Romney Marsh Trilogy: A Gentleman by Any Other Name / The Dangerous Debutante / Beware of Virtuous Women. Kasey Michaels
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got brandy warming by the fire in my study.”
“Yes, sir,” Chance said and followed Ainsley down the dimly lit hallway, secretly pleased to see that Ainsley continued to dress all in black, but that he still walked like a man who owned the world while gracious enough to share it with lesser mortals.
He’d been a god to Chance, his savior from a fate Chance hadn’t really understood until Billy had taken him aside and explained in graphic detail what the sailor had wanted from him that night in Angelo’s pub. His savior in all things.
How Chance had worshipped Ainsley, the tall, deceptively powerful man, his tanned face lean and strong, his sharp eyes missing nothing, his voice quietly commanding respect, his smiles rare but wonderful to behold.
He was still strong and straight, but there was some silver scattered now in his black hair, and the lines in his face had carved deeper, especially across his brow. Time does that to a man. As does pain.
Strange. Chance had never thought about Ainsley growing old, being anything but invulnerable. Even that day, that last day, he’d been the one who’d kept his head, who’d held them all together. Chance had hated him for that.
They entered the study, Chance following behind Ainsley.
Books. Ainsley’s study was filled with books. Books on shelves that lined every wall and disappeared in the dark as they climbed toward the ceiling. Books piled on every surface, stacked on the floor. A newspaper not more than three days old was spread out on one of the tables, along with several maps.
Chance walked over to the table, taking hold of one of the maps at one corner and pulling it around so he could better see it. Several areas were circled with thick black ink, on both land and sea. “You’re following the battles?”
“Other people’s wars are often interesting, although nothing has been quite so intriguing since Trafalgar. England lost a good man in Nelson.”
Chance dropped the corner of the map. “Yes. Maybe one day they’ll raise a monument to him somewhere. In the meantime, they’re allowing his beloved Emma to starve. I heard she’s been imprisoned for debt, actually. Ainsley, it’s been a long day and I’m really rather tired….”
“One drink, Chance. Just one. And some conversation.”
The fire in the grate had been freshly fed, as if Ainsley had planned on a long night, a plan Chance didn’t share. He waited for the man to take his seat in one of a pair of wing chairs in front of the fire, then sat in the other one, a low table between them holding a brandy decanter and two snifters.
Ainsley lifted his snifter, swirled the liquid a time or two, then sipped. With the glass still in front of his face, he looked at Chance over the rim. “Once more, Chance, my condolences on the loss of your wife. Or perhaps you didn’t receive my letter. The others would have come to you—”
“If I’d let you all know in time. Yes, I’m aware of that. Arrangements were necessarily rushed. Beatrice was interred in her family’s mausoleum in Devonshire.”
“I know her father died a few years ago, but didn’t her mother offer to take Alice for you while you’re so busy in London?”
Chance held his own snifter, pretended a great interest in the swirling brandy. “Priscilla wed again last year. Beatrice’s brother holds the estate now, and Priscilla is off traipsing some moor in Scotland with her new husband.” He looked at Ainsley. “But if you don’t feel Alice can stay here, I—”
“Alice will be fine here. The girls can’t wait to see her, spoil her. I only worry that she’ll rarely see her papa. When were you last at Becket Hall, Chance? I believe that was when Alice was a mere infant in arms. She’s—what—five now? Six?”
“Five,” Chance said, still looking straight at Ainsley. “Beatrice didn’t care for the country.”
Ainsley smiled one of his rare slight smiles. “Don’t blame a dead woman, Chance. That isn’t gentlemanly. How long have we two been together?”
Chance turned his gaze toward the fire. “I was nine or ten when you bought me from Angelo, seventeen when…when we left the island.”
“So now you’re a grown man of thirty years, and I’m nearing fifty. Thirteen years, Chance. I won’t ask you to forget, but can’t you find some forgiveness somewhere? I lost her, too.”
Chance put down the snifter and got to his feet, turned his back to the man. “You make it sound as if I was in love with her.”
“Weren’t you? With all the ardor of a seventeen-year-old boy? That’s nothing to be ashamed of. She was only two years your elder.”
“And your wife,” Chance said. “You let Edmund—”
“I did, yes,” Ainsley said, also getting to his feet. “Look at me. Look at me, Chance. No more running, no more hiding from the truth. I accept all blame. None of it is yours. I had everything. At last, I had everything. But I wanted more, and that’s what destroyed us. Not Edmund. Edmund was what he was. I am responsible. For her, for all of them.”
“God. Oh my God.” Chance collapsed into the chair, pushed his fingers through his hair, not even aware that the ribbon holding it in place had slipped off so that his darkly blond hair now was thick and loose to his shoulders.
The years fell away.
Ainsley felt a stab of regret, once again seeing Chance as he had been. Young, strong, unafraid. Before pain and loss had turned him inward, before civilization had smothered all his fire. The Chance he’d watched grow to young manhood could climb the rigging like a monkey, a knife between his teeth to slice away sail in a storm, then triumphantly yell into the wind, dare it to blow him into the sea. The Chance he’d known had loved life, every moment of it. Ainsley felt the loss of that boy, he felt it keenly.
But now the past was here with them, in the open at last. Now, maybe, they could finally make their peace.
Ainsley sat down again, folded his hands in front of him or else he knew he’d be unable to restrain from leaning forward, stroking the boy’s hair. “What’s wrong, Chance?”
Chance turned troubled eyes to Ainsley. “I didn’t know you knew. Did she know?”
Ainsley didn’t make the mistake of thinking Chance was referring to his last statement, his acceptance of his own guilt. “Yes, Isabella knew you loved her. She loved you, too. She loved you all. But she was my wife. That sort of love is different, the love of a woman for her husband, a husband for his wife. You know that, you’ve been married.”
Then Ainsley watched for Chance’s reaction. He saw a tic begin in Chance’s left cheek, a sure sign that the boy—no, the man—was holding his emotions in check only with great difficulty.
“I failed Beatrice,” Chance said at last, quietly. “We married for mutual convenience. Her family needed money—even the London residence they gave us was heavily mortgaged—and I wanted her family’s name to get me into society, through the right doors. Even to the War Office.”
He pushed his hair away from his face again, sighed. This was hard, so very hard to say, so he’d say it quickly. Not because he’d loved Beatrice, because he hadn’t. But he had failed her. “My wife took a lover shortly after Alice was born, and we never shared a bed again. She…she died a few days after some back-alley drab got rid of his baby for her.”
Chance picked up his snifter. “There. Now you know. I wanted to leave it all behind. The island, you, everyone. I wanted to find a new life, a calm, ordered life. A normal life. I wanted to forget who I was, what I was. But it seems we have more in common than you think, Ainsley. We both let our wives die to feed our own ambition.”
Ainsley remained quiet, and for some time the only sound in the room was the crack and sizzle of the fire.
“You have Alice. I have Cassandra and all of you. We live for them, Chance. We can only hope to live long enough