“All the deception, it is difficult, Susannah.”
“I know. But we will see it through together.”
“My lord!” It was Nelson, standing horrified in the doorway. “What happened to my master?”
“He had some sort of attack, Nelson. Why don’t you leave him be? I’m told that a man shouldn’t be moved right after an attack. Oh, and Nelson, do tell your master, once he recovers from this attack, that I will return this evening for another brotherly chat. Ah, I would like you to meet my wife, Nelson. This is Lady Mountvale.”
“My lady, it’s a pleasure,” Nelson said, not looking at her, just staring helplessly down at Tibolt, who was now twitching a bit and groaning.
Susannah nodded to the manservant, pulled away from Rohan and walked to where Tibolt lay on the floor. His eyes fluttered open. She looked down at him and smiled, the coldest smile Rohan had ever seen. He saw the rage in her and it pleased him.
“That you would dare call yourself a man of God must surely astound Him. It astounds me. You are a very bad man, sir. You are a fraud, a pious hypocrite. Are you more than that? We will find out if you are. You do not deserve to have Charlotte as your mother. She is good. You, sir, are a toad.” Susannah kicked him hard in the ribs.
Nelson rushed to his master’s side, falling to his knees beside him. “Why, my lady?” he said, twisting his neck to look up at her. “Surely you shouldn’t have kicked him. His lordship just said one wasn’t to move a man who had just had an attack.”
“I didn’t move him at all,” Susannah said. She turned on her heel and with her husband left the vicarage.
When Rohan left her at the inn that evening, Susannah didn’t argue. She felt sick, truth be told, sick to her very soul. Her belly roiled, nausea struck her, low in her throat. And she was worried about Rohan, but he just shook his head impatiently when she tried to keep him from going back to the vicarage. “It must be done,” was all he would say. “I must know the full of it.” He kissed her, and she felt the raging emptiness in him, the pain, the dread of the further knowledge he might discover.
He had managed to quash his fierce anger and his equally deadening pain. He prayed that Tibolt would face him tonight, not run away like he half feared his brother would. But no, he hadn’t run away. Light shone from every window in the vicarage.
His brother awaited him in his study, probably the only room where he felt at all confident. Rohan nodded to Nelson, then strode into the study, closing the door behind him.
“Well, Tibolt, I am glad you are here.”
His brother shrugged. “Where would I have gone? This is my home. The people of this town are my responsibility. Of course I would be here. You are not so frightening, Ro-han, although you still have a nasty right hook.” He rubbed his hand over his jaw. There was a faint bruise. Then he shrugged, looking directly at his brother. “So you have married a strumpet. I trust you knew what you were doing. Given your reputation, such a mating would probably suit
you. However, it is none of my affair.”
He was making it easier for him, Rohan thought, walking to the desk and seating himself in one of the old cracked leather chairs. He steepled his fingers, drumming them thoughtfully together. “No one knows that Susannah was married to George. I have told everyone that she married me nearly five years ago and I kept her hidden. Why did I do this? all of Society will ask. I will tell everyone I did it because I was too young to admit I’d fallen in love and married. I was foolish, but I love my wife and daughter dearly. You will maintain this fiction. Marianne is my child. Mother is the only other person who knows this, and Toby, Susannah’s brother, naturally. It is a question of family honor, of salvaging George’s reputation. Do you have any questions?”
“No, if that is what you want done about it. Everyone will be shocked when they find out, naturally. You, the Carrington satyr, married for the past five years, keeping your wife all tucked away while you continued to bed every female in London? That smacks of real wickedness. My flock will be suitably shocked.”
“Possibly, but I have already gone a long way toward redeeming myself. Rest assured that I will go the full mile. There will be tears in many eyes by the time I am through with my touching explanations. However, brother, if you do discover shock among your parishioners, you will remember what you owe to your family. Now, when we return to Mountvale House, we will have another party. I will announce my marriage—although with Lady Dauntry’s assistance I imagine that every sentient creature in England already knows about it. I will contrive to look properly contrite. I will be chagrined and charmingly sorry, with downcast eyes. Then Susannah and I will go to London and repeat the performance. Do you have any questions?”
Tibolt slowly shook his head. He was giving his brother an odd look, as if he were a stranger, a man he’d never really seen before. “I had not expected this of you. I do not understand why you have done this. She is nothing to you, nothing. And this child—”
Rohan couldn’t bear it. He interrupted his brother before he betrayed himself further. “Oh? What if you had discovered that you had a niece, that your brother had gone through a sham marriage because he wanted to bed your niece’s mother?”
“I told you what she was.”
“Yes, you did. But it is so utterly absurd, so completely far from the truth, it makes me wonder about your motives, Tibolt. She is indeed a lady. Did you proclaim her a strumpet because you had to justify to yourself what George had done? Yes, that is it, isn’t it? I can see it in your eyes.”
“No, I saw her, just as I saw the others. Even though she was young, dreadfully young, I still saw no reason to change my opinion of her. She seemed just like the others.”
“Then I begin to imagine that George did this to three very innocent young ladies. If, however, you simply saw what you wanted to see, then you made a grave mistake. You did not live up to your high calling, Tibolt. You should have sought her out and told her the truth. You have some serious praying to do about this. She has been used badly by our family. But no more. Now she belongs to me, as does Marianne.”
Again, Tibolt shrugged. “But what of the others? What if I was wrong and they weren’t strumpets? Will you try to wed one of the others to me?”
“You say that George did this to two other young girls. Do you know who they are?”
Tibolt shook his head. “But if this one came to you, then why not the others?”
“She didn’t come to me. Now, you will contrive to forget all the nasty little things George told you. Are you so ignorant, Tibolt, that you actually believed George? After he did this three times? Tell me, was Susannah the third?”
“No, she was the second.”
“She was seventeen when George talked her into marriage. She was born and bred a lady.”