“No one will believe you. You are guessing and have no proof.”
“Rumors are usually enough. People love to watch the self-righteous fall. You have never seen how this society can kill people with cuts and oblivion. Imagine little Charlotte suddenly without friends or decent marriage prospects. Pen snubbed even by her artists. Laclere himself a social outcast.”
“If you destroy him with rumors, you also destroy me. A fine proof of your affection. I will deny everything. I will return to America before you can hurt him, if you begin spreading such damaging tales.”
“A charming sacrifice, but unnecessary. Ultimately, seducing you is not the sin that will bring him down.” He smiled smugly. “You see, I know about Manchester. I know about Mr. Clark. For that there is proof, and no forgiveness, especially on top of his dishonor toward an innocent.”
He might have punched her, she felt so shaken.
“Manchester?”
“You do not know about it? I will have to explain on the way to France. Suffice to say that I have the means to ruin Laclere and his family completely and thoroughly. Do not doubt it, Bianca, and when you hear the truth of it, you will thank me. Your viscount is duplicitous in the literal meaning of the word. His interest in you is wholly about a mill up north. He wants to control you because of the share that you inherited. He needs to be able to dictate to you.”
“And you, Nigel? My property and income play no role in your offer?”
“My primary concern is your safety and reputation. The property is obviously of interest, but at least with me you will be allowed to enjoy it. Once married to me, you can sing as you wish, and train properly, and perform with triumph.”
She did not believe him. She doubted that she would enjoy her inheritance at all, or be allowed to use it to train in Italy. He wanted it. It was why he was here.
To blackmail her into marriage, and get at her inheritance.
Had he also blackmailed Milton? Was she looking at the man responsible for that? Had he seen or heard something during one of his visits to Woodleigh, and then used the information to try and bleed Milton? If Milton ever had an unsuitable lover visit, word could travel among the servants and tenants, just as she had learned about Nigel’s own female visitor.
She saw him with new eyes, ones that perceived the danger beneath the fashionable persona. His life stood for nothing except his own indulgence. Yes, he could do it. He could dangle destruction with one hand while he held out the other for a bribe.
It was what he was doing right now.
He gazed down at her the way one would peruse an interesting new possession. “I think that you will agree that it is settled. There is little point in further discussion. You are going down to Laclere Park soon, are you not?”
She nodded numbly. She had been looking forward to several weeks in the country. Vergil had promised he would be there most of the time. In such a big house, with such extensive grounds, surely they could find some time alone together.
“We will leave from Woodleigh, then. I will send the instructions to you.” He bent and brushed his mouth on hers. Her lips stretched against her teeth in disgust. “Not a word about our plans, Bianca. Do not tell anyone, not even your maid, and definitely not the Viscount Laclere. Do not doubt that I will ruin him if he interferes, and enjoy doing it. I must leave you now, but I look forward to when we are together forever.”
He left her limp with helplessness. She had no time to compose herself before Charlotte darted in and knelt beside her on the settee.
“Did he offer? He looked very handsome today. Pen was sure he came to offer, and was fussing that Vergil would like as kill him rather than permit it, but I don’t think my brother is that strict and unreasonable. You are almost of age, after all. If you are determined, what can he really do. So, did he?”
Charlotte’s face flushed so prettily when she was excited. Her eyes, brown and limpid like Dante’s, glowed with deep lights. She exuded purity and sweet innocence and would not begin to know what to do if her world turned upside down.
Which it would, if Nigel held good to his threat. In a way, Vergil’s secrecy had mostly been for Charlotte’s sake.
“No, he did not offer,” she lied. “He came to scold me for the chorus performances.”
Charlotte’s eyes sparkled with mischief. “It was very exciting knowing someone who dared something so naughty. A bit like getting to be naughty oneself without really having to be. I am still amazed that you got Vergil to agree to it. Perhaps he is growing to like you a bit more. Maybe someday you and he can even be friends.”
Bianca laughed to hide her tears. Her mind raced, calculating the time left with the man who should not like her much. She prayed that he would visit, even while she dreaded his arrival.
Except for the dream days at the manor, the shadow of eventual parting always tinged her emotions when he was near. The drop of melancholy did not make the wine of love distasteful. It enriched and mellowed the flavor. But it would be different now. Nigel’s blackmail made the separation imminent. The days remaining could be counted, and Vergil’s surprise when she left could be imagined. How would she face him without his guessing?
She found out sooner than she wanted. He arrived the next afternoon. She remained in her chamber, attempting to muster enough composure to hide her distress. For the last twenty-four hours she had experienced the panic of a woman cornered by a predator. Every scheme for escape that she considered was hopelessly flawed.
Charlotte came looking for her. “My brother is here. He is wondering why you have not come to the drawing room.”
“I am not feeling very well.” That was the honest truth.
“He does not look as though he feels well either. He appears distracted and displeased. He asked Pen where Mrs. Gaston has gone, and then barely heard the explanation that Mrs. Gaston has left London to visit friends in the country. Now he has ordered me to come and call you to the library.” Charlotte arched her eyebrows. “Have you done something else a little naughty, Bianca?”
She sorely wished that all she had to worry about was a little bad behavior.
He waited in the library, looking thoughtful and windblown and devastatingly handsome. A dark lock fell over his forehead, and she itched to caress it back into the thick tumble of his hair. His cravat’s folds were not perfectly centered, and she almost reached out to straighten them. His burning eyes and straight mouth made her worry that he had heard about Nigel’s blackmail and planned to berate her for not calling for his help.
He closed the library doors. “This will not do,” he said.
“What will not do?”
“This.” His arm gestured around the room, at the house in general and at her and him specifically. “You. Me. You fill my days, my nights, my thoughts, my heart. I cannot bear the torture of your presence, nor can I survive the hell of staying away. I cannot live like this. We must come to some resolution.”
Laclere, no, please no. Leave it alone and give me the few days left. “You promised that I could have some time.”
“You misunderstand me, darling. I did not come to press my advantage, but to admit that I have none. My feelings for you have rendered every other concern insignificant.” He reached out to her. “You win. We will do it your way. Whatever arrangements you want. If you only want me for a lover, we will try to be discreet and hope for the best.”
Devastation paralyzed her. She longed to grasp that hand and press it to her heart. Love and gratitude spilled through her, but she could not demonstrate it.
She had hoped to run away and never see his reaction. To toy with him now would be inexcusable. He left her no choice but to throw his generosity back in his face.
He noticed her hesitation. His hand fell. “Of course, if you have decided that you do not want me at all, we can make arrangements regarding that too.”
Not want him? Surely, no matter what she said this day, he would know that could not be true. He would realize that she did not follo
w her heart and that something else drove her.
Yes, if she was not very careful, he would indeed realize that. She could not allow it. She had to make him believe whatever story she gave.
She lovingly studied every angle of his face. Crystalline blue eyes regarded her carefully, curious about her reticence. She wanted to fly into his arms and tell him everything. But how could he get them out of this?
She turned away. “I have been thinking.”
He became utterly still. He waited so silently that he might not have been in the chamber. She forced herself on.
“What has occurred between us . . . It is dangerous. Ruinous. We must have been mad. I have been thinking . . . you know that I have always believed that marriage was too permanent a punishment for so temporary a crime.”
“The punishment would not be mine, so do not pretend that you spare me, Bianca.”
His tone chilled her. She closed her eyes and grit her teeth. “No, I will not pretend that. It is my life that marriage will change, in ways that I do not want. Considering that, I do not think that any arrangement will suffice. If I want to pursue my music, I must go to Milan, we must part, and we only delay the sorrow by a few months this way.”
The words barely made it out. Silence shuddered in their aftermath. She still did not face him, but she could feel him behind her, large and dark and burning. She discerned that he had moved, but whether he had retreated she could not tell.
He had not walked away. When he spoke, his breath touched her hair. “Since I initiated you in love, perhaps I should instruct you in this as well. It is cowardly to refuse to face me, and you are nothing if not brave.”
“I am not brave. I am pitifully weak. If this is wounding you, I do not want to see it.” She forced down the ripping anguish that provoked the outburst. “And if it is not wounding you, I do not want to see that, either. That is just how selfish I can be, Laclere.”
His firm hand took her shoulder and turned her around. A crooked finger tilted up her chin.
Oh, how he looked at her. Not in anger. His eyes glittered with the memories of their intimacies. He looked at her so completely and openly that she knew it was the last honest look he ever planned to give her.
“It is always a lady’s prerogative to end an affair, Bianca. A gentleman does not upbraid her for it or demand more explanations than she chooses to give.”
How could he accept this so easily? It was as if he had never believed in his heart that they might stay together. That was her own fault if true, but the thought produced a scathing disappointment. “You are being too kind and generous and making it too easy for me. I would prefer that you yell at me and accuse me of being wicked and flighty and bad.”
“You are none of those things. I am sorry that you have made this choice, but I knew it was possible.”
Unshed tears burned and knotted her throat and chest. Do not look away. Do not listen to me. Take me in your arms. Make love to me here, now, on the floor. Refuse to accept this, please.
He lifted her hand to his lips and held it there, closing his eyes. “My dear girl.”
And then he was gone, walking away.
“Laclere.” His name tore from her as the tears overflowed. “I was not false. I did not lie to you. It is just . . . it is just . . .”
He paused at the door. “I know that you were not false, Bianca.”
Words choked her breath. “I did not lie to you. I do love you, I do . . . only . . .”
His expression revealed some anger now. Of course there would be some of that too. “I believe you. I think that you do love me. Only . . . not enough.”
chapter 20
She did not sneak away this time.
She waited at Laclere Park until she received Nigel’s letter, telling her when to come. Then she packed her valise, gave Jane a note for Pen, and the next morning at dawn called for the curricle to drive her to Woodleigh.
She had kept to herself the week since they had returned to Laclere Park. Pen knew that she had broken with Vergil. The awkwardness about that had made it easy to create a distance. Charlotte was so distracted by daydreams about her impending debut season that she did not notice Bianca’s reserve.
Contrary to his initial plans, Vergil had not accompanied them to Sussex. Affairs suddenly demanded his continued presence in London, he had explained to his sisters.
Well, what had she expected? That he would absolve her inconstancy and rise above the insult?
The curricle rounded a bend and pulled onto the road that led to Woodleigh. Gray brush and dull fields fell away on either side of the road. Low clouds muted the light, leaching the color out of everything, blurring distant forms into one depressing mass. Woodleigh loomed ahead, its huge bulk barely alleviated by the elegant classicism of its design. A hired coach and four waited in the drive.
Nigel emerged from the house in time to meet the halt of her carriage. A footman removed her valise, while another helped her down. It appeared that Nigel had hired a staff of servants since her last visit.
“You simply rode away?” he asked as her carriage departed.
“You wrote that we would leave immediately upon my arrival. It seemed overly dramatic to lower myself from my window by the bedsheets and trudge through the forest. Pen will be told when she wakes that I came here, but I trust we will be long gone by then.”
“Yes, long gone, and on our way to the packet at Dover.”
“I should warn you that I have very little money with me. I left most of what I had with Jane. Since I am abandoning her, it seemed only right.”
“Laclere will see that she gets back to Baltimore. Jane is no longer your concern. Nothing is. I will take care of you now.”
He escorted her into the house. More new servants were carrying down trunks and tying them onto the coach.
“I will make a poor showing in France, cousin. I only have the garments in that valise,” she said while she warmed herself near the drawing-room fire.
“You will look lovely in whatever you wear, and we will have a wardrobe made for you by the finest Parisian modistes.”
He smiled and flattered as a fiancé should, as if he expected them to pretend that he had not coerced her into this.
The activity in the hall ceased. Nigel extended his hand. “We should be off, Bianca. We would like to avoid a race to the coast with your guardian in pursuit, if possible.”
“He is not even at Laclere Park. But, yes, let us depart.”
The coach was luxurious as hired vehicles went, newer than most, with four matched horses. Nigel was already making headway into her inheritance by way of credit on her expectations.
A footman opened the door and set down the stairs. Nigel handed her up. She halted halfway in.
A woman waited inside the coach.
Mrs. Gaston smiled a welcome.
“Please, darling, seat yourself. I will explain,” Nigel said.
Bianca settled next to Mrs. Gaston. Nigel sat across from them.
“Mrs. Gaston has been kind enough to agree to accompany us and serve as your chaperon until we marry,” Nigel said.
“How generous of her.”
Mrs. Gaston patted her hand. “It is exciting, isn’t it? Such a match this will be. Two musicians. Ever since I watched you both perform at the countess’s party, I have thought this was fated.”
“I did not realize you and Nigel were such good friends.”
“We have had the pleasure of each other’s company on occasion these last months, since meeting at Laclere Park. Your cousin is an accomplished musician, and I collect such stars in my circle.”
“Mrs. Gaston has proposed a subscription series of concerts for me next spring,” Nigel said with a broad, flattering smile at the great patroness.
“Goodness, Mrs. Gaston, your generosity to my cousin knows no bounds. Such an offer of patronage is extraordinary. Unfortunately, this elopement will ruin those plans. We will be in Milan in the spring. Isn’t that so, Nigel?”
/> Nigel’s smile turned a little crooked. “Of course.”
Mrs. Gaston smiled benignly and patted Bianca’s hand again.
Bianca bit her tongue.
She did not believe that the two of them had met at Laclere Park. She suspected that Mrs. Gaston was the woman who had secretly visited Woodleigh. There was no other explanation for her presence in this carriage and on this journey. Mrs. Gaston, patroness of the arts, would not interrupt her plans to serve as chaperon for two unknown, unestablished musicians.
Nigel appeared contented, as well he might. The scoundrel was blackmailing her into marriage and would soon control her fortune, and he had not even bothered to get rid of his mistress for the elopement.
He misunderstood her expression. “All will be well, cousin. We are safe. Laclere will not interfere.”
Laclere. She wished Nigel had not mentioned him. Pen would send word to him in London. He would know by tonight.
What would he think? That she had truly forsaken him for Nigel? If so, it would change the way he remembered everything.
The coach rocked with a rhythm that timed out her seething frustration. Across from her Nigel relaxed and closed his eyes. Blond hair wisped around his face. He might have been a child sleeping, he looked so untroubled.
She would allow him to enjoy his triumph. She would wait until they were in France before she let him know that she had laid a few plans of her own.
Vergil wanted to smash his fist into something. Pen’s footman guessed as much and darted away so the something would not be his jaw.
The little bitch. That a grown man of his age, a respected member of the House of Lords, a confidante of the king’s advisors, a saint, damn it, should have been made such a fool by a little colonial was bad enough. To now learn that her love had been a game, an elaborate jest, and that the whole time . . . his head split from the intensity of the outrage.
The footman tried to melt into the door.
The Saint Page 28
