Love's Reward Page 3

  In the days of Henry VIII, it had been a rich prize for the king to hand to his most loyal supporter, a man who had married one of Catherine of Aragon’s Spanish ladies-in-waiting, but had been prudent enough to change his religion when his sovereign required it. An ignoble enough beginning to Evenham power and prestige, the wealth that had come from all that abbey land, stolen from the monks.

  She took a deep breath. “It’s Lady Joanna Acton, Papa. I’m very sorry.”

  For a moment, her father stared at her in silence. Then he crossed to the fireplace and courteously helped his wife to her feet. Lady Evenham walked to the door and allowed him to open it for her. The earl did so with practiced grace, and she stepped into the corridor as if entering a measure in the ballroom.

  Lord Evenham said nothing until he was about to close the door behind him.

  It was just one sentence, but the implacable words were quite distinct.

  “Then it’s Fitzroy who will pay for this,” he said.

  * * *

  The pupils at Miss Able’s Academy were expected to rise at six and wash in cold water in preparation for their devotions in the school chapel. Thus it was still dark when Miss Able was informed that Lady Joanna was not in her room, and that several of her things had gone missing.

  Miss Able called immediately for Joanna’s little sister, Lady Matilda Acton.

  Milly stepped into the headmistress’s study still sleepy, but she kept her back straight and met Miss Able’s pale eyes with more defiance than was seemly. She was dressed in a simple muslin gown and cotton apron over ankle-length pantaloons. Her blond hair lay in two golden plaits. The plain dress only enhanced Milly’s quite exceptional beauty.

  Miss Able was seated behind her desk, but Milly had to stand, head up and shoulders straight, for as long as was deemed necessary to teach little girls correct deportment and respect for their elders.

  Since in the past this had stretched to over an hour, she exaggerated the stance, just enough to annoy without giving Miss Able any room to correct her, even though her left stocking was uncomfortably twisted in her shoe and she hadn’t had any breakfast.

  Milly thought about Joan of Arc before her inquisitors and bore it stoically.

  “Your sister appears to have left us, Lady Matilda. Did she speak to you about it?”

  Milly curtsied. It helped the stress on the back to move whenever the opportunity presented itself.

  “Yes, Miss Able.”

  “Report to me exactly what she said, if you please. Exactly!”

  Milly’s blue eyes were perfectly serious, her small chin quite steady. She curtsied again and hoped the rustle of her skirts would cover the rumble of her empty stomach. Miss Able’s pupils were expected to control such indecorous expressions of bodily function.

  “Yes, ma’am. She said that she intended to go where there was hot water to wash with in the morning. Where no one would ask her to memorize enormous stretches of meaningless Latin, instead of introducing her to the modern poets. And where there wouldn’t be any more interminable sermons from dried-up old ladies in abominable wigs. I remember her words exactly, Miss Able. My sister Joanna is very fond of the modern poets. That’s what we all read together when we visit our brother Richard at Acton Mead. The modern poets, and Shakespeare, of course. Richard’s wife, Helena, has a wonderful voice for reading aloud.”

  “I’m sure Lady Lenwood allows you to hear only what is proper,” Miss Able said, her voice tight. “What else did Lady Joanna tell you?”

  “When I asked her if she planned to run away alone, she told me not to be silly, that a gentleman was going to meet her with a curricle at the end of the lane at midnight, and that she would be quite safe. I’m not in the least concerned for her, Miss Able.”

  After a dreadful silence, Miss Able let out a groan. To Milly’s amazement, she put both hands over her face and groaned again. All her horror that the little girls knew that she wore a wig melted away, as she concentrated on the one piece of information appalling enough to destroy her.

  “A gentleman?” she said at last, with an odd little choke.

  “Yes, Miss Able. He’s the Honorable Quentin Mountfitchet, a son of the Earl of Evenham, you know. So it’s quite all right.”

  The pale eyes squeezed shut. “Pray, Lady Matilda, will you please ring the bell for Miss Sandhurst.”

  Milly rang the bell, and a small, thin lady entered the room.

  Miss Able looked up. Her skin had the look of mud in December.

  “Miss Sandhurst, we are faced with a calamity. Lady Joanna Acton has run away with a gentleman in a curricle, a gentleman with a most unfortunate reputation. She has been gone since midnight. There is no alternative but to send a message to her family immediately.”

  Miss Sandhurst turned white, then green.

  “Oh, my! The Actons? Lord and Lady Acton? Oh, my!”

  “Will they come here, Miss Able?” Milly asked. “And Richard?”

  The headmistress looked sharply at her noble pupil. It was as if frost had crept over the mud, sending a craze of ice shards across the ground.

  “Lady Matilda, you will be pleased to write an essay on the benefits of the regimen at this school. Two thousand words. By nine o’clock sharp. You will place particular emphasis on those requirements that are designed to secure the physical, moral, and spiritual health of the pupils, and thus convert heathen children into English ladies whose future calling is to serve as the wives and mothers of this great nation. You may go.”

  Milly curtsied and left, filled with enough admiration for her sister’s escape to almost offset the burden of writing two thousand words of hypocrisy.

  She had been kept in Miss Able’s study just long enough to miss breakfast.

  “Oh, Miss Able!” Miss Sandhurst exclaimed, her eyes filled with tears. “Alas! By the time you send word to the earl and countess at King’s Acton, it will be too late, surely? Then the scandal will destroy us.”

  Miss Able stood up. “Nonsense! Lady Matilda is a spoiled, disrespectful child, but she shall have her wish. Lord and Lady Acton are probably in London. A message will reach them without delay. But we shall also send immediately to Acton Mead, which is hardly a stone’s throw from here.”

  “Acton Mead?”

  “Of course. Lord Lenwood may take on the responsibility for the redemption of his sister. I would like to see his face when he gets this message. He came here last spring with his wife, as you may recall, and was most impertinent to me, most impertinent indeed. These young gentlemen may think of themselves as reformers, but the blame is theirs when their sisters kick over the traces as a result.”

  * * *

  Fitzroy raced up the stairs two at a time.

  The stunned innkeeper had not hesitated for a moment to tell this imperious gentleman where he had served breakfast to the dark-haired beauty. Of course, it was his best upstairs parlor. And her escort, a most dashing young fellow, had spent liberally enough on wine.

  Yet this new gentleman not only wore a silk shirt and waistcoat worth enough to buy an ostler’s services for a year, but also drove a high-perch phaeton that might have belonged to a duke. Perhaps it did belong to a duke.

  In which case, the ducal family would be prepared to pay liberally for the innkeeper’s assistance. For there was something distinctly havey-cavey about these goings-on, now, wasn’t there? It wasn’t every day that a young couple arrived in a curricle, with no servants and not much luggage, to be followed by a second gentleman, distraught and angry, setting a bruising pace in a phaeton.

  And the two gentlemen had the look of brothers.

  At the door to the private parlor, Fitzroy stopped and took a deep breath. A deeper rage than he had expected had seized him by the heart the minute he had seen Snow White welcome Quentin’s embrace.

  He had the horrific, repellent fear that he wouldn’t be able to trust himself if he carried a weapon. So he had left his pistols and sword cane with the innkeeper. Surely it was only because
this time Quentin had involved the family honor?

  She was the Earl of Acton’s daughter, for God’s sake!

  Even without the complications posed by the bad blood between himself and Richard Acton, the ramifications of this were unthinkable.

  Yet he knew that his rage was due to more than that, and he had no idea why.

  Steadying his breathing, Fitzroy rapped on the panel.

  Silence.

  He knocked one more time and tried the knob. It turned easily in his hand.

  With dark rage still eating at his heart, he stepped into the room.

  Quentin’s tall figure blocked the light from the window, the sun casting an unlikely halo around his brown head. He was entirely absorbed. Lady Joanna Acton was encircled in his arms, and he was still kissing her.

  Fitzroy had the distinct impression that Snow White was kissing him back.

  The perception turned in his gut and filled his mouth with ash.

  Damnation! Damnation! He was too late.

  * * *

  Joanna was not surprised when Quentin began to kiss her. She had been expecting it ever since she had climbed into his carriage outside Miss Able’s Academy.

  So she had made the right choice to run away with a rake, after all! For what Quentin was doing to her lips was quite agreeable. She softened against him and tentatively opened her mouth just a little. He tasted of claret, a warm, woody fragrance.

  He deepened the kiss, entirely stealing her breath as he slipped one hand down to her waist, pulling her more closely into his body.

  His mouth covered hers, a little too greedy, almost oppressive.

  Joanna was determined to learn from the experience, though she wasn’t sure how much she liked this new development.

  The door opened behind her.

  To her relief, Quentin pulled away, wiping moisture from his lips.

  Then he laughed.

  She turned to see the gentleman of the high-perch phaeton standing in the doorway. He was tall and lean, with wide shoulders and strong, graceful limbs enhanced by a very expensive, fashionable caped greatcoat. For some reason he was wearing an evening shirt with buckskin breeches and boots.

  His hair was as dark as her own, curling wildly over a brow contracted into a scowl, his clear, smooth tan flushed with color across the high cheekbones.

  More than handsome, he had the look of a vampire, of demons flying out of the night: magnetic, enchanting—and out for blood.

  He closed the door and leaned back against it, his arms crossed over his chest, as if to contain that surging power.

  Oh, dear God, those dark eyes would pierce her to the heart!

  “How very charming,” he said with a derisive curl to his lip. “True love in a tavern. How do you do, Lady Joanna? Do you think that this gentleman will offer you the protection of his name as well as his passionate embraces? Or are you content to become his harlot and tend to your flock of bastards with a glad heart and a forgiving nature? For that’s all you will get. And while you are waiting for him so faithfully in your nice little parlor, the innocent children clamoring at your knee, he will be fathering other by-blows on other mistresses, with just as much enthusiasm as he brought to your bed. I hope you enjoyed it.”

  Joanna felt the hot, dreadful wave of anger and embarrassment start somewhere near her knees to flood uncomfortably up through her body until it set fire to her face.

  She wanted to cry, but only from anger.

  How dare he!

  “Ah, Fitzroy,” Quentin said, still holding her against him. “The officious older brother, always on my track. Good morning, my lord. Allow me to present Lady Joanna Acton. Lady Joanna, my brother, Fitzroy, Lord Tarrant, an honorary viscount. Of course, you know that, don’t you? Your brother Richard, Viscount Lenwood, holds the same courtesy rank, the mark of an earl’s heir. Just enough in Fitzroy’s case to make him think that he can be bloody imperious and insulting whenever he likes.”

  “It would be easier, Quentin,” Lord Tarrant replied with the same deadly mockery, “if you were to release Lady Joanna from your lecherous grip. Then I could knock you down and murder you without compunction. I left my weapons with mine host, but I’d be happy to strangle you with your own cravat: neater and less sanguine than lead or steel. After all, we’re in the presence of a lady, whether or not she is inclined to act like one. She might not mind bearing you a brood of bastards, but she would probably faint at the sight of your blood.”

  “You’re unarmed, brother? How damned noble and impertinent of you!”

  Quentin smiled down at Joanna. There was no humor at all in his expression.

  “Shall I kill him for you?” he said, and laughed.

  Chapter 3

  The message was waiting for the Earl and Countess of Acton when they returned to Acton House in Park Lane at four in the morning: a short note from Lord Evenham, sealed with his crest.

  Lord Acton tore open the paper as a manservant helped him off with his coat.

  Moments later he turned deep red, his skin mottling above his tight cravat, a heavy, aging Henry VIII, oddly out of place in the clothing of a gentleman of the nineteenth century.

  Lady Acton looked at her husband and wondered why in almost thirty years of marriage she had never quite grown used to it.

  “For heaven’s sake, Acton,” she said sharply as she drew off her gloves. “What has happened?”

  She was very clearly Joanna’s mother. Of her six children, only her second daughter had exactly her coloring—the black eyes and rich dark hair—and exactly her exquisite bone structure.

  The earl was choked. With a violent gesture he waved away the butler and the footmen, who stood ready to attend to their master and mistress.

  As soon as the hallway was empty of servants, he thrust the note into her hands.

  “Read this, madam, if you please.”

  Lady Acton read it rapidly.

  “Oh, dear Lord!” She looked away across the grand entry hall, her dark eyes blurred suddenly with tears. “Joanna!”

  “Is that all you have to say, madam, when your daughter runs away with an infamous rake?”

  The countess seemed to regain her composure, as easily as if she had slipped on her cloak, yet it was as if an abyss had opened somewhere deep inside her, an abyss of dread and cold fear. Yet a lifetime of being a duke’s daughter and an earl’s wife had taught her how to cover up any weakness and shield her emotions behind a shell of serenity.

  She turned now to her husband with cool derision.

  “But at least he’s the son of an earl. I suggest we invite Lord Evenham here at his earliest convenience—for breakfast, perhaps. In the meantime, you should send for your man of business. Settlements will have to be drawn up.”

  The earl tore off his cravat and opened his collar.

  “Settlements! Damn his eyes! It’s a crime to abduct an heiress, even if she is willing. Good God, that a daughter of mine could be so foolish! Will none of my children make a suitable match? Look at the brood you have given me, madam!”

  He grasped her arm and dragged her toward the painting that dominated the entryway. It was a faintly sentimental portrait of the countess surrounded by her children, painted at least ten years before. Three boys and three girls, one of them a baby in a lace cap staring solemnly from the countess’s lap.

  “Look at them!”

  He indicated the oldest boy. The youth stared back at his father, proud, defiant, his silver-blond hair a striking contrast to his black eyes.

  “Richard! What was he—sixteen, seventeen? It wasn’t long after this was daubed that he was wasting his youth in vice and dissipation in God knows what depraved corners of the globe.”

  “He became a soldier, a perfectly honorable occupation.”

  “He is my heir, madam! The next Earl of Acton, for God’s sake, joining the Peninsular Campaign as an ordinary cavalry captain, then coming home to marry a penniless chit from Cornwall that he had known for only two days. You call that
honorable behavior? Madness, madness! He could have had any heiress in the kingdom.”

  Lady Acton gazed at the painted face, greeting her with eyes that were so like her own. Her first-born. She had been just eighteen, far too young, frightened, and in love with someone else. But Richard had come into her life, a helpless infant with such tiny, perfect features and great trusting black eyes, and sunk an unbreakable hook into her heart.

  Lord Acton had handed him to a wet nurse and ordered his young wife to dry her eyes and act the countess. Of course she had done so.

  “As it turns out, Helena’s family was perfectly respectable and she was heiress to a small property. Richard loves her.”

  The earl was gripping her arm hard enough to bruise it.

  “Love! Yes, he’s as devoted to her as any cowherd to his milkmaid. Yet it was not the blood suitable for my son and heir, madam, however charming the girl. And now she has produced a daughter instead of a son.”

  “She and Richard will have more children. You may thank the love you so despise for that.”

  “Yes, a splendid match for Viscount Lenwood! A chit with a pretty face who loves him!”

  The earl pointed next to a grave girl who seemed to be the odd one out in a family of stunning good looks. Gawky and awkward, frozen in paint on the last brink of childhood, she had straight chestnut hair and plain brown eyes in a face that was all bones.

  “And there stands Joanna’s older sister, Eleanor, who made a botch of her Season and turned down an offer from the future Duke of May.”

  “My brown hen!” Lady Acton smiled. “And now she is Countess of Hawksley, and her husband a hero of Waterloo. Eleanor can hardly be faulted for her marriage, Acton.”

  “Ha! Like the battle, it was a damned close-run thing. But Joanna is determined to outshine all of them. Quentin Mountfitchet, for God’s sake!”

  “It’s no secret what Quentin is. But there’s nothing inherently unsuitable in a match between the families. And they must marry, of course. Even if Tarrant has discovered them by now, they have spent the night together unchaperoned. Though I’m very sorry for it, for I have no doubt that the marriage will be an unhappy one.”