Chapter SEVEN

“Oh, my goodness!” a female voice gushed. “Ian Clayton! Is it really you?”

Ian stared down the dark street to where a woman was leaning out the window of a fancy carriage that was parked in front of a restaurant.

A grinning and very pregnant Emma Fitzgerald—make that Emma Clayton, Lady Wakefield—maneuvered the steps of the vehicle with the help of a footman, and she approached from down the walk. Her figure was limned in the light cast by the carriage lamp. She was big as a house and beautifully attired in an emerald dress that set off the auburn in her hair and the rose in her cheeks.

He wasn’t surprised that she’d shunned a conservative wardrobe and had done nothing to conceal her delicate condition. She was experienced in midwifery and considered birthing to be normal and respectable. On seeing her again, he tamped down his delight, embarrassed to have it revealed.

He hadn’t spoken with her since he and John had argued, since Ian had left Wakefield Manor and never talked to John again, save to threaten his very life if he failed to do the right thing and marry the Emma he’d ruined. Ian had suspected that he’d eventually run into her, but the encounter had arrived too soon, and he wasn’t positive how to act.

Luckily, John wasn’t present. Ian had no desire to converse with the disreputable bounder, and he would have hated to place Emma in an awkward situation.

Jack was standing next to him, the two of them on their way to join Rebecca at the theater. They’d quarreled as to whether Jack would attend, too, so they weren’t in the best mood to greet Emma.

Something was eating away at Jack, something important and troubling, but Ian wouldn’t probe for what it was. Jack would blurt it out when he was ready. There was no use pestering him.

Still, for reasons Ian didn’t comprehend, he wished he hadn’t brought Jack along. Emma would confide to John that they had another brother, and Ian didn’t want John to know.

Jack had a childlike infatuation with John, and he was intrigued by all that John symbolized as far as their noble heritage. Absurd as it sounded, Ian was terrified that John would steal Jack away. John was a dynamic and charismatic individual, and with Jack being Ian’s only kin, Ian couldn’t bear to share him. Not with John. Not with anyone.

“Hello, Lady Wakefield,” he said as she neared, and he bowed.

“Lady Wakefield!” She laughed and peered around. “Whenever I hear that title attached to my name, I automatically presume the person is referring to someone else. You knew me when I was Miss Fitzgerald. I think that means you should call me Emma.”

“Hello, Emma.”

“How have you been?”

She took his hands and squeezed them, and he couldn’t resist her friendly charm.

“I’m fine.”

“John and I have missed you so much. We chat about you every day.”

At the tidings, he suffered the silliest spurt of gladness, but he ignored it. She was the ultimate diplomat, and he was certain she was lying. John would never have mentioned him. Their last fight had been too hideous, the basis of John’s dislike too shameful and too appropriate. There could be no reconciliation.

Emma spun toward Jack and asked, “And who is your handsome companion?”

Huddled in the shadows as they were, it was difficult to see Jack clearly. With his blond hair and blue eyes—that were an exact replica of her husband’s—his resemblance to John was uncanny.

She clutched a fist over her heart and muttered, “Oh, my Lord.”

Ian reached out to steady her. “What is it?”

“Is he … is he … John’s son? I had no idea. Does John know?”

“No, no,” Ian hastily soothed, “he’s not John’s son. You can’t tell here in the dark, but he’s much too old.”

“Oh … well…” Her pulse slowed, her composure reasserting itself.

“I’m sorry. It never occurred to me that you might make such a shocking assumption. This is Mr. Jack Clayton Romsey.”

Jack bowed, too. “Lady Wakefield, I’m so pleased to finally meet you. I apologize for any distress.”

Emma frowned at Ian. “A Clayton cousin?”

“A brother,” Ian gently said.

“A brother! John will be thrilled.” She turned her radiant smile on Jack. “What is your story, Jack? May I call you Jack?”

“I’d be honored, milady.”

“Why do we know nothing of you? How did you come to be living with Ian?”

Ian explained, “He showed up on my stoop a few months ago.”

“Really? Just like that? What a splendid conclusion for both of you.”

“I had a letter,” Jack stated, “that my mother gave to me when I was a boy, and I always kept it. It was from my father.”

“How very romantic!” Emma beamed.

As if a silent signal had been sent, she glanced over her shoulder. A man had exited the restaurant, and Ian and Jack espied him at the same time.

“There’s John now. John!” she summoned her husband. “You won’t believe who I’ve found.”

Though he was only twenty or thirty feet away, the true distance between them was as vast as an ocean. John pulled up short and glared at Ian, but didn’t speak.

“Who’s that?” Jack inquired. “Is it Lord Wakefield?”

“Let’s go, Jack,” Ian said. He grabbed the younger man by the arm and tried to drag him away.

Jack shook him off. “I want to be introduced.”

“Jack! Come on!” Ian insisted more sternly.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Emma scolded. “Of course you’ll stay and meet him.”

“I’m fond of you, Emma,” Ian quietly replied, “but don’t put yourself in the middle of this. You don’t belong there.”

“Nonsense! Whatever concerns John, concerns me, too. He’s not angry, and the two of you will not continue this idiotic feud. Not if I have anything to say about it.”

“It’s not about anger, Emma. It was perfidy and betrayal, pure and simple.”

She glowered at John, then at Ian, but neither of them had moved an inch, and she marched to John, ready to do what, Ian couldn’t guess. Emma was like a force of nature, positive she could bend everyone to her will, but not in this case. His conduct toward John was beyond forgiveness.

It was the most humiliating interval of his life, and he wasn’t about to tarry and be given a cut direct that would have had High Society gossiping for ages. Not by John—whom he’d loved so dearly. He wouldn’t be able to bear it.

“Come, Jack. Let’s go.” His brother didn’t budge, and Ian repeated, “Jack!”

Ian whipped away and hurried off, taking an opposite route from where Lord and Lady Wakefield were furiously whispering, and he didn’t peek over to see if Jack had obeyed his command to depart. If Jack had remained behind, if he’d loitered like a sycophant, hoping for Wakefield’s notice and blessing, Ian would be crushed.

He rushed around the corner, and for an instant, he thought John bellowed, Ian, wait! but he was certain his fevered mind was trying to switch fantasy into reality. He didn’t stop.

Momentarily, Jack caught up to him. With Jack torn between the sibling he didn’t know and the one he did, familiarity had won out, and Ian’s relief was so great that he was amazed his knees didn’t buckle.

He was terribly undone by the encounter, but he didn’t want Jack to perceive his upset, and as Jack sidled nearer, Ian’s face was an expressionless mask. Only the shaking of his hands provided any indication of how seriously he’d been affected.

They walked on, proceeding toward the entrance to the theater.

Finally, Jack broke the awkward silence. “Lady Wakefield seems very nice.”

“She’s wonderful,” Ian agreed.

“What did you do to Lord Wakefield that caused your fight?”

“Nothing.”

“Liar. Tell me. It can’t be that ghastly.”

It was on the tip of his tongue to confess. He’d never apprised anyone about that awful night, about the horrid accusations that had flown, or the painful information that had been revealed. He was wretched, keeping it all in, acting as if none of it mattered. As he tried to gamble himself into poverty and drink himself into oblivion, the truth was eating him alive.

“It’s water under the bridge,” he mumbled, incapable of justifying.

Recognizing that he’d get no answers, Jack sighed. “Will Rebecca be joining us?”

“She said she would. Why?”

“I’d just as soon not sit with her.”

“I’ve purchased a box, so she’ll be there. She’s too much of an attention-seeker to miss the opportunity to have all of London gawking at her.”

“That’s what I was afraid of.”

“Do me a favor,” Ian snapped.

“What?”

“Don’t make a scene. I’m not in the mood for any of your antics with her.”

“I know how to behave in public,” Jack bristled. “Regardless of what you think, I wasn’t raised by wolves.”

In a snit, he stormed off. They were outside the theater, and he waded into the crowd and vanished, making it a perfectly bad ending to a perfectly bad day.

Ian was still reeling from his earlier spat with Rebecca and Caro. Rebecca would get over it. She was too bent on marriage, and she’d persuade herself to forgive him. As to Caro, she’d never speak to him again, and the prospect was more troubling than it should have been.

At his loss of her esteem, coupled with his stumbling on John and Emma, he was completely disordered, barely able to put one foot in front of the other. As he climbed the steps into the building, he was incredibly self-conscious, feeling more isolated and more alone than he’d ever been.

With his disposition being so foul, the notion of enduring a tepid comedy was abhorrent. He almost turned to leave, but he’d invited Rebecca, so he started up the stairs to his box. He trudged toward it, when the horde split, and he was face-to-face with the Earl of Derby’s party.

The Earl, himself, wasn’t present. It was the most open secret in the city that he rarely consorted with his wife, so it was the Countess, with her only son, Adam, as her escort. Behind them, appearing miserable and oddly mismatched, were Caro and her fiancé, Edward Shelton.

Shelton was lumbering and obese, his gray hair thin and balding, and he was much older than Ian recollected. In stark contrast, Caro looked like a shiny angel. She was dressed in a silvery gown that shimmered when she moved, the sapphire trim enhancing the blue in her eyes, making them seem larger and more luminous. Her blond hair was swept up in an intricate chignon, a few ringlets dangling on either side to accent her beautiful features.

Her cheeks were flushed, her back ramrod straight, and she was trembling slightly, giving him the distinct impression that she was furious.

Had her mother said something vile? Or had Caroline and Shelton been quarreling? Shelton had his hand on her arm, guiding her through the melee, and Ian suffered the most virulent surge of jealousy.

His head flashed with disturbing images of Caro’s wedding night, of fat, perverted Edward pinning her down and ravaging her as she pleaded for mercy.

The vision was so clear, and so disgusting, that Ian could scarcely keep from racing over and yanking Shelton away. He couldn’t stand to have Shelton touching her, couldn’t stand to know that—very soon—Shelton would have the right to do whatever he wished to her.

Her wedding was a month away, and Ian felt ill just from considering what it would mean. Caro had been betrothed to John for years, and Ian had stoically accepted the circumstance. Despite the demands of both fathers, John had had no intention of ever marrying her, so she’d been safely single. But now, jolted by the hard evidence that she was engaged to someone who was prepared to follow through, he was too distraught for words.

He wanted to burst into the middle of the family gathering, wanted to force them to acknowledge his existence. He never approached them in public, for he refused to give them the chance to snub him. Previously, due to his kinship with John, they’d been coolly courteous, but since John’s split from Caro, they were overtly hostile. He avoided them like the plague, but suddenly, he was determined to talk to Caro, to witness some hint of affection that would tell him he still mattered to her.

It was folly, it was insanity, his rage being all out of proportion to the situation, but he couldn’t put it aside. He marched over, bold as brass, and insinuated himself in front of Lady Derby, coming so near that she would have had to knock him down in order to skirt around him.

“Good evening, Countess,” he said.

“Mr. Clayton,” she replied with a regal nod.

As if he were vermin, she stepped by him and into the box, with Adam pausing to hold the curtain for her.

“Adam,” Ian said, “how have you been?”

“It’s Lord Silverton to you,” Adam growled as if they hadn’t been cordial for the past decade, and he, too, swept in, leaving Ian alone with Caro and Shelton.

“Hello, Caro.” He inappropriately used her nickname, daring her to comment.

“Mr. Clayton.” She imbued the greeting with the same amount of disdain exhibited by her mother.

“Aren’t you going to introduce me to your fiancé?”

“No.”

He was accustomed to their rebuffs and pretensions, but still, it hurt him, and he chuckled nastily. “You Fosters are such a bunch of snobs. Don’t your necks get tired from sticking your noses so far up in the air?”

At the slur, she bit down on a caustic retort, which had him eager to rattle one loose.

“I say,” Shelton interrupted, “we don’t have to stand here and be insulted by the likes of you.”

Shelton urged Caro along, and Ian had to physically restrain himself, lest he reach over and punch the man.

“Who are you, sir?” Ian persisted. “I had assumed you were her fiancé, but I believe I’m mistaken. Aren’t you her grandfather?”

People were eavesdropping, and they tittered and guffawed. Malicious gossip would fly for days, and he was shocked that he’d instigate so much trouble. Obviously, he’d been spending too much time with Rebecca and absorbing her spiteful habits.

“You’re an ass, Mr. Clayton,” Caro responded. “You always have been.”

She waltzed away, Shelton tagging after her, the curtain of the box fluttering shut, but sealing them in as firmly as if it had been made of iron.

He dawdled, like a beggar on the street, and he was so bloody tempted to storm in after them, to throw things, curse at them, and continue the despicable scene, but it occurred to him that his indignation was absurd.

He wasn’t concerned over what Caro elected to do. He never had been. If she chose to bow to her father’s dictate and wed an aged reprobate, what was it to Ian?

Feigning nonchalance, he tugged on his coat and shrugged to the onlookers.

“I can’t wait to see the children they produce.”

He shuddered dramatically, igniting another round of titters. Then, as if he hadn’t a care in the world, he walked on to his own box and climbed in.

Neither Rebecca nor Jack had arrived, and his initial impulse was to head home so he could fume in private.

The brief exchange had pushed him to a dangerous precipice where he wasn’t anxious to linger. All his life, he’d grappled with the class distinctions forced on him by his bastardry. He’d coveted and begrudged, but had valiantly fought against his envy and resentment. He’d told himself that he’d moved beyond it, that it no longer had the power to wound as it had when he was younger. But he’d been fooling himself.

The old feelings of impotence and inequity surged to the fore, and he yearned to smash through every wall that had ever been constructed to keep him from joining the exalted ranks of the aristocracy. He was suffocating on an injustice he didn’t deserve and couldn’t battle.

He wanted to rail and shout, but he’d never let the horrid members of the ton realize how grave his distress. They were watching him, giggling and pointing when they thought he couldn’t see.

Off to his right, Caro’s party was ensconced in their seats, sitting like glum statues, refusing to fuel the fire of rumor Ian had sparked.

He tarried through the first act, then the second, all eyes upon him to learn what he might do. The third act began, and he slipped out and raced down the stairs and into the cold, wet night.

His mind in turmoil, his emotions careening with fury and desolation, he glanced in both directions, wondering where to go next.