The following day she decided to leave the house to her new housekeeper’s enthusiastic efforts and turn her energy to the overgrown garden beds. Spring had come with full splendor, but the nights were still too cold for vegetables. She attacked the flowerbeds in front, weeding and trimming. She fell into bed exhausted that night and the next, delighted that her racing thoughts had begun to settle down.
By the end of the week, the beds were clean, and the hellebore, already in its last days of bloom, showed beautifully. Anemone appeared ready to take its place, and pansies lined the edges. Whoever planned this garden understood succession. She suspected it had been the countess.
Meggy considered what to do next. It would be the work of a day or two to prepare the kitchen beds for vegetable planting. The orchard badly needed mowing, but that job was beyond her ability. She thought she ought to ask Charles to hire someone to do it, and that thought brought a smile to her face. As she studied the grounds, a servant brought her a note from Eversham Hall.
Mrs. Blair
Jonathon Arthur Wheatly, Viscount Eversham, respectfully requests your attendance at a dinner Sunday next after church. We await your reply.
Respectfully
Murnane
“Murnane.” The very ducal signature made her smile, knowing the formality for the humor that was intended. She laughed at herself. At some point, plain Meggy Blair had become on a first name basis with a duke. The footman stood stoically inside her door waiting for her reply.
It amused her to pen, “Mrs. Blair accepts your gracious invitation.” She added less formally, “If you plan to attend church, please take me along.”
Ready for company, Meggy? She was, and the realization brought to mind the message from Rand that she had shut away the day she arrived. Perhaps I should read it before I see Charles.
On Sunday morning, she watched Charles bend earnestly to listen to a tenant, and the full realization about the man and his position hit her. These people depended on him. She waited patiently with Jonny, both of them the object of curiosity and whispers. “The woman at the cottage” didn’t worry her at all, but “the poor little viscount” had been loud enough for Jonny to hear. When she tightened an arm around him, he whispered, “I don’t mind, Mrs. Blair. I’m used to it,” but his eyes, still burdened with purple semicircles and heavy lids, held deep sorrow.
“Would you like to sit in the carriage?” she asked. He smiled in answer. The walk from carriage to pew and then back after the service had depleted his energy. Charles saw them climb into the vehicle and cut his conversation short.
“It’s okay, Papa. Mr. Covell needed to tell you about the road repairs.”
“We were finished, Jonny,” Charles said, pulling a blanket over the boy’s knees. “But we’ve been away too long.”
“I’m glad Mama decided to go away,” Jonny said without rancor. “I haven’t been to the country in ever so long, and I missed it. Do you think we can invite Toby and Drew down this time?”
The duke smiled at his son, but sadness, clear in his eyes, made him slow to answer. “Eversham Hall and its land are your heritage. I’m glad you like it here.”
Charles had been blunt with Meggy on the trip from London, speaking to her while Jonny slept. He avoided the Hall when his wife was in residence, which meant he had to squeeze in trips to meet with his steward and see to the estate between the demands of Parliament and his government duties, especially during the season. This time, with Julia gone and Jonny ill, he had taken leave and planned a long stay.
“It’s time I took back the house. When she comes back—if she comes back—she will find a different arrangement. She prefers the London house anyway, unless some current scandal nips at her heels.” The steely glint in his eye told Meggy he meant every word. She almost felt sorry for the missing Julia.
“So you only came home when she was gone?”
He shrugged. “Yes, or stayed with friends a few miles away. The shire is used to it. I don’t think they even bother with gossip any longer.”
“Why did you let her have your family seat?”
“She wanted the big house, and I wanted Jonny. We both got what we wanted. She agreed to stay away from him.” He had looked at her with bitter amusement. “A mother who doesn’t want to see her son. I can see that horrifies you.” It had, so they changed the subject.
Meggy enjoyed Sunday with Charles and his son but went back to the cottage eager to be home. She smiled as soon as she came in the door and hung up her cloak. Home. How has it come to feel familiar so quickly? Drew and Lena might like it, too, she thought.
She wandered into the kitchen where the letter she had opened the night before lay on the table, already wilted from being read over and over. She touched it with two fingers as if she could absorb its meaning that way. Next to it lay Rand’s gift, the deed to Songbird Cottage.
The house is yours if you want it Meggy, with no conditions attached. I hope one day you will share it with me, but it is yours to do with as you like. Live in it alone with the children, if you want. Sell it and buy another wherever you wish. You choose.
Rand
How on earth could I take such a gift? she wondered. What other choice do I have? The questions would keep. She planned to enjoy her stay.
Chapter 42
Three weeks later, Rand stood in his stirrups and gazed down the lane at his father’s house, while his impatient horse paused at the top of a rise. For the first time in his life, the sight didn’t fill him with peace and contentment. The roof needs work, and the road should be raked, but the flowerbeds have had care, he thought, his features twisted in a frown. The urge to gallop down in full master-of-the-house persona and invade Meggy’s peace overtook him, but he pulled back. Songbird Cottage was hers to do with as she pleased just as he had promised her.
May it please her to share her life with me.
Conscience nagged. Charles is right. I should warn her that I’m here. He turned his horse’s head back toward Eversham Hall, but the tug of his childhood home and the woman who held his heart slowed his pace, while he told himself over and over to let her make the approach.
Charles would notify her that Drew and Lena had arrived at Eversham. They shrieked through the massive nursery with Toby and Mary as soon as they were free from the confinement of travel. Jonny, wrapped in shawls, cheered them on from his chair. The children will draw her like bees to honey; she’ll come and be ecstatic to see them, he thought. She might be glad to see me as well.
A sturdy fence separated his land—Meggy’s land—from his cousin’s. He followed it uphill until he came to the orchard. Charles told him she had asked to have it mowed, and her care for the land warmed his heart. Glad for an excuse to linger, he dropped to the ground to inspect the work. A particularly old tree on the other side of the fence drew his attention immediately. The ancient apple tree required pruning, yet Rand hoped no one would ever do that. The tree and its overhanging branches lived in a dozen memories of the games it had sheltered. Rand and Charles delighted in the role of pirates. Fred, ever the hero, inevitably took the role of a brave captain of the Royal Navy who brought them to justice. At least he tried, Rand remembered with a grin.
“Inspecting the work?”
His heart jumped at the sound of Meggy’s voice. How did I miss her approach? She came toward him through the orchard to stand across the fence with a welcoming smile that lifted his load of worry.
“The work is well done, but no. I was remembering.” He glanced up at the ancient tree. “And getting in touch with an old friend.”
She followed his line of sight with a smile. “I didn’t expect you,” she said, still surveying the tree. He wasn’t sure if he imagined the hint of reproach.
“Sorry. I planned to send you word after I rode back, but I needed to see . . . the old place. Jonny w
rote to Toby, begging him to come. Will and Catherine sent me with the children. They plan to follow in a few days.”
“The children are here?” Fear that she might resent the family invasion fled in the face of her delight. A wide smile lifted her face, and joy glowed from her eyes when she spun in the direction of Eversham. For a moment, he expected her to climb over the fence and dart off, but she didn’t. She stared into the distance for a moment, before she turned back to Rand.
“The rest has been good for you,” he said.
“Work too, and the chance to get my fingers in the soil,” she replied. “I’ll never get used to idleness and servants waiting on me.”
He read a note of caution in her voice and wanted to shout, “Marry me, and you can work all you want. I promise you no servants!” Feeling foolish, he searched for something else to say, something inconsequential, something that put no pressure on her.
Color rose up Meggy’s neck, and he realized they had been staring at each other. “Drew and Lena will be overjoyed to see you appearing so well,” he said at last.
She glanced down at the faded work dress she wore and held up two scratched and dirty hands. “I was removing brush,” she explained.
“They won’t care,” he said, thinking he rather liked the way she looked. Damned fool. You like how she looks no matter what she wears or, if the angels are kind, doesn’t.
“Let me clean up, and I’ll go to them.” She began striding alongside the fence, one hand moving along the rail. He stood still for a moment, staring at her hand and longing to grab it and not let go.
Meggy turned to smile at him. “Why don’t you come down with me? We’ll go together,” she said.
His heart began to pound in his chest, and he had to draw a deep breath before he could make his feet move. He took the horse’s reins and did as she bid him.
They walked together, he on one side of the fence, she on the other and spoke not a word.
The desires of the heart and the machinations of the mind don’t always work in harmony. Wending along next to Rand, Meggy knew her heart yearned to pull him close, so close they merged into one. Her mind had thrown down block after block as a barrier since the nightmarish day in Bristol, but that sunny afternoon she couldn’t remember why.
She stole a glance to the side and saw his face. Worry left wrinkles around his eyes she longed to smooth out. He kept his face forward, lost in thought, until they came to a place where the fenced turned, and they turned too. Moments later, a stile gave her access to the lawn rolling down toward the cottage. She stepped up on it, and he put out a hand to help her over, the instinctive act of a gentleman, the sort of consideration she never had in her marriage. Flickers of what felt like flame jumped along her arm from the point of contact. When she put both feet on the ground, he dropped her hand, and she wondered if he felt the heat too.
He didn’t say, but his smile had more than simple courtesy, and when a flash of desire appeared in his eyes, she thought for a moment he wanted to devour her. He pulled his gaze away, dropping it down to his shoes in a way that implied he felt ashamed of his thoughts. He turned toward the house. “Shall we?” he asked, offering his arm. He didn’t look back at her.
Courtesy and respect lie deep in his bones, she thought. Rand’s difference from Fergus couldn’t have been more obvious to her, and she chided herself for thinking otherwise even for a moment. She took his arm until they neared the door.
He tied the horse to a ring set out for that purpose in front of the house. “I’ll wait here,” he said. “Take your time. I’ll use the wait to look around the old place.”
His crooked smile and the affection in his eyes when he gazed up at the house touched her. “Come inside. Please.” She surprised herself with those words, but she knew they were right.
His hesitance touched her, and for a moment, she thought he meant to refuse. Is it the house he fears, she wondered, or time alone with me? He opened the door for her.
She saw him pause just inside the doorway. Sunlight from behind surrounded him like a nimbus. His eyes moved up and down and from side to side while he surveyed the place before stepping forward and patting one wall. “Needs paint,” he murmured, “but mostly it feels wonderful.”
A grin took over, and he smiled before going to the door to his right and opening it on a sunny breakfast room. The room lay empty except for an old table. Meggy had kept it closed up. “My father commandeered this room for his work,” he told her. “It has the best light.” Meggy realized it did when she took the time to really see it. She wondered why she had hesitated to use that room.
He crossed to the parlor with its northeast-facing windows beginning to show the shadows of afternoon through lace curtains and a neatly set table, with a clean cloth and one place setting for Meggy’s dinner. Rand approached the four framed watercolors on the inside wall.
“Have these been here all this time?” he exclaimed.
“I found them in the attic. I guessed them to be Catherine’s work.” Each painting showed a different species of songbird near its favorite food or in its primary habitat. “They are exquisite,” Meggy said.
Rand nodded, his eyes on the paintings. “I’m so glad they weren’t lost. I took a few with me, and some are at Chadbourn Hall in Dorset, but we had so many more.”
“There are several more in storage that I haven’t had time to clean and hang,” Meggy told him.
The gratitude in his expression made her heart soar. She started to say, “You can take them with you,” but that wasn’t what she wanted, not in the slightest. She wanted the paintings, and with sudden clarity, she knew she wanted Rand.
In that moment, something else came into focus. She understood why Songbird Cottage felt so familiar as soon as she entered. She understood why she didn’t use the breakfast room. It was Rand’s room, his study.
“This is your house,” she said.
“No,” he replied. “It’s yours. I meant it, Meggy.”
She shook her head and waved his words away with one hand. “No, no. I mean your house is this one. You built the house in Canada as an exact duplicate.”
“Did I? Not exactly the same surely. That one is built of rougher lumber.”
“You laid it out along an identical plan, and you hung Catherine’s paintings. You reproduced Songbird Cottage in the wilderness.”
“You may be right!”
He began to prowl, peering into the kitchen, shiny from the housekeeper’s hard work; back through the parlor with the paintings; to the breakfast room with its memories of his father. He stood at the foot of the stairs and glanced back at Meggy with longing he couldn’t hide in his eyes.
“We had better be on our way, Meggy. Go up and get ready.”
She reached out and took his hand. “Come up with me,” she rasped, her voice thick.
“I can’t. If I come up . . .”
“I know,” she said. She tugged his hand. He followed her.
Chapter 43
Letting Meggy lead had been a curse and a trial for six weeks. Now it gave him nothing but pleasure. She finished removing his cravat and began to tug at his shirt, her nimble fingers going to the buttons of the fall on the front of his nankeen trousers when she couldn’t pull his shirt loose. He enjoyed a moment of gratitude for the narrow three-button fall when his trousers quickly dropped to his boot tops and his shirt unfurled half way to his knees.
She cast him a naughty look. “You don’t wear under-linen,” she said under arched brows.
“More convenient,” he murmured, capturing her mouth for a long kiss until she moaned against his lips and he released her.
“Let me finish,” she said, batting his hands away.
“Boots first,” he said, dropping to her chair. He raised an eyebrow and waited for her reaction.
She stood with arms akimbo and laughed at him. “That you may do yourself. I’ll wait.”
He leaned over, loosened one boot, and pulled it off. He had the other one half off before she lost patience and went to her knees in front of him to yank it loose and ease his trousers the rest of the way off. He thought he might expire from pleasure when she ran a hand up his calf and took away first one stocking and then the other. When her dainty hand slid up his leg to his thigh, he was sure of it.
When she ran both hands under his shirt, slipped them along his belly, and caressed lower yet, his head fell back, and he gripped the chair, determined to let her have her way and not tear at her clothes and ravage her as his every instinct cried out to do.
“The shirt,” she ordered, leaving him bereft when she stood and made short work of the three buttons at his neck.
“Ah, better,” she sighed when he surged to his feet and pulled the offending garment over his head. She took one step back, moving her head from side to side to study him, before walking all the way around. She came back in front and gave him a cat-like smile. He leaned forward and reached for her, but she stepped away, pointing to the bed.
He lay back and watched the woman he loved remove her clothing one article at a time. She didn’t hurry, but neither did she hesitate. She moved with precise and orderly care, folding each and putting it on the chair until he wanted to howl. He would have, but her eyes never left his, and he knew she needed the care.
When she bent over to untie the last garter and slip out of the last stocking, she rose slowly and blushed deeply, but didn’t try to cover herself.
The Renegade Wife Page 28