The Last Hellion (Scoundrels 4)

Only once, at the very end, had she made anything like a plea for mercy. Even then, it wasn’t on her behalf. Those last, barely legible lines, written days before her death, stood stark and blazing in his brain as though burned there with an iron: Dear Father in Heaven, look after my girls.

He’d tried to blot out her story, as he’d banished so much else from his mind, but it stuck and rooted there, like the stubborn gorse that grew on the inhospitable moors her Ballister ancestors had made their home.

The words of a woman eighteen years dead had dug into him as few others’ words could do, and made him feel like a cur and a coward. She’d borne her lot with courage and humor…while he couldn’t face what had happened on his wedding night.

He’d leapt at the chance to quarrel with Dain, eagerly used anger to blot out the other thing.

As though what he had to bear, one disagreeable realization, were the most excruciating thing in the world.

It wasn’t. The joke was on him, that was all.

He’d wanted Grenville, hadn’t he, as he’d never wanted any other woman. Why then should he be so amazed that when he’d finally bedded her, it wouldn’t be like bedding any other woman?

With the others, he’d merely coupled.

With his wife, he’d made love.

She was a writer. In his place, she’d have found streams of metaphors to describe the experience, what it was like, how it was different.

He hadn’t metaphors. But he was a libertine, with more experience than any man ought to have. Experience enough to discern the difference. And wit enough to understand his heart was engaged, and to know the word for that.

Are you in love with me? he’d asked, smiling, as though the possibility amused him. And he’d had to go on smiling and teasing, all the while aware what the thing was that stabbed his heart, and why it hurt, as no physical injury had ever hurt him, when she didn’t give the answer he wanted.

Hurt, that was all. In love, that was all.

What was that to what Anne Grenville had endured? To what her daughter had endured?

Not to mention, he knew only a fraction of the tale. The slim volume scarcely covered the palm of his hand. Its few pages held so little—most of it appalling—with great gaps in time between entries. He was sure it told only the smallest part of the story.

He didn’t want to know more, didn’t want to feel smaller than he did already. Small and petty and selfish and blind.

But if Grenville could live it, whatever that life had been, he could certainly bear learning about it.

Not from her. She hadn’t wanted the past raked up, she’d said, and he wasn’t going to make her relive it.

Dain would know more of the tale, and he’d tell, like it or not. He had a lot to answer for. The least he could do was answer a few questions, Lord All-Wise and All-Knowing.

He would seek Dain out first thing, Vere resolved, and pound the facts out of him if necessary.

With that agreeable prospect in mind, the Duke of Ainswood finally drifted into sleep.

As it happened, Vere didn’t have to seek Dain out. Midafternoon, upon learning from Jaynes that the master and mistress were up and about, Dain arrived to bear Vere off to the private dining parlor, while the ladies enjoyed a late breakfast in Dain’s chambers.

“Jessica is nigh exploding,” Dain said as they descended the stairs. “She must have a private tête-à-tête with my cousin, in order to share her experience in the art of torturing husbands. Trent’s taken Miss Price to Portsmouth to shop for some fripperies my lady insists your lady can’t do without, so he shan’t pester us with his blithering while we eat. Jess and I will take the pair of them with us to Athcourt. You will need to reorganize your household to accommodate a wife, and you won’t want Trent about. Not that I want him, either, but he shouldn’t be too much underfoot—at least not under my feet. He will trot after Miss Price, and show a degree of intelligence for once in his life, in falling head over ears in love with the only female in all the known universe who has any idea what to make of him.”

Vere paused on the stairs. “In love?” he said. “Are you sure?”

“Certainly not. How should I know? To me, he sounds and looks as imbecilic as usual. But Jessica assures me he has fixed his minuscule brain upon Miss Price.”

They continued on, Dain calculating aloud the amount he’d settle upon Miss Price if she would take pity on Trent and marry him, while Vere heard “in love” echo in his mind and wondered whether Lady Dain had noticed symptoms of the same ailment elsewhere.

“You are abnormally quiet,” Dain said as they settled into their chairs. “We’ve passed a full five minutes together, with nary one belligerent remark passing your lips.”

A servant entered then, and they ordered. When the man had left, Vere said, “I want you to tell me everything you know about Grenville.”

“As it happens, that was what I intended to do, whether you wanted to hear or not,” said Dain. “I had prepared myself to beat you senseless, revive you, and drop your broken body into the chair. In that agreeably spongelike state you would absorb the tale, and perhaps even the occasional tidbit of advice.”

“Interesting. I had something like that in mind for you, in case you chose to be your usual aggravating self.”

“I’m in charity with you this once,” said Dain. “You’ve made my cousin a duchess, restoring her to her proper place in the world. Furthermore, you wed her with, if not noble motives, at least not entirely ignoble ones. I was touched, Ainswood, I truly was, by your serene unconcern for her origins.” The mocking half-smile played about his lips. “Perhaps ‘serene’ is not precisely the word I want. Still, I was affected—not to mention deeply astonished—by your evidencing taste, for once in your misbegotten life. She is a wonderfully handsome girl, is she not? They are appallingly handsome, most of the Ballisters. She gets her looks from her maternal grandfather, you know. Frederick Ballister and my father were much alike in their youth. But Frederick contracted smallpox in his late teens, and the disease disfigured him. That must be why Anne compared her daughter to my father, instead of her own. She mustn’t have been aware that Frederick had been one of the beautiful Ballisters. We haven’t yet discovered a portrait of Anne. However, if one exists, you may be sure Jessica will find it. She has an alarming genius for finding things.”

Vere was aware that one of the “things” Lady Dain had found—and made Dain keep—was his bastard son, Dominick. The thought stirred a chill wave in the dark area of Vere’s mind, the distant shores where orphaned and outcast thoughts huddled.

He labeled the feeling “hunger” and looked impatiently toward the door.

“Where’s the servant got to?” he said. “How long does it take to draw a tankard of ale?”

“They’ve all been run off their feet, attending to the wedding guests this morning,” Dain said. “Or collecting the corpses is more like it. When I first came down at midday, the public dining room was strewn with bodies. It brought back fond memories of our Oxford days.”

The servant appeared then, and another behind him. Both staggered under the weight of the trays, though the meal was for only two men. Still, they were two very large men, with commensurate appetites.

It was a while, therefore, after the servants had gone, before Dain launched into the story. Still, he didn’t linger over the telling by adding literary embellishments or, worse yet, sentimental ones. He told it as Vere wanted it told, as a man would tell it, keeping to the plain facts and putting them in order, without wandering into whys and wherefores and that most profitless of all digressions, if onlys.

Still, it was as unpleasant a tale as Vere had expected, and he lost his appetite before he’d emptied his plate of the first helping, because by then he’d heard about the Marshalsea.

He pushed his plate away. “She told me her sister had died, that was all. She said nothing of how it happened. She said nothing of debtors’ prison.”

“The Ballister nature i

s not confiding,” said Dain. “Lydia is obviously like the rest of us. ‘Didn’t want the past raked up’ was all her explanation for telling nobody anything about her origins. Did you know she was at my wedding—on the very church steps—and never made herself known? What the devil was she thinking? That I gave a damn what her mother did?” He scowled at his mug. “My own mother ran off with a sea merchant. The brat I got with the prime whore of Dartmoor lives in my house. Did the girl think I fancied she wasn’t good enough for us?”

“Don’t ask me,” said Vere. “I haven’t the least idea what goes on in her head.”

The scowl shifted to Vere. “I am well aware your interest lies elsewhere. You did not marry her for her mind. It is inconceivable to you that she—any woman—has one. Well, let me tell you something, Ainswood. They do. They are always thinking, women are, and if you don’t wish to be outmaneuvered at every turn, I recommend you exercise your very thick and sluggish brain in comprehending your wife’s. I know this is hard for you. Thinking upsets the delicate balance of your constitution. I am trying to make it easier, by telling you what I know. We men must stick together.”

“Then get back to telling, why don’t you?” said Vere. “You’ve scarcely buried her sister.”