As soon as they were gone, Juliet sank onto the bed. Well, that was that. She had no choice now. They were returning to London. She’d made her decision, and it was too late to do anything else.
She swallowed past the lump in her throat. She was leaving Sebastian here. What if he never came after her? He’d abandoned her before for the sake of his brother; what was to keep him from doing it again?
For a moment, she considered running back to him. Perhaps she was being too stubborn about this. Could it really hurt if he hid the truth until his brother returned?
But then what would happen when Morgan did return? Disaster, that’s what. She could end up permanently estranged from her family, and for what? A man who thought she’d “make him a good wife,” and that’s all. Who said he couldn’t love her. Who thought of her only as some waif in need of rescuing.
She blinked back new tears. No, she had run off with him once before without his offering her anything but promises of a future that had never materialized. She wouldn’t do it again.
This time she’d be wise. Even if it tore her heart in two.
Griff watched his wife sweep into the room ahead of him and march straight to the dressing room. The terror gripping him was too painful for words. Rosalind had been hiding things from him.
From the day they’d married, she’d always been truthful with him, never gone behind his back. That she’d do so now only increased his desperate fear that he was losing her. Ever since she’d begun to obsess about having a child, he’d worried that she blamed him for her inability to conceive. And why was it so important to her anyway? Why wasn’t he enough for her?
He’d lost her affections, and he didn’t even know how or why.
Oh, she still came to his bed with all the eagerness she’d shown before. But it was her behavior outside the bedchamber that worried him—her constant air of distraction, her determination to marry Juliet off, her fixation with having a child. He often found her staring at nothing. And when he asked what was wrong, she wouldn’t tell him. They used to share everything. Now they shared only a bed. He missed the way it was before.
He entered the dressing room to find her removing gowns from hangers and folding them neatly. “Rosalind,” he said, coming up behind her, “what’s this all about?”
She glanced up at him with a false smile. “What do you mean? You said we were going back to London.”
“That’s not—Why would you ask Juliet to pretend to be sick so you could stay here longer?”
She concentrated on her folding. “You’ll think it’s silly.”
God, he hoped so. He could handle silly. “Try me.”
“I thought perhaps the country air would do me good. Help me conceive, you know? I’ve long wondered if it’s not that ghastly London air that’s hindering me.”
Relief coursed through him for the briefest moment. Then reality sank in. “If that’s the case, why haven’t you ever asked me to take you home to Swan Park, or even the chateau? We needn’t spend all our time in the city.”
“I wouldn’t want to drag you from your work,” she said evenly. “Besides, I like being in town. But after we came here…well, I merely thought that staying awhile might be invigorating.”
“Invigorating.”
“Yes.” She shot him a hesitant smile. “And you must admit we’ve had a fine time together without you having to dash off to Knighton Trading all the time.”
He wanted to believe her. God, how he wanted to believe her. But her explanations simply didn’t ring true. Rosalind hated the country. She’d always thrived on activity and bustle and the excitement of the city.
“Yes, but what’s so special about Charnwood?” he persisted. “The master is never around, and the servants can’t heat water to save their lives…I can’t imagine why you’d find Charnwood any more ‘invigorating’ than your own home. And if that’s all it was, why not tell me you wanted to stay, instead of engineering some nonsense with Juliet? I would gladly have done whatever you wanted.”
“That’s not true. You would have insisted you had too much work to do to remain out here.”
He supposed he couldn’t refute that. Yet for her to go so far as to have her sister play sick…“So that’s all there was to it. You wanted to enjoy the country air.”
“Of course.”
“And you weren’t concerned that being here put Juliet in the path of Templemore, whose own brother kidnapped her.”
“He isn’t like his brother,” she said hotly. Too hotly. “He’s a very nice man. Juliet would be hard-pressed to find a better suitor.”
Now she was championing Templemore for Juliet. His eyes narrowed. “So I was right then. That’s where she’s been sneaking off to all this time.”
“She hasn’t been sneaking off anywhere,” Rosalind snapped. “If you don’t believe me, ask Polly. Juliet has been lolling about in her room, that’s all.”
“Has he been ‘lolling about’ with her? All those times he missed meals and disappeared God knows where—”
“For pity’s sake, Griff, he wasn’t with her. I’m sure that most of the time he was out at that cottage of his. I swear you’re the most suspicious man in creation.”
He went still. “What ‘cottage of his’? I never heard him mention any cottage.”
She glanced up at him, startled. The change that came over her face made his heart drop into his stomach. She knew something he wasn’t supposed to know. Regarding Templemore and a secret cottage.
Dropping her head, she folded a chemise into the smallest square he’d ever seen. “I…I…the servants mentioned it once. He goes out there to shoot, I believe.”
“But you haven’t seen it yourself or anything.”
“Seen it? No, of course not,” she said, too quickly.
God help him, she was lying. He could tell. Rosalind had always been an awful liar.
She was lying to him about Templemore. His blood thundered in his ears. Then something occurred to him, and he brightened. The cottage could be an assignation site for Juliet. Since Rosalind would never condone Juliet’s meeting Templemore alone, she might have gone with her sister to act as chaperone. It would explain why she and Juliet had conspired to stay in Shropshire.
Yet Juliet didn’t want to remain anymore. No, it was Rosalind who seemed to have wanted to stay.
He swallowed down the sudden bile rising in his throat as several little niggling details loomed in his mind. Rosalind and Templemore returning from a cozy ride in a sleigh. Them whispering together one day in a corner when they’d thought he wasn’t looking.
Templemore’s father had been known for preying on married women, after all.
He shook his head. No, he wouldn’t even think it. Rosalind would never be unfaithful to him. She wouldn’t.
But that didn’t mean she mightn’t be a bit enamored of the fellow. After all, Templemore possessed that courtly manner toward women that Griff had never managed to acquire. He lacked Griff’s explosive temper. And he always paid attention to what Rosalind said, unlike most men of their acquaintance.
Griff winced. He hadn’t paid enough attention to her of late, too wrapped up in his business affairs. Besides, it had been hard to be around her, knowing that he couldn’t give her the child she desperately wanted. So he’d buried himself in his work. He’d told himself he’d do better once he settled this matter of finding Juliet’s abductor.
How could he have been so blind? Rosalind wasn’t the sort of woman one neglected with impunity. Could she have found in Templemore a companion who’d pay her heed when her husband was not around? And how long would it be before friendship turned to something else? Especially if they were meeting in secret at some cottage…
No, he couldn’t bear to think of that.
“Rosalind,” he whispered, slipping his arm about her waist, needing to touch her. “Are you happy?”
She gazed at him with a bemused smile. “Of course I am. Why wouldn’t I be?”
“You jus
t seem…very distracted lately.”
Twisting around to face him, she looped her arms about his neck. “That’s because you’re always distracting me.”
Her teasing smile and sensual glances were the same as ever. And when she pressed her ample breasts up against him, the band constricting his heart eased a little. Perhaps he was imagining all this secrecy. Nothing was wrong. He was being absurd.
All the same, he wouldn’t feel safe until he had her far away from Templemore.
Chapter 19
Any man can make mistakes,
but only an idiot persists in his error.
Cicero’s Philipics, worked on a hanging by Juliet after her disastrous elopement
M idmorning on the second day after Juliet’s departure, Sebastian stood on the west lawn with a pistol in hand. Could it really have been only two days? It seemed like more. Especially when he spent them wearing himself out beating brass into casings and silver into facings. And spent the nights sleeping at the cottage to avoid his bleak, cold bed at Charnwood.
Not that the cottage was much better, with her lilac scent still fragrant on the pillows. Last night he’d found a long golden hair tangled in the sheets, and only a stern self-lecture had prevented his tucking it away somewhere for a deuced keepsake. What insanity. His craving for her should have lessened once she was gone. But if anything, it had increased.
And now this.
He was so busy loading that he didn’t hear footsteps approach. Only the scent of Russian Oil alerted him to his uncle’s arrival.
“You sent for me?” Uncle Lew asked.
“Yes.” Sebastian sighted down the pistol and fired. This one wouldn’t do—it pulled a little to the right. He’d forgotten about that. He set it with the other two unacceptable pistols. “I’m leaving for London as soon as the trunks are loaded in the carriage and I’ve finished choosing a dueling pistol.”
“A dueling pistol! Whyever would you need that?”
“It’s just a precaution. I don’t know what I’ll have to deal with in town.”
“Surely you are not expecting to face Knighton on the dueling field!”
“No.” He took up the next pistol. “But I don’t know who else I’ll have to face.”
“What in God’s name do you mean?”
Reaching inside his coat pocket, Sebastian withdrew a torn out piece of newspaper and handed it to his uncle. “Read the column headed ‘Secret Elopement.’ It was in this morning’s paper.”
It took his uncle mere seconds to scan it. “Bloody hell,” he said softly.
“Yes.” His voice was laced with self-loathing. “I didn’t believe Juliet when she said the gossip might spread. I thought it was just a little misinformation circulating among servants, that it would go away. After all, if someone had known the truth from the beginning, what reason could they have for coming out with it now? And if they hadn’t known it—well, I didn’t see how they could suddenly stumble upon it after two years.” He checked the pistol’s flint, then added grimly, “But I was wrong.”
His uncle laid a hand on his arm. “It’s not your fault. Even the Knightons said the rumors were vague rumblings.”
“That article is more than vague rumblings. It states quite clearly that Juliet is believed to have eloped at eighteen and then been abandoned by her ‘suitor.’” He gritted his teeth. “At least they said ‘suitor’ instead of ‘lover.’ Though I’m sure that’s what they’re calling me in society. God only knows what they’re calling her. This paper is three days old, so there’s been plenty of time for the nastiness to progress.”
Deuce take it! Lifting the pistol, he fired at the target, but only the click of the empty gun sounded on the lawn.
“I believe you have to reload after each shot, my boy,” Uncle Lew said softly.
Only half aware of his uncle’s remark, he whirled to face him. “By now, they’re tearing her apart for the sheer pleasure of it. She’ll be ostracized by everyone, spoken of with contempt, treated like a whore—”
“Come now, Sebastian, surely it will not be that bad. Knighton will not let it progress that far.”
“How can he stop it?” He rubbed his pounding temple. “And it worries me that the rumor is so close to the truth. What if someone stumbled across the entire story and has set out purposely to ruin her reputation? A spurned suitor perhaps, or some enemy of Knighton’s? What if it’s an act of deliberate malice?”
The possibility had tormented him all morning as he’d prepared to leave. Though the Knightons couldn’t have reached London yet, they soon would. When they did…
His mind conjured up nasty images of Juliet being shunned or forced to defend her actions publicly or groped by men who thought her a loose woman because of the rumors.
“What will you do in London?” his uncle asked.
“I don’t know. First I’ll have to find out who started the gossip and why. Then I’ll deal with it as best I can.”
“And Morgan? What if he shows up here while you are gone?”
“You’ll have to take care of it. He doesn’t need us both looking out for him. Write to me in London if he arrives before I return, and I’ll…” He trailed off. He didn’t know what he’d do. For God’s sake, he didn’t even know what to expect in London. He only knew he had to go. He’d promised her to take care of any gossip, yet he’d let her go off without making any provision for it.
He’d never forgive himself for that.
“Sebastian, I wanted to ask as soon as I heard that the Knightons had gone, but since Boggs said you were too busy to see me, and I did not like to pry—”
Sebastian raised one eyebrow.
His uncle smiled wryly. “All right, so that never stopped me before. But you have never been too busy to see me before. I figured you would tell me on your own eventually. Indeed, that is why I thought you had sent for me this morning, and—”
“What is it you wanted to ask, Uncle?” he said impatiently.
“What happened between you and Lady Juliet that sent them all running?”
Sebastian concentrated on loading the pistol. “I asked her to marry me.”
His uncle sucked in a breath. “Ah. And she did not like the idea?”
“Actually, she accepted my offer. But she had some demands I couldn’t meet.”
“Demands? What—” Comprehension dawned in his face. “Oh, I suppose she wanted you to tell her the truth.”
“No. I’d already done that.”
“You had?” his uncle said disbelievingly.
“The day she left. I told her everything and asked her to marry me. She said she would. But when we began to discuss her family—” He broke off, his gut twisting as he remembered. “She demanded that I go to Knighton with the truth. I explained that I couldn’t risk Knighton’s interference, that I had to wait until Morgan returned before I could reveal all. Then she told me some nonsense about not wanting to start our marriage with a lie. She said she’d marry me only after I came clean. Then she and the Knightons headed off for London.”
With a sigh, his uncle took a seat at the nearby table. “I suppose it makes sense that she would react that way—given her past and her relationship with her family.”
Sebastian’s gaze shot to Uncle Lew. “What do you mean?”
“Come now, my boy. You have seen how they treat her—like a child who must be protected for fear she will blunder again. The poor girl lived in the shadow of her older sisters all her life, and then she did something that forever cemented their opinion of her. Finally, she has the chance to prove that her behavior wasn’t so awful, was even understandable, and you tell her that she can’t. You offered her marriage, but refused to take her side with her family. How did you expect her to react?”
He hadn’t looked at it like that. “You think I was wrong to refuse her demands.”
“Not at all. You were being cautious. And with matters as they are, caution is warranted. I am merely pointing out how she probably saw it.” His uncle dre
w out his snuffbox. “How do you know she will not tell her family herself?”
He stared off into the woods, but saw only eyes that glinted amber and green, regarding him with understanding and ready forgiveness. Until he’d gone and spoiled everything. “She promised she wouldn’t, said it was my place to do it. I trust her to keep her word.”
“She must care a great deal for you if she is willing to shield you from them.”
“Yes, a great deal,” he said sarcastically. “That’s why she hied herself off to London instead of marrying me.”
His uncle dipped some snuff. “If you do not mind me asking, what did you tell her when you proposed?”
He shrugged. “That I wanted to marry her, that I was attracted to her. That I thought she’d make me a very good wife.”
“No doubt she positively swooned at that.” Uncle Lew sniffed a pinch of snuff. “Didn’t you tell her you love her?”
Sebastian stiffened. There was that blasted word again. “Love has nothing to do with it. You know what I think about that reckless emotion, and so does she. We talked about it, and she accepted that I…have no interest in love. That is, until I refused to bare my soul for her vengeance-mad family.”
“No woman likes to hear that the man she cares for doesn’t love her.”
“Well, she’ll never hear otherwise.” He tightened his grip on the pistol. “Especially since she’s only using such talk to make me come to heel. I shall not run after a dream of love like my mother. And I won’t follow in Father’s footsteps, either.”
“Too late for that.” Uncle Lew eyed Sebastian speculatively. “You’re already more like your father than you realize.”
With a snort, Sebastian sighted down his gun. “That’s absurd. He was a rake who fell in love indiscriminately, and I’m nearly a monk.”
“Ah, my dear boy, what your father felt had nothing to do with love, no matter what he called it. It was infatuation, pure and simple, a childish emotion that disappeared whenever his dalliances became serious. I doubt he was ever in love. He feared it too much to experience it. As do you.”
After the Abduction Page 25