by Liz Carlyle
He could not finish. Frederica saved him the trouble. She went into the dressing room and returned with Randolph’s book, then dropped it into his lap. He recognized it at once. She knew that he did, for what was left of his color drained away. “Where in God’s name did you get this?” he demanded, the tenderness leaving his voice.
“From the old blanket chest,” she admitted. “The one in Cassandra’s bedchamber.”
She watched as his knuckles went white on the red leather binding, as white as they’d been the day he ripped open Cassandra’s clothes press and slammed it shut again. “Freddie,” he rasped, staring down at the book. “Had I wished for a wife with the tastes and talents of a whore, I would have married one.”
The brutality of his words shocked her, but she hid it. “Well, I think that you are just a big hypocrite, Bentley Rutledge.”
His jaw began to twitch. “Would you care to explain that?”
Frederica jerked to her feet and stared him down. “You’re said to be the biggest whoremonger in six counties,” she retorted. “And yet you want a wife who will be content to—to what? Just lie there underneath you? Is that what you wanted? Did I misunderstand? Should I stop moving? Moaning? Is it a sign of ill breeding when a woman has a cli—”
Bentley jabbed a finger in her face. “Just stop right there, Frederica!” he growled. “We haven’t exactly been living like monks and nuns in here for the last few weeks. And yes, we’ve both damned well been enjoying it. But you listen to this, for I shan’t say it again: Cassandra Rutledge was a manipulative bitch and a cold-hearted slut. No one in this house wishes ever to be reminded of her. Not me. Not Ariane. And least of all my brother. Stay out of her things. Stay out of her rooms. And don’t ever mention her name again.” This last was said as he strode toward the door. His hand on the knob, he whirled about to face her.
“Where are you going?” she asked weakly.
Some of the frustration went out of him at that. “To fetch your maid,” he said, his shoulders sagging. “You need a plaster on that bruise. I am deeply sorry I hit you, Freddie. Deeply sorry. God knows I didn’t mean to.”
Frederica started toward him. “Are you coming back?”
He did not look at her. “I’m going to the workshop to plane down the church door,” he said. “I need to work off some of this emotion before I explode.”
And on that note, he jerked open the door, causing Queenie to almost fall into the room. Perched on the threshold, she teetered, the weight of her bosom seeming to tip her forward. Bentley caught her shoulder, too late. She flailed backward, smacking Bentley in the face with her hearth broom.
Without another word, Bentley steadied her, wiped the soot from his face with his coat sleeve, and slowly walked away.
Frederica watched her husband vanish into the shadows of the corridor. Too late, she realized Queenie was staring at her, an expression of pity on her face. Good Lord, were the servants listening at doors now? There had likely been no need. Bentley’s deep voice carried. Frederica lifted her chin. “Queenie, it isn’t what you think.”
Queenie snapped into action and began bustling about the hearth. “Ooh, it ain’t my place to think, ma’am.”
For several minutes, Frederica sat, simply watching the servant work and wondering what to do with her life. She was unable to make sense of anything, least of all her own emotions. Just as Queenie finished sweeping, Jennie hastened in. “Oh, miss!” she said in a rush. “Mr. Rutledge told me to—oh, my God!” The maid knelt by Frederica’s chair and pulled back her mistress’s hair.
“It isn’t as bad as it looks,” said Freddie dryly. “But I daresay I’ve learned not to wake a man when he’s in the midst of a nightmare.”
Both servants looked at her with thin, nervous smiles. Heavens, did no one believe her? Frederica felt her face flush with heat. Murmuring some platitude, Jennie went into the dressing room and began to rummage about. At once, Queenie set the fender back in place and darted out after wishing Frederica good day. Suddenly, Frederica felt an overwhelming wish to be alone. She needed to think. Something in the back of her mind was troubling her.
Impulsively, she called Jennie from the dressing room. The maid appeared with a strip of bandaging in one hand. “Yes, miss?”
Frederica smiled sweetly. “Will you go down to the kitchen and send up a pot of strong tea?” she asked. “And after that, Jennie, I should really like to lie down. A plaster will only make this look worse. I’ll ring for you later.”
Her expression uncertain, Jennie bobbed a quick curtsey and left. At once, Frederica went into the dressing room to find Cassandra’s books. She was not perfectly sure why she did so. She knew only that her relationship with her husband was fast approaching some critical point. A point at which they would either forge something of a real relationship or watch what little they had crumble. And for reasons she could not explain, she felt that the ghost of Cassandra Rutledge had cast a pall not just over this house but over Frederica’s marriage, too.
She carried the books to the chair by the windows. Queenie slipped in with her tea but hastened away at once. Frederica took one sip, hoping to fortify herself, and then flipped open the journal, the one book she’d not yet opened. There had been no date on the green cloth cover, nor was there one inside. In fact, only the first six pages contained any writing at all. Disappointed, Frederica thought of the other journals she’d seen shoved in the drawer of the blanket chest, then glanced again at the one she held. Could this be Cassandra’s last journal? One so new she’d not bothered to date it?
Again, Frederica wondered how long Cassandra had been dead. She began to skim the journal pages. It was more of a daily log than a diary. On the first page under “Wednesday,” Cassandra had made several unremarkable notations. It seemed her blue wool riding habit had arrived an inch too short. Milford was to be reminded to check the champagne reserves. A faulty clasp on her sapphire bracelet needed immediate attention. Paragraphs with more such minutiae followed in a dark, angular handwriting.
At the bottom of the second page, Cassandra made mention of the day’s post: a letter from her father and a second from a gentleman whose name Frederica did not recognize. “He says is back in England and desperate to see me,” Cassandra had written. “He begs me to contrive a meeting. Mortimer Street, next month.”
Mortimer Street? That was the address of Lord Treyhern’s London town house. Her plan sounded vaguely improper, but Cassandra had noted it emotionlessly. Continuing on, Frederica saw no mention of anyone else, save Cassandra herself, on the first five pages. There was no word of time spent with Ariane or any reference to her husband. Instead, she remarked upon the tedium of village life and the insipidness of her neighbors. On the whole, her words described the life of a very dull, self-absorbed woman. Then, under “Sunday,” Frederica’s eye caught a strange remark.
“Saw Thomas after his sermon today,” she had written. “Ephesians 1:7, redemption and forgiveness! Could not keep from laughing in his face.”
This aside was followed by a bitter remark about the Cotswold weather and its disastrous effect on her hair. Frederica flipped to the last page. Three paragraphs were scrawled across it and, after that, nothing. What had apparently been the last day of Cassandra’s life was noted as a Thursday. Frederica skimmed the first paragraph. At once, her stomach began to twist into knots. Again, she read it, forcing herself to slow down. To be sure.
“Thomas came whilst Cam was at shearing,” Cassandra began, her penmanship suddenly unsteady. “The fool thinks to threaten me. What gall. Town beckons. Tonight I again pressed Bentley for help, but my precious grows stubborn. Most unwise. Confession, I reminded him, is good for the soul.”
Frederica squeezed her eyes shut and tried to force her breathing to calm. Good Lord, it sounded as if…as if…what? With a sick feeling, Frederica read the last two paragraphs. For the first time in days, she felt nausea roil up in her throat. She felt cold. Numb. Cassandra’s veiled notes left little doubt abo
ut her meaning. An awful suspicion choked the breath from her lungs.
As if it had just burst into flame, she flung away the book. It landed on the carpet, then skittered into the night table with a thud. Frederica simply stared at it, unable to think. Whatever the truth, it was appalling. She did not want to know. Never wanted to know. But she already did. It simply wasn’t that hard to read between the lines. The reality was more horrifying than any bruise her husband could have given her. Frederica sagged with a sudden sense of grief. Bentley had much to explain. His past was his past, yes. But this was…unthinkable. Her hands shaking, Frederica stood, went into the dressing room, and dragged out the first gown she saw.
Backlit by the glow of the blacksmith’s forge, Bentley bent over the worktable and drove another smooth pass with his plane. A long sliver of oak curled in its wake, then tumbled softly onto the dirt floor. With the back of one hand, he wiped the sweat from his eyes, then straightened up. At the forge, old Angus was hammering out the first of what was to be a new set of hinges. If he’d thought of it, Bentley wryly considered, he could have dragged the project out until kingdom come by just building a new door altogether. That would have meant new planks, new joinery—hell, he and Angus could have felled and sawed the trees, too. Yes, if he’d been willing to use green lumber, he might have stayed hidden in the workshop for days—and doing the Lord’s work, no less.
Old Angus turned from the fire, then rooted around beneath his leather apron for his handkerchief. “The bolt holes,” he called over one shoulder. “What’s the distance? Measure center-to-center wi’ that rule, ye ken?”
Bentley snatched the device from its peg, measured, and called out the result. Angus grunted, then took up his tools and resumed his efforts. The heat, the smells, even the rhythmic clanking of the hammer, were strangely soothing to Bentley’s senses. It was peaceful here, in its own way. A man’s domain, simple and purposeful, just as a man’s life ought to be, were the world a perfect place. Certainly, there were no women here. And no memories of them, either.
Bentley picked up his plane and thought again of what he had done to Freddie. Good God, he was still appalled. Why her? Why now? It wasn’t as if he hadn’t suffered that damned dream a hundred times and in a hundred different beds. There had been a hundred other women in those beds with him, too, but he’d never hauled off and backhanded any of them. Of course, none of them had crawled on top of him when he was dead asleep and hard as Angus’s hammer.
The trouble, of course, was Freddie. None of it was her fault. But she stirred things up in his head. She stripped away the detachment he’d come to count on. Forced him to a level of intimacy he almost could not bear. They were as one, the Reverend Mr. Amherst had told them. And that was just how it felt when he gazed into her eyes as they made love. He was there with her, in body and in spirit. He could not keep his distance and simply satisfy his physical ache. She aroused in him an ache of the soul as well. A yearning to be linked, heart to heart and mind to mind.
Good Lord. He could open neither his heart nor his mind to anyone. But neither could he seem to stop it when it came to Freddie. So it was just a matter of time. A matter of time before she sensed or saw something. Or asked some probing question he could not answer. She was no fool, his young wife. And she was right about something else, too. She was not all that innocent. She would be hard to deceive. Had he imagined he could? Or had he subconsciously brought her to Chalcote to help banish his old ghosts? Had he foolishly convinced himself that love conquered all? Well, none of it had worked, had it? He had been a fool to take her to the altar, whether she carried his child or no.
“Ho, laddie!” Angus’s voice cut into his thoughts. “Would ye be warkin’ or daydreamin’?”
Bentley realized he’d stopped in mid-stroke, bent halfway over the worktable with the curl of wood just dangling off the back of the plane. He jerked the blade back, cursing at the rough spot which remained. Another two strokes smoothed it away. A pity his nightmares were not so easily dealt with. Ah, but he would not think of that now. He would think, instead, of the shaping of this wood, and he would try to lose himself in the simplicity of the task.
Lord Treyhern was locked in his study when Frederica came downstairs. Through the heavy door, she could hear his voice booming, as if he were angry. She let her hand drop without knocking and turned away, but a pitiful noise caught her attention. She looked down to see one of the kittens mewling at the door. She scooped it up and pressed its yellow fur to her cheek, reluctant to leave it alone. Fortunately, at that very moment, Mrs. Naffles bustled past.
“Ooh, poor wee dear!” she cooed, dropping the kitten into the front pocket of her apron. “I’ll take it in through the butler’s pantry.” Then Frederica explained her dilemma, and Mrs. Naffles was happy to help her, too. The workshops at Chalcote, she explained, were under the hill below the new granary.
The workshops consisted of a long row of stone shelters, some partially open, such as the blacksmith’s shop, which belched white smoke from its chimney. Others were fully enclosed and fitted with squat double doors. From above, Frederica could hear a great deal of clanking and cursing. As she came down the path, she could look through the open blacksmith’s shop to see a second room fitted with carpentry tools.
Her husband was bent low over a worktable, naked from the waist up. Sweat trickled down the muscles of his back. Frederica could see why when she paused in the entryway. Heat roiled from the forge, radiating off the stone walls. The servant they called Old Angus gave her a curt nod of greeting, then laid down his tools and left. His back turned, Bentley seemed oblivious to her presence as he ran the plane smoothly along the bottom of the door. For a long moment, she lingered, watching the thick muscles of his shoulders bunch then relax as, again and again, he slid the tool smoothly across the wood, making the blade sing with a soft, hissing rhythm. How like him to choose to do such manual labor himself. Clearly, he knew what he was doing, too.
As with everything he did, there was a lazy, almost effortless grace to his motions. And yet the power in his body could not be denied. With every stroke of his sculpted arms, the muscles of his back drew taut and drove the plane home. His torso glistened from the heat of the forge and the effort of his strokes. With his braces slipped off his shoulders, his dark trousers rode low on his tautly muscled hips, accentuating his narrow waist.
Was this how they lured you in, these fine, sleek specimens of male beauty? With such charm and strength, could they blind a foolish woman to what lay beneath? No. Frederica might believe her husband a rogue and a sinner. But she did not believe he had set out to lure her or to blind her to his character. Gently, she cleared her throat. “Bentley?”
His entire body went rigid at the sound. He straightened and half turned his head to look at her. With his face in profile, she could see the tracks of sweat which had run like tears down his face. But he stood almost stoically, some strained emotion flickering deep in his eyes. “Bentley,” she said softly, “we need to talk.”
She heard him curse beneath his breath. Then, with the plane clutched hard in his left hand, he slowly turned to face her. He put the tool down, dragged an arm across his face, then, with a brusque nod, strode past her and into the shade of a chestnut tree. In the quiet vale, one could hear nothing but birdsong and soughing wind. There was an old bench beneath the chestnut, and he motioned for her to sit. When she did, he threw himself down in the tufted grass, stretching out his long legs in front of her.
In that instant, however, Frederica forgot her husband’s physical beauty and thought only of the awful task before her. It felt as though her heart was in her throat. The fear and doubt returned, and Frederica felt suddenly as though she were alone with him again, locked in the music room at Strath House, waiting to hear what was to happen with her life.
In the shade, Bentley leaned his weight back on his arms, then lifted his chin to look up at her. The heel of his left hand, she saw, was bearing down on an old chestnut burr, and ye
t he seemed not to notice. Frederica found that disturbing. And it was not the first time, now that she considered it, that Bentley seemed…well, not to feel things. Or, at least, not to feel them in the same way that others did. She must have been staring at him oddly.
“Well, have at it, Freddie,” he said. “Bad news gets no better with waiting.”
She felt suddenly ill and became graceless. “I want to know if it is true, Bentley,” she whispered. “Is it true you had an…an affaire d’amour with your brother’s wife?”
He turned his face away from her and gave a bitter, almost resigned laugh. “Damned if you aren’t quick, Freddie,” he answered. “But no, it was no love affair. Hell, I didn’t even like her. But I fucked her often enough, if that’s what you’re asking.”
Frederica felt her whole body go rigid. “Please don’t use that word,” she said. “It is vulgar and disgusting.”
He looked up at her again, squinting his eyes as the sun dappled his face through the leaves. “Well, it was a vulgar and disgusting thing we did, Freddie.” His tone was dispassionate. “So that’s the only word which fits. I hate to break it to you, love, but life isn’t all sweetness and light.”
Frederica could only gape at him. “Good God, have you no remorse?” Her voice was strident now. “How can you just sit there and—and say that? ‘I fucked her!’ It’s as if you’re speaking of the time or—or the weather!”
“That’s about how significant bedding Cassandra was,” he answered. “And she was almost as unpredictable.”
Frederica shook her head. “No,” she said, her voice growing hollow. “Oh, no, Bentley. It cannot have been insignificant. Please, tell me…tell me you did not commit adultery so casually. So cruelly. Not with your brother’s wife. Please tell me you feel guilt. Or regret. Or a modicum of shame, for God’s sake.”