Chapter Thirteen

DOMINIC EDGEMONT STALKED the sconce-lit halls of Gravenwold Manor, headed for the master’s bedchamber on the second floor of the west wing.

He had been in residence for the past two weeks, leaving France on a Spanish ship from Marseilles. Once he had reached England, via Morocco, he had made just one brief stop. In London, to hire a Bow Street runner to track down the whereabouts of a certain young woman with red-gold hair—last name unknown.

He felt somewhat the fool for the latter. After all, he knew the exact location of the dimple behind her knee that made her squirm when he touched it. He knew the slightly apricot hue of her nipples, and the precise curve of her shapely little bottom. But her name? He wasn’t completely certain the one she had given was correct.

Why hadn’t he found out more about her? he cursed himself, not for the first time. But in truth, he knew. When he was Domini, he was Gypsy—to his very bones.

Names didn’t matter, time didn’t matter. Nothing seemed important but the here and the now, and with Catherine beside him, that time had been exquisite. So much so that he had followed her to Marseilles the day he had discovered her missing, but as his mother had predicted, found only the merest trace.

A woman of Catherine’s description had been seeking passage aboard a ship. It was assumed she and her traveling companion had found one. None knew anything more.

Dominic believed she had made it back to England. It was difficult to stop a woman as determined as Catherine—that he had discovered firsthand. Still, he needed to know she was well and safe, that she wasn’t in some sort of trouble.

More than that—he wanted desperately to see her again.

“The marquess is awake and asking for you, milord.”

Dominic nodded to his valet, Percival Nelson, a gaunt, rapidly aging old man blind in one eye and slightly hard of hearing. The marquess had wanted him retired years ago, but Dominic knew how much Percy, a man whose family numbered only those in the household staff he had served with for the past forty years, dreaded that day. Against his father’s wishes, he let the old man stay on and in return gained a loyalty so strong no man could break it.

“I’m on my way there now,” Dominic said. Two weeks ago, just hours after his arrival, the marquess had slipped into a state of unconsciousness. Yesterday he had roused himself, seeming to rally his strength for a final assault on his son.

Every conversation since then had ended in a bitter debate about the future of Gravenwold—the old marquess demanding his son marry and produce an heir, Dominic thinking of his mother, his years of mistreatment at the hands of his father, and more determined than ever that this was not to be.

He entered the massive royal-blue bedchamber and saw his father, hollow-eyed and sunken-cheeked but still recognizable as a man of power and will. He rested beneath white satin sheets; his skin, once healthy and tanned nearly as dark as Dominic’s, had faded to the sheets’ same alabaster hue.

“My son has arrived,” he commanded the servants in a voice much stronger than his body. “One of you lazy fools help me sit up!”

By the time Dominic reached the marquess’s side, the valet had accomplished the task, and his father sat propped against the pillows, a determined look on his face.

“Well?” he asked, as if that one word should be more than enough.

“Well what, Father? Have I changed my mind about the Cummings girl? I told you yesterday, her fortune means nothing to me. Nor do your threats of disinheritance should I decline to follow your wishes. I’ll not marry the girl. Now or in the future.”

“Why? At least tell me that. Her holdings would nearly double the size of Gravenwold. It’s your duty as my heir to make the best possible marriage for the sake of the family.” His voice, though raspy, still held a note of command.

“You know why. We’ve been through this a dozen times.”

“Because you’re determined to seek revenge for the wrongs you’ve suffered? For the wrongs you believe I’ve done to your mother?” He leaned forward on an elbow, a bit of color infusing his cheeks. “I don’t give a fiddler’s damn about all that. We both know I made mistakes. I should have dealt with you better. Should have seen you protected from mistreatment. But all that is behind us. You’ve your whole life ahead of you and all the wealth I command to make that life the best it can possibly be. All I ask in return is for you to guard that which I bequeath you—” he coughed behind a withered hand then rallied—“to see that the future of Gravenwold is secure.”

Dominic watched his father’s face. As always there was the harshness, the driving determination to get his way. Nothing or no one else mattered. Not now—not ever. “No,” was all he said.

His father fell back against the pillows. “You’re a hard man, Dominic, but you are not a fool. Agree to this marriage. Let me go to my final resting place in peace.”

Peace, Dominic thought. What peace had his mother been granted? She’d been foolish enough to fall in love with the newly titled marquess when the Pindoros had stayed on his family’s estate in Yorkshire. She had slept with him and produced a son. A year later, she’d been even more foolish. On a return trip to England, she had told the man she loved about his child, showing him the boy, who bore the Edgemont crest, a small purple mark in the shape of a waning moon that had darkened every Edgemont male thigh for six generations.

She had been foolish enough to expect him to rejoice.

Instead he had spurned her. Wouldn’t acknowledge the child as his and drove the Gypsies from his land. Pearsa had been crushed. Though she had never expected marriage, she had always believed he loved her, that he would be as proud of the son she bore him as she was herself.

“Any peace you find will be between you and your maker—or the devil. I have nothing to do with it.”

The marquess’s pale face grew red with rage. “Get out!” he ordered in his raspy voice, jabbing a bony white finger toward the door. “Don’t come back in this room until you’ve agreed to marry—or I’m dead and gone!”

“Then this is our final good-bye,” Dominic said with equal harshness. A last hard glance in his father’s direction and Dominic strode out the door.

Two days later, his words became truth. The fifth marquess of Gravenwold passed away in his sleep.

*   *   *

Dominic leaned back in the tufted red leather chair in front of the dying fire in the library, his fingers drumming unconsciously on a row of brass tack trim. Usually, he felt comfortable in this wood-paneled room filled with books, a haven he came to whenever he spent time at Gravenwold. It was a place of warmth in a hostile environment, a place to escape his fiery confrontations with his father.

Today it brought him little peace.

Weeks had passed since his father’s death. Weeks which should have carried a cleansing breath of freedom into his world. Instead he’d been oddly depressed. Though the weather outside had been pleasant, flowers blooming, the sky clear and blue, Dominic had scarcely noticed, remaining indoors, the curtains drawn against the bright light of day.

He took a sip of his brandy and stared into the low flames of the fire he’d had built against the chill which came mostly from within. He felt brooding and empty, more so than ever before in his life. His father was gone and with him a receptacle for his anger and contempt at the world. Now the rage just ate at him, little by little, gnawing his insides like acid, seeping into his very bones.

Dominic sighed and leaned his head back against the leather chair. Since his return to England, it seemed as if his world had somehow dimmed. His time of abandon with the Gypsies was past, a chapter of his life which, except for his mother, had finally come to an end. There was Gravenwold to consider, people to care for, responsibilities he must deal with. Though he would never provide an heir, for as long as he lived it was a duty he would not shirk.

And Catherine was gone. Even though he had sought out Harvey Malcom, the man his father had sent to him in France, and hired a dozen more Bow Street runners, no trace of her had been found. He was beginning to doubt she had ever reached England, and it tortured him to think of what she might be suffering even now.

Or what she might have found if she had reached her home. Had the man she once loved turned her away? Or refused her marriage but forced her into his bed?

What if, after Dominic and Catherine had lain together, she had conceived his child?

The thought of his babe growing up as he had, fatherless and struggling each day for survival, or of Catherine sharing another man’s bed, made his insides churn.

Damn you! he swore. But it wasn’t her fault, it was his. He had botched things from the beginning. If he had taken a firmer hand with her right from the start, none of this would have happened. How had such a slip of a girl been able to bend him to her will? It wasn’t like him. In his future dealings with the fairer sex, it would not happen again.

Still, he missed her. He remembered every moment he had spent with her as if it had only just occurred. He recalled the scent of her, clean and womanly, and the exact silky texture of her hair. He remembered making love to her, and every time he did his body grew hot and hard.

Damn her, where was she?

Dominic started at a knock at the door. He swung his long booted legs off the leather footstool and onto the Aubusson carpet just as Blythebury, Gravenwold’s towering butler, opened the door.

“It’s the boy, milord,” said the long-nosed, thin-faced man.

Dominic stood up. “What’s happened?”

“Nothing serious. Just a nasty cut and a bit of a lump on the head, but I thought you would want to know.” Oliver Blythebury watched the concern that crossed the young marquess’s face. A few years back, Oliver wouldn’t have bothered to tell him what had happened. He’d have tended the little boy’s bruises and put him to bed, certain the master’s son wouldn’t have a care.

It was His Lordship’s kindness to Percy that had convinced him differently. As far as Percival Nelson, His Lordship’s valet, was concerned, the young lord walked on water—or very nearly did—and his old friend’s staunch defense of the marquess’s son, disliked by most of the staff in the beginning, had finally broken through the harsh wall of disapproval they had erected.

“Where is he?” Dominic strode toward the door.

“His room, Your Lordship. Begged me not to tell you, but I thought it best you know.”

“You did right,” Dominic assured him, following the tall, erect butler out the door.

They climbed the broad stone staircase then traveled the long stately corridor to Janos’s bedchamber. The little boy lay beneath an ice-blue satin canopy on the big four-poster bed, his dark eyes huge with worry. The skin around one looked purple and swollen, there was a scratch across his cheek, and a lump the size of an egg above his right ear.

“God’s breath,” Dominic softly swore, guessing easily what had happened.

“Please do not be angry.” Janos cast a guilty glance at the blood on his expensive white linen shirt and sat up straighter in the bed.

“The clothes are of no concern,” Dominic soothed. “We can get more of those. Just tell me what happened.”

The boy looked away, his big dark eyes fixed on the wall. “They called me names … ugly names. They said bad things about my mother.”

“I told you they might.” Dominic turned Janos’s chin with his hand, forcing the child to look at him. “You must learn to ignore them.” Though no one had mentioned the boy’s Gypsy blood, and he had been dressed in expensively tailored clothes by the time they reached Gravenwold, the darkness of his skin, darker by far than Dominic’s, and his strange way of speaking had immediately set him apart.

“It is not easy,” Janos said.

“I know.” The boy had surprised him in one way. He’d been determined to see his decision through. He had wanted to come to England, and since his arrival, not once had he complained at the demands being made of him.

Though he fussed at the uncomfortable clothes, his small linens, short coat, and tight leather shoes, he never asked to remove them. Instead his attention was absorbed by the strange new delights of the world around him, as if he would gladly pay the price of his discomfort for the wonders being revealed.

“Who did this to you?” Dominic asked.

Janos looked down at the pale blue satin counterpane, but did not answer.

“Tell me.”

“One of the other children,” he answered evasively. There were children by the score on Gravenwold. Offspring of servants, stablehands, men who tilled the fields.

“Exactly which one of the other children?”

“What will you do to him?”

“I’ll have his father take a switch to him, which he sorely deserves.”

Janos said nothing.

Dominic waited. Still nothing. Finally, he sighed. “You’re certain this is what you want?”

“I do not wish to bring trouble. I only wish to learn.”

Dominic’s jaw hardened, memories of his own bitter years as an outcast hovering far too close. “You belong here just as much as the rest of them, maybe more. Remember that, even if you can’t come out and say it.”

The boy knew better than to speak of Dominic’s heritage, or his own. He nodded then smiled, his small face lighting up at Dominic’s words. “I will remember.”

“Percy will see to your bath. After that Mr. Reynolds will continue with your lessons.” He was the tutor Dominic had hired.

Janos brightened even more. “Thank you, Domin-nic.” Occasionally the boy still fumbled over the English pronunciation of Dominic’s name, but he was determined to master it, to adjust to his new home in every way.

Dominic felt a surge of pride. Unless he spawned a bastard, the boy was as close to a son as he would ever have. He imagined how the old marquess would have cringed at the notion and felt a perverse sense of satisfaction.

Then the triumph faded, replaced by a sudden memory of Catherine holding on to the little boy’s hand. Dominic left the room. He found himself wandering aimlessly back downstairs, then sitting down in his chair in the library. In minutes his dark mood returned and he stared once more into the flames.

*   *   *

“Sometimes I can still scarcely credit it.” Tears touched Amelia’s gentle blue eyes as she looked across at Catherine.

Though Edmund and Amelia had been at Lavenham Hall three different times over the past several weeks, Amelia occasionally lapsed into emotional moments such as this one.

“If only there was a way to change what has passed,” she said with a catch in her crystalline voice.

“Nothing can change things, Amelia.” Catherine wasn’t even sure she would want them to change. “If I’ve learned anything, it’s that the best course of action is simply to go on.”

“Yes, I suppose it is.”

All this fuss over the burnished hue of Catherine’s once-pale skin. Amelia had come this time to help her select just the proper ball gown to make her return to Society. But the sun-browned color of her flesh against the whiteness of the gown had brought to mind once more all Catherine had suffered in her months away from home.

Catherine looked into her cousin’s pretty face, saw the regret Amelia felt, and just as it had the moment of their reunion, something fragile stirred in Catherine’s breast. Amelia Codrington Barrington was her closest friend. She and cousin Edmund, Edmund Jr., and Uncle Gil were the only family she had left. From the instant Catherine had seen Amelia and Edmund, all her suspicions about them had flown right out the window.

No two people could have looked more relieved to see her alive.

And no one who looked that way could possibly have meant her harm.

“My dear, dear child,” Edmund had said, drawing her into his arms, tears streaking wetly down his cheeks. “God has returned you to us. It is a miracle.”

Not quite, Catherine thought, but didn’t say so. In fact, she didn’t say much at all, just gave them the barest details about what had happened, certainly made no mention of Dominic, and neither did her uncle, bless his heart.

It was strange in a way, since she and Amelia had always been so close. It almost seemed that telling her story to Uncle Gil had caused as much grief as she was prepared to deal with at the moment. Besides, the memory of her dark Gypsy lover was hers and hers alone. When she was older, wiser, she would take it from its secret place inside her, examine it, and savor it. Until then, it would stay locked in her heart.

“Whatever shall we do?” Amelia asked, referring once more to the slightly golden cast of Catherine’s skin. “We can try to bleach it, but I’m not certain how much good it will do.”

Catherine rolled her eyes at the thought of the harsh, foul-smelling liquid against her tender flesh. “I think we will simply ignore it. At least the color is fairly even on the parts that show. The rest doesn’t matter.”

Oddly enough, until Amelia had pointed it out, Catherine hadn’t even noticed. During her stay with the Gypsies, she had enjoyed the warm sunshine as she never had before. Now the custom of hiding one’s skin from the slightest chance of color seemed silly and far more trouble than it was worth.

“And your hands,” Amelia was saying with a frown, picking one up to examine it. “You’ve freckles on the backs. You must remember to keep on your gloves.”

“Just tell Edmund and Uncle Gil to hasten their efforts to find me a husband. Once I’m married, my freckles will hardly be of concern.”

Amelia fussed with the gown, an ethereal creation of gauzy white tulle over a background of embroidered white satin. “No, I don’t suppose it will.” The gown was the third of five that had been purchased for this and future occasions, and each seemed more beautiful than the last.

Amelia surveyed the gown and shook her head, her glossy short blond hair bouncing around her face with the movement. “This just won’t do. You’ll have to wait to wear this until your skin fades out a bit more. Put on the gold.”

“Are you certain? It’s really quite lovely.”

“The gold,” Amelia said with authority, and knowing her cousin’s impeccable taste, Catherine obeyed.

In an instant she saw Amelia was right. The golden glow of her skin looked perfect against the shimmering hue of the high-waisted gown. It rode off one shoulder, emphasizing her graceful carriage, dipped low in front, fit snug beneath her breasts, then fell in a slim, straight line to the floor. There was a slit up the side that showed a bit of ankle. Even Catherine was impressed.

“It’s beautiful,” she said, suppressing a flash of yearning that Dominic could have seen her in it.

“It’s perfect.” Amelia adjusted the metallic gold swag that drew the gown up to Catherine’s shoulder. “We’ll weave golden ribbons into your hair. You’ll wear your mother’s diamond and topaz earbobs—nothing more. One look and the men will forgive you anything. Once that’s happened, their wives will have no choice but to follow in their stead.”

“I hope you’re right,” Catherine said, knowing she had a great deal more to be forgiven than Amelia understood.

Something clattered in the hall, and Catherine turned just in time to see the door to her chamber burst open and little Edmund Jr. rush in.

“Mama! Mama! Look what I’ve found!” He was an exact miniature of his father, brown-haired and blue-eyed, with a fair complexion and delicate bones. He would probably be taller than Edmund, though at four years old it was really too soon to tell.

“What is it?” Amelia asked, peering down at the small hand being held out to her, then leaping back with a shriek when Eddie opened his fingers to reveal a palm-sized frog.

“I found it in Uncle’s fountain. His name is Hector. He won’t hurt you.”

Amelia rolled her eyes in exasperation. “Take it outside immediately! You know better than to bring something like that into the house.”

Eddie looked chagrined, but only for a moment. He knew his mother well—she indulged him overly in just about everything. Catherine really didn’t blame her, he was such a darling little boy.

“Want to come out and play?” he asked Catherine, ignoring his mother, just as he usually did.

“I’d love to, but it seems your mother has plans for me here.”

His bottom lip stuck out. “She’s no fun at all.”

“Eddie,” Amelia warned, but the child just grinned.

“Maybe my frog would like a dragonfly to play with,” he said. “I think I shall go and see if I can find him one.”

“You listen here, young man,” Amelia scolded, “don’t you dare bring either of those horrid creatures back inside this house—”

But Eddie had already gone. Catherine wondered if Amelia would swoon when the dragonfly arrived—which she was certain it would.

Amelia sighed. “Sometimes I worry about him,” she said, shaking her head.

“He’s just a boy. I’m sure he’ll learn to behave himself as he grows older.”

“That wasn’t what I meant,” Amelia said with a hint of indignation.

“Oh.”

“I worry about his future. How he’ll manage when he grows up.”

“Manage?” Catherine asked.

“His holdings, I mean, his lands and income. He certainly won’t have the kind of wealth you have.”

“I can’t see where that is a problem. Edmund is far from penniless, and Eddie will carry on the Northridge title. Besides, he’s my cousin and I love him. I certainly don’t intend to see him go without.”

Amelia smiled a bit more easily. “Thank you, Catherine. Of course he can count on you. I don’t know what I was thinking.… At any rate, it’s your problems we need to be concerned with here.”

She looked Catherine over once more, moving to survey her from every angle. Amelia smiled again, this time with warm satisfaction. “You look lovely. I believe, my dear friend, your terrible ordeal is about to be over—once and for all.”

Catherine thought about Dominic and the ache for him that would not leave her heart. “Yes,” she said softly. “Once and for all.”

*   *   *

“It’s the Viscount Stoneleigh, my lord.” The butler held open the library door, Blythebury’s black coat immaculate, his posture, as always, perfectly correct. “Shall I show him in?”

Dominic came to his feet. “By all means.” Spotting his friend standing just outside the door and knowing he would have come in anyway, he flashed the briefest of smiles.

“Hello, Rayne.” Dominic set his brandy snifter on the drum table near the fire as the tall broad-shouldered man stepped into the room.

“You’re looking as grim as ever,” Rayne Garrick said, clasping Dominic’s hand in a grip just as solid as the man. He had thick dark copper-brown hair, which he never trimmed quite short enough, intelligent dark-brown eyes, and a passion for the out-of-doors that always kept him unfashionably tanned.

“It’s good to see you, too,” Dominic mocked with a grin that felt all too rare these days.

Rayne glanced around the room, noting the unopened curtains, taking in the slightly musty smell. “I see you’re still brooding. I presume it’s over the woman and not the late marquess.”

“Strangely enough,” Dominic admitted, “it seems it’s a little of both.”

Rayne arched a dark-brown eyebrow. They had known each other since their days together at Westholme Private Academy, then later at Cambridge. “What’s the matter?” he asked, with his usual perception. “No one left to fight with?”

Dominic thought of the anger that stayed bottled up inside him. “So it seems.”

“How’s the boy?”

“Worrisome. I know what he’s going through. I have no idea how to help him.”

“The children giving him trouble, I take it.”

“They know little about him. Just that his skin is dark and that he’s somehow different. They’re determined not to like him.”

“Children can often be cruel, especially when they’ve no one to teach them anything different.”

“Just one more reason to brood,” Dominic said darkly.

“Well, I’ve come to put an end to it. It’s time, my friend, you got out of this place and back into the stream of things. The Duke of Mayfield is having a lavish affair the end of the week—the opening of his newly built mansion on Grosvenor Square. It’s going to be quite an occasion. I’m certain if you sift through that pile of letters on your desk, you’ll find an invitation.”

Dominic’s gaze shifted to the stack of unopened postings he had received, condolences at first, then later invitations.

“The recently anointed Marquess of Gravenwold,” Rayne drawled in that husky way of his, “and his roguish friend, the Viscount Stoneleigh, are going to be in attendance.” He grinned, a flash of even white teeth that set hearts aflutter all over England. “You’ve dozens of female admirers waiting to lavish their approval on the new marquess in the most agreeable manner. It’s time you stopped disappointing them.”

Dominic had to smile. Stoneleigh was right. He needed to get away from Gravenwold, if only for a little while. He needed to end this dismal brooding and get on with his life.

He needed a warm willing woman in his bed.

“When do we leave?” he said, and Rayne looked a little surprised.

“How about tomorrow?” Rayne had traveled from Stoneleigh, his estate a long day’s carriage ride away. “A good night’s sleep will see me through, then we’ll be on our way.”

“I’ll have Blythebury show you upstairs and tell Cook you’ll be staying for supper. Why don’t you join me for a drink in the Stag Room about seven-thirty?”

“I look forward to it, my friend.” Rayne clapped Dominic on the back. “A lusty romp between the covers ought to improve your disposition. It won’t be long before you forget all about your fiery little redhead.”

“I’m bloody amazed it’s taken me this long,” Dominic admitted. And damned unhappy about it. In fact, he was beginning to look forward to his return to London. With any luck at all, he’d find a willing wench, take her hard and often, and get Catherine out of his blood—once and for all.