Some time past dawn, Alasdair heard his bedroom door close. He opened his eyes.
“I don’t want to give you any excuse not to pay me,” Starling said in a cool voice. “Ellen will think I’ve been here all night.”
He pulled his sheet to his nose, not deigning to answer. Not for the world would he tell her he’d missed her warmth, the tickle of her hair on his face, and her shy sweetness in the morning. In one more day he would have Lavender.
* * * *
“Starling!” Lavender held out a dish of melted cheese to Starling. “I asked for a Welsh rarebit for breakfast and the kitchen sent me this peppery concoction.”
“Welsh rarebit?” Starling didn’t know the dish. “I’ll see if Mrs. Trelevan has something else.”
“I asked for Welsh rarebit,” Lavender said, tapping her foot. “Is it too much to expect?”
Starling didn’t know, but bearing the plate she went into the kitchen, where Mrs. Trelevan was making stuffing for a haunch of beef. “Mrs. Frost would like Welsh rarebit. She says this one is too peppery,” Starling said, putting the plate on the table.
Mrs. Trelevan looked vague. “Too peppery?”
“It’s the dish I made for Madam,” Freda said with a shrug. “I asked her if she wanted mustard, but she said she don’t discuss cooking with servants. So, I made her a Welsh rarebit the way Mr. Seymour likes it.”
Ellen, standing in the doorway and adjusting the frill on her cap, said in a despondent voice, “I’ve finished the bedrooms. Need any help in here?”
Freda smiled at her sister. “Madam just sent back the delicious breakfast I made for her.”
“You shouldn’ta done nothing mean, Freda. We promised Mrs. Seymour we wouldn’t.” Ellen glanced at Starling.
“I obeyed orders. That’s all I done.” Freda frowned and crossed her arms.
“Make her a plain rarebit without mustard,” Starling said. “I’ll explain to her that you used your regular recipe.”
Mrs. Trelevan said, “Begging your pardon, ma’am, but that woman is nothin’ but trouble.”
Mrs. Brighton came in from the garden with a basket of herbs. “I’ve just heard she’s not going back to Melbourne with Mr. and Mrs. Elliot.”
Ellen paled and put her face in her hands. Freda moved around the table and took her sister into her arms. “You said you didn’t care what Derry done.”
“I do.” Ellen sniffled. “I love him. I’ll never get him back if she doesn’t go.”
“You never tried to get him back,” Mrs. Trelevan stated bluntly. “Don’t reckon he would have looked at her if he’d had a promise from you. Seems to me you asked everythin’ from him without ever giving nothin’ of yourself.”
“You’re not suggesting that I should have bedded him without marriage?” Ellen asked in a stifled voice.
“No. I’m saying you never even got betrothed, though he asked you times without number. You kept testing him and testing him, but he passed the test the moment he met you, seems to me.”
“He treated you like a queen before your hand healed,” Mrs. Brighton added, with a wary glance at Starling. “He made you up posies of flowers despite the ragging from the stable boy. He told everyone he loved you. He waited for a year, Ellen, and not once did you ever consent to do more than walk out with him. I don’t blame him for thinking he’s free to do anything he likes.”
Mrs. Trelevan nodded. “Until a man’s betrothed, he’s free. You have to face it, Ellen. You don’t have no right to complain about anythin’ he does.”
“I thought you all supported me,” Ellen said, mouth rebellious and eyes glistening.
Four pairs of eyes met.
“If you want him, you’ll have to do something about it.” Starling watched Freda pour a melted cheese concoction onto a freshly cooked slice of toast.
“I can’t,” Ellen mumbled. “He doesn’t love me anymore.”
Starling tapped her fingers on the table. “I think that you ought to hear that from his own lips.”
Ellen stared at Starling; then, eyes downcast, she walked out into the garden.
Mrs. Brighton put a sprig of parsley on the cheese. “That needed to be said.”
“I think she was always afraid he didn’t really love her.” Freda handed the plate to Starling. “She really thought losing her fingers made her deformed. I don’t know how many times I told her that it never made no difference to him. When you love someone, you don’t notice their faults.”
With a smile of resignation, Starling took the dish and left. “You certainly don’t notice,” she muttered to herself, “if someone is beautiful.”
* * * *
Alasdair saw Starling in the passage. “That’s for Lavender, I presume. She told me the kitchen staff gave her bad food.”
“Not on purpose,” she said. “And not bad. Just a trifle heavy with the mustard. There’s no need to reprimand them.”
He turned to watch her enter the dining room where Lavender, not very patiently, awaited her breakfast.
Determined to take back control of his staff, he strode toward the kitchen, “I hope we’ve done the right thing,” he heard Mrs. Brighton say. He grasped the handle of the door. “Madam went over to him again last night. I saw her hurrying across the lawn to the shed. There’s no doubt she’s—Mr. Seymour! Well. You did give me a fright. I didn’t see you there.”
* * * *
His mind repeating again and again the conversation he’d overheard, Alasdair retreated to the library and stayed there all day, messing with his papers until he’d confused his accounts too much to bother trying to make sense of them. Thereafter, he sat in his chair and stared out the window.
He’d made a basic mistake about Starling. No matter that he wanted her more than he’d wanted any other woman, she’d deceived him. For a while, he’d wavered between picking her up by the scruff of her neck and throwing her naked into the street or ripping off her clothes and ravishing her until she begged for mercy. Both gained him sexual satisfaction, and each would avenge the loss of his pride. He gave a sour laugh. Even now he could think of little more than having her, a gutter-bred woman who had laughed in his face—not openly, but by sneaking out to pleasure his gardener.
His head throbbed, fit to burst. The only way to gain the upper hand was to withhold her money. Because the servants knew about her behavior, that should be reason enough to refuse to pay her. Unfortunately, what the servants knew had no bearing on the case. He’d hired Starling to fool his sister, and she’d done the job so easily that Alasdair should have suspected from the start that he was dealing with a very clever woman.
All was not lost, however. He had achieved his aim with Lavender and could have a well-born wife with the right connections as soon as he wished. With this in mind, he remained scrupulously polite to Starling during dinner and after, when he accepted Lavender’s challenge for a game of billiards.
The single game they played seemed to take longer than the creation of the world. By the time he finally escaped to the sitting room, the others had gone up to bed. He wished he’d been with them because he knew Paul and Mary wanted to leave early in the morning. Although he meant to tell Starling he knew the truth about her sluttish behavior, he didn’t find her in her room. Noting the folded nightgown on the pillow and the lamp she had lit, he punched the doorframe with frustration. What a great nodcock he’d been and how blind. She’d only wanted this single bedroom so that she could be free to visit Derry whenever she chose.
With his jaw clenched hard enough to make his teeth ache, he walked over to the window, not expecting to see anything but the night shadows. A figure outside moved across the lawn in the direction of the stables. His chest tight, he strode into the hallway.
“Oh, there you are, Alasdair,” Mary said, sounding relieved. “I’ve been knocking on your door for ages. I couldn’t believe you’d be asleep yet. I wanted to speak to Starling. Do you know where she is?”
“I do,” he replied grimly. He tried to push past Mary.
She smiled. “Relax, my dear. I don’t want her for the whole night, but I have to say more than a quick goodbye to her. It might be six months before I see her again. I want to thank her for her hospitality and for being married to my favorite brother.”
“No need.”
“You men.” She patted him on the cheek. “You don’t have the slightest idea of the work that goes into running a house or entertaining guests as demanding as some of us have been. She’s such a lovely woman, and I’m so proud of you for choosing her.”
“You don’t know a thing about her. Not a thing. She’s fooled you from the start.”
“Don’t tell me you’ve had another fight? Really, Alasdair. You should—”
“I can’t discuss this now. First I have to—oh, what does it matter?” He opened the door of his bedroom. “I can confront her anytime. Come in, Mary. It’s time I confessed the whole truth to you, unpalatable as it is.”
Before she could sit on the settee, he said, “She’s a whore.” He tightened his face, feeling the heat of his words sear his throat.
“I beg your pardon,” Mary said stiffly. “No matter how cross with her you are, I won’t allow you to—”
“I found her working in my shop, but she’d come there from the Star Inn. You don’t know it, but the lowlife of Adelaide does. I wanted to use her to stop your matchmaking. I had no idea you’d have Lavender with you, no idea. From the start, my plan backfired. And now the little tart is out there rutting with the gardener behind the stables.”
Mary’s mouth opened and shut. Her eyes widened but not a word did she say about her brother’s language. “Are you sure?” She seated herself. Her fingers pleated her skirt, but her face stayed turned toward Alasdair’s.
He twisted his expression into a grimace. “I agreed to pay her to pretend to be my wife. No one could know more about her than I do after sharing a bed with her for two weeks.”
Mary stood. “Was I supposed to find this amusing? I don’t, you know. Perhaps your ‘friend’ fooled me and perhaps she hurt me, but you’ve done more than that. I don’t think that I can forgive you, Alasdair. Paying a woman for this sort of service,” she said, waving her hand at his bed, “makes me feel ill. No wonder she had so many disdainful things to say about men who use whores. I can’t blame her for any of this, can I? It’s you. Excuse me.” With a hand over her eyes, she pushed past him.
“Mary,” he began, but she made a sound of fury, which stopped him.
“Don’t speak to me, please. Somehow my sense of humor has completely deserted me.” Very carefully, she shut his bedroom door.
He gazed unseeingly at the window, neither reprimanded nor embarrassed. He could only picture Starling with Derry, lying under him with her legs around his hips, encouraging him by her soft whispers. He thumped his fist on the mantel, making one of his Meissen pieces leap. “Lying bitch,” he said in a snarl to the porcelain goddess as he grabbed her by the waist and dashed her and her horn of plenty into the fireplace.
He swung on his heel, slammed out of his room, and strode outside to Derry’s little room off the stables, certain he could force Starling to return with him and very certain that he could kill her if she refused. On this last night, when she opened her legs, he would be between them, he or no one. As he passed Derry’s small window, he glanced in...and stood, transfixed.
Tableau-like, two figures faced each other by Derry’s cot, Derry tall and implacable with his arms crossed and a female with a beseeching hand on his forearm. Alasdair couldn’t mistake either the blond hair or the lilac wrap. Although she had her back turned, he knew he saw Lavender.
Now in the appalling position of eavesdropper rather than righteous employer, he froze. “But you can’t prefer her to me,” Lavender said, sounding not only shocked but also annoyed.
Alasdair’s breathing halted. Any man would rather have Starling than Lavender, given an equal position in the world. His mind tangled and he flattened himself against the wall, determined to hear every word.
“Told you a hundred times I love her. Can’t imagine why you think I’d lie. Decided last night that I don’t want to be like you, and got my reward today. Ellen came to me and told me she loved me. She told me she’d marry me. I didn’t have to make one promise neither, but I wouldn’t be unfaithful, not now.”
“Don’t be stupid. She won’t know.”
“Reckon you’re sick. The only thing that gives you pleasure is makin’ people do what they don’t want to do. You don’t even like ruttin’. Don’t know why you do it when you get no pleasure out of it. Mebbe one day you’ll fall in love and—”
“You great uncultured lout,” Lavender said in a tone just below a shriek. “You are nothing to me. I love Alasdair, and I have since the moment I met him. You don’t measure up to him in any way, and I can tell you now that tool of yours doesn’t compare with his.”
Suddenly the door was wrenched open. Caught, Alasdair pushed away from the wall. He cleared his throat and glanced into Lavender’s wide, frightened eyes. He drew a deep breath. “Perhaps you would like my escort back to the house?” he said in a voice of absolute calm.
She held his gaze for a moment. “Derry is arranging some camellia cuttings for me.” Suddenly her eyes filled with tears, and she covered her face with both palms. “You heard, didn’t you?”
“Nothing unflattering.” Alasdair gathered her into his arms. “Shh. None of this matters.” Not only could Alasdair hear how ridiculous his soothing was following the scene he had overheard, but he also could feel a helpless smile splitting his face.
Starling had not betrayed him.
“It does, it does.” Lavender sobbed onto his neck.
Derry appeared in the doorway. When he said nothing, Alasdair nodded his head in greeting. “Good evening. I believe that congratulations are in order. I don’t want to lose Ellen, but I think she’ll be happy with you.”
He grinned and patted Lavender’s back, unable to credit that the woman he’d craved for the past six years clung to him while he could only think about Starling, a determined, loyal wretch who had now been vindicated.
Derry stared open-mouthed.
Relief making his insides shake, Alasdair steered Lavender in the direction of his house. Starling had told the truth.
While Lavender sniffed forlornly, he patted her back. “You’ll grow ugly, my dear, if you don’t stop this.”
“I slept with Derry.” She stood, dabbing beneath her pale blue, tear-drenched eyes.
Her beauty could no longer melt him, not now that he could admit she lacked humor and wit. “There, there,” he said, adjusting her shawl to cover her shoulders.
“I wanted you, but since I couldn’t have you, I had him, and it’s all such a hollow sham.”
With a thump, reality hit him. His marriage was a hollow sham. Starling was not now, and never could be, his priority. He nodded, knowing his needless game had caused this transgression of Lavender’s. “I understand. We all need love of some sort.”
“Six years ago you ruined me. You showed me the pleasures of the flesh, and now I can’t manage without. Until I met you I was an innocent.”
“But I wanted to marry you. You refused to have me then.”
“Not I. I wanted you. I begged my father to let me marry you, but he wanted Richard’s money.”
“If you’d waited just a year, I would have had money enough to impress your father.”
“Papa wouldn’t let me wait for you.” She clung to him. “I love you. Does that mean nothing?”
“Of course not.”
“I know I made dreadful choices, but what could I do? You’re not available, and if I can’t have you, I don’t have anything. I know you’ll never forgive me for this.” She glanced up at him, staring into his eyes until he dropped his gaze.
His damnable deception had caused Lavender’s misbehavior. If, on the first day she had arrived, he had said that Starling was an actress and revealed why he had hired her, none of this would have happened. Lavender wouldn’t have gone to Derry, and he wouldn’t be standing here relieved she, rather than Starling, had.
He had to accept his punishment. “I promised I’d take care of you.” Heaving a sigh, he set her back on the path to the house. “I meant it.”
He walked her to the door of her room, a painful smile on his lips. His lifetime goal, marriage with Lavender, was but a step away. Even a better man that he would see this empty victory as well deserved.