by Liz Carlyle
Bentley shook his head. He felt numb now. He didn’t understand why his brother was going on so. “Cam, I was almost grown,” he whispered. “I did not look to you for protection. And I certainly did not blame you. Lord, I hope I didn’t. Did I?”
“Of course you did!” Cam whispered. “I failed you, and in your heart, you had to know it! You were a child, no matter what Father told you. I think I convinced myself that you were too much like Father. That you were beyond managing.”
Bentley closed his eyes and swallowed. “You do not hate me?”
“How could I hate you?” Cam answered, his voice gentler. “I never have. I love you. All that I’ve ever done, Bentley, I’ve done for us, for you, Catherine, and me. But, Bentley, I’ll never forgive myself for this. I was always so busy with crops and land and tenants. Always worrying over our finances and our reputation, when there were more important things.”
Bentley felt as if he were slipping into some sort of dreamlike state. “Oh, I’m over it now, Cam,” he lied. But this time, oddly, he knew he lied. “And to be honest, I’ve since done stranger things. This bloody world is full of women with bizarre appetites, and I’ve tried to please most of them. In some ways, the things Cassandra wanted me to do with her seem almost tame now.”
“Well, I wonder why, Bentley,” said Cam, his voice choking again.
Bentley smiled a little crookedly. “I didn’t do everything she wanted, you know,” he said. “Not always. And if I could refuse her some things—why, then I could have refused her everything, couldn’t I? But I didn’t. Not until I found out she’d been Lowe’s lover first. And somehow, that just…well, it struck me as wrong. Just wrong. I mean, I knew I was nothing but Randy Rutledge’s wicked little scapegrace. I knew I would never amount to anything, for I’d heard it whispered behind my back a thousand times. But Thomas Lowe was the rector! A man of God. Oh, I might have been a bit buggered-up in the head, Cam, but I knew that was not right.”
“You hold yourself too cheap,” said Cam softly.
Slowly, it was dawning on Bentley that his brother truly did not blame him, that Cam was not interested in vengeance or punishment. Instead, he seemed grief-stricken. Was Cam right? Was the sin Cassandra’s and not his? Had Cam failed him? And had a part of him blamed Cam for it all these years?
“You remember I said I once heard her quarreling with Lowe?” Bentley interjected into the silence. “He was threatening to tell you everything, Cam—not just about their affair but everything—if she did not resume the relationship. Afterward, she panicked. She was desperate to get away and begged me to take her to London.”
“You?” Cam lifted his gaze. “Take her to London?”
“She’d planned it all out.” Bentley smiled bitterly. “I was to say I wished to read Latin at one of the schools in London. I was to wheedle and say it was my new ambition to prepare for a law career. And then she was to say she felt it her duty to accompany me and to open up the house in Mortimer Street. She said you would be so pleased I’d found a goal in life, and so happy I’d formed a maternal attachment to her, that you would agree.”
“Well, she was a bloody lunatic,” muttered Cam.
“I think she was by then,” said Bentley softly. “I refused her, and she threatened me. She said she’d see you turned me out and that Papa couldn’t stop you because you had become too rich and too powerful.”
“Oh, Bentley!” whispered Cam.
Bentley shrugged. “I believed her. But fate took care of Cassandra, didn’t it? She was dead within the week, and I told myself justice had been served—and that sooner or later, fate would do the same to me. I felt the ax hanging over my head for years.”
Cam’s hands were shaking. “Good God, Bentley, I am more sorry than I can say,” he whispered, jerking unsteadily to his feet. “In the days to come, we will have much to discuss. I think we should discuss it. But for now, I know Frederica needs you. And you need her. I can’t imagine how she knew of this, but she was right that you should tell me.”
Bentley jerked to his feet. “Frankly, I’d prefer never to speak of it again, Cam, if it’s all the same to you.”
The earl shook his head. “There are things I need to say,” he answered, walking toward the door with his shoulders slumped. “Things which are at least fifteen years too late. You need say no more unless you wish to. I shan’t flail you with any more questions. Now, go, Bentley. Go and find your wife, and do whatever you must to set things right. Trust me, it is worth it.”
And as his brother slipped from the room, Bentley realized that it was he who needed Frederica. He was shaken by what had just happened. But the panic was gone at last, leaving him to feel weighed down by a sense of loss and grief which only his wife’s touch could dispel.
Frederica, it seemed, was nowhere to be found. Instead, Bentley found Jennie rummaging about in his dressing room. Freddie’s trunks sat on the floor, filled to bursting, their lids still thrown back. He watched her for a moment and wanted to cry. “Jennie?”
At the sound, Jennie gave a little scream. “Oh, Mr. Rutledge,” she whispered, fingertips pressed to her chest. “I th-thought—”
“That I’d drunk myself to death?” he supplied, more cheerfully than he felt. “Sorry, Jennie, no such luck. Where is Mrs. Rutledge?”
“Gone.” Jennie’s eyes were mistrustful.
“Gone to…?”
Jennie’s lip came out, but she finally relented. “Gone for a long walk, she said.”
Bentley let his gaze drift over the trunks. The sight of them was like a knife in his heart. “Unpack these, Jennie,” he said quietly. “Unpack every stitch, and put it all away.”
Jennie looked at him querulously. “I was told we were to go home.”
Bentley tried to smile, but there was a hard knot in his throat. “Well, perhaps you shall,” he admitted, his vision suddenly clouding. “But perhaps, Jennie—just perhaps—this is home? In any case, no one will go anywhere in a great rush once all the trunks are unpacked, will they? I just want to buy myself a little time, Jennie, not imprison anyone.”
At last, Jennie managed a weak smile. Then she turned away and began to lift out the stacks of clothing. Bentley started from the room, but when his fingers touched the doorknob, Jennie’s voice stayed his hand. “Mr. Rutledge?”
Bentley turned. “Yes?”
Jennie made an awkward little curtsey. “Perhaps she walked over to Bellevue?” she suggested. “She had a paper in her hand. Scrolled, it was, and all caught up in blue ribbon.”
Chapter Twenty-two
The Golden Ring.
In the falling dusk, Bentley sat at the top of the hill, one booted leg drawn up, his arm slung over his knee. It was his favorite spot on earth, this serene little apex from which the whole of his world could be viewed, the place he’d picnicked with Freddie while they gazed at Chalcote and dreamed of names for their child. But this time, his back was turned to Chalcote, and he faced south. Toward Bellevue. And, he hoped, toward his future. But that would depend on Freddie, wouldn’t it?
Somehow, he’d made his peace with Cam, and the result had been so contrary to his fears and expectations Bentley still had not come to grips with it. And in making that peace, he had done what Freddie had asked of him. So why couldn’t he escape this sense of hopelessness? Perhaps because hopelessness had been his boon companion for so long now he did not know how to shake it off. Or perhaps because the horror of his past had been brought home to him yet again—this time in stark detail, forced on him by his brother’s questions.
Dear God, he had spent some fifteen years shutting it all out, by any means possible. Casual sex, copious alcohol, carelessness, wanderlust, fury—name it, and he’d used it. Used it for all it was worth. And now, he wished never to think of it again.
The evening breeze ruffled lightly over his hair. The long, thin shadows which had edged the copse of trees below had vanished, softened to a violet haze. Already, the moon was a silver sliver in the sky, and the
evening’s first star had appeared. Where on earth was Freddie? He prayed his vigil was not in vain. Good Lord, he prayed everything was all right. After all he’d been through, Bentley still could not forget that awful evening in Catherine’s book room. Could not forget Signora Castelli’s hand lingering uncertainly over her cards. She had been unable to answer his one simple question. She had been unable to see the future. And, irrational as it was, that terrified him—because what if it meant there was no future?
Just then, he saw a shadow emerge from the copse. A slight, feminine figure paced up the hill, her shoulders rigidly set, her pace brisk. He stood, and for a long moment he watched his wife move toward him. Watched the breeze play with her hair and the shadows shift over her face as she came. Bentley stood, suddenly hesitant. He felt awkward, like a gangling, uncertain boy again. As she approached, Frederica’s gaze was distant. She did not see him, and Bentley was unable to speak.
Instead, he simply stood, drinking her in. She looked so beautiful. So…right. Good Lord, how could you love someone so much? How could he ever have contemplated leaving her? And how on earth was he going to persuade her to take him back? What if his awkward confession to Cam was not enough to keep her? What if she had changed her mind? He had said some harsh and ugly things.
Then, suddenly, she saw him. Her head jerked up, and her eyes flew wide. Her hair was in disarray, as if she’d rushed to put it up. Her skirts were hitched high in one hand, and the other clutched her shawl tightly between her breasts. For an instant, she froze. “Oh!” she said breathlessly. “Oh, thank God. It is true. Bentley, I’ve been so worried!”
Her words, and the relief which tinged them, told Bentley all that he needed to know. He threw his arms wide, and, with a tremulous smile, she closed the distance between them, hurling herself into his embrace and pressing her cheek to the wool of his coat. “Oh, Bentley!” she whispered. “You’re home.”
His shoulders sagged with an overwhelming relief. He brushed his lips over her hair, then her forehead, before setting her a little away from him. “Yes, I’m home, Freddie love,” he said softly, trying not to cry. “For wherever you are, that is my home.”
Her eyes darted over his face. “Have you just come from Chalcote, then?” she asked almost anxiously. “Have you been to the house?”
It was then that he realized how ill at ease Freddie was. Her face seemed thinner, her gestures anxious. “Only briefly,” he answered.
A look of relief passed over her face. “Bentley—” she started. “That thing I asked of you? Before you left? I’ve reconsidered, and—”
“It’s all right, Freddie,” he softly interjected.
“But I just want you to know,” she said, rushing through the words. “I was wrong. Deeply so. I have changed my mind. Completely. Do you understand?”
In the dying light, he could barely see the tears which pooled in her eyes. It made his own all the harder to contain. “Don’t cry, Freddie love,” he teased, bending his head to kiss her. “Oh, Lord, please don’t. Every time you cry, I do something incredibly foolish.”
But Freddie would not be distracted. “I’m too late, aren’t I?”
Frederica watched her husband blink back his own tears, and an awful sense of guilt assailed her. She had learned of Bentley’s return quite by accident, from one of the servants at Bellevue, and had hastened home with every intention of begging his forgiveness. But Bentley looked wan and shaken. She had never seen him so before. No, not in all the years she’d known him.
“Oh, Bentley!” she whispered.
There was no more anger in him, just that age-old weariness which was ever present in his gaze. “I have done it, Freddie,” he said, his voice hoarse. “I have done as you asked, and it feels as if a weight has been lifted from my heart. He said it wasn’t my fault. Everything I’ve thought true for all these years has been turned upside down, and I see now that you were right. I had to tell him. I had to free myself of it.”
She looked at him then and felt the tears began to spill from her eyes. “But I was wrong to ask that of you,” she whispered. “Oh, I did not know how wrong I was! Please, Bentley, why did you not say something? Why did you not tell me?”
He looked at her blankly. “Tell you what, Freddie?”
“How very young you were.” Her voice choked. “My God, what was I thinking?”
He took her by the shoulders then. “Who have you been talking to, Freddie?” he rasped. “Joan? Who?”
She held his gaze steadily. “To Cassandra,” she answered. “I found her journals. They tell everything, if one knows what to look for. But when I saw the date on her tombstone—oh, my love, I knew. It is too horrible to contemplate. You were but a boy. A child.”
He laughed, low and bitter. “Was I?” he asked. “I did not think so. My father didn’t think so. He thought it was a great joke. You cannot imagine, Freddie, what I was like then. I went from eight to eighteen faster than most people can blink.”
Slowly, Frederica shook her head. “I simply don’t believe that,” she whispered. “A child can be exposed to any manner of unwholesome things, but does that give them the ability to understand it? What he did was morally reprehensible, Bentley. And in the eyes of the church, what she did was incest, pure and simple.”
He was startled by her use of so ugly a word. “I know what the church says, Freddie.”
“Did you know it then?”
He hesitated. “I—no, I daresay I did not.”
She pulled him down onto the grass and drew up her knees beneath her skirt. “You need to forgive yourself, Bentley,” she said quietly. “You must accept that you were not at fault.”
“In time, Freddie. I know that I can do that now,” he whispered, his voice soft with amazement. For a moment, they sat silently as the horizon darkened and the stars came out, one by one. Bentley stared out across the fertile fields which his family had tended for some eight hundred years. The air had cooled, and night was not far away. On a sigh, he circled one arm about his wife and drew her snugly against his side.
“I loved this place as a child, Freddie,” he said quietly. “It was like my own little Garden of Eden. I ran wild, with little supervision or discipline. I missed my mother, but I was not unhappy. I never felt alone or wicked or unloved. Not then. The most terrifying thing anyone could have threatened me with was expulsion from my little garden.”
“Is that what you feared?” she asked softly.
Without looking at her, Bentley nodded. “Oh, yes,” he whispered. “Somehow, I let her convince me that was exactly what Cam would do. That he would tear me away from all I knew, all I loved. I do not think I have ever stopped fearing that. Indeed, at times I think I’ve tried to push him to it, just to have done with the waiting. I have always thought he hated me. My God, I wanted him to hate me.”
Frederica set her hand in the middle of his spine and slid it soothingly up and down. “Your brother cannot possibly hate you.”
“He doesn’t,” Bentley admitted. “So why can’t I believe everything is all right now?”
“Because you have never liked yourself before,” she whispered. “But I like you. And I love you, too. The past is over now.”
Suddenly, her husband made a soft, choking sound. “Well, thank God, Freddie,” he answered. “For I’ve known not a moment’s peace in this place since she took it from me. Not here or anywhere else. Not for very long. That, and not my innocence, is what she stripped from me, Freddie. My sense of peace. Of belonging. And so I’ve always kept moving. I daresay that’s why I came to Chatham Lodge so often. Because it was peaceful and because I envied what all of you had. It was like…like what I’d lost. A house full of family, filled with joy and love.”
Surprised, she tilted her head to look up at him. “Is that what you felt?” she asked, amazed. “What a tender heart you have.”
When he laughed dismissively, she cut him off. “Perhaps that sounds silly, but it is true. Why did you think we welcomed such a scoundr
el into our midst? Because none of us had the heart to toss you out, not even Elliot. We liked you, Bentley, genuinely so.”
He shifted himself around and drew her between his legs, urging her to lean back against him. “I valued that friendship, Freddie,” he said, wrapping his arms about her. “More than you or Gus or any of them will ever know. And after…after what we did that night, I hung about here for days, just waiting for your answer. And when nothing came, I thought…Christ, Freddie, I thought I’d lost it all! Not just my friends. Not just my chance with you. But that sense of belonging. That sense of home and peace.”
Frederica tilted her head to look back at him. “What are you saying, Bentley?”
He shrugged shyly. “That everybody needs a place to go, I guess. A place where they’re always welcome, and for me, that place was Chatham Lodge. I had tainted everything here at Chalcote, because I couldn’t keep my cock in my trousers. To think I’d done it all over again and lost you in the bargain—God, it was almost more than I could bear.”
Lightly, she pressed her fingers to her temple. “Yes, but that part about waiting,” she said. “What was it you thought you were waiting for?”
As if on impulse, he tightened his arms about her. “For your answer, love,” he said, brushing his lips over her head.
She turned in his arms to face him. “To—?”
“Marriage,” he answered as if it were obvious. “It hurt to realize you’d no wish to marry me, no matter what we’d done. I know you hushed it up. And I know, too, that the only reason you relented was because of the child. And because I bullied you. But Freddie, if you will just stay with me—if you will just give it a try with me at Bellevue—I swear I think we can make a go of it. I want to make you happy. I have fences here to mend, yes. But I’m not sure I can do it without you. I need us to be a family. A real family. What do you say?”