“Are you certain you do not recall that Mr. Crandall ever mentioned playing piquet?” Amabelle quizzed her stepmother. She rolled a length of lint. “I do not know how he won the last two sets.”
Sarah pressed a hand to her aching forehead. “What?”
“Do you still have the headache, Stepmama? Perhaps an infusion of Bishop’s wort would help?” When Sarah blanched, Amabelle went to her. “You should lie down.”
Sarah tried to summon a smile but failed. “It would be better if I continued.”
Amabelle returned to the work. “Mr. Tarrant may call today to let us know when we are to see Mrs. Edwins. We should include Mr. Crandall, do you not agree?”
Sarah stood. “I do not wish to go to the play.” The roll of muslin in her lap fell to the floor. “Drat!” she exclaimed, as it unwound much like Lady Jersey’s callous words had unravelled her brief happiness.
You have to stop thinking about it. About him. Retrieving one end, she rolled the cloth again. “I am going to lie down.”
“If Mr. Tarrant calls?”
One glance told Sarah that Amabelle would not give up. “Make whatever arrangements you wish.”
“And Mr. Crandall?”
“Do stop carrying on about losing at piquet,” Sarah snapped. She thrust the muslin into the basket beside Amabelle and hurried from the small room off the kitchen where they attended the wounded troopers.
Cauley poked in his head and met Amabelle’s puzzled stare. “Something wrong?”
“Stepmama has the headache.”
The batman frowned. He recalled what he had overheard. “Then she’s had it since Wednesday night. I didn’t notice she was prone to megrims last spring.”
“She is not,” Amabelle said with some asperity as she stood. Never comfortable with Cauley, she walked away without another word.
* * *
“I’m sorry, sir. I’m instructed to say the ladies are out,” Cauley declared putting forth his best command of the language called for by his new position. He preened inwardly at the praise Lady Edgerton had given him when she had noted the improvement.
Hadleigh stared at his valet. “All of the ladies?”
“That’s what I’ve been told to tell you,” he repeated and jerked his head to the side repeatedly.
Hadleigh considered the batman. “Miss Edgerton and Miss Amabelle have gone out?”
“Yes, sir, just as I said.”
“And Lady Edgerton?”
“It’d be wise if you checked the rear garden gate, sir. Its bolt might needs to be replaced.”
“Indeed?”
“You said we was to be careful,” Cauley answered solemnly. “Should I tell the ladies you called?”
Hadleigh studied him, then he grinned. “Tell Miss Amabelle I shall check the Lyceum bill today.”
Ordering the footman holding his horse to walk it, Hadleigh made for the rear garden gate.
Leaves crunched beneath his riding boots as he strode into the garden. Hadleigh breathed in the fall air scented with coal smoke and longed for the invigorating air at Tarrant Hall. Seeing Sarah, he imagined her working in the herb beds at the Hall and joy swelled his heart.
The sensation that she was being watched turned Sarah. She fought to remain impassive despite the love in his gaze.
Hadleigh strode to her. “My dear Sarah.”
His gaze scorched her soul as he caressed her cheek. Sarah trembled. “You must not refer to me in that manner.”
Hadleigh’s eyes went from quicksilver to steel. “We are alone, my love.”
Sarah drew back. “Please do not make this difficult.”
Cold terror struck Hadleigh’s heart. “You have perhaps misunderstood my intent,” he said. “I do not offer you insult. I—” he paused and captured her hands.
“Sarah, will you do me the honour of consenting to be my wife?”
She stared at his fine strong hands encasing hers. The fire their touch raised threatened her resolve. Sarah willed his good to the centre of her thoughts.
“Why do you remain silent?” Hadleigh asked. “I will love and honour you all of our lives.”
“Say no more,” Sarah said. She neither removed her hands nor looked up. “You do me great honour.” Relieved that her voice grew stronger, she continued. “But I cannot marry you.”
“What nonsense is this?” Hadleigh demanded, releasing her hands. He raised her chin until their eyes met. “You shall keep your independence. I have no designs on it. Your funds can be put in trust for our children.”
Sarah went numb. Everything she had dredged up to argue against the course she knew necessary evaporated with his words. “There is Mr. Hale. While Rupert is a prisoner I cannot—” His disbelief halted her.
Sarah hugged the rightness of what she was doing to her heart. “I am unable to bear children.” That truth devastated her with a new force.
Realizing she was determined to dissuade him, Hadleigh frowned. He lowered his hand. Children. He touched his father’s pocket watch. Then her wretchedness smote him. His heart ached for her.
“It does not matter,” Hadleigh told her. “I love you, not what you can give me.”
His words tortured Sarah. “I cannot marry you.”
“But you love me. I know it,” Hadleigh insisted. “Can you set aside everything between us?”
Sarah turned away. “My behaviour was reprehensible. I did not mean to give you false hope.”
Confounded, Hadleigh stormed, “False hope?!”
Sarah lowered her eyes, prayed she would hold firm.
“Come, Sarah,” he snorted. “Stop this pretence. It is I you love. Hale will accept that.”
The slam of a door announced Molly’s approach. “My lady, your brother has called. What shall I tell him?”
“That I shall be with him in a few moments. Please have Cook send up tea and cakes,” Sarah answered with false calm. She looked at Hadleigh, summoned her best matronly smile.
“You shall see upon contemplation that you have had the greatest luck to escape the parson’s mousetrap. Mr. Hale is much more suitable to my proclivities.”
For a moment she thought he was going to draw her into his arms but the discipline she so admired prevented him.
With a curt bow, Hadleigh strode away.
The worst is past. I need to continue this pretence to ensure his happiness. Sarah shivered and hugged herself.
* * *
With a sense of unease, Lucian Merristorm gazed through the smoky haze filling the Blue Devil. He glanced at Vicar, who glared at their surroundings with rigid disapproval. In the establishments common among the men of the haut ton visited earlier in the eve they had learned that Leonard had bragged of winning big at this particular hell.
“Don’t tell me you’ve never been in a place like this,” Merristorm chided his companion.
“How can we learn anything about Leonard here?” Goodchurch repeated an earlier question. Merristorm’s low wicked chuckle and jab in the ribs alerted Vicar to the approach of two women. He gaped at the sheer gowns that draped their breasts and hips. “My God.”
“No proverb?” Merristorm asked with hard-edged sarcasm. He propelled the lieutenant forward. “Which do you prefer—luscious brunette or bewitching black?”
Goodchurch tried to halt. “Neither,” he stammered.
“There is a time for everything or so I believe the Bible says,” insisted the captain.
A broad-shouldered man of medium height stepped between the two women. He wrapped an arm around each. “To think, Merristorm, you once touted innocence,” he rumbled in a silky voice. “How good to see you have renounced such twaddle.”
Startled by the resemblance between the two men, Goodchurch glanced from this roué to the captain. The hatred gleaming in Merristorm’s dark eyes dismayed him. The rogue nuzzled the neck of the brunette while he fondled both women’s breasts. Revulsion rose with understanding.
“Let’s go,” clipped Merristorm, and made to turn.
Heedless of the women, the gentleman thrust forward and snagged the captain’s elbow. Merristorm shook off his hand.
The man reached out and brushed the back of a finger across Merristorm’s cheek. “You did not call on me when in town last spring,” he complained. When the captain stood rigid, he sighed.
“Still not speaking to me?” Shrugging he turned to Goodchurch. “What is a man to do with such a son?”
“Leave be,” spat Merristorm. His roiling emotions made him too aware of Goodchurch’s gasp.
“But first a toast,” challenged Stranton Merristorm, Marquess Halstrom of the infamous hedonistic Hrycus Club. Reaching inside his coat, he removed a finely wrought silver flask. He took a small sip, then offered it to his son.
Merristorm clenched his jaw but took it and tilted it up. When he tasted juniper, he jerked it away. “What is this?”
“The elixir that insures my prowess with the ladies,” the marquess smirked. “From the mountains of France brewed by the holiest of men. I find that quite ... provocative.” A leer spread across his full lips.
The captain shook his head.
“Carthusians,” Halstrom explained, “or so they were before they were declared citoyens. Their brew lengthens life as well as making it, ahh, richer.” Halstrom drew the women against him. “We go upstairs. Join us, Lucian. I promise it will divert.”
Merristorm lurched away.
Goodchurch gaped for several seconds then followed him. With such a father, ‘haps I would try to drink myself to death.
A sudden burst of cheers from one of the tables caused Vicar to look back. The Prussian stood behind the young man being congratulated. “Do you know the fellow who just won?” he asked a passing waiter.
The man shook his head and hurried on.
The press of something soft and warm into his back startled Goodchurch.
A sloe-eyed young woman, her glance far older than her years, glided a hand up the sleeve of his jacket. “I seen ye watchin’ thet bloke,” she said. “What would ye ‘ave for Annie if she’d tell ye not only who the bloke be but who be with ‘im?” she teased.
“Why, I, I—” Goodchurch stammered. He racked his mind to order and moved away from her roving hands at the same time.
“Surely ye’ve a guinea for me?” she purred and ran her hands over his pockets with practiced ease.
“Guinea? Yes.” The lieutenant pulled out a handful of coins and fingered through them.
Annie scooped up the contents. “T’was two gent’men that came, though usually it were four. The tall stiff prig is von Willmar and the chubby bloke who won is Gough.” She twirled a finger in a loose strand of her hair. “Wish that’d be the handsome un. He’s more generous.”
“Do you know the other two gentlemen’s names?” When she shook her head, he asked, “Have they come here long?”
“‘Haps a couple of weeks.” Annie shrugged and twined her arms about Goodchurch’s neck. “‘Haps ye’d like to go above?”
Vicar’s gaze flitted to the stairs and the marquess’ threesome. An intense heat stole up his neck. “No,” he said, and put her away from him. “Must go after my friend.”
“Another time,” Annie grinned. “There’s naught to fear. I wouldn’t eat ye ... unless ye wanted it.”
Goodchurch fled. Not finding Merristorm outside, he loosed a string of the more effusive curses he had learned on the Peninsula. Vicar waved down a hackney. I hope my visit to my aunts in the morn yields something useful about von Willmar. How fortunate I remembered that they had a long acquaintance with the old Earl of Lade.
* * *
The pounding on the door that woke de la Croix coincided with the chime of three in the morning. He yawned and stretched to ease his stiffness and then rose from the leather chair. Halfway down the stairs, he heard Gervase plodding up from the basement. “Go back to bed,” he instructed. “I shall see to it.”
When he opened the door Hadleigh fell against him. “Are you hurt?” André demanded. Dense brandy fumes answered.
Hadleigh clutched at the ruffles on André’s shirt. “Somethin’ went wrong. Plied Lade and Pinlar with port.”
André put one arm around Hadleigh’s waist and tugged the other arm across his shoulders. “Can you manage the stairs?”
“Certes,” Hadleigh slurred and staggered forward under de la Croix’s guidance. On the second step, he lost his balance and waved his arms to get it back. “Trick,” he complained. “Always a trick.”
“Let’s try again,” André said. This time they made it halfway before Hadleigh reared back. André pulled him forward. As he did so Hadleigh half-turned and sank like a stone.
He looked up at André. “I’m drunk as a sot.”
The baron sat beside him. He put an arm across his friend’s shoulders. “What happened?”
“She says she will marry Hale.”
“Who?” André asked.
“Hale—the physician who is a French prisoner.”
“Non!”
“Damme you, yes.”
A sharp, urgent rap turned André’s gaze to the door.
Another bout of knocking rattled it. “Now what?” he speculated aloud as he trotted down the steps. I wondered if Sheraton has a design for outer doors that allows one to view callers.
“Who is it?”
A youthful voice implored, “S’il vous plaît ouvrez la porte. J’ai un message du Pascual. Open the door. I have a message from Pascual.”
André opened the door and found a grubby hand thrust towards his face. He saw at once the fleur-de-lis coin he had minted for his couriers to use to identify themselves. “S’il vous plaît entré.”