“But you have returned, and I am no longer married, I have no children and you are in control, so there is no reason for you to be fearful, is there?”
He smiled at the note of optimism in her voice and hopped off the bed. He picked up the little lacquered tray holding their empty teacups, and stood looking down at her for a moment.
“I realized something else while staring into that looking glass… A life lived without sharing it with the one you love is a life only half lived…” He made her a quaint little bow of the head. “Please excuse me for a moment while I clear away the tea things…”
He took his time, stacking the clean plates, rinsing the teacups and the silver spoons with hot water from the samovar, and then carefully wiping the items dry before returning each to their allotted places on the tea trolley. The used sodden tea leaves were tipped into a tall porcelain jar with fitted lid, and the two teapots rinsed and replaced on their respective stands. He next cleaned the blue and white porcelain tea strainer and set it aside, before wiping his hands dry on a towel that he then folded and returned to its hook affixed to the side of the trolley. Confident the tea service was ready and prepared for his next cup of tea, he left the tea trolley and returned to his bed.
Caroline was sound asleep. He knew she would be. He had taken his time, time enough to make certain that try as she might to stay awake, she would not be able to fight her need to close her heavy eyelids and fall into a deep sleep. With his hands in the pockets of his silk banyan he watched her. He still found it hard to believe Caroline was in his bed, that it was her bright red hair that tumbled across his white linen pillows.
Earlier, when he had first come through to his bedchamber after depositing Boots the pug with his majordomo, his overwhelming urge was to throw off his banyan, help Caroline out of her thin nightgown with its pretty lace border to hem and neckline, toss her naked onto his bed and kiss her all over. He would make love to her as many times as she desired; prove to her he could make her happier than any other man alive. Instead he had curbed his overwhelming desire and calmly made them both a cup of tea.
It wasn’t that the confession and the late hour had drained desire. He was no less desirous of making love to her; his body offered him stark evidence of that. It was something less tangible but no less real to him. Was it pride? Honor? Self-conceit? Whatever name it went by, it demanded he remain true to his code of gentlemanly conduct. Maintaining his honor was as important to him as breathing. Without it he was no gentleman. He would not cheapen the ultimate intimate experience between a couple in love that should begin on their wedding night and not before. And so he tenderly brushed a long curl of silken red hair from Caroline’s cheek, softly kissed her forehead, tucked her up properly under the coverlet and retired to his dressing room. An uncomfortable night spent on his chaise longue was a small price to pay for a clear conscience and untroubled sleep.
He woke two hours later, bathed in a cold sweat, dreaming, not of his adored Caroline asleep in his bed in the next room, but of his sister, and he knew with depressing certainty he would never have the life he dreamed of with Caroline until Diana was dealt with, once and for all time.
Earlier that day, his sister had snatched from him the invitation to attend the Salt masquerade, eyes glittering with triumph. She proudly showed the gilt-edged card to Lady Dalrymple and Mrs. Smith. Not surprisingly, conversation throughout dinner and later, over coffee and macaroons in the Etruscan Saloon, was all about the masquerade ball, from what to wear, to who would be attending and the need to spend the few days leading up to the ball engaged in fittings for their costumes and visiting their friends also on the guest list.
Sir Antony had sat back in a gilded wingchair in the Saloon with his cup of tea, the silent male audience of one to these animated female discussions. He could have been a ghost upon an ethereal visitation, his presence forgotten. It mattered not. In truth, he was glad to be ignored. It gave him the latitude to watch his sister and, selfishly, imprint this memory of her: Beautiful and animated, brimming with excitement, consumed in the harmless pursuit of costume and mask.
Finally, he went off to his rooms overwhelmed with sadness. The invitation had begun to serve its purpose. Diana was lulled into a false sense of confidence as to her place in the Earl of Salt Hendon’s affections, for surely the invitation indicated forgiveness.
It was while undressing and his bath made ready, that he formulated a plan for Diana’s incarceration. With the help of his Russians, and Mr. T and his associates, he intended Diana to “die” the night of the masquerade. A heavy narcotic and finding her unconscious at the bottom of the stairs would lead Society and unsuspecting family members to believe she had fallen and broken her neck. There would be a funeral but no body. Only with her death could her children mourn, the family name be saved from ignominy, and life go forward. In truth, his sister would spend the rest of her days in the remote Russian wilderness from which the only escape was death.
However, he now had a better plan, thanks to his tête-à-tête with Caroline, he submerged in his bathwater and she seated on the bath stool at the end of his tub. He had listened and reacted to her heartfelt confession of her life since his departure for ’Petersburg with what he thought was equanimity and restraint. Just beneath this veneer, he seethed. Anger simmered and boiled up into fury as she poured out her heart, her deep shame and feelings of unworthiness to be his wife. He knew he was ultimately to blame for the four years of heartache she had suffered, and so most of the anger was self-directed, but he was not to blame for her loss of innocence at a public masquerade. He knew where to direct culpability for that. Although she had not said his name, it had not taken much deductive reasoning to conclude her seducer and her lover were the same man, and that man was none other than Dacre Wraxton MP.
He had a great desire to choke the life out of the rakish Wraxton, or at the very least pink him with the point of his sword and draw blood. However, the diplomat in him devised a much better scheme that would not only deal with Dacre Wraxton, but his sister, too. Society loved scandal and none better than one dripping with lasciviousness. Wraxton and Diana would run away together to the Continent, his sister would then subsequently die, perhaps by drowning on the Channel crossing, and Wraxton would write to Lord Salt with this tragic news. So Society would think, particularly when Dacre Wraxton disappeared at the same time as his sister. Sir Antony could not care less where Dacre Wraxton spent his exile, as long as it was a hundred miles distant from Caroline. He had every confidence the rakish MP would fall in with his plans. If not, a duel would soon change his mind.
Confident this plan would work, he was determined to put his sister out of his mind for the few hours of sleep left to him. He plumped the cushions, settled again as best he could on a chaise that did not sufficiently accommodate his length, thoughts on the love of his life snuggled up in his bed, and stared into the glowing embers in the grate until he fell asleep.
TWENTY-ONE
DIANA ST. JOHN SMILED at her own cleverness as she made her way to the nursery. She traversed the main staircase and passageways without rousing the suspicions of the footmen dozing at their posts in the lit alcoves she passed on her way to the third floor. She was so confident of not being caught that she threw back the hood of her scarlet cloak to better see her way around the interconnecting rooms. A smoldering fire in every grate and two candles burning in mirrored sconces in each room, provided warmth and a warm glow.
The children were fast asleep in their little beds. The nursery maids who watched over them during the night, should a little one wake and need resettling, were asleep on trundles or in chairs in each room. That there were no doors on the rooms aided Diana St. John’s ease of movement from one bedchamber to the next. She did not linger in any room but one. It was the bedchamber of two small children, a boy and a girl. Both were deep in an untroubled sleep on their backs, so she was able to get a good look at their little faces, cheeks flushed with warmth and brows smooth and
unworried. The boy had a mop of blond curls and the Sinclair coloring; the little girl, not much more than an infant, had a head of black ringlets, round cherry red cheeks and an angelic visage that had a great look of her accursed mother.
It was at the boy Diana stared longest. If she possessed a scintilla of motherly affection it was all for him, because he greatly resembled his noble father. But the moment passed just as quickly for this golden-haired boy had usurped her son’s place as heir to the Salt Hendon earldom, and that left a bitter taste and a resentful hatred. Not for much longer would this firstborn son be assured of his noble legacy, and that made her smile.
She glanced about the large room with its pretty gilded furnishings in pale blues and pinks with matching curtains, the fireplace with its safety screen, and at the plush carpets. A nursery maid was curled under a coverlet asleep in a chair. How simple it would be to set fire to the curtains. How long would it take before someone smelled burning textile, before the room was engulfed in flames, before the children suffocated in the haze of smoke? Yet, she resisted the urge because she could not allow herself to be implicated.
She needed to be seen as a savior in the eyes of the Earl, to be his only comfort when the time came for his family to perish in an inferno. And the perfect opportunity had been handed to her in the form of the masquerade ball. She almost squeaked her glee aloud at having received an invitation from Salt that very afternoon. Surely it meant his wife’s hold over him was waning, for she would never agree to a rival’s presence, and that was no surprise. Three children in quick succession would have faded the skinny whore’s looks. A man of Salt’s appetites required fresh, willing females to cater to his needs, any number of which she would supply once reinstated to her rightful position by his side.
With a legitimate reason to be in the house on the night of the ball, what could be simpler than disappearing to allow Mrs. Smith access to the house? She would set the fire, the Countess alerted that her children were in peril, and the entire family locked up with no escape from smoke and flame. Diana would rescue the Earl of Salt Hendon’s heir, only for the boy to die in her arms, despite her best efforts to revive him. Rescuing the boy would be tangible evidence of her devotion to the Earl; that the boy had died in her arms after every effort to save him would not be seen as her fault. She could hardly wait for that moment to arrive.
Not tonight.
Tonight she had come to collect what the useless niece of Mrs. Smith had been too cowardly to pry from the chubby fingers of this golden-haired child. She found the cloth monkey tucked down the side of his mattress by his pillow. According to Mrs. Smith’s niece, this absurd toy, a cloth doll that was supposed to resemble a monkey with a grinning face and dressed in a yellow shirt and short trousers, never left the boy’s side. Such overindulgence would not have been tolerated in her household. Her children were only permitted objects that had a practical or educational purpose, for how could children become well-behaved obedient beings if they were allowed to indulge their childish caprice? This monkey was another manifestation of that creature’s unsuitability as Countess of Salt Hendon, and it, too, would burn to ashes with the rest of the Earl’s family. But for now, she needed it. The monkey was necessary to coax the boy into her arms and away from his nurses and his parents, and the flames engulfing the nursery.
With the cloth monkey in her possession, she was ready to return to her brother’s townhouse in the manner she had left it, in the sedan chair, and without rousing the suspicions of the chairmen. For how else would the Lady Caroline return to Salt House none the wiser to the misuse of her mode of transportation and her servants? Shoving the cloth monkey under her cloak, Diana turned to leave and was confronted with a tall adolescent girl in nightgown and stockinged feet in the passageway, blocking her exit.
It was her daughter.
“Mama, that’s Ned’s monkey,” Merry said in a thick drowsy voice that indicated she was not awake. “Did you like my painting of Peter the Macaw? He’s a special bird…”
After a forced separation of four years, a mother’s natural instinct would be to rush to her child, to hug her, to kiss her, the need for physical contact overwhelming all other considerations to reassure the child they were loved and greatly missed. Not Diana. She was gratified to see her daughter in such good health, but the girl could not have chosen a worse time for a family reunion. That was to come later, with the Earl and Ron present, not before. She simply did not have the time to indulge the girl in her half-awake state. So with an arm about her thin shoulders, she coaxed Merry back to her bed. Asleep, Merry readily complied, and crawled under the covers.
“Goodnight, Mamma,” Merry said sleepily, settling her head on the pillow. “Granny and me… We are coming to call…”
Diana patted her shoulder, waited a few moments and was gone.
WHEN MERRY ASKED after her mother at the breakfast table the next morning, the Earl and Countess stared at one another in surprise. It was the first time in six months she had mentioned Diana. The only logical explanation, and one Merry readily accepted when she recounted what had happened the previous night to her Uncle Salt and Aunt Jane, was that she had had a dream.
“It was a dream, Aunt Jane,” Merry reassured herself, putting the silver butter knife on the plate. She offered Beth her last slice of bread and jam, which the little girl eagerly accepted, and looked from the Countess to the Earl, who were both attending to her, and then back at the Countess. “Ron told me once that if you want to dream about something or someone, that should be the last thought you have before falling asleep. It’s never happened to me before now. And I have never wanted to dream about Mamma because that would only make me sad…”
“That’s quite understandable,” agreed the Earl.
Merry nodded and let her gaze drop to the blue and white patterned plate, saying in a small voice, “I don’t want to see her…” She looked to the Countess. “I don’t have to see her, do I?”
“I’m sorry, Merry, I wish I had power over your dreams.”
Merry shook her head. She turned to the Earl.
“I wasn’t supposed to tell, but you said we should not have secrets if it makes us uncomfortable keeping them…” When the Earl nodded, a swift glance at his wife, she continued, a little more confidently. “It was to be a surprise for Mamma. Granny is taking me to see her today. I said yes, but I don’t want to see her without Ron and without you, Uncle Salt… Granny says we must go alone,” she added in a rush. “She says I must keep the visit a secret, but I don’t want to go. And I don’t like keeping secrets!”
“No shecrets!” Ned declared from his cushioned seat beside his father, mouth half full of bread and egg.
“And no speaking with our mouth full of food, Ned,” Jane mildly chastised her firstborn, though she was grateful for the outburst because it considerably lightened the mood and elicited a watery giggle from Merry.
“Mamma is right, Ned. But thank you for your contribution,” the Earl replied gravely, and though there was laughter in his eyes, he was thunderous beneath that Lady Reanay was foolish enough to attempt to go behind his back. “Thank you for confiding in us, Merry,” he said gently. “I gave you and Ron my word that if the time came to be reunited with your mother it would be in my company, and only if you wished it. I don’t break my promises.”
Merry nodded, her relief palpable. She frowned. “Granny will not be pleased with me…”
“You may leave Lady Reanay’s feelings to me,” the Earl stated, nostrils aquiver.
“I am certain that once your uncle gently explains to your grandmother how uncomfortable you feel about such a visit, she will understand,” Jane reassured her with a smile and looked to her husband. “Is that not so, my lord?”
Salt unlocked his jaw and inclined his head. “Be assured, my lady, that I shall be very gentle.”
“Was that all you dreamed, Merry?” Jane asked in a light tone, attention seemingly on cutting a piece of bread and butter in two.
> “I dreamed about my watercolors of Peter the Macaw,” Merry replied, suitably diverted. “Which one I would give to Uncle Tony. Kitty says Uncle Tony was very taken with Peter when he met him yesterday.” She addressed the Earl. “Will Uncle Tony be coming to call soon? I so wish to see him! Perhaps he would prefer a portrait of Penny Pug…?”
“I think your Uncle Tony will treasure whatever painting you decide to give him,” Jane said. “And not only because you have a talent for drawing, but because he loves you and has missed you greatly while he was away in ’Petersburg.”
Merry nodded with a smile. “Yes. He always told me so in his letters—about missing me—and that he keeps every one of my watercolors in a special folio.” She frowned. “Perhaps I will give him a watercolor of Peter… But I’ve painted much better portraits of Penny Pug. Peter is more colorful—”
“—and a lot louder,” the Earl complained with an exaggerated sigh he knew would have his niece giggling. “I’m surprised you didn’t say it was a bad dream when it was about that blue feathered fiend! I dream about Peter all the time.”
Merry’s brown eyes went very wide.
“Do you, Uncle Salt? Truly?”
“Yes! I dream of having him removed from my anteroom!”
“Uncle Salt! How could you?”
“To—to—Timbuktu!”
“Tim—bucket!” Ned chimed in.
He proceeded to show everyone about the table his wide-open mouth as proof he was not eating and talking at the same time. When his little sister squealed her delight to see her big brother’s gaping mouth of pearly white teeth and clapped her sticky hands, Ned opened his mouth wider, if that was possible, and for further effect, stuck out his tongue.
“Thank you, Ned. Now close your mouth, please,” his mother stated quietly.
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