A Duke's Wicked Kiss (Entangled Select) (41 page)

He gave a slight nod. “Indeed, milady. I shall inform Her Grace forthwith.”

“Thank you, Eades.”

Suri exited the house. Sighing at the gathering clouds, she waved at Marguerite and made her way to the pasture where the infamous apple tree stood. Why she chose to come here this dreary morning, she wasn’t quite certain. Trying to figure out how she felt was like pouring water into a bucket with holes in it—nothing stuck.

So here was where young John had listened in on a conversation that left him in doubt of his heritage. Leaning against the rough bark of the tree, she peered through overhead branches bearing a thick canopy of green leaves and the beginnings of green fruit. Come autumn, those round buds would turn into succulent red apples. Cook was using up the last of those in storage, Becky had said.

If she lived to be a hundred, she’d never eat another apple tart without thinking of John. A shiver touched her skin at the notion that what had barely begun between them might have run its course. Could it be she might never share anything—let alone apple tarts—with him in their winter years? She closed her eyes to the sorrow produced by the thought. The idea of spending the rest of her life climbing into bed alone ran far afoul of her wants.

A snap of a twig brought Suri out of her contemplations. The duchess approached. There was a look of severity about her, but Suri knew her well enough to understand that what etched lines around her mouth was deep concern. “Has either of your sons returned, Your Grace?”

“
Non
,” the Duchess responded. With fingers laced together in their usual manner, she stared blankly across the landscape.

There could have been a north wind blowing, for the cold swirling about the woman. How Suri wished she hadn’t mentioned anything to Eades about her whereabouts. What should she say now to keep the conversation alive? She picked a small fallen apple from the ground to have something to do with her hands. “Do you know where they might have gone off to? Where they would remain the night?”

The duchess dipped her head. “The hunting lodge. Do you know where it is?”

“I’ve run across it while riding,” Suri said. “But I’ve never ventured inside.”

With a slow turn of her head, the duchess narrowed her eyes at Suri and then turned away.
She thought me there with Edward?
Well, Suri would have none of that. She tossed the apple aside. “I reject your disdainful regard of me, Your Grace. I have never been there. Alone, or otherwise accompanied.”

Her words must have held power, because the duchess’ shoulders slumped for the briefest of moments and then straightened again. “I had a stable lad saddle a horse for you,” the duchess announced in a voice crisp as a winter’s morning. “Go after them.”

Suri’s insides jolted. For a fleeting moment, she considered walking off without a word. “Surely my presence would only worsen things.”

“On the contrary,” the duchess said with a set jaw. “I believe you to be the only one who can resolve the situation.” She pulled a handkerchief from the sleeve of her dress and crushed it in her hand. “One can only hope Edward is not sacrificed in the process.”

Suri bit her lip and gathered enough strength to ask her question. “Is Edward the bastard? Is that why you cater to him the way you do?”

The duchess whirled around, her face a hard mask. “Where did you get such an idea?”

“Look above your head, Your Grace. Tell me what you see.”

Bewilderment flashed through the duchess’s eyes, but she did as she was told. She turned her hard stare back on Suri. “Leaves and branches. What of it?”

“Look again. If a boy were to hide amidst all that foliage, would you catch sight of him?”

The duchess’s face blanched. “I understand,” she said softly.

“Then is Edward the bastard? John has always thought it might be either one or both. Somehow he didn’t think James’s parentage was in question.”

She turned away from Suri. “Tell me, did your illegitimacy cause you concern?”

“Yes. All my life.”

“Then you understand one of the reasons I will go to my grave holding secrets in my heart. I had no idea John knew of his father’s philandering. I wonder if he said anything to his brothers.”

Suri studied the pain the duchess could not hide in her countenance. “I hope it gives you comfort to know I am the only person he’s told.”

One of the duchess’s knuckles slid between her teeth. “Did John tell you how hard I was on him?”

Now here was a bit of surprising news. “No, he never indicated anything of that nature. What of James, were you hard on him as well?”

Pinching the bridge of her nose as if to balance herself in some odd way, the duchess said, “Oh yes, James.” She worked the handkerchief into a ball in her fist. “I protected James as well, but for reasons other than my treatment of Edward. I was too easy with Edward because he took to drink like his father. My husband was a good man, and loyal, when he wasn’t imbibing. His taste for the stuff caused him to do things that…that were hurtful. While he carefully hid his habit, Edward drank openly. I thought if I treated my son differently from how I had addressed his father’s inclination, it would help, but my approach only served to worsen matters.”

“And James?”

The duchess turned so that her profile was visible. “John did not tell you about James?”

“No.”

The duchess stared at Suri for a moment and then sniffed. “Well and good then, I suppose.” She pressed her hand to her forehead as if feverish. “Edward needs to remove himself from here. I’ll accompany him to our London townhouse.”

Anger stirred in Suri. “Do you think it fair for you and Edward to leave, now that John has come home? He returns only to have the two of you rush off? Perhaps it is I who should leave.”

“No, Edward must be the one to go. I’ve known this for a long while.” She turned. Lines etched her face. “Go to them. Do what you must, but get on with it. I remember the quarrels they used to have over nothing but a couple of toy soldiers. Over a woman they both care for, they may have murdered one another, for all we know. I fear I will not make it another day if they do not return soon.”

She is well aware of Edward’s fanciful feelings toward me.
“I will,” Suri replied and strode toward the stable.

“Suri,” the duchess called out.

She turned. “Your Grace?”

“It doesn’t matter, in the whole of it, whether or not you are legitimate. I loved my three sons equally. And as for you—you had no one who understood your pain, or could help see you through being called names. You can give to your children what you never had.”

What was the duchess saying? Was she, too, of tainted blood and had suffered? “Forgive me if I am wrong, Your Grace, but I take this to mean one of your living sons is definitely a bastard—or perhaps both. But if only one is legitimate, is it right to make him wonder?”

A peculiar look passed over the duchess’s countenance. She turned and walked away without another word.

…

There was no sense running a horse through the woods and risking a fall. At least that’s what Suri told herself when she gave the gelding free rein to amble at his own pace along the path to the hunting lodge. Her heart skipped a beat at the very thought of reaching her destination. If it hadn’t been for what she saw in Edward’s demeanor yesterday, she’d be in a far better disposition.

Her horse’s ears pricked forward. He danced sideways and whinnied. “Easy, Valhalla.” Pulling him to a halt, Suri listened. Hoofbeats rolled through the forest like distant thunder.
A single rider.
Valhalla whinnied and bobbed his head, eager to make contact. “You know the other horse, do you?”

She eased Valhalla forward.
Edward or John?
As the sound grew nearer, a tide of apprehension gathered in her chest. Stop it, she told herself. The rider could be the gamekeeper.

Edward rode into view.

Her heart beat hard against a slash of dread.

“Suri.” He pulled up alongside her, his horse prancing in place and yanking at the bit.

Valhalla reached out and nipped at the mare’s flanks. Suri reined the beast in and nodded a greeting. Edward was definitely sober. And calm. His gray eyes were clear and…well, he looked freshly shaved.
How well furnished is the lodge
? But something was vastly different about him, something beyond the physical. There was vicissitude in him, and he carried new authority, not unlike John’s. A look of expectation flashed brilliant in his eyes. Why, he appeared to be a man driven!

“How are you?” she managed to ask.

He paused and with one hand holding the reins, rested the other atop his thigh. Why had she not noticed how remarkably alike his and John’s hands were? A wry smile touched his lips. “I’d like to say I couldn’t be better, but that would hardly be the case—although things are about to improve. I am off to London.”

Her throat closed on her. She swallowed and struggled for words. “You…you are leaving?”

“I must.”

Oh, no.
“John threw you out?”

He shook his head and a corner of his mouth curved. “Leaving is entirely of my choosing.” His chin lifted just enough to cause his eyes to grow heavy-lidded in his regard of her. Now the slight smile on his lips held secrets. “I am off to find a friend who is out to find a friend.”

“You’ve worked things through with your brother, then?”

“We have.” While his horse danced in place, his smile slowly dissipated and his regard of her grew intense.
Oh God, he truly cares
! A thousand tiny fists pummeled her stomach. His gaze shifted to the forest, as if to gather his thoughts. When his eyes met hers again, they’d grown stormy. “I am sorry, truly sorry, and I beg your forgiveness.”

Quivers of compassion shot through her. She cleared her throat and spoke softly. “You have it.”

He took the reins in both hands and lifted them, as if to leave. “By anyone’s measure, I’ve been quite the rotten bastard.” His short laugh was humorless. “In more ways than one, I suppose.”

Her jaw slackened. “You are aware of your questionable heritage?”

He lifted a brow. “John wasn’t the only boy to hold court in the apple tree.” His horse danced again, picking up its rider’s mood. “I’ve a great number of regrets, which I intend to resolve, but there is one vast regret which still confuses me, and I must work through it on my own…away from here.”

She was afraid to ask. She swallowed hard. “What?”

“Forgive me. Not knowing my brother was still alive, I may have come to care for his wife.”

Startled, she let out a small gasp. “His wife?”

Within the depths of his eyes whirled a tempest of emotion. “You two were married in spirit the day you took his ring. Your upcoming wedding will merely be a legal formality.” He gave her one last regard. Whatever went on between John and him she might never know, but here was a changed man. In the silence that followed, he turned his horse away from her until he was forced to look over his shoulder. “Good-bye, Suri.”

Her heart dropped to her toes. “Good-bye, Edward. I ask your pardon for any ill will I might have given you. You’re a good man, and I wish you well.”

With a small nod, he squeezed his knees against the horse’s sides, setting the beast in motion. He disappeared around a curve.

Tears threatened. She sat, mounted on her horse, doing nothing but listening to the gentle sounds of the woodlands, until her urge to weep receded. A raindrop splattered on her gloved hand. She stared at it. Large as the thing was, she had better make haste before a deluge struck.

Urging Valhalla into a canter, she rode to the lodge and dismounted. A flicker of lightning brightened the pewter sky by shades. Thunder rumbled slow and heavy through the air. Divesting the horse of tack and saddle, she set him free to wander in the steadily increasing rain—better that than risk having the horse spook while tethered and break a leg. He whinnied. Another horse whinnied back, and Valhalla broke into a trot toward the sound.
That must be John’s horse.

After placing the gear on the covered porch running the length of the lodge, Suri paused with her hand on the door’s latch.
A wedding?
Well, she’d not let John off without a huge and detailed apology. No simple “I’m sorry” like Edward had given her. There were things to be settled between them. How dare he take his brother’s word over what he knew of her integrity?

She opened the door, stepped inside, and found herself standing in an expansive room made of honey-colored timbers. A log the size of a small tree blazed in a stone fireplace, one large enough to step into. Brown leather sofas and chairs surrounded the fire and a blanket lay in a heap on one sofa, as if someone had recently crawled from beneath it. She frowned in disapproval at the stuffed animal heads mounted on walls that climbed two full stories to a landing above her.

A grand set of stairs led straight up to a second floor with a wooden railing running the length of the wide balcony. Her breath caught. There, near the staircase, stood John in his shirtsleeves, arms spread, hands gripping the railing, watching her. His rolled sleeves exposed muscled forearms, corded by the weight he bore on them. His fierce gray eyes held steady on her, his thoughts hidden by years of practice.

She stood riveted by the sight of him, her pulse drumming in her ears. Would she never get used to his heart-stopping handsomeness? Or his tightly leashed power? If he walked down the stairs right now and touched her, he would leave her helpless, destroy her every intention of setting things straight between them. Well, her blood might be racing through her veins like wildfire, but she wasn’t about to let her bearing betray her. In the heavy silence, she swallowed the lump in her throat, turned her back to him, and spoke coldly. “You owe me an apology.”

“I apologize.”

“Your filthy-mouthed accusation was vile, Ravenswood. You didn’t even bother to ask me if there was a spit of truth to Edward’s lies.”

“Ravenswood, is it?” His voice was deep and husky. And damn it, carried humor.

She heard his footsteps on the stairs. “And don’t think to touch me.”