Forbidden Lord
Page 15
Setting aside her sewing, she rose and smoothed her skirts, surprised to feel her hands trembling. ‘Are you ready to leave?’
He nodded. ‘You heard me tell Mother I am to set on extra men to guard the house.’
‘Why?’
‘To soothe your fears. When I leave you may have need of some convincing protection. Since we’ve attracted the likes of Frederick Atwood, who knows what could happen? With plenty of guards about, it will add to your safety.’
She inclined her head, playing with a ring on her finger, unable to look at him. She was trying so hard to be calm and composed, but it was not working out that way. ‘You still think we are in danger from my stepfather’s henchmen?’
‘It is possible—although there have been no reports of strangers in the area. However, I don’t wish to take any chances. I would have contempt for myself if I did not do my duty towards you and my family,’ he said through a twisted smile.
He seemed so sincere. Eleanor could see it in his eyes. He did want her safe, she believed that.
William studied her, relaxing slightly as his gaze caressed her lovely features. She did not seem herself. No doubt she was upset at his leaving. She was a little hesitant, almost as if she wished herself elsewhere.
‘Eleanor, I have to go.’ Drawing her towards him, he wrapped his arms around her. At first she responded and leaned into him. Then she checked herself and drew back, putting distance between them.
‘Will you not have some wine before you go?’ she asked, forcing herself to meet his eyes, her own veiled and cautious.
‘Time is of the essence.’ When she would have moved away, he stayed her by placing his hand on her arm. ‘I sense something is the matter. Is it something I have done to offend you?’
Eleanor glanced at him at once. ‘No, of course not. Please don’t think that.’
‘Then what is it? Tell me. Come, Eleanor,’ he murmured, his teeth glistening from between his parted lips and his eyes holding a devilish light. ‘When I ride away I don’t want to remember you with a long face—much rather the lovely smiling one.’
‘There is nothing wrong. It—It’s just that I’m sorry you are leaving. I—I shall miss you.’
He smiled, touched by the simplicity of her confession and having no reason to read anything else behind it. ‘It won’t be for long. I’ll be back before you’ve had time to miss me. What did your aunt have to say in her letter?’ he asked. Having been so preoccupied with his own news from London, he had omitted to enquire. His gaze searched hers, but their depths were deliberately shuttered. ‘Does she want you to go to her?’
‘Yes. She—is concerned and regrets she was not at home when I left Fryston Hall.’
‘And?’ he asked, studying her closely. ‘What will you reply?’
Eleanor lowered her eyes lest he saw the true answer in her eyes. ‘I shall give it some thought. Your mother has very kindly told me I am welcome to stay here for as long I wish to—particularly as the roads are not fit to travel just now should I decide to go to Cantly Manor. But won’t you tell me why you have to go?’ she ventured to ask quietly. ‘What is so important that you have to go rushing off to London at a moment’s notice?’
Now William’s face tightened and shut as if a door had been closed. He turned from her abruptly. ‘Please don’t ask, Eleanor. It is—of a personal nature.’
Alarm flared in her eyes. ‘Personal? William, are you in danger?’
The silence that followed was long and heavy. The firelight cast shadows over his handsome face, making his expression stern. ‘I can’t say. It’s all very complicated, but not beyond me.’
‘Then whatever it is that takes you away, I hate it,’ she said, suddenly unable to stop herself, the internal war between her mind and her heart escalating to tumultuous proportions.
William looked at her, a flicker of laughter in his eyes. He gave her a penetrating look. ‘Now that is what I want to hear—that familiar spirit of defiance I have not heard since you came to Staxton Hall—that bite of temper I saw in you when we first met.’
Eleanor knew he was trying to ease the situation with humour, to make it easier for her, for himself, and she wondered how he would react if he knew that she would soon be following him to London.
Taking her hands in his firm ones, forcing ease into his voice, he said, ‘There is someone in London I have to see, Eleanor. Things—happened that I have to put right before I can get on with my life. What happened during those missing years is not over and I have to have the courage to see this through to the end. I have to go. If I didn’t do this, I would have contempt for myself.’
Though Eleanor had decided to end their acquaintance, her eyes were suddenly moist because she had no choice, no options. Horribly afraid for him, she lowered her head, not wanting to dull the edge of his courage with her fear and struggling to cauterise her emotions. He mustn’t know she was leaving. He wouldn’t let her go easily, and never without probing questions. Trying not to think of Catherine, who was like a shadowy, threatening figure hovering on the periphery of her mind, she looked up at him and a faint smile flitted across her lips.
‘Then you must do what you have to do, William. And do not be concerned about us here. We are safe enough,’ she said at last, hiding the pain she felt in her heart.
They were startled when someone rapped on the door and loudly told William his horse was ready.
William turned to leave.
‘William?’
He faced her, his eyes devoid of emotion. For the times she had been close to him he’d let his guard down and revealed the man behind the title and the stern facade, but now, standing before her, he was a stranger, keeping his emotions and thoughts in check. She desperately wanted to know how to reach him, but could think of no way.
‘I’m sorry you have to go. Please take care.’
Suddenly there was such intensity in his gaze that Eleanor felt her heartbeat quicken. He snatched her into his arms, breathing deeply of the sweet scent of her.
‘I will,’ he whispered, his lips against her hair. ‘I shall miss you, Eleanor, but I have to go.’
His lips took hers in one final deep and tender kiss and the seductive scent of the sandalwood he always used filled her senses.
Eleanor followed him out of the house, her eyes shadowed by pain. She stood aside as he embraced his mother and sisters and strode to his horse. Godfrey and the messenger were already mounted. A groom cupped hands for his master’s boot and William vaulted into the high saddle of his hunter. With a final salute Eleanor watched him ride over the cobbled courtyard and over the drawbridge. Already she felt the suffering of his loss. As suddenly as he had appeared he had fallen out of her life, leaving a jagged, gaping hole in it, and she felt lost and afraid and very much alone once more.
In need of privacy, Eleanor excused herself and went slowly towards the stairs, pausing outside the library before going in to find something to read that would occupy her mind for the next hour until dinner. Idly perusing the many leather-bound volumes on the shelves, but unable to find a book that appealed to her present mood, she decided to abandon the idea.
Passing the desk on which there were inkwells and quills, scrolls and manuscripts, sitting on the top of a pile of papers she saw an open letter. Suspecting it was the letter the messenger had brought yesterday, her curiosity was aroused. It was not in her nature to pry into other people’s affairs, but she couldn’t resist picking it up, and before she could help herself her eyes were scanning the writing.
There were a lot of things she didn’t understand—about the Court and a ship that had been sighted in the Thames and was due to arrive in London at any time from somewhere she couldn’t decipher—but the most interesting and tragic thing that caught her attention was that Henry Wheeler, Catherine’s husband, was dead.
It was such a dreadful thing to happen and she was very shocked. Her first thoughts were for Catherine and how devastated she must be to lose her husband after ju
st a few short months of marriage. Reading on, she learned that Henry had drowned, that he had taken a boat late one night from Chelsea to go to Westminster only to meet with tragedy. When his boat collided with another, he was thrown into the river. His body was recovered the next day.
Catherine was a widow. The fact hit her like a thunderbolt. Suddenly everything was clear and her heart was in shreds. She felt as if she was dying by inches. Her face was empty of all expression and there was a terrible blankness in her eyes. Catherine was free to marry again. William knew and had gone tearing off to London to be with her. He had implied he had unfinished business to take care of, something to do with the three years he had been gone, and he had also told her there was someone he had to see.
It was Catherine, she just knew it. What other explanation could there be? The very thought of it devastated her. She never thought she could feel such pain. She couldn’t stand it, and her flesh that had quivered when she had been in his arms turned ice cold.
A grey desolation spread over her. Even though she had decided that she would leave Staxton Hall and William for good, and that in all probability she would never see him again, for the brief time she had been in his home she had allowed herself to dream, and his rejection of her diminished her in some irreparable way. She had not asked for this, had not chosen to feel so deeply for him, and she did not know the exact moment when it had happened.
She had not bargained on the bond between William and Catherine. It was still there, pulling at them. What other explanation could there be for him to go rushing off to London when he learned she was free if not Catherine? She knew a dreadful resentment that William had left without telling her that Henry Wheeler had died, as if she were of no more importance than a passing acquaintance. She was shaken momentarily mindless that he could do this to her. It was not just anger she felt, she realised, but humiliation, shame, hurt pride, and an awareness of her own foolish naïvety.
Her jaw tightened, her resilient spirits stretching themselves as they had done once before when she had decided to leave Fryston Hall. Straightening her back, with a new determined gleam in her eyes, and seized with urgency she picked up a quill and wrote to her Aunt Mildred. Only when she was away from anything that was connected with William would she be able to claw back the self-esteem he had stolen from her.
When this was done, she went in search of Lady Alice to inform her of her decision to leave Staxton Hall—that she had decided to wed Martin Taverner she kept to herself.
Lady Alice was sitting near the fire in her chamber, laboriously measuring out different-coloured silken threads to repair a damaged tapestry, while two of her ladies folded linen into a chest. ‘So, Eleanor,’ she said, looking up at Eleanor, ‘you are to leave us.’
‘Yes, Lady Alice,’ she said with a swift smile.
‘We shall be sorry to lose you—especially Jane and Anne. They are going to miss you—we all will. It has been a pleasure having you here.’
To Lady Alice’s surprise Eleanor’s eyes filled with tears, but she only smiled and said, ‘You have been very kind, and I am going to miss you all.’
Lady Alice frowned, suddenly thoughtful. She felt that the matter that had worried her of late could not be avoided. Her sharp eyes had seen when William and Eleanor had exchanged lingering smiles and complicit looks. How intimate had their relationship become, she asked herself concernedly, and, if so, was there really any harm in it? William was known for a lusty man who, in his youth, had been somewhat wild and for ever attracted by a pretty face, and it was only on his father’s death that he had settled down to the more serious matters of soldiering and making sure the estate was well run.
So it was hardly surprising that he was attracted by Eleanor. They were both handsome and free, and despite Eleanor being who she was, none of what had happened had been her fault. Lady Alice had grown fond of the girl and would be as sorry to see her leave as Jane and Anne would be.
‘Eleanor—about you and William…’
Eleanor glanced at her sharply, her heart sinking. ‘Yes?’
‘Forgive me, but I am not blind—or as unsympathetic as you probably think I am. My giddy daughters may walk around with their heads in the air and their eyes blinkered, but it wasn’t difficult for me to see that a—a fondness has grown between you and my son.’
Eleanor felt her pointed stare and lowered her eyes as a blush deepened the hue on her cheeks. The fact that Lady Alice was aware of the intimacy between herself and William made it difficult to meet the older woman’s gaze and pretend innocence.
‘It was no more than a foolish infatuation between two people brought together by circumstance—no more than that.’
Lady Alice nodded, saying no more. So clever were her eyes they could read Eleanor’s face, but if she scented an untruth in what Eleanor had said she held her tongue. Eleanor was grateful for her discretion.
‘You do realise that William will expect to find you here when he returns.’
‘I—I am sure you will explain everything, why I had to leave.’
Lady Alice’s lips twisted wryly. ‘I’m not at all sure why you are leaving, Eleanor.’
‘You will. When William returns to Staxton Hall, everything will be revealed to you.’ How would she react when she discovered her beloved son had gone to London to be reconciled with Catherine? Anger stirred inside her. Could he not have spared her, Eleanor, this indignity, and why had her life been transformed into this irretrievable disaster?
Unbeknown to Eleanor, LadyAlice was as informed as she was about the letter the messenger had brought. She knew how things had once stood between William and Catherine Atwood, and that he’d had strong feelings for her. But so much time had elapsed and so many things had happened, which included Catherine’s marriage to someone else, she thought it was ended. But when William had told her Catherine’s husband had died in a tragic accident and he had left for London immediately, like Eleanor she, too, thought his feelings for Catherine might not be dead after all. Perhaps he had told Eleanor and this was her reason for leaving Staxton Hall.
The hour was late when Eleanor and the men Aunt Matilda had sent to Staxton Hall to escort her eventually reached Cantly Manor. The manor was a veritable honeycomb of a house, with tall chimneys and the walls a mellow, golden stone. It was a big, cold, gloomy house, devoid of life. Both Eleanor and her mother had hated it when they had stayed here before, but then, with Hollymead taken from them, they’d had nowhere else to go.
Confronted by her aunt and feeling weariness spreading throughout her body like a sodden blanket, Eleanor felt her confidence threatening to slip away like grains of sand in an hourglass.
Matilda Sandford was a small, thin woman, heavily gowned in black satin with a rope of pearls around her thin neck. She had never been as beautiful as her sister Marian, but there was an imperious strength in her pale, lined face that Marian had lacked—perhaps if she had possessed some of Matilda’s traits, she would never have married Frederick Atwood.
As Eleanor rose from her curtsy and faced her aunt, the older woman seemed to grow taller, haughtier, while Eleanor felt a thrust of baleful envy for Jane and Anne cocooned in warmth and comfort at Staxton Hall.
Sipping warm spiced wine seated in front of a meagre fire, her aunt sat across from her, watching her closely, her body as straight and rigid as a stone statue. Eleanor knew no appeal could reach her. Marriage to her passive, submissive husband had robbed her of compassion, although perhaps she had always been that way, for Eleanor couldn’t remember a time when she had been any different.
‘Your stepfather should never have allowed you to go all that way to Yorkshire. Hollymead was not your home, Eleanor. Oh, it was a terrible thing that happened—the house burning down like that and resulting in the death of Sir John Collingwood—but it belongs to Sir Walter now.’
‘I know, Aunt Matilda. That is why I am here. I could not stay with LadyAlice any longer—although she was very kind and extremely generous.’
Eleanor stared at her. ‘You wrote to him?’
‘Of course I did. Marian was my dear sister and when she died you should have come to me.’
With hindsight Eleanor wished she had, for then she would not have had to suffer all the indignities her stepfather had heaped on her—and she would never have met William and be suffering this heartache now.
‘And Martin?’ Aunt Matilda asked. ‘You have given marriage to him some thought?’
‘I will consent to become his wife,’ Eleanor said, swallowing down her reluctance. It seemed the only thing to do. Whether it was the right thing to do was another matter entirely. She was tired by all the struggle and self-examination concerning it.
Immediately a change came over her aunt and a thin smile stretched her lips. ‘Eleanor, this is wonderful.’ She had expected a long drawn-out battle. By giving in, Eleanor had given her an unexpected gift. ‘I am well pleased, as I know Lord Taverner will be.’
Relieved, you mean, Eleanor thought. Relieved that you will not have the disgrace of an unmarried niece living with you and relieved that you will be closely connected to the Taverner family at last. And of course Lord Taverner would be both relieved and delighted.
‘I’m happy that you’ve put aside your whims and fancies and see that marriage to Martin is an excellent match.’ Her smile reminded Eleanor of a hoar frost. Privately Matilda had been disconcerted by Eleanor’s defiance in the past and was relieved that she had agreed to comply to her wishes, although she was curious as to what had brought about this change of heart in her high-spirited, strong-willed niece.