The Seduction (48 page)

"Speaking of
kitchenmaids
, sir," the butler said, "we may have a problem with Annie."

"Whatever the problem is,
Chivers
, I'm sure you'll handle it."

The butler gave a discreet cough. "Well, sir, this may be an issue for her ladyship, rather than myself."

Trevor looked up from the ledger he was studying. "What do you mean?"

"Annie has been walking out with a foreigner on her afternoons off, sir."

"So, what of it?"

Chivers
frowned with the air of one who smelled something unpleasant. "He's an Italian sailor. He's staying in Dover, but he's been to see her every Sunday. Not a nice young man, in my opinion, sir.

Annie has no family to look after her, and someone should speak with her about it. I was thinking her ladyship might have a talk with her. Lady Caroline has already tried, but Annie won't listen. Since her ladyship is closer in age to Annie, the girl might listen to her."

Trevor suppressed a smile. "I think that who Annie spends her time with on Sunday afternoons is her own business. I don't think we need to worry about it."

The butler bowed in deference to his decision, but clearly didn't like it. He left the study, and Trevor dismissed the matter from his mind.

He worked from sunrise to midnight and fell into bed exhausted each evening. But sleep often eluded him. His mind was tortured by how close Margaret was to him, and yet how far. Only a few dozen feet away, yet the distance seemed like a thousand miles. Time and again, he reminded himself of his rights as a husband, but he did not claim them. Patience, strategy, and fortitude became his catechism.

A month after their arrival in Kent, the crops had been planted, the major repairs made, and construction had begun on the linen mill. Trevor's horses arrived from London, and he knew it was time to turn his attentions to the most important project of all: seducing his wife.

Margaret wandered through the gardens of Ashton Park. It was a fine April morning, and she enjoyed the fact that for once it was not raining. She walked along the herbaceous border, thinking idly that ox-eye daisies would go far better with the delphiniums than the
Michaelmas
daisies planted here. They would bloom at the same time and make a nice show in June.

But this was Caroline's own garden, and she suspected her mother-in-law would not appreciate any advice from her. Besides, what difference would it make? She did not intend to be here long enough to see it bloom.

She came to the arbor, where she liked to read her letters when the weather was fine. Sitting down on a stone bench beneath a tangle of climbing roses, she pulled out the latest missive she had received from her London solicitors, hoping for a more decisive response to her inquiries about dissolving her marriage than she had received a fortnight ago. That letter from them had been tactful and cautious. They had urged her not to be precipitate, to think things over.

But she had written them again, stating that she had thought things over and wished to proceed. She scanned the typewritten lines hopefully, but she did not find the answer she wanted. Mr. Pelham was blunt and succinct, stating quite plainly what Trevor had told her a month ago. Her chances of obtaining an annulment were nil, and her chances of obtaining a divorce were slim at best.

She folded the letter, put it in her pocket, and stared ahead of her at the overgrown boxwood hedges of a maze. She no longer berated herself for being a fool. There was no point. Her anger at how she had been tricked was gone. Anger was a difficult emotion to maintain with nothing new to feed it, and Trevor gave her no excuse. She hardly ever saw him, and when she did, he hardly spoke to her.

She tried very hard to hate him, but hate, like anger, was very difficult to cling to. She knew he was busy spending her money, but even in that, she could not condemn him, for he was not throwing it away on gambling and women and lavish parties. She knew he was improving his estates. Though she resented the means by which he had obtained her money, she could not fault the way in which he spent it.

Perhaps she had simply grown up. A sad smile curved her lips at the thought. Her father had told her once that love wasn't everything. Cornelia had said that no man would ever live up to her expectations. Trevor had said that her idea of true love was only a school girl fantasy. Perhaps they had all been right, and she should just make the best of things. She should just resign herself to living in an empty marriage, do her duty by having the Ashton heirs, and accept the fact that Trevor did not love her and never would.

But she knew she could not do that. She could not live without love. Without that, everything else was meaningless.

A sound caused her to look up, and she found Trevor standing beside her.

"I thought I might find you here. My mother says you often sit here in the mornings."

She looked away. "Was there something you wanted?"

"Yes. I want to show you something. Come with me."

She stared at the hand he held out to her without moving to take it. She did not want to go with him, but she could not sit here forever. She stood up, careful to avoid touching him. "Where are we going?"

"You'll see."

He led her out of the garden and down to the stables, where a groom had two horses ready. He'd mentioned at dinner the night before that he had purchased horses when he was in London, and Margaret figured the
chesnut
mare must be one of them.

"Her name is Truffles," Trevor said. "I thought it was appropriate." He put the reins in her hand. "Try her out. I know you like a fast horse, and she's fast enough, I think, even for you."

Margaret stared at the mare for a moment, then turned her head to look at the sprawling green meadow outside the paddock. It had been so long since she'd gone riding. She bit her lip and glanced at her husband. Instead of the challenging, teasing expression she expected to see, his face was grave.

"Are you ordering me to come with you?" she asked.

"No. I'm asking you to come because I think you might enjoy yourself."

She wanted to ask why it mattered. Her hand tightened around the reins and she lifted one foot to the stirrup. "I'll race you to the oak tree," she told him and vaulted into the side saddle, curling one leg around the pommel. Before he could move, she was off.

She urged Truffles into a gallop, and the crisp morning air whipped her face as she raced across the meadow. She wasn't dressed for riding, and within moments, her fashionably tiny bonnet of yellow straw and purple roses fell back, caught only by the lavender silk ribbons at her throat. Her skirt of lavender silk went flying up in the wind, but she didn't care. It felt exhilarating to go riding again.

She reached the oak tree at the other end of the meadow before he did. Reining in the mare, she turned, smoothing her skirts and adjusting her hat as she watched him ride toward her.

"Not fair," he said, halting Avedon, his big, black gelding, beside her. "You only won because you got such a good head start."

"True," she agreed. "But you were right. She's a fast horse."

"She's your wedding present." He looked away. "No matter what happens, I hope you'll keep her."

He knew she was still hoping to get a divorce. Margaret held her breath, waiting, but he did not ask her about it. Instead, he gestured to the lodge gates that led out to the fields and pastures beyond. "Shall we ride on? I'd like to show you what Blakeney and I have been up to."

He wanted her to see it, perhaps to justify to her what he was spending her money on. She wondered why it should matter to him. She nodded, and they rode past the lodge and down the road. "I heard," she said, noting the freshly planted fields on either side of them, "that you've put in flax, and you're building a linen mill."

"Yes. This way, we have our own flax supply to make fabric."

She hated to give him credit for anything, but it was a sound idea. He took her past the tenant cottages, and she could not help noticing how different they looked from that bleak day when she had first seen them. He showed her the mill under construction, and it was far larger than she'd expected. He told her they would eventually employ about three hundred people. What he didn't say was how helpful that would be to the local economy. She knew how hard he had been working, and she could not help being impressed by all that he had accomplished in one short month.

"Are you hungry?" he asked. "You must be. It's after noon. Let's have lunch."

But instead of turning his horse in the direction of the house, he started for the woods.

"Where are we going?" she asked, following him.

He gave her the same maddening reply he had given her the last time she asked that question. "You'll see."

He led her through the woods of oak and chestnut to a clearing where a blanket was spread out on the grass. Beside it was a picnic basket and a bottle of wine. "I thought a picnic would be nice."

After dismounting, he tied their horses to a tree branch. Then he helped her down. They sat down on the blankets, and he opened the basket, pulling out a paper wrapped package. "Smoked trout," he said and laid it on the blanket. Reaching again into the basket, he pulled out a small burlap bag. "Dried apricots."

She smiled, remembering Italy. "Is there beef jerky in there, too?"

"Of course. I know how fond you are of the stuff."

Her smile faded, and she felt a sudden, absurd desire to cry.
Damn him,
she thought.
He knows just which strings to pull.
She looked away, feeling all her carefully welded indifference cracking. She grabbed the loaf of bread he laid beside the trout and tore off a piece. "Now what?" she asked in defense. "Now are you going to tell me how beautiful I am?"

He did not react to her scornful question as she expected. He merely shrugged. "I might, but why should I? You wouldn't believe me, would you?"

"No, I wouldn't."

"Well, then, I won't say it. If I did, you'd call me a liar, and I refuse to get into a fight with you today." He shoved the ball of butter toward her and handed her a knife, then reached for the wine. "Let's eat."

They ate without talking, and it wasn't long before she found the silence stifling. She wanted to fight, and he would not cooperate. To goad him, she said, "So, now that you've spent a sizable chunk of my money planting your crops and putting your lands in order, what's next? The house, I suppose?"

"Yes," he said calmly. "I want to completely modernize it. It's so dark, I want to put in electric lighting. And, God knows, it could use some bathrooms, don't you think?"