The Bride Wore Scarlet (35 page)

“John Coldwater,” she murmured. Then she flicked an almost irritated glance up at him.

“Or Jack,” Lazonby rasped. “Jack Coldwater.”

“I know who he is.” Her voice was cold.

“Or any name in the file that might be loosely connected to a person named Coldwater.”

“And how am I to know that?” she asked a little tartly.

“That's why I was headed over to Ned Quartermaine's,” Lazonby replied. “I'm going to hire one of his informant thugs to dig the chap out. Find out where he came from, and who his family is.”

“Why?” Lady Anisha's lips thinned with disapproval. “I should have thought you'd learnt your lesson on that score.”

Lazonby did not dare ask what she meant by that. “Coldwater is dogging me for a reason, Nish,” he answered. “This is more than the
Chronicle
looking for a story, because I'm old news now. No, this is personal.”

“
Personal
,” Lady Anisha echoed, tucking the piece of paper into her pocket. “I'll tell you what I think, Rance. I think your obsession with Jack Coldwater is
personal
.”

“Do you?” he asked a little snidely.

“Yes,” she snapped. “And very, very unwise.”

For an instant, he hesitated, wondering whether to tell her to go to the devil, or to simply kiss her again to shut her up.

In the end, however, he did neither. He took the coward's way out. “You will pardon me,” he said, his voice tight. “I am wanted elsewhere.”

Then Lazonby turned on one heel, strode out the door, and turned toward the stairs only to bump squarely into Lord Bessett, who stood just out of earshot, his back set to the passageway wall, his fingers pinching hard at the bridge of his nose.

Lazonby threw up his arms. “Christ Jesus!” he uttered. “Where did you—?”

Too late, he realized Bessett had laid a finger to his lips. “For pity's sake, Rance,” he managed, his voice choked with either rage or laughter, “get the hinges on that damned door sanded if you mean to keep kissing people you oughtn't behind it.”

“
You!
” said Lazonby again, hands fisting at his sides. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“It appears I might ask you the same thing, old chap,” he managed. “But me—well, I've just come by to pull an iron out the fire. Higgenthorpe said I might catch Nish here.”

“An
iron
out of the fire?”

“Aye,” said Bessett, eyes dancing with mirth, “though frankly, old chap, it looked rather as if you were doing the job for me.”

B
y seven o'clock, Maria Vittorio was drawing the heavy velvet draperies in the withdrawing rooms in Wellclose Square, her heels clicking noisily on the wide, polished floorboards. A carpet was needed, she had often complained, but none had been fitted as yet, for Anaïs had shown little interest in choosing one, preferring to leave the rooms much as they had been in her grandmother's day.

But in her grandmother's day, these rooms had been filled not with upholstered chairs and long, matching sofas, but with massive desks and stacked drawers, and clerks buzzing about like diligent honeybees; Sofia's empire, kept close to hand when she had grown too old to leave the house. The truth was, however, that Castelli & Company had outgrown the space long before the old woman's death. They had simply made do.

And now the rooms were elegant in their near-emptiness; long, massive chambers sparsely furnished and rarely used, for the house was large, and they were but two people. Two people who kept to themselves—who had nothing from which
to
withdraw—for they entertained no one save family.

Now, however, Maria looked about the wide, high-ceilinged rooms, and wondered with a mother's heart if yet another change was coming to these rooms, and to this house. Oh, perhaps she was not, strictly speaking, a mother, for God had not blessed her in such a way. But God had blessed her with Nate and Anaïs and Armand and a whole alphabet of other people who needed her.

She was not sure, however, that Anaïs still did—not in the old way, at least, for Anaïs had come home today amidst another flood of trunks and bandboxes an altered person. Altered in a way Maria knew all too well; with a light in her eyes but a sadness in her heart, yet saying little. And always, always, there was a man at the center of such conflicting emotions and subtle silences.

Maria was just drawing the last of the heavy panels when she heard the front knocker drop. Never above answering her own door, Maria set down her drawing rod and did so, swinging it wide to reveal a very tall, slender gentleman in a midnight-blue frock coat and a tall beaver hat that must have cost, if not a king's ransom, then at least a minor prince's.

She recognized him at once.

And Anaïs had not, apparently, learned her lesson about handsome, dashing men after all.

“
Il bell'uomo
,” she muttered under her breath, not in the least surprised.

“Thank you,” said the gentleman, sweeping off his hat. “I'm Geoffrey Archard. Is Miss de Rohan at home?” He presented a thick ivory card, and Maria took it. But the card did not say Geoffrey Archard, she noticed.

“
Sì
,” said Maria, vaguely impressed. “Come in, my lord.”

A
naïs was in the family parlor sorting through the towering heap of mail that had accumulated in her absence when she sensed a presence in the house. A male presence, she thought, but not Nate. Not Armand. She drew a deep breath, willing her nerves to settle.

She had not long to wait until she heard Maria coming up the old oak staircase with another, heavier tread falling softly behind her. Laying aside the butcher's bill, Anaïs pushed back her chair, nervously smoothing her hands down the front of her dark blue dimity gown. It was an old, comfortable dress, and far from her best, leaving Anaïs feeling oddly ill-attired—for she knew, as surely as she knew herself, that it was Geoff.

Oh, she had expected he would come, for he was a man who would always do the right thing. But once he had returned to London and to normalcy, what would he think the right thing was?

Certainly she had not imagined he would come so soon. Not the very same day they had parted company at Bishopsgate Station, going their separate ways in hired hackney cabs, with Anaïs snuffling back tears.

And then he was there, his broad shoulders filling the width of the parlor door, carrying his tall hat in his hands, his hard blue eyes somber.

“You have a caller,
bella
,” said Maria, her eyes dark with warning. “I go now—
but
not far.
”

Geoff tossed his hat onto a chair, and swept her into his arms, kissing her thoroughly and seizing her breath. “Oh, Anaïs, it has been too long,” he murmured, his mouth brushing her ear. “I don't suppose you could do something about that
not far
part?”

Anaïs pushed herself back to study his face, finding nothing but honesty there. And for the first time since leaving Brussels, she began to feel a sense of certainty. “Why?” she whispered. “Did you miss me?”

He kissed her again, swift and hard. “The longest five hours of my life,” he said. “Come, ask me to sit. Pour me a brandy, won't you? It's been one hell of an afternoon.”

She motioned toward the sofa by the windows, now darkening, and went to the sideboard. “Where have you been?” she asked, keeping her voice light.

“Where I said I would be,” he replied, dragging both hands through his hair. “Doing what I said I would do. It was just . . . strange, that's all.”

On second thought, Anaïs poured herself a brandy, too. She was rather afraid she might need it.

She joined him on the sofa, and pressed the glass into his hand. But Geoff merely sipped from it, then set it impatiently away, drawing a deep breath as he did so. “Anaïs,” he said, holding his arms wide, “come here.”

She did, scooting across the narrow space and burying her face against his shoulder. She drew in his familiar, comforting scent and felt as if, at long last, she had come home.

“Anaïs,” he murmured, holding her to him, “I love you desperately. I've come to give you fair warning that I really do mean to lay siege to your heart. I mean to make you forget Raphaele and anyone who ever was, or ever could have been. I've never been unable to do anything I set my mind to—and nothing has ever mattered more than this.”

Anaïs lifted her head, and set her lips to his cheek. “You may save yourself the trouble of a siege,” she said. “I love you to distraction. And that will never change.”

He turned his ice-blue gaze on her then and, tipping her chin up with one finger, kissed her lightly on the lips. “I hope it won't,” he said quietly. “You are everything to me, Anaïs. But there is something I need to tell you. Something important.”

She felt her breath seize. “About what?” she murmured, her eyes searching his face. “Something to do with the lady you were courting? Oh, Geoff, please don't say she—”

“She is perfectly fine.” Then his words hitched for a moment, and he ruefully shook his head. “Oh, she still needs a husband, for her children's sake, I think. But that's a problem I now realize I cannot fix for her, no matter how much I might care. I thought I was willing to try, but I'm not. And she understands. She was actually quite relieved.”

Anaïs closed her eyes, sagging inside with relief. “So what did you wish to tell me?” she managed.

“Nothing to do with that,” he said, and he sounded as if he meant it. But Geoff's reticence oddly returned, his jaw stiffening almost imperceptibly, and Anaïs was reminded once again of the man she had met with that day in the society's bookroom. He was a pensive, stubborn man, yes—but a good man, too.

And a gentleman to his very marrow.

Whatever it was that troubled him now, it had something to do with that, she sensed. And it had been nagging at him for a while.

He cleared his throat a little sharply. “You came to realize, I think, whilst we were away how deeply concerned I was for Giselle Moreau,” he said. “From the very first, her safety—her
future
—was paramount to me.”

“You felt a great sympathy for her,” Anaïs acknowledged, “and on some deeply personal level I cannot quite fathom. But I cannot know what it is to carry the sort of burden people like you and Giselle carry—and for that, I am truly grateful.”

After a moment had passed, he reached out and covered Anaïs's hand with his own, curling his fingers through hers. “My childhood was much like Giselle's,” he said. “Or like what hers could have been. Until I was twelve, I had no one to turn to. No one to help me.”

“Yes,” said Anaïs slowly. “And I have wondered at that, honestly.”

His mouth turned up in an almost bitter smile. “My mother blames herself for it,” he said. “But it was not her fault. She . . . she was so young; barely seventeen when she conceived me—and she could not have known what to expect.”

“That's what I don't understand,” Anaïs murmured, dipping her gaze to catch Geoff's. “Wasn't Lord Bessett her cousin? The Gift is carried in the blood. Everyone who has it knows that much.”

“My mother was the great-granddaughter of the fourth Earl of Bessett, yes,” he said. “However, her marriage to her cousin was but a marriage of convenience—which is to say, it was convenient for everyone save her. And me. And—”

Anaïs looked at him encouragingly. “
And—?
”

Geoff's throat worked up and down for a moment. “For my real father,” he finished.

It took a moment for that to sink in. “Ah,” she finally said. “I begin to comprehend.”

His smile turned from bitter to grim. “I'm sure I need not ask your confidence in this,” he said. “The implication is clear.”

“Geoff, none of this matters to me,” she said swiftly, setting a hand to his face. “I'm sorry for your mother—to have conceived a child so young and out of wedlock must have been an unspeakable horror—but it matters not one whit to me who your father is. You must believe that. You
must
.”

He laid his hand over hers where it cupped warmly round his cheek. “I have never doubted it,” he said quietly. “You are not the silly sort of woman, Anaïs, to whom such things as blood and propriety matter unreasonably. And I have never been ashamed of who and what I am.”

“I would think less of you if you were,” she said.

He turned his face into her hand and kissed her palm lingeringly, then laced his fingers through hers and settled their hands in his lap as if to better study them. “I have also never been ashamed of my background,” he said quietly. “I was conceived in love by two parents who wanted me very much. I was also conceived in wedlock—or perhaps a day or two before it. And therein lies the complication, you see.”

Anaïs felt her eyes widen. “I should say,” she murmured. “Do you . . . wish to tell me about it?”

He lifted one shoulder and sighed. “Just a few weeks into her come-out season, my mother eloped with a near-penniless Scot, and married at Gretna Green,” he said. “But my maternal grandfather was a cruel man. He managed to catch them soon after, and to convince my mother by means of some forged documents that my father had married her for her money—which was considerable—and that he had paid my father off to annul the marriage. He even showed her the papers.”

“Oh!” Anaïs set a hand to her mouth. “But that's monstrous!”

“He was a powerful politician,” said Geoff. “He had arranged a political marriage for her, one which served his own thirst for power. He thought he could cover over the elopement and cow her, but he didn't count on me. Now, it is one thing to dupe a young man into taking a wife who is not a virgin, and quite another to foist off a bride who's already with child. Even Lord Jessup—my grandfather—dared not try that. My mother, therefore, became worthless to him.”