Gareth heard the group of servants from Rothmere approach the clearing. He pulled his head inside and closed the window. Regardless of the reason she had gone, Faith still needed to be found.
The enormous house was silent and deserted. Candles burned here and there, indicating there had been someone within fairly recently. Search as she might, though, Faith found nobody. Not one servant. And not Gareth.
Repressing frustrated tears, she slowly climbed the wide staircase and made her way to the suite of rooms she was to share with her husband. The bed in this chamber was turned down, ready for him when he decided to turn in. Wood had been freshly laid in the fireplace. She wandered through the bathing area into her own room, then stopped transfixed in the doorway and caught her breath.
It was beautiful! Obviously, this room had been completed during the past few days, because it was lovingly and painstakingly decorated with her in mind. Everything was silver and gray and white. An expanse of soft, dove-colored, deep-pile carpet covered the floor. The bed curtains were fashioned from white tulle shot through with silver threads and tied back to the posts with ropes of shining pewter. Faith sank to her knees next to the white wrought-iron bench at the end of the bed and rested her forehead on the silver satin cushions. Gareth had done this for her. Somehow, she had to find a way to make things right between them.
The skin on the back of her neck prickled. Faith sat up in alarm, suddenly feeling as though she wasn’t alone. She glanced back quickly toward the bathing-room door, but it was closed. She frowned, certain she hadn’t closed it when she came in.
Perhaps, she thought, Gareth had come in. Had he seen her reaction to her bedchamber? Had he watched her walk through the room he’d designed for her and wondered if she was happy with it? Perhaps he had been disappointed in her quiet reaction, closed the door, and gone back into his own room.
Worried, Faith ran across the room and jerked the door open. She rushed back through the bathing chamber and into Gareth’s room. But it was empty, just as before.
Her mystification grew. It was obvious that Gareth had been here earlier and left, but what of the staff? What of the workers she’d seen all afternoon, busy making the estate habitable? Faith shook her head, confronted with two choices: she could stay here and wait for Gareth to return or go back to the cottage and talk to him tomorrow.
She recalled the brief uneasy feeling she’d had in her chamber, the sense that she was not alone. Suddenly, she didn’t want to wait by herself in this enormous, echoing house for her husband. And so, her mind made up, Faith took a last glance around the room and left.
Twenty-five
The cottage stood empty, dark, and desolate when Faith returned from Rothmere. As she entered the clearing, she looked around for John but did not see him. At first she was somewhat relieved she would not have to sneak past the footman to get back into the cottage, but then the full import of his absence hit her. He’d discovered she was missing and had gone to inform Gareth. Suddenly, the fact that the estate was deserted made sense. Gareth had every possible man out looking for her.
Her heart hammering, Faith crossed the small yard and opened the door. She didn’t even have to wait for her eyes to adjust to know that Gareth was there in the gloom. His voice came to her ears, dangerous in its softness. “I distinctly remember telling you to remain here.”
In the darkness, Faith pressed her lips together and didn’t respond. Her husband’s tone grated, causing her to forget her earlier resolution to make things right between them. She took a small step in retreat and placed her back against the closed door.
“You seem to have a great deal of difficulty following even the simplest of instructions.” Gareth waited a moment, then continued. “Would you care to tell me where you’ve been?”
Faith finally spoke. “No.” She pushed away from the door and walked toward the bedroom.
Gareth blocked her path. “I asked you a question, wife.”
Faith stopped and made no attempt to walk around him. “I answered it, husband,” she said calmly.
“Humor me. Pretend I like details.”
Faith answered softly. “I took a walk.”
“I see. Where did you go on this walk?”
Faith felt her composure begin to slip. She compressed her lips tightly, looked away, and refused to answer. Gareth waited before leaning to the side to look her in the eyes.
She looked the other way.
He took her chin between his thumb and forefinger and forced her to look at him. “Just a walk? I don’t believe you.”
Faith’s temper finally got the best of her. “I don’t care what you believe, my lord.”
He stared at her steadily for a long moment. She returned his gaze without flinching. Exasperated, Gareth grasped her upper arm and half-dragged, half-propelled her into the bedroom. “Pack,” he commanded.
Faith pulled her arm free and rubbed it, though he hadn’t really hurt her. “Where are we going?”
“Rothmere.” He crossed his arms and leaned against the door, obviously intending to keep her in sight.
Faith did as he instructed, though she was nearly blind with fury. She took her meager belongings from the single wardrobe in the corner and stuffed them into a trunk with little regard for the condition they would be in when she unpacked. Then she grabbed a small carpetbag and tossed a couple things in it for the evening, unsure if he intended to send someone for the trunk tonight or if he would wait until tomorrow. Gareth continued watching for a few moments before returning to the living room.
Faith finished packing, took a deep breath, and composed herself. She sat quietly on the bed and waited, thoughts tumbling around in her head. It certainly seemed as though she had married a madman. His emotions fluctuated wildly from one moment to the next with little or no warning. Sometimes he showed amazing tenderness, only to turn cold and aloof with no explanation.
When he reappeared in the doorway, she stood without a word and followed her husband from the room. Gareth doused the lone flickering candle he’d lit so that Faith might see to pack, and walked through the great room. He held the door open for her to precede him outside.
A footman materialized from the shadows near the door. “Get word to those still searching that the marchioness has been found,” said Gareth. The footman nodded and bowed, fading back into the shadows as quickly as he had appeared.
Gareth picked up the bag Faith had packed and offered her his arm, which she pointedly ignored. She began walking toward Rothmere, her eyes fixed on the road ahead. Gareth fell into step beside her, equally silent. Together, but worlds apart, they made their way home in the dark.
When they arrived, Gareth unlocked the front door and held it open for her. She walked into the magnificent foyer and knew a sudden sadness. Only hours ago, they had walked in this very door together, joking and laughing and enjoying their day together. This time, Gareth simply strode directly across the darkened hall to the staircase, the unspoken command for her to follow him hanging in the air. Beyond anger, beyond any feeling at all, Faith did just that.
They reached the master suite and went into Gareth’s room. Faith looked around. Nothing had changed since she left. She glanced at the connecting doorway to her chamber, looked again at her husband, and found him staring at her coldly.
“It does not matter to me where you sleep, princess.”
Stung, Faith lifted her chin and looked past him, fighting back tears she hoped he wouldn’t see welling in her eyes. She was spared embarrassment by a commotion at the door.
“My lord, where should we put this trunk?” Two footmen stood in the open double doorway, Faith’s trunk from London carefully balanced between them.
“The marchioness will instruct you where to take it,” Gareth replied.
Faith drew herself up stiffly and turned. “Follow me, please,” she said softly, and left her husband’s room. She nearly collided with John, who was hurrying down the cor—ridor at a reckless pace.
�
��Pardon me, my lady!” he said, bowing, but obviously anxious to get to Gareth. Faith smiled weakly and stepped aside, then nodded again at the footmen who had her trunk. She led them down the corridor to the hall entrance to her bedchamber.
John watched the marchioness go, his face troubled. He turned back to Gareth and opened his mouth to speak, then dosed it in surprise. The marquess was staring at the open doorway through which his wife had just exited, his expression stark with pain and longing.
The footman dropped his eyes to the floor and shuffled his feet, feeling as though he had somehow intruded where he did not belong. The scuffling sound brought Gareth out of his reverie.
“What do you need, John?” The marquess’s voice was short and clipped.
“My lord, it appears as though someone has vandalized the greenhouse.”
Gareth’s expression did not change. “We haven’t improved that building yet. How much damage could there be?”
“It’s not so much the damage, my lord, as it is the muddy footprints we found.”
Gareth raised inquisitive eyebrows.
“There are two sets, my lord,” the footman stated. “One set is small and was not made with boots.”
Gareth’s eyes widened, and then narrowed on the connecting door to his wife’s chamber. “I’ll be down to take a look myself in a few moments.”
John nodded and bowed, and left the room. Gareth stood still for a moment, not wanting his mind to take the next logical step. The timing, the footprints, the guilty look on Faith’s face when she’d come into the cottage, her refusal to admit to her whereabouts…It all added up to some pretty damning evidence.
He walked across the room and quietly locked the door to the bathing room. He thought of Faith running from him earlier that afternoon on their walk to Rothmere, her hair streaming behind her in a bright golden cloud, her skirts flying up around her knees. Laughing. Carefree. He clenched his teeth in an effort to control the painful direction of his thoughts and closed his eyes. After a moment, the pain receded, replaced by a welcome numbness. He left the room and walked down the corridor to Faith’s chamber.
Faith stood at the window, reflecting on the changes that had come about so quickly in her life. She had always managed to keep all the pieces and players of her life moving in a perfectly synchronized dance. No surprises. No unexpected steps. Until Gareth.
She’d met Gareth, and in one fell swoop the reins had been snatched from her fingers. Every time she tried to regain her equilibrium, the man she’d married pulled the rug from beneath her. She had never felt so disoriented, so confused.
She had also never felt so alive.
Now, however, everything felt wrong, and she did not know why. What had she done to make him withdraw so completely? It couldn’t only have been her distraction during the tour of the home he so obviously loved, could it? They had come so far from the misunderstanding on their wedding day. To end up with this made no sense.
That was the way Gareth found her, standing before her window, lost in reflection. She had left the door open, and he paused there, just looking at her for a moment. Her hair was down, glowing golden in the light from the candles, and she appeared lonely, he admitted—almost bereft, quite young and very vulnerable. Gareth fought an almost irresistible urge to go to her, to pull her into his arms and make everything right again between them.
He stepped into the room, unsure of his intentions, knowing only that he wanted to end this horrible tension. He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it, his eyes riveted to the floor next to her bed. There, placed neatly next to one another, were the slippers Faith had worn that afternoon. They were covered in mud.
Cold fury swept through him, replacing the momentary tenderness he had felt. He clenched his teeth and tore his eyes from the slippers that told him all he needed to know about his treacherous wife. “Faith,” he said quietly.
She whirled around at the sound of her husband’s voice, hope soaring inside her—hope that abruptly died when she saw the expression on his face.
“Do not leave this room.”
Faith stared at him a moment, her features impassive. Then, without a word, she turned back to the window. She did not hear Gareth leave, but she did hear the door close, and then a moment later the sound of the key turning firmly in the lock.
Her husband had imprisoned her.
Twenty-six
Grace Caldwell sat up in exasperation, tossed back the covers, and swung her feet over the side of the bed. She was reaching for her dressing gown when Trevor spoke, his voice rough with sleep.
“Should I be worried that you’re leaving my bed in the middle of the night?”
She smiled and looked over her shoulder at her husband. “No. I’m just restless, darling. Go back to sleep.” She slid to the floor and padded over to the window. The muted sounds of London at night reached her ears but did not manage to distract her from her worries.
“What’s bothering you, love?”
Grace bit her lip and regarded him with sheepish eyes. “I think I may have done a really bad thing.” She pulled her dressing gown more closely around herself and rubbed her arms. “I mean, I thought I was doing a good thing, but the more I think about it, the more sure I am that there’s no way it could have worked out quite as I’d intended, and the opportunity for misunderstanding is huge, and…" She stopped to take a breath and shivered.
Trevor chuckled. “You’re freezing. Come back to bed and try to tell me without rambling on in that breathless way of yours what you’ve done.”
Grace slipped off her dressing gown and climbed back into the large bed. Trevor slipped an arm around her waist and pulled her back up against his chest, settling her into his body, spoonlike. “Now,” he said soothingly. “Start at the beginning.”
So Grace told him about Faith’s fears about entering into a loveless marriage, and how she’d come up with the idea that Gareth should agree to wait to consummate their marriage until Faith was ready, and about how she’d talked to Gareth just before the ceremony. At that point, Trevor interrupted.
“Wait. You told Gareth, only moments before he was marrying your sister, that she didn’t want to make love with him but that she wanted to marry him anyway?”
Put that way, Grace realized exactly how Gareth must have felt, and could see that she’d effectively backed him into a corner. “That’s exactly what I did,” she said miserably.
Trevor did his best not laugh, but his shoulders began shaking with the effort to suppress his mirth. Grace turned indignantly in his arms.
“Don’t you dare laugh, Trevor Caldwell. I have a terrible feeling something’s gone very wrong with them.”
“Oh, I’m sure Gareth would quite agree with you there, darling.”
She fumed in silence while her husband continued to chuckle. After a moment, she said, “I want to go to Rothmere.”
“No.” Trevor’s voice was instantly sober. “No more interference.”
“But—”
“No, Grace. You’ve done enough. That poor man probably hasn’t even consummated his marriage yet. I can’t imagine he’d be happy to have the reason he’s currently celibate show up as a houseguest!”
She chewed on her lower lip in the darkness, searching for a way to convince her husband to let her go. His breathing was just beginning to even out when she came up with a plan. “I know!” Her voice was triumphant, and Trevor cautiously opened one eye. “I’ll send Patience.” He remained silent. “And Mercy, of course.”
With a groan, Trevor propped himself up on an elbow and leaned over his wife, knowing she wouldn’t rest until she had the entire Ackerly clan camped out at Rothmere on some sort of marriage-consummation watch. If he didn’t stop her, she’d have the maids checking the sheets as if performing some archaic medieval ceremony every morning to report whether or not the deed had been accomplished. “You’ll do no such thing. We’ll leave tomorrow, ourselves.”
Grace smiled gratefully, then gasped as he ran o
ne hand up her rib cage and cupped her breast in his palm. “What are you doing?” she asked with a breathless little laugh.
He dipped his head and brushed his lips against hers. “Making love to my wife,” he said in a gruff whisper. Then he added, “Because I can.”
Gareth stood in the middle of the destroyed greenhouse, wondering how someone could do this and not be heard. Broken glass and shattered pottery littered the room. A large shard of glass fell from one of the panes, crashing loudly to the floor. Everyone flinched. Everyone except Gareth. The marquess remained impassive.
“The entire household was gone for a little while, my lord, while we were out looking for Lady Roth.”
Gareth looked again at the damning double set of footprints. Brief pain shot through him as he considered what the second set, much larger than the first, indicated: Faith had a lover. It was the perfect explanation for the secrecy and collusion, and the evidence was right before his eyes.
He turned away from the group of men awaiting his instructions, silently cursing himself. He should have seen it sooner. No wonder she hadn’t wanted to consummate the marriage right away. He would have known beyond a doubt that she was not a virgin.
Looking back at the assembled servants, he ordered, “Clean up this mess and get back to your usual schedules.” He nodded at John. “Come with me.”
John followed Gareth through the house to his study, listening as the marquess rapidly issued instructions. “Choose two more good men so you can work in eight-hour shifts. I want my wife watched at all times. She will stay in my room at night, but I still want someone on post outside my chamber door. She will be free to go where she wishes during the day, but someone is always to be with her.”
“Yes, my lord,” said John. The footman hesitated a moment to see if there would be anything further, then bowed and left the room.
Gareth watched his servant go, carefully considering his options with regard to the night. He did not look forward to sharing a room with Faith. Despite the fact that he knew her to be treacherous and deceitful, the fact remained that she always managed to get under his skin. If he left her locked in her own chamber, though, he had no doubt she would find some way to escape.
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