“I will not,” she whispered.
“As stated in our contract I believe you are supposed to cede to your husband a certain amount of warmth while in the company of others so as to convince naysay ours is a love match.”
She’d put the clause in as a jest, nay revenge, for his coldhearted handling of the entire proposition. Love matches were so tedious to the ton as to be practically scandalous. She’d never thought he would actually agree to the silly clause.
“Tsk, tsk, my love,” he admonished, and his heat sent shivers over her body. He offered her his cheek again, which he fully expected her to kiss with wifely affection. “Everyone is watching. We would not wish the world to believe I dragged you unwillingly from England with every intent to fatten you up for my next feast.”
“You are a fraud, Sedgwick. Do you have to resort to blackmail for that which you cannot buy? Is nothing around you real?”
Her words merely amused him. “You are real enough. And I can attest to the sounds that come from that lovely mou—”
Christine kissed him full on the lips. She placed one palm on his cheek and held him there with the pressure of her mouth, and hoped she adequately shocked him.
Let them go back to their wives and gossip about that, your grace!
But in the end, her anger tightened her throat and she could not voice the words. Pulling back, she peered into his shuttered eyes.
“I do not understood what you want from this marriage,” she whispered.
She did not understand him, she realized, perhaps because she did not understand herself. “You ask too much of me, Erik.”
“As do you of me.”
She whirled on her heel and escaped him by way of the garden terrace. She turned and looked back as he’d expected her to do.
Gripping each end of the towel about his neck, Erik watched her, content, despite himself, that he could claim some ground beneath her cool façade as his own.
He would claim all of her if she allowed him to do so.
He knew he had always asked more from people than he’d been willing to give in return. Until now, it had been easier to keep himself locked away. He wasn’t locked away anymore, and he wanted more from his wife than her signature on a contract.
“What is this?” Erik demanded.
He faced the burgh constable from across his desk in the library where he had gone after changing his clothes. Mr. Attenborough stood beside Erik, his face buried in the papers the constable delivered.
“We warned ye afore ye went to London, your grace—”
“Warned me? Now, I am no murderer but a bigamist? Which is it? I cannot be both, can I?”
The constable cleared his throat. “If her father says they’ve received a letter from her, we have te take this seriously, your grace. The only reason Lord Eyre has na’ brought murder charges against you these past years is that he has always believed her alive.”
“He has not tried to bring charges because he has no case.”
Elizabeth was no more alive than that bloody doorknob across the room.
“Last year Lady Elizabeth was seen near the loch,” Erik said. “Before that it was the cliffs above the river, and let me remember…where was she seen two years before that?”
“Edinburgh, your grace,” the constable sheepishly murmured.
“And Glasgow, St. Andrews, and Kirkcaldy. With all that traveling about, do you not think someone would know where she lived by now if she were really alive? This is a blatant attempt to lay the groundwork needed to question the legitimacy of any children born from my marriage to my wife.”
Erik crushed the writ in his hand. They were telling him he was a year short of the seven he’d needed for the high court to declare Elizabeth legally dead. A bloody year! Like hell, he was.
“If one or both parties are already legally married, the second marriage shall become bigamous and void,” Erik’s solicitor read from the sheaf in his hand. “Lord Eyre believes it will be a simple matter to render your recent wedding invalid. But considering the circumstances, I doubt the magistrate would dare bring charges of bigamy.”
“Of course no charge will be filed. I am an English peer. I cannot be tried for bigamy in Scotland even if Maxwell owned all the high court rather than just the Lord Advocate.”
For a long, horrifying moment his fury defied his effort to breathe. Erik walked to the window, where the sunlight colored the heavy leaded glass. Thus far, Maxwell had yet to truly taste Erik’s fury. But if Lord Eyre succeeded in having his marriage to Christine invalidated, then Old Angus Maxwell’s curse would hold nothing over Erik’s wrath.
It wouldn’t matter that Lord Eyre had once been the closest human being Erik had ever had to a father. Erik would destroy him. He would go after his financial holdings, his reputation, his family, and everything else the man held of value. He would own all the Maxwells’ lives by the time he finished.
But first Erik would go to Dunfermline and deal personally with the adjudication of the matter. Lord Eyre’s brother would have better served himself had he upheld the law rather than bent it to favor his anointed Maxwell clan.
“Get out,” Erik ordered the man who had come with Attenborough. “The next time you show your face at Sedgwick Castle doing Maxwell’s bidding, you best have a warrant for my arrest. I have been as tolerant as I am going to be.”
“The closer the lines are together the higher the elevation,” Christine said.
She and Rebecca were bent nose-first over the topographical map Erik had given her and which she had already marked up and triangulated where caverns could exist. She shifted. The cellar area where she had set up a laboratory remained dark and dank, even with three lamps lit.
“Whom do you think he was yelling at?” Becca asked.
Christine’s hand paused on the map. “I don’t know.”
“He never yells.” Becca traced her finger along the edge of the map. “At least he hasn’t in a very long time.”
“Whatever has happened, I am sure has nothing to do with you.”
“Still, he is too overprotective.”
“You are his sister. His family.”
“Mam is his family.”
“I will not pretend to understand everything in your brother’s complicated life. Or agree with his handling of certain affairs. I allowed you to suck me into deceiving Erik once when it comes to your mam. I will not allow it again. I told you, she needs to come here if you are to visit. Or I will say something.”
Christine returned her concentration to the map. She was doing anything rather than worry about whatever was taking place in the library. “When the river changed course, the water found its way into an underground cavern—”
“It’s my fossil.”
“I know it is, Becca. And I will never take your credit for its discovery.”
“Mum,” Annie interrupted from the doorway. She stood with a burly footman, carrying the last of her trunks from upstairs. “Do you wish this set against the wall with the other trunks?”
Christine rubbed her neck as she pondered the lack of space. The movement made her flinch. Earlier, she, too, had begun hauling trunks and crates into this room. “That contains books. Put them in the adjoining room.”
She had brought a settee and serviceable furniture out from beneath storage tarps in one of the closed rooms upstairs and arranged something that resembled a sitting room in what used to be the castle dungeon, resplendent with rusted iron rings and chains still attached to the stone walls. In truth, she thought it rather cozy.
Christine returned her attention to the survey map and collected the threads of her thoughts. Becca touched her forearm. “Thank you, for caring enough to discuss this with me.”
Christine sighed. “There have been times in my life I would have given anything to see my mam one more time,” she said. “But you must do this correctly or you will only lose what you seek so hard to gain.”
Becca leaned her elbows on the workbench. She dawdled
over the map. “Mr. Hampton said you have been working up at the falls.”
“I will be returning there when the weather clears.”
“Hampton said you are riding Miss Pippen as your mighty steed.”
Nonplussed by the humor in Rebecca’s voice, Christine began rolling up the map. “I am not interested in speed, only surefootedness.”
“Did Hampton tell you Erik named her for his beloved childhood nurse?”
“She must not have been too beloved.”
“Oh, but she was.” Rebecca lowered her voice. “From what I understand, Miss Pippen had large brown eyes like a cocker spaniel and that my brother was in love with her. Puppy love.” Becca smiled at her own joke. “Imagine that. My brother had a heart when he was ten.” She spun and faced the door. “Isn’t that right, Erik?”
He stood in the doorway, his arms folded across his chest, leaning against the jamb. “Is what right?” he asked. “Did I have a nurse named Miss Pippen, or did I have a heart?”
“Both.” Rebecca toyed with the lace on her sleeve. To Christine she said, “Ask him what happened to Miss Pippen.”
Christine’s gaze fastened on Erik.
“I’ll tell you,” Rebecca answered, “She died at a young age of a broken heart in her loneliness. ’Twas a terrible tragedy.”
“She passed away a few years ago a woman of sixty,” Erik calmly said. “I believe she is buried in Aberdeen near her sister’s family.”
Ignoring him, Rebecca primly fluffed her skirts. “I like my story better. If someone were to immortalize my memory, I should not want it bestowed on an old plow horse.”
Christine rubbed her palms across her soiled skirts. Conscious of her dusty attire and the red scarf that covered her hair, she worked to finish rolling up the map, anything to appear busy.
“If you are finished with your nonsense, I would have a word alone with my wife.”
Becca lowered her gaze. But when she swept past Erik, he gently grabbed her arm, turning her. “It is not my intent to hurt your feelings.”
Nodding stiffly, she stepped past her brother.
“You can’t protect her from life forever, Erik. Eventually you are going to have to trust that you raised her properly and allow her to begin making her own choices and decisions.”
“I did not come down here to speak about my sister.”
Christine walked into the adjoining chamber. She had forgotten Annie’s presence. The maid was crouched next to a bookcase, unpacking the last of Christine’s trunks.
Seeing Erik step into the doorway, she dropped the books in her hand, rose, and dipped. “Your grace.”
“I will finish, Annie,” Christine told the girl.
“Yes, your grace.” Annie hurried from the room.
Erik remained in the doorway. Aware of his eyes on her, aware of the race of her heart, Christine knelt and finished shelving the books Annie had dropped.
“I have business to attend in Dunfermline,” he said after a moment. “I will be leaving in the morning. I may be gone a week or longer.”
She absently brushed the dust from her hands and raised her eyes. “I see.” She rose.
“I have issued orders that you are to be given whatever you ask for as needed,” he said. “You have only to make your wishes known.”
They faced each other across what used to be an old torture chamber. As his gaze touched the manacles and chains on the walls, the irony of it must have struck him as well, for when his eyes returned to hers, she glimpsed amusement in their darkened depths.
“Is this where you intend to set up your laboratory then?”
Lamplight glowed in the semi-darkness and cast shadows on the walls barren of any amenities. Her gaze followed his hands to the table beside the door as he lifted the tablet containing her renditions of the beast she’d visualized finding. One looked forged in the fires of hell with its thick lizard-like skin, long snout, and teeth large enough to tear a man asunder. He flipped through each page in the tablet, his expression revealing nothing of his thoughts. His hand moved to her drawing case and opened the mahogany lid, his fingers touching those possessions that gave her life meaning, much as she had done to his things in the library.
“What happens if you do not find your beast, Christine?”
“What happens if I cannot give you a son?”
The silence between them was not so much uncomfortable as it was revealing. Neither of them knew how to answer that question.
“I suppose we can seek an annulment and you can buy yourself another bride,” she offered.
“I have found that there is little my wealth cannot buy, Christine. People hate me for it, but no one has yet to turn it away.”
Since Christine fit into that category, the arrow hit where he must have meant it to go for he watched her flinch. But it was not satisfaction she glimpsed in his eyes as he returned to his restless meandering.
“You did not come down here to engage in some sparkling repartee with me. Why are you suddenly on your way to Dunfermline?”
“I had a visit from the constable this afternoon. I intend to be in front of the bench tomorrow to see the matter of Elizabeth’s disappearance put to rest.”
He told her about the constable’s visit and about the letter his former wife’s family had received and various “sightings” people had made of Elizabeth.
What Erik did not tell her was that he could not be married to two women, but he did not need to. His very silence on the matter told her.
“But if the coroner’s inquest concluded their investigation in May and issued her death certificate before you went to London, how can a magistrate reopen the case? The Lord Advocate must think Elizabeth could still be alive.”
“The Lord Advocate is Robert Maxwell’s brother.”
“Robert Maxwell? Elizabeth’s father? Why would he reopen the case?”
“Lord Eyre believes she is alive and he is attempting to invalidate our marriage. Maxwell inherits the Sedgwick duchy if I die without an heir. The letter is a hoax, Christine.”
“Have you considered that the culprit perpetuating this hoax is playing into the Sedgwick curse? For seven years, you could not remarry. Seven years from Elizabeth’s disappearance puts you at your thirty-fourth birthday. Who does not think you will implode and expire before the end of summer?”
Shaking his head, he suddenly crooked his mouth. “I haven’t heard the matter of my imminent demise put in quite those terms.”
“It isn’t amusing.”
“It is the only thing in this sordid affair about which I am capable of laughing. Allow me to savor the moment. But I agree with you.”
Christine’s fingers wrapped around his upper arm. “The bones you found could belong to someone else. You’ve said yourself, other people have gone missing. What if Elizabeth still is alive?”
“Then you must consider me a dissolute rake who would think nothing of robbing us both of our self-respect. Not even taking into account what such an action would do to my family. I would not have wed you had I a doubt. The remains are Elizabeth’s. Do not ask me how I can know for sure. I just do.” He leaned his backside against the workbench and folded his arms. “I just wanted answers, Christine. Closure. One day Erin is going to ask. I don’t want her to believe her da is a murderer.”
“What happened in the keep tower, Erik?”
He stared at her, but her question was neither a demand nor a desire to pass judgment. Then suddenly he shook his head. His chest rose and fell. He leaned with his palms pressed against the workbench. “Many years ago I decided that I had a great, big castle with many empty rooms to fill. I was young and possessed with a sense of my own importance. I wanted a beautiful wife and children to fill my life. As you can see, acquiring such a paragon has not been a particular skill of mine. I have discovered myself better suited to business than dealing with the women in my life.”
He lifted a paperweight beside his hand, a mosquito encased in amber. “You asked once if I was in
love with Elizabeth. At the time, I believed I was.
“I married her two years after Charlotte’s death. I might have wed her sister, Lara, had Elizabeth not come back that summer from France. The last time I had seen her she’d been in short dresses. She was beautiful and filled with this…this spark for life. Her father married her to me because I had wealth and a title and because our two families were as close as two families with shared pasts could be. She did not want to wed me. And I regretted every day afterward.
“I rebuilt the tower keep and wanted to live there with her. I had never done anything with my hands and discovered a particular aptitude. When it was finished, she hated the place. She despised anything I loved, including Erin, who was born almost nine months to the day we spoke our vows. She became worse after Erin was born. Elizabeth was adept at hiding that side of herself from everyone but me.
“And so after a rather nasty argument where she accused me of adultery with her sister, she went up to the tower and destroyed everything I had built. My work. My books. My designs. My life.”
“What happened after that?”
“In the end, she walked out of the keep and perished. I am convinced the only reason Erin is still alive is because I took her with me when I left. Lara later found me in Italy and told me Elizabeth had been missing since the night I left. When Erin and I returned, many assumed Elizabeth’s accusations of adultery were true and looked at me for her disappearance. I hired anyone with the skill to follow a cold trail to try to find her. Only after that proved futile did I file a deposition with the burgh constable in St. Andrews asking for help. By then almost a year had passed. Now six years and some months after she vanished, her remains begin to wash up on the riverbank about two miles away from the castle. Along with those of the beast.” His mouth crooked. “It does not seem fair that your beast has to share its legacy with my tragedy.”
“It does not seem right that your tragedy should give rise to my legacy.”
Beauty and the Duke Page 23