Lois Greiman

In the year of our Lord 1819

W
illiam Enton, third baron of Landow, detested weddings. They were tedious shams, filled with foolish hope and soppy sentiment—like attending hell in top hat and tails.

Taking another sip of champagne punch, he wished quite fervently that he were home alone with a bottle of Scotch, quietly drinking himself into oblivion. But it wasn’t a common occurrence for the queen of Sedonia to host a wedding. Nor was it every day that the viscount of Newburn wed. Will had little choice but to attend the festivities; thus he gazed across the immense width of Malkan Palace’s grand hall and managed not to glare.

Festooned with dried flowers wrapped in bright ribbon, the arched, stone chamber was crowded with elegant gentry and bustling servants, liquored biscuits, baked custards, and spirits. But it was the laughter that kept Will from the stupor for which he fervently longed. It was the pure, unmitigated joy.

God save him.

“Will.” Nicol’s voice brought him from his watery
cups, where he had hoped to remain until well past dawn. “’Tis good of you to come.”

“Not a’tall.” Reaching out with his free hand, William clasped the viscount’s palm in his own. They had been friends since boyhood—the impoverished son of a drunken baron and the shabbily elegant heir of Landow—sharing their adolescent wisdom and what dark secrets they dared voice. “I wouldn’t have missed it.”

Nicol said nothing, but there was something in his eyes that spoke of perceived lies. He was changed since meeting his young bride—open and honest and obscenely happy.

“’Tis the event of the season,” continued William, addressing the doubt in his old friend’s eyes. “The fifth viscount of Newburn wedding a virtual unknown. Think of the scandal.” He emptied his cup and wondered dimly why he wasn’t far drunker. But perhaps one had to expect some sobriety after long years of excess.

“Hardly unknown,” Nicol countered. “Sparrow is the youngest daughter of Lord Elsworth.”

“Sparrow,” Will said, and motioned to a passing steward. The server was there in a moment, one white-gloved hand clasped behind his back as he refilled the empty cup. “’Tis an unusual name.”

“She’s an unusual woman.”

“And Lord Elsworth. I don’t believe I’ve heard of him.”

Nicol laughed, but he was often laughing these days. Not like the viscount of old—cleverly cutting, carefully controlled—but more like a ridiculously elated bridegroom on his wedding day.

Dammit! They must have stronger libations than this watery punch.

“They’re Irish,” Nicol said, but he was already skimming the crowd, searching for the woman he had married
only hours before, as if he couldn’t quite bear to spend a moment without her near. As if the very sight of her gave him new life. Something ached in Will’s gut even before Nicol’s search ended. Even before his eyes lit and his expression softened. That something twisted like a blade in Will’s innards.

“You’re a fortunate man,” he said, and wondered if it was true. Oh yes, the maid called Sparrow was bright and bonny and obviously in love. But did love bring happiness or pain? He had no way of knowing.

Damn, he was morose, he thought, and drank again, though he knew he shouldn’t. He should be attentive and clever and charming. But what the hell difference did it make? Nicol’s attention was already firmly gripped by that shimmery enigma he called his bride.

Had Will been a different sort of man, he might have been fascinated by his friend’s sudden union. As it was, he merely felt tired, battered, and maybe bitter. He supposed he was bitter. But it made no difference. He would parry, he would feign, he would hide away any unwanted spark of emotion behind bland expressions and witty conversation as any true nobleman would do. “She is quite lovely,” he said. “Indeed, in a certain light she looks very much like our young queen.” Except for her hair color and the lively lilt of life in Sparrow’s eyes, they could have very nearly been one and the same.

“Do you think so?” Nicol asked, and pulling his gaze from his bride, smiled again.

“Aye, she could be Her Majesty’s twin.” Will paused, drank, wondered idly. “Or her impostor,” he suggested, and the viscount laughed as if the world was naught but a jest set forth for his entertainment.

“Ahh well,” Nicol said, admitting nothing. “The peerage is wont to interbreed. Who knows how the Elsworths
and the Rocheneaus might be related on some distant branch of their family trees?”

“I could find out,” said Will dryly, but Nicol only laughed again.

“It would do you no good, old chap.”

“Are you saying she is truly of noble blood or that I could never prove she’s some penniless waif you convinced to impersonate our princess for a time?”

Nicol’s teeth shone wickedly white against his dusky features. “I am saying she is more noble than any woman ever I’ve met, and she is not penniless. Indeed…” He found her again and seemed to lose his train of thought for a moment. “She is quite accomplished.”

Actual interest percolated in Will’s tired soul for a moment. “At what? If I may be so bold?”

Nicol shifted his gaze back to Will’s, but his eyes still sparked. “Let me just say that at our first meeting I felt a need to invest in her interests.”

“Which were?”

“At the time?” He seemed to be looking back, remembering fondly. “Herself.”

“And your investment?”

A smile tugged at the viscount’s mouth. “My watch…though I was somewhat…unconscious when I donated it to her cause.”

Feelings sharpened like flint in Will’s gut. “She’s a thief?” Perhaps his tone was a bit harsher than he’d hoped, for Nicol’s expression darkened perceptibly.

“As was Jack,” he said, “yet I believe you developed a fondness for him.”

And his damned cup was empty again. He glanced about, searching for solace.

“Do you know where he is?” Nicol asked.

“Jack?” Damn the stewards. They were never close at
hand when a drink was most desperately needed. “I suspect he returned from whence he came before you and Her Majesty demanded that I save him from the overly zealous guards.”

“We didn’t demand, Will,” Nicol countered quietly. “There was no need.”

Will scowled at the lack of drink while he searched for some clever argument, but none came readily to mind, so he trained his gaze on Nicol and turned his thoughts aside. It mattered little to him that even a ragged scrap of a boy had preferred the streets to the cold comfort of his home. “’Twas a strangely uncharacteristic gesture from a woman of royal blood, I might add,” he said. “I’ve oft wondered what moved our young queen to do such a ridiculous thing. A Rocheneau siding with a street waif. ’Tis unheard of.”

“Perhaps she has more heart than you realize.”

Will remained silent for a moment, assessing the other’s meaning. “As does your bride?” he guessed.

“Aye,” Nicol admitted, and, turning his gaze, found hers. Their eyes met with a velvety stroke of contented longing. “As does my bride.”

Will glanced away and tightened his grip on the cup. “Well then,” he said, and managed to raise the empty vessel for a belated toast. “I wish you much happiness.”

“Do you?” Sincerity echoed in Nicol’s voice—and him a damned viscount. What the devil had the girl done to him?

“Of course,” Will said.

“But none for yourself.”

Escape, shut down, employ the shields, hide the emotions. It was as simple as blinking. “Don’t be ridiculous,” Will said, and curved his lips into what some might call a smile. “I wish far more happiness for myself.”

“Then you should grant yourself forgiveness.”

Will’s head felt far too clear. Flippancy was needed here. Lacking copious amounts of alcohol and dark solitude, it was the best he could do. “I forgive all,” he said. “Even your damnably slow stewards. Can’t they see I’m drier than dirt?”

“She would forgive you,” Nicol said.

Will kept himself from blanching. “I’ve no idea what you speak of.”

“I speak of your wife’s death.”

The words fell hard and dark into the room. Will felt the blood drain from his face and glanced again at his empty cup. “If you’ll excuse me, Cole—” he began and turned away, but the viscount caught his arm.

“It’s been two years, Will. It’s past. Let it be. The blame is not yours to bear,” he said, and in that moment the months of denial and careful avoidance slipped away like storm-swept clouds. But there was no silver lining. Only more layers of bubbling darkness as far as the eye could see, blocking the sun, choking his life, for his failings had not begun with Elli’s death. Indeed, they stretched back as far as he could remember. Back to a fragile girl with a wan smile and haunted eyes. He nearly closed his eyes to the memories, but it would do no good, for they tore at him liked rusty knives.

“It was an accident,” Nicol said. “Nothing more. You are not to blame.”

But he was, for his wife and his sister and…dear God, he’d almost forgotten his own son. What kind of man would forget the death of his only child? “And what about Michael, Cole?” he asked, his tone carefully bland, though his soul was roiling. “Was I blameless in his death also?”

“It was an accident.”

“And the highwaymen who stopped their carriage, are
they blameless too?” he gritted, and pulled his arm from the other’s grasp. “Is that how it is in your rosy world?”

Nicol’s expression darkened, but his tone was even. “In my world, in my wife’s world, people forgive themselves for their faults, whether imagined or real. They forgive themselves and move on.”

“And where might I move on to?” His voice sounded despicably raspy to his own ears.

Despite the hubbub, silence seemed to settle around them like gritty fog.

“She would not have wanted you to suffer so, William,” Nicol said. “She would have wanted you to be happy. As she was. Happy and full of life.”

He spoke of Elli, of course, for little Caroline had never been happy. Joy had always been suspect at Landow. Atrocities, however…He turned his mind restlessly back to his late wife. It was so much easier to think of
her
death, and what did that say of him? “Yes.” His fingers ached as he gripped the cup. “It was like her to try to outrun the brigands. So like her. Full of life, unlike her husband, aye?”

“Will—”

“Unlike her husband, who was far too busy to escort her to her sister’s estate.”

“You had no way to foresee the future. You cannot blame yourself for—”

But Will interrupted him with a laugh, for Nicol was hideously wrong, and yet his laughter almost seemed heartfelt, but that only attested to his noble bearing.

“Do my ears deceive me?”

Will turned to see Cask shoulder his way through the crowd. Robert Stanley, the amiable baron of Bentor, was tall and paunchy, with a round nose that owned his face. Just now it was as red as a summer tomato. The lucky bastard was drunk. “Or did our William actually laugh?”

No one spoke. Discomfort echoed around them.

“Ahhh,” said Cask, looking sheepish. “My mistake.”

“Forgive me,” Nicol said, his expression somber, his gaze steady on William’s. “I did not mean to open old wounds.”

But the wounds had been open for years. Weeping, painful sores that refused to heal. “’Tis nothing,” Will said, forcefully lightening his tone.

“In truth, ’tis I who should apologize. I fear I have been entirely too fervent. Perhaps I’ve imbibed a bit too much punch.”

“Too much? There’s no such thing,” tsked Cask, who had earned his nickname through obvious means.

Nicol held Will’s gaze for a moment longer, then gave a single nod. “My thanks again for coming,” he said. “’Tis good to see you, Cask, but if you’ll excuse me, I go to find my bride.”

For a moment William almost reached out, almost stopped him, almost voiced some kind of blathered explanation. But if a man was bastard enough to ruin another’s wedding day, surely he was too much the bastard to attempt to mend the chasm he’d caused.

“The newly wed,” Cask said, and shook his head as he watched Nicol disappear into the crowd. “The soppy fools always think they have a right to spread their happiness.”

Will tried to push past the caustic emotions, yet even intoxicated, Cask seemed to feel the residual tension. But then the man was no fool. Despite his excesses, he was an honored member of the House of Lords. “It’s a damned shame,” Cask continued. “I’ve always said so.”

Spying a passing server, Will snagged a bottle from his tray, filling his own mug before seeing to his friend’s. “What’s that?”

The baron of Bentor sighed. “Elli’s death.”

Will drank deeply and searched for something to say. But witticisms were in short supply. And wine. There wasn’t nearly enough wine. He filled his cup again and drank.

“She was a fine lady.”

Still no clever rejoinders. Surely it would not be too difficult to agree, to concur, to murmur some sort of idiotic response. After all, she
was
a fine lady.

“Always gay,” Cask said, and he was very nearly correct. Despite her husband’s blistering failings, Elisabeth had managed the simplest and most dificult of feats. She had been happy. Regardless of him. Or had he only imagined it? Had he refused to see her discontent? Had he refused to admit her sadness, just as he had refused to admit that the route she took to her sister’s house was far out of the usual path. Where had she been going? And why? Had there been another man? A better man? Was she glad to be gone? Was even death preferable to life at Landow Manor, where the ghosts whispered like chill drafts from every nook and cranny?

Will drank again, hoping for the blessed insensibility Cask had already achieved. But that easy condition eluded him, so he must, as long custom suggested, fall back on empty blather.

“Her Majesty has given Nicol quite a marvelous party,” he observed, but Cask didn’t seem to notice. He was still shaking his head.

“Cole was right. You must cease blaming yourself.”

Will tried to look through him, to gaze into nothing as he had learned to do, but the damnable laughter distracted him. How much longer until he was unconscious?

“It wasn’t your fault,” Cask continued, as if he could somehow make it better. As if he understood. But he did
not. No one did. But they had no way of knowing he had been a failure long before Elli’s death. “She was an independent thinker. To know her you might have almost thought her silly.” Cask grinned sloppily. “’Member the time she dismantled your father’s pistol. Damned near blew her own head off.”