“I will do as you ask,” she said dully. “I’ll tell Lady Hatbrook that being away from Noel makes me too nervous tonight.”
Gawain didn’t speak again as she left the room.
The next morning, Gawain ignored the tea a maid brought and went immediately to the writing table when her opening of the curtains woke him. He penned a note to Ann, instructing her to pack and be ready to depart early that afternoon. His family had welcomed her but he didn’t want them forming any more ties, not when he was so uncertain of the wisdom of their involvement.
How could he, with his ambition, drive and accomplishments, have married someone so unsuitable? He felt as if he thought he was marrying a virgin and was deceived into taking a camp follower. How could he have thought her a chaste widow when she had jumped into bed with him so readily? It was not as if he, with his scars, was irresistible. Far from it.
The morning light stabbed at his bad eye. He folded up the note and replaced his patch before reaching for the bell pull so his instructions could be taken to the nursery.
He debated the wisdom of allowing a footman to travel with Ann, Noel, Fern and Jenna, but decided it was safer to escort them himself. But he’d have to be available to ensure that Bliven appeared at the London docks for the next India-bound ship.
The confrontation yesterday had been ugly. Matilda had refused to see Bliven, so Gawain and his father had attempted to take emotion out of the situation and make the man see reason. Gawain couldn’t tell if repeated fevers had addled the man’s wits or if he was simply desperate for a family now that his health had been ruined. Either way, Matilda no longer wanted him and his father wasn’t about to force her, not when she was proving so useful in business matters.
Gawain could see Matilda didn’t have his business sense, or even Alys’s, but with a good set of advisors and their father’s input, the businesses would be safe enough. She was a reasonable figurehead. On the matter of Theodore Bliven, however, she could not be rational.
Any more than he could be in the matter of Ann. It had not been terribly rational to marry her. He saw that now. Her background was too exotic to be ignored. With her mother’s royal past, these gems and her husband’s murder, her life had elements of the sensational. Of course, people would gossip about her. At least her story was unknown in London. She’d been smart to leave Leeds. She could live quietly in Battersea. He would continue to focus most of his energies on his businesses and they would rub along well enough together. But he didn’t know how he could touch her again, and that meant no brothers or sisters for Noel, unless she was already increasing.
How could she expect him to believe she’d loved the first man, when she hadn’t loved him, her supposed third?
Late that morning, their belongings were piled into the coach for their return to the station. Ann’s expression was pinched, as if she had the same headache he did. The train ride back to London was dreadful. Wind rocked the train carriage, and Noel cried every time in piercing wails that made the other passengers in the compartment give them dirty looks.
Back in London, they were soaked to the bone while waiting in a queue for a hansom. By the time they arrived back at their front door, Gawain wondered if Noel had caught a cold.
“Let’s get Noel up to the nursery and get him undressed,” Ann said to Fern and Jenna, who huddled around her, ignoring Gawain as soon as he unlocked the front door and instructed Chase to have the luggage retrieved.
“Is there any luggage you need immediately?” he asked.
Ann looked at him. “No, we have everything we need.”
“Do you want me to carry Noel upstairs for you?” A foolish question as she was more able-bodied than he.
“We’ll be fine. Go warm yourself in your study. I’m sure you have business to attend to.” Ann spoke like a queen, then swept up the stairs, her handmaidens following behind her.
When Gawain arrived in the library, where a fire was just being lit, he reflected that the greatest hurt was that Fern wouldn’t even look at him, when they had formed a certain rapport.
No, that was not the greatest hurt at all, and silly of him to think that. When the tweeny was done with the fire, he asked her to send to the kitchen for hot coffee and sandwiches, and to send someone to the nursery for instructions there. He sat stiffly in the chair closest to the fireplace and contemplated his soaked shoes and pants. What he needed now was warmed sheets and a willing woman.
And he might have had it, if he hadn’t learned about Ann’s past. Damn Bowler Martin for telling him. Then again, how had he thought he could investigate a murder without uncovering uncomfortable truths about his wife and the Haldenes?
Chapter Fourteen
On Saturday, Gawain woke in a bed that had been empty of his wife for three nights now. He had banished her at Redcake Manor, and it was no surprise that she hadn’t reappeared in their rooms for the two nights they’d been home in Battersea.
The maid came in. After she pulled back the curtains she put his tray by the bedside. His appointment diary was on his writing table, and he took the tray to the table so he could open it to double-check when he was supposed to meet Bliven and his father at the train, and then escort Bliven to the docks.
His eye caught the notation for evening plans. He swore when he realized he and Ann were meant to go to Lord Judah’s home this evening for dinner with his friend and his wife. This was not a time to socialize. Should he cancel? Did he really want the cracks in his marriage showing? He couldn’t explain why ice existed between them. But social niceties should hide their problems. Ann would converse with Magdalene, Lady Judah, and he would talk to his friend. They could play cards, something that would take all their attention. It might help his anger defrost. Magdalene had been a relatively unsuitable bride for Lord Judah. Though she was an earl’s niece, her scandalous family had not endeared her to her prospective in-laws. Maybe Lord Judah could give him advice as to how to deal with the situation he found himself in now.
But unlike his, Lord Judah’s marriage was a happy one. Gawain’s problems had started before the wedding, not after.
He glanced at his schedule again and noted that one of his secretaries was supposed to be here in an hour with a couple of lascars, Indian sailors who’d somehow lost their passage back to India. Gawain would pay one or more of them to go along with Bliven as servants, since he was still unclear as to how ill the man actually was. He didn’t wish to send Bliven to his death, yet he needed the man to be as far away from Matilda and Jacob as possible.
This was one of those mornings when Gawain wished his coffee had a good dollop of whiskey in it. He drank it down and rang the bell to order his bath.
His plate of eggs, tomato and sausage was still half full when Chase came in to announce his secretary. Ann had not made an appearance in the dining room.
“Would you make Mrs. Redcake aware of our engagement at Lord Judah’s this evening?” he said to Chase. “I should return early enough to travel with her.”
“Yes, sir. The men are in the study.”
Gawain snatched one last bite of sausage, then wiped his mouth and set down his napkin. “We need to leave in about twenty minutes for the West India Docks. Order a carriage?”
Chase nodded. Gawain followed him out of the room and into the parlor, where one of his reliable hands, Frederick Skill, a former soldier who spoke three Indian tongues, waited with a trio of skinny brown men dressed in little more than rags.
Skill stood when Gawain entered. “I know you said two, but each of them speaks a different set of languages and I thought that might be useful.”
“Any in common?”
“They all have a smattering of English and are competent in Hindustani.”
Gawain used that language as he inquired of each of them as to how they had found themselves stranded in London. He heard tales of incompetent or bankrupt shippers, and one marriage to a white woman that had caused the third man to jump ship during a long wait in London between voya
ges.
“What happened to your wife?” he asked.
Dead of tuberculosis before the year was out. Their son died soon after.
Gawain nodded. “Skill, take all three down to the docks and make arrangements. I’ll expect them to be waiting for Mr. Bliven when he boards this afternoon.”
“Yes, Mr. Redcake.”
The men offered cheery smiles as they realized they were finally going home. At least Matilda’s misfortune had made someone happy.
Gawain went back to finish his breakfast, knowing it would be a long day.
After a trip to the docks, watching the ship with his father and some employees to make sure Bliven stayed aboard until it left its berth, then an inventory review at his warehouse, he returned home to dress for dinner. He then went to the nursery, where, not surprisingly, he found Ann rocking Noel in the company of Fern and Jenna.
“Are you ready to leave?”
She looked up at him, unsmiling, then handed the sleepy baby to Fern before following him out the door.
“You should have given Noel to Jenna. She’s the nursemaid, not Fern.”
“I cannot do anything right in your eyes, can I?” Ann observed in a low voice.
Gawain grasped the handrail as he walked down the stairs. Going down was hardest on his hip, and after standing all day he was not at his best. He hoped Lord Judah had his best port available.
“You need a treatment,” Ann said.
“We don’t have time. The carriage should be waiting.” He glanced at her low-cut dinner dress and tried to ignore a wave of lust. “Dress warmly now, it’s a cold night.”
She left the staircase for the rooms, while he continued down, wincing at each down step. When they were in the hired carriage, Gawain put his cane on the floor and leaned back.
Ann narrowed her eyes. “You are obviously in pain. Are you certain we should not cancel?”
“I will be fine,” he rasped.
She clutched her coat lapels around her throat. “Your pain has put you into a gruff mood.”
“It is not only the pain.”
“Did you have difficulties with Mr. Bliven?”
“Not especially. Matilda stated her position quite succinctly.”
“She wasn’t willing to give him the chance to prove himself?”
“He wreaked havoc on her life. She expected marriage and ended up ruined with a bastard child. Why would she give him another chance? He has only returned because he’s lost his chance for a title, lost another wealthy woman he thought he would marry.”
“She must have loved him once. He might flower in a stable household.”
“He might spend the Redcake money and destroy the Redcake businesses. Hatbrook wouldn’t let him marry Beth when he offered for her before she debuted.”
“He wouldn’t let you marry her either,” Ann observed.
“Well there you go. We are both of us a bad bargain.” He thumped his cane and wished for Antifebrin.
“I gave you a second chance.”
“I am hardly a Bliven.”
“You had money to smooth your business path.”
“He had a first-rate education and friends to smooth his way,” he snarled. “Do you have any idea of what I come from? I worked in factories from the age of nine. Was in the army from the age of seventeen. No proper education, just apprentice work at Redcake’s, learning accounting.”
“My point is that a woman’s heart must be forgiving.”
“A forgiving heart can lead a woman to ruin.” What is this rot that his wife was speaking? Could she truly not see the difference between him and Bliven?
Ann played with the buttons on her coat.
“Is it too tight?” he asked, observing it was a bit shabby.
“I had it before Noel.”
“We need to get a new wardrobe ordered for you. Your dress is all but indecent and the coat is a disgrace.”
“I know.” She bent her head. “But I’ve been busy with the move.”
“Make your clothing your next priority,” he ordered.
He caught her irritated look as the lantern swung above her head, and said, “A forgiving heart but not a placid mind.”
“What do you mean?”
“You do not like to be told what to do. You prefer to give the orders. Perhaps in marrying me you thought to put me under your thumb. I assure you, madam, that the opposite is true.”
“I do not think your family gave Mr. Bliven a chance when he returned. All you wanted to do was ship him back to get more herbs, when what he needed was a soft bed and time to recover his health.”
He wanted to roar at her, yet this was the woman who had done the opposite of Matilda and had taken her lover to wed. Could she be right? “Do you think we sent him to his death?”
“Not everyone thrives in the Indian climate.”
“I sent him with three lascars to tend him.”
She made a noise in the back of her throat. “Did any of them have medical knowledge?”
He didn’t know the answer to that. “You think I should have applied to you for counsel.”
“You know I have the skills to examine him. I could have prepared medicine for him. It might have helped.”
“You have other duties. And he came directly from Polegate from my father to the ship. There was no time for an examination.”
She stared at the lantern in the corner. “Of course there was. He didn’t need to take a ship today. There is always another ship.”
Gawain admired her profile like some besotted husband. “There is no point to continuing this line of discussion. He is gone and his fate will not be determined by you.”
“Now what?”
“We will continue to settle into the new house. The weather will improve soon. I’m certain the coming of spring will lighten everyone’s mood.”
“And you’ll focus on your business, not Wells’s murder from now on? Not Lady Elizabeth’s disappearance?”
“I have never had much spare time for either, as you well know. Do you want me to pursue the murder? Dig up this old lover of yours and speak to him?”
She turned back to him, and he could see the outrage in the way the skin around her eyes tightened. “Of course not. He had nothing to do with it.”
“How do you know?”
“He never knew about the gems for one thing. Certainly he’d have had no interest in me marrying a man who was buying an inn.”
“What was his name? Is he from a Leeds family?”
“No, we didn’t live there until we inherited the inn. Truly, there is no connection.”
He wanted to believe her. “I see. As to Lady Elizabeth, that is out of my hands. When I married you, it was understood in the family.”
“Lord Judah is her brother. Won’t you be discussing her tonight?”
“Not in your hearing, certainly. Tonight the plan is for you and Lady Judah to become acquainted. You both worked in the Fancy.”
“Her brother is the one who ran off with Lady Elizabeth,” she observed.
“That is in dispute. If you don’t mention the situation, I am certain she will not either. Talk about Redcake’s, or Noel or fashion. She adores fashion.”
She dismissed him with a wave of her glove. “I’ve never had any interest in it.”
“Now you can indulge yourself. She has two nephews she’s very fond of, off at school now. You can talk about raising boy children.”
“I feel like it is a mistake to have an engagement tonight, when you and I are at such odds.” She set her hand on his leg and caressed him.
He moved his leg away. Temptress. “Lord Judah is my good friend. You need to know these people.”
“With a wife like me you still plan to move in circles with aristocrats?”
He thumped his cane again. He was turning into his late Grandfather Noble. “Why not? You are a maharajah’s legal granddaughter after all. Your father was a gentleman. You have nothing to be ashamed of.”
“Other
than my actions, my profession and my skin color.” She gave him a cold smirk.
He growled. “If you hold your head high and ignore what is said in whispers, no one can upset you. Do you think everyone is perfect?”
“You expect me to be.”
He had never heard snappishness in her tone before. Well, he supposed he deserved it. How could he be surprised that the woman who had bedded him in her inn would have not fallen into bed with someone she loved and wanted to marry? Especially at eighteen. Matilda had done it at twenty-one. She was a lusty woman and he had to accept that.
“I do not expect perfection, but I do not manage well with unpleasant surprises. I have a great deal on my mind.”
“I am sorry you had to hear about my past from a friend. I should have laid out all my faults to you. If I think of any others I will be sure to tell you immediately.”
He laughed. “Thank you.” When she put her hand on his thigh again, he didn’t move away.
The carriage pulled onto the genteel street where Lord Judah had purchased a large row house for his bride. It was a far cry from the modest bachelor establishment he had rented when first returning from India, but his gem import investment had paid off handsomely. He worked as well, managing Redcake’s. Gawain knew he wanted to buy the establishment but his sister had refused to sell it. She’d always had an attachment to the place that he did not. At least Ann hadn’t fallen in love with Redcake’s the way Judah’s wife had. She still worked there on a limited basis. He was glad Ann had refused to return.
Lady Judah had refused to hire a butler, but they did have an adequate complement of staff. A parlor maid opened the front door and helped them with their coats before leading them into a stylish room with an oriental appeal.
“I see you’ve continued the tea theme, with all of these teapots,” Gawain observed.
“The toile on the walls has people drinking tea,” Lady Judah said, as she and her husband appeared in the doorway. His friend wore proper evening attire, but his lady’s gown was almost as low-cut as Ann’s.
His Wicked Smile Page 19