Julien paused for a moment outside Kate’s door. He felt convinced that she hadn’t yet realized she was pregnant. After all, she had spoken so earnestly about not feeling just the thing. But, good God, how could she not know? Didn’t women understand these things? Surely, when she missed her monthly cycle. No, he thought, it was entirely possible, nay practically certain, that she didn’t know, caught up as she was in her own unhappiness and her dreaded nightmares. He made rapid calculations in his head back to that day, to that small cottage in Switzerland. It couldn’t be much longer before she must realize that she was with child. Several days, a week perhaps. It didn’t allow him much time.
He schooled his features into those of simple concern and tapped lightly on the door. He entered to see her struggling to pull the covers over her bare shoulders. He found that he was regarding her closely, perhaps expecting to see some change in her. But if anything, from the brief glimpse he was allowed of her arms and shoulders, she seemed more slender than before.
“Well, wife, Mrs. Micklesfield has kindly prepared some food for you. It will make you feel healthy as a stoat, so she informed me.”
He set the tray beside her and picked up a smaller coverlet. “Here, would you like to wrap this about you? I don’t want you to catch a chill.”
As she modestly wrapped the coverlet about her shoulders and pulled herself to a sitting position, she turned to Julien and said with some surprise, “It’s very strange, you know, but I find that I am really quite famished. I’ve never had this particular illness before, but it’s quite odd the way it affects one.”
Oh, dear God, he thought. He fought the urge to gather her in his arms and tell her that she was pregnant with his child, but he thrust his hands into the pockets of his breeches instead. He must first get her to St. Clair; then, as much as he abhorred the notion, he must see Sir Oliver. He was convinced that he himself had first to know all that had happened to her; then perhaps he could help her to understand and forget.
Kate consumed every morsel of food on the tray and lay back with a sigh of contentment.
“Poor François would be positively unnerved if he witnessed the quantities of food you just consumed.”
“He’s forever burying the most delicious foods in those outlandish sauces of his. He could take a few hints from Mrs. Micklesfield, I think.” How very normal we’re acting toward each other, she thought.
Julien walked to the windows and gazed out onto the gray afternoon. A light drizzle had begun, and raindrops were running down the glass in zigzag rivulets.
“Julien, you wouldn’t want me to quack myself like your dear mother, would you?”
“I hardly think that resting after you have been vilely ill qualifies as quacking.”
“Well, I feel quite marvelous now, and if you wouldn’t mind, I would that we continue to St. Clair.”
She did indeed look the picture of blooming health, color in her cheeks, her dimples briefly appearing.
“Please fetch Mrs. Micklesfield. I can be dressed in a trice.”
It wasn’t beyond a half-hour later that Julien assisted his pregnant wife into the carriage and climbed in after her. Despite the drizzling rain, she waved her hand out the carriage window and smiled brightly at Mrs. Micklesfield and her grinning son, Will.
It was Kate who urged that they push on to Hucklesthorpe before they halted for the night.
Though Julien would have preferred to leave early the next morning, he judged from his brief experience that she needed time after breakfast to settle her stomach. She didn’t seem to notice that he ordered a light meal for her, nor did she take exception at their delay in leaving. They were both rewarded by his careful planning, for she didn’t suffer a moment’s illness throughout that day.
It was well after nightfall when their carriage finally turned from the main road down the long elm drive to St. Clair. Mannering wasn’t expecting them, but Julien knew there would be cozy fires in their rooms and a warm dinner ready for them within an hour of their arrival.
“My lord, my lady, how very grand to see you both.” Mannering at first edged the great doors open and then flung them wide. “Ah, Lady Katharine, to see you here, as mistress of St. Clair, such an honor, such an honor. Allow me to offer my congratulations, my lord. Dear me, how very late it is. If your lordship and ladyship will allow me to escort you to the drawing room, I shall inform Mrs. Cradshaw.”
“Whatever Cook has available, Mannering, will be fine.”
“I do hope dinner won’t be long in coming,” Kate said as she stripped off her lemon-kid gloves and tossed them on top of her bonnet.
“On that score you needn’t worry.” Julien smiled. He knew that the mild-spoken Mannering, when confronted with an emergency, bullied, cajoled, and otherwise threatened mayhem on all his staff who didn’t immediately perform in the most exacting and speedy manner possible.
After a footman had unobtrusively laid a fire, Julien seated himself opposite his wife next to the fireplace and stretched out his legs toward the crackling logs. As always, he felt a sense of deep contentment at being in his ancestral home.
“It feels so very strange to be seated in this room, as if I belonged here,” Kate said, more to herself than to Julien. She ran her hand tentatively along the deep-red brocade of the armchair.
Julien shook out the ruffles over his wrists, pondering, it seemed, the great ruby signet ring on his right hand. “It would seem to me that you’re far more at home here at St. Clair than at your father’s house.”
“Perhaps. I certainly look more elegant now than that poor wretchedly dressed girl at Brandon Hall did.” She paused a moment, a frown puckering her brow. “Julien, we don’t have to visit Sir Oliver, do you think? I’m certain a genuine welcome is simply not in his nature, despite the amount of your guineas that now reside in his pocket.”
Julien thought of his impending visit to Sir Oliver. Whatever the outcome, he himself didn’t imagine that it could be in any way cordial. It was likely that Sir Oliver would be the one to sever all relations. He shifted his position in his chair and crossed one gleaming Hessian over the other. “Let’s see what the next few days bring, all right? And as to that poor wretchedly dressed girl, as you so unkindly call her, I thought she showed a great deal of spirit and a goodly dollop of sheer nerve. I can’t but remember your breeches with a certain fondness. The combination of your breeches, leather hat, fishing pole, and pistol were altogether irresistible.”
A slight smile played over her lips, and he could very nearly picture the laughing dimples. “Well, at least in that instance, Julien, you must admit I bowled you over completely, quite left you stunned and speechless.”
“Would you accept a challenge to duel with me? Breeches and all?”
“Only if I find my leather hat. But Julien, it’s quite possible that your masculine pride may be hurt. Just think, you could be beaten by a mere female.”
“Another dream in your sweet female’s head,” he said. “Just another dream.”
“Your dinner, my lord,” Mannering announced as he entered, followed by a footman staggering under the weight of several covered trays.
As Kate settled herself beside a small table to enjoy baked chicken and warm bread, she heard Mannering clear his throat and inform his lordship that the second carriage had succumbed to an unfortunate mishap. “The axle sheered clean through, so I’m informed, my lord. They’re all stranded, my lord, in Tortlebend. It will be several days before the axle is mended.”
Julien turned to Kate, who was in the process of wiping her fingers. “I hope you don’t mind Mrs. Cradshaw looking after you. It appears Eliza is enjoying a holiday.”
“Not at all.” She felt relief, truth be told. Sometimes it seemed that Eliza saw too much.
“As to the work you ordered, my lord, it was completed just last week. An excellent job the carpenters did, if you don’t mind my saying so. One would never guess that the rooms did not originally adjoin each other.”
&nb
sp; “What work was Mannering talking about?” she asked after Mannering had bowed himself out of the room.
“I merely ordered that our bedrooms be connected by an adjoining door, that’s all.” He chose to ignore the sudden flush on her face and made an elaborate pretense of eating his chicken.
34
“The earl of March is here, my lord, and awaits your presence in the drawing room.”
Sir Oliver ceased tugging at his boot for the moment and looked up at Filber. “He is, is he?” The deep-cut lines that slashed down the corners of his mouth lifted, and to Filber’s surprise, he gave a grunt of amusement. Then he wet his hands with his spittle and ceremoniously slicked down his frizzled gray hair.
Filber quickly dropped his eyes and looked down at the toes of his black shoes. He hoped that his repugnance at Sir Oliver’s distasteful habit would go unnoticed by his master.
Sir Oliver rose, picked up a cravat from the dresser top, and carelessly knotted it about his neck. He peered at the result in the mirror, seemed satisfied with what he saw, and turned toward the door. “Let’s go, Filber. After all, we wouldn’t wish to keep my illustrious son-in-law kicking up his heels, now would we? Such a proud young man he is, so very proud. But not anymore, huh? No, no more. He’s been quite brought down by now.” He gave a cackle of mirth and thwacked the stoop-shouldered Filber on the back.
There was an air of suppressed excitement about Sir Oliver that made Filber uneasy, that and his strange words about the earl of March.
It was barely nine o’clock in the morning, a time when his master was at his most dour and disagreeable. It was strange too, he thought, that Lady Katharine hadn’t come with her husband—not that he blamed her, given how her father had always treated her, the poor little mite.
“It’s gracious of his lordship to pay us a visit, don’t you think, Filber? And such a gray, unpleasant day it is, too. Cold in winter, don’t you know.”
Filber quickened his pace in front of his master down the staircase. Now that he thought about it, the earl, though polite as always, had acted differently, rather too serious, perhaps even abstracted. Why wouldn’t the earl be proud anymore?
Filber reached the drawing room and flung open the double doors. “Sir Oliver, my lord.”
“My dear sir, how very pleasant to see you.”
A common-enough greeting, Filber mused, as Sir Oliver brushed past him into the room and firmly closed the doors behind him.
Julien turned from the window to face his father-in-law. He nodded only slightly in answer to Sir Oliver’s greeting. He didn’t move forward to take his outstretched hand.
Sir Oliver was not at all perturbed by his son-in-law’s coldness. In fact, he grinned broadly, rubbing his hands together. “So cold, isn’t it, my lord?”
He got no response, and continued, “Cut right to the chase, is that what you want to do? Very well, you’re a long time in coming, my lord. If the truth were to be told, I expected to see you much sooner. Won’t you be seated?”
Julien gave him an indifferent look, a look that took him a great deal of effort. Quite simply, he wanted to kill the miserable old man. “No, I think not,” he said. “But perhaps it would be to your advantage to be seated.”
“Don’t mind if I do.” Sir Oliver flipped up the tails of his coat and eased himself down into a thread-worn chair. “Well, how very well you’re looking, my lord. What do you think of this cold weather?”
“I’m not here to discuss the merits of the weather, but I’m sure you already know that.”
“And how is my dear, dear daughter? Is she well? Happy? No use shilly-shallying around, my lord. That’s why you are here, is it not?”
“Katharine enjoys good health. And as you say, it is because of her that I am here.”
Sir Oliver dropped his eyes from his son-in-law’s set face and smiled, pretending to study his knuckles with rapt interest.
“Now, my dear boy, there was nothing in your most thorough marriage contract about the return of damaged goods, though I must say you thought of everything else. When you took her, you got quite a shock, eh? Not at all what you expected.” He looked up and met Julien’s gaze, a malicious gleam drawing his eyes more closely together. He chuckled. “Well stated, is it not, my lord earl? Actually, I’m surprised she’s well. Didn’t you beat her, at the very least? Demand to know who all her lovers were?”
Julien drew a deep breath and for the moment kept his anger in check. What the miserable old bastard said was exactly what he’d wanted to do. Was he such a shallow fool? He felt ill with guilt. But now it didn’t serve the purpose. “Katharine’s purity and innocence are not, I assure you, in question.” A look of deadly contempt passed over his face. “I would add that I now marvel at this, considering that she sprang from your seed. Has it occurred to you that you’re speaking of your own daughter? If your Methodist preachings allow it, I would suggest that you look within yourself, for if you have a soul, it is withered and rotted. God, but you’re despicable.”
“How dare you, you damned arrogant—Ah, don’t tell me you haven’t taken her, haven’t realized she was a slut. I’ll never believe that!” Sir Oliver jumped panting to his feet, his face mottled red with fury.
“Damn you to hell, sit down!”
Sir Oliver sagged back into his chair.
Julien planted himself in front of Sir Oliver, gripped the arms of his chair, and leaned close to his face. “Now, you will listen to me, you filthy old man. It’s quite obvious that you knew I would come, that you have indeed looked forward with a twisted delight to spewing your venom in my face. Did you honestly expect that I would return Katharine to you, spurned and disgraced?”
He straightened quickly, repelled by the closeness of this man. Sir Oliver’s face was still blotched with his anger, but now his eyes were wary and he was licking his lips.
“Why are you here then, if not to return the little slut to me? To beg me to take her back?”
Julien nearly struck him then. He forced himself to be calm, for he had to find out what had happened. He made his hands unfist.
“At last we make progress.” He walked to the fireplace and leaned his shoulders against the mantel. “You know, I presume, that Katharine has no conscious memory of her rape and your subsequent treatment of her. But did you know that it haunts her like an elusive specter, emerging with terrifying confusion in her dreams at night? She is close to unlocking the truth, yet it eludes her still, and she lives in a suffocating dread. And that is why I am here, to learn all of the truth so she can finally be cleansed of this ugliness.”
Sir Oliver’s pent-up hatred of his daughter took full rein. “My God, you blind fool! You defend her, you believed her a defenseless child. She’s made a fool of you, aye, indeed, my lord earl. Well, I will tell you, she is a slut and she was a whore even then. Those wild green eyes, and that hair as red as all the sins of Satan hanging loose down her back. God, she shamed me, just her being born shamed me, and my doting wife, blind to the evilness of her own daughter, let her flaunt her wiles to the countryside. Oh, yes, I remember well that day, the lying little strumpet screaming that those men had hurt her. She deceived my wife with her tears, but I saw through her pretense. I beat her, yes, thrashed her to an inch of her life, to scourge the evilness from her, and I nearly succeeded, but my wife stopped me. Then the little harlot feigned illness.
“Lifeless she lay in her bed, those evil green eyes of her just staring, only staring—at me, blaming me. And her damned fool mother, half-crazed, crooning over her, praying to God all the time to save her little girl. How I hated that, praying to God! And she trucked with evil, with the devil.”
Suddenly Sir Oliver felt his voice choked off by a painful tightening in his chest. The blood pounded in his temples, and for several agonizing seconds he couldn’t breathe. As quickly as the pain had come, it receded, and he gulped in the precious air, feeling his chest expand again with life. He tried to remember what he had been saying, and the image of K
atharine as a child rose before him, her large, silent eyes staring at him, so much fear in those child’s eyes, then that damned blankness that she had to be feigning. He heard himself give a crack of laughter.
“When she recovered, she forgot. But I reminded her, yes, I didn’t tell her what she’d done, but I beat her, to keep the wickedness out of her, so she wouldn’t do it again.” Sir Oliver’s eyes blazed again in sudden passion. “Don’t you understand? All I tried to do was save her soul from eternal damnation, but I failed, I know I did.”
He paused and looked up to see the earl still standing motionless by the fireplace, a curious, unreadable expression on his face. “She fooled you too, my dear lord earl, did she not? You believed her so very innocent, so guileless, indeed, you probably admired that evil red hair of hers, those green eyes that just stared and stared when she was lying there.”
Julien didn’t answer, just waited, for there would be more, and he wanted to hear it. Sir Oliver sat forward in his chair, a look of grim satisfaction marking his mouth. “Allow me to wish you much pleasure with your virgin wife, my lord. But beware that she doesn’t cuckold you before your precious heir is born.”
Julien looked dispassionately at the leering old man before him. He felt moved by a deep tenderness for his wife. He felt a helpless sense of pity and regret at her having spent so many years with this twisted man. If only it wasn’t too late for her now.
“It happened at the copse, in the wooded area close to Brandon Hall?” He was pleased at the continued calm of his voice, but it was difficult, one of the most difficult things he’d ever had to do.
“Eh?” Sir Oliver looked with confusion at his son-in-law.
“The copse—the place where Katharine was raped,” Julien repeated.
The Rebel Bride Page 31