Until You

41

Holding up a coat of wine-colored superfine, Nicholas DuVille's superior valet cast an approving eye over his master's gleaming white shirt and neckcloth. "As I've oft said, sir," he remarked as Nicki finished buttoning his wine velvet waistcoat, "no Englishman has quite your excellent knack with a neckcloth."

Nicki cast him an amused glance. "And as I've oft replied, Vermonde, that is because I am more French than English, and you are biased against the British-" He broke off as the valet went to answer an imperative knock at the door of his bedchamber.

"Yes, what is it?" Nicki asked, surprised that his haughty valet had admitted a lowly footman into his private domain.

"I am to tell you that there is a young lady here to see you, my lord. She's in the blue salon and very distraught. She says you know her as Miss Lancaster. The butler tried to send her off, seeing that she arrived in a rented hack and is not known to him, but she was very persistent. And unwell, we think, because…"

His voice trailed off at the sight of the dire look on his employer's face as he stalked swiftly toward the doorway, almost knocking the surprised footman out of his way in his haste.

"Sherry?" Nicki said, his alarm escalating as she looked up at him with a haunted, wild expression. Tears were streaking down a face that was so white her silvery eyes looked dark in contrast, and she was sitting on the very edge of the sofa as if she were thinking of either bolting or falling over. "What has happened?"

"I-have my-memory back," Sherry said, gulping for air as if she were strangling. "I-I'm a fraud. Everyone is a-a fraud! Charise was betrothed to Burleton. Why did Stephen pre-pretend? No, I'm the pretender-"

"Don't try to talk," Nicki ordered sharply and went over to a tray of glasses and decanters. Pouring a liberal draught of brandy into a glass, he brought it over to her. "Drink this. All of it," he added when she took a sip, shuddered, and tried to thrust it back. "It will help calm you very quickly," Nicki added, thinking she was hysterical because she now knew she'd never been betrothed to Stephen Westmoreland.

She looked at him as if his concern for her was madness, then she obeyed like an automaton, drinking the sharp liquor in gulps and coughing.

"Don't try to talk for a few minutes," he said when she opened her mouth to begin again. Sherry obeyed helplessly, feeling the liquor burning a path all the way down to her stomach as she stared at her folded hands. The original shock of getting her memory back, of realizing who she was and had been, of seeing Charise, of listening to the ghastly accusations she was making, had sent her fleeing from the house like a heartbroken madwoman. She'd wandered for nearly an hour, wildly trying to think of some way to convince Stephen that she loved him, that she would never have lied to him, no matter what Charise convinced him was true, when another revelation finally hit her and sent her reeling: Stephen Westmoreland had never been betrothed to Charise Lancaster. Her fiance's name had been Burleton! Everyone had been playing some sort of charade.

After that, came one stunning revelation and recollection after another, and she'd sat in a park, her mind stumbling over itself, her head spinning. Now she wanted answers from someone with the least reason to lie to her, and the brandy made her feel that she could cope with whatever explanations she heard.

"I'll send for Langford," Nicki said, watching a little of her color return, but her answer was so frantic that he realized she was still hovering close to hysteria.

"No! No! Do not!"

He sat back down in the chair opposite her and said soothingly, "Very well. I won't move from this room until you say I may."

"I have to explain," Sherry said, forcing herself to sound calm and lucid. Then she changed her mind and decided her best chance of getting honest answers to what seemed to be a world of deception was to ask questions before she gave out information. "No, you have to explain," she corrected carefully.

Nicki noticed that she was measuring her words, and he began to realize that she had not come to him on a whim, no matter how hysterical she was about being duped. Her opening sentence confirmed that and also neatly entrapped him.

"I came here because you are the only one I could think of with nothing to gain by… by continuing to play out this… this unbelievable deceit that's been practiced by the entire Westmoreland family."

"Would it not be better to discuss all this with your fiance?"

"My fiance!" She laughed a little wildly, shaking her head. "Arthur Burleton was betrothed to Charise Lancaster, Stephen Westmoreland wasn't! If I hear another falsehood, I'll-"

"Have some more brandy," Nicki interrupted, leaning forward.

"I don't need brandy!" Sheridan cried. "I need answers, can't you understand that?" Realizing that she wasn't likely to get them if she didn't sound more rational, Sheridan took a firm grip on her rampaging emotions and very carefully steadied her voice. Looking imploringly into his eyes, she explained, "I came here, to you, because as I looked back, I couldn't recall that you ever actively participated in this-this monstrous farce. You never even referred to the earl as my fiance as everyone else did. Please help me now. Tell me the truth. All of it. If you don't, I very much fear I will go quite mad."

Nicki had been appalled when Westmoreland had announced their betrothal two days ago, but when Whitney explained about Sherry's father's death, he'd at least found the notion of rushing her into marriage before she regained her memory less noxious. Whitticomb had repeatedly warned everyone not to tell her anything that would distress her, but Nicki was now certain that she did need and want the truth, all of it.

Glad that the physician wasn't here to complicate his decision with opposing advice, Nicki braced himself for the unpalatable task of answering for other people's actions because Charise Lancaster trusted him and, evidently, him alone.

"Please help me," she said with quiet desperation. "I have things to explain to you too when you're finished… difficult, shameful, embarrassing things, but I won't hide the truth from you. I hate dissembling."

Sherry saw him lean back, as if resigned to a difficult discussion, but his gaze didn't waver from hers as he said, "I will be very frank, if you are certain you are well enough to hear it."

"I am well enough," she said emphatically.

"Where do you want me to begin?"

"Begin," she said with a grim laugh, "at the beginning. Begin with why he let me believe until yesterday that he was Lord Burleton. The last thing I remember, before I woke up in the earl's house with my head in bandages, was that he'd met me at the ship and told me Lord Burleton was dead."

Nicki noted that she had sounded solemn at the mention of Burleton's death, but not devastated. Westmoreland had obviously been correct in his assumption that she'd not known Burleton well enough to form any deep attachment to him. "Burleton died in a carriage accident the night before your ship arrived," he began in a gentle, but straightforward voice.

"I was sorry to learn of his death," she said, matching his tone and somehow reinforcing Nicki's conclusion that she deserved to hear the whole truth and would be able to handle it better than she could handle confusion and deception. "But I do not understand how the earl became involved in all this."

"Langford was driving the carriage," Nicki said flatly. He saw her wince, but she remained amazingly and gratifyingly calm, so he added, "It was foggy and close to dawn. Burleton was foxed, and he walked right in front of the horses, but Langford blamed himself for the young man's death, and in his position, I suspect I might have felt exactly the same. He was driving an untried team, unused to the city, and perhaps if that hadn't been the case, Burleton would still be alive. I do not know.

"In any event, when Langford made inquiries a few hours after the accident, he discovered that Burleton's fiancee was arriving the next day from America, and that Burleton had no family and no friends whom Langford could trust to meet you and give you the news. In fact, if Burleton's butler hadn't known about you and your impending arrival in England, no one would have been there to meet your ship at all. You probably remember the rest-Langford went to the ship to give you the news and offer you whatever assistance you desired. Evidently, he was so absorbed in that, he failed to notice a cargo net loaded with crates was heading straight for you, and it struck you in the head."

Watching her closely, Nicki leaned forward, letting all that sink in while he poured himself a brandy. She seemed very calm, he thought admiringly, and he continued, "Langford brought you to his house and summoned their family physician. For several days, you were unconscious, and Whitticomb had little faith in your chances of ever waking up. When you finally did come round, and he realized the trauma to your head had caused you to lose your memory, he was adamant that no one ought to say anything to cause you any form of distress. You seemed to think Langford was your fiance, and so they-we-let you go on believing it. That is about all I know, except," Nicki added, in fairness to Stephen Westmoreland, "I do know that Langford blamed himself for not protecting you from harm, and for giving you dire news in such a clumsy way that you were too overcome to protect yourself. I also know he has carried a great burden of guilt and remorse over depriving you of your fiance."

Drowning in humiliation, Sherry reached the obvious, the agonizing, conclusion: "And so he felt obliged to provide me with another fiance by volunteering himself. That's it, isn't it?"

Nicki hesitated, then he nodded. "That's it."

Sherry turned her head aside, fighting desperately not to weep for her stupidity, for her gullibility, and for falling in love with a man who felt nothing for her but responsibility. No wonder he'd never said he loved her! No wonder he'd wanted her to find someone else to wed! "He was actually going to marry me out of guilt and responsibility."

"I wouldn't say those are his only reasons as of this time," Nicki said cautiously. "I suspect he feels something for you."

"Of course he does," Sherry replied scornfully, reeling with humiliation. "It is called pity!"

"I'll escort you back to Langford's."

"I can't go back!" she cried.

"Miss Lancaster," Nicki began in a sharp, authoritative voice that normally quelled anyone who heard it. It made the stricken young woman across from him double over with hysterical laughter, her arms wrapped around her stomach. "I am not Charise Lancaster!"

Nicki quickly went round to her, cursing himself for letting her trick him into believing she was well enough to handle whatever he told her.

"I am not Charise Lancaster, "she repeated, and her laughter abruptly gave way to sobs. "I was her paid companion on the trip." Her arms still wrapped around her stomach, she rocked back and forth, weeping. "I am a glorified governess, and he was going to marry me. What a laugh his friends would have had over that. He was drowning in pity for a glorified governess who'd never laid eyes on Lord Burleton."

Nicki stared at her in blank shock, but he believed her. "Good God," he whispered.

"I thought I was Charise Lancaster," she whimpered, her shoulders beginning to shake with sobs. "I thought I was, I swear it."

Belatedly it occurred to Nicki to pull her into his arms and offer her some form of comfort, and he did it, but he was at a complete loss for words to match the gesture. "I thought I was," she wept against his chest. "I thought I was her until she came to the house today. I thought I was, I swear it!"

"I believe you," Nicki said, and was a little amazed that he did.

"She wouldn't go away. She had to tell him herself. He-he was getting ready for the wedding. A s-secret wedding. I don't have anywhere to go-no clothes-no money."

Trying to offer her one small bright spot out of all this, he said, "At least it was not your father who died."

Very slowly, she lifted her head, her eyes dazed, unfocused. "What?"

"Langford received a letter one night last week that was forwarded to him from Burleton's landlord. It had been intended for Charise Lancaster, written by her father's solicitor, and informing her that her father had died two weeks after she sailed for England."

She drew a shaky breath, coming to grips with that, and said bleakly, "He was a harsh man but not an unkind one. He spoiled Charise quite terribly-" Another wrenching probability struck her, and she thought she was going to retch. "Last week-was it the same night I went to Almack's and the Rutherfords' ball?"

"So I was told."

Her head bowed with further humiliation and fresh tears spilled down her cheek. "No wonder he changed so abruptly from wanting me to find another fiance, to deciding we should wed at once." She remembered the way she'd touched his hand at the opera and thought of how repelled he must have been at having to sit through that-and pretend to want to kiss her and-

"I wish I were dead!" she whispered brokenly.

"Stop that sort of talk at once," Nicki said mindlessly. "You can stay here tonight. Tomorrow, I'll go with you to Langford's and we'll explain."

"I did explain in a letter! I can't go back. I won't, I tell you, and if you send for him, I'll go mad. I know I will. I can never go back now."

She sounded as if she meant it, and Nicki couldn't blame her.

Sherry wasn't certain how long she cried in his arms or when she stopped, but as the silence lengthened, a blessed numbness finally took over. "I can't stay here," she whispered, her voice hoarse from the storm of emotions.

"As you said, you have nowhere else to go."

She pushed free of his soothing embrace and sat up, then she stood, swaying a little. "I shouldn't have come here. I would not be surprised if there are charges filed against me."

The thought that Langford might do that filled Nicki with an anger that was almost uncontainable, but he couldn't deny the possibility or the unthinkable results. "You're safe here, at least for tonight. In the morning, we'll discuss how I can be of help."

The feeling of unworthiness and relief that surged through her at the realization that he was actually offering to help her nearly broke Sherry's fragile grip on her control. "I-I will have to find some sort of position. I have no references. I can't stay in London. I don't-"

"We'll discuss it in the morning, cherie. I want you to lie down now. I will have your dinner sent up."

"No one who knows him or his family will consider employing me, and he-everyone in London seems to know him."

"In the morning," he said firmly.

Too weary to protest, Sherry nodded. She had started up the stairs with a servant when something hit her and she turned around.

"Monsieur DuVille?"

"I gave you leave to call me Nicki, mademoiselle," he tried to tease.

"Paid companions do not address their 'betters' by their given names."

She looked as if she were at the end of her tether, and so Nicki did not argue with her decision and let her ask her question.

"You won't tell any of them where I am-promise me you won't!"

Nicki hesitated, reviewed the alternatives and their consequences, and finally said, "I give you my word." He watched her walk up the stairs, beaten and humbled. She had never resembled a meek servant, but she did then, and it made him want to do violence to Westmoreland. And yet, he had acted honorably until today. More than honorably, Nicki reluctantly decided.