False Angel (22 page)

“You are a monster,” Leonora gasped, knocking the proffered book aside.

Annabelle sighed. She bent to pick up the book, and looked so very weary, very young, and very unhappy that Leonora, like a great many others who had dealt with Annabelle in the past, doubted all that she had just heard.

“I’ll be back later,” Annabelle breathed softly, “when you’re in a better mood, cousin.”

“How can you say such things?” Leonora almost wept with frustration as she saw her cousin’s placid expression.

“Why should I not?” Annabelle asked.

When Leonora remained mute, Annabelle nodded, as though she’d gotten her answer, and, sighing, she left her cousin staring wildly after her.

Silly cow, thought Annabelle bemusedly as she made her way slowly back to her rooms. But then she wasn’t disturbed, for she had spoken only the truth, after all. She didn’t dislike Leonora in the slightest. She didn’t like her either. For neither emotion ever had occurred to Annabelle. People had always fallen neatly into one of two categories. They had either been in her way, or they had been in a position to gratify her. And if that was what they meant by love and hate, why then she felt those emotions right enough, same as everyone else.

But she could never understand why everyone else thought she didn’t, nor why they found such simple attitudes toward each other so important. Papa had cuffed her and left home early on, after hotly denying that she could be his daughter. Then in time Mama had cast her out from her own home, telling her never to return and crying that it was because of her lack of human feelings. Other relatives had eventually sent her away as well, with kicks and curses or with curses accompanied by certain sullen payments, while expressing the same thoughts. Really, Annabelle thought, it never ceased to puzzle her.

She wanted what Severne had to offer her, and now it seemed likely that she would have it. It would be about time. She’d tried for security before, in many ways. She’d even often lain with the gentlemen, although that was a very nasty, uncomfortable chore, acceptable only because it sometimes brought favors, and moderately bearable because of how foolish the gentlemen looked at such times.

In fact, she’d done a great many unpleasant things, and had to work a great deal harder in the past to far less benefit, and with far less success. She’d been extremely fortunate this time, and she knew it. There was something between the marquess and Leonora, it had been palpably there from the start. But it was something fragile and complicated. It was, however, happily nothing she had to understand. It was enough that she’d been clever enough to notice and use it.

She sighed again, she had so wanted to read with Leonora this afternoon. But then, she thought, brightening, Leonora would get over it. Really, there was nothing else she could do, after all.

Leonora stalked her room and wrung her hands, and dreamed of revenges that made her shudder. But then, after a long despairing hour, she realized that there was nothing she could do. Annabelle had been quite right, there was no reason why she shouldn’t have told the truth. For there was not a thing that Leonora could do with it.

If she dared to tell Severne of the conversation, he would never believe her. Indeed, she could scarcely credit it herself. Katie and Sybil would doubtless be appalled but true believers, but anything they might say to Severne would be construed as spite, or worse, as jealous malice. If Leonora were to drive Annabelle from her house, as every instinct shouted for her to do, it would be quite the same as driving her straight into Severne’s arms. Any decent gentleman would be protective of a homeless, seemingly abused waif; a fellow who was weighing a rejected ring in his hand would doubtless immediately do far more.

Leonora then spared some extra time to berate herself for all the trust she’d put in Annabelle, and all the improving lessons she’d been so pleased to give, which had all doubtless been fed back to Severne as though they’d sprung from Belle’s own fertile imagination. The idea of Annabelle’s calmly lecturing Severne on a poem or play she’d just been taught that morning, as though for all the world she’d always held such opinions, caused Leonora’s stomach to grow cold and flutter as though it were some giant, newly shucked oyster.

But then she took some care to remind herself that it was not as if she’d lost Severne, since she’d clearly never had him, or at least never had more than his passing lust. Even that, she took a few moments to reflect, might have only been provoked by her own ridiculous physical form, shocking reputation, or provocative behavior. After all, a gentleman could hardly consider a female he had once escorted home from a bawdy house as a viable potential bride. Then (for once she began to flail herself, she was as thorough a penitent as a medieval monk of the strictest orders), she forced herself to recall that it was Annabelle that she’d used for her own purposes, after all. Hadn’t the entire idea of coming to London originally been ostensibly to find poor Belle a mate?

Still, with all her conflicting emotions, one idea stood firm and fast. It simply was not fair that Severne should take himself such a bride. It was all very well to pace the length of the room declaiming loudly in one’s head that he deserved no better. It was another thing, as one paced back the breadth of the chamber, to picture that lonely outcast gentleman holding Annabelle to his breast, thinking he had at last found a devoted and decent bride. For when she thought of just what sort of a creature her cousin must be, she knew that whatever his sins, it was never fair that after all his travails he should be trapped into wedlock with such.

Leonora realized that Sybil would truly be disgusted with her reaction. Surely her sister would deem it the height of betrayal of her sex that she felt no elation at his deception or triumph at the thought of his certain downfall, no matter how he had misused and misjudged her. Nor did she think any the less of him, or judge him a fool to be so misled. If he were a fool, what could she say of herself, who had known Belle better, longer, and more intimately? But at the thought of just how intimately Severne actually knew Belle, or would know her in the unforgivably onrushing future, Leonora’s head began to pound.

Belle had sounded so certain, so confident and content, that Leonora was sure that Severne’s offer would not be long in coming. Indeed, he might have meant to ask for Annabelle yesterday after he’d been freed from the proposal he’d felt honor-bound to make to herself. But she expected that perhaps he’d decided it a bit much to make two such offers in one day. Perhaps he’d even felt it would be unwise to put his luck to the touch so soon after such a resounding set-down. But that would mean that so soon as tomorrow she might have to endure Belle’s smug pronouncement of her engagement. Knowing what she did made the thought of tomorrow almost unendurable.

The Lady Leonora, much to her mother’s and sister’s eternal disgust, had never suffered from one vapor, or taken to her couch from an attack of nerves in the whole of her unnaturally unfeminine and hardy young life. But now in her confusion and inability to hit upon a solution, or indeed a suitable place to lay all the blame for her sorrows, she made up for this deficiency in a manner that would have gratified those two ladies enormously. She sank back upon her bed and decided that she would not arise from it until death or tomorrow came. And on the whole, she thought, as Katie put a cool compress upon her brow, she preferred the former, but it would be just her luck if she were only to wake to the latter.

FOURTEEN

Usually a traveler hastens the few remaining steps of a long journey, but the lone horseman rode more slowly when he at last approached the entry to the great house. Even then he seemed reluctant to dismount, and only sat and gazed about himself at the vibrant green lawns to either side of the gravel drive as though he could not bear to surrender the day and mount the stairs to enter human habitation. The wet, warm spring had been kind to the countryside, and it was as if he could not take in enough of the verdant color or breathe in enough of the sharp sweet scents of the day. But then he saw the waiting groom and, grinning at the frankly curious look upon the youth’s face, he swung down from his horse and with an amused shrug, relinquished it to his care.

“Good afternoon, my lord,” the butler said, as the boy had done, and with the same warm sincerity in his voice.

“Hello, Afton, how have you been keeping?” the marquess said, smiling, as casually as if he had last spoken with the fellow the week before rather than the season before, as he actually had done.

“Oh very well, my lord,” the butler replied just as calmly as he took the traveler’s riding coat. But that usually serene fellow gave a hint of his surprise and pleasure at seeing the marquess by saying all at once, “And I know that his grace will be delighted to see you, as well. Shall I announce you, or would you rather go straight in? He’s in the library, but then, if you’d prefer to wash and change your clothing first? I don’t see your valet, so if you require Gibson’s services I can call him immediately, he’s only tending to his grace’s boots at present ... how I do run on, my lord,” he paused to say regretfully, shaking his head. “Do forgive me, but it’s only that we are all that pleased at seeing you again so unexpectedly.”

“Never apologize, Afton, for giving a fellow a warm welcome. It’s a rare enough gift,” the marquess said, putting his hand upon the older man’s shoulder. “And I’ve never grown to be such a Town beau that I’d primp and powder before saying hello to my father. He’ll have to take his son with a liberal dose of horse, but if I know my man, I think he’d prefer that to taking him a few hours later, even if he were all neatly dusted off and sprinkled with rose water by then.

“Don’t announce me, I’d like to surprise him. And don’t fuss, Afton, it was a spur-of-the-moment decision to visit, and I left my valet and half my kit in London. So if there’s to be a gala ball tonight, I’ll have to hide out in the bam, the way I did after I broke the pantry window that time, remember?”

And smiling at the memory, and at the prospect of seeing his father again, Joscelin gave the butler a grin so similar to the one he’d worn decades before that the old fellow smiled back with a most unprofessional mistiness before he caught himself at it. But before the butler could regain his more habitual expression, the marquess was across the hall and at the door to the library. He waited only a second, trying to frame some amusing jest to account for his presence. Then, smiling even more widely as he gave up all plans at feigning impassivity for the sake of that jest, he opened the door and stepped into the room. And then he ceased smiling at once.

“Joss!” his father said immediately, leaving off his conversation with his guest in the middle of a sentence with a cry of happy surprise that was almost a yelp of gladness. “Ah Joss, how good to see you, my boy.”

As the gentlemen met in the center of the room, the older of the two caught the younger in his embrace, and hugged him as frankly and warmly as if he were a farmer or a woodsman greeting his son after a long absence, and not a nobleman from a line almost as old as the kingdom itself. He was a bit shorter and trifle leaner than his son, and his coloring was more subdued. Although age had muted its tint, his brown hair had never been so stark black as his son’s, and if his lean face had ever been as hard as the younger man’s, then age, and perhaps experience, had softened it as well. But there was a clear likeness to be seen in their matching smiles. And when the marquess turned
_§
from his father and looked about the room, and his smile faded away again, then it was their watchful indigo eyes that gave testimony to their relationship.

“How do you do, your grace,” Joscelin said coolly, bowing to the other gentleman who sat deep within a deep chair near the window.

“Joss, I know I’m the last fellow on earth you expected to find here, but not so formal, please. I’d rise and thump you as soundly as your papa did, more so I think, for I outweigh him by several stone, but it’s the gout, you see, and it’s all I can do to be allowed to sit down here and not molder up in my rooms. How are you, my boy?” the stout gentleman asked breathlessly as he attempted to lean forward to take the younger man’s hand, despite the handicap of his outstretched, bandaged leg which lay propped on a chair before him.

As he released the older gentleman’s hand and watched him sink back in his chair with a relieved grunt, Joscelin noted that the fellow was red-faced with more than that simple exertion, and that his person reeked not only from several pungent medicaments, such as turpentine, camomille, and spirits of camphor, but of the more telling and recognizable scent of gin and cloves.

The older man had grown obese, and was clearly steeped in more than medicinal spirits, but the eyes that watched Joscelin narrowly were still keen, as the rumbling voice went on in an attempt at jocularity,

“Afraid I can’t step out so that you two can have a chat. Indeed, I believe I couldn’t easily do so at all anymore even if the devil hadn’t sunk his damned teeth into this cursed limb, since I’ve enjoyed a feast or two too many since we last met, my boy. But, as you can just as clearly see, your father has forgiven me. Well, then,” he coughed to cover the silence that followed this statement, “we were friends forever, weren’t we?

“Ah well,” he went on quickly, as though he were anxious not to be interrupted, “you see as we grew old, we decided we still needed that friendship no matter what ill turns we’d served each other in our day. I don’t suppose that a young chap can see that at all. But, Joss, here’s my hand again, and I’ll say it loud and clear: I bear you no ill will, and hope you bear me none. And I hope that you can tolerate me here in your house, for I don’t see how I can clear out too fast if you won’t. Forget, if you must, that I was once your father-in-law. But please remember that I was once your father’s friend.”

Both father and son fell at once to attempting to put the stout gentleman at his ease, the older man because of the distress he heard so clearly in his old friend’s voice, and the younger because of the illness he read so clearly in the other man’s weak grip and unhealthy color.

It was only an hour later, after the Duke of Burlington’s attendant had struggled to transfer his charge to his invalid chair and, with the aid of a few footmen, had gotten his master to his rooms in order to wash and change for dinner, that the duke at last could speak privately with his newly returned son.

“I’m sorry for the surprise,” he said at once when the door closed behind his friend. “And if you dislike it, Joss, I’ll tell him to leave. He’s right in what he says. I suppose that since his wife’s gone, and his daughter as well, he’s lonely. But I discovered that although I am not, just the same, old friends are a comfort in old age. No, don’t deny it, Joss, for I can count, you know,” he said before his son could dispute his mathematics.

“Still, if you dislike it, he goes, and at once. You are, at any age, my preferential visitor. Although,” he chided gently even as his son shook his head in the negative, “never a frequent one, alas. We ought never to have made Deaver House so comfortable for heirs to the dukedom. I remember I was loath to leave it when I came into the title myself. Adam may have worked himself to a shadow here in Basset Hall, but Deaver House is beautifully situated there in the midlands. But what am I speaking of? It’s London that you’ve been cavorting in when you haven’t been abroad slipping about on Talwin’s behalf, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know what possible good I can have done the viscount,” the marquess said with a wry expression, “when it appears that every chap in England knew of it.”

“I do hope that isn’t so,” his father replied, matching his tone, “for I shouldn’t like to think that every chap in England believes himself to be your papa. You see, Talwin felt that certain persons required certain explanations when certain chaps refused to explain where they were sneaking off to every so often whenever certain of their paternal relations inquired.
”

“I see,” Joscelin said with a grin, and when they were done laughing, he said more seriously, “And as for Burlington, sir, never fear, I don’t harbor a grudge. Actually, in a way it seems that the fellow who divorced his daughter is as dead and gone, with all his disappointments and anger, as that poor girl of his is now. So don’t worry. I’m glad you two have patched it up, and hope that he holds out long enough to continue as your friend for a few years more.”

“You’ve changed, Joss,” his father said, looking at him sharply. “Is it possible that you’ve returned with glad news? If so, your mother will never forgive herself for being absent just now. But she’s off to help little Willie celebrate his third birthday and await your sister’s presenting him with a new sister or brother for the occasion. Shall you wait for her return, or have you something to tell me now?” he asked eagerly, as a frown of incomprehension came over his son’s brow. “Can it be that you plan to add to the family too, Joss?” he asked anxiously. “It’s what we’ve all been waiting for, these many years.”

The marquess paused, and hesitated as he put down his glass of sherry. Then he said very softly, “You amaze me, sir, and always have done. You remember years ago when I hid that stray beneath my bed and when I came down to dinner you asked if I wanted a puppy? Then, I believe it may have been the bits of fur upon my nankeens and the breath of kennel about my person that tipped you a hint. But now, do I reek of orange blossoms as Burlington does of spirits, or is there rice on my lapels? For I confess, as I did not even to myself until just now, that such thoughts aren’t far from my mind. But no, I haven’t such an announcement to make as yet,” he said with a rueful grin as he saw his father’s expression of disappointment He grimaced and then went on, “Yes, I came here to think the thing out. But it isn’t just one lovely lady, sir, as you might expect. Rather there are two that revolve, as on a little turning stage, in my admittedly strange mind. Clearly, I cannot commit bigamy. And I do not think I can have the one I want, without wanting the other I do not, so the question is whether I ought to have either. No,” he laughed ruefully, “if it confuses even myself, I certainly won’t burden you with the tale. And no, I’m sorry, but I can’t wait for Mama to be done with playing ministering angel. I’m only here for a brief visit, for a hasty repairing lease.”

Even as he changed the subject by asking for news of the family and the district, he realized that every word he’d uttered was true. He could never lie to his father as easily as he did to himself. Every excuse he’d given himself for leaving Town so suddenly, whether it was the need for a change of scenery, or a desire to look in on his parents, had been a subterfuge. He’d come home to his past, to think on his future. To try to envision in his mind’s eye the female he ought to bring home to stay with him as his wife.

For suddenly he knew, as though he’d always known it, that he wanted a wife. It was time and past time for him to settle down, he thought. It might have been because he had lately seen Torquay’s domestic happiness, or it might have been his bitter experience with the lovely, faithless Lady Lambert that had made him resolve to be done with all relationships that he had to pay for in coin or in flattery. Or it just might have been that he had at last met a female that he could not erase from his mind, for to do so would be to leave a terrible void there.

But there were two females to reckon with, and they were linked in his mind as they were in his life, for good and real reason. He knew that in all honesty, he could not offer for the one until he was finally prepared to turn his back forever upon the other. To do otherwise would not be fair to himself, and would never be fair to her.

And he saw that he could not remain here long, even if it were not for the fact that he could have no real resting place while he was undecided. Certainly, he must leave here soon, since his former father-in-law was in residence. No matter how lightly he’d dismissed it, he was aware that grim memories were like a miasma surrounding the old gentleman even as the scents of his physical illness clung to his huge person.

As he dressed for dinner that night, he thought of the two females who haunted him. They had followed him from London, and would, he knew, follow him everywhere until he cast one entirely out, and took the other unquestioningly to his heart. He thought of the one, all seriousness and quaint wisdom, and the other, all laughter and sharp wit. He thought of the one who would bask in the full sunlight of his love, and the one who would glow in the midnight realms of his passion. Then he thought of the one whose face would not leave his mind, and the one whose voice never let his conscience rest.

And he began to know, even then, as he stood within the familiar walls of his childhood, where his heart lay, where his mind lay, and at the last, how narrow the gap between them really was.

That night, after dinner, after the obligatory port and tobacco and incidental chatter, the gouty duke caught at his sleeve as he prepared to go to his room for the night His father was at the far end of the room, pouring more port for himself and his friend, but even so, the old man lowered his voice.

“I want you to know I don’t bear you a grudge, Joss,” he said, with tears in his eyes, and perhaps real tears at that, and not only ones induced by alcohol, or the chemical fumes that arose from his bandaged leg, “for you did the right thing by our girl, after all. We wed her to Alsop a year after the divorce, y’know. Alsop, that cur, that scrambler, that bastard. Aye, Joss, he was that. For he didn’t mind getting her with child, not he, and right away, too. She hated it, Joss,” the old man said, his white lips trembling.

Though the marquess didn’t want to hear more, he had to wait until the old man recovered enough to go on to say, “We never could make her understand why she was getting so stout, nor why she felt so ill. And when she was dying, having the babe, she wept and asked me why it had to hurt so much, this illness she had. And I lost her and the babe, and she never knew why. So you did right, Joss,” he said fiercely, “and I curse the day I didn’t see that right often looks dead wrong. And that the best thing a man can be is honest with himself, no matter how it hurts to be so.”

The old duke was amazed, when he had done with wiping his streaming eyes, to see how his one-time son-in-law gazed at him. For there was a look of purest relief and gladness upon that usually stern face. It might have been the gin, or the opium or the port that he constantly took that made him imagine that arrested look the marquess wore, the duke was to think later, or it might truly have been that the lad was glad he’d been forgiven. He was never to know that it wasn’t absolution for the past the marquess was wondering at, but rather the glimpse of insight he’d been given to his future.

As he bade the two elderly gentlemen a good night, the marquess thought he actually would enjoy the first good night he’d had in weeks. He had his answer, even though it had come from a completely unexpected source. And he knew that it was the correct one, because it felt entirely right.

He would leave for London on the morrow. He had learned from the past, and knew his future. He couldn’t forget her for the simple reason that he really didn’t want to. And he would wed her, or never wed at all. For this time he would wed where honesty was, he would marry where truth lay, for in so doing, surely, he could never step wrong again.

Leonora took a deep breath in, and expelled it slowly through her slightly parted lips. Then she frowned, and inhaled again, but this time through her mouth, and then let all the pent-up air out slowly through her nostrils. She kept one hand upon her abdomen as she did so, and looked perplexed again. So much as she tried to recall the article she’d read, she couldn’t remember precisely whether she was supposed to breathe in deeply through her mouth so that her stomach filled with air and then resumed its shape as she breathed out through her nose, or whether she was supposed to breathe in through her nose so her stomach became flat as her chest swelled, letting her abdomen relax only as she exhaled through her lips. Whichever method had been detailed was the one that was a sure cure for nervousness.

Now as she stood outside the door to her father’s study, she only felt giddy. She’d been breathing in and out for several moments, attempting to follow the directions from that long vanished article from a lady’s journal, and not only had she forgotten the method, but the results had made her even more anxious, for now she was faint as well as apprehensive.

But whatever she was, she realized as the hallway around her began to stabilize again, she was certainly not going to spend the rest of her life in a hallway for fear of facing her father. He had summoned her, and now she had to summon up the courage to face him. So she took a deep breath again, this time not caring what part of her anatomy expanded, and before she let it out, she tapped upon the door. And then, when she was bade to enter, she opened the door and marched in, remembering to breathe out only because she needed to do so in order to say, “Good morning, Father. You sent for me?”

He stood behind his desk and smiled at her, and said only, “Yes, Leonora, I did. Won’t you sit down?”

She sat at once, eagerly, if a bit inelegantly, plopping down in a chair opposite him, glad to have something under her, glad to have something solid behind her back to straighten it as well.

He gave her one shrewd look, noting the shadows beneath her great dark eyes, noticing how her cheeks seemed leaner and her frock a bit looser here and there.

“You’re probably wondering why I called you here,” he said then, turning his attention to some papers upon the desk, thinking that his Nell would have giggled at how ponderous he sounded, but that this stranger, Lady Leonora, would only nod and answer seriously.

“Why, yes,” she said, for she didn’t know what else to say, for her papa, the one she’d known so well, would have never been able to utter such a pompous phrase without some laughter creeping into his voice.

Suddenly, he was tired of this, he was weary unto death with it. He looked up at her, with his face naked of artifice, totally devoid of the many several deceptions he was capable of, and, as she stared at him as though he’d appeared in a vision, he said, as strongly as he felt,

“You’ve not been happy. Not for some time since you’ve come to London, certainly not at all in the past week. I don’t have to be a genius to have noticed that. I’m your father, Leonora. I might have been more of a friend once, and have never understood why that had to end, but you needn’t say anything upon that head if you don’t wish. That’s not why I called you here today. You haven’t confided in your mama, and if you have in Sybil, I don’t know of it, and honestly don’t know if she could help if you did.

“But I can, Nell,” he said in a rush. “I know that if it is humanly possible for another being to help you with this problem you have, I can. And I merely wanted you to know...
”
He faltered, his voice tapering off, for now that he’d come to the end of his statement, he realized how ineffectual it sounded, and how useless it all likely was.

“I wanted you to know that I care, and would like to help,” he ended at last, a bit gruffly, for he was embarrassed now at how she continued to gape at him, and was a little angry at himself and how he had left himself open to insult from this stranger who reminded him so much of his long-lost beloved Nell.

But she sat and stared at him in silence until he looked hard at her, and saw that her face was very white and her eyes very wide and filled with tears. And then she cried, in a voice that he remembered very well, “Oh Papa, I have been so very unhappy.”

For he had called her “Nell.” That surely was what had done it, she thought a few moments later, when she had enough self-awareness to be a little ashamed at how hard she was caterwauling into his lapels. And when she at last accepted his handkerchief and resoundingly blew her nose, and they both laughed at how loudly she did so, as they always used to do, she discovered that she didn’t know quite what to say to him as she left his comforting embrace.

“What was it?” he asked simply, as she drew away. “It likely took a great deal of pain to bring my daughter back to me, and I think I know what’s causing it, but it occurs to me now that it took something similar to drive you away from me so long ago. Can you tell me what it was then, Nell?” he asked quickly, before either of them had time to put back the barriers they had let down.

And before she could think to suppress it, as irresistibly as a hiccup or a sneeze, the word that had lingered in the forefront of her brain throughout the last moments popped out of her lips. “Phoebe,” she said, and then “Phoebe,” she said again, as he stared at her in puzzlement, and she thought she sounded rather like a demented cuckoo clock.

So she said slowly, looking down at his handkerchief twisting in her hands, “It was at Vauxhall Gardens, one night five years ago. You didn’t see me there, Papa, I was with Miss Thicke and some beaux and friends. They didn’t see you either, but I did, with Phoebe. Or so you called her.”

“Oh,” said the viscount, sitting back on the edge of his desk, lost in thought. “Oh yes. Phoebe. I’d forgotten her. Actually,” he said with a ghost of a laugh, “I forgot her the next day, and I’d not remembered her again until you spoke her name just now. Why didn’t you say something to me?”