Lady Triumphs (The Black Rose Trilogy Book 3) Read online

  Serena swallowed a gasp at Prudence’s insight. Wisdom from my dear girl and a good lesson that nothing is missed in the world below of the world above. “Then the opal hair comb and pins, Pepper, and the matching bonnet.”

  Pepper added the hair ornaments and hat to her mistress’s black curls, the arrangement completing the image of a well-bred, refined English noblewoman. “There. Watch that those stone statues don’t come to life to bother you, for I swear you are that lovely!”

  Serena blushed. “It’s an innocent turn but thank you, Pepper. Now, enjoy your afternoon off.”

  Pepper gifted her with a saucy curtsey. “I will and without a moment wasted.”

  When she arrived at Lady Lylesforth’s to collect her friend, Serena was met with the unfortunate news that Harriett had come down with a terrible cold overnight and would not be able to accompany her. Serena sought assurance that a physician was in attendance and that there was nothing else she could do before deciding to face the day alone.

  “Is she not coming?” Her footman, Albert, asked.

  “No, so if you will plan on alighting with me at the museum, I would be grateful.”

  “Yes, Your Ladyship, with pleasure.”

  At the museum, she purchased the tickets and then savored the rare treat of a solitary stroll amidst the glorious splendor of Europe’s masters. Albert, or Bertie, trailed respectfully after her, an attendant only should she require one. Serena glanced back and smiled at the realization that the man was agog in awe, gaping at the paintings in wonder and a bit lost to the room’s treasures.

  I should bring Pepper. Fuss or no, she could stand with a bit of exposure to the finer things and it would do her some good to—

  “Lady Wellcott?”

  Serena turned, instantly recognizing the voice and awash in adrenalin at the surprise. “Sir Tillman, what an unexpected delight!” It wasn’t entirely a lie. It wasn’t unpleasant to see him but she truly hadn’t anticipated his presence and the tactical part of her mind reeled. There had been no word from her informants on Portman Square that the earl or his nephew would emerge before tomorrow night’s card game at Pellbrooks and not to see an exhibit on European masters’ oil paintings.

  “You do not have your elderly chaperone with you today?”

  “My elderly chaperone?” Serena blinked in surprise.

  “I haven’t met her but from Uncle Geoffrey’s description, she is quite fierce.” Adam replied. “I was already impressed with anyone who can make a grown man sulk and wished to thank her for it.”

  Serena smiled as Harriet had apparently rankled the earl into describing her like a crusted old biddy. She would omit arguments for Lady Lylesforth’s beauty only for the simple mischief it would provide when Adam did finally meet her. “She is home with a cold today but I will convey your gratitude, Sir Tillman. And you? Is Lord Trent not with you then?”

  Adam’s smile mirrored hers. “Uncle Geoffrey would rather submit to a beating than ten minutes in an art museum.”

  Relief flooded through her frame and her heart rate slowed accordingly. She was skilled at thinking on her feet but loathed surprises. “Surely he is not so bad as that, though I do recall him saying once that he was not fond of activities that dictated everyone would be looking at the walls and not at the splendor of his waistcoat.”

  “You know him remarkably well, Lady Wellcott.”

  Serena smiled. “No. I know him only as well as most and no better which hints that I know almost nothing of him. Your uncle is not as open as he seems.”

  They fell into step and strolled toward the next painting before stopping.

  “Do you mind if I ask you a question, Lady Wellcott?”

  “No. You may ask me anything you wish.”

  “What do you think of my uncle? I mean…are you fond of his person, Lady Wellcott?”

  She looked up at him. “Fond? I confess that particular question has me at a loss. Why do you ask such a thing?”

  Raven held her breath. Elaborate schemes were the work of fools. Suddenly she knew that simplicity would be her master and there would be no margin for error. She decided to be as honest as she could with Adam. She would make it clear that she was not in pursuit of him for a match, guaranteeing that his feelings were well clear of the looming battlefield.

  Even when his uncle was injured by his misperceptions and madness, Adam would remain intellectually free of the entanglements and would be better armed against his uncle’s unsubstantiated accusations.

  She knew what it felt like to be used in a scheme for revenge and had no desire to inflict it on another human being. She would guard Adam’s peace of mind if she could and see if Trent’s destruction couldn’t occur like an unforeseen bolt of lightning.

  Because she liked him too much already.

  The challenge would be to not like him more.

  “My uncle is…” Adam sighed. “He is a great admirer of yours.”

  She smiled but shook her head. “Perhaps in the way a person admires a Persian cat.”

  “I think there is more to it than that,” Adam said. “When he speaks of you…”

  “What has he told you of me?” she asked him directly.

  “Nothing of importance.”

  There was something in his tone that snagged at her attention and her steps slowed to a halt, forcing him to do the same and to face her. “Sir Tillman. I wish to know what he said, whether it is of consequence or not and the reason I have asked such a thing is that I am hopeful of your friendship and I demand honesty from my friends, sir.”

  “I think he meant to put me off which makes me wonder if he sees me as a rival for your affections.”

  “He sees every man breathing as a rival in this world, Sir Tillman. But how did he try to put you off?” Serena asked.

  “He indicated that you are—that the circumstances of your birth were not ideal.” Adam shifted his weight from one foot to the other, openly uncomfortable. “As I said, it is nothing of importance—not in my estimation, Lady Wellcott.”

  She smiled. “Then you are a unique soul in this cynical world, Sir Tillman.”

  “Uncle Geoffrey has demonstrated a certain resemblance to an old crone when it comes to any opportunity for gossip.” Adam swallowed in distaste. “That is if his speeches make any sense at all.”

  “Sir Tillman, for all his faults, I should be grateful to him for revealing what I would have considered an embarrassing admission. I was not the product of a sanctified marriage but I am not ashamed of my father, for he has been very generous to me. As my former guardian, Lord Trent, rarely hesitates to hint at his opinions regarding my limitations. I suspect he told you less to make a claim and more to guarantee that you saw my faults as well and didn’t waste your time on an undesirable creature.”

  “What?” It was Adam’s turn to stop in his tracks. “What did you just say about guardians?”

  “The Earl of Trent.” Serena tipped her head back to reply. “I was in your uncle’s care as a child for a few years until I came of age.” She took a small step back. “I…am so sorry, Sir Tillman. Was I too familiar and too quick to speak?”

  “No. There is nothing to apologize for. I just can’t believe he never mentioned—not to anyone that he even…had a ward.” Adam shook his head in disbelief.

  “He never informed his family of my existence?” Serena echoed his disbelief with a touch of her own. “All this time I assumed that he would have made a private show of his generosity but it makes more sense…”

  “Does it?”

  Serena swallowed. Of course it made sense to say nothing to his relatives if he’d truly meant to use her in a scheme and dispose of her in a marriage poisoned with his lies. If Warrick had strangled her on their wedding night, Trent would have danced a jig and publicly made a theatrical show of his shock and horror at the loss of his penniless orphaned ward. Years of isolation and having never met the earl’s family, yet she’d never really surmised how marginally she’d been placed on the b
oard.

  “Yes,” Serena replied and then attempted a smile. “It was a temporary arrangement, after all. I was a knobby kneed child and what difference in the greater scheme of things to a man like your uncle? Perhaps it is a sign of his better qualities to be so discreet and not to seek praise for his gesture.”

  “I’ve always imagined him rattling around Oakwell on his own, like a strange ghost.” Adam ran a hand through his hair, unsettling his curls. “God, what a twist!”

  She shook her head. “A small twist.”

  “I don’t understand. He spoke of you after the Drakes as if he had experienced a reunion but how is that possible? Would he not have kept in touch with you?”

  “No. Lord Trent does not subscribe to sentimental rituals. Once I was of age and my father offered to intervene in my care, it was made clear that I should not trouble the earl further. I have not seen or spoken to him in several years, and in light of his aversion to feminine correspondence, I have respectfully failed to send a single letter.”

  “My God!”

  Serena blinked as if confused. “Lord Trent never complained of my absence or silence, Sir Tillman. I hope do not judge me harshly for relinquishing etiquette without protest.”

  “It’s not you I judge. But how can a man be such a great part of a young girl’s life, nearly a parent, and then…be nothing?”

  “I was a charitable case. That is all.” She spoke openly, softening pain with a feminine smile. “The education he provided and experiences of Oakwell Manor made me the woman I am today, Sir Tillman. I am naturally grateful to Lord Trent for his generosity and he knows it. I told him as much at Drake’s.”

  “I’ll never comprehend him.”

  “Don’t try.” Serena glanced at a display of Egyptian funeral urns. “If I know anything of the earl, I know that he loathes looking back, even at people who may be part of that landscape. It would be useless vanity on my part to demand more of him or complain if I failed to stand out from his rose bushes.”

  Adam watched her, marveling at how calm and self-possessed she appeared. There was more to the story, but he had no desire to injure her with a hundred questions that would only confirm Uncle Geoffrey’s eccentric disregard. Her confession explained the strange possessive tone his uncle used when speaking of Lady Wellcott.

  “I’ve grown up with the man as a distant figure with as much familial affection as I might have for a stranger.” He pretended to read a placard about hieroglyphs and then cleared his throat. “Was my existence also kept a secret from you?”

  Silence answered him and Adam looked up to see her distress as she struggled to come up with phrasing that would spare him. The very notion that she would worry more about his own feelings than her own froze him in place.

  She shook her head. “Persian cats are lovely company but I’m sure the earl thought private information about his family wasn’t appropriate to—“

  “Don’t do that. Don’t defend him.”

  “Never.” She straightened her shoulders. “It is a fault of mine to speak as I find. So I will say, Sir Tillman, I’m glad we can be so honest with each other. You know the worst of me and what I alluded to at the ball. Perhaps you also feel some relief at all these revelations?”

  “Relief?”

  “That I told you the truth. That I am not another scheming woman in your path after your title or your inheritance. It is obvious why I am the last woman who would raise her hand to try to catch your attention or insinuate myself into your sphere but I am pleased to think that we can be friends all the same.”

  “Nothing is obvious beyond my confusion that there isn’t a trail of men following your every move, Lady Wellcott.”

  “I’ve dismissed them, Sir Tillman. The fortune hunters who are interested in my money enough to ignore my history will never win my heart. And for the sons of my father’s peers, I am disqualified by birth, no matter what my dear father has arranged.”

  “It’s a black mark you’ve overcome and if your popularity is any indication, then there’s no impediment to any match you desired.”

  She sighed. “I am accepted socially and have gained my standing because I have made it clear that I don’t desire a match. I am no threat to any matron, debutante or dowager and have managed my welcomes very carefully. If they saw me as a predatory interloper, it would all change.”

  “So you move among them and they allow it because you aren’t playing the game?” he asked softly.

  Something in her chest tightened but she kept her expression neutral. “Even so.

  That was quite a speech I made, wasn’t it?”

  He nodded. “I’m going to take a while to digest several of those points before I fully respond, Lady Wellcott.”

  “As you wish,” she conceded. “But for now, I want you to tell me how you would design a museum, if you had the commission or what innovations you would suggest for a modern home.”

  Holy Hell.

  They’d politely parted ways after finishing their stroll through the galleries, and he’d ignored civility and stared after her like a man watching the sails of a ship after being marooned.

  How is such a woman possible?

  She’d quoted philosophers and poets, known more about the paintings and artwork than the curator, yet never seemed overbearing in her opinions. She’d drawn him into an extensive conversation on the design of public spaces until he’d finally caught himself in the midst of an impassioned speech about light vectors and realized that he’d surrendered reason completely. Her footman was yawning ten paces behind her and Lady Serena Wellcott was nodding as enraptured as if he were spinning words into butterflies.

  He prided himself on being a practical man, grounded in the sciences and engineering but one afternoon with Lady Wellcott and he was a bemused fool.

  She’d been Uncle Geoffrey’s ward.

  A fact that Uncle Geoffrey hadn’t thought worth mentioning even as he’d vomited the truth about her illegitimate birth and made it clear that she was ‘off the table’.

  But nothing about Serena seemed unworthy and his uncle’s opinions were easily ignored. Hell, Uncle Geoffrey’s opinions weigh as much as a sneeze in my reckoning!

  But she’d proudly reinforced things by stating her ineligibility and disinterest in a match of any kind. She was a woman who offered him a friendship without strings and without a single promise or hint of more.

  Things should have been as clear as a pane of glass.

  But nothing was clear.

  He wanted to confront his uncle for an accounting of himself but something in him shied away from the notion. To what end? To confirm that the man is a heartless bastard? Or that he truly played the role of benevolent benefactor to a woman I wish him to have no part of—that I don’t want to share even in retrospect?

  If there’s a consolation it’s that she and I have more in common with our odd ties to Uncle Geoffrey and our common disregard for him than any differences.

  Adam shifted to walk back into the gallery, unwilling to return home.

  A woman like that would never give Uncle Geoffrey her hand.

  Unless…

  Unless his uncle thought to twist whatever gratitude he sensed a woman in her position should have into a misguided sense of loyalty or honor. Lady Serena Wellcott appeared long past such a gambit and far too independent to fall prey to that ploy but Adam struggled with a growing sense of unease.

  For there was something else at play and another element flowing underneath it all.

  His brow furrowed at the tangled storms of supposition that gathered inside him. A replica of the “Rape of the Sabine Women” didn’t add any calm to his spirit as he was confronted with a woman’s desperation frozen for all time in marble. The maiden’s hands were outstretched upward to an uncaring heaven against the horror of brutal male hands and Adam shuddered.

  The sight made him thankful to Providence that he wasn’t as vulnerable as a woman to the uncaring villainy of others. He tried to imagine
what Serena’s life would have held if his uncle hadn’t taken her into his protection. Even an indifferent guardian was better than the unshielded life of a woman alone in this world.

  It was too early to tell what his uncle’s intentions were toward Serena.

  But he suspected he knew his own.

  If Uncle Geoffrey tries to hurt her, then he will answer to me.

  Chapter Ten

  “Deuce!” Serena laid her cards out and clapped her hands. Her luck had held firm at the tables at Pellbrooks card party and she was secretly pleased. She’d meant to honestly and fairly lose a small fortune if the night required it, but instead some mischievous god of luck had alighted on her shoulder and she was basking in the sensation. She was also enjoying the cocoon of feminine respectability at her table. Harriet was still too unwell to accompany her and so Serena had improvised to ensure that there was no opportunity for aspersions to be cast on her character. Ursula was tentative in her wagers but Lady Hodge-Clarence added her gravitas to every hand if not any witty conversation.

  Ursula’s sister-in-law, a Mrs. Foxwood, tossed her cards down with an ungracious sigh. “If it were a game of skill, I should have a chance of winning! But this is a devil’s snare!”

  “Temperance!” Ursula chided her archly. “Not fifteen minutes ago you were boring me to tears with your excitement over this activity. I find it interesting that your enthusiasm wanes with your purse.”

  Temperance pressed her lips together so tightly they disappeared. “An unkind observation is hardly a comfort.”

  Serena smiled. “Perhaps the comfort is that luck is a fickle friend and may just as quickly delight you, Mrs. Foxwood, if you stay the course?” Serena leaned over slightly, “My beginner’s luck is the first to fade.”

  Temperance was unconvinced. She folded her arms, a humorless pout overtaking her already unattractive features. “Easy to smile when one is apparently the easy victor, but I am inclined to think there are better ways to spend an evening than this sinful pursuit.”

  Serena put her cards down gently. “What hobbies and entertainments do you prefer, Mrs. Foxwood?”