by Tessa Candle
Tilly did not see why she should always be the one to carry the burden of other peoples' secrets, to make constant sacrifices and assume undeserved blame, in order to prop up other peoples' relationships. And she had expected better from her friends.
Frederick and Mr. DeGroen entered the parlour and immediately made for Tilly's side.
“Come now, Tiddlywinks. Why does your sweet little face look so sour?” DeGroen eyed the half-empty dish of bonbons beside her. “It cannot be for want of sugar, I see.”
“Yes, Tiddly.” Frederick jounced her elbow several times, to make her hand fly about madly, as had been his amusement since they were children. “What has happened now?”
“My friends have turned on me.” She knew she was pouting, and she popped another sweetie in her mouth, then spoke around it. “They know about the brothel, and Rutherford knows about the opium warehouse, and it is all only because I risked exposure by trying to help them. But now they think I am a bad woman for my troubles.”
“But you are a bad woman.” DeGroen’s smile was rakish. “It is one of your very best features.”
Tilly rewarded him with a bland curl of the lips. “Thank you, John. You are not a bad man at all, despite appearances.”
He patted her arm. “Why not tell us what happened?”
When she finished reciting her tale of woe, the bonbon dish was empty, and she felt a little better.
“I know it is hard, my dear sister.” Frederick shrugged. “But then, you have always been a bit misunderstood.”
“But I am not used to it from Lydia. And she sacrificed me to save her own stupid little marital secret. Aldley would have easily forgiven her for it. It is such a nothing.”
“I suppose the question is, will you forgive her.”
Tilly sighed. “Probably.” She rudely mopped bits of sugar out of the dish and licked her fingers. “You know how terribly stupid I am.”
“I know you are feeling judged and betrayed, but remember, they cannot really hurt you.” DeGroen picked up the bowl with a look of distaste and placed it out of her reach on the mantel. “They cannot expose you without exposing themselves. They will keep your secret. We may hope that in time they get used to it.”
“We may hope.” Tilly looked glum.
“And what of Mr. Rutherford?” DeGroen lowered his lids and peered out from beneath his lashes. “Has he abandoned you as a fallen woman?”
“Of course not.” Tilly was disgusted and despised herself, as Rutherford would not despise her, for what she had done to him. “He is even more taken with my defects than you are, dearest fiancé.”
Frederick and DeGroen chuckled.
She tried to share in the light humour. “So why are you two not out causing trouble at Almack's? Or have they finally revoked your memberships?”
“Hardly,” Frederick scoffed. “Despite their pretences, that set cannot resist the smell of money. And new money is like blood to a hound's nose. What society lady can abstain from an opportunity to enrich herself while still flattering her own sense of superiority? Thank God I am a married man now.” He tilted his head at DeGroen. “But they haven't given up on him yet, though he is betrothed. Relentless leaches.”
“It is too much to be endured. I shall be glad to leave that part of my life behind when we marry.” DeGroen moved close and kissed Tilly's head. “Then I shall not have to suffer the endless incursions of the dégoûtantes. The little chits get more audacious every year.”
Frederick shrugged. “It is your fault for being so angelically handsome.”
“And,” Tilly smirked, “so devilishly rich.”
DeGroen pretended to preen. “I am sure you shall rid me of that curse, soon enough. For what else is a wife for, if not to run her husband into poverty with her love of high stakes and lady's fancies?”
Tilly was formulating a pert reply when the servant announced Lord Screwe.
“Ruddy hell,” she hissed and flew into her chair, taking up her dusty fancy sewing.
They all stood as the viscount entered and made their greetings. Frederick formally introduced Tilly, which, though unavoidable, was supremely irritating to her. Tilly exerted extreme facial control as she seated herself again, and became a dull young maiden with nothing in her head but her next stitch.
“Charming to see you, my lord,” Frederick drawled. “To what do we owe this great pleasure?”
Screwe's oily gaze slid about the room, looking for anything it might exploit or colonize with its unwholesome extromission. Tilly bowed her head to her needlework and shifted to move it closer to the candlelight, and to turn her ear to the gentlemen's conversation.
“I should think you would recall.” Screwe’s voice was nasally, and his breathing whistled and wheezed in his lungs like the screeching of distant rats scampering through derelict catacombs. “I owe you a debt.” He placed a fold of notes in Frederick's hand, then added in a louder voice, “And I always repay my debts.”
Tilly mulled this over. This was a vulgar thing to speak of, and it was a generally accepted fact that Screwe did not always repay his debts. It was one of the major infractions that got him kicked out of White's. Was this comment meant as a threat? Did he blame her brother for the loss of his slave? Had he puzzled things out that far? The thought was disconcerting, and she tried to keep her fear for Frederick from registering on her face as she strangled an innocent violet with her ill-aimed embroidery yarn.
“Why thank you, my lord.” Frederick inclined his head. “I admit it had entirely escaped my mind. And it is most obliging of your lordship to deliver the purse personally.” He smiled at his own word play and rang the bell. “Will you not stay for some brandy, my lord?”
“Indeed I shall.” His evil gaze cast a shadow in Tilly's direction. “Perhaps we should go to the study, so we can have a manly talk. I cannot abide all these coloured yarns and needles.”
Tilly could not abide them either, but the note of misogyny in Screwe's voice was unmistakable.
“Indeed. It is fortunate that Mrs. Ravelsham is from home this evening, then.” Frederick turned to Tilly. “Will you excuse us, my dear sister?”
Tilly pretended to rouse herself from the dreamy torpor of needlework. “Oh, yes, brother.” She yawned. “Indeed, I find myself quite tired. I believe I shall retire.”
As she left them to make her way upstairs to the room that her brother had assigned to her permanent use, she could feel Screwe's filthy eyes following her. She was not sorry to be leaving them, but she wished she, Frederick and DeGroen had had a chance for a proper chat. And she also wished she could be certain that Screwe did not suspect them of some involvement in the rescue of Clara.
But she was most worried about Rutherford. She would wait until the manly talkers were properly foxed, then sneak out the servants’ entrance to see him. Her brother and DeGroen were quite familiar with this arrangement. They would have to manage Screwe on their own.
Chapter 18
Rutherford paced across the jewel-toned Persian carpets of his study. He stared at the patterns and discerned stories from them, as he had done when still a lad, amusing himself while his father attended to papers. The designs were opulent and convoluted, and could be interpreted multiple ways. They had always beguiled him. It seemed that his fascination with complication had started before he ever met Tilly.
Smythe stood in attendance, watching as though mesmerized by a pendulum, as Rutherford walked back and forth. Rutherford sat finally. His leg twitched. He gestured to Smythe for a brandy.
“That will be all, Smythe. You may go rest.” There was no need for the faithful servant to be sleepless, just because his master was. Smythe had a way of expressing his deep worry, without losing his perfectly composed London butler face. But Rutherford could not attend to Smythe's worries. He had too much else to think about.
He pushed against the bottle in his pocket. Tilly had told him he could have one more dose tonight. He looked at the long clock. In fifty-five minutes he could
take it, not before. She said she would deliver more tomorrow, with a schedule. And the week after that, too. He was meant to take weaker doses each day. She wanted him well, she said.
She was right, of course. But it was vastly irritating to be ordered around that way. He felt the bottle again. No. He knew his irritation was part of the illness. The cold sweat was starting to creep up his spine. Fifty-four minutes.
Letters lay unread on his desk, he had not had time to attend to them today. Well, he would have had more time, if he had not been distracted by his pursuit of laudanum. He also owed Frobisher an apology for completely failing to appear for their fencing appointment and not even sending so much as a note of excuse. He did that first, hoping that his hand was not so altered by tremors that Frobisher would be alarmed.
When he was finished, he looked at the clock. Forty-four minutes. He swallowed and turned to the pile of letters. One caught his eye. It was addressed from his Uncle Emmet, the Duke of Bartholmer.
Dear William,
I know it has been some time since we have seen one another, but I should like to invite you to come visit me at Blackwood. But perhaps I should explain myself.
There is probably nothing that makes a man more honestly consider his choices in life than does the prospect of losing his life. I have always been a Corinthian, confident in the strength of my arm and my constitution, but disease is no respecter of men.
My doctor has advised me to set straight what I would, for I have not long. He has tried every treatment, but the worm that afflicts continues to gnaw and grow.
I shall spare you the unhappy details, but as you are the closest thing I have to a son, and as you shall inherit all I have, not just the entail, upon my death, I should like to see you in my last days.
Will you indulge a dying man's wish, and come see me as soon as you should be at leisure to do so?
Until then I remain, as ever,
Your devoted uncle,
Emmet.
Rutherford shook his head. He had known of his uncle's disease, but had hoped it might be cured. He did not know his uncle well, but the man had always been kind to him when he was a child. Rutherford had never understood why he did not marry to continue the line. It was reckoned to be the one thing a duke could be expected to do. But, after the death of his first wife in childbirth, Bartholmer became a recluse and flatly refused to entertain the notion of remarrying.
His uncle must have been violently in love with his first wife. It was the only explanation that made sense to Rutherford. It would never have made sense to him before he met Tilly. The pre-Tillian Rutherford would, if he had thought upon the matter at all, simply have assumed that Bartholmer did not wish to marry because he was enjoying his liberty and bachelor amusements.
But now Rutherford knew what it was to love a woman more than anything or anyone. He did not like to contemplate what he might do if she were to die birthing his child. He shuddered, as much from the horror of the thought as from the tremors of his illness.
Thirty-nine minutes. His stomach was cramping. He took out the bottle, set it on the desk and stared at it. Then he roused himself and stuffed it back in his pocket.
Rutherford took up his pen again and wrote a reply to his uncle, assuring him that he would come see him as soon as might be, and that he should expect him in the coming days. His second letter completed, he set his pen aside again. Twenty minutes.
He was making remarkable progress for being so wretchedly ill. He congratulated himself by finishing his drink and pouring another. He sorted through a few more letters. Read some, threw others aside. There was nothing more requiring his immediate attention. He drummed his fingers on the rosewood desktop. Nine minutes.
His legs were both twitching, and his stomach was a misery. It was only nine minutes. Surely it would not hurt to take his dose nine minutes off the mark, one way or the other. Somehow the bottle was in his hand again. He discovered that he neither knew how that little bottle of poison had got into his hand, nor how it had got so out of hand. But he could not laugh at his own wit. Seven minutes.
He pulled out a sheet of paper and began composing a list:
1. Get Tilly to marry me
2. Visit my uncle
3. Take more exercise
4. Sort out Delacroix
5. Become a grandfather to a dozen little champion pointer puppies
He cursed himself and put down his pen. How could he have forgotten Molly? He had returned home and settled himself into a rut of craving after this poison, without a thought to his beloved little princess.
Five minutes. He tore himself out of his chair and wandered shakily down the hallways to the room where the dogs were. Molly and Mack greeted him with barks and leaps and slobber.
“Careful now, Molly.” He petted them both, and wished he had more hands, for they seemed to transmute into four dogs as they dashed and gambolled about him. “Have you forgotten you are an expectant mother?” He chuckled. “You are as bad as Lady Aldley.”
“I imagine her ladyship would find the comparison amusing. But do not let Aldley hear you say it.”
His face glistened with sweat as he looked up to see Tilly standing in the doorway, wearing the widow's weeds, broad black bonnet, and veil that she always wore when she sneaked into his house at night.
“Tilly.”
“How are you faring, my darling stallion?” She removed her bonnet and veil to reveal her glossy golden curls and periwinkle blue eyes.
He stared at her a moment, his heart fluttering, then laughed bitterly. “I feel like hell has vomited me up onto an ant hill and pissed on me. How do you do?” He inclined his head in a mocking gesture of gentle deference.
She removed a watch from her pocket and smiled sweetly at him. “I do very well, now that I know your resolve has taken you over the first hurdle.”
“Hurdle?”
“It is now two minutes past the appointed hour for your next dose. And you have not yet taken it. You are so strong. I know you can do this.” Her voice was full of warmth.
Was it his illness or wishful thinking that made him hear the resonant tones of love in it?
“It is not a hurdle.” Rutherford walked over to her. “It is an internment in hell.” He looked at her watch.
He could smell her faint magnolia and vanilla scent, and he longed to bury his face in her hair.
Just as she said, it was two minutes past—now three minutes. He was gripped by a craving to take his poison. But instead he took Tilly by her waist and turned her to face him, crushing his mouth against hers. She still tasted of biscuits. Rutherford could feel the heat rising in his blood. He dipped down and hoisted up her skirt, working his palms past the silk shift to massage her luscious bare buttocks.
“Mmm. My hot little angel. How I love you. You drive me wild, even now.”
Tilly was breathing heavily. Her nipples were hardening. He could feel her desire. Why did she resist his love? He pressed his growing erection against her abdomen.
She gasped and whispered, “Oh, how I want you inside of me.”
This would normally be all the invitation he needed, but just then a leg tremor and a series of excruciating cramps in Rutherford's stomach doubled him over. He sat down on the floor.
Mack and Molly licked at his hands and face, and Tilly shooed them away gently, taking his hand.
He hated and he loved the look of deep pain and pity on Tilly's face as he fumbled for the bottle and his brandy flask, poured the dose into the cap of the flask and tipped some brandy into it. “I love you, my angel. I will best this.” He swallowed the cocktail.
“By the way,” he said, lying down flat and scratching Molly's ear, as the drug diffused through his wretched carcass. “My bitch is pregnant.”
Chapter 19
As Rutherford dozed on the floor, Tilly petted the dogs. It was fairly obvious that Molly was expecting. “Congratulations, Molly. I am sure your puppies will be as beautiful as you.”
She wante
d to stay, to have her way with Rutherford when he recovered from the initial torpor of the drug. It had been a stressful day, and her body was hungry. But she also wished to unburden herself to him. She needed to feel assured that he did not, as her other friends had done, judge her for her less conventional businesses.
Why was this so important to her? Oh yes, because she was an idiot who had permitted herself to fall in love with her paramour. She needed him to understand her, to believe her good, despite appearances.
On the other hand, those were her needs. What Rutherford needed was for her to be strong for him, and not to further ensnare his heart while he was sick and vulnerable. It was, after all, sort of her fault that he was so dependent on laudanum. She was supplying a fair sized part of the London market, and the pain he was seeking to smother was her own doing. Tilly’s heart sunk as she was reminded of how toxic her influence was.
She should never have started the affair. But she would never have guessed that a sport-loving buck like Rutherford would have such a vulnerable heart.
And, if she were honest, Rutherford's was not the only vulnerable heart. But she could not act upon her love. One of them had to be sensible. And if Rutherford knew that she returned his love, it would only add to his torment. She gave the dogs a final scratch. She should not be there when he awakened.
Tilly extracted the piece of paper with the dosing schedule on it and set it beside Rutherford. The first few days would be the hardest, but she believed in him. She made for the door.
“Where are you going?” Rutherford roused himself and sat up. His eyes had a sleepy, dilated quality that changed the hazel almost to brown.
“I thought I should leave you.” She looked down.
“Are you ashamed of me, Tilly?” His words were soaked in a real, but pleasantly diffused anxiety.
