Regency Rogues: Disgraceful Secrets

The space between them was punctuated by silence. He had long ago learned that if he attempted to speak to her, she would not respond. But even if she did not look in his direction, she could still feel his eyes upon her like a snail trail on her skin. She took a deep sip of her wine to combat the headache that came with pretending indifference to it.

On her left was Sir Chauncey, staring dejectedly up the table at Miss Fellowes as though watching his romantic hopes disappearing over the horizon. Tonight she made a half-hearted effort to engage him in conversation, to take his mind from the sight of his lover flirting with her husband. But eventually she tired of his monosyllabic responses and let their end of the table return to silence.

Then she looked towards the head of the table as well and hoped that the captain would not catch her studying him. Who would have thought that a shy boy could turn into such a magnificent creature? Even when at ease, he still had the air of command that she had noticed in the sitting room earlier. He did not stare, nor did his eyes dart from face to face. Yet he seemed aware of each action taken and each word spoken up and down the table.

While he took care that this observation of his guests did not seem ill-mannered, the women surrounding him did not bother with niceties. They stared openly at the way the candlelight shone gold off the waves in his hair and the shadows accented the sharp planes of his cheeks. When he smiled, and he did so often, they could not contain audible sighs of admiration. Fox hunting might have held their attention this afternoon. But if such a fine male specimen showed even a hint of interest, the women of the party would be doing any future sporting inside the house with the captain.

The feeling this aroused in her was unfamiliar, but she assumed it must be jealousy. It explained the urge she had to pry the two women away from him and claim the place at his side. When she’d imagined his homecoming, it had not been at all like this.

For one thing, he was even more splendid to look at then she’d dreamed. She had pictured him as growing taller, leaner and more mature, an older version of the ordinary boy who had left her. She had not expected the blond god lounging at the head of the table tonight.

She stared, fascinated, as he rolled the stem of his wine glass between his fingers. Was it a sign of irritation? Boredom? Or was it simply a habit? It did not matter what it meant to him. To her, it hinted that the hands that had been brutal on the battlefield were gentle enough to hold a wine glass, or a woman.

Miss Fellowes was watching his hands, as well. And there was another difference. In Lily’s fantasies, there had been no competition for his attention. Nor had he stated plainly, during their first conversation, that he might desire others and that she was to have no say in the matter.

She should have spent less time on dreams and focused on the harsh realities. He had no reason to like her, much less love her. Even in the best marriages, male fidelity was not guaranteed or expected.

Her father had no such trepidations. He was smiling up the table as if Christmas had arrived in September. A dragoon in dress uniform was just what the table needed to convince a band of foolish cits that they were dining with the upper class. The splendid red jacket hugging his shoulders had an excessive amount of gold braid covering it. Despite the time spent on horseback, the breeches beneath it were still snowy white and tight enough to display the muscles of a superlative horseman. Though the captain’s excuse was that his clothing would arrive in a day or two, the full uniform made him into just the sort of prize that would have guests swarming to the Chase to meet him.

Her father stood, raising his glass. ‘May I offer a toast to our host and thanks for his safe return?’

Lily tried to contain her flinch. No, he might not. If a toast was to be made, especially so early in the meal, her husband should be the one to offer it. Even while attempting courtesy, her father was rudely overstepping his place.

Gerald accepted it with a smile and only the slightest narrowing of his eyes, to show his annoyance.

As she feared they would, the guests responded not with a polite, ‘Hear, hear’, but with raucous laughter and applause. The toast itself resulted in several spills on the linen and a cracked glass from Mr Wilson. Greywall, who always drank twice as much as the other guests, needed to have his glass refilled before he could participate. He drained it rather than sipping and gestured for the footman to leave the bottle. He turned to smile at her, lifting his glass in a private salute, and Lily could feel the slight pain in her head turning to a full megrim, tightening about her temples like an iron band.

From halfway down the table, Mr Burke began to regale them with a tale of the day’s hunt. Conversation on all sides ground to a halt, except for the interjection of needless details by Mr Wilson and a brief argument between the two over whether the wind was easterly or from the west when the dogs first caught the scent.

At the head of the table, her husband was silent. His eyes were on his guests, but the knife in his hand was slicing the meat on his plate with mathematical precision.

When, at last, the poor vixen had been run to ground and her gory dispatch applauded, the table turned to Captain Wiscombe for his reaction.

He responded with a smile. Then, very deliberately, he set down his knife and fork and pushed his plate of venison away as if he’d lost all appetite.

Mr Burke stared at him in surprise. ‘Do not tell me, Captain, that you do not enjoy hunting.’

‘Not so much that I would wish to kill the animal a second time, during the meal,’ he said, continuing to smile.

‘Surely a little blood does not bother you, Wiscombe,’ Greywall said. He forked up a large bite of rare meat and waved it before him as if to goad his host.

‘A little blood?’ He considered for a moment. ‘It depends on whom it belongs to. I am more bothered by a small amount of mine than a large amount of another fellow’s. And that of a fox?’ He shrugged. ‘If it does not come into my home to provoke me, then I see no reason to run through its home with a pack of dogs, waving my gun.’

‘Did you see very much blood, when you were in Portugal?’ This question came from Mrs Carstairs, who seemed to find nothing unladylike in broaching such a topic at the table.

The others at the table leaned in expectantly.

Lily held her breath.

‘See blood? Yes. Yes, I did. But, unlike a fox hunter, I did not intentionally rub it on my face to mark my first kill.’ His smile dimmed and his distant expression made her wonder if he still saw carnage when he closed his eyes at night.

Mrs Carstairs was as oblivious to the slight as she was to the small fleck of blood left on her cheek from her first hunt. ‘I am sure you have stories that are far more interesting than Mr Burke’s. Was stalking Napoleon and his men so different from hunting dumb beasts?’

He thought for a moment. ‘I wonder if, in a table somewhere in France, there is a man being asked the same thing about hunting me?’ He offered nothing more than that, staring at her with a fixed smile until she looked away and changed the subject.

When dinner had ended, her father stopped her before she could escape to her room to ease the pain in her head. ‘Lillian, a moment, please.’

For a moment, she considered pretending she had not heard him, as she usually did when he spoke to her. She had learned, years ago, that there was little point in conversing if she could not believe anything he might say. But if they did not talk here, he would follow her to her room, just as Ronald had done. A conversation in the hallway would be shorter and less painful. She rubbed her temple. ‘What do you want?’

‘I have not yet got the chance to speak to your husband about the future of our endeavours here. And I was wondering if you—’

She cut him off. ‘It will not be necessary. There is no future for them.’ Then she glanced about her to remind him that they were on the main floor where anyone might overhear them.

‘No future?’ He seemed surprised. ‘It has taken years to get things running just as they are. We cannot stop now.’

‘On the contrary. What you are doing is wrong. You should stop it immediately.’

Her father was looking at her as Stewart had, when she’d explained that nice little boys did not pull Kitty’s tail. ‘Wrong? The guests enjoy their visits here. In fact, they leave as happy as they arrive.’

‘But poorer,’ she reminded him.

‘But they do not mind it,’ he argued. ‘If they do not, then I fail to see why you do.’

‘The fact that they do not mind it does not make it right,’ she said. She was using her patient, mothering voice. But she did not feel at all patient. She should not have to teach decency to this man. He should have been the one who taught it to her. The imaginary metal band that circled her head was tightening with each word.

‘Right and wrong are nebulous things, Lillian. If no one is hurt, has a wrong truly been done?’

‘How would you know that no one has been hurt?’ she snapped. ‘Have you ever asked them? Have you thought, for even a moment, about anyone other than yourself?’ She was getting angry. If she was not careful, people would notice. And then everything would be worse and not better. She took several slow, deep breaths and felt the pain in her head lessen somewhat.

Other than to stare at her in shocked silence, her father did nothing. And that was just as expected.

When she’d calmed herself enough to continue, she said, ‘What happens will be Captain Wiscombe’s decision, because it is his house. He is an honourable man and he will want no part in the humbug you have created.’

Her father favoured her with a childishly eager smile. ‘Then you must make an effort to persuade him.’

‘I?’ she said, shaking her head in amazement at his stubbornness. ‘After all that has happened in this house, you come to me for help to keep things as they are?’

Now his expression turned to one of puzzlement. ‘Of course I do. Who else could better help me persuade the captain?’

The pain in her head was near to unbearable. If she did not go to her room soon, the servants would have to carry her there. ‘Even if I wanted to help you, what makes you think he would listen to me?’

Now it was her father’s turn to speak to her as if she were an ignorant child. ‘Because he dotes on you, my dear.’

‘He certainly does not.’ If anything, the opposite was true. She’d had years to develop an infatuation with her own husband. But his affection grew more unattainable with each passing minute. ‘He hates me,’ she said and the ache in her head seemed to move to her heart.

‘Nonsense. He adored you when he offered. I saw the look in his eyes after you’d accepted him. It was as if the crown jewels had fallen out of a tree and landed in his lap. I am sure nothing has changed.’

He was telling her what she wanted to hear, to win her to her side. But then, her father had always been good at making people believe in the impossible, even as he ignored the obvious. She must not be swayed by him. ‘Everything has changed, Father. Everything.’

He smiled. ‘Then you must change them back. Captain Wiscombe might have prevailed against Napoleon’s army. But you, Lillian, are a North. The poor man does not stand a chance.’

Chapter Six

Gerry had begun to envy his wife her megrim.

Lillian had claimed illness and disappeared immediately after the meal, forcing the female guests to settle in the parlour with only a footman for company. The elder North and the earl had joined them, seeking a quiet game of cards by the fire.

The other men were proving themselves to be as annoying after dinner as they had been at the table. At Ronald’s suggestion, the six of them remaining had retired with their port to the billiard room.

Either Lillian had not completed her redecorating, or she had given up on trying to make this room look like anything other than what it was. The tiny game room retained the utter lack of charm that had been so evident in the home of his youth. Hunting trophies still lined its upper walls, staring down at them as they played. Their glassy eyes glittered in the smoke from too many pipes and cigars.

Gerry leaned against the wall under a moth-eaten roe, sipping a brandy and watching as Lillian’s brother toyed with his third opponent of the night. It was clear from the way he played that no one had bothered to take care of the slight warp that existed in the surface of the table, nor had they taken the time to properly iron the baize covering before the game began. The small wrinkles that still marred its surface would make play difficult.

The problems were near invisible to the naked eye, especially in a smoky room. But Gerry had found his ball trapped by the table’s deficiencies often enough when learning the game from a competitive father who showed no mercy. When he’d whined about the unfairness of it, his father announced that a man who played a game without assessing the risks deserved what he got.

The elder Wiscombe would have got along well with the Norths. Tonight, Ronald was using the same philosophy to remove money from his guests. Poor Carstairs had just lined up a shot he had no hopes of making. Before he attempted it, he paused to chalk his cue by grinding it into the plaster of the ceiling like the barbaric cit that he was.

Gerry gritted his teeth into a smile and retracted his sympathy for the man. Then, without a word he offered Carstairs the cube of white chalk that sat on the table’s edge. He would have to come back in daylight to assess the damage to the ceiling. Judging by the current company, there were likely years’ worth of marks left by men that had no sense of how to deport themselves outside of a public billiard hall.

For now, he would enjoy the surprised look on Carstairs’s face as his ball rolled just short of its mark and stopped.

Ronald’s response was to pot two balls in one stroke and finish the match.

‘Game to me,’ he said with a smile.

‘You are a damned lucky fellow,’ Carstairs said, wiping his brow and reaching for a pad and pencil to write a marker of his debt.

‘Very lucky,’ Ronald said, feigning modesty. ‘But I will allow that I have some skill in the game.’

‘You must play me next,’ Gerry said, finishing his drink in one gulp and giving the broad smile that he knew made him look like a simpleton. ‘I have not played in ages. There was no time for games in Wellington’s army.’

‘Well, then. This should be interesting for both of us.’ Ronald’s smile was positively wolfish as he chalked his cue.

Gerry turned to the rack and chose a mace instead. The old club-headed sticks were horribly out of fashion. But he was as good with one as he was with a cue and they overcame the deficiencies of the table quite nicely.

Ronald arched an eyebrow in surprise and replaced his cue, as well. ‘My, but it has been a while since you played.’

‘When Father taught me, it was with wooden balls so lopsided there was no telling where they would go, even at the best times.’ As if demonstrating, he swung the mace wide, nearly knocking a drink from the hand of Wilson, who was standing too close to him.

‘You’ll find that the new ivory balls work much better,’ Ronald said, setting up his first shot and tapping the red ball with his white one.

‘I expect so,’ Gerry said and deliberately missed, sending his cue ball bouncing off the padded rail. Then he looked up and smiled. ‘But we have not set a wager yet.’ He brought the mace up so quickly it set the oil lamps above the table to swaying.

Ronald sent Gerry’s cue ball rolling into a pocket. ‘Nor have we set the points. Play to six?’

An easy thing for him to say, when he was already up by four. Gerry smiled broadly again. ‘Excellent. And let us make it interesting. Fifty quid?’

‘Fif…’ The wind was escaping from Ronald like gas from a balloon. ‘I do not have so much ready money.’

‘Fifty from me, then,’ Gerry said. ‘And if I win, you may forgive the debts of the men who have played so far. That should call it even.’

‘If you really think that is wise,’ Ronald said, pityingly.

Gerry grinned and nodded like a fool. Then, with a single stroke, he sunk all three balls with a cannon, to the calls of ‘Capital shot’ and ‘Huzzah for the captain!’

‘And how many is that, again? I cannot remember.’ Gerry counted points on his fingers.

‘Ten,’ said Ronald, his smile disappearing. ‘Game to you, sir.’

‘It is all a matter of geometry, dear fellow. Back in the day, I was quite good at mathematics. The markers, if you please.’ Gerry held out his hand for the IOUs and his brother-in-law handed them over with a frown.

Gerry tore them in half with a single decisive motion and dropped the pieces on to the table beside him. Then he yawned. ‘And now, I think it is time that I retire.’

‘You must not,’ Carstairs said. ‘The night is just beginning.’ By the slur in his voice, the night had gone on far too long already.

‘I have been away from home and wife for seven years,’ Gerry said. ‘She will not want me lingering with the gentlemen until dawn.’

‘A lovely woman she is,’ Burke announced. ‘And a shame that she has been alone so long.’

Gerry felt the hair at the back of his neck prickling as if it could rise like the ruff of an angry dog. How many other men had noticed Lillian’s beauty and made drunken comments over the billiard table about her sleeping alone? And what sort of man was Ronald North for showing not a hint of disapproval?

‘Those days are now past,’ Gerry said and gave Burke a look that brought a mumbled assurance that no disrespect was intended.

He nodded and looked past the man at Ronald. ‘I am home for good.’ Then he stared into his brother-in-law’s eyes to be sure the idiot noticed that there was a wolf beneath the sheepskin. ‘I will be with her, until death us do part. Just as I am sure you intended when you introduced us.’ Then he quit the room, ignoring the low curse behind him.

Chapter Seven

Once upstairs, Lily put on her best nightgown and allowed the maid to put a ribbon in her braided hair. By the smile on Jenny’s face, she could guess that the girl was imagining the fond reunion to come.

The ribbon was superfluous. She doubted it would matter to Captain Wiscombe how she looked. Despite what her father and brother believed, Gerald’s reasons for lying with her had nothing to do with romance. He was merely staking a claim of ownership.

Would that her own motivations were as clear. She could tell herself that going to his bed tonight was nothing more than an attempt to be the loyal wife he’d deserved from the first. It would have been much easier to believe, if both her father and brother had not reminded her that she was a North and therefore an expert manipulator. Was she being her usual, obedient self and doing what Gerald wanted her to do? Or was she following her family’s instructions and doing what might make him do what she wished at some later date?

Or was this about nothing more than her fascination with Captain Gerald Wiscombe, late of the Fifth Dragoons? Her only experience with what went on in the bedroom had left her with no desire to repeat the act. But after years of reading about his exploits, the thought of Captain Gerald Wiscombe made her heart flutter in anticipation.

There was fluttering in other places, as well. Her husband was not some paper idol. He was here and all too real. And tonight, she would finally be his bride. Suddenly, it felt like her chaste cotton night rail was made of butterfly wings. Each shift of cloth on skin reminded her of just how bare she would be when he removed it.

For a moment, memories from the past clawed at her mind like a rat in a cage. The headache, which had eased during the quiet hours since dinner, began to return.

She took a slow breath to clear her head. The past was the past. Tonight would be different. There would be no fear or guilt since the man involved was her husband. Not only that, the man she had married was a romantic daydream come to life. There was not a braver or more honourable man in all of England than Gerald Wiscombe and there were few men as handsome.

If only he didn’t hate her…

After what seemed like hours of silence, she heard the hall door of the room beside hers open and close. There was no second voice, or any other indication that he’d summoned a servant to help him prepare for bed. In fact, there was no sound at all. Had he forgotten about her already and gone to sleep?

It would be better to face her fears and seek him out than to lie awake in her bed, waiting for a summons that might never come. It took a few more minutes to steel her nerve before she tiptoed across the floor of her room to the connecting door and opened it, just a crack.

‘Come.’ It was a command. The first of many, she suspected. As a good wife ought, she obeyed it.

Perhaps the wine at dinner had mellowed him. Except for his boots, he was still dressed and stretched full length upon his bed, staring at the canopy above him. Compared to the scowls of the afternoon and the guarded smiles of dinner, he looked at peace with himself and the world.

It would be a shame to ruin that for either of them. She had the sudden, craven desire to retreat.

‘I thought you had a headache,’ he said without looking in her direction.

‘It is better,’ she lied. Now that she was in his room, it was coming back again.

‘Then do not hang about the doorway. If you are coming in, come in.’ He did not finish with the suggestion that she should do it or go away, but it was implied.

So forward she went, into the room, shutting the door behind her. A different man, she reminded herself. A different room. Or it might as well have been. She had made sure that nothing remained of the old master bedroom but her memories.

He turned away from her to stare at one of the pictures on the wall, giving it far more attention than a simple landscape deserved. Were the details in some way wrong? Most likely they were and he was making a note to have the thing removed and replaced.

The one thing he did not seem interested in was her. She had not expected him to spring upon her like a wild beast and force her on to her back. But neither had she expected uninterest. She felt like a fool standing here in her simple gown and her sad little hair ribbon. He did not want her. Now that they were alone, there was no reason for him to pretend otherwise.

He sighed as if her presence in the room was an interruption and looked back to her, then gestured absently to the side of his bed closest to her own door. When she did not move, he prompted, ‘Get in.’ Then he sat up and untied his neckcloth without bothering to see if she complied.

Before he could ask again, she pulled back the coverlet and climbed between the sheets, resisting the urge to pull them up so she might hide under the blankets. It was not as if there was anything to see, should he decide to look. Her gown was buttoned to the throat. But it proved one thing to both of them. She was not planning to bend him to her will through seduction. If she’d intended that, she would have done a better job of preparing for it.

Her husband sat on the edge of the bed, his back still to her. When he pulled his shirt over his head, she got her first look at a man’s naked back. She could not help it. She gasped.

‘Eh?’ He turned with a half enquiring, half annoyed look.

‘The scar.’ She pointed.

His face softened, then he laughed. ‘It is not a very heroic story, I’m afraid. A screaming Frenchman was galloping down upon me from behind. On seeing that my attention was elsewhere, my friend, MacKenzie of the Scots Greys, shot him in the back. It was too late to stop the full charge. He did not run me through as he’d planned. But the damned frog dragged the blade down my back as he fell and cut my coat to ribbons. It was some time before we were able to dress the wound, which was hardly deep enough to care about. I stripped off what was left of my shirt, and Mac poured a measure of his usquebaugh on my back and a wee dram into me. Then I sewed up my jacket and slept on my stomach for a week.’