Only it wasn’t.
*
She got the coachman to let her down in the village square, then walked on to the inn and entered the front door as if she had every right to be there.
I have! She threw off the guilt as best she could, and realized suddenly, she was being watched.
Mrs. Briggs stood just outside the open coffee-room door, gazing at her in surprise. Just behind her stood the easily recognizable figure of Lord Barden, also watching her, his face expressionless.
A shiver of revulsion ran up her spine.
She had an excuse ready for being there, but in truth, she had imagined this meeting would take place in a much more furtive manner, and she had no idea how—or even whether—to acknowledge him.
She decided on a distant inclination of the head without words and was about to turn to Mrs. Briggs when Barden spoke.
“Why, it is you! I do hope you remember me, ma’am. My name is Crosse.”
She stared at him as he all but shoved Mrs. Briggs out of the way to stroll toward her and bow.
“I remember your face, sir, though not your name.”
“We met last at a most pleasant party. I recalled you mentioning this village as your home, and I was just saying to this good woman that I would have liked to pay my respects before I departed. And you walked through the door. It must be fate.”
Deborah chose not to help him, but merely stood still waiting to hear what he had to say. While Mrs. Briggs gazed avidly from one to the other.
“Dare I hope you might join me in a cup of coffee, Mrs. Halland?”
“I have five minutes before I am expected elsewhere. Mrs. Briggs, might I trouble you for another bottle of your best sherry?”
“Oh, of course, ma’am, and I’ll send in another cup if you are joining the gentleman.”
Mrs. Briggs hurried off, and Barden bowed, ushering her into the coffee room. Deborah’s strange sense of mingled wrongness and familiarity suddenly made sense. The last time she had come here to buy sherry, she had drunk coffee with Christopher and left engaged to marry him.
Now, she sat with a stranger who had ruined her reputation on what she could only imagine was a whim.
“Please state your business, sir. I have little time to spend here.”
“Now you are the great Mrs. Halland of Gosmere Hall?” he mocked.
“Any greatness stems from my husband,” she retorted. “Your business, sir.”
“Well, that is rather more complicated by your recent marriage. I am only glad my letter found you.”
“I am not. I don’t appreciate threats.”
Barden smiled and sat back, waiting while Mrs. Briggs trotted in with an extra cup and saucer.
“I left the bottle on the table in the hall for you to collect on your way out,” she said cheerfully.
“Thank you,” Deborah said to her retreating back. “You were saying, sir?”
“Yes.” Barden poured two cups of coffee, leaving her to help herself to sugar and milk. She didn’t. Nor did she touch the cup. “The threats you did not appreciate were made only to ensure you would meet me. I had no intention of hurting you or your family.”
“Beyond what you have already done,” Deborah said indignantly. “I am aware it was you who tricked us into that house and you who circulated the vile stories against us.”
“Then, you know what I am capable of,” he replied without shame. “But I can also be magnanimous. It is my intention to offer a public recantation by the paper concerned, a withdrawal of your name from the list.”
She looked at him in surprise. “All of our names?”
His smile thinned. “Two have burned their boats, you might say. There is still hope for you and the last lady.”
“Explain,” she said impatiently when he fell silent.
He drank his coffee and replaced the cup in the saucer. “Perhaps you recall a card game in Connaught Place.”
“I remember a few.”
“This one, you did not play, but I did. You brought me wine, just as I dropped a card.”
She remembered the incident. He had pushed his chair back so quickly that it had bumped into her. He hadn’t even noticed in his hurry to pick up the card—a ten of diamonds, which had somehow become an ace when he laid it on the table.
“You cheated,” she said with relish.
“A small adjustment to which I was more than entitled. As you obviously agree, since you seem to have said nothing about it.”
She shrugged impatiently. “My care was only for the princess. She had already lost.”
“A pragmatic lady,” he said, apparently amused. “Perhaps I should have cultivated you after all,”
“No,” she said flatly. “What is the point of this reminiscence?”
“That regardless of right or wrong, we have both committed what are considered crimes in the eyes of the world. I came to say only that if you maintain your silence about mine, I can spread the word of your innocence. A quid pro quo.”
She stared at him, frowning. “You have gone to a lot of trouble when I never said anything in the first place.”
“But you knew. As I rise in the world, I don’t wish anything to leap up and bring me down again at the wrong moment.”
Deborah’s heart skipped a beat. Could it really be as simple as that? Whatever grudges he had against the others, before her now was just a weak, unscrupulous man covering his back.
“To me,” she said, thinking furiously, “cheating at games is a minor sin, perpetrated by children and a few overindulged adults who don’t like to lose. Which is why I didn’t make a fuss about your little…infringement. However, I’m aware gentlemen regard such matters differently, and I understand why you sought this talk with me.”
Her eyes refocused on his face to find him smiling faintly. He didn’t look remotely troubled. She hoped that was a good sign.
“Here is my bargain,” she said boldly. “My continued silence. Your secret goes to the grave with me. In return, you have your pet scandal sheet retract the entire story in print, proclaiming they were mistaken about the presence of all four ladies whose initials were previously published. You stop fanning the flames of scandal and admit you might have been mistaken if and when the subject comes up. In this way, to the satisfaction of all, our scandal dies away, and yours never sees the light of day.”
He regarded her with amiable fascination. It was not an expression she cared for.
“That is really quite good,” he allowed. “But I’m afraid it is you who are mistaken. I would only ever have been prepared to retract your name. Frankly, you weren’t important enough to merit all four. In fact, I nearly passed over you toward my larger goal. But that is all behind us. Because, my dear lady, you changed everything when you married Christopher Halland.”
At the sound of his name, alarm clawed at her stomach, but she managed to maintain her calm. “I don’t see that it changes anything at all.”
“Well, you haven’t had time to think it through,” he said kindly. “I have. So here is my bargain. The removal of your name from the scandal, in return for your silence to the grave as you have already offered.” From his pocket, he took a torn piece of paper and pushed it across the table to her. “Plus, this sum of money to be delivered to me immediately.”
She stared at him, the heat of anger flooding into her face. “You would extort money from me? And still call yourself a gentleman?”
“Of course, I would. You now have it in large quantities, and I am in need of it to pay my servants and travel south.”
“I will not give you my husband’s money!”
“Then you give me his good name and his parliamentary career—for which I’m sure more men than I will be grateful. Personally, I never liked the man, so I shall be quite happy to destroy him.”
She tilted her chin, regarding him with clear contempt. “You could not if you tried.”
He laughed. “Oh, my dear, you have a very odd idea about what I can and cannot do.
But in this case, I would barely need to do anything at all. The foundations are laid. His wife is ruined. A few reminders of the fact will reduce his influence to nil. I expect he will lose his seat at the next election, but by then, it will be a blessing to him. I suppose you could live abroad, but with the British spilling all over Europe in our new era of peace, I’m sure the scandal will follow him.”
The last of her confidence drained to nothing. Her face felt cold with shock. Would Barden, could Barden, really do such a thing?
He had already destroyed the reputations of four innocent gentlewomen, including the daughter of an earl and the child of a duke. Scandal was a vicious enemy, and it could destroy men just as easily. But was Christopher’s career really in such danger? Hazel had married Sir Joseph Sayle, a wealthy baronet and highly respected diplomat. Christopher and his family seemed to be winning against the rumors already.
But that was in the bubble of Gosmere. Hazel would leave the country with Sir Joseph for Vienna. Christopher would return to London, to Parliament, where his true life lay. And his friends there would not be so forgiving. As for his enemies…
Barden was right. If the rumors were not scotched, Christopher’s influence would wane. To fan the flames would at best make him a laughing stock. The proud man who had married a fallen woman.
But Christopher would have known this when he married me, her mind pleaded.
And gambled on the rumors dying down under the weight of his family’s influence. Which would still happen if she paid Barden for his silence.
She reached out and snatched the paper from the table. When she turned it over, the figures danced before her eyes.
“I am living in the country,” she said hoarsely. “I do not have access to such a large sum.”
He rose to his feet. “You are newly married. You will find a way.”
“I do not have that kind of influence,” she said between stiff lips. “Mine is a marriage of convenience.”
“Oh, I know that,” he said carelessly. “Why else would he have married you? And he’ll find it a lot less convenient when you drag him down. Cheer up, Mrs. Halland. All is not yet lost. The world well knows his penchant for females—Lady Belham can certainly testify to that. Here, his choices are necessarily limited. However, I leave the means to you. Shall we say three o’clock this afternoon?”
“No!” she said in panic. “I could not possibly obtain the money by then.”
He sighed. “Well, let us say midnight,” he proposed grudgingly. “I suppose I could spend another night here. They have a very tolerable brandy, and the claret isn’t bad.” He sketched an ironic bow. “Until midnight, ma’am. The stables behind the inn. Goodbye.”
Dazed, she watched him walk out of the room. He actually whistled to himself as he trotted up the staircase.
She heaved herself to her feet, blinking at her untouched coffee. She felt like an old woman as she made her way through the hall, remembering to pick up her bottle of sherry, and left the inn.
Her happiness and her marriage were in tatters. It seemed almost inevitable when she went to her old home and discovered that the children were playing in the village and that Lucy had accompanied their mother to call on the Copsleys. She left her bottle of sherry with Bertha and walked away.
Chapter Nineteen
Lord Barden was pleased with his interview. He thought he had turned the tables rather well, and he liked the dazed, slightly stiff way she walked out of the inn and along the street. Watching from his bedchamber window, he saw a child of about ten waving at her. The child tried to run after her, but a larger boy held her back, sending her instead toward a group of playing children. The lad continued to frown after the retreating figure of Deborah Halland.
Nor were the children the only people to notice her. On the other side of the road, a fashionably dressed young lady was being handed down from a carriage, her attention not on the road but on Deborah’s back. Unexpectedly, this lady moved her head and looked up at the inn windows. For an instant, their eyes locked, and then Barden bowed. A gentleman offered her his arm, and the pair crossed the road toward the inn. Barden didn’t think he knew either of them.
Having learned from previous mistakes, Barden sat in the somewhat precarious armchair and thought over his plan and his talk with Deborah, looking for flaws. Finding none, he moved on to the rest. The worst that could happen was that he continued south with no less money than he had possessed when he arrived in Coggleton. But he really didn’t think that would happen.
He smiled and rose. He might as well stroll about the village to pass the time. In fact, he wondered if he might come across the pretty young woman he had seen from the window.
“Ah, Mrs. Briggs,” he said, discovering the innkeeper’s wife crossing the hall with a trayful of coffee and cups. “It seems I shall need the room for another night.”
“I wondered if you would, sir, since you seem to have more friends here than you thought.”
He blinked. I do? That would not be good news.
“Mrs. Ireton and Sir Edmund from Coggleton House just asked me who you were, said they thought you were a friend.”
Barden narrowed his eyes but managed to smile. “And what did you tell them?”
“Your name, of course.”
And, no doubt, that he was an acquaintance of Mrs. Halland’s. He thought that over, too, as he strolled out of doors, and in the end, decided it was unimportant. They didn’t know he was Barden, or they wouldn’t have asked, and he had absolutely no objection to anyone spreading rumors of Mrs. Halland’s assignations with strangers.
*
Christopher was surprised by the strength of his pleasure when he heard the clop and rumble of the carriage on the terrace. He had been working since breakfast on parliamentary business, and he was glad of the break. Standing up from his desk, he stretched prodigiously, pleased with the surroundings of the library since Deborah had refurbished it all. It was now a peaceful and agreeable place to work. In fact, he now preferred it to the room he had earmarked as his study in the beginning—probably because he liked the idea of spending time here with Deborah.
Instead of waiting for her to come in, he strode off to meet her, but when he reached the top of the staircase, it was not his wife he found below but Sir Edmund Letchworth and Frederica Ireton.
“Ah, there you are!” Letchworth said. “We have just been hearing that Mrs. Halland is not at home.”
“Come up, and we’ll have tea anyhow. She shouldn’t be long.” He rather wished Letchworth had come without his sister, but after their last conversation, he didn’t want to send him away.
“We received your card this morning,” Frederica said, gliding up the staircase, “and of course, we shall be delighted to come on Thursday. Mama, also.”
“Good,” he said. Other people in the neighborhood were more likely to take their lead from the squire, but the Letchworths’ acceptance would certainly smooth the way. He led them into the terrace room, although, since it was clouding over, they elected to stay inside.
“Deborah will be sorry to miss you,” he said politely. “She went to the village to call on her mother.”
“Oh, so did we,” Frederica said. “She’s not at home. Apparently, she is calling on the squire’s wife. But at least Mrs. Halland’s expedition was not entirely wasted since she met another old friend instead.”
Letchworth frowned at her.
“I hope she did,” Christopher said. “She has many old friends in the village.”
“Oh, this one was not a Coggleton resident. Just a gentleman passing through en route to London.”
“Frederica,” her brother warned.
Frederica smiled. “His name is Crosse.”
Christopher kept his expression amused. “Why, Frederica, you are full of surprises. I never thought of you as a small-town gossip before. And here is tea.”
Along with tea came Dudley and Georgianna, who had been out riding. Their presence and that of his grandfath
er, who wandered in later, was something of a relief to Christopher, for he did not wish to be constantly dodging Frederica’s poisonous arrows.
He understood she was lashing out with any weapon she thought might hurt, but he was not about to believe her nastiness. Or give in to it. There was no quarrel to be had. He preferred his wife, not just to Frederica, but to any woman he had ever known, past, present, or even future. There was no contest here.
“I’ve been thinking about what you said,” Letchworth murmured when he and Christopher found themselves with a moment of privacy on the terrace. “And you are right. I’ve been judging Lucy by an impossible standard, by my own wishes rather than by the reality of inevitably divided loyalties. She has done nothing wrong. But I rather think I have. Do you think I am too late to make amends?”
“That rather depends on your reasons for jumping to such conclusions in the first place.”
“You mean if I truly loved her, I would not care for her past? As you do not care for your wife’s?”
“I believed my wife’s explanation. But you were right that our cases are different,” he added awkwardly. “I had no love or belief in love to upset my judgment.”
Letchworth thought about that. “I don’t know if she loves me either,” he said in a rush. “After all, she seems pretty keen on Ned Copsley.”
Christopher’s lips twitched. “No, she doesn’t. If you are talking about Sunday, she was polite to Copsley, but then, he has never been impolite to her.”
Letchworth flushed. “I don’t know what to do,” he confessed.
“I think the first thing you need to do is talk to Lucy, apologize for your incivility, and either part or get to know each other.”
Letchworth cast him a rueful smile. “You make it sound so simple.”
“Oh, other people’s love affairs are always simple.”
His own seemed to grow more complicated. As the Letchworths departed, he could not help looking beyond his instinctive defense of Deborah and wondering about the man Federica had mentioned. Did he have something to do with the letter she hid from him? Mostly, he worried that she was in some kind of trouble and wondered if he should force the barriers of privacy she had erected over this matter, to protect her from whatever might threaten her.
Married to the Rogue Page 21
