Secrets of Surrender

by Madeline Hunter

  Conway chewed his lip while he masticated his thoughts. “Madam, forgive me. I was unaware of your relationship to the marquess. However, Lord Norbury has insisted his father not be agitated by visitors.”

  “Agitated? Does your presence agitate him, my good man?”

  “Of course not. He knows me so well that—”

  “Then Mr. Bradwell’s presence will not, either. He knows my husband as well as he knows you. Better, I daresay. I will pay Easterbrook’s respects and leave them alone at once, so as to avoid any agitation. As for Lord Norbury, if he is not in residence he need never know of this visit unless you inform him, and need never waste his time judging whether we qualified as agitating visitors under the terms of his command.”

  She let her expression and pose show that she assumed she would be accommodated. Mr. Conway seemed relieved by the excuses her performance gave him.

  “Under the circumstances—yes, I will bring you to him. In the case of visitors like yourselves, the issue of agitation is negligible. Please follow me, Madam. Sir.”

  They paraded after Mr. Conway as he led the way to the grand staircase. Kyle took her arm and angled his head close to hers.

  “I had no idea that you carried a message from Easterbrook,” he muttered. “You should have told me.”

  “I am certain he would want me to give this fellow peer his greetings and express his hope that Cottington recovers.”

  “In Easterbrook’s closest circle, are we?”

  “It is not clear he has any circle besides his family. I do visit Henrietta. He does have great affection for Alexia. I do not think I was exactly untruthful.”

  “You were not exactly untruthful. And you were magnificent.”

  “You should receive some benefits from this marriage. My relations are the only dowry that I brought to you.”

  He squeezed her hand. “Your beneficial relations are the last things on my mind this morning.”

  The insinuation warmed her. Echoes of the night’s soul-shaking trembles spoke in their quiet, devastating ways. She focused on Mr. Conway’s back to maintain her bearings, but she noticed nothing else except the masculine mystery at her side. Images flashed, wonderful, shocking ones, of the various ways he had eased her into erotic intimacy.

  Her last few paces to the earl’s chamber proved unsteady. Suddenly Mr. Conway’s face appeared in her eyes.

  “Please wait here. I must announce you and ensure that he feels capable of the visit. If he does not, we must try again tomorrow.”

  Conway entered the chamber alone, but returned quickly. He opened the white paneled door and stood aside.

  The earl sat in a large, green-patterned chair next to a roaring fire. Blankets covered legs propped on a footrest. Age and illness had diminished any resemblance he might have to his son, except perhaps a similar vanity.

  The earl’s white hair had been perfectly groomed and his face cleanly shaven. Despite his infirmity his valet had turned him out in an expertly creased cravat and a colorful silk waistcoat. Rose expected that the parts hidden by the blanket were equally presentable on a day when this man had no expectations of leaving this chair.

  Eyes far more shrewd than Norbury’s examined them. A smile broke on his pallid face. It formed only on one side of his mouth. The rest remained flaccid, a victim of his apoplexies.

  “Well, come forward, Bradwell. Bring that wife of yours here so I can see her.” Illness had not affected the tone of command, even if it slurred the words’ pronunciations.

  Kyle guided Rose forward and made formal introductions. The earl eyed her from head to toe.

  “Conway there says that you have a message for me, Mrs. Bradwell. From Easterbrook.”

  “Indeed I do. The marquess sends his best wishes to you, and his fervent hope for your quick recovery.”

  “Does he now? I haven’t seen Easterbrook in some years. Not since shortly after he returned from that journey to God knows where, so odd and different. I have not visited London much. How generous of him to remember me and send this kind regard.”

  His tone was sardonic, and his eyes too knowing. She tried not to flush at the evidence that he had so easily seen through her ruse.

  “You can carry my message back to the marquess in turn, Mrs. Bradwell. Will you do that for an old, dying man?”

  “Certainly, sir.”

  “Tell him that he shirks his duties most shamefully. Tell him I said it is time he got out in the world and stopped indulging his bent for eccentricity. Tell him he must marry and sire an heir, and take his place in the government. That family has too much intelligence to waste it, and his life is not his own to live as he likes and that is the damned truth of it.”

  “I will communicate your sentiments, I promise.”

  “Sentiments, hell. Word for word, that is how you will do it, not prettied up the way women speak.” A strangled chuckle snuck out. “Wait until I’m dead, though. If he is angry he can take it out on my son, not me.”

  “If I am to wait until you are gone, I am sure it will be a long while before I must take up this duty. If you will excuse me now, I will leave my husband to speak with you alone.”

  Cottington watched Rose leave the chamber. Then he gestured to his secretary. “Go now. If you are needed, Mr. Bradwell here will come for you.”

  As soon as Conway left, the earl gave another order. “There’s brandy in that cupboard over there. Pour me some, Kyle, and for yourself too, if you want. They won’t let me have any. I’m supposed to face death stone sober, to their way of thinking.”

  Kyle found the brandy and glasses and poured them each a finger. The earl sipped his like it was nectar. “Hell of a thing, to be treated like a child. It is better now than a fortnight ago. For a week I needed servants to deal with even matters of the most basic hygiene.”

  “It sounds as if you are recovering, then.”

  “I’ll be dead by summer, if not long before. I don’t need a physician to tell me. I can feel it. It is strange, how one just knows.” He set down the glass and used a handkerchief to wipe the spirits that had leaked out the bad side of his mouth. “She is beautiful, your wife. Pretty enough to make the rest not matter so much, I suppose. Her brother and whatnot.”

  “As for the whatnot, thank you for the wedding gift.”

  The earl chortled. “My son will be furious about that. Better if you had not been in the middle this time. Bad luck that. Better if it had not been you who two times now forced him to face his dishonorable behavior.”

  Despite the laugh, a deep sorrow showed in the earl’s eyes. He blinked it away. Norbury was only one more disappointment in a life that, like all lives, probably held many.

  “So, you came all the way up here to say good-bye, did you? I am glad that you did.”

  “That is why I came, but I find that I also bear a petition, one I did not know I would hold until I arrived in Teeslow.”

  “There is nought that I can do for anyone much anymore.”

  Kyle told him about the mine. The earl listened with a sober expression.

  “It was a rich deposit there,” he said. “They wanted to go back in a few years ago but I told them no. I had already sold most of it to the others, but my voice still carried. Being an earl is useful sometimes. My son will not stop it like I did. I will write anyway, and use my influence, but once I die…”

  Once he died the hunger for profit would win in a weighing where men’s lives were cheaply valued.

  “Even if it is delayed some months, it may give everyone time to calm,” Kyle said. “Tempers are high among the colliers. One strong voice, one leader, and there will be trouble.”

  The earl sighed and closed his eyes. His lids remained down so long that it appeared he had drifted to sleep. Kyle had just decided to slip away when the earl spoke again.

  “We’ll not see each other again, Mr. Bradwell. If you have any questions to ask, now is the time for them.” The eyes opened and pierced in his direction. “You do have question
s, don’t you?”

  Kyle had several questions. The most recent one could not be asked, however. No matter that it sat in a corner of his mind. He could not ask this dying man if his only son had been even more dishonorable as a boy than as a man.

  “I do have a question.”

  “Out with it then.”

  “Why?”

  “Why? Why what?”

  “All of it. Why?”

  “Ah. That why.” The earl thought it over. “Part impulse. Part instinct.” That smile, half-formed. “For one thing, I knew that if you stayed in Teeslow, the colliers would have their one voice and one leader in a few years, after you reached manhood.”

  Kyle studied him, wondering if he was serious. In all the years they had exchanged generosity and gratitude, it had never entered his mind that the earl had ulterior motives. That was mostly because he could not conceive of any way the largesse could ever benefit an earl.

  “Hell, it wasn’t just that. You were wasted there. I saw it at once. Saw it in your eyes and determination. You came here that day, all polished and cleaned up, and I saw the man you would be. I’d heard about you before, see. I’d been told about this child who said we should bore down to that tunnel when it caved.”

  “It would have worked.”

  “Damned if I believe if it would or not. That a child had thought of it and dared to propose it—you were presented to me that day after you thrashed my son, and the memory of the manager laughing about that child’s boldness entered my head from God knows where. I knew that child had been you. Just knew it, but I checked anyway.”

  He wiped his mouth of the drool that formed with talking. “Then, that business with my son. There you were again, daring what most grown men would not. So, in part I did it so you would not be wasted. And in part so you would not grow into a man who might lead them.” He paused. “And, I admit, in part to punish my son by favoring the boy who had beat him. Not that it helped much. As you know better than most, his disgraceful behavior toward women continues to this day.”

  So there it was. Most of it Kyle had already known. The generosity had not been entirely charitable in its motivations, but then few human acts or decisions ever were.

  The earl’s whole face sagged. The damage appeared to invade the good side from the bad.

  “You are tired and should rest. I will go now. Thank you for agreeing to see me.”

  Before Kyle could walk away, the earl stretched one hand in his direction. Kyle took it in his own, feeling for the first time the grasp of this man as a friend.

  “You are none the worse for it, no matter the why,” the earl said, his speech slurring badly. “Although I expect there are times when you wish I’d not interfered.”

  “In the tally of gains and losses, I come out far ahead. Whatever your reasons, I am grateful. I will never forget you. Nor will my children, or their children in turn.”

  The grasp tightened. The old man’s eyes filmed. His lids closed. His hand fell away, then rose in a sovereign’s gesture of blessing and farewell.

  Kyle appeared sober when he emerged from Cottington’s chamber. Rose left him to his thoughts while they walked down the staircase and out into the cold.

  He did not enter the carriage at once, but instead walked around it and gazed out over the pond. She followed and waited. He was saying good-bye to more than a man today. An entire period of his life would end with Cottington’s death.

  “Have you been here often?” she asked.

  “Not often. When I went away to school, however, he would send for me when I returned between terms. The first time, his messenger found half the town following him to my uncle’s cottage to see what was happening.”

  “He received you regularly then.”

  “Yes. Perhaps it was part of the lessons.”

  “More likely he wanted to hear of your progress. You also brought him news of Durham, then Paris and London. I daresay your conversation was more interesting than most that he heard in this county.”

  “Perhaps.” He let the carriage wait while he began strolling along the drive.

  She fell into step. “Did you speak to him about the mine?”

  He nodded. “He will do what he can, but at best it will be delayed. That may give them time to ensure it is more safe. There are ways to do that.”

  He did not sound optimistic that those ways would be employed.

  “You have done all that you can, I suppose.”

  “Have I?”

  They turned and aimed back to the carriage. “You are quiet, Kyle. Was it not a good meeting? Were you not free to speak as you wanted?”

  “It was a very good meeting. He invited questions, and answered all that I could in good conscience ask of him.”

  “Were there some you could not ask?”

  “Only one. I had planned to ask it, because I think he may be the only person who would answer honestly. However, seeing him—the topic would only bring him sorrow, and the answer only satisfy my curiosity.”

  “If only one question remains between you, it was a very good meeting. I do not think there are many people who know another with whom they have only one unanswered question.”

  He looked down at her. Suddenly they were not speaking of Cottington, but of each other.

  “He is a dying man, Rose. There is nothing left to lose in answering the questions. No consequences to the future and no loss of pride. Either to the person who asks the question, or the one who answers it.”

  They reached the carriage. His self-absorption waned once they began their journey back to Teeslow.

  “You appear thoughtful too, Rose. Do you contemplate a question of your own?”

  “I have many, but that is not the cause of any frown you may see. I am wondering whether I am going to survive the meeting with Easterbrook when I give him Cottington’s scold.”

  The carriage was almost out of Teeslow before Kyle noticed the silence. He had been so lost in his thoughts that the unnatural quiet did not penetrate his awareness at first.

  He called for the carriage to stop. He looked out the window.

  Rose did too. “What is it? All appears calm to me.”

  “Too calm. The lane should be busier this time of day. Women should be about.”

  He cocked his ear and listened. He eyed the roofs of buildings and cottages. Where could they all be? At the mine? It was too soon for such an action. That left the tavern or the church.

  He opened the door and stepped out. Rose gathered her skirt and held out her hand.

  “No, Rose. The carriage will take you back to Pru. I will return shortly.”

  “Do you anticipate trouble? Danger?”

  “No, but I—”

  “If there is no danger, you have no reason to send me back. I am curious about this village. If you are going to visit, I am going to accompany you.”

  He braced his arm against the carriage jamb, blocking her descent. “You are curious about a lot of things lately.”

  “It is a woman’s nature. Nor have I found that satisfying my curiosity is unpleasant.”

  She alluded to last night. Which made him hard. Memories filled his head, of her begging cries and shy but sure touch, of her back dipping and her bottom rising. Of her legs wrapping him while her tight warmth absorbed him and they rocked together in an embrace with bodies and gazes locked.

  The thoughts made him want to kiss her and take her right here on the lane. They made him forget all the reasons she should go back.

  With one bold look she turned him into an idiot.

  “Do you think to command me to go back, Kyle? If so I should inform you that any husband has a limited number of commands per marriage, and it is foolish to waste them on insignificant matters.”

  So much for his sweet, pliable wife. Last night had changed more than the heat and intensity of their passion. The subtle formality that had imbued this marriage was eroding fast.

  Her eyes held an explicit challenge.

  “You m
ay come, Rose, but only if you leave at once if I say so. I do not expect trouble, but I could be wrong. It would be better if you just returned—”

  Her lids lowered.

  Hell.

  He told the coachman where to wait. He handed Rose down.

  The village had gathered in the church. He could hear the voices as he and Rose approached the old stone structure with its single tower over the front portal. It had been part of a priory centuries ago, on land given over to a long-ago ancestor of Cottington. Before coal was found nearby, Teeslow had been a simple farming village.

  “Shouldn’t the men be in the mine now?” Rose asked.

  “The men, and the older children, and even some of the women.” He opened the ancient wooden door and the roar of an argument poured over them both.

  They slipped in and stood along the back wall of the nave. Few noticed their arrival. All attention centered on the men standing in front of the altar. Jon was there, his blond curls wild, trying to force his will on the gathering.

  That proved impossible. Voices crossed and interrupted. Emotions ran high and tones rang sharply. Cheers and jeers competed.

  “I cannot even understand what is being discussed,” Rose whispered.

  “They were ordered to start clearing away that rock from the cave-in today. The men walked out instead. Now they must decide what to do tomorrow.”

  “I thought that you said that it caved even more when that was tried the last time.”

  “The owners sent in an engineer who says that will not happen this time.”

  Jon was making some headway gathering voices to his call to stay out. Not enough, though, which meant it would solve nothing.

  Kyle let the voices pour over him. He recognized most of them. He knew these men and had played in the lanes with some of them as a boy.

  His gaze swept the families and lit on a pale, pretty woman with red hair, holding two children by their hands. He had shared his first kiss with her when he was fourteen.

  A far prettier woman stood by his side. No one had noticed her yet, but they would soon. The carriage ensemble that had impressed Conway looked all the richer here, with its fur and expensive needlework. Her bonnet contrasted with the kerchiefs worn by the other women. All of the light in the old, dim building seemed to seek her, making her blond beauty radiant.