Louise Allen - Regency Pleasures and Sins Part 1

‘We took several days over it, your Grace. Nicholas needed to rest, of course, as he has not been well.’ Katherine ignored the suppressed exclamation from her husband’s lips. ‘The weather in London was very clement when we left.’

‘And your family is well?’

‘My brother is travelling in France, your Grace. Since my parents’ deaths, he has little business, and no family other than myself, to keep him in this county. He left shortly after the wedding.’ Doubtless the Duke’s first recourse when he had returned to the library had been to the Peerage and the Landed Gentry. He would know by now that she had no relatives other than a brother and that their birth, while respectable, was as nothing compared to his.

The meal passed with a rigid formality, which left Katherine dreading dinner. Conversation was measured, general, and left her quivering with tension. The weather, the news of local events, the prospect of a touring company of players at Newcastle and the latest London on-dits served to fill the time unexceptionally. Katherine decided that if it went on much longer she would scream.

Cautiously she glanced at Nicholas while accepting a plate of bread and butter or passing the salt. He appeared calm and relaxed, but she could sense a suppressed emotion in him; doubtless he wanted to have the interview with his father for which he had been bracing himself and this mannered inaction was chafing his nerves as the shackles had chafed his wrists.

Finally the Duke sat back and regarded his family ranged on either side of him. ‘Nicholas, I would speak with you. Robert, perhaps Katherine would care to be shown around the house.’ It was an order, not a suggestion, and Katherine smiled politely.

‘Thank you, your Grace. That would be delightful if Lord Robert can spare the time.’

They all rose and Katherine found Nick at her elbow. He kept his face straight, but the message his eyes sent her was warmly reassuring. However, all he said was, ‘Do not let Robert bore you with every picture in the Long Gallery.’ He bent and kissed her cheek fleetingly and stood aside for her to precede the men from the room.

Nick found himself watching her straight back as she walked away with his brother. Elegance, pride, dignity—he found himself smiling just to watch her.

‘A charming young lady, and one who is disguising with great courage the fact that this household is entirely beyond anything she has experienced before,’ his father remarked drily. ‘Perhaps you can explain to me why you are so intent upon an annulment.’ He strolled towards his study without a backwards glance.

Nick unclenched his teeth, told himself firmly that this was only to be expected and followed.

‘So,’ the Duke continued, ‘I deduce that you did not marry your Clarissa—or was it Annabelle? The objects of your youthful affections are somewhat blurred in my mind after all this time.’ He tugged a cuff slightly. ‘The penalty of old age, no doubt.’

‘I believe you require little reassurance on your memory, Father. You are correct, there were enough young women for you to have easily forgotten Arabella. And, no, I did not marry her; despite the aspersions you cast upon her breeding and upbringing, she was shocked at my suggestion we should elope and for all I know has now married some worthy gentleman.’

‘But you took me at my word and left?’

‘Yes, sir. I understood it to be a command.’ He was damned if he was going to explain now how Arabella’s refusal to give up everything for him had hurt. He had been prepared to estrange himself from his family for her; now he could hardly conjure up the memory of her face. But at the time, to return home a rejected suitor was too hard for youthful pride to swallow.

‘Most dutiful.’ The sceptical expression on his father’s face showed that he had read the situation aright at the time and his next words confirmed it. ‘I expected you to return after a week or two.’

Nick did not rise to the implied question and to his surprise the older man continued. ‘I confess to being less than pleased with the news that my son and heir was keeping himself in London as a Captain Sharp.’

‘I never fuzzed the cards,’ Nick said flatly. ‘I did not need to—you taught me too well.’

‘Gratifying that something I endeavoured to educate you in remained with you. And after two years you disappeared. Why?’

Nick shrugged. ‘I was bored. I moved around the country for eighteen months, then I joined the army on a whim and found I liked it.’

‘Which regiment? Why did I not hear of this?’ The old man stared at him from under levelled brows. ‘What rank?’

‘Private,’ Nick replied, expecting an outburst.

‘A private? My God—’ the Duke threw back his head and gave a bark of laughter ‘—someone to teach you discipline at last.’

‘It certainly taught me self-control,’ Nick agreed pleasantly. The old devil, outflanking him as he so often did in the past!

‘And between that and your career as a highwayman?’

‘Nothing, sir. I was discharged after Waterloo.’ He saw the flash of some emotion in his father’s eyes and pressed on. ‘I returned to England and was on the road to London when I found myself in a country inn. I was drugged and, when I woke, found myself in the guise of the infamous local highwayman Black Jack Standon. I could not prove who I was, so I ended up in Newgate awaiting my execution.’

‘Why did you not send to me?’

‘I really am not sure.’ Nick thought back to those confusing first days after his capture. ‘Too proud, perhaps—and uncertain whether you would acknowledge me. Soon it was too late in any case.’

‘Not acknowledge you!’ The old man was on his feet, his face thunderous. Nick sprang to his and they confronted each other for a long moment before the Duke dropped heavily back into his chair. ‘Damn it, you are my heir, Nicholas.’

‘Robert would make a better one.’

‘He is a good man, too good in many ways—but you are the elder and, whatever your sins, I will do everything in my power to see you step into my shoes when the time comes.’

There seemed to be no answer to that, or at least none that did not carry the risk of giving his father an apoplexy.

‘So how did Katherine come to rescue you from the gallows?’ the Duke enquired finally.

‘Her brother, a spineless young pup, managed to gamble away the family assets, then tricked her into signing the papers for a loan. She found herself confronted with pressing creditors and her lawyer and brother persuaded her that marriage to a condemned man was her only escape from debtors’ prison.’

‘And she agreed? I find that hard to believe.’

‘Very reluctantly, that was obvious. And when I consider how I appeared when she saw me, I can only be astounded that her resolution held. Once she had heard my story, she made up her mind that I must be cleared and set about it. The entire story still makes my blood run cold, but to summarise, she sold the last thing of value she possessed, bearded the real highwayman in his den, convinced him to meet the magistrate in the case, persuaded the magistrate of my innocence and dragged him to London where they arrived, despite a carriage accident on the way, in time literally to cut me down from the gallows.’

‘A remarkable and courageous young lady,’ the Duke remarked. ‘I confess I am not quite clear why you wish to end your marriage to this paragon.’

‘I do not.’ Nick got to his feet and walked across to look out of the window on to the wide and somewhat old-fashioned parterre that the Duke insisted on preserving, despite the best endeavours of his landscape gardener. In the distance he could see Robert, who had Kat’s hand tucked into his elbow and was pointing out something in the view to her. She turned and laughed up into his face and Nick felt a sudden pang inside; she would not be amused when he was finally alone with her, he was quite convinced.