Seduced by the Scoundrel Read online

  As she stood with the journals in her hand she became aware of voices. The door to the study was slightly ajar and at least two people were talking in there. Eavesdropping was unladylike and irresistible. Averil put down the Lady’s Monthly Museum and walked soundlessly to stand by the door.

  ‘… better than I could have hoped. Inexperienced, of course, but there is no vulgarity and she has a certain style. I have high hopes of her once she acquires a little town bronze.’ It was Lady Kingsbury and she was talking about her. Averil tried not to bridle at the presumption that she might have been vulgar. ‘I just hope that our fears are unjustified and she is not breeding. My instincts tell me that she is not.’ Averil rested her hand on the door jamb and leaned closer.

  ‘It will be a pity if she is. The girl has potential, as you say, and of course, there is the money,’ Bradon remarked.

  ‘I have been thinking about that, and I agree with you, it would be regrettable to lose her and the money both. If she is carrying a child, then it is not an insurmountable problem, we can deal with that.’

  Averil clapped her hand over her mouth to stifle the involuntary gasp.

  ‘End the pregnancy, you mean?’ Bradon said conversationally. ‘There’s that woman in Charles Street that I sent my mistress to when the careless little slut got herself in pup, if you recall.’

  Averil dropped her hands to cradle her belly as though there was a real child into there that they were threatening. That poor girl. He takes no responsibility, he sounds as if he hates her for it.

  ‘I did think of that, but we do not want to risk anything that might harm her future childbearing,’ Lady Kingsbury said with as much sympathy as if she was talking about her lapdog. ‘There is always such a risk of infertility and the last thing you want is to find yourself tied to an otherwise healthy young wife who cannot bear a child.’

  ‘She might not stay so healthy in that case,’ Bradon said in such a matter-of-fact way that it took Averil a moment to realise he was suggesting murder. Her murder. Soundlessly she slid to the thick carpet, her legs incapable of supporting her.

  ‘Better not to complicate matters,’ his mother said with chilling practicality. ‘If the chit has got herself with child, then we send her off to the country somewhere for about ten months and then you marry her. We can always say she came down with an illness as a result of the change of climate or some such excuse. And at least you will know she is fertile. We can find some couple to take the child.’

  ‘Rather a risk, don’t you think? They might talk. But then, small babies are so fragile. It would be best to make sure it never became a hostage to fortune.’

  ‘Yes, that would be best, and so easily done with a newborn babe.’

  Averil stuffed her knuckles into her mouth against the rising bile. Oh, God, what had she done? She was trapped with people who would kill without the slightest compunction simply for money. A baby. An innocent babe. How could they even contemplate such a thing? And then to solve the problem of an infertile wife by murder—how long would they give her to conceive before they decided she was not use to them? A year?

  The urge to retch almost overcame her. With painful slowness Averil crawled back away from the door until she could haul herself upright.

  She made herself tiptoe across the floor, not run, screaming, as she wanted to. Somehow she remembered not to slam the door, then she fled upstairs, not stopping until she was huddled shivering in her own bed again.

  She had thought him cold-blooded to insist they wait a month, but this ruthless expediency, the cold disregard for anything except their own greed and needs was breathtaking in its awfulness.

  To send her away and insist the child was given to some kind couple who would love it—that she could understand, even though she would never have agreed to it. But to hope that the infant would die, to help that to happen … They probably did not even think of it as anything worse than letting nature take its course, she thought numbly, hugging herself as though to protect a real child.

  Then to contemplate disposing of her like a useless animal … No, that was cold-blooded evil. If there was no excuse for that, then there was no excuse for the other. They were murderers.

  If she had not gone downstairs and heard that conversation, she would have made herself marry Bradon and perhaps she would never have understood just what manner of man he was. He would probably be a perfectly good father to his own children, Averil thought. It was just some poor little inconvenient scrap of humanity who got in his way that would be disposable. Only women who were of no use to him who could be discarded like rubbish.

  This changed everything. She could not bring herself to speak to Bradon again; even the thought of seeing him filled her with sick horror. It did not matter that no child was at risk, he had revealed himself in his true colours and she would never be able to forget, never be able to trust him. She would never be able to let him touch her without recoiling.

  Papa would not expect her to marry a man like that, nor into a family so callous and calculating and criminal. Bless him, she thought fondly. He was ambitious for the family, but he would protect a grandchild, even a scandalously illegitimate one, with his life.

  She would have to go home to India, there was no other solution—and to do that she needed enough money for the return journey. Her courage almost failed her at the thought of another voyage with all its dangers, but there was nothing for her here in England. Nothing.

  In the morning she would go to the City and Mr Wilton’s office and he would give her the money for her passage. Perhaps Grace would go with her. She must pay her off in any case, and find respectable lodgings while she waited for a ship. She would manage somehow and she would get home to people who loved her and hope they would forgive her for her imprudence.

  Her mind was in turmoil. If she had never been shipwrecked, she would not have met Luc. She would not have been compromised and Bradon would have married her and she would have been tied to a ruthless, heartless man. It was the luckiest of escapes, it might even have saved her life. But then her heart would not have been broken and she would never have known what it was to love a man.

  Dry-eyed, Averil curled up under the covers and waited, sleepless, for dawn.

  Chapter Twenty

  ‘I do not understand. Why can you not give me money to return home?’ Averil looked around the dark panelled walls of the office as though she could find some explanation of the man’s adamant refusal pinned to them.

  ‘Because I am not authorised to, Miss Heydon.’ The lawyer looked over the top of his spectacles at her as though she was a rather stupid new office clerk who could not add up. ‘Sir Joshua instructed me on the disbursement of funds for your dowry on the occasion of your marriage to Lord Bradon and for reasonable expenses in the days before your marriage.

  ‘The additional expenditure resulting from the tragic loss of the ship is necessary to accomplish the marriage. But Sir Joshua intends you to marry Lord Bradon, not to return to India on a whim. It is, of course, highly regrettable that you are feeling homesick, but really, Miss Heydon—’

  ‘You do not understand, Mr Wilton. Lord Bradon is not what I thought. I cannot marry him. This is not a whim.’

  ‘Indeed? A false representation has been made?’ Mr Wilton sat up straighter and pushed his glasses more firmly on to his nose. ‘He is already married? Not of sound mind? Fatally ill?’

  ‘No, none of those things. There is no legal reason why I should not marry him. But I cannot like him.’ She could hardly accuse Bradon of a hypothetical murder of a child who did not exist or of threatening her life.

  And she could not say either that she loved another man, that she was compromised. Instinct told her that the lawyer would be entirely in sympathy with Bradon’s solution to the problem, at least as far as secretly removing the child was concerned, and that he would dismiss her tale of what else she had heard last night as feminine hysterics.

  ‘Really, Miss Heydon, you cannot in all ser
iousness expect me to disburse a significant sum of my client’s money and to overturn almost two years of discussion and negotiations simply because you cannot like your future husband! On what grounds?’

  ‘He is cold.’ The lawyer did not say, And what does that matter? But his expression said it for him. ‘He is not kind.’

  ‘He has threatened you? Struck you?’

  ‘No …’ She had no evidence, only an overheard conversation in the middle of the night with no witnesses. How could she make this practical, unimaginative man understand? She could not, she realised.

  ‘You will forgive me, I trust, Miss Heydon, for my plain speaking. But I would be negligent in my duty to your father if I did anything to encourage this fancy of yours. Young ladies in your position do not marry for love, like the heroine of some fantastical romance novel. And no doubt halfway back to India you would change your mind again on another whim.’

  ‘But what am I to do if I cannot go home?’

  ‘Why, Lord Bradon’s house is your home now, Miss Heydon. You can, and must, return there.’

  ‘I will not—’

  ‘Then I will have to inform Lord Bradon that you appear to be suffering an affliction of the spirits and require medical attention. In fact,’ he said, frowning at her, ‘I wonder if I should not go back to the house with you and speak to his lordship. I am really most concerned. Perhaps you are suffering a brain fever brought on by delayed shock after your ordeal during the shipwreck. Yes, indeed, that must be it.’ He got up from behind the desk. ‘Now, I will call my carriage and we will get you home at once, my dear Miss Heydon.’

  ‘No!’ Averil saw a vision of herself trying to explain to the outraged Bradons why she had run away. She could imagine the scene all too clearly. They would be calm, appear concerned, they would assure Mr Wilton that they had no idea that she was unwell. How sorry they would be that by plunging her into the social whirl they had so distressed her poor, fragile mind. And the moment the door was closed behind the lawyer she would be a prisoner until they discovered it was safe to marry her to Bradon.

  ‘No,’ she said, conjuring up every ounce of control she possessed. ‘That is very kind, but I have my maid and a carriage.’ She pulled a handkerchief from her reticule and dabbed her dry eyes with it. ‘You are right, I must be unwell. I have not slept well since the wreck … Such nightmares. Perhaps they will allow me to go to the country estate and rest.’ She managed to make her voice tremble a little. ‘It will all seem better then, will it not, Mr Wilton?’

  ‘Of course, my dear, of course.’ He subsided back into his chair, his relief obvious that she had become a tremulous, biddable female relying on his superior judgement. ‘I will ring for a small glass of sherry wine for you. I do not as a rule approve of females consuming alcoholic beverages, but in this case, it may be wise.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Averil murmured, wielding the handkerchief again as she sank back into the depths of the chair. At least it would give her a few minutes to think. What on earth was she to do now?

  She could go to Lady Perdita Brooke—but Dita’s parents would never countenance her sheltering a runaway, especially when Dita herself had a recent scandal to live down. Nor could she ask Dita for a loan, not of the amount of money she would need for lodgings until the ship sailed, the fare, money for three months and wages for Grace, whom she could hardly abandon.

  There was one possibility, so shocking that when the sherry came she gulped it down and almost made herself choke. Was it her only option or was it what she wanted to do and she was finding excuses, telling herself she had no other choice?

  It took several minutes to shake Mr Wilton off, to assure him she did not require handing into her carriage—which was a good thing as she had come in a hackney—and that she felt much more calm and rational now. She had a sinking feeling that he might write to Papa, but if her plan worked she would be home in India at the same time as any letter.

  With the patient Grace beside her she stood on the pavement and looked for a hackney. ‘Grace, I need to talk to you, in confidence, about something rather shocking. If you feel you would rather not be involved I quite understand, but in that case we had better go back to Bruton Street now and I will drop you off. All I ask is that you say nothing about it for as long as possible.’

  ‘Of course I’ll come with you, Miss Heydon,’ the maid said. ‘Look, there’s one.’ She darted to the edge of the pavement and waved down a cab. ‘Is it an elopement, miss?’

  ‘No. Not quite.’ The driver leaned down for directions. ‘One of the main shipping agents, please. I want one who handles the East India ships.’

  ‘Oh!’ Grace’s eyes were wide as they settled on the worn seats. ‘Are we going to India?’

  ‘I am, but not you.’ The girl’s face fell. ‘It is a three-month voyage, Grace. And dangerous—look what happened to me on the way here. And India is hot and unhealthy.’

  ‘I’d like to go,’ Grace persisted. ‘I’ve always wanted to travel, honest, miss. If I can survive all the things you can catch in the Rookery, I can manage in India, I’ll be bound.’

  ‘I might not be able to pay you for months,’ Averil admitted. ‘I may not even be able to pay for the two weeks you have been working for me already. I am going to do something very shocking, Grace. I am going to put myself under the protection of a gentleman and hope that he will fund my passage and your wages.’

  ‘I knew it! I knew this valise had more in it than a gown to be altered like you told her ladyship. It’s too heavy.’

  ‘It contains everything I own,’ Averil admitted. ‘Which is not much. And then there are your things—I did not dare tell you about it in the house in case anyone overheard, and I did not know how we could get two valises out.’

  ‘Not to worry, miss.’ Grace showed no sign of shock or alarm at Averil’s explanations. ‘When we find out whether he’s up for it I’ll take a hackney back to Bruton Street and sneak my stuff out the back way.’ She sat in silence for a while. ‘You don’t want to marry Lord Bradon, miss? Can’t say I blame you. Nasty bit of work he is, if you ask me. Like a dead flounder.’

  ‘Grace!’ Averil choked on a gasp of laughter.

  ‘Well, he is. He’s got hands like one, too.’

  ‘How do you know? He has not made advances to you, has he?’

  ‘Sort of pats and gropes when he’s passing.’ The girl shrugged. ‘Nothing I can’t cope with. Some of the gents is like that—they fancy a servant girl because we don’t answer back—mostly. Yes, me lud, no, me lud,’ she mimicked savagely. ‘Lie on me back with me skirts up if you like, me lud. I don’t stand for it myself.’

  ‘I am so sorry, Grace. I had no idea—how dreadful.’ The hypocrisy of it! Lecturing her on virtue while all the while he was harassing the servants.

  ‘Your gent’s not like that, is he, miss?’

  ‘No,’ said Averil. ‘He asks for what he wants and he takes no for an answer.’ More or less. ‘I think this must be the shipping office.’

  They climbed down into the bustling street. It was closer to Calcutta than Mayfair, Averil thought, finding to her surprise that she could smile. The noise and smells and the mass of carts and porters and hawkers were familiar and unthreatening. ‘Wait please,’ she called up to the driver. ‘We will not be long.’

  ‘Two weeks,’ Averil said as they sat back in the hackney fifteen minutes later. She studied the printed sheet in her hand. The Diamond Rose for Calcutta. Cabins close to the Great Cabin that would accommodate the two of them were still available, but at a price that was quite impossible to meet unless Luc helped her.

  Would he pay that much, plus Grace’s wages and some money for her expenses on board, in exchange for her virginity and just two weeks of her unskilled lovemaking?

  ‘Do you love him, miss?’ Grace asked as the cab turned into Piccadilly. Averil felt her chest tightening so that she could scarcely breathe.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘But he does not love me and he does not know h
ow I feel about him. And he must not.’

  Grace did not answer, but she changed seats to sit next to Averil and squeezed her hand. Her lover had jilted her, Averil recalled, and squeezed back. The pressure in her chest eased a little.

  The hackney swung through a tight opening into a cobbled yard. ‘Albany!’

  ‘Veil, miss!’

  Averil pulled down the coarse veiling as she climbed down. A porter came out as Grace lifted the valises out.

  ‘Can I help you, madam?’ It sounded like, Go away, we don’t welcome your sort here.

  I am a fallen woman, Averil realised. Or, at least, I am falling. ‘Thank you. Captain d’Aunay’s chambers, please.’

  The porter went back inside with a curt nod, leaving them standing on the cobbles. After five minutes Averil squared her shoulders and walked towards the door; she could hardly stand there until Luc happened to go in or out.

  A dapper little man appeared on the step as she reached it. ‘Madam? The captain is not at home at the moment.’

  ‘He told me to send to him here if I ever needed help,’ Averil said.

  ‘Ah. Yes, indeed, ma’am. Will you follow me?’

  They walked after him down a passage that seemed to Averil as long as a rope walk. The man opened a black door and ushered them into a sitting room. ‘If you will make yourself comfortable, ma’am, I will see if—’

  ‘Hughes!’ The shout was unmistakeably Luc’s voice. ‘Something for my damned head and get a move on. I think I’m dying.’

  ‘He’s awake. Excuse me.’ The manservant vanished through a door at the rear of the room.

  They could hear his voice, low and soothing, then, ‘A what? Who?’

  ‘Hangover,’ Grace observed. ‘Does he drink much?’

  ‘I have never seen him even tipsy,’ Averil said. On St Mary’s she had seen him drink and keep up with Sir George’s not inconsiderable dinner time consumption, but he had shown no ill effects. In fact, he had made love to her afterwards.