Letters to a Lover, page 7
“Did you ask Gordon or Timothy?” Griz asked. “About the stranger?”
Azalea shook her head. “Coming after the Mrs. Carston incident, it alarmed me too much. I decided it was unimportant, a mere forgetfulness. Until the day before yesterday when Gunning called and seemed to imply some closeness between us that I certainly don’t recall either.”
“What happened?” Dragan asked.
Azalea waved one impatient hand. “He called during my at home, but when everyone else departed, he lingered. I let him.”
“Annoying Lady Monkton again?” Dragan guessed.
One of the first times Azalea had met Dragan, she had, in front of her disapproving sister-in-law, Augusta, Lady Monkton, invited him into the house without even knowing if Eric was at home. She had suspected not, and she had been right. And quite honest with Dragan about her motive.
She smiled ruefully. “Something like that. But when he started talking…improperly, I told him to leave. He made a clumsy lunge, grabbing me as if I were some poor creature he had paid for. So I emptied the teapot over him.”
His lips twitched in response. “You are indeed my wife’s sister. How did you feel when you poured the tea over him?”
“Satisfied, I think, although Gunning was angry, and I was glad when Eric walked in. Whether or not I misled him, he is not a pleasant man.”
“That is an understatement,” Griz muttered.
“Before that,” Azalea said with a little more difficulty, “I had begun to panic. I am used to side-stepping the over-amorous. But when he grabbed at me, I froze. The world seemed to rush on me. I couldn’t breathe. It was…horrific.”
“Why?” Dragan asked, holding her gaze. “Was he so frightening?”
She frowned with the effort of remembrance. “I don’t…he wasn’t frightening, but something was. I remember being afraid I would faint…”
“And when you say the world was rushing on you, what do you mean?”
She blinked, forcing herself back into the memory. “Images flashing through my mind, but they were blurred, incomprehensible, too quick.”
“Do you think they might be the memories you’ve forgotten? Which you were then trying to grasp, perhaps, as something similar happened?”
“Maybe,” Azalea said doubtfully. “But if so, I still don’t see why I can remember Gunning’s would-be assault quite clearly but not anything at all about any other passage between us. If it happened, which I doubt. All I could really think when Gunning seized me was that I couldn’t remember whatever intimacy he was talking about. Or Mrs. Carston or the man at the Exhibition, or whatever Lord Darchett was talking about.”
A knock at the door made all three of them jerk around to face it. But it was only Emmie announcing that luncheon was served in the dining room.
Obediently, they all moved across the hall, and Griz closed the door.
“So,” Azalea said as they sat down, “am I mad, Doctor? Will I ever remember?”
“You seem perfectly sane to me,” Dragan replied.
“He’s gullible,” Griz said with a quick grin at Azalea.
“Honestly,” Dragan continued, ignoring his wife, “I don’t know whether you will remember everything. But we’ll do our best to fill in the gaps for you.”
“How?” Azalea demanded.
“By finding out what happened at Lady Royston’s,” Griz said. “Who this strange man at the Exhibition was, and looking at him and Gunning a little more closely. And Darchett, come to that.”
Azalea regarded her unhappily. “You mean why I might have written inappropriate letters to any of them?”
“Or how they might have stolen them,” Dragan pointed out.
“Or made them up in vengeance of some kind,” Griz said. “We don’t even know if they exist.”
That would be best of all, Azalea thought. A nasty joke which cost her a hundred pounds and a couple of sleepless nights and then vanished, leaving her to enjoy the rest of her life with her husband and children.
Chapter Seven
Azalea was both relieved and miserable to separate from her husband for the evening, especially since he strolled into her bedchamber with an alternative suggestion.
She was preparing for Mrs. Halland’s ball at the time and sat before the glass in her shift and stays, while Morris artfully dressed her hair high on her head with diamond combs.
“An important evening, I perceive,” he said from the doorway, making her jump and blush like a new bride. He strolled into the room, his attention apparently on the gorgeous blue ballgown spread out on the bed beside the numerous flounced petticoats it required.
“The Halland ball,” she said, watching him in the glass. He was in evening dress, looking particularly handsome. “Do you intend to go?”
He turned to meet her gaze in the mirror. “I am happy to escort you there, but I believe I declined the invitation, being previously promised to a much duller affair.”
“You could send your dull people a note of regret and come to Mrs. Halland’s anyway,” she suggested. “She would not mind.”
“I could,” he agreed, and her heart beat faster at the possibility. “But my perfidy would surely be discovered. I have a better idea.”
“You want me to send my regrets to Mrs. Halland and help relieve the dullness of your evening?”
“Though a tempting proposition for me, I could not inflict an evening of such boredom upon you. My proposition is quite different. You may go,” he added to Morris. “I will help her ladyship with her remaining toilette.”
Morris bridled, opening her mouth to object, only somehow, when she met Eric’s gaze, she only mumbled, “Yes, my lord,” and curtseyed before leaving the room in a sweep of silent disapproval.
“What is your better idea?” Azalea asked nervously, rising from her chair and walking to the bed to pick up the first petticoat. She stepped into it, deliberately not looking at him. Although quite capable of tying it herself, she was very aware of his movement toward her.
His fingers brushed hers away, unhurriedly tying the tapes. “That we dine together and simply stay at home.”
Even through the fabric between them, the brush of his fingers seemed to burn her skin. He was too close, too intimate to ignore, and God knew she didn’t want to. Her breath caught as he reached beyond her for the next petticoat.
“And let both our hosts down?” she managed, stepping into the garment, which he drew up over the other.
“Why not?” The petticoats were bunched between his body and hers as he tied it in place. “The tyranny of the Season is not absolute. We are entitled to look to our pleasure occasionally rather than the gratification of our hosts.”
Instead of reaching for the third petticoat, his hands closed around her waist, drawing her back against him. For an instant, she remained stiff, too conscious of the blackmail and the hidden memories that stood between them. Then his recently shaved cheek touched hers, and she inhaled his familiar, masculine scent. She closed her eyes and leaned back, allowing herself the moment of sweetness, of longing. But it could only be a moment.
Impulsively, she turned up her face to speak. “Eric—” But his mouth covered hers, and she was lost.
Eric’s kisses had always devastated her, from that first stolen embrace outside the ballroom of Kelburn House to bolder, much more intimate moments when they were engaged.
Oh God, how I love him… Her hand crept to his cheek, while his arms drew her closer against him. She resented the wretched thickness of her petticoats that she could not feel the glorious hardness she was sure grew behind her. But then his hand swept down over her stomach, and she gasped, her mouth opening wide to receive him.
“Is that a yes?” he whispered against her lips.
Oh, why can it not be?
Because if I have betrayed him…
She forced a laugh, whisking herself from his hold. “Sadly, I promised Mrs. Halland today in person. But if you wish to avoid your dull dinner, I shall happily spread the word that you are indisposed.”
She was almost surprised when he tied the third petticoat, too. She might even have imagined the coolness following the heat of that kiss.
“I have never asked you to lie for me,” he said. “I won’t start now. Is this a new gown?” He dropped it over her head as efficiently as any maid. It reminded her of their early days together, the new addictive wonder of love and lust.
“Yes, it is,” she managed. “It is such a vibrant shade, and I could not resist. Is it not charming?”
“Delightful.” His deft fingers on the fastenings did not linger.
She wanted to cry. “Then I shall wear it again,” she said lightly. “When we finally do enjoy our dinner alone.”
His hands fell away. “I look forward to it,” he said and strolled away without a backward glance.
*
The ball was a glittering, over-crowded affair, just as it should have been. Azalea’s face felt numb with smiling. Her whole being seemed to scream with boredom because she wanted to be with her husband, whether here or at his dull dinner or alone in their own home.
She returned home at two in the morning, exhausted and disappointed, grateful only that she had encountered no more memory lapses or over-amorous admirers. And, she reminded herself, there had been no reply from her blackmailer. Which hopefully meant he had retreated back under his stone.
The house in Mount Street was cold and silent, unwelcoming with barely any lamps or candles lit.
She paused with her foot on the first step. “Good night, Given.”
As the man bowed and retreated toward the servants’ quarters, she found the courage to turn and look toward the silver tray that sat on the side table. Post was left there until it was delivered personally to her or Eric. A letter lay there, small and unthreatening, and yet to Azalea, it took on the significance of a loaded gun pointed straight at her heart.
She wished she hadn’t looked.
But since she had, she darted back down, snatched up the letter, and knew at once it was the same hateful handwriting as the blackmail letter. She fled with it tucked into the folds of her gown.
She crept past Eric’s rooms, but she did not even know if he had come home. There was no light seeping under his door. Part of her longed to rush in there to see, to wake him, cry in his arms, and pour out the truth, laying it all at his feet.
But how could she tell a beloved husband who wanted to “court” her again that she may have been unfaithful in thought and deed? Would he even believe in her loss of memory? Did the unlikely story not sound more of an excuse for transgressions that she was afraid were about to find her out?
Entering her rooms, she immediately heard Morris bustling toward her from the bedchamber. She dropped the letter casually on the table.
“Sorry to keep you up,” she said civilly to the maid. “Just unfasten the gown and stays. I can manage the rest.”
Morris obeyed. “Anything else, my lady? A warm drink, perhaps?”
“No, thank you. Go to bed, Morris, and sleep well. I shan’t be up early in the morning.”
“Very well, my lady.” Morris curtseyed and left, hanging the ballgown on her way out.
Immediately, Azalea strode back into the sitting room, snatched up the letter, and returned to the bedchamber, closing the door behind her. She extinguished all the lamps save the one beside her bed and pulled the bed curtains most of the way around before climbing into bed and holding the reviled letter in front of her.
She could not put it off any longer. With her heart hammering and her stomach twisting, she broke the seal and unfolded the epistle. A scrap of paper fell onto the bed. Temporarily ignoring the enclosure, she scanned the message from her blackmailer.
My lady,
I admire your courage, if not your good sense, though I cannot advise any further deviation from my instructions. As a token of my goodwill, and to prove the truth of my previous communication, I enclose a fragment of one letter in your own hand.
I now require the sum of one thousand pounds before anything further is returned to you. The thousand, in this case, will include the four hundred you already owe me. Since you will be in the vicinity of Grosvenor Square tomorrow evening, I shall make it easy for you. Go alone into the Grosvenor Square garden at precisely ten o’clock. Place the money on the bench on the south side of the square and return to your party.
Unless you do EXACTLY as I instruct, your letters will be with every newspaper in London by midnight.
The letter fell from her shaking fingers, which then grabbed the fragment of paper that had come with it. Clearly torn from a larger document, it was covered in writing. With horror, she saw that it was indeed her own hand. Worst of all were the appalling words dancing before her eyes.
I long for us to be together. I miss the tenderness of your touch, the joy of your embrace. I long for the sweet pleasure of a whole night in your arms. I do not care for the world’s
The words ran out mid-sentence. She crumpled the fragment in her fist, closing her eyes in shame. She would give every penny she had to keep Eric from the humiliation of reading this and whatever other drivel she had written.
*
“Dear God,” she said to Dragan the following day. “No wonder I have blocked my memory!”
She had seen him emerging from Eric’s library and immediately hauled him off to her own morning room. She all but threw the crumpled fragment into his lap. It showed the depths of her shame that she did not even try to hide the wording from him.
“You must have suppressed a sizeable chunk,” he said neutrally, handing the fragment back to her. “To have had a passionate affair and written love letters.”
She sank onto the nearest chair, trying not to bury her head in her hands. “Perhaps I truly am mad.”
“I doubt it,” he said with a casualness that was peculiarly soothing. “If the letter is related to your memory lapses at all, it’s possible you were forced to write the words, precisely for purposes of blackmail, in some traumatic incident that your memory refuses to acknowledge.”
“It’s refusing to acknowledge a great deal,” she said bitterly. “Lady Royston’s ball, Gunning, the man at the Exhibition, this letter…”
“You could have met them all at Lady Royston’s,” he pointed out. “In which case, it would still be one incident, one event with lots of people.”
“I suppose that makes sense,” she said dubiously. “As much as any of it does. Except I fail to see how I could have had an illicit relationship and written love letters all in one night.”
“If you were not yourself, you could have imagined yourself falling madly in love in that one evening.”
She shuddered.
Dragan stirred. “Griz has gone to call on Rosemary and on Annabelle Worth to see what she can discover from them or their husbands.”
She frowned, realizing for the first time the oddity of him calling without Griz. “Why are you here in any case? Did you come to see me?”
“I hoped to see you,” he corrected. “But I came primarily to call on Lord Trench. I have an investigation to carry out for him.”
“You do? It’s not connected with me, is it?”
He smiled reassuringly. “Of course not. It is a business matter. Did this fragment come with a note?”
“Yes,” she admitted. “In the same hand as the first letter. He wants a thousand pounds this time. It’s a bargain, apparently, because he will kindly include the remainder of the five hundred in that sum.” She met his gaze. “I’ve decided I’m going to pay. I cannot risk Eric reading it, or, worse, everyone else reading it and humiliating him.”
“You could always tell him,” Dragan said mildly. “It’s the only way to deprive the blackmailer of his power over you.”
“I know. And I know the chances are he will only go on to demand more. But once I have staved off the immediate threat, lulled him, if you like, we can surely go on investigating him, find out the truth about him and the wretched letters I don’t even recall writing.”
“Is it not possible,” he said slowly, “that the letter was one you wrote to your husband? When you were first married, perhaps? Or even before?”
She smiled sadly. “Our was something of a whirlwind courtship and conducted very much in person with no need of letters. We were never apart when we were first married, either. I had no need to write to him, and I don’t believe I ever did. In fact, we have always lived in the same house, and whatever the emotional distance between us, we always travel together, to Trenchard or to house parties.
“Besides, though I have crumpled it now, the fragment seemed too new to be seven or eight years old. The paper was too clean and smooth, the ink too clear.”
“And you are sure it is your handwriting? It is not someone forging it?”
She looked at it again. “I don’t know. I never thought of that. It looks like my hand.”
“Will you trust me with it? Along with other documents in your hand to compare it to?”
“Yes, of course,” she said eagerly, latching on to the hope. She sprang up, going to her morning room desk and digging up a letter she had begun to her sister Athena, along with a couple of household inventories. “Would any of these do?”
“Perfect,” he said, taking all of them and the fragment. He folded them and hid them away in the inside pocket of his coat. “How are you to deliver this next installment of money?”
“In the Grosvenor Square garden tomorrow evening. He seemed to know I would be at a party nearby.”
“Did he, by God?” Dragan murmured.
She gazed up at him anxiously. “But you and Griz, you must not come, Dragan. The instruction is to come alone, and I don’t want him to see you. I have already decided what I will do.”
“What?” he asked, scowling.
“Exactly as he asks. I will leave the money and return to the party. Only then, I will find a way to watch from the window where he cannot see me. I hope I will recognize him, or at least be able to describe him.”
