Then Mr. Hadley arrived, a little man with a big smile and a voice like gravel.
“Me and the missus,” he said with a grin, “we got these two dogs and three cats. Ain’t got no little ‘uns, you see. So we got dogs and cats instead. We’d have more of ‘em if we had room. The missus, she pure loves ‘em.”
Fiona asked him some more questions. And every answer confirmed her feelings. Here—at last—was the man for the job.
She told him so. “I want you and Mrs. Hadley to live on the premises. To give the animals a real home.”
Mr. Hadley grinned. “The missus ain’t gonna believe it. Us having all them animals.” He frowned. “But what about our own?”
“You’ll bring them with you, of course.”
Smiling and nodding, Mr. Hadley finally backed from the room.
Propping her elbows on the table, Fiona let her head sink into her hands. She was elated to have finally found someone to run the shelter. And she was pleased that things with Dreyford were getting back to normal. But she was so tired. Their confrontation over Caro Lamb had taken its toll on her.
She heard the creak of the opening door. “Kitty, I think—”
But it was not Kitty. It was . . . It couldn’t be, but it was. The man who stood there was Lonigan.
She stared at him, hardly able to believe her eyes.
He stared back at her. “Fiona! Is it truly you, me darling?”
“Yes. I— You’re alive!” What a stupid thing to say. But her heart was pounding so, she could hardly think.
He grinned. “That I am, lass. Alive and kicking. Did ye think otherwise?”
“I—” Her tongue didn’t want to work properly and her mind seemed dazed. “When you didn’t come home, I thought—”
“You thought I’d kicked off. No, no, me darling. I was pressed. Into the navy. That’s why I vanished the way I did.”
She nodded. All these years she had hoped— prayed—to see him alive again. And now that he was here, standing before her, she didn’t know what to do, what to say.
His glance took in her expensive walking dress. His grin broadened. “Ye’ve come up in the world, I see. What Lord has the keeping of ye now?”
“Keeping?” For some reason she did not mention her marriage. “Oh, ah, you wouldn’t know him.”
Lonigan grinned. “A young pup, huh? Well, bully for you.”
She tried to get her thoughts in order, to make sense out of this. “Why, why are you here?”
He hooked his thumbs in his waistcoat, a gaudy affair shot with gold thread and showing considerable wear. “I seen an advertisement. To run some kind of shelter. So here I am.”
For a moment in her shock she’d forgotten all about the shelter. “Oh, yes. I’m sorry. That position’s been filled.”
He shrugged. “Ah, well. ‘Tis still me lucky day. I’ll just—”
“Fiona.” Tying her bonnet strings. Kitty came hurrying through the door. “I’m sorry to bother you, but I really must leave. Ginsfield gets positively bearish when I’m late.” Her eyes widened as she saw the stranger standing there.
“This is Mr. Lonigan,” Fiona explained, trying to behave normally. “I was just telling him that Mr. Hadley’s already been given the position we advertised.” She turned to the man who had once been her husband. “I’m sorry to rush you, sir. But we must be on our way.”
“Of course.” He bowed to them with a flourish. “Till we meet again, ladies.”
Kitty stared after him. “A strange man. Looks almost like a gentleman. One of those Irish fortune hunters, no doubt.”
Fiona nodded. Her heart was pounding in her throat. She had to get home, to think, to understand what this all meant. “Come, let’s go. We don’t want to make Ginsfield bearish.”
Later, in the privacy of her room, Fiona sank down on the chaise longue. Lonigan was alive! Moments ago he’d been standing right there in front of her.
But she felt no joy, no elation. She felt— She put a hand to her trembling mouth. She felt a terrible anxiety.
If Lonigan was really, legally, her husband, she did not belong here, in this house that belonged to the Earl of Dreyford. And what of Dreyford? If he knew, what would he say? What would he do?
Her thoughts raced as she tried to remember how Lonigan had acted, what he had said to her. But her memory was blurred, overlaid with the haze of anxiety. She tried to reconcile the man she had seen with the memory she’d carried these many years. The way he dressed and carried himself, qualities she had once so admired, now seemed cheap and pretentious. The voice that had once thrilled her now rang insincerely in her ears. And his smile—the smile she had remembered for so long—was now a false and fulsome thing.
Tears rose to her eyes. All these years she’d been loving a dream, a pretty dream of her own devising. Whatever she had felt for Lonigan no longer existed. It had died long ago.
He might once have been her husband, the center of her life. But now—she bit her bottom lip as she recognized the fearful truth—her body, her heart, belonged to Dreyford.
But her husband did not love her. He did not believe in love. And if he discovered the truth . . . She could not think about that.
She rose and washed her face. Perhaps she was being foolish. At any rate, she must go on as usual. It was time to dress for the soiree.
* * * *
That evening, wearing the peach satin and the Dreyford emeralds, she gazed around her. Lady Jersey’s dining room held a dazzling collection of society’s notables. If only she could get some of these people to help with the shelter. But several grand dames had already looked down their aristocratic noses and sniffed at the suggestion that they might want to help. They would rather squander their money on more useless gowns and jewels.
But then, what could she expect? In a city where babies were regularly abandoned, who would think to care about animals?
Across the beautifully laid table Lord Byron chuckled. He did not look at all-downcast, this man who had ruined Caro Lamb’s life.
Fiona’s heart skipped a beat. The scandal about Caro had been on everyone’s tongue for weeks. But that would be nothing compared to the furor that would be aroused if it were discovered that she and Dreyford were not legally married.
She must stop this kind of thinking. Lonigan might intend nothing. He might already have left the city. She might never see him again. There was no use in borrowing trouble.
Besides, there was trouble already in the room. Roxanne had been seated on Byron’s right. And Roxanne was her usual seductive self, leaning toward the poet in a manner that allowed the bosom of her gown to fall away.
Fiona sighed. Poor Caro had definitely made a mistake in loving this man. There he sat, laughing and joking with Roxanne as though Caro Lamb had never meant a thing to him. And perhaps she hadn’t. But Caro was so sure she had.
At least in her own case, she had that advantage. If such it could be called. She knew that her husband did not love her. He had been very clear on that point. But at least he did not love anyone else. And there lay her hope.
Dreyford sat on Roxanne’s other side. He was close enough for Fiona to see, but too far away to converse with. It was a deplorable habit of hostesses, Fiona felt, the seating of husbands and wives so far apart. She wished he were by her side. Even silent he was better company than the foppish Phillipe de Noir who sat on her left. De Noir made another inane remark and she smiled blankly and nodded.
And then Roxanne laughed. The sound made Fiona look up from her roast pheasant. Roxanne’s words carried easily across the table. “Oh, my dear George,” she simpered, “you are too amusing.”
Lord Byron smiled. “I assure you. It is true.”
Roxanne’s laughter shrilled out. “Oh, silly boy, you can’t mean it.”
“Indeed I do.”
Lady Jersey looked up from her plate. “Come, Roxanne. You must share your little joke with the rest of us.”
To Fiona’s su
rprise, Byron began to look a trifle embarrassed. But Roxanne apparently felt no constraint. She looked around the table, intent on an audience. “He was just telling me all the things she did. Following him around in that page’s outfit. And sending him love letters. And hair from—” Dreyford coughed and Roxanne stopped in midsentence.
But she recovered herself quickly and went on. “Imagine a woman going about dressed as a page. And look what she did at Lady Heathcote’s ball. It’s scandalous for a lady to behave so.” Roxanne’s red lips pursed in a pout. “Her husband ought to go to Parliament and get a writ of divorce.”
The room grew silent. Across the table from Fiona, Byron suddenly found his pheasant of great interest. Others, too, focused their attention on their plates. No one said anything. No one offered one word in defense of poor Caro Lamb.
And Fiona’s hackles went up. “Perhaps,” she said, and the words fell into the silence like little cannon shells exploding, “perhaps her husband loves her.”
A glance at Dreyford showed him frowning fiercely. She would hear about this later. But at the moment she didn’t care. She hurried on. “Some husbands do, you know, love their wives.” Her eyes met Roxanne’s. “But of course you cannot be expected to understand that. The only husbands you know belong to other women.”
Dreyford’s look grew even darker. Roxanne paled and turned to him, putting a possessive hand on his sleeve. “At least I should not leave my husband while I ran around after stray curs.” She raised an eyebrow. “Or have you some other reason for your excursions to Fleet Street?”
A picture of Lonigan flashed into Fiona’s mind. But Roxanne could not possibly know about him. “I want to do something helpful in this world,” Fiona said. “But I cannot expect you to understand compassion, either, since I doubt you have ever in your life experienced it.”
Lady Jersey made a moue of distaste. She did not approve of such altercations at her dinner table. “Dear Roxanne,” she said, with a quelling glance in Fiona’s direction, “you must tell me where you got that marvelous gown.”
Swallowing a sigh, Fiona subsided. There was little point in saying more, she thought, pushing the food around her plate. These people—people like Roxanne—did not know how to think of anyone but themselves. No one would take Caro’s side. They were all intent on lionizing Byron, that pretty poet.
And now she had angered Dreyford again, just when she should be on her best behavior. And that catty remark of Roxanne’s would linger in his mind. If he did find out about Lonigan, he would come to an entirely wrong conclusion. Oh, why had she let that woman irritate her so?
There was no answer to that question or to the others that plagued her throughout the long and difficult evening. She understood that they could not leave immediately after dinner. Certainly she didn’t fancy giving the impression she’d been dragged away in disgrace. But to stay until almost everyone else had gone, that thought pushed her already taut nerves almost to the breaking point.
Still, she managed, smiling and chatting until finally, mercifully, they had made their farewells and her husband handed her into the carriage.
“I know I embarrassed you,” she said into the silence as the coach pulled away. “I’m sorry for that. Though not for what I said.” She sighed. This silence of his was almost worse than being shouted at.
“I do not understand the ways of the ton,” she went on. “Surely Roxanne is worse than Caro Lamb. Roxanne deliberately entices other women’s husbands. Sometimes I think she does it just for the sport of it.”
In the light of the carriage lamps Dreyford looked fierce, but she pushed on. “Caro loves Byron. I know, milord, you do not believe in love. But why is love more scandalous than—than, say, dalliance? Why does Lady Jersey invite Byron and not Caro? Was he not equally guilty in the matter? And look. Lady Jersey seats you beside Roxanne. She sees nothing wrong with putting you next to your former inamorata.”
Watching her, Dreyford swallowed a sigh. She was making life difficult for them both with her defense of the little Lamb. He should be very angry. He was, in sober fact, quite disturbed by tonight’s fiasco. It would echo through the ton for days to come. And they did not need that sort of attention.
But he was also aware of something else. He realized that he admired his wife’s courage. She was foolish, of course. Probably wrong. But where she believed, she stood firm. She was a good friend, a loyal friend.
But all her impassioned defenses of the Lamb, or of love, would change nothing. The ton had its own values. And love, compassion, and loyalty counted for very little with them. Yes, they would be talking about her again, especially about that remark of Roxanne’s concerning Fleet Street.
He sighed. He had never liked his wife going into such a neighborhood. Huggins had strict instructions to stay close, to keep an eye on things.
He had not, of course, told the coachman to report on her visitors there. And he would not. These were the musings of a jealous husband. Not the sort of thing he would do.
Besides, to suspect Fiona of unfaithfulness was the outside of foolishness.
She was staring at him, plainly waiting for his temper to explode. Assuredly, he was not a man of great patience. He had handled the whole Caro Lamb affair in the worst possible fashion. And now. . . . Here was a second chance.
“Please—” There was the slightest quaver in her voice. “Please, Dreyford, shout at me. Shout at me and get it over with. I know you think I deserve it. Perhaps I do. But please, just shout. Then talk to me again.”
She sat there, braced upright, waiting for him to pummel her with his words. And suddenly he found that he had no need to restrain his temper. He concluded, almost to his surprise, that he was not angry with his wife.
“What you did was foolish,” he said. “But I am not angry.”
She gaped at him. “You’re not?”
“No, my dear. You were being loyal to your friend.”
“But you said—”
“I don’t agree with you, of course,” he continued. “Because I think the little Lamb, in her own way, is just as willful as Roxanne. But I believe I can see your point.”
Plainly she did not believe him. “Yes, well—”
“I spent the evening by your side, didn’t I?”
Her mouth twisted. “Yes. But there was your reputation to consider.”
He did not dispute that. “Quite true. But I have been dragged through the mud before. And, I assure you, it is not a pleasant experience. I should like to have you spared such an ordeal.”
Clearly she did not know how to respond to this unusual turn of events. He didn’t wait for her to come up with more arguments, but moved swiftly over to the squabs beside her. “I admire loyalty,” he said softly. “And I practice it myself.”
Up close he could see there were tears in her eyes. He pulled her to him and kissed them away. “Forget the ton,” he said, slipping his arm around her. “Forget Caro Lamb. Think only of us.”
* * *
Chapter 10
For several days Fiona expected Lonigan to show up at any moment. Things were once again right between her and Dreyford, and she did all she could to keep them that way, making no mention of Caro Lamb to anyone. But the memory of Lonigan was always there. Would he appear at the shelter again?
Still, when the days passed with no word from him, she began to think that Cousin Charles had for once been right. Their marriage had been a sham and Lonigan had no claim on her. She wanted desperately to believe that, but somehow she could not quite convince herself.
In the meantime she poured all her energies into the work for the shelter. Even when she wrote to Caro at her mother’s country house, the letter was full of the shelter. Seeing this, she appended a note suggesting that on her return Caro might want to help with the work there.
The shelter was set to open on Monday next but Fiona had the Hadleys and their menagerie moved in on Friday. That afternoon she came home, weary and satisfied, after
seeing them settled. Ben, considerably cleaner now that she’d insisted he bathe every day, perched on the velvet squabs across from her, chattering happily about his puppies. “And I been doing me job,” he said proudly. “They all knows about it.”
“They?” Fiona said absently, her mind on other matters.
Ben’s mouth turned down. “Them what lives around there. I told ‘em all. And they’ll tell others.”
Of course. She smiled at him. “You’re a good boy, Ben. You know, without you there wouldn’t have been any shelter.”
The child’s face turned red. “Oh, no, me lady. It was your idea.”
“Let’s share the credit, then,” she said, wishing she could be more enthusiastic. She was just so tired. She’d been driving herself every moment. And she knew it was not just to get the shelter ready on time. At least when she was busy there, she could keep Lonigan out of her mind.
They reached the house and Ben smiled at her. “Will you be coming out to the stable to see the pups?”
She was bone weary, but the boy’s eagerness tugged at her heart. “Yes, Ben. Of course.”
Half an hour later, she was climbing the back stairs. She wanted a bath and a night of uninterrupted sleep, both rather unlikely at the moment. When she emerged in the upper hallway, Millie turned from her dusting. “Oh, milady. There you are. You had a caller this afternoon. And a pretty fine gentleman he was.”
Fiona’s heart hit the roof of her mouth and plummeted to the pit of her stomach. “Did he leave his name?”
Millie flushed. “I didn’t hear it, milady. I was doing the hall here and I peeked over the banister to see if it was you coming home.”
Fiona nodded. “Very well, Millie.”
Wearily she turned away. In her bones she felt that it was Lonigan and he would return. If only she had some way to stop him. But first she’d have to see what he wanted.
She washed and went down to the drawing room. A quick inquiry to Berkins told her the gentleman had left no card. But he had said he would be back soon. She had expected that. Patience had never been one of Lonigan’s better qualities.
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