“Yes. He was magnificent.”
“Why isn’t Papa looking?”
“I don’t know. He must have much on his mind.”
Harry bounced in his seat and finally turned to her with questioning eyes. “Maybe he is thinking of that lady in the fancy dresses.”
“Lady Wainscott?” Had Harry met her too? Had he gone through the endless secret passageways and spied on her?
“She’s gone now. Maybe he misses her.”
A vice gripped her lungs, stole her breath. Vivian never considered that the Countess could have left on her own accord. Maybe Charles had not dismissed her from the manor, maybe she departed and he now grieved for her loss.
Vivian swallowed. “Did you ever talk to her, Harry? Tell me the truth.”
The child shook his head. “No. She scared me a little.”
She squeezed the boy against her but watched his father. He’d removed his jacket and now rowed in only his white shirt. It billowed in the wind then pressed against the solid angles of his chest.
She wanted to touch that chest, allow her fingers to smooth the dark curls on his stomach. The last two times they’d been together, they had not been given the time for exploration. Suddenly, she missed that. Suddenly, she wanted it more than anything.
Vivian reached forward and tapped his knee. He focused on her, startled. “We’ve nearly gone to the other side.”
Charles glanced behind him then dropped the oars. “I suppose I had not been paying attention.”
“We saw a turtle, Papa. You missed him.”
“Well, then, we shall turn around and find him again.”
Relief tugged at the corner of her lips. Finally he had come around and joined them in their adventure.
And yet his eyes still held his secrets. Ones she feared she would never learn.
After finding the turtle and spotting several species of birds and curious fish, they headed back to the dock.
“Papa,” Harry said, as they neared the shore. “May I come down and have dinner with you and Miss Suttley?”
“Will you be joining me for dinner, Miss Suttley?”
She lifted her gaze to his predatory stare. She was unable to determine if he wanted her there or not, if he longed to have the Countess return or was glad she had gone.
His hooded, unreadable eyes breached her sheltered soul and plunged her under his spell.
Vivian could do nothing but nod.
“It is settled then.” He offered his son a smile. “We will ask John to join us tonight and all dine together.”
John must be the man she heard speaking several times, the one she assumed to be Harry’s tutor.
After they’d gotten off the boat, Harry scampered up ahead, pulling flowers and chasing after squirrels.
Charles took her arm. Warmth spread into her heart then flooded the remainder of her body. “Wear one of your new dresses tonight.”
His request surprised her. With Lady Wainscott gone, who was left to impress?
They climbed the slope of Briarfell, the breeze much cooler than earlier. Up ahead, Harry crouched to inspect something on a moss covered rock.
A weight seemed to press on Ashworth’s shoulders. “I slept very little last night.”
“You did seem rather distracted on the boat.”
Charles stopped her with his arm, but his eyes revealed nothing. “I have decisions to make. Ones that affect you.”
Her pulse trembled, ice trickled into her bloodstream. Was she the next to go? Would a pouch of coins rest on her pillow when she returned from dinner?
“Come see!” Harry waved to them from his position.
Charles left her and lowered himself beside his son. Vivian stared at the two of them. One with hair the color of fire, the other a warm brown. The love between them was obvious, deep, unbreakable.
An ache burrowed beneath her breast. Who was she to come into their lives and disrupt it all? She’d arrived at Silverstone an unwelcome outsider. Had she become any less foreign to them?
Vivian had been a desperate fool when she burst into this manor demanding to marry its lord. Now she knew better, knew more what she wanted for her future.
She didn’t want to be wedded to a stranger for the mere sake of his protection. She wanted affection, tenderness, devotion, trust. Damn it, she wanted love.
And no matter how intensely she may arouse Charles’s passions, it was clear he did not love her.
Vivian chose a dress of emerald green, with lace piping around the neckline and little bows at her waist. It had been so long since she wore something so fancy she actually felt foolish. Especially being in this dark house where the only things that shined brightly were spider webs catching the occasional sunrays.
Charles turned from speaking with another man when she entered the dining hall. His silver eyes widened, the corners of his mouth curled.
He nudged the man, John she assumed, and raised his eyebrows. Her cheeks flushed, a mixture of embarrassment and annoyance. She was not one to enjoy being put on display. Her father could never understand why she’d rather be out in the fields or tromping through mud instead of going to balls.
Martin had made it clear that she would not appear any less than a lady at all times as his wife. He’d literally ripped off the plain linen dress she wore that one night, telling her the others would meet a similar fate.
Her throat tightened, eyes burned. What if she had not run? What if she had not heard of Viscount Ashworth and his supposed need for a wife? Would her belly already be growing with Martin’s baby?
A small hand tugged on her fingers. “You look very pretty, Miss Suttley.”
Vivian smiled. Leave it to Harry to shake her from her fears. “Thank you. And you are quite handsome yourself.”
Charles came around, Harry’s tutor in tow. “Mr. John Hughes, may I present Miss Suttley, daughter of Lord Whistlebury.”
His formality surprised her, but not nearly as much as the icy gleam in John’s eyes.
He took her hand and kissed it. “Miss Suttley.”
She nodded, searching for that coldness again but it was gone. Perhaps she had imagined it completely. “Mr. Hughes.”
Charles clapped John on the shoulder. “This man has been a friend of mine since school days. I couldn’t have been luckier to have him move out to Silverstone with me.”
John’s cheeks brightened, suddenly making him appear the most pleasant man in the world.
Dinner progressed well enough, making Vivian almost sorry she had avoided it for so long. It certainly wasn’t the same to dine alone in her room. Then again, this company was infinitely better than what she had to face before.
They talked about Harry’s schoolwork, his love of animals and nature. Harry gave everyone an update on the baby duck’s growth and how well she was eating her meals. There was mention of the weather, the snows arriving in a few months, and the cold, dark nights. All topics were light, frivolous.
No one asked her where she’d come from, who she’d left behind, or if she ever planned on returning.
None of them seemed to care of her past, of who she was and what made her the person she’d become. Life in this manor transformed its inhabitants. They had become lost, hollow. Each of them avoided a pain in their past, an aching memory which bound them to these stone walls and kept them from the rest of the world.
None of them were truly living.
Charles stood, gulped his wine, then called everyone’s attention. “Before we partake of dessert, I have something to say.”
Vivian held her breath, her nerves tingling. She knew not why she waited with such anticipation on his words. Perhaps it was that a final decision was being made. She would no longer exist in limbo, caught between his secret need to send her away and his burning desire to have her stay.
“Yes, Papa?” Harry squealed.
He smiled at his son, the scar curving like a bird’s feather. “Miss Suttley has been here with us for a few weeks now. She has created a garden and created havoc. She’s withstood the disrepair of this house and a bully’s taunting. She’s made friends with spiders and ducklings alike.”
Charles turned his attention back to her. He stared across the table, his hooded gaze drawing her in.
Suddenly, there was no one else but the two of them, no dishes or candles between them, no sounds, nothing but his lips close to hers.
“Miss Suttley…” He cleared his throat. “I want you to be my wife.”
In an instant she was back in her seat, at the far end of the room, Harry and his tutor on either side of her. The sounds of dishes clanged in her ears. The smells from the last course assaulted her nose.
She clutched the arms of her chair, unable to think, unable to speak.
Harry leapt from his seat and jumped up and down. “I’m going to have a mama, I’m going to have a mama.”
When she glanced at John, his face was white. But he smiled at her and lifted his glass. “I think this calls for a celebration. Why don’t I see if Cook has any of her special tarts?”
“Well, Vivian, have you nothing to say?”
To say she was stunned would undervalue her true feelings. She had been certain he would ask her to go in the morning. Certain he would be more than ready to have his manor, his life, return to the way it was before she arrived.
She blinked at him.
Charles grinned, his eyes dark with hunger. “Perhaps you would care to discuss it later. In private.”
Vivian nodded. That was it. She needed time to think, to sort out the unsettled gnawing in her gut.
Marriage to him was the very thing which brought her here. The sole reason she refused to leave. She should be leaping as Harry was.
Instead, his proposal gave the same cavalier impression as the rest of the conversation. As if he’d just mentioned that trees in the yard needed pruning. He didn’t ask her, didn’t say he loved her, just declared what he wanted.
But how could she be his wife when he would not open himself to her? How could she live here forever when she knew nothing about his past or what brought him to this circumstance?
“Here we are.”
John entered the room followed by a servant girl carrying a tray. He placed a dish before her. “First we serve our newest member of the family.”
She stared at the tart before her, the aroma of apples and currants pleasant, yet nauseating. Her appetite was gone, stolen by shock.
When all had been served, the girl disappeared. Harry dove into his dessert without taking a breath.
The others ate too. She just stared at her plate.
“It’s Cook’s specialty,” Charles said between mouthfuls. “You must take a bite or two.”
Vivian nodded and took a taste. The warm apples and sugar melted on her tongue, but there was a bitter trace afterward. It tasted as if Cook had added the wrong spice to the ingredients. No one else seemed to notice or mind.
John lifted his eyebrows. “Well, do tell, Miss Suttley. How does it rate?”
Too polite to make a complaint, Vivian took two more bites then set down her spoon. “I cannot eat another bite. This dinner has been most wonderful.”
She watched the three of them clean their plates, Harry beg for more, and her wine cup refilled. But she’d had enough wine already, for a sudden tiredness pressed down upon her. Her stomach, already shaky from Charles’s statement, twisted and burned.
“I think…” she rubbed her temples. “I think I need to lie down.”
“Vivian, are you ill?”
The flickering candles in the room glowed unnaturally bright, searing her eyes. She must get to her bedchamber.
“Pl-please, excuse me.”
She pushed back from the table and tried her best to make a dignified retreat and not to stumble from the room. She made it down the long hallways, up the grand stairwell, and down the passageway to her room.
Dizzy and nauseous, her door but a few steps away, Vivian sank against a wall. Voices and random moments spun and collided in her brain.
You have set me free. I don’t know how but you’ve done it.
I want to make you my wife.
If you do not leave this place, I will kill you.
She dropped her head to her knees, swallowing the bile slithering up her throat. Oh Lord, she’d not grown ill from the wine or the sudden turn of events.
She’d been poisoned.
Martin climbed into the rented carriage, his jaw throbbing from endless clenching. Dowager Ashworth had done nothing more than turn her nose up at him and walk out of the room. Bitch.
His mother had not been any more help. In fact, she was becoming more and more useless to him.
“21 Grosvenor Square,” he told the driver.
However, his lovely widow friend he’d met at that ball had truly been a fountain of information. Now that he had a child to locate, as well as Vivian, he needed as much of her help as possible.
He would find this child everyone seemed to know about, the boy who could be Ashworth’s son. And his once friend would pay for the betrayal. What better way to draw the man out than by kidnapping the boy? The boy who should be
his
son. He just had to find that coward.
Martin sat back in the seat and watched the wealthy homes of London speed past. He’d live here one day, or close to it. He may not ever have a title but he could amass the income to buy his way into elite society.
He needed Vivian. Honestly, his widow lover could provide him with more of what he needed to further his goals. She had the class, the title, the home. But then she would have the control. And he would not stand for that.
No, Vivian would do just fine. He’d already claimed her as his own, marked her with his teeth and hands. She was young, beautiful and naive.
“21 Grosvenor Square,” the driver announced, pulling the carriage to a stop.
Martin stepped down into light rain. “I shall return in thirty minutes.”
He’d not fail at this house. She must have the answers he sought, for he knew no one else to contact.
Ashworth’s friend, John Hughes, had vanished several years ago and his family would no longer speak of him. All other friends had lost touch with the Viscount.
He banged the heavy knocker. Only Catherine, now the Countess of Wainscott, could have some idea of where Ashworth had gone. And perhaps if he had a child along with him.