Chapter Twelve

‘Hendricks!’ Adrian bellowed. If the man was still in, there would be no way for him to escape the sound of his master’s voice.

‘My lord?’ His response was so prompt that Adrian wondered if the secretary had been listening at the door.

‘I was just forced to undergo an excruciating fifteen minutes with Eston. Am I mistaken, Hendricks, or do I pay you to prevent such things?’

‘I am sorry, my lord.’

If he wished to be rational, he would admit that it had been the distraction of the piano delivery that had left the doors open and allowed the guest to enter, not any carelessness on Hendricks’s part. But the excess of spirits was making him irritable, as was the disapproving sniff that Hendricks gave at the spilled brandy. Adrian set the decanter aside. ‘To avert questions about my behaviour, I let him think me drunk. I have most likely ruined this coat by dousing myself with liquor. But he felt the need to tell me that my wife has taken a lover. What do you know of the situation?’

‘Nothing, my lord.’ But the man said ‘nothing’ with such a lack of conviction that he might as well have said everything.

‘Really. But you have seen her recently, I trust?’

‘Yes, my lord. This morning.’

‘And how did she look, when you last spoke with her?’

‘Well.’

‘Is that all, Hendricks? For her brother implied that she was looking, perhaps, too well.’

Adrian’s comment should have been incomprehensible. But Hendricks seemed to understand it perfectly. ‘I did not notice anything unusual about her, my lord.’ It was a pitiful attempt to hide the truth.

‘And where was she, when last you saw her?’

Hendricks paused, as though he could not seem to remember his story, and said, ‘At her brother’s town house, my lord.’

‘How strange. For she has not been in residence there for several days.’

Hendricks sighed. ‘At her rooms, my lord.’

‘So you have seen them, then?’ He resisted the desire to add the word Aha. ‘I suppose you have been there several times.’

‘Yes, my lord.’ He sounded glum now, as though any good spirits that the lady might have gained through his visits were not shared.

As an afterthought, Adrian asked, ‘As I remember it, Hendricks, you wear spectacles, do you not?’

‘Yes, my lord,’ said Hendricks, clearly baffled as to what this had to do with anything.

And there went his hopes that the next Earl of Folbroke would be unencumbered by difficulties with vision. Still, some sight was better than none. ‘Her brother David seemed most concerned at the damage to her reputation, should it be known that she is setting up housekeeping with a man. If she wished some space of her own, it is a shame that she has not seen fit to ask her husband for permission.’

‘Did you expect her to? It has been long since you have spoken to her—she no doubt assumed that you would not care.’ Hendricks had answered a trifle too quickly with this, and altered his tone to be less censorious before adding, ‘If you wish to see her today, I could arrange it for you.’

‘It merely surprises me that she has not sought me out. If she cannot visit her own husband when she is scant miles from him, then it gives credence to her brother’s theory.’

‘She did visit you, my lord, on the day she arrived in town. As you remember, I came to fetch you.’

And pulled me from another woman’s arms and dragged me home, insensible. Touché, Hendricks, touché. ‘Since she did not return, I did not think the matter was important.’

‘Perhaps it is because she has been spurned and avoided for such a long time that she has no more desire to try.’ His secretary’s voice was sharp and scolding. And there could be no questioning his meaning. ‘At this point in time, perhaps it is up to you to seek her.’

‘Do you presume to tell me how to handle my marriage?’

‘Of course not, my lord.’ But the tone said just the opposite.

‘You might as well do it, for it seems quite a popular activity this week.’ He gave a vague gesture towards the writing desk. ‘Draft a letter to Emily. I will see her this evening at six. Do it quick, man, before I sober sufficiently from Eston’s visit to realise what a mistake I am making.’

‘See her, my lord? Do you wish me to explain the unlikelihood of that? For I believe your condition still a mystery to her.’

For a moment he had forgotten. Damn that strange woman for getting under his skin and making him think, even for an instant, that his life could be ordinary.

‘No. Emily has no clue. Unless you have told her.’

‘You forbade me.’ It was a comfort to hear the resignation, and the resolution, in that sentence and the lack of even a fraction of a second’s hesitation. Whatever else he might be doing, it was plain that Hendricks followed some of his instructions to the letter, no matter how unwise he thought them.

Adrian shook his head. ‘After all this time, there are no simple words to describe to her what has happened, or to explain why I hid the truth. It will be easier when we are face to face to explain things, so that there can be no mistaking. It is not as if my lack will come as a severe shock to her. I am not disfigured in any way, am I?’ He touched his own face, suddenly unsure. Perhaps time had made him an ogre, and the servants were too kind to remark on it.

‘No, sir.’

‘Then I will explain to her, once she arrives. It is time, I think, that there be some truth between us.’

‘Very good, my lord.’

‘Mr Eston, my lady.’

When the footman announced her brother, Emily was enjoying what she’d thought was a well-earned cup of tea. With her morning’s shopping and calls, she had taken what she’d hoped were the first steps to sorting out her husband’s problems. Or perhaps they were steps towards encouraging him to do so, for she doubted there would be any change in his character without full co-operation from the man himself.

But since no one knew of her location, she had not expected visitors other than Hendricks. And she certainly had not expected to see her brother. ‘David?’ Thinking of the confrontation she expected from him, his name came out of her mouth in a breathless whimper that made her sound guiltier than she was over her behaviour. ‘What are you doing here?’ There, she noted with some relief. The strength returned to her when she turned the challenge back to him.

‘I have come to see what you are doing here, and who you are doing it with.’ Her brother signalled the footman for another cup and sat in the chair opposite her. His presence was so commanding that she thought for a moment that he had invited her to the room to explain herself.

‘It is not necessary for you to watch over me. Nor is it your place,’ she reminded him. ‘I am both grown and married.’

‘If you can call what you share with Adrian a marriage,’ he responded.

‘Says the man who is the same age as my husband, but has no wife of his own.’

The mention of this seemed to make him uncomfortable, so he turned the argument hurriedly back to her. ‘It is your husband I wish to speak of, and not my non-existent wife. I have been to see Adrian, since you have not.’

‘That was not necessary.’

‘I feel it was,’ he said, looking around him at her rooms. ‘I saw you this morning, shopping in Bond Street.’

‘I remember,’ she said coolly. ‘I greeted you, did I not?’

‘But you were behaving strangely. Secretively. There is but one reason that I can think of to explain such behaviour.’

‘Oh, I seriously doubt that,’ she said. Emily could feel herself begin to blush, which would make her look even more guilty. But there was little to be done to stifle the sudden and rather graphic memories of what she had been up to in the days since she had moved from her brother’s house.

‘You have taken up with some man.’ He was staring at her clothing, which was too casual to accept any but a lover, and the flush of her skin. And God forbid that he should look in the bedroom, for he might see the sheets, still rumpled from last night’s activities.

She took another sip of tea to hide her confusion. ‘Hardly, David.’

‘And you have rented rooms so that the meetings could be done in secret.’

‘Not much of a secret, clearly, since you have followed me to them. Was that how you found me?’ But he had clearly not looked too closely into the matter, if he had not identified the man in question.

He showed no sign of noticing her censor. ‘I questioned my coachman, since you seem intent on using my vehicle as your own. And he admitted taking your baggage to this place. But we are not discussing my behaviour. It is yours that is in question. I waited outside this morning. And in the dim light, I saw someone creeping away from here. He was in the carriage and away before I could get a look at him.’

‘Oh, David,’ she said, wincing with embarrassment at this further complication of her plans. ‘Why now? You have not given a thought to my behaviour in years. It is not as if I did not have admirers before.’

‘But you were not serious about them. And even if you were, that was in the country. It was not as if anyone was likely to notice you there.’

So she had been out of sight and out of mind to him as well, had she? ‘I suspect it was easier for you, when I remained there. But you could not expect me to avoid London for ever, could you?’

‘Perhaps not. But I expected that when you returned to town, you would be circumspect in your behaviour. If you cannot manage your reputation, you will come home immediately.’

‘I will not.’ She thought for a moment. ‘And just where do you mean to take me, if I must come home? Not to your house, certainly. I have not lived under that roof since I married.’

‘But perhaps you should, if you mean to disgrace the family.’

‘I am no longer a member of your family. But if Adrian has a problem, after all this time, then he should be the one to come here, and drag me back to the country.’

‘We both know that he will not,’ her brother replied with disgust. ‘If he exercised the discipline necessary in his own house, then the job would not fall to me. And if you did not go to such lengths to make absence easy for him, he might be forced to return home and see to his business.’

‘Then why do you not go to the source of the problem and talk to him? Why do you think it necessary to harass me over the state my marriage?’

‘I have been to him,’ her brother ground out through gritted teeth. ‘I took what I learned to Folbroke, just now. He was already drunk, though it was barely noon. And he showed no interest in my company, nor your presence in town.’

Drinking again? She frowned. Adrian had seemed sober enough when they had been together the previous evening. She had hoped that problem, at least, was in abatement. ‘And that was your only fault with him?’ For there was a significant matter that her brother had not mentioned.

‘Other than his damned stubbornness and bad temper. He barely looked at me the whole time I was there. As though, if he ignored me, he would not have to answer to me.’

‘I see.’ Her poor brother would be even angrier than she had been when he learned of the trick. ‘I expect he liked your interference no better than I do.’

‘Is it truly interference to wish that my oldest friend and my dear sister would find happiness with each other, instead of behaving in ways that are a scandal?’

Emily thought of the things that had occurred in these rooms, which, while exciting, were probably some of the least scandalous things her husband had done since their marriage. ‘Perhaps we shall. Perhaps I have my own plans to rectify the breach. You must trust that I can manage this. You are not married, and cannot understand what goes on between a husband and wife, even when they are not happy.’ She thought for a moment, and smiled. ‘Especially when they are not happy. Although it might not seem so, I find that I am quite capable of managing Adrian, now that I have set my mind to try.’

Her brother shook his head. ‘You had best manage this quickly, then, for my patience with his behaviour is nearing an end. If you cannot bring him home with you, by God, I will drag him back home by the ear. I cannot stand by any longer and watch him destroy himself, Emily. I simply cannot.’

She could see, by the look in her brother’s eyes, that his interference came not from a desire to control, but sincere pain at the way his friend was likely to end. She gave him a pat on the hand. ‘Trust me. A little longer. It will be all right. You will see.’

There was the sound of yet another guest, and Hendricks walked into the room, unannounced, as though he were perfectly at home there.

And Emily saw the narrowing of David’s eyes, as he came to a conclusion that was not evident to her. ‘Mr Hendricks?’

‘Mr Eston.’ There was a similar narrowing of Hendricks’s eyes behind his glasses, as though he answered some unspoken challenge. Then he looked to her. ‘My lady, I bring a letter from your husband.’

‘Do you, now?’ David said, as though he assumed there was some ruse in play.

‘I believe he wrote it at your suggestion, sir,’ Hendricks said innocently.

‘And you were able to deliver it here so quickly without stopping first to find Emily at my town house.’

‘Oh, really, David,’ she said. ‘Mr Hendricks knows the location because he helped me to let it. And if there is a letter from Adrian, you must assume that we are more simpatico than you know. Now, if you will excuse me, I wish to read the thing in private.’

‘Very well, then.’ He shot Hendricks another suspicious look. ‘But if I do not hear of a meeting between the two of you within a week, I will go back to Adrian, and tell him what I have seen here. I suspect he will find it of interest.’

When he had left, Emily looked down at the paper in her hand, thoroughly annoyed with her brother for spoiling what she hoped might be a pleasant read. And then she noticed that it was addressed to Emily, and written in the hand of his secretary. She glared back at Hendricks. ‘So my lord finally summons me, does he?’

‘Yes, Lady Folbroke. And he asked after you. He seemed most interested in your status, and rather ashamed of the length of time since he has last seen you and the fact that he has hidden his blindness.’

She sniffed. ‘The pangs of a guilty conscience, more like.’

‘He had just received a visit from your brother, and was concerned about the reason you removed from the Eston town house. Mr Eston thinks a gentleman is involved.’

‘Too rightly. And with your sudden arrival here, he has concluded that the gentleman is you. What nonsense.’

There was a long pause as Hendricks tried to decide how to respond to his change in status from servant to Lothario. ‘Of course, my lady.’

‘And my husband’s response to this rumour?’

Hendricks held out the letter to her again.

‘I see that. And that it is written in your hand. What, in your opinion, was his reaction to rumours of my infidelity?’

‘In my opinion?’ repeated Hendricks, as though he wished to make it clear that he did not speak for her husband. ‘He is jealous, my lady.’

She felt a brief moment of triumph, followed by annoyance. ‘So what is sauce for the gander is not sauce for the goose.’ She tapped the letter with her nail. ‘And has he set an agenda for this meeting?’

‘He means to tell you of his problems.’

‘And I already know of them. What is meant to come after this grand revelation?’

‘I think he means to come to some understanding between you.’

She tossed the paper on to the fire. ‘In which I am more discreet and he does not change at all. If that is the case, then I hardly need to stir myself, for I am having no part of that.’ She smiled at Hendricks, trying not to look as smug as she felt. ‘I am enjoying myself far too much to stop now. And if the thought of my happiness without him causes him discomfort, then all the better.’

‘Do you wish to send him a message to that effect?’

‘No.’ For some reason, Adrian’s sudden need to see her had angered her to the point where she could hardly speak, probably because she had worked hard and long to quash any hope that it would ever happen. ‘There is no message. If he asks, tell him I have refused. Since he has waited years to summon me, he should not be surprised to find me otherwise engaged on the night he is ready to unburden his soul.’

‘Very good.’ Hendricks frowned at her as though he did not mean it.

And he was right. It was not good. Her behaviour was foolish and childish. It should have been welcome news to find that he worried about her, pined after her and had worn the paint from her picture through constant handling of it. Instead, it reminded her of all the time that had been wasted. She resented being the afterthought to her husband’s infidelities, almost as much as she enjoyed receiving the attention from them. She sighed. ‘I am sorry, Hendricks, that I cannot make this easier upon him. His wife is quite out of patience with him. But I will wait upon him here, tonight, as I have done before. Perhaps he will be more free with his thoughts to his lover.’