The Mistress of Trevelyan (25 page)

Stephen slid into the carriage next to me, opposite Constance, and slammed the door behind him, his manner as grim as the set of his mouth. Apparently he'd failed to convince Katherine to attend the lecture.

He did not take failure well. The jovial shine of his countenance had tarnished like silver left in the rain. I'd seen occasional glimpses of the shadows that lurked behind his smiles, but this was the first time I'd seen his genteel mask stripped away completely. I found the experience disconcerting: as if I'd discovered a beast within a lamb.

"She has not left the bloody house since my arrival." He glared at Constance. "Has she gone anywhere at all in the year I have been away?"

"Once or twice, and only for a short time during the day."

"Benedict should be shot." Stephen spoke with enough force to make me jump. My mind scrambled for a connection between Stephen's anger at his brother and Katherine's isolation. "He should not have let her do this to herself."

"She is a woman grown. What can he do?" Constance said with a shrug.

"He can damn well pay more attention to the sorry state of his household than to finances and business."

Stephen's words surprised me. Not because I thought his statement untrue, but because he concisely summed up a general feeling I'd had. Especially when Benedict had left so quickly the day after kissing me. My eyes widened as the realization hit me. The master of Trevelyan Hill, a man large enough to battle any fabled Viking and win, buried himself in work to escape the unpleasant realities of his life.

Constance crossed her arms. "You are one to talk. At least business produces money. What have you done to help?"

"I had no choice. I had to do what I did." Stephen sighed, and his anger disappeared like a breath of smoke stolen by a stiff wind. "You shop as if money was like manna.''

"Then maybe none of us has a choice either, for I have few joys in life. I have lost everything else." Constance sounded as if a thousand years of futility underlined her words, and I wondered if she was the same person who'd spent the morning with me frivolously shopping. She looked at me, her dark eyes burning with emotion. "Do you believe in fate, Ann? That no matter what you do you can never change who and what you are? That in the end, it is all you will ever be?"

My gaze went immediately to my hands. Hands that were now elegantly covered. But no covering could change the reddened stains of lye and labor. "No," I said quietly. "I believe you can choose." I wouldn't allow myself to believe otherwise.

The rest of the carriage ride to the institute passed in silence, each of us isolated in our thoughts. Mr. Simons met us at the door, his welcoming smile broad until he realized that Katherine wasn't among us.

"She would not come," Mr. Simons stated simply.

"No," Stephen said. "I have learned she has not left the house but twice in a year's time."

"I... I did not know." Mr. Simons paled and seemed to falter. Stephen grabbed the man's shoulder. But Mr. Simons stiffened, and Stephen released him.

"She is a woman tied to her fate." Constance boldly looped her arm through Mr. Simons's. "Come, Anthony. Show us to our seats. You must tell me of your fascinating work here at the institute." She smiled at him as if she'd just entered a dress shop full of the latest fashions.

Stephen offered his arm, and we followed. His smile was forced, and not a glimmer of light flickered in his eyes.

"You are worried about Katherine?" I asked.

He frowned. "Yes. There is not a doubt in my mind that she loves Anthony and he loves her. Yet neither Anthony nor Katherine will tell us why she ended their engagement. I do know one thing for sure; if Constance sets her cap for Anthony, it will kill Katherine."

"But if he loves her, surely he wouldn't—"

"A man will only dangle for so long before he will break his own neck to be free, Miss Ann. Believe me, I know."

I had no doubt that he did know, and I suspect he had dangled at Francesca's feet. What I did not know was what he had done to break his own neck. That question cast an ominous shadow over the hallowed experience of my first official lecture within the coveted walls of a learning institution.

Constance had spoken of the inescapable fate to which we were born. I chose to think of it differently. That fate hinged on what decisions are made in critical moments, like Caesar crossing the Rubicon. Or, even on a smaller scale, when I passed through the demon-carved doors of Trevelyan Manor and found Benedict standing in the colored light of the stained glass. And more recently, when I'd stumbled upon him at his bath. At that crucial moment, I'd chosen to stare at him rather than to turn away. I touched my lips as my blood heated from the memory of his kiss.

Was it fate that drew me to Trevelyan Hill? Or was it my bid to alter my fate that brought me to the mansion?

I didn't know. I did know that with every breath I drew, I awaited the return of the master of Trevelyan Hill.

Upon returning from the lecture, I found myself dwelling on the tense emotions swirling around me, like the thickening of the air before a storm. The grief underlying Constance's obsession with fashion. Katherine's art, mirroring the pain of those surrounding her and her self-imposed imprisonment. The stark break in Stephen's carefree facade, and the antagonism with his brother. Benedict's difficulty relating to his sons, and Justin's growing isolation. Even Mrs. Trevelyan's hidden grief and anger. The myriad of conflicts and troubles encircling me kept pulling me closer and closer to the torn fabric of their lives. I wanted to take the needle of truth and the thread of wisdom and mend the gaps between them before the edges of their lives became too frayed to ever repair.

But as I lay down to sleep, it was Benedict who had me tossing and turning until I thought my sanity would flee. Finally, when I reached the screaming point well into the dark hours after midnight, I arose and checked on the sleeping boys, then returned to the windows of my room. I stared out at the mists swirling around the manor in the moonlight and imagined that I saw ghosts dancing at a grand ball until rain chased them away.

Then Benedict stole into my mind. I saw him as he stood on his doorstep that first morning, when I'd come to apply for governess. I saw him relaxed and laughing as I told him about Captain Balder's wish to add my mother to his list of wives. I saw him rising from his bath naked. But when he advanced on me and kissed me rather than covering himself, I just simply had to do something to distract myself. Upon my night table, I found Elizabeth Barrett Browning's little book of poems that I'd borrowed from the Trevelyans' library the other night and settled on the couch to read. Opening the book, my mind stumbled over what I saw. On the inside cover of the book was an inscription in faded ink:

Dearest Cesca,

I die each day I spend with you, even as I live for your every smile. My heart beats with a love I can never give. And though we are destined in this life to be apart, prisoners of circumstance, know that in the immortal words of Mrs. Browning's
Sonnets from the Portuguese
, our love will live through eternity.

" 'Guess now who holds thee?—'Death,' I said.

But there,

The silver answer rang,—'Not Death, but Love.'"

You'll forever make sunshine in my heart.

The note was unsigned. But "make sunshine" was as clear as a signature.

Stephen had told me a cherished memory of Francesca teaching Justin to play that game. The proof before me came as no surprise, but still my heart twisted painfully at what Benedict must have suffered, to be betrayed by his brother and wife.

Had jealousy and rage driven Benedict over the edge? Or even Stephen? What if it wasn't his own neck he broke to free himself? What if it had been Francesca's?

It was with dread that I turned to the sonnets and read some of the most beautiful words I'd ever read. Tears filled my eyes, and an odd yearning gripped my heart. It was as if a tide of feeling, of wanting, pressed so heavily against my practical nature that I thought I'd burst.

"Titania, how do I love thee?"

Startled over how clearly I'd heard Benedict's voice in my sleepy mind, I jumped up from my reading chair, confused.

"Damnation, what in the devil?" came a deep voice from the other room.

Blocks clattered on the floor as a heavy scraping sound snatched my attention. I ran to the schoolroom with my lamp. Benedict came barreling through the secret passage door, thunder furrowing his dark brow. I stared at him, drawn as one might be to gaze at the beauty and fury of a dangerous storm during the dark of the night.

"Miss Lovell, what in the bloody hell is going on here?" His clothes were dripping wet and plastered to his imposing body. His dark hair gleamed with moisture, and a rakish stubble shadowed the determined set of his jaw. From the look he centered on me above his Roman nose, I got the feeling I was in for a good dose his of dominating characteristics. "I will have that answer immediately. You are boxed in like a bloody rebel unit with nothing but bluecoats in sight."

I stiffened my spine. "I was merely being prudent, Mr. Trevelyan."

"Indeed, Miss Lovell?" He raked his fingers through his hair, sending droplets of water flying as he stepped over the blocks and advanced on me. "Did you fear I would steal in upon you in the middle of the night? Good God, woman, if nothing else, I am a man of honor."

He was so close I could smell the rain on him and feel the damp chill of his body. "P—Pardon? I do not see—" My eyes widened. "Mr. Trevelyan, do you think you're the only person on earth? Might you consider that there are others about who use the secret passage? That perhaps I sought to warn them that I would not tolerate being spied upon? And that I most certainly would want to warn myself if they did?"

He took hold of my shoulders, dampening my gown with the water dripping from him. I shivered, but not from the cold of his fingers. I shivered with the need to warm him.

"What are you talking about? Dobbs telegraphed me that my household had run amuck. Justin and Robert were in tears, and you had overstepped your position and taken them off to picnic at their mother's grave. I come rushing home to find you barricaded in your room. What is going on?"

"What is going on?" I blinked, quite taken by surprise that Dobbs had contacted Benedict. I considered the battle that Dobbs and I waged a private one. The man had had no right telegraphing tales. It had never occurred to me that Dobbs could be my intruder, the author of my warning note, and the destroyer of the children's garden. Maybe it should have. I then recalled that I was miffed at Benedict. "If you were not always running off, maybe you'd know what was going on in your own household."

"Running off?" He released me and took a step back as if I'd slapped him. "Running off!"

"Precisely," I said. I knew I'd more than overstepped my boundaries. In fact I most probably had obliterated them, which left me no choice but to brazen out the truth. I decided to pace, for an instinctual self-preservation told me that a moving target was harder to shoot than a standing one.

Benedict looked as if he were a loaded six-shooter in what Captain Balder would have described as a poker game gone sour.

"I have been giving a great deal of thought to the situation and can see how business decisions rather than the complexities of personal problems could have an appeal to a man of your nature," I said. Benedict crossed his arms, and his gaze targeted me. I paced faster and spoke faster, too, feeling the urgency to get everything said while I had the chance. "It is entirely logical for you to gravitate toward financial dealings. You are a man who requires instant results. You see situations as clear cut and have little time for emotional difficulties, such as Justin's fear that something dreadful will happen to you and he will have lost both his mother and his father. Then there is Robert's fear that while you are away you will find a boy who will behave perfectly and you will love that boy better. And I must say that considering birthdays as frivolous is quite—"

"Miss Lovell!" he said tersely, the muscles of his hard jaw drawn so tightly, I thought his teeth would crack. "I have ridden without stop for fourteen hours, the last two in a torrential rain, all because of a telegraph from Dobbs concerning my sons, and you have the audacity to tell me that I—good God, woman—I cannot even formulate the words to describe what sort of man you are attempting to make of me."

I bit my lip but didn't stop pacing. "Mr. Trevelyan, perhaps I am mistaken, but did you not kiss me last Monday? An event that left me. so out of sorts that I was too flushed to attend dinner that night."

"You were flushed?" He looked surprised. "That was all?"

Heat stung my cheeks anew. "Quite flushed, a most embarrassing condition. Now, the next day, I attempted to discuss the situation with you, but before I had a moment to explain, you had already reached your own erroneous conclusions and promptly departed on business. What other conclusion can a woman draw, but that
business
has more appeal than—"

I paced past him. He grabbed my shoulders and swung me around to face him. "Than what, Miss Lovell?" His voice had lowered and softened, doubling its smoothness. My heart raced like a runaway stagecoach.

"Than ... complexities," I whispered, the heat of my ire dampened by his obvious concern.

"Would that I had an aversion to ... complexities, Miss Lovell. Unfortunately, I find myself quite attracted to them." His words seemed to be forced from him, confirming his turmoil.

He had come rushing back home, clearly worried by Dobbs's telegraph, an action that told me that not all of my suppositions were true. Maybe he didn't run away. Maybe he just didn't see the problems as I saw them. And maybe— no, more than maybe—he'd had no hand in his wife's death. But he'd suffered pain and betrayal, and my heart twisted for him.

I reached up and brushed away a droplet of water dangling on his chin, and I let my fingers linger against his rough beard. "I did not mean to imply you do not care about your sons, and I apologize for causing you worry. Justin and Robert have been grieving for their mother a long time. Part of healing from a loss is being allowed to continue to love that person. They have not been given the opportunity to love their mother since she died. When we had an upset with their herb garden, they needed to express their grief before it swallowed them. We took flowers to my mother's grave and then to their mother's grave. I cannot educate their minds and ignore the needs of their hearts. It is not within me to do so."