The Countess Confessions

by Jillian Hunter

  “There are several private corridors, my lord,” said the tall footman standing at one of the doors. “I shall be glad to show you through them.”

  Damien stood back as a guest dressed as a highlander passed before him, a masked female gamekeeper in tow. “Do pardon us, please,” the gentleman said, smiling beneath his domino. “I’ve walked a mile to reach the terrace. I miss the air outside.”

  Damien stared after them, the comment lingering in his mind. Did he know that voice? Did it belong to one of the innumerable Boscastle friends who had been introduced to him since his arrival? He had let down his guard since he had reached London. But now, without discernible reason, he felt his familiar unease return.

  He glanced back at the footman. “I will take you up on your offer of a direct route to the terrace. Sebastien? Colin?” He glanced at his brothers. “Care to have your fortunes told?”

  “We’re going upstairs to gamble,” Sebastien admitted with a grin. “If your wife cares to give us guidance, we’ll share the profits.”

  Damien laughed. “I think you’ll do better on your own. She makes mainly romantic predictions.” At least she wasn’t looking for a husband tonight. He was hers for life. And Winthrop had Iris, so Damien would not be disturbed by anyone except Emily.

  “I’ll go with you,” Gabriel said. He was still shorter and bulkier than Damien, but he was no longer the headstrong boy Damien remembered. It was evident, from the family rumors he had heard, that Damien’s three brothers had learned to harness their demons and force the self-destructive creatures to work for and not against them. As he had.

  Sometimes that was all a man could do. Sometimes, with the right woman beside you, it was more than enough.

  “Come up if you change your mind,” Colin, the second-oldest brother, called back to him. “We’d like a chance to win some of that wealth you acquired.”

  Damien grinned and considered going up with them for a game, but only for a moment. He didn’t feel right leaving Emily alone in that tent, where he couldn’t see her. Even though nothing was likely to happen at a party of this class. Nothing except perhaps that there would be a man standing in line who’d push to the front and insist that the sultry lady inside read his fortune.

  Most likely the man wouldn’t care about his fortune. He might have glimpsed Emily on her way to the tent and found her dark beauty alluring, believing her to be a woman open to romance.

  He frowned at the thought as he followed the footman outside. There were plenty of guests and servants bustling past the tent. But there wasn’t a pony at the back who could stamp a hoof when a customer grew too bold or asked an impertinent question of the fortune-teller. A hopeful guest might assume she was only the hired help for the evening, and not know she was a young countess who had a protective husband standing in the garden, where he could keep the tent in sight.

  But he couldn’t see inside the tent. He couldn’t see her.

  And he did have a good reason for his suspicious nature. Besides, this was London, and life moved at a faster pace here than in Hatherwood. Emily might not know how to deal with a passionate gentleman, one who found her as irresistible as her husband did.

  Moreover, the line to the tent had grown smaller, and what would it hurt to pop inside and ask a beautiful soothsayer to read his palm? In the crush, it might be the closest he would get to her until the party ended.

  Which would not be until breakfast. When the marquess gave a party, the guests did not go home until noon.

  He couldn’t wait that long. He would hold off another minute and stand outside the tent in Michael’s place. And then when she was finished, he would whisk her away for an hour to one of the mansion’s secluded rooms that had been designed for such secret meetings.

  All he had to do was wend his way through the hundred or so costumed guests who thronged the garden and terrace stairs.

  • • •

  Emily had depleted her talent for telling people what they wanted to hear. She had also run out of patience for those who went into raptures over her predictions. It should be obvious to anyone with half a brain that she was an imposter making up fortunes as she went along, and that she was sitting here in the spirit of fun.

  She reminded herself that she was also doing this for charity as well as to prove to the Boscastles that she had a benevolent heart. But honest to St. George, if one more debutante entered the tent and begged to know whether there was a titled husband in her future, Emily would put down her head and weep. How mortifying to remember that she had once longed for such words of reassurance.

  And yet Emily’s dream had come true. It seemed cruel to deny hope to another. What did it cost her to tell a young girl that a titled husband was in her future? It wasn’t as if Emily aspired to be the Oracle of Delphi. No one would knock on her door years from now, denouncing her ability as a prophetess.

  At last there came a lull. Perhaps the novelty of her predictions had worn off. Wouldn’t it be awful if all the debutantes had met in the retiring room and discovered that she had foretold the same fate for each and all? She should have thought to end her readings with the warning, “Do not speak a word of this to another person, or none of it will come true.”

  A resounding cheer from outside the tent startled her. She rose from her chair and peeked outside to the terrace. Not a debutante in sight. However, there did appear to be some sort of fencing performance taking place in the garden, and it had drawn a large number of guests. Presumably Damien and his brothers had been attracted to the spectacle. She tried to pick out their figures in the crowd.

  It was time to close up shop. She loved swordplay and she loved her husband. She didn’t want to miss this party. Not when she’d come full circle and there was so much to celebrate.

  She turned to extinguish the light.

  A shadow fell across her chair as she leaned forward. Her hand hovered over the dimly burning lamp on the table. She looked up into the shadow’s face, too stunned to say a word. It would be useless to pretend ignorance. Had he known all along who she was? How had she ever believed him to be a victim when he had not cared that innocent people would be killed for his cause?

  “Why?” she asked, genuinely confused but also playing for time. Surely another guest would burst into the tent.

  The fencing spectacle could not last forever.

  Someone at the party had to seek her out before it was too late.

  • • •

  Iris was good and truly chafed. Here she waited in the private suite of a Park Lane mansion, a virtual palace of the gods, for her mistress to come upstairs and change out of that garish costume into one befitting a countess. Emily could have passed as a medieval princess in the brocaded skirts and heavily boned bodice that Lady Sedgecroft had left hanging in the spare wardrobe.

  But did Lady Shalcross show any respect for her rank? Did she care that her maid would be judged on the countess’s appearance? Not that Iris gave a care what others thought of her. Still, she had her pride. Masquerade or not, Iris did not approve of her ladyship’s gypsy attire. It reminded Iris of their harrowing escape. And while the Boscastle family might consider the notion of a fortune-teller at a party to be amusing mischief, Iris felt it was taunting fate.

  “Ah, I found you at last.”

  She glanced over her shoulder to see Winthrop slip into the room and walk toward the window.

  “You aren’t supposed to be here,” she whispered.

  He drew her into his arms. “Who’s to tell?”

  “There are nine days left before the wedding.” She wriggled free and turned back to withdraw, hiding a smile. “Control your passions.”

  “Nobody else in this house does,” he murmured, wrapping his arms around her waist, his chin propped on her shoulder to stare outside. “I wonder if his lordship will take a day to fence with Sir Christopher. He was damn good in his day. He had a way with his blade.”

  Iris had no idea who Sir Christopher was, but she had just noticed a man l
urking at the back of the tent. He was wearing a mask, as were half the other men at the party. But even from here Iris thought he looked familiar.

  “It can’t be,” she whispered.

  “Yes, it could. I mean, his lordship could put on a decent show, even though he hasn’t fought a duel in almost a decade.”

  “Look at him, Winthrop. Dear God, look at the man who is lifting the back of the tent. Don’t you recognize him?”

  Chapter 49

  Damien had one eye on the sword-fighting spectacle and the other on the fortune-telling tent. The line on the terrace had dwindled to one last guest, and Damien wasn’t sure whether that person had exited while his back was turned or not. He was surrounded on all sides by Boscastles, and while he was grateful to be accepted back into the clan, he wanted Emily to be part of his reunion.

  He’d taken her away from her own family, and he knew she missed home. It was up to him to make her feel that she belonged.

  His cousin Grayson elbowed him in the ribs. “If you miss her that much, then go and get her. It’s not as if anyone will notice you’re gone. To be honest, you aren’t the most scintillating conversationalist at the party.”

  Damien laughed. “You always were a rude bugger. Why did I think that time would refine you?”

  Grayson shrugged. “Did it refine you? I don’t think so. Some of us, you being a prime example, only grow worse with age. Go on. You miss her. It’s pathetic. I know the feeling. There is no cure.”

  Damien turned, unable to argue, his gaze lifting to the tent. You miss her.

  Miss. “No,” he said aloud.

  A miss is as good as a mile. That voice. The viscount’s voice. Had Batleigh meant to shoot Damien, not Deptford, that afternoon on the lake?

  “Damien?” Grayson said, turning in concern.

  He wheeled. He knocked a footman into a guest as he sprinted up the stairs to the terrace. From the corner of his eye he noticed Winthrop and the marquess’s senior footman burst through the French doors of the mansion’s ballroom. He heard Grayson call his name again. By now two other gentlemen had broken from the group to ask what was wrong. He had no time to answer.

  Chapter 50

  An unexpected calm had come over Emily. She stared at the man holding a pistol in one hand, a mask in the other. Viscount Deptford. The traitor Damien had vowed to protect. The hapless victim who knew the names of every conspirator in England. A man who had used his lineage and advanced age as a weapon to deceive and betray.

  “Lady Shalcross,” he said as another figure slipped into the tent behind him. “I am not sure whether I prefer you as a countess or as a gypsy fugitive. Under other circumstances I might have welcomed your subversive tendencies. There might have been in place for you in our revolution. Rare is the gentlewoman who defies convention to make her own future.”

  “Why?” she asked, shaking her head.

  His long, sallow face creased in a smile. “I do not have time to convince you of the wrongs the aristocracy perpetrates. You need only know that I am the heart of this rebellion. Ardbury was but an artery, and others have already taken his place. In the end only one of us could lead.”

  “But my husband risked his life to protect you at the castle,” Emily said.

  “My life was never in danger. The hunting accident was a ruse to deceive agents of the Crown and those who refused to follow me. Your husband was the intended victim on the lake. I suspect he was on the verge of realizing the truth.”

  “You’re wasting time,” the woman behind him said. It was the maid who had approached Emily at the inn, the maid whom she and Iris had caught at the castle. “We have to escape now, Papa. Either kill her or take her for ransom. We won’t make it through the garden before the fencing display is over if you tarry.”

  The viscount held the gun steadily aimed at Emily as the other woman darted forward to grasp her arm. Emily considered her options. She could scream and be immediately silenced by the pistol. Her voice might not even be heard above the applause and shouts that drifted from the garden.

  No one in the ballroom would hear her over the band.

  She wasn’t about to be taken prisoner. She leaned away from the woman, casting a glance around the tent for a weapon. Her shawl lay across the small table. The long golden fringe glittered in the lamplight.

  For the love of heaven, Emily, whatever you do, don’t let the light fall to the straw.

  The woman reached for her arm again, and in one impulsive move, Emily grasped the fringe of her shawl and swept it across the table toward the oil lamp. Within moments the straw scattered around the tent erupted into flames. The viscount’s daughter gasped in panic as fire licked the hem of her gown.

  She bent at the waist to beat out the flames with her gloves. “Do something!” she cried to the viscount.

  He wrenched off his cloak and threw it at her, then backed out onto the terrace from the rear of the tent. Emily stamped out the flames that followed his escape. She was a step away toward freedom when the woman gave a hysterical scream.

  Emily could not leave her alone in the fire. She pulled off her wig and started to beat out the burning straw, which by this time had filled the tent with banks of smoke.

  Then there were other people crowding around her, tossing buckets on the smoldering mess. She felt herself swept off her feet and carried into the evening air.

  “Are you all right?” Damien asked her in an unsteady voice.

  She nodded. “It was the viscount. And the maid who isn’t a maid—”

  He set her down, taking a last look at her as if to reassure himself she was unhurt before he disappeared from her sight. A moment later another pair of masculine arms enveloped her. She looked up into the blue eyes of the handsome golden-haired marquess, whose authority would have intimidated her at another time. “I am Grayson, my dear. We met earlier in the week.”

  As if anyone who had met the Marquess of Sedgecroft once could forget his name.

  • • •

  Damien couldn’t hold her close enough. He didn’t give a damn that they were sitting on a chaise lounge in Grayson’s Italian gallery, an infamous room that everyone who was anyone in society knew had been designed for seduction. He was as oblivious to the family members who hovered about in concern as he was to the Roman statues that stood in the numerous recessed alcoves, candlelight flickering on their sculpted faces.

  A footman placed two glasses of sherry on the low Chinese table that sat beside the chaise. Damien drank them both, only to realize they had been refilled before his last swallow went down.

  “Are you sure you weren’t hurt?” he asked Emily, burying his face in her tousled hair, the odor of smoke on her skin arousing a fury in him that he fought to hide. “Can you breathe properly?”

  He thought he heard her laugh. “Not when you’re crushing the air from my body,” she whispered. “Damien, you have to let me go.”

  “No.”

  “You have to. I must look a fright.”

  “You look beautiful to me,” he said, his throat constricting. “But, then, you always have.”

  “Is Deptford dead?” she whispered.

  He ground his teeth. “No, but he’ll be tried for treason and that will be the end of him.”

  “And his daughter?”

  He hesitated. “No one knows if she’ll survive the night. Her injuries were severe.”

  “Oh. I can’t believe how fast the fire spread.”

  “But you survived. For God’s sake, Emily, don’t ever do anything like this again.”

  She drew back slightly. “You aren’t making sense, Damien.”

  “Is it any wonder?”

  She caressed his cheek. “You’re distraught.”

  “Distraught? I’ve lost my mind. I’ll never be the same.”

  She glanced up at his three brothers standing in the corner. “I feel fine.”

  He expelled a sigh. “I don’t. I should have recognized Deptford right away. It took Iris to identify him
from an upstairs window.”

  “Shall we go back to the town house?” she suggested gently.

  He released her with reluctance, realizing that they had an enrapt audience. “Yes. If that’s what you’d like.”

  Her eyes held his. “If it isn’t too much trouble.”

  “How can you say that after following me into hell?”

  “We escaped, Damien. And you saved more lives than you’ll ever know. Don’t forget that. You overcame evil, and you deserve recognition.”

  “Which I am confident he will receive,” Lord Heath said from the doorway.

  Damien glanced back at Heath in appreciation, then stood, drawing Emily to her feet. When had he come to need her this desperately? Why had it taken him all these years to find his perfect mate? Because he had not believed, as Emily did, that true love existed? Or because he placed too much value on his achievements to give anyone else the chance to understand that he might not have a heart of gold, but it wasn’t made of stone?

  He knew only that his heart belonged to Emily, and if he had lost her tonight it would not be beating now.

  Epilogue

  Emily was ecstatic. A letter had arrived from Michael. It was short and brought tears of relief to her eyes. The baron and Michael had come to an agreement that it was Michael’s duty as the firstborn heir to learn land management. In the baron’s opinion that included building a breeding stable, the studs for which he and Michael would travel to London to select.

  “They’ve made up,” she told Damien wistfully. “And they didn’t need me to help them. Maybe I was in the way all the time.”

  “We can visit them whenever you like.”

  “They’re coming to visit us,” she said, putting down the letter. “So are Lucy and her parents.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “To buy horses, too?”

  “No.” She smiled, taking his hand. “Lucy is on a husband hunt, and I’ve promised to help her.”