Surrender to the Marquess Page 22

  When she did not speak he picked up the story again, his voice a monotone. ‘I went home, confessed to my parents, packed my bags, took all the cash that was in the house. They promised to send me money regularly when I found somewhere safe. My father suggested Brussels, my mother was crying too much to say anything. I tried to write to you before I left, but what could I say? I am sorry? Much good that would have done.’

  ‘I wanted to kill you—and yet I wanted to hold you and tell you that I knew it must all have been a horrible mistake. I wanted to believe that. I wanted to know that you were all right, but no one would speak of you to me.’

  Francis ran his hand over his mouth as though to control the words on his lips. Eventually he said, ‘I went to Ghent in the end. It was not so full of people who would know me as Brussels was. I called myself Mr Smith and found a small apartment to rent. My parents sent money and I settled down to a life full of nothing except the knowledge that I had broken their hearts, killed my best friend and made you a widow. I thought about putting a bullet in my brain more than once, but that would have finished my mother.’

  ‘So what happened to change everything?’

  He shrugged. ‘Good fortune. My godfather knows the Lord Chancellor and he started chipping away at him about the inquest. The original coroner was dead set against duelling, especially in a university city because of encouraging students to fight. Apparently he refused to take any evidence about how we had both deloped—or, rather that I had tried to. Finally, Lord Eldon agreed to a new inquest and both the seconds spoke out, and Michael’s groom who had been driving his gig and saw it all did, too. It was brought in as death by misadventure and the time I had spent in exile was taken into consideration.’ He seemed to run out of words, then added, ‘So I have come back.’

  ‘What will you do now?’ Sara felt sick with reaction, but at least she felt something. Nausea was better than that cold hollowness inside. Why had the seconds not told her what had happened? Why hadn’t Jed, the groom, told her? Because she had not been there, she supposed. Her family had swept her up, taken her away, cocooned her in love.

  ‘I will go home to Haddon, stay away from London and learn to manage the estate, take some of the burden off my father and try to make it up, somehow, to my mother. There’s a girl she wants me to marry, who’ll likely have me, it seems. I’ll do my best to make her a good husband, raise children. I’ll soon be forgotten outside a ten-mile radius, with any luck.’

  The words were bitter, but his voice was not. Francis was home from exile, his name was cleared and he could begin to build a new life, even if he would never, Sara suspected, be able to forget Michael’s death or forgive himself for it. Could she? Face to face with this handsome, likeable man, could she forgive herself for what had happened to cause it all?

  ‘I flirted with you.’ The words seemed to come from very far away and her lips were numb. ‘When Michael was away, out for the evening or late working and you would call round, I flirted. I enjoyed your company, I was flattered by your friendship and your interest in me and I was lonely. That is no excuse,’ she admitted, more to herself than to him. ‘It was my fault you said those things to him when you were drunk.’

  ‘No. No, you never overstepped the bounds of what was honourable. You never treated me as anything but Michael’s friend, your friend.’ He sprang out of his chair, knelt at her feet, ungainly in his urgency, and caught her hands in his. ‘Yes, you teased a little, but only a rake or a fool would have thought you meant anything by it. But I was that fool.’ He looked up, into her eyes, his own startlingly blue in his haggard face. ‘I was fool enough to fall in love with you.’

  ‘Francis, no.’ She had no idea he felt anything for her beyond friendship. Had she been so very blind or had she not chosen to see what was under her nose?

  ‘I would never have said anything to you, never have touched you, never have betrayed him like that. But I kept it bottled up and it grew and grew and that night he said something about what a lucky fellow he was and it all just came pouring out, what I felt about you.’

  There were tears in his eyes and a pain too terrible to look on, so she gathered him to her and he laid his face on her lap and sobbed as she held him and finally feeling flooded back—pain and regret and loss and a desperate pity.

  ‘I love you.’ He lifted his face. ‘I always will.’

  ‘Oh, Francis.’ Sara bent her head until their foreheads touched and held him tightly.

  ‘I love you, Sara.’

  ‘How very touching.’ The voice from the doorway dripped sarcasm. ‘My dear Sara, might I suggest that if you are going to run two lovers at the same time that you learn to keep the back door locked?’

  Sara twisted round in the chair, Francis fell back sprawling on the carpet. Lucian stood looking down at them with pure murder in his eyes.

  ‘However did you get in?’ Sara demanded, shock and fear giving an edge to her voice.

  ‘You left your fan in the sedan chair. I walked back with it and caught a glimpse of a male silhouette against the drawing-room blinds. It seemed prudent to enter from the back if I could get in, and the back door was, very carelessly, on the latch. I was rushing to your rescue, my dear, thinking to protect you from the man who was giving you nightmares. Apparently that was not what was disturbing your sleep.’

  ‘I can explain,’ Francis said urgently. ‘I mean Lady Sara no harm. I came to explain what happened when her husband died and my feelings overwhelmed me. She was comforting me, that is all.’ He started to stand up.

  ‘Stay down if you know what is good for you.’ Lucian’s voice was a snarl.

  To his credit Francis got to his feet regardless. ‘Cannock, isn’t it? What business is this of yours—and what right have you to speak to Mrs Harcourt in that way?’

  ‘And you are Walton, I presume. The friend of the family,’ Lucian said, his lip curling. ‘Mrs Harcourt is betrothed to me.’ He glanced down at Sara who registered the present tense, as no doubt she was meant to.

  ‘Lady Sara has done nothing wrong. I am entirely to blame both for the duel that led to Michael’s death and for placing her in this present position. I love her and I am all too aware that the sentiment is not returned, but she is a compassionate woman and, I had hoped, able to forgive me. At least, she allowed me to explain what had happened.’

  ‘You are not lovers, then?’ Lucian regarded Sara with an expression that seemed to hold nothing but simple curiosity. She was not deceived.

  ‘No.’ They both spoke at once.

  ‘Never,’ she added. ‘I have never been with anyone but my husband and with you.’

  ‘And yet you put your hands on her, Walton. On my fiancée. You blubber on to her bosom, you pour sentimental twaddle about love into her ears, you follow her about making her fearful. I think you had better apologise, Walton, and assure us both that you are taking yourself off to whichever Continental bolthole you have been skulking in before the law catches up with you.’

  ‘The inquest verdict has been overturned and Harcourt’s death found as accidental. I have returned to England and I intend to stay. As for apologising to Sara—’ Francis smiled at her ‘—I will gladly apologise for all the distress I have caused her. Apologise for seeking her out to tell her the truth about what happened? No. And as for apologising for loving her, I might as well apologise for living.’

  ‘Then perhaps we should do something about that. I challenge you to meet me, Walton. As neither of us have friends here on whom we can call, I suggest we fix a date when we may both be in London.’

  ‘Certainly, my lord. I will await word from your second. My club will find me.’ He reached into his breast pocket and handed a card to Lucian.

  ‘Stop it, both of you!’ Sara found herself on her feet, her hands upheld as though to keep the two men apart, even though neither had moved. ‘What earthly point is there in this? I am not hurt, or frightened of anything but what the pair of you might do. I have already lost my husband—
do you think I want to lose my betrothed, or my friend?’

  ‘I killed Michael, even if it was by accident,’ Francis said, his face white and set. ‘This is only justice. If I had kept my mouth shut, if I’d had the guts to go away and leave you it would never have happened.’

  ‘Rubbish, you cannot go through life yearning for what-ifs. The past is past and you told me yourself the verdict had been overturned. Think what it will do to your parents if you are killed now. Think if there is another accident and you kill Lucian. Nothing would save you if that happened.’

  She ignored Lucian’s scornful snort of disbelief, but she could not ignore his baleful presence. He had settled his shoulder against the door frame, crossed his arms and was watching them from under hooded lids.

  ‘I cannot refuse a challenge, not and retain my honour,’ Francis stated. ‘And I will not say I do not love you, because that would be a lie.’

  ‘Is it? I do not think you love me, I think you have talked yourself into it to justify what happened with Michael. We flirted, you and I. Indiscreetly, but innocently, and you talked yourself into making that some kind of noble, unspoken love. The more I think about it, the less I believe in it—I could tell if a man loved me, surely?’

  Francis broke into speech, stuttered to a halt and looked at her, aghast.

  Lucian cleared his throat and Sara turned. ‘I know you do not love me,’ she said, stating plain facts. ‘If you did, you would have told me, shown me.’ At least whatever it was that Lucian felt for her, it was not made infinitely more complex by love. ‘You have never pretended to feel like that. That was never what our agreement to marry was about.’

  ‘I think perhaps your belief in your ability to tell a man’s deepest feelings may be misplaced,’ Lucian said, that infuriating, mocking smile on his lips, his eyes bleak in a way she had never seen them before. ‘We may not wear our hearts on our sleeves as you seem to think. You believe that men want to give a hostage to fortune in that way, by admitting to love when they do not think it will be returned?

  ‘I told you, when we first met, that I protect the women in my care—and that includes my betrothed. To do other is dishonourable.’

  ‘There is a very simple solution to that, one that will get us out of this hateful, dangerous situation we seem to be in, one that should stop the pair of you carrying on like fighting cocks in the cockpit. I thank you for your flattering offer of marriage, my lord, but I find on further reflection that we will not suit. Please consider our betrothal at an end.’

  Lucian was white around the mouth, but his eyes were hard and his voice icy. ‘You would have me understand that you place the life of the man who killed your husband above our marriage?’

  ‘Of course I do! I would place the life of any decent human being above my own happiness, my dreams, my hopes of…’

  ‘You are serious about this?’ He seemed incredulous.

  ‘Of course I am. Do you think I could jest about it? Our betrothal is at an end. I will take full responsibility for that, your precious honour will have not a smudge upon it and people will tell each other that you had a lucky escape from the eccentric and wilful Lady Sara.’

  Lucian turned a baleful stare on Francis. ‘And you—’

  ‘I never want to see him again and I very much doubt, once he has thought it through, if he will want to see me. You have no reason whatsoever to call him out on my behalf, my lord. You have no rights over me and no responsibility for me. If my honour is offended, then I have a father and a brother to turn to. To force a duel would be dishonourable and you know it.’ She was arguing like a nit-picking lawyer, weaving the threads of honour and the tradition of the duel into a net from which Lucian could not escape. And neither would she. This was the man she loved, the man she was giving up for the sake of her conscience. She could not make him a murderer.

  ‘You had better go. And, Francis, you must leave, too. Go home to your parents, to the young woman who is willing to marry you and learn to love her, and don’t talk yourself into emotions that are not true. The real ones hurt too much—and what hurts you is the way you betrayed Michael’s friendship, not unrequited love for me. Please go. I wish you well, I truly do, my friend. But I never want to see you again.’

  Lucian stood aside to let Francis past and he stumbled into the hall like a man emerging from a dream, or thick fog. There was a murmur of voices, the front door opened and closed and she was alone with Lucian.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  ‘You had better leave, too.’ Sara stood up.

  ‘There is no need for this, Sara. I lost my temper just now. If you tell me that there is nothing between you and Walton, then of course I accept that. It is him I am angry with, never you.’ Lucian came fully into the room, gestured towards the chair that Francis had occupied. ‘May I sit down?’

  ‘If you must, but there is nothing to stay for. Are you concerned about Marguerite? My mother will look after her, just as she promised she would. She will be quite safe until you are ready for her to join you in London.’ She sat down again and concentrated on keeping her head up, the polite, frosty little smile on her lips. Her heart was breaking, but that was no reason to give in to floods of tears, she told herself. ‘People will understand that under the circumstances she should marry earlier now there is no reason to wait for our wedding.’

  ‘Forget Marguerite,’ he snapped, the loss of control so uncharacteristic that for a moment she gaped at him. ‘I told you I will not fight Walton, that there is no reason for me to do so. For a second I doubted you, I am sorry for that, but I cannot see why that should mean the end of our betrothal.’

  ‘I… You want to pretend this has not happened? Lucian, that is impossible. What would happen the next time you became suspicious of something—and we are married?’

  ‘You think it possible that I will find you alone at night with a man in your arms professing his love for you?’

  ‘Of course not. I mean that your reaction to any threat to me, or to your possession of me, is unacceptably primitive. Over-emotional.’

  ‘Emotional? I would have thought rather that you would have thrown the formality and the codification of duelling at my head, not tell me it is emotional,’ he said bitterly.

  ‘It allows you to hide your emotions,’ Sara said wearily. ‘But why are we speaking of such things? We agreed to marry because it seemed rational. We were suited, we were attracted.’

  ‘What will you do now? Remain here?’

  ‘No. My life here has ended and I have promised the shop to Dot and her cousin. I will hand it over and…go.’ Somewhere.

  ‘Where? And to do what?’ Lucian demanded.

  ‘I do not know and, just at the moment, I do not care. Something different. I will decide sooner or later.’

  ‘In that case I will go and let you decide,’ he said with awful politeness as he stood up. ‘Just tell me one thing before I leave. You told me I was not a romantic. I know what that means in terms of literature, in respect of the landscape and art, but what do you mean by romance, Sara?’

  Taken unawares, she reacted without thinking. ‘I mean the emotions of love. I mean wanting to feel deep emotions when you are with someone you love, or to show the emotional side of your feelings when you react to something the loved one says or does, how they feel. It means opening yourself up to the hurt as well as the joy. And it means being moved to tears by a raindrop on a leaf or a touch between two old people who have been together for a long time or a perfect line of verse. You do not have to be in love to be a romantic, but I do not understand how anyone who is in love cannot be so.’

  She could feel the tears coming now and she was too proud to let him see them, risk him interpreting them as what they were, so she turned her shoulder. ‘You should go now, Lucian.’

  ‘Of course. Goodbye, Sara.’ The door closed behind him gently but with a firm click that seemed to her to be the sound of finality, the sound of the man she loved leaving for ever.

  *r />
  Lucian strode down the hill to the seafront, blind to everything but the thick black fog that seemed to swirl around him. He was finally brought to a standstill by the railing around the promenade edge. The tide was right out, he could hear it far down the beach where the moonlight caught the breakers.

  Beautiful, he thought bleakly. Probably romantic, but how the hell would I know? He loved her and he had lost her. Probably he had never had the part of her that he yearned for, the heart of her. Sara was romantic and she had probably agreed to marry him so that no longer would she be at risk of being hurt, of having to feel those emotions she spoke of. Her marriage had ended in terrible pain, she would not want to risk that again and yet, when it came to it, she could not bring herself to marry him, the man who could offer her a rational, sensible marriage with no messy emotions.

  That water looked attractive. Cold, impersonal and uncaring. It would receive him and make him work hard, stretch his muscles, push him until, perhaps, he would be able to sleep. He worked it out and, yes, the tide was coming in. He was not such a fool as to swim on a falling tide on an unfamiliar stretch of coast.

  The town was quiet now. It was past midnight. The Assembly Rooms were closed. No one was visible. Lucian ducked under the rail, dropped down to the beach below and walked to the jetty. He stripped rapidly and piled the clothes on the upturned boat that Sara had sat on to brush the sand from her legs. The night air was cool on his skin, but the sea would be warm. He strode down to the water’s edge and straight in to mid-thigh, then dived and struck out into the moonlight.

  *

  She would never sleep. Sara let Maude help her undress, then just stood in the middle of her bedchamber, nightgown in hand. ‘I am going to swim.’

  ‘What, now, my lady? It is dark.’

  ‘There is a moon, the tide is coming in and I am far too restless to sleep. Find me my swimming clothes, please, Maude.’