“About what?”
“Us,” he answered. When she merely looked at him with a question in her eyes, he shrugged nonchalantly and said, “She asked me if I liked you.”
Corinna told herself she should not be surprised. Caroline was her fervent champion. After the wardrobe episode, she should not be astonished to learn Caroline was looking out for her.
“In fact, she asked, no demanded to know, if I was going to marry you.”
Corinna felt the blood flooding her face and dropped her eyes to her lap. For a moment, longing, sharp and insistent, lanced through her with the force of a lightning bolt.
“She would,” Corinna muttered under her breath. She wanted to ask him what he had answered, but couldn’t bring herself to. In addition, she desperately wanted to know if he was searching for her, but had come up with no way to raise the issue without revealing who she was.
He chuckled as if he heard the comment, and when she looked up, she was struck by the way his whole face changed. The corners of his eyes crinkled and the brown softened. His mouth curved, lips parting to display white, even teeth.
“She has said nothing to me,” she felt compelled to respond.
“I’m not surprised, but she was quite insistent. In fact, I wondered if she hadn’t been put up to it.”
Corinna stiffened in indignation at the implication. “I assure you, my lord, that I would not use a child for such a dishonorable purpose,” she said tightly, preparing to rise from the bench.
“Now, don’t get in a lather over it,” Marcus said, exasperation in his tone. “I didn’t say you had put her up to it, just that it seemed as if someone had.”
He laid his hand on her shoulder, which kept her from moving, even as heat spread from that spot slowly throughout her body. A small tremor went through her and she clasped her hands tightly together in her lap, looking away as embarrassment painted her cheeks bright red.
What was wrong with her? She had never blushed so much in her life since meeting Marcus again.
“My guess is that her mother did it. Or she said something within Caroline’s hearing.”
Corinna’s head whipped around at that. “The duchess? Why?”
“She has already hinted that now that I am home to stay I need to start looking around for a wife.”
The blood drummed in her ears. Her mouth suddenly went dry, and she licked her lips nervously. Could she ask him? How should she phrase it? Her mind filled with potential questions. Would he think her forward?
A gull landed nearby and eyed the two of them, possibly looking for food. When none was forthcoming, it flew off.
Corinna threw caution to the wind. “And-and, will you?”
Marcus’s eyes narrowed momentarily and he dropped his hand from her shoulder. “No.”
Her shoulders sagged in relief. But she still needed to ask the next question. “Why not?”
Marcus straightened and looked off into the distance behind her for a moment, seemingly lost in thought. A light breeze rose and ruffled his hair. Taking his foot off the bench, he turned and sat beside her, staring out over the water. An emotion Corinna could not define seemed to settle over his broad shoulders, and when he began to speak, his sorrow was almost tangible.
“I’m not ready to marry again,” he confessed.
“Again?” She could not keep the surprise out of her voice. “But…”
His sigh cut off what she was about to say. “No one knows, but I was married before I went to India.”
There was something about the way he spoke that begged her to ask, “What happened?”
“She died.”
Corinna could not contain her shock. Dead? She was supposed to be dead? A thousand questions careened through her head all at once. How? When? Who had told him? What happened?
Corinna didn’t know what to say. Should she tell him she wasn’t dead? Perhaps he had misunderstood what he had been told? What if he had gone to Houghton Hall and Gregory had told him she was gone, and he had misinterpreted? What if…? Her head spun with questions and she knew she had to say something or she would scream.
“I’m sorry,” she said carefully. “It must be difficult.”
Marcus made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a snort. “It should no longer be,” he said tautly. “It’s been five years.”
“H-how did she…?” Corinna could not bear to say the word. Five years! These past five years he had thought her dead. There had never been any letters that hadn’t reached her. He didn’t have someone out looking for her.
“Die?” The air between them was suddenly still. “A carriage accident—along with her parents.”
Corinna had to bite her lip to stop herself from screaming, but the voice in her head had no such restraint. My God! Gregory! Gregory had written that she had died with her parents! Why? And why did he write to Marcus?
“I found out only because I received the letter meant for Douglas.” She forced herself to turn and look at him as he continued. “He was already dead by the time the letter arrived, you see. And as I had been tasked with writing to his family, the colonel gave me the letter that came for him. Amy, my wife, was his sister. I remember thinking it was a blessing that he was already dead. That letter would have killed him. His mother and sister were everything to him.”
The anguish in his face nearly prompted her to confess, but how could she tell him without proof? She had it. It was upstairs in her room off the nursery. His ring and the vicar’s note. But would he credit it if he believed her dead? Of course he would. How else would she have it, otherwise? Besides, she could answer any questions he might ask. But now, she sensed, was not the time.
Another light gust of wind rustled through the topiary. Although it wasn’t very cold, she shivered.
Marcus suddenly surged to his feet. Turning to help her up, he said, “Come, let me escort you back. I find suddenly that I am not fit company.”
Taken aback by his abruptness, Corinna remained seated. “I’m not ready to go back just yet,” she replied. “I will be perfectly safe here if you wish to be alone with your thoughts.”
His tone bespoke an authority she could tell was rarely questioned, but she needed to be alone with her own thoughts, and returning to the house with him would not be conducive to calm reflection right now. Willing herself to remain composed, she withstood his scrutiny, returning his gaze equably.
Marcus yielded. Sketching a brief bow, he smiled. “As you wish.”
Then he turned on his heel and strode down the graveled path.
Corinna released a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. She had never expected to have a battle of wills with Marcus over anything, but she needed the space as much as he did. Possibly more. After all, she was the one who learned today that she was supposed to be dead.
Oblivious to the light breeze, Marcus walked back through the topiary, headed for the house. His thoughts and emotions were in complete turmoil.
What had possessed him to tell Corrie his deepest secret? As secrets went, it was innocuous. No one’s life hung on its revelation. A state secret it was not. No one else alive knew it. The world was not going to come to an end now that it had been revealed. So, why did it matter? Why was he suddenly so disturbed that he had, in a moment of weakness, told a nearly perfect stranger about something he had only shared with his closest friend?
He had sensed her shock at his revelation. He’d never told anyone other than Colonel Bromley about Amy, and even then he had deliberately not told him she was dead. It had been for self-preservation at the time. Regardless of what he might have promised under the influence of opium, he wanted to ensure Anjeh would not have been able to force him into a marriage. But now…why had he told Corrie?
Had he needed, without consciously recognizing it, sympathy for his loss? He had not been able to mourn Amy properly. He had already been mourning Douglas when word had reached him of her death. No one else knew, not even Barnes.
Perhaps that was why he had taken Lor
d Mayo’s murder so hard. It had seemed as senseless as Douglas’s to him. No one had expected a model prisoner to turn violent. With his insistence that the prison not change its routine for his visit—Lord Mayo had wanted to see it as it appeared daily—the assassin had been handed the opportunity on a silver platter. He hadn’t even been Indian, but an Afghan. There had been no warning.
Marcus had been in Calcutta for only two years, yet reminders of Douglas and Amy seemed to haunt him. And after Lord Mayo’s murder, he had not been able to shake his increasingly morbid thoughts. He’d needed Anjeh to help him forget, but it hadn’t worked. As Colonel Bromley had noted, five years was a long time to wait to confront someone, but he had been doing just that. He had been dodging Amy’s ghost for five long years.
He refused to acknowledge the answer he knew was there. It was because he was drawn to Corrie. On some level, she reminded him of Amy. Perhaps it was that she resembled her. Gray eyes and dark hair. A faint resemblance at best.
Or maybe it was because, had Amy lived, she might be in the same situation as Corrie. With no family, except him. He did not, for even a moment, consider that her brother would have willingly given her the season she deserved, or anything else. They were more likely to have turned her into a household drudge, forcing her into near servitude.
He stopped and looked up at the house before him. The sun was nearly directly overhead, bathing the stark gray facade in light and warmth. What would it have been like to bring Amy here as his countess? Would she have loved it as he was beginning to? What would she have thought of Brand and Felicia? Of Michael and Caroline, and little John? Would she have wanted children of her own?
When he married her, he had been a second son with no reasonable prospects. He had known he would be able to support himself, and a wife, if he needed to. His family would always be there for him.
Now, he was an earl, a very wealthy earl. Not only had his father left him a sizeable annual income, but the estate supported itself quite handsomely with funds to spare. In addition, Brand had gifted him with an interest in his shipping company that brought in significant amounts.
The sigh that escaped seemed to come from deep in his soul. He would give it all away to have Douglas and Amy back.
Corrie’s face swam before his eyes. What was she thinking? Perhaps he had been too forward. Had he, in his quest to get to know her, given her the impression that he was interested in her? If he had, his refusal to marry and subsequent explanation of his reasons might have puzzled her.
He took a deep breath, then let it out and continued walking. There was nothing to be done about it now. He seemed to be pouring out all of his unhappy memories into her willing ears.
But no longer. She might understand his unwillingness to marry again now that she knew about Amy, but he didn’t want her pity.
Entering the side door, he was headed for the front of the house and the library on the first floor when he heard a commotion. Reaching the front foyer, he found his steward there with Brand.
Boggs was filthy, mud caking his breeches and boots, his shirt plastered to his sweat-and-dirt-streaked skin. His hair, too, seemed to be oozing mud, a streak of it running down his face.
They looked up as he entered.
“Oh, my lord,” Boggs rushed toward him. “I came to find you, but found His Grace instead.”
“Has something happened?” he asked, looking from the obviously agitated steward to his perpetually calm brother.
“There’s been an accident at the tin mine,” Brand informed him.
He needed something to take his mind off Corrie, but this wasn’t it. He was about to turn to Pulliam when Brand said, “I’ve already sent to the stables for a horse.”
Marcus looked to Boggs. “Then what are we waiting for? You can fill me in on the way.”
“Send word if you need anything,” Brand called, following the two out the door.
Marcus swung into the saddle of the bay waiting at the foot of the steps. “Don’t hold dinner if I’m not back in time,” he told Brand, then turned away.
He didn’t see Brand’s acknowledgment; he was already listening to Boggs’s recitation of what had happened that afternoon when one of the tunnels flooded unexpectedly.
One of the new shafts that was being mined hit the water table before expected, causing the shaft to begin to fill with water. A pump engine had been quickly set to pumping, but it hadn’t been set up fast enough and five men had been caught unawares.
The men on the surface quickly began to dig a rescue shaft, hoping to drain some of the water out and thereby help the pumping operation. The chances were good that the men below had survived because the shaft they were working had higher and lower levels. If they had made it to a higher level before the water filled in the lower levels, they could still be alive.
Marcus spent the next day and a half going over maps of the mine, directing pumping operations, and making decisions he knew could mean life or death to the men trapped below.
The first of the five men was found two hours after Marcus arrived. He had been working one of the upper levels, he told them, and heard the water begin to rush in. He called back to warn the men at the lower levels that he could hear water, but he wasn’t sure whether they heard him or not.
Marcus’s unease grew as he studied the maps and asked questions of the foreman. Some of the walls were more dirt than rock and they were all worried that if the water got in and created mud, portions of the walls would collapse.
The second and third men were rescued nearly twelve hours later, in the wee hours of the morning. The last two were found the next evening.
There was general rejoicing all around with all five safe and sound. Marcus joined in hoisting a tankard with the families in celebration, then headed home. It was late, nearing ten, but Brand and Felicia were still up. Upon his arrival, Felicia took one look at him, ordered him a bath and a meal, then insisted he go straight to bed.
He grinned at Brand as she shooed him upstairs to be taken in hand by his valet. “No casualties,” he announced triumphantly. “We found them all. Dirty, exhausted, and hungry, but alive.” Then he stumbled off to his room, where he bathed, ate, then slept nearly round the clock.
Corinna sat on the narrow bed in her room off the nursery, a small wooden box in her lap. The bedside lamp glowed, throwing yellow light across the green counterpane, creating shadows in the corners where the light did not reach. For a long time she stared down at the lid, running her fingers over the polished surface. Her initials had been carved into it and she idly traced the letters. C A C H. Douglas had given it to her on her fourteenth birthday.
Removing the lid, she pulled out the ring Marcus had given her. It was plain gold with a raised “W” on the flat top, a small amethyst beside the letter. She knew that if used on sealing wax, the resulting impression would be a “W” followed by a period. It had fit his little finger, but she had worn it on a chain around her neck until the chain broke and she hadn’t been able to have it repaired.
The only other item in the small box was a folded piece of paper. It proclaimed to anyone who read it that “Lord Marcus Edward Waring had wed Miss Corinna Amelia Constance Houghton on the 5th day of May in the year 1864, in the village of Little Tympington.” It was signed “Henry Dobson, vicar”. Below the signature the book, page and line number of the record of their marriage was written in Marcus’s firm hand.
Tomorrow, she decided firmly. Tomorrow she would tell him. His revelation in the topiary yesterday had shaken her. He had believed her dead for the past five years, believed that she was beyond his help. She should have written.
To whom?
She could have written to him, through Douglas. If she had written to Douglas as soon as she learned of her parents’ deaths, Marcus would have received the letter. Instead, she had been numb with grief, barely able to cope with the loss and her stepsiblings too.
She could have written to his brother. She now knew that she would not hav
e been rebuffed or refused. The duke would have written to him, he would have confirmed it, and all would have been well. The last five years would have been very different. Marcus might have even returned sooner.
She might have written to Marcus once she left Houghton Hall. Great-Aunt Mirabel had often hinted that she should write to his family. She knew what her son was capable of. Corinna looked back on the weeks preceding her great-aunt’s death. The shudder that rolled through her had little to do with the coolness of the room. She had escaped, but the price had been high.
Had Gregory planned to do away with her eventually? He had written to Douglas that both she and her mother had died in the carriage accident. Why? Did he think it would keep Douglas away? Maybe he thought Douglas would stay in India. With her and her mother dead, he might have no reason to return. She hoped that had been Gregory’s goal. She did not want to think that her own brother might have considered killing her, but she would not discard the possibility.
Now she owed Marcus the truth. Allowing him to continue to mourn someone who was not dead was cruel and she couldn’t do that. She had never thought of herself as important to him. He had always treated her the same way Douglas had. But he had married her as a method of saving her from the very situation that had arisen, then hadn’t been able to do so.
Putting the box and its contents aside, she stood and walked to the window. It was dark outside and she could see nothing beyond the glass except a few stars. But it did not stop her memory from seeing the row of trees lining the drive as it swept up to the circle before the front steps, the fountain that stood in the center of the circle, and the two entrances to the gardens.
She remembered her first impression of the house. Collingswood had been lovely. The Marquis’ seat at Thane Park was larger, reminding her of her own home, but St. Ayers seemed larger to her. Moreover, the twins had informed her that it was smaller than Waring Castle at The Downs.
To her, however, St. Ayers was perfect. She loved the gardens, the cliffs, the beach, the sea. She loved watching the birds, and she was a passable sailor. She could settle at St. Ayers, she thought with a sigh. But should she?
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