by Candace Camp
“Then who do you think is behind it? Aside from myself, of course.”
“I don’t really know why anyone would be trying to kill me, which is why I find it difficult to believe. All I’m certain of is that it isn’t Graeme.”
“If that’s true, why didn’t you tell him so?”
“I told him I didn’t mean it, but you can’t really ‘unsay’ things, can you? And he’s right; it will be better this way.”
“I see. So now that you’ve gotten what you wanted, you’ll toss him aside.”
“Toss him aside?” Abby stopped and faced Sir James, a flush of anger staining her cheeks. “I am doing what I can to make up for the wrongs my father and I have done him. He’s free to live as he wants now. He can see Miss Hinsdale every blasted day if he chooses. He won’t have to lie or pretend to feel what he doesn’t. And I won’t have to be there to watch him do it.”
Tears sprang into her eyes, and she whirled away, embarrassed. “I won’t stand here trying to justify myself to you.” She turned and stalked back to the carriage, Sir James politely trailing a few steps behind her.
Abby spent most of the rest of the journey with her eyes closed, pretending to sleep and doing her best to keep her stomach under control. That task was helped by the fact that Sir James stopped several times along the way, allowing her to get out and walk around a bit. She was surprised by his thoughtfulness, given his obviously poor opinion of her, but of course, as he had said, stopping was preferable to her being ill inside his luxurious carriage.
They pulled up to Lydcombe Hall late in the afternoon. By the time Abby stepped down from the carriage, the front doors had opened and Graeme’s mother was rushing toward them, arms outspread.
“Dearest girl! I am so happy to see you. What wonderful news!” Mirabelle engulfed Abby in a hug. Her mother-in-law was warm and soft and smelled faintly of jasmine. And, surprising even herself, Abby wrapped her arms around the woman and burst into tears.
“There, now, sweetheart.” Mirabelle patted her back, seemingly unperturbed by the sudden storm of tears. “It’s going to be fine. Don’t you worry about a thing. You’re home now.”
Strangely enough, Abby did feel as if she was home. Mirabelle swaddled her in such loving care it was impossible not to feel cherished. Abby loved Lydcombe Hall and its gardens, even in the autumn. Her bedroom was lovely and comfortable, the meals delicious. If she expressed a preference for any food, it was on the table the next meal. Her mother-in-law was happy to stay with her or leave her to her own devices, as it suited Abby’s mood. Abby was in the best of health, and the baby was, as well. Abby knew she should have been walking on air.
Instead, she was lonely and miserable and far too apt to break into tears. Even though she had not yet gained weight, her waist disappeared seemingly overnight. It was wonderfully freeing to give up her corsets, but equally lowering to let out the waists of all her frocks. The nausea began to recede, fortunately, but her moods swung up and down. She found herself snapping at poor Mrs. Ponsonby, whose constant and extreme solicitude grated on Abby’s nerves. Abby immediately apologized, of course, but it left her feeling both guilty and annoyed. She had always heard that a pregnant woman’s complexion glowed. Hers was pasty. Her hair had lost its sheen.
None of those things would have mattered, she knew, if Graeme had been there. It was his absence that made her ache, that turned her happiness to sorrow. She wanted to talk to him, to share every new and exciting change she was experiencing. Each time she walked through the gardens, she was bombarded by memories of being there with him. She thought of the way his eyes crinkled at the corners when he smiled, the way he turned his head, the heated, heavy-lidded way he looked at her when he was about to take her in his arms.
It seemed almost perverse that she should daydream about him, that her body should ache for his touch, his heat, his kisses. Abby would have presumed—if she had ever thought about it before—that a woman approaching motherhood would have higher thoughts somehow, her physical needs ebbing. But she had found that it was precisely the opposite. Her body betrayed her, yearning for pleasure, and her wayward mind made it worse, returning over and over again to Graeme’s lovemaking.
The days dragged by and became weeks. Each day she watched for a letter from him, but there was nothing except a few notes addressed to his mother, in which he always included a terse inquiry as to Lady Abigail’s health—she noticed he never called her Abby or his wife. Abby wrote him every day, but tucked each missive away in a growing pile, unsent.
Humiliatingly, she was even reduced to asking Sir James on one of his short, periodic visits if he had heard from Graeme. He glanced at her sharply, but said only, “Yes. A few times. He asks after you.”
She nodded. “That is courteous of him.” After a moment’s silence, unable to stop herself, she went on, “He is well?”
“If he is not, he doesn’t say so.”
“What does he— I suppose he is quite busy.” Abby picked at the monogram on her handkerchief.
“I don’t know. His correspondence is more peppered with questions than with details of his life in London. Perhaps, Lady Montclair, if you wished to know what he is doing, you might write him.”
“Oh, no, I’m sure he wouldn’t . . . he is busy and I, um . . .”
Abby blushed to the roots of her hairline, embarrassed by how much she had revealed of herself. It was clear that Graeme had removed himself from her in every way. She was nothing to him but the carrier of his heir. He did not care about her. He did not desire her. He did not miss her.
And she, who felt all those things for him, was trapped—not by this house or these people or even by the baby inside her, but by her own heart.
chapter 30
Graeme rolled out of bed. He couldn’t sleep anymore. Truth was, he rarely slept these days. He just lay awake and churned with feelings. Regret. Lust. Self-pity. Resentment. Pain. All those and a thousand more ran through him, unstoppable, unbearable . . . and utterly pointless.
He could not do anything about the situation. James had written him to say Graeme was being a fool, assuring him that Abby had told him she did not suspect Graeme. But Graeme knew that people were apt to tell James what he wanted them to say. And if Abby didn’t believe Graeme wanted to do away with her, why the devil didn’t she write and tell him that herself?
More than once, Graeme had sat down to pen her a letter, but each time he wound up tangled in a mess of explanations, pleas, and recriminations that would, he was sure, convince no one he was safe or, indeed, even sane. In the end, he would toss the letter into the fire, watching bitterly as the flames took it.
His only hope lay in proving he was not the culprit. To keep Abby safe, to win back her regard—if, indeed, he had ever had it—to make everything right again, he must find and punish the man who had tried to harm her.
Punishing him would be no problem. Just thinking about him made Graeme’s hands curl into fists, his brain buzz with bloodlust. Finding him, however, had proved rather more difficult.
He had tracked down the other contributors to the soldiers’ fund, but with little tangible results. None seemed to have the slightest knowledge of the finances of the charity, nor did any have even a whiff of scandal to relate. Eventually there was no one left to question except the retired vicar of St. Veronica’s. Graeme had written the parish asking for the man’s current whereabouts, but he had yet to hear from them. And why would Reverend Cumbrey know anything about an embezzlement?
Graeme had been sure the villain was David Prescott. He had hired a detective to investigate Prescott, and Graeme himself talked to every person he could think of who had anything to do with the man. But so far those efforts had proved just as futile as the rest of the investigation. And, really, if he looked at the matter with less heat, he had to agree with Sir James that it made little sense for Prescott to harm Abby. Abby’s death would not benefit Prescott. Indeed, it would not benefit anyone—including Graeme himself, for he wou
ld be left with only a great gaping hole in his life.
Just as he had been for three weeks now.
With something like a growl, Graeme began to throw on his clothes. Lately he had started getting dressed as soon as he arose, much to the dismay of his valet. But early in the morning, prowling around his room, he felt somehow more vulnerable to all the dark thoughts that plagued him at night. The starched shirt, the layers of waistcoat and jacket, the accoutrements of watch and chain, cuff links, and handkerchief—these things armored him. They were part of his orderly life, the one he’d lived before the whirlwind of Abigail swept in.
Better to have the binding cuffs, the ascot wound in just the right way and pinned. Far better than the soft glide of a silk dressing gown over his bare skin or the cool caress of sheets against his heated body. They were too-potent reminders of the sybaritic pleasures he had known and lost, stirring memories that skimmed below the surface, waiting to haunt him.
He cut himself shaving. Twice. He usually left that to Siddings. It was too woeful having to stare into his own eyes. But this morning, he could not stay inside. He had to move, he had to go somewhere. And however far he might have sunk, one could not go out unshaven.
Shrugging into his jacket, he trotted down the stairs to the small anteroom in which he’d taken to dining. Sitting at the formal dining room alone was like living with ghosts. Tea was already waiting on the sideboard there, with Norton standing by. He’d known he would be. It was impossible to arrive before Norton.
Graeme drank a cup of tea and picked at the plate of meats and eggs Norton laid in front of him. It would have taken a trencherman to eat what the butler presented. He and the cook were apparently in a conspiracy to save Graeme with food.
He thought about the small dining room at the Hall. Would Abby be seated there yet? No, far too early; she liked to sleep in. Abby would still be snug in her bed, curled on her side, dark curls tumbled all about her head, soft lips slightly parted.
Graeme’s fork clattered to his plate. He shoved back from the table. He could not just sit here. He had to move forward. He had to do something. And that something, he decided, would be to confront David Prescott. There was something there. There had to be something there, no matter how little the detective had been able to uncover.
The detective had given him the address of Prescott’s office. It was too early for him to be there, but that was all right. Graeme would walk; the chill in the air would help clarify his mind. And he wanted to be waiting when Prescott arrived.
Graeme was lounging against the wall an hour later when Prescott came up the stairs. Prescott saw Graeme as soon as he started down the hall, and there was a momentary pause in his steps before he continued toward him.
“What the hell do you want?” Prescott said without preamble, unlocking the door.
“I want to talk to you.”
“I gathered that much.” Prescott gestured inside. “Well, come in, then. I’d just as soon not start a shouting match in the hall.”
“I have no intention of shouting, Mr. Prescott.”
“No? That’d be a switch.”
Graeme suppressed his irritation and followed Prescott past a vacant clerk’s counter and into an inner office. Prescott nodded toward an uncomfortable-looking wooden chair and went around his desk to sit down behind it. “Now, what do you want to talk to me about?”
“My wife.” Graeme ignored the chair and leaned forward, bracing his hands on the desk and fixing his gaze on the other man.
“I would think you’d know more about her than I do, seeing as how you’ve whisked her away from town and her friends.”
“I have ‘whisked her away,’ as you say, so I can protect her. And I’m not here to find out what you know about her. I’m here to make sure you understand that I will not let you harm her.”
“Me?” Prescott’s brows shot up. “You’re saying I would try to harm Abby?”
“Stop calling her that,” Graeme ground out. “She is Lady Montclair. And what I’m saying is that you already have tried to harm her. But I won’t let it happen again.”
“I always thought you must be crazy, but now I know it. Why in the hell would I try to hurt her?”
“Because you’re afraid she’ll find out you were involved with her father’s schemes to blackmail me? The embezzlement?”
David Prescott gaped at him. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
From the man’s bewildered expression, Graeme was inclined to think he was telling the truth. “Then maybe it’s as simple as this: you covet Abigail. She is married to me; she’s carrying my child. You know you’ll never have her. And you cannot bear it.”
Prescott surged to his feet. “I’ve known that for ten years.” He came around the desk. “I’ll tell you this: I’ve thought a few times about killing you. But I never once considered hurting her. There’s only one person that would want her dead, and we both know who that is.”
“Don’t you dare try to turn this back on me.” Graeme moved closer to him, fists clenching at his side. “I would never hurt Abby. Never. I am trying to protect her.”
“If you’re so keen on protecting her, why is she immured in your little castle in the country while you’re here in London?”
“Because she’s as bloody suspicious as you are!” Graeme swung away. He would have loved to punch something, but he refrained, knowing he’d only look like an even bigger fool than he was.
“You’re saying Abby thinks you’re trying to kill her?”
“Apparently.”
Prescott let out an inelegant snort. “You really don’t know a thing about her, do you?” He looked at Graeme for a long moment, then sighed. “Look, I don’t like you.”
“That doesn’t exactly come as a surprise.”
Prescott ignored him. “But I’ll do you a favor anyway. If I thought Abby would leave with me, I’d take her away from you in a second. But there’s no way Abby would go. I know, because I offered.”
“What?” Graeme stiffened.
“I told her that I feared for her safety. I offered my help. Abby told me Molly was wrong. It was all nonsense, and you would never hurt her.”
“That’s a trifle different from what she said to me.”
“If Abby was scared of you, why hasn’t she fled? She’s got money; she’s got me; she’s got Molly. And she has a father who could slice you up six ways to Sunday and never turn a hair. If she wanted to, Abby would be on the next ship to New York, and I don’t care if you’re the Earl of Montclair or the King of England, you’d never get her back.” Prescott shrugged. “But you go ahead and deceive yourself all you want.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“I’m not sure if you’re a coward or a fool, Montclair. But it’s pretty damn convenient to put the blame on Abby for your desertion.”
Rage shot through Graeme. He grabbed Prescott by the lapels and slammed him into the wall behind him. “Damn you! How dare you say— I didn’t go with Abby because she didn’t want me.” Graeme gave him a last little bump into the wall for emphasis and released him.
“Oh, really? Well, if I had a wife and somebody had tried to kill her, I wouldn’t be sitting here whining about how she hurt my feelings. I’d damn sure be with her to make certain it didn’t happen again. No matter what she told me.”
Graeme left Prescott’s office in a fury. His mind raging, he strode aimlessly through the streets. He remembered the last night he had walked like this, lost in his thoughts, until he was literally lost, as well. That, too, had been about Abby. It seemed he always wound up in a daze over her. If he believed in magic, he’d think she had bewitched him.
Graeme had always tried to conduct himself as a gentleman. He didn’t intrude on others, least of all a lady. He wouldn’t think of forcing his attentions on her or even importuning her. One treated one’s wife with care and respect, and in that area he had fallen woefully short at the very beginning. It seemed the least he could do now w
as to leave Abigail alone.
It didn’t matter that he wanted her so much it hurt or that he was lonely or bored or missed her smile. Her laugh. Her eyes. Except, damn it, he did want her, and he was thoroughly miserable. And, truthfully, he was bloody tired of being polite.
What if Prescott was right? Was he a fool? Or a coward? Maybe he was both. Sometimes he felt as if he didn’t know anything anymore, least of all himself.
What if not imposing on Abby was merely a pretext, a way of holding himself apart, aloof? A way of avoiding the truth. What if it was just that he was frightened? Scared that he might tell her all this—how he felt, what he wanted, how utterly miserable he was without her, and she wouldn’t care?
He wound up finally sitting in Hyde Park. He felt adrift, unable to find the guidelines. It was hours before he dragged himself home. He avoided Norton, who sought to press more food on him, and shut the door on Siddings’s fussing.
Alone, he opened the door to Abby’s room.
The faint scent of her perfume lingered here, as tangible as a caress. His eyes moved around the room, finally stopping on the bed. He turned away from it and crossed the room, trailing his hand along the dresser. There was nothing on it but a lamp and a lace runner, no trace of Abby. The vanity was much the same, the little pots and bottles and cases that had sat there gone.
He thought of watching her brush out her hair or apply her perfume before a party. He remembered the way she would dab it behind her ears, on her wrists, between her breasts. His loins tightened with the familiar, insistent ache.
He opened the wardrobe. She had left a few dresses there, one of them the purple taffeta gown she had worn the night of Lady Middleton’s ball. The night their marriage had crashed into ruin. The last time they’d made love.
Graeme slid his hand down the dress, remembering the swish of it as she walked. He bunched the material in his fist. He thought of how he had stood across the ballroom, riveted by the sight of her in this gown, completely unaware of the conversation around him. Abby had turned and looked across at him and she had smiled, lowering her eyes as if she were a blushing maiden, but sending that wicked glance up at him.