Authors: Marilyn Kelly
The dinner processional was crossing the hallway as the
footman opened the door and reached for Julian’s cloak. Fiona left Melina’s
side to rush to his. “We’ve been concerned—” Her voice cut off as her eyes
dropped to his tan leather gloves, now heavily stained with blood and mud. “Are
you injured?” She hovered protectively over him as the other guests collected
around them.
“No. Where’s Cathryn?” He stripped the gloves away and
handed them to the servant.
“Julian?” Cathryn exited the salon and rushed towards him. “We’ve
just sent a man out to look for you.” Her gaze also went to the bloody gloves. “Are
you hurt—is it your wound?”
“No, it’s not my blood,” He noticed the grisly gloves for
the first time since he’d helped move the body. “It belongs to Hedges. He’s dead.”
All activity in the vast hallway came to an immediate halt.
Every pair of eyes turned to him with interest.
“Hedges, dead?” she asked with alarm as she reached his
side, casting Fiona a cutting glance that backed her off half a step. He needed
to be alone with her, so he could explain fully, but not while he had the stink
of death clinging to him.
“Yes, his horse crushed him. Ghastly accident on the road
half an hour south of here. I must wash up.” He headed for the stairway,
expecting Cathryn to follow, and the small crowd parted to let him pass.
She stood rooted where he left her, and he turned to see a
queer look cross her face. “An accident?”
He realized everyone was looking at him in the same fashion,
with a mix of disbelief, disgust and respect.
They thought he’d killed the baron.
“I didn’t murder him,” he said firmly to the small assembly.
“His mare reared and fell on him, landing him in a ditch with a crushed spine
and two broken legs.” He started to turn for the stairs again. “I’ll answer
your questions after I bathe.”
Cathryn and Fiona huddled together, and the sight irked him.
Neither of them believed him. Cathryn pulled away and glided towards him as she
said softly, “Let me attend you.”
The group was gawking at him, and his temper exploded. “I
didn’t kill the bastard!” He charged up the stairs with Cathryn on his tail.
“Julian, wait, I believe you.” She reached him in the
privacy of the upstairs hallway, and he recoiled at her touch.
“You hesitated.” He was growing angrier by the second as he
strode towards their chamber.
“I’m sorry. The gloves…”
“I admit the circumstances are damning.” He threw open the
door and she followed him in. He headed straight for the washbasin and poured
water into the bowl. “I expected more loyalty from you.” He struggled to
contain his rage as she came to his side and held a towel for him.
“I’m sorry.”
“You questioned me in public.” He scrubbed his hands but the
bloodstains resisted. He washed twice before his hands were clean, feeling like
a male version of Lady Macbeth as he scrubbed the damned spots. “You made me
appear a fool.”
She watched him with wide eyes, and her hand shook as she
passed him the towel. “I only…” She appeared frightened of him, and it stoked
his fires rather than quenched them.
“Don’t be afraid of me, damn it!” he snapped and instantly
regretted it. He threw down the towel as she backed away. Shrugging out of his
coat, he approached her in his shirt and saw that the ends of his white sleeves
were stained crimson and brown. She gasped at the sight, and he yanked at his
cravat, needing to have his shirt off so he could hold her and feel whole
again. There were blood and mud stains on his arms, and he tossed the shirt
aside in frustration.
“Where’s my man?” he barked as he crossed the room to the
bathing chamber. “Send him in and wait for me here.”
Cathryn’s chin quivered as he slammed the door behind him.
She sank into a chair as Giles knocked and entered, passing her without a word.
She heard low voices as the bath water began to run, and she felt a wave of
relief that Julian was out of the room.
She’d never wanted to be away from him before, and the
realization that she was indeed afraid of him was an emotional punch to the
belly. His temper frightened her, and she knew him capable of killing Percival.
All the instances of violence that surrounded him played out in her head—the
incident at Oxford, the hole in the wall, the thrown dagger and now Hedges was
dead.
She’d be a fool not to be frightened of the earl. Her
stomach coiled into a tight ball, and breathing became difficult.
He emerged from his bath wrapped in a black dressing gown,
his manner shifted to conciliatory. He sank to the floor in front of her chair
and sat at her feet, taking her hands in his as he spoke gently. “Don’t be
afraid of me, Cathryn. I’ll never harm you, I swear it on my grandmother’s
grave.”
That puzzled her, and her stomach unknotted slightly.
“I was very fond of Grandmama,” he added softly. She took a
deep breath and a small smile broke through her dark thoughts. He responded by
kissing her fingertips. “I asked Hedges to pull up, and he lost control of his
mount, but I did him no harm. There was no need.” He kissed her knuckles again.
“Never doubt me in the future. Do I have your word?”
He looked at her expectantly, and her recent qualms rushed
her mind, causing her to hesitate. “I…don’t doubt you.”
He leapt to his feet, and the wound seemed to gripe him
still, because he doubled over slightly and his voice held layers of pain. “You
do!”
Her mind was spinning. “This is a great deal to consider.
Please don’t press me.”
“You still think I killed him?” His look was volcanic and
she recoiled.
“No, of course not!” she yelled back. “But you frighten the
daylights out of me sometimes!”
The words hung in the air, and she saw his entire body
tense.
“Hedges said you seduced Dr. Kinsley while your husband yet
lived.” A slap would have been less surprising, and the truth must have shown
on her face because he leaned over her grimly. “Did you?”
The truth. “Geoffrey hadn’t spoken in over a year, he was
dead to the entire household.”
Julian jerked back as if she had slapped
him
, his
blazing eyes and fighting posture signaling his rage. “You lied to me.”
She wished the earth would swallow her, as this was surely
the lowest point of her life. Her few sins were haunting her, and she lashed
out in discomfited anger. “At least I didn’t welcome you with another man’s
scent still on my fingers.”
His hands tightened into fists. She feared she had gone too
far.
“I don’t know you at all.” He pivoted and strode into the
bath, slamming the door behind him.
She didn’t know him well, either. Only two weeks had passed
since their first kiss in her parlor. His behavior that day had not been in the
least bit honorable or virtuous, although she relished his blatantly erotic
nature. He was a man of great passion, breathtakingly handsome, and he’d swept
her away in scandalous fashion. She’d thought him the perfect mate for her
newly awakened carnal cravings, and she had fallen in love.
A sob surfaced with her enormous doubt that she and Julian
could ever recover from this horrid episode. The thought stole her breath and
she fought to stay in control of her emotions. The voices in the bathing room
ended, and Julian did not return. Would he seek out Fiona? That was a chilling
thought. Perhaps she should request her company this evening, as a safeguard
against a transfer of his affections.
How would she face Fiona and the others? There was no
defense for her behavior. She and the doctor’s brief liaison had been within
the technical bounds of her marriage, and she couldn’t blame Julian for
distrusting her. He’d never forgive her deception and public doubt, even if she
could disregard his mercurial temper.
She’d just lost the man she loved…and the world faded to
bleak.
The pounding of horse hooves on the dirt road matched the
onslaught of Julian’s dark thoughts as his coach sped through the morning light
towards London. Agonizing, repetitive snippets of his fight with Cathryn
haunted him as they had all night, accompanied by his own justifications, which
screamed righteous indignation at each of her offenses.
Her shocked face when he’d confronted her with Hedges’
accusation was etched in his mind. She’d never thought to be caught, and
surprise rather than remorse played across her lovely features. Her lies made
her untrustworthy, and he could never forgive that transgression. She’d thought
to protect herself by changing the truth to suit her, and Julian would have
none of that. Truth was truth. Geoffrey breathed while she shagged the doctor.
He batted away a nagging doubt over her sedation on that
day, and the image of a thinly gowned Fiona hovered guiltily in the shadows of
his mind. Would he have lied if he hadn’t been caught with her scent on his
fingers? No. He would have told the truth, no matter the cost, no matter the
extenuating circumstances. His honor demanded no less than absolute honesty, and
his wife needed to share the same values.
He shook his head as he considered how close he’d come to
being duped by the dark beauty.
I’m not schooled in deception
, she’d
said sweetly to him once. Ballocks. She was deception incarnate, he saw that
now.
An accident?
Her soft question had destroyed his
faith in her. She should have been unquestioningly loyal—that’s what good wives
did. He could never tolerate a woman who challenged him so, but what did he
expect after her abhorrent behavior at the Philological Meeting? She’d been
rude to him from the beginning. He rued the day he’d considered such behavior
charming.
Her greatest insult came when she yelled,
you scare the
daylights out of me.
He’d never harmed her, never touched any woman in
anger. How could she think he would hurt her? His promise in her study—to do
well by her always—that was his intent.
Hedges brought the violence. Julian merely reacted to each
escalation with equal force as he protected Cathryn from the evil baron. His
valiant efforts were greeted as heroic at the time, but now the tables were
turned and he looked a miscreant. His hands tensed at the thought.
The Earl of Trenchford made a fool of himself and his title
when he fought for an unworthy woman. His escapade’s unwelcome publicity meant
the press would hound him, and her, until they understood the breakup. If
Hedges’ death cost him the Philological Society election, he’d be further
dishonored.
Charles had sent for a magistrate last evening and the
inquest was already filed. If Julian had thrown the dagger, it would have been
a different tale—he’d be a murderer and even now in custody. His restraint had
paid a handsome dividend, but he felt less the man for it. His skin crawled as
humiliation again seeped into his veins. He should leave London for a few
weeks, to go lick his wounds in private. He was past due to visit York.
The coach slowed as they passed the sight of the accident.
Giles caught him staring out the window at the scene. “My lord, you have no
fault in this.”
“Don’t I?” Julian faced his valet. “I startled him and
forced a panic. I flushed him out of his safe haven at Lincoln.” He shook his
head. “I stole his…” The word wouldn’t come.
“He was legendary for his mistreatment of underlings,” Giles
said gravely. “Including myself. You did the world a favor bringing him to
light.”
If Cathryn had been worth it, perhaps.
“And Lady Sibley deserved better,” Giles added softly.
Julian couldn’t argue with that. No one deserved to be
married to a man like Hedges, not even a lying, unfaithful, disloyal,
sharp-tongued shrew like Cathryn.
He’d lost her, and someone else would have her, and cherish
her. The image played in his head of her descending the stairs of her townhouse
with her thick hair down, wearing the copper silk gown he had chosen personally
and Grandmama’s cameo perched between perfect breasts. He’d foreseen her
wedding dress, and her presentation to the Queen, and her children happily
gathered around her. All that would belong to another man.
The scenery shimmered as he stared out the window.
Everything that was perfect about Cathryn came flooding back to him—her lemon-scented
hair, her silky skin, her tight sheath… His cock twitched at the thought of her
naked and eager to please, reminding him that he’d woken with a painful erection
and the expectation of her by his side. But she’d been down a long hallway,
with Fiona attending her throughout the night. He’d heard her sobs twice and
nearly gone to her, but his wounds were too deep to recover from so easily.
Dammit, she’d seemed the ideal wife.
Clearly, she was not.
* * * * *
At three the next afternoon, Cathryn fumbled through her
reticule for a key, after knocking repeatedly and finally realizing that no one
was home to answer the door of her townhouse. Violet was visiting her mother,
the Lewins were God-knew-where putting their lives back together, and the
Ahlquist footmen and maids had apparently returned to their proper places
across town. She heaved a sigh of relief when the lock turned. After a quick
look around the downstairs to be certain no one was lurking about, she returned
to the carriage boy who waited with her bags in the silent foyer. He had picked
up a stack of colorful envelopes and placed them on the side table. She
dismissed him with a pang of anxiety.
I’ve never been truly alone before.
She climbed the
stairs, barely noticing the deep cold that pervaded the quiet space. She’d left
Gorham House for solitude, and it appeared she’d succeeded beyond expectation.
Opening the door to her frigid parlor, Cathryn glanced at another large pile of
correspondence on her desk. Not today. A hot cup of tea and a long nap were all
she craved.
The hearths were all cold, so the tea would have to wait,
unless she wanted to walk down to the tavern on the next corner. Perhaps when
she woke she would heat a pot or venture out for dinner. It seemed strange to
be considering such normal things when her world was in tatters, but her
stomach begged for nourishment, in spite of her pervasive desire to fade away into
nothingness.
Passing the window that Hedges had used to gain entrance,
she checked the latch and found it doubled. A sob escaped as she considered all
Julian had done to make her safer, and yet, here she was alone. There was only
herself to blame for this lonely fate. Her infidelity and dishonesty deserved
no defense. If she hadn’t smoothed over the truth when she’d told him about the
doctor, if she’d framed the story in its proper context, he might have
understood. Finding out from Hedges must have been an awful shock. And she’d added
to his burden with a false accusation of fearing him—she knew him to be a kind
man who would never harm her. He’d been protecting her, not threatening her.
A fire was laid in her bedroom, and she checked the flue
before she set a match to the kindling. On her knees in front of the stone
hearth, draped in her utilitarian brown cloak and winter bonnet, she closed her
eyes and prayed that the last day had been a dream—a nightmare—and she would
open her eyes to find Julian walking through her door.
A loud crack in the fireplace interrupted her supplications,
and she watched the small flames leap onto a large log. Despair crept over her
and suffused her being. Too fatigued to cry, she removed her bonnet and boots
before she crawled onto her bed and drew the down comforter over herself. Her
corset bit into the undersides of her breasts, the pain an unwelcome reminder
that she survived, even when her life had lost all meaning.
Julian stared out the window of his study at the gray
outline of the leafless trees. His insides felt stripped as bare as the pale
branches. The endless day of painful ruminations had sucked all his reserves. He
had no anger, no sadness, no emotion at all left after the ordeal.
Giles entered with a parcel, which he set on Julian’s desk. “From
the copy maker’s. Four copies of Lady Sibley’s translations.”
“Send them all to her. I want no reminders.”
“Shall I send one to Lord Waldemere?”
Fury shot through him at the impertinence of the question. “You
think I should aid her?”
“You gave her your word.”
A line sure to deflate a raging ego. “I owe her nothing.” He
continued his perusal of the drab view, sensing Giles’ disapproval behind his
back. “Send one to Waldemere, if it will ease your concern over my honor.”
“Yes, my lord.”
A spiteful thought latched on to his discontent. “Send one
to the Duke of Clarendon. I gave
him
my word, as well.” Giles’
disapproval was evident in his silence, and Julian continued, “I want to leave
early. Have we heard from Father?”
“He’ll join you. He wants to bring his own coach, so you may
have to wait until noon.”
“I want a means of escape. Mother is primed to trap me with
one of her schemes.”
Julian’s desire to be gone from London—to be as far from
Cathryn as he could manage—was an itch that needed scratching. Perhaps he would
marry his mother’s pick and be done with ideas of a romantic marriage. “Bring
me a bottle of port. It’s going to be a bloody long night.”
The fire had died down to embers when Cathryn woke. She
struggled to extricate herself from the tangle of blankets, cloak and dress,
stopping when she remembered why she was here alone in the dark. Julian was
gone, forever. She would likely never see him again.
Sobbing as she untwined herself, she broke free of her
confines and went to stoke the fire before she used the chamber pot. Her
stomach growled as she finished washing her hands, and she put on her slippers
and padded down to the kitchen. Finding a tin of crackers, orange marmalade and
a pitcher of cool milk, she fixed a small tray to have in the warmth of her
room. She retrieved the stacks of correspondence from the front hall and parlor
and wondered at the size of the piles.
Her room was warm enough for her to shed her cloak. She
stripped off her dress and corset to replace them with a thick flannel nightgown
and the black robe she had worn during her mourning. Settling into a rocking
chair by her fireplace, she remembered the many nights she had cried as
Geoffrey lay dying in the next room. Twenty sinful minutes with the doctor only
added to the painful memories of the room, and Hedges had attacked her only ten
feet away.
Perhaps we should sell this house. We could buy a place
in the country for much less. If Violet wants…
Her thoughts diverted.
Violet and Rune seemed as much in love as she and Julian had been only a day
before.
What if Violet marries and leaves me alone?
She nibbled on a water cracker with bitter preserves. It
occurred to her that she did not know Violet as well as she’d imagined. The
redhead’s sexual antics surprised her more than her own, although she knew not
why. Vi had always been so sweet, not at all the sort to spread her legs on a
first date with a man. Perhaps she also had secrets that would prevent her
marriage to Rune. And there was Elenora Sibley, Violet and Geoffrey’s mother,
who was a difficult woman. Americans and other colonists were not appropriate
spouses.
Straying outside the mental confines of her own misery
exhausted Cathryn, and she washed down her meager meal with a long drink of
milk. The stack of letters seemed a welcome diversion, and she picked up the
top one, a lavender envelope.
My Dear Lady Sibley,
I am writing to express my
admiration for your courageous acts and my gratitude for giving me the pluck to
finally leave my violent husband forever. I didn’t stomp or bite him, I just
took enough money for a passage to America and left. My future is brighter than
my past, and your inspiring article spurred me to action.
God bless you and may you find
every happiness with Lord Ahlquist.
There was no signature, but the postmark was from the London
docks, so Cathryn supposed the woman had found freedom. Fresh tears flowed as
Cathryn opened letter after letter and found similar stories, although many
were less heartening.
The sixth dispatch was an accounting from the meat market,
which she nearly set aside, but habit caused her to peruse it before she
continued with more gratifying business.
The charges were for a hundred pounds of meat. How was that
possible? Cathryn saw other charge slips from the green grocer, milkman, cheese
shop, brewery and the linen-maker, and she opened each with increasingly
trembling hands. She owed a fortune—the cost of feeding and housing a small
army of servants for a week. The bills for Violet’s dresses and accessories
were also there, and Cathryn’s one recent shopping excursion for underclothing
and sundries amounted to a whopping fifty pounds.
Cathryn’s stomach sank as she tallied the expenses. Three
hundred and forty-nine pounds. She swallowed hard as she stared into the fire
and considered this new dilemma. Her marriage contract offered no recompense
should the groom die before the vows, and she doubted Hedges would have a
provision for her. Even the Sapphos might be considered part of the estate.
She’d better determine the future of her income soon.
With a stab of panic, she realized that she and Violet might
have
to sell the house; they owned nothing else of any value. If Violet
took half the proceeds, Cathryn would have enough for a very small cottage in
the country. She might be forced to move back with her father, in his rambling,
dusty house near Oxford. A shudder passed through her as she considered that
dreary fate.
There were always Julian’s gifts—the dictionary, the rare
edition of
Fanny Hill
, the clothes, the sardonyx cameo…the brooch alone
could secure her future. She knew he would not take his gifts back, although
she should offer to return the cameo as it was a family piece. Once he refused
her offer, she could sell it and pay her debts. The disloyal thought brought a
new wave of despair. She’d likely die wearing the damn pin.