by Allison Lane
“There is more at stake here than your supposed memory loss,” continued Lady Clifford firmly. “We must escape this accursed place before you are ruined. Your reputation is already tarnished. In another month it will be in shreds.”
“Why? Surely you, Charles, and Anne are sufficient to lend me countenance.”
“That’s just what I mean. This house is exerting a vulgar influence on you. Never before have you countered my direction, yet you now dispute every word I say. You will never find a husband if you put yourself forward to such a degree.”
Damn! What was she to say to that? Cherlynn paced the floor trying to decide how to respond without giving either Emily or herself away. If her quest succeeded, Emily would wed Drew. If it failed, she doubted Emily would wed anyone.
“Sit still,” ordered Lady Clifford. “Ladies do not display agitation. It is quite apparent that Lords Broadbanks and Thurston have exerted an unbecoming influence on you. They cannot be the gentlemen I presumed – in fact, Charles should sever the connection, and will when he understands how precarious your reputation now is.”
“What horrid thing have I done now?” she muttered, perching uncomfortably on the couch, knees together and back straight. Sprawling was her preferred pose.
“Miss Raeburn saw you riding with Lord Thurston the other day – without a groom!”
“And how did she decide we were unaccompanied?” Cherlynn countered, though it was the truth. “She never approached us, never even came near enough that we spotted her.” So that was why Fay had called – to apply more pressure on Lady Clifford. The woman was too easy to manipulate, at least for Fay’s purposes.
“Are you saying she lied?” demanded Lady Clifford. “So amiable a lady would never dream of it.”
“I would rather suggest that she was mistaken, catching only a fleeting glimpse when the groom was hidden by trees or lost in a fold of land. She does not know me well enough to rule out unconventional behavior.”
“Nor can I, if your performance downstairs is any indication.” She dabbed at a nonexistent tear with a scrap of lace. “How could you reveal such unbecoming knowledge to Mrs. Monroe just now. Lady Travis was sitting next to me and could not have missed it.”
“We were discussing Hamlet,” Cherlynn protested, fighting to rein in her temper. “You can hardly object to a play that every person in London has seen.”
“But you have not yet come out and should know nothing of such subjects. Do you wish people to call you a bluestocking? I can’t imagine where you learned such nonsense. Not from your governess! She was most proper, restricting her instruction to manners and feminine accomplishments, though after your ridiculous performance the other evening, I cannot believe that you learned much.”
The tirade continued, but Cherlynn was no longer listening. The woman reminded her too much of the Cardingtons, with her rigid views and quick condemnation of any deviation. They had rejected her even before meeting her because she lacked the breeding they demanded. Their friends were the same.
Now she occupied a body that had all the breeding society could want. Yet Lady Clifford was berating her for unacceptable behavior. This despite knowing that her standards were more rigid than many in society expected. But as far as Emily’s mother was concerned, any lady with more than one brain cell or who actually used the one she was allowed was doomed to ostracism. Could no one judge her for herself?
CHAPTER TWELVE
Drew swore fluently. He had paid little attention to the estate since Randolph’s death beyond checking the books each month. Stevens was a competent steward who had long since agreed that modernizing was desirable and that Broadbanks was hopelessly old-fashioned, but this wasn’t the year for making changes. His father’s condition might have deteriorated until the man was no longer capable of discussing business, but someone was bound to tell him if Drew modified any of his orders. Fury could kill him. Even mentioning Randolph threatened to bring on a new attack.
Not that he had wanted to discuss Randolph or anything else. Guilt, grief, and horror had left him in a stupor for months. He felt like an interloper in his own home. The servants were sullen, the tenants suspicious. Even the villagers viewed him warily, as if he threatened their livelihoods. Fear for Emily’s recovery had finished the job of isolating him.
But no longer. Emily had already given him gifts beyond price, freeing him from guilt and offering hope that he need not endure Fay for the rest of his days. And she had suggested the investigation that was rapidly mitigating his grief. God, he loved her!
In the weeks since their talk on the cliffs, he had scoured the records of all the Broadbanks properties, starting two full years before Randolph had begun helping with the bookkeeping. Now he stared at his notes in fury.
His father had long kept all estate records himself, using his stewards only as supervisors to see that tasks were completed as ordered. It was a long-standing arrangement. After encountering a dishonest steward in his youth, he had decided never to allow the books into other hands. The exception was his beloved and trusted son.
Again Drew swore.
Randolph had begun siphoning cash four years earlier by padding merchant accounts and occasionally adding fictitious ones. The amounts were minor – ten pounds here, twenty there. Sums that probably paid gaming vowels. But when he’d taken over the day-to-day management, the amounts had exploded. Thousands of pounds had disappeared. And those were just the obvious frauds. It would take an on-site investigation of every property before Drew would know the true extent of the damage.
How had Randolph hoped to get away with it? Broadbanks would not live much longer, a fact he must have known. Once Drew acceded to the title, Randolph’s oversight would have ended. Drew had never kept secret his determination to adopt Coke’s innovations. Randolph had disapproved of the changes Drew proposed. So why were the thefts so blatant? Broadbanks would have turned the money over to him merely for the asking. Did he revel in danger? Or did he live so thoroughly for pleasure that he never considered even the next hour, let alone future months and years?
Drew sighed. He had already disbursed thousands of pounds to pay Randolph’s unexpected debts to tailors, bootmakers, and other venders of gentlemen’s apparel. Randolph’s wardrobe had been expensively extensive. Then there were horses, carriages, jewelers’ bills for baubles that could only have gone to mistresses. And the vowels. Randolph had caroused through London – though never when Drew was in town – as well as Brighton. Even when at Broadbanks Hall, he had spent his time drinking, gaming, whoring, and devising new ways to cover his defalcations. He’d been a wastrel.
And Emily had been right, though it hurt to admit his own blindness. The fight on the cliffs went beyond drunken pique over Drew’s spurning of Fay. His unexpected appearance threatened Randolph’s finances. Whether or not Randolph cared for Fay, killing his brother would have solved all his problems.
He closed the books, returning them to the study shelves. He had always felt guilty over Randolph. It had been drummed into Drew’s head since birth that he would one day be head of the family, bearing the ultimate responsibility for family honor, power, and welfare. Since the Villiers clan was enormous, the duties had always seemed daunting, but he had done his best – starting with his younger siblings. Yet his early efforts had often been heavy handed and doomed to failure. He could not replace the mother his sisters had needed after Lady Broadbanks died of a chill ten years earlier. He could not make friends with the rebellious Randolph, who had always resented being the second son. Then there was William, who had reluctantly bought colors as Drew so fervently longed to do. After William’s death, guilt had gnawed at Drew’s conscience. Had he tried to live vicariously through his brother, pushing him into buying a commission he had not wanted?
But whatever he had contributed to William’s demise, Randolph was his biggest failure. Only two years apart, they had unconsciously competed for most of their lives. Drew was older, stronger, and more athletic – facts
Randolph had resented – but Randolph was sneakier. He’d wormed his way into Broadbanks’s affections by mimicking his attitudes and parroting his ideas, then used his position to inflame their father’s passions whenever Drew disagreed on even innocuous subjects.
“Devil take him!” Drew exploded as he slammed out of the house.
Randolph had manipulated them all, knowingly and deliberately. Drew was interested in reform, so Randolph had described the reformist arguments in terms that guaranteed angry antagonism. When Drew asked if Randolph planned to follow the custom for second sons by buying colors, Randolph had twisted the innocent question into a plot to separate Broadbanks from the only child who understood him. In like manner, he had scuttled Drew’s interest in assuming one of the marquessate’s seats in Commons, deflected Elizabeth’s interest in one of Drew’s friends – though her marriage to Lindleigh had ripened into love, so there was no lasting damage – and kept Anne from attending school. The strife had ultimately driven Drew to Thurston Park, giving Randolph the opportunity to wreak havoc with his inheritance. Would Randolph have given himself over to indiscriminate gaming if he had not envied his brother so much?
Drew groaned, turning down the path that led to the Grecian folly. He needed a quiet place to think. The Broadbanks fortune could absorb the losses, but that did little to mitigate either his fury or his guilt. Yet he was powerless to retaliate. Randolph was beyond justice. Exposing his misdeeds would only hasten his father’s death and destroy the last vestige of respect between them.
But this explained the lack of welcome he had received since returning home. Randolph must have poisoned the estate dependents against him, convincing them that his reckless ideas would destroy them. Drew had his work cut out for him. Somehow, he must persuade them that progress was in their own best interests.
Rubbing his temples, he emerged from the forest to find the folly occupied. Had he come this way because Emily so often spent her afternoons here?
“Have you a headache?” she asked when he appeared in the entrance.
“The beginnings of one,” he admitted. “I’ve been studying estate records all day.”
“Not exactly restful,” she agreed, but her eyes sharpened as she studied his face. “It’s more than too much reading, though, isn’t it? You found something wrong.”
He nodded, surprised that he was willing to share the family shame with her. “Randolph had been siphoning funds for years.”
“How much?”
“I’ve no idea. The obvious sums total more than forty thousand pounds.”
She looked shocked, as well she might. He thought she murmured something about a million bucks, but that made no sense. “Why would he need to?” she asked. “Surely he had money of his own.”
“A considerable sum, actually. But he was a gamester, among other vices, and lost everything.”
“Then you’re lucky he didn’t do more damage. Will the estate be all right?”
“Yes, though I’ll have to sell shares to handle the maintenance that he neglected. I should never have let him drive me away.”
“What tale is this? I thought your retreat to Thurston was to escape your father and Fay.”
“I hadn’t realized how much I let Randolph manipulate me,” he admitted, sitting next to her as he explained his new understanding of his brother’s behavior.
“Iago. One meets the type in all times and places.”
“Iago?”
“Shakespeare’s Othello, as I’m sure you know.” She grinned at him.
“Of course. It is only that your education continues to surprise me. You never showed it off before your accident.”
“Is that a problem?”
Fear flared in her eyes, making him wonder what was going on. “Of course not. It is quite pleasant to conduct an intelligent discussion with a beautiful lady.”
“I wish you’d tell my mother that. She raked me over the coals yesterday for mentioning Hamlet to one of Anne’s callers.”
He hesitated, searching for the right words. Emily must understand the standards that would be expected of her in society, but at the same time he could hardly condemn her for something that he found so enjoyable. The task was harder because most of his mind was occupied with kissing those rosy lips, removing her sprigged muslin gown, and taking her to bed. His fantasies were growing bolder by the day, which would spell trouble if he didn’t keep them under control. Until he got rid of Fay, he could not afford to touch her.
“I know how difficult it has been for you these past weeks,” he began slowly. “I cannot imagine how I would function if all knowledge of manners and expectations were suddenly wiped from my head. Society includes many educated ladies, but those who control the marriage mart are not among them. Thus one must avoid intellectual discussions in some company. Once you are established in the ton, you may choose friends who share your interests, but even well-known bluestockings adapt their conversation to their audience. This is a lesson you knew well before the accident, for you never allowed anyone to glimpse your learning. It is a pleasant surprise to discover that I can hold a rational conversation with you. But not everyone is so enlightened. You must be careful, for your mother is correct that disclosure can damage your reputation.”
She sighed. “Just once in my life I would like to live with people who accept me for myself and don’t force me to mimic their own prejudices.”
“It sounds lovely, but civilization demands rules if it to succeed, so we all must conform to expectations.”
“Which only makes it easier for unscrupulous schemers like your brother to manipulate people.” She sat up straighter, apparently shelving her melancholy thoughts. “Have you learned anything that might expose Fay’s lies about Randolph’s death?”
He paced the folly. “Nothing I can use, though Mason overheard two of the footmen whispering about her yesterday. But they refused to repeat their conversation – hardly surprising if it was derogatory. No one would dare report such gossip to me.”
“True. Or to any of your servants, which means your groom likewise is useless. How about your father’s servants?”
“Same problem. They are loyal to him and would follow his wishes. He has been pushing an alliance with Fay since I was eight years old, so they would hardly repeat anything that might endanger it. Their duty requires obedience to my orders, but they clearly resent my return, so I can only assume that Randolph poisoned them against me. If I cannot gain their respect, I will have to let them go, though it galls me to do so. Many are local and will be unable to find another position nearby. Randolph’s venality has hurt more than just me.”
“Don’t blame yourself for his enmity,” she said softly, rising to place a hand on his arm.
“How did you know I did?”
She shrugged. “You take on everyone’s troubles, but being heir to Broadbanks does not mean you are infallible. Nor does it make you responsible for other people’s quirks and bad decisions. Randolph willfully chose to ignore both legal and moral bounds. You had nothing to do with it.”
“I’ll try to believe that.” He grimaced.
“Do that. In the meantime, my maid has heard several rumors suggesting that some of Fay’s activities wouldn’t pass close inspection. Not one lady who called yesterday likes her. Not one approves of her. I could hardly raise the issue with so many gathered together – especially since my mother and Fay were taking in every word I said – but perhaps Miss Langley or Mrs. Rumfrey might be willing to talk in private. If her transgressions call her veracity into question, no one will believe her word over yours should she raise the subject of Randolph’s death.”
He was touched by her determination to free him, but he was beginning to wonder why she tried so hard. Did she remember more than she claimed? “Em, did someone tell you about our friendship?” The words were out before he could stop them.
She hesitated. “Charles is your best friend. You were often at our estate, according to my maid. Both she and Charles ag
ree that you were kind to me and rarely treated me as the bratty little sister I must have been.”
He lifted her chin to look into her eyes. She was lying. He could see the truth in those blue depths. And the pain. He should never have asked. Prudence demanded he leave her here and not see her again until he was free.
Prudence be damned. His head bent until his lips lightly brushed hers. Desire washed over him, tearing words from his throat that he had never before uttered. “Dear God, Em, I love you.” Crushing her to his chest, he kissed her.
Heat engulfed him. This kiss was nothing like those they had shared in the past. Whatever door had opened to expose her mind had also released her passion. She opened her mouth to his kiss, drawing his tongue deep inside and caressing it. Her hands slid deliciously up his chest to circle his neck and thread his hair. She arched into his embrace as though she were starving for his touch.
Happiness bubbled to the surface, the first he had known in months. Convention no longer mattered. He cared nothing for his father’s antagonism or society’s outrage. He must have Emily for the rest of his life.
But even as his fingers slipped beneath her bodice to tease her excited breasts, the last vestige of conscience urged patience. Wait! Do it right! Protect her reputation until you can expose Fay.
Yes, he must expose Fay, though he needn’t do it publicly. All he needed was a sword he could hold over her neck that was equal to the one she had suspended above his.
Emily moaned, reminding him that unless he stopped immediately, they would both be dishonored. He pulled his hand away from her soft flesh, seizing one last kiss. So rapturous was her response that his thudding heart drowned the soft sound of approaching feet.
* * * *
Fay listened to a boring discourse by Lady Clifford as they wandered toward the folly. Or pretended to listen. She was bursting with excitement, her plans on the brink of fruition.
Jaime Potts had noted that Lady Emily retired to the Grecian folly every afternoon without her maid. It had been no trick to lure Frederick here. The rustic American was so untutored that he didn’t even realize Lady Anne would never have sent a missive requesting that he meet her in the folly at four o’clock. He should have arrived about three minutes ago. Politeness would force him to converse with Emily long enough for Lady Clifford to find them sans chaperon and demand that he do the honorable thing.
