Regency Surrender: Scandal And Deception

‘I really have no idea. You did remark that you were bored,’ she allowed. ‘But that you liked it better, once you had met me.’

‘And then we eloped.’ He must suspect that this was unlikely. Having met his family and seen how close he was to them, she was sure, when he found the perfect wife, he would bring her to them, immediately.

‘You were unwilling to wait, even for the reading of the banns, or the time to procure a special licence. And I was...’ She took a deep breath and plunged forward with the biggest lie of all. ‘Your affections were very difficult to resist. Impossible, in fact. Afterwards, you deemed it best that we marry with all haste and inform the family afterwards.’

‘I see.’ Now he was the one who was blushing. Let him think he had taken advantage and owed her some reparation. It would be true, soon enough. He was staring at her reflection in the mirror again. ‘I do not doubt that I was insistent, once I set my cap for you. You are quite the prettiest woman I have ever seen.’

‘Thank you.’ She had grown used to accepting the words as a compliment, though they sometimes felt more like a curse. How different might her life have been had she been plain and undesirable? She might have gone unnoticed through life and kept her virtue. She certainly would not be in a ducal manor, flirting with a peer’s brother. ‘I was honoured by your attentions. I am sure there were others more appropriate for the brother of a duke, than an émigrée without family or fortune.’

He touched a finger to her lips. ‘Do not speak so about yourself. You have proven more than worthy, since the accident.’ The moment of spontaneous intimacy shocked them both and he carefully removed his hand.

‘Thank you,’ she said, wishing she could take the compliment as it was.

‘But the accident,’ he added. ‘Tell me about it.’

She gave an honest shudder at the memory of him lying broken on the floor. Then she lied again. ‘You were trying to impress me. A jump went wrong.’

‘But what of Jupiter?’

For a moment, she was completely puzzled. Was this some obsession with astronomy that she had not known? Perhaps he was the sort who thought his life was ruled by the stars. Then she realised that he was referring to the horse. What had become of the horse? She had no idea. If Montague was aware of it, he had surely sold it by now. Or perhaps it was still in a stable in Bath, waiting for its owner to return. ‘I am sorry, but his leg was broken. There was nothing that could be done...’ It was kinder that he think the animal dead, than to realise that no one had cared enough to find it.

He held up a hand and turned his face away from hers, as though unwilling to let her finish. The weight of his body sagged against his crutches, as if he could not support himself. When she reached out to steady him, and to offer comfort, she felt the shuddering sob even as he shrugged off her touch.

In a moment, he straightened and composed himself. ‘Then I deserved what I got,’ he said, in a voice full of self-disgust. ‘Taking foolish risks and putting another life in jeopardy. What the devil was I thinking to harm an animal that had been a faithful friend to me for seven years?’

If she had hoped to comfort him, she had failed completely. Felkirk was even more upset than he had been when leaving the parlour. And he grieved for a horse? When she’d met him, she had assumed that he and his family cared for nothing but their money and themselves. They certainly had not cared for her father, as he’d lain dying on their property so long ago.

But the duke and Penny had not been as she’d expected and had treated her as a long-lost sister. Now, the man in front of her was practically undone over the death of a beast. She wanted to take back the words and assure him that, somewhere, the horse was alive and well. Fine blood stock, like Jupiter probably was, would not have sold for hide and hoof to pay a stable bill.

Instead, she remained silent and let him lean upon her, as he struggled to regain his composure. ‘Do you wish me to call for Stewart?’ she said softly.

He shook his head, once, emphatically. Then he pulled himself upright and took a deep breath. ‘This is too embarrassing. But so much of my life is, it seems.’

‘It is not your fault,’ she assured him. ‘And I have seen you worse. Let me help you back to your room.’

He gave a very weak laugh as they made their way to the stairs. ‘That does nothing to console me. The last thing a man wants to be is helpless in the presence of a beautiful woman.’ He stopped for a moment and wiped a hand across his face. ‘And weeping over a horse. You must think me mad as well as crippled.’

‘The physicians did say you might not be yourself,’ she reminded him.

He gave her another wry smile. ‘It does not reassure me to hear I might run mad and no one will think twice about it. I am sorry to inform you of this, my dear. But I cannot blame a head injury on my tears over the loss of old Jupe. He was a fine horse and my truest friend. I must have told you how long we were together.’

‘I understand,’ she said, trying not to appear relieved. His upset, no matter how unjustified, had been a help. He was too busy trying to save some scrap of dignity to ask any more questions of her.

He paused, took a firm grip on the stair rail and gave another quick wipe of his eyes with the back of his hand before moving up another step. ‘All the same, I apologise. If I am still not the master of body or mind, I am unfit company. It was a mistake to inflict myself on others this evening.’

‘You cannot be expected to hide in your room for ever. And you are doing much better than yesterday,’ she added, since it was perfectly true. Now that he was awake, the speed of his recovery was impressive. ‘The family is eager to see you and will be patient.’

‘Not too patient,’ he said, wiping the last moisture from his eyes. ‘I am barely on my feet again and Adam means to put us out.’

‘No.’ She had no right to think it. Had she forgotten she was an interloper here? This was not her home and she must not think of it as such. But if she did not live here, then where was she to go?

Felkirk gave her a wan smile. ‘I said something similar, when he suggested it. But he is right. I have a home of my own, less than a mile from here.’ He paused, then said, ‘We have a home. It is where we belong. Tomorrow, you shall see.’

‘But...’ What was she to tell Montague? And how was she to tell him? There was no time to leave a signal.

They had reached the top of the stairs and Felkirk balanced carefully on a single crutch and draped his free arm about her shoulders. ‘You have nothing to worry about. Adam was right to suggest it, as you were just now. I cannot hide in my room for ever, assuming I will improve. And we cannot use the size of this place, and the presence of Adam and Penny, to hide from each other.’

Had it been so obvious that she was avoiding him? She could not think of an answer to it, so busied herself with helping him the last few feet down the hall to his room. They were standing outside the door to his sickroom. The valet was no doubt waiting inside to help him to bed. If he did not need her any longer, she could make her excuses and escape to the ground floor to tell the family that he had retired. He might be sound asleep by the time she returned. He was right that she could not avoid him for ever. But was one more night so much to ask?

She dropped her gaze to the floor and offered a curtsy. It was probably not the way a loving wife was supposed to behave. She should be warmer, bolder and unafraid to catch his eye. But when he was near like this, she could not think clearly. What was to become of her, once they were out of this house and had only each other for company? She turned away, glancing back down the hall. ‘If you do not need me any longer, I will return to the parlour and explain to the family.’

‘There is one last thing,’ he said, as though something had just occurred to him and gestured her close again, as though about to whisper.

She leaned in as well.

Then he kissed her. It was just a buss upon the lips. It was so quick and sweet that she gasped in surprise. And for a moment, her mind was calm. Not empty, as it was when she was with Montague. It was as placid as a lake on a windless day. Then she felt the faintest ripples of expectation. Was she actually hoping for another kiss?

‘Thank you, for your help. And your devotion,’ he said. There was no indication of his feelings on the matter, other than the faintest of smiles.

‘It was...’ Why could she not find her words? And why could she not draw away from him? She was leaning against him, as though she was the one who needed crutches. Montague would not have approved. He had sent her here as a seductress. He did not want her behaving like some moonstruck girl...

The second kiss that she had been hoping for came in a rush of sweetness, soft as the wing of a moth. William Felkirk braced himself against the doorframe of his room and pulled her body to him, letting the wall support them both. Then he touched his lips to hers and moved them slowly, tenderly, before closing them once, twice, three times, against her mouth.

Why did she feel so breathless? Montague would have laughed and called her a fool. But she did not want to think of him, just now. Instead, she focused on the slight cleft in the chin that hovered before her eyes as those same gentle lips kissed her forehead. There was a faint shadow there, where his valet had missed a whisker or two. She wanted to kiss him there, to trace the crease with her tongue and feel the roughness of the stubble.

She had waited too long. Felkirk was setting her back on her feet, smiling down into her face. And for the first time, she saw the easy smile and friendly nature his family assured her was his by habit. ‘You are right, my dear. You must go back to the parlour. And I must rest. Much as I would like to say otherwise, I fear there are things I am simply not yet capable of.’

He meant bed play. She did not know if it was proper for a wife to do so, but she blushed at the thought.

It made him laugh. ‘Although, with you here, looking as you do, I will pray most fervently for a return to health and strength.’

‘I will pray for you, as well,’ she agreed.

‘And pray for my memory,’ he added. ‘I cannot recall what we have meant to each other. But I am sure, once you are in my arms, it will all come back to me.’

She thought of the beads she kept in her dresser. She would tell them tonight, several times over, and hope that the quantity of prayer for a selective memory might counter anything he had asked for.

Chapter Seven

Now that William Felkirk was awake, Justine was discovering the inconveniences of married life. When he had been in a coma, there had been little question as to who made the decisions. On the rare occasions she had been overruled by the duke as to the best method to tend the invalid, it had been the result of discussion and not flat mandate. But now that he was awake, Lord Felkirk expected not just an equal share in his recovery, but the deciding vote in all matters.

After the discussion in the hall, she had hoped that there would be some time to persuade him of the need for caution before a change of location. But when she awakened the next morning, the arrangements for the move back to his own home were already in progress and would be done before noon. The valet seemed relieved to be packing up the limited supply of garments and his lord’s shaving kit. Her own garments were only slightly more troublesome, for she had brought a single trunk with her, when she’d come north. Penny offered her the use of the maid she’d had, until she was able to choose someone from her own household. The girl had already gone ahead and was probably already hanging gowns and pressing ribbons in their new home.

In the midst of the activity, William Felkirk paced the floor as though he could not wait to be under way. Though he had claimed to be reticent, he had obviously warmed to his brother’s advice and meant to act on it immediately. ‘It makes no sense to maintain a second household, less than a mile from the first,’ he said. ‘It is unfair to expect servants to fetch and carry items between the two. I have a perfectly good home, just down the road from here. I mean to live in it.’

‘But you are still so weak,’ she said. She cast a sidelong glance at the crutches in the corner and wondered if their kiss in the hallway had given him this burst of energy.

‘It is not as if I intend to walk the distance,’ he informed her. ‘A carriage ride will be no more strenuous than sitting in a Bath chair. The air of the journey will likely do me good.’

‘The doctor—’ she said plaintively.

‘—lives closer to the old manor than he does to this one. And do not tell me that the stairs will be unfamiliar, or the rooms inconvenient. It is the home I grew up in and I know each step of it. It is also a damned sight smaller than this cavernous place of my brother’s. It feels like I must walk a mile here, just to get from bed to breakfast.’

His words stopped her objections. ‘You did not always live here, in the duke’s manor?’

‘Heavens, no.’ William shook his head and smiled. ‘Mother did not like the old house at all. It had been fine for ten generations of Bellstons, but she wanted a ballroom and a grand dining hall. It is good that she did not live to see Adam nearly burn the place to the ground a few years ago. She would have been appalled. But that is another story.’

‘How long ago was that?’ she asked, trying to suppress her excitement.

‘The fire?’ he asked.

‘No. The building of the new manor.’

‘A little less than fifteen years,’ he said, taking a moment to count on his fingers. ‘In the end, it was a sensible decision. I am able to stay on the family lands without living in my brother’s pocket. The two manors are close enough to share the stables, the ice house and the gardens.’ He grinned. ‘I have all the advantages of being a duke and none of the responsibilities.’

Fifteen years. Her father had been dead for twenty. If there were clues to be had about the murder or the missing diamonds, she had been searching the wrong house for them. Surely they must be at the old manor, the place where she would soon be living.

‘I think you are probably right, then,’ she said, trying not to sound too excited. ‘A change will do you good.’ And it would give her an opportunity to search the rooms there that she had not already seen. When she found a way to get the information to him, Montague would be pacified. It would give her time to think of a next step that might keep Margot safe from his threats.

It also meant that she would be alone with her husband. There would be no duke and duchess to fill the days and evenings spent in company with him. The odds increased that his memory might return, or she would let slip some bit of the truth that could not be easily distracted by turning it to another subject.

But when darkness fell, there would be no reason for them to talk at all. As she had on the previous evening, she felt a strange anticipation, like the stillness in the air before a storm.

‘You will like it,’ he said, mistaking her silence for more understandable worries. ‘Just wait. You shall be mistress over your own home. In no time at all, you will have arranged everything to suit yourself and we shall return Adam and Penny’s hospitality.’

Her own household. What a strange idea. While she had experience in managing servants for Mr Montague, she had seen the way they looked at her, half in pity and half in disapproval, as though it pained them to take their instructions from the master’s whore. Now she was to be the lady of a manor and no one would doubt that it was her proper place. If the situation weren’t so dire, she might have been excited at the thought.

Once they were underway, it appeared that William was right about his need to make the move. As she sat in his side in the carriage, she could see his mood lightening with each turn of the wheels. He stared out the window so intently that she almost thought he was avoiding her gaze. At last, he said, ‘It is good to be coming home again. There is much about the current situation that is strange to me. Having to deal with it in my brother’s house made it no easier.’

‘They have been very kind to me, during our stay there,’ she remarked.

‘I would expect nothing less of them,’ he said. ‘But when we married, I am sure it was not our intent to live out the remainder of our lives in someone else’s house.’

‘True,’ she agreed.

‘We are barely out of our honeymoon, are we not?’ It was a perfectly innocent remark and a logical reason to wish to be alone together. But they both fell silent at the thought.

‘We have not known each other long,’ she answered. ‘And it has been a very unusual few months.’

They both fell silent again.

He took a breath and began again. ‘I will be frank with you, since it makes no sense not to be. I do not know you, as a husband should.’

‘Your accident...’ she said, searching for a way to explain the perfectly logical absence of romantic memories.

‘Is in the past,’ he finished for her. ‘I do not remember you. But if we are to be married, it does no good for me to be dwelling on that fact. I... We...’ he amended. ‘We must move forward with what is left. And it will be impossible if we continue to avoid each other, relying on family and friends to fill the gaps and sleeping on opposite sides of a closed door.’ Then he exhaled, as if it had taken an effort to state the obvious.

‘It was you who sent me away,’ she reminded him, careful to keep the censure from her voice. If they had truly been married she likely would have been hurt and angered by his rejection. But the sensible reaction was the one most likely to reveal her lies.

‘I was wrong to do so,’ he replied. ‘If we are married...’

‘If?’ she countered.

‘Now that we are married,’ he corrected, ‘we must accept the fact that the last six months change nothing. I have spoken to my brother and I do not think an annulment is possible.’

How could one dissolve a marriage that did not exist in the first place? She ignored the real question and chose another. ‘Did you wish to cast me off, then?’

She could see the change in his face, as he realised how cruel his words had been. When he spoke again, it was after some thought. ‘If I did, it was unfair of me, just as it was when I sent you from my bedroom. When we arrive at the house, I will instruct the servants to place your things in the room beside mine, for the sake of convenience. But from this point forward, I expect you to share my bed.’

‘As you wish, my lord.’ When Montague had informed her of her future, he had done it with a similar lack of passion. She had been foolish to imagine, after a kiss or two, it would be any different with this man.

Beside her, Lord Felkirk swore under his breath. ‘I did not mean it to sound like a command.’

‘You are my husband,’ she said, with as much confidence as she could manage. ‘I have promised to obey. It shall be just as you wish and I will do my best to give you no reason to be unhappy.’

Apparently, she had failed in that already. He was frowning. Despite his earlier excitement, he looked no happier when they reached the house. ‘My home,’ Will said in a tired voice, and waited for her comment.

She was not sure what she had expected, but it had not been this. It was not the thoroughly modern manor that the duke inhabited, with its large windows and perfectly matched wings. The old manor still held traces of the fortress it had once been. On the left, a square tower ended in wide crenellations. There was nothing left of the right tower but a low wall of grey stone to mark the edge of the kitchen garden. Though a Gothic stone arch remained around the iron-bound front door, the rest of the main building had been rebuilt of brick by some misguided architect of another century.

It was a hodge-podge of styles and Justine could see why the previous duchess had been eager to build a new manor. She understood, but she could not agree. ‘You live in a castle,’ she announced, then scolded herself for stating the obvious.

‘Part of one,’ he said. ‘There is not much of the old building left.’

‘It does not matter.’ She stared up at the tower in front of them. ‘It is magnificent.’

‘You like it?’ He seemed surprised at her enthusiasm.

‘You do not?’ She stared back at him, equally surprised.

‘Well, yes, actually. I do. But I grew up here. Perhaps that is why I am willing to overlook its obvious flaws.’

She stared back at the old manor and could not help smiling at its lopsided grandeur. ‘Well, I see no problems with it. It has character,’ she said, wondering why he could not see it.

‘As you wish,’ he said, giving a dismissive nod of his head and turning away from her again. The servants had lined up at the door, eager to greet the master on his homecoming and to officially welcome the lady of the house. William walked unsteadily before her, smiling more warmly at the butler than he ever had at her, and accepting the arm of a footman to help him up the last steps and into his home. Though he had claimed the trip would be an easy one, it was clear that the activity had tired him. ‘I think, if you have no need of me, that I shall retire to my room for a time.’

‘You must do as you see fit,’ she said. ‘We will have more than enough time to talk, now that we are home.’ The word stuck in her throat, but she forced it out.

He nodded and muttered something to the footman at his side, who took his arm and helped him to climb the stairs to his room.

Which left Justine alone with the servants and the house. She gave a sigh of relief at being free of him, if only for an hour or two. Then she gave instructions for the unpacking of their things and discussed the luncheon menu with the housekeeper. Then she enquired, oh so casually, about the best room to find pen, ink and paper. She wished to write to tell a friend of her move.

The housekeeper, Mrs Bell, directed her to the morning room without further enquiry and left her to pen a hurried note to Mr Smith, the nom de guerre that Montague had chosen for his stay at a nearby inn.

She imagined the way it would travel to him, on the road to the village, which lay equidistant between the two manors. Her father had travelled that road, on the night he died. At the turning, he had gone left and not right, as she’d assumed. She had thought, on her morning walks, that she had been retracing his last footsteps, but she had not gone far enough. His goal had been this house. His death had been on these grounds. Any clue to the murder, or the missing jewels, would be under this very roof.

She had but to find it and then the jewels. Then, she would rescue Margot and they would run away, all without revealing the truth to either William Felkirk or John Montague.

When put that way, it was hard to be optimistic.

Chapter Eight

Justine was already seated at the luncheon table when Will came down from his nap. He found it faintly annoying. He was unaccustomed to seeing anyone across the table from him, much less a person who would arrive before he had so that she might be ready to attend him. Here she was, fresh, cheerful and inescapable in a muslin gown and starched cap, offering to prepare his plate or help him in any way she could.

He did not want help. He wanted to be left alone to understand what had happened to him. It was an urge he must learn to ignore. After his brave words in the coach about facing troubles and moving forward, he had taken the first opportunity to escape to his room for a sulk.

At least, now that he was free of his brother’s home, he would not have to see the ring of happy faces about him, convinced that everything was fine when he was sure it was not. There was only one face before him now. Though it was beautiful, it had the same detached expression it had worn since the first. If they were truly so alike as Adam thought, she should be as angry with him as he was with himself. He had ordered her to bed as though her wants and needs meant nothing at all. She had responded as though she had no feelings to hurt.