Late in the afternoon, Alana decided to forgo being entombed and depressed in the mansion. Recovering her composure, she took a walk on the immaculate grounds of Fenian Court, enjoying their green beauty and defying anyone to be better company than the birds and Roman statuary.
But to her surprise, Mara found her. She came running from the direction of the house, and Alana supposed the Colleen had long been in port. “Did you have a nice morning, Alana?” Mara asked as she caught up with her, slightly out of breath.
“I did some needlework. I was just taking some air—”
“May I go with you?”
Alana smiled. She could never blame Mara for anything her villainous brother did. “Of course.” Affectionately, she slipped her arm in Mara’s.
“Have you seen the gazebo?” The girl brushed back an unruly lock of black hair that had escaped her chignon.
Alana was struck by the fetching sight she made. “No. Where is it?”
Mara pointed to the ocean, a liquid jewel of blue in the late afternoon sun. “Out there. Don’t you see it?”
To the right of where the ocean broke into a frothy white upon a pile of rocks, where the bay swept in calm and undisturbed, there was a gazebo at the end of a long dock.
“You have to go through the boathouse. But the water’s almost always calm in that part. I assure you it’s quite safe.”
“Then let’s go.” Alana started for the gazebo. It was just the place for her to bring up the subject that Trevor wanted her to clear. They could have a private conversation, and Alana could approach Mara with the sensitive topic of those juvenile short dresses.
The open-air gazebo was fashioned in the Chinese-Chippendale manner that was becoming all the rage with the upcoming American centennial. Once they’d gotten through the enormous boathouse where Trevor kept the Colleen and traversed the length of the long pier, the two women easily made themselves comfortable on benches well cushioned with chintz-covered squabs. Conversation turned to the weather and how beautiful Fenian Court looked from the sea, a great white marble monolith rising from perfectly clipped green hills. Chatting easily with Mara, Alana gazed through the pierced fretwork of the gazebo, surveying the wild beauty of the sea, and she was sure this would be her favorite place forever.
“Is something bothering you, Alana? You seem … preoccupied.”
Alana looked at Mara, surprised at how astute the girl was. There was a directness about her that Alana found refreshing, in contrast to the circles she had recently come from. Alana wasn’t used to such forthrightness, this Sheridan trait. The Sheridans, for all their money and possessions, had a surprising lack of pretentiousness. “Oh no, I’m fine, Mara,” she answered, putting a bright smile on her lips. She still hurt from being left behind on the sail, but she put those feelings aside, unwilling to burden Mara with them. Besides, they were here to solve Mara’s problems, not her own.
She entered the subject lightly. “We’re going to the Varicks’ tonight, did you know that?”
Mara nodded and tossed the riotous curl from her forehead. “Yes. You and Trevor will have a wonderful time, I’m sure of it.”
“You’re coming too. Didn’t you know?”
“I—I really don’t think I should go.…” Mara’s eyes darkened with pain. Their glistening sapphire color now almost matched the sea.
“Mara, it’s important that you go. I want to introduce you to my acquaintances. I know Trevor wants you to attend.”
“Forgive me. I just couldn’t.” Mara looked away, forlornly gazing out to sea.
Alana didn’t answer. Instead she thought hard about what she had to say. Mara was lovely in her pink linen gown, but the gown was too young for her. She should be wearing something more mature, like what Alana wore. After her disappointment, she’d changed out of the white linen into a spring-green taffeta. The gown was simple, yet it reached the ground and even trained behind her in the current taste. “Mara,” she began with difficulty, “you’re getting too old to wear short dresses. I think it’s time you wore some of the gowns your brother purchased for you from Worth. I understand they’re all just sitting up in your room, still in their tissue, packed away in trunks.”
A tear escaped those wild blue eyes. Mara wiped it away with a vengeance. “I don’t want to. Am I so terrible, then?”
“No, you’re not—”
“I’ve decided I’m not going to be a lady. I’m going to remain a girl forever.” Mara had a defiance in her eyes that was shockingly like her brother’s.
Alana scooted closer to her on the cushions. She took her hand and squeezed it. “Whether you’ve had a debut or not, you’re not going to remain a girl forever. You’ve already ‘developed’ out of the gowns you have. I know it’s difficult, particularly after your debut, but you must accept it.”
“I’ll have others made.” Mara looked down at her bosom. “I’ll hide everything. I’ll—” Suddenly she burst into tears.
Alana wrapped her arms around her and let her cry onto her shoulder. “I know,” Alana cooed softly into her hair. “I know,” she whispered, thinking how painful this age was and how any trauma made it doubly so. She thought of herself a few years ago. She’d been secure then, nestled within a tight and loving family. Then everything she had thought to be true proved otherwise. Tears sprang to her eyes, in part for Mara, in part for Christal, in part for herself.
Alana looked down at the blurred image of Mara as she wept on her shoulder, and she couldn’t stop herself from comparing her to Christal. Both girls had been forced to question everything around them at a tender age, even their self-worth. As Alana hugged her, she became even more determined that both Mara and Christal would overcome their circumstances and thrive. They must. “Mara,” she said gently, “the world is not always kind. But you can’t let it defeat you. You must go with us tonight. I promise you, Trevor and I’ll do everything we can to make sure you aren’t hurt again.”
“They’ll call me a biddy, just like they call all their Irish serving girls,” she sobbed.
“No they won’t. They wouldn’t dare.” Especially not now, Alana thought derisively, after they’d personally felt the damage the Sheridan wrath could bring upon them.
“I’m afraid. What if the women laugh at me? What if the men won’t ask me to dance because I’m—I’m Irish and not good enough?”
Alana kissed the top of her head and hugged her. “Things are changing, Mara. I promise you they’ll be polite. And I think when those young men see how pretty you are, they might see being Irish as not such a liability.”
“Is that why you fell in love with Trevor? Because he is so handsome?” Mara sniffed and accepted the handkerchief that Alana had tucked into her sleeve.
Taken aback, Alana only said, “Trevor is certainly handsome.”
“Would you love him if he were not?”
Alana’s brow furrowed as she parried this question. Mara wanted assurance, and yet it was impossible to answer her when the first supposition was wrong. She didn’t love Trevor. “Your brother is your brother, Mara. It’s difficult to separate all the things that make up Trevor Sheridan.” Alana looked at her and said what was honestly in her thoughts. “But I will confess this. Though Trevor is an uncommonly good-looking man, there’s also a force about him that I find I’m drawn to. If he were less handsome, I have to say I’m not sure I would feel differently about him.”
“I knew you loved him! I knew it.” Mara impulsively wrapped her arms around Alana and hugged her tightly.
Alana remained motionless, despising the falsehoods she and Trevor were building around them. “I trust we may go back to your bedroom, then, and decide which lovely Parisian gown might be correct for tonight’s ball?”
Mara pulled back and wiped her eyes. “I’m still afraid.” She looked up at Alana, and trembled a smile. “But I think you know best, so I’ll do it.”
“Growing up’s not always so terrible, I promise you.” Alana gave her a fragile smile. In her experien
ce, the only good thing about growing up meant an increased ability to numb the pain. But she didn’t see such a bleak existence for Mara. Somewhere there was a knight in shining armor for this wild, beautiful spirit.
“Alana, do really think one of the gentlemen will ask me to dance tonight?” Mara tossed her such a worried look, Alana couldn’t help but laugh.
She pulled that rebellious jet curl and said, “Truly, Mara, the only problem I see for you, my girl, is which one to choose.”
Alana was dressing for the ball when a knock came from the large gilt doors separating the master’s suite from hers. It was silly, but upon hearing it she and Margaret stopped in their tracks as if the sound had summoned the executioner.
“Shall I open the door, mum?” Margaret whispered.
Alana paused, still smarting from what had happened that morning. But she’d had all day to prepare for seeing Trevor again, so she pulled on her veneer of ice and said, “Please do,” annoyed that her maid was so intimidated by the master, she felt she had to whisper.
Margaret went to the door, and Alana glanced at her reflection in the pier mirror. She was glad she looked cool and unapproachable. Her gown was an elaborate peacock blue silk pulled up on the sides with large chartreuse bows and silk bouquets of deep-pink roses. Her slippers were peacock-blue shantung and peeked out beneath a frothy white Guipure lace petticoat. The dress had a tournure that was far more elaborate than for daytime, but she’d already sat once, and the bustle was not unmanageable. The only thing left to do was to braid and pin her hair into a coif, for it hung down her back in a thick buttery stream. Not bothering with it now, she nodded to Margaret to open the door.
As expected, Trevor stood there, already dressed in his evening finery of a black swallow-tailed coat and white piqué vest. He was impossibly handsome in formal attire, especially when that hard mouth quirked in greeting and those eyes locked with hers, leaving her slightly out of breath. Before she could avoid it, she was stung by the thought that this was how he must look when he took his mistress out.
He entered her bedroom as if it were his domain. Surprise and something she almost wanted to believe was approval gleamed in his eyes as he took in her appearance. He especially noted her hair, free and cascading down her back in odd contrast to her rich, complicated clothes.
“Would you have me be waitin’ for you in the dressin’ room, Mrs. Sheridan?” Margaret peeped, nervous in the master’s company.
Both of them looked at the little maid as if they had almost forgotten she was there. Trevor smiled, a little wickedly. “I don’t think your maid likes me, Alana. She’s always skittering away whenever I enter the room.”
“Oh, no, sar! You’re a fine master, you are!” said Margaret Nonetheless, she took a step backward.
Trevor laughed, clearly enjoying himself at Margaret’s expense.
The cad, thought Alana. “You’re excused, Margaret. Why don’t you go on downstairs and have some supper. I’ll do my own hair tonight.”
Margaret nodded, then looked at Trevor.
“That’s right. Run along, Pegeen,” he said, using Margaret’s Irish pet name affectionately as if he were suddenly sorry he’d caused the little maid anxiety. “In fact, there’s a surprise for you downstairs. Your husband, Kevin, just arrived. I heard you were pining for each other, so I summoned him from the house in Manhattan. Go to your true love and put the blush of an Irish rose back into those pretty cheeks.”
Margaret gasped. She was so shocked, she could hardly stutter, “Why, t’ank you, Mr. Sheridan.”
“I don’t abide separating man and wife. So go to him. I’m sure he missed you.”
“Oh t’ank you, Mr. Sheridan!”
He nodded, dismissing her. Margaret left, her expression at once awed, grateful, and skittish.
“That was very thoughtful of you,” Alana said when the servant’s jib door was shut and they were alone. She could hardly believe it. Trevor Sheridan was impossible to pin down. One moment he was behaving like a rogue; the next, a saint.
“’Twas nothing,” he answered, his face again solemn.
But it was something. For the first time, she’d seen him be kind to a person other than his family. It was clear he liked Margaret despite his bullying. He’d complimented her looks and had been thoughtful enough to bring her husband up from New York.
Alana didn’t want to feel the hurt that crept into her heart, but it was impossible to deny. Her husband was more solicitous and friendly to her maid than to her, his wife. She knew she should be grateful to find that Trevor loved and looked after his own. But a terrible suspicion cut her to her very soul—he would never be capable of bestowing that kind of affection on her, never allow himself to love and look after her.
Despair fell over her when she told herself exactly why that was so. In his eyes, she wasn’t good enough. Margaret was good enough because she was Irish, being Irish made Margaret almost a relative, a distant relation from the family of Erin. Trevor considered there a bond between them he could never have with his own wife. Alice Diana Van Alen was an outsider, not good enough to be one of them because she had the wrong background, the wrong breeding. But just as a poor woman could do nothing about her poverty, she could do nothing about the woman she was. It was a bitter pill to swallow to think that the mess of their marriage had been spawned to gain the Sheridans’ acceptance into a social set that Trevor in truth rejected out of hand. It was further ironic that he’d been concerned that a husband and wife not be separated when Alana couldn’t imagine two people more distant than she and Trevor.
“Mara is waiting for us in the drawing room. She’s ready to go,” he said, interrupting her dark thoughts.
She watched him walk across her bedroom, careful to hide her frustration and disappointment. Defiantly, she composed herself. She couldn’t be anyone other than who she was, no matter how hard she tried. So if he would never accept her, it was best to let her heart freeze over, to see this marriage as a business and get on with it. “Is Mara dressed?” she asked, concentrating on their talk that afternoon.
Trevor paused, then cracked a rare smile that took her breath away.
“She is. She’s beautiful. I thank you.”
Still angry about the Colleen, determined never to be vulnerable again, she nonetheless released a small sigh of relief. No doubt it wouldn’t have gone well for Mara, or herself, if she hadn’t been able to talk Mara into the Worth gowns. Pulling her tresses to her shoulder, she said self-consciously, trying to inject a frigid tone, “Well, thank you for the news, but I must have my privacy. I’ve yet to dress my hair.”
“Leave it for now. Come over here.” He sat on one of her slipper chairs, resting his cane on his lap. Next to all the pink satin and gold fringe, he looked overpoweringly masculine.
She picked her way across the room, careful to avoid looking too anxious. But she was anxious. His intrusion into her bedroom made her nerves fairly sizzle. She didn’t want to show any feeling toward him, but her unexpressed emotion at his rejection this morning colored her cheeks a deep cherry red.
When she stood at his side, he reached into his breast pocket and drew out a long case. He handed it to her without further ceremony. “This is a token of my gratitude for helping Mara. I had it sent from Boston this afternoon. If things continue to go well, you can expect more of the same.”
Her hands trembled when she opened the leather-lined case. With a sharp intake of breath, she gazed down at a necklace dripping with diamonds. It was so elaborate, she couldn’t begin to count the number of stones.
“You may keep that, Alana, even after the annulment. It’s my gift for a job well done.”
She closed the lid. All her determination to remain cold and unemotional doomed to fail. His words were an insult, his actions worse; they gouged her heart. She wanted to shout at him, to slap his face. Instead, she collected herself, vowing he would never shatter the veneer that kept her safe. “I’m sorry. I can’t accept this.” She held the c
ase out to him, her face a mask of marble. “If you’ll excuse me, I must do my hair.”
He hid his surprise well. In a deadly calm voice he asked, “Why are you refusing this?”
She did her best to rein in her pain and humiliation, but it was a Herculean task. She didn’t like his necklace. She hated it. For all its priceless dazzle, it was only another wretched reminder of the mechanics of their marriage. Trevor Sheridan thought he could buy anything with his millions. It was finally time someone disabused him of this notion.
She met his gaze. Hers held more than a touch of reprimand and social superiority. She almost enjoyed saying what she had to say. “Where I come from, Mr. Sheridan, giving jewelry isn’t an intimacy to be shared between strangers.”
He didn’t hide his surprise well this time. He answered, his tone ominous, “You’re not a stranger. You’re my wife.”
“In name only.”
He stared at her, obviously stumped for an answer. Clutching the leather case, he snapped, “So I’m to just toss this out the window? If you don’t take it, what do you propose I do with it, then?”
“Perhaps your mistress would find it a nice addition to her collection.” After the words were out, she could have kicked herself.
His eyes met hers with the serenity of a thunderstorm. Opening the case, he let the blindingly bright diamonds cascade down his hand. He taunted, “No, no. I think Daisy has enough of these.”
“Is that her name?” She cursed the tremor in her voice.
“Why the interest, sweeting?”
She closed her eyes. The man was impossible. He always seemed to say the one thing that made her ache to slap her palm across his cheek.
Turning from him, she said, “I really must get ready, so if you’ll—”
“No.” He stood and took her arm. Without his cane, he swayed against her, putting another hand on her waist to steady himself. “I want to know why you’re rejecting my gift.”
Lions and Lace Page 20