A trifle dazed, Beatrix let herself be swept away.
* * *
In another part of town, oblivious to the activities of his wife and aunt and having walked off some degree of emotion getting to his cousin’s, Rothwood faced a very sleepy Harold. His cousin yawned and grumbled.
“Dash it all, Rothwood! It’s unfair to rouse a fellow like this! You might at least have waited until I had time to shave and eat my breakfast. What the devil could be so urgent you had to behave in such a slapdash manner?”
“Your attempts to kill me,” Edmund said curtly.
Harold’s jaw fell open. “Have you gone mad?!” he demanded. “What attempts on your life? And why the devil would I do that?”
“You are next in line for the title. If I were to die you would inherit everything and even if I did not, you would inherit a great deal if I did not wed by the date stated in my father’s will. Everyone in the ton knows of that provision. You might have borrowed on your expectations. When you learned I meant to marry, perhaps you were desperate and arranged for someone to tamper with the wheel on my carriage. And when that didn’t work, you cut the cinch on my saddle. I came to tell you that I am on my guard.”
Harold blinked and shook his head, as if to shake off the last traces of sleepiness. When he spoke, his voice was sharp with concern. “Someone tried to kill you? It wasn’t me. But we’d best find out who it was before they succeed. Have you been to Bow Street yet? If not, that should be your next stop. Arrange for a Runner to find out who is behind this.”
“Believe me, I shall be consulting Bow Street,” Edmund answered grimly, “but who else would have a reason to attack me?”
Harold looked at him and didn’t try to hide the bitterness in his voice as he said, “I know you don’t think much of me. Never have. Nor have I ever wanted to be part of your set. But I wouldn’t kill you to inherit. My finances are not nearly in so terrible a state as you seem to believe.” He paused, then added dryly, “You may not have heard but I’ve an uncle from my mother’s side who died and left me a tidy estate and the funds to maintain it. I’ve paid off my creditors, and while I shall never aspire to the heights of your wealth, I can provide quite nicely for myself and any family I should choose to have and frankly should prefer to see you happily wed, with lots of sons to follow you, than to inherit the title myself.”
Harold paused, then added, in a more temperate voice, “There are many who would benefit had you not married in time.”
“Trifling bequests,” Edmund protested, waving his hand in dismissal.
“Trifling to you and me,” Harold conceded, “but perhaps not trifling to those who would have received the bequests.”
It was absurd and yet Edmund could not entirely dismiss Harold’s words. He regarded him steadily for several moments and Harold met his gaze without reserve. In the end, Rothwood said, “I’m sorry if I have accused you wrongly. I will admit it doesn’t seem like you to do such a thing. But if it was not you, then who?”
“Is it possible the wheel and the cinch simply failed?” Harold asked.
“I was told it was not.”
“Then I’ll say it again. You’d best go to Bow Street and engage a Runner to track down whoever is after you,” Harold advised.
Edmund nodded. “I shall.” He held out his hand to Harold. “I am sorry, cousin, to have accused you and very glad to discover I was wrong.”
Harold hesitated only a moment before he took the offered hand and they shook solemnly.
Moments later, on the steps of his cousin’s London townhouse, Edmund found himself thinking that perhaps, after all was said and done, he and Beatrix should invite his cousin to dinner. Perhaps he had been mistaken in dismissing his cousin as a poor fellow. The man he’d seen this morning was someone he might actually like to know.
But that left him at an impasse with no one else to suspect. Which meant that he had best follow his cousin’s advice and pay that visit to Bow Street. He’d hire a couple of Runners. The sooner this was all settled, the better. And he’d stop by his solicitor Lawton’s office and make a new will himself. One that would take away as much incentive as possible for anyone to harm him. Besides, he wanted to give Lawton a copy of the marriage settlements, for he was the one who would administer the estate if something happened to Edmund, and he wished to be certain the provisions of the marriage settlements were known and honored.
Edmund found himself oddly eager to return home and see Beatrix. Perhaps he might take her out for a drive this afternoon through the park. Odds were she would like that, and he could explain why it was so important that she listen to his wishes and not turn everything in his household upside down. To be sure, it had been most pleasant, last night, sharing stories of their childhoods and laughing so much but one couldn’t do that every day, could one? Dignity and gravity were important, too, weren’t they? He just had to make Beatrix realize that they were.
It wasn’t her fault, of course, that she didn’t know how to be a proper wife. Why, look how her own family’s household had run wild. Beatrix was an intelligent woman. It wouldn’t take her long to realize he was right.
Thus satisfied that things were beginning to fall into place, Edmund hailed a hack and headed for his solicitor’s office, impatient to have those matters settled first. Then he would go to Bow Street.
Chapter 12
Beatrix was smiling as Henry admitted her to the Rothwood townhouse after her excursion with Lady Kenrick. “No, don’t close the door just yet. There are a number of packages to be brought in and up to my room.”
“Very good, my lady,” Henry said, not betraying the slightest surprise, or indeed any other emotion. “Lord Rothwood is waiting for you in the library, I believe.”
“On the contrary,” a stiff voice said behind them, “I am waiting right here.”
Slowly, not wanting to let go of the laughter Lady Kenrick’s good-natured teasing had evoked, Beatrix looked at her husband. He did not look pleased. A moment later, displeasure gave way to a mouth agape as he took in her new appearance. There was a most gratifying moment of warmth in his eyes, but that quickly gave way again to disapproval.
Beatrix kept her own smile firmly fixed upon her face as she removed her gloves and hat and gave them over to the nearest footman. Rothwood would not scold her in front of the servants. Already she knew him well enough to know that. So now she took his arm, gazed up at him as a loving wife would and said, “I am so glad to see you, my dear. Let us repair to the library and have a comfortable chat. My day has been absolutely delightful! I hope that yours has been as well.”
The look he gave her was not one of affection, but rather reproof. Still, he took his cue from her and replied, “Yes, my dear, let us repair to the library and chat.”
Once there, when the doors had been closed behind them, Rothwood’s apparent amiability disappeared. “Where have you been?” he asked.
“I have been shopping with Lady Kenrick. Can’t you tell from my new dress?” she said. “I wished not to disgrace you with the dowdiness of my clothes.”
“I was going to take you and help you choose your dresses,” he countered.
Beatrix looked at him with raised eyebrows. “You were not home,” she pointed out slowly. “And why would I need you to help me choose what I wear?”
“My father always chose my mother’s dresses for her.”
“And she let him?” Beatrix could not keep the incredulity from her voice.
“Of course.”
That Beatrix understood where her husband’s distorted notions came from did not mean she had to indulge them. Instead she slowly turned in a complete circle. “Does this dress please you?” she asked, her voice carefully neutral.
“Of course, but—”
“Then clearly you need not worry that I am unable to decide such things for myself.”
That stopped him. Indeed, he did not seem to know what to say or even where to look. Finally he sat in the nearest chair. Beatrix took
her time in following suit and waited. Finally he looked at her, confusion in his eyes as he said, “Clearly you do not.”
Beatrix leaned forward and spoke earnestly. “I would not wish to distress you. If I choose something you truly dislike, you may tell me to send it back. But do you really wish to spend your life overseeing every choice I make and everything I do? Wouldn’t it be terribly exhausting? And boring? Wouldn’t you rather be doing things that please you?”
He was torn, she could see it in his eyes. And yet he was also intelligent enough to grasp the sense of what she said. This time she did not wait for him to speak. Instead she said, “I have told you of my morning. What about yours? Where have you been?”
Now he looked truly startled. “I am not supposed to answer to you!” he protested.
“Oh, dear. Now you think me a horribly managing person,” Beatrix replied. “But I do not mean it so. I just thought to take an interest in your day. Come, must everything be a battle between us? Can we not find some point at which we are in accord and can please each other?”
Ah, that sparked his interest! His eyes gleamed and in an instant she knew what had come to his mind and she blushed. “That is not what I meant,” she teased. “We know we are both pleased by that. I meant is there nothing we can do together outside of the bedroom? Any topics we might discuss? Places we might go? Things we might do together?”
He hesitated again. She saw the longing that came into his face, and the battle that longing waged with how he had undoubtedly been taught to believe he ought to treat his wife. As his father had so clearly treated his mother. Well at least he was fighting those strictures and she would fight that battle with him! She would help him see he did not have to be the man his father had taught him to be, that it was possible for him to be who he wanted to be instead.
Beatrix reached out and took his hand in hers, rubbing her thumb across the back of it, just as he had done with her hand on their wedding night at the inn. “Please?” she said softly. “This is our marriage. To create as we choose. To find a way we both can be happy. I should like us to laugh together again, as we did when we were children, nine years ago. I should like us to play, for you have already said you have had very little of that in your life these past few years.”
He did not pull his hand away, though she could see that he thought he should. There was longing in his eyes and the very fact that he did not at once answer was, she thought, a good sign for she was fairly certain that an instant answer would have been a refusal of what she said. Instead she waited and in the end he smiled.
“You remind me of who I once was,” he said. “Of how I once hoped my life would be, and I am grateful, though I have a strong feeling my father would say I ought not to be.” He paused and kissed her hand. “Very well, let us play,” he said. “What should we do first?”
She did not need even a moment to think about it. “Astley’s Amphitheater!” she said. “Please? Or, if not that, a tour of London?”
“What about both?” he asked. “I shall have the carriage brought round again.”
“Wonderful!” As they both stood, Beatrix kissed him and added, “You are the best of husbands! I shall be ready in five minutes.”
Upstairs, however, she found a maid waiting with a cup of tea and some biscuits. “A bit of sustenance, m’lady,” the girl said. “Cook sent it up.”
“Thank you.”
Beatrix hastily drank the tea and ate the biscuits, not wanting to offend Cook and finding that she had an appetite after all. Granted, it meant keeping Edmund waiting a few moments longer, but perhaps that was not such a bad thing, either.
Except it wasn’t just a few moments. Beatrix had scarcely finished the tea when she found herself becoming violently ill. She barely made it to the chamber pot in time. Even as she slipped to the floor, she found herself wondering about the food she had just consumed.
* * *
A maid found Lady Rothwood on the floor of her bedroom. Shouts summoned footmen to lift her onto the bed. And Lord Rothwood. No one noticed the cup and plate, or the maid who removed them during all of the confusion.
Edmund was distraught. Beatrix woke when he called her name and she tried to sit up, but before she could do so, she was ill again. This time all over Rothwood.
“We’ll take care of her,” Mrs. Barnes, his housekeeper said. “You go and change.”
“Someone send for a physician while I do so!”
The orders were given. Even the few short minutes it took to change his clothes seemed agonizingly long to Edmund. He could not lose Beatrix just as he was finding her again, just as she was helping him find himself! As quickly as he could, he was back in his wife’s room watching a maid mop her forehead with a cool wet cloth. Someone had gotten her out of her dress and into her nightgown. Everything reminded him of those desperate days right before his mother died, and he swore to himself he would not let that happen to his bride.
“Where is the physician?” he demanded, when it seemed far too much time had passed.
“Here I am,” said a voice from the bedroom doorway.
Edmund turned to see a distinguished-looking man who told him curtly, “You will leave us alone. I shall be out directly to speak with you.”
It didn’t seem directly at all to Edmund. It seemed to take forever. And when the man did emerge from Beatrix’s room, he could provide no satisfactory answers.
“It is the nerves of a young bride, Lord Rothwood,” the doctor told Edmund. “You must be more gentle with her and give her time. That is, unless the pair of you, er, anticipated the wedding and she is a few months with child?”
It took all the Rothwood training for Edmund not to plant the man a facer. Instead, he ground out his answer. “And if it is neither of those things. What else could cause her to be so ill?”
The doctor hesitated. It was clear he believed Edmund to be overwrought and foolish not to heed him. Still, in the end he did offer another possibility. “If she ate something that disagreed with her . . . ” His voice trailed off. “Mind, I do not think that likely. Depend upon it, Lord Rothwood, you have a delicate bride who has yet to adjust to the, er, duties of marriage. I see it far more often than you would think.”
Edmund managed to thank the man and pay him before he entered his wife’s bedroom again. She looked, if anything, worse than before. He did not, could not believe it was either of the possibilities the doctor believed. Perhaps she had eaten something while in the company of Aunt Violet?
There was nothing he could do here. Edmund kissed his wife’s forehead, warned the maid to take good care of her, and then headed downstairs. If his aunt wasn’t at home, he would chase her all over London until he found her.
Even to himself, Edmund did not want to think of the other possibility. That whoever had targeted his carriage and his saddle had now set their sights on his wife. It did not seem likely. After all, he was already married, the provisions of the will fulfilled. Surely no one would have any reason to target her. No, it was, he told himself, far more likely she had eaten something somewhere while with Lady Kenrick.
He had to find his aunt. Logically, he knew that made no sense. What difference would it make to know what she had eaten? And yet—and yet it was the only thing he could think to do. Even if she could tell him nothing about the cause of his wife’s illness, he could ask her to come and stay with Beatrix. At a time like this, she should have a woman she trusted close-by. Aunt Violet was fond of her and would treat her as if she were her own child.
As Henry handed Edmund his hat and gloves, he clearly could be seen to be restraining himself from asking questions. Knowing the man had been loyal for years to the family, Edmund unbent sufficiently to say, “The doctor believes Lady Rothwood will be well in a few hours. I am off to find Lady Kenrick and see if she can shed any light upon anything that might have occurred while they were out together. And to ask her to come and sit with Lady Rothwood. I trust you to look after things here while I am gone.”
>
“You may depend on me, your lordship.”
“I know I can, Henry. I always have. I do not expect to be gone long, but if Lady Rothwood takes a turn for the worse, send word at once.”
“Yes, my lord.”
* * *
Upstairs, Beatrix was more ill than she had ever been in her life. She scarcely noticed when the doctor came and left. It brought her comfort when Edmund came to her bedside but he did not stay long and she could not find the words to ask him to linger. Indeed, there were moments she was not certain if he was there or not. Different maids and even the housekeeper took turns looking after her. She had no idea how much time passed, or even how worried everyone was.
Eventually, she started to feel a little better. She did not, however, betray her improved condition to those around her. Not yet. Not until she figured out what was going on. She had just finished drinking tea and eating some biscuits when she became violently ill. It seemed absurd, preposterous, perhaps even crazy to think there was a connection. And yet every instinct said there was.
Slowly she opened her eyes and looked around. The cup and plate were gone. Well, that proved nothing. Someone would have taken them away in any event.
“Lady Rothwood! You’re awake. Would you like some tea?”
Beatrix shuddered. “N-no. Nothing, Mrs. Barnes. Lord Rothwood. Where is Lord Rothwood?”
“He went to fetch Lady Kenrick,” the housekeeper explained, even as she mopped Beatrix’s brow again.
“Me? Rothwood meant to fetch me?” a voice said from the doorway.
Beatrix turned her head and saw Lady Kenrick standing there, looking most distressed. She came forward toward the bed. “I have not seen Rothwood,” she said slowly. “One of your footmen brought a message that you were worse and he was needed. I wondered why they sent the message to my house but in any case, I decided to come and see for myself what was wrong.”
April Kihlstrom Page 13