A Compromised Lady (33 page)

All right, let alone nearly bed her on the sofa!

So, why? Why was she still so dead set against marriage to him? That had been another refusal quivering on her lips. If Nell had not walked in just then—

He cursed. Given Thea’s response, he refused to believe she didn’t care. She was not the sort of woman to give herself lightly. Could it be that she still doubted his love? That she believed he would in the end resent her lost virginity? Would cast it up at her?

He could think of nothing else. Taking a deep breath, he looked around for a brandy decanter. And realised there wasn’t one. It was definitely going to be a very long night.

T he storm had largely blown itself out by the following morning. Heavy clouds still scudded overhead, but there was little rain, and Sam Decks, when consulted, gave it as his expert opinion that there would be little in the time it would take Mester Richard and his young lady to ride back to Blakeney.

‘Better set out sharpish,’ he opined. ‘His lordship’ll have a search party out by now, like as not. If so be as he don’t come hisself. Be in a right tizzy with you not comin’ back lars’ night.’

Richard stared. And realised the truth of this statement. In fact, he wouldn’t put it past Max to be saddling a horse right now, if he wasn’t already halfway across the Downs.

He swore, eliciting a shocked look from old Sam, and strode back to the house. They had to start early. He had a very great deal to say to Miss Dorothea Winslow for which he most definitely did not desire an audience.

Thea went down to breakfast conscious of a headache, scratchy eyes and the sort of roiling stomach to be expected after a largely sleepless night.

Little beyond the commonplace was said over breakfast. With Mrs Decks coming in and out to see that they had everything they needed, it was impossible. For which she could only thank God. No doubt he would open the subject of their marriage the moment they were out of the stable yard and she would have to tell him why she couldn’t marry him. She thought he would understand even if he couldn’t accept it. In the end, it didn’t matter. On this she had to follow her conscience—

that still, quiet voice that had lead her to this decision.

It was a lovely morning. Everything looked fresh and damp. Thea breathed it in deeply as she followed Richard around to the stable yard. Raindrops glistened and sparkled on flowers, turned cobwebs into nets of enchantment.

An illusion only. The enchantment was not for her.

Richard said nothing as they trotted out of the stable yard and back through the orchard and the tension gripping Thea tightened. She concentrated on the skittish mare, keeping her well up to her bit and curbing her early morning freshness.

Despite her edginess and longing to have the whole thing over with, she was grateful for Richard’s silence as they rode up the now slippery track out of the valley to the Downs. But once on top she could put it off no longer.

‘Richard, you must understand that I cannot possibly marry you,’ she began quietly. If only he would accept that.

He nodded. ‘Mmm. So you said last night. Or words to that effect. What you haven’t explained is why.’

Her throat tightened.

He went on. ‘You know perfectly well that I never intended to trap you into a compromising situation, do you not?’

She swallowed and nodded. It was unthinkable that she should take that way out.

‘And after last night…’ his voice softened to a caress ‘…you would be wasting your breath trying to convince me that you don’t love me.’

‘You can’t know that,’ she whispered.

His smile deepened. ‘I can know that, Thea. Last night…if you didn’t care for me, you would have stopped me.’

‘It’s partly because I care for you that I cannot marry you,’ she said. Her cheeks burned. ‘Richard—

you cannot possibly want me. One day you would come to resent me. It would always lie between us. Perhaps even now you are wondering if…if my response to you last night was that of a…a wanton.’

She looked away. Surely that was enough. She stared straight ahead between the mare’s ears and kept riding through the silence that stretched between them. Outside the silence a falcon screamed high overhead. Away on the Downs a flock of sheep grazed, the bleating of lambs drifting to them on the wind. And always the distant hushing of the sea around the cliffs.

Eventually he would say something. She bit her lip, conscious of the heat pressing behind her eyes, the choking sensation in her throat. Now, more than ever, she regretted last night’s descent into madness. She felt cold all over, as though the sun had been put out.

‘Thea Winslow,’ he said fiercely, ‘if you ever refer to yourself in that way again, I swear I’ll put you over my knee and spank you! Who the hell put all that filth into your head? Your father? Your aunt?’ He dragged in a breath. ‘All last night tells me is that you love me.’ He released the breath.

‘You can’t possibly think that I would condemn your behaviour when mine was exactly the same.’

He grimaced. ‘Worse! I was the one doing the actual seducing!’

‘You can’t know that I love you!’ she flashed, quelling the agonising flare of hope. ‘I…I might behave like that with every man who kisses me!’

‘Then you wouldn’t be telling me so now. And you wouldn’t have told me the truth to stop me challenging Dunhaven.’

‘This…this is impossible,’ she whispered.

‘No, it’s not,’ he said. ‘Thea, I love you. Come, sweetheart. Can you not trust me a little bit further?’

In all her nightmares Thea had never imagined this—that Richard would accept her lost innocence so completely. That he would still be prepared to marry her. She couldn’t accept. Not yet. Not now.

There was the child…she had to make sure that her child was safe, provided for. Once she accepted Richard’s offer, she could no longer make any disposition of her own property…and if he did not agree, there would be nothing she could do, except break the betrothal.

A yell brought her head up. Galloping towards them were two horsemen.

‘Damn!’ muttered Richard. ‘Max and Julian. We can’t talk about this now, Thea. When we are back at Blakeney. But understand this—I am not holding to my offer of marriage out of some idiotic notion of chivalry or pity or whatever other excuse you can dream up. I’m offering because I love you!’

‘How can you?’

His answer nearly destroyed her.

‘How? God knows. Why does anyone fall in love? Why does Max love Verity? He’d tell you all the wonderful things about her. Her courage, her loyalty, her honesty.’ He grinned. ‘Her temper. All things which I can see and love in her. But I am not in love with her. So, no, Thea. I cannot tell you why I have fallen in love with you. Only that I have. But you gave me the truth. You could have simply refused me. Or if you wished to marry, you could have said nothing.’ He flushed.

‘Sometimes…sometimes these things are not obvious, you know. I certainly would never have suspected.’

He met her eyes. ‘But that never occurred to you, did it? Instead you told me the truth because you foolishly thought that would stop me challenging Dunhaven. It didn’t. What stopped me was the knowledge that doing so would worsen any scandal for you. Thea—what happened eight years ago is done. Past. It wasn’t your fault. Leave it there, sweetheart, and we can have the future.’

Lord Blakehurst and Lord Braybrook had reined into a trot and brought their mounts around in a wide circle to join them.

‘Blast you, Ricky,’ called Lord Blakehurst as he came up. ‘Do you have any idea of how worried Verity was last night when you didn’t come home?’

‘Verity?’ scoffed Lord Braybrook. ‘It wasn’t Verity talking about saddling a horse and coming out to look for them. At midnight, no less!’

‘Oh, shut up, Julian!’

Richard grinned. ‘We were safe enough. We were still at Tarring when the storm hit. Nell Decks looked after us.’

‘Well, I thought that would be the case,’ said Blakehurst, looking slightly embarrassed, ‘But still…

oh, very well! I was concerned! But only about Miss Winslow and my mare!’

Despite her pain, Thea laughed. Lord Blakehurst didn’t fool her for one instant. Of course he had been worried about his brother. The link between them was almost palpable. Pain slashed at her; he would be even more worried if he knew what sort of woman his brother wanted to marry.

Lord Braybrook grinned. ‘Nell Decks? Your old nanny?’ His expression became mournful. ‘Poor Lady Arnsworth. At least half the pleasure of her evening has been cut up!’ He continued, ‘Naturally she started out by condemning your carelessness, Ricky, not to mention your morals! I must say I was astonished at the details of your life that she seemed to know. You really ought to be more discreet. Anyway, by the time the tea-tray was brought in—and I do suspect Lady Blakehurst of ordering it early!—she was planning the wedding.’ He cocked a brow at Richard. ‘Obviously with Nanny Decks to play gooseberry, there’s not the least need?’

‘None,’ said Richard flatly. ‘At least not on that head.’

‘Oh?’ Lord Braybrook looked intrigued.

Richard’s mouth tightened.

‘Julian?’

‘Hmm?’

‘Shut up.’

Lord Blakehurst broke in. ‘Before you call each other out and have to decide which of you has me as a second—there’s something I have to tell Miss Winslow.’

She turned to him with relief.

He smiled. ‘Ignore them. Especially Richard. What I have to tell you is that a letter arrived for you shortly after you left yesterday. An express.’

Thea’s stomach clenched and chills washed through her. Only one person would have sent her an express. Rufton. He must have completed his investigation and sent in his report. And Almeria’s butler had sent it on.

‘Might I suggest we pick up the pace a trifle?’ said Lord Blakehurst. ‘If Miss Winslow is agreeable, of course. It is just that Verity was a trifle concerned about you both.’ His mouth twitched. ‘And Almeria, of course.’

‘Certainly, sir,’ said Thea, forcing herself to appear calm. The sooner she knew the contents of that report, the better.

The child was called Sophie Grey. Sophie—her own middle name.

Numb, Thea stared at Rufton’s report. And found the words blurring before her eyes. It didn’t matter. Their accusation was seared into her heart. The child’s age—they had not, after all, altered the birth date…The village where she had been raised—not five miles from Aunt Maria—by the daughter of the midwife who had attended the birth. And then an unknown benefactor had sent her to Miss Dale’s Seminary in Bath last year. It all fitted.

All these years…They had lied to her, all of them. Even the doctor and rector. For her own good, no doubt. And she had believed the lies without ever bothering to question.

Sophie.

The rector’s cold comfort echoed…God has been merciful. ’Twas better that the child died rather than being born into such sin. Indeed, ’tis possible that the child’s death is punishment for the sin of its parents. The Good Book tells us that it must be so: the sins of the fathers shall be visited upon the children unto the last generation…

A child’s life and death seen as an instrument of punishment. And used as a lie. Her mouth tasted sour with bile and her unspoken hopes crumbled to ashes. The nausea intensified.

Sophie. Her child’s name was Sophie…

She was as guilty as the rector, guilty in that she had hoped, prayed, that her suspicions were unfounded, that the child was indeed her father’s bastard. In doing so, she too had wished the death of her own child.

She could not sleep. She had dozed in the afternoon and dined on a tray in her bedchamber. Now, long after midnight, she knelt at her window sill, staring out into the dark of a moonless night.

Only it was not truly dark. Above, the heavens sang with cold light. Not enough light to see by, but a reminder that the light was there. Beyond her reach.

It had always been beyond her reach, that particular light.

Or was it? She did have a choice. The letter did not mean that she had to act. It had given her the truth. At the start that was all she had wanted. Only she had not reckoned on the fact that truth was not inanimate. It had its own life and demands. It could not compel her. But it could destroy her. She understood now what Rufton had meant when he warned her to be quite sure she wanted the truth.

She had sought out the truth and now she must live with it. If she did not, she would have to live with her own conscience instead.

She closed her eyes, exhausted, leaning on the sill. Sounds came to her; the bark of a fox, the wind sighing in the beech woods, just as it must be over at Tarring House. It was all so lovely. And it would remain so, despite her own pain. Yet she could not find it in her to regret what had passed.

He truly loved her. Her heart ached in joy as she permitted her mind to drift. For the first time in years memory was not a nightmare beast dragging her into horror; it took her only as far as the previous night, when Richard had shown her what might have been. If only, she dreamed, if only he had not stopped. She wished, oh, how she wished…Her head slipped and she jerked awake as her brow bumped the sill. She had nearly fallen asleep, she realised. Stiffly she rose to her feet.

Lady Arnsworth was returning to London in the morning. She would return with her.

There was, after all, only one choice that she could make. And it was not a choice that any honourable man would be able to countenance.

‘Are you sure, Thea?’ asked Verity, worry clouding her grey eyes. ‘You need not go simply because Almeria must return. If there was a reason…I mean, if you wished to stay, we would all—’ she broke off, catching herself up ‘—that is, Lord Blakehurst and I would be delighted for you to remain.’

Thea bit her lip. This was dreadful. She had raised expectations and they were all expecting her to stay on. And she could not.

‘I am sure, Verity. I must go. There…there is something I must do.’

Verity brightened. ‘Is that all? Well then, you may come back afterwards. It is only a few hours’

travel. I’ll send the carriage up for you.’

Disappointing Verity was nearly as hard as hurting Richard. She shook her head. ‘I’m sorry, Verity.