“But Lord Leo? His Grace, I mean. Surely he—”
“Ah, but he had his duties with the army, you see. And surely you can understand his feelings about the lad? Those were trying times there with riots, and hotheads preaching all kinds of crazy ideas about self-government and all. And you know what it all came to in the end! Revolution. And Lady Margaret, a British Tory’s wife, entertaining the army officers and their Tory friends in their home—when all the time, she was a spy for them, for those rebels! Yes, and her son, too—for all that he was a mere lad at the time. Only ten or eleven he was, but he would carry them messages. It all came out in the end, of course.”
“I never!” Nurse Sitwell breathed the words, licking her lips almost hungrily.
“Oh, it would have been a rare scandal, I assure you, if Lord Leo’s father—my lord was the Viscount Stanbury by then for his older brother died in Italy of some fever—well, the duke hushed it all up, and only the family knew the whole story.”
“The Frenchman. He—?”
“Ah, that one! It’s my guess she’d have stayed with him or run off with him after he’d got the ransom money if he hadn’t had a wife and family of his own somewhere. But he came back when they had the revolution. I heard them say she hid him when he was wounded and the soldiers were looking for him everywhere. And that was how it started up again. Him and her and the spying. But Lord Leo caught on when the boy was captured along with some other rebels. And then, of course, to save him, she came back to England, meek as you please; and the family put it about she was suffering from some nervous disorder.”
“But you mean she wasn’t really touched in the head then? She—”
As if suddenly aware that she had said too much, Mrs. Parsons pursed her thin lips.
“Don’t you be saying anything like that. She couldn’t have been right in the head at the beginning to do what she done, and well you know it! Those Irish. They say she was a papist, too, and never really changed, although she pretended to, just to get herself married to a catch like Lord Leo.” She added darkly, “And I’ve no doubt that son of hers is going the same way, living up in Ireland all these years! He was incorrigible like one of them savages, and well I remember! They wouldn’t keep him in Eton, and when my lord found him a tutor here for him and Mr. Philip, his nephew, why—one day he almost killed Mr. Philip with his bare hands! And only because Mr. Philip teased him about being a colonial. It took Mr. Grimes and two of the footmen to drag him off. And after that my lord sent him off to live with his uncle in Ireland. Said he didn’t want to set eyes on Master Dominic again, and I can’t blame him! It’s been years now, and no one’s seen or heard of him—and a good thing, too, if you want my opinion. I doubt that he’s changed and I used to be frightened to be around him even when he wasn’t no more than a boy. Those eyes of his, like grey ice, fair startling they were, taken with his black hair—”
Mrs. Sitwell said suddenly and surprisingly, “Well, but all the same I cannot help feeling sorry for the poor lady. Fancy not setting eyes on your own flesh and blood for years and years, and not knowing what kind of a man he’s grown into! He’d be the Viscount Stanbury now, I take it?”
Mrs. Parsons frowned.
“That’s right. And the more’s the pity, for the title ought to be Mr. Philip’s by rights. And I’ve heard even His Grace say so! Ah, now there’s a handsome, charming young gentleman if there ever was one. You’ll see for yourself, I’m sure. But mind you—not a word of what I’ve been telling you. Family secrets—”
“Ah, well, I’ve heard a great deal of those in all the years I’ve been a nurse,” Mrs. Sitwell said comfortably. “And the reason Dr. Elphinstone recommends me to all the lords and ladies that are his patients is that he knows I can hold my tongue.”
Settling deeper into her chair, she encouraged Mrs. Parsons to go on with her reminiscing.
The duke of Royse was also remembering, the old, implacable rage hardening his still handsome features.
Damn it, why did the bitch take so long to die? Why had he let his passing lust for Conal make him choose his sister for a bride? Shy, innocent Peggy, with her great, wondering eyes. Demure Lady Margaret, who would never question nor make any demands of him. And to think that for years he had congratulated himself on his choice of a wife. She was stupid and country-bred, and slim-flanked and small-bosomed enough so as not to disgust him too much when he forced himself to go to her.
“Take a wife, dammit! I’ll not have any ugly scandal attached to our name!” his father had warned him after the episode with a certain young groom. And so he had gone to Ireland and met Conal, and through Conal, his black-haired sister.
“If I had not let her taunt me—if I had not been so damned blind drunk and angry that night….”
But he’d had to teach her a lesson, to make her remember who she was and who he was. That bold-faced little strumpet sitting up in bed without a stitch to cover her as she said softly and innocently, “But Leo, I’ve become used to sleeping naked. The Indians wear very little, you know.”
Instead of being grateful and relieved that he had ransomed her and taken her back, she had spent most of her time crying or mooning around with swollen eyes. She’d tricked him, curse her, damn her! And all the punishment he’d inflicted on her since then could not wipe that out.
After he’d left her that night, bruised and bleeding from the force of his assault on her body, he thought he had cowed her forever. And then, a scant month later, she had announced to him quite calmly across the breakfast table, “I think you’ll be happy to know, my lord, that I am expecting a child.” Then, as he half rose, she must have read the ugly resolve in his eyes for she continued in the same even voice, “I could not bear not to confide our happy news to Mrs. Gordon and some of the other ladies whose husbands are your closest friends. They all wish us well, of course.”
At least the child she bore was no progeny of an Indian savage—but he could not be thankful for that; for if it had been, he would have had the excuse and a reason to strangle it. No, she had produced a grey-eyed, black-haired brat who looked like her and might, by the slimmest margin of possibility, be his. And she had never, no matter how he threatened or bullied her, confessed to having been the mistress of that half-French American, even after he came back into her life.
“Why does she cling to her miserable existence? By God, that fool of a doctor said it would be only a matter of hours.” And then on the heels of his wish he received its fulfillment with the panted cries of the women upstairs and the scurrying of feet.
For the first time that evening the duke smiled and leaned back in his padded velvet chair. So it was over at last! He had everything prepared—all the necessary papers drawn up and signed and the doctor on his way. If all went well, he would be back in London by morning—no need to spend another night in the country with a corpse and whispering servants for company.
“Well, Leo? ’Pon my soul! I’d hardly expected to find you back in town so soon, after—” Lord Anthony Sinclair, Baron Lydon, let his words trail away into an awkward cough as he lowered his ponderous bulk into the padded leather chair next to his brother in the Select Room at Whites Club.
The duke raised an eyebrow as he studied Lord Anthony’s red, perspiring face.
“Indeed, Tony? I would have thought that you of all people would be the least surprised to find me back in town.” A certain dryness crept into his voice. “Well? Did you tear yourself away from Prinny’s company merely to offer me your condolences?”
Lord Anthony cleared his throat, shifting uncomfortably in his chair.
“Dammit, Leo! Why will you always put a man so deucedly ill at ease? To tell the truth, I had half-expected to discover you here tonight. Saves me a trip into the country, y’know, although I daresay, with the funeral—”
“The funeral, my dear brother, took place very quietly this morning as you very well know. And, to forestall any