The Delicate Matter of Lady Blayne (2 page)

“Because you are looking at me so fondly. No, not quite fondly. Worshipfully.” Now annoyance with himself burned through him. He forced his expression to remain pleasant yet—he hoped— convincingly impassive.

Her golden-brown brows, delicately etched and with a slight, elegant arch, drew together. “You think I am still a perfect lady to be placed on a dais and sheltered from the world.”

“Well, what is so wrong with that, Sunny?”

Her gaze cut away from his. There was a certain guilty furtiveness about the gesture. “You don’t know how I have changed. How wicked I have become.” Her voice had risen. There was an edge to it that he didn’t wish to name.

“You could never be wicked.”

She gave him a sideways glance. “Oh no?”

“No,” he said with firm resolution.

“You’ve been away. What would you know of it?” She laughed softly.

What the devil did that mean? And he had never heard such a bitter and strained tone in any woman’s laugh. What had happened to his cheerful girl? He frowned. “Has my aunt been good to you?”

“What choice does she have? I am your cousin’s widow.” Again, her tone was bitterer than soured lemon juice, the dregs from the bottom of the casks on a several months’ long voyage. Such acrimony on a young woman’s tongue would have jarred any man with feeling and a conscience.

Coming from Sunny, his once ever-cheerful girl, it lashed into James without mercy.

He tightened his hold on her hands. “Has she been good to you?” he demanded.

“She has treated me as she thinks will benefit me best.”

“I didn’t ask you what she thinks about how you ought to be treated. I asked how she has treated you in truth.”

“They treat me about as well as can be expected.”

Again, what the devil did that mean? Dread tightened his gut. “But you’re not happy with the situation? You’re not happy living here?”

She compressed her lips tightly. The wild light in her eyes flared brighter. He’d once seen the same look in the gaze of a cornered vixen, the moment before it made a desperate, suicidal swipe at its attackers.

The sense of dread in his innards grew heavier. “I know that Freddy’s will did not leave you adequately for.”

“Ha! And Papa left you in full control of my trust.”

Neither point had seemed to matter to anyone up until this time. Sunny had always been content to let Aunt Frances make decisions.

Had her feelings changed?

“Sunny, I have invested your trust. However, it will take a long time to turn such a small portion into something substantial. Certainly into anything grand enough to sustain the life to which you have become accustomed as Freddy’s wife. I had communicated this to you previously.”

She rolled one shoulder up. “So you did.”

“And Aunt Frances replied that you were happy living here, and that she was seeing to your every need and whim. That you had no need to spend any of your trust.” He frowned. “If you weren’t in agreement with that, you might have written me at any time, and let me know that you wanted access to enough funds so that you could purchase a residence of your own.” He took a deep breath against the increasing tightening in his stomach. Had she really believed that he would deny her access to her own money? Had he interpreted that correctly?

Or was she baiting him?

Yes, she must be baiting him. Surely she could not believe he was such an authoritarian monster. Could she?

A shadow crossed her face.

By God, she did believe it.

Had his neglect done that? Had Aunt Frances misrepresented him?

More importantly, had Aunt Frances misrepresented Sunny’s desire to remain living at Blayne House? Made more of her weakened mental and emotional state? Could his aunt be capable of such? Maybe. A now childless, older woman, fearing old age and aloneness—

Devil take it. This was the world of women—their politics, their strategies, and their silent, undeclared wars. He’d rather face an armada of fire ships than something like this.

“Sunny, would you like to have an increase in your allowance? Would you like to have your own rooms somewhere here in Edinburgh? Or London?” He forced the hint of a smile. “I am sure we can find a willing companion for you amid all my female cousins,”

Her eyes widened in a flash. “It is not so easy to imagine leaving Frances and Grandmother Blayne.”

“You wouldn’t be leaving them, not entirely. You could always visit.”

Was that a flicker of fear in her eyes? What the blazes was going on here?

She shook her head. “I couldn’t live apart from them. No’ after…”

With her tone, with her whole demeanor, she’d made the concept of her living apart from his aunt and grandmother seem like the worse betrayal.

Impatience burned through him. He paused and took a deep breath, struggling to keep his tone gentle. “Not after what?”

Her chin quivered. Her eyes grew glassy. She shook her head.

“Sunny?” he said softy, caressing her fingers. “You can trust me. I will protect you. You can tell me anything.”

Her chin quivered all the more. Fat tears glistened on her lashes.

His insides twisted.

“Anything, Sunny.” His voice worked like a rusty hinge, as though he were fighting hoarseness.

She shook her head more firmly.

Increased sickness twisted through his belly. Dread.

“Mrs. Tibbs has gone for my wrap.” She tugged at his hands. “I really do not need it. But she will insist.” Sunny frowned. “I don’t think you should be here when she comes.”

“Why ever not?”

Her eyes grew even more shadowed.

His stomach began to ache in earnest. “Catriona.”

Her head jerked up. Her mouth fell open and she paled.

She looked stricken.

He’d spoken more sharply than he’d intended, but not that sharply. Was her emotional state so delicate now? She had never been a nervous woman before. Certainly never frail. He took a deep breath and attempted to moderate his tone. “Sunny, why would your lady’s maid care if I were here or not? I assure you, I do not have any wicked designs.”

Her eyes widened.

Christ, what was wrong with him? Speaking to her suggestively like that—what was he thinking?

Her expression eased a little and her lips curved into a wan smile. ”I am just feeling somewhat fragile. She looks after me.”

“But your mourning is over. I am your late husband’s cousin. I am now the head of this family and I look after your financial affairs. What would it matter that we were talking in the garden?”

Sunny sent a glance back at the terrace doors. Didn’t she look quite harried?

“Oh!” She pulled hard against his hold.

He held her fast.

“Please! Please!” She pulled at his hands fiercely. Frantically. Her eyes held a cornered look.

A look of fear.

He released her.

She reached for her skirts and lifted them quickly, revealing little black silk slippers and pale gray silk stockings that clung to shapely calves.

What he once would have promised or done to have seen Sunny’s ankles and calves! He’d seen them only once before. But he could take no pleasure in the sight now. Terrible dread beat through his blood.

“She’s coming!”

“Sunny—” He put his hand on her arm.

She jerked away. “I told you, she must not find me—no’ with you here!”

She whirled and took flight in a crisp rustle of skirts. She had just reached the terrace when the stout matron came out to her with the firm, patient expression of a governess who has every expectation that her orders will be met with strict compliance. She leant closer and touched Sunny’s arm and ushered her into the house.

Chapter Two

Sunny started at the wild look in the eyes that stared back at her from her dressing table mirror. Her body shook, but she couldn’t see herself shaking. Odd how the tremors always felt stronger when the shaking was inside than if one shook outwardly.

They had drawn the curtains, the sheer ones that were dyed blue and turned the outside light to dusk sooner than it ought to be. It was meant to be calming. As were the heavy dark blue and gray bed curtains and the dark wood furniture. The effect struck Sunny as rather dispiriting.

Not that she couldn’t use some calming.

But she missed her former décor. Her bedding sprinkled with countless tiny yellow flowers with rich green leaves on a pale peony-pink background. The yellow and pale-green striped wallpaper and glossy white wainscoting. The emerald velvet bed curtains with the gold braided ties that had shimmered in the firelight. An elegant chandelier hung near the window that had painted the ceiling in little prisms that had reminded her of butterflies, greeting her each morning when she first opened her eyes, waking, as always, alone in bed.

Even her little songbirds, cheerfully chirping in their large brass cage.

It had all been judged to be too colorful, too bright, too jarring for her sensitive nerves.

It had all been stripped away.

She rested her bare palms on the glossy mahogany dressing table. Smooth. Cool. There was something grounding in the sensation. She took several deep breaths until the sense of shaking eased. Slightly.

The afternoon had been entirely too disquieting.

James.

He had been gone so many years. Even with the war over, he had not come home to visit but had chosen to bide in London all this time. Sunny had half expected never to see him again. She put her hands to her flushed cheeks. Had she hoped to never see him again?

Honestly?

Yes, honesty always, please. If you cannot be good, at least you can be honest.

Sunny bowed her head. Yes, part of her had hoped never to see James again. Never to be tempted again.

Had the other part of her feared what she might see in him now?

Frances, as Sunny privately addressed Freddy’s mother, had oft raised the question: What could one expect in a man like James?

After all, hadn’t James been a proper little savage in his early boyhood days, a sore trial to Frances and Grandmother Blayne? Indeed he had! Especially with his father having died in service in the Navy and his mother lost to scandal and shame.

True, as an adolescent and young man, he had worked diligently, tirelessly to build his own reputation and career. But now as a retired naval officer, and one who had recently inherited a fortune and baronetcy, all the days of high adventure and glory would be behind him. Gone also would be the need to push for excellence. In his abject self-pity, he would naturally feel entitled to comfort himself with pleasure.

What else could such a man have to occupy himself except late-night card games, drinking and eating to excess, and endless wenching? One could only expect the signs of dissipation, followed by the acquisition of some dread disease.

So passionately and colorfully expressed had Frances’ predictions been, Sunny had half expected James’ blue eyes to blaze less intensely. For his hair to be greatly thinned and the remaining strands to be threaded with silver. For his face to have started to become jowly and his mid-section to have gone paunchy.

Perhaps all those changes would have made him easier to face.

But his features looked just as bold and gorgeously male in the present moment as in the memories of him that had been emblazoned on her mind.

Maybe even more so.

His hair was still as black as ebony, his face so deeply tanned that it seemed the years of seafaring would never fade from the flesh. His nose so straight and fine, his cheekbones so prominent and fierce. And that sensual yet firm-looking mouth…Didn’t it appear a shade or two harsher, though? More stern, with new, faint lines cut around it? It was as though self-discipline were etched into every line of his face.

And the way he carried himself! His back so straight, each step so purposeful, his jaw held so firmly that he seemed ready to stride over to her and issue some curt order. His clothing had been all darkest blue, pale gray silk and snow-white linen, frighteningly well-pressed, his cravat expertly tied, stiff with starch so that it appeared carved from marble.

Not a speck of lint.

People who could keep themselves so perfectly put together intimidated Sunny. She was not perfect. Not even adequate. Mama and Aunt Frances and even Freddy had despaired of her inability to be neat, collected and stately at some of the most important times. But there was more to their despair than that, wasn’t there? Failings more serious than wrinkled frocks, wine stains, missing gloves and reticules or falling coiffures.

It wasn’t so much that she was intentionally careless, but rather that she was highly distracted. Forgetful. Too often consumed by needling thoughts.

Was that really a valid excuse? No, it wasn’t.

Goodness, what would a man like James had matured into, make of a woman like herself?

She closed her eyes, seeing him again as a young man in the Landbrae garden. So tall, so muscular and fit. He radiated strength and determination. Just as he always had.

Yet today, it had been his sky-blue gaze, so intense and cutting, that had struck her.

Eyes framed by brows so inky black that their light color appeared opalescent, silvery, like they had been frosted by moonlight.

Eyes that had never changed. A stern stare that told of a man who had never known a moment’s indecision, self-doubt or fear.

He had frightened her, when she had been a girl.

No, that was dishonest.

If you cannot be good, you can at least be honest!

She put her hand over her chest, feeling her quickening heart’s beat. Honestly, it had been the way he had made her feel that had frightened her most of all. Before she’d met James, she’d always feared that, secretly, she was a wanton at heart. Yes, beneath all the careful training she’d received as a clergyman’s daughter, she had burnt with desire.

Back then, she had thought she could overcome her weaknesses.

Now she knew better.

She took an uneven breath, aware of the edginess that crackled along her nerves. Aware of the quickening in her breathing. Aware of the growing sensitivity in her breasts. The slight ache in her belly. She should not nurture such thoughts. She opened her eyes and was greeted by her reflection in the mirror.

Her eyes darkened with desire, and her cheeks flushed. Her lips appeared a deeper red, as though she’d been feasting on cherries.

She touched her mouth, lightly feathering her fingertips there, remembering the feel of James’ firm yet utterly sensual lips upon hers, all those years ago. Yes, she had never forgotten that one time.

That first infidelity.

Her throat tightened painfully.

Oh, Freddy…

She jerked the knob to the dressing table drawer and with a slight screech, the drawer bolted open, the contents jolting and rattling with the motion. Heady scents of rose and lavender and lemon wafted from several empty, delicately crafted crystal perfume bottles stashed amid a profusion of colorful hair ribbons, countless jewel- and pearl-encrusted hair pins and a slew of folded letters, richly dyed feathers, sparkling gems—long ago separated from their original position on hats or evening gowns—hopelessly tangled strips of lace meshed with the silver chain of a locket, a V-shaped velvet bodice insert studded with black glittering jets, and countless other, less identifiable bits of feminine nonsense.

All the pieces of her past.

Some merely pretty, some deeply sentimental.

Things she couldn’t quite bring herself to let go.

Frantically, she raked her fingers through the fragrant, rainbow-hued rabble, until she hit something more solid.

A miniature.

She lifted it out and traced the intricate carving on the gold frame.

Freddy’s large, soft gray eyes stared up at her. A handsome young man with blond locks kissed with a faint hue of red, and fine, almost angelic features. She had loved Freddy first.

She had loved Freddy best. With all her heart.

James had been nothing more than a temptation. A test.

A test that she had almost failed.

Freddy had done her much honor to court her. To ask for her hand in marriage years before Papa would allow it. But Freddy had wanted only her. He had waited for her, treating her during that whole time as a true gentleman treated an innocent fiancée. Only hand holding and the chastest of kisses had passed between them. And during that time of waiting, he had been overcome with a summer flux.

The fever had caused his heart to weaken.

It had not lessened her love for him. Not even after her mother had sat her down and spoken to her sternly, telling her that there could be no children for them if they wed.

But Freddy had needed her.

Needed her.

How could she ever have turned away from him? Even if it meant denying herself everything a woman craved? Even children.

Well, it would have been the most unchristian, uncharitable thing she could have ever done to leave him.

“And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three…” Sunny mouthed the words soundlessly. “But the greatest of these is charity.”

As a girl, she had written those lines, with flawless calligraphy, on countless handbills that Mama had handed out to strangers on her weekly pilgrimages into the city to save the souls of so many.

Think of all the good Papa and Mama had done in India all these years since her marriage. They were saving the souls of the heathens. Relieving the suffering of the poor. Freddy had financed their missionary work.

Mama was so good.

Papa was so good.

Her sisters were so good.

But Sunny was bad. So bad.

She had become discontented in her marriage.

It had been springtime and she had felt so young, so alive. So full of the joy of simply being.

No, be honest!

It had been the joy of being a woman. The joy of merely gazing upon a man’s handsomeness and being pleased by it. And knowing that he had gazed upon her and found her just as pleasing.

She had allowed herself to be excited into unseemly high spirits. She had acted indiscreetly. She had smiled too brightly. Laughed a little too loudly.

And she had been the baroness. Her behavior should have been beyond reproach, at all times.

Even in the spring.

Oh, Freddy, my love, my love, I never meant to hurt you. I am so sorry, so very sorry…

She intoned the words in her mind, then swallowed against the constriction in her throat and pressed the miniature to her breasts. Freddy, whom she had loved but been forbidden to love as his lover.

I am sorry, love, so sorry for it all.

Freddy’s voice echoed back to her, a haunting refrain from her memory, a fragment of a late-night conversation early in their marriage.

Freddy, whom she had disrespected.

Freddy had needed her so.

She thrust the miniature back into the drawer and slammed it shut.

The artist’s rendering was so lifelike, she could never bear to look at it for long.

If the past was too painful, the present was too unsettling.

James.

Handsome and virile.

Carnal temptation personified.

He drew her just as potently as ever.

Dear God, help her.

She hugged her shoulders, staring at the door and feeling her heart pound against her rib cage.

She must calm herself.

They would be coming with the bath water soon. Very soon. Her moments alone were limited. If they saw how agitated she was—if they guessed the reason, they would send for Dr. Meeker.

* * * *

James drummed his fingers upon his wool-covered thigh.

The tea had taken forever to arrive. Now Aunt Frances lingered over the pouring of it fussily. The jewel clasps that fastened the feathers in her silk turban caught the firelight of the spacious withdrawing chamber. In the soft glow, her skin still looked quite fine. One might easily think she was no more than forty-five. It was a wonder that she had never remarried. But then, she wouldn’t have wanted to let go of her position of power, would she? She’d been placed in the most perfect position for a woman of her temperament. Dowager to a wealthy estate, with a son who looked to her unquestioningly for guidance.

Now that son was dead and James was the new baron.

With an inner sigh, he pulled his watch from his pocket and glanced at it. He had a supper commitment and the time was drawing short. “Where is this Dr. Metcalf?”