She shook her head. 'Please do not make me. He is gone. I have sent him away.'
Outside, a sparrow began singing a belated summer song in the flowerless lilac tree. A soft September breeze whistled in the chimney.
I said, 'I thought he was to marry your daughter.'
Her eyes glittered. 'I would never have let that happen. I persuaded her to cry off. Do you think I wanted him married to her?'
'Why did you go to him?' I asked in a hard voice.
When she looked up at me, her eyes held the imperious defiance I remembered from our first meeting. The great lady had returned. 'Know this, Gabriel. I never went to him, never. He looked upon me, and he wanted me.' She shook her head. 'Other gentlemen have done so in the past. I do not know why they should-when I look into a mirror, I see only Lydia the silly schoolgirl who has grown into a woman with wrinkles about her eyes.'
If she did, she saw so little. Those eyes held a dark fire, a passion burning beneath her cool and aristocratic gaze. The elegant way she carried herself only made a gentleman wish to smooth that delicate skin, to feel her blood pulsing beneath his fingertips.
'But he wanted me,' she went on woodenly. 'He wanted my daughter as well, but he knew he must hold himself from her. Mr. Allandale always obeys the rules! He must keep pure the young maiden he was to marry, because to do otherwise would be wrong. Scandal must never touch their pristine marriage. But a married woman, she may take a lover if she is discreet.'
Even if that lover was his fiancee's mother. The fury within me danced and snarled.
'And so he proposed it. I was shocked and showed him the door. The next day he had the audacity to return and ask if I'd changed my mind. Of course I had not. I threatened to tell my husband. And then… Oh, Gabriel it was horrible. He changed. He had always been polite and soft-spoken to all of us, so friendly, such a help. And then all that vanished in an instant. His face… He was like a beast. He terrified me. He said he would hurt Chloe if I did not oblige him. He said he had ways of hurting my husband. Still I defied him-I thought that I could go to my husband and we could defeat Mr. Allandale between us. And so…' She closed her eyes. 'He took it from me. I tried so hard to stop him. I tried and tried, but he was too strong. I have never before not been strong enough to stop anything.'
She trailed off. The room went silent.
Within me I was anything but silent. She had described a beast in Allandale's eyes, which I too had seen, but one also lurked inside of me, its red-hot rage holding me in its grip.
I did not think she lied. Her anguish was real. When she spoke his name, her voice filled with loathing. During the wars I'd served in, I'd known women who had been raped, by enemy soldiers, by our own soldiers. They had all shown what Lydia did now-fear, anger, remembered terror, the shrinking inside themselves when something startled them. Their trust had been ripped away, their comfortableness with themselves gone.
I forced my lips open. 'You did not send for a magistrate?'
'To prosecute him for rape? Who would believe it? I am a married woman, older than he; I should know better. And there are those who knew that Roe could give me nothing. They would say that doubtless my own behavior must have provoked him. What a depraved thing I must be to cause Mr. Allandale to lose his respect for me…'
She was right, she likely would be blamed, I thought bitterly. And Allandale, with his soft-spoken politeness, his gentle smile, would have been viewed as the victim, perhaps even pitied.
I rose to my feet. She looked up in consternation. 'I swear to you, Gabriel, I never meant to hurt you. I am ashamed. I have lived with so much shame. What I have done- '
'Is done,' I said.
I leaned down and gently kissed the tear that trickled down her cheek. She touched my face with trembling fingers. I straightened, and her hand slid away.
'Go to your daughter,' I said. 'She will need you.'
Lydia nodded. Tears beaded on her lashes. 'I am taking her away. Abroad.' She smiled a little with a mother's fondness. 'She wants to go to Italy and paint. She is romantic.'
My lips should have curved into a returning smile, but they would not move. 'Give her my compliments,' I said. 'Good-bye.'
I turned and walked to the door, neither swiftly nor slowly.
She must have seen something in my face, because I heard her draw a sharp breath. 'Gabriel?'
I did not answer. I reached the double doors, opened one. William, stationed down the hall, came alert.
Lydia's silk skirts rustled as she rose. 'Gabriel?' Her slippers swished on the carpet behind me.
I pulled the key from the door's lock, shut the door before she could reach it, inserted the key, and turned it. She rattled the door handle. 'Gabriel, what are you doing?' The imperious tones returned, though her voice was still weak with tears. 'William!'
I passed the open-mouthed William on my way to the stairs. He started for me, but I gave him a hard look, and he stepped hastily back.
I pocketed the key and started down the stairs. 'Let her out in an hour,' I said. And I departed.
Fate allowed Mr. Allandale to be out when I called. I knew he was truly out, and not simply 'not at home,' because I backed his valet to a wall and demanded he tell me where Allandale was. The man stammered that his master had gone out to his club. Which club, the valet could not say, though he looked quite unhappy that he could not.
I took pity on him and went away.
I expected to find Grenville ensconced at his own club at this time of day, but he was in fact at home in his dining room.
Bartholomew's brother Matthias, who opened the door, looked neither surprised nor dismayed when I appeared without invitation, but led me through the quiet stateliness of the hall to the main dining room.
Grenville was sitting at one end of his dining table, with Anton hovering at his left elbow. A maid, hands ready to snatch dishes away as soon as they were dirtied, lingered nearby. As I entered, Anton reached down and, with a flourish, removed a silver cover from a tray. Beneath it lay a small, perfect oval of pudding.
'This is it, is it?' Grenville looked the pudding over, turning the silver tray all the way around. 'The grand masterpiece?'
Anton nodded, clearly beyond speech. At his signal, the maid produced a ladle and decanter of brandy. Anton poured brandy into the ladle, then set fire to it by holding it over one of the candles. He poured this burning liquid straight over the pudding, and the whole thing flamed merrily.
I tramped into the room. The members of the tableau started, looked up.
'Lacey,' Grenville said. 'You are just in time. Anton has just perfected his summer pudding. Berries and custard and cream, he tells me. Flamed without, cold within.'
The little fire burned itself out. Anton lifted a silver cream boat, and carefully poured yellow-white thick cream around the base of the pudding. He pressed two raspberries into the pudding, in its precise center. He stood back and let out a sigh of satisfaction.
'I need to find Mr. Allandale,' I said abruptly.
Grenville's famous eyebrows elevated. 'On the moment?'
'Yes.' At any other time, I would have eagerly seated myself and rubbed my hands in anticipation of another of Anton's concoctions, but rage and darkness churned within me, leaving no room for elegant puddings.
'I must find him,' I repeated.
'Now?' Grenville said, his voice cooling considerably.
'Yes.'
'Lacey,' he said with forced patience, 'Anton has spent three days creating this.'
I dragged out a chair and dropped into it. 'Enjoy it, then.'
Grenville stared at me for a long time, then gave Anton a curt nod to proceed.
Any other time, I might have found the whole thing amusing. Anton handed Grenville a spoon. With exaggerated care, Grenville scooped up a minute portion of custard, and inserted it into his mouth. He closed his eyes. Anton held his breath. Grenville chewed, very slowly. He swallowed. He remained motionless for a long moment, then he opened his eyes, and sighed.
