The Muse (48 page)

“He’d better be bringing what I think he might.”

She merely smiled at him.  “You look smashing in your fine new jacket and waistcoat.  Mr. Phelps has done a good turn with you tonight.  I say, you grow more handsome with the passing of the days.  I hope I don’t have to fight off scores of admiring ladies for your attentions.”

“I sincerely doubt that will be a problem,
chérie
.  It never has, I would remember that,” he said wryly.  Graham clutched her hand tightly, wrapped over his arm.  She could tell he was nervous.

“Now darling, I want you to relax and enjoy yourself this eve.  No worries about anything.  This is merely the companionship of good people who care about you.”

He nodded at her solemnly.  “Are you feeling well,
chérie
?  Please do not overdo yourself in orchestrating your plans for the evening.”

She had to laugh at his words.  “I am excellent tonight, and I promise if I become fatigued, I shall take up a seat and sit back and enjoy the show.”

“My God, woman.  What have you designed?”  He looked wary.

“I am only jesting.  The look on your face.  I could not resist, you were begging for a tease.”

He grabbed her then and kissed her wolfishly.  “No, not really.  But I can think of something you are begging for.  You need it badly and it is most definitely not a tease,” he growled the words low and soft in her ear.

“Now watch yourself, my lord, you have a guest arriving at your doorstep as we speak.  You can deal with me later.”  She flashed him her sauciest wink.

“Naughty, naughty, Lady Rothvale,” he clucked at her.  “I intend to, and that’s a promise.”

The footman, Hicks, appeared then, announcing, “Mr. Mallerton.”

Tristan came forward, carrying what appeared to be a portrait.  It was covered with fine cloth and tied with string.

“Finally.  Finally!  I thought I’d never see it completed.” Graham greeted Tristan eagerly.

“Yes, well I’ve worked as fast as I was able.  I think you’ll be pleased with this.”  He untied the string, pulled off the cloth and turned the canvas to face Graham.

Graham was stilled by the sight of the portrait, inspecting it reverently.  Slowly, he expelled a breath.  “You have a rare talent, Tristan.  It is perfect, just as I might have imagined it.  Thank you for portraying Imogene so magnificently.”

“I am a realistic painter, painting the subject as it appears.”  He nodded at Imogene.  “Thank you for the compliment and I am glad you are well pleased.”

“Oh, I am, you can be assured.”  Graham was animated and excited.  “Say, I want to have this on display here in the parlor, tonight.  I must have an easel for it.”  He moved toward the door.

“Graham, are you going?  Why not send someone to get one for you?” Imogene inquired.

“I must,
chérie
, they’d never find the proper one.  I know exactly what I want for this—better if I go.  I’ll just pop up to my old studio and return in a moment.” Bussing her cheek before turning back to Tristan, he said, “This pleases me greatly, Tristan.  Thank you, thank you, my friend.”

Tristan waved him off as he left the room in search of the perfect easel, sharing a giggle with Imogene.  “Are you nervous?”

“Why should I be nervous, Tristan?  Just because I’ve invited half of Warwickshire for a house party and my husband doesn’t know about it?  I feel like I’m going to be sick again.”

“Please warn me if that is the case, so I may step out of the way, my dear,” Tristan muttered.  “Before I forget, here’s this.”  He handed her Graham’s watch, which she placed on a side table.

“And the other?” she asked.

“Safely delivered with the help of Mrs. Griffin.  She said to tell you it is under the bed.”

She squeezed his hand in answer, mouthing the words, ‘thank you.’

Graham returned then, the desired easel in hand.  He smiled at them and set to work, arranging the portrait to his liking.  “There.  It can be viewed to the best advantage from over here.  Magnificence.  I love the expression on your face,
chérie
, as if you are about to say something very significant to an unknown person off canvas and out of view.  It is evocative of ambiguity and mystery.  I am glad Zuly is in there with you, as she fits in so elegantly.  The three-quarter profile is a marvelous element, displays the jewels to their best I think.  They came across so luminous in paint.  It’s just so—”

“Darling?” 
Come up for air, my dear.

“Yes,
chérie
?”  He paused for a moment in his fussing over her portrait and gave her his attention.

“While you were gone, I happened to look down here and look what I’ve found?”  She held up his watch.

“Thank Christ.  I’ve been looking all day.”  He came forward and took the watch.  “This watch belonged to my father—” his words cut off abruptly as he opened it.  “Oh…”  He snapped his head up to lock eyes with his wife.  “It is so lovely.  You’ve put a miniature portrait of yourself in my watch.  Now I can take you with me always.”  He embraced her.  “Thank you,
chérie
, it is the very best gift of all.”  Imogene could tell he was overcome.  “I am afraid I am at a loss for words, I am so touched by this beautiful gift.”

“It is not a gift from me, darling.  It is from your friend here,” she said, indicating with a tilt of her head toward Tristan.  “My only part in the plan was absconding your watch for the day so he could set it inside for you.”

Graham shifted his eyes to Tristan, who gave him a short nod and a grin.  “Happy birthday, old man, glad you like it.  I must say I am surprised you didn’t think of it before I did, and beg for one.  You would have had it long before now.”

“Tristan.  Thank you.  Sorry, I am bumbling.”  He bowed to his friend.  “A lovely gesture and it will be treasured always, my good friend.”  Tristan bowed his head in return.

Hicks reappeared and announced, “Mr. and Mrs. Julian Everley, Miss Vickering, Colonel Hargreave.”

Graham, further surprised by the announcements, came forward to greet his guests.  “Ha!  I have been taken totally unawares.  Welcome, welcome.  God, it is good to see you here at Gavandon.”  He turned to Imogene. “You are amazing,
chérie
, and
very
good.  I had no idea.”

She just smiled at him and arched her brows in challenge.

Colin and Cariss entered the room then with Hicks following close behind them with another announcement. “Mr. Gravelle,” he bellowed.

Graham greeted him warmly.  “I hope you will stay with us for as long as you can, Gravelle.”

Mr. Gravelle looked at him a little oddly.  “I had planned to stay, yes.  Christ, man, are you getting dotty in your old age?” he quipped.

Graham just shook his head and shot another look Imogene’s way, now beginning to comprehend what she had orchestrated.

“Mr. and Mrs. Burleigh, Dr. and Mrs. Brancroft,” Hicks announced more guests.

“How many have you invited,
chérie
?” he whispered as he moved to greet the newest arrivals.

“Surprise, my darling.  I lied a little, but just a little, mind you.  It’s not only a supper party, you see, I’ve invited them all to stay with us.  It’s a house party!  Happy birthday.”

GRAHAM could not remember a more memorable birthday, nor a time when he felt so honored by his friends and family.  It was heart-warming to enjoy the companionship with loved ones in the halls of Gavandon again.  Imogene had arranged the additional entertainment, with Tristan’s cooperation of course, to have him sketch miniature line drawings of everyone for a keepsake of the occasion.  The musical talents performed, and the miniature portraits had delighted everyone.  Elle and Mina were now quite accomplished at playing duets, apparently.

Imogene had shot a satisfied look at Graham when it was Cariss’s turn to play for them, and Gravelle stepped up to turn pages for her.  He had to agree that her suggestion Gravelle might like her young cousin seemed rather accurate.

During supper, the excellent staff of Gavandon had been busy settling the guests’ luggage into their rooms.  Mrs. Griffin, operating without a glitch in the arrangements, as if she organized a whole houseful of guests every day, was superb.  Graham could not recollect the last time Gavandon had hosted such a large crowd.

He thought of his late mother and how she would definitely have approved of their house party.  The reminiscent notion brought feelings of regret though, regret his good mother would never know his wife.  Oh how he would have loved for them to know one another.  He was grateful Zuly was included in the emerald portrait with Imogene.  Zuly had been his mother’s dog, and now she was Imogene’s, seemed connecting somehow.  It brought them together in a way that was right and good.  The passing of the torch from one Lady Rothvale onto the next.

When they retired to their room at the end of the night he was still amazed at what she had managed to plan without him knowing.  “
Chérie
, you have outdone yourself in your attempts to make a magnificent birthday for me.  I loved everything, and had a marvelous time tonight.  I will never forget the occasion or the gesture.”

“Oh well, I am not yet done, my darling.”

“There’s more?  How could there be more?”

Imogene nodded knowingly.  “Now, I want you to sit here on the couch and close your eyes.”  She kissed him on the forehead, then pulled back to hold his chin.  “You know, you look boldly handsome with your hair loose, and lounging in that deep purple robe.  I am a lucky wife,” she admired.  “No peeking now.  Just give me a minute.”

He heard her scrabbling on the floor, and something sliding, keeping his eyes closed while he listened to the additional sounds of string being pulled and rustling.  He sensed her close, could hear her breathing…could smell the familiar scent of oil spirits and paint.

“For you, with all of my love,” she whispered.

He opened his eyes.

She held it for him.

At first he was speechless, but then he found his voice. “You did it.  You had him paint you in…
dishabille.
”
 
The words came out of him like a cry he was so affected.  “I—I—how did you—”  His eyes found hers and then darted to the painting, back and forth.  He brought his hand to his forehead.  “Sorry, I am having trouble understanding; this is so, so beautiful.  It is incomparable.  I cannot believe you did this for me.  I could stare at it forever,
chérie
.”  He continued to gaze at the painting, and then took it into his hands to hold himself.

“I am so pleased you like it.  It was a challenge, but I see now that it was worth every bit of the effort.  Happy birthday, my dearest husband.”

He looked up at her in wonder.  “I don’t deserve you,” his voice tremulous, “any of this.”

“Deserve?  What does that mean?  Who deserves anything?  The world does not work in such a way.  Things just are as they are. We met and fell into love and that is just the way it is.  We are together now, forever, and for today, this is something I wanted to do for you because I love you and want to make you happy.  All the time.  I am thrilled that you are happy.  You have given me so much, Graham.  It makes
me
happy to do this.  I love you profoundly, to the depths of my soul.”

Carefully setting down the precious painting, he got up from the couch, deftly lifting and carrying her to their bed where he made love to her as he’d promised he would earlier in the evening.

He did it slowly and with great care, the whole time whispering words of devotion and adoration, showing her how much he loved and needed her, and that it would always be so, for him in this way, with her.

Not mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul

Of the wide world dreaming on things to come.

William Shakespeare   ~ Sonnet 107, 1605

…
THE
monster was trying to kill him again.  No amount of pleading and entreaty would dissuade it from its path of destruction and devastation. ‘Please…please leave me in peace to be happy with her!  Will you ever cease tormenting me?’

‘Never!  It is all your fault…all your fault…all your fault—’

“Graham darling, wake up.  You are dreaming again.”  She rubbed his shoulder.  “You were thrashing about and agitated like you were fighting something off.”

Her gentle voice greeting him awake from the tortuous dream was almost just as horrifying.  He tried to keep his voice level.  “Sorry,
chérie
.  I apologize for disturbing you.  Go back to sleep.”

“Enough of this.  You must tell me about your nightmares.  Why won’t you tell me?”  She was no longer soothing but angry with him.

“Because they are so horrible and I cannot have the filth touch you.”

“I’ll wait.  I am a patient person, Graham.  I’ll wait here until you share all with me,” she declared frostily.

The silence was deafening for long moments.  Graham sighed deeply, and then finally he began to talk…

“Jasper, my brother.  There was something wrong with him.  Not always though.  When we were children he was carefree and witty.  He changed as he became a man, becoming something else—a misogynist—an abuser of women.  My father tried to beat it out of him.  I do not know why he treated women so badly.  He held no regard or respect for them; they were objects to be used for his needs only.

“Father always instilled in us that gentlemen did not dally with the servant girls.  It was low manners, beneath our station to do so.  Furthermore, it was our duty to protect and preserve those who gave us service and depended upon us for their livelihood.  But Jasper disregarded everything Father taught us.  I cannot tell you how many times I came upon my brother
flagrante delicto
with some poor girl.
He had no boundaries of decorum; he did it out in the open, blatantly.  Dark hallways, haylofts, up against a tree, didn’t matter.  They went willingly with him, though, and I know he was depraved but I didn’t think him capable of—”  He took a deep breath.  “I worried that Colin might follow his example, but he didn’t.  Colin is good.”

He shuddered before continuing as he remembered.  “There was a girl, a seamstress.  She did the house sewing.  It was…Agnes.  She was a good girl, intelligent, and she could read.  Her father had been a tailor but he died and she had to go into service.  Father allowed the servants use of the library if they could read and had the inclination to do so.  I got to know her a little when she would come in to exchange a book.  I suggested titles I thought she might find enjoyable.”

“Did you like Agnes?”

“I did.  There was nothing untoward about it though.  We were friends.  I thought she was a decent person, admiring her efforts to improve her mind by reading.  She was very pretty.  I asked if I might paint her image after I came across her one day in the library.  She was sitting in profile, holding an open book close to her face.  It was such a perfect moment.  I wanted to capture it.  She agreed, and we started with some sittings.  That was my great mistake.”

“Mistake?”

“
Chérie
, please know I did not have designs on Agnes.  She was not for me.  I only wanted to paint a pretty girl for her image, nothing more.  But it was poor judgment for me to ask her.  Even so, I take responsibility for what happened.”  He felt his jaw tighten.  “It’s my fault.  I should have known he would target Agnes as soon as he saw me give her even the merest look.  I put her in harm’s way.  For that, I will always bear the guilt.”

“Guilt for what, Graham?”

“One day I came upon them.  Jasper and Ralph Odeman.  Both of them at the same time
using her, most cruelly.  Rape.  The most base, vicious, hurtful—”  He scrubbed his face with his hands.  “I went insane—I—I nearly killed them both.  Colin pulled me off or I probably would have finished them.  Agnes fled the estate.  Later, I found out it wasn’t the first time he had assaulted her.  Father banished Jasper and he departed for his final jaunt, the last spiral of descent into his dissipative demise.  I left Gavandon for London, living there for months, until Father called me back home.  Agnes had arrived on the doorstep, heavy with child.”

“Oh, Graham…”

“This was another reason I gave up my painting.  Look what it had cost me, cost Agnes?  My brother haunts me from his grave and Ralph Odeman does it in life.  I cannot seem to get free from the past, Imogene.”

“Was Jasper ever decent?  What was required of him?  He must have gone to university, surely.”

“Father made him go but he didn’t last even a term.  They kicked his arse right out. Still remembering his foolery when I got there and it was not easy to overcome his legacy, short though
it was.  I have always had to bear his legacy.  He would raise hell over the entire shire and delighted in giving my name instead of his own.  So whenever he got into trouble the magistrates would come looking for Graham Everley.  He thought it most hilarious to impinge my good name.”

“Why was there so much animosity between you?”

“Jealousy I suppose, but I’m not completely sure.  He knew he was weak in character—he had to have known.  I was also larger in build than him and he could not best me.  It bothered him, but I still had to keep my wits about me for he would try to ambush me whenever he got the chance.  I also had to protect Colin, keep him safe, teaching him to fight.”  He looked into Imogene’s eyes.  “If my brother Jasper still lived, I would not even consider bringing you home to meet him.  He would have
gone after you just because you were mine.  That’s how his demented mind worked.”

“How appalling to know such a thing about one’s flesh and blood.  Graham, I cannot imagine how you’ve suffered with this.”

“On his deathbed, I asked Jasper how he could have done that to Agnes and not take responsibility for the child.  He laughed in my face.  Said I made him sick, the good son, the perfect, saintly son, who never did wrong.  Sanctimonious, he called me.  He said he hoped I’d enjoy inheriting what was his by birth.  Said he’d haunt me from the grave. Then, in front of my parents, he gifted me with the perfect revenge.  He told them the child could have been any of ours.  Could be Odeman’s, or…could be mine.  He said that I had bedded Agnes many times, that I was painting a portrait of her in secret.”

Graham’s voice broke.  “Jasper lied,
chérie
—it was a lie.  I told my parents that he lied.  I was never with her in that way.  Not once!  But he planted the seed of doubt for them.  I could tell by the way my mother and father both looked at me, there was some small niggling part in their minds that thought I might have fathered Agnes’s child because I had started the portrait of her.  They never accused me, but I know they considered the possibility. For that, I cannot forgive…my brother, Jasper.  And the child has green eyes like me.  I told you before that Jasper’s eyes were not green.  Anyone who ever knows of Clara will always believe she is
my
child.  Jasper is dead, forgotten.  I am alive, and people will always assume the very worst.  It tarnished me to our parents, and then they died.”  His voice dropped to a whisper.  “Oh,
chérie
, that’s all of it.  Now you know everything.”  He rested his forehead in the palms of his hands.  “She is of my blood, but she is not my child.”

“Look at me.  Graham, will you look at me?”

He turned away.  “I am afraid,
chérie
.  Afraid for what I might see in your eyes.”

“Only love…love is all you will see in my eyes.”

A cry came out of him—from deep inside his soul—a cry of relief, of thankfulness, and healing, before turning to face the woman he loved, and who loved him in return.

In the shelter of her loving arms, some of the pain of the past began to melt away.

HE was already up and off somewhere when she woke alone the next morning.  Imogene wasn’t surprised.  It was rare for Graham to laze in the bed, being he was a habitual early riser.  Indulging in a latent thought lounging in bed would be nice, she readily shelved it.  As hostess to this house party, there would be no breakfasts in her sitting room for quite some time.  Gingerly she got up, always anticipating the nausea, which usually didn’t show its effects until she was mobile.  Reaching for her wrapper, she saw that he had left her a note upon his pillow.

Chérie,

I could not leave you this morning without telling you what a generous, loving, and affectionate wife you are.  Your gift of the portrait means more to me than words could ever convey, more than you will ever know.  But your greatest gift is accepting me with my many flaws and burdens in your compassionate way.  You are all that is goodness and light. 
The perfect partner
.  You have filled me up with joy and happiness.  I am forever in your debt for giving to me such a life as this, with you, my beloved wife.

Ever in your devotion,

G

P.S.  I am in my studio and would like to show it to you if you are of a mind.  Upper east wing, end of the hall.

That he was so touched by the portrait made her jubilant.  He was always giving to her.  Always.  She knew she was blessed beyond all imagining in her husband, and she took great satisfaction in bestowing something back to him.  His invitation to join him in his studio was intriguing.  To her knowledge, he had not used it since their marriage and though she was vaguely aware of its existence, she had never heard him mention it directly until last night when he went there to retrieve the easel.

She rang for Hester and proceeded to her new bathing room for washing.  The baths were very restorative especially when her stomach was so fickle.  She blushed at the sight of the love bites on her breasts acquired last night, recalling that Graham, too, would be sporting some on his own skin.

Their loving had been all consuming, both one for the other.  She sighed as she remembered him touching her body in ways that made her tremble with the pleasure he forced from her.  Her brooding lover was so different in the throes of passion, and she loved that aspect of him, too.

 Imogene left her room in search of Graham’s studio feeling quite triumphant, for she had managed to bathe, dress, and have her tea and toast without bringing it right back up.  Thinking what a treat it would be if she
could avoid being sick for a day
,
she wove her way to the east wing with Zuly at her side who faithfully waited for her mistress to emerge each morning.

She knocked and heard him call, “Come.”

When she entered, she could see that the room was large and open, with many windows.  One whole wall was a work area with shelves and a long table where he’d been apparently working.

“Thank you for the invitation to your sanctum, my darling.  I am very honored.”

“Thank you for coming.” He held out a hand to her.

She drew up, clasping his hand with hers, greeting him with a kiss.  “Is that a frame you’re making?”