Page 21 of Unmasked by the Marquess
Of course Alistair recalled. He had been in his first year of Oxford and utterly mortified to learn that his father had established a household with the mistress and infant he had brought back from Italy. Mrs. Allenby and Amelia, of course.
Nivins blinked a few times, obviously hoping Alistair would speak and spare him the trouble of saying whatever words were on his tongue. “He could not, therefore, have been Miss Selby’s godfather,” the solicitor finally said.
Only decades of self-control and finely honed aristocratic restraint prevented Alistair from gasping. How could he not have realized this? Robin—goddammit,Robin—had told him his sister’s age. Why had Alistair not gone to the trouble of subtracting one sum from the other and arriving at the essential impossibility of the situation?
Robin had lied to him.
“I see,” Alistair said, his voice sounding as if it came from a great distance. “I daresay the Selbys were mistaken about the nature of their father’s connection with the late marquess. Thank you kindly for drawing my attention to the matter.”
Nivins patted the stack of papers he left on Alistair’s desk. “I’ll leave your father’s letters with you in case you wish to check for yourself—”
“No!” Alistair barked. “Take them with you.” He forced his voice into a cooler register. “As you said, I recall the events myself.”
Robin had lied. He was no better than any of the beggars and cheats who attempted to wring money and favors from the estate.
And Alistair should have known, he ought to have figured it out for himself. But he had been too caught up in their friendship—ha!—to apply rational thought to the matter.
There was, however faint, still the possibility that what he told Nivins was actually true. Perhaps Robin and his sister had been misled by their father.
He dismissed Nivins and called for a footman. “Get me Selby,” he said. “Bring him to me. Tell him it’s urgent.”
Charity ran nearly all the way, straining to keep up with the stride of the much taller footman. Had Pembroke taken ill? Why would the footman not tell her what was the matter? At Pembroke House, she slipped past the butler and ran up the stairs. He’d be in the library. He always was.
She found him, his back against the fireplace.
“Is everything all right?” she asked, out of breath. “Your footman said...” Her voice trailed off as she saw his face. He was furious, the kind of fury that was all the more terrifying for how tightly leashed it was. His fists were clenched, his jaw was tight. And his eyes—she had never seen them so cold, not even that first time she had been in this room. “No, I can tell things aren’t all right.” She took a step towards him. “Can I help?” Dare she hope that he had sent for her for the same reason she had come here the other night? For comfort, for friendship?
His icy glare checked her progress and she froze in place.
“My father was not your sister’s godfather, was he? You lied, did you not?”
She was momentarily stunned. Of all the lies she had told, it was bitterly absurd for that to be the one to cause her trouble. Charity had dim, childish memories of the late marquess visiting old Mr. Selby, even after Mr. Selby’s days of hunting and riding were long over. The marquess would sit at Mr. Selby’s bedside and play cards for farthing stakes. He had sent a ham after the funeral. Charity remembered slicing it while wearing a black armband, and giving the choicest bits to a teary Louisa. Saying that the marquess had been Louisa’s godfather was such a minor stretch of the truth as to hardly matter, at least in comparison to all the much greater and more dangerous lies she told.
She gripped the back of the nearest chair, if for no other reason than to give her something to do with her shaking hands.
“I lied,” she whispered. “Your father was not Louisa’s godfather.” She watched as his expression slipped momentarily from fury to sorrow, and then just as quickly back to fury.
“So. What was it you wanted from me?” His words were clipped and frigid monosyllables. “I assume you planned to blackmail me with the events of the other night?”
“No!” She had to gasp for air.
“How much do you want? Let us dispense with the preliminaries and proceed to that stage of the transaction.” His voice was a cold, sharp knife. “How can I buy your silence, Mr. Selby? And your future absence, I need not add.”
“It’s not like that,” she protested. “I would never blackmail you.” How could he think she had kissed him for such a purpose? She couldn’t bear to know that he thought of her in such a way.
“Do forgive me if I find it hard to trust your word. In my experience, liars lie. They lie about big things, they lie about little things. They lie even when there’s nothing to lie about. And you, Mr. Selby, are a liar. I have no doubt that you are also a blackmailer.”
“No,” she whispered, but even that was a lie. She had indeed gotten used to lying. Every day when she got dressed, when she left a calling card, when she let everyone around her believe she was someone she was not. It didn’t matter that she was coming to believe that the lie was more real than the truth.
Pembroke’s mouth was a rigid line. “You will have a draft on my bank for a thousand pounds. That ought to be enough to rid me of the pair of you.”
“I won’t take your money.” She couldn’t let him think she had set out to hurt him. The lie about his father being Louisa’s godfather was harmless. All her lies were harmless, unless you counted Maurice Clifton, and she would set that right as soon as she had a chance. “Everything that happened between us—I meant it all in earnest.” Without intending to, she darted a glance at the sofa.
His lip curled in revulsion. “Spare me the protests, Mr. Selby.”
He didn’t call her Robin. She felt that her heart would split in two. Behind his icy anger she could hear the pain in his voice and knew she had put it there. She had made him doubt their friendship. She couldn’t stand it.
But there was something she could do. There was one way she could convince him that she had not intended to blackmail him, at least.
