a scholar. No, but my father was. As the words echoed out of memory, Beau’s heart skipped a beat and his mouth went dry. With a hand that suddenly trembled he reached for the small oval portrait his secretary was extracting from his waistcoat pocket.
“Apparently Lady Charle ton contracted the influenza before she’d fully recovered from losing a babe in childbirth …”
The rest of his secretary’s sentence faded out as Beau brought the figured gold case close enough to distinguish the features of the shyly smiling lady portrayed within. A young lady with Laura Martin’s glossy auburn locks, Laura Martin’s piercingly blue eyes.
For an instant he couldn’t draw breath. He shut his eyes tightly, clutching the portrait in his fist, nearly dizzy as relief, euphoria and aching need rocked him in successive waves.
He opened his eyes to find James staring at him. “That … is the lady?”
“Yes. Find me everything you turn up on Lady Charleton’s death, everything you can uncover about her husband. Send operatives to both families, if they’re now in London—use as many men as you need. And report back to me at three o’clock with whatever you’ve found.”
“Yes, my lord.”
“And, James—”
His secretary, already at the door, halted to look back at him. “My lord?”
“Thank you.”
Later that afternoon Beau returned to his study. In the intervening hours he’d conducted some research of his own. He knew little of Lord Charleton personally, the viscount being more than a decade his senior, but casual inquiries at his club elicited several intriguing tidbits.
Lord Charleton was regarded with respect but not warmth by his contemporaries. Accounted a good shot, a fair sportsman, a punctilious landlord ruthlessly precise in his duties, he drove a hard bargain in any transaction. A cold, proud man obsessed with his lineage, after being twice widowed he still had no heir, his first wife having produced only daughters and his second, the youngest child of Lord Arthur Farrington, having died two years ago of influenza after complications from a stillbirth.
In three days’ time Charleton was to marry again, a Miss Cynthia Powell, daughter of ancient Devon gentry.
Soon I’ll be safe, Laura had told him. And so, in a certain sense, her husband’s remarriage would make her.
That his Laura Martin was the supposedly dead Lady Charleton he had no doubt—the evidence of the miniature was too compelling. And the few details he’d yet gleaned of Lady Charleton fit what he knew of Laura Martin’s arrival in Merriville.
She had been gravely ill. She’d lost a babe. Whether Charleton had invented the notion of her death to derail speculation about her disappearance or whether Laura herself had somehow engineered it, Beau would soon uncover. Now that he had her name, the rest would be easy.
A thoroughly nasty individual, James had described Laura’s husband. Did Charleton in fact believe her dead? Or was he still watching, waiting, as Laura believed?
Regardless of what further information would reveal, one indisputable fact had seized Beau the moment he learned her husband was about to remarry. If Charleton did not discover Laura’s whereabouts until after his remarriage, he could then neither claim her nor reveal her true identity, lest he leave himself open to charges of bigamy. Though to Beau’s thinking, Laura would still not be absolutely safe—Charleton would be secure from scandal only if his inconvenient former wife were truly dead.
But more than her lack of security bothered him. If Charleton’s remarriage prevented the viscount from revealing the past, it also prevented Laura’s escaping it. She might come to Beau as they both desired, but she’d have to remain in the shadows, unable to use her real name or assume her rightful place in society. Have to remain permanently hidden, too, from the still-grieving family that believed her dead. And most important from Beau’s point of view, she’d never be able to become what he most wanted her to be—his lawful wife.
One way or another, he had to stop Lord Charleton’s remarriage. One way or another, he had to convince the man to seek a divorce before remarrying.
And he had three days in which to do it.
A burning desire consumed him to order his horse this moment, to ride to Merriville with all speed. Beyond the ever-present compulsion to be with Laura again, it would be wisest to have benefit of all she knew of this tangled affair before Beau confronted her husband. But given the distance, it was impossible for him to ride there and back in only three days.
He paced the room, too restless to sit, impatient to hear whatever news James had garnered. And then, information complete or not, within the next day he must proceed. Without whatever assistance Laura Martin might have been able to offer.
Beau thought again of Laura’s slight form cowering before him, her eyes distended with fear, her fisted arms raised, and the smoldering rage within fired hotter. He already knew enough of Charleton to know the man must be legally and permanently removed from Laura’s life. His fists itched to deal out to the viscount a liberal measure of the sort of domestic bliss he’d offered Laura.
While he stood at the window, envisioning with grim pleasure that satisfying prospect, a knock sounded, followed by the immediate entry of James Maxwell.
The mantel clock chimed three. “Bless you, James,” Beau offering a wry smile as he moved to the sideboard. “Let me pour some wine, then tell me the whole.”
At just before three the following afternoon, Beau stood in the parlor of Viscount Charleton’s imposing Georgian town house. As he paced the gray marble floor, awaiting his host, he surveyed the tasteful arrangement of green brocade Hepplewhite chairs and sofas, the immaculate white plaster detailing of the ceilings and overmantel that proclaimed the room the workmanship of the Adams brothers, and tried to imagine Laura here, greeting her guests in this cold, impersonal mausoleum of a room.
A few moments later Lord Charleton entered. Every nerve stiffening in automatic dislike, Beau made him the bow decorum demanded.
Charleton, a portly gentleman of middle age, barely inclined his head. Without any of the usual civilities, he demanded, “You insisted on seeing me, Lord Beaulieu? I trust the matter is of sufficient gravity. I am expected momentarily to drive my betrothed to tea.”
Already simmering from the deliberate insult of not being offered so much as a chair, Beau remained silent, allowing himself a long moment to inspect the viscount, from his silvered hair to his immaculately polished top-boots. The man’s face was a pasty hue that contrasted unpleasantly with the dark shadows beneath his glaring eyes. One vein pulsed at his temple, and he tapped his fingers against the smooth seam of his breeches.
As Beau allowed the silence to continue, a flush of irritation reddened the unhealthy pallor of the viscount’s cheeks. So you are easily angered, Beau thought. Good. Anger often makes men careless.
“You mock me, sirrah? I shall have my servant throw you out.” He turned as if to go to the bellpull.
“Not quite yet,” Beau interposed, holding out a hand to block the viscount’s path. Charleton stared down at it, his red color deepening.
Slowly, Beau pulled back his hand. “I understand I should congratulate you on your imminent nuptials. A happy event which will soon blot out the tragedy
