And it struck her that when she had been bold enough to face him, in the Flash of Lightning, she had learned that he was just a man after all, and not some horrible phantom. She had realised that she had been silly to run from him that day in Curzon Street. She wondered if any of the things she shied from remembering were really as bad as she feared. Maybe, if she turned and faced those shadowy images that lurked in the hidden corners of her mind, they would all turn out to be equally harmless?
Had she not learned that things were hardly ever as bad as she feared? The girls who had so scared her, that first time she had walked into Madame’s workrooms, for instance, with their rough, aggressive manners. They had become her friends.
Tentatively, she went back to the way she had felt that day, when she had woken in that attic. She had not known who she was, or where she was, and that had frightened her. But most of all, she had felt unbearably unhappy. So unhappy that she would lie there wishing she was dead, without understanding why. She could remember that it hardly seemed worth the trouble of eating, and keeping herself alive. She had only picked at what her warder brought because she had been afraid of what the woman would do if she came back and found the tray untouched.
‘She used to come up to the attics at night, when she thought I was asleep. She would go to an old bureau that was half-buried under a mound of mouldering linen, open one of the drawers, reach her hand inside and press a hidden catch. I would hear the loud click, and then the sound of a panel dropping to the floor. And she would stoop, and pick up a ring.’
‘A ring?’He disentangled himself from her, and held her by the shoulders, so that he could look straight into her eyes. ‘What sort of a ring?’
‘It was a big, heavy-looking thing. It looked very old, somehow. The setting…’ She frowned, trying to picture it clearly. ‘She would hold it up to the light, so that the flame flickered through the stone. It always gave me the shivers, because it would look as though it was bleeding.’
‘A ruby,’ he breathed. His hands had clenched so hard on her shoulders that it was almost painful. ‘I think, I really believe, that it could have been your betrothal ring. It has been in the family for generations. It was the only item of her jewellery that my mother managed to keep hidden from my father. Our one and only family heirloom. He had sold or wagered everything else he could lay his hands on. When I told her we were to be married, she fetched it from wherever she had been hiding it, for me to give to you. Don’t you see what this means?’
He got to his feet, running his fingers through his hair as he paced back and forth. ‘You could have been set upon by robbers. She was probably the fence. In those circumstances, she would naturally have kept you concealed when we began searching the area. She would not want to give away her criminal connections…’ He whirled to face her. ‘Did you see anyone else while you were held in that house?’
A cold sensation slid down her spine. She had always had the conviction that the woman had no right to the ring. But she had been so weak, and that woman so strong and always angry, that she had never dared question her about it. Instead, she had told herself over and over again that it was nothing to do with her.
Something shimmied in the air, hovering just out of reach…
She shook her head. She had to stop this! She was letting Lord Matthison influence the few things she did remember, now, because she wanted so desperately to be the woman he loved.
She focused on him as he kept on talking, and pacing the room. And as she watched the jerky movements that punctuated each sentence, the troubling sensation evened out, like ripples vanishing after a stone has dropped into a pond.
‘Even if my surmise is correct about the motive for hiding you to begin with, it does not explain why she took you to Oakham Hall. Nor why the housekeeper was willing to take you on, just on this hefty woman’s recommendation, when you were clearly hardly fit for any sort of work. And we cannot ask her. The one thing I did find out from Sandiford is that his former housekeeper died. He complained about how difficult he is finding it getting a replacement.’ He paused, hands on his hips while he stared at her as though she was an intriguing puzzle. ‘It almost sounds as if your gaoler was a person of some standing, locally. But your description does not fit anyone I know. Well, no matter,’ he said, coming back to her, and sitting on the edge of the bed. ‘We can circulate her description when we get down there.’
‘Do we,’ Mary said hesitantly, something inside her shrivelling at the prospect of searching for a woman she never wished to set eyes on again, ‘do we really have to leave London? I know you say you are concerned for my safety here, but I would not want to take you away from your work.’
‘My work?’ He looked puzzled for a moment, then his face shuttered. ‘You mean fleecing drunkards with more money than sense. I think you can safely say I shall not be sorry to leave all that behind.’
He looked at her, then at the wall behind her, then at his feet, then squared his shoulders.
‘I have no need to earn a living that way. I have not needed to for some time. The only reason I kept going backtothetables…’Hischeeksflusheda dullred.‘You are going to think I was quite mad.’ He got up, stalked across to the table, and tore open a second bread roll.
‘I had convinced myself that your ghost haunted me.’ He jabbed his knife into the crock of butter. ‘I attributed all my success at the tables to your benign influence. I went back, time and time again, just to feel you near me. How crazy is that?’ He kept his back to her, as though spreading butter on to a roll required all his concentration. ‘When I hate gambling.’He flung his knife onto the tray with a clatter.
His shoulders hunched as he braced his hands on the table top.
‘I had a run of luck at the outset. The kind of winning streak real gamblers dream of. And then I began to tell myself you were guiding me, whenever I won. And if I did not win, I decided you were not in that particular hell, and went off to another one, searching till I found you.
‘I despised the men who sat there, too drunk to know when they were throwing good money after bad, but all along I was far sicker than any of them.
‘I was sleepwalking through some sort of…labyrinth of self-deception, making more money than I knew how to spend, when all the time…’
He straightened up slowly and turned to look at her, his face racked with guilt. ‘You were within my reach all the time. Working yourself to the point of exhaustion for your food and lodging. If only I had kept on searching for you. If only I had…’
She got up and flung her arms round him, tugging his head down to the crook of her neck.
‘Hush, don’t,’ she said. ‘It is over now. Done with. I…’ She steeled herself to be what he wanted, to say what he needed to hear in this moment. ‘I am here now. And,’ she continued, utterly sure that no woman could remain obdurate in the face of such sincere remorse, ‘I do not blame you for any of it.’Whatever had happened to Cora, surely she would forgive him for carrying on living, the only way he knew how?
‘I will make it up to you, Cora, I swear!’ he vowed, tilting her face so he could kiss her. ‘I want nothing so much as to leave London and its haunts of vice behind us, and make a fresh start. At Kingsmede.’
She returned his kiss with fervour, not really caring where he took her, so long as they stayed together.
‘I suppose,’ she said, reaching up to smooth the frown line from his brow, ‘I would not like to run into Lord Sandiford on the street. And as for poor Miss Winters…I do not think it would be very kind of us to flaunt our affair in her face.’
‘After what she would have done to you?’He looked incredulous.
‘Well, she must have been heartbroken when she learned her engagement to you must come to an end…’
‘Heartbroken? Not her! A more heartless creature it would be hard to find!’
‘So why did you propose to her, then?’
‘I did no such thing,’ he growled. Then, seeing the sheer puzzlement on he
r face, he swept her into his arms and set her down on the bed. ‘I can see,’he sighed, ‘that I shall have to confess my stupidity in regard to Miss Winters, too.’
He went back to the console table, picked up the plate of buttered rolls, and pressed them into her hand. He took one, bit into it, then paced to the window, chewing.
‘Mr Winters was a business acquaintance of mine. I have invested a good deal of the money I won at play in various enterprises. Usually, I carried out any business I had with Mr Winters in his offices, but occasionally he would invite me to his home. Along with other investors that might wish to have mutual dealings. His wife and daughter were sometimes present at certain parts of such gatherings. And—’ he leaned his forearm against the window frame ‘—she impressed me, I have to admit. She was so different from the empty-headed society females who have been fluttering and cooing about me since it became known how successfully I had reversed my family’s fortunes. She never attempted to flirt with me, but spoke to me in the same polite manner she addressed all her father’s other guests.’
As he took another meditative bite out of his breakfast roll, Mary’s heart sank.
‘Did you find her pretty?’ she found herself saying, though the thought of him admiring yet another female tore at her heart.
‘Pretty?’ He whirled round, an expression of complete bafflement on his face. ‘What do her looks have to do with any of it? I have told you, she lulled me into a false sense of security, by behaving as though she had no interest in me whatsoever!’
The pain eased somewhat. Mary nibbled at her own breakfast roll as Lord Matthison resumed pacing.
‘One night, I arrived at her home, to find her looking somewhat distressed. When I asked, as any gentleman would, if there was anything amiss, she…’He halted by the window, gazing down into the street as though whatever he could see out there had his full attention.
‘She lured me into a room apart, on the pretext of saying she was in desperate need of advice she thought only I could give her. Of course, it was not advice she wanted from me at all. As soon as the door was shut, she flung herself at me…’
The disgust she could hear in his voice, the rigid set of his shoulders, paradoxically made Mary’s own tension diminish.
‘Naturally, our…clinch was witnessed. She had arranged it all down to the last detail.’
Mary’s eyes strayed down the tense line of his spine, to where his legs protruded from the hem of his dressing gown. Bare legs. It had felt wonderful when she had stroked the soles of her feet over them.
‘I wonder why she went to such lengths,’ Mary mused, her eyes riveted to his bare feet. It seemed strange to think of feet as objects of beauty, but Lord Matthison’s were. ‘She must have been quite desperate, don’t you think? Or her family were. Do you think they compelled her to it?’
He whirled round to face her, an incredulous expression on his face.
‘Oh, come now!’ she said, licking honey from her fingers. ‘You have a reputation for being dangerous. Fiendish even. I could never understand why Mrs Winters was so insistent that you marry her daughter, when she kept on emphasising how evil you were. They must be in some sort of financial difficulty.’
‘Is it so impossible to believe she might have been in love with me?’ he retorted.
‘Do you think she was?’
He ran his fingers through his hair. ‘Hell, no! If I have the measure of her father correctly, it was all about money and position. He wanted a title for his daughter, I suppose. But in the end, she was terrified of me. I made sure of it!’
‘Really?’ She drew her knees up to her chest, hugging them as she looked at him with her head cocked to one side. ‘I cannot imagine being afraid of you.’
‘You always saw the good in me when nobody else did,’he said. ‘Even when…’ A shadow flickered across his face. ‘No, forget I said that. The circumstances at Kingsmede are completely different now, anyway, and…what are you laughing at?’
‘You…you asked me to for…forget…’ She giggled. ‘When all you have wanted me to do up till now is to remember. I do wish you would make up your mind…’
It felt as though the sun had come out. This was his Cora, just as she used to be. Laughing at his absurdities. Making him feel life was not the serious business he believed, but a game they could play together. Chasing away his shadows with her sunny nature, her natural inclination to see the good in everyone, not just him.
The night before, when he had held her in his arms, and he smelled the scent of roses on her skin, it had been as though he was transported back in time. The years had rolled away and he was a boy full of optimism, honoured to be the first one to kiss her. The first to make love to her.
But this…this was a moment he would treasure till the day he died. She was sitting in his bed, her glorious hair tumbling round her pale shoulders, laughing again. A woman with less spirit would have forgotten how to laugh after all she had been through.
‘You are happy,’ he said, with satisfaction.
‘Yes,’ she said, smiling as she held out her hand to him. ‘Because I am here with you.’
‘Nothing else matters, does it?’he said. This moment was precious, yet he sensed the fragility of it. Like a newly blown soap bubble, anything that touched it might burst it.
He walked to the bed, untying the belt of his dressing gown.
‘Have you finished with your breakfast?’ he asked, taking the plate from her and setting it on the bedside chair.
She said nothing, but the hunger in her eyes was all the answer he needed.
‘Kingsmede will still be there tomorrow,’ he growled, tumbling her down among the rumpled sheets.
‘And the day after,’ she agreed, twining her arms round his neck.
Chapter Nine
She had no idea how long they spent in that room. They kept the shutters closed, sleeping when they were sated with lovemaking, sending out for food when they were hungry.
But she knew their magical time out of time had come to an end when she awoke to the sound of Lord Matthison drawing the curtains. The pale grey light heralding the dawn of a new day had replaced the romantic glow of candles. One or two of them still smoked as though he had only just snuffed them. Her heart sank when she saw that he was fully dressed, with a determined look on his face.
‘I have made the travel arrangements,’ he said brusquely. ‘Since you have not yet unpacked your trunk, we should be able to set out as soon as you have taken breakfast, and put some clothes on.’
When she made no attempt to stir from the bed, he frowned. ‘I have spent long enough stumbling around in the dark. We need to return to Kingsmede.’
There was no point in arguing with him. When his mind was made up, she knew that nothing could sway him.
‘I hope,’ he said later, once he had handed her into the hired carriage, ‘that you will not find life in the country too dull.’
He shot her an assessing glance. She had been so quiet this morning. And clearly unhappy about leaving London behind. Though she had not uttered one word of protest, she kept on looking out of the windows as they passed various landmarks, as though she was silently bidding them farewell.
‘Many people find it somewhat flat, without all the amusements available in town.’
‘Well, I did not see that side of life in London, did I? I spent sixteen hours out of every day shut up in an attic, sewing.’
He felt a rush of relief to have got a response from her, even if it was a rather negative one.
‘So, it is not the prospect of boredom that has made you so waspish this morning.’
She turned to him in amazement. Surely he knew why she was upset? She would have been more than happy to have stayed in his room indefinitely. He was the one who had grown bored. The one who needed more stimulation than she could provide. The one who had opened the curtains, and let reality flood back into their lives.
‘My mother,’he said when she made no contribution to the co
nversation, ‘referred to Kingsmede as her prison. Though it was undoubtedly my father’s profligacy that made it so. She never ceased complaining that she could not even afford to escape up to London for a change of scenery, while my father hardly ever set foot in the place. Not enough diversions for a man of his temperament in a rural backwater,’he finished drily, his tone suggesting he was quoting what the man himself had said. ‘It will not be the same for us. Should you ever feel like a jaunt up to town, I shall take you. It is about time I purchased a carriage for my own use, rather than hiring one…’
‘There is no need to purchase a carriage on my account,’ she protested. ‘I have no wish to return to London, and risk running into Lord Sandiford. No, no, I am sure I shall find plenty to occupy me at Kingsmede. After all, it will all be quite new to me. I expect it will take some time before the novelty of it all begins to wear thin.’
‘The countryside is really very pleasant, in a quiet sort of way,’ he said. ‘Though not, of course, possessed of the rugged beauty of Scotland.’
‘Scotland? Why do you mention Scotland?’
‘It is where you grew up.’
Where Cora had grown up, she silently corrected him.
‘However did you meet her, then?’ she plucked up the courage to say after a few minutes. Her antipathy towards the woman who’d had such a devastating impact on this man’s life was no match for the force of her curiosity. ‘C-Cora, that is.’
‘I was at school with your brother,’he replied tersely, his face closing up.
When, after some minutes, it became apparent he was not going to divulge any more, Mary turned to stare out of the window despondently. It was all very well for him to probe into her past, searching and interrogating until she was almost hysterical. But let her ask him one question about his background, and he wrapped his privacy round him like a cloak.
They must have travelled almost a full mile before she felt him reach for her hand.
Devilish Lord, Mysterious Miss Page 15
