Amy Lake (16 page)

“Edward?”

The earl pulled his hand back and grunted in exasperation. “Yes, Claire?”

“How soon will you be returning to London and . . . Lady Pamela?”

This question stopped Edward cold for a moment. The answer was complicated. He would be returning to London, yes, but not to Lady Pamela. Claire had no way of knowing that, of course, and he hadn’t planned to discuss the matter with her. But, why not?  We do not have a
romantic
marriage, he reminded himself. She knew all along what to expect from me.

He decided to give Claire a truthful–but brief–explanation. “I will be returning to London shortly,” he said. “Perhaps in . . . a month or so.”

“And if I am not yet
enciente
?”

He stared at her. “Pardon?”

“Well, I’m not sure how long it should take. Do you know?  If one’s chances increase with the number of times–”

“Claire,” said the earl, “we shall not discuss this. If you are not increasing by the time I leave . . . then there will be other times.”

“Do you miss Lady Pamela?” asked Claire. Her silver-grey eyes glittered in the firelight.

“No. Well, yes,” said the earl. He found it difficult to tell even a small lie to his wife, who was regarding him with a grave, intent expression. “But Lady Sinclair is no longer my . . . my mistress.”

“What!”  Claire exclaimed, sitting bolt upright. “Why not?” 

Had Edward been paying sufficient attention, he would have realized the look on his wife’s face was one of not only surprise, but fear. At that moment, however, his notice was focused on Claire’s impertinence. How dare she question him!

“My lady,” he said, sitting up and giving her his most commanding look, “it is really not your concern, whoever my mistress may or may not be. It will never be an issue at Wrensmoor,       which is where you reside.”

“But Lady Pam–”

“Lady Pamela and I have agreed to end our association,” said the earl, hoping that his stern tone made it clear this conversation was not to continue. His wife was quiet, and he congratulated himself on his masterful handling of the situation. Perhaps now he could–t

“Edward?”

“
Enough
!” roared the earl, more loudly than he intended. He slammed his feet down onto the carpet and stood. Well, she could get hysterical if she liked, but it was high time that his wife remembered the rules of this marriage. Rules that
she
had agreed upon from the beginning–  Edward threw on his robe and stalked to the fireplace, giving the coals a vicious poke with the andiron. Sparks flew up, and he stomped one out on the rush matting.

Perhaps it was not too soon to return to London after all. He had no wish to indulge a helpless, clinging wife who became a watering pot every time he failed to answer every single question– 

It took a minute before he realized that the room was quiet except for the crackling of the fire. No heart-rending sobs were coming from the bed.  He turned around to see his wife still sitting up, regarding him evenly.

“Are you quite through?” Claire asked. “You are my husband. Your life is of interest to me.”

“A mistress is of–” 

She interrupted him. “Your mistress is a major part of your life, is she not?  I see no reason why I should not be kept informed.”

She picked up a chased-silver hairbrush from the bedside table and began brushing out her hair. Edward watched, hypnotized by the rhythmic strokes and the glossy black curls shining in the firelight. His wife had worn one of Madame Gaultier’s more exotic creations that evening, and the silk hid almost nothing from his view.

This woman is to provide you with an heir, Edward thought to himself. She will have your children. You have given her everything else she could possibly need.

This is not a marriage of sentiment. This is not a marriage of love.

“Claire,” said the earl, returning to the bedside. She looked up at him, her gaze clear.

“I–”  Edward stopped, then began again. “I will be returning to London sooner or later, and yes, I will be . . . selecting a new mistress.”

“Who–”

The earl put a finger to her lips. “I have no one in mind as yet. I will tell you her name when  . . . when I have decided, if you still wish it.”

“Very well,” said Claire, her expression unreadable. “I do wish it.”

“I don’t see why. We agreed your home would be Wrensmoor, did we not?  Soon there will be children–” The earl faltered, wondering at the hollowness he suddenly felt inside. His children, at Wrensmoor–without him.

“Yes, we agreed. It is very well, my lord, thank you.”  Claire gave her hair a few more strokes and set the hairbrush aside. “Do you wish to come to bed now?” 

“No. . . . That is, yes. I will sleep in my own rooms tonight.”  He left.

* * * *

That night, for the first time in over a year, Edward dreamed of his brother’s death. The dream, as always,  was pitilessly exact in its accounting, and once again Edward felt the panic and anxiety; the fear that had ended in his discovery of Frederick’s body lying motionless at the creek’s edge.

He had relived the night of his brother’s death so often in his dreams that the events were imprinted permanently in his mind. He had heard a knock at his bedchamber door, then more knocking as he came clawing upwards from an uneasy sleep. Moonlight flooded the room with an eerie luminescence, and he could hear shouting in the corridor, the harsh sound of male voices.

“Edward!  Hallo, old man, wake up!”

That’s Drere, thought Edward. Why is he knocking on my door?  The man’s usually too drunk to sit up by this time of night.

“Edward!”

Teddy Alnwick?  Thoroughly mystified by now–what could  Frederick’s friends possibly want with him?–Edward swung his legs over the side of the bed.

Only five men stood at his door, but at the time it seemed like twenty gibbering dandies poured into his bedroom, all talking at once, and exclaiming something about Frederick. Although Edward could hear the words well enough, he could not decipher their meaning.

“Lucifer!” he thought he heard someone say.

Lucifer?  Frederick’s stallion?

He tried to tell them that he could not understand what they were saying, but no sound came from his mouth, and the air itself seemed to slow him down, no matter how he hurried to dress. He couldn’t find his shirt, and his boots slipped through his fingers when he tried to pull them on. What were the fools bawling about now?  The commotion increased as he tightened his grip on the leather, his knuckles white with the effort.

It was a bet, they told him, panting, as he ran. Frederick’s been such a dismal bore lately, we were only trying to cheer him up. Your brother swore he knew the terrain like the back of his own hand– 

Edward, the devil’s knees, man, slow down!

They raced to the stables, where a groom was trying to calm Frederick’s stallion, who was lathered and blowing and riderless, the reins hanging and trampled into tatters. Cecil is going to get himself killed if he doesn’t stand back, Edward had thought without emotion. Lucifer reared up, hooves flailing.

It seemed hours before he found Frederick, the body dimly seen in the light of earliest dawn and cradled in the dewy grass, with his head at that . . . unnatural angle. Edward dismounted and ran to where his brother lay, falling to his knees with a guttural cry.

A full-tilt ride through the night, ending abruptly, the ‘where’ of his brother’s death defined with brutal precision on the turf.

Fury surged through his veins. Hadn’t there been sorrow enough?  Was there nothing better Frederick’s idiot friends could think of for an evening’s wager?

Edward reached out to gently smooth the hair back from his brother’s forehead, absurdly worried that he would do further injury to his neck. He took Frederick’s hands, to kiss them–

Something glittered in his brother’s left hand.

It was a woman’s gold locket and chain, finely wrought. He stared at it for untold minutes, certain he had never seen it before, unable to look away. Inside was a lock of hair and an inscription–

The stream caught the morning’s first light as the sun rose over the side of the hill. With a convulsive movement Edward threw the locket as far as he could, away from the broken body lying  there in the cool grass. He heard a small splash and imagined the figured gold sinking under the water, never to be found, never to be seen again. Never–

It was at this point that Edward always woke up, heart pounding and his nightshirt drenched with sweat. In his dream, he could never manage to read the words of the locket’s inscription or make out the color of the strands of hair. In waking, of course, he remembered them all too well.

* * * *

“My lady?”

Claire looked up from a steaming cup of tea. She had risen early, as usual, trusting she would find the earl in his customary place at the breakfast table. They ate in the east solarium, which was–so far, at least–her favorite room in the castle.  Even on rainy days it offered a  marvelous view of the river, and this morning Claire’s attention had been focused on a family of geese as they made squawking forays to the water’s edge.

She gave the butler an apologetic smile.

“I beg your pardon, Boggs, I’m afraid I’ve been wool-gathering again. What is it you wish?”

“My lady, the earl . . . requests your presence in his study.”  He cleared his throat.

Why, the unflappable Boggs looks nervous, thought Claire in surprise. Oh heavens, please don’t tell me Lady Gastonby is here!  I am truly not ready for Lady Gastonby.

She was mentally phrasing a tactful question–do we have visitors today, Boggs?–when he cleared his throat again and began a second halting address. “Lord Tremayne has ordered . . . has instructed me to request that you attend him as soon as possible.”       

Claire wasn’t fooled by Boggs’s attempts at polite wording. Ordered, indeed. If her husband’s need to talk to her was so urgent, why wasn’t he at breakfast?

Well, it wasn’t the poor butler’s fault, and Claire hoped she had managed to hide her annoyance. “Thank you, Boggs,” she told him in a confident, cheerful voice, “I will be there directly.”   She sat back to enjoy a second cup of coffee.

* * * *

It was a long walk to the earl’s study, past the music room and the library, through the great hall, and into the west wing. If she didn’t pay attention, she could make a wrong turn and end up at yet another staircase leading to a destination she could only guess at. Wrensmoor Castle was huge, and the floor plan had not been laid out by someone with a logical turn of mind.

Was her husband angry?  wondered Claire, thinking about the earl’s hasty exit from her rooms the previous night. Would he be announcing his return to London?

She paused in the great hall to get her bearings. Huge bunches of flowers, glorious in their color and fragrance, were scattered throughout, and she marveled, as always, at the number of blooms the estate hothouses managed to produce.

How could the earl bear to spend all his days in London when he had this?

Claire thought back to the evening before. She had not understood why her husband objected so strongly to her questions concerning mistresses, although at least she had managed to establish that–for him, anyway–there would be only one of them. Perhaps men did not usually discuss such things with their wives, but–as Edward had pointed out to her several times–they did not have a usual marriage.

Still, it was difficult to believe he no longer desired her. She allowed herself a small smile.  Edward may have left her bed rather precipitously last night, but they had made love once–no, twice–that day already. And hadn’t he been fondling her breasts yet again, all the while telling her that his mistress was none of her concern?  Men!  So absorbed in their dignity, and so obvious at the same time. The gossips claimed that a man could tire quickly of even the most beautiful woman, but it didn’t seem reasonable that Edward could have so abruptly lost interest.

But perhaps, she thought–the idea like ice water dripping over her heart–with a need so acute, any woman would do.

Oh, glory, she was lost again. Claire stepped back from the staircase she had almost stumbled into and looked around her. Ah, yes, the tapestry with the odd-shaped . . . stag. And that rather fine bust of Homer. The earl’s study was just down this hall over here.                 

* * * *

“Edward?” 

The earl did not greet her–or even glance up–and Claire was immediately irritated. “My lord, I have better things to do than stare at the top of your head.”

“Sit down,” said her husband. “It’s time we went over a few matters of finance.”  He motioned to a chair opposite his, and–for lack of a better options–Claire sat, feeling like a child summoned before her father.

Finance?  Good heavens, was he going to lecture her on household economies?  She hadn’t spent a ha’penny since coming to Wrensmoor, although–oh, dear, was he talking about Madame Gaultier?  Claire was sure the bills from the
modiste
were staggering, and she could have told him it would be too much, but he had insisted–

“My lord, no doubt you have received the first reckonings from Madame Gaultier,” she said, trying not to sound defensive. “I tried to explain the problem to you at the time, but you were away from Tremayne House most of those two days, and–”        

The earl was looking at her curiously. “Madame Gaultier?  You say she is here?”

“No, my lord, the bills. The bills for the gowns and the– well, everything else. I knew they would be enormous, but–”

The earl leaned back in his chair, and put his hands behind his neck. Dear heavens, he is handsome, came Claire’s unbidden thought. She was endlessly fascinated by the strong planes of Edward’s face, the piercing blue of his eyes. His sleeves had been rolled up to avoid the ink pot, and she tracked the shifting muscles and tendons of his arms, remembering their strength around her waist.

“We seem to be at cross purposes,” said Edward. “I believe Madame Gaultier was paid before we left London. Justin MacKenzie would know the exact amount, but it does not signify. I am speaking about marriage settlements.”