The Wicked Wife (Blackhaven Brides Book 9)

by Mary Lancaster

  Even in the dim light that was left, he could see the sparkle of unshed tears brimming in her eyes. For an instant, he was appalled to have made her cry. But she pressed her cheek to his arm.

  “I never thought you would say that to me,” she whispered. “And mean it.”

  “I could never have said it and not meant it.”

  “Neither could I. But then, I have only ever loved you.”

  Regardless of any watching eyes, he kissed her. She cooperated so charmingly that he was tempted to walk back into the woods. But they had left Jamie with Lawson, and it was dinner time.

  Paton himself opened the front door to them, a warning frown on his face that Torridon could not account for. He cast the butler a quizzical glance. And then, as they walked into the house, the next person he saw was his mother with Jamie in her arms.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Frances halted in sheer shock. Lady Torridon was the last person in the world she wanted to see. All the joy of her recent encounter with Alan and the new closeness between them was too new and wonderful to be subjected to her domineering mother-in-law quite so soon.

  Lady Torridon stood at the foot of the stairs, as though she had witnessed their approach from an upper window and had come down to be the first to greet them. Or at least berate them, for she didn’t look remotely pleased to see them. Her eyes flashed with fury across the entrance hall. Her lips were pinched in disapproval.

  “Mother,” Torridon said blankly. “What in the world are you doing here?”

  “Looking for you,” she snapped.

  And as if he felt her anger, Jamie began to cry, and Frances’s paralysis broke. She hurried across the hall, uttering a civil greeting to her mother-in-law, though her attention was all on Jamie.

  She reached for him, smiling. “What an ill-mannered, noisy boy you are. What will your grandmother think of you?”

  But Lady Torridon spun away, snatching the baby clear of her. “You should be more concerned what I think of you. You stole him away from his home, galivanting God knows where with that woman, and finally abandoned him with some stranger! Well, I have called for the magistrate to deal with her.”

  “Called for the…” With an effort, Frances bit back her outrage. “Lawson is not a stranger and is perfectly capable of looking after Jamie for half an hour,” she said, trying to remain calm although her hackles had risen. More than that, an instinctive panic rose fast, along with the need to see to her crying child. “Give him to me, please. He is hungry.”

  “I have brought a suitable wet nurse with me to care for such needs,” Lady Torridon said contemptuously. “You will never again have the care of the future Earl of Torridon.”

  All Frances’s training as a lady fought with her instincts, which told her to slap the countess and snatch back her son. She would not have such malevolence near him. But neither would she frighten Jamie with such violence or a physical tug of war that could end in hurting him.

  So, as calmly as she could, she said, “Lady Torridon, you will please pass my son to me. You have no reason and less right to behave like this. We can discuss your concerns later, once Jamie is fed and content.”

  She held out her arms, but again Lady Torridon held him away from her. “You,” she commanded, and Frances glanced at the footman being addressed.

  Harry, his expression appalled rather than wooden-faced as normal, bowed to the countess, though hostility radiated from every inch of him.

  “Fetch Meg Campbell to me,” Lady Torridon commanded.

  Harry looked deliberately at Frances, whom he had known most of his life and hers. “My lady?”

  “I’ve no idea who Meg Campbell is,” Frances said. “By all means bring her to Lady Torridon. Once she is relieved of the burden of my son.”

  “You are unfit!” Lady Torridon cried, no longer even troubling to lower her voice. Even Torridon, who was clearly being brought up to the moment by Paton with events at the castle, heard that, for his impetuous footsteps tore across the parquet floor behind Frances.

  “What’s more,” Lady Torridon hissed. “I have begun legal proceedings to have you…”

  “Mother,” Torridon’s voice thundered, causing both Frances and her mother-in-law to jump. Even Jamie stopped crying in surprise, although he began again almost immediately. “When you have handed my distressed son to his mother, be so good as to come upstairs.”

  “I have no intention—” Lady Torridon broke off.

  Frances didn’t blame her. She had never seen such a look of implacable fury on Alan’s face. It was akin to that with which he had accused Tom Marshall of threatening her and Jamie, and yet very different, too. For he had expected better of his mother.

  The dowager wanted to refuse. She had come ready and able for a fight, though not with her son. Clearly, she had never expected to be treated like one of his old, insubordinate soldiers. She swallowed audibly.

  Frances took Jamie from her reluctant arms and cuddled him close, sailing up the stairs in front of her mother-in-law, murmuring soothing, nonsense words of love. Jamie quieted slowly, clearly still upset.

  On the landing, she encountered Gervaise, who had no doubt been summoned by the servants to deal with the situation. “Is everything well?” he asked, taking in the scene at a glance.

  “It is now,” she assured him. “I’ll just take him into the small drawing room, if it is quiet, and feed him there. It is the quickest way to calm him.”

  “Of course… do you need Eleanor?”

  “No, though I shall always be glad of her company. Oh, Gervaise, could you look after Lawson, the maid who brought Jamie? Lady Torridon summoned Mr. Winslow—”

  “I, however, did not,” Braithwaite said flatly. “Mrs. Gaskell and Mark vouched for Lawson as someone of yours. And frankly, I could not see why some evil child stealer would bring the baby here to the castle! She’s eating dinner in the servants’ hall.”

  Frances smiled gratefully and hurried along the gallery to the smaller drawing room. She still trembled with anger, though she did her best to be calm for Jamie’s sake.

  Behind her, her husband said, “My apologies, Braithwaite. We seem to have brought a vulgar misunderstanding under your roof. It will be over directly.”

  “I look forward to seeing my sister after that.” It was Gervaise’s civil warning, which warmed France’s heart. Even though there was no need, for her husband was defending her.

  Throwing off her cloak, she took a comfortable armchair by the fire. Since Torridon had so impetuously torn the fastenings of her gown and chemise, it was easy to pull both garments downward and put Jamie to her breast.

  Torridon filled the open doorway. “May my mother and I join you, or would you rather wait until later to have this discussion?”

  “Now is acceptable, but if there are raised voices—”

  “There will be no raised voices,” Torridon assured her, standing aside for his mother to enter.

  Frances wondered if this was deliberate, if he wanted his mother to see her feeding her son, to show her that whatever story she had convinced herself of was utterly false. Frances wasn’t even sure it mattered. Lady Torridon wanted control and she didn’t like Frances. She never had.

  Alan closed the door and civilly conducted his mother to the chair on the other side of the fireplace to Frances. Lady Torridon, scandalized, looked away from the contentedly feeding baby.

  “You should do that in the privacy of your bedchamber,” she uttered.

  “Normally, I do,” Frances said evenly. “But we appear to have a crisis, and this is the nearest comfortable room.”

  “Anyone could come in.”

  “Nobody will, Mother,” Torridon said impatiently. “Allow us both some sense.”

  “Sense!” his mother exclaimed. “When she bolts without a word and vanishes without trace for days on end? And is next seen in the company of that Marshall woman who, I take leave to tell you, is—”

  “There is no need to tell us anyth
ing about Ariadne Marshall,” Torridon interrupted. “We already know a great deal more than you do.”

  “That may be. I suppose you flew after her to get your son back. Then let us take him and be gone. This… baggage is no longer welcome at Torridon.”

  Frances blinked. If this conversation had occurred even last night, it might have given her a moment of fright. As it was, she had always found the insult “baggage” to be exquisitely humorous. Her giggle broke the ominous silence.

  “You will apologize to my wife, Mother,” Torridon said coldly. “And let me make it plain, since your own manners clearly don’t, that you will never address her in such terms again. She is deserving of your respect, if not your love, and you will most certainly accord her the former.”

  “Respect is earned,” Lady Torridon snapped.

  “Oh, I think she has earned it by putting up with both of us with such grace for the last year. Don’t you?”

  Lady Torridon glanced up at him and was held in the cold fury of his stare. “She has ensnared you all over again with her pretty face and her insinuating ways. Can you not see she is unworthy—”

  “I see all too clearly,” he broke in. “And the unworthiness is not Frances’s. Mother, let me be plain. There can be no legal proceedings concerning my son without me. Therefore, there will be none, ever. The whole idea is ludicrous. I will not have this nonsense. Any of this nonsense. Do you understand me? I will not have it. Frances is my wife, the mother of my son, the Countess of Torridon, and you will not undermine her, with me or anyone else.”

  “Fine. Then I shall move back to Drummany and leave you to cope—”

  “You will most certainly do so and as quickly as possible,” Torridon interrupted the threat with insulting speed. “Whether or not you are invited to visit again will be entirely in the hands of my wife.”

  It was brutal. There had been many times, in Torridon, when Frances had dreamed of him dismissing his mother in just such terms. Now that he had, she knew suddenly that she could deal with her mother-in-law in her own home or anywhere else. She looked at Torridon and his lip quirked in understanding.

  “Mother,” he said, more gently. “Can you not see that between us, you and I made her so miserable that she had no choice but to bolt, as you put it? I have understood at last and apologized and I believe, if you think about it, you will, too. Frances, why don’t we go upstairs and change for dinner? Now that he is calmer, you can finish feeding his lordship there.”

  “I believe I won’t disturb him,” Frances said, determined not to leave her mother-in-law in possession of the field. “But you go up. I shouldn’t be long, now.”

  He glanced at her doubtfully, but when she nodded, he merely bowed with good grace and went out. There was silence in the room, apart from small baby noises.

  Lady Torridon said stiffly, “He may be fooled. But you and I understand each other.”

  Frances regarded her. “Actually, I don’t understand you and never have. I am willing to try but I will not tolerate hostility.”

  Lady Torridon goggled. “Tolerate?” she spluttered. “Hostility?”

  “Just so,” Frances said kindly. “Shall I ring for a glass of water?”

  “Thank you, I am quite well!”

  The door opened and Eleanor came in. There was nothing shy about the young countess now as she came to join them and sat on a stool by Frances’s knee. She kept the conversation lively and civil, and in the end, it was Lady Torridon who stood first to go.

  “Your brother is so lucky in his choice of bride,” she said to Frances by way of a parting shot. “Such a prettily-behaved young lady.”

  As the door closed behind her, Eleanor’s face broke into a mischievous grin. “If only she knew I was brought up by gypsies.”

  Frances laughed until she cried.

  *

  “Dueling?” Dr. Lampton said with undisguised contempt as he inspected Torridon’s wound. Mark had summoned him from Blackhaven on his return to the castle, and Torridon now sat on the bed with his bandage and the bloody dressing beside him.

  “No,” Torridon said mildly. “A difference of opinion with a highwayman.”

  Dr. Lampton glanced at him with raised brows. “And the highwayman’s condition?”

  “Chastened,” said Torridon. “And fleeing the country.”

  A flicker of amusement lit the doctor’s eyes for a moment before they returned to the wound. He reached for his bag. “I think it will heal by itself. This will help.” He took out a jar of muddy ointment and scooped some out on his finger.

  Torridon regarded it with disfavor. “You didn’t get that from a filthy old crone who lives in a cave, did you?”

  “No.” Dr. Lampton slathered it over the wound with surprising gentleness for such an apparently rough and sardonic individual. “From a pirate, actually. Don’t be a baby.”

  Stunned into amused silence by this disrespect, Torridon let him anoint and bandage his arm.

  “Do you need some laudanum for the pain?” Dr. Lampton asked.

  Torridon shook his head.

  “Change the dressing regularly,” Lampton instructed. “And keep the wound scrupulously clean. If you see any signs of corruption, if it becomes even slightly hot or puffy around the edges, send for me again.”

  “I will. Thank you.”

  Lampton grunted and tossed the jar back into his bag. The bedchamber door opened and Frances walked in with Jamie.

  “Ah, you must be Dr. Lampton,” she said in her friendly way, offering her one free hand. “I have heard much about you.”

  “And you must be Lady Frances. Lady Torridon,” he corrected himself, shaking her hand briefly. “I have heard much about you, too.” His sharp eyes scanned Frances’s face and dropped to Jamie. “You both look well,” he offered, nodded curtly and walked out.

  “Strange fellow,” Torridon remarked.

  “He’s certainly not overwhelmed by rank,” Frances said. “Apparently, he told Dax off for dueling. I suppose it was time somebody did. Serena told me he lost his wife and unborn child last year, so we must allow him a little shortness of temper. What did he say about your arm?”

  “That it would heal by itself. What did my mother say to you?”

  “That she wished I was Eleanor instead,” Frances said, her eyes laughing.

  Torridon pulled her down beside him and grinned back at his son. “You are very good-natured about her.”

  “I wasn’t,” Frances admitted. “But now that I am so happy, I find I can tolerate her. You don’t have to send her away.”

  “It’s time,” Torridon said. “Long past time. For all our sakes. Put Jamie down and I’ll help you change for dinner.”

  *

  Afterward, Torridon described that dinner at Braithwaite Castle as the Battle of the Dowagers. Both matriarchs tried to out-do each other with stories demonstrating the excellence of their sons, until both Braithwaite and Torridon were thoroughly embarrassed. The girls, allowed to join the grownups at Frances’s persuasion, sniggered uncontrollably at their brother’s discomfort. Even Maria hid a smile.

  “I don’t recognize him either,” Frances assured them in low tones.

  “What about Torridon?” Helen asked.

  “No, but then I wasn’t acquainted with him until little more than a year ago.”

  In the end, Lady Torridon won that battle by introducing the subject of her late first born to the conversation. No one with any feeling could try to trump his perfection—although Torridon cast his mother an ironic look that told Frances he didn’t recognize his brother in this paragon either.

  They moved on to sons-in-law—in which the honors were generally considered to be even, since one of Lady Braithwaite’s sons-in-law was Torridon. The girls seemed likely to collapse under the table with suppressed laughter.

  The dowager Lady Braithwaite, somewhat slyly since she, like the rest of the castle, must have been aware of the scene in the hall, brought up daughters-in-law, praising Eleanor un
til that poor lady was quite pink with embarrassment. And there they left it, since clearly Lady Torridon had nothing good to say about Frances.

  Instead, she turned suddenly to Frances as if the thought had just occurred to her. “Where is my grandson?”

  Frances smiled. “With Lawson, ma’am. In our bedchamber, where he sleeps. Eleanor, would you mind very much if we stayed another few days? Just until Mama and the girls go south, and then we shall return to Torridon.”

  “I shall be glad of it,” Eleanor said at once. “We’re not going to London for a fortnight.” She turned to Lady Torridon. “And what of yourself, ma’am? Do you care to stay for a little?”

  “You are too kind to an uninvited guest,” Lady Torridon said graciously. “But I have much to do at Torridon. I must leave in the morning.”

  “My mother has been helping us there for some time,” Torridon remarked. “But she has decided it’s time to return to her own establishment.”

  “Indeed,” the dowager said frostily.

  By the time the ladies moved to the drawing room, the dowagers had moved onto the subject of daughters. Unable to bear it, Frances went to fetch Jamie from Lawson and laid him on a rug surrounded by his adoring young aunts, who tickled him while he kicked his little legs and gurgled with laughter. Watching Maria’s soft eyes and gentle touch, Frances thought she would make a good mother. At the right time.

  “Lady Braithwaite keeps a very… informal house,” Lady Torridon said to her fellow dowager. “She is very tolerant.”

  “It is her nature,” Frances’s mother said. “I own it was not my way, but I like it. It’s good to have my children and grandchildren around me.”

  Frances smiled warmly at her mother. She had no idea if this seed would bear fruit, but she was happy to try. In the meantime, she felt something of Serena’s excitement in going to Tamar Abbey. Frances now looked forward to returning to Torridon and making it truly into the home she and Alan wished it to be.

  She told him something of this as she padded back to bed that night after laying Jamie down to sleep in his cradle.