Samantha James (14 page)

A tentative truce had been established that night.

After that, meals were no tense, rushed affairs that Anne dreaded with all her heart. Indeed, the time spent with her husband was soon the highlight of Anne’s day, particularly supper. Oftentimes they lingered, Anne with a book or needlework, Simon with a cigar or glass of port. Sometimes he told her of his days in the fields, his visits with his tenants. Anne was secretly pleased. Little by little, he revealed himself. Little by little, he shared himself. He was no
longer subdued and formal. Anne was no longer plagued by awkwardness and uneasiness.

One day just as they finished luncheon, Anne propped her chin on her hand and glanced through the windows. Outside, sunshine poured down from a cloudless, azure sky. “It’s such a lovely day,” she mused, more to herself than to Simon. “Too lovely to stay indoors, I think. Perhaps I’ll go riding this afternoon.”

Simon laid his napkin on the table. “I’ve a bit of business to attend to this afternoon, but it shouldn’t take long. Would you like to come with me?”

“I should love to,” came her prompt reply. She relished—and welcomed—the opportunity to share his company.

She hurried upstairs to change. By the time she returned downstairs, Lady Jane and Chaucer—such a fitting name for Simon’s big gray—were ready and waiting.

Several miles from Rosewood, they turned down a long, curving lane bordered with hedgerows and wild roses. At the end was a small stone house. Simon dismounted, then helped her down.

A stoop-shouldered man had appeared in the doorway. He shuffled toward them, leaning on his cane. “Why, sir! Are ye back so soon then?”

“I am, Mr. MacTavish.” Simon held open the whitewashed gate so the old man could pass through.

“Ye’ve a fetching young lass with ye.” Mr. MacTavish gave a nearly toothless grin. “Who is she?”

“This is my wife, Lady Anne. Anne, Mr. MacTavish. Mr. MacTavish was my father’s stable master for many a year.”

A thrill shot through her. This was the first time Simon had introduced her as his wife.

“Yer wife!” he said. “And a proper lady yet.” The old man’s fingers, gnarled and spotted with age, gripped the head of his cane, but he shook Anne’s hand heartily. “Are ye from London then?”

“My mother is English, actually. But my father was Scots, and I spent most of my childhood in Scotland, and so I”—Anne caught Simon’s eye; one corner of his mouth turned up in amusement—“have always called myself Scots as well.”

Mr. MacTavish gave another grin. “No finer place on earth than Scotland,” he declared cheerily, “lest it be Yorkshire.”

Anne chuckled.

Mr. MacTavish turned to Simon. “Wasn’t it just yesterday ye were here?”

“It was. And I promised I’d arrange for a mason to repair your chimney.” Simon pointed to a spot near the roof where several bricks were cracked and broken. “He’ll be here tomorrow, first thing in the morning.”

They chatted on for a few more minutes. Be
fore they left, Simon brought out a small basket from a pouch at the side of his saddle. “Regards from Mrs. Wilder,” he told the old man.

Anne was both pleased and impressed by Simon’s attentiveness to the old man’s needs. Somehow she’d known that inside he was kind, generous, and caring.

From there they trotted across an ancient stone bridge, past treetops thick with the nests of rooks, an amicable silence between them. The house wasn’t so very far away, but the afternoon was rather warm; they stopped to rest for a few minutes beneath the cool shade of a stately elm tree.

In the pasture, two brown and white, floppy-eared goats butted their heads up against the fence.

“Oh, look!” Anne cried. “I haven’t seen them before. They’re adorable! Are they friendly?”

“Ah, yes,” Simon said dryly. “Fred and Libby would stay there all day for a good scratching.”

Anne poked a hand through the fence and proceeded to do exactly that. Both goats vied for her attention. Anne laughed and gave in, sticking both hands through to scratch both of them until she lost her balance and tumbled onto the ground. Simon hauled her upright while Anne dusted off her bottom, still laughing.

Together they walked back to the horses. Si
mon cupped his hands and hoisted her onto Lady Jane’s back. He was still standing when Anne leaned forward, her eyes sparkling.

She tightened her gloved fingers on the reins. “I have a proposition for you, sir. Shall we race?”

Simon glanced up. “Race?”

“Yes.” She pointed. “Let’s race around the oak tree on the slope of the pasture, and back to here. Agreed?”

Simon’s eyes narrowed—and then a half smile courted his lips.

“Agreed—”

Anne set her heel to Lady Jane’s flank, leaving Simon behind. Only for an instant, however. He hurtled onto Chaucer’s back and gave chase, doing his utmost to catch her.

But Anne already had the advantage. Leaning low over the mare’s neck, she urged Lady Jane onward, whipped around the oak tree and back toward the elm.

Simon was rather stunned when he finally reined in Chaucer and brought the gray to a halt beside Anne. “Anne! You cheated!”

“No,” she said. “I won!”

“Just this once,” he parried. “I neglected until now to note that poor Chaucer is favoring his left foreleg.”

“So Chaucer is lame, eh? You sound just like Alec and Aidan. Neither would ever admit de
feat. Besides,” she said loftily, “it is not the horse so much as the horsemanship.”

“Oh, yes, I’d forgotten your unsurpassed horsemanship.”

Anne’s gaze flew to his. A glimmer of laughter lit his eyes.

“But I still say you cheated,” he added.

“I do not cheat,” she informed him. “I merely compete to the best of my ability—”

“And to the aggravation of your opponents?”

“You forget I grew up with two brothers, older ones at that.” She pretended great consideration. “How else was I to ever win? If I had to—”

“Cheat?”

Anne frowned at him good-naturedly. “If it is any comfort, I only cheated with them.”

“And now me!”

She had no answer.

It was Simon’s turn to relish victory. “Ah, so you admit it then!”

Anne pursed her lips.

Simon raised his eyes heavenward. “Lord, deliver me. I’m wed to a devil in the guise of an angel.”

“Sir, you wound me sorely!” Anne feigned great affront.

“I can well imagine your brothers learned rather quickly not to look the other way when you were near,” Simon teased. “Remind me
never to engage you in a game of cards—at the very least, never to turn my back.”

And he laughed once more. Seeing him like this, so carefree and relaxed, she felt her heart turn over.

All in all, it was quite the most enjoyable day she’d spent at Rosewood. And in the days that followed, Anne was more certain than ever that her husband was not the cold, unyielding beast she’d once thought him.

Yet one thing did not change—and it was Anne’s most fervent wish that it would!

For Simon did not touch her, other than a kiss on the forehead when she retired—a kiss so light it was scarcely a kiss at all! What would he do, she wondered wildly one night, if she were to raise her head and offer her lips instead?

In this, however, Anne discovered her courage deserted her. She was afraid of what she would see on Simon’s face. She was afraid of what she
wouldn’t
see! If Simon rejected her—if he spurned her—she would be crushed. Anne knew it instinctively.

And so in the end, she didn’t. She wanted nothing to erase the frail peace that had been forged. She didn’t want to go back to the way it had been before. It was too hard for both of them.

Trust was building, yet not as quickly as she wished.

Anne was always the first to say good night. She was aware that after she retired, Simon usually went to his study and worked. She felt almost guilty at keeping him from it, but Anne did not lie to herself—she’d have been lonely if he didn’t wait.

But one night she woke in the wee hours. She lay for several seconds, her mind still fuzzy with sleep. Rolling to her side, she glanced at the clock on the nightstand. It was then she noticed the door between their rooms stood ajar.

Frowning, she pushed back the covers. Why was it open? She hadn’t been in Simon’s room—why, she’d
never
been in Simon’s room. Had he looked in on her perhaps?

Rising, Anne crossed the room to shut it. But something stopped her. Some unknown force held her bound, her fingers curled around the knob.

She looked inside.

Utter silence steeped the air, utter darkness but for the moonlight that spilled through the windows. The drapes were parted wide. The night was filled with a brilliant cluster of stars.

Anne’s eyes adjusted to the dark. His bed was unoccupied, the coverlet undisturbed. Simon, she saw, was sitting in the brass-pegged chair in front of his writing desk.

She froze. Her senses sharpened.

Her gaze ran over him. He was fully clothed, she noted in surprise. Oh, he’d discarded his
jacket, but one booted foot rested atop his knee. Upon that knee was one lean hand.

In it was a crystal glass.

He had yet to see her. Anne bit her lip. She wanted desperately to break the silence, to call his name, to ask if something was amiss, that he had yet to seek his bed. Indeed, his name hovered on her lips—she bit it back. Some little understood sense inside warned her not to give away her presence.

The glass lifted. Tipped. She watched as he drank deeply, then resumed his pose, staring out into the night.

And then Anne couldn’t have said a word in
any
case.

High in the night, the clouds shifted. The moon emerged, lighting his profile in stark relief.

Seeing him thus, there was a painful tug on her heart. Darkness enveloped him, but this was a darkness of the soul, she realized achingly. His expression tore at everything inside her. There was such bleakness, such weary despair etched on his face that she could have wept.

Creeping back to her bed, she huddled beneath the covers, her mind so muddled, there was no point in even trying to sleep.

A long time later, she heard the door between their chambers click shut.

Anne swallowed. Her mind whirled. Her
heart hammered. Simon had been here.
Here.
Beside her. Above her.

In the nights that followed, Anne knew. She saw him yet again, one night when she woke and saw the door ajar once more. She heard him rustling in the hours before dawn. And every night…

He sat in the dark. He sat in silence. He sat alone.

And nearly every morning she woke with the strangest certainty that Simon had stood at her bedside, watching her.

The days remained warm, sometimes hot, for the second week of August approached. Anne’s days were full. Most mornings she tended to matters of the household. Afternoons were hers; often she walked or rode.

She also took on another task—or more precisely, two. Simon was predictable. He left early in the morning, then returned for luncheon. Afterward he left the house once more; he didn’t return until early evening, when he spent an hour or so in his study before supper. And that predictability granted her an opportunity that Anne simply could not ignore.

She’d never felt quite right about the chaos in the library—or the overgrown tangle of the garden. It wasn’t just her woman’s nature asserting itself, though Anne had been brought up to value neatness and tidiness. And perhaps she interfered where she ought not, but she took
it upon herself to begin the task of cleaning up the clutter in the library. She dusted and swept, stacked and sorted and shelved. In the garden, she dug and potted and pruned—and carefully tended the three ivory rose bushes at the far end. She worked alone, without any of the servants’ assistance.

If Simon was aware of her endeavors, he said nothing.

Anne rather thought he did not know. She rather thought he had not returned to either place.

But she also rather thought that someday he might change his mind. That perhaps someday he might remember Ellie and his boys with some measure of peace, with tenderness and laughter—and without such anguish and heart-ache.

She hoped that she was right. She prayed that she was right.

For Anne could not bear the thought that it would be otherwise. Ellie and the boys lived on in heaven; Anne was certain of it.

But she could not bear to think that Simon would continue to live such a hellish existence as he had these past years.

On one particularly warm day, Simon stood in the entrance hall talking with Duffy. Anne was just coming down the stairs.

Duffy had disappeared down the hall. Simon turned. “Good afternoon,” he greeted.

“Good afternoon to you, sir.”

Her tone was light, but her pulse was suddenly fluttering. His sleeves were rolled clear to his biceps. His forearms were long and banded with muscle. He’d undone the top few buttons of his shirt against the heat, baring a wedge of masculine, hair-roughened chest. Anne’s throat went dry. It was difficult not to stare!

He offered an arm. “I do believe Mrs. Wilder is the best cook in Yorkshire. Something smells wonderful, doesn’t it?”

Anne was quite certain she didn’t know. She stayed where she was, crossing her arms over her breasts.

“Simon Blackwell, where the devil do you think you’re going?”

He blinked. “Why, luncheon.”

“Simon Blackwell,” she said, “take yourself back outside this instant.”

“What?”

Anne tapped one slippered foot. “Can you not see this floor is spotless? Mrs. Gaines and the maids were here just this morning!”

Obviously Simon neglected to see her point. “And?”

“And you, sir, are not!” She looked him up and down.

“I beg your pardon?”

Her mouth pursed. “Perhaps you’d care to tell me where you’ve spent the morning.”
He blinked again. “Why, out in the pasture.”

“Yes, I thought so.” Her nose wrinkled in distaste. “Next time, sir, I’ll thank you to leave the sheep in the pasture!”

She pointed at his boots. Simon’s eyes followed both her finger and the direction of her gaze.

A crooked smile crept over his lips—then gave way to a husky laugh.