Alexandra didn't know what he was talking about. She hated it when he got melancholy like this. He didn't make any sense.
She stepped in front of him and lifted his hands, bringing them around her waist so that she could lean against him and look out the window. "I guess this means we have to go to London, hmmm?"
"I thought you wanted to go back."
"Oh, I do." How could she tell him now that she was beginning to reconsider her own words. It was too late. They had to go. "I miss England," she lied. The truth was, she missed the forest. "There'll be so much to see and do again. We'll be busy. I know you'll have a great deal to do if your father—"
"—If he's already dead."
"Yes." She stroked his broad hands. "You'll be the Earl of Dunnon."
"And you the Countess of Dunnon."
She sighed. "I know so little about you, that I feel foolish sometimes. You mention your father, but never your mother. What of her?"
"My mother died when I was very young."
"And your father never remarried?"
"No." He smiled to himself. "I think he had a love affair with our housekeeper that ran for twenty-five years, but he would never admit it. If they were lovers, they were very discreet about it."
"No brothers or sisters?"
He smoothed her hair with his hand. "No, it was just father and me, and then Jon of course. He was my brother if not in blood, then in soul." He kissed the top of her head. "My father always said he regretted not leaving more heirs."
She turned in his arms, lifting her hands up to rest them on his broad shoulders. "So take me to your home and we'll make a line of heirs for your father, a line that will stretch on for centuries." She kissed him softly and then rested her cheek on his chest.
She knew this was the right thing to do. They would go home to London. Hunter would take up his duties as his father's heir and the two of them would make the life together she had dreamed of as a young woman. Everything was going to be fine. She had been brought up to be a nobleman's wife. He had been trained since childhood for the day he would take his father's title and lands. Their life would be as it was meant to be.
So why did she have this sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach?
Chapter Twenty-three
Dunnon Castle
Outside London
February 1723
"Father." Hunter offered both hands to the man who lay in the center of the soft feather tester. He looked so small to Hunter, so old.
"Geoffry! My God, my Geoffry!" He squeezed Hunter's hands, but there was little strength left in him.
Hunter threw his arms around his father, hugging his frail body. His skin was paper thin, his fragile frame nearly weightless. There was nothing left of the strapping man he had known, but a bag of hollow birdlike bones. "I missed you, Father," Hunter murmured, squeezing his eyes shut. "So many times in the last years I turned to speak to you and you weren't there."
Tears shone in the Earl of Dunnon's pale grey eyes as he lay back on his pillow, winded. He shook his head. "God help you son, you look like I did thirty-odd years ago! Look at him, Mab, doesn't he look just like me?"
Mab, once the housekeeper, now the earl's nursemaid, smiled, her wrinkled face reflecting the happiness of another time. She nodded her head from where she sat discreetly in the corner of the room, far enough away not to intrude on the reunion of father and son, but close enough to aid the man she loved, if he needed her. "Aye, he looks just like ye, Horace. Just as if he was spit from your mouth all brawny and cock-certain of himself."
"And it's you, Father, I have to thank for all the taunting I've gotten over this red mane." Hunter grabbed a straight-backed wooden chair, turned it around, and straddled it so that he could lean forward on the back. "I have to admit, I've cleaned up many a tavern over my hair color."
The earl laughed heartily, touching his own sparse white hair. "I'll tell you the truth, Son, I was glad to see that orange fuzz the day your mama brought you into this world, God rest her soul."
"God rest her soul," Mab echoed.
"I knew it would make you tough," the earl went on. "I knew it would make you a man I could be proud of."
Hunter rose up off the chair and began to pace in the bedchamber. The heavy draperies were drawn shut, leaving the room in the semidarkness of tallow candlelight. Hunter felt hemmed in. The chamber smelled of stale air, herbal poultices . . . and lingering death. "Father, I've not always made you proud. What I did was wrong, or at least the way I went about it. I shouldn't have run off."
The old man waved his hand. "No need to speak of that. What's done is done, my son. What's important is you've come home to Dunnon Castle, home to take my title and monies, home to let me die in peace. I told Mab I wouldn't die until I saw you again." On the last word Hunter's father launched into a coughing fit. He choked and wheezed until Hunter thought his father would cease breathing. Mab rose off her chair and came to sit on the edge of the bed. She held the earl, bringing a handkerchief to his lips. When the fit passed, Mab rose and returned to her chair.
The earl spoke again. "How is Jon?" He cleared his throat. "Well?"
"Yes. He's downstairs in the kitchen trying to get cook to make him kidney pie for supper. He said to tell you he'd be up later if you're up to it." Hunter walked to the stone fireplace and drew his finger across the spotless mantel. "He hated it, you know. The colonies."
"Of course he did. I could have told you two boys that before you left," the earl grumbled. "That is if you'd only asked."
"I'm sorry, Father. I can't tell you how sorry I am."
The old man smiled and for an instant Hunter saw him as a young man again. He saw him as if he were a reflection of himself. Then his father was old once more.
"When you left, though you were nearly thirty years old, you were still a boy," his father said. "Tell me what made you a man."
Hunter drew his hands into fists. "The American Colonies were all you said they were. Better." Visions of pine forests and sparkling clear streams flashed in Hunter's head. He smelled the salt spray of the Chesapeake Bay and heard the cry of an osprey. "I hunted wildcat, I fished for trout in the Chesapeake. I smoked the pipe of peace among the Shawnee and the Delaware; I danced the harvest dance." He looked into his father's fading eyes. "I married, Father. A Shawnee woman."
His father's face seemed to darken. "No, Son."
Hunter shook his head. He wouldn't bother his father with the long tale of Laughing Rain and Captain Cain. Maybe later. Maybe never. "She died, Father."
"Children?" the Earl of Dunnon asked, an odd tone in his voice.
Mab's chair scraped the wooden floor.
"No."
The earl lay back on his pillow and closed his eyes. "Not the same mistake," he mumbled. "Should have warned you. Not twice. Good."
Hunter came to the side of the bed. "What did you say, Father?"
His eyes opened again. "Nothing. Nothing. Mab says you brought a woman, a beautiful woman. She is your wife, I hope?"
Hunter couldn't resist a smile. "You'll not believe this. It's little Mary Lambert."
"Your betrothed?" The earl cackled. "Miracles never cease. I told Georgie you'd be back. Damned if he doesn't owe me a bottle of brandy and an expensive one at that. My choice." He looked up. "Tell me about your bride."
"I call her Alexandra. She's sassy, but she's a good woman. I want you to meet her later. You'll like her. I know you will."
The earl closed his eyes for a moment. "And tell me how it is that you married your betrothed across the ocean so far from here." It was obvious he was pleased. "How did you find her?"
"I just came upon her." He and Alexandra had decided that for reasons of English propriety, they'd reveal no more of their courtship than necessary. They were legally married and that was all that was important now.
"What's meant to be is meant to be, Horace. I always told ye that," Mab said from the corner of the room.
"True, true." The earl closed his
eyes again. "Good to have you home, Son. Good to see your handsome face."
"Good to be home," Hunter answered quietly.
Mab rose and came to the bed. She began to smooth the covers. "Your father is tired, Master Geoffry. He don't take visitors much anymore. It wears on him. He's been so excited since he got the message from London that ye were on the way home. He hasn't slept in two days' time."
Hunter nodded. His father was dozing off now. "Thank you for taking care of him, Mab."
She looked up at Hunter. "It was my duty." She went back to fussing with the counterpane draped across the earl's bed. "And all of us come to our duties someday, don't we, Master Geoffry?"
Alexandra sat on a stone bench in a small garden behind the west walls of Dunnon Castle. She stared up at the third-floor windows with their closed draperies. Hunter had waved to her from there only a few moments before. She hoped his meeting with his father had gone well. She hoped the Earl of Dunnon had no hard feelings for his son.
Alexandra brushed back a lock of her hair and tucked it beneath the ermine hat she wore pulled snugly around her ears. The February wind was cold and sharp and it tugged at her heavy cloak, but it felt good. All those weeks below decks on the ship had worn on her. She swore to Hunter that once she set foot on British soil, she'd never travel by ship again.
She looked up at the cold grey stone walls of the home that had been in the Dunnon family for more than four hundred years. She'd been to Dunnon Castle once as a young girl. It had been Christmastide and she and other children had played tag beneath the trees in the earl's orangery. But a child of nine or ten never realizes the magnitude of a man's wealth, especially when the child herself grows up in prosperity.
The Earl of Dunnon was indeed a wealthy, influential man, and upon the death of the earl, Hunter would inherit his father's title, and he too would be an influential man. The earl owned Dunnon Castle and all the land around it as far as the eye could see. Just over the crest of the hill behind the family fortress was the village of Dunnon. The small community housed the men and women who worked for the earl and his family both in the fields and within his household.
The original grey stone and mortar castle was built shortly after the Normandy conquest, or so Hunter said. A sprawling E-shaped structure, it was built onto in prosperous years and became part of the Dunnon family estates in the thirteen hundreds. Once, the home had been self-contained for times of civil war—with stables, and even a small chapel built within the walls. But now, with the coming of relative peace to the country, outbuildings had been built around the main structure and some of the outer fortress walls had been torn down.
Stables and a dairy could be seen over Alexandra's left shoulder beyond the boxwood hedgerows of the private gardens. Behind her and to the right was a smokehouse, a muse, an icehouse, and several other buildings small and large that she couldn't identify from where she sat. She turned back to stare at the stone walls of the place she would call home the rest of her life. To her right was the glass-walled orangery she had played in as a child. The cold glass was frosted from the heat and humidity inside so that she could see only the outline of the tall potted orange and lemon trees she remembered lining the western wall.
"Alex? Alexandra?"
At the sound of Hunter's voice, she rose from the stone bench. "Here. I'm still in the garden."
He appeared around the side of the house, his black cloak flapping in the wind. "God's teeth, it's colder than a witch's teat out here. Why don't you come in?"
She caught his hand. "I just needed to get outside for a few minutes." She started to walk with him back toward the house. "So how did it go? How was your father? Was he terribly angry with you?"
Hunter draped his arm over her shoulder. "One question at a time, woman," he teased. "He's not well at all. I don't know how he's lived this long. Sheer will, I think."
"I'm sorry."
"Our talk went better than I'd expected. He says he's so thankful I've come home that he doesn't care anymore about my leaving. He wants to see you later. He's resting now."
They stopped beside the glass wall of the orangery and she turned to him, smiling. "Everything's going to be all right, isn't it? I told you it would be."
He hugged her against him. "He seems so old, Alex. He's aged twenty years in the last six. He looks like my grandsire did."
She smoothed his cheek with the back of her hand. "Parents get old and they die, Geoffry." The name sounded so odd on the tip of her tongue.
"Speaking of parents, sweeting. What of yours?" He smiled artificially. "I know you're anxious see your father and mother."
Of course, she wasn't and he knew it. Now that she had Hunter, her parents and her brothers and sisters seemed to be from another lifetime. She had never gotten along with any of them and now, they just didn't seem to matter. "I sent a message to the London house and the country house. I told them I was here and that we were married. Once I find out where they are, I suppose I'll have to pay a visit."
"My father says your father owes him a bottle of brandy, his choice of year and cellar. He says he bet your father I'd be back. Apparently the Earl of Monthrop thought I was gone forever."
"Well, Father may owe it to him, but good luck to him in getting it. You know Lord Monthrop—tighter than a pitched rainbarrel. When I go to stay, no doubt I'll be expected to bring my own firewood for my bedchamber."
He caught the lock of her dark hair that had escaped her cap again and twisted it around his finger. "You don't have to go if you don't want to, Alex."
"Of course I do."
"Why?"
"It's part of that matter of responsibility we talked of on the ship. Now that we've returned to England, we can't live as carefree as a Shawnee. You have your duties and I mine. One of my duties is to see my parents and brothers and sisters. Besides, believe it or not, I did have friends. I'd like to see them."
"Who?"
"Roland."
He lifted an eyebrow. "Who's Roland?"
"I told you. The second man I almost married. But you needn't be jealous, he's just an old friend."
"Who said anything about jealous? Too much seriousness in one day," he grumbled, grabbing her around the waist and pushing her against the glass panels of the orangery.
Her laughter blended with his as he nuzzled her neck. "Hunter!" Realizing her mistake, she groaned. "Geoffry. Someone will see us!"
"Someone already has," came Jon's voice out of nowhere. "And shocked he is."
Alexandra looked up to see Jon walking by, headed in the direction of the stables.
"I told you there's no privacy in a home like this," Hunter said mockingly. "The servants are always spying on us noblemen." He looked over his shoulder, refusing to move despite Alexandra's attempts to escape. Jon hadn't taken the bait. He kept walking. "Where you going, neekah-nah?" Hunter called.
"London." Jon answered back.
The wind howled so loudly as it came around the corner of the house that their voices were difficult to hear. "But we just came from London," Alexandra hollered after him.
"What? Cook wouldn't make the kidney pie?"
Jon waved his hand over his head. "Just going in for a hand of cards. Please don't worry, lover."
"Cards! In a pig's eye! A roll with a tart, no doubt," Alexandra bantered.
The men laughed.
"Be back tomorrow, Hunter—excuse me—Lord Ashton," Jon said as he went over the crest of a small hill that led down toward the stables. "Tell Father I'll be up to see him tomorrow when he's rested. Tell him to have the cards ready. I'll bring coin."
Jon's last words were nearly lost in the wind as he disappeared from sight.
Alexandra turned her attention back to Hunter, who still held her trapped against the orangery glass. The biting wind stung her cheeks, but she didn't mind. She actually felt more comfortable outside the walls of Dunnon Castle than inside. "He calls your father, Father?"
"He refers to him as Father. Calls him Horace t
o his face. Sometimes Lord Father if he's being silly. Now where was I?" Hunter nipped at her earlobe peeking out from beneath her ermine cap. "Ah yes."
She pushed at his face. "You were about to take me into the orangery and show me the miniature orange trees. One of the gardeners was telling me your father just had them sent from Italy."
He grimaced. "I was going to show you orange trees? I don't remember saying anything about orange trees! Quite the seducer I am. Madame, have you seen my orange trees? Bloody wounds, what woman would turn her skirt for a line like that?"
Alexandra laughed as she ducked beneath his arm and ran for a door just to the left of the glass walls. He dove for her, but caught nothing but a corner of her cloak. "I'm serious! I want to see the trees. Just for a moment. It'll be time to dress for supper soon."
He followed her in the door and down a drafty hallway. "All right, all right," he surrendered. "We see the blasted trees." He took her hand. "But then we go upstairs."
She lifted an eyebrow.
"To dress, of course," he told her innocently.
She passed him in a receiving chamber, headed for the glass doors that led into the orangery. "You're sexually perverted, Husband. Has anyone ever told you that?"
He ran to catch up again and pushed the door open for her. He tugged at the back of her skirt as she brushed by. "Just can't get enough of you, sweet wife. I want to store it up. Once I find my way to Father's office, I'm liable to be lost in bookkeeping until I'm too old and weary to get it up any longer."
She rolled her eyes at him. "You sound like Jon, now," she chided. "Certainly not the language appropriate for a man about to be an earl."
He closed the door behind them and dropped the latch.
"Why are you locking the door?"
He shrugged. "To keep out the gardeners. They enjoy eavesdropping and I despise it." He took her hand. "Now, let me show you those trees."
The orangery wasn't as large as Alexandra had remembered, but it was certainly as beautiful. Built against the castle wall, the three outer walls were constructed of lead frames that held the panes of glass. Overhead, more glass made the pitched roof. It was warm inside, overly warm, and the air was filled with the overwhelming scents of fruit-bearing citrus plants.
His Wild Heart Page 25