The Rules of Seduction (22 page)

“Devotion to her art, some say. The need to shut out the world and create became so intense she retired from society. Others with artistic temperaments favor that explanation.”

“You do not offer that explanation with much conviction.”

“A woman does not have to become a hermit to be a writer. Nor does she have to retire entirely from society. This absence was thorough and permanent.”

“Which explanation do
you
favor, then?”

“Either of the ones that fits the few facts I know. It could have been an illness. Syphilis, for example.”

Alexia stared at her. Phaedra misread the blankness.

“That is—”

“I know what that is. I am not a child.”

“It would explain Rothwell’s requirement about the physicians. He would have a bigger fear than most men if he saw its effects firsthand. He might desire a woman, but he did not act until he knew the act would not kill him.”

Except one time, on an attic floor, he
had
acted without knowing. He could not have been certain she was a virgin. He had not calculated the risks much at all that day.

She tried to sort it out in her head. “And his father?”

“I have heard nothing similar there. It might have taken its toll more slowly, of course, and not been evident prior to his death. But there is a flaw in that theory, which is why the last one is more plausible. She may have retired from society by her husband’s command, not her own choice, and been sent to their country home as a form of imprisonment.”

“Aylesbury Abbey is hardly a prison.”

“Any place is a prison if you are confined there and lack the freedom to leave. With the power a husband has, if he wanted to separate her from the world, he could do it.”

“I am sure you are wrong. There would have been no reason for such harshness.”

Phaedra looked on her as if she were a child ignorant of the world. “There is a good reason. It happens all the time. A husband would do it to separate his wife from another man.”

“I think it more likely she wanted to write. You should take up the pen yourself, Phaedra. You spin a good tale out of a poor woman’s preference for privacy and country air.”

Phaedra got up and retrieved a large portfolio from its place against the wall. “Perhaps you are right, but do not let pleasure blind you with that new husband. It is said the last marquess could be rigid, hard, and ruthless when it suited him. There are those who say Lord Hayden has much of the last marquess in his character.” She sat down and opened the portfolio on her lap. “Now, look at these drawings with me. A new friend made them, and I think he shows great talent.”

Upon Alexia’s return home, Falkner informed her that Hayden would not be dining at the house. No explanation was given, nor did she ask for one. She wondered where her husband went tonight, however. Under the circumstances, she rather wished she had made her own plans, so her own right to a separate life would also have been articulated.

With hours to herself, she retired early, but not to her new bedchamber. Instead, she ventured back to her old room. Although her garments and toiletries had been moved, she had not instructed it to be stripped of all her belongings.

The room seemed strange at first. She might have been absent a year. As she moved around, touching the few books still stored here and the writing paper waiting for her pen, the space warmed to her presence.

A deep basket caught her eye. Tucked under the writing table, it held her notions. She had received an order from Mrs. Bramble right after she became engaged and had made the hat before her wedding out of obligation. The work had joyed her, however. Concentrating on its construction had settled her jumpy emotions that week.

She lifted the basket and pawed through the ribbons and threads. She went to the wardrobe and found some of the Dunstable straw she had bought at the warehouse. She no longer had to make her own hats, but perhaps on nights like this it would be good to have something to do. It would keep her from feeling so much like a woman waiting for something interesting to happen.

She lost herself in the work. Deciding the shape of the crown, daring an innovation in the brim, choosing the colors—all of it lightened her heart.

She forced herself to stop near midnight. When she returned to her bedchamber, she heard vague sounds that said Hayden was home. It had not been much of a night on the town.

Relief flooded her. The reaction was so marked, so
thorough,
that her breath caught. She closed her eyes and assessed her emotion honestly. The implications were not good news.

Her heart had been holding its breath, waiting to learn when he returned, wondering if he would at all. Phaedra said he’d had mistresses, and inevitably the day would come when he would have another one. She’d secretly feared he had already arranged that or had never broken with whomever he kept before they married.

The relief’s sadness, the way it twisted her heart, indicated it would matter to her. She might know it would happen, but she did not want it to. It was not a practical reaction at all. She had long ago given up on resenting or resisting the truths of her life. If you could not change things, if you could not win, rebelling only led to more unhappiness.

She rebelled now, however. Her heart did. She could not quiet it. She did not want him taking his passion to another woman. Imagining him doing so made her stomach clench.

She undressed herself, since she had told Joan not to wait up. She slipped into bed and waited for the door to open.

The chamber fell silent. The whole house did. It occurred to her that Hayden might have come to her room earlier and found her gone. The hat had distracted her long into the night.

She rose and donned her dressing robe. She padded down the connecting corridor on bare feet. Easing the door open, she peered into Hayden’s bedroom.

The smallest lamp glowed, barely adding to the dull illumination leaking through one half-closed window drape. It was enough light for her to see that he was in bed. She could not tell if he slept. He reclined on his back, with his hands behind his head and his bent arms splayed on the mound of pillows that propped his upper body. The position tensed his arms’ muscles, defining their strength.

She glanced around the chamber. Nothing had been moved. The furniture remained exactly as it had been. And yet nothing of Timothy remained here. Her cousin might have never set foot in this room. Without changing a thing, Hayden had made it completely his own merely by occupying it.

He moved, startling her. He sat up and supported his weight on one arm braced behind him. She felt like an intruder.

“I am sorry. I did not mean to wake you.”

“I was not sleeping. I was indulging a dark mood.”

Definitely an intruder. She began easing back, out of the doorway.

“What did you want, Alexia?”

It was a question for which she had no answer.

“Come here.”

She wished he would allow her to retreat gracefully. She walked over to the bed.

He reached out, took her arm, and guided her toward him. After some fussing with the bedclothes, he had her tucked in beside him. He laid with an arm around her, gazing at the drape above much as he had when she entered.

He did not intend to make love to her, she realized. He had not come to her chamber earlier. He had not sought her out because he did not want her tonight. Perhaps he had gone to a mistress after all. One who had already made that required visit to a physician months ago.

The notion bothered her less now, although it still rankled. Perhaps her contentment in the familiar way his arm embraced her caused the difference. It was very pleasant being held like this, with no expectations in the air and no sated desire creating a selfless fog.

They had never done this before. There was always a point, a specific moment, when the aftermath of passion evaporated. He always left then, to seek his own bed. She wondered if he experienced the gentle comfort of this calm embrace as she did.

“You were not here when I left this afternoon,” he said. “I would have explained my plans this time, since it was the first since we returned from Kent.”

This time, but not in the future. His intentions had been kind, but he also instructed her on how this was done.

“It was thoughtful of you to want to explain this first time, but I know that we will often go our own ways at night as in the day.”

He chuckled lowly. She liked the sound and the evidence that the dark mood was passing, but she had no idea what he found humorous.

“There is a man in from Bavaria. A dinner was held for him. Men only. We drank and talked hunting, but the real reason was business.”

“You do not need to explain. I am very sophisticated. Really.”

“I did not want you wondering if I had gone to a mistress so soon after our wedding. I should have remembered that you are too sensible to be jealous, especially when there is no evidence.”

She was glad it was dark and he could not see her face warming. She wondered if she would be so sensible in the future, when there
was
evidence. She feared not, considering the way his description of his night lightened her spirits.

She turned and rose up on her elbow so she could see his face. “Today I ordered that exorbitantly expensive gown you commanded me to buy. Madame Tissot almost wept with happiness at the cost of it.”

“What color is the gown?”

“An unusual one. Like ivory washed in firelight.”

“It sounds like a color that would be complemented by diamonds.”

“I do not know.” She did not think she had ever seen any real diamonds.

“We will see.”

He all but said he was going to buy her some. That delighted her, as it would any woman.

“You said you nursed a bad mood. Did that dinner not go well?”

He did not respond. She really did intrude now. She had pushed this cozy mood too far.

He pressed her shoulder, returning her to the pillows. “It was something else that provoked it. A duty calls that cannot be avoided. There is some danger my mood will be darker yet in the days ahead. If I do not come to you, it would be best to leave me alone with it.” He began untying the ribbons on her dressing robe. “However, I am glad you did not tonight.”

“Tell me about your family,” she said.

His floating senses heard her quiet statement. They did not talk much in bed, but this time had started differently. That must be why her question flowed on the silence quite normally, summoning him out of the relaxed satisfaction. Almost half his mind remained suspended in the stillness of sensual contentment, however. He would not return to the world completely until he had to. Unpleasantness waited for him there. He would face it squarely when he had to, but not just yet.

He shifted enough so his weight did not crush her. There had been no experiments tonight. No initiations. He wondered if she had sensed that he took his time because the shadow hovered too long, even affecting the desire at first.

“There are an assortment of cousins. You will meet them all soon.”

She subtly flexed along his body, reminding him of her physicality. In the aftermath, it was easy to forget about their bodies for a while.

“I meant your brothers and parents.”

“You have met my brothers.” He thought to leave it there, but perhaps she deserved some explanations. Very soon the ladies of society would be filling her ears. Perhaps some already had.

“I envy you them. I had a brother who died young, a year before my mother. I would have liked to grow up less alone.”

“We formed alliances that were useful. Not against my mother, who was very gentle.”

She did not pry, but he could imagine what she might have been told. He did not like the idea that she had formed an image of his mother that was untrue. If they had met, they would have probably taken to each other at once. “She was a bit eccentric and had the ability to retreat into her own mind for lengths of time. Her last years, she never came up to town.”

“I hear she was a writer.”

Yes, someone had shared those stories with her. “A good one. My father refused to allow her to publish, however. He did not consider it appropriate.”

“Too revealing, perhaps? Whether prose or poetry, her pen would expose herself to the world.”

And possibly expose him too. His cold rigidity and the cruel satisfaction he took in her unhappiness. That had been his real fear.

A memory beckoned, one his mind tried to avoid. Of a dark room and a woman sitting at a table, pen in hand, bent over paper. Her eyes were always sane when she wrote those pages. Sane and alive with the joy of visiting a better world.

Look at her, boy. Never forget what you see. That unhappiness is the result of the irrational impulses the emotions breed.

He read those pages after she died. He found poems of beauty and optimism that revealed her in ways her distance had denied him. For a long, unholy moment, he had hated the man who had silenced that voice.

“She retreated from the world, and from us, but she did not go mad. Do not be concerned that the family blood has that taint.”

Alexia did not protest and claim she had never wondered. She did not speak at all. Perhaps his rough tone silenced her.

She merely turned in his arms and placed a gentle kiss on his brow.

CHAPTER
SIXTEEN

S
uttonly received Hayden in his large dressing room. He shared cigars and confidences with his closest circle here, beneath a ceiling festooned with gold moldings and painted tondos that depicted nymphs and satyrs.

“It is early, Rothwell. At this hour I assume you come on business.”

“Yes.”

“Has a problem developed with that new investment in the Americas?”

Hayden sat on a sofa of enormous size and comfort. The chamber reminded him of other visits here, years ago and before Suttonly inherited the title. This dressing room had been Suttonly’s private lair where he brought friends for long nights of cards and drink.

“I have come to talk about Benjamin Longworth. I have had reason to look into Ben’s finances at his death. In helping the bank assess Tim’s fortune and debts, its source, from Benjamin, arose as well.”

“Timothy Longworth claimed to be a banker. He should be able to assess all of this himself.” Hayden ignored the truth in that response. “Yesterday I learned that Ben had an account at the Bank of England.”

“That is rich. He did not trust his own bank with his own money but expected all of us to do so.”

“This was a special account, one for a special purpose. Money moved in for a short while and then moved out. In some cases he took notes, but he also wrote drafts early on to a number of people. Including you.”

A languid smile expressed Suttonly’s wry amusement. “Poke into Longworth’s finances all you want, Rothwell, but do not presume to poke into mine.”

Hayden rose from the comfortable sofa. He strolled along mahogany-shelved walls holding a collection of varied rocks and feathers. Suttonly had been something of a naturalist while at university, but those interests had been abandoned to the pleasures of London long ago.

He lifted a striated red rock brought back from a visit they had made to the Lake District one holiday. “Years ago you had Darfield and Longworth hold some funds for you, did you not?”

“A small amount. It was a mere gesture, to help the friend of a friend. It was not a significant sum.”

“The records say you soon sold them out.”

“I decided I had no obligation to help a friend of a friend if I found that man tedious. Yes, I sold them out.”

“And yet, over the next years, Ben gave you money privately.”

“It was private money to repay a private debt.”

“Was it the drafts alone? Or did the banknotes go to you too?”

“Do you think it wise to go down this path, Rothwell? To pry into the dealings of two old friends?”

He was very sure it was unwise. He also knew he had to fill in the colors in the new portrait of Benjamin being painted in his mind. Right now it was a flat and primitive sketch, a caricature of criminal avarice and despair. He barely recognized the face.

“The funds you sold amounted to one thousand pounds. The bank drafts, combined, to five thousand. More was removed in notes, at similar intervals. Over fifteen thousand all told.”

A deep sigh of boredom greeted this information. “I do not share your fascination with numbers. Who cares?”

“I have reasons for caring.”

“How unfortunate for you that he is dead and cannot satisfy your curiosity.”

A new note punctuated the lazy tone. Smug contentment. It caused Hayden to turn from the rock collection and look at his friend.

Suttonly’s pose announced lack of concern. His face remained pallid. His eyes burned, however. Anger reflected in them, but so did caution and a disturbingly alert slyness.

He gazed ever so placidly with those revealing eyes, perhaps unaware that they contained all the answers Hayden sought. Or maybe he wanted someone to know how clever he had been after discovering the theft.

“I must excuse myself, Rothwell. I have a full day.” He rose and strolled toward the door. “My man will see you out.”

“How big was this debt?” Hayden asked. “How much did he owe you?”

Suttonly paused and half-turned. Pride defeated prudence after a brief contest. “In a manner of speaking, you could say he owed me his life.”

Hayden rose from his bed in his City chambers and staggered, blurry-eyed, toward the washstand. He did not even glance in the looking glass above it.

He had arrived here three days ago after his meeting with Suttonly. Or had it been four now? Time had gotten away from him. Faced with the knowledge that Suttonly had discovered Ben’s forgery and made him pay, seeing that Ben had good cause to dread returning to England, he had retreated into this private, silent home. His clerk saw he was fed, but he gave the man no other duties. Instead, he spent uncharted hours on his calculations and slept when complete fatigue overcame him.

Early dawn’s silver light turned white as the risen sun’s rays streaked in the window. The sudden brightness shocked him into an unwelcome state of alertness. The truth emerged from the shadows of his mind, no longer obscured by exhaustion or distraction. It ripped through him like a hot knife.

He had allowed Ben to die. The suspicion of that had haunted him for years. In hindsight, the details of that night had been blaring trumpets.

He should have heard them. Stopped it. He should have thrashed Ben if necessary and carried him off the deck. Instead, he had allowed his anger at Ben’s goad to make him deaf and blind, and he had turned away.

That had been deliberate on Ben’s part. He had already known what he was going to do. And Ben had not confided the truth. He did not believe he would find help if he confessed but instead only censure and a walk to the noose.
Now you sound like your father. All judgment and logical superiority.

Anger wanted to split his mind apart. Anger at himself and at Benjamin, and also at the circumstances that made this all so pitifully ironic.

He stripped off his shirt, braced himself against the washstand, and splashed water on his face. It trickled down his chest, snaking over the long scar. A sickening memory flashed through him, one of pain and fear as a blade sliced this path. That farmhouse was not much larger than this bedroom, and just as dark. Being an English lord’s brother had meant nothing to the Turkish soldiers using him for sport.

If not for Ben’s impulsive, mad heroics, he would have died in that farmhouse. Slowly. They had already beaten his youth out of him by the time Ben crashed through the window.

He pulled his shirt back on and immediately went to the standing table in the next chamber. He escaped into the sublime purity of the calculations like an opium user seeking his drug. Grappling with the divine design of creation submerged him in a separate existence, one apart from the world of physical pain and chaotic emotions that made living all too profane.

Alexia tapped the edge of the letter against the surface of her secretaire’s writing surface. Hayden’s long absence from the house vexed her. She tried not to dwell on where he might be and with whom he might be dallying. She tried not to see this as abandonment or betrayal, even if it felt more hurtful having occurred after that quiet night together.

Her growing annoyance concerned the letter in her hand. Rose had written.
Finally.
The note bore the tone of a distant acquaintance. It spoke of commonplace things and never addressed their differences. The contact had come, however, and Alexia did not want the door to close before she had a chance to walk through it and attempt to reclaim her cousins.

The good wife wanted to tell her husband. It would not do to just take that carriage and leave town. She doubted Hayden thought
she
should just go off whenever
she
wanted for days on end without
his
knowledge or permission.

A discreet question to Falkner had elicited no information this morning. No one in this house had any idea where Hayden had gone. His valet indicated no baggage had been packed and he had taken his horse, not a carriage. He was somewhere in London, perhaps relieving that dark mood with someone more experienced at dispersing clouds than his wife had proven.

She opened the letter and read Rose’s restrained sentences again. She could simply write back, she supposed. With enough polite correspondence she might achieve a rapprochement in a few months. She did not want to wait that long. She wanted to see Rose and know for certain that her cousins were not lost to her.

She left her chamber and called for her carriage. She would make an attempt to find Hayden and speak with him about this. If he proved elusive, she would make the journey to Oxfordshire without his permission.

She gave her card to the servant and asked to see either the marquess or Lord Elliot Rothwell. A short while later she was escorted to the latter, who waited in the library.

“Christian is not receiving today,” Elliot explained. “It is always my pleasure when you visit, however.”

“I have come to seek your help,” she explained. “I would like to send a message to Hayden, and I thought you might know how to do that.”

Elliot assumed an expression of bemused curiosity. “Forgive me, but I do not know my brother’s daily appointments. Perhaps his valet…”

“He has been gone three days now. I am sure he is in London.” She attempted to maintain a sophisticated tone. She hoped her face did not show her embarrassment. “It is important to me to at least attempt to inform him of a matter that requires I leave London for a day or two.”

Elliot frowned. “Three days, you say.” His attention retreated into his own thoughts. “I know what you are thinking.” His brow smoothed, but his eyes remained concerned. “When my brother had mistresses, he did not stay with them. Ever. Nor was he involved in a liaison in the weeks prior to his marriage.”

She appreciated his frankness. Relief swelled in her, but a spike of fear made it irrelevant. “I just assumed…Is it possible he was hurt, or—”

“Unlikely. Your carriage is outside? Let us go, then.” He walked toward the door decisively. “I will speak with his valet, and then I will take you to him.”

She hurried after him. “Truly, I only wish to send him a message.”

“If he has gone where I think, that will not be enough. Trust me on this.”

“You look like a prisoner on a hull, Hayden.”

Elliot’s voice sounded like a cannon in the silence. It jolted Hayden out of a concentration so intense that his jaw ached. He glanced to the south-facing window that displayed the sun’s position. It was past midday already.

Elliot carried coats and packages. He took them into the bedroom. “You are not even changing to sleep, I see. It hasn’t been this extreme for a long time. Years. Not since that bad spell right after you returned to England.”

Elliot’s sudden arrival brought reality through the door. The world had to realign on its axis to accommodate the intrusion. While his brother tended to matters in the bedroom, Hayden adjusted to his reawakened senses. He felt like a man rising from bed after a long bout with a fever.

He looked down at his chest and noticed how soiled his shirt was. “Did Christian send you?”

“No.” Elliot emerged from the bedroom. “Another person alerted me to your disappearance.” He angled his head toward the door.

Hayden opened it. Alexia stood in the anteroom. He closed the door before she saw him.

“You could not even spare the time to send her a note?” Elliot asked. “You left her to wonder if your body was in the Thames or if you were holding a weeklong debauch in some bordello.”

“I do not hold debauches in bordellos.”

“
She
does not know that.” Displaying more anger than Hayden had seen in years, Elliot strode to the door. “I leave you to her. If I remain I might demand to know what caused this. Perhaps she will be too relieved or too ignorant to wonder.”

“You would never demand to know. That is why I like you, Elliot. You do not exhort me or criticize. You bring me fresh shirts but are prepared to leave me to my unique form of inebriation.”

“I do not criticize because I understand the drink that lures you too well. That does not mean I am not concerned when you drown in it, Hayden.”

He strode out, leaving the door open. Alexia looked in. Her expression fell at his appearance. She swept past the clerk, entered, and closed the door.

She gave him a good look, head to toe. He became too aware of how disgusting he appeared.

“Your valet wanted to come, but Elliot forbade it. I thought the request peculiar. Little did I know that he guessed what we would find.” She gestured to the bedchamber. “He was good enough to collect the necessities for us, however. I trust you keep a razor here, or should I send your clerk for a barber?”

Hayden felt his face and the growth there. Alexia strolled around the office, taking in his private sanctuary.

“Would you like to hear news of the world, husband? Amazing things have happened while you played the hermit. Scandals and wars and great discoveries.” Her tone edged toward a scold. “What is this, Hayden? What are you doing here?”

He retreated to the bedroom and stripped off the foul shirt. He began to wash and glimpsed the wild man in the looking glass. Elliot was right. It had not been this bad in years. And the last time, upon his return from Greece, had been for the same reason. He had found some peace during that earlier retreat. He had forged enough ambiguity and lies out of that night’s memories to allow himself some forgiveness. Oddly enough, the honesty this time offered more relief.