The Pretenders (24 page)

They were discussing some of the herbs that Mama had grown at home that she thought Lord Bradford might like to try in his garden here at Wakefield.

Hah
, I thought cynically.
As if Lord Bradford really cares about herbs
.

It occurred to me that another advantage of leaving Wakefield before the summer fair would be that I’d get my mother away from Lord Bradford.

I came up to the two of them with my sweetest smile and told them about Harry’s recommendation. “I have to confess that I think it is a good idea myself,” I said. “Robert has every reason to be in the vicinity of Wakefield but no reason to be at Ambersley. We will be far safer there than we are here.”

Mama said immediately, “Of course you are right, darling. I shall be ready to leave whenever you wish.”

There was a frown on Lord Bradford’s face. “I wonder if you would consider remaining for a few more days, Elizabeth,” he said mildly. ”I very much fear that the local ladies will be dreadfully disappointed if neither you nor Deborah are able to attend the fair.”

Mama’s cheeks got very pink. She looked like a girl, with her feathery curls and her soft muslin dress. “I don’t know if that would be proper, Bernard.”

“The Nortons are still here,” Lord Bradford pointed out gently. ”And we are related now as well. It will be perfectly proper, I assure you. And after the fair is over, I will escort you home in my own chaise.”

Mama shot me a worried look.

My face felt frozen. “It is up to you, Mama,” I said. “You know that you are welcome to accompany me and Reeve back to Ambersley. In fact, we had assumed that you would do so.”

Mama’s eyes went back to Lord Bradford’s face. “I do feel that Bernard is right when he says that the village ladies will be very upset if neither of us attends the fair. We have been working on it with them for several weeks now.”

She was going to stay.

I couldn’t believe it.

“You must do what you think is best, Mama,” I said, my voice very grim.

Lord Bradford gave me a long, measuring look.

Mama said nervously, “You don’t mind, darling?”

“Of course I don’t mind.”

I wanted to pick up one of the tomatoes that were growing nearby and squash it into Lord Bradford’s face.

“Very well then.” She turned to the powerfully built man who was standing beside her. ”I will accept your invitation, Bernard, and remain for the fair.”

He inclined his head. “I am very glad, Elizabeth. It will be my pleasure to have you as my continued guest.”

I turned on my heel and left.

This whole business of Mama and Lord Bradford made me feel sick as a horse.

Dinner was rather a quiet affair. I had caught both Harry and Lord Bradford and my mother before we went into the dining room and told them to say nothing about our going back to Ambersley as I hadn’t yet had a chance to talk to Reeve. I planned to wait until I had him in bed before I broached the subject.

I had a feeling that he would consider leaving Wakefield running away and that he wouldn’t like it. On the other hand, he would want to protect me.

Another card I meant to play for all it was worth.

Really, I hadn’t known I had all of these Machiavellian tendencies. Poor Reeve. He hadn’t known what he was getting into when he married me.

It was very late when he finally came upstairs. He and Harry and Edmund had been playing billiards and when I heard the slight slur in his voice as he said good night to Hummond, I realized that they must have been at the wine bottle as well.

He came into the bedroom from the dressing room, a candle in his hand. He stopped in surprise when he saw that I still had the bedside lamp on.

“What are you doing still awake?” he said. His voice was definitely slurred. ”It’s after one.”

“I’ve been waiting for you,” I said, echoing the words I had said to him earlier in the day when we had last confronted each other in this room.

He sighed. “I don’t think I’m up to much tonight, Deb. Had a bit too much to drink, you see.”

I nodded and watched as he made his way toward the bed.

“I wanted to talk to you,” I said.

He groaned. “Can’t it wait until tomorrow?”

“I think we should go home tomorrow, Reeve,” I said. ”I don’t want to wait for the summer fair. I want to go back to Ambersley tomorrow.”

He untied the silk belt of his dressing gown and let it fall on the floor. The lamp outlined his perfect body with soft yellow light. He swung his legs into the bed beside me and pulled the soft wool blanket up to his waist.

“I thought you were committed to this bloody fair.”

“The fair will go off perfectly well without me. And it will go off perfectly well without you, too. We are not the neighborhood gentry around here;
we’re
only visitors. Let Bernard and Harry and the Nortons bear the local standard.”

He was frowning, as if he were trying to think clearly.

“But why do you want to go home?” he asked.

“I’m afraid of Robert,” I said simply. ”When I think of being out in the midst of all those people…“ I shivered. ”I suppose I should feel that there is safety in numbers, but for some reason, I don’t. I just feel … vulnerable, Reeve. I don’t want to go to the fair. It may be silly of me, but I can’t help it I’m afraid.”

“Then we won’t go,” he said immediately. ”If that’s how you feel, we won’t go.”

“Thank you,” I whispered.

“When do you want to leave? Tomorrow?”

“Could we?”

“I suppose so. Bernard won’t be happy about our missing the fair, but that can’t be helped.” He yawned.

Now we were getting onto tricky ground.

I said tentatively, “I did talk to Mama about leaving.”

“Mmmm?” He was sounding very sleepy.

“She felt she ought to stay for the fair so that the local people weren’t completely deserted. So she mentioned our plan to Lord Bradford, and it was all right with him.”

He yawned again. “What was all right with him?”

The wine was definitely fogging Reeve’s brain. He was not usually this dense. I explained carefully, “It was all right that we leave and that Mama remain for the fair. He said that he would escort her back to Ambersley himself after the fair is over.”

Reeve rubbed the top of his head. His eyes looked very heavy. “Deb, is it all right if I turn out the lamp?” he said.

“Yes.”

He reached over to extinguish the lamp, and darkness descended on the room. I heard him turn over onto his side, the way he liked to sleep.

I thought with a mixture of pain and pity that he had probably gotten himself drunk so that he would have an excuse not to have to sleep with me. He probably was afraid he might get me with child, and he wouldn’t want to do that while the situation with Robert was still so dangerously unresolved.

I really did understand his mind very well.

The problem was: How did I go about changing it?

A STORM BLEW IN OVERNIGHT FROM THE
channel and when we awoke the following morning it was to low-hanging gray skies and strong, gusting winds.

I would have loved to stay in bed with Reeve, but he was up and gone by the time I awoke.

He was going to give me problems, I knew it.

Susan was waiting to help me get dressed, and she said that Lord Cambridge had told her to delay packing, that we would not be leaving until after we saw what was going to happen with the storm. When I got downstairs I inquired after Reeve, and a footman told me that he had gone out with Harry to visit one of Lord Bradford’s tenants, who had lodged a complaint about a neighbor’s grazing his sheep on his fields.

I decided I would go to the morning room to get some breakfast, but before I sat down at the table, I stepped outside to the terrace to view the sky.

It was truly magnificent, with angry gray clouds racing along its vast expanse at a tremendous pace. The wind was whipping through the garden, but I was standing close to the house, sheltered by the French doors behind me and the tall yew bush on my right side, and the wind only rippled my skirt. The scent of the sea was strong in my nostrils, and I could smell the coming rain.

I never meant to eavesdrop. I realized too late that I was hidden from the occupants of the morning room by the drapes that were drawn across the French doors, but that I could hear what was being said because I had left the door slightly ajar when I had come out onto the terrace.

This was how I came to overhear a conversation that had never been intended for my ears.

At first the sound of voices within meant nothing to me. I just thought it was people having breakfast and that there was no reason for me to make my presence immediately known. I was enjoying the fresh air and the feeling of the coming storm. I have always liked wild weather.

It was when I heard Lord Bradford say, “You are so extraordinarily sensitive to people’s feelings, Elizabeth, that I know you must have recognized how dearly I have come to love you,” that I realized what was actually going on inside the room behind me.

I froze in my spot next to the yew bush. This was what I had feared all along. Lord Bradford was trying to steal my mother.

Mama said in a shaking voice, “Don’t, Bernard. Please don’t say it.”

She is going to refuse him
, I thought in relief.

It wasn’t until that moment that I realized how afraid I had been that Mama’s feelings had been engaged as well as Lord Bradford’s.

“But I must say it,” he was going on. ”I love you, and I want to share the rest of my life with you.
Will
you marry me, Elizabeth?”

Mama’s voice was even shakier than it had been before as she answered him, “I can’t, Bernard.
I can’t
!”

I smiled.

“Why not?” he asked. His voice was very gentle. ”Not only can I offer you love; but I can also offer you a home of your own, a place where you will be valued as you ought to be.”

She has a home
, I thought indignantly.
She doesn’t need you to give her one
.

“Please,” Mama begged. ”
Don’t
.”

/
value her
, I thought, becoming more and more enraged as I thought about what Lord Bradford had just said.
No one can possibly value my mother more than I do
!

“I had hoped that you might be coming to care for me as well.” he said a little sadly.

“Oh, Bernard, I do care for you,” Mama said. ”But I can’t marry you. I can’t marry anyone. Not
ever
.”

There was no mistaking the anguished tone in her voice. I frowned.

“Is it Deborah?” Lord Bradford asked. “I know she’s jealous of my feelings for you, but she’ll get over it.”

Jealous? The nerve of the man.

“No,” Mama said. ”It isn’t Deborah. Deborah would never stand in the way of my happiness.”

I felt a twinge of guilt.

“I can’t say anything more,” Mama was going on. ”You must just believe me when I tell you that I cannot marry you.”

By now the wind was whipping my skirts, even here in the shelter of the yew bush.

Lord Bradford repeated, “Not me or anyone else?”

“That is right.”

A branch came scudding across the stones of the patio, its green leaves ripping away in the fiercely gusting wind.

“Well, you are going to have to tell me, Elizabeth.” Lord Bradford said. He sounded utterly determined.

“I can’t.” Mama sounded desperate.

“Listen to me, my heart.” I couldn’t believe that Lord Bradford was capable of sounding so tender. ”Whatever it is, we can resolve it together. But you must tell me.”

Mama sobbed.

My fists clenched until my nails dug into my palms.

“I just cannot be a wife, Bernard. I cannot… bear…
it
. To be touched. I cannot …“

She was crying hard by now.  I wanted to rush to her and take her in my arms.

The wind was rattling the yew bush so loudly now that I had to strain to hear what was being said in the morning room.

Lord Bradford’s voice was incredibly gentle. “What happened, Elizabeth, to make you feel this way?”

Muffled sobs. It sounded as if her face were pressed against something. I thought it was probably Lord Bradford’s shoulder.

“Was it your husband?”

My heart pounded.
My father? Did my father do something dreadful to her
?

“No, it was not Edward.” Mama’s voice was only a whisper. I sidled closer to the open door so I could hear it. ”It happened when I was still a governess. He… he came to my room one night He forced his way inside. He said that if I ever told anyone, I would be turned away without a reference. He… oh, God, he hurt me so much, Bernard. I was so afraid.”

I stood like a statue. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

Lord Bradford said in a truly terrible voice, “Was it John Woodly, Elizabeth?”

My hands moved to my mouth, as if to stop the scream that was on the verge of coming out.

After a long silence, Mama whispered, “Yes, it was.”

The wind was still increasing. A few strands of hair had pulled loose from my ribbon and were flying around my face.

“What a shame that he has disappeared,” Lord Bradford said in a voice that sent shivers up my spine. “I should very much like to put a bullet in him!”

For the first time ever, I found myself actually liking Lord Bradford.

Mama went on, “Shortly after it happened, Edward asked me to many him.” She was not crying as hard now. “I never told him what his brother had done to me.”

“Why didn’t you?” Lord Bradford asked grimly. “A monster like
that
didn’t deserve to be protected.”

“John would have denied it, of course, and I didn’t know whom Edward would believe. I was just so grateful that I would have a husband, that I would never again find myself the prey of a man like John. But then, on my wedding night … oh God, it all came
back
.”

Mama sobbed again.

“I wouldn’t put you through that, Bernard. It could not have been pleasant for Edward, being married to a woman who could scarcely tolerate his embrace. I tried. Truly, I tried. But every time he touched me …” She began to sob harder.

“Don’t cry like this, my heart,” Lord Bradford said. ”Please don’t cry.”

“I… I am trying… to compose myself,” Mama said.

After a minute, Lord Bradford asked quietly, “What did you tell Lynly to explain your repulsion?”

“I told him that I had been raped once by a former employer. He was as kind as one could expect under the circumstances, but I would never put another man into that situation, Bernard, particularly a man I loved. And that is why I won’t marry you.”

Silence fell within the morning room, I stood outside on the terrace, my knuckles pressed to my mouth, thinking of my poor mother and the terrible thing that had happened to her.

I thought of Robert and what he had tried to do to me. Would I have been able to respond so joyously to Reeve if I had had that kind of appalling violation stamped in my memory?

I didn’t think so.

I thought of John Woodly and the way Mama had nearly fainted when we met him in Brighton. At last, I understood.

“We can work this out together, Elizabeth,” I heard Lord Bradford saying persuasively. ”It has been many years since that unspeakable thing happened to you. And I am a very patient man.”

Mama surprised me by giving a watery chuckle. “No, Bernard,” she said. “You’re not.”

“With you, my patience will be endless.” He sounded as if he meant every word.

“I can’t,” Mama said. ”I know it is just me. I see how my daughter looks at Reeve, and I know that physical love can be beautiful for a woman, but I’ve been crippled, Bernard. And I don’t think I will ever get over it.”

I had had no idea that my feelings for Reeve were quite that obvious.

There was another short silence from the morning room. Then I heard Lord Bradford say gravely, “Elizabeth, who is Deborah’s father?”

The blood ceased to run through my body.

/
don’t want to hear this …
, I thought. I shut my eyes and all my muscles tightened in rejection. /
don’t want to hear this!

But I couldn’t leave. I stood there, trapped by my own eavesdropping, incapable of moving lest I betray that I had been listening all along.

“Oh God,” Mama said, “I don’t know. I was married so shortly after John did that to me that I don’t know, Bernard.
I honestly don’t know
!”

I stood there, frozen, until my mother and Lord Bradford had left the morning room, then I ran upstairs to change into my riding clothes. All that I could think of was that I had to get away from the house. I wasn’t the person I had thought I was all my life, and I couldn’t face anyone until I had had a chance to try to deal on my own with what Mama had revealed.

They didn’t want to give me a horse in the stable.

“There’s a big storm coming, Lady Cambridge,” the head groom argued with me. “’Tis not the time to be takin’ out a horse!”

For the first time in my life, I used my new position. “I don’t want to argue with you, Tomkins,” I said imperiously. “Bring me my horse immediately—do you hear?”

He folded his lips disapprovingly. “Yes, my lady,” he mumbled, and had Mirabelle, the bay mare Reeve had brought to Wakefield for my use, saddled and brought into the stable yard.

The wind was blowing wildly by the time I mounted up and rode away from Wakefield Manor. Mirabelle snorted and jumped and sidled, fearful of the noise of the wind and of the branches that were cracking and coming down in the woods. I decided to get the both of us away from the trees and steered her along the path that would take us to the sea.

When I asked for a gallop the mare responded instantly, running flat out, as if she were trying to outrace the storm. In reality, of course, we were running into the storm, which was sweeping in off the Channel. The wind tore my hair loose from its ribbon so that it streamed out behind me as we rode, and it whipped Mirabelle’s black mane and tail straight out in a similar fashion. It had not yet started to rain, but I could smell the salt in the air, and I knew that the rain would be coming shortly.

I hadn’t thought at all rationally about where I was going. I only knew that I wanted to get away, and I ended up by going to the place where I had spent some of the most enjoyable moments of my stay at Wakefield Manor.

I went to Charles Island.

I realize now, of course, that this was a colossally stupid thing for me to do. I can only plead my distraught state of mind as an excuse. I was so full of my own misery that I scarcely even noticed the fact that the tide was coming in extremely quickly, with waves that were very much higher man usual. Already the sand causeway was far narrower than it ordinarily was, and the tide was not due to be at its highest for another three hours.