Midnight's Wild Passion, page 33
She knew she’d miss her cousin like the very devil, but today she felt drained and listless. She just wanted to flee London without delay. Freedom hovered like a heavenly vision.
Henry descended the stairs at a canter. It was oddly comforting how immediately they’d returned to their easy affection. Hard to believe ten years had passed since they were together. She felt like she’d left him only yesterday.
Demarest followed Henry more slowly. She knew he was happy her brother was restored to her. But she also knew that, for a man whose comfort was his priority, the delay in her answer to his proposal irked. She couldn’t keep him waiting long. But she needed to see her childhood home, become Lady Antonia Hilliard again before she decided where her path would take her.
Henry had asked her to become chatelaine of Blaydon Park. That offer would make her father twitch in his grave, she was sure.
Life as Henry’s hostess wouldn’t be so different from life in Somerset, except she’d receive all honor due Lady Antonia Hilliard. She’d reclaim her independence, and she’d never again have to deal with lying rakes who broke her heart without a second thought.
Demarest had wanted Henry to stay in London, recover from his journey, reacquaint himself with his sister in a familiar setting. But her brother had always hated Town, and Antonia was eager to return to Blaydon Park. She supposed it was a sign of grudging approval that Demarest lent them his traveling chaise. And fresh clothes for Henry. Her brother had been in such a lather to find her, he hadn’t packed any necessities.
She couldn’t help wondering about the condition of the estate. The Henry she’d known tended to lose himself in his studies, remaining blithely unaware of practicalities. In a way, this was reassuring. One of the satisfactions of her restricted existence in Somerset was that Mr. Demarest was such a careless landlord, he left all decisions in his absence up to her. But of course she now realized he was careless about everything, including people.
Henry had never been careless, just preoccupied. Which offered her an opportunity to exert a positive influence on Blaydon Park.
She badly needed to feel necessary to someone somewhere.
Whatever choices she made, she’d never marry for love. Passion wounded too deeply. A comfortable, settled life with an older man who made no demands still appealed. The lure of becoming Cassie’s stepmother was a strong inducement for accepting Demarest.
Or maybe now she was a woman of means, she wouldn’t marry at all.
She couldn’t imagine she’d ever return to London. She would remain safely in the country. In the capital, she ran the risk of Johnny causing trouble or someone recognizing her as Cassie Demarest’s chaperone.
For so long, she’d been at fate’s mercy. Now new opportunities beckoned, offering more than she’d ever imagined. It seemed too good to be true.
She knew it was too good to be true.
No matter. She had to move beyond the pain and illusory joy of the last weeks. Her future mightn’t be exciting or romantical, to use Demarest’s term. But it was at least secure.
“Are you ready?” Henry asked.
“Yes.” She choked back a sob. Which was ridiculous. She refused to cry over losing Ranelaw. He hadn’t been hers to lose.
The fact that he didn’t merit a moment’s regret couldn’t change her heart. Her heart was determined to mourn him. And hate him. She hoped he roasted in hell. Even if she wept bitter tears of pity over his damnation.
She abhorred this morass of contradictory emotions. The longing for Northumberland’s clean emptiness was an ache in her bones. Perhaps once she was back where she belonged, she’d stop feeling so confused and miserable.
With silent punctiliousness, a footman opened the door to the street. Defiantly she raised her chin. A new life awaited. The Marquess of Ranelaw be damned.
Mr. Demarest pressed her gloved hand with a meaningful gesture. “Please remember what I asked you,” he murmured.
“Of course,” Antonia replied equally softly.
She hadn’t mentioned Demarest’s proposal to Henry or Cassie. What would her brother make of such a marriage? Perhaps having finally found her, he’d feel she owed him her complete attention. At least for the foreseeable future.
Another footman opened the coach door. Demarest took her arm with a possessive gesture that only someone as unworldly as Henry would miss. He led her outside.
She was about to step into the carriage when she realized someone ran along the street toward them.
To her astonishment, it was Cassie. Not Cassie in decorous London mode. But Cassie as her boisterous, pink-cheeked country self. The Cassie she’d watched chase stray calves and runaway chickens and flap her arms to frighten birds off sprouting seedlings.
“Antonia!” Several paces behind her, Antonia saw Bella struggle to catch up to her charge, who hurtled down the city street as though she crossed an empty field. “Antonia, wait!”
Cassie must have decided to say good-bye after all. Pleasure briefly warmed her turbulent regret. Mr. Demarest—Godfrey, she supposed she should call him—smiled tolerantly at his daughter’s hoydenish ways. Henry stared curiously at his cousin. With her bonnet askew over ruffled fair hair and her face flushed with exertion, she looked breathtakingly pretty.
Cassie raised a trembling hand to her heaving chest and spoke in a wild rush. “Antonia, there was a duel. Ranelaw’s been shot. He’s like to die.”
Like to die. . .
All Antonia’s self-serving lies about looking forward to her new life evaporated in an instant.
To reveal the jagged shards of her heart.
“What?” she stammered, wrenching free of Demarest.
Cassie bent at the waist and struggled for breath. Her words emerged in staccato bursts. “John Benton shot him. This morning. In Richmond.”
Through the clamor in her head, she managed an astonished whisper. “Johnny shot Ranelaw?”
How was it possible that Johnny Benton had shot Ranelaw?
Ranelaw was the lethal one. Benton was as friable as pastry in comparison.
This made no sense. Duels were illegal, a capital offense. If death resulted, the survivor risked prosecution for murder.
Demarest grabbed her arm. “What is all this? What is this scoundrel to you? I thought the cur went after Cassie and you told him to take his filthy attentions elsewhere.”
She shook him free and stared aghast at Cassie. “You must be wrong.”
Slowly Cassie regained her breath. Heaven knew how far she’d come. The girl’s reaction to hearing the Marquess of Ranelaw was at death’s door must have aroused curiosity. It hardly mattered. All Antonia heard, repeated over and over like a tocsin, was like to die.
Nightmare images of blood flooded her mind. Ranelaw lying in a pool of red, screaming with agony. She closed her eyes and struggled to prevent her stomach forcing her breakfast back up her throat. How could Ranelaw die? Even when she’d threatened to shoot him, she’d recognized a mere bullet couldn’t put paid to that animal vitality.
Yet it seemed a mere bullet promised to do just that. A bullet fired by her effete first lover. The earth popped off its axis and went dancing through space.
Cassie spoke in a jumbled rush. “Suzannah’s brother heard at his club. Ranelaw had some quarrel with Benton’s waistcoat. Benton’s fleeing for the Continent to evade the law. Ranelaw is at home, but they say he won’t survive the day.”
Henry frowned, his eyes darting between the two women as though he measured volatile chemicals in an experiment. “What is this to my sister? It’s interesting gossip, I grant. But surely not worth haring across London to deliver.”
Cassie stared at Antonia. “You can’t let him die believing you hate him.”
“I do hate him,” she said flatly, even as she felt her life ended with Ranelaw’s.
Cassie’s jaw hardened with purpose. “Then I daresay you don’t care he’s dying.”
“I . . . I didn’t say that.” Dizzy, she grabbed Cassie’s hands and squeezed them. She was sinking in horrible sucking quicksand. None of this felt real. Ranelaw couldn’t die. She wouldn’t let him.
Blindly she released Cassie and whirled toward the waiting carriage. Henry rushed after her. Through her anguish, she heard his angry bewilderment. “What’s this about, Antonia? You told me you’ve spent the last years as Cassie’s chaperone. Yet it seems you’re on terms of intimacy with a libertine whose reputation is so foul, gossip’s reached Northumberland. I knew the marquess at Oxford. He was as wild as a jungle tiger even as a youth.”
“Antonia, explain yourself,” Demarest insisted from beside Henry.
If she’d been less distraught, the weight of masculine disapproval might have daunted her. As it was, she barely noticed. All that mattered were those grim words, like to die.
“I must go to him,” she said under her breath, speaking to herself as much as to anyone else. She placed one trembling hand on the coach’s door frame.
“Don’t be insane, woman,” Demarest spluttered behind her. “You can’t call on a single man in his home. Particularly a single man of Ranelaw’s depraved habits. The fellow’s a loose fish.”
Antonia turned to respond but fell silent when Cassie glared at her father. Fleetingly the girl looked much older than her eighteen years. Older, wiser, and adamantly unforgiving.
“Don’t be a hypocrite, Papa,” she said sharply.
“Cassandra Mary Demarest!” he began.
“I know about Eloise Challoner.” Antonia had never before heard Cassie use that frigid tone.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Demarest blustered. But a flush mottled his face and he stepped back as though disowning his role in that old tragedy. If she’d ever doubted that her cousin had ruined Eloise, she doubted no longer.
“Don’t lie,” Cassie said still in that cutting tone. When she turned to Antonia, her voice softened. “Toni, you must hurry.”
Every rule of society, of common sense, insisted Antonia depart London with Henry and never spare Ranelaw another thought. She owed Ranelaw precisely nothing. Over the last two days, she’d almost convinced herself she loathed him.
Of course she didn’t.
The truth was as inarguable as the sky above her or the hard pavement beneath her feet. It had been part of her so long, she’d hardly noticed.
She noticed now.
She loved the Marquess of Ranelaw. It didn’t matter what sins he’d committed. Nothing changed what she felt.
She hadn’t given herself to Nicholas because after ten years of chastity, she suddenly had an itch to scratch. She’d given herself to Nicholas because she loved him more than she’d ever loved anyone.
She couldn’t let him die. Nothing—reputation, duty, fear—would stop her seeing him.
“Henry, I’m sorry,” she said quickly, her heart thundering with panic. “We must delay our travel. Or you can go without me.”
“I don’t want to go without you.” Her brother looked troubled.
If Nicholas was as close to death as Cassie said, Antonia had no time to make him understand. As though he’d ever understand why his ruined sister, finally on the verge of rehabilitation, was set on ruining herself again. This time for good.
“I’ll send a note when I know the situation.” Or slink back grieving. She didn’t say the words aloud. She refused to countenance the possibility that the man she loved might die. If Nicholas could lure her into his bed, he could do anything. Including survive this ridiculous duel he fought over her. She wasn’t green enough to imagine that the identities of the adversaries could be accidental.
Nicholas was a fool. But he was her fool. She’d be damned before she relinquished him to the grave.
Demarest scowled and she suddenly wondered if their marriage would have been the arrangement of equals she blithely imagined. Although she could never marry him now, however advantageous the match. She couldn’t marry another man when every beat of her heart echoed Ranelaw’s name.
“Antonia, be sensible,” he said urgently. “Even if the villain survives, he’ll only tumble you, then discard you for another bit of muslin.”
“I don’t care,” she said stubbornly.
“You of all women must realize—”
“I don’t care,” she repeated, and glanced up at Thomas, listening avidly from the driver’s box.
“Thomas, take me to Grosvenor Square. As fast as you can.”
“Yes, my lady.” He tipped his hat in her direction.
She leaped into the carriage, slammed the door, and clung tight as the vehicle lurched into movement. It was absurd, but she had the strongest presentiment that if she saw Nicholas in time, he wouldn’t die.
She realized she murmured over and over in a low voice. A repetitive plea to heaven. Surely God wouldn’t deprive her of her beloved just when she’d discovered she couldn’t live without him.
She heard shouting behind her. She paid no attention.
The coach jerked to a halt.
Oh, no, no, no, no, no.
Her heart stuttered with anguished denial. They couldn’t stop her now. Demarest might deny her the carriage. In which case she’d find a hackney. Walk if she must.
Good God, she’d crawl across London to convince Nicholas to fight for his life.
At this moment, she didn’t care whether he spent the rest of that life with her. All she cared about was that he recovered. That somewhere in the world Nicholas still walked and spoke and laughed. The prospect of him pursuing other women paled to insignificance compared to the horror of losing him altogether.
Her hands clenched in her lap as the door opened and Henry swung in. The fusillade of angry words died on her lips as he landed next to her. “Henry, what are you doing?” she asked blankly.
He wrenched the door shut and knocked on the roof. The coach resumed its progress with a rattling dash that answered her burning anxiety.
“You could be heading into a difficult spot.” Henry smiled, taking one of her hands in silent comfort. “You might like someone at your back.”
Chapter Thirty-two
Antonia braced for an inquisition but Henry remained blessedly quiet as the carriage careered through the thick traffic with a recklessness that in other circumstances would terrify her. As it was, she hardly noticed. She only knew her desperate need to see Nicholas, to offer forgiveness, to beg him to live.
Sightlessly she stared out the window at the packed streets. All she saw was an inner landscape of blood, darkness, and despair.
And unbearable, eternal loss.
She’d wondered whether Cassie’s news was accurate. The moment the carriage reached Grosvenor Square, she wondered no longer. Outside Ranelaw House, thick straw lay along the street to muffle traffic. Onlookers massed at the black railings dividing house from footpath.
Tidings of the Marquess of Ranelaw’s approaching demise spread. As their coach pulled up, more people joined the crowd. Surprisingly the gathering was subdued, almost respectful.
The arrival of the Demarest coach and the alighting of two people from society’s upper echelons, even if two people unknown to the mob, caused a stir. Antonia lowered her head so her bonnet hid her distinctive features. With silent reassurance, Henry took her elbow and effortlessly cleared a path to the two brawny footmen guarding the shallow stairs.
Antonia hadn’t prepared to fight her way through curious bystanders or servants determined to preserve their master’s privacy. She should have realized that Nicholas’s wound would be a public matter. She should have realized, in contrast to her previous visit, that Ranelaw House would be a center of activity.
She had cause to be grateful for Henry’s partisan presence. Another sign that he’d matured beyond the callow youth she remembered. His quiet authority, his air of breeding, his refusal to allow mere domestics to bar access to the house countered all opposition. He and Antonia swept inside without revealing their identities.
Fear held her trembling and mute as the door shut, enclosing them in the marble entrance hall. The dull thud held a grimly doom-laden note and the statues loomed against the walls like funerary monuments.
As her belly cramped with the painful, joyful memory of the last time she was here, she dragged in a breath to steady her nerves. What transfiguring passion she’d shared with Nicholas. She was such a willfully blind fool. She should have realized then that she was hopelessly in love with the scapegrace.
To her surprise, Lord Thorpe emerged to greet them. She’d expected a servant, perhaps the supercilious butler who had refused her admission the day of Cassie’s abduction. Thorpe had always impressed her as a sensible man. In fact, at first she’d been puzzled that he and Nicholas were friends. For so long, she’d obstinately closed her eyes to any evidence that Nicholas was more than a selfish hedonist.
Cassie had lent her a traveling dress, so she was more fashionably turned out than usual. It was unlikely Thorpe would identify her as Miss Demarest’s harridan of a chaperone, although she’d watched him dance and flirt through a multitude of balls.
Thorpe smiled at Henry. “Lord Aveson, I haven’t seen you in a dog’s age.”
Henry removed his hat and bowed. “Lord Thorpe, not since our days at Oxford.”
“You were such a swot, I’m surprised you remember me.”
Antonia stifled an impatient sigh. What did social niceties matter when Nicholas lay dying?
“Antonia, allow me to introduce Lord Thorpe.” Henry turned to her. “My lord, this is my sister, Lady Antonia Hilliard.”
Manners forced her to curtsy and extend her hand. Thorpe bowed over it and peered into her face. She watched him struggle to force a wisp of memory to the fore. She hardly cared whether he recognized her, but for Henry’s sake, she kept her expression neutral as though she met a stranger.
