Maria watched as Mrs. Plumtree bustled past her into the room, then surveyed the open trunks. “The servants tell me you are going on a journey.”
Maria couldn’t stifle her groan. She’d hoped to escape without having to deal with Oliver’s grandmother. “Yes, ma’am. Mr. Pinter has found . . . er . . . Freddy’s brother, so we’re off to fetch him.”
Mrs. Plumtree fixed her with a dark glance. “Then why are you packing all of your clothes?”
Actually, she wasn’t packing them all. She’d had Betty box up everything Oliver had bought, and she was taking only the ones she’d traded her mourning gowns for. But she couldn’t exactly tell the woman that.
Casting Betty a sharp look, Mrs. Plumtree said, “Leave us, if you please.”
With a quick curtsy, Betty fled.
“Mrs. Plumtree, I don’t think—” Maria began.
“Let us put our cards on the table, shall we?” the woman said. “I know Oliver has been up to some scheme, which you allowed for your own reasons.”
“And which you allowed for your own reasons,” Maria accused.
“True.” Mrs. Plumtree cast her a rueful smile. “I am afraid I played a role with you that first night. I had to be sure, you see, that you did not mean to take advantage of him.”
“Take advantage of him?” she said bitterly. “What about his taking advantage of me?”
“Is that what he did?” the woman asked, a hint of alarm in her voice. “Is that why you are running away?”
Maria sighed. “No.” How could it be taking advantage when she’d thrown herself into their lovemaking like a wanton?
Mrs. Plumtree searched her face. “Beneath all his reckless remarks, he is a good man. And he genuinely wants to marry you—after last night at the ball I am certain of that much. So accept his offer, for God’s sake. And give me great-grandchildren. That is all I want.”
“And what about what I want?”
“You want him. I can see it whenever you look at him, the same way I can see it in his eyes whenever he looks at you.”
Maria turned away, her heart flipping over in her chest. “Oliver doesn’t know what he wants.”
“Perhaps.” Mrs. Plumtree came up to lay her hand on Maria’s shoulder. “And that is my fault. I have let him wander in the wilderness for too long. But he is finding his way back at last. And if you leave now—”
“He is not finding his way back—don’t you see?” Maria cried as she faced the woman. “He’s still gripped by guilt over that terrible night at the hunting lodge.”
Mrs. Plumtree’s eyes went wide. “He told you about that?”
“Yes. He told me how he wanted to go after his mother, but you wanted to wait. He told me he was the one to find his parents dead. He told me he was covered in blood and you paid off the servants.”
Mrs. Plumtree trembled. “He has never spoken about that to anyone, my dear. Not even me, and I was there. He has never told his siblings, nor his friends, as near as I can determine it. You are the first person with whom he has ever discussed what happened that night. That proves how much he cares for you.”
Maria swallowed. “But not enough to change his ways.”
“If you would but give him a chance—”
“And end up in the same nightmare you put your daughter in?” When Mrs. Plumtree paled, she said, “Forgive me. I shouldn’t have said that.”
Mrs. Plumtree stared down at her hands. “No. You are right. I should have seen that Lewis was not the sort of man to be a good husband. I should never have promoted the marriage, never encouraged Prudence’s pursuit of him, or his of her.” She let out a shaky breath. “But I thought that Prudence’s love would change him.”
“Just as you think my love will change Oliver.”
Startled, the woman lifted a hopeful gaze to Maria. “You love him?”
Maria stared blankly at her. Heavens alive. She did. She loved him. She could not pretend otherwise, even for his grandmother.
Yet he could never love her. He thought love was “a fancy word for lust.”
Tears sprang to her eyes, and she willed them not to fall. Seizing Mrs. Plumtree’s hands, she said, “Please do not tell him, I beg of you. He will use it against me to gain what he wants.”
“My dear—”
“Swear that you won’t tell him! Think of your daughter.”
“I am thinking of my daughter. She would want better for her son than the life he leads now.” Mrs. Plumtree gripped her hands with surprising strength. “You seem to think he is like his father, but he is actually like his mother. I do not know why he has pursued his father’s path all these years, but it is not his real character, I swear.”
“How can you be sure?” Maria whispered.
Mrs. Plumtree’s blue eyes held a wealth of heartache. “Something happened to him that night, before we went to the hunting lodge. He said he and his mother quarreled, and that is what sent her in search of Lewis. Oliver wouldn’t say what it was about, but I know it wounded him deeply. He has ignored the wound ever since. What he needs is for someone to heal it. And I think you might just do that.”
“I don’t want to do that.” She drew her hands from Mrs. Plumtree’s. “I want my life back, my ordinary American life where people say what they mean and do what they—” She caught herself. Even her ordinary American life was a lie. Nathan had proved that.
Still, it was better than the ever-present pain of loving Oliver when he couldn’t love her in return.
“I see I cannot prevent you from going,” Mrs. Plumtree said. “So I will not importune you further. All I can do is urge you not to give up on him yet. Not until all hope is gone. I think he still has the power to surprise you.”
“Of course you think that—as well you should; you’re his grandmother. But I can’t afford to be so blind.”
Turning away, she returned to her packing.
Mrs. Plumtree walked over to the dressing table and picked something up. “You are taking these, aren’t you?”
Maria turned to see her holding the box containing the pearls Oliver had given her. “Of course not. I have no right to them.”
“And I say that you do.” The woman hobbled toward Maria with the box. “They belonged to my daughter. I want you to have them.”
“Forgive me, but under the circumstances, I can’t accept them.”
Mrs. Plumtree shook her head. “You are as stubborn as he is.”
“It’s the one thing we have in common.”
“It’s something we all have in common.” A faint smile touched Mrs. Plumtree’s lips. “Very well. I will keep them until you return.” Her voice softened. “You are always welcome here, my dear. No matter what happens between you and Oliver.”
Maria cast her a startled glance.
Mrs. Plumtree’s smile broadened. “I would prefer to have you in the family, but failing that, I would be pleased and honored if you would consider me a friend.”
A lump caught in Maria’s throat. “Thank you. I would like that, too.”
“And I will keep your secret, though I am not sure it will matter. I suspect Oliver will not let you go as easily as you think.”
“Trust me, he will congratulate himself on his narrow escape.”
“You do not really believe that, do you?”
“I only know that if I stay here, he’ll wed me out of necessity. I don’t want to be his wife by necessity.” Not when passion is clouding his judgment. And mine.
Mrs. Plumtree merely looked skeptical as she left the room.
Maria wished she could believe in Oliver as much as his grandmother did, but she feared he was like any man whose plans had been spoiled. His pride was pricked, that’s all. Once he saw she was gone and there was nothing to be done about it, he would turn to other schemes, other plans . . . another woman who would marry him for his title and his grandmother’s fortune.
She gulped down the pain that surged through her. Then she reminded herself that she would suffer even worse pain if she had to watch him break his marriage vows. It was better to get past it now, than have it repeated for the rest of her life.
Even if leaving him broke her heart.
OLIVER ARRIVED AT Halstead Hall near nine in the evening. It had taken him far too long to hunt down the Archbishop of Canterbury and then convince the man to issue him a special license. He could only hope that Maria had not retired early. He wanted to see her with a virulence that surprised him.
Minerva met him in the courtyard as he strode through, headed for the great hall. She looked furious. “How long does it take to get a special license, anyway?”
“Why? What’s happened?”
“Maria has packed up and gone, she and Freddy both.”
His heart dropped into his stomach. “Gone where?”
“She wouldn’t say. All I know is that Mr. Pinter came this afternoon with news of her fiancé. Then she and Freddy headed off to join the man.”
“The hell they did!” He dragged his fingers through his hair. “Without a word to me?”
“She said she had no reason to stay, since your plan to fool Gran wasn’t working. I pointed out that your getting a special license implied that the two of you had an understanding, but she denied it.”
He stared blindly ahead, his blood slowing to sludge in his veins. She denied it. So she’d been sincere last night when she’d refused his offer of marriage. Maria wasn’t a fool—she could tell a bad candidate for a husband when she saw one. He was the fool, behaving like a green lad with his first sweetheart.
And here he’d spent the day reconciling himself to the idea of marrying her! On the way back to Halstead Hall, he’d been able to think of nothing but holding her, kissing her, convincing her that they could make a marriage work, even though he wasn’t at all sure of that. Clearly she was even less sure.
He gritted his teeth. What an idiot he was. One word about her fiancé and off she ran, eager to marry that American bastard who cared only for her money. She obviously preferred a fortune hunter to a known profligate, even one who’d seduced her.
But she had no money—how could she travel?
Then he remembered the pearls. She could easily sell those in Ealing to gain money for fares. The pearls were worth enough to fund a trip anywhere in England.
“And she left no note for me?” he couldn’t help asking, though it made him sound like the besotted wretch that he was. “Nothing to say why?”
“No. Something had upset her, but I couldn’t get her to talk about it.” Minerva eyed him closely. “You didn’t do anything to her, did you?”
“Nothing that would provoke her to flee.” Except ruin her for any other man. And offer her a marriage of the sort she found appalling. And desire her with an intensity that made his throat close up at the thought of her gone.
In a daze, he headed for his study. He couldn’t believe she’d left. He couldn’t believe he’d driven her away.
In his study he halted, brought up short by the sight of another of Minerva’s books sitting on his desk. It conjured up a flood of memories—Maria teasing him about the other one, Maria debating philosophy with him, Maria staring up at him with eyes clear as blue glass as she said, There is always hope.
He scowled. For other men, perhaps. Not for him. He’d lost all hope the day he’d driven Mother into killing Father and herself. Leave it to Maria to recognize the depravity that his family seemed blind to.
Minerva trailed into the study after him. “What are you going to do to get Maria back?”
He uttered a harsh laugh. “Not a damned thing. She doesn’t want to be back. If she didn’t even leave me a note or stay around to—”
He broke off, the words choking him. He’d tried to force her into marriage and Maria didn’t take well to bullying. Was it any wonder that she’d fled?
“You can’t just do nothing!” Minerva protested. “You have to go after her and convince her to marry you.”
“Why?” He faced her with a frown. “So you and the others can pacify Gran? She’s had it with the lot of us. And this . . . madness with Maria is the last straw. You might as well start making plans to live here for all eternity, because Gran is not going to stop until she has us married—and I’m not marrying anyone.” Not if he couldn’t have Maria.
Turning his back on his sister, he picked up the glass near the brandy decanter on his desk and filled it to the brim. He’d been mad to think his life might change. That somehow Maria could “save” him.
No one could save him.
“I don’t care about Gran and her ultimatum,” Minerva said. “But I do care about Maria. And she cares about you.”
“Then she’s a fool,” he said hoarsely. “Besides, if she cared, she wouldn’t have run off after Hyatt.”
“I still say that she—”
“Stay out of it, Minerva.” He swallowed a healthy measure of brandy. “She made her choice. It’s over.”
She snorted and marched off in a huff. He stood there drinking, trying to get to that pleasantly numb state where nothing mattered, where he didn’t think about Maria and last night, and the sweet way she’d given him her innocence . . .
He downed the rest of the brandy. She was gone, blast it! He should be elated that he’d escaped the fetters of wedlock.
“Damn it all to hell!” He slammed his empty glass on the table.
“Oh, that will certainly help the situation,” Gran said behind him.
Just what he needed—another female plaguing him. Ignoring her, he poured himself more brandy.
“She said you would behave like this,” Gran went on. “That you would not care about her leaving, that you would congratulate yourself on a narrow escape.”
He drank his brandy in silence.
“I told her you would not give her up easily. I guess I was wrong.”
A bitter laugh roiled up from inside him. “It won’t work this time, Gran.”
“What won’t work?”
He faced her, arching one brow. “Your attempts to manipulate me into doing what you want. I learn from my mistakes.” And now he was paying the price for that education—this pain of loss weighting his chest, crushing his heart. “Apparently, so does Maria. That’s why she ran off the first chance she got.”
“She ran off because she’s afraid that she cannot resist you, that she cannot be near you without giving in to you. You of all people ought to recognize when a woman does not trust herself around you.”
He fought the effect her words had on him. “Whatever the reason, she left me. I’m not going to run after her like some halfwit.”
“So you are just going to let her American fiancé have her?”
Playing on his jealousy—another of her tactics. Unfortunately, it was working.
He gritted his teeth. “If Hyatt is the one she wants, then I can’t—” His eyes narrowed. “How did you know about her fiancé?”
“Minerva told me.”
“Of course she did.” Draining the rest of the brandy, he set the glass on the desk. “No one in this whole blasted house can keep a secret.”
“Don’t start with that again,” he growled.
“Why not? It is the reason you are letting her trot off after some fool American. Do you not care at all?”
“No,” he lied, though the thought of Maria with that ass Hyatt made his stomach churn. “She made her choice. The least I can do is honor it.”
“Does it not bother you that she has no money to travel?”
“I’m sure she had the good sense to sell the pearls I gave her.”
“Actually, no. She left them here.” Limping up to the desk, Gran set the velvet box next to the decanter. “She said she had no right to them.”
He stared at the box. Without money, how had she managed the trip? His siblings must have given her something, but it couldn’t have been much. She would have had to take a mail coach. The idea of Maria and Freddy traveling without protection, easy prey for sharpers and pickpockets and unscrupulous innkeepers, not to mention highwaymen, made his heart stop.
“I don’t care,” he said uneasily, though it was getting harder to convince himself.
“Then you probably do not care that she and Freddy went off with Mr. Pinter. He is taking her to meet her fiancé.”
“The hell he is!” When triumph glinted in her eyes, he cursed his quick tongue. “You’re lying.”
She lifted one silver eyebrow.
Striding out into the hall, he bellowed, “Minerva!”
In a second, he heard her slippered feet on the stairs. “What is it?” she asked as she approached.
“How did Maria leave here?”
She glanced nervously from him to Gran. “She went with Mr. Pinter. He offered to take her and Freddy wherever they needed to travel, though it sounded as if it might be a long trip. It was actually very kind of him—”
“Deuced bastard!”
“He is a gentleman,” Gran put in, “so I suppose she is safe enough with him.”
“A gentleman. Right.” The sort who would spend the trip painting Oliver in the blackest terms, relating his most damning exploits, poisoning her against him—
Why the devil did it matter? She’d left. She wasn’t coming back. He shouldn’t care what she thought of him now.
But he did.
Worse yet, Pinter enjoyed playing the gallant knight, and behind their noble words, gallant knights were as susceptible to a pretty face as anyone. If Pinter was investing money and time in transporting her God knows where—not to mention waiving his fee for her—he’d surely expect something from her in return.
She was vulnerable right now, confused and upset. Alone with Maria in a carriage for hours, perhaps days, with only that fool Freddy to stop him, Pinter could easily . . .
He would throttle the man if he laid one finger on her!
He stalked down the hall. “How long ago did they leave?”
“Five hours,” Minerva said.
“And where were they headed?”
“I don’t kn—”
“Southampton,” Gran put in as she struggled to keep up with his long strides. When he looked at her, she added, “One of the grooms wheedled it out of Mr. Pinter’s coachman.”
He could be there by morning, if he posted through the night. Traveling at night in winter wasn’t ideal, but the moon was out, and depending on the quality of Pinter’s coach and cattle, Oliver might reach there within a few hours of their arrival. Even with money tight, he never skimped on his horses.
Once he reached Southampton he’d have to figure out how to find them, and the town wasn’t exactly small. He’d have to wrench her away from Pinter, too, which might be no small feat.
“Minerva,” he said, “go tell the coachman to prepare for a trip to Southampton. I mean to leave within the hour.”
“Good.” She hurried off.
As he headed for the stairs to pack some necessities, Gran grabbed his arm. “You are going to bring her back, aren’t you?”
He stared down into his grandmother’s anxious features. “Only if she wants to come back. I can’t be sure that she does.” He was done with trying to force her into marriage.
Gran scowled. “Then why are you making the journey?”
“To keep that pompous bastard Pinter from taking advantage of her. With no money and only Freddy for protection, she’s too vulnerable. He’s only a man, and what man can resist Maria?”
“That’s the only reason you’re going after her?”
“Yes.”
But even as he said it, he knew it was a lie. He was going after her because the thought of her in Hyatt’s arms ate at him like a cancer. Because he couldn’t bear the idea of letting her leave without a word between them.
Most of all, he was going after her because he could see the years stretching out before him, lonely and bereft of her company. And that prospect was just too damned hard to face.