Axel (13 page)

“His lordship implied he was available to comfort me, though he was delicate about his insinuations, and I might have misconstrued them. You didn’t put him up to that, did you?”

Silence, which Abigail took for an affirmative, then she heard a chair scrape.

“Comfort you,
how
?” Mr. Belmont asked from immediately behind and to her left.

“As a man comforts a woman.” Or was supposed to comfort her? “In bed.”

“Were you offended?”

They had the most peculiar conversations. “I ought to have been, but I was not. Not very. He might have meant nothing by it.” Or he might have been encouraging Abigail to dally with Axel Belmont. She hadn’t been sure, and thought perhaps his lordship preferred her to remain confused.

“I will certainly warn him off—if you wish me to.”

Mr. Belmont did not sound angry. Not with his friend, not with Abigail even if she’d been considering a liaison under Candlewick’s very roof, and Gregory barely gone a month.

“You haven’t answered my question, Mr. Belmont.” Abby hadn’t asked the question that truly plagued her. Would a magistrate who suspected her of colluding in her husband’s murder test her loyalties by dangling temptation at her elbow?

“Did I procure Nick’s services for you? Do you really think I would?”

What Abigail thought was that nearly a decade of marriage to Gregory had given her no sense of how to handle men in the wider world, and certainly no ability to handle this man.

“I’ve offended you.” Or perhaps she’d amused the professor, or foiled his nasty strategy. “I’m sorry, but you seemed so sure I would develop such associations now that I am a widow, and I am at sea in so many ways. I do not know how these things are done. I did not mean to give offense.”

Mr. Belmont turned her gently by the shoulders.

“If I thought you sought that kind of consolation, Abigail, I would hardly set Nick upon you. I love the man dearly, and he’s accounted a good time by the ladies, but you deserve better than a mindless romp.”

He dropped his hands. What would he do if Abby told him that, indeed, she sought that kind of consolation? Axel Belmont wouldn’t offer a mindless romp, not to her, not to anybody.

He would be mindful, very, very mindful. Just as he’d mindfully arrest her in the king’s name if he suspected she’d arranged Gregory’s murder.

He drew her chair back. “Eat your breakfast, Abigail. I’ll tell you about Nick, and maybe you’ll forgive him.”

She sat and took up her toast, though the entire exchange had raised more questions than it had settled.

“Nick is at war with his papa, the Earl of Bellefonte.” Mr. Belmont resumed peeling his orange. “The earl wants Nick to marry and produce the requisite heir. Lord Bellefonte is rumored to be in failing health, but Nick isn’t ready for domesticity. He has fought for ten years against the inevitable, and his father’s patience is at an end. When the Season begins, Nick will be on the hunt for a wife.”

“I do not understand the male of the species,” Abby said, savoring the combination of butter, toast, and raspberry jam. “Your friend gives every appearance of adoring women, but can’t be bothered to find one special woman for himself.”

The orange squirted juice all over Mr. Belmont’s fingers. “Perhaps having a fondness for all women does not allow for loving only one.”

“You loved your wife.” Abby needed to believe this about him, though she and Gregory had not loved each other. She’d been grateful, she’d been dutiful, she’d prayed for Gregory’s soul—but she hadn’t loved him.

“I was a young man,” Mr. Belmont said, “who’d found a woman willing to bear my children and all that entailed, so of course I was enamored of Caroline.” He ripped the last of the peel away from the orange and tore the fruit in half. “She was well-situated, pretty, passionate about life, and not so diminutive that I felt like an oaf when we danced.”

Half an orange landed on Abby’s plate. “You married her because she did not make you feel like an oaf?”

He picked off the pith from his half, while citrus and awkwardness perfumed the air.

“I was a good catch. Not titled, but wealthy and biddable. Reasonably presentable in evening attire.”

He was stunning, in his way. “Biddable?”

“A fine quality in a husband. I’m sure your mama told you how to encourage it in the colonel.” His half of the orange lay in tatters on his plate.

“Whatever are you talking about? Gregory was my husband, the head of our household. Of course he wasn’t biddable and by the time I married him, my mama was laid in her grave.

Mr. Belmont studied the mess on his plate. “If Caroline wanted something badly, she knew to ask me for it… when the exercise of certain marital privileges was much on my mind. I was
biddable
.”

How had they ever got onto this topic, and more to the point, how could they pretend they’d never discussed it?

“I know nothing of this kind of manipulation between spouses, Mr. Belmont. If Gregory asked something of me, I tried my best to accommodate him, and I’m sure he made similar efforts. The behavior you describe… It had no place between us.”

Abby had taken less than a year to establish what her spouse needed from her—an orderly, quiet home; a well-run country estate; companionship between his jaunts to the grouse moors, Melton Mowbray, or London.

Nothing more, and nothing less.

“You make Stoneleigh sound like a paragon, Abigail. I rode out with the man enough to know he was given to pomposity, self-absorbed, and rigid. He could be jocular, but he was becoming an arrogant old martinet.”

Well, yes, but fortunately, being an arrogant old martinet was not grounds for murder.

“He was a fine man,” Abby shot back. She hadn’t truly known Gregory Stoneleigh, any more than his housekeeper or head gardener had known him. Even his children, after early years in India, had been sent back to England to finish growing up.

“We are having an argument,” Mr. Belmont said, patting Abby’s hand. “I haven’t argued with a woman for years. Are you enjoying this altercation?”

The orange had got the worst of it. “I am loath to admit it, but I am. I did not argue with Gregory.”
Not ever.

“Look at the fun you missed. I argued with Caroline from time to time—one didn’t take her on lightly—and while I disliked the altercations, I enjoyed patching things up afterward.”

“And you call yourself biddable. Caroline was lucky.”

“So was Gregory. Now that we are friends again, would you like to visit the filly with me?”

Friends. An invigorating notion, when Abby suspected Mr. Belmont would arrest such a friend without a qualm. They were soon crossing the back gardens, though any trace of sunbeams had disappeared behind the clouds.

“That sky does look like snow,” she said. “Don’t tarry in the village, if you please.”

“Will you worry about me, Abigail?”

She liked hearing him say her name, part challenge, part… friendship. “I will worry about
me
, lest I be snowbound with Lord Reston of the easy virtue.”

“You tell him no, and he will desist. If he doesn’t, protect yourself accordingly with my blessing.”

“Protect myself? Not to cast aspersion, but I wonder if
you
could protect yourself from his lordship when he’s in a temper.”

“Nicholas never lets himself get into a temper, and you can protect yourself in the manner of women.”

Abby crunched along beside him between bare hedges and dormant roses. “This must be something else my mama neglected to tell me, along with how to keep my husband biddable.”

“A man can be rendered utterly harmless by a knee to his stones, and from you, he’d not expect it.” Mr. Belmont’s tone was lecturing, as if the next topic were propagation of fruit trees in winter. Had Abby not spent time with her nose in various naughty tomes, she would have had no clue regarding the male anatomy under discussion.

When they reached the stable, Mr. Belmont fussed over the little filly, then stopped by the stall of the viscount’s enormous mare—Buttercup, by name. The mare greeted Mr. Belmont as if he were a long-lost friend, wiggling her lips against his cheek.

“Ivan will be jealous.” Abby was jealous, not of a horse-kiss to Mr. Belmont’s cheek, but of the easy affection between man and mare. Of a marriage where spouses were free to argue with each other, of women who knew how to protect themselves from importuning viscounts.

She was a wealthy widow, and yet, she felt impoverished.

“Geldings don’t get jealous,” Mr. Belmont replied, “but they do get impatient. Wheeler, I’ll take Ivan now. Come along, horse, and we’ll escort Mrs. Stoneleigh back to the house.”

Ivan the Not Very Terrible toddled placidly behind his master, while flurries danced down from the sky.

“I doubt I’ll be back for luncheon,” Mr. Belmont said, halting his horse by the mounting block before the front steps.

Maybe he’d had that kind of marriage too. The kind where spouses kept each other informed of their whereabouts. Gregory had often simply departed for “Melton,” or “London,” with little notice and fewer details, rarely even specifying his date of expected return. He’d more than once told Abby he was off to check on the import business’s activities in Town, only for Brandenburg, the London factor, to send inquires as to when the colonel’s next visit would be.

“I’m accustomed to eating alone,” Abby said. “Be off with you.”

She patted Ivan’s shoulder and aimed an I’m-just-fine smile at Mr. Belmont. The sooner he left, the sooner he’d return, and the notion of a supper tête-à-tête with the viscount was not to be borne.

A knee to the….
Well
.

Mr. Belmont brushed a kiss to her cheek and swung into the saddle. “See that you eat, whether you’re alone or in company. Keep a list of all the condolence notes you receive, especially from impecunious bachelors. Take Mr. Darcy up to bed for a nap if you’re so inclined.”

“Yes, sir. At once, Mr. Belmont. Of course. Now shoo, before I turn into an ice sculpture.”

He turned his horse away from the mounting block, then cantered off down the frozen driveway, but not fast enough to hide the glimmer of a smile in his eyes.

A
xel might have stopped in at the Wet Weasel for his midday meal, but Ivan, doubtless longing for his cozy stall and a heaping pile of hay, instead brought his rider home for luncheon after the interview with Weekes.

“I wasn’t expecting you,” Abigail said. “Was Mr. Weekes not home?”

She was the picture of domestic bliss on the library sofa, her feet curled under her, a cream-colored shawl about her shoulders, the everyday porcelain on a tea tray before her.

“You’ve been cavorting with Mr. Darcy,” Axel said, closing the library door. “Better him than Nicholas. Weekes was at home to callers, though I’ve discovered a capacity for mendacity in our vicar.”

“Tell me,” Abigail said, patting the sofa beside her. “Even Mr. Darcy’s charms have their limit, though he writes a compelling letter.”

She wanted scintillating repartee
and
compelling letters, while Axel wanted to unburden himself concerning the interview with Weekes. He took the place beside her, unwrapped the linen from the pot, peered inside, and enjoyed a blast of fragrant warmth against his cheeks.

“Weekes is apparently in his study at all hours,” Axel replied, pouring a cup, adding cream and a dash of sugar, and passing it over to Abby. “He puts it about that he’s working on his sermons, but he’s in truth napping and reading novels.”

“Gregory would have been scandalized by a man of the cloth reading novels.” She took sip of her tea, rather than expound on that point. “He always served me tea at breakfast, and it was horridly sweet. This is perfect.”

Coming in from a cold, windy ride to a cozy library and a cozy woman with whom to discuss the morning’s developments was indeed, perfect. The tea was hot, the shortbread flavored with cinnamon, and Nicholas was nowhere about.

Axel poured a second cup for himself, pleased that Abby would allow him the privileges of a host—or a friend.

“Weekes also lies about his biscuits. He claims his visitors consume the lot, all but two, when in fact, the good vicar is leaving a trail of crumbs all over his side of the hearth. Do you recall the name Cassius Pettiflower?”

Abby set her tea down and uncurled her feet from beneath her. She wasn’t wearing slippers—those were warming before the hearth—and her stockings were good, sturdy, black wool.

“I haven’t heard that name for quite some time. Cass was a dear, and I had girlish aspirations in his direction, but when my parents died in the fire, it’s as if Cass disappeared with them. You’ll spoil your lunch if you eat all of that shortbread.”

“I’ll expire of hunger if I don’t. Weekes received a letter from Mr. Pettiflower a month or so after your marriage to Stoneleigh. Vicar recalled the letter because of the unusual name and because, being a bibliophile, Weekes knows of Pettiflower’s bookshop in Oxford.”

“Friendly rivals, I suppose you’d call the Pettiflowers. If Grandpapa didn’t have a book somebody wanted, we’d send them over to Pettiflower’s establishment, and the Pettiflowers did likewise. Cass’s parents were getting on, and he was assuming more and more responsibility for the business. He and I had taken to walking out after Sunday services, and I thought my parents approved of him.”

Axel dusted his palms together, wishing he didn’t have to report the next part. “Pettiflower called at your parents’ bookshop repeatedly after the fire, hoping to find word of you. He was told you didn’t want to see him. When he found out you were biding with your late grandfather’s business associate, he sent three bouquets of condolence, and you never acknowledged them. He wrote to Weekes out of concern for you, but by then you’d married Stoneleigh.”

Abby rose and wandered to the sideboard, where a single rose in a crystal vase sat amid the decanters.

“Nobody told me Cass had called, and I did stop in at the bookshop, though not during business hours. The colonel did not approve of my traveling into Oxford, but I wanted to be where my parents… where I’d been happy. Perhaps the colonel was being protective.”