Lord Perfect (The Dressmakers 3)

Wait until I tell Alistair, Rupert thought. Wait until . . .

It was then he realized he’d better not tell anybody.

Lord Hargate had ears everywhere, and he would not find the matter amusing.

His countenance sober, Rupert turned away from the window. “Gregson, I thank you for being so helpful,” he said. “I must ask you, however, on my brother’s behalf, to be as unhelpful as possible to everyone else.”

The secretary looked alarmed. “Sir, I am sure I did not intend—”

“Rathbourne has been under a strain recently,” Rupert said. “That would explain why he forgot to inform you. This Wingate is connected to a government matter. Highly secret. That’s all I know. But if anyone else asks, I must beg you to know nothing at all about B. Wingate or my brother behaving strangely. A great deal may be at stake. Governments might topple. No telling. Best to play it safe and know nothing.”

“But sir, if Lord Hargate inquires about Lord Rathbourne—”

“In that case, Gregson,” said Rupert, “I should develop an incapacitating and highly contagious disease, if I were you.”

Chapter 13

“I HAD NOT REALIZED IT WAS SO FAR,” Bathsheba said as they passed through the Walcot tollgate.

Though she knew Rathbourne had driven as fast as the horses were capable of traveling, night had long since fallen. Ahead sprawled the town of Bath, famed for its healing waters. Bristol lay another half dozen miles or more to the northwest, and Throgmorton “some ways from there,” according to the tollgate keeper. When pressed, he could not say whether it was five or ten miles.

“Whatever it is, it might add another two hours to our journey, depending on the state of the country roads,” Rathbourne said. “We had better stop in Bath. We might enjoy a proper night’s rest and set out fresh in the morning.”

“And when we reach Throgmorton, then what?”

“Ask me tomorrow,” he said.

“I cannot wait until tomorrow,” she said. “We need a plan of action. We cannot simply set up camp at the gates and wait for Olivia and Lord Lisle to turn up. What are the chances of their entering in the normal way?”

“We have plenty of time to discuss what can and can’t be done,” he said.

“I’ve been discussing it with myself,” she said. “For most of the last several hours I’ve counted milestones and tried to sort out courses of action in an orderly manner, the way you do.”

“Is that how you occupied yourself?” he said. “What a boring way to spend the journey. And what an appalling waste of time. Why did you not ask me to sort it out?”

Because she could not get into the habit of letting him solve her problems for her, she thought.

“You seemed preoccupied,” she said. “I did not wish to disturb your meditations.”

He shot her a surprised glance.

“I did not think you needed to be entertained,” she said. “I do not need to talk constantly. I am happy to have a quiet time for thinking. Such times do not come often. And I wanted to work it out for myself.”

“You are too accommodating,” he said. “I am in the habit of traveling alone. I was not ignoring you. You are impossible to ignore. But I let myself become lost in thought. I wish you had reminded me to say something now and again to pass the time.”

“I was not bored,” she said. “I had a good deal to think about.”

There was a short silence, then, “I am not the most attentive of men,” he said.

“You have a great deal on your mind,” she said. “Especially at present.”

“I am not attentive,” he repeated impatiently. “I finally recognized that . . . though it took me long enough. A valuable insight—and what use do I make of it? I have spent all this time with you—more time, I think, than I have spent in constant company with any woman since I was an infant. Yet now, when the last thing I want is to waste our remaining time together, I fall into old habits.”

“It is not your duty to entertain me,” she said. “You must watch the road and—”

“You wondered how my wife could be a stranger,” he cut in, his voice taut. “This is how. Lack of conversation. Lack of—gad, I hardly know. I treated her like a handsome piece of furniture—she, a Dalmay. She needed to swim in an ocean of feeling. She needed attention. Small wonder she turned elsewhere.”

Bathsheba was too surprised at the outburst to speak. She could only stare at him. His handsome profile was set in hard lines.

“It was not a man,” he said. “Not in the way you think, at any rate. She fell under the spell of an evangelical preacher. He persuaded her—and a great many other misguided creatures—to bring salvation to the poor. They did this by handing out Bibles and preaching at people who regarded them as a joke or an insult. I have dealt with the poor, Bathsheba. They need a great deal, but I do not believe they feel any great want for aristocratic females dressed in the latest stare of fashion telling them they are proud, vain, and licentious.”

She longed to touch him, to lay her hand on his arm. She could not. It was nighttime, but this was not a lonely stretch of road. This was a main thoroughfare through England’s most famous watering place.

“I was mistaken,” she said. “Perhaps she was emotional, after all.”

“I wish she had thrown something at me,” he said. “But I had no idea of the extent and depth of her—her passion for the cause. I hardly knew what she was up to. I didn’t ask. I dismissed it as a typically muddled feminine whim. I should have put a stop to it. Instead, I now and again stirred myself to make sardonic observations that went over her head. Then I went on about my so much more important business and forgot about it.”

“You didn’t love her,” she said.

“That is no excuse,” he said angrily. “I married her. I was responsible for her. She was my oldest friend’s sister, plague take me—and I ignored her. Thanks to my neglect, she went into the back-slums prophesying hellfire and damnation, and came out with a fever that killed her in three days.”

“Jack rode a horse he was warned against,” she said. “The beast threw him. It took him three months to die.”

“It is not the same,” he said.

“Because he was a man and she was a woman?” she said.

“Your marriage was a success, though all the world condemned it,” he said. “Mine was a failure, though everyone applauded it.”

“It takes two,” she said, reminding him of what he’d said after the first time they made love. “Some unwise marriages do turn out well, for the participants, at any rate. Any number of arranged marriages turn out well, too. Why should not a marriage based on duty? A marriage of convenience? A political marriage? You are not unreachable, Rathbourne.”

“Not for you,” he growled. “But you are different.”

“The difference is, I grew up learning to make do,” she said. “You and Lady Rathbourne did not. I do not say you bear no responsibility. You should have made more of an effort. But so should she have done. Men are difficult creatures, yet a great many women—even the silliest, weakest-willed women—do manage to train them eventually.”

A short, shocked silence.

Then he laughed, and she felt the bottled-up rage and grief dissipate.

“You wicked woman,” he said. “I open up my heart to you. I reveal my secret shame—and you make a joke of it.”

“You nee

d a joke,” she said. “You paint too black a picture of your marriage. A great many women would be thrilled to have husbands who ignore them. It is preferable to being humiliated or abandoned or beaten. You were not the perfect husband, yet I should calculate that you were far from the worst.”

“Merely mediocre,” he said. “That is a great comfort.”

“That is the trouble with believing you are the center of the universe,” she said.

“I do not—”

“You are like the king of your own small country,” she said. “Because you use your power for good, you are weighted down with cares. It is hard work to be a paragon. And because you are perfect, your mistakes cause you far more anguish than they would do ordinary, fallible persons. You need a joke. You need a Touchstone.”

“A touchstone?”

“From As You Like It,” she said. “The jester.”

He threw her a glance. “I see. And you have appointed yourself to the position.”

That and others, she thought. Companion, lover, and fool. Oh, above all, fool.

“Yes, my lord,” she said. “And you must allow me to speak freely. That is the special privilege of the court jester, your majesty.”

“As though I could stop your saying what you liked, or doing what you liked,” he said. “Yet I will request that you not address me as ‘your majesty’ nor yet ‘my lord.’ For this once in my life I need not be ‘my lord.’ For once I needn’t be anybody in particular. I must have a new name for this stage of the journey. I shall be . . .” He considered. “Mr. Dashwood.”

“I shall be Miss Dashwood,” she said. “Your sister.”

“No, you will not,” he said. “You do not want a separate room at the inn.”

“You do not know what I want,” she said.

“Yes, I do. And so will everyone else. No one will believe we are sister and brother.”

“They believed it before,” she said.

He turned into the courtyard of an unprepossessing inn.

“That was before,” he said. “Now it is impossible for you to conceal your lustful feelings for me.”