Ethan: Lord of Scandals

Nineteen

“She has the look of the boys about her.” Nick went on peering at Barbara’s image, ignorant of Ethan’s world crashing to pieces. “I’m sure I was introduced to her, wasn’t I? Did she mention it?”

Ethan could say nothing, could do nothing save stand there with two little portraits clutched in his hands.

“Ethan?” Nick took a step toward him. “Are you all right?”

Ethan shook his head, his eyes on the portrait of his late wife. He’d paid well for it, and it was a good likeness, the lady’s gaze conveying a kind of brittle, mocking gaiety. At one side of the portrait a blond man stood, his back to the viewer, only a portion of his head and shoulder visible. The lady smiled at him, but also at the viewer, and the overall impression was one of irony, despite the subject’s compelling blond beauty.

The design had been Barbara’s. When Ethan had seen the completed image, he’d wanted to burn it on the spot.

“I assume that fellow on the left is you?” Nick asked, frowning.

Ethan considered lying then considered that Nick would figure out the lie sooner or later.

“It isn’t me,” Ethan said on a heavy sigh. He returned the miniatures to the quarter shelves, feeling moments trickle by like the sands in a glass.

Nick crossed the room to stand behind Ethan. “What aren’t you telling me?” He sounded wary and puzzled, not yet furious. He would be furious and likely stay that way.

Ethan would not turn and face him. “You don’t want to know, Nick.”

Behind him, Ethan felt Nick pull himself up to his full height. “I do want to know. Tell me, Ethan. What fellow is the lady regarding with such mocking irony?”

Ethan put his hand out and steadied himself on the wall, feeling winded or aggrieved and barely able to keep to his feet.

“She’s looking at you, Nick,” Ethan said, turning to behold the portrait. “My wife is looking at her lover, and that man is you.”

Nick backed away, expression horrified. “I did not dally with your wife, Ethan. I would have known… I didn’t…” He scrubbed a hand over his face, and Ethan watched as Nick’s nimble mind started sorting and comparing, recalling and rejecting.

Ethan could at least spare his brother the uncertainty.

“You didn’t even know I had a wife until this spring,” Ethan said. “You didn’t know I had sons or a wife.”

“But she was your wife,” Nick protested. “I have not slept with females named Grey. I haven’t, Ethan. I wouldn’t.”

“And how would you know what a woman’s last name was, Nick?” While Nick looked to be reeling with shock, all Ethan could muster was sadness. He dropped onto the couch, feeling as tired as Joshua had been acting. “You take their word for who they are, you take their bodies for what they want to share with you, or you did until you married.”

“Christ…” Nick eyed the portrait with what looked like loathing. “I slept with your wife. You’re sure?”

“She told you her name was Barbara Fitzherbert, thinking it a great jest to poke fun at Prinny’s old amour,” Ethan said. “She was angry at me, Nick, angry at her life. She’d had my child, and I remained unwilling to squire her about in society or admit her back to my bed. When I departed for business in Copenhagen, she went prowling, with revenge on her mind.”

Nick eyed Ethan with the same expression he’d turned on the portrait. “I cannot believe you haven’t killed me or at the least called me out. How long have you known about this?”

“Oh, let’s see.” Ethan closed his eyes, the better to toss all hope, all caution, and all sense to the wind. “Joshua is going on six, so nearly seven years.”

Nick’s eyes narrowed. “What has my nephew to do with this?”

Ethan said nothing, feeling pity for his brother, for himself, and even for the departed Barbara.

“Ethan…” Nick began to pace, a big, caged animal in the grip of more emotion than even his grand body could hold. “Please tell me I did not plant a cuckoo in your nest… I could not live… Ethan?”

Ethan could not give his brother those words.

Nick turned toward the door, and rather than let his brother bolt out of his life, Ethan was on his feet in an instant.

“Don’t leave.” Ethan was at the door, blocking Nick’s exit bodily. “It’s as much my fault as anyone’s, Nick.” It being Barbara’s scheming—not the child it had produced. Never Joshua.

“It can’t be your fault, damn it.” Nick backed away, looking like he wanted to destroy something, someone, anything. “How can you stand to look at me? I swived your wife, got her pregnant, and you’re my brother, Ethan.”

Ethan advanced on him, glad they were in a closed room where they were free to shout and worse. “That is the first sensible thing you’ve said: you’re my brother. So sit your bony arse down and listen to me.”

Nick closed his eyes, his big hands fisting. Ethan knew him and knew what he was thinking: I’ve betrayed the one person I never wanted to hurt, and we are supposed to solve it with talk?

Ethan shoved him down into a chair, taking the decision from him.

“Barbara was a kind of predator,” Ethan said, keeping his voice even with effort. “She spied me, staked out with new wealth and no masculine confidence, and trained her crosshairs on me. Lady Warne nudged me to take her on as a mistress, and at first, I could not believe my good fortune. She was skilled.”

Nick winced, nodded, and kept his silence.

“Too skilled,” Ethan went on. “Even I could discern in a short time Barbara was tolerating my attentions, even as she pretended to encourage them. I began to see her less and less, but she’d made her plans for me, and I was as doomed as you were.”

“I had choices, Ethan,” Nick protested softly. “I always had choices.”

“So did I,” Ethan shot back. “Barbara conceived Jeremiah with all the forethought and planning in the world. She knew I would not choose to allow my son to be born a bastard, and she knew I’d capitulate to whatever she demanded to make it so. We married, and she immediately began taking other lovers, though she was at least amenable to discretion.”

“Ethan, you don’t have to tell me this.”

“Yes, I do, so you will not blame yourself unnecessarily, Nick. You were stalked like prey, and I did not see it coming and did nothing to warn you. She went after me the same way and was still coming after me when she dragged you into her machinations.”

“I had a choice,” Nick repeated numbly.

“Nicholas!” Ethan glared at him, the urge to slap sense into the man nigh overwhelming. “Will you listen to me? When Barbara took up with her lovers, I warned her that our marriage was over. I would not escort her in public. I would not grant her marital favors. I traveled as much as I could. The more she begged and bargained and promised, the more excuses I found to leave her to her own devices. She told me she’d met you, and as much as threatened to have an affair with you. I didn’t think even she would go that far, but she delighted—delighted—in announcing she had conceived your child. She said it was a belated Christmas present.”

Nick stared at his hands in misery. “You’re sure? Sure Joshua is my son?”

“I made sure there was at least a scintilla of doubt, and realized that I’d been a fool. Had I continued paying my wife even the casual attention of a normal husband, she likely would not have strayed, or at least not as wildly.”

“I am going to be sick,” Nick said on a sigh. “You’re right. She was Barbara Fitzherbert to me. There weren’t many people in Town, because it was the winter holidays, and she’d been cast into my path for the month or so before. She was pretty, charming, available, and amenable. I still recall some relief when she told me she was leaving for the country after Twelfth Night. She watched me… It wasn’t a hungry gaze, but it made me uncomfortable.”

“I saw you on the first day of the New Year,” Ethan said. “Barbara’s mood had shifted, from wronged and bitter to gleeful, as if she had a wonderful secret. I decided to follow her, and she met you in the park.”

Nick nodded, though clearly details yet eluded his memory.

“Ethan, I am sorry. For whatever it’s worth, I am so bloody sorry I could shoot myself.”

Fortunately, he sounded as if the threat were rhetorical.

“I am sorry too, Nick.” To say that felt astoundingly good. “I should have told you I was getting married, should have told you when Jeremiah was born. I should have told you the truth of my marriage. I should not have let it become one more thing separating me from you and from my family.”

“Don’t be so bloody noble,” Nick said bitterly. “I was a stupid, heedless billy goat, and my weakness was used to hurt you. I hate that, and now we have a child conceived in the midst of this deceit and stupidity, and I don’t know how you can stand the sight of him, much less me.”

The answer to that was so simple Ethan should have seen it years ago. “Even if he’s your son, I had no choice but to love him.”

“My son.” Nick turned away, his voice dripping with self-loathing. “God help me, I will have to tell Leah this. Short of that, I will honor your wishes, provided no harm comes to Joshua.”

As an earl, Nick had influence that far exceeded Ethan’s, and maybe this was why the truth had remained Ethan’s secret for so long. That Nick would not wield his power unfairly came as a relief and brought with it a burden of compassion. “If you were his father, Nicholas, what would you wish for Joshua now?”

“Love him,” Nick said, voice breaking. “Love him like he was your own, because as far as I’m concerned, he is your own. He’s such a busy little man, all smiles and energy and galloping everywhere… Jesus.”

He dropped onto the sofa like a stone, looking bewildered and uncertain for all his size and muscle. “Can’t you at least call me out?”

Ethan knew the exact contour of his brother’s sorrow: for the little boy created so carelessly, for the brother betrayed, for the stupid young man who might have sired a child without thought, and for the father who hadn’t known his own son.

And Ethan could not allow Nicholas to hold that sorrow too closely. “We’ll manage. I didn’t want this to hurt you, too.”

“How could it not?” Nick pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes. “You can’t tell him, Ethan. I won’t have the child suffer what you went through because I couldn’t keep my damned pants on.”

Ethan sat beside his brother. Any closer than that, and Nick would likely have tossed him through the window. “You and I are the only people who know the shadow on Joshua’s paternity. Alice knows I may not be his father, but she will take that knowledge to her grave.”

“You never told anyone?” Nick rose and went to stare out the window. “No one at all? Not in a bitter, drunken moment, not when you wanted to fling it in Papa’s face, not when a sympathetic mistress tried to pry it out of you?”

“I’ve had no mistress since I married,” Ethan said. “The whole business was too much bother, and it would have made me a little too much like my wife.”

“Like me, you mean. You’ve been a damned monk, just as I suspected.”

“Not a monk, Nick.” Ethan sighed, sensing they were going to plow through more rough ground. “I had experiences at Stoneham— one experience, really—that rendered me all but indifferent to the pursuits you found so enjoyable before your marriage.”

Nick’s gaze shifted from the grounds beyond the window to his brother.

“What sort of experience?”

“One Hart Collins, now Baron Collins,” Ethan said, and it was no relief, no relief at all to embark on this recounting—though neither did it engender the kind of choking shame it might have even a year ago.

“Collins rounded up his cronies, assaulted me in the stables my first week at school, and while they held me over a pickle barrel, raped me in the only manner one male can rape another. Heathgate came upon the situation while Collins was goading one of his minions to further violate me, and between us, we managed to break a number of bones.” Ethan fell silent for a thoughtful moment. “I understand the term ‘killing rage.’”

The words had come, Ethan marveled. They hadn’t been delicate words, but saying them, saying them to Nick, had left him lighter, not heavier, in his heart.

“You were…” Nick sucked in a breath. “Buggered. Raped.”

“Not a pretty word and not a pretty deed.” And thank a merciful God, Nick wasn’t scoffing at “school boy nonsense” or otherwise trying to diminish the vileness of the act. If he had, Ethan would have tossed him through the window. “It happened half a lifetime ago, Nick. I try not to dwell on it.”

“You never said.” Nick tone was accusing, quietly furious. “You never said a word, Ethan. You would not accept my letters. You would not see me. You shut me out, completely.”

“This is why. It’s hard to explain, Nick, what that kind of experience does to a young man. Ladies can be raped, and as gentlemen we protect them because they are vulnerable. A man does not conceive of himself being vulnerable in the same fashion. He just… does not conceive of it.”

“You were raped at the school our father sent you to. Surely, somebody told him?”

“I assume they did, and he did nothing. I can hope he didn’t know, but Heathgate’s parents got involved, and the other boys were quietly sent home to recover. I haven’t seen them since, nor have I wanted to.”

“Hart Collins is a dead man.”

Oh, Nicholas. He sounded every bit as fierce as Joshua or Jeremiah, and yet Ethan could not indulge him.

“No. You cannot kill him out of guilt over what he did to me, Nick. And I will not take justice into my own hands. If I accused him publicly, he’d be tried in the Lords, and I am, after all, merely an earl’s by-blow. Then too, for all I know, the statute of limitations has run. If he keeps a wide berth from me, I’ll let it lie.”

The ire in Nick’s gaze did not diminish, and that was good to see, too. Misguided, but good to see. “That is not right, and you know it. You have been wronged—by me, but apparently by others as well—and Collins should at the least be gelded for what he did.”

“He should, for he left me all but gelded in spirit. It was part of the reason I was so willing to enjoy what Barbara offered.”

“And what was my excuse?” Nick said, self-disgust resurging. “I went larking and swiving on my merry way, content to leave you to your suffering.”

“That is your heartbreak talking,” Ethan said gently. “You were the one who arranged for us to meet at Lady Warne’s after so many years of silence. That… was timely. I was done with university, and I still hadn’t been able to regain my balance in certain areas.” The word for it was impotence. Ethan had read the medical treatises, hoping desperately it was a medical problem, knowing it was not. “I was on the verge of”—he looked for another delicate phrase, and abandoned the search—“making a permanent mistake. I felt hopelessly dirty, unlovable, useless, and ugly. It was five years later, and I still felt… Then I got your note, and you said you had to see me again, that my siblings worried for me and asked for word of me. It was more timely than you will ever know.”

Silence stretched, while Ethan’s gaze sought the miniatures of his sons. A man could not promise to keep his loved ones safe from all harm, else Joshua would not have fallen ill. If any son of Ethan’s had endured what transpired at Stoneham, then Ethan could only hope he’d be the sort of father to know about it and take appropriate measures.

Somewhere in that sentiment lurked forgiveness for the old earl—an astonishing notion, and welcome.

While a weight rose from Ethan’s heart, Nick remained by the window, staring down at the Tydings park. “Ethan, what is that pony doing without its rider?”

Ethan was at the window in two steps, a father’s dread congealing in his gut.

“That is Jeremiah’s pony,” Ethan said, “and he said nothing about riding out this morning, Nick. I don’t think he’d leave the stables while his brother lies ill, not without a gun to his stubborn little head.”

“Let’s go.” Nick beat Ethan to the door. “Alice went down to the stables with him, and I doubt she’d get on a horse without you there to supervise.”

“For God’s sake, make haste. We’ve trouble afoot.”

“Why in the hell did you turn the damned pony loose?” While Alice watched in horror, Hart Collins turned his gun barrel on his own minion.

“Begging your lordship’s pardon,” Thatcher drawled back. “You were going to shoot the pony, and that would have brought half the shire down on us in a heartbeat, since Grey is known not to hunt game. The little beast will stop and graze hisself into a colic as soon as he’s over the rise. Now, we’d best stop arguing and get moving, or your little plan to hold the brat for ransom will be over before it starts. With these two”—he gestured to Alice and Jeremiah doubled up on Waltzer—“we’re not going to move quickly.”

“Oh, yes, we are.” Collins’s eyes gleamed with malice. “Grey’s mounts are prime flesh, and we’ve got three of his best horses here. If anyone slows us down, it will be you, and if you’re caught, you’ll hang for horse thievery.”

Alice knew not how it was possible, but in twelve years, Hart Collins had become uglier, meaner, and stupider. She sent up a prayer that Jeremiah at least came through this debacle safely.

“Let’s go.” Collins kneed Argus sharply, as Thatcher kept a sullen silence. “And you.” He turned an evil smile on Alice. “Keep the boy quiet, or it will be a well-used body Ethan Grey ransoms—or two.”

Alice nodded, but inside, her guts were churning as the horses cantered off at Collins’s direction. Twelve years without laying eyes on Collins, and still, she became a terrified fourteen-year-old at the mere sight of him. He’d gained weight, and his hair was thinning, and the air of pure evil was thick around him, like a stench.

His plan was clear: hold Jeremiah for money, lots and lots of money. Ethan had the money and would turn it over along with both of his arms, his eyes, and his very life if it meant Jeremiah would be safe.

When Collins sent them pelting off through the woods, she clung to that thought, even as Jeremiah clung to her, his arms locked around her waist. He managed to whisper the occasional word of advice to her regarding control of the horse, but mostly, Alice sought not to fall off. She held the reins, but her control was limited by the lead rope kept in Thatcher’s gloved hands and by the skirts she’d had to bunch awkwardly in order to sit astride the horse. Thatcher was mounted on Bishop, the gray nervous but still sane. Collins had appropriated Argus for himself and was apparently enjoying the horse’s fights for control—enjoying the excuse to use crop and spurs on a high-strung animal.

“How much farther are we going?” Thatcher shouted to Collins. “Ye can’t run the horses like this much longer.”

A quarter mile later, Collins halted Argus with a jerk on the curb and led the way through a break in the trees lining the bridle path. Thatcher followed, with Waltzer on the lead rope bringing up the rear.

“Don’t go inside the building,” Jeremiah whispered. “I’ll say I have to use the bushes.”

Alice nodded, keeping her eyes forward. Her hip hurt like blazes from riding astride at breakneck speed, her hands ached from gripping the reins, and her head pounded with fear.

And anger.

She knew Hart Collins, knew him and hated him. She owed him two years of barely being able to walk, ten years of recurring pain in her hip, twelve years of not being able to look her only sister in the eye, and a lifetime of never feeling quite safe.

But Ethan would come. She’d stake her life on it. The question was, would he come in time?

“Miller!” Ethan’s bellow elicited a groan from an empty stall. Nick, Fairly, and Davey crowded on Ethan’s heels.

“I’m aright,” Miller muttered, but he needed Ethan’s assistance even to sit up.

“Fairly, you’d best have a look at him. Nick, help me saddle whatever’s in here of the riding stock.”

A big grey mare stood in her saddle and bridle in a loose box, her ears twitching in the direction of any sound.

“The bastards coldcocked me,” Miller said as Fairly peered into his eyes. “I wasn’t all the way gone. I heard ’em, and they got Miss Alice and Master Jeremiah. Damned if Thatcher didn’t saddle the horses hisself.”

“How many?” Ethan asked, barely able to keep from pounding something.

“Two, Thatcher and some nob.” Miller winced as Fairly’s fingers probed the back of his head. “Thatcher’s on Bishop, Miss Alice was on Waltzer, the boy on his pony, and some fat, prancing ninny took Argus, gut rot him.”

“Some fat, prancing ninny?” Ethan pressed. “Did you hear them address him? Did he have a name?”

“His lordship.” Miller squinted, as if trying to force memory into the light. “Collard? Collar? No, Lord Collins. And baron. Thatcher called him baron. His lordship was not getting along with Argus.”

Fairly glanced up from his patient. “Miller will be fine, eventually. If you’re prudent, you’ll wait for me and Nick to find mounts. If you’re going to go off like a one-man column of dragoons, you’ll take my mare and follow the pony’s back trail.”

Ethan nodded his thanks. “I’ll need weapons.”

“Pistols are in the coaches,” Miller reminded him. “You can have my knife.” He extracted a wicked-looking bone-handled weapon, provoking raised eyebrows from the other men. “You can’t always shoot a horse what needs it, which means you have to cut the poor bastard’s throat.”

“Take mine as well.” Nick held out a more delicate weapon, while Davey loped off in the direction of the coach house.

“Take mine too.” Fairly’s knife was plain, conveying its deadliness all the more effectively for the lack of ornamentation. “And the lady’s name is Honey. Don’t argue with her, ask. She’ll take care of you if you’re deserving.”

“Honey.” Ethan stuffed knives in his boots and at the small of his back. “Don’t argue.” He speared Nick with a look. “Heathgate’s often out hacking at this hour. If you fired a shot, you might rouse him. I’ll leave as much of a trail as I can, but they can’t have gone far. Alice will slow them down if at all possible.”

Nick led the mare from her stall. “I know this mare. You let harm befall her, Fairly will call you out.”

“I’ll send her home when I’ve found my quarry,” Ethan replied, swinging up onto the horse right there in the barn aisle.

“Godspeed,” Nick said, stepping back.

The mare trotted out into the brisk, early morning sunshine, responding to the tension around her despite the previous day’s long journey. Ethan saw when he gained the lane that luck was with him. A layer of hoarfrost lay on the grass, the pony’s little hooves leaving a clear trail to where a bridle path emerged from the trees. In the woods, the size of the group made the trail equally easy to follow. They’d been heedless of their trail, traveling two and three across, snapping branches, shuffling through fallen leaves, and stomping through damp ground at every turn.

At one point, Ethan thought he heard a twig snap behind him, but he wasn’t about to pull the mare up and investigate. Collins had forced his party to move through the woods at a brisk canter, then stopped, paused, and turned the pony loose. He should have at least kept the pony with them, unless he wanted to invite pursuit.

But Collins was evil, and according to Heathgate, in need of coin—not brilliant. Ethan pressed on, one eye on the trail, one eye looking ahead for sign of the kidnappers. He wasn’t even off his own property when he heard voices up ahead and brought his mare to an abrupt halt.

“For God’s sake, we’re not even off Tydings land, Baron. Ye cannot stop here.” Thatcher’s tone was equal parts pleading and exasperation.

“He won’t look in his own backyard,” Collins retorted from atop a dancing Argus. “They never do, and there’s no point haring all over the countryside when we can spend the morning in more enjoyable pursuits. Come nightfall, we’ll meet up with my coach.” His eyes landed on Alice, still glued to Waltzer’s back, then his gaze narrowed, some of the avarice receding.

“I know you,” he said. “I don’t like you, but I know you.”

“That be the governess, ye fool,” Thatcher said. “Not somebody ye’d know.”

“Baron Collins to you.” Collins regarded Alice steadily. “Take off your glasses, governess, and be quick about it, or you’ll regret it.”

Her hands being tied at the wrists, Alice pulled her glasses off and handed them awkwardly over her shoulder to Jeremiah, whose hands were not bound.

“By God.” Collins’s face broke into a parody of a smile. “If it isn’t little Lady Alexandra, slumming in the schoolroom. I knew her sister,” he informed Thatcher. “In the biblical sense. Bitch threw me over just as we were about to cry the banns, if you can credit such a thing.”

His jocular tone made Alice’s flesh crawl, as did the surge of lust in his eye. Fortunately, he was enjoying his boasting and very likely enjoying the fear he saw in Alice’s eyes as he nudged Argus over to stand next to Waltzer.

Collins used the butt of his crop to raise Alice’s chin. “This one could have sworn out information against me, but she didn’t. Probably hoping I’d be grateful, weren’t you?”

“You are vile, and I should have laid information.”

“You still could, but you won’t, because there won’t be enough left of you to speak coherently when I’m through with you. We’ll let the lad watch, so he’ll learn early the true purpose of a female.”

“Not so fast, my lord.” Ethan stepped out of the surrounding woods. “She might not be willing to swear charges against you, but I certainly am, now that you’ve been foolish enough to return to English soil.”