Barbara Metzger (34 page)

So Wiggs did, with more than reverendly relish. He’d had the entire tale from Lady Paige, who had it from her spouse before he fled without her.

“My husband was involved in that duel, you say? I assumed so, since Lady Paige’s name was mentioned. I told you, that
affaire
is ended. It has nothing to do with me.” She went back to her pad and her lists.

“Lord Paige fired early? No wonder the woman was unfaithful, if her husband was such a cad.” Unlike Athena’s wonderful husband. She could not imagine wanting or needing any other man in her bed or in her life. She smiled, inside and out. “I really am quite busy, as you can see.” She held her pencil poised to add new slippers for Ian on her list. Roma had claimed the last pair, not to chew, but to carry around her rescuer’s scent.

Wiggs wafted his final words.

The pad hit the ground. “My husband did what?” The pencil snapped in two. “He fired where?”

Athena was so mad, she marched into Troy’s room and yelled at the boy. “What do you mean, you didn’t see who hit you?”

“He was not aiming at me, I swear.”

Then she yelled at her other brother. “You knew, and you let me marry that man?”

“Of course I knew. Marden’s got honor, told me what happened straight out in his letter. Said he meant to take full responsibility, which included you. Only decent thing to do, of course.”

Athena yelled at her new sister-in-law, who was aghast that she had not been at Maddox House for the fires, and aghast that she had been caught out.

“You warned me not to be seduced,” Athena shouted, “and look at you. Coming home in the morning in the same gown you wore last night! And with Carswell, of all people. The man lies through his teeth. He is as big a scoundrel as your brother, and you are to have nothing more to do with him, do you hear me?”

Since Athena was nearly a foot shorter than Lady Dorothy, and since Doro fully intended to see more, a lot more, of Mr. Carswell, she merely patted Athena’s cheek. “Whatever my brother has done to put you in such a pet, my dear, I am certain he will apologize nicely. If you play your cards right, you can snabble a new bracelet or a carriage of your own.”

“I do not want anything from your brother! I do not want your brother! The man is a liar and a fiend and a philanderer and…and a fiend,” Athena repeated, because she could not think of anything worse.

Lady Marden chided her for shouting. The noise was giving the dowager a headache, for one, and such behavior was unladylike, for another, entirely unsuitable for a countess.

So Athena went upstairs and yelled at the deaf dog.

*

Ian expected his house to be a beehive of activity, with workers scrubbing walls and carrying out carpets. He expected his wife to be relieved that they had a name for the arsonist, and he expected them to spend the rest of the day in the hotel suite he had reserved.

No one was in the hallway, not a footman or a butler, although the doors and windows all stood open to allow the breeze to air the house of the lingering smoke. No one was in the drawing room, the library, or the dining parlor, although he knew his sister was back, having seen his former bay horses fly down the street ahead of Carswell’s curricle when he approached the house. He knew his mother would be up, because the captain was to call in an hour. Rensdale was awake because he’d roused the man himself.

He knew something was wrong. Not a catastrophe, or someone would have sent for him or met him at the door. But something was wrong, all right, and he had a sinking suspicion he was it.

Young Renslow just shook his head. The dog cowered under the bed, not even offering a token growl. Ian loosened his suddenly tight shirt collar.

The walk to his bedroom might have been the march to the gallows. Every door on the corridor was closed; not a maid scurried past. The silence was worse than a death sentence.

A coward might have left. Ian thought about it, then thought about the heart-shaped ruby pendant he carried in his hand, from the jewelry shop near his bank. He’d never given Athena a wedding present, and her wedding night had been ruined. Perhaps the necklace could make up for whatever sin he had unwittingly committed.

And perhaps pigs would fly.

“I trusted you!” his delicate, adoring little spouse screeched as Ian walked into his bedchamber. “If nothing else, I thought I could believe your word.”

“I―”

“I thought you were a man of honor, despite your womanizing.”

“I―”

“You lied to me!” she shouted, pummeling his last pair of slippers onto his desk.

He caught the ink bottle before it fell. “You—”

“Oh, no, you don’t. You cannot make me responsible for your sins. You were the one who lied, who made me believe you wanted to marry me, when you and Rensdale had decided it days before, as a way to atone for your crime. You were the one who fired that pistol, not Lord Paige!”

“Yes, but—”

“You shot my baby brother!”

The best defense being a good offense, Ian launched his own attack. “Well, you lied about his injuries. I thought I had made him an invalid for life, and here he was already crippled. You let me go on feeling guilty for more than my fair share.”

“How was I supposed to know you were feeling guilty when I did not know you had anything to feel guilty about? Furthermore, everyone knew about Troy and what they did to him as a baby. Rensdale must have told you when you discussed marriage, in case you were worried that your children might carry the Renslow curse. I assumed it did not matter to you, since you love your sister despite her scars, and your mother, who goes into a sneezing fit at the first flower. I thought you could love our babies, no matter what.”

“I can, and I will.”

“How do you expect me to believe that, when you lied about so much else?”

“I did not lie, entirely, and I had good reasons.”

“There is no good reason for this!”

“Of course there is. Be reasonable, Attie. You were here, and you were distraught. I did not want to add to your concerns thinking that you might be facing your brother’s…” His voice trailed away.

“His murderer? Is that what you did not want to tell me? That I married the man who might have killed my brother, except for good doctoring and a lot of luck?”

“I did not want you to hate me.”

“That’s all you can say, for lying to me? For marrying me under false pretenses? For promising me that I could trust you. That’s all you can say?”

No, it wasn’t all.

He said, “I love you.”

Chapter Twenty-Five

Why does a woman marry a man and then expect him to change?

—Anonymous

Why does a man not understand that marriage changes everyone?

—Mrs. Anonymous

The door connecting Ian’s bedroom and Athena’s slammed shut, along with his hopes for a midday romantic interlude. The clicking of the lock sounded the death knell for his hopes for the night, too, it appeared. Ian thought of shoving the ruby pendant under the door, but he doubted Athena would be won over by a bribe. Besides, the blasted thing would not fit.

He sat at his desk, moving the slippers she had thrown there, and composed a letter: In it he explained about the prevarications concerning the duel: the ricocheted pistol ball, Paige’s villainy and cowardice, his own decision to stay to look after Troy instead of fleeing the country. He wrote that he was responsible, but never intended to harm the boy, or her. When he realized that he had ruined her chances for making a respectable marriage, he had decided to make amends in the only gentlemanly way possible, so her good opinion of him mattered.

He continued to write, putting down things he had never truly thought, and had never spoken, how their marriage was not a mere matter of honor. He could have found another way to satisfy Rensdale and his own conscience if she had refused him. But, he wrote, he was glad she did not. He had married her gladly, with relief that she had agreed, with pride that she chose him, with joy that she would be his partner through life. He was a fool, he confessed, needing a fire to show him what any blind man could see, that he held a treasure in his hands, and would never be happy if he let it go. He loved her, he wrote, more than he thought possible, more than words could say, more than she loved him, if one small deception could so destroy her feelings for him.

His forehead was damp and his shirt was clinging to his skin, he was so overheated in his efforts to express himself. He took up the penknife to sharpen his point, while he wondered if he had left anything out, like his shock and horror at what he had done, like his vow never to hold a weapon on another person. He nicked his finger, thinking so hard instead of paying attention, and then wondered if Athena would be more likely to believe him if he signed the letter in blood.

No, she would think he was a clumsy idiot, which he was. He had bled out his soul in the deuced letter, anyway, and that had to be enough. He folded the page, affixed a wax seal, got up, and slid it under the connecting door.

A minute later, the letter came back under the door, the seal still intact. That was the only thing that was, for the page itself was in shreds, little scraps of unread remorse crammed under his door. He was reminded of a prisoner in a dungeon receiving his daily bread and water through a slot on the floor…a prisoner declared guilty, whether he was or was not.

Well, he had bled, and now he was empty. He could not beg at her feet—she would not open the door to his knock—and he would not shout like a fishwife (like his own wife) through the wood for all the servants and family to hear. Breaking her door down would be the act of a violent, threatening bully, which he had sworn not to be. He did not want her afraid of him, heaven knew. Her anger was bad enough.

He could always get the keys from the housekeeper, of course. That was cheating, though, taking unfair advantage of his superior position. Worse, his housekeeper might side with the new countess. Then he’d have no keys, no wife, no meals served on time and no clean linen. No, he would not ask for the keys.

Athena was as rational as a female could be; she’d come around. She’d see he had no choice, and she’d see that since they were already married, she might as well make the best of it. Then he could show her how good his best could be.

They could celebrate their marriage with wine and candles and flowers all over again, he decided, feeling his body stir at the thought. Perhaps at—No, Lady Paige was still at his Kensington place. The hotel, then, or a lovely inn outside of town. His mind drew air castles, and his imagination moved right in, with feather mattresses and fur rugs on the floor and hot, wet skin, glistening by the fire’s glow.

Lud, he hoped Athena did not take long to get over her outrage. He needed her.

And he needed a bath. A cold one.

Afterward, when she still had not stirred from her room, he kidnapped her brother.

“What do you say we go for a ride, Troy, try out your paces? I have a nice mare, sweet but with spirit. She won’t toss you, but she does need a firm hand at the reins. The rain seems to have stopped and the sun is trying to come through. I need the exercise and would like the company.”

Troy grabbed his crutches, then paused. “What about Attie? She said I could try to ride next week in the indoor ring at the riding school.”

“She is not speaking to me right now, so I cannot ask. Do you wish to?”

“The mood she is in? Not on your life!”

*

Athena’s mood was as black as her husband’s heart. As black as his boots, which she heard when he walked down the hall. As black as sin, of which he had committed so many she stopped counting.

His final lie was the worst. He loved her? Hah! No one lied to one’s beloved. Trust was part of loving, and he had not trusted her with the truth. At first, of course, he did not know her, much less hold her in affection. But when he proposed? When they were about to be married? Didn’t he owe her the truth then?

More worrisome was the notion that if he could lie at that point, and after, when they were tangled in each other’s arms, he could keep on lying. She could never trust him, never believe his promises, never accept his word. When he told her he loved her—if he ever did again, after her tantrum—she could not believe him.

What about later, when he was at his club, or visiting friends, or playing cards until dawn? Could she believe his promise of fidelity then, when he had been caught in a falsehood before? Would he bother to keep the promise, or simply tell her more lies?

He would tell her what he thought she wanted to hear, and not tell her what he thought would upset her. She would be treated like a child, shielded from the truth and fed fairy stories instead.

What happened when a child realized that there were no ogres waiting in the woods to swallow up naughty boys and girls? He or she discovered that parents did not always speak the truth, that’s what. They were not all-knowing, all-powerful beings to be adored and blindly obeyed. They were human, and fallible, and the child learned to judge things for himself on the way to adulthood.

Athena was an adult, a mature woman, with her eyes open now. No more silly infatuation for her, no more thinking her husband could hang the moon, no more letting him treat her like a little girl. And no more tears.

They were married, yes, but on her terms now. Her door was going to stay locked until she could accept a lying, cheating, child-maiming churl in her bed. The fairy-tale ogre could stay in his own woods; he was not going to swallow her for lunch.

She did not come down for luncheon, and she did not come down for supper, pleading a lingering headache after the fire. She did keep busy, organizing the household to make necessary repairs and rearrangements while they were cleaning after the smoke. She woke in the morning and kept busy until dark, avoiding her relatives, including that traitor, Troy. She was polite to Ian’s family, but distant. At night, her door stayed locked.

The dowager Lady Marden threw up her hands and threatened to return to Bath, until Captain Beecham begged her to stay.