by Gaelen Foley
The joyful day helped erase some of the darkness that had intruded in their lives in the form of Queen Sujana’s henchman.
But…as they joined their hands in matrimony, both attentively heeding the preacher’s words, Georgie was aware that in some ways, the man to whom she had given herself, and was now pledging herself for the rest of her days, was still an enigma to her.
His face was stern and serious, intently focused, as the preacher recited the age-old words. Handsomely clad in a dark blue morning coat, Ian was nothing short of beautiful. The white-gold daylight softened the hard lines of his high cheekbones and square jaw. His dark hair was neatly combed, his face freshly shaved and oh-so-kissable.
In all, she thought, as she sneaked another sideways glance at him, he looked neither as crisp and sleekly polished as when she had first met him, nor as dark and wild and gruff as he had been on the night of her seduction, but somewhere in between, as though the extreme ends of his inward pendulum were finally beginning to find a balance.
Balance and breath. Yoga had taught her these things.
He still seemed a tiny bit distant, perhaps having trouble accepting the fact that she had seen his barbarous side that day in the park. In truth, she was relieved to have visual proof of it at last, for she supposed that despite her initial surprise, she had always rather known it was there, sensed it, deep down.
Eastern philosophy maintained that darkness always lived in equal measure with the light. Only in trying to deny the dark’s existence did it become truly dangerous, and besides, she did not wish to live in an illusion, believing him to be perfect. Who could relate to perfection? She was far from perfect herself, and yet he had accepted her.
She vowed to accept him with an equally open heart.
Her only real worry on this good day was that maybe his distant air sprang from reminiscences of Catherine, his first wife, perhaps from some lingering uncertainty about his decision at last to move on past her memory. To come back fully into the land of the living.
Georgie linked her fingers through his and gave his hand a gentle squeeze, prepared to anchor him to the here and now.
He glanced at her with a soft little smile, and her heart danced. Yes, she thought, she had full faith in love to light the way as she traveled into her new life ahead, shadowed as it was by the secrets that he kept.
Bravery, fortunately, had never been a trait she lacked. As her new husband slowly opened to her in time, then she would see what she would see. Until then, she must be patient; but one day, she vowed, when he was ready, he would trust her completely.
If she had planned to make her answer to his offer of marriage contingent upon first finding out what he had to hide, then she wouldn’t have made love with him. But this was Ian, and she knew down in the marrow of her bones that nothing he had inside of him could ever negate her love.
They said their vows, and it was done.
She was a married woman—Ian’s wife, and surrogate mother to Matthew, who had served as their ring-bearer.
Society might have gasped at the apparent suddenness of the match, but then again, Society still had Ian’s battle in the park to chew over. That should keep the gossips busy for a while.
For now, there was much to celebrate, and so they did.
Eventually, though, as the day of their wedding waned, their new little family and bevy of attendants, servants, and armed guards borrowed from Damien’s employ finally set out for Ian’s ancestral pile in the north.
Ian had ordered his fine traveling chariot to be brought from London to Winterhaven, and from thence they set out in the most luxurious style, with no less than six horses speeding them homeward.
After a few hours’ travel, they stopped at a pretty inn along the road and took their finest rooms for the night.
A night that they spent feverishly indulging in all the things from the Kama Sutra that Georgie had studied with such avid curiosity. Things from the temple carvings. Things they had longed to do before but hadn’t dared.
Now that they were married, it couldn’t be sin, but as they reveled together in wanton abandon, she was sure at the very least that it was delicious decadence. Ian took her from behind, and then later, invited her to ride astride him, and by diverse delightful methods, furthered her education in pleasure with consummate skill.
After hours of exertion, they lay in spent silence and quivering, boneless satiety, gazing at each other, caressing idly, exchanging lazy smiles.
“Ian,” she spoke up shyly after a time, “there’s something I’ve been wanting to say to you.”
“Mm?” He drew a weary fingertip along the line of her arm.
“I want you to know that I’ll never try to replace Catherine in your life. She was your first wife, and Matthew’s mother, and I just wanted you to know I will honor her memory along with you, and do my best to raise her son in a way she would have approved.”
He stared at her for long moment, and then leaned near and pressed a soulful kiss to her swollen lips. “Thank you. Darling, what a generous thing to say.”
Georgie paused, petting his chest. “What was she like?”
“Sweeting, I don’t want to talk about another woman on my wedding night with you.”
“You never talk about her. I confess, I’ve sometimes wondered why that is.”
He frowned, furrowing his brow as he studied her. “Georgie? What’s wrong?”
She shrugged a little, sulkily. “Maybe it’s a part of your life you don’t feel you can share at all with me.”
“It’s not that. It’s just—that chapter of my life is closed. It’s not something I like to revisit.”
She lowered her gaze.
“What?” Ian demanded patiently.
“I just want to make extra sure that Lady Faulconer was wrong, and that there’s not some little part of you that’s still in love with Catherine. I can’t help it. Yes, I’m a little jealous of a dead woman. I know you’ll think it’s silly, but I just—I want you to love me best!”
“Georgiana.” He sighed and rolled onto his back, resting his hands on his middle. “Dearest, did you know that my marriage to Catherine was essentially arranged by my parents?”
“No. How could I know when you’ll never speak of it?” She could feel her cheeks heating with a blush. She hoped he didn’t think her a possessive fool.
“Well, there you are,” he said. “She was my son’s mother, and for that, I will always honor her memory, but I was never in love in my life until I met you.” He rose onto one elbow and gave her a wicked look. “Shall I prove it to you?”
“Oh, Ian. No! Stay away from me, you insatiable beast,” she purred not-too-convincingly. But it wasn’t long before she surrendered with a giggle to his silken efforts, and soon, the master of persuasion made love to her again…and again.
And again.
The summer sky was cobalt blue, with stacks of puffy clouds drifting over the neat quilt-work of Cumberland’s rolling hills and sheep-dotted meadows. After nearly a week of traveling, the day had come that they were to arrive at Ian’s country house, called Aylesworth Park, after the old earldom that his family had long held before being raised to the marquisate. Aylesworth, likewise, gave Matthew his courtesy title as Ian’s heir.
Georgie brimmed with cheer and excitement as she snuggled the boy on her lap, both of them gawking out the carriage windows at everything.
Meanwhile, Ian sat across from them, watching their enthusiasms with a faint smile, yet growing strangely quiet as they drew close to his ancestral home.
“Look, Mama, it’s Hawkscliffe Hall!” Matthew exclaimed as he pointed to a distant hilltop. He seemed to enjoy using her new title. He turned to her in excitement. “Morley’s house! It’s a real castle!”
“My goodness. Hawkscliffe Hall? Well, that sounds familiar.”
“That’s where your cousins grew up—and your father,” Ian reminded her. Then he told her about his boyhood jaunts, traipsing across a mile or so of peaceful
countryside to go and play with Robert and Jack and Damien and Lucien and Alec.
She listened, thoroughly charmed by his recollections of roaming these green valleys with his band of trusty mates, chasing the herd of wild ponies that lived in the fells, and playing around the crumbling ruins of a far more ancient keep nearby, rumored to have belonged once to Uther Pendragon, the father of King Arthur himself.
“Oh, I’ll want to see that!”
“Then you shall. Maybe we’ll have a picnic there,” he suggested.
“Hooray!” Matthew cried. “Can Robin come?”
“What, you without your shadow? Of course he can,” Georgie said, giving him a doting rumple of his hair, and they continued on their merry way.
The carriage stormed down the road that ran alongside the River Griffith for a time. Ian said the river that had inspired the name for his family’s latest title poured out of the Scottish Highlands and disappeared somewhere in East Anglia.
“Oh, the bridge is out,” Georgie murmured, pointing to the broken remnants of wood that she could see had once spanned the wooded ravine through which the River Griffith plunged more fiercely.
“Yes,” Ian said, seeming to withdraw before her eyes. “A storm destroyed it years ago.”
“And you never had it fixed?” she remarked. “Mustn’t that make it all the more difficult to get to the house?”
“Yes, well, actually, I enjoy the seclusion,” he said sardonically. “It keeps unwanted guests away.”
“Hm.” She found it quite unusual that a man normally so scrupulous about his responsibilities could have tolerated leaving an important job like that undone.
He seemed to read her thoughts. “Bridges are very expensive to build. Anyway, I’d rather wait and have an iron one than simply throw a wood bridge up and have it be destroyed again. The weather in spring,” he said, choosing his words with care, “can be very wild in these parts. The water rises steeply when the Pen-nine snows begin to melt.”
“I see.”
“Matthew, can you tell Mama what do we do around the river?”
“Be careful! Stay back!” he chimed in.
“Very good,” he congratulated his child, who promptly beamed.
“Look!” Matthew suddenly cried.
Georgie peered out the window, following the direction of his pointing finger. “Oh, it’s one of your neighbors. A tenant, perhaps?” she inquired, spotting an old woman on foot ahead, walking alone by the side of the road. “Don’t point, Matthew. It isn’t polite.” She pulled his hand down.
As their traveling chariot barreled on down the road, Georgie offered the old woman a small, friendly wave—but got only a piercing stare in return. Her fleeting glimpse of the elderly woman before they passed by revealed a hunched and bony frame draped in a hooded cloak, her gnarled hands gripping a basket of apples.
“What a strange old lady.”
“The old midwife. She’s known as Mother Absalom,” he murmured. “My mother was always in awe of her. Nowadays, I’m afraid, she’s quite mad.”
“Really?”
“Yes, she lives in one of the cottages that I provide for the elderly staff who have served my family.” He shrugged. “If you hear her talking to herself, don’t be alarmed.”
“Why should I be? I talk to myself all the time.”
He cast her a fond smile.
“Poor old thing,” Georgie said in compassion, glancing out the window, though Mother Absalom was no longer in sight. She couldn’t help wondering if the cool look in Ian’s eyes suggested the possibility that Mother Absalom might have helped deliver Matthew—and failed to save Catherine from the childbirth fever. “Maybe we should stop to say good morrow. She’s very old. Perhaps she needs a ride.”
“Don’t let her frail look fool you,” he countered. “She’s a sly old piece of leather, I assure you, full of vinegar. When your cousins and I were small, we were scared to death of her.”
Georgie chuckled. “Really? You and all my mighty Knight cousins, terrified of an old woman?”
He nodded sagely. “We were sure she was a witch.”
“Maybe she is,” she shot back, but Matthew’s wide-eyed blanch at this possibility roused a laugh from her. “Oh, poppet, I’m only jesting.”
“You see?” Ian said in a reasonable tone. “Wherever she’s going, she can fly on her broom.”
“You are bad.”
“No,” he murmured, giving her a smoky glance, “I’m merely in a hurry. I’m eager to get to my bed.”
“Are you tired, Papa?”
“Mm,” he answered, staring at Georgie.
Her cheeks heated even as she sent him a pointed smile that chided archly, Not in front of the boy, my wicked husband.
The carriage slowed as they arrived at the towering wrought-iron gates of Ian’s property, monogrammed with an ornate letter G that matched the one embla-zoned on the carriage door. A ruddy-cheeked fellow manning the little gatehouse came forth to admit them, and offered a cheerful tip of his hat as they drove by.
Matthew waved to him excitedly.
“Oh, the grounds are beautiful beyond compare!” Georgie exclaimed, staring out at the picturesque clusters of bushes and shady stands of trees.
“Capability Brown,” Ian said.
“What’s that?”
He smiled. “Never mind. Just enjoy them.”
“Look at the huge weeping willow tree, it’s magnificent! That is a willow, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“We don’t have them in India, but I’ve always heard about them. Oh, and what’s that? That white thing beyond the trees. A garden folly?”
“No, that is Catherine’s monument,” he answered in an even tone.
Georgie looked over at him in surprise.
“Mother’s gone to heaven with the angels,” Matthew informed her in a sage tone.
Georgie turned to the boy with a startled glance, then smoothed his hair tenderly out of his eyes. She could feel Ian staring at her, and when she looked at him again, some dark shadow lurking in the depths of his green eyes warned her that this wasn’t going to be easy.
But it was too late to turn back now, nor would she.
The carriage progressed down a hill, then up a gentle rise, and as the trotting horses bore them around the graceful stone fountain in a cloud of dust, the house came into view ahead.
Georgie’s heart beat faster as she peered out the window at her new home. Large and white and imposing, the house had sharp, clean lines carved with pristine symmetry and neoclassical precision. It was built on a grand scale, the lofty, columned entrance looming at the top of a wide flight of stairs.
She glimpsed the uniformed staff hurrying into their places to greet them. The servants formed a neat row near the porte-cochere, where their chariot presently glided to a halt.
Georgie was used to managing a household. In India, indeed, she had run two for Papa, and had overseen a number of charitable homes, as well. But she could admit to a trace of nervousness at the prospect of meeting all her new domestics. Ian might love her more deeply than he had his first wife, but that didn’t mean the staff might not resent her out of loyalty to their dead mistress. No matter, Georgie thought. She was determined to win them over for the sake of creating a harmonious home environment.
Ian handed her out of the coach and soon began the introductions, starting with the tall, gaunt butler, Townsend. Housekeeper, cook, footmen and maids, grooms and groundskeepers, all greeted her with humble courtesy.
When Ian presented her to them, in turn, Georgie gave them a small speech she had prepared for her new household, giving them her thanks for their welcome and expressing her confidence that they would all get on quite happily.
Afterward, she went down the row meeting them individually, smiling at their bows and curtsies as each one stated what posts they kept in the house. While she conversed with this one and that in brief measure, Ian went over to stare with an appalled look at the huge mound of climbin
g yellow roses that were flourishing so richly by the wall.
“My God!” he said, looking up to survey how their thick blooms and thorny vines had surmounted their trellis, had grown up around the first-floor window, and seemed to be trying to swallow the house.
At his low utterance, Georgie looked over. “Gracious, what are you feeding those roses?” she cheerfully asked the head gardener. “You must give me your secret. They’re stunning.”
“They’re ghastly,” Ian muttered.
She looked at him in surprise. “Why on earth do you say that? They’re roses, my lord. They’re beautiful.”
“They’re horrid. Eh, the smell is choking, they’re covered in thorns, and drawing swarms of bees. They’re a damned hazard!”
“Oh, they’re not so bad. Come on, you.” Laughing, she slipped her gloved hand through the crook of his arm and tugged him affectionately toward the door, resting her head on his arm.
The way she touched him was not lost on the silent servants, though Georgie did not notice the tacit glances they exchanged.
“Mama! Papa! Wait for me!” Matthew came running after them with Robin scampering at his heels.
Ian followed with his hands politely clasped behind his back as his butler gave her a thorough tour of her new home. Georgie eyed her husband now and then in suspicion as Townsend led them from room to room.
What was wrong with him? she wondered. He really was acting a wee bit strange. She still did not understand his quarrel with the roses. Perhaps he just didn’t like being here, plain and simple. Perhaps old memories assailed him here in the home he had shared with Catherine.
Well, it had been his idea to come here, Georgie reminded herself. The remote location would help to keep her and Matthew safe in case any more of Queen Sujana’s men tried to hunt them down. Come to think of it, even that broken bridge could help protect them, as it made Aylesworth Park all the more difficult to reach. They had had to come by a roundabout way themselves. Only people familiar with the place would know how to get here. So, in that regard, she felt quite safe.
She wondered if Catherine had felt safe here, too.