When it was their turn to be announced, the butler took one look at Ian, and then a second. His eyes popped.
"Mr. Ian!" he said. "I mean, my lord! We were given to understand that you were . . ."
He broke off and coughed delicately into his white glove. Ian grinned with wry understanding.
"Dead," he finished. "Yes, I know. How are you, Reems?"
"Very good, my lord. It's very good to see you, if I may say so, my lord. The staff will be in alt when I tell them that you're, ah . . ."
"Resurrected?" Ian suggested with a gleam. "You'd best announce us, Reems. We're holding up the line. Ah—this is my wife."
Reems goggled at Susannah, who smiled weakly. Really, the lie was getting harder and harder to bear. Something was going to have to be done, soon. . . .
But before she could decide exactly what, Reems intoned, "The Marquis and Marchioness of Derne!"
A ripple of astonishment seemed to run along the receiving line that snaked out in front of them until Susannah, following Ian's gaze, saw a tall, blond-haired woman at the head of the line turn to face them. She looked only at Ian, and as their eyes met she seemed to sway slightly and pale. But then she appeared to take herself in hand. Head high, she waited as Ian, Susannah in tow, made his leisurely way toward her. Had it not been for the tension in the arm beneath her hand, Susannah would have thought him perfectly at ease.
They reached her at last. Susannah saw that the lady was older than she had first supposed, and not so lovely. Her hair was not blond but powdered white, and she wore a light maquillage that did not conceal the deep lines that bracketed her mouth. Or perhaps it had, until she had set eyes on Ian.
"Mother." Ian inclined his head, but his smile was not a pleasant one.
"Derne." Any woman who could call her own son by his title instead of his name was not one that Susannah wanted to know. She bristled in instinctive defense of Ian as his mother glanced her way.
"You've married?" Her voice was husky, and there was a tiny nerve at the corner of her mouth that seemed to have gone mad. It twitched rhythmically, like a pulse. That was the only sign she gave that she was less composed than she seemed.
"While I was enjoying my delightful sojourn in the Colonies. As a matter of fact, Susannah very likely saved my life." He smiled again, but this time it was no more than a baring of his teeth.
"We must all owe her a debt, then." She looked again at Susannah. "As Derne does not introduce me, I suppose I must do it myself. I am Mary, Duchess of Warrender."
"I know very well who you are, ma'am," Susannah said, and she did not smile.
"Ah." The Duchess swayed again but did no more.
"I suggest we repair to the library to talk, Mother. After all, we have not seen each other in—how long?"
"A long time," she said tonelessly, and allowed Ian to draw her hand onto his arm.
"Is Edward here? 'Twould be best if he heard this, too."
"We will leave Edward out of this, if you please." For the first time her voice was sharp.
Ian shook his head. "There is no way to leave Edward out of it, I fear. But come, we will talk in private. There are too many ears to listen here."
Indeed, Susannah was aware that they were being stared at on all sides. As Ian started off through the crowd, polite smiles pinned to his face and his mother's, she got a glimpse of Helen Dutton, Countess of Blakely, the notorious lightskirt (or so said Ian) of Madame de Vangrisse's establishment. The lady was with a rather elderly, very fat man who kept a firm grip on her arm and talked very fast at her with an angry look on his face. If that was her husband, Susannah suddenly understood the reason for "the Baddington miscellany." She would not like to be married to a man like that. A few other faces looked vaguely familiar, but Susannah was able to put names to none of them until she saw Serena, Lady Crewe, staring angrily after them just as Ian opened a door in the hall and stood back, allowing first Susannah and then his mother to precede him.
"Does she have to hear this?" The Duchess nodded jerkily toward Susannah as Ian closed the doors behind them.
Ian nodded. "Susannah deserves to be in on the denouement. Were it not for her, your plan just might have succeeded."
The duchess flashed Susannah a look of hatred, then crossed the room to stand nervously before a large, leather-topped desk before turning to face them again. She was framed by shelf after shelf of leather-bound books set into the wall, and her face was lit by a fire that blazed in the hearth to the right of the desk.
"What is preventing me from putting a period to your existence right now, and to your wife's, too?" There was a note of almost gloating triumph in the duchess's voice as she raised her hand to reveal a silver pistol. Ian stared at it for a moment and then with a jerk of his head motioned to Susannah to get behind him. Of course she did no such thing. Instead she stared at the weapon with horror and dawning fear. Was the woman really mad enough to shoot them both, with several hundred witnesses gathered in the house? She prayed not, but sidled a step closer to Ian. Perhaps she could throw herself between him and the bullet or at the very least push him out of the way.
"Before you pull the trigger, you should know what I, or rather Mr. Dumboldt, whom I commissioned to look into this, has discovered. We know the truth about Edward, Mother. The whole tale is written down, with names of witnesses and dates. Should anything happen to me, it will be an open scandal throughout England. And, of course, Edward will not inherit."
"I don't know what you are talking about." Her voice was hoarser than before, and Susannah thought her hand trembled. Susannah edged closer to Ian. She could not stand it if he were to be killed before her eyes.
"I am talking about the date of Edward's birth, Mother. He is three months older than you have always claimed. At the time of his conception, my father had been away on the Continent for six months. Therefore Edward cannot be my father's issue."
"That is not true!"
"Dumboldt has found witnesses who swear it is, including the midwife who delivered him. He has also discovered evidence of the identity of Edward's real father. All this is in writing, Mother, and will be revealed if I die or disappear. The scandal will ruin Edward's life, to say nothing of yours."
The duchess's face contorted violently. Her mouth shook. Her hand shook. Susannah took another sidling step toward Ian, to be rewarded by a sidelong glare before his attention focused on his mother again.
"I've always hated you, Derne. You were the most repellent little boy. Your father doted on you, and you were in flaming need of a birch applied to the seat of your breeches, which remedy he would not countenance. If I had had my way, you would have been sent to a foundling home."
"Which brings us to another point—my father," Ian said, his voice far too casual for the subject matter. Susannah's gaze left the wobbling gun to fly to his face. "You arranged for that hunting accident that befell him, didn't you? He had found out about the circumstances surrounding Edward's birth and was threatening to divorce you."
"That's not true!" Her mouth shook again.
"Isn't it? If I could prove that to the satisfaction of a court of law, I'd have you locked away for the rest of your life, mother or no."
She laughed then, a high, hysterical sound. The pistol wavered again. "That's the ultimate jest, isn't it, and with all your investigations you haven't discovered it and never will! Well, I'll make you a present of the information. I am not your mother, for which I devoutly thank God! Your mother was a nobody from the country whom your father dallied with and wed only because she was expecting you. When she died at your birth, he was relieved, because she'd been totally unsuitable to be the Duchess of Warrender. Then he wed me, a Speare, whose bloodline goes directly back to William the Conqueror. I was, and am, suitable to be a duchess! I was so suitable he wanted everyone to believe that his heir was my son. Well, you are not, and never will be. You're the son of a slut, conceived under a hedgerow somewhere in Sussex! You're unworthy of the name you bear!"
For a moment the silence in that room was so thick it was tangible. Then, with a dive so fast and low that Susannah didn't even see it coming, Ian was across the room and grappling with the duchess for the pistol. He wrested it from her hand, then stood looking at her without pity as she dropped to her knees and covered her face with her hands.
"Thank you for telling me, Your Grace," he said with icy courtesy, pocketing the pistol. "You've set me free."
Then, taking Susannah's arm, he half-led, half-pulled her from the room without a second glance at the silent, kneeling woman he left behind.
Toward morning, when he got Susannah home, his lovemaking was especially passionate. Afterward, she held him wrapped in her arms until he fell asleep.
42
When Susannah awoke the next morning, it was nearer to noon than to dawn. Ian slept beside her, his breathing harsh and heavy. They were both naked, their clothes strewn around the room, and sunlight spilling through a chink in the curtains streamed across the bed. A sunny day in London! Susannah marveled. It was the first she'd seen since she arrived.
She knew, though she didn't know how she knew, that last night a chapter in her life and Ian's had come to a close. He was free of the nightmare that had hurtled him from his rightful world into hers. He could live his life out as he was meant to live it—as a rich, pampered English aristocrat. So where did that leave her?
For all their pretending, she was his mistress, not his wife. As she faced the truth of that, Susannah felt like Eve seeing her nakedness for the first time—she was flooded with shame. She had not been raised to be a man's mistress. It went against everything she had ever been taught.
How her father would grieve if he could see the depths to which she had fallen! Picturing his face, and Sarah Jane's, and Mandy's, and Em's, if they could see her as she was at that moment, Susannah felt sick. She was no better than a harlot, a common whore. She had sinned, and gloried in the sinning! Most of the members of her father's congregation would likely consider her doomed to eternal hellfire.
Susannah shivered and looked down at Ian, to discover his gray eyes open and narrowed on her face.
"What's amiss?" he asked without preamble. Susannah hesitated a moment and then decided to say what was on her mind.
"I cannot continue on in this way any longer," she said, not looking at him. "I must go home."
"What?" He sat up then and brushed the hair back from his eyes. "Don't be ridiculous. You can't go home. You have to marry me."
As proposals went, that one was decidedly lacking.
"Are you asking me?" she inquired with a flicker of hope.
"Hell, no. What is there to ask? You've been with me now for almost three months. Neither one of us has a choice anymore. We have to get married, or you'll spend the rest of your life branded as a whore."
That hurt. It hurt so much that Susannah walled it up inside and refused to think about it.
"It's very good of you to worry about my reputation." If there was an edge to her voice, he missed it completely.
"It is, isn't it?" He stretched, yawned, and rolled out of bed. "Now that you've awakened me, I might as well get dressed. I need to see Dumboldt about some matters. You may amuse yourself shopping or however you like." He paused, as if struck by an idea. "Since we both agree to the necessity, I might see about getting a special license while I'm out. I have a friend whose uncle is a bishop, and he might be able to oblige me. If I can get the license today, we can be wed tomorrow, if that suits you."
"So soon?"
"If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well it were done quickly," he quoted, and grinned at her before he padded into the anteroom to shave. "Take a maid from the hotel with you when you go out. It's not done for a marchioness to go about alone in London, remember."
Susannah watched him dress, as she had every morning for nearly three months, and brooded. When, fully clad, he leaned over to drop a kiss on the top of her head and a wad of banknotes in her lap, she knew she had her decision made.
So, when he would have turned and left her, she reached up to wrap her arms around his neck and kiss him an almost desperate good-bye.
"I can stay," he said on a surprised note, and put one knee on the bed as if he would come into it with her.
For an instant longer Susannah clung. She forced a laugh and released him. "Go do your business," she told him and smiled.
"You're looking very tempting."
She had the sheet tucked under her armpits, but he was as familiar with her body by now as she was and his eyes ran over the shapely form beneath the thin linen knowingly.
"Later," she said, waving him off, though the word stuck in her throat.
"All right, later," he agreed, "but only because I need to see Dumboldt. When I come back you just might succeed in luring me back to bed."
"What an exciting prospect," Susannah managed dryly, smiling though she wanted to cry. But her insouciance had the desired effect. With a wave and a grin, he was gone.
Once the door shut behind him, she did cry. Then she sat up, mopped her eyes, dressed, and packed her clothes. Fine feathers do not make fine birds, and she was no more a marchioness than he was a farmer. She was going home, back to Beaufort where she belonged, and he would be relieved of the burden of having to wed a bride who would never fit into his world. He had never meant to bring her to England with him; indeed, he had left her behind when he had left the farm. If she had not stumbled across him on that Charles Town dock, she would in all likelihood never have seen him again. Because she still didn't believe his protestations that he would have come back for her.
What they had shared had been as close to heaven as she was likely to get in this life. But now it was finished, and it was time for her to go home.
43
A little over two months later, Susannah had once more settled into the routine of her life in Beaufort. She and her sisters had had a tearful reunion, and that first night home, tormented by guilt, she had confessed some part of what she had done to her father. She'd half-expected him to order her from his doorstep like a biblical father of old, but instead he'd put an arm around her shoulders and hugged her close.
"Daughter, the love of a woman for a man is a godly thing in itself. As long as what you did was done in love, there's not so much shame in that."
Then she'd wept on his shoulder.
Sarah Jane (who'd broken her betrothal when Peter Bridgewater had insisted on going ahead with the wedding whether or not Susannah was present) and Mandy and Em treated her like an honored guest for about the first forty-eight hours, and then they rapidly slid back into their old ways of depending on her to run the household and the farm and see to the needs of the congregation. Within a week, it was as though she had never left.
A fortnight after her return, Susannah was kneeling in the garden weeding when Em, who was helping her, looked up, shading her face with her hand as she peered down the road. Susannah didn't pay much attention, concentrating as she was on clearing the dandelions out from among her carrots. When Em got to her feet and stared openly down the road, Susannah only glanced up at her with some annoyance. Really, Em was getting almost as bad about doing chores as Mandy.
"Susannah," Em sounded slightly uneasy. "If you were getting ready to have a really important visitor and you were down in mud getting all dirty, would you want to know about it in advance so you could run in the house and at least wash your hands?"
"What are you talking about, Em?" That made so little sense that Susannah stopped work to look up at her.
Em opened her mouth to say something, then shrugged fatalistically. "See for yourself," she said, and nodded toward the road, where a man on a large roan horse was just pulling up in their front yard. Brownie stood up on the front porch and barked half-heartedly. Clara, on the railing, didn't even bother to stretch.
"Oh, good grief," Susannah said, getting to her feet. She was in no mood for guests at the moment. She had to get the weeding done, and then put
supper on, and . . . Her eyes widened as she took a good look at the man swinging down from the horse.
She stood frozen stiff as a statue as he tied the horse to a bush and came walking toward her, scattering clucking chickens before him as he came. Beside her, Em was wide-eyed as she looked from her sister to their visitor and back.
He was the first one to speak. "Hello, Susannah," he said dryly. Then, with a nod at the younger girl, "Hello, Em."
"Your—your—marquis-ship," Em, who'd been filled in on some if not all the details of Susannah's adventure, stuttered.
"Ian," he said. "You can just call me Ian."
His eyes moved to Susannah. He stopped walking and stood with his booted feet planted apart and his arms crossed over his chest, surveying her almost grimly. Susannah, looking back, felt her heart unfreeze and start to pound in her chest. Her eyes ran over him almost greedily. Not to anyone, and barely to herself, had she admitted her hope that he might come after her. Now he stood before her, clad in an elegant blue coat and black breeches, his black hair gleaming in the sun, his perfectly carved features almost grim, his sensuous mouth unsmiling. A faint dark stubble shadowed his cheeks and chin. He was as sinfully handsome as she remembered him, and clearly put out with her.
"What are you doing here?" she managed. His gaze started at the top of her head and traveled, with slow censure, to her feet, then worked its way back up again. Susannah was suddenly conscious that she had bundled her hair up in its customary style and that the gown she wore was one that she had made herself and been accustomed to wear for gardening when he had been their bound man, and before. It was sacklike in its proportions, and dirty to boot. Clearly it found no favor in his eyes.
Nobody's Angel Page 32
