The Accidental Elopement (Scandalous Miss Brightwells Book 4) Page 24

  “Darling, don’t imagine I intended to be the slightest bit cutting. It’s just that Jack is everybody’s hero. He’s always there to do the right thing.” She blinked hazily at her large, oafish son. “I mean, unlike you, he’ll put himself out for a good cause. Oh, that wasn’t at all meant to be cruel, either, George darling, but you were never hero material, were you? Which isn’t to say I don’t love you. You’re my son, after all.”

  She patted him on the arm for he did seem to have taken her words in quite the wrong way. She tried to explain herself without wounding him further. “I mean, George darling, you were such a very needy little boy, and that’s why we thought Jack would be good for you. Jack had had no advantages, unlike you. We thought he’d build you up. And yes, he benefitted, but we did it all for you. You mustn’t look down on him—”

  “I don’t.” His words were clipped. “And do you think I profited having Jack as my moral guide, Mama?”

  “Darling, no need to sound aggressive. You have always liked Jack, haven’t you?”

  “Like a brother, Mama, though, like you, I’m sure he thought me oafish and…lacking.”

  “I never expected anything more given your father—” Antoinette stopped abruptly, putting her hand to her lips, for the words seemed to have flown out without a care when Antoinette had spent her life being so very careful. At least where George’s parentage was concerned.

  “What do you mean by that, Mama?”

  He looked puzzled, though surely he could not have interpreted anything from what she’d said?

  “Oh, pay me no mind, George. Though I will tell you I was extremely disappointed to hear that you were the instigator of that terrible wager that encouraged Freddy to run off with Katherine all those years ago.”

  “You were entirely complicit in ensuring Katherine married Freddy, Mama, so please don’t put all the blame at my door.”

  Antoinette dropped her gaze to her feet. “Well, it hardly makes it any better, George, does it? I love Katherine like my own daughter. I would never have caused her unhappiness if she hadn’t led me to believe she was madly in love with Freddy Marwick.” On a wave of spite, she added, “You, on the other hand, have always been so jealous of your cousin, haven’t you? You couldn’t bear it that anyone other than you should get a jot of affection and interest because that meant there was less for you. As if love were a finite thing.”

  “Oh, you never led me to believe that, Mama. You had all the love in the world to spread around. I’ve seen it my whole life; that bountiful, endless flow of love you’ve bestowed upon my tutor, the actor who was giving Papa lessons. So much love, but not a kiss or caress that was heartfelt have you shown my father—”

  “Oh, for God’s sake, he’s not your father!”

  The words seemed to snap his head back. George stared, and Antoinette was left feeling like a tiny little star swirling in a morass of confusion. What had she said?

  She closed her eyes as she tried to decide what to do now. Surely she hadn’t blurted out the one secret it was imperative she keep?

  Vaguely, she waved a hand in his direction as she sought for something with which to change the subject. “Ah, here comes Odette and I’m sure Lord Derry won’t be long. I can’t imagine what they were doing at the bottom of the stairs in the dark. Bertram, I thought you’d completely forgotten you even had a sister. No, don’t offer George any. He’s had far too much. He can’t seem to remember anything properly, and I’ve asked him three times already to fetch me another glass of champagne.”

  Chapter 28

  Katherine didn’t usually rise late, but this morning she was in no mood to get up at the insistent knocking on her bedchamber door, before her maid entered in some excitement waving a letter which she informed her mistress must be responded to immediately.

  It took only a moment for the fuzziness to clear from Katherine’s brain. Truly, she’d existed in a cloud of grief, barely able to sleep until the early hours of the morning, and the urgency in Mary’s voice brought with it her greatest hope.

  “Jack?” she cried before she could censor herself, though fortunately Mary hadn’t seemed to notice, thrusting what turned out to be a hastily scrawled letter into her hands.

  Eagerly, Katherine scanned the salutation and immediately her hopes plummeted.

  George! It was from George!

  She reread the note while fury roiled inside.

  “Please, miss, the rider wot brought it is waitin’ fer an answer.”

  Katherine focused a gimlet eye on Mary. “Tell the rider,” she said, crisply, “that he can gallop right back where he came from with the message that I will not be jumping in any carriage—Papa’s or Lord Quamby’s—if it’s to find myself anywhere in the vicinity of where George is. And certainly not after what he’s just revealed.”

  Mary’s eyebrows shot upwards, and she opened her mouth to speak before closing it firmly with a nod. “Very good, ma’am. Though p’haps ye’d better put that in writin’. I ain’t convinced the young boy wot brought the message is goin’ ter remember all that.”

  Once Mary had left to deliver her mistress’s letter, Katherine plumped up her pillows and unfolded the crumpled paper to reread it.

  She fisted her hand and put it in her mouth while she tried to regulate her heartbeat. Of all the audacity, this was the most brazenly outrageous George had ever been. Well, he’d confessed to part of his crime, she supposed, though it hadn’t been difficult all those years ago to guess he’d had a role in the bad business that had forged her to Freddy with no way out.

  And he’d apologised. Apologised for setting up the wager that had given Freddy the enthusiasm and financial incentive for marrying Katherine, in particular, when his devastating losses at the gaming table had fuelled his urgency in allying himself with a monied bride before his losses became public.

  “I know the moment you read this message, knowing that it is from me, you’ll doubt my motives, but this time I want to atone, Katherine,” he’d written.

  “Please come to Derry House at the earliest. I know we parted badly when my jealousy reared its ugly head and you saw in me the spoiled boy you’ve always scorned.

  “It’s true that my greatest happiness would be to learn you’d reconsidered; that you’d marry me even if you didn’t love me. But believe me when I tell you that in writing this message, I’m motivated by your greatest happiness. And your greatest happiness would be served by you being here, Katherine.

  “I can make things right again for you. I promise I can. Just come!”

  This time Katherine didn’t just crumple the message, she ripped it into tiny shreds and tossed each one in the grate. Of all the people in the world who wanted to see Katherine undone, George was at the front of the line-up.

  George stared at the few words Katherine had written in such precise letters on the now soiled piece of parchment. The lad to whom he’d entrusted this mission held out his hand for payment. George stared at the grime on his fingers that had transferred to the paper and felt a surge of revulsion and anger. He’d sullied what was to have been the perfect overture to Katherine. He’d made grubby the pure and pristine nobility of George’s mission, which had been to secure Katherine’s happiness.

  After rummaging for a coin to secure the lad’s departure, he rested the back of his head against the window and stared into the empty drawing room as a great pressure pulsed behind his eyes. Why couldn’t he even play the hero without having mud slung at him? Nobody wanted him about. Nobody believed him when he spoke the truth. Nobody thought…well, much of him at all.

  Derry’s drawing room, when not hosting a crowd of people, appeared heavy and dismal; the mahogany sideboard and overstuffed sofas flanked by dead animals in glass domes more like a mausoleum than a place to gather for entertainment. And this was destined to be Katherine’s palace. She would replace the tawdry trappings Freddy had considered up to the mark when he’d fallen in the world, with the heavy, stately, suffocating majesty Derry ha
d inherited from his own parents. There’d be no room to accommodate her brightness, her liveliness.

  And did Derry even love her like he certainly once had? Was his desire merely based on the competitive need to acquire what he’d failed to acquire seven years before when he and Freddy had been such great rivals?

  But George loved Katherine.

  And Jack loved Katherine.

  And Katherine deserved to be with someone who would appreciate her for her spirit, her personal qualities. Not as the prize she’d always represented to Derry.

  “George, darling, you don’t seem to be feeling quite the thing. Are you all right?”

  “I’m quite all right, Mama.” He kept his eyes closed, though he felt a tear breach its barrier and then roll down his cheek.

  “My dear boy, you’re not thinking about what I said last night, are you?” She gripped his arm and gave it a little shake. “Look at me.” She seemed anxious this morning, which was out of character. For the first time he noticed the tiny crow’s feet beneath her eyes. “Last night, everyone drank far too much, and I’m sure we all said things we didn’t mean or that weren’t true.”

  “Not all of us, Mama,” George said coldly, contemplating her with dispassion. Despite the slight puffiness beneath her eyes, the harsh sunlight did nothing to mute her beauty. No grey peppered her hair, and her skin was still like alabaster.

  George, on the other hand, must have inherited his father’s looks. Whomever his father really was, that is. Not Lord Quamby—and yet he’d accepted George as his heir. George had been groomed for the role with no sign of ill will from the man who…wasn’t his father.

  He felt lost.

  It was midday, and the party was preparing to continue on to Patmore Farm. George hadn’t been invited, even though his mama and uncle had just now been happily speculating on the fine table Eliza Patmore promised. She was known for the expertise of her catering, and many times his mother had remarked on the superiority of the tasty fare from a humble farmhouse which arrived hot to the dining room, compared with the cold offerings that were so often served up at Quamby House.

  “I meant everything I said, Mama. As I recall,” he added stiffly.

  “Really, George. I’m sure you can’t remember half of what you said.”

  “I remember telling Jack he was wrong to think he’d be making anyone happy if he married Miss Worthington—including Miss Worthington herself—if he was really in love with Katherine.”

  His mother blinked, and the bland façade she so often adopted when she spoke to him fell away. “Why did you say that, George? Since you’re in love with Katherine…” Her voice faltered.

  “She’s not in love with me. Oh, she made that very clear when I last spoke to her.” He raised his chin, wounded pride coursing through him once more. “Nor is she in love with Derry.”

  “Why, George. That was a noble thing to do. To tell Jack the truth, I mean.” His mother squeezed his arm, and her face lit up as if she were about to impart some marvellous news. And perhaps it was. “I saw Lord Derry alone with Miss Worthington last night in a dark corridor.” She lowered her voice. “I passed by just when I think he was about to kiss her. I don’t know if she expected it or not, and I know that both of them had had too much to drink, but she didn’t claw his eyes out. It’s a beginning, don’t you think? If we’re to get Jack and Katherine together, I mean.”

  Murmured voices in the hallway became louder before the door was opened and Jack and Odette entered, deep in conversation, unaware the room was occupied as they wandered to the other end towards the French doors.

  Words indicating wedding preparations punctuated the stillness as if to debunk any of the hopeful possibilities George and his mama had just been discussing.

  “It won’t work, Mama,” George said softly. The room was so large the others couldn’t hear. “I sent a message to Katherine asking her to come, but she refused. She hates me, you know.”

  “I’m sure she doesn’t hate you, George. She probably just didn’t believe you’d be requesting her presence for any noble reason.”

  “Nobody ever believes me when I try to do good.” He sniffed. “I was so sure if I could get Katherine here so soon after I’d told Jack that she loved him, then her presence would change everything.”

  “But George, Jack knows Katherine loves him. That’s not the problem.” Lady Quamby spoke to him as if he were a child. “And Jack loves Katherine. But Jack is too much a man of honour to renege on the promise he’s made Odette. And I’m sure I don’t know how to overcome that obstacle. Not with Derry and Odette refusing to cooperate and properly fall in love with one another.”

  George closed his eyes, thinking, then opened them to see Jack put his arm about Odette’s shoulders as if he were comforting her. A hero could be the most insufferable of all human beings, yet hadn’t George always wanted to be like Jack? Not just because he wanted to be the recipient of Katherine’s love.

  “Katherine would come if she thought Jack was in danger,” he said.

  “Really, George. That’s too dramatic. In danger…at Patmore Farm? With his own parents?”

  “Or if she were told Jack had had an accident.”

  “So, now you’re proposing to set upon Jack so Katherine can be told he was wounded in a brazen attack by footpads?”

  George frowned at his mother. “You’re so ready to dismiss my every idea, aren’t you, Mama?”

  “Really, that’s not fair, George.” Lady Quamby bridled. “But you do tend to run on without thinking matters out to their final consequences.”

  “I’d suggest that’s just what you did when you clearly had to marry Quamby. But that’s hardly done you any harm.”

  Ignoring his mother’s gasp of outrage, George went on, returning to the subject at hand, as he outlined the plan he’d recently devised in a hurried whisper. “Nothing will progress if Katherine isn’t here, Mama. We both know that, I’m sure. And Katherine won’t listen to me. But what if you wrote to Katherine and told her Jack had suffered a severe fall from his horse and was asking for her. Of course, it would be a lie, but it would bring her here if she recognised your handwriting. She’d come then, wouldn’t she? I mean, nothing would keep her away if she heard that from you.”

  Lady Quamby regarded her only son with approval. “Why, George dearest, I think that’s the cleverest plan you’ve ever come up with. Bertram and I have already paved the way. As have you. I feel sure it will only take the vision of Katherine bursting through the doors of Patmore Farm and crying out her deepest distress to learn that Jack lies in mortal danger of succumbing to his injuries, for everyone to understand there really is no other reasonable outcome than for Jack and Katherine to be together.”

  Chapter 29

  What a dreary day, thought Katherine as she strolled through the gardens of Quamby House the following morning.

  The drizzling rain would soon have her drenched to the skin. Perhaps she’d catch a chill, but what did it matter? It would make her mother be even more displeased with her, of course. Or was her mother displeased at something else? Did Katherine really care?

  Did Katherine really care about anything other than the fact that Jack had made it clear he returned her feelings, except his loyalties towards Odette were greater than they were to Katherine? She tried to hate him for ruining her life but couldn’t.

  At the bottom of the hill, she stopped to look up at the fine old Queen Anne building. It looked sad and lonely beneath the grey sky. A gravel path wound its way from a side door, cutting through the grass towards the small lake around which Katherine was now meandering slowly, her heart a sad, empty vessel.

  But now a figure had emerged from the side door and was poised upon the threshold, scanning the surroundings before locating Katherine and hurrying with more than usual haste towards her.

  “Katherine! You told no one you were going out! I’ve not known where to find you these last ten minutes!” Her mother sounded panicked, which was unlike her
.

  Katherine’s heart began to pound, and she picked up her skirts and ran towards Lady Fenton who was waving a letter in the air.

  “Your aunt has just written to say that Jack had a bad accident this morning. He’s asking for you!”

  “Jack’s hurt?” The back of Katherine’s legs felt cold. A terrible malaise seemed to grip her from the inside before she was able to throw off her panic. “Is he going to be all right?” She put her hand to her mouth as her breath came in short, staccato breaths. She closed her eyes. Jack was hurt? Jack was asking for her?

  “I don’t know!” Her mother sounded as afraid as Katherine felt. “Antoinette doesn’t say.”

  “I have to go to him!” Katherine scanned the lawn and the house as if she might gain inspiration for what she needed to do.

  “The carriage is here,” her mother said. “I’ll have it brought round.”

  “The carriage will take three hours, Mama!” Katherine cried. “Three hours when I have no idea how bad Jack’s injuries are. I can ride the distance in an hour.”

  “On horseback? Heavens, you can’t possibly do that, darling,” her mother responded with firm conviction. “No, must arrive by carriage looking a vision of loveliness and Jack—”

  “Oh, stop saying such things! What do I care what I look like when Jack’s life is hanging in the balance?” Katherine cried, her voice breaking as her fear increased. “I’m taking Stargazer.” Already she was striding towards the house, saying over her shoulder, “Ask Tom to saddle him up for me while I change into my habit. And please tell Betsy I’m leaving immediately. You’ll see to Diana, won’t you?”

  “I won’t let you go alone, Katherine! You can’t possibly! Even if Jack’s life is in danger, you can’t thumb your nose at convention and set tongues wagging at your latest antics, for that’s what they’ll do.”

  “Then tell Tom he has to come with me, if it’ll make you happy, though I’m sure it hardly matters what society has to say about me, don’t you think, as long as Derry’s prepared to marry me and prove that his devotion is stronger than the credence he gives to society’s opinion of me.”