by Ingrid Hahn
He’d also expected to be stoic—coolly detached and wholly unmoved by the inevitable coming to pass.
Instead, his insides writhed an agony, bathed in an acid burning away everything good remaining inside of him, leaving him charred, bleeding, and ruined.
His mother rose. “She left these letters for you to frank. Oh, and she had a word with the head gardener while the carriage was being made ready.”
A word with the gardener?
Max found Krum, asking him to summon the head gardener into the house. Maybe whatever she’d said to the man would shed light on what had happened.
In his heart, however, was the foreboding sense that speaking to the gardener would solve nothing.
He’d driven her away. He raised his head to gaze out the window in the direction of the village.
Every last one of his long-held vows lay in shards at his feet. All his family secrets had been revealed, staining the fabric of his existence, open and visible for all to see.
Nothing could be worse. Until now. Finding her mysteriously gone without a word.
What had happened?
He glanced through the letters. Her sisters. The Fairleighs—interesting. And, at the bottom, a note for him.
Running his finger under the fold, he broke the melted wax wafer seal.
Don’t go into the village. -P.
What the devil?
…
Phoebe hoped Max had read her note by now. It wouldn’t explain anything, not really. When she’d left, she’d had every intention of being back to Sutterton Grange by nightfall. Fifteen miles shouldn’t have taken above three hours, maybe four.
A recent rain, however, had made badly-kept roads more precarious than usual. And an ill-tempered donkey had blocked a narrow stretch of road, refusing to move, costing yet more time. The whole business was so upsetting, Phoebe hadn’t even been able to read.
And so, night had fallen an hour ago. Her errand was not yet attended to. And she was still stuck out here with a choice between knocking on her cousin Bickham’s door or finding a room at the inn.
At least she’d had the sense to bring coin in case of such a contingency.
There were two options. One was to let the Bickhams fall over themselves to please her. Being Lady Maxfeld was quite a different thing than being Lady Phoebe, daughter of that Lord Bennington who’d soiled the whole family. The second was to admit she was far too tired for her—presumably formerly—cold and haughty cousin, and stay in the village.
Weariness had worn her bones thin after an intense few days with Max at Sutterton Grange. But the best thing to do would be to try to heal the rifts in the family, even if it took more effort than she currently felt she could expend. The Bickhams were what they were. What she wanted to be was up to her—and that meant being gracious and allowing them to be gracious in turn.
The thought took her right back to the bookseller’s the day she had avoided her cousin Cecelia, not wanting to admit the connection to Max. She’d have to do better in the future where the Fairleighs were concerned.
At the Bickham estate, she was greeted by an unfamiliar maidservant whose drawn face broke out in flustered surprise when Phoebe gave her name.
“My lady! We’ve all heard of you here, I assure you.”
“Forgive me for coming unannounced.” Entering the wooden paneled entrance hall was like stepping back in time.
Except everything appeared to have been remade in an exact replica of the house she knew—only smaller. Phoebe inhaled. She hadn’t lived here in such a long time that the smell of the place had become unfamiliar. The last time she’d caught the sooty note in the air was the day they’d first come to their cousin.
What a different life that had been. So many unimaginable changes had taken place between then and now—the last few months alone had seen one sister married, one gone away, and one whose secret had been exposed and exploited.
If Phoebe could talk to the girl she’d been when she’d first walked through this door, what would she say?
Before she could ponder further, she was shown into the drawing room and made welcome by her cousin and his wife, Serena. Mr. Bickham, her cousin, could well have passed for handsome—and, indeed, had been when Phoebe had first arrived so long ago. He’d been constructed on the Landon plan, with stately features and a thick head of light brown hair. But inner coldness stripped his face of beauty.
Serena was stately more than handsome, and had attracted Mr. Bickham’s attention after the death of her first husband, a tradesman, left her with eighteen thousand pounds.
While Phoebe and Serena had shared a roof, the older woman had barely spoken more than a dozen words to her.
Now she was nothing but politeness and formal civility. The closest she came to being snide was an offhanded comment about how shocking it was that Phoebe had traveled alone. And this time, the tea Phoebe was served was not made with previously used leaves.
It was altogether less satisfying than Phoebe had hoped. She was far too wretched with turmoil.
Max. It was so hard to spend a night away.
But better that she become accustomed to sleeping alone again, because if he wasn’t going to open himself to her—if he wasn’t going to stop living in fear, there would be no future for them.
Early the next morning, well before breakfast, she set out from her cousin’s house, pulling her wrap around her shoulders. The day was cool and gray as many were before the sun burned away the clouds.
It was strange being back in the village, everything so familiar and foreign, all at once. And perhaps stranger not to go directly to the instrument to practice, a habit adopted since marriage. Her girlhood self would never have believed she would have enjoyed practicing so much. Then again, her girlhood self could never have imagined a husband who loved music as much as Max did.
She was on her way to asking for the last gift she would give him before she left forever. But they couldn’t part without her giving him this one last thing.
She came up the stone path to the parsonage, where she knocked on the paneled door. The stone priory was small, but impeccably maintained. It wasn’t a moment before she was hurried inside by a round-faced woman of middle years who kissed Phoebe twice and wished her joy three times before going to fetch Mr. Mallory.
The clergyman descended the narrow stairwell, boards creaking in quick succession with his fast steps. He was making the final adjustments to his attire, and his white hair, wild and wiry and seldom ever tamed for long, stuck out in all directions.
“My dear, Lady Phoebe, how good it is to see you again.” He bowed over her hand. “Except it’s Lady Maxwell now, isn’t it?”
“Maxfeld, sir.”
“Oh!” He blinked behind his spectacles, bushy brows shooting up. “Forgive me, forgive me. Maxfeld, of course, of course. The Fitzhugh family of Sutterfield Hall.”
“Sutterton Grange.”
“Ah, well. There you have it.” He beamed at her and gestured her into the drawing room.
They were barely seated before the same round-faced housekeeper, Mrs. Hartley, brought in a tray with enough food for half a dozen hungry young lads after a day in the fields. “I see you eyeing me, Lady Phoebe—Lady Maxfeld.” She went rosy with pleasure and giggled like a schoolgirl. “How well that sounds.” Her smile diminished. “I know what sort of table that wife of your cousin’s keeps, and I don’t think for a minute you’ll get your fill while you stay there, no I don’t, so you’ll eat here, you will.”
It was no surprise that though she’d arrived after dark last night, word of her presence had already traveled through the neighborhood. Around here, people talked. Which could likely be said of any place, but all the same—it seemed there was something particularly intense about the network of local tongues wagging about the goings-on.
Hiding her pain at the other woman’s delight was no easy task, so it was a relief when the housekeeper paid a respectful curtsy and left.
Mr. Mallory
peered at her. “You look well, my child. Marriage evidently agrees with you.”
Phoebe averted her eyes, unaccustomed to the sensation of having no response.
Taking a crumpet from the tray, the clergyman leaned back in his chair. “And this is related to what’s brought you here today?”
“I have a strange request.” Lord, help her. Had her stomach fluttered so much when she and Max had been about to be wed?
“Well, go on then.”
Phoebe licked her lips, remembering Max telling her that some things were meant to stay buried. “I would like you to oversee a burial.”
Chapter Thirty-One
The day was blustery and overcast, threatening to rain at any moment, yet never working up the will to do so.
Max squinted out the window of the old drawing room where he’d holed himself up for two days straight. Though the gardener had insisted that his mistress had wanted nothing more with him than to speak of improvements she would like made, Max didn’t believe him.
The gardeners were definitely up to something, all of them. After clearing away an untamed patch at the back, they’d gotten to work digging. What, though, they didn’t say. Improvements, by her ladyship’s order, was as much as he could get out of them.
Conspicuously absent from Sutterton Grange, however, was a ladyship. Excepting his mother, who was no longer the right and proper mistress.
He’d woken this day reaching for her. He spent the morning listening for her practicing the pianoforte. But there was nothing but cold emptiness next to him in bed. Nothing but silence in the house.
How was he supposed to face a world without her?
Once in a while he caught the servants staring at him with pitying expressions.
They felt sorry for him. Did they know something about their mistress’s absence? It was uncomfortable wondering if they did. He couldn’t question them. Not even Krum or Digsby. Doing so would have been undignified, even if there hadn’t been the constant cold-burning pain in his chest, like he’d been laid open upon steaming ice.
There was still no word from Phoebe.
Krum arrived and announced Mr. Allen was paying a call.
“I’ll see him in the study.”
Max offered the clergyman a drink and they settled before the fire.
He’d taken Mr. Allen on the night before he’d seen Phoebe at the Huntsford ball. The first night he’d tried to entice her into a false engagement. The previous clergyman who’d overseen the parish had retired and moved to Bath to care for his invalid father. By happenstance, he’d mentioned the vacancy to a friend, who’d recommended Mr. Allen. Max had met with the man a few days later, and as it so happened, he’d needed someone to marry him, as well.
“Forgive me, my lord, for not coming to speak with you sooner. I had every intention of doing so, but these matters are somewhat complicated.”
“Matters? What matters are these?”
The clergyman emitted a nasal laugh. “You’ve heard, surely.”
Was the man nervous? What the devil did he have to be nervous about?
An idea sunk through Max like a stone. Phoebe…had she seen the man about an…an annulment?
Surely not. That was far beyond the pale. Not to mention out of Mr. Allen’s purview. Or so Max believed.
Max’s teeth clenched. “Tell me.”
“Well, it’s a matter of your father.”
Shoulders sinking, Max heaved a sigh. He drank down his brandy, leaned back in his chair, and waved a hand in the air. “All right, then, what of him?”
“Well, it seems my predecessor might have made a, er…mistake.” Another nasal laugh.
Max glowered. Mistake? No. That’s not what Mr. Allen had meant. He just didn’t have the stones to come out and accuse an earl outright.
“It must have come from you, then, I take it—the rumor about my father’s end.”
Mr. Allen blinked. “I—I don’t see how that could have—”
“Get on with it.” Max had no time for dissembling.
“Given the facts of the matter, you know there is no possible way I can allow him to remain buried in the churchyard.”
“It matters, you know—how we treat our dead.” Even his father. What the man had been in life was one thing. How they treated him—specifically how Max treated him—in death was quite something else.
Mr. Allen came back with a quick rejoinder. “There are laws far, far greater than our whims which must be followed.”
Resisting the urge to call the man out for the outlandish claim that the matter of his father’s final resting place was a whim, Max went to the sideboard. He poured another brandy down his throat—horrid stuff—then found Phoebe’s note on his desk.
Don’t go into the village. -P.
All that time she’d been spending in the village…she’d discovered what Mr. Allen had been up to. That had to be it.
His heart started beating hard…did that mean…
No. He wouldn’t allow himself to hope. Not yet. It’d been a day and a half and there’d been no word. If she hadn’t gone off in the carriage, he’d be frantic. But sooner or later his carriage and his horses would return, and then he’d allow no detail to be omitted from the coachman’s story.
Another nasal laugh broke the silence.
“You’re still here, Mr. Allen?”
“I thought you might wish to discuss—”
“I don’t. And you’ll be gone by the end of the week, won’t you?”
The clergyman jumped as if the thought had never occurred to him. “Now just see here, my lord. The only thing I’ve done is what’s right. There are certain rules by which we must all abide—”
“Good-bye, Mr. Allen.”
“This parish needs me. My predecessor did nobody any good by tolerating…” Going red in the face, he made an exasperated sound, gesturing as if the sins were too numerous to count. “The people here have sunk and are in grave danger of losing their immortal souls. I’m supposed to be here. I’m meant to put them back on the path to righteousness.”
As if Mr. Allen were any sort of man of God.
Max was silent a moment. Mr. Allen’s indignation planted an idea in the back of his head. It was absurd, but at the same time…it wasn’t. He spoke carefully. “What about James Reeve? Were you invested in seeing him back to righteousness?”
The clergyman drew himself up and sniffed. “That’s exactly the sort of person this parish doesn’t need.”
As Max had suspected.
This was Max’s fault for being too hasty in filling the vacancy. “Well, I agree with you on one point. There’s a person here that the parish does not need.”
“I’ll sue you for throwing me out on my ear, my lord. It’s not what’s done to a man of God.”
“Then I’ll see you in court, sir.”
Mr. Allen went far redder than he had been—something of a feat of nature—and left in a huff.
Throwing on his greatcoat, Max stormed out of the house. Immediately the rain started, only a few drops at first, but it quickly turned thick and heavy. The path toward the church became slick with mud. Head down, he pushed onward. He had to see.
At the top of the hill overlooking the church, he paused. Sure enough, there was evidence of the graves having been disturbed in the family’s side of the churchyard. A sour sensation swirled in his stomach.
There was no way he could have foreseen such an occurrence. It was the final humiliation.
Mr. Allen might have been leaving, but the truth was out. It wasn’t as if the old earl could remain in his resting place—not now.
He’d lost everything. Max bowed his head. Only one thing appeared in his inner vision. Phoebe. She was his everything. Maybe if he had not lost her, he could endure this. Living without her…
He hardened himself, shut his ruined heart into a locked box and all but threw away the key. He would not allow himself the slightest hope. Not the slightest. If it was her, if she’d returned, she’d only
leave again.
No.
If only he could have another chance. Just one. To set everything to rights. To show her he could forget all his fears and face an uncertain future. A future of laughter and joy, of lovemaking and quiet moments of commonplace intimacies. And children?
Yes, maybe a few tears, too. Heartbreak and loss were unavoidable.
What a blasted fool he’d been.
He squeezed his eyes shut, his heart bleeding. Please, God, one more chance. He did not deserve it. But he wanted it more than anything. He could not live without her, and he needed to show her his entire being depended on having her by his side—forever.
Something caught his attention, and Max squinted through the sheet of rain. There was a servant running up the muddy path, her skirts so covered in muck that at first he mistook her for the charwoman.
But it wasn’t. By heavens, it was Mrs. Bryant. Today was supposed to be the housekeeper’s afternoon off. What on earth was she doing out of the house in all this dastardly weather—and running up in this wild manner, her cape whipping in the wind? Was she ill?
Or was something wrong in the churchyard—something far worse than Max could ever have imagined?
He went cold. What had Mr. Allen done?
“My lord! My lord!” Mrs. Bryant waved at him as if he hadn’t seen her.
“Whatever is the meaning of this?”
She’d almost reached him when she slipped, falling in a tumble, splattering mud over herself anew. “My lord!”
Max raced down and bent to help the woman to her feet. He heaved her up. Mrs. Bryant’s eyes were bright as she looked upon him. Her face was wet, her bonnet dripping, her clothing and cape sodden. She was trying to speak but breathing too hard from the exertion.
“Calm yourself, my good woman.” He didn’t dare let go for fear she would crumble to her knees.
“It’s her, my lord. Her.”
“Are you certain? It’s not just John Coachman returning with the carriage?”
Mrs. Bryant shook her head, still gasping for breath. “She’s with him. Saw her ladyship with my own eyes, I did.”
Max’s stomach clenched. He didn’t need to ask. He knew who her was.