Maryann was not destined to experience enjoyment of any kind for the remainder of the evening. After being thoroughly catechized by Bella about her betrothal to Viscount Tammadge and her relationship with Stephen Farrell, she had to endure a homily from Mrs. Webster. The widow took it as a personal affront that Maryann had come to her house “only,” as she phrased it, “to snub her nieces by avoiding the music room during their performances.”
Upon returning home, Irene added to Maryann’s discomfort by gently pointing out the impropriety of leading a younger friend astray and appropriating the services of a footman not in their employ. Irene, it appeared, had come in search of her errant daughter and the young lady sent to fetch her, and was dutifully informed by the second footman stationed in the foyer that Lady Maryann and Miss Bella Effingham had “gorn fer a walk.”
Chastened, Maryann retreated to her chamber, but her ordeal was far from over. As soon as she found herself alone and undistracted by scolds or questions that could not be fully answered, she fretted about Stephen and Meg.
Stephen had expected to be called by the Bow Street runners when Tammadge made his move, but the few words of Simms’s message she had overheard were ambiguous and confusing. “It’s Miss Meg. She’s just—”
Surely, if Meg had been carried off to the Venture, the runner would have been more specific? But against this argument spoke Stephen’s quick disappearance, which pointed to hot-footed pursuit.
Worried and miserable, Maryann got ready for bed. Pulling off the betrothal ring and thrusting it among an assortment of baubles and trinkets atop her dresser, she berated herself for parading in the street at a time when she might overset Stephen’s arrangements to catch Tammadge. The next moment, she regretted that she had not persisted and completed a full circle around the square.
Anything could have happened, and she wouldn’t know until Stephen sent word.
She huddled under the covers, wishing it were morning and wondering how early she might expect to hear from him. Stephen had a servant, Tolly. He might send him as soon as he had taken the shaving water to his master.
Or Stephen might personally call on her, taking the front steps two at a time, his hair windblown, for he’d be hatless as always—some time, when she had nothing else to worry about, she must ask why.
She pictured stately James opening the door, Stephen giving the footman an impudent grin or a wink and demanding to see her to make his report about the evening.
What the news would be, became less important than the man who’d bring it. Her mind refused to worry and speculate any more—as though it had been waiting for the moment when she would focus her attention on Stephen and herself.
Her heart started to pound and a warm glow spread slowly, deliciously, from her head to her toes. She knew exactly how it would be when they’d meet face to face in the morning. Many a time had she lived a moment like that in her secret dreams. Only this time, it would be no dream. It would be no faceless shadow who took her into his arms.
Stephen would embrace and kiss her. Again and again, he’d assure her of his love. And she would tell him that she loved him…
When Maryann awoke in the morning, her first thoughts were of Stephen and that she would see him before long. Even the uncertainty of Meg’s fate could not dim the glow in her eyes or stop the singing in her heart.
She did not go to the Sloane Street gardens, nor, despite her promise, did she make plans to visit Hannah Moss. She installed herself in the small downstairs parlor where she could hear any carriage that stopped, or, if a certain gentleman happened to be walking, she’d be the first to hear the knocker.
As the day progressed, the look in her eyes became harder. Surely he must know that she was anxiously waiting for news. How dare he let her stew and worry! And if he did not have time to spare for the woman he said he loved, a brief note would do as well as his visit.
A note, of course, would not do half as well as a personal appearance, but by the time the butler came into the parlor to light the lamps, Maryann would have settled for anything, any kind of message that assured her Stephen was safe. If Tammadge had discovered the trap …
It did not bear thinking of, yet try as she might, she could not give her thoughts a different direction. She pictured him captured and bound aboard the Venture. She pictured him slain, his body tossed into the river by Tammadge’s cutthroats.
Twice within the hour, she sent word to the stables to have the horses put to. Twice, she countermanded the order, afraid Stephen would come, or a message would be delivered while she was off on a wild goose chase.
She stood beside the fireplace and was about to tug the bellpull once again when she heard the door open. She whirled, her mind so totally focused on Stephen that she expected to see none but him.
It was Irene who stood in the doorway, one hand pressed against the jamb as though she were in need of support.
“Rivington wants to see you, Maryann. In the study.”
Maryann did not move or speak immediately. The appearance of her mother when she expected Stephen, and her father’s command, had snapped the tension pulling her taut as a fiddler’s bow. Her legs turned to jelly and her mind felt numb.
Slowly, she crossed the room. She had not seen her mother since luncheon, and although she had been preoccupied with her own thoughts, she had noticed that Irene was looking quite chipper at that time. The change was startling. Irene’s face was pinched, and her eyes had the strained look that presaged a severe headache.
“Sit down, Mama. You look about to swoon.”
“No, I am to return to the study immediately.” Irene lowered her voice. “I came to fetch you myself because I wanted to give you warning. Tammadge is there.”
Maryann blinked. “Tammadge in the study,” she repeated blankly.
Her stomach knotted. Since Tammadge was free, Stephen had failed. Or there had been no abduction at all. Or Stephen and Meg were both—
“And … and he brought a young man.”
“Stephen?”
She knew it could not be Stephen before she finished saying the name. And yet, she must have cherished a forlorn hope, else the expression on her mother’s face would not have had such a damping effect.
“No, oh no! Not Mr. Farrell.” Irene’s voice shook. “But I mustn’t say any more. Rivington will explain.”
Clasping her daughter’s hand, Irene started down the hallway where the study was located next to the library-cum-gambling salon.
“Don’t tarry, child. You know how cross he gets when he is made to wait.”
“Mama, I am no longer a child who must be led by the hand. And I shan’t run away, I promise you.”
A horrifying thought occurred to Maryann. “Or is it that you’re holding my hand because”—her voice caught—“because you know I will need your comfort? Does Tammadge bring bad news about Stephen?”
Irene came to a stop a short distance from the study. She cast a harried look at the closed door, then at her daughter. It was difficult to think or to focus on anything; the vise around her head was tightening unmercifully.
“Maryann, this has nothing to do with Mr. Farrell. It concerns you alone. Your life. Your future.”
The study door opened. The Earl of Rivington stuck his grizzled head into the hallway and bellowed, “Dammit, Irene! Didn’t I tell you to bring the chit immediately? That I would talk to her myself?”
Irene flinched at the loud voice, but Maryann raised her chin and straightened her shoulders.
“In a moment you may tell me anything you like, Father. Just let me take Mama upstairs. You must see she’s not well.”
“I’ll stay,” said Irene and walked past her husband into the study.
Maryann measured her father with a look that would in the past have earned her a box on the ears. But although his face turned a mottled purple, sure mark of a mounting ire, his eyes did not meet hers and with a jerk of the head, he indicated that she was to follow her mother.
Without looking right or left, Maryann swept into the narrow room that held her father’s desk, several straight-backed chairs, and cabinets containing ledgers and business papers.
Quite often, Rivington’s secretary could be found working at the desk, but on this day Mr. Winsome was apparently closeted in his own dingy office next to the basement stairs. Instead, Maryann saw a youth standing at the window, his back to the door. A blue coat, padded at the shoulders and nipped at the waist, and a pair of tight, canary yellow pantaloons proclaimed an aspiration to dandyism. Unfortunately, the fashionable raiment also stressed and drew attention to the stockiness of his build.
As she took a seat beside her mother in front of the desk, the young man turned his head, watching her over his shoulder. She judged him to be about her own age, although a sullen look about the mouth made him appear younger and distorted his features, which, she believed, might be rather pleasant when he smiled.
At first glance he looked familiar, but she did not recall having seen him before. She acknowledged him with a nod; he answered with a scowl, then turned back to what must have been a most absorbing view of the flagway leading to the service entrance of the neighbor’s house.
Maryann gave a mental shrug and angled her chair so she might observe Tammadge leaning against the mantelpiece on her left. It took willpower, almost more than she possessed, to train her gaze on him.
How she despised him, loathed him, now that she knew what dirty business schemes were conceived behind that high forehead! There was no doubt in her mind, however, that whatever Rivington planned to tell her was connected with Tammadge. She wanted to see his eyes, the only feature that might give away his true feelings.
“Good evening, Tammadge.” It might not be a wise thing to do, but she could not stop herself from taunting him. “You must have entered via the mews and Father’s, uh, library. For I did not hear the knocker on the front door.”
“How observant you are.” At his blandest, he bowed, then resumed his former casual pose, one elbow resting on the mantel shelf, legs crossed at the ankles.
She wanted to scream at him, ask what he had done with Stephen. With Meg. But she could not be certain that he had indeed discovered Stephen’s involvement with the Bow Street court, and she must dissemble. She must be the actress Meg wanted to be.
She didn’t trust her voice, not yet, and merely leaned back in the chair, her arms crossed over her breasts.
Expecting that her father would settle himself behind the desk, she was surprised to see him join the youth at the window. The earl looked at Tammadge, as though asking permission to speak.
Barely noticeable, Tammadge shook his head. “Since it was I who brought young Master Reginald to town, permit me to smooth your path just a little, my dear Rivington.”
Against her will, Maryann’s interest was piqued. Every other Rivington male carried the name Reginald, including her father and the cousin who had beheaded her favorite doll and would some day inherit the tide and the estates.
“Do I have a cousin I have not yet met?” she asked, looking at the youth in a different light.
She could still see only his back, but it did seem to her that there was a resemblance to the executioner Reggie in the young man’s square shoulders and short neck. And, perhaps, a resemblance to her father’s beefy shape as well.
Her gaze shifted to Rivington, whose face had once more turned a mottled purple. His jaw worked furiously, but he spoke not a word.
“My dear Maryann,” Tammadge said silkily. “Three days ago, you asked why your father wanted a gambling salon so badly that he would agree to a partnership with me.”
Maryann tightened her arms over her chest lest he see her shiver. He knew she did not trust him. She shouldn’t have flung her suspicion in his face—suspicion that he had gambled with William Fant, and cheated.
Collecting her wits, she said coldly, “I do not see what the gambling salon has to do with Master Reginald.”
Tammadge raised his hand and gently fanned himself with his handkerchief.
“Don’t you, my sweet, innocent Maryann?”
She heard the soft hiss of her mother’s breath, her father’s snort, and a sound from the young man at the window that was a mixture of a sob and a choke of laughter.
The truth hit her in the face.
Reginald spun away from the window, facing her with features that were the younger version of her father at his most belligerent.
“I’m your brother, Lady Maryann. Your father’s bastard.”
“Yes,” she said slowly. “So I gathered. How do you do, Reginald?”
He sneered. “You didn’t know. You had no notion until I told you. Confess it!”
“I could dispute with you, but I shan’t,” she said. “What’s the point of brangling?”
Her heart hammered. She had realized who he must be before he had spoken. What she did not know was how she felt about the young man—her brother. Half brother. He seemed so much like her father, and yet there was something in his face that her father’s had never shown. Vulnerability.
She glanced at her mother’s pale face. No matter how disastrous the marriage, how disliked the husband—a sudden confrontation with Rivington’s son by another woman would be a harrowing experience. And that Irene had not until this day known of Reginald’s existence, Maryann did not doubt.
But why had Tammadge taken it upon himself to thrust Rivington’s illegitimate son under their noses? And what did the establishment of a gaming hell in the library have to do with it all?
She sensed Tammadge’s eyes on her, and knew without being told that he was well aware of the questions buzzing in her mind.
She’d be dashed if she asked.
For the first time since she had entered the study, Irene spoke up. “Reginald, you must be very hungry by this time. I believe, up in Oxford, they feed you boys at six o’clock.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He hesitated, then bowed awkwardly. “I’m devilish sharp-set. Lord Tammadge did not think it necessary to stop, save to change teams. And then I had time only for a sandwich or two.”
“In that case you must certainly eat something to tide you over.” Irene, distressed though she was, smiled kindly at the young man. “I’m afraid dinner will be rather late tonight.”
She looked at her husband and issued the first order she had ever given him. “Ring for Melville and tell him to look after the boy.”
Rivington’s eyes bulged and his color came and went in a most alarming fashion. He looked about to explode, but Irene did not lower her gaze or, Maryann noted proudly, show in any way that she was intimidated.
Finally, Rivington stalked to the desk and tugged the bellpull on the wall behind it.
When, presently, the butler had borne young Master Reginald off, Irene said in a tone of voice that reminded Maryann strongly of her German grandmother, “And now, I think, we shall have no more theatricals. It is time that Maryann be told what this is all about.”
She measured Tammadge, then her husband, with a scathing look. “Rivington, will you tell your daughter what you explained to me earlier? Or will you leave that up to my lord Tammadge as well?”
And just as though it had indeed been the indomitable Baroness von Astfeld und Hahndorf who had spoken, Rivington received the rebuke in silence.
Tammadge waved his handkerchief. “Rivington may have the honor. Though I don’t doubt,” he added softly, “but he’ll make a mull of it.”
Maryann looked at her father. “Why does Tammadge know about your son, but, apparently, no one else?”
“He found out because he set his man of business to snoop on me,” the earl barked, then, with a look at Tammadge, closed his mouth tightly.
“Is he blackmailing you?”
Rivington sank into the deep leather chair behind the desk. Leaning back, his fingertips beating a tattoo on the armrest, he glared at his daughter.
“I’ll have no more impertinent questions from you, gal! Tammadge tells me you’ve shown signs of wanting to draw back from the engagement. I’ll have none of that, I tell you! Tammadge is my partner. He laid out his blunt. Still does, as a matter of fact, for wine, food, etc. And I—”
“You, sir,” Maryann interrupted, “staked your daughter as surety against his money.”
Rivington’s massive body shot forward. He leaned across the desk, his bloodshot eyes narrowed. “You said yes quickly enough when you found out he’d settle a fair share of that money on you!”
Maryann blanched. The argument was irrefutable. The generous settlement had indeed been an incentive to accept Tammadge’s proposal. Her shame and regret were no less bitter for knowing that she had been duped, had been made to believe she entered the marriage contract of her own free will when, in fact, she would have been given no choice had she shown herself reluctant.
She spoke with forced calm. “I want to know why you’re gambling and cheating when you’ve always stressed that no slur must be cast upon the Rivington name. And how your—that young man ties into it.”
“He is my son!” Rivington shouted. “The only son I’ll have. And I can give him nothing but the money I make gambling!”
“But you’re wealthy. The estates—”
Rivington’s fist slammed on the desk. “Do you know what it takes to maintain a house in London? Do you know what it costs to dower five daughters? And when I’m gone, the estates and the tide will be your cousin’s!” Bitterly, Rivington added, “There’ll be nothing for my son.”
Maryann unfolded her arms. Although she was certain she knew the answer, she had to ask one more question.
“And if I do not marry Tammadge?”
Rivington drew a shuddering breath. “You will marry him. Lest you want to see me arrested for debts and for cheating, and your mother turned out into the streets!”