The Heart Denied

by Wulf, Linda Anne

  “Aye, Milady.”

  In the day room, Gwynneth watched the clock while she paced the floor and, by the time Ashby arrived, was several degrees nearer her boiling point. “Shut the door and sit down,” she snapped.

  The maid did so hastily, hands fidgeting in her lap.

  “Now,” Gwynneth began. “You will tell me how you came to be in the stable master’s bed last night. Spare me no detail, however sordid. The truth only. Time is of no matter, we shall sit here all the day long if need be.”

  Ashby made a gulping sound, then said faintly, “Aye, Milady.”

  “Speak up, there will be no cowering. Did Hobbs in any way suggest your visit, or otherwise lead you to feel you would be welcome in his quarters?”

  “No, Milady.”

  “So, you played trollop on the sly! Were you even acquainted with him beforehand?” Gwynneth leaned forward like a cat eyeing her next meal.

  “Aye, Milady. Toby—er, Master Hobbs calls upon my mistress in London now and again.”

  Gwynneth nearly dropped her jaw. “He…he calls upon Mistress Sutherland?”

  “Aye, Milady. He comes to the house by the back door, and Marsh shows him up to the drawing room to see the mistress.”

  “I see.” Gwynneth mentally filed the maid’s stunning news away for later consideration. “And did Master Hobbs speak to you earlier yesterday? Perhaps wave at you from the stable yard?”

  “No, Milady. I only wandered outdoors last eve’ to see the horses-”

  “The truth, you little witch! I said I wanted the truth!”

  Ashby paled. “Aye, Milady, begging your pardon, I wanted to see Toby—I mean to say, Master Hobbs—but he was surprised,” she admitted lamely.

  Gwynneth sat stiffly back in her chair. “I thought as much. What happened then?”

  “I told him I should like to see the horses, Milady.”

  “And then?”

  “Well, he showed me the horses…”

  “And?”

  “And then he…he sort of sniffed me, like…you know, like-”

  “Like a cur sniffs a bitch in heat?” Gwynneth offered, fury underlying her bright smile. “Aye, I’ve seen the ritual amongst the hounds here. Do go on.”

  Ashby faltered. “No, Milady, I meant he was smelling my hair, and my neck…that tickled a bit, so it made me breathe faster. And then he asked me how old I am. His voice sounded different, rough-like, and it gave me a funny chill. Seventeen, I told him.”

  “What then?” Gwynneth prodded in a brittle voice.

  “I looked at his lips, and I…”

  “Say it.”

  “I wondered how it’d be to kiss him.”

  “No doubt you’d wondered for some time.” Gwynneth watched the girl with burning eyes.

  “Aye.” Ashby ducked her head. “But then a funny thing happened. His eyes got all hard and stared at me strange, like he’d just thought of something…”

  “And what do you suppose that something was?”

  “Well, I didn’t know, Milady, not then. We kept staring at each other, and then he leaned over and-”

  “Yes?”

  “He kissed me, Milady.” Ashby’s face pinkened again, this time with a dreamy expression. “He kissed me in a lovely way, just as I thought he might…but then he started kissing me harder. I’ve been kissed before, my lady-” Ashby shook her head, her sultry eyes rounding. “But not like this, not ever! It made me breathless, and gave me such a feeling in the pit of my stomach! And all at once, he picked me up in his arms and carried me—still kissing me, mind you!” Fanning herself with one hand, she blotted her forehead on her sleeve, missing Gwynneth’s wince.

  I can bear no more of this. Gwynneth nearly spoke the words aloud. “So he took you into his bed,” she said with outward coolness. “I assume the two of you then fornicated?”

  “We…we did what, Milady?”

  “Fornicated, young woman. Have you never heard the word?”

  “No, Milady.” Ashby frowned in obvious consternation. “But it sounds…bad.”

  “‘Tis wicked!” Gwynneth shot up from her chair as Ashby shrank back in her own. “A mortal sin! And you committed it…the sin of fornication! Gwynneth’s skirts whipped outward as she came around the desk. “What is worse,” she hissed, bending over the cringing maid, “is that you caused Hobbs to sin! You tempted him, then took your pleasure-”

  “And gave him his!” Ashby whined in protest.

  Gwynneth raised a trembling hand high in the air. “Aye, and for that offense you shall burn in hell at the end of your worthless life, you little whore!”

  Down came the hand, delivering a stinging slap to the maid’s left cheek. Tears filled Ashby’s wide eyes, her mouth trembling as she visibly steeled herself for a vicious backhanded blow to her right cheek.

  It came with a loud crack.

  “Get your despicable form out of my sight, whore,” Gwynneth snarled through her teeth. “Keep away from me while you are in my house. And if you value that pretty skin, you’ll stay away from my stableman as well, or so help me, I shall flay you alive! Now go! And wash your face before you attend your mistress. Not a word to her of our meeting, or I will have you beaten straightaway!”

  Ashby fled as best one could on limbs stiff with terror, not daring to stop and close the door behind her.

  Gwynneth heaved it shut and leaned back against it, fingernails digging into her palms, eyes darting wildly about the room until they lit upon the silver filigree-framed miniature of the former Lady Neville. How serene she looked. A woman content with living out her short life as her husband’s partner and lover, bearing his child, and overseeing his household.

  “Hurrah for you!” Gwynneth whispered furiously. “Perhaps you were more to your husband than a piece of property and a breeding mare!” Face contorting, she ran to pick up the miniature, then dashed it to the floor.

  “Milady?”

  “What is it?” Gwynneth shrilled, turning a livid stare on Dame Carswell. “How dare you open my door without admittance!”

  “Begging your pardon, Milady.” The housekeeper curtsied humbly, looking straight at Gwynneth instead of the shattered glass on the floor. “I knocked, but you did not answer, and I knew you’d want to be informed.”

  “Informed of what?”

  “Combs’s disappearance, Milady.”

  “What? When…?”

  “Sometime during the night, Milady.”

  Gwynneth blinked rapidly. “Indeed. And no one knows where she has gone?”

  “No, Milady.”

  “Well then, good riddance, I say.”

  “Aye, Milady.” A sly look surfaced in the housekeeper’s eyes. “But I fear the news was not so well taken by his lordship.”

  “No,” Gwynneth said tersely, “it wouldn’t be. My husband is uncommonly concerned for common people. How he came by such an odd fault, I cannot imagine.”

  Dame Carswell’s lip curled slightly. “His father had the same weakness, Milady.”

  “I suppose he has ordered a search?”

  “Aye, Milady.”

  “In which he’s taking part, no doubt.”

  “Of which he is the leader,” the housekeeper countered, then snapped her mouth shut.

  Gwynneth smiled thinly. “I see that you and I are of a mind in this matter, Dame Carswell. Well, God willing, the search shall prove futile.”

  “Amen, Milady.”

  *

  “Yes,” Caroline said matter-of-factly. “Mister Hobbs calls to see Horace. They’d some sort of business between them, though my husband never confided its nature to me.”

  “But she expressly said that Hobbs called upon you.” Sulking, Gwynneth pushed food around her plate with a fork.

  Caroline blotted her lips with a napkin. “He did insist upon seeing me in Horace’s absence. He fancied I’d my husband’s confidence in matters of trade.”

  “But you never said a word!”

  Caroline sighed. “I rather di
sliked the man, but I thought it impolite to say. Hence, I said nothing. He doesn’t seem to recognize me, either.”

  Gwynneth eyed her guest dubiously, her thoughts turning again to Hobbs’ escapade last evening. Her fists tightened. He would regret his betrayal. She would see to it personally.

  *

  Radleigh waylaid Thorne in the great hall. “My daughter says you’ll provide me with a coach, since I’ve lost my means of transport.” He shook his head sadly. “Bad business, that. She told me the upshot of it. Never did I dream-”

  “What’s your destination?” Thorne cut in, in no mood for dithering after a five-hour search for Elaine Combs.

  “Why, I want to return to my house in Covent Gar-”

  “I’ll be more than glad to lend you a coach, but only to Radleigh Hall.”

  Radleigh eyed him in silence, then said gruffly, “I imagine his lordship’s purse was somewhat fatter when he left.”

  Thorne barely nodded.

  “Order the coach then, with my thanks. I shall reimburse you in full, I promise. With interest.”

  Again Thorne nodded. “Safe journey, Radleigh. God speed.”

  He had no delusions he’d ever see that money again.

  *

  Mid-afternoon, thick clouds hung over Wycliffe Hall and unleashed a cold, torrential rain. Watching it run down the study windows, Thorne grimly contemplated Elaine Combs’ whereabouts. Hobbs had taken the Wycliffe road, while Thorne had searched high and low off the road to Northampton, even forcing Raven halfway up the side of a wooded ravine where he knew of a small, hidden cave. Inside he’d found only small bones, long dried out, with some droppings.

  Why was he so concerned for a servant—a lone, unwed, pregnant castoff of his stableman, at that?

  Because she has no one, he answered himself crossly. And because the man who should be standing beside her in all this has just bedded Caroline’s maid.

  But there was more, and Thorne knew it. Combs’ quiet, unassuming air, and the way her poise and grace went hand in hand with such steely determination, fascinated him. Her voice, by turns as soothing as the flow of the beck or as clear and musical as the ring of silver on crystal, seemed tuned for his ear in particular. The innate honesty and clarity in her dove-gray eyes riveted him, and the joy and appreciation he saw there for the smallest of pleasures made his heart swell. And not once during all these weeks of ostracism by her peers had she ever bemoaned the new life she carried within her. Indeed, Thorne knew beyond a doubt that from the day of her child’s birth, Elaine Combs would lavish upon it all the love and tender care of which a mother was capable.

  How he had enjoyed her presence here on recent evenings. He loved the room by day, when sunrays streamed through the solar and sought out the aged, mellow hues of furnishings and books, but there was something more compelling in those quiet hours when the shadows lengthened and receded in the rich warmth of the fire’s glow. He’d sensed an expectant air, a palpable quickening in the atmosphere. It seemed the room anticipated Combs’ arrival as eagerly as he did.

  Each evening she had bowed her head in greeting, mindful of his request to omit the curtsey, and had kept a decorous silence until he spoke. At first she’d sat far across the room to do her reading; later she’d hesitantly agreed to leave only one fireside chair between them. In the meantime, Thorne’s covert glances had committed her classic profile to memory. He’d also stolen glances at her thickening waist. Though guilt tweaked his conscience, he’d savored a keen sense of patriarchal protectiveness.

  He’d noticed something else those evenings. The library, always his father’s domain, now seemed his own. In making it Combs’ sanctuary as well as his, Thorne had taken true possession of it.

  But the last two evenings had kept him away. He could hardly blame Caroline for Wednesday night, when he’d deliberately and perversely spurred a confrontation. Yestereve was another matter. Thanks to Lord Whittingham and his own brand of perversion, Thorne had missed his library sojourn again.

  Something else must have occurred in those forty-eight hours—something significant enough to provoke Combs to flee without regard to her condition and her lack of means. Thorne had initially pinned his hopes on Markham, but the old seamstress, though bewildered and sad, knew of no reason for Combs’ departure or of any change in her circumstances.

  Nothing. It was all anyone knew. It was all Thorne felt.

  Finishing some of the work he’d neglected that morning, and thinking Gwynneth secluded in her chamber with no prospect of riding today, he returned the wedding record book to her day room. He’d hoped to deduce from it which guest might be Hobbs’ sister, but the book had offered no more than a bittersweet look at Elaine Combs’ genteel handwriting, leaving Thorne to conclude either Henry Pitts or Clayton Carmody had heard wrongly.

  A trace of lemon verbena hung in the air of the deserted day room, spurring him to open the drawer hastily, but as he replaced the wedding book he noticed a framed miniature. He picked it up and turned it over.

  Between small shards of glass stuck in the frame, his mother looked back at him with an enigmatic smile. Thorne frowned. With a bit more petulance in her expression and smoldering fire in her eyes, Catherine Neville could almost be mistaken for Caroline Sutherland.

  Staring at the tiny painting, he walked slowly back to his study. He carefully pried the bits of glass out the frame and, without quite knowing why, propped the portrait on the desk where he could view it at will.

  Perhaps the next best thing to a likeness of Caroline? mocked his inner voice. He turned grimly away from the miniature and strode from the room.

  He was taken aback to find the very subject of his thoughts in the library. Silhouetted against the gray light of the solar windows, Caroline watched his hesitant approach with no rancor in her expression, and quietly thanked him for his rescue during the night. “If you had not come when you did,” she said, “you might well have had to send for the undertaker this morn.” She nodded solemnly at Thorne’s stare of disbelief.

  “Surely you don’t mean to say he’d have murdered you.”

  “Quite likely, but only after forcing himself upon me. Surprise, bondage, and cruel force are just a few of his trademarks. ‘Tis a wonder I survived our marriage with all my limbs and features intact.”

  Thorne averted his gaze. “Then I wish I’d killed him.”

  “Because of me?”

  Jaws clenched, he fought to keep his voice level. “Because he has imposed himself upon my family time and time again, even before my father’s death. Now the bloody bastard nearly rapes and kills a guest in my house, and how do I repay him? After little more than bloodying his nose and blacking an eye, I send him away with a full purse!”

  “You acted with righteous anger. And whether or not you admit it, you defended my honor, as is your way.”

  “My way,” Thorne scoffed, his eyes pinning hers. “And was it my way, Caroline, when I nearly crushed the life out of you in this room two evenings ago? Was I so righteous then?” His voice tightened as Caroline touched her swollen lip. “You speak of ‘cruel force’ at his hands—did I not use the same against you?”

  “There is no comparison. And you more than made up for that aberration by flying to my rescue last night.”

  “Aberration.” He gave her a grim look. “Have you forgotten our exchange behind Townsend’s hedgerow? I suppose that was an aberration as well.”

  Caroline pursed her lips, then turned away. “I shall take my leave, you’re unreasonable this morning.”

  She turned as Thorne grabbed her hand, and the irony in her eyes acknowledged the familiarity of the gesture.

  “Caroline, please.” He gave her a mirthless smile. “What I’m trying to say, with piss-poor results, is that I’m heartily sorry for my behavior yesterday and that night at Townsend’s house. There was no excuse for it. You’d every reason to call me a cad, for no matter what effect you have upon me, I haven’t the right to impose my…impulses…upon you
r person, or to accuse you of impropriety…not then, not now, not ever. Intellectually, morally, I know this. But…”

  “But what?” Caroline prodded.

  Abruptly he let go her hand and went to the hearth, where he stared into the fire. “But,” he said with soft deliberation, “I cannot promise it won’t happen again.”

  Caroline watched closely as he turned to face her. Even with his back to the light, there was no mistaking the cynical gleam in his eyes.

  “Shall I send for your coach?” he asked.

  “No,” she whispered.

  Each regarded the other in silence. A challenge had just been flung—and met without hesitation.

  The stroke of four of the clock broke the tension. It seemed to startle Thorne onto a different tack.

  “Something has perplexed the devil out of me since your revelation last night.”

  Caroline merely arched her brow.

  “When I first told you of Lena, I mentioned her father’s pet name for her, which was Maddie…do you recall?”

  “Yes.”

  “Didn’t you make the connection? Surely you knew Lord Whittingham had lost a daughter. Was your fear of revealing his identity all that overpowering?”

  Caroline stared at him in horror. “Heavens, no—oh, you must have thought me a monster since last night! No, Thorne, no, a thousand times no. He never mentioned a daughter to me, nor was there any trace of her existence. I assumed he was childless. I swear to you, Thorne, I hadn’t the least notion Lena’s father was my first husband! You must believe me.”

  “I do.” He smiled weakly, but not before Caroline saw the terrible disappointment in his eyes. “Well, no matter. I was only curious.” He settled into a chair and glanced at the clock. “Tea’s on the way. Wait with me, Gwynneth should be along presently.”

  Caroline took a seat, still hearing the poignancy in his voice as he’d spoken of Lena.

  No matter, he’d said.

  But it does matter, Caroline thought glumly. It matters more than he will ever say. You were right, Toby, there is much wrong with this marriage. But there are only three people who can hasten its end.