He thought back to the bruises he’d seen on her arms on New Year’s Eve, when she’d glowed in the bronze silk dress. He’d mistaken them for evidence of moving furniture about, but they were ideally placed to be the remnants of handprints. She had been held, and probably shaken.
Because she’d been bad, or not bad enough.
He stifled a curse, then spoke it aloud in the cold empty room. Gareth couldn’t send her away, not only because of what her father might do to her. He was very much afraid he had fallen in love.
She would be the ruination of him even as she saved him. He’d be a laughingstock. A horse breeding business would depend on his good reputation and connections. Even if he could salvage his own by finding out who killed Bronwen, Annie’s was past rehabilitation.
He could ask her to go back to dying her hair brown and pretending to be someone else for the rest of her life. No, not her hair—it was too glorious in its natural state. It fell in rippling copper waves to the small of her back and he loved to lose his hand in its softness. But perhaps no one need discover who his wife really was. If he could persuade Ian to keep the information to himself somehow—
The thought of being beholden to his cousin did not sit well, but what choice did Gareth have? He would speak to Ian tomorrow after church, impress upon him the need for continuing secrecy, even after he and Annie were married. Lady Imaculata Egremont could disappear forever.
For he still wanted to marry her, God help him. She could be carrying his child right now, careless as they’d been this past week. He’d spent a lifetime being careful with women, beginning as a boy with Bronwen. He hadn’t felt the need to withdraw with Annie—couldn’t have. To come to completion inside her had been triumphal joy after the desert of denial he’d lived with the past year.
But he needed to talk to her. Hear her side of the story. Let her know that Ian might not be her friend.
What if she no longer wanted to go through with the wedding now that he knew about her past? She might have hoped for a fresh start, although how she would get her money without revealing her true name would have been a sticking point. Gareth squeezed his throbbing temple. It was all too much to take in. For now, he would return to his bedroom and not think.
Somehow the room looked even worse to him with its organized piles covering the floor. He sat on the sagging mattress, giving up all pretentions of housekeeping. Annie should be back soon and he had absolutely no idea what to say to her.
His skull cleaved in two, or maybe four. The pain was intense. Gareth shut his eyes to keep the room from spinning and lay back on the pillows. He needed a drink to steady himself, gather his wits. He hadn’t touched the brandy bottle in his cupboard all week, but hadn’t poured it out as Annie had suggested. He’d wanted to see if he could resist the temptation of it so close at hand, and it had been easy. Annie had filled up his hours and lifted his spirits. But he needed something now—his throat was scratchy and his head in agony.
It would be worse tomorrow if he drank today. He needed to get to chapel with Annie, needed to talk to Ian.
Needed to not drink. Gareth didn’t want to disappoint Annie, no matter what she’d done. He had made her a promise and was going to keep it.
With grave deliberation, he rose from the bed and grabbed the half-empty bottle from his bedside cabinet. Struggling with the latch on his window, he pushed it open to the brisk air, took a deep breath, and flung the bottle into a snowbank below.
C
HAPTER
22
A
nne had met the fiddlers and sampled some of the fare that Mrs. Chapman would serve for the wedding. Good plain people and good simple food. Mrs. Chapman had been kindness itself, taking on her role as a kind surrogate godmother to the couple. She was very fond of Gareth despite his ramshackle ways and the considerable sum he owed her. Anne had listened intently as the woman recounted his youthful scrapes, his wartime heroism, his recent difficulties. The innkeeper was unswerving in her faith in his innocence, and promised Anne to keep an ear open if she heard anything about Bronwen’s death.
So it was with a hopeful heart that she and Martin returned to Ripton Hall on the blustery winter afternoon. The wagon was loaded with necessities that close to the last of her runaway money had purchased.
She would be seeing her father soon, though. Anne wouldn’t let that grim reality depress her happiness. Gareth would be at her side, sober. Honorable. Too handsome for his own good. Now that he was not drinking, the lines on his face had eased, and she believed he was putting on a little weight. Not due to her diligence. It was he who did most of the cooking, although Anne assisted him, Mrs. Smith’s cookery book ever at her elbow.
The cart bounced up the snowy rutted lane and Ripton Hall came into view, a stone jumble of rectangles and too many chimneys that didn’t draw properly. Once she had her money, she would see to their refurbishment. Gareth planned to establish a horse breeding business and would expand the barn and outbuildings, but surely there would be some money left over for the house itself.
And servants. Anne was very keen on hiring a few people as quickly as possible to give her blistered hands a welcome break.
Someone
could be persuaded to come from the village once Gareth’s name was cleared. Old Martin could not be the only person in the area willing to work at the Hall, and it would be delightful to hire people who actually spoke a few words.
Anne’s chatter had quickly dried up as the man made only grunting responses on their trip to Llanwyr. She hadn’t really bothered to converse on the way home, and that seemed to suit him just fine. Anne knew he had been loyal to Gareth and was good with horses, but he made her uneasy. Or perhaps she made
him
uneasy. The end result was the same, awkward silence.
Martin let her out at the broad front step and drove the wagon around to the kitchen ell, telling her tersely not to worry about helping him to unload its contents. The blue door deserved a fresh coat of paint, and the brass dragon’s head knocker needed polishing. The Welsh were fond of dragon stories, the ancients allegedly luring them with mead and burying them to prevent dragonish mischief. In the stories, dragons were mixed up with Merlin and Arthur, but neither of those gentlemen was around to magically help her clean the brass.
Anne let herself in, noting a significant puddle in the front hallway. She looked up to the ceiling for the evidence of a leak, but the plaster was its usual unstained dingy-white.
“Gareth! I’m home. Where are you?” she called, pulling off her cloak. She was immediately sorry she did—the air inside felt frigid.
The house was quiet, or as quiet as it ever was with its wind-rattled windows and creaking floorboards. She headed for the kitchen, then thought the better of it. From the sound of the scrapes and thuds, Martin was unpacking the groceries without saying a word, and she’d just as soon avoid him if he wasn’t in there talking to Gareth. She’d put a kettle on to warm herself with a cup of tea later. She was not a bit hungry anyway after tasting Mrs. Chapman’s wedding menu.
Gareth might be hungry for a proper tea with sandwiches and the little cakes Mrs. Chapman had packed, though. His study door was open, but there was no trace of him, just the usual raft of papers spread across his desk and under his blotter. He must be upstairs digging through the dirt of his bedroom. Anne was looking forward to loving him in his great ark of a bed, once there was a clear path to it.
She climbed the main staircase and walked down the wide hall, passing half-a-dozen shut-up bedrooms. She’d already cleaned them all of years’ worth of dust, then tossed the Holland covers back on. One day they might open this section of the house. Gareth could move into the squire’s bedroom and she’d settle into the lady of the manor’s suite. There was a convenient connecting door between them. Anne had never shared a bed all night with anyone and wasn’t sure she could. She was a light sleeper, aware of the slightest noises by necessity—it was how she had defended herself from her father. A loving husband’s snore might be another thing, however.
She stepped down into the oldest part of Ripton Hall, the original dwelling that currently housed the kitchen and its adjacent work rooms, Gareth’s study and his bedroom above them. His door was closed, so she knocked.
“Gareth?”
There was no response. She pressed the worn latch, expecting to find an empty room. Instead she saw her fiancé flat on his back in bed in the middle of a mess. It was clear from the haphazard hills of clothes and books on the floor he’d attempted some order, but had abandoned his mission for a nap.
Well, she
had
kept him up wickedly late the night before, she thought with a grin. She had struggled herself to get up in time to keep her appointment with Mrs. Chapman.
Anne tiptoed around the piles on the threadbare carpet and stood over him, watching his eyelids twitch as he slept. It was a good thing Gareth was no longer in the army—she could be planning to slice his throat and he wasn’t stirring at all.
Heavens. Was he passed out from drink? She sniffed but smelled nothing but male sweat and stale air despite the open casement window.
He looked much younger in repose, thick lashes shadowing lean tanned cheeks, his arm thrown over his forehead. His mouth was open and he did in fact snore—very quiet short bursts of breath which sounded almost mechanical in their regularity.
It would be a pity to wake him, but it was far too tempting to not join him in his afternoon dreams, even if his bedroom was not in a state of pristine purity. Anne turned and began unhooking her gown.
“You’re home.”
She’d been mistaken about the ease of attacking him. Gareth sat up in bed, his dark hair disheveled. He was very much awake, all his instincts on alert.
“I am. And I thought I might join you, if you don’t mind,” she said, feeling a bit shy suddenly.
“Join me?”
“In—in bed. You looked so comfortable.”
His lips twisted. “I assure you, I am far from comfortable at the moment.”
“Are you unwell?”
“I have a devil of a headache. But now that you’re back—” He swept his hair back, exposing the silver strands that gave him such distinction, and swung off the bed, moving to an armchair near an almost-dead fire. He pointed its mate opposite. “Come here, Annie. I need to talk to you.”
There was something in his voice that gave her pause. “That sounds ominous,” she said lightly.
“That depends.”
Her heart stilled. “On what?”
“I think it’s time you were honest with me.
Imaculata
.”
Oh dear God.
She collapsed in the chair, feeling the color leach from her cheeks. The proximity to the fire was not enough to stop her shivering, but Gareth didn’t seem to notice despite his blinding blue stare. He seemed to expect her to say something, but her mind was a perfect blank.
And what was there to say anyway? Any excuse or explanation would seem feeble.
“I—I would have told you.”
“When? Once we were married and it was too late for me to change my mind?”
So it was over. Anne knew it all had been too good to be true lately. The delicious, sinful seduction. The companionable conversations. The sharing of a simple life so far and different from her past. It was as she feared—she had opened her heart against her better judgment and now waited to have it broken. “D-do you want to? Change your mind? I won’t hold you to anything,” she said, her voice wooden. “You are free to do as you please.”
“No man wants to be made a fool of, Annie.”
“I didn’t mean to make a fool of you! I
would
have told you. I just wasn’t ready.” She picked at a hole on the arm of the chair, which was suddenly the most fascinating thing in the room.
“Are you ready now?”
She’d never be ready. Anne shrugged. “I don’t know where to begin, really. How did you find out?”
“Ian came to taunt me. And then I read back issues of
The London List
.” His fist clenched in his lap. “There is something to be said for being a packrat. I read at least a dozen issues before my eyes failed me. You were a very busy girl.”
How much had Ian told him? Whatever he’d said, she owed it to Gareth to finish the story. She forced herself to meet his eyes.
“There were reasons.”
“I know what they were, or think I do. But I’d like to hear them from you.”
Somehow she’d imagined confessing when they were in bed, entangled in each other’s arms, her sins washed away by his strength. She lost her courage. “I know I’m no matrimonial prize, despite the money. You are released from your obligation to marry me,” she repeated.
He raised a dark eyebrow. “Obligation?
You
proposed to
me
.”
“And I was wrong to do so.” She leaped from the uncomfortable chair and meant to leave the room altogether but stumbled on a boot half-buried under a soiled pillowcase. Gareth caught her before she pitched forward onto the floor.
“Don’t run away, Annie. I didn’t say I didn’t want to marry you.”
“You can’t be that desperate!” she cried. “You deserve more.”
“Do I? I’m of the opinion we usually get what we deserve one way or another.”
“Rubbish! Did I deserve—” She stopped herself. Maybe Ian hadn’t explained everything, and she just
couldn’t
.
He held her close. “I can feel your heart. I want to know what’s inside it. Do you—do you think you can learn to trust me and love me just a little?”
Love him a little? The idiot.
“You will not ever love
me
if I tell you everything.”
“You don’t know that. Here, you’re making my shirt wet. Come sit down again.”
He led her back to the chair and wiped away the tears with his thumb. “Take your time, Annie. I’m here to listen, not judge. But I think we should be open with each other. You know every sorry thing about me, do you not?” He crouched down, adding coals to the hearth. No matter how hot he made the fire, she would still be stone cold inside.
She supposed she knew all about him, and most of the things were not sorry at all. So he’d been a bit of a rake once he’d had his heart shattered by Bronwen. And he’d lusted after her even when she was married. One could almost view that as a sort of fidelity. His drunkenness was in abeyance—if he hadn’t drowned himself in the bottle after talking to Ian today, Anne had hopes of his reformation.
And he was no murderer. She knew
that
inside her heart.
He straightened, kicked his chair closer to hers, and held out his hand. “Take a deep breath and talk to me.”
“My name is Imaculata Anne Egremont.” Her hand trembled as it touched his.
“Poor thing.” His eyes were lit with merriment, of all things.
“Quite. I grew up in Dorset with my mother. We never came to Town, and my father rarely came to Egremont Reach to visit. He preferred his political life to his family, and my mother’s health was not up to tonnish amusements. She died when I was fifteen.”
“I am sorry.”
She nodded in acknowledgment. She was sorry, too. If her mother had lived, the nightmare of the past four years would never have happened. “He—he sent for me then, telling me I might become his hostess once I was out of mourning. I would be old enough, and he would train me. I—I didn’t know quite what he meant by that, but I soon learned. So I jumped at the chance to come to London.”
“As any young girl would.”
“Oh, Gareth. Part of me was
glad
my mother was gone and I could go early. I was so bored in the country. Apart from riding there was nothing to do, and she was always sick. I couldn’t wait to make my debut and take the ton by storm.”
“And you did that, I understand,” he said softly, squeezing her hand.
“Not in the way I first planned. I missed Mama dreadfully once I got to London. I felt so guilty. She and I had spent many months talking about my come-out, but she wasn’t there to help me get used to my new life. And Papa was—difficult. He said seeing me was like seeing my mother when they were first married. I don’t know why it mattered to him. He never had time for her when she was alive.”
“Perhaps he was feeling guilty, too. For neglecting you both.”
“He had a funny way of showing it,” Anne said bitterly.
Gareth looked as he was searching for words. “Some men forget themselves in grief.”
“It’s been
four years,
” Anne retorted. “And his attentions to me have only become more pronounced. He—he touches me. Tries to kiss me. I’ve had to lock myself in my room and shove furniture against the door. Have my maid Helen sleep in my dressing room. I was foolish to think if I misbehaved in society he’d let me go. He beats me for it, and I believe he likes that just as well as the other.” She shivered again. She’d rather take the hits than the kisses.
“Your father sounds like a monster, Annie. It’s no wonder you ran away.”
“How can you be so understanding? There must be something wrong with me to provoke him to such wickedness!”
He smiled, but there was no mirth to it. “There is
nothing
wrong with you. You’d provoke any man, Annie. You’re a lovely girl.”