Guilty Series (85 page)

John stared at the letters and all his amusement faded. A mild irritation took its place. “Good God,” he muttered, “How many are there?”

“Fifty-nine, sir. All addressed from Calais.”

“All in the past ten days?” He picked up a handful, wondering what manner of woman did something like this. He strove to think back to the woman who had been his mistress through the autumn and winter, and he could remember only vague things, unimportant things. Red hair. Green eyes. A sweet sort of charm easily enjoyed and quickly forgotten. “What does she hope to gain by such a barrage of correspondence? More money?”

Stone did not answer, since he knew the question was rhetorical. He simply waited for instructions.

“Stone, I want you to—”

The opening of the door interrupted him.
“John, when do you want to leave for town?” Viola stopped in the doorway, her gaze fixed on the bundle of pink letters in his hand. Her face went pale and her eyes went wide, and John could read her thoughts at that moment as if they were written above her head.

“Viola—” he began.

“I'm sorry,” she said. “I did not mean to interrupt you. Forgive me.” She pressed a hand to her mouth, turned around and walked away.

“Viola!” he called after her.

She stopped, then continued on without a backward glance until she turned and disappeared from view.

John dropped the handful of letters back into the case. “Burn these damn things,” he said, loud enough for Viola to hear him as she walked away. “Better yet, send them all back to Mrs. Rawlins with a letter telling her I'm not paying her a farthing more and never to contact me again. Understood?”

Without waiting for an answer, he went after Viola. He found her on the terrace, staring out at the river that curved and glittered in the distance. She must have heard the tap of his boot heels on the flagstones, but she did not turn around and look at him as he approached her.

“Those are love letters, aren't they?” she said, then made a chiding sound. “What am I saying?
Of course they are. Pink paper, and I could smell the perfume on them from the doorway.”

“The woman writes to me,” he told her. “I do not write to her.”

“I see.” She nodded, but continued to stare out at the river without turning around.

The very fact that she was so calm impelled him to speak. “I am not with Emma. I ended it months ago.”

“You don't have to explain.”

“Damned right I don't. There's nothing to explain. It is over.”

She wrapped her arms around herself and turned her head slightly in his direction. “From the amount of correspondence she sends you, it seems Mrs. Rawlins does not realize that fact.”

“She should. I made it clear. I paid off her contract. I set her aside months before Percy died. You are the only woman I have been with since then.”

She turned and looked at him. “I believe you,” she said, but there was a cool, polished hardness in her face that hurt him.

Don't
, he thought.
Don't do this.

“Is Emma Rawlins in love with you?”

“Love?” His voice was harsh, contemptuous of such a notion. She winced, and he gentled his voice at once. “She was a mistress, Viola. She was paid. Love has nothing to do with such arrangements. Don't you see that?”

“I think it is Mrs. Rawlins who does not see that,” Viola said, and turned again to look out at the view. John stared at his wife's rigid back for a long moment, but he did not know what she wanted him to say. He did not know what she wanted him to do. With an oath, he turned and walked away.

O
nce again the charity ball for London hospitals proved to be a raging success. Thousands of pounds were raised, for over the past few years the ball had become one of the most popular events of the season, and anyone who attended had to pay the exorbitant subscription fee.

Viola was gratified by the success, for London hospitals were among her favorite charities, but the event itself proved to be a difficult, exhausting business. John attended with her, something that had never happened before, and speculation about their presence together began to circulate the ballroom within minutes of their arrival.

The general conclusion would probably be that Lord and Lady Hammond had, indeed, reconciled. This morning they might have been right about that, but this evening, Viola was not so sure.

The carriage ride from Chiswick had been silent. John had made no attempts at conversation,
and neither had she. The letters from Emma Rawlins were probably on their way back to France by now, but they stood between John and herself as if they had been piled up on the carriage floor. John did not understand why, she knew. He didn't understand that even a mistress who was paid could fall desperately in love.

At the ball, they danced one quadrille together, then separated to mingle with other guests. After a few hours of circulating through the crowd with a smile pasted on her face as she encountered some of the women from Lady Deane's guest list, Viola's head began to ache and she sought out a quiet corner of the ballroom.

She leaned back against the wall, sipping her glass of punch as her gaze roamed over the crowd. She remembered that day over a month ago when she had been going over her guest list for the ball with Tate and how John had warned her about the spitefulness of Lady Deane. Not presenting her guest list to the baroness in person had been a social snub that Viola knew she was paying for now, because among the knights and nobles, the princesses and jesters, the bewigged judges and Greek muses, were all of John's former mistresses, except Emma Rawlins. Lady Deane had been very busy. And very spiteful, indeed.

Viola sought out their faces. Anne Pomeroy, so polished and elegant. Peggy Darwin, laughing and pretty. Jane Morrow, blond and hazel-eyed
like herself, a demirep on the fringes of society, still a good enough courtesan to afford the subscription fee for this ball. Dark-haired and doe-eyed Maria Allen. Her reconciliation with her husband had not succeeded, and she was Lord Dewhurst's mistress now. Maybe she thought her husband fighting in a duel was romantic. Elizabeth Blunt, another beautiful and promiscuous countess with whom Viola had been forced to drink tea and play cards over the years. Even Elsie Gallant was here, and the years had not been kind to her, for the vivacious, lovely face that had made her a popular demirep now marked what she was—an aging courtesan.

Viola studied them one by one and was surprised to find that she felt no rage of jealousy. She felt strangely distant, oddly detached, with a hint of pity for these women.

He hadn't loved any of them, but how had they felt? She remembered the brief hint of tenderness in Peggy Darwin's face that day in the draper's shop when she had looked at John, confirming what she had known for years, what John refused to see. The countess had been in love with him once. Wasn't now, perhaps, but she had been. Viola thought of the pile of pink letters in Mr. Stone's dispatch case. Poor Emma Rawlins.

And what of herself? She was his wife. Yet, if she'd had no dowry, if she hadn't been born a lady, if she hadn't married him, she would still
have fallen in love with John Hammond, for he made falling in love with him so easy. Without even realizing it. It was in his smile and his charm and his ability to make a woman laugh. It was because he remembered what food a woman liked and what activities she enjoyed and how she liked to be touched. But his heart was never engaged. How could she ever hold his heart if he never gave it away?

Viola pressed a hand to her forehead. Her head ached. Her heart ached. Her monthly was coming, she could feel it, but she knew that wasn't why she felt tired, lonely, and so terribly depressed. She could not stop thinking about how desperate and hurting a woman had to be to send a man stacks of letters when he hadn't ever cared tuppence for her. She understood Emma Rawlins's desperate love for a man who did not love her back. How odd to feel empathy for your husband's former mistress, she thought.

She and John left the ball early and went back to Chiswick that night. She slept by herself, using her impending courses as an excuse. He seemed to accept it, and she was glad because she did not want him to see her when she laid down in bed and wept. She did it silently into the pillow so he would not hear.

 

She was pulling away. He could feel it. John laid in bed, staring at the ceiling in the dark, and tried
to tell himself it was her courses—he knew such things had an affect on a woman's disposition. He'd learned long ago that steering clear was the best move a man could make in such circumstances.

He tried to tell himself her monthly illness was the reason she'd been so strange about Emma's letters, but he knew that wasn't it. She was pulling away from him.

The ball tonight hadn't helped matters. Damn Lady Deane's malicious nature. But even as he damned her, he knew his own culpability there.

John rubbed his hands over his face and asked himself the same question he'd asked himself countless times over the years. What did Viola want from him? What could he do or say that would make things right? There had to be a way.

The years ran across his mind like the pages of a storybook, but the things that he kept coming back to were those early days, especially Hammond Park. He thought of riding on the downs and making Viola laugh. She'd been happy at Hammond Park. He knew that much.

With sudden clarity, he knew what he had to do. He had to take her home—to their home, where she belonged. Sleeping in that big mahogany bed with him, getting trounced by him at chess in their library there, riding that spirited mare he'd bought her. He imagined her racing ahead of him, tossing off her hat and laughing,
and that was when he was finally able to fall asleep.

 

Viola made no objection to leaving London, but during the trip to Northumberland, she said little. Though he got an occasional smile or laugh out of her, she was restrained and distant. He knew she probably had some discomfort from her courses, and the six-day journey could not have helped ease that. But he remembered full well how long her monthly lasted, yet by the time they reached Hammond Park on the seventh day, her restrained manner still enveloped her like a shield to keep him away.

Nonetheless, John had no intention of allowing any closed bedroom doors this time around. That night, when he went to the master bedchamber, he had every intention of making it clear that they would be sharing one bed.

She was there when he came in, sitting at the dressing table in her nightgown, brushing her hair. She stopped a moment as he entered the room, then resumed her task.

He went into the dressing room and saw the cot had been made up, but he had no intention of using it. Not tonight, not any night, not ever again. He stripped off his clothes, walked out of the dressing room, and moved to stand behind her chair.

She stopped, the brush poised against her long
hair. She looked at his reflection in the mirror, her face framed against the backdrop of his naked chest.

He leaned down and slid his arms around her. He kissed her neck. She set down the brush, wrapped her hands around his wrists and pushed his arms away.

He straightened, and knew he had to know what he was dealing with. “Are we going to have a fight tonight?” he asked quietly.

“Why do you ask? Because I am not in a mood to make love with you?”

These were the moments when women were truly baffling. “Well, something is wrong, and I do not know what it is.”

“It's just—” She broke off and turned around, looking up at him in the lamplight with an odd sadness in her face that twisted something in his guts.

“Are you still angry about Emma's letters?” he asked.

“I'm not angry, John. I was never angry.”

“What is this strange mood, then? Are you still—” He broke off, making a vague motion toward her abdomen, hoping it was as simple and temporary as that, knowing full well it wasn't.

Her cheeks got pink. “No.”

He made another guess. “Are you upset that we left London before the season was over?”

“Heavens, no.”

John gave up. “Then what is it?”

She lifted a hand helplessly. “I feel so sorry for that woman.”

“What woman? Emma?” He was too amazed not to ask the next question. “Why?”

“Oh, John, really!” Exasperation came into her face and she turned her back to him. “She has feelings for you,” she said over her shoulder. “Desperate feelings. She must, or she would not be sending you stacks of letters and humiliating herself in that way.”

He'd asked a stupid question, he should have known he wouldn't like the answer. He put his hands on her shoulders and pressed his forehead to the top of her head with a sigh. “What would you suggest I do about that?”

“I don't know.” she admitted. She shrugged as if she wanted him to remove his hands.

He didn't. He straightened and met her eyes in the mirror. “I may be dense, Viola, but I still do not understand the problem.”

“I know how she feels, John,” she whispered. “There. Now you know the problem.”

His hands tightened on her shoulders. “It isn't the same thing.”

“It is exactly the same. Do men really think that mistresses do not have feelings? That they do not fall in love? Yes,” she said when he made an exclamation of impatience, “love. I tried to tell you this before, after we saw Peggy Darwin in the draper's shop. She was in love with you once, too. I always
knew that. Why do you think it hurt so much to see her looking at you?”

“I was never in love with Peggy Darwin.”

“I am not talking about your feelings. I am talking about hers. And Emma Rawlins's. And mine. Oh, John, do you not see? Women fall in love with you. It's in the way you smile and the things you say. It's in everything you do.”

That was absurd. He looked away. “I cannot believe that women would think that a few smiles are worth falling in love with.”

“You are an unbelievably handsome man, and you have so much magnetism, so much charm. You flirt with women, you remember things, you pay attention. Women are putty in your hands.” She paused, then said softly, “I was.”

“Viola, you have never been putty in my hands,” he assured her. “If that were true,” he said, trying to make light of it, “I'd have half a dozen sons by now.”

She slid off the seat, stepped away from him and climbed into bed. “I want to go to sleep.”

He looked back over his shoulder at the cot that had been made up for him in the dressing room. He leaned against the carved footboard of the bed, gripping its edge in his hands, and looked at her again.

“Tell me one thing,” he said, and took a deep breath, feeling as if he were about to jump over a cliff. The carving on the footboard was pressing so
hard into his hands that it hurt. “Do you want me to sleep in the dressing room?”

She looked away. “I—” She broke off and bit her lip.

“Yes or no.”

“I don't want to make love, John. I'm not saying that because I'm angry at you,” she added. “Truly. It's just that I am not…I am not inclined to it tonight.”

Just holding and touching her for those few brief moments a short time ago had been enough to arouse him. It was going to be torture to just lie in bed with her and hold her, but if that was how it had to be, he'd endure it. However many nights he had to, with every intention of persuading her differently every chance he got.

He looked into her eyes and did something he swore he would never do with Viola again. He lied. “If you don't want to make love, then I don't, either.”

She lowered her gaze, and looked so damn lovely in that huge bed, his bed, with her pristine white nightgown and her angelic hair. If he could only hear her lusty laugh, he'd think he had died and gone—unbelievable as it might be—to heaven.

“Where am I sleeping, Viola?”

She looked at him, and it seemed an eternity before she pulled back the bedclothes. Relief flooded through him, relief so great it took all he had not to show it. He slid into the bed beside her, and when
she turned away, he wrapped his arms around her, held her fast, buried his face against her hair.

“John,” she reproved, but she did not shove his arms away this time. He went still and laid there in the dark, holding her body pressed to his. He was deliberately torturing himself, he knew, but he did it anyway.

He'd brought Viola to Hammond Park thinking that would solve everything. He deserved this agony for such a cocky assumption. When it came to his wife, nothing was ever as easy as that.

 

He was gone when she woke up. Viola sat up in bed, pushing her hair out of her eyes. Sunlight peeped between the drapery panels at the windows, and she looked around her.

So strange to be here again. Strange, and yet familiar. She leaned back against the headboard, smiling a little at the maroon-red walls. John had reminded her not long ago how they had argued about that so long ago. She had forgotten, but he had remembered.

There was a scratch on the door, and a maid came in with a tray. “Morning, my lady,” the girl said, smiling shyly. “I'm Hill. Second housemaid. Mrs. Miller had me bring your breakfast up. She said you always like to have your breakfast in bed.”

“Miller is still here?”

“Oh, yes. Will be until she's too old to stir the puddings, she says.”

Viola laughed. “I remember Miller's Christmas pudding. She prepared it in September and she made everyone in the house come to the kitchens and give it a stir before she put it away in the buttery.”