Chapter 10 #2
This was another part of the old wound to rip open. “My Georgie had died a year earlier.” She closed her eyes and swallowed moisture. When she opened them, she found him watching her.
“Please, Blythe. Please tell me.”
Despite his stoic look, one he must have perfected in the years of his diplomatic career, his voice was gentle. That tone in his voice—the kindness—had her emotions reeling. And his hands still cradled her elbows.
Why?, she wanted to ask. Though in truth, she couldn’t bear to hear sympathetic lies. Her neighbors had shared the truth in whispers and didn’t believe it. Why should he be any different?
“I will keep your secrets,” he said.
“Secrets? The facts are private, not exactly secret.” Not that she’d ever wished to have her personal tragedies bandied about among the neighbors.
“I will tell you the truth, and like the good Mrs. Jarrow who surely has heard the truth whispered in her ear, you may choose not to believe it as well.”
“Give me the chance, Blythe.”
He handed her a handkerchief, and she quietly cursed before wiping her eyes and gathering herself. There were things she wouldn’t ever tell him.
He stood waiting, watching, all his attention focused on her. It was a heady thing to have someone wanting to listen to her.
She would begin at the beginning. “I wanted to marry Archie,” she said.
“I thought I was in love with him. You know his story: raised as a good Christian by pious grandparents who kept hold of the leading strings until they could no longer do so. He took up residence in Risley Manor and everyone believed him to be upright and good. And then he found me alone in the garden. Like most of the girls in attendance the night of that party, I was starry-eyed about the handsome, rich, eligible earl. That he picked me out to follow into the garden…. I had no idea it had to do with me being an orphan with no dowry and a guardian who was not influential. I was overwhelmed. And a willing participant. And when someone saw us and raised the alarm…”
She leveled a long look at him.
He nodded. “Me.”
“Yes. My guardian insisted we marry. Archie had not expected that. Imagine the blow when I discovered that the handsome young earl who’d whispered endearments,” and put his hand down her bodice, “had to be shamed into marrying me.”
The wave of humiliation and anger was almost as fresh as the day she’d first experienced it.
“I decided to make the best of it. I hoped that my determination to love would… I did my duty as countess, here and in our few stays in town. I tried to… to make a comfortable home, to be a good wife. Archie was satisfied when his son was born. Not so satisfied with my slow recovery from childbirth, and quite dissatisfied at my reaction when I discovered my new husband had been…” Anger flared in her. “Swiving the maids.”
“More than one.” He bit his lower lip. “Of course.”
“He spent a great deal of time in London and was more discreet there, careful to choose liaisons with…”
She squeezed her eyes closed again. Archie had been much more discreet, at least during those early years of their marriage.
“At some point he became friends with Lord Vernon while in town, and spent more time at Risley Manor when Diddenton bought Wickworth Hall and Lord Vernon was in residence there. Georgie was six, and learning to ride on his pony when Archie decided to take him up on his horse for a lark. A drunken lark. At the first jump, Georgie flew off and d-died.”
An arm came around her shoulder and she turned away from the comfort he offered.
It took more than a few frantic heartbeats and deep breaths to quell the grief and the painful memories.
“Archie was devastated. Repentant. Filled with guilt. It was such a strange condition for him that it couldn’t last. During that brief time, we…
we reconciled. I found I was with child again, and he went off to London.
When he returned home a few months later, he brought along a company of friends for a hunting party. Male friends.”
Mostly male friends.
“Lord Vernon?”
“Yes. And Sir Morris Pierpont and others. He ought not to have done it, or I ought not to have been here. Had I known to expect them, I would have gone to stay at Bluebelle Lodge. Archie promised they would not bother me but…”
A memory seized her, along with a wave of the panic she’d fought to master. Her bedchamber, invaded. Archie insanely drunk. Lord Vernon following him, an avid interest in his eyes. And the woman they’d brought with them.
Graeme reached for her again, and she put up a hand to ward him off.
“I lost the child. Mrs. Stockwell was my maid at the time, unmarried then, but her husband was courting her. I was still ill when they moved me and Coralie to Bluebelle Lodge.”
“And you stayed there.”
“Yes, mostly. Always, when Archie was in residence here.”
“He didn’t come after you?”
She shook her head. “To put it rather… rather coarsely, he didn’t need me in his bed here.”
“Mrs. Jarrow—”
“Knows of that?” She shrugged and then pinned him with a hard look. “What sort of wife would allow that in her home? Would you seek that lady’s company?”
Graeme’s lips firmed and his frown deepened, yet she couldn’t entirely sense whether he was feeling disgust or sympathy.
For now, let him judge her as weak. She didn’t care.
There were other sins she was willing to tell him about. Not her own, of course.
“Mrs. Jarrow will allege that my actions are blacker than that. After I moved to Bluebelle Lodge, a maid from Wickworth Hall appeared on our doorstep fair to bursting with child. We took her in—how could we not have taken pity upon her? She gave birth to a son and died shortly after.”
“Archie’s child.”
Graeme’s lips had pressed tighter and his hand had somehow captured hers. His anger was palpable, though she was quite sure—and a little surprised—that it wasn’t directed at her.
Blythe shook her head. “My Georgie was fair-haired and robust like Archie. So is Coralie. Nicholas, on the other hand, is a slight child with very dark hair and amber eyes. He is, like Coralie, a child of my heart but not my body. It’s whispered in the neighborhood that he is my child by Lord Vernon. ”
Blythe held her breath, watching Graeme’s reaction, while his hand tightened around hers.
She’d seen in her husband and his friends the nature of many men.
Like guttersnipe women, they could disparage a reputation without a second thought.
And with no father or brother or son to defend her—what was a woman to do?
There were better men; she’d known a few.
The late Mr. Davies had been one. The Stockwells were also, as far as she knew.
The sons of her friend Lady Loughton seemed to be honorable as well.
There were good men in the world and there were scoundrels. Which group did Graeme belong to?
“I see,” he said after a long pause.
His calmness annoyed her.
“I suppose you do. Now you may leave.”
“Not yet, Blythe.”
His heated gaze drilled into her as if he could see into her very heart.
“I will visit Bluebelle Lodge tomorrow. Will you come with me and introduce me to this unexpected cousin of mine and Nicholas too?”
“Certainly.”
“I understand now why Bluebelle Lodge is so important to you.”
The diffident tone, the stiff manner, sent her heart sinking and her fears rising. What had she expected from Graeme Blatchfield, rigid diplomat? He’d said she had no reason to fear him, but…
“Know this, Lord Chilcombe. Coralie and Nicholas are mine.” Angry tears flooded her eyes again and she pulled her hand away.
“I won’t take them away,” he said, his tone suddenly warm. “Nor will anyone else, Blythe.”
He went to the door and opened it. Radley, loyal creature that she was, waited outside. Graeme held a whispered conversation with her and she scurried away.
He returned and took Blythe’s hand, leading her to the armchairs near the fireplace. “I want to know why Diddenton thinks he has a claim to Bluebelle Lodge, and what his son’s involvement is in this claim. Everything you know, Blythe. We’re going to find a way for you to keep your home.”
Words failed her and it was just as well because it was some time before she could risk speaking.
She perched quietly on the edge of her chair while he made himself useful fetching her a shawl and building a fire to chase the chill from the room until Radley returned with two steaming cups of chocolate.