by Mary Balogh
She had given in to the temptation to take a small dose of laudanum again at bedtime, she remembered. Her hand had been stinging beyond her power to ignore. The effects of the drug had worn off. Doubtless it was the disorienting effect of emerging from her drugged state that had caused her to wake up in the state of panic that still had her heart thumping uncomfortably against her rib cage. The fear was so very hard to shrug off. She dared not move. But why?
She deliberately turned onto her side, wriggling and squirming to find a comfortable position. She would conquer this fear soon, she decided. She would close her eyes and go back to sleep.
But her eyes focused on the small table beside her bed. The familiar contours of the candle in its ornate candlestick were obscured by something larger. She tried to remember what it was. Her small prayer book was at the edge of the table where she had placed it last night. What was the larger object? Her mind puzzled over it, tried to remember—entirely without success. Finally she was forced to sit up in order to lean over and touch it. She picked it up and still could not remember. It was heavy, a picture frame. No, two picture frames, hinged together.
And then she knew. The feeling of dread returned, redoubled in strength. How had it come here? It had not been here when she went to bed.
She scrambled out of bed, clutching the frames to her bosom. She looked wildly about her for her night robe. It should have been over the back of the chair beside the fireplace, but it was not there. She could not remember where she had put it. She set down the picture frames on the bed and went searching in her dressing room. But her mind was too distraught even to remember what she was looking for. She opened the door into the corridor outside and fled along it.
His door was unlocked. She opened it in a hurry, rushed inside, and closed it behind her. She stood with her back against it, trying to catch her breath, trying to calm her mind, trying to remember why she had come. And where she was.
And then her eyes focused on the bed. He was getting out of it and coming toward her. He was naked, she could see in the near darkness. His hands were on her shoulders. He was talking to her, she knew, though she could not see his lips clearly. His hands gripped tightly and pulled her against him. She shuddered into his warmth.
She was on the bed then without knowing how she had got there. It was soft and warm from his body heat. He was sitting on the edge of the bed, close beside her, lighting a candle. He had pulled on a red silk robe, though she had not seen him do so.
“Emmy?” He leaned over her. “My love, what is it?”
Her teeth were chattering. She was in his room, she realized. Why? His fingers were smoothing through the hair at her temple.
“You woke up and were frightened?” he asked. “You should have allowed Anna to stay with you, or at least one of the maids.”
Yes, she had woken up frightened. And alone. There had been a shape . . .
His mouth was on hers, warm, comforting. “Shall I send for Anna?” he asked her. His eyes suggested something else.
No, she told him without words. No, she could not move again. She could not go back there. But where? And why could she not go back?
“Are you in pain?” he asked. “The laudanum must be wearing off. It has left you disoriented.”
Her hand was throbbing. She became aware of the fact only when he asked. It was not unbearable. She did not want any more laudanum. Laudanum made her strange, filled her with fears. She hated being afraid. She was still afraid from the last dose. She could feel her teeth chattering.
“No.”
He stood up then, undid the belt of his robe, and let the whole garment slide to the floor. He bent to blow out the candle. He was so very beautiful, she thought, even if he was somewhat thinner than he should have been. He was still well muscled, and possessed a graceful masculinity. He lay down beside her and held her close so that she could draw on his warmth and his strength and eventually relax into them. When he finally made love to her, he lay heavily on top of her and pushed swiftly and deeply inside without first loving her with hands and mouth. He moved with hard, firm strokes. It was as if he knew her need to lose herself in him, to become one with his strength and virility. She did not participate. She lay relaxed and open and grateful. She felt him pressing at her core and gladly on this one occasion allowed him to master her.
Sleep came almost at the same moment as the hot gush of his seed.
• • •
Holding her asleep in his arms in his own bed and in his own home as he did now brought stark reality to his mind. She was unmarried, yet very possibly she was with child by him. She was a guest under the protection of his roof. Her sister and his brother were under that same roof. Yet she was in his bed. He had been inside her body. It would not do. He could not simply allow matters to continue like this.
She would have to go away from Penshurst. That was quite evident now. And if she must go, then he must too. He could not live without her. And he would not do so unless she was very adamant in her refusal. He did not believe she would be. Besides, her choices were very limited now. He did a quick mental calculation of the number of times he had put her in danger of conceiving. She had to go away. And so would he.
He held her and held himself from sleep. He would not take her back to her room before daybreak. But he would have to take her there before any servants were abroad. No one could know that she had spent several hours of the night here.
He stared into the darkness. He hated to see what had become of Emmy. He hated to see her cringing with fear even when there was no foundation for it—she had been safe in his home tonight. She had tried to be brave. They had all pressed her to allow someone to sleep in her room with her, but she had been stubborn in her refusal to show such weakness. Dear Emmy. He longed to see the serenity and the peace back in her life. The strength.
It had not escaped his notice earlier that she had not made love, that she had merely surrendered her body to his penetration. And her mind and all her emotions too. He had felt almost as if she had abandoned herself to ravishment, as if she had given up the very essence of herself to his male domination. He had not enjoyed the lovemaking. He had given her what she had so obviously wanted and needed, but he had not enjoyed it. He had grieved for the person she had denied—for Emmy. For his little fawn.
He still grieved for her.
He waited for light to dispel the last shadows of darkness before kissing her on the lips and blowing gently against her ear. She stirred sleepily and tried to burrow against him. He quelled desire.
“Emmy,” he said, kissing her again. “Wake up.” She would not hear him, of course, but his kisses, and his finger running lightly up and down her spine, would wake her.
Her eyes were blank. She looked at him and then about the room. It was as he had guessed: she had woken from her laudanum-induced sleep frightened and disoriented, and had come scurrying to him without consciously knowing it. Perhaps she would not even remember that he had made love to her.
“You came to me for comfort,” he told her. “’Tis all right, Emmy. I will always be here for you. As you were there for me when I first returned to England. I will take you back to your room before anyone is up and about. ’Twould not do for anyone to know you had been here.”
She got obediently out of bed and waited while he belted his robe about him. He opened the door and made sure the corridor was empty before setting an arm around her and taking her to her room. The bed was unmade, as she had left it when she came to him. He drew her close to him and kissed her.
“You will be all right on your own?” he asked her.
She nodded.
“Promise me you will not go out this morning?” he asked.
She nodded again.
“Go back to bed,” he said. “Sleep some more, Emmy. You are quite safe here, I promise you.” He let her go and was about to turn back to the door. But there w
as something lying on her bed. Something he instantly recognized. His eyes stilled on it. He felt suddenly cold.
“How did Alice’s portrait get here, Emmy?” he asked.
She turned her head to look at it and her eyes widened. Her face paled. She looked bewildered when she turned back to him.
“You brought it here?” he asked, signing to her. “Why?”
She frowned.
Why had she gone into that room? Why had she brought Alice’s portrait here? It was on the bed, hinged to the matching portrait of Gregory Kersey. On the bed she had got out of last night in order to come to him. She had been terribly frightened, her eyes large with terror, her teeth chattering.
“Come,” he said gently, picking up the double picture frame and looking for something to set about her shoulders. But there was no shawl or robe in the room. He put his arm around her and drew her close.
The door to Alice’s dressing room was wide-open. So were the doors into the bedchamber and the sitting room. The bedclothes were drawn back, the sheets creased, the pillows dented. A satin night robe was flung across the foot of the bed.
Emily’s arm came up. Her hand was trembling. She indicated the robe and herself. Mine, she told him by the gesture.
Inside the sitting room the drawer of the escritoire where the portraits had been was wide-open. He set them back inside and closed the drawer.
He turned Emily toward him and lifted her chin. She was very pale. “Laudanum has terrible effects on some people,” he said. “You must not be upset, Emmy. You are not going mad, I do assure you. I am going to take you back to your room and leave you there for a very few minutes. I am going to fetch Anna to you. You are not going to be alone again until you leave Penshurst. I cannot see you like this, always frightened, always pale. I will send you away, and after I have sold Penshurst, I will come for you.”
She moaned.
“I will see you happy again and at peace again,” he said before drawing her close for a few moments. “I swear it, my love.”
He took her back to her room and hurried to knock on Luke’s door. He was going to dress after talking to them and sending Anna to Emmy, and then he was going to talk to Rod, even if it meant waking him up at this early hour. They had business to discuss—the sale of Penshurst.
26
“KATHY?” Sir Henry Verney removed his three-cornered hat when she opened the cottage door. It was very early in the morning. “You wished to talk with me?”
She had sent word the night before with his steward, who had spent the evening visiting her father. He had had the message last night, but it had been too late to come then. He had slept scarcely a wink all night. But if he had expected to be given hope by the first sight of her face, he was disappointed. She looked almost haggard.
“Yes.” She leaned against the door. “I did not know to whom to talk. Papa would be merely upset. It was you or Lord Ashley Kendrick. But I cannot go to him or ask him to call upon me here. He might tell—” She stopped and looked at him with troubled eyes.
Ah, so she had not changed her mind. She had not summoned him to make him the happiest of men.
“Fetch a shawl,” he said, “and we will walk. Eric is still asleep?”
“And Papa too,” she said.
He offered his arm as they walked toward the bridge and was relieved that she took it. They crossed the bridge and turned to walk along the footpath beside the river, on the opposite side from Penshurst park.
“What is making you so unhappy?” he asked her after she had had time to compose herself. “How can I be of service to you, Kathy?”
“I do not know where to start,” she said, looking up at him with liquid brown eyes.
“Wherever you wish,” he said. “I have all morning, all day to give to you if necessary.”
She drew breath a few times. Finally she spoke. “I always assumed that we would marry,” she said. “You and I, I mean. I did not believe the difference in our stations would hold you back and I was . . . fond of you.”
“Yes,” he said. “I always assumed it too. I loved you.”
“I do not know quite what it was with him,” she said. “With Gregory. Suddenly he seemed to—to need me. I do not believe he loved me, but he pressed his attentions on me with single-minded determination. I do not know why I responded as I did. I was flattered, perhaps. He was from Penshurst, after all. Papa worked for him. Or I felt his need and responded to it. The love you and I seemed to share was a quiet thing. I did not fully realize until afterward how—how deep it was. I—I do not know why I responded to him.”
“I thought,” he said, and he could hear the hurt in his own voice, “that you had stopped loving me, Kathy. That you had grown to love him.”
“I think I persuaded myself ’twas so,” she said. “I knew ’twas not even before he died. Henry, there was no Mr. Smith. I have never been married.”
“I know that,” he said quietly.
“You knew?” She looked up at him and bit her lower lip.
“Before you even returned here,” he said. “And if I had not known, I would have realized it as soon as I saw Eric.”
“He does resemble Gregory, does he not?” she said sadly.
“Kathy.” Hope stirred painfully in him again. “Was that why you refused me yesterday? Did you think I did not know? Did you believe I would not want you if I knew you had never been wed? If I knew of Eric’s illegitimacy? These things do not matter to me at all. You would be my wife. He would be my son.”
“I think,” she said, her voice shaking badly, “I am guilty of terrible things. Much worse than these.”
“Tell me, then,” he said. “’Tis time. You used not to be as quiet, as unhappy as you have been since your return. He is a lovely child, Kathy, and you are a good mother to him. There seems to be no reason for lasting unhappiness. What are these dreadful things you mention?”
“I went to stay with my mother’s family,” she said. “They took me in and were kind to me. I was very fortunate. But I was angry and bitter. I had ruined my life, turning to him in his need and away from everything that would have led to my permanent happiness. And even my chance for respectability had been snatched away at the last moment when he died on our wedding day. My son, who would have been heir to Penshurst after his father, was instead a bastard. And Papa—poor innocent Papa, who had always taken such great pride in his work—had been dismissed. All because of her. I do not know why she hated me so, unless it was that I was merely the daughter of her father’s steward. But I was a lady. Papa is a gentleman. After all, Gregory would have married sooner or later. She must have realized that. But she did hate me. And I think she hated him too after he told her about me. I think—Henry, I have always thought that she killed him. Is it wicked to suspect such a thing?”
“No,” he said.
“Is it true, then?” She stared at him with wide eyes.
“Yes,” he said. “I believe so, Kathy.”
“There was a man,” she said. “My cousin’s friend. He was enormously wealthy, having inherited money from several relatives, though he was rather unhappy about owning no land of his own. He was handsome, charming, sympathetic, attentive. I was soothed by his interest. Gregory was dead, I had lost you—I was grateful to him. I poured out all my bitterness to him, all my hatred, all my suspicions.”
“Perhaps it was not in the best of taste to do so,” he said when she paused in obvious distress. “But ’twas understandable, Kathy. I wish you had come to me.”
“No,” she said, “you do not. You were hard and bitter, Henry. You were unkind to me—not that I blame you. If I had told you afterward that I was to have his child . . .”
“Yes,” he said quietly. “Yes, you are right. I hated you for a long time.”
“I did not know,” she said, “that he was conceiving a passion for me, that he was becoming angry
on my behalf, that he was plotting revenge on my behalf. Oh, he talked about avenging the wrong that had been done me. He was an army officer and he thought it possible that his regiment would go to India, where of course Lord Kersey was living, at some future time. He said he would see to it that one day Eric would live in his rightful home and that I, as his mother, would live there too. ’Twas all a game to me, a gleeful, spiteful dream. I encouraged him.”
“To India,” Sir Henry said quietly.
“And then,” she said, “long after I had forgotten about it, and about him too, we heard of Alice’s and her son’s horrible deaths. And only a few days after that there came a letter from him, telling me that he was in India and enjoying his duties there. Nothing more. Nothing about Alice. The suspicions have gnawed at me ever since. I have wondered about it, worried about it, had nightmares over it.”
“’Twas a coincidence, Kathy,” he said, covering her hand with his own. “’Twas a coincidence, by my life. You must forget it. Alice and her son died accidentally in a fire.”
“But he is at Penshurst,” she said quickly. “He is Lord Ashley’s friend, Henry. His friend from India. Major Roderick Cunningham.”
“Zounds,” he said, his reassuring touch turning to a grip.
“He has talked to me,” she said. “He has told me that soon Eric and I will be living at Penshurst—with him. I am terrified of him, Henry. What has he done for my sake? And what is he planning to do—for my sake? Yesterday morning Lady Emily Marlowe was shot at. By whom? Why? I fear I know the answer to the first question at least.”