‘Henrietta? Thing have been most unusual this morning.’ Olive slowly stood, her tea-cup clattering against its saucer as she was Henrietta approach. ‘Lord Westlake came to breakfast so terribly early—I was still in my wrappers—and refused, quite forcibly refused, to eat or drink anything of any kind, saying that some sort of terrible business concern meant he—’
‘Had to leave.’ Henrietta, looking at her friend’s confused expression, felt a most unusual pang of pain. ‘Olive, if… if I were to tell you that I had done something moderately scandalous, would I be cast out of the house in disgrace?’
‘My father brought a weasel to my very first ball, Henrietta. I long for moderate scandal. It makes the scandals attached to the Whitstable name seem softer by comparison.’ Olive’s eyes grew wide. ‘My goodness. You couldn’t possibly be going to tell me that Lord Westlake’s absence is due to—’
‘Me. Yes.’ Henrietta attempted to marshal her thoughts, determined to say something acerbic and knowing, but her mind drew a distressing blank. ‘Olive, I must… well, I believe I must…’
Oh, Lord. She couldn’t possibly be going to weep. Weeping in public was for foolish people; those whose rational faculties had failed them… but oh, the pain in her heart. The rage.
‘My dear.’ Olive stepped forward, putting one comforting hand on her shoulder. ‘If there is any way I can assist you—any way at all—you have only to ask.’ Her voice lowered to a discreet murmur. ‘My father shall hear nothing of it, and the servants will be silent.’
Her kindness, her quiet tenderness, was simply too much. Henrietta, mortally afraid that she would sink to Olive’s feet and begin to cry, pulled the woman into a tight hug instead.
‘I must know where he went.’ Her voice sounded so hoarse, so desperate; so very unlike herself. ‘If you ask me, I will tell you everything, but I… oh, I simply must know where he is—’
‘Henrietta. If you feel the need to disclose your secrets to me, then of course I shall listen with neither hastiness nor judgement.’ Olive’s voice, although muffled against Henrietta’s gown, was full of a slightly tearful earnestness. ‘But I am loathe to ask for information that you would rather not give. Our friendship has never been one that relies on tawdry revelation of one’s private affairs, and such revelations are no more needed now than they were yesterday.’ She released Henrietta from the embrace, clasping her hands and looking at her with shrewd, pitying compassion. ‘Now allow me to aid you in any way I can. Lord Westlake was hardly talkative this morning, but I believe he mentioned a name. A title, almost… The Courageous? The Brave? I cannot quite—’
‘The Valiant.’ Henrietta bit her lip, the blood draining from her face as she considered the significance of the words. ‘His ship. He means to leave England… oh, Olive, this cannot occur.’
‘Then it shall not. Come, now—your wits are always sharper than mine, and they will not fail you.’ Olive bit her lip, frowning. ‘If he is to leave England by sea, then the ship must be docked at a nearby port. He left so quickly, after all—no provisions, or horses for a longer journey. The nearest port, if my geography is still sound, would be—’
‘Bristol. They left for the Neerhoven Isles from Bristol. It makes sense that the ship would be docked there.’ Henrietta closed her eyes, her mind racing. ‘He cannot ride through the night, much as he would like to—he must stop somewhere along the road, to feed and rest the horses.’
‘There are many inns along the roadway. Almost too many to count.’ Olive folded her arms, her face grave. ‘Why, I can think of at least six or seven without any effort at all. The King’s Head is hardly a fashionable place anymore, but there is The Blue Flower, The Crossed Keys, The Two Magpies—’
‘The Two Magpies?’ Henrietta was suddenly, exquisitely alert. ‘Does it have that exact name?’
‘Oh yes. For a century, at least.’ Olive blinked. ‘It is a rather pretty inn.’
Henrietta paused. Her instinct told her, without any qualms or doubts, that Richard would be there. But her instincts had told her ever-so-many things about the man, things that she had assumed were true and could be trusted… but after the previous night, she could no longer be sure of anything her instinct told her.
She thought that he was kind, and patient, and… and interested in whatever strange game they had begun together. Now, in the harsh light of the morning, she could be sure of none of it.
But what other choice did she have? The alternative would be letting her leave him, without ever telling her what had changed between them. Letting him sail far away from English shores, unburdened… unpunished.
Henrietta’s eyes narrowed. Richard Westlake would not, under any circumstances, be allowed to go unpunished.
‘If he is indeed at The Two Magpies, my dear, then it is a little more than half a day’s ride away.’ Olive began to pace up and down, speaking excitedly as her fingers sketched patterns in the air. ‘He did not take the swiftest horses, but Bess and Captain are no plodders… he should reach the inn a little after one o’clock. If you take a little time to drink and eat now, and perhaps call the maid to attend to your hair while you eat, then dressing with the utmost speed and efficiency will have you in the coach no later than half-past eleven.’
‘And if I leave now, with your fastest horses, and whatever dress can be slung over my back in the most rapid fashion?’ Henrietta gripped Olive by the shoulders, trying not to shout. ‘What then?’
‘As much as I do not recommend such a course of action… well, with Arrow and Fiero as mounts, it would be anyone’s guess.’ Olive blinked. ‘Why, you could reach the inn before Lord Westlake, if you kept to the country roads and told Jasper to keep the horses flying.’
‘Good. Then call Jasper, give me a piece of toast, and tell me which colour is most becoming to my skin.’ Henrietta nodded, her mouth set in a grim line. ‘I am leaving as soon as humanly possible.’
The Two Magpies. Richard knew he would have to stop there as soon as he saw the sign through the miserable drizzle of rain; he was melancholy, hating himself, and an inn that reminded him of Henrietta would allow him to suffer just a little longer. He ordered the driver to halt, disembarking in a splatter of mud and painful memories, the two glossy birds on the inn sign laughing at him from their coarsely painted beaks.
For every mile the coach had travelled, the desire to turn back had grown. He was being callous, cruel, stupid—not to mention cowardly. For a man who had cheerfully faced every kind of danger, the fear Richard felt burning in his breast was the worst kind of agony… but oh, even fear, even self-loathing, was better than what he had felt with Henrietta in his arms.
Love. He had felt love; deep, raw, all-consuming. The kind of passionate, thirst-quenching, terrifying love that made slaves of men, ghosts of men, beasts of men; the kind of love that meant pledging oneself, one’s blood and nerve and soul, to one’s beloved.
He would have pledged himself. He would have done it in a heartbeat. But Henrietta did not want love, or marriage, or commitment of any kind—and she certainly didn’t want a weak, wretched tiger offering to cage himself for her. She was far too magnificent a person for that.
Wearily slapping a coin into the coach driver’s palm, ignoring the man’s surprised thanks, he made his way through the trails of honeysuckle surrounding the door of the inn. This would be as good a place as any to drink too much, to sleep too little, and dream pathetically of what might have been…
‘Ah! He has arrived.’ A cool, commanding voice stopped him in his tracks. ‘As I told you, Mrs White, my husband is most considerate. After the ruffians made away with our valuables, he insisted I be transported to safety while he gave chase to the criminals himself… tell me, sweet, were you successful?’
Richard turned. As if in the depths of a mirage, he blinked and rubbed his eyes.
Henrietta, Henrietta in a travelling coat, tightly buttoned, a hint of blue escaping at the sleeves and hem. Henrietta, mud-stained, pale, with drawn face and bur
ning eyes, speaking to an elderly woman that could only be the inn-keeper’s wife.
Henrietta, speaking to her as if she were his wife.
There was no way to deny it without leaving her reputation in tatters. A bold move, risky, hovering on the edge of madness… oh, he loved her more than words could ever express.
‘My lord. I was so saddened to hear of your trouble—all of your valuables gone, and your rings! Your dear wife wept so prettily for their loss.’ The innkeeper’s wife stepped forward, her face full of concern. ‘I’ve already prepared a room for you, where you can both retire until you are sufficiently recovered.’ She clasped her hands together. ‘Is there anything else that you require?’
‘No.’ Richard risked a glance at Henrietta; if looks were weapons, hers was a cocked pistol. ‘I believe we have everything we need.’
The room at the inn was far too pleasant; the clean linens and crackling fire made Richard feel a thousand times worse than a filthy stable or impersonal boarding house. This truly was a room for men and wives; loving couples, who weren’t too frightened to tell one another of the depth of their attachment… not for men like him.
He watched Henrietta as she entered. Still damp from the rain outside, the hem of her coat darkened with splashes and mud spatters, she looked for all the world as if she had mounted a horse in Rowhaven and never stopped riding. Richard looked at the dirt on her clothes, the shadows under her eyes, and wondered if he had ever felt more of a wretch in his life.
They looked at one another, silent, the space between them a sudden, wrenching gulf. Richard opened his mouth, prepared to say some curt piece of foolishness, before Henrietta’s fierce stare stopped him in his tracks.
‘Well?’ Henrietta threw her gloves to the floor, eyes blazing; Richard found himself lost in her beauty, swept away by it, and half-turned away with a growl. ‘Is this a part of the game? Make me follow you across moor and fen, putting what remains of my reputation at stake, for a night of pleasure that you appear to be intent on denying me?’
‘Miss Hereford.’ How ravishing she looked; furious, narrow-eyed, full of a rage sharper than a viper’s bite. ‘I—’
‘No. You have tormented me for a week, quite as heartily as I have tormented you, and may all of it be damned.’ Henrietta stamped her foot, unbuttoning her coat with such violence that a button flew onto the floorboards. ‘You have teased me, and provoked me, and vexed me, and flattered me, and… and tempted me, as much as I have tempted you.’ She let her coat fall to the floor; she looked smaller, ravaged by the cold and damp of the day outside, and Richard’s fists clenched with the desire to take her in his arms. ‘And now, it has all come to nothing. How utterly unpleasant it must have been, being… close… to me, if it forced you into fleeing Rowhaven.’
Richard’s soul twisted in sudden, corrosive agony. She couldn’t possibly think that, could she—that seducing her, feeling her shudder and sigh in his arms, had been anything other than the most exquisite moment of his life?
He had to make her see it; had to make her understand. He crossed the room with swift, angry strides, putting his hands on Henrietta’s shoulders even as she twisted away from him.
‘It must have been truly atrocious.’ Henrietta muttered the words under her breath; Richard saw tears in her eyes, and felt his heart wrench as he held her tightly. ‘An awful thing indeed, to—to make you run so very fast, so very far away. And I couldn’t bear the thought of it, you being here, bored of me, disgusted by me—’
‘No.’ Richard couldn’t bear those words; he gripped her tighter, shaking his head. ‘No, no—’
‘Then what? What was it?’ Henrietta tried to break away again; Richard held her tighter still. ‘I came here to—to—’
‘Kill me. At least, I can only assume it.’ Richard smiled bitterly.
‘At least you have never underestimated me.’ Henrietta sniffed mutinously. ‘I would have killed you, if you had been decent enough to sleep in a stable instead of an inn. Wounded you, without a doubt.’ With a final, weak effort to twist away from him, she stilled in Richard’s arms. ‘But given that you are so damnably well-prepared for every eventuality, and… and I am so tired, after the long ride…’
‘Tell me.’ Richard leaned closer; the feel of her so close, so very close, had him hard and hating himself all over again. Tell me what you would have me do.’
‘Apart from die? Apart from suffer? I… tell me what was so very hateful about it. About what happened.’ Henrietta shook her head; Richard saw a tear escape, sliding slowly down her cheek. ‘For my own personal edification, if nothing else. Because I never wish to marry, as you well know, but it is entirely possible that I will take lovers, and if I have managed to engage a man I expect to see a reasonable return on my investment—’
‘Enough.’ Richard couldn’t bear it; he had to stop such poisonous words coming from the lips of the creature most dear to him in the world. He pressed his lips to hers, shocked anew at her sweetness, feeling the tension leave Henrietta’s body in a great, shuddering jolt.
‘Do you really wish to know why I couldn’t ruin you? Why I cannot ruin you?’ He whispered the words, his forehead pressed tight against Henrietta’s, the smell of warm rain on her skin reminding him of how close he was to madness. ‘It is a long story, Henrietta, but I will stand here and tell it. It begins six months ago, when I was trapped in twine by an enchantress—’
‘—It was a foolish game, and I am embarrassed for ever having done it—’
‘And that was the beginning, because I was enchanted.’ Slowly, deliberately, Richard moved his hands up to cup Henrietta’s face. ‘I passed six long months at the other end of the world, enchanted by the body of a woman that I had never touched. It was not a happy state.’ His voice shook; he struggled to control himself. ‘It was obsession. I know you now, Henrietta—I know you understand obsession, that you are familiar with it. But I was not, and it drove me half-mad with longing.’
‘You sound so angry.’
‘I am angry. I am furious—but only with myself.’ Richard gritted his teeth. ‘I should never have come to the ball, knowing that I was under your spell, because looking at you would only make it worse. And it did. Good God, it did. Your gown, and the scent, and the way you laughed when I followed you that night—I read your letters to Lydia, all of them, did you know that? I read every single one, at night, like a thief, searching for anything about you that would break the power you had over me. Nothing worked.’ He stopped, breathing harshly. ‘Nothing. Not reading your words, not seeing you. Nothing. And so I went to Rowhaven, determined to ruin you—to take all the pleasure I could from you, and break the spell in that way. Because believe me, Henrietta, I have never wished to spend more than one night in the company of the same woman. Not once. And I was still sure, with the optimism of all doomed men, that it would be the same with you.’
‘But it wasn’t. We were to part as friends—you did not part as friends.’ Henrietta’s face crumpled; Richard kissed her again, trembling as he felt her tears on his skin. ‘Something about me broke it, violently, and you are still too cowardly to tell me what frightened you so in me—’
‘Nothing, Henrietta. Nothing. I am frightened of myself, not of you.’ Richard took a deep breath; if he said this, all of it, he would feel more exposed than he had ever been. ‘I am frightened, Henrietta, because when you came to me—when you told me to ruin you, and part as friends—I realised that the spell would never break. The enchantment would never end. And for all of my idiotic jesting about marriage, and possession, and seduction… when I saw you, and touched you, and felt you, felt your joy, and your longing… I knew that friendship was impossible. Because I am in love with you, Henrietta. In love. Not the love that possesses—I would never make you marry me, to have you as my own, although God knows it’s tempting. I am in love as a dog loves. I would follow you to the ends of the earth, eager, loving, begging for whatever scraps you deign to give me, and I would be happy. In agony
, but happy.’ He felt more tears against his cheeks, and realised that they were his own. ‘And you, Henrietta Hereford, are far too wonderful to be followed around by a dog like me. You deserve all the freedom you seek, and more of it, without being oppressed by my sentiments.’
The silence that followed seemed as big as the world. Richard closed his eyes; he couldn’t bear to look at Henrietta’s face, knowing that there would be revulsion in it. He would have to stay in this room all night with her, lying at the foot of the bed like the dog he was, watching her sleep untroubled as the fire sank lower…
‘... What if I were to change my mind?’
Richard was so shocked, he almost believed he had imagined it. Daring to open his eyes, he stared at Henrietta as his fingers traced over her cheekbones. ‘Pardon?’
‘You heard me.’ Henrietta’s lip quivered. ‘You allowed yourself the luxury of changing your mind, Lord Westlake. You were never going to alter your life because of a woman—and now, here you are, passionately declaring that you would cross oceans to lie at my feet. You have changed your mind, and quite decisively. By leaving, you denied me the same courtesy.’
‘Henrietta, I—’
‘You have bestowed every other quality upon me, sir. Why not that of changeability? You have gathered your facts, and tested your theory—and you have denied me the opportunity to do the same.’ Henrietta tilted her head, gently moving her face against Richard’s palm; Richard’s other hand slipped to her neck, his thumb wiping away a stray drop of rainwater. ‘Perhaps I would have changed my mind, after… after you. You cannot know.’
‘Having you, and then losing you, would kill me. Worse than kill me—it would sentence me, and you, to a life of suffering.’ Richard shook his head, his hand still tight on Henrietta’s neck. ‘It would be hell.’
‘Perhaps.’ Henrietta’s voice was pure mutiny. ‘But perhaps I would change my mind.’
Dukes and Devilry Page 19
