Ruthless

Page 29

  Author: Anne Stuart

  She closed the door behind him. Her mother’s screams had finally quieted now that Cousin Marcus had left, and she moved quietly to Caroline’s bedroom, opening the door a crack.

  Her mother had slipped back into a drugged sleep. “Shouldn’t we tie her to the bed again?” she whispered to Nanny Maude.

  The old lady had a troubled expression on her face. “No need,” Nanny said. “These fits are followed by bouts of sleep. She won’t move or speak for days. Who was that gentleman again?” She changed subjects abruptly.

  “I introduced you. He’s our cousin, Marcus Harriman. ”

  “I don’t remember any Marcus, and I lived on that estate for the first fifty years of my life. ”

  “He’s distant kin. The closest they could come up with, but I’m sure it’s all as it should be. ”

  Nanny shook her head, still not satisfied. “I didn’t think there were any other branches of the family. ”

  “Well, there’s no doubting he’s got the Harriman look. And if it wasn’t him, the estate would be going to someone else. At least he seems willing to meet with me. ”

  “Indeed,” Nanny said, not sounding happy. “Next time he comes to visit we’ll have Jacobs stay with your mama. I want to ask him a few questions. ”

  The thought of fierce little Nanny Maude interviewing the new Baron Tolliver was entertaining enough to lift the dark cloud that had settled around her heart. She was contriving as best she could—for now she could try to be patient.

  She moved back to her seat by the fire and picked up her book. It was a collection of improving sermons by a zealot monk who’d spent time in the Americas, and whose notions concerning bathing, women and religion were extreme and uncompromising. The good brother was a proponent of the theory that women were an unpleasant necessity, and once they’d fulfilled their procreative duties they should be sent to convents to reside with other women and endure a vow of silence.

  Rohan had sent it on purpose, just to annoy her, but the written word was scarce enough that she even read this wretched book, alternately cursing its giver.

  And she tried not to think about Francis, Viscount Rohan or his Heavenly Host.

  14

  In the end Lydia didn’t buy the tripe, though not because of any lightening of her spirits. For all that she wanted to wallow in unhappiness, tripe was carrying it a bit too far, and Nanny was far from an inspired cook. It would be up to Lydia to prepare it, and she’d never had much of a fondness for offal. She bought fresh farm eggs, leeks and cheese as well as a loaf of the freshest bread. If Nanny Maude couldn’t conjure something delicious out of all that then Lydia could.

  And would, once she’d gotten over her stupid fit of the sulks. It wasn’t as if Etienne would help. After a riveting, arousing, frustrating encounter with the man she was foolish enough to…to be interested in, she had no choice but to follow it up with three hours of listening to Etienne go on and on. He had only two subjects of conversation: his brilliance as he worked through medical cases that he recounted in stomach-turning detail, and the great injustice served him by his cousin.

  Fortunately he never needed much more than a word or two to encourage him, and Lydia was able to sit in the park eating cold chicken à la diable and pretend she was somewhere, anywhere, else. Until a word caught her ear.

  “Jacobite?” she repeated, wrinkling her forehead.

  “Ah, I forgot how young you are,” Etienne said fondly. “That was before you were born. The stupid English were arguing over who should be king, and they tried to put the true Catholic ruler on the throne, a Scots prince. ”

  “I know about Bonnie Prince Charlie, Etienne,” Lydia said with just a trace of asperity. “What has he got to do with my lord Rohan?”

  The look that crossed Etienne’s handsome face might almost be called a sneer. “He’s not a lord according to England. He’s a traitor. He and his family fought for the Scottish king, and when the rebellion failed, his father and brother were killed, he was stripped of everything and exiled. If he ever returns to England he’ll suffer a traitor’s execution on Tower Hill. That’s a day I’d be happy to see. ”

  She couldn’t hide her horror. “You want to see Lord Rohan beheaded?”

  “You forget, I am a doctor. I see death every day. Seldom is it a death I think just. Rohan escaped to France and claimed the title that should have been mine, and he’s gone to the devil ever since. ” Etienne sniffed. It was an unfortunate habit of his, and she could imagine it getting worse as he grew older. With her trapped beside him.

  “How old was he when this happened? He’s not terribly old now, is he?” she said.

  “When he was exiled? When he fought in England? Seventeen, I believe. ”

  “Oh, God,” Lydia said in a hushed voice. Both Nanny Maude and Jacobs had Scots relatives, and they’d been firm Jacobites. Nanny had told her all about the true king, and the hideous massacre that was Culloden, when Butcher Cumberland had slaughtered thousands. That a seventeen boy had endured that bloody conflict and the savage aftermath was both cruel and enlightening. Living through a time like that would change someone forever.

  “I almost wish he’d find some reason to try to go back,” he said. “I would make it my business to alert the English authorities, and his execution would clear any last lien on the French title. The woman who married me will be the Comtesse de Giverney. Sooner or later. ”

  She ignored his meaningful look. “But Lord Rohan has no interest in returning to England, I believe. ”

  “No,” he said sadly. “We shall just have to wait, ma chère. ”

  We. The idea was demoralizing and inescapable. By the time he returned her home she had a raging headache. Elinor was clearly bursting with news, something about her cousin, but Lydia couldn’t listen, and she stumbled into the darkened bedroom and lay down on the soft, comfortable bed that Lord Rohan had given them. There were too many things beating at her head. Etienne’s monotonous, self-serving voice. Charles Reading’s haunted eyes. The thought of a lost boy caught in the grisly horror of the rebellion. Mama was talking again, though none of it made any sense, and some of the words made her blush, while others were entirely unknown to her, and she thanked God for that. She pulled the pillow over her head to shut out the sounds and tried to sleep.

  It wasn’t much of a relief. In her dream Charles Reading stood there, ready to kiss her, when Etienne ran up and slashed his face with a lance. He fell, and as he lay on the ground his life’s blood drained from him, and she found she was looking down at a much younger version of Francis Rohan, without the mockery or the faint sneer. And when she woke up she was crying.

  She was being absurd. She dragged herself out of the room, ready to help with dinner, only to find Nanny Maude was just setting it on the table. “There you are, lass,” Nanny said. “We weren’t going to wake you—you looked exhausted, poor thing. ”

  “I’m fine,” she said. Elinor was already seated. “I gather we had a visitor today?”

  The four of them sat down at the old table, a terrible breach in protocol that Elinor insisted upon. They were a family, she would say, and she wasn’t going to have half her family eat in a kitchen. “Our cousin Tolliver,” she said. “He seems a good man, but Mama was so disturbed by him that she scared him away. ”

  “Harrumph,” said Nanny.

  “Just ignore her,” Elinor said. “Nanny’s got a fixation about the man. Swears there are no distant cousins and he’s some kind of impostor. You have only to take one look at him and know he’s no impostor. ”

  “The Harriman Nose?” Lydia inquired.

  “Exactly. ”

  “Don’t listen to me,” Nanny said darkly. “I’m an old woman, what would I know? But you mark my words, there’s something wrong with that Master Marcus Harriman. ”

  “I certainly hope not,” Elinor said in that stiff voice she sometimes used, the one that L
ydia hated. “If he won’t help us, it leaves us entirely at the mercy of Lord Rohan, and a useless degenerate is unlikely to—”

  “I wish you wouldn’t insist on vilifying him,” Lydia said, staring down at the cheese-and-leek pie Nanny had made.

  They all turned to look at her at once. “My dear,” Elinor said, and Lydia couldn’t miss the fear in her voice, the ridiculous fear that had been plaguing her. “He’s not at all the right person for you—”

  “How many times must I tell you I have no interest in Lord Rohan, and he has none in me? Having spent an entire afternoon with Etienne has made me a great deal more sympathetic with the viscount than I was before. ”

  “Why?” Elinor said flatly.

  “Do you know why he lives in Paris?” Lydia said.

  “I really don’t care, dearest. I imagine he’s here because the world knows that Paris is the center of a society that is, to put it mildly, indulgent. And since Lord Rohan has an interest in indulgences, it only makes sense. ”

  “He’s exiled from England. He can’t go back or he’ll be executed. ”

  Elinor raised an eyebrow. “Oh, really? Whose husband did he murder?”

  “No one,” Lydia said.

  “He’s a terrible man, miss,” Nanny Maude said. “Consorts with devils, he does, and drinks blood, and…”

  “He was at Culloden!” Lydia blurted out. “He was not even twenty years old, fighting for Bonnie Prince Charlie, and he saw his entire family slaughtered. He barely escaped with his life. ”

  There was a shocked silence. And then Nanny Maude cleared her throat. “I always said there was good in the lad. Indeed, and I tried to tell you so. Handsome, too, and I expect a good woman would put a stop to these parties of his. ”

  Jacobs said nothing, merely nodding his head approvingly. Finally Elinor spoke, and her voice was raw.

  “Does that excuse him for the rest of his life?” she said. “Does that give him the right to destroy other lives?”