The Rebel Bride (33 page)

“T
he earl of March is here, my lord, and awaits your presence in the drawing room.”

Sir Oliver ceased tugging at his boot for the moment and looked up at Filber. “He is, is he?” The deep-cut lines that slashed down the corners of his mouth lifted, and to Filber’s surprise, he gave a grunt of amusement. Then he wet his hands with his spittle and ceremoniously slicked down his frizzled gray hair.

Filber quickly dropped his eyes and looked down at the toes of his black shoes. He hoped that his repugnance at Sir Oliver’s distasteful habit would go unnoticed by his master.

Sir Oliver rose, picked up a cravat from the dresser top, and carelessly knotted it about his neck. He peered at the result in the mirror, seemed satisfied with what he saw, and turned toward the door. “Let’s go, Filber. After all, we wouldn’t wish to keep my illustrious son-in-law kicking up his heels, now would we? Such a proud young man he is, so very proud. But not anymore, huh? No, no more. He’s been quite brought down by now.” He gave a cackle of mirth and thwacked the stoop-shouldered Filber on the back.

There was an air of suppressed excitement about Sir Oliver that made Filber uneasy, that and his strange words about the earl of March.

It was barely nine o’clock in the morning, a time when his master was at his most dour and disagreeable. It was strange too, he thought, that Lady Katharine hadn’t come with her husband—not that he blamed her, given
how her father had always treated her, the poor little mite.

“It’s gracious of his lordship to pay us a visit, don’t you think, Filber? And such a gray, unpleasant day it is, too. Cold in winter, don’t you know.”

Filber quickened his pace in front of his master down the staircase. Now that he thought about it, the earl, though polite as always, had acted differently, rather too serious, perhaps even abstracted. Why wouldn’t the earl be proud anymore?

Filber reached the drawing room and flung open the double doors. “Sir Oliver, my lord.”

“My dear sir, how very pleasant to see you.”

A common-enough greeting, Filber mused, as Sir Oliver brushed past him into the room and firmly closed the doors behind him.

Julien turned from the window to face his father-in-law. He nodded only slightly in answer to Sir Oliver’s greeting. He didn’t move forward to take his outstretched hand.

Sir Oliver was not at all perturbed by his son-in-law’s coldness. In fact, he grinned broadly, rubbing his hands together. “So cold, isn’t it, my lord?”

He got no response, and continued, “Cut right to the chase, is that what you want to do? Very well, you’re a long time in coming, my lord. If the truth were to be told, I expected to see you much sooner. Won’t you be seated?”

Julien gave him an indifferent look, a look that took him a great deal of effort. Quite simply, he wanted to kill the miserable old man. “No, I think not,” he said. “But perhaps it would be to your advantage to be seated.”

“Don’t mind if I do.” Sir Oliver flipped up the tails of his coat and eased himself down into a thread-worn chair. “Well, how very well you’re looking, my lord. What do you think of this cold weather?”

“I’m not here to discuss the merits of the weather, but I’m sure you already know that.”

“And how is my dear,
dear
daughter? Is she well?
Happy? No use shilly-shallying around, my lord. That’s why you are here, is it not?”

“Katharine enjoys good health. And as you say, it is because of her that I am here.”

Sir Oliver dropped his eyes from his son-in-law’s set face and smiled, pretending to study his knuckles with rapt interest.

“Now, my dear boy, there was nothing in your most thorough marriage contract about the return of damaged goods, though I must say you thought of everything else. When you took her, you got quite a shock, eh? Not at all what you expected.” He looked up and met Julien’s gaze, a malicious gleam drawing his eyes more closely together. He chuckled. “Well stated, is it not, my lord earl? Actually, I’m surprised she’s well. Didn’t you beat her, at the very least? Demand to know who all her lovers were?”

Julien drew a deep breath and for the moment kept his anger in check. What the miserable old bastard said was exactly what he’d wanted to do. Was he such a shallow fool? He felt ill with guilt. But now it didn’t serve the purpose. “Katharine’s purity and innocence are not, I assure you, in question.” A look of deadly contempt passed over his face. “I would add that I now marvel at this, considering that she sprang from your seed. Has it occurred to you that you’re speaking of your own daughter? If your Methodist preachings allow it, I would suggest that you look within yourself, for if you have a soul, it is withered and rotted. God, but you’re despicable.”

“How dare you, you damned arrogant—Ah, don’t tell me you haven’t taken her, haven’t realized she was a slut. I’ll never believe that!” Sir Oliver jumped panting to his feet, his face mottled red with fury.

“Damn you to hell, sit down!”

Sir Oliver sagged back into his chair.

Julien planted himself in front of Sir Oliver, gripped the arms of his chair, and leaned close to his face. “Now, you will listen to me, you filthy old man. It’s quite obvious that you knew I would come, that you have indeed looked forward with a twisted delight to spewing your
venom in my face. Did you honestly expect that I would return Katharine to you, spurned and disgraced?”

He straightened quickly, repelled by the closeness of this man. Sir Oliver’s face was still blotched with his anger, but now his eyes were wary and he was licking his lips.

“Why are you here then, if not to return the little slut to me? To beg me to take her back?”

Julien nearly struck him then. He forced himself to be calm, for he had to find out what had happened. He made his hands unfist.

“At last we make progress.” He walked to the fireplace and leaned his shoulders against the mantel. “You know, I presume, that Katharine has no conscious memory of her rape and your subsequent treatment of her. But did you know that it haunts her like an elusive specter, emerging with terrifying confusion in her dreams at night? She is close to unlocking the truth, yet it eludes her still, and she lives in a suffocating dread. And that is why I am here, to learn all of the truth so she can finally be cleansed of this ugliness.”

Sir Oliver’s pent-up hatred of his daughter took full rein. “My God, you blind fool! You defend her, you believed her a defenseless child. She’s made a fool of you, aye, indeed, my lord earl. Well, I will tell you, she is a slut and she was a whore even then. Those wild green eyes, and that hair as red as all the sins of Satan hanging loose down her back. God, she shamed me, just her being born shamed me, and my doting wife, blind to the evilness of her own daughter, let her flaunt her wiles to the countryside. Oh, yes, I remember well that day, the lying little strumpet screaming that those men had hurt her. She deceived my wife with her tears, but I saw through her pretense. I beat her, yes, thrashed her to an inch of her life, to scourge the evilness from her, and I nearly succeeded, but my wife stopped me. Then the little harlot feigned illness.

“Lifeless she lay in her bed, those evil green eyes of her just staring, only staring—at me, blaming me. And her damned fool mother, half-crazed, crooning over her,
praying to God all the time to save her little girl. How I hated that, praying to God! And she trucked with evil, with the devil.”

Suddenly Sir Oliver felt his voice choked off by a painful tightening in his chest. The blood pounded in his temples, and for several agonizing seconds he couldn’t breathe. As quickly as the pain had come, it receded, and he gulped in the precious air, feeling his chest expand again with life. He tried to remember what he had been saying, and the image of Katharine as a child rose before him, her large, silent eyes staring at him, so much fear in those child’s eyes, then that damned blankness that she had to be feigning. He heard himself give a crack of laughter.

“When she recovered, she forgot. But I reminded her, yes, I didn’t tell her what she’d done, but I beat her, to keep the wickedness out of her, so she wouldn’t do it again.” Sir Oliver’s eyes blazed again in sudden passion. “Don’t you understand? All I tried to do was save her soul from eternal damnation, but I failed, I know I did.”

He paused and looked up to see the earl still standing motionless by the fireplace, a curious, unreadable expression on his face. “She fooled you too, my dear lord earl, did she not? You believed her so very innocent, so guileless, indeed, you probably admired that evil red hair of hers, those green eyes that just stared and stared when she was lying there.”

Julien didn’t answer, just waited, for there would be more, and he wanted to hear it. Sir Oliver sat forward in his chair, a look of grim satisfaction marking his mouth. “Allow me to wish you much pleasure with your virgin wife, my lord. But beware that she doesn’t cuckold you before your precious heir is born.”

Julien looked dispassionately at the leering old man before him. He felt moved by a deep tenderness for his wife. He felt a helpless sense of pity and regret at her having spent so many years with this twisted man. If only it wasn’t too late for her now.

“It happened at the copse, in the wooded area close to Brandon Hall?” He was pleased at the continued calm
of his voice, but it was difficult, one of the most difficult things he’d ever had to do.

“Eh?” Sir Oliver looked with confusion at his son-in-law.

“The copse—the place where Katharine was raped,” Julien repeated.

“One of her favorite haunts, that copse.” Sir Oliver’s voice rose suddenly. “It was her own private kingdom, I would hear her say to her mother. But I know why she went there, yes, to traffic with the devil, to learn the evilness of her body, to let those men come to her and play with her and defile her.”

Oh, God, it was enough, too much. Julien pushed away from the mantel. He wanted now nothing more than to leave this suffocating room that held only twisted hatred. “I have no more to ask you. You have provided me with all the information I need.”

Julien straightened and walked quickly to the door. He added softly as he turned the knob, “Of course you will understand that Katharine won’t be paying you a visit. Indeed, I doubt you will ever see either of us again. And don’t you, Sir Oliver, attempt to see her. What you’ve done to your own daughter—Never mind. You’re beyond help, twisted and perverted. It’s too late for you. But not for her. I won’t allow it ever to be too late for her.”

As he pulled the doors closed firmly behind him, he saw Sir Oliver gazing blankly down at his hands. He found that he didn’t want to kill the man or even strike him. He just wanted to get away from him and his venom.

“Your coat and hat, my lord.”

“Thank you, Filber.” Julien shrugged himself into his greatcoat and moved rapidly to the front doors.

“Is Lady Katharine well, my lord?” Filber asked, his voice softening.

“She will be much better soon, Filber.” He couldn’t prevent his eyes from straying momentarily to the closed drawing-room doors.

“If you pardon my saying so, my lord, all of us here
wish Lady Katharine the very best. If you would be so kind, my lord, as to give her our regards.”

Julien strode down the front steps and without a backward glance mounted his horse.

It was late in the afternoon when the sound of Julien’s voice reached Kate through the half-open door of her bedchamber. She heard his sure stride on the staircase, the sound of his Hessian boots, and she stood rubbing her sweaty palms on her skirt, in an agony of indecision. Oh, dear God, she couldn’t see him, not yet.

Her instincts for survival drove her into action. “Milly, quickly, go to the door and tell his lordship that I’m not well, no, that I wasn’t well, but I am well now. Yes, now I’m asleep. Go, now, hurry.”

She tugged off her dressing gown, threw it to the floor, and scrambled into her bed.

“Yes, my lady,” Milly said, moving as quickly as her plump figure would allow to the door of the countess’s bedchamber. She shot a furtive glance over her shoulder at her young mistress, now burrowed beneath mounds of covers, her eyes tightly closed. Milly gulped and stepped into the hallway, her nervous fingers closing the door behind her. Like most of the newer members of the St. Clair household, she was completely in awe of the earl, and as he approached nearer and nearer to her, she began to feel almost incoherent, her tongue lying thick in her mouth. She couldn’t lie to him, she couldn’t. But what choice did she have?

“Good afternoon, Milly,” the earl said politely. She bobbed in front of him, not once but at least three times. He motioned with an elegant gloved hand to the closed door. “Is the countess in her room?”

“Yes, my lord.” As the earl made to move past her, she rushed into desperate speech. “Ah, but her ladyship isn’t well, my lord, that’s it, she’s quite ill, at least she was a few minutes ago, but now she’s sleeping, soundly, my lord, very soundly.” Milly bore up rather well, she thought later, under the earl’s close scrutiny, but at that moment she was aware only that her stays were much
too tight. She shifted her weight to her other booted foot and looked at him hopefully.

“Very well,” he said.

Milly breathed a sigh of relief, but to her consternation, the earl moved to the door and quietly opened it. She wondered frantically whether she would be able to secure another such excellent position as this.