He nodded. “I see. And is your mother improving?”
She shrugged. “We were forced to argue with Dr. Dunbar for twenty minutes before the poor woman could even start helping, but she is diligently applying poultices and administering herbs as we speak. After several hours in her care, my mother’s color seems to have improved a little.”
“I’m glad,” he said with genuine relief. “Thank you for coming to tell me.”
She folded her arms. “Such formality, Jude. Is that where we’ve come to?”
“Audrey—my lady—you should go back up to your family,” he said, turning away from her so he wouldn’t have to see the hurt in her expression anymore.
“No,” she said firmly. “I told them I was going to take a walk in the garden while we waited for the medicines to take effect, and you and I are going to do just that.”
“My lady, that is not—”
She arched a brow. “Are we pretending now that you are nothing more to this family, to me, than a mere servant?”
“It is how we all should behave.” He tried not to make eye contact.
She snorted her derision. “Then I order you to accompany me to the garden where we can speak freely without worries when it comes to interruption.”
He stared at her. On one hand, he was forever impressed by her tenacity. And drawn in by her strength. But on the other, it broke him to think of going to the garden with her. Of being alone with her. With having to tell her their affair was well and truly over and watch her fall apart.
“Fine,” he said through clenched teeth. “If you say we must go to the garden, what choice do I have but to obey?”
“None, apparently,” she said as she spun on her heel and led him from the room. “You seem to have abandoned free will and any relationship we might have had for the last seven years.”
He said nothing, but merely followed her out of the house and down the route that led to the garden. The moonlight was bright enough to illuminate their path, as well as bounce off Audrey’s fair skin to make her look as if she was made of fine porcelain.
It took every ounce of strength in his body not to grasp her arm, not to lower her to the soft grass and take her until she moaned and screamed and gave everything about herself to him forever.
The path split at some point and Audrey turned right, heading up a small hill toward a gazebo that had stood there for years. As she stepped into the structure, she spun to face him.
“What is wrong with you?”
He blinked at her very direct question. “Wrong with me?”
“Oh, don’t play with me, Jude Samson.” She threw up her hands in exasperation before she paced a few feet away from him. “When we got here, when we entered into our agreement you were nothing but attentive. Gentle. When my mother fell ill, you stood by my side as a friend, more than a friend. But since my family’s arrival, you have pulled away from me like I am poison. So what is wrong with you?”
He dragged his fingers over his face. “Audrey, we never should have begun this affair.” She pivoted to face him once more and he held up a hand. “You know it’s true as much as I do. Not only are you compromised, which could make it very difficult for you in the future, but it was not my place. I couldn’t resist—I suppose I wouldn’t resist. And for that I’m so very sorry.”
“That is bollocks!” she cried, rushing toward him. Both the sudden movement and the curse surprised him into silence. She took full advantage. “It was a mutual decision to come together as we did. A mutual decision, which I made with full knowledge of any difficulties that might accompany my marrying someone and not being a virgin. Trust that I will not be the first, nor the last to deceive a bridegroom with that fact. No one will ever know, so don’t pretend that—”
“Your maid knows,” he interrupted softly. “She confronted me before supper today.”
She blanched, and he saw her horror at that fact. It stung him more than it should to see evidence that he was little more than a wicked, dirty secret to her.
“Ursula?” she whispered, her voice barely carrying. Then she shook her head. “She would never say a word to anyone. She is loyal.”
He nodded. “I believe that is true, but if she knows that means other people could know, as well. Or find out. No matter how careful we are, households have a way to uncovering secrets. Now that your family is here, watching us so closely, what other choice do I have than to…” He forced the words from his lips. “…than to walk away from you?”
She froze, unmoving, unblinking, and stared at him for what seemed like an eternity. Then she moved toward him in a few long steps.
“Why did you have my portrait?” she asked.
He flinched. He had honestly hoped she had forgotten about that fact with all the activity going on.
“That is a change of subject,” he said.
She shook her head. “I don’t think it is. And I’m owed the explanation you didn’t finish that night in your cottage. So tell me now, Jude, why did you have my portrait?”
He held her stare, her beautiful, chocolate-brown stare. How could he tell her he was a liar? A liar when it came to her, a bigger liar when it came to Claire’s disappearance. A liar in every sense.
Perhaps he could do it by finally telling one of the many truths he had hidden. Maybe that would be enough to put her off at last.
“First, the how,” he said softly. “I want to give you a better sense of the how.”
Her eyes went wide. “All right.”
“It happened six years ago. I was in your mother’s home. Edward and I were meeting there to discuss some estate business with her. Some matters about the family homes and distribution of the unentailed wealth. I had forgotten papers in my carriage and came out to have it called for. As I stood in the foyer, I saw that the little case in the front hallway that contained all the miniatures of your family was open. The maid was cleaning it. On the top, she had set them in order, and there was yours.”
She caught her breath, and he couldn’t help but smile at her.
“You had come out recently and the portrait was so lovely. The artist truly captured your light, your spirit, with his brush. The girl had stepped away from her work a moment and I picked it up to look at it. In that moment, I knew I had to have it.”
“Why?” she whispered.
“Because I knew that you would find a husband far too soon. And then I would not be able to look at you anymore. Not be able to call you friend, because any man who loved you would recognize a rival, a man who wanted you. I took the portrait and shoved it in my pocket. And there it has stayed, from one coat to another, one place to another, ever since.” He dug into the inside of his coat and withdrew it, turning the portrait toward her. “Even now.”
Her bottom lip trembled as she stared first at her own face in paint and then up to his very real one. The real one he feared showed her everything.
“I don’t understand.” She shook her head.
“Yes, you do.” He put the portrait of her back in his pocket, refusing to offer it back to her. Soon it would be all he had. “You do because you are no fool. But if you need me to say it, I will. Audrey, I am in love with you.”
She caught her breath in a great, gasping burst. Her eyes were wide and wild, her hands shaking at her side. He had no idea if those reactions were ones of simple shock, disgust or joy. He didn’t even know what he hoped for in that moment.
All he knew was that he had finally said those words, those words that had burned in him for so many years that he almost couldn’t remember a time when he hadn’t felt them. When they hadn’t haunted him both night and day. When they hadn’t made his heart ache every time this glorious woman entered or exited a room.
“You—you love me,” she repeated.
He nodded once. “I do. I think I always have, probably from that first time I came to this very house. This is my favorite place in the world because it’s where I found you. Even more so now since I stole so many moments with yo
u here. And I’ll keep them with me, Audrey, even as you move on. Even as you meet your husband and marry and have children—”
“Stop,” she whispered, her voice broken.
“But I—”
“Stop!” she repeated, this time stronger. She held his gaze with hers and slowly closed the final gap between them. She didn’t touch him, but merely stared up into his eyes, speaking volumes with her expression even before she said, “Damn it, Jude, don’t you know that I am in love with you too?”
His heart soared for a beautiful moment as he looked into her eyes and realized that what he had been seeing there all this time was a reflection of the love he, himself, felt. But then it crashed down around him.
They couldn’t be together. Because of his position in life, but more because of the lies she didn’t even know he’d told. The betrayals he had committed against her family.
He took a step back. “I wish you hadn’t said that.”
Her face, which had been filled with such joy and hope, crumpled at those words. “Why? If we both love each other, why isn’t that a good thing?”
“Because it can’t be,” he said, continuing to back away from her, as if distance could make these feelings fade when he knew it wouldn’t. He had been trying that for years and failing miserably.
“Why?” she repeated, her voice stronger. Her eyes didn’t well up with tears, she didn’t tremble. She simply faced off with him with all the strength and grace that was her.
He opened his mouth and shut it. In that fleeting moment, he wanted to tell her everything he had ever withheld. But he didn’t. His cowardice held him back, unwilling to watch her eyes turn from ones of love to hate.
“We just can’t,” he said.
She let out a huff of breath and pursued him across the gazebo. He retreated until his backside hit the low wall and she moved in closer. Close enough that he could smell the sweet honeysuckle of her skin. He could feel her heat. He knew she did those things on purpose because she recognized his weakness as well as his feelings.
“You are unfair,” she whispered, reaching up to caress his cheek. “You tell me you love me, but you can’t be with me. You dismiss all that is between us that is worth saving, worth cultivating, worth everything. But you won’t even give me a good reason why.”
“Audrey, I—”
Before he could finish, say whatever words he didn’t even know, a sound behind them interrupted them. The clearing of a throat. Audrey stepped away and both of them looked toward the sound.
It was Edward, standing at the edge of the gazebo, staring at them. His hands were behind his back, but Jude could see from his tense posture, his drawn face, that he was not pleased by what he saw before him. And why would he be? His sister leaned in to a friend, yes, but also a servant. And the intimacy between them was likely not to be denied.
“I was looking for you, Audrey,” Edward said, his voice as strained as his expression. “I have news regarding Mama.”
Audrey broke away from Jude with a cry and staggered toward her brother. “News?”
He nodded, though his eyes continued to stray to Jude. “It appears the hours with Miss Grey and the medicines she has been applying have helped. Her fever has broken, at least for now. She is asking for you.”
Audrey gasped, the broken sound of joy hitting Jude like a shot to the chest. “Oh God, I must go to her, I must—” She sent a look over her shoulder at Jude, her eyes wide. “I must,” she repeated.
He nodded. “Of course. Go, go!”
She gathered up her skirt and began to run through the garden back up the path. As she did so, Edward turned his attention back to Jude. He said nothing for a long time and Jude did the same, leaving the two men to simply stare at each other in awkward, heavy silence.
Finally, Edward sighed. “I must return to my mother and family,” he said. “But tomorrow morning, we will have a meeting, Samson. The new parlor, I think. At ten. It seems we have a great deal to discuss.”
Jude nodded slightly. “Of course. I will be there.”
Edward looked at him a second or two more, then turned and left him, walking up the path and shaking his head as he went. Jude leaned on the gazebo railing with both hands as the strength bled from his body.
He had been friends with Edward since he was ten years old. Over two decades of closeness, and it was possible he had just thrown it all away in a moment of weakness with his friend’s sister.
Worse yet, he feared he had done exactly what he’d set out to do and lost the sister too. And without Audrey, without all the Woodleys, without his life here, he feared he had at last lost it all.
Audrey burst into her mother’s chamber, her breath short and her face hot from the exertion of running here. She found Evan and Gabriel seated on either side of her bed, talking to her quietly while Mary stood by, smiling down at them. A very pretty young woman was standing at the table across the room, putting away vials and powders.
“Mama!” Audrey cried, and her mother’s gaze fell to her. The color was back in her cheeks and though her eyes were still dull with illness, she smiled weakly at her daughter.
“Audrey,” she said, her voice low and rough.
Her brothers moved and Audrey hurried toward her and gently embraced her mother. “Oh Mama, I’m so glad you are doing better.”
“Thank you, my darling,” she croaked, but she tilted her head slightly. “Are you well?”
Audrey glanced at her brothers and Mary, as well as the stranger in the room. She forced a smile even though her mother’s question brought her back to both Jude’s confession of his heart…and his assertion that they would never be together. Her heart hurt so deeply she felt as though she were being stabbed. And yet she had to pretend otherwise.
“I’m so very fine now that your fever has broken,” she assured her mother.
“Will you leave us?” Lady Woodley said softly.
Miss Gray looked at the family, then Audrey, and said, “Perhaps I could explain some of the instructions regarding Lady Woodley’s continued care to the family and the key staff.”
“A fine idea,” Gabriel said, holding out an arm to the healer.
The young woman jolted a bit as she stared at his offering, but then took it, and they all left the room together. Once they were gone, Audrey let out a shuddering breath.
“Oh Mama, I’m so very sorry I didn’t take your illness more seriously. Samson should have gone to get the doctor, but I was…I was distracted.”
She blushed as she thought what exactly had addled her mind so badly that she hadn’t paid enough heed to her mother’s plight. What a terrible daughter she was.
“Dearest, I told you both multiple times that I didn’t need a doctor,” Lady Woodley reassured her in slow, weak tones. “Honestly, I have never liked Dr. Dunbar much and I was avoiding him. I did not take enough care. It is not your fault.”
Audrey shook her head. “Thank God Mary thought of Miss Gray.”
“Indeed,” her mother agreed. “I much prefer her methods to the bleeding.”
Audrey looked at the dowager’s bandaged arms where she had been bled, and shuddered. “Oh, Mama.”
“That isn’t why I wanted to talk to you alone, though,” Lady Woodley said. “What is wrong, my love?”
Audrey faltered. Was her pain so clear on her face? She certainly felt it keenly. “I was simply worried about you,” she lied once more.
“I think it’s more than that. But you don’t feel you can say it?”
Audrey swallowed as she shook her head slowly.
Her mother reached out. “Perhaps later. For now—” She opened her arms and Audrey lay down on the bed beside her as gentle arms came around her. She fought the urge to weep, both with relief that her mother would live and devastation that Jude was determined to keep them apart.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Audrey smiled as Miss Gray leaned over her mother and handed her a cup of tea, to which she had added medicinal herbs.
&n
bsp; “This will taste like death, I’m afraid,” Miss Gray said with a light laugh. “But it will give you back some strength.”
“I’m ready for strength,” her mother said with a wobbling smile. But as she sipped the brew, her face twisted comically enough that both Audrey and Mary laughed despite themselves. “Oh my, it is like death.”
Miss Gray bowed her head apologetically. “I have tried everything to make it more palatable.”
“I will soldier through,” her mother assured the young woman weakly. “Thank you.”
Audrey smiled in relief at her mother. It was remarkable how changed she was in less than twelve hours. Her color, while still pale, was no longer so washed out and her eyes had some of the life back in them. Audrey could see she was still weak, though, but thus far her fever had not returned. It was enough to give her hope.
“I was saying to my mother last night how grateful we are that our Mary thought of you, Miss Gray,” Audrey said, reaching out to squeeze her sister-in-law’s hand.
The young lady smiled. “I am very glad to be of service to the dowager, I assure you. You are much loved in the shire, Lady Woodley. You may not recall him, but my father knew you when you were a girl.”
Lady Woodley blinked. “Wait, do you mean Jed Gray?”
The younger woman drew back in surprise. “You remember him? Oh, he will be greatly pleased.”
“He is still in the village?” Lady Woodley asked, and Audrey tilted her head. Were her mother’s eyes…dancing? Was that possible?
“How do you know the gentleman?” Audrey pressed gently, amazed at how much more life returned to her mother at this subject. That was reason enough to pursue it even if her curiosity wasn’t heightened.
“Well, as you know, I grew up in this very shire, which is why this house of your father’s always held such pleasure to me. Mr. Gray was the son of one of my own father’s foremen, so we saw each other often when I was a girl.” Lady Woodley turned her attention back to Miss Gray. “How is he? And I don’t know who your mother is, I’m sorry. We lost touch when…well, we lost touch.”
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