‘Good Lord, child. Look at me. I can barely move around this cottage. I could not travel to London. Any carriage would rattle every joint loose. My legs would not stand it.’
‘But someone has to,’ Beth said.
‘Indeed.’
‘I could ask Jamie.’
‘Your brother could not convince anyone out of anything—or into anything for that matter. Likely he would merely find a new variation of seed or some such nonsense. Besides, it’s not his responsibility,’ Mrs Cridge added.
‘You think it’s mine?’
‘You married the man.’
‘But—I...I mean it’s not a real marriage.’
‘It’s real enough when you act lady of the manor with the tenants.’
Beth dropped the elder woman’s hand, stung. ‘I don’t act. I help.’
‘Then best help now. The tenants need it and so does Ren.’
‘He doesn’t. At least, not my help.’
Mrs Cridge made no answer. Beth reached forward to touch the elder woman’s face. Her skin felt soft, despite its crinkles and folds, her expression serious.
Beth dropped her hands. ‘You think he does?’
‘He is unhappy.’
Beth shifted in her seat, tension twisting through her stomach. Her palms felt damp with sweat. ‘I can’t go to London.’
She had only considered going once and that had been with Mirabelle. And now Mirabelle was dead. The thought of travelling, of going into that busy, bustling city with its noise and smells frightened her, had always frightened her. She rubbed her palms against the cloth of her gown, swallowing nervously.
‘I see no reason why not. You have a carriage, horses and your health.’
‘But where would I stay?’
‘You also have a husband and a house. Or you could make arrangements with a relative.’
‘But—’ Beth shivered. She felt nervous on so many levels. It was about the physical act of travelling, of going to London, of tracking Ren down and turning up on his door step. It was about his reaction when she tracked him down.
And her own reaction. Unconsciously, she touched her lips as though they were still imprinted with his kiss.
‘I can’t,’ she said.
‘And I remember a little girl who didn’t know the meaning of that word,’ Mrs Cridge said.
Beth had said that. She had believed it. Her mother had believed it. But her mother had been thrown from a horse and her belief in the impossible broken as surely as her back.
Again, Beth rubbed her palms on her dress so that the fabric rustled. She shivered despite the fire’s crackling warmth.
‘Sometimes you have to fight for what is right.’ The silence stretched between them, the words seeming to reverberate. ‘And you have to try because at least then you will know that you have done everything.’
The fire crackled. A twig brushed against the cottage window with a soft rata-tat-tat.
‘He saved you from the Duke,’ Mrs Cridge said.
‘Yes.’
‘Perhaps you should return the favour.’
‘He doesn’t need saving.’
‘You’re certain about that?’
* * *
Brooks’s was as familiar to Ren as his own rooms or Celeste’s sumptuous quarters. Indeed, he had stopped at his mistress’s place, but his restlessness had been too great. Despite Celeste’s attributes, so admirably displayed, he had found himself lacking interest and his mind wandering.
Grief, most like. The fact that his mind so often circled to Beth was because she was so intricately linked with his family. It was not so much about her but about what she represented.
A load of claptrap, he knew.
So, seeking diversion, he had driven briskly to Brooks’s and now strode through the Great Subscription Room. Several acquaintances lounged in low sofas close to the huge blazing fires and he nodded to them, pausing by Lord Amherst, a flushed and amiable gentleman, lolling within a comfortable armchair, his leg propped on a foot stool.
‘Graham, care to bet?’ Amherst asked, raising his glass in Ren’s direction.
‘Not today,’ he said.
‘Betting on snails. Going to find two snails and see which will travel a foot in the shortest time.’
‘Do we have anything to measure the foot?’ another gentleman enquired from a seat on the other side of the hearth, his words slurred.
‘Don’t know. I suppose we could use a flagstone.’ Amherst grunted, removing his foot from the stool and pulling himself into a seated position. He glanced towards the huge windows across the room. ‘Bit cold out there, though, to look for snails crossing flagstones.’
‘We could bet on who finds a snail first,’ the other gentleman suggested, lifting his glass and peering at the amber liquid with apparent fascination.
‘Or perhaps we could find an indoor insect. A spider. We can bet on which one of us first finds a spider—’
Ren left them, mounting the stairs. Sometimes he enjoyed such nonsense and had placed any number of ludicrous bets in the past. This evening he had no interest. He felt an unjustified anger that men like Amherst should still live to spend their time betting on snails and spiders while Edmund was dead.
The card room upstairs was much smaller and more crowded than the Subscription room downstairs. The air was warmer and laced with sweat. The golden glow from the heavy chandeliers lit the swirls of blue smoke, which hung, like London fog, just below the ceiling. Several men huddled about the card table, their features reflected and multiplied within the long gilt-framed mirrors lining the walls.
A roar rose as the dice tumbled across the felt. Hazard, a pleasant enough game, but not for today. Ren needed escape. He needed something more than a light game of Hazard. He needed something which would push out all other thoughts and focus all his faculties on the moment.
Several men had turned at his entrance. He felt the change in the room. He felt the stiffening and the flicker of nervous apprehension as though their world had become more dangerous with his presence.
He did not mind.
‘Whist?’ he suggested. ‘But only for those with damn deep pockets.’
He walked over to an empty table and signalled for brandy which he swallowed in a fiery gulp. Several individuals joined him and they formed a group at the far end of the room, away from the more raucous play at the Hazard table.
This table was different. There was less joking and jocularity. Here the men still drank, but there was a quiet intensity to their game. Conversation was limited and under the polite words there was always the knowledge that fortunes were being won and lost with the soft shuffle and thwack of cards.
Ren picked up his hand. He kept his gaze focused, his concentration complete. This was why he liked high stakes—it rooted him in this single moment so that all else dwindled to unimportance.
His facility with cards had served him well. It was likely the only thing which had made his school life tolerable and had served to provide income until several investments in north Yorkshire paid off.
Now it whiled away the long hours and nights when he could not sleep.
Sometimes he won. Sometimes he lost. Tonight he was winning, but he kept his face grim, his expression unreadable. Gradually night turned into day. The candles burned out into puddles of wax as the grey light of dawn flickered through the windows. But time was a meaningless concept, subservient to the soft thwack of the cards.
Chapter Seven
The journey was both never-ending and all too swiftly completed. Beth huddled within the confines of the coach, her body bruised by the continual bumping and bouncing as they clattered along rutted country roads. She felt a peculiar combination of boredom and terror as if suspended in a dark, jostling purgatory.
Allie tried to help. She patted her mistress’ hand
and Beth focused on her maid’s fingers and the roughened calluses dotting the girl’s palm. Allie also described the landscape as best she could. She spoke of low stone walls and green fields dotted with sheep and cows.
‘And the cows don’t look any different than ours at home, my lady.’
‘That is a relief. I feared that the cows near London had two heads.’
‘Are there such things?’
‘No.’ She laughed.
Perhaps the best remedy for her nerves was her maid’s excitement. It permeated the carriage. Allie, although chatty, was usually of a practical nature and seldom allowed herself to be swayed by emotion. But now Beth could feel the girl’s excitement as she wriggled, bouncing on the cushioning, as though a child once more.
‘We must be getting close, my lady,’ she said. ‘I can see more houses and the fields are not half so big.’
‘I imagine we will find London filled with houses and nary a field in sight,’ Beth said.
They continued for several more minutes, before Allie again twisted towards the window. ‘We must be ever so close now. And I’ve never seen so many people, my lady. Nor so many houses. Lud, but they’re squished so tight. Not enough room to swing a cat, as my sainted mother would say. And there are people of all types. Urchins and rough men and women. And garbage and other muck, too.’
‘The latter does not sound entirely enticing.’
‘Oh, no, my lady. But it is ever so interesting. I wish you could see it.’
‘Me, too.’
Eventually, the carriage slowed. From outside, Beth heard shouts, the singsong calls of newsboys, the rattle of other vehicles and the clatter of hooves upon pavement.
‘The houses are looking ever so fancy now, my lady,’ Allie continued. ‘And bigger and the people look smarter, too. And the streets are wider. Ooh—and such a fancy carriage just passed us. His lordship must live in a big house.’
Beth shivered at the reminder of her purpose. That was the moment when the journey seemed too quickly over. Briefly, she wished that, despite the physical discomfort, it would continue.
How would Ren react to her presence? And how would she react to him? She’d spent the majority of her marriage reconciling herself that they could not even be friends.
And then he’d kissed her.
And that one kiss had started a flood of emotions like spring run-off. Now her fears ran the gamut. She worried that he would try to kiss her again.
And that he wouldn’t.
‘We’re here, my lady,’ Allie said as the coach lurched to a stop.
Beth jerked upright. She felt an eager, nervous jumpiness which might be apprehension or anticipation. It was all ludicrous—one kiss did not change an entire relationship. They had been friends. The friendship had dwindled into mere acquaintance until his heroic gesture of this marriage.
Now her duty was clear. She needed to convince him to accept this new role, to be the new Lord Graham, to save the tenants and possibly himself. She would not let her mind dwell on the fact that, by doing so, she made the need for an annulment even greater. She would not allow herself to wish for some other impossible, happy ending—
‘Gracious, my lady, it is three storeys high,’ said Allie. ‘And it has a wrought-iron gate and ever such a fancy entranceway with a brass knocker that looks like a lion.’
Beth smiled at the awe rippling through her maid’s voice. She shifted forward on hearing the movement of the carriage door, the creak of its hinges and the whisper of wind. As Arnold helped her out, she stepped on to the pavement, inhaling the damp London air for the first time. It felt moister here than in the country and there was a fascinating layering of smells: an earthy scent, a mix of garbage, sewage and spring growth.
Allie stood beside her and, placing her hand on her maid’s arm, Beth walked to the front door. Behind her she could hear the horses’ movement, the jangle of reins and the stamp of impatient hooves as Arnold led them away.
The door opened. ‘Miss?’ a masculine voice said.
‘Lady Graham,’ she corrected, trying to keep her voice firm.
There was a pause, as though the man was trying to make sense of this new information.
‘Of course, my lady,’ he said.
The door creaked as it swung wider. She took her cane from Allie, tapping carefully. The flooring sounded like marble. There was a sharp tone unlike the softer, muffled sound of wood and it echoed as though in a big space with high ceilings.
‘Do you require assistance, my lady?’ the butler asked.
‘I would like to see my husband.’ No point beating about the proverbial bush.
‘He is out, my lady.’
‘Do you know when he might return?’
‘No, my lady.’
‘Very well. Could you find me a suitable room where I might take tea and await my husband’s return? Perhaps the cook could provide a simple dinner later.’
‘Will you be staying the night, my lady?’
‘No, I have made alternate arrangements.’
She almost wanted to giggle. She sounded so fustian and quite unlike herself. It was as though she had put on a mantle of sophistication and was play acting. Still, her tone apparently worked and the butler led her into a comfortable room with a crackling fire.
‘Tea will be served directly. Would you like us to send word of your arrival to his lordship?’
A nervous shiver slid, like moth’s wings, down her spine.
‘It might serve to expedite his return,’ she said.
Although whether she wanted this or not she did not know.
* * *
It was, Ren thought, the unexpectedness of her appearance which undid him. When Robbins had said ‘Lady Graham,’ he had assumed his mother waited for him and not his wife.
Therefore, he was in no way prepared for the sight of Beth with her hair shining like spun gold and her face illuminated by the flicker of flames so that he was again struck by that other-worldly aspect of her beauty.
In that moment, he felt a quick, unexpected, unprecedented flash of joy. The sentiment was all the more dramatic by virtue of the fact that he never felt joy. Indeed, he could not remember the last time he had felt anything akin to that emotion.
Then, chasing after that initial reaction, came the memory of the kiss with its complex mix of confusion, guilt, irritation and desire. He admired self-control above all things. It had, quite literally, been beaten into him at school. One did not show emotion, vulnerability or sentiment. It had been difficult at first, but now it was second nature. Besides, he seldom experienced emotion, at least not one strong enough to cause an impulsivity of action.
So how could Beth, his childhood friend, have caused such a slip? How could he have felt such a flare of anger and desire? How could he have so forgotten himself as to kiss her? And it had been no chaste kiss or romantic gesture. It had been fuelled by something primitive, primal almost.
But she had changed, too, he thought. She was not the little blind girl of childhood memory or even the scared, lost, grieving young woman attempting to avoid marriage to a cruel man while looking after her brother and paying off her father’s debts. There was a difference, a sophistication and an aura of capability mixed with that pale, fragile, ephemeral beauty.
‘I know perfectly well you are there. And I know you are studying me like you used to before church on Sunday. So, do I pass muster or have I a smudge on my face?’ She turned, a slight smile touching her lips.
‘How do you always know?’
‘I heard your footsteps and they are in no way as deferential as those of your butler. Besides being considerably swifter.’
‘Thank goodness, since Robbins is forty years my senior. You should have told me you were coming.’
‘The last time I did so you dissuaded me from the enterprise.’
; That was true enough—Mirabelle had suggested the visit shortly after their wedding.
‘So, you decided to act first and seek permission later?’ Which was, he thought, entirely typical.
‘I seldom seek permission either early or late.’
That was also true, although few of his acquaintances would have been so bold. Indeed, few of his acquaintances sought to challenge him at all. He frowned, admiration and irritation flickering.
The latter won out. ‘So is anything wrong? Jamie is well?’ he asked curtly.
‘Yes.’
‘Is there some problem with the estate?’
‘Only if you have already given it to the Duke.’
So that was it. Likely she still hoped to dissuade him. The bloody woman was like a dog with a bone.
His frown deepened. He stepped to the fireplace, drumming his fingers on the mantel. ‘I haven’t,’ he said. ‘But you won’t deter me. I am seldom deterred once a decision is made. In fact, it was foolish to undertake the journey.’
‘Only the weak will not change their minds when faced with a logical alternative and I do not see why I should not travel. People do so all the time.’
His hand tightened at her words and the underlying belligerence of her tone, but he spoke calmly. ‘Unaccompanied females do not. Did Jamie come?’
‘No, but Allie and Arnold did.’
‘You came with only two servants. This journey will cause comment.’
‘I am married and live apart from my husband. Therefore, I am rather inured to comment,’ she retorted.
‘Spending time without one’s husband is seldom cause for comment. Women do it all the time. However, travelling pell-mell up to London only accompanied by servants is different.’
‘I doubt Arnold has ever driven anywhere pell-mell. And they are good company once you chat with them.’
‘I do not intend to chat...’ He paused, exhaling. ‘That is beside the point. I only ask that you behave in a way which does not make us the subject of comment. I do not like to invoke gossip.’
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