by Liz Carlyle
“Don’t!” he said roughly. “Don’t ever—Jesus, don’t smother me like that! God damn, why is it so infernal hot in here?”
Frederica sat straight up. “What’s wrong, Bentley?” she gently demanded. “You were dreaming something. What?”
He made a soft, hissing sound through his teeth. “Nothing. I don’t remember.”
“Bentley, I’m your wife,” she pressed. “Won’t you tell me what’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong, Freddie,” he insisted. “It’s just that it’s so bloody hot in here I can’t get my breath.”
But a cold rain had begun to hammer at the windows, and Frederica thought the room quite chilly. Bentley, however, was drenched in sweat. “Shall I open a window?” she offered.
He dragged his right arm from beneath his head and rolled up to face her. Even in the gloom, she could feel his eyes searching her face, as if wondering what he’d said or done. Urgently, he murmured something, then cursed under his breath. He breathed in and out slowly, twice. Then she felt his body shift and heard the old bed creak beneath his weight. He dragged himself over her, and, sensing his need, she reached out to him, glad for the heat and heaviness which pressed her down into the mattress.
A little roughly, he wedged his hard thigh between her legs, nudging them apart. In the darkness, his mouth desperately sought her cheek, her forehead, and then her lips. “Just kiss me,” he whispered, his voice but a rasp in the darkness. “Come, kiss me, Freddie love.”
She rose against him then, opening her lips fully beneath his, allowing him to explore her depths and drag her down into the warm, surging desire. Her questions melted away as he thrust his tongue into her mouth with a fierce, driving rhythm. Outside, the storm ratcheted sharply upward, spattering rain against the windows and enveloping them in a sudden sense of intimacy and isolation. She sighed and let her palms slide down his sides and over his taut buttocks. But he captured her hands and shoved them high above her head.
“Come to me, wife,” he murmured, lifting his hips above hers and driving suddenly, savagely, into her body. “Come, we are as one. Love me. Make me whole.”
The storm broke shortly before dawn, but Bentley did not permit himself to drift off again. Instead, he watched his wife drowse beside him until the misty light began to cast shape and shadow to the bell tower beyond his window. Freddie lay almost on her stomach, her face turned to him, one small fist curled against the pillow. The counterpane had slipped down to expose the delicate bones of her shoulder blades and a lovely expanse of warm, olive skin. He felt desire stir again—sweeter and less savage, yes. But unwanted. Ruthlessly, he tamped it down and sat up.
Good God, he had not handled himself well last night. And he was afraid of what she might say or ask this morning. He was ashamed of the way he had used her, riding her like some sort of demon, rutting and thrusting in some blind attempt to…to what? To drive away the remnants of that bloody awful dream which seemed to come all too often. And had he pleasured her? Had she even come beneath him? Damn it, he did not know, so desperate had been his urge. The memory of it left him feeling…unclean. As if he had debased someone else to save himself.
He tore himself from the bed, realizing that he could bear to stay no longer. He was half afraid to leave her, though, for she was always so ill in the mornings. It was the child, he knew. Dear God, how many burdens would he lay on her before all was said and done? It was as if the walls were closing in on him again. He had to get out. Get some air. There was work to be done this day.
Swiftly, he washed and shaved, staring at the mirror as he did so. He looked like hell this morning, the candlelight emphasizing the hard lines around his mouth and the drawn look about his eyes.
As a boy, he had been physically beautiful, and almost impishly charming. But he had never, ever been innocent. And now, he could look at his reflection and foresee a time when his physical beauty would fail him. When charm would become eccentricity. When all he would have to fall back on would be what little he had managed to build. With his wife.
How could she then find him appealing? Even this morning, it might as well have been a week since he’d shaved, so black was the swath of beard his blade scraped away. He wondered Freddie had let him come near her last night. With a soft curse, he splashed off the last of the soap, threw on his most comfortable clothes, and left.
Chapter Fifteen
In which Our Heroine has a very Grave encounter.
Frederica awoke to a room filled with light. She stretched all the way down to her toes before suspicion struck, sending her straight upright in bed, her eyes fixed on the mantel clock. Good Lord, a quarter past nine! She threw back the covers and jerked on her wrapper just as Jennie bustled through the door. The maid carried a covered dish and a cup of chocolate.
“Oh, miss, are you awake, then?” she chirped, taking the tray to the small table between the windows. “I peeped in at eight, but you was dead to the world.”
“Good morning, Jennie.” Hastily, Frederica tied her wrapper. “Have you seen Mr. Rutledge today?”
“Gone off a good hour ago, miss,” she answered. “I didn’t hear where. Now, sit yourself down and try to eat a bite. Mrs. Naffles was having the sideboard cleared, so I snatched up what was left.”
Jennie lifted the cover, and the heavenly scent of bacon wafted up. It was only then that Frederica realized she was not ill. In fact, she was ravenous. She sat down at the little table and sipped her chocolate. “I’ve never in my life missed breakfast,” she said sheepishly. “Did anyone notice?”
“Just Mrs. Naffles,” she answered. “She said she’d have the girls cook something fresh when you got up, but—”
“Oh, no!” Frederica cut her off. “This is fine, Jennie. Doesn’t the day look lovely? Will you lay out my gold walking dress? I think I shall take a walk.”
Once dressed and downstairs, Frederica learned that Lord Treyhern was locked in his study with his ledgers, and Helene was with Ariane, studying French grammar. Frederica saw Mrs. Naffles near the conservatory and inquired about the nicest route for a walk.
The elderly housekeeper shifted her pile of linen onto one hip and peered over her small wire glasses. “Oh, well, there’s the footpath behind,” she said cheerfully, tilting her head toward the conservatory doors. “Go left, and you’re but two miles from Coln St. Andrews. Straight past the stables takes you over the ridge and on to Bellevue. Or turn right, through the kitchen garden—”
“Ah, yes, to go past the orchards to the church,” finished Frederica.
Mrs. Naffles nodded. “And on through the churchyard to the village, if you like a shortcut. That’s the way Mr. Rutledge goes most times. A-whistling his way past his own grave, we tease him.”
Lightly, Frederica lifted her brows. “Did he go that way this morning?”
“He did say something about calling at the saddler’s,” she said vaguely. “But that was some time past. You might, though, catch him coming back.” The old woman smiled and went on her way. Frederica went out through the conservatory, but in the rear gardens, she ran into Madeline and Gervais coming through the back gate with Gervais’s governess.
“Good morning, Mrs. Rutledge,” said Miss Taft brightly.
“Good morning.” Frederica looked at Gervais. His hands were grubby, his knuckles stained with grass. He looked earnestly back at her, his dark brown hair tossing in the breeze. Both children sported warm clothing, damp shoes, and pink noses.
“For you,” Gervais announced, jerking a bouquet of daisies from behind his back.
“Oh, lovely!” Frederica knelt to take them.
On a loud snuffle, Madeline threw one arm around Frederica’s neck and offered a second nosegay, this one a tad bedraggled. “Uncle Bentley helped pick ’em,” she announced.
“Why, it is beautiful, too!” Frederic added. “Thank you.”
“We’re studying flowers,” bragged Madeline. “And bugs. Weally ugly ones with hairy legs.”
“Not b
ugs,” corrected Gervais. “Bees. Bees make flowers.”
“That’s almost correct,” Miss Taft interjected. “Bees fertilize flowers.”
Frederica smiled at the earnest little faces. “And did Uncle Bentley participate in this lesson?” she asked. “I can scarce imagine it!”
Lightly, Miss Taft laughed. “I fear he was a most disruptive student,” she said. “So he was assigned to help Madeline pick her flowers whilst Gervais and I discussed cross-pollination. There was, unfortunately, a vast deal of laughing and falling down involved in their process.”
“I wonder who looks most untidy?” Frederica mused, brushing some grass from Madeline’s coat sleeve. “I daresay Uncle Bentley shall need a good dusting off, too.”
“And I was supposed to pick only yellow ones and white ones,” sighed Madeline, reluctantly unwrapping herself. “Uncle Bentley didn’t follow instwuctions.”
“No, he never does, does he?” murmured Frederica, studying the nosegay’s gaudy colors. Swiftly, she kissed both children on their cheeks and thanked them again. Then, wishing everyone a pleasant morning, Frederica went through the gate and down the hill, wondering where her husband was.
It was a short walk past the kitchen gardens and down the hill to St. Michael’s. A door set into the wall gave onto the churchyard, and it groaned open when Frederica lifted the latch and gave it a hearty shove. Once inside, she made her way along the back wall, keeping to the path which led to the village gate. This part of the churchyard was dotted with monuments and gravestones, a few worn nearly smooth with the passage of time. Others were covered with gray-green lichen or tilted into one another at drunken angles.
There were also a great many trees, especially yew trees and thick hollies. At the top of the gentle ridgeline, Frederica stepped from behind one of them, then drew back at once. A few feet away, a woman wearing a cloak of billowing olive merino was on her knees before one of the graves, arranging an unusual bouquet of wildflowers and cattails. Her soft coloring and simple clothing blended so perfectly with her surroundings Frederica had the impression of having espied some ancient woodland priestess laying an offering.
Frederica moved to retrace her steps, too late. The woman’s ears were keen. She jerked up her head, then gracefully rose. She was tall, with high, strong cheekbones, a wide mouth, and a pair of perceptive brown eyes. Eyes which were vaguely familiar and thoroughly unsettling.
“I do beg your pardon,” said Frederica. “Is this the path to the village?”
“Yes, down the hill and through that gate.” Her cloak was worn and quite damp around the hems. It swept over the stubbled grass as she came closer.
Frederica thanked her and set off again.
“Wait, please.” With an enigmatic smile, the woman pushed back her hood to reveal a plain arrangement of heavy chestnut hair, then thrust out a gloved hand. “I collect you must be my new sister,” she said in her soft, husky voice. “I am Catherine. Good morning.”
Bentley’s sister? Good Lord, was this fey, unaffected creature the Viscountess de Vendenheim? “What an unexpected pleasure,” said Frederica, curtseying awkwardly, still clutching her own flowers. “Forgive my interruption.”
But Lady de Vendenheim had laughter in her eyes. “Lud, child, don’t curtsey to me!” she said. “You make me feel quite ancient, when I am—oh, well, perhaps a month or two older than your husband.”
Oddly, the viscountess wore driving gloves. Her hand was still stubbornly extended. Frederica took it and blushed. “You look very like him.”
Lady de Vendenheim’s wide mouth turned up at one corner. “Oh, we are very like in a great many ways,” she admitted, motioning Frederica toward a bench on the other side of the yew tree. “Come, will you sit?” she asked, strolling across the grass. “I was just leaving some flowers on Mother’s grave. Today is the anniversary of her death.”
They paused near the end of a row of lichen-covered gravestones, a few of which were inscribed with the Rutledge name. Beyond them, however, were two uneven rows of older stones and several table tombs inscribed with Camden.
“The family plot, my dear,” she murmured, gesturing about them as she sat. “And it’s some family you’ve married into, I’ll warrant you that.”
Lady de Vendenheim, it seemed, was as plainspoken as her brothers. Laying aside her flowers, Frederica joined her on the bench. “I see many stones marked Camden,” she commented. “It is also a family name, is it not?”
Her gaze oddly distant, Lady de Vendenheim nodded. “My mother’s family built this church and village,” she said. “She married into the Rutledges of Devonshire.”
“And inherited Chalcote, did she not?”
The viscountess smiled tightly. “Much good did it do her,” she said, motioning toward the flowers she’d just put down. “Her name, as you see, was Alice. She died young. So young that Bentley barely remembers her. She never really recovered from his birth, and he suffered greatly from the lack of feminine influence.”
“Was there no one to mother him?” asked Frederica softly.
The viscountess shrugged. “There was Cassandra, I suppose,” she said doubtfully. “Cam’s first wife. Unfortunately, she was not the nurturing type. Besides, Bentley was—oh, about Gervais’s age when they married.”
“Where is she buried?” asked Frederica.
The viscountess pointed at a wide spot between her mother’s grave and the two smaller stones which ended the row. “There.”
“I…but I don’t see anything.”
The viscountess flashed her enigmatic smile again. “The marker is missing,” she said. “There was a latent fault in the stone. Can you believe that? It sheared apart a few months ago, smack between the words Beloved Wife and Mother. The stonecutter is making a new one, but frankly, it may have been a sign from God.”
Frederica hardly knew how to reply. “She hasn’t been dead long?”
The viscountess shrugged. “Some would say not long enough.”
“Oh.” There it was again. That startling Rutledge candor. “She was not…well liked?”
“Oh, she was liked well enough in some circles,” murmured the viscountess. “Cassandra found country life tedious, so her friends and cicisbei flooded in from town by the carriage load. Between her and Papa, living at Chalcote was like living in Brighton Pavilion.”
“I can scarce imagine that,” said Frederica. “It seems so peaceful now.”
The viscountess gave a sharp laugh. “Perhaps, but it used to be one endless stream of revelry—until Cam’s patience snapped. He took the whip hand with Cassandra, sent her lovers packing, and confined her, more or less, to the house. Lud, I can still hear her raging at him over it! Swearing she’d get revenge, swearing she’d kill him—my God, it was a nightmare! Really, now I think on it, it’s a miracle Bentley and I grew up to be normal at all.” She looked at Frederica and winked. “Well, almost normal.”
Frederica smiled. “It sounds as though Bentley was very much alone.”
Lady de Vendenheim shrugged. “Well, he was Papa’s little shadow,” she admitted. “Not that that was especially wholesome. And there was Mrs. Naffles. And me. That’s it, really.”
“Your mother had no female relatives?”
The viscountess shook her head. “Only her sister, Agnes Belmont,” she said. “But Aunt Belmont had little use for us poor relations.”
Belmont. Why was that name familiar? Frederica smiled. “Bentley says John Camden’s ghost haunts Chalcote,” she said. “Do people really believe that?”
Lady de Vendenheim’s smiled turned mischievous again. “Oh, some do,” she admitted. “Grandpapa threatened it, you know, when he divided the land between Mother and Aunt Belmont. Their children were supposed to marry and reunite Chalcote with Bellevue, so that his spirit might rest in peace.”
Suddenly, insight flashed. Bellevue. Belmont. Was Joan the girl Lord Treyhern and Bentley had both wished to marry? Good Lord! Queenie had said as much, but Frederica hadn’t been li
stening. She must have grown very still, for Lady de Vendenheim laid her hand lightly over hers. “You have heard, I daresay, some silly talk about Bentley’s having been in love with Joan. There is nothing in it, my dear. Nothing save two brothers who were snarling like mongrels over a bone which neither really wanted.”
“Yes, I see.” But the thought of her husband wanting to marry Joan bothered her. She searched desperately for another topic of conversation. “And where is your father, my lady? Is he buried here as well?”
“Lud, call me Catherine!” she said. “Yes, he is there, just beyond Mother’s grave.”
Frederica looked at the inscription. “Oh, dear,” she murmured. “He did not reach a great age, either. Was he sickly?”
“Heavens, no. In the pink of health, unless one counts thirty years of drinking, dicing, and whoring. Eventually, that catches up with a man. Papa finally had a heart attack whilst en flagrant with Ariane’s former governess.” Beneath her olive cloak, Catherine lifted her shoulders in a gesture of resignation. “There was no hushing it up, of course. So Papa died as he lived, the talk of all Gloucestershire and half of England, too.”
She spoke of her father almost emotionlessly, much as Bentley had done. “Whose are the newer gravestones?” Frederica asked, to turn the conversation. “Those at the end, marked O’Gavin? Or do they belong to the next row?”
“No.” Catherine grew very still. “That is…well, that is Mary. A woman with whom Bentley had a—a sort of relationship. When he was very young. A brief relationship. And—well, a child. Bridget. She is buried there with her mother.”
It felt as if all the air left Frederica’s lungs. “Oh, I…I see,” she managed. “I—I would not have noticed, but the names…”
“Yes, they were Irish,” interjected Catherine into the awkward silence. “Mary was from St. Giles, a poor, wretched place. But I collect my brother was fond of her. Or perhaps he just felt sorry for her? With Bentley, one never knows.”