The Wyndham Legacy (23 page)

“Huh? Oh, I was just thinking about the obnoxious barley concoction Badger is right now mixing up for you. Esmee, my cat, even removed herself at the smell. That or it was Badger's singing whilst he stirred the mess that made her run yowling from the kitchen.”

He was lying but he was good at it, and she didn't really mind. She'd lied to him herself once or twice in the past five minutes.

“Now, tell me about the book and those final pages.”

She did, describing in detail that gnarled ancient oak tree and those stones that were piled up, not just in piles but constructed with a purpose in mind. And the well, with that leather-bound old wooden bucket, surely it was very, very old. And there were men and women there and they looked Medieval, if she remembered correctly.

He looked abstracted. He rose.

“Where are you going?”

He grinned down at her. “So, my company is preferable to no one else's, eh? No, don't worry, Duchess. Aunt Gweneth will be here shortly. She's very worried about you. She'll not leave you until I return.”

Not five minutes after Aunt Gweneth arrived, all gentle worry and soothing fingers to smooth away her headache, Aunt Wilhelmina came into the bedchamber, swathed in dark purple, her impressive bosom well in the foreground like the figurehead on a ship.

“Oh dear,” Gweneth said, “I don't believe dear Marcus wants more than just one visitor at a time, Willie. The Duchess is still quite weak.”

The Duchess opened her eyes and stared into a face that had once been quite pretty but was now filled with discontent, and bright, dark eyes that were filled with a savage sort of delight at seeing her lying here on her back.
Willie?
Surely that wasn't quite the right name for her aunt. Surely a Willie was warm and giggly and kindness itself. It was just as odd a name on her as Trevor was on her eldest son.

“So, someone struck you down. What a pity.”

“Yes, as you see. To get the book, the same book that Mr. Burgess has.”

“You're lying. No one would strike you to get to that silly book.”

“Really, Willie, the Duchess is ill. I beg you to leave now. She must rest.”

“I wish she would die and good riddance to the whore.”

Aunt Gweneth gasped. “
What?
What did you say, Willie?”

“I said I could cry and that I pray there'll be no more.”

The Duchess closed her eyes and turned her head away from Wilhelmina.

It required but the Twins and Ursula, and they poked their heads into the bedchamber not two moments later.

“Mother, the Duchess must rest,” Ursula said in a firm adult's voice. “Come along now. Fanny and Antonia want you to see the new bird feeder we've made. Mr. Oslo, the estate carpenter, helped us, but we did most of the work and we even painted it. It has the look of our house in Baltimore.”

“Oh, very well. Do rest, Duchess, maybe forever.”

“Willie!”

“What is wrong with you, Gweneth? I just told her to rest and get better.”

“Mama, please come along now.”

When they were alone again, Aunt Gweneth said softly, “Do forgive her, Duchess. She isn't always a diplomatic woman and her life hasn't been all that easy.”

“You mean she was starving in a gutter drinking blue ruin when your brother married her? Or perhaps she was an orphan in a workhouse? I know, it was smallpox, wasn't it? Or do you mean that your brother—my uncle—beat her?”

“Well, no, not exactly. However, you've covered just about every possibility.” Gweneth paused a moment, a brow raised thoughtfully. “That was well put, very well put indeed. You seem a bit different, Duchess. Ah, it's just that, well—Wilhelmina isn't a very happy person.”

“She's a vicious harpy,” the Duchess said, then sighed deeply. “I want to rest now, Aunt Gweneth, that's certain, but not forever.”

“No, dear, certainly not. Whatever medicine Badger gave you, keep taking it. I like the vinegar in you, dear. It's such a change, but so invigorating, don't you think?”

W
HEN SHE AWOKE
, it was late afternoon. Badger was sitting beside her. He immediately smiled down at her and gave her some water, holding her head gently in the crook of his arm.

“You always know what to do. Thank you.”

He merely nodded. “I heard about the invasion of that American person from Miss Antonia. Now, this person, who is only your aunt by marriage, will not be allowed to discomfit you again. Mr. Spears and I have worked out a schedule. Whenever his lordship isn't here, either Mr. Spears or Miss Maggie or I will be. You won't be bothered again, Duchess.”

“And when they aren't here, why I will be. How do you feel, Duchess?”

She felt her spirits lift just at the sound of his voice. It was stupid of her, but true nonetheless. “I'm fine now, Marcus. If you wish, you can relieve your spleen. You can yell at me again with good conscience.”

He frowned at her. “No, I shan't do that, particularly in front of Badger. Now, I will dine with you this evening, right here, then we will see tomorrow morning if you're ready to get out of bed.” He continued to Badger, “I understand you forced my poor Esmee to eat some of the barley mixture you made for the Duchess and she died. Is that true?”

She laughed, a weak laugh, but still a laugh.

“That damned selfish cat wouldn't offer herself up to try my barley soup,” Badger said. “Miserable beast, that
Esmee. I thought I'd caught her, but she twitched her tail right out from between my fingers. Mr. Spears said she sleeps with you, when you're in your own bed, that is.”

“It's been known to happen. Esmee is fickle, just as is the Duchess.”

“Esmee slept with me last night,” she said. “Right in the bend behind my knees.”

“She prefers my chest when she deigns to visit me,” Marcus said. “She likes to knead the hair, damned creature. As for her volunteering for that barley mixture, she wouldn't ever offer herself up.”

 

He slept with her that night, stretching out naked beside her, completely at his ease, as if he'd slept there for the past twenty years. Esmee had come briefly into the bedchamber, stared silently at them, then, twitching her tail, she went through the open adjoining door into Marcus's bedchamber.

He reached out and took her hand in his. She could feel the heat from his body. She felt safer than she ever had in her life.

“All this excitement left me with a gray hair, Duchess. I ask you to keep to your bed after this and not go searching out clues in the middle of the night.”

“I don't believe you, Marcus. Let me see this gray hair.”

“No, I shan't light a candle and have you poking about my scalp. You can find it in the morning.”

“Did you discover anything?”

“No. Everyone claims to have been soundly in the arms of Morpheus. Also, I might add, the Wyndhams have excelled at the art of falsehood for centuries. None of us ever flinch or even blink an eyelid when spilling out a lie. Even you, Duchess.”

Her fingers tightened over his. “You must be exaggerating, Marcus.”

“Nary a bit. Now, I find this a mite interesting. Here we are side by side in bed like a good married couple should
be, and I will admit that I'm harder than the bricks on the fireplace, but I won't attack you, not even when I know you like it so much.”

Before she would have been silent as a tombstone. But now she giggled and bent back his thumb until he yelped.

“You become physical again. But my thumb, Duchess? Would you like me to give you pleasure?”

“No. Be quiet, Marcus. My head hurts.”

He laughed. “Ah, the excuse of wives for centuries, or so my father told me. However, in your case, it just might be the truth. As I recall, my mother hit his arm when he said it. Good night, my dear.”

“Did you go to the abbey ruins?”

“Yes. Trevor and James were there poking around, the damned sods. Even Ursula arrived shortly to do her own poking. It was a merry family, all wanting to find anything at all and keep it from the others. I don't like any of this, Duchess.”

“Except for Ursula. She would run to you with anything she found. She idolizes you, both she and Fanny. You'll grow abominably conceited with all this guileless female attention.”

“No, I won't accept that. Believe me, Fanny's infatuation is quite enough. One young girl fluttering her eyelashes at my poor self is unnerving enough. And here my wife is lying in her bed unable to protect me. And now you would protect me, wouldn't you? Or would you perceive that I was a bounder despite my innocence, and come after me with another weapon?”

“I would try to be fair. Now, you can rest easy. Ursula is very fond of me, so she wouldn't dream of trying to take you away from me.”

“A relief. A right bloody relief.”

 

The relief lasted for a full day and a half. She rested and mended and the lump behind her left ear disappeared. Maggie even washed her hair, removing all the oily salve Badger
had made for the lump and Spears had remorselessly rubbed in three times that first day. On the second night, Marcus came into her bedchamber wearing only his dressing gown and she knew he was naked beneath it, but then again, why shouldn't he be?

She remembered how she'd left her bedchamber because she'd not wanted to face him. Well, she wouldn't ever leave again. Let him do his worst. She grinned at that. Just let him try to treat her like a vessel again, a vessel that he scorned.

“Hello, Marcus,” she called out to him. “I am quite well tonight. Do you intend to exercise your marital rights? Will you heave over me? When you've had enough of me will you leave again and spill yourself on my belly?” She saw him clearly in her mind's eye, lifting himself over her, saw the intense determination on his face, saw him spilling his seed on her belly, not inside her, no, never there because he hated his uncle so much for his betrayal.

He paused, staring at her. She'd startled him yet again. He shook his head. He doubted he would ever get used to this new side of her.

She changed then before his eyes, now she was serious, dead serious, saying as he came to stand beside her bed, “You must have an heir, Marcus. Your pride mustn't get in the way of providing a male child for the next generation of Wyndhams. Why don't you just forget my father and what he did. It isn't important. It doesn't touch us.”

“Oh yes, it does and it always will.” Then he smiled at her. She wouldn't control him, no matter how her mind shifted and played and danced around him. He said easily, “Once you and your damned cohorts forced me to wed with you, you removed many of my options, Duchess. But not all. Let's get that nightgown off you. I'm tired of waiting.”

In that moment, something deep inside her uncoiled and began to fill her. She felt herself growing cold and colder still, all of it inside her, deep inside.

“Very well,” she said, and all that coldness she felt was in her voice, in her eyes as she stared up at him.

She said nothing more to him. Besides, he didn't want to talk, he wanted his pleasure and hers as well because she'd come to realize that it gratified his male vanity to make her cry out despite herself. He was gentle and insistent at first, then his mouth was on her mouth, then on her breasts and her belly, until finally he was caressing her, pushing her to pleasure. But there wasn't any. She lay there, and this time she did suffer him. She hadn't realized how very empty this lovemaking could be when she was not part of it, not part of him. But there he was, isolated from her, and she saw his growing passion mix with his frustration because he couldn't arouse her, and she didn't care. She just lay there, her arms beside her flat on the bed. She didn't even feel anger, just a numbness, just a waiting for him to finish.

He stopped finally, coming up to look down at her. He'd left the candlelight so he could see her face and her body, for both pleased him, he had told her several times before, then he would speak softly to her, going into vast detail and laughing softly when she would flush at the shocking words, words surely too intimate, and then he would carry his words into action.

This time he said nothing. And now he was looking down at her, studying her face, looking at her breasts and her belly. His face was flushed, his breath coming deep and heavy. He was swelled and ready for her. He started to speak, then shook his head at himself. Suddenly, he pulled her open to him and, lifting her in his big hands, went into her deep and hard.

She gasped at the feel of him but he didn't hurt her for he'd softened her, she couldn't deny that, but still she felt him deep inside her with none of the pleasure, just his differentness, the hardness of him, and his heaving over her, and she hated it, this separateness from him. She simply waited, not moving.

Then, just as suddenly as the first time, he pulled out of her and pressed himself against her belly.

And when he was done, he went back onto his heels between her legs.

She said, cold as the North Sea during winter solstice, “Are you now through with me? Ah, certainly you are. May I have a handkerchief, Marcus? I dislike your seed sprayed on me. No, don't worry, there are no weapons for me about to take to you though you deserve to be beaten quite thoroughly. No, just give me a handkerchief and take yourself off.”

She'd begun sounding as unemotional as a stick and he wanted to yell at her. But now she was mocking him, laughing at him, and he didn't know what he wanted to do. She'd been utterly still beneath him. He'd wanted desperately to bring her to him but she hadn't responded. He hated it. He looked down at his seed on her belly. So she hated his seed on her, did she? He looked to her face. She looked utterly composed, no, more than that, she looked bloody amused now, but it was cold, that amusement of hers. She looked as if she didn't give a good damn. She looked indifferent. She could castrate him with her indifference. He hated her at that moment, hated her for being as passionate as he was before, hated her for making him as wild as a young boy, all the while lying there, thinking about nothing in particular, perhaps even wondering about characters in the novel she'd been reading that afternoon, or perhaps about Esmee, but not thinking of him, just lying there, enduring him, waiting for him to finish with her. He rocked back on his heels with rage, striking his fist on his thigh.

“I don't believe this. I'd rather have you shrieking at me like you did in the tack room. You lost complete control. You've good strong lungs. The good Lord knows I never wanted you for a wife and believe me, Duchess, I will use you only until I return to London. Then you won't have to suffer me further.”

He was off her bed in moments, jerked up his dressing gown and was gone from her room, slamming the adjoining door behind him.

She rose and washed him off herself. She slowly pulled her nightgown over her head and smoothed it down. She tied the ribbons at her shoulders. When she was back in her bed, she moved to the far edge, for she fancied she could still feel the heat of him. And she was cold, for the deep rage was banked. Perhaps she should fetch one of her father's dueling pistols from the estate room. Perhaps she should simply be prepared. She could never outguess Marcus. Yes, she would be wise to be prepared.

 

The Duchess climbed over the low fence, careful not to rip her riding skirt. She looked about her, studying the details of the landscape. The Fenlow moor was off to the west, rugged and barren even in the lush warmth of summer. To the east was a dense copse of trees, firs and beeches, mostly. But directly in front of her were farms, spread out like richly embroidered squares, rich with growing crops under the summer sun, one after another, their boundaries stone fences or lines of carefully planted trees. There were small hillocks dotting here and there and trees and several small streams. It was a beautiful prospect, but she didn't care. It was a puzzle. These were just pieces and she didn't yet know which pieces fit where.

She just wanted to find that ancient gnarled oak tree, and thus she'd walked from a different direction today. She stopped and studied the stone fences slashing gray and thick across the horizon, most of them well maintained by the farmers, but some falling into disrepair.

She shook out her skirts and walked forward. Where the devil was that oak tree?

She reached the ruins of St. Swale's Abbey after a brisk twenty-minute walk. She'd been here every day now for a week and a half, looking through the rubble, searching, for what, she had no idea.

As to who had struck her down and taken the book, she didn't know that either. Nor did Marcus. Nor did Spears or Badger or Maggie, who refused to let her out of their collective sight. Even Mr. Crittaker and Sampson had joined their ranks. She was never alone in the house, never. Now her guard believed her to be resting as they believed her to have been resting for the past week and a half at this particular time. And that was why she was on foot. The stable lads were loyal to Marcus. Lambkin would have a fit if he saw her near the stables. If she took Birdie out, Marcus would know it within ten minutes.

She was on her knees in what she was certain had been a monk's cell, studying a small etched drawing low on one of the stones in the wall when suddenly from behind her, he said, furious, “What the devil are you doing here? Damn you, Duchess, you're supposed to be resting.”