Josten glanced up, his expression vastly relieved. “You didn’t?”
“No. Whatever gave you such an idea?”
“Because I would have,” Josten said bluntly. “I had the whole story from Pip. He came down last weekend. He never could keep anything back from his mother, and Beatrice told me and I had the lad in here on the carpet.
“He told me all about Tweed and that card game and how you refused to challenge the blackguard and how Harry, that great oaf, felt the family’s honor had been impugned and so Harry challenged the blighter to a duel and you showed up and took his place against this craven Tweed and how my heir managed to get you shot!” He glared up at Ned. “Is that about it?”
“Yes, sir. More or less. But why would this lead you to believe I’d thrown Harry to the press gangs?”
“Because when Nadine searched you out in London to enlist your aid regarding that card game—yes, I had that from Nadine, too. No one in this bloody family is capable of keeping their bottle stopped—you told her you thought your nephews could do with some rigorous discipline of the type found in the navy. I haven’t seen Harry since that contretemps and so . . . Well, I would have,” he repeated gruffly.
“Well, I didn’t. I have no idea where your son is. Though the matter I have come to speak to you about does concern him.”
Josten blew out his cheeks, a man preparing for bad news. “Yes. Well, out with it, then.”
“Lady Lydia Eastlake has done me the great honor of agreeing to become my wife.” Just saying the words aloud filled Ned with a flood of joy, despite the moment.
Josten looked up. His eyes grew round. A broad smile broke over his handsome face and he leaped to his feet, clapping Ned on the back. “Well done, Neddie, m’boy! Well done, indeed! Lady Lydia Eastlake . . .” He rubbed his hands together in pleasure. “I have never met the lady, but her beauty is legendary and her fortune—”
“There is no fortune.”
Josten checked. “Er. Say again?”
“There is no fortune.”
“But there’s money.”
“No. No money.” Ned shook his head. “She is deeper in dun territory than we Locktons. She hasn’t a feather to fly.”
Josten dropped down in the chair as though taken out at the legs. His head fell back against the seat cushion and he stared at the ceiling. “Well, that is depressing.”
As Ned had expected something a great deal more vehement and definitely louder, he took this as an encouraging sign. “I’m terribly sorry.”
“Eh?” Josten looked up. “Oh. Yes, well . . . I suppose it couldn’t be helped?”
“No. It couldn’t be helped. I fell in love with her.”
Josten nodded, amazingly unsurprised. “I see. Quite. Love takes the Lockton men that way. A trial really, but nothing to be done for it once it happens except make the chit your bride.” For a moment his face reflected remembered passion and delight. “No. Nothing for it once you fall in love. Lasts forever, too, I might as well warn you.”
“Yes, sir.” Ned hid a smile. “I must say, sir, you are showing far more equanimity than I imagined.”
“Don’t see as I have any choice. No. I know you, Ned. You’re my brother. My blood. I know you like I know myself and there’s nothing for it but to accept it.”
“What will you do?” Ned asked, feeling a bit dumbfounded by Josten’s uncharacteristic composure.
“Do? Sell off all the unentailed land, I suppose. Can’t say I’ll miss it. Never understood much about acres and bushels and heads and tails and whatever it is the farmers drone on about. Keep the hunting rights, of course,” he said as though this were of primary importance, which, Ned supposed, it was to Josten. “And the pack. And a few horses.”
“You’ll try to keep Josten Hall,” Ned said.
Here, at last, grief clouded Josten’s gaze. “Keep the place? Doubtful. Things change, Ned. Things come and go. Sometimes in one lifetime, sometimes over the course of many.” He smiled. “Did you know that the Locktons originally bought the old pile off the Bortons?”
Ned was surprised. He hadn’t known that. He had always assumed the Locktons had built the place, hence the name Josten Hall. “No, sir, I didn’t.”
Josten nodded. “When Bonny Prince Charlie was making a run for the throne, the Bortons had the bad taste to back the Pretender.” He leaned forward and said confidentially, “The Bortons never were good gamblers. When the family took a political and extended leave from England, we bought it and rechristened it Josten Hall.”
His expression grew calculating. “You know, I shouldn’t be surprised if the Bortons want it back.” He paused. “Perhaps as a dowry?”
“You mean a marriage between Mary and George Borton? I thought he’d already asked her and been turned down. Something about his sister,” Ned said.
“He did and he was. But that was two years ago, when Mary made her debut. She was quite vain and certain of herself. She ain’t so persnickety these days and is liable to be even less so when her allowance has been trimmed to the bone.”
“But what of Borton’s sister?”
“I have the utmost faith in your niece’s ability to drive off any half dozen sisters- in-law. I will say no more.” He nodded sententiously. “The trick will be convincing Borton to come up to scratch again. Well, we will see. We will do what we can.”
With a slap on his thighs, Josten rose to his feet.
“Thank you, Marcus,” Ned said. “You have made this far easier than I anticipated.”
“Oh, don’t be relaxing yet, m’boy,” Josten said with a grim smile. “Nadine and Beatrice will extract whatever toll I have waived. They shall be most put out with you. Shouldn’t expect dinner invitations anytime soon.”
“I shall contrive to keep my disappointment in hand.”
This comment won him a slow, speculative glance from Josten. “You aren’t being ironical, are you, Neddie?”
“No, sir,” Ned denied. There was no sense in perturbing Josten with the idea that he did not know his young brother as well as he assumed. It would only hurt him.
“Didn’t think so. We Locktons never are. Now, get some sleep, lad. You look like bloody hell.”
Just before three o’clock in the morning, a pounding on his bedchamber door awoke Ned. He came fully alert at once, the practice of long years at sea during wartime coming to his aid, and called out for whoever it was to enter.
Josten appeared in the doorway, a candlestick in his hand, a nightcap on his head, barefoot and unshaven.
“What is it?” Ned asked, rising bare-chested from the bed.
“A rider woke the household ten minutes ago. He says he has a letter addressed to you and has instructions not to leave until he has delivered it to your hand.”
“Where is he now?”
Josten turned and motioned. A travel-stained and hollow-eyed youngster shuffled in, worrying a knit cap between his hands.
“Are you Captain Lockton?” he asked.
Ned nodded curtly and the boy stepped forward, digging into the leather satchel strapped around his neck and producing a thin envelope. He handed it to Ned and retreated.
Josten turned him by the shoulder and told him, “Go to the kitchen and have them find you something to eat and a place to bed down.”
The boy bowed awkwardly and disappeared as Ned opened the envelope.
Captain Lockton,
Lady Lydia is planning to marry Childe Smyth
by special license this day next. She does this for
my sake. The need for haste makes it impossible
for me to explain further. Only know she has made
this decision under duress and the gravest of circumstances.
I beg you, do not let her sacrifice her
happiness and yours on my account.
Emily Cod
The blood drained from Ned’s face and he wheeled around, snatching up the breeches and shirt he’d so recently shed.
“What it is, Ned? What’s the matter?�
� Josten demanded, alarmed. “What can I do to help?”
Ned had already donned his breeches and was shoving his arm through the sleeve of his shirt. “Have the fastest horse in your stable saddled!”
Josten began bellowing and the servants rushed to do his bidding. Within a quarter hour, Ned was on horseback, racing toward London.
He rode through the night, stopping only to drink or switch out horses at the stations along the way. He galloped, face taut, leg shrieking in protest, lashed by fear. His heart thundered in time with the hoof strike on the road. No. No. No.
Dawn opened like an artery along the horizon and bled into the sky and still he kept on, riding like a man possessed, holding on to one thought: He had to be there in time to stop her.
Chapter Thirty-two
Childe Smyth did not prove as great a friend as Lydia had hoped and every bit the pragmatist she had expected. He’d met her request that he lend her fifty thousand pounds with a blank stare and then a laugh. When she’d assured him that she was serious, he told her that regrettably he would not be able to make a loan of that size when he knew for a certainty she would never be able to repay it.
He would, however, make certain she had immediate access to such a sum as soon as she became his bride. Indeed, he would make it part of the marriage contract he could have drawn up that very day, in which he would promise to present her with a personal note for fifty thousand pounds directly after the archbishop signed their wedding license.
He needed a wife, he explained gravely, and soon. She needed fifty thousand pounds even sooner. He suggested they come to an arrangement.
And so they had.
All of which Lydia had expected. But expectation hadn’t kept her from hoping.
Feeling like a spectator watching the unfolding events in her life from some balcony seat, she walked down the church aisle toward where Childe’s uncle, the Archbishop of Canterbury, waited. Childe moved slowly at her side. Though her face felt numb and her lips stiff, her manner remained composed. But inside a voice was screaming. She ignored it. She would not let Cod send Emily back to the asylum.
She would be strong. She would live with her decision. Other women had married for far less important reasons. Other women had been in love with men they could not wed. Other women—
Oh, God. Oh, God. They were before the altar now and the archbishop was saying something and she could not hear him. All she heard was a rushing in her ears and the remembered sound of Ned’s voice saying, “I love you. . . .”
The archbishop peered at her closely and she gulped for air. “M’dear?” he prompted.
“Yes.” She hoped it was enough. She hoped that it was appropriate. It was all she could manage.
And then more words, Childe Smyth’s voice low in the affirmative, the witnesses murmuring behind her. Where was Ned? What would he think? Would he wonder if she’d decided she could not live without wealth? That she’d changed her mind? Oh . . . Oh!
Her head swam but she held on to consciousness. It was best this way. It was the only way.
The archbishop pronounced them man and wife.
Chapter Thirty-three
Lydia sat at the ornate dressing table in the bedchamber where Childe had had her things brought. Emily was somewhere else in the house, in some room Childe had assigned her at Lydia’s insistence. And she was alone. She heard a sound in the hall and turned her head as Childe appeared in the doorway between the bedroom and dressing room. She turned back around and with a shaking hand put down the pen she had been using to write to Ned.
She closed her eyes. She had thought she would have more time to grow used to the idea, that at least she would be able to finish her business with Cod before Childe—before. She wasn’t ready. She would never be ready. Never.
She bit down hard on her lip, her spine stiffening as though in rigor mortis.
“I am sorry,” Smyth whispered. His tone was stricken, even anguished, and she opened her eyes to meet his in the mirror.
Lydia’s husband was crying. Tears welled in his eyes and his lower lip trembled with his effort to contain himself.
Amazed, she pivoted. “Mr. Smyth? Your grandfather. Is he . . . ?”
“No. No, the old bastard draws breath yet. It’s just that . . .” He stopped and came into the room at a foot-dragging pace, approached the high, four-poster bed sitting like a sacrificial altar in the middle of the room. He sat down on its edge, his hands hanging between his knees, and gave a long, shaky sigh, staring at the carpet.
“I have never been unfaithful,” he said sadly. “Never once in all these years.”
She didn’t know what to think, what he was talking about; she only perceived that somehow she’d gained a reprieve from her inevitable marital bedding. Relief, however short-lived, set her to trembling. She could not imagine being intimate with this man, a stranger to her in so many ways, doing something so profound, so significant as the act she and Ned had shared. “I beg your pardon?”
“She will be so hurt,” he murmured to himself, slow tears trickling from the corners of his eyes. “She won’t understand.”
“I’m afraid I don’t either, Mr. Smyth,” she said cautiously. “To whom are you referring and what won’t she understand?”
“Kitty,” he said, his face stricken with misery. “My beautiful little Kitty.”
Amazement supplanted confusion. Could he be referring to a cat? Had she married a madman? Oh, dear. “What of your little kitty, Mr. Smyth?” she asked carefully.
But he wasn’t listening to her. He shook his head vigorously, his lower lip thrusting out in a resolute pout. “It’s no good. I can’t bed you.”
“Ah!” Her breath came out in a gasp of relief and she fumbled for the support of her table. “Oh, thank you!” Tears sprang to her eyes and she swiped them from her cheeks. “And thank your wonderful, glorious feline.”
Childe Smyth’s dark brows drew together in a vee. “What feline?”
“Kitty.”
“Kitty’s not a cat. Kitty’s my mistress!” he said, clearly astonished.
“Oh. Oh?”
He nodded, his misery slowly returning. “She’s been my mistress for eleven years and in all that time I have never been false to her. I have never even been tempted. And she has been just as true to me. All those years . . .” He sniffed. “I was just come to town, down from Eton. I didn’t have much. I hadn’t inherited my dad’s business concerns yet. I was just a green- headed boy with the faint stink of the shop on me.” He looked up to see how she took this and his smile grew an edge. “But I will not be looked down on any more than my grandfather. My aunt married a marquis, my father was knighted before he died. And me? I’ve married Lady Lydia Eastlake. My standing in Society is not only assured but it’s now incontestable.”
His expression had become pugnacious, but she saw only a young man with the faint stink of shop, hungry for entrée and approbation. “You were telling me about Kitty,” she prompted.
His mouth relaxed into a smile. “Yes. Kitty,” he said. “She was just sixteen, newly arrived from Spain and the most gorgeous creature I had ever seen. She still is. She could have had her pick of any number of protectors, far wealthier and, needless to say, far more illustrious than I. But she chose me,” he said with evident pride. “She loves me.”
“And you love her,” Lydia suggested
He glanced quickly up at her to see if she was making sport of him, and seeing she was not, he sighed. “Yes. I suppose I do.”
“And always will.”
“I expect so. So, you see, I’m sorry, but I’m afraid our marriage will have to be one in name only because, for the life of me, I could not live with myself if I were untrue to the truest and dearest of creatures.” He gave her an apologetic shrug.
For a second she could only stare at him and then all the pain, all the rage, all the loss and heartbreak and unhappiness of the last twelve hours came boiling up and erupted from her lips. “Then why the bloody hell did you
marry me and not her?”
He gaped at her.
“You say you love her, you needed a wife, and there is”—she bit off the word—“there was no legal or moral reason keeping you from asking for her hand in marriage and yet you did not. By God,” Lydia spat, fury such as she’d never known filling her, “if the woman is stupid enough and has so little regard for herself that she would stay with you after this, she deserves whatever unfeeling treatment you give her.”
“Don’t say that!” Childe shouted, leaping to his feet.
“Why not? It’s true.”
“I couldn’t marry her. She’s . . . she’s my mistress!”
“Ha! As though no man has ever married his mistress,” Lydia said, sweeping aside his excuse. “If you seek to emulate the highest orders, Mr. Smyth, best start by growing a spine. All great men have one.”
“Kitty—”
“Kitty may as well be a cat for all the consideration you’ve given her.”
“That’s a lie!” he shouted, stomping toward her. “I love her!”
She flung her head back, impaling him with a fiery glare. “You love your consequence far more. And may it keep you company with all your money, because they shall end up being your only companions.”
For a long moment they stared at each other, Lydia’s chin high, Childe’s face red with indignation and hurt. And then, abruptly, all the fight went out of him and before her eyes, he seemed to crumble in on himself. His head fell forward and he reached trembling hands up to his face.
“What am I going to do?”
She looked down at him, her husband, and felt only pity. He could have married for love and chose not to. What a fool. He looked up at her, his eyes red-rimmed and bleary. “What am I going to do?”
The mantel clock tolled and wearily she looked at it. It was three thirty. All the anger drained from her. Childe’s attack of remorse had only been a distraction from what needed to be done.
Time to go.
“You are going to give me your personal note for fifty thousand pounds,” she said in a hollow voice.
The Golden Season Page 29
