Beloved

by Stella Cameron

  “Yet you chose to sit in a chair looking out of our bedroom window at The Dog and Partridge, rather than rest with me. Rather than be a husband to me.”

  At first he stared at her steadily. Then he bowed his head and offered her his right hand.

  Ella frowned. “What is it?”

  “Hold my hand, sweet. I am embarrassed.”

  She frowned even deeper, but took his hand in hers.

  “The Dog and Partridge is a public place, Ella.”

  “Yes.”

  “I am a very private man.”

  “Yes.”

  “You make this so difficult.”

  She gave an exasperated sigh. “I don’t understand you.”

  “Is it so complicated?” Saber brought her fingers to his lips. “You are a passionate creature.”

  Ella became even warmer. “I thought that was in order between a husband and wife—according to you.”

  “It is. It is. But passion can cause… well, certain noise.”

  “Noise?”

  “Yes, noise.” He kissed each of her fingers, then held her hand to his breast. “I prefer that your cries of passion not be heard by strangers.”

  Ella stared at him. She snatched her hand away and said, “Oh. Oh, what a horrid thought.”

  “I knew you’d understand.”

  “I understand that you find my…my passionate cries so ugly they embarrass you!”

  Before she could turn from him, Saber grabbed her by the waist and sat her on his lap. “I find your passionate cries incredible. Incredible, and incredibly arousing. I will not share any part of you with another, including your cries. And—in case this subject should arise again—I am a man who prefers to feel secure when he sleeps. I cannot feel secure in an inn where people come and go.”

  She kept her hands in her lap. “Our door was locked.”

  “I have it on good authority that such locks are not to be trusted. I could not bear to have you mortified by some drunken intruder.”

  “I should not care for that either,” she told him. “Not at all.”

  “Exactly.” Saber sat her on the seat once more and went about pulling shades over the carriage windows before replacing her on his lap. “There, now we have privacy.”

  Ella fiddled with the silk frog at the neck of her cape.

  “Let me do that for you,” Saber said, and quickly accomplished the task of undoing the fastening. He easily disposed of the cloak altogether.

  “What are you doing?” Ella asked. She felt nervous, excited—shaky—all at once.

  “A recreation is what it’s called, I believe.”

  To her total disbelief, he ran a hand beneath her skirt, stroked the inside of her leg all the way to… “Saber!”

  “You do say that rather often, don’t you?” He parted her drawers and slipped inside. “Mmm. Evidently our minds are not too far distant from each other. I do believe you will enjoy this as much as I shall.”

  Ella tried to draw away. “You can’t be serious. You will not come to my bed at an inn, yet you want … you suggest. Well, in a coach?”

  “A very noisy coach. My coach. And with several hours ahead of us before we reach our destination.”

  Alarmed now, Ella made another attempt to leave his lap— with pleasantly disastrous results. “Even if we were to …If we were…It wouldn’t take hours.”

  “Certainly it will. Slip your bodice down.”

  Ella felt her nipples harden. “Saber!”

  “Saber!” he mimicked, laughing while he made it harder and harder for her to think at all. “Off with it, I say. Now, wife, if you don’t mind.”

  She didn’t mind. Her bodice and chemise were around her waist when the waves of ecstasy broke. She heard Saber croon her name, felt his mouth on her breasts—and his strong arm supporting her. But very soon she was astride his thighs and his trousers were undone and he entered her.

  “In a coach!” she cried, dropping her head back.

  Saber suckled a nipple and murmured, “Very nice in a coach. Perhaps we should ride in a coach every day. Several times a day.”

  “Saber!” Her breasts were afire, her entire body burned.

  “Ella! Oh, yes, Ella. Oh, yes.”

  “It will not take hours,” she panted. “Not even seconds.”

  “Each time? You’re right, my love.” He groaned, leaned back, shut his eyes tightly, and she felt the warm rush within her again. “You’re right, Ella. Think how often we can do this in even a few hours.”

  Paneling taken from a Spanish galleon after the Armada covered walls in the large vestibule of Bretforten Manor. Ella stood beside an ebony demilune as dark as the intricately carved panels. She pulled off her gloves and tucked them into her reticule.

  No one had greeted them upon their arrival. Saber had obtained keys to the manor in the tiny village of Bretforten, from the landlord of the Fleece Inn, and had himself helped Potts carry in the trunks.

  Darkness had descended as they entered the village, and now a fine, steady rain fell.

  Saber’s boots clattered on stone flags as he came in with the final valises. “Potts will deal with the horses. He’ll be comfortable enough over the stables.”

  She smoothed her hair self-consciously.

  “Beautiful house,” Saber remarked. “I’d forgotten.”

  “I thought you probably intended to take me to Shillingdown,” Ella ventured. “After the wedding.”

  “I never said I would. And surely you must have known we were heading in quite another direction. Eventually I shall take you on a more appropriate wedding journey. But I think we shall be happy enough here for the present.”

  He headed for a staircase fashioned of wood as rich as the vestibule. “I’ll get you settled and see what I can find to eat,” he said, starting to climb.

  Get her settled. “Saber?”

  “Let me take these up. You might want to wander around a bit. Get your bearings.”

  She didn’t want to wander around or get her bearings. Instead, she ran up the stairs behind Saber and followed him through well-furnished rooms to a pretty yellow bedroom where he set down his burdens.

  “Who owns this house?”

  “Old friends of Devlin’s. That’s why he could not be at our wedding. He came ahead to make arrangements.”

  She glanced over her shoulder. “Devlin? Shall we see him?”

  Saber laughed. “Hardly. A man knows when to make himself scarce. The owners are away at the moment.”

  “I noticed. There are no servants, Saber.”

  “I shall do whatever your maid would do,” he told her, looking anywhere but at her face. “A woman will come in each day to take care of our essential needs. We’ll use very little of the house.”

  “How long are we to stay here?”

  “I think you’ll be comfortable in this room.”

  Ella layered her hands over her middle. “How long do you intend for us to remain here, Saber?” She would be comfortable in this room?

  He busied himself throwing open draperies at two windows. “By daylight you’ll be able to see a lake from here.”

  “It isn’t daylight.”

  “No.” After a pause, he closed the draperies once more. “We’ll remain at Bretforten as long as seems appropriate.”

  “How will you decide what is appropriate?”

  “I will decide.” He turned to her. “Please allow me to make these decisions for us.”

  Yet again he had become distant, autocratic. “I am agreeable to your making such decisions,” she told him quietly. “I merely asked what that decision might be, but no matter. I will wait until you’re more comfortable treating me as an equal.”

  He made no response.

  Ella studied the room. “I would have expected you to choose something more to your own taste than this. You favor more bold furnishings.” Flower miniatures in gilt frames covered one of the silk-hung walls. Meissen figurines, ladies in wide crinoline skirts, shared every surface wit
h porcelain flowers and small portraits in silver frames. Fashion dolls posed in outdated copies of gowns probably once featured in Ackerman’s plates, and hundreds of shells, crowded the shelves of a narrow glass-fronted corner cabinet. The delicate, feminine furniture was all French.

  Saber made no comment about the room. Instead he lifted a travel case onto the embroidered yellow counterpane and undid the straps.

  “You’re really going to wait upon me?” she asked him.

  He opened the case and began a clumsy attempt at removing clothes from between layers of thin paper. “I told you I will do what a maid would do for you.”

  “I think I would rather get back in the coach.”

  Saber dropped a nightgown and it slid to the floor. “What?”

  Ella strolled to stand beside him. She picked up the nightgown and replaced it in the trunk. “I said I should prefer to return to the coach. I like the coach. We can instruct Potts to keep driving until we tell him to stop.”

  “Ella—”

  “Of course, we’d have to stop for fresh horses, and to let Potts eat and drink from time to time.”

  Saber removed the gown again, very deliberately, and spread it on the bed. “And what about our need to eat and drink, madam? Would we not get a little refreshment from time to time?” The old humor had stolen back into his voice.

  “Not until we were too exhausted to continue with more satisfying activities.” She looked up into his eyes. “I love making love to you, Saber.”

  He drew her to him and kissed her.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  She knew he had left her—yet again.

  Ella rolled over and pressed her hand into the cold pillow where his head had rested.

  “Saber?” Pushing her hair from her eyes, she sat up and peered into the darkness.

  This was the fifth night they’d spent at Bretforten Manor. The fifth night in which she and Saber had loved until Ella had fallen into a happy, drained sleep. The fifth night on which she’d awakened to find him gone.

  Each morning he’d appeared, withdrawn and almost shy, to help her dress. Their days passed with Saber closed away in a small library, while Ella tried to make conversation with the pleasant but reticent Mrs. Gabbler, who very efficiently provided for her master and mistress’s needs.

  On the morning after they’d arrived, Ella tried to tell Saber how bereft she’d felt to find he’d deserted her bed. He’d told her, in very few words, that there were things best left unsaid.

  Things must change.

  “And there are things that shall be said, husband,” she told the empty room—and felt encouraged by the sound of her angry voice. “I shall say them, and you shall listen to them.”

  She climbed from the bed and pulled on the beautiful lace robe Great-Grandmama had given her. “Where are you, you rogue? How dare you be so wonderful, then be so perfectly horrid?”

  Carrying a candle, Ella ventured from the room and started along the passageway that led toward the front of the house. “I am not afraid,” she said loudly. “I have never been afraid of darkness, or being alone. Saber? Saber, where are you?”

  Not even an echo responded.

  “Very well, I shall simply have to hunt you down.”

  Ella hunted through one empty room after another. Most doors she opened revealed the draped shapes of furnishings; no room revealed any sign of Saber.

  Her anger mounted. He had pledged to share his life with her, yet he’d chosen to exclude a very large part of that life. “But I’m going to claim it all, Saber,” she muttered.

  A fluttering fear turned her hands cold. Where was he? “Saber?” If he heard her, he’d answer, probably with a bellow of fury. “Saber, where are you?” she cried as roundly as her lungs would allow.

  No sign of him anywhere.

  A corridor she’d never taken before led to several rooms where the drapes had been removed from the furniture. One of the rooms was a bedchamber.

  Ella entered slowly. Curtains at the windows were open wide, but no moon shone through the glass. The dying embers of a fire cast a faint, reddish glow.

  She made out Saber’s trunks and looked at once to the bed. With one hand at her throat, she approached on tiptoe.

  Her breath escaped slowly. Tangled bedding had been thrown back. On a chest beside the bed lay Saber’s watch and chain—and something crumpled and pale.

  Ella looked closely, and swallowed. One of the flowers she’d worn in her hair at their wedding. She hadn’t known he’d taken it.

  “Foolish man! All men are foolish! Silly creatures afraid of their own hearts.” She picked up the flower and held it to her cheek. “Ooh, you will have to deal with the raw edge of your wife’s temper, my good man.”

  Also on the chest sat a familiar brass box. Curiously, Ella lifted the lid, and remembered at once where she’d seen it before. Military buttons, all the same, lay inside. She took several into her palm. Why would a man bring such a thing on his wedding journey?

  She snorted. Why would a man keep sneaking away from his new wife on his wedding journey? Lord Avenall was a puzzle.

  And the biggest puzzle of all was his current location. She set down the flower and slid open a drawer in the chest. Raising the candle higher, Ella grimaced at the sight of three glowing emeralds in the handle of a wretched dagger.

  Hateful dagger. Why would he take it everywhere he went?

  The questions would go unanswered unless she asked them of him. To do so, she must find him. And she would.

  She took up her search on the lower floor, shouting Saber’s name as she went. The notion to arouse Potts came and went with equal speed. What must be done, she would do alone.

  But she could not find her wretched husband!

  Desperation raised every hair on her body. Her scalp prickled. Perspiration dampened her back. All that remained were the kitchens.

  Aware of cold striking up from stone, Ella opened a door into the pantry—and a chill draft plucked at the hem of her robe and gown.

  The candle blew out and she set it down. The door to the kitchen garden stood wide open.

  “Rattle-brained man,” she said, but her voice broke and her teeth chattered together. “Walking around in the wind and rain, no doubt. And in the dark.”

  Perhaps he’d heard something outside and gone to investigate.

  Ella wiggled her toes inside insubstantial slippers. She should go back for some half-boots—and sturdy clothing.

  He could not be far away. He might even be within her sight—once she looked outside. And he might be in trouble and need her help.

  The rain remained fine, but fell more densely. A cold wind had picked up. Trees bent and whined beneath its force and the rain slanted sideways. Ella wiped at her eyes and ducked her head to peer in all directions.

  “You are beyond all, Lord Avenall. Absolutely beyond all.” She set off toward the abandoned apiary, along a path between rosebushes laden with blooms she’d admired by day. Tomorrow their petals would be strewn and ruined.

  When she reached the churchyard that flanked the property, Ella retraced her footsteps before setting off across the lawns.

  Every breath tore at her throat now.

  She began to run. “Saber?” Where could he be? “Saber!” The wind threw her words back at her. The rain soaked her clothes and wound them about her.

  He could have fallen into the lake!

  Sobbing, hearing the rough rasp of her breathing, she headed for the water.

  If she hadn’t seen the glimmer of his white shirt, she’d likely have run on until she bumped into him.

  Wet hair clung to her head and lay in sodden heaps over her shoulders. Gasping, she stopped. Her arms hung limp at her sides, and she fought to be calm. The buttons she’d forgotten to replace in their box cut into her palm.

  The lake captured what light there was and Saber stood over that light, his cloak billowing behind him. Ella had caught sight of his shirtsleeve as he reached to gather the heavier g
arment around him.

  She opened her mouth but could not bring herself to shout his name, even though he would surely hear her now.

  “Saber,” she whispered. “What troubles you, my love?”

  He stared over the shifting surface of the lake, a tall, shadowy figure unbowed by wind and rain.

  Ella crept closer until a thick rhododendron bush shielded her from him. She parted branches and watched.

  Saber’s profile showed dark against the lake’s reflected light. She thought he swayed, but could not be certain.

  He stared downward into the water.

  Surely he didn’t intend to…

  Saber walked backward and she breathed again.

  He walked backward until he reached a willow. He sank to the ground beneath swaying branches, and leaned against the trunk.

  “Saber,” she whispered again, her eyes filling with tears. He was troubled, deeply troubled, yet he would not share that trouble with her. He preferred to come out into the unkind night—alone—and suffer whatever devils attacked him.

  She hovered, uncertain whether to go to him or return to the house and never let him know what she’d seen.

  He moved, slowly, heavily. Slowly he fell to his side, then, heavily, he rolled to his back and lay with his arms outstretched.

  “Oh,” Ella murmured. “The very idea. Oh, this is the veriest… Oh, my goodness.”

  Bound by her wet nightclothes, she left the cover of the rhododendron and trod over squelching turf toward her supine husband.

  Her supine, stupid husband.

  He gave no sign of hearing her approach. But the wind would have made that difficult.

  He did not turn his head toward her, even when she stood inches from his hand.

  His eyes were closed.

  The front of his shirt, open to the waist, gaped.

  Rain, fiercer and wilder now, beat his face and body. He did not as much as flinch.

  Ella dropped to her knees on the muddy grass, knelt at his shoulder, and squinted closely at him.

  His chest rose and fell steadily. His thick, dark lashes were wet, unmoving spikes. He slept, slept deeply. In the wind and the rain, beneath a dripping tree, beside a lake—in the earliest hours of the morning, Saber Avenall, Earl of Avenall, slept.