A Bride by Moonlight (20 page)

Napier weighed what to tell her, but he wanted to gauge her reaction, too. “I’m going to call upon Dr. Underwood,” he said. “I want to ask him some questions.”

Her eyes, hard and suspicious, drilled into him. “What kind of questions?”

Napier felt an odd chill go down his spine. “I want to know what made your father ill,” he replied. “I want to know the cause of his death, exactly.”

Bea tossed away her grass, and leapt to her feet, anger sketching across her face again. “I already know,” she said.

“Beatrice?” said Napier softly. “What, exactly, do you mean?”

“
They
killed him,” said the girl, her narrow gaze shooting toward the house. “They did it. They plagued him to death—
deliberately
, too—just like he always said they would.”

“Now, Bea—” Napier reached for her hand again.

But Beatrice Tarleton jerked from his grasp, then turned and ran back up the hill.

Napier watched the child go, wondering at her words.

CHAPTER 8

The Wisdom of the Samudrika

I
n the end, Napier did not return in time for dinner. Out of either vanity or lunacy, Lisette put on her best blue dinner gown and tamed her red curls with blue velvet ribbons, all to no avail. The only person even vaguely impressed was Lord Duncaster, who sat, regal and imperious, at the head of his table, while Gwyneth Tarleton made snide remarks about Lord Hepplewood’s pending marriage.

It was enough to cast a pall over the entire room, which was rather a feat since the ceilings soared twenty feet high. By the end of the meal, Diana Jeffers was staring at her plate, her face bloodless. Lady Hepplewood was staring mostly at Gwyneth—or rather, shooting daggers at her—and her visage held plenty of color.

Lisette did not lay eyes upon Napier again until dinner the following day. Afterward, they played a rubber of whist with Gwyneth and Hepplewood, then Napier excused himself, saying he had paperwork due back to Whitehall. Duncaster scowled mightily, but said nothing.

The next evening followed much the same, except that Diana sang while Mrs. Jansen played the pianoforte. Lisette thought their existence dull, and it made her reconsider the life she’d led in Boston. Harsh and hard it might have been; boring, never.

At breakfast—assuming they crossed paths—Napier took it upon himself to make the most mundane conversation imaginable. Their moments of familiarity seemed at an end. If she invited him to walk with her, he politely put her off with obfuscation and excuses.

Though it stung rather more than it should have done, Lisette saw no alternative but to accept it. None, that was to say, save to trot down the corridor and knock on his bedroom door again—a disconcertingly tempting notion. It was as if Napier’s touch had woken something long dormant inside her, and the aching loneliness that so often plagued Lisette now felt more acute than ever.

The truth was, she was almost twenty-eight years old, and save for her earliest childhood years, she had known no intimacy. Since her father’s death, she could not recall her heart soaring with elation, or warming with contentment. Perhaps her heart had begun to quiet even before then. And now she could not stop herself from wondering what Napier would say if she offered to share his bed.

It was, of course, a mad, foolish notion. The warmth of a man’s body—even his passion—could never assuage true loneliness.

But mightn’t it hold it at bay for a time?

Oh, she’d meant what she’d said to Lady Hepplewood about not having expected to marry. But now that her life’s objective was over—or, more correctly, had shattered like glass—it was if the black void that constituted the rest of her life might swallow her up whole. And in her heart, Lisette feared that a man—not even one so strong and ruthlessly disciplined as Royden Napier—was apt to drag her from that awful precipice.

And so they muddled on until, by week’s end, it appeared her betrothed was avoiding her. Even Lady Hepplewood began to remark upon it, however subtly, and to cast hopeful glances in Diana’s direction. Lisette laughingly brushed it off, and declared herself a work widow.

Instead, she tried not to indulge her feminine fantasies, and to honorably uphold her end of their bargain. She distracted Lady Hepplewood at every turn, keeping her away from Napier when they were in company. She snatched every straw of scandal that could be gleaned from Gwyneth or Diana, and from her maid’s efforts belowstairs, which reaped a bounteous harvest.

Fanny was reliably informed that Walton, the first footman, having been repeatedly spurned by Mrs. Jansen, was now bedding the village postmistress. The postmistress was married to a large and irascible innkeeper. A bad end was predicted.

It was widely believed Lady Hepplewood had come to hate her late husband—quarrels had been overheard—but no one openly accused her of doing the poor fellow in.

Gwyneth was thought to have Sapphic leanings—and leaned, it was speculated, toward Mrs. Jansen—an eternally popular choice, apparently.

One person who seemed disinterested in Mrs. Jansen, however, was the young Lord Hepplewood, who never spared her a glance. He, it was said, had long been meant for his cousin Anne. But at the end of her come-out Season, Anne had insisted upon the bland, modestly affluent Sir Philip Keaton, more fool she. Hepplewood had gone blithely about his business.

As to matters at Burlingame, the staff accounted Diana Jeffers too timid and inconsequential to be its mistress. The jury was still out on Lisette. And lastly, Napier’s man Jolley was thought “a trifle slippery”—an assessment with which Lisette cheerfully agreed.

She kept a mental list of this tittle-tattle, on the off chance Napier would ever trouble himself to ask for it. She also collected the promised letter paper, deftly taking two pieces when one would do, writing on the first while tucking the second away.

She wrote to Mr. Bodkins. She wrote to her old nanny and to Mrs. Fenwick. She even wrote to friends and neighbors in Boston: twice to the Reverend Mr. Bowen, her parish priest, who had been a source of some comfort in her youth. The extra paper she slipped into the competent hands of Jolley, who would rub it almost lovingly between his thumb and forefinger before nodding his thanks like a little bird, then trotting off again.

On the following Monday, the weather turned unaccountably hot and by some odd happenstance everyone came down to breakfast at once. Tempers were not much improved when Lord Hepplewood announced over his kippers that Miss Willet was shortly to visit.

Gwyneth snickered aloud. Diana and Lady Hepplewood glared at her.

Duncaster seemed to hold no opinion on Hepplewood’s marital fate. When his plate was finished, he cleared his throat portentously. “Have you given any thought, Saint-Bryce, to Squire Tafton’s request?”

Napier looked up, setting his knife down with an awkward clatter. “No, sir,” he said. “I had meant to ride to Marlborough again tomorrow.”

“Whatever can that boring little man want?” asked Lady Hepplewood irritably. “Surely he’s not complaining about drainage again?”

“No, no, nothing to do with land.” Duncaster stabbed his fork in Lisette’s direction. “Seems Mrs. Tafton is perishing of curiosity about the next Lady Saint-Bryce. She wants them to tea at the Grange.”

“Oh,
that
.” Lady Hepplewood gave a disdainful sniff. “Any little thing to get a step up on the villagers, I daresay, and show off that child of hers.”

Napier caught Lisette’s gaze across the table.

“Send your acceptance, my boy,” Duncaster ordered, stabbing his fork again. “That’s my advice. I could drop off this mortal coil tomorrow. Tafton may be a bag of wind, but Burlingame shares a border with the fellow.”

Casting her another glance, Napier lifted one eyebrow. Lisette heard the unasked question. “How kind of the squire,” she said brightly. “I should love to meet Mrs. Tafton.”

“
Hmph
,” said Lady Hepplewood.

Not long after, Diana excused herself. “My leather and silk samples came from Manchester this morning,” she said, pushing back her chair. “I shall be in the green bedchamber if anyone needs me.”

A look of boredom passed over Lady Hepplewood’s face. “Then I shall read on my divan,” she said, “but first, Diana, you must fetch my book.”

“Of course, Cousin Cordelia.”

Gwyneth drained her coffee. “Fine, then I’m spending the morning on the west balcony,” she said. “I keep a telescope there, Elizabeth. Mrs. Jansen has quite an expertise in astronomy, if you’d care to have a look some evening? Perhaps we might find your birth constellation.”

“Yes, perhaps,” said Lisette vaguely, “some night.”

But she had no intention of climbing up into the high, open balcony with Gwyneth. With an inward shudder, she remembered the last time anyone had talked to her of stars.

It had happened that terrible day of the Leetons’ garden party. Lady Anisha Stafford had manned a gaudy fortune-teller’s tent, one of the school’s fund-raising endeavors.
The Mysterious Karishma,
the sign had read,
direct from Calcutta
.

Lisette had tried, of course, to avoid her. She had long suspected the lady was Lazonby’s lover. But eventually her fellow teachers had dragged her inside, laughing.

Lady Anisha had never seen Lisette in her gray dress and brown wig. But it had struck Lisette at once that there was something entirely unsettling about Anisha, who—despite her outlandish costume—had not looked remotely as if she were playing a parlor game. Instead, she had flicked a glance over Lisette’s palm, and declared at once that Lisette was Gemini born, and dangerously ambidextrous.

It had gone downhill after that.

Frighteningly so.

“
Like many of your kind, you are of two natures,
” Lady Anisha had said in a dark, distant voice. “
You are torn in half, your better self being dominated by your lesser self. You will be driven to destruction if you do not have a care. You have let your anger and your determination and your denial of joy push you past rational thought.
”

It had been, strangely, the words
denial of joy
that had most infuriated Lisette. She had not wanted to face the ugly reality of what she had done to her life. But when she shoved back her chair and suggested Anisha go to hell and take her nonsense with her, the lady had leaned halfway across the table, refusing to release her hand.

Instead, she had warned her.

“
If you continue on, you could lose your moral compass entirely,
” she had whispered, her fingers caught hard around Lisette’s wrist. “
Is that what you wish? You must choose a hand. Right? Or left? You must choose a side. Darkness? Or light?
”

It was a warning that, a mere half hour later, Lisette had wished desperately she had heeded.

She wished she had chosen light.

Instead she’d pursued darkness. The darkness of revenge. And Lord Lazonby and Sir Wilfred had paid a terrible price for it. She had pushed herself to the verge of madness, and in the end, perhaps gone a little over the edge.

Even now the self-loathing roiled inside her, sickening her. Even now she wanted . . .
what
? Absolution? Certainly she wanted Royden Napier never to know the truth about what she’d done. Who she really was in the black pit of her soul.

Yes, that was what she wanted. But it was not apt to happen. He was too good at what he did. Already he knew how she’d persecuted Lazonby. But he wanted her to admit it. And to admit how Sir Wilfred had died. He wanted her to say the words aloud. And
that
she would never do.

Yet she felt drawn to Napier in a way that was deeply troubling. It was almost as if, down in that dark corner of her soul, she
wished
to be caught.

Lisette looked down, and realized her hands were shaking.

Good God.

Was that what this was? A delicate dance of self-destruction? Only the truly mad did such things. But was she tempting fate by challenging Napier? Or had she begun to desire him to an irrational degree? Was she searching for her own small measure of joy and intimacy—but in the most dangerous place imaginable?

“My dear?” The voice came from far away.

Lisette looked around the breakfast parlor to see that everyone had vanished save Napier and his grandfather.

She shoved back her chair a little too harshly. “I’m going to find Diana,” she blurted. “Perhaps . . . perhaps I can learn something about décor.”

Napier sat at one end of the table, already looking like lord and master and staring at her through those dark, hard eyes as if he could read her very thoughts. Disconcerted, Lisette hastened from the room.

Almost at once, however, Lisette heard someone push away from the table. Soon ominous footsteps were following her.
Napier
. Even now she knew the sound of that long, purposeful stride. She hastened around the corner but he caught up with her just beyond the library doors.

“Elizabeth, wait,” he ordered.

She stopped, but did not turn around.

“Elizabeth, what is it?” he said, stepping around to block her path.

“What?” she managed. “Nothing. Why?”

Impatience sketched across his face. “You looked as if you’d seen a ghost.”

She flashed a weak smile. “We all of us have a few, I daresay.”

At that, his eyes unexpectedly softened. “
Elizabeth
,” he said chidingly, taking her hand.

Napier drew her from the passageway through the open door of the library, which smelled of old books and warm sunlight. She went reluctantly, and when she looked up, his eyes were searching her face again. It was as she’d feared: the man missed nothing.

“It is hard for me to fathom,” he said quietly, “that you, of all people, might be afraid of me.”

“Afraid of you?” she lightly echoed. “What a fanciful notion.”

His gaze was wary. “I thought perhaps you’d rather not go to Tafton’s,” he said. “Alone. With me. Besides, you never agreed to be trotted across Wiltshire like some broodmare on display.”

Lisette shrugged. “It’s nothing to me. I shan’t have to live cheek by jowl with these people.”

“Then what?” he pressed. “Just now—in the breakfast room—your hands were shaking. You looked a little haunted.”

She gave a faint laugh. “In my experience,” she said, “whenever a person is haunted by something, it’s usually just the specter of their own past.”

“And is that it?” he asked, his hand still holding her wrist—much as Lady Anisha had done, as if they were both determined to make her face what she was. “I wouldn’t know, you see,” he went on, gentling his tone. “You’ve shared nothing about yourself with me.”

Her smile faltered. “Nor do I mean to,” she said, shaking off his grip.

The concern in his eyes faded a bit. “You really do not trust me, do you?”

“Not in that way,” she whispered, stepping back a pace. “How can I? And you don’t trust me. We both of us know what the other is, Napier.”

He dragged a hand through his hair, looking suddenly bedeviled. “Yes, I suppose,” he said. “I mean . . . damn, I don’t know what I mean. I’m just trying to work my mind around what’s between us. I mean, we understand one another—what’s going on here—don’t we?”