The Notorious Lord (34 page)

‘I am sorry,’ she said. ‘I fear I must refuse you again.’

She felt Cory go very still and held her breath, waiting for the explosion of temper. Instead he took her hand in his.

‘Must you, Rae?’ His tone was very quiet. ‘Please tell me why.’

His gentleness brought a lump to Rachel’s throat. His voice had been even, but one quick glance at his face told her that she was hurting him and that in the course of the conversation she would inevitably hurt him more. It felt wretched. She knew him so well and cared for him so much that the pain was her own and yet she knew her resolve could not waver. Not if they were to avoid a lifetime of misery.

‘I cannot allow what has happened between us to weigh with me,’ she said miserably. ‘When I refused you before, Cory, it was because we did not want the same things from our lives.’ She put a quick hand out to stifle his protests. ‘I know now that I love you and you love me. But the things that we want are utterly incompatible. That has not changed.’

There was a silence.

‘You say that you love me,’ Cory said dully.

The lump in Rachel’s throat intensified. ‘Yes, of course
I do. You know it. I love you with my whole heart. But that does not alter our situation.’ She hurried on. ‘From the first you have known that I wanted nothing more than a settled home. That has not changed.’ Her gaze searched his face desperately. ‘But you…Travelling and exploration are your very life. And a wife must adapt to her husband’s style of living. I understand that. I would not ask you to give it up! Which is why I must give
you
up.’

‘You could travel with me,’ Cory said. ‘I would like nothing more—’

The first tear rolled down Rachel’s cheek and splashed on to her skirts. ‘Cory, I cannot! How soon would it be before you came to resent me, knowing that I travelled with you under duress? I hate the very thing that you love! I need a home of my own!’

‘You would have Newlyn.’ Cory had gone a little white now, as though he could see the futility of his arguments, but did not want to accept it. ‘I understand how important it is to you to have a home, Rachel, and I know that we could make matters work.’

A second tear splashed beside the first. ‘I could not bear it,’ Rachel said, her voice cracking. ‘To sit at home in that great barn of a place with a brood of children, waiting for you to come back or not knowing where you were or when I would see you again.’ She shook her head. ‘Better to suffer the pain of separation now, than to suffer it constantly throughout our life together.’

Cory ran an agitated hand over his hair. ‘Rachel, I understand what you are saying, but I cannot give up my travels or my excavations! It is my life’s work! Not even for you—’ He broke off and gathered her into his arms, pressing his lips against her hair. ‘I love you so much. I want you with me…’

Rachel wriggled free of his embrace. ‘Please do not make this any more difficult. Cory. You know it cannot be.’

Cory was shaking his head. His mouth had set in obstinate
lines. ‘You cannot simply dismiss what has happened between us and pretend that nothing has changed.’

‘I do not,’ Rachel said. ‘But we may carry on as before. No one need know.’

Cory got to his feet. ‘No one need know?
I
know! And you know! Do you think you will ever forget?’

‘I doubt it,’ Rachel said, with a watery smile that wobbled a little. ‘But I can school myself not to think of you all the time.’

‘Not if I am always there before you, reminding you of what could have been!’ For a moment Cory looked furious. ‘You cannot deny the passion between us, Rachel. You cannot simply put it away and pretend that it does not exist—that it has never existed!’ He made a noise of disgust. ‘I suppose that you have not relinquished your dream of finding a prudent man with whom to settle down? What kind of a pale, cold existence would that be compared with what we could have together?’

Rachel was shaking now. ‘I do not plan to marry, Cory. Even I can see that that would probably be a mistake now.’

Cory’s eyes blazed into hers. ‘Why? Because of what happened between us? There is nothing shameful in that, Rachel. Do not, I beg you, force yourself into the box society dictates for you just because of your wish for an ordinary life.’ His voice was savage as he caught her to him. ‘It would crush your spirit. Do you really wish to become the perpetual spinster who suffered a disappointment in love in her youth or the wife to a worthy man who discovers that you were indiscreet enough to have a love affair and makes you pay for it every day in petty little ways? Have the courage to marry
me
instead! I love you so much!’

Rachel clenched her fists with fury and grief. ‘Very well, Cory! You have thrown down a challenge to me and now I offer one to you! Give it all up. Give it all up for me to prove how much you do love me! Take the risk that it will not be as bad as you think!’

They stared at each other for a very long moment, then Cory let Rachel go and she fell back in her chair. ‘You cannot,’ she said. ‘I knew it.’

Cory’s grey eyes were full of pain. ‘How odd it is,’ he said, almost conversationally, ‘that I cannot give up all the things that I hold dear for you, Rae, and you cannot risk all for me. Even in that we are well matched.’

He got up, but stopped when he reached the door, pausing with his hand on the panels. ‘You once wished that someone would break my heart,’ he said. He smiled at her. ‘I know you well enough, my love, to realise that it will give you no satisfaction to have been the one to do it.’

Rachel heard the front door bang and the sound of his footsteps on the gravel, and then there was nothing but silence.

Chapter Twenty-One

T
ime crept by with astonishing slowness for Rachel. Sir Arthur and Lady Odell returned from Saltires later that day full of concern for her, but strangely less worried at the watery fate of their excavations. They exclaimed over Rachel’s wan appearance, sympathised over her hopeless attempts to save the site from flooding and asked no awkward questions at all about the whereabouts of Cory Newlyn. It was the first time that Rachel had ever blessed their absentmindedness. She concluded that they had forgotten that they had despatched Cory to Midwinter Royal to find her and she prayed devoutly that they would not raise the subject again. She went to bed early and cried and cried with a mixture of exhaustion and emotion as soon as her bedroom door was closed.

The following morning, Deborah Stratton called, and in the course of the conversation Rachel heard that Cory had left for London. It was not known when or if he would be back. Sir Arthur, when applied to, was equally vague. He had commissioned Cory to take some pieces of pottery and other artefacts to the British Museum and the work might take some time. Rachel had felt both sick and relieved at the news. She wanted to see Cory desperately; she missed him with an aching longing that seemed to worsen as the
days went by. Occasionally she would see his writing on some of her father’s documents and her heart would jump and the misery intensify into a sharp pain in her chest. Her parents spoke of him constantly, careless references to events and memories that could not help but torment Rachel further. And yet she knew that this was something she would have to live through and accept for the rest of her life. She had made her choice and could only hope that the pain of loss would diminish in time.

The flood waters receded slowly. Sir Arthur sat in the library and wrote articles for the
Antiquarian Review
and Lady Odell cleaned and packaged the finds ready for exhibition. Rachel worked her fingers to the bone to help. She went shopping with Mrs Stratton and Lady Marney in Woodbridge, went driving with Lord Richard Kestrel and refused an offer of marriage from Caspar Lang. She dragged herself through the meetings of the reading group where Sir Philip Desormeaux’s romantic difficulties in
The Enchantress
seemed a pale parody of her own. As she had predicted some months before, Sir Philip succumbed to romance in the end and rode through the night to claim his bride.

She lay in her bed in her neat and tidy bedroom and thought about Cory Newlyn. She remembered the touch of his hands on her body with a shiver of pleasure she knew she would never forget, no matter how long she lived or how hard she tried. She remembered the deep, deep friendship that had turned to love and then to ashes. She wondered if she had been a fool, but then she thought with fear and misery of all the times she had uprooted herself and started again in a new place, and she turned her face into her pillow and lay still.

Oddly, it was Richard Kestrel whose company she could best tolerate. He took her driving several times a week, and though people gossiped, Rachel did not care. She found she did not care for much these days. Often she and Richard would not even talk, but it did not matter. It mattered
slightly more that the situation caused Deb Stratton to be uneasy in her company, but Rachel was too weary to try to explain to Deb that she had no designs on Richard and never would.

One day, when they had driven down to the sea and were sitting on an outcrop overlooking Kestrel Beach, Richard did speak. ‘I want to talk to you about Cory Newlyn,’ he said.

Rachel turned her face away and looked out to sea. The weather was fresher these days with the approach of autumn and the wind was cold on her face.

‘Please do not,’ she said.

Richard sighed. ‘Very well then. If I cannot talk about Cory, then I will tell you about myself, Rachel. About the one chance that I had, and the way I threw it away.’

Rachel turned her head sharply and looked at him. ‘Richard,’ she said, ‘you are not being in the least subtle.’

Richard shrugged. His handsome face was moody and dark. ‘I do not believe that subtlety can reach you, Rachel, and I am a great believer in brute force where subtlety has failed.’ He took a deep breath. ‘No one will have said this to you, so I am going to take it on myself.’ He squared his shoulders. ‘You are being the greatest fool in Christendom to spurn true love where it is offered. Not only are you making yourself unhappy, but you have almost destroyed a good man, and that I find very hard to forgive. It is only because I like you so much that I am still speaking to you at all.’ He stood up. ‘I am no gentleman to say this to you, but someone had to have the courage.’

Rachel stared at him. A tiny corner of her heart was starting to unfreeze. She could feel the warmth spreading. ‘You are right,’ she said slowly. ‘It was most uncivil of you.’

Richard started to smile. ‘Well?’ he said.

Rachel got up and shook the sand out her skirts. She did not look at him. She felt suddenly nervous, as though she was on the edge of a momentous decision. Richard’s words
had echoed what she had been trying to say to herself for weeks; words she had been too afraid to hear. Who could tell what happiness she might find with Cory if only she was prepared to compromise on those wishes to which she had obstinately clung for years? She had been so blind, so determined that a settled home was the only thing that she wanted, so afraid to take a risk. Yet she had been more unhappy without Cory than she could ever imagine being with him by her side, even if she had to travel for the whole of the rest of her life. She loved him too much to lose him forever.

‘Do you ever hear news of Cory?’ she asked, without looking at him.

‘I keep in correspondence with him,’ Richard said drily.

Rachel glanced sideways at him. ‘And do you know if he might be returning to Midwinter?’

Richard gave her a very straight look. ‘It…could be arranged,’ he said.

Rachel felt a huge smile starting and bit her lip to repress it. ‘Then if it might be arranged I…I suppose it would be good to see him again.’ Her smile faded. ‘Although he may not wish to see me, of course.’

‘That,’ Richard said, ‘is up to you.’

Rachel took his arm as they started to walk down the stony path back to the curricle. The groom was walking the horses and looking slightly bored.

‘What was it that you were going to tell me about yourself?’ she asked suddenly.

Richard glanced down at her and then shook his head. ‘No matter,’ he said. ‘That must wait for another occasion, I think. Let us resolve your romantic difficulties first before we even attempt a start on mine.’

The hope and excitement and expectation bubbled up in Rachel again. Suddenly she flung her arms about Richard and hugged him hard.

‘I do not care what they say about you, Richard Kestrel,’ she said breathlessly, ‘I think you are a very kind man!’

‘Good lord,’ Richard said, ‘keep that to yourself, if you please, Rachel. If that is not death to a rake’s reputation then I do not know what is,’ and he hugged her back in full view of the astonished groom.

It was a week later and Rachel had scarcely finished breakfast when Mrs Goodfellow informed her that her parents would like to speak with her in the drawing room. Curious but unsuspecting, Rachel put down her napkin and wandered in. Both her parents were sitting on the sofa in the window. Her mother was holding Sir Arthur’s hand extremely tightly. Rachel could see that her knuckles were white and that Sir Arthur was wincing, though he made no protest. Indeed, he had the slightly dazed look of a man who had made a miraculous discovery. And Lady Odell’s eyes were glowing with a mixture of excitement and apprehension. Rachel’s heart leapt.

‘We have something to tell you, Rachel,’ Lady Odell said. ‘Something very exciting.’

‘You have found it!’ Rachel exclaimed. ‘Oh, Mama, you have found the Midwinter Treasure!’

Lady Odell frowned. For a moment she looked as though she had no idea what Rachel was talking about, then her brow cleared. ‘The Treasure? Oh, no, indeed not, my love.’

Now it was Rachel’s turn to look puzzled. She sat down slowly. ‘No? But I thought…You seemed so excited…’

‘Oh, I am!’ Lady Odell smiled again. There was something softer about her face, a luminous quality in her eyes that Rachel had never seen before. ‘You see, darling—’ she shot a quick look at Sir Arthur’s face ‘—I…we…we are having a baby.’