The Undoing of a Libertine (Somerset Historicals 2)

He did not welcome the missive. This was not good news. He didn’t want any connection with his old life. And coming on the heels of his disclosure this morning at breakfast! God help him if Gina knew the abbess of a popular bordello wanted an audience with him. His wife had a bit of a jealous streak, he’d discovered, and wouldn’t take to it well. Jeremy had his failings but wasn’t stupid enough to risk his marital harmony on a brothel madam.

And what could Therese Blufette possibly want from him? He’d forgotten his promise to meet with her the night he’d talked to Marguerite and Luc. After discovering the true identity of Gina’s rapist, his one and only thought had been to get to her as soon as possible and secure her safety. He had put Madame Therese Blufette out of his mind without a second thought. He read the letter.

Dear Mr. Greymont,

It is with deep regret that I write this. I so hoped we could have talked that night you were in London, but we did not, and alas I am afraid, sir, that I can no longer be patient. Time is of the essence now.

All I can say in this letter is that the matter at hand is in regards to your family. Our meeting must be in person. The Velvet Swan will do.

Please come to me in London at your earliest convenience.

Therese Blufette

Jeremy was dumbfounded. Not what he was expecting in a letter, although very intriguing. What “family” did she mean? He didn’t have much family. His mother had been an only child like him.

It must be family from his father’s side. There was some family he’d never known, and of French citizenry. Madame Blufette was French.

He knew his father had died around ten years ago, somewhere in his native France. Jeremy didn’t even know exactly when and where, for they had never seen each other again after the day he’d left when Jeremy was just a young boy. A notification of death had come through a solicitor, and there was no property to inherit that Jeremy was aware of. The miserable matter of Henri Greymont had finally been laid to rest, literally.

And Jeremy did not care to know or have anything of Henri Greymont’s either. The man had walked out of his life more than two decades ago, and Jeremy felt nothing. As far as he was concerned, his “father” was Sir Rodney, the man who had raised him from a boy and been his guide into adulthood, his grandfather.

The only part of his real father that he had to show he’d ever existed was his name—Greymont, French in origin but styled with proper English pronunciation, that being

a hard T rather than silent.

Making his decision, he wrote a brief but terse decline to Therese Blufette. He explained he was recently wed and could not leave his new bride unattended and that he really had no interest in anything to do with family he’d never known and was unlikely to ever know. He wished her well and expressed his hope that she would honor his request to remain uninvolved.

Setting the letter on the tray for posting, he was interrupted by shouting and commotion coming from the front of the house. He went to the window and saw Mills giving terse direction to the stable hands, a look of immediacy on his face, his hands waving wildly. Jeremy knew something was very wrong, Mills was cool and reserved all the time.

Racing out to the front steps, he was greeted with words that were never welcome. “Bad fire, sir! Rawles’s cottage. Their boy’s been burned. I fear the worst.”

His gut twisted as he sprang into action, directing all available hands and equipment to the scene of the disaster. He called for his horse and headed out with Mills, grateful that Gina was occupied with Marianne Rourke on a shopping excursion.

He smelled the acrid smoke before he sighted it, bracing himself for the dreadful prospect of the loss of a young life. This would no doubt be a very long day.

Chapter Twenty-Six

A shudder in the loins engenders there

The broken wall, the burning roof and tower

And Agamemnon dead.

—W.B. Yeats, “Leda and the Swan” (1928)

Georgina arrived home to a solemn and nearly empty house. Mrs. Richards provided details on the fire and discussed what arrangements would be needed for the Rawles family. Burns were deadly more often than not, and everyone was well aware of the likely outcome. They could only pray for the boy.

All on her own and in gloomy spirits, Georgina ate a light dinner then retired to her chambers. She had a bath and unpacked the things she had brought home from Madame Trulier’s.

Many dresses and gowns had been ordered, but a few items she had been able to take with her today. Among them, two silk nightdresses, more like chemises really, very French, very alluring, and sleeveless. One in green and one in yellow. That French modiste knew a thing or two about dressing a woman to incite her husband, Georgina realized. She thought Jeremy would like them and had made the selections with him in mind, the whole time remembering how he’d hated admitting his very experienced past to her this morning. Yes, he’d hated telling her, but the fact remained that he did tell her. He told the truth, painful as it was for them both. His honesty was one of the traits she admired in Jeremy. When a person was honest, she knew where she stood and could count on trusting them at their word. Jeremy said he only wanted her, and she believed him. He insisted that his old life was well in the past, behind him forever. And she believed that, too. Georgina had mulled his disclosures over enough times during the day, and she was ready to put it away for good.

She wrote a long letter to her brother and a short one to her father before getting into bed. A headache had plagued her for the last hour, and with Jeremy still gone, she figured sleep was the best thing she could do for herself. She hoped he was well, wherever he was, and that he would have some good news to report about the burned little boy.

Lying alone in the big bed, she lay awake for a time. When she did finally sleep, it was a restless slumber, awash in images, dreams, and terrors her subconscious mind had buried away for a long time…

* * * *

Jeremy went straight to his study and poured a double scotch. It was the only thing for him right now. The fire’s devastation had been pretty complete, right down to taking the life of the Rawles’s youngest son. The boy had gone into the burning cottage to retrieve his puppy and had been lost when a falling beam had struck him. Ironically, the dog had not even been inside.