Beauty and the Duke (27 page)

Yet even for all of that, the world suddenly seemed less bleak than it had just five minutes before—even when he returned his attention to discover his mother standing at the edge of the terrace where the garden began, he did not feel his mood or temper darken.

She delicately tapped a finger to each corner of her eyes. “I suppose you heard everything?”

“I heard enough.”

And he was ready to be rid of her presence from his life forever as he awaited her excuses or some derogatory comment about Christine’s character. But her understanding of the situation showed with vivid clarity in her blue eyes. She had but to utter one harsh word…

“She was right,” his mother suddenly said. “Everything she said was the truth. I deserve to be thrown out of here. I deserved it before.”

“Bloody hell yes, you deserved it.” Hadn’t he told her once before if she ever spoke to a soul about Erin that he would sever his ties with her?

He leaned his weight on the crutch and stumbled again, and she was suddenly beside him, propping her shoulder beneath his. “Why is it you insist on trying to kill yourself?” she snapped. “You have never been considerate of those who worry about you.”

“Aye, Mother,” he laughed with masculine scorn. “It has always been my intent to hurt you by maiming myself, as I am happiest lying in bed suffering.”

“Oh Erik.” At her behest, he sat on the old stone wall and took the pressure off his injured limb. “No matter what I say, I seem to mangle the sentiment. Believe it as you will, I meant only that I worry about you.”

“And here I thought ye cared only for yourself,” he said.

“It is not so much that I care about myself. It is that I have found it easier to blame everyone else for what is wrong in my life. You might be surprised to know I have not unpacked and had intended to be gone before you were on your feet. I told Becca this before she brought me here.”

“How long have you been in contact with Maxwell?”

She crossed her arms. Her sleeves billowed over her wrists and she brushed at the lace. “When have I not been in contact with the old curmudgeon? We have been family friends since you were in short pants. Who do you think has been keeping me apprised of the events here? I was living at his boat house on the lake until we had a disagreement about you. You might be surprised to know I have since moved into a cottage near the hamlet.”

“You? Living in a cottage without an entourage of servants? I gave you enough money to purchase your own estate should you want one.”

“I did not take the funds you gave me. I would have gambled them all away. Nor have I had a single drink since that day you came to see me in London. I came to Scotland to be near you and Becca. Though I will admit I had not believed I would be offered the chance to be near you.”

“Then the recent slate of events has worked in your favor.”

“Only because I had unfettered access to you for an entire two days. I have not had that much time with you since you were practically stolen from my arms and brought here as the new duke of Sedgwick.”

Erik knew that his mother had barely been a widow of two months when that event had occurred. She’d
been eighteen with no family support upon which to draw who did not want a piece of the Sedgwick name and fortune. A part of him even understood how she would have involved herself with a man like Becca’s father, this estate’s former administrator and the man who had held legal guardianship over Erik. Erik had literally been taken from her.

Women did not possess the same power as men when it came to controlling their future—even an independent woman like Christine. The proof lay in the fact that she had married him for the reasons she had. None that had to do with love.

His mother started to turn away and Erik took her arm. She startled at his touch. When was the last time they had touched?

He lifted his gaze and looked into the face of a woman he had barely allowed himself to know and, as he and his mother faced one another, a new kind of silence fell between them.

Perhaps for the first time in his life, he looked at his mother with emotions no longer weighted by the baggage they both carried from their pasts, his lightened considerably by Christine’s presence in his life.

Maybe almost dying had softened him.

Maybe falling in love—deeply in love, something he had never felt with this kind of intensity—had given him a new perspective on his other relationships, made him take stock of his faults. The man staring back at him from the mirror of his soul was not one he particularly liked. Certainly he was not one Erik welcomed any longer. How many wars in his life would have been averted had he just made some conciliatory move first? What would happen if he did so now?

He still did not trust his mother with an open invitation into his life, but neither would he send her packing
and on her way from Sedgwick as he had done so many years before.

“Do you want to remain for a few weeks?” he asked. “I do not expect you to stay the winter…” Small increments, he told himself. “But a summer’s visit—”

“Oh, Erik, I truly do. A few weeks would be wonderful.”

Again, he told himself he could do this. He
needed
to do this. “I will send someone to the cottage and retrieve the rest of your belongings.”

Erin’s distant laughter suddenly signaled his daughter’s approach up the garden path. She and Mrs. Whitman were returning from their morning constitutional. Beside him, his mother stilled. He could almost feel her panic.

“Have you spoken to her since your arrival?” he asked.

“She doesn’t know me, Erik.”

“Come.” He pushed himself up on the crutch. “It is time to meet your granddaughter then.”

An hour later, Erik left his mother with Erin and Mrs. Whitman outside in the garden, painting portraits of butterflies. He’d slipped away without either noticing, and stopped at the French doors in the dining room as he looked back at them.

“This arrived by special courier.” The butler gave Erik a letter.

Without looking at the front, Erik turned the letter over in his hand and flipped open the seal. The note was from Joseph Darlington and addressed to Christine. He hadn’t paid attention to the name on the missive when he’d turned it over. He tapped the letter impatiently against his palm. “It seems guests will be arriving tomorrow.”

C
hristine’s voice touched Erik first, a moment before she and Joseph Darlington entered the stable, where he’d gone shortly after breakfast. Sitting on a three-legged stool in the stall that housed Christine’s mare, he stilled the pick in his hand. He lowered the horse’s front hoof and rose to his feet.

Darlington and Amelia had arrived two days ago. For two days, his entire staff had been buzzing about in a state of eagerness. Sedgwick Castle finally had
guests!
At Christine’s direction, the coverings had been whisked off much of the furnishings and rooms no one ever went into had been prepared as if the queen herself were visiting. Christine had spent all hours of the day and night with Joseph and Amelia in her laboratory in the tower. She had tried to include Erik. But his knowledge about paleontology could fit into a thimble.

She and Darlington had paused in the entryway and were talking to Hampton, asking about the quality of the rope stored in one of the outbuildings behind the stables. She stood in a wedge of sunlight, the only warmth to be found in the stable, as if a pair of hands had reached into the doorway behind her and parted the murky air like a curtain.

She walked to Miss Pippen’s stall and pampered the nag with a handful of cubed sugar, while at the same time Erik was absurdly jealous that she had not paid that manner of attention to the mare he had given her. Erik watched as Darlington made a remark about the horse and her defense of the old mare.

A natural energy added to Christine’s beauty and, more than once these last few days, Erik had caught Darlington’s eyes on her face, and an odd look in his gaze as if he were seeing someone he’d never seen before.

Finally, brushing off her hands, Christine turned and saw him. Her hand went to her chest. “Erik,” she gasped.

The chill had brought the apples to her cheeks along with a blush. Leaning against the warm girth of the mare, he could not help it as his gaze went over her, before shifting to Darlington.

As cynical as Erik was about Darlington, he was also equally primal, male, and possessive. Darlington must have recognized the look in Erik’s eyes. “Amelia and I are elated about the opportunity you have given us here,” he said after an awkward pause. “I have seen your sister’s fossils. Chrissie and I agree that nothing like this has ever been unearthed. This is an enormous find.”

“Thank my wife for your invitation,” Erik said. “I had nothing to do with it.”

Christine hesitated, clearly sensing the discordant undercurrent running between them, and not quite knowing why. Her eyes went over the horse. “I didn’t know you were out here grooming the mare. Has the doctor given you permission to be up and about?”

“Since I pay his salary, the doctor allows me certain freedoms.”

Christine’s eyes narrowed. Darlington shifted in the silence. Then peering from Christine to Erik, he politely bowed his head and told them he needed to find Amelia. “The trip here exhausted her,” Darlington said. “Mrs. Samuels assured me that she herself is still recovering and that I should not worry.”

“I will be back to the tower shortly,” Christine said. “We’ll talk about our climb for tomorrow.”

After Darlington departed, Christine took up a second currycomb and began grooming the mare beside Erik. She brushed and stroked the mare. He watched her hands as she spoke about her plans on the cliffs as if to reassure him—of what, he wondered, did he need reassurance?

“You may not know this about me, but horses have always intimidated me.” Her voice was quiet as she spoke.

They faced each other across the back of the mare. “When I was fourteen, I was quite captured by my own brilliance and self-confidence. There was nothing I could not do. Until one night, I rode Aunt Sophie’s prized stallion. She loved that horse. I killed it when it stepped into a hole and broke its leg. It would be the first of many lessons in the ensuing years that would teach me the peril of my own arrogance. And my own lack of significance.”

She met his gaze. “You should not be jealous of Joseph.”

“Jealous?”

Christine did not know him if she thought jealousy defined the depth of his feelings.

Jealousy meant one coveted something someone else had. He’d never
coveted
anything. He’d either purchased or owned a controlling interest in anything that was of any value in his life.

Indeed, he did not understand the concept of jealousy.

“Is that what you believe I am?” he asked. “Jealous?”

She stroked the mare. “No.” Her voice remained quiet. “It is not jealousy that has made you churlish but your uncertainty in the face of, well…doubt.”

“I knew from the beginning what you wanted from me, Christine.”

He watched her hands pause. “I think what you have done for your mother is wonderful,” she said after a moment.

Erik returned the currycomb to the shelf outside the stall, then worked the leather gloves from his hands. “If you are about to ask me to extend the same courtesy to Erin’s other grandparent, don’t.”

Christine latched the stall gate behind her and laid the currycomb next to his on the shelf. “Would it be too difficult to try? Though I would not expect you to go alone.”

He met the concern in her eyes. “Would you rescue me, my love?”

“That isn’t what I meant.” She brushed the hair from his brow and touched her fingertips to the silver at his temple. He gently wrapped his fingers around her wrist, arresting her movement. She wrapped both hands around his and pulled them to her cheek, where she held them pressed to the warmth of her flesh. “It is only that I want you to know you are not alone in this fight, Erik.”

Not for the first time was he conscious that she stirred something deep inside him. He would not—could not—explain something he did not understand himself, and yet he found himself speaking the words anyway. “I need you, Christine.” His voice was quiet,
intense and, as he slid his hand around her cheek to cup her nape, the passion that he failed to hold back when he held her, made love to her, pummeled to the surface. “And I have never needed anyone. I am at a loss. Simple as that. My whole life has changed since you have entered it.”

She pressed her forehead to his chest and, wrapping her arms around his waist became almost immovable. “Oh, Erik,” she whispered.

He suddenly realized the front of his shirt was wet. He reached between them and tilted her chin. Tears swam in her blue eyes and spiked her lashes. Knowing her penchant for a lack of handy handkerchiefs, he could see he needed to find one, at least to help her clean her spectacles. “I hope those are tears of joy, love.”

Her hands tightened in the loose fabric of his shirt. She shook her head. “They are tears of horrible guilt. I have something I must confess. Something I should have told you from the beginning.”

A skein of alarm sliced through him. “What is it, Christine?”

“I fear I may have put a spell on you.”

He didn’t know if he wanted to laugh or weep in relief. “Aye.” He pressed his mouth to her hair. “I am thoroughly charmed.”

“No.” The words brought a fresh rush of tears. She lifted her face. “You
are
under a spell. I don’t know how, but you have been under one the moment I opened the door in the classroom and saw you standing in the hallway at Summershorn Abbey.”

“Christine—”

“Look!” She held up her hand. “
This
is a magic wishing ring. It’s an Arthurian antiquity. It belonged to my great-great-grandmother. The wearer gets what she or he wants most in the world.”

He’d noted that ring months ago. More than that, he took notice of her words, and it was as if sunlight spilled into the crevices that had opened up in his life these past few days. “You wished me to your door that afternoon at Summershorn Abbey?”

“No.” She scrubbed the heel of her hand at her cheeks. “You were the last person I wanted to see that day.”

“You did not wish me to the door. And I was the last person you wanted to see. Yet somehow this ring did…what exactly?”

“Truly?” She straightened her shoulders. “I am not sure. But the fact that I am here and I am in love with you and you quite possibly feel the same must be the first clue that we have been charmed.”

This time, he could not contain himself. He laughed. No simple laugh either. He felt a jolly deep release all the way to his sternum. “I do love you.”

“Oh!” She pushed him. Stumbling backward, he caught his hand on the ledge of the stall before dragging her into his lap as he came to sit on a bale of hay. She pushed her palms against his chest. “I am confessing my heart and soul to you and you laugh.”

“I am sorry, my love. I just told you the most profound sentiment I have ever told another human being, and I am then informed that the woman I love above all else is
non compos mentis
.”

“I am
not
a raving lunatic.” She again offered up her hand with the silver engraved ring as evidence. “Just
try
to get it off my finger. Try.”

Erik attempted a sober expression as he examined the magic ring in question. He wanted to kiss her senseless. “Your finger is swollen.”

She snatched away her hand. “My finger is not
fat
. The ring slid on my finger and tightened.” She babbled
on about someone named Babs and Sal, students of hers, he surmised. He heard Amelia and Joseph’s name. Her father’s. Clearly, countless believers had worn the ring. “This ring won’t come off until my greatest desire is finally granted.”

“Then theoretically, if it won’t come off, maybe I am not what you want most in the world.”

“But you are. I choose
you
.”

“Christine.” He slowly turned her in his lap. “I am honored by your confession. More than you can possibly know.”

“But you
are
what I want most in the world. I don’t understand. Perhaps in the beginning it wasn’t or I did not think it was, because that tooth was very tempting, or maybe it was and I just did not understand the clues—”

“But then I won you over.”

She lifted her eyes as if to say, “
yes.
”

“Christine”—he wrapped her against him—“I do not need magic to tell you I love you or know that you feel the same. The magic we share is what we ourselves make between us. Let that be enough.”

He spoke to her as if he were talking to his daughter who had lost her pet rather than a grown woman who had danced like a
houri
nymph for him last night, then pleasured him twice this morning.

“But what if it isn’t enough?” she said, almost as if speaking to herself.

He finally found his handkerchief. “Then consider this, my love. In the eyes of the law, we are no longer wed.”

A shadow passed across the light as someone entered the stable. Erik looked toward the doorway as Hampton entered. “Lord Sedgwick?”

Hampton spied Erik as he rose and set Christine on her feet. “What is it?” Erik asked.

“Boris sent a message from the main house,” he said. “Mr. Attenborough arrived and requests an audience with you.”

Erik’s solicitor should have been in Dunfermline seeking an audience before the ruling magistrate in the Commissionary Court. His return
was
unexpected. Christine wrapped her fingers around his forearm. “Isn’t it too soon to hear back from him?”

Once outside, Erik could see up the hill toward Sedgwick Castle. From where he stood, he glimpsed part of the inner courtyard. More than one carriage sat on the cobbles. “Did Boris say who else was with Attenborough?”

“No, your grace. He only said you needed to come at once.”

Erik looked down at Christine. “Do a favor for me,” he said with quiet intensity. “Find Erin and keep her with you.”

“They have arrested his grace for the murder of Lady Elizabeth,” Mrs. Brown said as she entered Aunt Sophie’s chambers twenty minutes later.

Christine came to her feet. She had done as Erik asked and found Erin. Amelia held a finger to her lips as she shut the door to Aunt Sophie’s bedroom where she had laid the child down for a nap. Mrs. Whitman remained in the room with Erin. “He is a peer. No one can just come to Sedgwick Castle and arrest him. On what evidence?”

Mrs. Brown lowered her voice. “Word is his sister be the one what condemned him for Lady Elizabeth’s murder,” the housekeeper said. “The constable has men downstairs and will take him to Dunfermline today.”

“Lock the door behind me,” Christine told everyone. “Do not allow anyone into this room.”

Joseph stepped forward. His hand stayed hers on the door as if he would prevent her from leaving. “Chrissie, he must have known this was coming. Why would he have sent you upstairs? Maybe he knew something like this was coming.”

“Let go of me. I won’t let them do this. If you try to stop me…”

“Why after seven years?” Joseph asked. “Why now?”

“Because Lord Eyre hates him and would attempt to take Erin. I don’t know, Joseph. But if you don’t let me out…”

He looked over her shoulder at Aunt Sophie. “Go with her, Joseph.”

Reluctantly, he opened the door. Christine grabbed her skirts and ran out of the room. She descended into the main corridor a few moments later. All she had to do was follow the line of frightened servants gathered in the hallway. Boris and another two dozen servants were milling just off the gallery.

Becca sat on a bench against the wall, her mother next to her attempting to soothe the distraught girl. The moment Becca saw Christine, she rose. “I am so sorry,” she sobbed in Christine’s arms. “This is my fault. All my fault.”

Christine tightened her palms on Becca’s shoulders and looked into the girl’s tear-stricken face. “What have you done, Becca?”

Shaking her head, she murmured unintelligible words about having witnessed a scene long ago between her brother and Elizabeth. She wiped her nose and babbled into the handkerchief. “He told me to tell them, Christine. He
told
me. When the constable asked me what I saw that night, Erik told me to tell the truth. Afterward, Erik said I did nothing wrong. I
condemned him and he said it was not my fault. Why would he say that?”