“My lord, is all well?”
“No. No, it is not.” He glanced at David, at his hair, and then hurriedly away to stare over his shoulder. “I, uh. Cyprian.”
“My lord?”
“Do you know about my mother?”
That was unexpected. David turned the question in his mind, not sure of Lord Richard’s angle. “A very little.”
“What do you know?”
This was not good. “I know that she was a very young lady when she married the marquess your father,” he began with care.
“She was seventeen, he fifty-nine. Go on.”
“She was a Miss Ranelagh, I believe. My lord—”
“Go on, I said. I know you know something. I want to know what.”
Lord Richard was still watching the wall over David’s shoulder. David watched him. “It is my understanding that the marriage was an unhappy one. That Lady Cirencester found matrimony restrictive, and Lord Cirencester found his wife resistant to his authority. I understand that she became ill and was confined for her own safety at the same time as the marquess suffered a severe fall.”
“A fall. Is that all you know, or are you being tactful?”
“My lord, this is not a subject on which I should repeat gossip. If there is something you wish me to know…”
“I was ten years old.” Lord Richard shut his eyes. “It was the school holidays, and we were at Tarlton March, of course. My father liked to be at the family seat. My mother hated it there. She hated it as much as she hated him, and us.”
David sat rigid.
“There was no society. Father did not greatly like society himself, and he did not like Mother to be in London at all. He would not go to Bath for the summer either. That would have been as bad as London.”
Lord Richard didn’t say why. David didn’t ask, because he already knew. Long-ago scandal, a very young woman indiscreetly seeking solace from her marriage to an aged and demanding husband and the marquess’s iron assertion of control.
“So it was just Father and Mother and me in that great house, since Philip had been sent off to a crammer’s. Dominic came over most days and we roamed the grounds together. I recall enjoying that summer, you know. It was hot, and we were boys with trees to climb and streams to fish. And then one day we came into the house to carry out some piece of mischief, and I heard screaming.”
David wanted to touch him. Wanted to hold his hand, kiss it, give comfort, do anything about the look on Lord Richard’s face.
“She had hit Father—he was seventy-six years old—hit him with a brass candlestick about the head and then beat him with it as he lay on the floor. There was blood on the metal, and her hands. We tried to pull her off, Dominic and I, but we were only ten, and she was enraged. She screamed, at my father on the floor and at me.”
“My lord.” David was on the edge of his seat, and be damned to correctness. Lord Richard needed to spill the words out, and it was David he’d sought to hear them. Not Dominic Frey, not any of the other gentlemen who so casually leaned on Lord Richard’s strength. David reached for his master’s hand and felt his fingers, cold and sweaty, close around his own with startling force.
“She informed me,” Lord Richard said remotely, “that every contact with my father had been repellent to her. That his children were nothing but reminders of a period of disgust that had been ended only by his advancing age. That she hated him and us. And all the while, my father lay with a pool of blood widening around his head.”
“Oh, my lord,” David whispered. Both his hands were gripping both Lord Richard’s now, holding tight.
“Dominic ran for help. It was not the first time the servants had heard screams, so they had not interfered. Philip was called, and my cousin Gideon. It was put about that Father had had a stroke and fallen down the stairs, and Mother was taken away. I believe there was a great deal of wrangling with the Ranelaghs about it. My father would not divorce her; she expressed her intention to kill him or herself if she was forced to share a house with him any longer; the Ranelaghs threatened legal action if she was confined to a madhouse. Naturally, nobody wanted that dirty linen washed in public. So in the end, she took Arncliffe House—a Vane property in North Yorkshire—on the understanding that she would not trouble the family further. Father lived another twelve years, and…I have never seen her again.”
“Never?”
“The last I saw of my mother was when Wellsbury—he was the butler, a very grand, stately man—when Wellsbury dragged her off with an arm round her neck, she struggling, my father’s blood on her hands. She screamed, ‘I hate you.’ I did not know, have never known, if she was addressing me.”
“My lord.” David bowed his head so Lord Richard need not hide the sheen in his eyes and held on tight. There was a silence that lasted too long.
“And I mention it now,” Lord Richard said at last, “because she has asked to see me.”
David looked up, startled. “See you? I thought—”
“That she was dead?”
He could have sworn it. The dowager marchioness had already been ancient history when he’d entered Lord Richard’s service.
“She might as well have been.” Lord Richard’s voice rasped. “It was never to be mentioned—her disgrace, the shame…her existence. I was only ten. Philip was seventeen and making his appearance in society since he did not choose to attend Oxford, and when I did see him, he did not want to speak of it. So I…forgot, because I was obliged to forget, until I was grown. I didn’t even think it was strange that she wasn’t at Philip’s wedding. It did not cross my mind.”
“No.”
“And then Father died, and Dominic left me, and I wrote to her. She did not reply. I wrote again. I asked if I might visit her. Nothing.” He grimaced. “I have written to her three times a year for fifteen years and not once received a reply. I don’t know why I kept writing. Duty, I suppose. And now…” There was a husk in his voice that could have driven David to his knees then and there. “She wrote to say she is dying. She said, ‘I wonder if either of Lord Cirencester’s sons would care to bid me farewell.’ And she sent the letter to Philip.” His voice broke on that. “Philip hated her. He has never written to her, not once, but she wrote to him, not me, and— Dear God, how can this still matter? I have not seen her since I was ten, but it feels just as it always did.”
His hands were so tight on David’s that his knuckles felt crushed. He tightened his own grip as best he could. “Oh, my lord.”
“She called us the heir and the reserve. It’s what we were, of course, but it seemed to be all we were. ‘Oh, here is your heir, my lord, and your reserve son with him.’ It seems that has not changed.”
David bit back what he would have liked to say about the dowager marchioness of Cirencester. “What will you do? Will you go?”
“Philip won’t. He won’t forgive her. He doesn’t want me to.”
“You don’t have to forgive, my lord. You don’t have to go, and if you go, you are not obliged to forgive, and if you forgive, you are not obliged to forget.”
Lord Richard swallowed hard. “That is— Yes. Thank you.” He leaned forward then, resting his head against David’s, forehead to forehead, hands joined, and David wondered why people spoke of hearts breaking. His did not break. It crumpled, as if squeezed in a giant’s fist till the blood ran.
I’m here. I will always be here.
Another moment’s silence, and then Lord Richard said, “We shall leave as soon as possible.” His voice was quite calm, quite level. An instruction to a servant whose hands he gripped as if they were a lifeline.
“Yes, my lord. I shall pack directly.”
—
It was a long journey to Yorkshire, and not a comfortable one. The coach had to be as light as possible for speed, so Richard had brought only his groom, Doone, to drive, and Cyprian. Of course he had Cyprian. He could hardly travel without his valet.
Cyprian’s hair was red. The powdering was a time-con
suming business and would have been an unnecessary concern on a long journey. Richard had instructed him not to trouble with it. He’d said it didn’t matter.
It is not so, nor it was not so.
He couldn’t seem to forget that damned story. The aggressively red hair, the deep brown eyes, the sharp-toothed grin: Cyprian was Mr. Fox in person, padding silently around the room of the inn where they rested for the night. Richard wanted to push his hands into that hair, to feel those teeth biting into his lips, his neck.
Be bold, be bold, but not too bold.
This was their fourth night on the road, the last before they arrived at Ingleby Arncliffe and Arncliffe House. Days in the coach together, talking casually or in comfortable silence—if Richard didn’t look, that was. If he didn’t look at that damned red hair against pale skin and set himself imagining, because that was not comfortable at all.
At least Cyprian still wore Richard’s dark green livery. The shade that screamed: Servant, do not touch.
He was sitting up in bed in his nightshirt, watching Cyprian arrange his own truckle bed. The usual arrangement for master and man on travels. He would not watch Cyprian undressing; he had not that right. It was none of Richard’s affair if his valet’s chest was sprinkled with golden-red hair, if it trailed down his belly, below his waistband…
Those who restrain desire do so because theirs is weak enough to be restrained.
The words popped into his head, a line from some half-mad poet that Dominic had quoted during an argument. Richard had never felt more like landing his best friend a facer, because it was absolutely, insultingly wrong in every way.
Richard restrained his desire not because it was weak but because he was not. Weakness would be reaching out now, whispering Cyprian’s name, knowing that he would turn, a dark figure in the light of the single candle, and extend his slim, clever fingers to meet Richard’s. Weakness, contemptible weakness, would be indulging his desire when all the risk of it fell on Cyprian’s slender shoulders.
Or, not all. Richard risked losing a valet of superlative skill, a henchman so invaluable he could not remember how he had managed without him, a beloved companion. He might still have taken that risk if it had been his alone, to put an end to the gnawing hunger, but it was not.
It is not so, nor it was not so, and I wish to God it could be so.
“We will be there tomorrow,” he observed, to stop himself thinking.
“Another four hours on the road, perhaps.” The candlelight cast shadows on Cyprian’s face, made his eyes look deeper, his cheekbones more prominent.
“I shall be glad to be out of the coach for a while.” Not that Richard was confident they would be staying long. He had visions of a brief, cold exchange of greetings, or a blazing argument, and getting back in the coach to return to London after a half hour’s visit. “I suppose we will be expected,” he added. He had written to advise the dowager marchioness that he was setting forth at once; but given his purse, his well-sprung coach, and the teams of horses he could call on, he would not be surprised to arrive at Arncliffe House before his letter.
With the decision made, it had been crucial to leave as soon as possible. Cyprian had worked at full stretch to prepare in a couple of hours for a journey of indeterminate length and unpredictable weather. Richard had even waved away Harry, who had emerged from his room with the headache he deserved and something on his mind. Fond though he was of his cousin, Richard had not felt able to hear confessions of drunken misdeeds. And now he was almost there and still had no idea what to think, or feel, or do.
“I don’t know if this is a good idea.” The words startled him as he spoke them.
“It is.” Cyprian straightened, rolling his shoulders to stretch the kinks from his back. Richard wanted to run his thumbs up his valet’s spine, soothe the aches of travel. “Whatever the outcome, you were correct to come.”
“How can you be certain?”
“Because you help people, my lord. You overstaff your houses and pension your veterans and assist your intimates. The dowager marchioness asked for you, and you have come. You have—if I may say so—no obligation to her. What matters is that you have your own standards.”
Richard couldn’t speak for a moment. “I have failed to meet those often enough,” he managed. “I failed Dominic. He needed me to understand, and I did not.”
“It was a very long time ago, and he asked a great deal. You cannot reproach yourself for that forever, my lord. You did your best.”
Richard attempted a smile. “You give me too much credit. I thought that no man was a hero to his valet.”
Cyprian smiled back, sudden and startling. “That depends on the man. And the valet.”
Richard couldn’t breathe for a second. He sat there, mouth open, heart thumping, and, to his dismayed awareness, prick thickening unstoppably at that foxy, irresistible, inviting smile.
Come to me. The words were on his lips. He had but to speak, and he would have Cyprian willingly in his arms; he knew it.
I would hold him, that’s all. Or, just one kiss…
He was a damned self-indulgent swine.
“Get some rest,” he said, forcing the words out, and turned in his bed so that he could not watch.
—
It was cold and miserable the next morning, with rain spattering the windows. Not a day to sit on the box no matter how little he wanted to be in the carriage with Cyprian, or how much.
Cyprian sat in silence, unreadable. Richard stared out of the window at the wide, bleak landscape around them, scrubby fields sliced up by stone walls, feeling the dread curdling within him and, worse, the anticipation that he could not make himself stem.
He had never quite been able to let go of that as a boy. When he returned from Harrow for the holidays, he had always felt that pulse of excitement as the chaise drew up at Tarlton March, and he had run in to see his parents. His father had been old, grim, and stately, but he had ruffled Richard’s hair and listened to his news. His mother had not, and every time it had been a little blow, because he had always believed this time she might smile at him.
Philip had let go of that belief long before the terrible day. Richard, it seemed, had still not.
Arncliffe House was an uninviting foursquare building in the drab tones of the local stone. The gate was open. Doone brought the carriage up to the house; Cyprian rang the bell. The heavy oak door was opened, several minutes later, by a white-capped woman of some forty years. Her eyes widened as she took in the man on the doorstep.
“Lord Richard Vane. I am here to see Lady Cirencester.”
“Aye, my lord? Well.” She stepped back, opening the door, with a look of grim satisfaction. “I’m to tell ye ye’re too late.”
—
She was laid out in her bedchamber. It was a room that could have been made pretty very easily. Richard remembered his mother liking pretty things. Instead, it was austere, the furniture sharp edged and heavy without being particularly practical, as though it had been chosen for its discomfort.
The body was not pretty either, a day after death. It was skeletally thin from the ravages of the cancer that had killed her, the skin yellowed, lips drawn back. Richard had wondered what he would feel on seeing his mother again, but this frail corpse of an old woman was not his mother. He sat by the bed anyway, holding her hand, because it was the right thing to do.
“I’m sorry,” he said aloud. “I’m sorry I was not in time. I’m sorry I did not know you.” There seemed very little else to say, but he went on anyway, speaking into the silence. “I’m sorry that you did not like me, or Philip. He is an excellent man. You were a grandmother seven times over. Did you know that? Did you never want to see them? I’m sorry that you did not want my letters. I dare say it was an inconvenience for you to receive them, but we were always terribly inconvenient to you, Philip and I. I’m sorry that you disliked us so.” His throat was hurting, but now the words had started coming, he couldn’t stop them. “I’m sorry I c
ould not tell you when I fell in love or seek your comfort when it ended. But then, I couldn’t have done that anyway, and at least I never had to worry about gaining your ill opinion, since I already had that. I’m sorry I never mattered to you in the slightest, because it seems you did matter to me. Why did I not matter?” He stared at the body, wishing for an answer. “Why didn’t you write back?”
Her thin fingers were cold and too light. He let them go. “Well, you rid yourself of Philip very effectually indeed, and now you are rid of it all. I suppose I too should have taken the hint. But I am here now, and I would have come before if you had wanted me.”
That seemed all there was to say. He stood, since the chair was hard and built for slimmer hips than his own, and walked over to the little bureau, looking for duty to do. The housekeeper had said that his mother had been a long time dying and had put her affairs in order well in advance. He was glad of that. He would be glad to leave this loveless, lifeless place.
He opened the bureau.
Chapter 4
Lord Richard had decreed they would stay the night, a single sharp sentence uttered through a half-closed door. It made sense, with the funeral the next day, but it was not a welcoming prospect for all that.
Mrs. Briggs, the housekeeper, had a relish for gloom that David found trying. She offered some reflections on the failings of the Vane family, which he silenced with a few sharp words, and was prevailed on to cook a meal for his lordship at something approaching a decent hour, despite the country habit of dining at six o’clock.
Lord Richard ate alone in the dining room. David served him in silence, since that was clearly required, then had a quick supper with Doone in the kitchen.
“Bloody miserable, this is,” Doone muttered. “How long are we here for?”
As long as Lord Richard wishes was the obvious answer, but David and Doone knew each other too well for that. “I’ll make sure we’re able to leave after the funeral. Can you have the horses ready? I held a room at that last inn, so even if we start late, we can be sure of a bed.”
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