Lady Elinor's Wicked Adventures (22 page)

Mr. Freeborn waited in the parlor of the Tremaines' apartment, his hat and gloves placed neatly on the table beside him, a black-edged envelope held carefully in his hand. Without its cheerful smile, his lean face seemed more cadaverous than usual. He took a deep breath as Tunbury came into the room.

“You wanted to see me, Mr. Freeborn?” The question was more curious than worried.

“I'm afraid…” Freeborn stopped and started again. “Your family's attorneys were not certain of your direction, so this was sent to the consulate.” He held out the envelope. “I am sorry to be the bearer of sad tidings.”

Tunbury stared at it in surprise. A black-bordered envelope from the family attorneys could only mean a death, but whose? His parents were not old, and his sisters were only children. Had there been some accident? Were there some aunts or uncles important enough to warrant a letter chasing him across Europe? The surprise gave way to dread. Not his sisters. Please, not his sisters. Not when he was just beginning to know them. He reached out and took the envelope. “If you will excuse me?”

“Of course.” A sympathetic nod from Freeborn.

The sympathy was making him nervous. Taking the letter over to the window, Tunbury tore it open to read. Then he read it again and looked up, stunned. “The earl? My…my father?”

“I am sorry, my lord. May I offer my deepest sympathy?”

Tunbury just shook his head in disbelief.

Freeborn gave the young man a considering look. “Perhaps you would like me to take the news to Lord and Lady Penworth?”

Tunbury nodded and sat down heavily, holding the letter carefully away from him as if he could distance himself from its contents. “I need a few minutes.”

The consul nodded his understanding and left the room.

Tunbury stared off into the distance, seeing Bradenham Abbey as it had been when he was a child. Ironic, really, that the family seat of the Earl of Doncaster should have such an ecclesiastic name. But then, his parents had almost never been at the Abbey. An occasional house party, with crowds of noisy strangers filling the house all night while he, and later his little sisters, had strict orders to remain in the nursery wing. Hardly surprising that when he ran into his father one day when he was trying to sneak out to the stables, the earl didn't recognize him. His own father.

Or perhaps not his father.

He would never know.

He hadn't thought of that moment in years. He thought it had faded into the mists of time, or wherever unwanted memories went, but here it was, wrenching his gut again.

He shook his head. It wasn't as if he had had an unpleasant childhood. His mother gave birth to him and he was then handed over to servants—nurses and nannies and tutors. When he went to school, he learned that his experience had been no different from that of most of the other boys. It was the Tremaines who were the odd ones.

He had not quite been able to believe it the first time he went home with Pip for the long vacation. Lady Penworth was glad to see them, greeted them with hugs, and asked him what foods he particularly liked. Lord Penworth took them fishing. He spoke to them. He even listened to what they had to say, asked questions, and listened to the answers. And Pip took it all for granted, as if this was the way parents normally behaved.

Harry had been stunned.

He had spent every vacation after that with the Tremaines, never spending more than a few days in the loneliness of the Abbey. Until his twenty-first birthday. He had to go back then. An enormous celebration was planned for the coming of age of the heir of the Earl of Doncaster. There was a dinner followed by a ball with hundreds of people he did not know, and fireworks and toasts and speeches of congratulation from friends of his parents who did not know him. None of his own friends had been invited.

When everyone had left, he found himself alone with his father, with the earl. He still could not stop thinking of him as his father. That was when he had learned of his uncertain parentage. The earl was drunk, of course. He had been drunk himself, he supposed. All those champagne toasts. It had taken a while for the meaning of his father's words to sink in.

He had stared at the earl for what seemed like an eternity. The older man had looked at him uncertainly at first, but then his eyes had fallen and he had picked up his glass of brandy and drained it.
You
disgust
me
, Harry had told the earl then,
you
and
my
mother
both
. And afterward he had stormed out, demanded that a sleepy stableboy saddle him a horse, and ridden off to London.

That was five years ago. He had never gone back to see his father.

He had never spoken to the earl again.

The memories brought nothing but discomfort and regret. And a powerful sense of guilt, which had him pacing the room. Then Norrie was there, right in front of him. She wrapped her arms around him and leaned against him, resting her head on his shoulder. His arms went around her and he held her, taking comfort from her. He rested his cheek on her hair and breathed in the slight herbal fragrance. As always, her nearness was balm to his soul.

“The letter was from Dalrymple, the family lawyer. He said the earl had not been ill at all. But one morning his valet went to waken him and he was dead. A sudden apoplexy, they think.”

“The letter was from the lawyer? Not from your mother?”

Harry would have laughed at that if he had been capable of laughter. Norrie couldn't quite manage to keep the censure out of her voice. “No,” he said, “not from my mother. Not even a message from her.”

“Oh, Harry.” She tightened her arms around him.

“Ah, Norrie, I don't know what to say. I don't even know what I feel. Regret, certainly. I haven't seen him since that night he told me. We parted in anger. At least, I was angry. I told him I despised him. I don't know what he felt.” Harry looked back at the memory uncertainly. “But I never spoke to him again. Whether he was my father or not, those should not have been my last words to him.”

Elinor reached up to make him look at her. “No. You are not to feel guilty. You had no way of knowing you would not see him again. You cannot blame yourself. He cannot have been surprised that you were upset at what he told you. Anyone would be.”

“But after I ran off, I never went back to see him. I never spoke to him again. I never even wrote. And I should have.”

“Did he try to see you? Did he write to you?” When he shook his head, she went on. “Then the fault is not yours, not yours alone. After all, you were in London for a year before you went on your travels. He could have tried to see you at any time. He should have tried to heal the breach.”

Harry managed a crooked but bitter smile. “That assumes he realized there was one. It could be that he was too drunk to realize I was upset. He may even have been too drunk to remember that he told me. He may have thought nothing of my disappearance. After all, he was accustomed to not seeing me for years on end.”

“Stop that!” Elinor seized his shoulders and gave him a small shake. “You will not think that way. It is as likely that he thought he had to tell you lest you one day heard rumors, and he could well have been drinking to give him the courage to speak. He had to know you would be upset, and that you could not but think badly of him. What man wants his son's disapproval? Perhaps he kept away from you hoping that time would ease the hurt.”

This time Harry's smile was genuine. “Norrie, my love, will you try to find virtue in everyone?”

“No, but I do not want you punishing yourself for things that were not your fault.” She stepped away from him and bit her lip. “Actually, I find I am worrying a bit about your mother. I have met her only a few times, but now that I know all this about her, I find it difficult to have much sympathy for her.”

Harry snorted. “I would express my own feelings a bit more harshly.”

“Shall we have to live with her?”

“Lord, no! Whatever put such a thought in your head?”

She smiled ruefully. “I wasn't looking forward to it. Actually, I would probably never have thought about it, but Pip and Lissandra were talking about Lissandra's mother, and Pip was saying perhaps her mother should come to live with them after her father dies.”

Harry looked a bit taken aback by that. “Isn't he being a bit pessimistic?”

“Well, Pip likes to plan ahead, and I expect Lissandra was a bit worried. After all, the marchese does seem to be quite ill.”

That produced a chuckle, and Harry pulled her into his arms again. “Fifty years or so from now, should we lose your father, your mother will be more than welcome to share our home. But I can promise you, we will never make our home with my mother.” He nuzzled her hair once more. There it was again, that slight herbal scent. “Your hair. What do you do to make it smell so fresh?”

“Rosemary and—ah!” He had stopped nuzzling her hair and had moved down to her neck. “A rinse of rosemary and thyme,” she gasped.

“Delicious,” he murmured and settled on her lips.

* * *

Elinor fluffed out her skirt as she sat down at the breakfast table. She had chosen this dress carefully. There might or might not be rules about what sort of mourning was expected of a girl whose fiancé's father had just died. Possibly none, but just in case she was wearing a lavender dress sprigged with tiny white roses. It was subdued enough, but it was also very becoming. And the bodice closed in front with a long row of buttons. She darted a glance at Harry to see if he had noticed.

He had. The look he was giving her was so heated that she started to blush. She tried to give him a look of reproof, but she couldn't help smiling, and that made him smile. How she loved his smile. It positively melted her insides.

“You'll need to get back right away, of course.” Lord Penworth looked at Harry with kindly sympathy. “Things are likely to be in disorder with Doncaster dying so unexpectedly.”

The silence at the table made Harry realize that Penworth had been speaking to him. The words sank in. His smile vanished and he took a sip of coffee and swallowed before he spoke. “My mother has, doubtless, all under control. She will have ordered all the appropriate clothing and draped the house as well.”

Penworth frowned. “You are Doncaster now, and that means the responsibilities all fall on you. There are many people depending on you, not just your family. To say nothing of the fact that you must take your seat in the Lords.”

Harry flushed at the reproof. “You are right, of course. I had managed to forget. Yes, I will have to go back soon.”

“I'm sure you will be able to settle everything easily enough, but if you run into any problems, you can call on Galveston, the estate agent at the castle. You know him. And in London you can always use Middleton if you find Dalrymple unsatisfactory.”

“Very well, sir.”

“Yes, of course you will manage.” Penworth smiled. “And we will all be back in a month or so.”

Harry blinked at that.

Elinor did more than blink. She sat up in outrage. “What do you mean, a month or so? Aren't we all going with him?”

Lady Penworth reached over to pat her daughter's hand. “I know you are sorry to have the wedding delayed, but it won't be so bad. Only six months or so. You can be married in January. Harry will be out of mourning then.”

“No.” Harry leaped to his feet and Elinor was right beside him. “No,” he repeated, “I am not going back without Norrie. We can be married here.”

“And all your worries about what people will say will be taken care of,” said Elinor. “Obviously we can't have a big society wedding with Harry in mourning, so we will have a small wedding right here in Rome. And by the time we're out of mourning—six months you said?”

Lady Penworth nodded. “Yes, but…”

“In six months everyone will have something else to talk about,” said Elinor, looking defiantly at her mother.

Attempting to defuse the situation, Lord Penworth broke in gently. “I don't know that you can get married here. It is a Catholic country, and I doubt you can just walk in and ask a priest to marry you. They must have all sorts of rules, just as we do at home. Banns and such.”

“We'll ask Mr. Freeborn. He will know,” said Elinor. “And if we can't get married here, and you want to stay, I'll go back with Harry and we can be married as soon as we reach England.”

“Elinor Tremaine!” Lady Penworth drew herself up, fully prepared for battle.

“No, Norrie. I can't let you do that.” Harry had her hand tightly clasped in his. He had to do this properly. What he wanted was to toss her over his shoulder and carry her off to a cave, but he was not going to do anything that might shame or embarrass her. He would do whatever her parents required, no matter if it killed him. “If we can't be married here, I will wait and travel back with you and your family.” He smiled. “And we will be married the minute we set foot in England.” He lifted her hand and kissed it.

“And your estate?” asked Penworth sharply.

Harry scowled. “It survived the earl's neglect for years. It can survive mine for a few more weeks.”

Penworth harrumphed, then looked at his wife.

She shrugged and said, “I am not happy, but…” She shrugged again. “It actually is a plausible solution.”

“In that case,” he said to Harry, “you had best call on Freeborn today.”

* * *

“Can you marry in Rome?” Mr. Freeborn smiled benignly at the new Earl of Doncaster. “Well, you can't have an Anglican religious service. This is the Papal States after all. But you can have a civil ceremony. That's easy enough.”

Harry sat down with a whoosh of relief. He was wearing a black coat and dark gray trousers—he had remembered that, at least—but he had dressed hastily and the coat felt uncomfortably tight. He thought he might have snatched up one of Pip's coats instead of his own. He tried not to wriggle too much. He didn't want to rip it. “All right,” he said. “A civil ceremony. That will do. Where do I go to arrange that?”