“Would you like some wine before dinner?” he asked, his voice raw, the words sounding as though they’d been pushed up from the soles of his feet.
“Yes, please.”
He released his death grip on the mantel and walked over to a small table where several decanters rested. Although his back was to her, she could hear the clatter of glasses hitting each other, like someone unable to control trembling hands. She watched as he grew momentarily still, the clattering absent when he continued with his task.
He turned back to her, and she discovered, much to her disappointment, that he’d successfully banked his desires. She took the glass he offered.
He tapped his glass against hers. “To your happiness.”
“To yours,” she replied, studying him over the rim as she sipped the dark red wine.
He took a gulp, then backed away, moving closer to the fire. Normally in summer a fire wasn’t necessary, but this manor was ancient and drafty, and a chill lingered. She was tempted to step nearer to him to see if he’d take another step away. She thought she might be able to march him around the room with such a ploy. Instead she ran a finger around the edge of the glass.
“You look particularly handsome this evening,” she offered. “But then, like most ladies, I’ve always found you incredibly attractive.”
He looked down at the floor, leaving her to wonder if he was seeking his reflection in the polished wood. “Sometimes, when I glance in the mirror, I’m surprised to discover how…old I appear.”
“Oh, yes, you’re quite the ancient one.”
He lifted his gaze to her. “I do feel that way at times.”
She eased closer to the warmth of the fire, standing nearer to him, grateful when he didn’t dart away. “I believe men grow more handsome with age. I’m not certain women grow more beautiful.”
“I can’t imagine you being anything except beautiful.”
“But when I am wrinkled and withered—”
“Your eyes and your smile are where your beauty lie.”
“Here you are being poetic again.”
“Truth is its own type of poetry.”
She felt the heat rise up from her chest to her cheeks. “I never realized before how seldom you and I truly talked. We always played word games or gossiped about Lady Sylvia’s atrocious attire or Lord Eastland’s attempt to cover his balding pate by combing all his hair forward. I prefer our present conversation.”
“As do I.” Taking her glass from her, he stepped over to the table and set them down. “We should go to dinner now.”
“I thought perhaps we should consider entertaining soon,” Torie said when they were very nearly finished eating, dinner enjoyed in near-perfect silence, with only the occasional scraping of silver across china to serve as evidence that anyone inhabited the room. He’d always been such an entertaining conversationalist at dinner parties that she was surprised to discover that in the privacy of his home, he preferred not to be bothered with small talk.
He stilled his wineglass halfway to his lips. “Perhaps in a few months—after we’ve settled into marriage.”
“I know you are good friends with the Marquess of Lynmore. Who else would you care to invite?”
He took a sip of wine, seemed to enjoy it, before saying, “The Duke of Weddington was always a close friend.”
“That revelation surprises me. You gave him a cut direct when our paths crossed in the machinery gallery at the Great Exhibition.”
He looked at her as though she’d suddenly announced that the sun had fallen from the sky. He downed the remainder of his wine and stood. “We’ll discuss the particulars of whom to invite at another time. If you’ll excuse me, I have some other matters to which I must attend, and I don’t wish to be disturbed. I’ll see you at breakfast.”
He strode from the room, leaving her to feel as though she’d done something terribly wrong—once again.
What the deuce was the Great Exhibition? How great was it? What was being exhibited? Machines obviously, but what else? Where was it? Why was it?
What else had happened while he was imprisoned?
He’d thought his greatest fear had come from not knowing how to talk to his wife, but he could slip up with the tiniest assumption—that the monarchy still existed…who the deuce was the prime minister? What colonies did England still possess?
Pacing in the library, he wondered where he’d find all the answers. He couldn’t just blurt out, “Oh, by the by, could you share the particulars of all that has transpired during the past eight years?”
Wouldn’t that raise his wife’s suspicions? Although he stood a good chance of having already done so.
She was gorgeous beyond measure, and he’d not taken advantage of his wedding night. Only a madman would be avoiding her. Wouldn’t that be an incredible irony—to survive Pentonville without going insane only to end up in an insane asylum?
His behavior was erratic. He knew it, and he could see her reacting to it. He could see her testing him, weighing his reactions. She was no doubt struggling to understand the reasons behind his strange behavior.
He dropped into a chair, placed his elbows on his knees, and buried his face in his hands. He’d set himself an impossible task. Perhaps he should simply go to the Lord High Chancellor and lay out his case.
Sweet Lord, but he felt as though he were living in the Alexandre Dumas novel he’d begun reading last night in an effort to distract himself from thoughts of his wife when sleep wouldn’t come. Only he had no musketeers to save him. He had no one except himself.
And what a dreadful, ineffectual righter of wrongs he was turning out to be.
Torie told herself that she should retire for the evening. Return to her bedchamber and…sulk. Only she’d never been much for sulking. It seemed to be a behavior that turned on itself. The more one sulked, the more one felt like sulking. As last night had proven when she’d taken her fateful walk.
Although her husband had indicated that he had no wish to be disturbed, she found herself walking to the library anyway. To find a book to comfort her as she lay in bed awaiting her husband’s arrival. For surely tonight, after the near lovely day they’d had, he would come to her. She knew he desired her, so why did talk of Weddington send him from the dining room?
The footman dressed in burgundy livery bowed slightly and opened the door.
She walked into the library. The room seemed to stretch forever from the doorway to the far side where the large stone fireplace dominated the wall. Even as she sidestepped the various tables and chairs, her attention was drawn to the portrait. The duchess before her had been a lovely woman, her sons, even in youth, foreshadowing the charm that would draw Torie to one of them.
Her husband, who had been sitting behind the desk, came to his feet. “I told you that I didn’t wish to be disturbed.”
“I thought to find a book to read,” she told him. “And this seemed to be the room for doing that.”
“I would appreciate it if you’d be quick about it so I might return to my affairs.”
“And what affairs would those be?”
He looked as though she’d tossed cold water on him. “They are not your concern.”
Perhaps not, but still she was curious, more about his behavior than what he was busy with.
She ambled over to the side of the room where the shelves ran from the floor to the ceiling, “Are the books in any particular order?”
“The books were my father’s collection. I never paid any attention to how he arranged them.”
She peered over at him. “You once told me that you had a passion for books.”
“A passion for books, yes. Arranging them, no.”
She ran her fingers over the spines. “What is your favorite story?”
“I don’t have a favorite.”
“Everyone has a favorite.”
He sighed. “Very well. The Last of the Mohicans.”
“How interesting. I suppose it’s the adventure of it.
”
“I suppose. What’s your favorite?”
His voice contained less tartness as though he’d accepted that she wouldn’t be put off so easily.
“Jane Eyre”
He shook his head. “I’m not familiar with that author.”
Laughing, she shook her head. “Honestly, Robert, you’re such a tease. Charlotte Bronte is the author. Her sister wrote Wuthering Heights. Heathcliff is the terribly tortured hero in that one. He’s the reason the story is one of Diana’s favorites. She loves men who are tormented.”
“And yet your sister struck me as having such a sweet disposition.”
“Oh, she does! Besides, she doesn’t torture the men”—she furrowed her brow—“although I daresay she may try, if any want to seriously court her.”
She returned to searching the shelves for something to catch her interest. “Oh, look, your father has a copy of David Copperfield.” Furrowing her brow, she touched the spine. “Only Dickens didn’t publish this story until after your father died.” She looked over her shoulder at Robert.
He took a step back from his desk, suddenly appearing uncertain, trapped like an animal that realizes too late that it had stepped where it shouldn’t have. “Of course I’ve purchased books since his death, but I leave the arrangement of the books up to the servants.”
“Perhaps I should try to catalogue all the books,” she offered. “Organize them in a manner that would make it easier for us to locate what we were searching for.”
“I rather like being surprised by what I find,” he said, leaving her with the impression that he might not be talking only of books.
“I enjoy reading aloud,” she told him. “May I read to you this evening?”
“Torie, I really do have things which require my attention.”
“Can you not do them while I read?”
He appeared to be on the verge of allowing her in…
“I’m lonely, Robert,” she added.
He swept his hand toward a chair near the fire. “Please, it would bring me immense pleasure, if you have the time.”
“I have nothing but time presently.”
Because it was handy, she selected David Copperfield. She sat in the chair, and Robert joined her, sitting in the one opposite hers.
“I thought you were going to try to tend to matters while I read,” she said.
“I changed my mind.”
“What were you doing before I disturbed you?”
He looked into the fire. “Contemplating the merits of writing a letter to Weddington to ask for permission to call on him.”
“So we’ll return to London?”
“I suspect he is at Drummond Manor, near the coast. It’s only a couple of hours from here. But if he’s not there, then no, I’m not quite ready to return to London.”
“Do you remember when—”
“I thought you were going to read aloud.”
She was slightly embarrassed by his tone, not truly chastisement, but it was laced with a bit of impatience. She opened the book and began to read.
Robert didn’t know why he’d attempted to dissuade her from reading. Perhaps because the more time he spent with her, the more difficult it would be to let her go when the day came that he had no choice.
He loved the gentle lilt of her voice. He tried to listen to the story but he found himself becoming lost in her. He was becoming hopelessly besotted.
She wasn’t flirting with him or playing coy or teasing him. She was simply reading from the book, her head bent. Yet he thought he would be content if the remainder of his years were spent doing nothing except this: sitting in the shadows of her presence.
Torie lay beneath her covers, her breathing shallow as she listened to the creaking floorboards, signaling once again that her husband was pacing.
It had been nearly ten when she’d given in to weariness and set the book aside. Robert had barely moved a muscle from the moment she began reading, his elbow resting on the arm of the chair, his chin propped on his hand, his head titled slightly, his gaze unwavering. Or so it seemed when she would periodically look up to find him intently listening as though enthralled by the story.
So she’d continued on, longer than she might have otherwise. She’d never known anyone to take such a keen interest in her reading aloud.
He’d escorted her to her bedchamber, bid her good night, and she’d heard the door to his room open and close. She’d been so certain that after the day and evening they’d shared, he would come to her. Once Charity had prepared her for bed and left the room, Torie had done her own pacing for a few minutes before finally taking a deep breath and clambering into bed. She’d fanned her hair out across the pillows, then brought the covers up to her chin, lowered them to her chest, then to her waist.
As she’d lain there, as still as death, with the lamp turned low, and her gaze on the canopy above, she’d begun to hear the pacing.
Why didn’t he come?
She contemplated getting out of bed and knocking on his door, alerting him to the fact that she was prepared for him. But that action seemed far too bold, and surely the pacing would soon stop and he would join her.
After a while she began to twiddle her thumbs, then to count the squares on the ceiling and the ticking of the clock on the mantel.
Why didn’t he come?
When her eyes began to burn and fill with water, she told herself it was because she’d read for too long. When a clock in the hallway announced the arrival of midnight, and the pacing finally stopped, but her husband did not come to see her, she rolled onto her side and let the tears she’d been holding at bay roll silently along her cheek and onto the pillow.
Chapter 13
To the Duke of Weddington—
It has been a while, my friend, I would like permission to call upon you at Drummond Manor.
Sincerely,
Robert, the Duke of Killingsworth
To the Duke of Killingsworth—
I think not.
Weddington
Robert had tucked the missive from Weddington inside the pocket of his jacket, and it felt like a heavy weight sitting there as the coach traveled toward Drummond Manor. He was being a bit of a coward by not going alone, but he thought Weddington might not be so quick to slam the door in his face if Torie was with him.
After she had asked him about his friends, to whom he might be close, and she’d revealed that John had snubbed Weddington, it occurred to him that his old friend might be someone he could trust.
Weddington’s curt note told Robert more about the state of their friendship than any longer missive might have. He and Weddington had been friends at school, had yachted together. That the man wasn’t willing to see him…
Well, he had no doubt that John had been responsible, and it involved more than simply a cut direct. John’s actions made perfect, yet irritating sense. Replace his valet…replace his trusted friend.
Now if Robert could only earn back Weddington’s trust, he might discover some way to prove the facts of his case.
And he needed to do that as quickly as possible because it was becoming more difficult not to open the door that separated his bedchamber from hers.
Each moment spent with her was pure pleasure, except for those rare moments when he could see doubt surfacing in her eyes, doubt because she required more from him than he could give to her. Countless times he’d convinced himself to tell her everything, but then she would smile at him, and the thought of never having that smile directed at him was enough to make him rethink his decision. It was selfish on his part, and unfair to her, but he’d gone so long without so much that he was like a starving man desperate enough to settle for crumbs and instead finding himself offered a feast.
He told himself that tomorrow he would tell her…and when tomorrow arrived, he convinced himself that the next day would be better…and now he’d decided to wait until after they visited Weddington. If Weddington rejected him, Robert might very well need the solace
that Torie could provide.
“What do you know of his wife?” she asked unexpectedly, breaking into his thoughts.
“Whose wife?”
“Weddington’s.”
Nothing at all. He hadn’t even known he had a wife. Damnation, when had that happened?
“I’m certain she loves him. He is the type of man that I think any woman would adore.”
“How long have you and Weddington been friends?”
“We met at Eton. As our estates are only a few hours’ apart, we spent considerable time together when we weren’t at school. We both took a fancy to yachting, and Weddington’s home is almost at the water’s edge. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn he was boating before he was walking.”
“You’ve never spoken much about your friends.”
“I had so few. John and I being so close in age…well, he rather filled my need for a friend. And I his, I suppose. But Weddington, well, I trusted him and came to respect him greatly. We’ve grown apart over the years, and I regret that. Quite honestly, I’m not certain what sort of welcome we’ll receive.”
“Based upon the incident at the Great Exhibition, I fear we won’t receive a welcome at all.”
“Perhaps I shouldn’t have asked you to join me. If you’re terribly uncomfortable with the notion of going there, I’ll have the coach turned about—”
“No.” She shook her head slightly. “My place is at your side.”
How he wished that sentiment was true.
“I couldn’t have selected a finer lady to be my wife,” he said quietly.
“Sometimes I have the impression that you’re not at all happy with me.”
“Your presence fills me with immeasurable joy.”
“Why do you pace your bedchamber rather than coming to mine?”
He glanced out the window, not wishing to hurt her and realizing that it was not enough to simply wish for something. “I didn’t realize you could hear me pacing.”
“It’s an old house. The floors creak.”
He turned his attention back to her. “Do you want me to come to your bedchamber?”
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