Mask of Nobility
Page 9
“Please tell us, Doctor,” Annalies said.
“Your daughter is very ill, I am afraid,” Mortenson said. He hesitated.
Rhys’ heart lurched and fell in a sickening way that made him gasp.
Mortenson licked his lips. “She has consumption,” he finished.
Anna moaned. Rhys picked up her hand. His own was thick and unwieldy. He couldn’t speak for the pain.
Anna drew in a breath that shuddered. Tears slid down her cheeks. “How long?” she whispered.
“Weeks only,” Mortenson replied. “With proper care, perhaps a few months. Once you have adjusted to the news, we can discuss treatments. There is an asylum…well, no need to go into detail right now.” He cleared his throat. “I will return on the morrow, Mr. Davies, if that is agreeable?”
Rhys nodded. He still couldn’t speak. An invisible hand was gripping his throat and squeezing. He wouldn’t know what to say, even if he could speak. How does one bid a formal goodnight to a man who had just delivered such devastating news? Polite expressions of fare-thee-well were torturous forms of hypocrisy.
Anna thrust herself to her feet even before Mortenson shut the door behind him and flowed into his arms. “Oh, Rhys!” she cried, her face against his shoulder. “My poor little Alice! She’s only seventeen!” She sobbed silently, her tears soaking into Rhys’ shoulder.
Wretched helplessness tore at him. Alice had always looked to him to fix toys, fix problems, find answers, solve things. Anna, too. Now here was something that threatened his daughter and he could do nothing at all.
Rage stirred, amidst the bewildered agony.
Pain, too. It tore down his arm, making him hiss and clutch at it.
Anna stumbled backward, her tear stained eyes wide. “Rhys?”
He still couldn’t speak. The pain built. He grabbed at his chest as a lightning bolt ripped through it. Such agony! He had never experienced the like before.
Anna’s hands were on his face, at his neck. He was sinking.
Falling.
“Doctor! Doctor! Stamp! Get Mortenson back here!” Anna screamed.
Her voice whispered to Rhys, close by his head. “Rhys, my love, please, look at me. The doctor is coming. Please, please, look at me.”
Rhys tried to do as she asked, for he could hear the fear in her voice and he would remove that fear if he could. Protecting Anna, protecting his family, that was his work. His life. Only, he could say nothing. Do nothing. He had failed them.
In his mind, he screamed.
* * * * *
When Tor asked Jasper for a few moments of his time, Jasper instead invited Tor to travel with him on his daily visit to a tenant farm. Accordingly, Tor put on his borrowed boots and tramped across the fields in the early morning sunlight, his breath fogging the air in front of his face. Even in the two short weeks he had been staying at Northallerton, his wind had improved. He no longer found long walks taxing, although Jasper set a cracking pace across the fields, which offset the chill of the morning. It left no chance to talk.
Jasper visited a different tenant farm every morning. As there were thirty-three of them upon the Northallerton acres, it meant that Jasper would speak to every single farmer nearly every month. In winter, Jasper had explained, he reduced the visits to one every second day depending upon clement weather.
It was a simple, sensible management system that allowed Jasper to spot building trouble before it got out of hand. It generated goodwill—a fact that was not lost upon Tor. He watched Jasper greet the farmer, who was restacking hay bales in the barn, to make room for vulnerable cattle over the worst of the winter. The two chatted. The farmer was not servile, the way many of Tor’s subjects were. He did not bow and scrape. He laughed and smiled and spoke about the weather, the winter culls and other aspects of a farmer’s work.
The two of them spoke at length about crop rotation. Jasper was encouraging his tenant farmers to try crops of clover and peas to restore soils, instead of the ancient three-crop rotation system farmers had been following for generations. There was resistance to the new-fangled idea—Tor could see it in the farmer’s reluctance, the way he rubbed at the back of his neck and plucked his sweaty shirt from his chest and shifted his muck-mired boots.
Jasper got his way, in the end. The winning argument was one of economics. More acreage could be planted each year with Jasper’s new system, which meant bigger crops and more money. The farmer nodded and with a smile and a hand-shake, agreed to try the new system.
Although Tor suspected that the real winning argument was the farmer’s trust in Jasper as his overlord. Jasper was liked and respected. The farmer had listened to him.
It was a thoughtful walk back to the house, for Tor could not help but draw comparisons. He could not name a single one of his subjects who had ever dared argue with him, when he had directed them to act in a way they did not find comfortable.
He wasn’t sure he even knew when his people disagreed with him. Instant and total compliance with his wishes was automatic and expected.
Only, what if his wishes were wrong?
Uneasiness built in him. He unilaterally made decisions that affected the welfare of his people all the time. Yes, he drew upon the advice of experts and research, although once a new policy was decided, it was put into place and no one had ever pointed out if the policy was weak or needed changes or was even, perhaps, plain wrong.
Would a more democratic form of policy making, where feedback from the common folk helped shape future decisions…would that be more effective?
It was a novel concept, although it did not carry the shock it should have to a man raised in a family that had followed traditions for generations. Tor recognized Bronwen’s influence. Without her mind-stretching ideas and attitudes, it never would have occurred to him to question the way rules and policies and laws were built in Silkeborg.
Thinking of Bronwen was a reminder of why he had sought Jasper’s time this morning.
Bronwen… Just whispering her name in his mind tightened his sinews and made his heart hurry more than the swift walking was doing. The pit of his belly tightened with swift pleasure.
For five nights, now, she had come to him—sliding into the room like a white shadow shortly after the house had grown silent and still. Their nights together were feasts of erotic desire, for her curiosity knew no limits. Bronwen wanted to sample the pleasures of the flesh—all of them. Her self-directed education had not stopped at the borders of propriety.
She had deflected discussions about the ecstatic hours they laid together, despite Tor attempting to raise the subject many times. Bronwen would shut him down with a hand to his mouth, or something even more inventive—including, once, trailing her mouth down to his nether regions and applying her lips and tongue and teeth in a way that had stolen thought and breath and ability to speak.
They slept in small snatches throughout the night, in between bouts of lovemaking that left both of them trembling and weak. Then, in the morning, just before the rest of the house woke, she slipped out of his bed and returned to her room.
During the day, it was as if nothing had changed. Tor would have said the two of them had been left alone for long periods of time. It was an illusion. Now, when he wanted time alone with Bronwen, those moments were too short and too far apart. The butler and staff appeared without warning. Children frolicked with their aunt before racing off on a new adventure. Even Lilly appeared and sometimes Jasper, too, to exchange greetings and chat.
There had been one or two chances when Tor might have seized the moment to talk, except that Bronwen grasped the fleeting moment for herself. The first time they were alone in the library for longer than a few minutes, she pushed Tor back into the corner of the sofa and climbed onto his lap…and that was when he learned that beneath her lack of hoops and simple petticoat she wore nothing else. No pantalets or underdrawers prevented her from taking her pleasure. Tor was too astonished and too aroused by the sudden, stolen moment of eroticism to r
efuse her.
There had been other such moments. Once, inside a copse of trees, at the far north end of Northallerton. Once, up against the side of a stable, in full view of hundreds of black-faced sheep cropping peacefully nearby. Another memorable occasion had been in the storage closet beneath the stairs, amongst forgotten coats and walking sticks and one rusty broad sword that clattered when it fell. Those daytime moments were risky and unexpected and more powerful because of it.
The opportunity to insist upon discussing the nights with Bronwen did not appear.
Or perhaps, he acknowledged with wry candidness, he did not want the opportunity to occur.
He had only to look at Bronwen now, for his body to rouse and his shaft to rise to painful alertness. Thinking of her brought to him the memory of her subtle, spicy scent, which made his heart race and his body to throb.
How had he ever considered her to be a plain-looking woman? He understood why a man would think so. She was not a classical beauty. Her hair was a plain brown, her face neither thin nor round. Her eyes, though, were wells of knowledge and understanding, warmth and wickedness. Her skin was soft and lovely. He often could not stop himself from stroking it, over and over, marveling at the feel of it under his fingers. Her lips that did such inventive things to him, were not full and perfectly bowed. Instead, the corners would lift in a smile that appeared only for him. The sight of that tiny smile made his heart race, as he wondered what she was thinking…for unlike every other woman, Tor often had no idea what her fertile mind was considering from one moment to the next.
Contemplating the enigma that was Bronwen kept him occupied until they drew near the house itself. They approached the rear elevation, where the work yard and outhouses were grouped and the well-worn gravel path to the staff quarters cut through the field and trees.
There were many people milling about the yard, intent upon their duties. Stable hands were currying and tending horses, two maids were hanging linens to dry in the bright sunlight, for now the morning dew had evaporated, the sun was very pleasant. Kitchen hands were peeling vegetables and chatting, standing around an upturned barrel with their bowls and knives before them.
It was a hive of industry, a most domestic sight.
Jasper slowed as they stepped onto the path to the staff quarters and moved toward the house. “I should apologize. You wanted to talk, yet I have not provided an opportunity.”
“It was an instructive morning, nevertheless,” Tor said.
Jasper gripped his sleeve and drew him off the path once more. “Over here, in the sun. There’s less chance of being disturbed here than in the house, where everyone knows where to find me.”
The thick timbers that made up the exercise yard for horses made a suitably high support for leaning. The peaty smell of horses and manure was absent, for a small breeze was blowing, sending the scent of the sweet pea vines climbing the railing through the air.
Jasper looked at Tor expectantly.
Not for the first time, Tor saw the similarities in Jasper’s face to his father’s—the square jaw and strong neck. It was a reminder that he was speaking to a member of his family, despite the odd surroundings.
“I wanted to ask you about Bronwen,” Tor began and halted. How to proceed with this matter without indiscretion?
Jasper’s eyes narrowed. “What about her?”
“Her father,” Tor began again. He shook his head. “This is a conversation I would normally leave to Baumgärtner, but needs must…” He made himself begin. “Her father is a commoner. I know that. Tell me he is the son of a king or petty prince. Tell me he has a high ranking connection in his parentage.”
Jasper’s gaze was steady. “Rhys is a bastard.” His even tone reminded Tor that Jasper was also a bastard. “His father was a marquess. A minor one. The title is now moribund for there was no legitimate son and the attachments to the title don’t allow it to pass through a daughter.”
Tor took a deep breath, trying to ease his sinking heart. “I see.”
Jasper raised a brow. “I’m afraid I do not. You were aware of Bronwen’s parentage when you met her. Why do you seek further details now?”
Tor met Jasper’s gaze. “I have…grown attached to her.”
Jasper’s gaze did not shift. “I thought so.”
“You knew?” Horror touched him.
“You have not been indiscrete,” Jasper assured him. “Only, you watch her. Whenever she is in the room.” He gave a small shrug. “I remember doing that myself, once.” His smile was small, but it was there.
“You still do, now and then,” Tor told him, recalling the times he had seen Jasper watching his wife and the warmth in his eyes when he did.
“How strong is the attachment?” Jasper asked.
Tor held back his offense, warding it away with a reminder that he had begun this conversation. “Does it matter?” he asked with a neutral tone.
“If you were any other man, perhaps not,” Jasper said. His tone was just as inoffensive as Tor’s. “I have not speculated on the extent of your attachment, brother. Bronwen is…” Jasper smiled. “Bronwen knows her own mind. Beyond ensuring her health and safety, I do not intercede, as I know her parents wish it that way. I ask for no details now.”
“Thank you.”
“However, I am also my father’s son. The illegitimate son,” Jasper added. “There is a family history there that troubles me, now you have opened the subject and confessed the attachment.”
Tor understood. “You think I seek a way to make her my mistress. On a more permanent basis.”
“The possibility is there. It is not an uncommon practice, for those of rank.”
“You misunderstand,” Tor said. “I want a way to make her acceptable to the Council as my wife.”
Jasper shifted on his feet, as if he had been surprised. He stared at Tor. Then he turned and plucked the last of the deep purple blooms from the vines, gathering them in one hand. “Do you love her, Tor?”
Tor blinked. “What on earth…?”
Jasper kept working. “It is a simple question. Do you love her?”
Tor cleared his throat. “Love is not a part of the equation,” he said stiffly. “It is not a factor the Council can use to weigh her suitability.”
“Oh. The Council.” Jasper’s tone was flat. He did not meet Tor’s eyes. Instead, he busied himself arranging the flowers in his hand.
“It is irrelevant,” Tor added.
“Is it?” Jasper leaned against the fence once more, his hands and the blooms hanging over the top of it. He held them up. “Lilly likes sweet peas.” Then he let them hang once more. “You seek a way to marry Bronwen because you consider yourself obligated?”
Jasper made it sound pathetic and weak. “I consider myself an honorable man,” Tor countered.
“Then you do feel obliged,” Jasper replied. He sighed. “Bronwen is the daughter of a bastard and a princess. Annalies’ title also dies with her. Her father’s principality no longer exists. She is cousin to the Queen, although the relationship is barely acknowledged. I estimate your Council will reel in horror if you were to put Bronwen’s name before them.”
Tor nodded, because Jasper’s judgment was accurate. “It is as I suspected.” His chest was tight, making it hard to breathe. “I do not know if there is a way forward, after this.”
Jasper considered the flowers. “If you believe there is no way forward, then you will not see it when it presents itself.”
Tor considered him, startled. “You don’t understand. The laws of inheritance and security of the title are ancient practices that have ensured the title’s existence for more than seven hundred years. To gainsay that wisdom…” He shook his head. “My will be damned,” he added, his voice hoarse.
“As you say,” Jasper replied. He turned as carriage wheels and horse hooves clattered on the flagstones in the yard. A muddy brougham pulled up next to the dressed horses. “Why that’s Appleton, from the telegraph office,” Jasper said.
As Jasper headed toward the boy, the driver descended slowly. He opened the door to the brougham and stood back and tugged the brim of his hat.
The man who stepped to the ground was silver-haired, his goatee pointed and his forehead high and smooth despite his age.
Tor stared at him, a sick blackness blooming in his chest.
It was Baumgärtner.
The Swiss man saw Tor and raised his brow, astonishment crossing his features. Then Baumgärtner remembered his place and bowed low. “Your Highness,” he murmured, making the coach driver snap his head around to look at Tor and his mouth to drop open.
“Dear God…” Jasper breathed.
Tor turned. Jasper’s face was pale, his gaze on the telegraph in his hand. “What is it?” he demanded. Everything was happening at once. The world circled him in tighter and tighter movements, snaring him and holding him in place, for daring to try to step off it.
“It’s Bronwen’s father,” Jasper said, holding out the sheet.
Tor took it.
RHYS VERY ILL. BRONWEN TO COME AT ONCE. LETTER FOLLOWS. A.
Chapter Ten
When Rhys stirred, Annalies put the book she was not reading to one side and pocketed her spectacles. Her heart gave another of the funny creaks and squeezes it had been doing ever since Rhys’ attack. She ignored it and bent over her husband’s sickbed.
Rhys’ skin had always been pale. Now it seemed transparent, tinged with a bruised gray about his eyes.
His eyes opened. “Anna…my love.”
She picked up his heavy hand. “Rhys…” The tears threatened. Anna breathed through them. It would distress Rhys to see her cry. It always did. “You’re awake again. Do you remember waking yesterday?”
He swallowed. “I’m alive.”
“Yes, you’re alive.” She couldn’t help but touch him. She pressed her hand to his face. “Rhys, my darling…Doctor Mortenson is most anxious to know something. Can I ask you a question?”