Page 22 of A Hint of Scandal (The Mismatched Lovers #2)

J ulian, as he had said earlier, did not dine with them that evening. He sent his apologies to his mother and to Max, and in particular to Serafina. A nice touch. However, this didn’t allay Max’s inevitable anxiety about his brother, as only a few weeks earlier, he’d been up to walking downstairs unaided. He seemed, if anything, to have deteriorated in the short time they’d been away in Town, even though Maria remained convinced he would overcome his ill health. His cheeks had grown flabbier and hung in pouches from his face, the color of his skin had faded even further, and his breathing had worsened. Max had few memories of his father’s illness, as he’d been away at school throughout much of it, but servant gossip had given him what he assumed was an accurate report. And despite none of the family wanting to admit it, Julian was rapidly heading in the same direction.

With dinner over, the ladies withdrew to the drawing room, and Max, being the only gentleman, took a glass of port from Larkin. As he leaned close to pour, the butler, who’d been at Bratton Park since he’d been a twelve year old bootboy, coughed discreetly.

Max glanced up, eyebrows raised in expectation. “Yes?”

“His lordship has requested that you visit him in his chamber, Captain.” He paused. “This evening.”

Armed, now, with two glasses of port, Max climbed the stairs to Julian’s room. A pang of guilt at abandoning Serafina yet again with his mother troubled him, but it couldn’t be helped. Julian was his brother and needed him.

A tap on the door produced Rumbold, Julian’s valet, a man built on the same proportions as a bare-knuckle boxer, who always managed to look as though he’d been poured into clothes that were a fraction too tight, and might, if he were to flex his muscles, burst apart. He wore his grizzled hair clipped short as a convict, something that only added to the overall impression of a back-street heavy. Yet he was a man of unwavering loyalty and kindness.

“Captain Aubrey.” He opened the door a little wider, managing to make a stiff bow as he did so. “His lordship was hoping you might come up.’

The room smelled of sickness, and the close air was redolent of the embrocation Julian’s nurse had to rub onto his chest in an effort to ease his respiration. All to no avail. Nothing was ever going to improve it, but Max couldn’t bring himself to tell his mother or Maria that. He had to let them hang onto hope. They had so little else.

Julian’s nurse, Blewett, a woman of indeterminate age, was tidying the room. She was built along the same lines as Rumbold, having wide shoulders and impressively bulging biceps beneath the tight sleeves of her uniform gown. Useful for a woman having to nurse a man who had once been over six feet tall. Her gray hair, that was customarily scraped back into a face-stretchingly tight bun, had, by this time in the day, had the temerity to allow a few untidy tendrils to escape. She brushed these out of her sallow-skinned face as she straightened up and made Max a bow. “Captain Aubrey.”

Max nodded to her briefly, before crossing the thick rug to the large, canopied four-poster bed. Julian lay propped against the pillows, his drawn face haggard and his skin mottled as though bruised. If anything, he now looked worse than he had done earlier. With Blewett moving about so quietly, his breathing sounded harsh and loud.

Julian’s red-rimmed and bloodshot eyes followed Max as he crossed the room and took a seat on an upholstered stool beside the bed, but he said nothing.

Max studied his brother’s haggard face for a few moments. Up close, he looked worse than he had done from the doorway, if that were possible, and Max’s heart gave an uncertain lurch. Death had its unmistakable hand on Julian’s shoulder. Unable to think of anything to say that wouldn’t sound trite, he remained silent, waiting for Julian to speak.

“I only briefly saw your Serafina,” Julian said at last, his voice thready. “But she looks a nice sort of girl to me. Well done, old chap.”

Max nodded. “She is. And she’s interested in Egyptology and all things historical. I rather think you might like to talk with her about that.” Not that Julian was ever going to get the tome he was working on finished.

Julian shook his head. “I’ve not the energy for that, I’m afraid to say. My end creeps ever closer. Something I’ve come to accept, so don’t try to convince me otherwise.” He paused, his chest laboring for breath, and Max said nothing. After a few moments, he seemed to have regained his strength. “Maria and our mother keep advocating new treatments, and I agree, just to let them feel they’re doing something. But I know my end is near and I’m ready to meet my maker. But for one thing.”

Max raised his eyebrows in a question.

But, once again, Julian had to stop, a red spot forming on each gray cheek. This time, Max would have spoken, but Julian held up a restraining hand and shook his head. He clearly wanted to have his say. “Two things, in fact. Firstly, as to your marriage that I’ve long wished to see. For that, I think you’re going to need to apply for a Common License rather than wait for the banns to be called. I’d like to see you wed before I die, and be content that I’ve done as our father wished.” He licked his pale, dry lips. “As it seems I might not be able to do anything else right.”

An odd addendum.

Disregarding that final self-criticism of his brother’s, once more Max found it hard to find anything to say. If he agreed with Julian it would be tantamount to admitting his beloved older brother was dying. Soon. Which even though both of them knew this to be true, he balked at saying aloud himself. But if he argued, he would be turning a blind eye to the truth, and be as self-deluded as his mother and Maria. “We can do as you wish,” he said, instead. “I have no objections to a Common License and a hurried marriage within the week.” He chuckled. “Although that always causes gossip of the most salacious kind.”

His brother gave a weak smile and coughed into his handkerchief. Spots of blood brightened the thin cotton lawn. “I think you more than able to weather a little gossip, Max. And we can make sure the truth is spread. That I wished to attend your wedding before…” He coughed again. “Before I go to meet my maker.”

Max frowned. “Perhaps the wedding could be held in our private chapel here at Bratton? That would be easier for you. Rumbold could help you down the stairs.”

Julian pulled a disgusted face. “Like a babe in arms, I’m reduced to this.”

Max mirrored his expression, but moved on, anxious to distract his brother from his incapacity. “And I believe I’ve heard it’s necessary to wait a week after we obtain the license…” His words hung in the air between them. Would Julian still be alive in a week’s time? He had about him a look of impending death. Max had seen this often enough in wounded men, and now he recognized it in his brother.

Julian, who must have read his mind, shrugged. For a man so bloated with dropsy, he possessed bony shoulders beneath his nightshirt. “But that is not the only reason I wanted to see you.” He had to pause to catch his breath again, as his efforts at conversation appeared to be draining him. “I wish to ask your help in quite another matter. A more important one than your wedding, I’m afraid.” He coughed. “It is fortuitous indeed that you arrived today, for I have no one else to turn to but Rumbold, and his modus operandi leaves a lot to be desired.”

A grunt emanated from Rumbold.

Max leaned forward, the better to hear his brother’s reedy words. “What is it? You know I will always do my utmost to help you with anything.” And he meant it. Julian, eighteen years his senior, had always been his idol as a boy, a man he’d striven to emulate, and who’d inspired lifelong admiration in him as a younger brother. That he’d been reduced to this husk of a man pierced Max to the heart. If he could help him, he would.

“Send Blewett down for her supper. Rumbold may stay.” Julian’s eyes closed.

The nurse, who seemed to have finished her tidying, departed without needing further instruction. Rumbold went to stand beside the door as if to guard it from intruders. No one would get past that ox of a man. If Julian had a secret he didn’t want Blewett to know, it seemed Rumbold was already party to it. Max looked back at his brother.

Julian’s eyes opened and his hand disappeared beneath his sheets. Paper rustled and the hand emerged holding what appeared to be a small sheet of crumpled notepaper, covered in spidery writing. “This came earlier today. I didn’t know what to do about it until you walked into my library this afternoon.” He made to pass it to Max, but his hand fell back onto the covers as though it were too heavy. Max reached out and took it from his slack grip.

Smoothing out the creases, he read in silence.

“My deerest Julian, I am writing to you to draw your Memory back to the days of your Youth. We were both young and in love. I have no intenshun of Upsetting the Woman you call your Wife and Countess, but that should always have been my posishun in life, not hers. For you will Recall that when you were at Oxford, we met, and went through a Wedding seremony before a Preest. Only afterwards, when you wished to Repudiate me Unkindly, did you tell me that the Preest had been just a Frend of yours got up make Pretense to me, so that I would surender my Maidenhood to you. And I in all Foolishness had beleeved you and lived with you as your Wife.

But having tired of me and thinking to better yourself, you told me that Lie and cast me Off, as I have only Recently discovered. That so-called false Priest was not false at all, and you and I are truly Wed. Your Wife is not your Countes, but I am. And I have a Son. Your Air. We shall call on you on the 14 th inst, trusting to find you in Agreement.

Your ever faithful wife, Abigail, Countes of Westbury.

Without looking up at Julian or Rumbold, he read it a second time, and then a third, scarcely able to believe his eyes. Finally, he raised his eyes to meet Julian’s. “Is this true?”

Julian nodded. “It is, in part.”

“Which part?”

“When I was a boy at Oxford, when you were just a babe in arms, I met a beautiful actress, Miss Abigail Lewis.” He paused for breath, chest struggling. “Being inexperienced, I was quite carried away with her, and couldn’t believe she would be interested in me, for I was but a callow youth at that age.” He coughed into his handkerchief. “She professed true love for me, and I counted myself more than lucky. I’d had a few liaisons before her, but all had been with young women of easy virtue.” He stared into Max’s eyes, almost in accusation. “You’ll understand, no doubt having done that yourself.” He paused and his wheezing breath rattled in his chest.

Max waited in silence, the letter’s contents turning over and over inside his head. It couldn’t be true, could it? This must be an opportunistic letter from some spurned lover of his brother’s, or a fraud. Julian would never have gone on to marry Maria knowing their union was bigamy. Would he?

“The letter is reasonably well-written as though by someone with some level of education. Is what she says true? Did you tell her the marriage had not been legal?” He hesitated as a thought came to him. “Wait. Perhaps it wasn’t ever legal. How old were you? If you hadn’t reached your majority, it would be invalid.”

Julian shook his head. “I was twenty-one. I bought a Common License. There was no false priest. We were married in a small church in Oxford.” A coughing fit took him and it was some time before he regained his breath. “And she does not lie. I was with her a brief six months before it dawned upon me that I’d made a huge mistake. Our father would have killed me if he’d found out. To bring an actress back to Bratton to become its chatelaine…” More coughing.

Max nodded slowly. “So it is all true, not just part of it?”

Julian wiped bloody spittle away from his mouth and nodded. “Hard to imagine now I’m so frail, but back then I was young and virile and my blood ran hot for that girl. She was beautiful beyond all imagining. I can see her now, if I close my eyes. I was so desperate to have her and she said she was a virtuous girl and she’d only give herself to me if we were married.” He had to pause for breath again, his face now an alarming shade of mottled gray. “But the gloss wore off very quickly, due no doubt to my youth. I’m ashamed to say I fooled her into thinking it had been no true marriage, and we parted company.” Another coughing fit took him, and it was a minute or two before he could speak again. “I married Maria some seven years later, having never heard another word from Abigail. I suppose I thought her dead, or lost, or just run off.”

“And you thought yourself free to marry Maria?” The fact that his brother had deceived the woman who’d been like a second mother to him was rankling Max the most.

Julian shrugged. “No need to look at me like that. I know I’ve been selfish and stupid. And now my youthful folly has come back to haunt me.” He sighed, breath wheezing. “But I promise you I never knew she had a son.” He paused. “My son.”

Max straightened his back, regarding his brother with a more than troubled heart. Hard to believe his brother could ever have been as duplicitous as this. He’d married Maria, who’d been a widow with two small boys, when Max was ten, and all Max’s memories were of his big dependable brother and his pretty wife, as though nothing had gone on before that. As though Julian had sprung fully formed into being as his solid and sensible older brother. Thinking of him as a lust-filled student at Oxford was impossible.

“You were together only six months?”

Julian shrugged. “Until I had my degree. Then we went our separate ways. I returned to Bratton Park and our father, to learn the ways of estate management. She to other theaters, or so she told me. She was angry when we parted. I offered her money, but she refused.” He paused again. “I am not a monster, Max. I didn’t want to leave her destitute. She had her acting skills. She could earn a living. I wanted to help her but she refused me.”

“And she says she has a son…”

Julian frowned. “She does. She implies the boy is mine… but I knew nothing of any child. I’m certain she would have told me if she’d been with child when we parted. I was offering money and she would have needed it. We told each other everything.”

Clearly not everything, or Julian’s departure would not have provoked such an angry reaction. Max heaved in a deep breath. “It does seem as though you find yourself in a bit of a mess.” An understatement.

Julian nodded, leaning his head back on the pillows and closing his eyes. “And I am too tired to untangle such a problem.” He coughed, his breath whistling. “I must rest. Now you are here, you will have to do it for me.”

Max glanced across at Rumbold, who remained expressionless and silent by the door. What was it Julian expected him to do? If he’d been legally married to this woman, then what was there to be done apart from accepting her into the family? This wasn’t something that could be brushed under the carpet. If they’d truly been married and never divorced, then she was the rightful Countess of Westbury and her son the heir. Maria’s children would be rendered illegitimate. He sighed, his shoulders slumping. He had enough to do with organizing his own marriage in such a hurry. How was he supposed to untangle the web of deceit his brother had just unrolled before him?

Julian’s head had sagged forward, his chin on his chest, his breathing stertorous.

Rumbold tiptoed forward, his feet silent on the rug. He kept his gruff voice low. “His lordship is sleeping now, Captain. Perhaps you would like to take the letter and retire to consider your next move. I will be at your service for any task you require of me. Please rest assured. Nothing is beyond my remit. Nothing.”

Good God, was the man offering assassination services? It certainly sounded as though he might be. And Max would put nothing past his brother’s enormous valet. He rose to his feet. “I’ll take the letter, as you suggest. Let me know if my brother worsens.” He kept his voice as low as Rumbold’s, and Julian never stirred. Only the labored rising of his chest told them he still lived.

Outside, in the paneled corridor, he leaned against the wall and drew in some steadying breaths. The repercussions of this letter could be like an earthquake through the family. If Julian had indeed married this woman, and it was clear she still lived, then his second marriage to Maria was illegal. Bigamous. Little Freddie would no longer be Viscount Lavington, his father’s heir, and Arabella and Lucinda would be frowned upon by polite society rather than feted by it and find it impossible to make good matches. Maria would be dishonored.

What did Julian want him to do? Right now he had no idea. What he needed was someone to talk to about this. Someone he could trust.

The only person who came to mind was Serafina.

She had shown she was blessed with common sense beyond her years. Yes, he would go right now and see her. Two heads would be better than one. And he couldn’t tell his mother this dreadful news. But first he’d best dispatch someone to get that damned Common License, before it entirely slipped his mind.