Chapter 26
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
The lodging house in Mayfair cut straight through the brume. A group of gentlewomen with Scottish accents walked in pairs toward the entrance, glancing surreptitiously at Nicholas as he hovered outside.
He had arrived in London just before noon and headed straight for Portman Square. If anyone who mattered had seen him, they had not come forward to remind him of the court’s order.
Which is the least of my concerns for now, he thought as he turned the watch in his pocket. I am well within my rights to be here now that Sir Richard has fled the country.
Nicholas had checked in with Samuel the moment he had arrived.
His brother had scoped the town and had confirmed the rumors he had previously heard: Lady Summer Harrow’s husband had left England for the Continent one week ago.
And by all accounts, he had no intention of returning while a divorce was impossible to acquire.
“You have but to go to them, and the courts will retract your Oxfordshire arrest immediately,” Samuel had said when they met outside the Whitmore house on Portman Square. “You will be free to travel where you please. But you must go to—”
“I know where I must go,” Nicholas had interrupted, ducking back into his carriage. “Why do you think I have come down here and lied to the duchess about it?”
Amelia would despise him if she discovered the lie about Coventry.
But to his mind, it had been a necessary evil.
She would not have understood if he told her what he planned.
Whatever uncertain future lay before them, he did not want to compromise her happiness by involving her in his atonement.
This was something he had to do on his own, or he could never, in good conscience, hope for any future that wasn’t eternal damnation in loneliness and the bottle.
The play from von Kotzebue rang in his mind then. His lips curled at the bitter irony of his own situation. Redemption through a single act.
No. If a happy ending did exist for him somewhere in his fate, this would only ever be the first piece in setting it to be.
He proceeded toward the tall wrought-iron doors of the establishment.
Taking the key from the proprietor under an alias, he walked past the wide arch to the adjoining tearoom and made his way up the grand carpeted staircase.
The Mayfair Lodging House was a favorite of the ton, hosting luncheons for women and providing rooms to affluent travelers when they stopped in London.
But it was also the place where a meeting could be conducted in secret. Nicholas knew this from experience.
Inside the rented room, he paced by the fire.
The brouhaha from the road outside provided a welcome distraction as he watched the flames dance in the hearth.
Out of the corner of his eye, he glimpsed the first strains of snowfall through the sash window.
His mind turned to Amelia, wishing she were with him to see the first snow of the year.
A familiar knock sounded then on the door, breaking through his melancholy meditations.
Summer Harrow had not aged a day in the months since he had last seen her. Her pale blonde hair fell in tight ringlets around her face beneath her turban. She wore a brown fur pelisse, modest enough to not attract attention. Her lips were painted her favorite shade of red.
Her appearance at the door made Nicholas’s gut churn with guilt and shame. The years of indulgence he once openly paraded left him only with regret. He could not wait for this meeting to come to an end.
“Well, well. What do we have here?” Summer drawled, peering past Nicholas into the otherwise empty boarding room. “May I enter?”
“Quickly,” Nicholas replied. He stepped aside to admit her and closed the door behind her once he was sure the coast was clear.
“To tell you the truth,” she continued once inside, “I mostly expected this to be a trap orchestrated by someone who loathes me very much. An angry wife with a grudge against me, for instance, or a highwayman taking me for ransom at the order of one, something of the sort. You are sight for sore eyes. Come to me.”
She moved to the bed and hovered at the foot. There, she opened her arms for him. He shook his head, folding his arms over his chest. He felt nothing at the sight of her but disgust for himself.
“Playing hard to get?” she curled a brow. “Or have you changed your mind?”
“Regarding what, precisely?”
She smiled in a simpering manner. “Our liaison. Why else would you possibly be here?”
“To speak with you only. The note I left implied nothing more.”
He had sent a boot-boy from the Whitmore home to Summer’s apartment once he had arrived, calling her to the lodging house at this exact time.
“Oh, Avon. I do not believe that for a second.” Her delicate thin brows furrowed in displeasure. “Of course you were not going to write anything obscene in the note…”
“I mean it. And that is exactly why I did not call on you directly. I did not want to be seen by your abode. This private moment is for speaking alone. There are things we must make clear to one another.”
“No…” She shook her head. “You know that Dickie is on his way to Venice—if he is not intercepted by French troops, that is. Foolish old man that he is, he will most certainly die now that he does not have me to care for him.”
“Do not feign concern for him now,” Nicholas grunted. “That was never your way. Sir Richard was a means to an end for you, as you were for him.”
“Yes, yes.” She waved a cavalier hand. “And we are both better off separated. I am not implying that I am worried about him, and certainly not that I miss him. Did you know he is seeking to divorce me for adultery?”
“I did not.”
“So, should he perish abroad because of old age or by accident, more’s the pity for him and the benefit to me. I will wear the proper mourning attire and move on with my life as a happy, wealthy widow. But if you did not come here to talk about Dickie... You received my letter, yes?”
Nicholas started, glanced up. “Letter?”
“Yes, letter. I wrote to you earlier this week. I thought that was…” Her eyes narrowed. “Oh, that really is not why you are here. I wrote to you asking you to return to me.” She crossed the room in an instant, taking him by the shoulders. “And you are here, and yet you are not.”
Nicholas masked his horror and released himself from her grasp. He paced the room, thinking. What were the chances that she had bid him to London the moment he had resolved to meet her and put an end to their connection for good?
Another cruel twist of fate.
“No,” he muttered, raking a hand over his mouth. “I did not come to London intending to reunite with you. Not in the way you believe. Lady Harrow—”
“Lady Harrow?” She laughed bitterly. “No, no, Your Grace. Now I see perfectly well what you intended. You are casting me away like a disused rag.” For a moment, she was silent, and Nicholas feared the worst. “How strange it feels to be on the receiving end of rejection…”
“It had never been my intention to mislead you. The parameters of our… acquaintance, were clear from the first. And now I have reason to bring it to a definitive conclusion.”
“A woman?”
Nicholas could not help but smile. “What else?”
“And so, you visit me here to ensure I will bother you no longer.” She rolled her eyes heavenward and shook her head. “A note really would have sufficed. You could have saved us both the embarrassment of this assignation.”
“I could not risk it being intercepted. And I felt, from what I recalled from you, that you would not take me seriously by written word alone.”
“You were probably right. Typically, I am very good at getting what I want, and men are most susceptible to being worn down by correspondence. The impatience of your sex is astounding.”
She sighed dramatically.
“So be it. I shall find amusements elsewhere. But answer me this—who is this woman? Surely not the poor dear you have taken to wife.”
Nicholas must have looked shocked, because she continued with a laugh.
“Dearest, did you expect London would not hear of your surprising marriage? A tantalizing affair.”
His brow arched. “I expected you would not mention the wedding to protect your pride. Samuel came to me some weeks ago and suggested you had set yourself on the path of war.”
“For you?” She grinned furiously. “Avon, we had our fun. We would have continued to have fun had Dickie not called for that duel. But you must know that my heart was never in it. And neither was yours.”
“So you will not seek to make my life difficult?”
“Certainly not. It is in my interest to pretend you never existed—unless I need to state again that my old, rich husband is looking to divorce me and ruin my good name. I would lose everything by associating myself with you.”
Summer walked toward the door.
“She must be an exceedingly worthy woman, the wife you have taken, to have captured the heart of a rogue as yourself.”
“I did not say that she had.”
“Yes, but actions often speak much louder than words, don’t they? Play coy with me if you must. But I wish you well with her, a successful and perfectly boring reformation.”
That evening, Nicholas exited the Whitmore townhouse after stopping quickly for dinner with his brother. The early winter air greeted him with its sharp bite, carrying the air of smoke from nearby chimneys and the wagons of passing chestnut vendors.
Samuel had gone ahead of him to clarify the cost of the trip with his driver. He peered up at Nicholas, where he waited beside the carriage, fiddling with a small pink jewelry box.
“What is that?” Nicholas asked, coming down the steps.
“Something your friend George Elston asked me to fetch him when he learned I would be returning to London. It seems safer to send it back to Oxfordshire with you than by carrier.”
He launched the box in the air, and Nicholas caught it.
“Wedding bands,” Samuel tittered. “If I were a betting man—and Lord knows I am—I would wager he is planning on taking his giantess to wed.”
“He said no such thing to me.”
Nicholas flicked the box open.
Two gold bands. One larger than the other. On the inside, they bore the Elston name.
“But that seems the most natural progression of their courtship. Good for him.”
His brother arched a brow.
“The duchess really has changed you,” he quipped, before averting his eyes to the ground. “Am I to understand your rendezvous with Lady Harrow this afternoon was entirely innocent? I will castrate you if the duchess asks it.”
A laugh escaped Nicholas. “Entirely.”
“Good. How boring London has been without you.” Samuel clapped Nicholas on the shoulder. “Return to Oxford and fetch the duchess for me. Bring her to London. My sister-in-law should see Portman Square at least once in her life.”
Nicholas nodded, unsure what would happen once he arrived in Oxford.
He glanced down at George’s ring box.
I will know when I see her.
Arriving in Oxford the next day, Nicholas peered out of the carriage window as the town came into view. He stretched his legs in the footwell, weary from the long morning of travel. Their stop at the inn that night had been too short—but he wanted to return to Amelia as soon as possible.
The road to Riverside Court ran the length of the River Thames. It glittered in the pale evening light as they drove alongside it. The pines at the border of the property appeared on the horizon.
It was a strange homecoming. In essence, he was no different than when he had left.
And yet, something has changed within me, he thought, letting the velvet curtains fall shut again. The future seems uncertain… but hopeful.
The carriage parked in front of the manor’s entrance. Footmen exited immediately to retrieve the few belongings Nicholas had brought with him. He patted George’s ring box in his vest pocket as he hurried up the front steps.
The house was oddly quiet.
Nicholas turned as the butler approached. Beneath his mask of decorum, something flickered across the old man’s face.
“What?” Nicholas asked. “Has something happened? Is it Amelia?”
Panicked, he made for the stairs.
“Your Grace,” the butler called. “The duchess is not in residence.”
The words chilled him to the bone.
“Well, where is she?”
“Her Grace is paying a house call to Baron Spencer. She asked…” His lips formed a hard white line. “She begged that His Grace did not disturb her.”
“Disturb her?” he repeated, aghast. “What the devil has happened? Why was she allowed to leave?”
“I know why,” a voice came from behind them.
George stood in the open doorway, moving aside as a footman came in with Nicholas’s belongings. His face was marked with grief as he approached, wringing his hat in his hands.
“I saw your carriage pass through town and knew I must come immediately,” George explained. The butler took his leave. “I walked with Miss Ashwood this morning, and she said the duchess had returned to Baron Spencer’s home with her brother.”
“You are telling me nothing I do not know,” Nicholas protested. “Why, George? Why did she leave?”
“It seems… the duchess claims that your marriage was a mistake, though she would reveal nothing more to Miss Ashwood. What did you do, Nicholas?”
That was the question, was it not?
It seemed his trip was the likely culprit—unless her brother had gotten in her head.
Nothing would be realized until he spoke to Amelia directly.
Assuming, he thought miserably, that ours is not a confidence which has been broken beyond repair by whatever transpired in my absence…