Chapter Twenty
Gerrit looked up at the sound of the knock, but the door opened without a response from him, and his mother entered, dressed in her traveling clothes. Pink, of course.
He grimaced. It was barely six o’clock. Gerrit had not believed she would be awake and ready to leave so early or he would have left the house even earlier. He sighed and got to his feet. “What can I do for you, Your Grace?”
Rather than take a seat, she strode to the front of his desk. “I will only take a moment of your time, Gerrit.”
He raised his eyebrows, willing her to get on with it.
“I wish I did not have to leave right now, but—”
Gerrit sneered. “But your lover needs you.”
Her gaze briefly flickered ceilingward—as if she were seeking divine assistance—and then she sighed heavily, looked him directly in the eyes, and said, “You need to give your marriage a chance, Gerrit. You need to give Katie—”
“It astounds me that you believe I want your advice about my marriage. Or anything else, for that matter.”
“You can insult me, Gerrit, but it does not erase the fact that you are slowly killing off the delicate shoot that is your future happiness. I know about your mistress in Lyme. I know you plan on following in Boon’s footsteps just as you have done in every other—”
“You are keeping my horses standing, madam. It is time you were off. Past time.”
“You cannot make me stop loving you, Gerrit.”
“I do not want your love,” he seethed. “I never have and—”
“That is not true. You were an affectionate, loving little boy—so sweet and you doted on me—”
“Before I walked in on you fucking a servant!” For a moment it looked as though she would slap him as she had done the last time. Indeed, he wanted her to do it; he wanted to see self-loathing settle on her frivolous features.
But her fisted hands stayed firmly at her sides. “We are talking about you, not—”
“No. You are talking about me. My marriage—my life—is none of your concern.”
“You have a second chance. A chance to be happy and—”
“I am happy.” Or at least he had been until last night and his wife had made a good start to destroying everything. But he was hardly going to tell his mother that.
“Do not ignore this opportunity for happiness, Gerrit. Make an effort to know Katie—to be her friend and her lover. The road you are choosing to travel—Boon’s road—only ends in unhap—”
“Your carriage awaits you, madam.” Gerrit walked past her and stopped at the door, which he opened.
She heaved a sigh and walked heavily toward him. When she came abreast of him, she stopped.
Gerrit deliberately looked away.
After a moment, she walked past him out of the room.
He shut the door with a definitive snap, his hands shaking. That was his mother, all over again, driving him half-mad with her emotional demands and incessant meddling. Thank God she was leaving. Now the household could finally settle down to some semblance of normalcy.
A memory of last night, of the new regime in his wife’s bedroom, struck him like a sharp punch to the groin.
Gerrit scowled and dropped into his chair. Christ. How was he supposed to do without their nights together?
***
Rather than miss Betje less as time went on, Katie found she yearned for her flighty, cheerful mother-in-law more with each day that passed.
The dowager’s last words echoed in her thoughts, as well. Please love my son, Katie. His soul is suffering, and he needs love so very desperately.
Did he? Because he did not seem to be a man who was suffering to Katie.
Indeed, in the five days and four nights since she had instituted their new regime in the bedchamber, Dulverton had not changed a jot.
He still ignored her at dinner and in the library at night and disappeared all day, every day.
And he still visited her every night and executed his duty, generally taking less than five minutes to achieve his release.
Which was more than she could say for her own satisfaction.
That was something she had to see to herself, to her intense mortification.
Those delicious nights with her husband had been the only good part of her marriage.
And she had been the one to destroy it. Katie couldn’t believe she’d been so misguided as to believe that Dulverton would argue with her when she’d told him their couplings should no longer be filled with passion.
She’d been stupid to think her demand would start a discussion between them.
A normal man would ask why she would make such a ridiculous demand. Not Dulverton.
Quit blaming him for your asinine idea. Apologize and tell him you’ve changed your mind.
No. She couldn’t. Whenever she envisioned eating her pride and crawling to Dulverton on hands and knees—metaphorically speaking—images of the lovely Anne Wilson and her equally lovely children flooded her head.
And those images seeded her brain like a fertile field, producing a crop of bitter jealousy.
No, she would not apologize and beg. She could not.
And she knew that he wouldn’t either.
Which meant that what they had right now was all they would ever have in their marriage. It was what they had both bargained for, after all, and it was time that Katie learned to live with it.
“Your Grace?”
Katie turned at the sound of Becky’s voice and saw her maid holding up one of her favorite morning gowns.
She shook her head. “I think I’ll go for a ride,” she said, not wanting to sit plying her needle alone in the drawing room.
She smiled at her friend. “Today I’ll introduce myself to some of my tenants. ”
Becky grinned. “That is a grand idea.”
Twenty minutes later Katie was garbed in her peacock blue habit and cantering away from Briarly.
Excitement filled her as she reached the fork in the path.
The righthand path was the one she’d taken with Dulverton—and she already knew it led to his mistress—so she took the left fork toward an ancient preserve called Echo Forest. The word forest was only a trifle aggrandizing.
Although the collection of trees was not extensive, the species that lived in the area were the massive sorts of yews one thought of when reading Arthurian tales.
Riding into the wood, there was an immediate hush and the temperature dropped sharply, the latticed canopy overhead holding in the moisture and filtering the light.
It was as though she’d stepped into another world. Although the path itself was well-trammeled, massive yews, lush ferns, and thick bracken ruled beyond its edges, trees and plants jostling with each other for the scarce beams of sunlight that found their way to the forest floor.
A sense of calm settled over her, all the more noticeable for being so unusual—so rare these days.
Indeed, when was the last time she had truly felt at peace?
Could it really be since she’d lived at Queen’s Bower?
Five long years. While her siblings had got on with their lives, Katie had calcified into a rigid lump of discontent, accreting layer upon unhappy layer of reserve until she’d isolated herself inside a shell too thick to crack.
She laughed at the dramatic metaphor. It must be the rarified forest air that was leading her to such fanciful thinking.
The sun beckoned not far ahead, a bright light at the end of a cool, crepuscular tunnel. Even Robin seemed to feel the difference in the air, his step hastening as if he was emerging from equine torpor. Katie blinked against the brightness of the day, shading her eyes with one hand.
The first thing she saw was a lovely Elizabethan Era house just ahead.
It was composed of white plaster, exposed dark beams, and a charming thatched roof.
The only jarring element was the structured, manicured, and—yes—symmetrical hedges that surrounded it, the very antithesis of the sort of natural garden that would have suited the manor.
Did her husband impose his need for order even upon his tenants?
For this house was, she was certain, part of the estate. Who lived in such a—
The arched front door opened, and Mrs. St. Clare emerged. “Good afternoon, Your Grace.”
“I apologize if I was gawking at your house, but it is simply so delightful.”
The woman smiled and came toward her. “Thank you. I think it delightful, too. I am Mrs. Amelia St. Clare.”
“Ah, so this is the Dower House,” Katie said, absently patting Robin’s neck.
The other woman’s cheeks stained a delicate pink. “Yes, it is.” She hesitated before saying, “That is a lovely horse—the color is so unusual. If I’m not mistaken, he is a Friesian.”
“You are correct, he is a Friesian. He is a gift from my husband.”
Mrs. St. Clare’s eyebrows shot up. “Is he indeed?”
Katie thought the comment was rather odd, but just smiled.
“Would it be terribly forward if I invited you in for a cup of tea?”
“I should love to join you,” she said, more interested in the woman herself than food or drink.
Mrs. St. Clare beamed. “Let me just summon my—ah, there he is,” she said as a man in the garb of a groom came from around the side of the house. “Come and take Her Grace’s mount, Lake. She will be staying for tea.”
Katie dismounted with the servant’s assistance before following her hostess into the cool, dim interior of the house which, strangely, reminded her a bit of the ancient woods she’d just ridden through.
The sitting room was decorated in soothing shades of green and brown, just like Echo Forest. It took Katie a moment to realize why it felt so familiar: because everything in the room was in pairs—from the paintings on the walls to the chairs and tables.
It was almost exactly like the sitting room at Briarly, although much smaller.
How…interesting.
Katie could not help wondering why she and Betje had not called on Mrs. St. Clare during their flurry of visits.