The Pretenders (22 page)

Reeve stood beside me, his hand over mine on his sleeve, and said nothing.

“I don’t understand,” Mary Ann said distressfully. ”Why should he hate you so much, Reeve?”

“I don’t know,” Reeve said.

“My father’s only forty-six,” Harry said. ”Robert can’t be fool enough to think that he would succeed as Earl of Cambridge for a very long time if you should die.”

Shock ripped through me.
Forty-six.”
, I thought.
Reeve told me the man was at least fifty
.

Reeve said soberly, “Perhaps your father should watch his step also, Harry.”

Harry’s mouth dropped open. “Surely you can’t be serious, Reeve?”

“I don’t know,” Reeve said again. ”Who knows what is on Robert’s mind?”

There was a tense silence.

Then Reeve seemed to shake himself out of a reverie, and he turned to me. “We must take precautions,” he said firmly, “and the chief precaution of all is that you are never to put yourself into a position where you are alone. Do you hear me, Deb? Robert has already tried to get to me through you. There is no reason to think he won’t try it again.”

I had never heard him sound so authoritative. Dictatorial, really.

“I hear you, Reeve,” I said mildly.

The sound of Sally’s voice was coming closer now, and Harry said hurriedly, “I don’t want to say anything of this to my sister or Edmund.”

Reeve nodded in agreement, and after a minute I began to talk cheerfully about how much I would like to return to Brighton one day so that I could see the inside of the prince’s pavilion.

Upstairs, I used the dressing room to change into my nightdress and Reeve used the bedroom. His valet was gone when I walked into the green-damask-hung room, and Reeve was standing in front of the fireplace, staring contemplatively at one of the Indian elephants. He was wearing an elegant black-silk dressing gown, and I knew from past experience that he had nothing on under it.

He heard the dressing room door close behind me and turned.

I myself was wearing a white-lawn nightgown, and Susan had brushed my hair so that it fell in a loose waterfall of curls down my back.

Reeve looked at me, and his face was full of shadows. He said, “Your hair is the color of moonlight”

His lover-like words were so at odds with the somber expression on his face that I was disconcerted. I said a little uncertainly, “Do you think Robert will have the nerve to return here after what he has done?”

The expression on Reeve’s face did not change. He said, “He may not return to the house, but there is nothing to stop him from returning to the neighborhood—in secrecy, if he so chooses.”

I shivered even though the air in the bedroom was warm.

“I meant what I said earlier about you being careful not to go out alone,” Reeve said.

I searched his face. “I think I am safe, Reeve. Robert said he only wanted to rape me because he wanted to have me before you did.”

“Jesus Christ,” Reeve said in despair. He shut his eyes.

I didn’t even reprimand him for blasphemy.

“It’s you I am worried about,” I said.

Reeve opened his eyes and held out his arms and, thankfully, I went into them. He said as he rested his cheek on the top of my head, “Don’t you see, Deb?  Robert wants to be Earl of Cambridge. Now that we are married, he will see you as his number one threat.”

“I don’t understand,” I said.

He said grimly, “If you should have a son, then Robert would be knocked out of the direct line of succession completely.”

He was so strung up with tension that I could fairly feel his body vibrating under my hands. I said, “For goodness sake, Reeve, we haven’t even been married a week yet!”

“All it takes is once,” he replied grimly.

I pressed my cheek into his shoulder. “We only have a few more days at Wakefield Manor, and I’ll be careful,” I promised, trying to reassure him.

There was no relaxation in his body as he said, “I shouldn’t have married you. I’ve put you in danger by marrying you …”

“That’s quite enough of that.”

I pulled away from his arms and glared up at him furiously. “I don’t ever want to hear you say that again, Reeve. Do you hear me?”

He looked down at me, and I didn’t like the bleak look I saw in his eyes.

“Marrying you is the best thing that ever happened to me,” I said. ”I love you.”

He did not look convinced.

I decided this might be a good time to distract him by changing the subject.

I folded my arms and said, “Another thing. You told me this afternoon that your cousin was fifty but, according to Harry, he is only forty-six.”

Reeve looked utterly bewildered by this new topic. “Fifty—forty-six—what is the difference, Deb?”

“The difference is four years,” I said austerely.

Enlightenment struck him. “Are we back to this business of Bernard and your mother?”

“Yes, we are,” I informed him.

He put his hands in the pockets of his dressing gown and shrugged. “Well, what if Bernard
is
interested in your mother, Deb. What would be so bad about that?”

“Everything!” I retorted. ”Good God, Reeve, look how he has treated you all these years.”

He replied with misplaced patience, “He was trying to do the right thing by me, Deb. Bernard is not a bad man, you know.”

“Perhaps not,” I snapped, ”but he most certainly is not the right kind of man for my mother.”

A little silence fell between us. The folded silk collar of Reeve’s silk dressing gown formed a V, leaving bare the strong column of his neck as well as his upper chest, where the crisp dark hairs began to grow.

He regarded me thoughtfully, and said, “Who is the right kind of man for your mother, Deb?”

I could feel my whole body stiffen. “Not your cousin, at any rate!”

There was a slight frown on Reeve’s face as he continued to regard me. Then he said gently, “Your mother has a right to marry again if she should choose to do so. You can’t expect her to spend the rest of her life just being your mother and nothing else.”

My head snapped up as if he had hit me under the chin. I glared at him. “I never said I expected that!”

He didn’t answer, he just looked at me with an expression in his eyes that I didn’t like at all.

He said, “It’s been only the two of you for so long that I realize you are closer than most mothers and daughters are…”

I interrupted him. “Stop! I am very sorry I brought the subject up if you are going to go on like this. I just don’t happen to think that Lord Bradford and my mother are well suited. And that is all.”

I turned my back on him and went to look out the window. The lanterns on the patio had been extinguished, and the garden was in complete darkness.

“Very well,” he said quietly from behind me.

I inhaled the scent of the flowers that I could not see.

You are the last person in the world to talk about letting go of one’s mother.

I thought the words, and as soon as they came into my head, I was horrified and ashamed.

I turned away from the window and smiled at him across the distance that separated us. “I’m sorry I snapped at you,” I said. “I didn’t mean it.”

Once more he held out his arms. “Love me, Deb,” he said in an aching voice. “Love me.”

I flew across the room into his embrace.

He held me in a crushing grip, but even though he was hurting me, I didn’t protest. After a long while something like a shudder went through his body.

Then he lifted me in his arms and carried me to the bed.

REEVE WOKE ME EARLY THE NEXT MORNING WITH
a kiss. I opened my eyes and saw that he was leaning over me, dressed in riding clothes.

“Harry and I are going for a ride,” he said. ”Go back to sleep, Deb.”

Considering that he had kept me awake for a good part of the night, I thought I did deserve a little more rest.

I gave him a sleepy smile in return and shut my eyes as he left the room.

I awoke again at nine-thirty, dressed, and went down to have breakfast in the morning room.

Mama and Lord Bradford were there already, sitting over their coffee in the bay window where the round oak breakfast table was set up. They were deep in conversation.

A frown came over my face.

It was
not
that I was too mean-spirited to want to share my mother, I told myself righteously, remembering Reeve’s words of the night before. It was that I did not believe that Lord Bradford could ever be the right man for her.

But I did not like the softly glowing look that I detected in Mama’s eyes every time she looked at the man.

“Good morning,” I said ominously.

Mama turned her head and smiled at me. “Good morning, darling. Did you sleep well?”

I caught a glint of humor in Lord Bradford’s eyes at this artless question, and I felt the telltale color stain my cheeks.

“Very well, Mama,” I said.

“And where is Reeve this morning?” she asked next, looking over my shoulder as if she expected my husband to materialize there.

“He went for a ride with Harry,” I said.

Lord Bradford said, “Doubtless Harry is anxious to tell Reeve that he will be going to London in September to attend the Royal College of Physicians.”

My eyes flew to Harry’s father’s face.

“Is it true?” I asked. ”You have changed your mind and said that Harry might attend the school?”

“I have changed my mind,” Lord Bradford said with resignation.

He did not look at my mother, nor did she look at him, but there was something in the way that they studiously avoided eye contact that I found disturbingly revealing.

I said stiffly, “I am glad. It is what he has always wanted to do, and I think he will make an excellent doctor.”

“So I have been made to understand,” said Lord Bradford, with that same resigned expression still in his voice.

I glanced quickly at Mama, who was serenely drinking her coffee.

I walked over to the small oak sideboard and took some ham cakes and eggs. All of this nocturnal exercise I was getting of late made me very hungry in the morning.

As I returned to the table carrying my plate, I said cautiously, “Harry told us last night that no one knows where Robert is.”

A very bleak look came across Lord Bradford’s face. His gray eyes suddenly looked so desolate that I felt an unwanted pang of sympathy for him.

“That is correct,” he said. He made a gesture, as if he were brushing an ugly picture away from in front of his eyes. ”I very much fear that I cannot guarantee your safety should he come within your vicinity, Deborah. Or Reeve’s safety, either. It will be wise for you both to take precautions.”

“Do you think he means to come back here?” I said.

Those bleak gray eyes met mine. “Yes,” Lord Bradford said. “I do.”

Sudden panic struck me. “Reeve!” I said. “He went for a ride with Harry. Suppose Robert is lying in wait for him somewhere? Suppose he shoots him or something?”

Mama’s soothing, “Don’t worry, darling,” clashed with Bernard’s, “Reeve will be all right, Deborah.”

I glared at Lord Bradford in fear and outrage. “How can you say he will be all right when you have just admitted to me that Robert is a danger to him?”

“Robert may have gone beyond the boundaries of what any of us define as civilized behavior, but he is not stupid,” his father said. ”No matter how much he may wish to harm Reeve, he wishes even less to find himself in gaol on a murder charge.”

Lord Bradford rubbed his forehead as if it ached.

I saw that there was pain reflected in Mama’s face as she watched him.

“A murderer cannot inherit the title and lands of a man he has murdered,” Lord Bradford continued starkly. ”Robert will be careful about how he deals with Reeve.”

After breakfast Mama and I decided to go into the village to attend one of the final meetings of the planning committee for the summer fair, which was to be held in three days’ time. As it was another lovely summer day, we decided to walk down to the stables instead of having the trap brought to the front door for us.

Everything was well in hand for Saturday, Mama told me as we strolled along the gravel path that led to the stable block. The rich green turf of the Downs stretched all around us as we descended toward the pink brick stables, which were nestled in a curve of the hill that lay below the house.

We had almost arrived at our destination when we ran into Harry, who was charging up the path, head down, muttering what sounded to me like a litany of swear words under his breath.

He had his coat flung over his right shoulder, his neckcloth hung like a scarf around his neck, and his shut and breeches were soaking wet. His boots squished as he walked.

“Harry!” I said, staring at him.

I looked over his shoulder, but he was alone.

“
Where is Reeve
?” I asked in terror.

Harry stopped and for the first time appeared to notice that someone was blocking his way.  He looked from me to Mama then back again to me.

“Where is Reeve?” he repeated sarcastically. ”I have no idea where Reeve is, Deborah. He jumped on his horse as soon as we reached shore and galloped off like all the devils of hell were after him. I thought perhaps he might have come home, but they told me in the stables that he hasn’t.”

I stared at Harry’s drenched condition.

“What happened?” I demanded. ”Why are you soaking wet? Did the two of you decide to go swimming this morning in your clothes?”

Harry ran his fingers through his drying curls, which had fallen forward over his forehead. “We went swimming all right,” he said. “It just did not turn out the way I thought it would.”

I had a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.

“Tell me!
Now
!” I said.

“Deborah,” Mama said quietly, “perhaps Harry would like to put on some dry clothes first.”

“No,” I said adamantly. ”I want to know
now
. What happened, Harry?”

Harry shifted his weight from one foot to the other, and his boots squished audibly.

“Last night, before we went to bed, I asked Reeve to come for a ride with me this morning,” he began. ”I had some good news that I wanted to share with him.”

I nodded. “I know about that.” I said.

“Well, we met as arranged at the stables at seven-thirty and we decided to go out to Charles Island as the tide was low and we could have a good gallop along the sands.”

A little breeze came gusting up from the south, and Harry shivered as it blew against his wet garments. I had no intention of releasing him, however, until I found out what had happened. “Yes?” I said relentlessly.

“Well, that’s what we did,” he said. ”We rode out to Charles Island. We had a splendid gallop along the beach, and then we dismounted and walked our horses while I told Reeve that I would be going to the Royal College of Physicians in the autumn.”

“That is wonderful news indeed, Harry,” I said automatically. ”I am very happy for you.”

“Thank you. Reeve was happy for me, too.” Once more Harry ran his fingers through his disordered hair. ”Then, as we walked along, Reeve said, ’Why don’t we celebrate by going for a swim?”“

I was holding a soft leather reticule, and my fingers tightened their grip on its strings until they bit into my fingers even through my gloves.

“And you agreed?” I said.

Harry nodded. “It was a beautiful morning, and we had swum often off of Charles Island at low tide when we were boys. There was something reckless about Reeve that made me feel exhilarated, as if we really were boys again, so we stripped down to our breeches and went into the water.”

Mama said quietly, “I assume that the both of you are competent swimmers.”

“Yes,” Harry said, “we can both swim. But it’s been a very long time since either of us was in the water, and I had no intention of venturing too far from the shore.”

My stomach was in a knot as I listened to him.

“What happened?” I asked fearfully.

Harry shook his head as if he still didn’t believe what he was about to relate. “We were out off of Skull Rock, in a place where the water is deep but where it’s easy to get back to shore in a hurry, when Reeve suddenly said to me, “I’m going to try to make it to Fair Haven.’”

I stopped breathing.

“Fair Haven?” my mother said in horror. ”Do you mean he was going to try to swim across the bay?”

“Yes,” said Harry grimly. ”That is what I mean.”

Reeve isn’t dead
, I told myself.
Don’t panic, Deborah. Harry said earlier that he isn’t dead
.

Even so, my heart was hammering with terror.

Harry continued with his tale. “He struck out from the shore before I could stop him. I didn’t know what to do. If I went after him, and tried to force him to turn around, I was afraid that the both of us might drown.” He drew in a deep breath and let it out. “Finally I decided that I needed a boat.”

“A boat?” Mama said faintly.

Once more Harry shifted feet. Once more I could hear the water in his boots squish.

He said, his eyes on my face, “I swam back to shore, flung myself on my horse, and galloped as fast as I could into Fair Haven. Once I was there I commandeered one of the fishing boats from the pier—I almost punched the old man who wouldn’t let me have it at first—and I put out into the bay. I could see that Reeve was still swimming, but he was obviously getting tired.”

“Oh my God,” I said.

“I can tell you, I never rowed so fast in all my life,” Harry said. ”I pulled those oars as if my entire hope of salvation hung on every stroke. And when I finally reached him, and I could see him gasping for breath and barely managing to stay afloat,
he didn’t want to get into the bloody boat“

“What?” Mama said.

Harry said grimly, “He told me to go away, that he was going to make it to Fair Haven on his own power.”

One of my hands went to cover my mouth. “Oh my dear God,” I said.

Harry said, “Well, it was perfectly obvious to me that if I left him to make it on his own power, he was going to drown, so I kept the boat alongside of him for the next few minutes while he struggled to stay afloat. When he was finally so exhausted that he was scarcely able to move his arms and legs, I hauled him in.”

“Did he help you get him into the boat?” I asked in a voice that I scarcely recognized as belonging to me.

Harry looked at me, as if debating whether or not to tell me the truth.

“I need to know,” I said. ”It will make a difference as to how I deal with him. Did he help you to get him into the boat?”

“No,” Harry said. ”He didn’t help me at all. In fact, he wanted me to leave him in the water.”

I stared blindly at the stable buildings that were visible behind Harry’s back. I didn’t say anything.

Mama glanced at me, and then she asked Harry quietly, “What happened after you got the boat to shore?”

“Reeve was furious with me,” Harry said. ”Once he tad enough breath to speak at all, he cursed me up one side and down the other. Said that I was a sedentary old man with no sporting blood in me.”

“He didn’t mean it, Harry,” I said wearily.

“I know,” Harry said. His face was very bleak. ”He was trying to kill himself, and he was angry with me because I stopped him. That’s why he was so angry.”