Dilemma in Yellow Silk (13 page)

Entertaining herself in this way, she was almost startled when dusk shaded the hedges and dulled the colors of the lush countryside passing by the window.

“We’ll stop soon,” the curate said. For he was traveling to a new parish, where he would do all the work while the rector collected the salary and hobnobbed with the gentry. Or so he’d told them. Not that she had conversed with him much. Now Marcus had mentioned it, she did catch the curate’s attention on her too much for his greedy gaze to be coincidental. She was a respectable married woman. How dare he?

The smoother roads approaching the next town came as a relief after the bone-jarring roads outside. While the new turnpike roads were improving travel considerably, not all of the byways, even the biggest ones, had received the benefit of new surfaces and better maintenance.

They had reached Lincoln.

The center of the old city contained a hill so steep many people used the rails provided to climb it hand-over-hand. The coach avoided this peril. It took a side street, but the elevation the hill gave to the cathedral meant the passengers had a magnificent view as the vehicle did its usual breakneck turn into the inn yard.

Viola stared at it in wonder, her problems temporarily forgotten.

“Would you like to see it?” Marcus asked her. “We have time, if we have a late supper.”

“Very much.” And it would stop her sitting in the inn room wondering how she could seduce a man with so much more experience than she had. Perhaps something would occur to her, though surely not while in a sacred building. Perhaps the urge would pass, although since it had not yet shown any signs of doing so, she doubted it.

When the coach disgorged its passengers and the usual rush to the taproom had died down, they left at their leisure. A large coaching inn, it had plenty of room and Marcus had no problem bespeaking a room for each of them. Secretly, Viola hoped they would only use one, although her throat tightened at the prospect of what she meant to do.

He offered his arm, and after she had set the cocked hat on her head and pushed her hands into gloves, they set off. The balmy, warm evening cast a golden glow over their short walk. Viola set her mind to enjoying a rare moment of tranquility. Accompanied by a man who meant more to her than any other, even her father, she could feast her eyes on the vision of beauty that was Lincoln Cathedral and enjoy the fresh air. Despite the passengers keeping the windows open to freshen the atmosphere, the air in the coach had at times become stale and unpleasant.

“In London, you will become my mother’s guest,” Marcus said easily. “I want you to enjoy your time there. I’ll find a likely footman to accompany you at all times, and then you may shop and see more of the sights.”

“Will you take me?” She bit her tongue. She should not have asked that. It sounded too needy.

“To some of them.” He smiled at her. “My father will command my presence for some tasks, and I have others to pursue.”

She gripped his arm a little tighter. “If it concerns me, I want to know. Please, Marcus. I will not allow you to push me aside. It is my fate, and I wish to deal with it.” As she must deal with everything in her life. She would learn to be strong, not to lean on anyone.

“Sometimes I may have to go to places you cannot come.”

“And why not? I’m not your protected society miss. I have few expectations. Why should I not have a hand in my own fate?”

But he would only respond with a vague, “We’ll see,” and she could not push him any further. Marcus could be extremely stubborn when he put his mind to it. He was not perfect, she had always known, but he was the only man she wanted.

They had reached the cathedral. “It’s so much larger close-up,” she commented. The carved stone, blackened with the emissions of soot from the houses crowded around it, loomed up like something out of hell rather than heaven. But the figures set in the niches were of saints, gracefully carved, and the windows shone brightly in the light of the setting sun. The black was an illusion, a fault, that was all. Under it, the house of God remained serene and lovely.

“Would you like to go inside?” he asked. She nodded her assent and he led her forward.

The door was open. Had they just had Evensong? She had not attended church for nearly a week. Viola did not consider herself particularly religious. However, weekly attendance at the parish church at Haxby or the chapel in the house itself formed part of her regular routine. She missed it, the comforting rituals and the gossip afterward with the neighbors. She had not realized how much until now. Her whole life had shifted. Could she ever return home and resume her life? Did she even want to?

That notion came as a new one. She turned it over in her mind, unsure of the answer. The decision might well be made already. People knew about her, and her situation was perilous.

Despite the huge stained glass windows, she had to take a moment to accustom her sight to the relative dimness inside. The stone was paler here, less soot-encrusted, more the gray-tinged stone of the original cathedral.

Viola gazed up at the vaulting far above. “Men made this,” she said in awe. “Could they do it today?”

“Many of the techniques are lost,” he murmured. “However, they weren’t perfect. This cathedral fell apart after an earthquake in the twelfth century and they had to completely rebuild it. This building was the tallest in Europe until the spire collapsed in the sixteenth century.”

“How do you know so much?” she asked.

“I have friends who live just outside the city.” He paused. “We used to come here for services on occasion. The cathedral petitions us regularly for funds.”

He did not seem to think his last words were anything out of the ordinary, which gave her pause for thought. His family was wealthy, something she had forgotten in the last few days. To her he had become Marcus, not Marcus Aurelius Shaw, Earl of Malton. That title belonged to another man, a much better dressed, stately, imposing man. One she would be afraid of.

They strolled slowly around the space and stopped before the choir. “Can you see the imp?”

After glancing at his face, she followed the direction of his pointing finger. “Goodness, yes!”

“It’s the symbol of the cathedral.” A small carved figure, one leg crossed over the other, grinned at them from up above. “The masons often put little figures in the large churches. They may have a wonderful sense of humor, or it might have a meaning lost in the mists of time.”

“Perhaps it has a magical quality,” she murmured.

“Do you believe in magic?”

She opened her mouth to reply, but at that moment, someone said, “Good God, it’s Malton!”

Her heart sinking, Viola tried to pull away, but he clamped his arm hard against his body, trapping her hand. “No you don’t,” he said, and turned to face the stranger.

A man dressed in fashionable, new clothes stared at her curiously. “It is you! What is that monstrosity you have on your head?”

Lifting his hand, Marcus touched the bob-wig. “You don’t like it? I thought I’d give it a try.”

“Why?” The man raised a dark brow. His wig was a fashionable white queued one, not the dismal grey of Marcus’s. She had laughed at it when he first produced it, but she bridled now. Whatever his choices, he was entitled to them.

The stranger glanced at Viola and then lingered to pass an insolent gaze over her. From feet to the top of her head and back again, pausing at the place where her breasts pushed against the lawn of her shirt. But he said nothing. He would cut her unless Marcus introduced her, assuming she was a doxy. If he had accompanied a woman, they would have ignored him. That would have been for the best. Then maybe they would not have a closer look at her.

Marcus ignored the provocative remark about his wig and turned to her. “May I introduce my betrothed? Viola, my dear, this is Lord Frederick Howard. Freddie, this is Miss Viola Gates.”

Freddie’s brows went up even as he made his bow and murmured her name. She curtseyed, her mind temporarily numb. What had he done? And he’d said it loud enough for others to hear.
Betrothed?
She could not hope people would not gossip. Marcus was too important a personage for anyone standing by them not to chatter. Already they were attracting unwanted attention. The bystanders stared and murmured. Those murmurs would spread like ripples on a pond.

“Are you visiting hereabouts?”

“No, just passing through. While Miss Gates’s duenna rests in their room, I offered to bring her to the cathedral.”

“Thus gaining a few minutes alone, you dog!” Although he teased, Freddie’s expression had undergone a change. He no longer surveyed her as if she were meat on a butcher’s slab, but met her eyes and smiled affably. “I had not thought to see you married.”

“Neither had I, before recently. Miss Gates is the daughter of our estate manager, who is a distant relation of the family.”

“I see. So we have a love match?” Before Marcus could answer, he continued, addressing Viola for the first time. “You are on your way to London?”

“Yes, sir,” she said faintly. Betrothed? He could not mean it. Ah, yes, he would claim they had called it off or she had jilted him. He could do that. Relief filled her. Not that she did not want for—long for—such an eventuality. But although he had kissed her, she could not allow him to sacrifice his freedom for her.

Thoughts chased each other through her head. The uppermost was regret she had allowed him to help her and thus embroiled himself in a situation he could not wish for.

“I shall look forward to your betrothal ball,” Freddie said. He appeared amused more than any other reaction. Viola strongly suspected he did not believe Marcus. And well he might, because who would imagine he would marry the daughter of his estate manager? Love appeared the only explanation possible, yet…did she love him?

Facing her feelings for the first time before someone else she had to admit—probably. For she did not know what love meant or how she should feel. Women in love saw no fault in their beloved, and she certainly saw Marcus’s faults as clearly as she had ever done. His careful consideration of all points in an argument drove her to screaming pitch, for instance.

Keeping the society smile pasted to her face, Viola fought with her emotions. She could show nobody, not even Marcus himself. His overdeveloped protective streak would have her married to him before she could think straight.

She did not like Freddie. His curiosity and his sly innuendo did not give her the best opinion of him.

“I still have to inform my parents of my success, so the ball may not take place until after the wedding,” Marcus said smoothly.

How could he say that word—wedding—and not tremble? She was trembling enough for two, but she could not detect even a quaver in his voice. Or doubt when he gazed down at her and smiled. She forced a smile in return, but she was not sure it convinced him.

A small crease appeared between his brows. “You are tired,” he said softly. “We should go back.”

“No, truly I’m fine.”

“Nevertheless, I think we should return before your duenna awakes and misses you. We don’t want to upset her, do we?”

At last they took their leave.

He would not let them hurry, but paced in a stately way down the aisle with her. Her imagination rioted all on its own. The symbolism was not lost on her. How could they do this in reality? When she would have spoken, he touched a finger to his lips.

“Churches have ears,” he said. “Also unexpected echoes.”

So Freddie might overhear them.

Outside the church, she let out the breath she’d been holding. Without it, she wouldn’t have walked so steadily, or she might have burst out with all her objections. “What was that for?” she demanded, and before he could answer, continued, “You could have said I was your mistress. Why did you not walk away?”

“Because Freddie, bless him, would have gossiped when he reached town. Unfortunately he has an excellent memory for faces, so he would doubtless have recognized you.”

“You sound so calm! How can you?” She wanted to slap the smile off his face.

“What choice do we have? Why the fuss?”

“Oh, you foolish man! You have committed us to the most dreadful masquerade!”

He lost the smile then, just as if she had truly slapped him. “Indeed? Why is it dreadful? Do you fear a fate worse than death?”

She let out a breath and started to walk, abandoning the stately stroll for a full-bodied stride. “No, but you cannot marry me, so why say it? Oh, Marcus, I should never have allowed this to happen!”

The adventure, liberating and exciting up to this point, took on a shade of foolishness. “I should have returned to Haxby, to my father. We could have borrowed some footmen until—”

“Until when?” he demanded. “If we do not find who has done this to you, you aren’t safe. I want you safe, Viola.”

“But there would have been another way!”

“Not on that road.” He brought her memories back to the house at Scarborough and her terror there. She’d thought them both dead. “Until we reached the house, I thought we were relatively safe. But two people attacked your father, and a different two waited at the house.”

“How can you know that?”

“The horses,” he said simply. “And the facts. They did not have time to get there and lie in wait. I drove you in the fastest vehicle in the Haxby stables with two of the freshest horses. They could not have left your father’s house, reached Scarborough, broken in, and waited for you.” He turned, taking her upper arms in his hands. “Even with the half hour it took us to prepare for our journey, even the time it took us to run from your house to the main house, they would not have had time. Their horses were not fresh, and they were riding. It’s not possible, Viola. That means there are more men searching for you. Four at least. How could I leave you to that?”

“Easily, I’d have thought. Haxby has more than four footmen.”

He clicked his tongue. “As if I would do that! Absolutely not, Viola. You are my responsibility. Mine.”

Bewildered, she asked, “Why would you think it?”

“Because—”

She broke in. Although sure he had a ready answer waiting, she would not let him persuade her. “You take too much upon yourself, Marcus. You take charge and care for all your family and your dependents. And now me.” How did her regard her? Family or dependent? She would never ask, fearful of hearing the answer. Either way held fraught challenges she was not yet ready to face.