Viscount Gilmorton could have driven away and left his man of business to order everything, but Gil had discovered that it was not so easy for a mere Mr Victor to give up a property. There were accounts in Fallbridge to be settled in person and servants to be paid off. Thus it was that it was nearly noon and he had not yet quit the hall.
‘You will have to see her, my lord.’
Gil glared at him, about to damn his impudence, but Harris met his eyes with a challenge in his own.
He said, ‘It is the least you can do.’
He was right and Gil knew it. He said now, ‘I would take that from no one but you, John.’
‘Aye, my lord.’
‘You warned me no good would come of my plan. I suppose now you will say you told me so.’
A rare smile glimmered in the valet’s eyes.
‘Nay, my lord, I ain’t one to rub salt into a wound.’
Gil sucked in a breath, mentally squaring his shoulders for the meeting to come, then, with a nod to his man, he strode out of the room.
* * *
She was waiting for him in the little parlour where not so long ago he had welcomed her with wine and cakes. Now she was gazing out of the window at the travelling carriage that was being loaded with his trunks and bags. She did not turn as he entered and for a moment he allowed his eyes to dwell on her, trying to store in his memory how well her riding habit fitted across her shoulders and the way its mannish tailoring accentuated the dainty figure he knew lay beneath the layers of cloth. Resolutely he turned his mind away from those hidden delights.
He said roughly, ‘Are you not afraid to be alone with me, Miss Meltham?’
She came away from the window and guilt cut through him when he saw how pale she looked. But she answered him calmly.
‘You have done your worst with me.’ She waved a hand towards the window. ‘You are leaving.’
‘Yes. There is nothing for me to stay for.’
‘Because you have succeeded in your plans,’ she suggested bitterly.
‘On the contrary. I have failed, damnably.’
Her chin went up. ‘What, because I am not left pining for Mr Victor, believing he had acted oh-so-nobly and was leaving me for my own good?’
‘No, that is not it at all!’
He clamped his jaw shut upon the impulsive words that came to his tongue. He could not even say he had not meant to hurt her, for that had been precisely his intention in coming to Fallbridge. To ruin her. He moved back towards the door.
‘I think it is best that you should go, Miss Meltham. It will serve no purpose to prolong this interview.’
She did not move.
‘Yesterday, when Sir Sydney recognised you, you said things were not as they appeared.’
‘That is true.’
‘Then explain it to me, if you please.’
She gazed at him, a faint hint of hope in her eyes. The guilt sliced deeper.
‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘I have acted very wrongly by you, madam, that is all you need to know.’
‘Yesterday you wanted to tell me.’
‘Yesterday I was not thinking rationally. There is nothing more to be said.’
‘On the contrary, there is a great deal more to say.’ Her hand went to her shoulder, a painful reminder to Gil of what she had already suffered. ‘Will you tell me that what we did, here in this house, that what we shared, meant nothing to you?’ When he did not reply, she came closer, pressing her bunched fist over her heart. ‘I feel it, here. I thought it was the same for you. Can you deny it?’
She was so close he could smell the summery fragrance of her, a heady mixture of herbs and flowers that summoned up images of goodness and innocence. It also brought back the memory of how he had taken that innocence away from her. Somehow Gil managed to stop himself reaching out for her. He dragged his eyes away and moved towards the window.
‘For heaven’s sake, go home, Deborah. This is doing neither of us any good!’
He stared out at the view, seeing nothing, and held his breath, willing her to leave him. Instead he heard the whisper of skirts as she sat down.
‘I will not go until you have told me everything.’
He swung around. She was perched on the edge of one of the chairs beside the empty fireplace, hands clasped around the riding crop that rested across her knees. Her white knuckles belied the calm tone of her voice.
‘Do not ask me, Deborah,’ he begged her. ‘I am trying to save you more pain.’
A shadow flickered across her face.
‘Do you think it will be better for me to spend a lifetime imagining what it is that I have done to warrant this treatment?’
Her eyes, dark and troubled, were fixed on him, waiting for him to speak. Gil raked a hand through his hair, exhaling a long, hissing breath, then he reached into his coat and pulled out a gold locket. For months he had worn it around his neck, next to his skin, but he had removed it the night he had planned to seduce her. Since then he had not been able to wear it. He opened the catch and handed the locket to her.
‘The two likenesses you see there are of my sister and brother. Kitty was fifteen, my brother Robin two years older when that was painted for me two years ago. It was a birthday present, I was on leave for a month prior to sailing for North America that June with my regiment and I was very glad to have it.’
Deborah stared at the tiny portraits. They were clearly the work of a master and the family likeness was strong. She wanted to comment, to tell him how handsome they were, but some instinct prevented her. Silently she handed it back. He looked at the pictures for a moment, then carefully closed the locket and put it back into his coat.
‘It was the last time I saw either of them.’
Deb looked up quickly, but he had turned away from her.
‘That November Kitty went missing from her school, a select seminary in a village near the port of Liverpool. Knowing I would be frantic with worry, but an ocean away and unable to help, Mama and Robin decided that I should not be told immediately. They thought she had gone to Gretna and they fully expected everything to be resolved before I returned. They thought the couple would turn up, married, and although it might not be the match we had hoped for, Mama would have accepted it and made the best of it.’
He stopped and Deb waited, knowing from the pain in his face that something dreadful was to come.
‘Kitty was found eventually, the following April. She was in Liverpool. She was with child and had been abandoned by her lover. Robin went immediately to fetch her home, but Kitty was too ashamed of what she had done. She slipped away from him and threw herself in the river.’
Deb put up her hands to cover her mouth and stifle a small cry of horror. Gil was staring at nothing in particular, reliving the past as he continued to speak.
‘However, before she did so, she told Robin everything. How she had been on an excursion to the local village with a party of her school friends and a fashionable gentleman—nay, a lord—had seen her. He contrived a meeting and then courted her in secret. She said he was charming, handsome and she fell in love with him. One dark night he spirited her away from the school. She agreed to elope with him, because he promised to marry her.
‘Needless to say, the promise was never kept. He set her up in rooms in Liverpool, but when he discovered she was carrying his child he left her, abandoned her without a word, and without a penny. She wrote to my mother, begging that she might come home, but by the time her brother reached her she was in such a pit of despair that nothing he could say could persuade her that her life was still worth living. Robin convinced them to record her death as accidental so he was able to bring her body home for burial in the family vault. However, as soon as the funeral was over, he went in search of the wretch who had destroyed his beloved sister.’
> With an increasing sense of dread Deborah watched Gil pace the room. As his frown deepened the scar on his face grew whiter and more ragged, a vivid expression of his torment.
‘Of all this I knew nothing,’ he went on. ‘My mother wrote to me, when Kitty was first discovered, and then again when she—when she drowned herself, but Bonaparte was on the loose again by then and we had already set sail for the Netherlands to join Wellington. By the time her letters reached me, Waterloo was over. I quit the army as soon as I could and headed home, but it was already too late. Robin had met with the scoundrel and been killed.’ His lip curled. ‘My brother was barely eighteen years old. No honourable man would accept a challenge from a boy, but this man did. He killed him.’
He stopped and stared down at her, his grey eyes dark and hard as slate.
‘And the name of this “gentleman”, this villain?’ he bit out. ‘Your brother Randolph, Miss Meltham.’
* * *
‘No.’ The room began to swim. Deb closed her eyes, fighting back the faintness and nausea that threatened her. ‘Randolph would never do such a thing,’ she whispered. ‘There must be some mistake.’
‘Do you think I did not make sure of my facts before I embarked upon this campaign?’ he threw at her. ‘I went to Kitty’s school, spoke to the teachers and to her friends there. Those who had seen him described to me the handsome, fair-haired, fashionable gentleman who was courting my sister. There can be no doubt it was your brother, madam, and one or two of Kitty’s closest friends even knew his name.
‘But I did not leave it there. I went to the lodgings where Kitty and her lover had stayed. I saw the rent book, the rooms taken in the name of Lord Kirkster. The rogue made no attempt to cover his tracks. It was not difficult for Robin to find the family home in Duke Street and to challenge Kirkster to a duel. Believe me, madam, if I had been in England it is not my brother who would now be lying in his grave.’
‘B-but duelling is illegal. To kill a man in a duel is murder. If all you say is true, why did you not inform the authorities and bring my brother to trial?’
‘I have seen the way the law works in these matters, madam. By the time your brother had wheeled out his cronies to attest his good character, do you think any jury would convict him of murder? It would be manslaughter at best and the judge would let him off with a small fine and a few months in gaol. That was too small a price for him to pay. I decided he must suffer, as my family has suffered.’
Looking up into his hard, uncompromising face, Deb read murder in his eyes and she shivered.
‘So that is why you came to Fallbridge,’ she whispered. ‘To be revenged upon my brother by seducing me.’
His lip curled.
‘Exactly, Miss Meltham. Precisely.’
‘Oh, Gil,’ she whispered, staring at him with a mixture of horror and sadness. He looked away, shaking his head.
‘It was a plan made in the white-hot heat of grief,’ he told her. ‘It made perfect sense, when I planned it all, but then I came here and met you.’ He rubbed a hand across his eyes. ‘If there is one thing I regret deeply, it is embroiling you in this.’
‘And yet you still went through with it. You still took your revenge.’
‘No!’ His head went up. ‘Believe me, Deborah, that is not how it was. I had decided to give it all up, to send you away, but then, when you disclosed your scars, I could not do it—’
She interrupted him with a cry.
‘So you took me out of pity.’ She wrapped her arms across her body, her right hand clasping the damaged shoulder. The pain she had felt then was nothing to the searing agony that was ripping through her at his revelation. ‘To think you liked me, desired me enough to seduce me was bad enough, but now you tell me it was done out of compassion—dear heaven, that makes it even worse!’
‘No! No, Deborah, you misunderstand! I—’
‘Oh, do not try to scramble out of this mire, my lord. There is nothing you can say now that would not make me despise you even more.’
She hunched in her chair, head bowed. She felt like a wounded animal, curling up against the pain. She knew he was watching her, could hear his breath, ragged and uneven.
‘You wanted to know why I came to Fallbridge, I have told you,’ he said at last, his voice low. ‘It does not excuse what I have done, it was wrong of me and I am more sorry for it than you will ever know. It is small consolation, but no word of what happened between us will ever come from me. Your reputation at least is safe. Only my coachman and valet know what happened here and they will say nothing. If I could make reparation for the damage I have done to you, madam, I would, but you can see for yourself, it is impossible.’
‘Quite impossible.’
Deborah pushed herself out of the chair, wondering if her legs would support her. They did, but she felt very unsteady as she crossed to the door. With her fingers on the handle she turned back.
‘So,’ she said quietly, ‘we have both exposed our scars now, have we not? But yours, I think, are the more to be pitied.’
* * *
Gil stood with his head bowed, listening to the door closing behind her, the soft thud of footsteps in the hall, then the clatter of hoofbeats on the drive as she cantered away. Her words and the anguish he had seen in her face cut him to the core. He wanted to go after her, to beg her forgiveness, but the spectre of his dead sister and brother stood between them.
He sank down on a chair and dropped his head in his hands. The pain was almost physical, like a body-blow. What he felt for Deborah Meltham was stronger than anything he had ever experienced before. Family ties, honour, even life itself were all eclipsed by it. An uncomfortable suspicion began to take root in his mind and he fought against it. This distress was merely his conscience, a dislike of breaking his own moral code of protecting civilians. It could not be love.
He did not believe in love.
Gil closed his eyes and was transported back to a dinner he had shared with fellow officers, shortly after Waterloo. Everyone was in high spirits, an antidote to the sheer horror of the bloody battle. Some of the men were looking forward to getting back to their wives.
‘And you, Gilmorton. Who is waiting at home for you?’
‘My family. My mother, sister and brother.’
‘No little woman ready to welcome you into her arms?’ asked one.
‘Into her bed!’ quipped another.
‘No, and I have never seen the need to add another female to those who already worry about me.’
‘Can’t stop ’em, old boy,’ remarked a dashing cavalry officer, prompting a burst of laughter around the table.
‘Aye, Donegal’s bed is never empty,’ cried Gil’s neighbour. ‘He is always falling in love.’
‘Love is merely a distraction,’ Gil replied, reaching for the decanter.
‘No, no, old boy it’s what makes everything worthwhile,’ argued Major Donegal, shaking his head.
‘The Viscount is not to be persuaded,’ laughed Gil’s colonel. ‘He does not believe in love.’
‘Not the sort that you are describing,’ Gil replied. ‘Naturally I love my family, that is one’s duty.’
‘Duty!’ Major Donegal was looking at him almost pityingly. ‘I am not talking about duty, man, I am talking about passion. To see the glow in a woman’s eyes and know she thinks you are the only thing in the world that matters—that is priceless.’
Gil’s smile in response to that had been perfunctory. Let the others say what they would, he did not believe it. He had never expected to survive his years of soldiering and had always kept his mind fixed upon his duties. What he had experienced in those years—the brutal killing, the loss of friends—had taught him to keep his feelings shut down. As for women, they suffered worst of all. They lost their menfolk and sometimes their children, and many suffered hor
ribly at the hands of marauding soldiers. It was the nature of war. He accepted it and did what he could to prevent innocents suffering, but he reserved all his affection for Mama, Robin and Kitty, waiting safely at home.
It was the very morning after that dinner that he received the letters from his mother and the news that only grief awaited him at home.
So, no. He did not, would not, allow himself to love anyone. Gil shook off the memories and sat up, dragging in a breath, drawing on his years of military service to give him strength. He was a soldier and would not give in to this. What he felt for Deborah Meltham was nothing more than a natural sympathy for a woman he had wronged. He had not acted honourably by her and he must live with the guilt of it.
Gil strode out of the room, barking out his orders. He would ride to Gilmorton Hall rather than sit in his carriage and allow his thoughts to prey upon him. And what of Deborah Meltham? Gil told himself it was not his concern. Deborah had her brother to protect her. A brother she refused to believe was as depraved as Warslow himself.
‘Bah. It is not your concern!’ he repeated, jamming his hat on his head and hurrying out of the house. ‘She does not need you. She told you herself that she despises you. Better to leave the whole damn lot of them to their fate.’
* * *
The revelations at Sollom Hall had shocked Deborah and she rode back to Kirkster House in a daze, a welter of emotions boiling inside her. Her chest felt so tight that she could hardly breathe. She could not deny that Gil had used her in a most callous and calculating way, yet she could not forget his kindness, the night she had dined alone with him. He had been so gentle and caring and he had made her feel beautiful. Now she knew he had acted out of pity.
A wave of nausea swept over her at the thought that it had all been a sham and she was obliged to draw rein and slow her horse to a walk, fearing that she might lose her balance. But whatever Gil’s intentions when he had taken her to his bed, her responses had been real. No one could deny her that.
Winning the Mail-order Bride & Pursued for the Viscount's Vengeance & Redeeming the Rogue Knight (9781488021725) Page 34
