A Scoundrel by Moonlight (24 page)

But instead of exiling her to the attics while these powerful men decided whether to support her, the duchess invited her to dinner. It meant an odd number at the table, but Nell quickly realized that these six remarkable people didn’t stand on ceremony. Nell also recognized the strong bonds of friendship between them. Most painful of all, she’d be blind not to see the love uniting each pair.

Under Lady Hillbrook’s teasing, terrifying Jonas Merrick became almost human and his eyes shone with adoration when he looked at his wife. The Harmsworths seemed mismatched, until Nell saw them together and noticed how Sir Richard’s elegant manners offset his wife’s eccentric brilliance. Sedgemoor was clearly head over heels in love with his beautiful, pregnant duchess. And his duchess basked in the glow.

Nell’s love for Leath was so new and now so hedged with poisonous vines and sharp thorns, she could hardly bear the company of all these blissful couples. And there was the added bite that, even if Leath had been the man she’d thought, the world would never allow her to claim him openly. As his mistress, she’d always hover on the fringes of his life. Once he tired of her, she wouldn’t even have that much.

As customary in great houses, the ladies left the gentlemen to their port. Nell tried to claim tiredness. If she intercepted one more loving glance, she’d scream. But the
duchess insisted that she stay downstairs for tea. Knowing that she owed these people a debt of gratitude—not to mention that she wanted them to join the campaign against Leath—Nell remained.

To her surprise, she found the conversation well within her compass. Her stepfather had followed the news and her weeks at Alloway Chase had sharpened her political awareness. After some hesitation, more about invading the intimacy between these friends than feeling out of her depth, she joined in.

“Miss Trim, I’d love you to visit me in London,” Lady Harmsworth said warmly from her place on the sofa, after they found they agreed on the faults of the latest Scott novel,
The Fair Maid of Perth
. The lovely blonde stuck a few desultory stitches into the embroidery on her lap. “We could do the rounds of the booksellers.”

Nell, whose troubles had briefly receded, blushed. She sat near the fire, a place of honor that the duchess had insisted she take. “Lady Harmsworth, you’re too generous, but I’m returning to my stepfather’s house.”

“You’re from Kent, my husband says. Kent to London isn’t far.”

“A lowly sergeant major’s daughter belongs in a different world, my lady,” Nell said.

She’d grown up unthinkingly accepting the gulf dividing the classes. Since falling in love with Leath, it struck her that a rigidly stratified society brought untold trouble. If Leath wasn’t a great lord, would his lechery meet with such success? A poor man had neither time nor money to tour the country debauching local virgins. A poor man couldn’t dazzle a clutch of country bumpkins with his London glamor. And a rich man had more chance of weaseling out of the consequences of bad behavior.

Perhaps she became a quiet revolutionary.

Thoughtfully Lady Harmsworth surveyed her. “You imagine that I’m a bloodless aristocrat like Pen and Sidonie?”

Lady Hillbrook sent her a fondly impatient glance from the facing sofa. “Doing it too brown, Genevieve. My father wasn’t much further up the social scale than yours.”

The duchess laughed from beside Lady Hillbrook and Nell experienced a pang of unworthy envy. This lovely woman lived with a man she adored in an exquisite house, and the child they expected would be loved and secure. Any child Nell had with Leath—and the possibility of pregnancy remained, despite her rage—would be branded a bastard. His lordship’s cold-blooded contract ensured that their offspring wouldn’t be thrown penniless upon the world, but she flinched from tarring her children with illegitimacy.

“I’ll hold up the flag for the useless aristocracy.” The duchess raised her hand. “I’m not ashamed of where I’ve come from.”

Nell’s resentment melted away. It did her no good, after all. And she liked the duchess. She liked all these women. If the world was a different place, she could even imagine friendships forming. The ladies were clever and funny and they’d all been far too generous to a woman who descended upon them bringing the threat of chaos. The battle to destroy Leath would be neither clean nor quick. The marquess would fight to his last breath. Even when she’d thought him a good man, she’d recognized his tenacity.

“I’m a mere vicar’s daughter, Miss Trim,” Lady Harmsworth said. “I’m used to getting my hands dirty.”

The duchess snorted in a very un-duchesslike fashion. “Hold to that story, Genevieve, and we’ll all imagine you grubbing on your bony knees in the dry, stony soil to dig up a shriveled turnip for each night’s supper.”

“Wearing filthy rags and clogs,” Lady Hillbrook added.

The duchess shivered theatrically. “While the cold, cold wind whips around you.”

Nell couldn’t help laughing. The idea of elegant Lady Harmsworth anywhere but in a room such as this was so incongruous. But then, she’d learned to fit in with extravagant surroundings too, hadn’t she?

“You sound as if you’re having a fine time.” Sedgemoor stood in the doorway, surveying them with an indulgent eye. “Perhaps we should have abandoned our port earlier. Richard bored us with some damned dull nonsense about the latest colors in waistcoats. Nearly went to sleep over my glass, it was so tedious.”

“Trying to help you cut a dash, old man.” Sir Richard sauntered past his friend and took his place on the sofa beside his wife. “Seems a pity for the incumbent of one of the nation’s greatest titles to dress like a damned Quaker.”

“Better a Quaker than a blasted harlequin,” the duke retorted, although it was clear that neither man took this argument seriously.

“Children,” Lord Hillbrook said repressively, prowling across the room to stand behind his wife. He rested his hand on the bare shoulder revealed by her daringly scooped décolletage.

Nell realized that she stared at the Hillbrooks and glanced away with a blush. She wasn’t used to these open displays of affection. She barely conquered another nasty pang of jealousy.

She didn’t want Lord Leath to touch her with casual confidence. She didn’t want to warm to the brush of his fingers against her neck, just as Lady Hillbrook clearly warmed to her husband’s touch. James Fairbrother was the lowest worm who ever lived. If she could, she’d crush him under her heel.

She stared into her cooling tea and told herself that one day she might even believe she meant that.

“Speaking of harlequins,” Sir Richard said, leaning against his wife’s arm with more disconcerting physical intimacy, “are you embroidering a bulldog wearing a rainbow, my love?”

Lady Harmsworth raised her eyebrows with a haughtiness contradicted by the sparkle in her eyes. “You’re such a humorist, darling. Anyone can see that it’s an Arab bazaar at sunset.”

“Mmm,” her husband said, obviously unconvinced. “Looks like a pug losing his lunch to me. But I’ve never claimed much grasp of arty nonsense. That’s all up to Pen and Cam.”

“This cushion is perfect for your library,” Lady Harmsworth said sweetly. “It matches my set of Grecian ruins. You so admired those.”

“Dear Lord save us,” Sir Richard muttered quite audibly.

The duke remained standing. “Miss Trim, may I have a word?”

Her unexpected enjoyment of the interplay between the Harmsworths evaporated, leaving behind a tangle of nerves. “Your Grace?”

Lady Hillbrook rose to rescue the delicate teacup from her insecure hold. “Cam doesn’t bite,” she whispered. “And if he does, I’ll come and beat him off with a fire iron.”

The idea of Sidonie Merrick taking a club to the lofty Duke of Sedgemoor almost made her smile. “Thank you.” Nell stood on legs made of water, despite Lady Hillbrook’s encouragement.

Approaching the duke, she passed Lady Harmsworth. Sir Richard wasn’t far wrong. The supposed Arabian scene did indeed look like a bilious puppy.

“There’s something in your story that I need to clear up.” His Grace took her arm and drew her along a corridor. “It shouldn’t take long.”

As he ushered her into the library, the air slammed from Nell’s lungs. If Sedgemoor hadn’t held her arm, she’d have fallen as ignominiously as she had upon arrival at Fentonwyck. Everything in the room tunneled to one point.

“You!”

Before her stood Lord Leath.

W
hen she whitened, Leath instinctively stepped forward. Then the loathing on her face made him falter. “Eleanor?”

She remained trembling in Sedgemoor’s grip and Leath forced himself not to strike the man’s hand away. Eleanor looked about to collapse, and he ached to take her in his arms and tell her everything was all right.

But of course, everything wasn’t all right. Everything was in an infernal coil. Unless Leath could get her to listen with an open mind, he couldn’t see how to resolve the mess.

He’d arrived in time to wash and change his shirt, and meet Sedgemoor here in the library. In increasing horror, he’d listened as the duke had revealed the truth about Eleanor Trim—at last. He grieved for her poor tragic half-sister, and for Eleanor’s sorrow and anger. However misguided she’d been.

But where did this confounded tangle leave them?

Eleanor’s eyes burned like coals in her ashen face as she shook free of the duke and stumbled back. Did she mean to run?

“Wait!” Leath didn’t care what that desperate plea revealed to this man who had never been his friend. “Eleanor, please stay.”

She bumped into the closed door behind her, eyes wide with fear. Did she really think he’d offer her physical harm? Leath’s gut knotted with anguished denial.

Her agitated gaze found Sedgemoor. “What have you done?”

The duke maintained his famous sangfroid, although Leath didn’t mistake the watchful expression in those icy green eyes. A watchful expression that changed to compassion when he looked at Eleanor. “Last night, I sent a message to Alloway Chase telling Leath that you were here and why. Miss Trim, I know this seems like a betrayal, but you’ve made serious allegations against his lordship. He deserves a chance to defend himself.”

“I don’t want to see him.” Looking like a trapped animal, she screwed her hands into her skirts. However furious Leath was with her—and he was ready to wring her neck for her unjust suspicions—he hated her distress.

“I’m prepared to stay while you two talk,” Sedgemoor said evenly.

Leath regarded him with virulent dislike. “I pose no threat to Miss Trim.”

“So you say.” Eleanor’s voice vibrated with a repugnance that made his heart clench into a cold fist.

“Miss Trim, I believe that’s true. His lordship’s first words when he arrived inquired after your well-being.”

She looked unimpressed at Sedgemoor’s defense. “He wants the privilege of silencing me himself.”

Leath was equally unimpressed. Sedgemoor had no right to probe a man’s feelings, damn it. “I’d like to speak to Miss Trim alone.”

She turned as pale as milk and cast Sedgemoor another frantic glance. “Don’t go.”

“Go.” That tone always sent Leath’s political enemies scurrying.

Still he was surprised when Sedgemoor nodded. “I’ll set a footman in the hallway.”

“It’s not enough.”

“Damn it, Eleanor.” Leath’s temper flared, despite his determination to stay calm. “You’ve survived in my company since September. The odds are good that you’ll still be breathing tomorrow morning.”

She recoiled. “You didn’t know I was working against you then.”

Sedgemoor studied them. Leath hoped for the sake of the duke’s health that he wasn’t hiding a smile. “Miss Trim, I’d wager my fortune that you’re safe.”

Before she could protest, he left the room, shutting the door firmly. A leaden silence crashed down.

“I don’t have to stay,” Eleanor said mulishly and whirled around to tug at the doorknob.

“Eleanor,” he said quietly.

At the sound of her name, she stilled. Her shoulders rose and fell as she inhaled. Slowly she turned. Over the last few minutes, he’d seen her terror and hatred. Now she regarded him like a stranger.

His soul revolted at that idea. They’d shared a bed. He believed that Eleanor Trim was the other half of his soul. God grant him the eloquence to convince her to give him another chance.

“I don’t care if you hurt me,” she said coldly.

His temper, barely controlled, fueled by worry and sleeplessness, sparked anew. “Hells bells, do you really think I would?”

Her face remained a beautiful mask. Since she’d deserted him, he’d hungered for the sight of her. But her stony expression made him want to break something. “I don’t know anything about you.”

“Yes, you do,” he barked before his tone lowered to acid derision. “And surely you credit me with the intelligence not to murder you with a house full of witnesses.”

“You’re angry enough.” Contempt dripped from her words. “And desperate enough. I mean to bring you down, my lord.”

She’d already brought him down, did she but know it. Mere weeks in Eleanor Trim’s company and his life was bedlam. “I still won’t hurt you.”

She tilted her chin. “That would sound more convincing if you weren’t trampling me.”

Shocked, he realized that in his rage, he crowded her. She pressed against the door to avoid contact with his vile self. The urge to grab her and kiss her until she forgot this nonsense surged, but he beat it back. He glanced down at his fisted hands. No wonder Eleanor was frightened.

While she seemed certain that nothing between them had been true, he remained sure of her. He’d always been sure of her obstinacy. A disconcerting quality in a housemaid. In a woman who set herself up as his enemy, it was dangerous. He stared into her eyes, eyes that had once been full of sweet passion, and saw fear and anger and courage.

The courage reminded him why she was worth every effort. Why he’d allow her more leeway than anyone else. He stepped back, uncurled his fingers, and spread his hands. “I’m sorry.”

She frowned as though his apology made no sense. He bit back another snarl as he realized that she hadn’t expected him to act like a civilized man, but like the cur she believed him. So far, he wasn’t doing much to refute that opinion.
Sighing he gestured for her to move into the room. “Please sit down. We need to talk.”

She didn’t budge. “No, we don’t.”

If his life wasn’t spinning completely out of control, he’d smile at that stalwart response. He pointed toward the chairs near the fire. “Please.”

Eventually she pushed away from the door and edged across to the hearth. With a pang, he noticed what a wide berth she gave him. He noticed something else. “Where did you get that dress?”

“It’s Lady Hillbrook’s.” The exasperated glance she shot him as she perched on a chair was a painful reminder of their former ease with each other. “My clothes are still at the cottage.”

“Whose fault is that?” he snapped, following with deliberate slowness so that she wouldn’t feel pursued. Although he stalked her now as carefully as a starving tiger stalked a stray goat.

“Yours.” She sat rigidly and folded her hands in her lap.

The dark blue dress brought out the satiny whiteness of her skin and the pale splendor of her hair, caught up in a more elaborate style than usual. She looked like a great lady. How he wished that his mother could see her. He wasn’t entirely delighted with her finery. When Miss Trim had flitted about his house in her puritanical dresses, he’d lived under the happy illusion that he alone had noted her beauty. She’d been his private treasure. Anyone seeing her now would be rightly dazzled.

There was a chair close to hers. Now that the shock of seeing her passed, he was able to consider strategy. With a completely assumed nonchalance, he took the seat on the opposite side of the fire. “You lied to me. There’s no Lady Bascombe. No Willow House.”

She frowned as if struggling to remember. “I needed references to work for you.”

“So you wrote them yourself?”

The frown deepened. The accusation of dishonesty troubled her. “I hated lying to your mother.”

She didn’t say that she’d hated lying to him. He had so far to go before she’d give him a chance. For a man who spent his life coaxing people in directions they didn’t want to take, he was depressingly unsure whether he’d win her over. “She doesn’t know you did.”

“She will.”

Yes, bugger it. If Eleanor’s plot succeeded and those infernal letters became public, his mother would indeed know that she’d fostered a traitor. “Sedgemoor told me everything. I know why you joined my household. You wanted proof of my crimes.”

“I found it,” she muttered, looking down at hands clasped so tightly in her lap that the knuckles shone white.

He ignored that. “Finally I understand so many things. Not least your night wanderings and why I found you in my bedroom.”

She’d been worryingly pale, but now pink colored her cheeks. “I nearly died when you came in.”

Bitterness edged his tone. “I’m sure.”

Eleanor cast him a searching glance. “I thought that you’d be furious.”

“You also thought that you’d be far away and safe from retribution,” he said in that same grim voice. “Under bloody Sedgemoor’s protection.”

Her eyes widened. “Not in… that way.”

He almost smiled. “No, not in that way. Sedgemoor’s notoriously devoted to his wife.”

“I’d heard you were enemies. I thought he’d welcome the chance to destroy you.”

Leath arched his eyebrows, beating back barely contained
outrage. How could she range herself against him like this? “When you’re basing a fiendish plot on gossip, you should make sure it’s up to date, my dear.”

She glared. “Don’t call me that.”

For all her composure, she was no closer to relenting. His voice lowered, although he could barely hide his hurt disbelief. “You came to my house, convinced I’d defiled women up and down the country. You inveigled yourself into my mother’s life, my life, under false pretenses.”

A hunted expression entered her eyes. “Given your sins, deceit is justified.”

“What about your kisses? Were they justified?”

She flinched so violently that her back slammed into the chair. “You can’t—”

“Can’t what?” He couldn’t restrain his anguish. “Can’t remind you that two nights ago, you lay in my arms?”

She raised a shaking hand to cover her face. He wondered if she hid from her seducer or from the truth inside herself. “Don’t.”

“Why did you give yourself to me?”

She lowered her hand to reveal eyes dull with misery. “Because I’m foolish and weak, and I convinced myself that you weren’t the man I knew you to be.”

“Or perhaps you discovered that you were mistaken about me in the beginning.”

She winced. “Those letters show the truth. You behave as if I’ve wronged you, when your misdeeds reach to the sky.”

“I’m sorry about your sister.”

“You should be sorry,” she retorted, cutting as a whip. “You killed her.”

He rose, fruitlessly wishing he could ease her grief. “No wonder you hated me.”

She stumbled to her feet and glared at him. “Don’t pretend this is news to you. Dorothy’s in your diary, the one that man Greengrass has. I know you were in Kent when she was ruined.”

“I—” He stopped. “Good Lord, so I was that summer. I was at a strategy meeting at Penshurst.”

Triumph lit her eyes as though she’d landed the winning blow. “You used my sister, then abandoned her to disgrace. When she told you she carried your child, you mocked her with foul details of the other women you’d despoiled.”

He felt sick. “Does that sound like something I’d do?”

She stood trembling behind the chair, hands digging into the leather back. “I don’t know you well enough to say.”

“Yes, you do.” His attention remained unwavering. “So you think that having ruined your half-sister, I ruined you too?”

He couldn’t mistake her shame. “Of course.”

Like an acid tide, rancor rose. “Well, at least I didn’t boast of prior conquests.”

“I found the letters before you could,” she said stubbornly.

He wanted to seize those slender shoulders and shake sense into her. He wanted to fold her in his arms and soothe away her wretchedness. “Ah, the letters.”

“They prove Dorothy’s accusations.” Her tone sliced like razors. “They prove I’m your dupe.”

Impatiently he sighed and ran his hand through his hair. “They prove someone using my name ruined your sister and those other women.”

Her eyes flashed. “I can’t blame you for trying to play me for an idiot. After all, even knowing what I did, I fell into your bed.”

He cast her an annoyed glance. “Doesn’t that strike you as significant?”

Her hands clenched against the leather. “Don’t taunt me.”

He stepped closer. “Eleanor, my uncle seduced those women under my name. I’ve been trying to compensate his victims. I had those letters because I was afraid that they’d fall into the wrong hands and be misinterpreted.” He sighed again. “And that’s just what happened.”

She snarled and backed away. “A likely story. Far more believable that my half-sister accused her betrayer as she died. There’s only one name in those letters, my lord. One man receiving blackmail demands.”

Defeat’s cold breath chilled his neck. She sounded so immovable. “Eleanor…”

She made a slashing gesture with one hand. “I told you not to call me that.”

He loved her strength so much, even when she turned it against him. “What shall I call you? My darling, my sweetheart, my lover?”