by Brenda Hiatt
But underneath he remained warm, the memory of holding Gwen and comforting her a steady flame near his heart. It was too rare and precious a thing to extinguish in a casual tumble with a whore.
“Thank you, Clootie, but I’ve other plans for the evening. And while I’m thinking of it, we shall leave for Greenbriar Lodge two days hence, to spend Christmas with Lord Sevaric and his wife. Make sure my belongings are packed.”
Clootie made a rumbling sound in his throat. “You cannot mean to rusticate in the country! The house is practically a ruin, and there will be no entertainment. It’s not to be thought of.”
Vayle turned in astonishment. Clootie had never been a conventional servant, but for a valet to question orders was beyond the pale. And what made him think Greenbriar was in ruins? How could he possibly know such a thing? “On the contrary,” he said stiffly. “The decision has been made.”
“I see.” Clootie dropped the clothes brush on the dressing table. “That is unfortunate, because I have been at some pains to secure for you a coveted invitation to… but never mind. Your plans are set.”
Vayle couldn’t help himself. “To where?”
Clootie’s thin lips curved. “The patrons call it a Saturnalia. For a stranger to be admitted is unheard of, but I have connections. You might have been one of the favored few.”
Casting back to vague schoolroom memories, Vayle recalled an ancient pagan festival by that name, devoted to unbridled licentiousness. The Roman version of a Bacchic Revel.
In plain English terms, an orgy.
He pulled out his snuffbox, running his thumb over the carved initials. Valerian Caine would have loved an orgy. And he, devil take him, was Valerian Caine.
“The Saturnalia begins at noon on Christmas Eve Day,” Clootie said in a dusky voice, “and ends at midnight on Boxing Day. Do not imagine this a tawdry carouse among vulgar folk. The patrons serve up the finest of everything—music, food, drink, dancing, masques, and spectacles—all that delights the senses. Women, too, of course, the most beautiful and skilled in the kingdom.”
Inhaling deeply, Vayle savored the heady aroma of snuff and the tingle of anticipation at every nerve ending. ’Twould be his last night in mortal flesh, the only chance he’d have for all eternity to enjoy pleasure before Proctor snatched him back to the Afterlife. Why not go out in style? Snub his nose at Proctor and raise a little hell?
He looked up at Clootie, who was poised on tiptoe, head tilted, waiting for his decision.
“I—” he bit his lip. How, really, did he want to spend his final hours on this earth? What was the very last thing he wanted to see before he eyes were closed forever?
Images of richly colored costumes, laughing faces, plates with butter-drenched lobster, fountains bubbling with champagne, and voluptuous women danced in his head. He smelled perfume and the musky odor of sex, and felt warm flesh meld with his in a burning drive to climax. He wanted all of these things, and more.
But the phantasms drifted away, leaving in their wake a slender young woman with short curly hair, a pert nose, a stubborn chin, and two bright hazel eyes that gazed into his very soul.
He turned back to the window. “I am for Greenbriar Lodge,” he said before he could change his mind. “That is final. And for now, I fancy a walk in the snow. Fetch me some bread, Clootie. I’ve a notion to meander through Hyde Park and feed the ducks.”
“F-feed the ducks?” Clootie said in choked voice. “Greenbriar Lodge and ducks? Have you gone mad?”
“I have just possibly gone sane, for once in my existence. Will you do my bidding, or would you prefer to seek employment elsewhere?”
When he heard no reply, Vayle swung around.
Clootie had vanished.
Chapter Twenty-One
The day before Christmas, Dorie awoke in near darkness. Today the man’s body beside her seemed almost familiar, the quiet breathing, the man-warmth a few inches away.
She reached to touch his shoulder, but drew back. He might wake, and then—
Between them lay more than a few inches of comforter and sheet. There was also that terrible feud. She could give that up, indeed, she was eager to give it up. But she couldn’t get past her husband’s stubborn insistence on hating her family, especially her brother.
At least Max refused to hate her. But the price, apparently, was that she give up being a Caine entirely. And that was too much to ask, wasn’t it?
He stirred, and she held her breath. But he only drew his hand to his neck and rested it there. Poor dear, she thought, his muscles ache from all that lifting. In the gray early light, the gauze on his thumb was tattered and grimy. She would make him let her change the bandage before he picked up that blasted hammer again.
Though he would clearly rather be in London or his own manor home, Max was still here, trying to help her with the lodge. Surely that argued some emotion deeper than just conjugal regard?
As if he felt her gaze, he rolled onto his back and opened his eyes. The drowsy warmth in them deepened into heat as he looked at her. She almost wished he would reach out to fulfill the promise in his eyes, but she had made him pledge to wait for her. And he would keep his word.
That meant she would have to be the one who decided to make their marriage real. Soon, she promised silently, soon. But just now there was too much between them. Perhaps after the family arrived for the holidays.
But when Max realized she had defied him and invited Robin, he might not want her anymore.
To distract him, and herself, she announced cheerily as she rose, “Christmas Eve! And we have so much yet to do!”
Max got up, too, and limped to the door. He’d injured his leg yesterday when he tripped on the cat as he stepped off the ladder. But after the initial blast of Spanish curses, he hadn’t said a word of complaint. “I have to go into Croydon this morning. I’ll get the post for you. Still haven’t heard if Gwen and Vayle are coming for the holiday. You’re sure you sent them an invitation?”
“Last week. They must have received it by now.”
When he was gone, she dressed slowly, pulling on woolen stockings to ward off the chill. She, too, was worried by the lack of response to her letter. She had meant well, but she shouldn’t have relied on Gwen’s goodwill. Her new sister-in-law justifiably resented the enemy who displaced her in her own household.
For just a moment, Dorie let herself imagine what she and Max might have been if their families were not at war. He was such a good man, strong and brave and uncomplaining. And handsome, too, she had to admit. She longed to touch his dark curling hair, trace the square line of his jaw. He was all she had hoped for, in fact, when she was a romantic young girl, dreaming of a knight errant to rescue her from her erratic family life. But instead, here she was plunged into yet more family trouble.
That trouble would be even worse if everyone arrived today, expecting the house to be ready for celebration. She shook the cobwebs from her brain and went to make up the beds in the two rooms that still had ceilings.
Until she heard the clatter of hooves in the courtyard, she didn’t realize that she was longing for Max to return. She told herself it was because there were a few shingles still loose on the roof, and pine boughs unhung on the staircase, and Christmas only a dozen hours away. But her breath came shorter as she gathered her shawl tight and ran down the front steps to greet him in the courtyard.
She was as surprised as he when she ran straight into his arms. But he hesitated only a second before pulling her close. She pressed her cheek against the wool of his coat and breathed deep.
And then, outraged, she pulled away. “I smell perfume!”
There was no mistaking the flush on his face for a response to the cold. He was embarrassed, even ashamed. “It’s not what you think.”
“And what do you think I think?”
He must have known better than to indict himself. “I don’t know. But I’ve done nothing wrong.”
Dorie regarded him suspiciously. He was still fl
ushed, but his jaw was set and he wasn’t afraid to meet her gaze. She felt the stirring of something—trust?—but didn’t give into it. “When a husband comes home smelling of perfume, a wife can be forgiven for wondering if he’s been in a bordello.”
He scowled at her. “I haven’t been in a bordello.”
She wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt, but then she remembered that he had once been a soldier, and soldiers were notorious. “Never?”
His scowl deepened, but dishonesty was foreign to him. “Perhaps once or twice. But not in the morning! And not on Christmas Eve!”
She stifled a laugh, and felt much better. It was such a Max response. Of course he wouldn’t visit a bordello on Christmas Eve. Not in the morning, at least. “There is still that question of the perfume.”
Max stood there, straight and uncompromising. Her inner laughter stilled. She had seen that look before, on her uncle’s face. It spoke more clearly than any words that she was intruding on territory forbidden a mere female. She braced herself for a harsh rebuke.
Then Max held out his hand, palm up. “Will you trust me, just for a little while?”
Dorie closed her eyes, waiting for her defenses to go up. But despite herself, she trusted him. She opened her eyes and took his hand. She was rewarded by his smile, open, warm, happy. What a wonderful gift trust was, she realized. It changed everything.
They stood for a moment, holding hands, smiling at each other. Then he cleared his throat and reached into his pocket. “I did get the post for you. Here.”
While he went back to his work mending the roof, she sat down on a bench in the wan sunlight. Please don’t let him fall, she prayed, stealing a glance as he climbed the ladder.
When she saw the cat slinking closer to the bottom rung, Dorie called to it sharply to come away. Tabby had taken a liking to Max, and was forever following him about and getting underfoot. Sullenly she stalked away toward the house, to await her master by the hearth.
When Max was safe on the roof—well, he would never be safe up there—she tucked her skirt double under her bottom, to ward off the chill of the stone seat, and resolutely began sorting through her letters.
Nothing from Robin. Perhaps it was best, the coward within her suggested, if they postponed that confrontation for another time.
Then she stopped and stared at the unfamiliar handwriting on one letter. A woman’s hand. Gwen’s. She broke the seal and opened the sheet. Mr. Vayle and Gwen would be arriving Christmas Eve, but Miss Winnie would be in Bath with Mrs. Fitzniggle. There was more of that sort—Dorie sensed an attempt at casual cordiality—and then, stark, in postscript, a single sentence. “Tell Max I said he should tell you what happened at Greenbriar Lodge.”
Dorie stared at those final words. Greenbriar Lodge? What could have happened at Greenbriar Lodge that Gwen thought she should know? It must have something to do with the feud, but she couldn’t imagine how.
Oh, according to family legend, this is where the feud began a century or more ago. The lodge had belonged to the Sevarics then, and one of their wives trysted here with a Caine younger son. There was a discovery, and a duel, and a death or two, and then decades of war. The Caine treasure disappeared early in the feud, and the Caines, in retaliation, somehow won the lodge. But that was the last time the lodge figured into the feud, wasn’t it?
She closed her eyes, listening to the echo of Max’s hammer blows through the cold air. Her uncle used to sit her and Robin down and recite all his grievances against the Sevarics, story after story of Sevaric cruelty and Sevaric craft, of deceptions and double-dealings. Robin would remember better than she, for she had been a daydreamer, and as her uncle ranted she would stare out the window and envision knights and ladies and brave white steeds cantering in the courtyard. Yes, Robin would know.
But apparently Max knew, too. That was the question Gwen’s postscript was meant to answer: why Max hated Robin, why he had challenged him to a duel last year, why he was hellbent on ruining him. And it all had to do with Greenbriar Lodge.
Dorie opened her eyes and gazed up at the roof. The shadow of a tree obscured Max’s figure, but she could see his arm rise and fall, pounding nails with force if not skill. He was very good at force, Max was.
Then she remembered his harsh avowal when he first came to Greenbriar. “I don’t force women.” He hadn’t done so, either, not in all this time. And that was so much at odds with his implacable attitude toward Robin.
She didn’t want to startle him by calling his name. So she waited patiently, her cold hands gripped tight around Gwen’s letter, until he climbed down the ladder and set his feet securely on the ground.
Dorie went to him then and without a word, gave him his sister’s letter. Absently he hung the hammer from his watch fob and opened the single sheet. She could tell by his frown the moment he reached the postscript.
“Tell me.”
He balled up the letter and pushed it into his coat pocket. “You don’t want to hear it. It doesn’t reflect well on your family.”
That last word dripped with contempt, and she had to fight off her instinctive defensiveness. She took hold of his fist and uncurled the fingers. When she could slip her hand into his, she said, “I want to hear it. Tell me.”
And then, staring down at their clasped hands, he told her.
It was the worst story of all the stories she had heard about the feud, and she couldn’t believe it. Would her uncle truly have abducted an innocent girl just to win back that benighted Caine treasure?
Yes, a seditious voice whispered. Yes, he would.
But not Robin.
She didn’t say that, though. It would be tantamount to calling Gwen a liar. Dorie remembered Gwen’s austere face, her sharp clear eyes, and knew she would not lie.
She could only repeat, “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.” And when that finally faded into a whisper, she took a breath and released it slowly. “Is Gwen—has she recovered?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t get back from France till a month later, and I could see she was different. Calm. But different. She says she’s fine.” His voice was tight with anguish. “But since then, she never goes out. Oh, she’ll go to the shops, and visit friends, but all those things other girls do, the dances and the parties and the courtships, she wants no part of. She should want a man and a family, shouldn’t she?”
Cautiously Dorie replied, “Most girls do.”
“She doesn’t. Or she says she doesn’t. I don’t know if she always felt that way. She was a child when I left for the Peninsula. But she told me she wanted nothing more than to keep house for me till I married. I don’t know what she’ll do now.”
His voice hardened. “So now you see why I can’t welcome your brother. He won’t even admit to what he did and accept the responsibility. I might let it go if he apologized. But when he fled like a coward and—”
“He didn’t flee.”
Max let go of her hand. “What?”
She knew she would regret it, but Robin’s part in this was so strange she couldn’t let it go unexamined. “Robin. He didn’t flee. He stayed in London and let you ruin him.”
He made a harsh sound. “He turned down my challenge. That was the act of a poltroon.”
“But he could have gone back to the country, or to the Continent. He knew you were set on ruining him, and he let you do it.” Almost to herself, she added, “He seemed to want to lose it all. I kept begging him to stop, but he wouldn’t, even when it became clear you would win everything. It was as if he welcomed it.”
“He knew he deserved no better.”
“Perhaps… Max, tell me, why don’t you hate Greenbriar Lodge?”
The change in subject disconcerted him. He glanced over his shoulder at the ivy-covered brick wall where he had left the ladder. Finally he said, “I meant to. I was going to win it and then tear it down, brick by brick. But then I learned it was your home, and I saw how hard you had been working to repair it, with the window boxes and t
he new gravel and the curtains and all the rest. And I reckoned you’d made it yours, and that made it clean. I can’t hate what is part of you.” He gave her a sharp look. “You are thinking that your brother is part of you, too, and that I shouldn’t hate him. Well, I shan’t forgive him either. You can’t ask that of me.”
“No.” She gathered up the other letters and started back to the house, but then stopped a few feet from Max. “It’s so strange. I know Robin talks against the Sevarics, but I think he never wanted the feud. Oh, when he was a boy, he listened to the stories and vowed vengeance for the lost Caines. You must understand, our father died young. He was weak and sickly, Uncle Hugo always said, and not fit to carry on the fight. Robin didn’t know any better than to look up to our uncle. He was so fierce, you see. A warrior, Robin called him.”
“Warrior? He didn’t deserve the title! Kidnapping a girl is not a warrior’s action!”
“I know. I knew it then, even when we were children, that he was just angry. He hadn’t anything but his anger, you know, no ideals, no principles. He didn’t fight for anything but himself. And Robin came to see it, too. He tried to protect me from it. Uncle wanted to use me against the Sevarics someday, I’m not sure how. But he often spoke of my destiny. It sent a chill through me. Whenever he spoke that way, Robin would try to divert him. He used to ply Uncle with spirits, to get him too foxed to carry out his plans.” She glanced at Max’s forbidding expression. “Oh, I know it’s not honorable. But it was all he could think of to do. That is when Robin began drinking too much.”
Max walked back to hoist the ladder in one hand and started toward the stables. Over his shoulder, he said, “I will not doubt my sister’s word.”
His tone was implacable, and she could not fault him. “I don’t doubt it either.” But she thought he was too far away now to hear her.
Everything had changed, she thought helplessly as she watched him go. Now she knew why Max resumed the feud when he returned from the war, and why Gwen had regarded their marriage with such antipathy.