. As she watched him descend, she wondered if she could do it. The climb up had seemed easy in comparison.

  But Nic wouldn’t allow her to think too long.

  “Come on,” he said, waiting. “I’ll guide your steps.”

  Olivia took a deep breath and began to clamber down the wall. Nic caught her heel, moving her foot to the gap in the stones, and slowly they climbed lower, Nic showing her the way.

  He remembered when his father died and his mother went into mourning. She refused to speak to him, blaming him for what had happened. One evening, after drinking all day, he’d climbed this wall and fallen, breaking his leg.

  He’d never climbed the wall again, until now. Olivia had done that.

  And at that moment everything seemed to fall into place. The land, his place in the world, and the woman he loved at his side. He looked at her, her glowing face and brilliant eyes, the warm flush in her cheeks. Olivia was his love and his life.

  All these years he’d lived in a kind of limbo, never allowing his heart to be engaged, remaining untouched no matter how sensual the excesses he sought out with the women he met. But then Olivia came into his life, and even though he fought it, arguing with himself that she was better off without him, he wanted her.

  Perhaps he’d loved her all along.

  When she reached the ground at last she seemed surprised to find herself clasped in Lady Lacey’s arms, being scolded all the while.

  Nic, laughing, led them toward the castle, a woman on each arm. He was making up some tale about having dared Olivia to climb the wall and saying that he’d never thought she would take him up on it.

  “My firebrand wife,” he murmured, looking at her lovingly.

  Lady Lacey began to scold again. “When you fell and broke your leg I thought you might not survive it,” she admitted, trembling. “I thought I would lose my husband and my son. We’ve been at loggerheads for so long, Nic. I don’t want that again. Ever.”

  Nic patted her hand. “I agree. From now on we’ll be a proper family.”

  The rain grew heavier, and they quickened their steps, hurrying up the terrace to where Abbot and Estelle were waiting to dry them and sit them down before the fire and serve them hot tea.

  They felt like a proper family, Nic thought, with a smile. A new beginning for the Laceys. And he was looking forward to it.

  Chapter 35

  Theodore heard the news as he was sitting down to his supper. A poached egg, cooked to perfection. He’d taken only one mouthful when Mrs. Henderson arrived in a flurry. The servant tried to block the way into the dining room, but she ducked around him, arriving breathless at Theodore’s side.

  “Mr. Garsed!”

  Theodore dropped his fork against his plate and snatched the napkin from out of his waistcoat, where he’d tucked it. “Mrs. Henderson, please…”

  “Lord and Lady Lacey are back from London already. It is very strange. First Lady Lacey arrived in the coach, and then Lord Lacey galloped up on his horse. I did hear”—and she looked behind her as if expecting to see Nic standing there—“from my friend the cook that Lord Lacey was roaring and ranting all around the castle looking for her, and then he hauled her in from the garden. Cook had to make hot tea and crumpets, and then there was a great deal of fuss about hot water being carried upstairs for a bath for Lady Lacey, and fears that she might have caught a chill.”

  Theodore had stopped protesting, sitting staring at her, with the napkin still crumpled in his hand.

  “I haven’t told Mrs. Monteith yet, but dear Mr. Garsed, I fear for her daughter. She should never have married that man.”

  Theodore stared at her with wide eyes in his pale face. Since Olivia had gone away he’d begun to feel almost his old self again. While she wasn’t there he could relax and slip back into his old life again, and now she was back and under threat from Lacey.

  And Alphonse! Theodore glanced about him wildly, as if expecting his brother to appear in a puff of smoke. He had to get Mrs. Henderson out of the house before Alphonse heard her news.

  When he grimaced and pressed his hand to his paunch, it wasn’t entirely pretense. “Mrs. Henderson, I beg you will stop. You are giving me indigestion.”

  But Mrs. Henderson had no intention of stopping. “Of course, my dear Laura would never have put herself in such a position, where she was forced to marry a man like that.”

  Theodore stood up. “Mrs. Henderson, I am most unwell. Forgive me, but you will have to leave.”

  The woman blinked at him. “Oh. Well, if you insist…”

  “I do. I do insist.”

  “I wouldn’t have bothered you, I’m sure, only Mr. Alphonse, your brother, told me to tell you the news. He was most complimentary of my neighborly feeling,” she added, preening herself.

  Theodore froze, staring at her. “Alphonse?”

  “Yes. As soon as I told him he rushed off, but he said I was to come to you and explain. Well, if you want to be alone I will go now. I don’t want to stay anywhere I’m not wanted.”

  He was rude and she wouldn’t soon forgive him, but Theodore didn’t care. The pain in his stomach was genuine now, and he wanted to lie down. But Alphonse had gone off to do goodness knew what mad act, and Theodore knew it was up to him to put a stop to it.

  Theodore accepted he was not a brave man—he might not even be a very good man—but it was time to stand up for what was right.

  His decision made, he rang for a cup
of peppermint tea to calm his roiling insides, and hastily scribbled a note to be delivered by hand. When that was finished he sat back and closed his eyes.

  Olivia might not love him—in fact he knew very well she didn’t—but when she discovered what he had done she would have to admire him. He’d saved lives tonight, and that made him a hero.

  Alphonse gripped his gun, moving stealthily through the trees. The castle was ahead, a jumble of dark shapes against the stars, while the gatehouse sat vaguely to his left. He’d already made his plan. A diversion outside was needed, to keep the servants busy, while he crept inside and found Lacey.

  One good clear shot and then escape, back into the woods, and home to bed. No one would suspect him—why would they?—and Theodore would have a clear run at the rich widow.

  Alphonse smiled to himself at the brilliant simplicity of it.

  He had the “diversion” in his pocket—a mixture of gunpowder and other combustibles, wrapped in a cloth. Gathering the ingredients had taken a little time after his conversation with Mrs. Henderson, but one spark and it would make a lovely big bang. He thought he might set it off on the terrace.

  All his life Alphonse had felt a sense of isolation, of being different, and perhaps that was why he tried so hard to please his brother. Of course, the money would be very pleasant, too.

  With a smile, he left the trees and moved like a shadow toward the castle.

  “Stop! You there, stop or I’ll stop ye for good!”

  The Scots voice was closer than he could have believed. How the hell did Wilson the gamekeeper get behind him without his noticing? Or had Wilson been waiting there? Whatever Wilson wanted, Alphonse wasn’t about to be stopped this close to his goal. Slowly he turned, a big friendly smile on his face.

  “Don’t I know you?” the gamekeeper said.

  “I don’t believe we’ve been formally introduced,” Alphonse retorted.

  “You’re the brother of Mr. Garsed,” Wilson said. His gun lowered slightly, as if being a gentleman meant Alphonse was unlikely to be a dangerous character.