Virtue v-1

by Jane Feather

  He began to pace the parlor, trying to work out what this meant. Did it mean that her deceptions didn't matter? Did it mean he was willing to endure being used, if it was the price of her presence in his life? Or did it simply mean he was willing to rescind the punishment if Judith would offer her own compromises? Could they start afresh? What was he terrified of losing-the potential for love or the certainty of lust?

  He heard her laugh-that wicked, sensual chuckle in his head-and the sound winded him. He felt her body under his hands, as if in some sensuously vivid dream. He could smell the delicate, lavender-scented freshness of her skin. The burnished copper head, the great, golden-brown eyes, shimmered in his internal vision. But it wasn't just that, was it? It was Judith herself. Judith with her tempestuous spirit, her needle wit, her acerbic tongue, her delicious sense of humor. Judith of the lynx pride and ferocious independence. It was the woman who carried a pistol, who didn't buckle under adversity, who didn't think twice about slaving amid the gory detritus of a battlefield, who took responsibility for herself.

  It was the woman he had thought he needed to lash into submission. The foolishness of such a misguided intention now brought a sardonic curve to his mouth. Whatever she was, whatever she had been, she belonged to him. And for some perverse reason, despite the scheming and the deceit, she seemed to be what he wanted. And if that was the case, then he'd have to try to modify the bad with rather more subtlety than he'd shown so far, and what he couldn't change he'd have to accept.

  But first he had to retrieve her. The initial step was obvious. If it failed, the next was less obvious.

  Gregson announced that his lordship's curricle was at the door. "Thank you. Lady Carrington has gone into the country to visit a sick aunt."

  "Yes, my lord, so I understand from Chevdey. Do we know when her ladyship will return?"

  "When the sick aunt is recovered, I assume," Marcus snapped, thrusting his arms into the many-caped driving coat held by Gregson.

  He drove to Albemarle Street. It was eleven o'clock, hopefully too early for Sebastian to have left his lodgings. He was right, to a certain extent, in that his quarry was seated at breakfast, having returned to his lodgings after an early-morning journey to Kensington.

  "Good morning, Marcus." Sebastian rose from the table as his servant announced his brother-in-law. "Breakfast?" He gestured to the laden table.

  "No, I've already breakfasted. Where is she, Sebastian?"

  "I thought that was probably the purpose of your call." Sebastian resumed his seat. "You don't mind if I continue…?"

  Marcus slapped at his Hessians with his driving whip. "I haven't got all day, Sebastian. Where is she?"

  "Well, there's the difficulty," his host murmured, taking up a tankard of ale. "I can't say, you see."

  "She came to you, of course?"

  "Of course." He took a draft of ale.

  Marcus glanced around the room. If Judith was anywhere in the vicinity, he would know it, would feel it in his bones and through his skin. She had that effect on him, and it was getting stronger the longer he lived with her. He knew she was no longer in her brother's lodgings.

  "If you don't mind my saying so, you seem to have been rather unsubtle," Sebastian observed, spearing a deviled kidney.

  "I'm willing to concede that," Marcus said. "But the provocation was overpowering."

  Sebastian frowned. He'd been thinking things through for many hours now, ever since his sister had fallen asleep. He hadn't said anything to her, but he had come to tie conclusion that a degree of interference might be in her best interests. Of course, putting Judith's marriage together again would be in his best interests also. He couldn't destroy Gracemere without her help, and until Gracemere was dealt with, he couldn't make a formal offer for Harriet. He'd had to wrestle with the issues for a long time before he satisfied himself that what he was going to do would be certainly as much for Judith as it 'would be for himself.

  "If you hadn't jumped to conclusions in the first place, there'd have been no need for Ju to offer you provocation," he said deliberately.

  "Perhaps you'd like to explain." Marcus sat down, flicking at his boot with his whip, his eyes resting on his brother-in-law with an arrested expression.

  "Ju had no idea who was in the taproom at that inn, after you and she had…" Sebastian waved a hand in lieu of completing the sentence.

  Marcus was suddenly very still. "But she said she did."

  "Did she? You sure about that?" Sebastian buttered a piece of toast without looking at his visitor.

  Marcus thought. He'd asked her in that little loft on the morning of Waterloo, and she'd said… but no, she hadn't said anything at all. He'd asked her and she hadn't denied it.

  "If it wasn't true, why wouldn't she deny it?"

  "Well, you'd have to understand Ju and her eccentric principles rather better than you do to see that," her brother declared. "She'd be so insulted that you could have suspected her of such an underhand trick that she wouldn't see any point defending herself."

  "Are you telling me that all these months, she could have put my mind at rest with a single word and she deliberately chose not to?"

  Sebastian nodded. It was a little more complicated than that, but he couldn't explain to Marcus that Judith had seen little difference between the accusation of manipulation and the truth of opportunism. The difference, however, struck her brother as crucial in the present turmoil. "You shouldn't have suspected such a thing of her," he said simply.

  Marcus closed his eyes on a surge of exasperation that for the moment prevented his unhampered joy as he laid down the burden of mistrust. "It was not an unnatural suspicion, knowing how you and your sister were living," he pointed out after a minute.

  "Oh, I beg to differ," Sebastian said. "You made a false deduction from the premise. You hardly knew her." He glanced across at Marcus. "The other matter, too," he said. "Rather delicate, but you had no grounds for-"

  "All right," Marcus interrupted, a spot of color burning on his cheek. "There's no need to expand. I know what you're referring to. If your sister hadn't been ruled by that damnable lynx pride of hers, all of this could have been avoided." He slashed at his boot. "I'm not prepared to assume total responsibility for this, Sebastian."

  "No," Sebastian agreed, taking up his tankard again. He drank deeply. "So what are you going to do when you find her?"

  "Wring her neck and throw her body in the Serpentine," Marcus said promptly.

  Sebastian chuckled and shook his head. "That might defeat the object of reconciliation."

  Marcus stood up abruptly. "Damn it, Sebastian, where is she?"

  Sebastian shook his head. "I'm afraid I can't help you, Marcus."

  "You know where she is, though?" Sebastian nodded. "But I'm sworn to secrecy." Marcus regarded him through narrowed eyes, tapping the silver knob of his whip against the palm of one hand. "I daresay you'll be seeing her at some point today."

  "Yes." There was cool comprehension in Sebastian's eyes.

  Marcus inclined his head in acknowledgment and walked to the door. "Thank you, Sebastian."

  The door closed on his visitor. Sebastian pushed his chair back from the table and stretched out his long legs. Judith would probably be annoyed at his interference, but he felt as if he'd just done some good work. He was fairly certain his sister's feelings for Marcus Devlin went deeper than she had so far been prepared to acknowledge. And Marcus, for all his autocratic temperament, felt a great deal more for Judith than he might have demonstrated.

  Maybe it took a man in love to recognize the signs in others, Sebastian reflected complacently. He'd give Marcus time to set his spy in place before he went himself to see Judith.

  Marcus drove his curricle round to the mews. "Where's Tom, Timkins?"

  The head groom took the reins as they were tossed to him. "In the tack room, m'lord. Shall I fetch him?"

  "Please."

  A minute later a lad of about fourteen came hurrying across the cobbles, w
iping his palms against his leather apron. "You wanted me, m'lord."

  "Yes, I have a task for you." Marcus gave the boy his instructions. Tom received them in silence, nodding his head now and again to indicate comprehension. "Is that quite clear, Tom? I'm sure he'll be expecting someone on his tail and he won't try to throw you off, but I don't want you to make it obvious."

  "Don't you worry, m'lord. Thinner than is shadow I'll be." The lad grinned cheerfully. "I could pick 'is pocket and the cove'd not know it."

  "I'm sure you could," Marcus agreed. "But I beg you won't give in to the temptation."

  Tom was an accomplished pickpocket, who two years earlier had had the great good fortune to pick the marquis's pocket in the crowd at a prize fight. Carrington hadn't realized his watch had gone, until an observant spectator had set up the cry of "pickpocket." The terror in the child's eyes as he'd been collared had had a powerful effect on Marcus, who'd suddenly seen the small body-hanging from a scaffold in Newgate Yard. He'd taken him in charge over the protestations of the irate citizens, handed him over to his head groom with the instructions that he be taught the consequences of theft in no uncertain fashion, and then set to work. Tom had been his most devoted employee ever since, evincing a degree of intelligence that certainly qualified him for a task such as this.

  The search put in motion, there was nothing to do but wait. He retreated to his book room, wondering how to apportion the blame for the misunderstanding that had caused so much grief. They both bore some responsibility, but when he turned the cold, clear eyes of honesty on the question, he was obliged to accept that he had thrown the first stone.

  The barouche drew up outside a tall, well-maintained house in Cambridge Gardens, North Kensington, and three women descended, looking about them with the curiosity of those on unfamiliar territory. Kensington was a perfectly respectable place, of course, but unfashionable and definitely not frequented by the ton.

  "What a strange place for Judith to choose," observed Isobel.

  "What a strange thing for her to choose to do," Cornelia responded with more point, as she lifted the hem of her dress and shook ineffectually at some clinging substance. "How did that get there?" She directed a hostile stare at the material, as if it alone were responsible for its less than immaculate appearance.

  Neither of her friends bothered to answer the clearly rhetorical question. "Walk the horses, we shall be about an hour," Sally instructed her coachman, before raising the knocker on the blue-painted door.

  "It doesn't seem like a hotel." Isobel's experience of hotels was limited to establishments such as Brown's or Grillon's.

  However, the door was promptly opened by a maidservant, who asserted that it was indeed Cunningham's Hotel, and Mrs. Cunningham would be with them directly.

  Mrs. Cunningham was a respectable female in shiny bombazine, all affability as she welcomed three such clear members of the Quality to her establishment.

  "We are visiting Lady-" Cornelia stopped as Sally trod on her toe.

  "Mrs. Devlin," Sally put in swiftly. "We understand that Mrs. Devlin is staying here." Judith's note, delivered to Sally by Sebastian, had warned them she was staying at Cunningham's Hotel under Marcus's family name.

  "Oh, yes." Mrs Cunningham's smile broadened. "She has the best suite at the back-nice and quiet it is, as she wanted, looking over the garden. Dora will take you up and I'll have some tea sent up."

  They followed the maidservant upstairs and along a corridor to double doors at the rear of the house.

  Judith was sitting in a chair by the window, in front of a chess board, when her friends entered. She sprang up with a glad cry. "Oh, how good of you all to come. I was feeling thoroughly sorry for myself and horribly lonely."

  "But of course we would come," Sally said, looking around the sitting room. It was pleasant enough, but nothing to the yellow drawing room in Berkeley Square. "Whatever are you about, Judith? Your note didn't explain, and Sebastian wouldn't say anything."

  "Thinking," Judith replied. "That's what I'm about, but so far I haven't come up with any sensible thoughts… or even comforting ones," she added.

  "Well, what's happened?" Cornelia sat on the sofa. "Why are you in this place?"

  "It's a perfectly pleasant place," Judith said. "I have a large bedroom as well as the sitting room, and the woman who owns it is very attentive-"

  "Yes, but why are you here?" Isobel interrupted this irrelevant defense of the accommodations.

  Judith sighed. "Marcus and I had a dreadful fight. I had to get away somewhere quiet to think."

  "You left your husband?" Even Cornelia was shaken. "You just walked out and came here?"

  "In a nutshell. Marcus has forbidden my gaming and intends to control every penny I spend." Judith fiddled with the chess pieces as she told as much of the story as she could without revealing Brussels. "So, since I can't possibly accept such edicts," she finished, "and Marcus is determined that I will obey him, what else could I do?"

  Isobel shook her head, saying doubtfully, "It seems a bit extreme. Husbands do demand obedience as a matter of course. One has to find a way around it."

  The maidservant brought tea. "Mrs. Cunningham wants to know if you'd like some bread and butter, ma'am? Or cake?"

  "Cake," Isobel said automatically, and Judith chuckled, feeling a little more cheerful. She'd been fighting waves of desolation all day… desolation and guilt, whenever she thought of how that moment of willful passion on the road to Quatre Bras had ruined all their carefully laid plans. And Sebastian had so far uttered not a word of reproach.

  "But what are you going to do, Judith?" Sally asked, having sat in silence for some time, absorbing the situation.

  "I don't know," Judith said truthfully. "But you can't just disappear. How would Marcus explain that?" Sally persisted. "The family…" She stopped with a helpless shrug. The might and prestige of the Devlin family were perhaps more apparent to her than to Judith. She'd been married into it for five years. The thought of damaging that prestige, of inviting the wrath of that might, sent a fearful shudder down her spine.

  "Maybe I'll just be conveniently dead," Judith said. For some reason, the thought of her mother came to her. Her mother had died quietly in a French convent, leaving barely a ripple on the surface of the world… if you didn't count two children.

  "Judith!" Cornelia protested. "Don't talk like that." "Oh, I don't mean really dead," she explained. "I'll disappear and Marcus can put it about that I've died of typhus, or a riding accident, or some such."

  "You're mad," Sally pronounced. "If you believe for

  one minute that the Devlin family will let you get away with that, you don't know anything about them."

  Judith chewed her lip for a minute. She had a horrible feeling that Sally was probably right. "I'm not thinking clearly at the moment," she said finally. "I'll worry about the details later. Tell me some gossip. I feel so isolated at the moment."

  "Oh, there's a famous story going around about Hester Stanning," Isobel said. "I had it from Godfrey Chauncet." She lowered her voice confidentially.

  Judith listened to the on-dit with half an ear, her mind working on some way in which she could still play her part with Gracemere. Maybe, for the denouement, Sebastian could arrange a private card party and she could make an unexpected appearance…

  "Don't you think that's funny, Judith?"

  "Oh… yes… yes, very funny." She returned to the room with a jolt.

  "You weren't listening," Isobel accused, eyeing the chocolate cake that Dora had brought in. "I wonder if I dare have another piece. It's really very good."

  Judith cut another slice for her. "I was listening," she said.

  "When you fight with Carrington, do you lose your temper?" Cornelia asked with the air of one who'd been pondering the question for some time.

  The question brought such a wave of longing washing through her that Judith was for a moment silent, lost in the memories of the times when they'd fought tooth and nail and t
hen made up with ferocious need. "Yes," she admitted. "I have a dreadful temper, and so does Marcus."

  "Good heavens," Cornelia said. "I can't imagine Forsythe losing his temper. I wonder if I should try to provoke it. It might add a bit of excitement to life."

  Judith couldn't help laughing. "You're too levelheaded and even-tempered, Cornelia. You'd start arguing with yourself instead of your husband, because you'd immediately see the other point of view."

  After her visitors had left, she sat in the gloom of late afternoon. Cornelia and Sally and Isobel really didn't understand. They'd stand by her, of course. They'd keep her company and keep her secret, but they couldn't begin to understand what would drive a woman to take such a desperate stance. Never having tasted freedom- the sometimes uncomfortable freedom of life outside Society-they couldn't imagine doing anything so drastic. Judith didn't blame them for it. On the contrary, she envied the simplicity and security of their lives.

  It was getting dark, but she didn't ring for Dora to light the candles. The growing shadows suited her mood and she could feel herself sliding deeper and deeper into a pit of wretchedness. She hurt every time she remembered what Marcus had said to her, what he believed her to be, every time she recalled that, believing such things of her, he had still made love to her in the way he had, with such trust, such honesty, such absolute oneness with her in body and spirit. She had entrusted herself to him in those moments, as he had entrusted himself to her. And yet all the time…

  A knock at the door shattered the grim cycle of her thoughts. Sebastian entered, and she blinked in the near darkness.

  "Why are you sitting in the dark?" He struck flint against tinder and lit the branched candlestick on the table. He subjected his sister to a comprehending scrutiny, one that confirmed his suspicions and satisfied him that he'd done the right thing that morning.