Regency Rogues: A Winter's Night
‘Uncle James’s various chicks are, but Verity is my stepmama’s niece. I’m surprised you haven’t heard the story yet; it caused a sensation five years ago when my father married Lady Chloe Thessaly and the truth had to come out.’
‘I have spent the last eight years in the army. The sayings and doings of the great and the good passed us by for most of that time.’
‘I suppose you had more important things to think about than gossip and scandal, but you must have been little more than a boy when you took up your commission to have been in the army for so long, Mr Carter.’
‘A compliment, Miss Winterley?’
‘An observation,’ she said with a slight flush on her high cheekbones that told him she thought it might have been as well.
‘I was sixteen,’ he said, his eldest uncle’s brusque dismissal of his hopes and dreams of being a writer and scholar one day like his determinedly absent Uncle Horace sharp in his voice. He heard the gruff sound of it, shrugged rather helplessly and met her gaze with a rueful smile. ‘I thought myself the devil of a fellow in my smart green uniform,’ he admitted and suddenly wished he’d known her back then.
He’d felt so alone under his boyish swagger the day he entered Shorncliffe Camp and began the transformation from scared boy to scarred Rifleman. Mr Carter came into being in a regiment where officers won their rank largely by merit and gallantry in battle. Colm wanted a plain name to go with his dashing uniform mainly because he wanted to fit in and the Hancourts wanted nothing to do with him and Nell. Eight years on he must be Carter for a little longer, but at least nobody was trying to kill him.
‘Were you a Rifleman, then?’ she asked and he supposed he must have looked bewildered. ‘Since you wore a green uniform it seems a strong possibility,’ she added logically.
‘Aye,’ he said, ‘some folk call us the Grasshoppers because of it.’
‘To survive eight years as a Rifleman you must be brave as well as fortunate, whatever they called you,’ Eve managed to reply lightly enough.
Instinct warned her not to let him know how she pitied a boy who began his dangerous career so young. What if he was born rich and well connected instead? Would she have met a rather dazzling young gentleman in an expensive drawing room when she came out and fallen for his easy charm? Or would she have thought him as shallow and unformed as the other young men who paid court to her with an air of fashionable boredom she didn’t find in the least bit flattering? She could have found the way his thick honey-brown hair curled despite his efforts to tame it fascinating. His gold-flecked eyes might have danced with merriment and lured a discerning young lady into falling in love and his scarred forehead would be unmarred. As for that lame leg—that would be as long and strong and lithe as the rest of him. That charmed and charming man would laugh and smile with her, then grow serious long enough to look deep into her eyes with his soul alive and clear in his own. And then he would kiss her.
Her breath caught in heady anticipation in the much less magical here and now and she almost gave her thoughts away by moving a little closer to him and behaving like a besotted ninny. A dreamer deep inside her whispered it would be almost unbearably glorious, whichever version of him did the kissing, but that might be Pamela’s daughter speaking and Eve didn’t want to listen to her. Carter certainly didn’t adore her and he was the Duke of Linaire’s clerk and librarian, for goodness’ sake.
‘I was just lucky, I suppose,’ he said with a self-deprecating shrug as if nothing else could account for it.
Eve shivered at the thought of a stray bullet or sabre slash that might have ended his life and refused to think of the number he must have survived right now. ‘I doubt any officer could survive long on luck in a regiment like yours,’ she challenged.
‘You would be surprised and at least I had enough of it to know when it ran out. This summer I was at the end of it and sold out as soon as I recovered enough to sign my name after Waterloo.’
‘You seem determined to make light of your experiences.’
‘A limping man stands little chance of surviving a forced march or fighting retreat, but let’s not speak of such horrors on a day like today. Didn’t you promise me a fine story about your cousin by marriage and your stepmama just now?’
‘Did I?’ Drat the man, having a conversation with him was like trying to hold a slippery trout wet from the river. Last night he seemed almost too dashing to be an upper servant, today he carried his shallow dark hat as if itching to have it back on his head and go before someone caught him speaking to a lady. ‘It’s no secret now, so you might as well hear it from me. Lady Chloe and Verity’s mama were twins, Mr Carter. At much the same age as you joined the army, Lady Daphne Thessaly wed a young naval lieutenant to avoid an arranged marriage. Her father was furious at being robbed of what he saw as his right to sell his daughter to a rich old man so he had her husband pressed, then left his twin daughters to birth her baby in such dire conditions it’s a miracle Verity and her aunt survived, but Lady Daphne died in childbed. Lady Chloe spent the next decade acting as Verity’s mother and became a housekeeper, then my father spent most of it trying not to be in love with her.’
‘And when he couldn’t resist any longer they told each other their secrets and seized the day?’
‘I don’t recall it being that simple, but the end result is they are very happily wed and Verity lives with us when her father is at sea,’ she said and wondered why she hadn’t let him go in the first place. It was that bland mask of the onlooker on life that did it, she supposed. For some reason she itched to rip it off and show the world a real man stood here, despite the repressive black garb and his fiercely guarded aloofness. Now she waited for his stiff farewell and told herself to let him go this time.
‘Would my sister had had an aunt like your stepmother to love and protect her when I was sent off to school by our uncle,’ he said instead and why was she this glad he hadn’t mumbled a hasty farewell and limped away?
‘What happened to her?’ she said with all the horror stories of girls sent out as apprentices by their cruel relatives in her mind as she saw him frown.
‘Oh, nothing very awful, she was put in the care of a governess until she was old enough to go to school and our family could forget us. My wicked uncle still found her useful as a stick to beat me with; if I ran away from school or tried to argue with the career he had in mind, my sister would be apprenticed to a milliner. I’m sure you know what happens to most girls bound to that trade, Miss Winterley. Even at eight years old I knew I must be a pattern card to save her from such a fate.’
‘How cruel,’ she exclaimed and felt furious with his appalling relative when he shrugged.
‘It’s the way of the world, my father annoyed two of his brothers so much they would have loved to have nothing to do with his children, but the scandal would have deafened them if they let us go into the poorhouse.’
‘What did your mother’s relatives have to say for themselves?’
‘She was an only child and her parents died before her. If she had any relatives I don’t know of it,’ he said as if he wished he’d never told her so much in the first place.
‘I am astonished her friends and neighbours let your uncle treat you both so, then,’ she said although Mr Carter didn’t want her to feel anything for him or his.
‘They would shake their heads and mutter it was terrible we were left destitute, then whisper about bad blood and decide we were best forgotten,’ he told her with some passion in his voice at last. ‘Poverty stalked my sister’s childhood and she is always a hair’s breadth away from it even now, Miss Winterley. One wicked thought in an employer’s head; a wrong word or unwitting action can get a governess dismissed without references. I can’t endure the thought of such a life grinding her down as the years go on, so it is up to me to find a way out of such an existence for her, before it drives the youth and laughter out of her completely.’
Eve only had to see the purpose burning in his fiery gaze to know she was right about the hidden depths he tried to keep to himself. He wasn’t the flat character he tried to be; he couldn’t be if he pretended he was until doomsday.
‘Your uncles are as guilty as your father of not making sure she is provided for. You will need very broad shoulders if you intend to take the sins of your entire family on them, Mr Carter.’
‘You are very direct this morning, Miss Winterley.’
She shrugged. ‘For direct I shall read rude, but I have no patience with pretend ignorance, sir, and if you had moved in polite society for the last three years you would not have any either. Your sister might count herself lucky not to be watched like a prize heifer by every idiot on the marriage mart if she knew how it felt.’
‘Are they all idiots, then?’
‘Not all, but no sensible man will hold an interesting conversation with a marriageable young lady for long unless he is in serious need of a wife.’
‘So there is some merit in being ineligible after all, then?’ he joked and Eve felt a tug of temptation to make him do it again.
He was so unaware of how handsome he was when he forgot to guard his tongue that he could steal an unwary female’s heart before she knew she was in danger. Lucky she wasn’t unwary then, wasn’t it?
‘Why come to London for the Little Season then, since you dislike it so much?’ he asked as if truly interested.
‘The House is sitting and Papa hates coming on his own. My parents worry about me if I don’t come with them and there’s Verity’s future to think of as well. If I refuse to take my part in this pantomime the ton plays out twice a year she will be an oddity by association. That would be so unfair when we’re not related except through Papa and Chloe’s marriage and a common link with my little half-brothers.’
‘So you only dress and dance and behave like a fashionable young lady who is enjoying herself for the benefit of others?’ he said with a sceptical glance at her fashionable pelisse and high-crowned bonnet that said he thought her vain and not very self-aware.
Chapter Five
Miss Winterley looked as if she might agree she was that saintly for a moment just to spite him, then mischief danced in her eyes and an irresistible smile tugged at her temptingly curved mouth. Colm had to struggle with a terrible urge to kiss her breathless, silenced and deliciously responsive—in the middle of Green Park for goodness’ sake. What business had such a controlled and confident lady turning into an enchanting mix of funny, wise and daring when she smiled?
‘I love my finery and attending the opera and theatres and real concerts that are not put on by supposedly musical ladies to show off their airs as much as their talents. I should not see my family and friends anywhere near as often as I do if we could not meet up in town either. My Uncle James has grown so fond of country life I sometimes wonder how Aunt Rowena manages to drag him here as often as she does though, but I can put up with the Lady Derneleys and Mr Carters of this world in order to keep in contact with the friends and relatives who truly matter to me.’
Thanks to his Brighton landlady even Colm knew of James Winterley’s transformation from idle London rake to country squire and father of a ready-made family. Then there was the Winterleys’ close connection to the Marquis of Mantaigne and his mixed bag of a family by marriage—oh, and Sir Gideon Laughraine and his lady. Here was the truth of things: Miss Winterley was at the heart of a group of impressive and powerful aristocrats and he was only even a secretary thanks to his Uncle Horace’s bad conscience.
‘Then I hope you enjoy your latest visit, Miss Winterley,’ he said with a stiff bow and half raised his humble and unfashionable hat.
‘Thank you, Mr Carter,’ she replied with an ironic lift of her fine dark brows and a regal nod. ‘How very kind of you to wish me well.’
‘Good day, Miss Winterley,’ he said repressively and got ready to limp back to his books and papers and packing crates.
‘And a very good day to you too, sir,’ he heard her reply lightly by way of dismissal from a lady to the upper servant he really was nowadays.
The thought of how much clear water lay between him and Miss Winterley mocked him all the way back to Derneley House and made him limp more heavily than usual for some strange reason. ‘Even a lunatic wouldn’t be fool enough to yearn for that particular moon, Colm Hancourt,’ he murmured under his breath as he went.
He was fairly sure he was still sane, but that was about all he had to offer any woman deluded enough to want him. He was scarred and limping and about as penniless as a man could be without actually living in the gutter. Before he met Miss Winterley he had still been able to convince himself he only wanted his lost fortune back for Nell’s sake. Now he had a sneaking suspicion he’d lied. Was there any hope Miss Winterley might ever look on him as a possible lover if he wasn’t who he was? Of course not. The idea was ridiculous and he must put it from his mind right now.
So that left him with his sister Nell still to save from a life of genteel poverty or a rich man’s bed and no wedding ring. The very thought of either fate for his bright, brave sister horrified him enough to make him put aside air dreams and concentrate on her future instead. There was one elusive possibility he’d been turning over in his mind since he read the last entry in Pamela’s diary last night. He shrugged off the idea it had been wrong to read them before he passed them over to their rightful owner as ordered. He had as much right to know the wretched female’s thoughts during the time she was with his father as anyone still alive. The woman was annoyingly evasive about the Lambury Jewels after that crow about the rubies, at least until the end of her diary when she must have left for that last wild adventure with her lover. Before she went she railed at her lover’s refusal to hand over the last of his wife’s jewellery: the magnificent diamond set Joseph Lambury had made up for his daughter after Colm was born. So when his father left England with his inamorata they should have been in the bank vault his uncle had sworn was bare as a pauper’s pocket when Colm plucked up the courage to ask before he left for the army.
A slender thread of hope dangled in front of Colm’s eyes as he speculated how much the diamond set might be worth. He vaguely recalled seeing his mother wear them when she was dressed up for a ball grand enough to warrant such splendour. There had been a tiara and a magnificent tumble of diamonds round her neck that sparkled fascinatingly in the candlelight when she came to bid him goodnight. Heavy bracelets weighed down her slender wrists and they laughed together as he playfully moved her hands so they would make rainbows from her rings even with the nursery night lights. A coachman shouted at a carter and their loud exchange of insults jolted Colm out of the past and into a very different world. For a moment he had been back there with her, sharing a careless moment of loving intimacy with his mother and remembering so much about her he thought he’d forgotten.
He felt almost sorry he had that memory to cherish when Nell was too young to remember much more about their mother than a vague impression of pale hair and warm arms. They had talked about their parents one night this summer in Brussels, when the pain of his wounds kept him awake and she insisted on waking with him. It taught him a lot, that time when even he wasn’t quite sure if he was going to live or die. The most important thing he had found out was he and his sister still shared a strong bond, despite all the efforts two of their uncles and aunts made to keep them apart. All those years of pretending the Hancourt-Winterley scandal died with their brother and not even the last Duke and their Uncle Maurice could make Colm and Nell strangers to one another.
Which brought him back to the diamonds; the last Duke of Linaire must have had them broken up and sold, he supposed. Colm thought about the hard-eyed man who informed him his father was dead as if he ought to be glad. That man was capable of it, but could he have got away with it? That was less certain and whispers of what he’d done would have haunted the cold-hearted devil to his grave. Nothing Colm had heard since he came back to England said any of those whispers existed. The diamonds might still be hiding somewhere, waiting to be found and claimed by him. A beat of wild hope thundered in his heart as he thought what that would mean for Nell’s future happiness. A real dowry, a secure home and perhaps living under the same roof as her brother for a while before she wed a man who deserved her, if such a paragon existed. Colm almost smiled, then changed his mind as he realised how unlikely his latest daydream sounded. If he could find diamonds nobody had seen for fifteen years; if he could prove they were his; if he could sell them for the fortune needed to buy a modest home and a farm to support it; if Nell would leave her noble orphans and join him there…
So many ifs made a fantasy, but if there was some trace of his mother’s diamonds, Uncle Horace might help him find them. Colm knew his uncle and aunt felt they had let his little brother’s children down by staying away when their father died. Now they were back in England the duchy wasn’t the rich inheritance it was before the last Duke and Colm’s grandfather spent money like water. The current Duke couldn’t afford to dower his niece and establish his nephew as the gentleman his birth argued, because Uncle Maurice would be watching his future inheritance like a hawk. The new Duchess was unlikely to produce a child after a quarter of a century of marriage, so Lord Maurice would insist on an allowance as his brother’s heir before Lord Chris’s children got a penny of Hancourt money beyond the twenty pounds a year already settled on them by the last Duke. Those diamonds might be a false hope, Colm mused as he made his way down the back steps of Derneley house, but sometimes it was better to have one of those than none at all.
The work of getting the Derneley Collection listed and packed up ready for its new home, so he could get out of this house, felt more urgent today. As Colm went about it he couldn’t stop thinking of his latest meeting with Miss Winterley. He didn’t number many fine ladies among his acquaintance, but something told him she was an unusual one. This morning she seemed as relaxed as if he was a fashionable gentleman in Hyde Park at the fashionable hour, instead of an almost servant in Green Park at some unlikely hour of the morning for a lady who had been at a party late into the night. He let his hands slow for a moment as he thought of her in the clear light of a fine autumn morning. Her skin was flawless, he recalled, and she was still young enough for a late night and early morning not to be written under her eyes. Her bonnet was modest by the standards of the current fashion for vast pokes that hid the wearer from view if there was any danger of shadows. So now he knew that her eyes truly were a rare shade of blue-green and could haunt a man to his grave if he wasn’t careful. Add a slender but womanly figure and the smile that made her unique and he had best think about diamonds again and forget Miss Winterley as best he could.
Anything more than a stiff acquaintance between that lady and Mr Carter was clearly impossible, so he thought about that passage he had copied out last night in his room and with the door safely shut behind him. He took out the paper he kept in his jacket pocket lest some servant find it and scanned Pamela’s words for anything that passed him by last night. He was bone weary at the time and his head so full of Eve Winterley and her icy father he couldn’t think straight. There might be a stray word he’d missed the sense of as he wrote it down. The last page of her diary seemed to sum the woman up perfectly.
Knowing the full power of my own beauty at last and feeling men lust for me so deeply they can’t fight it is wonderful, but jewels never fade. I don’t intend to be deprived of a single stone, and they will never make me feel less than beautiful, however old I get.
So had written the woman who would never get much older than she had been when she’d made that last entry in the diary.
Colm’s mouth twisted in distaste as he re-read her self-centred ramblings, but he felt a spark of regret for a vivid life cut short all the same. He was sorry Lord Farenze would have to read his late wife’s words and wonder what made her as she was. Colm had no idea how it felt to walk in the Viscount’s expensive shoes, but he didn’t envy him the memory of a wife no one man could satisfy. Her words told him enough about Pamela to know she would have left Colm’s father for another lover, however deeply Lord Chris adored her. Colm was almost glad Lord Chris hadn’t lived to watch the woman who cost him so dearly walk away without a backward look.
Emotions he didn’t want to imagine underlay the dark fascination of a duke’s youngest son and the runaway wife of a very young peer. If he let himself dwell on such wild passions he might feel an echo of them for some unsuspecting female. A picture of Miss Winterley looking horrified as he poured out his insatiable desire for her made him flinch, then smile at the next image of her speechless with shocked surprise that he could feel anything at all, let alone that. She was so unlike her dam, Colm felt guilty for misjudging her last night and uneasy about the thunder of passionate need in his own veins as he watched her ghost into his temporary lair breathless and far too desirable for her own good before they had even spoken to each other.
Eve had given her father time to read all Pamela’s letters and diaries before confronting him the day after she met Mr Carter in Green Park. It must make painful reading for him and she doubted her mother’s self-centred outpourings shone much light on what had made her long for a succession of ever wilder lovers.
‘You really won’t let me read a word of my mother’s papers, will you?’ Eve challenged as she followed him into his study after breakfast.
‘I wish I could burn the lot right now, so there would be no risk of you or anyone else ever reading a word of her selfish drivel,’ her father said with a preoccupied frown at the locked drawer of his desk where she guessed the diaries were sitting like a row of fat little grenades that could be so destructive in the wrong hands she shuddered at the thought of it.
‘Then why don’t you?’ she asked with a nod at the fire burning steadily in the grate on this fine but chilly morning.
‘Because it isn’t right to deprive that boy of a chance,’ he murmured as if he was fighting the urge to do it anyway.
‘What boy? Oh, you mean Lord Christopher Hancourt’s son, I suppose. I thought he was dead; nobody has heard of him for years and his family never talk about him or the little girl I remember someone mentioning once.’
‘Their father spent the lad’s rightful inheritance on your mother and I can’t believe that fool was besotted enough to simply hand over all those jewels to her. She knew the Lambury Jewels weren’t even his to give, but she seduced and sulked as only she knew how until she got them out of him. There isn’t a single word of remorse about the boy and his sister in the books and papers Carter handed over.’
‘It would be beneath him to hold back a single letter of hers once he made you that promise,’ Eve argued against Mr Carter holding something over them. Her father’s acute gaze focused on her as if he was trying to read her thoughts and feelings about a man she didn’t even like. Of course she didn’t feel anything for the stiff-necked idiot, how could she? She still felt the need to affirm his honesty for some reason. ‘He wouldn’t keep anything that didn’t belong to him,’ she added.