Bedchamber Games

by Tracy Anne Warren

  Chapter 27

  The Yorkshire Dales in January were cold and bleak, the landscape composed of vast stretches of snow-covered ground broken only by clusters of bare-branched trees and rough stone walls that stretched off into the horizon as far as the eye could see. Yet in them Rosamund found something beautiful, a stark solitude that had the power to soothe the worst of the ragged edges of what remained of her heart.

  Wrapped warmly inside a heavy brown woolen cloak with a bonnet on her head, thick gloves on her hands and a pair of sturdy boots on her feet, she walked as she had taken to doing nearly every day since her arrival last autumn. It was only during snowstorms that she remained inside for the whole of a day, the confinement wearing on her in ways it never had done in the past.

  Her cousin Susan, a warm, grandmotherly sort of woman with kind blue eyes and a bun of thick white hair, worried about her “roaming the hills” and increasingly tried to convince Rosamund to remain indoors, especially now that her figure was turning round, the child she carried growing strong and steadily inside her.

  But Cousin Ross had told his wife to leave her be. “Girl’s grieving and needs to mourn. She’ll come to no harm and the exercise will do her and the babe good.”

  And so she was left to walk and grieve, although not for the husband they thought she’d lost.

  Her cousins had believed the tale she and Bertram spun, welcoming her with a generosity that had put her quite to shame. Never once had they questioned the truth of her story, the lie made that much more convincing by means of the gold wedding band she wore—her mother’s once upon a time. When she’d revealed the news of her pregnancy to her cousins, they were happy and encouraging. The baby would be a blessing to her in the years ahead, they said. A joyful reminder of the love she’d shared with his—or her—father. A love she continued to feel despite all her efforts to drive the emotion away.

  I am not going to think about Lawrence, she told herself as she walked, her boots crunching against the snow. Yet even as she thought the words, she knew them for the falsehood they were. It was a promise she made herself every day. And a promise she broke every day.

  As if aware of her musings, their child moved inside her, a fluttery feeling that never failed to amaze and delight her.

  No matter what comes, I have this. And Bertram.

  Even from a distance, he had become a lifeline to her old existence. He wrote her at least three times a week, keeping her abreast of all the happenings in London, telling her about legal acquaintances and colleagues, friends and neighbors and, to her pleased surprise, the novel he was writing. He was woodworking again too, building a crib for the baby to use when they came home.

  He’d wanted to come north for the holidays, but the weather had been snowy and unpredictable, so they’d decided he should remain in London and plan a visit closer to the baby’s birth sometime in April.

  She hadn’t had the heart to tell him yet, but she wasn’t sure she was going to return to London. She’d thought it through and despite their plan, she didn’t know if it was wise. Not only were there too many memories in the city, but there was too much of a chance that she might someday cross paths with Lawrence, and that was a risk she could not afford. They might not move in the same social circles, but he was a lawyer like her brother. What if word got back? What if he found out about their child?

  So more and more, she was contemplating a permanent relocation and a fresh start. As her cousins would agree, Yorkshire was a fine place to raise a child. If only it didn’t mean leaving behind everything she’d once held dear, including her beloved brother.

  Realizing suddenly that the sky was turning cloudy and the air chillier, she retraced her steps back to the Carrows’ house, her mind already looking ahead to the cup of hot tea and sweet biscuits she knew would be waiting.

  She stamped her boots free of snow on the rear stoop and let herself into the house. The warmth of wood smoke and the yeasty scents of freshly baked bread and currant buns greeted her in a delicious draft.

  She’d removed her bonnet and gloves and was about to unfasten her cloak when Cousin Susan bustled around the corner into the rear hallway that was just off the kitchen.

  Susan’s blue eyes were particularly bright, sparkling with barely concealed news. “Oh, good, you are back.” Her hands fluttered around herself in a surprisingly nervous way. “I was just about to send Morty out to find you, but he’s still in the barn tending to the traveling chaise and team.”

  “What traveling chaise and team?”

  The Carrows kept a single horse and a gig that they used for trips into Harrogate and to take them to services at the nearby village church on Sundays. Since retiring from the law, Cousin Ross saw no point in shouldering the expense to maintain a full team and coach, as he and Susan never journeyed more than half a day from home.

  “A quite elegant one as it happens. You’ve a visitor, my dear,” Susan said. “From London.”

  “Is it Bertram?” A smile came to her mouth. “Did he make the trip, after all?”

  “No, it’s not your brother. The gentleman said he’s a friend. He’s been waiting for you in the parlor for the past half hour.”

  Rosamund’s heart began to race. “Did this gentleman happen to give a name?”

  Susan frowned. “No, he said he prefers to surprise you. I assumed he must be known to you and your late husband for him to seek you out like this, and in January no less. Was it wrong of me not to have inquired further?”

  Rosamund shook her head and forced a smile. “It’s quite all right, Cousin Susan. I believe I know who you must mean.”

  A look of relief moved over the older woman’s pleasingly rounded face. “Oh, good. I already brought him tea. Shall I have a cup brought in for you as well?”

  “No, thank you, not quite now. I doubt the gentleman will be staying overly long.”

  “Don’t forget your cloak, dear,” Susan said in a gentle reprimand as Rosamund started toward the front parlor.

  But rather than stop to remove the garment, Rosamund drew it tighter around herself. Her pregnancy was only beginning to show, but if her surprise visitor was who she thought he was, she didn’t want to risk revealing her condition to him. Then again, he must surely know already. What other possible reason could there be for him to have traveled all this way?

  Forcing her hand not to shake, she pushed open the parlor door and stepped inside.

  And there stood Lawrence, looking gorgeous and golden and even taller than she remembered. Dressed in dark, somber clothes, he exuded quiet elegance and an aristocratic sophistication that seemed markedly out of place in her cousin’s modest house.

  Despite the warning as to his presence, seeing him again came at her like a blow, robbing her of thought and breath. Blindly she reached out and grabbed hold of the doorknob, willing her knees not to buckle and give way.

  At the exact same moment, he turned from the window where he’d been standing and found her, his beautiful gold-green eyes warming as they took her in.

  “Rosamund,” he murmured in his deep, dearly remembered voice.

  Her chest grew tight at the sound, her throat closing so she was momentarily unable to speak. She stared instead, stealing a few precious seconds to drink him in, to memorize new images of him to refresh the old.

  Yet it was only as she looked closer that she noticed the lines of tension around his eyes and mouth, the tired, drawn quality to his face that had not been there five months ago. He looked unhappy.

  Is it because of the baby? Because he’s learned the truth and feels honor-bound to take responsibility for something he had only ever wished to prevent?

  She withered inside and looked away.

  “Will you introduce me to your cousin?” he said, stepping away from the window. “I fear I was not as forthcoming with the good lady as I probably ought to have been.”

 
She drew a steadying breath and released her hold on the doorknob to move deeper into the room, Cousin Susan following behind. “Of course. Lord Lawrence, pray allow me to make you properly known to my cousin, Mrs. Susan Carrow. Cousin Susan, Lord Lawrence Byron.”

  The older woman’s eyes widened and she shot a slightly incredulous look at Rosamund. “Lord Byron?”

  Rosamund decided not to correct her cousin’s error in addressing Lawrence as Lord Byron rather than Lord Lawrence. Neither, she was grateful to see, did Lawrence.

  “No relation to the Byron the poet?” Susan asked.

  “No, none at all,” Lawrence said. “My family can’t even claim him as a cheekily annoying distant cousin thrice removed.”

  “Well, good gracious me,” Susan continued, “I had no idea that you were . . . well, who you are.” She sank into a curtsey. “Forgive any offense I may have caused, Your Lordship. It was most inadvertently done.”

  “The offense is all mine, dear Mrs. Carrow, since I ought to have told you who I was from the start. You have been quite forbearing to play along with my little surprise and have been all that is kind and gracious while I awaited Mrs. . . . Jones’s return.”

  He arched an eyebrow to let Rosamund know that he was in on at least that much of the game. Before leaving London, she and Bertram had decided to give her fictitious dead husband a name. Paul Jones had seemed ordinary enough to suit the purpose.

  “I am only sorry that your husband, Ross Carrow, has gone into Skipton for the afternoon. I should have liked the chance to meet him.”

  “He is expected back in time for dinner. You would be most welcome to join us at table tonight, my lord. I am sure he would enjoy meeting you too, since you did say you are in the legal profession. Ross is a retired barrister, you know.”

  “I am sure Lord Lawrence hasn’t the time to stay for the evening meal,” Rosamund interjected before Lawrence had a chance to reply. “He has come to discuss business. Then he’ll need to be on his way. Won’t you, my lord?”

  “Perhaps,” he said. “My plans are as yet undetermined.”

  Susan looked back and forth between them, apparently aware of, but confused by, the undercurrent running between her and Lawrence.

  Rosamund turned toward the older woman. “Cousin Susan, if you wouldn’t mind, could you give His Lordship and me a few minutes alone please? As I believe he told you, he is a London lawyer. What he and I need to discuss is of a confidential nature. You understand?”

  “Oh, of course. Yes, I see.” Susan’s expression cleared. “To do with your poor dear Paul, is it? I shall leave you both to it, then. Call me if either of you requires anything.”

  “We shall.”

  Rosamund waited until Susan closed the door at her back, her footsteps echoing softly away. Only then did Rosamund look up again.

  “Poor dear Paul, is it?” Lawrence repeated. “You haven’t really been married and widowed since last we met, I hope?”

  She linked her hands in front of her. “No, as I’m sure you already know from having spoken with my brother. I presume he is the one who told you where to find me?”

  “Yes, though it was not without a great deal of persuasion. He slammed the door in my face to start, then gave me a verbal hiding that would have put a fishwife to shame. He didn’t even stutter when he did it. I believe he was so angry it drove the words straight out of his mouth. Maybe all he really needs in order to resume his career in court is a quiver full of righteous indignation. He’s rather eloquent when he’s got a head of steam on him.”

  “I told you he was good. It’s only when he’s anxious that he can’t quite find his voice.”

  Crossing to the nearest chair, she sank down, abruptly weary in a way she hadn’t been in weeks. She was careful to keep her cloak wrapped around her stomach, although it seemed rather pointless at this juncture.

  She sighed. “He didn’t have any right to tell you, you know, even if I’m sure he thinks what he’s doing is for the best.”

  She looked up in time to see the hopeful light dim in Lawrence’s eyes and the lines of unhappiness return. “He warned me how you might feel and that I would need to tread carefully as I made my case.”

  “Seeing that you excel at making cases, Counselor, I’m sure you’ll have no trouble this time either.”

  “You might be surprised.”

  She looked up, startled as he knelt down beside her so they were nearly eye to eye.

  “You’ve every right to hate me,” he said, “and I can’t blame you if you do. I’ve treated you shamefully and for that I offer you my humblest of apologies. What happened between us last summer was all my own doing. I pursued and maneuvered you, at first because I thought you were a rival, and then when I realized the truth of your deception, it was because I had come to desire you. But that is no excuse. I knew the kind of woman you were, the kind of woman you are, and still I seduced you without a scrap of conscience. I behaved like the veriest of cads.”

  Of all the things he might have said to her, this was not one she had considered. Had guilt driven him here to see her? Was he sorry for having had an affair with her and wished now that he could erase it? Erase her, from his past?

  Of course he was. Because of the baby.

  A chill settled through her despite the warmth of the cloak she still wore, ice forming even more heavily around her heart. Yet if it was absolution he sought, she would not deny him. She loved him too much to let him shoulder the blame, which truthfully was hers to bear in equal measures.

  “You were never dishonest with me,” she said softly. “The choice was mine and I made it freely.”

  He shook his head, a dark golden lock of hair falling over his forehead. She wanted to push it back but resisted the urge, the gesture one she would have made not so long ago without even thinking.

  Then he was speaking again. “You believe you acted of your own free will, but as your brother quite rightly pointed out, I was the experienced one. The one who understood the rules and what might happen as a result. You were innocent, Rosamund, a virgin I led down the path of temptation in order to satisfy my own selfish desires.”

  Reaching out, he took one of her hands in his own. “Worse, I dishonored you again by wanting to keep you as my mistress, even while I contemplated marriage to another, and for that alone you may wish me to purgatory. I’ll understand if you want me to leave, want never to have to set eyes upon me again. But before you decide, I beg you to hear me out just a little while longer.”

  She knew she should pull her hand away, knew she should be strong and tell him to go. Instead she left her hand in his, savoring the contact, the last she might ever have again.

  “Rosamund, these past months without you have been nothing short of agony. I’ve missed you every single moment of every single day. I told myself it would get better, that my longing for you would fade and that in time I’d forget you.”

  She raised her eyes to his, her heartbeat turning erratic.

  “But it’s never going to fade,” he said, “because I love you. And no amount of time will ever be enough for me to forget. I could as easily forget my own name or how to take my next breath. I know I’ve treated you abominably, but I pray you can forgive me and that it’s not too late. Put me out of my misery, Rosamund, and say you’ll be mine again. Say you will marry me and be my wife. If you will, I swear I’ll spend the rest of my life striving to make you happy because, in the end, you are the only thing that truly matters.”

  Marry?

  She knew she could not have heard him right. It was impossible.

  And did he say he loves me?

  Maybe she’d fallen outside in the snow earlier and hit her head. Maybe she was hallucinating right now and Lawrence wasn’t even here, wasn’t saying all these wonderful, fantastical things the likes of which she’d only ever dreamt.

  “But you can
’t marry me,” she said.

  “Who says I can’t? Only you have the power to refuse.”

  “But what of your fiancée? I saw the announcement. I know you’re engaged.”

  “I was but not anymore. Miss Templestone and I have gone our separate ways.”

  “B-but what? How?” Rosamund stuttered, knowing suddenly how Bertram must have felt all these years.

  “Our engagement is done. I told her at Christmas that I could not honor my pledge because I loved someone else. We talked and she agreed to release me rather than suffer the stigma of a public jilting.”

  “But the scandal . . . her father . . .”

  “Yes, the judge was furious to say the least. He was even angrier, or so I’m given to understand, when Phoebe ran off to Gretna Green a few days later with a young man she has apparently loved for years. They grew up together, but her father wouldn’t approve the match. The boy is the eldest son of one of her father’s clerks and hasn’t the pedigree or wealth to make him a suitable candidate for her hand. But I guess not even her father could stop them from writing to each other in secret.”

  He gave a wry smile. “When I told her I wanted to break off our engagement, she looked so relieved I thought she might laugh, or worse, cry. She said she liked me a very great deal and was flattered by my attentions during the Season. To please her parents, she had even convinced herself for a time that she wanted to marry me. But after our engagement became official, she saw it for the mistake it was, and that despite trying her hardest to feel more for me, she just didn’t. I told her how sorry I was for everything, but grateful that we could part with no bitter feelings between us. And that, as they say, was that.”

  “So the judge won’t ruin your career if you don’t marry his daughter?”

  Lawrence shrugged. “He may; he may not. We shall see. Frankly, though, I’ve come to realize that my career isn’t nearly as satisfying or all-important as I once thought it was.”

  “But you love the law and you’re so good at it,” she protested. “You’re too excellent a barrister to quit.”