She shifted on the bed to face him. “Why didn’t you tell me about her?”
“I didn’t remember her.” Strangely enough, it was true. Not that he’d have volunteered the information if he had remembered. All he wanted was for her to stop.
Maybe if he told her several hundred more times, she might start listening.
Probably not.
“Evidently nobody else remembered Maude, either,” she said. “I find it very odd that she wasn’t on Peggy’s list.”
“She was a little bird of a woman, quite elderly. I wonder if she’s even still alive.”
“Lizzy wondered that as well, but I’m hoping she is. As she was closest to your uncle, she’s my best hope for information. Ernest and I were on our way to see her when I took my little tumble.”
”Little tumble?” he scoffed. Leave it to Alexandra to trivialize such a thing. “For pity’s sake, you could have broken your neck!” Remembering something, he dug a small bottle out of his pocket. “I fetched this for you.”
“What is it?“
“Laudanum.” He handed it over. “I thought it might help you. Dull the pain and help you to sleep.”
“How old is this?” She popped the cork and sniffed.
He shrugged. “I have no idea.”
“There’s hardly any in here.”
“You’ll want to take only a little, anyway. You can overdose on laudanum.”
“I don’t hold with taking medicine. Not unless I have to, and I’ve told you, I’m fine.” She replaced the cork and handed back the bottle.
“Lie down at least,” he said with a sigh. “Your head will feel better if you rest.”
For once, she listened, which made him suspect she felt worse than she’d admit. “It’s dented,” she said mournfully when she was once again settled on the pillow.
“Your head?”
“My beautiful basket.” She gestured to where someone had set it on a table. “It took the tumble with me.”
He rose and went to examine it in the light from the window. “It’s not too bad. I don’t expect anyone would ever notice, although I’m certain we can have it fixed.”
“No.” She gave him a shaky smile. “I believe I shall think of it as a battle scar.”
“I only hope your own battle scars end up being so minimal.” He set down the basket. “Maybe Peggy was right. Maybe you should go home until everything here settles down.”
“This is my home,” she said quietly.
The simple statement moved him. Despite all his worry, all his dread, all the anger beneath the surface of his calm, he felt a rush of warmth and gratitude. It lifted him.
“I’m not sleepy,” she said. “I’m sore, but I’m not tired.”
That was why he’d brought the laudanum, but he wouldn’t force it on her. He should have guessed she’d be too stubborn to take it.
Her family’s cookbook and the blank book he’d given her were stacked together on the bedside table. “Here,” he said, handing them to her. “You can copy the recipes you wanted.” He shifted on his feet, and then, unable to help himself, added, “And think about whether continuing this investigation is really wise.”
Her eyes flashed, as he’d known they would. “If Maude knows nothing, there will be nothing left to investigate. But I’d be a fool not to question her.”
He’d known she would say that, too. “It isn’t foolish to protect yourself, nor to abide by your husband’s wishes.”
She kept quiet for a moment, but something in her expression hardened.
“This is beautiful,” she finally said conversationally, turning the blue leather book over in her hands. After another moment, she looked up at him. “But I hope you haven’t been trying to buy my cooperation with these gifts, because my convictions aren’t for sale.”
He hadn’t known she would think him so calculating. The warmth inside him went cold as he left her in peace.
Chapter Fifty-Three
LEMON PUFFS
Beat the whites of four eggs till they rise to a high froth. Then add as much sugar as will make it thick; then rub it round for half an hour, put in a spoon of lemon peel gratings and two spoons of the juice. Take a sheet of paper and lay it on as broad as a sixpence and as high as you can. Put them into a moderately heated oven half a quarter of an hour, and they will look as white as snow.
Give these sweet-and-sour biscuits to a sour person you wish to turn sweet.
My husband has never proved immune.
—Elizabeth, Countess of Greystone, 1747
All that long afternoon and evening, Alexandra had a lot of time to think.
After a short nap, her head felt better. The rest of her was achy, but not intolerably so. She copied some of her favorite recipes as Tris had suggested, then called for Peggy to help her dress for dinner. The maid was still in a snit, so for once she didn’t babble, which suited Alexandra just fine. When she was ready, she waited for Tris to come escort her to the dining room.
A tray arrived for her instead.
She ate little, the food sticking in her throat. She knew she had hurt Tris terribly. I hope you haven’t been trying to buy my cooperation…even as she’d said it, part of her had been shocked to hear the words come out of her mouth. She wondered what had happened to traditional, ladylike Alexandra. This crusade for truth and justice had turned her into a girl she scarcely recognized, and turned her fairytale romance into an ugly cycle of hurt, anger, and guilt.
She’d managed to destroy her marriage inside of a week. It had to be some sort of record.
At ten o’clock she changed from the dinner dress into one of her new nightgowns, a blush-colored confection that she hoped would help soften Tris’s resentment. She belted a wrapper over it and waited. The clock struck midnight before she heard footsteps in the corridor.
She hurried to open the door, to welcome him, to do what whatever it took to mend things between them. But he wasn’t coming toward her. At the far end of the corridor, he was opening the door to the Queen’s Bedchamber.
Wearing only tight trousers and a white shirt, with the collar open and the sleeves rolled up to expose his forearms, he looked worn out and wonderful all at the same time.
“Tris,” she called softly.
He turned. “Good night.”
“You’re not going to sleep in there again, are you?” She started down the corridor, forcing her lips to curve in a smile. “If you’re going to go out a window anyway,” she said lightly, “there hardly seems a point.”
“I had bars put on the windows. I won’t be going anywhere tonight.”
“Bars?” Having reached the room, she looked past him and inside. It was dark outdoors, but she could just make out faint stripes that must be iron rods outside the glass. “That seems a little extreme, doesn’t it?”
“Nothing is too extreme to protect you,” he said, unblinking.
Indifferent. Uncaring.
She swallowed hard, any pretense of normalcy gone. “I’m sorry for what I said. Please don’t pull away from me, Tris. I love you.”
“Good night,” he said again and turned to enter the room.
Although she certainly hadn’t expected to hear those three words echoed back at her, neither had she expected them to be ignored entirely. “Wait,” she said, grabbing his wrist.
She’d been fighting it all along, but she knew what she had to do. She’d thought of little else for the past few hours.
He glanced dispassionately down to her hand. “Yes?”
His skin felt warm, but his arm felt tense. She grasped him tighter. “I’m not going to do the last interview. I’m not going to talk to Maude.”
He blinked at her. “Why?”
“It’s the only way I can prove I my love. Prove that I’ll stay with you even if we remain in disgrace for the rest of our lives. I don’t care about society, Tris—I don’t need their parties or their approval. I never have. I’ve been doing this for you and for my sisters. But my sisters will
cope. You’re my husband, and you’re more important. My loyalty to you comes first.”
She couldn’t think of anything else to say. So she waited. He looked down again to where her fingers gripped his arm, and she released him and waited some more.
“All right,” he said at last. “Thank you. I’m sure I’ll sleep quite soundly tonight.” Then he stepped into the room and closed the door—without even so much as a kiss.
While she stood there, stunned, Vincent walked up, as if on cue, and slid a key into the lock. “Are you all right, my lady?”
“I’m fine,” she said woodenly. “I believe I shall go make some sweets.”
“Now?” Vincent asked in surprise. His gaze went to her bare feet.
“Now,” she said, belting her wrapper more tightly.
She refused to spend another night on the floor outside her husband’s room.
“Well.” He seemed at a loss. “The ovens will be cold. Let me accompany you downstairs and light them for you.”
She fetched her new recipe book before following him down the gaslit staircase, flipping pages as they crossed the great hall to the back passage.
“Lemon puffs,” she decided. According to some long-dead cousin or aunt, they were supposed to turn a sour person sweet. Heaven knew, given Tris’s current attitude, she could use all the help she could get.
In the kitchen, she gathered eggs, sugar, and lemons while Vincent started the brick ovens. Just as she began separating the first yolk from the white, Mrs. Pawley walked in. “What’s going on here?” she asked through a yawn.
The cook’s round body was covered by a voluminous white nightgown and her feet were as bare as Alexandra’s. Dressed as always like a perfect gentleman, Vincent answered with great dignity. “We’re making lemon puffs.”
“We?” Alexandra and Mrs. Pawley said together.
“We,” he confirmed, reaching for a lemon.
Mrs. Pawley went to a cabinet and took out a bottle of sherry and three glasses. When she filled Alexandra’s to the brim, Alexandra didn’t protest. Instead she took a generous sip and felt the rich wine warm her all the way down her throat and into her stomach.
She hadn’t realized she’d been so cold.
She pushed up her sleeves and cracked another egg.
Grating sugar, Mrs. Pawley eyed a bruise on her arm. “You had a rough day, from what I’ve heard. Are you up to this, my lady?”
“Oh, quite. I’m halfway healed already.” She took another sip, deciding the sherry must be healing her even faster. “Tomorrow I’m sure to be good as new.”
Two kitchen maids wandered in, also wearing plain nightgowns. “What’s going on here?” one of them asked.
“Come in,” Alexandra said brightly. “We’re making lemon puffs.” She took another sip. “However did you know we were in here?”
“They sleep right down the corridor,” Mrs. Pawley said, fetching another bottle of sherry and two more glasses.
There was much beating to do of the egg whites, in order to make them nice and stiff. And after that, they were supposed to be rubbed together with sugar for half an hour. Alexandra appreciated all the help. She was a bit sore for such strenuous work, and while the others had their turns, she could relax and drink more sherry.
Before long, three housemaids and two footmen had joined them, and it was quite a while before her turn came to beat the eggs. In fact, she was so busy sipping sherry that she missed her turn twice. When they weren’t occupied beating eggs, the servants took turns telling jokes. Alexandra thought they were quite the funniest jokes she’d ever heard, and when she told one or two herself, everyone laughed even when she stumbled over the words.
She rather suspected they laughed mostly because she was their mistress, but their support cheered her all the same.
By the time the lemon puffs came out of the oven, shiny and white as snow, five bottles had been emptied and the kitchen rang with laughter. “You must serve these to my husband first thing in the morning,” Alexandra told Mrs. Pawley as she peeled the finished puffs off the brown paper on which they had baked.
“Our fine master cannot abide sweets in the morning,” the cook pronounced with formal reserve. Then she dissolved into laughter that brought tears rolling down her plump cheeks. Everyone else laughed, too. One of the footmen—Alexandra couldn’t remember his name—even snorted once or twice.
“For luncheon, then,” Alexandra instructed. Noticing no scullery maids had joined them, she waved a hand magnanimously—or rather, flung it somewhat flamboyantly. “You may leave this mess until morning,” she trilled as Vincent grabbed her to stop the momentum from tipping her over.
She quite liked her new servants, she thought as she giggled her way up to bed, Vincent close behind in case she should fall. She’d never had so much fun in the kitchen at Cainewood Castle.
The lemon puffs had better turn Tris from sour to sweet, because she wasn’t going to be leaving Hawkridge Hall anytime soon.
Chapter Fifty-Four
The next day, Alexandra was not good as new. To the contrary, her head ached abominably, her stomach felt queasy, and her body was stiff and more sore than yesterday. She didn’t know whether Tris was served the lemon puffs with luncheon, since she couldn’t seem to force herself out of bed. Even the daylight seemed to make her hurt.
Peggy came in from time to time, clucking and leaving Alexandra cup after cup of strong, hot tea. Alexandra wasn’t certain whether the clucking indicated sympathy or disapproval, and she didn’t really care. As long as Peggy left the drapes closed tight and the gaslights off, she could ignore her. She ignored the tea as well for the first few hours, but after a while she started sipping it, and after a few cups, she started feeling slightly better.
By late afternoon, she finally felt well enough to dress and rejoin the world. Since her battered body didn’t want to move, she allowed Peggy to help her, enduring still more clucking. At long last, she stiffly made her way downstairs, going straight to the main parlor and the new pianoforte.
It was magnificent. She walked around it reverently, trailing a hand along the fine, polished mahogany. Finally, she stopped in front and hit middle C. The single note sounded so rich it sent a tingle down her spine.
She sat down to play, choosing Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 14, long one of her favorite pieces of music. “Quasi una fantasia,” he’d called it…”Like a fantasy.”
Indeed, only a few notes into the first movement, she lost herself in the fantasy. Her beautiful new pianoforte sounded like a dream. The minuet and trio that made up the second movement flowed effortlessly from her fingertips, and when she reached the stormy final movement, exhilaration seemed to carry off her burdens. All the pain and heartache she’d been carrying poured out of her and into the performance, leaving her with a sense of peace as the last note faded away.
She heard applause. “Brava,” Tris called from the doorway.
She turned to him with a tentative smile. “You’re not scandalized? Most of the older people of my acquaintance find Beethoven’s style too passionate and therefore unfit for young, impressionable ladies.”
“Do you think me that old?” he wondered aloud.
“When we were younger, six years seemed like a vast age difference.”
He nodded slowly, as though he were remembering, too. “You played the piece wonderfully,” he said, “scandalous or not.”
“It’s a wonderful instrument.” She wouldn’t feign modesty, because she’d played better on it than she ever had. “I thank you for it.”
“I didn’t buy it to bribe you,” he said quietly.
“I know.”
The two words hung between them. “Shall we go in to dinner?” he finally asked.
It was her turn to nod. He placed a hand beneath her elbow to help her rise. It seemed the curative powers of Beethoven were temporary, for all her sore and tender spots had returned.
Including the emotional ones.
If Tris wasn’t d
ismissive, he wasn’t particularly friendly, either. Their dinner passed in relative—and relatively awkward—silence, the rattle of dishes and clang of cutlery more prominent than conversation. It seemed ages before Hastings placed the bottle of port on the table and left them alone, closing the dining room door behind him.
“None for me,” Alexandra said.
“Hmm.” Tris poured some for himself, a wry smile curving his lips. “Could it be you overdid it in the kitchen last night?”
He’d heard. Well, of course he’d heard. Not only was he the lord of the manor, his own valet had been there as witness.
“I made some lemon puffs,” she said, ignoring his implication.
“Yes, and they’re quite delicious. I had two after luncheon. While you were sleeping off the sherry.”
“I was sleeping off the pain,” she protested. “My body is complaining even more today than yesterday.”
He nodded. “That’s not unusual. You’ll be on the mend by tomorrow, no doubt.” He paused for a long sip, then met her eyes, his own a penetrating gray. “And I will take you to see Maude.”
She couldn’t have heard right. “Pardon?”
“We’ll take the curricle, since I’m certain you won’t feel up to riding.”
Tristan watched the parade of reactions cross her face: disbelief first, followed by relief and then cautious joy. “Are you sure?” she asked.
“I’m sure.”
“I told you I was giving up. I meant that, Tris. It’s what you wanted.”
He took her measure for a moment and decided she was sincere. But he’d already known that. ”Are you trying to talk me out of it?”
She shook her head emphatically.
“I appreciate your willingness,” he told her. He appreciated it more than she’d ever know. “But I cannot allow you to give up. Not this way.”
Glad to see hope returning to her eyes, Tristan kept his expression carefully neutral. He didn’t want Alexandra to see the dread that had settled over him as he granted her wish. He’d realized he couldn’t let her wonder all her life if her investigation might have succeeded—it would eat at her, the not knowing—but though he’d made the inevitable decision, he couldn’t say if it was the right one.
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