Midnight Bride

by Marlene Suson

  Her husband was determined to think the worst of her. Rachel exclaimed in frustration, “Why will you not believe that I love only you? Why are you doing this to me?”

  “This is why.” He pulled two letters from his pocket, unfolded them, and thrust them at her.

  She glanced at the paper, started, then looked more closely. Sweet heaven, if she had not known better, she would have sworn that they were in her handwriting.

  Her gaze jumped to the signature at the bottom. “With all my love, Rachel.”

  She could not believe her own eyes.

  Rachel began reading them. Terrible phrases leaped up at her:

  I live only for the moments that you and I can be together, my beloved Tony... Jerome suspects nothing... Nor does Ferris, Jerome’s watchdog over me... When Jerome touches me, I pretend it is you.

  She looked up at her glowering husband with horrified eyes, so stunned and sickened that she was unable to speak.

  “I do not blame you for looking shocked, my dear,” he ground out, misinterpreting the reason for her stricken silence. “You never dreamed that your letters would fall into my hands, did you?”

  “These are not my letters! I never saw them before; I did not write them. I swear I did not.”

  A muscle in Jerome’s cheek twitched, betraying how angry he was. “How can you deny them? They are written in your very distinctive, indeed unique, hand.”

  “I could not tell the handwriting from my own,” she admitted, “but I swear to God that I did not write these letters.” Rachel could think of no way to prove that to her husband. He would have to trust her, and she already knew that he did not. “I told you I have never seen them before.”

  “And, of course, you also deny that you have been meeting Tony in the Dower House since your return here from London.”

  “Yes, I deny it! How can you think I would be unfaithful to you? I hated my grandfather for what he did to my grandmother, and it is more despicable for a woman to betray her husband. Even if I did not love you as much as I do, Jerome, I would never be unfaithful to you. I would never humiliate you that way. Surely you know me better than that.”

  Jerome ran his hand over his eyes. He looked tired and unhappy.

  Rachel held her breath. Their future and that of their unborn child lay in the balance.

  His lip curled contemptuously. “I doubt that I ever knew you at all. But I do know that you and Tony have continued your affair since you returned here.”

  “I could not continue what never happened.” Desperate, she snatched up the Bible from the bedside table and laid her hand upon it. “I give you my oath upon this sacred book that I have been faithful to you.”

  “Are you willing to court eternal damnation to try to make me believe that lie?”

  “It is not a lie! Dear God, what can I do to make you believe me?”

  “Nothing! Nor will I ever believe the child you are carrying is mine. Damn you, could you not at least have waited to cuckhold me until you had given me an heir?”

  He turned and stalked into his bedroom, slamming the door hard behind her.

  Rachel sank to her knees in despair, utterly shattered that Jerome could believe she had written those terrible letters and that she would betray him like that. The worst blow of all was his refusal to accept their child as his own.

  Her pride would not permit her to let him hear her crying, and she buried her head in the bedclothes to drown the noise of the wracking sobs that shook her.

  Chapter 29

  Jerome stared moodily through the library window at the meandering hills of Royal Elms Park, thinking of Rachel’s sick, stricken face when he told her he would never believe the child she carried was his.

  He should not have said that, but he had been consumed by rage. Reason told him that he must be the father. For her to know for certain she was pregnant, the child must have been conceived during the early days of their marriage while they were at Royal Elms. He knew that she had been faithful to him here. Even if reason had not told him he was the father, Rachel’s face had.

  No matter how much provocation she had given him, he should not have denied their child. Jerome turned away from the window just as Morgan came into the room. It was the first time he had seen his brother since his return to Royal Elms an hour earlier.

  Before Jerome could speak, Morgan demanded, “Will you kindly tell me what the hell is going on?”

  “I told you in my letter. Rachel is cuckolding me with Anthony Denton.” It amazed Jerome how much it hurt to say the words aloud, even to his brother.

  “I do not believe that!” Morgan shook his head negatively. “She cannot help it if that jackass Birkhall decided to wager Denton. Rachel would not betray you.”

  “I did not think so either until I read her letters to Denton.” Jerome’s voice was laced with bitterness. “I will show them to you. They will give you an entirely different view of her character.”

  He pulled them from his pocket and handed them to Morgan. As his brother read them, Jerome extracted several other papers from another pocket and spread them out on a mahogany table by the window.

  Morgan looked up from the letters, clearly as stunned as Jerome had been when he first saw them. “I cannot believe that Rachel wrote these. She loves you too much. They must be forgeries.”

  Jerome took the letters from him and laid them beside the sheets he had already spread on the table. “These are notes that Rachel wrote me in London.” As Morgan studied them, Jerome said, “You can see that her handwriting is very distinctive, indeed unique.”

  After Morgan had compared the letters with Rachel’s notes to Jerome, he said in dismay, “I have to agree that it is her hand. How does she explain the letters to Denton?”

  “I thought, when presented with the evidence, she would at least be honest.” Disillusionment permeated Jerome’s voice. “But, no, she lied and denied that she had written them. As if there could be any doubt!”

  Morgan shook his head. “I cannot believe it. I would have wagered my life that Rachel would never betray you.”

  “And because you could not believe she would, you have let her continue to do so since I sent her here. Damn it, Morgan, I trusted you to watch her for me, and you failed me. You allowed her to spend her nights with Denton in the Dower House.”

  Morgan gaped at him. “What the hell are you talking about? That is impossible! Much as I hated to do it, I followed your instructions that she was not to be permitted to leave the house.”

  “Did you know that Denton arrived here the day after she did?”

  “Yes, he called here, and she told him in no uncertain terms that she hated him and never wanted to set eyes on him again. She told me that she believed Denton was responsible for your thinking she was having an affair with him.”

  “She is a remarkable actress, is she not?”

  Morgan’s face scrunched in perplexity. “Jerome, I cannot believe she faked that scene. No one could be that good an actress.”

  “There is none better than she.” Jerome’s mouth twisted in a sneer as he remembered how completely she had deluded him into thinking she loved him. “Why else would Denton be here, other than to bed my wife and win his wager with Lord Birkhall?”

  “He may have come here for that reason, but I am convinced he has not been sleeping with your wife.”

  Jerome would give anything to believe that, but the evidence to the contrary was overwhelming. “Of course he has been. With whom else would he be spending his nights at the Dower House?”

  “Instead of our arguing about this, let us find out the truth,” Morgan suggested. “We will pay a visit to the Dower House.”

  Rachel, her storm of tears spent, had come to a decision. She would not, could not continue to live with a man who doubted he was the father of the child she was carrying.

  During her short sojourn in London, she had learned the grim fate of a child born to a titled lady whose husband did not believe himself the sire. The innocent
babe was banished from its mother, often farmed out to an impoverished couple to raise in squalor until its early death. The babe’s only hope was a natural father who would make some other arrangement for it.

  But in Rachel’s case, what hope did her unborn babe have when its father would not believe he had sired it?

  She would not subject the innocent child she was carrying to such a fate. Rachel would never give up a baby of her flesh. Nor would she continue to subject herself to her husband’s anger and hatred.

  Maxi sidled up to Rachel. She picked the terrier up in her arms and lay her cheek against his silver coat. No, she could not stay beneath Jerome’s roof when he believed what he did about her.

  But what could she do? She realized with a sinking heart that there was only one place where she could go.

  Wingate Hall.

  Rachel hated the thought of doing so. It was no longer her home. It had not really been that since Aunt Sophia had seized control, but Rachel had no other choice.

  Sophia would not be happy to see her niece at Wingate Hall, but Rachel hoped to persuade Uncle Alfred to take her back or at least to give her money so that she might seek shelter elsewhere. There was not much chance of the latter, though, because Sophia was sure to object.

  Hearing the sound of horses through her open window, Rachel raised her head from Maxi’s fur and looked out. Jerome, Morgan, and Ferris were riding away from the stables. She wondered dully whether Jerome had shown those awful letters to his brother. If he had, Morgan would hate her as much as her husband did.

  And could she blame either of them? Those notes to Tony looked so much like her handwriting that she could scarcely believe herself that she had not written them.

  The daily stage to the north would be leaving the Crown Inn in an hour. If Rachel hurried, she could be aboard it. To forestall the possibility that her unpredictable husband might come after the stage and drag her back, she wanted to postpone anyone realizing that she had fled from Royal Elms for as long as she could.

  Rachel would have to dress so that she would not be recognized. She thought of the old black cloak and veiled hat that she had found in the attic while she was looking for the dining parlour furnishings. They would be perfect for concealing her identity

  Her heart sank at the realization she did not dare take Maxi along for he would call attention to her. Instead she would have to leave him at Royal Elms, at least for the time being. Jerome was very fond of the terrier, and Rachel told herself that he would take care of him.

  Mrs. Needham came in to retrieve the tray she had brought earlier. How fortunate that Rachel had eaten it before Jerome’s arrival for now she felt as though she never wanted to eat again.

  The housekeeper’s shrewd glance took in Rachel’s red, swollen eyes. “Are you all right, Your Grace?” Her voice was laced with concern.

  Rachel, determined that her plan to leave Royal Elms be a success, seized the opportunity Mrs. Needham unwittingly presented her. “No, I am feeling most unwell.” Which was true. “I am going to bed immediately.” Which was not true. “I do not want to be disturbed by anyone for any reason until morning.”

  “Poor child, you look exhausted. Sleep will be the best thing for you.”

  Mrs. Needham looked so worried that Rachel felt terribly guilty about misleading her as she was, but it was necessary to her plan. If she were lucky, her departure would not be discovered until morning.

  As the housekeeper left, Rachel thrust her terrier toward her. “Please take Maxi with you so that he will not awaken me during the night. Perhaps Cook could find a bone for him in the kitchen.”

  “Aye, Your Grace.” Mrs. Needham complied, balancing the tray in one hand and taking the dog under her other arm. “I’ll take care of him.”

  After the housekeeper and Maxi were gone, Rachel went to the connecting door to Jerome’s room and turned the key in the lock, then slipped it into her pocket.

  She wrote Jerome a note that she left on her pillow. Then she put on a pair of sensible shoes for her walk to the Crown Inn and donned the black cloak and the veiled hat.

  Once she escaped Bedfordshire undetected, she would leave the stagecoach and hire a post chaise to take her the rest of the way to Wingate Hall.

  Rachel took one last look around her bedchamber. She dreaded going back to Wingate Hall and facing the uncertain reception she would receive from Aunt Sophia.

  Tears of sorrow and regret welled in Rachel’s eyes at the thought of leaving Royal Elms. She had been so happy here. She loved the estate, loved its people and, most of all, loved its master. But she could not stay with a man who could not believe their child was his.

  Much as she hated to go, Jerome had left her with no other choice.

  It took Jerome, Morgan, and Ferris a good half hour to reach the Dower House, a substantial brick structure surrounded by trees in the remotest corner of Royal Elms.

  “Our ancestor was certainly determined to keep his mama as far away from him as he could,” Morgan observed.

  Recent hoof prints on the path leading to the Dower house indicated it had been visited very recently, but it appeared silent and deserted now.

  The three men dismounted. As they went up to the door, Ferris pointed out two pair of footprints leading away from the house that had been made while the ground was still wet after the last rain.

  Jerome’s face hardened as he studied them. One set was clearly a man’s, while the other outlined a lady’s delicate foot. “When did it last rain here?”

  “Early this morning,” Ferris answered.

  “So they used the house last night.”

  “I cannot believe it could have been Rachel with him,” Morgan protested. “I am certain that she was in her room all night.”

  “Who else could it have been?” Jerome demanded. “Why speculate?” Morgan asked. “Let us see what we find inside.” He knocked, but there was no answer. Finally, he pushed open the unlocked door.

  In the dowager’s bedroom, they found several intimate items of women’s apparel in delicate silk and lace. The thought of Denton seeing his wife’s gorgeous body in them and then removing them from her sent a bolt of fury through Jerome.

  “Since no one is here now,” Morgan said, “we might as well have dinner and come back later to wait for your uninvited guests to show up. We can dine at the Crown Inn. It is half the distance from here that Royal Elms is.”

  “Excellent suggestion,” Jerome agreed. “After all the riding I have done today, I have no desire to do any more than I must tonight.” Nor did he wish to be forced to dine with his errant wife. And especially not in that charming dining parlour she had created in which they had spent so many happy hours together.

  So they went to the Crown Inn. As they rode up, the stage for the north was pulling away. Jerome caught a glimpse through its window of a woman, apparently in deep mourning, who was so heavily veiled that he could see nothing of her face.

  During dinner, Jerome picked at his food. Rachel’s betrayal had robbed him of any appetite. He listened idly to the two men at the next table. “Wonder who that woman in black was,” one of them mused. “The one who left on the northbound stage.”

  His companion, a beefy man with a cast to his left eye, said, “The way she was wrapped up, she could have been me own sister, and me would not have known her.”

  After dinner, Morgan and Ferris lingered over their tankards of ale. Jerome drank brandy. He tried to banish from his mind the haunting memory of Rachel’s devastated face when he told her he would never believe the child she carried was his. He regretted saying it, but he had been so damned furious.

  Nobody had ever provoked his temper as Rachel did. Why is that, he asked himself. Because you have never loved anyone as much as you do her, not your mother, not Cleo, not even Morgan, and you know it. Yes, God help him, in the darkest recesses of his heart and mind, he did know it.

  When Rachel had greeted him so joyously today, all he had wanted to do was take her to bed, bury
himself in her sweet, passionate depths, and forget all else including her betrayal and perfidy. And he had hated himself for his weakness. Jerome’s hands tightened around the brandy glass.

  Morgan and Ferris were certain that Rachel could not have been spending the past few nights with Denton, but Jerome did not see how he could be wrong. He drained his glass. He would soon know the truth.

  It was nearly midnight when they returned to the Dower House. They tied their horses some distance down the path so as not to alert anyone who might be inside of their arrival.

  The night was brightly lit by stars and a lopsided, nearly full moon. They made their way easily toward the house. As they approached, two horses near the front door, one bearing a lady’s sidesaddle, were clearly visible in the moonlight.

  Candlelight shone through the sheer curtains that covered the partially opened windows in the dowager’s bedchamber.

  The three men crept closer. The sounds of a man and woman in the throes of passion wafted through the opened windows.

  Fury ripped through Jerome. Hardly knowing what he was doing, he stalked into the house and slammed into the dowager’s bedroom with Morgan and Ferris close behind him.

  The noise belatedly penetrated the lovers’ passion, and Jerome heard Anthony Denton exclaim, “What the hell!”

  Denton rolled off the woman beneath him, and Jerome stared down at her lying naked on the bed.

  He could not believe his eyes.

  Chapter 30

  Morgan’s amused voice penetrated Jerome’s shock. “My, my, Saint Emily, what devilish company you do keep.”

  “Get out of here. How dare you burst hi upon us like this,” Emily screeched, sounding like a Billingsgate fishmonger. “I will have you whipped for daring to do so.”

  “Not us,” Morgan retorted. “It is you and your lover who are trespassing on Royal Elms’s property. You know the penalty for trespass.”

  That shut her up.

  Denton, naked as the day he was born, scrambled out of the bed and yanked on his breeches.