Marriage of Inconvenience (18 page)

“Why have you not told me this before?”

“Before I married, I thought my writing was the most important thing in my life. I was afraid if you found out about it, you might forbid me to continue and I would have been obliged to obey you.”

“Why would you think I would prohibit you from your clandestine writing?”

“I didn’t know you well enough to know how you would address such a situation.”

“You must believe me an ogre.”

She stared defiantly at him. “Actually, not until the last five minutes.”

“You said before you married, your writing was the most important thing in your life. What has changed?”

Her eyes filled with tears. Had it been a day earlier, such a sight would have fairly broken his heart, but not now. Now his sense of betrayal was so strong and his anger so potent, he could hardly stand to look at her.

“Now...” She started to sob and buried her face into her hands and finished her sentence between more sobbing. “Now you and your family—which I had begun to think of as
my
family—are what mean the most to me.”

He shook his head. “How can you expect me to believe anything you say?”

“Because I am telling you the truth. I swear to the Lord in heaven that I am not the one who betrayed you.”

He stalked off. He felt like taking a bruising ride.

The farther away he strode, the more her words intruded.
I swear to the Lord in heaven I am not the one who betrayed you.
Rebecca would never take the Lord’s name for a falsehood. That much he
did
know about her.

Which made him feel even lower. Sweet heavens, had he falsely accused her? Was it possible someone else had betrayed him?

Chapter Seventeen

H
er body racked with tears, Rebecca raced up the stairs. She prayed she would make it to her chamber before one of the children saw her, but at the landing she nearly collided with Emily.

“Whatever is the matter?” Emily asked, her eyes wide with surprise as they followed Rebecca.

Incapable of responding, her stepmother merely shook her head and quickened her pace until she reached her bedchamber. There, she locked the door behind her and flung herself upon her bed for a good cry.

She had never experienced such a mixture of emotions in her entire eight and twenty years. Her initial boiling anger simmered into a numbing sorrow. How could she be mad at John when she had deceived him through omission since the day they had married? She should have been completely honest with him. Now she was paying for her deception with a heart that felt as if it were surely being strangled of its budding life.

That he was so quick to blame her for betraying him wounded her excessively. How could he not understand that she would never do anything to hurt him? Could he not see that she was in love with him?

Love.
Poets and philosophers had dipped their pens in the blood wrung from wounded hearts for centuries. It had taken her almost three decades to understand that kind of love. Now she felt the gnawing loss and aching love for John Compton, the Earl of Aynsley.

For just a moment the night before, she had thought John looked at her with love shining in his eyes. For those fleeting seconds she had felt that deep connection that had always bound her to him; she had felt that he returned her love in full measure.

But had he loved her, he would not have been so quick to condemn her. She did not know which hurt the most—the loss of his love or never having possessed it in the first place. She did know she had never felt more wretched in her life.

She lay there on her bed, thinking about the disclosure to the
Morning Chronicle.
Lord Sethbridge must have done so in order to undermine John’s efforts on behalf of franchise expansion during the next year. The peer had always been opposed to granting the vote to the lower classes. By releasing terms of his agreement with John, he was sure to rally most of the other peers to act against her husband.

Had John been able to approach them in his own way and in his own time, he would have had a good likelihood of changing their positions on the matter.

But now all was lost.

And he blamed her.

Her tears gave way to anger. After she dried her tears, she left her bed and went to her basin to splash cool water over her eyelids.

He may not want her for his wife. His children might not want her for their mother. But, whether they liked it or not, she was the Countess Aynsley, legally wed in a Christian ceremony in which she recited vows she intended to keep.

She was meeting with Mrs. Cotton this morning to go over the account books, and she had made plans to take Uncle Ethelbert for a walk this afternoon. She had no time to dwell on her pitiably bruised heart.

* * *

After she walked Uncle Ethelbert that afternoon, she went to the nursery to check on Chuckie. Beaver was sitting in a chair knitting while Chuckie was lying on the wooden floor with his tin soldiers. But he was not playing with them. He looked incredibly lethargic.

She addressed the nurse. “Chuckie doesn’t look well.”

“I’ll grant you, this laddie with not a drop of energy is not our Chuckie. I daresay it will take a few days for his good health to return.”

Chuckie sat up and offered Rebecca a smile. “Hello, Mother.”

“Hello, my sweet. How do you feel?”

“I can’t undersplain it.”

Undersplain!
Leave it to a child to be so creative with language. “I know, my lamb. Is there something you’d like to do now? Something fun, perhaps?”

Puffy pouches underscored his eyes. “I feel like being in your big bed with the curtains around it. But not alone.”

“Oh, I see, you want me to stay with you.”

He gave her a forlorn nod.

The little boy knew exactly how to get whatever he wanted from her. She was powerless to resist his slightest request. “All right, you little goose. Come on.”

Even his step was lethargic as he came to her. “Can you carry me?” He looked up at her with those big blue eyes, and she could not sweep him into her arms fast enough.

But as she lifted him into her arms, she became alarmed. His fever had returned. She turned to Beaver. “Did you know Chuckie’s fever’s come back?”

The nurse’s face fell. “I did not. Why didn’t you tell Beaver, laddie?”

Chuckie, his arms encircling Rebecca’s neck, shrugged.

Instead of going to her bedchamber, Rebecca went to the library in the hopes her husband was there. She knew he wouldn’t want to see her or talk to her, but this was not about them. This was about a sick little boy whom they both loved.

When she opened the library door and saw her husband sitting behind his desk, she did not know if she was glad to see him or not. Had he not been there she would have demanded that a groom or footman or some such servant go seek the physician. Now she would have to abide by her husband’s decision.

Their eyes met and held for a moment. Until today she would not have thought him capable of so cold a look. She was totally unprepared for how hurtful it was. “Yes?” he asked, not disguising his displeasure.

“I want to send for the physician. Chuckie’s fever has returned.”

Her husband’s gaze darted to his son. “The lad’s too old to be carried around like a baby.”

Now Aynsley got her anger riled! “He happens to be our baby, and if being carried makes him feel better, then I am most happy to placate him.”

“What’s the matter, lad?” Her husband’s voice had gentled.

Chuckie shrugged again. “I can’t undersplain.”

She kissed the top of his blond head. “The fever has sapped away all his energy.”

“I’ll send for the physician.” He glared at her. “Will there be anything else?” His voice was dismissive.

“Nothing at all.”

When she reached the door, he said, “By the way, I’ve found some of your letters in this top drawer. Should you like them?”

What letters? Then she remembered she’d put a couple of his letters there. “Yes, I should.”

He brought them to her.

In her bedchamber, she tucked Chuckie into the bed and gathered the curtains around it. Bringing her lap desk, pen and paper and the letters John had just given her, she joined him. She planned to write letters while Chuckie napped.

But first she would reread the letters John had written to her when he was in London—letters written when he felt more kindly toward her.

As she unfolded the first, she wondered if he had read them over again when he’d found them in his desk drawer. One really should not leave personal letters lying about. What if he had written something intimate? Or what if...sweet heavens! What if someone read about the secret only three of them knew—the pact formed between John and Lord Sethbridge?

She quickly found the place in the letter in which he referred to the secret only three of them knew. In that fleeting second, she knew without a doubt that Emily had read the letters. The knowledge was like a blow to her windpipe. Emily wanted to do something that would reflect so badly upon Rebecca that John might banish her to another of his properties.

The very suspicion made her feel wretchedly guilty. Emily could be perfectly innocent. Lord Sethbridge could easily have alerted the
Morning Chronicle,
but the powerful peer did have his hands full with current legislation. It stretched credibility to imagine him already focusing on next year’s session. And, besides, the
Morning Chronicle
was a Whig newspaper. Were Lord Sethbridge going to release information, wouldn’t he have used his influence with
The Times
instead?

The more she thought about it, the more convinced she became that Emily had been the
Morning Chronicle
’s
informant. How could the girl hate her so much? Rebecca had never directed a single mean-spirited word, thought or action against Emily. Yet Emily hated her so much she was willing to work against her own father in the hopes of ridding Dunton Hall of her father’s wife.

Tears pricked at her eyes as she began to recite the often-recited passage from Matthew.
Bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you.

Please, God, rid me of this anger I feel toward Emily now. Help me to love her as I love Chuckie and Alex and Spencer.

And please don’t let me cry in front of Chuckie!

She looked down at him. He was fast asleep, his hair moist around his temples.

She thought of telling John her suspicions about Emily, but knew she could not. She would have to confront the girl first. But would someone so poisoned even admit to such an action? And what would be accomplished if she did find out the truth? Did she really want John to transfer his wrath to his only daughter? Did she want to be the instrument that came between him and his daughter?

Sometimes truth was more damaging than silence. She came to the anguishing decision she would remain silent. If John was not inclined to trust in her, then he wasn’t the husband she had fallen in love with.

Either way, she hurt like she had never hurt.

Once she finished reading over her husband’s letters, she took up her pen to write to Verity. As she was completing a nice, long letter, there was a knock at her door. “Come in,” she said, widening the opening in the bed curtains and beginning to climb off the bed.

John, accompanied by another man, stood in her doorway. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you,” he snapped. “Is Chuckie still with you?”

“He’s fast asleep in my bed. For some peculiar reason, he’s formed a most sincere attachment to my bed.”

Her husband nodded. “I’ve brought the physician, Mr. Mostyn.”

“How do you do?” she asked, peering at the surprisingly well-dressed physician who appeared closer to her age than to John’s. Because the fair-complexioned man was so gaunt and thin, it was difficult to imagine him being the vehicle to restore one to good health.

Mr. Mostyn bowed. “Let’s take a look at the lad.”

The child was sleeping so soundly he had slept through their conversation and had to be awakened by the physician.

Rebecca stood next to Mr. Mostyn so that Chuckie would see her and not be frightened by awaking to a strange man standing over him.

There was a frightened look on Chuckie’s face when he looked up and saw Mr. Mostyn. Rebecca offered a wan smile. “Mr. Mostyn’s come to get you well, my love.” It saddened her that he was so listless he had made no effort to sit.

The physician examined him and proclaimed that Chuckie had inflamed glands in his throat and that administering aqua cordials would reduce the fever and promote sleep. “I’ll come back tomorrow and have another look at him.”

She nodded, then met her husband’s gaze. “If anyone should need me, I’ll be here. Chuckie doesn’t like to be alone.”

“If you need someone to relieve you, you can send for me.”

“If you don’t mind, I’ll just have a tray sent up at dinner.” She glanced toward the bed. “Make that two. I hope I can get him to eat.”

* * *

Aynsley saw the doctor to the door, making small talk with him while all the time his thoughts were on Rebecca. No matter how cruelly she had betrayed him, he felt ashamed of himself for the beastly way he was treating her.

Now that he’d had several hours to cool his boiling blood, he began to question his initial assumptions that Rebecca had to be the one who betrayed him. Because of Dorothy, he assumed all women were liars. Even though every facet of Rebecca’s life was guided by the highest principles, he’d been quick to condemn her because she’d withheld an important truth from him—even when she had sworn she’d never told him a lie.

She had also sworn to that God she held in such reverence that she had not given the information to the
Morning Chronicle.
Now he was inclined to believe her.

Because he had known Lord Sethbridge, who was an honorable man, for almost as many years as Rebecca had been alive, he felt with certainty that his colleague in Lords would never have released the information. Especially not now while he was dealing with much more urgent matters in an actual parliamentary session.

The reality was that one of those two he had trusted had betrayed him.

“Why was Mr. Mostyn here?” Emily asked, approaching her father in the entry hall.

“Chuckie’s sick.”

Her brows lowered. “Since when?”

“Since last night, not long after the play. He was better this morning, but his fever returned this afternoon, and Rebecca wanted Mostyn to have a look at him.”

She followed him into the library. “What did Mr. Mostyn say?”

Aynsley shrugged. “His glands are swollen, and there’s inflammation in his ear passages. Poor lad’s feeling very low.”

“I’ll go and see him.”

Would she still want to see him when she knew where he was? “He’s in the countess’s bedchamber.”

She came to a sudden stop and whirled to him. “What’s he doing there?”

“He’s taken a fancy to big beds that have curtains around them, but he doesn’t want to be there alone.” Would his daughter have the good manners to offer to relieve her stepmother?

“What will she do for dinner?”

“She’s having a tray in her room.” It always gave him pleasure to look at his lovely daughter. Today she looked like an angel in an ivory muslin dress sprigged with lavender roses and ribbons. The blue of her eyes almost took on a purple cast. It was a pity and a disappointment she did not act like an angel.

Emily came back into the library and dropped into the sofa. “Papa?”

“Yes, my dear?”

“Why would her ladyship be giving money to Peter?”

His heartbeat thudded. He met Emily’s somber gaze. “I didn’t know that she was. Have you asked Peter?”

“I’m out of charity with him, if you must know.”