Page 60 of The Lyon Rampant

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Belinda had never seen Piers look so haggard as he did on arrival shortly after breakfast. He’d told her to put it down to a difficult journey up from Devon, and a bad night’s sleep, but she sensed something was terribly wrong. She refused to let the issue pass, no matter how often he assured her that he’d deal with everything immediately—she had nothing to worry about.

“Piers, we agreed that we would share everything, that there would be no secrets between us from now on, no family skeletons or hidden guilt. I’m strong enough to take whatever the world is about to throw at us because I now have you at my side. As a result of that, I’m far stronger than I ever was before. Please, my love, give me credit for having matured and learned from my mistakes.”

He opened his arms with a sigh and welcomed her into his embrace. “How did I manage before I met you, beloved Belinda? My life was so full of shame and pretense that I was growing old before my time. Thank you for your faith in me, and your compliments. I will find a way out of our present difficulties, but I couldn’t wait another moment to see your smiling face again, or smell the lavender perfume of your hair.”

His words warmed her to the tips of her toes. “Very poetic, Piers! I’m hugely honored to be spoken about in such terms. But you don’t need to play the romantic with me. If we have a problem, we must discuss it and face it together. Shake hands on it.”

He stared at her as if he was seeing her for the first time, then his mouth widened into a broad grin. “I knew I did the right thing in coming to see you first, Belinda. You’re an absolute tonic. Perhaps I can prevail upon your hospitality and take a little breakfast, and then I’ll acquaint you with the details. I trust you have already eaten?”

What an infuriating man he was, to be the bearer of bad news, and not to relieve himself of it immediately! But perhaps it was for the best—maybe he needed to give himself thinking time to find the words he needed to use to break the news to her. Perhaps it had something to do with his visit to Devon—were there difficulties regarding the sale of the mine, or was its value insufficient to set up a veterans’ hospital as he’d promised? Or possibly there was some problem with his parents—had his father forbidden him to continue with the match? Seen from any angle, it was a poor one for a former French aristocrat. Oh, how she prayed it wasn’t some setback concerning the wedding! She couldn’t bear it.

These horrible thoughts trampled through her mind, crushing her joy as she watched Piers drink a little strong coffee, and consume a couple of pieces of dry toast. As soon as he was done, he pushed his chair back and strode to the window.

“There’s no easy way to say this, Belinda, but before I do, I swear that you will be my wife, whatever happens.”

She ought to be assured by his words, but a cold hand of fear clutched at her heart, threatening to squeeze it to pieces. Coming up behind him, she slid her arms around his waist and hugged him.

“I’ve received an ultimatum from Charlotte.”

“Oh! But then, I suppose you were expecting to hear something, weren’t you?”

“Yes, but I thought her response would be purely mercenary. Instead, it’s a threat. Blackmail, if you like.”

Poor Piers! What had he done to deserve this? If only she hadn’t blundered in that night when she hadn’t understood the situation!

“To be honest, Piers, she’s been extorting money from you for years, preying on your emotional attachment to the child. I’m so sorry that I interfered, that I stopped you from reasoning with her. I’m beginning to wonder if she’s the sort of person that can be reasoned with at all.”

Piers turned around in her grasp, and held her to him, placing a gentle kiss on her forehead.

“You truly are my angel, Belinda. And I forgave you long ago for what you thought was a good deed. Anyway, the crux of the matter is that if I don’t renounce you, and marry her, she is going to leave the country and take Oliver with her.”

His stark words were a stab of cold steel in her stomach. Everything she’d hoped for, everything they’d been working toward, was balanced on the edge of a precipice. Was she going to have to let him go? Surely, she would never manage without him. There could never be another Piers Darvill—she might as well give up any hope of a family of her own and resign herself to the position of maiden aunt she’d previously been so keen to avoid.

“It would break my heart if you were to do that.”

“It would break mine too, which is why I have no intention of doing so.”

She held him harder, her fingers gripping the fine wool of his jacket. “Oh, but you can’t lose your son because of me! Can you not track Charlotte down again, as you did before, and at least try to reason with her?”

“Regrettably not. She says she is already poised to flee across to the continent—she doesn’t say where, although we have to assume France is too dangerous. She won’t go there, despite having assumed a French surname. Ireland? Holland? I’ve no idea, and I don’t have the wherewithal to have every port watched. There are plenty of fishermen and smugglers who would be prepared to take a woman and child across the sea for a price.”

“So, if you can’t find her, how can you agree to her terms?”

Piers looked pained. “She’s already thought of that, damn her. She’ll be looking out for an announcement in the Morning Chronicle disputing any claim that you and I are to be married. I must say there has been a mistake, and that my future wife is Charlotte Lavoisier. Only then will she come forward, by which time it’ll be too late. I’ll be a laughingstock, although I can bear that. I just don’t want you dragged down with me.”

Belinda could hardly believe what she was hearing. How could she be so unlucky in love? She’d already lost one suitor and was about to lose a second. Even worse, the latter was the man who’d won both her mind and her body, treating her to bursts of ecstasy surpassing all imagining.

She blinked back a tear. This was no time for weakness.

“So, how did Charlotte find out about us?”

“From the publishing of the banns, I presume. Someone who knew about her previous relationship with me must have told her. It seems more people know about my private arrangements than I realized.”

“I don’t want to lose you, Piers, but neither do I want to be the agent of you losing your son—again. But I won’t give you up without a fight. You can use Tom Haggar—I won’t complain that you’re corrupting him—or Roland to help with finding Oliver. I’ll talk to Caroline and see if there’s anybody at the Lyon’s Den who can help us.”

“What if it’s somebody at the Lyon’s Den who’s in league with Charlotte? Not the proprietor, of course—nor any of her staff—but there are poor players who often lose at the tables and like nothing better than to plot the downfall of their rivals.” He shrugged his shoulders and gazed at her helplessly. “I just don’t know, Belinda. But however it came about, we cannot change the fact that Charlotte knows about us and is determined to break us apart. I’m so angry, I could renounce both her and the boy.”