Lily did not mention that Avis might be happy some day—happy and loved.
“But?”
“But I am your friend,” Lily said, gaze on the back gardens, “and we’ve always been honest with each other. If you marry Mr. Bothwell, you’ll exchange one set of problems for another. Your neighbors will still have their arrogant prejudices, but instead of managing a large estate, you’ll be wife to the man running Landover, tolerated by the staff, perhaps even tolerated publicly for your spouse’s sake.”
Lily’s sigh heaved cargoes of understanding about on a sea of regret. “That’s not an improvement,” she went on, “not when you have so much freedom and authority here, not when you will be consigned to the status of Mr. Bothwell’s meek, adoring spouse if you marry him. We love you here, and I doubt Mr. Bothwell has expressed regard of a similar stature. He needs an heir for his brother, a lady to warm his bed, and you’re the most easily available.”
All true, but again, Lily had failed to note that Hadrian needed, and deserved, a lady to love him and those children he’d thus far been denied.
“What you say has some truth, Lily. Gratitude alone is a poor reason to marry.”
“He at least appears to respect you,” Lily said, adjusting her shawl—Avis’s shawl. “Whatever you decide, I’ll stand with you.”
“And for that,”—Avis dredged up a smile—“I’ll be grateful, but as I am expecting my intended to call, I had best put myself to rights.”
“Shall I attend you?”
“No, thank you.” Avis headed for the door at a brisk pace. “Though if you could have the footman take the tea tray and water the flower-pots and vases in here, I’d appreciate it. The roses look a little thirsty.”
“Of course.”
Avis resisted the temptation to hurl something breakable when she gained the privacy of her bedroom, for Lily did mean well.
Lily always meant well, and yet, when her advice included not only the usual laments regarding Avis’s deportment and judgment, but also belittling of Hadrian Bothwell, Avis’s temper flared. Lily had crossed a line, shifting from dispensing friendly caution, to dripping poison onto Avis’s heart.
Something would have to be said, and soon. No company at all was better than the company of a companion determined to speak ill of such a decent and dear man.
Avis changed into an old dress with a high waist, a comfortable, gardening sort of dress that left her forearms bare and obviated the need for a corset. Hadrian might walk with her up to the pond—
But no.
She would allow no frolicking halfway up the hill where God and any of His creatures might see her with Hadrian. She could not think that way, could not contemplate leading Hadrian closer to the altar, even in his own mind.
For until the author of the notes was revealed, should Hadrian marry Avis, he might well end up dead.
* * *
“They have a biblical cast.” Hadrian regarded the notes spread out across his estate desk as if he viewed a collection of adders, scorpions, and rats. “Lots of scriptural allusions.”
“Like this one?” Avie plucked a note from the blotter. “‘Easier for an honest strumpet to pass through the gates of heaven than for you to safely darken the doors of our church.’” She put it back and picked up another. “A woman’s good name is worth more than rubies, and her virtue more precious still.’”
She wasn’t even reading the words—clumsy allusions to Matthew, chapter 19, verse 24, and Proverbs, chapter 31—she recited them from memory.
“Can you recall when you received that one?”
She set it down. “After Alexandra left for a post in the south.”
One of the earliest, then. Upon her majority, Lady Alex had left Blessings, and thereafter somebody had begun to harassing Avis by correspondence.
“And this one closely resembles the most recent note. I hate to ask this, Avie, but when did Fenwick come to work for you?”
Avis picked up the enormous ginger cat that had begun frequenting the library in the absence of Harold’s great hound.
“I’ve never once heard Fen cite scripture.” She ran her cheek over the top of the cat’s head, and the beast began to purr. “He was on the estate before Alex went south. He made her nervous, but Vim vouched for him, and Ben found him trustworthy as well.”
More bad news. “Nervous in what way?”
“She wasn’t specific.” Avis walked with the cat to the French doors, which had been thrown open to take advantage of the fresh air. “Most men make her nervous, and Fen is such a strapping specimen, he gave me pause at first.”
Now, Fen flirted and danced with Avie and was markedly familiar with her.
“He’s very protective of you. He either didn’t know you’d been getting notes, or he did a convincing job of acting surprised to learn of it.”
Which was exactly what Hadrian would have done, had he been the author of such scurrilous sentiments.
“I don’t bruit it about.” She set the cat down, and it strolled, tail high, through the French doors and into the gardens. “You think Fenwick is sending me hateful notes.”
Avis was either keeping her own counsel in some significant fashion, or she was understandably distracted. Hadrian joined her at the French doors, just as the cat pounced into a bed of irises and disappeared from view.
“I don’t want to think ill of your steward, but the handwriting is close, and your sister and your companion both took him into significant dislike.”
While Hadrian’s every instinct said Fen was a true friend to Avie.
“Alex didn’t dislike him, exactly, but Lily can’t abide him—says he’s an ungodly barbarian.”
And Fen, who was both shrewd and charming, actively antagonized the woman. “Have you ever asked her why?”
“I assume he flirted with her, and she took it amiss. Is there something you’re not telling me?”
Fen’s flirting was bothersome, but not bothersome enough to inspire hate, and Fen wouldn’t force his attentions on any woman.
Much less Lily Prentiss. Though again, the name Prentiss sounded a bell of memory. Hadrian resolved to write to his former bishop, who had a prodigious recall of church gossip.
“I don’t like to think Fenwick could mean you any harm at all,” Hadrian said. “But he understands what it is to be an outcast.”
“And?”
Hadrian wanted to take Avie’s hand in his, but before the open French windows, that would not do.
“And Fen might enjoy keeping you an outcast with him, enjoy tormenting you so you lean on him a little more, and marrying me will put an end to that.”
“I will not cast aspersion on Fenwick, when so much aspersion has been cast on me, and Fen is one of few who’s stood by me. Besides, what have I ever done to him that he’d cast stones like that?”
In her question, Hadrian heard the first hint that Avis was seriously considering that Ashton Fenwick, a man she considered her friend, had connived to keep her miserable.
Hadrian led her over to the sofa and drew her down beside him.
“Maybe his motives have little to do with you. Maybe some other lady, or ladies, scorned him because of his humble birth, and now you’re a lady scorned by her neighbors.”
“This is complicated,” Avis said, letting her head rest of Hadrian’s shoulder. “It just doesn’t feel possible that Fen could be so unscrupulous and mean.”
“I agree.” Hadrian tucked an arm around her shoulders. “There’s more, Avie.”
“Something bad.”
“St. Just and I went to church with you and Lily. Fen was supposed to join us, but instead went for a hack on St. Just’s gelding.”
“Fen is an indifferent congregant. He attends more to flirt than to worship, and he keeps in touch with his cousin.”
“Who is his cousin?”
“Sara Bennett. You’d never know they were related. She’s tiny and blond, and he’s a dark giant, but she married a man built much like Ashton.�
��
“You’re falling asleep.”
“Resting my eyes.”
About damned time. “While we were at church, Fen could have planted that note.”
“Fenwick would not plant a vile note, Hadrian, but it’s easy enough to ask the lads if they saw him about on Sunday morning.”
“Easy enough for me,” Hadrian corrected her, then rose and scooped her up against his chest. “You shall go about your business, my dear, and not let this matter bother you, but first you shall rest, here, where you know you’re safe.”
He expected her to order him to put her down, wiggle about and make a fuss.
She slipped her arms around his neck.
“You will manage whatever mischief you’re bent on, Hadrian Bothwell, without allowing a single footman to catch even a glimpse of your folly.”
Of course, he did managed that much—the servants had been given their orders, after all—setting her on the bed in an airy, sunny guest room abovestairs, then taking a seat beside her.
“Hadrian Bothwell, this will not serve.”
As fusses went, that was a pathetic effort.
“You aren’t sleeping well,” Hadrian observed as he turned her shoulders and undid the first of her myriad hooks. “Are you worried about this note?”
He brushed a kiss to the top of her spine.
“Don’t do that, please. A seduction can go exactly nowhere, Hadrian.”
Why did women’s dresses have so infernally many hooks? “Nowhere at all? Or nowhere today, because you’re beset by the female complaint?”
He’d been married, and that experience fortified him for certain discussions. He stole another kiss, and this time was rewarded with a sigh.
“Both,” Avis said, as he pushed her dress off her shoulders. “What are you doing?”
“You can’t sleep with your hair up. I’ll rebraid it when you’ve had some rest.” Which she apparently needed desperately. He sent his fingers questing for the pins securing her coronet, drawing each pin free until her braid hung down in a thick, dark rope and he could get a hand on her nape to massage tense, tired muscles.
“How often do you see the Baroness Collins, Avie?”
“Rarely. I see all of our neighbors rarely. That feels appallingly good.”
“I do believe that was a compliment. When you see Collins’s mother, does she acknowledge you?”
Avis stifled a yawn. “Oddly enough she is one of few who does. She called upon me shortly after I returned from Aunt Beulah’s and apologized for what she termed ‘the whole misunderstanding.’ I don’t know if Harold arranged it, or my brothers, but she seemed sincere.”
Hadrian withdrew his hand, rose and unknotted his cravat.
“She might have done that to draw away suspicion, or perhaps Harold threatened dire retribution against Collins unless his mother observed the civilities. Do you mind if I open the windows?”
“I do not mind if you—Hadrian, what are you doing?”
Chapter Fifteen
Hadrian stopped halfway across the room and hung his coat over the back of a chair, then seated himself long enough to pull off his boots and stockings.
“A soft breeze from the gardens has appeal on such a day. The honeysuckle’s in bloom so I thought I’d open a window.”
Said with such an innocent expression. “I’m not referring to the window. You are disrobing.”
He opened the window, and the breeze from the garden did indeed carry a sweet, flowery aroma.
“I don’t intend you be the only one to rest,” he said, unbuttoning his waistcoat.
“You can’t be serious. The servants will talk.” They’d proclaim Avis’s wickedness from the rooftops.
Hadrian crossed to the bed and held out his wrist for Avis to undo his cuff-link. “Harold’s staff is the soul of discretion, believe me, Avie.”
They were Hadrian’s staff now. Avis undid his second cuff-link, and then he was standing beside the bed, all the more virile and impressive for being shirtless indoors—this time.
“Hadrian, we can’t. That is, I can’t—” She couldn’t stop looking, and her fingers nigh twitched with the need to touch him.
He stepped closer and drew her to her feet. “The dress goes, the chemise stays, if you insist.”
When had polite, charming Hay Bothwell become a man who casually disrobed before a lady and gave her orders to do likewise?
“You presume on my privacy because you were married. You’re used to this casual intimacy, but Hadrian, I am not.” Though she could learn to like it very well—with him.
He knelt to slip off her boots, untie her garters, and peel down her stockings before drawing her dress over her head and unlacing her stays. “I will never knowingly violate your privacy, Avie, but then there is our privacy. Into bed with you.”
She didn’t immediately comply, not sure what he intended. All morning, he’d been intent on the notes, his mind whirling along, spotting patterns and details Avis hadn’t seen. He’d been attentive over lunch, keeping the discussion to estate matters his prospective wife ought to find interesting, and then they’d taken a walk to inspect his gardens.
All the while, he’d been content to merely hold her hand.
She climbed onto the high, fluffy mattress, the bed dipping as Hadrian joined her. The sheets smelled of lavender and sunshine, the window admitted a soft breeze, and abruptly Avis’s beleaguered sense of propriety was felled by sheer fatigue.
“I ought to kick you out of this bed.” She settled on her side, facing that open window, away from him.
“Rue was a kicker,” Hadrian replied, sliding an arm around Avis’s middle. “She couldn’t help it. She moved a great deal in sleep. I got so I could nap through anything.”
Through several years of marriage, perhaps? “Do you miss her?”
“In a sense.” Hadrian’s fingers laced with hers against her midriff. “Ours was a peculiar union. It bore all the trappings of domestic bliss, but I don’t think she was any happier than I was. Then she died, and my regret knew no bounds.”
“Regret?” Though missing a late spouse “in a sense” implied that the spouse was also not missed in some way.
“For better or for worse, she was the wife I had, and rather than trouble myself to force some substance into our marriage, I let matters drift, as did she. Then came the accident. She lingered for ten days, though it was clear she was fading, and we came to a dreadful sort of peace.”
“She was trampled by a runaway team?” Avis wanted to roll over, to see his face, because this topic had to be difficult, for all that Hadrian’s body, aligned so closely with hers, radiated no tension.
“A damned beer wagon, in York. Somebody had the presence of mind to send for Harold, and he managed matters so I could sit with my wife until she slipped away. I don’t think she suffered physically.”
“How could she not?”
“Whatever injuries she sustained inside, they were of a nature that she could no longer move her legs. She felt nothing, not cold feet, not wrinkled bed covers, nothing below the waist. I’d initially resented her restlessness in bed, but that last week, I longed to see her toes twitch.”
Avis considered this, considered the indignity to the lady, and understood, just a little, why Rue Bothwell might have gone peacefully to her death. Except that meant she’d peacefully left Hadrian to grieve, alone and likely bewildered at the swiftness of his wife’s passing.
“You loved her.”
His grip on her hand became more snug. “I did, and it’s a relief to state that honestly. I wasn’t in love with her, nor she with me, and had she not died, I doubt I would even have been able to say that much.”
“I’m sorry for your loss, Hadrian. I was pleased to think you were happily married, to think you had somebody dedicated to sharing life with you.”
She’d envied his wife ferociously, too. She could admit that now—to herself.“Go to sleep, love.” He untangled their hands and slid an arm under her ne
ck. “I’ll wake you in time for tea.”
“You’ll stay with me?” Though he shouldn’t, and she shouldn’t ask him to.
“Of course, and yes, the door is locked. You’re safe here, Avie. Please rest.”
She drifted off, though Hadrian had divined something else Avis hadn’t wanted to admit to herself: For years, she hadn’t felt safe, not even under her own roof.
* * *
“He wants to know who Hart Collins’s accomplices were.” Harold passed the letter to Finch, who shared a tea tray with him on their sunny terrace, one of many small pleasures the summer afforded. “This could get ugly.”
Finch scanned the letter.
“To hear you tell it, matters were quite ugly enough twelve years ago. What do you make of this Fenwick fellow? I met him on more than one occasion—tall, dark, rugged in a Highland sort of way?”
“Always flirting, aren’t you?” Harold could tease, because Finch did flirt—but it was flirting only. “I like Fen and I respect him. I never once had a sense of anything untoward or devious from him, though he can be an unsettling man.”
Finch set the letter aside, closed his eyes and turned his face up to the afternoon sun. “Coming from you, that says something. Unsettling in what way?”
“There are depths to him,” Harold said, reaching for the teapot. Cook had a way with a fruit pastry and didn’t begrudge anybody a serving at any time of day. “Some of those depths are troubled. Fen’s orphaned and has a foot in two different cultures. I have the impression he isn’t entirely accepted in either one. Leave me the raspberry tart, at least, would you?”
“I’ll ring for more. You’re getting positively gaunt, my dear.”
“Putting on muscle. Keeping up with you has got me more fit.” He poured them both tea while Finch licked lemon crème off his thumb with the artless appeal of the true sybarite. Finch had also put on muscle, and lost…sadness. He wrote regularly to his wife and children, who seemed to get on swimmingly without him, though Harold was considering having the lot of them to visit.
The summer sun, or true love, was making him daft.
“Eat,” Finch advised, passing Harold the raspberry tart. “You’ll need your strength.”
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