Obsession (22 page)

“I wonder…” Tipping my head to one side, I continued to advance. “Were you in on this subterfuge with my grandmother the entire time?”

“I don’t know what you mean, Trey.”

“Was I daft enough to believe our entire relationship was anything other than my grandmother’s manipulation—to get me married off so I would get over this obsession I had for Maria?”

“Obviously your fever has deranged you—again.”

“I doubt it.”

She could retreat no further, and when she made a move to dash to one side, I grabbed her arm with one hand. The other I wrapped around her slender throat, tipping back her head so she was forced to look into my eyes.

“Be very, very careful, Edwina. I’m not so weakened that I couldn’t snap your beautiful neck like a rotten twig. Now tell me the truth. All of it.”

“I—I can’t breathe!”

Releasing my grip slightly, I pulled her closer. “All of it.”

Her eyes pooled with tears that ran down her cheeks. She nodded. “Yes. I’ll tell you everything. Just let me go. Please.”

I continued to hold her, my teeth clenched, my anger mounting as I realized that I, who had spent the majority of my life manipulating humankind, had been so insidiously gulled.

I released her and she grabbed her throat, the pale flesh gone red with the imprint of my fingertips. She coughed. Gasped. Then backed toward the wall as she said in a husky whisper, “You’re going to need a drink for this, I think. Shall I call Herbert?”

I nodded and sank into a chair, gazing blindly at the fire dancing within the hearth. I felt utterly, bone-chillingly cold, and began to shiver.

Edwina rang for Herbert, then eased down into an accompanying chair. Her sapphire-blue skirts flowed in folds over her knees to the floor. The rich color made her hair look as fiery as the flames gyrating amid the embers.

We waited in silence until the door opened and Herbert appeared, bleary-eyed, his white hair standing in wild tufts upon his head.

“His Grace desires a drink. And make it generous,” Edwina ordered the sleepy servant. With a bow, he quit the room.

Was I prepared for the truth? The entire truth? Was I mentally strong enough to refrain from killing Edwina with my bare hands?

I doubted it.

The vague tickling of a memory returned and grew, sweeping me back to those tortuous days of my mania, when Maria had first arrived at Thorn Rose.

She appeared to me, draped in soft, flowing white cotton, a guttering candle held aloft in one hand. She floated toward me like a vision, moonlit hair shimmering in the candlelight.

“Do you sleep, Your Grace?” came her whispered words, and she bent over me, regarded my face and eyes, her own reflecting the bright flame in her hand. Her smell washed over me, sweet and clean and feminine. I felt dizzy and desperate, but when the familiar anger roused inside me, something about her child-like look enraptured me, and I lay still, barely breathing, like one in the company of a fawn. Should I so much as blink, she might flee…

She looked so frightened. So tentative. Of what, I wondered.

Me, of course. I was the monster.

Yet the angel smoothed the counterpane over my chest, then lightly touched her fingers to my hair on the pillow.

“I’m certain you don’t mean to be cruel, Your Grace. ’Tis the anger and the belief that God and mankind have deserted you. Trust, sir, that they have not…

“Until tomorrow, goodnight, Your Grace,” she said softly, and drew her hand down over my lids, closing them. I did not open them again until she had quit the room, taking the light with her.

Lying in the dark, I thought:

Don’t go. Please…don’t go.

“Your Grace?”

I blinked away the memory and found Herbert at my side, snifter in hand.

“Will that be all, Your Grace?” he asked.

Taking the drink, I nodded, and waited until he had closed the door before refocusing on Edwina.

Her face as pale as the china tiles around the hearth, she stared at me without blinking. She began.

“Your grandmother learned of my pregnancy from Lord Rutherford.
He
is the father of my child, Trey. I’ve known it all along. But what was I to do?”

“Rutherford is married.”

She nodded. “Presumably happily so…or so his naive young wife believes. Your grandmother was well aware of our friendship—yours and mine—and she suspected that eventually you’d learn the truth about Maria—where she was, I mean. She simply wanted you matrimonially bound, should that time arise. So she came to me and offered to financially reward me if I could dupe you into marriage. It wasn’t an unpleasant prospect. I needed a husband—”

“Get on with it.”

She swallowed and nodded. “That’s it. I needed a husband. You needed money…I—we all—were arrogant enough to believe that once you married, you would put her behind you, would get over this gnawing love/hate obsession you continue to carry for her. As I’ve confessed, I eventually came to be in love with you.”

“Where is my daughter?”

There was silence as Edwina shifted, discomposed, in her chair.

“Where is
Maria?
What has my grandmother done with her?”

“Truthfully, to my knowledge, she left here for Huddersfield. If your grandmother had anything whatsoever to do with her disappearance, I don’t know it. How could I? I haven’t left your side since we came to Thorn Rose. You know that, Trey. You
know
it.”

“Why didn’t you stop her, Edwina?”

“Why?” She laughed, a sharp bark of disbelief. “Why should I? I was thrilled to see the back of her.”

I finished my port and placed the snifter on the floor, my gaze never leaving hers. “Where is Sarah?”

“Trey—”

“Answer me, dammit!”

“She’s dead.”

Dead.

I sank back in my chair as I watched Edwina cover her face with her hands, as if doing her best to shield herself from me.

“You’re lying,” I said.

She shook her head. “I’m so sorry, darling.”

My eyes narrowed as I said through my teeth, “If that were the case, why didn’t you stop me before I bothered to go to London to confront my grandmother?”

“You wouldn’t have believed me, Trey. You’d vow that it was only another manipulation—”

“Most importantly…” I leaned toward her, and with a threatening tone that made her sink back in the chair, said, “Why wouldn’t my grandmother have confessed to Sarah’s death?”

“I…don’t know. Perhaps…” She struggled with her thoughts, rubbed her temple with a trembling hand. “I don’t know. I haven’t a clue about what transpired between you and your grandmother, darling. How could I?”

I felt my strength drain from me and I fell back in the chair.
Why?
It made no sense. The dowager duchess would have gloated over my daughter’s death. Would have expounded on how fortunate it was for us all that she had died, saving our lineage from scandal and humiliation.

As I continued to glare into Edwina’s frightened eyes, a realization slammed me. As if she knew it, she sank more deeply into her chair, her fingers digging into the chair arms in preparation of what was to come.

“You told her.”

Edwina swallowed.

“You told Maria the child was dead. Didn’t you, Edwina? That would explain why she left. Maria never would have fled Thorn Rose if she believed I could help her find Sarah. Despise me she must, but she never would have turned her back on the hope that I would somehow produce our daughter. You bitch. You heartless, manipulating bitch. You’re no better than my grandmother. A cruel, heartless, scheming slut.”

“What will you do now?” she demanded, a whisper of panic in her voice.

“I’m going to Huddersfield. And if Maria truly is there, I intend to bring her home.”

“You’re going nowhere in your condition. You’d be dead in a fortnight, if not sooner.” She tilted her chin in a spiteful angle. “And what good will crawling on your belly to her do? She loathes you, Salterdon. She told me so.”

Her eyes narrowed and she leaned toward me.

“If a man loved a woman as obsessively as you do Maria, why wouldn’t you have moved heaven and earth to find your own daughter—when you believed her to be alive? You’re hiding something. I know it. We all know it.

“Why else would you ride out of Thorn Rose like some bat out of hell to discover if there was a child, then return with no ambition whatsoever to locate her? Just what kind of man would keep that information from a woman mourning her lost child?”

I sank back in the chair and closed my eyes. “Get out. I don’t ever want to see you again, Edwina. Have Iris help you pack. I want you out of here with my brother and his family first thing in the morning.”

“Fine.”

She stood and moved to the door, where she paused and looked back.

“What if you were to go to Huddersfield and find her? You’ll never convince her to love you again. Not only does she despise you, believing you were involved in condemning her to Menson, but now she loathes you for Sarah’s death. She blames you as much as your grandmother for that.”

“Get out!”

“Go to hell!” she cried, and slammed the door.

21

Six months later

A
T LONG LAST,
I
WAS TO BE ALONE.
C
OMPLETELY
alone.

As I reposed in the wild, unkempt garden that spring morning, I watched Herbert approach, his eyes downcast and his shoulders slumped. Beyond him waited a conveyance that would remove him from Thorn Rose, taking him away to his new employer, Warwick of Braithwaite.

“Your Grace.” He greeted me with a slight bow and forced a smile. “Is there anything I might do for you before I take leave? Anything at all?”

“Yes.” I nodded and motioned toward an accompanying chair. “Sit for a moment. Just a moment.”

He sat, his spine stiff, his expression pained as a warm breeze fluffed his white hair.

I regarded him fondly, and with a curl of my lips. “You needn’t feel so remorseful, Herbert.”

“ ’Tisn’t right, Your Grace. Leaving you here unattended. A man of your—”

I held up my hand to silence him.

“No point in both of us starving. You’ve been a good man to me these last years.”

“I do greatly appreciate your recommendation to Warwick, Your Grace.”

“Earl Warwick’s a good man and from a fine family—a respected lineage back to the War of the Roses, I believe. Remain awake and sober, and you’ll do him proud, I’m sure.”

Herbert nodded and smoothed back his hair as he allowed his gaze to roam the garden and the swells and vales beyond. “I’ll miss Thorn Rose, Your Grace. ’Twas always beautiful this time of year.”

“Aye, it is that.”

There was silence for a moment, then, “Sir, now that I’m no longer an employee…May I have the liberty of speaking freely?”

I nodded.

He did not look at me, but focused on the nearby clumps of yew and holly and the scattering of small brown birds flitting among the privets.

“Your Grace,” he began gently. “What are you to do now? Do you intend to remain here, wasting away? Alone? Would you not at least entertain the idea of going to your brother—for help, I mean.”

“No.”

Herbert sighed. “Very well, then.” He cleared his throat. “What about the woman? Miss Ashton.”

A trembling grief stole through me. I made a brief sound that vibrated with emotion, then stopped and cleared my throat.

“Hopeless, I’m afraid. She’s taken up with that vicar—what’s his name—John Rees.”

“Married, Your Grace?”

“Only a matter of time, I suspect.”

I looked up at the sky, brilliant blue streaked by clouds as wispy as cobwebs. “Besides, she’s apparently content enough, helping Rees do God’s work in Huddersfield.”

“If you would only speak to her directly—”

“What point is there? Why should I? She’s made it clear that she wants nothing to do with me, Herbert. How can I blame her? I can’t. Not in the least, considering…

“Besides, the young lady has been through enough, thanks to me. My calling on her now would only open old wounds, and although I would like nothing more than to see her again, I don’t think I could handle looking into those eyes and seeing how much she must truly despise me.”

Herbert’s face flushed as he shifted in his chair and finally turned his gaze on me.

“Poppycock.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Poppycock and balderdash, Your Grace.”

I raised one eyebrow, surprised by his forceful tone.

“ ’Tis a preposterous assumption, Your Grace. You haven’t spoken to the young woman yourself. How can you know what she’s thinking, and, more importantly, what she’s feeling?”

“It’s more than apparent, I think. She didn’t return to Thorn Rose after the death of her father. Why should she? She loathes me.”

I sighed and watched a flurry of birds lift into the sky. “Perhaps if the child hadn’t died…”

“ ’Tis true, Your Grace, that the child might have helped to mend the wound of her hurt and anger toward you. But that doesn’t explain why, knowing how you continue to love her, you haven’t approached her and attempted to plead your devotion and woo her back.”

Pursing his lips, he glared at me. “Hardly the behavior of a man who so frantically combed this country for months attempting to find her.”

He pointed one finger at me and said, “ ’Tis easier for you this way, isn’t it?”

“Meaning?”

He tapped his temple as his eyes narrowed.

“I haven’t quite figured it out yet. But something transpired between you and your grandmother when you went to London to confront her about the child. You left Thorn Rose burning with hope that you would discover a way to help Miss Ashton, and returned a closed and bitter enigma who was willing to sacrifice Maria’s sanity, not to mention your own happiness, by refusing to locate your daughter.

“You’ve cut off all relationship with your own brother. While the two of you have had misunderstandings, there was never one so bad as to bring about this prolonged a breach.