Saber was helpless to check his forward momentum—or his impact with Ella. Arms flailing, she fell backward—into Devlin’s arms.
“I say!” Max didn’t attempt to mask his glee at the proceedings. “Jolly good scuffle. Out of the way, our Ellie.”
Hitting Devlin while he held Ella was out of the question. Saber opened and closed his hands in frustration. “Unhand her,” he said, furious with his loss of control. “Come here, Ella.”
She was lovely in green, lovely, flushed, and bright-eyed. And, despite her wrathful words, she looked at him with the love he so wanted yet so feared. With only a backward glance at Devlin, she came to Saber, stood before him, and rested a trembling hand on his arm.
He covered that hand on his arm and glared at Devlin over her head. “Explain yourself.”
“Nothing to explain,” Devlin said, his face tight and pale. “Trying to do a good turn for people I care about. Too bad a fella can’t do a good turn without being held to ridicule.”
“He asked Ellie to marry him,” Max said. “Wanted to save you the trouble, evidently.”
“Hush, Max,” Ella said. “Don’t inflame matters. I’m sure there is a perfectly good explanation for this muddle.”
Saber wished he knew what that explanation was. “Don’t interfere, there’s a good chap, Max,” he said, never taking his eyes from Devlin’s. “We’ll take this up later, hmm?”
Devlin nodded. “As you say. But I want it known that my intentions were honorable. And I also want Ella to know that I hold her in the highest esteem—and that what I know will never go farther.”
“Bit late,” Max said.
Saber eyed the boy.
Max thrust his hands into his pockets, rolled upon his toes and jiggled. “Just stating the truth. Wretched female visited earlier. Name of Able. Jabbering about rumors. Rumors about Ellie. She said they were all over Town. Talk of the ton.”
“The devil you say,” Devlin said. “She’s got to be stopped.”
“Ella’s concerns are my affair,” Saber told him quietly. “I don’t know what you were thinking here, friend—really thinking—but—”
“He thought to help me,” Ella said. “To save me because he believed you had decided you could not—could not. That you could not.”
“He thought to marry you because I could not?” Saber held Devlin’s gaze. “But I can. And I will. Just as soon as the arrangements can be made. And I do so with your family’s blessings.” At least with the dowager’s blessings, but the rest would follow, of that Saber was certain.
Devlin set his lips together. He strode around them all and made his way rapidly from the house.
“Dash, that was splendid,” Max said. “The two most eligible men in England fighting over you, Ellie!”
“There is only one man whose regard matters to me,” she said. “And he chooses to make me happier than I had ever thought possible.”
Rage had briefly banished dread. Now it returned. Happy? He would make her a bride, then a widow whose husband lived yet did not live. But he could not let her go again.
He would give her his name and his fortune. And he would watch over her—until the sickness claimed him forever. By then he must have made her his heir. As a rich woman in her own right she would be safe. And perhaps, God help him, she would ease his way to the end. Ella loved him, he must never stop believing she did.
“Saber? I will be a good wife to you. I will care for you always.”
“Because I am an invalid? Because I am crazed?” The words were spoken and could not be recalled. He wrenched his arm from her. “You’ve got what you wanted, now leave me be.”
“Saber!”
“I have matters to attend to.” He left her and didn’t look back.
“Saber, please!”
Damn his selfishness. His life was forfeit. Now, with his promise of “happiness,” he condemned Ella to walk with him into hell.
“Follow me, Bigun,” the dowager heard Blanche Bastible announce as she opened the door to the bedchamber. “Such a great deal of fuss. Lord Avenall’s staff is upsetting this household entirely. Why there should be such commotion over a little thing like moving one man’s possessions, I cannot imagine. It must cease before the dowager is reduced to complete collapse. But Her Grace will insist upon seeing you now. She is in bed, trying to rest. Do nothing to excite her.”
The dowager made a hasty check of her beribboned nightcap and closed her eyes.
“Did you hear me, fellow?”
“Yes,” Saber’s odd servant said. “Oh, yes, dear lady, I hear you.”
Blanche asked, “What is your country?”
The dowager contained an irritated puff.
“India, if it pleases you, my lady.”
“India, hmm? Well, I particularly like your hat. I shall have my modiste make one like it for me. And regardless of the staff’s opinion, I consider your red chair quite marvelous.”
“Thank you, my lady.”
From her vast and heavily carved mahogany bed draped with dark tapestries, the dowager decided it was time to make her presence known. “Out, Blanche,” she said loudly. “Quickly. And do not strain your back listening at the door. Go directly to that foolish creature, Rose. Ella’s maid. Tell her I should like to see her also.” She opened an eye in time to see the Indian peer in her direction while Blanche flounced from the room.
“Come closer,” the dowager told Bigun. “Be quick about it.”
Bigun advanced cautiously, then appeared very much relieved. “The cross lady!” he said, beaming. “Cross and unpleasant. Your humors have made you sick, I see. It is often the way.”
“Your Grace,” she told him. “Kindly refer to me as Your Grace.”
“Ah, yes. The old duchess—”
“Oh, what this family of mine brings me to. Disrespect. Reliance upon strangers. Come closer, I tell you.”
Obligingly enough, the gaudily dressed servant went to the side of the bed. He peered at her. “How may I help you, lady?”
She scowled more fiercely. “I will not lose my temper!”
“Most wise.”
“I wish to whisper to you. That fool Blanche is probably listening, even though I told her not to.”
Bigun blinked and bent over her. “My attention is yours, lady. Your Grace.”
With one small, bony hand, she caught him by the ear. She put her mouth next to that ear and murmured, “Good. This is what you will do.”
Almost twenty-four hours had passed since Saber announced his intention to marry her. In the unlikely company of Margot, Countess Perruche, Ella rode in the Park. The countess had sent a message requesting that Ella join her, and Ella had been too curious to refuse.
Beneath skies the color of blue crystal, they trotted, side by side, along Rotten Row. Ella spared a sideways look for the countess, whose elegant black veil enhanced rather than hid her perfection.
Behind them on the crowded path trotted a groom who had come with the countess.
“I couldn’t think of a safer place for us to talk,” the countess said when they had been riding for some minutes. She inclined her head to a gentleman who rode toward them. He brought his crop to the brim of his hat in a smart salute. “I fear there may be some misunderstanding about my relationship to Saber. Under the circumstances, I’m sure you agree that we should make sure that is no longer the case.”
Yet again she was in the company of someone whom Saber chose to take into his confidence on exceedingly personal matters. Ella had not seen him since he declared to Devlin his intention to marry her. He’d absented himself immediately and hadn’t returned, yet he’d found time to seek out this woman’s companionship.
“First, I must tell you how glad I am that you and Saber are to marry. He is a fine man and will make you a fine husband.”
A fine man. The countess might try to sound dispassionate, but she cared for Saber. And Saber cared for her. Max had spoken of how natural it was for men of a certain class to maintain
relationships with women other than their wives …
It did not have to be. Ella could not bear such a thought.
She studied the other woman’s gray habit, the way it showed off a lush figure. How could she compete with a woman of such grace and experience?
“No engagement has been announced,” Ella said. Sun through tall oaks painted a chiaroscuro across red earth churned by many hoofs.
The countess looked at Ella. “But it will be, surely?”
Ella spurred her gray to a less sedate pace. “Are these matters ever truly in the hands of women?”
“You are younger than I by far,” the countess said, keeping up. “But I believe you are no less determined. Unless I much misjudge you, you are not a woman who will accept any fate thrust upon her.”
The countess understood her quite well, Ella decided. “I think you remarkably brave to initiate this outing,” she said. “In light of our last meeting.”
“It is because of the last meeting that I asked you to join me today. There must be no misconception about my visit to Saber the other evening.”
Ella looked straight ahead.
“I see I was indeed wise to seek you out. I am not, nor have I ever been, Saber’s… When I refer to him as my friend, I mean that we are friends and nothing more. We have both known great trouble. I was also in India. That is where we met. There is a certain empathy between us—of a completely pure nature. I seem to sense when he is troubled. I sensed it the other evening and went to him. Evidently I was mistaken.”
“You were not mistaken,” Ella said, keeping her voice level. “He had suffered some sort of nightmare. And then there was the emotional event between us.”
“Nightmare.” The countess was not asking a question. “Ah, yes, the wretched nightmares.”
“Did you know Saber is moving into the Pall Mall house?” Ella asked, raising her voice over the thud of their mounts’ hoofs. “Bigun is already in residence—at least in the vestibule.”
“How interesting. You seem determined not to address the subject of your betrothal.”
“There is no betrothal.” She did not intend to give any personal information to the woman who felt obliged to deny that she was Saber’s mistress.
Mistress. Even the word stung Ella.
“Very well,” Countess Perruche said. “You still do not trust me, do you?”
At least her flushed cheeks could be blamed on the wind. Ella pulled to the side of the trail to allow a yellow phaeton to overtake them. The occupant grinned at her as he passed. She noted how the man’s grin became assessing, avid, and she looked away. The attentions of other men were unwelcome— men other than Saber.
“You are wrong, you know.” Countess Perruche swerved to draw alongside Ella. “I am not his ladybird.”
Ella ducked her head to hide a blush too brilliant to blame on any wind.
“I am not,” the countess repeated. “What I have told you is true. We are friends. And because we are, I want to be your friend. I want to help you and Saber. But first, I must find a way to make you like me.”
“One cannot make a person like one,” Ella said, slowing down. She looked directly at the countess. “It is common knowledge that you and Saber are more than friends.”
“It is common gossip that we are more than friends. And that gossip is a lie. If you will allow me, I will explain exactly how my acquaintance with Saber began. Then I think you will understand.”
Ella took deep breaths and willed her heart to cease its hammering.
“We met in India. After he returned for a second visit.”
“I already knew you met there.”
“I was in terrible trouble. I had been duped into giving myself to a man who…He misused me terribly.”
“I’m sorry,” Ella murmured, casting a sympathetic glance at her companion.
The countess pulled up her mount.
Ella also stopped. She turned her gray around and trotted back to the other woman, who guided the chestnut she rode from the trail and into a patch of shade beyond the sweeping skirt of a willow tree.
The countess’s groom stationed himself dutifully, just out of hearing distance.
“Are you feeling unwell?” Ella asked.
“I’m…I was never married,” the other woman said, drawing in her lips. “I went through a wedding ceremony with Count Perruche, but we were not married.”
Bewildered, Ella could think of no reply.
“You don’t understand, do you?” the countess said bitterly. “We were not married because he was already married. He was a bigamist. He wanted me and knew I would not be his unless he married me.”
“How dreadful,” Ella whispered, alarmed at the countess’s pallor. “Please do not feel you must continue.”
“I want to!” The other woman glared at Ella. “You have judged me a bad woman for something I have not done. The ton judges me for the same invalid reason. The world would judge me a bad woman for something I did without knowing it.”
“Do not overset yourself.”
“Saber helped me. The count married me in Austria and took me back to India—where he had another wife to whom he was really married. I was to live in the same house with that poor woman and tolerate such behavior because if I revealed the truth, I would be cast out of polite society.”
Ella was overcome with distress. “The count broke the law,” she said indistinctly. “He could have been prosecuted.”
“That would not alter the fact that I was a ruined woman in the eyes of all Europe. I had no choice but to be treated like a servant by that desperate, spurned woman and like a …And used by a man I had come to hate.”
“Countess—”
“I had no money and nowhere to turn. Saber was invited to dine with the Perruches and, quite by chance, I encountered him on his own. He was still not at all well—just as he is not yet entirely well—and had gone to find solitude in the grounds of the house.
“I felt his goodness and I cast myself upon his mercy. He went to the count and told him he intended to pay for me to come to England. When the count protested, Saber warned him that unless he let me go, he would be unmasked as the villain he is.”
Ella saw tears in the other’s eyes and reached impulsively to touch her arm. “How very like Saber. He was very kind to me when I was a girl.”
“As you say. How like Saber.” Bitterness didn’t become the countess. “Will you try to accept that I’ve told you the truth? It has cost me dearly. I am a woman without station, except a false one as the widow of a man to whom I was never married.”
“You are a brave woman,” Ella said staunchly. “Brave and dignified. Countess—”
“No. Margot, please.” She found a small handkerchief and reached beneath her veil to blot at tears. “My name is Margot. Saber said I should continue to use that man’s title to provide myself with some protection. Perruche will never dare to show his face here or on the Continent again, but I should like you to call me Margot.”
Ella said, “Margot.”
“And in case you think that my tragedy means I am more than Saber’s indebted friend, I assure you that he is above taking advantage of such a debt. Also, much as I love Saber—as a friend—I would not ever wish to taint that friendly love with any other sort of liaison.”
“No,” Ella said. She believed her. “How do you live?”
“Not by Saber’s generosity,” Margot said, raising her chin. “Once I returned to Europe I contacted my father, who is glad to pay to keep me away from France. The money is mine anyway, from an inheritance made me by my mother. Papa lives in fear that I will return and shame him.”
“I have known great unhappiness,” Ella said simply. “I can feel yours. I can only pray that you will eventually find the joy you deserve.”
Margot smiled. Sunlight caught the glitter of tears in her thick, coppery eyelashes. “I am happy enough as I am. I have Saber and Devlin as friends. And now, I think, I have you. Am I correct?”
&nb
sp; “Most certainly,” Ella said, almost overcome with empathy and relief. “And I know my family will also be glad to welcome you.”
“Do not be too sure.” Margot’s smile was wry. “We must pursue these changes slowly. Isn’t that the man Saber has spoken of? Over there?”
Ella turned about and searched among the riders coming and going on the Row.
“Where?”
“On the bay. On the opposite side. He’s looking at us. At you, I should say. He was at the Eagletons’ that night.”
Even as Margot spoke, Ella spied the Hon. Pom. Even at a distance she could not fail to feel his singular concentration upon her.
Pomeroy Wokingham spurred his horse to a trot and crossed the Row, incurring more than one oath from riders whose paths he entered.
“Good morning, lovely ladies,” he called as he drew near.
Margot nodded.
Ella looked away.
“All alone? What’s the world comin’ to?”
“We’re not alone,” Margot said. “My groom accompanies us, Mr. er—”
“Pomeroy, Pomeroy,” the Hon. Pom said, all too heartily, sweeping off his hat to reveal the sparse sand-colored hair he wore combed slickly over his shiny scalp. “Pomeroy to my friends, and certainly Ella regards me as a friend, don’t y’ know. How are we today, Ella?”
“I’m well, Mr. Wokingham,” she said, wishing herself far away. “The countess is also well, I believe. As to you, well, I’m sure you know your own condition.”
His left eye twitched. The stiffness of his smile suggested he retained it with difficulty. “I am also well, thank you,” he said. “Nice of you to be concerned.”
“We’d best get on,” Margot said, making to return to the trail.
“Actually, I came down to look for Miss Rossmara,” Pomeroy said, his tone becoming formal. “I called at Pall Mall and was told I might find her here.”
Ella’s stomach turned over, then repeated the process.
“A fine day for a ride, I thought. I’d intended to invite you to join me, Miss Rossmara.”
“I already have company for the ride,” Ella pointed out.
Pomeroy spared Margot a sweeping stare that took her in from head to toe and lingered at points in between. “Yes, well, no doubt the countess will understand if I take you away from her. Surprisin’ that your family would permit you to be in the company of…Well, surprisin’, that’s all. You wouldn’t understand, Miss Rossmara, but I’m sure the countess fully comprehends my meanin’.”
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