Virtue's Reward (18 page)

And with that he began to tell her about India, a place where the light itself is different. A picture of the exotic subcontinent began to weave itself at Helena’s hearth like a rich silk tapestry. The colors, the smells, the hubbub; towering mountains, dusty deserts, strange beasts, flowering plants; the life of a people with entirely different beliefs and culture and a unique view of the universe—nothing had escaped his notice.

“We have gone into their country with unpardonable arrogance,” he said at last. “With the view that England can teach everything to the world. But India is a great and ancient civilization, and I believe she will outlast us in the end.”

He knelt and put more wood on the fire, then turned and looked at Helena. She sat spellbound, her lips slightly apart.

“We have made the most dreadful mess of your hair,” he said, and reached up to brush it back from her face.

She laughed, surprised. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Good, because I think we might do it again.”

With that he pulled her from the chair to join him on the rug in front of the flames.

Helena was not sure later how they had finally moved again to the bed. She knew only that she was being peeled like a withy, layer after layer, until her innermost soul lay stripped in his care.

With my body, I thee worship,
she thought abstractedly.
I never understood that before.

* * *

They awoke to the sound of rain gurgling in the gutters. A dull light seeped into the room. Wrapped in his dressing gown, Richard strode to the windows and threw back the shutters. Then he rebuilt the dying fire before he came and sat on the bed beside her.

“I think I understand at last something that I heard in Exmoor,” he said, twining a strand of blond hair around his fingers.

Helena gave him a puzzled look. “What was that?”

“When Captain Morris introduced me to his future wife, he said: ‘She is my peace.’ Of course you know her, don’t you? Amelia Hunter.”

Then she remembered. He had visited David Morris at Fernbridge and met the Hunter sisters there. Catherine had written to her about it, and Richard had mentioned it himself when they first met at Trethaerin.

“Amy Hunter isn’t a terribly peaceful person, though. She’s as giddy as a top.”

Richard smiled. “That’s not what he meant. Are you ready for breakfast?”

His grin told her that he was not thinking immediately of food.

Helena reached up to touch the warm strength of his chest.

“I’m starving,” she replied.

He slipped out of his dressing gown. At the sight of his body in the clear daylight, she gasped aloud.

“Good heavens, Richard! That’s a new scar. And this! And what happened to your shoulder?”

“Nothing very much, luckily. I was a little clumsy, that’s all, and was unfortunate enough to be punctured.”

He did not tell her that he had then been very ill. Charles de Dagonet had nursed him solidly through a dangerous fever. His sword had picked up some unwelcome filth on the streets of London before his attacker had sunk its blade into his flesh.

“You were attacked again? You said there was no danger.”

“Whoever dislikes me so intensely is looking for a yellow-headed gentleman, not a black-visaged vagabond. I am quite safe. I’m staying where no one will find me.”

Helena fell silent and dropped her hands. Distress flooded her eyes and she turned away.

Richard ruthlessly suppressed his desire, though it burned fiercely. Did she know how deeply he prevaricated? She must—even if she did not know the true cause. In which case, how could he allow himself to make love to her again? Yet he craved her softness, her generosity. The yearning left him speechless.

He smoothed the hair back from her nape and kissed her lightly on the shoulder, then stood up and shrugged into his dressing gown.

“What are your plans now?” she said at last.

He strode away across the room. “I am going to France.”

His illness had delayed him in his search for the unknown enemy. But it was time to move now. There was nothing more that England could tell him. The answer could lie only in the French capital. Dagonet had contacts with London’s underground and would pass on any information he could find. He had already discovered that the ruffians who attacked Richard had indeed been paid to seek him out. It was not a random attack motivated by robbery, but Richard had never thought for a moment that it was. Yet no meaningful identity of the paymaster could be gained. The description could fit any of a hundred men.

So it was time to return to the lion’s den: Madame Relet’s nasty little brothel in Paris.

“To France?”

“I couldn’t leave without saying good-bye,” Richard said.

“Is that why you came here last night?”

“Among other reasons. Unfortunately, however insistent those reasons may be, I must leave again. I hadn’t meant to stay here so long.”

And Helena grasped at the one thread of happiness offered. Even if he felt he must leave again, he had stayed with her the entire night and slept until morning in her bed. No nightmares had come to disturb their sleep. He hadn’t thought it necessary to protect himself from her when he was at his most vulnerable. He might not be able to share with her the fact that he kept a mistress and presumably was staying with the delectable Marie in London. Perhaps he would never accept the perfidy of his brother. Yet he had broken his own rule. He had shared his sleep.

She sat up in the bed and smiled at him. “Do you think I wish to drive you away?”

He spun back to face her. “What? No! I wish the hell I could stay, but—”

“But you can’t.” She slipped the covers away, leaving her dressed in nothing but her hair. “And you must be hungry, so you might as well have some coffee and eggs before you go.”

Richard laughed and walked back to her. He gazed into her eyes for a moment, then kissed her on the mouth.

“Yes I am,” he said. “But it’s not coffee and eggs that I have in mind.”

* * *

They went down together to the breakfast parlor at last. John was already sitting at the table stuffing his mouth with toast. As they came in, he leaped to his feet and hurled himself at his brother.

“Richard! Helena said you weren’t here. What have you done to your hair? Are you in disguise? Oh, this is capital!”

“And what in heaven’s name are you doing here, young man? Why aren’t you at school?”

John shuffled his feet and refused to meet the eyes that were so like his own. Then he sat back down at the table and tried to look nonchalant.

“I ran away, if you must know.”

“Then you are about to return. Today.”

“Richard, you won’t make him? They’re going to beat him.”

“All the more reason! I can hardly believe that a brother of mine would be too much of a coward to face just punishment.”

“But it’s not fair at all, sir,” John wailed, and the story he had told Helena poured out.

To her surprise, Richard didn’t seem in the least amused or sympathetic.

“Your reasons make no difference at all,” he said sternly. “You took an action of your own free will and that action had consequences. A gentleman does not run away from what he has done because the results are unpleasant.”

“But it was for a noble cause,” Helena said. “John wanted to teach a bully a lesson.”

“And did so, perhaps. But the virtue of his intent isn’t relevant, nor is the efficacy, or otherwise, of his revenge on Master Harris. There is a price to be paid for well-meaning actions as often as for wrong ones. A man of honor is prepared to pay it, not bewail the fact that the world isn’t fair. And he certainly wouldn’t hide behind the skirts of a lady.”

“I’ll get another drubbing for having run away,” John said sulkily.

“And I trust you can face it like an Acton, sir.”

Helena laid her hand on his arm. “Richard, this is intolerable. A note from you explaining John’s side of the story would surely be all that’s necessary? And he’s here at my invitation. If I had known he would be punished for that, I would never have let him stay.”

“You should have sent him back right away, Helena. By shielding him you have only made it worse. John, go and get ready. We leave in half an hour.”

“Yes, sir!” the boy said, and with one apologetic look at Helena, he left the room.

“Richard, for heaven’s sake! Why are you so hard on him? John is not even to be commended for trying to stand up against bullying? He’s barely more than a child and he worships you.”

“Then I have a responsibility to see that he develops into a gentleman of honor.”

“Yet you will allow Harry anything, any license—even to attack you and wound your horse! Was Harry at the end of the blade in London? Is he the cause of the scars on your shoulder? Does his honorable development not count?”

“Stop! Helena, I have told you before that Harry is as trustworthy as I am myself. If you will not believe it, there is nothing more to be said.”

“Then perhaps neither of you is to be trusted. Why did you send Harry here to spy on me?”

Richard looked truly astonished for a moment, but then his expression closed like a door.

“I asked Harry to make sure you were all right, that is all.”

“Then why is he so friendly with Nigel Garthwood?”

“What?” Richard said.

“He has been asking Mr. Garthwood about me and Edward. Was that also at your request? It’s unconscionable!”

If she could only make him see that Harry was a threat to his life. He must be put on guard against his brother. But instead, she was only destroying whatever understanding they had reached that morning and the night before.

John reappeared in the doorway.

“I am sorry if I caused you any trouble, Lady Lenwood,” he said formally, and gave her a contrite little bow. She noticed with some satisfaction that his neck was considerably cleaner than it had been when he arrived. “Is it still all right if I come at Christmas?”

“I shall be devastated if you don’t,” she replied. “I must win back my money.”

“Christmas?” Richard looked from one to the other.

“I have arranged it with your mother,” Helena said with defiant dignity. “Unless you object, Eleanor, Joanna, and Matilda are all coming here, and John, too.”

“Good God!” Richard said faintly.

“You’ll be here as well, won’t you, sir?” John asked.

“Very probably not,” Richard said, and taking John by the shoulder, he steered him from the room.

His brain was working furiously. He would indeed like to know very much why Harry had met Garthwood, but it could hardly be relevant to the matter at hand, and his passage to France was already booked. An interview with his brother would have to wait.

* * *

Helena went to the door to see them off. Bayard had been visited, but although he was well on the way to recovery, he remained in his stall. Richard was riding a nondescript nag, which the groom had brought around from the stable. He would never be recognized by anyone who didn’t know him well as either the Captain Acton who had ridden up the drive at Trethaerin, or as the Viscount Lenwood who had taken possession of Acton Mead.

John was to be dropped at the gates of Eton by Coachman, who had turned out the curricle in preparation. The boy was loaded and the carriage took off.

Richard stood holding the reins of his horse for a moment, then he glanced up at Helena, where she stood in the porch.

“Don’t let us quarrel, Helena,” he said suddenly. “I can’t help what’s going on now. It’s something I have to do. But it doesn’t involve you, and I beg of you to believe that it doesn’t involve Harry. If it is making me into a monster, I rely on your infinite generosity to find it in your heart to forgive me.”

 “There’s nothing to forgive,” she said.

He smiled and winked at her. It was enough to make her want to forgive him anything, even Marie.

“Good luck with the medieval princesses!”

He swung onto his horse and was gone.

Helena puzzled for a moment over the reference to royalty, then she realized. He and his brothers were christened, although in the wrong order, for three of the sons of King Henry II. The Acton girls carried the names of his daughters.

Had she bitten off more than she could handle by inviting them all to Acton Mead for Christmas?
Fools rush in,
she thought to herself.

But she had done well enough with John, hadn’t she, even if Richard didn’t agree. Would Richard’s sisters be that much more difficult?

December arrived with a vengeance. Snow coated the roads and lay like a muffling blanket on the bare branches as Richard rode hired horses back from Dover to London. As he entered the slush-filled streets of the capital, servants were sweeping the steps of the houses, and some of the footmen had been assigned to climb onto the roofs to chisel away the ice from the corbels to the imminent danger of passersby.

Richard’s own lodgings had lain empty since the attack on him in October. He knew they were watched, and he had no intention of further imposing on Charles de Dagonet. So he found a room in a cheap boardinghouse and gave his name as Mr. Lysander.

The next morning he walked swiftly to Jermyn Street. A manservant opened the door.

“Mr. de Dagonet is from home, sir,” the fellow said stiffly.

He was looking at Richard as if he thought he must have come to dun his master for debts.

“But has, like Merlin, magically reappeared when wanted! How do you do, dear fellow? By all means come in.”

Richard turned. Dagonet, dressed in a many-caped greatcoat, stood behind him in the hall brushing snow from his shoulders. A faint sheen of exhaustion lay over his features.

The men went into the austere sitting room together, and the manservant disappeared to prepare a hot drink.

“So you have returned to grace our great nation once again with your presence?” Dagonet said. “How was France?”

“Miserable,” Richard replied.

“
‘I traveled among unknown men, / In lands beyond the sea; / Nor, England! did I know till then / what love I bore to thee.’
I have also been away from London, but no farther than Marlborough, alas, where I made a bloody fool of myself. Don’t ask! It’s nothing germane to the Paris affair. Welcome home!”