“Jeannette O’Malley,” she read. “An unusual name.”
“I don’t think Jeannette was her true given name. I suspect she adopted it when she went on stage because it sounded French.”
“An actress or a singer?”
“An actress.”
“Not appropriate, then.”
“Not in the least.”
“I am very sorry she died and left you with so much grief and guilt. I should have guessed there was a good reason you never came here and ignored this place.”
She did not understand. Neither did he, not all of it. He never spoke of this, never thought about it if he could help it, but right now—He did not want her making new assumptions to replace her old ones. Yet to explain might destroy the joy he had known the last few days.
“Did you love her?” The question came on a small whisper of a voice.
“I was enthralled, even enslaved, but it was not a mature love. It was mostly carnal.”
“Sexual.”
He had to smile at her directness. “Yes. She was wild.” How to explain to a respectable woman? “There were no rules. None. And I had lived with so many, for so long, that the freedom to be wild as well intoxicated me. Like a drunk, I lost sight of myself, my duties, my past and my future. I slipped out of my harness and broke through the paddock and galloped hard.”
She smiled, which gave him heart. “No wonder you never lost control again if the time you did ended so badly.” She looked out on the land surrounding them. “Why did you bring her here? So no one would know?”
Now they were down to it. Stupid of the king or himself to think this smart woman could ever be bought off with half a loaf. He could lie. Omit most of it. But she’d know eventually. Perhaps she already had figured it out.
“The affair was a secret, that is true. But we came here because I intended to marry her.”
* * *
Davina had not expected to hear that. She was wrong when she thought she could take these revelations in stride. It had been a mistake, perhaps, to demand them.
He did not call it love, but he wanted to marry her. Not an arranged, appropriate marriage. Not one of convenience and obligation, such as he made with her. He had not taken this Jeannette’s innocence and marched to the altar due to the gentleman’s code of honor.
“Ah yes,” she said. “The one thing Scotland is good for. No banns, no waiting, nothing much.”
His hand moved just enough to touch hers, then hold it. “My father learned of the affair. I had told no one, but she had been indiscreet. He commanded me to break with her. I pretended to, but I didn’t. I kept her in London for almost a year. I think he suspected that she—She was very changeable in her moods. Very extreme. When happy, she was delirious. When sad, melancholic and despondent. When angry, enraged.”
She wondered how extreme she was when sexual. No rules, he had said. Small wonder a young man found her enthralling.
“I should have seen those moods and wondered about those extremes. Instead, I just made sure that when she was with me, she was happy.”
“You should have told me that you married her. That one thing I had a right to know.”
“You have a right to know all of it.”
Perhaps, but she rather wished she didn’t know anything. Of course there had been women—many women, most likely—but this one sounded very special. Special enough to marry, even though she was inappropriate in every way, even though his father forbade it. It had been years ago and she should not care, but she did.
“If I am not quick to share the story, it is because the whole of it reflects badly on me. One thing you definitely must know, however. We did not marry. It did not get that far. The fire interfered.”
She looked at him, surprised by this turn in his story. In his eyes, as he stared down at that stone, she saw anger and grief and regret all mixed together.
“How tragic to have lost her just then,” she said.
His hand holding hers gripped tighter. His jaw tightened like a vise. “Ah, Davina, you are too good. It is not what you think. She started that fire. That she tried to kill me might be excused as an act of passionate fury, but many others came dreadfully close to perishing as well. All because I refused to see what I had in her.”
* * *
A weight lifted as soon as he said it. Spoke of it. Even with Roberts, who had been there and almost died too, he had never once done that. As so often happened with Davina, he found peace in her presence.
She did not ask any questions. She did not tell him that he was not to blame. Thank God for that. He couldn’t have born the cheap sympathy of that reassurance.
He no longer wanted to stand in front of this grave. He led Davina out of the yard, down the hill and through the portal. They found the path Roberts’s boots had made and followed it.
“You have not asked why she did it. How it happened,” he said.
“Perhaps you will tell me one day, when you want to.”
He wanted to tell her now. The start had been hard, but now the rest demanded to be heard.
“I told her my plan after we arrived here. Before we left, we would marry. She was happy. Delirious with joy. The night of the fire, however, she asked if my family would attend. I could not believe she did not understand. I am sure I had explained it all. I did again, however. They would not attend. They would not know. No one would until my father passed away. She said that insulted her, that to have such a marriage and keep it a secret was not fitting for her. She said I must write to my father and inform him before we left Scotland. I refused. He was already showing the signs of the illness that eventually killed him, and I would not burden him with this. We had a row. She was distraught, furious, despondent. Violent.”
“You also did not want to tell your father for your own reasons, I think.”
“I only realized that during the argument. Later, as I lay in bed, I admitted I should not marry a woman I could not claim publicly. It was not love but something baser that held me. My mind stepped to one side and saw how I was behaving. It was just then, as I slapped myself out of the madness, that I smelled the smoke. It came from my dressing room.”
“There was no way it could have been an accident?”
“There were no candles. The hearth was cold. It turned out it was just one of several fires she had started.” He looked above the plantings. He could just make out the wall of the ruin, and a man up there chipping at mortar and stone. “The one on the main stairway—the smoke overcame her there. I found her as I was leaving. I dragged her out, but she was gone.”
The story exhausted him. He might have run ten miles.
He could not tell what Davina thought of the sorry tale. She appeared thoughtful, though neither shocked nor critical.
“I am told she was beautiful.”
“I suppose. I never see her in my memories that way. I see her during that argument, and there was nothing beautiful then.”
They had reached the house. “Thank you for telling me,” she said. “It is better to know than to wonder.”
* * *
She reached her chamber before the emotions she held in check burst from her. She paced out the agitation they created, tried to find rational reasons not to feel so empty and alone.
It was a horrible story. A dreadful one. She felt sorry for Brentworth. Sorry for that poor woman. Angry that medical knowledge of the human mind had not progressed much since ancient times. She must have been deranged to start those fires. Who but an insane person would do such a thing? She had been too lost to consider how she would get out herself. But then, perhaps she did not intend to get out.
No rules. She could guess what that meant. She was not ignorant of the more exotic sexual tastes some indulged in. What had occurred in their marriage bed was child’s play in comparison. She tried to imagine what it was like to be a young man who pursues and catches a woman who has no rules. He would have been in his early twenties. She could believe he became enslaved to that
passion. She pictured him throwing over all those duties and lessons and expectations that had bound him all his life and would tie him forever. She could believe the freedom had been its own kind of madness.
He did not call it love. Not now. He probably did then. She would take him at his word, though. Jeannette had not been the great love of his life. Fine. She would hold on to that. She had, however, been the great passion of his life. He knew he would never experience anything like it again. He would never allow himself to. Not with his mistresses. Not with his lovers. Not with the woman he married out of obligation and convenience.
That night at dinner they did not talk about it. She doubted they ever would again. Both of them overdid the small talk and joking, as if each wanted to prove all was the same. Only it wasn’t for her. That empty spot would not go away.
As the meal ended, he became more serious. “I think we should return to London. Tomorrow next, if you agree.”
“Perhaps. I would like to sleep on it, and think whether there is anything more for me to do here.”
“Our departure can be delayed a day or so if you prefer.”
She only nodded. Her mission here, her great quest, had not even entered her mind today. She needed to remember why she had come, and what still could be accomplished.
She had the girl in that night to prepare her for bed. She hoped Brentworth would not visit. She wanted to be alone. She needed to accommodate all this, think about why that spot in her heart simply would not fill.
He did not visit. She did not sleep. Nor did her thoughts dwell on her legacy and her grandfather and all the other reasons she was here. Instead, Brentworth filled them. She even came to understand that odd sensation in her chest, that hollow weight, that void.
She had hoped—like a girl, she had thought that maybe—She laughed at herself, but it hurt to do so. She felt a little better, however.
She stopped dwelling on herself and turned to the man himself. He had risked much in telling her what he had today. It was not something she thought a man like him admitted to easily, or at all. She did not think his friends, the other dukes, knew of it. If they saw that scar and he said, That? I was careless and got burned, they might just accept it and not press for particulars. Men were like that.
Yet today, he had put it into words. Did it become more real when he did? Were the memories sharper? Saying the words, admitting the truth, was much harder than thinking about a transgression or guilt. There was a reason the Catholics insisted that confession be verbal.
Perhaps he did not sleep either. Maybe he lay awake too, also accommodating the revelations. He might be in his bed right now, reliving those weeks and that night.
She rose and slid on her dressing gown. She took a candle and eased into the corridor and walked to his chambers. She entered as silently as possible and went to his bed.
“Eric, are you awake too?” she whispered.
He sat up.
She set down the candle and blew it out. He threw the covers aside and she climbed in. He drew the covers up around them both.
She nestled beside him and closed her eyes. Already it felt better. “I thought that if we were not alone, each of us, it might be easier to sleep.”
His arm slid around her and he pulled her closer. He kissed her temple. “Much easier.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Eric became impatient to return to town. This journey had produced far more than he expected, most of it good. His life was in London, however, and with November the bite of winter could be felt in Scotland’s winds.
At least he no longer had to worry that some farmer would tell Davina about the fire, and about Jeannette. One had, and he did not regret it in hindsight. Speaking of it, finally, had freed him from much of the memory. He wondered if Davina would say it had all been a good thing, though. She seemed different in subtle ways. She was still full of bright lights, but one of them had dimmed.
“When you said there were no rules, what did you mean exactly?” She asked the question abruptly, interrupting his lesson on driving the phaeton. She had asked to learn and they set out in the morning to start. It was not the best kind of carriage for a woman to learn on, but she had insisted that she saw women in the parks holding the reins of such conveyances, and assumed she could manage it too.
He did not need to ask what she referred to. He supposed if she had said, I had a sexual liaison with a handsome man, and we were wild and had no rules, he might query her about it too. Though as a man, he might not have to because he could imagine the particulars. He doubted she could.
Which meant it was time to be vague. Or avoid the subject entirely.
“Move the carriage forward very slowly. Do not become distracted,” he instructed.
“I won’t. I can listen to you and do this as well, so feel free to answer my question. Unless it would embarrass you.”
“Embarrass? Not at all. It might with another woman, one who had not explained to me despite her utter lack of experience that women could have orgasms.”
“So, what did you mean?”
“You are pulling left too much.”
She corrected that, then gave him a meaningful glace.
He sighed. No way out. “In these matters, some things are typical and done by everyone.”
“Such as what we do.”
“To be honest, not everything we do is typical.”
“So you have lured me into more exotic love play. I think I know what may not be typical. Go on.”
“Then there are even less typical things. The human mind has been very creative over the millennia and a long list of pleasures has been amassed.” It almost sounded like a normal conversation. “Think of it as circles going out from a center. Typical is in the center. Things become increasingly less typical the farther away from the center.”
“Not all the same, you mean. Some not typical is still not too exotic. Out at circle seven, it is shocking.”
“Something like that.”
She decided to try turning the carriage, even without his permission. She managed it fairly well so he could not interrupt the odd conversation with a scold. “Go a little faster, but stop well before you get to the paddock fence,” he tried instead.
“Did you use whips on each other?”
She stunned him. “Whips? Where did you hear about that?”
“My father and I visited a woman who was always ill. Only she really wasn’t. When my father said as much, she asked him to lie about it. It seemed her husband used a whip on her, for his own pleasure.”
“Your father allowed you to hear such things?”
“It just came out, and I was there when it did.”
“That was bad of her husband. If the pleasure is not mutual, it should not be done.”
She reined in the horse and turned her head to look at him. “I would not like being whipped, but if you enjoyed it, I think I could whip you and derive some pleasure from it, so it would be mutual.”
How had she pulled him into this astonishing conversation?
“Did you enjoy it?” she asked.
Now she assumed—He felt his face heating. Damnation, he never blushed. Never. She peered at him.
“It is not a pleasure I seek out,” he said noncommittally.
“I see,” she said. “You probably also had a third person with you on occasion. I will say now that while I am willing to try a bit of wildness with you, I will not countenance that.”
“That goes without saying.”
“It seems to me that on this topic nothing goes without saying because you were enthralled with having no rules. It is not the wildness of it that repels me, if that is what you think. After due consideration, I concluded it is adultery. A most peculiar form of adultery, but adultery just the same.”
She had thought about this. Perhaps for the last two days she had been working her imagination for hours, trying to figure out what no rules meant. Which left him to wonder where in those circles fell the things that did n
ot repel her after due consideration, and just what those activities had been.
“Have you decided when you will be ready to return to London?” he asked, as much to learn her answer as to change the subject.
“Two days hence, I think. I have something I have to do first. I had an idea last night, and now I need to see it through.”
“Another visit to a farm?”
“I need not even leave the house, as it happens. I am going to turn this carriage around. I am very comfortable with the reins now.”
“Just do it slowly. You are hardly an expert. I said slowly!” He gripped his seat while she continued her tight, fast swing. Then, with a wide-open pasture before her, she snapped the reins and they flew.
* * *
Davina tapped on the door. Mr. Roberts opened it with an exasperated expression. He saw her and immediately looked friendlier. “Your Grace. I thought it was the housekeeper. She has been peppering me with questions all day.”
He stood aside and invited her into his office. Davina saw that the small space gave off to a bedchamber before Mr. Roberts closed that door.
He invited her to sit. She perched herself while she took in the wooden desk, the simple carpet, the nice prospect from the long windows and the shelves of books and ledgers.
“I have come for your expertise.” She gestured to the ledgers. “Some of those appear very old. I expect none of them are ever thrown away.”
“This office has been used for generations for the same purpose, and some of those have been there since before I was born, I expect.”
“So the fire did not take them. How fortunate. Tell me, do those contain the names of servants and retainers?”
“I doubt it. Those fees are recorded as one sum. Each servant is not listed.” He opened the ledger on his desk, flipped back some pages, then turned the book toward her. “See, like this.”
That dimmed her brilliant idea. “I had hoped you had records of servants from decades past.”
He didn’t ask why, but she could see his curiosity. “Other than occasional notes about some problem—such as a footman caught stealing silver or a cook starting a fire—we don’t.” He thrummed his fingers on his desk. “We do have names regarding pensions. The ones who serve here a long time are given one when they leave service. An annual sum, to keep them in their older years.”
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