The Bridegroom (24 page)

Shortly, both men were settled down before the fire.
But even that did not provide enough warmth to counter the cold sea wind that whistled noisily through the broken windowpanes.

“It’s damned cold in here,” Clay grumbled.

“We’ve endured worse,” Pegg said.

“Not when there’s a blanket to be had.” Clay jumped up and crossed to the windows, where he tore down a pair of moth-eaten drapes. He gave half to Pegg and snuggled down under the rest of the heavy velvet himself.

Clay stared into the fire for a long time without speaking. At last he said, “I hadn’t counted on liking her.”

“Mmm,” Pegg said.

“She’s refusing me, you know. Threatened to fight me if I tried to have her. Expects me to make peace with Blackthorne. To forgive him. Little chance of that!”

“Mmm,” Pegg said.

“I have no doubt she will try to see her father, even though I have forbidden it.”

“Mmm,” Pegg said.

“If she does, I will be forced to punish her.”

Pegg said nothing.

“She’s been beaten before. Did you know that?”

Pegg said nothing.

“I don’t think she will break, Pegg. I am not even sure she will bend. What am I going to do with her?”

Clay glanced at Pegg and saw that his eyes were closed. A soft, ragged snore confirmed that he was asleep. Clay reached out to adjust the moth-eaten velvet over Pegg’s remaining foot.

He had not really expected Pegg to provide him with a
solution to his dilemma. He was almost glad his friend was not awake to witness his confusion. In all these years Clay had never wavered in his determination to ruin Blackthorne’s life. And yet now, when his goal was in sight, a rebellious young woman was threatening to turn his carefully laid plans upside down.

“I cannot forgive him,” Clay murmured. “I will have my vengeance.”

And if she is lost to you because of it?

Then she is lost.

You will be alone again. Forever. Is that what you want?

Clay knew what it felt like to be hollow inside, to be completely disconnected from everyone and everything one had ever held dear. He had come back to Scotland, to this house where it had all begun, in order to keep the memories of everything that had happened fresh in his mind. While he had been suffering, the duke had continued with his life, raising his children, loving his wife.

He was entitled to retribution.

Clay put a hand to his chest, feeling the ache there. The pain of all he had lost was a shadow that haunted him always, though he had buried it deep in order to survive. He thought of the woman he had loved. The child who had been lost to him. He remembered the plans he had made after his brother’s death to restore Castle Carlisle. Anything had seemed possible.

Reggie had made him want it all again. Made him begin to dream again.

But twelve years later, the innocent fool who had believed in the goodness of his fellow man was gone. What remained was a ruthless devil who demanded his due. And no angel, however tempting, was going to sway him from his course.

After a night spent in a wing chair with a moth-eaten drape for warmth, his legs stretched out on a footstool that barely served to keep him safe from marauding rats, Clay had woken the next morning in a foul mood.

Sometime during the night he had decided it would be better to have Reggie’s family come to visit her, rather than going to Blackthorne Hall. That was the only way to be sure she did not see her father. He was certain she would object, but in his present temper, he would have welcomed a fight with his wife.

In the end, the weather proved a friend to both of them. It had begun to rain during the night, a gentle Highland mist. By morning the mist had become a torrent of wetness that left the sky blackened and turned the roads into mudholes that made any sojourn, either on horseback on in a carriage, impossible. For three days the rain poured as an icy north wind lashed at the castle.

It should have been simple for Clay to avoid his wife.
Any sane woman would have remained tucked up warm and cozy in her bed. Reggie was a whirlwind of energy. She insisted on clearing everything from the upstairs rooms and scrubbing down the floors. She asked him which pieces of furniture he wanted to save and which should be relegated to the attic or given away. She tore down every drapery in the house, making it obvious that the windows must be next in line for repair.

Apparently, word had passed through the neighborhood that the Earl of Carlisle had returned, and those seeking to become footmen and underfootmen and maids-of-all-work arrived on foot despite the deluge. Carlisle relegated the hiring to his wife, until he realized that she had employed four footmen when two could have done the job, three maids-of-all-work when one would have sufficed, and even a tweeny, when they needed none at all.

When he asked for an explanation, she replied, “It is only a temporary measure, my lord, while we repair the house. The more helping hands, the more quickly the labor proceeds.”

It had sounded perfectly logical, though he suspected it might be difficult for her to decide which servants to let go when the time came. And then she gave herself away.

“Betty’s mother is sick with consumption, and I have promised her enough work to pay the doctor. George’s wife is expecting their tenth child, but I have told him not to worry about being able to feed them all. Mercy is in the family way—oh, that is a secret—and until she can persuade her John to make an honest woman of her
she must have a place, don’t you agree? Simms is a little hard of hearing, but he looks the part of a butler, and I am sure he will manage. Terrence’s face and hands were badly scarred by a fire, but he feels sure he can deal with—”

“Did you turn anyone away?” he interrupted.

She fiddled with her apron string—when was the last time anyone had seen a Countess of Carlisle in an apron, he wondered?—before she lifted her chin and said, “ ’Tis common knowledge you possess a fortune. If the little we pay our servants is too great a burden, I will gladly make up the difference from my own funds—as soon as your friend Mr. Kenworthy works out the amount of my quarterly allowance.”

Clay was torn between laughing out loud and shaking her silly. “Just make sure you leave room enough in the house for us to walk the halls,” he said.

She smiled at him and said, “Thank you, Clay.”

He had stood there long after she was gone, wondering how she had managed to talk him into anything so foolish as an excess of servants—and make him feel good about it in the bargain.

Worn Turkish rugs showed up on the wooden floors upstairs. A pianoforte appeared in the corner of the drawing room, though a single keystroke revealed it was in sad want of tuning. An ormolu clock suddenly graced the mantel in the library, attractive but useless, since it did not keep the correct time. And a beautiful but chipped Sèvres vase now sat on a new-found half-table across from the door as one entered the castle.

Even though he spent most of his time in the library,
working on the estate books at his father’s secretaire, Clay could not help but note the improvement. “You have found a few things to brighten up the drabness,” he said at the supper table that evening.

“I have,” she said.

She did not offer him any explanation of where she had found her prizes, and he would not give her the satisfaction of admitting his curiosity by asking.

On the second day of rain, a sleigh bed appeared in the bedroom that connected to the one in which Reggie slept. Clay wondered if the appearance of the bed was some sort of signal that Reggie had rescinded her pledge to keep him at arm’s length. But when he checked that evening, the door between the two rooms was locked.

Clay arrived at breakfast on the third day of rain to discover an enormous epergne in the center of the dining room table filled with spiky purple blooms from the only flower growing near the castle—the thorny Scottish thistle. He stopped and stared. Cherubs holding trumpets were etched into the polished silver. It was the same epergne his mother had always filled with roses. He had believed it had been sold to pay his debts before he was transported, along with everything else of significant value.

“Where did you find that?” he asked, his voice husky with emotion.

“Wrapped in rags and hidden in a corner of the attic,” Reggie replied. “Is it the one you remember?”

Unable to speak, Carlisle nodded.

“I am glad you have at least one valued memory restored,” Reggie said.

“This makes me wonder what else might be up there,” Carlisle murmured.

“It is a veritable treasure trove, my lord.”

Carlisle lifted a disbelieving brow.

“I don’t mean there is anything of true value. At least, none that I have found so far except the epergne. But there are a great many furnishings and trunks and portraits. Since the attic is entirely enclosed, with only a tiny opening at either end for ventilation, everything has been marvelously preserved. There is one particular trunk I think you might want to explore.”

The last thing Clay wanted was to be in an enclosed space with his wife, who was looking more desirable every day he was denied her bed. He suspected, from the way she kept her distance, that she felt the same tension in his presence that he felt in hers. “Is it really necessary for me to be there with you?”

“I would appreciate having your opinion,” she said.

Their eyes met, and she quickly looked away. Yes. She felt it, too. “Very well,” he said. “I—”

He was interrupted by the nearly deaf butler, Simms, who entered the dining room, came to rigid attention, and shouted, “She’s hanging, milady. In the library.”

Clay leapt to his feet. “Who’s hanging?”

“Banging? Yes, milord. A great deal of it, trying to get her up there,” Simms shouted.

“Bloody hell! I said, who’s
hanging
—” Clay cut himself off. By the time he got a word of sense from the senile old man, whoever was hanging in the library would be dead. He raced from the dining room and
sprinted down the hall to the library, his coattails flying, leaving stunned and slack-jawed servants in his wake.

“Clay! Wait!” Reggie cried as she ran after him.

Clay slammed open the library door and stood stunned at what he found. A grotesque-faced man—the servant who had been scarred by fire—was balanced on a ladder near the fireplace. But there was no noose around his neck. Nor was there anyone else in the room in imminent peril.

“What the devil are you doing up there?” Clay demanded, his heart still hammering in his chest.

“Hanging the lady’s portrait,” the man replied in a painfully raspy voice. The burned man leaned away, and for the first time, Clay saw the gold-framed painting beyond the ladder.

“I found it in the attic,” Reggie said as she stepped into the room beside him. “One of the maids said it was your mother. I thought you might like to have it hung in here. I’m sorry if Simms—”

“I had forgotten how beautiful she was,” he said, staring at the painting.

The woman in the portrait had large, dark eyes and black hair that she had obviously passed on to her son. It was equally clear that Clay could only have inherited his sharp nose and square chin from his father.

The scarred man tipped the portrait one more time, until it was precisely square with the ceiling, then made his way awkwardly down the ladder.

“Thank you, Terrence,” Reggie said. “You can come back later to remove the ladder.”

“Very well, milady,” Terrence said in his raspy voice.

Clay struggled not to wince when the disfigured servant turned to make his bow. He knew from his experiences with fire as a pirate that Terrence was lucky to have survived such severe burns, but he did not envy the man a lifetime of horrified looks and hidden revulsion.

Once the servant was gone, Reggie said, “I found a portrait of you and your brother as well. Is there someplace you would like me to hang it?”

“Hang it anywhere you like,” he said. He could not afford to care. This was not a home. It was a hovel.

He glanced around the library and realized the description no longer fit. The leather books had all been wiped with a clove-scented oil to kill the mildew. The fireplace was cleaned of soot, and a new leg had been fashioned for the sofa. The mahogany secretaire had been polished to a glossy shine, and a selection of his father’s pipes stood in a wooden stand on one corner, while an inkwell and quill pen occupied the other.

He could almost imagine himself sitting there, quill in hand, the French doors open wide, the smell of his pipe smoke at war with the delicious scent of roses wafting inside.

Something was missing from the picture, and his imagination conjured the sound of children laughing. On the lawn beyond the rose garden he could almost see Reggie cavorting with twin, black-headed boys.

“Shall we return to the dining room and finish our breakfasts?” Reggie asked.

Clay was shocked out of his reverie. To accept the
fantasy was to deny the pain of the past. He would never live in this house. And any child he and Reggie had together would not know his mother.