Silverbridge

by Joan Wolf

  He frowned, and said gruffly, “What are you doing here?”

  “I dropped Meg at her therapist and thought I’d kill the hour by checking on you. How are you feeling this morning?”

  She was dressed in jeans, boots, and a blue sweater, her hair was floating around her shoulders, and Harry thought she was the most beautiful sight he had ever beheld. He said, “I’m all right. Why aren’t you filming?”

  “The set won’t be ready until this afternoon, so I volunteered to drive Meg. Tony had a meeting of some sort to go to.”

  This was excellent news. “Then I’ll catch a ride home with you, if you don’t mind. I’d rather not wait for Tony.”

  She frowned. “You look dreadful. You belong in the hospital for at least another day.”

  It was nice to have her worry about him. “I have a headache, that’s all. I can recuperate at home just as well as I can in hospital.”

  There was a little silence as she looked at him. “Perhaps you can recuperate,” she said somberly, “but will you be safe?”

  He didn’t want to answer that.

  She wouldn’t let it drop. “I had Ian Poole go over the car. Have you heard anything from him yet?”

  He debated about how he should answer, and said reluctantly, “I talked to him just a few minutes ago.”

  “What did he say?”

  A muscle tightened in his jaw. “He said that it looked like the brake lines had been cut.”

  “Oh, my God.” She had gone very pale.

  “Perhaps you really did see someone prowling around the other night,” he said.

  Her eyes flashed. “I told you that I did, but you thought I was making it up.”

  “I’m sorry, Tracy. And I’m sorry I was so rude that night.”

  She looked at him with uncertainty. His head was killing him, and all he wanted was to kiss her.

  “You and I got off on the wrong foot,” he said seriously. “Do you think we could start again?”

  She looked at him searchingly, then said, “I’m willing if you are.”

  A brisk voice said, “Good morning, my lord. How are we feeling today?”

  It was a different doctor from the previous night, and Harry replied evenly, “We are feeling quite well, thank you. We have a slight headache but no ringing in our ears.”

  Tracy stifled a giggle.

  The new doctor, who was as portly and short as the one last night had been tall and elegant, came over to look in his eyes with a pencil light. “Still some dilation,” he said. “Now, if you would allow me to check your blood pressure, my lord?”

  He wrapped the cuff around Harry’s arm and pumped. “Hmmm,” he said as he read the dial.

  Harry said crisply, “I’m sure my blood pressure is all right. It always is. I wish to check out of hospital as soon as possible and go home. Would you please arrange matters for me?”

  Centuries of command sounded in his voice, and the doctor responded as Harry had expected. “If you insist, my lord. It is very important for you to remain quiet, however. A concussion is a serious matter.”

  “Yes, yes, I understand.” Evidently his irritable reply did not reassure either the doctor or Tracy, because they both frowned at him. He offered a huge concession: “I will keep to the house for the rest of the day.”

  “You will keep to your bed for the rest of today, and for tomorrow as well, my lord,” the doctor said.

  “Oh, all right,” he replied, having no intention of doing as instructed. “Just get me out of this place. I don’t like the smell in here.”

  The doctor looked affronted. “This hospital is very clean, my lord.”

  “I know. It’s the smell of all the cleaning agents that puts me off.”

  Tracy smothered a smile, and said severely, “Behave yourself, my lord.” She turned to the doctor. “Are you certain it’s wise to release Lord Silverbridge? As you just said, a concussion is a serious matter.”

  Harry scowled. Whose side is she on here?

  “I own, I would prefer him to remain,” the doctor said.

  Harry said, his voice very clipped, “I am not staying in hospital. And I want my clothes. Now, if you please.”

  “Very well, my lord, if you insist,” the doctor said reluctantly. “I’ll have a nurse bring your things.” He went out.

  Tracy said, “I think this is a mistake.”

  He said huffily, “I think I am the best judge of how I feel.”

  The nurse came in the door with his clothes.

  Half an hour later, Harry was installed in the front seat of Gail’s rented Mercedes. He was feeling extremely seedy, which he endeavored to hide from Tracy.

  “We have to pick up Meg,” she said.

  “Yes, I know.”

  “You should have stayed in the hospital. You look awful.”

  He felt awful, which made him angry. “When I want your opinion, I’ll ask for it.”

  Her mouth tightened but she did not reply. He watched as she drove through the narrow city streets and approved of the way she handled a car. When she pulled up in front of a red brick Georgian-style building, Meg came running from the porch. “Harry!” she said when she saw who was sitting in the front seat. “How super. Are you feeling okay?”

  “I am perfectly fine,” he answered over the pounding in his head.

  Tracy said calmly, “Your brother is miserable, Meg, but he insisted upon leaving the hospital. As soon as he gets home he is getting into his own bed and staying there for the rest of the day.”

  “Bossy little thing, aren’t you?” he muttered.

  “You don’t know the half of it,” she replied.

  He thought of a few things to say to put her in her place, but felt too rotten to make the attempt.

  By the time they reached Silverbridge, he was extremely grateful to crawl into his own bed.

  The film company was to shoot a scene in the staircase hall that afternoon, and Tracy had to rush to makeup as soon as she returned to Silverbridge. Finally, dressed in costume and made up correctly, she joined Jon in the front hallway to wait while the lighting crew put the finishing touches to the set.

  Jon glanced at her. “I looked for you earlier.”

  “I drove Meg into Warkfield this morning.”

  He shifted on his feet. “I heard that she and Silverbridge were in an accident yesterday. Is she all right?”

  “Yes. He had to spend the night in the hospital, but we brought him back with us today.”

  There was a brief silence, then Jon said quietly, “I don’t mean to intrude into your business, Tracy, but I like you very much, and I would hate to see you hurt.”

  Tracy felt herself stiffen. “Thank you, Jon, but I am not going to get hurt.”

  “It seems to me that you may be falling for Silverbridge,” he continued, his expression very grave, “and that’s a mistake.”

  She started to deny any feelings for Harry, then changed her mind and asked, “Why?”

  One of the lighting crew shouted, “Move that spot six inches to the left.”

  “He’s like the rest of the aristocracy,” Jon said bitterly. “He does what he wants and be damned to anyone else. Take the Dana Matthews case, for example. She committed suicide because of him.”

  Tracy thought that she was seeing firsthand an example of the caste system she had spoken about to Gail. Jon obviously disliked Harry because he was upper- class. She said quietly, “Dana was a drug addict, Jon. She overdosed.”

  “She overdosed and then she called him for help and he refused to come to her. It was in all the papers.”

  That can’t be true, she thought.

  “Look,” Jon went on, “I don’t give a damn about Silverbridge, but I do give a damn about you. Just be careful with him, will you? Don’t let your heart get involved.”

  It’s too late for a warning, Jon, Tracy thought. She looked around the lovely room in which they stood. Perhaps it was always too late.

  “I’ll keep your words in mind,” she s
aid.

  He nodded. “Good.”

  “That’s it everybody,” the lighting gaffer called. “We’re ready to go.”

  “Excellent,” Dave said.

  “Actors on the set,” Greg called, and Tracy and Jon went to take their places.

  When the afternoon’s filming was done, Tracy went to have dinner with the crew, her mind unpleasantly preoccupied with what Jon had told her.

  Why didn’t Harry go to her?

  The question haunted her mind the entire time she and Jon were eating dinner with the rest of the film crew in the catering bus. She was quiet enough to draw a remark from Liza Moran.

  “Cat got your tongue, Tracy?” the older actress asked in an acid tone.

  Tracy had little use for Liza Moran. The woman had the inclinations and morals of a bitch in heat, and more than once the rest of them had been kept waiting because Liza was shacked up with some man and no one could find her. Sally Walsh, the associate producer, was taking bets that Liza would get through every capable man on the set by the time the filming ended.

  Tracy replied, “No. It’s perfectly intact. Would you care to see it?”

  “I think I can manage to live without a view of your tongue,” Liza said in the same acid voice as before.

  “Really?” Tracy’s voice was sweet. “You’re always so interested in me and in everything I do, that I thought perhaps you’d be interested in my tongue as well.”

  Several people at the table laughed. Liza had been trying to discompose Tracy ever since the filming started, and so far Tracy had got the best of her every time.

  Tactfully, Jon began to talk to Tracy about a review he had seen of a new London play in the Times that morning. He had an amusing story to tell about one of the stars of the play, and Tracy dutifully laughed in response, but her heart wasn’t in it.

  They didn’t finish filming until eleven and, when Tracy was finally free, she went up the main staircase in order to cut through the upstairs drawing room to the family apartment. She was exhausted and depressed and thinking about bed and not ghosts when she pushed open the drawing room door and stepped inside.

  The room was in deep shadow, except for a single candle burning on one of the Chippendale side tables. It was a moment before Tracy’s eyes adjusted and she saw the couple seated together in the Queen Anne wing chair next to the table with the candle. Charles was still dressed in his dinner clothes, but Isabel wore a blue velvet robe and bedroom slippers. Her long auburn hair was tied back with a ribbon, as if that was how she wore it to bed. She was sitting on his lap, with her cheek buried in his shoulder. His hand was gently stroking the hair away from her brow.

  “Caroline has a perfect right to want me gone,” she said in a voice that ached with unshed tears. “It isn’t fair to be angry with her, Charles.”

  “Perhaps not.” His curt tone dismissed Caroline. “Perhaps she has even done me a favor by forcing my hand.” For a moment his hand gently cupped the back of her head, commanding attention. “Now listen closely, love. This is what we are going to do. I sent Rupert to Southampton this afternoon to buy you a ticket on a ship to Boston. I have a family connection there with whom you can stay while you wait for me to join you.”

  At that, she straightened up and looked into his face. “No, Charles. I will go to America if that is what you want, but your place is here.” Her husky voice sounded very firm. “I won’t take you away from your home and your family.”

  There was a long silence as their eyes held. Tracy stood so quietly that she scarcely breathed. At last he said, “I am not a sentimental man, Isabel. Don’t think that I am making some grand, unthinking, romantic gesture that I will one day come to regret. It’s quite the contrary, in fact I am ruthlessly putting my own personal happiness above my home and my family. This is a deliberate choice, and one that you must allow me to make.”

  His voice was very quiet and very sober, and his dark eyes seemed to be boring into her soul. After a moment her neck bowed in surrender, like the graceful stem of a lily, and her head came to rest once more on his shoulder. He cupped her nape with his hand and said, “When I came back from the war and found you here… it was as if I had found a part of myself that had been missing all my life. I knew it immediately. Caroline, the children—they seemed like wraiths to me. All I could see was you.”

  Isabel’s husky voice drifted to Tracy’s ears. “I know. I felt the same way.”

  He rested his cheek against her hair. “When I am with you, I am at peace. If I let you go, I will never be at peace again.”

  The candlelight glittered on the signet ring he wore on his right hand. The ring looked familiar and Tracy abruptly realized that Harry wore that exact same ring.

  Charles was going on in a ruminative voice, “Perhaps if I hadn’t been to war and seen so many men die, I would be less ruthless. But I know how brief life can be, and I don’t want to spend the rest of mine regretting your loss.”

  A draft caused the single candle to flicker momentarily, putting the couple in shadow, but then it steadied, and Tracy could see them again. Isabel said, “What about your children?”

  His face took on what Tracy was beginning to think of as its commander in chief expression. “I will appoint my cousin George to act as trustee for William. George acted for me at Silverbridge during the war, and he knows the estate as well as I do. There will be ample money to take care of the boys and Caroline; they will lack for nothing.”

  His imperious tone made it clear that he considered that particular subject closed. But Isabel wouldn’t let it drop. “They will lack a father,” she said softly.

  His response was final. “They would lack a father even if I remained. My body might be here at Silverbridge, but my heart would be dead.”

  She raised her face, and for the first time Tracy saw the tears sparkling on her cheeks. “But Charles—what will you do in America? I simply cannot imagine you anywhere but here.”

  His reply was supremely confident. “I shall amass a fortune and build a magnificent home for you and for our children.”

  After a moment, she laughed shakily. “You probably will.”

  He smiled and ran a gentle finger down her nose. “Of course I will.” His face sobered. “We may not be able to marry, Isabel. It will be up to Caroline to decide whether she wants to divorce me or not; I won’t force that issue. But in a new country no one need know about my previous marital situation. There is no reason for you not to have all the respect and status due to my wife.”

  Again that note of confidence sounded clearly in his voice.

  Isabel sighed. “I shouldn’t let you do this, but I love you too much to stop you.”

  “You couldn’t stop me, even if you wanted to,” he replied with a trace of amusement.

  She straightened away from him. “I could refuse to go to Boston. That would stop you.”

  His amusement deepened. “I’d kidnap you.”

  “You wouldn’t dare,” she returned snappily.

  His kissed her forehead. “Let’s not argue, my love. We can’t keep having midnight meetings like this, and I need to make certain that you understand what you are to do.”

  Her momentary indignation died. “I’m listening.”

  “I told my secretary to book you on a ship to Boston. I also gave him a letter to my cousin, Stephen Oliver, with instructions to send it on the next available ship going to America. Stephen should receive it before you arrive.”

  “Do you know this cousin, Charles?” Isabel asked in a muted voice.

  The candlelight glimmered on his golden hair as he shook his head. “I have never met him. His branch of the family has been in America since before the colonies revolted. But he has a successful shipping business in Boston, and we have had cause to correspond on a number of occasions. I know he will keep you safely until such time as I can join you.”

  Worry was clearly visible on Isabel’s face, but all she said was, “All right.”

  “Do not concern yours
elf about Stephen Oliver,” Charles ordered. “I have further instructed Rupert to buy a ticket for himself so that he may accompany you to Boston. Once you have arrived in that city, he will open up a bank account for you, so you will not be dependent upon Stephen.”

  “You don’t have to send poor Mr. Holt with me, Charles,” Isabel protested. “I shall do perfectly fine on my own.”

  His face took on its commander in chief expression. “You are not traveling on a ship to America without an escort.”

  Evidently Isabel recognized that expression as well as Tracy, for she ceased to protest, and asked instead, “How long will it be before you can join me?”

  “Two months, I should think. I have a great many legal ends to tie up here before I can get away.”

  She cupped his face in her hands and looked into his eyes. “Are you certain that you want to do this?”

  His expression was perfectly sober as he replied, “More certain than I have been of anything in my life.” He pulled her close and buried his lips in her hair. Like a sleeper in a daze, Tracy walked quietly to the other door, let herself into the family apartment, and left them there, alone.

  18

  Tracy’s mind was so agitated by what she had heard and seen that day that she didn’t expect to get much sleep. In fact, her last though before she fell asleep was, I’m going to be awake all night.

  The next thing she knew, it was morning.

  She peeked through the narrow opening in Harry’s door on her way down to breakfast and saw a heap of blankets from which protruded a tangle of tawny hair. Her fingers itched to smooth that hair away from his face, but the small black head that was resting on the pillow next to his clearly had other thoughts. Ebony’s hostile green stare bore an unmistakable message: Go away.