Such a lovely view. Too lovely to be viewed and admired by nobody but her. Behind her, from inside, came a great racket amongst the staff. There were eighteen bedrooms to be aired—eighteen; she could not imagine what her parents had been thinking—and half as many drawing rooms. Also: two dining rooms, a billiards room, a smoking room, a morning room, two conservatories, a music room, quarters to house over sixty servants, and, of course, the nurseries. Very large nurseries, with great, glorious windows that let in light both in the morning and afternoon. Her parents had nursed grand plans for their children, of which marriage had only been the beginning.
Well, they had sent her away, and then they had died.
And then Richard had died.
Anger flickered, and with it stirred a horrifying urge to cry, still not quite vanquished. She took a sharp breath against it. She did not care what her parents’ plans had been. If, somewhere above, they were upset with her for failing to honor their dreams, they must look to themselves for the reason. They had died. Everyone who loved her had died, but she had survived and done her best. She was done with being left and abandoned.
I love you, he said, and I will prove it, as if, by doing so, it would become his right to demand another chance from her. Oh, he was worse than Pennington and Trent by far. At least they had only wanted her money. He wanted far more than that. He was the last man any sane woman would trust; leaving was his art form. Yet he wanted to take her trust in his hands, to lure her into loving him, with her only reassurance his single, slim promise not to break faith and abandon her. And what did this promise come down to? Merely two words, two syllables, scripted by somebody else, and spoken countless times by a million cads or more: I do. How many men had said those two words while already plotting their peccadilloes and betrayals? Her parents had loved her truly, by blood as well as by heart, and Richard had, too; but that had not stopped them from leaving. How dare he think a simple promise more powerful than what had bound her family to her? How dare he ask her to imagine that he could deliver to her what her own family had failed to do? Nobody could promise to stay.
“Mistress,” came a voice from behind her. One of her new footmen. It had taken under two days to assemble a staff; money did have its advantages. “Lady Anne rather wishes to see you. Are you at home?”
She turned in her seat. How curious that of all the people she might have imagined would call on her here—although Elma was fuming at her, and the Ramsey twins were maintaining their distance, per her wishes—the first should be Lady Anne. Gwen could not imagine what might have prompted it. Heaton Dale was two hours outside the city by rail, no small effort for a girl whose social schedule was—so Anne assured her in regular notes—remarkably full.
She breathed deeply of the warm air. “Show her out here,” she said, and turned back around.
So much land. She had no idea what she would do with all of this. She had worked and reworked it to please others, to suit the tastes of men who had never bothered to learn her own tastes, or even to come and view what she had wrought for them. In the end, the only transformation she had undertaken that would last was the transformation she had wrought on herself. Alex was wrong. She could change. She would no longer seek to please. She could be alone and content. Romantic love was not so thick as blood. This sense of mourning, in turns as vivid-bright as the lash of a razor, or as numbing and crushing as a boulder on the chest—it would dull. He would forget her. She would forget him. They were not family and nothing permanent bound them. People could change.
He should realize this. He had changed himself. He had made himself from a sickly boy into a strong, vibrant man. He had sacrificed in order to do it—cutting ties and avoiding connections lest he surrender some part of himself vital to the person he needed to become. And she, too, had sacrificed. To become this person she needed to be—a woman unafraid to build a garden to her own tastes; a woman confident in her right to honor her own desires—she had sacrificed him.
Only . . . the thoughts in her head did not feel as though they belonged to such a woman. They circled some dark pit she had looked into before, when loved ones had been lost to her.
He was alive, but she was mourning him as though he were dead.
She closed her eyes. She would not cry.
The sound of footsteps came from behind her, emerging from the house. Glad for the distraction, Gwen rose. “Lady Anne,” she said. Her voice sounded like gravel.
“Gwen!” The girl looked radiant, glowing in her spangled day gown. She came forward to give Gwen a light kiss on the cheek. “What a magnificent house,” she said. “And what a cunning garden!”
Gwen managed a smile. “It will be more cunning yet.” She would redesign the garden now, in the evenings, when her thoughts would be most inclined to wander, to turn toward him, to wonder where he was, if he was already leaving her behind, letting her grow ever smaller in his view and memory, like the dark shadow of the coast in the wake of a ship.
She took a breath. The garden would be beautiful. She envisioned a rolling wooded parkland, near to natural, only a slight bit of landscaping. She would thread it through with wildflowers. She had never minded wildflowers; it was only the hothouse variety that bored her. And maybe, by the time she was done with this project, she would have planned out a use for some of these rooms, particularly that deserted nursery above. Maybe she would open an orphanage.
It was a bold idea, but she did not feel brave. She felt . . . battered. Already broken.
“Will you have something?” The question emerged stiltedly. “Tea, of course, but have you lunched yet?”
“Thank you, I did,” said Lady Anne. “I promise, I am not so ill-bred as to appear uninvited and demand to be fed!”
The very fact that Lady Anne admitted the possibility that an earl’s daughter might be ill-bred was enough to surprise Gwen into brief silence. Nobody had ever called Lady Anne beautiful—her nose was too prominent, her jaw wider than her temples—but she truly was glowing. “Do you have good news?” Gwen asked cautiously. Was a marriage in the works?
“I would not call it good news,” Lady Anne said. “But news, yes. That is . . . I have come to do you a favor—one that I think you will gather I was very grateful for myself.” She paused to draw breath, and her expression grew very serious. One slim, gloved hand settled atop Gwen’s knuckles. It’s to do with Alex, Gwen thought. But no, it couldn’t be. What truck did Lady Anne have with him? Still, she felt her pulse bump and begin to speed as Lady Anne continued, “Brace yourself, dear.” The girl’s hand delivered a squeeze. “It concerns the Viscount Pennington.”
Gwen’s hopes deflated. “Oh? What of him?”
Her flat tone visibly surprised Lady Anne, who then misinterpreted it entirely. “Is it still so sore a subject? I had hoped Mr. Ramsey—is he about, by the way? One hears such delicious rumors about him, I had hoped to see him in person, to beard the devil, as it were! Joking, dearest Gwen—oh, he isn’t? Pity. What was I saying? Oh yes, I had hoped—but ah, well, I know how slow hopes are to heal.”
“Very slow,” Gwen murmured. Painfully slow, she feared.
“Yes,” Lady Anne said soberly. “You did gather, I think—that is, you may have gathered that for a brief period, before of course the gentleman fixed his attentions on you, that I was rather . . . taken with him myself. Which is why I say with full confidence that it may comfort you to know why the viscount fled so ignominiously from the altar.”
Gwen blinked. Alex had said he wasn’t responsible, and she believed him. The cause therefore seemed thoroughly immaterial to her.
But Lady Anne was clearly waiting for some reaction. And perhaps it was a mark of her own addled state that she felt no curiosity. She cleared her throat. “Oh, dear,” she said.
“Yes, it is just that shocking,” Anne said righteously. “I am afraid, Gwen, that the viscount has found himself in an . . . indelicate situation . . . with a certain man, a very wealthy German from Baden-Baden, who blackmailed hi
m and threatened to expose him to prosecution—if he should go through with marriage to you.”
Gwen frowned. “I know no Germans,” she said. “Why should this gentleman object to our marriage?”
“That is the shocking part! The German was seen entering your ceremony just before the vows were taken. But he did not appear in order to threaten the viscount. No—he appeared to prove his love!”
It took Gwen a moment to work through this. “Do you mean to say that the viscount . . .”
“He was romantically involved with this man,” Anne hissed. “A foreigner. Yes. And now the German has cleared the viscount’s debts, and together they are fled to the Continent, for fear that here, they will be prosecuted for unnatural behavior!”
“How . . . astounding,” Gwen said. It was so far outside anything she had expected that she barely knew how to react. “I feel very—terrible—for the viscount, I think.” And also—could it be?—the first bit envious. She had no idea of how to understand such love between men, but if Pennington would risk the whole world’s wrath and his own freedom for it, the German could never doubt him now.
“As well you should, I think,” said Lady Anne, surprising her again. “I told you, it was a foreigner who he took up with. Besides, he might have gone through with the marriage and used your wealth to mount his defense in court, should their affair be discovered. But he spared you the infamy, Gwen! So you see, his disinterest in you was not at all personal. He has no feelings of that sort for any woman.”
Gwen’s mouth twitched. She could not help it. No wonder Lady Anne had come running to her. By spreading this story, she also salvaged her own wounded pride.
Her small smile appeared to unnerve Lady Anne, who collected her purse and rose. “Well,” she said, and her tone was more in line with what Gwen remembered of her: starchy and a touch condescending. “I thought it would soothe you, at any rate. But I suppose you have no care now you are safely—if I may say a bit hastily—married.” She glanced around again. “Although I do find it odd that Mr. Ramsey is not here.” Her regard switched back to Gwen, speculative now.
Gwen came to her feet as well. “It was lovely of you to pay a call on me, and to be the first to share these tidings. I will give you even more exciting news to spread, if you like.” Why not? Otherwise she would wait, breathless and nauseated by nerves, for the truth to slip out. She might as well let it slip now herself. “You see, Mr. Ramsey and I aren’t actually married.”
Anne blinked. And then her mouth fell open. “What?”
“It’s true.” She wanted to speak the words boldly, carelessly. But they felt leaden in her mouth, and they dropped her voice to a pitch better suited to gravesides. “Not married. We never were.”
Anne’s eyes unfocused. Her expression grew a little dreamy. No doubt she was beholding her own social celebrity the moment she dropped this truth like a bomb onto London. “Oh, Gwen,” she sighed. “You’re mad, do you know that?”
Gwen hesitated. This remark had not been issued in any of the appropriate veins—she heard no censure, astonishment, disbelief, or sympathy, only a chiding and indulgent note.
A suspicion seized her. What was Lady Anne staring at, somewhere behind her?
The suspicion grew into a cold certainty as Lady Anne’s smile widened, and then fractured into a giggle. Her blue eyes returned to Gwen’s, widening dramatically, as if to say, You naughty girl, you! Telling me such lies!
Hands slipped around Gwen’s eyes. She went rigid. She would know him anywhere, simply by the feel of him. His skin made her skin come alive.
She thought desperately of her landscape. Of transformations. “He is not my husband,” she said stonily.
“That’s right,” he said, very near to her ear. “Sometimes she likes to call me Mr. de Grey. Lovely little game, we play.”
The sound of his voice raised a physical pain in her, a longing so acute that it made her throat clog. This was not fair—that she should feel this way when he was here, when he was next to her, when he was hers for the touching if only she would lift her hands.
His hands gentled slightly. She knew then that he felt the tears rising in her lashes.
“Perhaps,” he said, “you might give us a minute, Lady Anne?”
“Oh yes,” came the girl’s breathless reply. “I’ll just be on my way, then. Gwen, you’re an awful tease. I will write you this very evening.”
Gwen stood still for a very long moment, waiting for Alex to release her.
He slid his hands straight down her face, to her waist. The sunshine poured back over her, but it seemed now out of season. What she wanted were gray clouds to weep with her.
“Gwen.” He pressed his cheek to hers and spoke in her ear as his arms closed around her torso. “Darling, this is the bottom of stupid, and perhaps halfway onward to abominable idiocy. Why are you crying?”
She stared very hard at the pagodas. “You know why.” I want you to leave: that was what she should add. But she could not say it. Why couldn’t she say it? He had called her fearless, but she was a coward. She was a coward with him. She had forgotten Trent and Pennington so easily! Their loss had stung less than the scandal attached. She had never loved them in the first place. It had been so easy to wait at the altar for a man she hadn’t loved. Without love, one could not be crippled by loss.
But he was standing here with her. Where was the loss?
It never showed its face before it arrived. It would come. And there were reasons, solid reasons, to doubt him.
She ripped out of his grasp and took a step toward the terrace rail. “You above all people should know why I rebuff you,” she said. One of the pagodas lay in fragments; the axmen had grown tired and stopped mid-work. Had she the strength, she would chop the rest of them up herself. Yes, she would enjoy such violent activity. “Were you not the one who said I must recognize my own desires? Accept them without shame? But how does that fit with you, Alex? You did not respect me enough to let me make my own decision about Trent. You did not bother to consult my wishes. Do you think that spells the path to freedom for me?”
He sighed. “I was wrong,” he said. “I should have shared the news about Trent. I do not argue that. My only excuse is idiocy. I was working very hard, then, to keep as far from you as possible.”
Her hands closed over the railing, clenching tightly. “I don’t believe that. You simply didn’t want to waste your time on informing me. Your interest is fickle. Today you have found me interesting, but tomorrow—”
He caught her elbow. “Spare us,” he said, and his voice had hardened. “Spare us both these tales. Your objections have nothing to do with the Trent affair, and you know it.”
She held silent.
“Don’t be a coward,” he said. “Look me in the face.”
She shrugged out of his grip and pivoted.
No wonder Lady Anne had blushed and shuffled like a child. He was dressed only in his shirtsleeves, a blinding white in the midday light, offering stark contrast to the tanned skin of his throat. A passing breeze ruffled his thick hair, played with the spare material of his sleeves, but he himself was motionless.
“No,” she said. “It has nothing to do with Trent.”
“Yes,” he said. “I know. And here’s something else it has nothing to do with.”
He held out his hand.
She regarded the document warily. And then, looking to his face once more, she took it from him.
“This . . .” She frowned and turned over the document. The seal looked legitimate. Astonishment briefly slackened her grip. “This is the title to Heverley End.”
“Yes,” he said.
“But how—Barrington sold it to you?”
“He never owned it. Gerry didn’t sell the place.”
“But—” She covered her mouth with her hand. None of this made sense. Had he—surely he hadn’t come only to show this to her? But shouldn’t that be precisely her hope?
“Gerry was part of Barrington’s scam
.” He pushed his hand through his hair, then sighed and took a seat. “Well, he was. Was being the operative word, here.”
She sank into the chair across from him. She hardly trusted herself to stand. Some storm seemed to breaking inside her, silently, ferociously, scattering her wits and addling her emotions; she barely knew how she felt. “What on earth can you mean?” she asked faintly.
He rolled his eyes. “God knows it only makes sense to Gerry. The rumors about the sale were meant to lend Barrington credibility. He asked Gerry to refer potential clients to him—people looking to sell their estates—and in turn, Barrington passed on a percentage of the selling price. Gerry was using the profits to defray a rent rollback, help his tenants through a poor year’s returns.” Alex drummed his fingers atop the table for a moment. “Idiocy,” he said in disgust. “My brother finally decides to dabble in commerce, and he does so in the name of noblesse oblige.”
She choked on a laugh. She could not help it; he simply looked so put out. But how surreal this scene was becoming—sitting across from each other, speaking so civilly of real estate. At least her amazement had temporarily numbed her distress. “But then—Heverley End? Why is it deeded to you?”
“That was my price,” Alex said. “Gerry deeded me Heverley End, and in return, I give him the grand honor of turning Barrington in to the authorities himself. Otherwise, I would have done it, and God knows I would have strung Gerry up by the heels, as well.”
“No, you wouldn’t have done,” she said instantly.
He hesitated, regarding her curiously, a smile finally turning his lips. “No, probably not,” he said. “But Gerry didn’t know that.”
By some silent accord, they both settled back in their chairs. Another warm wind swept the terrace. Alex tipped his face back to the sun and shut his eyes. The sight struck a dagger through her, unleashing a sense of terrible urgency: so long as the conversation remained on these other matters, he could stay. He could stay as long as he liked.
It would not last, though.
It would break her heart when it ended, and she could not bear the wait. “You would never be happy here,” she blurted.
Wicked Becomes You Page 30
