The Lord and the Wayward Lady

by Louise Allen

  ‘Nell?’

  ‘Um? Oh, I’m sorry.’ Her state of abstraction had carried her the few steps onto the ice without her realizing. ‘Oh!’ Her feet wanted to go in opposite directions. Nell grabbed the front of Marcus’s coat and hung on. It was impossible to move.

  ‘Stand up straight,’ he said patiently, untangling her. ‘And put your feet like this and hold my arm.’

  Nell’s feet shot out and she sat down with a thud. ‘Ouch!’

  ‘Up.’ Marcus hauled her to her feet. ‘Try again.’

  After half an hour of skids, slides and inelegant landings on her bottom, Nell found she could stand up and move each foot forward in turn. ‘Look! I’m skating!’ Hal swooped past, laughing at her, and she grinned back. ‘I wish I could go fast like that.’

  ‘All right.’ Marcus moved behind her, put his hands at her waist and pushed. ‘Here we go, you move your feet too.’

  And she was skating, laughing out loud, waving to Lord Narborough, who had Honoria on one arm and Verity on the other. Behind her, Marcus’s body was strong and warm, sheltering her, supporting her, keeping her safe. She turned her head and smiled up at him. ‘I love this!’

  His eyes widened, his smooth pace faltered just a fraction and Nell lost her footing. Her feet shot out in front of her and she went down like a stone, landing virtually on Marcus’s feet. There was a sharp crack, echoing around the valley. He stumbled, but she was too close for a recovery, and they ended up in a laughing heap on the ice.

  In a moment they were surrounded by the other skaters, helping them to their feet. ‘What was that noise, just as we fell?’ Marcus demanded, dusting ice powder off his coat. He looked around at the pond. ‘It isn’t breaking up, is it?’

  Diana Price flew towards them from the far end of the little lake like a racer, her face white. ‘A gunshot!’ She came to a halt, her skates kicking up a shower of frozen fragments. ‘I felt the bullet go past me, just as you went down. Someone is shooting from the woods.’

  The men, without a word being exchanged, encircled the women, hurrying them off the ice. ‘There!’ Marcus, tearing off the bindings of his skates without looking, was scanning the woods. ‘By that dead oak.’

  ‘I see him.’ Hal was already free of the encumbering blades and running hard for the carriage. Nell saw him pull a shotgun out from beneath the driver’s box, slinging it over his shoulder on the run as Marcus joined him.

  ‘Into the carriage, everyone.’ Lord Narborough was snapping orders, shepherding the servants into their brake. ‘Leave everything.’

  Crammed into the carriage, they jostled together as the coachman whipped the horses into a skidding canter on the icy track. He pulled up as the carriage came out of the woods and Hal and Marcus jumped up, one on each step, clinging to the door frames on either side.

  ‘Gone,’ Marcus said through the open window. ‘There were hoof prints, then he was into the deep wood. The ground’s too hard and there is no snow in there. We lost him.’

  Nell kept her eyes on Marcus as the carriage bounced and swayed its way back to the house. He looked grimly angry. She could imagine his frustration, chasing a ghost, his actions tied by the need to protect a houseful of women.

  This campaign of persecution was moving beyond mere attempts to frighten and disturb. She had no idea whether that shot had missed on purpose or whether they had all been fortunate, but someone could have been killed.

  As she went up the steps in the wake of Lady Narborough she realized, with a sort of calm fatalism, that she could keep her secret no longer.

  ‘George,’ Lady Narborough said as they stood in the drawing room, dripping onto the fine carpet. ‘What is going on?’

  Nell saw Marcus meet his father’s eye and nod. Yes, the time had come. As his father began to explain, she touched Marcus’s arm. ‘I need to speak to you.’

  ‘Now?’

  ‘Yes,’ she murmured, drawing him aside. ‘Your father will tell the others what he feels they should know, will he not?’

  ‘Very well.’ He led her out of the drawing room, across the Great Hall to the small panelled room she remembered. ‘What is it, Nell?’ Marcus shut the door and leaned one shoulder against it. ‘There is no need to be afraid; he cannot get us in here.’

  ‘I am not afraid. Not of that.’ She found she was standing almost to attention as though she were in the dock of a court. Her hands were trembling. Nell clasped them tightly, raised her chin. ‘My real name is not Nell Latham. I was Lady Helena Wardale.’

  He did not speak for a long moment, but he pushed away from the door and stood, quite still, staring at her across the six foot of space that separated them. Finally he said, ‘Younger daughter of the Earl of Leybourne.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You knew what that rope signified.’ It was not a question.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You delivered it. You were in my father’s room when someone broke into it to bring another rope—and yet you said nothing.’ He sounded as coldly calm as a lawyer setting out the case for the prosecution, as though this meant nothing to him but an academic exercise in justice.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Is Salterton your lover?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Your brother, then?’

  ‘No. Nathan may be dead, for all I know.’ I will not cry, she told herself fiercely, biting her lower lip in the hope the pain would steady her.

  ‘You have every reason to hate my father, this family. You were the instrument of his heart attack, you shot me. You have lived under our roof for weeks. My mother and sisters treated you as a friend. And all the while we worried and speculated and you said nothing.’

  ‘I never lied to you. Latham is the name I have used since I was a child. It is my name now.’

  ‘And if we had known all along who you were—can’t you see how important that could be?’ His calm cracked suddenly in an explosion of movement that took him across the intervening space to stand before her. When she had first met him, she had thought him too big and too male to be close to. Now she fought the instinct to flinch away and he saw the fear in her eyes.

  ‘I won’t hit you, Nell. I’m not like your mysterious friend. I don’t make war on women, even treacherous ones.’

  ‘I am not a traitor!’ she flared back at him. ‘All I knew was that my mother brought me up to hate the name Carlow and now I have read my father’s letters, her diary, I can see why. I did not know Lord Narborough’s family name when I brought the parcel.

  ‘Yes, I believe he betrayed my father, his friend, but now I have met your father I can see that he only acted out of conscience and he is suffering for it. He was wrong, so wrong, but he acted honestly and I forgive him.’

  ‘That’s magnanimous of you,’ Marcus said, his eyes narrowed on her face. ‘You can hardly take the moral high ground on this. Your father was a traitor and a murderer and an adulterer into the bargain.’

  Nell slapped his face before she even knew she was going to do it. The blow jarred her wrist, the sound shocked her. He grabbed her wrists one-handed, the fragile bones shackled in one big fist. ‘Let me go!’ She kicked out and was jerked hard against his chest, then tried to bite as he took not the slightest notice of her boots cracking against his shins.

  With his free hand he took her chin, pushing it up until she had to open her mouth and stop biting. ‘You hell cat! Stop this, Nell. I don’t want you to get hurt.’

  ‘You are quite safe, I don’t have my pistol,’ she panted, twisting in his grip. But it was futile; he was too strong. Nell stopped struggling.

  It took them both a minute to steady their breathing. Nell stood quiescent in Marcus’s hold, wondering why all she could read in his eyes was grief. But that had to be wrong. After all, she had proved over and over that she did not understand him.

  ‘If you had nothing to do with this, it is stretching coincidence too far to think you were an accidental choice to deliver the rope,’ he said at last, his voice flat. ‘How do yo
u explain that?’

  ‘I cannot. Who hates both our families? It seems incredible, yet it is happening. But, Marcus, someone who is obsessed enough to be doing all this could have tracked me down, given time and money, if they knew the name we took after my father’s death. I give you my word, I do not know why they are attacking your family. But I knew, once I discovered who you were and read Papa’s letters, that you would never believe me. You wanted me to tell you my secrets, but I knew how it would be—listen to yourself.’

  ‘Then why tell me now?’ he demanded.

  ‘Someone could have been killed on the lake today. I had to give you my pieces of the puzzle.’

  ‘I wish I could believe that you know nothing.’ There was sincerity in the deep voice, but she was hurting too much to credit it.

  ‘Do you?’ Nell jerked her hands again and this time he let his own drop away. ‘Why should you care? All you want from me is to have me in your bed, under you—and at that just once, a notch on your bedpost.’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘No. Damn it, Nell, I love you.’ And before she could stammer out a reply, Marcus dragged her into his arms, crushed his mouth down over hers and kissed her.

  Chapter Sixteen

  He loves me? Nell closed her lips against the demand of Marcus’s mouth and twisted her head away, trying to look into his face. She had dreamed of him saying those words to her and now that he had, she was frightened, confused and angry. He cannot mean it, so why is he saying it?

  ‘No!’ She pushed at his chest and he let her go, his face as dark as it had been when he threw bitter accusations at her. ‘You want me, you have brought me into the family home and now you have to convince yourself your motives were something other than desire,’ she said, holding up one hand to ward him off.

  ‘It has to be love to excuse your misjudgement, doesn’t it? How strange you never thought to mention it before—in the folly, for example.’ She could not afford, not for a moment, the weakness of believing him. Her heart would break.

  ‘I didn’t realize then, I only knew that I couldn’t let you go, however much I mistrusted you.’ He made no move to touch her again. ‘I realized what it was when I saw you with Hal.’

  ‘Two cock pheasants strutting their plumes in front of the female?’ she jibed. ‘That isn’t love, Marcus. That is simple male possessiveness.’

  ‘Damn it, do you think I want to fall in love with a milliner?’ He took an angry pace away and stared at an old portrait hanging against the linen fold panelling as though he could not bear to look at her. ‘Or the daughter of an attaindered earl, for that matter? I am a Carlow, damn it.’

  ‘And I am a Wardale, and proud of it,’ she flung back. ‘You think I could love you, you arrogant, suspicious autocrat? You cannot even tell me you love me and look happy about it. Do you know what I want? What I need?’ Marcus turned slowly to look at her and shook his head. ‘I need love and laughter and tenderness and humour and trust. I do not need breeding or money or status. I do not need a man who has experience in bed, I just want one who cares about me.’

  Nell was out of the door before he could stop her. She slammed it back in his face, spun round and ran straight into Lord Narborough, Hal and Diana Price.

  There was no disguising the tears on her cheeks, no hiding the fact that her hair was half down and her face, she could feel, was as white as a sheet. The earl caught her as she stumbled to a halt and stared down into her face.

  ‘Catherine?’

  ‘Catherine Wardale was my mother,’ Nell said, seeing the colour drain out of his face until it was waxy.

  ‘What?’ The sharp exclamation was Miss Price’s, even as she hurried to take Lord Narborough’s arm.

  ‘Father.’ Hal caught him as he swayed, supporting him to the nearest chair. Nell dragged at the bell pull then ran to help them. Behind her the door opened. ‘What’s happened? What have you done?’

  ‘Resembled my mother,’ Nell said bitterly, not looking at Marcus. ‘Not, I believe, a crime. Give Lord Narborough some air. I have rung for help—he needs his drops.’

  ‘I am all right.’ George Carlow shrugged off Hal’s arm and pulled himself upright in the big carved chair as the butler came in. ‘My drops, Watson, in the study. And a tea tray for there and for the drawing room. Come.’ He looked at the four clustered round his chair. ‘The study and some explanations, I think.’

  Marcus went to Nell’s side as they settled around the hearth in the study. She turned her head away and stared into the fire, giving him her shoulder. He could hardly blame her. How could a declaration of love go so hideously wrong? How could he have told her then, on the heels of berating her about her secrets?

  ‘Little Helena.’ His father was shaking his head as he looked at her. ‘You must have been four when I last saw you. The resemblance has been haunting me and then I saw it just now. It was Catherine’s face when they took Will away.’

  ‘She is dead now,’ Nell said without turning. ‘A congestion of the lungs four years ago. It seems a broken heart can take a long time to kill.’

  ‘Oh, my dear. And Nathan and Rosalind?’

  ‘Rosalind took a post as a companion to a lady—under a false name. We were never to write, or contact her, in case of discovery. She would always write to us.’

  ‘And your brother?’ demanded Miss Price.

  ‘Nathan vanished, suddenly, as though he had been snatched out of thin air.’ Nell’s voice was flat, as if she were recounting some dull and trivial piece of gossip. Knowing her now, sensing every nuance in her voice, Marcus could read her pain and the effort such control was costing her. He wanted to hold her, make this all go away.

  ‘There was no money, our landlord was…violent, and Mama was sick. I had to move us away. We lost contact with both of them. I tell myself Nathan is not dead and that Rosalind is safe.’ Her composure cracked, and with it her voice. ‘I cannot always believe it.’

  Marcus put his hand on her arm and she froze. After a moment, he lifted it away and heard her sigh. ‘Helena—’

  ‘Nell,’ she murmured.

  ‘Nell says she did not know that the Earl of Narborough, to whom she was to deliver a parcel with unknown contents, was George Carlow,’ he said to the others, determined to present the facts fairly in the midst of the emotion threatening to swap them all. ‘All she knew about the scandal was that her mother hated the name Carlow.’

  ‘Nell?’ Hal asked.

  ‘Mama never spoke of what had happened to Papa. I knew virtually nothing until I read her letters and diaries over the past two weeks. And I could not bring myself to do that until I came here and realized that I had to find out.’

  Watson came in with the tea tray and placed it before Diana, but she got to her feet. ‘If you will excuse me, I must help Lady Narborough. I will not say anything of this, of course.’ The door clicked shut behind her, leaving the four of them in silence.

  Without a word, Nell shifted in her seat so she could reach the tray. She passed the drops and a glass of water to Marcus’s father, then began to pour tea with a steady hand as though this were a normal social tea party. Marcus watched, unable to believe she could appear so unaffected. Then, as she turned to hand him his cup, he saw her eyes, filled with a miserable anger and realized that she was holding on to her control with fierce determination.

  ‘I give you my word I did not know who you were,’ she said to Lord Narborough, the quiver of passion under the calm words more convincing than any display of extravagant emotion would have been. ‘Once I knew, then I was afraid, both for you and for myself. I do not understand who is doing this, or why. But I knew that Marcus would not believe me if I told him that.’

  That hurt, an unexpected thrust of pain in his chest, made worse because it was true—he had not let himself trust her.

  ‘Perhaps his loyalties were divided,’ his father said, surprising him. He looked sharply at the older man. There was a faint smile on his lips. He knows. He knows I love her.

 
‘No,’ Nell said. She stared into her cooling tea. ‘Marcus knows where his loyalties lie. And that is right, after all. It would be wrong to place…desires before the safety of one’s family, one’s sense of honour.’ She lifted her head and looked directly at Marcus, the tear tracks plain on her cheeks. He wanted to hold her, wipe them away, kiss away the memory of them. ‘It is how I feel, after all.’

  ‘Nell,’ the earl said gently, ‘it is possible, you know, that the people one loves may yet do things that are very wrong. Your father was involved with someone.’

  ‘Amanda Hebden, Lady Framlingham, I know.’ She nodded. ‘It is in the letters. And Lord Framlingham was not treating her well. But why would they not duel? Why murder?’

  ‘Because Kit Hebden was about to unmask your father as the spy—that is the only reason, the only possible way to explain it. Believe me, Nell, I tried to find another explanation, and in all these years I have failed.’

  ‘I believe you tried,’ she said, her voice flat. ‘And I am sorry I did not tell you before who I was. That man, whoever he is, might have shot someone this morning.’

  ‘But knowing who you are takes us no further forward,’ Hal interjected.

  ‘It does,’ Marcus said, thinking aloud. ‘It tells us that this is not some campaign against the Carlows alone. This is someone with a connection to that affair who, for some reason, is attacking both the child of the man who was executed and the family of the only survivor of the three friends.’

  ‘You are right.’ The earl sat up, alert. ‘Hebden’s family has all gone except his daughter—she lives with her mother’s family. So, who does that leave?’

  ‘The real traitor? The man who murdered Lord Framlingham?’ Nell asked, defiance in her voice.

  ‘Oh, my dear.’ The earl shook his head. ‘For your sake, I wish that were true.’

  ‘I want to go home,’ Nell said flatly. ‘I should not be here.’

  ‘But the danger,’ the earl protested.

  ‘You mean the man who shot Marcus who might know where I live? That man never existed. I shot him.’