*****
“I ran into the doorjamb in the dark last night,” Violet explained to her fellow serving maid. The younger woman was hanging over her shoulder, looking at the ugly bruise at the edge of Vi’s mouth. “Really, Bess. ‘Tis nothing.”
“If that’s so, then why did ye ask me to go and help Lady Aytoun dress this morning?”
“I feel silly enough, and you know how she is.” Violet finished applying more of the white powder over the bruise. “She gets worried for nothing. I thought if I wait a day or two, then she won’t be pestering me about being more careful and all that.”
The truth was that Violet had seen many bruises much worse than this on her mistress’s face when the squire was alive. The young woman had a sneaking suspicion that her ladyship would not be fooled by the story of running into a door.
She had already asked around this morning. What Ned had said about being married seemed to be true, or at least some of the servants she talked to had heard that rumor, too. Violet wondered where her mind had been this whole time. How was it possible that she had made such a mess out of her life in so short a time?
The two women descended the back steps together. Violet paused by the door to the servants’ hall, looking for an excuse not to go in. She could hear the voices of people gathered there for their noon meal. “I have to take a walk over to the stables. I’ll see you later on.”
“Come on, Vi. Ye had no breakfast,” Bess chided. “Why don’t ye go in, and I’ll run and fetch whatever ye want from the stables.”
Violet shook her head and started backing out. “I want to check on Moses’s dog, and I promised to do some mending for him. I’ll be back.”
“But Moses is probably here, too.”
Violet was already moving to the door as the young black woman finished her words. With a wave, she went outside and pulled the wool shawl over her head.
The true horror of how Ned had treated her had not reached her until now. As she made her way toward the stables, she realized that although she had been abused, she felt like she was carrying a mark of shame. It wasn’t so much who did this to her that mattered, but that she somehow deserved it. Well, perhaps she did, she thought.
No, Vi argued silently. Ned had no right to strike her, even if he was a man. She felt sick to her stomach at how unfair everything was.
With the exception of a couple of grooms working in the stalls, the stables were quiet. Moses’s dog—her back leg bound tightly with splints and strips of linen—hopped toward Violet, nuzzling her hand before flopping back down on the straw by one of the stalls. Violet moved past the tack room to another small room that Moses had been given.
The small area was clean and tidy, and his clothes were hung neatly on pegs along one wall. Vi found his pile of mending folded in a corner on a barrel by his mattress. Picking up the worn clothing, she sat down on the barrel, took her thimble and a needle and thread from her apron pocket, and went to work.
Her heart ached, and she found herself batting away occasional tears. Violet knew she wanted to stay inside the gates of Melbury Hall, but she was afraid that the time was coming when she would be cast out. That was what happened to girls like her. Girls who foolishly gave themselves over to what they thought they wanted.
She had to take what time here she was given and then face up to whatever the future might bring. She held up Moses’s shirt. This was what she needed now. Time to be alone. Time to work and be useful.
The voices of people entering the stables made Vi pull the shawl tighter around her face. She looked up as Amina and Jonah came into the room with Moses behind them. She should have known Bess would not hold her tongue.
Amina was carrying a plate of food. Jonah held a wooden cup. Both were looking at her with concern, but Moses’s dark eyes were angry enough to set the building ablaze.
“Violet is hurt.” He moved around the other two and came to crouch down beside her. He pushed the shawl away from her face. “Who, Vi?”
Her chin sank to her chest, but he gently lifted it.
“No one hurts Vi. I’ll kill him.”
The young woman took one of Moses’s large fists between her hands and shook her head. The tears trickled down and she realized that she couldn’t be alone and separate. These people loved her like family.
“I don’t want you to kill anyone for me, Moses. You are here, and that makes me feel better. I’m safe here. I know that now. ”
******
His life had changed. Everything had changed. Before, he had been at the center of a world that was vibrant and filled with action. Now it was as if he were on the outside, looking at the world through a tiny window.
No, Lyon Pennington had never before had to look through this…this keyhole at his own life. And the view was so different. Oddly, he found himself focusing on and fathoming the subtle things, the small changes, concentrating on moods and responses, recognizing that so long as an individual had the ability to take a breath, he or she had a life to live. Embracing life despite the hardships was a concept Lyon was coming to appreciate.
This morning, before their guests had arrived, he had joined Millicent downstairs when she had been tutoring some of the younger children in the servants’ hall. The group had been lively and noisy. She had been patient and encouraging.
The joys at Melbury Hall were simple. Life was uncomplicated. To Millicent’s credit, no one seemed to dwell on how they had suffered before or what was different about them. She had created a haven where people worked hard and lived happily.
So different from Emma’s vision for Baronsford. If, indeed, she’d even had a vision.
He shook off the thought. He had no wish, either, to think about his own past.
Lyon focused his gaze on the profile of his wife near the window. She was seated beside Mrs. Trimble. The rector’s wife was continuing to speak, but Lyon could tell Millicent’s mind was elsewhere. He wondered if she was thinking of the same things that had been occupying his mind for most of the morning—their hours of lovemaking last night. As he watched her, she absently touched two fingers to the full lips he had so enjoyed kissing.
Lyon admired the soft glow in her cheeks. She had been changing before his eyes since their marriage. Lyon could not believe that he had considered her plain once. Every time he looked at her now, a different aspect of her beauty presented itself. It was as though a different woman had been living within each of the veils that protected her. As her confidence seemed to grow, another veil was peeled away and another woman revealed.
Millicent’s gaze flicked away from their guest and locked with his. He saw the memory of their intimacy and the promise of passion reflected in those sparkling eyes. The excitement of what was to come made every limb in Lyon’s body feel alive. He wanted her alone again. She had awakened an insatiable beast inside of him, and he couldn’t wait to have her again to himself. Apparently reading his mind, Millicent looked away, a blush darkening her cheeks.
“…will take care of the additions and the renovations of the schoolhouse.”
Lyon gave a nod to Reverend Trimble in response to whatever it was the rector had just said.
“The Earl and Countess of Stanmore feel ‘tis the right time, considering the continuing growth in Knebworth Village. And though naming the school after Mr. Cunningham is unprecedented, they feel strongly that—considering how devoted that young man was to teaching our children—this is a fine way to keep his memory alive.”
“Of course. A fine idea.” Lyon recalled hearing the former schoolmaster’s name from Gibbs. “How long ago did this Mr. Cunningham die?”
“A year and a half ago,” Mr. Trimble answered.
“He was a young man, I believe you said?”
“I suppose he would have been about your age, m’lord. He was a Scotsman as well.”
“And how did he die?”
There was a slight pause. “He was shot.”
“Really? A hunting accident?”
“I do
n’t believe so, m’lord.”
An uncomfortable silence fell over the room. Reverend Trimble cleared his voice and—sending a quick look in Millicent's direction—began to explain.
“Due to an unfortunate misunderstanding, Mr. Cunningham met his end at Melbury Hall…down in the Grove.”
A haunted expression marked Millicent’s face, and she dropped her gaze to her lap. Lyon remembered seeing the same sadness taking over his wife when Trimble had visited them here earlier. He couldn’t help but wonder if the cause might be the same.
Millicent rose abruptly to her feet and walked to the window.
“Then the death of this Cunningham was intentional?” he pressed.
“I was not present, m’lord, when everything happened,” reverend Trimble replied.
“Tell me what you know.”
“Those who were there,” the rector explained quietly, “say that Squire Wentworth shot Mr. Cunningham.”
Lyon told himself it was not jealousy, but curiosity was beginning to stab at him. “Was it a duel?”
“Nay, m’lord. The unfortunate incident had to do with some long standing disagreements between the squire and Mr. Cunningham over the treatment of the black workers at Melbury Hall. Mr. Cunningham and Lord Stanmore and I—being fiercely opposed to holding slaves—were considered by the squire to be his enemies.” Mr. Trimble cleared his voice again and darted a nervous glance at Millicent’s back. “The story behind all of this is too long and tragic for such a pleasant afternoon as this. Some time when your lordship is willing to spend an afternoon at Knebworth Village, I should be delighted to give you the entire history of it.”
Before, Lyon had been willing to let the ghosts of their pasts alone. But after last night he needed to understand all of it. Millicent did not care for her first husband. That was obvious. But Lyon needed to understand the role of Cunningham in her life.
“Early next week,” Lyon announced, “I shall try to convince my wife to bring me along to the village. There is much that I would like to learn about my new home and neighbors.”
****
“There was no reason to assault Reverend Trimble with all those questions,” Millicent said somewhat tetchily as soon as she was back from escorting their guests to their carriage. She leaned her back against the door. “Lyon, if there is anything that you need to know about Knebworth Village’s past, I will be happy to provide the answers. If there are some deep-rooted secrets that you believe people are keeping from you, I am the one you should ask.”
“And you will answer?”
“I will.”
“And I can ask anything?” he challenged, his blue eyes piercing across the room.
She refused to be baited or to fight with him. At the same time, she was not going to allow the past to thrust a wedge of mistrust between them. Mistrust had marred her marriage to Wentworth, and Millicent was not about to let it poison this one. Especially now that she recognized how much she cared for Lyon.
“You may ask anything,” she answered, pushing away from the closed door.
“Even if it involves your own past?”
“Even so,” she said, determined to follow this through to the end. “Of course, I expect the same courtesy from you.”
“I doubt that there is much that you do not already know about me. Gibbs told me you spent a great deal of time in the dowager’s company on the day of our marriage, getting answers to all your questions.”
“That ‘great deal of time’ consisted of less than two hours. And how could I have possibly received answers to all my questions when at the time I didn’t even know what our…our involvement would be?”
“Are you having regrets about last night?”
Millicent turned to face him. The sudden look of vulnerability she saw etched in Lyon’s face opened her eyes. This man was not Wentworth. There had been no accusations, no distrust. This man wanted to know more about her.
“How could I regret the most fulfilling night of my life?”
Lyon stared at her for the span of an eternity and then raised his hand. His voice quavered a little when he spoke. “Come here.”
She went to him without a second’s hesitation. He pulled her onto his lap, and Millicent wrapped her arms around his neck and held him.
“I am sorry if I sounded like a man adrift,” he said softly. “But the truth is that nothing between us has followed any logical path. We were thrown into this marriage, knowing practically nothing beyond the other’s name. Having taken matrimonial vows, I was moved into your care, while neither of us had any idea what demands or expectations such a marriage would bring. And yet so much has changed from that first day.” Lyon’s hand caressed her and drew her tighter against his chest. “We have both been down this road before. We have been married. And I believe I am speaking for both of us when I say that we want to do better than the first time.”
Millicent’s head moved beneath his chin as she nodded. She couldn’t live through these days dwelling on the fact that their future together could be so brief.
“What the dowager would not have told you about my past was that my first marriage was not as peaceful as she wished it to be. And as I spend more time thinking back over what was wrong, I realize now that the root of my problems lay with my lack of trust. I was a master of asking nothing but acting on anything that raised my suspicions. I assumed wrongly. I fretted over shadows. I acted rashly on things that I think now might easily have been explained. I didn’t ask; I just expected to be told.” He let out a frustrated breath. “You didn’t even ask, and here I am explaining. Rambling.”
“You are not rambling.” Millicent pushed her head off his shoulder and looked into her husband’s face. “I have been hesitant about discussing my past because those years were nothing but a succession of difficult memories and tragic events. I am almost thirty years old with nothing to be proud of in my life. When I look back, all I see is nothing but total failure.”
“You are wrong about that,” he said, holding her gaze. “Each step that we take leads us down the road that we were intended to travel. And even the little I know of you is filled with great things. All anyone has to do today is look at Melbury Hall. What you have succeeded in doing here is reflected in everyone who surrounds you, Millicent. You are a wonder—a prize.”
His fingers delved into her hair, and Lyon kissed her with enough passion to make her believe.
“Do you know how lucky I consider myself to be your husband?”
Millicent couldn’t hold back her tears. She was overwhelmed with everything about this man. He kissed the tears off her face, and his mouth settled on hers again.
“You have a way of making me feel special,” she whispered when they broke off the kiss. “Desired.”
“And you have a way of making me feel whole.” Lyon’s fingers moved to the conservative neckline of her dress and started tugging at the small buttons. “From our first moment together you have managed to cast aside all my notions of what I could no longer do.”
“Are you referring to taking my head off with that sharp tongue of yours?” she teased, brushing her lips against his bearded cheeks, his lips.
“Well, that too.” He smiled. “But do you remember the first day that I arrived at Melbury Hall?”
“You had fallen off the seat in the carriage where Gibbs had propped you up.”
“And you tried to help me back onto the seat.”
She looked down as his fingers undid one button and moved to the next.
“I learned you had a ferocious temper that day.”
“If Gibbs hadn’t shown up when he did, you might have learned other things about me, too.”
“What other things?”
His blue eyes were mischievous. He took her hand and brought it to his lap where the evidence of his arousal was pronounced.
“That day, wrestling with me in that confined space as you were, pressing and fitting all your beautiful curves against me, you made me realize that perhaps
my manhood was not too far beyond redemption after all.”
Millicent tentatively stroked his shape through the breeches. She looked down as Lyon’s hand parted the neckline of her dress, revealing the lace of the low cut chemise she was wearing beneath.
“I always considered myself plain, tedious, lacking passion,” she said. “I am struggling with this new me who wants to come out.”
“Do not fight it.” He placed soft kisses on her face. His hand gently touched her breast. “Do not fight the passion that I know is within you.”
“You make me think of doing wicked things.”
His breath was more a sigh of delight. “By any chance, do your thoughts run along the lines of latching the door and taking off your clothes and coming back to me?”
Millicent looked up shyly. “Taking off my clothes?”
“Every stitch. I want to see your beautiful body. I want to touch and taste every bit of you before burying myself deep inside.”
“You want to make love here in this room?” she whispered, shocked.
“Is that wicked enough?” he asked.
Touching him through his clothing had been the extent of Millicent’s thoughts, but she held back her comment when Lyon’s mouth captured hers in another kiss. Blatantly carnal, he thrust deep, sampling and tasting and playing out what another part of his body was eager to do.
Millicent was quivering with need when he broke the kiss. She rose and went to latch the door, but as soon as she turned to him, all her insecurities rushed back in. It was still daylight. Someone could pass by the window. Any minute there could be a knock at the door. And most important, it had been so much safer to make love to him in the half-darkness of the bedchamber where her flaws were not so obvious. Her back pressed hard against the door.
“Will you be my hands?”
Uncontrollably drawn to the magic of his blue eyes, she swallowed her protests and nodded slowly.
“Undo the rest of the buttons on your dress for me.”
Borrowed Dreams (Scottish Dream Trilogy) Page 22