The Heir

by Catherine Coulter

  This hadn’t occurred to her. She felt utterly stripped of anything that she knew. “But surely that is impossible. Horses don’t do that, and I have watched horses mate. My God, it would be horrible. It isn’t what is proper, for man nor beast. What is a pederast? What do you mean?”

  “Shut up, damn you. Very well, so he didn’t use you in that way then. Then it was your mouth.” He jerked her forward, leaned down and kissed her hard. “Open your mouth,” he said against her lips. “Open your lips so I can taste you. Did that miserable little bastard spill his seed in your mouth?”

  She didn’t open her mouth, despite the force he used. Finally, he let her go. He raised his head. Lightly, he touched his fingertips to her lips. “Yes,” he said slowly, “he let you take him in your mouth. You have a beautiful mouth—soft and giving, even though you refuse to give it to me, I can imagine what it was like for him to caress his sex with those lips of yours.”

  She saw him in her mind’s eye, his sex, swelled and long, thrust into her mouth. No, it wasn’t possible. She ran her tongue over her lips. He laughed. She wanted to kill him. He believed the comte had put his sex into her mouth? That he had found his release in her mouth? She shuddered with disgust. She didn’t try to escape him again. She wouldn’t allow him to destroy her.

  She smiled up at him, her voice as calm as her mother’s. “You are lying. No one would do what you have described. It is absurd, unbelievable. I will tell you one last time that the comte is not my lover.

  “Ah, but look at you, you believe it so completely. Thus you must trust the person who told you. Who was it, Justin? Who told you this lie?”

  It was he who stepped away from her. He had sworn that he would not again allow his bitter anger and disillusionment to get the better of him. Ah, but she enraged him with that calm of hers, trying to turn the tables on him, to put him in the wrong. He managed to smile at her, but it was difficult. He wanted to strangle her, to throw her on the Axminster carpet, jerk up her riding skirt, and plunge deep inside her. He drew a deep breath. “No one told lies of you, Arabella. You have only yourself to blame for my knowing the truth. I saw you. I saw him.”

  “You saw me? You saw the comte? Who cares? What bloody truth? That makes not one whit of sense. What in the devil are you talking about? Damn you, don’t just stand there like a preacher searching out witches, tell me!”

  “Perhaps when you meet again at the barn or wherever, you can show him your newfound knowledge. You can tell him that you want him to sodomize you. Yes, but caution him to go slowly, Arabella. Tell him that he must be gentle, that he—”

  She thought she would vomit. Instead, she struck him with her fist in his jaw. His head snapped back she had hit him so hard.

  She picked up her skirts and ran to the door.

  He called after her, even as he rubbed his jaw, “You will pay for that, Arabella.”

  “I have already paid,” she whispered as she pulled open the door and slipped through it.

  “Another macaroon, I think, my dear.” Dr. Branyon smiled at Lady Ann as he slipped another cookie onto his plate.

  “Elsbeth, more tea?”

  “No, thank you, Lady Ann,” Elsbeth said, turning her wandering attention to her stepmother.

  “I suppose it is not so very odd that the earl and Arabella do not join us.” The comte spread his hands expressively, a knowing gleam in his dark eyes.

  Lady Ann gave him a look that she had until today used only with Sir Arthur Bennington, a local baron who had tried to kiss her once behind the stairs. The gleam disappeared quickly. Good. Even a Frenchman understood that gleam. She nodded, raising her chin, then turned to Dr. Branyon. “Paul, I trust you will join us for dinner this evening. It is Thursday, you know, and Cook will prepare Arabella’s roast pork.”

  “Pork, hmm? Perhaps I can force myself,” Dr. Branyon said. He looked at the clock on the mantelpiece and quickly rose. “If I am to have a chance at snabbling any dinner, I must leave now and see to my patients. Six o’clock?”

  Lady Ann nodded and walked from the drawing room to the great double doors with him. He turned, saying quietly, “Ann, something is troubling you. Ah, it’s the marriage, is it? You know that you must become used to the fact that Arabella is a married lady.”

  Lady Ann didn’t know what to do. She looked up into his face, a face she had known since she was seventeen years old, a face so beloved that all she wanted to do was touch him and kiss him and hold him so tightly he would never let her go. The truth then, she thought, at least about Arabella. About her own feelings, they had to wait. She had no idea what he felt about her. Oh yes, he was fond of her, that much was obvious, but for anything more—

  She said, “I promise that isn’t the problem. I believe Arabella was born being grown up. A married lady? I neither had nor have any difficulty accepting that.” She drew a deep breath. “There is something wrong between them. Something very wrong.”

  Dr. Branyon frowned into her clouded blue eyes. It was on the tip of his tongue to make light of her concern, but he had found over the years that her perceptions about people were usually appallingly accurate. He said, “Since I haven’t seen them today, I can’t say anything to the point. This evening, well, I will watch them. I hope you are wrong, Ann. I really do.”

  “So do I. But I’m not.” She wondered if she should tell him about Arabella’s ripped nightgown. No, that was going too far. It was far too intimate.

  God, how he hated to see her upset. Without thought he lifted her hand. As his mouth brushed her palm, he felt a slight tremor in her hand. Her fingers closed over his. He forgot everything except his need for her. He looked hungrily at her mouth, then into her eyes. He didn’t at first believe what he saw there even though it was so clear a blind man couldn’t be mistaken.

  “Ann, my dearest love.” There was such longing, such complete commitment in his voice that Lady Ann didn’t notice the groom approaching with his horse.

  But he did. He tried to smile, difficult when all he wanted to do was kiss her until neither of them could breathe. He wanted badly to touch her, just lightly touch her, it was all he asked, but it wasn’t to be. He drew a deep breath and swallowed a lurid curse. “We have no privacy here. I would speak with you further, Ann.”

  She stared up at him, at his mouth, and said without hesitation, “When?”

  He chuckled and released her hand. “I want nothing more than to have you all to myself right at this moment. Damnation. I have patients.”

  “Tomorrow then,” she said.

  He took the plunge. “You know, Ann, the fishpond is lovely this time of year. Do you think you would enjoy a stroll around its perimeter tomorrow afternoon, say at one o’clock?” Actually he was seeing her on her back, her beautiful hair spread out about her face, lying in the midst of daffodils. He swallowed. He was losing his mind.

  Again, she said without hesitation, “I think I should like it above all things.”

  Dr. Branyon forgot the years he had spent without her, thinking now to the future. Actually, he was thinking about tomorrow at the fishpond. “Just maybe life is perfect.” He rested his hand lightly against her cheek and smiled at her tenderly.

  “Tonight for dinner and I swear I will observe. Then, tomorrow at one o’clock, dearest Ann.” He turned and strode down the front steps to his waiting horse, his step light and confident. He waved to her before he wheeled his horse about and cantered down the graveled drive.

  “Yes, Paul, just maybe life will be perfect.” She felt so full of happiness that, absurdly, she wanted to run after the retreating stable lad and fling her arms around him. She hugged herself instead.

  By the time she returned to the drawing room, she had dimmed the outrageous sparkle in her eyes. She thought that only Justin would notice a change in her. But then, in all likelihood, Justin would not be there.

  She was surprised to find only the comte in the drawing room. She smiled at him, a blond brow arched upward.

  “Ma peti
te cousine wished to retire to her room to compose herself for dinner. I believe she is fatigued.” He gave her a charming shrug, all French and meaningless.

  “I see,” she said. How she wished now he had gone away to compose himself as well, or that she had gone directly to her room, or perhaps to the parterre. She wanted to be alone, to turn over each of Paul’s words in her mind, to savor the implications, just to picture him in her mind and smile with what might come, what might happen.

  “Lady Ann, I am delighted that at last I can speak with you alone,” the comte said suddenly, sitting forward in his chair, his voice intense. “You see, chère madame, only you can tell me about my aunt Magdalaine.”

  “Magdalaine? But, Gervaise, I hardly know anything about her. She died before I met the former earl. Surely Magdalaine’s brother, your father, would know far more than I and—”

  He shook his head. “It is of the most unfortunate, but he could only tell me of her girlhood in France. Even on that, his brain was muddled. He knew nothing of her life in England. Please, tell me what you know of her. Surely you must know something.”

  “Very well, but let me think a moment.” Goodness, she knew so little, she wasn’t lying about that. She jostled her memory, piecing together bits of information about her husband’s first wife. “I believe the earl met your aunt while on a visit to the French court in 1788. I do not know the sequence of events, only that they were wed quite soon at the Trécassis château and returned to England shortly thereafter. Elsbeth, as you know, was born in 1789, but a year after their marriage.” She paused and smiled at the very beautiful young man. “Of course, Gervaise, you cannot be much older than Elsbeth yourself. I imagine that you were born near to the same time.”

  The comte shrugged in vague agreement and waved his elegant hands for her to continue.

  “Now I come to the point where I am not certain of my facts. I believe Magdalaine returned to France shortly after the revolution broke out. I do not know her reason for traveling at such a dangerous time.” She shook her head. “You, I am certain, know the rest. Unfortunately, she became ill soon after her return to Evesham Abbey and died here in 1790.”

  “You know nothing more, madame?”

  “No, I’m sorry, Gervaise.” It was nice that he wanted to know more about his aunt, but surely this disappointment of his at how little she knew was a bit much. She thought about Paul. What a lovely name.

  The comte sat back in his chair and drummed his slender fingertips together. He said slowly, his eyes intent on Lady Ann’s face, “It would seem that I can add to your store of knowledge. I do not wish to wound you, Lady Ann, but it seems that when your late husband came to France in 1787, his fortune was—what do you English say?—ah yes, his fortune was sadly in need of repairs. My father, Magdalaine’s elder brother, told me that the Comte de Trécassis offered the earl a huge sum of money upon the marriage. There was an additional portion of her dot that was to be paid later, upon fulfilling certain conditions.”

  Lady Ann was silent for a moment, her thoughts drawn back to her own huge dowry and the earl’s none-too-subtle haste in wishing to marry her. She remembered her bitter disillusion as a shy, self-conscious girl who had inadvertently overheard her betrothed blithely tell one of his friends that her dowry hadn’t been quite as plump as his mistress, but she was the daughter of a marquess, and surely that must mean something. He’d added that he hoped her virgin’s blood would not be a boring red.

  It occurred to her now to wonder why the Comte de Trécassis would offer such a huge dowry for Magdalaine’s hand. After all, Magdalaine’s lineage was impeccable, the Trécassis being mixed in bloodline to the Capets. It was almost as if her dowry were some sort of bribe. Now that was odd. Why?

  The comte rose and straightened his yellow-patterned waistcoat. He really was quite a handsome young man, and those dark eyes of his, well—“Do forgive me, chère madame, for taking so much of your time.”

  Lady Ann shook away eighteen-year-old memories and smiled. “I’m sorry, Gervaise, that I could not tell you more. But, you see”—she splayed her white hands—“Magdalaine and your family were hardly ever mentioned in my presence.” She knew it wasn’t because her husband had dearly loved his first wife. No, just look what he had done to poor Elsbeth. No, there had been no more love, no more caring for poor Magdalaine than he’d had for her.

  “How true. What man would want to speak of his first wife to his current wife? Oh, Lady Ann, I neglected to tell you that I find the pearls you are wearing most elegant. As the Countess of Strafford, your jewel box must be under guard. It must be gratifying, non?”

  “Thank you, Gervaise,” she said, not even hearing him for she was thinking again of Paul. She would see him in but three hours. Surely that was too long a time without him.

  “Oh, the Strafford jewels,” she said, bringing her attention back to him. “I assure you they are so paltry that the Prince Regent would not even deign to give them to Princess Caroline, whom, I understand, he holds in great dislike.”

  “That is must curious, I think,” the comte said. “Most curious indeed.”

  “Yes, if you say so. One wonders how such an alliance could be formed with the mutual distaste apparent in both parties.”

  “Eh? Oh, yes, certainly. It is the royal way, chère madame.” He bowed over her hand, then strolled from the drawing room.

  Lady Ann shook out her skirts and walked to the door. Perhaps she would wear the pink silk gown tomorrow, with its rows of tiny satin rosebuds. Surely it was not so very bad to break the monotony of her black mourning just one time. As she mounted the stairs to her room, she thought of the rather daring expanse of white bosom revealed by the gown, and smiled wickedly. It was an Arabella smile, she thought, or at least it was an Arabella smile before she had married Justin.

  Oh, dear.

  15

  Dinner that evening was set back because the smithy had been trying to shoe Squire Jamison’s black beast of a stallion and the brute had bitten his shoulder. “Poor fellow,” Dr. Branyon said with a sympathetic shake of his head, “he was furious at himself and he wanted to kill the horse. He said that damned horse would never wear a shoe again for all he cared.”

  Certainly his story was not all that amusing, Dr. Branyon thought as he led Lady Ann in to dinner, but nevertheless it deserved better than the strained smiles it received from the earl and Arabella. The comte had laughed in that French way of his that Dr. Branyon didn’t really appreciate. Elsbeth smiled demurely, as one would have expected her to, but not quite in her usual way.

  Dr. Branyon found his eyes drawn to Elsbeth again as they entered the dining room. He had carelessly described her to Lady Ann just last week as a ‘diffident little girl, afraid at any moment that an adult would send her to her bedchamber with a slice of moldy bread and water.’ Now he was not quite so sure. There seemed to be a new self-assurance about her, her quietness borne of a kind of confidence rather than her fear of putting herself forward. It must be her inheritance from her father. She finally realized that she had value. That she’d had value to her father, a man she had undoubtedly worshiped all her life. It was a pity that it had taken a good deal of money to make her reach that conclusion.

  “Come, Arabella,” Lady Ann said, “you are now the Countess of Strafford and it is now your duty to sit in the countess’s chair.”

  Arabella stared blankly at her mother for a moment, her hand already on her own chair. Oh God, her mother was right. She was the Countess of Strafford. No, it didn’t matter. She didn’t want to do anything that would make her feel more bound to the earl than she already was. She shook her head. “Oh, no, Mother, I have no wish to take your place. It is altogether ridiculous. I will keep my usual seat.”

  Arabella’s knuckles showed white on the back of her chair as the earl said in a calm, bored voice, “Lady Ann is quite correct, Arabella. As the Countess of Strafford, it is only proper that you take your place at the foot of the table. This way, every time you
look up, you will see your husband. Does that not gratify you?”

  Yes, indeed, she thought. It was bloody wonderful. Eating and then looking at him would surely make her stomach hurt. She meant to speak lightly, but her voice came out thin and shrill. “Father always called it the bottom of the table. Come, let us cease this nonsense, my roast pork grows more leathery by the moment. Mother, please, keep your place.”

  “You will sit yourself where appropriate, madam. Giles, will you kindly assist her ladyship into her place?”

  The second footman, never having rubbed Lady Arabella against her grain in all her eighteen years, turned beseeching eyes to Lady Ann.

  “Come, my dear,” Lady Ann said very quietly, “do allow Giles to seat you.” Oh drat, she should never have raised the matter in the first place. It had given Justin more ammunition. But why did he want to use it? Arabella looked white with strain. She also hadn’t moved. Lady Ann waited with held breath to see if Arabella would turn the dining room into a battleground.

  Arabella wanted to hurl the chair at her husband. She wanted to hurl all the knives at him as well. But she knew she couldn’t. If she continued to resist, everyone would quite clearly see that all was not right between them. She cursed beneath her breath. Only Giles heard her. She thought he would faint when she turned to tell him she would take the bloody chair. She managed to smile.

  Following a very silent first course of turtle soup, Dr. Branyon asked the earl, “Have you made the acquaintance of old Hamsworth, Justin?”

  A slight smile indented the corners of the earl’s mouth. “A testy old curmudgeon and a tenant who has well served the land. He provided me with quite a long list of the improvements he wished to see made on the estate. He told me I was probably too young to step into the old earl’s boots, but he would try to help me stay on the proper course. He even provided me with hours he would be available to me.”