“It has been some years since I was under the hatches, and I do not expect to be there again.”
Ashley wondered whether that was because Henry also anticipated inheriting the Bourn fortune. “What prompted you to take a house?”
“I desire respectability. The Neel family will have to find another black sheep to look down its collective nose at.” Seeing Ashley’s startled look, he said bitterly, “No, don’t deny that’s the way they feel about me. You were the only one who was even civil to me.”
“Merely civil?”
Henry smiled. “No, a good deal more than that. I haven’t forgotten how you helped me out from time to time when my pockets were all to let. You took quite a risk doing so. If that sanctimonious brother of yours had ever learned of your loans to me, he would have insisted your father cut off your funds. I often wondered why you bothered with me.”
“I liked you.” And that was the truth. Henry never pretended to be more or better than he was, making no excuses for himself, his gambling, or his exploits in the petticoat line. He was as apt to turn his mocking sense of humor against himself as anyone else.
“Liked me, did you.” Henry snorted. “To be sure, you were the only Neel that ever did. That puffed-up brother of yours made it very plain that I was an embarrassment to the exalted family name.”
“I never thought you cared a whit what William thought,” Ashley said in surprise.
“I would not have given him that satisfaction,” Henry retorted bitterly.
Ashley felt suddenly chilled. “You hated William, didn’t you?”
“Detested him,” Henry replied bluntly. “I don’t adhere to that rubbish about not speaking ill of the dead.”
“Did you detest him enough to murder him?” Ashley asked with equal bluntness.
The color faded from Henry’s face. “What?” he demanded hoarsely.
“Did you kill my brother?”
Henry winced. For a fraction of a second, his eyes broke contact with Ashley’s, betraying him.
The viscount stared at his cousin in shocked disbelief. “Good God, Henry!”
Recovering himself, his cousin said, “I did not murder William!”
For a moment, the room was as silent as a tomb as the two men’s gazes locked. Henry looked away first, saying sharply, “You have no evidence against me.”
“What about the one-eared man that Mercer Corte saw sneaking from the stable the night before the race?”
Henry shrugged. “What about him?”
“Who is he?”
“How should I know?”
“Are you in the habit of meeting with men you do not know in the back slums of the Holy Land?”
His cousin glared at him in sullen silence.
“Why, Henry? Is it the title that you want?”
“I told you, I did not murder William!”
“You don’t know how much I wish I could believe you.”
“No, I don’t!” Henry said bitterly. “You cannot wait to unjustly convict the family’s black sheep on the flimsiest of evidence. And I thought you were different from the others.”
“And I thought you were better,” Ashley said, his disillusionment echoing in his voice.
“What do you mean to do now?”
Ashley rose. “Expose the truth. If you were responsible for William’s death, I swear to you that I shall see you in Newgate.”
He turned on his heel and went to the door.
Henry called after him, his voice as ominous as a sudden thunderclap, “I warn you, Vinson, leave well enough alone, or you will regret it!”
Chapter 17
When Ashley returned to Bourn House from his visit to Henry, Estelle’s frigid reply to his note awaited him. If he wished to see her, he could call on her at her home in Hertford Street. Both the tone of her message and the location she had chosen for their meeting told him that he was in her black books even before she learned of his marriage.
Riding to Hertford Street, it occurred to Ashley that not only was he dreading this meeting with Estelle, but that he had not missed her nearly so much as he had expected to during his absence at Bellhaven.
Lady Roxley received him in her drawing room. After her note, he was not surprised that her greeting was as cold and formal as the room itself, with its stiffly arranged furniture. She remained seated on a Sheraton settee that was placed against the far wall, forcing him to cross the room to her.
As he did, he observed, as he had so often, what a jewel of rare loveliness she was. Indeed, he always thought of her in terms of gems: her eyes were a unique and startling violet that reminded him of a pair of flawless amethysts; her lips were ruby red against a complexion as creamy and lustrous as fine pearls; her raven hair shone like jet. Legions of besotted admirers had likened her to Aphrodite.
She did not rise to greet Ashley and extended no invitation for him to sit. He remained standing before her while she eyed him coldly, making clear her displeasure with him. At last she silently offered him a slender hand, its fingers weighted with costly rings. As he brought it to his lips, she petulantly demanded why he had been so tardy in returning to London—and to her.
“I fear that being my father’s heir entails certain onerous duties,” he said with a rueful sigh, “one of which I was obliged to discharge.”
Only slightly mollified, she asked coolly, “What was this time-consuming obligation?”
“Marriage.”
A startled gasp escaped her lips. “I do not find such a joke amusing!”
“I do not joke. I have married Levisham’s daughter. But it need have no effect on our connection,” Ashley hastened to reassure her. “Duty need not interfere with pleas—”
A torrent of fury, more ungenteel than anything Ashley had heard even from the most inelegant of the muslin company, erupted from Estelle’s beautiful ruby lips like a volcanic eruption.
It was several moments before she regained sufficient control of herself and her tongue to realize that her lover had dropped her hand and was staring at her in appalled silence. Recognizing her error, she gave him a beseeching look, asking in brokenhearted accents how he could have betrayed her love for him so cruelly by marrying another.
“Why are you so distressed that I have acquired a wife when it was you who foreclosed the possibility of our marrying by spuming my offer and wedding another man?” he asked her, not unreasonably.
When Bourn had said he would cut his younger son off without a penny should he marry her, Estelle had preferred to be rich Lady Roxley to penniless Mrs. Neel. But she had been far too clever to tell Ashley that. Instead, she had assured him that although she loved him wildly, she could not bear to be the cause of an estrangement between him and the earl, thereby cunningly assuring the very break between father and son that she had professed to want to avoid.
Now, she wanted to scream at Ashley that she had rejected him when he had been a second son who appeared to have no chance to inherit the Bourn title or fortune, but she could not tell him that. Instead, she asked in her most wounded tone, “How can you treat me so cruelly when I love you so?”
The viscount’s eyebrow raised. “Yes, you loved me so much that you married Roxley instead,” he said dryly.
“Surely you are not jealous of him. You have no reason to be.”
“No,” he agreed amiably, “I do not.”
She stared at him uneasily, uncertain of how to interpret his answer.
“You know that I must marry for an heir,” Ashley said softly.
Estelle, who had hoped to be the mother of that heir, felt as though she would choke on her own frustration. She had been certain that her boring, clutch-fisted husband, twenty years her senior, would meet the early demise he deserved, freeing her to marry Ashley and become the countess of Bourn. “Roxley will not live forever, ” she snapped.
“Neither will I,” Ashley retorted coolly.
His unexpected attitude worried Estelle, and abruptly she switched tactics. Burying her face
in her handkerchief, she cried, “You have broken my heart. You are the only man that I have ever loved, and now you have played me false. Marrying behind my back without even a word to me. Go away, you heartless creature.”
“Estelle,” he began, putting his arm about her shoulder. “Pray, do not—”
But she jerked away from him, crying dramatically, “Go away at once! I cannot bear the sight of your perfidious face!”
To her astonishment, instead of pleading with her to let him stay, he rose, saying abruptly, “As you wish.”
Estelle watched him move toward the door of the drawing room, certain that he was expecting her to stop him. But she would not. Instead, she would let him worry that he had lost her. She would bring him to his knees, and he would pay a handsome price to be restored to her good graces—and to her boudoir. She would see to that.
Already she could envision the ruby and diamond necklace that she had admired last week at her favorite jeweler encircling her swanlike neck.
Caro had known that she would miss Ashley, but she was unprepared for how much. Unprepared, too, for how lonely she was without him. She had become shockingly accustomed to his cosseting of her, and she missed spending her days with him. Touching her lips, she remembered his kiss and yearned for more. How right Emily had been.
Three days after Ashley’s departure, a discreet announcement of their marriage was published in the Gazette. Its appearance was followed the next day by the arrival of Olive Kelsie at Bellhaven. The newspaper notice had wiped out in one stroke her two most cherished dreams, and she had set out posthaste for Bellhaven to assure herself that the announcement was a malicious, libelous error.
Remembering the marquess’s ban on her appearance there, she asked to see Caro, telling the butler, “Do not bother the marquess. My business is only with his daughter.”
The servant nodded enigmatically. He had no intention of sending the marquess into a pelter.
When Caro confirmed to Olive that she and Ashley were married, her aunt could not contain her rage and venom. “No doubt you think yourself quite the thing to have hooked such a prime catch, but you are a prime fool!” Olive’s eyes glittered malevolently. “He has a mistress with whom he is wildly in love.”
“Yes, I know,” Caro replied with her characteristic honesty.
This answer deflated her aunt momentarily, but she recovered quickly. “He married only because his father ordered it. I myself heard Vinson proclaim that it did not matter in the slightest to him whom he married because he could not wed the woman he loved. With my own ears, I heard him say that he would happily accept any woman who would turn a blind eye to sharing him with his mistress.”
Her aunt’s words stabbed Caro like a rapier blade. So that was why her father had been so emphatic that she give Ashley her word she would not object to his mistress. Caro recalled again with burning clarity Ashley’s answer when she had asked him the day they met why he was not married: I have known no lady as complaisant as you.
“My own daughters refused to accept him on such insulting terms,” Olive continued, ignoring the fact that, despite her best efforts, neither of her daughters was given a chance to do so. “Have you not a shred of pride that you would agree to such a demeaning bargain? No, of course you do not.” She laughed contemptuously. “Such an anecdote as you cannot afford pride. You were far too happy to catch a man to care what the terms might be.”
But Caro had a great deal of pride, too much to let her aunt know how devastated she was by her revelations.
“Where is your bridegroom?” Olive demanded.
When Caro told her, Olive jeered, “So, after less than a fortnight of marriage, he has fled from you for London and Lady Roxley! No doubt you think that in time you can lure him away from her. What a fool you are! She is the most beautiful woman in England, and he has been mad for her for years. You will never take Vinson away from her.”
“I do not care,” Caro said with as much dignity as she could muster in her pain. She was determined not to let her aunt know how very much she did care, and her chin tilted proudly. “I have always said that the only marriage I would consider was one like Lady Fraser’s, and now I have it.” Yes, she did, God help her!
“If you are such a fool, your father is not. What could he have been thinking of to permit such a humiliating union?”
Humiliating union! Her aunt’s cruel words goaded Caro into replying, “He felt, as I do, that anything was preferable to being forced to marry your odious son.”
Olive was speechless at the revelation that Levisham had divined her ambition and outwitted her just when it seemed within her grasp. Then her rage overcame her, and she screamed, “You impertinent chit! I promise you that you’ll rue the day you made such a devil’s bargain with Vinson.”
Chapter 18
Two weeks later, Levisham and Caro were sitting on the terrace at Bellhaven when Abigail Foster was announced.
“Here!” Caro cried in surprise, delighted that Abigail, whom she loved like an older sister, had returned for a visit. “I had no notion she was not in Scotland.”
When Abigail appeared in the doorway to the terrace, Caro exclaimed, “What a wonderful surprise, isn’t it, Papa?”
But he did not seem to share her delight. His face had hardened, and he said nothing.
“Your sister-in-law said nothing about your coming for a visit! When did you...” Caro’s voice trailed off in shock as Abigail stepped out of the shadow of the doorway into the full light of the terrace.
Her habitual vivacious demeanor was nowhere in evidence. Her pretty face looked worn, weary, and years older than when she had left for Scotland a mere nine months ago. She leaned on her long, unfashionable umbrella as if for support. Her gown was old, unbecoming, and travel-worn. Her sky-blue eyes no longer sparkled but were dull and sad, and now they looked apprehensively at Levisham, as though uneasy about the welcome he would accord her.
“Neither my sister-in-law nor my brother have the smallest notion that I am here, and I pray that you will not tell them.” Abigail turned an entreating face toward Levisham. She gasped as she took in his shrunken body and wan, hollow-eyed face. An agonized look contorted her own features.
Caro, who thought her father’s improvement in recent days amazing, was startled by their guest’s reaction. Then she remembered that Abigail had left for Scotland before the fever that so decimated Levisham had struck him last spring and had not seen him since.
“Oh, God, George,” Abigail burst out, “what is wrong? You look so very ill!”
She looked as though she wanted to throw herself into the invalid’s arms. In that unguarded moment, Caro saw in Abigail’s eyes the same unconsciously speaking look that Emily often gave Mercer Corte. Abigail was in love with her father!
Turning to him, Caro saw the harsh, angry expression that he had worn since Abigail’s arrival suddenly soften.
“Although I may not look it, I am much improved,” he said.
“I don’t understand.” Abigail’s confused voice again betrayed the depth of her feelings. “You have always been the strongest man I know.”
“One would almost think you cared,” the marquess said bitterly.
“I do care!” she exclaimed violently. Belatedly realizing what she was revealing, she amended hastily, “You have always been a most cherished friend of my father and myself.”
“Have I now?” Levisham responded wryly, an odd light in his gray eyes. “Why are you here when you do not want your brother and his wife to know that you are in the neighborhood?”
A dull red flush spread over Abigail’s face and she stared down at her feet. “I have run away from my aunt. She is such a dour, evil-tempered old harridan, complaining endlessly about everything and everyone, that I would rather die than remain in her company! I was nothing but her unpaid servant without a moment’s respite from her ceaseless demands.”
Levisham studied Abigail’s dusty, travel-wrinkled costume. “What do you propose to do
now?”
She lifted her eyes, brimming with sadness, and looked out across the formal garden that lay below the terrace. “I cannot go to my brother, for his odious wife will insist that I be returned to my aunt. And I have no money, for although Papa left me a respectable income, he placed it under my brother’s control. Darrow is as clutch-fisted as Amelia Coleberd’s husband, and, like Amelia, I have no recourse. It is not fair!”
“Life rarely is,” Levisham said coldly.
Abigail cast a beseeching look at him. “I know that you no doubt wish me at Jericho and that I have no right to make such a request of your generosity, but there is no one else I can apply to. I was hoping that you might see fit to hire me as a companion-chaperone for Caro until she marries.”
“She is already married.”
“What?” Abigail’s startled eyes flew first to Levisham’s face, then to Caro’s. “Surely you cannot be!” Her proudly straight shoulders collapsed in despair.
Caro, her soft heart wrung by her friend’s dejection, hurried to her side and put her arms about her.
“Who is your husband?” Abigail asked.
“Lord Vinson,” Levisham interposed.
Abigail’s eyes widened in amazement. “You jest!”
“Why should you think so?” Levisham demanded coldly.
Poor Abigail, blushing scarlet, stammered, “Caro is not at all in Vinson’s usual style.”
Caro hid the pain that Abigail’s words caused her. Even her dear friend recognized what a mésalliance her marriage was. But Caro had no time to waste on her own unhappiness in the face of Abigail’s. Tightening her arms around the older woman, Caro assured her, “I should like very much to have you as my companion.”
“Put that notion from your mind, Caro,” Levisham said curtly.
Tears welled in Abigail’s eyes, and she whispered mournfully, “I do not know what I shall do.”
Caro, feeling her own eyes grow moist in sympathy, cried, “Papa, how can you be so cruel, turning her away like this?”
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