Joan Wolf (14 page)

She chuckled. “You surprised me, too. You had been represented as rather an ogre, as I’m sure you must realize.”

“I know,” he replied a little grimly. “When I left England four years ago, I was ... oh, hurt and bitter, I suppose. And guilt-ridden, too. I
did
feel responsible for what happened to Caroline, you see. We did not have a happy marriage, as I’m certain you have heard by now. I just wanted to get away.

“And then I came home and you were here. You were so serene, so lovely, so sweet—I began to think that with you I might really be able to live happily at Castle Dartmouth after all. For the first time since I was a boy it felt like a home to me. It wasn’t just Robin I wanted you for. It was for myself as well.”

“Why didn’t you tell me that?” she asked wonderingly.

“I didn’t think you wanted to hear it. You never gave any sign that you regarded me as anything more than Robin’s father. I thought that since that was my trump card, I had better play it.” She heard the smile in his voice. “It worked.”

“So it did,” she replied sedately—or as sedately as she could, considering she was locked in his arms. “So it was my motherly qualities you coveted,” she went on in the same tone.

“Your motherly ... ?” The words were almost a growl, deep in his throat. “My feelings for you, my girl, aren’t remotely filial.”

“Oh, aren’t they?” she teased, deliberately provoking him.

“No.” He picked her up in his arms and carried her over to the bed, where he began to undress her efficiently. His brown eyes were narrow and blazing. “Not at all,” he muttered, and reached up to tear open his own neckcloth. A wave of desire rippled through her and she held out her arms to him.

“I love you so, darling,” she said. “I love you.”

Chapter Eighteen

It wasn’t until a good deal later that the Earl and Countess of Dartmouth got around to discussing their chief problem again. “You must go away,” Mark said definitely. They were both in dressing gowns and eating a light supper in front of the fire in Laura’s room. They had neither of them felt like dressing for dinner. “I can’t keep you safe here. Even with Evans playing bodyguard, someone has managed to get at you.”

Laura put down her chicken wing. “So that’s why Evans has been following me around,” she said wonderingly.

“Oh, you noticed him.” Mark cocked an eyebrow at her. “Did you think he was one of my minions out to get you?”

“The possibility crossed my mind,” she said smoothly. He grinned and she thought with amazement: We can even joke about it now.

He went on, “Still, the fact remains that you simply aren’t safe. If I stick to you wherever you go, it will only be grist to the enemy’s mill. He wants to involve me.”

“Well, on at least one occasion you saved us from a fatality,” she said soberly. “If you hadn’t been at the lake ...” She looked at him curiously. “Why
were
you there, Mark? You hadn’t been out of the library in days.”

He looked a little rueful. “I saw you going off with Giles Gregory from the library window,” he confessed. “I just didn’t like to see you spending so much time in his company.”

“You don’t think
Giles ...”
she said incredulously.

“No, no, nothing like that,” he assured her hastily. “I was jealous, I suppose. The fellow always seemed to be hanging about you.” He rumpled his hair a little. “I don’t like Giles,” he confessed. “I’m afraid he reminds me too much of Caroline.”

“Oh,” she returned softly. “He looks very like her, I believe.”

“Very much.” Mark took a sip of wine and thoughtfully regarded its sparkling effervescence. “I’d like to tell you about Caroline,” he said. “Perhaps it will explain a few things to you.”

“I’d like that,” she replied gravely.

“I’ve never told anyone,” he went on, still not meeting her eyes. “It isn’t a story that redounds to anyone’s credit—but you have a right to hear it.” At this point Laura thought she did too, and so she said nothing and let him continue. She thought, as well, that it would be good for him to unburden himself finally on a subject that had obviously been a cause for great agony and great blame.

* * * *

“I was twenty years old when I married Caroline,” he began. “She was eighteen. I met her at Cadbury House in August of 1814. I had come home from duty in the eastern Mediterranean in June and it looked as if my career in the navy was finished. My elder brother had died the previous December, you see, leaving me the heir.”

 He frowned a little and his gaze moved from the champagne to the fire. ‘“Robert’s death had aged my father unbelievably,” he went on slowly. “He had always been so proud of Robert—of his shooting, his horsemanship ...” Here he flashed a quick smile at Laura. “Robert would have been more up to your standard in that department,” he told her.

“You are quite up to my standard, darling, I assure you.” She smiled at him a little mysteriously and his eyes glinted in response.

“Yes, well, Robert’s death hit my father very hard,” he continued resolutely. “One of the results was that he became hipped on the idea of my marrying and having a son. I can tell you he was absolutely obsessed with the idea. He was afraid something would happen to me and then where would the Cheney line be?”

“Whereas he wouldn’t have minded your demise so much if you left a son or two behind,” Laura murmured.

He grinned. “That was the general idea.” Then, quick to read the expression on her face, he added, “You mustn’t blame him, love. As I said before, Robert’s death had changed him. And one can’t blame him either for loving Robert more than me; after all, Robert had always lived at home. I was away at sea from the age of eleven.”

“I think it’s disgraceful,” Laura said, “pushing children into the navy at so young an age.”

“It has its drawbacks,” he admitted, “but by and large I liked it. Now, will you stop interrupting and listen?”

She folded her hands in her lap. “Yes.”

“Thank you. Well, as I was saying, I had been home two months, two months of listening to Papa going on about my duty to my line, when I received an invitation to Cadbury. The Season was just over in London and they had some people down for a house party. I went, saw Caroline, and suddenly the idea of marrying didn’t seem so distasteful.”

He poured himself a little more champagne and sipped it thoughtfully. “In retrospect, I really can’t blame myself for being bowled over. I certainly wasn’t alone; she had had a tremendously successful Season. Half the party at Cadbury was composed of men who wanted to marry her. You know how good-looking Giles is—well, Caroline had the same fair-skinned, fine-boned beauty, but on her it looked ethereal. She had these huge innocent blue eyes and was so small and delicate—they had dubbed her the ‘fairy princess’ in London.

“So, one look, and I fancied I was in love. Amazingly, she seemed to return the sentiment, and when I proposed a month later, she accepted. We were married in October.” He poured himself another glass of champagne and downed it. “I discovered on our wedding night that she wasn’t a virgin,” he said tersely.

“Oh,” Laura breathed.

“It wouldn’t have been so bad, Laura, if she hadn’t tried to deceive me!” he said passionately. “If she had told me before, I think I could have accepted it—I really do.”

“Were
you
a virgin? Did you tell her about
your
past experiences?” Laura asked gently.

His jaw set. “It’s not the same thing,” he said.

Laura sighed. “No, I suppose not.”

“Maybe it ought to be,” he admitted, “but in our society it just isn’t. A man expects his young bride to be a virgin; she does not expect the same of him.” His mouth twisted a little. “I told you this story did not redound to anyone’s credit.”

She reached across the table and briefly touched his cheek. “It’s all right, darling. I understand. And you are right—she
should
have told you.”

“Well, she didn’t,” he replied bleakly. “She left me to find out for myself. She was hoping, I think, that I wouldn’t notice.

 Well, of course I got all indignant and accused her and she cried and we had a thoroughly unpleasant scene. It was not,” he said with masterly understatement, “an ideal way to begin a marriage.”

“No,” Laura murmured sympathetically, “I can see that.”

“We had gone to Cheney Manor, the estate in Derby, for our honeymoon. We stayed for two very uncomfortable weeks. I behaved badly —I admit it. But she
looked
so damn innocent and guileless, Laura. I just couldn’t forgive her for deceiving me, for trying to fool me. After the two weeks, we returned to Castle Dartmouth, and about six weeks later Caroline told me she was going to have a child.”

“Oh, no.” Now Laura’s eyes were wide with horror. “You mean Robin ...”

“Yes. I mean Robin. I had slept with her only that one time, on our wedding night. I was too angry and hurt to go near her again. So of course I asked her the obvious.”

“Whose child was it?” Laura’s voice was small and fearful.

“Yes.” His voice was grim. “This time she was truthful. She didn’t know.”

 A small sound came from Laura, and she put her hands up to stifle it. A muscle flickered in his jaw, but he went remorselessly on. “That left me with a hell of a choice. Either I made a huge scandal, acted the betrayed husband, and dragged us all through the mud, or I kept quiet and accepted the child as mine.” He revolved his champagne glass slowly in his long fingers. “Under the circumstances,” he said quietly, “I really had no choice. I said nothing.”

“Mark, who was ... ?” She couldn’t finish the question.

“Her lover? I don’t know. She wouldn’t tell me.”

Laura closed her eyes. “Dear God ...”

“Yes, it was not exactly enjoyable. And I didn’t make it any better,” he said honestly. “Having made up my mind to accept her as my wife, to accept her child as my own, I should have tried to forget the past. But I didn’t.”

‘It was not an easy situation,” she said softly.

“No. But I didn’t even try. I thought, very well, she can have my name and my home, but I’m damned if she’s going to have
me.
I was going to make her suffer, you see. I even started to see some girl in the town.”

“You were only twenty.”

“That was part of the problem,” he admitted. “I was too young to handle it all. Poor Caroline. She had been counting on me, I think, and I let her down.”

“Then Robin was born ...” Laura prompted.

“Then Robin was born. God, how I hoped he’d look like me! But he didn’t. He was the image of Caroline. I used to look and look at him, trying to find a resemblance to me—or to anyone else I knew. There was nothing, only this miniature Caroline.

“Then my father died. While he had been alive I had tried to keep up some pretense of normality, but after he died we behaved like what we were—two strangers who happened to inhabit the same house. I had no idea it was so impossible for Caroline.”

 He put his elbows on the table and rested his forehead in his hands. “You can imagine how I felt when she killed herself.” His voice was muffled. “I was greatly at fault, Laura. She had erred, but I was the more to blame. Then all those rumors started circulating ...”

“I’m sorry for her, of course,” Laura said, “but really, darling, you mustn’t blame yourself so much. After all, I had a husband who ignored me quite as thoroughly, and I assure you I never even
thought
of taking my own life. And I didn’t have a darling little baby to live for, either.”

He lifted his head. “That’s true. But you are a much stronger person than Caroline.”

“From what you’ve told me, that shouldn’t be difficult.”

A little of the strain left his eyes. “I applied for a ship almost immediately. I had to get away. And the Admiralty offered me the Turkish survey. It was the answer to a prayer, and I jumped at it.

 I was away for four years and during that time I came to some terms with what had happened. Mainly I determined that I would not make the same mistake with Robin that I had with Caroline. In the eyes of the world I had accepted him as my son, and I knew I had to treat him as my son, not as some pariah who happened to wash up on my doorstep.”

“You have been marvelous with him,” she assured him.

“It was easier than I thought it would be,” he confessed. “I was nervous of meeting him. All I could remember was this baby looking up at me out of Caroline’s eyes.... But Robin was a little boy, a distinct person in his own right. And a very likable person. It wasn’t difficult at all.” He smiled at her. “And then, you were there.”

She didn’t return his smile. “Robin may not have your coloring, but he
does
have a look of you, darling. And too, he is so tall ...”

“No, Laura.” His voice was quiet but firm. “That kind of speculation is exactly what I promised myself I would not do. Robin is himself and he deserves to be loved as himself. Whether he is mine by blood is not important. He is mine in every other way. My son. We must —neither of us—engage in fruitless and destructive guessing games about his parentage.”

“Oh, Mark.” She came around the table and knelt before him, her arms around his waist, her face against his shoulder.

He rubbed his chin against her hair. “It’s not such an unusual decision,” he said lightly. “You have loved him like a mother for years, and you have no blood ties to him.”

“It’s different for a woman,” she murmured into his shoulder.

“I don’t see why it should be.”

She laughed a little and raised her head. There were tears in her eyes. “It’s like virginity:  there shouldn’t be a difference, but there is.”

 She put up a hand to smooth his hair back from his forehead. “If Caroline had only had some courage and patience, you would have come around to accepting her as well. You would have done it sooner, I expect, if she hadn’t complicated matters by having a baby.” She heaved a sigh and looked wistful. “How I should love to have a baby,” she said longingly.

“Are you giving me a hint?” he demanded.

“Why, no,” she murmured, startled and drawing back in his embrace.

He shook his head. “I can see you are. Well, love”—he stood up, drawing her to her feet—”if you’re quite finished eating ... ?”