A Wicked Liaison Read online

  Tony rolled to the left, covering his head with his hands as the sound of the shot echoed in his ears. ‘What the hell are you doing in my house, firing a weapon? Are you mad? The ball missed my head by inches. You could have killed me.’

  St John righted the wing chair and sat in it, arms folded. ‘The ball missed you by several feet, just as I intended. I am an excellent shot, especially at such close range. But I am pleased to see you have recovered the will to live.’ He gestured to the wreckage of the room. ‘And the ball in the woodwork is the least of the problems here. Explain this, please.’

  Tony looked at the mess he had made of the room. The mirror was broken, and Patrick had not bothered to replace it. It was just as well, for he had a fair idea of what he must look like after who knew how long without a razor or change of linen. He did not need to see his reflection.

  Broken glasses littered the cold fireplace, and empty bottles littered the floor. Patrick had continued to bring the bottles for a while, after refusing him glasses, and hiding the windows behind the curtains so as to remove temptation. And now he refused him brandy, hoping to starve him out. It had made Tony so angry that he’d thrown a small table at the head of his retreating servant.

  And missed. He glanced at the chipped plaster of the wall and the pieces of broken table on the floor below it. ‘When you came, did I still have a servant to let you in?’

  ‘Yes. Patrick is most concerned about you. He sent me up alone and told me not to turn my back on you if there was anything left for you to throw. Now tell me, what happened to this room?’

  ‘A woman,’ Tony said with finality.

  ‘On the contrary, my man, I think it was you who did it.’

  ‘A woman happened to me, you idiot. And I happened to the room.’

  ‘What a relief. I thought it might be serious. Get yourself a bath and a shave and another woman. And then get back to work.’

  ‘There are no other women. None but her,’ Tony said sourly.

  St John sighed. ‘May the good Lord spare me from melodrama. Are we all to suffer for your broken heart? Her Grace the Dowager Duchess of Wellford was miles above you, in case you hadn’t noticed. I don’t see why—’

  ‘How did you know?’ Tony demanded.

  ‘Let me see.’ St John tapped his chin. ‘Perhaps it is because I am a spy, you moron. I set you to watch her. You were nervous when I suggested it. You have been distraught since the moment the project was completed. And you look like a gaffed flounder whenever I mention her name. As I was saying, the Dowager Duchess? I am most relieved to find that she had no part in any of this. She is a lovely girl. A favourite of my wife’s. What I’d have told Esme if I’d had her friend arrested for treason, I cannot say. And they are both quite angry with me for my part in this, although I expect to find forgiveness in time.

  ‘Tony…’ his tone became quiet and sympathetic ‘…Constance is charming, pleasant and totally out of your league. Far be it from me to let the cold light of day into your tragic fancy. While you have enough money to support a wife and a brood of little Smythes in sufficient comfort, I would suggest you choose a woman who is not a renowned beauty, accustomed to a thirty-room mansion and a coronet. Unless you wish to spend the rest of your life tossing furniture against the walls of a darkened room.’

  Tony sat on the floor, trying not to notice the shambles he’d made of his life. He’d held on to the dream for so long that it had seemed quite natural, when the moment came, to have Connie fall eagerly into his arms. He’d had no trouble believing what he’d wanted to believe, that there was much more to it than there actually had been. He’d been a glamorous diversion, and an answer to so many of her problems, that she had succumbed to temptation, only to regret it later.

  Perhaps, if he had taken time to court her, instead of simply seducing her, she’d have taken the whole thing more seriously. Perhaps not. It was a bit late to un-ring that particular bell.

  And now Stanton was staring at him, waiting for a response. If he did not think of her, or the last few weeks, or any of the foolish assumptions he’d had over the last thirteen years…If he could focus on the task immediately in front of him, he would be able to move forwards, and put some space between himself and the whole situation.

  He pulled himself up to his feet, leaning on the corner of the mantel. He could feel the brandy still fogging his brain and muffling the sound of his last argument with Constance, as it echoed endlessly in his head. Perhaps, if he had something to do with his time and kept very busy, he could ignore it all together.

  Perhaps he would fall off an ivy trellis or out of a window somewhere and never have to think of anything again. But he could not stay locked up in his rooms, alone with the knowledge that the dream that had sustained him for many lonely years was over.

  He brushed imaginary dust from his stained shirt, and lifted a stubbled chin to his guest. ‘Very well, then. I’ve made an ass of myself, and you have seen it. But the worst of it is over, I think. If you still wish to employ me, then give me time to bathe, shave and change. And then tell me what you want taken.’

  St John smiled as if nothing unusual had occurred. ‘Good man.’

  ‘Susan, you know I don’t take milk in my tea.’

  Her maid looked at her with guilty eyes. ‘I thought perhaps, your Grace, you might wish to try something more fortifying. Now that autumn is here, I mean. It wouldn’t do to take a chill.’

  ‘Fortifying.’ She looked at the tea. It was wretched stuff, but Susan was right. It was probably more nourishing. She took a sip.

  Susan added, ‘If you are not feeling well, your Grace, there is a lady in Cheapside that sells certain herbs. And when brewed up in a tea, these tend to clear up the sort of malady that you might be coming down with.’

  ‘No!’ Her hand went instinctively to cover her belly. She relaxed. ‘I am sorry, Susan. I did not mean to shout so. You were right the first time to put milk in my tea. No matter how I might complain, it is good for me. And perhaps an egg and a bit of dry toast. Could you bring it to my room? I do not feel like going downstairs until I am sure that I will not be sick.’

  There was no point in pretending any more with Susan, who knew her cycle almost as well as she did herself. She was two months gone with child.

  ‘Very good, your Grace. But…’ Susan left the statement open. She dare not ask the question, but she wanted an answer, all the same. Something must be done. They must leave London and retire quietly to the country where she could have the babe in secret. Or she must take the herbs and end it.

  ‘Please, Susan. A little breakfast, perhaps.’

  ‘Very good, your Grace.’

  Her maid left the room, and she turned to the window, staring out into the garden. The trellis below her was bare, and she could see that it had been as if she had installed a ladder to her bedroom window. The garden gate and wall were still an easy climb, although the garden had less cover than when it had been in full bloom.

  She closed her eyes, trying to imagine him making his way across it. It wouldn’t happen, of course. She had seen nothing of him for a month and a half. Even when she had gone out in public, the most she’d heard was someone mentioning that Anthony Smythe had just been in attendance, but had retired early. Or was expected, but seemed to be late.

  He was avoiding her. And she could hardly blame him.

  Fortunately, other men were not. Endsted had returned, and renewed his attentions with a kind of plodding respectability that rekindled her hopes for the future. And other, more eligible, men were more respectful, now that Barton was no longer warning off suitors and spreading rumours about her.

  Of course, in a few short months, everyone would know that the rumours were true. If she wished to marry well, she needed to act quickly to put an end to the pregnancy. It was just as her own mother would have told her to do, had anything stood between her and her goal.

  And it was the sensible thing to do, she reminded herself. She had proved her fertilit
y to herself, at least. She could hint to any man who showed serious interest that she had reason to believe the problems getting an heir were her late husband’s and not her own. She could find another peer, and resume her status in society. She could have her comfortable old life back. But this time she might have children, as well as a husband.

  She wrapped her arms around her stomach. Or she could go to Tony, and never be content again. She would spend her life alternately terrified by his job, and frustrated by his carefree attitude about the risks and his unwillingness to share everything that was in his heart or his mind. She might never have his full heart, and perhaps some day he would leave her to chase the dream woman he longed for. But when he came to her at night, she would have his undivided attention.

  And she would not have a family in the future. She would have the baby she’d always wanted. The one that was growing in her now would be warm in her arms in a few months, smiling up at her, with his father’s smile. And no matter what might happen, she would love them both with her whole heart, for how could she help but do otherwise?

  Susan returned with the tray, setting it gently down upon the bed.

  ‘Thank you, Susan. I am sure that I will feel much better after a little breakfast. And I will not be wanting any herbs.’ She looked at her maid. ‘I have waited too long for this. No matter what, I will not end it.’

  Susan looked at her with pity. The poor abandoned duchess and her bastard. How could she explain that it was only pride keeping her from doing what she had promised?

  Pride and the whirlwind of emotions that caught at her, every time she looked at the future. She had thought it would be easier to send him away than to keep him close. But life without him was every bit as hard as life with him had been.

  She had told him it was over, and she’d regretted it the moment the words had been out of her mouth. She had finally managed to make him angry. He had shouted so. And his words had been so bitter. It was not, as she had expected, the cavalier agreement that the time had come to part. She had cut him to the heart in one stroke.

  She’d cut herself as well. She had stood, frozen, watching him go. Wanting to call him back, even as he stepped through the window.

  Every night since, she’d thought of him, burning hot and cold, with desire, or remorse, or longing, or the strange sensations coursing through her body that she had come to know as pregnancy.

  She was having his child. Even better, their child. She could no more end it than she would end her own life. To be able to have something so precious, a gift that he had not wanted to give her, for fear that it would ruin her. Even then, he’d cared more for her reputation than he did his own pleasure. He’d left a bit of himself behind for her to keep, after vowing that he would protect her, and the babe, if it came to that.

  He had never said he loved her. But did she really need to hear the words, if he would behave thus?

  How could she have been so blind? He might not love her with the grand passion she wished, but he cared for her in all the ways that mattered.

  She loved him, with a dizzying, soul-wrenching intensity that was nothing like the warm glow she had felt for Robert. And doubted that she could bring herself to marry another, no matter what Tony might feel for her.

  Constance reached beneath her pillow for the strip of linen, hidden there. A man’s cravat, carefully folded, hidden where she could touch it, when the night was dark and she was feeling most alone. If she could bring herself to admit that she had been wrong, and persuade him to forgive her, she might never be alone again.

  ‘Susan,’ she called. ‘Lay out my clothes. I am going out.’

  Chapter Eighteen

  Patrick announced her, and she entered the study more hesitantly than she had the last time she’d needed a favour from him. She was dressed differently as well. Where she had come to seduce before, today she was attired modestly: the low square neck of her bodice filled with a fichu, the skirt of the dress cut so that it revealed nothing of the changes already taking place in her body.

  Tony was sitting at his desk, papers spread out in front of him, but he rose as she entered. She thought she detected a rush in the movements, as though he was caught off guard and took a moment to control his actions, before she noticed. ‘Your Grace?’

  He gestured her to the chair in front of the desk and then seated himself again. ‘To what do I owe the pleasure?’ There was no trace of irony in his voice. There was no emotion of any kind.

  ‘Do I really need a reason to visit, after what we have known together?’

  He looked at her. ‘In a word, yes. It has taken me several weeks to recover from our last discussion, and I have no wish to be unnecessarily reminded of it.’ He was staring at her body. ‘Unless…’

  ‘I have come to say that I am sorry.’ She hung her head.

  He looked at her with concern. ‘Your Grace, you are white as a sheet. A drink, perhaps?’ He turned to the decanter on the desk and his glass next to it, and sighed. He finished the contents in a gulp. Then he wiped the rim and poured her a small brandy.

  She found it an oddly fastidious gesture, from one who had known her so intimately. She took the glass, sniffed at the brandy, and felt her stomach roll. She set it down untasted. ‘I was wrong to leave you with the impression that I viewed your visits as unwelcome, or that I felt them to be a duty or an obligation, or anything that might be construed as a repayment of debt.’

  ‘Thank you,’ he said softly. ‘That is something, at least.’

  ‘It was just that, with the threats and the stress of the debts, and not knowing how to go on, I was not myself.’

  His gaze was flat and sceptical.

  ‘I am normally a most proper and respectable person,’ she continued. ‘Although you would not know it by my behaviour when alone with you. Had it not been for circumstances, I am sure I would never have behaved as shamelessly as I had, or as abominably as I did in ending it.’

  He rose. ‘And now you have quite undone any good you did before. If you wish to discount your behaviour with me as an aberration, then it is better we remain apart to avoid disappointment. If we are together again, either you will be horrified by your continued deviance, or I will be crushed by the lack of it. Please leave me, now. Unless…’ he stared at her ‘…there is any other reason for you coming here.’

  She was afraid to meet his gaze. ‘There is another thing. I know that you made me promise to not trouble you on that account, but I cannot help it. While I am relieved to know that you do not steal for no reason, so much of your life is kept in secret. Have you never considered another career? I knew you would be angry, and that it is hardly a point of pride for me to intercede. But I have gone to my nephew, and enquired after a position for you. He needs a man of business to run his estates and prevent him from being as ninnyhammered as he was when he lost my house. And you are quite the smartest man I know.’ She laid the sheet of parchment in front of him.

  He glared up at her. ‘You were enquiring after honest employment for me?’

  ‘Yes, Tony.’

  ‘Was there anything in our brief interaction that led you to believe that I might welcome a change of career?’

  ‘Well, no, Tony.’

  ‘And did I not specifically request that you never trouble me on the subject, and tell you that I had no intention to change for you or any other?’

  She stared at the floor. She had promised. She had sworn to him that it would not matter, and, by asking, she was forswearing herself. She raised her chin to look into his eyes. ‘I understand. I am sorry. It was not my place.’

  He stared back at her and she felt her lip begin to tremble. She wished she could turn and run, and not say the rest of the words she would have to say, before this could be over. ‘Tony.’ She tried a small sip of the brandy, but it did nothing to improve her nerves.

  He held out a hand for the paperwork. ‘Do not look at me so. Give me the paper. I can at least read it, although I suspect you have heard my f
inal answer on the subject.’

  He took the papers away from her and sat back down at the desk, feet flat on the floor. Then he removed a pair of reading glasses from the pocket of his coat, brushed them absently against his lapel to clean them, and put them on. He leaned forward, resting his chin on his elbows, tossing his head to get the hair out of his eyes. ‘No, no. This will never do. You’ll have me counting sheep in the country for your half-witted nephew, so that you can have the comfort of knowing I lead a poor but honest life. It is not going to happen, no matter what your motives.’

  And as she stared at him, the memory came flooding back to her. He had done the same in his house, and in hers, in chapel and in the library. She had always seen him thus, from the time he had learned to read, until she had left home and forgotten him. Anywhere that there was something to be read, she was liable to trip over him, polishing his spectacles and muttering over the paper. And some part of her mind assumed, should she go home, he would be there still, sitting under a tree in the garden, conjugating Latin and declaiming in Greek.

  The brandy glass slipped from her hand and shattered on the desk. ‘Eustace Smith.’

  Without looking up he said, ‘Connie, if you must insist on breaking the glassware, I’ll leave you to explain it to Patrick. And I can assure you that I do not need menial employment, so you can take your offer with you. Or better yet, leave it and I will pass it on to my niece’s new husband. Much more in his line, I think. He has a fine head on his shoulders, unlike your nephew the duke, and will soon have the estate put to right.’

  ‘Eustace? It is you, isn’t it?’ She stood and planted her hands on the desk in front of him. ‘Little Eustace Smith who used to live next door to me?’

  When he looked up into her eyes, he was smiling, the smile of her lover, Tony Smythe. ‘There was nothing little about me, even then.’

  She swallowed hard at the memory of him.