Chapter Fifteen
Her heart lurched once, but she’d meant what she’d said. She gazed straight into his face without fear.
He seemed frozen, except for the fact that his widening eyes showed a tendency to bulge. She’d never seen blood drain from anyone’s face so rapidly. It left his skin livid and he had to clutch at the doorframe as if dizziness almost overcame him.
“Dickie,” she drawled. “How wonderful.”
“You,” he uttered. A world of loathing and sheer, stunned astonishment spilled out of that single syllable.
“You seem surprised, Dickie,” she observed. “I presumed it was me you’d come to see.” She smiled faintly. “You cut me.”
Close at her elbow, Grant’s hitched breath told her he too was remembering the villain with the knife that would have killed her had it not been for Grant. After all, her pistol could only have stopped one of them.
Perhaps Dickie caught the nuance, too, for color rushed back into his cheeks as fast as it had left.
“Of course, it was you we came to see,” said another impatient voice, and at last she saw her father, pushing past Dickie to her. “Katherine.”
“Father.” She offered her cheek, but she didn’t kiss his.
She withdrew before his lips could touch her, if such had been his intention. It had been their mode of greeting for nine years now, since he’d sent her back to her husband. She’d been eighteen years old. Just. And yet still she didn’t want to know if he too was surprised to see her alive. If he was, he’d recovered better than Dickie.
Grant’s soothing hand was at her elbow. “Shall we move out of the doorway?” he suggested, clearly anxious for her not to be hemmed in. Somehow, he stood between her and the other men, gesturing politely for them to step back into the ballroom.
Her father glared at him. “Who the devil are you?” he demanded, looking him up and down.
“Tristram Grant.” He smiled. “I’m the curate.”
And somehow, while hysterical laughter tried to rumble up from her stomach, she was in the ballroom with her hand tucked in Grant’s arm. Although she still carried her champagne, he’d abandoned his. And nearby, among the crowd, but facing them, stood Wickenden, Gillie, and Cornelius.
Dickie’s still rattled gaze swept over them without interest and then snapped back to the wicked baron.
“How remiss of me,” Kate said lazily to Grant. “I should have presented you to my father, Sir Anthony Mere. And my late husband’s cousin, Dickie, of course.”
The insult was deliberate. As Baron Crowmore, Dickie had precedence over her father. Besides which, she hadn’t given him his title, just the nickname he loathed and could never shake off.
Neither her father nor Dickie thought the curate worthy of more than an impatient nod. “So, what brings both of you into exile with me?” Kate inquired.
“Katherine,” her father warned, glancing around the several interested people nearby who could hear her quite plainly. He lowered his voice. “Your mother was worried about you.”
Kate laughed. Why worry about her once the evil old devil was dead?
“Of course she could not come herself, her health being what it is,” her father said, slightly flustered by her reaction.
“Of course,” Kate said. “And Dickie also was worried about me?”
“His lordship has been staying with friends in the north,” her father said impatiently. “He heard disturbing rumors about you and was coming to see for himself when we fell in together on the final stage of the journey.”
“Rumors,” Kate repeated, transferring her gaze to Dickie. “They must have been very bad that you couldn’t even wait until morning to talk to me about them. You, of all people, should know that there are always rumors about me. But perhaps these latest ones came from your friend, Mr. Tugg?”
For an instant, she saw the truth in his eyes. The shock that she knew. The understanding that Tugg had betrayed him, that he, the new Lord Crowmore, had, in fact, manipulated for just this moment. Kate held his gaze with utter contempt.
“Tugg,” her father repeated. “Who’s Tugg?”
“Interesting man,” Lord Wickenden said suddenly. No one had noticed him moving closer, and all eyes snapped round to him. He smiled and bowed to Kate’s father. “Your servant, Sir Anthony. We must talk later.”
And now Dickie knew more or less the full extent of this disaster. Wickenden could destroy anyone, socially, with a word. And Dickie’s was a lot more than a social crime. A hint of desperation and fury crossed his pale face. But it was momentary. He came up, fighting.
“I should have known I would find his lordship here, by your side, Kate.” He smiled. “And didn’t I glimpse Lord Vernon, too, when I arrived? No wonder poor Sir Anthony bolted up here to see what the devil was going on. It will make a delicious tale in London.”
Grant took a hasty step forward, though Kate hung onto his arm.
“Oops,” Wickenden said in apparent amusement. “I’m at your service, Grant.” Which meant he was happy to serve as Grant’s second in the duel which would inevitably follow the punch Grant was so clearly about to deliver.
“Diversionary tactics, Dickie?” Kate said, digging her fingers warningly into Grant’s arm. “With so much else to talk about, why would anyone choose to discuss you and Tugg?”
“The magistrate might,” Tristram said savagely.
“Oh, please,” Dickie said with contempt. He didn’t even look at Grant. “Would you care to dance, Kate? We might then discuss things privately at the same time.”
“The lady is promised to me for this dance,” Tristram said.
“In fact, my card is full,” Kate confirmed. “But you are quite right. We should discuss family matters in private. And since you are here, even without invitation, let it be now. There is a quieter antechamber at the other end of the ballroom.”
“You would know about such a thing. But let us repair there, by all means.”
“With Sir Anthony,” Tristram interpolated. “And myself.”
Dickie curled his lip. “I believe we can dispense with spiritual guidance.”
Kate doubted it was the spiritual Tristram had in mind. “Nevertheless, I would like Mr. Grant to be present.”
“Wouldn’t you be better with the vicar himself?” Dickie murmured as he walked at her other side.
Kate frowned. “The vicar is not here,” she said before it dawned on her. Tugg must have told Dickie something about Grant—no doubt to justify the time it had taken him and his cohorts to dispose of her—only promoted him to vicar. No doubt the niceties were lost on Tugg in any case.
Dickie, never one to overlook free champagne and already foiled from his effort to obtain some, seized two glasses from the tray of a passing servant in livery.
In the ante room, Bernard and Jenny Smallwood were glaring at one another and arguing in low, intense voices. Lord Vernon’s name was definitely mentioned, so perhaps Kate’s campaign in that field was working. The pair broke off at the invasion of so many people at once.
“Be so good as to vacate the room, young man,” Crowmore said.
Bernard stared at him. “I will when I’m good and ready. For now, I suggest you vacate it and be so good as to mend your manner in the presence of a lady. Ladies,” he added with a blink as he finally noticed Kate’s presence.
“Why, you puppy!” Crowmore exclaimed. No doubt he was itching to loose his anger on someone who couldn’t ruin him.
“If you please. Bernard,” Kate said quietly. “It’s very important.” She tapped him on the arm with her fan. “Besides, you don’t wish to quarrel with Jenny, you know. You want to dance with her. My apologies, Miss Smallwood.”
Jenny looked more than happy to run away from the influx of angry men, so Bernard shrugged and tucked her hand in his arm before strolling out as if he’d always meant to.
“Thank you,” Grant murmured as they passed him. Before he closed the door, Kate had time to glimpse Wickenden and Cornelius hovering like well-dressed guards.
The room was small, furnished only with a small round table on an oriental rug and two small armchairs. A pleasant breeze drifted through the curtain.
Although she would have preferred to stand, Kate sat simply to prove her ease of mind to Dickie, and set her champagne glass on the table in front of her. At Dickie’s civil invitation, her father took the other chair. Dickie then presented him with one of his champagne glasses.
“We might as well be comfortable,” he observed, raising his glass and taking a sip.
Grant lounged against the wall somewhere behind Kate. When she glanced round at him, he looked very un-clergyman-like, much more like the soldier he’d once been, in repose, resting but watchful. Yet Dickie had clearly discounted him as some nonentity Kate had wrapped around her little finger in passing. The thought gave her an instant’s amusement.
“So,” Dickie said, setting his glass down on the table beside Kate’s. “How do we solve this little problem of accusation and counter-accusation?”
“I haven’t heard anyone accuse anyone of anything,” Kate’s father said irritably. “Except you, sir, seem to imagine you may insult my daughter before me with impunity. I am not deaf, sir. And now that we are private, I take leave to tell you I won’t stand for it.”
Kate felt her eyes widen. That was unexpected. She’d expected him to agree with Dickie on that issue at least. Dickie looked more annoyed than surprised, though he covered it almost immediately.
“Come, sir, that is what we will sort out.” Dickie blinked rapidly, forced a smile as he turned his attention back to Kate. “I propose to keep my observations to myself and further to silence any salacious gossip I encounter, so far as is in my power. We both know your battered reputation can ill stand any more scandal, and the news of your antics up here with at least three lovers—!”
Kate’s father leapt to his feet.
“No, no, sir!” Dickie threw up one hand. “I merely illustrate what could be said and what I will endeavor to see is not said. On the condition that you, Kate, keep your tongue still on matters concerning me.”
“What matters?” Sir Anthony demanded, subsiding back into his chair. His voice dripped with distaste.
“Why, we aren’t going to talk about them, are we?” Dickie snatched up his glass and raised it high in an unexpectedly dramatic gesture. Kate watched the candlelight dance through the tiny bubbles in his glass, thinking that she should have known he would negotiate, that she didn’t wish him to get off so easily, that in his own way, he was as corrupt and evil as her husband. The question was, would she sacrifice her own peace—and Grant’s career in the Church—to bring him to justice? For herself, she’d already faced scandal. Another made no odds. But if she really became the curate’s wife…
“A toast,” Dickie declaimed. And quite suddenly, Tristram catapulted past her shoulder and seized Dickie’s free hand by the wrist.
Only it wasn’t free. His fingers grasped a tiny, open vial. He tried to palm it, but Tristram brutally wrested it from him. Kate leapt to her feet, her reticule dropping to the floor with a clatter. She ignored it.
Dickie had paled again, but still he tried to brazen it out. He held out his hand. “My property, if you please.”
“Poison?” Grant said in a strange, intense whisper. “You would truly poison her in front of her own father? How desperate are you?”
“You’re being ridiculous,” Dickie said coldly. “Of course I was not poisoning her.”
Grant raised the vial in front of him. “You were about to pour this into her glass while distracting us with your pompous toast.”
“What of it?” Dickie said brazenly. “It wouldn’t have harmed her. It wouldn’t have killed her.”
“Then what the devil is it?” Grant demanded, sniffing the vial and wrinkling his nose.
“You tried to drug my daughter?” Kate’s father said in stark disbelief.
“Oh, don’t be so bloody self-righteous!” Dickie exclaimed. “Don’t pretend it’s not what you want, too, Mere! It’s not poison, you imbeciles. It’s to make her miscarry.”
Kate grasped her chair back for support. He’d found the one thing to unite everyone against her.
But even as the blood sang in her ears, Tristram seized Dickie by the cravat, yanked him away from her, and punched him full in the face.
Dickie fell back against the wall, stunned, no doubt mentally as well as physically. “Why, you, you…” he spluttered as blood dripped from his nose.
Kate barely noticed. She couldn’t take her eyes off Tristram who looked almost as white as Dickie. His gaze locked with hers in a hundred silent messages. Her throat closed up. They might have been the only two people in the room.
But they weren’t. Her father let out an urgent cry an instant before she saw Dickie lunge. He’d slung himself off the wall, straight at her. Grant yanked her behind him, but Dickie hadn’t been charging at her. He dropped to the floor, seizing her fallen reticule and ripping it open even as he leapt to his feet once more. In his hand was her familiar little pistol, and it was pointed straight at Tristram Grant.
“Oh, dear God,” she whispered. She’d only brought it from habit, because it was a familiar sight in her reticule, not from fear. Grant had dismissed Tugg and his associates. She hadn’t felt in any danger, and yet now the man he’d saved her from was about to shoot the man she loved beyond all reason, beyond everything before or to come.
“You struck me,” Dickie uttered.
“I did. An eye for an eye, Dickie. By biblical justice, I should kill you.”
“Then it’s as well I hold the gun!”
“You’re insane!” Kate’s father exclaimed.
Dickie laughed. With a cry, Kate tried to get around Tristram, but he held her back, behind him. They all knew Dickie would shoot. In was in his eyes, which didn’t waver, even when the door burst open and Lord Vernon exploded into the room.
There seemed to be no time for him to take in what was happening. Certainly, he didn’t pause, just took another smooth leap straight between Dickie and Tristram.
“Gil!” Tristram started forward in fear, but Vernon reached, throwing up Dickie’s arm just as the little pistol exploded.
Vernon’s fingers grasped the short barrel and in another instant, he had wrested it from Dickie.
Beyond the open door came a scream and several shouts, an upsurge of voices. The orchestra stopped.
Kate could hear Wickenden’s voice, calming people. “A bit of an accident, Mrs. Winslow. I wouldn’t go in just yet. Let me see to it for you.”
And then the door closed once more, this time with Wickenden and Cornelius on the inside.
“You’re bleeding,” Tristram said shakily.
“Well,” Vernon said. “No one gets to shoot my little brother.” And he sat down quite suddenly on the floor. Kate ran to him.
“Fetch Dr. Lampton,” Tristram flung at Cornelius as he dropped down beside Vernon and Kate.
“I’m fine, damn it,” Vernon protested as Cornelius rushed out again. “I’d watch that bastard, though. Sorry, Kate,” he added.
“I’m watching him,” Wickenden said grimly.
Dickie, in fact, had sunk into the nearest armchair, his head in his hands. He appeared to be shaking. No wonder. He’d tried to commit murder. In public. He really did seem to have lost all self-control.
“Idiot,” Grant said, grasping his brother’s good shoulder while easing his coat off the other. “I’m not worth that.”
Vernon smiled ruefully. “Kate would appear to disagree.”
Grant ignored that. “Thank God. He just caught you as you pushed the gun upward. It’s only nicked the skin. I don’t think it got the bone, but Lampton will check it over and make sure.”
Over Grant’s head, Vernon met Kate’s anxious gaze. “It doesn’t matter though. I heard some of what Dickie said, and he’s right about one thing. We can’t avoid the scandal, any of it. It will all be added to and speculated over. All we can do is limit it, and for that, you need to marry me. I’ll call the child Crowmore’s or mine, whichever you prefer, but it’s me you need to marry. Because of the child. Tell her, Tris. You know it’s true.”
Tristram turned his head toward her. His face was white, his eyes anguished as he tried to consider what was best for his brother’s child. His lips quirked, though it didn’t quite amount to a smile. As clearly as if he spoke the words, he told her he would not choose for her, as he so easily could. To him, this had to be her decision, and it was time she made it.
She did.
“He’s right, Katherine,” her father said in a strangled voice. “You have to marry Vernon. As soon as possible.”
This had gone far enough.
“Why are you all so obsessed with my unborn child?” she demanded. “Do you imagine I would ever have been foolish enough to deliver a child into Crowmore’s power? There was never any possibility of a child. Not Vernon’s since he was never my lover, and certainly not Crowmore’s. Because Dickie’s frightened of something doesn’t make it fact. I am not and never have been enceinte.”
They all gaped at her.
Tristram began to smile in earnest.
Dickie took his head out of his hands and stared at her.
Her father said, “Then why the devil didn’t you tell us all this in the first place?”
“Because my marriage was none of your business. You, Father, made that clear a long time ago. Why bother when no one would believe me? Also, I’m perverse.”
“Kate, you idiot, it nearly got you killed,” Tristram said shakily.
“Oh, there was always more than that to get me killed. Even without a child, Dickie wanted back all the settlements my husband made on me when we married. The Crowmore estate does little more than pay Dickie’s debts. He needs the money settled on me in order to live as he’s accustomed to. Don’t you, Dickie?”
Dickie sneered and stood up. “Well, you might have the money, Cousin, but you aren’t going to enjoy it. I think it’s time your hosts learned exactly who they’re entertaining in this ridiculous little town. And trust me, word will get back to London.”
He made a charge for the door.
“Keith,” Grant warned, starting after him. But to Kate’s amazement, Wickenden merely opened the door politely and bowed him out.
“They don’t know him,” Kate said uneasily. “They don’t know who fired the shots. Whatever he’s going to say will cause damage. Who is the magistrate? Is he here at the ball?”
“Magistrate?” Dr. Lampton said, striding in with his familiar bag and looking around for his patient. “Our host, Mr. Winslow.”
Kate could already hear Dickie’s voice raised, addressing his hosts in a voice loud enough to be heard by the whole company, which had again fallen silent. Kate wondered dully if Mrs. Winslow would hate her more for ruining the ball or for what Dickie was saying about her, confirming all Blackhaven’s worst suspicions.
“…all know she was dragged from her lover’s bed to receive the news of her husband’s death!”
“You’ll live,” Dr. Lampton was telling Vernon behind her. “But you must keep that wound clean. I’ll bandage it for you now and check on it again tomorrow. I’d advise you to rest, for you’ve had a shock and lost some blood besides.”
“Thanks,” Tristram said in relief. “It was damned impressive. I didn’t know he could move so fast.”
Kate, glad of their banter, tilted her chin and did what she always did—faced the storm head-on and alone. She had to put distance between herself and Tristram Grant.
She walked out of the open door as if she hadn’t a care in the world.
Dickie, in the middle of the room, was warming to his theme, for his appalled audience seemed spellbound by his salacious revelations. No one noticed her at first as she weaved her way among the other guests. She kept her gaze on Dickie, a carefully amused expression on her face as his crude insults battered her, making her cringe inside, no longer just for herself, but for the man who loved her against all the odds.
“Would you really accept such a woman into your homes, allow her to contaminate your daughters—and sons!—with her ill-bred promiscuity?” Dickie inquired.
He was too animated right now to resemble the slug Cornelius called him. In fact, his eyes were too bright, and spittle sprayed from his mouth as he talked. The words spilled from him like the poison he’d tried to pour into her glass, years of frustration and hatred, intensified a hundredfold by his humiliation tonight. By his final failure. He’d played and lost, and he meant to ruin her irrevocably, drag her down with him on his way to perdition.
The worst of it was that he didn’t appear to be performing. He might have been imparting some kindly-meant warning to his hostess, except that his voice was raised a little with passion, and the ballroom had fallen silent to hear.
“Dear God, ma’am,” Dickie said sorrowfully, “she has no less than three lovers at the very least, in this town alone. In your house this very evening.”
They began to notice her. More and more eyes swiveled toward her, both men and women, some embarrassed, some angry or appalled, contemptuous or wickedly amused.
She’d seen it all before, in London, when she’d walked into the first soiree after Crowmore’s death. Everyone, even those she’d regarded as friends, who’d accepted her help or given theirs in the past, had turned from her with just those expressions, giving her the cut direct. It had been a humiliating mistake. The world had known she and Crowmore had loathed each other and yet she was meant to pretend grief at his death.
Honesty hadn’t helped her then and it wouldn’t now. All she could do was keep this to herself. She couldn’t think of the future, the dazzling happiness she’d almost achieved with Tristram before Dickie started pulling it down around her ears. There should have been a way to stop him, but it was too late now.
His eyes met hers across the room. He actually smiled with triumph, and delivered the killer blow. “She’s only here in Blackhaven to give birth to her illegitimate child out of the public eye. She means to pass it off as the late Lord Crowmore’s.”
It didn’t matter that it wasn’t true. That the lie would be called when no child was born. The damage would have been long done.
Holding her gaze, he began again. “Don’t allow this trollop, this—”
“My lord!” Mrs. Winslow’s hand shot up quite suddenly to silence him. “I will hear no more. I beg leave to inform you, you are vilely traducing a friend of mine. A friend of all of us in the vicinity of Blackhaven.”
Kate’s lips fell apart. There was nothing she could do about it.
Mr. Winslow strode over to stand by his wife. “And you have the gall to do it in my house, where you were not even invited, using language quite unfit for the occasion. You, sir, despite your noble title, are no gentleman, and you are not welcome here. Or anywhere in Blackhaven, I daresay. My servants will show you out. Though they may call upon you in the morning concerning other matters, such as the firing of a pistol. Good evening, sir.”
As several liveried servants moved in on him, a hand brushed against Kate’s. Grant’s.
“How long have you been there?” she murmured.
“All the time.”
“You fool,” she whispered. “I was trying to save you.”
“There was no need. Wickenden was right. Blackhaven loves you.”
“I don’t know why.” Suddenly she wanted to cry. His fingers curled around hers and she clung to them.
Dickie was backing away from the servants, his face wild and hunted.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Mr. Winslow spoke into the growing hubbub of noise. Dickie turned and bolted up the steps and through the arch, the servants at his tail. Wickenden, Cornelius, Bernard, and several other gentlemen followed discreetly. “We apologize unreservedly for what you were forced to hear. I’m afraid through shock we let him continue too long. Lady Crowmore.” He bowed to her. “We particularly apologize to you for such insult given under our roof.”
Grant released her fingers, gave her a little push, and she almost stumbled forward under everyone’s gaze. It came to her that some of the anger and contempt she’d seen had been aimed not at her but at Dickie’s disgusting tirade.
“I hope you will not hold it against us,” Mrs. Winslow said with a slightly nervous smile.
Kate swallowed, walking up to her with her hand held out. “On the contrary. I’m so glad to have such friends.” And as Mrs. Winslow took her hand, the tears started, and the older lady put her arm around her. “There, my dear, you have had a terrible experience, I think. Come with me, now. Gillie?”
And Gillie was there, on her other side, helping her out of the ballroom and into the privacy of an empty room upstairs where she could cry her eyes out.