Hadrian (32 page)

Lily left off dissecting Avis’s future to rummage in her work basket, leaving unsaid that if Avis rejected Hadrian’s offer, more pity would come her way.

And more scorn.

“If I jilt Hadrian, I’ll never have another offer, unless you count old Sully’s flirting.”

“Sully is influenced by Fenwick’s poor example.” Yet another deadly sin. “Insubordinate, that one.”

“Don’t start, Lily.” Avis unfastened the window latch, because the day was brisk but not cold. “Fenwick is a superb steward, and he is my friend. I have enough on my mind without you feuding with him.”

“I am sorry.” Lily took one of Avis’s shawls from the back of her chair and draped it around her own shoulders. “I should not let my distaste for that man burden you. If you marry Mr. Bothwell, we’ll remove to Landover, and Mr. Fenwick’s strutting, braying company will merely be that of an infrequent visitor, one calling on Mr. Bothwell.”

The shawl was a soft peacock-green wool and went well with Lily’s fair coloring, and yet, that was one of Avis’s favorite shawls, and the room wasn’t at all cool.

Something inside Avis shifted—another adjustment of the balance between fear and courage—at the sight of Lily appropriating that pretty shawl.

“You think I should marry Hadrian?”

“I should tell you yes.” Lily rose to join Avis near the window. “I should tell you he’s a decent enough fellow, he’ll provide well, and you’ll never want for anything. You might even be a viscountess someday.”

Lily did not mention that Avis might be happy some day—happy
and loved
.

“But?”

“But I am your friend,” Lily said, gaze on the back gardens, “and we’ve always been honest with each other. If you marry Mr. Bothwell, you’ll exchange one set of problems for another. Your neighbors will still have their arrogant prejudices, but instead of managing a large estate, you’ll be wife to the man running Landover, tolerated by the staff, perhaps even tolerated publicly for your spouse’s sake.”

Lily’s sigh heaved cargoes of understanding about on a sea of regret. “That’s not an improvement,” she went on, “not when you have so much freedom and authority here, not when you will be consigned to the status of Mr. Bothwell’s meek, adoring spouse if you marry him. We love you here, and I doubt Mr. Bothwell has expressed regard of a similar stature. He needs an heir for his brother, a lady to warm his bed, and you’re the most easily available.”

All true, but again, Lily had failed to note that Hadrian needed, and deserved, a lady to love him and those children he’d thus far been denied.

“What you say has some truth, Lily. Gratitude alone is a poor reason to marry.”

“He at least appears to respect you,” Lily said, adjusting her shawl—Avis’s shawl. “Whatever you decide, I’ll stand with you.”

“And for that,”—Avis dredged up a smile—“I’ll be grateful, but as I am expecting my intended to call, I had best put myself to rights.”

“Shall I attend you?”

“No, thank you.” Avis headed for the door at a brisk pace. “Though if you could have the footman take the tea tray and water the flower-pots and vases in here, I’d appreciate it. The roses look a little thirsty.”

“Of course.”

Avis resisted the temptation to hurl something breakable when she gained the privacy of her bedroom, for Lily did mean well.

Lily always meant well, and yet, when her advice included not only the usual laments regarding Avis’s deportment and judgment, but also belittling of Hadrian Bothwell, Avis’s temper flared. Lily had crossed a line, shifting from dispensing friendly caution, to dripping poison onto Avis’s heart.

Something would have to be said, and soon. No company at all was better than the company of a companion determined to speak ill of such a decent and dear man.

Avis changed into an old dress with a high waist, a comfortable, gardening sort of dress that left her forearms bare and obviated the need for a corset. Hadrian might walk with her up to the pond—

But no.

She would allow no frolicking halfway up the hill where God and any of His creatures might see her with Hadrian. She could not think that way, could not contemplate leading Hadrian closer to the altar, even in his own mind.

For until the author of the notes was revealed, should Hadrian marry Avis, he might well end up dead.

“They have a biblical cast.” Hadrian regarded the notes spread out across his estate desk as if he viewed a collection of adders, scorpions, and rats. “Lots of scriptural allusions.”

“Like this one?” Avie plucked a note from the blotter. “‘Easier for an honest strumpet to pass through the gates of heaven than for you to safely darken the doors of our church.’” She put it back and picked up another. “A woman’s good name is worth more than rubies, and her virtue more precious still.’”

She wasn’t even reading the words—clumsy allusions to Matthew, chapter 19, verse 24, and Proverbs, chapter 31—she recited them from memory.

“Can you recall when you received that one?”

She set it down. “After Alexandra left for a post in the south.”

One of the earliest, then. Upon her majority, Lady Alex had left Blessings, and thereafter somebody had begun to harassing Avis by correspondence.

“And this one closely resembles the most recent note. I hate to ask this, Avie, but when did Fenwick come to work for you?”

Avis picked up the enormous ginger cat that had begun frequenting the library in the absence of Harold’s great hound.

“I’ve never once heard Fen cite scripture.” She ran her cheek over the top of the cat’s head, and the beast began to purr. “He was on the estate before Alex went south. He made her nervous, but Vim vouched for him, and Ben found him trustworthy as well.”

More bad news. “Nervous in what way?”

“She wasn’t specific.” Avis walked with the cat to the French doors, which had been thrown open to take advantage of the fresh air. “Most men make her nervous, and Fen is such a strapping specimen, he gave me pause at first.”

Now, Fen flirted and danced with Avie and was markedly familiar with her.

“He’s very protective of you. He either didn’t know you’d been getting notes, or he did a convincing job of acting surprised to learn of it.”

Which was exactly what Hadrian would have done, had he been the author of such scurrilous sentiments.

“I don’t bruit it about.” She set the cat down, and it strolled, tail high, through the French doors and into the gardens. “You think Fenwick is sending me hateful notes.”

Avis was either keeping her own counsel in some significant fashion, or she was understandably distracted. Hadrian joined her at the French doors, just as the cat pounced into a bed of irises and disappeared from view.

“I don’t want to think ill of your steward, but the handwriting is close, and your sister and your companion both took him into significant dislike.”

While Hadrian’s every instinct said Fen was a true friend to Avie.

“Alex didn’t dislike him, exactly, but Lily can’t abide him—says he’s an ungodly barbarian.”

And Fen, who was both shrewd and charming, actively antagonized the woman. “Have you ever asked her why?”

“I assume he flirted with her, and she took it amiss. Is there something you’re not telling me?”

Fen’s flirting was bothersome, but not bothersome enough to inspire hate, and Fen wouldn’t force his attentions on any woman.

Much less Lily Prentiss. Though again, the name Prentiss sounded a bell of memory. Hadrian resolved to write to his former bishop, who had a prodigious recall of church gossip.

“I don’t like to think Fenwick could mean you any harm at all,” Hadrian said. “But he understands what it is to be an outcast.”

“And?”

Hadrian wanted to take Avie’s hand in his, but before the open French windows, that would not do.

“And Fen might enjoy keeping you an outcast with him, enjoy tormenting you so you lean on him a little more, and marrying me will put an end to that.”

“I will not cast aspersion on Fenwick, when so much aspersion has been cast on me, and Fen is one of few who’s stood by me. Besides, what have I ever done to him that he’d cast stones like that?”

In her question, Hadrian heard the first hint that Avis was seriously considering that Ashton Fenwick, a man she considered her
friend
, had connived to keep her miserable.

Hadrian led her over to the sofa and drew her down beside him.

“Maybe his motives have little to do with you. Maybe some other lady, or ladies, scorned him because of his humble birth, and now you’re a lady scorned by her neighbors.”

“This is complicated,” Avis said, letting her head rest of Hadrian’s shoulder. “It just doesn’t feel possible that Fen could be so unscrupulous and mean.”

“I agree.” Hadrian tucked an arm around her shoulders. “There’s more, Avie.”

“Something bad.”

“St. Just and I went to church with you and Lily. Fen was supposed to join us, but instead went for a hack on St. Just’s gelding.”

“Fen is an indifferent congregant. He attends more to flirt than to worship, and he keeps in touch with his cousin.”

“Who is his cousin?”

“Sara Bennett. You’d never know they were related. She’s tiny and blond, and he’s a dark giant, but she married a man built much like Ashton.”

“You’re falling asleep.”

“Resting my eyes.”

About damned time. “While we were at church, Fen could have planted that note.”

“Fenwick would not plant a vile note, Hadrian, but it’s easy enough to ask the lads if they saw him about on Sunday morning.”

“Easy enough for me,” Hadrian corrected her, then rose and scooped her up against his chest. “You shall go about your business, my dear, and not let this matter bother you, but first you shall rest, here, where you know you’re safe.”

He expected her to order him to put her down, wiggle about and make a fuss.

She slipped her arms around his neck.

“You will manage whatever mischief you’re bent on, Hadrian Bothwell, without allowing a single footman to catch even a glimpse of your folly.”

Of course, he did managed that much—the servants had been given their orders, after all—setting her on the bed in an airy, sunny guest room abovestairs, then taking a seat beside her.

“Hadrian Bothwell, this will not serve.”

As fusses went, that was a pathetic effort.

“You aren’t sleeping well,” Hadrian observed as he turned her shoulders and undid the first of her myriad hooks. “Are you worried about this note?”

He brushed a kiss to the top of her spine.

“Don’t do that, please. A seduction can go exactly nowhere, Hadrian.”

Why did women’s dresses have so infernally many hooks? “Nowhere at all? Or nowhere today, because you’re beset by the female complaint?”

He’d been married, and that experience fortified him for certain discussions. He stole another kiss, and this time was rewarded with a sigh.

“Both,” Avis said, as he pushed her dress off her shoulders. “What are you doing?”

“You can’t sleep with your hair up. I’ll rebraid it when you’ve had some rest.” Which she apparently needed desperately. He sent his fingers questing for the pins securing her coronet, drawing each pin free until her braid hung down in a thick, dark rope and he could get a hand on her nape to massage tense, tired muscles.

“How often do you see the Baroness Collins, Avie?”

“Rarely. I see all of our neighbors rarely. That feels appallingly good.”

“I do believe that was a compliment. When you see Collins’s mother, does she acknowledge you?”

Avis stifled a yawn. “Oddly enough she is one of few who does. She called upon me shortly after I returned from Aunt Beulah’s and apologized for what she termed ‘the whole misunderstanding.’ I don’t know if Harold arranged it, or my brothers, but she seemed sincere.”

Hadrian withdrew his hand, rose and unknotted his cravat.

“She might have done that to draw away suspicion, or perhaps Harold threatened dire retribution against Collins unless his mother observed the civilities. Do you mind if I open the windows?”

“I do not mind if you—Hadrian, what are you
doing
?”

Hadrian stopped halfway across the room and hung his coat over the back of a chair, then seated himself long enough to pull off his boots and stockings.

“A soft breeze from the gardens has appeal on such a day. The honeysuckle’s in bloom so I thought I’d open a window.”

Said with
such
an innocent expression. “I’m not referring to the window. You are disrobing.”

He opened the window, and the breeze from the garden did indeed carry a sweet, flowery aroma.

“I don’t intend you be the only one to rest,” he said, unbuttoning his waistcoat.

“You can’t be serious. The servants will talk.” They’d proclaim Avis’s wickedness from the rooftops.

Hadrian crossed to the bed and held out his wrist for Avis to undo his cuff-link. “Harold’s staff is the soul of discretion, believe me, Avie.”

They were Hadrian’s staff now. Avis undid his second cuff-link, and then he was standing beside the bed, all the more virile and impressive for being shirtless indoors—this time.