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  Lujan's wife.

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  The phrase still rang strangely in Jancie's ears. On top of that, for all her bluster and bravado about taking charge, there wasn't anything she really wanted to change.

  "It will be myself and Mr. Kyger for dinner," she said finally. "Mr. Lujan had business in town."

  The housekeeper bowed. "As you say, madam," and Jancie knew she knew exactly what Lujan was about.

  Well, there was time enough to deal with that. First, she had to acclimate herself to Waybury. And—while Lujan and Hugo were so far away—she had carte blanche to search the house for all those long-ago answers.

  She sat in the sun-warmed library and wrote to Edmund:

  You have never made any overt demands upon me since I came to Waybury. And yet I feel it incumbent on me to represent your interests here because I have always thought this is what you most wanted: to find out the truth about Hugo and what happened that day so long ago. This is not an enviable task. There has never been anything obvious in the way Hugo has lived or any ostentation in the house that would speak to his having the reserves to sustain any sort of lavish living. And so I hoped I had made this clear to you over the last two years.

  Olivia always told me the house and what money they had came from her family, and I had no reason to disbelieve her. But the singular fact that all three of the Galliard men wished to marry me, a virtual nobody, gave me much to think about since my wedding. Apart from both Hugo and Lujan wishing for an heir, and Lujan s fierce determination to share nothing with anyone, there is no other clear reason for either of them to have wanted this union. And yet, here I am, married to Lujan and thinking that perhaps it is enough that I have attained the station and the comforts you have always wished for me, and any pursuit of the past would be of little value at this point.

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  No, that wouldn't do. The truth was, Edmund would never rest until he knew everything, including what had happened to the Kaamberoo diamonds, and he had hung his scoundrel of an amoral partner by his boots.

  She knew it. She tore up the letter in disgust. She had wanted everything settled, but when she had the first chance to really investigate the possibilities, she only wanted to worm her way out.

  What was wrong with her? Her father's unspoken objective had always been hers, from the moment he had located Hugo and asked for his help, and his expectation had always been that Jancie would somehow descend upon Waybury, gain the trust of the Galliards, and find a way to insinuate herself into the family and somehow find out all their secrets.

  Could he even have conceived of her marrying Lujan? That was a true roll of the dice. Even more so, Hugo's coming up with the idea of bringing her to Waybury to help Olivia.

  Well, it mattered not. Lujan was out of the picture as of now. She wouldn't think about him for one minute more.

  She had the perfect, longed-for opportunity: a near-empty house, and the authority to poke around as she would. Now that her senses weren't befuddled by Lujan. Now that she could see clearly. Now that she could think, and the trail was so cold it was frozen in time.

  It didn't matter—her father's objective must be served and she had to take advantage of every moment she was alone in the house. And she would be alone—a lot. Kyger would stay as far away from her as possible as well.

  There was only Emily, her one true companion. But where was Emily? Yes—she'd scooted under Hugo's bed when Mrs. Ancrum arrived. She didn't have to go find her—Emily would show up.

  But Emily had been so insistent when they were searching Hugo's room. Why? Maybe it was time to find out.

  Slowly Jancie mounted the steps to the bedroom floor. She hadn't intended to continue her search today, but she felt so restless, so alone. There was hardly anything for a body to do during the day— the house obviously would run smoothly without her direction. She had only to wait for the dressmaker, read a book, or take up embroidery, a tuition-girl talent she had never had the patience to learn.

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  She was excellent at peeling potatoes, however, but they had no need of an erstwhile kitchen girl in the kitchen.

  Why did she still feel like a kitchen girl?

  She opened the door to Hugo's room.

  "Emily?"

  Meuw . .. Emily was curled up on the bed. Oww. She stretched out a paw, and then rose up on all fours and jumped off the bed.

  Mrooww. She looked at Jancie. Well?

  "Show me," Jancie commanded.

  M'owww. Not here.

  "Where?"

  Owww. Hungry.

  Jancie felt deflated. Emily couldn't know all the secrets of the world, though sometimes Jancie thought she did. But all of it was really a function of her own loneliness and imagination.

  There was nothing in Hugo's room.

  Nothing anywhere. Lujan was gone, Kyger was hiding, and Emily was the only one in this world who loved her.

  She spent the rest of the day in the library, reading. She waited for Kyger to return. For the dressmaker to arrive.

  Nobody came. And in the end, she dined alone in the big dining room with the long shadows, and the even longer, empty table.

  Emily sat at her feet, a warm, comforting presence, taking nips of meat from her hand.

  She felt a fierce determination sweep through her like fire: she was not a dirty girl anymore—she couldn't ever let that sensibility overwhelm her again. She was mistress of Way bury, she was married and proper, and she had every right in this house, every right as Lujan's wife whether he was here or not.

  She hated the fact that he had bolted at the first mention of love. Something like that killed love. It made other considerations come to the forefront. Their shared past. Why he had even married her. Hugo's secrets. Her curiosity about the long-missing third brother. And most of all, that she would have no hesitation at all in pursuing her secret desire to recover everything that Hugo had taken from her father and her.

  ***

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  Kyger made it a point to come down to breakfast early the next morning so he would not see Jancie.

  It was too hard; her pain, her newlywed naivete, were too crushing to watch. He felt like a stranger witnessing her distress from outside the picture, unable to offer aid or succor.

  But that feeling did not begin to mirror how he really felt. He would rather have taken her away in a grand, romantic gesture, even if she didn't want romance from him.

  But she was Lujan's now. Untouchable. Unbearable even to envision her and Lujan in bed. So much simpler to step back, to take the easier choice of seeing her as little as possible so he didn't have to watch her slow disintegration from happy, confident bride to abused and abandoned wife.

  It was time for him go, anyway. The advent of Jancie only emphasized the fact that this was not his home, his land, his responsibility, and he had allowed both Lujan and his father to take advantage of his desire to prove himself worthy.

  But worthy of what? None of this could ever be his, and all he really had done was allow Lujan to follow his own heedless, dissolute course, and his father not to have to make any decisions while he pulled the purse strings and pulled the rug out from under him time and again on estate matters.

  Time to go. Why should Lujan have all the fun whoring around London? Time for him to face his responsibilities.

  Leave Jancie—to Lujan?

  God, he couldn't. Lujan would never come here now that he'd shot his wad in Jancie. If there were a child, he'd consider that it was her problem—and that was about as much interest as he would take in it. If it were a girl—he'd never come home.

  Hell. How could he leave Jancie to that?

  Shit. He almost wished she'd never come.

  He poured a cup of tea and went to the window where the long, sunny view across the front lawns almost always refreshed him. It was a beautiful piece of property, and how his father had come by it, he was never quite able to determine, just as he could n
ever quite believe Olivia's declaration that Waybury had come to them through her family.

  There were too many mysteries surrounding them, and it had

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  gotten worse after Gaunt had so mysteriously disappeared. Hugo became even more withdrawn, and Olivia was deep in grief for years.

  He supposed that was when he had taken over, although the exact moment was lost in time—maybe when he was thirteen or so, and bit by bit offering to do this and that until, when he reached his majority, both Hugo and Lujan had been perfectly content to leave everything in his hands.

  And he'd relished the role of family savior.

  Only he hadn't been able to save Gaunt. Or Olivia. Or Jancie. And maybe not even himself . . .

  "Good morning, Kyger."

  He wheeled around at the sound of her voice. Her strong, brisk, take-charge voice.

  He didn't know what to say to her. I'm thinking of leaving. Lujan and the estate matters are ail now in your hands ... God...

  "Jancie. I had hoped not to disturb you."

  "I am no longer disturbed," she said flatly, seating herself. Kyger shot her a look, poured the tea, and took the opposite seat. There was something in her voice, something dangerous and not to be trifled with.

  "Jancie—"

  "Truly, Kyger. I'm fine. I'm thinking life here without Lujan will be quite delightful." She emphatically bit into a piece of toast. "As a matter of fact, I'm expecting the dressmaker today."

  He eyed her suspiciously. This was too fast a recovery from the humiliation of Lujan's leaving her. A too-easy coming-to-terms with Lujan's true nature. She ought to be more demanding, he thought; she ought not to let him do as he wished on his will-o-whim. She ought to send an armed guard after him. She ought not to cave in.

  But that would not be his problem once he left.

  "Tell me about Gaunt," she said suddenly.

  Her question caught him off balance. "What about him?" he said sharply. "What brings this up now?"

  "Mrs. Ancrum and I were taking stock in Olivia's room—it just came up in the course of conversation . . ."

  "It was horrible. It was just as you were told. We were play-

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  ing, he disappeared, he was never found. It went on for months until they couldn't think of another thing to do. Why?"

  "I don't know. Had you always lived here?"

  "I was born here. Why the questions, Jancie?"

  Because I'm my father's daughter, she was tempted to say, but it occurred to her almost immediately that they didn't see her in that role anymore. That Edmund was a factor in their lives was wholly out of the picture once they had accepted her into the family, and she could have come from thin air like some guardian angel, for all they remembered she was Edmund's daughter.

  She shrugged. "Just curious. Do you remember Gaunt at all?"

  "Vaguely, now. I couldn't have been more than five or six when he went missing. There might be a photograph or a portrait somewhere—I think Mother put everything away after."

  "Yet she was thinking of him at the very moment she died."

  God, why was she after knowing about this? "Yes, she was. You're thinking she saw him as she left us?" It would just be the kind of insane, spiritualistic thing a woman would think.

  "You don't believe that kind of thing, do you?" Jancie said, almost as if she had read his mind.

  Kyger sighed. "Olivia was tempted to have a seance to try to contact him, but that would have meant admitting he was really gone—dead. Never to return. So who knows what happens at the last moment of one's life, anyway? She's at peace, and I hope she's with him just because I'd rather think that than that she—and he—are cold and alone."

  "I see," Jancie murmured.

  He didn't—it was just the most odd conversation to have, and he'd given her more than he'd ever said about Gaunt to his parents or to Lujan, of a time when he and Lujan had been as inseparable as twins.

  When had that ended? When Lujan discovered what a boy's nether part was made for, and when Hugo let him run amok?

  "I couldn't touch Olivia's room," Jancie whispered. "I felt her presence there yesterday. Do you ever go in there?"

  "No. I don't want to. And I have too much work to do, and this is one day I'm thinking none of it is my responsibility. I'm strongly thinking that you should start looking around to hire

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  someone to take my place. And that's all I'm thinking about right now."

  He slammed his cup down, an unusually emotional gesture from him, and he didn't know quite why he was so irritated. All that talk of Gaunt. Gouging old wounds that had set the family off on divergent paths so they never became a cohesive whole again.

  He tried not to think about it: how he'd missed Lujan; how they'd needed their father, who had wholly abrogated ah responsibility toward his sons; Olivia's death. And now, Lujan's misplaced reasons for marrying Jancie. His unforgivable treatment of her.

  Everything had escalated after she'd come—he'd never understood why Hugo had even wanted her here, or why she had chosen to stay. Why she'd married Lujan. Why she was picking at old wounds.

  Except—hell, what else had she to do? Maybe she was pregnant.

  Maybe he should just get the hell away.

  He pushed away from the table without another word, and Jancie watched in perplexity as he stalked out of the room.

  Just like yesterday, she thought with a curious and removed objectivity. This incursion into his past was instructive. None of them wanted to talk about it, and they utterly closeted themselves away when it was brought up. Witness how abruptly Kyger had answered her questions and then just stamped out of the room.

  Why?

  Ow. Emily jumped up onto the table. We have work to do.

  "Indeed," Jancie murmured. Because it sounded to her like they did have something to hide.

  ******************

  . . . wife cunt. . .

  The memory, the ache, pounded insistently in his head, his throbbing penis.. . . wife cunt. He needed it, he craved it—nothing else would do ... he had only to reach across the bed , ..

  Something was wrong. The bed was hard, Jancie wasn't there, his head felt like it was primed to explode, and there was bright light blaring behind his eyes.

  Oh God—he groped around, trying to gauge where he was— and knocked over something that shattered. Glass. The brandy

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  snifter. Shit... at the table. How many snifters of brandy had he topped off after Hugo left and before he'd fallen asleep? God, that meant Hugo really was in London, had really been here, really screwing around just as he'd said.

  Damn. Fuck.

  He lifted his head, and immediately swooned with dizziness. "HEY!! Servant!!" What was his name? "YOU—ATTENDANT—" He couldn't think. His erection was painful, needy. His head felt like a bomb . . . What was that son of a bitch's name?

  Someone stepped into the room.

  "I need wife cunt," Lujan muttered, his words slurred. "Get me wife cunt."

  "Yes, sir."

  "Gotta .. . gonna . . ." He couldn't even find a sense of himself in the words, in the hands that lifted him and pulled him to his feet. "... Wife cunt—nothing like it—virgin, you know—didn't have to marry her . . . now can't, don't want. .. wife ..." And he slumped to the floor.

  When he awakened again, it was because he was aware of a different scent, a lulling sway, and a forward motion.

  He moved his hand, and immediately deduced he was prone against the leather squabs in his most comfortable carriage.

  He inched open one eye. The servant—March, he remembered suddenly, because his head was finally clear and unfuddled—was seated across from him, gazing with marked attention at the countryside.

  Brave man.

  Smart man, not to look him in the eye.

  He himself was dressed for travel, and he became quickly aware that the carriage was moving through the city str
eets at a brisk clip.

  He opened his other eye. Yes, it was March, so his brain was still functioning after his bout with the brandy, and he had a good guess as to where the carriage was heading.

  Stupid fool, he. Had he been rumbling on about HER? God, you couldn't even trust a servant to see to your best interests these days. The man had taken his drunken ravings literally.

  The fool reallv thought he wanted the bitch . . .

  Shit.

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  Except—this wasn't the road to Waybury—and after a moment he had a fairly good idea where they were headed-—to the most exclusive brothel in the whole of England, where they catered to every taste, every perversion, every sex, every age, every size.

  Bullhead Manor.

  He shuddered with pleasure just anticipating what awaited him there. It wasn't a place you walked into out of hand. There were precautions. Secret passwords. Vows signed in blood. The open hidden secret of a closed aristocratic society.

  He wasn't nearly wealthy enough to afford it, but it was just the thing he needed—he ached for—at the moment.

  He should reward March for his acuity—

  Nonsense. Any fool could have seen this was the right tack to have taken after last night. This was what your people were supposed to do—look after you, make decisions in your best interests. Remain unobtrusively in the background. Provide that which would assuage your every need.

  "Very perceptive of you, March," he murmured, keeping his voice pitched almost too low to hear.

  It was a test of March's awareness and investment in him. "My pleasure, sir," March said in kind.

  Lujan allowed himself a slight smile and closed his eyes.

  Exactly.

  ******************

  Jancie began her search of the house. The most obvious places had to be looked at first, even though they were the most obvious: under tables, in sofas cushions, behind paintings, under carpets for under-the-floorboard secret stashes, in urns and vases for oilskin-wrapped packages.