An Affair Downstairs Read online

  “I wished she could be.” He had to inhale deeply to calm himself and keep the tears from his eyes as he thought about what happened next. “She was right, though. He didn’t touch her for months after hearing they had a baby on the way. She continued with her pregnancy in good health, but she’d lied to Stanhope about when the baby was due. She hadn’t wanted him to get angry with her for keeping things from him. She thought when she went into labor, she would say it was an early delivery and he would simply believe their child a miracle.

  “In the meantime, we planned to run away together after the birth. Once we got to France, we would go on to America. I would claim her as my wife and the child as our own, and Stanhope would never find us. Again, I started to worry, and I told her that it might be easier for us to get away before the baby’s birth. But Julia wouldn’t hear of it. What would happen to her father? He wouldn’t live much longer, and he deserved to hold his grandchild at least once.

  “One afternoon, I was waiting here for her. She stayed with her father when Stanhope went to London on business, and she would come out to meet me. When she came riding up on a horse, I was overcome. She was heavily pregnant, too far along to be riding. Then I saw him chasing her on another horse, charging up behind her.” He gestured to the clearing between the trees in the opposite direction from whence they’d come. It was as if he could still see Julia on her horse, approaching, looking behind her desperately to see how close Stanhope had gotten.

  “A week earlier, Stanhope apparently had stumbled on a list she’d made herself, a list of things to pack. She’d tried to explain it away, but he’d apparently followed her undetected and had watched her with me. Our meetings were innocent. Sometimes I held her hand, but nothing more. Still, Stanhope concluded that the child was not his. He didn’t snap right away. Instead, he coiled in wait to strike, the snake that he was.

  “He pretended he was going off to London as planned and then surprised her at her father’s house with the truth of his suspicions. When he started hitting her, she believed, rightfully so, that he didn’t plan to stop until he’d killed her and the baby. She somehow managed to grab hold of a fire poker and hit him with that, knocking him unconscious long enough for her to get to the stable and mount the horse that she found saddled there.

  “Stanhope came after her. He didn’t even saddle a horse, just rode bareback all the way, and he caught up to her. On foot, I couldn’t reach her before he did. He pulled her from the saddle and jumped on top of her and kept swinging. I ran and pulled him off and let the punches fly, telling her to run for help. Instead, she ran and grabbed my rifle from where it leaned against this tree, and pointed it at us. It had been John’s birthday, and my excuse for getting out of the house was that I’d wanted to catch his birthday dinner—rabbit, John’s favorite.

  “I warned her not to shoot, afraid she would hit me by mistake, and fortunately, I managed to hit Stanhope with a good right hook that laid him out. Julia put the rifle down. We had just enough time, I believed, to get out of there before Stanhope could come after us again. But I was wrong. Julia had started to bleed and she was having contractions. I thought she might deliver her baby right there with Stanhope clinging to consciousness only feet away. He did, in fact, start to get up. I’m not sure he had the energy to come after us again, and I wasn’t about to find out. I grabbed the rifle, and I shot him. He never got up again.”

  Logan paused, leaning against the tree with one arm for support and wiping his brow with the other. The high emotion of that fateful day came back to him in a rush—the worry, the fear, the joy, and the pain.

  “But you had to. He would have killed Julia, or you both.” Compassionate tears sparkled in Alice’s eyes, and Logan had never loved her more for understanding the situation immediately. “He was a despicable man, and you were only protecting the woman you loved.”

  “At that point, I might not have been protecting anyone. I’m not sure he was in any condition to come after us, but I would not take the risk. I shot him. I only wished I’d done it sooner. But before I could get help for Julia, she was too far gone, about to give birth. With my own two hands, and plenty of sweat and tears, I delivered Julia’s baby girl. I’d never been so scared, and I had no idea what I was doing, but that baby cried the loudest cries I’d ever heard at her birth.

  “Julia and I smiled at each other, so relieved, because we knew the cries meant that the baby was strong and healthy. Julia wanted to name her Grace, after her mother. I had to leave them long enough to ride for help. The doctor came with a rig, and we were able to get Julia back to the house. She insisted on watching her father hold his granddaughter for the first time before she would agree to let the doctor have a look at her.”

  Alice looked puzzled. “Stanhope had been waiting at her father’s house, beating her. Didn’t her father know? The servants? How could no one have come after her?”

  “Stanhope had arrived earlier that morning and dismissed all the servants with the exception of the one attendant who looked after Julia’s father. They both somehow napped through Julia’s arrival and Stanhope’s first outburst. I suspect Stanhope might have actually drugged them.”

  “Drugged them?” Alice’s eyes widened and she nibbled her lip, as if she’d thought of something, and then shook it off. “Horrifying. And Julia?”

  “She’d lost too much blood. I thought, at first, that I’d done something wrong with the delivery, but the doctor suspected she had internal injuries from Stanhope’s beating. She died hours after giving birth, and her father died the next day. Stanhope finally would have had what he wanted, but it was too late.”

  “I’m so sorry, Logan. I thought—”

  “That she’d lived? How I wish. I lost her all over again, and I lost our dream of raising her child together. I went directly to the constable and turned myself in for the murder of Alexander Blythe, Earl of Stanhope. Despite my admission of guilt, witnesses came forward. The doctor testified about how badly Julia had been beaten. William Kirkland’s servants testified about Stanhope arriving at the house and sending them away. Stanhope’s own servants testified about his history of abuse and his debts. Stanhope’s reputation suffered.

  “Our family attorney was building a strong case for self-defense, but it wasn’t self-defense. I wouldn’t declare that it was. I insisted on sticking to my story, the truth, that I shot Stanhope to save Julia’s life, and that my biggest regret was that I hadn’t killed him sooner. It remains my biggest regret.”

  Alice shook her head. “But you would have been convicted for certain, and Julia would be the one unable to live with the guilt. He was a terrible man who acted reprehensibly. You did the best you could.”

  “I felt dead inside. Numb. My life was over. The woman I’d believed to be the love of my life was gone. John and Ellen adopted Grace. I had nothing left to live for, or so I believed. Instead of acting to save myself, I practically begged to be put on trial for the crime, but the constable refused to charge me with murder. No matter how much I tried to tell them otherwise, they ruled the death an accidental shooting and said I was free to go.

  “At Stratton Place, John and Ellen were struggling to raise a new baby, and I was bringing bad attention to the house. Some people, our friends, supported me. An equal and louder number of people called for my arrest and trial, proclaiming that the law worked differently for the nobility. I couldn’t bear the notoriety I’d brought to my family. I didn’t want it to haunt Grace growing up. Mostly, I wanted to escape from everything and everyone I knew. I wanted to wallow in self-pity and grief. And I did.

  “I spent years in France, Spain, Italy. I came home for the funeral when my father died and meant to head right back to France, and on to Morocco. One of my father’s friends knew of a position, managing Thornbrook Park. When I was home from Harrow, before the tragedy, I assisted my father in managing the estate with Chalmers, our agent. John didn’t have much of a head for business affairs. He still doesn’t. But I thought I could lea
rn to do the job, and do it well. I was tired of running from my past but still not ready to return home. The job at Thornbrook Park seemed the perfect solution.”

  “And there you stayed,” Alice said. “And as sorry as I am for all that you’ve been through, and for your loss, I’m selfish enough to be glad that you stayed so that I had a chance to know you.”

  “Alice.” He took a deep breath and held her hands in his. “It shattered me inside when Julia rejected me. I was young enough to believe that what we had was romantic love beyond the bonds of friendship. She chose someone else and begged for me to understand. She loved me, but not in the way that she loved Stanhope. She truly thought him to be the missing part of herself. At the time, I didn’t understand the way she described her feelings for him. I thought they were the same feelings I had for her, but they weren’t quite. I didn’t know it until I made love to you, Alice. That feeling, it’s not like any other. It fills you. It was you, Alice, who showed me I had so much life yet to live. I want to live it with you.”

  When she stood looking at him for several seconds without speaking, a look of earnest confusion in her pretty hazel eyes, he feared that he’d lost her for good.

  Eighteen

  After everything he’d just told her, all he’d been through, how could Alice do exactly what Julia had done and tell him that she planned to marry someone else? She had no desire to break his heart, and in fact, she felt her own heart beginning to splinter and crack around the edges.

  “You know I never wanted to get married,” she said, squeezing his fingers like she never wanted to let go.

  “I’m aware, and I would never ask you to give up your dreams, Alice. We don’t have to rush into anything. John needs me here for now, and you have your family. I’m sure Sophia is worried about you. Should you call her?”

  “Not yet.” She shuddered at the thought. “I have things to tell you, too. When I was recovering, and not quite myself…”

  “The brain fog?”

  “The brain fog.” She nodded. “I thought you’d left me. I knew we were friends, but I thought you had come back to Stratton Place, never to return to Thornbrook Park. I didn’t know what to think. I was…Logan, I was lost. And so alone.”

  He embraced her. “I’m so sorry. I never meant to abandon you. I did, of course, at your sister’s urging, and I’m very sorry for it, but I also thought I was doing the right thing for you. I didn’t want to remove all of your options. Once people started drawing conclusions, you would have had to marry me to save your reputation, and it wasn’t my choice to make for you.”

  “I love you for it, Logan. I do. I love you.” The ache at her core at the thought of losing him confirmed it. “You know me like no one else, and you would never force me into a corner, trapped like a poor fox in a hunt.” Or trapped like the fox’s prey. Ralston was the fox, and he’d emerged victorious with her between his gleaming teeth. How could she marry such a man? But she’d given her word. How could she not?

  “Never, Alice. You’re made to be free.”

  “You did the right thing in leaving, I agree, as much as it hurt me to wake up and not find you by my side. But I was vulnerable. What if I had been damaged permanently? My head grew increasingly fuzzy. My ability to remember things that had just happened was sometimes there and sometimes gone. When it was time to leave Holcomb House and return to Thornbrook Park, Sophia invited Lord Ralston to accompany us. He has been there ever since.”

  “Staying with you, a guest at Thornbrook Park?” Logan’s cobalt eyes darkened a shade.

  “Staying with us. He looks after me with Sophia, always there, always right at my side. Sophia seems to welcome him as one of the family. And finally, I remembered something. Something awful, Logan. I’m so sorry.”

  “Good God, did he hurt you?” Logan held Alice closer and placed a kiss on her forehead. “If he did, Alice, I know what I will do. Perhaps I haven’t changed that much after all.”

  She shook her head. “He hasn’t hurt me. On the contrary. He has been doting on me. He said he loves me, that he will never leave me. And in a moment of weakness that I barely remember, to be honest, my head was so full of fog…”

  “Alice, no.” He closed his eyes as if to shut out the painful reality. “Tell me you haven’t accepted him.”

  “I don’t remember thinking I had any other option.” She didn’t bother to hold back the tears that filled her eyes. “I felt so scared, so alone. I’ve always loved being alone, but suddenly, it became the thing I dreaded most. In the quiet darkness, the buzzing in my head became louder and nearly unbearable. There were shadows in the fog. I wanted people around me all the time, noise and colors, anything but empty silence. I wanted so badly not to be alone, never to be alone.”

  “Sophia wouldn’t ever cast you out. You must know that.”

  “But she wanted so badly for me to accept him. I knew it, though I hardly remembered my name. He presented a diamond ring, and he asked me to marry him, and I accepted him. I’m engaged to Lord Ralston, Logan.” She placed her hand on his rough cheek. “I’m so sorry. But I mean to break it off as soon as I return to Thornbrook Park. I never would have accepted him in the first place if I wasn’t so impaired.”

  He took her hands and clung to them. “Of course not. You weren’t in your right mind. You can’t be held accountable for your decision. He couldn’t possibly expect you to stand by a promise made when you were not quite yourself. The bastard!” Suddenly, Logan’s face contorted to rage. He dropped her hands, turned, and punched the tree trunk so forcefully that the blow echoed in the woods. His hand dripped blood, but he shook it off unconcerned and wrapped it with a kerchief from his pocket. “How could he take advantage of you at such a time? How could your sister allow it? Lord Averford?”

  “I—” She held her hands out at her sides. “I’m at a loss. I don’t know. Lord Averford has been tremendously busy with the new agent, who isn’t catching on very well, by the way. He’s hardly ever around lately. Aunt Agatha has been exiled to the Dower House. I don’t think Ralston likes her very much.”

  “Who doesn’t like Agatha? She’s a delight.”

  Alice loved him all the more for loving her dotty old aunt. “She is. I know. Sophia has taken to Ralston like they’re fast friends, co-conspirators in caring for invalid me. Only now I’m better. They won’t know quite what to think of me.”

  “They should never have underestimated you, Alice. I’m sorry if I scared you with my anger.” He embraced her again. “I just—I can’t bear men who take advantage of weakness. It’s like Stanhope all over again.”

  “Lord Ralston’s not that bad. I do believe he means well, and for some reason, he seems to love me. I remember thinking that anyone who wanted to put up with me in my addlepated state must truly care for me.”

  “No.” Logan shook his head. He released Alice and began to pace up and down the brook’s bank, head down in contemplation “No, there’s something he wants. There has to be. Men like Ralston are not attracted to infirmity.”

  Now she was a little insulted. Was she not a beauty? Flame to moths? Artemis and all that? “Why not? The doctor assured him I would get better in time. If he found himself attracted to me, he might have been simply acting on his best chance to secure my affection for himself.”

  Logan’s head shot up. “Really? You don’t think he has any ulterior motives? Lovely as you are, Alice, I’m not sure it’s enough to entice a man like Ralston.”

  “Excuse me? I’ll not stand here and be insulted.” She turned away.

  “I love you”—he placed a hand on her shoulder, gently urging her to look back—“in any condition. Sick, well, completely mad. I love you no matter what. But…”

  “But another man couldn’t possibly love me enough to make a commitment to me without some ulterior motive?”

  “He’s a vain man, Alice. Shallow. Surely you could sense it.”

  “I know he has been at my side since the accident, even when I’ve been fa
r less than at my best.” She strode with purpose back to the path that they’d followed to this spot.

  “You don’t love him, Alice.” He walked quickly to catch up and take her arm. “You couldn’t possibly. You’re nothing alike.”

  She nudged away from him. “I don’t see that you have any right to judge. He did swear his devotion to me.”

  “Very good.” Logan threw his hands in the air, exasperated, clearly not thinking it very good at all. “Go on and marry the man, if you’re so determined to see only the best in him.”

  She stopped and crossed her arms. “I never said I saw only the best in him. He’s arrogant. Presumptive. He hasn’t made much effort to get to know me. Worst of all, he’s not you. You’re the one I want by my side.”

  “I didn’t mean that you were undesirable, Alice. I’m sorry that my words came out all wrong. I’m upset and unable to expressly myself clearly in my distress, apparently. Forgive me. You’re engaged,” he repeated as if the news was slowly sinking in.

  “For now. I hope you can forgive me.”

  Really, she simply felt foolish. She knew what he meant. She’d known all along. In her heart, and in her now-clear mind, she harbored her own doubts and suspicions about Ralston’s motives. She’d noticed little things, like his insistence that she drink her tea. “Drink, Alice. Drink up.” His shared glances with Sophia. Their treatment of her, acting like she’d reverted to childhood. Something wasn’t right, and it wasn’t all in her head. It would have helped if Logan hadn’t jumped to the same conclusions so quickly. He might have taken a little time to be jealous first. But no.

  When Logan had been telling her his story, he’d mentioned Stanhope drugging the servants. It was then, for the first time, that she realized that she’d felt exactly like these past few weeks, as if she were being drugged. Her speech had been thick, perhaps thicker than even her mind. Her head had always been filled with the fog, unable to form a lucid thought. Even her movements were slow and unsteady. Could all that have been simply a result of a brain injury, or had it been something more? Would Ralston have been drugging her? And if so, why? What did he have to gain from their marriage?