Hadrian (40 page)

“I haven’t said I love you, because my sense is you would be burdened by such a declaration, but I am burdened by withholding my sentiments, Avie. I have known hurt in my life—”

He’d known disappointment, bewilderment, and heartache. Nobody arrived to the age of thirty, buried a spouse, sent his only brother to live in a distant land, and shepherded a congregation without knowing pain.

But this, this
cowering victimhood
Avis imposed on them both threatened to fell him. And yet, she had not ridden off, had not fled his declaration.

And had not precisely cried off—yet.

“I do love you,” he said softly. “I love you, Avie Portmaine. I shall always love you, and the hell of it is, I would not change that for anything. Godspeed.”

She kneed her horse away, but not before he saw that he’d once again made her cry. Before the lump in his own throat got the better of his composure, he marched back to the safety of his library, there to consider holy scripture, and unholy measures against those who quoted it to torment his lady.

“You’ve been closeted here ever since you returned from your calls with your intended,” Harold observed.

Harald, rather, as this incarnation of Lord Landover sported a closely trimmed reddish beard, skin burnished by the northern sun, and blue eyes that sparkled in contrast to his complexion, as well as muscles common to those who spent their life in vigorous sport. He was altogether a more robust, happier creature than Harold Bothwell had ever been.

“My former intended,” Hadrian replied. The habit of honesty between them was growing, apparently.

“I thought you said you’d set a date. She’s broken it off?”

“Not in so many words.” Hadrian rose from his desk—Harold’s desk?—and came around to stare out the window at the long view toward Blessings.

“Then you’re still engaged. Legally, it isn’t a detail, Hay.”

“You need me free to be engaged to somebody who can bear the Landover heir, I know.”

“I need you free to be happy, but you’ve banished Fen, who might have taken on some of the stewarding for you, and you’re spending too much time squiring Lady Avis about, when nobody would dare mistreat her in your presence.”

“That wasn’t the point.”

“What was the point?” Harold regarded him with familiar patience, not reacting, not letting emotion pull him off balance. The sunburn and whiskers brought out the blue of his eyes wonderfully.

“I’ve missed you.” Maybe honesty was a
bad
habit.

“I’m here now,” Harold said slowly, “and I missed you too.”

“A life of gay abandon roaming the seas with James wasn’t adequate?”

“We’re quite settled outside Copenhagen,” Harold countered easily, “but no, it won’t be enough, and James cares enough about me and is secure enough in my regard that we need not content ourselves with that. This visit was his idea.”

A veritable doting uncle—or something—was James Finch. Hadrian tried to stir up resentment, but was too damned grateful to see his brother.

“James has already apologized for presuming on my welcome,” Hadrian said tiredly. “My quarrel is not with you or your—with you or James. I was squiring Avie about in hopes of drawing out her detractor.”

Also in hopes of winning her heart, but the flaming, roasting hell of it all was that Hadrian had the sense he’d done that, perhaps done that long ago.

“Have you been successful?”

“To some extent. She’s received more notes, but only notes.”

“This constitutes failure?”

“I’ve failed utterly.” Hadrian’s gaze swung back to the window and a view that could not have been prettier. Any morning now, frost would nip at the remaining flowers, and summer’s brief hold on the land would be over. “My personal agenda for this social campaign was to woo my intended into a real engagement.”

“She wasn’t woo-able?”

“She’s stuck in her cage. Fen was right.”

“Whatever that means. Fen should show up soon, you know. Harvest is nearly upon us.”

Hadrian turned to face this beloved stranger who was his brother. “He’s on his way. I haven’t succeeded in exonerating him, so he’s another failed aspect of my campaign.”

“A rather magnificent failure.”

“You’re not to flirt with him, Harold.”

“Tell that to James.” Harold’s smile was indulgent, and not a smile Hadrian had seen on his brother previously—happily indulgent, and wasn’t that just
delightful
. “If there are no nuptials in the offing, Finch and I had better prepare to hoist sail.”

“Can you stay until the end of the month?”

“Of course.”

Harold bussed his cheek, a display Hadrian could not have imagined his brother indulging in six months earlier, and left. The gesture was continental, and far more comforting than all the desperate kisses Hadrian had shared with his—

His un-intended.

Hadrian tormented himself for a week before finding the resolve to formally break the engagement, a week in which Fenwick sent word of his impending return, and Avis remained silent, while Harold sent worried looks to Finch, and Hadrian spent as much time on Caesar as he could.

He gave up the pretense of inspecting his land when he realized he was listening for the sound of a solo flute wherever he went. He could ride his property for twenty years without saying what needed to be said between him and Avis Portmaine. He’d just turned Caesar toward Blessings, his heart aching at the discussion to come, when Harold met him on the bridle path.

“I bear a message.”

“From?” Please Almighty God, let it be from Avie.

“Lady Collins.” Harold passed over a note, folded and sealed.

Hadrian scanned the contents, knowing it could not be good news. “She begs the favor of a call.”

“Shall I come with you?”

“No, thank you.” Hadrian tucked the note away. “The nature of the discussion will be uncomfortable, for her at least. I have a call to pay at Blessings when I’m done with Lady Collins, so don’t wait tea on me.”

“As you wish, but Hay? Don’t do anything you’ll regret. The call on Blessings can wait.”

“Anything I’ll regret?” Hadrian’s smile was bleak. “You mean anything
more
I’ll regret.”

Hadrian changed his mind about the order of his calls because Blessing was on the way to the Collins’s estate, and the task before him would not grow easier for being put off. Lily Prentiss joined him in Avie’s pretty little parlor when he’d specifically asked to see the lady of the house.

“Lady Avis is indisposed,” Lily said, her smile regretful. “Have you a message you’d have me give her?”

“No. No message. Is she ill?”

“Simply indisposed. I gather you and she have hit a rough patch?”

Her blue eyes held nothing but commiseration, and Hadrian wondered fleetingly if he’d misjudged the woman.

“Not a rough patch, exactly, but we do need to talk.”

“You needn’t say more.” She patted his arm. “You’re a good man, but she’s not the lady for you. No one will judge you. You were eager to take a bride and do your duty to the succession, and they will unfortunately expect Lady Avis to cry off.”

“I wasn’t aware our engagement was over,” Hadrian said evenly.

Lily withdrew her hand. “I didn’t mean to offend, and of course I won’t say anything until I hear it from Avis herself.”

“See that you don’t.”

She regarded him evenly, despite his abrupt tone. “Blessed are they that mourn, Mr. Bothwell, for they shall be comforted.”

Matthew,
Hadrian mentally recited the reference,
chapter five, verse four.

He took his leave of her, wondering if she’d intended that he be comforted by her words, or had she been assuring him that Avie would be comforted?

He pondered that conundrum all the way to Lady Collins’s shabby little parlor, but when he heard what the baroness had to tell him, he was not comforted in the least—he was sufficiently alarmed to send Caesar back toward Blessings at a flat-out gallop.

“What on God’s green earth are you doing here?” Lily Prentiss spat the question at Ashton Fenwick, who was exhausted, filthy, and thoroughly out of charity with life as he led his horse into the stable yard.

“I live here,” he said, “I work here, and my friends are here. No doubt, you are peevish because you’ve been missing me, Lily.”

“I have not given you leave—”

“Yes, I know, to use your name, to worship the ground you mince about on, to gaze longingly in your direction, or otherwise breathe the same air as you. Fortunately, as a subject of our illustrious if mad monarch, I am privileged to breathe good English air nonetheless. You’re blocking my way.”

“No, Fenwick. It’s you who’s been blocking my way, and I’ve finally found the means to see that it stops.”

Fen was not in the mood for her nonsense. The woman needed a good swiving, or perhaps a birching. Maybe Lily was the type to blend those two pleasures.

“You are being cryptic, my dear. How tiresome. I suppose next you will banish me from your kingdom with a magic spell, except it isn’t your kingdom, is it, Lily love? The kingdom belongs to the Portmaines, among whom, greedy little dreams to the contrary, you do not number. Move aside.”

“I’m warning you, Fenwick, you have insulted me for the last time. You can either take your leave now, or I’ll see you charged, convicted and hanged, mark my words.”

“Ah, finally, women have been given the headache of serving as magistrates.” Fenwick handed his tired horse off to a groom. “We can expect failure to wipe our boots to soon number among punishable felonies. Please move.”

She walloped him, as he’d intended, but it did nothing to reduce the feral glitter in her eyes.

“Lily Prentiss.” Avis’s voice cracked across the stable yard like a whip. “You are dismissed from your duties in my household, without a character,
this instant.
”

Avis’s voice had Hadrian shoving Caesar into a stall, for Fen knew not what manner of adversary he had in Lily.

“Lady Avis.” Fenwick offered his employer a low bow and rubbed his jaw while eyeing Lily warily.

What in God’s name was Avie doing in the stables now of all times?

“You don’t mean that,” Lily said, as she stood shaking in the stable doorway. “You can’t mean that, Avis. You don’t know what he’s done. You don’t know—”

“So tell her,” Hadrian suggested, moving down the barn aisle and gesturing at the groom to get the hell away from the unfolding drama. “Tell her what you think Fenwick has done, Lily.”

Fen did not turn at the sound of Hadrian’s voice, suggesting he’d seen the wild light in Lily’s eyes and knew better than to let down his guard.

“I’ll tell her.” Lily snatched Fen’s knife from its sheath at his waist. “I’ll tell her this miserable excuse for a man was one of those who abducted her and allowed her to be raped twelve years ago. He wasn’t content to see her ruined, but he must perpetuate all manner of gossip about her, when he drinks at the local tavern, when he flirts with the ladies, when he works with the menfolk. He hates you, Avis, hates you and has betrayed your trust. You must see that.”

“Put the knife down, Lily.” Hadrian advanced on her steadily, willing to risk even the knife rather than allow Lily to turn her attention on Avis. “We’ll hold accountable any who’ve wronged Lady Avis.”

“He hasn’t merely wronged her,” Lily insisted, brandishing the knife in Fen’s direction. “He’s threatened her, in writing, for years, haven’t you, Fenwick?”

“The knife,” Hadrian urged quietly, holding out his hand. Lily’s gaze flickered, from him to Avis, and in that moment, Hadrian charged her, snatching the knife, tossing it to the ground, and dragging the woman into his arms.

Out in the stable yard, Handy danced away, the groom barely hanging on to the reins, and silence fell, broken by the sound of Lily’s tearful voice.

“That man isn’t your friend,” Lily said. “
I
am your friend, Avis.
I
am the one who has tried to protect you, the one who has kept you safe here at Blessings. They don’t understand, they don’t see you should be here
with me
, that this is where you belong. They’re men, and they’ll never understand.”

“Lily.” Hadrian kept his voice calm when he wanted to throttle the woman. “Give it up.”

“I’ll never give her up,” Lily countered. “Avis belongs with me. She does. Blessings prospers when she heeds my guidance, and she’s happy here with me.”

“We know, Lily,” Hadrian tried again, though Lily wasn’t even struggling as he held her. “You wrote the notes, you spread the gossip, you undermined Avis’s peace and well-being at every turn.”

“I would never!”

“You learned of Fenwick’s involvement from Tansy Bilford,” Hadrian said, for Lady Collins’s abigail had confirmed not only that Fen had been present twelve years ago, but also that Lily Prentiss had learned of it early in her tenure at Blessings. “What I want to know is, how did you know about the notes?”

Now Lily struggled against his hold. “She told—”

Avis shook her head slowly. “I never breathed a word of those notes to you. Not one word.”

Proof beyond a reasonable doubt. Something went out of Lily, hope, hatred, a combination of the two. Hadrian could no longer stand to touch her. He passed Lily into Fen’s grasp and crossed the stable yard to put an arm around Avis’s shoulders.

“We’ll need the magistrate,” he said. “Lily’s transgressions include threatening my life.” A small transgression compared to the slander she’d spread about Avis.

“No magistrate,” Avis murmured.

Fen knotted off a length of twine binding Lily’s wrist, though she stood dazed and docile—for now.

“Lily isn’t wrong,” Fen said. “I committed chargeable offenses. I was there, just as she says I was, or there for much of it.”

“I know, Fen,” Avis said. “I’ve always known, and now is not the time.”

Fen’s eyes registered no less astonishment than Hadrian felt.

“I’ll see Lily secured under guard in a guest room,” Fen volunteered. “Bothwell, I am at your disposal.”

And then Hadrian and Avis were alone, their arms around each other in the stable yard.