Bewitching (43 page)

The Duke of Belmore was hiding his wife.

What an ironic twist of fate. He had hired the best solicitors in England to find him a bride, and then he'd married in haste after Juliet damaged his pride. He ran an impatient hand over his brow. And now the Duke of Belmore was hiding his duchess.

How noble.

His anger came back, but it was self-anger. Then, as if drawn by some obscure need to do so, his gaze drifted back to the small supper table, then to the connecting door.

He set his drink down, rose, and walked toward the door, even got so far as to grasp the handle, but then he stopped.

What would he say to her? I'm sorry I said those things? I'm sorry you're a witch? I'm sorry I married you? I'm sorry I'm hiding you? I'm sorry I'm an ass?

An apology was not something that readily formed on the Duke of Belmore's lips, especially when he wasn't sure what he was apologizing for.

He turned away, saw the table, and turned away from it too. He crossed to the leather chair and sat down, his hands clasped behind his head, his boots crossed at the ankles atop the matching leather ottoman, and his hard eyes glaring up at the luxuriously painted scene on the gilt-molded dome ceiling.

Wealth provided many things: painted ceilings, expensive town homes, imported silk dresses. Wealth provided sparkling jewels that would buy forgiveness, but somehow a gift of jewelry seemed as cold as his words. Money, clothes, and expensive trinkets might appease other women, but not Scottish.

He glanced at the table, thinking of his wife, of the stunned and shy look on her face when she sat atop his chest in a foggy English forest. He remembered her frozen and half-dead and the aching frustration he'd felt as he looked down and saw the deadly shroud of ice on that odd yet beautiful face—the same face that could emit the sensual glow of a woman he had satisfied, the only face in which he ever saw innocent love.

He closed his eyes and leaned back in the chair. It was there again—the guilt. The air went stale with it.

He stood up, his gaze locking on the brandy glass he'd left on the table. He moved toward it and as he did so, his damned traitorous mind flashed with the image of a pair of misty green eyes, eyes that held the innocence of the world. He looked at his brandy glass and reached for it, but his hand moved past it, choosing instead to finger the softness of a pink rose.

***

Joy awoke to the darkness of her bedchamber, her eyes burning and sticky from spent tears. Her throat was dry from the sobs that had robbed her mouth of moisture. His words echoed in her mind and heart. Sickness threatened, a thick wave of it rising from her belly like Satan from hell. Her breath caught in her throat.

She had failed. The blinding hope that drove her on in the best and worst of times had shattered like a broken mirror under the cruelty of her husband's words.

"Something terrible did happen
," he had said.
"I married you."

No muddled spell, no dwindling magic, no failed witchcraft, could crush the soul with more potency than rejection by the one you love. That was a lesson hard and painfully learned this evening. No magic could make the hurt go away.

So this was the dark side of love. This was the ache that could consume like a gargantuan beast, devouring every hope, every dream, every star-wish a girl could have. She turned over, staring sightlessly at the canopy above her lonely bed. Her eyes flooded, and she just let the tears flow in rivers of the pain of broken dreams and the hurt of hope gone dead, damp streaks that symbolized the fact that all of her wishes on all the twinkling stars in the universe would not make love grow where there was none.

***

The fresh snow that had fallen on the cobbled streets and icy lanes of Town stopped by midmorning, about an hour before Polly burst into Joy's bedchamber, saying she needed to get her mistress dressed and ready, for the duke himself had ordered it.

Eyes still burning from the sharp sting that bespoke a night of tears, Joy sat up in the plump bed and tried to summon up the energy to rise. She could hear Polly rummaging through the adjoining dressing room, hear the creak of trunks opening, the thud of them closing, the muttering of her maid as she searched for whatever it was she sought.

Donning a lovely gown would not lighten her mood. She wondered if Polly had packed any sackcloth and ashes. Sometime in the middle of the night, when awakened for the fifth time, she had thought about what her dismal future held. As surely as he who buys land gets stones, she knew Alec would send her away.

So an hour later, dressed in a heavy cream pelisse and a fur hat and muff, she descended the stairs with all the anticipation of the condemned. The heels of her leather half boots tapped, dirge like, to the front doors where Henson and Forbes stood waiting.

"Good morning, Your Grace." Henson made a bow.

Forbes rammed a bony elbow into him, then shouted, "There's nothing wrong with her face." He made his bow, still scowling at Henson.

"Good morning, Henson, Forbes. Where is His Grace?"

"What's a disgrace?" Forbes adjusted his spectacles and scowled down at his livery, straightening his gold waistcoat, which was on backwards, and tugged at the waistband of his knee-length velvet pants.

"These clothes fit me fine." He glowered at the footman. "Ye said so yerself, Benson."

"He's awaiting you outside, Your Grace."

Joy moved toward the front door.

Henson cleared his throat. "Out the back, I believe." Henson crossed over to a narrow doorway near the stairs.

"What's on my back?" Forbes, who had followed Henson, craned his white head over an aged shoulder, trying to see the back of his coat.

Henson opened the door, effectively pushing Forbes back into a corner where he could yank at his clothes with less noise. "If you'll follow me, Your Grace."

Still uneasy, Joy followed Henson down the stairs into the almost stifling warmth of the kitchen. Hungan John moved around the kitchen with practiced ease for someone whose head almost reached the ceiling beams.

"Chop those apples, little girl," he said, grinning at a small maid. "Make Them Graces the best apple chutney this night." Then he began to sing a lively song about apples in the Garden of Eden.

The maid smiled and began chopping to the beat. Hungan John's long black braid swung from side to side as he crossed to where a jack slowly turned a leg of lamb on the spit.

Joy followed Henson down the last step. A flash of white sped past her. An instant later Beezle hung by his teeth from Hungan John's braid. "Beezle!"

Henson grabbed his wig.

Joy rushed over to the cook, who spun around, sending both his braid and the weasel clinging to it in a free-swinging circle. Joy caught Beezle just as the braid swept past her.

Lying on his back in her arms, Beezle glared up at her through narrowed brown eyes and hissed. "You were locked in my room. How'd you get loose?" His brown eyes turned innocent, but were soon eyeing the cook's braid again. His wee pink tongue slipped out and licked his snout.

"What's that?" Hungan John looked at Beezle.

"Her Grace's pet," Henson said, having released his death grip on his wig.

"He ate Henson's hair," she said.

The huge cook leaned over and examined Beezle. He touched Beezle's fur, then looked at the fire. "That fur would burn plenty fast."

Beezle hissed, loud and long, but Henson's mouth held a hint of a smile.

"Hungan John could change the menu. Make weasel ragout. Hmm." He rubbed his stomach and winked at Joy, then laughed that deep, echoing laughter before turning back to his duties.

She handed her pet to a maid and told her to take him back upstairs and make sure Polly locked him up. Beezle climbed over the girl's small shoulder and began pulling the pins from her hair. Two pins pinged onto the stone floor, and Beezle looked up at Joy, guilt all over his sly face.

"Stop that," Joy mouthed as the maid carried her familiar up the stairs. The last thing she saw was Beezle chewing.

Henson opened the back door, and Joy tentatively stepped forward, her stomach a tight knot of apprehension, her throat clogged. The bite of cold air hit her cheeks. Her eyes misted with tears again. She hadn't thought she had any left. She took one deep fortifying breath and stepped outside.

Her vision was blurred at first and she saw nothing but misty white. She willed the tears to stop flowing. She did have a wee spark of pride left. She lifted her small chin and focused her eyes. Everything was still covered with snow, white and clean and fresh now. But standing in front of the stable doors was a shiny black sleigh with Jem in the driver's seat and Alec standing at its side.

She froze, unaware of the joy that shone from her face.

A shaft of pleasure flashed in Alec's dark eyes. She'd expected anger. She had expected a lecture, a reprimand, a denunciation. She had expected to be sent away. She hadn't expected one of her fanciful dreams to come true. But better than the sleigh, better than the bells that hung from the team, better than the realization that she was not to be banished, was the hint of an apology on her husband's face.

"Are you planning to stand there all morning or do you want your sleigh ride?" He pulled the brass catch and opened the door.

She hurried down the steps, but instead of taking her hand, Alec lifted her onto the seat. Her heart picked up a beat, and she held her breath for an instant, then settled into the plush leather squabs and adjusted her skirts and coat around her. An instant later Alec was at her side, his arm across the back of the seat, his legs alongside hers. He looked down at her. "Ready?"

She gazed up at him, not knowing that excitement and love and relief glowed from her face. He watched her for a moment, silent, pensive, and seemed about to say something important. She cocked her head to try to read his intention, but she couldn't determine his thoughts from his face.

"Where to, Yer Grace?"

Joy looked up and caught Jem's expectant and impatient look.

"The park," Alec answered, his hand coming to rest on her shoulder.

And with a snap of the whip, the sleigh lurched along the snow-covered drive.

The Change

Excite the mortified man!

—
Macbeth,
William Shakespeare

Chapter 20

On most days
London
rang with the noisy shouts of street hawkers and piemen, the music of flute-pipes and hurdy-gurdies, and the incessant clatter of iron wheels and clopping hooves upon cobblestones, but not this day. As if struck by a Sabbath pause, even
Hyde Park
stood deserted. It was a dreadful shame that most of the ton snuggled deep in the warmth of their fur robes or sought the melting intensity of hot coal fires after the steely English sky had deigned to sprinkle the rolling park lawns and lanes in a silent magical blanket of fresh snow.

Along the drive a double avenue of oaks arched in a fleecy white canopy. The normally clamoring hooves of the prancing team fell silently, like snow upon snow. But the sleigh bells rang clear and clean in the frozen air, the chiming melody dimmed only by the lyrical notes of the Duchess of Belmore's delighted laughter.

"Look Alec! We're the only ones here!"

"I know."

Joy pivoted in the seat to see the landscape—an unfettered ivory wilderness in the center of town. "Doesn't it take your breath away?"