Beauty and the Duke (26 page)

Drawn back to her work, she’d finally returned to the tower. Alone in her laboratory, she removed the oilcloth she had placed inside a chest, then brought everything to her workbench. This was the first time she had unwrapped the cloth. Becca’s tooth fossil lay at her elbow and she set a second one beside it—the one Christine had found at the riverbank just before she had fallen and nearly killed Erik. It was a tooth as big as her hand, bigger than the one Becca had found.

Christine had told no one of the find. Two reasons kept her silent. She wasn’t sure what she had found, and she was awaiting Joseph’s arrival.

But another reason, one she refused to admit to herself until Erik’s recovery, was the realization that someone might have been on that cliff and cut the rope that day. Had she gotten too close to something someone did not want her to find? Had it been an accident? Or had someone simply wanted to kill Erik? She would never know for sure, for the rope had gone into the river where Erik had gone.

She heard Beast’s meow, just before he bumped her leg and twined around her calves. Christine smiled and picked up the cat, welcoming his purrs as tears flooded her eyes, and she quietly wept against his fur. As usual, she had no handkerchief, and Erik’s words about her lack of decorum flashed through her thoughts. She smiled against Beast’s neck, hesitating as she looked over the top of his head.

Lady Erin stood half hidden in the shadows, peering around the doorway, watching her with saucer-wide blue eyes. A purple ribbon loosely restrained her long, curly hair, but only enough to keep the length out of her face. The child’s feet were bare and, wearing only her
nightdress, she looked like an escapee from the Sedgwick nursery.

Christine straightened on the stool and wiped at her eyes. “Hello,” she said. “Did you bring Beast up here to see me?”

“Beast sad kitty.”

Christine had never heard the girl speak a sentence before and was surprised that her words were better formed than Christine expected.

A smile trembled on the corners of the child’s mouth. She stepped around the door and, scooting against the wall, she tucked a doll close to her chest. Then offered it to Christine. “Cwistine sad, too.”

“Cwistine?”

The girl nodded. Christine set Beast on the stool, walked over to where Erin stood, and knelt in front of her. Erin petted the doll’s hair, then offered Christine the gift. “Cwistine.”

Christine examined the worn ruffles and curls. She gently smoothed the hair. “I’ve never had a doll named after me.”

She’d never had a doll. Period.

She’d been much too old even as a child to play with dolls. Papa thought it was more important for her to read Latin and study her numbers than play with toys and dolls. Touched by the simple gift, Christine raised her gaze. “She is beautiful. Thank you.”

They remained in the shadows of the room, just outside the reach of lamplight on the workbench. What must Erin be thinking? Had anyone spoken to her, explained about her father’s accident, or allowed her to see him yet?

“Have you been to see your da today?”

Erin lowered her eyes.

“Why has no one taken you to see your papa?”

The girl’s beautiful face brightened. “Cwistine take me now.”

Lord, she was insane, Christine thought fifteen minutes later, as she and Erin crept up the servants’ stairway leading into Erik’s corridor like two criminals. How had she allowed Lady Erin to talk her into this madness?

Christine stopped and knelt in front of Erin so that she could see her mouth and better recognize the words. “Quiet.” She put a finger to her lips. “Shhh,” she demonstrated, then pretended to button her lips.

Holding Christine’s hand, Erin nodded. “Shhh,” she repeated.

It was after midnight. The clock rang the hour as she and Erin entered the hall. Christine felt even more like a co-conspirator to a crime as she eased open Erik’s door and followed Erin inside, careful to make no sound lest they awaken the sleeping dragon ensconced within the velvet draperies of his bed. A low fire burned, easing the chill from the room with gentle flames.

Christine was surprised and annoyed that no one was in here watching over Erik. Did they think two days’ recuperation enough? Erin tugged on Christine’s hand, and Christine realized she had stopped.

“Shh!” the child said loudly, as if Christine had made a noise. Then she giggled, and with infinite gentleness pulled Christine toward the bed.

Erik was propped halfway up the headboard against four pillows, his dark head bandaged. He wore a nightshirt laced at his chest, and she could see the fabric beneath. The physician said Erik had also suffered bruised ribs. The doctor did not think the ribs had broken or Erik would have been coughing up blood. The fever
he believed came from the injury on his leg and from exhaustion.

Yet, in truth, Christine knew Erik was lucky to be alive. During the days of his absence, when no one could find him and the weather had turned, Christine felt the entire household go into mourning. They had done everything but lower his standard and put a placard on the garden wall next to Elizabeth’s. The only person she was surprised
not
to see had been Robert Maxwell, ready to declare himself the new duke.

But Erik
was
safe and alive. The issue with their marriage would be settled in time. Strange that it worried her less than it should have. She had found something potentially huge in the ground—a discovery. So why did she continue to feel as if she might at any moment shatter into a thousand tiny pieces?

Why had the ring not yet loosened? Why wouldn’t it let her go?

The floor creaked beneath her slippered feet, and she froze. Movement in the bed stirred in the shadows. Erik turned his head.

Erin laughed. “Da!” She climbed into bed to snuggle with her father.

His arm went around his daughter. He pressed one hand against the mattress and eased himself higher against the pillows. “It is about time, imp,” he said, kissing the top of Erin’s head. “I was beginning to think you had not convinced the princess to come down from her tower.”

Christine stared at the two in disbelief. “You
tricked
me.”

Neither one looked the least penitent. Erin took Christine’s hand and pulled her nearer so that she was forced to sit on the mattress. Then, settling her head
against her father’s shoulder, she lay comfortably between them.

“She shouldn’t even be out of bed at this hour, Erik.”

He was a terrible father for allowing a six-year-old to wander free.

“What can I say?” His hand lifted to pull her chin around. “She escaped her nursery.”

Christine’s mouth pinched, but now that she was here, she wasn’t all that angry with him. Certainly, she wasn’t with the child, who had brought Beast up to the tower and given Christine her very first doll. “That isn’t fair,” she murmured. “Using your daughter against me.”

“You have been avoiding me, my love.” His fingers reached out to twine into her unbound hair. “Desperate times strive for desperate measures.”

“Shakespeare’s
Hamlet
.”

“Hippocrates: Extreme remedies are appropriate for extreme diseases.”

“Am I the remedy or the disease then?”

“Both,” he said.

The tone in his voice as revealing as his words, his eyes held hers or hers held his, she no longer cared which, or that her heart should not be beating so hard or that she should at least summon some high-minded response in her own defense. She had missed him. They had a thousand things they needed to say, should say but could not without feeling hampered by her trepidations.

Erin had shut her eyes and her even breathing told Christine she was already asleep. Christine smoothed the hair from the child’s face, then finding Erik watching her, placed the back of her hand across his brow. “You still have a fever.”

He took her hand and pressed it to his lips. “I should have told you the truth when I returned from Dunfermline,” he said.

“Yes, you should have.”

His hand wrapped around hers and he waited until she finally lifted her gaze before he spoke. “Will you trust that it will not be a year to settle this matter? It will not be a month.”

Christine looked away. How could he be so sure, so confident of everything, when she continuously found herself struggling?

“I do not want you going back to look for that cavern,” he said.

Her mind frayed by the mêlée she’d endured the past few days worrying over him, and now this conflict—the one between her heart and her honor—refused to do battle with him now.

“Are you the one who lowered the drawbridge and let my mother into this castle?” he asked, pulling her down beside him and Erin, and bringing the comforter over them all.

The child stirred as Christine set her head on the pillow and looked over Erin’s head into the eyes of the man she still considered her husband, no matter what some magistrate said to the contrary. Tomorrow, she would scandalize the servants when they walked in and saw her sleeping in this bed.

“Do not worry, Christine.” Erik’s recognition of her thoughts illuminating the darkness between them. “Boris knows you are here and will keep everyone away until you take Erin back to the nursery. For now, sleep,
leannanan.
”

And she did.

C
hristine awakened just before dawn and realized she must have shut her eyes long enough for Erin to curl against her and put her arm to sleep. The fire in the hearth had died. The room was now chilled.

Erik was gone.

Christine pushed up on her elbow. Someone was in the dressing room. Easing out of bed, she shoved her feet into her slippers, wrapped her robe tighter about her waist and padded across the room. Boris was inside, laying out a razor and soap beside a pitcher of water and a bowl.

“My apologies,” she said, keeping her voice low so she did not awaken Lady Erin.

“The master is downstairs,” Boris said. “He said for me to let you and the young lass sleep, mum.”

Christine scraped a hand in her hair. She had not slept well. Nothing between her and Erik had really been settled. “Should he be out of bed?”

“No, mum. But if he is set on doing a thing, he’ll see it done.”

“I will take Lady Erin back to her bed,” she said after a moment.

The little girl barely stirred when Christine lifted her. She stepped into the corridor and had reached the
staircase when distant voices sounded from somewhere to her right. Lights shone from a room downstairs in a corridor mostly darkened with predawn shadows. Christine walked to the landing. She glimpsed movement from the room just off the entry hall, as someone passed in front of the light. Voices carried. Erik was speaking to Hampton and Hodges, two of the men who had found him near the river, but though she recognized the impatience in Erik’s tone, his words were indistinguishable.
He should not be out of bed
, she thought.
And he expected me not to take risks with my life
.

She tightened her arms around Erik’s child and turned toward the nursery, slowing as she padded through the portrait gallery and peered up at the last Sedgwick family portrait that hung on the wall, its ornate gold frame bright against the oak panel wall. It was a painting set in the gardens, with Erik and Elizabeth, who was holding their daughter in her arms and staring back at Christine with painted expressionless eyes. The portrait had been completed only weeks before her disappearance.

Aunt Sophie had examined the bones Christine had brought her. She could say with certainty the partial jaw belonged to a person of approximately nineteen to twenty-five years old. The former Lady Sedgwick, Elizabeth Maxwell Boughton, had been twenty-two when she vanished.

Up the stairs and just before she reached the nursery, Mrs. Whitman came around the corner. Still wearing her night clothes and nightcap, she nearly collided with Christine. The woman saw Erin in Christine’s arms and burst into tears. “Oh, mum,” she gasped. “Ye found the lass. I thought something terrible had happened…”

“Shh,” she hushed the distraught woman.

Christine walked past Mrs. Whitman into the nursery. The nurse strode ahead of her and into the bedroom. She rearranged the bedcovers. Outside, daylight pressed against the windows. Holding a finger to her lips, Christine left the bedroom. Behind her, Mrs. Whitman shut the door.

“I awakened when I heard a noise in the nursery,” the nurse said. “The countess was here. She didn’t see me. When I discovered the tyke gone—” she pressed a hand to her heart and Christine worried that the woman might collapse—“I did nae know the tyke was gone. I thought the worst…”

“Because Lady Erin’s grandmother was in here? Surely that is nothing that should frighten you.”

“It is just that seeing anyone in this nursery is unusual. Even Lady Sophia does not go into the child’s bedroom without asking me first.” Drawing in a deep breath, Mrs. Whitman straightened. “Where did you find the wee lass this time?”

“She was with her father.”

“I should not have panicked, mum. I apologize. You are correct. The countess is Lady Erin’s grandmother.”

Christine did not return to Erik’s chambers. Instead, she ran up to the tower, found that Annie was already awake and preparing her toilette. Christine washed and changed into a dove-gray morning gown. The chilly morning air made her move more quickly.

“We must do something about the temperature up here, Annie,” Christine said as the girl finished pinning up Christine’s hair.

She needed to appear regal this morning, but after an hour of preparations was on the verge of expressing impatience, when Annie announced she’d finished. Christine made her harried way down four flights of
stairs. She found the countess sitting alone in the dining room, eating a poached egg and drinking tea. Her head lifted at Christine’s entry.

The chilly morning air outside contrasted with the warmth and smells of warm bread within the dining room. “My lady,” Christine said. “You are awake early this morning.”

The countess set down the serviette in her hands. “I thought I would see what it is like to awaken before afternoon tea. My son had no need of my help this morning, so I came in here. It has been a long time since I have eaten a meal at this table.”

Christine served herself at the breakfront and sat across from the countess. The chair where Erik usually sat remained empty. “Boris took him his meal,” the countess said.

What she did not say was that Erik wanted nothing to do with her.

A child’s laughter outside the doors drew the countess around. Lady Erin was awake and with her nurse. The countess rose and walked to the windows.

Christine didn’t know why she suddenly felt sorry for the countess. She was in this large room all alone, trying to be part of a family she did not know, and mother to a son who did not like her.

Christine thought of her own mother, dead and buried somewhere in Italy. Christine had always thought it was her fault that her mother left. That Christine had not been good enough or pretty enough or had misbehaved one too many times. All silly observations in hindsight, but to a little girl they had been real. Now she realized that sometimes mothers just left, and there was nothing Christine could have done differently. Having a child was no measure of a woman’s character.

After pouring a cup of tea, Christine walked to the window. Erin and Mrs. Whitman were leaving the gardens.

“She is the image of her beautiful mother,” the countess said. “I do not see any of Erik in her face.”

“I understand you went to the nursery this morning to see her.”

The countess returned to the table. “I wanted to see Erin before the household awakened. I would not have disturbed her sleep. If you must know, my son has given me orders that I am not to be alone with her. I am sure the only reason I have not been thrown out since he has awakened after the accident is because of you.” More than bitterness tainted her words. Pain filtered into her voice as it wavered slightly.

“Me?”

“My son seems to hold an unusual fascination for you,” Countess Sutherland said. “He has been on his best behavior. How would it look if he tossed me out for no apparent reason?”

“If he wanted to toss you out, you would be gone, my lady. I hold no sway over his actions.”

“You do not think so? Have you been here long enough to see the castle?” the countess inquired, stirring milk into her tea as she observed Christine. “All of his life, he has been a connoisseur of beautiful things. Becca said that after Elizabeth’s passing, he closed nearly every room in the castle and covered every piece of furniture. Now he is opening some of these rooms. Why is that, do you suppose?”

Christine suspected the countess knew exactly why Erik had closed off that part of his life, as if by hiding it away, he could hide himself from his feelings. She
had
taken note that some of the coverings had begun
to come off the furnishings. “Perhaps he chooses to no longer blame himself for her disappearance.”

“One cannot deny the effect you have on him. Whether he has found something new with which to indulge his passions, or if he is running away from the old indulgences and you are as far away as he could run, does not matter to me.”

The barb hurt, and Christine did not entirely understand it, before she realized the arrow had not been aimed at her heart as much as it was aimed at her son’s. “You do not like him very much, do you?”

“I cannot be faulted for loving my daughter more, if that is what you mean, when my son has done everything in his power to push me away. My daughter needs me. My son never did. I need to feel important, you see. I cannot bear the thought of growing old alone.”

“Maybe if you were not so self-involved, you would see that it isn’t about your needs at all.”

The countess set down her cup. “When is anything we say or do
not
about our needs? We are all selfish in our way. You cannot tell me you married my son on the pretext of some great affection for him. You have not known each other that long. Yet you wed him. So do not speak to me of selfish needs. Has he told you that Erin is not his?”

Shock stilled her breath. “I don’t believe it,” she whispered.

“Then ask him yourself. He married Lady Elizabeth anyway, knowing that the child was probably not his. I tried to warn him the chit was not for him, but he gets his mind and heart set on a thing…He’s about to take on the Lord Advocate himself over the issue concerning your marriage. But once
Lady Elizabeth fails to materialize this time, Lord Eyre will bring charges of murder down on him. He’ll do whatever it takes to get his granddaughter. He’ll bring up Erin’s parentage. A scandal will ensue. Erik claims that he does not care what people say about him, but he will care what they say about Erin. He’ll care when she is shunned by polite society, as Becca already is. Why do you think he has not allowed her to have a Season?”

Christine did not reply at first. Not because she didn’t know what to say, but because she knew exactly what had to be said.

“You are saying I should leave here and spare him. Do the honorable thing to protect everyone?”

“I am saying that my son is fighting a losing battle. Yes, perhaps there is honor in such a decision. You would not be thinking of yourself.”

“Then I should inform you that you have erroneously attached some form of nobility to my character if you think I will bow out. Doing so would not save him and his family the embarrassment that will ensue when he legally challenges the Lord Advocate’s judicial involvement in something over which the man should not have held any sway.”

Christine moved to the table and set down her teacup. “You see, I am also one of those who feel the Lord Advocate should be removed from power, as he has clearly proven he is prejudiced by his relationship to his brother, Lord Eyre, and prone to bribery. He has no business being in any position of judicial authority since he cannot perform his duties.”

Blanching, the countess came slowly to her feet. But Christine was not finished. “Or do you think I should go to my husband and beg him to allow Lord Eyre near Lady Erin? If Eyre is such a vindictive man as you
claim him to be and would threaten to humiliate his own granddaughter because of his war with Erik…” Christine could hardly say the words. “
I
would not even allow the man near the child.”

“Then I misspoke. Lord Eyre in not vindictive. He is desperate.”

“I spoke to Lord John Maxwell last week and he knew all about what I have been doing at the cliffs. Becca is the only person who knew I was looking for the Sedgwick beast. Did she tell you? And did you then tell him?”

“Our families are not strangers,” the countess whispered. “Lord Eyre has been more Erik’s father than ever any man alive. What has happened is not all Lord Eyre’s fault.”

“Pah!” Christine brandished her hand dismissively at such drivel as if she were channeling Aunt Sophie. “Where were the both of you when he needed you most? Where was anyone? Do not talk to me about being alone now. As my Aunt Sophie would say, ‘You reap what you sow.’”

Tears of fury welled in the countess’s blue eyes. Eyes very much the same shape and color as Erin’s. “You cannot talk to me in this manner, young lady,” the countess said. “You…you aren’t even my daughter-in-law anymore.”

“Then no one can accuse me of being disrespectful to a family member.” Christine took a step nearer. “And before you say anything else to malign Lady Erin’s parentage, I suggest you take a closer look at the child. You may not see Erik in his daughter’s face, but you will see some of yourself. Look at her again and tell me that you believe she is not your granddaughter in blood and in name. Then try telling yourself Erik is not her father.”

Christine had said enough. Aunt Sophie always told her to leave an audience wanting more and if you could not do that, then leave them shocked. Her only regret as she swept out of the dining room through the glass French doors was that she could not slam them in her exit.

Erik did not move from his place beneath the trees as he watched Christine disappear around a bend in the path. He felt something stab low in his chest. Something that had nothing to do with lust, but with longing of a different kind.

Something that should have been unpleasant to him, yet wasn’t. His senses followed the soft pad of her angry steps on the sand-and-crushed-brick pathway until he could no longer hear her footfalls. He turned his attention to the open French doors leading into the dining room. His mother stood just outside, on the terrace. It took him a moment to realize she had not yet seen him.

He did not make it a habit to eavesdrop, but he had heard their voices, and so he had stopped in the gardens, leaning on his crutches because his leg throbbed abominally. Then he had remained and listened.

Maybe he’d been used to having his way for too long in this life. These past months had certainly been a reminder that his future was as fragile as his past. What he couldn’t remember was the last time anyone had ever waged a battle on his behalf.

He stumbled three steps to the tree trunk, set his palm against the rough bark, and stared off at the distant crags steeped in mist, wondering how many hours he’d stood in this exact spot contemplating the choices he’d made in his life, contemplating his incapacity for
compassion and forgiveness, and the realization that he had no idea how to truly love.