Dark Fires (26 page)

49

Before sweeping Jane up in his arms and rushing with her into the house, the earl directed a searing look of disbelief and hatred at Patricia. “Thomas,” he shouted, “bring tea and whiskey, cool cloths and smelling salts.”

He pounded into the study. He lay Jane down upon the sofa as if she were made of fragile china, smoothing hair away from her forehead. “Jane,” he said, low, soft. “Jane, wake up.”

And then, although there was no sound, he felt her animosity and contempt and he turned to see his first wife standing in the doorway, staring at them. “How quaint,” she said.

“You bitch,” he bit out, and turned back to Jane.

“Papa!” Chad came running in, white-faced, Governess Randall on his heels. “What’s happened to Jane? Is she dead?” He started to cry, although manfully trying to hold back the tears.

“She’s only had a little faint,” the earl told him. “Chad, be a good man and go upstairs with Randall . Jane will be up shortly and you’ll see she is fine. You’ve missed enough studies as it is today.”

Although reluctant, Chad allowed the governess to take his hand. He followed her out, with many backward glances at Jane. Jane moaned. The earl touched her face, coaxing her back to consciousness. “Wake up, darling,” he murmured. “Jane, wake up.”

Thomas entered with the damp cloths and liquor. “The tea will be just a moment more,” he said, handing the earl a whiskey. He ignored Patricia quite royally.

Jane eyes fluttered open.

The earl propped her up. “You’ve had a shock,” he said grimly. “We all have. Here, sip this,” he said, guiding the glass to her mouth.

Jane took a draft, coughed, turned away protesting and saw Patricia. She froze.

The earl whipped his head around furiously. “You may await my summons in the parlor,” he said through gritted teeth.

Her eyes blazed, but she was also afraid, and with a negligent shrug she exited.

“Oh, God!” Jane cried, sinking back down and covering her face with her hands.

“We’ll work it out, Jane,” the earl promised, but there was a note of desperation in his voice.

She sat up. “I want to go to my room,” she managed. Her face was stark white, and she turned her agonized blue gaze upon him. “How can she be alive? How?” she cried. “And why has she come back now?”

“I don’t know,” he said tautly. “I don’t know.”

The earl closed the parlor door behind him, leaning against it. Hatred blazed from his eyes.

Seated like a queen in the center of the couch, still every bit the beauty, dressed richly in gold silk and brocade, Patricia Weston met his stare steadily, a tiny smile of superiority turning up the corners of her mouth.

“This is unbelievable,” the earl said. “Have the past six years been amusing, Patricia?”

She made a moue. “Apparently they have been quite amusing for you.”

He clenched his fists. “Why have you come back? And where the hell have you been?”

“I’ve been in America, mostly,” she said, as if discussing a two-week holiday. “And I came back for what’s mine.” Her green eyes hardened.

“You mean Clarendon?” The earl laughed. “Clarendon is Chad’s. And I have a wife.”

“Do you? You don’t mean that little tart? I am your wife, she is merely a mistress. Legally speaking, that is.”

“You goddamn bitch. You think to take your place as my wife in my home, in my life? Well, think again!”

“We can find a mutually satisfactory arrangement, Nick.” Patricia smoothed her skirts. “I will reside elsewhere, of course. Our paths need never cross. You must only furnish me with a reasonable allowance and my inheritance, which I left behind in my haste to flee you six years ago.”

“I will gladly give you the ten thousand pounds that is your estate,” the earl spat. “I have no need of it.” The enormity of the dilemma facing him confronted him squarely, painfully. “God!” he cried, realizing with anguish that his wife was Patricia, not Jane.

“Don’t worry, you may keep her. It suits me, in fact. But of course you cannot live with her,” Patricia said. “It would be too indiscreet.”

He whirled. He wanted to strangle her. “Maybe I should do what everyone accused me of doing all those years back,” he growled. “Maybe I should kill you!”

Patricia paled.

“Don’t,” the earl warned, pacing forward. “Don’t you dare to give me ultimatums.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, eyeing him with fear.

“Did you know I was tried for your murder?” He was shaking with fury. He saw the flash of fear again in her eyes. “You were in hiding, pretending to be dead—while I was almost convicted!”

“I didn’t know.”

He was sure she was lying, he saw it in her eyes. “You unbelievably selfish, self-centered bitch. Am I to assume you were with Boltham? He left for America after the trial, did he not?” Again, he did not need her answer. “You didn’t shed one tear over your son, did you?” he snarled.

“Chad is yours,” she said, shoulders squared, head held high. Distaste twisted her lips. “Every bit yours.”

He compared her to Jane, beautiful, big-hearted Jane, and could not believe he had ever loved her. “Who died in the fire?” the earl shot.

“My maid, the Irish girl.” Patricia shrugged. “The silly twit fell in her haste to flee and hit her head. I had to leave her behind.”

“Did you start the fire, Patricia?”

“No.”

The earl knew it was a lie.

She shrugged. “You cannot prove anything.”

“You would go to such extremes to escape me? And you feel not a jot of guilt for that poor girl who died?”

“I hate you,” Patricia suddenly hissed. “I’ve always hated you, from the moment we met! I did what I had to! I would do it again!”

The earl had a sudden idea. “Who has seen you? Other than the servants? Who knows you are still alive?”

“No one who knows me,” Patricia said. “Except Boltham, of course.”

“I will give you more money than you can possibly spend,” the earl said vehemently. “But I want you to get out of this country and never come back. Do you understand?”

Patricia smiled. “So you can live with your new wife as if I am really dead? Forget it! I am tired of America. Boltham bores me. And he is penniless too. I want my place back in Society. I am not leaving. I am tired of being an anonymous English noblewoman!”

“You selfish bitch,” the earl said.

It was over, wasn’t it? It was over before it had really begun. Their life together. His wife,
his first love
, was back, to claim her rightful place at his side. Why else would she appear? Jane hugged her pillow and wept.

Fate was so cruel, to bring her and Nicholas together then wrench them apart. How, how would she survive?

And they weren’t even married. His wife was Patricia, she was just his paramour in the eyes of God and the law. Jane sobbed harder.

Did he still love Patricia?

And now what?

“Jane,” the earl said, entering without knocking.

“No,” she managed, clutching the pillow even tighter. She lay curled in a ball on the bed. “Not now.”

“We have to talk,” the earl said.

“Go away, go to her! Go to your real wife!” Jane cried hysterically.

He sat beside her, the mattress dipping, and pulled her against him. She fought him. “I don’t want to go to her,” he said thickly. “Jane, we must be calm. We must talk.”

She did not release the pillow. Her ears were ringing, her temple throbbing, and everything was so
unreal.
She was so afraid. “I don’t want to talk. Not now,” Did he still love her? Why was he so calm?

“Jane, don’t let her tear you up like this. It
will
be all right,” he vowed. “You will see. We shall work it out.”

It was impossible and she knew it. There was nothing to work out. Patricia was his wife and she was not. Patricia had come back because she was his wife. Hadn’t she?

“What does she want?” she heard herself say, her voice sounding strange and far away. Although she knew the answer, she prayed, she hoped, to hear something else.

For a long moment he did not speak, and she caught a glimpse of something like desperation in his eyes. But then there was only firm, steel resolve, and she knew she had imagined seeing any other emotion. “Please, Jane,” he said. “Don’t torture yourself. Trust me. You know I will always take care of you and Nicole. Always. We will find a solution. I promise.”

Jane almost laughed, hysterically. She had known it, sensed it, the moment she first saw Patricia. There was only one solution. Obviously Patricia had come back from the dead to resume her role as his wife. That left one role for Jane—as mistress. Nicholas would “take care” of her. Jane knew she could not relinquish Nicholas to another woman, especially not to his first love. She could not, would not, be his mistress, after being his wife. She balled up her fists. And just when he was starting to love her a little!

“Don’t cry,” the earl said shakily. “She’s gone, for now, anyway, to Clarendon. She won’t be staying here, regardless.”

Jane lifted her face, gripping his shirt. “Make love to me, Nicholas,” she said desperately. “Make love to me now.”

“Jane,” he protested.

Her fingers clenching his hair, she pulled his head down and kissed him with all the desperation and love she felt. He did not resist, then began to respond, her hunger feeding his. Jane pulled him down on top of her, tearing at his shirt, the buttons flying off. He kissed her fiercely, crushing her breasts.

It was going to be the last time, and she knew it.

“Come to me,” she screamed, biting his mouth. “Come to me, Nicholas, now!”

“Jane!”

She wrenched open his trousers, yanking at them, baring his thick manhood. The earl gasped as she bit his jaw, her nails raking down his back. “Nicholas!” she screamed, weeping.

He tossed up her skirts and impaled her.

Together they strained in desperation, the one to the other, their hot tears mingling on their cheeks. And after, Jane could not cry anew, for she had nothing left to give.

The earl stroked her face and hair, holding her. “We will work it out,” he said again.

She tried to smile, and failed.

50

The earl had summoned his lawyer. Now he stood miserably, tautly, in his study, unable to calm down. He began pacing with agitation. Damn the woman! He couldn’t help wishing that Patricia were really dead. Thinking about her infuriated him.

He heard Jane’s voice in the hallway as she asked Thomas for a carriage. The earl was already at the door, and there he froze.

She slowly lifted her gaze to his.

He stared, not at her, but at her trunk and valise, the blood draining from his face—and from his very soul.

“I cannot stay here, Nicholas,” Jane said calmly.

His gaze was wild. “You are leaving me?” “It’s better if I go back to Gloucester Street,” she said, her mouth trembling. “You cannot go!”

“I cannot stay here,” she cried, her face even paler than his. “I am not your wife anymore, Nicholas—or have you forgotten?”

The pain was unbearable. “Jane, I told you, we will work it out.”

“Oh, yes,” she said bitterly. “There is certainly a solution! An obvious one.” Tears filled her eyes. “But regardless, she is your wife, and I cannot remain here.”

“Don’t go,” he said hoarsely.

“Think! Think about the children! We cannot immerse them in another scandal, my God!” And her mouth crumbled as the tears fell freely now.

If it were only him, he would not care about another scandal. But now he had Jane and the children to think about, to protect. It would be the height of indecency and immorality should she remain in his household with Patricia back from the dead. Still, it did not make it any easier to bear—it did not ease the godawful pain.

“I—I had better go,” Jane said into the raw silence.

The earl said nothing. He watched her move away, wondering at the magnitude of heartache he was feeling. But then he consoled himself—she was only going to Gloucester Street, and as she had said, there was an obvious solution. Where the hell was his lawyer?

Nick strode outside after her. Jane was ascending into the carriage, Molly and Nicole already within. He caught her from behind and turned her for a fierce, searing kiss, one of possession. She did not respond, as if numb and shocked.

“I will come to you tomorrow,” he promised her.

Her eyes teared again. “Good-bye, Nicholas.”

“Tomorrow, Jane,” he said firmly, then watched as the carriage rolled down the drive, through the iron gates, and into Tavistock Square.

His lawyer, Henry Felding, was a tall, thin, somewhat nervous man. However, he was quite brilliant. He arrived a quarter hour later. “Where have you been?” Nick ground out.

“I’m sorry, my lord, but the traffic is nigh on impossible at this hour. How is your wife?” Felding asked politely.

“My wife, damn her soul, has come back from the dead!”

Felding was openly shocked.

“My first wife,” Nick said through gritted teeth. “Patricia Weston Shelton. She is alive, and in London.”

Felding sat down. “Oh, dear,” he said.

“Oh, dear is damn right.” The earl pulled a chair up and sat, leaning forward aggressively. “Am I still legally married to her? She disappeared six years ago and was assumed dead, as you well know.”

Felding wiped his face with a handkerchief. “Yes, I recall all that hoopla. And yes, she is still your wife, both legally and in the eyes of the church.”

Nick cursed savagely.

Felding blushed.

“And where, pray tell, does that leave Jane?” “I am afraid Jane has no status, not legally, that is.”

“I want a divorce.”

“An annulment would be a matter of course,” Felding said, brightening now. “As the Lady Patricia is still alive, the church will readily annul your marriage to Jane.”

“No. I want to divorce that faithless, selfish bitch—Patricia. Start the proceedings now!”

Felding gasped. Divorce was not just rare, among the upper classes it was almost unheard of and certainly a last, dire resort. Worse, it was immoral and scandalous. “Are you certain?”

“One hundred percent. How long will it take?”

“Usually there is a bit of a wait, nigh on a year.”

“Damn.”

“But”—Felding brightened again—“in this case, with your wife having abandoned you, and being thought dead, with you having taken a second wife, and there being issue thereof, I imagine we can speed things up quite a bit.”

“Good,” the earl said savagely. “Good!”

“I will begin inquiries immediately,” Felding said, taking out a pen and notebook and scribbling some notes.

The earl went to his desk and returned with two envelopes. “This is for you—a bonus for a job well done in advance,” he said.

Felding blushed. “Thank you, my lord, but it’s really not necessary….”

“And this is for whomever you judge worthy and helpful. I want this done as quickly as possible,” he said, handing him the second envelope. Both were full of thousands of pounds.

“This will certainly expedite matters,” Henry Felding said.

It was just past eleven when the Dragmore carriage with its bold crests pulled up to the front doors of Clarendon.

The Clarendon estate was in Kent, some five hours by coach from London. It sprawled over twelve thousand acres, most of the farmland leased to tenants due to the mismanagement of the various dukes. The mansion itself had been built in the Tudor style during the reign of Henry VII, and added on to subsequently during the end of Queen Elizabeth’s reign, and then time and again. As such, it was a huge, sprawling, confused affair—quite ghastly, in fact. Nick had never been impressed by the place.

He was determined to inform Patricia of his plans and get any confrontation over with. He had traveled all evening to do so. He alighted from the carriage purposefully and was greeted by pale, sweating servants, no doubt still in the same state of shock that he’d been in when Patricia had materialized upon his own doorstep earlier that day. He reckoned that she had probably arrived five or six hours ago.

“My lady is asleep,” he was informed somewhat disdainfully by the butler, whose name he could not remember.

He stood arrogantly in the grand hallway, a cruel smile on his lips. “Then awaken her. I expect her downstairs and in the library in fifteen minutes. If she is not there then, I shall come and get her myself. Even if I have to drag her from her bed.”

The butler scurried off.

The earl strode down the hall, flinging open doors, looking for the library. He was greeted by a grand ballroom, a music room, a small withdrawing room, a vast parlor. He finally found the room he was looking for and poured himself a French Bordeaux. It had aged well.

Patricia appeared in twenty minutes, not fifteen, and was not the least sleepy-eyed. “What is the meaning of this?” she demanded haughtily, sure of herself in her own domain.

He eyed her in her velvet robe. “I have news I wish to discuss.”

“Here? Now? In the middle of the night?”

“Here, now, in the middle of the night. I am divorcing you, Patricia.”

She went white.

“I give you fair notice now. Although I shall point out that you do not deserve any fairness from me, I have no intention of being shackled to you for the rest of my life. You will have your estate and a healthy allowance, but Clarendon is Chad’s. I will allow you to reside here until his majority, however.”

“You miserable bastard!” she hissed. “I don’t want a divorce! The scandal! However will I survive?”

“Patricia, you are surely not thinking clearly,” he said. “You have already created quite the scandal, by resurrecting yourself from the dead.”

“But I have the perfect story! How I escaped the fire but lost my mind from the horror of it!” she cried wildly. “I will be Society’s Darling, you shall see!”

“Frankly, I don’t give a damn,” he said. “You cannot stop this divorce, not after abandoning me and your child.”

“But I lost my memory,” she said with a sneer, eyes cool and calculating now.

He turned to her, smiling. “Do you wish to come up against me? Do you think you can possibly win?”

She just looked at him smugly.

His smile increased, showing white, even teeth. “Patricia, if I do not get this divorce, I shall make your life a living hell.”

She stared, nostrils flared and eyes dilated.

“Once you despised me—for my red blood.” His teeth showed white again, and he took a step toward her. “That same blood still fills my veins. My ancestors used to covet blond scalps like yours, Patricia. They used to hang them, raw and bloody, from their belts.”

She went white.

“I daresay,” he said, his grin genuine now, “my father had a scalp or two to his credit. Did you know that, Patricia?”

“You’re lying,” she whispered, shocked.

His response was a snarl. “You had better pray that I succeed in attaining this divorce. For if I do not, there will be no agreement between us, no separate residences. I will be a husband in every sense of the word, whenever I choose, regardless of your sensibilities. If you resist me I will rape you. I will spend the rest of our marriage making your life hell on earth.”

Tears came to her eyes. “Bastard!”

“I mean it,” he said, and he did.

“Take your divorce then, take it!” she cried. “I shall tell everyone my story, and they will sympathize with me and I shall find a new husband! One who is not some half-breed Indian!”

“I have no doubts you shall land on both feet, head held high,” he said easily, and then he bowed. “I shall keep you informed of the progress of the proceedings.”

The earl arrived at the house on Gloucester Street just as dawn was brightening the sky from black to mauve gray.

He paused on the sidewalk. It was a gray, misty morning, a thick fog blanketing the neighborhood. The house seemed closed up, deserted, utterly quiet. Of course, it was his imagination, for Jane and his daughter were there, soundly asleep within. He started forward, eager to tell her the good news and to beg her to hang on, just for a little while until they got through this trying period.

Soon he would be divorced, and he and Jane would remarry.

His heart tripped at the thought. Yet he grew sober as he strode through the wrought-iron gate and up to the bright-blue door. Something pricked at him, making him uneasy. It was so damn quiet! He noticed that all the bright-yellow shutters were closed. Surely this was what was throwing him off. He strained to hear a sound, perhaps Nicole, who woke up notoriously early in the morning. But there was nothing, nothing at all, not even the day’s first birdsongs. Yet he knew he was a fool, for it was only the crack of dawn, and only the milkmen were up now.

He rang the doorbell, shifting impatiently. Surely Molly was already awake, preparing breakfast for her mistress. There was no answer, and the earl rang again, once, twice, three times. He tried to peer through a window without shutters, but the curtains were drawn.

He had a terrible pang.

He banged now, hard. “Molly! Open up! It’s the Earl of Dragmore!”

There was no response, as if the house were utterly deserted.

But that was impossible, he thought, hurrying round to the back. The little yard where he had sat with Nicole on the pink swing was already overgrown. He tried the kitchen door, but it was locked. Yet the shades were up and he could look in. The kitchen was barren, perfectly tidy—it looked as if it had not been used in a very long time.

Something sick welled within him.

They were not here. He knew it in that lightning moment.

Determined, eyes wild, the earl looked around and picked up a stone. He smashed the glass pane of the back door, knocked out the jagged pieces recklessly, then slipped his hand through and turned the lock from inside. The door swung open.

He rushed into the empty, immaculate kitchen, into the dining room, where dust coated the table, and bounded up the stairs, two at a time. He flung open the door to Jane’s room, calling her name. The room was empty, the bed perfectly made and unslept in.

Eyes wide and disbelieving, he flung open the closet—to find it starkly bare as well. She wasn’t there.

She wasn’t there, hadn’t been there, wasn’t coming there.

The comprehension was shocking, and as if in a trance, he went to the window, pushed back the curtains, and stared out into the fog.

Where was she? Where had she gone? And, dear God, why?

He howled into the dawn then, the sound anguished and wolflike. She had left him. Once again she had left him.

“Jane,” he cried, eyes squeezed shut. “Jane, Jane, you cannot leave me! You cannot leave me again!”

But there was no answer.

Around him, the house was utterly still and silent.

“Why!” he shouted, fists clenched. “Why!”