Chapter 11 #2
He held his arms out to his sides. “Why the harsh tones? Do you see a pistol about me?” he asked. “Chains? Ropes? Do you see a constable or guard lurking at my shoulder? Do you think I have searched for you all this time just in order to see you executed? Do you know me so little, Isabella?”
“Speak plainly with me,” she said. “For once in your life, Matthew, speak plainly. If I refuse to be your mistress, what then? Give me a straight answer.”
“Isabella,” he said, “I am a guest here. I came with an old friend of mine, Lord Thomas Kent, to spend a few weeks on an estate I have always wished to visit. It is quite splendid, is it not? You are a governess here—a happy coincidence. And of course we must speak of that unhappy death, whose mystery still has not been cleared up because you fled immediately after it. But there is no need to say everything that needs to be said between us at this very moment, is there? You are not going anywhere for the next few weeks, and neither am I.”
“No,” she said. “I did not think you would be persuaded to speak plainly. But I understand you very well for all that. I have, after all, known you for much of my life. I am to live with a threat hanging over my head. You will dangle me like a puppet on a string.”
“You have heard, I suppose,” he said, “that the Reverend Booth was, ah, disappointed in you? I believe it is the elder Miss Hailsham who is currently the fortunate recipient of his smiles.”
Daniel! Fleur lifted her chin.
“When we leave eventually, Isabella,” he said, “I think it would be as well to do so without airing our dirty linen, so to speak, before the duke and duchess, wouldn’t you agree?
And I am quite sure that you would not wish to cause his grace unnecessary disappointment when you leave by raising false hopes in the intervening weeks, would you?
You will, of course, be coming home, where you belong. ”
“Don’t worry, Matthew,” she said, “there is no affair to put an end to.”
He smiled. “He makes a habit of strolling the back lawns in the early morning, then?” he said.
Fleur turned her head sharply to find that indeed his grace was walking toward them.
“Good morning,” Lord Brocklehurst called. “I find that your park has as magnificent prospects at the back of the house as before it.”
His grace was carrying a cloak over one arm. He shook it out and set it about Fleur’s shoulders without a word to her.
“My grandfather hired the best of landscape gardeners,” he said. “I trust you had a good sleep, Brocklehurst?”
“Indeed, yes, I thank you,” the other said. “And as you must have guessed, your grace, my feeling of last evening was quite correct. Miss Hamilton and I have a slight acquaintance and have been inquiring into the health of each other’s relatives.”
“Miss Hamilton,” his grace said, turning to her, “I will be giving Pamela her first riding lesson this morning directly after breakfast. You will bring her to the stables, if you please. You are dismissed for now.”
“Yes, your grace.” She curtsied without looking at either him or Matthew and turned to hurry back to the house.
There was to be some reprieve, then. It was not to be quite as bad as she had feared all night, and for two months before that.
He was prepared to give her her freedom in exchange for what he had wanted for three years past. Except that in the past she had been able to treat his attentions with scorn.
Now he must feel that he had a hold on her.
And who was she to say he did not? It was all very well now, in the relief of knowing that it was not to be today, to tell herself that she would throw his offer in his face when he told her finally that it was time for them to leave.
It was well now to imagine herself telling him, her head thrown back, contempt in her eyes, that she would take the noose rather than him.
But would she when the time came?
And it was quite like Matthew, of course. It amazed her that she had not thought of it as a possibility before. He had wanted her badly enough. Was it likely that he would give her up to the gallows any more willingly than he would have given her up to Daniel?
Of course. She was foolish not to have thought of it.
She unbuttoned the cloak absently as she climbed the stairs inside the house. And then she looked down at it with awareness. It was her own cloak. It had been hanging in her wardrobe.
He must have sent a maid upstairs for it. He had brought it out to her and wrapped it about her shoulders.
And he had ordered her to bring Lady Pamela out to the stables to him after breakfast.
There was to be another day, then. Not chains and a long carriage ride and a dark prison cell at the end of it. Not yet, anyway.
Her step lightened and quickened. There was to be another day.
IT WAS STILL TOO EARLY for breakfast when the Duke of Ridgeway came inside with Lord Brocklehurst. There was still time to accomplish one more thing before eating and going back outside with Pamela.
He sent a servant to summon Lord Thomas Kent to the library if he was up. He must talk to his brother. Somehow, he could not take the coward’s way out and just say nothing.
He thought grimly of the night before. Unable to sleep himself, he had done something he rarely did. He had gone into his wife’s room very late. He had half-expected to find the room empty and the bed unslept in.
But she had been both there and awake. And feverish and coughing. She had watched him listlessly as he approached the bed.
“You are not well?” he had asked, touching his fingers to her cheek and finding it dry and burning. He brought her a cool cloth from the washstand, folded it, and laid it over her forehead.
“It is nothing,” she had said, turning her face from him.
He had stood looking down at her for a long silent moment. “Sybil,” he had asked quietly, “shall I send him away? Will it be less painful for you if he is gone?”
Her eyes had been open. She had been staring away from him. And he had watched one tear roll diagonally across her cheek and nose and drip onto the sheet. “No,” she had said.
Nothing more. Just the one word. He had turned away after a while and left the room.
Her maid had reported to him that morning that her grace had recovered from her fever.
He fully expected that after a journey of a few days his brother would be still asleep. But he came wandering into the library fifteen minutes after being summoned, his customary half-smile on his lips.
“This brings back memories,” he said, looking about him. “Many was the time we were summoned here, Adam, for a thrashing.” He laughed. “I more than you, I must confess. Is that why I have been summoned here this morning?”
“Why did you return?” the duke asked.
“The fatted calf is supposed to be killed for the prodigal’s return,” Lord Thomas said with a laugh. “You have not learned your Bible lessons well enough, Adam.”
“Why did you return?”
Lord Thomas shrugged. “It is home, I suppose,” he said. “When I was in India, England was home. And when I returned to England, then Willoughby was home—even if I am not welcome here. Sometimes it is not a good thing to be just a half-brother.”
“You know that has nothing to do with anything,” his grace said harshly. “We were scarcely aware of the half-relationship when we were growing up, Thomas. We were simply brothers.”
“But at that time one of us was not duke and afraid the other might waste some of his vast substance,” the other said.
“And you know that that was never my concern either,” the duke said. “I tried to persuade you to stay. I wanted you to stay. I wanted to share Willoughby with you. You belonged here. You were my brother. But when you insisted on leaving, then I told you you must not return. I meant ever.”
“Ever is a long time,” Lord Thomas said, strolling to the fireplace and examining the mosaic lion on the overmantel. “It’s strange how I could not even picture this room clearly in my mind when I was in India. But it all comes back now. Nothing ever changes at Willoughby, does it?”
“You couldn’t leave her in peace, could you?” the duke said.
“In peace?” Lord Thomas turned around with a laugh. “You mean she has been in peace married to you for the past five and a half years? She does not appear to me like a woman living in wedded bliss, Adam. Haven’t you seen that? Are you still besotted with her?”
“She had accepted the fact that you were gone,” the duke said, “that you would never return.”
“Well.” His brother sank into a leather chair and draped a leg over one of its arms. “She does not seem unduly unhappy at my return, either, Adam. She is not as niggardly in her welcome as you are.”
“And what is she to do when you leave again?” his brother asked.
“Have I said anything about leaving?” Lord Thomas spread his hands. “Perhaps I will stay this time. Perhaps she will not have to do anything.”
“It is too late for you to stay,” the duke said curtly. “She is married to me.”
“Yes.” Lord Thomas laughed. “She is, isn’t she? Poor Adam. Perhaps I will take her from you.”
“No,” the duke said. “Never that. I doubt that would serve your purpose at all, Thomas. You will merely take her heart again. You will convince her again that you love her, that for you the sun rises and sets on her. And then, when you tire of the game, you will leave her. She will not guard her heart against such an ending because she will believe in you as she did before and as she has done ever since you left.”
“I gather you must have played the gallant and taken all the blame.” Lord Thomas was laughing again. “She did not rain blows at my head as I half-expected her to do. You are a fool, Adam.”
“I happened to love her most dearly,” his brother said quietly.
“I would have given my life to save her from pain. I knew she could no longer love me—if she ever had—and so I allowed her to think me the villain. But perhaps she already thought that. I came back alive, after all, and spoiled everything.”