Betrayal Read online

  “And where would we keep a winged lion, I ask you,” she muttered distractedly.

  “In the orangery?” Georgina suggested, yet like her employer’s, her mind had already darted ahead of them in joyful, excited anticipation.

  By the time they came downstairs, the men had alighted from the carriage, and Herr Renner had started to organize the unloading of the travel trunks that held bales of new fabrics. Trunks stood scattered in the entrance hall, and with a happy hum, Frau Else snapped the next best lid open.

  Yet it were not fabrics, Georgina had been yearning to see, but...

  She stepped outside. On top of the front stairs she stopped and shielded her eyes against the flickering light of the sun as it fell through gaps in the foliage of the chestnut trees that lined the drive.

  She spotted Herrn Renner first. Stray sunbeams made his fair hair shine like golden silk, while he saw to it that the footmen treated the treasure he had brought from afar with the necessary caution. Her heart gave a curious, little jump.

  As flustered colour heated her cheeks and she called herself all kinds of silly goose, her gaze glided to the smiling, sunburnt young man at his side—and this time her heart seemed to stop altogether. Her breath caught painfully. As if to shield her silly, treacherous heart, her hands rose and pressed against her chest. For a moment, a short moment, she was again thrown back into the past, and the bittersweet pain of it was more than she thought she could bear. She knew it was only because of these fancies of the morning room. She knew...

  She knew it couldn’t be.

  No, of course not.

  But still...

  Still...

  But then the youth turned fully, and the spectre of the past vanished as if it had never been. The spell was broken. Hard and fast her heart thudded against her ribs with the joy of recognition.

  “Finnian!” Laughing and crying, she flew down the stairs towards him. He was her baby, her precious son, and she had him back. “Finn!” And then she had her arms around him, and her cheek pressed against his, so warm with life and sunshine.

  “Did I not tell you I would bring him back to you all safe and sound and still in one piece?” she heard the teasing voice of Herr Renner beside her.

  “That you did.” She released her son and dashed her hand over her eyes, before she turned to greet Frau Else’s secretary. “And I thank you for it.” She gave him a warm smile.

  For how could she have not smiled? Her son was back, and Herr Renner gazed at her with warmth in his soft brown eyes, his lips curved.

  Looking back at Finn, she found herself near tears once again. She reached up to cup her son’s bronzed cheek in her hand. “Sweetheart.” He regarded her with a slightly dazed expression. Self-consciously, she laughed. “It seemed an eternity that you were away.” Greedily, her gaze roamed his figure. Again she laughed, but with pure joy this time. “I swear, you have changed in just a few weeks’ time!” He appeared to be broader, more muscular. The trip had certainly done him good. She stood on tiptoe and kissed his cheek. “You left as a child, but it seems you came back as a man,” she whispered, so full of joy and pride she thought her heart would burst with it.

  She felt his chest expand on a deep breath. “Mama.” The next moment she found herself enveloped in a bear hug, the arms closing around her strong and hard like steel bands. His heart thundered against hers. “It’s so good to see you.”

  Chapter 2

  The principal estate of the Earls of Ashburnham was situated in Sussex, at the edge of the Weald. For seven hundred years they had controlled the land among the softly rolling hills, dotted with sheep, and had built and re-built a home for themselves. The current house stood among scattered trees at the edge of a lake, where water lilies bloomed, white and pure. The arrangement spoke of wealth and taste.

  And of power.

  The Earls of Ashburnham were born and bred for it.

  The present Lord Ashburnham sat in his study and listened to his land steward detailing the projects of the next quarter year—the purchase of additional livestock for the farm, the planting of new trees in the park, repairs of the fences on the estate—when Jones entered to announce the arrival of Lord St. Asaph and his tutor.

  “Very well.” Ash leaned his elbows on his desk and pressed the fingertips of his hands together. News of the arrival of the Seacatte, the ship on which St. Asaph and Cobbett had crossed the Channel, had already reached him the day before, so the return of his heir did not come unexpected. Curiously, Ash felt almost glad to have the boy back. “Tell Lord St. Asaph to go to his room and refresh himself. In the meantime, I would like to see Mr. Cobbett for a full report.”

  True, Ash had left much of the organization of the boy’s education to the dowager countess on the basis that she had already raised one son and thus was experienced in the picking of nurses and, later, tutors. But he had always made a point to receive reports about St. Asaph’s progress from those same tutors. After all, did he not expect similar reports about the estate from his land steward, just as the dowager countess, as the mistress of the house, got regular descriptions about the goings-on in the mansion from the housekeeper? All of these necessities to keep Ashburnham Hall running smoothly. A large estate, Ash had often thought, resembled in many things an intricate, well-oiled clockwork. Attention had to be given to the smallest cogwheel. How much more important then was looking after the larger ones! And his heir...

  Well, St. Asaph had always needed much looking after.

  “Yes, my lord.” Stoically, as became a good butler, Jones stared at a point somewhere beyond Ash’s left shoulder. Probably not even an earthquake would shatter Jones’s composure.

  “Oh—and have Mrs. Cornwell send a tray with some nourishment to Lord St. Asaph’s room,” Ash added. After all, seventeen-year-old boys had healthy appetites, which, he supposed, not even the hot Italian sun had been able to change. Hopefully, though, it had wrought other changes.

  Ash nodded a dismissal at his land steward. “We will continue with this later, Mr. Sambrook.”

  “Of course, my lord.”

  When the door had closed behind Sambrook and Jones, Ash rose from his chair and walked to the window. Hands clasped behind his back, he looked over the drive to the still lake. Sunlight danced over the water and let it glitter like a million diamonds.

  Or teardrops.

  Annoyed, Ash shook his head to dispel his fanciful mood. It did not befit the Earl of Ashburnham to lose himself in whimsical thoughts. It had happened once before, and see where that had led him: straight into private disaster and public embarrassment. All because he had been willful enough to follow the fancies of his overimaginative sensibility rather than the dictates of reason and good sense. But he had paid for his folly; oh, how he had paid! With the wreck of his life, his—

  Only when his nails bit into his palms did Ash become aware that his hands had tightened into fists. Hard and painful, and yet another inappropriate display of emotion. It simply would not do.

  He made a point of relaxing his hands, letting them hang limply at his sides, and took a deep breath. While he exhaled slowly, he let those wilder emotions seep out of him—a technique he had learnt in the aftermath of heartbreak and humiliation. Back then he had sworn to himself that nothing would ever again affect him to such extents.

  So yes, he had heard the crunch of carriage wheels long before Jones had come to the study. But it did not befit the Earl of Ashburnham to race to the front door the minute his heir returned from his travels through Italy.

  Indeed, it surprised him that he had felt the urge at all. It must have been the weather, he decided. Or perhaps the sun had addled his brains when had been out shooting the day before. Not that he enjoyed shooting birds all that much, yet one needed to inspect his livestock once in a while, he supposed. Let the dogs out in order to keep their senses sharp. And a pheasant for the table was never a bad thing.

  A scrape at the door interrupted his thoughts.

  “My lo
rd?”

  He turned. “Ah, Mr. Cobbett. Do come in, will you?” Over the next half hour he listened to the tutor detailing the stations of the journey and St. Asaph’s improvements. In Paris the boy had taken lessons to perfect his French, before they had set off to Dijon and from there to Poligny, where the Military Road made by order of Napoleon commenced over the Jura Alps. They had spent a few days in Geneva, then cut through the mountains to Milan, the capital of Lombardy and the residence of the Austrian Viceroy—not the worst place to exercise one’s social skills.

  St. Asaph and Cobbett had spent a cold, damp winter in Milan and had watched how the completion of the cathedral—all based on Napoleon’s plans—had proceeded. In truth, even though the man now spent his days half a world away, on a small island somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, Napoleon’s spectre still haunted Europe, and his old battlefields made for new tourist attractions.

  Ash was momentarily distracted, until the next point of Cobbett’s report snapped his attention back on the subject at hand: it would seem that while in Milan, St. Asaph had taken a fancy to one of the little dancers at the Theatre of La Scala, and many an evening he had gone to listen to the orchestra, the finest in Italy, or so one said, and to watch his little love-bird perform.

  This side of the boy’s education had been continued in Venice, the city of the hundred waterways and unheard-of pleasures. After several more days, St. Asaph and Cobbett had proceeded south to Bologna, Florence, Siena, and on to Rome.

  Ash was pleased to hear Cobbett had made sure that the boy had received fencing lessons from some of the Italian masters instead of letting him scramble off with his pencils and his sketchbook. Indeed, it seemed that coming face to face with some of the finest art in the world had finally cured the boy of his artistic aspirations—thank heavens! It simply did not do for the heir of the House of Ashburnham to pursue the career of a common artist!

  “Very well. Thank you, Mr. Cobbett,” Ash ended the interview. “I am sure you must long to freshen yourself up. When you go upstairs, send Lord St. Asaph down to me.”

  And thus, just a short while later, the boy entered Ash’s study—and for once, there was no mutinous twist to his lips, Ash noticed with pleasure. Indeed, the boy seemed to have finally grasped the concepts of proper reserve and decorum: he held himself up straight, his shoulders drawn back, and hovered near the door in new-found deference. Ash nodded at him. “St. Asaph.”

  “Fa–” The boy bit his lip, then hurried to correct himself while colour came and went in his face. “My lord.” He bowed, somewhat stiffly perhaps, yet over all certainly an improvement to his behaviour in the past.

  Ash leaned his hip against the edge of the desk and looked him over. Tall, lanky frame, unruly dark hair, sunburnt face. Indeed, at moments like this, he might almost be led to believe the boy were his. “I see the southern climates have become you.” He raised a brow.

  Was it nervousness that made St. Asaph shift his weight from one foot to the other? Or perhaps the memory of his pretty little opera dancer in Milan?

  “Er... thank you.” Again, his young face flushed.

  “You have enjoyed the trip, then?”

  If the boy was embarrassed by the question—or rather, by the memory of Milanese dancers and Venetian courtesans—he took great pains not to show it. “Very much so, thank you.” Polite, even tones, with no trace of insolence or stubbornness, which came as a delightful surprise.

  Ash allowed himself a slight smile. “Ah, I say, it has much improved you. Indeed”—he reached out and flicked open the small box that held his cheroots—“it appears the tour has made a man of you. I am much pleased, St. Asaph.”

  A frown curled the dark brows. “Yes... my lord.”

  “This merits a small celebration, it would seem.” Rather so. If they could look each other eye to eye, man to man, instead of father to son, it was to be hoped relations between them would improve. It was well past time that St. Asaph shouldered some of a man’s responsibilities. In two or three years’ time he would enter London society, and he would need polish and manners for that, as befitted the heir of the House of Ashburnham. Ash held out the box as he would have done to a friend or acquaintance. “Do take one.”

  Yet the boy’s frown only deepened as he looked from the expensive cheroots to Ash and back again. “Thank you, but perhaps not just now...” His voice trailed away.

  “Very well.” With a little more force than he had planned, Ash put the box back on the table. Not man to man after all. “Then I will see you at dinner.”

  “Yes.” The boy turned to leave the room, yet just as he reached for the doorknob, Ash called out to him.

  “St. Asaph?”

  He looked over his shoulder, blue-grey eyes serious.

  Ash felt his heart contract. How he wished... wished... But, no, it was not to be. None of the things he would wish for were anything other than delusional fancies. Ash knew that, of course. He had always known.

  He forced his lips to curve in a tight smile. “Welcome back home,” he said softly.

  The boy regarded him a moment longer. “Thank you... my lord.”

  With a soft click, the door closed behind him.

  ~*~

  Dinner was a quiet affair. For the sake of the dowager countess St. Asaph told of some of the places he had seen, yet quietly and with a new restraint. He spoke of the olive groves around Florence, of the promenades in Rome, especially the walks in the gardens of the Villa Medici, of the statues and tapestries in the Vatican Museum, and of the extraordinary lake they had seen on their excursion to Tivoli. The water had tartarised every substance with which it had come in contact, and the whole lake had been edged round with petrifications.

  Cradling his wine glass in his hands, Ash leaned back in his chair. “And how did you like Venice?”

  “Venice?” A hint of colour stole into the boy’s cheeks.

  “Yes. Venice.” With studied nonchalance, Ash looked down at his glass and with gentle movements swirled the wine around. “The city of a hundred waterways, with gondoliers, and old palaces and—” He glanced up. What kind of contrariness had led him to needle the boy? Was it the sudden new restraint, so remarkably different from what he was used from his heir? Or did he simply want to test the reach of the boy’s newly acquired discipline? Still, he continued, “—so many other wondrous sights.” He raised his brows.

  St. Asaph’s face shone crimson.

  “Dear heavens!” the dowager countess cut in. “Cobbett, don’t tell me you have taken the heir of the House of Ashburnham to this city of sin!”

  The tutor made a helpless gesture, for, well, it did not do to attract the scorn of Lady Ashburnham. “My lady—”

  “Of course they went and saw Venice, my lady.” Ash’s voice was sharper than he had intended. To lessen the affront—and he was sure the dowager countess would take it as such—he gentled his tone. “After all, St. Asaph is a man now, with a man’s interests.”

  “And a man’s appetite, I assume?” Lady Ashburnham asked pointedly. Her nostrils flared with emotions held tightly in check. The Dowager Countess of Ashburnham would never do anything as base as openly show her displeasure with the servants present. Nevertheless, Ash knew his mother well enough to interpret those little telltale signs she couldn’t quite suppress.

  “Indeed.” He raised his glass and drank deep. No, in this point he would not be swayed. It had been more than time that St. Asaph lost some of his youthful stubbornness and indolence; that he started to behave like a man. Was not enjoying the pleasures of the flesh part of it? And what better way to learn all this than from Italian opera dancers and stylish Cyprians?

  Yet whatever other appetites the journey on the continent had roused in the boy, it was not an appreciation of brandy and cheroots. After dinner St. Asaph excused himself at the earliest possible moment. Cobbett followed suit, which left only Ash to join the dowager countess in the drawing room.

  “Well,” she said, her voic
e cool. “Would you like some coffee?” The groves that ran from her nose to the corners of her mouth seemed more deeply etched into her skin.

  “Of course.” Suddenly bone-weary, Ash sat down on a chair facing the settee.

  She waited until the footman had brought him his cup of coffee and had, at her nod, left the room, before she remarked, “The tour seems to have done St. Asaph good. Apart from the unfortunate lack in taste and propriety that made you send him into the bordellos of Venice. Whatever have you been thinking, Ashburnham?”

  “It’s what young men do, my lady.”

  Sighing, she shook her head. “Still, I say it would have been wiser not to encourage him in the same depravity as—”

  He did not let her finish. Could not let her finish. “I know.” He took a deep gulp of coffee, and grimaced when the scalding hot brew burnt his tongue. “But he has to learn the ways of the world.” Learn about the power of lust, learn what regulated the relations between men and women. Let skilled doxies, who knew their place, teach him how he could be brought to ecstasy by a woman’s touch so in the future he would never mistake sexual yearnings for oh-so illusory finer feelings.

  For a moment, Ash had to close his eyes.

  Let the boy live through puppy love now, with whores or temporary mistresses, when it could not endanger him, so by the time he made his entrance into society, his baser urges had been honed into fine steel, a weapon, yet not one that could be turned against himself.

  The dowager countess sniffed delicately. “I should say he will have enough opportunity for gaming and whoring once he takes up his studies in Oxford.”

  Which was enough to make Ash snap his eyes open again.

  “Don’t be crude, my lady. Did you not find him much improved all in all?”

  “Indeed I did.” She sniffed again. “And high time it was that some of our efforts to erase the stain of his—”