Lady of Sin

by Madeline Hunter

  He gave Jacobs leave to visit his sister in Middlesex for the night, then waited with distracting impatience for Charlotte. He left the door ajar so she would not need to stand outside even for one indiscreet moment.

  The clock’s chimes had not yet finished when she arrived. He had been waiting so hard, so completely, that he sensed her enter despite her silence. He shut his eyes, astonished by how thoroughly her presence entered him as well as the apartment.

  He opened them to see her standing in the sitting room where he sat. Dressed in black, as if in mourning, she wore a veil that obscured her face. If anyone had seen her on the walk, that person would have observed no more than the shadows shifting in the night.

  He rose to go to her. She held up a hand, stopping him. She set down her black parasol, then lifted her veil.

  Her appearance stunned him. She might have truly arrived from a funeral, she looked so wan. Her eyes showed no light, but only dull distant thoughts. Her face had turned drawn and tired.

  He went to her anyway and embraced her with concern. She did not soften against him. She seemed to stiffen a little, as if his hold hurt her.

  “You are unwell,” he said.

  She extricated herself and stepped back. She regarded him with a cool expression, but her eyes glistened now.

  “I am not unwell, but I am sick,” she said. “You had to know, damn you. Well, now I am the one who knows, and I do not think I can survive the knowing.”

  “What are you saying, darling?”

  Her expression folded into one of distraught grief.

  “Nathaniel, it was not James who had that youthful liaison in Spain. It was Philip.”

  She had arranged this assignation in a fit of mindless fury. She had come here to berate him, to scream at him like a madwoman.

  Instead, saying the words sapped her strength. She broke and tears poured out, even though she made no sound.

  Strong arms surrounded her. That made it worse. She fought the desolation, and him. She pounded her fists against his chest even as she sobbed against his coat.

  It felt good to be angry. To hit him. The hours since reading those letters had been horrible. Frightening. She had felt dead all afternoon. Then, at night, the truth had begun slashing the picture of her life to shreds. The Charlotte she knew had been cut to pieces too.

  She had not been able to accommodate it. Her mind refused. She had never known such confusion before. Thoughts jumbling, emotions careening, she thought she would die if she did not release the building shock and resentment.

  There was only one person with whom she dared do that. Only one to whom she could confide and speak. The same one whom she wanted to thrash.

  She thrashed now. She pounded him as she cried. He let her, holding her closer even when her flailing fists hit his face. She truly lost control of her senses and went mad for a moment.

  Then it passed. Nothing remained in her. No tears and no thoughts. She rested her face on his coat, tired and numb.

  She lifted her head. His expression was so concerned, so gentle, that her heart twisted. She hated him. Hated him. But her heart refused to understand that.

  “Did you know? You said you did not believe it was him, but did you really, all this time—”

  “No. I swear. The possibility entered my head, but I was sure it was James,” he soothed.

  “I wasn’t.” It was out before she realized the words had formed. She was too tired, too angry to lie to him. To herself. “Oh, I did not believe it, not really, but it was there, underneath all the other fear, like a dark, dangerous animal hiding in the cellar. My soul knew it was there. It knew just how dangerous you were to us. To me. I dared not contemplate all the reasons why.”

  He let the accusation stand. He did not attempt to mollify her with reassurances. Of course not. Nathaniel Knightridge was a man of honor, damn him. A man of truth and justice, by heavens.

  “Can you speak of it?” he asked. “Will you tell me why you think this? You may be wrong.”

  “For once I wish I were.” She moved to the settee and dropped into her familiar spot. The agitation that had left her walking for hours, unable to remain still, mercifully retreated. The exhaustion and limpness that claimed her was almost welcomed.

  Nathaniel stood nearby, watching her closely.

  He reached over and found the pins on her hat. He slid them out, then lifted the hat away. Its veil fluttered on its path to a table.

  The gesture touched her. It did not imply seduction, although it could have. It said she would stay even if she hated him, and he would take care of her.

  Perhaps that was really why she had come. To bask in his aura of command and confidence. To remind herself that there was more to her life than the past.

  “Now, tell me,” he said.

  She explained the drawer and its letters. “They were private. I had never read them.”

  “Nor had you destroyed them.”

  “No.”

  Why not? She could not answer now, but she supposed she should someday. “I thought that perhaps, if something in Spain had transpired as Jenny’s story implied, there might be information in those letters that explained it away.”

  His expression altered slightly. Mr. Knightridge, who could always spot her dissembling, knew he was hearing less than the truth.

  He was good enough not to say so. “What was in the letters?”

  “They were ordinary. Quite dull. Philip was not famed for his skill at the pen. There was nothing of interest from the years right after the grand tour. Nothing to raise concern or suspicion. Later, however—”

  She faltered. She wanted to slide over the painful parts. The parts touching on her.

  Except it all touched her.

  “I found a series of letters from his old tutor, written very near the time Philip began courting me. At first they appeared dull too, as if Philip had written asking for news of a mutual friend. Then it became clear the tutor was making inquiries. Not in England. Finally a letter informed Philip that he had received confirmation that she was dead, lost in the war. That was what caught my eye. We had no war then, but Spain did.”

  “Did the letter say ‘she’?”

  “Yes. I might never have read those letters closely but for that one ‘she.’ ” Seeing that word as she skimmed had made her head ring. “At the end, after writing of common things, his garden and a sermon he was preparing, the tutor closed with another reference. ‘Be assured that the legality of the alliance is now an irrelevant question. There is no need to pursue that.’ ”

  A question entered Nathaniel’s eyes. She did not wait for him to ask it.

  “I am quoting exactly. He used the word ‘legality.’ ” Desolation flooded her again. “An alliance with a woman that had legal implications. Tell me there is another besides marriage, Nathaniel. I very much want to hear that is so.”

  He stepped closer and rested his palm on her cheek in comfort.

  She grasped at composure. His touch helped. It should have repulsed her, not given solace. She had spent all day slicing him to ribbons with scathing accusations in her mind, but here she was drinking his sympathy instead of laying blame at his feet.

  “Have you told anyone else?”

  His concern remained palpable and his voice quiet, but she could tell his mind was working.

  “I called on Bianca today, intending to confide, but found I could not speak of it. What would I say? I wanted desperately to share my shock with her or Pen, but if I voiced one word I would start raving. The implications are too shameful.”

  “It is not shameful. It was long ago. He thought her dead. If he returned to England without her, he must have thought he lost her to the war even before he left Spain.”

  “But she wasn’t dead, so my marriage was not legal.” Her voice broke as she spelled it out. She looked at her hands, knotted on her lap, and grit her teeth. “That is not the worst of it, however. I feel stupid and angry. I am unsure of every memory I ever had. It
is as if I lived a lie every day of those three years.”

  He knelt on one knee so his head was level with hers. He covered her hands with his, forming a little mound of warmth. “With time, as the shock passes, you will find it less devastating. I also do not think this story would reflect badly on him if all of it were known. There is no reason for you to believe you lived a lie.”

  He was trying so hard to make it better that she had to smile. Her lips trembled, only half-willing to cooperate.

  “My thoughts have been raining curses on you all day for starting down this road.”

  “I wish I had not. It grieves me to see you so hurt.” His head dipped and he kissed her hands. “If you want to thrash me with your parasol, I promise not to resist.”

  She stretched her fingers into his hair as he kept his lips pressed to her hands. The sorrow in her still wanted to curse and hate him, but she had found a peace in this sitting room that she had not expected. Comforting, but not comfortable.

  She had needed to share her distress with a friend, to confide a secret to someone who would help her regain some sense. And she had found that friend in this man.

  Nor did he attempt to excuse his role in provoking her discovery. He had not said one word in his own defense. Instead he had sought to absolve another man, long dead, to whom he owed no loyalty.

  He had done that for her. His only words had been ones that offered her a path to some relief.

  Her heart filled with a glow so sweet, she could not bear it. She pressed a kiss to his bowed head.

  He straightened and looked at her. An intense connection, raw and vital, instantly bound them. The intimacy deepened and invaded until she was helpless.

  “I do not know what to do now, Nathaniel.” She referred to her discovery, and also to the emotion leaving her defenseless.

  “I do.”

  He rose, lifted her into his arms, and carried her from the room.

  “His name is Yardley. The tutor, that is his name.”

  Her words broke the long silence. He nuzzled the head resting on his shoulder and caressed the shoulder under his hand. He had removed her dress and petticoats so they would not get ruined, but he had intended no grand passion tonight.

  She had been the one to initiate a slow, careful joining, one that spoke of her soul’s desire for distraction more than her body’s quest for pleasure. Now they remained bound in this embrace full of human warmth and unspoken questions.

  He already knew the tutor’s name. His inquiries had borne fruit fast, but then he and Mardenford lived in a very small world.

  Her head angled back so she could see his face. “You do not seem interested. I thought you would be hesitant to ask, but that you would want to know.”

  “I do not care what his name is.” Not now. Not anymore.

  “You could find him and learn the truth.”

  “There will be no more finding and learning. The truth is that you married Mardenford and are his widow. Those letters were not explicit and you misunderstood them.”

  She pushed up on her arm and gazed down at him. “You do not really believe that.”

  “Here is the story I glean from those letters, Charlotte. He decided to marry you but had the decency to make sure his prior alliance permitted it. He asked his tutor to learn for certain if that woman had died, as he believed. He asked about the legalities of the alliance in any case, which means he had reason to think they were ambiguous. A foreign engagement could explain that. It did not even have to be a marriage.”

  Her fingers traced a long, meandering line across his chest while she thought about that.

  “So it ends here? Now? Because of this?”

  “It was time to retreat anyway.” If he did not, it would only get worse.

  “What about Harry? You said he was the real reason.”

  “I will take care of the boy. He will not want. He will not be alone.”

  She returned to his side and his embrace. “Your interpretation fits, I suppose. It is not such a bad story when seen that way.”

  “I am sure I am right.”

  “How are you so sure?”

  “For the same reason I never thought it would be him. If you saw fit to love him, Charlotte, he could not have been a man without honor.”

  She snuggled closer, then went still. He wished he could believe he had convinced her, but he knew her thoughts still dwelled on hard questions.

  “I think he loved her, very much,” she whispered.

  His chest knotted. There were some questions he could not talk into submission. He wished he could absorb her confusion and hurt into himself instead, to spare her. “You do not know that. There is no reason to think it.”

  “There is. Not in the letters, but in a memory. I see the light in his eyes as he describes a fire dance on the Spanish coast. She was there, I am sure. She was the reason for that light. The love he felt for me was honest, but different. She was the great passion of his life.”

  As you are mine. He did not say it. This night was not about him. Such an admission had no place now, while she struggled to make her peace with what she had learned.

  He just held her, so she would not be alone in the dark as she negotiated with the ghosts of the past.

  CHAPTER

  EIGHTEEN

  Charlotte called at Mardenford’s house two days later. She had promised to visit Ambrose, and her heavy heart lightened while she waited at the door. Ambrose was one small part of her past that she could still count on, and she needed badly to hold his innocence for a while.

  The footman’s face drained of color when he opened the door. Little beads of sweat popped up on his forehead. She waited for him to step aside. He didn’t.

  “My lord is not receiving,” he finally said. His gaze sought a spot two inches beneath her eyes.

  It was an odd thing to be told, and also irrelevant.

  “I have come to see Ambrose. I do not require Mardenford’s attendance.”

  When the footman still did not move, she tapped her parasol impatiently.

  The man looked stricken. “My lady, we have been given instructions that you are not to enter.”

  “You misunderstood, I am sure.”

  “There is no misunderstanding. The command was very clear. You are not to enter, and you are not . . . you are not to see the child.” His mouth firmed on the last words. So did his back, as if the cruelty left him no choice but a retreat into duty.

  She stared at his suddenly crisp demeanor. Her battered heart took another blow, one that stunned her.

  He was serious. James had really done this.

  She glanced up the facade, to the nursery windows on the fourth level. Ambrose would wonder why she had not come today as she had promised. The poor child would never understand.

  “Listen to me. I am entering unless you want a scandalous scene right here that the town will talk about for months. I am not leaving until I speak with my brother-in-law, so inform him of that at once. You will now stand aside and I will wait for Mardenford in the library.”

  He eyed her, to see if she meant the threat about a scene. She glared back in a display of vexation that masked the scathing pain this new loss created.

  He moved aside. She sped past him and up the stairs to the library.

  Whatever had caused James to issue such a strange order, she would make him change his mind. Still salving the wounds that those letters had created, she would not be able to absorb this grief as well.

  James did not send a refusal to see her, but neither did he come to the library. She wondered if he planned to pretend she had not entered the house since he had decreed she should not.

  She sat on a chair, determined to wait him out, impatient and agitated. James had ruined the fragile truce she had forged with her emotions while Nathaniel held her through the night two days ago.

  She had emerged from that embrace still dazed but no longer so lost. A type of acceptance had begun forming. Voicing the worst of her fears had le
ssened the confusion.

  Nathaniel had been very good to her. Very kind. He had sounded so confident that his explanation was correct. Very certain.

  All night she had been certain too, and all the next day, while she sat in her chambers putting the memories back in some order. A new order, changed now. A new history and a new life, but not all that different from the old one in the important things.

  Only when that was completed, only when she saw the road behind her cleared of debris, had her thoughts turned again to those letters and the alliance they revealed.

  Nathaniel might be very sure he knew what had occurred, but she was not. She was still deciding if it mattered if she knew the particulars, or even the truth.

  “I am expecting visitors this afternoon, Charlotte, so you will have to leave now.”

  James’s voice spoke from the doorway. She turned to find him outside the library, addressing her as he passed by.

  “It was good of you to take the time to throw me out yourself.”

  “I was informed you would not leave until I did.”

  “You were misinformed. I said I would not leave until we spoke about your command that I not visit or see Ambrose.”

  “Are you threatening another scene, such as you did at the door?”

  “If necessary.”

  He strolled into the library but stopped a good distance from her. Head high, lids low, he gave her a critical inspection.

  “The family did not want him to marry you. Bad blood, they said. A propensity for eccentricity and sin. Even your brother Laclere, who seemed fine at first. That marriage he made, and his factory in Manchester . . . They were all against it, but not me. I told him you were different. Pure and good and that you would bring no shame on the family.”

  “Nor did I.”

  “Not for a long time. But it seems bad blood wins out eventually.” His pose got more rigid, if that were possible. “You are having an affair with Nathaniel Knightridge and I do not want my son under the influence of a woman who has lost her reputation and her morality.”

  His declaration startled her. She had no intention of lying, but she did not have to agree either.