Love in Disguise (The Love Trilogy, #1)

by Edith Layton

  He looked far more than that, Susannah thought, he looked wretched, nothing like his usual calm self. She thought he must be fonder of the old man than he’d admitted.

  “I’m sure he’ll recover,” she said stoutly. “Is there anything we can do?”

  “What?” he asked. “Oh no, nothing, thank you. I’ll have Mr. Epford pack a bag, and I’ll take a horse and have some others sent on ahead for me so that I change them the faster on the way home,” he said, making his plans as if he spoke to himself. “A carriage is comfortable, but much slower, but since I’m going to Gloucestershire, this way I’ll be able to take side roads cross-country for extra speed as well. I won’t be gone long,” he said then, as if promising himself that, and rising from his chair added, “but I must make ready to leave at once.”

  He strode to the door of the study, clearly still busily thinking. Then he paused and swung around.

  “If he’s better, I’ll return immediately; if he goes, it will be a simple interment, and I’ll be back soon too. If he lingers, I’ll…Julian,” he said, raising his head and meeting his friend’s eye, “I know you’ll be passing a great deal of your time with Marianna, and I’m glad for you for it, but I’ll have to ask you to sometimes include Susannah with her in your plans, so that she doesn’t grow too lonely, or at least so that,” he said more pointedly, “you always are aware of just where she is.”

  “I’m sorry, Warwick, I’ll be happy to look after Sukey in your absence, very happy to, in fact,” Julian said on a quirked grin that it seemed he couldn’t suppress as he gazed at Susannah, before he looked back at his friend with more solemnity, “but as for that last bit, I’m afraid I can’t oblige. You see, the Lady Marianna Moredon is plighted. That is to say, she’s going to be wed, in the autumn, to the Earl of Alford. So I’ll not be seeing her again.”

  Susannah stared at Julian. He seemed not at all downcast making a statement that ought to have had him near tears. But in fact, he held his golden head high and looked at Warwick with private wry amusement, and something very like pride.

  “But be sure, I plan to care for Susannah,” Julian said carefully, “in just the way you want me to, Warwick. In just the way,” he added significantly, “that you always wanted me to, in fact.”

  But at that Warwick’s face became still, and very pale, and his eyes opened to a look of incredulous dismay. He seemed to waver where he stood in the doorway, and then shook his head as a man will after a blow. Then he nodded, and looking as though he’d already heard that his uncle had passed away, he turned and left without another word to them.

  It was shortly before teatime that Mr. Epford summoned Julian from the salon where he was sitting with Susannah and the contessa. Warwick was checking the straps on his portmanteau when Julian appeared in the doorway to his bedchamber. Julian stopped for a moment to marvel at the huge old canopied bed with its myriad carvings and hangings, and then glanced around at the few other pieces of heavily ornamented furniture that stood upon the Turkey rugs. He would have whistled his approval at the way the high-ceilinged room was otherwise kept rather stark, so that the spareness of it highlighted the excellence of the few beautiful ornate old pieces, but from a look to his friend’s grim face he realized it was no time to be chatting about interior decoration.

  “I didn’t know you were so fond of the old chap,” he said simply, placing his hand on Warwick’s shoulder.

  “Uncle?” Warwick said with a frown, tugging the straps tight on his traveling case. “I’m not. Not that he isn’t a good-enough fellow, but he’s been ill for ages and is as old as the hills, and about as communicative as one too. No,” he said, fixing Julian with an all-encompassing stare, “it’s that I don’t like leaving now. There’s too much unsettled, too much in the air. I’m not being Delphic, Julian, but I cannot like it.”

  “You still worry about Moredon?” Julian said, amazed. “But I’ve broken it off with Marianna, there’s nothing left to fear.”

  “He was insulted,” Warwick said, lifting his case and striding to the door to his chamber. “A man like Moredon never forgets. Did you break it off with her, or she with you?” he asked suddenly, pausing and looking hard at his friend.

  “I with her,” Julian said simply, evading his eye, for he could swear that Warwick always saw too much when he looked at a person as he did now. From the quick nod his friend then gave, he also had the uncanny feeling that before he’d hastily looked away, Warwick had seen every embarrassing thing that had transpired in that absurd playhouse last night in his eyes. He was a gentleman, and as such had a code of honor, but even a gentleman might share certain confidences with his best friend, if he knew he could trust him. And he would trust Warwick, had trusted Warwick, he recalled, with far more, he’d entrusted his life to him. Perhaps one day he might tell him the story of what had happened with a certain lady one strange night. But he’d rather keep to himself just now while it was still so new and raw an insult to his intelligence. It had been, he remembered uncomfortably, Warwick, after all, who had joked with him all those weeks ago about how similar the morals of society ladies and poor wenches were. Then he recalled the one class of female his friend had sworn were innocents. There was another, happier confidence he could share with him. He smiled widely.

  “But never mind. Never doubt I’ll take care of Sukey.”

  Warwick stood absolutely still, and such was his distraction today, Julian thought, that for a facile fellow, he seemed to be struggling to frame a reply. When he spoke at last, he amazed his friend.

  “You’ll be alone with her, to all intents and purposes, once I’m gone,” Warwick finally said stiffly. “One bachelor in one house with or without a chaperon is an entirely different matter from the arrangement we had before. Are you sure you want to stay? Perhaps you’d prefer to come with me, or stay at an inn until I return?”

  “Warwick, you astound me! How gothic,” Julian laughed. “I thought you wanted her protected, and now it seems you want to protect her from me. So it will be different, and that’s all to the good. I won’t compromise her, or if I do, be sure it will be with her complete cooperation, and I’ll speedily do the right thing. I want to do that anyhow. Yes, I’ve seen the light, old friend, and it is fairer than the dark,” he chuckled.

  “What a slowtop you must take me for, what a fool I’ve been,” Julian confessed, “looking so far afield, when it was all just as you said: Sukey is absolutely right for me, bedamned to the money, it’s only a bonus, she’s bright, beautiful, virtuous”—he paused as he said “virtuous,” as though savoring the word, before we went on—“and thank God, I believe it’s very much as you said: I can have her. Or, at least,” he said on a small deprecating smile, “I can try. The other? She was just an illusion I invented because I couldn’t have her, and it was the trying for her, I think, that I most enjoyed. Don’t look so worried,” he laughed, looking to his friend. “It will all work out, and it is, after all, what you’ve said you’ve always wanted, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” Warwick said softly, “it is what I said.”

  Susannah and the contessa bade Warwick a farewell at the front door. The only private word he had for Susannah, just before he left, was cold and stilted.

  “Mr. Epford has my direction should you need to reach me. I’ll be back as soon as I can. Keep well.”

  But then he halted at the door as though he’d thought of something important, and turned round to her again, some consternation on his face. But after a moment, “Remember, I’ll be back soon,” was all he repeated, and then, frowning, as though annoyed with himself, he walked out into the rain.

  They all watched him as his mount took him down the long drive, and they waved until he disappeared from sight.

  When he reached the main road, a thunderclap caused him some difficulty with his horse and then the skies opened and the rain plummeted down on him.

  “Yes, thank you. It only needed that,” he muttered, looking up to the drenching clouds, pulling up his col
lar. Then, something like humor returning to him, however grim it was, he kneed his horse to a brisk canter as he hurried into the growing evening alone, as he began to fear he always would.

  Dinner that night at Greenwood Hall was an awkward affair. No one seemed to be reacting normally to anyone else, Susannah thought. The contessa looked distracted, and spoke very little, looking as though she were wondering if the situation were correct through every mouthful of her dinner.

  Julian was charming and warm and considerate, but Susannah felt wrong laughing loudly at his jests when she knew their host might be grieving. And although she’d believed she could sit and stare at that particular bright face for hours in content, tonight she felt oddly disloyal doing so, as though there were the reflection of some other countenance, a familiar, sad, lean one, imprinted on the dark streaming windows, looking in from the night and the rain at them, in all their warmth.

  Perhaps Julian felt the same, she thought. Because after dinner, the most intimate time, he made only random conversation and then, as early as was decently possible, he begged exhaustion and went to his rooms. As he’d looked uncommonly weary since morning, Susannah took no offense, though she was yearning to know more about Lady Marianna and had been trying to think of a clever, casual way to work her name into conversation. Whatever had happened, he certainly didn’t seem to be pining for the lady, she thought as she brushed out her hair that night. And then, as she curled into her own bed for an early evening, she thought of how she’d have the whole day with him tomorrow. But it was both her gentlemen she thought of as she prepared for sleep.

  Odd, she thought, that though Julian was her dream of perfection, she wasn’t at all afraid at the prospect of being alone with him, as she now was with Warwick, because she found she wasn’t a bit confused or nervous about him or his behavior, or her own. She was only a little shy of him now, she supposed, because he was suddenly treating her with such courtesy and deference. That would take some getting used to, she thought on a smile, as she began to drift off to sleep. She quite looked forward to it.

  But in the morning, it was Julian’s turn to appear perturbed and anxious.

  “Take a look. You see,” he said on a deep sigh, “it’s specific. I hardly know what to make of it. But it’s clear the owners of the Thunder want a word with me, and now, and they say it’s to my advantage. With the way things have changed, I don’t plan ever to have to drive the Brighton coach again, but I’d mentioned to Warwick that I’d like a chance to invest in the entire coaching line, not only for the money but also as a gesture, I suppose, of independence. You understand, Sukey,” he said, smiling at last, and smiling so warmly that she’d begun to nod before she even heard what it was he wanted her to agree to, “if there’s going to be gossip about my past, I want to be able to shout it out, instead of cowering and trying to hide it. Very like”—he paused to grin—“loudly announcing to society that one’s family is in fish, for example.

  “So for all I know, Warwick’s already had a word with someone. I can’t ignore this, at any rate. And I’ll leave you well-guarded—”

  “Guarded?” she asked in amazement. “Do you think I’m about to be carried off by Gypsies, or is it that you’re afraid I’ll run off with them?”

  He looked down at her. Her hands were on her hips, her expressive face both petulant and defiant, and he couldn’t resist dropping a small kiss on the end of her nose. Once so close to her, he found himself tempted to do more, but was forestalled by the contessa fidgeting in the background, wondering, he imagined, if the tip of the nose were a private enough portion of a young lady’s person to be considered inviolate. Not for the first time that morning he wished he could simply tear up the note he’d been delivered and stay on with Susannah, especially now, since with the opportunity to be alone he’d be able to resolve his future more quickly with her. But the note was direct. “To your advantage,” it said, “the twenty-fourth of June,” it stated, and that was tomorrow, and “Portsmouth” was written large and plainly on the company stationery.

  He looked back when he reached the end of the drive, but this was a sunstruck day and Susannah stood on the gravel and waved her good-bye, so Warwick’s edgy, eerie premonition of danger seemed foolish and further away than it had been in the night. Still, he rode quickly because something in the thought bothered him, and he wanted to be away from it. She was safe, he swore to himself as he pounded toward Portsmouth, she was in a gentleman’s country home, surrounded by servants. But he wanted to get back to her as soon as he could.

  The house seemed completely empty when Julian had gone, and as Susannah wandered back into the salon where the contessa alone awaited her, she began to feel foolish. With the two gentlemen gone, her position was awkward, she looked like a stranger lingering on at a gentleman’s estate after the party was over, for no reason and to no purpose. But then she remembered those gentlemen, and sighed, and knew she’d wait here, alone if she had to, until their return, no matter how odd it looked to the world. For they were, she suddenly realized, her only world.

  *

  Warwick Jones returned to Sussex late on Saturday, near to twilight. He’d ridden hard, all the way from Gloucestershire, stopping only to ease himself or his horses, down some refreshment, or pay tolls at the turnpikes. Now, having reached the long road that led to his home, he at last eased his speed. Now that he was a few miles from home, he could admit how foolish his mad ride had been.

  If she’d indeed chosen Julian while he’d been gone, his absence these past three days was not the reason for it. And for all that he’d tormented himself, twisting his sheets in the sleepless nights as he wrestled with the tormenting vision of those two golden creatures entwined in each other’s arms, he realized now that if it were fated, then so it would happen, whether he were in Gloucestershire or in the next room to them. Now that he saw familiar trees, and trotted down a dusty, familiar lane filled with evening birdsong, the other unspecified dangers he’d worried over seemed to be only extensions of the dismay he’d felt on leaving her, perhaps to lose her, if not in any of the vague violent ways he’d feared, then certainly just as surely to another man’s arms.

  But for all that he could now see how vain all his fears had been, he slowed his horse as he rode home, not at all sure he wanted to see what had transpired in his absence. As he turned a bend, he saw a familiar sight as the other rider turned his guinea-gold head to see who rode behind him. Then he spurred his horse.

  “Julian,” he cried, “give you good day. What are you doing riding out alone? Had a spat with our Susannah, have you?”

  But as he came alongside his friend, he saw how dust-covered his high boots were, and how travel-stained his clothing.

  “Where have you been? “he demanded then, too anxious to mind his words or his tone.

  “Portsmouth, since the day after you left,” Julian replied, sounding as bone-weary as he felt. “I rode like a madman to get back by this evening. What news of your uncle, Warwick?”

  “He lasted only until I got there, poor fellow,” Warwick said, shrugging off condolences, brushing aside all mention of his inheritance as he quickly asked, “Portsmouth?”

  “Aye, and what time I wasted. There was indeed an opening for another partner in the stagecoach line, my negotiations were successful, I think. But getting any information took forever, I had to drag it out of them through sheer tenacity, since no one of them would admit responsibility for summoning me in the first place. But when there’s a falling-out among partners, I suppose that’s to be expected. At any rate,” he said defensively, seeing Warwick’s confusion change to sudden pallor, “that’s why I rode down a horse and had to lame another before I bought this nag, to get here before nightfall.”

  They stayed a moment in silence, then looked at each other. And then without a word they urged their horses forward to race toward Greenwood Hall together.

  Warwick threw his reins to a stableboy and reached his entry hall by long, striding steps. Julia
n followed closely, and when they entered the cool confines of the great marble hall, it seemed to them both that their footsteps echoed too loudly.

  “Where is she?” Warwick asked at once, when his butler and Mr. Epford appeared in the hall.

  “The contessa was summoned away the day after the Viscount Hazelton left,” the butler explained nervously.

  “Indeed, I urged her not to go,” Mr. Epford said with great grievance, “but she was too excited by the letter from the law firm in Edinburgh claiming to have news of her husband’s estates being restored, and she wouldn’t listen to reason, she—”

  “Be damned to the contessa,” Warwick shouted. “Where is she?”

  “Gone, sir,” the butler sighed.

  “To London, to see her brother,” his valet put in soothingly. “She received a summons from him this very morning, asking her to meet him there. Indeed, it was all in order, Mr. Jones, he even sent a coach to collect her. Here is the note she left to you, it was all correctly done.”

  The note was simple and exactly as his valet had said, and after Warwick had scanned it, assuring himself that she promised to communicate with him as soon as she found what dear Charlie wanted with her so urgently, he sighed and handed it to Julian. Then as he stripped off his gloves, his butler presented him with another message.