Indiscreet (16 page)

“I do hope it is no more than that,” Catherine said, instantly concerned. Though truth to tell, she was glad of something on which to fix her mind and the conversation. There could be nothing more embarrassing than meeting the eyes of the brother and sister-in-law had been when they arrived unexpectedly and seeing the kindly laughter in Claude's eyes and the well-bred speculation in Clarissa's.

It must have been patently obvious from the blushes she had been quite unable to quell that the deed had been done last night.

“So do I,” Clarissa said. “I do not want the children becoming ill. I have urged Claude to send for the physician to see Daphne and to look at them, but he insists we wait.” She looked very unhappy.

Catherine touched her hand. She did not feel any deep affection for her new sister-in-law, but she had never doubted that Clarissa loved her children. And there were so many dangers to the survival of children, even if they successfully survived the birthing.

“I am sure it is just the excitement,” she said. “Daphne hardly stopped for breath all the time I was staying at Bodley.”

“Yes, I daresay you are right.” Clarissa smiled rather bleakly.

But the arrival of the carriage, of course, heralded the departure. The leaving of everything she had known and held dear for five years. Everything with which she had identified herself for that time. She had grown up here from foolish girlhood to a somewhat wiser maturity. She had known a certain peace and a measure of contentment here.

“Well, Catherine.” Her husband was standing in the open
doorway. His coachman had carried out their bags already. All her furniture and most of her belongings were to be left behind for now. Claude and Clarissa had stepped outside and were standing on the path, ready to see them on their way.

She felt such a welling of panic suddenly that she thought for one moment she was going to crumple into a heap.

He was looking at her closely. “Five minutes,” he said, and he stepped outside and half closed the door behind him.

She went back into the kitchen and looked about her. Home. This had been the very center of her home. She had felt safe here. Almost happy. She crossed to the window and gazed out at her flowers and fruit trees, at the river beyond and the meadows and hills beyond that.

Her throat and her chest ached. The pain spread upward all the way behind her nose and pricked at her eyes. She blinked them firmly and turned away.

One last look around. The morning's fire had been carefully put out. Toby was whining at her side and rubbing against her legs, begging to be petted. It was almost as if he knew that they were about to leave their home forever. She took up the embroidered cushion from the rocker and held it against her with both arms. She could not put it back. She had embroidered it herself in the early days, when her hands had needed occupation in order to distract her mind.

She left the kitchen and the house all in a rush, her chin up, a smile on her face. Her husband was waiting just outside the door. He took the cushion from her, drew her arm through his, and held it firmly to his side while walking her to the gate and the carriage.

“I am sorry to have kept you all waiting,” she said gaily. “I forgot something. Foolish of me. And it was only this old cushion, but—”

She was in Claude's arms then, being hugged so tightly that there was no breath left for words.

“All will be well,” he was saying into her ear. “I promise you, my dear.”

Foolish words if she thought about them. What could he do to guarantee her happiness? But she felt enormously comforted and several stages closer to tears.

“Catherine.” Clarissa was hugging her too, with slightly less enthusiasm. “I do want us to be friends. I do.”

And then she was being handed into the carriage and Toby, nervous and excited, was leaping onto her lap and being invited sternly to get down—he jumped onto the seat opposite, ears cocked, tongue lolling, quite uncowed by the reprimand from his new master—and her husband was climbing in to take his seat beside her.

She kept her face averted, looking out of the far window as the carriage lurched into motion. It was ill-mannered not to wave to Claude and Clarissa, but she could not bear to look, to see her cottage disappear from her sight forever. She was gripping something tightly and realized that it was her husband's hand. Had
she reached for it, or had he taken hers? She could not recall. But she drew her hand away as unobtrusively as possible.

And then she had a thought and leaned forward to look back after all. “I forgot to shut the door,” she wailed.

Toby whined.

“It is safely shut and locked,” he said quietly. “All will be kept safe, Catherine, until we send for it.”

He spoke kindly enough. But he would not understand, of course, that it was not really thieves she was afraid of or the loss of her possessions. The possessions themselves were of little value. It was what they stood for that was lost forever. She had lost the only home she had made for herself. She had lost a little of herself.

Perhaps a great deal of herself.

She felt frightened and empty and diminished.

Her hand was in his again, she realized after a few minutes. She left it there. Somehow there was a measure of comfort in his touch.

•   •   •

CLAUDE
took his wife back home via the postern door and the woods beyond. They walked silently side by side. He had offered his arm, but she dropped her own once they were through the door. He slowed his steps to match hers even though it would have suited him better to stride along in the direction of home.

She was the one to break the silence after several minutes. She stopped walking and gazed at him unhappily.

“Claude,” she said, “I cannot bear this any longer.”

“I am sorry.” He glanced down at the slippers she had worn,
suitable for the carriage, perhaps, but not for the walk home. “I should have taken you by the driveway. Take my arm again.”

“I cannot bear it,” she said, ignoring his offered arm.

He dropped it. Perhaps he had known as soon as she spoke that she was not protesting the uneven ground underfoot. He looked at her and clasped his hands behind his back.

“We have not spoken to each other in more than two weeks,” she said, “except for meaningless civilities. You have not—you have kept to your own rooms for all that time. I cannot bear it.”

“I am sorry, Clarissa,” he said quietly.

She gazed at him uncertainly. “I would rather you ranted and raved at me,” she said. “I would rather that you struck me.”

“No, you would not,” he said. “That would be unpardonable. I would never forgive myself or expect you to forgive me. It would put an insurmountable barrier between us.”

“Is the barrier between us now surmountable, then?” she asked.

“I do not know,” he said after a lengthy pause. “It will need time, I believe, Clarissa.”

“How much time?” she asked.

He shook his head slowly.

“Claude, please.” She was looking up through the spring leaves on the branches above her. “I am sorry. I am so sorry.”

“Because our marriage has been soured?” he asked her. “Or because you almost ruined an innocent woman? If Rex had not returned, Clarissa, and if Daphne had not gone into such determined action, Catherine would have been in a difficult situation indeed. Would you have been sorry then? If I had agreed with
you and had not sent for Rex, would you have been sorry? Or would you be gloating with righteousness along with our rector and his wife?”

“I had hoped for a match between Rawleigh and Ellen,” she said. “Mrs.—Catherine seemed to have ruined that hope. And it did seem that she had entertained him and been unpardonably indiscreet.”

“So,” he said quietly, “we are back where we started. Will you take my arm? The ground is rougher than I remember.”

She took his arm and then rested her forehead against his shoulder. “I cannot bear this coldness between us,” she said. “Can you understand how difficult it is to humble myself like this and plead for your forgiveness? It is not easy. Please forgive me.”

He stopped again suddenly and drew her fiercely into his arms. “Clarissa,” he said, spreading a hand over the back of her bonnet and pressing her forehead to his shoulder. “I cannot bear it either. And we are all—every living human—to blame for so many petty little cruelties to one another. I have been overrighteous. Forgive me too.”

She shuddered against him.

“I have missed you,” he said.

She lifted her face to him. It was white and set. He smiled at her and kissed her.

They walked on after a few minutes, her arm through his, their shoulders brushing. They had discovered something new about each other during the past few weeks. He had discovered that in addition to the selfishness and arrogance that he had been able to tolerate with some humor down the years, she could
occasionally be vicious. She had discovered that despite his kindness and indulgent nature, he could sometimes be implacable and unforgiving.

It was not a happily-ever-after in which they lived. If they had suspected that earlier in their marriage, they knew it for sure now. But their marriage would survive more than in just name. They had both learned something. Perhaps too they had both changed.

But they were together at least. They had talked to each other. Both had asked and given forgiveness.

“Will they be happy?” she asked him as they emerged from the trees onto a lower lawn.

“If they wish to be.” He looked down at her and smiled his kindly smile. “If they both wish to be, Clarissa, and if they work hard at happiness every day of their lives.”

She looked ruefully back at him. “It is never easy, is it?” she said.

“Never,” he said. “But the alternative is unthinkable.”

“Yes,” she agreed.

H
E
had felt nothing but alternating moods of panic and gloom during the two weeks preceding his marriage. He had not wanted to be married, certainly not to a woman he did not love and a woman who had quite firmly and consistently rejected all his sexual advances. She had made it very obvious on his first return to Bodley, when he had gone to offer her marriage, that she would have taken almost any course that would have kept her from marrying him—even becoming his mistress would have been preferable because she would not have been trapped into a lifelong relationship with him.

Her attitude had been a severe blow to his self-esteem.

And of course their wedding night had been a total disaster. He could never remember without an inward shudder the fact that his lovemaking had reduced her to silent tears.

He was rather surprised to discover, then, that her presence with him on the return journey to Stratton somehow lifted his spirits. There were frustrations, of course, but there were things about her that intrigued him. And she was nothing if not a challenge. That was one thing that had been missing from his life since he had sold out of the cavalry—a challenge to take away the tedium of life. Certainly he did not find the journey home tedious.

She wore the same simple, neat, unfashionable clothes she had worn since his first acquaintance with her. Stupid of him to have imagined that as soon as they were married she would be transformed into a viscountess in every way. All her clothes were well-worn.

“I will have to take you to London,” he said to her one day in the carriage, “to a modiste who will deck you out in all the necessary finery.”

“I do not need new clothes,” she said, flashing him an indignant look. “I am happy with the ones I have.”

He had always been amused—and somewhat charmed—by her when she was on her dignity. “You do need them,” he said, “and I am not happy with what you have.” It was a lie really. The simplicity of her clothing had always emphasized her beauty. “It is my wishes that count. You promised to obey me, remember?”

Her jaw hardened immediately and her already straight back seemed to straighten further. “Yes, my lord,” she said.

She learned fast. She knew that one sure way to irritate him was to “my lord” him in that meek and humble voice. She had never yet used his given name. He pursed his lips.

“We will go to London,” he said. He had no real wish to go there. A modiste could just as easily be brought to Stratton. But he was watching her face. He wanted to know if she was as reluctant to go to London to shop for clothes as she had been to be set up there as his mistress.

“No.” Her face had paled. “No, not London.”

He should have insisted on knowing everything, he realized. As soon as she had told him that she was not a widow and that her name was Winsmore, not Winters, he should have insisted on hearing the rest of it. All of it. It was ridiculous to have married a woman who was harboring secrets. Not very savory secrets either, if his guess was correct. What was it about London? Was she merely afraid of it because she had never been there? Or had something happened to her there? He rather suspected the latter.

“Why not?” His eyes dropped to her lap, where that dratted dog was curled up having his ears scratched—with those slender, sensitive fingers.

“Because,” she said.

Which was a marvelously eloquent and informative reply. He did not press the point. Why? he asked himself. Was it desirable to allow his wife to keep secrets from him? Was it wise to allow her to get away with such impertinent and evasive answers? Perhaps not wise, he decided. But amusing.

She was willing to converse. She was well-informed for a woman, especially for one who had lived in the country for a number of years. She had opinions that she was not shy about defending even when they conflicted with his. She was well-read. They were able to exchange views on books both ancient and
current. And she was willing to talk about herself—for the past five years. Any question or comment of his designed to trick her into revealing something about her life before then was always deftly turned. It was as if she had been born—and abandoned—fully grown at Bodley-on-the-Water just five years ago.

He thought about her name—Winsmore. It should mean something. There was a familiarity about it. But perhaps not. Perhaps it was just that the name had been turning over in his mind for so long that he had made it sound familiar. She had probably grown up somewhere far remote from both London and Kent.

He wondered how she would cope with life at Stratton. She showed no awkwardness of manner at any of the inns at which they stopped, but then, she had never shown awkwardness at Bodley House either. She
was
a lady. But Stratton might be different. He talked about it quite often. He tried to frighten her with descriptions of the grand Palladian architecture of the house, of its large, square size, of the splendor of the state rooms, of the fine furnishings and works of art with which it was filled.

She appeared interested. She asked intelligent questions. There was no flicker of terror in her.

Whenever they stopped she would go striding off through village streets or along country lanes with Toby to give him exercise. She always insisted on going herself even when it was raining or the roads were muddy—and even though he told her that a groom could be assigned to the task. And so of course, he was compelled to go with her. He found that he did not mind—though his valet, if he had been in attendance, would have had an
apoplexy at the murder he often did to his Hessians. He liked the color the exercise brought to his wife's cheeks and the brightness to her eyes.

She had infinite patience with the dog. If Toby decided to sniff about the trunk of a particular tree for all of ten minutes, she would stand and let him sniff. Even on the one occasion when a cutting wind was clipping through them without bothering to make a detour around them and a drizzling rain was raining on them for good measure.

If she was this patient and this indulgent with a mere dog, he once thought, what would she be like with a child? He did not put the question into words—she had ripped up at him once before when he had been incautious enough to say something similar. She would probably be one of those women who insisted on nursing her own babies at the breast instead of hiring a wet nurse as any decent lady would. The thought for some reason did strange things to his insides.

Not that there was any point in thinking about babies if certain facts of their relationship did not change. He had not touched her in the way of marriage since their wedding night. He had no desire to emerge from the pleasurable exertion of a sexual encounter just to have cold water dashed in his face in the form of his wife's firmly turned back and the knowledge that her cheeks would be wet if he cared to touch them to find out.

Twice they were fortunate enough to be able to reserve a suite of rooms at the inns where they stayed so that he had a bed of his own in which to sleep. Once, when there was only one room and one bed, he stayed in the taproom all night listening to the stories
of an old soldier, who never did realize that he was telling them to a veteran who had fought in all the same battles as the ones he described with such hair-raising—and such inaccurate—detail. For the price of a few jugs of ale, the viscount was provided with a night's entertainment, which was more than he would have got upstairs, he thought.

Another night he was less fortunate. There was only one room and one bed, and everyone who sat in the taproom during the evening either retired to bed or returned home before midnight. Lord Rawleigh spent the night on the floor beside the bed in which his wife slept. Though she was not sleeping either, he discovered after undressing quietly in the darkness and making a bed out of an old mat and his greatcoat. A couple of minutes after he lay down, a pillow landed with a thump on his face.

“Thank you,” he growled. She might have given some indication of wakefulness when he came in so that he need not have felt around in the darkness for so long or stubbed his toe on the foot of the bed.

He heard her turning over and punching her own pillow.

And then he was sorry that she had thrown down the pillow, though it easily doubled his level of comfort. Knowing that she was awake, he was suddenly aware of her. She was above him, a mere couple of feet away from him. Probably clad only in a flimsy nightgown. Probably warm. His wife.

One question he had asked himself some time ago had been effectively answered anyway, he thought grimly. He had wondered if he would be satisfied if he could have her just once. It usually worked that way with women he panted after. Not this time,
though. He had had her once—and it was not a particularly good memory. But he burned for her still. He gritted his teeth and clenched his hands into fists. He was in a state of full arousal, just like a randy schoolboy.

She was his wife, devil take it. It was her duty and his right. All he had to do was get to his feet, take one step, and slide beneath the bedclothes with her. . . .

He counted sheep and soldiers and terrier dogs until his body accepted the decision of his will and subsided into inaction. Terrier dogs! He heard Toby heave a deep and contented sigh from above, from somewhere in the region of where her feet must be. Dratted dog.

He must have fallen asleep, uncomfortable as he was and sexually deprived as he was. He came awake to some noise. Someone was talking. No one was, of course, by the time he was fully awake. Someone must have been passing outside their door. He had never been able to reverse the habit of his years in the cavalry of being alert to even the slightest sound in his sleep. He sighed and wondered what the floor would feel like if he tried turning onto one side. Probably even less comfortable than it felt against his back.

“Bruce!” she said sharply, so that his eyes widened and fixed on the dark ceiling above him.

Toby woofed softly.

“Bruce.” It was more of a wail this time. “Don't leave me. Don't go. I am so lonely. My arms are so empty. Don't go. Bru-u-uce.”

He was sitting bolt upright, his head turned toward the bed. Instinct would have had him on his feet and across the short distance to offer comfort. She was in such unbearable pain. He knew all about nightmares. He had had his fair share and had heard his fair share. Strangely, considering the fact that he had been an officer and one with a reputation for toughness, he had often got up during the night to comfort those who were wrestling with night demons, especially raw recruits, boys who should still have been at home with their mothers.

Instinct could not be obeyed this time. It was a man's name she had spoken. The man she had loved. The man who had left her. Bruce. He clamped his teeth together and clenched one of his hands into a fist again, as he had done earlier for an entirely different reason.

She stirred then enough to turn over on the bed. She lay facing him, the bedclothes pushed back to her waist, her hair disheveled and spread over her shoulder and along the arm that was draped over the side of the bed, almost touching him. She was not awake. She did not speak again.

God, he thought. God, what had he got into? What had unbridled lust and reckless incaution landed him in?

Bruce.

The floor got progressively harder as the night wore on.

But it was the last night on the road. They would be at Stratton by teatime on the following afternoon. Despite an almost sleepless and somewhat disturbing night, he was cheered by the thought. And eager to see her reaction to his home. And
perversely exhilarated by the challenge of making a marriage of this mess he had got himself into entirely through his own fault.

•   •   •

THE
two weeks prior to her marriage had been in the nature of a waking nightmare, which she had kept under control by deadening all emotions, by just allowing life to happen to her. Her wedding day, by contrast, had been unexpectedly meaningful. And her wedding night had been gloriously wonderful until she had spoiled it by remembering that there was no emotion to what had happened except lust—and until he had got up from her bed and left her room without a word. Leaving her cottage the next morning had been excruciating agony. Starting all over again on yet another new life had seemed an impossibility.

But life had the strange property of being able to renew itself and reassert itself over and over again. She had thought once before that it was impossible to go on. Very few things were impossible, she was discovering more and more as she grew older.

After the first dreadful day of travel, which took her farther and farther from the life she had made for herself five years ago, she found that she was—oh, not exactly enjoying her new life, she thought. But she was becoming interested in it, intrigued by it, a little excited by it. She had forgotten that new experiences and the unknown could be exhilarating. She felt somehow younger all of a sudden, almost as if the last five years had been suspended time and she was about to live again.