Chapter Eight #2
Weeds tufted the long drive, evidence not just of neglect but that little traffic had passed this way. The drive took them straight up to the square house with the two curving Palladian wings on either side.
The windows were dirty, and a sad air of neglect hung over the place, but there was no sign of serious decay. He directed her down the side of the house to a separate stableyard at the back. A middle-aged man came out lethargically to take the horse.
Van greeted the man as Lumley, but there seemed little fondness there. Probably the few staff remaining in the house were short on wages and tired of neglect.
Van assisted her down. “Let’s do the guided tour, but even at its best, Steynings wasn’t a jewel. I suppose some architects must be better than others.”
As they toured the house, she saw what he meant. In places the proportions were not quite right, and some doors were inconveniently placed. All the same, it was a pleasant home, and ghosts of happier times lingered in pictures on the walls and arrangements of cloth-shrouded furniture.
She looked at one excellent portrait of his Dutch ancestor. “You never thought of selling this?”
“All or nothing.”
Victory or death, even in financial matters. Infuriating in one way, but she couldn’t help admiring it.
They ended up in a small drawing room, where the cloths had been removed and tea set out. She sat to pour. “I don’t see that much needs to be done here other than cleaning.”
He roamed the room restlessly. “There’s some leakage from the roof. Brickwork needing pointing. Possibly dry rot in one section of the basement. Not obvious things, but if neglected the place will crumble about somebody’s ears one day.”
She passed him a cup. “The nine thousand will cover it?”
“Oh yes. And the servants etcetera.”
It seemed invasive to quiz him on his affairs, but he needed to focus on them. “And the estate? Is it profitable?”
A look suggested that he thought it was invasive, too, but he answered.
“Slightly. Times are hard now the war’s over, but we’ll make do once some money’s been plowed in.
Drainage, fencing, marling. All the things tenants put off.
I should have been here helping, shouldn’t I?
I should have sold the damn pictures and plowed in the money. ”
She sipped, deliberately calm. “Why didn’t you?”
She thought he wasn’t going to answer, but then he said, “Now, I’m not sure.” He looked around the room as if it represented the whole house. “I couldn’t bear to peck away here like a crow pecking out the eyes of the dead—”
He stopped, and she could find no words to invade that silence.
He suddenly put down his cup and saucer and said, “Come upstairs. There’s something I want to show you.”
They’d toured all the main rooms, but she rose and went with him up the wide stairs and along a short corridor. He opened a door and invited her in. She entered and looked around curiously at what was probably the master bedchamber, shrouded in white cloths.
Then she saw his expression. “No, Van.”
It was instinctive and she didn’t entirely mean it, but she knew she must.
He came close to rest warm fingers on either side of her face. “Why not?”
Her wretched body was already shimmering with excitement but she knew she had to do what was best for him. He was running away into something simple. “The servants . . .”
“Aren’t likely to come up here unless ordered to.” He unfastened her bonnet ribbons and tossed it aside, then her cap, then began on her hairpins.
She whipped herself out of his hands and retreated clutching her wanton hair. “No!”
He simply stood there, temptation incarnate, by his need as much as his beauty. “Why not?”
She struggled to push back loosened pins, to re-create order. “We didn’t come here for this.”
“We didn’t come for tea, either. We’ve just had tea.”
“Is that what it is for you? Like tea?” It was nonsensical, but she threw it as a weapon.
“I don’t much like tea.” Then he sobered. “Is this one of the games you like, or do you really not want to?”
It made her feel ashamed, and confused, and uncertain, and she wanted to soothe him in the one way that seemed to work. . . .
“Marry me, Maria.”
At the shocking words, she retreated another step, shaking her head. “No, Van. No. That was never part of this.”
He became still. “So. It was just an amusement for you.”
“No!”
“Then what? Why not? Am I wrong in feeling there’s something special between us?”
She lowered her hands and felt a heavy hank of hair tumble down her back. “Not wrong, but not right either. I’m eight years older than you.”
“Well then,” he said, “will you mind if I marry Natalie?”
She just stared. Eventually she managed to say, “If she’s willing—”
“She’s nine years younger than I am.”
She could have slapped him. “That’s not the same thing!” Then she braced herself to say the words that always hurt. “More importantly, I’m barren.”
She saw it hit him, shaking him. “Are you sure?”
“Of course I’m sure.” She snared the fallen hair, coiled it, and fixed it in place. “I’ve never shown any sign of conceiving.” She fired a fatal arrow. “And it wasn’t Maurice’s fault. Natalie is his daughter.”
His sudden pallor made his eyes an even more brilliant blue. He bent abruptly to pick up the hairpins that had fallen from her hair, and when he rose, he was merely sober. “What if I don’t care?”
“You have to care. It’s your duty to care.”
“Maria, I love you.”
She shook her head. “No. You can’t.”
He came over to her, pins in his extended, beautiful, scarred hand. “I thought that too. That I couldn’t love. I thought I was dead except for an inconveniently beating heart. Then you burst into my room that day and brought me back to life.”
She took the pins trying not to show how the mere brush of her fingers against his warm palm shuddered her. “I don’t regret it, but I will if you persist with this.”
Red flushed his cheeks, but he didn’t look away. “Are you denying what burns between us? Can you say it means nothing, that it’s on my side only?”
He’d put the blade in her hand, and all she had to do was wield it—deny her love, agree that it meant nothing. . . .
She tried, but the sacrilegious lie stuck in her throat. Her lips moved, but no sound came out, and heaven only knows what he read in her face.
She turned sharply to the mirror, stabbing pins into her hair, striving for courage to cut him free.
She heard the door close and turned to find that he’d gone.
Van went downstairs in that state of shivering lightheadedness that had always swept over him after battle, when he’d realized that yet again he was miraculously alive and intact. But this battle had only just begun.
She hadn’t said that the fire burned on his side only.
Was it willful folly to believe she’d stuck on a lie rather than a hurtful truth? All he knew was that this was Demon Vandeimen’s most crucial battle and he’d fight, fight to the end.
He stood in the silent, slightly musty hall stirring again the dreams that had built here for him this afternoon.
He’d begun to dream of a freshly-painted hall, the plaster cornice repaired in that corner, the parquet floor perfumed and gleaming with wax.
Now his mind put flowers in the vase on the table, and potpourri in the china jar.
Then laughter trickled from upstairs and children ran down and out, out into the grounds to explore as the triumvirate had, to be Robin Hood in the woods and pirates on the river—
The vision shattered and he sucked in a deep breath.
Yes, his idyll had contained children and it would hurt to let that part of the picture go, but children weren’t as important as Maria. Anyway, they could bring children into their lives as she had Natalie. Heaven knows, there was no shortage of orphans in the world.
Natalie. Oncle Charles and Tante Louise had gossiped maliciously about Natalie, so that had been no surprise. He hadn’t made that other connection.
He burned with the need to act, to charge wildly into battle, but where was the enemy here?
He went over to the china potpourri pot his mother had loved and lifted the lid to find that it still contained dusky petals, doubtless put there by her own hands. Having been covered for so long, a faint perfume stirred like a ghost of summers past.
Tears stabbed, and he looked up, swallowing, fighting, until the danger passed. There could be summers here again, and children even if they were not of his blood. There could also be Maria.
There had to be.
It wouldn’t be the first time he’d led a forlorn hope.
He heard a sound and turned to see her coming down the stairs, gloved and hatted, composed except for something bruised in her eyes. He would cut off his arm rather than cause her pain, but he could not let her run away without a fight.
He met her at the bottom of the stairs, blocking her way.
He saw her flinch, but she met his eyes. “We should return to London. We can make it before dark.”
“Of course, but let me say something first. We can have children.” He overrode her protest. “We can give a home to orphans as you have to Natalie.”
“You have bastards you need to house, Lord Vandeimen?”
It was harsh as a swung saber, but attack had never daunted him. “Not that I know of. Fight with me, Maria, instead of against me.”
She met his eyes, lily-pale, steel-cold. “We are not on the same side in this.”
“Maria—”
“No!” She sidestepped to walk around him and he grabbed her arm.
She whirled, furious—and afraid.
Instinctively his fingers loosened, but then he tightened them again. “All I want to make clear is that if you are barren it is not an insurmountable obstacle.”
“Your title would die.”
“So, it would die. It’s an upstart Dutch transplant only five generations old. It’s not worthy of human sacrifice.”
Her lips tightened and she suddenly looked older, older than her years. All he wanted was to cherish her and he was bruising her in mind and spirit.
She opened one gloved hand and he saw his ring in it. “I’m sorry, Lord Vandeimen,” she said, looking at some vague point behind him, “I find we would not suit.”
“Dammit, Maria”—he sucked in a breath—“We have a contract and it has nearly two weeks to run.”
Her eyes clashed with his. “I’m ending it now. As soon as we return to town I’ll have your nine thousand pounds transferred to Perry’s.”
“A contract has two parties. I say it will hold until the end.”
“Hold to it if you want. I will not wear your ring, and you will not live in my house. I will not see you again, Lord Vandeimen. In fact, if you have any honor at all you will stay here and get on with restoring your home!”
It hurt, like blows, like blades raining down on him, but he kept hold of her arm and spoke steadily. “And leave you to return unescorted? I think not. But you’re right, we should leave.”
He let her go then, and stalked out of the house before he gave into temptation to shake her, kiss her, or ravish her.
He suspected she’d succumb to angry ravishment, and that would be the cruelest blow of all.