Wyndham Legacy

by Catherine Coulter

  “He’s still a bullheaded young man,” Maggie said. “If I’d had my way, the Duchess would have taken a horse whip to him, not just her boot or a bridle. I have told her I much approve the change in her. Yelling cleanses a woman’s innards wonderfully. It readjusts her view of things. A man, as all women know, can’t properly listen until his attention is fully engaged. A whip, I say, would do the trick.”

  Wisely, none of the three gentlemen had a word to say to that.

  Spears said finally, “I think I’ll have a chat with Mrs. Wyndham. She’s a dreadfully smart lady, that one.”

  Spears found Patricia Wyndham lying on her back on the pale blue Aubusson carpet in the middle of the Green Cube Room, staring at the ceiling. She was utterly immobile, and for one horrible moment, Spears was certain she was dead.

  “Madam!”

  She slowly turned her head and smiled. “Hello, Spears. Come help me up. I do hope the carpet is clean, but certainly it is. Mrs. Emory is a household tyrant. There, thank you, Spears.” She dusted off her skirts, shook them out, then beamed up at him again.

  “May I inquire what you were doing lying supine on the floor, madam?”

  “You may, but I shan’t tell you, at least not yet, Spears. Where is my son?”

  “His lordship is probably giving orders to the Duchess, or to Maggie regarding the Duchess.”

  “He’s such a sweet lad,” she said.

  That brought a choking sound from Spears’s throat. “ ‘Sweet’ isn’t exactly an epithet I’d attach to his lordship. I, er, wished to ask you, madam, if you had any notion of who is responsible for all this misery we’re having.”

  “I can’t know everything, Spears.”

  “Do you know anything, madam?”

  “Oh yes, I know quite a bit more than just anything. Indeed, perhaps soon now, I’ll be able to clear at least some of this mystery up.”

  “I see, madam. Perhaps you’d like to have a judicious ear to pour some of your opinions into?”

  “Yours, to be exact?”

  “Exactly so, madam.”

  “Not yet, Spears. Forgive me, I’m not being coy, I’m just not quite ready. Untidy strings that don’t weave themselves into the fabric, you understand? Now, I believe I’ll see how my darling boy is doing with the Duchess. Poor girl, losing the babe has really pulled her down.”

  Not to mention being shot, Spears thought, but didn’t say anything.

  Her darling boy was yelling at the top of his lungs, his fond mother realized while she was still twenty feet from the Duchess’s bedchamber. She opened the door to see the Duchess standing beside the bed, holding on to the cherub-carved bedpost and looking quite limp.

  “Marcus,” the Duchess said, a goodly dollop of temper in her voice that pleased her mother-in-law, “stop your shouting. For heaven’s sake, I’m all right.”

  “You swore to me you’d stay in bed, damn you. Just look at you, white around the gills, sweating like a stoat, and out of breath and bed.”

  “My dears,” Patricia Wyndham said, sweeping into the bedchamber, “this is surely not good for the Duchess’s nerves. He’s right, however, my dear, whatever made you get out of that very comfortable bed?”

  “I knew you’d side with him.”

  “True, but what’s a mother to do?”

  “She was relieving herself, Mother. She actually thought to get out of bed, walk all of fifteen feet to the screen, and use the chamber pot. I won’t have it, do you hear me, Duchess? Now, you’re getting back into that bed this minute.”

  “Yes, Marcus, I know. I was on my way back to the bed when you burst in here and started screeching like a crazed owl.”

  “Crazed owl? Good God, even your mental works aren’t functioning properly. You mean you’ve already used the chamber pot?”

  “Yes, Marcus, and I even managed to walk back to the bed all by myself.”

  Patricia Wyndham cleared her throat. “This is doubtless fascinating, children, but all this talk of the chamber pot can surely wait. Come, Duchess, I’ll help you.”

  “You just stay put, Mother.” He very carefully angled the Duchess so he wouldn’t touch her side, lifted her some two inches off the floor, and carried her the remaining three feet to the bed.

  Once he’d gotten her into bed again, on her back now for the pain in her side had lessened quite a bit during the past four days, he said, “There, now don’t move or it will go badly for you.”

  “That sounds quite intriguing. Just what will you do, Marcus?”

  “Sounding a bit testy, are we? As to what I’ll do, I don’t know, but whatever it is, you will like it immensely, and so will I.”

  “I hardly think that’s a threat to convince me to obey you.”

  “My dears, surely you don’t wish to contemplate marital themes just now? No, certainly not. Such subjects aren’t best fashioned for a mother’s tender ears. You, my darling son, are still my little boy, thus, you are bathed in sunlight and purity. Yes, at last you’re both quiet. Badger told me to inform you that he’s sending up luncheon. Shall we all dine together and enjoy a comfortable prose?”

  “Good God, Mama, a comfortable what?”

  “Prose, my dear. Ladies of more advanced years speak in that fashion, you know. It’s soothing.”

  “Bosh,” Marcus said, and pulled out a delicate French chair from the last century for his mother. “You’re about as advanced as that hussy maid of the Duchess’s.”

  “Ah, Maggie. Isn’t she an interesting sort?”

  Spears said from the doorway, “Perhaps Madam will be so kind as to tell her son why she was lying on her back in the middle of the Aubusson carpet in the Green Cube Room?”

  “I would have expected a minimal degree of discretion from you, Spears. You have gravely disappointed me. No, Marcus, my body positions don’t concern any of you at the moment.”

  “Bosh,” Marcus said again, looking harassed. “What the hell were you doing on your back? Some new meditation?”

  “My dear boy, it’s none of your business.”

  The Duchess laughed. “Ah, thank you, ma’am. You’ve diverted his fire away from me.”

  His blue eyes came again to rest on her pale face. He leaned down and kissed her mouth. “If you eat your luncheon, nap awhile, then I’ll allow Maggie to wash your hair.”

  “What about the rest of me?”

  “I’ll wash the rest of you.”

  “No, Marcus, no, you can’t, I—”

  “Be quiet, Duchess.”

  Patricia Wyndham rolled her eyes. “So much for my sunlight-pure boy.”

  She knew he would be thorough. Marcus never did anything in half measures. As for the wound in her side, she knew he wouldn’t hurt her, that he’d be gentle as a sliver of sunlight through the summer maple branches. But she couldn’t help but be embarrassed because she was still bleeding and there were cloths between her thighs. Perhaps he would leave that part of her alone. He did begin well enough, treating her as he’d treat a stick of wood or a doorknob, but when he’d uncovered her breasts, all his good intentions began to unravel. His fists clenched, his mouth tightened, and his beautiful blue eyes darkened.

  “I’d forgotten how utterly acceptable you are. That is, I’ve dressed and undressed you, looked at you and held you, wiped you down with icy water, but it’s different now. You’re better and you’re looking at me while I’m looking at you. It’s unnerving. Now, don’t move, I’ll try to keep my hands on the straight and narrow, wherever that could possibly be since your body is nothing but delight for me.”

  He didn’t manage to find any sort of straight and narrow, of course, but he did try, and when he was lightly washing her belly, carefully avoiding her bandaged side, he drew in his breath, closed his eyes, and went lower with the soapy washcloth.

  “Please don’t, Marcus. It’s very embarrassing for me and I don’t—”

  He ignored her. “It doesn’t bother me at all that you’re bleeding. Thank God it’s normal bleeding, and I
don’t have to worry that you’ll die on me. No, just be quiet, Duchess, and trust me.”

  He looked at her face as he spoke, saw the shifting expressions even as his fingers found her. He’d meant to wash her, nothing more, truly, he’d not thought about anything remotely sexual, surely, well, all things sexual he’d thought about were spiritual, or perhaps they were just sexual themes in the abstract, theories, nothing more, but his fingers were on her and his eyes were looking at her and his hand was shaking.

  It had been a long time, too long a time. He became aware that her breathing had changed, had quickened. Her eyes were wide and questioning on his face, her cheeks flushed. He smiled at her and thought, Why not? His fingers gently molded themselves to her flesh, but still, at first, her soft flesh was unwilling, but he was patient and he loved her and wanted to give her pleasure. There’d been so much pain for her, too much damned pain, why not pleasure, just for this once?

  Finally, when she tensed, her back arching, he came up beside her and kissed her until she cried out her release into his mouth.

  “Oh dear.”

  “Hold still, Duchess. I still have your lovely legs and feet to wash.”

  Once done with a bath the likes of which she’d never imagined in her life, he folded clean cloths and pressed them against her, then dressed her in a clean nightgown.

  “Stop looking at me as if I were a brute. I’m your husband. Your body is mine and I’ll thank you not to forget it. I wouldn’t ever allow George Raven to touch you like this, to look at you with lust as I do. Just me and always just me. So don’t be embarrassed. I forbid it.”

  “It’s difficult, Marcus. I trust you, I surely do. You’re my husband, but I’ve always been so private and surely things that are only female should be kept private.”

  “No, that’s silly. Obviously you don’t trust me enough. I know what I’m talking about. Now, you’ve got some color in your cheeks, no doubt from the pleasure I just gave you.” He paused, tossed the towels and other clothes on the floor, then turned back to her, suddenly serious, his expression very intent.

  He looked down at his hands as he said, “Actually, Duchess, as my wife, you should tell me everything you feel, everything you think. You don’t have to keep anything from me, be it physical or something you’ve done. Not any more. Not ever again. You can even continue to yell at me, to hit me, whenever I unwittingly chance to say something you dislike.”

  To his horrified surprise, she began to cry. She didn’t make a sound, just let the tears gather, pool in her eyes, and slip down her cheeks.

  “Ah, sweetheart, don’t cry, please don’t.”

  She turned her face away from him. He saw her hands had fisted on the covers at her chest. He reached out his hand to touch her, then drew it back.

  “You know,” he said finally, his voice deep and calm, “I’ve been a great fool, perhaps so great a fool that even you won’t be able to forgive me this time. And I know you’ve forgiven me more times than I can begin to count since we were both children.”

  He had her attention, he saw it in the lines of her body, tensing now, alert, waiting, but she didn’t turn back to face him, just waited, and he knew she was afraid, and he understood that well enough.

  “In Paris I was ready to strangle you I was so furious at you for taking matters into your own hands, for taking away my choices, and here I was the brave man, the man who was enjoying his rage, his bitterness, wallowing in self-pity. There’s just something about being a man and having a woman take away control, it makes all of us a bit crazed, unreasonable, perhaps even irrational, though a man hesitates to believe such a thing about himself.

  “You’ve always known, Duchess, that I’m quick to anger and say things that curdle even my own blood when I remember them later. I know I’ve said things to you that have hurt you unbearably. I’ve spoken like a fool and then proceeded to believe what I’d said to you.

  “I wounded you deliberately because you were your father’s daughter and God knows I still detest that old bastard for what he did, not only to me but to you as well. And so I punished you because he was dead and beyond anything I could do to him.

  “Try to forgive me just once more . . . well, it’s bound to be dozens more times in our future together if you’ll have compassion for your fool of a husband. Have babies with me. Let’s fill Chase Park’s nursery with babes, and you remember how large that nursery is. Our children, just yours and mine, and your father be damned for his own bitterness, for his own despair, for he has nothing to do with us now, nothing to do with our children, with our future.”

  She turned slowly to face him. She raised her hand to lightly touch her fingertips to his cheek. “Do you really want to have an heir? A boy child who will be the future earl of Chase, a boy child who will carry my blood and your blood and thus my father’s blood?”

  “Yes. And he must have brothers and sisters.”

  “But why, Marcus? Is it because you feel pity for me since I lost my babe? You feel somehow guilty?”

  “Yes, but that’s not the reason.”

  “What is the reason?”

  “I love you more than I ever imagined a man could love a woman. I want no more distrust between us, no more wariness because you’ll never know what I’ll do next. In the future when I berate you or send curses flying about your head, feel free to cosh me with a fireplace poker. On the other hand, if you pull one of your boots off to hurl at me, I’ll be laughing so hard just perhaps you’ll forget you want to kill me and laugh with me. I love you. Now, does that satisfy you? Do you believe me? Will you forgive me?”

  For a moment, she was the old Duchess, silent, aloof, looking at him intently, assessing him, apart from him, and he hated it. He realized how much he wanted her to scream at him if she wanted to, that or kiss him and tell him he was wonderful, but at least now, at this moment, she was utterly silent, just like she used to be.

  “I’ll even let that damned young George Raven bring our children into the world, though I distrust him and his motives when he’s with you. Now, stop being the old Duchess. Hit me. Yell at me.”

  “All right.” She raised her hand, palm flat.

  He eyed her, took her hand in his and drew it back down. He leaned down and kissed her very lightly on her mouth. “All right what?” he asked, his breath warm on her mouth.

  “I’ll hit you next Wednesday, yell at you on Friday, but right now, Marcus, tell me again.”

  “I love you and I still distrust George Raven. We will have to find him a wife. It will divert his lust from you.”

  She laughed and he felt intense heady warmth spread like brandy to his belly, or was it his heart?

  “And I you, Marcus. I’ve probably loved you since I was too young to even know what it was. I deceived you into marriage not just because I knew I had to put things right after what my father had done, but because I wanted you for myself. You were so angry, I didn’t think you’d ever change. I had to do something, Marcus, so that the Colonial Wyndhams didn’t get what was rightfully yours.”

  “Rightfully ours. Rightfully our son’s and his son’s son and on it goes far into the future.”

  “Yes. Oh yes. Please understand. I couldn’t let you not have what was yours.”

  “And when you came to me on our wedding night? Was it just to keep me from going off like a maniac and annulling our marriage out of misguided spite?”

  “Yes, but perhaps not all. I didn’t know what happened between men and women so I had no idea how wonderful it could be with you. It was probably more that than any other motive, but it’s true. I was so dreadfully afraid you’d do something stupid that I came to you.”

  “And now why would you come to me and seduce me?”

  “To drive you mad with lust, even madder with lust than George Raven, poor man. There is still a lot that I have to learn, Marcus.”

  “When you’re healed, when you’re laughing and dancing about again, I’ll be the most attentive teacher in all of Yorkshire,
hell, in all of England.”

  She smiled at him, a smile free of pain, a smile free of heartbreak, a smile filled with delight.

  “Do you remember, I told you before that I want you to tell me everything now, all right?” He gave her a sideways look. “Really, Duchess, no matter what it is, you can tell me. There should be no secrets between us, not ever, as of this moment, all right?”

  She cocked her head at him. She didn’t say anything, just stroked her fingers over his face again, and he wondered if she would ever tell him about her songs and her outrageous pseudonym. R.L. Coots—wherever did she get that absurd name?

  Ah, but Mr. R.L. Coots wasn’t important, just she was, and Mr. Coots would come out sometime in the future, Marcus didn’t care when. But he would have liked to tell her how very proud he was of her. He quickly dismissed it as he kissed her not just once, but again and again, showing her how much he loved her, trying to give more of himself to her, and she smiled with relish when he whispered what he was going to do to her when she was well again.

  29

  IT WAS THE Duchess who next saw her mother-in-law lying flat on her back on the floor in the middle of the Green Cube Room, just staring upward. She didn’t say anything for a long time, just watched her look upward as if entranced with the ceiling. Then she too looked upward. The Green Cube Room was the only room in the entire house with a painted ceiling, actually groupings of paintings, all done it seemed by the same artist, all the scenes stretched out between the thick painted ceiling beams. She’d looked at these paintings since she was nine years old, particularly the Medieval ones. She’d thought them interesting, but she’d paid them little attention for they were just there, just a part of the house, a part of this odd chamber.

  Patricia Wyndham was staring up at a small grouping or series of paintings, most of them scenes from village life in Medieval times. The paints had faded over the centuries but they were still vibrant enough to admire and study. She was even staring up at the Duchess’s favorite series of Medieval scenes, the first one depicting a beautiful young maiden surrounded by her servants, all gowned in flowing white, a white wimple, high and conical with a pointed top balanced on her head, her pale angel’s hair cascading down her back. She was seated atop what appeared to be a stone fence, leaning forward slightly, listening to a young gallant who sat at her feet playing a lute. The Duchess had always fancied she could almost hear the sounds coming from that lute, so spellbound did the maiden appear. She looked at the next scene, this one similar, but the young gallant was standing in this one and reaching upward to pluck something that seemed to be hidden in the thick branches of an oak tree. What was he reaching for?