Clarisse appraised the stranger. She nearly snickered at the low quality of the woman’s dress. It looked like something her mother would have worn, with its plain skirt split in the front to show the embroidered petticoat and laces closing the top of the bodice. When the woman came closer, she lost all desire to smile. The dress did not detract from her loveliness. She wondered who the woman was. Even the servants at Foxbridge Cloister dressed better.
For a moment, she feared that Nicholas had found some cheap trollop to bed and had brought her to Foxbridge Cloister. If that was so, Clarisse would see that she was gone soon. No one else was going to have this man. She had waited too many years and turned down too many wealthy admirers’ offers of matrimony so she could be waiting when Nicholas came home. She was not going to have her place usurped by a harlot who did not have the sense to dress to fit her place as the mistress of a lord.
“Hello, Rebecca. Come, and meet our neighbor.” Nicholas held out his hand. “Rebecca, this is Clarisse Beckwith, who lives at Beckwith Grange, about a mile south along the shore road. Clarisse, this is Rebecca Wythe, the new Lady Foxbridge I’m sure you have heard about by this time.”
“Lady Foxbridge?” gasped the startled woman. She had not heard the gossip, for she had spent the whole morning readying herself for her expected reunion with the man she wanted. It had taken hours to choose the right perfume and clothes so that, when Nicholas took her to his bed, as she had thought he would be eager to do, she would be more alluring than ever. The staff at Beckwith Grange would not have dared to give her the news that Nicholas had come home with a wife. They feared her awesome wrath.
Rebecca smiled coolly. She was not deceived. This was the Clarisse who Eliza had said thought she had an understanding with Nicholas. That explained the kiss she had given him. Rebecca wondered if this woman had been her husband’s lover in the past. It would not have surprised her. That would explain the possessive gleam in the red-haired lady’s eyes, which were filled with astonishment rapidly changing to hate.
“Hello, Miss Beckwith,” she said graciously.
Nicholas smiled. Rebecca, with her usual insight, had perceived that Clarisse intended to resume the relationship they had shared six years ago. He would not have been interested in doing so, even if he had not brought Rebecca back to Foxbridge. The idea of letting Clarisse get her eager claws into him or his title did not appeal to him.
Recovering her aplomb, Clarisse managed to ask, “How are you, Lady Foxbridge?”
“Please, as we are neighbors, you should call me Rebecca.” She smiled with genuine amusement. “I’m afraid I am not used to the grand title. I must admit it came as quite a shock when Nicholas told me that I was the recipient of such a grandiose name.”
Nicholas kept his wry comments to himself. The way Rebecca told it, there had been nothing unusual about either their courtship or their marriage. He was not surprised she was reacting this way to Clarisse. Although she was not sharing his bed, Rebecca had no intentions of Clarisse doing so while she slept on the far side of the connecting door. There were very few people whom Rebecca did not like, but Clarisse would be one of those.
The redhead smiled, but seethed underneath. She had been spending the last six years getting used to the sound of that name for herself. Who was this child who had spirited away Nicholas’s heart? Next to her freshness, Clarisse knew she appeared an overripe spinster. With barely concealed barbs, she asked, “Nicholas, where did you meet your wife?”
“We met in America. She saved my life, so how can a man resist that?” He placed his arm around Rebecca’s slender shoulders, not missing the narrowing of Clarisse’s green eyes at the motion.
“Oh, you worked in the army camp or some such thing?”
Rebecca could not disregard the insult. With icy rage, she said, “Despite your insinuation, Miss Beckwith, I was not a camp follower. I’m afraid I come from a worse background than that. I’m one of those unspeakably horrid Patriots. Ironic, isn’t it? A professed Yankee married to an English lord!” Without a change of tone, she added, “It has been most interesting meeting you, Miss Beckwith. I’m sure we will have the pleasure again soon.”
“Good day,” Nicholas said, trying without success to hide his pride in his wife for handling the situation so adroitly. His grin would further enrage the woman who wanted to resume her place in his bed and the way she had once controlled his life, but he did not care. There had been many changes in Nicholas Wythe in the years since they had last met. No woman was going to direct his life, especially Clarisse Beckwith, who loved the idea of his title and wealth more than she cared for him. “Thank you for stopping by to welcome us home, Clarisse.”
The spurned woman glared at them, then turned and mounted her horse. With a flash of her whip on the horse’s flank, she was gone in a cloud of dust toward the main gate. Even as she rode at full speed, she was trying to think of a way to pay back the chit who had dared to steal the title of Lady Foxbridge.
“You certainly handled her well, Rebecca.”
Her eyebrows arched in an easy mockery of his most irreverent expression. “I don’t think it is normal even in liberal England for a woman to welcome her husband’s mistresses. See her if you must, Nicholas, but not at Foxbridge Cloister. If you want to maintain an appearance of marital bliss, don’t entertain that woman in our rooms.”
He drew her into his arms. “Believe me when I say that I have no desire to do any such thing with Clarisse. What we once shared is in the distant past. If I had wanted to have her as a permanent fixture, it would have been simple to arrange. You are the one I want, Rebecca. How did you sleep last night?”
“Fine.” She lowered her eyes so that he would not see the truth. She did not want him to know that she had listened for his footsteps in the other room and, until she had heard them, she had been unable to sleep.
“I have made an appointment for you with Mademoiselle Pacquette, Eliza’s dressmaker. My sister thinks it is imperative that you have a new wardrobe as soon as possible.” He teasingly kissed the tip of her nose. “I agree, sweetheart. Now that we are home, we must do some entertaining.” He laughed loudly at her grimace. “All our neighbors, not just Clarisse.”
“My mind is full with the rules of etiquette you tried to teach me last night. I think I remember them all.” She smiled, but the glitter of anger remained in her eyes. “I promise I will use them on the next caller at Foxbridge Cloister.”
He held out his hand. “How about going for a ride with me, Rebecca? I was just about to have my horse Donar saddled when I saw you coming out of the house.”
Lowering her eyes, she said. “I can’t. I don’t know how to ride.”
“You don’t know how to ride?” he asked in shock. Riding was so much a part of life in the country that all children were taught at the same time they learned to walk. He could not remember not knowing how to ride or loving a race along the moorlands on horseback.
“I have never had a need to know how to ride. Father and Hart took our horses when they went to join the army. I know how to drive a wagon, but I have never ridden. If I needed to go somewhere, I walked. If I had something heavy to carry, I put it in the wagon. It was that simple.”
“Then it is time you learn. Are you ready for your first lesson on horseback?”
“Now?”
“Why not, sweetheart? Come on, and we’ll find you a suitable mount.”
Rebecca kept her hand in his as she walked with him to the stables. The long, low building was made of the same stone of the rest of the house. She saw the lovely carriage that had brought them from the village, as well as numerous other vehicles. Her eyes widened as she saw more than three dozen horses in the paddock near the stable doors.
Nicholas was not looking at them as he put his fingers to his lips and whistled sharply two notes. He waited a second, then repeated what appeared to be a signal. At his side, Rebecca gasped and stepped back as a strange creature appeared around the corner of the stable. Its
speed was faster than the carriage. She wanted to race away, but it would catch her before she reached safety. Straight to them it came, its legs a blur across the cobblestones of the stableyard.
When it stopped directly in front of Nicholas, she gasped. It was a dog, but she had never seen one like it. Full-chested, its body narrowed dramatically toward its well-muscled rear legs. Short-cropped fur of gray mixed with brown covered it from its long, pointed black nose to the tip of its wagging tail.
Nicholas knelt and patted its narrow head. “Hermes, you remembered!” he exclaimed.
“I told you he was the smartest dog you would ever see!” came a voice filled with laughter.
When she looked from where she had hidden behind her husband as the creature had raced toward them, Rebecca saw the coachman whose name she recalled was Sims. The two men were delighted with the fact that the dog had answered the call it had not heard in so long.
“What—what is it?” she whispered.
Nicholas stood, his smile broadening. “‘It’ is Hermes.”
“What is Hermes?”
“In addition to the messenger of the Greek gods, he is this fine greyhound.”
“Greyhound?” She nodded, her fear vanishing as the dog regarded her with large, brown eyes. Its tongue lolled out as it panted enthusiastically. Although Hermes had a wide mouth, he did not appear interested in biting her. “I’d heard of them, but I never imagined they looked like this.”
Nicholas patted the dog again. “Hermes is a fine courser. We will have to get you your riding lessons quickly, Rebecca, so you can ride with us to the hunt. He can run down any fox or rabbit.”
“I’m sure.”
“Why don’t you pet him?”
Glancing from his smile to the one on Sims’s face, she asked uneasily, “He won’t bite a stranger, will he?”
“Hermes, this is Rebecca.” With a laugh, he added, “There, you have been introduced, so you are no longer strangers.”
Rebecca hesitated, then put out her fingers to the dog’s head. She was startled at how silken the fur was. She had expected it to be as hard as the muscles visible underneath. “How lovely,” she murmured.
“Just keep telling him that. Greyhounds are the vainest creatures on earth.” With a grimace and a glance at the gate where Clarisse had disappeared, he mused as if to himself, “Or almost the vainest creatures on earth.”
Unsure how to reply, she listened as Nicholas spoke to the carriage driver. While he laughed with Sims, she discovered a side of her husband she had never seen. Among the people he was most comfortable with, he seemed to feel no need to be the cold man he presented to others. He chuckled easily with Sims as if they were members of the same family. With a flush of warmth, she realized that Nicholas treated her with the same openness. Few would ever have seen not only his kindness but the darker emotions he let loose so slightly in her company. In a way, it showed how much he truly cared for her.
Rebecca savored that feeling all through the day as she met the horse she would be using to learn to ride. It was a docile mare named Blossom who would be willing to excuse her mistakes as she learned. Later that day she spent long, boring hours being measured for Mademoiselle Pacquette, who chattered in French to Collette while she worked. She used the time to think of how hard it was to deny the feelings she had for her husband.
Her stay at Foxbridge Cloister would not be a long one, but there was no sense in having it be unhappy. She and Nicholas had enjoyed an odd friendship both in Connecticut and on the Prize. There was no reason why they could not be friends again. She could not deny that she felt happiest when she was with him. As she spoke with the seamstress and Collette about designs and colors, she did not give any credence to the idea that she might be falling in love with the man she had married.
Rebecca slowly became adjusted to her new life. She enjoyed her riding lessons with Sims teaching and Nicholas supervising. Every morning, she worked with Brody in the house as he taught her to supervise the staff. He showed her where the kitchens and storerooms were located and introduced her to Esther, the cook who oversaw those basement regions. He took her from room to room and explained its use or history. Like her, he was fascinated with the oldest sections, which were seldom used by the family. She had spent hours by herself examining the many bare cells where the monks had lived before being turned out into the world by the dissolution of the monasteries when King Henry VIII had assumed his position as head of the Church of England. She experienced an undeniable sense of awe when she entered the chapel, which was still used for special family services. A shiver had run along her spine as Brody told her it last had been used two years ago when Lord Foxbridge had been buried.
The more Rebecca learned of the huge house and its many staff members, the more she knew she would have to learn. Many of the members of the gentry were attending a party at a house which was called Avelet Court and owned by the Carter family, so she was spared the immediate need to entertain.
One night, almost two weeks after her arrival, she was speaking with the butler in the front hall about a question she had about the stillroom and what medicines were available, when Nicholas came down the stairs for dinner. She turned with a smile as she heard him approaching.
“What do you think?” she asked as she twirled about so that the full skirts of her new gown whirled in a wide circle around her slender ankles. Mademoiselle Pacquette, after innumerable, interminable fittings, finally had delivered the clothes Nicholas had ordered.
Very seriously, he walked to her. Her smile faded as he came toward her, but it returned as she saw the twinkle in his eyes. He could fool her with that stern attitude no longer. She had learned much of her husband’s inherent tenderness in the last twelve days. They had made the after-dinner chat in their sitting room a habit that both had come to look forward to with pleasure. Every night, he would kiss her longingly before she went into her own bedroom to sleep alone.
Often he would go downstairs to work during the quiet hours in his study. Those nights she would lie awake until she knew he was in his room. As he walked through his adjoining room, her imagination supplied the scenes of him getting ready for bed. An ache filled her until she yearned to run to the door, unlock it, and pour out the longings of her lonely heart. A vow to a man she knew she had not loved as much as she was beginning to love Nicholas kept her from doing as she wanted to do. She was starting to wonder what she would do when Keith came for her. Would she go home, or stay with the man she had wed?
Such thoughts were not in her mind as she regarded Nicholas’ handsome face as he pretended to be scrutinizing her new gown. “This is the latest style?” he growled.
“That’s what they tell me.” She stroked the fine material and smiled. “Do you like it?”
He drew her so close to him that her wide skirt billowed out behind her, showing the multitude of starched petticoats. “If I say your new gown is beautiful, it is because you are the one who makes it so, my dear wife.” His arms tightened around her silk-clad form as his mouth reacquainted itself with hers.
Brody, with a smile, left to give his lord and his lovely lady a bit of the privacy which was so hard for them to find in the big house. He approved heartily of his lord’s choice for many reasons, but the primary one was that they seemed to love each other so much. Love of any kind was a rarity in an upper-class marriage, but Lord and Lady Foxbridge, even after five years of marriage, acted as if they were in the first, warm flush of their courtship. The butler would have been startled to realize how close to the truth he was.
“I was sorry I missed your riding lesson this morning, sweetheart,” Nicholas said as they walked to the dining room. “I had some business to attend to on one of the tenant farms. A disagreement over payments due and who should be paid what. It was settled quickly, but I was all morning dealing with it.”
She smiled. “You would have been proud of me. I did not fall off once today. I actually got Blossom up to a fast walk.” The old horse ha
d a tendency to go everywhere at the slowest imaginable speed.
“I must get you a better horse. I’ll have Sims spread the word through the area stables that we are interested in a fine mare for you.”
“That is not necessary. I can ride one of the horses in the Cloister stables while I am here.” She bit her lip as her voice trailed away into silence. As she reminded Nicholas that she did not intend to stay, she felt his hand tighten over hers.
Coldly, he said, “I said I will buy you a horse, Rebecca, and I plan to do so.”
Once more the barriers had dropped between them to destroy the happiness they more frequently shared. As much as they wished to pretend that this was going to continue forever, both knew that when the fall came, Rebecca would be leaving. Not until they reached the dining room did either speak. Rebecca was surprised to see Curtis standing next to Eliza. She had not known that he had arrived back from London. He must be staying in town, for his friends with whom he had stayed on his last visit had closed their house for a fortnight to call on other friends.
“Good evening, Curtis,” she said, trying to mask the sorrow caused by her unthinking words.
“How good to see you again!”
She smiled briefly. For some reason, she could not warm up to Eliza’s suitor. She did not understand why, because he was always so kind. Even when Eliza was supporting Lady Margaret in her continual, cruel comments to Rebecca, he would try to say something to offset the nastiness. It was something about the way he seemed to watch the Wythes, especially Nicholas, as if there was something else on his mind than what he was speaking of at that moment.
As she had before, she told herself sharply to stop being foolish. Curtis must be interested in cultivating Nicholas’ friendship if he wished to marry Eliza. It was clear she was captivated by him, but they would need Nicholas’s permission to wed. Despite that, she could not dismiss the expression in his eyes when he did not know she was watching him. He was like the huntsman deciding when to move in on the stag to best capture the prize. His calculated manner sent icy fingers along her spine.
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