Authors: Cynthia Bailey Pratt
Nick swept the loosened hair back from her forehead. “Sleep well.”
Perhaps he would have kissed her then; Rietta saw the desire darkening his eyes as he began to bend lower still. The door swung as his sisters came in, chattering. Nick straightened and went to help Amelia with Rietta’s carpetbag. Rietta didn’t know if she was glad to be spared or sorry not to be taken into his arms.
For she had no doubt at all that if Nick tried to seduce her, he would not find her difficult to persuade. It was for this reason that Rietta was determined to keep him at arm’s length. She would not give in to her own desire until she could be absolutely certain that he loved her, rather than merely wanted her.
Chapter Thirteen
When the knock sounded at her door, Rietta pushed aside the tray, the tiny circle of soup at the bottom trembling. She stole a moment to push her hair behind her ears and pink her cheeks with a pinch. “Come in.”
Lady Kirwan peeked around the edge of the door. Rietta smiled at her, trying not to feel disappointed that it was not Nick. He’d left her to his sisters’ care and she’d not seen him since.
She could not complain of the room they’d given her. Though the wall covering had faded to an uneven sky blue, it had been of the best quality once. The same was true of the silk hangings around the tall-frame bed and the curtains. She walked on a worn yet highly decorative carpet, probably French, and the furniture gleamed with years of polishing. Yet a faint, musty smell told how long the room had been vacant and darker squares of wallpaper showed where pictures had hung once but no longer.
“Do you have everything you want, Rietta?” Lady Kirwan asked, coming into the room.
“Thank you, my lady, I do. Emma and Amelia have made me most comfortable. My lady ...”
“You must learn to call me Mother,” Lady Kirwan said gently. “You needn’t if you don’t wish to, of course, but as your own mother is no more, I hope you will come to look on me as a substitute.” She smiled so warmly that Rietta found it difficult not to tell her the unvarnished truth. But Nick’s feelings on the subject of disturbing his mother’s happiness had been quite clear.
“I want to apologize for appearing out of the night in this hole-and-corner fashion. You must think it very remarkable....”
“Nick wouldn’t be Nick if he brought home his bride in some commonplace manner. He has always been one for the grand gesture.”
“Nick?” She supposed marrying her could count as a dramatic act of chivalry, were it not that he’d made his motive plain. Rietta felt a warm flush under her skin at the remembrance of how he’d looked when he had told her he wanted her. She could have saved the effort of pinching her cheeks if just the thought of him could make her blush.
Lady Kirwan laughed, a dry sound like a rustle of leaves. Her eyes were bright in their nests of crisp wrinkles. “Forgive me. I don’t believe you know him yet, however much you may love him.”
‘There hasn’t been a great deal of time to grow our acquaintance,” Rietta admitted.
“Nick has always been ready to throw his heart into any adventure that offers. It hasn’t always been easy being his mother—oh, my heart was in my mouth a thousand times a day when he was a little one. His nurse would tell me such tales—goodness, it’s a wonder to me he ever lived to grow up.”
“You’ll have to tell me all your stories, my lady ... Mother.” She felt she could grow quickly used to calling her that. Much easier, in fact, than calling Nick by his given name.
“I’ll avail myself of that invitation, my dear. Not just now, however. You need your rest.” She turned away from the dressing table, a hairbrush in her hand. “May I help you?”
“Oh, no.”
“I should like to. My own girls rarely permit me to pamper them anymore. They are too busy worrying about me.”
The long strokes of the brush through her hair was very relaxing. Lady Kirwan hummed an old lullaby as she worked. Rietta knew the words well, from those far-off days when Mrs. Athy had served the Ferris family.
“What a lovely shade of red! Like the old chalices our medieval monks hid away from the Viking sea robbers. I do hope your children inherit it. All the black hair in my husband’s family makes them look so gloomy. I actually looked forward to Sir Benjamin’s hair turning gray.”
“I notice Nick has a little gray in his hair. Did your husband change so early?”
Lady Kirwan’s brush strokes paused for an instant. “Not that I recall. There. That’s done.”
Rietta glanced across the room to the dressing table mirror. There were dried flower swags draped over the mirror so that her face peered back at her like the image of a nymph glimpsed at the bottom of a pool in springtime. Her hair lay sleekly around her shoulders, as smooth and shining as glass. Lady Kirwan passed her hands over either side of Rietta’s head. “Just like red-gold,” she said. “Charming. I have a piece of green silk laid by in a trunk. It should make a delightful scarf for you.”
Rietta caught one of Lady Kirwan’s dry hands and held it against her cheek. “I don’t know why you are so kind to me.”
“Because my son loves you,” Lady Kirwan answered as if it
were the most natural thing in the world. She patted Rietta’s face. “And because I think you can help him.”
“Help him?” Rietta was interested. She couldn’t imagine how Nick could possibly need anyone’s help. From the first time she’d seen him, flirting with Blanche, he’d seemed strong and determined. His smile had been supremely confident, echoed in the way he stood with his hands on his hips, surveying her sister and his surroundings like a man completely at ease with command.
Apologizing for her bad manners, Rietta stood up and offered Lady Kirwan her chair.
“He’d think me very foolish if he could hear me, but I cannot get it from my head that Nick has changed since he came home,” Lady Kirwan said.
“Are you concerned about his health?”
“Not his bodily health. I don’t wish to alarm you, my dear, but he hasn’t been himself. I blame myself. I should have given him a clearer picture of the state of our finances. I’m afraid it was a shock.”
A knock interrupted her. Rietta saw Lady Kirwan smile at her with warm sympathy and realized she’d sat up like a dog hearing her master’s voice.
“That will be the girl come to take away your tray,” Lady Kirwan said softly. “You’ll find the servants at Greenwood have all been taught to knock before entering. It’s eccentric of me, I know. In my father’s house, you see, they would come in soundlessly and I never cared for the lack of privacy.”
“I never thought about it, but I’m certain you are right. Come in!”
The maid was young and thin, and her cap wobbled on top of her head. She all but tripped over the rug, her clear blue eyes fixed on Rietta’s face. Lady Kirwan smiled. ‘This is -Sarah Boole—such a help.”
“How do you do, Sarah?”
“My lady,” the maid said, bobbing an uneven curtsey. She wore heavy boots beneath her black skirt. “I come for the tray, my lady.”
Rietta suddenly realized that the maid was addressing her—she now was a Lady Kirwan as well. She honestly had not considered that change in circumstance until this very instant. Bitterly, she wished that her father could be here to experience the height of his hopes.
“Bring some tea. The chamomile,” Lady Kirwan said. “I use it to sleep,” she confessed in an aside.
She waited until the door had closed behind Sarah before continuing. “I suppose a mother shouldn’t have a favorite among her children. I adore my girls—they have been my reward for continuing in the face of all my difficulties.”
Rietta reached out to press the other woman’s hand. There was such unyielding resolution in her tone that Rietta couldn’t help wondering whether Lady Kirwan had ever been tempted to make away with herself, only to reject the notion as being more cowardly than immoral.
“But Nick ... ,” Rietta prompted, and saw a tender smile dawn on Lady Kirwan’s wan lips.
“Nick was always my favorite—there, I admit it. I can admit it to you, for if he were not your favorite you never would have married him.”
Rietta shifted, her mental discomfort at continuing to build this lie manifesting itself as a physical inability to relax. “I’d never met another man whom I’d be willing to marry.”
“I knew it as soon as I met you. You’re right for Nick. Ever since he came home on leave the last time, I knew something was wrong. He looked so tired.”
“Army life?”
“Yes, I suppose. The conditions in the army—especially on the Peninsula—were appalling, by all I ever read. My husband used to storm up and down whenever he received a newspaper. Benjamin had quite the talent for inventive swearing.” She paused as though in an enjoyable reverie, though what could be pleasurable about invective, Rietta did not know.
“Yet I don’t think it was bad food and ill housing that made the change in Nick. He spoke less, laughed less, and seemed so ... so lonely. That’s it. He seemed terribly lonely here, and I’m sure he never was before. True, Greenwood is rather an isolated house—I do so hope you won’t find it dull.”
“Do you?”
“Find Greenwood dull? Certainly not. I have my gardens, though I cannot do all I could wish. My health ... well, it’s indifferent and no one has ever been able to say why. Thin blood, perhaps. My parents were cousins and until Benjamin married me I doubt we had many outsiders marry into the family. I was an O’Shamson, you know.”
“If you find enough to occupy yourself, Lady ... Mother,” Rietta smiled shyly. “I’m certain I will have no trouble.”
“And once you have children, you’ll never have another dull moment, if any of them turn out like Nick. Amelia, too, has high spirits. I’m afraid Emma takes after me.”
Rietta had not thought so far ahead as tomorrow, let alone to a distant future complete with imaginary children. She knew something of where children came from. The notion of creating a family with Nick should have left her confused and embarrassed. Instead, she felt quite at home with the idea and could almost picture her eldest. The mix of Nick’s dark coloring with her own red hair and pale skin should make for handsome children.
Then a second knock sounded at the door.
“That will be Sarah,” Lady Kirwan said. “She’s not usually so quick.”
Lady Kirwan instantly assumed it was Sarah returned with the tea tray, but Rietta knew better. There was no mistaking Nick’s rapping for any shy and country-reared maid’s.
She hoped that her face didn’t glow the way Lady Kirwan’s did when she saw him. She hoped, but it was a vain hope. She knew she was giving him a welcoming smile that promised too much that she, newly married under protest, could not give her husband. Rietta wished that she had needlework or a cup of tea to focus her attention upon so she might hide her eyes.
“Talking secrets?” Nick asked with a teasing grin. “Emma and Amelia have gone to bed.”
“So should I,” Lady Kirwan said, slowly rising from her chair. “I’ve quite lost track of the time, talking with my enchanting new daughter. Thank you, Nick, for giving her to me.”
Outrageously, Nick winked at Rietta over his mother’s head as she embraced him. “I took your taste into account, Mother, before I chose.”
“I’m sure that’s not true, but I thank you kindly for the thought. Good night, Rietta.”
“Good night, Mother,” Rietta said, rising. She tilted her chin in response to Nick’s startled glance, hoping he’d realize that he did not pipe
all
the tunes they danced to.
Nick held the door for his mother and closed it behind her. He turned, pressing his back against the panels. He passed a lingering glance over her and she felt a strange quivering deep inside her heart. Slowly he began to walk toward her, avoiding chairs and bibelot-laden tables by a seeming instinct, for he never took his eyes from hers. “And now, Rietta ... and now.”
She stood her ground, though every instinct told her to back away cautiously, as any creature would while being stalked by a hungry predator. “Nick. Remember what we agreed.”
“If I go to my room now, Mother will notice and wonder why. I’ll have to stay until she’s asleep. She always reads her Bible for half an hour before she puts out her candle. What shall we do together for the next half hour, hmm?”
“Play chess?”
“I’m not interested in games.”
He was so close now that Rietta had to tip her head back to see his eyes. Lowering his head, he brushed his lips over her cheek, nuzzling her neck, breathing in her fragrance and sighing on a humming sound. “You smell good.”
“Do I?”
“The flowers of Spain grow in the dust and their perfume is almost enough to make an artillery man drunk. But they’re nothing compared to you, Rietta. You’re a rose, sweet and golden.”
He was bound to kiss her. She could hear it in the sudden huskiness of his voice, see it in the gleam of his half-closed eyes. If only she didn’t feel such an overwhelming compulsion to give in, to let him take what liberties he pleased. But to permit her baser feelings to crush her better sense would strip her of all her self-respect. She’d been imposed upon enough today; she’d not add to her burdens by giving herself to a husband who did not love her as she felt she deserved.
“No,” she said and meant it.
Nick stopped instantly. He didn’t move away, but he didn’t attempt to press his advantage. Rietta’s hands were flat against his chest. They were small hands, but he was a man who could be stopped by even less strength than she had.
“I’m not to kiss you?” he asked and noticed, distracted, that she was breathing faster than she had a moment ago.
“No. Not until I say you might.”
“So the hen will rule the roost at Greenwood, my Lady Kirwan? Well, it should be used to that state of affairs by now. Pardon me.” He smoothed a stray lock of her hair. “I may touch you casually, I suppose? Just in passing, no harm meant.”
“I don’t think you should.” Her arms hadn’t relaxed yet from their outthrust tension.
Nick backed away, crossing his arms over his chest and eyeing her. In contrast to the magnificently female lines of her body, her face was set with such stern resolve that he could only think of the colored saints of carved wood he’d seen in Spain and Portugal. Many of them had similar expressions of utter determination, for no soft words or pleasant sensations could sway them from their martyrdom.