Amy Lake (12 page)

“We’ve only another mile or so before the turnoff for Wrensmoor,” he said, glancing down at her for a brief moment.

Claire nodded. He looks marvelous on horseback, was the unbidden thought that came to mind. The earl’s shirt was open at the collar, and his sleeves were rolled up, exposing the brawn and sinew of his forearms. She watched the play of muscles under the skin as he kept Achilles under control and she felt a shiver that went all the way down to her toes.

The earl gave heel to Achilles, and the carriage began to move once more. Claire’s gaze followed horse and rider–the two most powerful creatures within the current confines of her world– as they rode off ahead. She took one of the small, velvet cushions scattered around the inside of the carriage and threw it after them as hard as she could. The cushion careened off the road with a small shower of pebbles and landed in a patch of lily-of-the-valley. Nobody noticed, of course.

He was so handsome and she was so furious with him.

Achilles needs to be ridden, her husband had told her that morning as they were preparing to leave  Greyboars Inn. Well, that might be true, but Claire doubted it was the real reason she was stuck in this carriage, all
alone– 
Even the beauty of the Kentish scenery was not enough to improve her present state of mind.

She had woken that morning confused and disoriented, and it had taken her several moments to recall exactly why she was in an unfamiliar bedroom. Sunlight glinted off the mirror standing opposite the bed, and as she saw her reflection, she realized that the Earl of Ketrick was sitting beside her, pulling on a pair of riding boots.

For a moment, Claire had stared at him, startled at the idea of being alone with a man–who was dressing–on a bed. She had the memory of being held as she drifted off to sleep, but nothing more. Surely she would remember if–if–

“There’s no hurry,” Edward had said, and Claire looked up at him, bewildered. No hurry? For what? 

“Your pardon?” 

He had slipped into a loose riding jacket and pulled his hair back into its usual mare’s-tail. “I will have a maid sent up to assist you in dressing,” said Edward. “When you are ready, of course.”  He turned towards the door.

“Where are you going?”   Was this the way a man and wife treated each other in the morning?  she wondered. Like strangers?

“Breakfast,” said the earl, and he opened the door and walked out before Claire had a chance to say anything else.                    

Infuriating male!  Claire threw her legs over the edge of the bed and stood up. If he thought he was going to leave her in this place all by herself with some non-existent maid to help her do up her gown and not so much as a by-your-leave . . .

Claire saw herself more clearly in the mirror and realized she was wearing only a thin chemise. She sat down on the bed and thought hard. She remembered her husband brushing her hair the evening before and kissing the back of her neck. He must have helped her off with her gown, too–she couldn’t have managed all the buttons herself. And then he had apparently shared the bed with her all night . . .

The nerve of the man!  Did he not want her?  Wasn’t she pretty enough for him?  She was his wife! 

The idea that the Earl of Ketrick  had wed her for the sole purpose of begetting a child, and couldn’t even be bothered to–to–bed her, had at first confused Claire, then made her angry. She had something that Lord Tremayne claimed to need, and she had been entirely willing to keep her side of the bargain. She was not his charity case!  If her husband thought he was going to get away with this–

Those indignant thoughts had kept her company all morning, first at the breakfast table–the earl was finished and gone by the time she arrived–and now in the coach. Alone. Underneath the indignation, although she might try to deny it to herself, lay the seed of self-doubt. Claire had never been conceited about her appearance; she’d done nothing to earn it, after all. But she had seen desire in the earl’s eyes on several occasions and assumed he was attracted to her. In fact, she realized, she had come to count on it. If her husband coveted her, then perhaps she would have some measure of equality in their relationship. Not the kind of equality she truly wanted–but it was a beginning.

Claire thought back now to what she had seen of her reflection in the inn’s bedroom mirror.  The thin chemise had  clung to her body in a way no gown ever could, and she was trying not to come to the obvious conclusion: that when Lord Tremayne saw her
en déshabillé
he had lost interest.  Perhaps he preferred a more petite woman, or a blonde one. Or one whose bosom was not as . . .

Pah. This was getting her nowhere. She could do nothing about her height, her hair color, or the size of her breasts. She looked out the carriage window at the countryside they were passing. The scenery near Maidstone was remarkably pretty, she decided. Closer to London the road was so dry and traveled that every leaf and blade of grass for miles around had been covered in a layer of dust. But here things were dewy and green. A series of rolling hills retreated to the horizon, interrupted by hedgerows and an occasional larger copse of trees. The fields looked well tended and fertile, with a good crop of–well, what was it?  Claire stuck her head out the window to get a better look, catching a sort of queer, bitter smell, not unpleasant, but–

“Miss de Lancie!” yelled the earl, almost in her ear. Startled, she looked around to see him immediately behind her, riding to the side of the coach.

“
Who
?” asked Claire, thinking to twit him.

“Do not stick your head out of the carriage!” he yelled. This was a dictum familiar to generations of children of the English gentry, and the effect was to make Claire feel like a child.  She stuck out her tongue at the earl and promptly retreated to the interior of the coach, well satisfied by the response she saw on his face.  She was
not
his charity case, and she was
not
a child. Tonight, vowed Claire, tonight she would prove it. She would make him forget any doubts he ever had about marrying me.

* * * *

The lane leading through Wrensmoor Park to the house was wide and shady, with a line of English oaks at each side. It seemed an hour since they had turned off the main road and passed through a pair of enormously tall iron gates into the estate grounds. Claire was eager to see the house, but every time the carriage crested one hill, yet another hill appeared in front of them.

There was a commotion in the tall grasses under the oaks, and she smiled as a family of deer–led by a magnificent buck–leaped across the road behind the carriage. Turning forward again,  she gasped.

Before her stood a stone castle, built on an island in the middle of a wide blue river. Turrets and crenellated ramparts of a warm sandstone rose from the wide sward of green, and tall casement windows sparkled in the sun.

It was the most beautiful setting for a house–for a castle, Claire amended–that she had ever seen. Was this Wrensmoor?  Wrensmoor Park, where she was to live?  Her breath caught in her throat. How could Lord Tremayne ever be willing to leave this place? 

The lane they traveled sloped gently down towards a causeway leading to the island. Claire could see sheep grazing on the opposite bank of the river and a few puffs of smoke coming from somewhere inside the walls of the outer bailey. Fruit trees dotted the fields on this side of the river, with more espaliered against the lower ramparts of the castle.

“Do you like it?”

The carriage had stopped without Claire’s being aware of it, and her husband was looking down at her through the window, amusement on his face.

She stared up at him. “How can you bear to live anywhere else?” was all she could manage to say.

The earl frowned. “It’s a big place,” he said finally. “It gets lonely.”

Claire said nothing. It was an uncomfortable remark, and her husband seemed to realize it. He abruptly dismounted and tied Achilles to the spring bar of the carriage.

“I’ll ride with you the rest of the way,” he said, climbing into the coach. His broad shoulders and long legs seemed to take up more space this time than they had before, and she felt almost light-headed with the impact of his physical presence, as if he was using up all the air and leaving her none to breathe. Remembering her earlier resolution to prove to the earl that his wife was a full-grown woman, Claire felt chagrined. It would be all she could do to remain calm when she was in the same room with him, let alone the same bed. She wasn’t going to prove anything to this man.

* * * *

The earl had not slept well for what seemed like weeks. Last night was the worst of all, with his new wife asleep in his arms, her round bottom nestled warm against his loins. Claire was an active, wriggly sleeper, and each movement she made had been fresh torture. Edward was currently feeling rather grumpy about it.

The sight of Wrensmoor–and Claire’s stunned reaction to it–had done nothing to help his mood. How could he bear to live anywhere else?  she had asked. How, indeed. Memories from childhood flooded back each time he rode over the crest of that last hill and saw the river and its castle below. Wrensmoor had been everything a young boy, or a young man, could desire, and Edward had spent most of his life there thinking exactly that.

That he had everything he could want and he would never leave.

Gravel crunched under the wheels of the coach, and he knew they had reached the causeway. There was a drawbridge in the middle, which his wife eyed dubiously.

“It hasn’t been raised for nearly a century,” he reassured her. “I think the fifth earl fancied himself a medieval knight, but my father had it nailed together rather solidly.”

Claire smiled at him, and his heart missed a beat, which made him even grumpier.  He seemed unable to control his reactions to his wife, and Edward that this was only because of the unnatural restraint he had imposed upon himself. All this fuss over a chit that he should have bedded nights ago. It was plain foolishness, and Edward  was determined that the events in the bedroom at the Greyboars Inn would not be repeated. His wife’s primary rôle–her
only
rôle–was to be bedded by him and to bear his children. He was suddenly confident that once he had possessed her body he could get her out of his mind.

The carriage passed through the outer walls and the stables of Wrensmoor and into the ward of the castle. Another swath of emerald green greeted them, with Wrensmoor Hall at its far end. In front of the hall an enormous fountain sprayed into the air, and Edward saw Claire looking at it curiously.

“Dolphins
and
mermaids?” she commented.

“The fifth earl again,” said Edward with a smile.

“Ah.”       

 The carriage continued around to the wide steps of the entryway. Boggs had arrived earlier to supervise final preparations, and Edward saw his butler at the head of a group of servants lined up to greet him and his new countess. He probably should have warned Claire, thought the earl. She would be unprepared for a household of this size. It took nearly a hundred men and women to maintain Wrensmoor Hall and the surrounding castle keep.  They weren’t all present right now, of course. Nevertheless–

But Claire surprised him. As he handed her out of the carriage, she gave Boggs a quick smile and moved from the butler smoothly along the waiting row of servants, addressing more than one of them–those she knew from Tremayne House–by name.

“It’s Constance, is it not?” she asked one plump, rosy-cheeked parlormaid.

“Oh, yes, milady,” said the girl, blushing furiously. Edward could tell that his wife had won a devoted subject.

“And you are–?”   This was addressed, with a blinding smile, to a young footman, who now stared at Claire with the eyes of an adoring puppy. Edward frowned. What was that sting he felt?  Being jealous of a skinny youth with spots was beneath the dignity of the earl of Ketrick, and ridiculous to boot. It wasn’t as if he loved his wife.

Claire had reached the top of the steps, and Edward followed in her wake, as warmly welcomed by the staff as she was but feeling disgruntled and oddly out of place. His wife had just greeted his servants as if they were her own. They
were
her own now, but still–   Edward realized that he had been contemplating a period of some months during which he would need to remain at Wrensmoor, while Claire adjusted to her part in the running of the estate. Months!  Fie on that, thought the earl, I have no time to coddle a young miss. How dare she expect me to stay so long?   I will have her breeding and be back in London–in the arms of a new mistress–in no time.

* * * *

Claire opened the doors leading onto the balcony of her bedroom suite and stepped outside.  The view was of the river and its grassy banks below, with wooded hills in the distance. A few deer grazed almost directly beneath her windows, and she had seen several covey of quail. Wouldn’t Jody be in alt!  The park was lovely beyond description.

Sheer delight was the only way she could describe her own reaction to the earl’s home.  
Your
home now, too, she reminded herself, feeling a rush disbelief  that she was now the mistress of Wrensmoor Hall. Her chambers would benefit from a woman’s touch, it was true, but if the current furnishings were plain, they, like everything else at the hall, were also spotlessly clean and showed the clear marks of loving attention. A huge stone fireplace occupied much of one wall, and the four-posted bed was draped with white silk. Most of the floor was covered in a thick, figured carpet, although clean rush matting was laid in front of the hearth and the balcony doors.

The ceiling was high, with oak beams carved in a pretty trellis of ivy, and a number of heavy tapestries hung on the walls. Best of all–to Claire’s mind–were the several large  windows, which made the room sunny and warm.

I will be happy here, she thought suddenly.

At the moment, however, she was simply exhausted. Two days in a coach, no matter how well-sprung it might be, were enough to wear out even the healthiest of young women, and Claire was feeling aches and pains in areas of her body that had never complained before.