Once Again a Bride (17 page)

She turned under his arm, gazed up at him. The moon was just peeking over the top edge of the garden wall, and she could make out his face now, despite the growing darkness. He looked scared, and that touched her heart as nothing else could have done. Her arms slid around his neck. Ethan bent his head and pulled her even closer. Their lips met, and the touch vibrated through Lucy’s whole being, set her afire. It was like nothing she’d ever experienced. The kiss paused, and renewed, even more intense. It shook her to the very soul. She gave herself up to him and to her own desire. Ethan’s hands strayed over her, leaving trails of warmth along her skin, bringing more and more of her to pulsing life. Lucy lost herself and the world in his embrace.

At long, long last, they pulled back a little. Lucy gazed up at him, open in all ways. “I’m thinking that’s a yes,” said Ethan, sounding as shaken as she felt.

She laughed, trembling and suffused with heat. She could stay here forever, she thought, encircled by his arms. And then reality came rushing back. “I’d have to leave Miss Charlotte here alone.” Lucy’s elation died. She had cared for Charlotte Rutherford since she was a child who’d just lost her mother. It was more than simple duty. There was a bond between them older than the new one with Ethan. His promise of a different life came at the cost of someone else’s suffering. Lucy couldn’t bear that. Life stretched out bleak before her once more.

“Maybe we could fix that,” Ethan said.

“Fix… what do you mean?”

He hesitated.

“Oh, Ethan, what could we do? I’m trapped and no mistake.” She hated thinking of Miss Charlotte in that way, but the fact was, in this moment, she did. She threw herself back into his arms and huddled there. He held her.

***

Strolling into the rout party, Alec found it like a hundred others. Musicians played unheeded in the largest reception room; in another, young women were taking it in turn to show off their musical talents, and their shapely arms, at the pianoforte. Older guests hunched over their hands in the card room; servants laid out a lavish buffet. And everywhere people talked and talked. He’d often wondered where society found the words night after night to generate this roar of conversation.

He moved through the rooms looking for Charlotte, often obliged to stop and respond to acquaintances’ greetings. He barely avoided having to listen to a deb warble the latest ballad. He glimpsed Aunt Bella and her cronies interrogating some hapless fellow beside a potted palm. God help the man if he was trying to conceal a juicy bit of gossip from them. He’d begun to wonder whether Charlotte had decided not to come when he spotted her sitting with Edward and his friends. As usual, they had established a corner bastion of chairs and coaxed their own supply of champagne from the servants.

Charlotte wore a gown he hadn’t seen before, of some glistening coppery stuff—silk, he thought—that echoed her eyes and hair and made her a gorgeous monotone save for a necklace of green beads. It ought to be emeralds, Alec thought; emeralds to rival the sparkle of her gaze.

He made his way slowly through the crowd, watching Charlotte laugh and sip her champagne. He’d never seen her look this carefree. The realization rankled so sharply that he stopped and took a grip on his reactions. Her smile looked so natural, the tilt of her head so relaxed. She leaned back in her chair, the lines of her body open and enticing. She’d never appeared so happy with him, never listened to him as eagerly as she seemed to one of Edward’s vacuous friends. Was she shallow, after all? And why should that make him angry?

It didn’t. He wasn’t angry. He stepped closer.

“So she brought us all along to see for ourselves that the drawing room was haunted,” one of the men was saying. “And the cloth on a small table
was
moving in and out, with an eerie buzzing sound, just as she’d said. So Tony walks over and flips up the cloth, and there’s his bulldog, fast asleep underneath.”

“Buster always snored like a steam engine,” said another man—Tony presumably, chiming in on his cue—and was rewarded with peals of laughter.

Alec let it die down before closing the last little distance to the group. “Good evening.” Edward glanced up at him. Alec was sure that he’d been aware of his arrival and ignored it.

“You all know my cousin Alec,” Edward said carelessly. “Alec, I think you’re acquainted with everyone.”

He’d met them. He always forgot their names. He supposed that was as rude as Edward’s careless greeting, but it was difficult to see it that way.

“Oh, except…” Edward gestured toward two girls who didn’t look familiar.

“Mary Simmons and Susan Blake,” supplied one of the women. Elliott, that was it. She was married to the plump man. The other couple was called Billings. He couldn’t recall the names of the remaining two men, the storytellers. Well, one was Tony, obviously. Uninvited, Alec snagged a nearby chair and brought it to their circle. He headed for a place next to Charlotte, but Miss Simmons and Miss Blake quickly moved to make room for him between them, while Edward draped an arm across the back of Charlotte’s seat, clearly refusing to yield the spot. Alec set his jaw, reined in his temper once again, and sat.

“Alec who?” said Miss Simmons, and giggled. “Edward didn’t tell us your last name, the naughty boy.”

“Wylde,” he supplied. Here was a girl whose name his cousin couldn’t recall referring to him as Edward, as if they’d known each other since childhood. It represented all he disliked about his cousin’s set.

“Ooh, and are you?” breathed Miss Blake. She giggled as well.

Someone should take away her champagne for her own good, Alec thought, and then wondered if he was becoming an intolerable prig.

“Practically worthless,” Charlotte said to Edward. She had to be referring to his uncle’s collections.

“You don’t have any champagne,” observed Miss Simmons. “Tony, he has no champagne!”

Alec strained to hear what else Charlotte was saying. Edward leaned toward her and spoke too low to overhear. He became conscious of a desire to throttle his cousin.

“He’ll have to snag himself a glass,” said Tony. “Can’t pour it down his throat.” He waggled the bottle, and the two girls dissolved in giggles.

He should have told her not to tell anyone, or… the truth would discourage robbery, he supposed. And what harm could it do? The real problem was, he hated to see Charlotte in such intimate conversation with… anyone else. He burned to pull her to her feet and take her away from Edward.

This wouldn’t do. He would not be ruled by irrational feelings—still less stage a spectacle for all to see. He could just imagine the turning heads, the whispers. Aunt Bella would be in the front rank; how she would love it if he made a fool of himself. Damn the girl! Why must she laugh that way, with her head thrown back, her lovely throat exposed as if for kisses? Kisses he could almost feel burning on his own…

Alec realized that the plump Mr. Elliott was speaking to him across Miss Simmons. “Believe you were at Eton with my brother,” he repeated.

“Oh, ah, yes?”

“John Elliott. Cricket.”

Translating this laconic statement, Alec remembered playing with his brother on the school eleven. He hadn’t known him well outside the playing fields.

“Alec here was a cracking bowler,” Mr. Elliott told the others. “Mainly thanks to him we trounced Harrow at Lord’s three years running.”

Everyone looked at him. What did one reply to that kind of statement? “Er, how is John?”

“Married, and getting fat, like me,” the man laughed.

“I have never truly understood cricket,” said Miss Simmons, leaning in and breathing champagne in his face. “Do explain it to me.”

Alec managed to refrain from telling her that he would rather slit his throat. “Is this your first Season in London?” he replied instead. Unsurprised by her affirmative, he asked if she was enjoying it. It was like winding a clock; she ran on and on, leaving Alec free to watch Charlotte and plot a kidnapping.

Tony went for more champagne. An older woman came and extricated Miss Blake, looking as if she wanted to take her by the ear. Edward turned to speak to Mrs. Billings on his other side. Alec seized the opportunity. “Some sensible soul has opened a window. Would you care to get some air?” he asked Charlotte.

“It is hot, isn’t it?”

Taking this as agreement, he stood, offered a hand, and urged her to her feet. Maintaining possession, he pulled her arm through his and navigated a path to the open French doors. “You didn’t mention that you were coming tonight,” she said.

“It was a spur-of-the-moment decision.” He kept walking—through the doors and out onto a flagstone terrace. Other couples strolled there, taking advantage of the night air. Lanterns made pools of light in the gardens.

“Oh, it’s lovely.” Charlotte raised her eyes. “The moon’s up.” She took a deep breath. “Something in the garden smells wonderful. I’ll have to ask Mr. Trask about planting some of it, now that it’s May. I want lots of fragrant things like this.” She breathed deeply again.

Alec felt the rise and fall of her torso against his arm. Heat brushed his skin like trailing fingers. Without thought, he pressed closer. Charlotte looked up at him and smiled.

A man could fall into those copper eyes, he thought, and never come out again. It would be easy and delicious—and dangerous. He said the first thing that came into his head. “I got the key from Holcombe. He had kept it, as we suspected.”

Charlotte’s smile faded. “Oh… good.”

The enthusiasm had left her voice, and he cursed himself for an idiot. He could have talked about gardens or any other damned thing.

“I suppose you’ll bring it by,” she added tonelessly.

“I thought tomorrow,” he said.

“All right.”

“It would seem to me that…”

“Shall we rejoin the group?”

Alec cursed silently again. “Don’t you find them rather tedious?” Irritation made his voice too sharp. He retained possession of her arm and did not move.

“No. Why would I?”

“Well…”
Because
they
are
, was the only reply that occurred to Alec.

“They’re kind and amusing… and restful.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“They never talk about anything… lowering. And they don’t… require anything of me. I don’t have to think about Henry or what I am going to do. They make me laugh.”

Alec got the point. He was the one who reminded her of her problems, and did depress her spirits. But Edward was just as much Henry Wylde’s nephew as he. Why didn’t some of that stigma apply to him? “Edward’s set is rather fast, you know.” He’d planned to talk to her about this at some point, but not in such a self-righteous tone.

Charlotte shrugged.

Alec knew he should stop himself, but he couldn’t. “Their company could damage your reputation. You should take care to…”

“My reputation as a duped and penniless widow?” she interrupted. “With no prospects or real connection to society?”

“You exaggerate…”

“Here as a result of Lady Isabella’s charity?” Her voice had grown sharp. A woman nearby turned to gaze at them.

“I would hardly call it…”

“Am I not entitled to a bit of amusement?” Charlotte broke in again. “I don’t see why you should begrudge me that.”

“I do not!”

She tugged at his arm, forcing him to move toward the open door—or create a scene for the avid eyes around them. “It doesn’t seem too much to ask. I cannot see the harm in a few amusing stories, a… respite from the problems that, yes, must be addressed.” She sounded near tears. Alec felt as if someone had punched him in the chest. He wanted to argue that she was being unfair, and he wanted to sweep her up and remind her that they’d shared a kiss that was far from being a “problem.” Except that it was. He hated this roiling mixture of emotions that tied his tongue.

They stepped through the doors, into the heat and roar of chatter. Charlotte freed her arm; he had to let her.

“I will see you tomorrow. At one, perhaps?” She gave him a stiff nod and turned to walk back to Edward’s group. From across the room, Alec’s cousin smiled in triumph.

Charlotte inserted her needle into the length of blue velvet and pulled the thread through. They had found the cloth in a forgotten trunk in the attic, and though faded, it would make far better dining room curtains than the current flowery chintz. If she ignored the main floor, which she did as much as possible, she was more and more satisfied with the look of her house.

She glanced up and discovered Callie sitting five feet away, her tail neatly curled around her front paws. The cat had taken to appearing like a ghost wherever Charlotte was and watching her. “Good morning,” Charlotte said, continuing her sewing. This was the last panel. She hoped they could hang the new curtains before Sir Alexander arrived. Let him see how well she was managing her household now.

Callie stared at the needle slipping in and out of the cloth. Her pupils expanded darkly.

“No,” Charlotte told her. She stopped sewing for a moment and searched her workbasket. Finding an almost empty wooden spool, she pulled off the remaining thread and rolled it along the floor. Callie pounced, batting the spool across the carpet. Charlotte returned to her seam and her thoughts.

Sir Alexander had managed to dim the luster of the rout party last night in more ways than one. After he’d gone, Charlotte had noticed Miss Simmons’s mother fetching her, and finally recognized the pattern. Unmarried girls were not left among Edward’s friends for long. Clearly, it was not felt to be proper. She didn’t see the objection; they didn’t talk scandal or flirt outrageously. Well, there was the champagne, perhaps. With Tony continually filling one’s glass, it was all too easy to overindulge. She’d been careful, the memory of last time still vivid. But otherwise, the group seemed harmless, with a refreshing lack of formality. Margaret Billings had invited her to drive in the park, and she was certainly going. Charlotte plied her needle, entertained by Callie’s twitching tail and the swoop and clatter of the spool from one corner of the drawing room to the other.

How could it hurt—a bit of amusement in a life that had been devoid of it for so long? Yet she had been made to feel irresponsible. And she resented it. Aware of silence, Charlotte looked up. Callie crouched like a sphinx, the spool imprisoned between her forepaws, and stared at her. “Sir Alexander never lets you forget your duty,” she said to the cat.

Callie blinked her yellow eyes slowly. Her brindled fur caught the light streaming in the window.

“It’s not as if I am neglecting what needs to be done. Quite the contrary.” The cat’s yawn flashed small fangs.

“Precisely. It’s tedious to think about one’s problems all the time.”

Callie batted the spool, sending it scuttling across the room. Her hindquarters waggled, and then she was up and after it.

Every creature needed to play, Charlotte thought. She smiled as Callie captured the spool and fought it to a standstill. “Edward is very charming.”

The cat looked at her, spool in mouth. It would forever bear little tooth marks. “But the odd thing is…” Charlotte’s hands stilled on the cloth. “There is something about Sir Alexander. When I am with him I feel more alive, somehow. Even if it is simply a more lively irritation.” She smiled. “Last night, the sky, the scent of flowers; it was as if I hadn’t really noticed them properly before. And I wanted to hold his arm forever.”

Callie brought her prize over to Charlotte and dropped it at her feet like a gift. Her gaze was steady and penetrating.

“Capture what I want and keep it?” Charlotte asked her with another smile. “But he spoiled everything. He is always spoiling things.” She resumed her sewing. “And then I was glad to get away from him. I thought it would be a relief. But… it wasn’t.” Charlotte sighed. “Edward, despite his very good looks, is only… entertaining. He doesn’t make me feel anything in particular. Why should that be?”

“Did you call, ma’am?” Tess the housemaid stood in the doorway.

Charlotte flushed, hoping she hadn’t heard very much of that. “No, I was just… talking to the cat.”

Tess looked around.

Callie had disappeared. “She was just here.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Tess dropped a sketch of a curtsy and went out.

The cat emerged from under the sofa. “Thank you so much,” said Charlotte.

***

Ethan stood outside the door of Sir Alexander’s study, working up the courage to knock. To make good on his proposal to Lucy, he had to speak to him about the forester position. But the difference between dreaming and planning and actually taking a step into the future he wanted was making him sweat. What if Sir Alexander had objections that Ethan hadn’t thought of? What if he already had someone else in mind for the post, or Hobbs had put a candidate forward? Hobbs planned well ahead for the estate, he knew that from his brother. He would be aware that Old Elkins was ready to go. What if he couldn’t offer Lucy a life in the little cottage near the edge of the forest? What if he couldn’t have it himself? He didn’t know what he’d do if that happened. For years, he’d seen himself there.

Even if it all went smooth as silk, there was still his dad. Ethan didn’t want to bring Lucy into the family in the midst of a feud. In his imaginings, they visited with his parents and sisters, were a welcome part of occasions filled with laughter and conversation.

He wasn’t afraid of his father; that wasn’t it. But he hated wrangling. More, he wanted his dad’s respect for the work he chose. Could he be made to understand?

Stop havering, Ethan thought! He forced himself to knock. At a word from inside, he went in. Sir Alexander sat at his desk, but he didn’t seem deep into his work. He was gazing out the windows. That was good. “I wondered if I might speak to you, sir?”

“Yes? What is it, Ethan?” He sounded distracted but not impatient. That was good, too.

“It’s about…” Ethan had gone over this speech in his mind a hundred times. All of that flew out of his head the instant he opened his mouth. “It’s about… about old Elkins, sir.”

“Elkins?” Sir Alexander frowned. “Who is Elkins?”

“Ol… Fred Elkins, the forester, in Derbyshire.”

“Oh. Yes, I recall. What about him?”

“Well, he’s getting on in years, you know, and suffers from the bone ache something terrible.” This was not important! Ethan rushed on, speaking faster and faster in the face of Sir Alexander’s obvious puzzlement. “He’s wanting to go off to Cornwall, to his daughter’s place, and… take it a bit easier, like. And I was hoping to… or, I mean, I wanted to ask you about having his position, sir. My taking it over, I mean.”

“You? As forester?”

He was making a hash of this, saying it all wrong. Nothing to do now, though, but soldier on. “Elkins’s trained me since I was a lad. I spent just about every free minute with him, I was that interested. I know what needs to be done and how to do it, and I’d be… I believe I’d be right good at it, sir. Do a fine job for you.”

Sir Alexander examined him. His surprise had given way to serious appraisal. “I think your family had other hopes for you?”

Ethan set his jaw. “It’s what I love to do. Working in the woods. It’s where I belong.” Here, at least, he sounded dead certain.

“Ah.” Sir Alexander considered him a bit longer. “I see no problem with the request. I will have to discuss it with Hobbs.”

Ethan nodded; he’d expected this. He thought the estate steward would accept him if Sir Alexander brought it up; he knew of no reason why not. Of course, with his brother Sam working right next to him in the office there, word of his request would reach his father like greased lightning. He’d have to get a letter in the same packet Sir Alexander sent home. The thought of composing it made him want to groan.

“I do recall now that Hobbs mentioned Elkins’s wish to leave,” Sir Alexander added. “You understand that no change could be made until we return to the country.”

“Yes, sir.”

Sir Alexander continued to gaze at him. “If it is what you really want, I think it will be satisfactory.”

Ethan felt the grin spread over his face. He couldn’t help it. “Thank you, sir!” he exclaimed. With a small bow, he left while he was ahead.

A bit later, laying the table for luncheon, Ethan’s hands shook with elation and relief. He’d done it! He’d succeeded—or as well as. He’d reached out to get the life he wanted, and he hadn’t been refused. More than anything, he longed to run and tell Lucy. Probably lucky he couldn’t get away to do that. Best to wait until all was signed and sealed and he was sure of the cottage that would be their home.

If he could get her to Derbyshire.

James gave him a look, and Ethan realized he was standing stock still with a handful of forks. Hastily, he began setting them out.

He hadn’t told Lucy about his idea of trying to bring their master and mistress together. Partly, he worried she’d object, and it was the only plan he had. Partly, he had no notion how he was going to manage it, and he didn’t want a rash of unanswerable questions. She’d just disbelieve him then. He’d do it, somehow, because he had to. He’d figure out the details some other time.

For now, he just wanted to think of them married and snug in their new home. Then they wouldn’t have to crouch on a rickety garden bench, fearing the sound of an opening door. Ethan lost himself in memories of their kisses, the feel of her body under his hands. He wanted her as he’d never wanted anything in his life.

“Watch it,” said James.

Ethan had nearly walked right into him. With a mighty act of will, he forced himself to concentrate on the task at hand.

***

Charlotte, Tess, and Lucy did get the curtains hung before Sir Alexander arrived. He didn’t see them, however, as he went directly to the locked room at the back of the house that had been Henry’s domain. Lagging behind, Charlotte heard the key turn. Even more than the main floor, she’d been ignoring Henry’s bedchamber as she transformed the house. It let her pretend he’d never existed. Today, she would have to think of him again.

Of course she was curious, and acutely aware of how strange it was—never to have seen the inside of her husband’s bedchamber. But facing the open door, she mainly felt the sinking sickness that had plagued her so often over the last year. Ingrained habit told her that she would be publicly humiliated if she attempted to enter that room.

Charlotte shook herself and stepped forward. It was dim inside. Sir Alexander pushed back draperies on the back window and then the side, and Charlotte gaped. It was as if she’d left her home, her country, even her time, and been transported to a distant realm.

Against the inner wall stood a small bed that looked more like a table; she recognized the Roman style from a book Henry had once shown her. A carved wooden chair occupied the near corner, a huge terra-cotta urn the far one. But most amazing were the murals. In faded reds and blues and yellows, on every wall and the ceiling, they showed scenes of Roman life—men in togas, vineyards and olive trees, vistas of ancient streets. Each panel was set off by painted columns and arches that mimicked the architecture of another sort of building altogether. The wooden floor had been tiled in a mosaic style showing sea creatures. The only modern element was the heavy draperies, of a red so dark as to be hardly red at all. Oddly, for all the color, the room seemed stark and cold.

“Where did he keep his things?” she wondered aloud. “There’s no wardrobe or…”

“Here,” said Sir Alexander.

Briefly, Charlotte was confused as to where he’d gone. Then she realized that the room was narrower than the one on the opposite side of the hall. She hadn’t noticed at first because the murals confused the eye, but part of it had been walled off.

A small door, painted like the walls, led to a narrow dressing room crowded with a wardrobe, chest, and shaving stand. The space was tasteless and strictly utilitarian. There was no window.

Sir Alexander had lit candles. One drawer sagged open. “Holcombe took some neckcloths,” he said.

Charlotte turned back to the Roman bedchamber. All of this must have been done before she arrived in the house. No wonder Henry had needed money. It must have been very expensive. She looked at the painted trees, the faked stonework. Here was Henry’s secret life, his sanctuary, she supposed. She felt no connection, no chord of sympathy. Why set your heart on a lost time and society, long past all warmth and life?

“We should go through the clothing, check the pockets,” said Sir Alexander.

Charlotte returned and opened the wardrobe. Here were Henry’s coats, dark and sober, hardly less stiff than when he’d worn them; the scent of him wafted out, and she almost felt faint. She couldn’t touch these garments; the idea made her ill. “I’ll get Tess and the Trasks,” she said. “They can take all the clothing away and examine it.” She walked out before he could object and summoned her small staff.

They stared at the strange bedchamber. But the main floor had inured them to oddity, and they were soon carrying out armloads of clothing. “If you find anything in the pockets, no matter how small or trivial, bring it back here,” Sir Alexander told them.

“Are there any family members who would want his clothes?” Charlotte asked, to anchor herself back in the commonplace.

“You could offer them to Edward,” was the dry response.

The thought of his elegant cousin in Henry’s drab garments was ludicrous. “I don’t think he… oh, you’re joking.”

“I was.” His expression was sympathetic. “Send them off to the workhouse. Or see if the Trasks know anyone who could use them.”

“That’s a good idea.” With the clothes gone, she felt better. “Are there papers?”

“Some, in the chest here. Correspondence my uncle didn’t wish anyone else to see. He appears to have been involved with people who are willing to steal artifacts, for a price.”

“Or say they had.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Well, Henry bought mostly fakes.”

“Ah. A good point. Still, they are clearly unsavory characters. I’ll hand these letters over to Hanks.” Seeing Charlotte’s expression, he added, “He’s best suited to question them.”

“I know. I just…” She turned away from the humiliating memory of his accusations. “I suppose he will want to come here.”