The Wyndham Legacy (25 page)

Spears said, “It is true that his lordship occasionally loses his temper and thus control of his tongue, but he will come around, Duchess. Even though you appear to have lost your magnificent reticence, at least when you now choose to lose it, you can't come near to his lordship in sheer undignified temper. He isn't an unfair man, he's just—”

“I know,” she said. “He's just passionate and hotheaded and easily driven over the brink. But know this, all of you. He doesn't want the child. He's said that often enough, it isn't just something he decided tonight.”

“He is a man. However, he isn't stupid,” Maggie said, frowning. “Well yes, he is, for he is a man, after all, and all men must . . . well, that's not important here and now, is it? Now, his lordship must realize that babes follow lovemaking. Even as he cursed and ranted, he knew it would be natural for you to become pregnant, for his lordship is a lusty man—”

“Exactly,” Badger said. “His temper, his insistence that he doesn't want an heir doesn't make sense. As Maggie said, he isn't stupid.”

The Duchess became utterly white and still. “You don't understand.”

The three of them looked baffled.

“You don't understand,” she said again, slowly, then clamped her mouth shut.

“Well, regardless,” Maggie said, “I know men, Duchess, and his lordship may be proud to the point of you wanting
to strangle him, but he will come around. He will come to understand what is right.”

“He will moderate his stand,” Badger said.

“He will moderate his stand, or we will have to take action,” Spears said, and Badger and Maggie nodded.

She looked at each of them in turn. Finally, she said, “Yes, perhaps we will have to take action.”

“You won't run away, will you, Duchess?” Badger said.

She looked at him thoughtfully.

M
ARCUS CAME TO
an abrupt halt at the bottom of the huge staircase that spilled onto the grand entrance hall of Chase Park. There in front of the front double doors were three valises and beside them stood Maggie, all trimmed out in a flaming red bonnet with a curling ostrich feather curving around to her chin and wearing a dark blue cloak. She was tapping an elegantly shod foot, tap, tap, tap. She was obviously waiting.

She was waiting for the Duchess.

He bellowed, “Where the hell is she, Maggie?”

Maggie turned very slowly and gave the earl a deep curtsy. “My lord, who the hell is she?”

“Don't you twit my nose, girl, or I'll—”

“That is quite enough, Marcus. Actually, I am here, but for just the next moment, then Maggie and I are away from Chase Park.”

“You aren't going anywhere, damn you.”

“But you were quite clear in your wishes. You wanted me gone immediately, but were afraid your consequence would suffer if it became known that you kicked out your pregnant wife in the middle of the night.”

“It wasn't the bloody middle of the night. Now—”

“Thus, in the spirit of
bonhomie,
I waited until this morning. Good-bye, Marcus.”

She turned on her heel, her chin in the air, as regal as the damned duchess he'd named her so long ago. Then, she tripped on one of the valises and went crashing down on her side.

He reached her in an instant, hauling her into his arms. “Are you all right? Say something, you damned scourge.”

“I'm all right. How very embarrassing to be felled in the midst of such an excellent exit.”

“Yes, that's what happens when your chin is in the air. However, I won't laugh, at least not just yet. Now heed me, Duchess. You aren't going anywhere. This is your home and here you'll stay.” He shook her. “Do you understand me?”

“I'm not certain, Marcus. Perhaps you'd best shake me again. It makes me think more clearly.”

He hauled her to her feet and stared down at her, his look as black and brooding as one of the quixotic Lord Byron's heroes.

“Why is Chase Park now my home? Why are you singing a different tune this morning? Truly, I don't understand you, my lord.”

“It is your home until I tell you it is not, and even then perhaps it will still be your home, as arguments follow from the night unto the morning and things change in the hours in between. Do you now understand?”

“I will never understand you.”

“I am a man. Men are not easily fathomed. Our feelings aren't sitting in the middle of a plate for all to comment upon and taste, not like you bloody women.”

Maggie snorted behind him.

“Oh dear,” the Duchess said in that tone of voice he now recognized very well, and he let her go without any hesitation whatsoever.

She ran out the door, down the deep wide marble steps, past a startled gardener who dropped his spade, fell to her knees, and vomited in the rosebushes.

Maggie looked him up and down. “You shook her on purpose to make her sick. I spent a good twenty minutes brushing her cloak from all her trips to that wretched abbey where she grubbed around on her knees looking for that wretched treasure, and now just look. Black dirt,
worms, and God knows what else.”

“I did not shake her for that purpose. However, the result just might be a dollop of common sense in that woman's brain of hers. Sampson! Ah, there you are, just behind me. You're becoming a lurker, just like Spears and Badger. Have her ladyship's valises removed back to her room. Do not delay. Once she is on her feet again, her brain just might be swayed again to perversity.”

Maggie snorted.

Marcus went outside into a beautiful summer morning. The sky was a light blue with white clouds dotted here and there, the smell of cut grass heavy in the air, and his wife was retching on her knees in the rosebushes.

He waited until she was done, then picked her up in his arms and carried her back upstairs, not pausing to say anything at all to any of her cohorts. He passed Aunt Wilhelmina, who raised a brow and said, “Perhaps she has finally cocked it?”

“No, she hasn't. Good day to you too, Aunt Wilhelmina.”

“Mama!” he heard Ursula say. “Really, you shouldn't say such awful things. She's the duchess and she's the mistress here.”

“I? I said nothing at all untoward. I merely wondered if she had merely knocked herself up with all her activity.”

“I could do better than that,” Marcus said under his breath. She wanted to smile at that but she felt too wretched. “I don't like this, Marcus.”

“No, I shouldn't like it either. Now you know that you must be calm and placid as a cow, and do exactly what I tell you to do.”

He reached her bedchamber, frowned a maid out of the room in a near dead run, and laid her on her bed.

She took sips of the water he handed her. She groaned, grabbing her stomach.

He left the room and she heard him shout, “Maggie, get her some biscuits. Doubtless you packed dozens. Go, quickly!”

Not three minutes later, she was chewing slowly on a biscuit flavored with cinnamon. She sighed, finally relaxing.

“You don't want me here. Why are you being perverse? Is the vicar due to call on you? Do you fear he will see your wife leaving you?”

He was silent. He turned away from her and began his familiar pacing, back and forth at an angle between the bed and the winged chair, long strides in his black boots.

He was such a splendid-looking creature. She liked him in those tight buckskin breeches. She remembered how he'd looked in his uniform and sighed again. “I'm willing to leave, Marcus. As you know, I'm very rich. And you also know, even without the money my father left me, I can still manage. I obviously didn't get pregnant on purpose, that, I suppose, is impossible. But I am with child and there's nothing I can do about it.” Suddenly she sucked in her breath and whispered, “No, surely not. You don't want me to do that.”

“Surely not what? What don't I want you to do?”

“I have heard of women who try to rid themselves of their babies and many succeed. They stick things inside themselves. Sometimes they die too.”

“Oh, for God's sake, Duchess, just shut up. Yes, I can certainly see you tripping into some back alley in York asking for an old besom to rid you of the child. Or better yet, why don't I drag you by your hair into a back alley? Just cease your asinine talk. You may be quiet or you may turn red raging at me. Just don't be a fool.” He began pacing again, more quickly now, his steps longer, his heels clicking on the wooden floor. He was indeed very nice to look at, the sod.

“What do you want me to do, Marcus?”

Then he turned and he was smiling. “It seems that now I won't have to withdraw from you. The damage is done, so to speak.”

She could only stare at him. “You said Celeste would be here in four days.”

“I could have lied. I'm a Wyndham and it is a possibility that I didn't write to her instructing her to come. You possibly know I was perhaps lying, don't pretend otherwise. Since your bouts of illness come and go with neither rhyme nor reason, then I'd best enjoy you when a propitious moment is offered. Like now.”

She didn't move for the longest time, nor did she speak. Then, very slowly, she rose from the bed, walked to the chamber pot, and retched.

“Well, hell,” he said, kicked over a stool, and went to hold his wife until she sagged back against him.

“You know,” he said, drawling out his words as he lightly stroked her hair from her face, “I just might have Celeste come after all. You are in no shape to offer me much of anything, fight or passion. What do you think, Duchess?”

“You just try it,” she said.

He stared at her a long moment. She could see him thinking, sorting through ideas, then he said, “I think I'm beginning to see things more clearly. I don't think you had any intention of leaving Chase Park or me, did you?”

“Did you not see the valises? Wasn't Maggie all decked as fine as a nine pence? Was the carriage not there waiting?”

“Did you?”

Actually he was perfectly right. She was only pretending to leave, the valises had been empty, and Maggie, bless her actress's heart, had doubtless enjoyed herself immensely. She'd prayed he would come to grips with the existence of the child, prayed that if he thought she was leaving him, he would realize he wanted her, that he wanted both her and their child. Now she had no idea at all if she'd gotten what she'd prayed for.

She remained silent. She wouldn't give him that kind of ammunition. Her chin went into the air.

“You now offer me another challenge,” he said, and his blue eyes glittered. “You like games, madam? Now that I know what you're about, you'll soon realize you haven't
got a chance. You will be humiliated. You're a mere babe at this. You have no clue of proper strategy, no instinct for just what to do at any exact moment. Yes, a challenge from you—when you're not puking on the rosebushes—just might please me.”

“I just might leave you tonight, at eight o'clock.”

He laughed.

 

“I don't like it,” Marcus said to Badger and Spears. “She's ill all the time. She's pale and she's thin as a damned stick. She's too exhausted to even get angry, and the good Lord knows I bait her enough when she appears well, goad her until if I were her I'd shoot me or stab me with a dinner knife, but she doesn't even take a nibble.”

“That is worrisome indeed, for you are renowned for your bait, my lord,” Spears said.

“I don't like it either,” Badger said. “You are also renowned for your goads.”

“Another two weeks,” Spears said. “I understand your concern, but I have studied this thoroughly, my lord. Surely just another two weeks and she'll be much improved. Mr. Badger is preparing excellent dishes for her to eat, and what she is managing to keep in her belly is very healthful for her and the babe.”

Marcus flinched whenever anyone mentioned the child. He still had no idea what he was going to do. Send her away when she was well again? To Pipwell Cottage? He cursed, which made both Badger and Spears regard him with some surprise.

“I had thought, my lord,” Spears said, “that this was a meeting with a purpose, namely, to relieve your mind of your wife's continued illness.”

“You sound as austere as my mother, Spears. Incidentally, when is my fond parent to arrive?”

“Mr. Sampson said she would be coming the third week of July.”

“Oh God, can you just see my mother with Aunt
Wilhelmina? She and that harpy from Baltimore will have a fine old time. Poor Aunt Gweneth—she'll be buried along with the rest of us beneath the sweet poison darts those two will be flinging about.”

“Your mother isn't at all difficult,” Spears said. “She is amusing. She doesn't suffer fools, thus I wager that the harpy from Baltimore will quickly find herself at
point non plus.
I told Mr. Badger that she was fanciful, what with her adoration of Medieval legend and lore. Quite harmless, I would say, my lord, and charming.”

“Not only Medieval, Spears. She believes that Mary, Queen of Scots, is just one step earthward of the Virgin Mary, Queen of Heaven. I fear that she and Aunt Wilhelmina together will send all of us to early graves. My mother is sharp-witted, you know. She quite terrifies me.”

There was a cough at the door. It was James Wyndham and he was looking steadily at Marcus.

“Ah, James, do come in. Spears, Badger, and I were just conferring on the possible winners at Ascot next month. What do you think,
Elysian Fields
or
Robert the Bruce?
Both are strong in the chest and run faster than a storm.”

“I have always thought that Robert the Bruce—the man—was just excellent. I should bet on him.”

“Just so, Master James,” Spears said. “Now, Mr. Badger, it's best that you get back to your kitchen. We will all endeavor to curtail our worrying.”

“What are we having for dinner, Badger?”

“Baked cod and smoked mussels, my lord. Many other courses as well, but I won't bore you with the recital of them. Also, some glass pudding, a favorite of the Duchess's. It's light so her stomach shouldn't rebel. I might try another Frog dish, perhaps some
crème de pommes de terre aux champignons
would sit nicely in her belly.”

“Potatoes and mushrooms? Yes, give it a try,” Marcus said, half his attention on James Wyndham, who was regarding Spears and Badger as if he'd suddenly stepped into a Drury Lane play and didn't know his lines. Marcus
supposed that the denizens of Chase Park weren't exactly what one would expect, not that he cared a whit.

When they were alone, Marcus said, “What's wrong, James? You look all tight in the jaw.”

“I've been thinking, Marcus, thinking and remembering and thinking some more. When I found the Duchess unconscious on the floor, that book wasn't on top of the desk. I do remember that clearly. If you don't mind unlocking the library, I think we should look in that spot in the bookshelves where she found the first one. Perhaps there are more volumes that just might give us clues about the Wyndham treasure.”