For All Eternity (10 page)

Nicholas frowned, unable to credit what he was hearing. Miss Barrington was a lady to the first degree. As such she was far too genteel to even consider indulging in such ill-bred behavior. Add that to the fact that she was utterly without guile, and one could only conclude that had she some attachment to Oxley, she’d have told him so when he proposed and thus rejected his suit. Therefore, it must be a lie — a vicious, slanderous lie fostered by his brother to ruin what should be the happiest day of his life.

When he said as much, Freddie sighed and pulled on his top button so hard that it was a miracle it didn’t pop off. “She accepted you because she’s desperate for funds. The lot of them are. It seems that Marwood lost Miss Barrington’s much touted fortune several years ago, leaving them all but penniless.”

“Nonsense!” Nicholas more roared than said the word in his disbelief. Several of the other gentlemen lowered their papers to scowl at him, but he was beyond caring. “If such a thing were true, it would most certainly have been the talk of the ton. And I can recall hearing no such tattle. Indeed, aside from the former Lord Marwood’s weakness for gambling hells, I’ve never heard so much as a whisper of scandal regarding Miss Barrington or her relatives.”

Freddie shrugged. “How they managed to keep the matter hushed, we shall probably never know. What I do know, however, is that they concealed their ruin so as to introduce Miss Barrington on the Marriage Mart as the heiress she once was. With her charm and beauty they were certain she would make a plum match, thus ending their monetary woes. Miss Barrington herself is said to have confessed the scheme to Oxley.”

“But that’s absurd!” Nicholas exclaimed. “Even a fool would see that such a hoax could never succeed.”

“Well, desperation often breeds fools,” Freddie returned philosophically. “Yet, fools or not, what better or quicker way to get funds than to lure the wealthiest bachelor in Town, namely you, into a hasty marriage?”

A hasty marriage. To gain funds. And here he had spent the entire day believing that it was his kiss that had spurred Miss Barrington’s urgency to wed. That it might not be so struck a crushing blow to Nicholas’s manly pride.

“As you’ve probably guessed, they have debts,” Freddie continued, his tone growing more somber with each new revelation. “Bad ones. They all went deep into dun territory to keep up appearances. Word is that they are on the very brink of being hauled off to prison.” Numbed by the mounting charges being laid before him, Nicholas watched as his friend twisted a button and then released it to spin like a top. Grasping it again to wind it in the opposite direction, Freddie confided in a low voice, “I, too, dismissed this business as being just more of Quent’s trumped-up nastiness. In truth, I didn’t give it another thought until I stopped by Fribourg & Treyer’s this afternoon to buy snuff.”

“Oh?”

His gaze still glued to his buttons, Freddie nodded. “While there, I overheard a clerk inform Mr. Fribourg that Marwood is months in arrears on his bill. Though I didn’t catch the entire exchange, I did hear that when he went around to collect earlier today, he was met on the stoop by five other creditors, all clamoring for payment. I couldn’t help wondering then if there wasn’t perhaps some truth to the Hell-born Four’s claims.”

“It does make one wonder, yes, though I fail to fathom why Miss Barrington would turn to Oxley if matters are so very dire. Besides being worth only ten thousand a year, he, too, is deeply in debt.” Nicholas shook his head. “None of it makes a whit of sense. Not when you consider the ease with which she could have escaped her coil by marrying me.”

Freddie stared at the gold button in his hand as if suddenly fascinated by its pressed griffin design. “As I said, she fancies herself in love with him. You know how silly chits are when they get all calf-eyed over a man. She no doubt views him as a fairy-tale prince capable of magically rescuing her from her woes.”

“Miss Barrington may not be the most wide-awake of females, but she’s no goose,” Nicholas countered, refusing to believe he’d so grossly misjudged her. “And a girl would have to be an utter goose to be taken in by Oxley’s pretty face and smooth manner.”

“Ur — yes. Silly to the extreme.” Freddie gave his button a vicious tug. “Any woman corkedbrained enough to put such stock in looks and manner is far too silly to merit the notice of a man such as yourself. Bloody undeserving, if you ask me. Indeed — “

Nicholas’s eyes narrowed as Freddie rattled on, suspecting by both his words and fidgeting that his friend hid something. When Freddie actually tore the button he worried completely off his coat, he was certain of it. Determined to learn exactly what that something was, he leaned forward and demanded in a soft voice, “What is it you’re not telling me, Huntley?”

Freddie plucked at the threads left behind by the button. “Nothing.”

Nicholas was about to pursue the matter further when a footman bearing a bottle of brandy and two glasses came to a stop beside them. When he’d poured them each a healthy ration of the spirit and bowed himself from their presence, Nicholas turned back to his friend and resumed his interrogation.

“How long have we known each other, Huntley?” Freddie looked up and smiled at the question. “Fifteen years. Since you saved me from that thrashing at Harrow.”

“And after all these years, don’t you think I can tell when you’re hiding something?”

His friend shrugged, but the gesture was far too stiff to project the nonchalance he was obviously trying to convey.

“Well, I can,” Nicholas informed him. “And it’s evident that you’re concealing something, something truly awful by the expression on your face. As my best friend, I do wish you would tell me what that something is. Otherwise, I shall be obliged to ask around and learn it from someone else.”

When his friend remained mute, Nicholas made an impatient noise and rose. As he started to move away,

Freddie grasped his arm. “No, wait. I shall tell you. Best you hear it from me.”

With a curt nod Nicholas sat back down. After an extended moment of silence, he prompted, “Well?” Looking infinitely unhappy, Freddie muttered, “According to the Hell-born Four, Miss Barrington found the prospect of marriage to you intolerable. That is why she didn’t go through with the scheme.”

Intolerable? Him? Nicholas frowned. Though he knew she didn’t love him any more than he did her, he considered them companionable enough. Indeed, she’d always appeared content in his company, as he was in hers. Not knowing quite what to make of that latest disclosure, he murmured, “Did she, by chance, say what she finds so intolerable?”

By the expression on Freddie’s face, were he a woman he’d have burst into tears. Hanging his head as if confessing to the greatest of sins, he mumbled, “She thinks you’re arrogant. And … um … boring.”

Nicholas accepted the charge of arrogance without offense, but boring? Never in his life had anyone accused him of being so. More confounded than ever, he picked up his brandy and took a deep swallow. Him, boring? His brow furrowed as he considered.

Well, perhaps, just perhaps, it was possible that a girl as young and frivolous as Miss Barrington might find him a bit … reserved. And perhaps some of their outings may have been a jot too … academic … for a chit fresh from the schoolroom.

He took another quaff from his glass. Indeed, now that he thought back on some of their outings, he saw that they might not have been completely to her taste. Like, for example, when he’d escorted her to Vauxhall Gardens and insisted they forgo the amusements in favor of him teaching her about the plants. Though she’d been polite, smiling and asking an occasional question, she hadn’t looked exactly thrilled.

And then there was that lecture last week by that African explorer. The few times he’d glanced over to see if she was enjoying it as much as he, she’d been staring into the air looking rather stupefied. Assuming the cause to be a lack of comprehension on her part, he’d taken it upon himself to explain afterward everything that had been said.

He tossed back the remainder of his brandy. Come to think of it, she’d looked none too captivated by his explanations, either. Odd that he hadn’t noted it then. Hmm. Could he have been blind to other things about her as well?

Like her character?

Sighing over his splintering illusions, Nicholas glanced to where Freddie sat morosely staring into his own glass, and asked, “Is that the whole reason, then? I’m arrogant and boring?”

“Uh, well …”

Sighing again, this time with irritation, he muttered, “Just cast it forth, Huntley. How much worse can this get?”

Freddie looked at him then, his expression woeful to the point of grief. “You know, Lyndhurst,” he said in a rush, “I never thought Miss Barrington nearly good enough for you. She is, after all, only a cloth merchant’s daughter and truly not — “

“What did she say?” Nicholas demanded, in no mood whatsoever to be placated. “If you don’t tell me, and tell me now, I shall call on my brother and ask him.” “She, uh — ” Freddie’s already flushed face darkened to the color of an overcooked pork roast. “She supposedly cannot bear the sight of your … um … face.” “My face?” Nicholas ejected. Of all the things his friend could have said, this was the last one he’d expected to hear.

Freddie nodded miserably. “It’s your — -ur — scar. She finds it o-offensive.”

His scar? Without thinking, Nicholas reached up and touched his disfigured cheek. That she or anyone found it offensive was a disturbing notion, one that provoked a long dormant niggle of self-consciousness. Could it be true that his face disgusted her?

His mind whirling, he searched for an answer, scrambling to recall an instance in which she might have said or done something to betray such a feeling. Yet, try as he might, he couldn’t recollect so much as a second in which her conduct was anything less than perfect. On every occasion she had been charming yet demure, as befitted a girl in her position.

Demure? His eyes narrowed with sudden misgiving. At least he’d always attributed her reluctance to look at his face to demureness. Was it possible that that reluctance stemmed not from modesty, as he’d assumed, but from revulsion of his scar?

The more he considered, the more likely it seemed. Indeed, now that he thought about it, he realized that she never seemed to have any compunction about looking at her other suitors. Especially Oxley. How many times had he come upon them together at balls and such, and seen her staring at his face?

It was remembering those occasions that made the pieces of his puzzled disbelief fall into devastating place. The tale was true. It had to be. It simply made too damn much sense, something that Quentin and his cohorts woefully lacked.

“You know, Lyndhurst. I always thought Miss Barrington a singularly stupid creature,” Freddie remarked, clearly trying to hearten him. “That she’d prefer Oxley’s priggish looks to your noble ones merely proves me correct.”

Slowly Nicholas lifted his gaze from his now empty glass to fix his friend with a cynical stare. “You always thought her lovely and charming. You must have said so a hundred times.”

Freddie shrugged. “That’s only because you were so set on having her.”

“Well, if she’s stupid, then I’m a bloody idiot,” he shot back. “So idiotic that I attributed her reluctance to look at me to schoolgirl shyness.”

“As would I, I assure you. One does expect a Bath Miss to be somewhat reserved around men.”

“Maybe. But even the greenest of girls will at least glance at a man when he speaks to her, something that Miss Barrington seldom did.”

That any woman could find him so repulsive stung Nicholas to the very core, and he couldn’t help wondering how many of the women who claimed to find his scar dashing secretly agreed with Miss Barrington, lying in hopes of gaining his wealth and title. The very notion leveled a serious blow to his confidence.

Always an optimist, Freddie leaned over and clapped him on the shoulder. “We should all be thankful that this happened, eh? Imagine if you’d actually married the girl?”

Nicholas cast him a jaundiced look. “Thankful? For being publicly humiliated?”

“Pshaw! You’ve been nothing of the sort. No one thinks any less of you for any of this. Indeed, there isn’t a man in the ton who wasn’t taken in by Miss Barrington, and they all feel just as foolish as you.”

“Perhaps. But none were corkbrained enough to actually propose to her.”

“They would had they thought there was a chance she might accept.” Smiling weakly, Freddie refilled the glass clenched in Nicholas’s hand. “Look, Lyndhurst. If it’s any consolation, Miss Barrington is ruined. By this time tomorrow the news of her hoax shall have reached the ears of her creditors. Unless she and that aunt and cousin of hers find a way to settle their debts, they will probably be hauled off to prison at the end of the week.”

Though Nicholas knew the news was meant as a balm to his wounded pride, it did nothing to reduce the sting. In truth, he didn’t believe in the practice of incarcerating debtors, especially women … not even one whom he despised as much as he currently did Miss Barrington. To his way of thinking, it made far more sense to allow a person to work off his obligations, a point that he’d been known to expound upon on more than one occasion.

Heaving a weighty sigh, he tossed back the entire contents of his glass in one fiery gulp. Ah, well. It was none of his affair what happened to the chit now.