When a Girl Loves an Earl (Rescued from Ruin Book 5) (19 page)

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CHAPTER SIXTEEN

“Pray, do regale me again with your relentless prattle. I do so enjoy waking to the sound of nonsense accompanied by the distinct scent of imminent dismissal.”
—The Dowager Marchioness of Wallingham to a recently acquired lady’s maid, the seventh in as many months.

“This stain will come right out, not to worry, my lady.” The cheerful, chatty girl holding up Viola’s silver pelisse could not have been older than twenty, which made her approximately half the age of the next youngest servant at Shankwood Hall. “Just a bit of mud. Had a similar mishap with my mother’s best apron this last spring.” She rolled her eyes and chuckled. “Oh, she was properly vexed, she was. But I told her true: Mud washes clean away, sure enough. Just takes patience and scrubbin’. Mostly scrubbin’.”

Viola granted the girl a faint smile and continued unpacking her possessions from the trunk lying open on the floor of her new dressing room. As she placed her brush and combs and a small, enameled box of hair pins on the mahogany dressing table, she noticed a white scrap of cloth in the trunk’s near corner. It had been tucked beneath the pin box. She bent and took it between her fingers, running her thumb over purple and green embroidery.

“Oh, my lady. You should let me do the unpacking. You must be weary from your travels. All the way from Northumberland! My, what a jaunt. Three days, is it not?”

“Two and a half. We had excellent horses and pleasant weather.” The journey had been a torment. Twice she and James had shared a bed, though all they’d done was sleep. Waking up with his arms around her, feeling his heat and hardness against her, his breath upon her cheek, she’d wanted to weep with longing. But, then, that sensation was not precisely new. It seemed she would forever be cursed to want him and be denied the pleasure of having him as her own.

“You have the most beautiful gowns, my lady. This one—oh! How splendid. Look at the spangles. Like little drops of dew.”

Viola glanced up from the ugly handkerchief in her hand and saw the girl—Amy, if she recalled correctly—holding the ball dress Viola had worn for the masquerade. And for her wedding. To think only a few days had passed since then. It felt like a century.

After she and James had left Scotland, her world had become a gray haze of turmoil and want. First, she’d awakened in his arms—indeed, cuddled in his lap—as the coach had pulled past the gatehouse at Grimsgate. He’d held her so tenderly, she’d raised her mouth to his, needing to feel his lips upon hers. Then, she had remembered.

She did not deserve to kiss him. She was the woman who had trapped him into marriage, denied him happiness with his real love, the now-widowed, frightfully tall Alison.

So, instead, she had held herself still and waited for the footman to open the door, and for James to loosen his hold, before climbing from the coach.

Thereafter, she’d gone to find Papa, who had hugged her three times, beaming his delight at seeing her mother’s ring on her finger. “Why so pale, my sweet girl?” he’d whispered during the third hug. Then, she’d seen him cast a grim eye over her shoulder at James.

Wanting no strife between her father and husband, she’d given him her best false smile and kissed his cheek. “Merely a headache, Papa. James held me as I slept all the way from Scotland. He is taking such good care of me. You mustn’t worry.”

This had appeared to settle Papa’s concerns well enough, but the look in Georgina’s eyes, along with a single, silent, overlong hug, told Viola perhaps she had not been as convincing as she might have wished.

For his part, James had loomed like a shadow, trailing her everywhere she went, even following her to her bedchamber where she’d begun to pack, as though he feared she might disappear or collapse into a weepy, hysterical heap and humiliate them both. She’d done neither, of course. She owed him a great debt. He had married her to save her from certain scandal. She would not sully that gift by making a public spectacle, no matter how her heart ached. No matter how many times she relived the moment when the towering Alison had pulled his mouth to hers.

And that happened every time she blinked, every time she breathed.

Unable to bear the thought of being alone with James for three days while they traveled to his home in Derbyshire, she’d begged Papa, Georgina, Penelope, and Aunt Marian to travel with them to Shankwood Hall, as its location in Derbyshire was but a day’s ride from their home in Cheshire. For this effort, she’d mustered every performer’s trick, every ounce of artifice she’d ever possessed to present the most cheerful of faces to her family. Papa had scoffed and shot James a skeptical look, expressing doubt about a newly married couple having the bride’s father along for their honeymoon. It had been Georgina who had saved her, holding Viola steady with a dark, sympathetic gaze and observing that the journey might pass more quickly for them all with a bit of company.

Eventually, her family had agreed. Viola had been thankful for their buffering presence, since James had taken to touching her at every dratted opportunity. He placed a hand on her back while helping her into and out of the carriage. He wrapped an arm about her waist while they stood waiting inside coaching inns for their food or their rooms. And his fingers trailed maddeningly up and down her arm when they sat beside each other, whether in the carriage or in the midst of an inn’s crowded taproom. Further, he would not stop staring at her with those haunted, solemn green eyes of his. Every time she cast a furtive glance his way, she found his gaze upon her, sometimes heated, sometimes pensive, always intent.

Avoiding him had proven impossible. At least during the day, she’d had the excuse of dragging Georgina into her carriage to teach her more about embroidery, or riding with Penelope to help refine her cousin’s wedding plans, or conversing with Papa over a cup of ale and a bowl of bland stew.

But at night, there was no escape. In the room she shared with James the first night, she had scrambled to finish her toilette quickly and crawl beneath the blankets so she could pretend to sleep before he entered. She’d managed it, but only by a whisker, turning out the lamp just as the door opened. After a bit of splashing, he’d sat on the edge of the bed for a long while. She’d felt his fingers sift through her hair. Then, she’d felt the mattress dip as he’d climbed in beside her, gathering her into his arms. It had felt like being cuddled by a great bear, warm and protected, and she had soon fallen into a deep slumber.

The second night, she had not been quite as fortunate. He’d entered just as she peeled back a yellow coverlet desperately in need of a good washing. She’d spun to face him, her heart pounding so loudly, she’d been certain he would hear it. As it turned out, he had wanted to talk. And above all things, she did not wish to talk.

“We must discuss how we are to go on, Viola,” he’d rumbled, sitting on the bed to remove his boots. “You cannot avoid me forever.”

She’d pleaded exhaustion, but he would have none of it. He’d come around the bed, his shoulders a yard wide, his eyes tired and red. “We are married,” he’d stated flatly. “I realize I have hurt you, and I am sorry for it. Sorrier than you can dream. But you mustn’t consign us forever to this misery. You are my wife. I shall sleep beside you, and you beside me. That is as it should be.”

After his declaration, she had hugged herself and nodded, half expecting him to demand a repeat of their wedding night. Part of her wanted that more than her next breath, while another part despaired of taking his body and his lust inside her again, only to be torn apart when she remembered that his heart loved another. She did not know if she could survive it.

But he had not demanded anything more of her, merely stripping down to his pantaloons and once again climbing into the bed beside her, dousing the lamp, and pulling her into the curve of his big, hard body. That night, she’d slept not at all, lying awake for hours listening to his heartbeat and his breathing and the faint, funny snore at the top of each breath. She’d soaked in his heat, struggling not to weep at the pleasure of his nearness. Her chest had ached, her eyes had stung, and she’d waited for sleep to claim her, but it never had.

Today, they had arrived at Shankwood, and presently, her newly assigned lady’s maid, Amy, was cooing over a pair of slippers she’d purchased two seasons ago. Viola had never had a dedicated lady’s maid before. She and Papa had always been too poor for such extravagances. “Keep them,” she said to the girl, nodding to the slippers.

Amy’s eyes rounded. “Oh, no, my lady, I could never—”

“I insist. To love something with all your heart and then to make it your own is one of life’s great joys.” She looked down at the handkerchief pressed between her hands, ran her thumb again over what should have been a trout but looked more like an overripe grape.

“Thank you ever so kindly, Lady Tannenbrook,” the girl said breathlessly, clutching the shoes to her bosom and hurrying about her work with a new vigor.

Viola’s attention returned to the handkerchief. She recalled every laborious stitch. Every thread that had needed to be cut away and repaired. Her skills had improved since then, thankfully. With Georgina’s kind instruction, she now contemplated new projects with anticipation rather than dread. Perhaps that was what she needed. A new project. Something to occupy her mind and prevent her dwelling in this wretched pool of sadness.

“Amy.”

“Yes, my lady?”

“Is there a shop in the village that sells embroidery floss?”

“Oh, yes, indeed. The Starling Sisters Scone Shop and Haberdashery. You can buy all sorts of bits and bobs there. The scones are lovely, too.”

“I should like to go there.”

Amy froze while hanging a puce silk gown inside a large wardrobe. “Now, my lady?”

Viola opened the enameled pin box and tucked the ugly handkerchief inside, closing the lid gently. “Yes,” she said, rising to gather her bonnet from the low divan along the opposite wall. “Now is the perfect time to do a bit of shopping.”

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It was a bloody good thing his solicitor and estate manager were competent, James thought as he perused the same page of accounts for the sixth time and still had trouble focusing long enough to absorb the figures. Gates and Strudwicke sat across the desk from him. They were discussing the need to replace roofs on three cottages in the village. Or, at least, he thought so. He’d been sitting in his study with the two men for over two hours, but his mind was decidedly elsewhere. Preoccupied. Obsessed.

“Well, that should take care of two of the cottages, at any rate. The third may safely wait until next year if we do a bit of patching, as you suggest, Mr. Strudwicke.” Gates removed his spectacles to polish them with a handkerchief, then plopped them back upon his straight, refined nose and turned to James. “Shall we discuss the matter of your heir, my lord?”

His heir. Yes. Of course. Except that he hadn’t given his heir a moment’s thought since … well since marrying Viola. In truth, he hadn’t thought about much of anything other than his enchanting, maddening, seductive, elusive lass in four months.

“Right,” Gates continued, clearing his throat. “Now that your lordship has married, how would you like to proceed in our search for Elijah Kilbrenner?”

James frowned. “Proceed?”

Gates glanced to Strudwicke, who raised his wispy brows then dropped his gaze studiously to the papers in his hand. “Yes. Shall I continue the inquiries into your presumptive heir, now that there exists the potential for an—ahem—heir apparent?”

His head felt light, as though he’d had too little sleep or too much of Wallingham’s French cognac. He’d intended never to have children. And he’d resisted taking a wife because a wife would expect children, and all of society would expect her to have children, and if she did not, all of society would blame her for the failure. He’d seen it happen before, and the women always appeared bloody tragic to his eye.

After he’d married Viola, his decision to never have another bairn, never subject another child to his mistakes, had begun to feel a bit less right and a bit more cowardly. He’d even begun to ponder Wallingham’s observation that decisions formulated by one’s younger self were those of a boy, not a man. In his case, a boy shattered by betrayal and soul-rattling grief.

But then, Viola had made a habit of forcing him to question himself. From the beginning, the indomitable Miss Darling had refused to accept anything other than his unconditional surrender. And he’d wanted her with every inch of his flesh, every thought in his mind, every drop of his blood. He’d wanted her until he thought he’d go mad, wanted that which he should never be permitted. He still did.

He wanted to sink himself inside her tight, wet sheath again, feel her hands stroke his face again. He wanted to watch her flit and twirl about his home, enchanting everyone who saw her. He wanted to see her light up like a midsummer sky whenever she saw him enter a room.

Ah God, he missed her. It had only been a few days, but he felt like he’d caught some sort of wasting illness. To imagine denying his sweet, bonnie lass the chance to be a mother felt wrong. So bloody wrong.

And yet, seeing Alison’s grief again, seeing his son’s grave again, had firmed the ground in which his original vow—the one he’d made all those years ago—was planted. Reminded him of why he’d made it. How he had failed his son. Failed his son’s mother, who had paid her own dear price, never bearing another child.