What a Woman Desires (5 page)

He continued to stare at her, his lips drawn tightly together and his eyes assessing.

Further words bit and stung her tongue, but she snapped her mouth closed. Thomas didn’t need to know how her so-called plans had gone awry. He didn’t need to know what happen to her and her stupid, naïve heart . . . or how she’d lived and relied on strangers’ help to get to the place she was today. She intended to leave Marksville as soon as possible, and the easiest way to do that was to keep her distance from everyone here and not get emotionally involved as she’d been before.

She tilted her chin. “Think what you like. That’s the truth of it. What happens now is all that concerns me. The same should be true for you too.”

She held herself rigid. Thomas had always been the kindest, most reliable person at Marksville. Her only solace amongst a family of vultures. Even if he meant to turn on her, too, she would not falter . . . would not return to the fearful woman she’d been before.

He closed his eyes. “You left to marry Baxter. Found a man who promised you support and to give you the stage. Whenever I have time to spare a glance at the papers, I see who you’ve become. It seems there is no bigger star in Bath right now than the great and talented Monica Danes.”

The disparagement in his tone was rife, and when he opened his eyes, Monica’s breath caught. His gaze flashed with a fiery anger she’d not witnessed in him before. The sudden urge to flee the kitchen and run upstairs to her old bedroom surged through her. How could he think so little of her after everything they’d shared? How could he not trust that she tried and failed to reconcile with her parents? Well, damn him if he thought he could intimidate or judge her based on such supposition.

She had learned too much from striving on her own in a dangerous and cut-throat city to let Thomas strip her down to what she’d been before finding real friends and comradeship in the theater.

She lifted her chin. “As you said, with Papa gone and Mama apparently incapable of authority, I am now your employer, and you have no choice but to answer to me as long as I am at the house. You’ll be pleased to hear I won’t be staying long. I will see Papa buried and then return to Bath. I have no place here anymore. I no longer belong in Biddestone. So stop glaring at me as though I am your worst enemy come back to haunt you. I will do what I think best and then leave, never to return.”

He smiled wryly, his eyes glinting with undisguised antipathy. “Only you would say this is not your home. Do you not understand Bath is little more than a stage filled with privileged people paying for a cheap thrill rather than earning a labored crust? Is that who you are now? A person willing to do whatever it takes to remain at the top of these toffs’ newspaper reports and critiques? I always thought so much more of you than that.”

She narrowed her eyes as irritation burned hot in her stomach. “How dare you. You know nothing about me or the people of Bath. I am not the same woman you once knew. The sooner you realize that, the better.” She stood and whipped her skirts behind her. “I’m going to bed and in the morning, I will speak in depth with Mama and Jane.” She nodded toward the back entrance. “I’d appreciate it if you closed the door behind you.”

With her hands trembling and her mind racing with confusion and fear, Monica swept from the room. How dare he speak to her like he was her father? Who did he think he was? The Thomas she once knew respected her and kept things running in smooth order, without so much as the occasional wrong look at anyone in the house.

The man before her just now was wholly different. He seemed taller and broader than ever before. Stronger, both inside and out. Yet rage seeped from his pores and washed over her in a passionate wave that heated her body and jumbled her focus. She took the stairs as quickly as her attire would allow, swallowing the need to scream aloud in frustration.

She didn’t belong in this house or even the village.

The slam of the back door made her flinch and Monica pulled back her shoulders. She would not allow Thomas’s anger to influence her choice to go back to Bath. Not once since her first Season in the city had she wanted to stay at home and be a wife and mother. Not once had she aspired to be at a man’s beck and call, ordering a household and producing child after child. The overly attentive men of society with their cigars and knowing glances had turned her stomach. The invisible pressure that bore down on her at the soirees and Assembly room balls felt forced and undignified.

Nausea turned her stomach. Which is exactly why Malcolm Baxter had caught her attention so succinctly. He was such a different man from the rest. He didn’t speak of his wealth or his land. He spoke of the prospect and excitement of travel and the West End stage. Monica had been caught like a fish in a net and very soon fell in love.

Little did she know that not only she, but her family, too, had walked blindly into the jaws of Malcolm’s carefully laid trap like lambs to the slaughter. Humiliation and foolishness crashed into her as it had time and again for years. Never again would she trust a man as she’d trusted Malcolm.

A woman was wise to lead her own life in this world . . . even if that meant living it entirely alone.

“Monica?”

She halted at the sound of Jane’s harsh whisper. Her sister stepped from their mother’s bedroom and onto the landing, gently closing the door. Monica glanced toward the closed door. “Is Mama awake? May I see her?”

Jane shook her head and took Monica’s elbow. “It is best you wait until morning. Who were you talking to downstairs? She heard voices and grew most agitated.”

Monica swallowed as guilt washed through her. Her raised voice had woken their mother washed through her. She sighed. “Thomas. He followed me back from the village to make sure Stephanie and I were well.”

“And are you?” Jane frowned. “Stephanie has gone to bed. I insisted she take a hot drink. I don’t think she will sleep considering she still trembles after your upset with those beastly men.”

“I am perfectly fine.” Monica glanced toward the stairwell. “If anyone has upset me, it is Thomas.”

Jane raised her eyebrows. “Thomas? How is that possible?”

“He is much changed since I saw him last.”

“In what way? Thomas is as stoic as always. I would have been lost without him these last few days.” Jane tightened her grip on Monica’s elbow. “Please don’t upset the help now you’re home again. We have managed without you well enough, but now you’re back. . . .”

Irritation simmered once more in Monica’s stomach. “Now I’m back you think I wish to take over and change the household? Upset everyone in my path?” She eased her arm from Jane’s grasp. “Well, fear not, little sister, because I have no intention of staying here any longer than absolutely necessary. I will speak with Mama tomorrow, bury Father, and then be on my way.”

“What do you mean, be on your way? You cannot leave. I need you here.”

The desperation in her sister’s gaze and tone pressed down on Monica’s chest. She slumped her shoulders. “I can’t stay here, you know that.”

Jane glared. “You
have
to. There’s no choice in the matter. Everything could now be yours. What if Papa has left everything in his will to you as though I have been little more than a lodger sleeping in his house my entire life?”

Monica stiffened. “That’s impossible. Thomas suggested that I might now be in charge, but despite my words to him, I dismissed the notion as soon as he said it. Why would Papa pass the estate to me yet not write a single letter asking after me in five years? It makes no sense.”

“I couldn’t agree more, but that doesn’t make your inheritance any less possible.”

“Why would you even think that? The will has yet to be read, has it not?”

“Yes, but Mr. Baker, Papa’s dear friend and solicitor, was the one to push my hand to write, asking you to return. He said it is imperative you return home and look after us now that people will learn of our inheritance and that I am living here alone with Mama.”

“But surely he would’ve said that because I am the eldest daughter. Papa would have split the estate equally between us at the very least.” Monica glanced toward the stairs once more, hating the way she suddenly wanted Thomas beside her as moral support. “What you suspect is madness.”

“But if it is revealed to be true, I refuse to stay here alone with Mama. You can’t make me.” Jane crossed her arms, her green eyes flashing with fury. “You really don’t understand anything, do you?”

Dread slipped hot and unwelcome into Monica’s veins as realization dawned. “Has anyone been bothering you since Papa’s passing?”

Jane took her hand and led her to a settee situated beneath her father’s overbearing portrait on the landing wall. “Not as such, but I am receiving letters of condolence from men I barely know. Papa had many associates, some of which he would have liked me to show an interest. There are others calling, whom he wouldn’t. I am twenty years old, Monica.” Jane shook her head, her shoulders slumping. “To be unmarried and alone in this enormous house will not go ignored. I need you. I need you to make sure I don’t make a stupid decision based on nothing more than loneliness or duty to poor Papa.”

Monica glared as protectiveness for Jane rose like a burning pyre behind her rib cage. “There was nothing
poor
about our father. He played the pair of us like puppets and don’t you forget it.”

“How can you say such a thing? He wasn’t a bad man. He just wanted the best for us.”

“At whatever cost. He and Mama have never given a thought past their position in society. Our feelings or happiness have never played a part in their theater.”

“If you truly feel that way, you will stay and help me. You made your escape, but I’m still here. I don’t want to be cajoled into a marriage of convenience any more than you did. Why would you leave me alone to fight off the wolves?”

The crack in her sister’s voice was a knife to Monica’s heart and she pulled Jane into a tight embrace. “I won’t. I promise. I will not let Papa pull the strings of our lives all over again. I cut them for a while and I will not allow him to tie me up again from the grave.” She eased Jane back and held her at arm’s length, raw determination burning inside. She looked deep into her sister’s eyes, willing her belief. “I will find a way to keep us all happy. You, me, Thomas, everyone will have what they want and need. Together, we’ll make it work so we are all happy.”

Tears slipped from Jane’s eyes. “You are forgetting about Mama. We are trapped here.”

“I will not allow it to be so.” Monica glanced toward her mother’s closed bedroom door. “Whatever it is you fear of Mama, it cannot be enough to keep us where we have no desire to be. I belong in Bath. If needs be, I will return to the city with you and Mama.”

“And Thomas and the rest of the staff?”

Monica swallowed as a strange pain slashed at her heart. “Thomas belongs here. He will never leave, nor want to. I will do what is best for him and everyone else.”

The next morning broke with the sun shining brightly in a clear blue sky. Monica stood at her old bedroom window and stared out across the rolling fields of the estate, trepidation and dread knotted like rope in her stomach. A fitful night’s sleep had brought no answers or means of escaping her enforced position. Her father’s body lay out in the parlor awaiting burial, and Jane was in the next room with their mother helping her dress.

Monica frowned. Her offer to help Mama get ready for the day had been refused by her shrill dismissal when Monica had attempted to enter her mother’s bedroom a half hour before. The reaction did not bode well for what would undoubtedly soon unfold. She had been at the house for close to thirteen hours and still had yet to see her mother face-to-face.

She moved away from the window and stared at her newly made mourning dress laid out on the bed. No part of her wanted to wear the somber, black, non-embellished uniform that her family and the staff would expect her to wear for the entirety of the time she was at the house—society would expect it for the next year or more.

But there was little chance Monica would conform.

Although she accepted her father’s death, she would not cry or grieve for a man who was as cold in life as he was now in death. Ambitious and unemotional, Noel Danes had ensured his daughters were taught how to behave, eat, dance, and serve a future husband, but he’d taught them nothing of joy, love, happiness, and self-worth. Virtues that were vitally important for any woman to soar and be happy in her chosen vocation.

The fear in Jane’s eyes the night before had branded Monica’s mind. She would do everything in her power to ensure her sister did not meet the fate of being little more than her mother’s trapped companion. Somehow, some way, she would find a way to break the unspoken bonds that so often held the youngest daughter captive in today’s unfair world.

A soft knock and Monica’s bedroom door clicked open.

She snapped her head around, her back ramrod straight. Stephanie came into the room and Monica immediately relaxed. “Good morning. Did you manage to get any sleep?”

Stephanie rolled her eyes and blushed. “I did. So sorry I was in such a state of hysteria by the time we arrived last night. I thought I was made of stronger stuff after following your example for so long.”

Monica laughed. “You forget I’m an actress. I was petrified every second those men held us hostage. If it wasn’t for Thomas arriving when he did, I have no idea what would’ve happened.”

“He’s a good man.” Stephanie lifted Monica’s dress from the bed and shook it out. “Come now, let me help you get dressed.”

Taking a fortifying breath, Monica reluctantly lifted her arms so Stephanie could draw the dress over her body and the breadth of her crinoline. As soon as the dress touched her skin, the grave grip of her familial obligations grew tighter. Closing her eyes, Monica fought the need to flee the room and not stop until she was aboard her phaeton and heading for Bath.

“What are your plans today? Have you thought what you will say to your mother?”

Stephanie’s voice brought Monica back to the real and present reality of the next few days. She swallowed the bitter tang of regret that coated her throat. “I will have to see her for myself before I decide the best course of action. I’ve garnered little information about Mama’s state of mind from either Jane or Thomas. The pair of them act as though she’s destined for the asylum.” She forced a smile. “I’m sure you and I have seen far worse cases of mental illness in the people who come to the theater.”

Stephanie nodded. “You’re probably right. Come and sit at the dressing table and I will pin your hair. I heard Jane helping your mother downstairs just a few moments ago, so we’d better get you ready before we cause further upset.”

The next half hour passed with Monica and Stephanie putting the finishing touches to Monica’s appearance. Once they’d done all that was possible to fit with her mother’s expectations, Monica gave a final cursory glance in the mirror before lifting her chin and facing her friend.

“Let’s get this first meeting with Mama over with. Whatever I do or do not do will most likely be the wrong thing. I just need to see her and then I’ll deal with everything else thereafter.”

They made their way downstairs and at the parlor door, Monica took a moment to gather her strength. Stephanie gently touched her elbow. “I’ll go and see if Mrs. Seton needs any help. Will you be all right?”

“Of course. I’ll see you shortly.”

As her friend’s shoes tip-tapped along the hallway to the kitchen beyond, Monica took a deep breath. She had spent a while sitting beside her father’s casket the night before after everyone else had retired. The low light had protected her from the full glare of his lifeless body. This morning, the gossamer curtain would be lifted.

She pushed open the door.

The room was empty. Dropping her shoulders, she released her held breath and took the solitary time to study her father’s pale face. With his eyes closed and expression passive in death, he looked at peace and Monica’s eyes burned. If he had only showed her and Jane a modicum of love, maybe her tears would build enough to fall. Instead, she closed her eyes and whispered a silent prayer for God’s protection over the man who sired her.

At the sound of her mother’s and Jane’s approaching voices, Monica swept away from the casket and farther into the room. She pulled back her shoulders as Jane entered, followed by their mother.

Monica promptly swallowed her gasp.

Despite her mother walking unaided into the room, her chin held high and her hair and mourning dress primed to perfection, her clear weight loss and pallor shocked Monica to the core.

Blinking, she strode forward and reached for her mother’s hand. “Mama—”

Her mother lifted her hand away from Monica’s attempted grasp, her blue eyes dark with malice. “The wanderer returns. What is it you want? Money? The house? The land? Or maybe you’ve come to kill me so you are free to live as the strumpet you’ve become.”

Shock reverberated through Monica at a rate so intense, words failed her and her body trembled. “Jane wrote me, Mama. I didn’t come back to provoke further suffering. I thought, hoped, you might be pleased by my return. I would like to be of help to you.”

Her mother stared. The seconds ticked by. Uncertainty coated Monica’s mouth as she grappled with what to say or do.

Her mother frowned and then her eyes glazed. She smiled widely. “Monica, you are home. This is quite the reunion.”

The sudden change in her mother’s demeanor was chilling. Unease prickled the hairs at the back of Monica’s neck. “Mama?”

Jane cleared her throat. “Why don’t we all take our breakfast by the window, Mother? It really is the most beautiful day. I’m sure Thomas will soon be out in the fields and I know how you like to watch him work the horses.”

Monica stood frozen to the carpet as Jane led their mother to the chaise by the window and helped her settle. Jane’s hands trembled as she arranged the cushions and smoothed some fallen hair from their mother’s brow. Monica continued to stare, sadness mixed with helplessness slipping through her veins. The woman their mother had always been had vanished. Compliance and quiet contemplation now enveloped a body once buoyed with anger and accusation. She merely gazed toward the window, seemingly oblivious to Jane’s attention and Monica’s presence.

Unexpected loss and fear gripped Monica in equal measure and she pressed her hand to her stomach. The woman who could’ve cut glass by a mere look, who never faltered from strict authority unless the person she spoke to could add influence to the family’s stature, was no more.

Monica collected herself and strode forward, forcing a wide smile. “Are you hungry, Mama? Shall I ring for Mrs. Seton?”

Her mother continued to stare toward the window. Monica turned to Jane and raised her eyebrows in silent question. Jane patted their mother’s arm before crossing the space to stand in front of Monica.

“This is all she has to offer now,” she whispered, glancing at their mother. “She’s been getting steadily worse for the last year or so and now her moods are entirely unpredictable. You will grow accustomed to it as the rest of us have.”

“She has grown steadily worse for years, yet neither you nor Papa wrote a single letter telling me?” Anger mixed with Monica’s shock as she glared. “How could you do that? If I’d known—”

“If you would have known, what would you have done? There is nothing
to be
done. Papa adored her and could do nothing but endure her insults versus love, over and over again. This is my life and should now be yours also. I will not let you return to Bath and let me suffer alone.”

Heat pinched hot at Monica’s cheeks. “Do you really think so little of me that I would abandon you? I told you last night I will stay until I decide what is to be done.”

“And has a night’s rest brought forth any miraculous solution?” Jane’s eyes flashed with fury. “Do you not think that I and the staff have tried everything we thought possible? Dr. O’Connor says there is no cure, no treatment but patience.”

“Dr. O’Connor?”

Jane nodded. “He is a young doctor, new to the village. He has been caring for Mama and is very concerned by her rapid decline, yet he told both Papa and me there is no cure. She will only grow more distant and confused as time goes on.” Jane’s eyes shone with tears. “This is our life now. We have no choice but to give our mother our love and devotion. You must accept that.”

Monica glanced at her mother. “There must be something we can do.”
This can’t be my life now. I can’t live here forever, caring for a woman who hated me in sanity as much as she does in illness.
Guilt for such thoughts stole the breath from Monica’s lungs and she took a deep breath. “Fear not, the solution will soon become clear.” She cupped her hand to Jane’s cheek. “Have faith. I will find a way. You have to trust I will make the right decisions from now on.”

“Meaning we leave Biddestone and return to Bath where you will once again pick up your career, while I continue to nurse Mama in whatever establishment you choose to house us?”

Resentment dripped from Jane’s tone and ran into Monica’s blood, turning it to firewater. She slipped her hand from Jane’s face, hurt twisting her heart. “They’ve poisoned you against me. They’ve poisoned you and they’ve poisoned Thomas. You have no idea what happened to me after I decided to stay in Bath. You have no idea at all what I’ve endured to get to where I am.” She glared. “Until you do, you need to trust that I have always loved you, but I love my new life also. I will find a way to live free as I have been and offer the same opportunities to you too.”

“I don’t see how—”

“Trust me.” Monica turned her determined gaze on her mother. “You have no idea what I am capable of when someone means to close me in.” She brushed past Jane, anger and frustration making her tremble. She stood at her mother’s side and once again forced a smile. “Would you like tea, Mama?”

Slowly, her mother turned her gaze from the window to Monica. “You need to change your clothes.”

Monica stiffened at the returned iciness in her mother’s tone. “Sorry, Mama?”

“You have no respect. No decorum. Coming here dressed so fancy when your poor father has passed. We are in mourning. Mourning!”

Her screech filled the room and Monica stepped back, her heart pounding as her mother’s venom flowed over her and seeped deep into the hole in her heart Monica had tried so hard to fill. Jane strode forward and stood between Monica and their mother. “Go. I will deal with Mother’s tea. Just go and do something. Anything.”

With her mind reeling and her heart racing, Monica strode from the room, leaving the door wide open behind her. What did her mother want from her? She was wearing mourning. What had her mother seen to cause an outburst filled with such disgust?

Monica darted her gaze left and right as claustrophobia rose inside her. She had to get of the house. Far away into the fields so she could breathe. Her breaths turned harried as she rushed into the hallway and yanked open the front door. She rushed across the gravel driveway, toward the back of the house that led to the fields and lanes beyond.

The sun was blinding through her tears, but she ran on. Barely a week ago, she’d been onstage, or laughing and joking with her fellow actors and stagehands as they assembled backstage, or in the local tavern for drinks and merriment. That was the life she loved; the life she’d carefully orchestrated through sheer determination and the occasional plea for help.

That help had come in the form of kindness from unexpected people and friends. Friends she lived her entire life for now as a way of thanking them for their support and belief in her talent. Could it be possible she could ask for their help again in her current situation? She shook her head. She would ask for no more. Her dear friend Adam and others had done enough.

The pastures flowed like a welcome emerald green blanket ahead of her. As a child, she would often run into the fields and hide from her parents until she’d gathered the strength to return. The spanked bottoms and lack of dinners before bedtime had been worth the freedom for a couple of hours.

Shame and a heavy sense of failure engulfed her and Monica stopped, pressing a hand to the cramp in her side. A low, deep scream grew tight in her stomach, rising through her torso and into her chest. Higher and higher, it gathered momentum until it reached her throat. She opened her mouth, tipped her head back . . .

The clip-clop of approaching hooves stilled her.

Thomas.

Her entire body heated with awareness and her cheeks burned like flames of fire. She wouldn’t turn around. She wouldn’t speak to him. Not after yesterday. Not when she knew how little he thought of her and her career.