“But then something happened to change her life. Mother went to a ball, and since her young officer was there, she was happy and lively and beautiful and the young duke of MacArran—my father—fell in love with her. The duke was an impetuous man and the next day he went to my mother’s father and offered for the hand of Miss Eugenia Richmond.”
Leatrice paused. “You’d have to know my grandfather to appreciate what an odious man he was. I don’t think he had a bone of kindness or softness in him. He thought there was only one way to do anything: his way. He told his daughter of the offer and told her the date he’d set for the wedding. He didn’t so much as ask his daughter’s opinion of the match. Mother, who had some stubbornness of her own, told her father she planned to marry her young officer. My grandfather didn’t even get angry. He merely told his daughter that if she did not accept the duke’s offer and act as though she were in love with the man, he’d see that her young officer was killed.”
Leatrice smiled at Claire’s expression. “The old man didn’t want to risk allowing my mother to spend time with the duke. He allowed them to see each other seldom and never alone. It whet my father’s appetite. He thought the woman he was marrying was modest and sweet tempered.”
Leatrice’s mouth turned into a straight line. “She married my father, but at the wedding she decided that since she couldn’t take her anger out on her father, she would take it out on the man she’d married. On her wedding night she told my father she hated him, and would always hate him.”
Leatrice paused and took a breath. “I think that at first my father thought he could win her love, that he could make his wife love him, but he soon found out that in stubbornness she was just like her father. She hated her husband as much as she loved her officer.”
Leatrice’s face began to show anger. “She bore my father three children. I think that I, the youngest of the three, was unplanned. I think there was an argument, and afterward, my father went to my mother’s room in a rage. Nine months later I was born. After that night I don’t think my parents had much to do with each other. I think they lived separate lives.”
Leatrice paused and looked as though she were thinking. Her voice calmed. “But then, when I was about three years old, my mother’s officer came back into her life. I think they met by accident the first time, but she found that she loved him just as much as she always had. He had never married. He told her he had loved her and her alone and always would.
“My mother felt she’d done her duty to her husband and had given him his required two sons, and so she planned to leave him.”
Leatrice took a breath. “And us. She planned to leave her husband and her children because she hated us as much as she hated her husband. We were dark like all the Montgomerys, and the man she loved was blond.”
The anger came back into Leatrice’s voice. “My mother schemed with her lover and planned for the day they would leave. She secretly removed treasures from the house, things that could be sold, for she knew that when she divorced my father she would get nothing, and if anything her officer was poorer than he had been.
“The day arrived and everything went all right. My mother escaped the house easily enough and met her lover some ten miles away where he had a coach waiting. They hadn’t gone very far when a dog or something ran across the road, the coachman lost control of the horses, and the wagon overturned. My mother’s lover was killed instantly, as was the driver. But my mother was pinned under the wagon and lay there for several hours before she was found. Her leg was crushed.”
Leatrice paused. “Six months later Harry was born. My father knew the child couldn’t have been his, and by then he knew all about the family treasures she’d taken from the house.
“When Harry was about a week old, my father went to see his wife and her blond son. He looked into the crib, then went back to the bed and tossed a packet of bills onto her bed and left the room. The bills were charges made by my mother’s lover for horses and gambling debts and clothes. The security for the debts was that he was marrying the duchess of MacArran.”
Leatrice turned to look at Claire, saw the way Claire’s eyes were wide. “I think my mother’s mind was affected by all that had happened. Between losing her lover and her mobility, then learning that the man she’d loved all those years might have been the scoundrel her father said he was, her mind was unhinged. She divided her hate and her love into two parts: she hated anything and anyone that had to do with the MacArran name, and she gave all her love to her pretty blond son.”
Leatrice stopped there while Claire absorbed what she had been told. “If Harry isn’t your father’s son, then he has no right to the title,” Claire said softly.
“None.” Leatrice’s eyes were so intense that they again reminded Claire of Trevelyan’s.
“Did your father disown Harry in his will?”
“My father was a good man and he would never have done that. He liked Harry. He liked all of us children, but his favorite was his eldest son, Alex. I think he made an error in spending so much time with Alex, because his second son and I were left too much alone. Alex had Father, and Harry had Mother, while—” She paused and stared at Claire. “Vellie and I had each other.”
Claire gave Leatrice a look of astonishment, started to speak, then stopped. Suddenly everything made sense. She understood all of it. She understood Trevelyan’s hostility toward the duchess, the woman who was his mother. She understood the crofters’ attitude toward Trevelyan. “Do all the people in this house know that Trevelyan is the duke?”
“Most of them. When he was a child he was sent away to live with my mother’s father.” Leatrice swallowed. “Vellie was not treated well as a child.”
There were too many thoughts running through Claire’s head. She knew that he had told her very little about himself, but she had not realized the depth of his deception. He had said that he loved her, but he hadn’t loved her enough to tell her anything about himself. If he had told her he was the duke then her parents would have approved their marriage. Claire would have been given control of her grandfather’s money and all their problems would have been solved.
But he hadn’t done that. He had shared nothing of himself with her.
Claire stood up and went back to her packing.
“You have nothing to say?” Leatrice said. “I’ve just told you that the man you love is the duke and that the man you plan to marry isn’t related to the Montgomery family, but you say nothing.”
“What is his name? What is Trevelyan’s name?”
“John Richmond Montgomery. His childhood title was the Earl of Trevelyan and Trevelyan seemed to fit him. I was the one who started calling him Vellie, since I couldn’t pronounce Trevelyan.”
Claire continued packing.
Leatrice clutched Claire’s arm. “Is that all?”
When Claire looked at Leatrice, her eyes were blazing. “He didn’t even tell me his name. Such a simple thing. He asked that I love him, that I spend my life with him, yet he couldn’t so much as tell me his name.” She looked back at the trunk.
“You don’t understand. Vellie is—”
“A cold man,” Claire said, and when she looked at Leatrice, there was rage on her face. “I loved him. I fell in love with him in spite of his bad temper, in spite of his pessimistic outlook on life. I forgave him for not telling me he was Captain Baker. I forgave him for laughing at me, for using me as one of his subjects. I forgave him and I loved him, but he doesn’t know how to give love in return.”
Leatrice opened her mouth but Claire continued. “He stood by and watched Nyssa die without even attempting to stop her. He always stands on the outside of the world and watches it. He said he loved me, but he doesn’t. He confuses sexual pleasure with love. They aren’t the same thing. He has ‘loved’ thousands of women all over the world, and I was fool enough to think that I was different.”
“You are different,” Leatrice said. “Vellie has never told a woman he loved her.”
/> “Would you stop calling him that absurd name? He’s a grown man. No, he’s not a man, he’s a…a machine. He’s an observing machine. A machine that goes around the world watching and writing about it. I doubt if he’s ever really felt anything in his life.”
Leatrice was silent for a moment. “I want you to read his letters,” she said softly.
“No,” Claire answered. “I must leave. Quite suddenly I can’t bear the sight of this house.”
Leatrice put her hand on Claire’s arm. “I know we haven’t been fair to you. Mother sent Harry to London to get you. You were brought here because of your money, but Claire, you’ve given all of us more than money can buy. Because of you I have James and at last Harry has seen what his mother is like.”
Leatrice’s voice lowered. “It was Mother who had Vellie shot at.”
Claire’s hands stopped their movement.
“I told you her mind was affected. She wanted the dukedom for her precious Harry, and when she heard that her second son had come back from the dead, she assumed he was going to take the title. She hired someone to try to kill him.”
Claire looked at Leatrice with a mixture of horror and disbelief.
“My family is not like yours. My mother’s hatred has distorted us all. But I think her hold on us is broken now. Someone wrote to Harry in Edinburgh and told him what Mother was trying to do to Trevelyan. Mother knew that you were spending a great deal of time with Vellie and she was afraid that you and your money would marry Trevelyan. She was afraid that Vellie would have second thoughts about claiming the title. Harry returned to try to persuade you to marry him because he was afraid for his brother’s life.”
Leatrice smiled. “Harry has always adored his older brother. Harry was always much too lazy to do anything himself so he’s lived vicariously through Vellie’s exploits. I think Harry might lay down his life for his older brother.”
“He might even marry a woman he doesn’t love to save his brother.”
“He was going to do that until he returned and saw that Vellie loved you.”
Claire snorted at that.
Leatrice looked sad. “I wish I could make you believe me. I wish I could make you see Trevelyan as he really is.”
“I wish you could have seen him stand by and let a young woman drink poison. No, I don’t wish that on anyone. If Trevelyan had trusted me…If he’d loved me enough to share some of himself with me…” Claire sighed. “It’s too late now, and it doesn’t matter anyway. I’m assuming there’s a reason why Trevelyan isn’t claiming the title of duke. My guess would be that he doesn’t want the title, and he plans to allow Harry to continue being the duke.”
“Yes,” Leatrice said. “Trevelyan wants only to be Captain Baker. I doubt if he’ll ever return to us after what has happened this time.”
“No, I don’t think he will. I don’t—”
Claire didn’t finish her sentence because the door to her room opened and in walked Harry. Behind him were four footmen bearing trunks. “Put them there,” Harry ordered.
When the footmen were gone, and the bedroom door closed, both Harry and Leatrice turned to look at Claire. It was then that she realized what the trunks contained. She knew without a doubt that they were the letters from Trevelyan. At one time her dearest wish in the world had been to read the private letters of Captain Baker. But now she looked at the trunks as though they were filled with cobras.
She took a step backward and shook her head. “I have to leave.”
Harry leaned against the door. “You’re not leaving here until you read them. All of them.”
Claire looked at the two people. Harry’s handsome face was set, unmoving, while Leatrice’s eyes were pleading. “It won’t do any good. Reading a bunch of letters isn’t going to change anything. Trevelyan’s not going to claim to be the duke, therefore my parents won’t approve the marriage and I’ll lose my grandfather’s money. And I’m not going to leave my sister to the mercy of the fates.”
“You’re not leaving,” Harry said.
Leatrice went to the first trunk and opened it. Inside were neatly bundled letters, hundreds of them. “He started writing me when he was first taken away, when he was nine years old. Shall I tell you about that day?”
“No,” Claire said firmly. “I don’t want to hear a word about it.”
But Leatrice told her anyway, and when she finished, Claire began to read the letters.
Chapter Twenty-five
The duke of MacArran requests the company of Miss Claire Willoughby, the handwritten card read.
Claire read the card, then dropped it back onto the silver tray that the butler held. “Tell Harry I’m busy packing,” she said and turned away.
The butler didn’t move.
“Well?” Claire said, looking at him. Her temper was short and she was anxious to leave Bramley.
“It is the true duke who asks you,” the butler said.
It took Claire a moment to understand what the man was saying. “Trevelyan?”
The butler gave a small nod.
Claire walked back to him, picked up the card again, looked at it, then tossed it back to the tray. “Tell him that we’ve said all there is to say to each other. Tell him that I have things I must do. Tell him I am sick of the entire Montgomery family. Tell him that I never want to see him or any of his relatives again.”
“Perhaps madam would enjoy telling him herself.”
Claire started to say that she wouldn’t enjoy anything about Trevelyan, but then she thought of several things she could tell him. “Where is he?”
“In the blue bedroom. It was his father’s room.”
Claire nodded, then motioned that she’d follow him. I’ll tell him what I think of him, then I’ll leave here forever, she thought. I shall never have to see any of this family again, and, most of all, I won’t have to see or hear of Captain Baker again.
The butler opened a door to a large bed chamber that must have once been beautiful, but now the silk on the walls was faded and torn. The deep-blue silk bed hangings were dirty.
Trevelyan was standing with his back to her, looking out the window, and for once he was dressed properly. No embroidered silk robe, no velvet boots. He wore a perfectly cut morning coat. His hair had been trimmed neatly to a decent length. If she hadn’t known better, she would have thought he was a handsome young gentleman.
“I am here,” she said to the back of him. “What do you want of me?”
He turned and she saw that he looked tired, as though he’d slept less than he usually did. It had been nearly a week since Nyssa had died, and nothing that had been said had changed Claire’s anger. Every minute of every day she could see Nyssa’s laughing face. She could hear Brat’s cries of horror after she’d been told that Nyssa was dead. Claire remembered seeing the smoke from the fire that she was sure was the burning of Nyssa’s body.
Trevelyan walked toward her. Claire held her ground, but when he reached out to touch her cheek, she turned her face away. His hand dropped to his side, then he turned away and went back to the window.
“Leatrice said she told you of our mother.”
“Yes,” Claire said coldly. “I was told the great family secret.”
“And you have read my letters to my sister.”
“Those too.”
“And what did you think?”
Claire took a moment before answering. She had spent days reading those letters and in them she had seen a man who was capable of great love. She had read how he had seen death all over the world. Were she indeed Captain Baker’s biographer, the letters would allow her to write a story of great power. But she knew now that she would never write that biography. “I found the letters extremely interesting.”
“But neither the letters nor the tale of my mother have made you forgive me?”
“No. I cannot forget Nyssa.” Her voice lowered. “I cannot forget that you gave me so little of yourself.”
He looked at her for a moment then turn
ed back to the window. “When I was a child, my grandfather thought it was a good discipline for me to never have anything I wanted or liked. If I said I liked a certain type of bread, then he saw to it that I never had that bread again. If I said that I hated carrots, then I was served carrots three meals a day. Since then it has been difficult for me to ask for what I want most.”
“Yes,” Claire said angrily, “I have heard more than I want to know about your childhood. I am sure it was dreadful. I am sure you had a mother who hated you, a father who didn’t know you were alive, and a grandfather who was cruel to you. You have more than enough reason to brood and sulk. You have every excuse in the world to feel a great deal of self-pity.”
Trevelyan turned and looked at her, his eyes wide.
She grimaced. “Did you expect sympathy from me? Isn’t your own self-sympathy enough? You have the pity of your brother and sister and, as far as I can tell, the pity of nearly everyone in this house. Poor Johnny. Poor little earl who no one ever loved. Of course it never seems to have occurred to anyone that if you had behaved yourself and thought of anyone besides yourself you might not have been punished as often as you were. I can imagine that you delighted in telling your grandfather that you hated carrots. Did you learn to lie to him and tell him that you loved what you hated?”
Trevelyan stared at her, blinking, looking as though he were shocked by her words, then he began to smile. The smile broke into a laugh. “As a matter of fact, I did. The cook once made some almond cakes that were heaven. At the first bite, I spit it out and said they were the nastiest things I’d ever eaten and that I would never eat another one. My grandfather served them to me every meal for months until I reluctantly admitted that I was beginning to enjoy them. To this day I like to celebrate any victory with almond cakes.”
Claire did not smile. “Is that supposed to amuse me? It sounds to me as though you and your grandfather were well matched. I imagine he knew that. Of course, in the end, it was you who won, wasn’t it? You left him when you wanted to and you did what you wanted. But then you have always done exactly what you wanted to do, haven’t you? No one has ever hindered you, or even influenced you, in any way.”