Chapter Fourteen
Gerrit rode through the moonlit night heedless of the beauty around him.
All the pleasure he usually took in returning to Briarly had been shattered by his mother’s presence.
Not even Amelia’s soothing influence—a balm to his nerves, which had been rubbed raw after barely five minutes in his mother’s company—could completely suppress his agitation.
But running to Amelia to snivel rather than entering his own house and facing whatever carnage his mother had wrought had simply put off the inevitable.
Briarly had always been his refuge from the outside world and now his mother, a woman he’d run away from at only nine years of age, had invaded it.
Even worse had been Amelia’s reaction to his anger.
“She is your mother, Gerrit. She has every right to visit your home and meet your wife.”
Gerrit had been rendered speechless by her words.
Amelia had smiled faintly at his shock. “I know what you are thinking, but—”
“That is not difficult,” he retorted. “My butler knows what I am thinking. Hell. I’m sure all my servants know—down to the youngest scullery maid.
What surprises me is that you do not agree that her presence here is”—he scrambled for words to adequately describe the chaos the dowager brought in her wake but failed to find them.
“It is upsetting to you, I know that. But—” She stopped and pursed her lips.
“But what?”
“But you are eight-and-thirty, Gerrit. It is past time to forgive your mother. Long past time.”
“Forgive her? I do not know what you mean, Amelia. I do not bear her any ill will. I simply do not care for her presence, which, you must admit, has always been disruptive.
Amelia had merely raised her eyebrows at his claim.
“Fine,” he’d admitted, his face heating slightly under her quiet regard. “I am still displeased by her horrific behavior.”
“Horrific behavior?”
He scowled. “You know what I mean. Do not make me say it.”
“You cannot forgive your mother taking a lover and yet you forgave your father for his relationship with me.”
“Good God, Amelia,” Gerrit sputtered. “What you had with Father was something else entirely. You are a gentlewoman and were his intellectual equal. You could discuss paleontology with him as articulately as anyone who belongs to the Royal Society.”
“That’s as may be, but never fool yourself that I was not, first and foremost, your father’s mistress.”
Gerrit cringed to hear her speak the words aloud. “I know that,” he snapped, his face ridiculously hot.
“And yet you have allowed the interests I shared with Dulverton to make you believe I was something more.”
“How can you denigrate how important you were to him, Amelia? Your attachment was both profound and of long-standing. Whereas she—” Gerrit became tongue-tied, unable to give voice to the tangled emotions in his head.
“She is your mother. And she deserves some respect from you. I am glad she has come all this way to welcome your new wife. You should be, as well.”
That had been her final word on the subject, and it had left him confused and despairing. He had known Amelia for three decades and, tonight, for the first time, he had found himself in deep disagreement with her.
But then again, they had never before spoken of his relationship to his mother.
That was one of the other reasons he found her company so soothing; she never complicated their friendship by introducing uncomfortable subjects.
The time he spent with Amelia focused on his recent finds, or journal articles, or other matters relating to fossils.
They were usually of such like minds on most important subjects that Gerrit rarely needed to articulate his thoughts because she already knew.
But tonight the rare, precious rapport they had always shared was absent. And the reason for that was his mother. She did what she always did and contaminated everything around her.
Gerrit’s jaws were clenched tight as he slid from his horse and tossed the reins to one of the grooms without a word.
His feet instinctively took him toward the suite of rooms he had occupied for all the years he’d lived at Briarly.
Just as he was about to open the door, he recalled that his mother had had the audacity to move his possessions to his father’s room.
His father’s room. That is what the master’s chambers had always been in his mind.
There had been times when Gerrit had—yes, illogically—gone to the master’s chambers and felt a sense of peace merely being in the same room with his father’s belongings.
He had not done it often, but it had been a small thing that had brought him peace.
And the dowager had robbed him of it.
Scowling, he pivoted on his heel and strode toward his new chambers.
And then came to a halt at the appalling, unsettling sight that met his gaze when he turned the corner.
There were paintings. Not just one or two, but a dozen of them littering the walls of the corridor between the main staircase and the master suite.
No, not a dozen—he rapidly counted—thirteen.
She didn’t even have the decency to clutter the walls with an even number.
Symmetry, that critical design found throughout the natural world, had utterly evaded his mother.
He strode past the visual chaos, keeping his gaze on the soothing geometric pattern of the same carpet runner that had lined the corridors of Briarly since his boyhood.
At least she’d not replaced that yet. Although given enough time, she would disrupt everything if he did not put a stop to her meddling.
He flung open the door to his room and paused on the threshold.
His valet, Court, was in the process of removing a medium-sized landscape from the wall across from the bed.
“Ah, Your Grace. I had hoped to be finished with this before you returned.” He set down the gilt frame, taking care not to damage it.
“Jeremy and Jacob have taken one load and will return shortly for these.”
These were a stack of variously sized frames—seven of them—that were now leaning against the wall.
Gerrit glanced around at the disorder in the room and swallowed hard against the bile that rose in his throat, as if he were on the bridge of a ship in bad weather.
He hated that this sort of disarray affected him so strongly, but it was a fact of life and the best way for him to manage it was to take himself elsewhere until everything had been put in order.
“Shall I move your possessions back to your old room, sir?”
Gerrit’s gaze slid to the connecting door. He could hear the sound of movement on the other side where his wife was likely preparing for bed. If he moved back to his old chambers, he would undoubtedly be more comfortable, but he would also have to traipse down the main corridor to Kathryn’s room.
“No. I will stay here. His gaze yet again slid toward the connecting door. “Her Grace is settling in?”
“I believe so,” Court said, and then paused, his lips compressing and a faintly disapproving look flickering across his bland features.
“Speak, Court,” Gerrit said, dread swelling in his belly at his servant’s expression.
“I informed Her Grace’s dresser about the artwork in the duchess’s chambers and requested a convenient time to have it removed. She indicated her mistress would not be pleased.”
“I will speak with the duchess myself. Do not send anyone to change anything until I give the order.”
“Very good, sir. The library is untouched, Your Grace,” Court added when Gerrit stood frozen in place.
He gave an abrupt nod. “Fetch me when all is settled here.”
“Of course, Your Grace.”
Gerrit turned away from the mess and then paused when he recalled what awaited him outside the nightmare room.
Court’s voice came from behind him. “I will make sure the corridor has been seen to before you return, Your Grace.”
Gerrit nodded, left the room, and then hovered in the corridor.
He was tempted to take the servant stairs—a place he knew his mother would not have thought to wreak havoc by festooning the blank walls with bric-a-brac—but there were so many maids and footmen bustling about right now that he would likely get in the way.
He used the main hallways and stairs, keeping his eyes on the carpet until he reached the serene safety of the library and could breathe normally again.
A glance at the longcase clock told him it was just after ten.
He had brought a good deal of correspondence with him from London and should sit down and work on it while he had the time.
But his thoughts were as willful as a basket full of kittens, and he knew it would be impossible to concentrate on business matters just now.
Instead, his mind wandered to his wife’s suite of rooms, which lay roughly above his head.
Kathryn would be tired, not only from the journey, but because Gerrit had abandoned her in the care of his yammering mother.
He should allow her to rest tonight, probably for two days after that grueling journey. Maybe even longer after how vigorously he had taken her on their wedding night.
Not for the first time did Gerrit grow hard at the memory of that night and her lovely body and enthusiastic response to him.
He scowled and shifted his erect cock before crossing the room to the shadowboxes that filled one wall.
It was a much larger collection than the one in his London study.
Usually looking at the exquisite fossils calmed him.
Not tonight. Instead, his ungovernable thoughts kept veering back to his wedding night.
Gerrit had not intended to use her like she was his mistress, but she was so beautiful that she stole not only his breath, but also his wits.
And of course there was her defiant, challenging behavior and impertinent tongue, both of which brought out the beast in him and stoked his already dominant nature.