“You chatter too much,” he said as if providing an excuse for kissing her. “Tell him whatever you like, if you can be sure it won’t hinder his recovery.”
Margaret drew herself up stiffly and said, “Don’t do that again, please.”
“What?”
“The kissing,” she whispered primly.
He sighed. “Back to square one, are we?”
“It’s a matter of prudence. I’m going to have a difficult time explaining a divorce, or getting married, for that matter, if I have a child who people believe can claim the title which, due to our lies, would not legally be his.”
Deep down, she was actually hoping Sebastian had an answer for that, that he’d marry her for real if it came to that. He didn’t.
He nodded, though he did say, “One could wish you weren’t quite so astute, Maggie. One could even wish you didn’t think so bloody much. Very well, I’ll keep my hands off of you. And I’ll speak to my father now.”
She wasn’t expecting that or for him to leave the room immediately to go upstairs. She followed him slowly, worried that it was still too soon for a confrontation between him and his father, but was hesitant to stop him, when for all she knew Douglas might be delighted by his return.
She drew up short in the corridor, when she saw Sebastian standing outside his father’s door. He glanced at her but said nothing. There was an odd look in his eyes that she didn’t recognize. Was he worried? Anxious? Both emotions seemed beneath him. He was a bulwark. He was The Raven. And he entered the room abruptly now and closed the door behind him.
Margaret bit her lip. She ought to join him. Her presence might make a difference. But she didn’t think Sebastian would want her support right now. He might be willing to reveal emotions that he wouldn’t reveal if she were present. Besides, he would have been the first to suggest it if he thought she could help. She went back downstairs, fervently wishing him luck.
Douglas was sleeping. Sebastian was almost relieved, a reprieve, as it were. Except he wasn’t going to leave. He didn’t think his wait would be long. Douglas was propped up in his bed. He’d been awake and reading, the book laying on his thigh, his hand still on it.
The maid who was sitting across the room said nothing when he entered and left quickly at his nod toward the door. Sebastian took the chair by the bed, but he didn’t stay in it long. He paced some. He was more nervous than he’d expected. No other man alive could inspire that emotion in him. But his father could.
The fight he’d had with Anton in the stable earlier had turned out to be quite satisfying, despite the fact that the man seemed vaguely familiar to him and he couldn’t figure out why. He didn’t get any answers from the chap about the accidents. Very loyal to Juliette, he was. And he’d put up a good defense. The stocky Frenchman had held his own nicely, giving Sebastian a splendid workout.
Thinking of that relaxed Sebastian a little, allowing him to put his defenses in place, one by one. When he was finally ready, he turned back toward the bed, intending to wake Douglas, only to find his father’s eyes on him. For how long? Douglas should have spoken, asked what he was doing there, anything. That he’d said nothing indicated he had no intention of talking to Sebastian at all. The gravestone…
“I’m not dead,” Sebastian almost snarled. “I’m not a dream, either. Nor am I here by choice. So don’t worry, I’ll leave just as soon as I can assure Maggie that you aren’t going to exit your room, trip over a cord, and fall down the bloody stairs.”
“What the devil are you talking about?”
“Well, that’s something,” Sebastian said dryly. “At least you talk to ghosts.”
“Sebastian.”
The warning note worked very well, harked back to his youth. It was all Douglas had ever needed to do with his sons, simply say their names in that particular tone, and they felt reprimanded enough to end any argument or excuses they had lined up.
“Beg pardon,” Sebastian said. “I’ll make an effort to stick to the facts, one of which is, Margaret’s trip to Europe wasn’t to tour and shop as she let on. It was expressly to find me and convince me to come here.”
“Why?”
“I’m getting to that. She had no luck in convincing me, since I swore never to return to England. She managed to trick me, though, into taking the job, which she’s already paid handsomely for. So I’ll see it through until I can assure her that she’s just a silly woman with an overactive imagination. If you will cooperate long enough for me to do that, then I can get the hell out of here and we’ll both be left in peace again.”
“I could have sworn you mentioned facts,” Douglas said coldly. “When are you going to get to them?”
Sebastian withered a little more inside. His father was now wearing the exact same expression he’d worn the night he told Sebastian to get out and to never darken England’s shores again. Had he really thought there could be a reconciliation? Good God, what a fool he was.
“Fact. Margaret thinks you’re in danger.”
“Rubbish.”
“It’s her opinion. Not mine, and obviously not yours. But it’s why she hired men to find me, and when that didn’t work, why she spent four months trying to find me in Europe herself. She had it set in her mind that I can solve whatever is afoot here. I believe Abigail gave her the notion. Margaret thought I would volunteer to do so. She was wrong in that. She’s probably wrong in her other suspicions as well. But that’s what I’m here to find out.”
Douglas actually began to look interested. “What sort of danger?”
“Fact. You’ve had considerably more than a fair share of accidents recently.”
His father flushed slightly, which Sebastian found interesting, but Douglas merely replied, “Nothing untoward.”
Had his father paused a little too long there in saying that? “Fact. You live in a house with a viperous bitch capable of anything.”
Douglas sighed. “Can’t very well dispute that.”
“Fact. Denton would actually like to divorce his wife but says he can’t. She has some sort of hold over him that ties his hands. Do you know what that is?”
“No, and you’ve found out more than I ever could. He won’t discuss his wife with me a’tall.”
“Defensive, is he? With you?”
“Yes, extremely so where she is concerned.”
“And your conclusion?”
“He’s ashamed of her. He’s ashamed of himself for getting involved with her. He did offer to leave. I selfishly talked him out of it. He’s all—”
There was a brief pause, which goaded Sebastian to finish, “—all you have left?”
Douglas dropped his head back like a man in defeat, then winced when his wound hit the headboard. “I was going to say all my mother has left. This would be a house of silence if it were only she and I here. She won’t talk to me, you know.”
“So I’ve heard.”
“Denton keeps her company. I’m grateful for that. And Margaret was a godsend while she was with us.”
“Are you in love with your ward?” Sebastian asked pointedly.
Douglas blinked, then scowled. “What claptrap is that? She’s a wonderful girl, but she’s young enough to be my daughter.”
“So? When did age ever stop a man from—?”
“That’s quite enough, Sebastian. I can’t imagine where you got that notion from, but it couldn’t be more off the mark. I felt compassion for her when she first came here. She’d just lost her father. But I was never attracted to her in the way you’re implying. She was like a breath of fresh air. She brought normalcy back to this house. More’n once I actually hoped Denton would—”
“Seduce her?”
“No!” Douglas burst out, then with a sigh, “I had hoped she might provide him the incentive to fix his ‘mistake,’ but it was obvious she wasn’t interested in him that way. To be honest, I was just looking for a way to keep her in the family, so to speak. We were all gloomy when she moved back to White Oaks after she c
ame of age.”
It was apparent that no one had yet told Douglas who Margaret had married. Sebastian would as soon keep it that way until after he was gone. Douglas wouldn’t hear of it from Abigail, since she didn’t talk to him. It was doubtful that Juliette would visit him. Denton was the only one who was likely to mention it. He’d have to have another talk with his brother.
It wasn’t that the “marriage” seemed to be no longer needed as a bridge, since Douglas was cooperating enough at least to discuss the situation with him. But he’d never intended to leave without making a clean breast of it. And considering his father’s wish to have Margaret in the family, it wasn’t likely to go over well that he hadn’t really married her. In fact, the thought of having Douglas find that out now made him feel distinctly uncomfortable.
“Other than the obvious reasons why Juliette would want to be part of this family, wealth, title, et cetera, can you think of anything else, anything a’tall, that would make her want to stay here, when she apparently doesn’t like England?”
Douglas frowned. “What are you implying?”
“Perhaps a grudge against the Townshends?”
“You mean of the vengeful sort?”
“Yes.”
“I can’t imagine why,” Douglas replied. “I’d never heard of her before—”
Sebastian cut him off abruptly. “We can get through this in a civilized manner as long as you don’t bring up that part of our history. Now it occurs to me that I never heard her family name. Have you?”
“Yes, but it was unfamiliar. Poussin, I believe it was, or something like that. I only heard it once.”
Sebastian had met a lot of people in France, but no one by that name. On the other hand, if Juliette’s motive was revenge, it was doubtful she would have given her real family name to any of them.
It occurred to him to ask, “Have you ever been to France? Perhaps you could have met her family, offended or harmed them in some way without realizing it?”
“You are gadding up the wrong tree. I know it’s considered a rounding off of the education, as it were, but I never took the tour. I was too interested in getting a commitment from your mother at the time to want to be out of the country. And I married her with unseemly haste.”
Sebastian had never heard that before. Ordinarily he wouldn’t pry, but this trip to Edgewood would very likely be the last time he ever saw his father. “Why?” he asked baldly.
Douglas shrugged. “Had to. And no, not for the first reason that might come to mind. She was the prime catch of the season, and I fell in love with her the same day I clapped eyes on her. But her being the prime catch, there were also more’n a half dozen other young bucks trying to win her hand. It was a bloody nerve-racking time, waiting for her to decide who the lucky chap would be.”
Sebastian smiled. Like Denton, he’d put his mother on a pedestal; she’d died when they were so young. They had their memories of her. She was the angel, the Madonna, all that was good and gracious. It was rather a surprise to learn she’d been a typical female of her day, wanting to squeeze out every bit of enjoyment from being so popular. It made her seem more real to him—and made him miss her all the more. And he guessed he had his answer now to why his father had never remarried. The look that had come over him when he mentioned his wife said it all. He still loved her, too much to consider letting another woman take her place.
“I’ll let you rest for now,” Sebastian said. “Don’t want to tire you out while you’re still recovering. I’ll return later to finish discussing your accidents.”
“I told you—”
“And I didn’t buy it,” Sebastian cut in, to his father’s chagrin. “So give some thought to the truth when we meet again.”
He crossed to the door. He expected a few more rebuttals before he reached it, but Douglas remained silent, which was odd. Or perhaps their conversation had exhausted him more than he let on.
Sebastian opened the door and said without turning back, “Thank you for revealing what you did about my mother. I wasn’t expecting that—all things considered.”
Chapter 33
A BIGAIL MET TIMOTHY THAT AFTERNOON for the first time, and not surprisingly, since the boy had such a quirky sense of humor, the old girl took to him as if he were a member of the family. “We’ll keep him,” she told Margaret in a decisive manner.
Margaret didn’t have the heart to tell her she couldn’t just keep him. But Timothy, that cheeky scamp, thought it was hilarious, and he was pleased to keep Abigail company, entertaining her with tales of France. She had a feeling he’d never experienced a grandmother before.
Margaret didn’t stay long to listen to them. She was too anxious to be good company herself, was a bundle of nerves, actually, waiting to hear what had transpired in Douglas’s room. To that end, she lingered at the top of the stairs, arranging and rearranging the vase of flowers on the table nearby. She didn’t want to miss Sebastian when he left his father.
He abruptly came out of the room. The menacing expression on his face, one The Raven often sported, gave her no clue. He’d been in there an awfully long time, but that might not indicate anything significant. For all she knew, Douglas could have been sleeping most of that time…
As soon as he spotted her, he walked over to her and said, “Let’s go for a ride,” then grasped her hand and started down the stairs, pulling her along with him.
“Let’s not,” she said to his back, wanting an immediate answer to the question that had her on tenterhooks.
He didn’t take the hint and merely said, “Our horses need the exercise, whether we do or not,” and continued to drag her out of the house.
She gave up at that point and just tried to keep up with him, since he wasn’t letting go of her hand. Dragging her across the lawn wasn’t very civilized, but come to think of it, no one could accuse Sebastian of being civilized, so it was pointless to mention it.
In the stable the grooms all quickly made themselves scarce, something Sebastian was undoubtedly used to, since he began saddling his horse without calling for assistance. One groom did show up, however, and almost belligerently asked Margaret if she needed anything. The Frenchman. His accent was so slight she might not have noticed it if she hadn’t recently been in France. But before she could answer, she got a better look at him in the dim light and gasped.
“Goodness. You look like you fell asleep in one of the stalls and woke up with the horse standing on you,” she said with some natural concern. His face was severely swollen and bruised.
“It was exactly that, mademoiselle. Thank you for noticing.”
His sarcastic tone suggested there was no truth in his reply, but beyond that, she didn’t care for his attitude at all. So she was relieved, as well as embarrassed, when Sebastian came up behind her.
“Go away,” he told the fellow coldly. “I’ll see to the lady’s needs.”
The fellow looked at Sebastian with such loathing that Margaret was sure he was going to make some inappropriate remark about the “lady’s needs,” which was why she found herself blushing. But once the groom glanced at her, he must have changed his mind. She could get him fired, after all. So he merely shrugged and ambled off.
“So rude,” she mumbled to herself.
“To be expected,” Sebastian replied and moved along the remaining stalls to find her mare.
She followed him, then waited while he went to fetch her a sidesaddle. When he returned and began strapping the saddle on Sweet Tooth, she finally noticed his swollen knuckles.
“You did that to the Frenchman?” she guessed.
He shrugged. “He threw the first punch. I merely enjoyed what followed.”
She humphed. “Learn anything from him?”
“Nothing a’tall,” he replied. “Though I suspect he sent word to Juliette in London, which brought her back so quickly. It was a splendid fight, though.”
She rolled her eyes. “I’m not surprised you’d think so. The winner does usually have
that opinion. Er, that is, you did win, correct?”
He actually chuckled. “Does it look like I lost?”
She was surprised by his moment of humor, about as rare as a hailstorm in summer. Come and gone though so quickly, she could have imagined it.
It didn’t take him long to finish with the horses, and a quick toss landed her in the saddle. A bit too quick, as if he was loath to touch her, but since that couldn’t possibly be the case, she didn’t dwell on it.
A few moments later, he was galloping out of the stable. She had no trouble keeping up until she suspected where he was going and then she slowed her pace deliberately, almost halted and turned about. She couldn’t imagine why he’d want to go there, of all places.
She’d been there once before, as a child. She and Florence had thought it a lark. She didn’t doubt every child in the neighborhood had thought the same at one time or another and went there at least once. Morbid curiosity. Adults weren’t the only ones who had it.
Her own curiosity decided the matter and brought her through the trees to the renowned clearing. No grass or even weeds ever grew in the narrow twenty-foot stretch. Trees, bushes, and other thick foliage grew all around it, blocking it from the wood path that passed nearby. Grass even grew up to a point, then stopped, outlining the strip of dirt. It wasn’t because it got trampled so much. It was rare a duel got fought there now. It was more like all the blood spilled there over the years had blighted the area. A morbid thought to go with her morbid curiosity.
Sebastian had dismounted, was standing in the middle of that strip of dirt. He wore the expression of a man in pain. What was amazing was that she could see it clearly. He wasn’t trying to hide it, or if he was, he was experiencing too much pain to manage it.
She felt torn herself. She had the strongest urge to go to him and put her arms around him, to offer what comfort she could. There was no feeling of satisfaction, or thought that he deserved this pain. From the moment she’d believed him, that Giles’s death had been an accident, she’d stopped blaming him for Eleanor’s death. He was still responsible for dividing a family she was very fond of, but that was between him and his father, and had nothing to do with her sister.