Laura Kinsale (26 page)

It was the mildest comment he had ever made on one of his son’s reckless follies.

The Earl Belmaine let himself softly into the carved library, where a distinguished and soberly dressed man stood up, barely visible amid the dark wainscoting and portraits and books.

“Good evening, Mr. King.” The earl spoke with a small, wry twist to his fine mouth. “I fear that tonight will not be an auspicious moment for any meeting. My daughter-in-law is indisposed.”

“I’m sorry to hear it, my lord,” the attorney said, with an efficient nod of his head.

“Sit down. A little refreshment?” The earl poured wine from a decanter into one of the four glasses that stood ready.

“Thank you, my lord.”

‘Tell me,” the earl said, measuring out a thick, greenish liquid from another bottle and sitting down with the cordial, “we are not so Gothic in these latter days that a wife and children are still considered the legal property of her husband?”

“Well, certainly not his property, my lord. We do not countenance slavery in the common law, I am happy to say. But the wife’s legal existence is subsumed in the husband’s. In return for his duty to support and comfort her, he has full rights to her property, and of course absolute paternal control over his minor children. Within the unbroken marriage, the husband represents the sole acting legal entity.”

The earl nodded thoughtfully. He was staring at a portrait beyond the lawyer, a painting of his son, in which the artist had caught with full impact the arrogant, awkward solitude of a sixteen-year-old irritated beyond bearing by the hours of sitting motionless in formal dress at his father’s command.

Lord Belmaine had never favored the portrait, though it was very like his son. It always distressed him in a vague way, but it was the only one he had. He had put off having a painting made of mother and young child in anticipation of his second and third and fourth children, envisioning a family grouping. But the others had never come, and by the time he had fully faced the realization that they would not, his son was an angry, sly, uncontrollable boy who eluded his governess for whole days. Arden had been utterly fearless, scornful of physical punishment; secretive and rash and defiant. By the time he was seven, Lord Belmaine had developed his sole permanent ailment: the very thought of his only son’s disobedience and dangerous recklessness made him feel as if he had swallowed a burning rock that lodged just beneath his breastbone.

The doctors prescribed stomach elixers and special cordials. Lord Belmaine sipped at the latest, subduing a grimace. For some time, the pain had not bothered him, but the jolt of learning his son was still alive had smashed the strange sense of glasslike suspension that had held him since his granddaughter’s birth. For the past two weeks he had endured strong pangs, and Arden’s behavior at dinner had been of such a piece with his whole destructive childhood and youth that Lord Belmaine felt his ulcer fully inflamed anew.

“I had hoped that this would be no more than a formality, Mr. King,” he said. “But I am afraid I was too sanguine.”

“Indeed, my lord?” The attorney looked grave. “The couple has an objection to renewing their marriage vows under English law?”

The earl smiled. “We have not got as far as discussing it, Mr. King. But my son has taken pains to point out to Lady Winter her legal disabilities as his wife. In particular he has emphasized his unconditional authority over her child. I fear this has not gone down well. In point of fact, Mr. King, at the moment I rather wish the Mohammedans had butchered him after all. It would spare me this singular desire to strangle my own son.”

“It is a delicate situation, my lord.” Mr. King lowered his eyes. “Do I understand, then, that Lord Winter seeks to convince the lady that she would be unwise to submit herself to a legal confirmation of matrimony?”

“I do not have the slightest notion of what Lord Winter seeks or wishes. He is the most perverse creature of my acquaintance. I have never understood him, nor pretend to.”

“Perhaps, sir, the case is not so bleak as it appears. Whatever Lord Winter’s personal feelings, if he attempts to convince Lady Winter to make the objection, it seems likely that he feels unable to do so himself. Else why go to the trouble to goad her? He could simply deny the union.”

“The devil take him if he does,” the earl said savagely. “What next will he put us through?”

Mr. King maintained an expression of calm. “Marriages celebrated beyond the seas are more or less exempt from our stricter laws regarding licensing and recording, as your lordship and I have very frequently discussed with reference to your son and his wife, but as I have also advised you, my lord, these undocumented unions are anathema if it ever comes to a question in the courts.” The attorney shook his head gravely. “For a widow, we agreed that this was a tolerable situation, since there was no remedy—the child’s legitimacy being countenanced by her baptismal certificate and the only important common law issues at stake being the wife’s dower and the child’s claim to her inheritance. Both of which we addressed in a routine and unexceptionable manner in your own will, my lord, entirely outside of any question of the validity of the marriage.”

“Yes,” the earl said, staring broodingly into his cordial before he turned back his head and swallowed the whole at once. He made a scowling face. “But he’s here. And I do not understand him. I can’t predict him.”

Mr. King took a sip of wine and cleared his throat. “As we have also discussed, my lord, since the glad news of Lord Winter’s life being preserved, the entire lack of evidence or witnesses makes the union and offspring vulnerable to attack—the greatest threat being a subsequent marriage conducted in a legal manner by either partner. In that situation, I could not be easy appearing before the bench in defense of this undocumented union. I was once privy to a case regarding an undocumented Gretna Green marriage, and it was a most unpleasant action. The law is full of anomalies and uncertainties in such instances—the outcome is no more sure than a throw of the dice. This is why I have strongly advised a prompt exchange of vows, extremely private but properly witnessed and recorded, and an acknowledgment and guardianship of the child by Lord Winter. The union will then be unassailable.”

“And until then?”

“Until then, sir, we must fear that your son, or even Lady Winter herself, could act as unmarried persons, with the only recourse being a proof of the unprovable in the courts. Not a happy thought. If your son is unwilling to confirm the marriage, there is definite cause for concern.”

Lord Belmaine leaned forward, resting his jaw on his spread hand, his other arm pressed against his waistcoat. “He wants the little girl. I think—I believe he has an ardent interest in Miss Elizabeth.”

‘That is better news, my lord. I can with perfect authority explain to him that he has no rights in her at all if he repudiates the marriage and a guardianship.”

The earl lifted his lids. “See that you do so outside of Lady Winter’s hearing, or it will be she who does the repudiating.”

“Dear me, it is not to be supposed that she would actually contemplate such an unwise course.”

“My son has done his best to precipitate it.”

“I cannot believe he will be successful. There are not many ladies who would be so careless. It is true that she must submit to certain legal disabilities in marriage, but these are hardly such as to cause real affliction to the natural sensibilities of the female sex. Quite the reverse, in the opinion of most ladies. Certainly nothing so malignant as making a bastard of her own child and destroying herself by an open denial of her marriage.”

“That, Mr. King, is to be your line with her if she balks.” The earl sat up. “I had envisioned a meeting of all parties with you, but I believe that we must speak to them each separately. I hope you will find it convenient to remain a few days.”

“Very good, sir. I shall be happy to oblige.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Arden had always made it a point to charm the housekeeper. An endless succession of Mrs. Pattersons—they were all called Mrs. Patterson, no matter their real names—had hidden cold meat and bread tied up in kerchiefs or left plates of cakes and scones inside a huge dictionary that Arden had carefully hollowed out with a penknife at the age of eight. It had sat for years on a solemn podium beside the door in his room, its mild secret never discovered.

It sat there still. He had seen it when he went into his old bedchamber—the one she now occupied—to change for dinner.

He had coaxed a peace offering out of the present Mrs. Patterson, after a certain amount of fluttering fidgets at the invasion of her domain by the infamous son of the house. But he felt, as always, reduced to a scapegrace chub at Swanmere, so his old habits and stratagems came back easily to him. By the time he left, with a fork in his pocket and a hefty slice of plum pudding slathered with hard sauce balanced on his hand, Mrs. Patterson thought him a poor starveling who had never been fed properly in his life.

He went up the back stairs two at a time. He wouldn’t have minded wolfing down the pudding himself—his appetite at dinner had not been precisely hearty. But he had not procured it for his own hunger.

He stopped before the door. It had occurred to him, as he paced the misty grounds until nearly ten o’clock, that the former Selim might be uncomfortable eating her fill in company. The courtesy and discipline of the desert demanded voluntary restraint, deliberate deprivation in the sight of others. She had eaten lightly even before he had said anything that could have upset her—and then he had driven her from the table with his biting words.

And he remembered that Selim had always daydreamed of plum pudding.

Standing before the closed door, he felt remarkably silly. She was not Selim. It was nearly eleven. There seemed to be no light inside. The door to his daughter’s chamber stood open, the room dark.

Perhaps she had gone back down to keep his mother company in the saloon. Perhaps she had gone to bed. His body responded to the thought with a strong stir of carnal interest. It made him feel even more awkward, standing there with a fork and plum pudding like some lovestruck puppy.

Gently, he tapped the door with the fork. For a moment there was no answer. He felt relief—she was asleep, or not there. Then she said, in a wary voice, “Who is it?”

He put his hand on the knob and opened the door.

She was sitting up at the desk, muffled in a gown and woolen robe. “You cannot come in,” she said in a sharp whisper. “I’ve had your things put in the next room. Elizabeth always sleeps with me.”

She appeared to have been writing a letter, and made no move to lay down the pen. The fire hissed softly. A small snoring lump in the bedclothes was undoubtedly Beth.

A wave of emotions passed over him: warmth and exclusion, and a sudden strange homesickness—another of his burrows, this room, a safe den for the touchy, brooding boy he had been. But he was unmistakably turfed out by the new owner. She glared at him with a hostile, proprietary look.

“Eat,” he said in Arabic, setting the plate and fork down on the nearest surface, the dictionary podium beside the door.

“I have told you that I will not speak Arabic—”
 

He closed the door.

It felt damnably like retreat. Or eviction.

As he stood in the hallway, a maid came swiftly up the back stairs. She was carrying a loaded tray. She hesitated when she saw him.