The Seduction of Lady X Read online

  “My days were incomplete without you,” Harrison said, and stepped around her.

  “Perhaps you missed me enough to pay a call, then, eh, Mr. Tolly?”

  “Never.” This from Robert. He was seated at his usual table in the common room, from where he held court most days for an hour or two, receiving his friends and dining on watery stew. “If Mr. Tolly pays a call to any woman, it is to Lady X,” he said, grinning.

  “Lady X,” Fran said, looking half intrigued and half jealous.

  Harrison laughed. “Do not give up hope, Franny. There is no Lady X.”

  “The hell there isn’t.” Robert held up two fingers to Fran. “A pair of ales, lass, and be quick.”

  “I’ve got them just here,” Benny said, appearing at Robert’s side. He placed two tankards of warm ale before Harrison, who slid one across to Robert.

  “Where’ve you been, then?” Robert asked, and drank from the tankard. “What madness has the marquis frothing at the mouth this week?”

  “He does not froth,” Harrison said easily. “He’s to London for a fortnight.”

  “A full fortnight? Without you?” Robert said, waggling his brows. “Your Lady X must be all atwitter. How long’s it been since you’ve had time to steal away to the lady’s boudoir?”

  Robert would be shocked if he knew how long it had been since Harrison had been inside a boudoir. “A while,” he said with a sigh. On occasion, when he was in London, Harrison called upon a house tucked away near Regent Street to relieve his lust. But he’d found it impossible to forge any romantic attachment with any woman, given his feelings for Lady Carey. He could think of no one else.

  Robert grinned at him. “A while, is it? And here you sit with a pint. You’re mad, lad. Go on with you then, go and see your ladylove. Tell me where she is and I’ll see you there.”

  Harrison chuckled and drank his ale.

  “Bloody tight-lipped rooster you are,” Robert said, eyeing him shrewdly. “I’ll discover her identity, you know,” he said, and tapped his pint against Harrison’s. “Why are you here when you’ve got a bit of freedom?”

  “Because I’ve a bit of a problem for which I need your help.”

  “Me?” Robert asked. “The advice usually flows the other way between us, aye? What help?”

  Harrison pushed aside his pint. He’d shared very few things about his work with Robert through the years, as his discretion was one of the most important aspects of his occupation. This problem was doubly painful, as it was embarrassing for the Careys and brought to mind the difficulties Harrison had experienced in his own life. Difficulties he had managed to put behind him. But now, he recalled the first time he’d realized what it meant to be fatherless in this world, when three older boys had fallen on him as he returned from market, beating him as they labeled him a dirty bastard. Or when his mother’s lover had given Harrison a tutor, but had told his mother in front of Harrison that he would not put him in school for fear of being associated with the by-blow.

  Harrison swallowed down those old hurts and said, “May I speak openly?”

  “Aye, you know that you can, Harry.”

  He glanced around to assure himself that no one was listening in. “It has to do with her ladyship’s younger sister, Miss Hastings. You’ve met her, have you not?”

  Robert nodded. “Wee thing, with hair the color of honey.”

  Harrison relayed to Robert what had happened, including today’s debate. He trusted Robert, and told him everything . . . except that he’d so rashly stepped in and offered to marry the impudent girl. That omission was a matter of pride—he did not want Robert to know just how foolish he was.

  When he’d finished, Robert drained his pint and put it aside. “This is a sad but common tale, lad. I suspect a convent in Ireland is no worse than what the lass might experience in society, given the marquis’s determination to banish her.”

  “She deserves better than that,” Harrison said curtly. “Give me a solution, Robert. Tell me what might save this bloody little fool and keep her close to her sister.”

  “Harry, lad,” Robert said sympathetically as he leaned back in his chair and propped his boot against the wall. “You do not need me to tell you there is no better option for her, unless you magically produce someone who will marry her. Even then, I suspect Carey would disown her outright and save himself a deepening scandal. If she were to marry very quickly, she might spare them a bit of scandal, yet still . . .” He shook his head. “What gentleman would give his name to a bastard child? Not I.”

  Harrison knew better than anyone that gentlemen did not freely give their names to bastard children. “I had hoped you might know of a situation where we could at least send her for the term of her confinement.”

  Robert snorted. “You know very well that I do not, on principle, acquaint myself with the sort of decent folks who would take a lass in.”

  “Aye, but you do acquaint yourself with widows,” Harrison pressed. “Perhaps you know of one in need of a companion?”

  “I only keep company with young, comely widows, and not one of them would entertain it. Come to think of it, I haven’t been with a young widow in an age. Bess Walls was the last I—”

  “Old widows, then,” Harrison said impatiently, before Robert began enumerating his conquests.

  “No,” Robert said.

  It was as Harrison had guessed—there was nothing to be done for Miss Hastings. Or for himself, for that matter. He’d been confident that he’d find a solution when he’d intervened yesterday and had offered to marry Alexa; finding solutions to seemingly insurmountable problems was his gift. But his bag of tricks now felt woefully light. He had succumbed to the look of terror on Lady Carey’s face that afternoon in the marquis’s study and had opened his foolish mouth, and now he would have to live up to his word.

  “For you, Harry, I shall do my best to uncover someone that will assist.” He smiled. “Cheer up, lad.”

  “Thank you Robert,” Harrison said. “Any help you might offer is greatly appreciated. And I needn’t tell you that time is of the essence.”

  Harrison finished his pint and talked about other things before riding dejectedly back to Everdon Court and the dowager house. He wasn’t giving up, not yet. He decided he should have a talk with Miss Hastings out of Lady Carey’s earshot. A talk in which he would lay down the rules of their association and impress on her that he would not tolerate her bad behavior.

  Rue was inside the small foyer, polishing a brass planter, when Harrison walked in. “Good afternoon, Mr. Tolly!” She continued to rub the planter.

  “Good afternoon, Rue,” he said, and discarded his gloves. “Where might I find Miss Hastings?” he asked as he unfastened his cloak.

  Rue stopped rubbing. She squared her shoulders. “Miss Hastings has retired. She was in need of rest after all the chatter.” She spoke as if reciting her letters.

  Harrison tossed aside his cloak. “What chatter would that be?”

  Rue blinked. She cast her gaze thoughtfully at the fresco on the ceiling for a moment as if trying to recall it. “Why, mine, I suppose,” she said, as if she’d just arrived at the truth. She shrugged and went back to her polishing. “Aye, she went up to rest, and then Lady Carey said I was not to disturb her if she was resting—”

  Harrison turned. “Did Lady Carey come to the dowager house?”

  “Aye.” Rue smiled proudly, as if she’d arranged it herself.

  Lady Carey never came to the dowager house.

  “Lady Carey was here . . . in search of her sister?” he suggested to Rue, hoping to speed her recollection along.

  Rue nodded. “But Miss Hastings had gone up to rest, and her ladyship said I should not disturb her, and she said that she might have a word with you when you’d returned from your pint—”

  “My pint?” Harrison said sharply. “For God’s sake, Rue, what did you say to her that would cause her to believe I was off having a pint?”

  Rue’s fat bottom lip be
gan to tremble and tears welled in her eyes.

  It took a supreme act of self control for Harrison to remain calm. “Why in heaven would you tell Lady Carey such a thing? I didn’t tell you where I was going. For all you know, I was on my knees in church praying for everyone here.”

  Rue gasped; her little eyes widened and looked like a pair of pennies. “Thank you, milord! I ain’t never had no one to pray over me!”

  Harrison sighed. “Rue—”

  “I didn’t know where you’d gone! And Mrs. Lampley said if you wasn’t here, and you wasn’t with her ladyship, then perhaps you’d gone to the village for a pint, for sometimes you are wanting a pint of ale!”

  “For goodness sake, Rue,” he said. “Hear me now—in the future, you are not to guess where I have gone. Say I am not within, and leave it at that. Do you understand?”

  “Aye, my lord,” she said timidly.

  “Sir,” he said, and strode to the door, catching up his cloak on the way.

  “Thank you kindly for your prayers, Mr. Tolly!” Rue called after him.

  “God in heaven,” Harrison muttered as he went out.

  CHAPTER TEN

  At the main house Brock directed Harrison to the gardens and he spotted Lady Carey by the hedges. She wore a wide straw hat that had slipped off her head and hung down her back. Sunshine glinted in her hair. She was dressed in a white dotted swiss gown with pink and green ribbons, and a green spencer coat. She looked like spring.

  She carried a basket of clippings on her arm. A ribbon had been threaded around the handle but had come undone and trailed behind her.

  She was studying some newly planted rose bushes, and he admired the elegant curve of her chin and her long slender neck as he approached. For some reason, her profile reminded him of her wedding day. He’d never forget how she looked standing next to the marquis, dressed in a silk the color of morning clouds. A shy smile of pleasure had graced her lips, and she’d peeked up at the marquis, her eyes shining, her expression full of radiant happiness and hope.

  Harrison had thought her the most beautiful of brides, and even then, he’d felt a small ache in his heart that he could not have her as his, that she was sealing her fate to Carey’s forevermore.

  Lady Carey heard his footfall on the gravel; she suddenly turned her head and her face lit as she spotted him striding down the garden path. “Mr. Tolly!” she said, as if he’d been gone a month instead of hours. “You’ve returned rather quickly from your pint, haven’t you?” Her smile was impish.

  He would not disappoint her—he was entirely abashed. “I beg your pardon, madam, but my maid was guessing at my whereabouts.”

  Lady Carey laughed, and the sound of it, so light and airy, startled him. It seemed out of place among the events of the last few days, and as he rarely heard her laugh, it rattled old memories in him—of those days and weeks after she was first married, when her laughter had filled the long corridors of Everdon Court.

  “I hope you at least finished the pint before you hurried back to your post. Honestly, I will be disappointed if you do not tell me you’ve drunk an entire barrel of ale after the interview with my sister.” She grinned at him.

  Harrison smiled. That heartwarming grin was a welcome change after the unpleasantness with Alexa in the study. “Every last drop,” he said. The sun glinted off the braid that hung below her hat. He imagined unbraiding that length of hair, of feeling the silken strands brush against his skin. He wondered how the marquis could look at this woman every day, at her crystalline blue eyes, at her plump ruby lips and feathery brows, and not fall to his knees in gratitude that she was his.

  “I hope you will forgive Alexa, Mr. Tolly. She is not usually so . . .”

  Arrogant? Thoughtless?

  “Childish,” she said, with a sheepish wince.

  Childish. A good word for Miss Alexa Hastings.

  “The poor thing is truly at sixes and sevens, for I’ve never known her to be so obstinate.”

  Harrison was not reassured.

  She clearly saw that he was not. She sighed as she turned to a leggy rose to trim it. “I should not have come to the dowager house without first sending a messenger,” she added. “Your girl was a bit unsettled by it, I think.”

  “My girl is perpetually unsettled,” Harrison dryly assured her. “And you, madam, are most welcome at the dowager house at any time of your choosing.”

  “Thank you,” she said with a pert little smile. “I promise I shall not make a habit of it.”

  Disappointing, but expected.

  “I had come to see after Alexa and have a stern word with her, but she was resting.” Lady Carey paused and absently brushed a small leaf from her sleeve. She sighed again and lifted her gaze to Harrison. “Will you walk with me, Mr. Tolly? It is such a glorious early spring day, and in spite of our troubles, I cannot help but rejoice in it after such a long and miserable winter.”

  “I’d be delighted,” he said. “May I carry your basket?”

  “Thank you,” she said, and he reached for it, his fingers brushing hers as he took the basket from her.

  They strolled through the garden, Lady Carey pointing out some of Mr. Gortman’s new additions. They came to an old wooden gate that separated the manicured gardens from the park. Lady Carey unlatched the gate, stepped onto the bottom rung, and swung out with the gate before hopping down again.

  Harrison’s heart smiled at her playfulness.

  “Shall I tell you a secret, Mr. Tolly?” she asked, using her hand to shade her eyes as she looked up at him. “I came to speak to you.”

  “Pardon?”

  “Today, at the dowager house. I told Brock I’d gone for a walk and then I walked up the servant’s path to the dowager house to speak to you.”

  Harrison was imprudently pleased by that admission. “Did you?”

  “I did. I know I keep saying it, but you are so very good to us, sir. I am forever in your debt.”

  He couldn’t help a slight smile. He was not the least bit good—he coveted another man’s wife. That was the stuff of reprobates, of adulterers. “Surely you did not come to tell me that. And by the bye, I am not good. It is my du—”

  “No,” she said, throwing up a hand. “I implore you, do not say it. Do not dare tell me duty compels you to kindness.” She smiled. “I know better than most that duty will only compel one so far.”

  He did not want to think about the meaning behind that statement.

  Lady Carey cocked a brow. “Am I wrong? Does your kindness not stem from something else entirely?”

  Harrison’s heart lurched a little, and he felt the flush of warmth at his nape. He fully expected her to say out loud for God and all of England to hear that she knew he loved her, had loved her, had coveted her for more than six agonizing years. “I am afraid I do not understand your meaning.”

  “It is quite obvious,” she said sympathetically. “Perhaps you are not aware that while others may not see your true nature, I know that you are tenderhearted and cannot bear to see suffering in anyone. There is no one who would have taken little Rue in, but you did. You would give up your own happy future to keep someone from suffering.”

  Harrison’s gaze fell to the bruise on her lip. He was not tenderhearted; he was bloody besotted. He looked at her waiting for him to speak, to confirm that he was tenderhearted.

  I love you. It was what he wanted to say, it was the pressure he could feel in his chest. He loved her so much that he wouldn’t have known how to say it even if he’d had the courage. It seemed there ought to be words to describe such a feeling as his, and yet he could think of only three simple words. I love you.

  When he did not say anything, Lady Carey bit her lip and looked away. “Oh dear,” she said. “Mr. Gortman ought to come and tidy up a bit. Edward will be displeased to see so many leaves about.”

  “I will tell Mr. Gortman,” Harrison said, relieved for the diversion.

  They walked on, Lady Carey’s fingers trailing along the hedges
again, and Harrison feeling that old desperation to touch her. They came upon a maze, and strolled inside to the middle. “Will you sit with me a moment?” she asked.

  Sit. Yes. Harrison needed a moment to collect himself and reinforce the wall he’d built up in bits and pieces around his heart.

  They sat together on a bench that faced an elaborate fountain built around three horses rearing up on hind legs, their forelegs entwined in some strange horse dance. Below the horses, a flock of birds bathed in the shallow pool.

  Lady Carey settled onto the bench, her graceful hands in her lap, revealing the tiny white scar across the back of her knuckle that he’d noticed countless times before. She looked skyward. “I adore the spring, with its promise of new beginnings. What is your favorite season, Mr. Tolly?”

  His favorite season, of all things. “Spring,” he said instantly. “I like new beginnings as well.” He wished for a new beginning to this day. He wished for a new beginning to his life seven years ago, one that might have involved her. He even allowed himself a moment of imagining his arm around her now, her head on his shoulder, perhaps even a child or two trying to catch the birds bathing in the fountain.

  Lady Carey began to fidget absently with the end of her braid. “I am being callous, I know. I am speaking of new beginnings when my sister faces an uncertain one and you have offered to sacrifice your future for her.”

  Harrison’s happy little fantasy vaporized.

  “You must be allowed to pursue your own path to happiness, Mr. Tolly, no matter what else. I am quite determined on that. And I am equally determined to find a solution for Alexa’s predicament. I hope you will help me, as I have thought on it until I can think no more.”

  “As have I,” he admitted. He wanted to reassure her somehow, but he could not.

  “We have very few options, don’t we?” she asked.

  Harrison had always found her to appreciate a straightforward approach, and decided he had to be frank now. “Very few. I cannot think of anyone close by who might take her in during her confinement. But I could go to London and perhaps find something there.”