Clandestine (41 page)

“Yes, I remember her.”

“You know I'll support you, Guy, in whatever you wish. Yet what if this Miss Mansard doesn't cry off—?”

“Then I'll be obliged to go through with the wedding, of course.”

Henry pursed his mouth as if he swallowed grief. “Not even Wellington could escape a similar situation, though it's well known that he never really loved his wife. I just never thought to see my only son trapping himself into a loveless marriage.”

“I hope most sincerely that it won't come to that, sir,” Guy said. “But if it does, you have my word of honor that I shall never deliberately bring pain to her. I will not ignore her while I follow other interests, nor entertain a mistress, while abandoning her alone in the country. Rachel may always count on my civility and courtesy—”

“Though not your love?”

“No. She knows that.”

“Then how can you promise that neither of you won't find love elsewhere?”

“She may, but I shan't.”

Henry Devoran stood up and grabbed his son by the arm. “You cannot promise that, sir!”

Guy smiled at him. “Yes, I can, because I love another lady just as deeply and absolutely as you loved Mama, and shall till the day that I die. Yet if I marry Rachel, this other lady and I will not see each other privately ever again.”

“Then I foresee tragedy,” his father said quietly. “And you'll break your heart, just as surely as you're breaking mine.”

G
UY
leaned both hands on the medieval parapet at the top of the Fortune Tower and gazed out across the Blackdown estates. Woods and fields stretched away toward the distant Channel, where breakers beat steadily at the cliffs.

Sarah had not written. Neither had he, except for the short note that still lay in his pocket.

A group of figures crawled along one of the paths far below: Rachel and Miracle with their babies, two of Ryder's young sisters, and a retinue of nursemaids and footmen.

He could not, for the first time in years, confide the depth of his feelings to Miracle. She was still very dear to his heart, but she, too, was a mother. She, too, would put any baby's happiness ahead of her own, and expect the people she loved to do the same.

Guy dropped his forehead onto his folded hands and closed his eyes. The temptation to cast honor to the wind and ride hell-for-leather to Bath hurt like a burn, yet he knew exactly what Sarah would say.

“We're not free.”

In the privacy of his room the previous evening, he had filled sheet after sheet with the distraught contents of his soul, then just as carefully burned them. It would only be a cruelty to commit to the impersonal post such a reminder of what they risked losing. Neither of them wished to bring the other that much anguish, and words were anyway unnecessary. Yet he had led his first true love straight into disaster.

Alas, alas, he had—in what now seemed like another lifetime—made Rachel a solemn vow on his honor that he would protect her for as long as she might ever need him. And she needed him now. Worse, the innocent child might need him forever.

Even if he seized Sarah and carried her off to the Antipodes, they could not build a future together on the ruins of that baby's life.

So in the end he had written her just two lines:
Beloved, I leave Wyldshay today to do what I can. If I fail, you know exactly what is in my heart and always will—G.D
.

As if they drowned together in the cold Atlantic, they might each cling to this one last straw—that he would find Claude d'Alleville alive and bring him back—even though they were both almost certain that it was a wild-goose chase.

He would never forget his father's face as Henry Devoran realized the extent of the trap that his only son had woven for himself, but at least Guy did not have to face the distressed gaze of his elder cousin, a man whose natural chivalry was inseparable from his soul. Of course, Ryder would understand, yet he would be equally pessimistic about the likely outcome. So it was fortunate that he was away, seeing to business in another part of the far-flung empire of the duchy.

Meanwhile, Jack was basking in the quiet company of his wife and new baby daughter in his own home at Withycombe. However painful it might prove, Guy would visit Jack and Anne before he left for France, even knowing that it would be impossible to hide the truth. Instead, he would have to rely on the depth of their love for him, and trust that they would not trespass any further than he could bear.

So only his aunt, the duchess, remained, with her clear green gaze, as penetrating as that of any goddess.

“Good heavens!” she had said when Guy's carriage had first arrived from Devon, bringing her such unlikely guests. The mildest of reproofs. Yet it was always impossible to escape the challenge of her cool assessment.

Footsteps shuffled behind him. Guy glanced around.

“The carriage is ready, sir,” the footman said.

Guy ran down the spiral stairs to take the shortcut through the rose garden. As he reached the wrought-iron gate it swung open.

The duchess's leaf-green eyes darkened to forest shadows in the shade of her parasol. Her gaze flickered over his clothes: designed for fast traveling, not fashion.

“You have taken it for granted that I will cooperate in your plans for this imprudent marriage, Guy.” She walked away a few steps. “Do you think I will do so without exacting the truth for a reckoning?”

He bowed and fell into step beside her. “What truth do you seek, Your Grace?”

“I seem to be in the habit of arranging unsuitable marriages for the young men in my life,” she said. “Firstly, for my beloved sons, and now for my equally beloved nephew. However, this time there would appear to be neither social advantage, nor true love, though there is already a child. Charming, but a bastard. And, I fear, not even yours?”

Guy took the parasol from her hand and held it to shade her face as she bent to inhale the scent of some roses.

“Perhaps, but either way it's of no consequence. If I return from this journey alone, I will marry his mother.”

She took back her parasol and turned away. “Even if I have no desire to be complicit in arranging a catastrophe?”

“If Rachel and I must marry, I promise to maintain as loving and civil a match as I can manage.”

The green gaze had never been easy to read and now it was entirely opaque. “Ah, yes! For the sake of the child.”

“Berry is the only innocent party in all of this. And, unfortunately, the Earl of Moorefield, with the most extreme of the Tories at his tail, has an interest in the outcome.”

“You believe that this wedding will poke a stick in Moorefield's eye? Then you are fortunate, sir, that he is an old enemy of mine.”

Guy plucked a red rose that she couldn't quite reach and gave it to her.
“Enemy?”

She held the flower up to the sun to admire it. Light soaked into the petals like blood.

“The earl has been cruel since childhood. No dog, horse, or servant was ever safe in his hands. Why else would I have agreed to tolerate his wife here as my guest, if necessary?”

“Yet she wouldn't leave him,” Guy said.

“Of course not. She fears that he, or her father, will kill her if she does.”

“Then you must agree that I had to remove the child from his grasp, irrespective of the cost.”

Twirling the rose in her fingers, the duchess strolled away along the path. “I am not sentimental about children, sir, yet I am very fond of you.”

“So you will arrange the wedding?”

“If you are so determined to sacrifice your own happiness.” The summer afternoon heat beat down, trapped by the encircling stone walls. “And not only your happiness, I fear,” the duchess continued. “There is another lady, is there not?”

“Yes.”

Long ivory ribbons trembled against her gown. “With whom you are quite desperately and very seriously in love?”

“Yes.”

“And her impulse to protect this child from the earl's wrath equally overrides her attachment to you?”

“Yes, it does. It must. We freely make the same choice. We could not build a future together on Rachel's unhappiness and her baby's destruction.”

“Then your journey is Mrs. Callaway's last hope,” the duchess said. “Though I fear that you do not in truth expect a happy outcome?”

“No,” Guy said, “and she knows it, but I must try.”

His mother's sister tucked the rose into his jacket pocket, and touched him briefly on the cheek.

“Then Godspeed, Guy!” she said quietly. “If I must arrange a wedding, I would far rather it was for the correct bride.”

He bowed, kissed her hand, and strode away.

S
ARAH
came in from her walk and removed her wet bonnet. She had been soaked by a sudden thunderstorm. Strands of damp hair coiled miserably on her neck. She caught a glimpse of herself in the hall mirror and made a face, determined not to give way to self-pity. Yet the eyes that gazed back at her were haunted.

Guy's note was engraved on her soul:
If I fail, you know exactly what is in my heart and always will
.

As he knew hers.

So there had been no need to trouble him with any more correspondence, especially with half of France between them.

His absence filled her heart with a wrenching pain, infected with the dread that—despite his best efforts—their parting would be forever. Yet, while her days were racked by fear, her nights were tormented by memories: of his touch, his smile, his scent, his passion.

If he failed and never came back for her, she would live the rest of her days like a ghost, an empty shell drained of spirit.

“Ah, Mrs. Callaway!” Miss Farcey stepped into the hallway. “You have a visitor—from Wyldshay, no less! Though from His Lordship's manner, I fear it may be bad news. I've shown him into my private study. It won't do to keep—Oh, my! Are you quite well? Pray, sit down for a moment and collect yourself.”

Sarah gulped down her sudden sick fear and excitement. Had he come for her? Had something happened?

“No,” she said. “Thank you. I am quite well. We mustn't keep this gentleman waiting.”

She hurried into the small study, then stopped dead. In the dim light the resemblance was uncanny. Yet she knew Guy's scent in her blood and his touch in her bones. Her hope to see him imploded instantly.

“Lord Jonathan?”

“I didn't mean to startle you, Mrs. Callaway,” he said. “Pray, sit down!”

“Miss Farcey feared there was bad news. Is Guy—?”

He caught her by both elbows, then helped her to a seat. “No! As far as I know, my cousin is perfectly well in body, though probably just as sick as you in spirit.” His gilt-brown eyes searched her face. “May I ring for some wine, or some tea?”

“No, thank you,” Sarah said. “Guy spoke to you about me before he left?”

Lord Jonathan perched one hip on the corner of the desk. “I know that your memory haunts his dreams and persecutes his heart with every breath, as his does yours.”

“Please, my lord,” she said. “Don't say that! If he and Rachel must indeed marry, he'll never,
never
allow himself to be disloyal to her.”

He folded his arms across his chest and stared down at the floor. “Mrs. Callaway, you may think this none of my business, but I'm an expert in noble self-immolation—or at least I used to be, before Anne cured me of such nonsense. Our cousins don't love each other, and they both admit it. Yet Guy has no natural gift for choosing honor over happiness, and he'll despise himself if he fails—”

“He won't fail!” Sarah said.

Lord Jonathan leaped up and rang the bell. A maid answered and he ordered tea.

“No, perhaps not. Yet I believe he has hoped—as you have—that you and he would never need to be tested so sorely.”

Sarah smoothed her hair back from her forehead. “Yes, we have hoped that, though all the evidence is to the contrary. Yet if he could persuade Berry's real father—”

“A man named Claude d'Alleville, from the Chateau du Cerf in the Dordogne?”

Sarah began to long for the tea. Her mouth tasted like a desert, and she still felt faint and sick, but she nodded.

“Guy wrote to him there while we were still in Devon,” she said. “Why? Is there an answer?”

With a soft rap at the door a maid arrived with the tea tray. While the girl bustled in, Sarah studied Lord Jonathan's face. A new, unnamed fear threatened to engulf her, as if she stared into the heart of tragedy, but he turned and strode away to the window.

He waited there quietly until the maid left and Sarah had poured tea, then he walked back, took her cup, and stirred in plenty of sugar.