Everything I Ever Wanted (45 page)

"Of course." He cooled his heels in India's bedchamber while she situated his mother in the adjoining room. Looking around, he made a note that she would need more coals this evening and fresh linens in the morning. An exchange of the books he had brought her also seemed to be in order. He stopped thumbing through the pages of a historical novel when India reentered the room. He set it down with the others on her bedside table. "You are looking well this evening, India."

She went immediately to the heart of the matter. "Your mother is not."

Margrave cocked an eyebrow at her. "Is this what you wish to discuss? My mother?"

'"You are making her insensible with your opiates, my lord. I am afraid you will do her irreparable harm if you do not give her respite."

"Obviously, the same cannot be said of you. You would do well to proceed cautiously, India. I have no liking for these challenges."

India knew it was a risk to broach the subject with him, yet she could not watch Margrave make an addict of his own mother without saying a word. She held her tongue now because pressing her point could only go badly for her.

Margrave smiled thinly when India made no reply. He raised his hand and touched the side of her face, brushing back a tendril of pale hair and tucking it behind her ear. "You do well to keep your thoughts to yourself. I think I know best how to deal with Mother. Go now. Entertain her for a few hours. I will return then with your coals, and mayhap we will work on our new painting. I have some ideas, India, that I think you will like."

It required considerable effort not to blanch. It was knowing how much that reaction would satisfy Margrave that helped India not to give in to it. She merely inclined her head instead. There was nothing about the gesture that granted permission. It was intended only to acknowledge that she had heard him.

Margrave understood the difference. He let his hand fall away from her face. "Enjoy your time with Mother," he told her.

India watched him go, waiting until the key was turned in the lock and his footsteps receded before she made her way to the adjoining sitting room. Lady Margrave was seated by the fire, her embroidery hoop in hand. She had yet to start a stitch. India dropped to her knees beside Lady Margrave's chair and placed her hand gently on the older woman's forearm. "Shall I start it for you?" she asked. "Perhaps if you watch"

With a rather grave air, Lady Margrave turned her head and looked down the length of her nose at India. "Have you none of your wits about you, my dear?" she asked. "I doubt we can succeed if I must think for the both of us."

India blinked. Her mouth parted, then snapped shut.

The dowager countess smiled faintly. "It is gratifying to know that I could persuade you of my incapacitation. I believe my son is similarly convinced, but I suspected you would be a harsher critic."

"Oh, no. You are in the wrong of it there. Margrave is the one you must prevail upon, and you have done so admirably."

"I think it helped that you were willing to speak to him on my behalf. He is not used to you being my champion."

India stood, uncertain of Lady Margrave's meaning. "I have never spoken ill of you to your son."

Lady Margrave's dark eyes became a shade pensive."No, of course you have not," she said softly. "That has never been your way. I suspect you have, in fact, spoken very little of me."

"That is true."

The countess nodded, expecting no other response. She put aside the embroidery hoop. "I dislike needlework, you know. I always have. I find that its effect on me is quite the opposite of what one hopes for. Restive rather than restful." She paused and indicated the chair opposite her. "Is it the same for you?"

"No, my lady." India lowered herself into the wing chair but did not push herself deeply into it. She sat perched on the edge, her hands folded quietly in her lap. "Needlework relaxes and clears my mind."

Lady Margrave's sigh had a wistful quality. "We really have so little in common."

India said nothing. It seemed the countess made the observation in the manner of one speaking to herself rather than with the expectation of a reply from her companion.

"Do you think he's listening?" the countess asked suddenly. Her eyes darted toward the door.

"No," India said."I would have stopped you at the outset if I thought we would be overheard. Margrave is gone." She saw Lady Margrave's slight shoulders relax. "How is it that you've managed to avoid taking the opium?"

"I know you were not hopeful that I heard anything you said to me on my previous visits, but that I am in command of my faculties is proof that I did. Your words came back to me at odd moments, often just as I was waking or preparing to close my eyes for sleep. And when I sat down to take the meal Allen brought me, it was your voice inside my head telling me to eat and drink sparingly. I have hidden my food when I could and purged myself when my son left me no other choice."

India nodded. She had also purged following a visit from Margrave in which he joined her for the entire meal. The difficulty was hiding the evidence of her sickness. Her concern for Lady Margrave was more basic, however. The countess's face was thinner than it had been only a week earlier. "Are you receiving enough nourishment? Weakness may be as debilitating as Margrave's tinctures."

"I am fine," she said stoutly. "Can you say the same?" Before India could answer, Lady Margrave held up her hand. "No, I can see very well that you cannot. Those shadows beneath your eyes are very real, my dear, and that dress hangs perfectly dreadfully from your shoulders. Has Allen commented?"

"No."

"How like him. He sees only what he wishes to see. You could lie abed three days without moving before it would occur to him that you were dead."

India's brows rose at her ladyship's plain speaking and dark humor.

"I have shocked you," Lady Margrave said.

"No that is, I am not used" India surrendered the truth."Yes, you have shocked me. I have never been certain how well you understand Margrave's attachment to me."

"I imagine I understand it far better than you. Certainly I understand it differently." She shook her head slightly when she saw India would raise a question. "We cannot know how much time we have. Tell me what plan you have to remove us from here."

"Do you have the ear of any of the staff?"

"No longer. I have spoken to my steward, Mr. Leeds, on but two occasions since Allen's arrival. Once, to dismiss more than half the servants at Marlhaven, and a second time to make arrangements for the restoration of a handful of positions. Neither time was I permitted to be alone with him." Lady Margrave touched her hair a trifle self-consciously. "I was forced to dismiss even my personal maid. My son will not hear of her returning to my service."

India sighed. "He told me I could not depend upon the servants to come to my aid, but I thought he meant only that he intended to keep them from me. I had no idea he had taken steps to reduce their numbers. The estate cannot possibly be managed."

"I have told him as much. Mr. Leeds said the same, of course, but he could not make too fine a point of it. He knows Allen would have pressed me to let him go as well." Lady Margrave's fingertips dug into the arms of her chair, but her voice remained steady. "My son has never had the least concern for Marlhaven. He has always been content to allow me to manage this home and Merrimont and to take his living from the profits of the two estates. Mr. Leeds will do what he can to make certain the tenants are assisted and the house does not collapse over our heads. It is a daunting task, but there are those retainers I believe he can depend upon for support."

"Mrs. Hoover in the kitchen," India said.

"Yes. And Mrs. Billings, my housekeeper. Smythson has always been reliable. He still oversees many things."

"Why have none of them come to your aid? Or sought help on your behalf?" Both questions had plagued India, but on the few occasions she had had opportunity to ask them, Lady Margrave was in no condition to supply the answers.

"Because they are afraid of my son," she said simply. "Not entirely for what he might do to them, but for what they fear he might do to me."

India waited because for a moment it looked as if the dowager countess might say more. It was only when Lady Margrave cleared her throat that India went on. "Since it appears there is no means to get a message out and no reason to suppose we could rely on their assistance if we did, it remains for you and me to manage the thing ourselves."

"I am in complete agreement."

"You understand we will have but one opportunity. If we fail, Margrave will never permit us to be together again. He is most suspicious of me plotting my escape, and I must justify my every thought to him."

"I understand."

"I doubt we can accomplish our escape without injury to Margrave. I must know I can depend upon your resolve."

The dowager countess said nothing for a time. Her fingers bit more deeply into the damask chair covering; her face remained a mask. "This injury?" she asked finally. "It will not be fatal?"

India's eyes widened. "No! Never. I could not"

Lady Margrave leaned forward and patted the back of India's hand. "It's all right. I needed to be certain and now I am. You have never lacked for heart the way my son has." She sat back and lifted her chin a fraction."I can do whatever you require."

"I require only that you distract him. I must have time to retrieve my weapon."

"Your weapon?"

"I have pried loose a floorboard from under my bed. It will serve, I believe."

Lady Margrave took a deep breath and released it slowly. Now she was the one to take India's measure. "You must hit him squarely."

"I know."

"You make me afraid for you. He will beat you soundly if you do not succeed."

"He has never beaten me."

"You have never tried to hurt him. Not physically."

India could not restrain her shudder. She reached behind her and removed her shawl from where it lay across the back of the chair. Placing it around her shoulders, she asked, "And you? What will he do to you?"

"Do not concern yourself with me. Whatever he does, the blame for it cannot be laid at your feet."

"But"

"I mean it, Diana. You should not think beyond what you must do to succeed. How much longer do you suppose we can survive in these apartments without going mad? We should be no different than Allen then. Could you bear that? God help me. I still love my son, but I could not bear to be like him."

India shook her head. "I could not, either."

Lady Margrave came to her feet, her hands clasped together. There was a gentle rippling movement in the bombazine fabric of her dark-plum gown as she took a step toward the fireplace. She stared at the flames, unable to face India directly and pose her question. "Do you blame me?" she asked quietly.

"Blame you?"

The countess raised her hands almost helplessly. "For what he is. For what he has become."

"No," India said. "Not for that."

"Then what?"

"It cannot be important now."

"I would not have asked if I did not want to hear the answer."

India hesitated. "I was your ward. I thought you would have done more to protect me."

"I sent you to the Olmsteads."

"He followed me."

"I supported you in London."

"You paid me to watch over him."

"I did not know how to keep him at Marlhaven."

"He showed you some of his paintings."

The countess nodded. Her knuckles whitened as she pressed her hands together. "They terrified me."

"And yet you were no part of them. I was the one he made pose. Can you begin to imagine how it was for me?"

"I have always tried not to."

Her reply had the power to make India's breath catch at the back of her throat. "Did you think so little of me or love him so very much?"

"You do not understand."

"No," India said. "I do not. I never have."

"And I cannot explain it to you."

India was struck by the weariness framing the countess's words. There was an edge of defeat in her tone, and the look of it in her slumped shoulders and bowed head. India accepted that she would learn no more. "Perhaps we should apply ourselves to our needlepoint," she suggested. "Margrave will want to know how we passed our time together."

Lady Margrave nodded and returned to her seat. She picked up the embroidery hoop and examined her stitches. Her nostrils flared slightly as she vented her disgust with a heavy sigh. Still, she plucked the needle from where she'd left it in the taut fabric and made a neat stitch. The proof that she found no pleasure in it was in the line of her tightly clamped jaw and the muscle that twitched in her cheek.

They worked in silence for several long minutes before Lady Margrave said, "Will you want to make our escape tonight?"

"I think we must."

"Do you have the strength for it?" the countess asked. "I could not help but notice that you were unsteady on your feet earlier."