“And to Lady Sydney,” Sir Ross prompted, drawing another enthusiastic response to which Lottie curtsied in gracious recognition.
Rising, Lottie touched Nick’s arm. “Perhaps you should offer a toast to Sir Ross,” she suggested.
He gave her a speaking glance but complied, lifting his glass toward his brother-in-law. “To Sir Ross,” he said in a resonant voice, “without whose efforts I would not be here tonight.”
The crowd responded with a round of hurrahs, while Sir Ross grinned suddenly, aware that Nick’s carefully worded toast did not include the barest hint of gratitude.
Toasts to the queen, the country, and the peerage itself ensued, and then the orchestra filled the room with buoyant melody. Sir Ross came to claim Lottie for a waltz, while Nick went to dance with Sophia, who wore an irrepressible smile as she sailed into his arms.
Beholding the pair, one so fair, one so dark, and yet both so similar in their striking attractiveness, Lottie smiled. She turned to Sir Ross and carefully rested her sore hand on his shoulder as they began to waltz. As might have been expected, he was an excellent dancer, self-assured and easy to follow.
Feeling a mixture of liking and gratitude, Lottie studied his severely handsome face. “You’ve done this to save him, haven’t you?” she asked.
“I don’t know that it will,” Sir Ross said quietly.
The words sent a fearful pang through her. Did he mean that he still believed Nick was in some kind of peril? But Nick was no longer a Bow Street runner—he had been removed from the hazards that his profession had entailed. He was safe now…unless Sir Ross was implying that the greatest danger to Nick came from somewhere inside himself.
* * *
In the days following the public revelation of Nick’s identity, the house on Betterton was under siege from callers. Mrs. Trench spoke to everyone from Nick’s old underworld cohorts to representatives of the queen. Cards and invitations were brought to the front door until the silver tray on the entrance hall table was laden with a mountain of paper. Periodicals dubbed him “the reluctant viscount,” recounting his heroism as a former Bow Street runner. As reporters followed the lead that Sir Ross had established, Nick was generally depicted as a selfless champion of the public who would have modestly preferred to serve his common man rather than accept his long-dormant title. To Lottie’s amusement, Nick was outraged by his new public image, for no one seemed to regard him as dangerous any longer. Strangers approached him eagerly, no longer intimidated by his air of subtle menace. For a man who was so intensely private, it was nearly intolerable.
“Before long, their interest in you will fade,” Lottie said in consolation after Nick had to push through an admiring throng to reach his own front door.
Harried and scowling, Nick shed his coat and flopped onto the parlor settee, his long legs spread carelessly. “It won’t be soon enough.” He glared at the ceiling. “This place is too damned accessible. We need a house with a private drive and a tall fence.”
“We have received more than a few invitations to visit friends in the country.” Lottie came beside him and sank to the carpeted floor, the skirts of her printed muslin skirts billowing around her. Their faces were nearly level as Nick reclined on the arm of the low-backed settee. “Even one from Westcliff, asking if we would stay a fortnight or so at Stony Cross Park.”
Nick’s face darkened. “No doubt the earl wants to assure himself that you’re not being maltreated by your husband from hell.”
Lottie couldn’t help laughing. “You must admit that you were not at your most charming then.”
Nick caught at her fingers as she reached over to loosen his necktie. “I wanted you too badly to bother with charm.” The pad of his thumb stroked over the smooth tips of her fingernails.
“You implied that I was interchangeable with any other woman,” she chided.
“In the past I learned that the best way to get something I wanted was to pretend that I didn’t want it.”
Lottie shook her head, perplexed. “That makes no sense at all.”
Smiling, Nick released her hand and toyed with the lace edge of her scooped neckline. “It worked,” he pointed out.
With their faces close together and his vivid blue eyes staring into hers, Lottie felt a blush climbing her face. “You were very wicked that night.”
His fingertip eased into the shallow valley between her breasts. “Not nearly as wicked as I wanted to be…”
The sound of the front door being soundly rapped echoed through the entrance hall and drifted into the parlor. Withdrawing his hand, Nick listened as Mrs. Trench went to answer the door, telling the visitor that neither Lord Sydney nor his wife was receiving callers.
The reminder of their beleaguered privacy caused Nick to scowl. “That does it. I want to get out of London.”
“Whom shall we visit? Lord Westcliff would be perfectly—”
“No.”
“All right, then,” Lottie continued, unruffled. “The Cannons are in residence at Silverhill—”
“God, no. I’m not spending a fortnight under the same roof as my brother-in-law.”
“We could go to Worcestershire,” Lottie suggested. “Sophia says that the restoration of the Sydney estate is nearly complete. She has made no secret of the fact that she wants you to view the results of her efforts.”
He shook his head instantly. “I have no desire to see that accursed place.”
“Your sister has gone to great effort—you wouldn’t want to hurt her feelings, would you?”
“No one asked her to do all that. Sophia took it upon herself, and I’ll be damned if I have to shower her with gratitude for it.”
“I’ve heard that Worcestershire is quite beautiful.” Lottie let a wistful note enter her voice. “The air would be so much nicer there—London in summer is dreadful. And someday I would like to see the place where you were born. If you do not wish to go now, I understand, but—”
“There are no servants,” he pointed out triumphantly.
“We could travel with a skeleton staff. Wouldn’t it be pleasant to stay in the country at our own home, rather than visit someone else? Just for a fortnight?”
Nick was silent, his eyes narrowing. Lottie sensed the conflict in him, the desire to please her warring with his fierce reluctance to return to the place he had left all those years ago. To confront those memories and recall the pain of being orphaned so suddenly would not be pleasant for him.
Lottie lowered her gaze before he could see the compassion that he would surely misread. “I will tell Sophia that we will accept her invitation some other time. She will understand—”
“I’ll go,” he said brusquely.
Lottie looked at him in surprise. He was visibly tense, clad in invisible armor. “It isn’t necessary,” she said. “We’ll go somewhere else, if you prefer.”
He shook his head, his mouth twisting sardonically. “First you want to stay in Worcestershire, then you don’t. Damn, but women are perverse.”
“I’m not being perverse,” she protested. “It’s just that I don’t want you to go and then be vexed with me for the entire stay.”
“I’m not vexed. Men don’t get ‘vexed.’”
“Annoyed? Exasperated? Irked?” She offered him a tender smile, wishing that she could protect him from nightmares and memories and the demons inside himself.
Nick began to reply, but as he stared at her, he seemed to forget what word he would have chosen. Reaching for her, he suddenly checked the movement. As Lottie watched him, he stood from the settee and left the parlor with startling swiftness.
The journey to Worcestershire would normally last a full day, long enough that most travelers of reasonable means would elect to travel for part of one day, stay overnight at a tavern, and arrive later in the morning. However, Nick insisted that they make the trip virtually without stopping, except to change horses and obtain a few refreshments.
Although Lottie tried to take the arrangement in str
ide, she found it difficult to maintain a cheerful facade. The carriage ride was arduous, the roads were of uneven quality, and the constant rattling and swaying of the vehicle made her slightly nauseous. As Nick saw her discomfort, his expression became grim and resolute, and the atmosphere disintegrated into silence.
A skeleton staff had been sent the day before their arrival, to stock the kitchen and ready the rooms. As had been previously agreed, the Cannons would visit the estate the following morning. Conveniently, Sir Ross’s country seat at Silverhill was only an hour away.
The last faint glow of the setting sun was retreating from the sky by the time the carriage reached Worcestershire. From what Lottie could see, the county was fertile and prosperous. Rich green meadows and tidily groomed farms covered the level earth, occasionally giving way to verdant hills covered with fat white sheep. The webbing of canals that spread from the rivers graced the area with easy routes for trade and commerce. Any average visitor to Worcestershire would surely react to the scenery with pleasure. However, Nick became increasingly morose, emanating sullen reluctance from every pore with each turn of the wheels that brought them closer to the Sydney lands.
At last they turned onto a long, narrow drive that extended for a mile before a stately house came into view. Light from the outside lamps cast a warm glow over the entranceway and caused the front windows to glitter like black diamonds. Eagerly Lottie pushed aside the curtains at the carriage windows to obtain a better view.
“It’s lovely,” she said, her heart beating fast with excitement. “Just as Sophia described.” The large Palladian-style house was handsome, if unexceptional, the combination of red brick, white columns, and precise pediments designed with tidy symmetry. Lottie loved it at first sight.
The carriage stopped before the entranceway. Nick was expressionless as he descended from the vehicle and helped Lottie down. They climbed the steps to the double doors, and Mrs. Trench welcomed them into a large, oval-shaped hall floored with gleaming rose-colored marble.
“Mrs. Trench,” Lottie said warmly, “how are you?”
“Very well, my lady. And you?”
“Tired, but relieved to be here at last. Have you encountered any difficulties with the house so far?”
“No, my lady, but there is much to be done. A single day was scarcely sufficient to prepare things…”
“That is all right,” Lottie said with a smile. “After the long journey, Lord Sydney and I will require nothing more than a clean place to sleep.”
“The bedrooms are in order, my lady. Shall I show you upstairs at once, or will you want some supper…” The housekeeper’s voice trailed away as she glanced at Nick.
Following her gaze, Lottie saw that her husband was staring at the main hall of the house as if transfixed. He seemed to be watching a play that no one else could see, his gaze following invisible actors as they crossed the stage to speak their lines. His face was flushed, as if from fever. Wordlessly he wandered through the hall as if he were alone, exploring with the hesitancy of a lost young boy.
Lottie did not know how to help him. One of the hardest things she’d ever have to do was to summon a casual tone as she replied to the housekeeper, but somehow she managed it.
“No, thank you, Mrs. Trench. I don’t believe that we will require supper. Perhaps you will have some water and a bottle of wine sent to our room. And have the maids take out just a few things for tonight. They can unpack the rest of it tomorrow. In the meanwhile, Lord Sydney and I will have a look around.”
“Yes, my lady. I will see that your personal articles are set out immediately.” The housekeeper strode away, calling out instructions to a pair of maids, who rushed quickly through the hall.
As the overhead chandelier had been left unlit, the shadowy atmosphere was relieved by only two lamps. Following her husband, Lottie approached the archway at one end of the hall, which opened to a portrait gallery. The air was laced with the crisp scents of new wool carpeting and fresh paint.
Lottie studied Nick’s profile as he gazed at the conspicuously bare walls of the gallery. She guessed that he was remembering the paintings that had once occupied the empty spaces. “It seems we’ll have to acquire some artwork,” she remarked.
“They were all sold to pay off my father’s debts.”
Moving closer, Lottie pressed her cheek against the broadcloth of his coat, where the edge of his shoulder flowed into the hard swell of his muscular arm. “Will you show me the house?”
Nick was silent for a long moment. When he glanced into her upturned face, his eyes were bleak with the knowledge that there was nothing left of the boy who had once lived here. “Not tonight. I need to see it alone.”
“I understand,” Lottie said, slipping her hand into his. “I am quite fatigued. Certainly I would prefer to tour the house tomorrow morning, in the daylight.”
His fingers returned the pressure with a barely discernable squeeze, and then he let go. “I’ll take you upstairs.”
She pressed her lips into the shape of a smile. “No need. I’ll have Mrs. Trench or one of the servants accompany me.”
A clock from somewhere in the house chimed half past midnight by the time Nick finally entered the bedroom. Unable to sleep despite her exhaustion, Lottie had retrieved a novel from one of her valises and had stayed up reading until the book was half finished. The bedroom was a cozy haven, the bed richly appareled with an embroidered silk counterpane and matching hangings, the walls painted in a soft shade of green. Becoming absorbed in the story, Lottie read until she heard the creak of a floorboard.
Seeing Nick in the doorway, Lottie set the novel on the bedside table. Patiently she waited for him to speak, wondering how many memories had been stirred by his walk through the house, how many silent ghosts had traversed his path.
“You should sleep,” he said eventually.
“So should you.” Lottie turned back the covers. After an extended pause, she asked, “Will you come to bed with me?”
His gaze slid over her, lingering on the ruffled front of her nightrail, the kind of prim, high-necked gown that never failed to arouse him. He looked so alone, so disenchanted…very much the way he had appeared when they had first met.
“Not tonight,” he said for the second time that evening.
Their gazes caught and held. Lottie knew that she would be wise to maintain a facade of relaxed unconcern. To be patient with him. Her demands, her frustrations, would only drive him away.
But to her horror, she heard herself say baldly, “Stay.”
They both knew that she was not asking for a few minutes, or a few hours. She wanted the entire night.
“You know I can’t do that,” came his soft reply.
“You won’t harm me. I’m not afraid of your nightmares.” Lottie sat up, staring at his still face. Suddenly she could not stem a flood of reckless words, her voice becoming raw with emotion. “I want you to stay with me. I want to be close to you. Tell me what I should do or say to make that happen. Tell me, please, because I can’t seem to stop myself from wanting more than you’re willing to give.”
“You don’t know what you’re asking for.”
“I promise you that I would never—”
“I’m not asking for reassurances or promises,” he said harshly. “I’m stating a fact. There is a part of me that you don’t want to know.”
“In the past you’ve asked me to trust you. In return I ask you to trust me now. Tell me what happened to give you such nightmares. Tell me what haunts you so.”
“No, Lottie.” But instead of leaving, Nick remained in the room, as if his feet would not obey the dictates of his brain.
Suddenly Lottie understood the extent of his tortured longing to confide in her, and his equally potent belief that she would reject him once he did. He had begun to sweat heavily, his skin gleaming like wet bronze. A few strands of sable hair adhered to the moist surface of his forehead. Her longing to touch him was untenable, but somehow she remained where she
was.
“I won’t turn away from you,” she said steadily. “No matter what it is. It happened on the prison hulk, didn’t it? It has to do with the real Nick Gentry. Did you kill him, so that you could take his place? Is that what torments you?”
She saw from the way Nick flinched that she had struck close to the truth. The crack in his defenses widened, and he shook his head, trying to navigate past the breach. Failing, he gave her a glance filled with equal parts of rebuke and desperation. “It didn’t happen that way.”
Lottie refused to look away from him. “Then how?”
The lines of his body changed, relaxing into a sort of wretched resignation. He leaned one shoulder against the wall, facing partially away from her, his gaze arrowing to some distant point on the floor.
“I was sent to the hulk because I was responsible for a man’s death. I was fourteen at the time. I had joined a group of highwaymen, and an old man died when we robbed his carriage. Soon afterward we were all tried and convicted. I was too ashamed to tell anyone who I was—I simply gave my name as John Sydney. The other four in the gang were hanged in short order, but because of my age, the magistrate handed me a lesser sentence. Ten months on the Scarborough.”
“Sir Ross was the magistrate who sentenced you,” Lottie murmured, remembering what Sophia had told her.
A bitter smile twisted Nick’s mouth. “Little did either of us know that we would someday be brothers-in-law.” He slouched harder against the wall. “As soon as I set foot on the hulk, I knew that I wasn’t going to last a month there. A quick hanging would have been far more merciful. Duncombe’s Academy, they called the ship, Duncombe being the officer in command. Half of his prisoners had just been cleared out by a round of gaol fever. They were the lucky ones.
“The hulk was smaller than the others anchored just offshore. It was fitted for one hundred prisoners, but they crammed half again that amount into one large area belowdeck. The ceiling was so low that I couldn’t stand fully upright. Prisoners slept on the bare floor or on a platform built on either side of the deck. Each man was allowed to have sleeping space that was six feet long, twenty inches wide. We were double-ironed much of the time, and the constant rattling of chains was almost more than I could stand.