Dreamspinner (25 page)

“Why?”

“Because those elegant ladies cut me dead. I am considered a fallen woman, you know.”

“Why did you and William never marry?”

Chantal shrugged. “He would wed only money or position.”

Her voice held a hint of caustic pain. A sense of injustice gripped Juliet as she recalled Kent’s description of his father:
He held an unshakable conviction about class differences. He believed a man born to the dukedom was superior to other men
... A duke would never bestow the honor of his name on an actress, a woman who had already borne another man’s bastard child.

With a twist of guilt, Juliet reflected that she herself had been raised to scorn such females. She could well imagine Mama’s horror if she knew her daughter was taking tea with Chantal.

She studied Chantal’s elegant form. How could such a proud woman stomach being kept? “You bore William a daughter,” she said. “Surely he owed you something for that.”

“He gave me a home,” said Chantal, with a wave of her hand. A secretive smile touched her lips. “William wanted me close by. Possessive fellows, these Deverell men.”

Juliet recalled the quarrel. Yes, Kent was possessive, too. In that respect, he was like his father...

Skirt swishing, Chatal walked briskly back to her chair. “Shall I pour more tea?”

“Yes, please.”

Picking up the silver pot, she bent closer, her attention half on Juliet and half on pouring the steaming tea. “Fancy us, sitting here together, speaking so candidly.”

Juliet tensed. “You mean because I’m a Carleton?”

“Carleton. I’ve heard William speak
that
name often enough. No, not because of that... because you’re a lady. Yet you look at a person directly, without all that silly modesty so many women affect.” Chantal tilted her head. “You have the most unusual eyes, too,” she went on, her voice soft, meditative. “Green rimmed with gold. A stunning combination.”

“I’ve been told I have my father’s eyes.”

Chantal turned away to freshen her own cup. “Is that so? What a trick of nature that God would grace a man with such lovely, long lashed eyes.”

A thread of emotion wove through the trifling comment, an emotion that eluded Juliet. Staring at that lissome back, she wondered if Chantal had shared her lover’s hatred for the Carletons. “Have you ever met my father?”

“Is he coming here?” spoke a girlish voice from the door. Rose bustled into the room. Windblown sable hair tumbled down the back of her mauve gown, and her cheeks bloomed with color. “Hullo,” she said, her voice breathless, as if she’d raced up the stairs. “Well, is he?”

“Most certainly not,” Chantal said, setting down the pot with a sharp click.

“A pity. I’d like to meet the man Father talked so much about.”

Chantal arched a fine eyebrow. “You’re late. I was beginning to wonder if you’d gotten lost in the dungeon again.”

“Oh, Mama. I’m hardly ten years old anymore.” Brown eyes sparkling, she looked from Chantal to Juliet. “I’m so glad you’ve come to visit. You can hear all about my brilliant idea. I’m going to write a play.”

Startled, Juliet said, “I thought you were compiling a family chronicle.”

“That’s the beauty of it—it’s a play about the Deverells. Capturing all the drama of a noble dynasty.” Rose twirled closer, ink-smudged hands clasped to her bosom. “Perhaps someday my work shall even be performed at the Drury Lane Theatre.”

“An admirable dream, darling,” said Chantal, her smile indulgent. “It should prove a challenge to make the dry pages of history appeal to a jaded cosmopolitan audience.”

Rose waved the comment away. “My heritage is bound to enthrall even the harshest of critics, Mama. Why, the story of you and Father alone would—”

“Absolutely not, young miss,” Chantal said, stiffening. “My private life will not be fodder for public appetite.”

Rose hung her head, her eyes suddenly sheened with tears. “But I wouldn’t have to use your real names.”

Sighing, Chantal folded her daughter in a hug. “Oh, darling. Do you really suppose your father would have approved of such a project?”

“Of course you’re right, Mama.” A sly gleam in Rose’s eye told Juliet she hadn’t abandoned the idea. “I wasn’t thinking, that’s all. I’ve plenty of other illustrious ancestors.”

Chantal nodded. “I’ll pour you a cup of tea.”

“Thank you.” Rose plopped onto a crimson hassock and regarded Juliet. “I stopped by your room this morning, to take you on a tour of the castle, but you’d gone out with Augusta.”

“Yes, she took me to Wyecote and introduced me to some of the villagers.”

Rose wrinkled her dainty nose. “How could you bear to spend so many hours alone with that harridan?”

“Rose!” chided Chantal, delivering a cup to her daughter. “Augusta has helped many people in the district.”

“Yes, Mama. I can admire her without liking her. But still, she doesn’t make it easy to warm up to her cross nature... her and that dreadful yapping dog.”

Though Juliet half agreed, she said, “Maybe Punjab gives Augusta something to love, since she hasn’t any children.”

Eyes contemplative, Rose sipped her tea. “Perhaps so. I never saw her in quite that light.”

“We all have secret longings,” Chantal murmured. “Emotions we’re afraid to share. If you’re to write a play, darling, you must learn to look below the surface of your characters.”

Sympathy unfurled inside Juliet’s heart. Did Chantal lead a lonely life in this tower? Did she miss the comfort of William Deverell’s embrace, spin dreams about her lost first love?

Juliet set aside her cup. “I thought it indelicate to ask this of Augusta. What’s wrong with Gordon’s hands?”

“Rheumatism,” Chantal said. “He’s suffered from the affliction since boyhood.”

“Is there any cure?”

Chantal shook her head. “The doctor prescribes medication for the pain.”

Eyes conspiratorial, Rose perched her elbows on her knees. “That tonic is why he always seems to have his head in the clouds. Lots of times when I’ve gone into the library for a research book, I’ve found him nodding off in his chair.”

Another use for her dowry, Juliet thought. A London specialist might be able to treat Gordon’s illness. Surely Kent couldn’t object to accepting money that would help his cousin.

“If you’d like, Juliet,” Rose said, “I’ll show you around the castle tomorrow. We have ever so many fascinating heirlooms. Did you know that in the south tower we still have the bed that Henry the Eighth and Anne Boleyn slept in?”

As the girl chattered on, Juliet saw no polite way to divert the discussion back to the feud. Questions churned inside her, making her restless, impatient. Tonight, she reminded herself.

Tonight Kent would provide the answers.

Chapter 12

It was the only answer. Deep in numbing thought and warm water, Kent leaned against the back of the copper tub and soaked his work weary muscles. After travels through Turkey, his great-grandfather had converted a guest bedroom into this richly appointed bath with the white marble floor and mahogany framed tub so enormous, it required the approach of two steps. That renovation had, of course, occurred before the decline of the Radcliffe fortune.

Before the clash of Deverell and Carleton.

Oh, Christ, it was the only answer.

Willing the tremor from his hand, Kent picked up the glass from the ledge beside the tub and took a swallow. Brandy seared his throat, but instead of easing his anxiety, the liquor nourished the glow burning inside him. The glow that had scorched him ever since that afternoon, when Juliet had ridden out to the fields in the company of that goddamned skirt chaser, Hammond-Gore. Even now, Kent felt a throb of blinding jealousy, the urge to smash his fist into another man’s face.

God help him, he’d fallen in love with Juliet.

It was the only explanation for this awesome ache inside him, this insatiable hunger to possess her, this softhearted desire to hold her close for an eternity.

He set down the brandy glass. Nonsense. He craved Juliet only because she was Emmett Carleton’s daughter.

The justification rang as hollow as the empty glass. Somehow, through all his vengeful plotting, he’d failed to consider the possibility of loving the woman who had grown up coddled by Emmett Carleton. How had such a treacherous schemer managed to raise a daughter as forthright as Juliet?

Her image swam into his mind, the flashing green gold eyes, the angry flush of her cheeks, the indignant sway of her hips. Heat pooled in his loins; his mouth went dry until he felt half sick with longing and remorse.

The hurtful accusation on her face corroded him, became his own pain. His ears echoed with the unmerited implication he’d flung at her:
Give Henry half a chance and he’ll have you on the ground with your skirts above your waist.

Kent sank deeper into the tub. He had charged her with dishonor. He, who had woven a web of deceit so tight, it strangled him with both the need to confess and the fear of admitting the truth.

And, oh Christ, as if his other sins weren’t enough, he’d called her Emily. He wanted to drown in chagrin and self contempt. He didn’t know how that blunder could have happened, except that he’d been obsessed with the shadows of the past and determined to resist his feelings for Juliet.

Acknowledging his love made his deception a sin beyond redemption.

Kent dunked his head beneath the water and came up sputtering. Fishing around the bottom of the tub, he snatched up the slippery cake of sandalwood soap. Viciously he began to scrub his hair. From the adjacent dressing room came the quiet sounds of Ravi’s movements, the brushing of clothes, the polishing of boots, the closing of drawers.

The routine sounds scraped his raw nerves. Kent thrust his head under the water again to rinse his hair. When he broke surface, the Muslim stood silently beside the tub, a white towel draped over his arm, the candlelight dancing over his dusky face.

By that watchful stance, Kent knew Ravi had something of import to relay. “Well?” he snapped. “What is it?”

The servant placed the towel on the ledge. “Her Grace took tea with Miss Chantal.”

“What?”
Kent jackknifed to his feet. Water sloshed onto the floor.

“I thought you would wish to know, sahib,” Ravi said in his unperturbed, faintly musical voice. “She stayed with Miss Chantal for more than an hour.”

“Where is the duchess now?”

“Dining with your cousin. Shall I fetch her?”

“No.” Kent brusquely waved Ravi away. “That will be all for tonight.”

“As you wish, sahib.” Bowing, he glided out the door.

Scarcely aware of his actions, Kent stepped from the tub. Droplets rolled down his body and plopped onto the veined marble floor. As he picked up the towel and rubbed himself dry, alarm and anxiety collided within him.

What had Chantal told Juliet?

Oh, Christ. Why hadn’t he had the sense to warn Chantal to guard her tongue? Maybe deep in his heart he wanted Juliet to learn the entire story. To release his conscience from its terrible burden.

A sudden wave of logic deluged him. On second thought, she must not have heard anything damning about him. If she had, she wouldn’t be downstairs, calmly dining. Claws unsheathed, she would be at her husband’s throat. He smiled with wry tenderness. He knew her well enough to be sure of
that.

Or did he?

Stalking into the dressing room, he thrust his arms into a silver gray robe and yanked the sash tight. How certain
could
he be of his wife? Perhaps Emmett Carleton wasn’t truly at the core of his fears. What frightened him was that Juliet might leave because she was disillusioned by their hasty nuptials. And enraged that he’d called her by another woman’s name.

There’s more to marriage than physical pleasure.

His chest tightened, choking the breath from his lungs. God. As a husband, he was an utter washout. He’d failed to give Juliet happiness, just as he’d failed to banish the melancholia from Emily. Had he learned nothing from his first marriage?

Pensively he combed his fingers through his wet hair. Who would have thought he could love two women so dissimilar? Emily had been gentle and shy, shrinking from the physical realities of marriage. Juliet was vibrant and outspoken, eager to share both body and soul... so long as she remained blissfully unaware of his true purpose in wedding her.

Bypassing the dinner tray Ravi had left before the bedroom hearth, Kent sought another glass of brandy, then sat before his desk. Candlelight cast shadows over the half finished drawing for the mechanical thresher, the plan he’d been too distracted these past weeks to finish.

He set aside his drink and picked up a pencil. His gaze wandered toward an opened window. Dusk had succumbed to the dense black silk of evening. Against the perpetual lapping of the river, crickets chirped and frogs croaked. Summer sounds, as timeless and soothing as a dream.

Dreamspinner.

Memory bathed the raw wound inside him. He had sworn to make Emmett Carleton pay for his sins. For years the vow had been the focus of Kent’s life; revenge had been a tonic for the heartbreak of grief and the guilt of having failed Emily.

Now, by a peculiar prank of fate, victory left him exposed to a vast vulnerability, to the peril of again losing the woman he loved.

He drank deeply of the brandy, then forced his eyes to the design lying atop the age-creased leather surface of the desk. Instead of the clean lines of the drawing, he saw Juliet’s tear-misted eyes. Disgusted with his inability to concentrate, he tossed down the pencil and prowled the shadowed room.

If she left him, where would she go? Because of him, she’d severed her ties with her parents. Oh, God, he couldn’t think about losing her. Maybe he was wrong. Maybe she wouldn’t abandon their marriage, because she had too strong a sense of honor and commitment.

Yet she also had a powerful need for love. He didn’t know if a man so jaded by a life of fruitless hatred, so ensnared by the bitter legacy of the past, could ever satisfy that need in her.

But he wanted desperately to try.