squeezing shut in ecstasy as she rode him.
In the months that had passed since Richard’s visit, Amanda had sought to picture this vile thing that he had told her about. But never had she imagined—never could she have imagined anything like this.
Drawn by a sick combination of horror and fascination, she crept closer, her heart pounding painfully within her, her stomach acids backing up hot and sick into her throat. But it wasn’t until her fascination had drawn her, trembling and nauseous, ever closer, that Amanda realized the truth. That the woman whose breath came in such harsh, ragged gasps was her own mother, Sophia Hendon. And that the man whose naked pelvis thrust up again and again in a savage, pounding rhythm, who buried his body deeper and deeper inside hers, was her ladyship’s groom.
Amanda never told Richard what she had seen that day, although she knew from the bitter remarks her brother occasionally let fall that he blamed their father for the things their mother did, blamed Hendon for devoting all his time to King and country, and neglecting his lonely, lovely wife. But Amanda knew the truth, for she had seen the hunger in their mother’s beautiful, sunlit face. The shameful, insatiable hunger.
It had been dark for some time now, the fog swallowing the last glimmers of daylight before sliding away imperceptibly into night. The maid, Emily, had come at one point to draw the drapes and lay fresh coals upon the fire, but Amanda had sent her away.
Shaking off the long-ago memories, Amanda went now to turn up the flame of the oil lamp that filled the dressing room with a sweetly scented glow, and to close the heavy brocade drapes against the cold radiating off the long windows overlooking the square.
Crossing the room to her writing desk, she paused, her head raised as she listened. But the house lay silent around her, and after a moment she slid back the discreet latch that opened the desk’s hidden compartment, and drew forth the single piece of parchment from within.
She’d read it perhaps a hundred times already, but now she read it again, drawn by something she didn’t care to define, to this strange recital of that long-ago sin, written in Sophia Hendon’s own hand. Amanda couldn’t begin to guess what had driven her mother to set it all down in such stark, bare sentences, and then swear to it before witnesses. Nor did Amanda know how that harlot, Rachel York, had come by such a curious document, or for what purpose it had been intended. But Amanda had no doubt that the document had come from the actress.
Her blood still stained one corner.
It was Coachman Ned who’d first let slip the truth about that Tuesday night—or at least, the truth as he knew it. It had taken some time—and a few carefully worded threats—but eventually Amanda had drawn from him a curious tale, of how his lordship had been on his way to Westminster when he’d come upon Master Bayard, insensible with drink, on the footpath in front of Cribb’s Parlor. They’d taken the boy up into the carriage, of course. Only, they hadn’t brought him straight home. On his lordship’s orders, Coachman Ned had continued on to Great Peter Street, in Westminster, where his lordship had left the boy in the servants’ care.
It was not a servant’s place, of course, to question his master’s movements, although Coachman Ned admitted he’d been worried, watching Lord Wilcox disappear alone and on foot into that stinking fog. And his worst fears had been confirmed when, some twenty or thirty minutes later, Lord Wilcox had been set upon by thieves. He came staggering back to the carriage, his assailants’ blood drenching the front of his overcoat and still dripping from the sword stick he’d used to fight them off. He’d given Coachman Ned strict instructions that her ladyship was not to be told of the incident, lest it overset her nerves. He’d used the same line, Amanda eventually learned, to keep his valet, Downing, mum as well.
Bayard had snored insensible through it all. But Amanda wondered at the two servants, who surely knew her to be impervious to the kind of nervous spasms that troubled so many of the ladies of her station. She wondered, too, how they could have remained so unquestioningly believing when the gory details of what had happened that night in the Lady Chapel of St. Matthew of the Fields were on everyone’s lips. But then, perhaps neither Coachman Ned nor Downing had ever noticed the way his lordship’s face could draw taut with sexual excitement at the sight of a harlot being whipped through the streets. Perhaps they didn’t know about the string of housemaids he’d forced over the years, or the one he’d cut when she tried to refuse him. But Amanda had known, and pondered, and eventually been driven to ferret out the truth.
Refolding the parchment, Amanda carefully tucked it away and slid the secret compartment home. She wondered what Wilcox had thought, when he’d discovered the document missing. It was only by chance that Amanda had come upon it when she went looking for something—anything—that might confirm what in her heart of hearts she already knew to be the truth. The other papers she’d found with the affidavit—love letters from Lord Frederick to someone named Wesley and an interesting royal birth certificate—she left where she had found them, for they were of no significance to her. But her mother’s confession Amanda had taken without hesitation. A document of that nature was too volatile, too potentially valuable to be left in the hands of someone such as Martin.
She was so lost in thought that she missed the sound of the door quietly opening. It was only the change in the atmosphere of the room that told her, suddenly, that she was no longer alone. Turning her head, she found Sebastian leaning against the doorjamb.
She knew a moment of consternation at the thought he had seen her with their mother’s affidavit. Then she realized he was looking at her, not the writing desk, and she knew he had not.
“Where is he?” Sebastian demanded in a taut, menacing voice. “Where’s Wilcox?”
“You seem to make it a habit of entering other people’s houses uninvited,” she said, ignoring the question.
He pushed away from the door frame and came at her, his terrible amber eyes on her face. “You know, don’t you? For how long? How long have you known?”
In spite of herself, Amanda took a step back. “Known what?”
“I thought it was Bayard,” he continued, as if she had said nothing. “I was remembering all those nasty little incidents from when he was a boy. The time he set fire to the henhouse at Hendon Hall, just so he could have the fun of watching it burn. All the unmentionable things he used to do to any stray animal unlucky enough to fall into his clutches.”
He drew up before her, close enough that she could smell the acrid wet of the fog that had seeped into his rough, workingman’s clothes. “I used to wonder where it came from, that utter lack of empathy for the suffering of others, that streak of cruelty bordering on madness. I even wondered if perhaps it ran hidden within me, too. And then one day I saw Wilcox laugh at the sight of a cotter’s child being torn apart by a pack of hounds, and I knew. I knew where it came from.”
“You’re the one who is mad.”
“Am I?” He swung away. “You’ve heard the news, I suppose? About Leo Pierrepont?”
“Pierrepont?” Amanda shook her head. “What has he to do with anything?”
“Dear Amanda. Can it be that you really don’t know? Hendon told me something a few days ago, something that should have piqued my curiosity, except that I missed it. He said the government has known about Pierrepont’s ties to Napoleon for the better part of a year now, ever since a certain gentleman he called Mr. Smith found himself under pressure from Pierrepont to provide information of value to the French government. It seems Hendon and Lord Jarvis decided between them to simply sit on the revelations about Pierrepont, and use this compromised gentleman as a sort of double agent.”
“So?” said Amanda.
“So, the curious thing is that while Father and Jarvis both serve the King, on a personal level the two men can barely tolerate each other. Which tells me that the only reason Jarvis discussed the situation with Hendon is because the compromised gentleman had come to
Amanda stood very still, watching her brother prowl restlessly about her dressing room. She hadn’t known this about Wilcox, that he’d been careless enough to allow himself to fall into a French trap. She gripped her hands together, shaken by an onrush of cold rage directed not just at Martin but at this man, her brother, who had come here to taunt her with her husband’s stupidity.
“What did they have on him, I wonder?” Sebastian said, pausing to fiddle with the quill she’d left lying on the leather-covered writing surface of her desk. “Something more, I suspect, than a mere sexual indiscretion. Whatever it was, Rachel must have found evidence of it when she helped herself to a cache of sensitive documents in Pierrepont’s possession. A fatal mistake, poor girl, since she must then have offered to sell the incriminating
