Chapter 1 #6
“Quite.” Lord Riven’s lips curled into a bitter smile. “I suppose you couldn’t think any worse of me than you already do, so I may as well share the gory details.
“It was in the final rounds of the last war of the northern cross, nearly two and a half centuries ago. I’d left to travel the continent for pleasure just before the war broke out—a Grand Tour, young men call it nowadays, although mine was long delayed by other responsibilities.
Of course, I should have hurried back when the news of the first battle reached me in Berlin, but I was still young and feckless at that point.
I’d been waiting for years for my great adventure, and I thought all the rumors must be blown out of proportion.
“I couldn’t imagine good Englishmen killing each other in that day and age over such rampant, holy nonsense.
I was insufferably certain it would be over within a month and not worth changing any of my plans.
” His lips compressed. “Needless to say, I realized my mistake far too late. By the time I returned, my older brothers were both gone, lost to the ravages of war. Even my father hadn’t long left to live, though it was illness and heartbreak that took him in the end.
But he was tormented by the knowledge that the Rose, our greatest responsibility, was left with no clear line of descendance.
With my brothers gone and I unmarried—and proven to be unforgivably unreliable—he was terrified that the family line would end with no one left to guard the Rose, our ancient compact broken.
” Lord Riven’s throat flexed behind his cravat.
“I did the only thing I could to reassure him and grant him peace in his final days.”
“You allowed him to Turn you with the Rose.” It was the only way the transformation could have been accomplished; already-Turned vampires could pass the curse onwards with a simple blood rite, but anyone else would require the gem’s assistance.
Margaret tilted her head as she studied her husband.
“Yet vampirism removes the chance of children, which could have created those descendants he yearned for.”
“If either of my brothers had survived, he would have trusted them to guard the line moving forward. But as for me...well. Neither of us could pretend I hadn’t abandoned the family and left my brothers to fight without my help.
Thus, it only made sense that I pay the price for my selfishness by taking on the family’s greatest purpose forevermore. ”
“And never leaving this estate ever again?” Margaret murmured. “Was that part of the agreement, as well?”
Lord Riven’s gaze dropped to the thick red liquid in his glass, which he swirled for a long moment without speaking. Finally, he said, “In the few days he had left, my father never thought to demand that promise of me.”
But he had, apparently, chosen to fulfil it anyway.
Margaret had never cared for self-imposed martyrdom. But she couldn’t help a tiny jab of empathy.
She knew only too well what it was to be a disappointment to one’s family...and how it felt to lose those relatives who were beloved. After all, she hadn’t moved in with her aunt and uncle until her orphaning, halfway through her childhood.
So, she quelled her first, exasperated, response and chose instead to make her best attempt at diplomacy.
“I believe two hundred and fifty years must be regarded as enough penance to serve any reasonable purpose,” she said.
“But I can certainly see now why you’ve been growling and snapping ever since we met. ”
“‘Growling and snapping?’” Lord Riven let out a snort as he raised his gaze to meet hers, sudden humor lurking in his expression.
“I beg your pardon, madam, but are you now claiming to have been the soul of courtesy and warmth from our first moment of acquaintance? I seem to recall you nearly biting my head off over the state of my poor kitchen when you arrived.”
“Tea is important,” Margaret told him, “especially in times of crisis. A man of business who was truly on your side would have seen to exactly that sort of necessary preparation before your wife’s arrival.”
“Well, in that case, I truly do have good reason to resent Shaw’s betrayal.
” Her husband’s voice was wry. “However, the fact remains that I have failed at my family’s mission in the end, as my father always expected I would.
Had I been able to take the Rose with me, I would have willingly stepped aside and accepted the loss of my estate to honor that commitment.
But Shaw was, as I recall, astonishingly vivid in his description of the government’s plans to search each departing landowner for possessions they might illicitly secrete upon their person.
He also claimed that a close eye was being kept on all of our estates in that final week before the law’s enactment, to ensure none of us attempted to stash our possessions elsewhere.
..and while your family, according to Shaw, had no interest in the Rose except as an historical relic, I couldn’t risk it falling into the hands of the government, to be used as an active weapon. ”
“Of course not.” Margaret flapped one hand in dismissal. “But that’s all past now, and it’s just as well that you made the choice you did.”
“It is?”
“Of course! You would have lost the Rose regardless of which decision you had made. On this path, though, you have me by your side to help you get it back. We simply have to work out exactly who it was who bribed your man of business.”
She narrowed her eyes as she thought it through.
“I don’t believe it could have been our own ruler.
So far as I can tell, King Thomas hasn’t any dreams that can’t be satisfied by scantily-dressed vaudeville dancers and copious amounts of the finest champagne.
” His mother, the late, great Queen Anne VIII, would have rolled in her grave if she’d witnessed such useless depravity.
In her own fiery two decades on the throne, she’d overturned so many ancient customs for the better.
“On the other hand, if one of his advisors has any grand plans for military glory, I can’t imagine King Thomas standing against them. And as for the nations beyond...”
“Aren’t you missing a logical step along the way?” her husband inquired.
Frowning, Margaret snapped her gaze up to meet his.
He gestured meaningfully between them with his half-full glass. “Have you not yet stopped to wonder how it is that Shaw introduced me, not to any sensible, impoverished young woman who might have welcomed a speedy marriage for financial reasons, but to you in particular?”
“My aunt and uncle—”
“May be as greedy as any other pair of seemingly respectable villains, but that’s beside the point.
He could have found a dozen other options if he’d searched, and every one of them would have been far more convenient, more willing, and closer to home.
..but he did not. He clearly wished me to marry you. ”
Lord Riven leaned forward, a glint of real intellectual challenge sparking in his eyes for the first time and making Margaret’s breath catch in her throat.
“There cannot be an infinite number of scholars in this country who are currently researching the fabled Rose of Normandy. Judging by everything I’ve learned of you in the past few days, I’d wager you’re at the very top of that field.
For you to then be accidentally chosen as my potential wife in a nefarious scheme to steal the Rose of Normandy?
No, that stretches plausibility past its breaking point. ”
“I...dare say you may be right.” Blinking, Margaret straightened in her seat and tried to ignore her instinctive response to that unexpected acuity on the part of her new husband.
Damn it, he was not meant to be distractingly intelligent as well as attractive on a purely physical level.
She had more than enough complications to manage as it was!
“I hadn’t considered that point,” she confessed, shoving aside that irrelevant, secondary issue.
“But I suppose I am, at the moment, the only female scholar with that specialty. For all of our late queen’s attempts at social reform, our antiquated laws still won’t allow marriages between two gentlemen, at least not yet. ..”
“But why would Shaw wish me to be paired with any such scholar in the first place? It seems contrary to his better interests to deliver me a partner who would be invested in reclaiming the Rose for their own study.” Setting aside the glass, Lord Riven held her gaze, his usual air of weary apathy nowhere to be seen.
In the kindling energy of his focused attention, Margaret found her first glimpse of the man he might have been—keen, curious, quick-thinking and decisive—before centuries of guilt and self-inflicted isolation had taken their toll.
Her chest tightened and her breath shortened for no reason whatsoever.
“No, madam,” he said softly, “I believe that when it comes to discovering the ultimate villain of this piece, we’ve no need to turn our gaze abroad to distant rulers and international strategies.
Someone hired Shaw to trick me, steal the Rose and make you my bride—and thus render you a permanent legal resident of this manor.
That someone, much like you, clearly knows a good deal about the Rose, to have followed every long-lost rumor—and they wanted you trapped here, deep in the countryside with me and far from the college you consider home.
“So, tell me truly, wife.” He cocked one imperious eyebrow. “I know your manner of diplomacy and tact all too well. Exactly how many enemies have you made since you arrived at university? Because clearly, someone there wanted rid of you.”
“I’ve never even socialized in my own college. How...oh. Oh!” Margaret’s mouth fell open as the truth hit her. In an instant, the fog of disconcerting interest, attraction, and denial was dispelled. Cleansing rage took its place. “That bastard!”