Three Weeks With Lady X(51)

Thorn took a step toward Lady Rainsford, the rage in his eyes controlled  but savage. "I want you out of my house within the hour."

"I surmise that you are indeed the father," the lady snapped, "since you protect this fallen woman!"

With one impulsive comment, India had destroyed years of guarding her  reputation. Lady Rainsford would spread her malice across all London.  Thank goodness, Adelaide had retired to her room for a rest. Not that it  mattered.

She was ruined. Utterly ruined.

She swallowed hard; it felt as if a giant hand had just squeezed her  heart. Any chance she had of making a life with Thorn was over. He, more  than anyone, couldn't marry a ruined woman; their children would be  pariahs after Lady Rainsford spread her malicious story.

But suddenly, unexpectedly, Vander, who had been standing silently  beside her, wrapped his right arm around her shoulder. "Lady Rainsford,"  he said in the frosty voice of an insulted nobleman, "I should be very  careful about what you say next. You are speaking about my wife."

India started, but Vander tightened his arm in a silent warning.

"Rose is my daughter," he continued, his voice dropping into the  register of a civilized but homicidal maniac. "We have chosen not to  reveal our marriage because of my father's unfortunate circumstance."

His large body warmed India's back, for all the world as if they were  truly a family. Her mind whirling, India numbly registered that the Duke  of Pindar's confinement owing to insanity was scarcely a plausible  reason for a clandestine marriage.

But Vander hadn't finished. "If you again insult my wife-the woman who  will someday be the Duchess of Pindar-I will have you thrown out of  society, Lady Rainsford. Do not doubt it."

Another stunned silence shuddered through the air.

"I am finding this so enjoyable," the Duke of Villiers said, his smoky  voice completely unamused. "All this drama, and we weren't even charged  admission. Surely, this is my cue? Lady Rainsford, I see no reason to  wait for a further insult. I intend to make certain that you are never  invited to another event in the rest of your natural life. I believe  that it will be one of the few good deeds I've done in a misspent life."

Lady Rainsford took in a harsh breath. Her eyes popped out a little so  she looked like an angry frog as she looked from Vander, to the duke, to  Rose. Finally back to India, standing in the shelter of Vander's arm.  "I don't believe it!" she shrilled. She was clearly too beside herself  to consider her family's place in society.

"I will hardly produce my marriage lines for one such as you," Vander said with contempt.

Faced by the united front of two ducal families-and the prospect that  she had grievously insulted the future Duchess of Pindar-Lady Rainsford  exhibited a fledgling instinct for self-preservation and commenced a  babbling apology.                       
       
           



       

A moment later she faltered to a halt, confronted with five pairs of icy-cold, unsympathetic eyes.

Eleanor stepped forward, taking advantage of her silence. "Lady  Rainsford," she said, her tone grimmer than India had ever heard it.  "You will no longer be welcome at any event at which you might  reasonably expect a member of the family of the Duke of Villiers or of  the Duke of Pindar to appear."

Lady Rainsford opened her mouth, but Eleanor held up her hand. "If the  slightest rumor ever emerges regarding Lady Xenobia or Miss Rose-as well  as your vile and sordid accusations-we will not only put it about that  you are stark raving mad, Lady Rainsford, but I will also allow my  husband to wreck havoc on your finances. You and your husband will  retire to the country in abject poverty. Your maid will do no more  spying, because you will not be able to afford her. Have I made myself  absolutely clear?"

"Yes," Lady Rainsford said, with an audible gulp.

"You forgot ‘Your Grace,' " Villiers stated, his voice a cutting blade  that made it clear that the woman should address his wife as would a  servant, not an equal.

"I think . . . I think I shall look for my daughter." Lady Rainsford  scurried up the stairs and back into the house without another word.





Chapter Thirty

Five adults and one child kept silent until Lady Rainsford rushed  through the front door past Fleming, who had ensured that no other  servants had witnessed the scene.

Rose spoke before anyone else. "I am not your child!" she cried, looking  up at India. "I don't like that woman." Her little face crumpled, but  she managed to halt the tears. "I don't like the way people keep  speaking as if my father didn't exist. My father was Will Summers, and  just because he is dead doesn't mean that he didn't exist!"

Then she twisted out of India's hold, taking a step toward Thorn. "You  shouldn't give me away like that," she cried, her voice rising. "I don't  want to be their daughter. I don't even know them!"

For his part Thorn was in the grip of a rage that was only barely in  check. What was India doing, declaring that Rose was her daughter? And  Vander? Why in the hell had Vander made the claim that he was married to  India?

India was his. Not Vander's.

She would never be Vander's.

But he looked down at Rose and realized all that would have to wait,  because Rose was his as well. She was the bravest little girl he'd ever  known, but her lips were quivering and her eyes were terrified. Almost  certainly Lady Rainsford had called her names before he arrived, ones  that she didn't understand. She had been surrounded by shouting  adults-and she thought her guardian had given her away.

He scooped her up into his arms and turned away from the adults silently  watching them. "I did not give you away, Rose, and I never will. It was  all a misunderstanding." He began walking toward the dower house.  "Let's go home and we'll ask Clara for some hot cocoa. Where is Clara,  by the way?"

"That lady came and told Clara to stay," Rose said, a sob breaking from  her chest. "She brought me back to the house. But Lady Xenobia came  outside just as she arrived, and they had an argument."

"Did my parents and Vander come at the same time as Lady Xenobia?"

"No, they came just before you. Lady Rainsford is most unpleasant." Her  legs clung to his side, but her rigid backbone told its own story.

"She is not a likable woman," Thorn observed, in one of the world's  great understatements. He pushed open the door of the dower house. "What  you need to know, poppet, is that you are and always will be your  papa's daughter. Did you know that I saved Will's life once?"

She stirred in his arms, but he didn't release her. He just strode over  to the sofa and sat down, keeping her on his lap. "We were around eight  years old. It was winter, and there were ice floes in the Thames."

"Did you have to go into the icy water?" She sounded slightly less  distressed. "Papa told me that he used to fish spoons out of the river."

He nodded, tightening his arms around her. "If we didn't jump in ourselves, our master would throw us off the dock."

"That is a despicable thing to do," Rose said. Her hand curled around his forearm.

"He was the same sort of person as Lady Rainsford," Thorn said. "Not  someone you would wish to know. The amount of food Grindel gave us  depended on what we brought him. Some of the boys were too small and too  frail to go into the water when it was icy, so the big boys had to earn  food for all of us."                       
       
           



       

"Eight years old is not very big," Rose observed.

"Your papa was the type of boy who never gave up. He dove and dove that  afternoon," he told her. "He was certain that he had felt something at  the bottom of the Thames, something big down in the muck. Something that  might make Grindel happy enough that he would let us sleep indoors."

There were no words adequate to describe Grindel. Not for the first  time, Thorn wished the man were still alive so he could kill him in  memory of the boys who hadn't survived.

"I wish Papa hadn't been stubborn," Rose said. "Did he find that big thing?"

"The last time he went down, he didn't come back up. I stood on the dock  and watched the spot where he dove, and I didn't see any bubbles. I  didn't know what to do. The Thames is dark and murky at the best of  times, and in the winter, it's like Hades down there."

"What's Hades?"

"A terrible place. A place where a boy might find himself cut to the  bone by a piece of metal sunk at the bottom, or he might come face to  face with-" He caught himself. "-with a fish."