The Bride's Secret

by Cheryl Bolen

  Stevie's little steps covered only half the distance of James's. “What's your mount's name?” the boy asked.

  “Ebony.”

  “Do you know what Ebony means, Stevie?” Carlotta asked.

  He shook his head, his fair hair flying from side to side.

  “It's another name for black.”

  “Then Papa and I are simpatico, too,” the boy said.

  “Why?” she asked.

  “Because I named my pony for the color bwown, and he named his for black.”

  “I declare, we are simpatico,” James said, “but how did such a small boy learn such a big word?”

  “I learned it back in Bath. Mama said you and she were simpatico, and I asked her what that meant.”

  His heart soaring, James tossed a glance at his wife, who looked up nervously at him. To his complete surprise, color hiked up her smooth cheeks, something he had never before witnessed in his confident wife.

  “I daresay that's what I said when I learned you have more than a passing interest in poetry,” she explained nervously.

  He smiled smugly. He had a new favorite word.

  “James?” Carlotta interrupted his thoughts. “I declare, there's a saltiness in the air.”

  “That, my dear, is because we're not far from the sea.”

  “Can we see the sea?” Stevie asked excitedly.

  “May we,” Carlotta corrected with a playful smile.

  “Soon enough,” James replied.

  At the stable, James and Stevie went from one stall to another, with James telling the boy each horse's name, but when the boy asked for the horses' ages, James had to defer to the undergroom, Jeremy, who was already beginning to saddle Ebony.

  While James and Stevie examined each and every horse, Carlotta began a conversation with Jeremy.

  Though James continued to stroke a flank or help Stevie feed a carrot to one horse after another, James grew angry as he listened to his wife laughing with the handsome young groom. His thoughts flashed back to Portugal and how well Carlotta had mixed with the bachelor soldiers there. Though he had never known of any impropriety connected with her, he had always thought her an outrageous flirt and wondered how her husband could have tolerated such brazen behavior.

  Sweet heavens! What had he himself been thinking to have taken this woman for his bride? When he had found her in Bath, she had seemed nothing more than a demure widow. But just last night she admitted to a previous attachment to a man she had not married! Surely he had not allowed a lightskirt to become the new Countess Rutledge!

  A blue funk settled over him.

  Once Jeremy had Ebony and a gentle filly saddled, James hoisted Stevie on Ebony, then with Jeremy giving him a leg up, James joined the lad on top the mount.

  Later, as she and her husband were cantering seaward, she asked, “And what is my horse's name?”

  “Merry May,” he said. “She was born the May before I arrived.”

  “You're so knowledgeable about Yarmouth, it seems as if you've always been here,” she said.

  He smiled. “As it seems to me. I'm content here.”

  “I believe I shall be, too,” she said wistfully.

  It was difficult to stay angry with her. She had a facility for saying what he wished to hear.

  Though he had intended to ride as far as the sea, his wife had other ideas.

  “Oh, James, I have so been hungering to stroll through the parterre garden with you.”

  He began to reign in his horse in the direction of the hall. “I can't have my wife hungering,” he said teasingly.

  She did not deign to look at him after his suggestive comment.

  Soon, they were tethering their horses near the garden.

  Stevie pouted. “I want to see the sea!”

  James reached down and ruffled the boy's hair. “We will soon enough, son. A man has to learn that to promote harmony in his household, he must allow the women to have their way.”

  A smile on her face, Carlotta directed a look of mock outrage at her husband. “You make it sound as if I'm a veritable shrew!”

  Smiling devilishly, James came to offer her his arm.

  They began to stroll among the parterre garden's many criss-cross paths. “I assume this garden was here when you inherited,” she said.

  He chuckled. “It was here, but it had become overgrown with weeds. It seems my uncle never replaced the elder gardener when he died, leaving one man in charge of all the gardening on the estate.”

  “With all the improvements you've made at Yarmouth and at the mines, it's a wonder you have any money at all left.”

  His brows lowered. “How have you come into possession of such information?”

  “Most of it comes from Mrs. MacGinnis, who claims you hung the moon.”

  “I daresay she's delusional.” He patted his wife's hand. “Never fear, my love, my estates—our estates now—can afford the expenditures I've made.”

  She stopped to pick a red tulip. “The older I become, the less my needs are. Jewels and ball gowns have ceased to hold allure for me. Give me a garden, poetry, a child . . . an agreeable husband and the peace obtainable only in the country and I shall be happy.”

  “Then the woman I knew in The Peninsula has ceased to exist,” he said somberly.

  She gazed at him and spoke in a far-away voice. “So she has.”

  “Somehow, my love, I cannot picture you with shovel and hoe in a garden.”

  A little laugh broke from her. “'Tis because I have not been in possession of either since my eighteenth year, but I assure you before that if I did not have my head in a poetry book, I had shovel in hand and was puttering in my grandmama's garden—which was not nearly so beautiful as yours.”

  “Ours. “

  “Ours,” she mimicked, a smile reaching to her violet eyes.

  “Then you plan to garden here at Yarmouth?”

  “With the greatest satisfaction!” Her glance skimmed across the landscape from east to west. “Tell me, what is the name of the gardener who takes care of all this?” She waved her arms over the geometrical plots of various colors.

  He paused a moment. “Richards. Does he not do a fine job?”

  “Oh, he does. I'm eager to know what flowers he will set out in late spring.”

  “You are at liberty to visit the greenhouse and see them for yourself.”

  “I believe I'm in heaven.”

  They walked along every path in the garden, with Carlotta occasionally stooping to remove a fledgling weed or to pick flowers for a bouquet she planned to make. James's thoughts wandered to the days he had walked these paths alone, and he had longed to share it all with another being whose life would be irrevocably linked to his own. He lifted that woman's hand and kissed it.

  “Tomorrow, my love, I shall take you to the mines,” he said.

  Her brows dipped. “Will I have to go in them?”

  He studied her face. It was creased with some emotion. At last he realized it was fear. “I'll never make you do anything that's unpleasant to you, Carlotta.”

  Chapter 17

  “Then the mines are between Yarmouth and the sea?” Carlotta asked her husband the next day as they rode their mounts side by side across the farmland surrounding Yarmouth Hall.

  His eyes alighted on her, and he nodded. In her deep purple velvet riding habit, she was a feast for his—or any man's—eyes. Perhaps taking Carlotta to the mines was not such a good plan. After all, the miners would have to return home to their plain wives tonight after beholding the extraordinary beauty of Lady Rutledge.

  James had thought by bringing her to the mines he could demonstrate his family's personal interest in the colliers. It never occurred to him he would appear to be flaunting his good fortune.

  Soon the farmland where his sheep prospered was behind them, and they were surrounded by a steep, densely wooded area of uneven land. “This looks as I pictured Sherwood Forest when I was a child,” she said.

  “Actually, muc
h of this was a royal hunting preserve dating back to Henry VIII.”

  “How could the crown ever give this up? It's so beautiful here.”

  “My feelings exactly. It pleases me that you feel the same as I.”

  “Only a blind person could fail to honor such natural glory.”

  Natural glory. It took no effort to imagine his wife a poetess. “Do you write poetry?” he asked.

  She shook her head, her blue-black tresses catching on the wind. “I'm much too discerning in my poetic taste to please myself.”

  “Then you've tried your hand?”

  She laughed. “Very crude efforts, I'm afraid.”

  “Have you attempted any of those crude efforts since I've become acquainted with you?”

  “Twice actually,” she replied after a moment. “One after watching my angelic son sleep, the other, the night you offered for me.”

  Carlotta had written a poem about him! He felt the same as he had after a schoolboy fight when the wind had been knocked from him. The exultation which filled him quickly gave way to curiosity. “If I might be so bold as to ask,” he finally ventured, “what emotions did my proposal inspire in you, and,” he added in jest, “I pray fear is not among them.”

  “I could never fear you James,” she said in a gentle voice. “You've been far too good to me—except when you're in one of your ill humors as you were yesterday morning.”

  “Forgive me,” he said. She had not precisely answered his question. He had thought to repeat his query but decided against it. She obviously still did not feel comfortable enough to discuss her emotions with him. Nor did he with her, for that matter.

  “I must tell you, James, I had the most difficult time understanding Jeremy yesterday. It's as if he's speaking in a foreign tongue. I don't think I'd ever really spoken to him before.”

  James chuckled. “You've now had a conversation with a born-and-bred Exmoor man of the hills, as they like to call themselves. In time, you should come to understand their dialect.”

  “In Yorkshire I always prided myself on being able to understand many of the local dialects, but I declare this West County talk is something altogether different.”

  “You had more Viking influences in the north. Here, the people remained Celts.”

  She could feel her breathing change as the altitude climbed. “In what ways are these men of the hills different from other men?”

  “It's said that men of the hills are forced to live a more rugged life. Like the Scots, the men in these parts fancy themselves almost invincible with their might. Were they to be called to bear arms, no doubt they would distinguish themselves.”

  “The miners are hill men, too?”

  He nodded. “To a man, they're a rugged lot.”

  “'Tis a rugged job,” she said with a shiver.

  “How is it you know the perils of mining so well?”

  “There are mines in Yorkshire. And mining disasters. I must have been at a most impressionable age during one particular disaster, where a shaft caved in, burying several men alive. It has always struck me as the most brutal death possible.”

  “Exactly what I did not wish to hear on a day when I plan to go down into the mines,” he said in an attempt at levity.

  “I do not understand why, if you're prosperous, you insist on taking so active an interest in the mines. There are mines on Lord Worth's estates in Yorkshire, and he has a most agreeable arrangement with a mining company that works the mine in exchange for a percentage of the ore's value. To my knowledge, Lord Worth's never stepped foot in the mines and is in no way responsible for them.”

  James rode ahead and lifted low-lying branches to ease her passage through this particular gully. “I take it you don't approve of my role in the mines.”

  She shrugged. “I have no control over what happened or what you did before I married you.”

  “But, nevertheless, you disapprove of my interest in the mines.”

  “Do you not have a man who manages them for you?”

  “I do.”

  “Then I don't see why you jeopardize yourself.”

  “It's who I am, Carlotta. It was the same when I was in the military. If my men are at risk then I, too, must be at risk.”

  “I don't approve.”

  He shot her a mischievous smile. “One would think you actually cared for me. You realize I've made arrangements that will leave you a very rich woman if something should happen to me.”

  She winced. “Money—even great amounts of it—cannot replace people, and I should prefer to have my husband than his money.”

  “May I ask why?” His heart soaring, he watched her classic profile as she directed her gaze at the path before her.

  “I don't know how to put it. It's like before I knew you my life was cold and gray and hopeless, and since you've come into it there's warmth and purpose and someone to share everything with and . . . a future I look forward to.” She gazed up at him, her great eyes shimmering. “These are not things obtainable with money.”

  Sweet heavens! She might not love him, but what she felt with him was in many ways as special. He could yank her from her mount and kiss her passionately. Instead, he rode on in silence, a thick lump in his throat.

  Some little while later she broke the silence. “I hope you don't mind that I didn't wish to bring Stevie today. I did not want to color his opinions about the mines with my own fears.”

  “I trust he's far happier with Peggy and Jeremy.”

  “And Brownie,” she added. “One would think that animal was a long-time member of the family, he adores it so.” Her glance darted off to a heath just below them where several ponies ran wild. “Speaking of Brownie, I declare that pony over there must be his twin!”

  His glance followed hers. “That's an Exmoor pony. They're completely wild here—and unique to Exmoor.”

  “Then I take it, Brownie's an Exmoor pony?”

  “He is, but was raised at Yarmouth from a foal.”

  “Now I shall worry the animal will wish to return to the wild—with my son on his back!”

  “It's not a matter of returning. He's never been in the wild and wouldn't know how to forage. He's had life much too easy to ever want to join his kin.”

  They rode toward a swift steam. “We'll follow the stream to the mine,” he told her.

  For the next ten minutes they followed the water, breathing in the pungent smells of the forest. Then Carlotta eyed the churning of a huge wooden wheel that was nearly as tall as Yarmouth.

  “Is that where the mine is?” she asked.

  “Just beyond. The wheel provides our power for pumping.”

  Soon they came upon the main mine, where a dozen or so black-faced males were coming and going.

  “Who lives in that house?” Carlotta asked, pointing to a nearby white cottage.

  “The mine's captain.”

  “And his name is . . . ?”

  “Hastings. He's been here for fifteen years.”

  * * *

  They dismounted, and James took her hand. She felt unaccountably nervous. First, she feared she would not be able to understand a word the men said. It was important to her husband, she knew, that she be at ease with the colliers and them with her. She was also afraid one of them might touch her, and the prospect of being streaked with black coal dust did not entice.

  These men must be hungry indeed, she thought, to choose a life working in the coal mines.

  A tall, huskily built man who was less grimy than the others came striding toward them after they tethered their horses. He bowed to them.

  Carlotta found his appearance most peculiar. Clear green eyes stared at her from his black face. Her eyes traveled to his hands, which also were black. His curly golden hair belied the fact that before his mining days he must have been fair skinned. His clothing, of good quality, was less black than that of the colliers she saw nearby.

  “Ah, Hastings, allow me to make you known to the new Lady Rutledge,” James said.


  So this was the man who ran the mine, she thought. The captain.

  “Forgive me for not taking your hand, my lady, but my reasons for such abstinence should be abundantly clear.”

  This man did not speak like one from Exmoor. “I am delighted to make your acquaintance, Mr. Hastings. That the mines are in your capable hands is most reassuring to my husband.”

  He addressed her husband. “I appreciate your confidence, my lord, and may I say it is good to have you back? The men were beginning to fear you were never returning.”

  “Exmoor's now my home. I'll not be leaving it.”

  Hastings turned his attention to the new Lady Rutledge. “Permit me to give you an orientation to the facility,” he said, turning back in the direction from which he had come.

  She passed wagons heaped with coal coming and going from the mine shaft, and all the men who handled them were black from head to foot. She wondered if they ever bathed or if the coal had embedded itself so deeply into their skin that it rendered cleaning impossible.

  At first she thought some of the men quite small, especially since James had been telling her about the ruggedness of men of the hills. She thought she would not wish these fellows to be protecting her in the event of a war.

  Then one turned around. And she saw that it was lad who could not have seen more than ten summers. Thinking of her own little Stevie, she was filled with outrage, but she would defer from speaking of it now because of her desire to please James—James who deserved some display of her loyalty.

  Her husband began to introduce her to the colliers, and as she had feared, she could not understand a word they said. She merely bestowed an enormous smile upon them and nodded as if she knew quite well what they were saying.

  It nearly broke her heart to count a total of five lads working here above ground, and she prayed none were down in the pits. No sooner had she thought these thoughts, when a tiny lad not much larger than Stevie emerged from the mine, completely black from head to toe.

  Her smile vanished.

  James called that lad by name. “Willy, I beg that you go back in and tell the miners I wish for them to take a break and come meet Lady Rutledge. I dare say, she's not receptive to the idea of going under.”