Deceived

by Nicola Cornick

  Isabella was silent, watching his face.

  “It was a shock,” he said rapidly, pulling her down to sit beside him on a pile of sweet-scented bed linen. “I thought I knew her. Arrogant of me, I know, but we lived together for six years and I thought…” He scratched his head. “It was a shock to realize that I had got something so fundamentally wrong and did not really know her at all.”

  “India was a difficult person to know,” Isabella said.

  “I wish she could have confided in me,” Marcus said, “but I see it would have been impossible for her.” Instinctively he drew Isabella closer to his side.

  “She must have been very lonely,” Isabella said softly, echoing his thoughts.

  Marcus looked down into her eyes. Her head was resting against his shoulder.

  “You know how that feels do you not, my love?” he said gently.

  Isabella sighed. “I have come to discover that India and I had more things in common than I had ever realized.”

  Marcus kissed her. The relief of rediscovering her and holding her close overwhelmed him. He felt grateful and humble and exalted all at the same time. He plucked the cap from her head and tossed it aside, burying his face in her hair, pulling her backward to lie in a tangle of sheets. Neither of them spoke, the urgency between them suddenly too great for words. Isabella ripped open his jacket and shirt to caress his chest. He kissed her with feverish insistence while his hand slid up her thigh beneath her skirts.

  “Marcus.” Isabella freed her mouth briefly. “We cannot do this here! The laundry maid will come in at any moment.”

  In reply, Marcus got to his feet, crossed the room and turned the key decisively in the lock.

  “She won’t now,” he said.

  Afterward he watched with languorous pleasure as she tried with spectacular lack of success to tame her unruly hair and push it beneath that ridiculous cap. She glanced over her shoulder, caught his smile and looked exasperated.

  “Marcus, if you would only help me instead of laughing at my efforts!”

  “You would still look as though you have been tumbled in the laundry room,” Marcus said. Nevertheless he got to his feet obligingly and came across to help her.

  With his hands resting on her shoulders, he turned her to look at him.

  “There was one thing that I forgot to ask you when we were talking earlier,” he said.

  He saw the bright light fade from her eyes and anxiety take its place. His hands tightened, trying to convey reassurance.

  “Edward Warwick,” he said. “I do not understand why he has returned to Salterton. India is dead and buried and the past with her. What is the secret that he believes I hold? What does he hope to achieve?”

  An extraordinary expression chased across Isabella’s face, part regret, part sympathy.

  “I do believe that he has come back to find something,” she said. “Marcus, I think he wants his child.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  “WE SHALL HAVE TO TRAP HIM,” Marcus said. He and Alistair were in the library. It was late. One lamp burned, casting a warm shadow. “Warwick is here in Salterton but we cannot flush him out without bait.”

  “We could use Standish,” Alistair said. “Warwick trusts him.”

  Marcus hesitated, then he shook his head. “I doubt very much that he does. I doubt he trusts anyone.”

  Alistair tilted the brandy in his glass and studied it thoughtfully. “Your judgment may be affected, Marcus.”

  Marcus grimaced. There was no maybe about it. “It is,” he said. “I will do everything in my power to keep Isabella’s brother out of this.”

  “He is already in it to his neck,” Alistair pointed out. “If you do not take him into account, he may well ruin our plans.”

  Marcus’s mouth set in a stubborn line. “Isabella and I are but recently reconciled. I cannot—I will not—jeopardize that for anything, not even Edward Warwick.”

  Alistair’s mouth twisted into a wry smile. “You are saying that there is nothing more important in the world than your wife.”

  Their eyes met. “I am saying that,” Marcus agreed. “I love her, Alistair.”

  There was a moment’s silence.

  “So,” Alistair said. “How do we trap him?”

  Marcus picked up the silver locket from the desk. “With this,” he said.

  ISABELLA WAS IN BED, wrapped close in Marcus’s arms, but she was not asleep. She was thinking of India, not in the way that she had previously thought of her cousin, but with sympathy and understanding, and a regret that the knowledge had come too late. In the morning, she thought sleepily, moving instinctively closer to Marcus’s warmth, she would go up to the attic and choose something of India’s for remembrance. Then she would arrange for the rest of India’s belongings to be given away and then—she admitted it—she would feel that they had finally closed that chapter.

  She was on the edge of sleep when she wondered suddenly what had happened to the child.

  IT WAS A HOT MORNING, certainly too hot for physical activity. Nevertheless, Freddie Standish was running. Ordinarily he would never do such a thing and as he hastened through the rooms of Salterton Hall, he realized why. Running was unpleasant. It made him sweat and pant. But this was an emergency, so he was prepared to do it just this once.

  He could not find Marcus Stockhaven anywhere. He was not in the library nor the drawing room, although the housekeeper had assured Freddie that both Lord Stockhaven and Mr. Cantrell were in the house. Normally Freddie would not have dreamed of seeking Stockhaven out. He had spent the last three weeks trying to avoid him. There was something about Stockhaven that made Freddie feel deeply inadequate. Stockhaven was tough and ruthless and strong and all the things that Freddie had always wanted to be and never quite achieved. But again, this was an emergency and he had to put aside his prejudices for the greater good.

  He puffed down the garden passage and was about to fling open the outside door when someone stepped out of the gun room and grabbed his arm so tightly that he almost squeaked like a stuck pig. He managed to bite his lip and what came out was more of a gurgle.

  “Quiet!” Marcus practically dragged him into the room and closed the door behind them. Alistair Cantrell was there. He had a dueling pistol in his hand. Freddie almost fainted.

  “Warwick,” Freddie wheezed. “He’s in the house.”

  Marcus looked no more than irritated. “We know. Keep quiet, there’s a good fellow.”

  Alistair, after a brief glance in Freddie’s direction, bent to checking the pistol again.

  “How long?” he asked.

  “Three minutes,” Marcus said, “then we go up.”

  Freddie grabbed his arm again. “You do not understand, Stockhaven. It’s Bella. She’s in the attics.”

  He was gratified to see that his words had rather more effect this time. Marcus swung round on him, his eyes narrowing. Freddie had all of his attention.

  “Isabella?”

  “That’s what I’m trying to tell you,” Freddie gabbled. “I heard Bella tell Mrs. Lawton that she was going up to the attic to fetch something and would Mrs. Lawton please arrange for the late Lady Stockhaven’s trunks to be brought down later.”

  Marcus swore. “When did she go up there?”

  “Fifteen minutes…T-t-twenty?” Freddie’s teeth chattered although he was feeling extremely hot and sweaty. He ran a finger around the inside of his collar. “Warwick will think it’s a trap.”

  “It is,” Marcus said grimly. “Just not the right one.”

  Alistair cocked the pistol with a loud click. “Come on,” he said. Neither of them looked at Freddie as they went out.

  Freddie sagged against the table with relief. He extracted his large, spotted, rose-scented handkerchief from his pocket and mopped his brow. He had to get out of this room. It smelled of grease and gunpowder and made him think of dead animals. He shuddered.

  He went out into the passage and walked slowly into the hall. The house was
preternaturally quiet. Freddie went into the drawing room and sat down with the Gentlemen’s Magazine. He could not concentrate. He would have to tell Stockhaven everything now and beg for his help. Freddie shifted uncomfortably. His brother-in-law could scarcely have a lower opinion of him than he already did, so it should not matter. Yet for some reason it did.

  Freddie cast the magazine aside in disgust. Why was it so quiet? Had they caught Warwick yet? If he had escaped…Cold sweat formed on Freddie’s upper lip. It was no good. He could not sit here meekly waiting to discover his fate. For better or worse he had to go to meet it.

  ISABELLA KNEW EXACTLY WHAT she was looking for. In the night she had remembered the battered box of drawing sticks and the sketchbook and she had wondered whether India might have expressed her feelings in pictures rather than in words. She rummaged in the first trunk with its now-familiar scent of old lavender and dust and heard the crayons clink within their metal box. The drawing book was beneath. She pulled it out.

  The pages were blank.

  Isabella felt part disappointed, part puzzled. She had been certain that there would be something there. She sat back on her heels, riffling through the pages. Nothing. Nothing but for a faint pencil drawing on the last but one page. It was the cherubic face of a small child, but it was so pale and faded now that she almost missed it. The pencil lines had blurred and almost been rubbed away. The name beneath it read Edward John.

  There was a step on the bare boards of the floor. She had heard no one come up the stairs and now she realized with a frightened jump of her heart that this was because they had been here already, in the second attic, waiting….

  A shadow fell across her. She looked up.

  “Good afternoon, Lady Stockhaven,” a voice said from behind her. “I see that you are ahead of me.”

  Mr. Owen was there, leaning on a gold-headed cane. He looked as sickly as he had done in the Assembly Rooms, but there was some other quality about him now. The slate-gray eyes were colder and harder than she remembered. She shivered.

  “I do believe,” Owen added gently, “that you have been ahead of me almost every step.”

  “I think I must have been,” Isabella said, “Mr. Warwick?”

  He inclined his head. “The very same. You know of me?”

  “I have…heard of you.”

  “Stockhaven has been searching for me, I think,” Warwick said. “I wondered if he would mention his business to you.”

  Isabella got to her feet a little stiffly. Warwick made no attempt to stop her. Even so, she was afraid. She could feel tension and something more in the air, something cold. And she had no means of defending herself.

  “Why did you come?” she said.

  Warwick smiled. He leaned against the edge of the second trunk and watched her. “I came because of the past,” he said. “I came for my son.”

  “We have met before, just the once,” Isabella said carefully. He had mentioned the past and she followed his lead. “It was in 1803, I think, at the Salterton Assembly. You danced with my cousin.”

  A faint smile touched Warwick’s mouth. “Everyone always wanted to dance with you,” he said. “You were the pretty one. But I wanted Miss Southern from the start.”

  He tilted his head thoughtfully. “You did not recognize me when we met two weeks ago, did you?” he said. “It is scarce surprising. I think I have changed.”

  Isabella thought so, too. Gone was the dashing lieutenant with the impudent tilt of the head and the devil-may-care light in his eyes. There was nothing here of the rebellious spirit that had drawn India like a moth to the fatal flame. Everything had been doused by sickness. Isabella recognized it and felt her heart contract in surprise and pity. She had not expected to feel sympathy for Edward Warwick. She opened the book and showed him the drawing.

  “There is a picture here, Mr. Warwick,” she said. “I think it must be your son. He is named for you.”

  The pallor in Warwick’s face seemed to become more pronounced. She saw his hand clench on the cane.

  “There was nothing else?” He might have been discussing the weather, there was so little emotion in his voice.

  “I regret not,” Isabella said. She remembered the locket. She had left that on Marcus’s desk. It seemed appropriate for Warwick to have it. She opened her mouth, then closed it again.

  Warwick sighed. “Of course there would be no documents. I have looked everywhere, you understand, Lady Stockhaven. There is no trace.” He took the locket from his jacket pocket and held it gently in the palm of his hand. Isabella caught her breath.

  “You recognize it?” he said softly.

  Isabella nodded silently.

  “I knew it was a trap,” Warwick said. “Your brother was supposed to have found it and sent it to me.” He swung the locket gently by its silver chain. “Lord Standish has worked for me for six years,” he added smoothly, “and during that time I have learned that he could not find a tankard in an alehouse. The likelihood of him finding a cache of Miss Southern’s treasured possessions in the attic here strained credulity.” He smiled at her. It chilled Isabella bone deep. “Nevertheless,” he added, “I was desperate, so I came. The one thing that I did not expect to find, Lady Stockhaven, was you.”

  Isabella inclined her head politely. “You find me as surprised as you are yourself, Mr. Warwick.”

  Warwick laughed. The sound echoed around the empty spaces of the attic. “Perhaps I misjudged your brother then, Lady Stockhaven.”

  Isabella doubted it. She had a strong feeling that this was nothing to do with Freddie at all and that she had unwittingly stumbled into a trap herself. She wished that Marcus had told her what he planned. But he had been preoccupied that morning and she had been sick and once she had felt better again she had been so intent on banishing India’s ghost forever…

  “At the least, your presence is a comfort to me, Lady Stockhaven,” Warwick said, “for it provides me with a way out.” He looked at her. “You do not frighten easily. Not like your little cousin. Maybe that was why I always wanted to protect her.”

  “A pity you were not permitted to do so,” Isabella said, and she meant it. Had Lord John Southern not barred this man from seeing his daughter and contemptuously dismissed his suit, how different matters might have been. But Warwick was drawing closer now, his thirst for knowledge unquenchable in the search for his son. Isabella could see it in his eyes. He would take any risk, no matter how foolhardy, dare all if he thought it would help him find the boy.

  “What else do you know?” he asked.

  “I know that my cousin and Lady Jane visited Scotland in the early spring of 1804,” Isabella said steadily. “It was a long journey to an inhospitable place. I realize now that they had an urgent reason for doing so, though I was unaware of it at the time.”

  There was a silence. A beam of sunlight fell across Ned Warwick’s lean cheek, emphasizing the deep lines engraved in the flesh.

  “I have been to Scotland,” he said quietly. “I have been everywhere and spoken to everyone I could find, and yet I cannot trace my son.”

  Isabella swallowed hard. She was not sure how they had come to such an implicit understanding in so short a space of time and yet she knew that for all his fearful reputation, she had compassion for Edward Warwick. She had an insight into how he felt.

  “The gardener and his wife who adopted him,” she said, “they lived in London.”

  “They are dead.”

  The stark words fell into the peace of the room and made the air shiver.

  Isabella said, “Surely someone in Salterton must know—”

  Warwick moved sharply. Again he forestalled her. “Your uncle did his business too well.” There was such a wealth of bitterness in his voice that Isabella felt cold. “He was as secret as the grave. He destroyed any evidence that might sully the reputation of his daughter.”

  Isabella made a slight, helpless gesture. “He was doing what he thought was right.”

  Warwick’s
mouth turned down at the corners. “He was doing what would keep his fair name in the eyes of the world. He cared nothing for her feelings. He was responsible for her unhappiness.”

  “How so?”

  “You said it yourself. By refusing me permission to pay my addresses to her.” He turned toward her so suddenly that Isabella instinctively drew back before she realized that his violence was not directed toward her but toward his memories. “He would not allow his daughter—his pregnant daughter—to marry the hell-raising illegitimate son of an Irish wastrel.” There was bleak amusement in his eyes. “I quote.”

  “Yet you came back and tried again.”

  “I did.” His eyes touched hers briefly but Isabella knew he was not seeing her. “I came to that damned Assembly the following summer and put my fate to the touch again, and Lord John threatened to have me thrown out into the street. I lost my temper and swore I would tell everyone of his daughter’s disgrace.”

  “But you would never have done so,” Isabella said.

  For a moment Warwick’s gray eyes were amused as they dwelled on her. “Why not?” he asked.

  “Because you loved India,” Isabella said. “I’ll warrant you still do. It was her father you wished to punish, not India herself.”

  Warwick seemed to shrink slightly. “How do you know?”

  “Because whilst India lived, you made no move to cause scandal,” Isabella said. “You did not seek her out or look for the child. It was only after she died that you tried to find your son.”

  “I tried to get her to run away with me but she would not.” Warwick smiled mirthlessly. “Strange that she would give herself to me in love but would not entrust herself to me for life.”

  “It is not so strange,” Isabella said, thinking of the cousin with whom she had more in common than she had ever guessed. “One may overcome one’s scruples in the heat of the moment, but when one is confronted with the decision of a lifetime, it is easy to make the wrong choice.” She looked at him. “What did you do—afterward?”