Desperately Seeking Suzanna (15 page)

“It was a terrible event.”

“Indeed. I lost everything that day.” He took a sip of the brandy, letting it burn away his past.

“And you think you can get it back by hiding your previously murderous and currently ill mother within your home.” It wasn’t a question. She sliced him open with a glare, making him wince.

“Some part of me is curious about her, I admit. She is my relation, after all. I won’t allow her to stay with me forever. Only…for now.”

“It isn’t safe. She’s killed before.”

“I’m perfectly safe, Aunt Pen. Her actions in the past don’t matter, not now.”

“Don’t they?” she countered.

“I’m fine. I’ve been fending for myself for many years, and my mother’s presence isn’t going to change that fact.”

“Henrietta is appearing at
ton
events, and you are not fine. None of this is fine.”

“All I need do is keep her under wraps while she’s about. Not to worry, Aunt Pen. She’ll remain dead and everything will continue on without note—as always.” He certainly hoped so anyway.

“Holden, think of your cousins.” She tilted her head in that way he always struggled to refuse, like a puppy begging for table scraps. “If Henrietta is recognized in town, their season will be shrouded in scandal.”

He ran a hand through his hair as he tried not to look at her. “I’ll handle it properly. You have my word.”

“Perhaps I can help.” She bit her lip, clearly considering their limited options. “We should tell Joseph that his sister has returned. He’ll be upset, of course, but we must. You cannot bear this burden alone. It would be best to tell your father, but you must have assistance from some corner of the family.”

He pulled away, struck by her words. This was his burden, and his alone. “I can’t let you do that. The more people who know of this…”

“Holden, he can help you. He already knows what happened all those years ago,” she urged, her hands entwined again, making her knuckles turn white. “You can’t keep this secret forever. I see that now. It’s too difficult. If I tell your uncle of Henrietta’s whereabouts, he can…”

“No! I can do this alone. No one can know of this. And no one will.”

“Holden,” she pleaded, her head tilting to the side once more in the look Holden couldn’t refuse. But this time he must.

“Aunt Pen, we can’t allow this situation to be known, not even by Uncle. If the truth finds a way out, every salon in London will be buzzing with the family’s secrets. ‘Didn’t you know? He claimed his own mother was dead. He should be in chains. And did you hear about her? Mad as a March hare.’” He sighed, the weight of his situation settling heavier on his shoulders—his cousins’ chances at a good marriage, his own reputation… “I’d planned to stay after this visit, but if word gets out, I’ll have to leave. Back to
France
, I suppose.”

Ha. France. Someday he would actually visit the country. Scotland, Belgium, and even Iceland he knew quite well. If things fell apart here, he would simply pack his belongings and leave.

It would be easy. He’d done it before.

And yet…and yet he couldn’t imagine truly stepping onto a ship bound for foreign soil. If he did that, he would miss the next event on his schedule and this time Sue Green might dance with him. The promise of Sue twirling around the dance floor with him and laughing up into his face made him smile. He shook his head.

He blinked away her image with a whispered, “I can’t leave. Not now.”

There was a sharp intake of breath across from him. “Why, Holden Ellis! You’re taken with someone.”

He lifted his gaze at her sudden change of tone. “We were discussing a rather important matter, Aunt.”

She waved the issue away with the back of her hand. “Promise you’ll see her to proper accommodations for someone in her condition—soon! And that she won’t make any more public appearances.”

“I will see to it that no scandal befalls us. Do not doubt it.”

“Very well, then. I suppose there’s no sense in arguing. It doesn’t change the situation for us to be at odds.” She settled back into her chair on a sigh as the door burst open from the hallway. His cousins spilled into the room just as his aunt instructed him, “Tell me of the special lady who’s caught your eye!”

“Oh, Holden has a special lady?”

“Who is she?”

“Tell us! Oh, you must!”

Holden stood and faced his cousins. “I don’t have a special lady!”

“You most certainly do. Your grin betrays you,” April stated.

“Truly.” He held out his hands in surrender. “It isn’t what you believe it to be. She…”

“Oh! There
is
a she!” May exclaimed, clasping her hands together over her heart.

Damn. There was no escaping this discussion other than to say, “I should be leaving.”

“And deny us our afternoon of entertainment?” June complained as she sank into a chair beside his aunt.

“More like afternoon of sport…in ancient Rome. I believe I’ll be on my way before you release the hungry lions.”

Just then Jan walked in with her puppy in tow. “Holden! I have a new rabbit! Do you want to meet him?”

“I would love to, Jan. I’ll leave through the back garden. Good afternoon, ladies.”

As he moved to leave the room, Jan’s dog pounced on the side of his boot before running into the hallway. Holden turned. “See? Hungry lions. I knew it.”

“Take care, Holden. And look into that situation we discussed.”

“I will.”

Trailing after him as he accompanied Jan from the library were echoes of “What situation, Mama?” and “Who is his lady?”

He shook his head and followed his cousin down the stairs leading to the back garden. His mind was flooded with what lay ahead in the coming days. He wasn’t looking forward to telling his mother she must return to a hospital. Her actions were a bit off, but was she still as dangerous as his aunt believed her to be? Surely not. He needed time to find a new doctor in a private house where she would be fed properly and given suitable attire. None of that could be accomplished within a day. And his nights were filled with balls at the moment—he grinned.

As long as he kept his mother inside the walls of his home, no one would be the wiser. That would give him the time he needed—and the time he was ashamed he desired. He would simply have to be more careful she didn’t escape while he sorted things out.

“Holden, are you coming to see my new Angora bunny or not?” Jan’s voice called out, pulling him from his thoughts. “He’s an
Oryctolagus
cuniculus
and he’s beautiful!”

He cleared his throat and descended the remainder of the stairs toward Jan, who was standing in the light of the kitchen fire. She looked the picture of innocence with her long dark braid falling over one shoulder. He contained a curse within a sigh as he neared her.

Beneath all of his wishes on the subject of his mother, he knew as he looked at Jan that his aunt was right. If he didn’t hide his mother away for good, it would bring scandal on the family for some time. Even years from now when Jan came of age, she would be the subject of talk. He had to repair this situation. If only for Jan’s sake. “Yes, let’s see this new pet of yours. What does this make? Twenty? Thirty?”

“Only nine.”

“Is that all?” He smiled down at his youngest cousin, knowing what he must do. He would hide his mother away for good. She would be cut from his life once again. And he would go on without a backward glance, just as his father had done. But he wouldn’t do it today. He had much to think through on a variety of subjects at the moment. He finally had his mother back. And today everyone was safe. He would simply have to keep everything in check…for now.

Holden stepped into his parlor. That must have been where he left his book, for he’d certainly searched everywhere else. He doubted he would be able to settle into a book for distraction from his circular thoughts, but he planned to try like the devil. He stilled at the creak of the chair in the corner of the room.

“Oh. Mother, I didn’t know you were…” He watched his mother’s chest rise and fall with sleepy breaths. Her knitting lay abandoned in her lap as she dozed in the warmth of the small room.

He lingered by the door for a moment, not wanting to disturb her. He’d let a day slip past already with similar reasoning. Soon he would find a home for her and tell her she must leave his house, but not just yet. Holden ran a hand through his hair and glanced over his shoulder at the open doorway. He could leave. He didn’t really need…

“I was looking for a book,” he whispered, taking a step farther into the room. Although he came looking for his latest read, his eyes never strayed from her sleeping form in the chair. “I started it a few days ago, but now I can’t seem to place it.” When she didn’t stir, he raised his voice to a soft level. “I suppose Fezawald could have borrowed it. However, I can’t quite see him interested in
The
History
of
Art
in
Eastern
Europe
.”

His mother’s chest rose, then fell without a twitch.

Holden shook his head. All of chattering London and he was here talking to a napping
deceased
woman. “I’m not sure why I’m explaining this to you since you’re asleep. You are asleep, aren’t you?” The silence in the room seemed to extend to the whole world, as if everyone in existence had ceased what they were doing for a moment to listen. Nothing.

“That’s what I thought.” He moved closer, sitting on the edge of the tea table near her chair. “It really is too bad, you know. You’ve missed so much of life being locked away. It’s where you had to be, but sometimes I can’t help but wonder…

“God! Why do things have to be this way? If you were of sane mind, things would be so different.” He dropped his head to his hand, trying to rub his troubles away from his temples. “You can’t come to any more balls, Mother. I don’t know if you understand that. Aunt Pen wants me to place you back in Brooke House, but I told her no. Yet you can’t stay here forever. She says it’s not safe, and I admit when I saw you talking to Sue…” He exhaled on a ragged breath.

“Of course Sue didn’t suspect anything, but that doesn’t matter. Your very presence puts those around you in danger.” He thought of Sue and shivered. “I wish you understood the position I’m in because of you. Aunt Pen saw you the other night. And if she saw you, so could another, and then all of the well-crafted lies to protect everyone would be exposed.

“I was wrong to think I could do this, have this life. Keep you here even for a time. Hell, my entire return to England has been a mess.” He motioned to the room around him before settling back into his stance with his forearm resting on his knee. “You have no blame in this, not this time anyway. Aunt Pen mentioned contacting Father when we spoke over tea, and I find I’ve been ill at ease ever since. Father and I haven’t spoken for some time. I don’t know if you knew that.” He glanced to the window, half expecting to conjure up the man by the mere mention of his name.

His mother shifted in her sleep and her knitting slid to the thick rug at her feet.

He leaned over and scooped up the knitting, laying it aside. “He believes I’ve been living in Paris for years, squandering my life and resources. The truth? I’ve never even seen France. As soon as I was old enough to leave school, I went to the harbor and boarded the next ship leaving port—a fishing vessel bound for Iceland.”

He chuckled. “Iceland. Can you believe that? That’s where I spent the first four years I was away. I eventually saved up enough funds to find my way back as close as Brussels. Then I raised sheep in Scotland for a bit. The ironic part is that I’ve been fairly successful. Enough to keep me fed, clothed, and with a roof over my head, anyway. I’ve never touched the money Father puts in my account—I refuse to. I don’t want his assistance, financial or otherwise. Yet he still sees me in a poor light. And so I’ve let him.”

His father had never been fond of him, and at this point in Holden’s life, the feeling was mutual. There had been a time when he was young when he desired his father’s approval, but he’d grown weary of the effort when he was still school aged. In recent years he’d kept his distance from the man, encouraging the rumors that spread of his own reckless actions in France. The talk of his rakish behavior kept his father far from his life—as Holden preferred him to be. He huffed into the silence of the room. “Anyway, now I’m back. And as long as you stay out of sight of the
ton
and I am able to avoid Father, I believe I may stay for a bit.

“I wasn’t expecting this—any of it. You. Sue…” He sighed. “And I’m not quite sure what to do on that score. I’m fairly certain she has concealed a rather large truth from me. Until I’m sure, I don’t know…and even if I knew for certain…

“She must have had her reasons for playing this game with me, mustn’t she? After all this time, I don’t want to frighten her away. I don’t think I should say anything until she admits her deceit. If indeed there is any deceit. The question is how I will know for certain.” Everything came into focus in an instant, causing him to sit up straight. There was one way to know for sure if Sue was only Sue. He grinned, thinking of Sue’s lips, usually so busy berating him for some slight.

“Thank you for this little chat, Mother.” He stood and left the room. He would find his book another time. Yet he’d only made it to the base of the stairs when there was a knock at the door. He called out, “Fezawald, are you about?” But no one answered. With a shrug, Holden went to the door and pulled it open.

“Father,” he muttered in greeting as he looked into the face of the man he’d been running from for eleven years. He’d aged, his once blond hair now threaded with silver at his temples. It surprised Holden to see they were of the same height and frame. The man who loomed in his memories was now on equal footing with him. He looked well enough, with a finely tailored coat hiding most of the evidence of his large appetite.

“So this is where I find you.”

“Indeed. I came back to England only recently.” Holden took a step out onto the front step instead of allowing the man entrance.

“I heard as much. Is this the home of one of your French friends?” his father asked, with a sneer at the facade of Holden’s home.

“Why did you come here, Father?”

“Whoever she is, she keeps you well dressed. Of course, I’m sure that’s to her advantage.”

“The house is mine, as are my clothes.”

“Hmmm. When I heard you were in town, I thought I would call. Some issues have arisen of late in the family.”

Holden shut the door at his back and ushered his father back down the steps into the small garden. “Issues?” Had Aunt Penelope contacted him after all? Holden’s jaw clenched at the thought. He’d trusted her.

“I received word from the doctor at Brooke House that there was an escape effort.” He glanced around before saying, “Your mother is unaccounted for.”

Holden nodded. “I appreciate the information.” Aunt Penelope had kept her silence for no reason, then. That damned doctor.

His father gave him an uncomfortable nod of his head. Glancing around the garden, he seemed to be searching for words. When he finally looked back to Holden, it was to say, “I should be on my way.”

“Very well.” Holden crossed his arms across his chest.

“Holden, you can come stay at Pemberton House, if you so choose. If things don’t work out here…” He glanced away.

“That won’t be necessary, Father. I’m quite comfortable as I am.”

“You know it shames the family for you to live as you do. Living off some French lady’s benevolence is no life at all. You don’t have to…” He seemed unable to say any more on the subject.

“If I see Mother, I will inform you.”

His father nodded and turned, moving toward the garden gate. His hand paused on the latch. Turning back, he asked, “You didn’t have anything to do with this recent disappearance at Brooke House, did you?”

“No. I don’t make it a habit of breaking ill people out of hospitals. Don’t you know I’m too busy with loose women and drink for that?”

The familiar hardened look in his father’s blue eyes returned. He turned back to the gate, swung it open, and stepped up into his carriage without another word.

***

Sue walked out into another beautiful sunlit afternoon. What an oddity to have two days in a row of perfect weather! May was right—she certainly didn’t wish to spend such a day in a parlor sipping tea and discussing fashions. The Rutledges were a delightful group of ladies, yet her mother and Evangeline never allowed the conversation over tea to stray too far from convention. Somehow, she thought if her mother hadn’t been in attendance today, tea would have been quite different and rather enjoyable. As it was, Sue had been stifling yawns for the past hour.

May must have seen the wistful look on her face as she gazed out the window, for she made excuses and ushered Sue out the door to the garden a moment later. “Now that we’re out of that obligation, would you like to tour the garden? I would show you around, but I need to go back to the mews and check on my horse before anyone notices I’m gone. She was set to be reshod this afternoon. Do you mind?”

“Not at all. I’ll take a turn about the garden and enjoy the day. I’m simply pleased to not be discussing waistlines on dresses.”

May laughed. “As am I, Sue. I’ll return in a bit. You should start with the rose garden beyond the maze. It’s my favorite.”

“Thank you. And don’t feel rushed with your horse. I’ll be fine here.”

May smiled and disappeared around a trellis of purple flowering vines.

Sue had a feeling they would be fast friends. Too bad they’d only just met during Sue’s final season. Sue sighed and stepped out onto the gravel path. Skirting the maze hedgerow, she moved toward the back corner of the garden.

Stepping through a doorway cut into the green of the hedgerow, she was overwhelmed with a profusion of blooms stretching in every direction. Lilies, mixed with tulips, rested under the shade of rosebushes of every color imaginable. Flowering trees leaned over the paths, as if protecting them with loving arms. She moved farther into the hidden garden, her head spinning with the effort to absorb all of its beauty.

Then, rounding a bend in the path, she stopped. He was lounging on a bench. Holden would have looked like the typical devil-may-care rake, perhaps awaiting a liaison, if not for the tapping of his toe on the ground and the frown about his eyes. Of course he still looked impossibly handsome, even with troubled lines creasing his brow.

She stepped closer, catching his attention. “I didn’t know you would be here.” He moved to stand, but she stopped him with a raised hand.

He shrugged and settled back into his seat. “I didn’t know I would be here, either.”

She took a few more steps in his direction, pausing before the bench where he was lounging. “I’m here for tea with your cousins. Well, we already had the tea part of the tea and now we’ve moved on to the chatting part of the tea. It was rather dull with all the talk of fashion and such, and I’m not allowed to participate anyway because Mother says I bore people. I’m not quite sure how I accomplish it, though, to be honest. I consider myself an excellent conversationalist, perhaps a bit verbose at times, but never boring.”

He quirked a golden brow at her but said nothing.

“Oh no, now I’m boring you with talk of not being boring. How ironic. I didn’t mean to intrude.” She took one step to the side, not sure what to do with her arms, first crossing them, then lacing them behind her back. “I’ll go.”

“No, stay.” His voice was deeper than usual with a gruffness she’d never heard from him before. “I could use a distraction.”

“I’ll attempt to be distracting then in the more pleasing sense of the word.” She threw him an unsure smile as she wobbled back and forth on the heel of one boot. “Not like an insect buzzing about one’s face, or someone who desperately needs to bathe yet insists on standing too close at a ball. I’ll attempt to distract instead in the way of a child’s laughter or a lovely view. I’ve been told I’m quite distracting. Although I believe that statement might have been meant as an insult, now that I think about it. However, I will endeavor to distract nonetheless.”

“I’m sure it won’t take much effort.” He almost chuckled, the laugh never quite reaching his eyes.

“The flowers are plenty distraction for me. I’ve never seen so many blooms on a single rosebush. May was right. It is a lovely garden. I’d like to sketch it, but Mother is just inside so I wouldn’t dare pull out my sketchbook just now. I’ll simply have to remember it.”

She swept her eyes over the garden and tried to breathe in the memory of the afternoon. Her eyes, however, wanted to remember other things than flowers as they returned to Holden once more. His casual posture as he lounged on the bench with his long legs extended, his arms wrapped across his broad chest, the faraway look in his eyes…

“So, May was the one who lured you outside. I can’t say I’m surprised. I think she feels as out of place indoors as I do.”

“Do you? Feel out of place indoors? You never let on as much. You seem to sweep through rooms in command of everyone and everything in your path. The great Lord Steelings—envy of gentlemen, wooer of ladies, charmer of all.”

“Appearances can be deceiving.”

“Ha! Clearly.” He had no idea, she thought as she rolled her eyes heavenward.

“And I’m never able to command you, yet I seem to find you in my path a great deal.” He cracked a smile.

“I’m not easily commandable.”

“May I command you to sit?”

“Only because that bench looks comfortable, unlike my shoes.”

“One of the many reasons I’m pleased to have been born a man.”

“Hessians do look comfortable, I must admit. I dream of shoes with room to wiggle my toes. I bet you have that luxury in those boots. These?” She sat beside him and lifted the toes of her half boots so he could see them from beneath her dress. “I can barely twitch my little toe. It’s a sad state of affairs when you can’t twitch a single toe. The worst are dancing slippers. They bind.”