Ann Lethbridge - Regency Society

‘At last! He means to leave me alone!’ Adrian hoped that volume would make up for the lack of true feeling in the dismissal.

‘And it is a shame, Adrian, for I once thought of you almost as a brother. I welcomed the connection between us and hoped that a wedding would bring you happiness, moderate your character and be a benefit to Emily. I have proved myself a bigger fool than you are for putting my trust in you.’

His childhood friend spoke with such disappointment that he almost admitted the truth. But what good would that do? The man would be just as angry that poor Emily had been tricked into such an ill-fated match. ‘You must have known,’ Adrian said softly, ‘that there was a chance that you were wrong. That blood might tell, and I would be no better than the rest of my family.’

‘But I knew you. Or thought I did. And I was sure, at one time, that you had a heart to be touched. I am beginning to suspect that it is not the case.’

Adrian hid his confusion in a cold laugh that he knew would enrage his guest. ‘Then you are learning me right, after all these years,’ he said looking up at the hazy spectre of his oldest friend, looming over him.

‘Very well, then. The interview is at an end, as is the last of our friendship. You have treated my sister abominably. You have scorned my efforts to intervene. What is likely to occur from all this will be entirely on your head.’

And even without sight, Adrian could chart David’s passage out of the rooms by the slamming of the doors.

‘Hendricks!’ Adrian bellowed. If the man was still in, there would be no way for him to escape the sound of his master’s voice.

‘My lord?’ His response was so prompt that Adrian wondered if the secretary had been listening at the door.

‘I was just forced to undergo an excruciating fifteen minutes with Eston. Am I mistaken, Hendricks, or do I pay you to prevent such things?’

‘I am sorry, my lord.’

If he wished to be rational, he would admit that it had been the distraction of the piano delivery that had left the doors open and allowed the guest to enter, not any carelessness on Hendricks’s part. But the excess of spirits was making him irritable, as was the disapproving sniff that Hendricks gave at the spilled brandy. Adrian set the decanter aside. ‘To avert questions about my behaviour, I let him think me drunk. I have most likely ruined this coat by dousing myself with liquor. But he felt the need to tell me that my wife has taken a lover. What do you know of the situation?’

‘Nothing, my lord.’ But the man said ‘nothing’ with such a lack of conviction that he might as well have said everything.

‘Really. But you have seen her recently, I trust?’

‘Yes, my lord. This morning.’

‘And how did she look, when you last spoke with her?’

‘Well.’

‘Is that all, Hendricks? For her brother implied that she was looking, perhaps, too well.’

Adrian’s comment should have been incomprehensible. But Hendricks seemed to understand it perfectly. ‘I did not notice anything unusual about her, my lord.’ It was a pitiful attempt to hide the truth.

‘And where was she, when last you saw her?’

Hendricks paused, as though he could not seem to remember his story, and said, ‘At her brother’s town house, my lord.’

‘How strange. For she has not been in residence there for several days.’

Hendricks sighed. ‘At her rooms, my lord.’

‘So you have seen them, then?’ He resisted the desire to add the word Aha. ‘I suppose you have been there several times.’

‘Yes, my lord.’ He sounded glum now, as though any good spirits that the lady might have gained through his visits were not shared.

As an afterthought, Adrian asked, ‘As I remember it, Hendricks, you wear spectacles, do you not?’

‘Yes, my lord,’ said Hendricks, clearly baffled as to what this had to do with anything.

And there went his hopes that the next Earl of Folbroke would be unencumbered by difficulties with vision. Still, some sight was better than none. ‘Her brother David seemed most concerned at the damage to her reputation, should it be known that she is setting up housekeeping with a man. If she wished some space of her own, it is a shame that she has not seen fit to ask her husband for permission.’

‘Did you expect her to? It has been long since you have spoken to her—she no doubt assumed that you would not care.’ Hendricks had answered a trifle too quickly with this, and altered his tone to be less censorious before adding, ‘If you wish to see her today, I could arrange it for you.’

‘It merely surprises me that she has not sought me out. If she cannot visit her own husband when she is scant miles from him, then it gives credence to her brother’s theory.’

‘She did visit you, my lord, on the day she arrived in town. As you remember, I came to fetch you.’

And pulled me from another woman’s arms and dragged me home, insensible. Touché, Hendricks, touché. ‘Since she did not return, I did not think the matter was important.’

‘Perhaps it is because she has been spurned and avoided for such a long time that she has no more desire to try.’ His secretary’s voice was sharp and scolding. And there could be no questioning his meaning. ‘At this point in time, perhaps it is up to you to seek her.’

‘Do you presume to tell me how to handle my marriage?’

‘Of course not, my lord.’ But the tone said just the opposite.

‘You might as well do it, for it seems quite a popular activity this week.’ He gave a vague gesture towards the writing desk. ‘Draft a letter to Emily. I will see her this evening at six. Do it quick, man, before I sober sufficiently from Eston’s visit to realise what a mistake I am making.’

‘See her, my lord? Do you wish me to explain the unlikelihood of that? For I believe your condition still a mystery to her.’

For a moment he had forgotten. Damn that strange woman for getting under his skin and making him think, even for an instant, that his life could be ordinary.

‘No. Emily has no clue. Unless you have told her.’

‘You forbade me.’ It was a comfort to hear the resignation, and the resolution, in that sentence and the lack of even a fraction of a second’s hesitation. Whatever else he might be doing, it was plain that Hendricks followed some of his instructions to the letter, no matter how unwise he thought them.

Adrian shook his head. ‘After all this time, there are no simple words to describe to her what has happened, or to explain why I hid the truth. It will be easier when we are face to face to explain things, so that there can be no mistaking. It is not as if my lack will come as a severe shock to her. I am not disfigured in any way, am I?’ He touched his own face, suddenly unsure. Perhaps time had made him an ogre, and the servants were too kind to remark on it.

‘No, sir.’

‘Then I will explain to her, once she arrives. It is time, I think, that there be some truth between us.’

‘Very good, my lord.’

‘Mr Eston, my lady.’

When the footman announced her brother, Emily was enjoying what she’d thought was a well-earned cup of tea. With her morning’s shopping and calls, she had taken what she’d hoped were the first steps to sorting out her husband’s problems. Or perhaps they were steps towards encouraging him to do so, for she doubted there would be any change in his character without full co-operation from the man himself.

But since no one knew of her location, she had not expected visitors other than Hendricks. And she certainly had not expected to see her brother. ‘David?’ Thinking of the confrontation she expected from him, his name came out of her mouth in a breathless whimper that made her sound guiltier than she was over her behaviour. ‘What are you doing here?’ There, she noted with some relief. The strength returned to her when she turned the challenge back to him.