Anne O'Brien – The Disgraced Marchioness (страница 15)

‘Never mind that.’ He rose to his feet to pace the room with impatience and perhaps a little unease. Eleanor hid a smile in spite of herself. ‘What about Octavia Baxendale. Do you have any recollection of her?’

‘Well, now. Let me think. Perhaps I do recall … But it is so long ago—and Thomas flirted with any number of ladies. I particularly remember one débutante—but she had curls as black and lustrous as a crow’s wing. I believe I envied her, admired her colouring more than my own—foolishly, as Painscastle was quick to reassure me …’

Lord Henry sighed. ‘Do try to concentrate Judith. Fair hair, blue eyes …’ He looked to the ceiling in despair.

‘Well!’ She folded her hands and thought, the effort palpable. ‘I think I might remember her at some of the occasions. With a brother, perhaps? The name Octavia seems familiar … But I am not at all certain. Why do you wish me to remember something so inconsequential?’

‘Can you recall—did Thomas flirt with her? He escorted you to enough balls and soirées—he must have come across her if you did.’ Henry ignored her demand for some clarification.

‘I don’t know … Well, yes, perhaps I do remember a fair girl, and perhaps he did. If it is the girl I am thinking of, she had a liking for pink. A colour I can never wear.’ She bared her teeth as Hal’s temper came close to boiling point. ‘I know … I am trying, Hal. If it is the girl in question, I remember thinking that he could not be serious about her as a bride—a respectable family only. As Marquis of Burford he could look so much higher than a mere country miss …’ She flushed with mortification as she heard her own words, the deep wash of rose clashing remarkably with her auburn colouring as she saw Eleanor blush with discomfort and Mrs Stamford’s eyes flash a warning.

‘Oh, Nell.’ Immediately remorseful, the lady put down her teacup and stretched out a hand to touch Eleanor’s cold fingers, ‘My tongue runs away with me, as you know. I meant no criticism. Indeed I did not. Anyone could see that you and Thomas were so well suited to each other.’

Henry sighed and tried manfully both to preserve his patience and steer the conversation back into its previous channel. Neither was easy. ‘Judith—did it ever occur to you that Thomas was more serious about the lady than a mild flirtation?’

‘Perhaps. He once rode with a fair lady in the park, I know. And escorted her to supper … He certainly stood up with a lady of such colouring at Almack’s. And I think at my own coming-out ball in Faringdon House. But there could have been any number of fair débutantes. I suppose if it was the same lady Thomas must have been taken with her to single her out, mustn’t he? Don’t you remember, Hal?’

‘No. Presumably I was still concentrating on Melissa Charlesworth! You are not a deal of help to us, Judith.’ Henry set his teeth and continued to probe his cousin’s erratic memory. ‘Did Thomas go down to Brighton that year?’

‘I have no idea.’ Judith frowned at the close questioning. ‘Why?’

‘No matter. What happened to Miss Baxendale after the Season? Did she marry? Did she have another Season?’

Judith shook her head. ‘If Octavia is indeed the girl I am thinking of, I believe that she might have left before the end of the Season, before my own engagement to Simon, I understand. Rumour said—I think!—that she had contracted a more than suitable marriage—with money. But more than that I know not. You should talk to my mother. She has an excellent memory. Too good, sometimes, when I wish she might forget some trifling indiscretion from my childhood.’ Judith looked from Henry to Eleanor and back again in frustration, green eyes sharp as she scented gossip. ‘But why all these questions about someone we do not know and events that happened so long ago? You must tell me! You are keeping me in suspense—which is unforgivable.’

She looked at the faces around her tea table. At the quick meeting of eyes between Lord Henry and Eleanor, Eleanor made the decision.

‘It appears,’ she informed Judith in a calm voice, ‘that Thomas may have been the suitable match you spoke of, contracted by Octavia in the spring of 1812. Thomas, it seems, may have married her and kept her in seclusion in the country. And had a son by her.’ She hesitated, touching her tongue to dry lips. ‘It appears—it is possible that—I am not, and never have been, the Marchioness of Burford.’

Judith’s eyes widened in horror.

‘And we would be more than grateful if you did not spread that story around town, however tempting it might be to do so!’ Mrs Stamford added with a fierceness not usually encountered over an afternoon tea-drinking.

Judith, eyebrows arched in incredulous disbelief, was reduced, for once, to amazed silence.

Lord Henry trod the stairs late that night.

He was tired. A headache, which he could no longer ignore, however unusual it might be for him to suffer such a trivial affliction, lurked somewhere behind his eyes. A long day with nothing to show for their combined efforts but confirmation of their worst fears. The documents appeared to be legal. Sir Edward was not a member of any of the gentleman’s clubs visited by Nicholas and, as far as they knew, did not gamble, whether lightly or heavily. There were the gaming hells next, of course … Henry sighed at the prospect. Nicholas would object, but he would do it with good grace. And Cousin Judith remembered a tender flirtation between Thomas and a pretty fair-haired girl who had retired from society at the end of her first Season with rumours of an advantageous marriage. A young girl whose name she thought was Octavia.

He groaned and silently cursed the cruel hand of fate.

It left Eleanor in an unspeakable position, any opportunities for optimism fast disappearing, as mist at the rising of the sun.

What the hell were you doing, Thomas?

Yet, curse as he might, Henry still found it difficult to see his brother in the role of treacherous, machiavellian husband to two wives at one and the same time, with a child by both. The subterfuge just did not fit. Far too complicated and devious for Thomas, far too insensitive to those involved.

Now for himself, Henry mused, well … A grim smile, a mere ghost, crossed his face. It would be more likely, at any event. But even he would draw the line at two wives!

The house settled into silence around him. Nick had gone out to join a party of friends to talk horseflesh and drink gin at Limmers in Conduit Street. Mrs Stamford—who knew? She had sufficient acquaintance in town to provide her with entertainment. Eleanor had retired early, probably worn out through trying to keep a brave face on the fact that she was fast becoming a bigamous wife and her child illegitimate, with no source of support, financial or otherwise. She had used harsher terms, he remembered, in a moment of anguish. Whore and bastard. He flinched at the deliberate brutality. It was certainly how the world would see it, and there was nothing he could say to make matters any better for her.

The lights on the first floor were low, one branch of candles left burning. And he was too tired to think any more. Tomorrow he would go to Whitchurch and find the Reverend Julius Broughton. He would verify that cleric’s role in the proceedings. It might achieve nothing, but at least he would feel that he was doing something. And he would know if the marriage of Thomas with Octavia Baxendale had actually existed.

He yawned. And came to a halt on the landing. Further along on the right a door was ajar. The baby’s room. A gentle light spilled out, very low. Probably the nursemaid come to check on her small charge.

Then a soft voice reached him, crooning a lullaby. A low voice, sweet and tender. He was immediately drawn to it and came to stand silently in the half-open doorway.

The child must have been restless. Rather than summon the nursemaid, Eleanor had come herself to comfort him. Of course she would, he acknowledged. The child was her only connection with Thomas, even more of an anchor in these stormy waters.

She sat in a low chair, a single candle on the little table casting its light from behind to rim her figure in gold. Apparently the infant now slept. Eleanor’s song had become a gentle humming, her hand on the edge of the crib, rocking gently, her eyes fixed on the sleeping face.

Henry could not take his eyes from her, his thoughts and feelings suspended in that one moment. She had risen from her bed, her hair unpinned from its fashionable style but yet unbraided so that it fell in a glory of waves over her breast. A peignoir lay in soft overlapping layers of cream silk and lace from a high neck to cover her feet. Her face was calm. Her eyes hooded. Her lips curved in a tender smile. A Madonna, indeed.

His heart thudded against his ribs as the scene imprinted itself on his mind. She was so beautiful. And he had lost her to his brother. For the first time in his life Henry cursed the dead Thomas, even knowing that the blame could not in any way be heaped at his brother’s feet. He had lost her. And yet for the past two years he had tried to persuade himself that his love for her was dead, destroyed when she had broken her promise to him. Wrong! Totally and utterly wrong! The voice in his mind and his heart would no longer allow him to pretend. His love for Eleanor was as strong as ever. And just as doomed. He must not allow it to be a burden on her—and so must bear it on his own shoulders, his emotions hidden.