The Rakehell Regency Romance Series Boxed Set 5

by MacMurrough, Sorcha

  Lady Pemberton urged softty, "Go on, let it all out."

  He ran one hand through his ebony hair and admitted, "My success, such as it's been, has been fueled by nothing but hatred. I hated Matthew for seeming to deprive me of my hopes by stealing from me, and hated the Rakehells, who I thought were my friends, for taking his side against me.

  "I've even hated Juliet, despite the fact that I'm so drawn to her I can scarcely be in the room without wanting to embrace her. I believed she was just part of another plot to ruin me. I've treated her badly not because of anything she's ever done, but because of my anger, suspicious nature and jealousy."

  "But you don't hate her or Matthew now?" his regal companion demanded.

  He shook his head. "I feel like such a fool. Philip tells me that Matthew never stole from me. That the money was missing and they thought I had taken it myself. Matthew felt sorry for me, wanted me to have a chance to put my gifts to use. He paid for everything when I went to India. It seems he was actually the making of me, not the ruination. Without the fare for the ship passage, I would never have gone to India, and never have all that I have now. And I doubt I would ever have had so much had I remained here in England."

  She nodded. "It doesn't surprise me in the least. Because Matthew lost his family, family means everything to him. He didn't want the same thing to happen to you. In fact, you gained a new future through his help and that of your uncle, despite the fact that he was a debached opium addict.

  Lawrence nodded and sighed.

  "So, it appears that Matthew never cheated you."

  "No, never."

  Her sharp blue eyes bored into him. "Then you must know who did."

  He sighed. "It's just so hard—"

  "I know. But it's the truth and you need to face it."

  "If not Matthew, or Michael, or Philip, then who—"

  She tutted impatiently. "Lawrence, for pity's sake, stop running from the truth. They're all dead. They can't hurt you any more."

  "I can't—" he said, pressing his hands together as though trying to keep the lid down on Pandora's box.

  "Then I'll say it, if you can't bring yourself to face the ghosts of the past. Your own brother did it. He tried to destroy you out of envy and jealousy. He wanted your fiancee for himself, and took her and all you had worked so hard to achieve. He pretended to be you and withdrew all the money. All you Rakehells who had invested in the scheme you were heading pointed the finger at each other. But since you had the most to lose, it didn’t take them long to decide you were the most innocent."

  Lawrence sat numbly, reliving the pain of the moment as clearly as if it were yesterday.

  "You brother didn't just want to ruin you financially, Lawrence. He could have ruined your personally forever if all the Rakehells had turned against you, and the scandal had given you the reputation of a thief. You might have even ended up in prison. Then what prospects would you have had?"

  Lawrence shook his head. "I can't believe my own brother hated me that much."

  "You had much to envy, lad, then, and now. You're intelligent, hard-working, you were far more able than he was the eldest son, and your father seemed to favor you for all you weren't his heir. Your fiancee came from a good family, and stood to inherit a fair sum as an only child. Many have killed for far less reason. Let alone deliberately ruined."

  Lawrence shuddered at her words, and pressed his hand to his brow as though he had a headache.

  Lady Pemberton rose now and poured him a glass of brandy from one of the cut-glass decanters that stood on a sideboard nearby. She pressed it into his numb fingers, and waited while he drank it down. Then she poured him a second one, and resumed her seat.

  "Matthew suspected you for a time, but he also knew the two of them were having an affair. He said you nearly caught them one time in the library when you went looking for an atlas?"

  "My God, yes, I remember!' he gasped. "Matthew came to stay with us. He was there looking really flustered, and couldn't get me out of the room quickly enough. I was sure then that he had been going through my papers."

  "If you will pardon the crudity, it wasn't he rifling through drawers, but your brother."

  "So they were both plotting against me all along?" he said, shaking his head incredulously.

  "It would appear so, Son."

  "And then they married as soon as I was out of the picture and they could afford to."

  "And then died not too long ago, and left you their two sons to look after. Look, Lawrence, what they did was wrong, terrible, but it didn't work out so badly for you, did it? I mean, you're a prominent tea trader now, back in England now and so prosperous, your whole future is set fair. You've made far more in India than you ever would have done toying at stock brokerage. You never really enjoyed it or had the talent for it, and the rewards are paltry compared to what can be made in the India trade."

  He nodded. "It's true. And I loved India. Love tea. But I also love England. And admit, I fell in love with the idea of coming back here to show everyone who had doubted me, accused me, what an incredibly successful self-made man I was. Hah." He shook his head and grimaced. "What a fool I've been."

  "Not so much of a fool that you can't see your mistakes, and want to rectify them before it's too late."

  He nodded eagerly. "I do. That's why I've come. I need help. I need to know everything."

  "Then let's talk about Juliet herself. Since her father disowned her, she's been raised a quiet, respectable girl all these years, but she's not traditional. You've got a bas bleu of the first order there. Have you heard of J. A. Lyons?"

  Lawrence's eyes lit up, and he nodded enthusiastically, before taking a sip of the brandy. "Who hasn't? His histories of England are the finest scholarship to date, and sheer entertainment. I can't wait to get the next volume on the reign of Elizabeth."

  "You're going to have to wait. She got married recently, and I believe is enceinte."

  "Lyons is a woman?"

  "Not just any woman. Your wife."

  He stared. "But that's not possible. She's so young."

  "She also has an excellent head for business. She has supplemented their modest income with wine trading on the Continent. Juliet is one of the top wine merchants on the south coast. She kept the business going even during all the years we were at war with France, and her but a mere slip of a thing."

  He groaned. "And there I was trying to educate her..." He blushed with mortification. "I'm such an ass. And I told her she wasn't permitted to take anything with her from her old life because I wanted to prove I was so much better than she was. Now I find she was raised as a pauper."

  "Not quite, but close enough. Any little gifts I gave them she reinvested for herself and her sister. She's lived life more quietly than a church mouse in some respects, but she's not too naïve or unsophisticated, for all she was raised in Lyme Regis rather than London.

  "Once Matthew was happily married, a true family man at last, he decided he had to do something to help the family, raise the girls' prospects. He's no longer a rake, so their reputations wouldn't be tarnished by the association. Juliet and her sister were only just recently arrived in London when you met and married.

  "Quite frankly, I don't know how you could possibly have mistaken a virtuous young woman for a harlot, but if you will pardon me being so blunt, I believe you saw what you wanted to see. That you believe most women are harlots, and therefore not to be trusted, and not to be respected."

  He glared but remained silent.

  "You also seem to be easily deceived by women, for all you are a hard-headed business man. Your first fiancee? Then Matilda? I would be hard put to meet a worse woman than that one. She made Matthew's life hell as his mistress for nigh on two years until he broke free. I don't know what your other liaisons were like--"

  "Safe and predictable. The physical only. Bad women I could never come to care about," he confessed with a wave of his hand.

  She nodded. "I thought so. It seems to me th
at you have no idea how to share your life with anyone. You're so domineering because you've done nothing but bark orders at coolies for ten years. But a wife is not a slave, and even a slave is a human being, after all."

  He drained his glass, clinked it down on the small side table next to him, and sat with his head in his hands for a time. After a short while he asked, "Will you give me the directions for the house in Lyme Regis?"

  "Have you not found everything you need to know yet?"

  "Not quite. Where is her sister Miranda?"

  "She's gone back down to Dorset for the moment."

  "Then I need to take her to see Juliet, and I must also bring the rest of my wife's things to our new home."

  Lady Pemberton fixed him with a hard stare. "If you have no intention of making Juliet happy, you should just let her go now. It will save all of you a great deal of heartache in the long term."

  Lawrence shook his head vehemently. "I can't, Lady Pemberton. She's my wife, and what I have, I hold. I've already lost so much in my life, I couldn't bear to lose her," he rasped, feeling near tears.

  "I'd like to be noble and walk away, so she won't have to look at the man who was either indifferent to her or so mentally cruel day after day.

  "But when I thought she had been unfaithful, I wanted to kill myself. When I thought we were to be divorced, a part of me was so grief-stricken I didn't think I could even draw my next breath. And when she nearly lost the baby, I knew I couldn't live without her. That I had always loved her, from the moment we met. I hate all the things I did and said, but I was so sure Matthew and Juliet had tricked me." He sighed.

  "One other thing you might want to consider."

  "Mm?" he said distractedly.

  "Well, two things, really."

  "What are they, Lady Pemberton?"

  "Ask yourself two questions. How did Matilda latch on to you so quickly when you arrived back in England? And who would have known all about your investments with the Rakehells, enough to help your brother steal from you?"

  He frowned. "Surely it doesn't matter about either now. Juliet saved me to rescue me from that harlot Matilda, and my brother is dead. These questions are both ancient history compared with mending fences with Juliet."

  She looked at him sharply. "Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer."

  Lawrence shook his head and sighed, then stared moodily into the fire. "I thought I knew who my enemies were."

  Lady Pemberton rose and said stiffly, "The Rakehells have never done you any harm. You can trust in that above all else."

  "I'll try. But now I must go see my wife's foster-parents." He rose and collected his outergarments from the chair on which he had placed them.

  "Be careful. And give Juliet my love."

  "I shall. And thank you." He offered her his hand, which she took without hesitation. "I've been a fool, but I swear I'll do anything to make it up to her."

  "Just start doing it. One day at a time. And night," she added with a wink.

  "The nights have never been a problem." He grinned. "Except me spending far too many of them on my own."

  "Glad to hear it. That girl has dash and spirit, for all you've tried to saunter all over her like the cock of the walk."

  "I know. What a waste of time. She smiles at me, and she can wrap me around her little finger in an instant."

  "She may be called Lyons, but she is a Dane through and through. Go on, off you go, and be happy. And I expect an invitation to come to stay as soon as she's feeling better."

  "You're welcome any time," he said sincerely. "She's staying with Blake at the moment, but we have a goodly house, and I'm sure she'll be delighted to see you."

  "In that case, I shall head down there first thing in the morning."

  "I'll be home as soon as I can."

  "Very good, then."

  He stuck out his hand once more, this time more awkwardly. "Thank you for everything. Really. You've been more kind than I deserve after everything I've done."

  She took his hand in both her own. "You're welcome. Just make sure I don't ever have call to take you to task for neglecting your wife ever again. Else you will suffer for it, and not just personally. I will be happy to offer my patronage of your teas once you and my niece are a bit more, er, settled, shall we say. But just remember, that patronage can be revoked at any time if I see you lapsing back to your old ways."

  By rights Lawrence should have been furious at her near-blackmail, and told her what she could do with her patronage. Instead, he gave an airy wave. "Believe me, you won't. There won't be enough hours in the day to worship Juliet and make it all up to her. Business be damned. She's my wife, and carrying my child. I'm going to try to be the best husband she could ever want, and if I fail, well, then, my dear Madame, by all means do your worst, for I shall most certainly deserve it."

  "That's the spirit, lad," she said, giving his cheek a pat. "That's true love."

  Lawrence flashed a grin. "I know it now. I've had the best teacher. My lovely wife."

  She went to the desk to write out the address he had requested.

  He thanked her and bowed.

  "Au revoir for now, son. And be careful."

  "You said that before," he noted, his brows knitting.

  Lady Pemberton fixed him with a hard stare. "Let's just say I know Matilda of old. A mischief-maker if ever there was one. Never underestimate her."

  He nodded. "She's in Somerset the last I heard."

  "Then all the more reason why you should finish your business and head home to Juliet with all possible haste."

  He didn't even pause to shrug on his coat. He turned and ran down the stairs and into his waiting carriage without even looking back.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  After Lawrence left Lady Pemberton's, his mind teeming with all he had learned about the past, he had his driver push hard for Lyme Regis, and arrived early in the morning on the third day.

  The Lyonses were already up and about, and he introduced himself to the older couple. They were immediately all smiles. They peered out the door and around, and then looked back up at him in consternation.

  "But where's Juliet?"

  "She couldn't come. She's expecting a baby and needs to rest."

  "Oh my! A baby? Already? How wonderful. Come in, lad, come in," the jovial older man with silver hair said.

  "I wanted you all to come stay, and to bring a few of her favourite things with me to make our house more of a home. I mean, she's done wonders with the place and my nephews, but she has so little. She never complains, never buys anything for herself."

  "You got the more sensible sister," Miranda said with a warm smile. "I'm the extravagant one."

  Lawrence blinked for a moment. They were not identical twins, but she was similar enough to his wife give even him pause. It was the posture, the tilt of the head.

  But as he shook her hand, there was none of the spark he felt every time he and his wife touched. Her eyes were blue, not the rare violet he loved so well, and her hair a dark glossy chestnut brown, not jet black like his beloved's. She was also more slender, with a longer neck and much more workmanlike hands, roughened with manual tasks.

  "I was just heading out into the garden, but I'll come up to her room with you and pick out some things she will like."

  "And some of her favourite gowns and such. I know she said she'd sent for all her things, but I don't believe it. So little arrived."

  "I did pack most of them. It's her books she will really be missing."

  He hated himself for the way he had been so scathing about her reading.

  "No need to look so sad. She'll be fine. Call it twin's intuition. I know she's been really happy and really unhappy. But she's strong."

  "She has to be to put up with me."

  She led the way up the narrow stairs to a rather plain room with a single narrow four-poster bed. Everything in the room was white, or oak. It was as simple and elegant as his wife, and he immediately felt at home.r />
  She watched him look around, but there wasn't much to see, and his huge presence in the small chamber was almost overwhelming. "Why not go downstairs, freshen up, take tea, and have a little rest. We'll pack and be ready to leave in an hour."

  "If you don't mind, I'd just as soon stay here, and you can tell me about growing up here, and why you're packing these mementoes."

  So Miranda regaled him with tales of their childhood and he lay on the bed, redolent of his wife's alluring scent.