CHAPTER 10

By the next afternoon, it had become abundantly clear to Spencer that if he meant to have a frank discussion with his wife on many subjects, he would need to get her away from the lovely Abercorn Street house that faced Oglethorpe Square with its shading of moss-draped oaks and inviting expanse of green lawn. Since he’d taken breakfast alone in his room and hadn’t dressed until late, he had yet to speak with her. She—and that blasted Edward—were receiving callers in the parlor downstairs. Beautifully attired female visitors, so Hornsby had reported, were parading in and out in accordance with Southern protocol.

Hornsby had also, with evident trepidation, told Spencer at breakfast that Her Grace had informed him to tell Spencer he was excused from receiving callers today, given his soreness and his … appearance. His ghastly bruised appearance, Spencer knew. Still, the word overjoyed best described his reaction. He hated receiving callers and had no desire to meet Savannah’s crop of young ladies and their mamas.

Edward was another story. The very busy Hornsby, who made periodic forays downstairs and then hurried upstairs to report the results to his employer, said the Earl of Roxley thought every lady who showed up at the door more beautiful than the last and truly the love of his life. Spencer had scowled at this. The man was making a fool of himself, yet the giggling young ladies and their mamas were said to be enjoying his fawning attentions tremendously. Of course they would. The man was a titled peer of the realm.

Spencer, however, found his cousin not to be the least bit amusing. When Hornsby had become winded and red in the face from traversing the stairs, Mr. Milton had been dispatched downstairs by Spencer … on an errand in the library, ostensibly. Mr. Milton had duly reported back to him the appalling story that for every lady who asked after the absent duke, Edward was weaving a different and taller tale. Among some of the ones heard by Spencer’s secretary were: the duke, unfortunately, had been stricken with a tropical illness that left him covered with red spots; or the duke had tripped and fallen down the stairs; or the duke had been hit in the head with a falling chandelier. The duke had broken his leg when out in the garden. The duke had been thrown from a horse.

It had been at this point, and outraged, that Spencer had flung back his covers and, with Hornsby’s sniffing disapproval over his patient’s abandoning the sickroom, had dressed and stolen downstairs. There, pausing in the hallway that ran alongside the front parlor, out of sight and around a corner, he stood, fully prepared to pretend to admire the statuary on a round oak table should anyone pass by or notice him. From this vantage point, he could hear how overjoyed the ladies said they were to see Victoria again so soon and looking so well. He suspected most of the women meant nothing of the sort and very likely were the same ones, he would be willing to wager, whose tongues had wagged without end at the time of Victoria’s fall from grace.

And now today, they had come out of rank curiosity, no doubt, regarding Edward, and for fodder to feed the rumor mills. Edward was giving it to them, too, with his exaggerated attentions to them and his ever-changing tales of Spencer’s imaginary woes, none of which he would be able to explain at a later date. And wouldn’t the ladies have ever so much more to talk about when they got together and compared notes, only to find they’d each been told a different tale? That damned Edward. He is only making things worse.

In this whole dismal scenario, though, Spencer had found one ray of sunlight: his wife’s comportment. By all reports, and from what he could hear himself, she had remained unfailingly gracious and kind and had told all her childhood friends the same story. She and her husband, the Duke of Moreland—Spencer suspected it amused her to watch these Savannah belles devour themselves with jealousy over her title—were only visiting. She and the duke would not be here very long. And yes, everything was wonderful with her and the duke.

Spencer admitted it: He admired her performance. Had he been her in this polite-society situation, he knew, he would have already bloodied a sugary female viper’s lip or two. But he soon tired of listening to the polite chatter and ordered a carriage readied for an outing. Let the brigand behind the attack on him see him out and about—if indeed there was a brigand behind it. The two ruffians could simply have been common thieves, after all, but Spencer seriously doubted it.

Tearing at the very fabric of him was his suspicion that Victoria could be, directly or indirectly, responsible for the attack. While the very assertion, on the surface, seemed as ridiculous as it was horrifying, he firmly believed he would not be wise to discount it. After all, he did not yet know why she had run away from Wetherington’s Point. But if she’d come back to be with her lover, who could possibly be a nefarious sort, and then he—an inconvenient husband—had shown up? Well, put that way, it wasn’t such a leap, after all, to believe they could quickly come to the conclusion they would be better off with him dead. Such an event would leave Victoria with the title, the duchy, its wealth, and its heir.

A very neat solution, to be sure. But now, the brigand had better beware because Spencer was carrying his gun with him whenever he left the house.

While the carriage was being readied and brought round the back way, so he could escape undetected, Spencer spent his time sorting Mr. Milton and Hornsby out, leaving orders for their afternoon’s activities. Then, when the fine black and gleaming carriage, with a sleek team of matching bays, was ready, he escaped outside and directed the driver—a young and cheerful and talkative black man named Zebediah—to make the circuit of some of the squares.

While he did, the young man regaled Spencer with the history of every prominent home they passed and the pedigree of the occupants, as well as the latest gossip regarding them. Zebediah dropped such names as James Oglethorpe, Lachlan McIntosh, William Jay, Button Gwinnett, and John Wesley. And, interspersed with the history lessons, were his protestations of undying love for a girl named Ruby. Normally, Spencer would have put a quick stop to such chatter, but today, finding his driver’s charming repartee infectious, as well as informative, he encouraged Zebediah. Any knowledge gained of this unfamiliar place was, after all, power.

The exotic sights, the sounds, the smells, the actual colors of the place, every detail about Savannah enchanted Spencer. The city was so outside his every experience. A towering church of a different denomination resided on every corner, or so it seemed. The city itself, he realized, was nothing at all like London or any other English city he could name. Very unique. And cordial. He’d nearly worn his arm out tipping his hat to the people he passed.

The highlight of the trip, for Spencer, was the circuit around Forsyth Park with its exquisite white fountain. But eventually the heat and the humidity got to him, and he directed Zebediah to take him home. On the ride back, Spencer quietly marveled at the rich mélange of architecture to be found in Savannah. The houses, though generally less grand than what he was used to, were, nevertheless, fascinating in their differing designs. He spotted Italianate, Second Empire, Greek Revival, and Regency, among others.

Returned and recovered now from his outing, after having gone to his bedroom to wash and change clothes, Spencer deemed himself ready to be alone with his wife. He wished he could say it was for amorous purposes, but alas it was not. For one thing, he wasn’t certain he could trust her. But even if he could, he feared he was too injured to be an effective performer. Beyond that, he wasn’t certain Victoria would welcome his advances. After all, she had clung to that separate-bedroom dictate of hers.

As Spencer slowly descended the curving sweep of stairs from the second floor, he carried on a lively conversation in his head. He could, of course, simply order her to return to his bed. However, here in Savannah, where he didn’t feel the lord and master, he was reluctant to impose his will to any degree on her or anyone else. He stopped on the next riser down, holding on to the polished handrail. Staring absently ahead, he wondered if this reluctance was how Victoria felt at Wetherington’s Point. It had to be. Everything English had to be as odd to her as everything American was to him, including the food. Given that, hadn’t he been the ass to abandon her to it all?

With that uncomfortable accusation following him, Spencer continued down the stairs. He meant to politely wrest his wife away from Edward and whatever callers they might have with them in the parlor. Then, he and Victoria would finally have an all-encompassing discussion, for lack of a better word. Too much was unsaid between them, and Spencer refused to allow the unanswered questions to remain so for even one more afternoon. He knew of course that he might not like, to put it mildly, what he might hear from her regarding her feelings for him, or lack thereof, and her opinion of his behavior in England.

But he had broad shoulders. He could hear criticism of himself because he knew he had been justified in feeling he’d been made to look the fool. As well, the legal essentials, if nothing else between them, remained the same: If the child she bore was not a Whitfield, then the child could not bear his name. But she had said, in very strong words, she would not agree to that. Then he had told her, in no uncertain terms, she would return, a divorced woman with a bastard child, to Savannah. Now Spencer thought it all so monstrous. And hopeless. He cared too much for her to allow her to leave him.

The admission forced him to pause again and grip the handrail tightly. Standing there, he closed his eyes against the painful truth, but it insisted on whispering in his ear, mocking him. If he cared nothing for Victoria, it said, he would have no qualms about sending her away with her bastard child as he had so self-righteously threatened, now would he?

His heart no more than a lead weight in his chest, Spencer opened his eyes, only to stare absently at the narrow though elegant entryway coming into view at the bottom of the stairs. Thankful that no one was around to catch him just standing there on the stairs, he focused on the polished red-pine wood floor and finally faced the single most important question of all to him. Would six hundred years of Whitfield legacy be undone by the will of his heart? What was he willing to do to make a marriage with Victoria?

He didn’t know. Had it really all come down to this? It very well could. Spencer completed his journey down the steps and headed for the parlor. While still around the corner from the room, he stopped, hearing someone just then crossing the foyer. Whoever it was with the masculine tread apparently entered the parlor and closed the double doors behind him. Edward, no doubt. His supposed presence acted as a stop on Spencer’s determined mission to confront his wife. Did he really want answers right now, anyway, when he’d only just admitted to himself that he had no idea what he wanted to have happen? In light of that, what did her answers matter when it all came down to this: Could he, would he, send Victoria and her child away?

Certainly, no law said he must. They could remain with him. He did recall telling her—rather callously, now that he thought about it—they would try again for another baby. What had been her answer to that? He frowned, remembering all too well. She had screamed at him, letting him know that this first child, male or female, birthmark or no, would bear his name, or he would have no others from her. So, they were both equally determined to have their way entirely. Which meant, of course, one of them would lose. No room for compromise existed because too much, for both of them, was at stake. Spencer knew only too well that the only way this would turn out happily would be if the child Victoria now carried were his.

Happily? Hardly. They still had to live through six or so months of holding back and denying each other. At the end of that time, how could any tender emotion have a hope of still existing between them, if any ever had? Rubbing absently at his forehead, Spencer muttered an oath for the wretched hopelessness of the predicament. He then put the blame squarely where it belonged—on the third person involved in his marriage. The other man. The son of a bitch. He was in this city somewhere. Spencer could feel him, like a dark shadow hovering over him, so much more oppressive now that he was close by.

Spencer had wondered this afternoon, when he’d been in the carriage and tipping his hat to the various men who’d been out and about, if any of them was the man. Why had he never asked what the craven coward’s name was? But he knew why. He hadn’t wanted that hateful name in his mind. But now he did. He wanted to know who the man was, and he wanted Victoria to be the one to tell him. Outright hatred for this unknown man narrowed Spencer’s eyes, especially when he tortured himself with wondering if she loved this other man and wanted to be with him.

Spencer had never asked her that because, like the man’s name, he hadn’t wanted to know the answer. But now he did. So perhaps that question, rather than all the others, should be the first focus of their discussion. Spencer had to face the possibility that this other man could love Victoria and might not be the cad Spencer believed him to be. What if her parents were the villains here and had torn her away from the man she loved?

The fear that it might be so, the awful wintry bleakness of such a possibility, robbed Spencer of strength and will. He had to sit down. He looked around for a chair, found one, and sat heavily. Swallowing the hard lump of emotion in his throat, he closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead.

It all seemed so ridiculous on the surface. Good Lord, he was a duke. A peer of the realm. And a grown man. He knew how to behave. And yet he didn’t. Not in this circumstance. To be around Victoria, day in and day out, to want her as he did, to hear her laugh, to watch her every move … Spencer leaned back until his head rested against the wall behind him … it would be too much to be in her presence and know her heart belonged to another man. This was the most awful of dilemmas. If he kept Victoria at arm’s length until the child was born, and it should prove to be his, then he would have his heir but also a resentful wife whose affection for him, had she had any to begin with, had dwindled. But if he remained in her presence, came to care for her, and the child proved not to be his, could he deny her and the babe? He must, but he wasn’t sure he could. And it was that fear, more than anything else, that had him distancing himself from her in England. He had chosen to take the chance of being able to woo her affection back to him, if the child she carried was his, over the possibility of coming to care too much for her, only to turn her away in the end.

He’d thought he had it figured out. But then she’d run back to Georgia, back to this other man. That she might have true feelings for him had not entered Spencer’s mind before now. Certainly, her father had not presented that as the situation. And yet, this man had lured her into a compromising situation once—twice, if one counted her running to him the moment she received a letter from him. It had to be from him. That left Spencer with one obvious conclusion: Victoria did have strong feelings for this other man.

“This is absolutely unbelievable,” he said softly. “What have I got myself into?” A less judgmental corner of his mind reminded Spencer the situation, as it stood now, was not of his making … unless the child was his, of course. He made a chuckling sound of self-deprecation. It always came back to that, didn’t it? To the baby and the other man.

But something here did not add up. Spencer’s mind had mulled this over more than once. If she’d come back here to be with her lover, what the devil had she been doing out at River’s End with her family? Certainly, that locale hadn’t offered much hope of a tryst without being discovered—unless she’d been biding her time before she went to him, hoping to make it seem she wasn’t here because of him. And now that she was here in Savannah? Well, the man lived in Savannah. Spencer knew that much from Victoria’s father. Did she mean to cuckold him right under his nose? She hardly seemed that conniving and cold-blooded. But what else was he supposed to think? Had she taken a separate bedroom from her husband because her lover was in this city?

Spencer thought of all the times he had made love to Victoria. She was a beautiful woman. Her body fired his passion. She was a poem, a woman made for love. Soft, warm, curvaceous. She had given herself freely to him—no, that wasn’t true. More out of a sense of wifely duty. That thought did nothing for Spencer’s pride, but he’d sensed she hadn’t given him all of herself. He had felt her holding back. He’d thought then it was because she was distraught over her scandal and their marrying as virtual strangers. He had sincerely hoped that as time went by and they got to know each other better, outside the bedroom, her reticence would pass.

In fact, he’d hoped, up to that day in the south parlor at Wetherington’s Point when she’d announced her condition, they could come to some sort of understanding. An easy affection, maybe. Friendship. He had never hoped for love from her. And didn’t intend to give his in return. He had seen, with his parents, the effects of love. His father had been an awful man in many ways, but Spencer’s mother had always loved her husband. And it had destroyed her. Spencer had vowed he would not live that—

“Excuse me, Your Lordship—”

Startled, Spencer’s eyes popped open almost of their own volition. Standing in front of him and curtsying awkwardly was a lovely black girl in a maid’s uniform. “Your Grace,” he said to correct her form of address.

“No, sir, I’m Ruby. Grace works in the kitchen.”

That threw him. Spencer blinked, could think of nothing to say, but a corner of his mind did remark that here, then, was Zebediah’s love.

“I’m sorry to bother you, Your Lordship, but are you feeling poorly?” Ruby asked. “You look a bit peak-ed about the mouth and eyes to me. Maybe you shouldn’t be up and about just yet. I could go get that nice Mr. Hornsby for you, if you like.”

“No, Ruby, thank you, but that won’t be necessary.” Spencer stood up as gracefully as he could, given his sore ribs and general bruising. “If you will excuse me?”

“Yessir, Your Lordship.” She curtsied again and went on down the narrow entryway and about her business.

Bemused, despite himself and his earlier dire thoughts of his own life’s situation, Spencer watched her go and marveled at these Americans and their servants. One never even saw the domestics in England. Why, they could be fired for even allowing themselves to be seen by the family. But here, in his experience so far, the help came and went at will. He’d seen no fewer than ten at River’s End and every bit as many here in this house. Very odd. But even more surprising to him was the Americans knew all of their servants’ names. Why, beyond Hornsby and Fredericks and Mr. Milton, who could hardly be called a domestic, the only maid whose name Spencer could recall was that Rose girl who was Victoria’s lady’s maid. Even her he didn’t recall having ever seen.

Eager now to abandon introspection for action, Spencer rounded the corner and found the parlor doors still closed. He expected, once he opened the door, to find a gaggle of females in here, all of them tittering away with their heads together as they gossiped and took tea … or whatever they drank here in the afternoon. He listened a moment at the door. Damned quiet in there for tittering and tea. But wouldn’t they be surprised, given all of Edward’s dire stories regarding Spencer’s fictional travails, to see him walk into their gathering?

Spencer ordered his features into a semblance of polite interest as he opened the door and brought a cordial greeting to his lips.

But the sight that greeted him froze him in place and had him swallowing his pleasant words of hello. A lancing pain shot through his heart, causing him to forget his body’s other aches and pains. No tittering females were gathered here. In fact, only two people who obviously had wanted to be alone, hence the closed doors, occupied the room. For one horrible second, Spencer thought the man in the room with Victoria was Edward. But his reason, and his excellent eyesight, instantly negated that notion. This man simply had the same coloring as Edward. In fact, Edward was not present.

Only Victoria and the man she was allowing to kiss her were in the parlor.

*   *   *

Victoria’s scream could only be heard inside her head. Shocked into immobility by the suddenness of Loyal Atherton’s outrageous and unforgivable attack on her person, she stood rigidly in his embrace and determinedly kept her teeth gritted. She would be damned before she would allow this boor access to her mouth. She wanted to scratch his eyes out, but her arms were pinned at her sides. She wanted to stomp his booted feet, but he shamelessly had his knee wedged between hers, which threw her off balance. Horrible man!

She kept her eyes squeezed tightly shut. She had no wish to see his awful nearness. It was bad enough her every angry breath through her flared nostrils assaulted her senses with his man scent, which made her stomach queasy. She hated him and he violated her by smearing his mouth over hers in a particularly unskilled semblance of a kiss. She wanted nothing more than to fight him with every bit of strength in her body. But experience with him told her such a response would only inflame his lust. So, instead of twisting her head away and jerking about, Victoria remained rigid in his embrace, knowing this kiss could not last forever.

She promised herself that when this monstrous liberty he had taken with her was over, she would slap his silly face right off his skull and scream her lungs out for Spencer, who would then come kill him and good riddance. Just then, Loyal Atherton was ripped away from her with a force that nearly took Victoria with him.

Gasping, staggering, all in one shocked second, she saw—“Spencer!”

Ignoring her, he grabbed the startled, wide-eyed Loyal Atherton by the shoulder, yanked him backward, and jerked him around. Spencer’s jaw jutted out; his black eyes glittered … and he held the other man by his lapels as he stared murderously into his opponent’s eyes.

“This is not what you think!” Victoria cried desperately, her hands held out in supplication. But he ignored her.

“Take your hands off me, sir,” Loyal was protesting loudly, his face suffused with high color, his eyebrows lowered. “I will suffer no—”

“That’s where you’re wrong,” Spencer informed him through gritted teeth, his voice no more than a low growl. “You will suffer, I promise you that.”

As Spencer cocked his arm back and fisted his hand, as Loyal realized what was about to happen and his mouth opened into a perfect circle of surprise and dread, Victoria knew she had to stop Spencer somehow. Only moments before, she’d wished for him to come kill Loyal. And now, here he was and about to do just that. But she hadn’t meant it! Though she felt rooted to the spot, she held a hand out to her husband. “Spencer, no! Don’t do this! Please.”

If he heard her, he gave no indication. He had neither spoken to her nor looked her way. Without a word or another second’s hesitation, Spencer—his handsome features distorted by rage and hate, hit Loyal in the jaw so hard that he actually flew backward through the air. “Oh, my God, no!” Victoria cried in dread.

Like a broken doll, Loyal’s body struck the heavy mahogany medallion-backed sofa’s spine and sent it toppling over with the force of his weight … and velocity. On his way down, his booted foot connected with a round decorative table, cluttered with rare and exquisite figurines, and sent that flying and crashing over onto the hardwood floor as well. The figurines shattered.

Horrified, staring at the shattered porcelain pieces, each one lovingly collected by her mother all through Victoria’s childhood—it seemed in that instant she could see her mother, much younger than she was now and in successive images, showing her little daughter each new piece and making up a wonderful story about each one—Victoria clamped a hand over her mouth. Her incongruous thought was, Oh, my word, my mother is going to be beside herself over this.

Whether Spencer even heard the crash of the sofa, the toppling of the table, and the shattering of the figurines, Victoria could not say. Tiny shards of the delicate porcelain crunched under his footsteps, like so much gravel, as he charged around the upended sofa, intent apparently on jerking Loyal up and pounding the daylights out of him, if he wasn’t already dead. And he very well could be, too, because he had yet to move so much as a muscle since Spencer had hit him. Victoria didn’t think Spencer cared if Loyal was dead or not. He still meant to make the man, or his dead body, suffer. It was all the same to him.

But not to her. She would not have her husband going to prison or facing a firing squad or a hangman’s noose because of the likes of Loyal Atherton. She had to stop him and she would … in any way she could.

That meant she had to move quickly since Spencer was unceremoniously hauling Loyal’s limp body up by his lapels. Making little mewling sounds of desperation, Victoria despaired of what she could do, how she should intervene. Spencer was lost to reason, that much was obvious. Mere words would not stop him. Maybe she could grab his arm and hold on to him, but he was more than twice her size. She doubted her weight would slow him down in the least. And besides, she didn’t want him to miss and hit her instead. Why, she’d wake up in heaven.

Then, she spied it. The iron fireplace poker. No. She didn’t want to kill Spencer, just stop him. Oh, dear Lord, he had Loyal up now and was getting ready to hit him again. Panicked, crying out, Victoria grabbed a substantial vase of flowers from off an end table, ran up behind Spencer, reached up, and crashed the vase down on his head.

Spencer made a tortured sound like “Aah” as the vase broke over his skull. The water baptized him and then cascaded over every surface in its path. Shards of china vase joined the shattered porcelain. And fresh-cut flowers shot about like errant arrows.

Horrified by the effectiveness of her actions, Victoria stumbled backward and watched Spencer fold up like a lady’s parasol as he lost his grip on consciousness and Loyal at the same moment.

Both men did a slow and graceful crumple onto the carpet. And just lay there, side by side, on their backs … amid the debris of sofa, figurines, water, the vase, and the flowers.