Captive (22 page)

“If I could forgive your brother for what he did, I would. But I cannot.”

“What are you saying? That you want me … but you still intend to challenge my brother to a duel and kill him if you can?”

“I have no choice.”

“You must be insane to think I would come to you under those terms!”

“They are the only terms I am free to offer,” he said.

Olivia could not believe what she was hearing. All she had to do to realize her heart’s desire was tie herself in marriage to a man who intended to kill her brother! The audacity, the sheer arrogance of such an offer was staggering.

She knew now why Braddock’s cheeks were sunken, and his eyes glittered with a fierce light. He wanted her. But he could not give up his need for revenge against her brother. Braddock was asking her to choose between them. She could have one, but not both.

She kept her eyes downcast. If she looked at him, she might be tempted to say yes. She loved him that much.

But she could never live with the guilt of having made such a choice. She would never be able to forgive him, or herself, if he killed Lion. They
would never be able to find happiness with the death of her brother between them.

“I am sorry, Your Grace,” she said in a tremulous voice. “I must refuse your kind offer.”

He took a step back. He had said what he had to say. She had refused him. It was over.

She saw the light die in his eyes. And felt her heart break.

As she watched him go, she tried to think of a way to stop him. And realized there was information he did not have that might influence his decision. She need only tell him the truth about why her brother had challenged James to a duel. She need only tell him what James had done to Lady Alice, and he would be able to forgive her brother.

Maybe all was not yet lost.

Braddock was almost to the door when she said, “Your brother … Did it never occur to you that Lord James must have done something to provoke Denbigh?”

The duke turned to face her. “It seems your brother needed no provocation.”

“You know he was engaged to—”

That was as far as she got before the drawing room door burst open. Lion stood there, his silvery gray eyes staring daggers at Braddock.

“You are not welcome here,” Lion said.

“Lion, the duke has offered—”

“
Carte blanche
?” Lion said sarcastically.

The blood left Olivia’s face.
Carte blanche
was the open check a man offered to his mistress. It was among the worst insults Braddock could have offered her.

“I ought to kill you for that,” Braddock said. “Lady Olivia—”

“Is my sister. If I ever see you near her again, I’ll slap a glove in your face and kill you, as I did your blackguard of a brother!”

Braddock went white around the mouth. “You won’t have to wait. I’ll be happy to accommodate you. Name the time and place. Choose your weapon. Declare your seconds.”

“Stop it, both of you!” Olivia cried, her hands clapped to her ears.

“Stay out of this, Olivia,” Lion said in a steely voice. “It no longer concerns you.”

“What is going on here?”

Olivia ran to her grandfather, who had arrived at the drawing room door with his cane in one hand, and his other arm around Charlotte’s supporting shoulder. “Grandpapa, you have to stop them. Braddock has challenged Lion to a duel. And all because of a misunderstanding!”

“What!” Charlotte shrieked. “Lion, how could you!” She helped the duke as quickly as possible toward his chair in front of the fire. Olivia kept pace with her.

“Maybe you can talk some sense into him, Charlotte,” Olivia said. “He won’t listen to me.”

As soon as the duke was settled, Charlotte turned to confront Denbigh. “What happened?” she asked.

The earl remained stone-faced.

Charlotte turned to Braddock and demanded, “What happened?”

“Denbigh insulted Lady Olivia,” he said stiffly. “I have demanded satisfaction.”

Charlotte’s eyes goggled. She turned back to Lion and said, “Do I have this right? You are dueling with Braddock over an insult
you
gave Livy?”

Denbigh had the grace to flush. His ears turned pink. “It was not exactly like that.”

“How was it, exactly?” Charlotte asked.

“I’d like to hear that explanation myself,” the Duke of Trent said, leaning both hands on his cane in front of him.

“Don’t make him repeat it,” Olivia said wearily. “Just please, Lion, will you take back what you said?” She crossed to stand as close to Braddock as she thought she could safely go without inciting her brother. “Will that satisfy you, Your Grace?”

She gave Braddock a beseeching look, as though to say,
If you love me, you will do this for me
.

“It is only postponing the inevitable,” Braddock said in a voice meant only for her.

“Every day you are both alive is a day I
rejoice,” she said equally quietly. It was as close as she could come to a declaration of how she felt about him. She would not, could not, give him more encouragement than that.

“If Denbigh apologizes,” Braddock announced to those gathered in the room, “I will take back my challenge.”

“Please, Lion,” Olivia said.

“Olivia, you don’t understand—”

“I understand honor better than you know, Lion,” she said in a fierce voice. “You insulted me. And Braddock. I wish you to take back what you said. And apologize.”

“Give over, Denbigh,” the Duke of Trent said. “The ladies don’t like to see blood spilled. And I can’t say I want to take the chance of outliving my heir. Too much trouble to manage all those properties,” he blustered.

Olivia waited to see what her brother would do. He was a proud man. He had been sorely hurt by Braddock’s brother. But if Braddock had ever offered any insult to her, it had never been spoken aloud to him. There was no substance on which to base his insult to her and to Braddock. He was in the wrong.

At last, he acknowledged it.

“I withdraw my comments regarding your intentions toward my sister. And I apologize for any
insult I may have given you”—he turned to Olivia and finished—“or my sister.”

“I accept your apology and withdraw my challenge,” Braddock replied.

“Nicely done,” the Duke of Trent said. “I could use some tea,” he said. “How about the rest of you?”

Braddock turned and made his bow to the elderly duke. “I must excuse myself.”

“It has been a pleasure meeting you,” the old man said.

Olivia heard Lion grind his teeth.

Her grandfather must have heard the same thing because he said, “Sorry you have to go, Braddock.”

Braddock turned and made his bow to Olivia. “Until we meet again.”

Which sent a nervous tic jumping in Lion’s cheek.

“Good-bye, Your Grace,” she said firmly.

He looked at her lingeringly, and she knew that even now, he would take her. But she saw him dead upon a field of honor, and Lion at the other end of the same field, with his lifeblood dripping from him. It was a nightmare from which there was no escape.

Maybe when Braddock knew the truth, he would be able to make peace with her brother. But even then, James would always be between them.

Her eyes followed him out the door. And out of her life.

* * *

It took every bit of persuasive power Charlotte possessed to convince Olivia that they should still attend the masquerade at Vauxhall that evening.

“I have a headache,” Olivia said.

“That excuse won’t work,” Charlotte said.

“I will have one if you make me go,” Olivia retorted. “How can you even consider attending a masquerade this evening, after the events of this morning?”

“I thought everything turned out fine this morning,” Charlotte said. “Lion apologized, didn’t he?”

Olivia made a frustrated sound in her throat. “I don’t want to go. Will that excuse do?”

“You have to come with me, Livy,” Charlotte pleaded. “I’m meeting a man who may be able to give me information about where Lord James and Lady Alice met in private. We need that information to aid us in finding out what hold James had over Lady Alice to make her betray Lion.

“Don’t you see? Once we know everything, you’ll be able to tell Braddock the truth about his brother. And I’ll be able to convince Lion that Lady Alice never purposely betrayed him. Don’t you want me to be your sister-in-law?”

Olivia perked up slightly at that. “This is the first I’ve heard of that. Have you had a change of
mind? Are you willing to marry Lion? Have you told him you will?”

“Yes. Yes. And I can’t. Not yet. Not until I’ve figured out the mystery surrounding Lady Alice. Which is why I need you to come with me tonight. I need you to distract Lion long enough for me to sneak away to the Lover’s Walk.”

“I don’t know, Charlie. Meeting a strange man on a dark walkway does not sound like such a good idea to me.”

“Trust me, Livy. I know what I’m doing.”

“Very well, Charlie. I will go.”

“And you will help me distract Lion?”

“It is against my better judgment.”

“Please, Livy,” Charlotte cajoled.

“Very well. I will distract Lion. Now go away and let me rest.”

Having been successful in convincing Olivia that they should still attend the masquerade, Charlotte set out to find Lion and accomplish the same task—using different arguments, of course.

He was nowhere to be found in the three-story town house.

Charlotte finally went to the butler and asked, “Harvey, has the earl left the house? I’ve looked everywhere for him, but I can’t find him.”

“I have not seen the earl since luncheon, Lady—Charlie,” he replied.

It had taken her longer to get the ancient Trent
butler to use her first name than any of the other servants. But she had told him she would consider it a discourtesy if he did not. That had allowed him to accede to her wishes.

Charlotte watched Stiles check to see if anyone had caught her using his first name. He had explained once that he did not mind if
she
called him Harvey, but he did not want any of the other servants thinking
they
could do the same.

Charlotte had given Harvey a lecture on equality that had fallen on deaf ears. Harvey could hear just fine, he simply did not choose to embrace her point of view.

“A butler is to the servants as a duke is to the nobility,” he had explained. “It is the way of the world. There are those who give orders and those who take them. Where would we be if the maid-of-all-work considered herself the equal of the housekeeper?” he asked.

“In a better world,” Charlotte said.

Stiles was not impressed. Despite all her arguments, he remained convinced that chaos would result if England abandoned the class structure that was all he knew. Charlotte had to be satisfied with crumbling one tiny corner of the class structure through Stiles’s willingness to address her, and to be addressed, in familiar terms.

“Do you have any idea where the earl might be hiding?” she asked the dignified butler.

“Did you check the third floor gallery?”

“Nothing but paintings of moldy ancestors,” Charlotte said, wrinkling her nose.

“The kitchen?”

“The earl knows where the kitchen is? He goes there?” Charlotte asked in mocking amazement.

The butler chuckled. “Oh, yes. When he was a boy … But that was long ago and before he lost his parents. I remember when …”

Charlotte had listened to more than a few reminiscences by Stiles, but daylight was fading, and she had to ensure that her plans for the evening remained intact. “I am sorry to interrupt you, Harvey, but it’s urgent that I find the earl. Do you have any other suggestions where I might look?”

“Perhaps he has gone to the attic.”

“I didn’t know there was one.”

“Oh, yes. A great deal of furniture and clothing is stored there. In the gables, above the third floor. A steep stairway behind the maids’ quarters leads up to it.”

“Why would he go there?” Charlotte asked curiously.

“It was a place he went as a boy, when he wanted to be alone.”

“Thank you, Harvey. I’ll look for him there.”

The attic was laced with cobwebs, and the only light sifted in through two small, dirty windows at
either end of the sloping roof. “Lion?” Charlotte called. “Are you up here?”

“How did you find me?”

Charlotte nearly jumped out of her skin when he appeared behind her, stepping out from behind several stacked wooden crates. “You did that on purpose,” she accused.

He grinned. “It was always fun to scare the maids when they came looking for me. It helped that there was a family of dormouses—dormice?—living up here, at least one of whom could always be counted on to scurry across the floor at just the right moment.”

“What’s a dormouse?”

“Similar to a mouse, but a little larger, about the size of a small squirrel. I used to feed them when I was a child. I looked where their nest used to be. It’s gone.”

“You came up here looking for a family of dormice?” Charlotte asked.

“Actually, I came up here to be alone.”

“Oh.” Charlotte realized, suddenly, how alone they were. It was as though no one else existed. The sounds of hackneys and carriages and curricles rattling over the cobblestones, or the clattering of coal heading down a chute into someone’s basement, or fishmongers and flower girls hawking their wares, could not be heard all the way up here. It was almost like being in the country.

“Oh,” she said again. This time it was a sound of wonder. “It’s so quiet up here.”

“Yes.”

They stood in silence. Staring at each other.

He had cobwebs in his hair. And dust on the knees of his breeches. And desire in his eyes.

“Go back downstairs, Charlotte.”

She shook her head. “I need to speak with you.”

“It’s dangerous up here,” he said, taking a step toward her.

Charlotte held her ground. “You can’t scare me off with the threat of dormice,” she scoffed.

“What about lions?” he said. “Do they scare you?”

This one did. Especially when he was stalking her, about to pounce. No one was likely to knock at the attic door. No one but Stiles knew they were up here. If she gave in to Lion here, there would be nothing and no one to stop him.