Too Wicked to Love
Page 16
A powerfully built man, he wore no coat or cravat. His fair hair looked like a rat’s nest, and he reeked of whisky. On the table beside him sat a decanter with an inch of dark liquor remaining. A china saucer overflowed with ashes.
Ethan had never liked Edgar Badrick. He was a bully who hit below the belt, a greedy younger son who had coveted his elder brother’s possessions, even his widow. He had gained the title upon his brother’s death in a hunting accident some five years ago. People had whispered of foul play, but nothing had ever been proven.
“Greeley,” Ethan said, acknowledging him with a curt nod. “Where the devil is Serena? I want to ask her a few questions.”
Lord Greeley made a harsh sound in his throat. Lounging in a flowered wing chair, he took a deep drag on his cheroot, blowing smoke into the foul air. His eyes glittered like blue diamonds, and one corner of his mouth lifted in a sneer.
“You’re a month too late,” he said in a gravelly voice, his words a trifle slurred. “Serena is dead.”
Chapter 13
Shocked, Jane stepped out from behind Ethan. There had been no funeral wreath on the door, no crepe bunting on the windows to indicate a house in mourning. Now she understood why the footman had acted so flustered. It was not his place to impart such momentous news.
Ethan stood very still, his keen dark eyes pinned to the other man. “I’m sorry. I read no announcement in the London papers.”
Lord Greeley stared back. “I never sent one.”
Jane wasn’t fooled by Greeley’s nonchalance. Instinct told her that a man didn’t sit in the dark in his sister-in-law’s bedchamber, rumpled and intoxicated, unless he was grieving.
She took a cautious step toward him. “My lord, I realize we’re strangers, but you must allow me to express my deepest condolences on your loss.”
“Thank you.” Lord Greeley’s eyes skimmed up and down the length of her. “You look too decent for Chasebourne. Has he stooped to seducing virgins these days?”
“Leave Miss Mayhew out of this,” Ethan snapped. “So, how did Serena die? Was it another accident?”
Lord Greeley flung his cheroot into the empty grate and rose unsteadily to his feet. “Swine. I ought to call you out for that.”
“If you were a decent shot, I’d be tempted to accept. But I prefer a challenge.”
“Bloody braggart. Did you think you’d come here and entice Serena with a new game?” Resentment twisting his dissipated features, he glanced cryptically at Jane, then back at Ethan. “Well, she’s dead now. Not that you would care. You only wanted her because Randall had her first. Captain Lord John Randall in his fancy red cavalry uniform.”
Ethan balled his fingers into fists. A dark and dangerous harshness descended over his face. “You are not fit to utter his name—”
“Stop it!” Jane thrust herself between the two men before they could come to blows. Why was Ethan acting so hostile? And had he really shared mistresses with his friend? The thought of it sickened her. She met his glower with a scowl of her own. “For pity’s sake, we aren’t here to quarrel.” She spun toward their host. “Please, Lord Greeley, don’t be offended. Ethan is dismayed by the news, that’s all. Do sit down.”
Greeley stood, swaying. Then he sank back into the chair and buried his face in his hands, his fingers further tousling his fair hair.
He was the picture of misery, and Jane’s heart went out to him. “We don’t mean to pry,” she said gently. “But could you please bring yourself to tell us about Lady Greeley’s death?”
“’Twas a fever,” he mumbled. “She died of a damned fever. A month ago, it was.”
Jane bit her lip, striving for a delicate way to phrase the next question. Ethan apparently had no such scruples.
“Was it a lingering childbed fever?” he asked bluntly. “Had she given birth recently?”
Lord Greeley jerked as if he’d been struck. His head shot up to reveal haunted eyes and a stark expression. His reaction pointed at an affirmative response, and Jane held her breath, waiting for him to admit that Lady Serena Badrick had mothered Marianne and left her on a stranger’s doorstep.
In a blur of motion, Greeley seized the decanter and smashed it against the table.
Jane flinched as the table toppled under the force of the blow. Shards of glass flew over the carpet. The stench of liquor filled the air.
Leaning forward, his teeth bared in a grimace, Greeley brandished the jagged end of the decanter. “Get out,” he snarled. “Get out before I murder the two of you.”
Horror clutched at Jane. The wildness in his eyes made her shudder. He meant it. He really meant to kill them.
Her heart beating madly, she tugged at Ethan. She felt resistance in him, the bunching of his muscles, a man’s arrogant need to fight back with his fists. “Come,” she whispered. “We have to leave.”
“Not until that bastard tells me the truth.”
“But he won’t. You saw to that.” As she spoke, she pulled him toward the door. It was like towing an iron statue. Into his ear, she whispered, “There’s a better way, I promise you. Just come with me.”
He cast her a suspicious glance, then went grudgingly with her out into the corridor. She caught one last glimpse of Lord Greeley staring like a malevolent demon. An instant after she shut the door, there came a thump against the wooden panel and the muffled sound of glass shattering.
Jane recoiled. Greeley must have thrown the remains of the decanter.
“So,” Ethan said, hands on his hips in a belligerent stance. “What is this better way to determine if Serena is Marianne’s mother?”
Jane cast about for an idea. “We’ll ask one of the servants. Someone here will know.”
She marched down the passageway, and Ethan stalked beside her. “Unless Greeley has sworn his staff to secrecy,” he said. “Having your sister-in-law give birth to a bastard isn’t something one trumpets in the newspapers.”
“Do you have a better plan? Perhaps you think you can pummel the truth out of a grieving man.”
“Greeley? Grieving?” He loosed a harsh laugh. “The only thing he mourns is the loss of his whore.”
Jane frowned. “His whore?” Then his meaning staggered her, and she stopped to stare at him in the gloomy corridor. “Are you saying … he and Lady Greeley…?”
“Yes.”
“But … you must be mistaken. She was his brother’s widow. That would have made them like brother and sister.”
“Common decency meant little to Serena. She was worse than any strumpet who walks the streets.”
Jane didn’t like hearing him denigrate the woman who might have been Marianne’s mother. “For shame. You shouldn’t speak ill of the dead.”
“And you shouldn’t leap to the defense of a stranger.”
“I’m not defending her actions. But neither will I defame her. After all, you were the one who had an affair with your best friend’s mistress—”
He turned suddenly and crowded her against the wall. His body blocked her escape, his arms forming a prison around her, his palms flattened to the wall. “Why is it that you always cast doubt on my character? That you always believe I must be the villain in the piece?”
She could have escaped had she wanted to do so. He wasn’t touching her, only surrounding her with his addictive male presence. With every breath she took in his thrilling scent. She had to concentrate to answer him, and even then, her voice came out sounding appallingly weak. “You must be a villain. You seduce women.”
“And women seduce me. It’s a mutual process. Even you begged for a kiss from me.”
He was a scoundrel for reminding her of that, for what living female could resist that sulky mouth, looming mere inches from hers? “You tempt decent women.”
“Not by design.” His dark brows lowering, he looked her up and down. “You see, decent women don’t tempt me. I prefer the Lady Greeleys of the world.”
“Why?” Jane couldn’t stop the question that burned inside herself.
The question that reared like an insurmountable wall between them. “If you disparage her so much, why do you continue to seek women like her?”
“For pleasure. Pleasure that no decent woman can give to me.”
“How can you be so sure?” she whispered. “Perhaps you’d be happy if you settled with a good woman.”
In the gloom, his eyes took on a predatory glitter. “And perhaps you’ll understand better if I tell you about one of Serena’s favorite sports. She would pretend to be my captive, hands and feet tied to the bedposts. Like this.” Shackling Jane by the wrists, he stretched out her arms against the wall. He leaned closer, his chest lightly pressing hers, making her keenly aware of his hard muscles and heated body. “She liked a man to touch her while she lay helpless to stop him. She liked to feel ravished. What do you say to that, Miss Maypole? Do I shock you?”
Jane couldn’t speak; she could only shakily nod her head. She had never dreamed that people engaged in such wickedness. The very notion made her breathless, riveted by the image of lying helpless and spread-eagled while Ethan towered over her, caressing her as he willed. He would lift her nightdress, perhaps touch her bare legs.…
With an appalling fierceness, she wanted to allow him that liberty—and more. She wanted to know where he would put his hands and how they would feel moving over her skin. She wanted to know all the details she couldn’t begin to imagine.
What other lewd games had he played with Lady Greeley? What carnal pleasures had they shared? Jane gave herself a mental shake. How depraved of her, to envy a dead woman.
Releasing Jane, he stepped back and combed his fingers through his rain-dampened hair. “I shouldn’t have spoken of such private matters.”
A wistful yearning flooded her. Slowly she lowered her hands to her sides. “Don’t apologize. Perhaps … since Captain Randall is gone, I could be your friend in his stead.”
Ethan stared at her, his gaze a dark blank. Then he let out a humorless laugh. “Hardly. You aren’t the type to go drinking and gaming and whoring.”
“I only meant that if you needed someone to talk to—”
“I don’t. So do us both a favor and cease pestering me.” Turning from her, he stalked toward the grand staircase.
His rejection hurt, especially since his touch lingered on her skin, a tingling warmth, a memory to be treasured. Yet it wouldn’t do to harbor illusions. He had made it very clear that his tastes ran to strumpets.
Women more experienced than a scholar’s daughter who had spent the past six-and-twenty years with her nose in a book.
In her heart, she knew it wasn’t too late for her to embrace life. And she would change, with or without his approval. If nothing else, she would be a mother to his child.
Clinging to that purpose, Jane followed him down the stairs. The same footman who had opened the front door still lurked in the entrance hall. His white-wigged head peered around the corner of the staircase. The moment he spied them, he drew back, slinking away down a corridor.
Ethan strode after him. “You there. I’ll have a word with you.”
The footman hunched his shoulders and turned slowly, casting his gaze downward. “I’m sorry, m’lord. I meant no trickery about her ladyship.”
“Never mind that. I need some information. I wish to know if Lady Greeley gave birth in the weeks before she died.”
The footman shook his head so violently a fine powder from his wig dusted his crimson coat. “I—I wouldn’t know.”
“Come now. You must have heard talk in the servants’ hall. It would be nigh impossible to hide the pregnancy of the mistress of the house.”
“’Tisn’t my place to say, m’lord.”
But he knew something; Jane saw it in the guilty shifting of his eyes. “Please help us,” she said. “It’s vitally important that we learn the truth. We won’t tell anyone where we heard it.”
He gulped. “But Lord Greeley don’t allow us to gossip.”
“Perhaps this will help you to overcome your scruples.” Ethan reached into his pocket and flipped a gold sovereign at the footman.
Catching the coin in midair, he hesitated another moment, looked furtively around the empty hall, and nodded. “’Tis as you say, m’lord,” he whispered. “’Twas I who was sent to fetch the midwife.”
Jane’s heart squeezed taut. “Was the baby a girl?”
He nodded again. “So I heard.”
“Where is she now?” Ethan snapped. “Is the infant here? Or did Lady Greeley send her away for fostering?”
Jane leaned closer, her muscles tensed, her mind preparing for the confirmation she dreaded to hear. A part of her resisted finding out for certain that Ethan had fathered Marianne. Because that would make it all the more difficult for Jane to keep the baby herself.
The footman stared in obvious consternation, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat. Then he made a quick sign of the cross. “Talk is, the baby died, m’lord. The poor mite be buried in the same coffin with her ladyship.”
* * *
Ethan ran his finger over the inscription on the marble sepulcher. Lady Serena Badrick, Viscountess Greeley, beloved wife.
The oblong tomb rested in the shadows alongside the grave of her husband. It made no mention of her being a mother. But then, Ethan hadn’t expected as much. Unable to summon any grief, he felt empty inside, and it struck him that he’d never formed an emotional attachment to any of his women.
Nevertheless, he closed his eyes and said a brief prayer for the repose of her soul. If Serena was indeed Marianne’s mother, he owed her a debt of gratitude for having the sense to send the baby to him. Even if her method of doing so left much to be desired.
Accompanied by Jane, he had questioned the village midwife, a brisk, middle-aged woman who lived in a cottage surrounded by an herb garden. After some monetary persuasion, she confirmed that Lady Greeley had been delivered secretly of a sickly infant, but she knew nothing more except what the villagers whispered, that the child had vanished around the time of her mother’s death and was presumed dead.
Next, they had gone to the vicar of this small church, only to encounter evidence to the contrary. The elderly cleric had expressed astonishment at the idea that an illegitimate infant had been buried with her ladyship. The tale could only be false, he insisted, for he knew nothing of any child.
Who was telling the truth?
An intense frustration knotted Ethan. It was just like Lord Greeley to play games with the whereabouts of a child.
A small sound echoed through the church. He felt a presence near him, a presence that disturbed him far more than it should. Jane.
Opening his eyes, he saw her watching him from the entrance to the crypt. The dimness of dusk trickled through a stained-glass window and submerged her in murky jeweled light, as if she were a mermaid glimpsed underwater. She glided toward him, and he hated the weakness in himself, the aching need to take her into his arms and absorb her warmth. Her naïveté drew him, along with her fierce devotion to Marianne. For all her transformation, Jane was vastly different from his other women.
What had possessed him to push her up against a wall and spill out his depravities? When she had stared at him with those eloquent gray-blue eyes, he had wanted to kiss her again. To lose himself in her goodness. To draw her into an empty bedchamber and end her innocence.
“You’ve had enough time alone,” she said. “What have you concluded?”
“‘The grave’s a fine and private place, / But none, I think, do there embrace.’”
“Andrew Marvell, To His Coy Mistress.” A faint blush colored her cheeks. “You memorized that indecent poem?”
“In school, when I was supposed to be doing my sums. It’s a fitting eulogy for Marianne’s mother.”
Jane shook her head. “Nothing has been proven.”
“On the contrary, I am convinced of one fact.” He propped his elbow on the marble railing. “There is no baby buried in this tomb. She was left on your doorstep.”
“I disagree,” she said. “I believe Lady Greeley’s baby did indeed perish, just as the footman and the midwife said.”
“They were voicing hearsay, that’s all. The vicar confirmed that.”
“Lord Greeley hid the truth from the vicar in order to protect his sister-in-law’s reputation.”
“Or he paid his servants to lie for him. Then he smuggled the baby out of the house.”
“But why to my doorstep?” Jane asked. “Why not yours?”
“Whoever delivered the infant simply made a mistake. Took a wrong turning, perhaps. Or lost his bearings and left Marianne at the nearest house.”
Stubborn to the core, Jane shook her head again. “I don’t believe in mistakes. You can’t be sure that Marianne is yours, anyway. You said that Lady Greeley had had an affair with her brother-in-law.”
He watched her lips curl in distaste, and he whipped his gaze back to hers. “There was my signet ring.”
“So? Greeley clearly resents you. Perhaps he wanted to trick you into taking a baby that isn’t yours.”
“Stealth is a woman’s game, not a man’s. It would have been far simpler for him to ship off an unwanted child to a workhouse or an orphanage.” Impatient with her unyielding nature, he drummed his fingers on the marble tomb. “I do realize, however, that my theory cannot be proven, short of exhuming the grave. Which I very much doubt Greeley will allow.”
As expected, Jane jumped on his concession. “Well, then. We’ve questioned every woman on your list. Aurora Darling. Lady. Esler. Miss Diana Russell. Unless you can think of another possibility, I can only conclude you’re not Marianne’s father, after all.”
“Or so you would like to think.” Scourged by the double-pronged whip of resentment and fascination, Ethan strolled toward her. She looked like a model of morality with her hands folded primly at her waist. “The truth is that you want to keep Marianne for yourself. So you’ll grasp at any tale that suggests she isn’t mine.”